“Leave no Knight behind,” were the Arch Templar’s final words. Felix had bit down a preemptive twinge of guilt. He hoped the three wouldn’t be scolded too badly for losing him. Such thoughts however faded as soon as they boarded the Abyssal lift.

The morning was cold, misty, and smelled of adventure. A jittery excitement kept Felix shifting on his toes throughout and well after the trip. With brand new boots on Abyssal soil, his heart finally internalized it. He had become a delver. A real torch bearing Abyss treading delver, who delved the Abyss doing delivery things!

Felix’s buzz seemed to rub off on Bii, who kept pinging and bouncing cheerily on his shoulder.

Their cheer was only blunted marred by, view of the ever distancing Half-Valley in the horizon, now half obscured by Abyssal clouds. Felix wasn’t catching up to them in the literal sense, yet, but felt as though he had finally taken the first step.

“Today’s goal is ten turns,” Daniel declared with confidence of a born leader. “Black roots that drink light are our first nav mark. Remember, the abandoned Scandie’s military outpost is our goal. Keep that on your mind. Felix.”

“Yes?”

“How many turns of experience did you have?” Daniel asked Felix.

“Eight.” Unless you count the times dad took him to the Abyss.

“Good. That’s a good start. But let’s go over the basics just in case...”

They never leapt down into any of the chasms, instead wandering the plateau of veiny black roots and cyan grassland. The Lost piece of the world is still visible in the distance, at the far bottom of the broken Abyss. Likewise, the monastery of the Knights remained in view. According to Daniel, this flat was one long turn.

“Every turn can technically be infinitely long,” Saga added. “If you stand still and get lost in them.”

“Thank you Saga.” Daniel smiled. She returned it, before turning her attention to the ground. “So you know yonders, turns, and some of the basics. Good teacher, that brother of yours.”

“Yeah. He is.”

Daniel took a yonder-tuned compass from his pocket. A thin needle of real silver wobbled wildly within the copper and glass sphere, jumping between the monastery and the Half-Valley. “This is a yonder-tuned compass. Silver points to the Surface, or any smaller pockets of reality. More convenient to carry than a bunny, but trickier. Much trickier. However, there is also a manual way of navigating the Abyss deepways.”

Felix perked.

“Can you guess what it is?”

“Navigation markers and symbolic clues? They work sideways and deepways.”

“Yes. But more specifically?” Daniel gestured excitedly, trying to coax the answer out.

Felix mulled it over with frowns and humms.

“Think. What is the Abyss made of?”

Relics. Memories of the dead souls. The subconscious of the world layered upon each other year after year—

Felix snapped his fingers. “Freshness. The Abyss mixes, but recently dead souls’ remnants stay closer?” Felix continued, as Daniel kept nodding, “Older memories and concepts fall deeper. Younger ones stay near Surface. Things that have always been permeate through the layers. Ooohhh. Like the rings of a tree.”

Pieces clicked in place. Map of the Abyss began to form in his mind. A fuzzy constantly moving map, but one that made a modicum of sense nonetheless.

“And thus?” Daniel led on.

“To find surface, you look for recent trends, new legends, young customs, and anything new and recent.”

“That’s it. Fantastic, isn’t he? A very fast learner.”

“Mmh.” Saga wrinkled her lips.

“This.” Elina raised her hand. She pointed at an unnaturally dark root. “This way, I think? I mean, I’m certain. Look.”

“Great find Elina. Great find,” Daniel encouraged.

Elina lowered her gaze, smiling shyly.

“Good, good. Now. Next we need to find a denizen resembling a crepuscular animal to lead us to twilight. That means rabbits, ferrets, cats, foxs, mises, squirrels, moths... Foxes, moths, mise, and cats are out. Too strong symbolic connections elsewhere. Keep an eye on anything rabbit, ferret, or squirrely.”

They treaded deeper into the domain of light drinking roots. Shadows deepened. Air grew heavy with a pale greenish mist. Colors of the grass and cracked stone muted. Tall mounds of roots rose into a maze between the chasms. Large cabbage-shaped flowers glowed among them in a vibrant slider of shades from cyan to light to deeper purple, displaying all the colors the root had stolen from their environment. Tiny denizens scurried in their midst.

Daniel kept on shouting to check everyone stayed within eye-shot. Saga and Elina exchanged a few private giggles over something they found. Once, they shared it with Daniel, causing an eruption of laughter.

They had a nice chemistry, the three of them. Once, Erik, Saga, and Felix had had that. Nostalgia was followed by a pang of jealousy. Felix shooed it quickly.

Bii pinged sympathetically, almost as if to ask Felix if he was alright.

“Dandy as a denizen.” Smiling, Felix scratched Bii’s head.

Bii pinged again, nudging its head towards a tiny patch of red moss.

Felix shared a determined look with the little denizen. ‘Soon,’ he mouthed.

“Felix!” Saga called. “Come over here for a sec, Elina caught a crawling squirrel. Can you drain its intent, so we can put it on a leash?”

“Coming!”

Poor little guy looked like a gray decaying squirrel that had been sat on by a bonk. Once leashed and on the ground, it started wiggling its way up a blackroot mound.

It led them uphill longer than the hill had looked, past the glowing cabbage fields, through a patch of black rooty land where the cabbage-flowers spread out into tree-like growths. It picked a thick tree, led them around it thrice, and upside down left up a massive cabbage-tree.

“So we really are following a denizen?” Felix asked, just to confirm. “A random denizen we picked off the ground.”

“It sounds bad when you put it like that,” Saga admitted with a hint of mirth. “But this is a standard procedure. Denizens navigate the Abyss better than humans ever can. To us, this place is alien. To them, this is home.”

Climbing gear was brought out and put on. Everyone manifested their relics. Led by the squirrel, the group climbed up the scarily thin trunk up into the green mists. Very quickly, Felix learned that he was a crappy climber.

“Always keep one hand on a hook that’s attached to the harness.”

“Straight arms are happy arms.”

“Keep your hips close to the wall.”

“Rest often, and when you do, let the line hold your weight.”

“Plan your route.”

“Plan your moves.”

“Plan your handholds.”

And a dozen other pointers, but Felix could only focus on so many at a time. Thankfully, the others matched his pace and kept an eye on him.

At some point, the tree became a fallen trunk that you could walk on. Black roots gripped the trunk. Strange plants grew on its underside. Everything else around them was obscured by the cloudy mass. Distant chimes echoed far away. Faint points of yellow light twinkled through the green mist. A sickly sweet scent washed past them.

Bii pinged in alarm.

Saga whistled through her pipes, then tensed. “Masks up! A swarm is coming. Hold still, they look for living things.”

Nobody questioned how she knew it. The three knights in plate armor flipped their visors down. Felix pulled on the hood of his light armor and sipped up the face shield. Bii slipped under Felix’s shirt.

Soft sound of a hundred chimes approached. Lights grew in number and intensity.

Felix clenched his fingers around the shaxe, heart dancing in his chest as he awaited the swarm of horrors to emerge from the mist. But no horrors came.

A large yellow glowing denizen flew past Felix. It had a long spiral nose and wings of a butterfly. Two tiny chimes hung from its behind, softly jingling. Then came the rest of the swarm. A great gust of yellow light and chips flapped through them. Elina yelped. Felix tilted sideways. On instinct, he locked his legs around the log and struck the pick deeper into the wood. A mistake, he realized.

Light pressures landed on Felix’s clothes. Chimes jingled around him. Three landed on Felix’s face and began poking their proboscis through his face-mesh.

“Don’t let them touch your skin!” bellowed Daniel, as the swarm engulfed them.

Felix swung his shaxe at the butterflies. Their light flickered, and returned straight back as if he’d done nothing.

“Incorporeal!” shouted Elina. “Daniel?!”

Daniel shouted back. “We would melt the bridge. Saga?”

Saga’s horns whistled a tune. “They’re looking for a home, a place to settle.”

Glowing suckers flailed at Felix’s face. He waved the shaxe in increasing panic. The flat thunked on something. One butterfly flew off. “I hit one!” Felix continued swinging wildly. “I hit one!”

“The bells!” Elina shouted from the other side of the glowing butterfly cloud. “Rest of it is a projection.”

Tides turned that second.

Sounds of metallic congs and slaps filled the air. Saga was a blur of motion, slapping the bells from mid-air with precise slaps. Daniel swung a shaxe in expert arcs, clearing the air around him. Elina directed her cloak of feathers to push the butterflies backwards from her and Felix. Felix did his part destroying bells.

Minutes of wild swinging later, the swarm was gone. Strange organic bells littered the overgrown log bridge.

Rush of endorphins and adrenaline faded, leaving Felix trembling with exhaustion. He took a chug of water. “That was close.”

Elina shrugged.

“A pretty typical denizen encounter,” Saga said. “Nobody touched the light, right?”

Group answered with a resounding no.

Felix picked up one of the bells. At closer inspection, it was some kind of seed. Maybe the denizen was a mix of concepts between pollen and pollinators? “Hmm… Do we have a moment?”

“We are taking a rest.” Daniel declared. “How much have we crossed, four turns?”

“Five or six,” Saga answered.

Felix hadn’t had a good chance to test Thought Threads, but if it worked like it should, this might be a good opportunity. He tugged on Thought Threads. The tangle of pale silky threads responded slowly. Electric tingles traveled through Felix’s hair and nerves, as it manifested.

Elina eyed him curiously.

“I’m testing something,” Felix said, and picked up a bell.

Binding Thought Threads had given him a faint intuition of how it worked. He focused, willing the threads to extend. Thin strings crept from underneath his nails, and wrapped around the bell-seed.

Breathing deep, Felix shifted his focus to Intent Bank, and unloaded a charge of ‘speed’ into the bell.

Yellow light sparked into wings.

The butterfly fled from his hand and fled into the misty Abyss around them.

Felix blinked. A smile pulled at his mouth. Laughter, mad joyous laughter, began to bubble out unbidden. “It works,” Felix looked to Elina, awed by his own relic. “It works. Hohohooo! Oooooo! My relics are awesome!”

The others looked at him like he’d gone mad, then joined his joy.

Elina gave him a small smile.

“That’s great. That’s how they’re supposed to be,” Daniel said.

Saga tried to conceal her mirth. “He says that about every relic, just wait until— Aww, here we go.”

Felix picked up another, and charged it with ‘climb’. Little wiggler scambered around the log. He charged another with speed, experimenting by imbuing a direction. To his loud astonishment and joy, the butterfly of death went where he wanted.

“Lords...” Felix held his awestruck face.

“Bibii!”

“Exactly. I can use them as weapons. Hey, hey. Hey, guys, can you help me collect them all?”

Elina and Saga were already picking them off the log. A squee of joy escaped Felix and he didn’t try to hide it. He clapped his hands like a lunatic, and started picking.

Ideas swirled through his head. Thought Threads were perfect. The synergy was unbelievable! He could start tapping into powers of unbound relics and denizens. As long as he had charges of intent, which admittedly wasn’t for very long in any fight, he could manipulate the Abyss around him. Well, okay there were probably problems and limitations with it, but assuming it worked like he fantasized it to work… Yeah. He was gonna be a force to be reckoned with.

The break lasted roughly, ‘no idea how long’. Time doesn’t work straight in the Abyss. However, by the end of it, Felix had fifty-five bell-butterfly seeds in his pockets. It wasn’t quite as awesome as having a spineharrow corpse would’ve been. All the butterflies actually did was try to burrow the bell seed one inch deep under your flesh. Not great, but being able to send flying balls of light ahead of you had great utility value.

A few of the bell seeds went to Elina, who dissected them in hopes of finding ways to improve her Down Cloak. Unfortunately, when she bound one and tried it, the feathers became incorporeal feathers of light, nullifying her relic’s ability to negate mass. Neither Saga nor Daniel found much use in them either.

After a breather, the group continued. Crawling squirrel led them to a vast misty meadow of man-sized grass and flowers.

They hid under leaves to let enormous silhouettes pass by, crawled close to the ground to get through a thicket of grass blades sharper than swords, and picked some velvety petals from gigantic dandelions.

Though they grew rarer, black roots thankfully remained a constant fixture of the environment up till and after they finally reached twilight.

Ever taken a step forward and seen the sky just... flip. Clouds and mist unfolded within a step and it was the golden hour.

“Good. Good pace.” Daniel scanned the surroundings. “Nine turns. Not bad. Not bad at all. Anyone see a camp spot, just shout it out.”

“Um. Excuse me.” Elina raised her hand. She pointed at a gigantic group of thistles.

“Perfect!” Daniel exclaimed. “Get ready to set up camp.”

Abyssal camping was another new experience. The strange tents they had been given could even be fixed on a vertical surface, which is what they did. Four little tent sheds soon hid under thistle leaves.

Felix lay inside his bedroll, trying to sleep as he watched an eternal sunset without a discernible sun.

Saga stood watch several branches higher, whistling. Daniel and Elina were already fast asleep. Sleeping too was apparently an acquired skill, something you practised to be able to do on demand.

Real delving was both easier and harder than Felix had imagined. All the little things from navigation, to setting up camp, to simply surviving its dangers were honestly daunting. Harder and more rewarding too. The view before Felix was breathtaking. The scents of a meadow around him stunning in their intensity.

And the relics. Oh, the relics. A single step had not passed when Felix hadn’t wanted to stop and collect everything around him. It was a shame they had a mission to complete. Shame he had his own goals…

“Bibii?” Bii nuzzled his hand.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Felix whispered. “It’s just…”

He did have doubts.

If delving was this hard with a group, could he really take off on his own and survive the journey to the Hollow Conservatory? And was there a point to his journey?

Half-Valley had already fallen. Could Felix or even this person ‘S’ really make a difference? Unlikely. Yesterday, he had felt so psyched to finally chase after the note. Today, now that he finally realized how monumentous the task ahead was, how insane and suicidal it was, a whirlpool of doubts kept dragging his mind further down.

Bii pinged insistently, nodding.

Felix gave him a lopsided smile. “Yeah, I’m sure we can make it buddy,” he said, trying to convince himself.

Bii pinged, and turned its nose towards Half-Valley, that barely visible silhouette in the golden sky.

Felix’s jaw hardened. “You’re right.”

He couldn’t give into inaction now, or he’d regret it forever. He had decided to do whatever it takes to get back home, and that’s what he would do. Saga and the others didn’t really need him. His family did. But despite his conviction, Felix found his hand shaking with the dread of facing the Abyss alone.

Now how to do this. Should he slip out during his watch, or hope they came across more black roots tomorrow? Should he fake his death? Leave a note? Was there a way he could leave them behind, without being regarded as a traitor later?

Whistling stopped.

“Hi. Felix?” Saga’s hushed voice came from above.

“What’s up? I’m not sleeping yet, if you’re looking for great company.” Felix perked up. Mom had been right. A day of delving had mended some of the broken bridges. Laughing with Saga and the others was great. Being accepted, being part of something. It’d been great.

She yawned, shaking her head. “Nah. Bedroll calls. I didn’t detect anything dangerous so you take the next watch. Wake Dan up in an hour or so.”

“Aye aye.” Felix saluted.

“Goodnight Felix. I’m glad you finally earned your torch. Let's be friends again.”

“Yeah.” Preemptive guilt weighed Felix’s grin. “Thanks. I’d love that. And goodnight.”

Saga gave him a small smile, before climbing into Daniel’s tent.

After a while, Saga snoozed happily, unaware of Felix sneaking around the camp. Without fanfare or warning, he gathered his camp and slunk away into the Abyss, wishing only that he could’ve said a proper goodbye this time.