An hour must have passed in a blink, because the next thing I knew, a cold hand was shaking my shoulder. I jolted awake, the deep, instinctual fear of sleeping in a nightmare realm snapping me to alertness instantly.
"It's me," Sasrir's voice was a low whisper in the dark, barely audible over the distant, ominous crash of waves. He was crouched beside me, his form a deeper black in the absolute gloom. "You were out. We need to plan."
I scrubbed a hand over my face, forcing the sleep away. "Right. What did you find?"
"We're perched high. Extremely high," he began, his voice all business. "The coral here is like a jagged red mountain. I could see for miles... not that there's much to see but more nightmare coral and that cursed black sea. But I did spot one of the Seven Statues in the distance. A dark speck on a high plateau. Couldn't tell which one from here."
That was something, at least. A landmark. A potential goal.
"Good. That's good," I said, the planner in me latching onto the information. "What's the situation? Can we move?"
"That's the problem," he said, and I could hear the frustration in his tone. "My Listener powers are... jumbled. It's not just sounds anymore. It's like the entire Labyrinth is whispering, a constant static of hunger and madness. It's hard to pick out immediate threats. And moving now?" He shook his head. "The Dark Sea is still high. Even if we could navigate the paths without falling to our deaths, the things that swim in those waters... I heard them. Splashing. Screeching. It's not worth the risk."
My hope deflated. Trapped. Of course we were trapped.
"But," he continued, and I perked up. "There's a path. It's narrow, and it looks treacherous, but it's there. It winds down from our perch to a lower ridge. When the sea draws back in the morning, that path should be clear. It's our best shot."
A grim choice. Wait here, a sitting duck in our little cubbyhole until dawn, or risk a nightmarish climb in the pitch black with unseen horrors lurking below.
"Alright," I sighed, the decision made by pure survival logic. "We wait for first light. No sense in giving the local wildlife an easy meal."
Sasrir gave a grim nod of agreement. "I'll keep watch. Try to get more rest. You'll need your strength for the climb."
He melted back into the shadows, leaving me alone with the oppressive darkness and the distant sound of the hungry sea. Rest felt impossible now. Every distant screech, every splash, sounded like it was right outside our hole. We had a plan, but it was a thin thread of hope over a very deep, very dark abyss. The Forgotten Shore was already living up to its name.
Despite Sasrir's advice, I didn't go back to sleep immediately, as I realised something extremely important-I was naked. The Spell didn't let you bring anything on you when you first entered the Dream Realm, and that included clothes. Sasrir had been wrapped in black robes from the moment he appeared, but I was as bare as the day I was born. It was a good thing this hole was dry, otherwise I might just catch hypothermia trying to sleep in it. I wondered if I could ask Sasrir to weave my clothes from the shadows, but I couldn't remember if the Shadow Ascetic had to power to grant materiality to shadows.
The short rest hadn't enabled me to have any epiphanies over what was troubling me either. I knew something was wrong, whether with me or the environment, but I just couldn't place it. I wasn't a Seer, I couldn't just use Divination to see what was wrong with me, and that was frustrating. Checking my Runes revealed nothing new either though, so I had no choice but to pack it up and settle myself once again, drifting off into another slumber.
*********************************************
The first ray of light was a physical thing, a sharp, crimson blade that sliced through the darkness and directly into my eyes. I groaned, throwing an arm over my face. Sleeping wedged in a coral crevice had left me stiff and aching in places I didn't know could ache. A proper bed felt like a luxury from a past life.
Yawning, I tried to stretch out the kinks, my elbows knocking against the rough, unyielding walls. Sasrir was already there, a patient silhouette against the brightening entrance of our hole. "Ready to face the music?" he asked, his voice dry.
"More like face the nightmare coral," I grumbled, pushing myself up. "Let's just get this over with."
He went first, flowing up and out of the hole with an unnatural grace that still weirded me out. A moment later, his hand—cold and solid—reached down. I grabbed it, and he hauled me up with surprising strength.
And then I saw it.
The Forgotten Shore. The Crimson Labyrinth.
For a long moment, I just stood there, my jaw slightly slack. Reading about it was one thing. Seeing it was something else entirely.
It was a nightmare of architecture carved from a living hell. The labyrinth was vast, a multi-tiered insanity of jagged, blood-red spires and twisting pathways that stretched out to a hazy, horrifying horizon. Paths wound between massive coral pillars, some broad enough to march an army through, others so narrow you'd have to turn sideways. They snaked and twisted without any rhyme or reason, undoubtedly leading to dead ends or worse, just circling back on themselves to trap you. And some didn't just wind around the mounds—they plunged directly into them, becoming dark, gaping tunnels that promised nothing but deeper terror.
There was nothing else. No trees, no grass, no soil. Just the endless, cursed crimson coral and, far below at the bottom of the chasm we were perched above, the sluggish, oily black water of the Dark Sea receding from the lower paths. Above, the sky was a bruised purple, hiding swarms of dreadful flying abominations in its cloud cover.
The descriptions from the novel didn't do it justice. The scale was suffocating. The coral itself wasn't right. It wasn't just rock; it had a weird, almost fleshy texture in places, a sinister gloss under the red sun. Knowing the speculation—that this entire place was part of a colossal living creature, a giant maw for the Crimson Terror to feed on soul essence—made my skin crawl. Every scrape, every drop of blood spilled here, was just feeding the monster.
"Cheery place," I finally muttered, the words feeling utterly inadequate.
"Paradise, according to Effie," Sasrir deadpanned beside me, his eyes scanning the dizzying drops and treacherous paths. "Shall we? That 'somewhat safe' path I mentioned is already looking less appealing in the light of day."
....
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