Neither could say exactly how long, but they both agreed that it had been days since they last felt swirling mist pass under their eyelids. Their muscles were better, but the shadow of strain still trailed their movements.
If they had been in doubt as to whether they had been asleep for days, the forest's change had laid it to rest. The forest was always changing, only ever stalled for a brief moment by thunderous clashes. But the changes had been subtle, a few centimetres of grass, a few inches in height of terrain. And now, the terrain was a completely different one.
They had been in ankle deep mud, surrounded by an abundance of floating bark and myriads of buzzing insects. The environment now, was a complete stranger. Thick curling roots popping up like a field of players, firm soil that barely gave way to gravity and mist that turned definition into sketchy reality.
The silence was almost absolute, only broken by distant croaks and creaking of tree bark.
They stirred up slowly, still shaky– although more with fear than fatigue. Khalifa especially.
"What do you mean it worked?... what worked?"
Ronan pushed against a bump on the tree's surface to steady himself, he wasn't weak, but it just felt safer. The bump broke and he stumbled, but didn't fall because some conveniently placed thorns caught his clothes as he fell by, holding him up instead.
After freeing himself from their hold, he answered embarrassedly:
" The poison did," observing her confusion, he continued before she could ask any questions. " Below the flammable resin, there is another patch of special liquid. I wasn't exactly sure of what it did, but the fact that a single drop of it that strayed into my mouth gave me a terrible stomach ache, proved that it was at the very least, a potent poison. And by the looks of things there, it could have actually been lethal.
I coated my first spear with it, and released it once I got the chance early on. As for how it affected the rhino, I'm unsure. But apparently, over time the effects got too drastic for it to ignore."
Khalifa didn't seem less confused. "So the effects just passed its threshold the moment we were about to be killed?"
Ronan turned to face her. "Do you have a better explanation as to why we are still breathing and not a puddle of blood?" She didn't speak, so he continued. "All things considered, I believe we should just be happy that it left, and whether it has anything to do with the poison or not... should be up to wonder to find out."
Khalifa inhaled, put off by the poignant smell of something rotting. " In that case you shouldn't have been so elaborate. It was luck and nothing more."
He smiled.
***
The entrance to the Chamber's base was impossible to find unless one had already found it. It was like looking for a needle in a bunch of needles.
The entrance was curtained by thick moss and a bunch of fallen trees draped with thick vines. It was almost no different from the rest of litters on the forest floor, giving it a disguise that was more than natural.
And somewhere within that mess of moss and trees, laid a narrow opening to the unseen activity of men that silently dictated the outcomes of a good chunk of undertakings in the forest.
Doeg pushed through first, scraping his shoulders against stone and almost getting stuck as he roughly slipped through. Behind him, the other survivor followed with similar difficult. Although slightly less due to the fact that he wasn't as chubby as Doeg.
Then after that, the forest disappeared, and darkness ate them whole. After a while of decent, the drop stopped and they reached horizontal ground.
The cave was a notch up on the chilling temperature the forest usually radiated. Mist condensed into water here and there, filling the path with shallow puddles of water.
The black was fought back by few torches sparsely placed along the uneven walls. But the light they emanated was too dim to substantially push back the darkness, leaving the most of things drowned in shadows.
Ordinarily, a somber place like this would be synonymous with silence, but it wasn't. Human activity hummed in the background, sounding like insects rather than intelligent beings.
Life existed here, but on a thin rope that felt more fragile than trust. A single mistake away from the grave, and a single action away from supremacy.
Doeg didn't feel defeated, nor did he feel mournful like he had expected to. Instead something heavier weighed on him, as well as the other survivor.
Powerlessness.
They had outnumbered they target, they had outsmarted it by fighting in supposedly favourable conditions. But it had outmatched them despite their meticulous planning.
As they walked further, the angle of the path tilted downwards, pushing colder air at them as they travelled through it. This underground system drilled almost a kilometre into the ground, and the irregular branching paths along the way stretched almost twice as long. It had been inhabited by terrible creatures, but the Ushers– members of the Chamber– had been quick to clear most of it. The uncleared path remained the way it was larger due to the fact that the Chamber didn't have enough bodies to fill the other spaces.
After a while of a little more sorrowful pondering, they turned to the side and entered a small room, which in actuality was just a cave with a bit of chisel work.
Inside the room, was a man closer to fifty. He had hair tinted grey by old age, and barely had hair at all. He had a jagged bolder as a desk and same as a chair. He was writing something, but not with the usual staples humans use. Rather, it was what they had used.
Sharp sticks instead of pens, murky water instead of ink and a stone slab instead of paper. It was primitive, but it was orderly.
Doeg and his partner stood by silently. The man had noticed them, but decided to keep writing. The more he did, the more the imaginary weight on theirs back grew, as if bronze and silver were piling up along their spine.
After a tired huff, the man looked up with displeased eyes. " Mission report..." He barked calmly.
Doeg gulped down hard and tried to formulate the words that would break the bad news to him in the best way, but the other survivor spoke before he could.
"Terrible...the beast was too strong. We are only alive because we were the first to know we were fighting a lost battle."
Doeg's eyes widened. That was the best summary, but also the best way to the get them sacrificed to a stool.
The man leaned back slightly, retreating momentarily into a long thought. "Understood," he said flatly. "You're dismissed. But Neon, expect another mission soon...to make up for this one."
They nodded and left the room as soon as the man picked up his stick and began writing again with the focus of a surgeon.
The moment they stepped out was when they realised that they had been holding their breaths. They released it with relief. The conversation had been stellar, not in anyway fitting the descriptions of the cruel master that the other Ushers had painted.
Doeg shook his head. " I can't even rest," he muttered sadly.
"Why?" asked neon, finally snapping out of his thoughts.
"Scouting rotations."
Neon smiled bitterly, wordless sympathising with him. But he should have expected stress, it was the only was to move through the Chamber's ranks.
And the only way to move through them fast enough before they destroyed themselves...