10. Vesper
VESPER
When I open my map now, I can see more of it has opened up.
It isn’t labeled unless I hover my hand over the area.
I can hover over the zone we stand in now and a little tag pops up that says, “The Secret Abyss.” It’s still within the Verdant Nexus region.
I assume that the smaller zones are kind of like the sectors back in Dross and the overall regions are the districts.
The map is small now with only two zones inside the one region opened up, but I have to assume it’s going to get pretty large as we go.
There are small icons within each zone that when I hover my hand over, a small description pops up.
In the Whispering Canopies, there’s a small icon beside the name in the shape of a black triangle.
The description says, “Major Boss present.” When I do the same to the white triangle in the Secret Abyss, it says, “Minor Boss present.” There is also a small square within The Secret Abyss.
“There’s a safehouse in this zone,” I say when I hover my hand over it. “It’s on the map.”
“You think we have to go down inside the holes to reach it?” Locke asks, staring at the scene before us.
“Sinkholes,” Cipher corrects. “The Secret Abyss is made up of sinkholes and cave systems that connect them beneath the surface.”
“Why does that matter?” I ask Cipher, rolling my eyes. “Holes isn’t an incorrect description.”
“It matters,” Cipher says indignantly. “Just as statistics do. Information is one’s greatest weapon.”
“Alright, oh great and knowing machine,” I say mockingly. “Do we need to go down into the sinkholes?”
Cipher sniffs. “Yes.” His reply is curt, annoyance clear in the one word.
“We go in,” I tell Locke.
Both of us step up to the edge and peer over. There’s a small pathway carved into the sides where some creature seems to have traversed before us.
“There’s our way in,” Locke says, pointing at it. “If there’s a safehouse in this zone, we should definitely head for that.” He rubs at his bite wound. “Safety sounds nice right about now.”
“Solid plan,” I nod. “Maybe we can find something to help with your pain. Until then, keep your arm against your chest. Don’t agitate it.”
I don’t know what a safehouse is exactly, but it sounds like a good place to rest for a little while, while we gather our bearings.
Locke’s wound is starting to seep and exhaustion is beginning to creep in.
How long have we even been here at this point?
There’s no way for me to tell. I don’t know how to tell which hour it is. There are no markers to tell me.
“You have been inside the Harrow for six hours, thirteen minutes, and fifty-three seconds,” Cipher interjects. “The sun follows the same twenty-four-hour cycle as Earth and will set soon.”
I pause as I go to step down onto the ledge. “Set?”
“Ah, yes. I forget they don’t educate you in Dross. Your dwarf star has no cycle as The Cradle revolves around it and it never goes dark. In Dross, there is no night, only perpetual red day. There are sunscreens, however, to mimic the cycle. By my calculations, those will have failed by now.”
“It’s never dark in Dross,” I reply. “I’ve only ever known constant light in my lifetime.”
Cipher hums. “At least the design of the rings themselves is holding up.”
“You seem to know a lot about The Cradle,” I say as I follow Locke down into the sinkhole carefully. The ground is precarious, reminding me of climbing the most decayed buildings in Dross when it gives away beneath my feet and I’m forced to catch myself over and over again.
This sinkhole is particularly large, so wide, the other side of it is far off in the distance.
We won’t have to worry about light for a while until we reach the bottom and find one of the cave entrances.
Here, the bottom of the sinkhole is just filled with more underbrush and trees, as if the entire ground just sunk down lower as a whole.
Which suddenly makes the name “sinkhole” make sense.
“I should know a lot about The Cradle,” Cipher replies. “After all, I built it.”
My eyes widen and I stop walking. “What?”
Locke looks over his shoulder at me, frowning when I stop.
Cipher doesn’t answer. He falls silent so I know he’s not going to give me more details, at least not yet. Apparently, the system knows so much more than we realize. That . . . could be useful.
Information is one’s greatest weapon, he’d said. And apparently, our greatest weapon is Cipher himself.
“Now you are thinking correctly, Vespera,” Cipher purrs in my mind.
That sound spears right through me and has me furrowing my brows in confusion.
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget Cipher isn’t human, that he doesn’t have a body and he’s only in my head.
That could be dangerous. I need to think of him as a machine and nothing more.
I definitely don’t need to be feeling good when he compliments me.
Pleasing the system ruling The Harrow shouldn’t be a priority.
“You good?” Locke asks me, still frowning when I don’t move.
“Yeah. Sorry. We can keep going,” I nod, gesturing for him to lead the way.
He nods and continues down, his large hands gripping the roots hanging from the sides of the sinkhole.
The sinkhole isn’t only wide; it’s deep, too.
It takes us about an hour to get down the side of it according to Cipher.
My clothes are soaked by the time we get to the bottom and I end up taking another layer off, leaving on only my tank top and trousers.
Locke eyes the skin I reveal, but he doesn’t say anything.
He just strips off his own jacket and puts it in his inventory.
Beneath his jacket, he’s wearing a cotton shirt.
Fully cotton. Intrigued, I study the material closely, and realize the barcode on his face is for more than just decor.
He’d been a prized possession.
It isn’t until we reach the bottom of the sinkhole that I start seeing the items instead of missing them.
“Hey! Look at this,” I say, squatting down to look at the item stuck in the mud.
It’s a small stick with feathers on the end.
I wrap my hand around it and pull it free, revealing a point at the end of it that tells me exactly what it is.
Still, the small description flashes briefly before disappearing.
Arrow: ammunition, used in a bow
“It’s an arrow,” I say, staring at it with furrowed brows.
“Kind of useless without a bow,” Locke mumbles. “And you only have one.”
I shrug. “Maybe we’ll find more.” I stick the arrow into my inventory and continue on.
But the further in we go, the more items I start to find. Little trinkets and silly things that don’t exactly help us, but it feels important.
“This looks handy,” I say, finding a small rusty knife. As I hold it in my hand, a tiny menu pops up.
Rusty Pocket knife: weapon, weak
I get exactly three seconds of studying the knife before another achievement window pops up and Cipher’s ridiculously sensual voice comes pouring in again. My stomach tightens, probably in annoyance.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
Congrats! You can really stab something small with this, like a mosquito . . . Or a child. Try not to cut your finger off, because it will really hurt with how dull it is.
REWARD: you’ve already got the reward of this sick blade. Don’t be greedy.
I narrow my eyes. “Do you make these descriptions, Cipher?”
“Who else could possibly be so funny?” Cipher asks sarcastically.
“Funny isn’t the word I’d use,” I grumble, tucking the pocketknife into my pocket rather than my inventory. I want to be able to reach it faster. It’s not as nice as the one Dox had given me before, and certainly not as sharp, but at least it’s something.
The Secret Abyss isn’t much different from the Whispering Canopies, at least not yet.
I assume that’ll change once we enter the caves.
At least we’re not being chased by howler monkeys, but there are an unlimited number of bugs and critters we encounter.
Most of the time, they just skitter off too fast for us to make out what it is.
Some of them are so fast, the description window doesn’t even have time to pop up, so I live in slight fear of what horrible things we’re crossing paths with without even knowing.
The headache starts to get worse once we get closer to the far wall and see the openings of caves.
I blink first, trying to clear the rising pain, but eventually, I start to squint and have to shade my eyes.
It’s just so fucking bright here. While Dross is also bright, we’re shielded from the worst of it by the buildings and it’s a red-toned brightness.
Here, even though the sun is clearly moving now that I’m thinking about it, the light that streams through the trees is bright white.
I hadn’t realized just how strained my eyes were until the headache started relentlessly slamming against my skull.
We reach the other side and slip just inside the entrance of the cave. I sigh at the darkness of the tunnel, my headache easing minutely.
“This is going to be difficult to move around in the dark,” I say, taking a step closer and nearly tripping over a small purple bag. “Whoa!” I swing my arms to get my balance back and frown down at the bag. “What’s this?”
The bag is half buried in the dirt, clearly old by the looks of it.
It appears to have been partially buried a long time ago, the material worn and practically useless.
When I hover my hand over it, a small icon appears that says, “lootable.” I squat down and tug the bag open.
The mud keeps me from opening it completely, so I yank on it until it rips from the soil, pieces of it staying behind.
I upend the bag and dump everything out, figuring that would be faster than digging around in it and further tearing it.
Four items fall onto the ground in front of me.