"This is the place?" Valerian asked the middle-aged man, his voice a low hum of anticipation.

  "Yes, my lord," the man replied, a faint tremor of awe in his voice.

  Valerian’s eyes swept over his small cohort. "Set the perimeter. Search a five-kilometer radius," he ordered. The group dispersed, a silent, efficient unit.

  Sou, in particular, was buzzing with frantic energy. It wasn’t long before he found it: a narrow crack in the stone, from which a cold breeze exhaled. He picked up a small pebble and dropped it into the fissure. The stone fell for a full six seconds, and its distant echo was deep and booming. Sou’s eyes widened. This was it.

  He immediately called the others, and they gathered around the crack, their hearts thumping in their chests.

  "This is it, then," Valerian said, his voice laced with a quiet awe.

  "It is, my lord!" Sou exclaimed. "That echo... it's very deep. We've got so much room to grow."

  "Slow down, Sou. Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Valerian said, a hint of a smile on his lips. He looked at the middle-aged man. "Find a good place for camp. We need to properly analyze this."

  The man nodded and walked off, the rest of the cohort trailing behind him, leaving only Valerian, Sou, Rufe, Anya, and Dhruba at the site.

  "Given this small opening, it's safe to say no daemons are hiding here," Valerian said, his voice turning grim. "But it's not that simple. We’ll rest for the night, and the five of us will explore the cave and determine its dangers."

  Anya stepped forward. "Four, my lord, not five."

  "What do you mean?" Valerian asked, his eyes narrowing. "I'm not going to rest while—"

  "I know, my lord," Anya interrupted softly, "but we have no one but you. If anything happens to you, all of this is for nothing."

  "She’s right," Rufe added. His blind eyes were closed as a BLUE light shone from his forehead. A strange pattern appeared on his face, and his eyes glowed with a faint, ghostly white light. After a moment, the glow faded, but his soulless eyes remained unfocused, seeing something no one else could. He smiled. "There's nothing large enough to threaten us inside the cave. Sou is right—it's very big. Don't worry, my lord." He gave an even bigger smile. "Everything is fine."

  "How could you have possibly seen the entire cave, Rufe?" Valerian asked, his gaze fixed on him. Rufe flinched. He had only lied to make his lord feel safe, but Valerian saw right through it.

  "He's not lying, my lord," Dhruba interjected. He walked to the side of the crack, leaning in. "I can see for myself."

  He put his full weight on the stone to steady himself, and with a terrible cracking sound, the rock gave way beneath him. Before anyone could react, he was gone, swallowed by the darkness.

  "Dhruba!" Valerian screamed, lunging after him, but Rufe and Anya held him back.

  "He'll be fine, my lord," Anya said, her voice strained. "But you won't. Don't underestimate his strength."

  A moment later, a scream echoed from the deep. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I'm gonna dieeeeeee!" Then, a loud crash—BOOM! and then A terrifying silence followed. Just as they began to worry, Dhruba’s voice, muffled but clear, echoed up from the dark. "I'm alright, guys! Don't worry!"

  Valerian’s shoulders sagged in relief. Sou collapsed onto his backside, a silent prayer on his lips. "Thank the Mayogam," Valerian said aloud.

  "Are you wounded?" Valerian shouted.

  "No, my lord!" Dhruba's voice came back, full of bravado.

  "Good. Stay put. We’ll get you out of there."

  "Yes, my lord!"

  Valerian and Sou went to get the others. A moment later, Dhruba’s voice echoed up again. "I screamed because I wanted you guys to know the depth! I wasn't afraid, just so you know!"

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  Anya chuckled to herself. "We know," she murmured.

  When the rest of the cohort returned and learned Dhruba was safe, a quiet relief settled over the group. After a short, careful discussion, a rope was lowered, and Sou, Rufe, and Anya descended into the darkness.

  The mouth of the cave exhaled a cold, wet breath that smelled of damp stone and something loamy, ancient. A world without sun. Anya was the first to step into the gloom, her lithe form a silhouette against the oppressive green of the jungle. A sudden drop in temperature raised goosebumps on her arms. She paused, letting her eyes adjust, her hand resting flat against the slick, cool limestone.

  She heard the soft, rhythmic thump… thump… thump… of Rufe’s ironwood staff on the uneven floor. His head was tilted, and his sightless eyes were unfocused as the echoes painted a map of the space only he could see. "It's… big," he whispered, his voice a feather in the immense quiet. "The sound just… goes. It doesn't come back."

  Sou followed, pulling his collar tighter around his neck. He ignored the path, staring at the ceiling, his architect’s mind already mapping the stress lines and vaults hidden in the growing dark. "Karst topography," he murmured, a faint tremor of excitement in his voice. "Formed by dissolution. It’s stable."

  Down below, Dhruba grunted up to them. "Took you long enough!"

  Anya led them onward, her unique ability guiding them. She saw the gentle, water-worn slope of the floor, the subtle curve of the wall that suggested the main path from a dozen dead ends. The air grew heavier, saturated with the metallic tang of minerals and the clean scent of stone-filtered water. The only sounds were the crunch of their boots on loose gravel, the ceaseless, meditative drip… drip… plink of water from unseen stalactites, and the soft rustle of their own clothing.

  Rufe suddenly held up a hand. "Wait."

  Dhruba tensed, his hand dropping to the axe at his belt. Anya froze, her gaze sweeping the shadows her torch cast into dancing monsters.

  "Not danger," Rufe clarified, a faint smile touching his lips. He pointed his staff to the left. "Water. A powerful current. Not just drips. A stream, but I can hear the thrum of something much bigger. The energy is cool and steady."

  Anya nodded, a flicker of relief crossing her face. A reliable water source. That was the first hurdle cleared.

  They followed the path as it widened, the ceiling soaring upwards until Anya’s torch became a lonely star in a vast, black firmament. They had arrived. The passage opened into a colossal chamber, a cathedral of stone so large their footfalls no longer echoed but were swallowed by the thunder of a massive waterfall. By the flickering torchlight, they saw it—a cascade of water pouring from a jagged mouth in the ceiling high above, plummeting into a black pool far below. A misty spray filled the air, giving everything a slick, wet sheen.

  Dhruba's voice, usually a booming thing, was a low whistle that got swallowed and thrown back at them in a faint echo. "Gods," he murmured. "You could fit the whole kingdom in here." He dropped his heavy pack with a thud that felt impossibly small. As a small, phosphorescent fungus was crushed beneath a stone that rolled off his pack, he let out a frustrated grunt, the sound oddly flat in the vastness. He then carefully moved his pack to a bare patch of rock. "It's big enough. Safe from the storms, from… everything," he said, the words echoing back at him.

  "Habitation, yes," Sou said, his voice sharp with thought. He paced a small circle, his eyes scanning the impossible heights. "But sustainability? A village needs to eat. Farming is impossible. There's no light." A faint crease appeared between his brows. "We'd be living on cave fungus and blind fish. We wouldn't last a generation."

  "He's right," Anya agreed, her practical nature grounding them. "Shelter is useless if we starve in it."

  Sou stopped pacing. A spark ignited in his eyes, a familiar intensity that meant he was building something in his mind. "Not necessarily. What if we didn't need the sun to be outside?"

  Dhruba scoffed. "What are you talking about, Sou? A spell?"

  "My spell," Sou corrected, his voice gaining momentum. "On the mountain above us, we make a small, discreet opening. Just a hole. We line a shaft coming down with a tube of highly reflective glass. At the bottom, here in the cavern, we place a diffuser. A small hole on top becomes a wide circle of light on the floor. We could pipe the daylight right down here."

  Dhruba stared at him, his brow furrowed in skepticism. "Light from a pipe? Enough to live by?"

  "Enough to grow with," Sou countered, his confidence growing. "It’s real sunlight. The plants wouldn't know the difference. We could supplement it with alchemical glow-globes on cloudy days or to extend the growing season. A hybrid system."

  As Sou spoke, Rufe had gone utterly still again, his head cocked. The rhythmic drip was the only sound.

  "Rufe?" Anya asked, her voice soft.

  "That stream," Rufe said, his voice hushed with awe. "The energy from it… it's not just cool. Deeper, below the current, there's another feeling." He took a slow breath. "It's warm. A steady, faint warmth rising from the deep earth."

  The three of them looked at each other. Geothermal heat. A water source. A vast, protected space. Sou’s plan for light. The pieces were clicking into place, forming a picture that was no longer impossible, but merely difficult.

  Anya walked to the center of the cavern, looking up into the absolute darkness where the ceiling should be. She imagined it illuminated, not by her flickering torch, but by a soft, constant circle of daylight. She imagined plots of green things growing under that light.

  "Sou," she said, her voice clear and decisive, cutting through the dark. "Can you build it? Can you bring the sun down to us?"

  Sou stood beside her, his gaze following hers into the blackness. He gave a single, sharp nod, his face a mask of certainty in the torchlight. "I can."