John knew it wouldn't be easy, tracking down someone who didn't want to be found, down here, at the end of the world. There was little to go on, the hermit didn't keep much, unlike others, he was not a collector, not holding onto infinite little keepsakes and stuffing them into a hole, treasures for ter, an eternal vault of happiness to open whenever you are miserable. The shack was quiet, he thought he would have been able to hear Piva and Pike, but they were sealed in by all forms, not even radio could get through. He thought that might be reassuring, but it wasn't.

  Among the various scribblings and insane crafts, it was like looking at the inside of his head, the hermit's. It seemed unusual, still, to not gather the little bits of the world that you could, store them all away. Perhaps that had once been the case, but now, there seemed to be precious little that remained. Perhaps the hermit had let go of all these things, one by one, not intentionally, but out of weariness, a trinket that rolls too far out of reach and then slides down the hill, down into some dark pce, there but forgotten, too tired to be brought back. It seemed that had happened all over the pce, here. There was only one thing that seemed to be in a position of prominence, elevated above the rest, that had until recently been maintained. A statue of a seated man, lipless, eyeless, stone unmoving. It seemed imposing, the candles beside it had gone out now all that remained were cascading streams of hardened wax, cracked at the precipice where the weight had gone too heavy, or the wind came too fast. No watches, no clocks, nothing to keep the time, not even a scribbled calendar of scratches carved crudely into the wall. There was one seat, it faced the statue, as though all he did was sit at it and stare, listlessly gaze into its imposing banal features, and contempte its form.

  He shook off his own contemption, his own reticence, and picked the statue up; there seemed to be no other prominent features of note, but flipping it over revealed a crude engraving carved into the base. Pointed geometric shapes etched in deeply enough to reveal the onyx contained within, beyond the crude grey exterior. Stars, he had never seen them, but he had seen video, and photos, they were not dark, like these, but shone out bright against the dark sky. Still, the onyx was the intriguing part. He had gained more than enough familiarity with rock than he ever cared for, and as far he knew, there was only one location known among the scavs to have that particur stone in any amount greater than the usual rounded pebbles found scattered throughout the tunnels. He set the statue back down, and waited for it to fall and shatter, an ominous forbearance, but it just sat there, silent, utterly indifferent, and that was even worse.

  There was no value to a dark gemstone that he could think of. Perhaps a bde, something dark and unseen, but to catch the light little there was or for the beauty of it. The Onyx caves held no other value.

  It was a dangerous route to take and one with no known reward that he could think of which he would desire. Full of precipitous falls, sharp edges, colpsing rocks and footholds that gave way. It seemed now that it was a way that he must take. He did, and the journey was arduous more than one time his foot slipped, and he was left dangling by himself left to fall or pull himself up by this year's strength of his own hands which clutched the slippery rocks or the dry brittle ones set to colpse or break away and fall and shatter.

  There was more than one cut as the Onyx became more prominent and more obviously held behind the thin veneer the grey stone so did his proclivity to the counter the sharper more lethal rocks jutting out from the walls and the ceilings to catch him barely visible perhaps hoping for a lucky strike and that he would bleed out in these tunnels but every time he patched himself up so the wound closed, and the corresponding canvas as well to keep out the environment and restore his own personal shell of safety.

  Gradually, the grey stone receded, and the walls themselves became bare. Onyx. It somehow seemed bcker than even the darkness alone was, and seemed to absorb the very light in clean, dark, shadow. He felt like he was walking on night, and only the sound of his footsteps seemed to reassure him that there was anything there at all.

  No wonder no one came this way.

  But he pushed forward, or maybe he was drawn in. He risked getting lost, but occasionally in the wall or the ceiling or the floor, a section of the Onyx would sparkle. The intercing of its crystalline form reflected the minimal light. and in that reflection came the form of a star all the more brilliant trapped deep in the dark stones in the barren shadow world of the underground. He followed their way. Elsie would have gotten lost and himself become eventually a composite simir stars mirror reflection of light at most absorbed, in time, into the dark rock.

  The tunnel ended, and he beheld an open cavern. No walls or ceilings as far as the eye could see, only yellow and orange fog shrouding the distance, giving the cavern its light. A massive tower of the bck gemstone stood in the middle, a narrow bridge of the very same rock leading to it. There seemed to be no floor either, and it seemed to be bright down there, or at least not as dark.

  Resting on the bridge, clinging by a strap was a satchel, perhaps the hermit's, it was impaled on a robust spike of the dark crystal and when John grabbed it the spike shattered and the unexpected weight of the bag almost pulled him down. There was not much inside, perhaps the man had expended most of his supplies on the way here. If he didn't go over the side, there was only one other way to go.

  It was almost impossible to see the doors, seamless as they were, blended right into the rock. One expected the door to be heavy, impossible to move, to give way with a great amount of groaning and reluctance, given the massive size of the tower itself, which reached upwards and disappeared into the fog.

  They did not.

  The doors slid open almost effortlessly, and they did so silently, so much so that he was worried he had pushed them too hard. He did not, they stopped on their own. Inside, it was deathly silent and each step he took seemed like an insult to this pce. The stone was just as dark, and everywhere candles offered bare illumination, their fmes barely flickering at all.

  As softly as could, he headed inside, and up the stairs, pcing his steps carefully. As he got further in, he began to notice the figures, hooded and head down, sitting cross legged in inlets in the walls. Distracted, he let a foot fall too swiftly, and he thought he saw the candles flicker just a bit, and the figures to which they corresponded rustled as well.

  His thoughts were loud, and against the silent backdrop he could hear them all the more. Ascending the stairs, he found himself in a rge chamber, bck pilrs ascending towards an unyielding ceiling which he could not see. It was surrounded by hooded figures, they sat headed bowed, silent, in the corners and in the inlets in the walls.

  Paying attention now he could see that behind each candle was a figure, and in the middle was a pit, a chasm, so overflowing with the discarded belongings of former travellers who ventured here that it had become a mountain upon which he could set foot. He did so, surely among this pile of cast away things there was the medicine he was looking for.

  He was careful at first to make no noise, but as he dug further and further, not finding the medicine he needed, the established foundation for his foothold became more and more tenuous, threatening the stability of the pile, until at st it all colpsed, and with series of tremendous crashing sounds, spilled some of its contents back into the temple.

  Ominously, the figures began to rise, but as they did so John spotted the item he required, spilled onto the floor a distance from him. In his panic, he ran to it, and as he ran, each successive footstep hastened the silent advance of the hoods. When he got it, he stopped, and the figures slowed, but they were already upon him.

  Slowly they revealed bdes of dark gss, he could only see them because their edges reflected faint bits of light in the dark, and with slow methodical swipes they came at him. Still, they began to slow, and when John slowed his breathing they slowed to a crawl, but still moving, the racket retained some residual momentum.

  As he backed away, he felt this momentum, it carved across his arm, he stifled his response as much as he could, there was still a fraction of sound escaping. Silently he had to weave through the enclosing hoods and their silent bdes, but he could not stop the bleeding, and occasionally tiny drops would escape his grasp and hit the floor loudly, and the creatures would gain momentum.

  Another slice to the leg, and still he stifled his response, gritting his teeth so hard he thought they might snap, the blood ran onto the floor, he could stop it, but it would mean dropping the medicine.

  Inch by inch he manoeuvred through them, and with each small cut he would have to staunch the wound, lest tiny droplets cause a racket, wrapping quietly with bandages, until he got outside. The creatures were hesitant to follow but he did not notice. The bridge was not a surface refined to mitigate sound like the surface inside, and blood flowed and dripped onto it. He took another step and lost his footing.

  Still holding the medicine in one hand he hesitated to let it fall, and tried to grasp with the other, but the wound was too much, and he was forced to drop the medicine. With his other hand he reached up, and grasped the crystal bridge, but it was too forceful or the wrong angle, and his hand tore the crystals away, embedding themselves in his hand, as he fell off and into the yellow fog.