Chapter 170 — What Grew in the Dark

Chapter 170: Chapter 170 — What Grew in the Dark

He woke to the cavern’s oppressive dark still pressing close around him, the fungal light here noticeably dimmer than anything the floors above had offered, and spent a careful, unhurried morning simply adjusting to how little he could actually see without deliberately calling on Hawk’s Eye every few minutes.

Costly, using it constantly, he thought, testing the limits of his ordinary vision against the gloom. Need something that doesn’t ask so much of me just to see properly down here.

He broke camp and continued following the tracks from the day before, considerably fresher now, the disturbed earth suggesting whatever had left them had passed this way again during the night without ever approaching his perimeter.

Good. Means it’s not actively hunting me. Just living its own life, same as everything else down here.

He moved carefully through the gloom, the massive roots overhead thickening the deeper he went, until the passage finally opened into a wide, sunken basin where a slow, dark stream cut through the cavern floor, its surface catching what little ambient light reached this far in faint, oily ripples.

A shape broke the water’s surface as he approached, considerably larger than the Stonefin or Glowfin he’d grown used to on Floor Six — a serpentine, eel-like creature with pale, sightless eyes and rows of small, needle-fine teeth, testing the air with slow, deliberate patience.

Cave Eel, probably, though bigger than the guild notes suggested was typical this shallow. Might be worth it, if I can draw it away from deep water.

He tossed a loose stone into the shallows to bait it, and the creature surged toward the disturbance with startling speed, breaching fully clear of the water in a spray that caught the dim light in a brief, silver arc.

He met it as it landed, Sovereign Tide answering his call before he’d properly finished the thought, the water beneath the creature surging up against its own momentum and robbing it of the clean strike it had clearly intended. It thrashed, disoriented, and Arlen drove Edgeline Strike home while it fought to properly reorient itself.

It died quickly after that, and he harvested a portion of meat along with a strange, faintly luminous organ near its skull that he suspected, examining it curiously, served some purpose related to sensing in the dark water it called home.

That’s new. Worth eating properly, whatever it actually is.

He made a modest fire at the basin’s edge and prepared the meat, curious as always, and found the flavor sharp, almost metallic, not unpleasant but unlike anything he’d tasted from the floors above.

The warmth arrived partway through his meal, low and familiar, spreading outward from behind his eyes rather than his chest this time — a sensation he hadn’t quite experienced before, sharp and immediate in a way that made him set his food aside and wait.

A name surfaced, whole and certain.

Nightsight.

He sat with it a moment, testing the edges of understanding that came bundled with the name, and found the cavern’s oppressive dark shifting, subtly but unmistakably, into something considerably more navigable — not the sharpened, deliberate clarity of Hawk’s Eye, which demanded conscious effort to properly call upon, but something quieter and more passive, simply present, the way ordinary sight was present without needing to be summoned.

He blinked, testing it further, and found the basin’s far edge, previously lost in shadow, now resolving into clear, if colorless, detail — the pale roots hanging overhead, the dark water’s slow current, even the faint impression of tracks he hadn’t noticed continuing along the far bank.

This is exactly what I needed. Passive. Always there, the same way Bonebark’s always there. Should save me from calling on Hawk’s Eye every few minutes just to avoid stumbling into something.

He tested it a while longer, curious about its actual range, and found it faded gradually the further he tried to look — genuinely useful for close and moderate distance, though nothing that would replace Hawk’s Eye’s more deliberate, longer-range clarity when he actually needed that instead.

Different tools for different needs. That’s the shape of most of this, I think.

He finished his meal and continued along the basin’s far bank, Nightsight settling comfortably into his awareness in a way that made the whole cavern feel considerably less oppressive than it had that morning. The tracks continued on, fresher now, leading toward a section of the cavern where the massive roots grew close enough together to form something almost like a wall.

He approached carefully, Nightsight resolving the structure ahead into clearer detail with every step, and found, studying the tangled mass of roots properly, that they weren’t simply hanging loose from above.

They were moving. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, but moving — shifting and resettling with the patient, deliberate rhythm of something breathing.

He went very still.

That’s not a wall of roots. That’s the same thing that left the tracks.

He backed a careful step, studying the shape properly now that his attention had caught up with what his eyes had already registered, and found the scale of it settling into his chest with a cold, familiar weight he hadn’t felt since the Duskstalker’s patient, testing pursuit on the road to Aurenholt.

The creature was enormous — considerably larger than anything he’d yet fought solo, its body seemingly composed entirely of woven, living root and vine, thick enough in places that a single limb could have flattened him outright. Deep-set, faintly glowing patches marked what he assumed served as its eyes, and even at this distance, even through the accumulated caution of everything he’d learned across the past weeks, he understood plainly that this was not something to engage carelessly.

Deeproot Guardian, unless I’m badly mistaken. Guild notes put that at Rank Seven or higher. That’s not a fight I walk into today, not alone, not without a much better plan than curiosity.

He backed away slowly, careful not to disturb whatever rest the creature was currently enjoying, and made his way back along the basin’s edge with considerably more caution than his approach had carried.

Not today, he thought, retreating toward his camp with the same deliberate, patient calculation that had carried him through every genuine unknown so far. But I don’t think it’s avoidable forever, either. Not if I intend to keep exploring this floor properly.

He made camp a safe distance from the chamber, strung his perimeter with more care than usual, and sat a long while by the low fire, turning the sighting over with the same careful attention he gave every significant discovery — though this one, he suspected, carried considerably more weight than most.

He pulled his journal from his pack and wrote a brief entry, his hand steadier than his racing thoughts entirely deserved.

Found what’s been leaving those tracks. Deeproot Guardian, or something close enough to it that the distinction barely matters. Enormous. Alive in a way that unsettled me more than I expected, even having fought things this floor’s size before. New ability gained along the way — Nightsight, from a Cave Eel, passive and constant, exactly what this floor demanded of me.

I don’t know yet whether I’m ready for what I found today. I intend to find out properly, rather than guess. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow, I think, is for thinking carefully instead.

He closed the journal, banked the fire low, and lay back against his bedroll, the cavern’s vast, root-draped dark considerably clearer now through Nightsight’s quiet, steady gift — clear enough, unfortunately, that he found himself watching the distant shape of the sleeping Guardian for a long while before sleep finally, reluctantly, claimed him.