The spiritual power coming from the item was overwhelming. Leor's palm began to grow numb just from holding it. He set down his leather pack, which was difficult to do with one hand, and removed a small glass bottle full of salt. He poured the spice onto the ground and rinsed the container with a bit of water from his canteen before dropping the petrified blood into the container. Then he stashed it away in his pack, right beside the world tree potion that he had been carrying ever since Drelk handed it over to him.
Alina took his hand to help him stand after he finished packing away the precious item.
"Good, handle that pack with care. Its cargo is truly priceless," she insisted.
Leor responded with a simple nod as he rose to his feet. "Let's get out of here. I've had more than enough of this place, and Drelk will be anxious to know that we have completed the rescue."
With that, the group of companions began the long journey back toward the exit of the skull hollow. Now, with a great deal more injuries and a child to care for, the return was slow and difficult. The journey from the serpent's fang to the cliffside exit took twice as long as it had to get there.
Something was different about the waves of shadow now; they began to come in faster intervals and with more speed than before. It was all the group could do simply to avoid being constantly swept away.
Then there was the arduous task of climbing the jagged cliffside while being bombarded by the shadowy ocean that sought to knock them down. This was especially impossible for Leor with his broken arm. They were forced to tie the young man to Bone's wide back, while young Rynn was tied to old grey. It took nearly as long to climb the steep cliff as it had to cross the long bone plain.
Once they reached the top, audible sighs of relief spread through the companions, but they would soon find that things had become more difficult than they imagined. Leaving the great serpent's skull would not be as easy as entering.
Alina was the first to notice the problem. Her brows knit together tightly as she stared toward the place where the exit should have been. Instead of a tunnel opening, a wide stretch of shadow covered the cave.
"What's going on?"
She rushed to the wall, running her hands across the cold, smooth shadow that blocked their exit. She pushed against the obstruction, banging her fists in frustration as she tried to force her way through.
As she did, two fur-covered hands, each half as large as her entire body, pressed against the wall of shadow above her. The cords of muscle along Bone's back clenched and rolled as he pushed against the shadowy prison, but it was no use. The ape repeated the same frustrated scene as the small human beside him, pounding his fists against the shadow in anger.
Then they were out of time. A great wave of shadow crashed toward the tall cliff. The companions nearly let themselves get swept away a second time, but somehow managed to cling to the jagged rocks beside the sealed exit.
"What are we going to do? We can't stay here!" Alina shouted, an exhausted expression settling over her injured face.
"We need to move back up toward the fangs, away from the waves of shadow, then we can think of a plan!" Leor replied.
A defeated feeling filled the companions' hearts as they were forced to climb back down the tall cliff, their exhausted bodies reminding them of that fact with each step. They eventually reached the bone plain below and moved back along the towering fangs of the serpent as they headed to higher ground.
By the time they escaped the domain of the crashing waves, the group was truly at its limits. The humans collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily as they leaned their backs together for support. Young Rynn was so tired that she began to fall asleep in old grey's arms even before they fully escaped the waves.
The child woke for a moment to eat a piece of Beast jerky that the old wolf offered her, then fell right back asleep.
"Let's rest for now. We can figure out how to get out of here once we've recovered some energy. I'll take the first watch," Alina suggested, lowering the flame of her torch to a light glow.
Leor didn't have the energy to disagree. His eyelids had already grown heavy the moment he sat down. Without a word, he drifted into an exhausted slumber. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm as the young man sank deeper and deeper into a dreamless sleep.
A few hours passed unbeknownst to the sleeping Leor.
Then, his rest was disturbed by something eerie.
"Drink it!" A whispering, inhuman voice swept through the young man's mind, startling him awake.
Leor's eyelids shot open at the sudden noise. He glanced around nervously and saw that his companions were all sleeping soundly beside him. Alina sat in silence, studying a small tome of the history of Draemyr that she had borrowed from Drelk. The book had been left to gather dust in her pack until she finally had a chance to look it over now.
The young woman glanced up at Leor, brows furrowing in uncertainty as she saw him awake.
"Did you hear that?" he questioned, glancing around warily.
Alina set down her book, the uncertainty on her face shifting into concern as her eyes slowly narrowed.
"Hear what?" she asked.
Leor looked at her in surprise before taking a deep breath and slowly shaking his head. "There was a voice. It startled me awake. I don't think it was a dream," he explained.
Alina tilted her head, laying the book down in her lap.
"A voice? What did it say?"
"It told me… to drink it." He spoke the words solemnly, staring back at Alina as her expression grew grave.
"That doesn't sound like a dream to me, and my prophetic talents taught me long ago not to believe in coincidence," she began, glancing toward the skeletal remains of the mystical serpent all around them. "I think that explains how we got trapped here. This ancient serpent is not as dead as we thought it was. Or maybe death isn't quite the same for a demigod like a mystical Beast, allowing it to exert some control over the material world even after its body has become a fossil."
Leor brow furrowed.
"If you're right, why would an ancient dead serpent want me to drink a potion to embody it? Wouldn't it rather kill me instead?"
Alina shrugged.
"I'm not an ancient mystical serpent, so I don't know what it would think. Maybe it wants an heir, or maybe it's just bored," she suggested.
Leor lowered his head as he considered the matter deeply, pulling the world tree potion and the petrified blood from his pack and studying them. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, a look of realization slowly filled his face.
He glanced up at Alina as an idea formed.
"This great serpent consumed light to empower itself with shadows, but what would happen if I drank this potion? Would my light-natured Willpower alter the Beastly embodiment like what happened with your sphinx? If it did, what sort of thing would I become?" he asked, waiting a moment for Alina to think through the possibilities.
A look of understanding slowly fell across her face, her eyes widening as she looked up at him.
"If that happened, you might become the opposite. A serpent who could consume shadow to generate light."
Leor nodded at her response before glancing up at the skeletal remains around him.
"Remember the story, what the serpent wanted most was to have the light for himself."
Alina nodded slowly as she listened, not fully understanding what he was getting at.
"Well, if I were to embody the great serpent and become a new version that was filled with light instead of the shadows, wouldn't that kind of fulfill the serpent's wish?"
Alina thought about it for a few seconds before slowly shaking her head.
"Not really. The light the great serpent was chasing was the light of creation itself, not just any old light-natured Willpower. Unless your Willpower talent is a lot more special than we thought, I don't think your Will can be considered an equivalent to that great light," she replied.
Leor scratched his chin for a moment, then casually shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, unless this mountain-sized skull decides to open up and start talking, I guess we have no way of knowing for sure what it's after." He turned to Alina as he held up the world tree potion. "But there is a way to find out if it's trapping us here because of this."
"What might that be?" she replied.
The casual expression fell from Leor's face as he pressed his lips together tightly.
"Isn't it obvious? I could just do what it asked. I could drink it."