The glowing river cast shifting, sapphire patterns on the silent stone city. It was a scene of both breathtaking beauty and profound unease. The survivors huddled at the cavern's entrance, caught between the desperate need for the water and the terrifying mystery of this place.
"It's a trick," Hemmet whispered, his eyes wide as he stared at the obsidian-black skeleton. "A poison that makes you… peaceful. That turns your bones to glass."
"No," Kaelen said, his voice low as he studied the skeleton. He could feel the absolute absence of the Blight's corrosive signature. This was different. "It's not a poison. It's an ending. A final, perfect note." He looked at the frantic carvings on the wall above. "But the end was not peaceful for everyone."
Elara cautiously approached the water's edge. She dipped a single finger into the glowing current. It was cold, but not unpleasantly so. She brought her finger to her lips.
"Elara, don't!" Kaelen warned.
She tasted it. "It's… just water," she said, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Clean. The cleanest I've ever tasted." She cupped her hands and drank a small mouthful. "It's good."
That was all the encouragement the others needed. They surged forward, falling to their knees, drinking deeply from the radiant river. Their cries of relief echoed in the vast cavern. Kaelen watched, his senses stretched taut, waiting for some sign of sickness, of transformation. None came. They drank, and their vitality seemed to return almost instantly. The grey pallor of thirst left their faces. Even Roric, with help, managed to sip some water, and his feverish shivering subsided.
The water was a miracle. But Kaelen could not bring himself to drink.
He walked away from the group, deeper into the dead city, his glowing stone held high. The Delvers' craftsmanship was astounding. Every surface was flowing, organic, as if the stone had been persuaded to grow into these forms rather than carved. It was a level of Stone-Singing he could barely comprehend.
He found more skeletons. Dozens of them. All in the same peaceful, reclining poses, all with bones transformed to that same lustrous black obsidian. They were clustered near the river, in small groups or alone, as if they had simply chosen a spot, lay down, and let go.
But then he found the others.
In a large, circular plaza, he stumbled upon a different scene. Here, the skeletons were not black, but a brittle, chalky white. They were not at rest. They were contorted in agony, tangled together, some with tools of stone still clutched in their hands as if they had been fighting each other. The song of the stone here was one of violent, sudden termination.
Two fates. One, a serene surrender by the water. The other, a frantic, violent end.
He found the answer in a smaller chamber off the plaza, a room that seemed to be a library or a scriptorium. Here, the walls were covered not in frantic scratches, but in elegant, flowing script. The language was alien, but the Delvers had illustrated their story. He saw depictions of their people finding the glowing river, their city flourishing. They showed themselves drinking the water, their forms becoming radiant with health and longevity.
Then, the illustrations changed. They showed a great sickness spreading on the surface—the First Blight, Kaelen realized with a jolt. The Delvers, safe in their underground haven, were depicted looking upwards in fear. The final sequence of images showed a debate, a schism.
One group, pointing to the river, then pointing to their own heads, making a gesture of sleep, of peace.
The other group,gesticulating wildly, pointing upwards, making gestures of fighting, of action.
The Final Schism. The Peaceful, who chose to drink the water and embrace a serene, eternal end rather than face the horror of the world above. And the Resistant, who chose to fight, to try and return to the surface.
The black bones were the Peaceful. The white, shattered bones in the plaza were the Resistant. They hadn't fought an enemy. They had fought each other. A civil war in the dark.
The final image was the most haunting. It showed the last of the Resistant, sealing the great cavern entrance from the inside with a massive stone slab, trapping themselves—and the last of the Peaceful—in the tomb they had made. A final, desperate act to keep the Blight, or perhaps the temptation of the river's peace, from spreading.
Kaelen understood now. The water did not poison. It offered a choice. It granted perfect health, and with it, a profound, overwhelming apathy. A detachment from all struggle, all pain, all fear. It was the ultimate escape. The Peaceful had not been killed; they had been seduced into surrendering their will to live.
He stumbled back to the riverbank, his mind reeling. The survivors were laughing now, splashing the water on their faces, their spirits lifted. They saw only salvation.
He saw the skeleton of the first Delver, its black hand still outstretched towards the water that had given it the gift of oblivion.
Finn had sacrificed himself in a blaze of active, painful, glorious power to cleanse the river.
The Delvers had sacrificed their future for a passive,painless, eternal silence.
Two forms of sacrifice. One that screamed a final, defiant note into the dying light. The other that simply stopped singing.
Kaelen looked at his people, at their renewed hope, and he knew a terrible truth. This water was not a refuge. It was another kind of trap, more subtle and more dangerous than the Blight. The Blight sought to unmake you. This… this just asked you to stop caring.
He had led them from a world being actively destroyed, into a tomb that offered a perfect, peaceful end.
And as he watched them drink their fill, he had to make a choice. Tell them the truth and shatter their fragile hope, or let them drink the water of forgetting and lose the very will to keep fighting.