Aberdeen had been having an awful day. Aside from the usual draining torment of bureaucracy and politics, there was another responsibility that gnawed at his mind. Aberdeen had visited the Telalhs Vault in almost three months. And that was, in short, far, far too long. Even as the King of the Telalhs Kingdom, the Lord of the Black Mountains, the King of Iron, Aberdeen was, in essence, terrified of his own basement.
Aberdeen let out a deep, soul weary sigh. The Aether within him stirred as his gaze swept over his study in search of something to do (other than paperwork). His large Wicker-Wood desk, opulent and spotless. Not even a speck of dust. His curtains, red and vibrant, parted and strung up without a flaw. Turning to the wall he turned into a floor to ceiling bookshelf, he grimaced. Not even a loose parchment was out of place. The whole room was too pristine. Even the carpet seemed to mock him with it's lack of wrinkles.
"Heavens damn it." He sighed again. There was no escaping it. There was nothing else scheduled for him till evening. It was still about 9 in the morning. Setting down his pen and reading glasses, he stood, his chair sliding backwards. "That damnable thing is going to be the death of me." He announced to the empty room and made for the double doors that were almost twice his height and double his width.
Aberdeen ventured deeper into the fortress that was the Telalhs Castle. It was in times like this that Aberdeen felt that this home of his might be far too large for any semblance of efficiency. He was going to give the servants a raise... And invest in teleportation nodes in key points of the castle. But, that would have to wait until Aberdeen returned from tending to the disastrous vault his greatest grandfather had left far, but not far enough, beneath the halls he walked at this very moment.
The light level began to dim. The frequency of windows in the walls was dwindling the deeper he went into the castle until there were no windows left. Aberdeen followed the dim torches that sparsely lit the walls to a point in the back of what seemed to be a large auditorium that was flush with the natural rock of the mountain the castle was carved out of. This was it. The first of five barriers.
With and huff, Aberdeen drew on the aether within him and shrouded himself with it, removing himself from the barriers exclusion. Stepping forward, he passed through the wall as if the wall itself refused to acknowledge his existence. Keeping the shroud stable, he made his way through the rock as if he were but a spectre. The density of the rock began to shift as the barrier grew stronger, forcing him to draw on more of his either, imposing the denial of his presence on the exclusion itself.
It was not long before he came to a long and dingy corridor with no end in sight, not that one could see much at this light level. Aberdeen was lucky to have the low-light vision inherent in all blood born Telalhs. Even so, he could not see more than ten paces around him, especially with the corridor being suffused with dust and far more cobwebs than should be aloud in any dungeon, regardless of whether it was renowned or not.
He made it past the first barrier relatively easily. Now he had to face the second barrier; the spiders' dance. Putting one foot forward, Aberdeen began to walk. One wrong step, and the spiders will wake. If there was one thing Aberdeen hated more than the followers of the elder gods, it was spiders. But not the common spiders that skitter about harmlessly. He hated the ones that were born and raised in the unending tunnel. Hearth Stalkers.
Hearth Stalkers were insidious creatures. A metre tall and twice that in diameter, these eight legged nightmares fed on the minerals found in the earth and rock. the same minerals are, coincidentally, found in the flesh, blood and bones or living creatures. These hideous things are sensitive to heat and light, and can perceive their magnitudes through the indistinguishable hairs and barbs that cover all but their eight hideous tenebrous and the underside of their relatively flat thorax, ceaselessly twitching.
What was worse for Aberdeen was that their young were miniscule. so small that their large adult bodies could pump out thousands of tiny spore like eggs per fist sized sack. It was entirely common for the torches of adventurer wannabes, poser explorers and green horn divers to catch the nearly translucent web of a broods mother and cause the sacks to burst, leading the tiny cretins to drift through the air and end up inhaled and incubated by the lungs of the lousy lots.
Only for them to hatch and attempt to eat their way out, getting larger as they consume the weakest of their brethren first. Rapid enough to kill the host anywhere from within a day to within a week. Yet slow enough to be felt as soon as the hatch up until they burst from their host's chest, stomach, mouth and nose. The only mercy to be found is that the hatchlings are unable to consume raw minerals and composites such as bone and rock until they are about two weeks old.
Aberdeen was once a victim of these harrowing horrors. His only saving grace was that, as Viscera type mage, he specialised in manipulating his aether inside and around his body. Thus he could actualise the flare spell within his lungs to burn the nasty things before they could finish consuming each other. Though it did cost him most of his breathing capacity and his ability to speak for half a year.
Aberdeen's focus snapped forward as the began to clear.
Stepping past the last of the webs, he let out a groan that shook with his shuddering body. The return journey would be worse. It was always worse. So, so much worse. Lifting his head, he took in the third barrier; the lake of sorrow. This barrier was the hardest on those weak of will. And Aberdeen grimaced. He had a particular hatred for this barrier. He had good reason for it. It was the most unpleasant of the five, but not necessarily the hardest.
Aberdeen steeled himself and marched into the deep, not ever his hair to float in the tormenting waters. The water was very obviously not normal. In these waters, one could not float. They would simply sink to the very bottom. However, it could not drown you in a literal sense. once you were fully submerged, figments would appear. Shadow's of your darkest days and visages from your worst moments would form around you, calling out. Shouting and screaming, desperate to make you stay. The longer you stood still, the more the waters would soak into your very essence. And if you do not make it out in time, you become part of the lake.
Aberdeen was only halfway through. The faces of countless men and women, both young and old, screamed at him. Begging him to stay, to save them, to fix his mistakes. His throat was dry. his airways sticking together. His eyes were squeezed so tight it hurt. But he could not open his eyes. If he saw the horrendous, malformed faces taunting from within the deep, he may not be able to close his eyes ever again. Some faces, riddles with holes, pock marks and pits, shrieked with the voices of iron on stone. Faces smattered with burns, the peeling flesh oozing and pulsing lamented with voices as sharp and grating as flint. And the last tormentors, the headless imitations, clinging to his body, rotting and festering, many limbs reduced to throbbing, holey tissue.
Before the Imitations of his guilt could pry his eyes open, his head broke the surface of the lake, sending ripples all around him. One step at a time, Aberdeen's figure gradually rose from lake. With both feet on dry ground, Aberdeen did not bother stopping his march forward towards the fourth barriers. The water that clung to his skin and clothes began to evaporate, a thick layer of steam forming a shroud around his body. Raising his hand, palm up, Aberdeen actualised and blazing red flame that engulfed his whole hand, illuminating the path ahead.
His face was grim. The red light reflecting in the steam coiled around Aberdeen's figure like a viper. He gazed down a long, dank stairway with gloomy resolve. This was the fourth of the five barriers. The longest of all the barriers, too. The stairway of silence. Aberdeen looked on blankly, his anger not subsiding in the least. He knew. It was practically written in the furrow of his brow. It This was going to be a very long walk... and he would not enjoy any part of it.