Gray Chronicle

Chapter 11 Beneath the Dark River

Lynn raised the Holy Iron Sword to shoulder height.

The gray-etched patterns on the blade continued to glow, the dark green light only enough to illuminate three steps away in the absolute darkness of the underground river dome. Beyond those three steps, the shadows of stalactites and stalagmites resembled some kind of still fangs.

The sound of countless tiny feet walking down the rock face stopped.

Instead, there was silence. Not the absence of sound—the underground river was still flowing, the torches were still burning, Kirk's breathing was still ten paces away—it was a deeper silence. As if something was listening.

Ellie stood twenty paces ahead, her body pressed against the side of the stalagmite, her right hand on the ground. Her fingers were spread, fingertips pressed against the stone surface. Lynn had seen this posture before—scavengers in the lower city would do this to detect ground tremors.

Her lips moved. There was no sound, but Lynn could read it.

"Come this way."

It's not "coming here," it's "coming this way." It's moving.

Lynn lowered his voice: "Kirk, come three steps to my right. Don't hold the torch too high."

Kirk gripped the iron bar and shifted sideways to the designated spot. His shoulders were too broad, and as he squeezed through the gap between two stalagmites, he chipped off a piece of gray-corroded crystal. The crystal fragment fell into the underground river, the splashing water emitting an eerie green light—the crystal minerals at the riverbed were briefly activated by the impact of the debris.

Then Lynn saw it.

On the rock face, at the junction of the dome and the cliff, a dense mass of black outlines was slowly moving. Not crawling—it was wriggling. Like countless fist-sized soft bodies, they clung to the rock face with their ventral feet, migrating downstream. Their movement was almost silent. Only at the moment a soft body detached from the rock surface, revealing its fleshy ventral feet as it re-attached, would a very faint "pop" be heard.

One.

Then there was another one.

Then there were several hundred.

Lynn didn't move. His hand rested on the Holy Iron Blade, the gray-etched patterns on its blade maintaining a stable dark green hue. He glanced at the crystal slice out of the corner of his eye—no new entries. Not enemies. At least the slice didn't consider these soft-bodied creatures a threat.

As they passed the location of the three people, the one that was closest to them stopped.

The soft-bodied creature extended its tentacles from the rock face, reaching towards the Holy Iron Blade. The tip of the tentacle stopped a foot from the blade—then retracted. The group of creatures continued migrating downstream, a little faster than before.

Ellie lifted her fingers off the ground.

"They're gone. They're all gone."

Kirk exhaled. It was the kind of breath he had been holding for a long time, afraid to exhale.

"What is that?"

"Whirlpools." Lynn sheathed his Holy Iron Sword. "Scavengers in the Dark River ecosystem. They only eat organic matter killed by ash erosion—they have no interest in humans. But the migration of Whirlpools means that something upstream in the Dark River is creating a large amount of dead matter."

He paused.

"The clerk said that the vortex spirals migrate collectively before the ash fog erupts. They are more sensitive to changes in ash concentration than any instrument."

Ellie looked up. The dome was too high for the firelight to reach the top. But Lynn knew what she was looking at—the thickness of the rock layers above the underground river. If the gray fog were to seep out from the fissures in the ground, the underground river would be the first place to be filled.

"Continue the surveying." Lynn unfolded the parchment again. "Mark it down—first survey point, spiraling snails migrating, from northwest to southeast. Number approximately three hundred or more. Note: Possible precursor to eruption."

He used charcoal to draw the course of the underground river on parchment. Near the survey point, the riverbed made a noticeable bend—the current slowed, and a thick layer of eroded crystalline sediment accumulated on the riverbed. At the thickest point of the sediment layer, the river water changed from dark green to almost black.

Old Tok's words came to mind.

"You need to find the coldest ore samples from the bottom of the river. Put your hand in the water and feel it—the ones that are so cold your fingertips go numb are the ones you want."

Lynn squatted by the river and put his left hand into the water.

Cold. Not just ordinary cold—it was a cold that penetrated the skin and seeped directly into the bones. His fingertips began to go numb the moment they touched the water, and after three seconds, his fingers lost the ability to distinguish between "cold" and "pain." He felt several hard lumps of different textures in the sediment at the bottom of the river—rough-surfaced, angular, and making a crisp, ceramic-like sound when he picked them up and clattered them together.

He grabbed a handful.

Gray crystalline mineral. The grains are coarser and darker in color than the crystalline salt Old Tok gave him, almost dark green. The crystalline structure on the surface of the ore is not lumpy—it is needle-like. Countless extremely fine needle-shaped crystals radiate outward from a central point, like frozen fireworks.

"It's so cold." Kirk grabbed a handful too. He picked up a piece of ore with two thick fingers and held it close to the torch, examining it for a long time. "Can this be sold?"

"Yes. More than you'd earn carrying boxes for a month," Ellie said behind him. She had already made her way back from downstream, carrying several fist-sized pieces of ore wrapped in rags.

"But the guild only needs to specify a sample of the ore vein—first, we need to find where the ore vein is."

The three continued downstream along the main stream. Every three hundred steps, Lynn knocked a sample off the rock face, placed it in a cloth bag, and wrote a number next to the location marked on the charcoal stick. The third sample had a significantly lower concentration of ash erosion than the first—the crystals on the rock face were not clustered, but powdery, and could be scraped off with a fingernail. The fifth sample showed traces of iron ore—ash erosion crystals and iron veins began to coexist, and the sound when struck was no longer muffled, but had a metallic echo.

Lynn stopped at the eleventh sample point.

The main channel of the underground river branches here. Not into two—but into five. The five tributaries, arranged from left to right, have openings of varying sizes. The leftmost one is the widest, large enough for three Kirks to pass side by side, and also has the largest water flow. The rightmost one is the narrowest, only a finger's width wider than the underground tributary of the old canal.

There are carvings on the rock walls above the entrances to each tributary.

These are not natural cracks. They were chiseled out with tools. Five tributaries, five markings.

First from the left: Iron hammer.

Second from the left: Chains.

Middle: Eyes.

Second from the right: A broken spear.

The one on the right: There's nothing there—only chisel marks, and the grooves are filled with ash and dust.

"It was left by someone before us." Ellie touched the leftmost hammer mark. "The edges of the knife mark are rounded off—it's been at least several decades."

Lynn raised his torch and began examining each mark to the right, starting with the hammer. The chain markings were deeper, with repeated chiseling marks at the corners—not to depict the chain itself, but to suggest its "locked" state. A deep, round hole had been drilled where the pupil of the eye should have been, its bottom filled with unpolished, crystalline powder that reflected a sickly bluish light in the firelight. The broken spear's fracture had been deliberately smoothed—not broken, but polished. The first hole on the right had no pattern, but was the deepest—as if someone had intended to carve something but abandoned the attempt halfway.

"Kirk," Lynn stared at the five markers, "after your sister was registered with the temple, did she receive anything?"

Kirk paused, taken aback. "A piece of paper. A stamped piece of paper—the temple said to keep it safe and not lose it."

Are there any symbols on the paper?

"Yes. There's a key drawn in the upper right corner." Kirk frowned as he recalled, "A broken key."

It's broken.

Lynn then looked at the mark on the middle tributary—an eye. The pupil was filled with gray, crystalline powder. When the temple judged the stones, the priests also looked at the eyes.

"These markings aren't directions—they indicate professions." Lynn drew his holy iron sword, letting the gray, etched light of the blade illuminate the five openings. "Old Tok said that the judgment stones of the Hephaestus Federation's temples can only give one profession name; deeper interpretations cost exorbitant prices. But in this underground river, decades ago someone used a chisel to mark five paths, corresponding to five different professions."

"Hammer - Forging type. Chain - Binding or imprisonment type. Eye - Perception or observation type. Broken spear - Combat type but with some kind of defect or retirement attribute. The first chisel mark on the right is not finished - it may not have been judged, or it may have been judged but cannot be engraved."

Ellie stood up and patted the dust off her hands.

"Which tributary is the ore we're looking for located in?"

Lynn didn't answer immediately. He reached into the bottom of the main stream of the underground river and felt along the forks. The bottom of the main stream was full of gray eroded crystal sediment, with fine and uniform particles. Then he reached into the leftmost and middle tributaries respectively.

The ore at the bottom of the tributary of the Iron Hammer River is warm. Not icy, but close to body temperature. The ore surface is smooth, and it is a pebble-type eroded crystal mineral formed by years of river erosion.

The stones at the bottom of that tributary—the one that caught his eye—were cold. So cold that his fingertips went numb the moment they touched them. Moreover, the stones had sharper edges; they were needle-like crystalline minerals, consistent with the samples he had touched at the bottom of the main river.

"Eyes." Lynn stood up. "The ore the guild needs is only found in this tributary—needle-shaped crystals are the purest form of etched ore; associated ores with low iron content cannot form needle-shaped structures."

Kirk stood below the eye mark, looking up at the gray powder in the pupil.

"I don't like this mark."

"That's good, then." Lynn stuck the torch into the crack in the rock wall. "The temple doesn't want you to see it either."

He divided the dry rations in the cloth bag into three portions. The black bread was hard, but not yet moldy. The three of them squatted beside the stalagmite at the fork in the river, chewing their bread with the water from the underground river. The water had a grayish taste and was slightly bitter, but it didn't burn their throats when they drank it—the grayish concentration was within the range of the crystallized salt protection given by Old Tok.

Ellie didn't speak during the meal. She stared at the five tributary openings, from left to right, then from right to left.

"What are you thinking about?"

"I was thinking, if I were standing on the Judgment Stone—what mark would I have?" She stuffed the last piece of bread into her mouth. "Not a hammer. Not chains. Not eyes."

"It might be the empty one on the right."

Ellie turned to look at him.

“Because an empty one doesn’t mean it hasn’t been judged.” Lynn placed the Holy Iron Sword across his lap. “It means anything is possible—or it might mean nothing at all. The Temple’s Judgment Stone can only give a name, but a profession isn’t a name. Old Tork said that the core of rune forging isn’t the runes—it’s resurrection. The same goes for the Judgment Stone. The core isn’t what you judge—it’s what you can become after you’ve judged it.”

Ellie was silent for a moment. Then she stood up and clapped her hands.

"Let's go. Eye tributary."

After entering the tributary, the temperature drops significantly.

It wasn't the water temperature that was dropping—it was the air temperature. The dome of the Eyes tributary was lower than the main stream; Lynn could reach out and touch the top. The etched crystals on the rock walls were no longer flakes, but columnar—countless slender, grayish-green crystal pillars extended from the cracks in the rock, producing dense refracted light spots under the torchlight. The entire interior of the tributary looked as if it were being watched by countless tiny green eyes.

After walking a hundred steps, the light of the Holy Iron Blade suddenly dimmed.

It was only for a moment. But Lynn stopped.

He looked down at the blade—the gray etched patterns were still glowing, but less brightly than when it was in its prime. The runestone at the end of the hilt was slightly warm, not the warm warmth it had when it was active, but rather scalding hot.

Then he heard the knocking sound.

Here it comes again. Three beats, then a pause. But this time it's not coming from upstream—it's coming from directly in front. From the depths of a tributary of the eye. And it's even closer.

A line of text appeared on the crystal slice.

[Environmental Sensing] Uncured / 0.1%

It wasn't skill activation. It was the slice telling him—the distance judgment he had just "heard" wasn't based on his ears. It was something else entirely.

The knocking stopped.

Then, from the darkness deep within the tributary, a voice arose. It wasn't a knocking sound, nor the sound of water, nor the sucking sound of a snail's foot. It was a human voice. Hoarse, intermittent, as if speaking to itself.

"...No. That's not it. It's still not right."

Lynn gripped the Holy Iron Sword tightly.

He took three steps forward. The firelight couldn't reach the source of the sound, but the voices became clearer and clearer.

"...Wrong judgment. Wrong judgment! Not this—not the chain!"

The sound suddenly turned into a roar. Then came the crisp sound of metal striking the stone wall.

Then silence.

Lynn glanced back at Ellie. Ellie had already drawn the tempered dagger from her waist. Kirk gripped the iron bar tightly, his shoulder pressed against the stone wall.

The three walked side by side, continuing deeper into the tributary.

The firelight finally reached its end.

At the end of the tributary was a domed cavity, carved out by human hands. The walls were covered with dense chisel marks—not tool marks, but marks made by fingers. The bottom of the cavity was piled with broken, eroded crystalline ore, and atop the ore sat a emaciated man.

He wore a robe so tattered it was almost unrecognizable. The original color of the robe was probably gray—the color of the robes of novice priests at the Temple of Nox. All ten fingers of his hands were exposed bone, and his fingernails were long gone. A rusty iron chain was locked around his ankles, the other end of which was wedged deep into the rock wall.

He raised his head.

There are no eyes in the eye sockets. It's not that they're blind—their pupils have been completely and precisely removed. The suture marks on the inner wall of the eye sockets indicate that this was a surgery performed a long time ago.

"Another one's here," he said. His lips were chapped, and his voice was hoarse but calmer than before. "Hold the torch closer—let me hear your breathing. Your eyes are gone, but your ears are still there."

Lynn didn't move. He looked at the face—not very old, probably in his early twenties. About the same height as himself.

"Who are you?"

"Nobody. I used to be a priest—an apprentice. The fourth archive room of the Temple of Nox, third floor, third cabinet on the left—professional record file clerk." The voice was calm, as if repeating a file entry. "One night during patrol, I accidentally flipped through a file. I saw 'Standard Procedure for Pupil Removal in Trainee Subjects' written inside. The next day, I was sent to the Dark River."

He turned his face toward Lynn. His empty eye sockets looked like two black holes in the firelight.

"They said I chose the wrong profession. Actually, they're not wrong—my profession is 'being able to see things I shouldn't see.' They didn't choose wrong; they just don't want me to see."

Lynn stared at the chains on his ankles. The clasp at the end of the chains was a temple symbol—still faintly glowing.

"What's your name?"

"Name?" He tilted his head, as if thinking. "The file number is NK-4782. The name...it's been a long time since anyone called me that. Let me think."

He thought about it for a long time. Long enough that Ellie took a step forward.

"...Nest. No. Nestlé is the one who brought me here. My name is... my name is Randall. Yes, Randall White. Nox Fourth Archives, trainee archivist."

Randall.

Then a new gray, unlockable entry appeared on the crystal slice.

[Rule Record (Perception)] Not activated.

Below the entry was a line of small print, so small that Lynn almost missed it:

Individuals whose occupational bonds were forcibly severed by temple rules were observed. Rule damage can be identified by slices.

Randall suddenly stood up. The chains rattled.

"You have knives. Two." He "saw" the holy iron sword at Lynn's waist with his eyeless sockets. "The one in your right hand—the gray-etched patterns are flowing. Not dead, but alive. Where did you find a dwarf willing to teach rune blacksmithing?"

Lynn's hand rested on the hilt of the knife. "You recognize this pattern?"

"I know him." Randall sat back down on the pile of ore, his voice suddenly becoming unusually calm, a departure from his previous chaos. "The last occupational assessment record I filed before being sent to the Dark River was about a dwarven runesmith exiled by the Hephaestus Federation. His name was recorded as—Tok Copperhammer. Occupational assessment result: Runesmith. There was a handwritten note in the remarks column—'This person knows the whereabouts of the Holy Iron.'"

Quiet.

Ellie and Kirk both turned to look at Lynn.

Randall continued, his voice as steady as if he were pulling a file out of a filing cabinet.

"I recognize the handwriting of that priest's annotation—the writer wasn't from Nox. He was a high-ranking stone judge on loan from the Temple of Aldric. The day he came to Nox to help organize the files, I brought him a glass of water. He was wearing gloves when he wrote, and half of his left little finger was missing."

Lynn stood still.

The torchlight flickered briefly in the void of the dome.

"The man who is missing half a little finger is called Tok Copperhammer."