THE x FORK x INx THE x ROAD
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣
DEPTH-16 — THE EMERALD CAVERNS, ENTRANCE
They stopped at a widening in the tunnel just enough space for everyone to regroup and check injuries.
No one needed to say the number.
Four more people were gone.
Colt raised his lighting rod in one hand, tapping the digital roster slate awake with his other.
Twenty years old, jacket half-zipped, hair tied back. He looked like someone who should’ve been at university, not tracking survivors underground a cavern in The Wilds. Nonetheless with Captain Victor dead, Colt was the only one still thinking clearly enough to keep them together.
“Alright, roll call." He said, voice steady. "If you didn’t sleep, too bad. If something’s glowing on you, pretend it's not there."
The team called back one by one.
When the last voice echoed, Colt lowered the slate.
“Twenty left,” he said quietly.
Buck stood at the edge of the group, arms crossed over his massive chest, eyes red but locked forward. He clung tighter to the remaining mineralist, like he owed it to them to get them all home. Mae checked the batteries on her seismic monitors . Lisa adjusted the water supply on her pack. Aria tied her hair back tighter, a sign of defiance in face of the morale dump and fatigue. Geologists by day summoners by trade, all refusing to let their research die with them.
The remaining Royal guards set up Echo Beacons around the perimeter of the tunnels descent and fell into rank.
Colt headed toward Kit and Kyro.
"Geo teams stabilizers are reading ninety-four percent… best she's given since we've been out here."
"How far down does this even go?" Kit asks, curiously more than concerned looking at the path ahead.
"Further than my monitors say they should." Mae called back from behind them.
"Signals coming back clean, no radiation, same hertz as the ore in the manifest. Hasn't budged once." Colt chimed back in, exhaling quietly this time. "If this is the source line, High Noon just found its new engine."
He paused for a moment before his eyes fell on Kits then Kyros.
"My bad, I should introduce mysel—"
“Colt! Mae’s got something!”
Colt lifted a hand in reply.
“Coming!”
He jogged back to the others, slipping into his new role.
Kyro watched him before looking toward Kit.
"You cool?"
"Still here" Kit replied calmly, something growing inside him.
"My man." Kyro said the way he always did when embracing his nephew. "We're getting close. Don't let up"
Kit nodded, no words.
They headed over and rejoined the remaining Geologists.
Kyro listened to Mae’s report, eyes following the vibration pattern on her scanner. The readings weren’t violent, but they weren’t stable either.
It was enough.
Kyro straightened.
“Rally time” he said.
Colt lifted his lighting rod and whistled once. The sound echoed clean through the tunnel. The guards and geologists tightened formation.
Kyro waited until all twenty stood in a rough semicircle.
“We’re done moving as a crowd,” he said. “17’s ahead. We can’t take all of you through one corridor. Too much movement.”
He pointed toward the two natural splits in the tunnel. Narrow, jagged, both carrying faint emerald reflections deeper down.
“Two paths. Both lead toward the main shaft, we're taking our chances with either path.”
Murmurs spread through the group.
Colt stepped forward, expression sharpened. “Call it Cap, we're with you.”
Kyro didn’t hesitate. He delivered his plan like a final verdict.
“Split into three.”
That silenced everyone.
Kyro gestured:
“Colt, you take four guards and Mae. Your crew maps. Stay left. Slow. No Aether unless you have to.”
Colt nodded, no hesitation.
Kyro turned to Buck.
“Buck, you take Lisa and Aria. Five guards with you. Stay right corridor. If the walls start vibrating? Backtrack. Don’t try to be heroes.”
Buck grunted once. That was his version of ‘yes.’
Aria and Lisa were already adjusting packs and tightening straps — they understood the stakes with no extra commentary.
Finally, Kyro looked at Kit.
“You’re with me.”
Kit didn’t blink. “Yeah.”
Kyro continued.
“We’ll follow in behind Buck’s crew.” He paused, a faint grin slipping onto his face. “We’ll see each other at the bottom.”
Buck’s team moved out first.
Eight silhouettes.
Boots scraping stone.
Echo Beacons blinking faint green as they checked the walls.
No talking, nobody wasted breath this deep.
Colt’s group followed minutes later, light rods held low, moving like they were walking on something ancient in the dark.
As both groups vanished into their tunnels, the cavern grew quiet again.
Kyro and Kit stood alone in the widening, their footsteps the only sound in the whole chamber.
Kyro checked the stabilizer on his wrist.
“Got a few minutes to breathe before we move,” he said.
Kit remained standing and kept his eyes fixed on the fork ahead, where the emerald light pulsed in a slow, unnatural rhythm.
Kyro noticed.
“What’s on your mind?”
Kit shrugged once like he was afraid to say it.
"The other night, at the campfire"
Kyro just listened.
"That weird lady with the mask, she said something" Kit hesitated. "I've heard stories all the time back home. But the way she spoke the other night.."
Kit let it out finally.
"She spoke about you like a monster. Like you sacrificed others to save yourself but then she called you a Saint the same way everyone else does."
Kit clearly looked like he had been thinking about this for days now, nights. His young mind working to understand the complexity of a world he'd never been introduced to and a side of his uncle.
Kyro let the moment breathe for a second before responding.
“People talk,” Kyro said. “Always will. Let them." He continued "They need their monsters, they need their saints. I never cared about any of that.”
He tapped Kits chest once.
“I care about you. Kariah. Your brother and sisters. Our people. What we build — not what they call us.”
Kyro went on, now his tone more intentional.
"Nonetheless. Every summoner— every man — has a choice. When it comes, you don't wait for permission."
His tone grew heavier cutting through the hollows of the cavern.
"A man should know how to keep living but is always ready to die. When the odds turn, you don’t run Kit — you choose to keep living.”
“You'll have to make that choice for yourself one day. Every man does. But when that moment arrives — I trust you to make a decision that’s true to your fire."
Kyros tone lightens, the grin returning to his face
"But I’ll be damned if my nephew takes an L on my watch.”
Kit let out a burst of laughter
"Man please!"
Kyro grinned.
“Lead the way then.”
Kit stepped ahead — just a little.
Kyro followed.
And for the first time...
Kit didn’t feel like a kid walking behind a legend.
He felt like someone the legend trusted to walk beside him.
"Knowing no one's coming to give you water and choosing to burn anyway" Kit said softly as he walked ahead into the emerald tunnels.
"Yeah.." Kyro let out a full smile this time he couldn't hold back. "That's real fire."
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣