Chapter 1 - Eyes

Thick dust sealed Mari’s eyelashes shut as cool, dank air enveloped her still body. She extended an arm, tracing the dirt-laden stone floor, while the other moved to rub her eyes free. She opened them to the faint glow of a delicate blue light emanating from the corner of the dark cavern. Her pupils expanded, adjusting to the low light. She sat up and saw a shattered mural spread across the wall in front of her. Stalactites silhouetted against the distant walls. A sulfuric essence swept through her nostrils as she inhaled.

Mari searched her mind, trying to recall how she ended up here, but the memories eluded her, like fragments of a dream slipping away. “I’ll figure out what’s going on, even if my mind can’t remember.”

Struggling to stand she reached her arms overhead in a deep stretch. “How long have I been laying like that?” A shiver of uncertainty shot through her spine and her stomach growled. She put a paw to it in an attempt to console the gnawing. “Must have been ages, I haven’t been this hungry since the war.”

She scanned the space and moved towards the sole source of light, her face lit up as she recognized her own lantern. Picking it up, she turned over the compact rectangular prism in her paws, inspecting for any damage. She wiped the opaque emitters clean, and clipped it to the shoulder strap of her pack. Mari walked back to the center of the chamber, noticing the walls formed an arch filled with rubble. She crouched in the place where she had awoken and ran a nail along the ground. Remnants of her form marked the dusty floor. No tracks led to this spot. “Was I carried here? But there would be tracks from someone else if that was the case.”

Mari approached the mural, her lantern illuminating the details and adding another dimension of shadow to the work. It stretched for the full length of the wall. Much of the mural was broken into fragments and marred by deep scratches, making it illegible. In the center, was an emblem marked with three diamonds. These diamonds were assembled in a triangular shape, the bottom two joined at their middle points with the top diamond filling out the space between them. The final element was a circle that circumscribed the diamonds. Below this was a series of sharp lines, joined together forming groups of varying length.

She dropped her pack off one shoulder and swung it around in front of her. Rifling through it, she pulled out a metal cylinder and a small piece of chalk. Unscrewing the end of the cylinder exposed a roll of parchment, which she pulled out and flattened over the emblem. She gripped the chalk with her other paw and turned it flat against the parchment and began quickly rubbing the chalk to transfer an outline of the emblem and markings. “I’ll bring this back to The Burrow. Rufus might know something.”

Mari packed up and moved across the chamber to the blocked passage. A crisp breeze pressed through the cracks in the boulders. Placing both paws on the debris she leaned in, turning her head and resting her ear against the loose wall. She couldn’t make out any sound beyond the rhythm of her own heartbeat.

She took a few steps back to finalize her assessment. “Okay, I think a mind blast could clear this. I just have to remember Mr. Craghorb’s lesson. Clear your mind an—” she paused. “I almost forgot,” she dropped her pack down in front of her, pulling out what looked like a petrified watermelon half. Precisely engraved across the brow read ‘Stonepaw’ preceded by a series of nested chevrons topped with a bar and two dots. She spun it around and lifted it over her tiny head, placing the helmet firmly.

Mari swung the pack onto her back and refocused her attention on the rubble pile. She brought her paws tightly to her chest, shoulders rounded forward with her fingers curved forming a sphere. She started giving herself the same mental pep talk, “Okay, clear my mind, clear my mind and focus on the vision.” Her palms rotated outward towards the loose stone, as her chest opened and she set her gaze upon the wall “let the vision move through me and see it thro—”

A blast reverberated through the space, the light on Mari’s lantern shuddered while dust choked the air. Her short smooth fur stood on end, static electricity snapped between the fibers. The delayed sounds of rock and rubble impacted in a space adjoining this room and echoed back around her. Mari coughed as warm sunlight broke through the swirling dust, reflecting on millions of bits of suspended particulate. The glinting sea coalesced into familiar shapes, almond eyes guided her vision to a thick nose, resting above a mouth interrupted by two smooth teeth. Coarse hair highlighted the features. The air between the spaces balanced like a breath, exhaling this ephemeral visage then whisking through her as a rush of fragrant air inhaled through the now gaping hole.

Her unease faded and was replaced by a feeling of warmth, a wave of nostalgia that brought her back to the days before the war. A time when she was small and her world was dominated by her mothers unrelenting affection. 

She scrambled over the pile of regolith, chunks of rock shifting under foot. “Dang, I wish that would have been in class, maybe then the others would think I was actually capable of manifesting.”

As Mari moved to the next room, she saw the source of the daylight. An opening nearly forty tails up framed a rope that suspended to the floor where the slack coiled. She looked back at the passage she had just come from. While most of this chamber was lined by unremarkable rock walls, the sculpted doorway was ornately framed with images of various burrowing rodents. Some engaged in battle with fish, while others defended against aerial assaults from birds. Towards the top was an image of a bipedal creature Mari had never seen before. Surrounded by burrowing rodents of all types, this creature seemed to be a partner or friend to them.

She reached out a paw, and as it drew near the images, a wave of energy pulsed through the inscriptions. Reflexively, she withdrew, paused, and reached back to replicate the reaction. Nothing.

She inspected the scene a while longer, committing what she could to memory, then made her way to the rope. Climbing to the surface, she pierced the sunlight and ascended into the day. Her eyes squinted; the setting sun was intense. She pulled off the helmet, sliding it into her pack, and reached into her vest pocket pulling out a pair of shades. Donning them instantly relieved her eyes. The round frames mechanically expanded a layer of thin canvas to cover even the sides from sunlight, effectively sealing her eyes.

Mari surveyed her surroundings. She knew she was on the north end of Long Valley. Scrub, stubby pine trees, and scree marked the landscape. Nearby mountains towered, lining the horizon in all directions. Next to the opening she had just climbed from, a large boulder sat, its tracks betraying any secret that it had previously covered the hole. She drew a breath and pressed her tongue to her big flat incisors, releasing it to produce a powerful whistle. A large rabbit with dark tan fur peppered with black and white markings leapt from a nearby bush. Its sail-like ears eclipsed the sun, which Mari estimated to be about an hour from cresting the horizon.

A smile of relief spread across her face. “Ah, there ya are, my beautiful boy,” she said, firmly patting the rabbit on its muscular haunch. The rabbit’s nose twitched vigorously, each nostril flared and shifted in search of rogue scents. Its glossy eyes devoid of thought pierced the horizon blankly.

The rabbit was rigged up with a riding harness, saddle, and bags. Mari reached into one of the saddlebags and pulled out another long tube, unscrewing the flat cap and withdrawing a thick roll of well used paper.

“Well, Phlip, what were we up to and why can’t I remember anything before we left The Burrow?” she asked the rabbit.

She unfurled a large map, turning Phlip’s backside into an impromptu table. Her thin finger traced the route back to The Burrow. “Well, I’m not seeing any notes here…” she gave the rabbit a side-eye. “Do you remember anything?” The rabbit dropped a few quick pellets to the dry, rocky ground.

“Thought not,” Mari muttered to herself. “Alright then, let’s try and get home before dark. The birds will be out soon.”

She grabbed Phlip’s harness and, in a swift motion, levered herself onto the saddle while seamlessly giving him a firm kick with her heels. Off they went, bounding down the valley and into the sunset at high speed.

As they wove through the familiar terrain the clouds shifted to light pink puffs. Mari pondered the events, trying to remember what she had been up to before waking up in that chamber. The last thing that came to mind was chatting with her friend Jerro, an engineer from Deepworks, a subsurface dam and power station. But they had just been chatting about her upcoming psionics trial and what her plans were after the academy.

“Well,” she said to herself as the wind whipped through her fur, “I suppose that’s somewhere to start.”

Mari spotted the ancient megalithic ruins marking a wide path of crumbled black gravel which stretched down the valley and into a pass that led out of Long Valley. A distant cawing snapped her back to the danger of being exposed on the surface. Instinctively she pulled her body tight to Phlip pressing her chest into his back. She turned her head skyward toward the call and spotted two winged forms approaching her position. 

She pulled Phlips reins hard, directing him sharply into the ruins, seamlessly sliding her leg over and dismounted. They ducked under a rectangular column of grey stone that had toppled over and rested on another dilapidated structure. Rusted sticks of ribbed metal protruded from the end mangled in each other's grasp. Mari and Phlip pulled into a windowless room filled with empty turned over shelves and hunkered down in a nook. The dusty room was lined with framed compartments that rose to the high ceiling. The contents had long been scavenged. Shards of glass littered the floor, composed of white and black checkered squares, some torn off revealing a yellowed underlayer. A red counter was tilted against the main entrance which held up the collapsing roof.

Two sets of sweeping wings disturbed the silence and were quickly replaced by the clacking of talons on the firm surface outside of the ruins. Mari looked into Phlips eye, placed a paw on his ear and a finger to her pursed lips. The tapping shifted to sharp crunching as it entered the decaying building. A loud squawk reflexively startled Mari and she drew closer to Phlip. She could feel his heart pounding, but his face was ignorantly stoic. Another series of caws was followed by a loud scuff and the clattering of claws retreated. Mari let out a sigh of relief as they disappeared entirely.

After a moment of silence, they picked up and returned to their previous path. The deep violet of twilight had taken over as stars began to poke through the darkening sky. The landscape shifted from rocky scrub and pine to verdant foliage and soft grasses. Clusters of trees grew along the creek marking its path. Mari directed Phlip towards this thick meandering line of vegetation, using it as cover for their movement. They had transitioned from the foothills and the hidden entrance to The Burrow wasn’t much further.

A downed tree marked the location. She rode up and hopped off Phlip’s back. Quickly looking around the area, her paw found a familiar limb, worn smooth from use. She gave it a twist and it responded with a mechanical click, slowly revealing a small metal pad. Mari slid her paw onto it while the sluggish panel was only halfway open. A red light glowed under her paw, then flipped to green and faded.

The grey mass of wood shifted and hinged at one end. Soft lights, similar to Mari’s lantern, led down a slope and poured out into the dark backdrop. Mari led the way with Phlip close at heel and began descending the ramp. The chirping of crickets faded as a deep thud from behind alerted her that the entrance had resealed.