Descent into Darkness
by Gregory J. Glanz
There was no death. Just darkness. And a dank
constant that he woke up to everyday in the lowest
traversable caverns below the mountains. There was
nothing but sharp, uneven stone, hardscrabble detritus.
The musty soul of the mountain stretched into the gloom,
into the vast spires of stone above him, festered in Wank.
The shadow of his thoughts he could almost grasp,
the unreality of his half-dream state more solid than his
waking mind, his movements through the ethereal spaces
of his angst more substantial than the body he used to trod
alone among the deepest tunnels of the Sotus, OrcHome.
Yet even in this state of drowsiness, Wank
maintained a thin veil of shadow about himself despite the
embers of his fire having gone cold and gray. Echoed
whispers of uncertain voices sat him up and a sudden
shuffling of feet instinctively thickened his shadowy
shroud.
He moved to crouch against a far wall, the cavern
shaped like an arrowhead with but one way in or out
where it might be mounted on a shaft. Several orcs tiptoed
in, darkmoss torches burning blue, to rummage
through his transient camp, a place he thought well
beyond their reach, beyond their ken.
60
Excited whispers from the gnarly warriors soon