Chapter Text
They’d been three days in this gods’ forsaken cavern.
It smelled of damp and earth and mould, and it was positively crawling with daemons, many of which Gladiolus had only heard spoken of in a legendary sense.
Old Mama Ezma had been right. If the seals had broken and these daemons had flooded into the severely weakened Lucis, the results would have been utter devastation.
It was Ignis who landed the death blow on the Aramusha, flipping his daggers one after the other at the daemon. The severely injured monster had managed to just barely deflect the first of the two daggers but the second buried its blade into that joint between neck and shoulder, just above the thing’s collar bone…if daemons even had bones.
Gladiolus had no idea what the anatomy of a daemon was but he supposed that they had to have something that served as a skeletal structure. Well, maybe not Flans.
The Aramusha’s katana clattered against the floor as the daemon melted into black ichor. It’s dying screech sounded more like defiance than pain but eventually the cavern was empty except for them. There was a faint dripping sound that echoed around them and their own heavy breathing bounced off the walls loudly.
Prompto dismissed his gun and slouched back against a slimy wall, sliding down it to sit hunched on the ground. “I need a moment,” he said, his voice worryingly breathless.
“You okay, Prompto?” Noctis asked, sitting beside the gunner and ignoring the wet, slimy feel of the cave wall. They were beyond filthy and damp by now so what was the point of worrying any more about his clothes.
Prompto waved his hand weakly but didn’t respond, gripping his ankles and letting his head hang between his knees. Ignis wavered for a moment before releasing the world-weariest sigh any of them had heard and joined the two younger men on the ground, careful to keep his back from coming into contact with the wall.
“I think we all need a moment to rest,” he said, placing a hand against Prompto’s back and running it up to cup his neck, gently pressing his fingers against the pressure points in Prompto’s neck. Prompto relaxed a little more and let his head drop just a little further.
He’d been doing very well for the last three days. They all knew of his claustrophobia and, apart from a few token protests, he’d managed with little complaint. But they hadn’t slept in two days and his defences had started breaking down a while ago, becoming increasingly jumpy and more and more quiet with each hour.
Not that any of them were in any better shape. This place was starting to get to them all.
Gladiolus hoped that they were either at the end of the maze with this next room or that the room provided a safe haven for them to all get some sleep.
He reached up to rub at his eyes.
The constant battles with insanely strong daemons and the lack of sleep for two days was beginning to bear on even his own stamina and strength.
He didn’t sit down with the others, though he had cast a longing glance at the ground beside Noctis, and instead paced the area just in front of them. Just because they had cleared the Aramusha from this room and nothing yet had come to bother them didn’t mean that he could let down his guard. Especially as the others weren’t in a position where they could quickly regain their feet and launch into battle.
Somewhere distant – most likely from the tunnel they were to take to continue down – there was a sort of tramping sound like heavy footfalls. No doubt it was their next challenge. Gladiolus sighed.
It sounded like an Iron Giant.
“Gladio.” Ignis’ voice pulled Gladiolus away from his glare in the direction of the next tunnel and he turned. Ignis was holding out a bar of hand soap and a half-empty bottle of water towards him.
“We could use a little sustenance I think,” he said by way of explanation. Noctis was already chewing at an apple, a small pack containing strips of dried meat open in his lap and a bottle of water by his knee. Prompto wasn’t looking as peaky now that he was sipping at his bottle of water.
Gladiolus smirked. Of course, Ignis would have prepared for almost all situations.
He received his own portion of the victuals after his hands were deemed clean enough and paced as he chewed at the apple. The food added some back to the strength he had lost over the last five or six hours but it wouldn’t reenergize them at this point.
They needed sleep.
They ate in silence for several minutes, regaining strength and resting for the next challenge. Gladiolus finished his apple off and flicked the core into the darkness, listening to it striking the ground with a damp sounding thump.
“How many more rooms to do you think there are?” Prompto’s voice seemed almost swallowed up by the cavern. He shook his head at the apple Ignis offered him and let his head drop between his knees again, breathing purposefully.
Ignis sighed. “It’s hard to say. None of these caverns were mapped before they were sealed. It could be one more room or it could be a dozen. We’re flying blind as it were.”
“Maybe we should consider setting up a temporary camp in here,” Gladiolus said. “Even if it isn’t a safe room. We need sleep and if we set a watch between the four of us, we can all get some sleep.”
Ignis hummed, inclining his head slightly. “Let us see what the next cavern holds first.”
Gladiolus sighed, recapping the nearly empty bottle of water and slipping it – and the remainder of the meat strips – into a pocket. “Well,” he said, “we won’t find out anything by sitting around here. Let’s get this over with.”
Gladiolus led the way down the tunnel, keeping one hand pressed against the wall. Partly to keep from being lost if the path spilt and partly because the footing was treacherous. A few metres into the tunnel, he came to an abrupt stop and raised a fist up over his shoulder. He heard the others stop behind him, falling still, but he wasn't paying attention to them, focusing instead on what he could hear – or rather not hear – around them.
The heavy footfalls that they had been able to hear in the last room were gone and had left behind a strange and eerie sort of silence.
They looked at each other warily but there wasn't anything they could do about it, they had to continue down the tunnel.
Gladiolus snorted quietly and after a brief moment made the hand sign for them to continue.
A few feet further down, just beyond the light of their torches, the tunnel took a sharp right turn and ended suddenly at the haphazard masonry that formed both marker and barrier to the next cavern. The warning sigils glowed with phosphorescent light beneath the heavy grime and a few bold black lichens that managed to grow by feeding off the teeny light. The room beyond the soft glow was black as pitch and the light of their torches did not penetrate far into the darkness.
Gladiolus glanced at Noctis questioningly but Noctis shook his head.
It wasn't a safe room then.
It was a pity though that Noctis wasn't fluent in the old Lucian hieroglyphics and that these were as damaged as they were. It would have given them a head's up as to what type of daemon was corralled inside the cavern.
There was no sound or movement beyond the barrier. Whatever was in there was waiting for them to make the first move but they didn't dare enter the cavern until they had at least an idea of what they might be up against.
Ignis moved beside him, sliding his glasses up to rub at his watering eyes before he froze, staring at something within the darkness. Gladiolus snapped his attention back to the cavern.
There was a tiny pinprick of something in the darkness. For a moment he wasn't even sure it was there but then, all of a sudden, it ballooned out and took on a hideously bruised colour.
He didn't realise what it was until he felt the foreign tugging on his body, just behind his navel.
A gravity spell.
Gladiolus cursed and Prompto yelped as they were yanked off their feet by the spell and dragged into the cavern. They scrambled at the floor to stop themselves for a few feet before Prompto managed to spin around onto his back and fire a Starshell at the space just above the sickly purple-red magic.
The light of the Starshell forced the daemon to break the magic spell and caused it to roar with pain as it lit the entire cavern.
“Oh my god,” Prompto gasped as they got a look at the daemon for the first time. “What is that thing?”
Gladiolus hissed.
It was a gods’ damned Chandravarma, a bigger and meaner tempered cousin of the Iron Giant, and a daemon Gladiolus only half-believed the existence of. The daemon bestiary that he had been forced to study had only mentioned it, plus the text had been so old.
The daemon reared back and swung it's fiery sword at them in a sweep.
“Get down!” Ignis yelled, practically leaping on top of Noctis. The sword passed over the top of them and all of them could feel their backs burn, their clothing smouldering as the limited fire protection woven within the thread tried to assuage the worst of the damage.
Noctis was up the instant the sword had passed over him and he launched the Engine Blade at the daemon as hard as he could.
Unfortunately, Noctis’ warp strike did little more than scratch the daemon’s armoured hide and Prompto’s bullets were simply ricocheting off its ankle, but he wasn’t stopping his assault, single-mindedly attempting to cause damage in that one area and bring the eldritch horror down to its knee. Gladiolus joined him but his sword was doing only a little more damage than Noctis’ had done.
“Look out!” Gladiolus jerked his head up at the cry and only just had time to tackle Prompto out of the way as the Chandravarma reared back and slammed its fist into the ground nearby. The ground cracked and pieces flew up around the daemon’s arm, blue magic skittering across the ground and knocking Ignis and Noctis off their feet.
Dust and pebbles fell from the ceiling like pattering rain as they scrambled back to their feet. The ground was uneven now, broken stone jutting up from the site of impact and a couple of the stalactites had fallen, shattering across the floor.
“Try to keep it from doing that!” Ignis called, pole vaulting away from the daemon's swing on his lance. “The structure of the cavern is too unstable to withstand another hit!”
“Oh shit! Noct!” Prompto yelled.
Noctis hadn't pushed himself up to his feet fast enough and the Chandravarma had shot down with a beefy hand to pluck Noctis up. Noctis cried out as the daemon began to squeeze him and the fell creature probably would have crushed him if Gladiolus hadn't gone at its legs with his greatsword, pirouetting like a windmill.
The daemon flung Noctis as it fell to its knees and Noctis barely managed to warp away before making a very painful acquaintance with the wall.
He landed on his feet near Prompto, who fired another Starshell towards the downed daemon – the last having just lost it's light and plunging the cavern back into near darkness, the daemon's sword only lighting the area immediately around it – and crushed a potion in his hand.
It didn't fully heal his bruised ribs but it would hold until the battle ended and he could take a more powerful potion.
“Oh, it's on now,” Noctis practically sneered and dismissed his Engine Blade, the Armiger suddenly bursting to life around him. He commanded the ethereal blades forward and all of the ten blades he had claimed so far flew at the vulnerable daemon, striking it as Noctis vanished and appeared faster than lightning to strike additional blows with each glaive.
He landed as the magic ended, out of breath and sweating, feeling too stretched out and thin which he knew was just because of the Royal Arms and the price of their use. The quickening of his heart beat and the tightness in his chest was more of the same.
He was running out of magical stamina.
Two days of no rest made it easier for him to hit stasis and he was dismally close to it already. He had maybe three warps left before he was in stasis or one really powerful attack spell.
“We've got it on its last legs!” Ignis called and they really did, the horror's armour was dented in multiple spots, the armour of its left leg completely ripped off and dripping black ichor. It was having trouble standing on that leg but pain seemed hardly to deter it as it raised its hand, sickly purple bubbling from its palm again.
“Not again!” Prompto cried, latching onto a stalagmite at the edge of the cavern to keep from being sucked into the spell again. Gladiolus dug his sword into the ground and Noctis warped to safety but Ignis wasn't so lucky, knocked off his feet before he could react and bashed into the spell. He collapsed to the ground but the spell kept jerking him around until Noctis warped into the Chandravarma, breaking its concentration.
“I got you, Igster!” Prompto called, darting over and assisting a dazed, bleeding Ignis to his feet and dragging him away from danger.
Noctis and Gladiolus squared up to the daemon both attacking simultaneously, Gladiolus at his legs and Noctis warp-striking at its chest. Noctis stumbled when his feet touched the ground again, stasis hitting him hard like it always did, and placed a hand to his forehead.
That should have done it but of course the eldritch being simply couldn't die without giving one final attack.
It reared back and slammed its entire weight into the ground again before melting away.
The blow was enough and the cavern began quaking around them, stalactites shattering on impact as they fell from the ceiling. Prompto was yelling and even Ignis was calling out to them.
The roof of the cavern was collapsing around them and Noctis – dazed, stasis weak Noctis – was in danger.
Gladiolus did the only thing he could think of to get Noctis to safety and lunged forward, grabbing Noctis’ arm and swinging him out of harm’s way. Noctis hit the ground outside the area of immediate danger and rolled with the force of the fling.
It was desperate and awkward and knocked him off balance.
But Gladiolus had known, even before his hand had come into contact with Noctis’ arm, that he would not escape the collapse.
All he could do was throw his arms up and over his head as the rocks fell around and on him with a sound like thunder. Darkness claimed his vision and the last thing he heard over the collapse was Noctis’ panicked voice, screaming his name.
“GLADIO!”