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So this was the place.
Tama searched the darkness from the mouth of the cave and the darkness leered back at them. They could turn back, of course. Maybe some stones are better off left unturned, but Tama was never one to leave questions unanswered.
And so the descent began. Stalactites and stalagmites turned to polished stone walls and floors, becoming more intricately patterned the deeper they went. The entire structure was a maze, and every dimly lit branching hallway looked like the one before it. Tama wasn't entirely sure where they were going, or even really what they were looking for, but their feet carried them forward nonetheless.
They had passed several doors now, each looking the same as the last, but this one stopped Tama's mindless march dead in its tracks. They did their best to ignore the chill up their spine as they turned to face it. A sickness filled their gut as they reached for the doorknob. Turning it only made the feeling worse. They coughed back the bile filling their throat, determined to see the journey through.
The room behind the door was hidden in shadow, even more so than the unlit hallways that led here. It was difficult to see inside, but upon entering deeper, it had clearly been ransacked in the past; a lot of small things were left in disarray or missing entirely and large machines and scientific equipment made up most of what remained. Tama had to be careful not to step on broken glass as their feet continued their trek. They ambled past tall shelves littered with shattered glassware as rats scurried past the skeletons of other small animals. A handful of surgical tables were left toppled over, but blood still stained their rusty surfaces.
As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, Tama was able to see more clearly where their feet were taking them. It became harder and harder to avoid the glass on the floor, the fragments gradually getting bigger the closer they got to their destination, but Tama hadn't noticed the cuts to their feet when they inevitably kicked a piece; in fact, they hardly felt anything at all. All that existed was the feeling of their own chakra enveloping them. It was stale, but it was their own.
At the furthest end of the room, engulfed by a cloud of Tama's own vestigial chakra, was a large glass tank. Or the remnants of one. It was certainly large enough at one point for a full-grown adult to fit inside, though Tama had an inkling that whatever had been inside had not grown to its full size within. Whatever it was, whoever it was, escaped while they were still young, an infant, maybe? A toddler at the oldest, the leftover chakra in the air was not very refined. The glass cut their hand as they reached out, but the pain was hardly noticeable as blood dripped down their fingertips. In the dim light, it was almost as black as the stale blood caked onto the surgical tables around them.
So this was the place.
Tama pulled their attention away from the tank to look at the glass at their feet. The shards of thick glass looked like they should have been indestructible, and yet, they were still shards. In their peripheral, there was something different amongst the debris, different glass, this was smaller, thinner, and convex. Their hands suffered more injuries as Tama blindly sifted through in the dark. They weren't entirely sure what they were looking for. It seemed silly to be so preoccupied with slightly different glass, but they continued nonetheless.
A pair of glasses. Unearthed from beneath the rubble. One of the round lenses was shattered and the other was completely missing, existing only in fragments on the floor. Tama held them to their face. The shattered lens was impossible to see through, although it wasn't like Tama needed glasses anyway. Still, something compelled them to stash the spectacles away in the pouch on their hip, along with some of the scattered glass from the floor. A memento, maybe.
Tama's feet carried them out the same way they came: past broken science equipment, past identical wooden doors, through winding, labyrinthian hallways, and along murky, dank cave walls, until they were back where they started. They turned back for a moment at the mouth of the cave. The darkness from within leered less, now. The stone had been overturned, but Tama was left with more unanswered questions.