The Primordial Saga: A Faerie's Woe

     A tingling sensation slowly spread across the Kougra's entire body. She watched as the doors grew more massive and the blades of grass towered over her, the ground now mere inches away from her face. In front of her, two other Meowclopses were staring at each other, then at her. She tried to talk but all that came out of her throat was a soft purr.

     Oh great, communication's gone, Brynn thought to herself, but it can't get any harder than this, right?

     She found out later that she was completely wrong, for she kept losing her balance and getting her paws caught between the cobblestones. It took her some time to adjust to walking on all fours, but just as she was getting used to it, she realized that she couldn't rely on her poor eyesight the lower she descended. Her improved sense of smell and sound made up for it, although she had absolutely no idea how it helped her avoid numerous obstacles, locate the staircases or find her way around at all. But it did, and magnificently too.

     It felt like she spent an eternity in there wandering down endless corridors, taking too many turns and meeting every other Petpet on the way. She had no way to tell the time except for the timer strapped to her neck, which Sophie had provided them before they transformed into Meowclopses. The timer was set to ring half an hour before they would revert to their normal selves so that they had ample time to leave the catacombs safely.

     As they progressed further, their surroundings became more unusual. The air felt denser, like some sort of invisible pressure was pressing down on Brynn, and the growling sounds became more amplified with every step she took. It was tolerable for the most part, until it suddenly became overbearing.

     Without any warning, Brynn's mind suddenly went into a frenzied whirl. White noise took over, deafening and echoing so loudly inside her skull that she pawed desperately at her head to try to slam out the sound. Her incessant meows were nothing like the sweet, gentle purr she emitted just hours ago; they were now harsh, feral and anguished pleas for whatever was doing these things to her to stop. She could hear Sophie's cries too amid her own, but Illuma... wasn't making any noise? Her mind was too troubled to focus on anything though, let alone try to find Illuma. The torment seemed to last forever.

     She didn't know when she started to calm down again but she felt immensely relieved when the madness in her mind gradually vanished. An urgent meow sounded from behind her and she turned around. Sophie's footsteps were growing fainter, so she quickly followed lest she was left alone in this horrific place. She hadn't expected the catacombs to be this terrifying.

     A short while after, Brynn transformed back into her Kougra form. She unfastened the chain on her neck and examined the timer. It had already gone off. "Huh. I didn't hear it at all," she muttered. "It must've rung while I was trying to get the noise out of my head."

     "You heard it too?" She heard Illuma from her left, who was back in her Faerie form. "That was weird, right?"

     "My ears are still ringing," Sophie groaned as she leaned over a wall, holding her head. As she regained her composure, her eyes lingered on the runic inscriptions on the wall. "Wait, what do we have here?" Her fingers skimmed through the writings as she tried to make sense of a language she had never seen before.

     "Uh, Sophie," Brynn called out. "How are we getting out of here?"

     "The same way we came in," Sophie answered without looking back, her eyes still focused on the carvings.

     "But we turned back into our former selves, so how do we—"

     "I brought some more of the potion with me in case this happened."

     "Oh, okay. Then what about the curses?" Brynn asked. "You said they won't affect Petpets but we still felt some sort of disturbance, didn't we?"

     "Yeah," Illuma agreed. "Guess our potion master made a few errors in her calculations."

     Sophie grimaced at the comment. "I don't make errors, sunshine. I'm not sure what that noise was, but I've studied the Catacombs before and I'm certain it wasn't caused by one of its curses." She felt the walls, finally found a couple of loose bricks and pressed them one after the other. The room began to shake as the wall parted away to reveal a hidden chamber with a partially tarnished silver disc sitting on a small pedestal.

     "That must be the seal!" Brynn exclaimed, joining the Ixi's side. "But wait a minute… If that noise wasn't caused by a curse, then what did?"

     "I can answer that," she heard Illuma's voice from behind her. Before she could turn, tendrils of white light erupted from the ground, ensnaring both her and Sophie. "It's from the power leaking out of the weakened seal. I have to admit, you're more resourceful than what I had initially thought." Illuma walked past the both of them and picked up the artefact. "I had my doubts that you'd manage to find the Primordial, but you handed it to me on a literal silver platter." The Faerie lifted the disc over her head, wisps of golden aura flowing around her, and the runes carved into it started to gleam brightly.

     "She's releasing the Primordial!" Sophie shouted, struggling to free herself from the bonds just like Brynn was.

     Illuma let out a hearty laugh. "I hope you'll enjoy the show. Oh, and by the way, the inscriptions on the wall were warnings. The artefact was kept in a dark hidden chamber to ensure that the entity inside could never come in contact with its natural element. And in this case, it's the Element of Light," she explained. "Too bad you brought a Light Faerie with you."

     "You can't do that!" Brynn cried. "You'll destroy the whole world!"

     "The world deserves to be destroyed!" the Light Faerie snapped. "What has it ever given you other than suffering, Brynn? You spent your whole life trying to make it a better place, but did it happen?" She then focussed on Sophie. "A curse took away your family, your whole town. You had to fend for yourself in the Haunted Woods of all places since you were a kid. Nobody ever came to ask you how you were coping. Even after it was restored, you've become so used to the solitude that even the presence of another Neopian in your vicinity makes you uncomfortable. What good has this world ever done to you? Nothing!"

     "Illuma, please!" Brynn pleaded. "I know you've had a hard life, I know you're hurt and angry, but that can change."

     "You can't change what is destined, Brynn," Illuma scorned. "This is the nature of this world. It always betrays you. If you avert one crisis, another one is ready to take its place. The world always needs a saviour because the truth is, it doesn't want to be saved. But you... you are all puppets, dancing on this gross stage because it makes you feel some semblance of structure and meaning in your pointless lives! I'm not angry. I simply refuse to be a puppet of this cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules. Every single day you wake up, eat, work, sleep, rinse and repeat, stretching days into months, years and decades, trying to ignore the fact that existence is nothing but a perpetual cycle of endless misery. I'm doing this world a favour by putting it out of that misery."

     "I appreciate the gesture," Sophie uttered, managing to free one of her hands from the tendrils, "but I'll have to decline the offer." In that hand was a small flask of dark red liquid which she quickly hurled at Illuma, who shot a blast of light at it and made the bottle explode in mid-air. However, the viscous liquid inside twisted and morphed into a flock of Batterflies and attacked the Faerie. As Illuma's focus shifted towards defending herself, the snares on Brynn and Sophie shattered into sparkles and vanished.

     "What was that? Do you keep that thing with you at all times?" Brynn enquired.

     "I live in the Haunted Woods," Sophie answered with a shrug.

     "Enough!" Illuma growled, releasing a pulse of energy that eradicated the magical Batterflies. As Brynn braced herself for a fight, she noticed that the Light Faerie seemed... different. The left half of her upper body had transformed into raw light and the rest of her physical form was slowly fading away.

     "The Primordial," Sophie said, picking up on the Kougra's confused expressions. "It's feeding on her magic. We need to separate her from the seal before it takes over her mind and body."

To be continued…