Famine

Zac contemplated the scene, his heart tightly gripped by a clammy dread. The stench, a harsh blend of burnt flesh and bile, rose in his throat, threatening to bring up his own. The remains of worms and crawlers, petrified by lava, still smoked, their blackened carcasses melting into the new obsidian landscape. It was the odor of destruction, of eradication, a putrid symphony orchestrated by his own hand. Every breath was a gulp of this bitter victory, a constant reminder of the cost of his survival.

He fought back a gag, the bitterness rising to his lips. Hunger gnawed at him, but the very thought of feeding in this open-air morgue twisted his insides. Casting a final look over the frozen expanse of chitin and stone, he resumed his run, a silent ghost in this silent world, heading toward the cavern from which the flood of the nameless had come.

The path was torture. The cave network, once familiar, had been devastated, reshaped by the avalanche of writhing flesh. Some galleries had collapsed, others widened, still others blocked by piles of calcified debris, seemed to have changed places. Zac wandered, lost in this shifting labyrinth. Every turn, every fork was a gamble, a deeper plunge into a chaos-molded unknown. The air hung heavy, thick with the echo of cataclysm. Hours stretched by, marked only by the scraping of his armor and the steady rhythm of his own breath.

No longer did he perceive the frantic agitation of the crawlers, their crackling whispers, their slithering across stone. Instead, a deeper, more seismic sound emerged: a distant trembling, a slow, regular heartbeat he sensed not with his ears, but through the soles of his boots, resonating up through his bones. It was the cavern's own pulse, a colossal breath vibrating through rock. He was on the right path. Instinct, honed by countless deaths, guided him, following these vibrations, these waves that danced through stone, tracing an invisible route in the darkness.

Eventually, he reached a wall, not a natural barrier, but an artificial barricade of raw rock. The noise behind him was thunderous, a deep rumbling that vibrated through his chest. Without hesitation, he lifted Morngul. His cursed blade, an extension of his own brutality, struck over and over. The power of the Forge of Brutality roared within him, amplifying each blow, turning his fury into raw force. Stone exploded in a geyser of dark shards, revealing a gaping opening. The wall gave way to surgical violence.

He entered the cavern, footsteps dragging, his Balrog armor weighing heavier than ever. A cold apprehension seized him. He felt, vertiginously, that this place wasn't inanimate, that it possessed a will, a consciousness. Cold sweat beaded his brow as he crossed the invisible threshold. Morngul lifted, its pale and sickly violet light slicing the darkness. Each footstep was deliberate, muted, absorbed by the Shroud. Silence was terrifying, a crushing void broken only by the cavern's ponderous, rhythmic throbbing. A brutal truth seized him with sudden force: how could he have been so blind? The answer was carved into stone, written in the air, in the world's own rhythm.

Then, something stirred deep within. His dark side, forged from hate and survival, that distilled essence of Ungoliant, responded. It shivered, not from fear, but in visceral recognition, in resonance with the immense evil that had spotted him. He felt the vastness of the creature, an entity enveloping the entire cavern with an unbearable pressure, a presence that judged him. But within this mutual recognition, another sensation arose: fear. Not his own. The cavern's. A primal, ancient fear, the irrepressible terror of what must inevitably come: famine.

On the ground, minerals, gems, crystals, and other precious resources became ever scarcer. The shimmering dust he'd noticed elsewhere had nearly vanished, not devoured by the worms, but by the creature itself, absorbing the very essence of stone to sustain itself. Zac understood, a cold clarity overtaking his mind: the cavern would starve. This subterranean titan was consuming itself, gnawing its own innards in a slow, inevitable agony.

A dark, almost perverse satisfaction bloomed within him. He could wait, witness the slow anguish of this cavernous stomach, this starving beast that had once nourished his enemies. But for now, he had an opportunity. He opened his bag, fingers moving with calculated speed, and began collecting whatever seemed useful: a bit of mithril, its silvery glow warming his cold heart; a handful of gems, shards of light in a kingdom of darkness; strange ores of impossible colors, fragments of rock vibrating beneath his touch. He chose them for their glitter in the dark, like a crow drawn to sparkle. Aside from the mithril, he recognized none, trusting only his instincts. He filled his bag, amassing the dying wealth of this prison.

His exploration led him to an opening, an immense crack in the rock, wide and dark, until now inaccessible, once blocked by the ceaseless tide of enemies. Now the way was clear, a passage to the unknown.

At the far end of the cavern, in a darkness deeper than anywhere else, a presence emerged: a massive door of pure obsidian stood out against the walls. Covered in runes, symbols that seemed to absorb ambient light, making them darker than the rock itself, they were angular, cruel, a script of spikes and hooks, the Black Speech of Mordor.

He advanced, his Balrog armor absorbing the last glimmers of light. He stood before the door, eyes taking in every rune, every detail, intent on describing, analyzing, understanding it. It was a riddle. A challenge.

Regardless, the cavern's agony had only just begun. He had time to study the new door, to decipher its secret, to delay the inevitable confrontation with whatever lay beyond.

As the cavern continued to vibrate with its silent fear and mounting famine, Zac stepped even closer to the door. He stretched out his hand, stopping just short of touching, his senses were tuned, searching for the secret. He studied the runes, not with his eyes, but with his mind, focusing on their "melody," the subtle rhythm of powers inscribed within. Morngul, at his hip, vibrated gently, resonating with this silent reading.

After a while, a detail struck him: the dust. The ground before the door was conspicuously clean, devoid of the fine layer of mineral and rock dust seen everywhere else. Looking to the sides, he spotted piles of dust, as if brushed aside, swept away. The door had been opened, recently.

Zac was startled, a chill of apprehension running through him. Who, or what, had opened this door? Inside, there were only beasts, creatures lacking the intellect to decipher such a seal. This meant that someone, a being capable of reading the Black Speech, had gone through. And to survive in these depths, to venture here, that entity must be powerful, formidable. That did not bode well. The solitude he'd come to accept as a form of protection now transformed into sudden vulnerability.

He was not alone in these darknesses. And company would not be friendly.