Chapter 1 Above our heads, and way up high A big blue roof is called the sky If you climb up to reach the top You go and go and never stop But at the top, above your head A yellow lantern sits instead On dirt, that’s made when life decays Green mushrooms grow to catch its rays A lake of foam and salt called sea Holds rocking ships that wander free At end of land it’s squarely put You’d flood the world to drain a foot Five worlds above and one below You’ ll have to see to truly know The father’s words flowed like honey as his recitation ended He had recalled the poem from his own childhood, and still pondered what it all meant He could barely see his daughter’s face from the dim glow of phosphorescent mushrooms dotting their home. T hey were bred to wax and wane as the hours passed, simulati ng the cycle of night and day. The dull green glow of the fungal clumps gave proof of how late into the night it had become He was tired , but he knew how restless the girl became at night. He hope d his tales would help her sleep, but it seemed like his story roused more than it relaxed. She stared off in contemplation before she gave him a puzzled look “Daddy, is that all true?” she finally asked. “Yes sweetheart, it’s all true.” he slowly replied He tried to match her enthusiasm on the topic and returned a soft and tired, but genuine smile. His calloused hands reached down to tuck her in. Once he finished, his back began to creak as he righted himself into a sitting position. After a few minutes, the man kissed his child on the forehead and wished her goodnight. He crept from her room and shut its thick mycelium door , bidding her sweet dreams a final time as it closed behind him But that night , the girl c ould not sleep. Instead, she imagine d all the things he said to her A ceiling that never ends? What would such a thing even look like? If this ceiling is blue, then who painted it when it’s too tall to reach? What holds the lantern in the sky? The questions danced in her mind all night, burn ing in her head as she tossed and turned. As soon as morning’s first light poured from the glowcaps , she jumped out of bed. The girl begged her father to tell her more about the world up above. A sleepless night had not dampened her e nthusiasm in the sligh test, and she probed him for everything he knew about the distant land He answered all that he could , which was little, and finally explained that he had never s een the surface for himself. He spoke to her frankly; if she wanted to learn more, she would h ave to find the answers herself. Everything he knew came only from the legends he inherited Nobody in her village had ever left her Arm, let alone Mowea. She had never seen an outsider before , and the people who left her hometown rarely returned Her native land was remote and poor ; e ven the tax collectors rare ly deigned to visit. A mercantile venture to a place so remote rarely repaid its cost in food. While their land provided plenty for survival, t he fungi they cul tivated attracted neither the rapacious gaze of merchants nor the goods and information that came with the m. In this way, the village remained totally isolated. Sunlight was little more than a rumor that rang through the hollow chambers, and current events usually came after a few decades. Despite the sluggish pace the latest news traveled in her backwater, everyone knew the nature of their homeland. Mowea, the land of her birth, was comprised of an expansive network of caves. One enormous shaft descended from the surface, known as the Mouth . It stretched down at least three thousand fathoms but was probably much deeper. The Mouth had sharp inclinations as it descended , so simply dropping a weight on a rope was insufficient to discover its depth A chilling breeze swept up from the bottom of the abyss for an unknown reason. In other lands, the ground became hot as humans dug deeper into the earth, but this updraft cooled the caves enough to make them habitable. In addition to making the temperature bearable, the breeze contained a unique gas that nourished the subterranean fungi which were the primary producers for the underground ecosystem. Consequently, all life relied on the enigmatic draft for survival. Fille d with the existential dread that th is breeze may stop without notice, thousands of expeditions had been conducted to find the source of the gust All had ended in failure, and efforts to discover the true nature of the pit were abandoned. A complex system of pulleys, cranes, and lifts allowed people and goods to move through the upper layers of the Mouth The huge contraptions were the only way in and out of the land, and powerful fortifying magic was used to preserve the great work Without these, t he lowest branches of human habitation remained mostly inaccessible From the Mouth shot off six smaller but still enormous tunnels, called the Arms . Ea ch Arm marked a millennium of digging by Mowen and her followers , who worked alongside their l iving god with picks in hand They dug out space for human life between the solid stone , and sprawling chambers were carved from the natural cave formations to create routes and space. Excavated rock filled unwanted pits and chambers After a thousand years of digging, one A rm’s excavation would conclude and the next would begin T he subsequent arm would spiral out from a deeper point within the mou th , and the cycle would begin anew In t his manner , a nation was chiseled out of boundless stone F ive A rms were completed, and at two thousand fathoms deep the sixth A rm was currently under construction This process was so constant in Mowean life that one thousand years were simply called an Arm. This made each Arm both a place and an era, though the two were rarely confused The mining was spearheaded by the Earth goddess, Mowen. One of the six gods of t he world , Mowen was the spiritual leader and primogenitor of the troglodytes. Throughout history, she relentlessly tunneled through the hard earth. Her eyes were white and blank, and she could see nothing through them. She relied on her other senses to int eract with the world instead, and relentlessly groped her surroundings She crawled on bare hands and feet and thoughtlessly tore away stones to create new passageways. Mowen was the founder, namesake, and leader of subterranean nation of Mowea. Despite he r unquestioned sovereignty over the land, she took no active role in government . When asked for counsel she would often reply, “I don’t know much about that , I just dig.” Her humble attitude understated her supernatural wisdom, however. Hundreds of pilgrim s seeking enlightenment accompanied Mowen ’s and assisted her in whatever ways they could. Mowen accepted their help graciously, but she forbade worship It embarrassed her shy sensibilities, and she could n’ t tolerate listening to it. She told her people that the only tribute she sought were buckets and shovels. Like her siblings , she was immortal and magical energy naturally radiated from her. In fact, there were only two tangible sources of magic in the world: magic crystals that well ed up out of the land and the six gods. To call her ex istence vital f or the nation’s well - being would understate her significance. She was the blood and soul of her people, and t he fact that no humans dwelt below her latest dig site was testament to that f ac t Each passage she had carved away was revered and meticulously maintained , and people made their homes all along the winding tunnels Branching still from the spindly chambers of the Arms sprouted the F ingers: webs of caves so complex that people born above ground could never hope to find their way through without a map. Unlike the A rms, the Fingers still mostly resembled their natural shapes and were n’ t excavated by the Blind Queen herself. Mowen’s supernatural intuition allowed her to guide the Arm’s path so that it would intersect with as many natural formations as possible, so each Arm connected with dozens of fingers The primordial chambers flawlessly flowed into the rugged shape of the A rm , and an untrained eye struggled to differentiate between the two. Some F ingers might have only a few miles of navigable tunnels, while others contained thousands. Most F ingers were unmapped and at least partially uninhabited, and an array of wild plant s and animals dwelt beyond the limits of society Within each one , an enclave of human ity would stake its claim upon the claustrophobic paths. These small town s and village s were much like the girl’s own : forgotten places at the edge of the world. Few beyond the Mouth had ever seen war. There was nothing to pillage, and the realm was famously hostile to invaders . Two thousand years ago, a Cymopolean army famously starved itself walking from one finger to the next, making a bo ut fi fteen miles of progress in the span of two months. The government of Mowea was headquartered in the shallowest arm of the abyss, and for many of the remote villages central authority was superficial at best. Instead, customs and tradition guided the h and of the villagers who upheld the law by themselves. The generations of rugged living had made the people hardy and independent , and the laws were rarely necessary to resolve disputes. Still, elders were appointed by the townsfolk to adjudicate in specia l circumstances. In this manner, the people had enjoyed thousands of years of relative peace within the dark recesses. The price they paid for this peace was poverty, and their livelihoods were astonishingly meek. Starvation was only avoided with backbreak ing work and cooperation between the villagers. There were dangers other than violence to consider, of course. Luckily, t he man - eating beasts within the fingers were more of a boogeyman to keep the children from getting lost than a real threat T hey found even the dim light of human society intolerable , and g enerally o nly deep delv ing explorers were devoured in their pursuit of precious crystals . A typical mushroom farmer would die of old age before seeing one. In fact, man - eating beasts never appeared in a well - lit place, and nobody could describe true appearance As in everything, however, the extraordinary fades quickly and the ordinary takes its place. The true risks endemic to the land were the infrequent cave - ins and floods. The denizens built their homes in the high caverns and used clever masonry to support the structures as well as they could , but n atural disaster was an unavoidable risk of life below the surface . B ecause of their isolati on , each Finger couldn’t expect any assistance when calamity struck. The history books recounted many cataclysmic earthquakes which swallowed entire Fingers whole, crushing bodies beneath cold stones. Even so, t he thin line between daily life and survival for the Mowean people made them extremely resilien t in the face of emergencies Most villages had already survived multiple tragedies over their ancient histories and remained prepared for another. Despite the hardship that came with underground living , t here was contentment in the eyes of the village folk that dwelt among the girl Edible m ushrooms fed off the g reat draft that poured from the earth and poked their fleshy heads from the rock y outcrops . From these mushrooms, which were grown in every nook of the caves, her village had grown to a modest size . Each strain served a different purpose in their lives and had been bred by her distant ancestors for human use . Some species were used for food, wh ile others provided warmth and light. More still were used for clothing and tools. Everything they needed to survive poured out from the cold stone walls. Water dripped from its stalactites, and the walls of lime stone provided the sturdiest shelter availab le. Regardless of , or perhaps because they were utterly disconnected from the outside world, the people found joy in their simple lives. The toothy grins of the young met the toothless grins of the old, and t he ancient customs were passed down from one gen eration to the next dutifully. For years, the girl simply participated as the wheel of life churned around her. Festivals came and went, and she stood by as her siblings were born As was custom in her village, she lived without a name for much of her chi ldhood. Families carried no name among the Moweans , so she was referred to simply as the d aughter of Joll and Wem after her parents When an old woman in her village by the name of Aria died, the girl inherited her name as part of the funeral ri te s. In this manner, her elders explained, the old would live on through the young. She thought it was a creepy tradition , but having her own name brought her immense joy. The free spirit of adolescence surged over her, and she carried her name to the far reaches of her F inger and beyond. Aria hungered to see the land from her father ’s poem and did everything she could to ex pand her tiny world S he managed to learn how to count and read before her staggeringly bold truancy dashed away hopes for further education She didn’t mind playing with others, but the children her age struggled to keep up with her inexhaustible stamina. After a few hours, s he left them behind and pursued her own activities. In this manner, she antagonized the other children and spent most of her time wandering alone. In her solitude, her brash nature was supplemented with coarse affectations. She was a hoyden, through and th rough. Asking her to be ladylike played like a joke, and some of the townsfolk said that her permissive parents had turned her into a wild child. Her mother and father were already occupied with her four younger siblings, and in their eyes her industriousn ess and self - reliance pardoned boorish manners and audacity. She was deeply grateful for their laissez - faire attitude and loved them deeply, along with her brothers and sister. She begged her parents to allow her to travel freely during the day , and her persistence allowed her to ventur e through her F inger on her own She spent all her time exploring forgotten tunnel s , bobbing along the border between beast and man She would grab special toadstools to light her journeys, which shone brightly for days after they were plucked. She strung each one on a piece of wire and wore it around her neck, freeing her hands. A soothing heat emanated from their bright yellow hulls that she found quite pleasant . She climbed hand over fist through the abyssal dark, rac ing against the shadows behind her. To her, s low travel felt like nails on a chalkboard When she travelled with her brothers or friends, she raced ahead of them and waited at the end of the passageway. She bragged about her prodigious agility and enjoyed performing acrobatics in front of others. With her gifts and experience, she quickly learned how to reach the ends of her F inger and back before dinner. As d ay trips took Aria further and further from home, she ravenously absorbed eve ry detail she could gleam about the world Most people knew even less than she did, and her questioning rarely provided any insight. Mowea saw few foreigners , and fewer still ventured as deep as her settlement Even fugitives had more desirable places to e scape the law. Outlanders were sensitive to the gloomy caves, and most became melancholy after more than a few weeks without sunlight Furthermore, t ravelling through the fingers was taxing, even for natives O utsiders typically required a personal guide to cross the umbral passage way s without getting lost Aria was one of a handful of people that regularly traveled long distances within her stretch of the Arm, and she took pride in both her speed and skill Her feisty temperament was rare among her people, and most could n’t match her enthusiasm for slinking through the tight, da mp passageways . Some crawls would bec o me so narrow that she could only shrug her shoulders to inch her body along the floor While children were widely permitted to explore the passages for themselves, the fervor with which she roamed the caves was peerless. She would emerge from the darkness, soaked from head to toe in foul smelling slime mold with an enormous smile Even as a young girl , she became something of a co urier a round her village as she slithered from one house to the next : delivering g ood s and messages in exchange for gifts and food. Aria began to take more and more meals in the wild stretches of her sparsely populated finger and spent countless nights in her thick sleeping bag S he had received it for her eighth birthday and towed it along from her sturdy belt. She jammed foodstuffs, water, and special exothermic mushrooms within its tight folds before every adventure. She never took a pack with her because it made squeezing through the cracks even more difficult. She always wore two layers of clothing that best suited her journeys through the caves. The outer layer was comprised of a loose jacket and pants. Thick, but tattered fr om constant use, the baggy shape helped her slip between cracks and protected her inner clothing from laceration. Her undergarments were a snug set of tightly woven coveralls. This layer was practically invisible from the outside but was most important of all. The tightly woven fabric made from cave dwelling worms kept her pale skin warm and dry. Without its protection, hypothermia was an inevitability in the co ld, wet caverns between villages. She had worn a small helmet made from boreworm leather as a chi ld but abandoned it as she matured. Even the slightest addition in size mattered for speed and comfort, and her experience allowed her to anticipate and avoid loose rocks with ease. As Aria began to travel along the Arm itself, she began to encounter other villages much like her own E ach had its own unique quirks , and she enjoyed learning their legends about the caverns they called home. She partook in their feasts and had a penchant for dancing, swerving her body between the crowds as she paced the packed centers . A s she expanded her world each place seemed more similar than the last The conservative attitude of the Moweans ensured that each village operated similar ly Aria interrogated everyone she met for what they knew about the surface . Her questions were met with countless stories from somebody that heard it from someone else , and her patience for such tales grew razor thing . One person told her that there was a beast with eight legs and three heads above ground , while the next told he r of a beast with eight heads and three legs . Progress was painfully slo w. T he answers she sought seemed to drift further and further from home as her boundless inquisitiveness was matched with ignorance The girl became jaded at the sheer benightedness of her people, and she sometimes felt like she was the only living human in a sea of animals. Her pride always came before her cynicism, though. She learned that her own Finger was called Yelse by outsiders and considered unremarka ble in every regard. Aria took great offense , and she began introducing herself as Aria of Yelse to make a spectacle of her local pride. In one town, a boy called her village a guano heap to her face. He was too slow to react to her explosive temper and ea rned a broken nose for his choice of words. F ights were far from rare when Aria entered town. She was a pistol, and answered with action when she couldn’t find words For a girl she hel d up surprisingly well in a brawl and could even beat most boys her age in a fair fight. Of course , she still earned plenty of pummelings for her badmouthin g Her nose bled every time somebody struck her face, so she was typically found with rolled up cloths jammed inside her nostrils. Beyond her brash attitude and mi screant behavior was an unparalleled wanderlust. Aria used any lead she could to gain information about the world. She ventured far following rumor s of som eone that had seen the surface . The end of her search led her to a kind old widower with an illustration of the outside world. He had never witnessed it with his own eyes , he explained, but his late wife purchased a drawing of the world above ground The lonely old man was charmed by the diligence of such a young girl and pra ctically gave the precious illustration away. He asked only for a day of chores in return for the keepsake. The illustration was sketched onto a t hick type of parchment , familiar to Aria . Crafted from the fibrous hulls of shredded mushrooms and known as wh iteboard, the composite sheet was the primary material for clerical writing in Mowea and one of the nation’s few exports of any value. It was sturdy and heavy, and rapping it with her knuckles produced a loud knocking sound. Upon its dry, hard bark, an ima ge was sketched with coal. The ends were curled with age and the picture was faded, but she could still make out most of the detail. The land stretched out onto the horizon, and a river cut the land in two. Above the land sat an empty void , save for a hug e circle. This must have be en the sun. It looked nothing like a lantern in th e picture, she thought . It looked more like a torch without a handle, or some other ball of fire. S he could also make out people dotting the massive landscape. It seemed like the artist tried to darken the tone of their skin with thin sets of lines, especially on their bare hands and feet. Instead of having normal physiology , their foreheads and hands were completely smooth. No bony growths sprouted from their hands and face like hers . She had never met anybody that looked that way, and she wondered if all surface dwellers looked like them. The illustration was the solitary f ruit of her years of investigation, and she treasured it more dearly than any of her possessions She framed it on the driest wall of her room for safekeeping , and her parents promised to keep it safe from her younger siblings By the time she was a teenag er, Aria had grown into the spitting image of a cave adventurer. She was short but well - proportioned and kept her dark hair in a bun secured by a long bodkin Beneath the filthy slops her body had become a woman’s as she grew Her meager diet kept her frame small, but the toned musculature of her body betrayed an extreme level of fitness. S he had a cute looking face under the eternal coat of filth as well Aria’s elders took a perverse joy in explaining what a great wife she would make someday “You’re like a barbed hook,” her grandmother used to say, “ smooth on the outside and spiky on the inside.” Her delicate features drew the eyes to the small, button shaped nose at the center of her face. Her vivacious gray eyes darted expectantly around a t the world before her , as if something new might burst out before her Her twinkling gaze only narrowed when she was angry , and her insolent mouth opened to compensate Like all Moweans, b ony white nubs subtly protruded from the skin on her face and hands Rather than being a single, solid bone, toothlike growths emerged from multiple points during infancy The Moweans called th ese feature s crowns, and they grew painlessly after a baby was born. They appeared first at the center of the brow and down t he bridge of the nose. As the child grew, the bones fused together and left a set of soft lines where they had overlapped . Touching your fingers to the growths felt much like running your fingers down a person’s spine, and they ran along the face like the nasal of a helmet Similarly, crowns emerged on the backs of the hands . The protrusions connect ed along the wrist and r an down the metacarpal bones to the knuckles. Additional growths would emerge uniquely from the chin and jawline of Mowean children as we ll . Unlike the crest on the brow and hands , the bones on the lower half of the face could emerge and connect in a myriad of patterns Once they had grown, the crowns retained their shape and required no care to maintain. Generally, complex and symmetrical patterns were considered the most attractive by the Moweans. This was solely because of Mowen’s own multifaceted crown and was more of a custom than a true preference For Aria , she only had three small growths clumped together at the bottom of her chin, which had fused into a small area . This made her crown rather minimal compared to those around her, who often had five or more growths along their jawbone. It made her very insecure, and she would light up with fury whenever somebody even suggested her crown’s insufficiency. Vanity was the least of her concerns, anyways. Her expeditions spanned over a dozen fingers, and she knew the local stretches like the back of her hand. Yelse was one of the deep est villages within the winding passageway of the Arm, and even her daring travels never brought her close to the Mouth. Betw een the surface and Aria sat the capital city of her Arm: Yalsridge. Built into the staggering cliffs where the Mouth met the Arm, Yalsridge was a large population center where trade and administration occurred. While the staggering cranes of the upper lay ers did not reach its limits, there was still enough opportunity within to attract foreigners and coin. With easy access to the surface, it served as the artery that supplied the nearest fingers of the fifth Arm. Additionally, Mowen’s nearby expedition attracted business from pilgrims and officials on their way to the Blind Queen. The next objective of her travels seemed obvious to her - reaching Yalsridge and coming one step closer to the outside world. Like Aria, towns and cities were named for a person after they died. In this way, the heroes of Mowea were immortalized and their names retired. Cities were named after the greatest hero of the millennium upon the completion of its Arm’s excavation. It served as the crown jewel of a thousand ye ars of backbreaking labor. The city of Yalsridge was named after the legendary digger Yal. Legend said that over a thousand years ago, Mowen was excavating the fifth Arm when an enormous cave - in occurred. She could not see the stones as they fell to the gr ound, and a boulder hit her head. It knocked her unconscious as the walls crumbled around her. When she awoke, she had been buried her under piles of rock and her companions were dead. Only her innate immortality saved her from their fate. Lost for decades , she was trapped under the rubble and unable to move. Mowen had never been separated from her people for so long, and without her auspicious leadership the kingdom faced disaster. Famine struck, and tremendous earthquakes shook the caverns. She wept as th e tons of stone crushed her from above. Among the countless diggers that searched for Mowen, only Yal could hear her faint cries for help. When he told others about where he had located her, they doubted the man and disregarded him. He was an old man, and they believed he was senile. Despite the rejection of his peers, Yal dug alone for three years to unearth Mowen. He hardly slept and worked constantly on his massive excavation. As the last rock was freed from her body and she became free, Yal finally succ umbed to his exhaustion and age. Yal was widely regarded as the ultimate hero of Mowean history, and every child was taught to have his constancy. When the time came to christen the fifth Arm, everybody suggested the name Yal to be enshrined. The journey t o Yalsridge was long, arduous, and deadly, however . Those who ventured rarely returned, and after years of searching she had never met a soul who made the trek. She often wondered if the people had become enthralled by the sky, or if they met their deaths along the way. Few supplies could be carried along, so only a native with expertise in foraging could hope to reach the Mouth from Yelse . On top of that, the enormous pits, freezing lakes, and jagged crawls repulsed all but the most stalwart delver It too k weeks of travel to reach the end of the tunnel, and every corner was wrought with danger. Furthermore, Aria wouldn’t be able to rely on her familiarity with the landscape if she made the trek. All these dangers were incredible combined, but they paled in comparison to her greatest obstacle. The fifth Arm had a notorious pitch towards its rear end known as the Bone Heap As she learned, Aria discovered that it was the true reason for her village ’s remarkabl e remote ness The Bone Heap was the only part of t he Arm that was not constructed by Mowen herself , and it was made during the decades she was lost to her people. The Moweans believed the pit to be cursed, for good reason. It was an enormous chamber, spacious on all sides at the bottom . On every side but one, the walls took the shape of a hemisphere and coalesced smoothly into the ceiling. On the final side, however, an enormous vertical face waited for any foolish enough to challenge it. It stretched upwards over 50 fathoms, and an ascendant had to climb its jagged crevices through total darkness. The cliff stood perfectly upright, and progress was made by grappling the hands and feet o nto whatever holds they could find. To slip and fall meant death , with no quarter . As time passed, the skeletons of failed climbers accumulated. Their flesh rotted away, but their bones remained as a testament to their failure. The stench was legendary , and the haunting image of countless corpses deterred travelers from passage. If she wanted to reach the surface, she w ould have to cross the perilous stretch. She was barely a young woman , but the prospect felt urgent to her. Everybody wanted her to wait until she was older, more experienced, more ready. She had bid her time for long enough, she thought. She had earn ed a generous wage through freelance delivery and earned a comfortable wage for her family . Her young little sister could count the days without food she remembered on her fingers. Her absenteeism became the norm, and her brothers slept in her bed while she was away : avoid ing sharing their crowded bunk. If she left for Yalsridge, they would never have to abandon her bed when she returned home. Her parents were proud of her despite her quirks , and she thought they could forgive her if she left . They bragged about their daughter’s accomplishments whenever they had the chance, as if they had learned to be conceited from her. They knew that seeing the surface was her greatest passion, and they told her that they supported her quest She felt like a big fish that had outgrown her small pond Aria hated the blind superstition of her people , and believed t heir orthodoxy caged them She wanted to experience everything this world had to offer. She would find her wish granted. The first destination she would explore was the bottomless pit of sorrow.