The Primordial Record - C.1029: Regulations

Despite the ongoing battle, dead bodies continued falling inside the crater sporadically in their hundreds.

In a world of endless conflicts, the bodies produced were also endless, and these bodies were not a waste, they could serve as a source of food, used for experiments, and hundreds of other possibilities, and in the instance of this crater, life itself... The Chaotic vitality harvested from the Shiik was purified and compressed into life-saving pills that aided Explorers in the war effort against the Calamities.

These pills were popular on countless continents and were one of the foundations that held up the war effort. The humble Shiik Calamity beasts, known as one of the weakest Calamities in existence, made such a thing possible.

Things had remained relatively stable inside the crater for the past tens of thousands of years. It was a new pit and there was no reason why a Heroic Ranked Calamity should appear inside for another hundreds of thousands of years, thereby making the supervision of the crater to be quite lax. Today was the day when the supervisors of this pit descended into it to harvest.

It was a normal procedure and they had performed it dozens of times in the past, and thereby they anticipated that nothing out of the norm would occur. Although there was always a degree of danger to this procedure.

Three people, two males and a female, wearing large suits of gray with glass covering over their faces that would remind Rowan of the Hazmat suits from his previous universe descended into the crater using a large platform that glided downwards using an unknown forcefield application.

The three people were Heroic Ranked Explorers, and with their power, they could enter the crater and escape with their lives if they did nothing to trigger the horde below, nevertheless, Shiik beasts were known to be fairly docile and preferred eating the dead than hunting the living.

If they followed protocols then they had nothing to fear. They descended in silence for a while before it was broken by a voice,

"Every time I come down here, I don't know why I always expect something different, but nothing ever changes. I really hate this place," the female Explorer sighed and squeezed her fist tight as she watched bodies falling past them and descending into the darkness miles below.

The male Explorer by her right side shrugged, "Eeh, you get used to it after a while. I have been doing this job for thirty years, longer than both of you, and the most danger I have ever gotten into was being crushed by a falling body," he chuckled weakly but was smacked by the last male Explorer beside him,

"she was not referring to the nonexistent dangers here fools, only the tainted Aura that remains and twists the mind. There is no reason life should be found in this pit of corpses, but even from up high, you can feel it and it's sickening. Besides you only have a few months of experience over the two of us, and that was because you were lucky to have a faster transport that brought you here."

The Explorer who was smacked frowned, before retorting,

"I never knew you became a mind reader, why should it be one thing and not the other."

"Because it's pretty clear what she meant... not about your..."

A flurry of words was exchanged between the two men and any observer here would understand that both men were hopelessly infatuated with their female partner and were always looking for an opportunity to grandstand in front of her. Well they could not be blamed, they were the only three Explorers for hundreds of miles around.

However, they were both good friends and the spats between them were friendly and would never lead to blows.

"Quiet both of you!" the female Explorer snapped, silencing the two men, "Something's not right."

The two men went solemn and listened when they detected the note of panic in their companion's voice, who among all three of them was the most steady,

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After a while, the Explorer beside her spoke up, "I cannot..."

"Shh... listen, how close are we to the bottom of the feeding pit?" the woman interrupted,

"Maybe a mile. I think I know what you mean. These platforms need maintenance, we should have been at the bottom by now. Is there something wrong, this is quite normal." the male Explorer asked skeptically,

The woman frowned, "No, Listen! At this level, what is the first thing we usually notice?" Not waiting for a reply she continued, "Sound! We should have heard those damned beasts shrieking at this height, why is there nothing but silence?"

The three Explorers went quiet and suddenly the atmosphere around them transformed with the silence, and the awareness that they were entering into a pit filled with Calamities inside the darkness struck them.

No matter how docile a Calamity was, they were still the creatures that were responsible for the death of countless people, and no Explorer ever died in their beds, they all knew that their death would be painful and come in the hands of a Calamity, and they were descending into a place that held thousands of such monsters.

The only sound was their breathing, and then the female Explorer began to fumble at her side, trying to pull a latch when one of the men held her arm, and he harshly whispered,

"What do you think you think you are doing? Are you about to illuminate the area? Shiiks hate light, and any sort of light would cause them to rampage. We would not survive it, not at this level."

The other man interjected, "Then we don't descend lower. Stop the platform and let us see why they are quiet. There are regulations for any pits ever failing but they are long buried in dust, but from the little I can remember, handling situations like these are all beyond our pay grade."

"This is not the time for you to disagree with me about everything." the first man whispered angrily, "We cannot have any light here, and you know I am right. That would be madness." "So you expect us to descend into whatever we are entering without knowing the situation?" the first man shot back,

"No fool, you are not listening to me. I am expecting us to return and review the regulations properly before making any rash decision like using light in a pit where no light should ever be shone!"

"Stop it you two," the woman whispered slowly, "I have read the regulations. Do you ever wonder why we have the ability to create light while inside this pit is a feature attached to our suit? The moment I trigger this light, we are beginning a recording that will be sent to the headquarters if we perish here. We are dispensable and were meant to find out what went wrong so it could be easily identified and fixed before it gets worse."

The two men went silent and as the woman fumbled for her light switch with shaking hands, the two looked at each other and began activating their light. They all looked at each other, and as one they activated the lighting on their suit.