Following the arrows was the easy part, Caeli took control of the boat on the way. Once they came to the end of the arrows they were inside of a large cave, there was no way to land the boat near ground as the water only met the walls of the natural room around them. There was one way to get out that had sunlight and grass, they assumed they had to go that way.
But the staircase that led up the side of the cave to that exit was destroyed halfway.
She began looking around the cave, seeing a possible way to get to the exit through rock-climbing.
"This way." She said as she climbed on top of the boat's roof and began climbing her way up the natural pillar in the middle of the cave, with a simple swing across the cave using her rope she was across safely and easily.
And without getting into the water.
"Why didn't you shadow-walk?" Sam asked once he landed next to her.
"Why would I?" She replied.
"It's easier..." he trailed off, she smiled at him.
"It is, but I need to keep my fitness up somehow. Besides, I can save using the shadows for emergencies. It's a different kind of energy that can get exhausted when I use them too much." She told him, they began following Nate who was already walking in the direction they needed to go.
"Wow. Avery wasn't much for subtlety or understatement, was he?" Nate asked as they saw a door with large statues either side.
"I guess not." Caeli replied, looking at the craftsmanship before seeing that the doors were collapsed and impenetrable.
"Well, he had the money. If you've got it, flaunt it, right?" Sam added in, Caeli began rock-climbing again to get to a tunnel which would get them through to the other side. Hopefully. The brothers followed her, she always had a keen sense of direction and had never led them astray before.
The tunnel worked until a piece of a wooden infrastructure blocked their path.
She didn't bother waiting for the brothers to help her lift it, instead she just shadowed through to the other side.
"I thought you were saving the use of the shadows!" She heard Sam shout from the other side, she smirked.
"You're just jealous because I don't have to lift that thing to get through!" She shouted back, looking around to find their next path. They were outside again now, which meant she was in full sunlight. She grimaced at the amount of light, but continued looking for where to go next nonetheless.
Once the brothers were through she began rock climbing once again, feeling like she was in her element while doing so. She continued leading the way until they found some infrastructure, archways and bridges.
"What do you think this place was?" Sam asked once they were all together.
"These arches remind me of the Saint Dismas Cathedral..." Nate trailed off, and Caeli could see where he was coming from. "But I, uh... don't know." There was some difficult continuing on, a rope bridge breaking under Sam's weight and having to find a way to continue when Sam disappeared for a few minutes 'to find something to help them get up'.
They eventually came across another watchtower, so they knew they were somewhat on the right track. It took climbing to the top of that tower to get high enough to get through the next section of wilderness and eventually to the other side of the door they had originally encountered.
They were inside of a room, it seemed like an important one due to the diorama of what appeared to be something city-like.
"You think they actually built all this stuff?" Sam asked once he was also in the room and saw the diorama.
"With these guys... I don't know anymore." Nate responded, Caeli looked away from the diorama towards an architectural sketch...
"Guys, look." She drew their attention to it.
"Hey... uh maybe they were planning a massive theme park?" Sam joked, Caeli sighed.
"Out of all of the options you could have had, you went with 'theme park'?" She questioned, he shrugged his shoulders.
"Not having a good day for this type of shit I guess." He responded. Caeli then focused on the carved murals on the walls, they depicted the story of the founding of Libertalia.
"This is all well-made..." She whispered to herself, touching one of the stone carvings and feeling how smooth it was. After taking in all of the information they could they moved onto a different room, this one filled with supplies.
"I wonder if they went through with building Libertalia... I mean this was all in preparation for it, but why is it still here?" Sam questioned.
"They went through with it, they had to." Caeli stated. "All of this planning, all of this dedication... you can't commit your entire life to something and not follow through with it." She added, the brother's agreed with her.
"Yeah, well things don't always go as planned." Nate stated, the pessimist of the situation only because of his situation. They walked into another room, a symbol on the floor which Nate stood on to open a trap door. It lifted slightly...
"Ah crap, mechanism's busted or something." Nate stated.
"Oh no, we're getting through there one way or another. Let's just lift it together, all right?" Sam responded, looking to Caeli as she tucked her fingers under the door as well.
"Don't look at me like that, sap of the Tree of Life, remember?" She stated. "I'm part Guardian of Shambala if we want to get technical." She added.
"Oh god, this is heavy." Nate stated as they began lifting it, Caeli didn't really notice the weight of the door too much.
"Just think about all that treasure." Sam said as Nate went through first.
"I'm kind of thinking about my back." Nate replied as Caeli ducked through. Sam came through last and Nate and Caeli dropped the door.
"Shit." She swore as she turned around to see the room they had walked into.
"Looks like we've got ourselves another trial." Nate stated as they looked around the chamber. He reached the ship wheel in the middle of the room. Two bars of light entered the room and hit the wall, showing the shadow of a symbol. Nate moved the wheel and large orbs began moving around the walls.
"Mechanical, patterned movements. All yours, Caels." He added, she rolled her eyes as she walked up to the wheel and began working it out in her head.
As she completed each layer of the puzzle, new statues rose from the ground of each founding Pirate captain. It was safe to say that she completed the trial quicker than the brothers could have, but she was just as confused as to why there were only eleven statues when the trial was completed compared to the twelve founders that there should be. It was no surprise that Avery was the statue missing.
Another room opened, a staircase rising to meet the higher flooring of the second room. All that the room held was a lever, so Caeli walked to it and, without hesitation, she pulled it. There was a loud bang as the floor then began rising like an elevator. They were suddenly above ground again, with a perfect view of the first beach they had landed on and the missing Avery statue rising near where the watchtower was.
"Holy shit." She said with a smile. If Caeli was honest she was very much beginning to enjoy how complicated this all was.
"You know, I'm starting the get the feeling that our friend was a bit of a narcissist." Sam stated as they looked to the statue. The very large statue.
"You think?" Nate asked a little sarcastically, seeming to be slightly back to his normal self.
"Let's go see what he has in store for us." Caeli said as she began climbing to higher ground, the elevator kind of levelled up to a cliff and she wasn't in the mood to die just yet.
"So, Nate, how does this stack up against your other adventures?" Sam asked, keeping conversation flowing. Nate thought about the question for a moment as they made their way back to their boat.
"Ask me again when we finish." Nate replied, so Sam turned the question onto Caeli.
"How about you?" He asked, she thought back to escaping Iram of the Pillars, to killing Talbot.
"Well, ask me when we finish as well. I might still have to kill Rafe yet." She replied, her bubbly mood gone. That day she had scared herself with what she was capable of, she found out that her powers were a little more dangerous and useful than shadows.
"Fair enough." Sam responded, Caeli smiled weakly, her mind too preoccupied with Talbot's screams to offer anything else.
***
"Nate!" Sully shouted, Nate must have fallen off the side of this bloody shifting piece of towering land. She had destroyed places before, but never in such a way as Iram of the Pillars was being sucked into quicksand around her. Sections of land were separating and falling into the depths, Sully and Nate had been on one of those sections just ahead of her... at least until Nate fell off, or that's what she guessed.
When she landed on the same piece of floating, tower-like land she looked up and saw Talbot threatening Sully. Her breathing quickened, anger flaring through her body.
"Talbot!" She shouted, and the man turned to face her. He didn't look afraid of her, just as she had thought. He had seen her at her weakest, had helped to manipulate her into becoming a docile test subject.
"What is it, pet?" He asked her, his attention now on her so Sully could help Nathan.
"You ruined my life." She stated simply, voices filling her ears. Voices that belonged to no one, but she knew were important. Her anger continued to grow, her body turning as cold as ice as it did. "You have to pay for what you did." She spat through her teeth, and Talbot took two steps towards her. Back at the Order that was enough to shut her down, to stop her from acting out.
Not this time.
"Come on now, Caeli. You wouldn't be half the person you are now without me." Talbot responded, but his words didn't work in the way she guessed he had hoped. She was unstable, she was dehydrated to the point where she had been seeing illusions, she was sunburnt and she was mentally scarred from her time in the Order.
"You're right." She replied, looking to her hand as her veins began to turn black, she looked back up to him. This time there was fear in his eyes, she was guessing her eyes had turned pitch black, maybe even some of her skin was too. "Do you see what you have created?" She asked, taking a step towards him, her body shaking with anger and pain and adrenaline and something else she couldn't name. Maybe it was energy?
The voices that surrounded her became louder, the whispers becoming shouts and screams as darkness surrounded her, swarmed around her with shadowed movement. She was beginning to think she didn't control shadows after all.
"Let's see what happens when I'm not under your control." She stated, the darkness stopping still around her before she threw her arms forward and they encased Talbot. He began screaming, but it wasn't from pain, it was fear.
He is afraid of you. Of us.
One voice rang clear to her in that moment, and that was when she knew for sure that the shadows she thought she controlled weren't that at all. Spirits. She controlled spirits.
She walked through the swarm of spirits, they moved around her, with her, as if she was one of them. They suddenly pulled away from Talbot and dissipated into the air. She gripped onto his throat, squeezing so hard he wasn't able to breath properly.
"You want to know something?" She asked him rhetorically, she could see herself in the reflection of his eyes and could now understand why he was afraid. Her eyes were, indeed, pitch black, the darkness spreading through her skin. She breathed slowly and the darkness slowly disappeared, after closing her eyes for a moment they turned back to grey and she looked him directly in the eyes. "You might have lived through this, but you made one mistake."
She picked him up from the neck, he tried pulling at her fingers to get her to release but she didn't. She was this way because he made her this way, he was the one in control of the experiments that were run on her. This superhuman strength, it was because of him. The shadows, the spirits, it was because of him.
"You threatened my family." She finished, throwing him off of the pillar of land and into the quicksand below. She looked over the edge, her breath shaking as much as her hands were.
"We need to go." Sully stated, she looked over her shoulder at them and nodded. Once they were at a safe distance she finally controlled her body to slow down, to breath properly and stop herself from shaking.
"How much did you see?" Caeli asked Sully, riding her horse next to his. He turned to look at her with a concerned look on his face.
"Only when you lifted him, anything before that is not my concern unless you want it to be."
"So you did see it." She replied, he didn't correct her. "I don't know what I am anymore, what I can do. I thought I controlled shadows but... I heard voices when I called on them this time. They were all so angry, not with me but with Talbot. They were spirits, ones who had been hurt by him Sully. They thought I was one of them. They accept me, what does that mean?"
"It means you need to work all of this out with someone with a little more professional experience than I do." He responded.
"In spirits?"
"In psychology, Caeli."
"Fair point."