When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a massive stone bricked ceiling that stretched further into the mist than he could see.

He got up, wondering how strange the place was, glancing down at the grey, skin-tight jumpsuit he wore.

He looked around himself, seeing a few other people of various races around him, similarly looking around in bafflement.

One woman in particular caught his eye as she nimbly righted herself and crouched, scanning her surroundings for danger.

Her honey-coloured eyes peered at each of them as her lips set themselves in a thin line. Her curved body was accentuated by the tight grey jumpsuit, but also served to show off her lean muscle.

She maintained her stance carefully, her long, pointed ears twitching as if picking up minute sounds.

Since she seemed to know what she was doing, he decided to talk with her and see if she knew what was happening.

Walking towards her, he stopped when she bent her knees in preparation to attack.

"Woah, woah. Easy, easy." He said, lifting his hands to show he wasn't a threat.

"Who are you and why did you come to me?" She demanded aggressively.

"Well, seeing as you immediately got up and started scanning for danger, I thought you knew what was going on." He shrugged. "Was I wrong?"

"I can remember one single thing from before I opened my eyes." She dropped her guard slightly, her yellow eyes losing their sharpness. "You were wrong."

"Come to think of it, I don't even remember my name." He said thoughtfully. "What do you remember?"

"I remember how to fight." She said, at last deciding he wasn't a threat. "I don't remember my name either."

"You have a rune on your left shoulder." He said suddenly, pointing to the sideways 'V' stitched onto her jumpsuit in black. "That's Kenaz. The torch, or beacon."

She glanced at the rune, curious.

"Wait, you remember runes?" She asked suddenly. "I wonder if runes are important to why we're here."

"Maybe." He said, glancing at the rune on his shoulder.

It was an F, but the horizontal lines in the letter were angled down forty-five degrees.

"My rune is Ansuz. Vision." He said after a pause. "I wonder if they indicate abilities. Call me Ansuz for now. It's better than saying 'you'."

"Alright, I'll go by Kenaz, but how about we greet the rest of the people here?" She gestured to the other two people, both human, who seemed to be struggling to communicate and beginning to raise fists.

The left man looked sickly and thin, his black hair a rat's nest sitting atop his head. His black eyes filled with poorly-disguised hatred as he raised his scarecrow-like arms up in a guard.

The right man looked like a colossus, his massive muscles bulging with each move. He was bald, adding to the image of a colossus. His overlarge forehead pinched his facial features, making him look like a rat, but with perfect teeth.

"Hello." Ansuz said when he was relatively close to the pair. "Please don't fight. It would be detrimental to the entire party if we were a man down and we were attacked."

This halted their imminent brawl instantly.

"How do you know this?" The left man demanded, stepping forward to try and threaten him with his frail hands. "Tell me!"

"I don't, however it is a distinct possibility." Ansuz responded reasonably. "While there is a chance it is just us here, I think that there is a distinct possibility that other teams of people who were dropped in here as well."

"That does make sense." Said the colossal man on the right.

"Your rune is Hagalaz. Destruction." Ansuz said, pointing to the stitching on the man's shoulder that created an 'H' with an angled horizontal line in the middle.

"That sounds badass." He responded.

"And your rune is Isa. Standstill." Ansuz pointed to the second man's rune; a vertical line. "My rune is Ansuz, or vision, while her rune is Kenaz, or torch. Please refer to us by our runes, and we'll refer to you by your runes."

Both men agreed to Ansuz's suggestion.

"The piece of knowledge I possess is in regards to runes." Ansuz explained. "It seems that when we came here, we got to keep a single piece of knowledge. Kenaz knows how to fight; what do you two know how to do?"

"I don't know." Hagalaz said honestly.

"Like I'd tell you." Isa snorted in derision.

"Let him be that way." Kenaz suggested quietly when Ansuz glanced at her. "If he alienates himself that's his problem."

"It would also affect us negatively." He protested. "Having a poor team bond might cause us to lose more members."

"We'll deal with that when we get there." Kenaz responded, patting his shoulder.

"What do we do now then, Ansuz?" Hagalaz asked.

"Hold up. Why am I the one deciding this?" Ansuz raised his hands, as if he could ward off responsibility. "I'm not the leader."

"You're the one who has the most level mind, you were able to break up a fight, and you haven't given us any reason not to trust you." Kenaz responded.

"Why can't it be you, Kenaz?" He asked.

"Because I decided it would be you." She laughed. "And an unwilling leader is less likely to try and abuse their power."

Ansuz accepted his fate.

"I think our first move should be to explore the area, together." He suggested. "We'll need food, water, and possibly weapons. We have none of those things near us, so it'd make sense for us to search for it."

All three of them agreed and they began walking in the direction Ansuz indicated.

"What is that?" Ansuz asked, pointing off to their left, towards a large structure he spotted.

"I don't see anything." Kenaz said, straining her eyes in the indicated direction.

"Me either." Hagalaz agreed, peering into the distant fog. "Perhaps your rune is the reason why you can see more than us."

"Ah. Vision." Ansuz nodded. "Maybe. Should we check it out?"

Kenaz and Hagalaz agreed, while Isa remained silent.

Ignoring Isa's venomous glances towards Hagalaz, he led the way towards the large structure in the distance.

By the time they arrived, they were all sweaty, hungry, and tired.

"Let's find the entrance and see what this is." Ansuz suggested, scanning the castle-like structure. "There might be food inside."

At the prospect of food, all of them perked up slightly and two pairs went around the circular structure in opposite directions, arranging to meet on the other side. 

Arriving on the other side took a long time, but it was impossible to determine the actual quantity without an accurate time piece.

Hagalaz arrived alone, hurrying over to them when he saw them.

"Isa went inside alone!" He exclaimed. "He wouldn't listen and went in first!"

'Did he know something?' Ansuz wondered, but followed Hagalaz to the entrance that was just beyond his line of sight.

The entrance looked like the gaping maw of some prehistoric beast, stalactites hanging and stalagmites growing from the floor like teeth. The mist poured ominously from the entrance, thickening the mist around themselves.

"Well this is creepy." Kenaz said, waving her hand through the thick mist, creating ripples.

"Well, we do need to find shelter." Ansuz reasoned. "But I'm not sure if this would count as a shelter."

"We still need to find Isa." She responded.

"I might not like him, but we do need him" Hagalaz agreed.

Ansuz led them through the maw of the beast, into the ever-thickening mist, carefully watching for any possible threats. As they walked, the mist accumulated into droplets on their jumpsuits, soaking into the fabric and hanging on to their faces and hair.

"Stop." Ansuz said suddenly. "We're at a crossroads. It looks like this might be a maze."

"This might be bad." Hagalaz said. "For all we know Isa dead in some dead end somewhere."

"Or he could have finished the maze." Kenaz suggested optimistically. "Let's see if we can finish the maze and then find him if he's not at the end."

Ansuz glanced at the three possible directions, trying to tell which would lead them to their objective. He couldn't see the end of any of the tunnels, and since he had no clues, he was going to pick a random path.

Before he could pick a random tunnel, Kenaz moved towards the left path.

"Let's head left then." He decided, carefully setting his feet upon the wet ground.

"You'll have to lead us, then." Kenaz said. "We can't see a thing beyond you."

"Alright then." Ansuz nodded, leading them down the center of the massive tunnel.

He led them until he came across another crossroads, once again following the Kenaz who kept drifting towards certain paths, heading to the middle path this time.

She continued to act as a pathfinder, instinctively feeling the paths they should take, bringing them deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, while he acted as a guide to the paths, ensuring they wouldn't run into something.

"Why does it feel that you know the way?" Hagalaz asked suspiciously.

"I'm following what I can only describe as an attraction." Kenaz responded, drifting towards the right path, cocking her head to the right and listening intently. "Do you hear that?"

"Yeah I hear that." Ansuz responded. "It sounds like Isa shouting."

"Let's hurry, then." Hagalaz suggested. "If we can hear him, he might be in trouble."

They increased their pace, their feet disturbing the water upon the stone ground as they hurried to find the source of the faint sound that echoed throughout the tunnels.

As they continued, the mist began thinning, allowing Ansuz and the others to see more and more clearly the moist stone that was covered in a thick layer of moss, as well as the lush, moss-covered stalactites that had formed on the ceiling.

In front of them, they saw a doorway spilling light from a source within.

Passing through the doorway, the group took in the devastated room. Pierced by spears of ice, frosted by conical regions that were scratched as if they had been sandblasted, still-smoking craters peppered the area, .

"What the hell happened here?" Hagalaz asked, shocked at the scene of an intense battle between fire and ice.

"I have no clue, but I think Isa is still alive." Ansuz said, following the trail of destruction. "We should hurry. We don't know if Isa is bleeding out or severely hurt or even if he's alive or not."

They picked up the pace, running through the massive room, finding more and more destroyed areas, along with several frozen corpses.

"Yeah, whatever that is, I'm glad I didn't meet it." Kenaz said, looking at a frozen corpse of a one-eyed dog that seemed to be made out of tentacles.

"Come on!" Hagalaz exclaimed as they passed by the corpses until they came to a final door.

Behind that door was Isa, impaled by a piece of stone shrapnel. Around him stood hundreds of frozen sculptures, many shattered, while a number remained perfectly preserved.

"You idiot!" Yelled Hagalaz as he dashed towards Isa.

"What happened here?" Ansuz murmured, surveying the multitudes of statues. "Hey, does anyone remember how to treat someone?"

"I might." Kenaz said suddenly. "Let me try."

Ansuz left her to take care of Isa's wounds as he investigated the room. There was no moss on one wall, while the other walls all had thick blankets of it, indicating that something was either removing it or it moved regularly.

He scoured the wall for any sort of pulley, lever, button, or pressure plate, in hopes of activating whatever mechanism could move the wall.

Nearly a third of the way across, he felt a stone give, sinking into the wall nearly up to his elbow.

With a deep rumble, the wall began to sink into the ground, causing dust to rain from the ceiling, adhering to their wet clothing and fill the air.

Behind the wall was a massive altar made of quartz and outlined with gold, brilliantly reflecting the light from the room. Upon the top of the three-tiered circular altar was a small object that Ansuz couldn't recognize.

Cautiously investigating the altar, Ansuz circled it several times to check for traps before he climbed it to take the small item that laid at the top. During his search for traps, he discovered what he thought was hard-crusted bread and waterskins.

He turned away from the food, climbed the altar and tentatively plucked the small spherical object off of the altar and walked back to the Hagalaz and Kenaz who had finished tending to the now-conscious Isa.

"How is he doing?" Ansuz asked, examining the thumbnail-sized ball he had picked up.

It was a perfectly spherical eye, without the roots or any other external muscle. The pupil was ash grey, and the iris had a vertical gradient of blue on the bottom and yellow on the top, creating green in the middle. It was not squishy at all, to Ansuz's surprise. In fact, it felt like glass as he rolled it between his fingers.

"He'll live. Maybe." Kenaz said, breaking him away from his scrutiny of the eye.

"Great. Our efforts weren't in vain." He glanced at the unconscious body of Isa and wondered if he could change to better suit the environment. "I hope he'll adapt to this environment."

"What do you mean?" Hagalaz asked curiously.

"I mean his personality is unsuitable for the situation we're in." Ansuz explained seriously. "He's been argumentative, petty, and now goes and runs off on his own, nearly killing himself. He doesn't seem to consider the consequences at all."

"You may be right." Kenaz said, getting up from beside Isa's body and walking to Ansuz. "But he still cleared the area. He is strong, but he is unable to think ahead."

Ansuz offered her the weird eye and she took it, eyeing it curiously.

"What's this?" She asked, finishing her inspection. "I doubt my inspection of it will yield more insight into what it is than yours will."

As soon as she said 'inspection' a blue light lit up and displayed a window in front of them.

"What the hell?" Ansuz muttered, shocked as he read the information on the window.

{Artifact: Vision of Elements}

{Type: Item(Consumable)}

{Alignment: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Metal, Arc, Light, Shade, Frost, Magma, Blood}

{Rarity: Legendary}

{Description: Only those who can see the truth will understand the workings of the elements. After use, user of Vision of Elements will gain the ability to see the movement of the elements and spirits, user will also receive an alignment with most elements, as well as great ability to control them.}

{Restrictions: Only those with the rune [Ansuz] can use this item, must have never touched another legendary item, must not have prior elemental alignments.}

{Penalties for use: None}

"It looks like this was meant for me." Ansuz noted, reading the restrictions.

At that moment Isa awoke to see the empty altar and the screen above Kenaz's palm.

"That was supposed to be mine!" Isa shouted angrily.

"Can I see that for a second?" He asked Kenaz.

She wordlessly handed him the artifact.

"Tell me, Isa, do you see your name on this?" Ansuz held the artifact close to Isa so he could easily read the bright white text. "And besides, Isa, even if it was supposed to be yours, we saved your life and found it before you could."

"I could have sold it!" Isa yelled in rebuttal.

"Oh? Now, how would you know that?" Ansuz asked quietly. "What do you know that we don't?"