Chapter 15 Underground Part 1

“I should leave for the time being… Who knows, maybe I will come back here one day…” I thought while staring at the calm sea that got tinted in orange as the sun slowly went up.

*sigh*

“I would have liked to stay here for fifty years or so, but the last time it became known that I’m a spirit, I ended up being hunted by some puny humans…”

Deep in thought, my ears twitched, feeling a familiar presence, “Right, I completely ignored them… Well, I will see what they are up to soon enough.”

“But before that, I still have some things to take care of.” I got up and leisurely walked through the town until I stood before the usual sign.

“What are you doing here so early?” the calm man asked as I jumped on the counter. I conjured up the tea recipe from my storage, ”Here, I think that’s more useful to you as it is to me.”

He picked it up and looked at it, “Well, we aren’t a tea house, but we can put it on the menu.”

He looked back at me “Don’t you have any questions?”

I tilted my head, “I thought about it, and in the end, I don’t care.”

“Haha!” he laughed at my reply. “That does sound like you.”

“…” I think that’s the first time I've seen him laugh that much…

As he calmed down, he continued, “And will you wait till Bruno comes down? He can cook you something before you leave.”

I shook my head sorrowfully. “No, that will make it just harder to leave…”

“My free food…” l let my head hanging, “I doubt I will find something so good anytime soon…”

“That’s what you are sad about?” The calm man said in an amused tone.

“Anyway,” I jumped down, “I still have something to take care of.” And walked to the door.

The calm man spoke loudly as I was about to leave, “If you ever come back, be it in a few years or decades, you are always welcome here!”

***

Loud footsteps came down the stairs. “Did I miss them?”

“You did; they already left.” The man at the counter said in a relaxed voice.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“What a shame I was about to show them one of my new creations!” he said energetically.

“Well, there is always a next time. After all, we have all the time in the world.” He said as he looked at the door, and new customers came in.

“Excuse me. Can I ask you a few questions?” The man with long pointy ears asked, on his shoulder sat a small creature.

“Sure, as long as you order something.” The man replied.

“Ask him about a black cat! I’m sure they were here!” The small winged creature urged the elf.

***

“It still stinks…” I was wandering through the sewer system again to the abandoned Kobolds lair.

The last time I hadn’t the time to look into the stairs leading deeper underground, but before I leave, I want to know what this eerie feeling was I felt back then.

“Hmm…” I arrived at my destination. The way down, a cold black hole. The complete opposite from the warm and bright surface.

“I have night vision, but even with this, it’s pitch black…”

Slowly but steadily, I sat one paw in front of the other, descending into the unknown.

The only sounds piercing the silence, my breath, pawsteps, and water running along the old stone walls.

“How long am I walking now, an hour? How deep does this go?” As I wondered, I continued my descent.

Deeper.

…

Deeper.

…

And even deeper.

“Has it been over three hours now, or have I lost my sense of time…?”

“When is this going to end?!” I screamed in my mind, my impatience and frustration rising.

Right before it reached its peak, I stood at the end of the endless seeming stairs. A big open area stretched out before my eyes; I gazed in awe at the scene that washed away all of my frustration.

“I guess that’s worth an hours long walk…” I briefly sat down to let the view sink in.

A giant underground cave with big stone pillars sprouting out of the ground supporting the ceiling, stones that shone in a white soft light embedded in it, and a city beneath…

The old city was like everything else down here, colored in grey, its architecture vastly different from above ground. “What was the style called again, gothic? Reminds me of a certain game trilogy…”

The city had a round structure, and in the middle stood a tall building that looked like a cathedral. Even from afar, I could see that even this imposing city was not spared from the passage of time, “It feels like a skeleton could come to life and attack me at any moment…”

“How come no one seems to know that this exists right under their feet...? Granted, it is well hidden, but wouldn’t you check on what you are building your town on…?”

“Or does the mayor know about it but keeps quiet…?”

I shook my head, “None of my business…”

As I stood up ready to explore the ghost city, I looked down the cliff I was standing on, from it leading down to the city… “More stairs! Come on!”

“I won’t do this a second time!” In my frustration, I came up with a fun idea.

I placed my paw on the first step, “Take this, who ever built these stairs of torment!” as I triumphantly exclaimed in my mind, the stairs began to freeze over, building an ice slide with an intricate design on the railing, depicting cute-looking cats and food artistically interwoven into the city’s gothic architecture that I tried to mimic.

I proudly looked at my masterpiece, wagging my tail in anticipation. “That’s how you build something practical and fun to use!”

Without hesitation, I slid down my creation; even with the speed it built up, it took some time until I could see the ground, and with a perfect landing that would leave every spectator astonished, arrived safely on the cool stone pathway.

“Yeah, I never would have walked all this way down…” I thought as I looked up the ridiculously high cliff.

An unsettling feeling overcame me, and I quickly turned around, facing the stone bridge leading into the lifeless city.

“…”