Evelyn could feel her heart pounding as they traveled deeper into the floor. Even with all the light from magic around her, she could feel that weight she once felt near the very bottom of the Dungeon. The overwhelming darkness, the deep unsettling fear of just outside her sight, her hearing, and all her other senses, there was a darkness which tried to creep into the light. Tried corrupting it and consuming it. She could feel her breath become faster as she began to chant to herself to calm herself.
Connor set his hand on her shoulder, “Are you well?”
Evelyn looked at Connor, her heart began to pound even harder as he was one of the reasons why she felt this incredible unease. She felt it in her heart, her worry that everything wrong was about to happen. “She’s alright, she has anxiety when she is tired. It’s her worry from what happened when we were traveling. When she ran out of mana we had to travel in the dark, so it's a fear she gained”.
Evelyn saw Adrith talking on her behalf. He made sure that she wasn’t left to herself and even began to talk with Connor to take the heat off of her while she calmed herself down.
Adrith asked Connor, “How will we be doing this? What kind of watches will we be doing”
Connor lightly turned back and said, “Well we normally do 6 shifts, but with all of us we can increase it to 8 so we can all get our sleep in a reasonable time”.
Adrith nodded, “I see, well then I believe that 8 shifts will be fine. There will be those who can sleep through the entire time while others will only need to be up for an hour to watch”
Connor nodded his head as he said, “Yeah that sounds good, you two should sleep while we keep watch”
Adrith nodded his head, “Well thank you, we’ll take you up on that offer”.
Evelyn felt a sense of dread come over her when he said that. She knew sleeping was the worst time to be attacked, and with Adrith actively choosing to make themselves an easy target, she felt like he was trying to get them into whatever terrible thing was happening.
Once they made it ‘far enough’ as Connor put it, everyone began to rest, each person seeming to get ready to lay down as Connor offered to take the first watch. The others agreed as Adrith began to find a spot to sit against the wall. Evelyn began to look around as she saw Adrith lightly pat onto the ground next to him. She took this sign and began to make her way over to Adrith and took the spot next to him.
“You seen it?”, Adrith asked quietly.
Evelyn sighed as she brought her knees to her chest, “I did, they came this way”
“Did you notice anything else while we were walking?”, Adrith asked as he began to look towards his gauntlets and started adjusting them.
Evelyn shook her head, “Nothing I can say that I can remember”.
Adrith sighed, “Think about what you heard rather than just what you saw”
Evelyn shook her head again, “I can’t think of anything. Can’t you just tell me what you found?”
Adrith sighed once more, once he got his gauntlets off and then started taking off his gloves, “Alright, you’ve entertained my plans enough for me to give you this one”
Evelyn nodded her head as she waited to listen while looking around.
“We’ll start from the beginning, you remember there were only 6 people in the group?”, Adrith started from the beginning, being quiet as they spoke.
As Evelyn listened, she realized how strange it was to talk to Adrith, his voice never echoed, it never was muffled by his helm, she was curious how that worked, yet she couldn’t fully comprehend why. Evelyn nodded her head, “I do remember”.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Adrith nodded his head as he continued, “Well, from the gear we found, we only found the weapons that they dropped and a few daggers, we couldn’t even retrieve Connor a true weapon because his axe was completely destroyed”.
Evelyn nodded her head, “Couldn’t they have been destroyed as well before we got there?”
Adrith shook his head and continued, “No, they weren’t ready for that attack, they hadn’t seen it before, and it will only perform those attacks if needed or when in a desperate situation“
Evelyn nodded and allowed Adrith to continue.
“There’s 10 of them, we found 9 there when there should have only been 5, if they just happened to have chosen the same sleeping spot, then they should have told us”, Adrith continued as he began to adjust his greaves.
Evelyn began to look around as she noticed, that almost none of the others were even paying attention to them.
Right when Evelyn was going to ask, she was stopped by Adrith, “If you take this off topic then I need to focus harder, let’s stay on track”.
Evelyn nodded as she now joined the conversation, “Wouldn’t Maidrin notice something?”
Adrith nodded, “Maidrin should, it is probably why they feel off at the moment. The Standard of Leadership gives strength to the wielder based upon the amount of allies you have. If I had to take a guess, Maidrin felt the number increased for some reason when they awoke”
Evelyn nodded then said, “Wait which time for when they awoke?”
Adrith answered, “When they awoke from their unconsciousness”.
Evelyn was skeptical, “You mean you think they were already alive the moment Maidrin awoke?”
Adrith nodded his head, “Yes. Based on how long it took us to move between the floors, us looting, and then the fighting, and then the few hours it took for Maidrin to awaken, it was about a day since you had awoken without me”.
Evelyn then thought for a moment, “So what do you think happened?”
Adrith looked among them, “i think 4 of them were killed by a Face Stealer, revived and they were all mentally brainwashed that the other 4 were always there”
Evelyn looked to Adrith with horror, “Wait, why haven’t we just solved this already?”
Adrith lightly gestured to Maidrin, “They’re confused right now. Maidrin has probably used that weapon so much that it is about as connected to their senses as sight or sound. Maidrin is probably trying to make great mental leaps on how they forgot 4 team members. May it be brain damage, mental anguish that somehow changed how they perceive things, or even us using magic on them. Which is why Maidrin has been very cautious.”
Evelyn shook her head, “So we can’t solve this right now because of Maidrin”
Adrith nodded, “Yes, we know Maidrin is not an Awoken like us, so that means they are very much alive and if we attack the group, we’ll need to fight. And if we don't do this right, either they die or the Face Stealers live”.
Adrith then looked to Evelyn as he continued, “And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that on my conscious right now”.
Evelyn nodded her head, “So how will we solve this?”
Adrith said, “Simple, when Maidrin is asleep, we attack. If we do some basic investigation, we can figure out who the Face Stealers are by matching certain features. They had to kill someone to take their appearance and memories. They can slightly change their look, yet not enough to make it impossible to find a resemblance”.
Evelyn nodded her head, “Since we’re nearly done talking, mind telling me how’re you doing this?”
Adrith turned to Evelyn as he said, “I’m sending my thoughts to you through my continual incantation. As long as I’m looking at you and chanting, I can talk to you through my will as they call it. We’ve never been speaking out loud.”
Evelyn’s eyes widened as she said, “Wait what?”
The group turned to her, seeing as it seemed like they were sitting there in quiet. Adrith looked around and as he lightly put his arm around Evelyn and brought her closer to himself. Evelyn looked around and blushed as she was nervous in this situation.
The others looked on as some chuckled and made kissy faces toward Adrith and Evelyn. Connor even chucked as he shook his head while giving them a thumbs up.
Evelyn turned hiding as he gave her a head nod. She found one more thing out about Adrith today, he was hiding one more trick up his sleeve. She never thought about it until now, she was always wondering how they spoke so clearly to each other even when they were traveling and trying to hide. She never knew that it was his constant use of magic. She was still curious, wouldn’t that mean he lied that he couldn’t perform unassisted incantations?
Evelyn took this question with her as she began to lay down. She laid near Adrith as Connor took the first watch. Moments later it felt like for Evelyn, a sharp pain awoke her, her eyes shot open as she saw Adrith had thrown one of his gauntlets at her stomach to awaken her. She turned to see Adrith had dashed and slashed Connor across the chest, Connor’s lamp dropped as it left the two of them in the dark and Evelyn heard what could sound like a thick liquid hit the wall.