Evelyn’s labored breath reverberated back at her from countless directions. Evelyn had first noticed the walls reverberated and bounced sounds when she first entered the dungeon however many years ago that was. Often the walls within the dungeon would move sounds around and could make monsters sound much closer than they were. Yet now, Evelyn could hear her breathing, she could hear it from everywhere, and even from behind her.

So alone her hearing couldn’t be trusted. No sounds were where they were and none sounded as they should have.

Evelyn’s eyes were constantly darting around, as her ears could not catch anything other than her breathing. Her orbs of light allowed her to travel and move through the damp halls of the dungeon without mistaking a wall for a monster. Yet the light danced and played against the stone falls and fog-covered floor, having countless shadows move and shift. She could hear now and again sounds that were not her own, yet she could tell the sounds were dulled by her own.

She then felt the hair on her neck stand on end.

Evelyn spun on her heels, feeling her foot gets stuck on a protrusion on the floor and tripping her. As her hand swung out to reach out to catch something, her orbs of light followed her hand movement and lit up the entire area around her as she fell into the fog.

Evelyn winced as she felt she slammed down onto the stone floor hard. It was cold and rocky, yet became smoother in certain areas. Yet the strangest thing Evelyn found was even though the fog was thick when she ran her hand under the fog, it felt airy like the fog was not there. The wetness wasn’t present and as she moved her hand, she didn’t move any of the fog.

Evelyn began to lie down in the fog and noticed, that it was easy to breathe, she gestured her hand down and commanded one of her light orbs to come into the fog. As the light shined, Evelyn realized that she was able to completely see in the fog. Evelyn was confused at first, she couldn’t understand why this was how the fog worked, yet she couldn’t dwell on something like that.

Evelyn rose from the ground and began to look around as she looked around at the halls around her. There was nothing anywhere she looked. She took a breath in and steadied herself. She couldn’t let herself lash out at everything she thinks is there. She needed to make sure she was aware, yet controlled.

She couldn’t fight, she had no weapons, she could perform unassisted magic casting, yet she could not perform short incantations. Evelyn gritted her teeth as she began to lament her helplessness. She took a breath in as she began to slowly calm herself she thought for a moment what she should do, and then her light faded.

“Hear me, oh sparks of fire which light the night, answer me, Light”

8 smaller motes of light began to float around Evelyn, the light they produced was much dimmer, yet she remembered back in the lower floors, in the Depths as Adrith called them the light she produced was enough to see, yet didn’t seem enough to attract attention from afar.

Evelyn wished she had shoes, yet she could not fix that. She thought about her other options, she couldn’t use her disc, she couldn’t guarantee what was here and if it would be possible. Her other movement spells would enhance her movement, yet she could not believe they would make her any faster, she needed to pace herself through this. Leaving this dungeon was not a race, she needed to make sure she could make it out. Her mind then began to wander, wondering about what creatures were truly here. If there were creatures that could corrupt souls and turn their bodies into monsters, ‘What are the chances I am alone?’

Evelyn took a breath in, she nodded to herself as she began to steady herself, she had to assume he was dead.

It would be what he would do, survival came first. Everyone knew that.

Evelyn nodded to herself as she sent 4 motes of light to follow her in the fog. She needed to assume monsters could be within, they had to be small, and based on what she knew about the only small monsters in the dungeon, the Horror Dragon spawn, they feared light. Something interesting happened when the lights disappeared into the fog, their light did not light up the fog. Evelyn smiled as she knew she could use this to her advantage

Once her preparations were done, Evelyn began to walk, she aimed to follow the fog just like Adrith did, anytime he moved on this floor, he had always made notice of the low fog areas and then aimed to enter high fog areas. She decided to take the same approach, she aimed to enter the low fog areas, she noticed that all high fog areas normally he got upset when they found nothing. ‘He was looking for the Chimera Dragon. So high fog areas must mean a monster was nearby or within it’.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Evelyn walked with controlled steps to reduce the amount of noise she made, she performed slow breathing as well for the same reason. Her walking wasn’t fast, yet that didn’t make her scared. She was more afraid of the creatures on this floor. And as she traveled, she met them all.

As she moved, there were times the fog would rise, during these times, Evelyn would duck into the fog and bring all of her lights into the fog with her. She found that the Soulless traversed these halls, as they moved, the fog did not cling to them, it would part as they moved through it. Evelyn took this moment of hiding to figure out how did they see. She originally thought they followed an energy signature, yet there were multiple times when she and Adrith fought the Soulless that it was struck by attacks from the side or behind it seemed unaware of.

Evelyn quickly sent out a mote and tried to have it float into view. She stayed here for multiple minutes until she finally rose out of the fog. She realized nothing changed, as the light was still there and the Soulless was gone. She at least found out that they did not see through sight, she noted that as she continued through the floor.

She had hidden from multiple Soulless during this time as now and again she noticed with the fog, some strange creatures hidden within, she at first thought they were bugs until she began to see that they had strange almost skeletal tails and long legs, she couldn’t exactly tell how many, yet they seemed lopsided as they skittered away from her, and they produced a strange green glow when the light hit them.

Evelyn paid these creatures no mind, they were scared of the light, and that was all she needed. Yet there was one point when she felt like something brushed up against her leg, as she kneeled into the fog, she found nearly 20 of these creatures were near her, and the moment she saw them, they scattered away.

Her heart dropped as her original thoughts were wrong, these strange-limbed creatures weren’t afraid of the light, they were afraid of being seen. When she saw them this time, she could see that they had their 5 limbs near the head where they crawled looking down. A long skeletal-like tail and a center that had an ethereal green aura within.

Evelyn began to feel a weight press onto her back, her neck, and then onto her mind. Her eyes flared as she realized, 'What if those creatures were just the young?' Evelyn did not turn, she ran forward as she heard a screech from behind her, she turned to see this strange insect creature with countless limbs. It had a large bulbous dark blue sac it carried on its back. A large pinkish-purple triangular face with countless fangs and tentacles. It carried itself with 5 limbs and had countless purple and skeletal tails. It stood no larger than a large dog, yet it moved incredibly strange and alien-like.

Evelyn could run, yet right now would be one of the few times she could collect a monster core to empower her magic in case of a worse situation. Evelyn continued to run as she brought up her hand near her face she began to perform her chant.

“Hear me, oh falling star, cleave through the night and turn the night aglow, answer me”

“Hear me, blast through the darkness and strike through midnight, answer me, bolt”

Evelyn began to form into the palm of her hand a ball of silvery gold energy. She could feel countless stones and bones under her feet as she could feel the monsters in the fog trying to trip her. She was light and agile enough to not fall as she turned and fired off her shot behind her. The bolt of energy she produced was larger and slower than normal, in this form it was much more unrefined, yet it was good enough. As the ball flew, it slammed directly into the head of the creature. The bolt flew with unrelenting force as the head of the creature was unable to handle such power.

A green splatter exploded out from the creature as it painted the walls and spilled into the fog. Evelyn could feel the multiple creatures in the fog move away as some even brushed by her to head towards the corpse. Evelyn could see the body mostly obscured by the fog as she could see the fog shift up and down as she could see these strange creatures surrounding and covering the creature. Evelyn winced as she saw this, yet she needed to fight them for the corpse, if they could get at the monster core before her, they would take it.

Evelyn quickly moved to the body as she began to feel the creatures in the fog constantly moving around and brushing against her legs. She winced, yet she worked through it as she reached for the sac of the creature and began to pull it apart. Once she did, she opened up a horrid sight, countless slimy thick grey bands of flesh. The smell was putrid and made Evelyn throw up, yet nothing came out. She continued to dry heave and gag at the smell, yet she needed to dig through the gore. Evelyn’s digging eventually bore fruit as she was able to pull out a monster core with greenish-pink energy at the center.

Evelyn began to move away as she saw countless of those creatures crawl up into the rip she made into the sac and began to rummage through the corpse. She shook her head as she continued through the dungeon. She had snuck through countless areas, finally making her way to the staircase where she saw something worrisome, as she traveled up, she began to see monster cores on the staircases.