"You should really think twice before lying to me, we have means to make you talk." A beautiful lips of a lady veiled in purple garments uttered not so beautiful threat towards a youth that walked beside her with bowed head, his expression ashen.
"Fine with me, be stubborn." Yen Gon von Herrmause known as The Purple Flash looked at the teen sharply before she stopped paying him attention.
Another young idiot playing with demonic cultivators, exactly what she needed. She had been called for an emergency by one of her sect's informants, but the fools messed up and the demonic cultivator they had apprehended escaped before she had been able to even enter the building. The gang argued that they still had this asset she was escorting to a safe place, but she doubted the boy knew anything useful unless the demonic cultivator was stupid.
The high level ones rarely were.
She felt uneasy because of all the pressure on her. The problems continued to pile up and it was only a matter of time before the city gone bankrupt. Her sect had probed the other cities long ago, trying to find a more grateful landlord, but it appeared that Jinsheng was not a rare case and all the cities around had serious problems. In addition, her sect was forced to provide support for other cities, as they would have never sent them food otherwise. At first, she had been angry, but as of late that feeling was beginning to turn into fatigue.
She was tired, but could not rest because every second threat she faced could pose an existential danger to the city and her sect.
"He was able to control many skeletons and a bird. What Mojo is that?" She whispered while lost in her thoughts. She felt even more exhausted and uneasy when thinking about the current threat. Usually the knowledge of the Purple Lotus Sect gave her an advantage against her opponents, but not this time. She had absolutely no clue what the intruder was capable of and she was very clear what he wanted, because all demonic cultivators wanted only one thing.
Souls. That usually did not bode well for the city's population. There were some demonic cultivators that were content with animal souls, but using animal souls had serious consequences for most of demonic cults' cultivation methods.
"The falcon went north carrying the stone. The question is whether he gave up on his schemes or not." She was abruptly torn away from her musings by an unusual sight. The one she had tried to catch was soaring up in the skies above the city as if he owned the place.
"How dare you!" Yen was enraged by the intruder's audacity and her body enveloped in a dense purple gas propelling her up towards the unwelcomed guest. The falcon did not change course and continued in a straight line with its highest speed while obviously holding a black stone in its talons.
Yen gave chase while attracting attention of all the poor down in the slums, their eyes watching the chase, an unexpected amusement to their dreary lives. Except of the few that decided to use that opportunity to steal from the distracted mob. She chased the bird with her highest speed, but she was not that fast, her flight far away from the capabilities of the Immortal.
"What is that idiot even doing? Has he completely gave up on the city?" It was another heavy burden pressing her down. She had noticed that the Immortal was as exhausted as she was by the constant existential crisis and was secretly looking for a way out. She would not be surprised if he one day left the city without a word.
"It is useless, I will not be able to catch him." She gave up on the chase when the bird passed the city wall, and descended back to the ground.
However, it was not the end. The bird continued to fly over the city at high altitude during the day as if deliberately mocking her and her mood plummeted even more. This was the new low, many demonic cultivators attacked and probed the city defenses, but none were so brazen as this cursed black stone.
And then the bird vanished. Just like that.
"What? Is this another way to laugh into my face?" Yen watched the black stone falling to the ground, expecting the bird to appear again any second to grab it, mocking her by its acrobatics. but the bird had never appeared and the stone fell to the ground a few streets away from her.
"Ha! The demonic asshole's cultivation must be less stable than he thought, this is my chance!" Yen sprinted in the direction of the ground zero and soon reached a black stone lying on the pavement. She was quite quick and no thief had yet managed to pocket it.
"Your fun has ended, you peacock. It is time to talk!" She sneered, but remembered that the stone could only write, not speak. That in itself was unusual. She grabbed it carefully and decided to take it back to the Wolves while picking the useless youth along the way. They could still use him to make the intruder talk. The Wolves were happy to see their mess solved and readily prepared a room in a cellar for an interrogation.
Yen sat down behind a table with three chairs, a piece of paper in front of one of the spots and the scared teenager fidgeting on the third. She waited for a while for the demonic cultivator to summon his skeleton, but he clearly refused to speak to her.
"Look, we can do it the easy way, or the hard way. If you do not want to talk, I can skin this punk alive." She looked at the black stone with a frown, but there was no reaction. It was natural, demonic cultivators cared little for their followers and she had anticipated the teen's uselessness from the start.
"Or we can try something more straightforward." She continued grimly while placing a large hammer on the table. "I am interested how many blows can you take."
Oddly, there was still no answer, but one of the thugs that stood around for security reasons stepped forward while coughing lightly.
"Lady Purple Flash if I may." He said tentatively and stepped closer to the table, looking at the stone from up close.
"What is it? Do you have a way to make him talk?" She barked, she was still angry at the thugs for letting the cultivator escape.
"No, I think that it is just a stone."
"I can see that! Go on, make him talk then!" She retorted impatiently.
"No Elder, I mean that it is just a stone. The one from before looked differently." He said and Yen felt that a bucket of cold water had been poured on her head.
"Do you mean that the bird returned with a stone in its talons just to make fun of me?" She realized what was going on and the thug decently stepped back, not daring to say anymore.
Yen felt blood rushing into her head.
Such humiliation!
"Dead! He is dead!" She said coldly, her hands tightening into fists.
* * * *
Karl Gulden lay on the ground, watching another sparkling Void Crystal pop into existence. He had decided that it was safer to first wait for his level to increase, as he was not that far from his objective. Days passed and he patiently watched his numbers go up, as his Elemental was again at work laying down pitfall traps.
"If the Heavens are really out of commission, does that mean that Zhan Gon?" A thought crept into his mind. If the Heavens were no more, as the demonic cultivator who unleashed a river of magma onto the city said, had Zhan Gon's oath been undone? Could the son of The Purple Flash actually live if he had saved him that day, because the oath to kill Mezzaiel no longer applied?
During the long wait, Karl's doubts resurfaced and he could not suppress thoughts that he could have done a better job. However, he knew that he was at the end of the day just an ordinary man and had not received any sort of training to cope with extreme situations. He did what he thought right at the moment and for him, that was enough.
Not that people like The Purple Flash would accept such a cheap explanation if they had something to say about it.
But they did not have any say in the matter and Karl would ensure that it stayed that way in the future.
[Experience 604/1000]
He hypnotized the number that was slowly moving up. With more and more traps build, the numbers moved faster, but to reach a thousand would still take time.
No matter, he could wait. Time was his buddy.
Despite his tough guy stance, he decided to try out some psychological hygiene and called on a few goblins with their not exactly sharp daggers. He ordered them to engrave a few simple murals dedicated to the people he had failed. A grave to his regrets.
The first was a pair of two figures that looked really terrible, but Karl kept persuading himself that what mattered was the intent and not the actual artistic value that was naturally not high given the goblins had created the mural. The two figures were of course the siblings he met in his labyrinth. The smaller one was the unfortunate girl that impaled herself on his trap and the bigger one was her brother that sold him in the city.
"Rest in peace, I really need to help out some kids in the future to make up for the whole mess." How many lives saved was enough to buy his salvation for the one he took? It was a question with no answer, but he would surely feel better if the number was no longer zero. Karl thought and looked at the mural next to it where there was a simple figure of a man running a sword he was holding through another that had horns on his head.
"Rest in peace as well, stupid man. Why have you chosen revenge? Revenge suck every time." He sighed towards the second mural and his eyes wandered to the third one, where there were two men. One holding a podao that went through the second man who had coins strewn all around his body.
"Rest in peace you two. I could not face anything at that time, but that will slowly change. You could fight alongside one another in the end." He said towards the mural of a thief and a young disciple of the Thunder God Sect.
Karl's eyes moved to the last mural of a single figure with a circlet on its head, something circular dug in its center. The goblin art was truly terrible, but Karl did not care at all.
"Fuck you Riven, what am I supposed to do with that son of yours?! Are you even dead?" Karl hurled his angry thoughts towards the simple mural, as if there was really the former Young Lord Riven of Orlov standing in front of him.
"I refuse to wish you anything. We are not done, hear me? We are not yet done with each other!" He stared for a long time at the ridiculous depiction of the former heir to the fort above him.
He had not asked Wolves how the Riven family had met their unfortunate end and needed to find out more in the future from someone more trustworthy. He wanted to rush into the city immediately, but he knew it was silly. He had to wait for the next level when his power would be incomparable. He would only end up in a situation similar to the one with the crazed rabbit monstrosity if he went immediately.
"I am a decade late anyway, a few weeks mean little." Karl thought and did not know if the whole idea with the murals was a good one. He felt worse than before, but it would change with time. Time was his ultimate weapon. It could kill people, memories, mistakes, regrets, everything.
* * * *
Tyrn kept tiptoeing around the scary woman that came to pick him up from the Wolves' base. Earlier, he had hopes that the dark gem would be his salvation, but it seemed that it made his trouble even worse. He was now under scrutiny of The Purple Flash herself who had to think of him as a cultist. Before, he had been sure that the more powerful people in the city could not be bothered with him, a little thief, but he was no longer sure anymore.
"You are from the Riven family right? I thought they were all gone." She said and unexpectedly, her tone was not as cold as he had anticipated.
"Yes, Elder. My family died in one of the invasions. We used to own a fort outside the wall, but it is but a ruin now." He waved his hand in the direction of their family owned fort that had no longer any value, overgrown with vegetation, located in a position that was no longer defensible.
"Actually it should be that way, It all happened a long time ago." He waved his hand again in the direction that he hoped was right this time, but nearly slapped the purple hair of the woman. He was no longer only in a dangerous situation, but felt like an idiot as well.
"Overrun as all the others. I see." She nodded absentmindedly, ignoring his panic and they walked out of the building owned by the Wolves. Tyrn slowly followed, anticipating that he had not yet been released from the presence of the Purple Lotus Sect Elder.
"Will you execute me, or . . ?" Tyrn's heart began to beat faster, his eyes darting around, searching for escape routes. However, he knew that escape was impossible considering who was his captor.
"Tell me honestly, what was it with the gem? I see that you are an ordinary street criminal. You are not a cultist." She looked at him and he expected to see hatred in her eyes, but there was something else instead, am absentminded expression of a tired woman.
"I just found it, that is all I know." He lied, keeping the black stone's history for himself.
"You should tell me everything, this incident is too irregular." She kept looking at him and Tyrn had a feeling that she could easily see through his lie.
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"I just. . ." He wanted to say that he simply found it outside, but the obvious question where was bound to follow.
"My. .. " He wanted to tell her that his stooge found it and he was to blame for the mess, but realized that he had killed him and the body was still in the tomb that might link it to the Riven family if investigated thoroughly. He had no idea what the tomb was.
"I sole it from a man in the city, then it just suddenly started to act up, slaughtering people." He ended up saying, hoping that he might be able to play a stressed out little thief that was too nervous in front of the famous hero.
She looked at him for a while and he was sure that his lies were too fragile to hold. Still, he looked at her back brazenly, as he could not afford to budge if his lies were to have even a sliver of a chance to pass for truth.
"Come, we need new disciples in the Purple Lotus sect." She turned away and started to walk in the direction of the wealthier districts that he had been dodging all his life, the security too tight there for an obvious criminal like him.
"Wait what?! I mean, Esteemed Elder you cannot be serious!" Tyrn's eyes opened wide when he heard the unexpected reaction while following behind her frightfully.
"Simple. You are clearly a liar, expected given your background, but you have balls boy. " She said while Tyrn was trying to keep up with her swift pace.
"We have dark days ahead of us. Thieves, gangs, nobles, soldiers, citizens, it does not mater. One day there will be a tide of monsters that even our mighty wall will be unable to hold back and on that day we all will be only humans and abominations. Are you a soldier who can only swing his sword? Learn to swing it better to cut off their mutated limbs on that day. Are you a a noble? Exploit all the people you can to build mansions that withstand the monsters' blows on that day. Are you a thief? Learn to lie better to trick the monsters when the fateful day comes." She said with determination he was not used to hear from people in his line of work.
"You certainly do not think this way, but I have a lot to show you to change your mind. " She smirked slightly.
"Wait, but we have the Immortal! He can protect . . ." Tyrn tried to protest, almost wanting to beg to be put into jail instead. However, he knew that jailing was the luxury of the days past. Who could pay feeding a jailed person?
"The Immortal!" She cut him off with her laughter. "You will find out that the Immortal of whom you speak is not eager to sacrifice his immortality for a bunch of people he regards as just a resource." She suddenly stopped and turned to look directly into his eyes only an inch away, purple flames burning in them. She looked serious to the point he could not breathe and he expected her to evaporate him into oblivion any second.
"The one of whom you speak will be the first to run. I have seen him for what he truly is." Her voice was but a whisper, but crushed into him like a wave. "And when he leaves, there will be only us to save what is left."
"R-Run! We can run to our neighbors!" Tyrn stuttered, shocked by the confrontation with the truth he had always been able to guess, but had never knew for a fact.
"You mean the Gelu sect that had been just destroyed? It has not been released to the public, but there is nowhere to run." She whispered into his ear like a demon trying to rob him of his sanity.
"But that is impossible, the food is still. .. "
"Taken out of our stockpiles that are slowly running out." She continued mercilessly, crushing everything that might give him any hope to avoid the fight.
"There is no hope. We cannot even survive without an Immortal!" He thought that he would have cried like a little kid if he was not in the middle of the street.
"I have a plan, but enough talking. Know that following me might be your only chance to survive, as soon all hell will be let loose on this city. If you have the blood of your grandfather running through your veins, you should have what it takes to fight." She said and continued to walk through the streets that were no longer as filthy as before, the people serving the elite trying to preserve at least the pretense of decency and prosperity.
A pretense running on borrowed time.
Tyrn wanted to turn and run back, to run away from everything despite knowing that what had been just said was most likely true. He did not know what the woman hailed as one of the heroes of the city planned, but he decided to take his chance with her. There was no reason for her to deceive him, a simple criminal from the streets.
They quickly neared a tall building that was the temporary headquarters of the joint Purple Lotus Sect and Thunder God Sect after both their original places had been obliterated. Like in a dream he had been led to his room and explained the basics of the sect, it still bothered him because it did not look like they presumed he would become a high level cultivator. His introduction was definitely not the process fit for someone they intended to nurture to become the next pillar of the sect.
Was he just being prepared to become a cannon fodder? A sacrifice? He could not figure it out until The Purple Flash fetched him again from his room that was shared with other people that were naturally cultivators and looked at him as if he was a chicken in a doghouse.
"Come, I will show you where you fit in into our plan." She said and handed him a leather bag containing a few basic things. They walked through the improvised base of the sects while Tyrn looked hastily through the prepared tools, his face turning grim.
It was very familiar, he could almost hear Flock laugh. It was similar to what he used to have in his bag.
There was a set of glowing stones, a piece of paper with a pencil, rope, candles, a simple lighter that was produced using enchantments and a set of dark clothes. At the bottom was quite an expensive compass with food rations and water.
"This is . .. " Tyrn's head was spinning when he guessed what he would be expected to do given the contents of the bag.
"You and your friend had found the black stone in a tomb, quite an experienced grave robbers you were." The Purple Flash said calmly while Tyrn followed her out of the building.
"Do not bother, I do not care anyway." She interrupted him even before he had managed to come up with an excuse.
"You should be experienced in searching old tunnels and avoiding dangerous beasts. The cult of Mezzaiel dug out a vast network of tunnels to undermine our city's defensive enchantment and I plan to use the very same tunnels to hide along with the rest of the capable people that will remain when the Immortal turns coat and everything goes to hell." She revealed a bombshell and Tyrn gasped. He wanted to say that he had not been the one doing the tunnel exploration and he had simply been exploiting his comrade that considered him a friend, but how could he?
He was only useful this way.
"Y-Yes, I used to explore some tunnels together with Flock, he was usually just tagging along." He lied as he always did, but still, he swore he could hear Flock laughing at him from whatever dimension his soul had departed to. He had to lie to be able to do the work Flock had been doing, as Tyrn had considered it beneath him.
"That is great, you will explore and map the tunnels under the city. You should be smart enough to know what will happen if you do a sloppy work. This is for the survival of the city and traitors will be dealt with harshly with not even their souls left behind." A dangerous light flashed in her eyes and Tyrn gulped.
He should have stayed with the gang!
Tyrn imagined the dark tunnels swarming with monsters and prayed to all the gods to save him, but there was nobody to lend him a hand and honestly, he knew that gods would never lift a finger for a scum like him even if they existed.
* * * *
Karl Gulden lazily looked again.
[Experience 884/1000]
And then again.
[Experience 884/1000]
"What about now? Has it changed?"
[Experience 885/1000]
"Ho ho! A single point up! Way to go!" He enjoyed his power up that happened with him not having to move a finger. He expected that the next level would probably need ten thousand kills and only beasts of stage three and above would count. He did not expect to be able to complete that stage in years to come. More like in decades if he managed to avoid all tombs and other underhanded methods the world had prepared for a poor dungeon like him.
He could only wait to level up and then embark with his cavalry of monsters to explore his labyrinth from before, constructing a building boosting his Earth Elementals. They surely deserved it with all their hard work.
"It will take some time to score that last one hundred plus kills, but it goes much faster with the amount of pitfall traps I have build in the forests nearby."
Until then, he could only wait in boredom as nothing at all happened.
So boring!
* * * *
Tyrn's heart nearly burst with fright when something fell onto his shoulder and he tried to brush it away in reflex. It was sticky like spider web and he needed to breathe for a while as he was getting a panic attack, the dark space around him not helping. He had a bunch of glowing stones in his pocket but was afraid to take them out fully and attract attention to himself.
"No, there will be no spiders, no spiders." All the Flock's stories now seemed to come alive, a revenge from his early grave. He remembered well what the young grave robber kept ranting about.
Spiders.
Not ordinary palm sized spiders, giant monsters that lurked in the darkest corners, ready to pounce on anything that wandered into their domain. Their victims finding gruesome death instead of a hidden shelter.
"Breathe, just breathe and remember what the little brat said. They hate fire, yes fire." He rummaged in his bag to find a candle, but then realized how pathetic it was.
"I need at least a torch, not this!" He threw the candle back into the bag. He did not know who had prepared his supplies, but it was surely someone without a brain.
"They do not like water, but that will not help me much either." Actually some of the tunnels he had been ordered to explore were almost completely flooded with water of terrible stench, but not all. Another problem was that there was too little ventilation underground and he had to turn back several times just not to suffocate.
Tyrn ran back to the surface and stopped at the part where there was some daylight. Clothes he had were already wet and he was cold, the outside wind that was able to get into the first part of the tunnels did not help. The entrance was by a pond that was large enough to make him uneasy, given that its water might undermine the tunnel and flood the whole system in seconds. He had already pointed it out to his superior, but The Purple Flash did not share his concern.
"Stupid cow, I am risking my life here every second while she is in the city doing whatever." He still doubted that her plan was feasible. If something had the power to crush the walls, how was a stupid hole in the ground supposed to stop it? It was just a crazy idea of an incompetent woman that did not know what to do. She kept ranting that the demonic cultivators were interested in larger numbers of people and would lose interest in a small group of survivors underground, but he could see wishful thinking when he saw it. He was a professional liar and Purple Flash was lying to herself, they would all die in the end and she knew it.
What were they supposed to do about food? Cold? Their plan had so many holes that he wanted to cry. The problem was that he had nowhere to run to. He thought about sneaking inside one of the trade ships that traveled on the river that was next to the city, but the amount of ships traveling the waters decreased and those who still roamed the waters had extreme levels of security. It was not possible to get inside and leave the whole city of crazy people behind.
"Fine, let's add to the map." He rolled out a parchment with a large map of the underground tunnels. It was very large and the more he explored it, the larger it seemed to be.
"Who have even dug out the thing? I have never heard of it. Some insane Earth cultivator probably, ordinary people could never do this." The tunnels ran in all directions without any apparent plan and some parts even seemed that they had not been dug by a person. There were no stairs anywhere and many long vertical shafts.
"So, we have roughly ten inaccessible ends here. Well, fourteen actually." Tyrn looked at all the parts where he had to retreat due to different reasons. Six times it was because he could hear clicking of something and he immediately imagined a giant spider in the dark tunnel. Some shafts were too long and he ran out of rope before reaching the floor. Some were completely flooded, he was glad that he had not drown in one of them.
"This is it, I will have to push though with luck with the rest." For a time he thought with a pencil in his hand and then just drew what he guessed the rest of the tunnels had to look like based on the portion he had already discovered.
"I have to escape before they go deeper and discover that it is quite different from the map." Tyrn shrugged and rolled the map back into his bag.
He quickly got up and hurried back to the city while trying to meld with the trees around. It was dangerous to walk in the forest that used to be farmlands, he was surprised that he had not been eaten by the multitude of predators and strange creatures that roamed the wilderness. He looked at his long, dark cloak and snorted. He had suspected that it was just a cheap piece of cloth that they claimed was enchanted by the best artisans in the city, but there might be some truth to their words given that he had not yet been eaten.
The journey was as unpleasant as his travels through the underground, but he had pushed his fear deeper into the back of his mind and continued in the direction of the dark, gloomy wall that looked more and more dilapidated as days gone by. Yen, as she insisted him to call her, said that the city had roughly five days of supplies of food and then, everything would run out. Around the same time, the hoard of beasts that had destroyed the Gelu sect of the city next to them should arrive and collide with the city wall.
The problem was not that the city was too weak to fend the horde, but Yen had somehow found out that The Immortal planned to leave the city before it stuck. Meaning there would be a tremendous blow to morale of the defenders and it was highly probable that the wall would not hold. The whereabouts of the Cult of Mezzaiel were also unknown, but she expected them to attack as soon as the information about the Immortal's desertion reached them.
He was sure that she had not told him everything, but it was everything he had. He could only hope that they did not plan to dispose of him due to his usefulness.
"I need to think of a solution later." Tyrn thought again about the fake part of the map, but it still should provide him with a few days of extra life, before they found out it was fake.
* * * *
"Let's see." Yen took the rolled up map that Tyrn was handing her with his steady hand. She quickly placed it on a wooden table of their secret underground base and unrolled it, slightly shocked by its scale.
"Good job, let me just verify how good actually." Suddenly, she took out another map from under the table and placed it next to the map Tyrn had painstakingly brought from his expedition. He had naturally turned pale when he realized her intent.
"What? I cannot trust one little thief with the lives of us all. Let's compare your map with this one and see if they match." She shrugged her shoulders and began studying the two depictions of underground.
"Where did you . .?" Tyrn had no words, his heart immediately beating faster than ever.
"From an incident a long time ago, it is not important." She quickly brushed his question away, obviously not interested about talking about the topic. He leaned over and watched with horror the black lines that might mean his early death.
There was a heavy silence, Tyrn heard even his blood circulating in his veins.
"Unexpected, they look pretty similar." Tyrn let out a breath when he realized that the other map, although detailed, was focused more on the tunnels under the city and the dead ends that he had fabricated were more in the direction of the forest.
"However, based on your reaction, I can tell that your map is not as flawless as it would seem." The Purple Flash made his smile froze and he could not believe he had done the obvious mistake of being unable to control his emotions. "There are only a few discrepancies, but I have absolute confidence in my other source."
"They must have cheated you, it is very hard to explore some of the tunnels." Tyrn tried to save the situation, she was clueless about most of his fabricated data and he had still some hope that he could turn the situation around.
"Am I supposed to cheat myself, boy?" Tyrn was stupefied by her cold words, he had not expected that Yen had drawn the other map herself.
"I. .. I .. . I . .There was this one tunnel." He stammered while looking into her purple eyes, he was sure that to persuade the other party of his complete innocence was unrealistic. "There was this one tunnel that led through the sea, I mean through a lot of water, a really lot of water!"
"This one tunnel? Really?" She looked at him with her head cocked to the side.
"One tunnel, I swear it was just one tunnel . .. " He watched in horror the woman's hand that unsheathed a thin, but long dagger, its steel giving off reflections of light. " .. at most two or three tunnels."
"Tyrn, I think that you have bad eyesight. Your left eye seems to be the cause, you will see much better next time if we cure your affliction." She grasped the young thief's head with her left hand and pointed the dagger right against his left eye, immobilizing him in her iron grip.
"No! Please do not do this! It was only fourteen." He started to panic, but did not dare to move too much, because his eye was already uncomfortably close to the tip of the dagger.
"Only fourteen?!" She paused for second, surprised by the number.
"Please, I am only a lowly thief! Why do you keep doing this to me!" He continued to plead, close to tears. His whole life he had been unlucky despite him doing nothing wrong!
"Oh, you consider lying normal even in the matters of life and death of the whole city." She snorted while looking at his pathetic display with disgust.
"Lying is a sin." Yen said calmly, but he could see in her eyes that she was dead serious. It was as if he was looking into the eyes of a fanatic.
"I used to be soft on liars that sought to undermine city's security for their own benefit." She continued calmly while still holding him tightly in her grip.
"I also used to have two beautiful sons." She uttered and all emotion evaporated from her voice. Tyrn's body began to tremble, only at this point he truly understood the seriousness of his situation.
"With your one eye, you will go and explore at least ten of these fourteen tunnels, or you won't survive our next meeting." She said like a judge telling him his sentence.
"Do you mean? You are crazy! Please, no!" Tyrn shrieked out while his whole body stiffened and after that only screams could be heard from the isolated cellar room.