Abdul, Isaac, and Elise descended a rickety steel ladder one after another. After the earlier massacre, the group hushed and the air chilled. They touched soil four stories down to a cold, narrow rocky cavern held up by wooden braces common in mines. Other than the embers of a dead torch, nothing provided light.

Navigating through proved easier to Abdul than his partners. They reached a more treacherous, steep descent. He turned to Isaac and coldly asked. “Aren’t we idiots? Could’ve brought a lantern or something. Shadows are your thing, right? Mind diving in to scout what’s ahead?”

Isaac looked down at the shadow dagger of Dio sheathed on the right side of the hip. “Well, yea, but it’s not as easy as you make it out to be though.”

“Why?”

“I can’t see when I’m submerged. It’s like swimming in pitch black water. The narrower shadows of people and small objects are easy because I can use the edges as guidelines.” He leaned up against a wall insecurely, squinting his eyes struggling to adjust. “If I tried it here, who the hell knows where I’d end up? Falling from the ceiling? Off some cliff?” You get me?”

Abdul nodded, unenthused. “I see. I overestimated your power.”

Isaac got struck bitter by his reaction. “I am powerful. I’m the strongest one here. The brawn. You’ll have to settle for being the brains.”

“Yea, yea.”

They inched down the steep rock gradually. That was until Abdul stopped and looked unsteady. “Wearing boots to this was a mistake. Oh—.” He slipped on a slimy stone on his next step and tumbled into abyssal darkness. Isaac and Elise let out gasps, cringing to each of a dozen little metallic clinks and slams ringing out on his way down.

Isaac called out to him. “You okay, Abdul?” Elise let out a low surprised grunt too.

“I’m fine. Armor’s all beat up. Be careful on your way down.”

“I’ll try my best,” Isaac shot back only to dramatically slip on the same stone. He let out a panicked yelp, leaving Elise up there to climb down alone. No deathly impact ever sounded out though. Moments later, he shouted unnerved. “I’m good! The shadows caught me.”

“Huh? Impressive,” Abdul responded low. An epiphany hit him. It caused him to dryly chuckle. “I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

Abdul took off a gauntlet and snapped his fingers. Sparks scattered. A radiant little flame danced on his thumb, breaking the darkness.

Isaac stared at him deadpan, his hands on his hips. “Guess none of us are the brains then.”

Elise found a well-hidden ladder and made her way down quick. Isaac questioned her. “Has he told you that he was a battle surgeon? Because he’s told me three times now”

Elise slipped her mask up and let a reluctant grin show. She patted Isaac’s shoulder and stole his tongue. As he blabbered with panicked eyes, she spoke. “He has. Many times.”

Abdul avoided her smug look. “Well, if we’re a team, then we should know each other’s capabilities, right? Right?”

“Sure…”

“Whatever.”

Isaac tapped on her shoulder impatiently for his tongue back, but she ignored him and looked Abdul right in the eyes pensively. “Do you feel better now? After what you did back there? That wasn’t necessary. They weren’t our enemy. Our true enemy is ahead.”

Abdul thought it over with a stiff posture, his gaze falling to focus on his own toes. “I don’t. Not in the slightest.”

“Remember that.”

Elise flicked Isaac in the forehead. Finding himself able to speak again, he scolded her. “You’ve gotta ask me before you do that.”

She gave him an unexpected apology kiss on the cheek. Isaac sighed and moved on from it. “I can’t stay mad at you.”

Abdul led them onwards with his thumb flame. They crept through the tunnels for what seemed like an hour at their slow, cautious speed. A dim and distant door-shaped light came into view straight ahead. Abdul stepped over the corpse of an owl who’d failed to escape with the others. The man’s chest displayed the seven deep puncture wounds of a thrusting sword.

“They really are at each other’s throats. Less work for me,” he muttered.

Isaac took a deep breath and talked as they neared Rath Ghul’s sanctum. “Sasha’s somewhere in there. The two split sides of the guild are fighting over her. We’ve got to be quick. We’ve got to save her, but Convergence? Her?”

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Abdul stopped there in the tunnel near the entrance. He looked down at his hands which trembled. Turbulent fire ran under his skin as much as it did through his soul. Would anything ever calm the burning?

Brother… why am I truly down here? To save the girl for Randle? To massacre owls? Whatever the true answer may be, I’ve got a feeling that it’s all going to end here.

Isaac questioned him. “What’s wrong, friend?”

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

Abdul strutted out into the light of the sanctum’s dimmed stone halls. The three stood watching each other’s backs, readied for violence. Blood spattered across the floors and walls with rare dashes even reaching the ceiling. A few corpses sprawled out within sight, some missing appendages or dragging entrails. Abdul knelt next to one of these victims propped up against the wall to observe. “More of these puncture wounds. An estoc?”

The corpse’s hand grabbed his wrist, startling him. “Run. Go. New Gareth must know,” his gurgling voice uttered.

“Run from what?”

“Jericho the Wyrm.”

Abdul jolted free from the dead man’s cold grip. He turned to Isaac and Elise “That name rings a bell. Jericho the Wyrm?”

Isaac took a step back, raising his hands to halt him. “You fought in the wars of The Westwinds, right? Which side were you on? You really haven’t heard that name?”

“Yes, but I chose no sides. My brother and I were mercenaries that fought for the highest payer. We were battlefield surgeons—. Ah, never mind.”

“I won’t judge you as an enemy now of all times, but I was born in The Westwinds. I defended my motherland from its invaders. The Wyrm was King Andre’s monster. He turned the tides of battles and took castles by himself. Nobody could ever kill him. That was until he vanished. But if he’s here, then fuck. Jericho is The Wyrm?”

Abdul unsheathed Primus who begrudgingly creaked its eye open to consciousness. “Do you know that name, sword? The Wyrm. He’s here.”

“Yes, I have. Another enemy fabled or not. So, what?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to test your metal.”

Abdul retrieved Ignazio’s map from his satchel and pondered over it. “We should be on the third level. If I remember correctly, Sasha should be on the second level where the residential quarters and dungeons are.”

Isaac bounced off him. “Then stairs it is.”

They swept through the halls, peering into each room only to find nothing. No enemies. No rebels. No Jericho. Isaac wandered into an outbranching storage room with his daggers drawn as Abdul and Elise scanned the surroundings. A struggle sounded out from within the room, so they burst in. Isaac knelt next to a freshly slain owlet with dark blood staining his hands.

The boy shivered and gurgled as his killer held him in his arms. “Shit, shit, shit,” Isaac mumbled. “He attacked me. Didn’t see him. I didn’t see that he was just a kid.”

He gazed blankly at Elise’s pained face, and then Abdul who lacked a reaction. “Don’t look at me. Leave me be for just a moment.” He asked.

They nodded and left him to his solace in the room. Leaning up against the wall next to Elise, Abdul shook his head. “We don’t have time for this. He was a soldier, wasn’t he? Getting all worked up over some kid he didn’t even know…”

She returned a frown. Abdul didn’t know if she heard Isaac’s sobbing, but he did. It reminded him of himself. It reminded him of that wine cabinet and his nails that bent and broke scraping against the wooden floors. A soreness built up at the back of his throat. How can he weep like he’s lost a piece of himself?

Isaac emerged with a dead demeanor. “Let’s go.”

They followed Abdul and his map until he stopped and jolted his head to the right. “Do you hear that?”

“This again? You must have good ears.”

Abdul doubted his own senses. What is that? Slamming? Repeatedly. Over and over. It won’t stop.

“It’s nothing. After we take this turn, we’ll find a staircase to the second level.”

After taking the turn, the group stopped and stared off. Over next to the staircase, a dark figure vice gripped The Doctor by the skull and split open crow’s mask, smashing and smearing him into the wall. Repeatedly. Over and over. It didn’t stop. The blood wetted thuds became clear.

Despite the stranger’s presence though, Abdul moved onwards and motioned his partners to follow. He whispered to them. “We’ll slip by unnoticed.”

The murderer’s growly voice echoed throughout the halls. “What a mother fucking drag. Who is loyal anymore? Why is everyone a rat? I thought we were owls, damn it. This isn’t on-brand at all. Decades of work down the drain.”

The moment Abdul made it to the steps, Elise and Isaac right behind him, Jericho’s head snapped up at them. He glared. “How about you three tell me the flavor of your spirits?” He sized up the group and shook his head. “No, no, I already know. You all aren’t owls or rats. You’re actually hawks, right? Those disguises are foolish.”

Jericho let the corpse loose and approached with his estoc in hand. Stepping into the light, Abdul noticed the cuts and stabbings flaying the skin across his body. Instead of flesh and blood, they exposed dark metal underneath the skin. Metal that breathed.

Sparks of red lightning coursed and pulsed from these wounds. Before the group’s eyes, his injuries mended themselves, leaving behind wicked scars. Countless ancient scars decorated wherever Jericho’s skin was revealed. Everywhere except his face featuring that nose bent to the left.

Abdul unsheathed Primus with a SHING and stood his ground in a combat base. He ordered Elise. “You two go on without me. Save the girl. He’s strong. I want to fight him.”

She looked back at him frozen. Isaac stepped forward. “No, we’ll gang up on him. We’d win for sure that way.”

Abul stiffened up. “Isaac, why are you here?”

“To rescue my student.”

“Will you be able to do that if we all end up slaughtered by some legend?”

Jericho took that as a compliment. He scoffed. “Aren’t you buttering me up.”

Isaac questioned Abdul. “But what about you?”

Abdul shoved him back toward the staircase and raised his voice. “Who the hell cares about what happens to me? Go! Please!”

Isaac’s shoulders slumped. “But—” He shook his head, motioning to Elise to follow. “Fine then. We’ll be back for you. With Sasha.” Elise hesitated, darting her head between the two of her partners, and then nodded. They rushed down the stairs.

Abdul showed off Primus, speaking deadpan to Jericho. “I am Abdul, brother of Xavier.” Flames sparked ablaze across his skin, igniting an aura of heat radiating from within the armor. He shone with the spectacle of a human lantern as his owl’s mask melted.