I only had seconds to react, but thank God for Ringed Mind.

Split-second decisions were what it was good for.

I lunged for Sylvia as the ground began to fall beneath us, grabbing her in my left arm seconds before we fell into darkness. She was startled, but almost instinctually grabbed onto me as well. At the same time, I aimed my right arm up above up, palm open, and cast the Skill that I was hoping would save us.

Thorn Grapple.

Please, please let the ceiling be strong enough to hold our combined weight.

The thorny head of my grapple skill exploded from in front of my palm, racing above me. It pierced straight into the stone and thankfully lodged firmly inside. I jerked to a halt with Sylvia held in my arms. I grimaced from the added weight, flaring Sylvan Vigor once again to withstand her Mythril form. Or, well.

Her weight.

I was startled when I felt a second weight latch onto my back, but although I was momentarily afraid that it was a zombie, I was too busy watching what else was happening.

The entire hallway floor was crumbling before my eyes.

Not only was the section that we had been standing on falling away into an unexpected pit beneath us, but the rest of it as well. The mounds of undead that we had slain were falling into the darkness with the stone, all the while continuing to make no noise whatsoever. They disappeared into the blackness, tumbling in the hundreds. I was even able to see that more of them than I was expecting were revealed to have been beyond our unintentional makeshift barricades. They, too, fell out of sight.

Unfortunately…

Hook fell with him.

I was only able to meet his startled eyes once before he disappeared from sight. As my dwarven commander started to sink into the gloom of the unforeseen shaft revealed beneath us, I thought I saw his black eyes shift into a form of resignation.

The last thing I saw from him was an almost wry nod of acknowledgment before he sank out of sight.

My breaths hung heavy in my chest from the strain of everything that was being supported by my right arm. Jerkily turning my head to see what was on my back, I found that Dusk had reacted in time to jump onto my back before she joined Hook in the plunge. The normally taciturn Gnoll woman’s eyes had changed, and shock filled them instead.

Even though we had been freed from the threat of being eaten by undead, we had another problem now. Before the girls could even speak, I grit it out behind clenched teeth. “I…can’t…hold…us…forever…”

Sylvia’s crystalline blue eyes widened in alarm, before she looked around wildly for a solution, in an uncharacteristic display of panic from her. There wasn’t much to be found up here, however. The walkway of the corridor we had been ambushed in was gone for dozens of feet in either direction, and on the slim patch’s of stone that we could see in the distance? There were just more damn undead waiting on the edge.

I don’t know if we had just saved or doomed ourselves.

Dusk had one an idea, though

“Can your Skill go down?” She asked tersely.

I nodded jerkily, but it was Sylvia who spoke. “We don’t know how deep that pit goes,” She whispered furiously. “It could go for miles.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Dusk bit back, surprisingly just as heated. “It’s the only way, and we have to find Hook.”

If he was still alive from that fall.

I interrupted their inopportune argument. “I can…do it…” I grit out, letting out more length from the vine that was supporting us. We jerked downwards for a moment, causing me to almost lose my grip on Sylvia. Thankfully, she was clutching me so strongly I was worried for the integrity of my ribs. I concentrated harder, bending all three rings of my mind to lowering us in a smoother manner.

As we descended into the blackness below us, the light skills that Sylvia and Dusk had maintained illuminated the pit better. I was starting to suspect this at least wasn’t part of a theoretical Necromancer’s trap.

It looked more like the deeper sections of the mausoleum had just collapsed in on themselves. We probably would have run into this problem anyway, if we had been able to go any deeper down the halls.

I could vaguely make out the structure of a spiraling path that had failed, leaving only a few curved sections embedded in the walls. There were still some alcoves that held preserved orcish bodies, but for the most part they were broken and empty as well. The distant walls of the destroyed complex were visible in the light from my female companion's Skills.

A distant, howling wind echoed all around us, coming up from somewhere far below us. I was nearly blown off course several times from the pressure, but managed to maintain my grip on the Skill. This was by far the longest section of vine I had ever released from the skill, and frankly I was surprised that it was even capable of this.

We had been descending for some time now after all. Almost a mile, as Sylvia had predicted. We were deep beneath the surface by now.

God, I had no idea how we were going to get out of here. Hook hadn’t told us exactly where the entrance into Tlatec was.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I hoped it wasn’t somewhere above us.

While I was focused on guiding us downwards, eventually I heard Sylvia let out a sigh of relief. “We’re nearly to the ground,” She murmured into my left ear.

Thank fuck. My arm was killing me, and I was pretty sure it had popped out of its socket from the strain it was under. I didn’t think anything in there had ripped, but thankfully I had a few Healing Potions on me in case it did.

Eventually, our descent came to a stop.

I wasn’t able to watch it happen, but I felt it when my feet touched down on the rocky stone of what must be the ground. As Sylvia and Dusk stopped clinging to me and hopped off of my exhausted form, I released the iron grip I had on my Skill. The long, long, long vine that stretched out into the darkness above us vanished into a haze of Ather.

I, meanwhile, slumped to my knees, my right arm boneless and very obviously dislocated. I sat there limply while Sylvia and Dusk inspected it.

Dusk hummed, gingerly reaching out to grab it. Thankfully, it was numb enough from the exertion it had been placed under that I only felt a brief spike of pain.

I still felt it when she unceremoniously shoved it back into its socket, though. I yelped like a struck dog, suddenly very much feeling the entire strain the limb had been placed under. I tried to glare up at the Gnoll who had just manhandled me, but she had already turned away and started to inspect our surroundings.

Sylvia just sighed and helped me to my feet. “Are you alright, Nathan?” She murmured.

I clumsily dug around in my supply pouch, digging out one of my Healing Potions. I smiled weakly at her. “I will be,” I said as I popped the cork on the glass bottle. I slugged the cherry red potion back, and almost immediately started to feel better.

Putting Dusk’s behavior out of my mind, I did my best to look around the cavern I had lowered us into.

It was…pretty big.

It was far larger in here than I was expecting, and that was before I counted just how far down we’d gone. The surrounding area was littered with both the still forms of hundreds of deceased undead, but also rock and stone. It lay on every surface, and I don’t think it was just from the floor Hook had broken.

Said dwarf was nowhere to be seen.

Dusk cursed softly from her position kneeling in the darkness, lit only by the light of her skill. She looked up and somehow met my eyes in the gloom. “He is not here,” She said with a frown.

“Isn’t…that good?” I asked hesitantly. “It could mean that he survived the fall and…wandered off…” I trailed away. That sounded unlikely to my ears.

Still, Dusk shook her head. “No, he would not do that,” She answered with certainty in her voice. “If he was able, he would have waited for us.”

“Then what happened to him?” Sylvia asked, brow furrowed.

Dusk was silent for a moment. “Look around,” She said abruptly. “Try and find his trail.”

Exchanging a glance with Sylvia, we wordlessly got to work. I had to keep near Sylvia as we searched, as I still didn’t have a light Skill of my own, despite several people vowing to help me achieve one. I guess it had just fallen to the wayside, with everything that was going on.

I swear to God, I was going to make it a priority for me to get a light Skill if I ever got out of here. More than winning the war, or toppling Elderwyck, or even going on a real date with Sylvia.

I was getting that damn light Skill.

As we searched, something was niggling at my brain. For a moment, I thought it was just an idea rattling around in one of my rings, but no. I eventually placed it as one of my newer passive Skills, and something that I hadn’t really had much use for yet.

Lifeblood Sense.

When I realized what it was, I stopped Sylvia and did my best to follow the direction it was leading me in. Wandering out into the darkness followed by my partner’s light, I eventually stopped near a pile of freshly fallen debris. Kneeling down, I found what my Skill had led me towards.

On a shattered flagstone was a small pool of blood that gleamed crimson in the light of Sylvia’s Skill.

I blinked in surprise at the thought. Lifeblood Sense had literally led me to a patch of…lifeblood, I guess. Touching it, I could feel that the blood was still slightly warm. In my mind, I could recognize now that the sense I had of the liquid was slightly dissipating as time went on. I guess that meant the Skill could sense blood both when it was in the bodies of others, and outside, if it meant the blood was still warm a little.

But more importantly, I could sense a slight trail that led away from the stone it rested on. It was fading, though.

Fast.

I cursed, standing up rapidly. “Dusk, over here!” I called urgently. Without even waiting for her to show up, I scrambled over the rock and tried to track the fading blood. “Follow us!”

Following the trail, I found that it led to a small tunnel set into the wall of the cave-in. This did not look like something that had been a part of the mausoleum. It looked newer, and far rougher hewn.

But the trail of blood led into it, so…

I followed as quickly as I could, Sylvia hot behind me. I hadn’t even told her what I’d discovered, but she had followed without even blinking. I felt a burst of affection for her at the faith, but squashed it for now.

I could tell her how thankful I was later.

Dusk caught up to us as we hurried through the tunnel, and after a brief description of what I’d found, didn’t bother asking more questions. We really had to hurry. The trail was growing literally colder every moment we didn’t find Hook, and this wasn’t a simple tunnel. There were a number of different side branches that we encountered as we braved its depths. It twisted and turned all around us, and the only reason I was able to navigate it was because of the bloody trail I could faintly sense.

Abruptly, the trail ended. But…that was fine.

We had reached the exit, after minutes of frantic sprinting through the tunnels. We hadn’t bothered being stealthy as we did so, despite our occupations. Whatever was down here…whatever had taken Hook?

They had to know we were coming.

The tunnel opened up into a large chamber, looking like it was both part of the mausoleum, and had been altered by other hands. It was surprisingly tidy at the entrance, with none of the debris that I would have expected in here. But what we did find, was all the more spine-chilling.

Acting as a near honor guard was a long, unbroken line of undead on either side of the tunnel exit. They stretched out into the chamber forming a kind of walkway that we were clearly supposed to follow. But…these undead weren’t hostile like the ones above had been. They looked...mostly the same, they just weren’t reacting at all to our presence. The undead orcs just stared out into space, utterly still.

Their eyes still glowed with the same blue fire as the others had, though.

Sylvia took a long, extraneous breath at the sight of them. “I suppose the Necromancer knows we’re here, then,” She said, with a slight tremor in her voice.

I had been struck dumb by the sight, but Dusk was made of sterner stuff than I’d been expecting. With narrowed eyes, she stepped onto the trail marked by the undead. She marched down it with heavy steps, leaving Sylvia and I to scramble to keep up with her. I’m not sure she even noticed though.

“Oh, this is a bad idea,” I murmured to myself, as we followed the path so carefully laid out for us.

I wasn’t expecting a response.

“Oh, do calm down,” I heard a refined, male voice echo out from somewhere in front of us. Before I could even process that, the path of the undead ended.

And we saw our Necromancer. Only…

That wasn’t all they were.

Dusk’s steps finally stuttered, as we all beheld what Hook had suspected as down here.

“Lich…” She breathed fearfully.

Oh.

Damn.