The torch sputtered and cast its orange glow, but not far enough, not to what lurked just out of sight. In the blackness, red eyes narrowed. The air quivered with the beast snorting and growling.
Kichi elbowed Masahide. “Let’s get out of here.”
Masahide put his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t turn your back to it. Move slowly.”
“Okay.”
“They smell memories and emotions. So keep your mind blank and free of fear”
Kichi didn’t have trouble not thinking. The danger had her living in the moment. Her heart thumped in her chest. How does one control fear? “How do I do that?”
They retreated from the red eyes.
Masahide kept the torch overhead so as not to blind them, but he hit the ceiling with it and showered them with embers. “For a knight to die in battle against the corruption is an honor. ”
She thought about that for a second. Maybe it did help to look at it from a new perspective. But perhaps it took practice because she still felt petrified. She focused on how she thought the ideal knight would behave. Really, it wasn’t much different than Masahide.
The darkness transmogrified into a snout that wrinkled to bare teeth. The underworld hound leaped into the light. A series of knife-like claws tapped on the stone floor, and it pawed at it. It took another step forward, and its eyes locked on Kichi. Three sets of eyelids blinked at varying angles.
Masahide stepped closer and between them but still backed away. “Steel yourself. Put a hand on your sword, but don’t draw unless you have to.”
Kichi felt the cold pummel in her palm and closed her fingers around the handle.
They made quick glances over their shoulder. There were holes in the floor, and one had a ladder.
Masahide looked down. “Not this one. It could fallow us.”
Further in the light, the total mass of the creature was visible. To its back was arched and a man-and-a-half tall.
“Now!”
They dropped into the hole. The creature’s jaws snapped shut where their bodies had been in a spay of saliva. Masahide grabbed a ledge with a hand and caught her with the other, and they dropped to another tunnel.
Kichi clutched her knee. She’d scrapped it on rough rock.
The hound uttered a sound that made Kichi’s hair rise. It tried to squeeze through a few times before it gave up and darted away, paws scraping.
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Masahide scooped up the torch, and his eyes followed the sound.
Kichi looked around and saw two ways to go, and they were both the same. “I have a feeling it knows how to get down here.”
“You're probably right. You did a good job back there. It's not easy to hide your fear.”
“I just thought about my one goal.”
“And what is that?”
Kichi started walking away from the direction the hound had gone. “Before my mother passed, she said my father was the most chivalrous knight to ever live. And that's what I want to be.”
“Oh, is that all?”
They laughed. Even she had to admit it was a pipe dream, but it was her dream.
Continuing, it felt like they were snakes or gophers, burrowing animals deep in their habitat. Though the hounds had disappeared, its presence was still felt, still feared.
As expected, the hound had found a way to their level. At least they were pretty sure by the echo of scraping.
Masahide turned. “It’s not far.”
So, they continued at a faster pace. But not so fast as to roll an ankle in the murky torchlight.
They came to a downward slope with a trickle of water. It was a smooth as polished marble. Kichi waved for him to follow and used it as a slide. She shot downward, the darkness rushing around her. She hit a rock and spun to a stop.
Masahide crashed behind her without the torch. She only knew it was him by the sound of his cursing. They were deep in the mines beneath the castle with no idea where to go or how to get out. All they could do was bumble in the overwhelming darkness. But, there was a sound of chanting, distant but recognizable, so they followed it. Soon, the tunnel filled with a red glow. The world opened up into a vast cavern.
A moat of lava surrounded an island of rock. A land bridge connected it to a tunnel on the far wall. Hooded figures stirred below and continued their chanting.
Kichi pointed. “I bet if we could make it to that tunnel, we'd find our way out.”
Masahide got on hands and knees and scooted to the edge. They were a good six fathoms above the strange assembly. “The King’s wizard always said that the necromancer was the most dangerous sorceress alive and perhaps the strongest magic user save for himself. But some say she’s stronger. I guess they must be on a similar footing if one has never eliminated the other. But it’s a bad sign to see her here now.”
Kichi found the robed figure with a staff of red crystal. “This is who turned the dead Wythmere?”
Masahide looked at Kichi. “And I have a bad feeling this is who will do the draining with ritual on Whitebeard.”
Below, a flow of lava rose with black, cracked skin. It moved to pile up into the form of a man at the island's edge. The necromancer slammed the staff down, and the chamber rang. The man steamed, and the cracks in his skin glowed red. “The mountain bends to me.”
Kichi
Level: 6
Focus: Prescience
Secondary focus: Lava+1
Weapons: pure sword - 3% pure
Items: Near Field Amulet (Prescience+2, focus)