As we progressed onwards the bronze evolving artifact sword's color shifted slowly at first then abruptly, from purple to a harsh yellow, "I can't tell you exactly why but this feels... Familiar?" Zee said with genuine confusion. "wait a sec" she held her hand up. "We don't have time, we move forward." Typhis responded turning his head back not breaking stride for an instant. Not even ten second later a skeletal hand reached through the wall, grabbed Typhis by the throat with a suppressed scream trying to be released but being cut short by the hands constriction. The hand retracted at an unnatural angle with Typhis trying to push the hand off his neck and kick against the wall the hand was pulling bringing him into the wall itself. Gazing at one another zee and I locked eyes.

"shit." I said, "Fuck" Zee answered

Sprinting to the wall we discovered Typhis was fully gone with the wall closing on the spot where he was.

"Well thats uh... neat-o?" Zee laughingly said aloud.

"neat-o... Really?" with a look of disgust I asked her.

"amazing and star gazing?" she was absurdly amused by her very stupid retort.

Holding her sword out and giving me a hush gesture Zee got a serious look on her face and slowly crept past the point where typhis got snatched up. About ten paces further she cleanly flipped the sword around mid air so the tip of the blade faced downward. Waiting for a split second she drove the sword straight down with the sound of a CRACK she pulled it back out with white bone fragments scattered the hole the sword made. "Use 1 meter underneath this spot here" she said pointing a bit behind where she turned my beautiful Dwafari metal creation into a shovel. Doing as she instructed a mortified Typhis popped out on top of the ice his immaculate noble attire was covered in dirt and sludge.

Zee still had a shush finger over her lips motioning for us to follow her Typhis looked PISSED about his now dirtied clothing moving his hands from his chest to his waist with a 'the fuck' expression. Zee took the lead and watched the walls with interested, pointing out skeletons hidden within them where I would then use to push them out into the open for Zee to stab. Ten or so basic skeletons later the tunnel had two different paths to choose, one going almost vertically down with a massive down slope that we would have to rock climb down instead of walk the other just veering left. The deafening silence only broken by the occasional sound of fighting or screams that could have been 10 meters away or 10 kilometers, the tunnels echoing made it impossible to tell the difference with any kind of certainty. "Well boys a decision has to be made here, based on my gut feeling here, going down leads to the biggest baddie here, choosing the other direction leads out of this place" Zee said with no amount of jest or sarcasm for the first time, in full mission mode.

"Hm. Let's play this safe, all that matters is getting out of here alive right?" Typhis said with an air of aloofness, "I mean it would just be silly to go down there" pointing his thumb down at the chasm.

"Wow how can you tell where the tunnels lead?" I asked checking out the chasm and having flashbacks to the floor breaking apart beneath me at the glacier followed by a shiver down my spine.

"well close your eyes and walk into the tunnel to the left and see what you can hear" Zee said walking behind me and putting her hands on my shoulders before a gentle push into the entrance to that cave. Upon closing my eye lids a faint breeze kissed my face and chilled my ears. "The wind?" I asked unsure if that was the right answer, "Yep! And as for the pit and the big bad guess..." in one motion she raised [Hades Inferno] and smoothly cut Typhis throat open with him moving his hand to his neck and making gurgle sounds as dark green blood spouted from the open wounf.

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a second or so of bewilderment passed before I held my hands on top of my head and yelled, "WHAT THE FUCK ZARLESSA!"

Before the echoing of 'Zarlessa' thorughout the ant hill like tunnels of the catacomb could stop, Typhis convulsed aggressivley on the ground as if he were seizing, bones cracking and his skin turning blue, his ears became pointed, with black eyes and white irises. "I think the big bad guy is down there because so is Typhis the crown Prince of a nation. If I had to use a mindless servant a idiotic noble of a small ambitious nation like Galland is where I would start". Swinging the blade hard in the air the blood of the creature scattered across the ground next to it. Standing above the pit we looked at each other, "Glowing swords go first" I said with a frightful smile. She repeated the phrase with a high voice making fun of me as she turned around and began climbing down. Moving slowly so not to slip Zarlessa explained how she figured Typhis was taken when he slipped into the wall, she was pretty sure she missed the skeleton when she drove the sword into the dirt. Uncertainty made more evident by the way fake Typhis was acting and how quiet he was in contrast to earlier. She had an ability to see anyone who was openly hostile towards her, which is how she was able to see fake Typhis and the skeletons, but Typhis stopped being within the parameters for this skill once he had entered the Inn before being transported down to the Catacombs. Once she was able to see him underground the options were either he was so upset he was going to turn on them at some point, or it was no longer him.

Light that the sword made brought movement into vision just a meter below Zarlessa's feet, bending down to a half crunch while still maintaining her hand and foot holds we saw hundreds of skeletons and zombies reaching for her trying to get to her feet. With a quick shriek she nearly lost her handle on the wall, grabbing her sleeve to stabilize her from above. The light also showed the room we were in was different now, yellow dyed cut stone with designs of knots comprised the wall thirty meters across from us. A long passageway lead to a door in the cut stoned wall at the opposite end of the wall we clung to was separated by the small lake of undead clawing and groaning while reaching up for us. Primarily zombies with rotting cloth nearly falling off of their decayed green bodies. Skin gave way to visible muscles and sinew contracting and moving with the zombies flailing arms. For every three zombies there was one skeleton in the mass of movement just below. Most skeletons held rusted iron weapons with fewer skeletons holding bows but lacked any usable arrows so they held the ranged weapons like bats trying to swat at Zarlessa while she climbed up a meter or two to ensure she was out of range.

"I have an idea, stay there for a sec" I said as I climbed to be adjacent to her. Focusing on my breathing just like Agatha taught me I remembered the staffs ability , condensing the concept of cold in the air around me I moved the magic in the air towards the ground, casting to make a two meter wall beneath us facing the zombies on the floor. I spread out the concept and separated the aspect of ice to make hundreds of finger sized bullets of ice so thin it would become sharp on the underside of the ice wall. Using all of my now super natural strength I leapt a few meters into the air and slammed the staff down breaking all the sharp points embedded into the wall causing needle sized shrapnel of ice to spread out in a wide radius.

Having not thought this through fully I fell the remaining two meters landing on top of multiple corpses of what were undead creatures.

[Class level +1]

[Skill learned-> ]

"Ow...oww...owwww..." echoed in the massive underground chamber.