"This silence feels a little eerie now." Narissa mused as she knelt by the pulsating light.

"After those strange voices, I just hope Nugget is alright," Ted added as he peered over Narissa's shoulder. "So, any idea what that is."

"Hmm? Why, a light of course." Narissa cooed.

THUMP!

"I just need...a minute.."

Trizel had made another return trip with Bakade on his back. The thin girl crawled off of him, and used her claws on her unbandaged hand to quickly sever the rope connecting their harnesses.

Uh guys? Death said as he popped up behind Sid. We may have a little problem.

"Has a replacement for the last keeper already arrived?" Sid asked.

Death shook his head. I don't think so, but...well...Mileaer has sort of just wandered off.

"Curious, I was unaware he had that name." Sid mused. "I have just heard him designated as the hollow king."

"I think that's one of the titles that Death rattled off when we first ran into him." Sentenza explained.

"So, not that this isn't fun and all, but names aside, what exactly happened?" Lulu asked.

Okay, so I was for sure keeping a close watch on everything, and definitely not trying to work on some cool yoyo tricks or anything. But some time after Trizel picked up Bakade, he just sort of wandered off. Death said as he crossed his arms behind his back and kept his face turned towards the ground. I think he was heading back to the ruins of The Oasis, but I'm not sure.

"You didn't follow him?" Ted asked.

Death shrugged. I mean, what did you want me to do? He creeps me out and couldn't even hear me if I wanted to talk to him...I mean, if I could I totally would've given it my all, but one on one? I'd expect him to just try and devour me like he did to my counterpart from his world.

"Hhhheeeee'ssss nnnnoootttt ttthhhaaattt bbbaaadddd." Bakade said.

Uh, maybe pay attention a little? If you made bad vibes into a person, it wouldn't give off half the negativity and creep factor that guy does.

"This is not ideal, but it is an acceptable situation." Sid declared. "With Trizel exhausted from carrying others, this may be a blessing in disguise."

"I am not...I..." Trizel panted as sweat poured from his face. "I am good to go. I merely need to catch my breath."

"Who needs that guy anyway?" Og'drimun huffed. "Not like he'd be all that useful navigating this massive place."

"His added muscle would be a nice safety net," Narissa said as she got up from her knees. "Not that you'd understand how to effectively use that kind of force of course."

"What?" Scoffed Og'drimun. "I'm the best force using demon around here!"

"Well, seeing as you're the only demon," Narissa teased. "I don't see much competition for that specific niche."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

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Nugget blinked slowly. The room around her was illuminated, and the black vapor seemed all the more ominous now that it was framed against light instead of just more darkness.

The hen strutted off of the painting and made sure to avoid stepping on the rock or the dove in the painting. She hopped onto the now glowing symbols along the ceiling with seemingly reckless abandon. As the surface she was trying to walk on grew steeper and steeper, she dug her claws in. Her talons pierced into the stone with ease, and she forced her way up to the opposite side of where she entered.

Nugget hopped up into a hallway on what would have been the third level. She stopped for a moment, to preen the feathers on her wing. As she stood there, a crackling sound stirred in the air around here. Then, a jolt of electricity leaped towards her from past a corner at the far end of the hallway.

As the bolt flew towards her, the hen easily side-stepped out of the way. She didn't even stop preening her wing while the jolt of electricity flung out and struck the opposing wall.

CRACK!

The wall splintered, and chunks went flying as the energy slammed up against it. The chunks rolled up towards the painting at the center, but stopped before actually crossing the line and rolling onto it directly.

Silence returned soon after, and Nugget seemed to be content with her job as she dropped a single feather onto the ground. She turned her head, so her eye was looking straight down the hallway. After a moment, she took a step forward.

As soon as her talon touched the ground again, the crackling sound began to surround her again. As a second bolt of lightning leaped towards her, Nugget broke into a full sprint.

CRACK! ZAP! CRASH! VWOOSH!

Each step seemed to summon a new bolt of lightning. As the seventh bolt arced up and blew a crater into the carpeted floor of the hallway, Nugget shifted into leaping forward. She used her wings to keep her in the air longer as she pushed forward with a single leg. Her stride was now even longer than Trizel's at full sprint, and the frequency of lightning died down slightly.

Yet, every time her claws made contact with the ground, the crackling sound would return, and another flash of electricity would fly towards her. Somehow, she seemed to be able to predict where they were coming as she expertly avoided all of the raw energy that was constantly flying towards her.

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"Splitting up is the best option." Sid explained calmly as he tied a thin rope to the larger rope that he had set into the rock face that they used to get here.

"Uh, are you crazy?" Ted blurted out. "Splitting up is always the worst idea in these kinds of situations. It's asking for people to get picked off one by one!"

"We can cover more ground exploring this place," Sid continued to explain calmly. "We have a time limit after all, we just are not aware of the specifics. On top of that, Death is able to work as an intermediary between however many groups we form."

"Assuming he will be allowed to teleport throughout this place," Narissa mused. "I mean, the fog stopped him, right?"

"Yet, he is not impeded in here." Sid continued.

"Not yet anyway," Sentenza commented. "Who knows if that could change as we get deeper in. It could just be a trap to lull us into a false sense of security before picking us of like Ted said."

"It's not worth it," Ted added. "It's too risky."

"Stop concerning yourself with the risk!" Sid shouted as a scowl formed on his face. "How can we ever succeed at anything if we constantly take things too safe to ever progress forward?"

Everyone grew silent for a moment as Sid had his outburst. They all looked shocked, except for Og'drimun who looked quite pleased with himself.

"Hey, I don't hate the idea of splitting up," Og'drimun said. "Could be fun."

"If we knew what we were looking for," Lulu cut in. "I'd think that'd be swell, but we're too in the dark to just go feeling out blindly in every direction. Besides, that rope isn't cheap. We can't all take some with us. Better we do the old trick of putting our hand on the left wall and moving forward."

"Hand on the left wall?" Trizel asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, it's a simple trick to get out of mazes. There has to be a way forward and a way out, right?" Lulu explained with a smirk. "Now, if you want to know how it works exactly. Well...I suppose I could be convinced. For the right price, of course."

Trizel sighed as he shook his head. "I would rather not run through here naked."

"Ah, saw through me that quickly, eh?" Lulu smirked. "Well, you can always just trust me I suppose."

"That may be a way to press forward," Sid said as he seemed to have cooled down to his regular monotone self. "However, we could miss many important clues that would shed light on our situation here. The path forward is not always the right path to getting answers. In fact, most answers are hidden down dead ends, or deep in seemingly unimportant layers of code."

But I thought time was an issue? Death asked as he scratched his skull. So, wouldn't we want to speed run through this thing to get to the end? I mean, sure we could miss some clues or whatever, but won't the ending have the majority of the information that's here?

"A fair point," Sid agreed. "However, if we split up, we can have some search for the path forward, while others search for secrets. Does that not sound better? There is no reason we cannot have both."

"Except for potential dangers," Ted spit out. Ted thought that this was too risky. Several of them were still pretty hurt, and Narissa had already talked about how much magical energy was just floating through here. Then there were those voices that were clearly not happy with intruders, and the whole thing shaking like a chunk of jello.

Sid calmly tried to explain, "With Death, that is minimally..."

"No!" But Ted interrupted him. "It's too much. We stick together, until we know what this place even is. We can talk about it then, but blindly running forward and lowering our fighting capabilities by splitting up is insane if we're really in enemy territory."

Sid glared at Ted, and clenched his skeletal fist.

Sentenza walked up and grabbed the thin rope from Sid as he patted him on the back. "Well, you heard the boss. Might as well get moving then." He turned to Lulu. "You said left, right?"

Lulu puffed out her lower lip as she put her hands on her hips and pouted. "What? No one wants to know why this works?"

Sentenza smirked. "It's a bad bet. Like planting money in the ground and hoping it'll grow into a tree. Maybe it'll answer some question, but it won't change things, now will it?"

"But..."

Sentenza just walked off further down the hallway. "Well, are you all coming, or not?"

The atmosphere was a little awkward, but everyone started to slowly follow him. Lulu stuck back and grumbled to herself, "Should've charged them for any information at all...dang it..."