As we sat there waiting for the monster's next move I started to wonder whether allowing Lilyth to hide us here was the right decision. Should we have stood there and fought it? It was big, but we’ve fought big things before. Well… a big thing. The Behemoth. There was also the Darhun but we couldn’t do much about it. And didn’t Lilyth do some crazy stuff there too? Does she want to die? I hope not. I didn’t want her to. I liked her. Really really liked her. Caei too, despite her being a bitch at times.

Still… with the Behemoth, we had space to manoeuvre there. We didn't have it in the corridor, nor did we have it in the room. There was a good chance the monster wouldn't be able to get in here too, at least not in full. A head maybe or a paw? And that would be vulnerable to an attack from us.

The monster sniffed around again and growled:

‘She promised… she promised…’

I signalled all of us to go stand by the window to ensure we wouldn’t get accidentally hit if the monster decided to check out the room after all. But before we could make a step the monster sniffed again and slammed on the door.

‘Are you inside of that room little morsels?’

Lilyth hurried me and Caei to get behind her, while she stood there with her shotgun held in trembling hands.

There was another slam. And another. And then nothing. I wanted to let out a sigh but Caei’s hand clasped on my mouth. The hospital was so quiet you could hear a needle fall.

What the?

Then there was a somewhat distant sound. Something clattered. It couldn't have been…

The stuff we left! Did something stumble on it?

There was heavy rustling outside the door and the monster stomped away. I was too terrified to breathe out.

I tried to walk up but Lilyth stopped me with a gesture. She faintly shook her head.

I pricked up my ears. There… It sounded like the monster went into the Main Wing. Then… even without listening carefully, I was able to hear what was happening. There was a loud roar, a sound of something splattering on the wall and then silence. Which was immediately broken by the monster’s rasp:

‘Oh, little morsels! Where are you?’

But our luck continued and the monster stomped away into the main wing.

‘Now!’ I whispered and we left the room. Abandoning all exploration we hurried to the main corridor and went down it, abandoning all ideas of formation. I resummoned my Abyssal Spark, though I kept it very small. It would still mark my position, but I had to risk it. Me stumbling in the dark WOULD be a bigger problem. I really envied Lilyth’s and Caei’s Darksight. I would need to look into whether there was a spell or ability that would grant you that. I would need to research that, once we got back to civilization. At the moment we had bigger concerns, like finding a place to hide from the monster AND solving our “we can’t leave” problem, but I had no idea where we would be able to do either of the things. When we approached the door at the crossing, I saw that it led to some place called “Intensive Care Unit”, another thing I would need to ask Lilyth about.

Do we hide there? Or do we go further down the corridor? None of the papers Lilyth read mentioned this place, though it’s possible we missed some. It’s not like she had a chance to read everything. I thought the Morgue was the right place, but no. All it got us was potions. Right turn it is.

There at the end of the corridor was another staircase.

I moved my Spark to the floor listing and quickly read it.

B2: Magical Diseases Ward

B1: Magical Diseases Ward

GF: Trauma Ward, Anesthesiology, ICU

F1: Nephrology

F2: Doctor’s Offices/Psychology

F3: Mental Ward

I could hear the stomping again and it was getting closer. My gut reaction was the Mental Ward since the earliest mention of “Her” was from there… but then…

Didn’t the Thrall want to vomit on Lilyth? And then there was the Rot Hound… Oh… Oh no… I think the Smiling Death was never truly gone…

I quickly pointed at the “B2”.

Lilyth raised her eyebrow in question.

Not the time!

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

So I did the fastest thing I could think of. I put my fingers at the corners of my lips and spread them in a smile. Understanding dawned on her face. The monster was almost at the crossing, so we started to descend down the stairs as quickly and quietly as we could. I was praying the thing wouldn’t notice my Spark.

Goddamn lack of Darksight.

‘I know you are somewhere here, little morsels,’ the monster rasped when we were barely out of sight. ‘There is no escaping me. I will find you.’

Then the monster began to cackle madly.

For whatever reason the staircase didn’t go down to the second basement level so when we got down to the first basement floor, Lilyth pointed to one of the rooms near us. I nodded. Not caring about subtleties she ran over to the door and opened it. She motioned us to follow her. It was a doctor’s office. She closed the door behind us and whispered:

‘Fuck me…’

Caei shushed her, but she waved her away.

‘If that thing has this keen a hearing we’re royally fucked anyway.’

I nodded.

‘A really quick breather and we move on,’ I said. ‘This will likely be the first place it checks.’

Caei then turned to Lilyth.

‘Thank you for your quick thinking up there. You saved us.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed.

‘I didn’t,’ Lilyth shook her head and said something that echoed my earlier concerns. ‘What saved us was whatever tripped on the gear up there. I just got us from one trap to another.’

‘The idea was still good,’ Caei shrugged. ‘And it worked. Take the praise when given, Lily.’

Was it good though? Would I have made a different one? No. I guess not. I would have hidden us too. Probably much slower than her though. Damn. This is hard.

‘Fair enough.’ Lilyth replied.

‘How much time do you think we have?’ I asked both of them.

Caei just looked at Lilyth, who shrugged and said:

‘Insufficient data.’

Caeileera stared at her daggers, though this time I thought it was a bit unfair.

Lilyth, completely unperturbed, started counting on her fingers:

‘We know next to nothing about it: it has a tail, is strong and can speak. What we don’t know is: how big it actually is; what’s its primary means of locomotion; whether it can climb the stairs or scale the walls of the elevator shaft; and where its lair is. The list goes on.’

‘Locomotion?’ Caei asked.

‘Movement. We know it has legs. But does it travel on two or four? Or maybe more. This will affect a lot of factors.’

Yup. Insufficient data did suffice here.

‘Let’s get going then,’ I decided.

Lilyth cracked the door open and looked around.

‘Clear,’ she whispered.

I need to talk to her about the phrases she uses. Like, I get what ‘clear’ means, but in situations like this it can get us hurt. And will probably get Caei off her back.

‘Where do you think the other staircase is?’

I asked.

‘The logical place would be the other end of the corridor,’ Lilyth answered. ‘I don’t have the faintest idea why this is set up the way it is, though. Defensive purposes maybe?

‘Or the second level was built later,’ Caei suggested.

That seemed to have given Lilyth an idea as she crept up to the elevator shaft, carefully opened the door to it and peeked inside. She then did the same with the other one and went back to us.

‘It ends here too,’ she reported. ‘The cabins look to be on the ground floor, so unless the monster has some other way down here it went up first.

‘That does give us some breathing room,’ I said.

‘Not much,’ Caei retorted. ‘Remember, the thing at least partially relies on its sense of smell. It will probably lose our scent soon.’

Lilyth nodded in agreement, so I asked her to quickly lead us down the corridor where we thought the staircase down would be. I wondered whether we should check the other rooms, but decided against it, as I didn’t want to deal with magical jerms.

‘Are we sure whatever we are looking for is down there?’ Lilyth asked when we found it. ‘I’m not saying your logic about it being to the Smiling Death is bad. It’s more… I’m not sure whatever powers would necessarily be on the lowest floor. It could be here.

‘Or in the Mental Ward or in one of the areas we can’t access in the East Wing,’ Caei replied. We have to start SOMEWHERE.

‘Let’s start at the bottom,’ I decided, hoping I didn’t doom us all.

The lower floor was different. Much different. It looked like several rooms next to the crossing were demolished, leaving a wide-open space there, with another, much larger rot spiral. Each of its ten arms ended with a pinion with a glowing sickly green crystal at the top.

Several corpses wearing those blueish uniforms were lying by the spiral. An elf, a few dwarfs and a human. A few bodies, mostly humans, in dirty white coats were also there.

Lilyth saw something lying on the floor as she knelt by it and picked it up. It was a large teal feather.

‘Varyag,’ my girlfriend spat.

My heart sank. Was he trying to kill us?

‘This is it then,’ I said instead.

Lilyth and Caei nodded.

‘The crystals?’ the latter suggested. ‘They look to be ritual anchors. The bodies will get up the moment we approach most likely though.’

As it turned out, Caei was wrong. A skeletal arm, much larger than that of the previous Rot Hound, emerged from the centre of the spiral. As if on cue the undead began to shift and groan.

Lilyth readied her shotgun with a soothing chk-chk sound, while Caei readied her glaive.

‘Let’s do this then,’ the slimeling said with a grim smile.