Christopher watched the lines on the palm of his pale blue hand, ignoring Jules, who kept digging through his pockets.

He could see in the dark–but there appeared to be some restrictions. He could see himself and Jules, but that was it. Even the creatures that attacked them no longer shone with green light now that they were dead.

I can only see living things, he realized. This must be the power of the wolf page.

He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before–maybe he had to be in complete darkness for it to activate.

Wait! What about Jule’s sword?

Before he could give it much thought, a dim, green light illuminated his surroundings, revealing a narrow stone tunnel. The light came from a small glass sphere Jules held in his hand.

The tunnel was roughly dug through solid rock and was mostly dry, except for an absurd amount of viscous semi-transparent liquid covering the stone floor.

Five grotesque humanoid creatures lay dead on the ground. They were tall and sickly thin, with oversized, elongated limbs lacking both hands and feet. Instead, on their extremities, they had pieces of jagged bone, mostly stripped off of flesh.

They had a few strands of long, rattled hair but lacked eyes, noses, and ears–instead, a gaping mouth took over their entire faces, filled with half a dozen rotten, misplaced, fang-like teeth.

One of the creatures was taller than the others and had an open ribcage. Human hands with noddy fingers and dirty nails sprouted from the inside–the hands were now still and wasted, like wilted flowers.

How did he defeat them all in complete darkness? Christopher asked himself.

He remembered how Jules had suddenly disappeared, and a light breeze had swept through the tunnel. Christopher realized he wasn’t the only one hiding something.

“Are you ok?” Jules asked, taking a bandage out of his backpack. He had a long, transversal cut on his left forearm.

“Yes, only a scratch,” Christopher said, realizing that no matter how much he tried to clean the slime from his clothes, it was useless. “I can help you with that,” he added, approaching Jules on all fours. The young man couldn’t hide a mocking smile.

“How can you stand up on this slimy floor?” Christopher asked.

Jules smirked and lifted his left foot, revealing sharp metal spikes adorning his soles.

“We had bad luck,” He said. “We landed right in the middle of a breeding ceremony.”

“Breeding ceremony?” Christopher asked with fear in his eyes.

“Yeah. With this much gunk, we must have interrupted them right after their climax,” Jules laughed at Christopher’s horrified face. “These ghouls are even more disgusting than I’ve heard.”

Christopher rested his head against the wall, breathing slowly through his mouth, doing his best not to throw up again. After calming down, he put his hands just a few centimeters above Jules’s wounded forearm.

“How come you don’t have any armor?”

“You’re the one to talk,” Jules replied with a smirk.

“How did you defeat them so easily?”

“Easily? They almost gutted me,” Jules complained, diverting the discussion. Whatever his secret was, he didn’t want to reveal it.

Christopher closed his eyes and focused on the blood pumping through his body. He watched with amazement as it ignited, lighting up his insides, before using Crimson Proof.

Jules watched, amazed, as his wound gradually closed, the torn flesh magically knitting itself together. Once the bleeding ceased, Christopher cut off the flow of energy.

“Why did you stop?” Jules asked.

“I need to conserve energy,” Christopher replied.

“That’s a pretty good skill you have there. What is it?”

“Crimson Proof,” Christopher answered without thinking.

“Oh, are you an Ariadne’s Chosen?”

“A what?”

“It’s a synopsis,” Jules explained. “It gives you the Crimson Proof Epistle.”

Jules paused momentarily, but after confirming that Christopher didn’t plan on sharing his synopsis, he continued. “Let’s go. We must leave this breeding ground before more ghouls find us.”

“Do you know where we need to go?”

“We need to find the Crossroad of this floor,” Jules replied. “But I don’t know the way. That’s kind of the point of being shuffled inside the maze.”

Christopher dragged himself forward until he reached a part of the tunnel with less slime. Finally, he stood up using his spear as a crutch.

“Do you have any way of lighting up the way?” Jules asked. “My luminous marble should be going out pretty soon.”

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Christopher glanced at the small, spherical marble in Jules's hand–the green light it emitted was growing dimmer by the minute.

The marble’s eerie light reflected on Jule’s thumb. It appeared mutilated and scarred as if it had been cut into dozens of times. There was even a fresh cut on it, with some dried blood on the edges. He considered offering to heal the wound but ultimately decided against it. He had to conserve his energy.

“I don’t think so,” Christopher replied, rummaging inside his backpack.

Surprisingly, he found a rope, matches, and three yellow, semi-transparent crystals mixed among his food and water provisions.

“Do you know what this is?” Christopher asked, handing one of the crystals to Jules.

“Exactly what we need,” Jules smiled and, without warning, used both hands to crack the crystal in half.

Christopher expected the crystal to break, but instead, countless cracks spread through its surface, and dim, orange light escaped from them.

“It’s a light crystal,” Jules explained. “They are pretty easy to find from the 3rd floor upwards but can only pierce the darkness up to the tenth floor. Let’s get going now.”

Christopher thought about requesting a couple of minutes–just enough times to go over his runes, but, noticing Jules's hurry, decided against it. He could do it after getting to safety.

“Wait! I almost forgot,” Jules interrupted.

Christopher watched as he ran to one of the fallen bodies and gutted it using his blade. Jules dug through its entrails with a disgusting smirk, only to return empty-handed.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for loot,” Jules replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “One of these guys could have precious treasures inside them. Crystals, pages, or even some rare ingredient. Come on, help me out,” he urged, “just don’t expect much; the drop rates on the first few floors are terrible.”

In the end, they were left with empty, filth-covered hands.

“Too bad,” Jules said. “Let’s hope we have better luck next time. Now, let's run out of here.”

The tunnel narrowed as they advanced, and soon, they could no longer stand shoulder to shoulder. Jules went in front, wielding his mighty blade, and Christopher followed behind, carrying the light crystal in one hand and his spear in the other.

According to Jules, there shouldn’t have been many ghouls around. The maze on the 2nd floor was one of the shortest and had a lot of traffic, as Authors constantly moved back and forth between the 1st and 3rd floors. Encountering five ghouls immediately upon entering was just a stroke of bad luck.

Unfortunately, bad luck was the theme of the day.

Christopher was the first to hear them, his sharp ears easily picking up the commotion far down the tunnel—a shrieking howl followed by the rhythmic, eerie clank of bone hitting stone. Less than a minute later, a raging ghoul emerged from the shadows, rushing toward them with wild fury.

Jules raised his blade, bracing for impact, but the enraged ghoul lept over him, lashing at Christopher. Caught by surprise, Christopher barely had time to dodge the monster’s jagged wrist bone that passed dangerously close to his throat.

The monster didn’t have time for another attack. With his back exposed to Jules, it took him only a moment to finish it off. Planting his feet firmly on the ground, Jules delivered a powerful, vertical strike, almost cutting the creature in half.

“Why did he do that?” Jules asked.

Christopher shook his head, as confused as his teammate.

“Maybe those superstitions weren’t so far off after all,” Jules mocked with a grin. “Lucky me to get paired with a Lazarus.”

They checked the ghoul for loot, and after failing to find anything noteworthy, they resumed their march. It wasn’t long until they were forced to stop once more. This time, a cacophony of shrieks and howls erupted from the darkness, followed by a storm of bones clattering against the stone floor.

At least a dozen enraged ghouls burst from the shadows, clawing over one another in a frantic rush to reach them.

Jules quickly braced himself, preparing for combat, but the narrow space left little room for anything other than quick stabs and vertical slices. Behind him, Christopher hesitated, not sure of what to do.

He wasn’t skilled enough with the spear to strike at the monsters while avoiding Jules, but he felt helpless staying in the back while the boy fought for their lives.

The first ghoul reached Jules.

The boy expertly dodged the creature’s bone spurs before bringing his blade down in a precise vertical slice, cutting the ghoul in half. He rotated his body and raised his weapon in one fluid motion, preparing to strike a second ghoul.

As his blade approached the monster’s neck, it tripped over its fallen comrade, causing Jules to miss the vital spot. The creature fell down, howling in pain but still alive.

Jules rapidly tried to fix his mistake, but before he could deliver the killing blow, a third, larger ghoul with thick gray skin, a gaping chest wound, and deadly pale hands clawing blindly from within stepped over the others and closed on him.

That creature was clearly a level above the others, easily deflecting Jule’s blade with its bone spurs and even managing to scratch his shoulder. However, it still couldn’t anticipate his movements.

Mid-strike, Jules switched from a downward stab to an upward slice, tearing through the ghoul's chest. The creature let out a pained wail as several grotesque hands were severed from its chest.

Upon falling on the floor, the dismembered hands creepily crawled across the floor before latching onto Jules's shins. Their sharp nails easily pierced through his leather pants, digging and scratching his flesh viciously.

Jules cried out in pain, nearly losing his balance.

An opening appeared on his defenses, and the ghoul lunged to exploit it–only it wasn’t Jules who became its target. To their surprise, it ignored him entirely, focusing on Christopher, who stood behind him.

Christopher barely raised his spear in time to block the ghoul’s strike. The force of the blow staggered him backward, causing him to lose his grip on both the spear and the light crystal, which rolled across the floor.

The ghoul pounced forward without giving Christopher time to recover, violently falling upon the light crystal. Its bone spurs struck it, blow after blow, but they failed to shatter the crystal. Instead, more cracks appeared across its surface, causing it to release even more light.

As the yellow light illuminated the tunnel, the grotesque hands on the ghoul's chest froze. They seemed to hesitate briefly before turning inwards, their fingers frantically burrowing deeper into its flesh as if trying to flee from the light.

The ghoul released a painful, ear-piercing scream and retreated in panic.

Christopher’s eyes darted between the glowing crystal and Jules. The boy was holding back the rest of the ghouls while desperately trying to get rid of the creepy hands digging at his shins.

Throwing caution to the wind, Christopher jumped atop the light crystal and, without hesitation, used all his strength to throw it back to the end of the tunnel–in the same direction the ghouls had come from.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jules asked with fury as the light disappeared.

Before he could complain again, the enraged ghouls stopped in their tracks and turned towards the disappearing crystal. Without warning, they abandoned their assault and hurried through the tunnel in a chaotic frenzy, chasing the fading light.

“Let’s go!” Christopher urged, pulling on Jules. The boy crushed the last creepy hand under his boot before slowly approaching, limping heavily, and leaving a trail of blood behind.

“I can’t see shit,” Jules complained. Now that the crystal was gone, they were back to complete darkness.

“I know, just grab my shirt and try to keep up.”

Christopher palpated around the floor until he found his spear before starting to make his way back through the tunnel.