Close.

That word echoed in Reial’s mind with each slow step. The voice groaned in distress, tossing and turning in his mind as if it were experiencing a nightmare. Was it the darkness’s doing, or was it something greater?

He didn’t blame it. The place was practically suffocating. If the voice was capable of experiencing his senses, then could it feel that oppressing wrongness that permeated the air?

Reial’s eyes darted to the scuttling objects at the edge of his vision. Treedint roaches. Dwelling things didn’t know when to stay out of a building, even one as wrong as this. Then again, they were Dulls. They didn’t have the intelligence to think for themselves.

For a second, he thought he saw them glowing faintly. That wasn’t right. Dulls only siphoned the Essence conjured from a nearby being as a defensive mechanism when threatened. However, neither he, Scorch, nor Charette were actively absorbing Essence. Even if Reial was, a Dull could never absorb a Striders Essence.

“Close.” The voice came again as they passed a slit in the wall.

He craned his head back to see if he could still make out the entrance. Nothing, only complete darkness. Well, they knew how to get out, so it wasn’t all hopeless.

Taking a deep breath of the stale air, he grimaced. Why did anyone bother to dig this deep? They’d been walking down the stairs for fifteen minutes now and they still hadn’t reached the bottom.

“What do you think’s down here?” Charette asked in a hushed whisper.

“Treasure, maybe?” He suggested.

“Why would someone dig down so deep just to hide a few hundred dollars worth of treasure?”

Reial didn’t know, just like he didn’t know why someone had built a lone shed out in such a massive clearing. Why were there heaps of rubble everywhere? Why did the air constantly shimmer as if someone were producing a Trick? Why were there so many treedint roaches? None of it made any sense.

“We should head back,” Reial said. “the Courser’s probably already gone.”

Charette continued going down the stairs, unperturbed. Did she not feel how wrong this place was? “No, I want to see what’s down there first.”

“Why?”

“My sense of adventure.” She turned to look at him. “You look scared, is something the matter?”

“I’m just worried. About the Courser.” He lied.

“Perhaps exploring these ruins will help take your mind off it. Don’t worry, those facsimiles are meant to last a week.”

Nine days. Hyvas. The darkness receded at the touch of his Veil Sight, but not by much. Faint wisps of colorless Essence radiated off the walls and even the steps of the stairwell as they continued down their path. Why hadn’t he noticed those before?

Pressing a hand against the wall, he felt something disturbingly familiar about the stone bricks. They tickled. He pulled his hand away, expecting to find a treedint roach on the spot. There was nothing.

Frowning, he pressed his hand against the wall again and felt it hum. Like the steady beat of a drum. Repeatedly, over and over as if someone were beating the very earth around them. How deep were they now?

Close.

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Reial tore his gaze away from the wall and stared warily down the inky black abyss. The glow of his scarlet eyes painting the room in a faint red light. Several treedint roaches gathered around him, trying and failing to siphon his Essence. He shooed them away with a wave of his hand.

Then they hit the bottom. The narrow stairway had given no indication that they had reached the cavernous room they now found themselves in. It was as if the entire place had appeared out of thin air. How could he have possibly missed this place with his Veil Sight?

Fortunately, the floor underneath him bent and accommodated to his gait, preventing him from stumbling forward. Charette, not so much.

His arm shot out as he caught her by her bag, preventing her from falling flat on her face. She blinked in surprise, staring down at the floor as he steadily pulled her back onto her feet.

“Thanks.”

Reial nodded as he then proceeded to scan the area for signs of life. An alien dread dredged its way through his subconscious, ripping free from the mental clasps of his mind as he stared at the murky darkness in the center of the room. The way it twisted and writhed, blending in almost seamlessly but wrong. Yes, it was unfamiliar with him, but not the others.

Right. The word clicked with him, then a faint, blurry memory played in his mind. Not his, a shard, a fragment of the past. One of a Veil Strider before him. Ancient, unknown. The first.

He saw fires, mounds of limp figures, twisted creatures with odd gaits strolling through dilapidated cities, a world’s golden age brought to its end, and into an infamous dark age. The Invasion of the Nether Dwellers. Why show it to him now?

Save for the odd vase and small chests scattered about, the room was barren. Like a forgotten storage.

Reial kept a secure grip on the hilt of his blade as he drifted from one corner of the room to the next. He wasn’t certain if he was searching for the source of the darkness, or the voice for that matter. What he did know, however, was that he would be prepared for what the void had to throw at him.

The clicking of Scorch’s claws caught Reial’s attention as the drog slipped around his legs. He trembled something fierce as he stared at the center mass in the room. Was he aware of what it was?

“Is that where it’s coming from?” Reial asked.

Scorch didn’t look away from the spot, instead, he shied closer to Reial; wrapping his body protectively around his legs. That made it difficult to move.

No matter how hard Reial tried to pull free, the drog’s hold on him wouldn’t budge, so he opted for an awkward shuffle around the room. He didn’t mind that, the closer he was to the stairwell the better.

Veil Sight’s ability to see in the dark was limited, meaning he couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of him without it going dark again. Charette was nearing that edge.

“Hey, don’t go too far!” Reial called after her. “Else you’ll get lost.”

“I won’t!” She shouted back.

Reial and Scorch whirled around as the terrible wind howled about them. Wind wasn’t natural this far below, was it?

Charette began to stray further from him, causing him to reluctantly abandon his proximity to the stairwell. What was she so interested in anyways?

“Where are you going?” He called after her

She pointed out to the darkness. “There’s something glittering over there!”

Reial stared hard into the void, finding nothing. “Where?”

“There!” She pointed more urgently to the center.

“It’s probably nothing.”

“Or it can be cosmocury!”

Now that was being hopeful. “Come on, Charette. We’ve already spent enough time exploring. Let’s go.”

“Five more minutes, please! Then we can leave!”

Biting back his irritation, Reial groaned. “Fine.”

Charette cheered, her scarlet eyes practically lighting up the place. That look alone drove off the dread that threatened to crush him. Sparks of white and silver popped off around her, though they immediately stopped as soon as they manifested. Could it be…? Reial shook his head. It was probably his mind playing tricks on him again.

Maybe he was just overreacting. There was nothing special about this place. For all he knew, it could’ve been used as a storage unit of sorts in the past. That would explain the rather mundane items out on display.

The pressure around his legs disappeared as Scorch went scampering off to Charette’s side. They gravitated to the center before finally disappearing behind that void. Her excited tone and Scorch’s yips carried over the distance, giving him some peace of mind. He took the time to inspect the jutting pieces of stone placed around.

Funny. He could almost make out the pattern they were arrayed in. “What’s this?”

Scribbled atop the stone were words in modern-early Aunesfernish. They were mouthfuls to enunciate, even by their languages’ standards. Fortunately for him, he had the capacity to understand them.

“Rel Trun-syvek’s Helashi.” Great hall of the dead, or Great hall of the glorious dead.

Reial’s blood ran cold as a scream ripped through the air like a thunderclap. He whirled around to face the darkness at what should’ve been the holy center. “Charette?” He called.

Close.