"I'll be damned!" Arden loudly proclaimed, shading his eyes as he looked at the sky above. It was clear of clouds, not that it would matter to the adventurers when they delved deeper into the dungeon. Killian and Blue Feather stood around Killian's teleportation anchor, the dusk elf having just explained what he got up to during the night.
"I'm still upset you did this by yourself," Imari said in a scolding tone. "Dungeons are dangerous; you couldn’t have known if the path we took was still safe. What if the Hollows reformed or something!"
"Then I would have killed any I could or shifted back into my base and waited till morning to fight with you guys." He replied. "Plus, I needed something to distract me last night, and I was too excited to try this out till morning."
Shan spoke up, a small grin on her face, saying, "I want to be with Imari on this one, but knowing you can take us fully out of the dungeon in a moment makes me just want to forgive and forget."
"Shan!" the wizard shouted with reproach, only stopping when Arden threw an arm around Killian's shoulder, saying, "He shouldn’t have gone out on his own without at least telling one of us, but Killian's no fool, love. He can handle himself and is the most qualified to escape from any danger he might come across, even more so now with this."
Killian raised his hands in defeat, promising not to wander without informing one of them again. Under the smiles of the three of them, Imari's annoyance crumbled, and she badgered Killian to explain what he had done as she took notes of her own. Knowing it was his price for his crime, he weathered the questions while the other two basked under the sun and woke up further in the cold winter morning. Shan let Nahlen scout the area, but it was obviously just an excuse for the bird to stretch his wings outside of the cramped dungeon interior. Arden simply watched as Killian did his best to finish the answer to one question before Imari barked out another. After about twenty minutes of this, Blue Feather allowed, and Killian teleported back into the dungeon below.
The bleak and stagnant darkness of the dungeon stood out even more now that they had spent some time under the sun. As the four of them stood atop the staircase leading further down into the dungeon, Killian could feel the ether in the air becoming more…painful. Not that it would harm him or his friends, but that it was stained with pain, with anguish. Glancing to his side, Shan held a look similar to what he must be wearing.
"It's going to be worse than yesterday." She said it quietly so the others couldn’t hear. "I don’t know what it's like for you; I'm pretty sure your ability to feel magic is stronger than mine, but it feels like I'm breathing in someone else's screams."
"Can all elves feel magic? I've been wanting to ask since you mentioned you could as well, but my ignorance makes me look weird enough, and I didn’t want another reason to look weird to you guys." He asked.
She smiled as she gave a light smack to his shoulder before saying, "No, it's something I have been able to do since I was born; call it a magical mutation of sorts. Also, don’t worry about how you look to us. We don’t care. We know you have reasons for your weirdness, and we can wait till you're comfortable enough to tell us. Though I can say Imari might explode if you wait too long." Shan said the last part with a joking smile.
Killian knew he could trust them; he knew they were good. There was just that spot deep inside him, the one still hurt from his life on earth. Wall's built tall and would take some time to break down. He simply nodded to Shan, thankful for the kind words and the trust behind them.
"What are you two discussing so quietly?" Arden asked as he poked his head in between them.
"How bad it feels down there." Shan answered, and she pointed downward.
"Oh," Arden said, slightly drooping.
"Yeah, pretty sure we're going to see much worse than we did yesterday." Killian added.
"Oh," Arden repeated.
Imari pushed through to the front, spun to face them, and said, "We knew it was always going to be worse, the longer we stand here, the longer it takes to finish this and leave this place forever."
She turned to proceed down the stairs before being lifted into the air by Arden. Imari let out a peep of surprise before she was set back behind the others, Arden shaking a finger at her like he scolded a child. Before she could respond indignantly, Arden took his normal place at the front, drawing his new sword and donning his shield. Imari sheepishly remained quiet, realizing her mistake in taking the lead and putting herself in danger.
Killian once again pushed out his spatial sense. The sphere was about fifteen in radius. He couldn’t see anything beneath him in the sphere; in fact, he hadn't seen anything beneath them up to this point. Walking down the stairs, he admitted they descended deep enough to explain why. He wondered if the depth between each floor was purposeful or a coincidence. The few reasons he thought up for why a place like this would be designed this way made him grimace, which in turn made him think it was by design.
The stairs opened into a wide hallway, about thirty feet across. The stone they had scene up to this point changed to a black marble-like stone without any striations. When Arden's foot stepped onto its surface, a light echo resounded down the hallway. The four paused, listening for any response to the noise; when none came, they slowly moved forward. The light Imari conjured floated above and slightly ahead of them. Arden's grieves and the others boots tapping out an uneven but constant rhythm on the strange stone.
Killian glanced down; the stone was polished to a mirror-like sheen. His spatial sense didn’t pick up anything strange, but he still felt on edge. With his eyes, he could see a dull reflection in the stone except his feet, and his reflection's feet didn’t touch. There was a three-inch gap before the reflection started. As they moved slowly down the hallway, he expected their reflections to turn evil and to reach out from under the stone to attack them. That would have been better.
They had been walking down the hall for five minutes, no one seeing any doors or branching hallways. The hall just kept moving ahead. Imari had sent her ball of light ahead of them, like a luminous rocket, to see if anything was ahead of them. It was only because Killian's spatial sense didn’t need light that they weren't taken completely by surprise. Four new reflections appeared around them before they seemed to glide out of the floor itself. Just like it was undeniable that the Hollows he had seen before used to be humans, these Hollows used to be dogs.
They might have been medium-sized dogs before, like a Golden Retriever or a German Shepherd, but like their human cousins, they were emaciated to the point that should have killed them. Their terrible face was enough to place another page into Killian's growing book of nightmares. Hollow pits where eyes used to be, no ears to speak of, and the muzzle of the thing proved to Killian that the hollows indeed had teeth under the lips that were now pulled over them and down the creature's throat. The points of the canines stabbed through the skin in their mouths, not enough to pose a danger but enough to make Killian want to vomit. No, the real danger came from the blade, like arms it used to walk on.
Just like the others, they had a three-sectioned limb ending with a blade, except each limb sprouted from the side of its hips and shoulders. The legs were withered to the point of uselessness; it balanced on the tips of its new four-bladed limbs. It also, unfortunately, had two for bladed limbs that sprouted from either side of their necks. Clearly used for offense.
"Around us!" Killian shouted.
He pointed a hand at one, filling the area with light as he fired a searing beam into a creature behind them. He nailed the thing in the head and through its body, but the others threw themselves forward at the same time. Luckily, Imari conjured a new light above them for the others to see the Hollows, and at the same time, the hall filled with the groaning barks. Killian cursed himself; he hadn't formed a razor ahead of time, and he couldn’t do it quickly enough to matter now. He blinked in front of Imari fast enough to stop it from impacting her by bending space and sending the creature off to the side. He took advantage of its momentary confusion by pouring ether into another beam, this time holding it active long enough to bisect the Hollow in half.
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The sound of a large impact caused Killian to check in on the others with his spatial sense. Arden had bashed one of the Hollows three yards away and began laying into the second one. Shan stood in behind him, sending arrows into the joints of the Hollow Arden sent flying, causing it to have trouble standing. Killian was brought quickly back to his own fight as the bisected Hollow used its front "legs" to pull itself towards him at an incredible speed. At the same time, Imari pumped lighting into the first Hollow Killian thought he had killed. Though it had a hole drilled through its body lengthwise, it was twisting and slashing in every direction and was close enough to pose a threat. Once again, Killian cursed himself; he was riding the success he had last night, and it distracted him from the current danger. A razor would turn these things into chunks. He thought for a moment to try and create one now, but the bisected Hollow was too close. Once again he poured ether into a cutting beam, this time bisecting it laterally, each half falling to the side.
Imari must have damaged the first one enough as it stopped moving. Once again, Killian's spatial sense saved them. Reflections from above heralded four more Hollow dogs about to descend from the ceiling. Killian grabbed Imari's shoulder and blinked in front of Arden, the warrior having finished off the other two.
"Behind!" He shouted.
With no thought at all, Arden spun in place and lashed out, a hollow losing its head to his new enchanted blade. Arden called for the party to form up and for Killian to prioritize watching for more. The four adventurers began to slowly move backwards, further into the hallway, Arden doing his best impression of a castle wall, not letting a single Hollow get past him. The others fired arrows, lightning, or beams of light when any caused the warrior trouble. Every now and then a Hollow dog would appear behind or to the side of them through the stone, but Killian called out before any problems could occur. He tried to find the time to form a razor, but the attacks didn’t let up, and it required too much focus.
As the four adventurers weathered the onslaught, Killian's spatial sense showed him an intricate circle with symbols and runes appear on the ceiling above them. It gave off no light but formed inside the stone like the hollows and emerged to attach to the ceiling. As he felt a familiar magic rapidly build inside the circle, Killian ramped up his mind, his friends and the Hollows seeming to move at a crawl. Worryingly, the buildup of space magic in the circle barely slowed. Killian began to think, using spatial sense to take in the entire circle at once. He hadn't learned anything about runes, much less circles, and this one seemed pretty complex. He reached out to his friends with his magic and tried to blink out from under the circle, but it failed. It was hard to grab his friends, the circle doing something he couldn’t understand to the space beneath it. As he panicked, he felt the circle begin to pulse, the speed of the magic inside nearly done charging. He realized magic moved at the speed of thought; his attempt to grab his friends took the same time it normally would have if he didn’t accelerate his mind. He mentally smacked himself, the realization that he just needed to speed up his mind and form a razor, but that didn’t help him now. He was floundering; the magic was built enough to glow now, and he felt it start to activate. Tendrils of ether seeped in space, and magic reached out towards each of them, including the hollows. Killian slammed his mind into the tendrils, surprisingly able to move them. He knew instantly it wouldn’t be enough to stop the circle from activating; from teleporting them, he now realized, but maybe enough to lessen the danger. The tendrils were close now; Killian's intuition sparked in his mind. He was sure the circle would teleport them across the dungeon, most likely to random points around it. Working as fast as he could, Killian reached out with tendrils of his own. He knew he wouldn’t have enough time to encircle the four of them; they had been close together, but a group of Hollow dogs had come from the wall a minute before, and he and Shan started to take them out. He reached a tendril to encircle Arden and Imari, the other around Shan and himself. He used his sorcery to will the tendril to connect into a circle, one that would tie them together spatially. He might not be able to stop this circle from activating, but maybe he could stop it from completely separating them. As the circle fully activated, he let his mind fall back into normal perception, and light filled his vision.
The sound of groaning barks cut off instantly, the sudden silence jarring. Killian could see Shan still next to him, but, at least for the moment, there seemed to be no other dangers.
"Wha? What happened?!" Shan stumbled out. She held her bow in stiff hands, her eyes wide; she couldn’t find her friends.
"Some sort of teleportation trap, a circle came from the stone in the ceiling and activated. I couldn’t stop it from activating, but I was able to tie you to me and Arden and Imari together. If we arrived together, then they should have too." He replied.
"Why didn’t you say anything?" She said a little too loudly, "Maybe Imari could have done something!"
"I didn’t have the time. It appeared and activated in just a few seconds. I could only do something at all because I can speed up my mind, and magic seems to move at the speed you can think at."
"Oh," Shan said, lowering her voice back to a normal tone. "I'm-I'm sorry, Killian. I shouldn’t have-"
"It's fine; I get it. To be honest, I panicked so much while trying to find a way to stop the circle from activating; I probably wasted enough time I might have been able to stop it."
"You've been learning real magic for two months; with your abilities, if you failed to stop it was because you never had a chance. I also got to applaud you for making the best decision possible during everything that was going on."
"Which decision is that?"
"Sending Imari with Arden." Shan said with an intense look on her face. She continued, saying, "If he appeared anywhere away from her, I doubt he would make it out of here alive. Not because he would break down or anything, but because the big idiot would tear through everything in his way to find her until he hit something he couldn’t beat by himself."
Killian slowly blinked in response. "I wish I could say that it was on purpose, but it was just because they were further away from me and you and I didn’t have the time to grab us all."
"Then let's just call it a happy accident. Where are we anyway?"
Killian began to look around the room. It took a moment to realize Shan couldn’t see, his spatial sense allowing him to make her out in perfect detail. Raising his hand palm up, he conjured a ball of fire. Shan blinked against the sudden light but grinned at him.
"With that beam you fire off, I assumed you could conjure light like Imari."
"I haven't really worked on it yet, but your right about my work on the laser. I could figure it out if you give me a few minutes."
Shan nodded, and Killian put out the fire. After all the work he put into creating his laser to create and focus intent light into a beam, he was true to his word and figured out how to create a ball of light bright enough to fill the room. He couldn’t control it and make it float around; it would take a few more minutes longer to work out how to do it, but he wanted to gauge the room for danger first.
Holding his hand into the air, a ball of light taking the place the fire had been before, and the two of them go their first look at the room. It was empty. Like completely empty. No furniture, no cages or tables, no hollows trying to devour them. The room was about fifty feet and square. It was all the same black stone. Upon seeing that, Killian spun up his mind and made a razor. The ceiling was also fifty feet above them, making the room into a cube instead of a square.
"There being nothing in here doesn't make me feel great." Shan said. "Everything we have seen so far has been done with purpose. What purpose could they need an empty room this big for?"
"Yeah, fuck this. Hold on." Killian said.
He blinked to a wall at random and pushed his spatial sense out to fifty feet. He blinked, following the wall in a single direction until he hit the next wall and repeated it. On the third wall, he could see a space about thirty feet behind the wall he stood by. He called for Shan to run over as he examined what he could make out. He could see two rows of chairs, five in each row, facing the direction he was in. A large table was in between the chairs and him, as well as a large flat pane of something attached to the wall. Shan arrived next to him, and he placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm going to blink us out of here and into a room I see; it looks empty, but be ready; I can't see all of it from here."
Shan nodded, placing an arrow on her bow. She called out to Nahlen in her hood to be ready as well. Killian blinked in realization that he hadn't once thought about if the bird had made it over. He grimaced to himself, and he couldn’t help but see that Shan had not only noticed but intuited what he was thinking. She simply grinned and said, "You can make it up to him later," as he blinked them into the room.
It was clear that the room was empty when they appeared; in fact, the room was only a few feet beyond what he had been able to see before. He had to reel in his spatial sense immediately as information about the surrounding rooms flooded his mind. Killian shook it off quickly enough that it didn’t worry Shan. With the light in the room, Killian could make out the same black stone. The pane on the wall seemed to be made of some crystal or foggy glass. He was surprised to see images moving along the pane, dozens of small squares like CCTV footage back on earth. He hadn't seen it with his spatial sense, but he had only set it to show him the physical shape of things and nothing else. When he got out of here, Killian knew he would spend a lot of time getting used to his sense.
With this internal musing going on, Shan had approached the "screen" and began looking at the squares with movement. At her stillness, Killian walked beside her and followed her gaze. Most of the squares were empty, but a few were full of Hollows. Some were bears, others were boars, and more animals besides. He could make out gorillas and rhinos too. Lastly, he could make out a room full of dogs, a room that had a noticeable difference in amount compared to the others. They had only killed fifteen to twenty of the things, but it was enough to reduce the numbers to see the difference between the other rooms. He knew this was where the dogs had come from because he watched one of them fall into the floor and disappear from sight.