by Eric Vall
Alyona turned her head to look at the crumbled stone and nodded.
“I’m sure it will be extraordinary when it’s finished,” she replied. “I’ve never seen the Lunar Palace in its glory. It will be breathtaking, I’m sure.”
We continued on to our temporary home that was just beyond the ruins of the Lunar Palace, and then Alyona and I walked up the stairs quietly. When we were inside, Alyona dropped my hand and turned to me.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Evan.” She kissed my cheek softly.
Before she could pull away, I wrapped a hand around her thin waist, pulled her to me, and kissed her deeply.
She sighed and wrapped her hands around my neck, and I pulled away with a grin.
“Goodnight, Princess,” I murmured huskily, and her cheeks tinted pink.
“Good night, my Lord,” she replied and turned toward the staircase that led to her room. Then she quickly ran up the stairs and vanished into the corridor.
I waited until I heard the door of her room close before I made my way to my own quarters. Then I collapsed in my bed. My body was exhausted from all of the magic I had used to help Afra, so I quickly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
But tomorrow, the real work would begin.
Chapter 5
The next morning, I stood with Nike and two members of the guild before the first tunnel in the library. The tunnel was still sealed, so we waited for the dryad sisters to come remove their barrier of thorns and brambles. Laika and Alyona had already begun their job, which meant the sisters were clearing the paths in the outskirts before they came here.
“How much longer will they take?” one of the guild members grumbled from his spot on the wall. “This is getting ridiculous.”
I glanced over at the muttering teenager. His name was Cal, and he was a snake Demi-Human, a viper to be specific, since he’d told me when I asked. He had long golden hair and bright yellow eyes that blinked from the sides instead of up and down. His sharp tongue was split at the end, and dark green scales crawled up his arms. A set of small, sharp fangs were folded back into his mouth where his canine teeth would be, and I was tempted to ask if he was venomous, but I figured he wouldn’t take too kindly to that kind of question.
Our other guild member was Daya, a fox Demi-Human who was also Laika’s advisor and Mistress of War. She stood stoically against the wall with her dark purple hair pulled back into a tight braid, and she clicked her tongue at Cal.
“Have patience, child,” Daya chided. “The dryads have other things to do as well.”
“I’m not a child, Daya,” Cal argued, but his forked tongue flicked from his mouth in a childish gesture, and he crossed his scaled arms over his chest. “We’ve been down here for ages, and--”
“It’s been half an hour,” the fox interrupted.
Cal huffed and settled into a sulking silence.
Nike and I hid our laughter at the boy’s antics. Cal was still young, he looked to be about seventeen, but he was also the first volunteer when Laika asked for her guild to join us in the tunnels.
Daya rolled her red eyes fondly at the boy, and we all stood at attention when three pairs of footsteps echoed down the stairs.
“So sorry!” Marina’s voice was the first to ring out as the sisters ran down the spiral staircase.
“We didn’t mean to be late!” Polina added.
“We did our job a little too well up there, and it was troublesome to get everything untangled,” Trina chimed in.
The dryads were still hidden from sight by the halls and shelves of the library, but they quickly made their way around the room as they talked between themselves, and their voices echoed through the cavernous space around us.
“It’s alright, you’re here now, that’s all that matters,” I said as they finally came into view.
The dryads’ green skin resembled the fairest emeralds, and their darker forest green hair tumbled wild around their shoulders. All three sisters blushed at my words and giggled with each other, but Trina was the first to regain her composure.
“Is this the tunnel we are opening?” she asked as she pointed to the barrier ahead of her.
“Yes,” Daya replied with a nod. “It makes sense since it is the first tunnel. Once this one is secured, we will continue down the path and open each tunnel alone to inspect them. Once we finish, we can return to the city.”
“Will we finish today?” Cal asked as he pushed himself off the wall.
“I doubt it,” I told the young snake, “especially if we do find anything, but we can do our best to finish as many tunnels as possible.”
“Then let’s get started!” Cal’s yellow eyes shone with excitement. “The more tunnels we finish today, the more likely we are to find a monster.”
“Nike, I think you found a partner for this,” I laughed and nudged his arm. “It looks like Cal’s eager to find monsters, too.”
My fellow Noble of the Sword grinned, and his silver eyes twinkled with anticipation.
“Can we get started, Lord Evan?” Polina piped up, and I turned to the waiting sisters with a smile.
“Yes, and thank you for all your hard work, girls.”
“Oh, it’s no problem, my lord!” Marina assured me with a broad grin.
“We’re happy to do anything you ask,” Trina added.
“Anything,” Polina emphasized as she fluttered her green lashes at me and bit her full lower lip.
“Good to know,” I chuckled, but my cock still throbbed in my pants. “I might take you up on that later, but for now … ”
I gestured to the sealed tunnel in front of us.
“Of course, Lord Evan, our apologies!” the sisters chimed in unison, and I wondered, not for the first time, if they shared a telepathic link.
But that was a question for another time.
The dryad sisters quickly went to work as they raised their hands in front of them and closed their eyes. Slowly, the giant mass of plants that blocked off the entrance of the tunnel began to unravel. While we watched, the vines, brambles, and thorns started to slide back down into the dark earth, and the dryads’ hands seemed to glow a faint green as they focused on the plants in front of them. The process took some time, the sisters weren’t kidding when they said the vines were tangled so tightly, and I was surprised they hadn’t snapped from the tension.
After fifteen minutes, half of the archway was opened, and the sisters stopped to take a short break. Sweat dripped down their beautiful faces, and they panted heavily.
“Sorry, again,” Trina gasped between breaths. “We didn’t think it would be this hard to undo our work.”
“It’s alright,” I said and offered my water canteen to them. “Just be careful. I don’t want you to over do it. We only need to thin it out enough to get inside. You don’t have to tear the whole thing down.”
Trina grabbed the canteen and drank quickly before she passed it along to her sisters.
“Thank you, Lord Evan,” Polina replied as she handed the water back to me.
Then they continued to work, and after another twenty minutes, we finally had a wide enough opening that Nike and I could fit through. Daya and Cal followed closely behind us, and I summoned my flames to my hands to help illuminate the tunnel. Then I looked back to the sisters, who were collapsed together on the ground as they took a break.
“You three stay here,” I ordered. “Yell if you need anything, alright?”
They nodded wordlessly, still out of breath, and I turned back to my group.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said as I walked into the darkness.
The tunnel was long, a lot longer than any of us had anticipated. Bookshelves lined the walls for a bit before they abruptly cut off and left nothing but a rocky wall that led into darkness. As we walked down the path, I periodically pulled my flames into a ball and sent them forward to find the end of the tunnel, but even after a solid hour of walking, there was no end in sight, just continuous darkness.
“How fa
r does this damn thing go?” Cal complained as we continued forward. “We’ve probably walked a few miles by now.”
“I don’t know,” I answered him over my shoulder. “We have to be getting close to the end by now, though. At least we haven’t run into any trouble.”
“Yet,” Cal mumbled under his breath, but then he yelped as Daya smacked him over the head with her hand. “Ow!”
“Stop complaining and walk,” she chastised him.
We continued on for another half hour before I released another fireball, and it crashed into a wall about eighty feet in front of us.
“Thank the gods,” Cal sighed. “I thought this would be a little more exciting, but I guess not. Do we turn back now, or … ”
“Not so fast,” I told him and pointed forward.
I commanded my fire to dance across the floor in front of us and toward the end of the tunnel. My flames branched off to the left and right once they hit the wall, and then the glowing orbs disappeared from sight.
“It doesn’t end, the path forks off into two different directions,” I explained before I turned to the two Demi-Humans of the group. “We’ll have to split up. Can either of you see in the dark?”
“I can!” Cal exclaimed as he raised his hand in the air. “Well, kind of. I’m able to see heat when it’s dark, so if anything comes at us that generates heat, I’ll be able to see it. Not to mention I can use my tongue to sense the air. If anything changes in the composition of the earth or air, I’ll know about it first.”
“I can see as well, and my night vision is better than my normal vision,” Daya responded with a sharp look at Cal.
“Great, so it’s just me who won’t be able to see,” Nike muttered with a tinge of annoyance.
“That’s what happens when you’re the only human in the group,” I teased.
Nike laughed. “Well, since I’m the only one who will be blind down here, how do you want us to split up? I don’t want to be a burden on anyone.”
I weighed the options in my head before I sighed. Cal, as the youngest and least experienced, should be our weakest link. However, with Nike’s current handicap, that made him a greater risk.
“Nike, you’re with me,” I said as I made up my mind. “I can continue to use my flames to allow you to see. Cal and Daya, you two will take the path to the left. Come back here and wait for us if the path ends. We don’t need anyone getting lost.”
The snake Demi-Human’s yellow eyes lit up as he stepped forward proudly. “Finally, maybe something fun will happen now.”
Daya and I rolled our eyes while Nike chuckled.
“Nike and I will go to the right, since that’s the direction of the other tunnels,” I added. “They might all be connected, and if we are ambushed, I’m the best bet of getting us out of it.”
Daya and Cal nodded before they turned to the left. Then Cal sprinted ahead, and Daya sighed under her breath as she followed him.
“Ready?” I asked Nike.
He nodded once, and we turned toward the path on the right.
I summoned flames back to my hands so Nike could see the path ahead of us while we walked, and I ran my hand along the edge of the walls as we made our way down the path. The rock walls here were cool to the touch and slightly damp from the moisture in the air.
“How far do you think these things go?” Nike asked after a few minutes of silence. “Surely, we’re beyond the heart of the city here.”
“The Itsumade said these tunnels were where he hibernated for a thousand years, so my guess would be that they expand throughout the entire city,” I replied, and our voices echoed down the long, damp tunnel.
“Why do you think these paths were built?” Nike asked as he fell into step next to me, and a shiver racked his body.
The tunnels began to grow cold, and I could tell he wanted the warmth of the fire I held in my palm.
“I would assume they were built to expand the library,” I mused, “but I don’t know why they would need all this room. You could fit every book ever written down here at least three times and still have plenty of space.”
“I feel like there is another reason,” Nike replied with a furrowed brow. “Books are important, of course, but it doesn’t make sense to build a labyrinth of tunnels underneath a city just to store books. The Moon Goddess created everything in Hatra for a reason. This just doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe the Moon Goddess didn’t make them,” I suggested. “Maybe it was the people who populated Hatra after it was built. Maybe they had plans to use them for something.”
Before Nike could answer, a blood chilling scream echoed from the path behind us. The two of us spun around in surprise before we glanced at each other.
“That was Cal,” Nike said sharply as he looked back down the empty hall.
“They need help,” I growled.
Without another word, we both sprinted back toward the area where we split up. We’d been walking for about twenty minutes before we heard Cal scream, but it only took us about five to reach the fork once more. Then we continued forward, down the path Daya and Cal had vanished into. We ran through the dim tunnel, and it took us another ten minutes before we finally found Daya.
But she was alone.
The fox Demi-Human panted heavily, and she leaned against the wall for support. She put all her weight on her left leg and seemed to be careful to keep pressure off her right side. Her right leg had a deep gash along her thigh that slowly leaked blood, but she’d removed her belt and tightened it above her wound as a makeshift tourniquet. Her hands were covered in her own blood, and she had a shallow cut along her forehead that had begun to dry around the edges. Her purple hair was also wild around her head, and her pupils were dilated into giant black disks.
“It took us by surprise,” she gasped. “I didn’t sense it coming. Cal was trying to warn me that something wasn’t right, but I ignored him. Whatever it is, it’s strong. It tossed me like I was nothing.”
Daya blinked slowly, and I put my hands on her shoulders. My magic immediately began to heal her leg and the wound on her head, but I willed her stats to appear in front of my eyes so I could better assess the damage.
Classification: Fox Demi-Human
Condition: Severe concussion and deep lacerations to leg and head
Priority: Healing required immediately
Danger: At risk of brain damage
Status: Critical
I took a deep breath, focused on the internal injuries, and poured more of my power into the fox.
“How does that feel?” I asked after a moment. “You had a concussion, but my magic should have healed it.”
“I’ll be fine,” Daya replied with a slow nod, and glitter from my healing power fluttered off her hair and glinted on her skin. “We need to find Cal. The creature took him down the hall.”
“Okay then, let’s get him back,” I growled as I pulled my hand away from her shoulder. I’d healed her the best I could. Once we were back in Hatra, I would give her a more thorough examination, but for now, we needed her help.
“What took him?” Nike asked Daya.
Her red eyes narrowed in thought. “I can’t remember exactly what it looks like, but I do remember that I couldn’t find its eyes. This is a creature that thrives in darkness, and we just pissed it off.”
“Well, Cal did want an adventure,” Nike murmured.
“Yeah,” I clenched my fists, “let’s just hope he survives to tell everyone about it.”
Once Daya was able to stand on her own feet and walk, we continued down the tunnel to find Cal. We moved slowly and silently, just in case the creature decided to come back, and we stuck close to the walls. I was in front, Daya was in the middle, and Nike brought up the rear.
As we crept forward, a strange pungent odor began to become more and more potent.
“Do you smell that?” I whispered to the two people behind me.
“Yeah, it smells like rodent,” Nike covered his nose with the back of
his hand, “but I don’t know why it smells so bad, unless there is a massive rat’s nest nearby. Or the rat itself is massive.”
I smirked. “Rodents of unusual size? They don’t exist.”
Daya’s eyes grew wide, and she reached out and stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
“That’s it!” she exclaimed in a whisper-shout while Nike and I stared at her in confusion.
“What is?” I asked after she neglected to explain.
“It was a giant rodent that attacked us,” she said quickly. “I remember its giant yellow teeth.”
“Great, so now I’m the Dread Pirate Roberts,” I sighed.
My teammates stared at me with blank looks, and I shook my head.
“Never mind,” I mumbled, “let’s just figure out what to do.”
The smell grew to be nearly unbearable as we continued to walk forward, so we all breathed through our mouths to stop our gag reflex. The stench grew even worse, though, before we finally found a dug out hole in one of the walls. The odor very obviously originated from this spot.
“I think we found its burrow,” I said quickly to avoid breathing in the stench.
The other two nodded with grimaces as they looked inside the hole.
“Let’s get this over with.” Nike pulled his sword, Aine, from his storage space and readied her in his right hand.
Daya unsheathed her own swords and blinked heavily. I was worried about her head, but she didn’t give me much choice as she took a step inside the dark burrow.
“Daya, wait!” I hissed after her, and she stopped a few feet in front of me. “I’m going to extinguish my flames, just in case this creature isn’t blind. I don’t want to make it easy for him to find us. Can you let Nike stay close to you? He won’t be able to see, and I need to make sure I am able to fight. The two of you can stay behind me while I lead us forward.”
Daya nodded. “Fine.”
I extinguished my flames, and we were left in darkness. I could still see just fine, even without the light, but my other senses seemed to be amplified in the dark as well. I could hear the bugs as they crawled around us, and I could smell the moist soil beneath our feet.