“Bleeding fuck,” Zed announced to no one in particular. “Bleeding fuck.”

He doubled over without warning, dry heaving and trembling uncontrollably.

How am I supposed to get used to this? It doesn't matter that I can't die; I can still feel pain, damn it! What's going to happen if I get skewered by an arrow? If I get a limb sliced clean off, will it grow back like... like a lizard's tail? What about my fucking head?

He swallowed, forcing himself to look away from the massacre.

My massacre. I did this. But it was us or them. And you can be damn well sure it had to be them.

“...Zed?” Emi called softly from the shadows.

He tread carefully through the ruined courtroom, attempting to disturb as little as possible all while averting his eyes from the other body. The monk. Was it...?

...Shit. Don't puke. Don't you dare fucking puke.

The monk's body had been utterly ravaged. What used to be his face was gone. Clawed, chewed, eroded down to bone and gristle. His torn over-shirt revealed a bloody, but otherwise scar-free chest.

No, it's not Yusai. Does it even matter? He's still fucking dead! Somewhere...

Teeth clenched against the ever-rising bile, Zed regrouped with Emi and guided her to the center of the room where the fires burned the brightest. She would need treatment sooner rather than later. He relieved a table of its ruined legs and gently lowered her onto the slab. It was a bad break, but at least she had managed to control the bleeding with one of her shirtsleeves while he fought.

“That was... impressive. A beautiful execution of judgment,” She sobered, seeing the look on his face. “Are you all right?”

Zed nodded, stone faced. He began peeling back the bloodied cloth to help clean the area. The gash was bad enough on its own. At least it wasn't a more complex break; the bone hadn't broken through the skin.

“Do you have a flask or something? We need to get this cleaned up, quickly,” The priestess obliged, untying a water-skin from her belt. “What were those things?”

“I... I have no idea.” She shook her head, wincing a little as Zed worked. “I don't recognize them as any known race or monster subset. There's nothing written about them in our doctrines. I think I can handle it from here. Dark Mending.”

Zed watched in abject horror as the bones under Emi's skin shifted and rearranged themselves, almost as if her ankle was breaking in reverse. He jerked his head up in alarm, hearing a great deal of heavy panting.

“Huff... huff... huff...” Emi's breast heaved as the spell did its grisly work. “Mmmn.... hah!”

Surely she's not enjoying this...

The bone set with one final wet-sounding crunch, punctuated by her involuntary cry. Zed winced, frantically scanning their surroundings. No way in hell they hadn't been heard. No way. He strained his senses, looking for the smallest shift in the shadows. The tiniest creak of timbers. Nothing.

The ragged gash on her shin knitted itself closed with very new, very pink looking flesh. After a few moments Emi's breathing slowed. She wiped at a light sheen of perspiration on her brow.

“...Are you all right now?” He asked, not quite meeting her eyes.

“Of course. Healing magic can be a very, um, intense process.” The tips of her ears burned a bright pink. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing. It's nothing,” he muttered, shaking his head. “What do we do now?”

“Now? We need to keep moving. There's nothing more we can do here, and there are still three trials ahead of us,” She smoothed a stray lock of hair behind her still burning ear. “Plus whatever's left of clean up duty.”

Clean up duty? Oh, is that what we're referring all this bloodshed to, now? Seems counter-intuitive.

“Okay. Watch my back for a minute? I need to check something.”

Emi nodded. Drawing her weapon, she padded over toward the disused hallway beneath the staircase and soon disappeared into the shadows.

Zed Thorne

Level 4

Soul Marionette

53/53 HP -- ∞ MP

Constitution: 7 Strength: 8

Intellect: 11 Wisdom: 6

Dexterity: 6 Charisma: 8 (+6)

Luck: ?

Affinities: ALL

Title(s): Dark Traveler

Boon(s): Dark Divinity -- 'Protection of the World'

Skills:

<

Elemental Strike – Active: A vicious slashing attack which inflicts bleeding and one Elemental Effect (predetermined by user) on target.

Crystalline Defense – Passive: Available once per day. Summons an unbreakable crystal shield to protect an ally from an otherwise fatal blow.>>

Shadow Puppet – Active: Materialize the shadow of a living entity. Will follow master's command for 5 minutes or until destroyed. Cooldown is increased if Shadow Puppet is destroyed. Cooldown is decreased if dismissed naturally.

String of Fate – Passive: Available once per day. If attacked while outside, wind will reflect attack or push character from danger.

Garrote Thread – Active: Creates deadly bladed melee weapon from ethereal strings. Variation(s): Flaming Garrote LVL. 2.

Shadow Silk – Active: Creates silken cords or 'bandages' from many strands of dulled Garrote Thread.

Appraisal LVL. 7. Throw LVL. 1. Swagger LVL. 6. (+6 Charisma)

Sneak LVL. 3. Surprise Attack LVL. 2. Fear Resistance LVL. 3.

[Dragon's Hoard] [Immortality] [Classy]

Dark Vision LVL. 2. Vision + LVL. 1. Mana Control LVL. 2.

Language Comprehension: High Human LVL. 10. (MAX); Elven LVL. 10 (MAX); Goblin LVL. 4.

Magic Manipulation LVL. 2. Fire Magic LVL. 1. Fireball LVL. 1.

Thread Control LVL. 2. Combat Meditation LVL. 1. Blade Control LVL. 1.

Novice Swordsmanship LVL. 1 Novice Martial Arts LVL. 1. Lesser Obliteration LVL. 1.

“Definitely an accelerated skill gain with normal combat,” he murmured to himself. “But what the fuck were those things?”

I think that pretty much confirms the theory, anyway. The more skill ups, the more difficult the opponent, maybe? Is it class based? Regardless, I'm not switching back to Crystal Blade, at least not while we're still in here. Aside from-- what was that?

Zed stood absolutely still, staring into the blackness. There it was again!

It was faint, but... if he strained hard enough he could hear a small sucking sound coming from the corridor. Several small sucking sounds. He steeled himself, readying his threads and bracing for a possible surprise attack.

“What in the...,” he whispered under his breath.

“Whipping Wind!”

The strange sucking noises were overwhelmed by the sing of Emi's unseen steel as it sliced through the air. A faintly glowing, gaseous purple orb whizzed past his ear, accompanied by... peals of children's laughter? It was followed closely by another. And another. And three... no, four more.

Zed attempted to slice through a couple with his Garrote Thread to no avail; his weapon shot straight through the semi-transparent gaseous balls of light.

“Gods below, calm down!” Emi hissed, reemerging from the shadows. “Have you finished what you needed to do? There's something you need to see.”

“I... yeah,” Zed blinked several times, disconcerted. “What the heck were those things?”

“Hm? Oh, those!” She shrugged. “They... well, they're pests. Unkillable, sucking pests. All you can do is shoo them away, really.”

“But... the laughter... They were laughing,” He looked up and saw Emi furrowing her brow.

“Laughter? Zed, those things don't have the capacity to do anything more than suck away life energy,” she explained. “They're harmless as long as you don't let them latch on.”

Emi sent forth several conjured orbs of light down the hallway, upgrading the lighting from 'dark' to 'dingy'. Immediately he wished she hadn't. While it was blessedly devoid of debris, the hall was bathed in bloodstains. The worst of the struggle was here, or so it seemed. The floor and walls were covered with smears of black and red. Even the ceiling was splattered with arterial spray.

“This is, by far, the most macabre breadcrumb trail I've ever seen,” he said in revulsion, eyes drawn to the man-sized blood trail streaking down the hallway. “And it stinks. For better or for worse, I think we're on the right track.”

“Breadcrumb... trail?” the priestess asked, head cocked to one side.

“Old fairy tale... don't ask,” he trailed off, shaking his head at her expression. “Let's just get this over with.”

And so they followed the trail, taking great pains not to step in it. The hallway branched out several times, maze-like, but the trail of blood steered them true. A few more of the glowing purple orbs had settled back in along the way, but they were all easily dispatched by Emi's wind magic. She seemed to take great pleasure in it and Zed wasn't one to complain if it made the eerie laughter go away.

The rotting stench grew with each corner they turned until they finally stumbled upon the source itself: the lizardy bastards had tunneled in from somewhere below and broke into the catacombs through one of the walls. The air here was truly offensive, an overpowering mixture of raw sewage, rotting meat, and blood.

Readying their weapons, the pair gazed into the gaping abyss. At a glance, it seemed essentially deserted. The steep passageway was completely dark and silent. However, Zed had a strangely unsettling feeling that the abyss was gazing straight back.

“Can you see the bottom?” Zed whispered.

Emi shook her head slowly and motioned him away from the mouth of the tunnel, a finger pressed sternly against her lips. She pointed back to the makeshift passage, then gestured back toward Zed, eyes wide. He nodded in understanding.

They're here. They're watching.

“How many?” he mouthed.

She flashed all ten fingers, then waved one of her hands uncertainly, a strained look on her face. Over ten, maybe more.

Shit. Too many. Even with Shadow Puppet off cooldown, it's still only a five minute window. We're outnumbered and outgunned. We may have gotten lucky before, but now...

Wordlessly, Emi reached into the pouch at her belt. After a few moments of rummaging she produced a fistful of thin paper slips and... something else. Something small and glinty. He could barely make out a few ornate symbols written on the slips if he squinted.

They look cool, but what the hell are they?

Emi pulled Zed in close and pressed the small object into his palm, whispering: “Take this, and channel your mana into it. As much as you can without breaking it.”

Perplexed, Zed opened his hand and saw a small, dusky red jewel. It felt smooth and unnaturally cold to the touch. Shrugging, he tried to coax a little mana into it. At first, there was nothing. Then he felt a strange pressure running down the length of his arm, pulsing through his palm and into the jewel. It quickly became superheated with the infusion.

Meanwhile, the priestess dropped into a low crouch and inched toward the opening. Slightly trembling, she plastered a paper slip at each corner of the rough opening as Zed awkwardly juggled the jewel to avoid getting burned.

“Chuck it! NOW!” she whisper-yelled at him, jabbing her finger toward the pit.

He pelted it as hard as he could, and the jewel hurtled into the abyss. Emi grabbed him roughly by the collar and pulled him away from the tunnel.

“Get back!” she hissed.

He staggered backward, slipping on the trail of crimson.

The priestess threw her hands out, fingers splayed wide. The writing on the slips of paper flashed a bright red, disappeared, then materialized at the mouth of the opening. The opening darkened in response, as if covered over with a protective barrier of some sort.

It's a seal...

WHOOSH.

FWOOM!

Something hot and bright flashed on the other side of the opening. The passageway filled up with a swirling vortex of fire and screams as the tunnel imploded.