Without further notice, the two of them started walking west. Grizz tried his best to remember the various directions Mar had given him, but there were so many that remembering all of them were simply impossible. Orou wondered why Grizz didn’t have Mar simply write down the directions, but there was no way for Orou to ask him that. Orienting themselves by major landmarks such as statues, important looking buildings and various thieves’ hideouts that Grizz recognised, they slowly but surely made their way in the right direction.

It took them an hour and then some to finally reach a small building. It didn’t stand out in any way, shape or form and without Grizz remembering the last few instructions, they would’ve never found it. Even now, both of them were hesitant about whether or not they had found the right house, after all, there were several houses just like this one all around them. Grizz pulled his hands out of his pockets and knocked on the door. They waited for a minute before it was clear that he wasn’t going to respond, so Grizz simply tried to pull the door open. Surprisingly, it wasn’t locked, though even when they entered the house, they found nothing out of the ordinary.

The two of them searched the house for any clues of Rial’s whereabouts and it seemed like the search would be fruitless until Orou found a trace of blood on the floor below them. Calling Grizz over, he crouched down to inspect the area before he smirked to himself and lifted the entire flood up, or at least, a trapdoor that had been disguised as the floor. Immediately after he lifted the trapdoor, a repugnant smell assaulted Orou’s tongue and Grizz’s nose. Both of them retreated several meters back, opening the door wide open to let the smell filter out. It took several more minutes to do so, but at least they didn’t have to deal with the threat of dying from the smell even before they descended down the trapdoor.

Grizz took the lead, carefully lowering himself down and looking below to avoid stepping into anything dangerous. Orou followed behind him, looking at the horrible scene that greeted them. Instead of a basement, one could call this an underground dungeon. There were metal chains with several skeletons imprisoned in them and a thick stench of blood practically hit both Orou and Grizz like a truck. There was strange, purple moss that was growing on the walls and on the skeletons themselves, while most of the skeletons were fairly intact, there was a single skeleton which had completely turned into moss. Underneath the moss was a protrusion of two large wings, resembling a butterfly attached to a human body, struggling to break out of the purple moss.

Tending to the moss was a frail and sickly man. His fingers, his face and his body looked like someone had taken a skeleton and dragged only skin across his entire body. In his hands was a bucket that was completely filled with blood, he was dipping his hand into the blood and simply placing it on the moss. The moss, as if it was alive, reached up and enveloped his hands, completely draining the blood from his hands. Just as Orou and Grizz were looking at him, he was also observing them, his head tilted to one side in confusion. He put down the bucket full of blood and wiped his hands free of any remaining blood.

“I don’t remember ordering any new slaves, though if you’re here, you might as well stay,” his voice was shrill and pierced one’s ears when Orou heard it. In his hands was a red orb which shone with a soft light. Orou saw the spirits around him swiftly gather towards the orb and as Orou was ready to move forward and strike him, Grizz yelled out: “We’re here to do business, we require your services with unlocking a particular magical cube.”

Rial hesitated for a moment as he looked at Grizz and Orou, though he focused more on Orou as he slowly lowered his orb. The spirits scattered all around the room as he said: “Why didn’t you say it from the start? I was half ready to kill you right there,” Rial assumed a righteous stance as he unwillingly put down his orb and sat down on a nearby chair. Grizz coughed a bit and sat down on the nearest chair that was unstained by blood, and as he was about to speak, he was interrupted by the skeleton completely covered with moss. Underneath the moss, the creature flapped its wings and an unearthly shriek resounded through the room. Rial put his finger to his mouth while looking at the skeleton and then back to Grizz, expecting him to continue.

“Right, I’ve recently found a black cube that we’re fairly certain is magical, though we don’t know how to actually open it up. There are some blood crystals involved if you’re willing to open it and keep quiet about it,” Grizz looked unsettled by whatever was going on to his left, though he still kept a calm and rational attitude while speaking to Rial. Pulling out the cube from his backpack, he set it on the table and pushed it forwards for Rial to investigate. He picked it up in his hands and simply observed it from all sides, looking for something in particular.

“How surprising, something I haven’t seen in all of my years of tinkering with magical devices. This looks like a way to trap something in it, most likely a spirit. I wonder if it’s possible to trap ghosts or even souls in this thing. Whoever created this thing must be a genius,” his eyes glittered as he looked at the cube before him. Walking to another room, he picked up several strange instruments, bent metal pipes and various other metal contraptions, putting them down on the table and starting the process of getting this thing open.

The two of them watched as Rial kept trying to hammer away, twist and bend the black cube. Orou saw that as he was working with the cube, the various metal instruments he had helped him guide the spirits both into an around the cube, though none of the spirits were able to get in. After several minutes of tinkering, Rial practically jumped from his chair as he said out loud: “It was this simple all along, how did I not get this. You simply weave a thread of spirits around and through it, splitting the cube into nine pieces and opening it.”

With seemingly practiced ease, Orou saw one of the spirits in the air abruptly stop and start to quickly elongate until it resembled a thin string. Guiding the string towards the cube, the string entered the cube from a hole that Orou never noticed was there, weaving all throughout the cube. It splintered into nine different pieces, still floating in the air around a particular spirit. Orou immediately recognised it as the greater spirit he had been looking for. Orou saw an invisible wave go through the spirits and one by one, they almost seemed to become disciplined, arranging themselves in a particular order, though to Orou it still looked like chaos.

“A greater spirit, I haven’t seen one of those for a while. Tell you what, if you’re willing to sell me this cube, I can offer several high-quality blood crystals to you and the promise of my further services free of charge, if you would ever desire them,” Rial looked at the two of them, almost as if he was confident that the box was already his. His face dropped when Grizz confidently told him: “No.”

Rial’s hand trembled for a bit and Orou saw the spirits start to approach the man and without any hesitation, he started casting a spell on his own. Creating a hollow pillar of spirits above the man’s head, Orou started gathering the spirits needed to cast the spell. It was much, much harder than Orou thought as the spirits simply didn’t want to move, didn’t want to be disturbed, but fortunately, the man sensed something above his head and the spirits that he had been gathering scattered. Glaring at Orou, he told Grizz: “Fine, the usual price of five medium blood crystals will do, though do remember me when you think about selling the box.”

As Grizz reached the grab the box, Rial looked to Orou and started talking: “You need to weave a spirit thread to open it and simply use your will to surround it on all sides and force it to snap shut. It will completely isolate the aura the greater spirit is giving out, though I’m still not sure how,” saying that, Orou saw the box simply shut on its own. Grizz looked confusedly at Orou before he flickered his tongue and taking that as a sign of acceptance, he gave the crystals over to Rial and pocketed the black cube before them.

“Let’s never return to this place again, way too much creepy stuff going on here,” Grizz said to Orou as they started climbing the stairs, their ascent was followed by another wail of the strange butterfly creature which so desperately tried to escape its mossy bounds.