Much to my relief, Elmidath was right and my vision came back. Seeing the small circle of illumination our lanterns provided again felt almost miraculous after the complete darkness of before. What a wonderful thing light was, I never wanted to forgo it ever again. At least not so abruptly and with no say in the matter. “So, what was it you wanted me to see?”

“Well, for starters.” She walked back in the direction we’d come and extended her arm into the darkness. Both her arm and light vanished inside, leaving an unbroken wall of black. She pulled them out and the light returned. “See?”

“And you explored that place on your own?” Being in there with Elmidath to lead me had been bad enough, groping my way through on my own was a terrifying prospect. And she’d done so willingly?

She sneered, though I got the impression that she was just trying to put up a strong front. “Of course. I was hardly going to let something like that stop me. Not when we’re so close.”

“And how close is that?”

The Demon Lord’s gaze flicked down to the map in her hand. “…Close. We might stumble across him at any moment.” She sounded far from confident, but I could hardly criticise her for that. The map looked like complete nonsense to me, I was surprised anyone could make heads or tails of it.

“I see. Anyway, so you’ve found more than one of these dark spots?”

“Yeah, though this was the first one I actually went through. The others ones I could just go around.”

I realised, clouded as my mind was, that there was something odd about the situation. “If you’d already been through there before, why were you in there when I appeared?”

“The map says we need to go down somehow, but I can’t seem to find any way to do so. I was searching for one in the dark, though I didn’t find anything like that.” With a sigh, she sunk down to the ground and lowered her head. “I’m really not sure what to do at this point, there doesn’t seem to be any way further down. At least not around here. There must be a way somewhere, but I don’t know how we’re supposed to find it.”

“You’re not thinking of giving up, are you?” It seemed unlikely, but she was sounding awfully defeated. How long had it been since she last slept? I’d been sound asleep during her whole little journey and I was still tired, it must be even worse for her.

Leaping to her feet, she staggered. Her gauntleted hand clutched at the wall and she caught herself. “I never said that, I just don’t know what to do next. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop searching. I’d never do that.” It was a little amusing seeing her act so serious despite her near blunder, but I could see that what I said hadn’t exactly been diplomatic.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that. I just thought you seemed like you could do with a rest.” That really wasn’t what I’d meant, but it seemed like a nice way to put it.

Mollified, she nodded. “I’ll rest once we find my father, not before then.”

“Speaking of your search, what else did you want to show me?”

The Demon Lord blinked her black-red eyes like I’d said something surprising. “Oh, right.”

Beyond a gap created by a crumpled section of displaced walls was a stream. The grey-brown water flowed from a cleft in the natural stone. It was certainly out of place, but I didn’t see anything particularly noteworthy about it. “Is this it?”

“You don’t think it might be important? It’s an underground river.”

“It’s definitely more of a stream than a river, but so what?”

“Doesn’t that mean there’s definitely something magical happening here?”

“Uh, no. Not really. Underground rivers can happen all on their own.”

“Oh.” Downcast she chewed her lip for a few moments before rallying. “Even still, the water itself is too strange to be natural.”

Well, she had a point there. It was an unusual colour, though I didn’t know what passed for natural in this world. Crouching down for a closer look, I caught a whiff of the stream’s strong metallic odour. It didn’t smell like blood or anything, just a strange metal that I couldn’t place.

Dipping my hand into the water, I found it to be cool and slightly thicker than water. But beyond that… nothing. It could very well be magical, but I doubted it had all that much magic. A slightly weird stream was a pretty lame bit of magic compared to all the other things I’d seen, even the hill had been more impressive than this. Still, I suppose it was worth looking into. It’s not like we had much else to investigate, we could at least look for the source. I turned to Elmidath. “Any idea where the water is coming from?”

Chortling, she plastered a smug look across her crimson features and declared that she had no idea. “But we can probably find it if look. We just need to follow the river’s path.”

For some reason she was still insisting on calling it a river. It was a little irritating seeing her on her high horse like this but I figured she could use the morale boost. Even if it didn’t lead to anything at least it would give her something to do instead of complaining or being depressed. And we may very well find the way to her father while we were at it, it was impossible to say what might happen.

It took a fair bit of searching and backtracking before we finally reached the other side of where we’d seen the stream. It flowed along the path ahead and passed through yet another little cleft in the rock back toward where we’d first encountered it. Left with no choice in the narrow confines if we wanted to proceed, I rolled up the legs of my pants and waded into the stream, following it through the tunnel.

The water was cold but it only came up to my shin. Wading along the narrow path, I heard something ahead and stopped to listen. There was something splashing in the water ahead at a rapid pace. But strangely the sound didn’t seem to be moving. Whatever it was, it sounded small and offered little reason for us to turn back. Just in case I glanced back in askance at Elmidath. Nodding, she gestured for me to keep going.

I took my sword in hand and rounded the corner. The noise ceased. Whatever was responsible must have heard us coming or seen our lights. If it was planning on fleeing then I was happy for it to leave but there was no way to know its intentions. Silence reigned as we drew closer, broken only by the sounds of our progress. Had whatever was ahead snuck off without me hearing it? Or was it lying in wait?

Lowering the lantern, I kept my eyes fixed on the stream in front of us. Despite its smell, the water was relatively clear. Given how shallow it was, surely nothing would be able to hide in there. At least so long as it was within the very limited range of our lanterns. I really wished I had a flashlight or some magical equivalent. It was a pity Elmidath didn’t have fire magic like her uncle, that would have been really handy right now. I could try and freeze the water to catch whatever might be lurking inside but… that was a pretty terrible idea when we were standing inside it.

I was so intent on making sure we didn’t get ambushed by something hiding in the water that it took me a moment to recognize what was right in front of me. The passage ahead narrowed to a hole in the floor, and anchored to the wall above was a little forest of thin tendrils. They shirked away from the light, pressing themselves against the stone to get as far away as possible. I gripped my sword and kept my eyes on it in case it made a move. “What now?”

“We keep going.”

“Keep going? Where?” I took another quick look around us but I couldn’t see any exits.

“Through the hole where the water is coming from.”

“Down there? What about that thing?” I pointed my sword at the horrible… What even was it? I couldn’t tell if it was a plant or an animal.

“I think we can ignore it; it looks harmless. Besides, we’d be better off not killing anything unless we have to.”

Then we were supposed to just walk through? I could already picture those tendrils squeezing the life from me. “Can’t we just go back? There has to be some other way.”

“You can stay here if you want but I’m going down there.”

I held out my arm to block her path before she could squeeze past. “Fine, I’ll go.” Keeping my sword pointed at the monstrous thing above, I shuffled forward. Beyond pressing itself against the stone, it showed no reaction even when we were right underneath it. Maybe it really was harmless. Looking down into the hole, I saw that the water flowed upward somehow clinging to the surface of the wall. There was definitely something magical about it, but it didn’t look dangerous.

I passed my sword to Elmidath and hopped down, taking care to keep the lantern out of the water. The water beneath me was different to what we’d been dealing with before. It was denser with a greasy sheen to it and a stronger smell. The path continued and, not seeing any threats, I called for Elmidath to join me. After passing Shotensho, she dropped down beside me. I thought she might say something, but she just waited for me to keep going.

Though I was already tired of following this stream, I kept walking. Thankfully it wasn’t long before it came to an end in a much deeper pool. A prone figure floated atop it, shrouded in darkness. The light of my lantern had no effect on it, just like the dark spot I’d arrived in. Hearing Elmidath gasp, I turned around. With the map clutched in her left hand at eyelevel, she stared at the figure with her mouth open. “What is it?”

“It’s him. It’s my father.”