Vlindrel:Eater of the Dead

Day 5, 2:45 PM
Far Beneath the Reformatory

**The sixteen hours since the confrontations at the bridge and the large iron portcullis have been arduous. The reformatory offered very little reprieve for the now banded group of travelers from various kingdoms and worlds, and even less amenities. Following an awful path populated by numerous dead, that lead across the ramparts, into the warden's crumbling tower, and down a tall stone stair that spiraled well below the surface and into a subterranean structure full of stone and iron halls, lined with countless jail cells that were populated by dozens of even more undead creatures, many of which poured out into the halls and transformed the stone halls into a horrible relentless gauntlet.**

**After finally making it through the underground jail, and barring the passage behind them with a weighted iron door to keep them from being pursued, the group had arrived into a small brick tunnel, full of glassy stalagmites and stalactites, formed from dripping chilling water that constantly falls from the stone above. This tunnel stretched on tediously for hours, and was so cramped that Tate, Ahiga, and Delpha had to go first, and in a few places pull Caspian and Coty through the tighter spots. At the end of this increasingly miserable passage, it finally opened up into a larger cavern, a smoldering pinkish campfire, its sacred flame resting there for unknown ages, waiting for someone to kindle it with their link, resting at the center.**

Caspian: **The last ten hours of near blinding darkness has taken its toll, and even he seems tired and weary. His normally white tunic is damp and grey with moisture and cut up in places, beneath which he has numerous scrapes and cuts from the relentless assaults from earlier. As he holds his hand over the small cinders, it suddenly bursts into life, and crackles loudly. The firelinked members of the group immediately begin to feel the warmth sooth them. Caspians eyes hurt as they adjust to the bright light, and he backs up a few steps, then immediately sits down, obviously quite tired, as he leans his enormous weapon onto a nearby rock.**

Ahiga: **He shields his eyes with one hand as he links to the newly found bonfire with his other.** Thank God... **He simply falls to a cross-legged position, very close to the fire. He's freezing cold, wearing only his beat up hoodie and his jeans-turned-shorts, and his skin and lips look blue and pale as he holds his hands out to the warmth of the fire.** ...Was afraid we might never find another one down here.

Coty: **Out of the group, he did the least amount of direct fighting, refusing to waste all of his ammo, and instead only shooting when it was absolutely necessary. Though he hates that he couldn't take as direct approach to combat as Caspian and Delpha, he's satisfied that he saved the others several times with a few well-placed shots. He looks to his watch, it says 2:48, a.m.** It's almost three in the morning, we're making camp. **He says it with a commanding tone, like he doesn't give a shit if someone disagrees with him.**

Caspian: **He looks to Coty, then leans back against the rock his weapon is against.** We'll get a full night's rest, then continue when everyone is ready.

Coty: Are we anywhere near the... Aquaduct? **He pulls his mask off, the blue-green night-vision having started straining his eyes hours ago, and he takes a deep breath and blinks tightly several times as he waits for Delpha's response.**

Delpha: The Warden and her dead servants had rendered me unconscious, and carried me up into the forest using a lift from the aquafer. I did not pass this way. **Her black dress is damp and torn and frayed at the bottom, showing her silver and black boots, which are caked in filth.** So I do not know. **She takes a seat on a small dry rock.**

Ahiga: But we're sure that this is the right way, right? **His words sound tired.**

Delpha: **At his question, she has no response.**

Coty: ...You fuck'n serious? This might not even be the right way? **He shakes his head, aggravation and regret at letting someone else lead quickly getting to him. He pulls his large heavy pack off of his back and throws it to the ground where it makes a clattering thump. He pulls a large blanket out of the pack, along with a small sleeping bag.**

Delpha: it's not as if we could've reversed our path, and pass back through that horrendous stockade, packed with *countless* dead-

Coty: Why didn't we go through the fuck'n *forest* and take the *lift* then?! **He glares at Delpha, and she actually seems to recoil slightly, his musculature and height making his obvious anger much more intimidating than she should find him.**

Delpha: I do not know the way through the forest.

Caspian: I knew of only two paths down to the aquafer. **He sighs and bends forward, crawling a little bit towards the casmpfire, reaching into it and pulling out a bound leather scroll, which he quickly unrolls. It's scrawled with fine ink.** When I was younger, and much smaller, I was able to sneak through the reformatory easily, and during that time I would find all kinds of things... It was fun, and allowed me to pass the time. **He smirks a little, strange to him that he'd find anything about the reformatory fun after today.** One of the things I found, was this map.

Coty: You've had a map this entire time? Why haven't we been using it?

Caspian: Because I have it memorized. **It looks like a very old blueprint, showing the Warden's tower and part of the guard's quarters. Pointing to a spiral stair at the back of the Warden's office, he looks up to Coty. The text there is written in a scribbled and strange language.** "Tkoatulvaah Ress Kvaah". It means "Stair to the Cave Lake", in... Whatever the language is that the Warden and her people speak. **He smiles a little as he looks at Coty and flips the scroll over, revealing a lot network of tunnels that leads away from the underground jail.** I had a traveler translate it a few years back, she was an animist, like Ahiga. **He shoves the map back into the bonfire and then crawls backwards and lays against the stone. He shrugs a little as he looks up at Coty. The motion is markedly similar to Ahiga's, meaning that Caspian obviously learned it from him. He smiles again.** We should be going the right way.

Coty: **His anger begins to cool, Caspian's dumb smile and weirdly cute story of exploring ruins as a kid being enough.** Fine, whatever. **He throws a heavy blanket at Ahiga, and it nearly knocks him over when it hits him, but he quickly wraps himself in it. Coty pulls his wet shirt off and wraps himself in his large sleeping bag.** ...I'm starving. **He looks to his pack.**

**The cave trembles lightly, the air suddenly becomes heavy with a dreadful feeling. Everyone's stomach suddenly feels like a rock, and their ears ring quietly as their blood quickens with heavy heartbeats. It's a familiar feeling to everyone but Delpha.**

Narrak: **A deep, course, whisper fills the cavern.** Aren't we all... So very hungry... **From the way they came, the large hellhound peers from the darkness, his silvery eyes glowing.**

Delpha: **She spins her twinblade from her back and glares at the demon.** What manner of creature is *that*?

Tate: Narrak? **He speaks for the first time since they've arrived at the fire. He'd been standing farther away from the group, leaning against the stone wall silently, too mentally exhausted to participate in the earlier argument, or to even talk at all. He pushes off the wall and blinks ahead of everyone, appearing between them and Narrak.** Did Hunter send you? **Despite a cramp in his leg, and the sinking dread in his stomach, he manages to take a few steps forward, toward the demon.**

Narrak: **He growls, aggrivated that his entrance causes less terror than he'd like.** Potato-witch. **He steps into the light. Looking ridiculous. He has a red pizza delivery hat on, along with a red nylon coat with sleeves that were torn when it was probably being put on. Both pieces of clothing are obviously too small for the large hound.**

Coty: **He smirks, lowering the shotgun he'd grabbed.** The fuck?

Tate: Is that Hunter's pizza boy outfit? **He raises an eyebrow at the hound.**

Narrak: **He growls quietly and then roars a rumbling.** *No*! **That echoes through the cavern.**

Ahiga: ...Does that mean it's yours?

Narrak: **He growls again, and steps towards them, his long powerful tail twisting up behind him until the end comes into view. A stack of four pizza boxes, wrapped in straps, hangs from it.** He wants you to have these, so you don't *starve*... **A delicious pizza smell immediately fills the cavern as his tail bends more, hanging over him like a scorpion's. He sets the pizza boxes in Tate's arms and then quickly starts to back away into the dark.**

Ahiga: Tell Hunter we said thanks! **He looks at the pizza in Tate's arms. A treasure beyond treasure.**

Narrak: ...No. **He vanishes into the dark, only his silver eyes remaining.** I will tell him that you are dead, and that I stuffed the meals into the festering wounds of your corpses... **The dreadful weight of the air lifts and pits of their stomachs undo their knots.**

Tate: **He takes a deep breath, both of relief, and then simply to smell the pizza. He turns to the others and walks over to the fire. He sits down, the pizza being somewhat heavy for him. Out of everyone else, he seems to have been least affected by the trials of the day, and the hours and hours of travelling through the dark. If anything, he seemed to become emboldended by it after the passed into the tunnel. He smiles a small smiles, and opens pizza box. It quickly turns to a frown and he speaks plainly.** It's hawaiian.

**A few hours later...**

**Ahiga finds himself in a strange dream. Standing yards outside his house, which rests, half covered below a blue sand dune. It's a bright day, but the sky is grey and cold, and in the distance he can hear thunder, though there's no clouds. Beyond Tate's house is a large red-brown stone mountain range, the vibrant stone of them looping up and around in alien and unnatural shapes, like desert clay mountains that have been pulled and stretched into distorted taffy.**

**Then a soft, but heavy, thumping comes from behind Ahiga and as he turns to look he sees a strange creature behind him. A large insectoid creature, nearly as tall as Ahiga himself, is slowly walking up behind him. Her upper body is obviously feminine and effectively human, with a large pair of breasts that are hardly even hidden by several rows of tiny green and blue metal plates that rest over their peaks and hang from chain necklaces from her neck. However her lower half is hardly human at all, going from lightly tanned and bronzed skin at the hips, to metallic green carapace that splits into four long and powerful bug-like legs. Her face, though appearing beautiful, is sharp and alien looking, and marked with a pair translucent orange eyes, like a pair of multi-faceted fiery rubies that catch the daylight as she passes Ahiga.**

**Ahiga suddenly feels a familiarity in this dream, as if, even in his sleep, he's subconsciously recognized that he's had this dream before, or something very similar to it. All at once he knows that this creature, now passing by him as she walks, is Amunet, and as he realizes this, two pairs of long dragonfly wings expand behind her, their iridescence shimmering like a mirage in the warm sunlight. The dragonfly image he'd seen thus far being a mere illusion, something that his mind would find familiar and unalarming. Amunet suddenly stops, and begins to bend forwards, and it is now that Ahiga sees the sinkhole before her, and her hand stretching down towards it. As she reaches, the strange blue sand begins to pour and flow into it, flooding down the sides and towards the bottom.**

**Then, suddenly it is Ahiga that's bending down to reach for it, and all the way at the bottom, which he can somehow see and know, is a cloudy grey sky, flashing with thunder and far off lights. As he continues to bend more and more forward, reaching down into the pit, more and more of the sand flows into the pit until it's like audible thunder. Yet amidst the rumbling torrent of sand, he can hear the voice of his farther, calling out his name from a great distance. Amunet is now beside him, her strange fiery eyes peering into the Sinkhole with an ancient and utterly inhuman glare, her expression blank and unmoving. She bends down farther, her long fingers pressing into his back, and her other hand wrapping around his wrist, forcing him to reach deeper as she begins to push Ahiga down into the Sinkhole, as sand quickly begins to pour so quickly and numerously, that it has now submerged his waist.**

**Ahiga suddenly wakes. Caspian is sleeping against a rock, an empty pizza box next to him on the stone floor. He's breathing in a quiet snore, a small shall wrapped around him, the cuts and scraps that could be seen in tears in his tunic gone. In the darkness of the cave, Ahiga sees that everyone is at rest, save for Tate. Instead, in his spot is Loki, sleeping on his back alone, halfway curled into Tate's old beanie, his tongue sticking out. A few footprints in the mud heading off into the dark of the cavern.**

Ahiga: **He rubs his eyes, as he looks around, seeing everyone sleeping in the small camp they've made for the night. Coty is laying on the stone the floor in a sleeping bag. Delpha is resting on the cold floor, without even a blanket or pillow, just laying there in her dress and armor. He whispers quietly.** Tate? ...*Tate*?

Delpha: **Her head moves, turning ever so slightly to look to Ahiga, before she speaks in a quiet voice.** ...He wandered off, into the dark.

Ahiga: **He quickly gets up. His legs are sore, despite the healing warmth of the flame.** What? **He finally sees the footprints.** You let him go?

Delpha: He is firelinked, is he not? **She moves her head a little, looking away from Ahiga.** And I doubt he would wander far.

Ahiga: **He looks annoyed, and speaks in a loud whisper.** Wander far-? **He grunts in annoyance.** Last time he wandered away he got abducted for *four days*! **Coty grunts loudly, and turns in his sleep.**

Delpha: He is... Pale... **She begins to drift back off to sleep, not having been fully awake.** ...And strong... Hunted a beast... In the dark... **She falls back into sleep as her voice fades.**

Ahiga: **He looks to Coty and Caspian, wanting to wake and tell them, but both were so tired earlier and it was such a long day. For a moment he considers Delpha's stance, to just leave Tate be, but quickly decides against it. His friend has been back one day, and he's not about to let him get lost again. He wraps the heavy blanket around him and heads away from the fire, following Tate's footsteps.**

**The footsteps lead away from the fire, down through a large tunnel. The firelight hardly extends beyond the camp, the tunnel winding a little and turning down into what looks like a larger chamber ahead, water dripping from the ceiling and running down the walls has created two small streams, that run down the path.**

Ahiga: **He looks back to the camp as he continues, wondering if he should go get one of the flashlights, but quietly decides against it. He's immortal, after all, he doesn't need to be afraid of the dark. Continuing down the path, he enters the chamber, and quickly looks for any sign of Tate, stopping to try and get his eyes to adjust.**

**The chamber is rather large, though its difficult to see just how big. The firelight only illuminates a thin path through it, and everything around it is pitch black. Tate's footprints in the muddy floor continue off, stretching into the darkness farther ahead.**

Ahiga: **He rubs his eye and then looks back in the direction he came from, hesitating. A slow moment passes and he looks back ahead, whispering loudly.** Tate!? **He looks around into the darkness, then clears his throat and calls out louder.** Tate!? Where'd you go!? **He takes a few more steps towards the edge of the darkness, but stops, waiting to hear a response.**

**A sultry feminine voice, speaking in a quiet and calm tone, suddenly speaks. It *feels* otherworldly to Ahiga, and he immediately senses that she's some kind of spirit, yet she speaks words directly to him, in a voice that he can understand, unlike all the ones he's interacted with thus far.** I'm not sure you want to keep going that way... He walks towards something *dark* and *ancient*... And I don't think it's a path you'd choose to take... **A pair of very large eyes appear in the dark, shining gold, like an animal's, floating at eye level with Ahiga's, though over ten feet away.** ...Or one that you would much like, for that matter...

Ahiga: **He takes a few steps away from the spirit, caught off guard.** ...Another spirit? All the way down here?

**There's a quiet noise, halfway between a cat's purr and a woman's hum.** I am Xibala. **The eyes move, staying fixated on Ahiga, moving closer to him and then circling around him a bit, before turning and going back in the other direction just as the light might touch her. Circular golden jaguar spots shimmer slightly as she nears the flickers of the dull campfire, shining brightly.** Eater of the Dead... Though I've been known to kill the living too... **She laughs quietly, and Ahiga immediate feels strange, like Amunet, this is no spirit that calls earth home.** You didn't think that pretty *bug* was the only one who heard your call, up there in the forest, did you...? There were quite a few spirits that wanted to answer the summons of a young *alien* man... But she and her fallen king assured that only *they* would hold your audience... **She lays down, slightly nearer to the light that runs through the chamber, close enough that Ahiga can see that her form is quite massive, with what looks like her main body to be nearly the size of a small car, though it difficult for him to make out details.**

Ahiga: **A quiet fear forms deep down inside him that offending this spirit might be a violent mistake, and running from her would likely be quite offensive. So he swallows his desire to flee for the campfire, and tries to respond.** Her... King? Amunet's king? Was that the man that spoke to me, when she agreed to help? **He wraps the blanket around him more tightly and thinks back to what the voice said, days ago.** "Not an enemy, but not a friend." is what he said... And that Amunet was far from home, like me.

Xibala: That ancient smooth voice... Speaking silver words and proclamations... Did it not sound kingly? **She laughs quietly in an almost purring way.** What he said was not a lie, but not the whole truth, either... **She lets out a quiet sigh that has a humming tone, and looks away from Ahiga, into the darkness ahead.** ...But perhaps that's a subject for another time... **She laughs again, very quietly, as she looks back to Ahiga.**

Ahiga: What you said before, about the path Tate walks, what did you mean that I'm not fit to follow him? That I wouldn't like the choice?

Xibala: Well... **She rests her head on what looks like a large pair of long cat-like front legs, but they're hard to make out in the blackness.** ...He carries with him so much... And it has made him *deep*... *Dark*... Or maybe it's just made his dark *deeper*... And he travels deeper still... To a place someone like *you* wouldn't want to follow... To be... Alone... With the dark... **She punctuates her statement with another quiet laugh.** ...And then you will lose him... And you will be alone too... **Her golden shining eyes stare at him for a moment, seeming to read something on his face, or hs body language, or maybe even something deeper.** ...Again.

Ahiga: ...I don't... **He looks down, becoming quietly frustrated by this spirit in the dark, seeming to taunt him.** ...Me and Tate, we'll always be friends. Regardless of distance... Even though we were a little different from one another -After I came back from living with my mom, we were best friends, just like before...

Xibala: Each time you part, your friend returns different than he was, yet you stay the same... **She slowly stands up and stretches, huge golden talon-like claws extending from her large paws that catch the firelight and flash for a moment, before vanishing.** Even now you hardly understand him... **She speaks it with a fond and longing tone.** His lulling... Longing... For... Well, even I don't really know what a young man like him wants... But... He is becoming more... A pilgrimage to being deeper... A rite of passage that leads into the unknown... He makes difficult choices, sometimes the *wrong* choices, self-destructive choices... And it has lead him to becoming *more*... So much more than he was before he made them... **She laughs quietly again.** ...Yet how much have you changed, *really*? ...The choices you make aren't difficult... You're dumb and happy... **She starts to pace away and into the dark.** And seem as little else...

Ahiga: **He responds angrily and without really thinking.** I keep an optimistic attitude because I *have* to! **He says it louder than he means to, and immediately turns to a more reserved tone.** Not because it's easy... Or because I want to, but because if I don't, other people around me won't either. Someone needs to *keep going* when everyone else wants to stop or complain -or give up! When I was forced to go live with my abusive drunken mother, I *refused* to let it ruin my life... When... A horrible monster kills my favorite calf, and then sends evil spirits to scare the shit out of me and my friend I made sure to keep us from becoming despaired and... And shitty! ...And... When we fell in this... *Place*... I made the best of it, even making a new friend! I sucked it up and learned to fight, to make sure I'd be fine when Tate came back... Being happy isn't *easy*, sometimes it's shit, but it *works*, so I'm not going to let you tell me it doesn't!

Xibala: **She laughs softly.** Well-well... Perhaps I was wrong. **She stops and looks back at him.** ...About you... Maybe. **She turns and begins to walk towards him.** ...Maybe you're deeper... Than I thought... Just a little. **She pauses for a moment, then peaks her head into the light, close to Ahiga. Her head is large, more voluminous than Ahiga's torso, and in the shape of a large cat's, though it's not covered in fur like a cat's should be, but instead black plated-scales that shimmer with brilliant gold marks. Atop her head are a pair of huge bull-like horns, detailed in rings of polished gold.** ...Though still not as dark...

Ahiga: **He takes a few steps back, his anger quickly turning to fear as he sees her almost demonic face.** Are you just here to taunt me, wicked spirit?

Xibala: Wicked as I may be, I mean only to give you wisdom, for it is in my nature to do so... Whether it is taunting or not is of no real consequence... To me.

Ahiga: **He pulls the blanket around him tighter, as if it's enough to protect him.** But you don't seem like someone that would be here just to "dispense wisdom".

Xibala: You're quite right... Only *you* can understand my words, so to you I have appeared... As few animists still live in this decrepit old tomb of a world... I come with a proposition... Ahiga... **She inches closer to him, and looks him up and down, seeming to sniff at him for a moment. Her golden orb-like eyes stare into his.** ..."He fights"... You fight... **Tilting her head, she pulls back into the dark and paces back and forth again.** And you will soon fight the Warden... For your path leads to her and no where else... So... We have an alignment of desires... And we can help one another. **She takes a humming breath, and her huge form slinks through the darkness, moving silently, despite her massive size.**

Ahiga: What's your proposition then? **He feels uneasy about her, even more so now that he's seen her horrible face.** You want to enter a pact? Like a... Well a demon?

Xibala: **She laughs softly.** I am no demon... Binding pacts are not my way... It's rather simple, you seek to destroy the Warden, as do I... For she is dead, and so she must be *eaten*... However... My power cannot hurt her for her great god wards her from my teeth and claw... And destroy the Warden you might, her god will rise her anew, much as your flame gives rise to you... Your fight will be *endless* and you will *never* travel to Argyria... But together... Your hands will by *my* claws and your will can by *my* will... And she can be struck down... So you see, we *need* one another... Because when she falls to you, I will *eat* her and send her where she must go... Then even her dying god won't be able to bring her back...

Ahiga: You want me to kill the Warden, because you can't, so that you can permanently kill her afterwards?

Xibala: **She hums quietly for a moment, a strange soothing song.** ...Yes... There's more I desire from you, and more that you may desire from me... But that can wait... All we need agree to is the Warden's obliteration... For now...

Ahiga: **He looks down, tired and torn on what he should do. He thinks about Xibala's comment on how he makes "easy choices", and how part of him agrees with her.** ...Amunet was an easy choice...

Xibala: **She laughs quietly.** ...Call my name if you agree to make my claws yours... Agree to my proposition... And you may live up to your namesake... And you may yet keep your friend... **She hums again and begins to wander off into the dark, her humming fading as she moves farther away, until it's silent.**

Ahiga: **He sighs and looks to the dark. Though wary of the dark spirit's words, they hang on his mind heavily. He sighs a long sigh, wishing Dzeh were here with him, the stag's wisdom and judgement being something he really needs. After a moment he starts to walk into the dark, because it's a scary choice, a harder choice, and a choice he wants, even if it doesn't make him happy. Because that's where his friend has gone.**