Chapter 83: He who Dwells within Darkness
The group moved slowly and intentionally, having to take their ti squeezing through the tiny confines of the tunnel. A statent that went double for the towering Hellion. Even at its largest, Lilith was already hunching over.
If she had a traditional shield, instead of Hellish Armants ford from her malevolent aura, then it would be impossible for her to move through this tunnel at all. Which was a good reason for soone to use it for nefarious deeds, such as corrupting the local wild life.
The air grew thicker as they delved deeper, carrying with it the familiar scent of iron from spilled blood, but that wasn’t all. There was a noticeable feeling of... wrongness that seeped into them more and more the further they moved.
It was more noticeable to Saige, who was more in tune with Divine Energy which seed to clash against whatever foreign energy had been corrupting the creatures.
The energy was strange. It didn’t have a taste or scent, it couldn’t be seen either by the naked eye or by Belladonna’s magic sight at all. But it was definitely there and definitely real.
It was like the feeling of walking through a haunted house or a cetery in the depths of night. That creeping feeling of sothing watching you, that you were wandering sowhere that you didn’t belong and that was only ant for the dead.
It was as if, just by entering the cave, they were trudging into a world that was not their own, and which hated the very core of their existence, especially that of Saige.
Each mber of the group had a different type of dark-vision, so they simply walked in the darkness without a care. It also ant that, when there finally ca a flickering of light within said darkness, they knew it belonged to the ones they were hunting for.
The sound of chanting accompanied these faint wisps of light, which flickered against the tunnel walls and created wicked shapes of orange and black as shadows were cast from the fire.
The chanting was perford by multiple voices, which was made to sound like even more with the faint echoes. Every word of the chants carried with them more of this strange, alien power that churned their stomachs slightly with each syllable.
It was not English they were chanting in, nor was it the language that other magical chants were perford in. Instead it was a language ford of words that sounds like soone was ready to throw up, mixed with barks, grunts, glottal stops and a few gurgling sounds that did not seem like sothing anything a human should be able to perform.
Yet when they finally reached the source of the chants, that was exactly what they found. Humans, seven of them in total, with six of them dressed in dark robes typical of cult mbers with hoods that covered their faces as they congregated in a wide opening within the tunnel system. But even still, if this room was bigger than the main tunnel, that still ant it was only a few tres wide. Roughly the size of a small bedroom in a house, or the entirety of an above average New York apartnt.
These six stood in a circle, positioned evenly as they stood atop a runic circle drawn in blood, as a cauldron cooked atop a fla in the centre of their congregation.
The seventh mber, who appeared to be the leader, was waving his hands in the air above the cauldron as he pulled a jar of Sin-suckers out from within his bag and dumped its contents into the cauldron.
This man was unique, not just because his outfit did not match the others. But because it did not match itself. His boots, gloves and armour were all seemingly from different sets and a pair of daggers rested on his hips.
One of them with a wave blade, typical of a ceremonial dagger, while the other was made out of bone and carved like a shiv.
This type of function over form, mismatched fashion sense could only ever belong to players, the type that dressed entirely for stats instead of looks. As if that wasn’t an obvious enough clue, the bone dagger on his hip was still from the starting noob gear that all three of them had started with.
Belladonna communicated with Beans through their link, subtly summoning the adorable little kitten and sending him out to search for any other exits from the tunnel. As soon as he leapt off of her shoulder, he seed to vanish.
The shadows swallowed him, accepting him as one of their own, without him physically dissolving like he usually did. Instead he pranced across the apartnt sized room without a care in the world, his footsteps not even making a single sound and his black fuzzy form invisible within the shadows.
When Beans reported back that there were no other entrances to be found, Belladonna subtly relayed the information to the rest of the ground before they slowly pushed into the opening.
Since it was not too large, and their party consisted of a walking skyscraper in scantily glad armour, it didn’t take long for one of the cult mbers to notice their arrival. With dramatic flair suiting one of his position, the naless man in robes gasped loudly, which echoed through the tunnel and interrupted the chants, before shoving a quivering finger in their direction.
"Master Madik! There are infidels in our midst! The defenders have been slain and we have been discovered!"
The sole player, the one known as Master Madik, rolled his eyes at the NPCs dramatics and cast a lazy look towards those who had entered. His eyes narrowed for a mont before his eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Well now... So other players. Am I already so influencial that I got myself a quest? Or did you just stumble in here by accident looking for loot? Honestly... I told them that this location was too obvious," He muttered with a heavy sigh as he shook his head and strolled forwards, taking the dagger from his waist.
"But did they listen? No... Oh well, I guess now I get to show off the power of the best class in the ga!"
A sly, sadistic smile spread across his lips as he waved his dagger back and forth in the air, as if he was already wondering how it would feel slicing through their flesh.
"I wonder, have any of you noobs ever heard of sothing called a source?"
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