"You can't be serious, Bell-chi. Come on, tell us what happens next!" Lyd flexed his claws toward Bell, practically vibrating on his trunk.
"Mister Bell can continue. The bonfire will last a while longer." Let adjusted a branch deeper into those embers, coaxing a fresh wave of heat from the flame.
Ray tilted her head away like she couldn't care less. Though, her feathers were shaking restlessly.
Arles took a small, cautious step toward the bonfire, watch clutched tight in her paws.
Alfia said nothing. But Bell noticed her body had leaned toward him by barely an inch. Maybe two.
He watched them all, keeping his smile in place.
Two seconds. Three.
"If you don't open your mouth, I'll tickle you until you do, Bell-chi." Lyd moved his claws up and down, trying to look threatening. It might have worked, if his tail wasn't wagging like an eager husky.
"I'll share the rest with you later."
He let his words settle.
Then his smile receded. Breath by breath, warmth left his face, replaced by an impassive mask.
Lyd straightened. His tail stopped mid-wag, going rigid. Because when Bell made that face, something serious followed.
"Are you searching for the ones abducting your people?"
Bell's eyes traced the slow arc of Let's stick through embers.
Silence.
"How do you know that, Bell-chi?" Lyd's voice dropped low, his arms came down to rest on the tree trunk he sat on, claws sinking into bark.
Ray turned back toward them, wings unwrapping from beneath her chest to grip the branch.
Let stopped moving his stick entirely. Eyes on Bell now. Arles backpedaled two steps after barely having advanced one.
"I know through certain connections. I even know who's responsible and where they're keeping the captured Xenos." Bell rested his elbows on his knees, fingers intertwining beneath his chin.
Lyd was already on his feet, hand extending toward his scimitar. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's—"
"Wait." Ray's voice cut through. She hadn't moved from her branch, but her eyes had narrowed.
"How convenient. We've been searching for weeks with nothing. Then you appear—and suddenly you know exactly where to find them?"
Her feathers rose involuntarily.
"How do we know this isn't a trap? That someone isn't using you—or that you aren't leading us into one yourself?"
Bell looked up at her. Then he gestured casually toward Alfia with his chin.
"I wouldn't need an elaborate trap. If I wanted to harm you, my Aunt alone would be more than enough."
The fire crackled. No one argued. They'd all felt it—that suffocating pressure Alfia carried, every movement unhurried, as if nothing in this dungeon could ever warrant her haste.
"Besides, you tried to save me once, even if it was under a misunderstanding. I don't like leaving debts unpaid. And I have a grudge to settle with those people too."
Bell got up from where he sat and rolled his shoulder. Alfia rose beside him, hands resting casually over her abdomen, as if they were stepping out for a stroll.
"So, Mister Bell... who are these people?" Let asked, setting his stick aside, hand drifting to his dagger.
Arles peeked at Bell from behind her watch. Lyd's grip tightened on his scimitar. Ray landed beside Lyd from above.
"They are... Evilus."
...
..
.
Floor twenty.
"Evilus... those lunatics who kept spreading chaos on the surface?" Let murmured, fingers wrapped around his dagger, free hand adjusting his scarf.
"Aren't those people nearly finished? Fels told us that they were." Lyd brought a finger to his temple, rubbing it as he tried to recall what he'd been told.
Bell's eyes flicked to Lyd upon hearing Fels' name. Ahead of them, a Battle Boar charged from a bush; Crimson Order sang once, and it fell away without slowing their pace.
"There might be remnants left. And they might even be working with other humans from the surface, human greed knows no bounds, after all." Ray swung her wing, launching a bunch of feathers at a Bugbear trying to sneak up on them.
Arles held onto Let's scarf from behind, sweeping her gaze around and pointing her other paw at any monster lurking nearby.
Alfia walked at their forefront, completely unbothered, Bell making sure nothing ever closed the distance to her.
"By the way, Bell-chi. Where are we going now?" Lyd asked, scraping his scimitar against the ground to flick monster blood off its blade.
"All of you should put on your cloaks. We're going to the eighteenth floor." Bell said.
Let released his dagger and halted, bringing the rest of them to a stop. Then he set down his backpack and pulled cloaks from it, handing them out to his companions.
"Mister Bell. Miss Alfia."
Once all the Xenos were cloaked, Let walked up to Bell and Alfia, offering them cloaks as well. They exchanged a glance and took them, putting those cloaks over themselves.
"Let's go." Bell resumed walking. Everyone else followed.
...
..
.
Floor nineteen.
The jungle did not want her here.
Leaves slapped her face and chest, clinging to her like cold hands. Branches clawed at the blue scales across her forearms and thighs. She whimpered at a sharp flare of pain where a thorn tore between her scales. Her light blue skin was too bare for this place, too soft. Every bush and vine seemed to reach for it.
She ran anyway.
Feet slapping the wet ground, mud seeping from between her toes, rotting leaves squelching underfoot. A root rose in her vision. Her toe caught it and she flung forward, arms out, palms slapping wet earth, breath driven out of her with a grunt.
She scrambled up, legs shaking, and threw herself forward, black nails reflecting green of leaves.
Those people were still behind her.
Their shouts bounced off trees, twisted by humidity so they seemed to come from every direction. "Catch that monster! It's over there!" The word monster made her feel choked, making the corners of her eyes wet. But her legs did not care about names, they only knew run.
Her lungs burned. Air rattled in and out of them in bursts. The thick, rotting smell of the jungle floor forced out coughs from her. A vine whipped across her cheek; a thin line of red followed, and then a warm trickle of blood. She didn't slow down. Couldn't.
Trees were too close. Canopy a suffocating hood, strangling any light into greenish gloom. She could not see the ceiling, did not know which way was out, or what it even was.
A shout closer now. The crack of a branch too close.
Left. A curtain of hanging moss crashed against her face as she burst through, and emerged into a small stream-ravine. Water splashed over, cold and shocking, pulling at her feet. She stumbled, leaped, fell on the opposite bank, nails full of mud and dirt. Behind her, something splashed into the stream.
Don't look back. Don't look back.
But she looked.
A shape burst through that curtain of moss, then another, metal of their weapons glinting in light. One adventurer raised something—weapon? metal? She didn't know, only that it meant hurt.
A spear cracked into the tree where her head had been, bark spraying. She had already thrown herself sideways. Then, her feet jerked, pushing her up, but a metallic chain lashed around her calf. She gasped, stumbled, and for one instant her legs slipped and she went down hard, face and chest slamming into ground. Pain burned her front, dizzying.
"Got you—!"
"AHHHHH!"
She screamed, and thrashed, kicking out, her foot connecting with something—a knee, a shin. The adventurer cursed, staggering back. She rolled, scrambled, got her feet under her, and ran again, half-blind, heels dragging, every breath ragged in her chest.
But the chain was still there.
It bit into her calf, links grinding against her scales to find soft flesh beneath. A brutal yank followed. Her forward momentum died; her feet slid out, and mud welcomed her back.
She hit the ground chin-first.
Then tears came.
They came up her throat and out through her eyes in silence, falling straight down into the mud, and where they landed, they made small circles.
She turned her head back with a sob.
An adventurer stood over her, the chain wrapped tight around his fist, its links still cutting into her leg. Behind him, two more vague shapes loomed.
"It's Tear," One of them said. "Secure it first."
"Shut up. I know."
That man reached down, his thick fingers moving toward her brow—toward the red stone pulsing alive against her forehead.
His fingers closed in.
No.
No. No—
A fountain of blood erupted from the chain-holder's neck. His head flew. That reaching hand dropped away dead.
Three shapes had been standing over her. Now there were four.
"Wh—"
The second split down the middle—crimson and organs spraying in all directions.
The third barely opened his mouth before his torso slid down his own thighs, a confused huh? slipping from loose lips.
"AH—"
His scream died before it lived. A heel drove into his mouth, crushing teeth to splinters, pinning his skull to mud.
She blinked.
A cloak. Black and heavy, draped over the figure whose foot stayed wedged in that man's mouth even as he struggled desperately. Then that figure pulled their hood off with one hand.
What her eyes caught first was red hair.
More radiant than the stone on her brow.
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Enjoy my friends.
And have a fabulous day, everyone!