Chapter Eight: The Tunnels Below
After taking time to regain her bearings, Sara continues onto the next platform.
She is brought into a room with iron-wrought bars on either side, and, of course, yet more skeletons.
She bests them with but a few lashes of her whip, and continues on.
She is met with a dank room which splits into two paths. She approaches, surveying which would be best to take, when two strange fish-monsters bowl into her, knocking her off of her balance.
It takes her not long to dispatch them with her whip.
She makes her way rightward, making it through many and more rooms filled with varying enemies.
She comes to a room with some manner of strange mechanism, and sitting in the center of all, a lever, its position switched away from her.
She makes her best effort but for the life of her she cannot pull it back into what she assumes would have been its original position, to no avail, and so she considers it a lost cause. She only hopes this will not come back to bite at her heels.
Walking onward, she discovers a strange room adorned with statues, and a stairway.
She steps delicately down the stairway, further into the dank tunnels, until she comes to a room not unlike that she arrived in.
Yet in it, a shadowy apparition who takes the form of Sara’s very own person, uncannily so. It feels much like viewing a distorted looking glass, something just wrong, very, very wrong, yet Sara cannot discern quite what.
It makes its way toward her swiftly, lashing at her before Sara has even the time to dodge, the apparition matching Sara’s every blow, lash, and crack of the whip.
Sara finds herself herded into a corner, like a bloodthirsty hound to an innocent lamb, taking what short moment she has to breathe before it continues its barrage.
And in this moment, Sara takes note of two things.
First, is that this apparition does not mimic her bow.
Second, is that it cannot reach her with the whip it carries if she maintains enough distance between the two of them.
And it is upon this realization it begins charging her, Sara left to reach for an arrow quick as she can before it reaches her, and fires at it.
Apparently it is far too focused on harming her to block the incoming projectile, and it sinks itself deep into its chest, where the creature’s heart should be, and thinks she has bested it.
But it takes it as any blow, and continues on as Sara slips out of the corner.
Nevertheless, the fight quickly becomes a laughable spectacle. All Sara needs do is station herself in a far corner of the room, fire as many arrows as can manage, and somersault out of the way once the phantom battles its way close enough to her to land a blow.
Very soon, the fight is over, and the apparition, appearing to gasp for air in whatever capacity it seeks it, and Sara advances to make one final blow, before the creature flips over the iron-wrought gate into the rushing water below and beats a hasty retreat.
Good riddance.
As Sara progresses, she finds yet a second lever, this in the opposing position to the previous.
She makes an attempt to move it from its current position.
It moves not.
She pushes against it harder, pressing all the strength in her body against it, and it yet hardly moves. This is no way to switch it.
Sara sighs, and looks to her whip. The other refused to move, but this seems to be in an opposing position. Perhaps…
She lashes the switch with the lever. It moves, albeit a small amount, but more than it had before!
She gathers what strength she possess, and carries out a series of lashes against the lever, cracking and cracking her whip until it switches into its opposing position.
She feels the earth beneath her shake, and, looking to the water in the near rooms, it appears the flow has changed its path, though she cannot tell what this will affect.
She sees a strange skull carved into the wall, and investigates it—that is, until she slips into it.
It carries her on a twisting slide, dark and dank, leading her farther and farther, back to—
Ah. Near where she had begun it would seem.
She catches her bearings, attempting to reorient herself, when she catches sight of… one who appears to be the man she met upon entering this castle. He sits against a wall further down the tunnel, appearing exhausted, as he has not even the energy to hold himself upright.
Sara laughs. “I see you must take a break! Is the endless monster spawn that lives within this castle too much for a warrior such as yourself?”
He makes no response.
She continues closer, hoping to investigate. Perhaps the man needs help.
“I assume you speak not for lack of ability, and not arrogance? I assure you, it speak ill of your character, o kind sir.”
And yet still he does not respond.
“…hello? Do you hear me?”
And it is then that Sara sees what is wrong.
Oh. The man does not rest.
He lay dead.
Sara feels regret for her earlier comments. Had she known the man does not even live…
She strides closer, investigating further what exactly has taken his life. She swears she had come through this area before, and yet seen not a trace of this man.
There appears to be a massive puddle of blood intermingling with water, pouring down the front of him, still carrying warmth, though it has grown a bit tacky. It covers his linens, his skin, his hand. Much of it has smeared, like it was attempted to be cleaned, or…
Sara follows the trail of blood, up and up, just above the crook of the man’s neck.
The source of the blood, what appears to be two singular points, deep, slipshod wounds that dig deep, deep into his throat.
Sara feels ill to even see such a thing. Much as she did not like this man she would not have had him meet such a gruesome fate.
Sara closes his eyes gently, and his mouth, with dangles open ever so slight. She has neither the time nor place to bury him, so this shall need do.
It is as she carries this out, laying the man to rest as best she is able, that she makes note of his scabbard, missing its sword, the sword itself nowhere to be found. Perhaps he lost it, buried within some manner of creature? Though, she would have thought to see the lifeless body of whichever creature it had slain.
Of all details surrounding the man’s gruesome death, this is that which puzzles and troubles Sara most.
———
Sara soon finds herself afront yet another crossroads. She moves left to investigate, hearing a strange metallic sound much like armor far behind, though she sees not its source.
She can yet see the outline of where a door might be, yet… there is none. Curious.
This is, of course, when the large metal clanking noise becomes louder, and a large spiked-mace lands directly next to her.
She spins on her heel to see a giant suit of animated armor, spinning its spike-mace yet again. This time, she makes sure to dodge, as it lands, near shaking the earth around her.
This gives Sara an idea.
She attempts to gather the attention of the large lumbering thing, drawing it nearer and nearer to the wall where a door should be.
She stands afront the lack-of-door, and waits for it to wind its weapon. Then, a mere moment before the blow is struck, she leaps out of its path.
And lo and behold, the way is opened.
She rushes through, finding herself within a room of ledges and platforms.
She lifts herself upon a higher one to see better, and many platforms are blocked by a metal grate.
How is she to make it past, then?
She surveys the area, in attempt to find a way onward, and her eyes catch upon her whip.
Oh.
She paces backward, running then leaping as far as she can, and uses her whip to grip the grant and fling her over it. She leaps again and again, from pillar to pillar, finding herself in an iced section of the room.
She continues on, nearly losing her balance on a pillar, but steadying herself on one of the many grates, and find herself afront a door.
And comes face to face with some manner of frost-beast, adorned with icy hennin.
She is quite beautiful, in her strange way.
The ice creature seems to carry some manner of sword made of ice as well, swinging upon her person. She would need be quite careful.
They do battle, Sara taking great care to dodge the strikes, with the ice… creature, a wraith perhaps, occasionally stopping to send some manner of wave of sheer power in her direction. She does not wish to discover the capabilities of such a wave.
The ice wraith retreats, seeming to ready another attack, only to begin spinning, each hand an ice blade, leaving Sara no time to dodge such an attack, the wraith managing to graze her skin.
“Oh, do come now!” Sara exclaims.
They continue on, the ice wraith making jabs at Sara, as Sara returns her jabs with lashes of the whip. And slowly, it seems as though the ice wraith is losing vitality.
It fires some manner of beam at her (Sara has already had enough of the strange magic-beams) and Sara dodges, and as it makes to fire a collection of ice-crystals upon her person, she lashes at it one final time, and the wraith freezes (ha!) in place, and shatters into many small pieces.
She sees naught else within the small room, and makes to leave—before the strange magical circle in the center of the room becomes aglow.
She paces toward it, wary. Does it intend to summon yet another of these ice wraiths?
The circle continues to glow, and no ice wraith appears.
Sara approaches slowly, eventually finding herself in its center, and she begins to feel some manner of magic accumulating within her whip. She lifts it, intent to examine it, and feels some manner of cool magic settling upon it.
Strange.
Sara gives a few lashes with the whip.
Its chain emanates a bitter frost.
Oh.
This could perhaps be quite a boon.
Sara leaves this chamber, continuing onward toward her goal. She finds a room adorned with statues, angels, which hold candles, usually such a beacon of hope for many, but here, so far from humanity, seeming to foretell a grim end to this chapter, to these dark tunnels. She proceeds through the door at the room’s far end, which leads to a bridge above a large, dank cavern, where a waterfall rushes, ushering her toward a door at the end of the room. The bridge is long, but stable, with nought but chain keeping her from falling over its edge. She continues on, ever onward, to her goal, and when she finally reaches the doors, she breathes deeply, and pushes them open.
There is a room with a cool breeze, surrounded in stone, with statues at the corners, and a device which must be used for horrid torture in center. The flickering candlelight provides little to dispel the darkness, yet its feeble glow, and that which faintly shines on from rooms previous, is all that there is to guide her way. There are no other doors within, its ambiance leading Sara to believe this her final destination. She searches the room, but to no avail.
There is nothing inside.