46 Arash - Wet Coughs

Arash glanced up the flight of stairs; there were five of them, draped in loose gray robes, bald as the day they were born. The one in the front was holding a glowing ball; pale fingers of light pierced through the darkness, illuminating the path before them. Adam stilled in fear as his eyes turned wide as saucers; his lips trembled, but no sound came out of them. Arash didn't need the soul-rune to know what his uncle was thinking. He turned towards the pattern on the walls, he had seen these before.

'Where have I see...' an image of an old man flashed before his eyes. "Mud spikes!" It had been a long time and the memory was distant and vague, but he remembered the prowess of the vague mud spikes... A small translucent globe appeared in front of him. The scene of mud spike playing on it. He focused on the glowing rune, seeing past the pale blue light and he saw the reality of the spike-rune. It was the simplest rune he had ever seen, made up of 4 nodes. Arash clenched his teeth as a determined look flashed in his eyes.

"If the light reaches us, Jump at them before they get a chance to alert the ones below." Arash whispered to his uncle.

Adam swallowed hard. "There are five of them..." he groped at the darkness, his fingers caressing the cold hard walls, his eyes trained at the descending light. "There are five of them!" he repeated once again, emphasizing each word. He waited for an answer, but only the distant whispers of leather against stone and fluttering of his heart welcomed him.

Arash's will split into 40 equal parts, each engulfing a small green node. Arash gritted his teeth as the green nodes split apart in a group of four. Each node in a group spinning in a different direction. In a blink of an eye, each node in the group darted toward the node with the opposite spin. Blinding pain seared through his consciousness as six of the group burst out in a loud explosion, the silver will around them ripped to shreds. Arash shook away the

stinging feeling in his head and found little relief at the sight of four brown runes floating in front of him.

He felt nervous fingers clutching on to him and found his uncle staring at him skittish eyes. "Found you! You bastard! They--" His words died in his throat as the pale blue light touched his skin. In horror, he pushed Arash back and jumped towards monks. The monks were caught unaware as they only managed to let out startled gasps when Adam was upon them. He struck at the glowing ball of light, it darted towards the wall and broke on impact. Darkness painted everything black

and for a moment only grunts and curses echoed off the walls.

Arash concentrated on the runes and they flew at a startling speed, and before the monks could raise the alarm, sharp spikes pierced through their throats, reducing their cries to wet coughs...