Down... Here... Sword!

"Leo! Leo! Come on wake up, the other two have already gone ahead. You can't sleep in forever!"

A warm voice called Leander's name, opening his eyes, Leander squinted at the sight of the setting sun casting an orange light on the field of grass surrounding them. To his left, a young woman gently shook his shoulder.

Her face was a blur.

Leander's mouth moved by itself, his mouth making words he didn't recognise.

"Nessa, I thought I told you to wake me before they left."

'Who-'

Waking again with a start, Leander looked around trying to grasp his current situation and surroundings. He felt cold water around him breaking through the gaps in his armour and pressing his skin from every angle, finding himself in a pool of icy cold water.

'Ah right… I got beaten.'

He was sinking, deeper and deeper into the murky depths. The pain still troubling his muscles, Leander managed to overcome the weight of his armour pulling fistfuls of water down, he eventually reached the surface of the pool he had landed in, just like Leander, the bloody corpses of the manyfang who had failed Lewren floated alongside Leander at the top of the pool.

Raising his head, Leander locked eyes with Lewren. The beast looked down at Leander, a mirthful grin stretched across its lips revealing a pair of large canines. After a moment, Lewren disappeared as he stepped away from the ledge.

Grunting, Leander tried to swim towards the closest ledge of rock. It was a slow endeavour, between occasionally sinking beneath the surface and having to push aside the many dead bodies in the water. After a couple of minutes, Leander made it to the ledge. Pulling himself up, he fell to his knees coughing up a mixture of water and blood.

After a few moments, this experience came to an end.

Water dripped from his drenched armour as Leander sat down, taking a moment to compose himself, Leander tried not to focus on the scene that kept playing in his head. Ravenmother's body splitting in two, her two halves disappearing like smoke. Leander had an assumption that Ravenmother wasn't a usual animal, not that his assumptions mattered anymore. Focusing on his breathing, Leander knew it was pointless to breath. Undead don't breath, yet just the act of breathing helped calm Leander down. Something that helped him feel alive, as if he could close his eyes and hear his heart beating in his ears. Spitting out a last mouthful of water, Leander wiped the back of his hand over his mouth.

"On some level… It is comforting that I really know now I don't need to breathe. But what was that, was I knocked unconscious by that last attack? Was that, a memory?"

Trying to recall what he had seen, Leander's brow furrowed as he tried to recall the woman who had called out to him. Her face and voice, her overall appearance... It was all just a blur. No matter how hard he tried Leander couldn't recall her features and yet, the harder he tried to think of her, the more something inside his chest began to hurt.

"I called her, Nessa…"

A pain quite unlike the breaking he had felt not too long ago, but also, similar. It felt as if his heart itself was hurting.

'Speaking of breaking, what happened.'

Clenching his fist, Leander changed his focus from the distant memory to the cause of the pain that still ached throughout his body. It had happened moments after he used anima, something was wrong with his soul.

'Focus… Focus… Feel it burn…'

Closing his eyes Leander looked within himself.

"Just as she taught you taught."

As his sense aligned with that of his soul, Leander began to detect it. Sensing his soul burning within his chest, Leander grimaced feeling that something wasn't quite right. What had been a strong flame burning bright with the power that it held, was now nearing embers.

'I don't understand. I was able to summon my strength but then it stopped and my soul, it feels... Unstable? If I try and bring out that strength again, it may lead to pain even worse than the first time… It could even kill me.'

Shaking his head with a grim expression, Leander rose to his feet. Looking out at the countless bodies, his grimace softened.

"I'm sorry, Ravenmother you were right. We should have retreated, I shouldn't have…"

Turning around Leander ran a hand through his soaked hair as he began walking, his fingers curled around a length of it. He had forgotten how long it had grown.

Leander's heavy footsteps thudded along as he trudged through into the darkness. After the first steps, a thought crossed Leander's mind.

'I wonder if Ravenmother and Melaine were friends. She seemed to know her well.'

The tunnel grew darker as Leander moved further away from the pool.

'Will Melaine be mad? No doubt she will mourn her friend…'

As the tunnel was submerged in almost total darkness, Leander began rethinking his next step.

'I could turn back, climb up wall… Although Lewren may be waiting for me, hmm, maybe I can-'

Leander's foot went through the floor.

"What-"

The ground beneath Leander cracked – although Leander reached out for stable ground, his effort was in vain as he fell into the hole that opened up beneath him. Tumbling down on the stones that met his landing. Coming to a stop at the bottom of this new hole, Leander let out a stifled groan as lay on his back. Rubbing his face, Leander couldn't help but laugh to himself about his currency situation.

'I hadn't considered. This armour was already heavy enough, with the added water weight. I'll have to be more careful moving forward.'

Leander had closed his eyes during the fall, now opening them he checked his surroundings. Leander found himself in a small dimly lit cave, dozens of orange crystals buried within the ground emitted a faint light that only barely illuminated the small cave.

Picking himself up for the second time, Leander approached the closest crystal. Noticing it pulsing with energy, Leander slowly raised his hand reaching out to it.

"Where have I seen this before, the colour looks… Familiar."

As Leander reached out to the crystal, it began to glow brighter as small wispy tendrils of orange energy slowly grew from the crystal. Seeing this, Leander glared at the crystal as he pulled back his arm.

"Maybe not."

As he turned, something caught Leander's attention. The room did not just contain the orange crystals, there was one other thing. On the ground lay a skeleton, as Leander got closer to the skeleton his eyes grew accustomed to the light allowing him to notice something else.

The skeleton held a short brownish-red short-sword, its hilt was wrapped in a long fabric that draped on the stone beside it. Within the hilt of the sword, a glass sphere small enough it could comfortably fit in Leander's was situated within the hilt. A large crack ran across the surface of this glass sphere's surface. Leander inspected the sword, running his fingers across the edge of the sword. It was still sharp, despite having been stuck in this cave for years, or decades. Or maybe even longer. 

"I have never seen a sword like you before."

Kneeling down Leander attempted to gently unfurl the skeleton's fingers. They instead came off as Leander touched them, timidly looking at the fingers. Leander winced.

"Many apologies."

Bowing his head as he lay the finger bones next to the skeleton's hand. With one final apology, Leander lay the final bone down. About to pick up the sword, something grabbed Leander pulling him backwards.

Clenching his teeth, Leander tried to look behind him to see what was grabbing him.

'Those tendrils, you fool Leander!'

The small tendrils that Leander had seen on the crystal had followed him across the room. Wrapping around his upper body, his neck, his arms and his chest. Leander couldn't pull himself free from their grip.

A subtle feeling began to penetrate Leander's body as the tendrils continued to wrap around the rest of his body, penetrating through the gaps in his armour.

'They aren't choking me, what is this feeling?'

Reaching towards one of the tendrils, Leander's eyes widened as his fingers passed through them. Before he could process this, however, the subtle feeling the tendrils had given him intensified, whatever part of his body the tendrils had made contact with, it felt like a thread made of red-hot iron was being pressed into his skin.

Thrashing against the tendrils, Leander was about to yell when he heard a voice coming from in front of him. It sounded like the voice of a young man.

"I can… Help you… Just, pick me up…"

Leander's eyes quickly looked around, although there was nobody else within the cave.

"Who's there!"

Again, the same voice responded.

"Down… Here… Sword!"

Squinting, Leander looked down at the sword. The glass sphere within the hilt of the sword was no longer empty, a single blue eye looked back up at him. Trying to move, Leander was still unable to resist the tendril grip.

Grunting, Leander put his foot under the sword where it sloped up due to leaning down from the skeleton's hand. With one smooth action, he kicked the sword upwards into the air. At the height of its arc, Leander pushed against the tendrils with all his strength catching the sword.

As Leander's fingers caught the dirty fabric wrapped around the hilt, the edge of the blade began to glow with a bright white light.

In one motion, Leander cut through all of the tendrils that had wrapped around his body sapping his life force. The tendrils crept away from Leander. Dropping to one knee, Leander put a hand over the nape of his neck. Taking a moment to steady himself, Leander lifted the sword to his face, he looked into the eye.

"You-"

"Quickly… the corruption, purge it! Before it can protect its core!"

The eye's speech seemed to be slow, but as it mentioned the corruption. Its voice roared.

Following the eye to the crystal Leander had almost touched when he had first fallen down. Leander scowled, the tendrils were growing bigger by the second, having been severed from Leander. They now wafted through the air looking for their next target.

As one of the tendrils neared Leander – not taking any chances – struck first. The white light surrounding the blade again cut through the tendril as if it were smoke.

The eye pitifully chuckled.

"Poor choice…"

Leander didn't have a moment to react to the eye as all of the tendrils that had been idly drifting through the empty space converged on Leander again. Taking the sword in both hands, Leander began to cut down the tendrils one after another.

Although the sword was only made to be wielded with one hand, Leander made do. Rapidly swinging his new blade, each slide cut through another tendril pushing it back, with every tendril pushed back, Leander was able to take one step closer to the crystal, the 'core', that the eye spoke of.

As he sliced through another tendril, Leander couldn't help but think to himself.

'This, this is good practice.'

As Leander cut through tendril after tendril, he noticed something happening to the crystal. Some tendrils had pulled back – instead of trying to attack Leander – the tendrils began to dig into the stone surrounding their crystal core, slowly pulling the rocks towards its heart.

The eye again spoke.

"The core… Protects itself… This fight will be harder… If it can protect... Itself… you must-"

"Yeah, yeah, purge it. I heard you the first time!"

Knowing he wouldn't be able to make it to the core in time before it fully covered itself with rocks, Leander recognised he would have to try something else. Letting go of one hand, so he was holding the sword with one hand. Leander frew his arm back, stepping forward he slammed his foot into the ground cracking the stone beneath it, in the same motion he threw the sword forward.

Flying through the air, the tendrils attempted to stop the sword, but against the blade's white edge, the tendrils were unable to alter its flight path. Reaching the crystal, the sword stabbed into its surface, and a large crack formed through the pulsing orange crystal.

But it wasn't enough, the core attempted to pull the sword out. The orange tentacles wrapped around the hilt – any that tried to wrap around the blade were cut.

As they began to push it out, Leander slammed his foot down on the end of the sword driving it further into the crystal until it was buried up to the hilt. In trying to remove the sword, the core had stopped focusing on defence.

The white light the blade of the sword emitted bled into the orange crystal, within moments the crystal's orange light disappeared leaving behind an empty greyish opaqueness.

The tendrils disappeared as the orange light died, and the rocks it had been attempting to shield itself with crumpled away as they no longer had anything holding them in place.

Exhaling a sigh of relief, with one hand Leander rubbed his neck and with the other retrieved the sword from the crystal – chunks of crystal fell onto the floor as the sword was removed.

"So, what's your deal?"

Although Leander spoke, no voice answered. The glowing blue eye within the cracked glass was no longer there, it seemingly had returned to its initial dormant state.

Sheathing his new sword, Leander looked around the room. Seeing that the other orange crystals that covered the room had begun to sprout their own tendrils, Leander took a step forward but then paused.

The memory of rushing to fight Lewren and Ravenmother's death was still fresh in his mind. Shaking his head, he quickly moved to the hole he had fallen down. As carefully as he could, Leander tried to climb out of the hole that had almost become his grave.

'I'll have to inform Melaine about this place when I return, I am sure she can spare some reinforcements to help quell… Whatever this is.'