Chapter 36 - Faces

A thick layer of dust hung on the air. A weak little light sped from shadow to shadow of the ruined stones.

It darted in and out of cover. Everyone was abuzz.

What happened?

What was everyone looking at?

Even the grandpas had come out to see.

It had been loud for a while now. In the silence of millennia, it couldn't contain it's curiosity despite the warnings.

Sneaking through the shadows, the little light escaped the sight of the grandpas. 

The light flickered.

It had never seen things like that. They… felt disgusting.

It didn't want to linger. It wanted to leave. 

But it didn't know why.

And it's curiosity was greater than it's fear.

It approached, and those looming giants of flesh and bone but no soul didn't notice it. It giggled, when a piece of it's flesh fell off.

It didn't react at all.

It was dead. 

But moving?

What was this? It continued forward.

No one could see it. And it would make people trip, or test the flesh of the moving dead, toying with it, no matter what it did, they didn't scream.

It turned it's head.

A new feeling.

Sight.

Someone was looking at it?

…Pretty.

The little light drew closer. What was this weird feeling of the air churning? It felt like everything was spinning. There were dead lights gathering together in threads being woven together.

It came closer, reaching out with it's consciousness to investigate. 

A shock ran through it's body, sending it sprawling through the air. 

What was that? 

What was this feeling?

It… hurt.

It hurts.

It hurts. 

It hurts…! 

IT HURTS!

The earth rallied at the little lights distress, and hands reached out from the ground, ripping at the pretty mages legs, to drag her into the stone floor and suffocate her. 

It had learned a few little tricks from the grandpas but couldn't do it as well. It was slow.

The pretty red mage was screaming in a language it didn't understand. The little light felt that weird thread forming again.

Evil thread.

It was trying to hurt it again.

The pretty red mage was evil.

These moving dead were evil.

All evil, in their home.

Would they hurt it's friends? The grandpa's too? 

More hands rose from the floor. Other's couldn't see it. Only the pretty red mage could. 

A shiver ran up the little lights consciousness. Sight. Someone else was examining it. It turned.

A face was less than a foot away from it, staring straight at it. 

…Handsome. A very handsome person, more than the pretty red mage. Would it hurt it too? It didn't think so.

There was a familiar feeling around it.

A feeling it didn't know, but felt close to.

This person was a kindred person.

It was blessed by spirits.

Looking at him, it quickly calmed down. If this person was blessed by other spirits and was among them, then, they weren't all evil.

They wouldn't hurt them. Was it an accident?

Sometimes, when it played with it's friends, they had accidents too, and the grandpas would scold them for going too hard.

Was it being scolded by that gaze? The little light dimmed, a bit. 

The hands retracted into the earth.

The handsome person raised a brow slightly.

The little light stopped harming. It had to have been an accident. It wanted to run and tell the grandpas. It flew into the stone floor, leaving.

Argo looked at the floor. 

What a cheeky little spirit. 

The Forest Spirits were different. They were not quite as brutal as the earthen spirit had been. They at least chased others out first, rather than resorting to murder immediately.

He glanced back for a moment. 

Red's legs were halfway stuck in the stone floor. She likely would never walk properly again. The wrath of a spirit, no matter how temporary, was no small matter.

There was nothing he could do about the matter.

It would be between her, and her own fate. 

He had his own objectives to complete.

The waystone in his clothes was tucked away closely, he had shed the armor that he'd been wearing, to not appear affiliated with the rebels, and was now wearing a white cloth shirt with buttons, and a pair of pants alongside surprisingly good condition boots, which had survived all of the prior ordeals.

He ran swiftly between the ranks of undead. Their slow lumbering masses were a simple matter to slip through.

When the time came, he would break the waystone to signal that he had brought out Constance.

The walls of the doors, were carved with faces.

He was reminded of the colosseum, where faces littered the floors.

Had those not been carvings? 

His lips curved slightly. 

He stopped right at the entrance of the Second Gate. 

Before him, was a great expanse, with stone ruins that stood like hills, walls were collapsed and hanging on by a thread.

He felt the grooves on the ground and looked down.

The rebels were far behind now, still slowly approaching.

His pupils shrank. He had guessed it, after seeing that little spirits actions, but… what the hell happened here? 

He didn't have time to be taken aback. He had not been given a deadline. Murphy had simply sent him off. 

He had a good feeling that if Murphy found them, before he could get her away, that, he would end up using the girl anyway.

His mind changed axis.

The first gate had been a swarming hellscape of nightmares that poured from the walls in droves, lead by that Defiled Tyrant, in the mural, the Blind Daughter had been fighting against those very hordes.

The murals on the doors were hints. Or perhaps warnings of what was hidden behind, but he had not been able to see the entirety of the second door. 

It also meant, that the doors were constructed, or at least, the carvings were done after the battles that took place.

Whatever had seen fit to build these doors, and create these trials, or leave things unchecked long enough for them to create themselves, had gone to great lengths to do so.

There was no way, that the second gate would be as simple as spirits, which were harmless so long as one didn't harm them first.

Most couldn't even see them, without the right affinity, or if the spirit didn't allow them to.

A strange feeling crawled up his spine, as he walked between the massive chunks of stone that had fallen about.

The Spear Daughter had been pointing it at the sky. 

Where the Blind Daughter had her gauntlets almost raised, and her facing square forward, and the Sword Daughter had her shield, and her head turned, the Spear Daughter her spear pointed upwards, and looked like she was trying to pierce the sky.

That had been the feeling he had gotten from her, when he had first seen her.

He glanced at the ceiling far ahead, but he couldn't pierce the far darkness that hid the top of the massive landscape.

In that dark, all he had to keep himself the ability to see, was the tiny amount of light that the waystone in his clothes provided. 

Finding them would be troublesome to begin with. 

There was little way to actually come across them, since there was no waystone on them, and whoever was the mole, had either died, or couldn't contact anyone.

Lunston and Marce would be catching up soon as well. He expected that the battle would erupt here in the Second Gate in the coming days, however long it had been down here.

It could have been weeks, but he wouldn't know.

The Duke of March was meant to be visiting, and he didn't know if he had missed it, or if he still had time. 

The Invasion was coming, and he was still down here, and had been stuck in Avancia for over a week.

Stephan would be mobilizing Sin to find him by now, scouring the country from under noble asses to underneath beggars blankets.

Not to mention, the Hero had gone missing entirely. He wanted to rub his temple. 

There was so much trouble going on.

Once the bishop figured out that he was gone, and not in bed terribly sick, as well as the fact that Constance was missing, after she had been regularly visiting him, he was certain there would be a massive target painted on his back.

He needed to finish things quickly. 

His eyes shone violet. 

A faint light enveloped him enough for him to see around.

His expression fell, and he stopped in place. 

His jaw tightened. 

He had seldom seen something so vile. Not even in the dungeons of the Imperial Capital, had he been subjected to anything of that level.

He bit back the words lodged in his throat. 

His heart beat strongly. 

The origin of his Aura, was 'Freedom', yet, what he saw before him was it's complete antithesis. 

He felt so reviled seeing it, that he questioned himself. 

Was what he was doing worth it at all?

His hand laid on the handle of his sword.

His lips turned downwards slightly. 

He looked ahead, with an unwavering gaze.

Worth it or not, he had a duty to complete.

He started walking again, although he was a bit slower.

He felt like he was being watched from everywhere… because of the countless faces staring at him from inside the ruined stone.

He had seen the most visceral expressions a human face could make first hand. 

They were desperate.

Stone hands that could not move, looked as though they were pushing against the stone, which seemed like fabric. 

They looked like they were eternally suffocating, trying to escape.

He grit his teeth.

He needed to find them quickly and get out of here, before he could encounter that same fate in this Stone Forest of hands and faces.

If he survived, he swore to himself, that he would take a very, very long vacation, even if it killed him....

...He marched on.