Chapter 99 - 99 (2/2)

I felt Misty's hand grasp my shoulder as I began to walk towards the thing.

”Be careful,” She said softly. ”We don't know if it will attack.”

I nodded. ”I will.”

My footsteps felt heavier than ever as did the weapon in my hand as I marched closer to it. I steadied my hands just in case of an attack, but nothing came, only the sound of voices, confused, scared, and lost voices, some old, and some so very young, younger than I.

”Will you help us?”

I froze with my glaive seconds away from striking. ”Me?”

”Help us.”

”Crawling, crawling, Crawling!”

There came no response so I continued with my task and took a deep breath.

”I'm sorry.”

The blade came down and pierced straight into the flesh and the sound of tearing which usually was only a mild disturbance, if any at all, almost brought me to my knees. Scream assaulted my ears in a dozen different voices, but I pushed on, and on until almost all of my weapon has disappeared into the flesh. I felt it hit something and the voices abruptly cut off, and just like the abomination on the first floor, the mass of flesh began to fade in ash.

”Thank you.”

It was so faint that I couldn't be sure I'd heard it, but I didn't think about it for long as I fell to my knees and began to puke. For several seconds I emptied the contents of my stomach and as I finished I felt a gentle hand of my shoulder.

Zirani smiled down at me sadly, no pity, or judgment in her eyes, just sorrow. ”Come on. We're done for the day. We've mapped out enough of the floor.”

She turned towards Sandra and Misty, who was weeping softly. ”You three need some rest.”

The walk back to the treehouse was completely silent, and no matter how hard I tried not to think about it, no matter how hard I tried to push it away, the image of that thing kept popping back up into my head, and each time I had to press a hand to my mouth.

When we finally arrived back Zirani had us gather in the Dining room. I looked over at Sandra and Misty who both looked as awful as I felt, although there was also anger in their eyes and disgust.

”What the hell was that?” Sandra asked with a growl.

”What the twin horn is doing,” Zirani said. ”You might have not sensed it but I did. That thing had multiple cores, although there were faint, fainter than any I've ever felt like they weren't even there.”

”And?” I asked. ”What does that mean.”

”They were all low-end first cores,” Zirani replied. ”Like most of the fodder you fought in the war.”

”Slaves?” Misty asked.

A dark thought hit me, followed by half a dozen more and I looked over to see a grim expression on Zirani's face. ”The camps.”

I didn't want to think about it or picture it, but it tried to remember how many mouths there had been and how many sets of clothing had been at the camp.

”The damn monsters,” I muttered as the numbers matched. ”They're using their slaves. That thing was the arcanists at the camp we saw, or what had become of them.”

Zirnai nodded with a sigh. ”I suspect this is all a part of what the head remnants of the twin horn are doing. Why create these camps, perhaps a made-up reason to get the slaves and servants to act quicker or go along with their plans with little resistance, and then… I don't know, but this is something. I just wonder what happened to the rest.”

Sandra frowned. ”What do mean?”

”That was just one,” Zirani explained. ”On the first floor we ran into many camps, yet saw only one abomination and it might very well be the same here, where are the others, or better yet, were these left behind because they're defective?”

”I think I'm going to be sick again,” Sandra groaned.

”For what reason?” Misty asked though it was more to herself than us.

”That's the golden question,” Zirani said as a look of determination appeared into her eyes. ”One thing is clear we need to get you three stronger and up to the third level, because I have a feeling when we run the twin horn, we're going to come across something unknown, and most likely dangerous.”

We didn't eat that night since none of us thought we could keep our food down though Misty did drink from me a little. The bath that time was actually welcome as the pain took my mind off the horror we'd seen temporarily.

That night my dreams were of a pale creature, the same from many nights ago, sat on its throne of writhing flesh a smile on its face.

”Don't judge it too harshly,” He said in that smooth yer grating voice. ”That was but defective stock, and thought the others made for lesser materials, they shall still be enough to allow for a rebirth. Just wait, child of—”

”Aiden!”

My dreams were shattered by Ziranis's voice and my eyes shot open. ”Huh?'

”You were tossing and turning.” Zirani sounded worried. ”Was it the dreams again?”

I sighed. ”Yeah, and like always I forget straight after.”

The rest of the night was blissfully peaceful thankfully and I woke the next day, refreshed and ready to continue our training.