Chapter 159: Chapter 159

The metal of my boots lashes out like the striking of the swords on a chaotic battlefield, as I run in a frenzy, I can hear it. I can feel it, it’s coming. It’s already here! I round the corner, just barely missing the row of wires next to me as I run, following the tight edges of the dungeon-floor, as I speed to escape its clutches.

 

“Wh-wh-wh-what’s the ma-ma-matter?” manages to chatter the thief out, as her body shakes from the hum of the electricity that reverberates through my hollow core. Didn’t she see? Can’t she feel it? I want to tell her. I want to tell her about the thing, the thing that reaches!

 

  I round the next corner, my heels sliding in a full dash, as I’ve now reached the speed of a complete sprint. I am thankful for this body, it has no endurance, no limited capacity. I can just move, I can just run. So I do exactly that. It’s coming. I hear it, I feel it. I see it Piotr, I see it! The air is dense and cold, there is a crackling, as the corruption tinges the darkness behind us with a luminescent white shade of a faintly blue-glowing layer of ice, the cables crackling and smoldering, as they get wet, sending out showers of sparks every which way. The hum, the constant droning of the sound being interrupted by wet, crackling slaps, as something lurches behind us. Just behind the dark corner not ten paces behind us. I can’t see it yet, the hallways are too short. There are too many sharp turns. But it’s there. I know it’s there.

 

  Just then, in that stupid second where I stop to look, a white tendril slaps against the stones, just around the bend as something begins to press itself through and around the way, facing towards us. Something large, wet, meaty. Colorless and covered in a fetid, oozy secretion. It has no eyes. Its body is far too large to fit into the tight, cramped corridors. The humming wires run along its mass on both sides, as it presses into them; all of them sparking with a destructive intensity. It encroaches. It’s coming for us! For me! I shake, though now not from the hum of the electricity.

 

  Dozens of slimy, soggy tendrils slap around the corner; tentatively feeling against the stones and the wires, unperturbed by the shocking electricity that bites it with lightning’s fury. The voltage would have killed anyone, anything in seconds. It doesn’t care. It just keeps sloshing, it keeps encroaching. I look to her, she looks to me, unphased, if not a little confused.

 

Unphased?

 

  It comes closer. I turn to keep running, breaking the spell that held be here fearbound. “W-w-w-what’s go-gotten into-to you?” asks the jostling thief. What’s gotten into me?! Can’t you see it? Can’t you see the thing that encroaches?! Can't you see the ice?! The sparks?! I look up to the ceiling above us, hoping that the dungeon-master will do something! Anything?! But I don’t even know what. Can’t you see it? Can’t either of you see it?! Something wet slaps behind me and I run. Malignant, sticky ice crackles and spreads further through the floor, corrupting this plane of existence, as the deep rot spreads. I round the next bend. There is a tiny room with the real staircase leading upward and a tiny pile of useless, worthless gold coins near it. I hate them. I hate them as much as I hate red-caps.

 

  “A-Ah! W-Wait!” shouts the thief and jumps out of my arms, I swipe to grab her back, but she’s too fast and is already down on her knees digging through the heap. Why?! Stop! This isn’t the time! Something lurches, just around the corner. It’s coming! I turn to look, I can already see the first tendril slapping around the side. It’s fast. It’s faster than I remember it being down in that place. Down where it was cold. In that strange hazy memory. The thing that sloshes, the thing that encroaches, the thing that eats eyes.

 

  Gold coins fly all around us, as she is feverishly digging through the heap, throwing fistfuls of them to the sides as she digs as if possessed. There’s no time for this, there’s nothing important enough to be worth staying here for! If it gets you, it’ll take your eyes! Don’t you know that?! I run up to her and grab her shoulders.

 

  “WAIT! STO-!” she shouts, but I’ve already heaved her into the air. Ice grows behind us. Surely you can see it?! Surely you can tell that the walls are covered in it?! She’s kicking and fighting back to my surprise. “I think I saw it! I THINK IT SAW IT! Let me go! LET ME GO!” she’s yelling, louder, more desperately than I’ve ever heard her do before. I don’t care! I don’t care what it is, I won’t let it get either of u-

 

  My vision spins, my head flies off, as she kicks her leg back and up, striking my face directly with the sole of her boot. She’s flexible. As my head rolls, I see her sprinting back towards the heap of coins. Towards the thing that reaches. Stop! The thing comes around the corner, I can see it, I can smell it. It smells like old meat, like death. My body rattles as I try to piece myself together quickly. As quick as I can. It’s coming! Stop! STOP! Come back! Strange winds shift around us, pressing in all directions, as if some great magical disturbance was making itself felt in the dungeon once more. I don’t care. I reach for her as I shuffle.

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  She’s frantically digging through the pile of gold, mumbling, frenzied, wild-eyed. My body is fumbling around, as my head slowly rises back up towards my shoulders. Come on. COME ON! I vaguely lurch towards her, slowly, the thing coming as well now from the other side. It feels the coins. It feels her. I see it moving towards her. STOP!

 

  She stops digging, frozen as if spellbound, as her hand slowly reaches down into the pile before her. I see her lurch forward and let out a small, quiet yelp, as her body starts to shake, now of her own volition; as she for the first time that I have ever seen, takes off the glove from her right hand and reaches into the pile. She turns around towards me, her face is red, flushed. She is crying. But she looks happier than I’ve ever seen before.

 

  My helmet reaches my shoulders and I once more take some control, shambling towards her, but my body doesn’t respond fully yet. I take a step, awkward and stuttery towards that person who I want to protect. Then another step. Hurry. Hurry! I need to hurry! It reaches. It lurches. STOP! My pace picks up somewhat, I reach the stairs now in a strange, twitching, zombie-like shuffle. The voltage of the sparking wires shaking my body, that is now almost fully restored. Hurry. Please! Run! RUN! Come this way! Come over to me! Don’t stay there! Skitter. SKITTER!

 

  “H-honey!” she barely manages to sniffle out between tears, as she looks back towards me, shaking. Her slender, pale hand is held up so that she can show me her treasure. So that I can see that in her pristine, porcelain grasp sits a small, simple golden ring. A tiny purple stone embedded on the top. “I- I- I- found it!” she manages to stutter out between tearful gasps. I run. I RUN. IT’S REACHING FOR HER.

 

She clutches her hand close to heart, lowering her gaze. “I won’t lose it again, I’ll never lose it a-a-again!” she howls. “Because I- I- I lo-“ STOP!

 

A wet tendril touches her shoulder, as I have broken into a full sprint. My hand is just before her face that I see so clearly, I see her, I SEE YOU!

 

  My true heart racing, my mind filled with nothing but one urge. Time slows, as we all meet at the precipice of fate. All three of us. As I stand before her, my hand out-stretched. As the thing that reaches, sits behind her. Stop. Stop. Don’t. Don’t. And in that blurred moment, in that single second that has stopped, frozen, as if the ice itself had swallowed time as a whole; a flurry of movement propelled by the howling magical winds of the ether is felt all around us all and I see him next to me. I see a glowing, skeletal hand next to my face. My eyes don’t want to leave her, I won’t let them leave the sight of her. I’ll protect her from it. It can have my eyes. It can have me. I won’t let it take her. I’ll die first. I’ll give it my eyes. But I still see him from the corner of my vision even if I want to deny it. Stop. Don’t. DON’T! I see the purple blotch. I see his tattered, ornate robe, his ancient body floating on a cloud of air that has come up from behind me in a flash at the last moment, the skeletal fingers next to my core; convulsing with a magical cloud of violently pulsating energies that are too potent for me to withstand.

 

I reach for her. I reach for her. Time resumes. Nichodemus lets loose his spell. The last thing I see is the thief, turning around to face behind her, as she feels something cold touch the nape of her neck.

 

I die.

 

 

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