Chapter 115: Ancient Stone Well
"Ghostclaw..." Jorge Blue murmured, recognizing the tattered insignia on the figure’s robe, his voice astonished with recognition. "One of Soren Langley’s men."
Rodney Luther took a step forward. "Hey!" His voice cracked like a whip in the dead air.
No response.
The figure stood motionless, its sunken eyes glazed and unseeing, yet somehow locked onto them. The ghostfire’s pallid light carved hollows into its face, making the skin look stretched too tight over bone.
Then— A sound.
From the black maw of the tunnel behind it came a wet, skittering rustle—like a thousand chitinous legs scuttling over stone, like fingernails dragging through rotting flesh. The noise swelled, pulsing in the air, closer, louder, until it seemed to come from every direction at once.
The ghostfire guttered, its glow shrinking as if strangled by the dark. Shadows twisted along the walls, forming shapes that writhed and pulsed—too many limbs, too many eyes.
The stench hit them next—putrid sweetness, the reek of bodies left to bloat in stagnant water, of maggots churning in open wounds.
Rodney’s throat convulsed. "What in the hells—?"