Perfect Soul

Chapter 13:

“WOOOOOOOOOAH!! This is amazing!!” The childish voice echoed throughout the darkness of the catacomb halls, it seemed so out of place for this situation, where the Greywood adventurers sped through the darkness as the sound of strange monsters chasing after.

The beats in questions being large wolves, somewhere between the size of a horse and a bear, claws sharper than blades and jaws like spear heads. Orange eyes piercing through the darkness, locking onto their prey with vicious hunger one would expect from a monster such as this. Another good word to describe such creatures being: Werewolves.

“GO! GO! GO!” The voice said again, holding onto one of them, sounding like a young child riding a horse while giggling away. The sounds of running of 4 legged creatures, growling and a weird sound mixed between a howl and a bark that none of them would ever forget, accompanies close after while getting ever closer. “Run little piggies! Run! Run! Run! Let’s play hide and seek!”

“OH GODS!! PLEASE DON’T!!” One of them yelled, one of them ripping him to pieces with its jaw within just a few seconds. His lifeless body staining the stone floor with the crimson liquid that flowed out before the beast continued the chase with the rest of the pack.

“You all run and hide, and when I find you, I gut you like the lost little piggy you are! Hahahahaha!” Velkira laughed, clearly enjoying the massacre of poor, helpless adventurers, who had come all this way for their own greed, now butchered like animals, the price of their greed in this wicked place.

The cleric girl, another woman who just wanted money just like the rest of them, tripping over her own leg from stress, fear and exhaustion. Soon after, she tried standing up to continue running, before she could do so however, a force pressed down against her back, another one of these wolf-like beasts pushing her down.

“NO…NO PLEASE, SOMEONE, HELP ME!” She screamed, knowing exactly as to what came next. And in fact, multiple others of these beasts came over, feeding on her before moving on with the last two of the adventurers.

“Woah…now that was fun.” Velkira sighed, looking down the different hallways, having a subconscious feeling that they had went in different ways, both hallways splitting off into more, like a huge spiders web. “Hmmmm, this is frustrating…okay, you go that way, the rest of you, with me.” She said as the wolf she was riding on turned and began running down the right way, with half the group following while the other half ran in the other direction, all clearly enjoying the game of cat and mouse.

As Velkira’s group sped down the dark hallways, a tall figure made itself apparent. A feminine silhouette, that faced them calmly, an uncharacteristic thing when considering the situation. It surprised her so much that she even slowed down and stopped just a few feet away. Then the shape better took form through the darkness, it was Zerinia herself.

“Having fun?” She asked, her voice cold and almost disappointed in the fact that there were still strangers running around in her home like cockroaches, and like bugs, numbers heavily reduced yet still very much alive.

“I…I’m sorry, I apologise for my insolence, I’ll find them, I swear it!” Velkira pleaded, her face going from sadistic glee to genuine nervousness about what may happen, like the mere thought of failing was a nightmare for a terrified child. “I promise I’ll find the adventurers and then I’ll do exactly whatever it is you have planned for them! I swear it, on my lady, Zyrella!”

“Do not worry, my dearest Velkira.” Zerinia responded, placing her blood soaked hands on the little girls cheeks, similar to how a parent or older sibling would do to a younger child, pushing her little facial cheeks like she was a harmless child. “I’m not angry, just…disappointed.” She responded, letting go and walking back to the front where the wolfs face. Soon after reaching out and petting the creature like someone would their pet dog.

“I dealt with the elf, so now there’s just one more, the human…male, perhaps a fighter with…oh, you can smell him, can’t you?” Zerinia asked, looking at the werewolf, licking her hands like an overly affectionate puppy, while also sniffing too, clear that the elf girl had the scent of her party member, her friend, along with it.

“Oh gods, what kind of place is this?!” The last one panted to himself, Garrak himself. His footsteps echoing throughout the narrow stone corridors. Terror flowing through his blood enough to even make Zerinia smell the blood, his own greed finally coming back to bite him much harder than it ever had before.

Then footsteps again, rhythmic clicks of boots across the stone floor as it got closer, the soft sound of paws getting closer just a few feet behind, slowing down, he turned his head to see who it was.

“Well, it seems it’s just you now.” Zerinia said, getting closer and closer. Garrak turned again and began sprinting again, panting heavily as he kept running, his primordial instinct to stay alive forcing him forwards, just the extra little bit further, to stay alive for the extra few moments longer. Unfortunately, it didn’t help him prevent tripping over his own foot.

As he fell, a pair of hands grabbed onto him to stop him from falling. Cold armoured hands face and caressing it slightly. He looked up, seeing a beautiful woman with tanned brown skin, flowing long black hair and crimson eyes that were complimented by small ruby earrings. The armour pitch black with red trim, her facial expression almost completely empty.

“Thank the gods you’re here! Please help me! Please…we were just trying to make some money, I swear…they killed them all!” He pleaded through sobs, the woman kept quiet as she caressed his head as she held it in her hands. Then, in a soft voice, she responded to him with a single sentence.

“It’s okay…I’m here now…everything is going to be okay…” Then, she leaned in and whispered into his ear.

“I will set you free.”

“Wait wha-?”

SNAP

Before he could finish, the woman moved her hands. Snapping his neck, just as she did with the other adventurers just a few days ago now who intended to join them in raiding this castle they had randomly discovered, thinking it to be a quick and easy way to get rich quickly. Watching his face for a few more seconds, she let go, dropping his head to the floor, the rest of his body falling to the ground before standing up again properly.

“Killing your own?” Zerinia questioned, witnessing the entire event first hand, while also having the subconscious feeling this person wasn’t a human as she appeared to be. The mere presence, the emptiness, the expert precision in her movement. Or perhaps it was the fangs in her mouth she witnessed when the strange woman spoke.

Looking up from the human she had just killed, she turned to Zerinia and spoke again in that same calm and calculating voice from before.

“Zerinia von Istvan…” She started, making direct eye contact with the fellow vampire standing before her. “I am Ailith…my master has been looking for you for a very…very long time.”

“And who may that be?” Zerinia asked, perfectly hiding the shock and confusion at the fact this weird woman, who she had never actually met before, had somehow knew that last name, ‘Von Istvan’, she had been getting in her visions.

Without saying anything, Ailith took a step to the side, emerging from the darkness, an Arch Lich. Dark robes clung to his boned form and cyan blue eyes pierced through the darkness, locked onto Zerinia so tightly, it was as if Ailith or Garrak’s dead body wasn’t there.

“Zerinia…Von Istvan...” He started, his voice almost unnatural, deep and distorted, as it would for any Lich, especially an Arch Lich such as this one, standing before her. Then, very slowly, he extended his hand out to her, palm facing upward, almost beckoning her to take his hand.

“…Until Tomorrow, my Zerinia…”

“…Matthias?”