The stone beneath their boots felt strangely quiet as Ludwig and Celine moved back through the ruin, the echoes of their steps trailing like whispers in the empty fortress. Behind them, the Umbral Hound, no, not just so hound anymore, prowled in silence, its shadow padding on the broken flagstones without a sound. Its presence was unsettling. Even the air seed to grow heavier when it moved, as though the dungeon itself was careful not to offend it.
Thomas floated a little to Ludwig’s left, his spectral outline barely visible except for the faint shimr of his edges. "This is the part where soone makes a joke, right?" he muttered, as if trying to cut through the stillness.
But Ludwig wasn’t in the mood. His hand rested on the lantern at his hip, his eyes scanning the ruins, every nerve alert. "No ti for jokes," he said ntally to Thomas and replied vocally to Celine. "That thing... it’s following us."
Celine glanced back over her shoulder. The creature sleek, dark as the deepest shadow, tail lazily twitching, had stopped by a broken wall and was sitting there, grooming one paw as though the world around it ant nothing. "It doesn’t act like a beast," she said softly. "It’s more... deliberate. Quite noble in fact..."
Ludwig’s grip tightened on the compass. The needle still pointed unerringly down, toward sothing buried deep below these stones. "I agree, most cats do tend to be noble though I don’t know why soone would call it a hound... it looks like a cat, and acts like a cat... why not just be a cat..."
"Was the Umbral Hound a na you gave it yourself?" Celine asked.
"No, your brother did..."
"Ah, I see..."
They moved slowly, scanning each corner and jagged archway until they ca to the far side of the great hall. Rubble and old furniture had collapsed into a mound against the wall, a mound that looked ordinary enough until Ludwig crouched and brushed aside a chunk of wood. His knuckles hit sothing cold and tallic. His brow furrowed. He pulled harder, and a groaning creak sounded as a sheet of iron shifted aside, revealing an outline cut into the floor itself. A square fra, hidden beneath old timbers and dust.
"A trapdoor," Ludwig muttered. "Wasn’t here before..."
Celine crouched beside him, her fingers tracing the edge. "It wasn’t visible. The hound cleared the bodies hiding it when it... devoured them."
The shadowy feline padded closer, weaving between them without a sound. Its presence made Ludwig’s skin crawl with a strange, unplaceable sensation, not fear exactly, but an awareness that sothing far older and darker than him was watching.
Celine noticed his look, then glanced at the creature. "You know," she said at last, her tone softer than before, "you should give it a na." Almost unconsciously, she placed her hand over the creature’s head, and it almost lted in her soft hand, nuzzling up against her for but a few selfish monts then it waddled away.
Ludwig blinked. "A na?"
"It’s following you," she said with a small shrug. "Nas have power. And it feels strange to keep calling it... ’it’."
Ludwig glanced at the feline, who had now settled in a lazy sprawl, its tail flicking like an afterthought. "Salem," he said after a mont, testing the word on his tongue. "Salem suits you."
The creature didn’t move except to close its eyes halfway, exhaling a slow, silent breath as if the conversation bored it. But Ludwig’s vision flashed with a sudden prompt.
[You have nad a Bound Entity.]
[Na registered: Salem.]
[The entity accepts this na.]
[Affection increased: Salem is pleased.]
Ludwig tilted his head and let out a quiet laugh through his nose. "Well... apparently he likes it."
"Definitely a cat," Celine cracked a smile that soon faded away.
Thomas drifted closer, eyeing the beast. "Salem, huh? Quite dark," he then turned to the skeleton behind them, "And then you na this guy bob... man, you have a strange naming sense."
"Was in a rush man, also nothing wrong with Bob, I knew an Undead nad Bob before, he was cool..." Ludwig replied as he pried the trapdoor open with a groan of rusted hinges. The stale air beneath reeked faintly of old soil and iron. "Stay close."
The path beyond was narrow and lined with old stone steps that spiraled downward. The walls were cobblestone at first, damp with condensation. The air slled of moss and long-extinguished torches, a sharp tang of age and abandonnt. They descended slowly, Celine’s steps light but careful, Ludwig following with his lantern casting long shadows ahead. Salem padded silently behind them, its eyes glimring faintly whenever the lantern’s light caught them.
Bob followed after them keeping a lookout behind them, his feet though boney strangely didn’t make a sound against the cobblestone.
While since they entered this dungeon the Knight King only watched and followed speaking almost never.
After a while, the cobblestone gave way to raw stone, then to a simpler tunnel carved straight from earth and rock. The air grew colder. Old torches jutted from the walls, their iron holders rusted but still gripping their charges, the wood blackened with age but untouched by fungi or mold. That was what struck Ludwig most: in a dungeon crawling with decay, here the walls were clean, the floor dry, the air unnaturally still.
Thomas hovered uneasily, glancing over his shoulder. "We’re being followed."
"I know," Ludwig murmured. He could hear them too, soft scrapes and shuffling far behind, like a tide creeping after them. Umbrites. Dozens, maybe hundreds, pacing them from the dark.
But they never closed in. Every ti Ludwig glanced back, Salem’s silhouette remained, tail twitching lazily. And each ti, the noises receded, as if the shadows themselves were unwilling to co any closer.
Salem’s shadow seed to mix and fuse with everyone else’s and almost like a living being itself, the shadow was forming shapes, clawed and fanged looking shapes, enough a threat to anyone too foolish to realize that attacking the group would be a stupid idea.
"Guess you have your uses," Ludwig muttered under his breath. The feline gave no sign it heard him.
They kept descending. Minutes blurred into an hour, maybe more. The compass’s needle never wavered, always pointing deeper, until the tunnel at last widened into a cavern. The walls were lined with faint etchings worn down by centuries. A door stood at the far end, barricaded with beams of ancient oak and steel bands eaten with rust. Yet despite its age, it stood strong, tall, and unbroken.
"This is it," Ludwig whispered, feeling the pull of the compass in his hand. The needle quivered once, then stopped. The glow around the orb dimd, and as he watched, the arrow simply dissolved into smoke and the ball returned to its clear form once again.
[You have reached what you need.]
[Quest Updated.]
A part of Necros.
Seek the unraveling of your seal beyond the door, but do be warned about the cost of what may follow.
Ludwig stepped forward, brushing his palm against the heavy door. The wood was cool beneath his fingers, solid despite the centuries. Celine moved beside him, and together they pushed. The barricades groaned and snapped, the hinges screaming in protest until the door gave way and swung inward.
The air that spilled out was cold, unnaturally still, and carried a faint tallic scent like old blood.
Inside lay a chamber larger than any they had seen so far. And at its center,
Ludwig froze.
A massive corpse sprawled across the stone, its form half-buried in the ground itself. The remains of wings stretched outward, feathers long rotted away leaving only jagged bone. What remained of its body glead faintly under the lantern light, a silver skin with the texture of porcelain, smooth and pale, cracked in places like shattered glass. Half of it was simply gone, destroyed long ago; only part of a chest, an arm reaching toward nothing, and a bent knee protruded from the stone. Its head lay tilted to the side, eyes closed, serene as a statue left in mourning.
Celine stepped forward slowly, her breath caught. "What... is that?"
Ludwig lowered his lantern. The light shimred across the silver skin, catching on the broken lines that marred its surface. He didn’t answer right away. He felt the compass in his palm grow still, its magic spent. The notification lingered in his mind like an echo.
You have reached what you need.
"I think I know," Ludwig said, before he even tried to inspect it, "This looks like an angel... a fallen angel," he added.
"Then don’t you think that you especially need to be as far away form this as possible? Though dead... it would probably burn you if we get too close to it..."
"I don’t think so. It doesn’t have the sa holiness of a normal angel, otherwise I would have burnt up the mont I opened the door... let’s get closer, I think I now understand what I needed."
"As in?" Celine asked.
"Nephilium, the only material I can use to improve my body beyond its limitation. And this is a treasure trove of that substance..."
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