Chapter 172: I hope no one was hungry
Surprisingly, when Lady Fiona opened the doors, nothing happened. They were quiet, silent, even though from every other detail of this area they should have squeaked like a damn barn door on a rickety old barn.
Cass gulped, finding himself worried and watching, waiting. He could tell that everyone was worried about him, glancing back at him, but at this point he wanted this tension over with.
Lady Fiona glanced back one last time before she nodded and started the descent down into the depths. Lucian followed behind her, then Lord Ridgewood, and then everyone else. Vespertine didn’t let Cass go down last, and instead made Cass go ahead of him. Cass wanted to protest, but Vespertine wouldn’t budge, and honestly, Cass didn’t want to go down last.
As soon as Vespertine stepped in behind him, the door closed.
"It wasn’t me." Vespertine called out grimly. Cass shivered.
"Some light, you two?" Lady Fiona called and Cass fumbled. He didn’t say the spell, just moved his hand and a ball of light appeared at the same time that Vespertine’s did. Vespertine let out a dry laugh before he flung his further, towards Lady Fiona and Lucian.
"You keep that, it’ll follow. We’ll keep this one back here." Vespertine called. The ball of light illuminated the area, showing off the dripping, moss-covered brick walls. The stairs were made of the same marble as the rest of the crypt above, but that didn’t make Cass feel better.
Everything was so wet. Dripping, soggy, awful. Cass could hear the sound of running water, and he hated that. It meant that everything was going to be damp, and he was not looking forward to that. Cass made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and Vespertine chuckled.
"What? Not up to snuff, Cassian?" He teased and Cass shot him a dirty look.
"Oh, do you like it? We should have made a dungeon just for you, Vespertine. You could have turned it into your bedroom. You should have spoken up. I would have done it for you." Cass shot back and Lady Ava snorted. Vespertine laughed.
"Mm, well, I appreciate it, but I do like knowing what time of the day it is." Vespertine said, smiling. Cass snorted, turning back to pay attention to where he was stepping now that they were going deeper underground.
"It looks like there is a fork ahead." Lady Fiona called soft and Cass grumbled.
"Of fucking course there’s a fork ahead." He complained. "Why wouldn’t there be?" He was bitter, upset, and now, even more cold than before. He should have hung back. He was already regretting his stubbornness. Why did he want to go into this nightmare? He was awful with horror related content. Movies, books, comics. This had thriller written all over it.
"Cass, if you’re going to complain, can you be quieter? The monsters might hear you." Lucian said, turning to face Cass with a smile. Cass felt his face warm. Damn it. He was just lashing out. He knew it. He was scared now that he was coming face to face with what a dungeon was like. They hadn’t even seen a monster yet and-
"A few up ahead. Everyone get ready." Lady Fiona said, and Cass nearly swallowed his tongue. Of course as soon as he thought that, everything was getting real. Of course. It also didn’t help that Cass couldn’t actually see what was up ahead. It was like a fog covered up everything in between the two light sources. Cass could barely see Lady Ava who was just in front of him.
Cass was still grappling with everything in his head, his heart pounding in his chest, when he began to hear it.
Above their own consistent footsteps Cass began to hear the slow, uneven dragging of someone else walking. Not someone else, something else.
"Edgar, you got that mental spell thing that Cassian mentioned yesterday ready?" Lady Fiona asked from ahead of them and Vespertine spoke from behind him.
"Yes, Fiona." He sounded grim and it was a second after when Cass felt a cooling wave pass through him. It wasn’t abnormal, or fear inducing like the other cold he’d been feeling, but soothing. Like a cool breeze on a warm summer’s day. Cass felt some of his anxiety and fear tamp down and he was glad to realise that some of the fear came from the dungeon itself.
He couldn’t exactly deny the rest of it though.
"Thank you, Edgar." Lady Fiona said, her tone just as harsh still, but it felt like it had lost a certain edge to it. She had to also be feeling anxious and afraid. Anyone would in this situation.
That was when the moaning started.
"Oh for fucks sake." Lucian muttered under his breath. "Just show yourselves, you fucking pricks."
"Language, Lucian." Lord Ridgewood said and Cass almost burst out into anxious laughter. He was worried about language right now? Was he fucking serious? They had just entered a dungeon and were about to encounter undead.
"Let him curse a little, Giddy. You are always on his case about it, but he’s just expressing his emotions." Lady Ava said, and Cass was glad that she was aligned with him. When Lord Ridgewood let out a deep sigh, almost loud enough to cover up the moaning, Lady Ava turned back and gave Cass a thumbs up.
Had she done that for him? Why? How? Why did she think that would help him? Did she know that Cass had a potty mouth? He couldn’t even remember if he’d sworn around her, and if he had, he felt it was pretty fair.
All thoughts like that left when the ball that Vespertine had created finally illuminated the undead they had heard. There were two of them. Cass did everything within his power to control his breathing, otherwise he was pretty sure he was going to let out a whimper.
He’d never seen a decaying corpse before. He’d never had to.
Never had to bury family, never had to worry about any of that, so he wasn’t prepared for what he saw in the light.
Sightless eyes, white and a pale, awful blue colour. One eye was hanging out by what looked like twine, and Cass knew that it wasn’t that. Flesh was spotty, revealing bone underneath, while the lips were pulled back, flaking off of the body showing off the jaws and teeth of the shambling, moving corpses.
Patches of hair clung to pieces of flesh on the tops of their heads, and Cass watched in horror as a patch slid off. They had torn, shredded pieces of clothing on their bodies, covering up modesty but at this point, did it even matter? Cass could see wrist bones, femurs, other bones he had never cared to know and never wanted to see.
Cass nearly threw up as he watched the second one, maybe a male, lurch forward and his intestines tumbled out of his stomach cavity. Even Lucian made a sound of disgust.
"Let’s just put them out of their misery." Lucian muttered darkly. Cass agreed. Cass was amazed he couldn’t smell anything. He was sure they smelled foul.
"Ava." Lady Fiona called and Cass watched as a glow began to cover Lady Ava. Cass suddenly felt ill for a different reason, and swallowing, did his best to remain calm as they came to a collective halt.
From that point on, Cass felt himself disconnect from the situation. He watched on as Lady Fiona charged at the two zombies with a sword that he was pretty sure hadn’t been glowing before and sliced them in half. It was like she’d lit a match, because after that, a swarm of them emerged from the fork that the zombies had been wandering from.
Cass could feel himself casting magic, supporting everyone as Lady Ava and Vespertine did the heavy lifting when it came to magic abilities and Lady Fiona and Lucian did the heavy lifting when it came to fighting.
Lord Ridgewood remained back since the hallways were almost too narrow for two people to swing blades around. He behaved as if he was the protector of them, and kept an eye on the other pathway.
Cass watched on, detached from the event even as it came to a close and the area was littered with corpses. That was, until Lady Ava stepped forward and a wave of what he assumed was holy power, poured out of her. It creeped across the ground, engulfing the corpses and Cass watched on as they began to fade.
Lady Fiona and Lucian caught their breath, cleaning their weapons as Lady Ava worked and Lord Ridgewood was the one on high alert.
"I can’t hear anything else." Lucian muttered and Lady Fiona nodded.
"Good. Everyone else is fine?"
"Yeah." Lady Ava said quietly, sounding focused.
"Same here." Vespertine called.
"Completely fine." Lord Ridgewood declared and Cass could feel everyone else look to him. He swallowed.
"I’m fine." Cass felt his lips shape the words, but he didn’t resonate with them at all. Lucian narrowed his gaze, but didn’t push it. He turned his head, sniffing.
"Against better judgement, I think we should go this route." Lucian said, pointing towards the path where the zombies had just attacked them from. "I sense nothing but stale air from the other path, where I am at least getting some airflow from this direction. A bit more promising." He said. Lady Fiona pulled something out of her small side bag, a piece of chalk, and marked the walls of the pathway they were going down on both sides. It was smart, and Cass could feel something strange coming from the chalk.
Probably magic from the feeling of it, since it gave off the similar feeling as most of the mansion that they lived in. Cass hadn’t realised until now that there was a lot of magical energy in the mansion. Maybe it was because he was surrounded by what felt like the complete opposite energy right now that he was able to pick up on it. The same way he could sense that energy from his own side bag.
Either that, or he was so out of tune with his own emotions that he was tuning into other frequencies.
"Let’s follow Lucy’s suggestions for now. Hopefully, he’ll be right. Eddie, let us know when night time falls. We’ll try to go for as long as we can, but when I was reading up on the undead they normally become more active at night. Let’s see if that holds true for inside the dungeon as well." Lady Fiona said.
Say anything else, but it was clear that now that they were in a situation where she needed to take control, she was doing an incredible job of it. Cass wasn’t sure he could say that if their positions were reversed that he could do the same.
Cass wrapped this disconnection around himself, using it as a shield as they began to move through the dungeon in earnest. He was sure that what they had just experienced was a nice little welcome. Things were only going to get harder from here on out.