“Where?” asked Akira.
Dolph pointed behind them and everyone turned around to look at the dim gray walls.
If Dolph hadn''t said anything, Akira would have not noticed it.
With every second that passed the light behind them was slowly, ever so slowly growing dimmer. Akira turned back to the path ahead and saw that the light was as bright as ever.
“Yap!” said Fluffball.
“You''re right, we need to hurry forward. It''s dangerous but we need to pick up our pace. I do not want to find out why it is growing dimmer,” said Akira.
“It is most likely a trap,” said Klyn before he began to silently chant off a few buffs for the group.
“I rather run to a trap that I can see than stay bumbling in the darkness,” said Akira.
Everyone else was not keen on the growing darkness behind them so they all started to quickly walk forward in the only direction they could.
For the next ten minutes, they quickly walked down the path and did not run into any traps, tricks, or oddities. With their fast pace, they had managed to get ahead of the dimming light behind them.
Until they found a large open door at the end of the tunnel that had a nearly blinding white light coming out of it.
Akira held up his hand to try and shield his eyes so he could get a better look inside, but the light was too bright. It was like a wall of light.
“We wanted light, but...” said Mileena, as she looked at the light with squinted eyes.
“No use in stopping now,” said Dolph.
Fluffball and Akira both sniffed the air trying to gauge the danger that may lay behind the blinding light but they were unable to sense anything.
They walked to the light and despite Akira''s fears of some type of door that would transport them, they found it was indeed just a bright light.
They entered the room and shielded their eyes trying to get used to the brightness.
As Akira squinted through the slits of his fingers and grew accustomed to the brightness, a loud ''Thunk!'' was heard behind them.
“Well, that was not unexpected,” said Klyn, as he and the others inspected the room they found themselves trapped inside.
The ground they now stood on was moist black dirt, far different than the sturdy stone floor they had been walking on up until now. The ceiling and walls of the room were the same as the tunnel, just a regular gray stone.
In each of the four corners of the large room, there were four large ponds of dark water.
Each of the ponds were separated by wide black dirt paths. At the center of the room where the four dirt paths met was a large white square altar that rested on a black stone platform.
This white altar was the source of the bright blinding light.
“Don''t get too close to the water''s edge,” said Akira after finishing his inspection of the room.
“How do we get out of here?” asked Mileena.
Everyone was silent, a few shrugged not knowing what to do. They all looked over to Akira.
“Klyn, do you feel anything coming from that altar?” asked Akira.
“Nothing good, that white light is not giving off any holy feeling I know of. It feels more like a blanket covering something menacing underneath...” said Klyn.
“We can''t just stand here and do nothing...” said Dolph.
“The three of us will go and check out the altar. The rest of you stay back and be ready to fight. Keep Klyn safe as he is our trump card if we encounter any of those Molten Onyx infected.”
Mileena and Klyn stayed with the 5 other warriors and watched Akira, Dolph, and Vilkas slowly move forward towards the glowing altar.
Nothing happened when they reached the altar, so Akira started inspecting it while Dolph and Vilkas kept an eye on their surroundings.
Underneath the white light, Akira could see black stains on the altar that ran down its side and into a bowl carved out of the black stone platform.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
It was ancient dried blood. Other than that, the altar was plain having no other decorations.
Ding!
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Akira''s bad gut feeling +1.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Akira hid behind his shield and began scanning the area.
Everyone saw him do this and also got into a defensive formation while searching for whatever it was that had alerted Akira.
“Somethings coming,” said Akira in a calm voice.
As he said that the bright light from the altar started to slowly become less blinding.
Out of the corner of his eye, Akira saw something move.
He whipped around and looked at it but nothing was there.
He and the others continued to scan the surroundings as the blinding light grew dimmer. Several times Akira thought he saw something black near the ground out of the corner of his eyes but whenever he looked nothing was there.
“Yap!” said Fluffball as he continued to erratically turn his head trying to catch the thing that was always just out of their range of vision.
The others noticed this as well and were constantly trying to see what was stalking them.
As the light lessened the dark object that could only be seen from the edge of their vision, continued to get darker and more solid in its shape.
Out of the corner of his eye, Akira could see the object was a dark hand that looked to be made out of a black mist tinted with red.
As soon as he tried to look at it he was still unable to see it as it would disappear when he directly looked at it.
“It''s a hand reaching out of the ground,” said Akira.
“I see one as well,” said Klyn as he started to chant and point his hand over his shoulder aimed at the misty hand that was out of his frontal view.
A bright white holy light flashed letting out pop. Klyn let out a grunt of satisfaction.
“Looks like it doesn''t like my holy light,” said Klyn.
“You guys keep Klyn safe. Klyn, how long can you keep using that holy light skill?” asked Akira.
“Hard to tell, it all depends on how long and how quickly I have to cast it. I have enough blue candies to last me for a while but they will be used up quickly if I have to keep casting it nonstop...” said Klyn as he shot another white light and blew up another misty hand.
Akira, Dolph, and Vilkas started to slowly back away from the altar.
But with each step they took the altar seemed to be growing dimmer at an even faster pace as if it was trying to stop them from joining back up with the others.
The misty hands out of the corner of each of their visions started to multiply and grow more distinct.
Soon the light from the altar was just as bright as the gray glow that had been in the tunnels.
The black hands became more firm and were now reaching out of the ground revealing long black arms that were reaching for everyone in the room wanting to grab onto them.
Pop! Several dozen black arms were blown up by Klyn.
Many of the reaching arms disappeared as soon as Akira or any of the others looked at them, but those that disappeared showed back up from a different direction, always at the edge of their vision.
Akira activated [Darkness Domain] to try and cover the room and his allies to try and hinder the reaching arms, but it did nothing to them as the arms continued to grow more physical and numerous as the light dimmed.
Klyn began a long chant and pointed at Akira casting a white holy shield around as the light in the room became pitch black.
Akira could only see a few feet in front of him due to the glowing white holy light that covered his body.
From the rear, he heard the sound of battle start as swords and spears tore into the black fleshy arms that now hid in the darkness.
“Yap!” said Fluffball as he jumped down onto the ground near Akira and grew to his full size.
A bright blue light gathered around his mouth lighting up the area as he gathered power into his ice attack.
Pew! The ice attack shot out towards the reaching dark arms that were now surrounding them just outside the range of the holy light.
Akira activated several of his skills and successfully destroyed tens of the arms with each attack but they were soon replaced with a hundred more arms that shot out of the dirt.
The sound of battle nearby could be heard as Vilkas and Dolph also fought the arms, but Akira could not see them.
“Dolph, Vilkas! Come to me! We''ll have to retreat to the others and figure it out from there,” shouted Akira.
He waited for a response but only heard the sound of battle.
Akira moved a few steps to the side trying to find Vilkas and Dolph but he found nothing; he only saw the reaching arms part away from the holy light.
“Klyn? Mileena?” shouted Akira, but the only response he received was silence.
Splash! Splash!
The sound of repeated splashes behind Akira caused him to whirl around and try to see what was going on but he could not see anything.
In total 7 splashes had come from the rear right and left pools.
After the 7th splash, the holy light covering Akira began to quickly fade.
Two more splashes were heard nearby as Akira turned around to get closer to Fluffball who was doing all he could to keep the reaching arms away from them.
Akira and Fluffball launched many attacks that lit up a small area as they flew out and exploded destroying the hundreds of reaching arms. The arms were swarming towards them now that the holy light was dimming.
In the last of the holy light, Akira saw dozens of arms grab onto Fluffball. He tried to slash at them and to free Fluffball but his legs were soon caught as well.
The entire room became pitch black blocking Akira''s view of Fluffball.
A splash was heard nearby as he fought to free himself from the pulling hands that were also dragging him towards the upper right pool.
Splash!
Akira fell into the pitch-black pool as he let out one last [Sword Slash] and began to quickly sink as hundreds of the arms pushed and pulled him deeper and deeper.