Chương 22: Hunting or Hunted?

They moved in single file through the white mist, Lio leading at the front, and Ophila and William behind him. The fog had thickened even further since they'd left the campsite, pressing closer until their field of vision was down to maybe eight feet in front of them. Even the stalks of the nearest fungi only appeared as dark outlines, dissolving quickly away after just a few steps away. Therefore, Lio had to navigate by feel.

Using the warmth gradient in the floor and the density of the mycelium beneath the moss, he could roughly guess their position. Behind him, William was doing rather well, all things considered. He moved quietly and kept his erratic emotions under check. Ophila was also silent behind him, her footsteps almost inaudible in the deep moss. Lio shook his head. A Skinwalker on Floor 1. Who could even imagine?

But beyond the immediate problem of getting them out safely, something else had been quietly forming in his thoughts since they'd left the campsite. He glanced back at Ophila. He vividly remembered how she'd been vague about her rune since the moment they'd met, deflecting every direct question with an easy smile. I'll show you when we're in Ghenna. Well, well, well. They were in Ghenna now, weren't they?

And with a creature that had no business existing on this floor, a fog that cut down their visibility to almost nothing, and a boy who was basically a walking liability. A perfect scenario to test Ophila. Lio was planning—if they encountered the Skinwalker—he would simply hold back and watch as Ophila tried to deal with it. Of course, he would still step in if things got out of hand. After that, the three of them moved in silence. They had been walking for maybe twenty minutes when William audibly gasped.

At the sound, both Lio and Ophila stopped. They looked towards the other boy, to see that he was pointing at something on the ground just ahead. Lio moved toward it. And as the fog coiled away from his moving legs, a dead body was revealed. It was a young woman, maybe twenty, clothed in standard Delver gear. She was lying face down in the moss with her arms splayed out at her sides. Frowning, Lio crouched and turned her over carefully. Her face was still intact.

Eyes open and dry, which meant she hadn't been dead long enough for them to cloud. There was no bruising on her throat, or damage to her skull. No injury that hinted at an unnatural demise. She looked, on the surface, like someone who died of natural causes. But to Lio's trained eye, he could see that the chest was shaped wrong. It wasn't injured, showing no signs of crushing or puncturing.

Instead, it looked to have been subtly collapsed inwards, like some of the smaller organs and its internal supports had been quietly removed. William was frozen stiff, trembling in fear, while Ophila crouched beside Lio, her lips pressed into a thin line. Then Lio noticed the bracelet on the dead girl's left wrist, a simple thing, woven from a rough purple thread. It had gone damp and dark from the moisture in the moss. Far from anything unique or remarkable.

But for just a fraction of a second, it flashed red for him. Of course, nothing physically about the bracelet itself changed. The color simply imposed itself upon his vision, and vanished just as quickly. And with it came a feeling so unfamiliar, something that he hadn't felt in centuries. Melancholy. His eyes softened as he looked down at the threads, his lips curving upwards in a sad, gentle smile. He knew someone who'd worn a bracelet like that, hadn't he? Then he shook himself.

This wasn't the place to start reliving memories. Lio stood up, dusting off his pants.

"Let's keep moving," he said quietly. But besides him, William didn't move. He continued staring at the dead girl with a blank look.

"Hey." Ophila's voice was gentle as she patted him on the shoulder. The boy jerked and looked up at her. She titled her head.

"Let's go." And so, they continued to move east. Lio kept his pace steady, while behind him, without any kind of announcement, Ophila had repositioned herself between him and William, close enough to the injured boy that she would be able to comfort him at any point quickly. He noted that, sorting the information neatly into the back of his mind. He also noted that while they'd been crouched beside the body, she'd touched that specific pocket on her pack. The one she said contained the 'tools' needed for her rune.

Whatever was in that pocket, it was clear that she considered it very essential. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. They walked in silence for a while, until Lio noticed the moss begin to show certain signs. It was subtle and minute enough that most people would have stepped right over it without a second thought. Every few meters, in a rough trail curving away to their left, the moss had been pressed down in small circular patches.

Not footprints, but perfectly round compressions, each one about the diameter of a large coin. And Lio knew what made them. Skinwalkers had a habit of periodically pressing one fingertip into the ground. He had never found a fully satisfying explanation for why. His best theory, developed across several hundred loops of observation, was that it was a sensory behavior, feeling the vibration of prey through the floor the same way he used the mycelium's warmth gradient to navigate.

On Floor 17, where they belonged, the impressions were easy to spot against the rough dirt. But up here in the deep moss he'd almost missed them entirely. He didn't slow down or change direction. Instead, he kept his eyes forward and began quietly mapping the trail in his head. It curved left, then appeared to arc back around ahead of them. Which meant the thing had already completed a partial loop around their position. That meant it wasn't behind them anymore. It was ahead. He frowned.

The eastern descent tunnel was still hours away at their current pace. He also knew that between them and it was a narrow corridor between two enormous Pillar stalks, the only reasonable path through this section where the undergrowth was too dense on either side to push through quickly with an injured person. The Skinwalker would know that. Since it had been on this floor long enough to learn the moss-reading trick, it had most certainly learned the layout.

It was likely going to be waiting to ambush them in that corridor.

"The fog is getting thicker," William muttered behind him.

"Yes," Lio said.

"Is that bad?"

"Not particularly."

"You're very reassuring," William replied, in a dry tone that suggested otherwise.

"Thank you," Lio said. From behind him came what sounded like a cough from Ophila, though it was clear that she was simply trying to cover up her laugh. The corridor was only a mere twenty feet ahead now. He could feel the two Pillar stalks through the mycelium, their root systems so vast they were like castle walls. The canopy where their caps rose above the passage was thick enough to choke out even the ambient bioluminescence, leaving the corridor substantially darker than the surrounding fog.

Lio could sense the thing in there. The trail of moss compressions had stopped, which meant it had found its spot and gone still. He kept walking at the same pace, and waited. The corridor was still a good distance ahead, but already the strategic problem it presented was obvious to anyone who knew how to look. The dense undergrowth sealing off both sides. The thick canopy choking out all light above it. The single narrow entrance. He was curious how long it would take Ophila to see it.

Just a small test of her strategic intelligence. Luckily, it didn't take long. Ten feet from the corridor entrance, Ophila slowed down. Lio glanced back at her. She was looking at the corridor, her head slightly tilted, her eyes studying the entrance carefully.

"This is a bad spot," she said.

"How so?" Lio asked.

"The canopy's too thick above it. No light gets through." She nodded at the dense undergrowth pressing in on either side.

"And there's no way around it." She paused.

"If I were going to ambush someone, this is where I'd do it." William looked between her and the corridor.

"So can't we just… go around it somehow?"

"The left side has a Choke Vine growing through it," Lio said.

"It'll snap your neck before you know it."

"What about the right side?"

"A good old twelve foot drop." William stared at him incredulously.

"How do you know all of this?"

"I've been down here before," Lio said simply. A short silence followed. William looked at the corridor, then at the undergrowth on either side, then back at the corridor again, with the pained expression of someone waiting for a second option to appear out of thin air. Unfortunately, it didn't. Meanwhile, Lio's attention shifted as he noticed Ophila reaching into that particular pocket. What she pulled out was surprising, even for Lio. Thirteen small dark spheres, each roughly the size of a large marble.

They weren't glass, but more like translucent metal, the surface gritty and rough. She rolled them slowly between her fingers, selecting two from the group. She studied the two she'd chosen for a moment, turning them over with her thumb.

"Stay here," she said to William.

"Absolutely not," William said immediately, crossing his arms as a look of naive bravado flashed across his face.

"I'm not just going to stand here while you two go in there."

"You're injured," Ophila protested.

"I can still fight." She rolled her eyes.

"You can barely walk straight."

"That's—" William started, then stopped, his mind visibly hunting for some sort of a counter-argument.

"That's beside the point. The point is that you can't just tell me to stay behind like I'm some kind of—""Liability?" Lio finished for him. Both of them looked at him.

"But that's what you are right now," Lio continued.

"You have a wound across your ribs. And you've frozen up already tonight. At the body, remember?" William's face twisted into one of protest.

"I didn't freeze, I was just—""There's a reason that most guilds don't accept Delvers with trauma, no matter how skilled they are," Lio said.

"In the time we've been standing here, you've made yourself easier to hear and harder to move around. Whatever is waiting in that corridor has had more time to prepare." He tilted his head slightly.

"So. What's the smarter option?" William's arms dropped slowly from their crossed position. He stood there, staring at Lio with an expression of helpless misery on his face.

"Fine," William muttered begrudgingly.

"I'll stay." Besides him, Ophila nodded approvingly. Then without any further words, she turned on her heels and strode into the dark. Lio followed a few steps behind her, pausing just at the threshold of the entrance. He glanced back at William, who had pressed himself against the Pillar stalk with his arms at his sides, staring after them with a scared expression.

"If something comes out of the fog behind you," Lio said, trying for a slightly reassuring tone, "climb the stalk. Don't try to fight it." Then he stepped into the corridor. The darkness closed around them immediately. Even his eyes, which were considerably better than average, were finding almost nothing to work with. Beside him he could hear Ophila's breathing softly, and the faint sound of her rolling the marble between her fingers. And then he could hear her slowing to a stop.

She stood completely still for a long moment, the dark outline of her head tilted to the side. Then very quietly, without looking at him, she muttered, "Over there."