What Lurks Under I

After walking around in the sewers for around an hour or so, they decided to take a short break. While Kies scouted their surroundings, the two demons found a clean spot to sit down and rest. None of them were exhausted, but they needed to take a moment to clean and fix their disguises since Falte's magic had worn off. Kies had thought that it lasted forever until he chose to take it off, but that wasn't how it worked. The magic lasted for at most a day and he would have to recast it.

So far they had met around ten people down here in the sewers and each one of them was like that crazed old man they first encountered. Falte tried getting information out of them, but he either failed to since they wouldn't cooperate with him or they knew nothing. They were still stuck in the same place and had barely made much progress at all.

"Alright, I'm done," Falte shouted at Kies to come back.

Kies walked back to the two and reported his findings. "The path splits into three down there," he pointed behind them where the tunnel began to go downwards. He really hoped that they didn't get lost down here with all the turns and twists everywhere.

The group walked down the tunnel and saw that the path was divided into three. "Hm... There are three tunnels, and there are three of us," Falte observed.

"Bad idea," Ammine instantly rejected his plan. "This place is huge, if we split up, we will stay separated. It's impossible to find each other again."

"But can't you two sense each other?" Kies asked, recalling that Ammine had said that demons could feel each other's presence or something like that.

"Yes, but I don't think that will help much when it's a maze down here. Even if we know where each other are, it would still be hard to figure out which paths to take to get to them," she explained.

"Oh."

"Let's just pick one and go then," Falte closed his eyes and randomly tossed it into the air. Since they were having so much trouble choosing, they might as well let luck choose for them. The dagger spun around for a moment and landed in front of the middle tunnel, almost falling into the water. Falte immediately ran over and recovered it before it could fall in. "Phew. Looks like we're going this way then."

They all went down the middle tunnel. It wasn't long before they saw light ahead. They made it to a small camp of some sort. It didn't seem like there was anyone around though. The place looked empty. Kies went over to the small tent and saw that the insides were littered with spoiled food and dirty clothes. Next to the tent was a barrel with black liquid inside. When he looked closer at it, he saw that it was actually just water and that the insides of the barrel were black, which made the water look like that.

"Anything useful?" Falte asked Kies as he also walked to the camp while spinning his dagger around in his hands.

"There's water if you guys are thirsty," Kies pointed at the barrel. He wasn't sure if the water was safe to drink but assumed that it probably was or otherwise it wouldn't be there.

Falte peered into the barrel and shook his head, "I rather not drink that. I have the feeling that if I do, I would get sick or something." Not drinking the water was definitely the safer choice. Who knows what may be in it. It could be contaminated.

"This looks like it has some value," Ammine went into the tent and picked up an object. She dangled it around in her hands. It was a lantern. This was the object that was lighting up the camp. "Not sure who would leave something as nice as this lying around in a place like this, but I'll gladly take it from them." Ammine dispelled the magic in her hand that was used as a light source as there was no need for it anymore since she had that now.

"Do we want to set an ambush and wait here? Whoever lives here is bound to come back considering that they left a lot of things here," Falte pointed out. It made no sense for someone to abandon the camp when there were so many things here so it was likely that they were just out doing an errand or something and will return sometime later.

"No. We don't know when they will come back. We could just go down the tunnel after them," Ammine told him. It was a lot faster than waiting here. They weren't even sure if the person would come back to the camp so it was a better idea to continue moving.

The other two both agreed with Ammine's decision and continued on down the tunnel. Before they could even take a couple of steps, they heard some noise behind them and they all froze in place. Falte wasted no time and pulled out his dagger and ran in the direction of the sound with the weapon raised.

Ammine was right behind him with her fists burning with magic. She tossed the lantern to Kies and followed Falte. Kies caught the lantern, fumbling a bit and almost dropping it, but after he secured it, he also started running. He tried his best to catch up with the other two who were already very far away.

"Please, I don't want any trouble," an unfamiliar voice said in the dark. But the two demons weren't going to listen and his voice only helped them pinpoint where he was. They changed directions slightly and ran towards where they heard the voice, ignoring what they said. "I warned you."

*Woosh!* A massive fireball suddenly appeared and flew at the two demons. Neither of them had expected something like that and were caught off guard. Falte managed to react in time had hit the ground to the right of him, barely escaping the fireball as it flew over his head. Ammine on the other hand wasn't as quick as Falte and couldn't move away in time. She did the only other thing she could do to save herself and raised her arms, coating them in a layer and magic, and took the hit.

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