- Enter the Hatch

"Visions? Of everything?"

"Everything," he reiterated. "Everything around me. They were a mess, too much information in too little time. It was like watching your life on repeat, but at triple the speed. I got the general gist of it, but it was too fast to understand, too fast for anything to really be communicated to me."

"And what is your destiny? What do you desperately struggle against?" she asked, her anger covered by a layer of sympathy.

"To suffer."

"To suffer?"

Marcus nodded. "I'm sure you're aware of the cult by now. I remember them having a large presence throughout the country by now, unless I mixed that up with something...

Anyway, long story short, it always ended with them bringing their god from, from wherever it was. And I was taken before it, again, I don't know why. And then I suffered. For thousands of years I suffered.

At least, that's if it was real. But... I know it was real. I know it is."

"You're being serious about all of this, aren't you?" she asked, her attention piqued by the mention of the cult.

"Deadly."

"When we're out of here, we have to..." she began, before trailing off and looking up at the ceiling in a confused manner. "Can you hear that?" she quietly asked, looking at Marcus with a sideways glance.

"Hear? No, I don't hear anything," Marcus replied, matching her quiet tone. A few seconds later, his eyes widened. "Is there someone up there?" he whispered.

Tess nodded slowly. "Stay here," she whispered, creeping forward towards the stairs and drawing a pair of long daggers from her hip.

As the footsteps on the above floor drew closer, voices belonging to the owners of the steps slowly and steadily rose in volume. Recognising the owners, Tess softly sighed in relief and stowed her dagger, and retreated to under the stairs. She hid in the shadows with a devilish grin, waiting for the owners of the voices to approach.

"-we have to figure out what to do now. I mean, denying our enemy of what they want is as good as a victory."

"Yeah, but those people. We still need to save them."

"And we will. Look, Elanor, that thing said you have its burden now, so it's up to you to protect that ring. The three of us will be able to get those people out."

"I mean, sure, but- is that Marcus?"

The two girls quickly began to run to Marcus, but soon felt cold, sharp metal at their throats, dragging gasps from the depths of their chests.

"Well, I thought you would be smart enough to check your surroundings first, Elanor. And you, Roxanne, I thought I'd trained you better than that." Tess spoke with a disappointed tone, enthusiastically sighing after every sentence.

"You're making a lesson out of this?" Elanor asked in an agitated tone. "Right now?"

"I get that we messed up, but shouldn't we make sure our comrade is fine before anything?" Roxy added.

"He is fine, don't worry," Tess said emphatically. "But if I was someone malicious, someone who was using him as bait, then both of you would have blood flooding out of your throats. Do you understand?"

The two girls slowly nodded, as Tess removed the weapons from their necks.

"So, found anything?" Tess asked.

"This is definitely a tomb," Roxy began. She described what had happened to them, from the statues aiding them to the skeleton on the throne, the eternal guardian of the ring.

"That's very strange," Tess commented. "According to the legend, not that there's a bunch of information on it, the prize of the spider king, the thing that this very place was constructed for, was kept below. We shouldn't have got it from up here."

In response, Tess explained the situation of the village. She described the statues, scarily lifelike and trapped in an endless, terrifying prison of stone. She described the empty village and the tale it told, revealed only through preserved architecture, secret holes, and scrawled messages. Elanor took great interest in the information about the huge building at the far side of the village, as well as the creatures inside.

"So, to sum up: We have the item that they're looking for; They have the people we came here for below us through a trap door; This place is extremely weird," Marcus assessed. "Did I miss anything?"

"Not really," Elanor said. "But, what now?"

"Well, we know where the people are. And we're now back as four. So it's simple. I guess we just go and get those people back," Roxy answered.

"Hang on, it's not really that simple. We don't know who they were trying to get this thing for. Well, we don't even know what the ring does. Surely the safer option is to leave now," Marcus argued.

"So you would be willing to leave those people to die?" Roxy asked him.

"I would. If it meant stopping them from getting what they want, then I would."

"We have to save them," Elanor said. "While I agree delivering something to the enemy is dangerous, we can't leave those people to die."

"We're going down," Tess said, shooting a scathing look towards Marcus. "These people were taken from their homes. Are we so weak that we'd consider leaving behind people in need?"

Marcus awkwardly looked away as Tess moved to the hatch and, with a bit of effort, forced open the hatch in the floor.

The stairway that led down was surprisingly wide, allowing enough room for a fully grown adult to spread their arms without them touching the walls. Lit sconces were found in an orderly fashion along the stairwell, casting dancing lights of flickering flame onto the steps. As they entered the passageway, they were immediately hit by the strong stench of sweat, blood and metal.

The stairs stretched out for what felt like more than a mile. At the end of the stairs, following a small number of footsteps, there stood a large door, its towering frame making the previous pathway feel constrictive. The black metal stood ominously, smothering the flickering flames as soon as the light they cast made contact.

Cautiously, Tess approached the door and slowly pulled it open, while the others stood behind and prepared for whatever might be behind it.

As the door rotated further and further, more of the scene behind the door became revealed.

Instantly, the stench increased in intensity and morphed into something more gut-wrenching. Sinking their stomachs further were the sounds that resonated from the space beyond.

Pained howls of men, women and teenagers, too old to be children but too young to be adults, raced through the now opened door, escaping to a freedom those who made them couldn't imagine. The causes of the sounds soon followed. Thick thuds were followed by wet splattering, as was the woosh of air caused by cracked whips.

Laughter echoed from the lips of the abusers as more punishment was issued with every passing second. The sound that rose above all, was the angry roars of a desperate man.

Without hesitation, the four passed through the doorway.