Haunted Floor B33 (1/2)

Very few living people ever learn what happened on Basement Floor 33 the day Haalfrin nearly clawed his way to freedom. The mage guards only know that this mysterious floor is taken from their watch schedules. Many of them wonder, "Did that basement floor get erased somehow? Did it cave in?"

After several years, even the new prison managers are confused seeing that an entire floor is taken off the maps. Why do the lists skip floor 33? Did someone make a mistake? Is some embarrassment of the imperial family kept there that the Warden doesn't want anybody to know about?

As for the commoner servants, they're convinced that an evil demon is imprisoned on Floor 33, since it seems to have disappeared from existence, and the higher ups don't like to talk about it. For people often thought of as the most stupid and ignorant of all, their guess is, ironically, the closest to the truth.

As for the Warden herself and a select few confidants, they know the truth…, but they just choose not to talk about it.

As more and more time goes by, the warden convinces herself that there really is nothing to worry about… and with nothing to worry about, everyone's lives will be a lot less complicated if nobody talks about the mystery of Floor B33.

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Within a few months after Floor B33 is erased from the maps, rumors start spreading throughout the Pit that there's a malevolent ghost haunting the place. Sure, countless people are sent here to die – either through old age, or through execution.

Because of this, many of the short lived, magicless folk with little to no arcane knowledge believe that the Pit has always been haunted. However, anyone who's met a spirit mage can tell you that all souls are picked up by Death Reapers with such accuracy that it's safe to say that no ghost has ever lingered in the world longer than a few weeks.

So…there's no way the Pit is haunted, right?

However, commoners will be going about their day feeling a faint chill in their bones and a rattling fear. Even the mages aren't immune to these random bouts of panic.

The community of mage guards living in the Pit finally start to believe what the commoners have been telling them all along when a few spirit mages see what looks like long, black, spectral tendrils of darkness snaking their way through the hallways and exploring the cells.

Occasionally, creepy black hands would form at the ends of the tendrils and brush past people, touching their hearts and instilling a sense of dread in the people.

Fortunately, the spirit mages are able to swing their hands and beat away these black hands, though after the first few incidents, the strange specters learn to recognize the spirit mages and avoid them.

…And no matter how many times the guards catch these horrid things, the black grip of death is always looming in everyone's mind… and the creeping shadows are always lurking just out of view, watching from under tables and around corners.

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Many miles beneath the surface, a lone little boy is sitting cross legged in a hallway. The rubble beneath him has been crushed and carved into just the right shape to maximize the boy's comfort, since he knows he'll be spending days on end sitting here.

If a spirit mage could see the boy, they'd reel back and faint at best upon seeing the pulsing black aura of death – waving and slithering in the air like a foul creature breathing down your neck.

Unlike the child's usual dome of Death Aura, the black energy has been condensed into thin tentacles in order to maximize reach.

With Haalfrin making his Aura into long arms instead of a dome, then this aura stops being an area of effect, and it becomes a targeted ability.

The only problem with making his Aura targeted is that it'll mostly depend on chance whether or not he'll be able to touch someone right as they're dying; it's not like he can see where he's poking around! For the first couple of days, he's just moving his black tendrils around blindly.

Some good news does come to him, though.

While he's experimenting with his Aura, he finds that if a Will pushes the boundary of his Aura, then the aura will feel a faint force, and it'll drift along after the floating Will. Basically, the Wills can guide the long Death Aura arms along like a dog tugging on a very, very long leash.

Now, Haalfrin watches in fascination as a glowing silver Will enters the thickest part of the black Aura and slides further down the tendril. It seems to have some freedom of movement as it moves around in the tip.

With a Will guiding the tendrils, each branch of Aura effectively has its own brain directing it. Fortunately, the Wills now have their own intelligence, else this idea would've fallen flat and died before it even took off.

So, Haalfrin sits in meditation day after day, releasing his Death Aura, spinning it into dozens of long, fine threads, then letting his Wills use these long tethers to explore the other floors, as well as search for any prisoners or guards who look like they're about to die.

As Haalfrin's searching hands sift through each floor, he ends up having to eliminate strand after strand in order to let his spectral arms reach further and further up the long the Pit.

He certainly has a lot of floors to cover in his quest to reach the surface, but he only has 3 floors beneath his own.

Of course, Haalfrin has no idea at first what's going on outside his own floor. Which Wills are finding spots where the most people are dying? He only has so much Death Aura to feed the roaming tendrils, and he never knows which Wills he should allocate more Death Aura to.

Some Wills NEED to get further away from himself, yet which ones? Soon enough he finds the answer.

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Of course, there's no specific spell he knows that can let him talk and coordinate with his Wills, which means he'll have to make his own spell.

All of this is possible because of his old master's teachings. If anything, Kalastros had drilled into him the essence of manipulating his own spirit.

Well, the body has natural autonomy; it can move on it's own, since it has a brain. However, your spirit body doesn't have that luxury. This is why advanced Spirit mages have to learn how to let their spirit bodies move on their own.

It's much harder than it looks, so it takes Haalfrin a few months of practicing to remember how to do it.

Once he does remember this technique, he's able to spread his own Spirit Threads down the tendrils and get a vague idea of what his Wills are doing, and what they're encountering.

He can't quite talk to them, since his grasp on his spirit isn't THAT great. However, he can communicate simple instructions and receive simple visuals from them.

Because of this new spell he's created, he's able to extend his vision far past his own cell and coordinate with his Wills.

With that out of the way, Haalfrin almost immediately learns that there's a special surprise waiting for him 3 floors beneath him. 'I need to send more Death Aura tendrils there. One tendril isn't enough to harvest everything...'

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The day Haalfrin sends his Aura down, the Death god Jenri floats up through the floor. "Ah, the tall man sighs, "If it isn't Haalfrin. I was hoping I wasn't going to see you again."

"Hello Jenri," Haalfrin waves. "You've been busy?"

"I'm always busy in this place," the man responds while he points down. "That's where the prison masters execute their prisoners."

"…Jenri?" Haalfrin asks, "Last time I met you, you didn't even want to look me in the eye. Now you're stopping by for a visit and chatting with me. What's with the change in attitude?"

The death god shrugs, "I heard from the Death King that Das is trying to make you his successor. I… didn't know the old man was getting ready to retire."

"…So… what? Your heart softened because we might be colleagues in the future?" Haalfrin scoffs.

Jenri shrugs again, "You can think of it like that." The death god then reaches onto his belt and drops a spatial bag at Haalfrin's feet. "Speaking of a softened heart, Das spoke to me and asked me to drop of some supplies whenever we see each other."

"…Das did?" Haalfrin scoffs.

"Of course he did!" Jenri speaks up, a little irritated. "He wants to do die of old age – not starvation."

"Well, whatever," Haalfrin shrugs as he bends down. "I'll accept the gift." There's no point in turning it down. "Thank you Jenri."

"Yeah, whatever," the god waves as he disappears in a black Aura.

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A burly man in raggedy clothing is pushed forward up some large steps by the guards, who are gripping his bound arms behind his back tightly.

"Move along, rebel!" one of the guards snarls when the prisoner tries stopping in place.

"Hmph!" the rebel prisoner snorts, "I didn't stop because I'm afraid to die! I just tripped."

"Yeah, yeah," the guard rolls his eyes, "I don't care. Just don't trip again."

After heavy, unwilling footsteps, the prisoner is pushed up to a block, and he's forced onto his knees. Above his neck is a blade set atop a fixture… yet this isn't any normal blade.

The entire length of the large, horizontally slanted blade is made of thin glass less than a millimeter wide, and it's been doctored up with Alchemy to be next to unbreakable, and it has strengthening and sharpening enchantments added on to boot. Long ago, this blade was crafted to be able to even slice through a dragon's neck, though it's been 10's of thousands of years since a dragon has been executed at this guillotine.

The old Vanteri Family had to pay a fortune to buy this guillotine for their Pit prison when they were first digging it.

The brave rebel tilts his neck up and sees all the guards standing watch around him. Steeling his eyes, the man screams out, "LONG LIVE KING-" His eyes widen in shock, and he suddenly screams out, "No, NOOOOO!"

Shrieking in absolute panic, the man's eyes glaze over, and he falls unconscious just before the blade falls and beheads him.

The guards look at each other with confusion on their faces. "What was that about?"

"Dunno!" another guard shrugs, "All the prisoners lately have been freaking out more than usual when they're brought up."

"Bruno. Isn't it normal to be scared just before you're executed?"

"No! These ones are different!" the soldier Bruno protests, "I've seen that madness in their eyes enough times to know what's going on… I think this guillotine is cursed!"

"Enough with the talk about curses!" his friend rolls his eyes. "I've heard the rumors going around in the break rooms, and I'm not buying it!"

…And unseen to all the eyes here, an invisible, ghostly black hand with wicked, ghostly claws is latched firmly on the headless man's heart, and its airy flesh is pulsing in a way resembling veins pumping… Except the veins are full of the Death Energy it's harvesting from the man's corpse.

Finally, when the last of his Death Energy is taken by the tendril, a small silver wisp is pulled out of the body, and it follows another, larger wisp who was hiding in the blackest part of the hand.

The two wisps seem to talk to each other for a moment, then the newly born Will is sent down the black thread to safely rest in its master's soul.

Of course, Wills are not the spirits of the deceased. Thus, the executed man's spirit, which is still obeying lingering in his body, only feels a light prick as his lingering Will is plucked away.

Indeed, several days ago, this Will had found this execution ground on the lowest possible place in the Pit – Floor 36. Being smart enough to realize the importance of controlling access to such a valuable land of infinite "loot", the Will silently hangs from the ceiling and waits for some other poor soul to get his head chopped off…