Dead End

An anvil. That's what he heard, someone was working with an anvil. Each bang seemed to be coming from somewhere nearby.

'Bang, bang, bang.'

Each sound had enough pressure behind them that they were starting to hurt Aban's ears. He took a breath and opened his eyes. Something was different.

The monster's tentacle was still gesturing for them to run away. Den was on the ground, trying to get up while watching said tentacle. The cracks on the ground were all the same, just the ones made by the other tentacles were widened.

He looked around, that's when he noticed something at the dead end. It was hard to tell what he was looking at, but it seemed neither Den nor the wolf noticed. He tried to focus his vision onto whatever he was looking at. It was wavy currently, but it was slowly getting into detail.

As the object started getting into vision, he started hearing the anvil more clearly. Whatever that thing was, it would likely be their only chance out of these dreaded caves. Especially since the monster hadn't noticed.

Den finally got up. This was as the monster decided to finish off Lydd's body, the tentacle re-wrapped itself inside her mouth. Then the monster quickly retracted the tentacle, in the process crushing the body, splattering her all over.

The tentacle stopped retracting for a bit, it waved itself left to right. The creature was likely waving bye for now.

'Damn demon.'

The monster was without a doubt paying attention to their movements. How he was paying attention Aban would have to figure out later. Though the demon was not expecting him to run to the dead end. Which by now was looking more like a door.

The door was still wavy making it hard to tell much about the door's details, all he could see was the door's seemingly average circular handle, and the color. The color was dark green, and that color made it hard to see in this dark.

The monster was waiting for them both to leave the way they came. This was the only advantage they could possibly gain.

"Den don't run."

Den looked a little angry, not sad. He looked at Aban with a look of determination, then at his power glove.

"Wasn't planning to."

He didn't stutter. Was it the anger that helped him or was it something else?

Aban started walking towards the door, he was getting ready to dodge if he heard anything attack him. Though that was unlikely, because the monster had intelligence, it was sentient. If it was a mindless beast they would have all been dead, but the beast thrived on torture. It would be wondering what he was doing.

Den was quickly following behind him.

"What are you doing?"

Aban didn't respond. He grabbed the handle of the door; it was mostly in view now. It looked like a basic door besides the dark green color. Den jumped back.

"What the hell is that? Why is there a door here?"

Seems Den noticed about the door, and if he did the monster would likely notice too. Aban quickly opened the door, especially as soon as he heard the floor beneath him start moving. He quickly turned the door handle and pushed the door open. 

"Get in."

Den rushed in as a bone spike appeared from the ground and tried to attack him. The bone spike then shot in the direction of the door. Aban and Den ran into the door. They both got inside, but the bone spike was faster. They wouldn't be able to close the door in time.

'Thud.'

They heard a thud; there was a barrier blocking the monster at the door. It was invisible, but it saved them or at least saved one of their body parts. Aban decided to look around the room they were in.

The room was mostly wrecked, but there were three key features. A furnace to the right of the door, an anvil in the middle with a sword with its blade broken off, and a skeleton swinging a smithing hammer down on the sword.

The skeleton seemed to have not noticed their presence; it was either dead swinging at the sword or extremely focused on their work. Either way it didn't seem hostile.

"Den you wouldn't happen to know where we are would you?"

Aban was looking at the skeleton. He was not noticing Den covering his ears. It was only when Den fell to his knees when Aban noticed Den covering his ears.

Aban looked over at him. He was bleeding from his eyes, he was shaking.

"Den what's happening to you?"

Den tried looking at Aban; he didn't turn his head all the way up to his head, still reeling in pain. Aban crouched down trying to look into his eyes. Den was trying to say something. Aban wasn't a good lip reader, but he could mostly make out what he was saying.

'Help me.'

Den fell down. His eyes became lifeless, as if his soul was taken from his body.

"Den what happened?"

Aban knew there would be no response. That was until he heard the skeleton rattling. It stopped swinging. Aban looked at him, the skeleton was pointing at something with the hand not holding the hammer. Still crouching down looked at what he was pointing at, Den.

Aban tried to look at what he was pointing at till a hand tried crushing Aban's ankles.