Hero Scout 11 Chapter 11 - Bad Luck

Opening his eyes he found bodies and dirt in every direction, but there was a small tunnel to his right. Crawling through it, he heard the movement of stone, the crashing of brick. Whoever was strong enough to break free caused another wave of the Cathedral to crash inward. Dust and silt spewed through the cracks, where Kenji had been moments before flattened under rubble.

A gilded arm broke through stone with ease. Retracting it did so again. And again.

Kenji realised they were poking through with their heads now. He scuttled away before he could be found, spotting the white feather of a royal guard's head just as he slipped away and into a wide crack in the flooring. Tumbling he fell past rubble, was slammed into stone and fell against a wet floor.

Peering up in a daze, Kenji found himself in a damp cave. A damp, and very dark cave, lit only by fluctuating red crystals studded periodically in the ceiling.

Shifting to the boy knight, Kenji drew his sword and activated [Blessing-fire].

With his torch he marched onward, seeking a way out. It didn't help he felt...bad, about sneaking into the Cathedral's hidden bas.e.m.e.nt. A small part of him even wanted to go back to the Royal Knights- no, that was not him. Arthur's naive influence on his mind was pushing him to do something that Kenji was certain would end in his utter destruction.

Forcing himself to continue to sneak ahead, he found ancient imagery painted onto the walls; of dark-skinned men; strange iconography of a white and black orb; along with the occasional iron door, each of them too tall for Kenji to peer through the shutters. Deeper he went - ahead he heard the rustling of cloth. Deactivating the blessing, Kenji turned back into his old man self and hid under an iron doorway's indentation in the wall.

Kenji's black cloth blended well with the darkness, his little form not taking up much s.p.a.ce as he curled up into a little ball. The priests didn't see him as they charged past. Crimson cloth and dark chains bound them tight. Black masks with red circles hid their faces.

"An intrusion into the dungeon is unacceptable. What if the prisoners were to break free?" One hissed, pa.s.sing out of sight before Kenji could hear the others answer. Far away now, he heard only vague hissing and the slap of their feet on damp stone.

Carefully Kenji peered around the corner. No priests in sight, just flickering red crystals and dozens of iron doors.

Pitter-pattering down the long hall, he was too short to peer into the iron doors. So he shifted to the boy knight for that, just tall enough when he strained to see within. Gasping a little more each time, he discovered a terrible sight. Humans torn apart, monsters with their organs placed in jars and other sentient races hung upon meathooks. Tortured, dead and dying.

But what perturbed Kenji was the notes. Each little room held a scribe or two, recording everything there was to know about each creature. Some rooms too had a butcher conducting the autopsy, while others were empty save for the waiting creature.

It reminded Kenji of those old Inquisition movies, and how running into them is never expected.

Pa.s.sing door after door, Kenji noticed something interesting. Within one was a dead elf. Very dead, Kenji was confident, seeing as her head rested on a nearby table. But what annoyed him, was that it was the very same elf he had seen this morning.

She was just as beautiful, even in death. Kenji remembered her searching, and wondered what she had been looking for in this human city? Perhaps if he could find a key he could reclaim her and find out.

Hurrying along, Kenji discovered several of the red-clothed priests in a large room filled with shrines to the three human G.o.ds. Each held a flail that they used to strike their own bared backs. A burst of blood, a howl, then a return to monotonous prayer. Above them shone dozens of red crystals, barely a shadow to be seen in the large s.p.a.ce.
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Kenji crept on past, right through the well-lit chamber, and spied a ring of keys on the wall. It was almost too easy to slip them into his internal s.p.a.ce and then creep on past to the exit. As the priests got up and started going about their business, Kenji thought himself all too smart as he sauntered away.

Until he realised he had forgotten to go reclaim the elf, now on the other side of a much more active room of inquisitor priests. Or flagellants? Kenji wasn't sure of their t.i.tle, so just decided to refer to them as weirdos for now.

Leaving the weirdos behind, Kenji stalked along the hallways wondering if it was worth circling back around. That Elf had looked so strong, and also gorgeous - no, nonsense. Kenji couldn't risk his life for that.

he debated with himself back and forth as he crept along, hiding whenever a patrol pa.s.sed. Finally, he decided the only reasonable thing was to search for an exit and escape this dungeon. No matter how useful an elvish form could be, it wasn't worth the risk.

Escape was his number one priority.

Until that is, he found a big golden door to what appeared a bank vault.

"Oh my...what is this?" Kenji said, licking his lips, rubbing his hands, and his eyes rounding with amazement.