It was a silent tomb, this dungeon. Its old elven carcass, still filled with active traps. Its lower darker parts, filled with creatures who would hunt mankind for sport. A hellscape and Jakurk had not even reached its middle floor. In fact he was just now back on the first. Searching through the changed corridors covered by the dark. His current party was on edge. Mostly due to the random attacks from living armours and unspeakable horrors. But also due to the lies of their newest stowaway. The thief and bandit Eyemik who to them was still known as Kimeye.
They hadn't spoken much for a while and the mood had gone sour around the time they began to catch onto the youngest lies. And the youngest saw the world as dark and dead. With the knowledge she'd be dead on her own and dead once they reached the august drop where her truth would be revealed. Yet for now she was still given a chance. A perhaps. She could be an adventurer and she could be a bandit until that fact was made clear she was treated as neutral.
"I haven't spoken to Gnist yet, but Kimeye is not an adventurer is she" Equa said in a hushed tone to Jakurk. They walked at the back of the party, while Gnist and Eyemik took the front. The dungeon had been quiet for some time. And it had been a while since they ran into any other adventurers let alone monsters.
"Who knows? Does it matter?, the dungeon is covered by darkness, all life seems dead, the last thing we should do is mistrust one another" Jakurk of course lied. He didn't feel a single bit worth of trust towards any member of this mismatched party. When they reached the drop and he found his real companions he'd be quick to leave these ones behind.
"How can I trust someone who lies?" Equa couldn't shake the feeling that the frail child would betray them. He didn't know how or when but something deep within saw a true threat in the small child.
"Well, do you trust me?" Jakurk said calmly as they strolled through the empty tunnels and over the bones of the longdead defenders of its halls.
"A little" Equa meant it. He held respect in the mages skills, even if he didn't quite like his personality.
"Then the answer to your question lies within your own reasoning" A vague answer. Something which Equa couldn't fully decipher. "Anyway how does your friend's lode stone work?" Jakurk changed the subject to something which held his own interest.
The reason for why Gnist walked in the front was her use of her lodestone which held the map of their entire journey. Which of course showed how they themselves had moved through the first floor and thus it painted a clear way to August's drop. Hence why she was the mapreader and guide. Eyemik walked close by her side observing the shining blue map with the eyes of a rural village girl who hadn't seen magic before.
"I'm not fully sure.. It shows the path of its owner, from their very first step till their last, of course it only shows the ones you've taken so far" Equa scratched his scaly shin. He wasn't the kind of guy to pry into his friends' things.
"How would one change the owner of the stone?" Jakurk had an interest in magical things. They were expensive, fancy and most of all a very good source of income since they could be sold at unreasonable prices to those unfamiliar with magic.
"Why do you ask?" There was a small bit of hostility in Equa's tone. Mostly because Jakurk's tone seemed just a little bit shady. And although Equa couldn't prove it he had a small feeling that Jakurk wanted a stone of his own.
"Oh, when She eventually challenges me again to get back this precious family heirloom" Jakurk spun around the fancy silver torch in his hand. " I intend to take the stone as my price for winning"
"You know, you're quite a horrible person" Equa said it with a bit of sarcasm but just a little bit. His thoughts had been proven correct. The mage did indeed want a stone of his own, and he wanted the one owned by Gnist.
"Hmm yeah, but im a horrible person with a golden heart" Jakurk did not consider himself a good person. He didn't see himself as an honest person. He did not see himself as a kind or noble person. He was only a loyal person. Someone who would never betray his goal or sway of the path he had begun to walk fifty years ago at the end of the Orrain dynasty.
"Why did we stop?" Equa said a little concerned as he observed the girls in the front. Gnist and Eyemik had stopped walking instead they seemed to be staring at something in the dark, corpses, several not of adventurers but skin steelers. At least four, who had been perfectly cut up with serious skill.
Jakurk walked out of the group and hunched down by the unnatural creatures side, its skin was a deep yellow, its hands had human fingers only twice as long. The torso lacked a waist meeting the legs directly under the lungs. And its head lacked eyes, ears and a nose, it held a simple enormous mouth capable of devouring an entire human head at once. "This blood is fresh, someone did this just before we passed by"
"You mean they could still be here?" Eyemik said carefully. Talking felt like stepping onto a minefield but the anxiety she felt for her own fate alongside her fear of the growing dark collided into creating what was simply a scared child. Amongst the surviving still living people in the dungeon she might be among the youngest or even the youngest.
"HELLO! ANYBODY HOME!" Jakurk shouted into the dark. The passage here twisted into two tunnels in none of which there was light. Only a damp everconsuming darkness.
"Why would you shout that?!" Equa gnarled under his breath his hand already on his sword hoping and praying that Jakurk hadn't just alerted every monster within two hundred metres.
"Too get a reaction" Just as Jakurk said it, a cling could be heard from the right most corridor as some fool dropped something onto the floor. "Gnist if you would" Jakurk nicked towards the passage the sound had come from. And Gnist knew what he asked immediately.
"Kin_-_-_-_\" The small flame on Gnist's commercial wooden torch spun and her spell rushed forth. An arrow of fire raced through the air like a snake lighting up the tunnel walls in red as it went further and further into the darkness. Until it revealed two individuals standing silently in the dark on each side of the damp corridor. The arrow continued further and further until its light went out.
"Poor choice of an ambush, I'd say" Jakurk readied his torch. "If you don't want my friend here to light you up I'd suggest coming out with your hands raised" In the dark march you couldn't trust even that which seemed fully human. A fact known to Equa, Jakurk and Gnist. But not so much Eyemik who didn't fully understand why they were so hostile. In the dark march where no natural light existed two people moving in it without torchlight was a bad omen in many ways.
"Sure, just take it easy, will ya?" Benjen said as he and his friend slowly came out into the light. Hands raised just like they'd asked. His friend did not say a word, Krita, if Jakurk recognised him correctly adorned a fancy cliffiron mail armour, with a equally fancy spear at his back. "We mean no harm, truly" Benjen managed a small fake smile.
"Where did you get that sword?" Jakurk didn't care about Benjen the bald, he cared far more about how the Half breed had acquired a blue sky metal sword since the last time they met.
"I found it, Finders keepers as they say" It was a lie. All the way back in August's drop when the opportunity had come so brilliantly into his lap. When the darkness first creeped out and the hillfolk in his panic left the sword behind at the drop, well, who could have resisted such a fine opportunity. Of course now that everyone at the drop was likely dead due to that unforeseen attack there wasn't even a chance that someone would come after them or so Krita had thought. Now this mage seemed to be putting himself in his way.
"It belongs to one of my companions" Jakurk knew it was Opip's sword from a single glance, he also knew that Krita and Benjen knew whose sword it was, and that they knew that he knew who its owner was so why act so nonchalant?
"If it did, it does no longer, after all the dead have no need for swords do they" The honest reliable image that Krita upheld on the surface was nowhere to be seen. Here in the dark he adhered only to his own will, his own ambition and he would be damned if he was going to let anyone get in his way.
"They don't do they" Jakurk closed his eyes and smiled. He even laughed a little. But when he opened his eyes all the light in them was gone. "So why are you still holding them?" A chill went down Benjen's neck as the old mage spoke. The bald thief took a step back and quickly drew his sword. While Krita continued to observe in silence.
"Hey, let's just take it easy, everyone," Gnist said. She wasn't quite so keen on fighting for no reason. Although she did recognise the sword since the hound had been the witness to the duel between her and Jakurk.
"Yes, let's all calm down, none of us wants any unnecessary conflict right?" Benjen said in quite the shaky tone. Contrary to his companion who was still just confidently smiling.
"The sword, return it and well let you pass" The one who spoke wasn't Jakurk but instead Equa. He knew whose sword it was. And he knew what a sword like that meant to a warrior like Opip.
"I think you should give the angry people the sword," Benjen whispered to his slightly agitated friend.
"Alright fine, I'll give it back" Krita swayed as he walked, slowly pulling out the sword from its sheet. Then just as he was to hand it over he swiftly grabbed Gnist, pulled her away from the group and positioned the blade at her throat. "Nobody move"
Now the reaction Krita was hoping for was not the one he received. In fact both the old mage and the drake just looked at him like he was stupid. Only the small thief seemed frightened. Not a good sign. "Seriously" Gnist couldn't believe this disrespect.
"You will let us part without any trouble, and we'll take any extra coin you might be carrying" Krita had to maintain his position. And he wasn't about to just hand over the sword without a fight, but even he recognised it as a hard battle to be fought. Hence why he opted to skip it all together by taking a hostage.
Nobody moved, and no one said a word, except for Benjen who took another step back. It didn't seem like he had Kritas back at all. But what can you expect from a low life from the knife guild? Then Krita felt a warm sensation on his lower arm. Gnist had raised her economic torch so that its flame would lick his under arm. "Ha nice try, but this beautiful armour im wearing, is fire proof" It was a good idea to just take the torch barer after all.
"Okay" Gnist drove the torch upwards until its glowing flame smashed right into Krita's smug face. Setting his hair and eyebrows on fire. With that he lost his grip and Gnist ducked under his sword and out of his reach. Of course she had to leave a message as well hence why she kicked where the sun doesn't shine. Which arguably hurt him more than having a face filled with cinders.
And so a battle between adventurers started.