Night 70: Caverns

[firewhichrefines]

[from here]]

"Whatever the consequences may be, the choice is either to play along or stall here," he added, stepping onto the bone-riddled shore and scanning for the more mobile skeleton. "He was right in that smell will be the easiest to go without. We'll find out if there is more to the cost from that."

He could see the single lantern where it wavered over the water, bobbing with the boat, and began the increasingly-familiar trek over to it.

Comments

[idolism]

Aidou wasn't exactly relieved at being the one to stand idly by while Sasuke served himself up to the skeleton; he knew the Institute too well to think he'd remain unscathed once he committed to this journey. Both of them would have to make sacrifices if they wanted to see what Landel had in store for them. Landel wouldn't have it any other way.

Yet, as the doors opened and the sandy expanse of beach revealed itself to them, he thought perhaps there was benefit to being the third wheel. He wasn't lacking in motivation to kill anything that got in their way. If the ghastly freak of nature had something more sinister in mind for whoever agreed to his terms, Aidou would be there to even the score, which was why he couldn't help muttering, "Or we could destroy it and be done with it. Crossing a lake without the help of some blood-and-thunder stereotype is hardly the most challenging thing in the world."

[firewhichrefines]

Destroying it was a thought, if one that Sasuke entertained with some scepticism. They'd both been here long enough to know that the more sentient creatures of the Institute posed a greater challenge than the usual fare, whatever the terms of their servitude to Landel might be. If the ferryman seemed more content with his work than the sphinx, that fact only made it less likely that threats would be convenient.

And when he had fought Sai -- when they had been released entirely, still there had been no opportunity to try the power of the place.

But, he realised, it was a dangerous complacency that grew with time here. Working within the system had never been Sasuke's preferred method; how had it become his first instinct?

"Have you fought anything like this before?" He asked, Sharingan flickering to life to examine the curious chakra of the ferryman dubiously. Sasuke had fought the dead, here, and still -- "Its chakra doesn't sit like the other dead things that have been here. There are no centralised vitals."

[idolism]

He lowered his voice even more to ward off the skeleton's eavesdropping, though the irony was not lost on him. A thing that desired others' senses in order to fully enjoy its existence shouldn't have even been alive.

"Chakra, is it? Well, I don't expect you or I would find many similarities with that creature. It wasn't born into the natural order like us."

Sasuke and his companions from home, for all their impossible powers, were still human. They belonged. The skeleton, on the other hand, belonged to an entirely different and uncanny category. Something that shouldn't even exist.

"I've heard of things like this, but I never thought I'd have the misfortune of meeting it's kind in person," he said.