31

They followed Sister Peregrine through another series of labyrinthine corridors and down a stairwell, which brought them before another set of great double doors like the ones at the entrance of the Halls. There she raised her hand and signaled Hunter and Fawkes to stop.

“Once we’re past these doors,” she said, “we can’t guarantee your safety. There’s much down here that’s dangerous. Deadly, even.”

“That was not our deal,” Fawkes answered, raising an eyebrow.

“It pains me to say it, but Sister Finch has lost her mind,” Sister Peregrine argued. “She might be already dead, or she might try to kill us all. There’s really no way to know.”

Fawkes frowned, and her mouth became a thin line of worry. Hunter knew that look. He’d seen it when they’d first spotted the moose carcass outside Arjen’s lair, as well as when they’d found the butchered folken back in the Weald. With that kind of track record, watching her ruminate with that look on her face made him very, very uncomfortable.

“You said you’ve seen my compatriot, and you know where to find him”, Fawkes finally said.

“Tall man, hair like gold, wears his blades on his hips,” Sister Peregrine nodded. “Yes. We’ll take you to him once we’re out of the Halls.”

“Alright then. Lead the way.”

Brother Aurochs pushed the great doors open, and Sister Peregrine led them inside, lighting the way with her torch.

The moment Hunter set foot past the doors’ threshold, two things happened. First, he received a notification–one, in fact, he’d never seen before:

Entering Dungeon. Threat Level: High

Okay, great. That didn’t sound ominous at all.

Second, his nostrils were attacked by a wafting smell of rot and decay. Sister Peregrine coughed and gagged, Brother Aurochs growled, and Fawkes hissed a stream of expletives in at least three different languages, most of which Hunter hadn’t even heard before.

“Low-dwellers.”

“The Misbegotten,” Sister Peregrine nodded. “I feared as much. Sister Finch has been busy, it seems.”

Busy?

“Judging by the stench, the place must be crawling with them,” said Fawkes, already drawing arms. “If your Sister was here, she’s now dead.”

“You don’t understand. The Misbegotten… she’s probably the one creating them.”

“Creating them?” Hunter gasped, surprised – so surprised that he forgot the say nothing, hear everything rule. “What do you mean, creating them?”

“Is she a witch of some sort, then?” Fawkes interjected, talking over him.

“She’s a spirit woman” said Sister Peregrine. “She is powerful. Even more so in the Halls.”

“Damn you, Reiner” Fawkes said under her breath, her anger and worry slowly mounting. “This is a fool’s errand. Suicide.”

Watching Fawkes get stressed felt all kinds of wrong, Hunter realized, much to his surprise. During his time in Elderpyre, which felt a lot more than just a few days, Fawkes had been the only true constant. Even when she was dragging him through the Weald, bound in chains, there was something reassuring about her. She was in control.

Fearless, competent, unbreakable Fawkes, breaking a sweat?

No.

Fuck this.

Not that Hunter blamed her, of course. She was worried about her friend, who was last seen heading to this godforsaken place, of all places. Dark, ancient halls, buried deep beneath the surface, and filled with flesh-eating horrors ready to pounce out of every dark corner… It was enough to make anyone shudder.

In spite of it all, Hunter caught himself smiling. There was something stirring in him–that same impish, foolhardy streak that had gotten him in trouble more times than he cared to admit.

His smile widened into a straight-up smug, shit-eating grin.

He’d been in such a place before.

Hell, he’d grown up in such a place.

Well, he hadn’t actually, physically been in in a dark dungeon full of monsters–but he’d raided so many with them with the old gang he might as well have been: Blackwater Spires, Tomb Of The Thousand Dead, Fort Xaryam, and, of course, Blackholme Crypts.

That last one was special. It was the first elite dungeon they’d tackled, back when they were still a bunch of noobs–not that they’d have admitted that, of course. The Blackholme Crypts were a sprawling multi-level dungeon teeming with undead of all sorts, a nightmarish labyrinth of corridors and halls and dead ends. It had taken Hunter–Alex–and the gang the better part of a month and countless runs to map it, learn the tactics, strengths, and witnesses of the monsters that inhabited it, and devise a plan of their own. It had seemed a lost cause–a fool’s errand, to use Fawkes’s words–but Packman had insisted it was only a matter of trial and error.

In the end, of course, he was right. They mapped the best way through the Crypts, stocked up on supplies, set up choke points, pulled the monsters one by one or in small groups, and pushed deeper and deeper in the dungeon one hall at a time. It took them forever, but they did it, and it worked. They reached Lord Blackholme’s laboratory at the end of the labyrinth. Then Lord Blackholme–a 90 level raid dungeon end boss–proceeded to wipe the floor with them, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that their tactics worked–and maybe they’d work in the Halls of the Cor Ancestors, too.

Maybe.

“Alright people, huddle together, we have to come up with a plan,” Hunter said, surprising both the Brethren and Fawkes. “Sister, do you know the layout of this place?”

Fawkes opened her mouth to say something–probably shut him up, judging from her glare–but Sister Peregrine spoke first, throwing a sideways glance at Brother Aurochs.

“We can navigate it, if need be, yes.”

“And do you have any idea where we’re going?”

Sister Peregrine gave it some thought.

“Probably. This stench is unmistakable–there are Misbegotten prowling about, which means the Crucible has been used.”

“The Crucible?”

“Morwain’s Crucible,” she explained. “An artifact of depraved origins best left unmentioned. It warps and corrupts flesh and blood to form… them. The Misbegotten. Though it pains me to even consider it, it can be none other than Sister Finch who’s lit its flames. So that’s where we must go, too–the chamber of the Crucible.”

“How easy will it be to get to it?”

“Not easy, I’d reckon. It’s located deep within the Halls, and there must be scores of Misbegotten around.”

“I see,” Hunter said, pondering over the information. “Fawkes, I assume these Misbegotten are the same as the low-dwellers we stumbled upon back in the Weald?”

“It seems so,” said Fawkes, still suspicious of Hunter’s unexpected boldness and initiative. “Or at least it smells so. I’ve never heard the moniker before, but that would be my guess, yes.”

“Okay, cool. So what do we know about them? They hunt in groups, they have a hankering for flesh, and they stink like someone charred a pork steak and let it spoil. What else? Do they have good eyesight? Hearing? Are they weak to, say, fire?”

For a moment, nobody spoke–then Fawkes cleared her throat. Hunter was halfway certain she was about to scold him or give him an earful–it wouldn’t be the first time, after all, nor did he expect it to be the last. To his surprise, however, she didn’t.

“They’re mostly blind,” she said. “but their senses of smell and hearing are sharp. Illumination is going to be an issue, for we need it and they don’t. Other than that, they hunt like wild dogs; they try to flank their prey and overwhelm them with their numbers. They’re fearless and bloodthirsty, but also dumb as a bag of rocks.”

“It is as your friend said”, Sister Peregrine added. “They won’t tire easily, and fire won’t hurt them much, either. Other than that, they’re not particularly hard to put down with blade and arrow. Let them surround you, however, and it will be the last thing you do.”

Hunter was excited, he realized. He’d been on the back foot ever since he’d first logged in Elderpyre. He’d been torn apart by wraiths and clawed by low-dwellers and mauled by giant talking bears and reprimanded by badass old ladies, and he’d taken all that sitting down, because he was an inner-city kid more or less marooned in a place he knew nothing about.

Dungeons, though?

Dungeons he knew, and he knew well. He’d take a good, old-fashioned dungeon crawl over the rest of all that other Elderpyre craziness any day of the week. He’d taken enough, and it was high time he dished something back.

“Okay,” he said, still grinning like a madman. “Here’s how it’s going to go down.”