What Lies Beneath

-Silver Wolf Guild Hall, Guild Library-

Dressed in her newly repaired green-and-gold outfit, Leona supervised the dusting of wooden shelves and the unpacking of the books sent from the Order of Lightbringers to Silver Wolf Guild Hall. The books had been received today and were being carefully unpacked and examined. They were all books on werewolves, which were handy to have since quite a few jobs took the guild into the Cursed Lands and werewolves were among the most prominent enemies to roam the area. Leona was hoping to get books on vampires since she had not encountered one yet, but presumably the Order would send those in the future in exchange for her performing more jobs for them. The clerics were crafty like that... they had hooked Leona and now they were exacting a high price for sharing their knowledge.

"These books are great! They're new, up-to-date and everything!" A young staff member exclaimed. Leona had never seen anyone so excited to see new books. Then again, most of the library's offerings on the supernatural were at least one hundred years old, if not older. The guild library was in need of updating its books and replacing those that were too old to be of any use. Leona planned to keep the old books in case they had knowledge that the new books lacked, but her priority was updating the library's books in order for its members to have access to the most current information on potential threats.

A young female staff member walked briskly into the library with a letter in hand. It was on stationery bearing the cross of the Order of Lightbringers. Leona accepted the letter from the young woman and read it.

"Dear Miss Jarnefeldt,

We have another job for you. One of our knights is waiting for you at the Abandoned Cabin. The two of you are to investigate beneath the cabin and find a magical orb rumored to be located underneath it, then bring it back to Holy Castle. Should you succeed in completing this task, we will send you more books with information relevant to your guild." The letter read.

Leona put it down on a rectangular table and sighed. It had been only two days since the job at the Haunted Guild and the Order had already requested her services again. Oh well. As long as they came across with the books and did not try to kill her, the blonde would continue working for them. She pocketed the job notice and walked to her room to gear up. She would also grab her anti-curse vials since the Abandoned Cabin was often reported as a nexus of zombie activity... having them handy was good insurance against joining the ranks of the undead.

Leona grabbed her backpack, Nightshade Machete, and Silver Longsword. She donned her Argent Gloves and left her room to go to the foyer. It was time to pay another visit to the Cursed Lands.

"I'm going to the Abandoned Cabin on a job. I'll be back as soon as possible." Leona informed a waiting staff member, who nodded and took a note to pin to her office door. Leona left the guild hall and called upon her griffin. She climbed onto its back and took flight, setting out for the Abandoned Cabin in order to find the magical orb for the Order and secure more helpful books for her guild. Maybe she would not have to endure more infernal whispering on this job.

[Word Count: 584]
[Total Word Count: 584/8,000]

-Abandoned Cabin, Cursed Lands-

Leona landed on the outskirts of the Abandoned Cabin and dispelled the griffin. She looked around for any signs of the knight or of zombies and soon she spotted both of them standing right next to the cabin that was the area's namesake. Well, it would be more accurate to say that only one of them was standing. Leona walked over to the cabin for a closer look at the person and found a red-headed young woman with blue eyes and an elegant red dress with black lace and yellow decorations that did not look like something a knight ordinarily wore.

"Hi there! You missed all the fun!" She cheerfully exclaimed, hefting a heavy iron mallet to her shoulders. There was a small pile of nine zombies scattered around her with all of their heads smashed in, presumably from the sheer force that the mallet could generate. A mallet was an interesting choice of weapon, but if it got the job done, Leona could not argue with the results.

"Are you from the Order of Lightbringers?" Leona asked the young woman.

"Yeah. My name's Jessica. I'm a knight of the Order!" She introduced herself with an irrepressible cheer.

"I'm Leona Jarnefeldt." Leona introduced herself. The redhead snapped her fingers.

"Yeah, you're that Silver Wolf chick that Diana and Amanda told me about! They told me that you're handy in a fight!" Jessica continued while walking behind Leona.

"You could say that." Leona said modestly. Diana did a good deal of the heavy lifting in Haunted Castle, but Leona saved the day in the Haunted Guild.

"Anyway, let's go see what's under this cabin! I heard it was some magical orb with trapped souls in it! It should be fun!" Jessica urged Leona, playfully nudging the blonde's backside with the mallet to make the latter go forward. The blonde ignored the prodding and opened the cabin door to find a bloodstained wooden floor that looked like something more at home in a slaughterhouse than in a supposedly abandoned cabin. At least there were no zombies waiting inside for them.

"Looks like it's empty. Let's take a closer look. There's gotta be a way to get underground." Leona opined.

"Yeah. Maybe a trap door or secret passage." Jessica agreed. She stood watch in the doorway while the blonde mage searched the room for clues. She ignored the bloodstains on the floor and ran her fingers along the floor, looking for the edge of some trap door. After combing the floor, she finally found it near the middle of the room.

"I found a trap door, but I don't know how to open it." Leona updated the small knight on her discovery. The blonde knocked on the approximate location to show Jessica where it was.

"Let me handle it!" Jessica jumped in. She quickly located the iron ring that served as a handle and yanked the door open, pulling it off to one side. An awful odor greeted their noses and then proceeded to immediately try and punch them in. It was absolutely disgusting.

"Oh man! It smells AWFUL!" Jessica declared before covering her nose with her free hand.

"You've got that right. It smells like rotting meat." Leona concurred before adding her not-so-professional opinion of what the odor smelled like.

"I think you're right, Leona. I wonder if someone dumped bodies down there. It IS a place that no one really goes to." Jessica added further. Leona was not happy about that thought, but it was a logical one. Just because she disliked the idea did not mean that there was no truth to it. She spotted a ladder leading down into the hole.

"There's only one way to find out." Leona said as she gripped the ladder and started down it without prompting from her companion. Jessica muttered a curse as Leona was a quarter of the way down. The blonde fought the urge to gag as she descended into the dark pit. The job had just started and she hated it already. She was curious as to what unpleasant things she would discover at the bottom of the tunnel.

"Wait for me!" Jessica shouted, dispelling her mallet and grabbing onto the ladder.

Jessica:

[Word Count: 706]
[Total Word Count: 1,290/8,000]

-At the bottom of the ladder-

Leona was the first one to reach the bottom, so she drew her Silver Longsword and kept an eye out for trouble as Jessica descended the ladder. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and soon she wished that they had not. Jessica's off-hand remark about the hole being used for body disposal was not too far from the truth. Lying at the bottom were half-rotting bodies that had been dropped haphazardly and made stacks two bodies high. They were lying in all sorts of positions and looked to be men and women alike, but it was hard to tell since the bodies were so badly decomposed.

"Oh man! It's awful!" Jessica complained about the smell. Leona felt obligated to warn the small knight about her surroundings.

"Just a heads-up. Remember when you said that someone dumped bodies down here? You were right." Leona commented briefly, closing her mouth so that the stench did not settle on her tongue. Jessica raised a hand and created a glowing ball of golden light that illuminated the immediate area. She covered her mouth and nose with a red handkerchief with black lace on its edges.

"I hate it when I'm right." Jessica lamented through the cloth cover, clearly struggling not to throw up. Leona brought out her backpack, grabbed her desert cloak, and wrapped it around her nose to block out the assault on her nose. The pair found themselves staring down a hallway lined with skulls ensconced in alcoves and lined up neatly side-by-side. Their empty eye sockets were peering out at the mages and daring them to proceed further. Lying scattered around the hallway were piles of bones and the occasional complete skeleton, possibly the bodies from which the skulls were taken.

"This looks like a trophy hall." Leona observed. The hallway was just tall enough for Leona to walk upright without her head brushing the ceiling. It was wide enough for three people to walk side-by-side, which gave the pair a little room to maneuver if they got into a fight.

"Yeah." Jessica concurred as the pair began walking past the silent sentries and past the bones scattered throughout the hallway. At the end of the hall was a solid wooden door which attracted their attention because it was the only man-made object other than the ladder. It was also the only way they could go other than up, so they walked towards it with caution. There was no predicting what else was down here besides skulls, bones, and rotting bodies. There was the possibility that the person or thing that made the corpses was also down here as a guardian of the magical orb.

"What's behind Door Number One? Well, the only door down here in this stinking hellhole?" Jessica asked rhetorically as Leona put a hand on the door handle and opened it. The small knight looked inside and immediately brandished her weapon. Leona followed suit.

"Zombies! It's go time!" Jessica called out enthusiastically. She rushed in and Leona followed close behind. It was time to fight.

-Inside the room-

The room was a square one filled with what looked to be eight wooden tables and what were two dozen zombies. The wooden tables were of no concern, but the walking corpses certainly were. The two immediately began to fight off the two dozen zombies filling the room.

"Too slow!" Jessica taunted as she lifted her mallet, jumped into the air, and brought it down on the head of a zombie, turning its head into a smashed melon. She repeated the process for two more zombies and destroyed another three with golden flames that erupted from her free hand.

While Jessica was making quick work of her attackers, Leona was busy fending off her own unsavory personal space invaders. She stabbed one in the brain, then withdrew the sword and punched another one in the face with her left hand before stabbing another in the head. She withdrew the sword from the head of the second zombie and had to jump back to avoid a female zombie grabbing for her left arm... she used Wind Blast to knock four of them down and buy herself a bit of breathing room to deal with the rotting female.

Leona used a Mach Straight to slug the female in the face and smashed her face in completely by accident, making the blonde yelp in surprise. She then turned and stabbed a prone zombie through the skull, then withdrew the blade and stabbed another through the skull. Not having enough time to pull out the Silver Longsword, Leona drew her Nightshade Machete. It had a cutting edge and enough length to reach out and cut her attackers. Since zombies were not spirits, the machete would do nicely against them since they were only walking corpses.

Jessica had finished her zombies and was rushing over to help Leona take care of the remaining dozen. Leona took care of two with stabs to the brain and dealt with a third in the same fashion before the redhead lent her holy fire to the fight, destroying another four before they could even turn to face her. The blonde soon finished the remaining three with her machete. It would have been five, but the excited Jessica smashed in two zombie heads with her weapon.

"Yeah! Those shamblers weren't a match for us!" Jessica exclaimed before giving a celebratory fist pump. Leona wiped off her machete, then put it away and reclaimed her Silver Longsword from the skull of a dead zombie. The redhead scanned the room for any more signs of trouble, but she did not find any new enemies to fight.

"Way to go, Leona! You were going through them like Kayson Warheez!" Jessica complimented Leona while swiping empty air with her free hand and making exaggerated stabbing noises. Leona looked around the square room while the small knight continued to celebrate their victory. Just like last time, there was only one way forward, and that was through a solid wooden door just past the tables. The tables were all coated in dried blood and had chop marks on them. The blonde had a feeling that she knew what exactly the tables were used for.

[Word Count: 1,046]
[Total Word Count: 2,336/8,000]

"Well, that was fun. Now what?" Jessica asked once she settled down from the post-battle euphoria. Leona wordlessly pointed towards the door in front of them.

"OK. Let's go through the door and see what's on the other side. It's not like we have any other choice." Jessica commented. Leona walked past the bloody tables and put her hand on the door with the knight ready to attack anything that came through. The redhead gave a signal and Leona opened the door.

Jessica rushed ahead and Leona followed close behind. They found themselves in a hallway like the one they had gone through to get here; the dimensions were exactly the same as the first hall. So were the neatly aligned skulls in the alcoves. Leona shut the door behind them and proceeded down the hall with Jessica in the lead.

"It's kinda cold all of a sudden." Jessica commented. Leona felt the change in temperature as well. The redhead noticed something just ahead and stopped to summon a new light orb to light the way when a spectral form appeared. It was a blue ghost with no legs that stood roughly six feet high if it could stand on the ground.

"Great. Ghosts." Jessica remarked as she readied her mallet for more action. It started glowing gold. Leona theorized that Order knights could channel Holy magic into their weapons to enable weapons made from ordinary materials to harm spirits. The blonde did not have Holy magic, but she did have a Silver Longsword, and that was good enough for her.

More ghosts began to materialize from nowhere to bar their path. The ghosts appeared to be angry at them and wanted the mages to join them in death. Leona and Jessica were not ready to die yet and would fight for their lives with everything they had. The pair looked at one another and looked towards the spectral army in their path.

"Things are gonna get loud." Jessica remarked before charging toward the ghosts. Leona clenched her teeth and followed behind the redhead. Her mallet started smashing through the ghosts and filling the air with screams as she went to work. Leona followed behind, cutting through the ghosts that the knight had missed with her first attacks.

"RELEASE US!" A female ghost shouted before Leona "cut" her in half at the waist.

"LET US DIE!" A male ghost pleaded as his face got "smashed" in by Jessica's mallet.

"END OUR SUFFERING!" Another male pleaded.

For every ghost the pair got rid of, two more seemed to pop up to replace them. They would be overwhelmed if they stayed and fought, so they decided to make a break for the door down the hall. They fought their way through the spectral crowd and eventually reached the door just ahead of the ghostly gang right on their heels.

-Inside the room-

Leona and Jessica barely escaped the ghosts. Leona recalled their words as she quietly rejoiced in their narrow escape. The glow from the redhead's weapon faded away.

"Why aren't they chasing us? Do you think they wanted us to go in here?" Leona asked Jessica.

"I don't know, but they talked a lot about letting them die and ending their suffering. What did they mean by that?" Jessica asked Leona in return. That was a good question. Maybe it had something to do with the magical orb they were sent to retrieve.

"I think it has something to do with the orb we're after, Jessica. I don't have any proof, but I think that if we can find the orb, we'll find some answers." Leona voiced her theory to the knight. Jessica looked at Leona for a moment and looked through the room for any threats before speaking up.

"You may be right, Leona. I wonder if it has the souls of those people in it. You know, like something a necromancer used to absorb the souls of his victims for one of his sick experiments." Jessica said to Leona.

"I thought necromancers wanted bodies. What would they need souls for?" Leona asked the Order knight.

"I don't know. Amanda's the one you wanna ask about that. She's the one with a grudge against necromancers. Me, I'm just here to beat up whatever the Order tells me to beat up." Jessica answered candidly. Leona could not argue with that simple logic. The blonde was also taking orders from the Lightbringers and only knew what she was told before a job. Extra information was not volunteered with any regularity, leaving the Silver Wolf mage to fill in the gaps on her own unless her employers were feeling generous.

Leona looked around the square room and found eight more tables with dried bloodstains on them. On the left side of the room were six barrels with lids on them. On the right side of the room was a long wooden table positioned roughly in the middle of the wall and on the table sat a human skull, a human anatomy chart, and a brown notebook that had red smudge marks on the cover. That was something worth investigating.

"Hey Jessica, I see a notebook on that counter. I'm checking it out." Leona notified Jessica, who nodded and began to investigate the barrels on the left side of the room on her own. The blonde walked over to the table and set a hand on the notebook. She began to thumb through it in a search for clues about both the occupant of this place and their unsavory activities.

[Word Count: 926]
[Total Word Count: 3,262/8,000]

Leona thumbed through the notebook until she came across a section with a rather interesting sketch. It was a sketch of a sphere that was about the size of a basketball with a human face on the front of it and the face appeared to be screaming. There was a note below it that shed a little light on the matter.

"Here is the fruit of months of work and I call it the Essence Orb. With the Essence Orb finally completed, eternal life is one step closer to becoming a reality. If there is one problem with it, it is that creating a single orb requires no less than fifty lives. I have managed to make multiple orbs for experiments before making the perfect one, but it is getting harder to hide evidence of my... activities." The unknown author wrote under the orb in neat, legible handwriting.

"Each orb required no less than fifty lives to create and I have been unable to get by with any less than that number because the orb simply refuses to form. So far I have managed to harvest lone travelers in the area for my experiments, but they are getting wise to my scheme because now I see teams of travelers who are armed. It is only a matter of time before the authorities come to investigate. It would be wise for me to relocate and take my experiments elsewhere. Perhaps I should set up a new shelter in Silent Cemetery for awhile... the undead who dwell there will make excellent guardians." Another note just below the first outlined the flaws of creating an Essence Orb.

Leona could see how needing to kill fifty people for each orb was a problem. There were only so many kills that could be made in the same area before suspicion that there was more than the supernatural at work grew and the authorities had to investigate. The blonde looked for any more notes that the author may have made. She thumbed through the notebook in search of any more clues on the "Essence Orb" or what was involved in its creation, but she could find nothing until the very end, where a brief note on a better version of the orb was written.

"If I harvest 100 souls, I may be able to make a better, more powerful Essence Orb."
Read the brief note. Leona did not think that she was going to glean anything useful from it, so she picked up the notebook and took it to Jessica, who was still examining the six barrels on the left side of the room.

"I found this notebook. Maybe the Order should take custody of it. It talks about an Essence Orb and how it takes fifty human souls to make each one. There's also a brief note about a possible improved version that takes one hundred souls to make." Leona summarized her discovery to the small knight. Jessica turned away from trying to pry open one of the closed barrels and spoke to her.

"Oh yeah? What else did you learn?" Jessica asked, nonchalantly leaning on a barrel with her arms crossed.

"I learned that we might be paying a visit to Silent Cemetery soon. The author of this notebook mentioned that he had to relocate because the authorities were closing in on them." Leona replied. Jessica looked interested when she heard that.

"OK. As soon as we get back to Holy Castle, I want you to tell the others what you told me. We'll also want to take a look at the notebook." Jessica informed Leona. That was fine with the Silver Wolf mage. It was not like she had any use for it. Besides, if the police or Rune Knights caught her with the notebook, they might think she was the one who had been killing people and stealing their souls for some sketchy experiment.

"Sure thing. I'll give it to you guys and let you sort it out." Leona expressed her willingness to help the Order. Despite what Diana and Father Morris thought the other day, Leona was not their enemy. She was willing to help them out because she was devoted to any job she took on.

"Great." Jessica said while leaning against the barrels. She leaned too hard and almost fell backwards... Leona stretched her hand out and barely caught the redhead before she fell. The barrels toppled over and landed in a haphazard pile, but that was not what was interesting. They noticed that a wall behind the barrels had moved when one of the wooden containers struck it during the fall. Normal walls did not move when struck by heavy objects.

"Hey did you...?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah. Hold on, lemme move those barrels." Leona said as she picked up the first and moved it with the help of her Argent Gloves. She repeated the process until all six had been removed, upon which Jessica walked up to the wall section slowly in case more zombies were waiting just behind it. The redhead did not find zombies, but she found something else of interest.

"Hey, is this that Essence Orb thing the notebook mentioned?" Jessica asked, bearing a basketball-sized blue orb in her hands. On it was a screaming human face. Leona brought out the notebook and flipped to the section with a sketch of the orb, then held the sketch up to the orb the knight was holding. The sketch matched the object.

"Yeah. I think we found it." Leona answered. So they had finally found what they had been looking for. It was easier than she imagined... she thought that it would have been hidden in a more secure location, possibly even guarded by more zombies. But then a thought hit her.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jessica asked Leona.

"What if those ghosts are the guardians of the orb? You know, because it has their souls in it?" Leona finished the thought. The two of them looked at each other as loud wailing sounded in the hallway they had come in through. Getting out of here was going to be quite the challenge.

Essence Orb:

[Word Count: 1,028]
[Total Word Count: 4,290/8,000]

The mages looked at each other as they tried to think of a way out of their present predicament. While they had found the orb that the Order had tasked them with locating and securing, now they had to get out of the underground alive and with the Essence Orb before the mission could be considered a success. They did not have too much time to think because the wailing was getting louder by the second. Leona wrapped the Essence Orb in her desert cloak and crammed the package into her backpack.

"How are we gonna get outta here?" Leona asked the knight.

"We're not going out in the hall of ghosts because that's suicide. There. Through that door." Jessica said, pointed a gloved finger towards the secret room they had just uncovered minutes ago. In addition to the object, there was also a metal door that the mages had just now spotted. With the threat of being overwhelmed by ghosts not too far away, the focused mages had found what they had missed just moments ago.

"I don't know. What if it's booby-trapped?" Leona asked. Jessica put her hands on her hips and frowned.

"Look, if you wanna go greet the ghosts and have a friendly chat with them, that's up to you. Just gimme the orb before you do!" Jessica retorted. The redhead had a point. Hanging around to fight them or trying to fight through them to get to an exit was suicide.

"Fine. Let's try that door." Leona tersely agreed. She was not too keen on wading through a small army of ghosts to get out of here. At this point going into the unknown beat staying and facing certain death. The blonde was willing to risk the unknown passageway.

"I'll go first!" Jessica said, hustling into the hidden room and opening the door. As Leona turned to follow, blue forms started appearing through the walls and reaching for her. The ghosts were no longer content to wait outside for the mages. The specters were taking the initiative and coming in after them!

"They're coming in after us! Hurry!" Leona said while grabbing Jessica's mallet and hurrying to the hidden room just ahead of the spectral pursuers. Jessica seized her mallet and held the door open long enough for the blonde to hurry through. Once Leona was through the redhead slammed the door shut.

-Inside the passageway-

The pair found themselves in a narrow passageway with damp stone floors that was dimly lit by strange blue crystals dotting the wall and bathing the corridor in pale blue light. It was only wide enough to let them proceed side-by-side and barely high enough for Leona to walk upright without bending over. It was not a comfortable escape route, but the pair had bought themselves a little bit of breathing room by taking it. With luck they could even find a way out.

"We're safe for the moment, but that door won't hold them very long. We need to keep going. We need to find a way out." Jessica commented on their situation while walking briskly. Leona did not argue. She too was looking for a way out of this place.

"That door won't hold them at all. They're ghosts. They don't need doors." Leona reminded her companion of what they were running from. As incorporeal enemies, they did not need to open doors to chase the pair. That made the redhead quicken her pace towards the only door in view.

"Don't remind me." Jessica shot back as the pair reached the halfway point. They had not taken five steps past it when the first of the blue forms passed through the doorway and spotted them, raising a translucent finger and unleashing a loud wail. More ghosts appeared soon after the mages were spotted.

"They found us!" Leona warned, quickening her pace to a slow jog. Jessica skipped the jog and broke into a full run. The ghosts also quickened their pace to that equivalent to a fast jog. Leona broke into a full run herself and reached the door before Jessica, yanking it open.

"GO GO GO!" Leona urged the small knight, who was running as fast as she could go. Jessica rushed through and Leona followed shortly after, shutting the door behind them out of sheer habit. Shutting a door was not going to stop their relentless pursuers because they did not obey the laws of physics that morals did. At least it made them feel a little better in the face of a situation that would frighten all but the bravest individuals.

-Inside the next room-

Leona and Jessica rushed into the next room and paused because what they saw was unexpected. In front of them was a giant circular pool of water that was so clear that it was frightening. They expected a murky pool of water filled with corpses, zombie alligators, or Wizard Saints knew what else, but all they saw was a clear pool of water with an open grate in the back. There was no other door or opening to exit through and going back meant certain death, so it looked like they would be in for a swim.

"Where are we?" Leona asked.

"Looks like a cistern. You know, storage for drinking water." Jessica answered.

"I wouldn't want to drink any of the water down here. We don't know where it came from." Leona commented on the questionable sanitation of the water.

"Great. I hate swimming. I can't swim in this dress!" Jessica complained. Leona herself was reticent to swim because she was wearing boots and a skirt and was also loaded down with gear like weapons and supplies.

"We don't have a choice. We swim or we die." Leona commented to her companion, who groaned in resignation before taking her boots off. Jessica handed Leona her mallet. Leona began taking off her boots and stashing them inside her already full backpack. She secured all her weapons to her body and prepared for a swim for her life.

"OK, let's get this over with." Jessica complained with audible reluctance on her voice.

"Yeah. Let's get this over with." Leona repeated with the same lack of enthusiasm as Jessica. She just realized that the notebook of evidence was in her backpack, which was about to enter water. Paper and ink hated water. She hoped that the Order could dry it out and restore it with some magic because otherwise they would have a hard time providing evidence of what had gone on in the makeshift underground laboratory.

[Word Count: 1,096]
[Total Word Count: 5,386/8,000]

Leona and Jessica had just finished preparing for a swim when the first ghostly hands reached through the door, attempting to grab them before they could get into the water. The two mages jumped into the water and swam for what passed for safety because the ghosts halted their pursuit and congregated at the "shore" where they were just standing. Swimming in clothing not appropriate for swimming was going to be rough, but it beat certain death at the hands of angry ghosts.

The pair swam for the middle of the cistern and made sure they were above the open grate, then took a deep breath and dove down into the clear water. Leona did not know that this job required a swimsuit. If she got back to civilization, she was going to buy a waterproof and watertight backpack and carry it from here on out. First she would have to survive the swim.

-Under the water-

Leona and Jessica made their way towards the open grate and hoped that it would lead them out of this place. The water had to flow in from somewhere and the grate was the only opening in the room, so this had to be the right way. Jessica soon passed Leona because all she had to carry was her boots while Leona had the knight's mallet, her backpack, and her weapons.

They continued to swim for it because their breath would not last forever. It was arduous going when one was laden down with equipment and not wearing clothing suitable for swimming. They passed through the grate and continued to swim through the pipe because stopping now meant death by drowning. Neither mage looked forward to that unpleasant possibility.

Jessica stopped briefly and gestured towards something above them. Leona looked up and spotted a gap in the pipe with water sparking above. She was about to run out of air, so the opportunity to surface and take another breath was definitely welcome. The pair surfaced and spoke for a moment.

"I hate this. I hate water in my eyes." Jessica complained while wiping her eyes.

"Me too, but it's our only realistic way outta here. Besides, we've already committed to swimming out. We can't go back now." Leona said to Jessica, who did not like their situation at all.

"You're right. I know that Order of Lightbringers knights are supposed to be brave and not complain about anything, but I hate this. I hate swimming in my dress. It's waterlogged and it drags me down." Jessica complained. Leona's green-and-gold outfit was waterlogged too. Even without boots it was hampering her ability to swim quickly.

"We'll get through this, Jessica. We'll get outta here and we'll give the Essence Orb to Father Morris. Then we'll be on dry land for awhile. Hopefully a long while." Leona reassured Jessica. The redhead seemed rather young for a knight. Maybe she was just short for her age.

"I hope so." Jessica said.

"We will. Now we'd better get going. I don't know if those ghosts can swim and I don't wanna find out." Leona said to the knight.

"Me neither." Jessica said to Leona. The two of them took a deep breath and submerged simultaneously. They did not know how much farther they had to go, but they were glad that they had stopped to surface for air.

The two dove down and swam forward. There looked to be a light at the end of the tunnel, which certainly boosted their spirits and gave them some hope. Jessica gestured towards it and passed Leona, picking up her swimming speed. Leona followed suit, but her speed was a bit slower because of everything she carried. The blonde hoped that she could reached the end of the tunnel and surface before she drowned.

They kept swimming until they were at the end of the tunnel, swimming as fast as they could go to make it while they still had air. Leona was halfway to the surface when she gave out and involuntarily swallowed water, unable to suppress the breathing reflex long enough to make it to the surface. Jessica surfaced ahead of her and helped the blonde to shore, taking her mallet and setting it aside while she hauled Leona onto the stone floor.

Leona coughed up water and struggled to breathe for several tense seconds. She coughed and coughed and it seemed like the waterlogged blonde would never stop coughing. Jessica knelt over her with a worried look on her face.

Eventually Leona stopped coughing and started breathing normally in rapid, shallow breaths. Breathing in water was very painful... her stomach felt terrible, but at least she was still alive thanks to Jessica's timely aid. Without the redhead Leona might not have been able to reach the shore and might have drowned so close to safety. That would have been a particularly bad way to go.

"Hey Leona, are you OK?" Jessica asked.

"...Yeah." Leona gasped.

"...You don't swim very much, do you?" Jessica asked as she began to squeeze water out of her dress.

"No. I'm from Desierto. We... we don't swim much in the desert." Leona answered calmly while slowly sitting up. She turned her head coughed up another mouthful of water right into the cistern.

"I'm from Capital Crocus. I don't swim much either. Maybe I should have taken more swimming lessons." Jessica admitted to her companion, who was busy coughing up water. Moments later the blonde had finished expelling leftover water from her lungs and was able to talk.

"Well. I told you we'd. We'd make it." Leona sputtered to Jessica, who had finished wringing out her dress and was now wringing out her hat. Her boots were sitting on the ground beside her mallet. Leona needed to wring out some of her belongings too... she dreaded seeing the notebook after it had been for a prolonged dip in the water. It was probably a mess of soaked paper and smeared ink, if any ink was still left on the pages to begin with.

"Well, I'm glad that's over. Now we've gotta get out of here. It looks like there's another door. It's the only door, really, but you know what I mean." The redhead chimed in, pointing a gloved hand towards another metal door. Leona looked down and towards the water and spotted trouble below. The ghosts were still after them!

"Damn! These guys don't give up!" Leona declared, her lethargy replaced by a strong sense of urgency. Not even bothering to put on her boots, Leona drew her Silver Longsword as Jessica put on her boots and waited until Jessica grabbed her mallet and opened the door.

"Hurry!" The redhead urged Leona. The barefoot blonde hustled to the door with water spewing from her waterlogged backpack and barely made it before Jessica crowded in after her and slammed the door shut. They were safe again... for the moment.

[Word Count: 1,156]
[Total Word Count: 6,542/8,000]

-Inside the tunnel-

"Does this situation seem familiar to you?" Jessica asked in a snarky voice. They were inside another passageway, but this one was so narrow that they could only proceed in single-file. It was tall enough for Leona to pass through if she stooped down, which was not too hard to do because of her waterlogged backpack, which was still spewing water. Thankfully the strange blue crystals were here to light the way in an otherwise bleak stone corridor.

"Yeah. We're in a tunnel in the dark and we're being chased by ghosts. This is definitely familiar territory." Leona commented back. Leona had taken the lead and was wincing with every step because she did not have her boots on. The redhead noticed that and stopped walking. Leona paused in place and painfully turned around to face the redhead.

"Put your boots on, Leona. We've got a long way to go and I can't have you with hurt feet before we get outta here!" Jessica ordered. Leona did not think they had the time to spare for her to do that, but the former was not budging. Leona obediently took the backpack off of her shoulders, set it down on the floor, and fished out her boots, which were soaking wet. She put the squishy footwear on and groaned in unhappiness. She then closed the backpack and put it onto her back.

"OK, let's keep going!" Jessica ordered again. Leona painfully turned around and resumed the forward walk to freedom... or at least she hoped that they were heading towards freedom. She did not have much choice because there were no other doors to go through and no other way out except to go forward. They could not hang around and search for other passages that might not even exist.

The pair walked in the pale blue light and felt chilled due to the wet clothes from their unexpected swim. At least they were on dry land again. They had a better chance of getting away from the ghosts on dry land than they did in the water by virtue of being able to move faster over land. They needed any advantage they could get to elude their persistent pursuers because in this race there was no consolation prize for second place.

They reached the metal door and took a moment to relax and wring out their clothing again before seeing what waited for them on the other side. Jessica coaxed more water out of her dress and hat and Leona squeezed some out of her skirt and outfit top. With some of the water drained from them, their wet clothes were a little wrinkled and still cold but were slowly becoming more bearable to wear. That was good because it was cold outside and they needed to be as dry as possible before going into it. It would suck to survive zombies, ghosts, and a long underwater swim but die from hypothermia.

They finished wringing out their clothing and opened the metal door. On the other side was a stone wall with skulls in alcoves... they were on familiar ground once again. They went through the door and shut it behind them.

-In the hall-

The two mages stood on familiar ground and spread out with their weapons at the ready. There were no ghosts or no zombies, but that did not mean that they were safe yet. The ghosts could appear anywhere at any time and had demonstrated that ability at least four times before. Leona wished that she had not even thought about them because they soon put in an appearance that was heralded by their voices.

"RELEASE US!"

"LET US DIE!"

"END OUR SUFFERING!"

"Not again!" Jessica groaned, channeling golden energy into her weapon. Leona gripped her longsword and faced left. There was one of the wooden doors they had went through earlier. If her memory was accurate, the room with the zombies was to their left. To their right was the makeshift lab they had just left behind. They did not want to go back to the lab because the ghosts might be waiting for them to try and go that way again.

"TO THE LEFT!" Leona shouted while turning and facing the door down the hall, narrowly avoiding being grabbed by pale blue hands reaching through the wall as she led the way.

"WAIT!" Jessica shouted before rushing to follow Leona, who had cleaved through two ghosts on her way to the door. Leona held it opened and watched as her colleague smashed through two more ghosts with her enchanted weapon. Jessica ran through and Leona cut the arm off of a ghost before she got an opening to go through the door herself. She yanked it closed and turned around to find that more ghosts were ahead of them.

-Inside the first room-

"NOT AGAIN!" Jessica yelled with a slight edge of panic on her voice. Leona took a quick look around and thanked the Wizard Saints that her hunch was right. They were now in the first room they had explored while looking for the Essence Orb.

"We can't turn back! We have to go forward!" Leona urged her. She sprinted ahead and used her longsword to cut through three of the ghosts before coming to a stop in between two wooden tables, spurring the redhead to help Leona by bashing a few of the ghosts the blonde had missed. Once the pair had room to do so, they sprinted for the door and Leona opened it with her free hand. Jessica wordlessly sprinted through and Leona shut it behind them.

-Inside the first hallway-

"There's the ladder!" Jessica yelled, jabbing a finger towards the metal ladder they used to get down here to begin with. Freedom was near. Unfortunately, so were the ghosts... the spectral pursuers were right on their heels!

"GO!" Leona ordered. She and Jessica ran for it and the smaller girl reached the ladder first. She ignored the nearby bodies, dispelled her weapon, and frantically climbed the ladder as Leona watched the ghosts draw closer and closer. The blonde quickly put away her weapon and turned around, grabbing the ladder and climbed as fast as she could with all the weight on her back.

"KEEP GOING!" Leona shouted. Jessica continued to climb for her life. She screamed as something fluttered off of her head... it was her hat!

"MY HAT!" The redhead screeched. Leona took a hand off the ladder and grabbed it, just barely avoiding losing her balance at a time where she could ill afford any delays. The ghosts had reached the bottom of the ladder and were slowly floating up towards them with murder in their eyes.

"I'VE GOT IT! KEEP GOING! KEEP GOING!" Leona shouted back. Clutching the hat, the blonde kept climbing as Jessica finally reached the top and turned around. She helped Leona up the ladder and then kicked the wooden trapdoor closed. The blonde handed back the red hat she had nearly fallen off the ladder to catch before it drifted down into darkness.

"Here you go!" Leona handed over the hat to Jessica, who looked so happy to be out of the underground that she could cry.

"Thanks Leona!" She exclaimed happily for the first time since their underground adventure began. They heard moaning in the distance that sounded like it was coming from the woods. The moaning sounded like that of zombies... more zombies were coming out to play.

[Word Count: 1,252]
[Total Word Count: 7,794/8,000]

-Outside the cabin-

The two mages rushed outside the cabin and into the open, where more zombies were indeed beginning to gather, slouching out of the nearby woods towards their potential meal. Leona wondered if they gathered naturally around the cabin or were drawn to them because she had the Essence Orb in her possession. She did not want to hang around and find out.

"How are we gonna get out of here?" Jessica asked while clutching her mallet. The zombies were slowly closing in and there were dozens of them.

"Easy." Leona answered with confidence before raising a hand and calling upon her griffin. The creature arrived and landed in a clearing with majestic ease.

"Our ride's here! Let's GO!" Leona shouted. Jessica sprinted to the griffin and hopped on its back, clutching her hat with her free hand. Leona followed suit and all but jumped onto her griffin's back.

"Get us out of here! To Holy Castle!" Leona yelled.

"It will be done." The griffin replied, flapping its wings and taking off just in time to avoid the grasping hands of zombies who had popped up beneath them. The mages were flying at treetop level and left their rotten pursuers behind. They were on the way to safety.

-Holy Castle, six hours later-

The blonde and the redhead landed at the entrance to Holy Castle and dismounted the griffin. Father Morris, Diana, and Amanda were waiting on them.

"You look like you two have had quite the adventure. What did you find?" Father Morris inquired.
Leona dropped her backpack and fished out the Essence Orb, unwinding it from its soggy cloth cover and presenting it to the older cleric.

"You were right. There was an orb under the Abandoned Cabin. It's called the Essence Orb." Leona said to him. Diana and Amanda marveled as Father Morris took it and beheld the screaming face. He shuddered at the sight.

"Also, I found this notebook, but it's a bit waterlogged. I don't know if anything is still on its pages, but you're welcome to try to find something." Leona informed them before handing the notebook to Amanda.

"Leona said that the notebook talked about how its author had to kill fifty people just to make that orb. She also said that the author moved to Silent Cemetery!" Jessica exclaimed excitedly. Father Morris muttered a prayer for the people who were killed to make the object he was holding. Diana and Amanda took a step back from the blue orb and eyed it warily.

"Well done, Miss Jarnefeldt! You have persevered over daunting odds and come through for us again!" Father Morris congratulated her.

"Thanks, Father Morris. Jessica was a big help. I would have died from drowning if she wasn't with me." Leona replied, putting her wariness of the Order aside because she was glad to be alive.

"Leona saved my life too, you know! She helped me kill zombies and fight ghosts and swim through that tunnel and get away from more zombies outside the cabin!" Jessica excitedly summarized their exploits.

"It seems like you two have had quite an adventure. Miss Jarnefeldt, please be our guest for the night." The cleric suggested. Leona wanted to return home, but after all of that running she was too tired to fly again. She took a chance and accepted the offer of hospitality.

"Thank you, Father Morris. I'd like that." Leona said while dispelling the griffin.

"Splendid! Please, come in and relax!" He urged her as the quintet entered Holy Castle. It was another resounding success for Leona. She wondered when she would be called upon to go to Silent Cemetery in pursuit of the notebook's author.

[Word Count: 616]
[Total Word Count: 8,410/8,000]