“Here, Lirael,” Rayne said, feeling slightly guilty, “You can have all of my torches. That’s my apology gift to you, my friend.”
With a sigh, Lirael grabbed the torches from Rayne’s extended hand and threw them down on the floor beside him, and the grudge began to wane slightly. Suddenly, though, as he noticed XIII, who muttered, “Oh, come on, you should be more angry at him…” Lirael decided to give something a try.
XIII, this is Lirael. I want you to know that I can communicate telepathically. See? Right now Rayne can’t even hear this.
XIII was amused. He replied, You know, I think you should be wary of your so called friend, Rayne. Then he chuckled a little under his breath.
“I’ll keep that in mind…” Lirael said out loud, suspiciously. Rayne looked up, a little confused, but he passed it off.
“Although, he is my friend, and I trust him,” Lirael added.
With a devilish grin, XIII remarked, “Is he really? Would he have attacked you if he was truly your friend?”
Lirael decided not to answer. He trusted Rayne, and this XIII was a stranger. However, now he couldn’t help but wonder just how much he could trust a Daemon and a Shifter for company.
“I think for safety purposes and to help to pass the time, we should explore this place a bit further,” He said to ease the tension he may have been imagining.
Rayne hopped up in agreement, “Great idea. The rats came from over there so let’s try the door on the left first.”
So they did just that. What they came to find was a small chamber with a single statue at the far end. It resembled a sarcophagus standing upright, except that the head of the figure carved upon its lid looked distorted and seemed to have tendrils instead of hair. A pair of bat-like wings extended from its temples. As they walked in, prepared to examine it further, its eyes opened, revealing the glow of green flames, and the head flew forward right off the monument to attack the unsuspecting trio.
Before either of the other two could react, Lirael pushed through them with a fierceness they had not yet encountered, his eyes flashing into a mesmerizing glow as he peered almost as if into the depths of the lesser vargouille’s soul. Then it looked as though the thing went mad as it flew backwards, screeching a hideous plea for mercy in its barbaric monster call. When it hit the far wall it slid to the floor, and began writhing as if in terrible pain until suddenly its skull cracked right in half and the grey matter from inside sputtered out violently.
In the same instant XIII scurried out of the room on all fours and out of sight. Lirael’s eyes calmed down to normal and he looked down upon the hideously slain monster with contempt. Rayne gave a simple, “Hmph,” and walked over to the sarcophagus to see if there was anything else of interest inside. Buried in a pile of dust he found a ring in surprisingly good condition.
“Rayne, may I have a word?” Lirael asked innocently.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I only wish to apologize for XIII’s remarks earlier,” He said, “Surely you heard him commenting about you attacking me…Well, I would like to offer you a truce. I do trust you and I don’t want any hard feelings between us…”
Rayne stepped forward to Lirael with his hand outstretched, the brilliant new ring he found in his palm, “Here, take this as well. I really wanna repay you for that stupid move I did earlier. I don’t want any hard feelings either.”
Lirael takes the ring with a smile and pats him on the shoulder as they walk back out into the main chamber.
Meanwhile, XIII had taken the liberty of exploring what lay beyond the door on the opposite side of the room. He discovered a small stone chest in the center of an otherwise empty, albeit dusty, chamber. In his excitement and haste, XIII reached for the chest immediately and pushed it open, setting off a trap that any other, more precautionary adventurer would have noticed right away upon careful inspection. But nevertheless, XIII was skimmed quite badly by a fusillade of darts. He barely even noticed, however, as he lunged for the glistening treasure inside.
Out in the main chamber, Lirael and Rayne had decided to split up in order to look for XIII. Lirael found him, of course, shoveling gold into his arms in the second chamber. Upon seeing gold pieces, Lirael was suddenly overcome with a lust for the riches he saw his questionable comrade hoarding all for himself. So he coerced him into sharing some of the gold.
“Here, I will give you this pearl if you promise not to tell your ‘friend’ Rayne about this treasure,” XIII bribed Lirael with a smile after they had finished divvying up the coins amongst themselves.
Lirael was hesitant but ultimately his greed over ruled his loyalty, “Sure, sure, it’s our little secret, XIII.”
It was fine, he justified with himself, he would end up sharing the money with Rayne indirectly anyway.
“We should go find him, XIII. We split up to find you so there is the possibility that he may be in danger right now.”
On the contrary, however, they discovered him waiting just inside the third and final doorway of the main chamber.
“Rayne, what are you doing? We were supposed to be looking for XIII!” Lirael questioned.
“I got the feeling like there’s something dangerous up ahead,” Replied Rayne, “Besides, its pitch black in there and I gave away all my torches to you, remember?”
Lirael rolled his eyes at him and led the other two into the long, dark hall, lighting the way.
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