On the other end of the corridor from the guard room, Jason and Annabeth entered a vast chamber lined with crumbling stone columns. Scattered on the floor were bones, lots of them, many of which seemed to have been gnawed upon by some scavengers.

  There were several exits from the room as well, one of which was a rusted door engraved with an unknown nguage.

  “A warning?”

  Annabeth crossed her arms. “Or an exit sign.”

  Jason snorted, raising the crystal rod to get a better look. “Probably take us right into the arms of those summoner people.”

  Having two other options, after a little argument, they took the corridor straight ahead. However, they didn’t go far before it narrowed as burial niches began to appear along the walls.

  “Just great,” Jason groaned, coming to an immediate stop.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Annabeth reached for her knife, staring at the mummified skeleton lying in the alcove beside her.

  Looking around, waiting for one of the corpses to stand up, Jason commented, “Reminds me of that game Neil that he doesn’t stop talking about.”

  Instead, the attack came from below.

  Three grotesque, monstrous creatures, corrupted beyond recognition, burst from the shadows. Jason’s body reacted instantly, kicking the first down the hallway while blocking the second with the crystal rod, before driving his dagger into the creature’s crimson eye.

  Annabeth handled the third monster just as quickly, punching through the creature’s throat like a fencer before stamping on its neck with her thick boots.

  “What the fuck, that… wasn’t normal,” he muttered, turning to stare at his ex-girlfriend.

  Annabeth, watching the creature he had kicked limp off down the hallway, looked down at her knife. “You moved like you knew what you were doing.”

  “You did too.” Jason studied the hallway, feeling uneasy, then realized something. “I think the one I kicked bit me first.”

  Annabeth knelt, her voice filled with concern, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Doesn’t hurt,” he twisted to look down and get a better look.

  “Idiot.”

  Looking for wounds, she found nothing, but Jason was sure the first creature had taken a chunk out of his calf.

  “Weird,” she said, slowly touching his bare leg.

  The two exchanged gnces, then studied the monstrous flesh-melded abominations they had killed.

  “Pretty sure those aren’t rats,” Jason grimaced in disgust, expecting to be attacked again.

  Annabeth nudged one of the dead creatures with a shudder. “Gross. If this hallway is full of them, I don’t want to go further.”

  Jason let out a humorless ugh. “Right, yeah, good choice.”

  Backtracking led them to the door.

  “I’m not sure about this?”

  “Let’s just take a quick look, we can always leave if we have to.” Annabeth moved forward, pushing it open with ease.

  Jason hesitated before following close behind.

  They found a small flight of stairs going up, and the room beyond, empty, save for a single corpse sprawled on the floor in the center of the room.

  Jason knelt, tapping his dagger against the stone as he studied the skeleton. “Dudes been here a really long time.”

  Annabeth pointed to the body. “Hey, shouldn’t the backpack have rotted away already?”

  “Pretty sure,” Looking up, he grinned. “Shall we look?”

  The two approached weapons ready, closing the distance once they determined it was not about to stand up and attack. Jason mused that the two of them had already become accustomed to thinking that something like that would happen.

  Kneeling, they retrieved the backpack, murmuring a brief prayer before exiting the room, not wanting to explore further until they had a look inside. Sitting on the floor of the guard room, the two ughed upon discovering its contents.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Annabeth's relief was palpable.

  They found a rge sack filled with ftbread wrapped in cloth, stoneware containing dried fruit, and a second rger one with cured meat. Alongside the food were a few personal items: a wooden charm, five thick tallow candles, and a small linen coin purse filled with a dozen small silver coins.

  “Why is this still good?” Annabeth asked, sniffing a slice of ftbread before breaking off a piece.

  Jason put his hand inside, looking for anything else. “Magic, what else. Did you notice that the backpack’s rger inside than the outside?”

  “Like the Tardis,” she chuckled, popping the piece into her mouth. “Oh God, it's still fresh.”

  Taking half of it from his ex-girlfriend's hand, the two chewed in silence.

  “I’m thirsty.” Annabeth put the food away, then slung the backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll carry it, I’m stronger than you.”

  “Right,” Jason made a face, looking down at his body, “Well, food’s no longer a problem. Now, we just need water.”

  Annabeth started walking back toward the other room. “We need to find some soon. You remember the rule of three?”

  Returning, they took the st exit, a stairway going down, nervously passing numerous burial niches, mostly empty, before reaching another chamber adorned with eborate reliefs—a pce of worship to some unknown god or goddess.

  The atmosphere felt peaceful, but they quickly pressed on.

  “Feels like we're intruding.”

  Jason nodded, looking back, unsettled.

  Down another hallway, they found themselves in a room dominated by an altar. A marble statue of an armored god with feathered wings stood with his arms wide on a dais, surrounded by six stone offering bowls. Much like the corpse chamber, a soft glow from above illuminated the walls, revealing carved murals of hundreds of people in prayer.

  Jason tightened his grip on his dagger. “Something doesn’t want us here.”

  Annabeth stepped forward, studying the carvings before pointing to the exit. “Yeah, let's go.”

  And with that, they continued down a hallway lined with skulls, stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Soon, the passage narrowed, forcing them to brush against the remains.

  “Hate that,” Annabeth whined.

  Jason pointed out with a chuckle, “No eldritch rats though.”

  “There is that.”

  “God, this pce is a maze.” Reaching for his dagger, he marked the walls. “We need to be careful; we could get lost.”

  Annabeth smirked. “Because we know where we are now.”

  They had to backtrack, though, and then, after a long corridor, and through another door, found a room with empty stone shelves. In the past, it might have been filled with tomes, but now, only dust remained.

  There were three exits from the room, which made the decision on where to go next so much harder; however, the room had also once been used as a campsite.

  “Whoever made this cooked something here,” Jason knelt, studying the remains of a fire. “There has to be some airflow here, otherwise we would have suffocated already.”

  Nervously, Annabeth looked around. “The adventurers must have been in a hurry; they left a few things. Look at the bedroll, it doesn’t appear to have been here long either.”

  “More like tomb robbers,” Jason chuckled, then smiled upon discovering a crystal rod in a small bag along with a handful of linen bandages.

  “We should take a break,” Annabeth said, sliding down against a wall, reaching into the backpack for some food.

  Jason nodded, rolling up some of the things he found in the bedroll before joining her.

  “This is great, you never said how fun this could be,” Annabeth called out from the far side of the room a little while ter.

  Jason just shook his head. He had already relieved himself, and it was a lot messier.

  “Oh, don’t be such a fucking baby,” she said pulling up her zipper. “My cousin used to take me bow hunting when I was younger. Nothing fun about having to take a crap in the woods.”

  “Wait, you never told me that,” he grumpily pointed out, just one more thing hidden from him.

  Annabeth looked thoughtful. “Pretty positive I did.”

  “You probably confused me with Greg,” Jason growled, then picked up the bedroll and started to leave the room.

  Silently, they moved on; water was going to be an issue real soon.

  Annabeth hesitated as an uneasy feeling settled over her. She stepped back just in time—swinging bdes erupted from the walls.

  “Shit, we also have to deal with traps,” Jason said, looking at his ex-girlfriend with concern. “Are you okay?”

  Watching the sharp bdes retract into the wall as quickly as they had come out, she looked less than happy. “Yeah, let’s not go this way.”

  Another corridor, a cave-in halted their exploration. Jason scowled but marked it with his dagger before returning to the campsite.

  “One st hallway, then we're going to have to return to that room those rat things,” Annabeth groaned unhappily.

  “Well, no time like the present,” Jason moved forward, dagger at the ready.

  A dozen statues of veiled figures kneeling in sorrow, faces worn by time, greeted them in the next chamber. In the back stood a bck marble sarcophagus, surrounded by twelve unlit candles in a circle. But the lid was off and y broken on the floor.

  “This whole pce is like a fucking horror movie,” Annabeth backed away, almost running into her ex-boyfriend.

  Jason grinned. “Want me to get the candles?”

  She turned to yell at him, but he raised his hand.

  “Shh, wait, listen, do you hear that?” Jason murmured.

  The sound of distant weeping echoed through the halls from one of the exits.

  She shuddered fearfully. “God, this is a nightmare.”

  Jason didn’t argue.

  Thankfully, they passed through the next three rooms unhindered while searching each for anything useful. Much like other rooms, there was only debris reted to the deceased, including broken mortuary furniture and small and rge cy jars.

  After quickly bypassing one room with a dozen sealed iron doors burnt with arcane inscriptions, they finally discovered some treasures.

  “Wonder who dropped all of this,” Jason said, sifting through the remains while adding another handful of coins to his leather purse.

  Annabeth tilted her head, inspecting what looked like a set of silver lockpicks before storing them in the backpack. “I can’t believe you knew what they were.”

  Jason gave a sad smile. “Ken used to be big into LARPing. He had a whole bunch of locks scattered around his apartment. I managed to unlock a few of them, but he was pretty good at it.”

  “You mean he was like those guys running around screaming fireball online?”

  Jason stood up, showing off a piece of bck metal armor. “Pretty much. Why don’t we put this on you? Looks like it won’t fit me.”

  “Metal shin guard?”

  Kneeling, he began to tighten it on her right leg. “Greaves, I think that’s what they are called. Too bad there isn’t a matching one.”

  “Better than nothing. Oh, this is pretty,” she fingered a gold neckce with a single glowing red gem.

  “You probably shouldn’t wear it,” Jason leaned over, running his fingers over the small gold disk attached to the chain.

  The gem then fshed, startling both.

  “What the hell was that?” Annabeth jumped, almost dropping it.

  Jason, whose hand never left the neckce, stared at a space in front of him, glowing with words.

  “You have met the requirements of an Arcane Css: Select one.”

  Note: I'm currently in the midst of a move, so any more chapters may take some extra time. Thanks for reading, everyone