"I don't know," Luke said as they continued to walk down the dark corridor. "Some blonde guy named Lukas."
"Lukas?!" Axel shouted in surprise, making Luke flinch. "He's Jess' partner?"
"Apparently," Luke confirmed, rubbing his sore ear that was closest to Axel. "The commander of this fortress, and her men, killed him."
"But this you said that was months ago!" Axel reminded.
"Yeah, I did." Luke repeated, not seeing the significance of Axel's outburst. "Why so concerned?"
"Because I saw Lukas in the City, about two months ago, at the Tournament! He wasn't dead..." Axel then remembered what happened soon after. "...Until Jess killed him."
"Are you sure we're talking about the same Lukas here?" Luke asked in disbelief. "Blonde? Former member of the Ocelots? Archer? Level 320?"
"Yes!" Axel confirmed as the lighting in the hallway became darker. "Are you sure this commander lady killed him?"
"Oh she did," Luke nodded. "She brought his corpse to the king as proof." He revealed, much to Axel's shock. "Rumor has it she keeps it like a trophy, using magic to preserve his body in fine condition,"
"That's horrible," Axel whispered. "But none of this is making sense!"
"I think it does," Luke shook his head. "The commander lied."
"But what about Lukas' corpse?" Axle asked, remembering how it disappeared throughout Jess' assault. "How did this lady get it?"
"That's what I can't figure out," Luke replied. "If Lukas was at the Tournament, and died, maybe the commander used magic to teleport his body and claimed that she killed him?"
"I don't see how though," Axle commented. "If my story is true, then the time gap would be too big. Jess and Lukas was at the Twilight Forest a month before the Tournament started; over three months ago."
"And if it is true, then that means the commander is a fraud." Luke said in disgust. "But she was in the Twilight Forest when Jess was, and the king himself saw Lukas' corpse... how could Lukas be at the Tournament then?"
"Maybe it has something to do with what Jess said to her brother...?" Axel thought aloud.
"Her brother?" Luke asked. "What does he have to do with anything; compared to his sister, he practically doesn't exist."
"When Jesse confronted his sister before she left," Axel started. "She said: Lukas died a long time ago."
"That doesn't really clear anything up," Luke grumbled in frustration. "This is going to bug me all day, I just know it."
Axel then noticed how barren the stone hallway is as it is dark. "What could be down here?" Axel asked. "The guards walked though here earlier, but we haven't bumped into them!"
"And why all of the protection?" Luke questioned, remembering the double iron doors and the weird magic that protected it. "What could be down here that it would need so much guarding? Not to mention the people they bring down here..."
Then the two males walked in silence again, thinking about recent revelations of a dead blonde. They pondered the increase of questions, and the lack of answers, until they bumped into a wooden door.
"Another door?" Luke groaned, the illumination in the hallway barely there. "You got to be kidding me!"
"But this one is wood." Axel stated, tapping the door. "It doesn't have those freaky red veins glowing over it."
"Hold on, there's a word carved here," Axel squinted, reading the single jagged word on the wooden door. "It says, 'Offering'? What does that mean?"
Luke sniffed the air, his mood cheering up. "I smell cake!"
"Is it a kitchen?" Axel wondered. "Why name it 'Offering' instead of 'Kitchen' then?"
"At least we can get something to eat!" Eagerly said Luke, who impulsively punched the door down and ran in without a second thought.
"Luke!" Axel yelled into the dark, stepping through only to groan in frustration in discovering that it's another stone hallway. "Are you okay?!"
"Dude, there's so much stuff in here!" Luke shouted cheerfully as Axel carefully ventured inside, careful not to trip over anything. "I even found some cake!"
"So it is a kitchen?" Axel asked. Not to confirm, but to keep track of the location of Luke's voice.
"Yeah!" Luke shouted cheerfully in the dark; Axel knew he is getting closer to the blue-haired male. "Well, I think it is? There's food here and -Oh wait, there's something here near the wall..."
"Luke?" Axel shouted after a moment of silence. "What did you find?"
"I don't really know; it's kind of hard to see." Luke's voice echoed in the dark, but his confusion clear.
"Wait, if it's dark, then how did you find the food?" Axel pointed out.
"The food is on these weird bowls," Luke explained, Axel figured he was not too far away. "They're glowing slightly, and have that creepy eye design the soldiers have on their hoods."
'Why would that be down here?' Axle thought as he continued forward. "Try to describe the thing you found."
"I'll try," Luke replied; a moment of silence passed again. "...It's cold. Squishy. Wet. Hairy. I don't know what this is!"
"Just hold on," Axel yelled back. "I think I'm close to you."
"Nah, it's fine," Luke reassured, the sound of an item being crafted can be heard. "I got a torch here-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"
"LUKE!" Axel shouted in concern and panic, rushing toward the newly illuminated room far ahead, at the end of the hallway where he can see Luke's shaking silhouette. "What's wrong?!"
"THERE'S A NAKED DEAD LADY IN HERE!!!" Luke screamed. Axel ran faster into the room, only to slip on the quartz floor.
After landing on his face, blinking and groaning in pain, Axel got up to see blood covering the floor as the crimson liquid smeared on his cloths.
Axel quickly rose from his position of the floor, disturbed and panicked while he tried to get most of the blood off of his startled face.
After calming down lightly, Axel looked at his new surroundings: a large quartz room, with black candles that are lit with red fire in the corners of the white room as about a dozen large chests equally line the walls.
A red circle with a dot in the middle, representing an eye, is on the quartz ceiling; directly above the deep pool of blood in the center of the floor that is five blocks in diameter. The blood-filled pit is surrounded by, after Scribing the material, blocks made out of blood that are used as pedestals for bowls to be placed.
However these bowls are black, with a red eye in the center, a design of veins protruding outward while pulsing like a heart.
Despite all of this, Axel's attention focused on what traumatized Luke: a naked dead woman, chains made out of red energy bound her legs to the ceiling as she hands upside-down; her black hair and pale arms droop down to the quartz floor.
Her dead green eyes just scream the word "Tired" as her eyelids lazily cover them while the body gently swings side to side due to Luke's tampering of curiosity in the dark earlier.
Axel Scribed the body.
[Isa] Level 457
That's all he can get with his shaken concentration. The symbols on her arms remain a mystery to Axel, but his attention was directed to the huge slash on her throat, wrists, and on her stomach. While the body swayed, the chains of crimson energy pulsed like a heart, blood dripped out of the wounds.
The blood already ran out as old scabs had formed around the wounds, nothing but red smears and stains on her skin and hair. The liquid pooled under her had already dried.
And Luke? Poor boy is trembling at this disturbing sight. The torch clutched in his trembling hands, his eyes shut, his body in a fetal position on the floor while he tries to calm himself down.
Axel nearly barfed if he didn't look away from the woman, or the massive, deep pool of blood in the center of the room. But that failed because he rushed out of the room, and vomited onto the stone floor of the hallway.
After coughing and spitting out the bile, Axel walked back into the horrifying room, and trying his hardest not to freak out. They just need to leave this place.
He gently placed a hand on Luke's shoulder, startling him until he realized it was Axel. "Luke," Axel whispered. "We need to get out of here."
The blue-haired male could barely move; fear gripping his movements. "I can't... I can't look..."
"Me neither," Axel reassured, feeling the bile rise in his throat again. "But we have to be strong and get out."
Luke started to sob. "Why would someone do this?" he shouted. "How can anyone do any of this, to anyone?!"
Axel set him up to his shaking feet as the tears flowed out of Luke's eyes. Axel shook him. "I don't know, but we I don't think we should stick around."
Luke didn't listen, only babble in fear like a child and continued to cry. Axel hoped Luke would forgive him for what he's about to do next. Axel lifted his right hand...
SMACK-!
... and slapped Luke across the face, snapping him out of it. He occasionally took a deep breath to steady himself.
"Calm down," Axel said firmly as Luke rubbed his cheek. "Remember the guards that walked in here earlier? We still haven't bumped into them."
"What... what does that have to do with anything?" Luke asked, still emotionally hurt but at least stable.
"They came in here before us, and it's only straight hallways to this room," Axel pointed out, focusing on Luke, trying to ignore the naked dead woman. "So where are they?"
"We really have to get out of here," Luke realized the danger, taking a deep breath to finally steady his shaken form before looking at Isa. "We can't leave her like this."
"We can't take her with us-"
"I know!" Luke snapped, surprising Axel while he stares straight at the woman. "But we should at least give her some sort of peace."
Axel looked back at the hallway, a sense of uncomfortable silenced passed before he nodded. "...Let's get her down, and fast."
After slowly undoing the crimson energy chains, it would shock them when tampered, the duo managed to get Isa down from her painful position.
If Axel didn't see Jess' burned body, and her missing left eye, he would have mistaken the woman for her. 'Why are there so many girls with pale skin, green eyes, and black hair?' Axel thought miserably, paranoia working its magic.
The wound on Isa's stomach, after closer investigation, follows through to the one on her back: a single blade pierced through her body, severing the connection of her spine to her lower body; crippling her.
"Who would do something like this?" Luke asked as Axel placed Isa in one of the large chests, after throwing up because it was filled with jars of blood, before emptying the contents into the large pool of the crimson liquid into the pool in the center of the room.
Axel closed Isa's green eyes, arranging her hands to cross over her naked bloodstained chest before closing the lid of the chest she's in. "I think it was the soldiers..." Axel murmured, relieved that he gave Isa some dignity and not having to look at her.
"But why though?" Luke asked, not even denying it due to how obvious of what happens to the people down here when the soldiers escorted them.
"...I think we discovered a cult," Axel hesitantly concluded shockingly, walking to the exit of the room. "A cult that's obsessed with blood, and something to do with a single eye."
Luke pondered this. "An offering room. Harvesting blood from people. Weird red eyes and veins on their clothing...." Luke listed out loud before he started to panic again. "With so many refugees, they have a large supply of blood!"
"How many people have died?" Axle asked the uneasy question. "How many more will die?"
"And I worked with these lunatics!" Luke realized. "How could I have not realized?!"
BUMP-BUMP-!
They heard it as they stood near the exit. They turned their attention to the large, deep pool of blood. The crimson liquid inside started to rise to the very top as a single individual rose from the liquid as there wasn't a single stain of blood covering her.
It's one of the soldier here at the Clockwork Fortress, standing straight as she looked straight at Axel and Luke. Her hood covered her faces as the eye in the middle moved and blinked as if it was the real thing. The veins that spread from it started to pulse in sync with the blood in the center of the room.
Almost as if it is alive...
She's standing on top of the blood as if it is solid like stone. "A candidate and a sacrifice..." Her voice echoed, and it sounded like a several more people were talking at the same time. In shorter words to describe her talking? Disturbing.
"Luke..." Axel managed to say through his paralyzing fear. "What is she talking about?"
"I don't know," Luke admitted. "They rarely talk, but it never sounded like this before!"
They both Scribed her.
[???] Level 666
Class: Blood Mage
Title: Cult of the Crimson Eye Member #23
"Not even a name...?" Luke whispered. "This is getting ridiculous..."
"We discard our names, our leader commands it." The cultist spoke in calm monotone. She spread her arms wide in a grand gesture, the blood under her rising to meet. "For we are watched by the god of blood."
"I remember more of you entering here from the prison," Axel recalled, being brave, or at least trying to. "What happen to them?"
"Gone." The revealed coldly, much to Axel's shock and Luke's disturbance. "Their flesh and bones have been sacrificed as their blood pools. I, like everyone else, are nothing more than parts of the machine created by our watchful god."
"Well you're worshiping a false god!" Luke screamed at her; disgusted and horrified. "Notch and Herobrine are the only gods in this world, how could you forsake them and their teachings?!"
"That is only your opinion, for my god is the true god of this world." She countered, the blood under her started to coil up her body. "How am I any different from any believer of any religion?"
"You kill people!" Axel pointed out the obvious. "You harvest their blood, even your own comrades!"
"People have used a god's name and will to justify murder, how am I any different? My god simply has different rules to follow."
The blood under her became thick as a Slime. It covered her entire body, rendering it nothing more than a still silhouette. The blood became smooth and round, the cultist inside is unaffected while the veins and eye on her hood started to glow a bright orange.
The blood from the deep pool started to gather to the blob of blood the cultist formed around her. She gathered enough blood that a set of large, red liquid arms protruded from the sides. An eye projected from the glowing veins of the hood she is wearing to the surface of the thick blood she's submerged in.
A second later, glowing veins protruded from that 'eye', covering the entire surface of the creature. The 'eye' blinked, the 'pupil' moved, examining the surroundings before focusing on the two frightened males.
"My god will want your blood!" The creature roared in a deep tone; inching towards Axel and Luke, pulling more blood from the pool in the center before severing itself from the source to tower high above them.
"Luke..." Axel choked out, his legs shaking from fear caused by the monster before him.
"Y-Yeah?" Luke stuttered as he unconsciously took a step back.
"RUN!" Axel grabbed his arm, pulling him out of the room, running pass his dried vomit. The blood monster let out a deep roar before chasing after them; its liquid body made it easy to change its form to fit through the door.
The creature of blood smoothly flows over the stone while it hunts down the two terrified males; eager to sacrifice them to the cult's bloody god.
A/N: A continuation from Axel's perspective, revealing a cult, a lot of blood, and the Blood Mage Class. Before you change your OC submissions to this Class, don't. I did not even introduce how blood magic works, and I don't need Marry Sues. Especially the ones who say that the other OC's that other people have submitted are terrible.
People, insulting me and my work is one thing (mostly because I don't care, words can't do physical harm), but insulting the community of this story is where I draw the line. Stop it. It's rude and disrespectful.
Other than that... Isa?! What happened to her? Who knows... oh, wait, me! HA-HA-HA-!