Night had now completely embraced us after fifteen minutes of capturing the girl. With a torch in hand to push through the darkness, we ended up reaching a part of the stream bank again and crossing it, we were now trekking through the many natures of the vast jungle, wondering how far this tomb actually was. While Riven was still holding the girl by her neck as I trailed slightly behind, I had taken the females spear with me and had been inspecting every intricate marking on the weapon since.
Tracing my finger over the etchings of the wood, I glided up towards the flint and touched its tip, quickly drawing back with a sharp hiss. Looking down at my finger, blood began to stain my palm as it nestled into the crevices of my flexion creases.
"What happened?"
Riven turned around, staring at the dripping crimson. "I accidentally cut myself, it's fine it'll heal." Riven glanced at me with his usual expressionless face but I could tell that he was probably annoyed by my foolishness. Looking at the weapon once more, I came to the conclusion that this wasn't any earthly flint. Thinking back to the Nechakri Village and those otherworldly eyes, I began to have the suspicion that there was a lot more to these foreign ghouls than one could imagine.
"Ugh, Riven." The sound of distress left my lips when I had bumped into the stocky males back. Noticing that he had suddenly stopped in his tracks with the girl still in hold, I looked beyond them and finally realized the stone architecture before us. Moss, vines, and roots coated the aged stone like thick restraints. I walked towards the foot of the stairs that led up to a small rectangular opening which was obviously the entrance to the burial chamber.
Turning around, I locked gazes with the female Koeuna and tossed her spear, she caught it with ease despite the tear-stains on her cheeks and the fear that still shone brightly in her eyes. Riven finally released the girls neck and we both watched the Koeuna run off into the shadows of the jungle; fleeing like a rabbit.
"Ready?" I faced Riven, waiting for him to join me by the steps. After he did so, the male glanced over the surrounding stone rocks and nodded, "keep close to me." I simply rolled my eyes at him playfully as I watched his form ascend up the stairs. Soon following behind, we stopped at the tombs entrance and stared at the darkness that swelled beyond it. Riven raised up the torch, highlighting specks of dust that danced airily under the bright light.
Peering over, the light accentuated stairs that led down into more darkness. Unfortunately, the entrance to the tomb was a narrow descent which also had sconces for wall torches sticking out on both sides. Before I could step onwards any further, Riven halted me signaling that I wrap one of my hands around his arm. I gave him a look of disagreement almost explaining to him once again that I could handle myself, but something in his jade green eyes told me not to argue. Holding onto his bicep, we began our fall into the underground barrows.
Because of the stairs extremely narrow walls, it forced me to trail directly behind Riven while I held onto his arm, his broad back pressed against me though and I had to make sure I wasn't kneeing him with every step we took. Feeling the heat of the torch barley touch me, my eyes were drawn to the ancient sconces next to us, causing me to trace my fingers across the ornamental brackets in curiosity; it would've been more helpful if the torch-holders already had torches in them so we could light our way down the slope.
But looking beyond Riven and his light source, I noticed that not even the kindled flames of wood could eat past this pitch black darkness that shrouded below us into a deepness that looked never-ending. Glancing back over my shoulder, my heart slowed at the sight of midnight following right behind us; I just prayed we'd make it out of here alive.
"Miss," Riven called me after a few minutes had passed since our descent, subconsciously pressing into his back the more paranoid I became of the shadows that surrounded us, I could feel the vibrations of his voice touch me which soothed my frantic state just a little bit. Answering him, I replied back, "Yes?"
"I apologize for vanishing like that and leaving you all alone back at the stream bank. I could imagine your worry and understand how vulnerable you must've been with me gone but I can assure you that when those Koeuna men captured me, it was to protect you—-although in reality I could've taken all three of them out if I hadn't came up with the idea of interrogating the ghouls on where the tomb was located."
My grip on his bicep loosened as I became confused as well as a little offended yet flattered by his elaborate apology. "Riven you're telling me that my life was in danger and I didn't even know?"
The man watched the flames of the torch carefully and answered, "When you had jumped over the small stream to the other patch of land across it, one of the Koeuna's had grabbed me and placed a spear by my neck. Of course I thought such actions were foolish since flint can't inflict damage upon ghouls, but I realized quickly after the spear grazed my skin, that the weapons were far from harmless. With your back briefly turned, another one of the Koeuna's threatened to attack you if I didn't comply. The only reason I truly complied was because I had one underlying intention; which was to get information on the location of the tomb. If I didn't need such information I would've taken those men out long ago. In the end the girl actually ended up helping us since you did kind of blow my cover when one of the Koeuna's caught sight of you, but I just wanted to apologize for leaving you like that—-worried and still vulnerable to one of the Koeuna's possibly catching you and eating you."
Listening to his side of the story now, I completely understood the former situation we were in before and felt somewhat grateful to have such a physically and mentally strong sailor like him with the king. It showed his dominance in certain good yet frightening aspects and it revealed just how dangerous Riven could really be.
My mind traveled back to when he picked that Koeuna up by the neck causing me to almost shiver at the remembrance of his cold voice.
Shaking my head, I re-tightened my grip around his bicep again and smiled, "no worries, thank you for explaining yourself, I appreciate your abundance of protection but I do hope that you're watching out for yourself as well." The male took a deep breath, replying, "my job is not only to retrieve this valuable but mainly to protect you miss, my wellbeing is a second priority, the king says so-"
"The king didn't say that! He would never say that!"
Without really realizing it, I raised my voice into a type of whisper-yell to emphasize my shock at his words but the darkly stairway still taunted me so I managed to keep my inside-voice despite it.
Noticing Riven's silence, I averted my gaze to the side of me and continued, "How about this: If you don't at least try to protect yourself then who's gonna be there to protect me if you die?" When the silence pursued, I realized that I must've gotten him where it counts and he was possibly reconsidering his train of thought right now.
"Alright," he started, "if you really insist Miss—-I'll also watch out for myself but that still doesn't entirely change my first priority which is you." Grinning from ear-to-ear at the sound of his surrender, I stared at the back of the brunets head, smiling,
"thank you."
Suddenly, for once during the entire descent, we began to see something we hadn't seen from the beginning. The sconces were starting to get scarcer and scarcer, their absence allowed for more space down the extremely cramped stairway but I grew suspicious of what for. Focusing back on Riven, I noticed I was no longer slightly above him; we had reached the bottom of the stairs.
Ahead of us was a dark hallway that would still require the only torch we had to light our way. Sighing at the fact that the walls were still pretty cramped in, I shook Rivens bicep softly, "how much longer do you think this is going to take?" Beginning our walk down the hallway, he took a few seconds to answer my question before speaking, "Remember that the leader of Nechakri sent us into this tomb for a reason, I'm sure she's tried a variety of ways to get this valuable and has failed countless of times. Whatever's keeping her from it is probably extremely dangerous."
He glanced back at me and I caught a glimpse of his deep green eyes, "however long it takes... you're not dying here."
When he glanced away, I began to feel like his devotion to the king was a little over natural. Obviously this man has no history with me nor has he been with me long enough to care about my wellbeing; but just a simple word of the king is able to force a ghoul to their knees for me and very well give up their lives. I stared at my hand that was nestled behind his arm, expressionless,
"you're not dying here either."
It wasn't surprising when he didn't reply back to my comment, especially since it was barely above a whisper. But continuing on our journey, the hall seemed to come to a sooner stop than the stairs did when we had finally reached a small empty room. Laying in the middle of it, was a stone cube. Walking towards the fixture, we noticed it had perhaps over a million markings engraved in it. These markings were etched in strange strict lines that didn't even look like a language anymore but more so a made up code. Widening my eyes at the hip-height stone, I said aloud, "what the hell is this?..." Riven seemed to follow my astonishment when his usual stoic expression for once grew into a perplexed one.
"Don't touch it, let me figure this out first." Pulling away from his arm for a brief moment, I allowed him to take a look around the square stone all the while being highly cautious. When he finished, I looked to him for new instructions which he eventually administrated, "Miss go back into the hallway and stand a decent distance away, I'm going to mess with this cube and see what happens, if I end up either severely injured or dead, leave me behind and return to the king as safe as you can." Before I could speak, he passed me the torch and forced me into a pretty distant spot in the hallway before walking back into the room.
Narrowing my eyes at Riven, I raised my voice, "What did I say about watching out for yourself?! Riven if you die-"
"Yes Miss... I understand your worry. But I also clearly explained to you that you are my first priority. It just happens to be that this first puzzle we came across is putting me in a predicament where I can't really look out for myself."
My eyes softened at him as he raised his hand preparing to do whatever he planned with the stone cube, but before doing so, he nodded once at me, "don't worry miss, I'll be fine."
Finding falsity to his words, I glued myself to the distant spot in the hallway and waited for what was next to come. The sound of stone hitting against stone resonated throughout the small area causing me to brace myself while Riven didn't even flinch. Seconds rolled by and what we thought was a trap, was actually just another entrance to the tomb. Looking ahead of me, a stone slab began to raise itself up into the ceiling leaving an opening in the wall for Riven and I to enter. Stepping out of the hallway, I analyzed Riven to see what he'd do next and unsurprisingly he held his hand out in front of me, glaring at the new entrance as if it were going to swallow us whole, "did I tell you to leave your spot Miss?"
The man briefly moved away from me, he picked up a small rock from some rubble that settled in the corner of the room, I stayed quiet waiting for his next move. He threw the rock down the dark pathway, it's echoes reaching back to us ominously. When nothing had happened for more than thirty seconds, I sighed at Riven and handed him the torch, grabbing his bicep, "lead the way my almighty over-protector, I'm sure this hallway is safe seeing it's been almost a minute of silence."
For the first time Riven groaned at me. When I met eyes with his virescent pair of hollow ones, he looked away and led us down the new path as ordered.
It came to a point down the hallway where I started to play with my own shadow which was casted from Riven's light of fire. Even though it wasn't a mirror, I noticed my shadow figures heap of hair and how frizzy as well as unkept it looked on this stone wall. We've been dragged through hell and back ever since the beginning of this journey, but we weren't going to give up now.
Eventually I had to draw away from the dancing shadows, because soon I realized that there was no longer a wall for them to live on.
An abyss met my eyes and I felt a cold sense of isolation hug me even with Riven being by my side. Looking around, I took note that we were now standing in a dark room more than possibly filled with traps of deadly demise which, unfortunately for us, were hidden by the pitch black blankets of darkness that cloaked this tomb.
Gazing at the waltzing torch once more whose flames wiggled in the night-like room on a level of tranquility that neither I nor Riven could possess right now, I allowed the darkness to take my eyes with it and glared...
This is where the action begins.
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