TWENTY-EIGHT: SURVIVE

  “I can hear them,” Leto whispered, his head whipped back and forth as he looked around the mist, head tilted as he breathed in deeply through his flared nose. There was an animalistic look to the man. Cassius had once seen a caged wolf before in Aurum when they had opened the Arena to the public during the Founding Day celebrations. It was similar to how Leto looked now.

  “Worry not, I can see through this cursed fog. There is nothing about us,” Cassius attempted to reason with the man. Leto turned towards him, teeth bared as he snarled, his words raspy as he spoke.

  “You can’t hear the whispers. I can hear them, here in the fog. This cursed fog,” Leto whispered at the end as he looked around himself. Cassius followed the man’s eyes and saw nothing around themselves aside from the gates that ran along the estate. They were near the edge of the estate, which bordered another large estate, but there were no monsters left.

  “What do they say?” Cassius asked.

  “I…I don’t understand them. Just…I am tired. Let us find the others,” Leto said, shaking his head furiously as he pushed ahead of Cassius just to realize he couldn’t see in the thick fog.

  “Stay close to me. We shall scale this fence and enter the next estate. You said there are other, stronger creatures on the street?” Cassius asked as he took the lead again.

  “Yes. They are similar to the others, but they wielded weapons. It was only by luck that I survived the first encounters," Leto admitted. Cassius looked over the man, but from their adventures so far his armor was a dented and scratched heap, he couldn’t tell if there were new wounds on the man.

  “I will boost you, then scale after,” Cassius said as they reached the gate. He set down his spear and shield, cupped his hand into a stirrup by his knees. Leto sheathed his sword before taking a running start, his weight significant but less than it should have been.

  Cassius still had yet to fully grasp the increase in strength from his blessings, sometimes shocking him. It was a strain to boost the armored nobleman, but nowhere near as strenuous as it should have been.

  Leto rolled over the gate, falling to the other side in a rattle of armor. Cassius slid his spear between the wide gap in the bars, followed by his shield. With practiced ease he leapt up and grabbed the top of the spikes, pulled himself up and slid between the tops of the spikes where they narrowed to create wider gaps. There was still a prickle of nerves as his groin passed over a spike, but with his increased strength it was easy to hold himself above the iron as he twisted around and started to slide back down.

  “You do that with ease,” Leto said, looking at him with feverish eyes.

  “Training,” Cassius lied as he gathered his weapons up. There was no need to tell the nobleman that his training was breaking into places he shouldn’t have been in to steal food or coin.

  “I see no more of the corpses here,” Leto said. Cassius looked himself, saw that the man was right, and pushed forward without another word. The manor rose similar in size and shape as the one they’d escaped, but without the packed back lawns to fight through.

  “You have fought through dungeons before?” Cassius asked quietly as they got closer to the building.

  “Yes. None as extensive or dangerous as this,” Leto said.

  “Are they always the same? When you enter them?” Cassius asked.

  “Yes. Every time, sometimes the beasts will have wandered, but they stay in the same area. Are the same type, only their strength differs. The longer it has been since we have conquered it the stronger they are.”

  “I doubt this dungeon has been conquered lately. Which makes me wonder why they are so weak,” Cassius said. None of the monsters they’d killed had been difficult once they’d learned how to deal with them.

  “They are not the main opponents. Those in the central street are the true contest,” Leto said. They had come to the edge of the manor’s patio, something that set it apart from their last one. Polished stone stretched out in a wide rectangle with a wooden cover that was covered in dead, dry vines above their head. The back doors were not the heavy duty doors that had led into the kitchen, but a pair of doors with bronze handles covered in broken glass frames.

  “How do you know?” Cassius asked as they carefully crept closer to the door. Leto drew his dulled blade out while Cassius slowly walked to the side of the wall, to try to see further inside of the manor before he entered.

  “There is always a primary foe, with weaker versions of them to sharpen your blade against. If we had our full party, this would not be as difficult,” Leto said. He seemed to be feeling better now, not as gasping in his breaths as they pressed against the manor.

  “I shall go first and move left. You go right,” Cassius told the nobleman. Leto didn’t argue, just nodded his assent.

  Cassius lunged forward, using his shield to bash the flimsy doors open as he pushed diagonally across the space and held the left side of the doorway. He felt more than saw Leto move and take the right corner as they stood inside of a silent room.

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  “Nothing here,” Leto said after a moment of waiting. No corpses threw themselves at them, just the banging of the doors as they hit the interior of the wall a few times before settling.

  “This door ahead, I shall go first. Watch for anything that comes from the rear,” Cassius said, moving toward the door he’d pointed out and throwing it open before Leto could say anything.

  The hallway it opened to was bare, lit only by a single lantern, built into the wall it sent bright yellow light down the long empty hall. Cassius marched down it, shield covering the entirety of the narrow hall, his spear poised and ready to strike instantly. Carpet muffled their steps as they reached the end of the hall and another door and pushed it open.

  Blood was the first thing Cassius saw. Wide scythes of it had painted the walls, old and dried up, still it covered the formerly white walls with a black ichor. The scent of death washed over them a second later, filling their noses and covering the back of their mouths until both Cassius and Leto gagged, even as they pushed their way into the room.

  Undead corpses had been stacked to one side. Limbs and heads that had been hewn free laid politely next to them. A dozen plus of the bodies, they rose to eye height against the far wall, demanding Cassius’ attention. Enough attention he didn’t notice the tip of a sword until it brushed against his throat, cold steel pressed firmly against hot skin.

  “You need to be more aware when entering rooms,” Vira said. Cassius didn’t move his head, not with that sharp piece of steel against his soft throat, but his eyes twitched to where she stood pressed against the wall.

  “It is good to see you here,” Cassius said. Vira deflated, tension fleeing as her sword dropped and was sheathed in one smooth motion.

  “Leto and Cassius, not a pairing I expected,” Vira said as she walked to the center of the room, hands on her hip as she looked them over with her tired green eyes. She paused on Leto, a furrow starting in her brow as she took him in.

  “Cousin, are you injured?” Vira asked, coming forward.

  “Nothing to trouble yourself over. Hardly more than scratches, I am just tired and hungry,” Leto said as he clanked into the room. Vira froze midstep as she looked him over, clearly not believing him, but allowing him his dignity as she stepped back with a nod.

  “Tell me what you know,” Vira said, taking command. Cassius took over, explaining what he’d experienced through the dungeon so far. On occasion he paused to let Leto take over, but the other man just sat with his back against a wall, sipping from his waterskin and gnawing on hardtack he’d pulled from his own pack.

  “I found a watch myself,” Vira said, reaching into her pack and pulling out the same golden circle that Cassius had found.

  “A watch?” Cassius asked, not understanding what it was.

  “A relic from before the founding. There are precious few of them left, but they are used to tell time,” Vira explained. She pointed out the markings on them and explained they were numbers to show the time of day it was.

  “The hands have stopped moving,” Cassius noticed after she finished explaining, noting the long levers had finally stopped their movement.

  “At different times as well,” Vira noted. She pursed her lips and nodded to herself before stuffing both watches back into her pack.

  “We find the other two, then we finish collecting these watches. Not all dungeons are kill and clear. Some require a bit more trickery,” Vira explained as she prepared herself to leave.

  “We can continue crossing estates like this, but it will take time. Or we can cross the streets and see if we can best whatever it was that attacked Leto,” Vira said. She paused as she looked over the two of them, waiting to see if either of them would voice a concern.

  “Not across the streets,” Leto spat, spittle flying from the force of his denial. Vira slowed and looked at her cousin, head slowly moving to an angle as if looking at the man for the first time.

  “As my cousin said, not through the front street. When I arrived this was the only gate open and I doubt that has changed.”

  “Only this gate was open? Mine was open as well and I should have been able to see yours as we came together,” Cassius said.

  “We entered the dungeon together, we didn’t start together. Leto, how long have you been here?” Vira asked.

  The nobleman shook his head back and forth, eyes clouded momentarily as he thought before saying it had only been an hour before he encountered Cassius.

  “And you, Cassius?”

  “I was fighting in the manor for at least two hours. I took breaks whenever I finished clearing a room of the dead,” Cassius said.

  “They let you rest? Mine continued to chase me as we fought. It was brief but fierce,” Vira informed them.

  “Then each of the manors is different. What of Leto’s manor, should we go back and clear his to find the watch?” Cassius asked. Leto had closed his eyes, chest hardly moving as the nobleman slept.

  “Titus and Valeria first. How is he?” Vira asked quietly, hardly whispering the words but her eyes were filled with concern as she looked at her cousin.

  “He’s just tired,” Cassius said. Vira raised an eyebrow at him and waited.

  “He fought well but speaks of exhaustion. I saw him use no skills either in our fight. He looks sick and spoke of voices whispering to him in the mist,” Cassius finally relented.

  “Why is it that men refuse to speak of weakness as if it's a great failing,” Vira muttered as she crouched down to look at her sleeping cousin. Leto’s eyelids moved as his eyes swung back and forth in his sleep, it was disconcerting to watch.

  “Hearing voices where there are none is not weakness, but madness,” Cassius said.

  “We are in a dungeon. There are many strange things that happen in them,” Vira said, waving away his concern.

  “What do we do? Let him rest?” Cassius asked as they stood watching the sleeping man.

  “For a while at least. Sit, tend your gear and I shall do the same. Once we finish we shall wake him and begin our search for Titus and Valeria,” Vira said.

  Cassius wanted to go now, to look for his fellow legionnaire. But he thought of the long fighting he’d done, the broken straps on his shield and Leto’s dull sword blade and how his own gladius and speartip were in little better condition.

  “Gear and food,” Cassius said, settling down away from the wall of corpses to begin tending to his armor and weapons as Vira did the same. Leto continued to sleep, twisting and twitching as his sleep was haunted.