Meant To Be

Chapter Twelve

"I always hated this place..." Hunter muttered as she stared down into a dark tunnel that led underground. It looked like a train had once gone through judging by the broken tracks. It had clearly been quite a long time since that had been used for this purpose however; the entire tunnel was completely overgrown with moss. "What's it like down there?" Artificer asked, shivering from the cold air that came from the darkness. "Have you been to the Shaded Citadel?" She nodded, remembering the awful experience that was trying to traverse that horrid place. "Well, imagine that but even more spiders and literally no light sources." "No light at all?! One minute, I'll be right back." Artificer dashed off, explosive spear in hand. Confused, Hunter watched until she was completely out of sight and waited for the slugcat to return.

It was less than a minute until Artificer returned carrying two scavenger lanterns. She was also wearing a light green vulture mask. "Here," she said as she passed one of the lanterns to Hunter. "Thanks, but where did you even get those?" Hunter laughed, already knowing the answer. Artificer just smiled slightly and glanced behind her pointedly. "And you said there weren't any scavengers around here!" Artificer laughed as well at that. "Well, there was a camp a little ways back close to the shelter. I didn't wanna slow us down by stopping to explode them, but, well, we needed lanterns!"

Spiders crawled around their feet as they walked, discomforting scuttling noises coming from every direction. Hunter was becoming increasingly glad that Artificer had gotten them scavenger lanterns so that they could see even slightly. Since the oppressive darkness could easily separate them if they weren't careful, the two had decided to hold hands. They could feel dozens of eyes watching them from around every corner. Artificer gripped her explosion spear tightly, afraid that something would pounce on them at every turn. "Well, we're gonna be down here for about five or so cycles, so I hope you aren't afraid of the dark." Artificer shrugged. "Well, I've been to shaded citadel and it wasn't too bad, but you said this place is even worse."

Hunter speared a large spider and it died immediately, its writhing coming to a stop. She bit into it and made a noise of disgust, gagging as she swallowed. "Damn, I'd forgotten how bad these things tasted. Hopefully we'll find some lizards soon or else this is all we're gonna eat for a long time." Artificer had also caught a spider and began eating it, only to spit it out with a disgusted grimace. "Oh gosh, you're right... This is so much worse than scavenger meat!" While it took longer than it should have to eat the wretched food, they eventually managed to force themselves to eat it. Almost immediately after, they found a shelter but it was so early in the cycle that it would only waste their time to rest there. Hunter remembered that there was a karma gate a few hours away and that there was a den on the other side.

When they arrived at the karma gate, Hunter was a little disappointed to see that no karma was required. Though, they still held hands.

That's right I made a dark area worse than shaded citadel. I only have one big plot point for the traveling part, but it's gonna be a big twist (you'll see). As always, cover art is not by me.