Khrisgor blinked "I'm sorry, what."
Carter shrugged "I'm going to eat it."
Plain and simple. Like it was normal.
"Your going to eat the cryptid. That's not exactly... normal, or advisable." The paladin said, moving towards him as though a bit worried.
The boy blinked "it's pretty normal. It's an animal, we eat those. And it's not like I can't."
Khrisgor shook his head "okay but why? There are plenty of food options, why this monster? Why?" He was incredibly weirded out.
"Sashimi sounded good." He said and left the room, disappearing down the hall.
The paladin scoffed "Sashimi? What?"
He started down the hall, locking the door behind him, and heading towards the healing bath.
The floor was cold on his bare feet, but once he got up the hot spring staircase it didn't even matter anymore.
It was big, pools of hot steaming water of varying sizes scattered all over the area.
There were walls too, a bit small, but effectively keeping people inside.
There were gaps of glass in those walls where you could see the city below, as the springs were on the top floor.
Chairs and tables were littered around the place too, all empty and clean, made of white wood and marble.
Khrisgor picked a chair and moved it close to a big pool, putting his towel on it.
He put his hand in the water experimentally which is how he found out that the bath was very warm.
He slowly got in and gasped at how good it felt.
"Okay, this is worth everything." He groaned out, his muscles relaxing as he settled into the bath.
He'd only been in it for a few seconds but he still felt reinvigorated, healthy and clean.
His worried faded away but he only had one lingering thought. Where was Carter?
—————
Carter moved around inside the halls of the building.
It was cold and damp and didn't offer much in the way of directions.
Every wall looked the same.
They went from turquoise and aquamarine to bland grey cobblestone.
Clearly whoever ran the place didn't care for the less shown parts.
He looked down at the map he'd grabbed down there and tried to gauge if he was going in the right direction.
He frankly couldn't tell, but pretended as though he did.
It took at least thirty minutes of aimless wandering for him to come up on a large cylindrical room.
Far down below an extremely deep pool of water filled up the room, separated by a grid of metal.
A catwalk ran from one end of the room to the others, with stairs leading down to platforms closer to the water.
Carter whistled and it echoed around the room "man, this place is big. It's insane they don't have any real security."
That bugged him a bit but he waved it off.
He looked down over the side of the catwalk and peered into the water.
There was definitely something there, something big.
The metal made a loud sound as it clattered time the ground when he took off his coat.
He removed it from its sheath and gripped his sword in his hand just before he rifled through his jacket and withdrew a wicked hooked knife.
He adjusted his grip on his weapons.
He figured it would be hard to do what he was going to do with his sword out so he put it back, cursing himself for taking it out in the first place.
He took a deep breath, gripping the knife hard.
The water called, deep and blue and foreboding.
Carter took a step back, ran, and jumped.
He dove headfirst into the water, easily slipping in.
He had accidentally closed his eyes on impact, though he knew it was a fatal mistake.
His eyes snapped open, his sight cutting through the deep dark water like it was the middle of the day.
