It takes me a painful second to remember that she’s talking to me. I turn to face Samie, forcing a polite smile, it still feels deeply weird hearing my name, it was concerning how much I came to identify as Nova instead, “Yes?”
She scans my face quickly before pointing at the door in front of us, “I was asking if you knew anything about this door?”
I shift my attention to the door in question, it looks like any other door in the castle except for one key difference, there’s a random collection of carvings covering the nearby stonework, a familiar random collection of carvings.
“Uh yeah, I was trying to leave a mark to show I had already been here,” I explain, suddenly overly aware of how close we actually are to the door.
Samie raises an eyebrow, “And you decided defacing all the surrounding stonework was the best idea to do that?”
“I got a little frustrated with the whole maze thing,” I laugh, keeping my eyes locked on a slightly different colored brick further down the passageway. “It’s just an empty room, nothing interesting.”
I don’t really know why I feel the need to lie, but I have an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, I had never asked about the NPCs in this game, and I don’t know her opinions on them. Besides Chalice is my funny little treasure bear, and it would be really annoying to find another vendor.
Samie doesn’t look like she fully believes me, and she glances back at the door, before looking back at me, either I look composed enough that she decides I’m telling the truth or I’m flustered enough that she decides it's not worth the effort. Either way, she sets off down the hallway, not sparing a look back.
I wait a few seconds till she’s further down the tunnel and hopefully out of earshot. Carefully I open the door, peaking into the room. It’s the same as I remember, with wall-mounted lanterns in the corners, and a single wooden chest in the middle. Slinging my backpack off, I fish out the ridiculous hourglass. I did put it back after Samie told me about the Shifting, confusing feelings overwhelming me, but in the morning once I had settled a bit, I realized it was fairly silly of me, and had taken the hourglass ‘just in case’.
“Here,” I whisper, placing it on the ground right behind the door, “debt repaid you little dragon monkey.”
I don’t wait to see if the treasure bear responds. Shutting the door firmly behind me, taking a second to really wedge it into the doorway, before I take off down the hallway.
Samie is waiting at the next fork in the road, leaning agist the wall, staring at the map intently, “finish your business?” she asks, not looking at me as she takes off down the right path.
“I don’t know what you mean?” I ask innocently.
Samie sighs with a roll of her eyes, “As long as whatever it is isn’t going to come looking for revenge, I don’t care what secrets you have.”
I laugh, following after her with a smile, “Thank you for your understanding.”
The rest of the day is rather uneventful in comparison. We open a few more doors and find a few more random articles of clothing that we bag just in case. I finally find another pair of pants to replace my completely shredded and stained pair. The pants are an unfortunate shade of yellow, but beggars can’t be choosers. Samie snorts once she sees me in them, but schools herself back into her characteristic indifference, though I do catch her faint smirk every time she glances my way.
There’s a rather messy run-in with a Lizard-Porcupine, but with Samie’s great archery skills, and my somewhat better than novice spear skills, we manage to deal with the monster before it can call for help.
I would guess we’ve been walking for somewhere around 8 hours, before we finally stumble into a larger room that’s obviously different from the rest of the cramped tunnels. The ceiling taller, reaching up at least three stories, and four large metal chandeliers hang down from each of the corners in the square room, alight with burning wax candles that don’t melt. There’s nothing else in the room expect a large spiral staircase in the middle of the floor, that twists down into the darkness of the second level.
“This is it,” Samie states as if it wasn’t obvious this was our destination.
I glance around at the mess of connecting tunnels, on the watch for any more monsters to come, “We should probably just hurry down right?”
“I don’t see any need to linger here,” Samie agrees, moving to the stairway, slipping the map into her bag, as she tests the top step.
“Ahem,” I cough, raising an eyebrow and pointedly looking at Samie’s bag, she glances at it for a moment before she straightens up, fishing the map back out and handing it over. “Thank you.”
Samie just huffs, a noticeable down turn of her lips, as she takes a careful few steps down. When nothing happens her shoulders untense and she starts descending. Slipping the map into my own bag I follow after her. As the darkness becomes thicker, I summon my window, using the light to help make sure I don’t miss a step.
“What are you doing?” Samie hisses from in front of me.
I come to a stop right behind her, the glow from the window causes her to appear underwater, “I need to see.”
“You don’t have darkvision as a half-elf?”
Wait, that was a thing? Oh hell. “I’m not a full elf,” I remind, running through the rolodex of useless video game knowledge I’ve picked up over the years, “so I don’t have the same traits, you can’t expect every half-elf to get the same elven traits can you?”
Samie seems to consider this, and nods slowly, “Either way turn it off, unless you want to become dinner.”
“I can’t see,” I reiterate, crossing my arms, “I’m going to fall down the stairs.”
“Oh, by the gods-,” and Samie takes a step up, grabbing my forearm, “just follow after me, I’ll make sure you don’t trip.”
Staring at her hand I snort a laugh, “Count yourself lucky that I mildly like you or I would have shoved you down these stairs for that.”
Samie rolls her eyes, jabbing her finger at my window, “Turn it off and don’t get any stupid ideas, I already have a lovely wife waiting for me.”
Dismissing the window, I slowly follow after her, “a wife?” I question softly, failing to hide the mirth in my tone, “She must be a saint to deal with you.”
“She is” Samie agrees quickly, “better than I deserve really, I’m always surprised she said yes.”
“Is she-,” I want to ask if she’s here, stuck in this game with us, but I can’t quite voice the question.
I can’t see Samie’s face, but I can hear the pain in her voice, “she’s here but-,” she cuts herself off, voice hanging in the air.
I don’t really want to pry, whatever happened with Samie’s wife seems to be a button I really shouldn’t push, especially when I’m relying on her to not kill me when I’m blind, but the worry and anxiety forces me to ask, “where you two together when you came?”
There’s a long pause and I think she’s just going to ignore me before-, “We were.”
My heart stutters, and I nearly miss the next step, “Careful,” Samie hisses, forcibly pulling me back and helping me right myself, “stop asking questions if you can’t-,”
“My brother,” I cut in, needing to voice the thoughts out loud, “I was with my little brother when I came, but he wasn’t- I haven’t seen him.”
Silence descends around us, Samie doesn’t move, just tightens her grip on my arm, it feels almost re-assuring in the dark, “I wish I could tell you what happened,” she whispers, “hopefully he didn’t get pulled into this mess, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
It should feel better knowing that he’s probably back home, safe and warm with the rest of my family, but it doesn’t. I know it would be dangerous and cruel of me, but I wish he was here, at least then I would know.
“You are right,” I say faintly, pushing forward with my arm, trying to tell Samie to start moving, “he’s probably fine.”
Samie gets the hint and slowly starts descending again, “You’re going to make it harder for yourself later if you keep fighting the Shifting.”
I almost laugh at that, not from any true sense of humor, but just the insanity of it all, “Pot calling the kettle black.”
She huffs, helping me take another slow step, “It’s the truth. The longer you hold onto the memories the more you suffer.”
“Then I’ll suffer,” it comes out with more bite than I intend, but I’m getting really tired of Samie trying to tell me what I should do. It’s my memories and my life, I’m the only one who has a say in what I do with them. “You’re not going to convince me, so stop bringing it up.”
Samie sighs loudly, and I can hear her shaking her head, but she doesn’t say anything else.
We fall into silence and continue walking deeper and deeper down.
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