The mist had settled after crawling against their walk, a slow and heavy fog that seemed to flow from the very bowels of the planet with only the intention of saturating one’s view with little more than a pale, haunting blue. Many graves dotted the landscape, many of which little more than rusted swords with so little value that not even bandits saw them fit of looting. But a single stone structure stood over the desolate field, a monument to decay, an everlasting tomb that harbored the bodies (and in all likelihood, souls.) of many forgotten faces and their tarnished blades.
Suzume did not hesitate in her progression to the icy mausoleum, though the hair on her neck stood erect in a cautionary ploy. Her feet were gentle, every step inaudible under the faint hiss of the rolling wind, so careful and light that even the dampened blades beneath her feet swayed back to their original stature as if none had even treaded upon them. Keiko, however, was much more visibly shaken as her arms quaked beneath her black cloak and her fanged teeth chattered nervously within her maw. She spoke, slicing the silence like an executioner shearing through flesh and bone.
“Suzume,” Keiko breathed, her own voice’s caliber swiftly silencing her among the silence of the frozen forest. She continued more quietly. “This is a cursed place. For me to tread here is like damning my soul.”
“The dead lie breathless in an endless slumber,” Suzume interjected coldly, sternly. “The fallen may not wake. Your only enemy here is your mind. It is a test, Keiko. The Master, that illusionary haunt that drew us here, is a Sorcerer and a trickster,” Suzume continued with an unwavering breath. “To succumb to fear is to fail. I will not fail.”
“Suzume, I know this land and I know it well. This is not my home, this is a place I am not welcome, a place I am loathed even after death,” An audible gulp resonated from Keiko’s pale throat before she continued on. “Western Syrovakia bears a great hatred to the East for what it was robbed of many years ago… Tortured spirits that have lost their honor are doomed into the infernal cage they rest, and if I am to disturb them…”
“Then I will slash them down, and ensure their continued slumber.”
Suzume pressed on without further hesitation, gliding swiftly to the decorative stone door of the mausoleum and pressing her palm against the cool, moistened surface. A sudden shiver bolted down the girl’s spine.
“It is unlike your people to seal your dead in stone tombs, Keiko.”
“This is Shi Mian’s tomb,” Keiko uttered quietly.
“Shi Mian..?” Suzume glanced back.
“Shi Mian was the last emperor of the Western Empire before the rise of my ancestor’s dynasty. He was a cruel leader, nearly a mirror of his father who had contemplated ruling in unison with the Akahara family,” Keiko paused, suddenly looking over her shoulder. She turned back, lowering her voice. “It was chaotic after his rule… I can’t say that his people were happy to become part of the Akahara Empire, but they were sure glad to see Shi Mian leave…”
“So this place is cursed,” Suzume summarized nonchalantly.
“If you could call it that… Most people call it a blessing to keep Shi Mian’s vengeful spirit locked away in there… He was the only one locked away in this tomb, to ensure he wouldn’t rise again some day and to punish him for his treachery against the empire.”
“Then why is the door wide open?” Suzume prodded, easily pushing the stone door to the side with a grinding roar. Her answer was obvious as the door receded: Three massive gouges cracked the nearest edge of the stone wall, where it appeared that bronze reinforcements had once been emplaced to seal the door shut forever. Keiko jumped in fear.
“H-He’s free!! We’ve committed a horrible sin!! Mephisto spare us damnation, we came not to disturb the dead!! We- We- We-… Ohhhh Cai, we’re guilty and without an excuse!!”
“Relax,” Suzume snorted. “These gouges came from the outside. Your feared corpse didn’t break out.”
“Thank the Keepers!” Keiko sighed in relief, though her breath was shortened by the sickly aroma that permeated from the gaping chasm of the stone structure before them. She coughed. “That’s…Foul.”
“It’s fresh. He’s not alone.”
Suzume’s claw slithered downward to detach one set of her folding blades from the leather hilt at her waist. A careful snap cracked the musty air of the crypt and once-singular blade erupted into three razor-sharp extensions. Cautiously, she set her brass-heeled boot down upon the first granite step, followed by her other.
“Come on, the scent is stronger down here,” Suzume said back to Keiko. With a shiver, her companion entered the crypt and began to descend down the darkened stairway  Keiko swiftly pulled a small device from her satchel and frantically struck it against the wall of the stone prison. Light flashed in brilliant luminescence, and as it did so, thick iron wire shot from either flank of the doorway to seal it shut in a pulsing, twisting, razor-edged entanglement of otherworldly construction. Keiko jumped, nearly stumbling over the still calm Suzume. “Our exit is blocked… We can only move forward now.”
“F-Forward?! You do know what’s forward, right?!”
“Yes, our goal,” Suzume replied, continuing on and across a short, flat surface the stairs had led them to. Pebbles and fragmented rock littered their walkway, with torn shreds of paper hanging from every surface of every wall and even the ceiling overhead. Skeletal claws stretched down through the rock, claws that appeared to wiggle to Keiko, thus causing her to shuffle closer to Suzume.
“The mantra covering the walls… It’s a ward. I can… I can feel the ward pushing us away,” Keiko whimpered.
“It’s not the mantra… This is the work of a sorcerer. I recognize the smell… It stinks of…”
“Blood?”
Keiko jumped again, this time bolting back for the sealed doorway, though the stairs forced the girl into a sudden halt. She whirled back around to look about frantically, completely baffled as to how composed (though very on-edge) her partner seemed to be.
“Who are you?! Show yourself, Sorcerer!” Suzume barked, her stance strengthened and her blades viciously bared to bite into the first trace of flesh to illuminate itself within the blackened cove of death.
“And what, might I ask of you, dost thou plan to do with such a weapon, child? Do you wish to render my flesh?” The voice spoke from the very walls, as if resonating from the very mantra that were created to repel it. Multiple tones merged and clashed simultaneously to create a bone-shaking resonation that echoed around the confined walls of the chamber, making things brutally obvious to both girls how small the tomb actually was. “Before you do so, however, I recommend that you learn the difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer. For you to call me a Sorcerer, though... Tell me: is that what you consider a 'front', or do you truly know so little? The difference would perhaps decide how long you survive actual combat.”
“You’ve locked us in here. Wizard, Sorcerer, Keeper, I don’t care what you are. I want to know what you want from us, and why you won’t show yourself.”
“Ever a flare for dramatics, where would the fun be if I couldn’t flaunt my uncanny talent for such a field, and teach you something in the process? Regardless…”
“Cut to the point, Sorcerer, my patience is getting dull,” Suzume snarled.
“Mmm… No more than a moment and you’re already showing signs of gratuitous disappointment. Infuriating. This grave is a cell, barred and bound by steel and stone to which only I possess the key. However, your arrogance flares like a roaring inferno, growing more brilliant the longer it is throttled, deprived of precious air… Perhaps this may be used to my advantage…”
“What do you want from us?” Suzume inquired, her dark brown eyes flicking over the sharpened tip of her blade, as if imagining the supple, tender throat of her target slamming into the razor again and again.
“I lust to see the uncanny knack of animalistic survival. I want to be sure that those I choose as my… Aides… will make for fitting agents in the reclamation of an empire. Reclamation. You will find me in this tomb at its very core. Do not tarry, I have not the patience for tardy children.”
A vicious hiss resonated from the walls followed by a haunting silence. Suzume lowered her blade and turned back to Keiko, extending her hand to help the white-haired Syrovakian back to her feet.
“So, how deep is this tomb?”
“Shi Mian… He’s awake.”
“What, the big, booming voice? Yeah, he’s awake, and he’s hoarding a ludicrous amount of essence. I can smell it…” Suzume snorted, turning back to the second stairwell leading further down into the crypt. “Maybe that’s not the best description of what I feel.”
“Shi Mian was never a magician, nor were his highest wizards and consults ever near him at the moment of his death. These mantra were meant to suppress such a build up of energy, but… I guess all of the hate he bore for my family started to manifest as he decayed in here.”
“So… How big is this tomb?”
“It’s a cage. The end of it should be at the bottom of those stairs.”
As if having only been awaiting instruction, Suzume turned and bolted quickly to the darkened stairwell just ahead. Keiko groaned in dismay, yet hefted her hissing mechanical torch high and followed after. Their descent was brief, no more than a set of fifteen stairs passed before Suzume suddenly halted and yelped. Keiko landed softly into Suzume’s back, causing another brief flurry of swears.
“Is it Shi Mian?!” Keiko stuttered.
“Y-You could say that…” Suzume replied, her arms outstretched to desperately grip the walls of the cavernous grave. Keiko’s eyes bounced from Suzume to the end of the tomb and widened at a spontaneous realization her compatriot had just moments ago.
There was no end of the tomb.
“What… Is this?” Suzume gasped, her hands slowly releasing their grasp on the damp stone surfaces at her flanks.
“Shi Mian… When a spirit is in great turmoil, it becomes very powerful… Very, very powerful. It looks like he… He…”
“This is a spatial distortion. The second the tomb sealed, we ended up in an enclosed pocket of very condensed essence. For all we know, we could be in the Master’s hand right now.”
“But this…” Keiko whimpered, her eyes focused on the scene before them. Stone had been shattered, and the obvious resting place of a massive stone and iron sarcophagus had been torn asunder from the inside out. Past it a void of twisting, swirling blacks, reds and purples danced hauntingly in an impossible display of power. Pieces of broken rock hovered and twirled delicately within the void, though sporadic, a keen eye could tell that a path had obviously been laid out before the duo. A path leading into the very heart of the spectacular nether.
Suzume pushed herself to continue onward, stepping past the broken remains of the late emperor’s cage and to the edge of oblivion. She carefully balanced herself and swiftly launched her agile form onto one of the floating rocks. The surface shifted beneath her, bobbing like a hunk of driftwood beneath a toad down a swirling current of ethereal stream. Suzume launched her arm out and attached a claw skillfully to the edge of the rock, balancing herself and causing the hunk of granite to hover to a steady halt. She glanced back to Keiko.
“Careful, this walkway is not steady,” Suzume spoke over her shoulder. “I will carry on ahead. Call if you need assistance.”
“But-” It was too late. Suzume had already leapt from one rock to another, and another and another with a virtually inhuman grace. Though to Keiko, it made sense: Someone who had cat ears and a tail wasn’t exactly human in ability or mind. Besides… That girl had a Keeper, anyway. The most graceful, agile and swift of them all. Scox.
Keiko, however…
“Great. I’ll get there eventually…” She sighed, bouncing carefully from rock to rock, hardly able to mirror the frightening speed and grace of her friend.
Some distance away, Suzume found the stones condensing, multiplying, as if the source from which they had shattered was very, very near. A roar echoed in the distance, a blisteringly loud call that sent shivers down every inch of Suzume’s skin. The call was not one that the girl had ever heard before, not one of the natural world. No beast of Gaddain could make that call. At least… None that was alive.
Little more time passed before Suzume’s goal was in sight. A single, floating ivory-white island adrift in a sea of faceless rubble and swirling magicks. The girl wasted no time in meeting this goal, soaring from rock to rock with an increased sense of haste. Foot by foot, leap by leap, very little time spanned until she landed upon the smooth ledge of the thick isle.
Sleek, swirling marble greeted her in the form of a decadent stairway leading to the pinnacle of her goal. She was hasty, charging up the stairs and leaping into battle stance the moment her feet hit the ground. A second blade jettisoned from her free hand and folded into a razor-edged triumvirate just like the first, and her eyes locked securely on her targets.
Surprisingly, there were indeed two. A man, who was no doubt Shi Mian, stood in full battle garb, thick studded leather plates covering his chest, arms and legs. A long, rusted yet obviously very sharp blade hung from his belt, the steel flat yet very wide to compensate. A masked, helmeted head pulled upward to examine the girl, and a phantasmal hiss resonated from his maw.
The second figure did not stand, but instead sat  at the man’s side, a shadowy figure adorned with a hooded cloak that concealed all but twin onyx crescents of metal. Bladed edges ending in a lethal pair of points that hung below the shadow’s jaw, like venomous fangs dripping with scarlet poison. Leather gloves folded themselves before the wraith’s breast, the fingers sleek and elegant to contrast the harsh, decayed armor and skeletal fingers of the flanking host.
A familiar voice resonated from the abysmal surroundings again, cracking like thunder and sparking another monstrous roar from the horizon.
“So you arrive, brazen and hardly intimidated by the impossible feat that lay before you. Impressive… If it weren’t so simple.”
“We’re here, as you requested, now tell us what it is you want, and how to get out, before I rip that bony head of yours off of its shoulders!” Suzume barked ferociously.
“You survived a skip in the stream of nether, and you think that is all the challenge I have to provide? Fool.”
Without another word, the armored figure lunged, drawing his blade and slashing powerfully at Suzume. The small girl sidestepped carefully and lashed at his attacking limb, wedging her blade deep into the leather plating of his bracer. Shi Mian snarled and lashed at the girl, smacking her forcefully to the side. Suzume bobbed and rolled back to her feet, diving upon him like a vicious tiger. She roared, stabbing him again and again and again before being violently hurled off and back onto the chilly ivory stone.
“Graceless, disgusting, fiend,” The multi-tonal voice bellowed. “You attack without a tactic, without prediction. If your foe has no weakness, how might you execute your foe, child?”
“Rrrrrghh…” Suzume growled and flicked her wrist to snap one set of blades back into a singular immense dagger. She bolted toward her foe once more, slipping swiftly under his sword to slash him strongly along the side. Shi Mian released another cry of enraged agony before jerking away and stumbling.
“Fool…”
“The only fool here is about to die,” Suzume hissed. She bolted into action once more, as did Shi Mian. The late ruler’s brandish ascended skyward and fell, but it was too late. He found himself with not a blade wedged in his gut, but the full bend of Suzume’s elbow, effortlessly pushing him back and sending him tumbling down the stairs, screaming in agony all the while. A second squeal resonated from the base of the stairs just before the rumbling ceased, and a terrified Keiko appeared at the peak just seconds later.
“Sorry,” Suzume replied casually.
“S-SORRY?! You almost sent me off WITH him!”
“Some Emperor… Guess we just need to find a way to get out of here, now.”
“I believe that to be drastically incorrect.”
Both girls jumped in shock to face the other figure perched so carefully in the absolute center of the levitating marble platform. The figure tilted its head upward, the minuscule illumination of twirling magicks giving detail to the creature’s face. An onyx mask bearing the features of a fanged skull greeted them beneath the loose black hood of the phantom’s veil. Light flickered in Suzume’s eyes, a sudden realization of who had been playing with them the entire time.
“It wasn’t Shi Mian… It was you? Who are you?!”
“Hasty, aren’t we?” The phantom spoke, its voice muffled by the resonating interior of the mask, though even through the distortion it wasn’t difficult for the duo to confirm the speaker was indeed female. “I have to ask, isn’t it contradictory to ask someone wearing a mask about their identity? I believe that entirely defeats the purpose of the mask to begin with.”
“Coward, I’ll pry it off of you and force the words out of your mouth!” Suzume roared and shot forward with unrivaled speed. She struck, yet all the mage needed to do was wave a finger. Air shrieked as new life was born from it, a burning red saber shearing through the very fabric of existence to intercept Suzume’s blade just inches from the mage’s skull. The girl struck again and again, and each time it was blocked by the same blade continuously appearing and disappearing at different points and angles to flawlessly counter every strike. A moment of weakness was exposed as Suzume gasped for air, and it was spontaneously countered by the mage who extended her hand, blasting forth a condensed surge of air into the girl’s chest and sending her tumbling back, breathless.
“When entrapped in the grinding embrace of battle, it is foolish to ceaselessly focus on and assault the first weakness observed… That is a child’s mistake, wouldn’t you agree?” The woman chuckled, her hand ascending to cover the mouth of her mask in a very innocent, ladylike fashion. Suzume gasped for air nearby, clawing her way back to her feet to bellow a release of thunderous coughs, followed by her trademarked animalistic snarl. She charged again, warranting an irritated cluck of the wraith’s tongue. “If power is all you understand, then it will be power that I display.”
“DIE!” Suzume roared.
The wraith reacted swiftly, marking a very small pattern on the ground with her gloved finger, which left inky black trails that, together, formed a marking of some arcane nature.
“Zekassin… vos Mikrath. Let forth the light of the endless hells spill upon my foe… With this key, I open Mephisto’s lock… I beseech thee to open: Vektrath Endless Vaults.”
Blinding scarlet light splintered the air in three perfectly angular slashes, which spontaneously flared outward, spilling forth a burning, reeking stench upon the platform and everything that surrounded it. Hovering boulders scattered from the sudden blast of wind, which also pushed both Suzume and Keiko to dangerous limits. The Wraith, however, seemed virtually unaffected other than her thrashing cloak. Existence rumbled and cracked, the faux-gates slowly parting and ripping the air like flesh; as if some horrible beast were trying to wriggle its way out of a sickening, oozing cocoon. As the red light expanded, claws extended from the brilliance, pouring forth billowing clouds of fetid steam in all directions. Spears, swords, arrows, axes, even weapons of a make-shift caliber joined the ranks of arms, as did twisted iron crosses and soon undead warriors of all kinds.
Then, the worst of all beasts emerged.
Behemothic claws of bone crashed down onto the platform, grappling the surface and shaking it like a child’s wooden boat floating in the bath. A skeletal snout poured free as well, dripping with a thick black ooze that hissed as it struck the ground around the wraith. The monster roared, a horrible roar that sent one’s heart into an uncontrollable and confused flurry, spurring on no emotion but absolute terror, a pure desire of wanting nothing more than to escape to anywhere but here. As it silenced, the wraith stood and extended her arms, tilting her head back to gaze up at the monumental snout above her head.
“I ask you one final time, children. Do you wish to hear a proposal, or will you be defiant until the end?”
“I’m not going to die, I’m not going to be like Shi Mian, not a slave with my soul bound to a walking, rotting corpse!! Suzume, agree!”
Suzume growled again, this time in frustration more than anything. Her pride wounded, maimed even, she folded her blades and threw a look askance.
“Serve you as living or serve you as dead. Fine, we choose living, but I’m not going to enjoy it.”
“Of course not,” The woman replied cheerfully. She suddenly snapped her fingers, causing the existential rip to roar shut, slamming like a set of doors on those that had emerged from the portal and sucking them back into oblivion. The trio of scars twisted and vanished in a blast of carmine smoke, and the wraith returned to her kneeling perch. “My request is simple. I wish to observe you grow.”
“But why us?”
“You, feline, because you possess a Keeper, obviously. As for your friend…” The woman chuckled. “Because she is royalty, and the ally of your enemy… And intriguingly your friend. I wish to see the true growth of a Keeper, honed and controlled, not forced with wanton carnage and rage like that of Mephisto or Matriel. No… Scox deserves, most incredulously, a deft touch.”
“Then what will you have us do?”
“You’ve passed your first trial in a road of twisting turns and erratic falls. All you need to do is wait for my further instruction, and I ensure you…”
The woman raised her hand, folding her fingers against one another to create another harmonious snap.
“Our next encounter will be nothing so dramatic.”
Suzume and Keiko jumped in shock again, their surroundings dark and serene. No magicks twisted above them, no rocks hovered around them. Everything was calm, quiet… Misty.
Shi Mian’s tomb looked ravaged, yet there wasn’t a single trace of anything out of the ordinary. The sarcophagus had been destroyed, though it looked to be the work of grave robbers, thieves, or even archaeologists rather than an undead monster. The king himself rested within, as well, though it appeared he had irrefutably seen better days.
Both girls backed up, and out of the mausoleum, careful to slam the door shut on the way out. Keiko breathed a long, deep sigh in a set of mixed emotions. Confusion, relief, agony (mostly from the smell of being in a crypt all day.), but above all: optimism.
“We did it… We actually did it.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Keiko,” Suzume sighed. “From the sounds of things, it looks like we’re just getting started.”