Veritas

Chapter 66

The vampire charged forward into the room, only to skid to a stop in front of Aislinn. Confused, she peered at the familiar face before her, certain that he'd run down the opposite path that would have taken him away from her. Before she could ask, he voiced the same concerns, though.

"I appear to have come full circle" Drystan said, looking around the cavern as if it would give him answers. "I heard your voices shifting from behind me to in front of me after a while; although, I did not identify any drastic directional changes during my travels...This is peculiar" he mused.

"So you were running straight and just found yourself back here?" Aislinn asked, relaxing her defensive stance and looking around the same way Drystan had. "You must have taken a fork in the road to lead you back here instead of to the exit" she suggested.

"No" was Drystan's simple reply.

"No?" Aislinn echoed with a frown. "What do you mean?"

"There were no forks...From the moment we entered the tunnel, it has been a straight path. We have been travelling this route for hours, and I have not returned to the entrance, nor found an exit" he explained.

Aislinn frowned, continuing to look around her. Inside the tunnel, especially in the darkness, it was hard to pick up on any anomalies that would have stood out had they passed them before. She wondered how they could have been traveling for so long and missed any entrance or exit, yet have Drystan stumble back upon them so quickly. A sinking feeling began to form in her stomach as she realized a potential answer.

"I thought it was odd that they were so skimpy on the guards, even if we were surrounded by witches...This tunnel was never an exit, just a trap, I'd bet" Aislinn said aloud flatly, feeling exhaustion taking over once again. She sank to her knees and groaned. "We went from bad to worse."

Drystan nodded, recognizing that she was probably right about the trap. "Yes, that does make the most sense...There must be some sort of looping spell, that stops us from reaching the exit" he theorized.

Aislinn ran her hands back through her hair, grabbing fistfuls as she let out another groan. "Now what? We wait for them to come kill us?" She demanded miserably.

Looking over at Darius, Drystan seemed to be considering something. After a brief moment of hesitation, he decided to ask anyways. "King Darius...I have heard tales that there were Kings and Queens of days past who had limited magical capabilities...Is this still the case?"

With a scratchy, bark of a laugh, Darius merely shook his head in response.

"Why would that matter?" Aislinn asked curiously, wondering what plan Drystan was trying to make.

"Had he been able to utilize magic, then perhaps he could have located where this is happening...Once we are aware of the location, we may be able to work around the spell" Drystan offered, once more looking around.

"Oh! We don't need magic for that" Aislinn countered, getting back to her feet. "We just do some trial and error" she explained.

Drystan looked at her expectantly, awaiting further clarification. In response, Aislinn walked over and punched the wall to cause some rubble to crumble down. She picked up some of the rocks and walked back to Drystan, setting one on the ground at his feet then gave him the rest. This merely earned her a blank stare from the vampire.

With an amused giggle, Aislinn explained her plan. "They're not exactly easy to differentiate from any other rock; but, you can leave them like a trail of breadcrumbs. Every so many feet, drop one more than before. One starts here, then two rocks, then three...Eventually, you'll wind up back here. Then we'll at least know how many steps we have to work with...Then we narrow things down, more and more, until we figure out where the looping spot is."