An Englishman in Castle Aincrad

Floor 27 - Chapter 2 - What We Do in the Dark

After his ill-fated attempt to follow Rosalia and Joe, and the discovery of whatever the heck Quinella was, Jet had bemoaned how difficult keeping a close pursuit of someone was, especially when you had to keep a low profile.

Rain had thought he was being a little bit melodramatic, exaggerating how difficult of a task it was, or assuming that, with his low-level Hiding skill, and... less than stealthy appearance (purple and orange were not normally two colours that happened to appear regularly in nature, after all), he would naturally have more difficulty in such a task than she would.

She owed him an apology, she'd realised.

The well-dressed man was certainly thorough in keeping his back clear of would be tails, and by thorough, what she really meant was dangerous and cold blooded. A young NPC that had followed him, part of a quest to find their missing toy – for which the reward was barely anything, 1 col if she remembered correctly, and a small sense of doing a good deed – was sent away and disappeared out of her sight.

It was only when she'd gotten closer that she realised exactly where the child had gone.

Beside her, a small chamber of a cavern had an entrance. So small in fact, that had she not nearly tripped over the uneven ground nearby, she wouldn't have even known it was there...

Despite poking a light crystal in through the entrance, she failed to spot the child who'd probably only been in there for moments, and a sad realisation bought a look of anguish and sorrow to her face.

They were gone – all because of this creature masquerading as human.

She was going to get to the bottom of who this creature was, whatever she did.

/-/

Almost an hour of travelling later, and Rain had edged closer to the creature, despite every sense of self-preservation telling her to run as far away and as fast as possible; to go back, meet up with the Concord and work out who this creep was together... not to do what she'd told both Jet and Sanya off for at various times, for taking completely bonkers risks and trying to do things on their own.

She was absolutely getting chewed out for this, she realised (and no doubt Sanya had already been chewed out for letting her do this on her own...), but the risks were worth the reward. As long as she maintained a low profile, she'd be alright. They hadn't noticed her, and the path was wide enough with enough rock formations to hide behind, that she wasn't too concerned at the moment with that.

No, what she was concerned about was the sheer drop beside her. She wasn't sure exactly where she was anymore, but she had a horrible feeling this wasn't on the Twenty-Seventh Floor – that drop looked less like falling down a mineshaft, and more like falling off the side of Aincrad itself, though she knew instinctively it wasn't falling from the side of the floating castle...

The terrain around it simply didn't add up for it to be that: sheer purple stone cliffs above and below her, littered with the bones of strange creatures, the likes of which she'd never seen before in Aincrad or the real world, and sets of armour that more closely resembled something she reckoned Jet would wear, should they not contain the bones of what she believed were once humans, people who had died probably many years ago... maybe even decades ago.

"It is rather unique, this place, is it not?" The man spoke to himself, though why would he be asking himself that question, unless...

Oh no.

"Oh, don't be so surprised. I've known you to be following me since Ham's Stead." He commented, a lasseiz-faire tone to his voice, as if he was used to being followed. "I must say, I'm impressed by your tenacity, young lady. Many would've given up long before now... if I allowed them to survive that long, of course. You should be honoured that I let you follow me."