The Overlord Trilogy: The Darkness

21 • Te Stergalite

Amber: As Xileth pulls the blade away, cutting part of my neck, he launches it into the stomach of a teenager who rounded the corner. The teen lets out a small cry as he falls to the ground, blood pooling around him.

"Quick! This way!" Xileth runs down the alleyway, picking up his knife and checking the main road. I shake my head and follow him down the street and into what looks like an inn. As we enter an explosion comes from the alley. "Get down!" Xileth shuts the inn door and pulls me behind the main counter. I hold my breath as I hear people shout and run down the stone road.

"What's going on?" I try to keep my voice as low as possible but halfway through my voice raises slightly. Xileth stays silent for a couple of seconds before turning to me. I inwardly sigh when I process what Xileth looks like. He looks human, brown hair, tan, and silver eyes. Nothing that could explain why he always covers his face...

"I will answer your questions later, for now we have to survive." I nod, pulled out of my thoughts.

"Why are you suddenly helping me?" Xileth sighs and turns to me again.

"I am keeping you alive because I may, may, need you." I nod again but only nod to his back as the room goes silent again. Outside goes silent after a while, Xileth turning back to face me. "Here's the gist of everything, which if you do work for te Stergalite you would already know this. If, and this is a small if, you truly do not work for te Stergalite I will tell you what is going on. Basically we are in what is called the 'Arena' which is a small human town and placed inside it are eight, well now nine, non-humans. "We have to kill the other seven, again now eight, to get our reward." With this Xileth stands and moves towards the door, putting his ear to it. Within a couple seconds we're back on the street. "Follow me." Xileth sprints down the street, I stay close behind. We head through a labyrinth of alleyways until we reach a dead end.

"Where to now?" I look around, we're completely trapped. Xileth sighs and opens a manhole and begins to climb down, motioning for me to follow. "Oh great... Down into the sewers, what can possibly go wrong down there..." I reluctantly follow him down the manhole, putting it back in place once secure.

"This way." I follow Xileth's voice as we traverse through what seems to be a pipeline. The darkness around us keeps me on my toes at all times, who knows what could be hiding in here?

"Where are we going?" I wipe water from my eyes and sigh as more drips down onto my forehead.

"You'll see." Xileth's voice echoes back to me. With nothing else to do I think over my situation, which I admit is not good. Okay, I am trapped with a different, younger, Xileth in this human town and have to fight to the death. Wait. What if this guy is an impostor? I could be being led to my own demise! I quickly shake this out of my head. If the "impostor" wanted to kill me he would have already. It has to be Xileth. Anyway, focus Amber! You have to fight a bunch of other people and then fight this Xileth to get back home... right?

I am brought back to reality when a small light begins to twinkle in the distance. As I walk down the pipe the light grows, heat growing with it. Stay on your toes Amber, this is probably some crazy fight club you're walking into... I see Xileth drop down into the room ahead of me. I take a deep breath, preparing for what may lie ahead and run down the rest of the pipe, diving into the room. I look up, ready to fight, at the room and take a double-take. Xileth looks at me like I am insane, which I may be because we're in a normal room. I stand up and wipe the dirt off of my pants before looking around the room. There is a bookshelf against one wall, filled to the brim with books. Hugging the bookshelf is a single bed and to the other side of the bookshelf is what seems to be a map, though mostly ripped.