Chapter 21: A long way down
A few hours later, Lance woke up to find himself being carried by the Count on his back.
“Can you put me down?” Lance asked as he tried to free himself from the Counts grip.
“You woke up?” The Count asked as he let Lance fall on the ground.
“What is this?” Lance asked as he stared at the scenery in front of him.
“We arrived at an unexpected obstacle.” The Count stated as his eyes dropped down to look at what was a mile deep gorge, while also noticing the city Sphagnales in the far off distance.
“What is the meaning of this Count, you said it would “indirectly” lead us to the city, not a one mile deep gorge!?” Lance complained as he couldn’t help himself feel intimidated by how deep the gorge was.
Without mentioning once more how deep the gorge was, fog and moss seemed to make the descent almost impossible, as something seemed to create a very concentrated humidity at the very bottom of the gorge.
“Normally we should have reached somewhere below this deep gorge, but after chasing that putrid smell and eliminating its source; we went “a little” off-track.” The Count said with amusement in his voice.
“By the way, I don’t remember you having a scythe on your back, and what’s with the pumpkin head at the lower end of it?” Lance asked as he noticed the strange aura coming from it, and the creepy glow emanating from the pumpkin head.
“Buzz off, punk!” Enraged by Lance’s observation the spirit within the scythe lashed out at him.
“It spoke!” Lance felt goose bumps as he heard the voice, and waited for the Counts explanation, which came rather fast.
Slamming the scythe in the ground with as much force as he could, the Count then gently placed its foot above the pumpkin head, and started reminding it of the terms and conditions, leaving Lance utterly shocked.
“Just what happened while I was out of it?” Lance finally said as he managed to gather the guts to interrupt their one sided conversation.
“This scythe is my reward for eliminating the threat from before, but as you can see, it needs some disciplining.” The Count returned its gaze towards the scythe as he finished talking with Lance.
Thirty minutes later, after some severe lecturing given by the Count, the scythe and the glow from the pumpkin head seemed to have died down a lot, to the point that Lance thought that what he heard before was just a hallucination.
“I never knew you could exorcize spirits, Count.” Lance said as he got up, preparing himself for the long journey below.
“Nonsense, I just taught the spirit some good manners, isn’t that right?” The Count asked, as he slowly turned his gaze towards the scythe that seemed to lose even more of its presence.
“Mrh…yes…mumble.”
“Good, then let’s proceed.” The Count said with a joyful voice.
Lance and the Count began their descent into the gorge, but as they got lower into it. They noticed strange marks on the wall, similar to scratches.
These scratches annoyed Lance, wherever they appeared the footing seemed that more fragile making their descent all the more difficult.
While Viktor descended the rocky cliffs like a normal mountain climber, using his scythe for any unfortunate misstep to latch onto the rocks, Lance used sheer brute force to smash his fingers inside the rock, regardless of whether this came at the cost of a few fingers being broken.
However the lower the two of them descended, the more fragile and battered by the weather the rock was. What made matters even worse, was the ever increasing presence of the vegetation, which reduced their ability to get a good foothold for their descent.
With each 100 meters they descended, more and more of the rocky cliffs got replaced by lush vegetation and a humid fog, which made them both sweat like pigs. Trying to get his mind off of the climbing, Lance decided to ask the Count a question.
“Hey Count, can I ask you something?” Lance spoke as he continued his descent.
“Of course, anything that can take our minds off of trying to have a safe descent is recommended here.” The Count said sarcastically, but Lance continued regardless of that fact.
“While I was inside the mantle, did you happen to encounter Pandora.” His question almost made the Count lose his grip as he hurriedly descended lower, before giving his answer.
“No, what makes you say that?” The Count asked as he stared straight into Lance’s eyes.
“Well, for some reason I heard her singing. You probably also heard her sing at least once, if you know where she is. It’s unique, unnatural; it shakes your soul in so many ways, that it can’t be called just a song.” Lance said as he stared at the rocky background in front of him.
“…” The Count stood silent, pondering whether to tell him that he contacted Pandora earlier, but before he could say anything, his thoughts are disrupted by the urgent screaming that came from Lance.
“Count, COUNT! Watch out!”
“SHIT!” As the Count turned his gaze around, he knew he could do nothing to stop what was about to happen.
A shadow of death looms over the Count, but what could it be?
