She took off, running back the way she’d come, praying the entire time that the ballyhoo wasn’t around the next corner.
Her haste almost killed her. Her foot landed wrong, sending her pitching forward. She barely saved herself from sliding headfirst through the hole in the floor, her sword arm hanging over its edge. Shea held herself still, afraid to move the wrong way and fall or make any more noise than she already had.
She listened, hoping she hadn’t called its attention to herself.
Her hopes were in vain.
There was a scream, the sound of a predator who knew its prey was trying to wiggle free. There was a clatter as it rushed down the hall.
The ethereal glow that reminded Shea of moonlight preceded the beast around the corner.
Shea was caught for a moment by its glow, something so unexpected down here in the dark that she stopped and stared. A skeletal limb grasped the wall.
It was all Shea glimpsed before she rolled over the edge of the hole, hanging onto the side for one stomach-churning moment before dropping to the floor below. She landed and collapsed onto her side, hoping to protect her knees and ankles. Last thing she needed was to break anything.
She didn’t pause to take in her surroundings, turning and stumbling blindly in the dark, fear coating the back of her throat.
Another mythological, this time one who’d breached the pathfinders’ inner sanctum. How?
She’d have to survive if she wanted to find out.
According to story, the ballyhoo was an incorporeal creature who used the hypnotic aspect of its glow to draw its prey in. Known for haunting dead and abandoned places like old cities or the great battlefields of the previous age, it consumed all light from a person’s world.
All of that was great information, but it gave her no clue how to defeat it. A blade might work, but if it was really incorporeal she wasn’t sure her sword would even touch it.
There was another haunting scream above her as it discovered her absence. It was only a matter of time before it figured out where she had gone.
Whatever her course of action, she needed to figure it out quick.
Her boots sloshed through water as she staggered deeper into the bowels of the Keep. She had no idea how she was going to work her way back, but for now she needed to focus on survival.
There was a faint thump from behind her as the creature came through the same hole she’d taken advantage of. Her reaching hands bumped into a ledge, the water now midthigh. The rain must have caused runoff down here. That, or an underground river ran through the belly of the Keep.
She hoisted herself up out of the water and onto rock, nearly slipping twice before she made it all the way up.
The softening of the dark announced the creature’s presence behind her. She fought back a whimper as it rounded the corner.
Something out of a nightmare, the mythological looked almost human. It walked upright, clad in what looked like a threadbare robe, a ghostly mist oozing off it in waves.
That wasn’t the scariest thing about it however. No, it was the two black holes where its eyes should be, over a slash of a mouth, the bones of its skull bare, no flesh covering it.
Seeing her, it rushed forward, floating over the ground.
It reached the water and recoiled, a wail of frustration leaving it as it drifted back, its face turning as if it could see the liquid at its feet, despite having no eyes.
It paced along the edge, the unearthly sound it made assaulting Shea’s ears.
The one good thing about the ballyhoo was its presence helped illuminate the area around them.
She saw the hints of the majestic hall it must once have been—a raised ceiling above, arched doorways leading off the sides, and collapsed columns broken and lying in pieces on the ground.
Some of those doors were blocked by collapsed earth behind them. Through it all ran a little stream. That was what Shea had crossed and the ledge she perched on wasn’t really a ledge. It was a wall that had collapsed, a mural if the faded colors she could just barely see were anything to judge by.
The ballyhoo and Shea both noticed an option for crossing at the same time. A column, cracked and lying half in the water, provided a straight path from the ballyhoo’s side to Shea’s.
A cackle issued from the creature and it began drifting toward it.
Shea felt a surge of anger. She wouldn’t let it be that easy for the beast. If he wanted her head, he’d have to work for it.
