Finally, the demon could no longer stand waiting for him to leave and roughly grabbed Joe's shirt collar, lifting him slightly off the ground by it, "What's taking so long?! Don't tell me you're scared of the dark.." He did not reply at first, keeping his gaze fixed on the hole in the ground. It was not until a creature that resembled a dog sized scorpion jumped up from the hole in their direction that Joseph finally acted, bringing his feet up against Drakarn's stomach and jumped off of him. With a quick backwards roll, he rose to his feet in time to see Drakarn attempt a few swings at the creature, but to no avail, as it quickly returned to it's domain in the shadowy path below the room.

Almost instantly, Drakarn was glaring at the elf yet again, "That was not kin.. nor was it,... 'normal'... You knew it was there, what is it??"

Joe first got back up, and after inspecting the rip in the knee of his pants, caused by his poor landing, he made his way back to the entry to the passage below, continuing his watch. "It is called a Shadow Crawler. That's about all that the scholar's have.." He paused, reaching into his coat, "They.. It..? I'm not really sure how many of them there are,.. but it's the fastest known creature... and I'm sure you've already realized what it lives off of.. "

"You're planning to..?”

“There’s no light source in the path below..” He knelt down, still keeping his hand upon the object in his coat pocket, “When I jump, seal the hole back...” He did not wait for a response, jumping as soon as he felt the words had time to settle in the Draconian’s mind. Almost instantly as he landed, the world became dark, and Joseph was almost alone again. Of the perks to his demonic heritage, Night Vision, was not among that list. As soon as he heard the Crawler start it’s approach, he turned toward’s the sound and threw the crystal he’d been holding onto against the ground before him. Half blinding himself, he succeeded in freezing the monster in it’s tracks. Jumping in and out of light sources for short amounts of time, were not a problem, but being trapped in such a overwhelming light, was almost enough to kill the Shadower Crawler in itself.
Not being one to take a chance on the matter, Joe took a quick swing at the Crawler with the Bloodlust. Though he could only make out an outline of where it had been, the screech it made as the blade cleaved through it, was evidence of his success. It would be some time before he could continue, but that was not of importance after all the time that had already seemed to pass, what were a few extra minutes?

As the glare slowly faded to darkness, Joseph began to feel his way through the pathway, stopping after just a few steps, finding what would hopefully be the last door he would have to cross in this endeavor. As he forced the door open, it seemed promising, for the first time since he started through Miss Adrastia’s keep, he actually felt like he was progressing forward, rather than in circles..
In the center of the room, there was a pit, he couldn’t see to the bottom, but he could guess it would not be a soft landing.. On the other side of the pit, there were half a dozen prison cells, but they all seem to be empty..

“..I don’t get it..” He made he way through a full circle around the room, before stopping at the pit, “..There’s no where else to go but down..” Joe’s mind was all but made up to find a way down the pit when a voice echoed through the cell directly behind him..

“Joe!!” He turned as soon as the voice registered in his mind to find none other than Adrastia herself.

“Tia..” He finally found her.. Granted, he was getting ahead of himself, sighing, relaxing; she was still locked behind a cage that had no apparent way to be opened..

“What took you so long?!”

“Sorry..” He shook his head after a moment, then smirked, “It took awhile to figure out you weren’t just giving us a vacation..” Before she even got the chance to retaliate, Joe had already begun to search the room over for a way to open the cells. It was about thirty minutes before anything happened..

“Well..?” She didn’t get an answer, as soon as she asked, he dropped into the pit in the center of the room, “...J-Joe?” After a moment of silence the cell slowly slid open and Tia ran to the edge of the pit as soon as she was free, “Joe!?”

“...less screaming.. more helping..” Looking down, Tia found Joe hanging from a switch that was just far enough down that one could not hit it from the surface. She quickly reached down for him to take her hand, but he just starred at her at first..

“What’s wrong??”

“N..nothing..” He finally grabbed her hand, “..just trying to figure out how this go so reversed..”

“You could just say ‘Thank You.’”

“Yeah, yeah... bite me..”

“Heh.. If you insist Joey.”

“Hey! It’s a figure of speech!”

=-=
Epilogue

Phil- “Hey Joe..?”

Joe- “Yeah?”

Phil- “Did you ever figure what happened?”

Joe- “That part was easy.. All the illusions.. It was the souls of all those innocents Miss Tia.. got a bit carried away with.. Though,.. there is one thing I don’t understand.. Why the lever was in that pit.. I mean, I know why.. But, I mean, it just seems like a bit much..”

Phil “I don’t know, seems like a good way to keep someone from messing with the switch to me bro..”

Joe- “Well.. Yeah.. I mean there’s nothing in the room to hit it with.. You’d have to risk your life to hit it..”

Phil- “And you say you aren’t a nice guy.. >>”

Joe- “Well.. I couldn’t just leave her there!”

Tia- “My hero! <3 <<”

Joe- “What do I do to deserve this..? -_-;”

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