Shadow Slave

The hidden passage led Sunny underground, twisting and turning through the mass of stone. Despite the fact that he had been cautiously walking forward for a few minutes now, Sunny felt that he was still beneath the cathedral. In fact, by his estimation, he was approaching its center.

And indeed, right beneath the spot where the statue of the goddess should have been, the narrow passage opened into a larger room. In it, a deep well leading even further down was situated, with a winding staircase spiraling down into the darkness.

Sunny frowned.

'What is it with this place and creepy dark wells?'

Going further down was going to place him dangerously close to the catacombs. He knew all to well what kind of danger that would pose — the last time Sunny had ventured into the maze of ancient tunnels below the city, he barely escaped alive.

After hesitating for a while, he stepped onto the staircase and began descending. Deep, ancient shadows surrounded Sunny, giving him a little comfort.

At least he was among his kin.

After a minute or so of walking down the stairwell, Sunny entered a large chamber that seemed to be carved into the bedrock, as opposed to being constructed by human hand. On the other side of it, a large door forged from black steel stood, illuminated by two burning torches.

Two thoughts entered Sunny's mind simultaneously.

The first one was that the metal from which the monolithic door was made looked eerily familiar. It was the same dark, lusterless, impenetrable alloy that the Black Knight had been made of.

The second thought was even more disturbing.

'...How come those torches are still burning?'

aflame for several thousand

strange. They seemed to be producing light, but it

were supposed to be dancing on the floor. But instead, the shadows were absolutely motionless. It was as though the light

was visibly relieved. Taking a few exaggerated steps back, it merged with the deep darkness at the

into a protective stance.

…But nothing attacked him.

only thing that happened was a sudden shill that run through Sunny's body when he had entered the circle of light cast by the

protective charm. I am

ask himself, though, was this — were the torches meant to keep something from entering the

were they meant to keep something

was only one way

He had not come into this underground chamber just because of idle curiosity or because of being blinded by greed and the prospect of finding a

led him here and pushed him to study the black door

admit that his intuition was more than a mere manifestation of his subconscious. It had turned out to be correct one

had

the presence of divinity. And sometimes, he was even drawn to it — like he was drawn to this cathedral and to the mysterious key

he was about to find out

it was not all his intuition was capable of. There were

Divinity.] If he were to guess, he would say that after he had been changed by the ichor, that Attribute was slightly enhanced, giving him the ability to sense subtle tremors that ran through the strings of fate from time to time — the strings that were, apparently, tightly

with those strings gave Sunny a slight affinity to revelations and fate — similar to the one Cassie had possessed, but infinitely less

enough to guide him to this door