• Shadow's Aftermath

"Spheris!" he heard Nephta yell his name, but he knew she couldn't save him. It was Talon who fearlessly flew to the Gorgolith's eye and perched on it constantly with his beak, upsetting the monstrous beast. The creature roared angrily, but refused to let go.

Jion was on his feet again. With dread in his eyes, he watched Spheris struggle to free himself, desperately grabbing onto any rocky protrusion. "It has the boy!"

Nephta picked up a rock and flung it at the Gorgolith despairingly. The creature turned towards her direction, but it didn't release Spheris from its tongue. It flung his head, slamming Spheris to the stony wall, almost shattering the boy's back.

"What are you doing?" Jion yelled. "The kid's as good as dead; we have to get out of here now!" Nephta glanced at Spheris, who was being lifelessly dragged into the creature's mouth. She sighed disappointedly and turned to leave.

More rocks fell, the entire cavern disintegrating bit by bit. Talon screamed at the peak of its voice, begging Spheris to wake up! He was a few feet away from the Gorgolith's wide-opened jaw, just seconds from being its third meal that night.

But right in the nick of time, a slight second before he became monster dinner, Spheris's eyes tore open. He swiftly unsheathed his digger knife and spun around, his back to the ground as he aimed for the Gorgolith's tongue. Then, he sliced through the coarse appendage with the precision of a seasoned thief.

The creature roared in extreme agony, slamming its head on the walls of the cave, its tail wailing above.

Spheris broke free and belted down the middle of the cave, following behind Jion and Nephta, Talon gliding after him. Nephta turned around, the surprise and relief in her eyes was difficult to conceal.

"Don't look back!" Spheris yelled at her. "Keep running!"

"You are a true survivor, kid!" Jion yelled back. They sprinted towards any tunnel openings they could find, desperately searching for the correct path out of the labyrinthine caves.

But the Gorgolith was not far behind. It seemed to have a newfound determination as it chased them relentlessly. The ground continued to shake as if protesting the intrusion of such a formidable force. The dust-filled air made it difficult to breathe, but the urgency pushed them forward.

After running for a while longer, Spheris noticed he could no longer hear the Gorgolith's roar. "Stop!" he ordered.

Jion and Nephta halted. "What is it?" Jion asked. "Look, you are not the one who decides what happens here. You can not just tell us to stop."

"Listen." Spheris said, his voice breathless yet calm. "The creature isn't roaring anymore. I can't hear it."

It was indeed true. The cave was calm once again, the rocks stopped falling, and the ground no longer trembled.

"Has it given up?" Nephta asked.

"Given up?" Jion scoffed. "Gorgoliths don't give up. They're the most berserk and relentless of all three Hellbenders. It must be threading beneath the ground."

Spheris squatted and slowly placed his hand on the earth, listening. "It's not in there." He glanced at the part of the cave they had left.

"Let's just go!" Jion demanded.

"Go? We don't even know where we are going," Nephta remarked. "We're lost Jion. We're in a cave full of rocks that this monster can crawl inside of, meaning it could be anywhere."

That was when Spheris realized it. He observed the cavern walls pulsating with an unnatural energy, and it was coming closer. Fast. "It's in the walls," he whispered.

"What?"

"It's in the walls!"

Spheris quickly protected his face with his hands as the Gorgolith exploded through the wall, presenting itself in all of its rageful glory and standing in their way. It roared ferociously, and its magma-forming throat swelled with fury.

As the walls came crashing down, Spheris glared at the beast, half-terrified and half-angry. Monsters were usually barbarous, but this abomination was downright dogged and unrelenting.

"Go! Go! Get out of the way!" Jion screamed as he pivoted and began to flee. But the Gorgolith was not having any of that. It swung its tail at the Gentlefolk thief, shattering a reasonable amount of the cave's wall in the process and piercing it's spike right through him.

"Ugh!" Jion's body slammed at the rocky walls, blood pouring out of his mouth while his eyes bared wide open. Nephta fell to the ground in shock, Spheris slowly got up to his feet and the Gorgolith roared victoriously.

However, it had no idea that it had unwittingly triggered its own demise. The part of the caves they were in was the weakest, and the Gorgolith, in its brainless pursuit, had breached the weakened walls and thrust its tail through it as well. And because of that, it quickly began to disintegrate.

First, a loud crack through the rocks and then bang! A large piece of rock plummeted from above and crashed onto the Gorgolith's head. The creature appeared momentarily disoriented, but it regained composure quickly and unwisely roared again.

Spheris watched as the crack in the cave walls expanded and a weary smile finally lit up his tired face. 'Go to hell, you fatheaded monstrosity.'

Rocks fell like a cascade of judgment on top of the Gorgolith, crashing on its entire body and burying it beneath a mound of stones.

Spheris was a good distance away and so all he had to do was shield his face from the dust.

Nephta hurriedly weaved through the falling debris, finding cover behind a sturdy outcrop. Jion, who was surprisingly still alive, crawled slowly away from the barrage of descending rocks.

The air filled with the deafening sounds of rocks colliding and shattering, Dust and fragments obscured vision. Spheris was sure he heard Nephta scream in pain. He used both hands to close his ears as the thunderclaps of the falling rocks continued.

Crash, crash and more crash until it was less, and the deluge of rocks slowly subsided. Spheris got up and cautiously approached the outcrop where Nephta was hiding, checking if she was still alive.

He heard her cough and asked, "Are you hurt?"

Nephta looked up at him, unable to explain the strange demeanor and look in his eyes before she replied. "Yes, it's only a broken arm."

"Help... me." Jion's bewailing voice seeped through the dark cave. "Ughhhh... help."

Spheris glanced at the direction where his voice came from and approached it purposefully.

Lying on the ground was Jion, coughing painfully. The large wound on the side of his stomach where the Gorgolith's tail had struck was now filled with dust, yet blood oozed out of it easily. It was an ugly wound, but it wasn't fatal. Jion could survive it, if only Spheris helped him leave this cave.

"Nephta knows a... healer," Jion muttered. "Take me there."

Spheris stood still, gazing down at the wounded thief with cold emotionless eyes. He watched Jion cough and growl in pain but yet there was not a single glint of emotion in his gaze. Then slowly, Spheris dropped to a knee.

"Thank you... Spheris." Jion called him by his name for the first time. However, his show of appreciation came too early as he realized that the boy thief was taking off his boots. "Wha— what are you doing?"

Spheris didn't reply, he quietly unfastened the footwear from Jion's leg and proceeded to put them on.

"What are you doing?" Jion repeated, terror in his voice.

Spheris's gaze met his, a much darker expression in his apathetic eyes. "Your boots," he replied. "They're cascadean, and I need a new pair." Jion watched in bewilderment as Spheris donned the boots. He was scared now, his breathing growing more labored. How could this boy be so heartless? So vile?

"You are going to leave me here?" he asked.

Spheris gave him a short glance before saying, "Yes."

"No, no, no," Jion's heart sank. "You can't leave me here. That monster isn't dead."

"I know," Spheris bluntly replied.

"What?"

"I know."

A grim realization cast a shadow over Jion. "No," he shook his head. "You can not be that cruel."

"You have no idea what I can be... Jion," Spheris countered with a calm yet menacing voice. "Cruelty is nothing. I mean, you said it yourself: We do what we must to survive."

Hearing the words, Jion's eyes widened gravely. "You heard us? In the tunnels?"

"All of it," Spheris assured. "Including your plans to get rid of me. Typical Gentlefolks. You are thieves just like I am, yet you carry yourself with an air of pride, as if you are somehow better than me even though we both lead the same forbidden profession." He turned to Talon, softly petting him on the head "And Dunnam, thinking that he is the first person to know about the treasure down here."

Jion coughed, grappling with both pain and the weight of this new information. "You knew about it?"

"I heard about it once... in an old alehouse in Wallowhale. And I heard about a giant beast locked inside to protect the treasure. But when Dunnam didn't mention any beast, I was unsure whether it existed or not. Still I was ready for it, you weren't."

"You are a cold-hearted devil. You led us to our own deaths."

"Oh I did not, your greed did. Sure, I could have warned you all about it, but then I had a plan of my own."

Jion scowled. "What plan?"

Spheris arose gloriously, and gazed on the roof of the cave. "Up in the bastion, the Duke's vault is unguarded at this very moment because the marshals have likely been sent down here. The tremors should have alerted them long ago. You guys tried to steal from The First Wing's Treasury; that was stupid. You were never going to get away with it.

"And so I decided to use your so-called heist as a diversion to carry out mine."

"And what if... there was... no monster?" Jion could feel the life draining away from him now.

"Then my plan would have failed, and my fate would have rested in yours and Dunnam's hands." Spheris began to dust off his clothes, Talon proudly perched on his shoulder. "I guess the success of my plan was dependent on that Gorgolith being in the dungeon."

Jion felt defeated and shattered. He wanted to be angry but he could not summon the strength to feel rage. He gave up.

"Do you have something to say?" Spheris asked him.

Jion took a deep, painful breath. "I will meet you... in Hell one day, shadow walker. Because, you know that's all you're ever going to be, right? A Heathian shadow walker."

"Perhaps," Spheris shrugged. "But you let the situation at hand deceive you. Just like Dunnam, you thought you had hired a mere shadow walker. You thought wrong.

"I don't just walk in the shadows, Jion," he turned his back to leave but halted, glancing at the fallen thief. "I am the shadows."

And with that, he walked away from Jion, while the rocks on the roof threatened to fall again.

"You have not seen the last of me, Spheris!" Jion cried. "I will kill you, you hear me?! I will kill you!!!" The rocks rained down on him, crashing into his bones and burying him to his death.

Spheris sauntered away from the wreckage. Unfazed.