As Pyrrha was sitting in the chair waiting for Lich to come back, she began planning out her next steps. Sadly, she didn't have much information to work off of so it was quite difficult deciding what to do. For now, she decided to stay with Lich. Yes, he was shady and weird; however, she sensed no malicious intent from him. He hasn't made any moves on her, and he rescued her and fed her as well. Her aura wasn't damaged from eating the fish so the fish wasn't poisoned, and Pyrrha was sure that if Lich really wanted to, she would be dead by now. In addition, if he was a weird cultist and wanted to sacrifice her, then it made no sense why she wasn't tied up at the moment.

As a result, Pyrrha decided to stick with Lich until she has a better understanding of her situation. All she knows at the moment is that she was in a cave system with Grimm in every corner if Lich wasn't lying about the shadow monsters. With Pyrrha weaponless at the moment, she decided to wait for Lich to come back.

When Lich came back, he found Pyrrha absentmindedly throwing pieces of rocks at the wall. Her extremely accurate aim allowed her to hit the same spot on the wall so many times that it made this white mark on the cave wall. He whistled in admiration causing Pyrrha to snap her head toward Lich.

"Damn. Your aim is really good." Lich complemented Pyrrha, and she blushed in return. "Well, I finished scouting, and we should be able to avoid the big ones if we go right now."

"Where are we going?"

"My main base. This room was only temporary because I didn't want to drag you around while you were unconscious so I just made a room right beside the place where I found you."

"You made this room?"

"Yep." Lich emphasized the p to make a popping sound.

"How?"

"Well, I want to say magic, but then you would probably get mad again so I am just going to say my semblance." Pyrrha merely lifted her eyebrows in annoyance.

"You shouldn't get so sassy. I heard that girls don't like men who get sassy."

"And what would an 11-year-old know about romance?"

"I am 12!"

"So you kissed a boy yet?"

"Stop changing the subject!"

Lich merely laughed and placed a hand on Pyrrha's head. "Sorry. Just messing with you."

Pyrrha merely pointed her tongue at Lich and said, "Meanie!"

"Actually, on the subject of your age, would your parents be mad if I used bad words around you?"

Pyrrha widened her eyes in surprise and whispered, "What type of bad words?"

"Well… really bad words. Like the F word or saying God's name in vain which I will do a lot at times."

"Hmm… I don't know. My parents weren't really strict with bad words, but I never used them myself. Mom told me that using bad words hurt people so I should never use them myself. However, that never stopped my parents from stopping this stranger who kept "dropping the f-bomb" while I was sitting right next to him on the train so I guess you can. As for saying God's name in vain, I don't know. Nobody is really religious so I guess you can as well."

"Okay. Good enough for me. I will say a lot of bad words, and you will never repeat them okay?"

"Okay!"

"Now, what about fighting? I know you said that you can fight, but with what? Is it like self-defense?"

"Well, I was top of my class in all the combat classes. So, I can do hand to hand combat, I am great with the sword and shield, and I was the top marksman with a rifle. Other weapons like the spear, the sniper, or the Gatling gun, I was proficient at them. It wasn't until this year at school that we would make our own weapons as huntsman so I don't have a personal weapon though."

Lich looked at Pyrrha incredulously. "Are you a child soldier?"

"What? No! I. Am. A. Huntress in training! Big difference!"

"Not really… You know what. Different world. Different rules and morals. I won't question it. Did they teach you to kill in school?"

"Not yet. We haven't been able to go on eradication missions for Grimm yet. That's after we get our weapons and train with them for a while."

"No. Not Grimm. Humans." Pyrrha merely shook her head and responded, "Fighting rogue huntsman is a much more advanced course. We won't have that class until much later."

"I see. Well, If we see a Sha… sorry Grimm, stay back. I don't want you fighting with your fists yet. When we get to the main base, I'll let you take a look at some weapons I have. I think I have some armor that would fit your size as well."

With that, the two went back into the caves, and Lich waved his hand with a rumbling sound following the hand movement. Soon, the door glowed with a soft red light as if melted back into a smooth cave wall.

Pyrrha felt her mouth drop at the sight. She couldn't help but wonder what type of semblance Lich had. It was a semblance that she has never seen or read about. Then again, her father always said that the world was a very big place.

Lich promptly closed Pyrrha mouth for her and beckoned her to follow him as quietly as she could. With that, they were off. Thankfully, they weren't bumbling around too much because the moss in the cavern roof provided adequate lighting for the two. Enough to avoid tripping over the rocks. It seemed that the caver also had a dust vein as well because occasionally Pyrrha saw multiple dust crystals peering out of the walls, floors, and roofs of the caves. Pyrrha took special care when walking around them. A quick glance at Lich showed him doing the same exact thing, but with a hint of fear as well.

It was only about 5 minutes of walking until suddenly Lich stopped and motioned to Pyrrha to hide behind this large rock. Without hesitation, Pyrrha obeyed, and Lich put a hand into his robe to pull out this mirror on a stick. He stuck it above the rock to get a glimpse of the monster, and Pyrrha craned her head to see as well. She wished she hadn't.

It was a large shadowy spider. It's eight legs slowly crawling forward as it dragged its fat abdomen through the ground with this weird white string coming out as well. Its fangs glistened with a dark shine illuminated by the light from the glowing moss. Bone plating covered the spider; however, Pyrrha noticed one absent thing that was markedly different from all the Grimm she had seen so far. The spider was lacking a mask.

Lich and Pyrrha waited a few more minutes after the spider went further down the intersecting pathway before silently coming out of the rock. As they crossed the intersection, they made sure to avoid touching the silk left behind by the spider. Both knew enough about the ways spiders liked to catch their prey.

The two had five more similar risky encounters. One time, Lich literally made a tiny hole and shoved Pyrrha and himself in there. Sadly, he forgot to put in breathing holes so that Pyrrha almost suffocated. Pyrrha wondered how he was able to hold his breath for so long. When Pyrrha got fed up and asked why he wasn't fighting those things instead, his reply was that he didn't want Pyrrha to get hurt.

After the third encounter, Lich was very angry at how many giant Grimm were suddenly popping up. He said to Pyrrha that at most only one or two should pop up since he went on a massive killing spree recently, but five showing up all of a sudden was simply unheard of for him. It was as if they were all congregating in one spot.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip wasn't as eventful. There were a couple of small Grimm centipedes and dragonflies (small as in relative to the spider. They reached their legs in height.), but Lich quickly took care of them with well-placed fire balls or smashing them against the walls with a strong burst of wind. After seeing the show of strength, Pyrrha once again began wondering about Lich's semblance. Did he have more than one by chance? Was that even possible?

"Alright. We're here." Pyrrha stopped before this small door in front of them. In order to get through the door way, they had to crouch down and crawl inside. Well, in Lich's case, slide inside.

When Pyrrha emerged from the hole, she gasped in surprise. It was a massive cavern with three buildings; however, it was the number of bones that shocked Pyrrha. They weren't human bones or any bones she recognized. It reminded her of certain aquatic bugs, but these skeletons felt far more… primitive. Yes. Primitive was a good word to describe these strange exoskeletons.

"Weird question, but if these skeletons came alive and began moving around, would it scare you?" Pyrrha looked at Lich as if he asked her if he could drink bleach.

"Well, dead things aren't supposed to walk around so yes. It would scare me."

"So do things like zombies and skeletons exist up there."

Pyrrha was reminded of this zombie horror movie she watched when her mother was outside the house with her friends. She shivered in fear, and said, "If they were real, I don't think I could sleep."

"Good to know. Well, you see that building with three spikes on the roof? That's the armory. I make weapons and armor when I get bored. Weapons are on the right room, and armor is in the left room. Don't worry about size. Pick one and bring it to me. I'll make one that fits you. I'll be in the building with the one spike. Any questions?" Lich looked at Pyrrha and waited for her answer or question. Pyrrha was confused at how nonchalant Lich was at living in a cavern that was filled with exoskeletons.

"By any chance, you aren't in a cult, are you?" Lich looked at Pyrrha in what seemed to be confusion before his head pulled back in shock as his hood began shaking wildly as Lich looked over his attire and slapped his forehead.

"Oh. My bad. No. I am not in a cult for two reasons. One. I was the only walking talking thing in this entire cavern until you arrived. Two, I don't do any weird rituals and sacrifices or any weird orgies."

"Orgies?"

"Oh… Forget I said that. No. I am not a cultist."

"What's with all the bones then?"

"Oh umm… they are convenient… tools. Yep. Tools! For example, ummm… oh yeah… some of the weapons and armor are made from these exoskeletons so why move around too much when I can just live on with these convenient tools." Pyrrha's reaction to the awfully suspicious answer was to point at the other building and demand what was in it. "What's in the building with the two spikes?"

"Explosives. You know those crystals in the cavern. They are explosive when you crush them into a powder. Don't go in there without me. I don't want you to accidentally touch something. Do you want me to show you? I am seriously not a cultist. Please believe me. I really would show you my face, but I would seriously scar you cause it really is that ugly."

To emphasize that he was telling the truth, Lich went to the dust building and opened it to show that it really was filled with a bunch of dust and guns that were hanging from the walls. Pyrrha took a deep breath to make sure that she didn't smell anything suspicious, but only stale air met her nose.

To further drive in his point, Lich told Pyrrha to explore this cavern as much as she wanted to and assured her that he wasn't hiding anything scary. With that as his parting words, he went inside the one spiked building and left the door open.

Pyrrha didn't find anything suspicious at all. She examined the floor, walls, everywhere for any potential hidden rooms using techniques that she saw in a detective movie, but came up with nothing. She decided to at least equip with herself with a weapon. After all, he did give her permission. Now that she thought about it, maybe he wasn't a bad guy. What type of bad guy allowed his victims to equip themselves with weapons? Didn't that defeat the purpose? Then again… Pyrrha felt that even with weapons she wouldn't be able to defeat him.

Pyrrha went into the weapons room and looked it over. They were all the classic weapons. None of them looked like convertibles. She decided to go for the weapons that she was the most comfortable with which was the short sword and shield.

Once she chose her weapons, she walked back to the building that Lich was in. When she looked through the doorway, she saw multiple doors and hallways. Because she has seen enough horror movies, she decided to wait out in the entrance and scream for his name.

"Lich. Where are you? I chose my weapons!" Lich peeked his head out from the door closest to the entrance, scaring Pyrrha as she swiped at Lich. Lich quickly ducked as the sword passed over his head, and he exclaimed, "Watch it! I am not your enemy for crying out loud. Fuck's sake girl!"

Pyrrha merely pointed the sword at Lich and screamed, "You scare me!"

"You know what. I am not going to deal with this right now. So those are the weapon you chose? What about the armor?"

"I don't need armor since I have an aura."

"That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Go pick out an armor." Without waiting for a response, Lich went back into the room, and Pyrrha merely stuck her tongue out at him before throwing the weapons down and stomping off toward the building again.

When she went to the armor room, she was surprised at the sheer variety of armor. First, she came to the chain mail and plate mail. Pyrrha knew that she was already a fast-moving agility fighter so heavy armor would work against her. As a result, she decided to simply skip all the metal armor which was pretty much all the armor. She was about to walk out and complain to Lich until she came by this armor. It wasn't metal, but seemed to be like leather. However, it wasn't quite leather because she could see all the interwoven string that made up the armor. It even had this skirt at the bottom. Pyrrha felt a sort of connection to the armor. She decided to take a close look at the writing at the bottom of the armor, but she couldn't read it. It was some other form of writing. However, there was a picture of a stick figure with a spear and shield with a plumed helmet. Pyrrha decided to go with this armor.

On her way back, she was about to call Lich's name again when she heard talking from the room that Lich was in last time. Remembering Lich's words some time ago, she got suspicious and decided to investigate. She stealthily crawled into the room and saw Lich talking to himself and writing something on the wall with what looked to be chalk.

"What are you writing? I thought writing on the wall was bad." Pyrrha couldn't read what was on the wall, and she hoped it wasn't some sort of nefarious plan.

"Oh, it's just that today was a big day. Every time something big happens I like to write things out and organize my thoughts. I just couldn't believe it when I found you. I mean. I was just alone for such a long. Long. Long time. And when I saw you and how you were still alive and I was just so overjoyed and. And." Lich couldn't finish his sentence as he crouched down and began making broken crying sounds. "Damn it. Damn it. I'm crying and no tears are coming out. This is such fucked up shit, and…"

Pyrrha quickly hugged Lich. All thoughts of Lich hurting Pyrrha left her mind. Pyrrha knew what a broken man looked and sounded like ever since the day she saw her friend's father breakdown when one of his children who was a huntsman died on a mission. It was a sight she will never forget.

While she was hugging Lich, she couldn't help but feel that he felt awfully bony. Extremely bony for she could not feel any muscle. Her thoughts stopped when Lich stopped crying and merely replied with thanks.

"That was embarrassing. Sorry, you had to see that."

Pyrrha merely shook her head and asked if there was anything she could do to help. He merely replied no. Pyrrha looked at the writing on the wall once more and tried to make sense of it when Lich asked if she could not avoid reading what's on the wall since they were pretty personal thoughts. He said that he was going to erase it soon. Pyrrha merely answered that she couldn't read it.

"Seriously? Do you not have a writing system?"

"We do, but it is something else."

"Show me."

Pyrrha took the chalk and wrote her name on the wall. Lich merely stared at the writing for a bit before he asked her to stay in this room because he wanted to show her something. When he came back, he was holding what seemed to be a rib.

"Can you read to me what is on this rib? In the past, I was in this room, and there was this writing on this weird door. I thought it was important and carved the writing into this bone." Pyrrha took the bone and looked at the writing. It was indeed her written language.

"Yes. It says, "Only the living shall pass." Wow. That's creepy." Pyrrha looked up at Lich, but he seemed to just freeze at the words. All of a sudden, he grabbed Pyrrha by the shoulders and asked her to repeat what she just said one more time.

"It says, "Only the living shall pass", and that it is creepy." Lich merely stared at her and grabbed her wrist and jabbed his fingers into it.

"Ow, what are you doing?"

"Double checking your pulse. Oh my god. Pyrrha. You have to listen to me. We have to get you out of here as fast as possible."

"What? Why?"

"If what you say is true, then you shouldn't be here. You are alive after all."

As soon as he said that, an earthquake began shaking the cavern as Pyrrha grabbed onto Lich for support. "What's happening?"

"Earthquake. The timing isn't good." After what seemed like an eternity and Lich mumbling how he may have jinxed it and how it lasted far longer than it should have when it suddenly stopped. However, it was no longer silent. The caverns began echoing with small clicks as if thousands of insects were now alive and on the hunt.

"Fuckin shit."

Hi. Me again. Woah. Boy do I have a lot to write about. So where to start. I think I will start about my current "health" situation first. So… The smell and the rotting flesh are all gone! Hooray! Heck everything is gone! My eyeballs are gone, my intestines are gone, and my muscles are gone. My rotting brain practically leaked out of my earholes a week ago. Even 'little me' rotted away…. Everything is gone. Everything is gone! I only have my skeleton. I am literally a walking skeleton now…

Actually, never mind. I may have exaggerated a little bit. Not everything is gone thankfully. I still have my heart. My still beating heart. I am not joking. It is still beating. Seriously. I don't know how even though it isn't connected to anything, and there is like no blood going through it. In a world of magic and fantasy and all this weird shit going on, a still-beating heart while the rest of my body rotted away. Do you know what this means? PROTECC! PROTECC this thing like my life fuckin depends on it. So, using my awesome earth magic, I made like this magic titanium box with four keys. That's right. Four fuckin keys. This box is like everything proof. I even blew it up with like multiple magic spells and not a scratch.

However, as soon as closed the lock, something magical happened. Okay. That just reads wrong now that I actually wrote it. What I meant is that the box and the keys are like magical right now. I just put my beating heart in the treasure chest, locked it with my four keys and then the box started glowing with like this weird black light and the keys started glowing too with everything started glowing and then… let's slow down. Okay. Everything started glowing and now I have a magical box with four magical keys now. They aren't glowing anymore, but they seem to radiate something.

Since I am pretty much a skeleton, I can't feel much. I mean I have like no nerves now. For some strange reason, I can still feel like light pressure, but nothing else. Since I am now a skeleton, I have gotten a lot more reckless with my fighting. Definitely not brave. Nope with a capital N. Mainly because I don't have much to fear. Like, I can afford to fight with 'valor' now since I am pretty sure that I can't die as long as my heart is still intact. Like how do you kill a bunch of bones? Smash it to pieces? Hah. I'd love to see you try since I reinforced everything! Titanium bones bitches! So, I decided to try out my close combat techniques like my sword fighting skills on the Shadows. My best friend was a role-player and a big fan of sword arts. I always liked going to those festivals and saw a bunch of sweaty men in metal armor smacking each other with blunted swords. Heh. It was hilarious.

So, I did some more exploring of the caverns. I actually explored everything since there are no more rooms. Okay, the weird thing is that this may be a magical time graveyard or something. So we have the magic door with the orb and starting from that room, we start going backwards in time regarding the skeletons. For example, the rooms closest to the door have skeletons with rusted or broken items that resemble modern products. I think I found this broken tv, too. However, as we start going away from the door, we start going backwards in time. I even found this room with all sorts of Greek/Roman stuff. Heck, in one of the rooms, there is a run down forge. I've been using that a LOT to stave off the boredom. My source of fire? My mana. Well, the caverns end at like the cavemen I think. The skeletons look like monkeys more than modern humans, too.

Okay. You know about the Shadow and how I wondered about where they were coming from? Apparently below us. I managed to catch a good view of how they spawned. So first, this nasty ass sludge comes leaking out from under the ground, and then voila! A Shadow is born. However, I noticed that not one of the Shadows are human. They are all animals. Also, they follow the same pattern as the human graveyard. The further you get from that door the more prehistoric the animals get. So, yes. I saw wooly mammoths. Fuck no! How the fuck do you call that a wooly mammoth! There is no way elephants and wooly mammoths can grow like fucking 80 meters! Holy shit! Thankfully, those guys are restricted to the big areas so I just like scamper around like a mouse when I go through the big rooms.

So umm yeah. What else. Oh! There is a three-headed shadow dog sleeping here. How can I possibly forget that a such a monster is sleeping! HAHAHA. Fuck this shit. I was never religious, but if there is really a god out there, I am praying as if my balls have fallen out (which it did) that the dog stays asleep. The location of the Hydra? Right above the door with the orb. The size of that monstrosity. Humongous. Oh, it can also change sizes. It did it while it was sleeping. I think it also spewed out fire from one of those heads… So, if it wakes up, I am fucked. I have planted like a crap ton of skeleton near that monstrosity so I can hopefully get the first blow if it wakes up, but… I don't like my chances.

Now you are probably wondering how I found that. Easy. In movies, always look up. So, when the cave was all done exploring I had the thought that I and my lovely skeleton minions should go explore everywhere but looking up as well! I found this weird hole, climbed up, and seen that shit.

Speaking of hidden rooms, I found one more. It was a room just filled with like a bunch of crystals each a different color. I don't know what they are. Like, I can scratch them with my fingernails so I know that they aren't diamond. However, I do know that they are explosive. I decided to have some fun one day and smacked one of them with a hammer. Whoops. The cave system just shook with one of those exploding. After that, I sort of just backed out of that room. Maybe I can use that room as like a backup plan in case that dog monster wakes up. I mean. Yeah I might get buried, but I don't need to breathe, I am bomb proof, and I can dig myself out. Well, we'll see. I'll probably need to make something that would be able to dig me out though. Hmm. Maybe a drill?

Hey. So back again. The dog fuckin woke up…. Yeah… It wasn't fun. So, who thought it was a good idea to get a rabid dog, mix it with a hydra, give it magical powers, and place it in this cave. Reminds me of a fuckin dark souls boss. I ran away from that thing dark souls version too. Rolling galore! So yeah. Umm. That thing just spat out acid. Ate through titanium except for the titanium on my heart box for some reason. Hmm. Well, that box is magic now. Anyway, the important thing was that I wasn't going to fight that shit head on. One mutt just spat acid everywhere, another just spew fire like a dragon, and another shot fucking metal shards at me. Oh, the middle head was even armored with some type of cheating metal that I couldn't penetrate as well so fuck this shit.

I ended up running to the explosives room and blew everything up. Boy oh boy I wish I could fall unconscious. It's not fun falling for who knows how long with debris smashing at you at every opportunity. When I finally crashed, my entire skeleton body just broke apart. Thankfully, I still had an arm so I could drag myself to collect all the missing pieces. I even found my backpack that had all my necessities like my heart box, the keys, and some other stuff like some weapons and the bone I carved of that weird writing. I occasionally look at it to see if it is like a code or something. If it is a code, it is a damn good one.

Oh yeah. I even saw the floor repair itself, too. Turns out that this cave can repair itself! Maybe that's why it didn't like it if I dig around too much. Every time I mined too far (even if I mined downward), the cavern always sends out this massive earthquake as if it was threatening me. Didn't want to tempt fate so I always stopped. So yup. I ended up going deeper into the ground, and there is like this whole new cavern system UNDER the cavern system I was previously in. Cool huh. Maybe there is another cave system under this one as well. However, first, I am going to need to explore first. I just needed to calm down mentally after that chase and explosion and falling and writing this shit down has calmed me down somewhat.

Hi, I got eaten today. Yeah. I finally died. I bet everyone will wonder 'wait. If you died, how did you come back? How are you writing this shit?' Well, I have a theory, and it is that as long as my heart is fine, I will survive. Like I am positive that I got eaten, but then next thing I remember is me crawling out of the ground in a room filled with exoskeletons of some bug. Of course, all my upgrades to my skeleton body was gone, but I was back!

After realizing the true importance of my heart, I pretty much hid the damn thing in a room instead of lugging it around with me like the past. Sadly… It has a returning function on it. Every time I get a certain distance away from my box and keys, they will always magically appear. Gave me a freaking scare. So, yeah. It would be very bad if it suddenly returned in a fight so I make sure to stay a certain distance away. I think the farthest I can be is like a km?

Now you may be wondering how I got eaten. Well, let's talk more about the structure of this cave system. It is literally like a timeline. I was right. There is a cave system above and below us. Right now, I think I am in like the time period with a bunch of primitive insects and amphibians. Like there are spiders, scorpions, and like these weird ass salamander thingy shadows. Half of the room on the floor I fell into are flooded with a lake with some fish. Real fish, not any weird shadow fishies. I was overjoyed at that. At the very end of the cave system is this gigantic lake with a giant hole leading downwards. I think I found the entrance to the floor downwards. Didn't go through it. Magical world and deep waters don't mix well. The floor upwards was a lot harder to find. It was like in this room with a chunky wall at the end. It struck me as odd because everywhere else, the walls were smooth, but this wall was like ledges and chucks everywhere. It just screamed climb me so I did and voila! A door that I could go through! You know now that I thought about it, the cave system I was in was like an exact mirror of the cave system at the top. Minus all the flooded rooms.

Anyway, the cavern system at the top is like paradise compared to the other two. That was my first thought. I am serious. There were trees, and like this strong glowing ball of molten rock? At the top. The trees I think even had fruit. If it wasn't for the fact that I could see that the 'sky' was a bunch of rock, I would have thought we were outside. So I started exploring to see if this floor was a similar structure as the other two. Answer is yes. Minus the part in which all the rooms were much bigger, much more alive (I think I saw this little mouse!), and lot more bright. Oh and the distance between the 'rooms' are a LOT bigger. It took me 30 minutes for me to cross into the other room. Holy cow.

Now you might be wondering when I get to the part in which I get eaten. Yeah. It was the 'paradise' floor. I found skeletons. Skeleton of dinosaurs… You can see what's going to happen, don't you? Yeah. A fucking Shadow T-rex ate me. Just burst out of the fucking trees and ate me like candy.

You know. I think that I am perfectly content with staying down here. Fuck going up, that would mean that my box would have to come up with me, and I don't want my box being eaten. I just have a bad feeling about that. It's just bad. So, for the foreseeable future, my neighbors will be a bunch of bugs and the occasional salamander. Whoopy doo.