Hours had passed before they decided to take a break. Nel was starting to feel a little weak from keeping the flame in her hand lit. It was eating up all of her energy, not to mention walking what seemed to be four miles didn't help either.
They had entered a large cavernous room, Nel's fire casting shadows every which way across the high walls, and along the large ceiling.
It felt wonderful to be able to sit down and rest her feet. She watched Albel pace the room, restless to be stopping.
"Why don't you sit down and rest?" Nel asked after a few minutes, eyes following the pacing man to the other side of the chamber.
"We don't have time to rest, we have to keep moving and try to find a way out of here. Incase you haven't noticed, we have no food or water, so we can't stay here for too long," he retorted, stopping to glare at her and then walking in the direction of a different tunnel on the other side of the large room, opposite of the tunnel that they had arrived from.
Nel reluctantly lifted herself from the boulder that she had been sitting on, feeling a little wobbly from lack of energy. Damn little fire, she mumbled as she walked in the direction of the new tunnel, you're draining me of too much energy.
Albel snorted at her when she had walked up to him, "You are a pathetic excuse of a warrior, tired already?"
"You try keeping a fire lit in your palm for hours on end and see if you don't get tired faster than usual," she spat at him and stormed past him into the darkness of the tunnel.
He let out a 'Hmph', but aside from that kept quite and followed the Aquarian down the tunnel.
There was light in the distance. Nel wasn't sure if she was just delirious and simply seeing things, or if there was indeed light in front of them.
She tuned to the Glyphian behind her to see if he saw it too, and by the relieved look on his face, she knew that he saw it too.
Albel, annoyed that she had stopped, walked past her and made his way to the light source. Although he appeared indifferent, he was amazed at what he saw in the new chamber.
It was a massive hallowed out room, large walls looming above him, and a ring of night sky overhead. The only way out was to climb the towering walls.
Albel's attention turned from the sky when he heard the soft babbling of water to his right. He walked over to the wall of the cavern and peered down at the ground, there was a pathetically small stream of water that made a 'U' shape as it appeared from the wall and meandered back into the darkness of the rock.
He stooped to inspect it and after coming to the conclusion that it was safe, took a long drink from the clear water.
Standing once more, he turned to see Nel standing in the center of the cavern, staring up at the stars. She seemed to sway a little as she stood, she also looked a little faint.
"What's wrong with you?" he inquired after he made his way to the center of the cavern.
Nel simply looked at him crossed her arms, "Nothing's wrong. Why do you ask?"
Albel shrugged his shoulders and walked over to a wall of the cavern and inspected the walls, trying to determine how difficult it would be to climb out.
Nel found her way over to the small stream and helped herself to the water, instantly feeling a little better. She suddenly felt not only weak, but also overwhelmingly tired… and hungry.
She found her way to the center of the cavern and sat down, stretching her legs out in front of her and rubbing her ankles as she watched Albel inspect the walls. She wondered if Fayt and the others were looking for them.
She couldn't help herself anymore and laid herself down on the ground and closed her eyes.
"It won't be too difficult of a task to get out of here," Albel called from the wall. He turned around when there was no response only to find the Aquarian fast asleep in the middle of the cavern.
Albel had wanted to climb out of the cavernous room that night, but it didn't look like that wasn't going to be happening. Observing Nel, he decided that sleep wasn't too bad of an idea after all. They'd just have to make their way out first thing in the morning.
Nel felt warmth on all of her limbs. She smiled happily and stretched when she realized it was the sun. Apris, how she had missed it, never again would she take the beautiful sun for granted.
Opening her eyes and sitting up, she saw Albel sleeping on his side close to where she had fallen asleep. She wondered if she should wake him up or not.
Glancing around her, she realized that she wanted nothing more than to get out of this godforsaken cave as quick as possible. She glanced down at the sleeping swordsman and nudged him none too gently with the toe of her boot.
"Get up," she said as he groaned and opened his eyes.
He sat up and rubbed his bare midriff where he had been rudely jabbed with a boot.
He cursed at the Crimson Blade and stood up, stretching the sleep from his limbs and then made his way over to the wall next to where Nel stood.
"Get out of my way wench," he muttered, pushing past her.
"Someone's in a foul mood," Nel teased, knowing she was playing with a time bomb.
"Shut up," he growled, turning to face her. "If we're going to climb out, I suggest that we do it over there," he pointed to a chunk of wall that seemed to have solid hand and feet rests.
After a moment or two of loud bickering they decided that Albel would be the first to try to climb out. He did so with little problem and Nel watched him, silhouetted against the sun, look around once he had reached the top.
"What are you waiting for?" He yelled down at her after he turned his attention back to the magenta haired woman.
Nel gave a final look to the cavern and bidding farewell to all of its torment, she began to scale the wall.
Once at the rim of what she assumed to be a mountain, Albel took hold of her forearm and dragged her out of the cavern.
Standing and looking around, Nel noticed that she had no idea at all where they could possibly be. She assumed it would have to be somewhere near Urssa still, but they had walked so far the previous day that she wasn't so sure about that anymore.
"Where do you think we are?" Nel asked, turning to the Glyphian. "Albel?" she called when she discovered that he was not at her side anymore. She looked around and found him walking down the side of what was indeed a mountain.
She caught up to him and scolded him for leaving her behind. The lanky warrior simply shrugged his shoulders and kept walking. Nel followed behind him, annoyed already.
At least we're outside, Nel kept telling herself as she kept pace with the Glyphian's long strides.
A long time passed since they left the cave, and they still had no idea where they were. The sun was high in the sky and would soon start its decent to the horizon; Nel guessed that it was about four in the afternoon.
"We should find something to eat," Nel said as her stomach sang out with disapproval of her neglecting it for so long.
Albel's sienna eyes slid to look at her. He too was hungry, but they would have to hunt if they were to eat anything, and he hadn't seen any form of life since they had originally split up into four groups back in Urssa.
"I don't know if you've noticed or not, but there has been no animals in this area to hunt. So we have to do without," he responded, continuing forward.
Nel's stomach growled again, but she didn't protest because she had been well aware of the lack of wildlife in the area as well. It made her uneasy. The land was blanketed with vegetation, and there were plenty of resources and habitats, so why wasn't there any animals wandering about?
They walked on for a few more hours, hardly ever letting up on the bickering. Once one argument was through, they would somehow find a way to start a new one, or sometimes even start an argument about the fight that they just had.
The sun was close to setting, and they still hadn't come across any indicator to where they were. Nel wondered if they should change directions, maybe they would find something the other way.
"We should find somewhere to stay," Albel said, observing the sky.
"Why?" Nel asked, still peeved about his most recent comment about her clothing along with the way all Aquarians dressed like harlots and had personalities to match.
"Just look at the sky, fool," he said annoyed, "There's going to be a storm tonight."
Nel looked at the clouds in the distance, they didn't seem threatening; they looked like normal drifting clouds in the sunset. She glanced at Albel to see if he was serious or not. He seemed serious, but when didn't he?
"If you say so," she said doubtfully.
"I know what I am talking about. There's going to be a storm, and if you don't believe me then stay outside and get wet and electrocuted for all I care," he shot at her and started moving forward again.
Nel shook her head and resisted the urge to yank his bound braids out of his head, and once again cursed Fayt for pairing her with this monstrosity of a person.
"What's that in the distance?" Nel asked once she saw black spires on the horizon.
It had started to sprinkle, and although she was hesitant to admit it, she had to hand it to Albel for his accurate prediction.
"How the hell should I know?" he responded, peering into the darkening sky at the spires.
Once closer, they discovered that what they had been seeing was a castle, and an old one at that. It was colossal in size, the individual stones that made it stood as high as Nel was tall. The walls where ash in color, like the castle had been burnt and was scorched by fire.
Nel, who had gotten an eerie feeling about the castle already, jumped a little when a loud rumble of thunder broke the silence of the night sky overhead. The rain then began to fall harder and a long, snaking web of lightning slithered its way across the sky.
Nel made her way over to Albel, who was heading in the direction of the castle's entrance. He had managed to break the lock off of the heavy door with his gauntlet by the time she had caught up.
"What are you doing!" she demanded of him when she saw him toss the lock aside.
"Going inside," he said matter-of-factly, cracking open the door to the massive structure.
"Don't you think we should knock first, or something?" she insisted, feeling iffy about entering the castle in the first place, yet alone uninvited.
"No one has been here in years, you can tell by simply looking at it," he said, throwing the door open all the way so that she could see the array of cobwebs that had taken over the interior of the castle.
It was as grey inside as it was outside, but it was dry at least, and provided shelter from the storm. Nel's skin crawled as she entered the castle; she knew that she wasn't going to like this one bit.
