Nel had walked to the center of the room after making sure that nothing was too out of the ordinary and stood next to Albel, who seemed not to mind one bit that he was in the middle of a strange and eerie room.
There was a loud slam behind where they stood. Nel spun around quickly to find that the heavy wooden door had slammed shut behind them. Albel, too, had jerked around and was staring at the door. He made his way over to it and tried the rusted handle.
No good.
"It must be stuck," he said, giving it a harder tug but to no avail.
"What if we break a window?" Nel suggested.
Albel walked over to a window and smashed it with his gauntlet. The glass, shattered into thousands of small unrepairable pieces, made its decent to the ground much too slowly; something was very wrong with it.
Albel took a step backwards when the glass began to rise from the floor and mend itself back into the window frame, not a crack to be found upon it.
"What the," Albel mumbled and smashed the window again, only to have it repair itself once more.
Out of annoyance, he broke it one more time and turned his back to it as it began repairing itself once again. He watched Nel as her eyes widened at something behind him.
"Stop it!" a loud voice boomed behind him, causing him to spin around just in time to see the pale face of an elderly man fading away in the glass.
"Bah," Albel said, moving away from the window, seeming to be unfazed by the sight in the glass.
Nel, however, was still staring at the window in surprise. What had that been? She knew that she didn't really want to find out though. She turned around and made her way to the opposite side of the room, sticking unconsciously close to Albel, and occasionally giving the window a suspicious glace.
"Where are you going?" Nel asked as Albel started to make his way down a long corridor.
"I'm not going to sleep in here on the floor. I'm going to find a bedroom," he said, not caring if she was following him or not.
"Quit leaving me behind!" she scolded him once again, as she had when they left the cavern, for not waiting for her.
"Well, keep up then," he argued back.
Nel glared at him for a while and then turned her focus to the large paintings on the wall at her side; the figures in them where all of people that she assumed to be royalty, or nobles at the very least. She could tell that they used to be glamorous portraits back in their prime, but with years of neglect, dust had settled on them and had eaten away their former splendor.
She felt like the eyes of the portraits were watching her, following her as she walked. She shrugged it off as paranoia, and kept unnaturally close to Albel as he walked further down the corridor.
Albel reached a large staircase at the end of the hallway and swept away a menacing looking spider web that had created a kind of wall that obstructed his path upward.
The new corridor at the top of the stairs was as large as the previous one, only this one seemed to have less cobwebs, and the floor had a strange glint to it, as if it had barley collected any dust over the years.
He opened a door that was near to his right and closed it once again after ruling that it wasn't a bedroom. Nel was groaning behind him and complaining about the spider webs that, according to her, fell from the ceiling to land on her when she walked underneath them. He rolled his eyes in agitation but ignored her as he kept searching for a dormitory of some sort.
They made their way up a few more flights of stairs, having no luck finding a bedroom. They were on the fourth floor of the castle, a hall once again filled with large portraits of resiliently dressed figures. Nel stopped to observe one of the paintings on the wall for a moment as Albel traveled further and further down the hall opening every door that he came across.
"About damn time," she heard him say from down the hall, sounding relieved that he had finally found a room that contained a bed.
Nel peered inside the room once she had made her way over to him; there was only one bed inside. She cocked an eyebrow at Albel and crossed her arms across her chest. "I'm not going to sleep in the same room as you," she said with defiance.
"Glad to hear that, because I wasn't going to let you," he grumbled, walking across the hall and opening a second door to find a similar looking bedroom. "You'll sleep in here."
With that, he walked past her and entered his room, slamming to door behind him; he had had enough of her whining and nagging for one day.
Nel cursed at him and stepped into the room and looked around. It was dirty and a little creepy, but it would have to do.
After she had removed all of the blankets and shook them free of dust and Apris knew what else, she hesitantly sat down on the bed and removed her boots and daggers.
"This is going to be a long night," she said aloud as she tried to make herself comfortable on the ancient bed in the gloomy room.
What was that?
Nel's eyes flew open. It was dark, and she could see the occasional flash of lightning through her filthy window, and the rain made loud splats as it assaulted the glass and side of the castle, only overpowered by the booming thunder. She wondered how she was ever able to fall asleep in the first place.
She could have sworn that she had heard something strange. She glanced around the room but saw nothing.
"Hmm," she said, relaxing again, about ready to go back to sleep, she must have imagined it.
As her eyes were falling shut once more she swore she saw someone standing against the wall next to the door.
She sat up quick as a dart and peered at the wall where she had seen the figure. It had been quick, but she had seen it, she would wager the last of her fol on it.
It had been a woman, only not quite. Her skin had been deep purple in hue and her hair, a deep purple also, had been flowing about her head as if she had been submerged under water; the same went with the tattered purple gown that she had been wearing. Her eyes had been glowing an unnatural orangey yellow while they had glared at Nel.
Nel watched the spot with a relentless vigil for quite sometime. She was more than positive that something had been standing there staring at her. Nothing seemed wrong anymore now that she was fully attentive and, although the hair on the back of her neck where still on end, she laid back down and tried to dismiss the figure as something that her tired and paranoid mind had dreamt up as it had been trying to shut itself down for the night once again.
Nel laid on her back and stared at the ceiling, she was still tired, but she doubted that she would be able to sleep again that night. Who was that woman? Had it been a dream? Many thoughts raced through her head and kept her awake and observant.
That's when it happened.
Nel's attention was suddenly brought back to the area where she had first seen the purple woman when she thought she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. She had looked in time to see the glowing eyes of the gown clad woman blink at her and then quickly move up the wall.
Nel watched in horrified stillness as the purple woman climbed up the smooth wall and began to crawl across the ceiling. A flash of lightning suddenly lit the room, when Nel's eyes refocused she noticed that the woman had turned her body so that she was looking down at the terrified girl in the bed below her.
Nel defensively tucked her body as the purple woman suddenly plummeted downward at her. When she felt nothing she opened one eye and looked at the area above her. There was nothing there.
She heard something to her left and quickly turned her head in the direction that the noise sounded from only to find her face a mere few inches from the banshee-like figure, her glowing eyes glaring at her menacingly within her amethyst face.
Nel let out a surprised yelp causing the purple figure to react suddenly, slashing Nel's face viciously, sending a stream of blood cascading from the torn flesh of her cheek.
Nel jumped out of the bed and ran out of the room. It was not in her nature to run from something, but there was something too unsettling about the purple banshee that made her want to do nothing but flee.
But where was she to go now? What if the woman followed her out here to the hallway? She had left her weapons in the room, she hadn't thought of grabbing them in her haste to get away from the terrible banshee.
Nel did the only thing she could think of.
"Albel!" She cried as she suddenly burst into his room.
She observed him as he leapt out of the bed and unsheathe his katana in a surprising few seconds. He was shirtless and his bear chest was heaving; she must have given him quite a start with her sudden entrance.
He was glaring at her, obviously none too happy that she had barged in on him in the middle of the night screaming at the top of her voice.
She was talking fast, explaining what had happened. He noticed the gashes on her face; they were bleeding pretty profusely and needed to be tended to before the filth of the castle gave her any form of infection. She was also lacking footwear and her weapons.
"Slow down woman," he said, rubbing his head from the headache he was quickly getting. "There was a what in your room?"
"A purple woman with glowing orange eyes… kind of like a banshee or something," she said again, not missing the skeptical look that crossed his face. "I'm not making this up!" she shouted at him.
"Alright, don't go into hysterics or anything," he said raising his hands in defense. The cuts on her face got there somehow, he knew that for fact, whether it was a purple banshee or not was still questionable in his mind however. "What do you want me to do about it?" he asked with a frown on his face.
Nel looked down at the ground, she couldn't believe that she was even thinking about asking what she was about to say next. She shook her head and swallowed her pride, "Can I sleep in here with you for the night?" she asked, her eyes pleading with him. The event in her room had obviously troubled her beyond her own comprehension, and she was probably going to regret asking her question in the long run.
Albel was a little taken aback by her request. He had figured that she would want him to come with her to investigate her room; he had definitely not expected this.
He shook his head and frowned, he wanted to call her out on her cowardice, bombard her with comments on her weakness and fear. He looked at her and began to open his mouth to begin but closed it when he saw just how shaken the woman in front of him actually was.
She looked like a small child, shivering and appearing about ready to cry. He knew her well enough to know that this wasn't like her at all; what the hell had occurred in her room? Obviously something terrible enough to send her flying into his room seeking aid… maybe even his protection. He knew that she had swallowed a great deal of her "Aquarian Pride" to come here… and he knew he would feel like a complete jackass if he sent her away at a time like this.
He heaved a great sigh and gave in to Nel's pleading eyes, "Fine," he grumbled and turned away, unable to look at her anymore.
He walked over to the bed and grabbed the sheath to his katana. A sudden chill went down his spine when his katana was half sheathed; something wasn't right.
A loud rumble of thunder shook the room and was followed by a bright flash of lightning.
Albel turned to look at Nel, she was watching him with her emerald eyes; nothing seemed to be too wrong with her. But there was still something troubling his mind, something seemed to be out of place in the room and it annoyed him that he couldn't place quite what it was, causing him to finish sheathing the rest of his katana with excessive force.
Something was very wrong. He looked at Nel again and received the same chill that he had experienced a few moments before. Something gave him a feeling that she was in grave danger while here in this castle.
