The valkyrie's golden feet dipped into the pale, murky water gently lapping against the edge of the floor beneath her. She noted with disdain that it glided as if influenced by an unseen hand, and from the eerie stillness emanating from below the surface, she knew that there was more to the Sunken Shrine than meet's the eye.

"Odd. It moves as if it means to welcome my presence and draw me below," she remarked thoughtfully, eyes cast downward.

"Maybe the…essence of the shrine wishes itself to be cleansed, Lady Valkyrie," her spearman offered.

The valkyrie pulled back her toe and stood with a reassuring hand upon her blade. "I sense nothing redeeming nor pure from this…this vile prison. It houses the undead and it stands merely to mock me," she shot back, fine brows gathered together. Slowly she looked all around her; eyes penetrating through the surrounding four walls.

"It's positively creepy. I wonder what sort of tragedy sparked, to turn this once-beautiful place into a house of filth," a woman said, some distance behind.

"Quiet," the valkyrie rich voice rang out. The order reflected softly and the valkyrie swept across the room and wasting no time in pressing her pale hands against a wall. Her companions stood obediently behind her.

For a time, the valkyrie didn't speak. Her all-seeing eyes had closed and her eyelashes fluttered gently at her face. Finally, she opened them and stared before her, transfixed.

"A fool's quest for power befitting a god…it is no wonder that her temple now lays in ruins, crawling with the undead," she spoke with a quiet, horrified tone, yet her face betrayed no explainable emotion.

"What happened here?" the woman whispered, glancing all about her in awe.

The valkyrie parted her lips to speak, but then her gaze caught the gentle wave of the water and she slowly crept back to its edge.

"I believe that the specific answers we seek, are floundering in these pools of destruction. The walls are alive with tales of terror. The souls trapped within them are pleading to share their story of the events leading up to their enclosure. They yearn…" -and here, the valkyrie's grave tone rose higher and higher- "they yearn to wash their hands clean of their miserable existence forced upon them by the damned seeress whom they called their Empress!"

The Einherjar stood silent, awed by the power of her words, and dreaded the impending trek below the surface of the beckoning water.

"You…you can see all that?" the boy said, moved and frightened by her explanation. His eyes roamed around the room and he seemed to inch closer to the exit.

The valkyrie looked at him sideways and said, "I can see all of it. And you will be able to…someday. Being gifted with the ability to experience a psychic impression is not an ability belonging to Odin Himself. It is the inherent sensitivity in all of us,"

The boy nodded vigorously and ceased fidgeting.

"For now," the valkyrie continued, turning her face back to the waters, "we will empty this once-sacred shrine of its unearthly inhabitants. To my side…"

The man and woman shouldered their lances and the boy scurried after them as the three approached their mistress. Without a word, they slipped into the green depths.