Chapter 19- Alone and Unarmed
Bentz was worried. Not only had the others vanished, but that had left him alone with no methods of defending himself. Without the others and their weapons, he had no way to protect himself from the unintelligent fiends that would undoubtedly come after him.
This isn't good, he thought. I can take down any number of those intelligent things, but against the others… I always was the worst in my gym class, and I haven't gotten much better since then. I need to be quiet and find the others before the fiends find me! On that note, he set off down a hallway that was a little too well lit for his tastes.
Thankfully, there were no fiends down that hall. If there had been any, he would have been caught then and there. There wasn't a single nook or cranny along the hall. The path now branched off in front of him in three different directions.
Which way? Bentz thought. Obviously if I take the wrong way, I have no chance of surviving, but if I just stay here, my chances of surviving are even worse. Let's see… it's a one-in-three, maybe two-in-three chance. It's not very likely to be any better. I'll just go-
Bentz's thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of footsteps coming from the rightmost passage. Bentz's eyes widened momentarily as he saw the shadows of two dogs stretch out along the wall. He ran into the middle passage and pressed up against the wall. The dogs came out of the passage into the crossroads area, in plain view of Bentz, but thankfully did not look back.
"This way, huh?" said one of the dogs. It wasn't really a voice, more of a growl that resembled those words.
"Yeah, huh." Said the second. "Master said he this way, huh."
"Okay, huh. Let's go, huh." The two dogs set off down the hall Bentz had come from. Bentz waited until they had vanished into the darkness, sighed, wiped the sweat from his brow, and continued down the hall. The passage was a little darker, but there were a lot of smaller hallways branching off of it. Bentz stopped at the first one.
Should I go down there? He thought, scratching his head. No, I'll keep going straight. I don't think breaking from my current path is a good idea. In any case, I can at least use them to duck into if fiends come by… He continued farther down the hall.
Later he heard the voices of two fiends coming down the hall. Despite the fact that he knew he could take them both, Bentz ducked into a nearby side hallway and waited for them to pass.
"…looking for?" one of them was saying. Bentz noticed that neither wore a duel disk.
Strange, he thought. I didn't know that the unintelligent ones could talk.
"We need to find the old one." Said the other fiend. "If we do, we can get this over with and rule the world, just like master wants!"
"Why are we so blessed to have such a brilliant master? Our last one didn't even open the second gate, but our new one has opened four! If he keeps this up, we will win this very quickly! We've already taken one piece, soon it all will be ours!"
"Yes." The fiends paused in there walk down the hall. They were almost straight across from the hall Bentz had hidden in. Bentz held his breath.
What are they talking about? He thought. I need to tell the others, maybe they'll know-
"We should keep going."said the first fiend. "Make sure to check the side halls, just in case he hides in one." Bentz nearly panicked, but then the fiends proceeded to walk past his hall and begin their search farther down. Bentz waited until their footsteps had faded, then stepped out of the side hallway and continued down the hall.
He didn't meet any more fiends for a while. The hall continued straight forward and descended slightly for a long way, as far as Bentz could see. He ignored the feeling that he wasn't getting anywhere and continued on.
He didn't notice the fiend who had been following. For, indeed, the fiends that he thought he had avoided had actually known exactly where he was and had decieved Bentz into believing that they had not.
Now they made their move. They snuck closer to Bentz, who heard their breathing and turned around. He failed to mount any kind of defense. The fiends whacked him over the head, knocking him unconscious, and dragged him off to who knows what horrible fate.