Chapter Seven: The Dancing Spark

Spiders. Of all the things that Kaita was afraid of, spiders would have been seemingly low on this list. This was not the case. She shivered as she remembered going to her pack she had lain on the floor to exam a interesting carving, and finding a rather large spider was trying to set up residence in her pack. She had screamed as she soon turned the poor creäture to ash and then sighed a heavy sigh of disappointment. She hated the fact she was afraid of spiders. She had lived in the swamp, surrounded by them, for years and yet still, they disturbed her greatly. She quietly picked up her pack, after thoroghly inspecting it for any more little friends, and shouldered it and continued on down the seemingly endless maze of long stone tunnels. She had been doing this for about an hour, lighting up her way on the metal torches placed into the wall, with the metal seemingly blazing a light when fire touches it's surface.

Jaceyn was in the middle of analyzing some notes he had made in his private journal when an unholy shriek pierced the air, echoing off the stone tunnel walls. He quickly closed his journal and placed it in its holder at his hip and unsheathed his Claymore and jogged off in the direction of the sound, sure it was something malicious he would rather deal with now, rather than later. He grinned as he flared his pyromancy hand, now gripping the handle of his sword, and lit his sword ablaze with a brilliant blue flame, the fortunate result of a high blessing and pyromancy spell mixing after much meddling.

"This day may be more than gathering notes and finding an ally after all..." Jaceyn mutters to himself.

He jogs down the stone hallway, wary and keeping awareness of his surroundings, and notes that torches on the wall have been lit, and he knows he hasn't been down this corridor yet. He stops in front of a carving on a large wall and smells something familiar; burned ashes. He looks down at a small, still smoking, ash pile, no larger than his thumb, next to what looks like a destroyed web flung to the ground, and realises something or someone has been here very recently. He then notices boot prints in the dust that lines to floor, smaller and slimmer than his own. He smiles again as he begins to put together what happened and laughs quietly as he sheaths his sword, extinguishing its flame, and joggs calmly after the footprints.

Kaita stops and goes stiff as she hears the sound she hoped she wouldn't hear; foot falls on stone. She quickly scans her surroundings for a place to hide herself and chooses a rather dark spot, under an unlit torch, and covers herself fully in her dark grey cloak, hiding her from most sight. From the echo and amount of foot falls that she can hear, it seems to only be one person. As the sound get's closer, she notices a slight chinking sound, the sound of chain mail or armor clinking against one another. He soon comes into sight, after turning a corner, and she has a full view of one of the three clerics that had ransacked her house and killed her father. She grimaces and grips her dagger tightly, anger taking a hold of her. She stays still as stone, waiting for a chance to jump on one of her fathers killers.

She then notices something that makes her eye's widen and her brain real. He is wearing a pyromancy glove and is lighting his way with a flame from it! She tries to think if maybe he had stolen it from her house, but then she realised that he would have had to have practiced to be able to sustain a flame, even if little practice. Then she see's his face. She widens her eyes then clenches her teeth as he is about to pass her hiding spot.

Jaceyn scans the hallway quickly, in search of Salman's daughter, and seeming to forget caution, and the fact he was present at her fathers death. As he passes an unlit torch, a leg quickly emerges from the shadow and sweeps his legs out beneath him, knocking him face first into the ground, his arms put behind his back and his sword clattering to the ground. He blinks and realized what has happened and begins to struggle but stops when he feels cold hard metal pressed hard against the back of his neck, the blade pushed just beneath his helmet.

"Move, and you'll regret it. Understand?" Kaita hisses through clenched teeth.

Jaceyn nods and stares into the cold ground, his lips pressed firm as he realises how easily subdued and captured he was.

"Listen, All I want is to-" Jaceyn begins to say before the dagger presses more against his neck, drawing a drop of blood.

"I don't care what you want, and your going to answer my questions!" Kaita growls down at him. "Where- No. HOW did you get that glove, and when?"

Jaceyn is surprised that of all the things she could ask, she asks about his glove. He clears his throat, dust from the floor getting into his nose and eyes and responds.

"At an Eternal Flame dig site about two years ago, I swear. Please I-" He grunts as the knife presses even harder, drawing a larger trickle of blood, and the grip on his arms tighten.

"Shut it! Now, your going to coöperate," She ties rope around his arms and legs and flips him over and places him against the wall as she holds her dagger at the ready, standing above him, rage in her eyes."And explain just what in Blazes do you think you're doing in the Way of the White Church Jaceyn!?"

He raises his head and gives a forlorn and sad smile at his long lost friend. "Good to see you too Kaita."