Wings of Narshe III: Tritoch

At the north end of Narshe Sabin, Bartz and Celes had reached the entrance of the cavern, despite spending a good deal of time. As they did so, dawn had begun to already break and light began to trickle down through the clouds. Bartz had explained his own situation to Celes on the way. "I see," She thought aloud "But Tycoon and Bal are not kingdoms of this world,"
"This makes no sense to me!" Bartz became somewhat passively frustrated. All his previous memories of his life and his friends were too vivid to be a dream, and it had begun to confuse him.

"You should calm down," Sabin recommended "When the time comes you will find your answers. Right now we've reached the Narshe caverns. If a chocobo would go anywhere to escape a blizzard on this island, it would be here,"
"But the cave is also a home to monsters," Celes added "Still up to it Bartz?"
"Of course,"

Fortunately the somewhat gloomy caverns were lit by torches. In the past used as a mine for ore, so the early areas of Narshe caverns had it's rooftop held up with beams, and tracks for a minecart were still present. "I hear something," Bartz spoke out from the darkness, clutching his sheathed sword.
"I don't hear any..."
KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE
"...now I hear it!" Sabin barely managed to finish his sentence. Bartz, with his sword drawn leapt like a flash of lightning at the shadow in front of them. Before Celes or Sabin could get a word in, the monster was already cut down. "Unbelievable," Sabin uttered.

They gathered around the corpse, which turned out to be a Mag Roader, a large muscular purple beast with bizarre wheels attached to it's legs. "I didn't think you had it in you," Celes applauded.
"Thanks" Bartz blushed a little feeling slightly embarrassed.
"Where did you learn that technique?" Sabin asked.
"A friend. A long lost friend of mine,by the name of Kelger,"

Celes caught eye under the light of the torches at a shiny coin-like object on the ground. A familiar one. "This is Kateran's pendant," It was the same one that the woman had tried to give to her, but she refused. She scooped it up from the ground.
"Hmmm... really?" Sabin wondered.
"Oh, must of fell out my pocket while fighting. She gave it to me before I left to help you guys,"
"Kateran tried to give this to me too," Celes wondered.
"She said it was a good luck charm, thats probably why she was so determined to pass it off onto us. It's seemed to help a whole deal so far," Bartz concluded.
Celes placed the pendant around her neck for safekeeping. "I guess I'll keep ahold of it until we get back,"

Kweh!

A voice of a small bird echoed the caverns. "Well now we know for certain that the chocobo is here," Sabin concluded, feeling somewhat relieved.
Bartz inspected the ground. Celes looked at him oddly "What are you doing?" She asked.
"I own a chocobo of my own and well. I have ways of finding it when it goes off on it's own,"
Sabin presented a big grin "I'll take back what i said about you Bartz. You've been more help to us than I had ever expected,"
Bartz began tracing the well hidden chocobo footprints to the inner depths of the cave.

Kweh!

The voice of the bird grew louder as they grew closer. "Wait a second..." Bartz held out his hand "The tracks seem to end here,"
He looked around to see if he could find another lead. "The dirt terrain further in isn't nearly as soft as the outer areas, it's impossible to track footsteps from here,"
This part of the caverns was exceptionally dark as well. The mining theme departed from this particular area of the cavern, perhaps an uncharted territory or one to dangerous to work in. And because of that, there was little lighting. The cavern now offered them a split path, left and right.
"So what now?" Bartz asked.

"We'll have to split up from here. Celes, take the right path."
"Got it," Celes replied instantly moving down the corridor.
"Will she be alright?" Bartz inquired, unsure of Sabin's decision.
"Despite how her appearance makes out, she is much stronger than what you would expect. I have faith in her," Sabin replied, taking the left path "Will you follow?"
"Y-yes," Bartz wasn't entirely convinced. Something about the cavern bothered him. It reminded him of the time when he was one of the four warriors of dawn, the feeling he had of approaching the last crystal of earth, prior to it shattering to pieces.

The tunnel was too long, there wasn't much of interest besides a few monsters, mainly rats. "A dead end," Sabin confirmed "No use but to head back,"
As they began to turn around, they bared witness to a blood-curdling scream. "Dammit, CELES!" Sabin cried as he began to run as fast as he could, through the tunnel. Bartz followed behind him.

The path felt endless, the panic of the situation made seconds feel like minutes and minutes turned to hours. "Do you hear that?" Bartz said as he heard a large rumble of noise emerging from the other corridor. A huge shriek followed, piercing the entire cavern causing countless monsters within the cavern to flee, ignoring Bartz and Sabin standing there. They were gripped in fear.
"I've never seen anything like this!" Sabin began to worry now.

At long last they reached a large space in the cavern. Light from the morning day trickled from the rooftop and thus, snow had found it's way in. With that said, the room was noticeably more cold than the others. Great chasms, endlessly deep were also commonplace. Celes was still no where to be seen, causing Sabin to think the worst. In the corner of the room, ruffled into a yellow, frightened ball was the Chocobo.

Again they heard the same piercing cry. It was much closer, and much more frightening. A huge bird-like fiend, adorned in royal blue and green feathers flew upwards from the bottom of the chasm. It hadn't yet noticed Bartz and Sabin's presence.
"What is that!" Bartz whispered, trying not to raise his voice so the creature would notice.
"Tritoch, an Esper, was supposed to be dead," Sabin revealed "They were all supposed to have died out when magic disappeared from this world,"

The world Bartz had come from was the complete opposite. After the void was vanquished, the espers were rebirthed into living beings. Hence, Slydra's return. He hastily explained to Sabin his own case.

"If that were true it would make more sense,"

Tritoch looked for a while at an object on the floor. "Hey, wasn't that the pendant Celes was wearing?"
The fiend seemed to look at it in disgust, it's eyes glowed an angry pearl-blue. It opened it's beak preparing to fire at it.

"Hey stop that!" Bartz shouted"
"Wait don't do that!" Sabin didn't want to endanger anyone else.
The bird turned it's head around towards the noise. It lifted it's wings up in the air and beated the ground, creating an gush of wind.
"Oh crap, it's coming this way," Bartz realized.
"What did I tell you?" Sabin reprimanded.

Unexpectedly, Tritoch's attention was drawn by the helpless chocobo in the corner, whimpering. It launched itself towards it, with it's talons drawn. "Stop this!" Without thinking, Sabin threw himself in front of the Chocobo to prevent harm to the innocent creature. With his eyes closed, he expected the worst, but nothing more happened.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Tritoch close up, it's drawn talons millimeters away from his chest. Up close, it didn't feel so nearly as intimidating. In a rush, Bartz used the oppotunity to examine the cliff edge of the chasm in order to find Celes, but the darkness that consumed them made things to difficult to make it out. His eye was then caught on the pendant on the floor, which were merely remnants. ("Celes... no...")