With the flashlight on her smartphone to show the way, Nyxia was the first to descend into the underground passage. With no railing on the spiraling stairs, she was a bit fearful of falling into whatever blackness was below. However, as a door was spotted just a little further down, this soon became a voided worry. She opened the heavy door, once again greeted with a shadowy room that she couldn't see more than a foot into. Thankfully, she was able to use the flashlight to locate a panel on the left wall. Once she pulled the switch, the power roared to life before revealing a long, murky tunnel stretching out ahead of them.

"Do you suppose this leads into the museum?" Nyxia asked, and though she was given no immediate answer, she was already moving ahead of the others.

"I guess there's only one way to find out," Gladiolus said as he followed close behind. They walked a little ways, taking a couple of turns. The air felt cooler the further they went in, as if they were on the descent to hell. As before, they would come to a fork in the road, paths once again branching off to the left and right.

"Maybe we shouldn't split up this time?" Prompto assumed. "I feel like we should have learned that from earlier."

"I guess."

"Where to, Xia?"

"I vote left," Nyxia said. Both passages looked to be mirror images of each other, seemingly unending and lined with pipes on the ceiling. They kept clustered as they continued onward, following the damp corridor around another few bends before they would come to a second intersection. They would keep left, which would have been the sorceress's strategy in any maze-situation. Keep to the left wall. Eventually, you'll find an exit, right?

And, as she had hoped, they came across a new door - one with a small grating that appeared to peer into an underground lake. Ahead of them was a small boat, and it seemed to be conveniently placed as though it was waiting for them.

Nyxia felt a chill in the air - one unlike what she had been feeling as they had been following the tunnels. Something felt wrong in this room, and it screamed at her to turn around and call it quits. Yet, at the same time, she couldn't hold back her curiosity.

"Intriguing," Ignis said, his voice giving off a brief echo in the spacious chamber. He was looking at the hieroglyphics that were on the wall around the door they had just come through. On either side of the barrier was a bird, both surrounded by more symbols that none of them could recognize.

"What do you think it all means?" Nyxia asked.

"I wonder if this may be a display of either religious or ethnic symbolism. We should press on."

"Hey, I think I got the boat working!" Prompto chimed in, having already been aboard the boat.

"Before you jump ahead of yourself... Look."

All eyes followed Gladio's pointing finger past the front of the boat. Further down the darkened path appeared to be a figure on the ground, unmoving. Upon closer inspection, it was most certainly a decaying body.

"Shit," Nyxia stepped back, putting a hand to her mouth and nose. The smell was horrid. She had seen death, but never did she have to smell something like this.

"It looks like it's been a few years," Gladio said, seeming rather calm about their finding. "He kind of looks like the guy on the sign for the museum."

"You think he might be the professor, then?" Nyxia asked through her palm, her voice slightly muffled. She also noticed that on the dirt beside him, a symbol had been drawn that she could only describe looked like a snail's shell.

"I changed my mind!" Prompto yelled from the boat. "This was a bad idea."

"Just a moment."

Ignis, also rather collected, picked up a book that the corpse had been clutching to its chest. On the front of the leather cover was etched Egyptian Hieroglyphs Explained. Once again, the others watched as Ignis would scan the book for any useful information. Aside from the flipping of pages, the only other thing that could be heard were occasional droplets hitting the water's surface. As he sounded a "hmm", he closed up the book, and it seemed he intended to hang onto it.

"Anything good?" Gladio asked.

"Some of these symbols describe a culture unlike ours. Egyptian, apparently."

"Are we even in Eos anymore?" Nyxia asked.

"Likely not, though why Steyliff Grove would pull us into another dimension entirely, I can't be sure."

As they boarded the boat and pressed on, Prompto was the one to steer towards the other side of the chamber. It was about half across the lake that Nyxia felt another, uncomfortable chill in her body. She absently was grabbing onto Gladio's sleeveless jacket as the boat moved, causing him to look at her in concern.

"What is it?" he muttered, placing a hand on the small of her back.

"I...I don't know," she answered quietly. "Something doesn't feel right."

There was a flash of blue, followed by a monstrous hiss that revealed the source of Nyxia's fear. She didn't know what it was, just that it had red eyes, and it came out of the water and lashed at Prompto before disappearing in a black mist. He yelled loudly as he fell backwards into the boat. Ignis carefully knelt down beside him. "Are you alright?"

"What the hell was that thing!?" Prompto demanded in a panic.

Meanwhile, Gladio was trying to summon his sword...and somehow, nothing seemed to be happening.

"Wherever we are, maybe this world has its own daemons," Nyxia said, turning the lever to get them to the shore on the other side. She was still not entirely sure of what she just saw, only that it was no friend to them.

As they climbed out of the boat, Prompto still seemed a bit disoriented, requiring Ignis's assistance to get him onto solid ground again. Once they did, Nyxia spotted a peculiar jar that was sitting on the ground, seeming oddly out of place in this damp room. She knelt down, something compelling her to open it. As she did, a wispy shape swept from its confines, clearly taking form of what had to be a spirit of some kind.

"So many long years in this...prison." The spirit clearly belonged to the dead man they had seen on the other side of the water. "You all need to get out. Do not meddle in things beyond your understanding. You will pay for your curiosity! You are in grave danger..."

"What are they?" Gladio demanded, but it seemed as if the professor's spirit hadn't heard him, and he now seemed to be addressing Prompto.

"The Ixupi are so evil, and they've taken some of your life essence. It is imperative to find all of the vessels, because it seems only when they are united with their talismans do they have any power. My plan was to use them on the Ixupi before any more of them escaped into the world. I believe they cannot resist the vessels as long as they're with the talismans and you approach directly. This vessel here is of no use to you. Its Ixupi is the one who robbed me of my essence. It has escaped into the world... And they have ruined my museum!"

Before any questions could be asked, the spirit disappeared into the pot again, as if unable to project itself for any longer. Perhaps that was all they needed to know, for the time being. Nyxia knew then that this was likely the point of no return. Prompto, who seemed to have gathered himself together by now, cleared his throat.

"So, we need a jar and a talisman to trap that thing. No biggie."

"No biggie?" Gladiolus repeated. "It came out of nowhere." He paused, looking back to the girl. "Nyxia, you said something didn't feel right, and that Ixupi came out of the water. Maybe we can avoid these things until we have what we need to imprison them."

"You're saying we should keep moving, then?" she asked hesitantly. It wasn't that she was scared, though this whole situation of the unknown did freak her out. Seeing Prompto get attacked by something so unfamiliar unnerved her, and she didn't want to see any more of her friends get hurt again.

"We've been through worse scuffles, but..." Gladio drifted, looking over at the other two. They nodded, confident about pressing on. "It's up to you, Nyxia."

She took in a breath, then exhaled. "Okay. But if we die, don't blame it on me."

"That's alright. We'll just terrorize you as ghosts."

"Gladio," she pouted as they walked down another hallway, "that isn't funny."