CHAPTER 67: The Pit and the Mutts
I gasped, and almost screamed.
"Elyssia, don't sign that . . . it might be a trap!" Elias warned.
Shrugging and ignoring my compatriot's caveat, I picked up the quill, daintily dipped it in the inkpot, and poised the quill above the parchment. As I signed my name, I felt something dig into my leaf. I dropped the quill with a scream as the fresh cut began to bleed badly.
"Why I didn't listen to you is beyond me . . ." I whimpered.
"Exactly, Elyssia. Now, let's go." Peater huffed.
I then looked at the spirits that were walking around, their cries of anguish irritating me. Finally having enough, I whispered a spell that I knew could vanquish evil . . . 90% of the time.
"Absit Iniuria Verbis." I recited.
That made the spirits freeze, before they dissolved into nothingness. I grinned to myself, then took some time to take in the surroundings. The room had nothing in it but the desk, and a door at the far end.
"Let's go through the door, if we want to have any chance of taking care of this floor." I muttered as I coloured this room red in the booklet.
That left a large space, which was beyond the door. Taking a deep breath, I strode towards the door and opened it, only to be greeted by a sight I was positive I wouldn't be able to un-see for a long time.
For right in front of my eyes, there was a huge pit that was chock-full of corpses, blood, and skeletons of what I knew were mutts.
I took a few steps backwards, only to bump into something protruding from the ground. I looked back, and saw a lever. I pushed it, and the blood began to seep away, until only corpses and skeletons were left.
"Well . . . if you can't go over or under it, you must go through it." I said as soon as I saw my compatriots' looks of disgust.
Gingerly, I began walking on the corpses and bones, hopping from one root to the other. Suddenly, a voice as deep as the ocean resonated through the room. "I smell blood! BLOOD! Living souls . . . the like! Oh well . . . with life, death must come."
With that, a reddish-blackish mist began to fog the room. It made my eyes and mouth sting, but the gas showed no signs of being lethal in any way, shape, or form.
"And there it is again! That annoying wind!" Elias grumbled as I tentatively tripped over my own roots in a struggle to get back to the concrete area.
"Rise, all of you! Make our master proud!" the voice continued.
With that, the mist finally cleared (thank God!), which left resurrected mutts, undead plants and undead humans lumbering towards us. I began shooting at the undead, but they were putting up a tough fight. Just then, I felt a whoosh of fire whistle past my head. I looked in front of me, and almost had a heart attack when I saw that a small sprout was shooting fire at me. With a shriek, I shot the small girl to death, which left a whole sea of advancing forms of evil. I tried summoning my jets of ice, but all I got from that was a small wisp of snow that dissolved quickly. As well, it felt as if I had been sapped of almost all of my energy. I grunted, and resumed shooting at the undead, which only wasted more of my energy.
"Get a grip, Elyssia!" Peater yelled between shots.
I bit my lip, and tried firing something, and this time, I somehow mowed down the undead with a gust of ice, and left them to dissolve into mist. But there were still at least 50 powerful-looking mutts* that were untouched by my power ― from birds whose songs made me want to fall asleep to abnormally large cats that had claws that were at least 30 centimetres long. This is just excellent . . . I thought sarcastically as I grabbed a knife from my pack and started slashing at the mutts. Peater and Elias took up the fight as well, using their own knives to slash at the mutts. Out of the blue a Persian cat jumped out of nowhere. I could tell that she was a mutt, because her fur was blue, her teeth hung out from her mouth like fangs, and her ears looked round instead of pointed. She purred, which somehow silenced the other mutts and stopped them from fighting back. I looked into her dark blue eyes, and I seemed to be sucked into them . . . until I looked away abruptly.
"Wow . . . you need a home, don't you, pretty cat?" Peater whispered as he looked into the mutt's eyes.
"Peater, no!" I warned.
"Shut up, idiot! Just because she doesn't look like a normal cat doesn't mean she isn't a normal cat, you numbskull!" Peater growled, giving me an evil eye.
Peater's eyes had turned into narrow slits, and once again, it seemed like someone else was controlling him. Elias did the sign of the cross as he looked at his son that was spellbound by the cat as she mewed innocently. But I knew that trouble was just around the corner. As soon as Peater reached out to stroke her sickly blue fur, she transformed into a demon with a little hiss. Before anybody could do anything about it, she had bitten Peater on the leaf. With a scream, I sent an icy arrow flying into her heart. This made the other mutts disappear into smoke with little screams and cries.
"Peater!" I screamed as I ran over to him.
His face was grey, and he looked as if he was on the verge of dying. I was terrified and shocked, but all I could do was stammer a spell.
"A . . . A . . . Absentis Doler . . ."
With that, Peater looked normal, but when he looked at me, his face was filled with loathing and hate.
"It's the mutt bite, Peater. Don't do this . . ." I begged, but Peater only slapped me in the face.
"Get away from me! I'll know if I'm sick! Now shut up and leave me alone!" he yelled.
I gasped, for it felt as if someone had stabbed me in the stomach. Tears in my eyes, I ran out the door, realizing that The Scally didn't just have things that bruised the body. No; it had things that bruised the heart, the mind, and essentially, the soul.
*Mutts are animals, and even plants that have hereditary mutations that make them differ from normal plants/animals. For example, take a cat mutt. An example of a cat mutt would be a cat that had an unusually long tail, pink fur, HUGE eyes, and VERY long claws.