Head spinning, Lillian staggered past Eddie and back into the main room. She practically felt drunk with how jumbled her thoughts were, and she couldn't even exit the bathroom without stumbling into the store fixtures. She tried to collect her thoughts, piece them together with the dream she had. The pieces didn't seem to fit, sort of like broken shards of glass, but maybe there was a glue that could make it work...
The binder... She recalled seeing it before, but in the dark of the room, she couldn't seem to locate it. She felt around the floor by the desk, then, finally, her fingers felt the hard plastic.
"Lily?"
Eddie sounded concerned, watching her from the doorway in utter confusion. She couldn't confirm or deny anything yet. Not until she knew for sure whether she was imagining things. She zipped back into the bathroom, where the flashlight still sat on the floor, slowly losing power. She picked it up, winding it back up and coming back out with it towards the desk. The binder, pinched between her arm and her side, fell to the floor when she tried to recollect it. Clumsily, she picked it back up, and she shrieked slightly as it fell onto top of the desk.
"Lillian, you're sort of freaking me out, babe."
But as Eddie approached the desk beside her to see what she was staring at, they were both looking at a fresh, scorch mark on the red binder, where the plastic just started to melt before the words.
"Operation Red Mist?" Eddie read the text on the front of the binder out loud. "What is this about?"
Lillian carefully opened the binder, holding it between two fingers as if it was someone's dirty underwear. "I think you should read it," she panted, putting a hand to her head. She was sweating, almost as though she was running a flu fever.
"Um... okay," he said slowly, taking the flashlight and holding it up to aid his reading.
"They closed the caverns due to an earthquake," he paraphrased what he read, trying to skip through the less important parts until he found something of interest. "Some scientists came in... red mists in the caverns... people started acting strangely, in, uh... erotic ways, apparently. One swore he saw some woman..."
"Red Shroud," Lillian muttered before she could stop herself. She was starting to feel light-headed.
He paused, looking back at her. "What am I reading, Lily?" he said. "What happened?"
"I..." Lillian hesitated. She didn't know whether he would take her seriously or not, despite everything that went down. But she couldn't exactly hide it. "I dreamt about her... just now." Dare she tell him she had a dream where a woman kissed her, and it may have even been less of a dream and perhaps...
That was a hard no.
"The red mist we've been seeing down there... It's her. She's the reason I fucking ended up in that other dimension to begin with!"
She was losing her cool. She wanted to cry, but at the same time, she wanted to break everything in that room. She wanted to throw every glass figurine into the wall and watch them shatter, then take the shards and tear anyone apart that came across her path.
"They saw her, too... I don't know who she is, but she wants to take Vecna down... and she wants to use us to get the job done."
"Then, how come I haven't seen this Red Shroud lady?"
"I don't know, but she..." Lillian paused, rethinking her words. Perhaps it might not be best to cause Eddie to panic in thinking he might be a vampire.
She looked at the burnt binder. "What else does the binder say?"
"Just that the people they were sending down there never came back." He flipped through the different logs, then backwards. "It's just mostly time stamps and what happened when. I'm not finding anything else."
He closed the binder, taking a moment to stare at the burn mark on the front that Lillian unintentionally left behind.
"What's happening to us, Lily?"
She paused, looking at him, her mind starting to clear. His choice of words caught her attention. "To us?" she repeated.
"Let's face it... We've both been a little weird since you found me. I know something is different with me ever since... Can't say I know what, but... don't you get that feeling, too?"
She had to admit, she was partially relieved that he had said it for her. "I'm Phoenix, and you're... uh... I don't know what yet."
"Kas," he said simply. At first, Lillian swore time seemed to halt. It always came back to making references to Dungeons and Dragons. What more, Eddie seemed to make the conclusion on his own about his affliction. "If I'm supposed to be a part of Vecna's downfall, wouldn't it make sense? Kas the Bloody-Handed was his lieutenant, and he ultimately betrayed him in the end."
Lillian smiled faintly. "And he had a sword." Was it unwise for her to fuel this?
The silence that reigned between the two of them became near deafening. Finally, Eddie forced a laugh. "I don't know, Lily. I mean...could have just been an adrenaline rush."
Something told Lillian that he was in denial now. Nonetheless, they had to keep going, right?
Once they got a little bit of protein in them, helping themselves to a couple of packs of beef jerky from the gift shop, they descended to the depths of the caverns again. Lillian found the presence of the red mist to be a little haunting now that she understood what it really was.
It felt like hours as they retraced their steps, returning to the labyrinth of tunnels where Billy confronted her. The only real landmark she could find was the smear of crimson on the ground - a concoction of Eddie's and Billy's blood from their brawl. She recalled that rampant look in Eddie's eyes - like a bloodthirsty Viking hunting a boar. She had never seen anything like it. Before, it was a bit thrilling to behold, but now, knowing what she did, Lillian couldn't help but wonder what he was capable of. That sense of unknowing left her with a feeling of dread, and on the other end of the spectrum, maybe a little excitement for the danger.
Similar to her brief, yet destructive kinship with Billy.
She was ashamed that she even thought of that.
At long last, she bore witness to the chamber where Eddie retrieved the sword in his possession. Her heart began to race so loudly, she swore she felt it in her head. How on earth had her dream been so vivid, and at the same time, portrayed this room so accurately? She felt as if she truly had been here before.
As she reeled life back into her flashlight, Lillian realized then that she had omitted the details about where exactly she met the mysterious woman in her dream. As much as she didn't want to, she was going to have to keep her lips sealed. There was no need to stir up anymore alarm for her boyfriend.
"So, this was the place, huh?" she asked after the flashlight was done with its power-up whirring.
Eddie, who had been holding the blade at his side through the entire trek, drew it and gave the air in front of him a swipe, giving himself some distance between the two of them before he did. She could tell she stirred his ego a bit. He was still pretty stoked about his victory.
"My new, favorite hideout," he said. "You should have seen how gigantic that thing was."
Lillian couldn't help but reflect on her peculiar dream. She was pretty sure she already had.
"I dunno," she said delixately, "a little dark for my liking."
Then, a strange, yet sweet smell distracted her from her reverie. She paused, lifting her eyes to the furthest side of the room. It smelled like sulphur, but with an undertone of... was that lemon meringue?
"I could get used to it. I'm half-expecting an army of orcs to come swarming around us."
But Lillian, who was too busy trying to determine why she had caught a whiff of her favorite scent, didn't exactly hear him. She moved past the pedestal, brushing aside a curtain of ivy with her free hand. A small bit of sunlight shone here through the rock above, though it was so faint, dhe still needed the artificial light she wielded. She shone the light on the wall in front of her, between two columns that reached so high up, she couldn't see the tops of them. "What's back here?"
Eddie stepped up behind her, looking genuinely clueless. "How do you know there's something there?"
She looked at him, green eyes enlarging. "You don't smell that?" When she watched his expression remain perplexed, she was dumbfounded. How could he not smell that? That sweet scent was so strong, she felt she had walked into a bakery, and someone was burning matches. She looked back to the wall, placing her hand on the flat surface. Nothing looked out of place, save for a couple of cracks in the stone. Her fingertips traced the crack, following it downward. She wasn't giving it any thought as she did; it was really just a subconscious process. Then, suddenly, her middle finger caught on what felt like a loose rubble. It crumbled away from the wall, then was followed by more pieces of fractured rock. Her focus restored, and she stared at the baseball-sized gap. A light shone in from the other side, and the wisp of red fog crept through. Lillian knelt down to peer through. She saw what appeared to be a pillar that was toppled over, blocking her view from whatever lied beyond.
"How do you suppose they kept all of this from the public?" Eddie pondered out loud, glancing behind them towards the former home of the sword he held. "I mean... Some giant structure like this, you'd think someone would have seen it."
"Maybe the scientists did?" They hadn't looked that closely at the binder, but perhaps she could snag it for reading material when they finally did get out of here for good.
Speaking of the scientists, how was it they didn't find any of the bodies? The logs suggested that there was a death - possibly even more than one, and yet, there was no trace of human presence, save for their own.
Before she could bring the question to life, however, she caught that savory aroma again. She had to know where that was coming from. Still finding it impossible to believe Eddie was oblivious to it, she gripped onto rock, giving it a yank in hopes to widen the opening. It didn't seem to want to give, but her companion was quick to note her efforts.
"Here, let me try," he offered. Lillian stepped aside to give him room, flinching slightly as he slammed his boot into the edge of the crevice. Remarkably, the stone cracked beneath the force. "Bam!" he reveled in his strength, then gave it a second kick. The fissure grew wider as crumbling rock fell away from it. The wall was so old and deteriorated, it took little more than human strength to break it in.
"I'll go first," Eddie then volunteered, steadying himself before the chasm in the wall. "Make sure it's safe."
"'Oh...'kay," she said quietly. She watched as he climbed through the more reasonably sized hole, and once given the sign it was clear, she followed suit. He took her hand to help her through. The collapsed column made it difficult to maneuver, and they both had to use it as a platform to crawl onto, then clamber to the other side.
Once she was footed, Lillian's jaw dropped. She didn't even have a chance to catch her breath as she gazed upon a battered, yet towering structure. There was no sign of the mist, but a crimson glow on the wall torches gave light to the remains of a feminine, nude statue that could be seen against the opposite wall. It was broken in two, though its bottom half still remained grounded. Everything was in shambles, save for the giant set of doors to the left.
It took the both of them to push open the doors, and Lillian's shoes even dragged against the ground as she pushed the heavy weight of her door. On the other side, vermilion flames danced on the old, dilapidated altar room that was forgotten by time. Feeble streams of firelight filtered through the massive chamber, casting an ominous hue onto the decayed, stone walls. Cobwebs hung like ghostly draperies in the corners of the room, and the once-rich, velvet curtains had long since faded into a somber, dusty gray.
In the center, a weathered and chipped stone altar stood, its surface etched with faded runes and symbols that had long lost their luster. The aged candles that decorated the clearance stood in hardened puddles of wax, frozen in time.
Watching over it all was a colossal, obsidian statue of a demon-winged woman all too familiar to Lillian. The Red Shroud's hollow gaze stared upon the ruin before her, and almost seemed to follow the pair as they traversed towards the slab of stone in the middle of the altar room.
"That's her," she whispered, though her shaking voice came out much louder than she intended. "It has to be."
"This was a temple erected for her," Eddie said, following her gaze to the statue. "Whoever she is, she must have been incredibly important."
"She's definitely some sort of demon," Lillian added on. "Most likely a succubus. And if we really are in another dimension, and it's not The Upside Down, then we're in her realm."
He looked at her now, suspicion raised in his face. "What all did she tell you?"
"I..." she paused, picking her next words carefully. "I thought it was all a dream. I can't even remember most of it now."
When he looked at the peculiar markings engraved into the stone altar, he seemed convinced for the time being. Lily let out an inaudible sigh. She touched one of the strange symbols, and suddenly, something stirred inside of her. It started as a heat in her nethers, and almost instantly, her mind felt hazy. She could think of nothing else, and her lips formed words before she could stop them.
"From shadows deep and realms untamed, Lilith's name forever proclaimed. In darkness bound, her strength reside. A force of chaos, where worlds collide. Grant us strength, O Queen of Night, uncover the secrets veiled in light. Guide us through the realm unseen. With whispered truths, our souls convene."
A palpable surge of energy seemed to course through the air, and the atmosphere in the room seem to crackle with an otherworldly intensity. The faded runes on the altar momentarily flared with a dim, eerie light, casting fleeting shadows to dance on the walls.
Suddenly, a soft, haunting whisperer filled the air, as if carried on a breeze from the Heart of Lust itself. Even in her haze, she was certain she could feel a profound connection to something beyond her understanding. There was in an ethereal presence here now, and it both beckoned and unsettled her. As she uttered the last syllable, a surge of power filled her, and her vision faded.