Fenix nodded. If she was fine with it, they'd continue. Tired though he was, he was curious about what this place was. He'd been on the nearby road any number of times, and he'd never known there was anything underground nearby.

"Don't worry. I may be weak, but I still have my magic. I'll protect you," he assured her. It was not a bluff to make her feel better; he had no problems burning anything that might threaten them to ashes.

"My hero," she replied with a roll of her eyes.

Which wasn't exactly what she wanted to say, but was what she had to say. Anything else would've left her in a tizzy, thoughtful and likely sent back into a fairly brooding state of mind. She just didn't want to go there, at least until they were out of here.

"Not like I can do anything, anyways," she said and shrugged her shoulders, "My sword's up there and I'm down here. I don't even have a knife."

And regrettably, she'd never been taught how to fight with her bare hands. They always said "one of these days," but those days never came.

While he didn't have much to say to her sarcasm, he could do something about her helplessness. He reached into his boot and pulled out what he always kept in there; it was, in fact, one of his few possessions he retained after the incident in Galaens, thanks to the fact that it was on his person rather than in his pack.

"Here, just in case," he said, holding it out to Emma.

It was his hunting knife, safely in a sheath; he rarely used it for actual combat, relegating it to more mundane tasks such as cutting meat. Still, it came in handy if he needed to defend himself and didn't want to use his magic.

"Hnn?" she tilted her head.

Emma looked at the knife curiously. Well, at least it was sheathed and he wasn't pointing a razor sharp dagger at her throat. That would've been an unwelcome surprise. Yet that was what she thought it was when she noticed it was a knife in his hand.

"Oh," she wrinkled her brow, "Thanks?"

She took Fenix's knife and occupied herself with unsheathing it. In the dim light his "wings" provided them, she was able to see its contours and grooves. It was a hunting knife, all right. Not what she was used to, but that's okay. Sane people didn't often carry the kind of knife that she liked. Emma tested it, held it in her hand and cut the air in front of her. She didn't recognize it, but Fenix would likely be able to see how amateurish it was. Not the act of testing a knife's balance, but the way Emma did it. It was all wrong. And in that, she wound up finding it awkward, when in actuality it was a very able self defense weapon.

It was clear from the way she handled it that Emma had no idea how to fight with a knife, but even so it was better than nothing. Well, provided she didn't hurt herself with it, anyway. Fenix made a mental note to get her and Mayako their own knives and teach them how to use them, just in case.

Carefully stepping over the skeleton, he urged Emma forward with him and entered the room. It was, suffice to say, a mess. There were more skeletons in the room, another three that he could see, and...

"Hmmm...? Are these...?" He walked over to a spilled case of things that Emma would probably not recognize. They were small rods with orbs on the end of them. Fenix picked one up, and after concentrating for a second the orb began to glow, gaining in brightness until it was about as bright as a torch.

The girl followed by Fenix's side, making sure to step over skeletons as she passed them. Tripping right now would be a bad idea. Especially when she was holding a knife . . . because it wasn't like she had a place to put it or anything. She could stab it into her shirt and use it as a sheath, but that'd just be silly. So she wound up carrying it under handed, because she'd heard once that it was best when carrying knives or something like that. That it was better to stab yourself in the foot than stab yourself in the eyeball.

. . . Oh, actually . . . Emma realized she was holding the sheath in her other hand not long after. Feeling a little silly, she sheathed the knife and started looking on her person for a place to clip it. She could clip it on her shirt or her shorts. She lifted her shirt enough to see her shorts, tested the elasticity on those bastards, then pulled her shirt by the collar and looked down, and--

Suddenly she felt pleased by the lack of decent light, because she'd most definitely forgotten that bra. She thus clipped the sheath onto the middle of the shirt, right where it was missing the top two buttons, to make the stray glimpses at her sternum just a little less noticeable.

She saw the staff-looking objects nearby, too, but didn't pay them too much mind. At least until Fenix did. Then she quickly began to care.

". . . What?" Emma asked aloud.

What kind of gadget was that? It started glowing soon after Fenix touched it! Without much hesitation, she took one for herself . . .

As soon as Emma grabbed one, it too lit up like a torch. Fenix nodded in satisfaction; this would do much better. His wings then faded, evaporating into the air as though they'd run out of fuel.

"Manalights," Fenix explained. "They're basically magical torches--they use the mana in a person's body as a catalyst, so they're only lit when held."

To him, though, the what was less interesting than the why. "I wonder what kind place this is; even magic items as simple as these aren't common. Why are there a whole bunch of them?"

With the manalights illuminating the room much better than his wings, it was much easier to see what the situation in the room was. There were maybe a half-dozen skeletons littered about the room, a few tables, most of them broken. And there were scorch marks on the stone walls...

The light glowed for a few seconds, almost ten, before it flickered in her hand. Emma wrinkled her brow. It dimmed, let out a small electrical whine, and faded out.

"Aw, what the hell?" Emma asked incredulously.

She shook it a few times, almost getting a steady glow again, but it faded like a dying fuse. Emma looked from it to Fenix's and frowned.

"And mine's busted," she grumbled before tossing it away, "Stupid thing."

Well that was unfortunate, and kind of put her in a slightly bad mood. She folded her arm over her chest, just under the bottom of the sheath she'd clipped to her shirt, and began to follow by Fenix's side again. Whatever the matter was with these magical objects, they were dumb as all hell.

"They've been here awhile, no guarantee they still work," he noted. Since the mana was just used as a catalyst, even a normal human could use one--after all, all humans had at least a little mana. Emma would be able to use one if she just found one that worked. Unless...

No, he doubted that was the case. He surely would have noticed by now if it was.

He gathered up the extra manalights and stuffed them into his pocket; it made moving a little awkward, but these would likely be able to fund the next leg of their travels. Assuming he could find someone who wasn't scared of magic to buy them.

That was about it for this room; there were three exits from it not counting the way they came, making one in each direction. Neither way was better than another; he was open to suggestion of which way in particular to go.

"Obviously," she said, audibly jealous.

Emma wanted some sort of cool magic item that acted like some sort of awesome, not-quite-so-hot torch. Ugh, whatever. Maybe another time.

They were now at a crossroad, though. There wasn't much left to this room, which meant they had to go on or go backwards. Emma looked behind her, back towards where they came, then up in front of them. She'd no earthly clue how big this place was. It was big enough for people to get lost in and die for lack of food, water, or something along those lines, so it was probably a good idea to not get lost like that. Which meant they needed something to tell them where to go to get back. Emma thought for a second and came to a quick conclusion. Without much more thought to it, she turned, approached the closest skeleton on the ground, and knelt beside it.

"Scusie," she said in a slight falsetto, just a moment before drawing the knife from the sheath across her shirt and beat the bottom of it against the phalanges 'til they dislodged.

After doing that to the other hand, she sheathed the knife, collected the broken fingers, and approached the hall they'd come from. She knelt down and arranged a few of them into an arrow, only to turn, head towards the straight route, and set the broken fingers down into an arrow pointing towards the hall from whence they came, as well. With a handful of fingers still, Emma faced Fenix, posed with her hands upon her hips, and smiled brightly, proud of that idea of her's.

"Well," she said, "Let's go."

Forward, obviously. She'd set the marker there and all.

If anyone with more normal sensibilities had witnessed what Emma did, they no doubt would have been at least a little offended. As it was, Fenix was half-amused and half-annoyed that she was wasting time. Not to mentioning scratching the hilt of his knife.

"If you're done playing around..." He motioned for her to follow him through the door she'd pointed to, not having any problem leading the way now that his wings weren't out. He supposed, at least, that if Mayako climbed down and followed them (or fell in herself) she'd know which way to go.

Though he imagined her hysterical screaming would probably tip them off of her arrival before she found them.

They followed a short hallway down into another room, this one apparently a dormitory of sorts. It was difficult to tell entirely as half of the room was buried in dirt from a wall caving in. Judging by the layout, Fenix guessed there'd been a dozen beds, though he could only count eight ones that protruded from the dirt.

There wasn't much else in the room; that which remained were just basic accommodations, the only other thing of note a single skeleton laying on a bed. Near were some papers, a long dried quill, and a manalight.

Before anything else, Fenix inspecting the ceiling and walls by the dirt, making sure that more of the place wasn't going to imminently collapse.

Hey, she just didn't want to get lost. When it came to multiple pathways and whatnot, especially in the dark, it was easy (she figured) to lose your path and wander aimlessly for a long time 'til one found an exit. They had an exit, and Emma was most certainly going to put a bony arrow at every door they entered--each arrow pointing in the direction of their exit, the hole Fenix fell into, so no matter what, they could never get lost. No matter where they went, they'd always have a clear pointer back to where they came from. It was brilliant, really. Well, she thought so, at least . . .

When they reached something again (which was getting tough for her, as she was now conscious of her stinging feet, and the whole floor may as well have been broken glass), Emma quickly concluded that it was something of a barracks. There were beds lining the walls, all old and, like everything else, in poor condition. Looks like this fort wasn't going to see use ever again . . .

Fenix checked the walls . . . for some reason; Emma really didn't bother paying much attention. She, on the other hand, checked her surroundings--checked the beds, checked the floors, and every other flat object that could offer a vital detail or two. Eventually, she discovered the note, all cuddled by a lone skeleton upon one of the few unbroken beds. This warrior also had a manalight, and she tried to see if this manalight would work. It most certainly did not.

Juuuuuunk.

To Fenix, though, with his back turned to her, it would've seemed like she'd just thrown something behind her. Nevertheless, Emma tugged the note out of this poor soul's cold, dead fingers . . .

Though yellow around the edges, the paper wasn't in terrible condition--it was legible, at the very least, which was about as much as one could hope for with the condition the place was in.

It read:

It is not cowardice that keeps me here while the battle rages outside, but guilt. There is little that is sacred to me, but what we have done here weighs on my conscience more than I can bear.

When it was merely experiments on the body that was fine. Is the body not where mana originates? It is magic's domain, and affecting the body through magic is like using a hammer on a nail. It is not as though magic has never been used on the body before, and surely our experiments are less grizzly than a fireball to the torso. Things were looking up, even; Subject V had been an unparalleled success, he would have been the key to taking over Rivvil. None would have been able to stand against us!

But I digress. Subject V was unwilling to cooperate, and ironically the success of our research ensured we could do nothing to force him. Our plot was discovered, and we were forced to flee the country. We were desperate men; it was either recreate the success of Subject V, or live the rest of lives in hiding, continually fearful of discovery.

So the research continued. Rather than duplicate the experiment on another human--one who could potentially abandon us again--we decided to try and create an item with the same qualities. But no matter how often we tried, we failed. The process worked on a human; what did a human have an object infused with mana did not?

We danced around the issue for many weeks; after all, what mage seriously believes in the soul? I do not know who we got to be the sacrifice, nor do I care to know. I had thought it just another death on our hands, a failed experiment. It wasn't until this one succeeded that it truly dawned on me what had transpired.

I knew our days were numbered. The others reveled in their success, but I had heard the stories. If the soul was real, why wouldn't they be? The others laughed at me, called me a superstitious old fool. But now they are dying. No doubt they tried to reason with them, then bribe them, and now they fight, but if the stories are true, then...

The battle has stopped. Which side has won I have no way to know for certain, but I fear my death draws near. I will not fight it; perhaps that is not enough to make up for my crimes, but it is all I can do.

As for our creation, to any who find themselves reading this: do with it what you will. It is no longer my concern. What's done is done, and while using it may be a sin, to not use it after the sacrifice required to create it...that would perhaps be a greater one.

The password is the name of the one on whom our research was first successful,

And the note ended there; nothing further was written.

By the time Emma finished reading it, Fenix was satisfied that there was no imminent danger, and was looking at her curiously.

"Fenix," she said as she folded the note into halves and . . .

Oh crap, I have no pockets.

With a handful of finger bones in one hand and a note in the other, Emma didn't even have the room to carry a knife if she needed to defend herself. So she decided to innovate. She had no pockets to carry this note in. Okay. That was fine. The Vaerbond family strength did not do her any good, but maybe the Vaerbond family bust would. She tried, at least. Stuffed the note down her shirt and hoped for a natural extra pocket, but sadly, that aspect of her body was also severely lacking.

Irritated with this, she pulled the note out and fumbled with it and the sheath of the knife. It was awkward, but she used the clip on the sheath to hold the note, then clipped both sheath and note to the front of her shirt. There was a password in that note and she did not want to leave it behind and possibly forget it.

She cleared her throat, hoping that doing so would make everything that just happened magically go away. "There is something extremely awesome in this place, and according to this note here, it's like a weapon or something. A magical, um, and spiritual weapon, I think."

Suffice it to say, she wanted it. Whatever it was, she wanted it.

Fenix was tempted to hold out his hand and offer to take the note for her, but was too amused by her fumbling around with a place to put it. Especially when she tried to put it down her shirt, only to discover she did not have the required body to be able to do that.

It was at times like these that being inexpressive was a good thing; Emma would likely think he was just waiting patiently.

"Is that so?" Given the state the place was in, he would have considered it lucky they even found the manalights. A weapon of some kind would either be very useful or sell for a lot. Assuming it was the kind of thing he was comfortable with being in another's hands. "I guess sleep can wait then."

There was no other exit from the room than where they came from--at least no other functional one, anyway. Perhaps there was once one where the walls caved in. Their only option was to go back to the previous room and pick a different direction.