Viktor and István came running over at my pronouncement, both stopping up short when I turned back to look at them.

"Your eyes, they are doing the thing again." Viktor waved his index finger back and forth in front of his own, as though he was concerned I wouldn't be able to find them on my own face without the assistance.

Which, I mean, fair assessment of my mental skills most days.

"The thing?" I asked, not really understanding what they meant.

István walked up to me, pulling out a small, ornate box from his pocket. He opened it to reveal a set of grooming tools, ostensively for his mustache. Said mustache was in fact always very well maintained, so that would check out. I could see my reflection in a mirror set into the lid.

My eyes were glowing.

Not like, the entire eye, just the very center, where there was a piercing white gold light, like that of my core. I realized I was still using my aura vision and let it subside, and the light faded. István was looking at my eyes like some sort of prize jewels at this point.

"No, you can't have them," I said to him.

"Have what?" He replied, genuinely confused.

"Nothing," I replied, not wanting to get into the confounding abyss that is my internal thoughts. I turned back to the section of the floor I was looking at. Judging by the residue on it, it had been behind the 'wall' that I'd very violently destroyed. Without the aura vision, it was much harder to see, but there was a faint outline in the flooring, an almost imperceptibly thin outline of a hatch. I outlined it for István, as Viktor would probably only be interested in it if he could punch it open. "There's an access door or something here."

"I see." István said, examining the surface with me. "Considering the prior reaction of many of these objects to your… exuberance of Nebula, maybe it is best if I handle this one."

"Oh, uh, yeah, that'd make sense." I replied, seeing the wisdom of his observation. Maybe exploding everything we came across wasn't the best idea. I mean, stealth was out the window at this point, but perhaps fleeing the scene every time I touched something was a little wasteful of our time.

István bent over at the waist, passively stroking at the hair of his mustache and observing the patterns on the hard stone surface. His spare hand sat in a fist in the center of his back. The angle he was standing in made my back hurt just watching. Dude must do some serious core workouts.

He lowered the hand he'd been using to preen his facial hair to the floor and I felt the flow of the Nebula enter the plate. Immediately a seal lit up, sigils expanding out from the point István was touching the surface. I heard a distinct click.

Without losing his balance, István gave a slight push and the plate swung away, apparently hinged on one side. The darkness below had the occasional flickering light, but was otherwise impenetrable to the eye. I used my aura vision again and detail came into being. I could see a long flight of stairs leading away from us.

"Oh, so it functions as a flashlight too." István had stopped looking into the hole, and was instead eyeing my eyes.

Shoo Science Puppy, stop begging.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Viktor, for what it was worth, was rapidly blinking his eyes, then rubbing them with his big meaty hands. It took me a few seconds to realize he was apparently trying to find the switch to turn them on.

Seeing as I was the one with the "flashlight" I dropped down into the hole, landing only slightly awkwardly on the stairs and only mostly not falling down them. I heard István and then felt Viktor drop in behind me. Which was maybe not the brightest idea considering that there wasn't a ton of space to maneuver. I kept my Streams circulating so I would be ready to deal with anything in front of us.

There was another door at the bottom of the stairs, but thankfully for me it was the kind that was less likely to burst into flames or explode if I touched it. It even had a handle, how thoughtful. Using said handle, I opened the door - as one does.

Beyond it there was a wide room, essentially circular in shape, with doors leading off of it going different directions. While it was more difficult to notice with my aura vision on, I could tell that there were lights in here, but they were extremely sporadic, it made me wonder if…

"It appears as though the power to the facility was damaged when Charley blew the roof off of it," István said, more or less voicing my thoughts for me.

"So which door?" I asked the obvious followup.

"Well, that one is labeled 'Danger', so it gets my vote," said Viktor, pointing to a placard on the side of the door, written in a language I couldn't read.

István nodded, "That is fine by me," he said, looking at me.

I had been outvoted, might as well not rock the boat. "I'm good with it as well, but Viktor has to lead this time."

"But I do not have the fancy eyes," Viktor replied, something I'd overlooked.

"Did you already lose your flashlight from earlier?" I asked, rather pointedly.

"Oh, right. But that is boring."

"Take it or leave it, my eyes are low on batteries," I said, not entirely exaggerating. They were getting a little sore from keeping the aura vision active.

"Batteries? Where do you put them?" Viktor seemed genuinely confused about this.

"She means that they are tired," István cut in, ending the little charade.

"Ohh, right." Viktor fished the flashlight out from wherever he had stashed it and flicked it on. We proceeded down the hallway of danger, or so I'd been told.

"What language is that sign in anyway?" I asked.

"It is part of a script the Umbral Veil uses," István said, looking at me like I should know who the hell he was talking about. When I clearly didn't, he elaborated. "Those are the people we have been fighting. Although calling them people seems gracious on our part."

Viktor grunted in approval. "Scum." He punctuated his thought by spitting to the side.

Nice touch, big guy.

"So, how do you know how to read it?" I asked.

István slumped his shoulders a bit, something I wasn't used to seeing out of him. He usually stood so straight you could use him to check a wall for squareness.

"We used to work for them," he admitted, "Before we knew what kind of work they really did."

"The Umbral Veil, eh? At least they have the 'evil name' bit down right. Does it ever occur to these people that if your name sounds bad that maybe you're not doing the right thing?" It was something that always got me in stories. There were bad guys always going by names like 'Murdery McMurderPerson' (well, maybe not that obvious), but then they would act like they were the good guys. My dude, you're literally killing kittens or whatnot.

"Oh, they know," I heard István correct me, "They just have no conscience. None, at all."

Something occurred to me, "So I always thought I brought this mess down on you somehow, but it sounds like they might have a bone to pick already."

István raised an eyebrow, "Why would you think you caused that?"

Oops.

"I may or may not have blown up one of their buildings," I admitted sheepishly. "It had this thing in it they called an 'Extractor'. It's where all of the Artifacts we were sorting through came from."

"At least you helped clean up your own mess," István said, laughing.

Viktor nodded, "Nice job with the building. They deserved it." Why wasn't I surprised that he would approve of something involving blowing a building up.

As we continued walking, I was starting to doubt the warning we'd been given. Honestly, this hallway hadn't seemed that 'Danger'-ous yet. Just when I was about to think that the sign was lying to us, an inhuman screech echoed down the hallway, followed by a guttural noise, so low pitched I could feel it in the walls.

Whatever made that had to be big. I wasn't at all looking forward to meeting it.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.