"STOP!" - Hamilvan's eyelid twitched. "ITS SIR SANUM ISN'T IT..!? JUST TELL ME..!!"
- With his response, Yenna blinked before her mouth went agape.
"No-no..!! Sir Sanum didn't have any..involvement into this..!" - Yenna cried, causing the vein on Hamilvan's neck to throb.
"LIES! SIR SANUM TOLD ME THAT AFTER I HUNT DOWN THAT ESCAPING BASTARD..!! HE WILL ABSOLVE ME OF THE CONSEQUENCES..!!"
- "..?" With such a response, Yenna could only stare at Hamilvan, paralyzed.
"Wha..what..?"
————
*Creakk..*
*Pshh..*
*Slam.*
Sanum, with a stern expression emerges through a dark-wood, golden streamlined doubled door that led him towards a spacious room filled to the brim with extravagant, yet untouched furniture.
He then momentarily paused before heaving a sigh and then diverting his cautious look around the chamber;
"Even..now.. this still disgusts me.."
The King sized bed? Apart from its sheets being folded to absolute symmetry there appears to be nothing of peculiarity.
Then his eyes landed on a large, spotless and exposed window.
*Step* *Step*
*Shoop*
Before he hurriedly walked over to grasp the royal red curtains that hanged from the top and brought them together to conceal the contents of his room.
"No one knows, they don't have to know."
With another pause, Sanum turned around before kneeling beside his king-sized bed and then looking below it, his irises piercing.
"They already abandoned it, but I would not."
Next, he frantically walked over to the closets and drawers before he shakily opened them one by one; face bathing in sweat.
*Haah..*
*Haah..*
With the final brown closet having its doors pulled and then closed again, Sanum's posture slouched with his hands planted on the surface of the furniture as he attempted to deliberately take in a puff of air before releasing it into an heavy exhale.
*..Haaah...*
"It is clear then."
He heaved a final puff then he opened his slightly-glazed irises with his consciousness feeling as if it trying to separate itself from the barely-awake Sanum.
After a while of remaining cradled beside the finely-polished closet; Sanum deliberately straightened his posture before he attempted to fix his disheveled garments that consisted of folding his collar, pulling his cuffs, and dusting his purple-coloured robe.
*Inhale.*
*Exhale.*
With a heart blazing because of the newfound steeling of his resolve, he began to march towards the confines of the red carpet of his chamber that emerged from the double-door he came in and ended at his king-sized bed;
"If I must do it.. then I will do it without hesitation.."
He then started to face a wall with an expression filled to the brim with outmost solemnity; With the only sound being louder than the defeaning silence around him was the repeated sprinting of his own heart.
*Fwish..*
And the unsuppressible yells of his mind.
-
"Am I worth loving, Dad?"
[Of course! Why do you even ask that?]
After allowing what seemed like an eternity of eerie quietness to pass by; Sanum slowly raised and pointed his straightened right arm towards the wall he was facing before proclaiming in a soft, yet resonant intonation;
"[Drudac]"
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Strange, glowing markings resembling that of hieroglyphs began to materialize in a circular pattern around the wall; proceeding to slowly dance in its motion only ever stopping to coalesce into the center as Sanum suddenly clenched his fist tight.
With the glowing markings concentrating together on the center of the wall; A rectangular apparition materialized consisting of a dark, narrow passage with a stone-brick staircase that extended all the way to the bottom of an obscured abyss.
.
.
.
*Step.*
Sanum with a confident posture yet a shaky heart that pulsated erratically began to take a step forward, the heel of his extravagant leather boot colliding with the floor generating a sound that intensified the nervousness that he for some reason decided to not show.
With each step drawing him closer and closer into the narrow passage, every fiber of his stature that contained any sense of self-preservation began to roar and protest violently against the marching of his own feet.
Though none of it had deterred the resolute, yet slightly troubled expression of the shaky Sanum.
While his instincts were screaming about a felt, yet unseen danger; A dark, pitch-black fume began to emanate from the opening that started to surround the room and more strongly pull the noble in; with each step making it more difficult to lift and drop his feet on his own accord.
"Am I worth a big house, Dad?"
[You are worth a Mansion! Sweetie!]
As Sanum finally reached the first, and highest step of the stairway; the trembling of his hand quickly dissipated as if it was never there while the protests of his intuitive senses began to gradually die down.
*Haah..*
With another exhale did Sanum embarked on the descending, spiral stairway. Upon arriving on the third step, Sanum paused before declaring unto the darkness which echoed his solemnified intonation;
"[Dradac!]"
*Slam!*
"Am I worth pretty dresses, Dad?"
[As many as you want! My Princess.]
Causing the opening behind him to suddenly implode sealing off any remaining light that emanated from the ceiling of his own room, leaving Sanum alone in complete darkness.
*Fwip.*
Then; there combusted a torch that was strapped unto the wall of the narrow passage;
*Fwip*
*Fwip*
*Fwip*
*Fwip*
*Fwip*
*fwip*
*fwip..*
"Am I worth many cute toys, Dad?"
[How many do you want? Choose away!]
More and more torches began to spontaneously light themselves up which eliminated the overwhelming darkness of the spiral staircase.
With that, a calm, stoic expression began to once again assume dominion on the face of the noble as he continued his descent, each step calculated to prevent his boots from landing on a faulty stone or an absent brick that might cause him to stumble and arrive at the destination as a deceased, battered corpse.
.
.
.
.
After a monotonous while of descending on a circular spiral; the calm Sanum finally arrived in front of a sealed tight iron door that had a torch strapped beside it; with the only peculiarity being that this torch, held not a red fire but a green-coloured flame.
*Cling*
"Am I worth delicious food, Dad?"
[Of course! Sweetie!]
Sanum steadily reached for the handle of the green-flamed torch before he pulled it out of its stand; resting it inside the grasp of his right fingertips.
He then slowly reached for the handle of the iron closure with his other hand, before he pulled it up causing the metallic door to open ajar.
"..Then,
Am I worth a kiss on the cheek, Dad?"
[Sure, All the Kisses..!!]
With a burst of effort, Sanum pushed it aside with his left shoulder, revealing a compact basement with metallic walls and an iron flooring with a large, strange symbol depicting that of a circle where a twelve pointed polygon..no it was more of a star with twelve edges; was branded in a dried, reddish ink.
On the edges of the star there stood twelve different candles with varying colours, most of it remained unlit except for two; which was a purple-coloured and a gray-coloured one, their tips lit up with a flame that had a colour similar to its respective candle.
"Am I worth a good bedtime story, Dad?"
[Of course you are..! Let me just get Nanny Silva.]
The room was mostly unfurnished except for a closet that held a variety of different objects with unknown, and possibly occultic origins; a vial sealed with a skull cap, two clay figures with the smaller one having a gray colouration as opposed to the slightly bigger one's purple hue, a pointy polygon that was akin to that of an amethyst repeatedly glowing behind the gray-coloured; wilted plant that was utterly deprived of sunlight.
In the middle, furthermost area of the chamber there stood a wooden table where a green-coloured, golden streamlined chest was sitting idly, beside it was a mess of old parchments written in an undecipherable language accompanied by eerie figures; humanoids ripping their skin out as they wail in pain, a tree without any leaves but only eyes branded on its branches and trunk, pale elongated hands stretching out of a pool that had a sticky consistency, and a couple of humanoids protruding out of the soil with their bodies tilted in a way that it resembled a wilted plant, to name a few, it being drawn with ink so ancient that it was not inscribed on, but rather became one with the paper.
"Am I worth an hour of play with you, Dad?"
[..Not now okay Sweetie..? Dad's still in the middle of something.]
In contrast to the horrifying displays presented on the table; there stood a framed, rather small compared to the others; picture that consisted of a woman who appeared to be in her late twenties and a female child cradled on her arms as they both smiled.
Sanum's stoic, wrinkly countenance twitched upon seeing the chest and more so the picture before he felt an overwhelming amount of disgust resurfacing on his chest as his irises darted from the chest to the photo.
"Am I worth a day of you and mom, Dad?"
[..Well, someday sweetie. If Dad has the time..!]
With hesitant steps did he approach the table while a drop of sweat finally slid down his cheek before dropping from his chin as he slowly and shakily extended out his left hand towards the chest, which upon closer inspection—
"...This is..revolting."
—Began to radiate off a stream-like mist of barely-perceptible nature; it resembled a black smoke fuming out of the object as if it was on fire, but the smoke wasn't grayish just like a normal wood set ablaze. No..
"Am I even worth the time, Dad?"
[Yes..! Dad is.. just a bit busy.. at the moment..]
The exuded steam was pitch-black. With an aura of crimson-colouration surrounding it alongside the edges, corners and outermost linings of the idle chest.
"..Sickening...This much Miasmic energy.."
- Sanum thought; his hand reaching in ever so slowly though with just a few centimeters away from the chest.
*Twitch..*
His hand froze.
Then he paused, and stared at it; his hands trembling.
His gaze faltered for a moment before it suddenly landed on the photo next to the object, which caused Sanum to divert his eyes away from it and exhale a deep sigh.
"...Am I..
really worth a life, Dad?"
His stoic countenance faltered for a quick second before the once shaky palm, which hovered over the chest was now steadying itself.
"Just a little more.. and I'll see you again."
————