Everglow: The Trials Of Agaron

36 - The Darkhouse

"That's not ominous at all," Spatch gulped.

The darkhouse towered above them, it's menacing silhouette appearing almost like the bow of a ship breaking through fog. 

"How tall you reckon it is?" Quin asked.

"Over a hundred meters, easy. I don't think I've ever seen a normal lighthouse before, let alone its dark twisted cousin," Fischer replied. He couldn't help but feel slightly nauseous looking up at it.

The group began heading towards the base of the enormous structure. One thing was on all their minds though.

"So what now? You found the tower," Tonner stated, folding his arms.    

It was only then that Fischer realised they had no real objectives here. Ko's visions had told them about the darkhouse, but nothing about what would happen when they actually arrived. The air suddenly filled with a sense of worry as several sets of eye found themselves resting on Ko. 

"Uh. . . I-I. . . I d-don't. . . know. They d-didn't tell me what we h-had to do after we got here," she muttered, dragging her feet in the dirt. 

"Well that's just great," Tonner huffed, throwing his arms in the air and turning his back on them. 

"There's gotta be something here. We're in the middle of an ancient city built by the angels. There's no way there's nothing here. Why don't we split up and have a look around? We can cover more area that way," Spatch asked.

Quin scoffed and folded her arms. "Pfft. Yea, because that will end well. I'm making an executive decision right now, we are not splitting up."

"The carcan's right. Splitting up is a bad idea. We have no idea where we are and no idea what could be waiting for us-"

A sudden spine-chilling growl interrupted Tonner and the group immediately spun on their heels.

"Uhh. . . what. . . what was that?" Fischer asked, immediately taking a step closer to Ko. 

"No clue. I don't think I wanna know," Spatch replied, fiddling around with some holographic buttons on his arm device. 

The air went eerily silent once more. The sound dissipated into the air leaving the five of them clueless and on edge.

"We should get to somewhere safer," Quin exclaimed through gritted teeth.

"Sure, how safe do you want? The broken buildings that belong to dead people?  Or the large as fuck tower that sticks out like a sore thumb?" Spatch hissed in reply.

"You got any better ideas?" Tonner replied while constantly switching his aim from building to building.

Spatch shrugged his shoulders and hastily turned to the rest of them. "Fair point. Darkhouse, let's go!" 

With haste, they all turned and made a break for the huge silhouette of the darkhouse, around two hundred or so meters away up a small incline. Tonner made sure to be last, keeping his aim trained on the city below. 

The base of the dark house was covered in what looked to be old stone walls. They didn't seem to have any apparent reason for being there, almost like they were once part of a much larger structure that had long since been lost to time. The walls were crumbled and cracked, clearly having been standing for a long time. However they didn't seem to be too badly damaged all things considered. It was still possible to make out what once looked to be a house of some sort, possibly a small castle. 

"What the hell happened here?" Spatch silently queried. His tone had shifted to one of anxiousness and uncertainty.

"Nothing good," Ko whimpered.