They left the market with some measure of apprehension. Peter's collar glittered with the badge of his fist link, forced upon him when -- distracted -- he forgot to remove his gloves at the appropriate time.

The further they traveled into the bowels of Kurshing, the more nervous the two men became; In a strange way the market had been comforting, having granted them a sense of security by their ability to watch and copy the movements of others, especially those who had lived in Kurshing for an extended amount of time, but down there, alone, in the dark, it was going to be their job to police themselves.

As they walked, Eli's head was plagued with images of the merged hanging from the ceilings and lurking in dark caverns. His heart hammered, dreading the next creature they should see attached to the walls by their strange fleshy filaments.

Peter stepped forward offering to go first.

Eli went to protest, but Peter held up a hand.

"You have more links than me. I figure if we are only going to be here a few days, then it's enough to spread the burden between us both."

Eli didn't like that Idea at all, and was about to say as much when Peter interrupted, "You don't need to protect me all the time you know."

The way he spoke caused Eli to shut his mouth, dying on his lips.

Peter would not be argued with.

It was a very rare moment that he chose to follow Peter's lead. The younger man knew little about the world, and this naivete often showed. Eli felt obliged to protect him and teach him as a professor to a student, but there was something about his insistence that broached no argument and quelled any protests Eli might have desired to give.

So the younger man took the lead, squeezing himself through the first cave entrance. Eli spared only a glance for the room behind him before following Peter into the depths.

It was completely dark inside, and it occurred to him that he had forgotten to offer Peter a light, which he would need if he wanted to avoid the Bound with any great success. His bag almost caught on something as he crawled, but behind him, he could feel something moving and shifting in his bag, untangling it from rocks even as it was tangled.

"Wink, can you bring a light to Peter." He asked softly.

The dread grumbled, "There isn't room."

"You're amorphous Wink, there's no such thing as no room."

"Fine then, I don't want to."

"Wink I swear-"

There was a sudden and prolonged sigh before he felt something creeping up his back, wet and slimy against his neck as wink crawled over him. There was a horrible moment in which Wink fell down over his eyes, almost completely encasing his head in slime before hurrying away.

Eli was momentarily suffocated and then disgusted, sure the minor dread had done that on purpose.

A moment Later he heard Peter yelp in quiet surprise as Wink gave him a similar treatment. After a moment, the tunnel before them was filled with a meager wan light. They continued their crawl with some comfort restored, aside from Wink slithering back over his face on his way back to the bag. As he was crawling over Eli's back, Eli arched his spine slightly to grind the dread into the upper wall of the tunnel.

Wink squealed in protest, but Eli felt no sympathy for the cheeky little creature. He had brought this all on himself. Finally he let wink go, and Wink crawled away grumbling in indignation. Ahead of them, Peter continued to move slowly through the tunnel until the two of them were crawling flat on their bellies in the darkness.

It was for this reason that it was so alarming when Peter suddenly stopped. He couldn't have been sure what was going on as it was impossible to see past Peter, but the sudden stiffening in the other man's body made it clear that it couldn't have been anything good. He didn't dare ask, for fear of breaking some rule, and so matched Peter as he slowly inched forward, noticing a slight tapping of Peter's foot on the right side of the tunnel. Eli kept an eye right, and was gratified to see that he had read Peter's warning appropriately as a junction, or branching tunnel came into view.

At first, based on the oblique angle of the shadow, it just seemed like a dark gaping pit, but as he came level with the opening, he turned his head ever so slightly, and almost froze as Peter had done as he saw one of the merged staring back at him.

He couldn't have said if it was a he or a she for its face was completely covered by the signature growth that encompassed its entire head. It stared at him as he inched past, it''s head slowly turning to watch them as they went.

Only its head and shoulders were visible, arms and legs pinned inside the tight and restricted tunnel. Eli suddenly found himself wishing he wasn't in the back, and being unable to turn his head, his mind was overcome with paranoid visions and thoughts of something reaching out to grab his foot and drag him backwards.

He crawled faster, but was blocked by Peter's steady movement.

Finally, they came out into another open cavern, and he was able to scramble forward. Peter gave him a look, which Eli returned though neither of them were willing to say anything for fear of it echoing back towards that unmentionable thing in the tunnel behind them.

Eli took a long deep breath leaning back against the wall.

Peter stood next to him.

Eli reached up his hand and motioned for him to move the light around the cave. Peter did as ordered, and the both of them scanned hgh and low for any sign of the merged.

When there was none, they both breathed a sigh of relief, though they kept one eye back at the tunnel behind them. When they were both well rested and mostly put together, Eli offered to go first. A part of him tried to rationalize the offer as being protective over Peter, but another part of him knew that he just didn't want to be in the back again.

It seemed, though, that he wasn't the only one with that same idea, and Peter offered at the second tunnel which turned into the two of them alternating on who went first and who went last.

They saw no more of the trapped merged on their downward descent, but that first encounter had left the two of them paranoid, and they moved slowly checking every dark crevice and nook for watching eyes.

Eli was at the front when they reached their final tunnel, which promised to open up into the servitorium. With every step he felt himself growing more and more uneasy, his mind playing with the word over and over in his head Serv = as in servant and orium being the place of. A place of serving?

That could mean almost anything.

He moved from his hands and his knees back into a crouching position, allowing himself to slowly crawl back to his feet, and eventually straighten his back. The light he held, aloft in his right hand, slowly curved over the divots and pockmarks in the wall, moist with humidity. The tunnel before him slowly widened, and dim flickering light crept out from the opening lapping at the stone at his feet like the ocean waves before his tower home.

He lowered his light, dropping it back into the satchel at his side.

"Ouch, that was my head." Wink grumbled, "Why don't you warn me next time."

"Now that would just be ruining all the fun." he whispered, though the conversation ended there as the tunnel opened up before them into a large cavernous tunnel.

Their light reached only so far into the gloom, and he was barely able to make out the end of the tunnel where a large black cavern opening gaped at him from the darkness.

"This must be it." He whispered inching forward.

In the darkness, it was difficult to make out anything other than indistinct shapes, but with his light put away, he was beginning to detect a sort of ambient blue glow filtering in from the cavern ahead of them.

By that light, he was just able to make out what appeared to be a small rift splintering through the stone just to the right of the entrance to the Servitorium. It matched the description they had been given in the market, and Peter followed at his back as Eli hurried forward, reaching a tentative hand into the rift and running his fingers over the smooth, damp stone.

It was going to be a tight fit.

A crushing fit.

However, there did seem to be something here, which he would never have guessed upon looking at the rift from the outside.

He took his first few steps, pressing into the darkened crack and forcing his body past the slimy stone.... Or perhaps it wasn't stone.....

Eli rejected that line of thinking almost as soon as it came into his head, forcing himself not to think any further on the subject as he pressed his body through the tight opening. It seemed to him that the tunnel was tighter and longer than it should have been, and on more than one occasion he was worried they would come upon a dead end, only to turn around and find their exit blocked.

But he continued to breathe evenly and pressed forward, until the ambient blue light from behind them died, and flickering orange firelight rose up to replace it.

Eagerly he pushed forward forcing himself through the last few feet of stone before bursting out into a small hidden cavern stumbling over his own feet until he stood at the center of the small room.

"Iv-"l The words died on his lips as his eyes fell more clearly upon the room.

Peter inched into the room behind him and drew to a stop as well.

Ransacked.

The room was completely torn apart.

At one point in time this room had been a passable living space containing a bed, some lanterns, book shelves, a rug, a sort of dresser, a desk, and a few other miscellaneous items, but all of that had been destroyed.

The desk drawers were thrown open and papers scattered. The books were thrown to the floor and, many of them, had been doused in lamp oil which glistened in the firelight of that one surviving lantern. The bed was tipped over as well, the mattress thrown to the side and the blankets scattered in a heap on the floor.

"Eli, look at this."

Eli turned towards where Peter crouched next to the far wall.

Peter turned to look at him holding up a large black square of fabric with three large gashes stitched all the way through it.

But it wasn't those gashes that surprised Eli, It was the symbol that peered between the gashes.

A branching tree encased within a perfect circle.

"It seems that someone-" His voice trailed away as his eyes fell upon the second exit to the small room. Peter stod to follow him as he hurried over to the tunnel entrance crouching down to examine the floor, and the puddle of glistening red liquid that lay there.

"W-"

Eli held up a finger to silence Peter, reaching out with one hand to, gently, secure a splintered piece of wood from the desk, which he then used to prod at the puddle on the floor. As soon as he did, he turned quickly to Peter and put a finger over his lips, urging him not to speak.

They were in danger.

The blood had not yet begun to coagulate, which meant whoever had done this, or the body of the person from which the blood had come, was still close by. He motioned Peter behind him and then pointed up the tunnel making the gesture for silence one more time as he inched towards this second opening. This tunnel was larger in comparison to the tunnel they had come in on for the most part, though it narrowed out significantly in the last few feet before opening up again into the massive cavern.

Eli froze and Peter nearly ran straight into his back before pausing, eyes wide as they stared forward..... Forward into a forest of chains, chains dangling in great ropes from above, spilling from the bodies around which they were wrapped like cascades of silver water.

The Servitorium.

Eli tilted his head back, staring at the forest of bodies, wrapped like cocoons in their silver chains, completely immobilized from their heads to their feet, some of them with their eyes covered, leaving only their mouths and noses visible. Fleshy, pink filaments grew like roots from the ceiling above snaking in and out through the links of the chains and down onto the exposed backs of their necks.

He now understood why the old woman had feared the links so much.

Inching forward into the forest of bodies, he could see that Some were further along than others, the older placed further to the back of the room and obscured by the forest of shiny new chains.

Soft moans permeated the atmosphere and flickering firelight turned the floor orange with dancing flames. As they watched, the ceiling above them seemed to move with a slow undulation, bringing some of the chained figures faster towards the end of the room.

Eli stepped forward his caution, unable to stop his curiosity as he examined the chains before him. Those on his left side were covered with a thick layer of dust, which dimmed the reflection of the firelight quite considerably. He tilted his head back, eyes raised towards the vaulted ceiling above where even more bodies hung, some higher and some lower than others, some he could reach out and touch, while others were well outside his reach.

He walked, slowly around the dusty chais craning his neck back to stare up at the ceiling.

He didn't notice any filaments on this one, just the chains, though the person inside was quite still.

He might have assumed whoever it was was dead, but there was no smell, and in a humid cavern like this, he certainly would have expected it.

Firelight mingled with the permeating blue ambience leaked through the chained bodies at unknown intervals allowed through with only the gentle swaying of the bodies as they were tugged towards the far end of the room

He kept their course diagonal, finally reaching the edge of the cavern where it was easier to see, pressing himself up against the rock and peering around the corner, drawn here by voices. Peter pressed up against the wall with him, listening as Eli peered around the corner. They stood there in silence and Eli watched as a group of the Merged came skulking into the cavern. All four of them dragged bodies behind them across the floor, wrapped in chains, moaning pitifully.

As Eli watched, the Meged looped great links of chain over large hooks embedded into the wall.

There was a slight shifting, and then the hooks began to rise, tugging the four bodies off the floor and into the air to join the procession of the damned.

But it wasn't simply those Merged that caught his attention, but the group of figures standing just off to the side in a pool of flickering flame. One of them was a typical Merged, the thickness of its filaments almost as round as tree limbs branching out towards the walls and ceiling, and standing beside her, stood a tall broad shouldered man.

With words scrolling across his skin.

Eli held in a gasp and pressed himself back into the wall hand held tight over his mouth to stop himself from vocalizing his surprise.

He pressed a hand to Peter's chest.

Below the two figures, another knelt on the rough stone, held there by two Merged, though they didn't seem there to restrain him, but to hold him upright.

The leader of the Revealed leaned in, "Where is Adrian."

Ivan coughed and spat a gobbit of blood and spit onto the floor in front of him, "I don't know you bastard."

One of the Merged squeezed the hand that was clasped around Ivan's neck, and the man bent forward hissing in pain as blood and spittle dribbled from his mouth and onto his beard.

The Revealed leaned in again, "I know you have been working with Adrian, and I know that Adrian's son was heading this way. WHERE ARE THEY!"

Ivan choked as the Revealed bore down on him, struggling to hold in the answers bubbling, unbidden from his mouth.

"I...." He choked again, "I don't know.... I.... the last time I saw Adrian was more....more than ten years ago..... We haven't....spoken. Since." He wheezed.

"And his son?" The Revealed prodded

"I don't... know. I never met his son, only his wife."

"And you don't know where Adrian could have gone."

Ivan sunk to his hands and knees heaving with the effort of being overcome by the Revealed sick powers, "No I, I don't know...." He gasped, "All I know was his work.... He was.... Fighting the dreads, he.... He thought he was onto something the last time I saw him, he was excited about it, but I.... I never saw him again."

He dropped to his stomach on the floor gasping.

The revealed sighed and looked to the ceiling before crouching down, grabbing Ivan by his hair, and slitting his throat.

Neither Peter nor Eli could contain the sudden intake of breath as Ivan's body thudded to the floor, red pooling from the gaping opening of his neck.

"Who goes there!"

The Revealed voice boomed around the cavern, its eyes having turned towards the sound of their voices.

Eli grabbed Peter by the arm and began to run.

He could hear rushing footsteps behind them as they shot from the forest of bodies causing chains to clatter and rattle as they ran. Shouting rose in the room behind them as they shot into the nearest tunnel crumbling on their hands and knees, and eventually on their bellies as they scrambled through.

They did their best to lose their pursuers in the maze of tunnels, but every time it seemed they might have lost them, the noises of pursuit began anew, and they had to continue gasping and crawling through the dark cramped spaces.

They burst from one of the smaller side tunnels panting and gasping into a large tunnel more than eight feet high and four feet wide. People stared at them curiously from either side as they looked around for their best exit.

The people standing in the tunnel, all well dressed per the Kurshing legal code, stared on in bemusement and curiosity, but as Eli glanced around in desperation, a tall woman, wearing an immaculate three piece suit and silver tipped cane, with ten links on the collar about her neck, caught his eye.

He watched as she discreetly reached up and pulled back the fold of her lapelle to reveal that same symbol from earlier. The silver tree inside the circular border.

The sounds from behind them were growing louder, and with the tip of her cane she beckoned them forward.

Eli paused, his eyes riveted with distrust on the symbol at her collar. The voices grew louder, and Peter grabbed Eli by the arm hauling him after the strange woman without a moment's thought,falling into step on either side of her, matching her pace and movements as she walked up the hall. Behind them, the Merged Burst through the tunnel looking around with their sightless faces.

"Where have they gone?" one of the Merged demanded to the nearest woman, old and with long graying hair.

The woman didn't say anything, and Eli held his breath, waiting for her condemnation, but none came, and he glanced back to see her pointing down the hallway in the opposite direction. They didn't thank her, but raced forward, down the hall and out of sight.

Catching his eye, the old woman reached beneath her short cape collar, and withdrew a small silver pendant.

He nodded his thanks to her before turning back to the woman, following in her wake as she led them, hopefully, to safety.

Though With the Revealed here, they probably wouldn't be safe for long.