A small part of him sort of hoped he could impress her by climbing the wall with naught but his hands, but his conscious mind knew that was foolish, boyish bravado. Something you couldn't really entertain in the world-below. Even being alone, separated by ten meters was a haunting experience for most people. Thankfully, the Evergod had blessed him with ample experience. He heard her mumbling to herself above as she studied something, and a smile bloomed on his face. 

After she had dropped the rope, he saw it slide down to dangle before his eyes. His necklace's talisman was clutched in his hand to keep it held close, but it somewhat obscured the light, giving a soft radiance rather than the brilliant beam of illumination it generally provided when called to. The darkness crept in closer as he reached for the length of cord, but his hand stopped dead. 

Beren froze. 

Above, he could hear Jocasta humming gently, her light voice softly echoing off the walls. He felt his heart beating loudly in his ears, and he subtly glanced behind his still form. Though his eyesight was very good, he wasn't a dwarf or one of the elves of Leth'Arian. He saw little but empty shadow. The silhouette of the passageways softly kissed by the covered glow of his necklace; naught but gaping mouths for even deeper darkness. 

He steadied his breathing, but there was little he could do for the mounting fear. The warrior-monk had felt a dozen changes within the black that peered over him, but none he could articulate in the tongues of men. His horror coalesced in his mind, and he felt a small pressure; a pain in his back. It was a ghost pain. Nothing had touched him, but he couldn't shake the feeling of a blade bursting forth from his chest. 

The shadows began to move just outside of his vision, blades slowly unsheathing from their accursed scabbards with sigils of the tainted prince. He couldn't perceive them with his eyes, but he knew they were there. A shift in the air; a silence that seemed deafening yet unnatural. He suddenly realized Jocasta had stopped humming. Instead, she spoke out. 

"Beren?" His companion called. "You there?" 

Her voice shattered the glass. Beren leaped to the left as the telltale 'click' of crossbows fired at where he had been a moment before. Bolts hit the wall and scattered to the ground, footfalls, inhumanly quick, padding across the stone. Beren spun, able to perceive the coming offense by some primal sense of survival. His attacker was unseeable one moment, and the next they plunged into his field of sight, hitting him as a serpent, netheril blade slicing at his neck. 

Beren caught the dorcha's wrist with his left, his right forearm crossing the dark elf's arm to aid in halting the momentum of the swing. The elf's eyes bulged in surprise, and Beren had to agree. He knew if the dark elf had expected Beren to be somewhat prepared for combat in the deeps, he would have better struck and likely killed him. But Beren had been here once before in his life, and the dorcha had underestimated him. "Diabhal hrultur!" Beren cursed in Dwavish, the man headbutting the snarling, haunting visage of the accursed elf. Blood spewed from the male dorcha's nose, and Beren kicked him in the chest, sending him flying back into the darkness. 

Three more took his place, but Beren had not kept still. He opened his fist, letting the light beam radiantly in their eyes. He saw them now, in their black armor and evil grins now turned to scowls from the blinding rays. They were attractive in a bedeviling fashion, sculpted features ruined by their infatuation of demonic, abject cruelty. As he opened his fist, he ran back to the right, grabbing the rope. But rather climb, he used the momentum of his charge to run, feet clapping against the wall as he swung up, up, until he was twenty feet in the air. As he went, he rolled the rope further and further along his forearm until it clung around his muscle like a constrictor. 

His momentum brought him back, crossbow bolts hitting the wall a hairs breadth from his swinging form. He grappled the rope and yanked himself up the last few feet, his body cold with anxiety and fear. He haulted himself up with the last of the rope. 

"What's happening?" Jocasta asked, but she was cut off by shrieks of frustration from the darkness all-too-close below. 

"Run!" was all he said, taking her hand and pulling her down the corridor. Anywhere was better than behind them. There was very little in the mortal world more torturous and wicked than the dark elves of the world-below. He only hoped the one he had kicked would deal with a few broken ribs.

Words in a vile tongue rang out to their back, and Beren knew it was only a matter of time before they climbed the expanse and followed. He was too focused on behind than ahead, and it took Jocasta crying out for him to look forward just in time to see a thread that had been tied ankle-height. Miraculously, Beren and Jocasta both leaped over it, but when they hit the stone, they both sunk down a few inches, and something clicked and whirred. 

Wordlessly they sprinted, the seconds passing by giving them the fear something would come sliding out to cut them to pieces. Instead, something very different happened. Before them, the light-illuminated passage before them began to close up. A wall began rising up from below, spikes standing before it to bar their way. It just caused Beren to pick up speed, and rather than leave her behind, he picked Jocasta up and laid her on his shoulder, letting her watch the darkness behind as he ran with her hip pressed to his cheek. 

Beren couldn't hope to long jump the spikes and the moving wall, so he leaped to the right, kicked off the wall to hit the left wall, and then used that as an elevated platform to leap over the spikes and slide across the rising wall on his knees before they slid clear of the obstacle. Unfortunately, both of them hit the ground on the otherside none-too-gently after a small free-fall. Jocasta fell on Beren, but not on his lap for once. They lay in a heap in the darkness as the door closed behind them. 

"You ok?" 

"Yeah, what was that back there?" She asked him.

They could not know where they were, but when Beren raised his pendant to examine the large room of items stacked in great heaps and arcane symbols on the walls, he was speechless for many moments.