The moment Rook stepped into the greater glowing cavern, he forgot the reason he was there.

His sword grip slackened. He pushed back his visor to better see the clusters of mana that jutted shining from the floor, the ripples of light in the walls. He could feel them humming in his bones like the pale stones that pulsed in a dark library long ago. He could almost see the silhouette of that child against the cold wall, a shining blue stone cupped in both hands.

A whisper echoed softly, and Rook had turned toward it when a [i]crash[/i] of splintered crystal exploded by his ear. His heart thrummed to action; he faced the escaping wisps of magic with a guarded stance, sword at ready, before his mind caught up to instinct. A crossbow bolt stuck deep in the rock behind the shattered dark crystal. Had she been aiming for [i]him?[/i] No, a Royal Hunter wouldn't have missed that easy shot.

Something rumbled and hummed deep in the black spaces between the crystals. The air trembled. The pale blue light shivered on the cavern walls. In the distance, a sound like rain echoed in the empty depths, surging rapidly closer.

Rook couldn't see the Royal Hunter, but he tilted his glare in the direction the crossbow bolt had come from. So now the Old One was pissed, and it would be pissed at [i]him[/i] for destroying that crystal. He flourished his sword and, with a snarl and a heave, he slammed the blade into another mana crystal that pulverized into escaping wisps of magic.

She had better be good with that crossbow or he would feed her to the monster himself.

The pattering rush of rain grew louder and louder, accompanied now by a sloshing sound like leather bags full of water.

Rook hopped up onto the jutting rock, the shattered remains of a mana crystal crunching under his boot. He drew a breath and roared loud, reverberating through the cavernous room: "[color=8dc73f]COME OUT, COWARD![/color]"

A gelatinous dark shape bulged out of a deep passage and stretched, threading along the wall and ceiling with the rainlike sound of a thousand hands on the cold stone. The cavern filled with a smell like cinnamon and rosemary as the creature whipped around clusters of shining mana crystals, shielding them with its long moving body while the mask of its porcelain face gunned directly for Rook.

Rook braced for impact, his sword held ready to shatter the moster's hollow expression, while he waited for the Royal Pain in the Ass to do something useful.