Crypt Quest: Rising Darkness
The Head of Cacus
Screeching tires against the concrete landing strip brought Reese Hunter out of his aisle-seat, passenger-laden, flight-filled reverie. Next to him, Malik sat, eyeing the taller man's quirky impulsiveness and predisposition.
When they disembarked the aircraft at Stansted Airport, just outside of London, England, into the dreary, grey countryside, Malik couldn't help but want to confront Reese about his relentless determinant decisiveness. For the whole two and a half hour flight had Reese to deal with his own impending consternation at what they may or may not discover upon their feats of ancient acquisitions. It was both looming and thrilling.
"Why aren't we talking? It's almost like our lives are being narrated, but the resulting in-world silence produces awkwardness," Reese questioned.
Malik snapped back at him. "You're the awkward one!"
"I know, you think I'm going nuts over Claire, Decima, her men, and those visions, but they're nothing compared to getting the Crocea Mors, what was thought a myth by scholars for centuries," Reese explained.
As they sat on the moving bus, which was taking them to their destination, Malik turned to Reese. "According to the stories, Prince Nennius fought off a Roman invasion, even fighting Ceasar himself. He became a hero to the Brits, though, many people believe he to be completely fictional. So, why did we even think of coming here? Frankly, I'm surprised at me."
"Hey, the best archaeologists consider every possibility, and this is definitely one of those occurrences outside the realm of circumstance," he answered. "Besides, real or not, Nennius inspired people to defend themselves from outsiders. And, yeah, maybe I'm just some landscaper, but I believe who you are isn't reliant on what you do— Or, in this case, whether you exist or not."
Malik's jaw dropped as the bus hit a bump in the road. "You're a what??" Then he gritted his teeth and force-waved him off for the sake of his own mental health. "Whatever! I'm just seeing this through to the end, no matter how far-fetched it or you are. Not to mention, I still have to process the fact we went from the exotic and mystical ancient sites of Italy to the depressing monotony of the English Isles. Seriously, they served us a grey paste on the flight over here?"
"That was England's national food, oatmeal," Reese clarified when the bus suddenly came to a stop.
- - -
The two exited out into the middle of a grassy-fielded park area, as the bus drove off. Quickly hiding behind a bush, they looked across the street at the entrance to a short-walled, even more bush-filled, over-grown section of an ancient gate structure that had collapsed in time. Five men in robes were standing around, with concealed weapons, surrounded by decayed, thick stone pillars that littered the section of the foliage-drenched area.
The mess nearly covered what was known as the North Gate to Colchester Castle.
"Come for the treasure too?" said the alluring British accent of a young, South Asian-descent woman's voice, belonging to a person who was apparently already crouched next to them.
Reese and Malik slowly turned their heads to take in a third wheel: a young lady in her late-20s with a braided ponytail, wearing a short, open vest over a t-shirt and shorts. She peeked through the bushes trying to scope the place out as well.
"Who are you??" Reese questioned, shocked that even anyone was there to begin with.
She snapped out of it. "Huh? Oh, who I am isn't important. What matters is that the Temple of Venus Genitrice provided me with the information that a key was required to allow me access to what's at the grave of Nennius: said to be located just right over there," she detailed quite expertly.
Malik's eyes went completely wide before turning to Reese. "Dude, Venus Genitrice is like half a kilometre away from where we were! How many structures knew about this??"
"Language guy is right, ponytail girl," Reese argued. "Also, we were here first, and you don't even have the key that the Followers of Caesar have been after for years."
The dark-skinned woman held up the ancient dagger Reese had procured, just recently, from the Roman Forum. "You mean this dagger which belonged to Brutus, and was said to have been used to stab Caesar in the back at the most crucial moment in all of Roman history?"
"Yeah," the treasure hunter replied, seconds before processing her actions. He then felt around his waist instinctively. "What? Hey! I don't pilfer your personal procurements!"
She smirked, amused and mystified. "You two are exactly what I pegged you out to be, yeah? A couple of out-of-their-league greenhorns. Leave this to the qualified crypt questers." And then, as she leapt over the bushes and ran off, she said, "Tell your friends you were stolen from by Yuri!"
Yuri stealth-sped her way to across the road to the partial, modern stone wall that was there to keep people out. Still back at the bushes, Reese and Malik turned to each other, once again.
"Who just introduces themselves out of nowhere? And, I believe we've been what they call 'had', if that vernacular has any resonance with you," Malik said.
Reese stood up, prepared to run after her. "It does. Plus she's an unencountered, random person out of the blue? She didn't even make any appearances or anything before this. After her!"
- - -
Yuri climbed over the short wall, dropping a downward kick into the robed individual who was standing nearest to it. Knocking him out, his friend, right in front of Yuri, pulled up a rifle and attempted to fire at her.
But she grabbed the weapon, close-range, aiming it passed her, and force-palmed the man out as well. She then ducked under the bushes, below the visual range of the remaining slow-reacting two men and sped-crawled her way over to them. In seconds, they were both tripped and punched out.
By the time Reese and Malik arrived, they discovered the men unconscious and Yuri nowhere to be found.
"This is why we need to adopt a 'secure the area' pattern," Reese said. "Military people do it all the time, I assume."
Malik approached several broken stone tiles in the ground, next to the rubble of the North Gate. On one of them, was a circular protrusion with a face depicting a Pallantium emblem and royal symbols. He pointed. "These inscriptions surrounding it may indicate Kings, perhaps."
"Is there one for Evander? He founded the city of Pallene before Rome was Rome. Oh, to be the grandparent of a vast inter-seas empire."
The other man examined it and nodded. He then rotated the protruding stone circle so that its emblem aligned with the inscription: A rumble and a stone-mechanical opening in the tile-covered ground, next to them, opened up.
"When in Colchester," Reese quipped to a non-reacting Malik. "Eh? Am I right?" And then, "I'll check in on you later."
- - -
He and Malik dropped into the hole and landed into a horizontal, underground tunnel, covered in skeleton bones that were embedded into its muddy walls. The opening mechanism above them then closed up, as if on some rickety timer.
"I can only see parallels between us and those ancient Romans. Willing to take a leap of faith at things like this Nennius of Britain, who has been largely accepted as mythological by historians, and gods like Venus and Vulcan," Malik said.
Reese took out his dim flashlight. "Except we know gods aren't real, that everything we've deduced, based on them, on our journey, are mechanisms of our imaginations and need to somehow fill in the gaps of our own history and perceptions."
"Pfft! Tell that to eighty-four percent of the current world's population, who believe in some kind of deity or devote themselves to religion."
The other man stopped. "Nevertheless, if people can't prove something, why jump to vast conclusions? It's ignorance. Our leaps in archaeology perhaps are minor in comparison, and even then, they've led to tangible discoveries." Then he pointed his flashlight to the ground. "For example, we deduced Yuri came down here. Confirmed by footsteps."
"Lots of footsteps," the other man modified, glimpsing exactly what he claimed.
As they followed along, they stepped out into an open area, connected to several more tunnel-entrances, footed by ancient human remains all over the floors. They were met with the familiar voice of the snivelling, conniving Martin Groves. "Our footsteps," he modified, even further whilst he and his men were suddenly observed to be there as well and holding flames. "Well, if it isn't the renowned landscaper Reese Hunter and ex-languages teacher Malik Atwell. Two of the most ranked amateurs this side of Great Britain."
"You think you know us?" Reese scoffed. "I find it hard to believe you're capable of anything with substance, moreover, knowing things."
Martin smirked. "You can achieve anything with money, you fools. I know you were kicked out of your archaeology school for treasure hunting and forced to take refuge in an abandoned martial arts house," he laughed. "Malik, on the other hand, was a successful academic until he was caught stealing ancient artifacts from his institution."
"Stealing??" Reese turned to Malik in shock before indulging in sarcasm. "What a surprise!"
Malik clenched his fists. "That's not what happened, and at least I didn't give up on myself after being kicked out of school! You lack more integrity every new second I know you."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen! You'll be dead soon enough, and none of your predictable banter will matter," Martin gestured to the skeletons on the floor and the mural on the wall as he and his men stepped back, out of the way of any traps. "As you can see, I've taken over Decima's position and there's an obstacle here for— guess who?"
Reese and Malik glanced at each other, absolutely sick of each other as they were both pushed toward the wall. The torches the Followers of Caesar held covered depictions of a raging beast in an orange, fiery glow.
"It's the Acadian King, Evander, telling a story of death and destruction to the hero Aeneas," Reese observed. "The content predates the Trojan War, but the construction post-dates Ancient Rome."
Malik approached an area of the wall covered in coins, embedded into it. Some coins were missing. "Cousins of the devotees from the Temple of Venus and Roma, perhaps. Decima's ancestors, likely. This ancient Greek is saying to take the coin of Vulcan's most relied kin, or taste the Fires of Hell."
"Cecrops?" Reese speculated. "He was Vulcan's son and taught Athenians reading, writing and ceremonial burial."
The shorter man watched as Reese was about to take the coin with the prescribed description and human head, but quickly reached out and stopped him as his fingers gripped it. "Wait! That doesn't explain the beast on the wall."
"Cacus," Reese looked at Malik, confirming they were now on the same train of thought. "The fire-breathing giant. He was also Vulcan's son, but was a tyrant and beast." He was suddenly hit with a familiarity and thrust of fear, like some kind of vicious, evil demon reaching out to him. His skipped heartbeat made him unintentionally remove that very same and wrong coin.
Looking to their left and right sides, two resulting, enormous flames of fire began to shoot out toward them.
FFFFFFVVVV!!!!!
Malik quickly pulled the correct coin, Cacus, and the wall parted itself fast enough for them to squeeze through and avoid being sautéed.
"You think you have any idea about anything, Landscaper??" yelled Martin, the amateur villain, in anger while the flames continued spewing in-place. "When you die, you'll get what you're owed! You'll get what you're owed!!" The hellfire divider temporarily prevented he and the last Followers of Caesar the access which had been granted to a quicker-moving Reese and Malik.
The two treasure seekers glanced at each other, surprisingly, now a step ahead. "I've never been great with money," Reese admitted.
"No wonder you're broke," Malik snapped, in anger, as they both then sprinted deeper into the deathly crypt that spewed dank sickness and foreboding darkness.
- - -
Yuri tried to breathe as she walked down a completely different set of tunnels, feeling as if she was now beginning to inhale the depths of Hell itself.
"Ugh. Take me out of the oven, Auntie. I'm done," she said to herself before stepping out into an open area with a giant stone floor which, when shone by her flash-light, revealed images of a giant beast being defeated by a man.
Reese and Malik flew into the half-lit anti-chamber, firing kicks right at her with great speed and flight. "Someone got passed the Evander door," Reese observed as the incoming limbs were both redirected and dodged by her.
"I circled around in another tunnel and dug through the dirt," she said, watching them land across from her. "The key is to avoid those Caesar numbskulls."
Impressed, Reese replied, "Truer words. By the way, I'm Reese. Apparently introductions are a thing now."
"And I underestimated you," Yuri said, redirecting Reese's incoming fist and holding him at close-range. Instead of a counter-attack, she placed her hand on his chest. "How about we split this find, three ways? I've got a reputable dealer who's paying top price for ancient swords."
Malik erupted, leaping again and kicking in her direction. "Any moron would know better than to trust a random! Remember Carthage??" And then, to reiterate, "A random!" Yuri, with her free hand, palm-striked Malik away and Malik landed on his feet. "She'd do anything for the sword."
"Oh, dear," Yuri said, as she caught another of Reese's incoming fists and smiled. "You're as cold as ice today." She moved her face closer to his in an attempt to lure him into a false sense of security. "Lose someone?"
Reese raised his forearm and knocked her grasp away, ignoring Malik and annoyed with her intrusion. "A friend decided not to join us." He then took her seriously and thought about Leanna's last words for a second. "Apparently our obsessions alter our decision-making processes— But we made it this far for something bigger than ourselves. Something powerful and dangerous: Knowledge."
"It's the hunt. It'll fool you into thinking you're getting what you want the most," Yuri countered when suddenly she found Reese reaching for the dagger hanging off her belt. "But if you know how to handle the hunt, rather than be deceived by it," she continued, knocking his reach away with her palm and then firing a cut-kick into his chest. "You end up being the one in control."
She then took out Caesar's Dagger, gripping it as a defence.
"The pointy-thing!" Malik called out, flabbergasted by the taller man's deficiency. He took out the revolver he promised, but, for a moment, couldn't figure it out. Instead, he threw it to the floor and leapt up, launching a flying kick for the woman, who blocked it and returned with a hammer fist.
Malik landed backward, on his feet, from the hit, but Reese moved in and began rapid-firing left and right jab punches to throw her off. "Really? Now you have a gun?? Forget it. Maybe we can both turn her said-jurisdiction in our favour," Reese suggested, ignoring Yuri's advice.
Yuri used both her wrists, in rapid succession to redirect and block each one, not noticing Malik rolling in from below with upward feet toward her abdomen. "Uh, it's second hand. And, forget it!" Malik argued at Reese as he launched two vertical kicks at Yuri. "You're too much trouble, Treasure Hunter, for reasons I expect are obvious! It's the women, just in case it wasn't."
"I'm trouble??" Reese replied, flashed with a wave of cognitive dissonance while Yuri moved her other palm to meet Malik's second offensive. "You're a certified hot-head who thinks the world owes him a living!"
The woman's split focus was distraction enough for Reese to flick her dagger-holding-hand open and wrist-knock the ancient murder weapon out from her grasp. "How dare you claim I'm quick-to-anger??" Malik confounded, in anger.
"Apparently neither of you are quick-to-see what's on the floor over here," Yuri suggested, channelling annoyance with her weapon becoming airborne. Malik gripped Yuri's other downward arm and launched himself upward, between the two tall people, to then step off Reese's upper body, boosting his flight and snatching the gravity-ejected Ceasar's Dagger out of mid-air.
Malik landed, expertly, with the prize, and took a defensive pose before the disoriented and off-guarded couple attempted to regain their focus. "It's Hercules," Malik added, observing the floor mural, finally and confidently.
"Huh?" Reese turned his focus down at the imagery. "Hey. You're right. It's depicting the Greek Hercules defeating that Roman monster, the son of Vulcan."
Yuri snapped her head downward and smirked. "Cacus."
"More like decapitating Cacus," Malik discerned. Reese and Yuri traded some final jabs, blocks and redirects with each other until a few feet of space opened between the two.
Reese held a fighting stance. "As the ancient story goes, Cacus terrorized and stole from the people of pre-Rome until the Greek hero, Hercules, passing through, took notice and confronted him."
"That's why the Romans of Arcadia, meaning King Evander, were so friendly with the Greeks, meaning Aeneas, in later years," Yuri added, maintaining her own preservative stance. "I'm assuming you guys like things being explained?"
Malik walked over, glanced at the two and then forced the dagger into the groove between stones where the image depicted the battle. He wedged it in crudely and inelegantly. "Here's to exposition."
VVVVVvvvvvVVVVKKKKKKKkkkkkKKK!!
The entire, shadowed encapsulated anti-chamber began to rumble, as a result, and the floor opened up, suddenly. Everyone dropped through to the chamber below which was covered in decomposing dead bodies and rats!
- - -
"Rats? Why'd it have to be rats?" Reese said, getting up in disgust. The group stood before a giant, muddy, boulder-like object in the center of the death room. "Also, for some reason, all the Hercules/Cacus stuff has something to do with this??"
Decima had fallen too, now half-buried, near them, deep within the sea of corpses. Her sudden presence proved she was hiding in the shadows, right next to them, the whole time! Though, her previous inaction was substantiated by her bandaged and defeated physical state. Being injured relegated no lack of confidence or fascination on her part. "Oh, honey, you still haven't put it all together, have you?"
"Uh, speaking of things making sense, how'd you get here before Martin??" Malik squawked like some kind of Roman strix.
One other Follower of Caesar, Emir, helped Decima up, taking her weight, partly onto his shoulder. She replied, "It's obvious. He lacks true belief, and as I planned, has rightfully weeded out the followers, like Seyyid, as heretics. It was my faith that accelerated my pace to the final judgment by him."
"Ceasar," Reese finished. "You really think he's helping us from some kind of Roman Heaven? Speaking to us about Crocea Mors?"
Moving the scraggly hair out her face, she answered. "If you hadn't betrayed me at Venus and Roma, you'd have let me finish telling you I don't mean Caesar. Yes, he's our lord, but it's not he who I speak."
"They don't believe in monotheism," Malik said, catching on and realizing too late. He turned his head at the boulder, and suddenly realized it had been expanding and retracting on its own all this time.
Reese was abruptly hit with the largest flash-vision of evil he had ever been impacted with. "UGH!!" Falling to his knees and grasping his head in some kind of attempt at maintaining his sanity, he came to feel the reality of an evil presence: One which had been haunting him since the Roman Forum.
The darkness had engulfed them. They were at the mouth of death, and they weren't even dead yet.
"It's Cacus," Yuri realized, turning from Reese and looking at what had appeared as a living boulder. "It's his... head??"
The head of Cacus, giant, grisly, and foreboding, opened its eyes and looked passed everyone and then its mouth began shifting: "Crocus mors."
"What???" Reese, compartmentalizing the pain, got to his feet and looked at the giant, decapitated head. "What the HELL??"
Yuri took a fighting stance before the head. "Your precious Vulcan dug up what was left of his defeated son from the Underworld and transported him to where the sword was buried! Here!"
"That explains which son Ghost Queen Dido was helping Vulcan find down there," Malik said, also unable to believe what was happening.
Behind the head of Cacus were steps leading up to an altar with the coffin of Nennius, the prince of Britian, and the sword sticking into it from the top. "What are we saying here? The Greek Hercules really did fight a Roman beast named Cacus? And now that thing is protecting the Corcea Mors?" Reese gawked.
"And, inadvertently, Nennius," Yuri said. "Protecting the sword is what Venus wanted after what she saw happened with the Trojan War, and, likely, centuries later, the wars being fought by her Roman Empire."
Decima was helped by Emir, and they slowly walked passed the group. "You fools will know Rome's fury from that time soon enough," she said before turning to address the ancient god. "—Great Cacus, I am this era's Oracle of Caesar, and devote my life to him. My ancient ancestors secured this crypt and all signs pointing to it. We are meant to use the sword to bring a new world order."
The head fixed its own positioning, upright, and seared thin, red veiny growths down from its eyes and onto the surface of the ground. The veins fed out and into the sea of corpses. "OMNES MORTEM!!"
"No! No, we are the Followers of Caesar! This was protected so that my people would have it now!" Decima cried as the red veins began inching their way up her leg to spread around her body like an invading organism. Emir was taken by them as well, both finding control over their own physical movements weaken and weaken.
Yuri moved away from the veins that attempted to reach her, but two of them hooked into her leg. She turned, addressing the Roman queen in utter disgust. "Idiot! You think your group is the center of the Earth? That 'worship' is enough to deal with otherworldly matters?? Gods are meant to be fought and beaten!"
"You bastards," Malik replied, attempting to dodge the veins, but he was caught in the neck as well. "That sword... was... to be... mine.........." The energy from his life began to feel drained. He then noticed the corpses all around began to move under the undead-force fed from Cacus' head.
Yuri, losing strength, grabbed a shocked Reese and shoved him away from the flying veins attempting to reach for him. "Hey, man. This isn't some quest for knowledge and understanding. This is about a giant demonic head! Your whole trip is about a massive, fucking head!!"
"But this is impossible??" Reese shock-reacted, unable to process through his consternation. He then, instinctively, dodged an incoming, airborne vein.
Decima screamed in excruciating possession by the beast, her will unable to stand a chance. She and Emir lost all power and began eerily moving toward Reese with darkened, red eyes and black, ashy smoke coming out of their mouths. "Omnes mortem! All will die!"
"All that obsession, dedication, and your vision??" Reese questioned, as he dodged Decima's demonic, thrusting hand. He then palm-striked her in the head. "How does it stack up to whatever the hell this thing is?"
Undead human corpses, connected by the veins, popped up behind Yuri and Malik and began walking for them and for Reese. Malik, using the last of his will, gripped Caesar's Dagger and began slicing at the decayed faces of incoming bodies. Yuri slowly and clumsily found the revolver on the ground, rolled its barrel and fired shots into an approaching cadaver in ancient Roman uniform.
The treasure hunter multi-punched Decima, again, and away and then step-jumped off a nearing, crawling corpse. He landed and attempted to run passed the giant, decapitated head of Cacus.
"OMNES MORTEM!!"
The verbose head of Cacus turned, spat, as Reese neared, and Cacus regurgitated a massively thick payload of sickening multiple veins from its mouth toward him. Reese eyed the incoming, unworldly and slick, organic, red material as it neared him, and his run up the steps. He ducked, dodged and leapt over each attempt before reaching the top.
"Death to all, Mr. Hunter," said a drowsy and possessed Emir, who Reese suddenly realized was already at the top, standing across from him on the other side of the coffin. The veins, suctioned to the crypt walls, struggled to pull themselves off for another attack.
Reese blocked several incoming punches, reached for him, by Emir, until leaping over the front end of the coffin and kicking the Follower off the top. Emir fell down half the steps and Reese examined the sword's deathly throne.
"Okay, okay. Inscriptions of the old language are on the side of this thing," he tried to breathe. "May the Prince rest for all time, his honour bound in the sword." He attempted to process as he read it. "Then there are more of them on small cylinders, like the pictographs I found at Troy? Etchings for Brittonic words including soldier, powerful, and hero—?"
Then he snapped his fingers.
"Powerful, then. Nennius himself fought Ceasar with the sword, head to head, during one of Rome's early invasions. Even though he didn't make it, Nennius won by using the most powerful sword known to man."
He looked around and realized no one was actually standing around him to receive that information.
"Oh, right. I'm alone." As the distant corpses slowly turned in his direction, he turned the cylinder indicating the all-power of the weapon. A grip on the sword upon the coffin's lid released, ejecting it slightly. He pulled out the sword, but the resulting action caused ancient mechanisms in the cave to begin shaking the crypt.
"According to Historia Britanniae, the Crocea Mors was called Yellow Death because no man struck by it could survive," Reese recalled while he gripped the weapon.
As heavier stones now appeared to ricochet off him, he felt the sword's energy fill his body with reverberations, unlike anything he had felt before in his life.
The veins released themselves from the wall. A life of their own, the veins turned and sent for him. "I wonder how its power would fair against something like you?"
"KKGGGGAAAAAAAAAHHHHHGGG!!!" yelled a frustrated deity's head who was now fully turned around and facing the Reese that stood upon the top of the steps next to Nennius' coffin. As the underground environment shook, Reese cut down each vein, one after the other, missing one, which missed him and accidentally shot itself straight into the coffin.
Nennius, himself, decayed and mostly bones, opened his own grave just before Reese cut that vein off as well. He leapt down the steps, over Emir, and was met with hordes of living corpses which he began cutting into, one after the other. With pieces of undead flying all around, Reese cleft his way through body after body until palm-striking the last one, Decima, into Cacus' face. The cave shook more violently. "You can't even sustain yourself. You don't make any sense!"
"Do it!" yelled Yuri, whose eyes had turned and breath become ash, but had been fighting the transformation out of pure will and self-determination. She watched Reese take a horizontal angle with Crocea Mors, force its end through Decima's chest, into the face of Cacus, before Yuri lost her sight completely.
The head of Cacus, with Decima, began to be encapsulated by splitting cracks filled with head-based, Underworld-originating, molten lava. The head of Cacus crumbled and melted in on itself, absorbing the Roman Queen into fire and severing all the veins by flames!
Reese gripped the sword, and used it to slice through a falling boulder. He turned and noticed that the caving of the demi-God did nothing to stop the undead Emir and coffin-escaping Nennius from continuing to slowly go for him. "Ugh! So creepy," he recoiled from them and then turned to Yuri and Malik. "Shouldn't they stop moving now? And, why aren't you guys turned?"
"Once a man reaches a point in its transformation, there's no going back," Yuri coughed, prompting Reese to help the blind woman to her feet. "But if your will is strong enough, you can overcome any evil."
The treasure hunter tried wiping the ash off her clothes in all the chaos. "So, you've done this before?"
"Not quite to this extent," she smirked. "But the mysticism has always been a constant. Sometimes you've got to kill everything."
More and more debris began to fill the chamber. Malik, on hands and knees, breathed heavily, ejecting a massive amount of ash from within his innards. His eyes were black and he was ready to move, prompting Reese to hold up the sword and take Yuri's advice. His feud with Malik had come to this. The time to strike was now.
"I'm okay," the short man said, still facing the ground, in pain. He was as blind as a bat from Rome's Fourth Underworld. "You weren't just about to murder me, were you?"
Reese quickly retracted his weapon and attack stance. "Uh, no. No. Not all." Then he diverted that intention into a slice of another incoming boulder. "But we'll all be rat food if we don't get the hell out of this Hell."
"You sure do know how to show a guy a good time," commented Malik as he was getting up. Reese then began helping them climb out the way they came.
- - -
Martin and his Followers found themselves injected with the severed veins of Cacus, reached all the way into the corridor before the anti-chamber. They had just lost control, turned, and took target of the three adventurers when Reese got onto their level and defended himself with Crocea Mors.
"YAARRGGH!" the Followers drooled, clearly given in to the evil, in the crumbling caves, as they were hacked into one after the other.
Yuri and Malik were just climbing up, into the entrance of the cave-corridor when Reese had impaled and pinned the final Follower of Caesar against the crypt wall. Martin Groves took advantage of Reese's preoccupied stance and moved into the treasure hunter at close-range. Everything he was, appeared to be no more.
"Hope we both got what we deserved, Martin," Reese said as he moved slightly out of reach, pulling the sword half-out of the Follower and ready to finish the removal which would simultaneously slice Martin in the stomach.
Martin, blind and ash-breathing, smirked. "Those morons are dead for their failures, and you've seen the truth she abandoned me for. It's not the death you deserved, but it's a return I can live with."
"The dude is still with us," Malik said, shocked, and starting to get his vision back. A blur told him Reese withdrew the sword without harm. "Also, are we demon fighters now? Is that something I can put on a résumé?"
The crypt's heavier deterioration started in their direction and the corridor began crumbling from behind them, prompting Reese to grab Martin and a vision-regaining-Yuri to grab Malik. They ran, leaping over and dodging falling debris, forced to turn down another corridor inclining upward toward the surface. As they neared a dead-end, Reese, while running, let go of Martin, readied the Crocea Mors with two hands and hacked, upon approach, right into the wall—
- - -
Outside, in the grassy, still dreary and grey, English countryside, an otherworldly explosion blew the side of a hill, in Colchester's North Gate, followed by the airborne momentum of the group. They all flew out and stumbled and sprawled all over the grass. Martin fell unconscious from the accumulated ordeal. They would later call on an ambulance for him.
"Gonna be honest. I didn't think we'd live through that," Reese said, getting up to his hands and knees. The weight and pains of Cacus finally caught up to him and faded.
Malik clutched his head, trying to process it. "Neither did I, but somehow I fought his will??"
"Guess you have some integrity after all. Maybe we shouldn't jump to conclusions about you stealing from your own school," Reese turned his head to him.
The shorter man snapped. "Obviously! And, somehow, your landscaping job prepared you for historical treasure hunting? You make even less sense, tall-face."
"Well, you two, despite your inexperience, and the dangers that lay therein, we got Yellow Death," Yuri concluded, sitting up. "But, like Venus' concerns about Aeneas and the Trojan War, I'm not so sold on it anymore. But, well done, boys."
Reese stood and picked up the ancient, golden find. "How is any of this even conceivable? This thing is way too dangerous to hand over to a museum, not to mention whatever buyer you had in mind?"
"Quitting your principles, huh? You could learn something from my integrity!" Malik argued, dusting himself off and getting to his feet as well.
The man shook his head. "No, I think this is more than that. Ancient people related to the Followers of Caesar helped hide this thing after Nennius' death, with the supposed reinforcements of their gods Vulcan and Venus. We can't allow this thing to just go floating around out in the world if the lengths of its concern are that in-depth."
"And what makes you the sole chief of righteousness to be the one to hold onto that?" Yuri asked, playing Devil's Advocate.
He examined the ancient Roman carvings of Vulcan on its handle. "I don't make that claim, nor do I have any answers to that. But, for now, like Vulcan helped Venus with that evil monster cranium, maybe we can maintain this find together. At least, until we can figure this out."
"Well, that is quite an undertaking, but I've got other crypts to break into," announced Yuri. "You can keep Crocea Mors for now, Mr. Hunter. I've always known to stay away from the more powerful ones. But if you don't figure out the right thing to do with that sword, I'll be back for it." She turned and began walking away. As the boys watched her casual stroll, they in their shock, she smirked to herself and gripped the Dagger of Caesar close to her chest: She had just stolen it from Malik.
When she was gone far enough, a so-far unaware Malik turned, deadpanned, to Reese. "You like her, don't you?"
"Well, Yuri fights the undead," Reese shrugged.
Malik just grumbled, annoyed. "Oh, and by the way, if the head of demi-god giants are real, does that mean polytheistic gods are real now?"
"I guess?"
He looked away. "My gods, the consequences of these revelations could be unprecedented. Does this mean leprechauns are real?"
"That's kind of a stretch," Reese replied.
Malik started walking, as did the other man. "Oh, and demon heads aren't?? This must mean mermaids are real. Right?"
"Look, man. It's a mess," he generalized. "Can we just go get something to eat and process all this? I hear bangers and mash is a thing here. A good or bad thing, I don't know."
The stout little person waved him off. "With what money?? Oh, and are lake monsters real? They literally have mythologies based on them, all over the world. Not to mention unconfirmed sightings, validated by agonizing, human urgings that they're real."
"Speculation or misunderstanding isn't really a gap-filler, but I suppose honest attempts at seeking the truth are better than stumbling onto a giant monster head." He paused in stride. "Hey, Malik, do you think we're better off like this? I mean, knowing?"
Malik looked at him, considered the life he chose and nodded. Reese, thinking about the fates of the Roman Empire, Ceasar, then Decima and Martin came to a hesitant conclusion as well. He mimicked Malik's nod and they continued off into the distance.