The scent of drugs was heavy in the air, tinged with a slightly damp smell. It resembled the ambiance of a cave. Aerea gripped her friend close, letting Valura examine where they were. They stood on the ground floor of the parlor, underneath one of the metal canopies that extended as a floor to the second level. They watched as countless people passed overhead and flowed around them as they lingered in the wide entrance passage. Each footstep was a soft clank against the metal surface, filling the air with cacophony as so many people flowed past. The two clung to each other, not wanting to be swept up in the crowd. Aerea made the first move, holding out her hands to her sides. By expanding the space around them out a few feet, she managed to create an empty area that they could travel within. It was barely a barrier, more useful to push everything out than anything.

  The parlor had an indistinguishable number of levels, each constructed with stone and metal to form wide pathways that multiple carts could travel side by side on without touching. It felt designed to draw people in.

  "How big is this place?" Valura murmured to her friend. "I can't tell how far this goes up."

  Aerea gave it a look herself, though the way that the light traveled here, blurred and refracted, made it hard to tell where they were. The strange fog that clung to the ceiling above was quite strange. It traveled on its own whims, moving though no breeze could push it.

  Hundreds of shops lined the walkways, artisanal goods and other materials that wouldn't be able to handle the Atrisea heat lined up along shelves. The walkways were lined with multiple national flags, the colors on them having faded after countless years. The crests that belonged to each nation were almost unrecognizable. The area they stood in comprised a chunk of the building, walkways stretching until they were out of sight. The market on the bottom level had several staircases built into the wall, leading upwards at an angle that would make any reasonable person dizzy. The bottom floor was dedicated to food and food products, a number of rudimentary cooking stands and metal roasting racks dotted throughout the plaza that was the bottom floor.

  From multiple points in the mess hall of the parlor were hookahs and similar equipment, letting the smell of burnt herb and chemical to rise up to the other levels. The kind that were sitting around them made Aerea narrow her eyes. Several individuals were barely clothed, with vicious-looking blades hanging from their backs. Messy purple markings weaved across their skin, pulsing like the ground that was adjacent to the badlands. They were mutated, with strange horns jutting from their skulls. Their skin was mottled blue and purple, with almost infernal features.

  "This place isnt safe," Aerea growled in Valura's ear. This didn't even include the many bandits that they saw scattered across the clusters of tables that extended to the middle of the plaza.

  "Mm, I get the same impression." The two of them truly did not know who these individuals were, but if they had the same qualities as the Corruption, neither of them were getting close.

  The air was tense. The guards were jumpy as people passed, examining everyone who came through. They were quick to reach for their weapons at any small inconvenience, though in a place like Atrisea she didnt disparage them.

  "Do you know what else I noticed?" Valura leaned up to whisper in her ear. "Check the exits." She motioned with her head, her soft brown curls falling to one side and bouncing in place when she made the rather sudden gesture. The exits that should have been visible were gone, though they could guess where they were from the guards that seemed to cluster around certain walls. To an outside perspective, these walls would have been indistinguishable from the rest of the building. Valura even turned around to see that the entrance was fading before her eyes, waves of illusion blocking it out. She could see people coming from it, but where exactly it was became a mystery more and more over the span of a few seconds.

  "We are going to have a hell of a time getting out." Aerea sighed. "I don't suppose it matters at the moment. I couldn't leave if I wanted to. I take every bit of money I can get, even it requires taking my payment." Aerea stared forward, expression unfazed.

  Valura wanted to ask about it, but she didnt. This woman had seen so much, Valura couldnt bare tasking her with something else to dredge up the pain.

  They finally reached the stairs, climbing them slowly to avoid bowling people off the staircase with their barrier. It was beginning to fade as Aerea lost concentration and her mana began to fade from her body. The fog followed them, carefully creeping through the tall passage.

  "Where are we going, exactly?" Valura asked, cocking her head. Valura was more pale than Aerea by a wide margin, because her illness made it hard to travel for long periods of time. In this heat, in these conditions, it didn't make sense to expose her for long. Her short stature, standing at 5'7'', made it hard for her to keep up in any sense. What she lacked in physical ability, she made up for with the potential of those who could remake the cosmos with enough time. The Vivaisir, colloquially known as the Vivai, had incredible potential and abilities that were uncommon on Alaris. They were sometimes referred to as Star People, even by Grand Arbiter Sargiso, who did not find them unclean.

  Valura was slightly plump, with grippable hips and the hint of love handles. She had the slightest crook of her small nose, and her eyes were like a solar eclipse in radiance, though they shimmered when you stared too close. She had little muscle tone, the years of lethargy and poor diet making it hard for her to define her body to any real degree. Valura had large breasts, which would have been a DD cup if she ever wore a bra. It didn't matter that she didn't wear one. It was one less task she had to perform. She didn't often worry about being assaulted; she was quick to put a hole through someone in self-defense.

  "There's a gambling parlor here. When we get close, you need to keep me in your sight. It gets very difficult to see where you are going." Aerea herself was wondering how well they would navigate, though she had come once before. The truth was that she never visited most of this building, just the parts readily accessible without moving between the sections.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  They stood on the metal walkway, and Valura couldn't help but stare down between the slats at the many people below. It felt like a beehive in here. On their left was a branching hallway, where most people were going. At the clear end of the walkway was a singular door, which even Aerea steered completely clear of. "Do I want to know about the ominous door that nobody is taking?" Valura whispered loudly.

  "Half of these entrances end up where you don't want them to go, and the other half take you somewhere you may not return from," Aerea spoke as if she had been through atleast one of them before.

  "But it's one solid building? Isn't it?" Valura tried to press for information.

  "It sure looks like that, doesn't it?" Aerea did her best to quiet her friend for the moment.

  The two also took the hallway, which felt wider when they actually stepped into it. The world lurched, warping itself for a moment. Aerea lost her balance when they first stepped in the long path forward, and Valura looked like she was going to evacuate her guts orally. The rest of the crowd didn't seem to have the same reaction.

  When the two caught their balance, they carefully navigated the hallway. As they traveled, the barriers that one could reasonably call walls were curving, winding until it became hard to tell what direction they were really going. After about 10 minutes of walking, Valura slapped her legs with great force. "Where the fuck are we?" Her voice dripped with frustration.

  Aerea at first didnt know either, but she managed to catch a glimpse of the fog flowing above their heads into a nearby chamber in the wall. She grabbed Valura to hold her in place, navigating the wall nearby. She felt along its solid surface until she felt something give, pushing against it with a noticeable amount of force. The wall opened up, revealing a long hallway that went in one single direction without any changes in curvature. The ceiling was unnaturally high, more so than the original hallway they were a part of. The gas filtered through the chamber and clung to the tall ceiling of the passage across the entire distance. Valura paused, watching the crowd pass by them like they didnt open up a hole in the wall. "What is this place?" She asked openly, cocking her head slightly.

  "It's the Underworld. It very much lives up to it's name. If I imagine what the perfect purgatory looks and feels like, it would be this place." Aerea responded with a slight sigh. "Cmon, we have to keep moving before someone sees us. I can rightly say that I don't know where this is going, but we definitely are not going to find our objective if we continue traveling in that direction. That hallway could be just about infinite." It was a possibility. The layout of the building changed often, making mapping it difficult.

  Valura eventually caved and began to walk down the hallway. Tubes and gears lined the walls, pulsing as mana was forced through them. It clanked and whirred and shook with each motion of the gears, making the metal they walked on heave each time. Gouts of steam blocked their way more than once, hot vapor making the passage hard to breathe in. Something in the distance ticked, like an infernal clock marching on. There was the impression they weren't alone, but Valura couldn't figure out why. Valura lingered, gingerly sliding the panel back into place behind them.

  "Are you sure this is worth it?" Valura held her question for a while, but eventually she couldn't handle it anymore.

  "I'm not sure of a whole lot." Aerea seemed like she was drained by the whole experience, but she trudged on. Valura's question touched on things she had been debating since they entered the building.

  The trek continued for what felt like several miles, the hissing of steam and the clanking of gear teeth being the only audible noises. They didnt speak to each other much, more acknowledging that each other existed. After some time, the walkway branched off towards something different on both sides of the narrow passage. One passage was marked by a sign that was stamped into metal like letters from an impact press. It read "Gam'a'breh," which Aerea recognized as the guttural language spoken as an Atrisean dialect. It roughly translated to "gamble." The Atrisean dialect was coarse and often hard to produce complex words with.

  "This is the right way. We should end up at the parlor." Aerea began to walk towards the right, where there was a lone door at the end of a long path. She turned after a few steps, only to find Valura paused and watching the other door.

  "What is your damage? I don't believe we are safe here, and I need to get you somewhere less hot." Aerea pestered her friend, who didn't move.

  "There's something here." It was all Valura said, but it sent goosebumps down Aerea's back.

  "What's there? I don't see anything." Aerea responded, walking closer to the door that Valura was watching so intently.

  "You were telling me about places you don't return from? That is one of them. Something is waiting for us at the other side of that door." She was quiet, barely speaking. Valura was almost in a trance.

  "Yeah, you're right. I don't believe these passages are meant for the living. This must be some kind of maintenance tunnel. I don't imagine they wanted people snooping around. Who knows what passages we can't see?" Aerea nudged her friend with an elbow. "I think we should go." Aerea was kind on some level, but insistent that they leave.

  "Yeah..yeah." Valura blinked for a moment and turned her head to look at Aerea. "I dont know about this place." She said simply, emotions in her voice.

  "Just remember the motto." She spoke of her earlier comment, how this place was where the innocent came to die.

  "You cannot be like that here, Valura. Before you start with me, I don't really care. You are too pure for this world, and most certainly this place." Aerea was sharp with her words. Her tone came off aggressive, and it slightly made Valura shrink back. "We have to injure to kill, and not think twice about the consequences."

  Valura wanted to turn away and reject the thought, but she balled up her fists and screwed her face up at her friend. "Don't talk to me that way." She contemplated the words for a while before sighing softly. "Whatever. Youre right. Just..keep going. I'll be right behind you." There was more to be said, but she wasn't going to get into it. Valura didnt have the energy. She was beginning to get cold sweats. It had been too long since she had eaten.

  Aerea stared at her. "Do you believe that we will survive?" The question was rather open-ended, but it had intent. They either fought together or they would die together.

  Valura paused for a moment, her mouth opening slightly. "What? Of course we will." She grumbled. "I'm scared." Her voice dropped slightly.

  "I don't mean to come off harsh, love. Fear has no place here. This place will consume you if you don't act like youre bulletproof. If you need the truth to survive, I admittedly am uneasy by this whole situation." Aerea wasn't quick to admit anything that betrayed her outward image, but it had to be said for Valura's sake. She quickly turned, trying to shake away her own doubt. She had to be strong for both of them.

  Valura paused for a moment, not expecting her friend to admit her fear. It wasnt often that Aerea broke to show doubt and underlying emotions. What was it about this place that got her so spooked? Valura was going to ask, raising a hand to grip Aerea's shoulder. She stopped, stepping back a bit. Valura resigned herself to walking close behind, attempting to offer comfort to both of them.

  The path to the gambling parlor was long and hot, several bursts of hot vapor scalding them. Valura swore she had a few burn marks from the whole thing. This tunnel was ass, as her friend would say if Aerea wasn't so shaken up. By the time they reached the door at the very end, neither of them were so keen on saying anything.