★ Follow the Fireflies

Truthfully, Artorias did not want to go down into these caves again. He remembered the horrific hallucinations he'd encountered with Duchess down here and he was keen not to repeat the experience. But with the stranger from Ashen having gone charging in like a maniac, he didn't have much choice. He did, however, make a silent vow that if things got too dangerous, he wasn't risking his sibling's life. They would head back out before things got too bad. Artorias decided against telling Malik about his past experiences with the cave. He didn't want to worry the lad, and in the best case scenario, he would never have to experience anything like it.

Down and down the dark tunnels the two wolves went, Artorias keeping his keen gaze on the shifting color of the fireflies' lights dead ahead. The soft drip-drip-drip of water falling down the cave walls was the only sound besides their claws on the hard stone floor. Artorias didn't know how deep they had gone before they reached the bottom of the descent, where the stranger was standing looking back and forth down a few branching tunnels. The light from the fireflies had continued on down one of the side tunnels, but something had caused the white and navy wolf to stop where he stood. "Hey, are you all right?" asked the alpha, looking with concern to the Ashen wolf, trying to discern if he was experiencing any side effects of the gases in these caves yet. Sharp amber eyes lifted, his augmented vision allowing him to see in the near total darkness to the fireflies hovering down the tunnel, seemingly waiting for them to continue following.

"Artorias Carpathius" | "Carpathian" | "Corbin" | "Eira" | "Argent"