The movements of Tell Tale Tom were quick and direct, telling a tale different from the age the rest of his body showed. But any awe that Devroux could have had in the moment was instantly killed when Tom, without any care for his travelling partner, blew a high-frequency whistle to disrupt the birds in the area. As a mink with bat origins, this whistle was painful to listen to. Unlike the claps and clicks that Devroux made carefully and intentionally, the whistle was just a long, indiscriminate noise that sank directly into his ears and reverberated loudly within his head.

"Watch the fucking whistle, man," Devroux snapped, clearly agitated and for good reason. The mink placed his hands over his ears, blocking all noise for a brief moment and shaking his head to get his mind off of it.

There was no reason for him to believe that the map Tell Tale Tom was holding was real or would lead to any sort of valuable, but Devroux decided that he was in too deep in the trip to take the life of the old man. If he weren't the only reason Devroux could reach the conclusion of the map, the whistle would have been enough reason to kill him outright, even ignoring all the incessant rambling that Tom had put him through before. Just for the sake of reaching the end of the map, Devroux put his agitation aside and the duo continued their trip through the desert.

Tom, in his signature Tell Tale Tom fashion, didn't seem to receive the animosity in Devroux's words or re-branded silence. The old man continued to tell various stories and make conversation, doing whatever he could to enjoy the company of another person while he could and make the trip less boring by even the smallest margin. It was admirable, had it not been thrown around in the amount that it was without relevance.

Excluding the constant storytelling, the journey to Erumalu continued on without a hitch. There were animals along the way that showed the same amount of aggression that the duo had seen at the oasis, but these other animals were either too far to commit to an attack or were being held off by some other unknown force. Whatever the case may be, anything was welcome to make the trip go by faster and easier than it was. Before long, they came upon their destination, or at least, the second milestone on the trip to their destination - the entrance to Erumalu.

"A true representation of people," Devroux hissed under his breath. Erumalu was the single, most accurate manifested representation of the mink's confidence in the majority of the world. The lower lifeforms could come across wealth and power, but it'd all eventually go to their head and let overconfidence lead to their downfall, or they'd let sheer stupidity guide them to it. Either way, the rise and fall of cities and nations was due to the ineptibility of the ruling class - a class that Devroux knew was beneath him. There were only two things that lower class creatures had earned respect from the mink for...

The first being that, as a community, they were capable of massive, time-enduring feats. The large-scale wars of times passed had on several occasions quite literally scarred the earth that people in modern times tread. In Erumalu, the current showcase of these time-enduring feats was the central district of the former city. The City Hall and the merchant district, gathering places for the community, were left standing while the rest of the city had crumbled. As a community, they were strong.

The second respectable ability of low class creatures was their ability to remember. Ancient myths about the battles between gods and heroes recall a portion of the past of the world. Some stories are older than the date they were written down, which is a feat in and of itself representing their ability to remember. In Erumalu, this ability is a proven fact. The library still stands and in an even better condition than that, was the museum, where true artifacts of history were kept as opposed to the stories.

Although Devroux had a certain amount of respect for these feats of humanity, it was something that he withheld and never told anyone. They were the types of things that made people worth leading over just slaughtering like cattle. They were weapons to be honed and directed, and that was the mink's directive in life.

"Is this our destination," the mink asked out loud.

After their long journey, the two travelers had come to the entrance their final destination - the Erumalu museum. What they stood in front of was a massive, open doorway, the top of which reached just as high as the other buildings around it. It opened up into a long passage that lead underground keeping the artifacts the Sandy Island peoples had kept within hidden from the desert storms and other conditions that may have lead to them being lost to time. The large passage that lay before them stood daunting to the travelers, even among the journey they had taken to get there.

"It sure is, sonny," Tom said, in a hushed and bewildered tone. His tone spoke volumes about the way the man felt in seeing the library. It sounded to Devroux as if Tom had been there before, yet couldn't help but be in awe of the sheer size of the entrance and state of quality it had maintained.

"Then let's go," Devroux suggested. Being his idea, the mink took the first step down the dark passage. Coming to a place such as this, it easily reversed the doubts about the map's authenticity that Devroux had had since leaving Alubarna.

Tell Tale Tom quickly stepped after his mink partner, pulling an unlit torch from his satchel before they could descend too far into the darkness. Devroux saw this, and before the old man could light the torch, the mink shielded his eyes. He had started his descent into the museum without thinking about how dark the passage was. While he was used to walking around in the dark through the use of echolocation, and old man wasn't as capable.


The two descended through the tunnel easily, especially now that Tom had a torch to make steps with. The actual walk down was only a couple of stories, just enough to shield the building from the elements, but not far enough to ward off any public visitors it may have received back when Erumalu was an active hub. The passageway lead into a massive room, large enough to house the town that the travelers had walked through to get there. It provided seating and a ticket counter for the once active museum, with several doorways leading to other parts of the museum sat on each wall.

At this point, Devroux realized how much it had earned the tone that Tom had given it. The doorway wasn't that impressive, but what it lead down into was definitely worth the travel, even if just for the experience.

"Okay, Tom," Devroux spoke, getting the old man's attention. "Now you're really up."

With every step that Devroux took, the air seemed to get thicker and the fur on his neck began to stand on end. He couldn't figure out what was causing this type of sensation, but whatever laid ahead was bound to be dangerous. If her weren't mentally preparing himself for the danger and didn't have the ability to use echolocation - if he were a frail human - Devroux would have turned back and avoided the animosity and darkness that Tell Tale Tom was leading him into.

The two pushed open the door to the passage, disregarding the skeleton on the ground for a moment and releasing the full, unchecked force of the taint within. The ill intent that Devroux had been sensing that had been raising his hair in reaction was only the tip of the iceberg. It was leaking out through cracks in the tomb and now that Tom and Devroux had opened the door, it was able to wash over the area in an almost visible film of malintent. This level of animosity force the mink to recoil for a moment and check his surroundings.

The first thing Devroux did was pat himself down, making sure that he had replaced the kuridashi he had taken out at the oasis. Aiding in his comfort, if only slightly, both of them were still there.

Second, the mink started clicking his tongue rapidly, getting a visual layout of the immediate area within his mind. He used his hand to feel around the edges of the door and the wall surrounding it, trying to discover something that he was unable to see with echolocation or Tom's torch. What he found, to his surprise, was a second layer of wall that had been removed, covering the immediate entrance to the doorway. The museum that Erumalu had built to house its artifacts had been built over an even older tomb, which Tell Tale Tom and Devroux were about to venture into. However, even though the mink could infer this by touching the layers of stone and seeing the debris in the area, there wasn't any way for him to know how old the temple beneath actually was. He'd need an archaeologist for that.

Third, and last, Devroux surveyed the skeleton up close. Using the torch, he scrutinized the bones to check for brakes or other deep wounds the person would have received in life. They were small, but he managed to find a multitude of teeth marks on various bones. It was these teeth marks that made checking the corpse so important to the mink, as it was easy enough to relate the animosity in the air and the teeth marks on the corpse back to the animals that he had run into back at the oasis.

The mink tapped the skeleton's femurs on the stone floor, testing their durability to see if age had gotten to them or not. One of them snapped, indicating that it may have received some damage at another time, while the other one held firm. Holding it tight, Devroux stood up from his crouch and looked at his navigator.

"Alright, I'm ready."

The travelers continued their journey down the dark passage, Devroux taking the lead at Tom's behest. Periodically, the mink could clap his hands to recreate the echo-map within his head and make sure that there was no surprises up ahead. Devroux walked through the corridor easily, relying on his echolocation completely. Tom had to rely on the minimal area that was lit up by use of the torch, but even with that, he wasn't able to avoid all the debris within the passage and could be heard tripping and stumbling periodically. Devroux bit his tongue, trying to keep his giggle from slipping.

Devroux hadn't taken a very big liking to the man he'd hired to navigate for him, but that emotion wasn't getting in their way of working together when the situation called for it. Tom continued to watch the map, using the torch to keep it lit, and would relay directions to Devroux, who would use his echolocating abilities to guide them through the tunnels more efficiently and more accurately. With the constant winding and dead ends that the map showed, their system kept an already complicated task from getting even worse.

An increasingly dark tunnel, littered with debris, is hard enough to walk through on its own, let alone a dark tunnel with a heavy, malicious intent wafting through the air. As Tell Tale Tom and Devroux continued to trudge forward, the taint in the air continued to grow more prevalent. It had been triggering Devroux's animal instincts for awhile, but it was starting to apply a physical restriction to the travelers that kept finding it harder to move forward.

Devroux took out the femur he had swiped from the skeleton at the start. Using his kiridashi, the mink began to carve away the tip of the bone haphazardly. In the dark, he wasn't worried about fancy engraving or a straight edge, he only wanted a spike created from the bone. It wasn't much compared to the weapons he'd used to carve it, but the spike allotted him a slight range increase in case the he and Tom were attacked on their journey to the end of the tunnel.

So far, with the exception of the sounds of scurrying rats and the odd crumbling rock in the distance, their walk was uninterrupted.

As a beginner blacksmith, Devroux found the flawless craftsmanship behind the door as something to be in awe of, but his interest in what lay beyond it was far more potent in the heat of the moment. Standing in front of the door, the taint in the air was at its strongest yet, and it was clear that the cause of it was within the sealed room. The mink put his hands on the door and gave a shove befitting a door of that mass, but was met with complete resistance. The mink shoved again, this time putting all of his meek body weight into the effort, but yet again was met with no movement on behalf of the door.

"The fuck," he breathed, growing increasingly frustrated with the door, the labyrinth, and the entire trip as a whole. "Tom, help me."

"Yessir!" Tom shouted. If Devroux had been looking at him, he would have seen the salute that the old man had given him upon replying. Tell Tale Tom stepped forward and the two travelers each took one door.

"Okay, on the counter of three. One... Two..." Both Tom and Devroux tensed up together, getting ready to put their full effort into prying open the door that separated them from the end goal.

"Three!"

The doors swung open, as if pushed on by the force of God himself. The movement was so sudden and the force of the taint that was release so potent that Devroux couldn't stay standing. With the door no longer holding him up, the mink fell to the ground, where he lay for a moment to regather his wits. Tom had managed to stay standing, brushing his hands off before offering one to help the mink back to his feet. Devroux was suspicious at first of whether or not they had given equal effort in opening the door, but decided to take his traveling companion's hand instead of pressing the idea.

Once he was standing, he realized that Tell Tale Tom was exhausted as well, though he knew that it wasn't from opening the door. The source of the taint was within the room and even Devroux, no matter how well he could fake his composure, could feel his consciousness slipping under the weight of the malicious intent.

Devroux turned towards the center of the room, laying eyes on a sword unlike anything he'd seen before. It stood on its point, the blade misshapen and the handle covered in thorns. The sword was very obviously at the center of the malintent, but its position was held firm by the massive bolder that rest on its end. The point was set directly into the stone floor, the handle propping up a bolder that crashed through the ceiling, letting light into the underground room.

Devroux wasn't able to give an accurate measurement, but guessed that it was roughly twenty feet between the ceiling of the room they were currently in and the desert above, yet this boulder was taking up and protruding out either end of the hole. It was a fact that was almost as impressive as how the sword was able to hold up something of such massive weight and size.

The objective was the retrieve the sword, being the treasure that they had come for. Hopefully it would limit or remove the taint that was spreading out over the area, but there were two problems with this plan:

1) The giant boulder looked to be far larger than anything Devroux or Tom, to his knowledge, could lift.

2) They weren't the only living things in the room.

In front of the pedestal on which the sword sat lay three, large bananawani alligators. Each had awoken when the travelers had made their entrance into the room, but they continued to lay, unstirred, entranced. Their eyes were open, the same burning look in their eyes as the animals that Devroux had seen back at the oasis.


The difference between these bananawani and the other wild animals was the fact that these alligators were able to remain so calm, even with Tom and Devroux only a few feet away. The silence was almost more eerie than if the two were being attacked, as bananwani are known in Alabasta as a ferocious, bloodthirsty species.

In addition to the alligators, four moving crabs moved themselves out of the piles of sand that had built up in the corners of the room. When the giant stone had pushed itself through the ceiling of the tomb, it had let in sand along with the sunlight. Over the years of the sand shifting around the room due to the air coming through the cracks, it had eventually built up along the corners and walls, in large enough piles that even giants, for the most part, would be able to hide within them.

The moving crabs glided out to the center of the room, shoving their backs into the giant boulder and flexing their legs. The combined might of all the moving crabs were able to force the massive boulder off the sword, allowing one of the bananawani to slap it off of its pedestal and into a pile of sand. With the sword removed, the crabs continued to hold the rock lifted, as it was important the rock didn't fall further into the room, or it would roll towards the center and crush everything in its path, including Tell Tale Tom and Devroux.

The pile in which the sword had landed began to shift, the sword sinking into it until it was out of sight, but the weapon had only disappeared for a brief second when it emerged again, the blade pointed towards the sky and the hilt grasped by a white, skeletal hand. The skeletal hand revealed more and more of itself until its connection to an armor, skeletal body was revealed. The skeleton slowly stood up, sword in hand, looking at the two that had made their way into its resting chamber.

Tom and Devroux watched the skeleton rise from the pile of sand. They were both transfixed on the paranormal sight before them, watching in total bewilderment as the undead creature pointed its weapon at its target. Neither of them moved from their position, but when the skeleton got within range of Devroux, the entire room shifted into a new dynamic.

Devroux had been watching in combined horror and interest, but it wasn't until the skeleton moved to strike that the switch flipped and the mink was frozen in fear. It was a mindless killing machine, and totally different from the opponents he had faced earlier in his life. The skeleton raised its weapon to attack, and this sparked Tom into action.

Tell Tale Tom had been watching the whole event in an undistracted interest. He wasn't the target, and was able to keep his composure in spite of the overwhelming animosity in the room. But his partner, Devroux, who he had brought here was now in a state of peril, frozen in spite of the aggression that was being shown to him. The old man reached for the bat mink, but it was his voice that made it there first.

"Boy!"

Tom's voice rattled through Devroux's ears, waking him from his trance a split second before the sword would land, giving him just enough time to dive off to the left side of the skeleton. The blade narrowly missed the mink, but he had managed to make it out without a scratch. It was pure chance and all thanks to Tom, but now that his navigator had helped him, he was able to regain his composure in the face of the opponent before him.

Devroux tucked his wings in tightly to his back. The less extended they were, the lower risk there was that they'd be injured in the fight. He also drew one of the kiridashi that he had on his person, brandishing it in the left hand and the sharpened femur in the right.

But before the mink could aggress, he wanted to give the skeleton one more chance of his own. The trance was broken, so now it was an opportune chance for Devroux to watch his opponent's movements and not make an attack that could put him in a disadvantageous position.

"Yes, Tom, I'm well aware." The idea that the old man could fight was almost laughable, but Tom had already managed to evade a hoard of crazed animals in the desert, use up virtually none of his share of water on the way through, and help open the massive door that Devroux wasn't able to open by himself. There may have been more, but there were more pressing concerns at the current junction.

There wasn't much space between Devroux and the skeleton that was attacking him, but given the mechanical actions of it, it was enough space to give him enough time to call the next action. The horizontal slash of the skeleton knight came towards his rib cage, yet again, with the wide slash and jittery actions, it made it easier for Devroux to dodge evade the attack. However, even as he tumbled safely to the size, the mink could hear the whir of the blade as it sliced air behind him. While the actions weren't fluid by any means, it didn't mean that they lacked speed.

This time, as the skeleton opened up his side with the slash, Devroux moved forward to attack on his own. He wanted to know what would happen if the skeleton started losing parts. He couldn't necessarily tell what was controlling it, as there wasn't anything to hold it together anyway, nor was there flesh to control in the skull. The only way Devroux was going to find a weak point was testing them, and that would start with the rib cage now that it was exposed.

After diving to the side, the mink tumbled over, catching himself and immediately lunging forward towards the skeleton. As its arm swung past its body, Devroux thrust the bone spike he had carved forward towards the open rib cage. The attack pushed the air, sending a penetrating force out the end of the spike towards the skeleton. Even if the weapon couldn't make it, the extra meter of range potentially could. The goal was simple: Break bones, or dislodge them from the rest of the body.

The attack managed to land on the skeleton, sending some of its ribs flying off to the side. However, the missing bones didn't seem to physically damage the skeleton in any way, only serving to anger it. When the bones dropped off, the undead creature released a shriek so loud and blood-curdling that it sent chills up Devroux's spine. The mink's neck hair stood on end, but this wasn't a good time to let fear take root.

The skeleton reacted quickly after the scream, throwing a clenched, armored fist towards the mink in a haphazard manner. It seemed like more of an exaggerated action than an intelligent maneuver, but that didn't mean it lacked power. The fist swung by, and Devroux ducked beneath it, using the bone to chip away at the skeleton's forearm as it passed by him. To his surprise though, what shattered wasn't the skeleton's arm, but the bone spike Devroux had used to fend off the attack. The creature wielded enough physical strength to shatter the bone with its hand, which meant that it was not something that Devroux wanted to hit him directly.

Immediately upon it bursting in to splinters, Devroux released his grip on the weapon, dropping what little weight it gave and freeing up his hand to defend against the skeleton's next attack. The mink had seen the creature swing its arm, but had only seen the follow through with the sword in the other hand with his peripheral vision, so the reaction to receive the attack was made out of gut-wrenching panic rather than a calculated move from his side. The mink threw up his hand, shoving the skeleton's arm only slightly off center so that his attack wasn't accurate, letting the weapon pass harmlessly to his side. The whirring air, however, was able to send another chill down his chest.

Even though the skeleton wasn't particularly strong, the disjointed actions and sporadic speed variations made it hard to predict, thus giving it more control over the fight than would be preferred. The skeleton attacks irritated Devroux. He liked to be able to plan out his actions and the fact that it had destroyed the makeshift weapon he had crafted were both taking points away from what otherwise could have been an interesting adventure. But in a life or death situation, Devroux was well aware of how little time he could spend dwelling on the mistakes he'd made, and instead opted to draw his second kiridashi to at least put another weapon in his hand. It was short and didn't offer very many tactical advantages, but it still might be useful if he could get in close for longer than a brief moment.

But even in a situation where the enemy has a majority of an advantage, there's still thinks to learn by watching the people better crews beat. This skeleton had pieces of his rib cage very obviously torn off, yet they didn't get reattached after the wound was given a minute to rest. To Devroux, this meant that stacking whatever damage he could would inevitably lead to a win. This also meant that he should target the more important limbs; primarily the arms, legs, or spine would be useful parts to take out to help facilitate a win, and that was the concept he was going for.

With both of his kiridashi in hand, the mink strode forward, leaping back into a lifestyle that was familiar.He attacked the skeleton, choosing to slash at his forearms first, but to see if he could manage to force the creature to release its weapon. Consecutive slashes as he moved forward, each being granted an extra half a meter on the range, but the small knives that Devroux was using to do it still meant that he had to be mostly within range of its attacks to have any chance of landing attacks at all.