date: december 3rd time: night location: a boat on the underground river status: closed to @mareonadarkheart
The silence that Dustspire offered was eerie because it wasn’t all that quiet. There was always an echo of something: a whisper, a droplet, a far-off shout that Avi couldn’t make sense of. For the most part, Avriel had come to terms with the shadiness on their first trip through the underground, but it felt like it’d been days since then. Since that morning, they’d traveled through the entirety of the rumored crime capital of Hegaehend, found nothing but a dead body on the other side, and got so desperate for a way back that they paid a strange ferryman to help.
Avi was sure it was fine, though. The ferryman spoke in strange, cryptic sentences and never looked him in the eye, but he’d met enough shy people to write that off. Besides, there were more important things to worry about at present. That morning, Mareona had thought she’d be receiving an important message from her contact, and now she had no contact. Considering how confused he was, he couldn’t imagine what it must be like for her. Whatever the message was, it must have been important enough that someone would kill to keep it a secret - and now Mareona might have to spend forever speculating what it was.
After his latest attempt to make conversation with the ferryman, Avriel carefully retreated to the back of the boat and sat next to Mareona. “Can you understand a word he says? I can’t understand a word he says,” he whispered. He looked back to the man one last time before his gaze settled entirely on Mareona. A gentle hand found her shoulder, giving her a small squeeze before Avi spoke again, “How are you holding up?”
