Azure Chronicles: Maelstrom

The hall of the gothic mansion the pair found themselves in ran far, sprawling out far beyond the duo's view and eventually disappearing into a dark obscuring mist. Kuuyasa piggybacked on Zalroth, her tail coiled around Zalroth's upper torso for dear life as she scanned her surroundings and at the rows of knight armour lining the halls in particular.

"Sure is spooky in here," Kuuyasa murmured worriedly, her voice showing signs of trembling. As the duo continued down the eerie corridor, Zalroth felt Kuuyasa pressing herself harder into his back and tightening her tail against him to make herself as small as possible. Zalroth glanced briefly at Kuuyasa and watched her nervously scanning her surroundings, the nervousness coming from her palpable and unmistakable.

"Well, at least it's not scary; otherwise, we might be in trouble," Zalroth remarked jokingly, his voice sparking life into the otherwise lifeless building. Despite her nervousness, Kuuyasa did feel a tinge of comfort at Zalroth's lax demeanour. His relaxation infected and eroded the girl's nerves, making her feel a little silly for feeling uneasy in the first place.

"Do you think we'll be able to find my sister?" Kuuyasa uttered quietly. Zalroth couldn't help but feel a sense of amusement at Kuuyasa's normal reaction, finding it a nice change of pace compared to how chaotic Chronia and their kids' were when visiting a haunted house in the past.

"Don't sweat it Kuuyasa, if anything tries to mess with us. I'll send it packing," Zalroth remarked calmly, playfully wiggling a finger to the ceiling to emphasise his point. As his finger moved past a certain spot of the ceiling, a faint ghostly gasp whispered from above, going seemingly unnoticed by the duo. At the same time, Kuuyasa slightly frowned at Zalroth's response, eyeing him with childish contempt.

"But what about my sister though?" Kuuyasa murmured poutfully while poking the back of Zalroth's head. The guy mentally snickered, the repeated pokes from Kuuyasa amused him as he realised the implication of his remark.

"There's no need to worry, Kuuyasa. If she's a kid just like you then she'll have nothing to worry about," Zalroth remarked nonchalantly before lightly booping Kuuyasa's forehead with the back of his hand. With an irritated and murmuring Kuuyasa in tow, Zalroth strolled off while humming as he went; while continuing to be on alert, Kuuyasa's gaze darting around for any signs of kaiser energy.

After the duo had disappeared into the mist, one of the loose wooden boards wobbled and creaked before a short figure pulled the board up and peered through the gap in the ceiling they created, allowing their pale red eye to leer at Kuuyasa with nothing but displeasure.

"Of course, she'd be the first, stupid muncher..." the figure murmured, ensuring their girly voice never went above a whisper so she didn't entice Zalroth's attention. The figure glared one last time in the duo's direction and huffed before slotting the board back in place. In the dark of the crawlspace, the figure raised a hand, black kaiser energy[solid/bold energy that always has a square-based shape] swelling up in their palm, morphing and contorting until taking on the shape of a flashlight.

The figure shook the flashlight, checking its stability before placing their hands on each end of it. With a swift movement, they cracked the flashlight like it were a glowstick, snapping the bulb of the flashlight to life but inadvertently flashing the light in her face as it lit up the crawlspace.

(The figure is a kid-sized/shaped, feminine-looking humanoid with a body made of viscous/slimy ink; she has trailing pitch-black viscous/slimy ink hair, a pale red right eye with a black sclera, a pale blue left eye with a black sclera, dark skin with dark grey dots over her forearm and lower half of legs, large fur-looking pitch-black viscous ink horns with plump/round bases, and large pitch-black viscous ink tendrils protruding from her back)

"He may look tough... but he'll run like all the rest. Don't worry muncher... wait... didn't he call her Kuuyasa?" the slime kaiser god uttered as she rubbed her eyes, "... at least he has a better naming sense than mother... although that's not a very high bar to get over when it's under the ground.". The kaiser god brought a hand to their face, her gelatin cheek concaving under the pressure of her fingers, and pondered something.

"Although... maybe letting him capture me until he gives me a name wouldn't be... so bad.". The kaiser god murmured to themself in silence, the temptation of a name oddly appealing despite the potential consequences of losing her freedom if she were to go through with it, leaving the kaiser god to mull over her options as she booped the head of her flashlight against her chin.

Over the following hours, the kaiser god trailed after the duo from the crawlspace, employing every manner of jumpscare at their disposal: from drop-down hanging dolls, ghostly whispers, creaky floorboards, ambient scuttling, fake flying knife traps, and ghoulish paintings. However, no matter what she did, Zalroth was functionally stonefaced, his only facial movements being from Kuuyasa pulling at his head as the prior scare tactics worked on her.

Unlike Zalroth, Kuuyasa's eyes were bulging, a deer in headlights in appearance, and she was utterly terrified by every single article of spookiness presented to her bringing her to her mental limit as she desperately clung to Zalroth for safety. Even with the intensity of the girl's grip on him, Zalroth remained utterly ignorant to Kuuyasa's fingers digging into his skull, the image of Chronia's reactions if she were in his position keeping the kitsune in high spirits.

From behind a painting, the inky kaiser god was red in the face from frustration. Her multitude of failed attempts to scare Zalroth was prevalent in her mind, and her annoyance was clear for the rows of her scary dolls to see.

"...Seems he's not a scaredy cat," the inky kaiser god grumbled under her breath. She lightly nibbled the side of her index finger, her face a mix of displeasure and anger. While bonking her head with her flashlight to keep herself focused, the kaiser god darted her gaze around before locking onto the knight armours lining the hall.

"I'm starting to think this is just a non-haunted haunted house," Zalroth remarked cheekily. Twirling a knife made of foam between his fingers, Zalroth strolled onwards, absent-minded in his advance and completely oblivious to the clinking and clanging of metal trailing behind him. Unlike her kitsune companion, Kuuyasa was deathly aware of the horde of shambling metal marching close behind but dared not to say anything, choosing to believe Zalroth was intentionally ignoring them, whatever the things behind them happened to be.