Soul Takers 2.0

"Ulmis?" Kirin called, walking almost carefully through the cathedral. Kirin whispered partly to Ignace, "There were ghosts everywhere the last time I was here. I don't know that a reaper could have gotten to all of them, especially with the demon... But... I don't understand what could have happened to them all."

There was no answer, it didn't seem like anyone but those two were there. "We should look around." Ignace said.

Kirin nodded, "I'm starting to worry... they should be here..."

Ignace walked down the main hall towards the back rooms and corridors of the cathedral. "Seriously, how does anyone live here?" he muttered

"There were a couple of rooms that were pretty livable, we rested in a couple for a bit..."

"Do you remember which way?" He asked, pointing to several different hallways

Kirin's eyebrows knitted together, "I'm pretty sure it was down this one" She gestured

"Lead the way." Ignace gestured.

Kirin started down the hall, taking a calming breath and scanning the hall as they walked

Ignace left Kirin to continue down the hall and he went down another. He came to the livinf room area and looked around. "No one here..." he sighed. As Kirin got to the end of the first hall she entered another large open room.

Kirin stepped into the room and looked around, "Hmmm... I don't know if I was even ever in This room" she mumbled to herself.

The room was dark and in complete disarray, trees and plants growing in through the walls. On the floor just by her feet were some drops of blood.

Kirin crouched beside the drops, "Wh-what?" Kirin looked around the room for any other drops or any other signs of what happened, "U-Ulmis!? Are you here?"

Suddenly there was a faint sound of rumbling in Kirin's head. Something stirred in the shadows across the room.

Kirin whipped around and peered into the shadows, "U-Ulmis?" she said cautiously

"Where is Ulmis?" The rumbling turned into Lockwood's thundering voice, although it was weak and hard to make out. He sat in the shadows with chains around his arms, chained tightly against the wall.

"L-Lockwood?" She gasped and hurried over to him. She glanced over him briefly for wounds and analyzed the origin and strength of the chains

The chains were old and rusted but still strong and looked like they were probably from the cathedral basement. The hilt of a knife stuck out from where Lockwood's one eye used to be and the markings on the knife handle were clearly reaper-made. The blood around the wound was long dried.

"Oh my god... How, how could a reaper have done this? There's no way... Lockwood, I'm sorry... IGNACE!" She called, a bit frantically

Ignace ran over quickly. "What? What is it?"

"Reapers hate storm demons. They've been after the ghosts I keep for years, now they've taken all of them. Even Ulmis's mother." Lockwood explained

"This is Lockwood, he's the storm demon I mentioned... But... How?" she tried to pull at the chains before feeling around for her dagger

"There were a dozen of them, more than I've ever had to fight off by myself, and Ulmis wasn't there, and hasn't been back since." Lockwood said. "Reapers are not all nice."

Ignace grabbed onto one of the chains, blue fire lighting up in his hands and melting the metal.

Kirin used her dagger to try to break the chain, "Do you have any idea where she could have gone?" she asked through gritted teeth as she pulled and worked at the chain

"To the nearest town, as usual." Lockwood said. "But it's been two days."

"Move over please." Ignace said and melted the chain Kirin was trying to break.

Kirin had moved aside and nodded her thanks to Ignace, "Two days? Have you been here like this all that time?" Kirin examined the knife in his eye, careful not to startle him