[center][h3][color=45318E]The Hermit[/color][/h3][/center]
Something small and white darted from the shadows and fell upon a rat that was skulking about. It shrieked and squirmed as a clawed fist closed around it. A moment later, it gave a last feeble jerk then fell limp in the clutches of the tiny creature with leathery white skin. It popped the rat in its mouth and began crunching with teeth like needles, the tail still dangling from its mouth. Satisfied, it turned it obsidian eyes to its master. The Hermit shifted from the shadows, trailing them after him. He patted the shadowling on the head as he passed it, holding his charred staff and tapping it on the stone floor as he walked. They were interesting little creatures, given to him by the Wisdoms. Maybe not the most intelligent, but they were loyal and obedient to a fault. The one with a rat tail drooping from its mouth followed after him.

He stopped at the end of the hall, an opening that looked down into an enormous cavern dominated by a massive glass tube filled with ichor. The liquid sloshed around in the bottom of the tube, bubbling every so often. Once, it would have been pulled up and directed elsewhere to power machines the Old Ones used for who knows what, but that was why he came to this labyrinth. He desired the answers hidden here under the red sands of the desert above, the secrets the Old Ones took to their graves. That was why the Wisdoms gave him the shadowlings and the power he now held, tools to find his answers.

The Hermit turned his head downward as he felt a tug on his robes. The shadowling was holding its hand up to him, the rail tail laying on its palm. Odd creatures, indeed.

“Thank you, little one,” his voice was low and soft, like a whisper on the winds but chillingly close to the ear of whomever he was speaking to.

The little creature gave what he assumed by now to be a smile, showing off the rows of teeth like blackened needles, then scampered off to rejoin the others. It stepped into the nearby shadows of a corner and then reappeared far below on a stone walkway with the others of its kind. It fell into the crowd of tiny white bodies as they went about searching the area around the tube for anything of interest to their master, who watched from above in his alcove wreathed in shadow.