Ketzubelle Deepwalker
“Often?” Ket asked, giving a small laugh after their coughing had subsided. She saw that he was serious, and hurriedly gave a more complete answer. “No, not really. This is the first I have been in in several years. The last one wasn’t even half as bad either.” She looked around cautiously. The shaking had lasted for a bit less than a minute, but it had felt much longer. Ket was only partially surprised when she saw that only a few large boulders had dislodged from the ceiling. The largest was the one that had almost crushed them earlier, and it was now separating them from her runelight. Despite how old the tunnels were, they were well built by some ancient technology. It was lost knowledge how they were actually built, and any new tunnels were often much more fragile. Still, that meant that whatever happened, the walls remained largely intact.
Ket stood, trying to see into the darkness to discern if the others were alright. Salem asked if she knew anything about the mark on their palms. She only shook her head, staring down at it in puzzlement. Hesitantly, as if scared it would do something to her, she touched the design with her other hand. When there was no reaction, she rubbed the surface of her palm, closing her eyes. It felt no different than it had before, and the design seemed to make no indent in her flesh. When she opened her eyes, which were already becoming used to the darkness, she carefully traced the outline of the design. She had no idea at all what it was supposed to be. Why had it appeared when she touched the strange boy? Her eyes flickered over to Salem, who was studying his own hand and still shivering, before she looked to the floor deep in thought. She realized she had touched him before, just not on his hand… not until the handshake. Was that something to do with it?
He cleared his throat behind her, gaining her attention, before telling her he was going to light a fire. His tone made it sound like he was trying to soothe a scared child, and it made Ket feel somewhat irritable. However, she watched with an intense curiosity as he raised his left hand. As soon as the light sparked over his finger, she gasped and kneeled down closer, probably a bit too close. Her own mark seemed to warm in response, almost as if she was creating the fire. She hardly noticed though. Ket looked around his arm, trying to see if there was some kind of mechanism that allowed him to start a fire so easily, but she could not see anything that would do that. The odd equipment around his neck was probably too far away from his palm, and did not seem to be the source anyway. Ket could see nothing popping up under his sleeves either. She was completely baffled. It was as if the flame had come out of thin air!
All in all, Ket looked like a kitten that had seen its first candle, cautious, yet curious around the unknown entity, and far too close to the possibly dangerous flame. Salem was still examining the design on his hand as Ket asked, “How did you do that? I can’t figure out where you have your fire starter. It is almost like you are a magician or something!” She began to reach out a finger, curious as to whether the flame was even hot.