There was an eerie silence in the castle hall, interrupted only by the sounds made by their shoes as they walked upon the ruined floor.
Even if all of them were in it it didn't feel cramped, there was enough room to accommodate twice their number and still have room to spare.
There was no escaping the realization they were in a very different place they wanted to be in, there was no way a place for tourists was left in those conditions.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance to go back from where they came if only they moved while the mist was still high.
The group realized only then that their driver wasn't with them, he wasn't in it for the same reason after all, and rather than stand and listen to a potential fictional story he probably had come in before them realizing he was into the wrong place.
Sara took her cellphone, but of course, it didn't pick up a satellite, it was either the location or well, there was no satellite to pick up.
Tina tried to comfort her friend who was starting to panic, in the end, they decided to rush back to the minibus in the hope to find their driver there, and being able to return home while the mist was still there.
It was their faint strand of hope, maybe, just maybe they could be able to leave that place if they ventured out while the mist that had accompanied them there was still present.
They rushed out, almost sprinting to where the minibus was parked and they found it still there, locked as they left it.
How was it possible the driver didn't return to the vehicle given the fact that he was out there exploring the castle way ahead of them?
Anyway, they needed to find him now, or at the very least they needed to find the keys he carried in the worst-case scenario.
There was a brief discussion and it was decided a group of three would remain by the bus to stop the driver if he were to come back there and missed the search party.
Altea opted to wait there, she and another couple of young members of the group weren't particularly fond of real horror situations apparently and decided to sit out the exploration of the now more menacing castle.
Luck or lack of it wanted Tina to be part of the search party that came back to the castle in the hope to find their ticket home.
Tina wasn't elated to be in that situation, quite the opposite, but she knew it would have been worse for her to wait by the bus.
She was the kind of person that worried over stuff and she knew herself well enough to know that if she was to stay idle she would have worried herself to death.
Sara opted to split the group further, there were still nineteen of them after all, and dividing could halve the time needed to find the person in question.
There were to be three groups made of five people and a fourth made of the remaining four members.
A decision was made rather quickly, a group of five was led by Giles, another by Anatoly, and the third by Sara giving Tina the lead for the last group.
Tina protested the decision made of course, since she didn't want to be without her best friend in a situation like that, but Sara made her realize that each other group had only one muscular boy like Anatoly, while hers had three.
It was the only way Sara could think to protect her in that situation if anything else to give her the strongest-looking member of the lot.
Besides that Sara put it in the level of trust and Tina couldn't argue any longer, only she thought it weird for her to go to the middle of nowhere with people that thought about being fanged night murderers she didn't trust.
Tina surrendered and the groups separated, and she was to inspect the underground floors of the castle along with Anatoly's group.
They had to use their smartphones as flashlights because the lower levels lacked any form of illumination.
As described by the journal the whole thing was another level entirely, it felt weird to be with that much gold around.
There was even the mentioned room with the eerie-looking black blade stuck in the middle of the table.
Weirdly enough it didn't seem the nazis or any previous group had tried to pilfer any of the minute gold objects, but in their situation, Tina didn't care less.
Finding out that below the castle there was another floor Tina and Anatoly split, Anatoly continued to explore the throne room floor and Tina descended further into what she believed to be the dungeon of the castle.
She wasn't correct, if anything the lower level felt more lavish and richer than the throne room, there were rooms with furniture that would be evaluated in the six digits figures.
Against her better judgment, she thought to split her group to explore the floor in a quick and efficient manner.
The exploration still took half an hour and yielded no results asides from revealing the presence of a floor down below.
Tina felt dread about the idea to explore that place further, still, even that floor had no beds or anything else intended for people to lay down and rest.
It was possible the driver had proceeded further down directly so her only choice in the matter was to go down further in that impossible castle.
This time the level presented itself as a dungeon, the gloss and splendor were gone, it was an eerie place with bars, chains, and everything else.
No sane person would have remained there more than a few seconds, still, there was the possibility that an unseen force had trapped their driver there.
Tina sighed and divided her group once again to be done with that level quickly, and proceeded to explore further.
She almost had to scream, for she found what appeared to be a human skeleton pinned to a door by three swords, and nine other swords laid around the remains.
Who on earth was that individual laying there executed in such an extreme fashion?
The bones looked old, older than the ones of the soldier they found previously, they had assumed a black and green coloration, probably due to moss and mold present on the exposed remains, still the dungeon had preserved them very well.
If anything was wrong with those remains, it was the clearly elongated and sharp canines the skeleton clearly showed embedded in the upper part of the skull.
That was probably the remains of the so-called vampire of the castle, nothing more than a human that a group of people ganged upon to kill with very human means as the blades on the ground and in the remains clearly attested.
The damage felt consistent, the skeleton clearly missed an arm, the legs, the jaw, and several bones had been cut or had fallen during the ages and laid silently on the ground.
Any sane individual in front of such a scene would have fled, but Tina was an archaeologist wannabe, it came with the territory to find human remains in her field.
It was her reasoning at least, the only thing that prevented her to leave screaming, and the idea it wouldn't have helped anyway.
Still, she felt calmer, she now knew that the stuff about the vampire was confined only to a narrative level.
She tried to carefully dislodge the skull, if a bit macabre it was a way to prove to lift the other's fears, there was no vampire there after all.
"Oi"
Called an adult male voice behind her, startling her and making her pull the skull clean off, almost dropping it and pricking herself in the process, drawing blood, that was a voice she didn't recognize.
"You sure are a strange one, anyone ever told you that?"
Tina's heart was running awfully fast, she sighed, telling herself that it was someone from Anatoly's group that had descended down there to tell her that they found something.
"Damn it, you should make yourself be heard as you approach in places like these!"
She told the man as she turned around and found an adolescent with the flashiest style she had ever seen.
Taller than her five feet two inches he didn't appear older than eighteen, he had what appeared to be a black leather mantle, and probably a wig on for he had very long platinum hair.
A gold chain springing from the halves of an hourglass kept the large mantle on his naked shoulders, all he had was some ragged pants tied to his waist, and was barefoot.
His wrists and ankles donned golden bracelets with a chain and hourglass motif like the chain, probably something pilfered from the castle's treasury.
More standoffish than most were his teeth, he clearly had donned the fake fangs every member of the group probably possessed.
Tina puffed, she got the situation, as she got up showing the fanged skull to the boy, faking a victorious smile she exclaimed.
"Lo and behold! I slew a vampire! A real one!"
The adolescent didn't seem impressed, raising an eyebrow he simply stared at her silently crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Oh come on! Don't look at me like that I'm trying to show ya I found the origin of the myth of the vampire."
She said showing her fake dentures and putting them next to those of the skull for comparison, the fake ones were a bit longer and pointier than the ones on it.
The perplexed expression on his face only deepened to show how unprepared he was for the sight she showed him.
"This ain't fun I suppose. Did Sara send you here? You had to cosplay to here barefoot and nothing decently. Did you find the driver?"
The boy chuckled shaking his head, keeping his arms crossed, before looking straight at her, in the light of the cellphone Tina realized he probably donned iris changing contacts, for his eyes were of a deep unnatural crimson color.
"People usually bow to me, you know? They all know what they want from me the second they see my remains. They don't treat my bones as a trophy or a matching game."
.A cold chill ran down Tina's spine, if the boy wasn't in her way she would have run away, there was a deep cold rage in the words he chose to speak, a rage that couldn't be faked, the guy wasn't one of them.