The underground air was thick and sour-stagnant with the stench of flesh, damp stone, and rotting waste. Flickering incense burners hung from the low ceiling, smoke curling like tendrils through the gloom. The scent was meant to mask the decay, but it only made the air harder to breathe.

  The man moved several paces ahead of the cloaked figure behind him, his footsteps echoing faintly in the narrow corridor. He was tall and bony, his limbs stretched thin beneath threadbare robes that hung off him like old skin. In the dim light, he looked almost skeletal.

  He stole glances behind him-quick, nervous flicks of the eye-at the figure that followed in silence. Small. Hooded. Unreadable.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "I'm sure you'll find something... or someone pleasing," he offered, voice dry and rasping like parchment.

  The cloaked figure gave no reply. Just walked.

  The man swallowed hard and turned forward again. The passage darkened as they descended deeper. The soft groans of chained things-creatures or men - hard to tell which -echoed faintly through the stone.

  Eventually, they reached a heavy curtain. It sagged from rusted hooks, stained dark from years of use, its folds hiding whatever lay beyond.

  "This way," the man said, barely above a whisper. "We keep the ones in here... the beasts too large, too violent-or too strange-for the upper markets."

  He pulled the curtain aside, the iron rings grinding softly.

  A rush of colder air drifted out from the chamber beyond. The kind that clings to stone and screams.

  The small figure stepped through without hesitation.

  The curtain dropped behind them with a soft whumph, muffling the outside world.