Receding Threats: Unexpected Encounters, ii.

[Aurin]

The Lower Waterworks
38 Ash 121

Continued from Receding Threats: Unexpected Encounters.

The little Lysanrin cut them off to make his escape and Aurin couldn't truly blame him for it. The utility of their alliance was perhaps nearing its end and it was only savvy he should doubt their good intentions once they didn't need his expertise. The lad's words echoed around them in the passageway, and he almost laughed. Whatever it was going on down here, he certainly took it seriously. No fault; his intensity amused the fox-like man.

"A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept."

"Composssing poetry?" she asked from behind him, amused in her reptilian way.

"Reciting. I thought it was about me, but it's about every urchin, I suppose."

They followed their fleeing fellow, though he was out of sight. But only a few heartbeats passed when the strangest sound assaulted their ears. Aurin had heard rats before, but he had never heard a veritable mischief of rats come swarming down a fetid tunnel. He bit back an unmanly scream as a swell of atavistic fear threatened his balance. Even the off-balanced rats splashed into the sewage and continued running. They were crawling over his boots and Elwes hissed and kicked to keep them out of her robes and cloak.

"Kid!" he called ahead. "You'd better run!" He certainly tried to, though it was a mess, frequently stepping on rats and rodents of unusual size that he supposed were the rats' big, bad cousins. Elwes did her best to keep up. Gods, he hoped she wasn't going to eat any of them.

And then the rats were gone, fled ahead to become the Lysanrin's problem until they found whatever safe harbor they could. But he didn't trust the silence.
Over his panting breaths, he heard something wet and slithering, and he didn't like the sound of it at all. He began to run again, at least this time not tripping over vermin as he danced toward safety. The red light from his belt lantern bobbed but gave him enough light to see by.

"Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid? Something wicked this way comes! Don't stop for us! Run!"

[Yshvold]

It should have been done. Their journey had ended and now the three were heading up with failure at their backs and no prize to mount on his wall. With no trophy to mount as a warning to those above to not meddle in places they shouldn't and discouragement weighing heavy on his shoulders Yshvold silently sulks ahead of the other two, out of sight in the distance.

It should have been done, right?

That is what he thought until he heard the tell tale sounds of a rat swarm heading his way, from the direction the others had been. He didn't hear the sounds of screaming or combat, and rats swarming are hardly the quietest thing down here. They were running.

Of course he didn't let the rats run around him and lodged a dagger into a crack in the wall to hang on. Tiny, skittering, claws rushed through the sewage water, and got faster. Bigger and bigger rodents went past and his motivation came back in a great rush of adrenaline.

It comes.

He couldn't tell if it was the same thing he was hunting but something down here was coming for them, challenging his supremacy against these nuisances. He will have his trophy this day.

Then as Aurin's warning came, it was met with the flash of sparking steel. Yshvold unsheathed his daggers, running the edges together to give his position away in a quick spark of metal on metal to the three in front of him, and charged towards them. He could see the man's aether and was intent on stealing it on his way to his prey.

The sounds of slithering slugs gave him no hint as to what it could be and he didn't care. Yshvold will be armed with sufficient aether and meet it head on in this dark pipe tunnel.

Seize this opportunity, face his nemesis head on. Every part of his mind was focused on one word and it was kill.

[Chronicle]

Of the trio that came to witness the wave of rats, two of them had sense to heed their warning, for only the threat of a greater predator could ever send an entire mischief through the channels. As quick as Aurin and Elwes were to flee with the tide, however, their warnings to the bold Yshvold merely spurred him into action. The Lysanrin's brush of Aether Siphon against Aurin's aura weakened the integrity of his glamour, causing his aether to wane as the horned child darted past. He surged with determined zeal as he finally found his foe, one he could at least face head-on and claim attrition upon. However, a quick glimpse through the eyes of his Aether Sense, and the Lysanrin found that his feet instantly froze.

Surrounding him. No, washing over him from the channels ahead, was a menacing aura ridden with dark and malicious intent. At the center of this ominous cloud loomed a large silhouetted figure, with tentacles stretched out from his back as they undulated out toward the walls. Speaking of which. That enormous slithering had grown obnoxiously aggressive, and then Yshvold quickly felt the slimy grip of a coiled tentacle around his left shin and ankle. Very quickly was the limb yanked out beneath him, the horned boy quickly threw onto his back against the dampened stone. The beast wasted no time in pulling him in, the other tentacles slithering their way toward Yshvold as their centerfold was finally revealed.

Eight-foot tall with such pale olive complexion, and skin so saggy that he might as well have been waterlogged, a tatteredly dressed creature with four fifteen feet tentacles protruding from its back. Aurin would quickly catch sight of the abomination that now haunted the halls, that is, if he hadn't decided now was the perfect time to leave unharmed. For Gibblex had snatched his prey to draw in, the other three tentacles nearly reaching Yshvold as they started to lace. From beneath the lip of his hat there came a glint of golden eyes, as the beast opened his droopy maw to bellow out an eerie roar into the channels around them.

!	Message from: Chronicle
	Warning! You are in Grave Danger!

[Yshvold]

What could have caused him to hesitate like this? Was he afraid? Again?!

For all his preperation, for all of his determination, every moment that led up to this he had hesitated and gotten himself trapped by the one thing he was after. He proved himself easy prey for this thing and sudden the fear reached a climax. When the eyes shine on him he remembered why he charged in and the fear is swallowed by a deep, and dark, rage. The roar met with his own gutty scream back.

He hates this thing. He wishes to pierce it through, to come back with a deeper well of power to bring it to its knees and rip its head from its body. Whatever this thing is, it insults him with its spittle as it screams at him.

Emotion took over and the power he had stolen began to take form. Shining blue crystals formed as sharp spikes all around the two and begun striking inwards, peppering the beast and its tentacles. With more power he could do lasting damage, but now he must free himself and get to a more advantageous position. He will have to run as soon as he is cut free, as much as he curses himself for his cowardace.

The tunnel provides very little means for hiding and what power he had gotten would not last in a battle of attrition against something like this. What he saw confirmed this.

He quickly plotted a plan to run as soon as he is free. Land, jump back to get as much distance as possible, slash away anything that may grab him, and run as fast as he can while weaving away.

"You will die! I promise you! You don't rule down here!" Yshvold struggles and stabs at the tentacle as the crystal bombardment goes on, looking to rip and tear the bond at his leg with his daggers.

[Aurin]

The kid did the actual opposite of what he said, which was why Aurin would never have children of his own—and as far as he knew, there weren't any accidents running around for him to use reverse psychology upon. But as the kid passed, whatever he did staggered Aurin. He felt his mask slip, the aether woven over half his face nearly disappearing, and his senses went suddenly dull as his semblance turned off. Elwes' hand shot out to steady him, but he was fine, just off balance for a moment. He turned his tricks back on to full power, and he didn't like what that did. Something wicked this way came and it was powerful.

Elwes saw the look in his eyes as they followed the kid back down the passage from whence the rats had come, from whence true danger came.

"Heroesss die young," she hissed, and she meant both their erstwhile companion and them if they followed him.

Aurin knew she was right, and while his senses couldn't tell him exactly what was coming for them, he knew they ought to flee.

And yet...

"Fuck," he muttered, and pelted back after the horned wonder. It was a testament to Elwes' loyalty, perhaps, that she followed.

Aurin had lived in Kalzasi long enough—even in the Midden at first—to have heard of their bogeyman. He was not prepared for the sight of it or, at least, something bearing its trappings. There were creatures in the Warrens capable of illusion and pulling thoughts and feelings out of a person, he knew, and as far as he was concerned, down here was just the ass end of the Warrens.

And he didn't like throwing his weapons. Then he no longer had them unless the fight ended in such a way that he could recover them. But he had several, and the kid was low enough that he could aim high, flinging a kunai at the creature's face while Elwes, more skilled or at least more focused, flung another glittering thing—surely coated in something poisonous—at the creature's midsection. They might be distractions, at least. Perhaps that particular poison would be effective against it, even. But now that they were here, their best chance seemed to overwhelm it with numbers, which meant getting the death wish boy wonder out of its grasp and on his feet.

He pulled his kama out of its strap and went at it with slashing weapons considering it was a hentai monster. Elwes stalked to its other side, the both of them trying to distract it from the wee Lysanrin and from each other. Given an opening, he slashed at its nearest tentacle, careful to guard himself with his spare blade. And he was likely a beacon of magicked aether now, overcompensating for the earlier loss of power. He had heard a Lysanrin could suck a mage dry, but so too could some monsters, he imagined.

"Fuck!" he yelled at it for ruining his day.

[Chronicle]

Yshvold wouldn't even begin to imagine what true fear was, even when he felt himself grab by the tentacle pulling him toward Gibblex. There were forces that were just greater than believing when you faced them, and then even greater things beyond even comprehension. Yet what the wretched creature was before them was neither of these things, only an abomination with certain vulnerabilities, just like any other found within the world. Not even the malice in his roar was enough to deter the Lysanrin from struggle away, be it from pure desperation or unyielding determination, he managed to generate icicles within the air to hurl at his captor.

As the horned wonder also hacked and slashed at the slimy appendage that dragged him, Aurin and his companion right behind to enter at just the right moment. They knew the risks they had taken, and yet, they had taken those odds anyway for the sake of a boy. And with a stroke of fate, everything fell into place, the two who charged in held off the onslaught of other tentacles, cutting them back as the first wave of crystals pelted against Gibblex. The creature merely receded to clinch with a hiss as he felt their aether pelt him, his tentacles snaking back vexingly in response to the gashes they had received. The first wave of cyrstals did nothing against the hard rubbery skin that protected him, nevertheless, it did stall him just long enough for the well-handled dagger thrown in his vicinity.

Elwes struck the receding tentacle that had previously ensnared Yshvold before the initial attack, their efforts to free the zealous child paid in full as the poisoned dagger planted right into the muscle tissue. Gibblex would still only roar infuriated at his marks, having lost hold of the first he was determined to consume. Yet it seemed as though there would be more, and just as the voracious monster rushed forward, another wave of crystals hurdled into the air to pelt the beast hard around the face and shoulders. The other tentacles moved to protect him from the initial blast, however, the one tentacle pricked with the dagger wiggled with a heavy lag compared to the rest of his appendages.

With a sickening crunch like glash and flesh in one, a crystal spike speared right into the eye of the beast.

Gibblex howled out in immediate pain, his arms brought up to clutch around his face as he reeled back from the hit. Any moment the trio may had spent on preparing their next gambit, the beast would provide them no time to act upon it before a retaliation. With a furious outrage, he circled about erratically and threw his tentacles out to thrash the three of them away. Gibblex was utterly furious but he was also unexpectedly wounded, therefore, driven to retreat without turning his back away from them. As he finished with the desperate twirl of his appendages, a metal sound went clinking a few feet further away from Aurin. Something bounced across the stone floor and right toward the edge of the lip of the channel, a black iron key that landed at just the right angle to hang halfway off at the stem. As Gibblex receded into another one of the channels within the chamber, his presence would quickly diminish from the area, leaving nothing but the sound of the water channels once more.

[Yshvold]

Adrenaline ran his body through the entire ordeal. From the moment of capture, during his capture and the monster reeling him in, and right down to when he was freed and subsequently thrown back to the ground. The mask fractured on impact, leaving his face exposed to the two strangers that came so valiantly to save him from his own bravado.

The pure, unscarred, white skin had been stained by the muck and yuck from being dragged and his even whiter hair was none better. Sunken black eyes darted around in a frenzy as he failed to get his bearings on the situation and found himself in a struggle with his own body. Indeed if the two saw him they would find the false face he put on before shattered in more ways then one and the shaken core of an abandoned child was finally free, albeit one that had no qualms about hurting people.

He didn't even know what he did. Rage drove his mind, and the aether within, to move on its own. All he saw was the roaring mouth drawing closer and suddenly its tentacle let go. The frantic footsteps behind him went almost unnoticed but the thing that caught his eye was the crystal shard lodged in the disgusting things face.

A thought to use the aether he stole to explode in the things face came and went as fast as the monsters retaliatory attack and Yshvold is sent flying back. Every idea to escape laid jumbled in his mind as he frantically struggled to get to his feet and swung around to find where his mark had went. Every attempt to stand failed as his legs gave out and sent him crashing down into the sewage water over and over again in a desperate struggle to stay alive.

All he could remember was the crystals above him firing at the thing as he tried cutting the grasping tentacle away from his leg and having it release him, but who made those crystals?

He wished to pierce the beast and those things did it for him, as though for the first time his prayer has been answered by some merciful god, but now his stolen aether was gone and the beast is retreating to lick its wounds.

Yshvold propped himself up on his hands as he watched the thing leave, screaming at his meal for biting him instead of laying down and dying, and roared back with everything he had left. He had very little energy left and his declaration of victory spent him.

Never in his life did he want to sleep in sewer water, and he really didn't want to start now, but something about it was starting to feel comfortable as his eyes grew heavy. He felt his inner calm come back and the frightened look steadily went away to a neutral expression of cold apathy.

"And don't come back. Stupid... mmffphh." with the last seconds of consciousness left to him, Yshvold chose to taunt the beast that so nearly devoured him.

[Aurin]

Their gambit had certainly gotten the beast's attention. Almost immediately, both he and Elwes were forced to go on the defensive to prevent those tentacles from crawling into their orifices without consent. His blades flashed, warnings, though the rubbery skin was almost like hide armor or thick leather. Now he screamed, not in rage, but in defiance. He wasn't going to die a fucking hero. But then the devil was retreating. He hadn't enough sense for the battle to know exactly what caused it until he saw the crystal poking out of its eye. Had his new horned sidekick done that with his aether? He didn't know enough about Lysanrin tricks to say, but if so, he was going to have to be nicer to him and stay on his good side.

It left, and the Lysanrin passed out, apparently using up his own reserves to fight, too. The metallic ping caught his attention, but it wasn't his kunai. He turned the key over in his hand and slipped it into a pocket.

"This isn't my knife, arsehole!" he called after the retreating nightmare creature. "Oh."

Elwes handed him his blade after retrieving her own.

"Thanks."

She pointed to the prone little juggernaut, and Aurin sighed. The kid was right: he talked too much. Mostly because he knew in Elwes' company, someone had to be the funny one. The kid seemed all right, but he wasn't going to stay all right down here. After looking around for anything the kid might have dropped, he hastily slung him over his shoulders and carefully stood up with a groan.

"I'm going to have to work out more," he complained. "They're feeding urchins more than they used to in my day."

Unfazed, Elwes glanced in the direction the monster had fled.

"You're right," he said, though she had said nothing. "Fuck this noise. We're leaving. I don't want Thultu's bastard coming back for his key. Or rats. Fucking rats." As Elwes began to lead the way, Aurin was quick to follow, though even more careful now, not wanting to drop his living cargo. "You still have your little safehouse in Hahseu, right? Let's just take him there. We can clean up, make sure he isn't dying. I've got to spend some time with this key to figure out what's going on. If I can figure out what's going on."

He continued to talk as Elwes did not.

"Didn't die in a gutter today, Dad," he muttered to himself, apropos of something, but Elwes didn't know what.

*~*~*

Elwes' safehouse in Hahseu wasn't much to write home about, but it was clean and it was secure, a basement studio with a privy that actually worked, mostly because the shit didn't have far to travel to the sewer system. The place was tidy, with the faint scent that Aurin had come to associate with molting snakes. Apparently, that was something she had to deal with from time to time, though he didn't see any old skins and the scent was barely there what with the stench they brought with them.

Aurin laid the boy down on the one bed and they waited for a moment. He didn't move. And so they took turns watching him and cleaning up. Someone had rather ingeniously managed running water, and he definitely saw an aqualyth and a pyrolyth that he had brought for her months back. Elwes was good about making her little dens livable. She had spare clothes, so after a whore's bath, Aurin was passably clean. He would definitely take a long, hot bath when he was topside, but it was good enough for now. She repaired to the bathroom while Aurin sat in a chair cleaning the muck off his boots and keeping an eye on the prone form of their little ally.

He had set it up so the chair was not blocking passage from the bed to the door so if he woke up startled and bolted, he would have to unlock the thing, but whoever was on watch duty wouldn't seem like an impediment that he had to blast with his crystal things.

[Yshvold]

Something was tickling his nose. Some strange scent he has never smelt before, in some strange room he has never been to before.

What?

His body felt like lead as his eyes slowly opened, to an unknown ceiling. It takes exactly a second for his mind to snap out of the fog of sudden wakefulness to full on alert. Every nerve in his body screamed at him that he was still in danger and he responded to these instinctual red flags with a sudden jump out of bed.

Yshvold's cloak, mask, and daggers were not on his person and this man sitting away from him and the door had a familiar aura to him, but why was he here?

The boy stood off the bed in a panic, eyeing down the familiar stranger like a cornered animal, and took in his surroundings as quickly as he could. It was just the two of them and the man didn't seem like he was in any hurry to get up and get in his way but the door was unobstructed and easy to get too.

That was his way to safety. Bolting towards the door and pulling as hard as he could to open it netted him exactly nothing, it was locked. Yshvold's frenzied attempts to rip the door off its hinges drove his anxiety to even greater heights until he gave up and slowly looked back at the man.

This person captured him, and now mocks him with a locked door. His pride had suffered one blow today, it will not be made to suffer another.

Yshvold slowly looked over his shoulder, wrath and bloodlust building and bubbling over. The eyes of a cornered animal no longer fearing what this man could do, now the darkened gaze spells hatred and death for his capture. He hated this man for trapping him, he hated this house, he wishes he could tear it apart.

With no aether reserves to draw upon, Yshvold would unconsciously use his own lifeforce to manifest similiar powers to free himself. Aurin has but a moment to ease the boy's anger before Yshvold puts them both in danger.

[Aurin]

Aurin had looked him over through his rune while he slept, at least to ensure that there was no hidden wound that needed tending beyond what he and Elwes could manage. By the time the boy rocketed out of the bed, however, his magics were quiescent. His glamour was gone, as was his mask. It seemed only fair given the boy's mask had broken and wasn't something either of them was capable of fixing here while watching over his recumbent form.

While Aurin was startled, he had the presence of mind not to react poorly. He had anticipated something along these lines, though he had imagined the kid would be groggy and wobbly at first, at least. Must be some Lysanrin thing.

"You have to slide the chain and pull it out," he said calmly, miming, "and then turn the deadbolt. But don't forget your things. They're on the table behind you." He had tried to arrange them so they would be visible if this sort of thing happened, but the kid's single-pointed focus had aimed directly for the door without taking in other details, it seemed. It made sense.

Aurin wasn't going to stop him. The kid knew how to get a hold of him if he needed him or Elwes, and when he fled, he would know where this place was, as well. He had been in similar situations at a similar age, at least as far as he could determine the kid's age, so he knew he would come back if and when necessary, but holding him against his will would have the opposite effect.

Whatever the kid chose to do, Aurin kept speaking calmly, as reassuring as he could be, though reassuring children wasn't really his forte.

"You passed out down there so we took you to a safe house to recover. We locked the door to keep people out, not you in. You're in Hahseu now." He didn't know if the words would process, but at least his tone might. That, and he wasn't making any moves to stop or injure the kid. But sometimes it took time for logic to kick in when the blood was singing the fearful song of merely surviving.