Chapter 154: The Boy

Chapter 154: The Boy

Shoth wasn't here to pick favourites, in no small part due to how he was looking forward to killing most everyone here if they dared stand between him and his dungeon core, but he would perhaps allow Pau to swear subservience to him.

Of the twelve there, half were silent, half were bitter, and only one was both helpful and kind, because Aedan was currently a shivering wreck as his impending morality descended on him. Pau walked in the center of the group, head raised, and his hands constantly flicked about to indicate any predators in their mix. Much the same as the previous floor, though with some evolutions—ironback toads, shadowthief rats, and all manners of aquatic beasts lurking in the canals. Cheery fucking place.

Pau held his weight and didn't bitch about it. Shoth would be pirating him from Azkhal's side the moment this adventure finished.

Gnat had done his spider-fuckery again, this time with a collection of pale-bodied things lurking on a dead tree. Once more they came scuttling up to him like he was a spider himself, all black eyes and ghostly legs, and then the twisting maze of canals and mangrove-filled rooms was revealed to them. Helpful, maybe. Shoth didn't trust the little bastard.

Gnat just blinked at them with black eyes and an impassive face. He was as opposite a boy of ten summers as he could be.

But on they went, Ossega clearing any who got close but not taking the time for proper investigation, no matter how Ealdhere had urged them to collect more samples for him to finish his first round of dungeon-made enchantments and alchemic solutions. They'd have all the time in the world for that when the core wasn't wasting away beneath the stone.

Alda raised her head. "Two more," she said, fingering a cork of her vials, taking command like she wasn't just parroting Gnat's lead. "Left, I s'pose, then straight after–"

"Not that room," Aedan said, very quietly.

Oh, was he now being helpful? So polite.

Alda cocked an eyebrow, glancing over. "An' why not?"

Aedan's pale face was drawn, the moss crawling over his cheekbones and down his braided hair like he wanted to hide beneath it. "There is... something there," he said, with obvious hesitation. "A tree, but not one connected to Great Rhoborh's voice. Separate."

Gods, what a coward. Blood-sucking thorn-wielding trees, yeah, but trees. Hard to fear the stationary things. Even the borwood tree in the center of Calarata that only the fear of the Dead War kept from being cut down wasn't all that terrifying.

Maybe. There was something about its dark blue-black bark and silver leaves that made him look away; something older than him.

Shoth had survived as long as he had by not being an idiot, even when faced with exceedingly idiotic things. He sighed, meeting the eyes of both Alda and Azkhal—if Aedan said not that room, then they wouldn't go to that room. They were only on the second floor, after all, and making good time despite it; a small detour wouldn't hurt.

"Then left instead," Pau said, and on they strode.

Aedan looked feverishly grateful. Why any god wanted him as a priest was truly beyond Shoth.

Their detour did lead them past a scuttling tribe of kobolds, who lived up to all their reputation as Shoth impaled the braver ones through the eyes until they fled, hooting and warbling, and left their path clear to the end. Pau peered around a corner, gaze snapping a few luminous constrictors hanging by the ceiling and a den of burrowing rats guarding something shiny, and, most importantly, the tunnel entrance in the far back.

The one with a pit in the center, filled with water.

Well. Forget what he said about Therrón earning everyone's grace by keeping them from soaking their armour through—seemed they'd be doing that anyway. Shoth remembered Ealdhere talking about it, shitty maps pulled up, but there was something different for thinking about it and then really confronting you were going to have to drag your waterlogged ass through the fight of a lifetime.

All twelve of them circled around the hole, keeping Pau in the back to make sure no one crept up on them. Everyone had an identical curl of irritation to their jaw.

"Right," Alda said, patting at her waist. With deft fingers, she traded around the various vials she had there, uncorking a few to sniff at their contents before deciding on a new place for them. "I've got shit that burns underwater better than air, and Ossega's not kept down by anything."

The man muttered something in a tongue Shoth didn't recognize, quicksilver eyes narrowed. His grip on his axes never loosened.

Alda nodded. "And he's willin' to keep playing group defense, so you lot don't lose your fat ugly heads to something coming up from behind. What do you have to offer?"

Azkhal beat the butt of his club against the ground. "Strong anywhere," he said, the longest sentence he'd managed since introducing himself. Right verbose bastard, that one. The blood-stained tattoos over his arms seemed to twitch. Hulimat vas-Yohua didn't add any ringing endorsement of himself, but from what Shoth had seen of his attunement, water likely didn't matter. His shadow lurched and crawled like a living thing, battering back approachers with jagged claws and pale holes where eyes would sit—hells of an attunement, really. There was a wariness in how he treated it, always commanding it to stay at his heels despite how it reached out like it wanted to split from him and chase distant prey, and Shoth had been around the mortuary in Calarata enough to know a rebelling attunement when he saw one. Hulimat was Silver, so he'd clearly come some distance, but if he wanted to reach Gold he'd have to figure out how to put the shackles on his shadow.

Half the reason sentient attunements weren't worth the trouble. Get powerful enough, and sooner or later they'd start wondering why they were the one getting commanded.

Pau shrugged, tapping near his eyes. "Much the same in air or water," he said, offering a grin. "Can't say the same about my daggers, though. I'll serve better as a guide."

"And I will lead," Nolla said, a lyrical tune in her voice. Elven ancestry, maybe. "Water is my domain more than air."

And then she crooked a finger, and the three blue streaks beneath her eyes moved—they rippled and reached up, twining peaks, the call and pull of ocean currents. The twin blades she carried lit up, revealing sapphires set in their hilts; and as she kicked up a palm, blue trailed in its wake.

A wave-dancer, one of the famed elemental enhancers—using a typical wizard or mage attunement internally instead, so she danced and moved quick as the water she called home. She'd been holding back, then, letting Ossega's brute force clear through the first two floors without revealing her expertise. Clever.

That had been Shoth's strategy, and it would've stayed so, if Therrón hadn't stepped forward with stars in his eyes the moment he saw Nolla reveal her attunement.

"We shall lead together," he said, chest puffed up. "Water answers my call, much like it does you."

Ah, fuck.

There was a painful moment of silence after his declaration, which did nothing to wilt Therrón's burnished optimism. Shoth fought the urge to punch him.

Water attunements and Calarata went together like pirates and ale, and there was no short supply. But Nolla wasn't Calaratan, so maybe she wasn't used to other water mages, and she was, in the part of Shoth that wasn't just repeating dungeon core in the back of his mind, extremely beautiful. Tall, slender, with those rippling blue lines over her face and arms.

Therrón kept staring at her.

Gods, he was going to be showboating now, wasn't he? Therrón was a newer addition to the party, one who didn't much care about Shoth's attunement or Myra's chronic foot-in-mouth approach to life; a Calaratan native who came with a perfect defensive skill set to round out their spread and the hunger that was a necessity to keep up. He was a mid-range Silver who'd been stuck there for nearly as long as he'd had it, and rather than going the way of the fairytales and butting his head against the mountain until it broke, he'd joined with a party in hopes of finding a large enough deposit of rare water-attuned mana to crash into Gold. Clever, really.

But while he was mature there, his personality left more for the squalling brats underfoot. One of those that became an adventurer for the bravado and popularity it granted.

And Nolla, powerful, quiet, and dashingly gorgeous, had made the unfortunate error of existing in his presence with a shared attunement.

For her part, she caught onto his intention, because she wasn't fucking blind. "Together?" Nolla asked, like she was hoping he would correct himself.

"Together," Therrón repeated, and twisted his head just so that the sapphires dangling from his ears caught the light—much like those embedded in her blades. "While others flounder, the water will not impede us."

Bloody fucking hells, this wasn't the time to drop your skivvies and find a bedfellow. Shoth glared at him hard enough his attunement would switch to firing from his eyes instead of his fangs.

But Therrón just stepped forward, mana rippling from the corners of his eyes, and called.

The pale man scoured through with black lines roared—bubbles exploded from his mouth and his shadow tore itself upward, a macabre mockery of him, stretched and jagged in places it shouldn't be, and the claws it wielded were truer than shadows should be. The last of the silvertooths fled in its wake.

Then Lanc, whipping together a horde of false shadowed baitfish to spill through his fingers, threw them all to the south—a rippling cloud of distractions, fast and frantic and limping in the way all predators loved to see. Alda tore the cork off a bottle with her teeth and slammed her palms together; two rings of flint and steel caught, even underwater, and she hurled the spark at the billowing liquid mixing with the water.

Boom.

An explosion behind, a swarm of distractions all around, and no less than four melee combatants piercing through the western veil to hurl them to safety. They swam like their lives depended on it, because it fucking did, and my creatures were useless in their raid-frenzy to see past the petty illusions—they chased the wrong prey. They chased the wrong prey.

And so, gasping, all eleven hauled themselves out of the water and sprawled on the ledge lit by flickering quartz-light. Out. Alive.

I seethed overhead.

This party was wrong enough it raised every intangible hackle I had. Not only were they thrice the numbers of any invasion I'd had since the day of fifty men, they moved with a deliberation and unease with each other that didn't escape my notice. And there was Aedan, whose mana rang with a familiar redwood scent, the first actual priest of the gods who had become patrons of my halls.

Seemed Calarata wasn't a particularly pious place. What a surprise.

One of their number was dead from a failed mating call so blatant even hatchlings would shy from embarrassment, and it seemed there was a division—three groups, four each, one now reduced. Shoth, I thought, blood-attuned mana lurking under his skin, had been the leader of the water mage whose corpse was now being snapped down by a peckish armoured jawfish, hunger crackling through his thoughts. And where in all hells had his charge come from? While he certainly hadn't been a pacifist, I was used to him choosing his prey with more deliberation. What about Therrón's mana had he been so interested in? Why had he chosen that time to attack, instead of waiting for a more opportune moment?

Gods. Too many questions. And no time to answer them, considering I was rather more focused on the fucking invaders in my halls.

The dwarf, whose mana reeked like Ten-Fingered Bil and the alcohol he'd replaced his blood for, stood up and stretched, though her blasé cheer didn't fully cover her wariness. "And then there were eleven," she said, bright. "Not bringing much of'a power to the tavern now, eh, Shoth?"

The man with a beard and fangs and boiled leather for comradery just growled, low and irritated. "He was useless," Shoth snapped, shoulders bristling up to his ears. "We don't need him."

Alda hummed. "So your party's useless," she said. "Any reason we shouldn't cut you out here?"

Both Shoth and Myra looked ready to murder her. Aedan looked ready to melt into the ground.

"Pick your pissy heads out of your arse, it's a jape," Alda snorted. "Llullakuna llullakuna hina kachun. We're still going."

Shoth bared his teeth, a drop of scarlet trickling over the white.

Oh, she'd played it off, and while I didn't know the intricacies of what had brought this party together, I could see how the tides were shifting. Azkhal stayed silent—though it seemed he always did—and his group of four didn't poke their head into the mix, but where Shoth had been the one to march with directions, now their gazes went to Alda. She'd cut off his leadership not quite at the knees, but at least down to match her height.

A volcano fit to burst. Maybe they'd all kill each other before I had to lift a claw, and I'd both get their mana and some quality entertainment.

But nothing perfect came quickly, and instead they all picked themselves up and faced my Jungle Labyrinth, the endless dark with only floating spores ahead. Already the thornwhip algae sensed their presence, its many arms flicking and coiling in; and since it didn't exactly have eyes, I was very curious to see if Pau could do anything against it.

Ossega took the lead, spinning his axes over his wrists. Azkhal to his side, Nolla light on her feet, Myra snapping with mana. The dwarf lingered behind for a moment. She watched the others move forward into the darkness, only the quiet drift of spores to guide their path. But she waited, the last of the quartz-light from the Underlake over her back, until it was just her.

Just her, and the child at her heels.

He was a small thing who hadn't done much of anything beyond ask my spiders for guidance, and they'd actually answered, like the useless beasts that they were. Anyone came a-crawling up with a spider attunement and they forsook their loyalty in an instant. I didn't like that, and I liked him even less.

But something about this gathering sent ice over my core. The dwarf and the child, alone in the dark, watching their party move on without them. Gnat stepped forward so he was even with her, arms curled in, ragged hair dripping water over the stone.

"Did you get some?" Alda murmured, quiet enough the others wouldn't hear.

Gnat nodded. From underneath his ratty shirt emerged three hands.

Two of which were his own, pale, with jagged fingernails and multi-faceted spinnerets carved through the center of his palms.

The other was torn from a human's corpse. Therrón's, to be precise, with blood freshly dripping from the stump at the other end and fingers twitching through the last throes of death and removal.

All my mana sharpened.

I'd experienced quite a variety of adventurers, all their own flavour and discipline. There were common denominators, because it required a certain level of avarice, overconfidence, and hunger to want to claim a dungeon's core, but the way they went about it was often unique. I'd learned more about humans in the past months than in all my time as a sea-drake.

But I was not prepared when Gnat raised the hand and bit.

From under his lips came mandibles; these twisted, warped versions of teeth clawed forward and dragged the meat to his gullet, bones and skin and nails, larger than it should have been and with his eyes gleaming black. Click-click, awakening, the last of the water mage torn and removed. Two bites. Gone.

Hells. Whatever he was, I wanted him dead.

Alda watched this active act of cannibalism with a strange expression of horrified fascination—I got the idea that she'd seen him in action before, but still couldn't look away. The wrongness dripped from him like venom.

Gnat scrubbed at his face with one over-long sleeve, gore and grime on the dripping edge. His pale hands disappeared back beneath and then he looked up at her, unmoving, entirely unconcerned with the bullshit he'd just done.

For her part, Alda was tense as a wire. The jovial, insulting bastard she'd been around the rest of the group was gone for wariness in its wake, this inherent understanding that she was juggling fire but unwilling to drop it,

"Keep to the deal," she said, just as quiet. "Not challengin' you nor your bastard overseers. Get me down there, and rockfalls couldn't beat the truth outta me."

Gnat nodded again. His lips rippled again, like he hungered for more, and then he was padding into the darkness of the fourth floor. Off to rejoin the rest of the group that clearly didn't know what he was.

Alda exhaled, pressing a palm to her forehead. After a moment's deliberation, she tugged a fresh vial out of the many adorning her belt and downed half of it; something sharp and bitter filled the air, enough her pupils dilated to pinpricks, and then she shoved it back in its sheath and stomped after the party.

Overseers, deals, and a boy that didn't seem much like a boy. Fucking hells, though I'd known I was in trouble when I saw their number enter my halls, I hadn't expected this.

Twelve down to eleven—they weren't defanged yet, and while the water mage hadn't been weak, he'd certainly been the most unserious of the bunch. They had four more floors to face, and all the monsters I could summon in their path.

They were here to do something. I wouldn't let them.