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Sometime later Rain opened his eyes, or at least tried to, the moment he did he was hit with a blinding headache and he immediately snapped them back shut. He groaned and rolled over, pulling his paw from Lyra’s lap.

The pain wasn’t going away and he clutched at his head in the fetal position. This wasn't a headache, it was a full on migraine. He belatedly realised he was healed as he was able to move his lower legs, though judging how his body felt it wasn't a complete healing. It felt like someone had taken a meat tenderiser and gone bananas beating every inch of his body.

“Oh gods, never again, healing is the worst.”

He managed to crack open an eye and saw Lyra next to him. She was slumped against the throne, asleep with her mouth slightly open. A line of drool had run down her cheek.

He turned his head to see Opal approaching him. She carried a tin bucket in one hand. 

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Rain gravelled back, his teeth gritted through the pain.

“I tried to find something for you to eat but,” she shrugged her shoulders, “nothing seems to live here, I guess most monsters are savvy enough to stay away.”

Rain grunted in response.

“It’s all empty rooms and cobwebs and bones, I think this place is too old to have anything left but stone apart from what the boney bitch boy took from his victims. I did find a working well though, here I brought you water.”

Rain reached out a paw gratefully and took the bucket. He put it to his lips and gulped down the water in one go, the bucket being more like a large cup at his size. 

“Thank You. I needed that.”

“Old Gobbo trick for headaches, drink it away with lots of water.”

“Mm, it helps, I think.”

Rain was feeling a little better and managed to sit up.

“How long was I out?”

“Dunno. A while.”

Rain squinted at the Goblin. She had changed her wear since he had fallen asleep. She now sported an ornate looking gold gladius underneath where her cutlass was strapped to her belt, and an emerald pommeled dagger beneath the rapier on the other side. 

Sharp metal things just seem to sidle up to the Goblin and beg to be with her, she really was a Goblin shaped magnet for weapons.

She’d also found a couple of bejewelled gold rings as well as three earrings which now bedecked her knife ears. She’d clearly scoured the ruin for everything not nailed down, and probably some things that were nailed down too.

“I have to ask Opal, how are you going to use five blades?”

“Options, it’s about options, the right weapon for the right situation.”

If Rain could squint harder he would have. 

“...Sure.” he deadpanned.

The Goblin turned away in a huff.

“I’m guessing you looted all the levelers who had become undead.”

“Well, I’m not going to leave all that stuff there.”

“Did you get any coin at least?”

She pointed at the Kobold. Rain’s eyes drifted over to him. Red was squatting on the ground with a slightly manic look on his face. In front of him were stacks and stacks of gold, silver, and copper coins that he was happily shifting around, and another mound of unsorted coin next to that which his claws greedily picked through and carefully sorted.

“I think Kobolds like money.”

“Oh.”

He looked at the Kobold’s digits which were crammed with rings. 

“And the rings?”

“I figure I need my fingers mostly free to fight with and he has nothing on his claws. He’s my jewellery box.” She grinned.

“With that great big pile of coin we’re rich you know.”

The Goblin shrugged. “I can’t wear coin, even the shiny ones.”

“If we make it out maybe we can get Lyra to go into town to buy you some stuff with it. More swords perhaps.”

The Goblin’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

Rain rolled his eyes, though doing so caused him another jab of head pain.

He rubbed his brow irritably.

“Get Red to pack up, I don’t want to spend longer than we have to here. If one group of levelers found us then so can another, the sooner we can use Lyra’s ability the better.”

The Goblin nodded and turned away to yell orders at the Kobold.

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Rain sighed and turned to the sleeping Lyra.

He shifted over to her and poked her in the shoulder with a claw.

“Don wanna, jus’ one mo hour,” she murmured incoherently.

Rain poked her again and this time she blearily opened her eyes to see Rain’s big yellow eyes staring into hers. 

She screamed and leapt upward like a frightened gazelle, somehow defying gravity to go from sitting to instantly leaping through the air.

“Don't eat meeeeee!”

She landed on her butt with a whumpff and scrambled away hyperventilating in fear.

Rain just watched in amusement.

“You, you bastard!” she said between heaving breaths. “You did that on purpose!”

“You said you wanted to get used to being around me.”

“Giving me a waking heart attack is not that!!”

Rain tilted his head to the side.

“Oh screw off.” She scowled and tried to stand. Her legs immediately turned to jelly however and she sunk back down to her butt.

“You and Opal have at least one thing in common. Unreliable legs.”

Lyra set her lips in a line and glared at him.

Rain growled out a laugh and climbed to his feet. He stepped over the still sitting Elf-sheep and looked down at her. Sitting she only came up to his thigh. She looked up at him with round eyes.

“It doesn't help that you are so damned huge, on top of part of me being blood line scared of you. You’re like part giant or something.”

Rain leant down and opened a paw. After a moment she raised her hand for him. His paw engulfed her arm and dragged her into the air. He set her upright and let her find her feet. She immediately began to sink downward again and Rain had to hold her up. Her legs shook violently, fluffy knees nearly knocking together.

“I c-can’t stand straight with you right next to me, holding me.”

“You’re going to have to get used to it, how else are you going to make me invisible.”

“Damn you!”

He walked over to where Opal and Red were busily packing bags. Opal’s rucksack was there, but it was joined by a new slightly mouldy and very old looking one seemingly taken from the undead levelers. The both of them were stuffed and overflowing with loot. He held one paw up in the air as he walked which Lyra dangled from, desperately trying to find her feet and keep herself upright under her own power.

Opal was busily slotting swords into gaps in one of the bags. The pile of fancy looking swords she was taking from wasn’t getting much smaller.

Rain raised an eyebrow.

“I need them!” said Opal, noticing his expression.

“For what army?”

She held up an arm and slapped her bicep fiercely. 

“These armies!”

Rain almost said something but instead let her get on with it. He couldn't stop the corner of his lip from twitching with amusement however.

Soon enough everything was packed, both Red and Opal carried large well filled packs on their backs that rattled with metal obnoxiously with every step.

Rain took one last look around the hall. The stone remained as it would no doubt for centuries more. An empty shell with nearly all signs of its ancient inhabitants lost to the ravages of time. The people who had created it gone and dead with only himself a sole lone life centuries after their light had been extinguished. He wasn't going to give up on figuring out what had happened, what these mysterious wolf people were, but he’d need to find some other approach. This ruin was clearly the nexus of the dungeon for the people who had built this place and it had given him nothing, he needed someone who could read their script, tell him of ancient history, he needed a scholar.

His eyes paused on the rags of the bone creature. A thing that had given up on revenge because it was too hard, instead choosing to indulge in its amusements and hobbies, hiding itself away from the world, choosing to forget. The very idea repulsed Rain, he had no interest in giving up, hard things were the things most worth doing, the most gratifying… A small thought seeped into the back of his mind, he instantly jumped on it, locked it away with the rest of the memories of his death. That thought had said the only way he could get rid of his trauma was by crushing its root, an uncomfortable thought with sharp edges, one that inspired fear, because what would he do if he could not?

Lyra glared up at him from where she half dangled from his paw.

“Can you let me down now please?”

Rain experimentally lowered her. Her legs wobbled, a look of hope crossed Lyra’s eyes, and then her knees folded and she sunk down with a groan.

“How are you going to use your ability if you can't walk?”

Lyra didn’t reply.

 

 

 

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