Chapter 24: Chosen, Chapter 26: Bound by the Grave (content warning)

Zurai

Aidan

The Realms

Fifthday, 3rd week of the 7th month, Godless Age 597

Early Afternoon

Ceallach Macht, Mistvale Highlands

Even if the guards were manikins of some type, Aidan wouldn't be able to fight them; he couldn't believe that they would go down to a single Flame Jet like the boar earlier had. So, a direct assault was out. He only had level 3 in Stealth, so unless they were the worst possible guards, they would detect him if he tried to sneak past them into the tunnel. It was never safe to plan on your enemy being incompetent, so sneaking was out.

That left him with two options. He could either find another way in, or he could try to get at least one of the guards to leave its post. He discarded the first option; he didn't know if another entrance existed, and even if it did, he was running out of time. The afternoon was progressing towards evening, and the light from the sun was beginning to fade. Aidan did not feel safe sleeping in the city; between the nightmares and the hunting packs, there was nowhere to hide. Anything he did would need to be done now.

If he couldn't kill the guards, couldn't sneak past the guards, and couldn't bypass the guards, then the only choice remaining was to trick the guards. Aidan needed to get them interested in something other than guarding the tunnel. There were still holes in this plan. The guards might not be willing or able to leave the tunnel entrance; Aidan might not be able to make a suitable distraction; the guards might have abilities he wasn't accounting for; the distraction could even work too well and draw too much attention. Despite all of the potential problems, it was the only choice he saw with even a minimally realistic chance of success.

Aidan backed away until the tunnel entrance and its guards were hidden in the mist, then began to canvass the nearby area. All he found were ruined buildings and piles of rubble. Still, an idea started to form in his head. First, he needed to keep the patrols away. He was pretty sure that they were tracking him by scent, so with a rueful shrug, he began stripping out of his armor and clothes. Sorry, Roark, I'm sure this isn't how you envisioned me using the armor you gave me.

Aidan made a bundle out of his clothes and armor and rubbed them against his groin and armpits. A little gross, but that should hopefully be irresistible to the sniffers. He found a nearby building with a narrow entryway, then worked the bundle inside, making sure to rub it all over the entrance to spread his scent there, too. He wanted this to light up like a big neon sign, but not be quick and easy to access. Aidan backtracked as best he could directly along the path he took to his scent trap so that there wouldn't be an obvious scent trail leaving the scene. Step one, complete.

Step two involved finding a pile of rubble with rocks small enough to fit into his chest of holding for ease of transport and access. Aidan gathered about a dozen small stones of roughly the same size, shape, and weight, and put them into the chest; as he hoped, they all stacked into a single inventory slot.

Finally, step three was to hope that the guards were alive, more or less free-willed, and stupid enough to fall for what he was about to pull. If they could just be bored and not overly fond of each other as well, that would be golden.

Using all of his minimal skill at Stealth, Aidan approached the tunnel entrance, not from the front, but from almost directly to the side. He stopped as soon as he could easily discern the nearer guard and scarcely make out the shadow of the further one. He reached into his chest of holding, grabbed a rock, hefted it a couple of times in his hand to get a feel for the weight, and threw it as hard as he could at the further guard. His first throw missed, but Aidan wasn't counting on it to hit. The rock clattered off of the inside of the tunnel, and the guard stirred.

"Huhhh? Wut wuz dat?" he heard from the far side of the tunnel. The guard's voice was deep and thick, as if it had a swollen tongue. Even with his Trait, it was difficult to understand them.

"Wut wuz wut?" The nearer guard asked.

Step four, complete. Aidan grabbed another rock from his supply, corrected his mental target based on where the voice came from, and threw again.

"I heard somef—Owww!" Bullseye! Aidan cheered silently. "Somefin jus hit me!"

"Wuddaya mean somefin jus hit you?" Aidan threw another rock and then immediately began moving in a wide arc towards the other side of the tunnel entrance.

"I mean somef—OWWW! Stop frowin fings at me!"

"I'm not frowing anyfing, why you always gotta blame me for everyfing?"

"I ain't see nobody over dere but you!"

"Dat's cuz dere ain't nobody over here but me!"

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"Den stop frowing fings at me!"

"I jus said I ain't—Owwww!" While the two guards argued, Aidan managed to work his way around to a point much closer to the guard he first targeted and beaned the now farther-away guard with a rock.

"Oh, wudder you bitchin for?"

"You frew somefin at me!"

"Did not!"

"Did—OWWW! You jus did it agin!"

"You's da wun frowin at me, I ain't frowin at you!"

Finally, Aidan heard what he had been waiting for: the crash of a larger rock being frow—thrown. The far guard missed its target, the rock shattering against a nearby building, but its yelled shout of, "Now I'm frowin fings at you!" was music to Aidan's ears. He watched the nearby guard reach down to pick up a rock the size of his head and fling it in the general direction of the other guard. A meaty smack was audible as the stone connected, and a roar of rage erupted from its target.

Aidan quickly backed up as the creatures exchanged projectiles, then finally, one charged at the other in a fit of rage. Plan successful! Now he needed to hope that they were too busy beating the shit out of each other to notice him slip past. Yells and shouts and the sound of giant fists striking thick flesh provided more than enough noise that he didn't even bother trying to move silently, and he was far enough from the fight that he felt they were unlikely to see him. Aidan moved quickly as he could, sticking to the side of the tunnel, and stopped for a moment to assess the situation once he was sure he hadn't been spotted.

The mist thinned out and vanished entirely within four yards of the tunnel entrance. One thing Aidan didn't count on but should have was that the tunnel was only dimly lit from a series of widely-spaced gems near the top of the fifteen-foot-high walls. The effect reminded him of the lighting in movie theaters when the trailers are playing: just barely light enough to allow people to enter and leave without killing themselves on the stairs. The problem was that if there were anything in the middle of the path, he wasn't going to be able to see it. The light just barely illuminated the walls themselves, everything else was pitch black. He might be able to make a makeshift torch out of some cloth and a wrapper from a centaur ration or something, but the light would be far better at showing everything down here precisely where he was than it would be at letting him see any better. Nothing for it but to soldier on, then.

As he advanced farther down the tunnel, it narrowed perceptibly, and side passages branched off at irregular intervals. Part of Aidan wanted to explore one, but the very existence and scope of the main tunnel made him believe that the heart of the city was going to be straight ahead of him. This wasn't an actual dungeon, constructed to be confusing and hard to navigate and to protect the boss while it schemed nefarious schemes. This was part of a city, a grand avenue leading into an underground facility of some kind. He didn't see any large government-style buildings out in the city proper, though, of course, he didn't explore it very thoroughly and could hardly see the next block over; he might have missed one. Still, there was going to be something important at the end of this road, and he was determined to find out what it was.

Aidan lost track of time in the darkness as he slowly, quietly, carefully sneaked his way down the middle of the road. Eventually, the tunnel narrowed down until it was no more than a hallway, and soon enough, that hallway ended at an archway. Well, this has to be it, he thought, and stepped through.

Inside was a large, but not massive, circular chamber, better lit than the tunnel outside but still dim. The floor was some sort of mosaic, and there were several exits aside from the one Aidan just came through. That wasn't what really attracted his attention, though. Somehow, this room was absolutely covered in leathery-looking vines, like the ones on the Boar Manikin. At the center of the room, buried within a thick tangle of creepers, was what looks like an altar. It was hard to tell because the vines encased it almost completely, but there weren't many things that were large, flat, rectangular slabs of stone. As Aidan watched, the plants twitched and pulsed, the movement emanating from the altar and spreading out across the room, almost like a heart pumping blood to the rest of the body.

Aidan didn't know what exactly was going on, but he could make an educated guess. The vines were too similar to the manikin for them not to be related, and the way they pulsed made him think that they were drawing power from this room somehow. Fortunately, he already knew that they burned. He was afraid to go too far into the chamber for fear of stepping on or tripping over a vine, but Aidan carefully maneuvered himself as close as he dared to the center, then raised his ruby rod and began chanting.

When the stream of flame shot from the ruby, instead of concentrating it on a single spot, he swept it in broad arcs across the entire altar. The reaction was immediate. The plants convulsed and then began to writhe and pull free from the walls with loud pops. He ducked under a tendril that dropped from the ceiling and cast Flame Jet again, pouring fire onto the altar. More and more vines pulled free from the walls, but in the light of his spell, he could see that some of them had fallen limp and lifeless. It's working! Aidan thought, and allowed a small bit of hope to creep into his heart.

Then a vine wrapped around his chest from behind and yanked Aidan off of his feet. The fire stream vanished as he lost his concentration on the spell, and then he was slammed into the wall at high speed. Pain burst across his consciousness, and all the breath left his body. Another vine coiled around his leg, then another seized the opposite arm. Within moments he was encased in dozens of leathery creepers, completely immobilized.

The plants turned Aidan to face one of the exits of the chamber, and he saw a tall, thin humanoid standing there, its hands outstretched and glowing a sickly green laced with pulses of darkness. Its androgynous features would have been beautiful but for the look of utter hatred marring its face.

"And lo do I spy a funny little rat, creeping through my door. Feisty little rat, it was you who burned my boar." Its fingers twitched, and the vines holding Aidan's arms and legs began to pull in four different directions. Pain raced down his limbs as the pressure slowly increased. "Clever little rat, evaded all my patrols. Cunning little rat, bamboozled both the dakhols." Again its fingers twitched; the pulling increased sharply. "Naughty little rat, sneaked into my bower. Stupid, stupid little rat," the figure hissed, "thought to gnaw away my power!"

The person pulled its hands apart in a dramatic gesture, and Aidan screamed as his flesh stretched to the limit. A vine snaked its way into his mouth and down his throat, but he hardly noticed as he felt his tail rip free of his body. The pain was intolerable. System: Log out. Confirm! Aidan thought desperately, only to be greeted with an error message.

Then, he felt another pop, and the darkness mercifully consumed him.

Zurai

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