Chapter 217

◈ Chapter 217:

Opal pointed ahead where a jumble of buildings butted up against the cavern wall, many at an angle as though they had been washed up against it by the tide.

"It's here. That leveler's estate is in exactly this direction," said Opal, "Make a tunnel for us snakey!"

Quistis waved a hand casually and as instructed the stone started to reform, the ground pulling apart into weaved smoke, and then reforming into a simple cobble road, and ahead, the entrance to a stone brick lined tunnel that burrowed into the earth.

The tunnel dug further, and they followed after it, smoke flowing overhead to pile up as removed earth by the entrance.

They walked for what felt like hours, but was likely far less, it was hard to judge the passage of time underground. It was dark, with only the occasional dotted crystal in the walls to provide light. As they walked, the tunnel began to narrow and the air grew colder.

"We're getting close," said Opal, her voice echoing off the walls. "The estate isn't far from here, and we're in the fancy leveler quarter already."

The group walked on in silence, or in Quistis's case slithered, their footsteps the only sound in the dark tunnel.

They walked until Vash suddenly came to a stop and raised a gauntleted hand.

After they had hurried to ready themselves and left the vault, Rain had found Vash waiting for him outside. The necromancer almost seemed to know that things had become urgent, or perhaps that was him spying on him with a skeletal rat. Either way he had joined them as they collected Quistis and moved swiftly toward the town's edge, Rain finding himself determined to find and kill Brax before he lost his mind.

He no longer trusted himself to do anything else.

Fortunately Warwick had left them in disgust to do what had to be done. Rain had found himself uncomfortable just being near the man, anxious that he might lose it at any moment around him, the veteran's stubborn pride tipping him over the edge.

Vash tilted his battered wolf helm.

"If you take a step further, you will be directly beneath the Fenhorn estate, and they will know of your presence. The barrier extends down here. I can sense it just before us.."

Quistis scowled. "The noble quarter is something I've always avoided digging under. The defences are quite pathetic at this depth, but it will still alert those above when someone passes through, perhaps more than just alert."

Vash nodded his agreement, his helm making a faint squeaking noise as the metal shifted.

"Taking a step further and passing through the barrier would defeat the entire purpose of taking this path. Thus burrowing down here and into the dungeon itself where the barrier fails to reach is the most strategic course of action." Vash turned to Quistis and gestured at the ground with one slender gauntleted hand. "Dear Lamia, if you would?"

Quistis gave him a studied look, her brow furrowed, unsure quite what to make of the tall battered knight. But then she nodded and the ground began to sink beneath their feet, and in moments Rain found himself standing on a staircase that spiralled down into the darkness.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising as he looked into the depths. Down there was Florens' dungeon, and with all he had heard of it, all he had heard of its brutality, he found himself feeling almost on edge.

They descended into the dark with Quistis taking the lead. She held up a hand and an iron lantern coalesced into it, dangling from a wire handle as a large chunk of glowing crystal formed within. The light of it scattered over the walls.

Rain came last, ducking down as he followed after Lyra and Opal with Vash and Quistis ahead.

A dozen turns down the spiral and they approached the end, a small space to stand and a sheet of plain stone amongst the brickwork. Dungeon stone.

Lyra, drew in a breath and glanced between Quistis and Rain, "Okay, this should be fine right? The top level of Floren's dungeon isn't particularly dangerous, and the both of you are scary strong, so it's fine. Fine!"

Quistis hummed. "You first make me build an entire town for your little daydream, and now you demand I fight for you too?"

"W-Well, no, not exactly, you would, uh, be fighting for your own safety. But it shouldn't come to that as the top level is far from the worst."

Rain turned his head and narrowed his gaze at Quistis. He hadn't forgotten, and he waited for her to state what he knew she knew.

Quistis took note of Rain's stare and clucked her tongue in annoyance, irritated that she was being prodded to answer.

"It's not quite as simple as that girl. My activities over the years, as part of the Abattoir, have attracted certain attention from a hive of obstinate Panth—

CRASH!

The stone wall shattered as something massive impacted it from the other side and smashed through, stone shards zipping past them as the huge thing roared its fury, bowling through the group and colliding with Rain and nearly knocking him from his feet.

In a second everything had become chaos, the lantern struck flying from Quistis's hands to crash against the wall, the crystal within flickering.

Rain's head bounced off the wall behind as he was slammed up against it, and as he turned back to fight off the mass that had fallen on him, the light flickered, more massive bodies clawing their way into the confined space, talons and teeth and glowing eyes, reaching to tear into any flesh they could reach.

He had been correct about the pathara sensing Quistis's tunnelling. But he hadn't expected the panthara to hear them talking about it through the stone and react. They had sensed the stone was thin enough to break and had taken their opportunity.

A dozen metal spears shot from the wall as Quistis let out a cry of pain, talons catching her flesh in the dark, flicking her blood across the space, across Lyra scrambling back and trying not to get crushed amongst the mass of giant bodies.

This couldn't stand. Not while Lyra and Opal were so close.

Rain roared and thrust from the wall, his open paw collided with the face of the panthara before him and with barely a pause he charged through the opening into the dungeon, taking the panthara and the panthara behind with him.

He exploded from the dungeon wall, half carrying the two panthara, the wall breaking further in a wave of stone as the mass of hissing and roaring crashed and rolled into the dark beyond. Torrents of blood and gore splashed across the ground as Rain ripped through flesh, and poured terror inducing predation into the unprepared Panthara.

He fought to kill, to get back and check on the others as swiftly as possible.

Unfortunately for him the panthara had other plans, and as the first two died, a dozen more fell on him, their incredibly sharp lacerating talons digging into his body and drawing lines of agony even as he cut them to pieces in turn.

The caves darkness only added to the confusion, blue glowing panthara eyes in the pitch black widening with surprise, the Panthara finding their victim a much much larger problem than expected, and completely unable to stop the predation from slicing into them. But Rain was already lost, gore and viscera pouring across his face, blood filling his eyes, unable to see, blinded, only able to rip and tear like a mindless thing, even as his flesh was cut apart in turn, even as yet more panthara threw themselves upon him in savage brutal motions.

Rain became lost in the killing.

—

Lyra yelped and stumbled back, landing on her rear as dozens of spears shot from the ground just before her feet, catching a massive panthara as it lunged for her, and goring it through every limb and square foot of its body.

The thing's motion became slack and Lyra was left with the horrifying giant thing looming over her, its body slowly easing down the spears it had driven itself onto.

She swallowed and licked her lip. That had been close!

It was fortunate that Quistis had decided to save her.

She glanced to the side to see Quistis making a hissing pained sound as she formed bandages out of the air and wrapped her wounds.

Okay maybe she hadn't intended to save her, maybe she wasn't just very pissed off with the Panthara. The sheer suddenness of the attack had taken the lamia by surprise, and Lyra somehow doubted she was accustomed to being wounded, especially not as an experienced monster handler.

Lyra got to her hooves, and checked that Opal was okay. The goblin girl had retreated up the stairs and was peeking around the corner, unsure of what had happened in the confusion. She seemed fine enough, so Lyra went in search of Vash, who was missing.

She carefully stepped free from the hole in the dungeon wall and into the dungeon proper.

Of any of them here, aside from Quistis, she was the one who had the most experience with Floren's dungeon (Ignoring Vash's past life of course, but who knew what the snooty necromancer did in centuries past).

And besides, she was a Rescuer! So she might need to rescue Rain, in the extremely unlikely case he needed rescuing. (It might happen okay?!)

She couldn't help but worry, in this place, dangerous things prowled.

Her hooves slipped on the loose stone broken from the cave wall and it took her a moment to steady herself.

Ahead could be heard the sounds of flesh tearing, teeth incising into and crunching through bone.

It wasn't hard to guess who was making those sounds.

"Ahem, Rain, I'm not sure we have time for this, could you…"

The sound stopped, but no reply came, and Lyra was left staring awkwardly into the darkness.

She had okay-ish night vision from her elvish side, but black fur in the dark wasn't exactly the easiest thing to see.

Something was moving out there, something hunched and covered in gore, limbs and bodies sloughing away from it as it rose to stand.

It took a shuffled step forward, and for half a moment Lyra thought it was a panthara.

But then eyes became visible as the head tilted up, yellow eyes, yellow eyes that were looking directly at her.

"Uh, h-hey, Rain."

It didn't reply.

"...R-Rain?"

It took a step forward.

Lyra felt something twist in her gut.

She had been doing her best to ignore what was happening to her Rain. She wasn't stupid, she could tell that something had been going increasingly wrong ever since they had crashed Brax's party. He had been losing himself.

Losing himself.

"Rain it's me!" she cried.

It didn't reply.

Instead, it charged, moving into a lunge to kill and rip the sheep girl apart.

Lyra backed up rapidly with a cry, but her hoof caught on a piece of the broken wall, and to her horror she began to fall in what felt like slow motion, unable to do anything as the wolf fell on her.

She knew there was no help coming. Quistis would not save her, she doubted the lamia even understood what was happening. Opal was still back inside the hole in the wall, out of view.

She was about to die and there was nothing she could do, even invisibility wouldn't save her, as it would still fall on her, it wouldn't need to see her to kill—

At the last possible moment something massive crashed into the side of Rain, a mass of flesh and bone that hit hard enough that it redirected him, smashing him to the ground as more piled on, more of what Lyra realised after a moment, were panthara.

They had saved her!

A figure stepped between her and the struggling mass of bodies, the glint of metal showing in what little light there was as Vash stood tall.

"I won't lose you here brute," mused Vash. "Not to be lost to this god forsaken dungeon as just another monster."

Lyra looked up at the thin knight open mouthed, then her gaze shifted down, and she realised the things attacking Rain weren't what they seemed.

A headless panthara reared back before slamming back down, the remainder of its half eaten arm wrapping around Rain's neck as he thrashed like an animal. Besides it another undead panthara with half its face missing held onto Rain's arm, its remaining eye no longer glowing but a dead flat white. And more, dozens, were holding onto him from every direction, reaching for him and holding him down, missing limbs and heads, but using their sheer weight and relentless undead strength to pin him.

Lyra breathed a shuddering breath of relief, only for her throat to catch a moment later as the great mass of undead panthara suddenly lurched forward, coming for her. It wasn't enough!

Rain took another step forward, all of what was trying to hold him back unable to stop him.

Vash tilted his helm, the green light within flaring.

"On the other hand, you could become part of my collection right now."