Chapter 214

◈ Chapter 214:

The family of five looked down at the large wolf head that had suddenly popped out of the ground beside their dining table in disbelief.

It was Pickle, of course, who managed to find her words first.

"Fluff!"

And then right afterwards came Warwick's outrage.

"What in the abyss do you think you are doing?" He glared at the trapdoor, "Is putting holes in my home all you are good for?"

Rain put his paws on the edge of the trapdoor's stone lip and heaved himself up, stepping then climbing to his feet and rising to his full height.

He looked down at the startled family, interrupted in the middle of breakfast. They looked up at him, clearly unsure of what was happening, with the exception of Pickle, who was beaming up at him as though a giant monster suddenly emerging from out of the solid ground was a perfectly normal thing to happen.

The hatchway, like the stair, was wide, made wide enough for Rain, and so was the door with it, a huge slab of stone currently resting on the grass, something no ordinary person could have lifted.

Rain half wondered if the lamia had made it that way for his sake, and almost asked her as she slithered up.

She blinked in the sunlight, and her body writhed as she raised herself from the depths, black scales glinting in the sunshine, glossy as her hair.

Before she fully rose from the hole however, Warwick caught sight of her, a wordless cry escaping him as he slammed his hand down on the table.

Before his hand struck the surface a massive black crossbow abruptly appeared under his palm, and instead of his hand hitting the table the heavy crossbow did instead. The impact jarred the mechanism and the large feathered bolt loaded into it was launched from its flight groove with a sharp snap-twang.

Or at least it would have if the bolt hadn't been partially disintegrated when it triggered. All that was achieved was the crossbow string shredding the misting remainder of the bolt in a puff of smoke.

Warwick hadn't stopped moving as that happened, already with one foot on the edge of the table, he rose with both arms raised and moved into a readied position as an already drawn longbow appeared in his weathered hands.

The millisecond it appeared Warwick loosed, and the arrow snapped forth, directly on target for Quistis's neck.

Not that it mattered, the thing hit home against Quistis only as a plume of smoke, harmlessly washing over her skin, rolling up and over her head and momentarily obscuring her sight.

Which was why the two handed great sword that appeared in Warwick's hands went momentarily unnoticed, lashing out like a cobra's head to run the lamia through.

The smoke parted and Quistis's eyes widened fractionally, then widened further when the sword did not disintegrate, the lettering marked up its length glowing faintly. The previous two weapons had been evidently been a bluff to buy time and a chance.

Her hand snapped out like bottled lightning as the blade plunged toward her flesh, as though she intended to impale her own palm upon it, but at the very last possible moment a wreath of smoke slipped around her fingers formed a fine steel gauntlet.

She caught the tip of the blade inches from her skin, the steel sword and steel gauntlet crashing together in a splash of sparks that bounced across her chest, arresting Warwick's movement in an instant.

She held the thing lightly like that as Warwick drove his full body weight against the hilt.

It didn't move.

Rain had been taken by surprise by the old veteran's speed and agility despite his bad leg, but Quistis was far far above his level. He'd never stood a chance.

"Why are you attacking me?" mused Quistis, not even the slightest bit threatened.

Warwick lifted a hand from the pommel and a sinister looking hooked dagger appeared in it.

Quistis eyed the dagger, looking slightly less amused.

"If you don't cease your aggressive behaviour immediately, and tell me why you are attacking me, then I shall disintegrate every scrap of cloth from your body. I somehow doubt you will be as enthusiastic about throwing around sharp bits of metal while completely stark naked."

"Why!?" spat Warwick bitterly. "Why else would you be here but revenge!? Or worse, to find more of his kind. I should never have said a thing about your thrice damned pit!"

Quistis narrowed her eyes, her voice going cold. "You were the one to send this monster after me?"

"I was paid to speak and so spoke of where to find your Abattoir, and no more. Any of yours could have done the same and you know it. Such a madcap plan was no skin off my nose as one of you was certain to die, this monster seemed more than capable… But I did not expect… this outcome."  He glared at Rain. "You don't look injured. Did you even put up a fight before she enslaved you and you began flapping your mouth?"

"You are mistaken. She is under my control… which was… difficult… very difficult." growled Rain.

Warwick looked between them, brow furrowing. "What are you saying?"

Opal rolled her eyes as she climbed up from the hatchway. "You assumed Rain was heart pinned the moment you first saw him, but you can't even imagine the same for her?"

"You- you did that to her?" croaked Warwick's wife, Velatha, struggling to believe what she was hearing.

"You heart pinned a— a leveler?" choked out Warwick. He shook his head slightly as though to clear his thoughts of such an outrageous statement. "J-Just a pin set against her heart isn't enough, you don't know what this one is like she—"

"Oh, we put the entire bucket of heart pin thingies in her, in every part of her too, and there's a ton of controls which we handed out to everyone, so she could drop dead at any moment! In fact she would probably explode if all the metal stuff in her went off at once!" said Opal brightly.

Both Warwick and Quistis turned to stare at Opal, both looking quite disturbed by that statement but in different ways.

Before they could comment however a blue scaled kobold staggered from the hatch behind and collapsed to all fours, her breathing like a blacksmith's bellows.

"Holy. shit. too. many. stairs." panted Beryl.

Then she rolled onto her back.

And was faced with a horrifying bottomless abyss of blue.

She jerked to the side with a cry of fright, claws digging into the grass and earth as she stiffened up, clamping down as flat as possible to the ground and squeezing her eyes closed. Even her tail was curled flat against the ground as though hoping to get some additional grip.

"H-Help! Help me!" she managed to squeak out like a mouse, her voice small and frightened and desperate, a far cry from her usual confidence.

Beside her the fanged goblin hauled herself free and rested her hands on her knees, chest rising and falling. She furrowed her brow as she looked down at the flattened kobold.

"Hey, what are you doooooieeeee!!" Her voice rose in pitch as her eyes glanced up.

A second later the fanged goblin was clamped down next to her with her eyes squeezed shut, face buried in the grass and trying her best to pretend that there wasn't a bottomless blue void that felt like it was dragging her in.

The last member of Opal's town council staggered from the hole breathing hard, the multi winged harpy with pink tipped feathers. She barely gave the sky a second glance however as she caught her breath and was otherwise fine. She rolled her eyes seeing the two on the ground.

The Harpy apparently had some kind of natural acclimation for heights, although maybe that wasn't too surprising given that she could fly.

"You aren't going to fall into the sky you two. Surely you've seen some of the really really big dungeon caves?"

The two flattened and whimpering against the ground both shook their heads.

Opal scratched her cheek with her index finger.

"I kind of forgot about all of you being dungeon monsters."

Velatha looked between the terrified monsters and then at Lyra.

"I- I assume you all came here for a reason. I hope it's not to dump these monsters on us. I've come to see things a… bit more flexibly because of you, but not that flexibly."

"Uhm, well, it's more that we, ah, need to feed these monsters, and uh, a few more. So really this whole expedition is about getting… uh, food," said Lyra, glancing uncertainly at Opal.

Velatha seemed to consider this, but after a moment hesitantly nodded her head.

"That is actually something that I can help with. After your oversized wolf monster ate us out of house and home, on three separate occasions, I thought it wise to get in a larger store. I don't suppose I have to tell you why, It feels a lot safer around that one knowing there is food to spare." She glanced up at Rain, clearly noting his additional height. "I dread to think how much he eats now."

"Aheh, I think I kinda understand that." Lyra brightened up. "But that also means that you can be the town's supplier! I was worried we'd have to convince Ravoure to do that and—"

"What do you mean by… town?"

"Oh, that's, uh, w-well… Maybe it would be easier to show you? But first getting food down there is the top priority, they might try to harm each other a bit less often once fed."

"I still have no idea what you mean girl… but I suppose with all you have given us I can allow this much faith in your word," she sighed, wiping a hand across her face to clear the morning fog from her eyes. She lifted a mug of steaming tea and gestured with it. "I've been keeping it over here. Isn't as easy as you would think to get supplies and the like in here without drawing attention, even with that horrible Bean creature keeping the curious at bay."

Rain nodded agreeably as he followed, the idea of breakfast had a certain appeal, especially after rising from the ground and being met with a table full of the stuff.

He bent down and stuck his head through the door she pushed through to find a store house that had been filled with barrels from floor to ceiling.

Velatha had apparently been quite worried about how much Rain would eat, and had bought a bit of an excess as there were easily over a hundred barrels here. Not that it would have sated Rain, but she didn't know that.

She patted the side of one. "On the older side but salted of course. Most wouldn't buy something like this due to not being able to make use of it before it expires, not a problem for you, and why I was able to get it on the cheap."

Not enough for him, but it was more than enough for all the monsters in the town below however. Which probably said something about how much Rain ate that he was out eating so many.

Along with Velatha and her strength based Skills they dragged a dozen or so barrels free and rolled them onto the grass.

It was… rather a lot. Not something that could be easily transported down the stairs.

Rain's eyes drifted over to Lyra who was currently patting Pickle on the head.

The dimensional bag would barely be able to fit one of the barrels, thus the best way to transport them was to take advantage of woolspace, he considered.

…Only woolspace was more than a little concerning to him right now, with what had happened.

Lyra did say she had let most of the gold out without issue, so maybe it wouldn't be a problem.

If worse came to worst Quistis could technically handle the, whatever it was, that she had trapped in there.

Lyra glanced up, noting the number of barrels. It only took her a moment to catch on.

"Ah. W-Well at least it isn't carcasses like usual," she said with a resigned sigh.

Rain pulled her aside even as she switched her wool to black, well prepared.

The sheep girl wrinkled her nose as she looked over the pile of barrels.

"I don't appreciate being used as some kind of carthorse barrel transport you know."

Rain nodded. "I know, but it won't matter if that thing inside has gotten free, we won't be using your wool for anything. I need to check."

He lifted her up, her legs coming together, and then pushed his head through the blushing girl's wool, peering into her.