Chapter 177

◈ Chapter 177:

The lamia looked Rain over as he stood awkwardly in what appeared to be someone's living                                                                                                    room. He half wondered if they really had gotten the wrong place and this was not in fact the abattoir, just a random slaver's home, and if he was about to be set to work washing dishes or whatever it was domestic monster slaves were supposed to do.

"Hmm. I saw how you reacted. You understand speech well enough even if you can't speak for yourself. Similar to a Panthara." She pointed at the rug. "Sit."

After a moment Rain lumbered forward and sat on the rug, crossing his legs, the floorboards groaning loudly beneath his weight.

"Good boy. Now wait here."

Rain did consider just killing the lamia then and there, but then he wasn't losing anything in just waiting and seeing what would happen.

She slithered away and slipped into a side room, closing the door behind.

Rain hardly had time to organise his fogged thoughts before the door was opening once more. A goblin stood in the doorway to his surprise. A female goblin, but this wasn't Opal, this goblin was shorter than her and lacked her horn.

She was pushed forward stumbling by someone from behind and she snarled, showing her teeth and revealing that she had a long pair of fangs unlike a normal golbin. The green bat-like wings on her back weren't exactly gobliny either.

Rain raised an eyebrow as the monster behind came into view.

"Move it you stupid goblin," said the harpy.

This harpy was unusual as well. Where a normal harpy might have a single set of wings in place of her arms this harpy had three sets for a total of six white wings, the tips of each feather tipped in pink, a match for her long white hair also tipped in pink. It was a lot to fit on one small frame and the harpy was surrounded by a cloud of feathers that barely fit through the door and even then she had to squeeze.

Behind her came something even more unsettling, a panthara, a baby panthara with spotted fur, the top of its head barely coming up to the harpy's collar bone. Surprisingly it didn't seem at all aggressive, although its neck and limbs were collared in smoke unlike the goblin and harpy.

Behind came the lamia and with her came the last monster, a quadruped like monster so covered in her smoke that it was barely visible and so large it barely fit through the door. Smoke swirled all over its limbs and tail, its wings pinned to its back. The odd thing was that it appeared heavily wounded. As Rain tried to figure out what he was looking at through the mess of smoke he slowly realised that the monster's head was offset from the middle, two bloody stumps all that remained of its two other heads. Rain hadn't a clue what he was looking at. Some kind of bizarre evolution like the harpy and goblin if he had to guess.

The harpy spat to the side as the lamia emerged. "I'm going to rip your eyeballs out through your nostrils you shit eating snake!"

The lamia held up a small gold cube the size of a dice. On one face of the cube was a single rune that glowed faintly. "Your previous master gave me this. Disrespect me again and I will have that spike healed into your chest cavity sink into your heart. Evolved monster or not, you are of limited value and I won't have you test my patience."

The harpy paled hearing that, and took a step back, eyes locked onto the innocuous cube. She licked her lip. "You wouldn't."

The lamia rolled the cube between her fingers thoughtfully.

"Try me. It's your life."

After a moment the harpy backed down and the lamia looked over the collection of five monsters.

"Sit. All of you. Now."

After a moment they joined Rain on the floor, each sitting beside or in front of him on the rug, that is apart from the monster with two missing heads. Rain wasn't even sure that it was moving of its own or if the smoke was just animating it like a puppet.

"Now don't move. Not even if you are alarmed by what is about to happen. A panicking monster is something that is easier for me to kill than calm. Don't make me pick the former."

The lamia backed up a bit in front of the group of monsters then lifted her hands, frowning in concentration.

Rain blinked as the sofa behind her started to disintegrate, the pillows pouring into the air as the fabric became smoke. In moments the sofa was gone and the floor was starting to come apart too, planks turning into whisps and curls of smoke, vanishing into gaseous grey. The goblin girl shuffled back from the edge as the floor fell away around their patch of rug and planks, her eyes wide with surprise.

The entire room was coming apart now, tables, chairs, paintings, all disintegrating into nothing, spinning into the air in whorls and eddies.

The harpy stood and peered over the edge of the circle of solid ground amongst an ocean of smog. She nearly lost her footing as the circle of planks they were on started to descend, moving down into the boiling abyss of smoke.

Their little circle of planks and half a rug finally came to rest on flat black stone, the five monsters and lamia on top. Rain looked up to find they were nearly twenty feet below the floorless room above, the walls of the pit they were at the bottom off made of compacted earth and stone.

He watched as the lamia flicked a hand up and the room above began to reform, a new sofa materialising out of thin air, planks being created from smoke interlocking and forming together as the support beams reformed below, as the floor sealed over a fresh copy of the rug Rain was sitting on pulled from the air, and then earth and stone foundation began flowing out from the walls, rebuilding the ground until the ceiling above was a dome of hardened stone and earth.

Well, he had his answer as to why the abattoir was such a long lived thorn in the city's side. This lamia could form material from smoke. The entrance literally didn't exist until she made it exist. It was little wonder that the abattoir continued to survive despite the guards best efforts to destroy it.

He paused as something disturbing occurred to him. The point of filling his own lungs with smoke hadn't been so that she could suffocate him with the smoke slowly. It was so that she could turn that smoke in his lungs into something. How would he survive if she filled his lungs with stone? What if she filled his lungs with blades? Blades that could cut him apart from the inside out? What if she made the smoke a toxin and simply poisoned him? Had she already done so?

In fact, she had, he knew she had. The feeling of drowsiness wasn't because he couldn't breathe properly, but because she had drugged him. She had filled his lungs with a soporific… but one that was rapidly losing its potency as his body burned through the effect, he could feel his mind sharpening with every passing minute. That was something at least.

Could he even kill her before she killed him? He had his doubts now, and he didn't fancy getting stabbed from inside his lungs by smoke made knives. He had too easily underestimated her. Of course a leveler who dealt in rare and powerful monsters would be incredibly powerful herself.

The lamia snapped her fingers drawing their attention.

"Hey, stop daydreaming. Up, get up."

She turned and Rain noticed for the first time that there was an entrance in the wall, a dark arch made from the same black stone work. Strangely it seemed a little familiar. The monster missing two heads stood first, although that might have been because the smoke it was entwined in was animating it. Next came the baby panthara, trotting tamely after it.

Rain and the goblin and the harpy came last, Rain taking the lead.

He passed through the great stone entrance and found himself on a broad staircase that descended into the gloom.

"Stop walking so close" hissed the goblin to the harpy, shoving her aside. She caught up to Rain. "Hey, big guy, you understand words right?"

Rain hesitated but then nodded. The lamia already knew anyway.

"And you've no heart pin in you? She wouldn't bother wrapping that nasty smoke around you if you did right?"

He nodded again.

The goblin grinned, flashing her long fangs.

"That's perfect then. You can help me escape from that snakey bitch."

"And you aren't pinned like me?" scoffed the harpy, "You'll get us all killed."

"I'm not pinned, I'm not, they never pinned me because I'm a gobbo, my owners didn't think I was anything dangerous, even evolved. Too bad for them they had to sleep sometime."

"Lies, you're lying through your teeth, I saw she had more than one control and she would cover you in her smoke if you didn't have a pin. You've been pinned and are in denial, you nasty little shit, stupid green brat, idiot moro-"

The goblin hissed, her yellow eyes alighting with stark fury as she lunged for the harpy, tackling her against the wall eliciting a squawk of outrage, clouds of fluffy feathers exploding into the air.

They thrashed at each other screaming and hissing, the goblin biting at the harpy over and over as she beat back at her with her wings, trying to reach her with her taloned feet.

Before the harpy could quite begin disembowelling the goblin however a billow of smoke crashed into them along with the lamia who smacked the goblin with the back of her hand, smacking her hard enough to bruise, beating her until she was forced to back off, hissing and spitting as she crouched on all fours.

If the lamia was impressed she didn't show it, and she turned to slither down the stairs, leaving the goblin standing there awkwardly. "Follow." Came her command, a ring of smoke forming around the goblin's neck.

Rain did so, following the lamia down deeper, it wasn't like he had much choice. After a moment he heard the harpy and goblin following behind him, the goblin rasping as she struggled to breathe.

They continued down into the dark, down into the earth, he wasn't sure how many stories but it was deep. The gloom was broken by the dimness of firelight bouncing from the walls in the distance, a soft red-range on the stone, then passing as the stone walls ended and they came out into an open space.

Rain's brow rose as he looked over a vast cavern lit by scattered bonfires. The orange-red light illuminated a sandy cave floor, but more importantly illuminated ruins of black stone, a hundred odd buildings that filled the space around the central sands in an arc, spilling up against the cavern walls and partially merging into them.

The buildings were like those in the destroyed city they had stumbled upon in Lynthia's dungeon, although in much better condition, that is the walls were actually still standing for the most part.

He realised the stairs he stood on too were of the same material. Was this part of the dungeon? Had they entered into Floren's dungeon? That hadn't been part of the plan.

They descended down the remaining steps a few stories until Rain found his padded feet pressing down on sand, grains spilling between his toes.

Ahead was a scattering of bonfires and in the centre of the sands was a great horned snake, its spiky yellow scales half submerged in the sands. It shifted, the sands washing over its body like water.

The clink of drinks and tittering laughter came from the side, a group of levelers seated at tables or sitting in armchairs on rugs scattered over the sand. Judging by their clothing these were the abattoir's customers, those who would be paying to kill him.

The horned snake shifted and Rain noticed a leveler in front of it, a drake with a spear. As he watched the drake suddenly lunged, stabbing for the snake's head.