Eventually, it swapped shifts with its now vaguely wolf-smelling, winged companion, allowing her to prowl about the building as it went to rest.
During that short rest, it routed the metal discharge nerves to mainly go through its right arm, in order to concentrate the shock in one limb, and checked for what had happened to that metal nugget it ate.
The answer was nothing. It had just disappeared, and there was nothing new in [Devourer]. Which was incredibly disappointing, but it wasn’t expectant enough to feel sad about it.
After that, they woke up, and it had to impatiently pace around as they gathered up the things the people they killed were guarding, digging them out of stashes and nooks.
Mainly syringes filled with odd liquids, weird-smelling powders, and a bunch of fiddly bits of metal it didn’t care much about, until ‘Emreeil’ explained that they would explode if the rope-like thing on top was lit on fire.
There may or may not have been a slight panic when the wolf immediately set to testing that and ‘Emreeil’ had to scramble for the ‘bomb’ and toss it out into the smog clouds below, followed by a bit of mutual annoyance at each other, her towards the wolf for “putting them in danger”, and on its end it was annoyed for her not letting it see the explosion and see how useful they were.
Because they were large and bulky, mostly. If they had to cross terrain, the wolf was still by far the best climber, so it would likely be the one carrying a bunch of dust-filled metal balls, in that case. If they weren't all that powerful, there was no point in bringing them.
Also, explosions were fun, and they were leaving anyway.
Still, after a bit more hurried packing and some nice scratches from ‘Scruffy’, they set out.
As they crossed the bridge, the humans fumbled their way through trying to explain what they were capable of, both to each other and to the wolf, and vice versa.
‘Katherine’ apparently had a Path suited towards guarding people. ‘Guardian’, in human sounds.
The Skills she shared were not exactly impressive, however, in the wolf’s opinion. Mostly to do with melee combat, and one Skill that had to do with awareness, ‘Vigilance’ in human sounds. Some kind of meditative trance where her attention would be laser focused on watching out for danger, rendering her unable to process words or feel much of anything, some kind of automatic state that, according to the feelings she sent through, felt like a particularly vivid dream of sorts.
That was the sole Skill she had that made the wolf feel impressed.
It was a bit redundant with its own senses, what with being able to sense with relative ease for about five hundred feet in all directions, even if the sensations and their detail varied on materials and distances, but extra ways to keep safe were always nice.
‘Scruffy’ simply gave an impression of a Path that had to do with fiddling with machinery and using little useless bits and parts to make something that could be useful.
Nothing impressive, but very interesting.
When it was time for ‘Emreeil’ to explain, she had a lot of Skills that were both very impressive, and very annoying to understand.
She had some kind of… vision that could learn things just by staring at stuff. As far as it could tell it was nothing too crazy, but there was something of a half-lie in the thought. Additionally, the notion that she could just stare at the wolf and learn things made it intensely uncomfortable.
It was activatable, apparently, and overusing it seemed to give her a slight headache, so it let the point go as she further explained her skillset.
One part that stood out, was that first, her ‘haste’ Skill was activatable through line of sight. Which meant that if she had the mana to burn, she could speed up Katherine enough to keep up with them, even if that meant less speed would be given to the wolf and ‘Emreeil’.
The second, was that she would progressively get stronger by just drinking blood, but that also depended on how… valuable the blood was…? How pure it was?
It was fairly strange of a concept to grasp, especially with how terribly 'Emreeil' packaged it, but it got the gist eventually, and it could almost taste the hunger in ‘Emreeil’s’ thoughts, so it eventually just raked its claws through its own shoulder and grunted at her to float the blood to herself to drink.
Her returning glee was filled with a euphoria that made it a tad envious, truthfully, but if it made her stronger, it could deal with the slight annoyance of having a cupful or two of its blood drained every day.
It asked a lot of things as they kept moving. As much as it could think of, really.
They stalked through the housing complex’s outside ring, some kind of giant tube-like protrusion of metal cubicles the humans used for shelter, usually some kind of massive structure glued onto any place that didn’t have available metal plates to shove homes onto, and had to stop a few times.
The wolf’s fault, this time. It wanted to start gathering the light crystals, so it would occasionally send a ‘stop’ order to its pack as it skulked about under a neighboring platform or wiggled its body through some heating pipes to steal a couple, before presenting them to ‘Katherine’ to put in her backpack.
The humans made an odd snickering sound, quiet and brief, when it explained that it wanted to make a giant pile of the stuff and sleep on it, and it decided not to wonder what the reason they were laughing was as they continued, muttering something about 'dogs and dragons'.
The grated metal beneath their feet slowly swerved to the left, against a gargantuan wall covered in white letters and spinning red lights, while to their right, spires wrapped in rings spewed flames out into the open air, the scent of burnt metal mixing with the humid air for a quite unpleasant atmosphere.
The path left the housing complex behind, before switching to a big trail of zig-zag paths, moving down a colossal wall flanked by gears and pipes.
They continued.
It asked questions about the wider human nest.
‘Emreeil’ and ‘Katherine’ were both very knowledgeable about the place, both the inside and the flat outside surface.
The outside surface looked almost alien to the wolf, blurry as the images they sent it were, but it was also beautiful. It wanted to go there eventually.
It also learned that the entire place was only four absurdly large floors, they were simply subdivided by countless metal plates upholding all the housing and factories. The place by the burning rivers was apparently the fourth floor, which was interesting enough, and that explained some idle background questions it’s held for a while now.
It asked more about who ‘Emreeil’ thought it shouldn’t eat, and eventually send back a sense of derision and disagreement.
It understood not eating the weak humans unrelated to the groups chasing after them. It even agreed, mostly, because killing weak humans wasn’t really a hunt or a challenge anymore, and it doubted it would level up by hunting useless humans. Unless it was in need of essence, or they were being inconvenient, it had no reason to go for them.
For that reason, it could agree with eating the humans wearing certain garments, those who smelled of poorly-scrubbed blood, days or weeks old, who smelled of caustic but sweet substances.
The second part she added on, it didn’t agree with.
Creatures tended to be protective of their young, so it understood why both ‘Emreeil’ and ‘Katherine’ seemed to get a little squirmy when it blatantly explained that it had no compunctions about eating human pups if it was convenient to it, but it wasn’t willing to budge on some things.
What it ate was one of those things it refused to negotiate on. If it wanted to eat something, it would eat it, end of story. It only agreed to hunt specific groups so long as it was convenient.
It would have been more agreeable to limit itself to hunting only certain groups, had ‘Emreeil’ not explained how humans viewed it and its kind. If they hated it so much, if they were so fervent in their previous extermination of its kind, it had no doubt that they would come for its head the moment they knew it existed.
Though they seemed to be more focused on killing and hunting each other, at the moment.
They eventually moved onto other topics as they stalked into some kind of industrial lift.
One conversation was a debate on what to do with the various people ‘Ghoul’ had recommended them to see.
One was apparently a group specializing in gaining information and trading it for the metal coin things, another was apparently a very discreet maker of human coverings, another was a weaponsmith, making swords and such, and there were a few other odd people and instructions to do with if they ever needed things like restraints or knowledge of hidden passages into the tunnels below the nest.
That last bit was of particular interest.
Because it needed something to go and kill, but the strong humans were usually tied to one group or another, and it didn’t want to broadcast their location too much by going after those. The sewers weren’t an option either.
Fighting a metal construct sounded like just the right amount of challenge needed to move forward without getting mangled again. Hopefully.
Since there was even more space below the human nest, nearly all of which had been supposedly blocked off because of the metal constructs that came out from below, it was also a very new place. It wanted to see it.
Despite that, it was very, very interested in general nest information, almost more than the prospect of a place where it could fight one of these golem things, so that was its first pick of a stop for the pack, even if it couldn't exactly be involved.
The ‘Fox Den’. Some kind of cryptic group of people who gave information in exchange for coins.
When it asked what those sounds meant, it was told of what foxes were.
Its opinion soured slightly, but it still wanted to know things. It was so used to just rolling with things as they came, the opportunity to know what was happening around it and why, it was too much to pass up.
Even if foxes were ugly, ugly things with a strange snout and an annoying grin and way too much fur and apparently they sounded really squeaky and weird.
That eventually, very slowly, rolled into a conversation about supplies, because humans.
They needed so many things.
‘Katherine’ needed food and clean water, ‘Emreeil’ needed proper clothes for some reason, as if the blanket she was using as a covering wasn't good enough, all three of its humans both wanted to wash up and for some reason refused to let the wolf just lick them clean like normal creatures, and they didn’t accept its proposition of clawing a water pipe open for them to do their business.
Frustrating creatures.
‘Scruffy’ just wanted something to fiddle with and something that fit the pack’s dark colors more. Her dirty coverings were quite light-colored and thus quite dirty by now.
It was generally a bit miffed about it all, but it accepted it as just another inconvenience to do with having human packmates.
Humans were very high maintenance, even if ‘Emreeil’ had gotten better about it.
Eventually, ‘Katherine’ sent thoughts of how humans liked information too, and tended to talk a lot about current happenings, even making giant bunches of papers covered in symbols it found worryingly familiar for the purpose of sharing information.
Symbols they could somehow make sense of. Directly.
It had no idea how they made sense of the weird squiggles they claimed the papers were covered in, especially when they were not sleeping, but the realization that those symbols were the same as the ones in its head led to a very long conversation about what the System was, how it worked, and how humans most definitely did not make it.
As with many things, the stilted, snail-paced conversation actually formed more questions than answers.
For starters, it seemed like the symbols worked on a loose set of principles to do with one’s destiny or chosen path. Activities that had to do with their path were augmented to be more potent. A fire flinger human had flames that hurt more than someone who had a different path.
That made the wolf question what [Hound of The Keeper] did as a Path. What did it augment or assist the wolf with? Using the dark stuff?
It wasn’t like the symbols told it details whenever it focused on its Path. There was some notion of a claim being put on the wolf, which was mildly grating as usual, and something to do with death.
Not exactly descriptive.
Both humans had paused and stared at it when it asked what its Path might do, which led to ‘Scruffy’ pausing too, and then the wolf stopped and stared back at them, confused.
That’s how they ended up awkwardly staring at each other on a walkway hanging over miles of pipes and flashing lights.
It sent a question, they asked for clarification.
It gave them what they asked for, even putting an image of the symbols forward.
Then the humans stopped using thoughts and began quickly gibbering to each other again, which a quick snarl fixed.
After another few dozen seconds, there was a question of how it got its path.
It sent them its memories.
The humans were quiet after that, acting strange. Not tense, just… dazed? Lost? Fearful?
Understandable reactions to that huge black thing.
They gibbered to each other as they slowly resumed their journey, but it was stilted and with an air of confusion, so it wasn’t too interested in chastising them for it.
Besides, the topic of their confused gibbers was obvious. Nothing it didn’t know there.
From there, it learned what it had been suspecting already.
The symbols worked on a system based on struggle, effort, and most of all, intent. If it went and shocked itself for no other reason than to increase its [Lightning Resistance] for example, the Skill's level ups would be far slower than if it was being shocked in battle. Which made sense. If continuously casting [Echoes of Oblivion] in its sleep for hours on end gave it a half dozen levels, it could imagine how casting the same Skill while in an actual fight for the same amount of time would likely result in far more progress.
The intent of the symbols seemed to be for the creatures using it to act like they weren't aware of it, or at least not consider it when committing actions. Or perhaps some kind of balancing action between trying to increase levels but not spending one's entire day on such things?
Supposedly. Not even the humans were completely sure. 'Emreeil' claimed it was almost random, while 'Katherine' disagreed quite heavily.
From there, they moved onto less monumental questions.
It was frankly quite relaxing, to just walk and communicate with its pack, not terribly worried about much, if anything.
After moving across space in impossible ways, it really doubted they were still being traced. And that building their prey had been huddling in was pretty isolated.
So, it listened in on what the humans were planning to do, idly marveling at the impossible proportions of the human nest around them while the platform slowly inched downwards on the backs of massive spinning gears, pipes twenty feet wide rumbling with gasses to either side.
There was a bunch of machinery behind the wall the platform was jammed up against, so it could only assume this was one of those colossal factories the humans somehow built.
Eventually, the humans had settled on some course of action that wasn’t terribly dangerous.
‘Katherine’ planned to go ask around, buy a few of those ‘newspapers’ things, sell a lot of their baggage, buy some decent supplies, then try to find somewhere where they could all take a bath sans the wolf and change their clothes.
It was curious about the notion of bathing with warm water, but found no need to try and insert itself into that.
It wanted to start working on a proper sanctuary, of a sort. Not a nest exactly, that didn’t appeal too much, but something like a main hiding spot within whatever it decided would be its future territory.
It was leaning towards the burning rivers, the fourth floor.
It was a lot more inconvenient for its pack to get and wander around there, but way too safe to settle for anything less. They’d just have to train their [Poison Resistance] or suck it up. Maybe when it was strong enough to flaunt its presence, it could go to the third floor.
Eventually, the platform broke through the smog cloud, and a quiet expanse of warehouses and empty buildings stretched out below them.
It lightly leaned over the railing, head tilting.
It was… highly unusual for a place in the human nest to be this empty. Not anywhere but the fourth floor, at least.
A mile of buildings and towers with stairs and walkways in between, all eerily silent.
“The Beaumonts own this sub-district. It’s for their workers. Where is everyone?” ‘Katherine’ asked as she stood beside the wolf, and it let out a low, distracted growl, a wordless request as its head swerved around.
It didn’t care for most of the information ‘Katherine’ sent back almost a full minute later, but it understood that this place wasn’t usually this empty.
The platform eventually stopped, the buildings swallowing the world around them like a wired, spiked wreath, a wide cobblestone road stretching out before them.
It took point, antennas flaring as it trot forward at speed, the humans rushing to follow behind it.
There were still people around. It could feel them patrolling the streets in pairs, sparse, while other pairs combed through rooms in distant buildings, gathering things and throwing them into crates.
It could also feel a lot more activity somewhere to the left, along the edge of its senses. Dozens of people, moving and weaving between giant boxes and chests.
They continued forward, until a pair of humans were close enough to be a concern.
It growled its pack to a stop, and sent them a ‘stay’ command as it turned to the glass-covered building to its left, and began to race up its walls, claws ripping through pipes and exhausts.
The roof for this building was far too tall, so it turned to the side, and shuffled sideways around the corner, until it could get a clear look at the people patrolling.
They wore a vaguely familiar uniform. Hadn’t it eaten someone who wore that before?
It thought for a moment, thin shadows shifting around its eyes and claws.
As the humans walked beneath it, closer and closer to the main road, it let go of the pipe it was holding onto, allowing gravity to take it down the fifty feet separating them all.
It wasn’t even close to a fight.
One of the guards stopped and whipped his head up, having somehow noticed it, but all that did was make the wolf snap his neck backwards with its legs as it fell.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Its tails snapped shut around the second human, one locking his arms to his sides and one pressing down on his neck with careful gentleness, enough squeeze to not let him scream if he wished.
Then it bent down to bite onto the dead human’s neck, and cheerily trotted out of the alley back to its pack.
‘Katherine’ heaved an explosive sigh when she saw it and its cargo, rubbing at her face, and ‘Emreeil’ simply stared, one ear flopping to the side as she tilted her head.
Her body language had gotten much easier to read since her upgrade.
The live human continued to wriggle and buck as it dragged him along.
With the telepathic link no longer strained by range, it directed a simple order to its pack.
It would be difficult to put it into succinct words, but the gist of it was an order for them to get the man to tell them what he knew while it ate.
‘Emreeil’ sighed, then turned around a couple times, scouting for something.
It clamped its jaws tight, and twisted a bit, pulling the head off the corpse, ignoring the second humans’ choking wriggles as it began to eat.
‘Katherine’ grimaced, looking away.
‘Emreeil’ sent a message, and it raised its head to look at the proffered ‘shop’ just down the street, carved metal and small glass windows revealing empty shelves.
It looked private enough, so it sent back acknowledgement, and unwrapped one of its secondary arms to grab onto the human corpse’s clothes, the other unwinding to hold the detached head by its hair so the wolf could both move and eat at the same time.
Then it calmly padded forth, dragging the two red-wreathed humans, alive and not, with it.
----------------------------------------
It could have eaten four humans by the time its pack was done interrogating the hissy man in the red uniform, and its patience was fraying.
Eventually, having gotten most of what they wanted, it decided to just use the tentacle blade to decapitate him, his hissy chattering getting on its nerves. ‘Emreeil’ startled in the middle of talking to him, and ‘Katherine’ jerked in surprise, hand flying to her sword before aborting the motion.
“What the fuck.” ‘Emreeil’ hissed, arms half-raised in alarm and face speckled with blood. It growled, sending back images of the fourth floor and impatience.
‘Scruffy’ dipped a finger into the blood, then brought it to her mouth, only to scrunch her nose up in distaste with a small ‘eugh’ sound, sticking her tongue out.
Humans had no taste.
With a sigh, ‘Emreeil’ rose up from her kneeling position, kicked the head aside towards the wolf, and began looting the corpse as the wolf quickly cut the arms off, ‘Emreeil’s’ weird blood-control yanking the blood out of the wounds into a bizarre but beautiful spiral that languidly filed into her mouth.
Its secondary right arm took the arms it cut off, tucking in the limbs against its ribs, and its left secondary arm once again grabbed the head.
Snacks to chew on while they walked.
----------------------------------------
Eventually, they came across a giant line of barricades accompanied by more of the red-wearing humans, blocking the only bridge leading to a wider area than the couple mile-wide bubble of buildings they’d left behind.
‘Emreeil’ could apparently use her right arm to dig into steel with contemptuous ease, something that felt eerily similar to its own claws but not quite as potent, but her other claws were not quite that easy to use.
Additionally, ‘Emreeil’s climbing method was loud.
So they had to pile onto its back after sneaking around the edges of the barricades, shuffling around the edge of the bridge into the underside layer.
Even the short minute was straining to its fingers. Templates would help by healing the muscle strain, but it didn’t want to keep retracting the progress its teeth were making inside its body, even if the template was reverting to a very recent state.
‘Emreeil was just far too heavy now. The massive wings didn’t help her suddenly filled out frame. It felt like it was carrying four full grown people.
Under the bridge, thankfully, was a long strip of walkway, likely there for repair crews to do work on the bridge’s gut, so once they got onto that, they just walked through and around the bridge supports from below as its pack filled it in on what was happening.
Apparently, the pack war going on in the wider human nest had ramped up, and the abandonment happening behind them was one of the packs, ‘The Guard’, relocating a pack to replace it with another they trusted more, essentially kicking people out of their territory to put in a pack that was friendlier to them.
It was quite complicated, and a lot of the nuance flew over its head, but it was enough to sate its curiosity and it didn’t care enough to understand better.
After stalking through walkways wreathed in shadows and flickering lights, the wolf paused, and tilted its head, trying to figure out a way to keep going while staying hidden.
That was going to be a problem.
‘Emreeil’ was extremely distinctive, but she was fairly covered up now, even if her wings made her silhouette look like a gigantic, warped hunchback under the blanket.
As its current appearance was, it couldn’t really show itself without even the most apathetic of humans noticing something was wrong.
Beyond its shoulders and humanoid arms, the second pair of arms was quite visible in good light, as were the odd protrusions as its waist where the spider legs were tucked into their pouch and bulging it out.
That was without mentioning its absurdly bushy and long tail, which was two actually, and the spikes on its shoulders and forearms.
It didn’t care too much, but having just lost its pursuers, or so it imagined, it was reluctant to just pop up into the public. There weren’t a lot of people above, but their numbers weren’t negligible like before. Without mentioning the people in their personal nests, peeking out at the streets from their windows.
After a few minutes of sitting there and thinking as its pack rested, it decided on the simplest course of action.
They’d just split up a bit.
‘Emreeil’ and ‘Katherine’ could take the green human and go do their business, get more information and get whatever they needed, and the wolf could go get more essence.
Plant matter was still extremely expensive, and it wanted to get a decent stockpile.
It was ‘Katherine’ that seemed the most hesitant, but after a couple minutes of thinking about it, they agreed to separate and meet back here in two hours.
So, it made a path for its pack to follow, sent it over, and then turned around on the walkway and jumped on the railing to grasp onto the floor above, quickly scampering out of sight.
----------------------------------------
“You alright?” Kat asked, and she turned a bit to look at her, the improvised hoodie making it a tad difficult.
Is concerned. Believes Emhreeil is nervous about being seen by non-hostiles for the first time since recent change. Believes Emhreeil is self-conscious. Wants to offer comfort out of both personal care for Emhreeil and a subconscious desire to draw Emhreeil away from what she perceives is growing inhumanity, trying to bring her closer to a more familiar line of thinking and way of acting that she associates with normal human nature. Subconscious desire partially derived from ideation of Emhreeil’s old self and the thought that it is a way to feel less alone in the pack. Feels like her options to bridge the distance to everyone else are either some kind of moral degeneration, or monsterhood. Is inwardly scared of such changes but not entirely opposed-
She cut it off before it began to dive too deep, turning her head away to stare ahead as they walked.
The Skill was dangerous, creepy, and way too fucking potent.
She was a step away from fucking mind reading, except this Skill looked at [Mental Resistance] and started laughing.
Choking down the slight guilt, she thought about what she’d just learned.
First of all, Kat was wrong. Mostly. She felt more proud and confident of this body than she ever felt of her old one. If she was a normal sane person, maybe being self-conscious about being a giant patchwork of scale, chitin, fur and snow-white skin would be the natural response, but she felt better about herself than ever. She felt good, she thought she looked good, if quite inhuman and fairly creepy.
But there wasn’t a way to say that without making it obvious that she was using [Psychometric Vision], which was a bit iffy to use on her own friends, morally, so she didn’t comment on that.
Even if using it on the wolf sometimes was a bit necessary to understand what the fuck he wanted. Still, considering how cagey he had been about allowing mental links, and from some insight gleaned from the same Skill, she could recognize that he would likely take it very badly if he thought she was regularly using the Skill on him.
Curious as she was to understand what kind of mental trauma led to his vehement hatred of mind control and subconscious distaste for telepathy, she was pretty sure that asking would make him suspicious as all hell.
He wouldn’t kill her or anything, but it would hurt some of that unwavering trust they had built.
That was partly why she downplayed how strong the Skill was to her friends. Borderline mind-reading was really damn useful in coordination and cutting off problems before they got started, but nobody liked being read like an open book.
She thought about what to say for a moment, then let out a disgruntled sigh.
“Kat, I’m six and a half feet tall at head height and I think a bit over seven at wing height. I have glowing dragon- or demon eyes, or whatever, and a tail that is ninety percent bone and I’m pretty sure could kill someone if I whipped it right.” She lifted the tail from under the blanket to wriggle in the air in front of Kat, before tucking it back in.
“I quite like it,” she shrugged, and Kat turned an incredulous look at her, “But, I am a bit nervous about how much attention I’m probably gonna draw. I’m wearing actual clothes now, even if those clothes are half-soaked in dried blood, but still. If lizardmen are an unusual sight in the dungeon, and elves even more so, I’m a bit worried I’ll draw too much attention by following you around.”
Kat hummed as they kept climbing the steps.
“Then why did you suggest coming with me instead of going with Fleabag? Scruffy could keep me company.” Kat said, lifting a hand to rub Scruffy’s head, who leaned into it.
“Well, he’s going to be picking some odd routes,” she started, and Kat snorted a bit, likely remembering how he just jumped onto the railing and slithered out of sight.
“But I also wanted to come, honestly. And I won’t lie, I’m not worried about him holding his own, but you might need help if things go awry in the Fox Den.”
“Ah,” Kat nodded. “I was quite surprised he- it-”
“He.” She corrected gently, and Kat sighed, but didn’t contest her.
“I was quite surprised he cared about what’s happening in the "nest" at all. Speaking of which, isn’t it awfully convenient there was a Fox Den front so close to where Ghoul dropped us off?”
“Not really. Ghoul seems to have planned the whole thing for us to some extent, which… I guess it’s nice, but it’s also a bit… invasive? Feels like he's taking agency away from us in a way.” She shrugged. “Honestly I’m too… mentally exhausted to think about it too much. Gift horse, mouth, something something.”
Kat seemed to think about it for a moment, but whatever she wished to say was postponed by their proximity to the street.
“I’ll act like your creepy guard, or whatnot. I’ll use the demon eye Skill and talk to you through telepathy.” Emhreeil said as she slowed a bit, falling into step behind Kat, who hummed dubiously.
“I don’t think we need that yet. We’re just here so I can sell a bunch of loot and get me and Scruffy some food.”
“Well, true, but there is that animal emporium on the paper he gave us…” She trailed off and Kat’s steps slowed.
“What does… you want to grab something for him?”
She nodded.
“Ghoul’s a bit of an invasive asshole for writing half a paragraph on every contact on the paper, but he is a really helpful one. He recommended we buy a lyrebird or three. Apparently it’s like a parrot, but really good at mimicry. It can mimic engine sounds to a T, for example. No unique magic like phoenixes either, its purely biological, so the wolf should be able to copy it easily. Suggested it could talk like that if it wanted.”
Well, the main point of his suggestion was actually the possibility of the wolf being able to misdirect people and lure them into traps by talking, but she was going to redact that part.
Kat’s brows furrowed as her steps resumed.
“That is… exceedingly helpful and nice of him.”
“Hm.”
“I really don’t like him.” Kat murmured.
“Oh. Why?” She asked.
“I have no idea, honestly.” Kat sighed, then straightened as they came out onto the open street.
Em certainly had an idea, considering what her power had just fed her about Kat’s subconscious thoughts on the matter of her transformation, but bringing it up would be… a bit invasive. And asshole-ish. Like Ghoul was, a bit.
It was fairly quiet as they stopped to let their eyes adjust to the pale yellow light washing over them from spotlights above, just a dozen or so people around the crossroads mingling or cruising about.
As they continued forward, checking signs and scarce markings to figure out if there was a place to buy things from, she would briefly check with her Skill for any danger or hints as to what they were looking for, finding none.
Asking people for directions proved far more effective, and before long, they were in a commercial street, nothing quite as expansive as a market, but fine enough.
Selling weapon loot, unenchanted, was only barely worth the time, usually.
With the factories mass producing decent swords and weapons, there just wasn’t much reason to ever buy a used sword rather than one fresh off the assembly line. Weapons were cheap in the Dungeon with its factories and endless supply of steel.
To their combined surprise however, when Kat asked, weapons were almost tripled in price, and so, their short selling trip to get rid of useless baggage turned into almost a full gold coin's worth of silvers.
A mixture of idle chatter and her Skill gave her the reason.
The Guard had been aggressively targeting weapon factories. It explained the previous scene of an abandoned neighborhood nestled behind the Beaumont’s factory.
Not that she knew who those guys were, but if Kat knew them, they were important to some extent.
Combined with the increased demand due to the war, and the fact that The Factory was apparently closed for everyone below the first floor, the price skyrocketed to what most places outside the Dungeon would call “a good price” rather than “essentially dirt cheap”.
It benefited them now, but she couldn’t help but feel the tension, both within and without.
She was frankly surprised the army hadn’t already been sent down. Instead, the gossiping shopkeeper thought that they were starting to move Guards from the first and a half floors to try to push the third one down.
He spewed some drivel about fighting spirit and how it wasn’t working, but under the surgical gaze of a demon’s Skill, his unease and false confidence was as transparent as glass. He was just parroting what people around here would want to hear. A businessman to the core.
While Katherine pocketed the coins and they set out to complete another quick chore, she flashed the enchanted dagger into her hand beneath the blanket, and thumbed at its grip, contemplative as she tried to ignore the stares of the other patrons and the guard at the door.
One that she barely fit through. Her wings were too wide and bulky. Strong too, but they were still an annoyance to some extent.
As they spilled back out onto the streets, she reached for the link.
“I’m trying to figure out what to do, honestly. I’m pretty lost. Any ideas?”
Kat startled for a moment at the sudden voice in her head, then resumed her walk, not even looking back.
“What do you mean? We get supplies, grab a couple newspapers, go to the Fox Den and ask for a general information package on what’s going on in the Dungeon just to cross-reference, then we regroup with Fleabag and continue going down until we go to the fourth floor.”
She hummed.
“I don’t mean that. I mean that there’s a lot of things to do, but few we can do without drawing attention and danger. We really need to get stronger. Considering how apparently the Snake Eyes were Ironheart’s along with whatever other gang he has, and he’s hunting the wolf, we’re all probably on a kill list. We can’t just find a hole in the fourth floor and hide in it. And the war is another issue. I feel like no matter who wins, we'll get shafted.”
Katherine scoffed as they brushed past a man walking around with an entire shop on his back, trinkets and supposed ‘brews’ dangling off the bizarre ensemble he carried.
“Even if we tried to hide in a hole, Fleabag would grow restless in a day or two and then go out and start murdering people. Also, I'm not sure telling the wolf about the intricacies of the war and how he will likely live life as a hunted creature no matter the outcome will do anything but make him decide to to get rid of all life in the Dungeon by throwing points into intelligence and concocting some kind of super plague.”
That was...
Actually, that was a possibility. Shit. Was it? Could wolves actually do that?
She'd heard about famines and ruined ecosystems in some dusty old history books, but not much about plagues...
Why hadn't any other wolves done so? Was it because they were too bloodthirsty to consider that approach? Too dumb? Why was Fleabag so different? She could point to the fact he seemed to have been visited by a god, but at the same time, that was too fucking absurd to consider as truth. It was more likely that he had some kind of delusional dream and the System just handed out a Path based on that, the infernal thing that it was.
“It's not his style." She settled on, eventually, and with not all that much certainty.
"He'd rather fight and eat. But, point taken. Still, what I’m trying to say is, we should probably go to the unspecified entrance to The Factory. We can't lounge around now that they lost our trail. We should at least head to where Ghoul hinted it’s at. Fleabag’s got some kind of ground-based tremor detection, he can probably find the entrance easily.”
Katherine’s features tightened in unfiltered expression of distaste. She assumed it was because she mentioned going into an unexplored or unsanctioned entrance to The Factory.
“Kat, think about it a little. We’re not exactly in a good enough spot to be getting into attention grabbing fights, Fleabag knows that as well, but we need to fight things, we need to progress. If we kill too many Guards, the kingdom notices. If we kill too many of Ironheart’s goons, we get noticed and probably reveal our position as well. If we just kill random people, well, me and the wolf might get a tiny bit stronger, but it won’t be worth it, and people will start looking out for us. Or for something, in general. Since joining the Adventurer Guild is pointless now that The Factory is closed below the first floor, and since Ghoul claims there are alternate entrances to The Factory… we don’t exactly have that many options. We can’t stagnate.”
Katherine licked her lips, swallowed.
“I- wait, how do you know The Factory is closed?”
“[Psychometric Vision].”
Katherine seemed grudgingly impressed.
“Okay. Well, I suppose you’re right. And the wolf is a psycho, so he’ll agree and be chomping at the bit to get in there if there really is an entrance there. Regardless, to get into The Factory we have to get to the fourth floor first, so it’s a bit early to be talking about it now. ”
“Is it? If we can just sneak him onto a platform lift we can probably head straight down to the third floor’s bottom level. A day’s trip from there to get into the four floor, and maybe another to get to the Bone Pits.”
The Bone Pits was a rather ironic name for what was essentially a landfill full of broken golems guarded by the Kingdom, now that she thought about it.
“If they aren’t blocking those lifts because of the war, you mean.” Kat shot back, and she frowned as she realized that that was a real possibility.
“Good point. Ghoul’s contact list was also accompanied with a lot of extremely unsubtle subtext about how he would only assist us if we put in the work and risk required to progress without him. An assistance but not a savior. He’s probably some kind of Struggler’s Mantle believer. So, you know…” The thought trailed off.
Katherine audibly sighed.
“Yeah, us going into the Factory would show exactly how much work and risk we’re ready to go through. Still too early to be talking about this I think, but I get your point. I’m just… hesitant. Lady Anna would sometimes volunteer at some Kingdom Gate barracks, way down on the fourth floor. You know, those parts of The Factory the Kingdom keeps private to keep training their army?”
“Yes, I know what those are.”
Kat nodded, eyes roaming store signs and peeking into alleys as they continued.
“They’d teleport us in through the portals, then send us back. The injuries I saw there were… I’ll spare you details, but I’ve seen soldiers that looked like they got shoved into a meat grinder from the waist down, with too much Endurance to die easily. I imagine you or even the wolf in that position, and my stomach churns.”
“Can't be any worse than melting alive.” She simply replied with simple conviction.
If she died horrifically, she died horrifically. That was life.
Katherine winced. After some long, meandering seconds, she relaxed.
“Alright. The tailor guy can wait until we need him…. Let’s just finish shopping, find an inn with a shower room, go to the Fox Den and then come back and recheck what we plan to do with our beastly leader after. See if they’ve got some decent information to offer for a trio of total innocents who just want to avoid all the gangs and war.” Kat thought with clear sarcasm, and she chanced a snort as her eyes joined Kat in dissecting shopfronts.
“We should get something for Scruffy, by the way.”
Scruffy sent back eager agreement, frowning cutely as she tugged the skirt down. More of a pants girl, she guessed.
Katherine immediately turned for a simple clothing shop, and they followed.
----------------------------------------
It had mostly been focusing on getting around without being seen after snatching some stumbling wreck of a human out of an alley for a quick lunch, both as a game and a precautionary measure, focusing on at least keeping its pack on the edges of its range.
Juggling the task of tracking them with climbing around and between pipes and scaffolding was also an interesting mental exercise. Not hard, due to its auxiliary brains, but not easy either.
What ended up distracting it was a sound it vaguely recognized, some kind of melody that was usually ruined by human gibbers and croons, tinny and croaky most of the time.
This one wasn’t, so, overcome with curiosity and finding the sound… highly pleasant, actually, it slowly watched to make sure nobody was watching it, and followed the vibrations and its ears to the source.
Under a rumbling cooler, between two rubbery pipes full of wires, and then over a set of thin water pipes, it crawled and stalked its way to the source, the sound increasing in volume as it got closer.
It wasn’t sure what exactly made those sounds, but it found them intensely calming, so it sat on its hind legs on the grainy pipe, shoulder and head against the wall.
It was difficult to relax, ever. It just couldn’t do it most of the time. Even when sleeping, it didn’t rest. It was always listening, always waiting for the next vibration of a step that was a little too quick, a little too aggressive.
Now, it was easy. It was hard not to relax.
Almost like bleeding, it felt background restlessness and worry quickly fading and retreating, replaced with a languid calm as the complex song of varying whining, crooning sounds intermingled with each other.
Then a human walked into the room, and began to fiddle with a device on the table, turning a couple knobs on it.
Instantly, the soothing melody drifting out of the green-tinted window shifted into harsh static and croaky human voices, and it felt its claws jerk and tear at the metal they were holding onto, its lightly wagging tails stiffening with anger.
It quickly opened all its eyes and leaned to the left a bit to look around, then double-checked with vibrational senses.
Twelve feet to its left, a diagonal wall hiding it from sight of windows from the buildings on the other side of the street. The diagonal wall turned into a rumbling mess of vents pumping fumes into somewhere below them, and even further above, it connected to a some kind of hexagonal ball covered in lightning.
It was curious about that one, but it had something more important to do right now.
Below and above to its right, a few dozen stories of the vaguely cylindrical building, stretching on, half the windows lit and the other half either unlit or broken.
The streets below were thin and covered in guarded men and women having hushed conversations while inhaling smoke from some weird smoke sticks, not one of them looking up.
It swung its bottom half off the pipe it was perched on, ignoring the hundred plus foot drop below, and repositioned, before it raked its nails through steel for a couple feet, sliding down until it was hanging outside the open window.
It let go, and grabbed onto the sill of the window as it fell, before soundlessly swinging into the room, wreathed in darkness.
The human was still fiddling with the machine, back turned towards it as his chair squeaked from the weight. The sound was just getting worse the more he messed with it, before settling in on a boring, monotone human voice.
It spent a moment to see how he used the damn thing, then without much preamble, hopped up, snapped its jaws around his neck, and put a hand on the back of his head, pushing him forward as it yanked its jaws back.
The human jerked and toppled onto the floor with his chair, his head rolling in the opposite direction for a beat.
It grabbed the chair, put it back in its place, not trusting the table to take its weight, and hopped on, before staring at the odd box.
There were a bunch of scribbles placed into the front of the wood with thin pieces of metal.
It would ask its pack what that meant later. Now, it extended two human hands to mess with the knobs.
A shrill shriek rose from the small box, and it flattened its ears as it twisted the other knob, hoping for a different result.
The volume of the shriek rapidly reduced.
Now certain it wasn’t going to torture itself with every attempt, it began to play with the other knob, turning it this way and that way, opposite of what the human had been doing with his motions.
Five minutes of frustration later, it heard a similar melody to the first, and its ears shot up. It turned the volume up a little, then hurriedly retracted its human arms, and listened.
This one was even slower, varying tones and lengths of something going plinkdum, plinkdum, plinkduuuuunplink, adding a vague sense of playfulness to it.
Or maybe this was supposed to sound menacing to human ears, it didn’t know. What it did know was that it liked it.
The sound was soothing, and alien and beautiful. It had caught glimpses of such things before, but human voices, static, tinny croaking, and a whole host of other things always ruined it.
This, this was perfect.
It jumped off the chair, and began to eat its second prey, ears wide open to enjoy the music, dedicating some minor background processing towards trying to find its humans again.
The melody eventually ended, and after ten seconds of silence, it stopped eating, staring at the box with a faint sense of dread.
Did it break the… thing? Or did the human do something to activate it that the wolf didn’t know about?
Then sound came back in, and it relaxed, going to its meal, slowly, savoring it for once rather than just snapping all the bones and scarfing all the flesh down without so much as a bite.
This one used some kind of shrill, continuous note that rose up and down like a wave, some short and some slow.
It wasn’t sure it would ever understand human customs, but this one, this one it could understand.
Halfway down the man’s chest, unfortunately, a familiar sensation popped up, and its head jerked up, dropping its bite on the floor.
Its pack was in a fight.
It practically dove out of the window.
A moment later, it scrambled back into the room, turned the volume down until it was silent, wrapped its back tentacle around the odd device, then dove back out, hoping its cargo would survive a frantic run.
-
(If you are reading this story on any website that isn’t RoyalRoad. com or Scribblehub. com, you are reading stolen content from free sites that run no intrusive or obnoxious advertisements. Just google the story name with one of those websites next to it and you'll get to my story on the sites it was meant to be hosted on.)