Rory opened the door to their tiny apartment that smelled like body odor, booze, piss, and vomit. It wasn’t as bad as the alley outside of Mick’s, but it was close. He was also used to it by now though and it barely fazed him any more.
Closing and locking the door behind him, Rory stood and waited for the inevitable. As expected, his mother, wearing nothing but a ratty shirt with holes and equally filthy underwear that hadn’t been washed in who knew how long, stormed out of the bedroom. Her blond hair was oily and knotted, her blue eyes bloodshot, and her body not much more than skin and bones.
“Where’s-” but she cut herself off when she saw her son was holding out the bottle he had purchased that night with his last shilling. She grabbed it from his hand without another word, yanked open the top with her unkempt and chipped nails, and started chugging the moonshine made of whatever Margie and her crew could find.
Rory silently watched his mother as she wandered off to her “bedroom,” not withdrawing her lips from the bottle. Her “room” was a corner of the single-room flat, behind a torn-up cloth hanging from holes in the rotting ceiling.
He knew he wouldn’t hear from her again until the next afternoon. It some ways it was a relief. She was a mean drunk.
Years ago Rory had tried his best to break her of her habits. It… hadn’t gone well. He had not attempted it again. He knew that if she was going to get better, it couldn’t be him that helped her do it. Especially as it was his fault she was this way in the first place.
Shaking his head clear of those maudlin thought, Rory turned away from her. He put his bag in the corner of the room, stripped all his school clothes off, put them on top of the bag so his mum wouldn’t find it if she came out, and went into the doorless bathroom which consisted of half of a sink, a toilet that sometimes worked, and a spigot over a hole in the floor with a chain next to it. Pulling on the chain, Rory washed his body with cold water and a scrubber that had been left there when they had moved in years ago. Rory had managed to buy soap once years back, but his mum had found it and traded it for more expensive booze.
Having finished his washing and shivering from the cold water, he found an only moderately-stained and holey t-shirt and shorts. Yesterday he had washed them the same way he washed his body and had hung them up to dry in thin wire he had found in the mine that nobody would buy. Now dressed, Rory lay on the other pile of clothes that was his mattress in the room’s corner.
Reflecting on the last twelve hours, Rory sighed and shook his head. So much had changed, yet here her was, still lying on dirty clothes in a smelly flat listening to his mother’s slurred swears fade as she fell into a drunken stupor.
Well, enough of that. I have a big day tomorrow. If all goes to plan, I’ll grab the cells, get the stuff from Mick, and pay off Mycroft. After that I can plan for a real future things will start looking up.
Setting his old wrist commo to wake him, Rory closed his eyes. As he fell asleep, that flicker of hope from earlier was just a little brighter against the back of his eyelids as he imagined a better future.
***
Rory was stepping off the transbus at the mine stop after splurging on a three-pence breakfast at the market and returning his mother’s empties. He immediately headed towards his latest mine entrance with his hood up and head down, like nothing was abnormal. That was, of course, a complete contrast to his real feelings. They were a paranoia to the level where he thought his heart might punch through his chest. He was terrified someone somehow had found out about his gear including the newest piece of equipment from Mick. And of course, he was scared others might know where he was headed and how much what was in it was worth.
It took all the determination and focus he had learned from six years in the slums to not give himself away. Folks in the slums knew to look for changes in behavior, because that usually meant someone came by money – and someone with money was a target.
A few minutes later he managed to reach the entrance to Henry’s tunnel.
I really should stop assigning things to Henry
Looking around for anyone following and relived to see he was alone, Rory slumped in relief and moved forward. Once he was deep enough, he took out the lamp from his backpack, wound it and headed deeper.
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During his long walk down the tunnel, there wasn’t much to do, so Rory reflected on some of the unexpected things he’d experienced that morning. First, when he had woken up he’d felt great. Incredibly awake, aware, and not sore in the least from lying on an uneven pile of clothes on the floor. Second, when he’d washed up, he had found his skin was a little different than usual. His whole life, he had had what his da used to call an “Irish complexion,” which meant pale as a ghost with freckles that looked obvious on it.
This morning though, while he couldn’t see his face because they had no mirror, his body had had a little bit of pink and was a lot healthier-looking. It wasn’t that dramatic, but the pink in his skin was definitely noticeable. And finally, his freaking muscles were … well… visible. It was like they had became sharper or tighter or whatever under his skin. He didn’t feel stronger or faster really. But it was weird because he felt different in a way he couldn’t put words to.
The most noticeable change though, was not being in pain. That was amazing. Having woken without pain for the first time since he could remember… it was… hard to put words to really. A revelation. He couldn’t even recall what not being pain every second of every day was like.
But it was true. And positive outcomes aside, Rory wished he knew the cause of both. Upon reflection, he figured there were two possible causes. One was obviously the whole fixing of his inscriptions and new ability to use his vessels. That made sense for the painlessness, but not his skin, muscles, and overall healthier feelings.
He did recall learning during his single class on the ghost system that the more myst the body utilized, the healthier it became. Well, he had used a lot. Almost two hundred seventy vessels worth all in the period of a few minutes. If that was the cause, he would likely experience more changes over the next few days and weeks. The only argument against that possibility is that those vessels were granted and not gathered so Rory wasn’t sure if that counted towards the overall body improvement.
The second possible reason for his new condition could have been the sap from the Living Spring Treant. He would need a tablet with GalNet access to read up on that and he didn’t have one. At least not yet.
Either way, he had no way to prove or disprove either possibility. Hell, it could be neither and just some random outcome of the events with Lucifer and Bernael. Or it could be both the vessels and the treant sap, which frankly, Rory thought was the most likely.
Moving his thoughts onto the matters at hand, he had finally reached his first stopping point. Having arrived at the same stash from yesterday, Rory dropped his school clothes and finally swapped out his old wrist commo for the new ring.
Letting out a big breath, he whispered into the dark. “Time to get down there and towards a new life.”
***
Rory went to the snake area first. He returned to Lucifer’s nest with no problems and was ready to learn how to use his new commo by putting the stuff in his brant new Soul Vault. Just as he entered though, he skidded to halt. Apparently something had found out that Lucifer had died because he was shocked to see that a brown snake at least fifty feet long and six inches thick with weird squiggly patterns all over it was curled up in the nest and around Lucifer’s skin and the treant halves.
Rory immediately froze, scared. And angry too. Nothing could ever go right.
Fucking shit! Damnit to hell! What the fuck is it with my life?!
After a few seconds of teeth gritted silent swearing, Rory got a grip on himself.
Okay. So a snake is wrapped around my shit. What now? I don’t know anything about this snake, or any snake for that matter. How do I… Wait!
Pointing at the snake with his new ring, he tapped the “Species Identification” option on his commo interface hoping he was close enough. Nothing happened for a few seconds and Rory was about to take a step closer and try again when a picture and description was projected before him in a three-by-five-inch rectangle just above the ring.
Brown Jungle Sniper (0-4) - Brown Jungle Sniper snakes are found in wetter rainforests and jungles. To hunt, they burrow under the dirt, mud, or underbrush using their seemingly random patterns as camouflage and strike quickly and precisely when prey approaches. While not venomous, they can reach as large as a hundred feet long and their teeth are slightly serrated preventing their meal from escaping. Not a particularly robust creature with its fragile bone structure, it depends on stealth and camouflage to survive, along with its size to intimidate predators.
Okay, so no poison then, which is excellent.
Examining it, Rory guessed it was likely at or close to two vessels of strength given its size, which was half its max according to GalNet. It was also sleeping and “not robust,” which Rory took to mean vulnerable to slicing by his weapons. With all that in his favor, Rory nodded to himself and made a decision.
This is an opportunity and I need what it’s guarding. So yeah. This is fine. I can do this.
Repeating that last sentence to himself a few times, Rory firmed his resolved and took a careful step forward. Stopping to see if it would react, he breathed out and moved closer. Following the “slow step” approach of heel then toe that he was taught by Henry for use in the tunnels when he saw an animal, he finally reached within five feet of the snake’s head. It hadn’t moved a muscle.
Tilting his head, he looked at the snake. Something was weird about it. It didn’t even look like it was breathing. Examining it closer, he found two holes less than an inch around right behind its head.
“Bloody hell!”