14/07/337

Vasuki

The instant that the black beam pierced through the veil of the clouds the world changed. Everything spun around, muscles didn’t work like they should, and the scent of death crept through the air. First the shockwave of raw, unadulterated, magic knocked the air out of Vasuki’s lungs, destroyed the stone under his feet, shattered windows of homes. Cracked rubble was what his back landed on, the taste of iron coated his tongue, blood and saliva mixed together and began to fill his mouth, his ears were ringing; all other noises were drowned out. Somehow he managed to roll to his stomach and let the concoction in his mouth pour onto the rubble under him, some dribbling down his chin, staining the beard he had grown crimson.

Just as his vision began to close, and an endless sleep began to wrap its hand around him, he felt his throat open and air fill his lungs. He drank it in gasps, but even now he needed to ignore the panicked beating of his heart.

Looking back at the epicenter of the Storm, Felix’s wings unfurled, a rainbow of color danced in his once green eyes. Audra hung loosely, her left arm burrowed deep within his chest. Even from a distance Vasuki could see her shallow breathing, the life in her eyes was fading. He swallowed his saliva, ignoring the taste of blood. He didn’t track her down, chase her through this damned town just to have her die in front of him. He stood, mentally wrapped those damned cobalt chains around his arms and felt the blizzard envelop his soul. His black blade formed from a pillar of ice and formed in his hands as his calves pumped with Etherea, pain screaming out with every second that passed.

“Save it.” Felix ordered, pulling Audra’s arm from him, the hole that should have been seeming to vanish before Vasuki could even find it, “I’m not your enemy, the demons that will be forming any moment, they are your enemy.” He threw Audra’s body at him, dropping his weapon he caught her and let the blizzard around his soul vanish, “Your best bet right now is the city hall, there’s a shelter underground, good luck ice dragon.” Felix turned, and with a single flap of his wings flew into the sky.

Coming to a stand he carried Audra in his arms and began to run towards the city hall. The rain beat down harder and harder, puddles formed unnaturally around them. He felt a warmth against the back of his neck before a loud howl roared in his left ear, he turned only when the howl was cut short. Cabana had caught up to them, her arm was bleeding but he knew she’d be fine from an injury like that.

“Don’t stop!” She demanded. He didn’t need to be told twice. The black rain continued to beat down, harder and harder, he could hear Cabana’s footsteps just a couple feet behind him as they made their way to the city hall.

“Where’s Noelem!?” Vasuki asked, a blast of thunder boomed above them.

“He’s in town, he’ll be with us soon!” Cabana claimed, speeding ahead of him and heading down the steps under the city hall. Vasuki ran down the steps as quickly as he could without tripping, mid-way down he could hear a chorus of demons roaring at each other, the ground above them rumbled with the sounds of battle. He hoped Liz and Noelem were okay, though he was sure they would be.

Cabana held open a metal door for Vasuki to run through. He entered a room filled with weaponry all over the walls, he looked for a good place to lay Audra down.

“Office room! On the other side! Go!” Cabana ordered, again running ahead of him so that she could hold the door open. Running through it, Cabana quickly passed by him and shoved all of the papers and pens off of the wooden desk. Gently laying Audra down on the wooden table he quickly examined her for any external injuries, to his surprise she was completely unscathed though he couldn’t deny that the tattoo of the snakes was physically bothering him, for some reason.

“Must be some kind of fatigue.” Cabana noted.

“No signs of blood, but…” He pressed his thumb against her left wrist, no vibration met his thumb, his heart dropped as he desperately moved his thumb deeper into her skin. A little hope brought his heart back once a slight rumble met him.

“Weak?” Cabana asked.

“Extremely, I’m…not sure if she’ll live through this.” He claimed, a knot quickly formed in his throat.

“Shit…come on Audra…what the fuck can we do?” Cabana asked aloud, it was one of the few times that Vasuki could think of where she was out of ideas to fix an issue.

“Audra, please…I swear to the Maker, I did not track you all this way just for you to die right here!” Vasuki claimed uncaring tears were beginning to fall down his cheeks. Her breathing was growing only more shallow every moment that passed.

“All we can do is…wait and hope.” Cabana said.

“No! There has to be something!” Vasuki snapped.

He quickly looked over her once again for any kind of injury to treat, something he could do but his search was in vain. He took one more look at the tattoo of the intertwining snakes on her left arm, they had somehow moved to each side of her hand. It felt like they were looking at him, pleading for him, as if in desperation, they made a weak motion with their mouths as if begging for food. And with Audra’s current state they probably were.

“Vasuki, there’s nothing we can-” Cabana began, Vasuki grabbed Audra’s hand and placed her palm against his left arm. Four fangs dug deep into his skin, the feeling of a thousand needles tore through his bicep and he let out a muffled scream. Cabana stood frozen in shock as the snakes fed upon him, what they were eating? He had no idea but color quickly returned to Audra’s once paling skin, her breathing rapidly growing stronger and more stable. Her palm was heating up against his skin, quickly becoming as hot as a well-fed brazier. The heat mixed with the needles that seemed to swim through his entire arm, quickly traveling to his chest and, from there, to the rest of his body. Every vein felt like they were burning from the inside, the sweat that had seeped out of his pores was the only thing helping his burning body.

Cabana must have shaken off her shock before grabbing on Vasuki’s shoulder.

“Vasuki you have to stop! We don’t know what those do!” She ordered, trying to pull him away from them.

“It’s working, dammit!” He barked. Cabana was taken aback slightly before resigning to let him do whatever it was he was doing, he just wished he knew what was happening.

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Audra brows furrowed before her eyes fluttered open, the life they had once held was brought back to them. She looked up at Vasuki, followed her arm to see her grip around his arm before she truly woke up and pulled her palm away from him, as well as the snakes that retracted up her arm and out of sight, a new vigor being given to them. Audra quickly tried to get away from him, falling off the other side of the desk, but thankfully she was alive enough to quickly get back up.

“Vasuki! I-Are you-I’m so sorry!” She explained.

“I did it on purpose. They needed it, and you were dying…I.” Vasuki said, putting his weight against the desk. He was tired but he could feel the pain vanishing and whatever they took from him slowly, but surely, coming back. She looked over at Cabana.

“You let him do that?!”

“He…wouldn’t let me intervene. We didn’t want you to die and it was his idea…I didn’t know those snakes could do something like that.” Audra looked at Vasuki, reeled her hand back and slapped him hard across the face.

“You dumbass! I could have killed you!” She held her arm up, the snakes crawling up to her wrist before wrapping around it, “I used them on a Vrela…it drained it of every drop of life and put it into me.” Audra said, her eyes darting to both of them.

“Well…that explains why I feel so…bleh.”

“Where are we?” Audra asked.

“City hall, training room underneath.” Cabana claimed, “I’m not sure what we’re going to do to get out of this mess.”

It wasn’t like they had many options, but when a loud roar broke out above them and stones began to fall from the ceiling, they knew they didn’t have much time to think of an option.

“What the fuck was that?” Vasuki asked.

“That sounded a lot like a Barakusr…” Cabana claimed, worry filled in her throat. Vasuki had never seen one before, but there was a reason they were the top of the demon food chain.

“No way we can go out there, there’s a secret passage in the offices here.” Audra claimed, placing her hands on the stone wall behind her, “I used to sneak in here at night sometimes and I saw some of the officials going in and out.” Cabana and Vasuki looked at each other then over at Audra, still pushing against the stone wall.

The sound of boots hitting the floor outside reached out to them.

“We gotta go! Now!” Noelem yelled as he burst through the door. He flicked his hand up as a black wall of rocks blocked every entrance into the room followed by a loud banging noise, some of the rocks began to shift.

“What the hell is that?” Audra asked, looking back but still searching with her hands. Noelem looked at them with wide eyes.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never seen that before. It’s new and it’s strong. So whatever you’re doing you better hurry!” Another bang created a crack in the wall, followed by a high-pitched, ear-piercing shriek. Vasuki reached out and felt the cobalt ice form in his palm, readying for a fight.

“Got it!” Audra yelled. Vasuki looked back to see a large portion of the wall moving back and moving as Audra came to a stand.

“Everyone let’s go!” Vasuki ordered. They all quickly ran into the secret tunnel before it closed behind them, shrouding them in total darkness.

As the tunnel closed blue runes began to glow along the sides of the walls, illuminating the corridor in front of them, instead of stopping to investigate they instead ran forward, but Vasuki couldn’t help but notice the familiar appearance of them. Whether it was from his knowledge as Vasuki or memories from Boreal, he wasn’t sure but he didn’t have time to question it. The corridor was just wide enough for three people to stand side by side, with every surface being covered in stone, three large runes were engraved every ten feet or so along the walls.

They ran until Vasuki’s legs and lungs were covered in flames, he leaned against the wall behind him as they stood and caught their breath. He felt weak from having his life drained but he needed to look at the runes.

“I wonder why this tunnel is here.” Cabana said, “Not sure what these runes say. They’re definitely Nashatalian though, too sharp to be anything else.” Vasuki approached the runes in front of him, running his fingers along it.

The first rune, Uhphs, meant to fight. It was made of six lines in the shape of a sword, with two lines going towards the end of each guard from the base of the pommel, this had one extra line coming from the tip towards the next rune, this meant that they were meant to be together in meaning. Uhsu, the second rune was in the shape of a triangle where the base concaved inward, this meant to hide. The third rune was…he had no idea actually.

“Uhphs i’ars uhsu…uh…I don’t know this one.” He thought hard about it, nothing about it in his memory was able to decipher the meaning of the last rune. It was in the shape of a diamond with four horizontal lines going through it.

“Ri’auphii’ass.” Noelem claimed, “Safeguard. Seems like a tunnel people used for situations like we were in.” Vasuki felt his breath catch in his throat.

“Uhphs i’ars uhsu, Ri’auphii’ass.” He said, running his finger through the third rune. A light jingle played throughout the cavern, echoing from ‘Ri’auphii’ass’ in the wall. It seemed to bounce through the cavern, echoing through the darkness.

“What is it?” Cabana asked. This time Audra spoke up.

“The Safeguards, innkeepers that kept people safe from demons. They spoke in the tongue of Nashatal to keep each other safe.”

“The city hall must have been an inn during the War of Dominion.” Vasuki noted.

“I don’t have much knowledge on the Safeguards, most knowledge is stuck behind the vows of a select few people.” Cabana claimed, “How do you know about them?” She asked, admiring the glowing runes.

“My dad…I think he’s a Safeguard.” Cabana looked at him with a bit of shock.

“Are you sure?”

“No, but he taught me how to get through to them.” Noelem slapped his shoulder.

“Well then, Mr. Safeguard…lead the way.” They all looked at him expectantly. He looked down the hallway, the blue runes lighting the way ahead, one step at a time, they began to make their way down the rabbit hole.