“You do.” Another voice came that was exactly the same as the first. But those words also spilled over Sechen’s eyes, so she knew the voice was Gilt’s. “I am assuming that you are Prisoner?”
“The one and only. And since you’re givin’ another shadowy figure a piggyback ride, I’m assumin’ I’m talkin’ to shiny?”
“Did the words across your eyes not give it away?” Gilt asked. Sechen felt like there should have been sarcasm, but the voice dampeners whisked it away. “Ringlet, are you here with us?”
“I am.” Sechen nodded, walking up to the shadowy figure of a person giving a piggyback to another shadowy figure that looked exactly like it. “We need to stick together. Tracking Issi doesn’t work here. Unless you’re strong enough to break whatever this,” Sechen gestured at herself, “is.”
“Not while I’m keeping sleepy tucked away in my headspace. That’s takin’ up the majority of my Issi at the moment.” The perfect black shadow of the average person with a gleaming gold outline that was Prisoner raised his hand, and nothing came out. “There’s some kinda negatin’ effects here too. Like it don’t want me shoulderin’ in on it’s turf.”
“So your power isn’t limitless?” Sechen asked.
“Not while I’m keepin’ a low profile.” Prisoner answered, but the voice homogenization made it so Sechen couldn’t understand if he was serious or not.
Sechen shook her head. “That’s not terrifying at all.”
“Is it just me or is the ceiling really low in this place?” Prisoner tilted his head upwards. “Looks like it’s barely fifteen feet up.”
“Because the other city is on top of this place. We really need to get moving before someone decides they want to try and kill someone.” Sechen eyed the mass of gold-outlined shadows milling about.
“Reasonable enough. Lead the way.”
“Finding the way isn’t going to be easy. Hoalt hides the connection points so the wolf can’t find them.” Sechen sighed, starting to walk as she spoke. She turned her head to make sure Gilt and Prisoner were following her, then turned right back to the deep black road under her feet. “If we follow the gold lines, we’ll eventually come across one of the wolf Hoalt’s sentries, and we don’t want to fight them. Especially not if they decide they want to use you.”
“Use?” Prisoner asked, disgust and anger radiating out through the shadow in a way Sechen thought was impossible. “Tell me I’m understandin’ that wrong.”
“Stress relief, labour, or sometimes just a gofer.” Sechen shrugged. “I’ve seen some shitty things happen to people who catch the eye of one of the sentries.”
“Disgusting.” Gilt said.
“How did Hoalt let this happen?” Prisoner muttered. “He had a good grip on everything last I saw.”
“I have no answer for that.” Gilt replied.
“All we have to do is avoid them.” Sechen said, pointing down an alley that didn’t have anyone standing in it. “They don’t patrol the alleys, just the streets. And there are a few sewer grates we can pry open if we need to get around even safer.”
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“I just remembered, sleepy said he’s got a brother studyin’ here.”
Sechen nodded as she stepped over a pile of garbage, her shoes squelching in the liquid puddling around it. “And?”
“And nothin’.” Prisoner shrugged. “Just made me wonder how you’d ever study in a place like this. Is it all an honour system? Could you force the smart kid to pretend they’re you for an afternoon so you get good grades? Hells, you could probably murder your biggest competition the day before a duel and get away with it scot free.”
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing the people here’ve done.” Sechen muttered. “We should be coming up on the red district soon. Be ready to get attacked a whole bunch.”
“Red district. Real clever names here.” Prisoner commented. “Are the streets one huge cluster of fistfights?”
“No, that’s just where the people who want an actual fight go. You get attacked in the other districts, they’re trying to kill you. Here, they’re looking to kill you, but also prepared to be killed.” Sechen shuddered.
“The downsides of across the veil combat. There is no thrill in victory, and the loss felt is just as devastating as if the combat had been between two members of our side.” Gilt said.
“No, nothing snaps back here until you leave. So they stay dead unless their corpses get thrown out of the city.” Sechen said, steeling herself as she stepped close to the mouth of the alley and the carnage she knew was on the other side. The closer she got, however, the quieter it got as the sounds from the other side of the alley faded away. Something was very wrong here. “Prisoner?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you go first? Something’s wrong.”
“Will do.” Prisoner took one step and appeared at the end of the alley. He looked around and said nothing for a long moment, then turned and ushered Sechen and Gilt back down the alley. “Don’t go out there. It ain’t a pretty sight.”
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“Lots of violence?” Sechen asked.
“No violence at all.” Prisoner said ominously. “It’s completely empty. Not a soul in sight.”
“Then why isn’t it a ‘pretty sight’?”
“Corpses don’t have souls.”
Sechen froze as her foot touched the same puddle of disgusting liquid as before, but no sound came out. “Prisoner? Did you take away sounds again?”
“No, I did not.” He said, quickly looking over his shoulder and back again. “Move, sister.”
A piercing howl split the silence, ringing in Sechen’s ears for far longer than it lasted. She looked up at Prisoner, who wasn’t saying anything, as she felt something trickling down her neck. She raised a hand and felt something wet, but when she tried to look all she saw was shadow. Prisoner grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, little flares of Issi coming off his shadowed form, but she couldn’t hear if he was saying anything. She couldn’t hear anything. And then the wet footfalls started.
They were like buckets of sewer sludge being splintered under the weight of an Issi beast. Sechen refused to turn her head as they got closer, her feet carrying her as fast as they could through the alley, but the crunching, squelching noises grew closer and closer until they felt like they were right behind her. And she couldn’t resist any longer.
“Run, run, little morsel!” Cackled a mass of shifting black-red sludge that vaguely looked like a giant wolf as it squeezed and crunched itself into the alley. “We’re hungry. Still hungry. So... hungry. So hungry. SO HUNGRY!”
A guttural, insane laughing howl emerged from the thing’s gaping maw, teeth like chunks of shattered bone floating aimlessly inside yellow-green gums as the sludge-wolf oozed it’s way forwards at a frightening pace. Sechen could hear nothing but it. She screamed in silence, turning back to the other side, and found a shadow in profile in front of her face. It was moving its mouth. She heard nothing.
“Not enough. Never enough. More. We need more.” The mass behind her spoke in a perfectly calm voice. “Little morsel. Give yourself up. You can’t hope to run in my domain. Nobody can.” A very moist slurping came with a change in tone, but the same voice. “STOP RUNNING! I COMMAND YOU!”
Sechen’s limbs froze, refusing to move under the weight of the thing’s voice. Blood red Issi swirled around her like thick mist, soaking into her skin and itching like a carpet of tiny bugs, constantly biting and crawling and itching and itching and hurting and crawling and biting and…
A whirl of purple overtook Sechen’s vision. The biting stopped.
“NO! YOU ARE MINE! EVERYONE IN THIS CITY IS MINE!” The thing screamed as silver laced silently through the purple, Issi surging around Sechen to take her away from this monster. From the city’s tyrant. From Hoalt.
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“Sweet merciful eternity, what in the hells was that!?” Prisoner panted as he stood on the roof of a building halfway across the city, most of his non-reserved Issi dissipating into the air around him. Detectionless teleportation in another’s domain was a lofty ordeal.
“I have an awful feeling that we have just become acquainted with this city’s tyrant.” Gilt said as he shook himself. “I have not felt Issi that malicious in… I cannot recall how long.”
“Whatever it did, it looks like it only hit ringlet.” Prisoner cradled Sechen’s shivering form in his arms as she mumbled about howling, cracking, and squelching. “Did you feel anythin’ tryin’ to worm its way into your mind, shiny?”
“Nothing I could sense.”
“Then it was targetin’ her, cause I didn’t feel a thing.” Prisoner patted Sechen on the head as she started to calm down, looking around as she took in her new surroundings.
“WHAT HAPPENED?” She asked a little too loudly.
“Whoah, watch the volume there sister.” Prisoner chuckled. “Don’t want the whole city findin’ out where we are.”
“WHAT?” Sechen asked.
Gilt stepped closer and rubbed his head against Sechen’s. It looked a little strange seeing what looked like two full grown men rubbing foreheads. “I do not think she can hear us. You are speaking quite loudly ringlet.”
Sechen cleared her throat. “Yeah, I can’t hear anything. And sorry.”
“She seein’ your words, shiny?”
“Would she have answered if she was not?” Gilt shot back.
“Suppose not. Ask her what happened.”
Gilt nodded and turned back to Sechen. “When did your senses become dulled?”
“Right after Hoalt howled the first time.” Sechen said.
“Hmm. So their… his… it’s… Hoalt. Hoalt’s sounds must carry their Issi techniques. Could you hear anythin’, ringlet?” Prisoner asked, and received a blank look in response. “Right, right. Shiny, if you would?”
Gilt repeated Prisoner’s question to Sechen. She nodded, paused, then shook her head. “I could only hear whatever sounds Hoalt made. Now I can’t hear anything at all.”
“Hoalt did somethin’ to ya, that’s for sure. I’ll check you for any lingerin’ damages once we’re in the safety of the real Gilded Night. Tell her that.”
Sechen stayed still for a moment, then chuckled. “He does a pretty good impression of you.”
“Doubtful. You can’t replicate this glory.” Prisoner gestured to himself, then grimaced as he remembered what ‘this glory’ currently looked like. “My real glory. You understand. Wait. How’d he do an impression of me through text alone?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Gilt said plainly. “Ringlet, we need to keep moving while Hoalt does not have our scent. Could you help us along once more?”
Sechen nodded, then pushed herself to her feet. “Didn’t realize I’d been sitting down.” She stepped over to the edge of the roof, then walked the perimeter of the square building. “Looks like we’re in the green district. If there’s a connection point, it’s going to be between here and the blue district. Which is that way.”
Prisoner followed her finger with his gaze, then nodded. “That’s away from where we came, so I’m all for it. I’d say we should stick to the roofs, but we don’t got the advantage of everyone forgettin’ about us this time around. Is this green district dangerous, ringlet?”
A far shorter delay between question and answer this time. Gilt was getting used to being used as an inbetween. “The green district’s a huge market, so don’t carry anything valuable.”
“Pickpockets. I see.” Gilt said.
“They’ll pick more than just your pockets.” Sechen warned. “Thieves and scavengers are closer to what I’d call them. And be super aware of anyone that touches you without doing anything else. They’re marking you for later.”
“Speakin’ from experience there?”
“Nooo, from speculation.” Sechen said, and even through her monotonous voice Prisoner could hear the eye roll. “You might be surprised, but wisps are valuable. And manifested wisps even more so, especially because of that damned university in the blue district. Revel almost got kidnapped, or worse, so many times. And then she actually did, but it was where we thought it was safe.” Sechen shook her head and sighed. “Whatever. Let’s go find the point.”