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"Pip, can you get down, please?"
Another memory of cold. Hopping out of Norui’s bag and into the air, then feet sinking into the snow. Near evening; the lights of a town nearby. Southpoint was in sight at last.
Pip stamped his feet to work the blood back into his legs, then glanced at his companion. Her face was obscured by her indigo hood and leather goggles, but he could still see how exhaustion weighed on every line of her body.
Flying had cut four days of travel from their trip to Southpoint, but the labor fell entirely on the Aerie. Pip had silently tracked how often the witch bolstered her stamina with a burst of healing each day. That last push of flight had been especially worrying, demanding half again the spells from the previous day. She must have burnt through nearly all her mana to get them to town before dark.
Of course, not only did Norui’s weariness seem to compound with each day of hard travel, but Pip expected she hadn’t slept at all the night before. He sure hadn’t, not while they’d been separated after encountering that weird figure from the mountain. He didn’t know much about magic, but he didn’t suppose it could replace proper rest.
"Ah, lass,” Pip sighed. “I wish ye'd nae pushed yerself so hard. I know we needed to, but….” But they needed to get the message back to the Order as quickly as possible. And even if that weren’t the case, stopping to rest would require them to get through an arctic night without their abandoned camping equipment. Ultimately, Pip couldn’t regret the decision to push through– only that he couldn’t share the weight of it.
“Ach, it's done and done. Let's get ye to the town and some rest. Ye've more than well earned it."
Norui nodded, breathing heavily. "Just a bit of walking left now, right? Walking's easy....”
Whatever her words though, she swayed where she stood. Like a runner stumbling before the end of the marathon, the sight of town softened the steel carrying her through her fatigue. After a moment of study, Pip shook his head and tapped two fingers to the rim of the old black cap he wore.
pop.
The size difference between him and his companion resolved with a faint puff of ether– in fact, he had a few inches on her now, fitted into the form of a blue-haired Glamori youth. He caught her by the shoulder an instant before her knees buckled. “Oh… sorry,” Norui murmured sheepishly, leaning her weight against his support. “Do you mind if...?"
"Nae at all, lass. I'm proud o' ye, gettin’ us so far on yer lonesome. About time I put in a lil work too, eh?" Pip caught her up in both arms and plucked her off the ground. To his larger arms, she was nearly as weightless as one of her own feathers.
Behind the glass of her goggles, Norui’s eyes widened. "Oh. But you don't have to–”
"I'll put ye down when we get nearer the town, dinnae fret. But it still be a good half hour walk, so relax and get some strength back."
The witch frowned as though considering protest, but meeting his eyes, chose trust. Wrapping her arms around his neck and settling in, Norui murmured, “Thank you, Pip."
Run away, or stand me ground? Pip scooted down the hall, away from the sound of whistling. He hated backing down from an enemy, but he wasn’t looking to take a losing battle, either. Sunny had warned him that Whistler was a fight he couldn’t win. And his victory condition here wasn’t to thrash the creature responsible– satisfying though that might be. He had to find a way to get the path open for Sunny and Roman. If Whistler was still around after that, then maybe he’d get a chance to test the bastard’s mettle, but not before.
“Lím– I’m goin’ to need to move right fast. Would ye be all right settlin’ into me pack for the time bein’?” Pip whispered. The familiar wriggled under the flap of the pack, clinging with claws onto the edge so that he wouldn’t drop into the space within. “Good lad.”
Taking a breath, Pip pulled on his iron knuckles, and ran.
His leather-wrapped feet slapped against the stone as he bounded down the hall, jumping a short flight of stairs onto a corner landing, then a second set to a lower hall. The crossroads below led to passages forward, on either side, and wrapping around the stairs behind him as well. Down the hallway to his right, the whistling sound grew stronger, more mirthful.
Pip dashed straight ahead, glimpsing through windows the darkened space of unexplored puzzle rooms on either side. The back halls seemed to wrap along all four walls of each room, as well as running passages under the circular halls of each ring. Which means if I keep runnin’ in a straight shot from here, I oughta wind up near the stage room. If there was any kind of central control, it would make sense to be near the room that the whole building literally revolved around.
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As he neared a new junction, he heard a scrabbling of claws. Something squirmed out from a shadow on the wall across the corridor, plopping to the ground like a newborn deer. If that deer were already as tall as a grown man and had wicked spears in places of its arms, anyway.
Sighting the Nightmare, Pip slowed, calculating how he might slip around it and continue on his way. Then he saw something that made his heart stutter.
The shadow the thing crawled from was only the first. A second shadow disgorged a Nightmare, then a third, then a half dozen, each its own hellish twist of monster.
Pip stopped in his tracks as the hall filled with the scrapes, groans, and growls of the accumulated Nightmares clawing their way into the world. Oh, feck. Suddenly, Pip had a very good idea of why there wasn’t one survivor out of the whole batch of adventurers back in that grim audience.
Pip had known magickers that could summon forth beasts from the ether. Those tricks took time and effort though, and each concurrent summon drained the mana supply of the caster more and more. Staring down half a dozen creatures already and with several more ripping themselves free from the shadows, Pip balked. Either Whistler had some hell of a trick to pull this off, or his capabilities as a spellcaster were unheard of.
Behind him now– that whistling. It was punctuated by the weighty thunk of a cane striking stone. Compared to the multitude of Nightmares in front of him, how dangerous would it be to face off against Whistler directly? Casting a glance behind him, Pip discovered the problem was academic. A fresh handful of Nightmares were materializing behind him as well. Double feck!
Then, from around the corner, the dread creature himself strode confidently into the hall. Without the glare of a stage light, Pip saw Whistler as a deadly pale thing, but looked in no way wan or frail. The tails of his red-and-black coat billowed as he walked, and a terrible joy lit his small dark eyes. As he strode down the hall, the Nightmare creatures cringed away, as if terrified to brush up against their master.
“Well, well,” Whistler said, his voice humming with amusement. “I don’t believe anyone’s ever called for a backstage chat. This one’s gone off script, hasn’t it?”
The way he spoke and swaggered set a curl to Pip’s lip. “What a pretentious prick ye are,” Pip snorted. “Yer the one they’re callin’ Whistler then, are ye?”
Whistler didn’t respond. In fact, he scarcely seemed to notice that Pip had spoken at all. Instead, nonplussed, the creature bent slightly to murmur something to one of the Nightmares– a creature nearly as short as Pip himself, but long and sluglike with two spindly arms– and it bent its head nervously before squelching down into its own shadow, vanishing.
Pip slid into a stance with one foot behind him. Whistler might be pretending to ignore him, or he might genuinely not view the Nuralli as any kind of threat. By and large though, the more a fellow spent his time working up his magic, the more vulnerable they were to fists and steel. If he could slip in between those Nightmares and get within arm’s reach, he might get Whistler off-balance long enough to loop back, get out of the midst of his monsters, and find another route.
There were two Nightmares between him and Whistler now, plus a few more behind. It was better odds than he’d get trying to push forward, and there was no sense in waiting until Whistler decided to push the fight.
His nerves jangled at the prospect, though. It wasn’t just Sunny’s warning; there was something off about this creature in front of him. There was some alien edge to Whistler’s ever-present aura, stronger than ever in close quarters. It felt like a sour wind blowing over the surface of his Pond, something wrong that dissonated deep within him.
Pip gathered in his breath and urged himself not to let it dissuade him. He had too much to lose to turn coward now. Instead, Pip focused on what he had to do next: He had to move forward, and he could not let himself be stopped. If something pushed back on him for more than a moment, then the Nightmares behind him would catch up. In these tight halls, he expected only one or two could reach him at once from either direction. But if they came from both directions, that would be disastrous. No, he had to keep moving forward until he reached Whistler, even if it cost him.
Plucking himself up, Pip bellowed out, “Let’s try it then, why dinnae we!” and charged.
A great gnashing and snarling drummed up behind him, and his heart pounded right along with them. Coming abreast with the first of the two Nightmares in his way, Pip already had to choose between progress and blood. The strange creature was lashed out with its many sharply barbed tails. He could dodge about and maybe not get more than a scratch– but that would slow him down too much.
Instead, Pip drove right through, feeling a sharp sting in the back of his shoulder. The barb hooked in, and like when he’d come in contact with the Nightmare before, there was an assault on his senses– an ancient spiraling stone tower, rock outcrops running with the blood of a terrible battle, a great monstrosity twisting around the ramparts.
This time though, he was prepared for the vision. In the midst of the fantasy, he reached for his Pond– and through it, grasped a tenuous thread of awareness of his own body. Willing himself to move, Pip struck, grabbing the stuck shaft of the stinger and slamming with all his strength as he shoved forward.
The stinger wasn’t built to resist a hit from the side, and with the acidic touch of his steel knuckles, it popped off of the Nightmare’s tail. The creature howled as Pip pushed past it, breaking the knob of the stinger off, the barb still stuck in his flesh. Probably some sorta toxin in that, he noted grimly. As long as it didn’t slow him down for the next ten seconds, he’d file that in the worry about it later folder.
The second Nightmare wasn’t as fast– it was something bearlike, shaggy-furred and lumbering. Here his maneuverability could do its work. As it swung a massive claw, he jumped clear over it, one hand scraping the ceiling and pushing him forward as he went. He couldn’t entirely avoid touching the creature– standing in shock among a confluence of small waters, which cooled rapidly as midday turned to night– but then he was on the other side of it.
Face to face with Whistler.