DREADWOLF

◈ Chapter 125:

They quickly left the slums and then the low level areas entirely, entering into a mid levelers district and then beyond that toward wealthier districts frequented by high as well as mid levelers.

 

Rain knew instantly that this area was different. A green furred tiger the size of a cart horse lumbered past, a dainty elf wearing a flowing white summery dress perched on top, its reins held lightly in hand. That wasn't something he had ever seen before. The Elf was casually riding an extremely dangerous monster like it was nothing.

 

“As you might have guessed the higher levelers operate on different rules,” whispered Lyra as the elven lady slipped over the side of the tiger and had it sit as she took a chair at an open air cafe. “When you are powerful and connected you are allowed to bring large and dangerous monster slaves into the city.”

 

“Doesn't the Ranker have a problem with that? What if it escapes and goes on a rampage?”

 

“You usually need to apply to be allowed to have it, and with that they check to see if you are strong enough to physically control it and kill it on your own if needed. That elf lady doesn't look like much but I would be willing to bet she could punch that tiger in the head and knock it unconscious in one blow, although she might just have a heart pin if she is willing to spend the money. It’s a bit more lady-like to simply trigger the metal pin inserted next to its heart than to be seen in public beating a tiger to death with your bare hands. Although you still need to have the physical endurance to trigger the pin if it attacks.”

 

“I see...”

 

There were a number of large monsters around, but of course no Panthara. Not even the high leveled dared to try to keep those cunning creatures as pets. Not to say that what they did have wasn't dangerous. He was surprised to see he vaguely recognised some of the monster species. A giant snake quite like the one he had eaten in Lynthia’s dungeon and what looked like a cave bear cross-bred with a Kobold, black scales peeking from its fur. The Kobold-bear was carrying a large crate for its master and being directed to place it on top an ornate gilded carriage.

 

“Ah, this is exactly what we were looking for,” said Lyra.

 

His gaze moved from the bear to where her hand was pointing, the shop behind the carriage.

 

The outside had been made into an open air stall, if one aimed at wealthier customers, long colourful embroidered overhangs providing shade in the warm morning light.

 

More important were the tables set out in the shade, tables which contained dungeon diving products, glittering swords, polished armour, and, of course, practical healing potions.

 

Rain slunk by the shop and slipped into the alley beside it.

 

“How are we planning on getting the potions?” whispered Lyra. “I could just buy them.”

 

“Drop me down and I’ll snatch them, I’ve seen how these dumb levelers act, they barely notice us Gobbos, it will be easy!”

 

“No, too dangerous,” gravelled Rain. “And I'd prefer if you weren't seen Lyra.”

 

“Hey there’s hardly going to be any scummy gangs around here, it will be fine!”

 

Rain considered this. “...It’s just not necessary, I can just do this.” 

 

He lifted his paws together and black mist began to coalesce, taking shape. In moments a dozen large rats had appeared on his pads, their inky blackness and star scatter eyes looking up at him with awe as their noses and whiskers wobbled.

 

He crouched and lowered his paws and the rats poured from his digits, waterfalling down to the cobble below where they scattered and scurried by the alley wall.

 

The shop’s stall didn't stand a chance. The rats waited for the overly perfumed shop owner to be distracted by a customer and then darted toward the nearest table, their small claws latching onto the colourful fabric overhanging the edge and swarming their way up. 

 

The first few rats reached the top where they found a number of glass bottles. Working together they removed them from where they were slotted into a wooden display box. One by one the bottles were stolen, a good six of them.

 

Each bottle was then passed onto the next pair of rats dangling off the table cloth, who then passed it onto the next who then passed it down to the ground. 

 

It took less than twenty seconds. The rats were there, and then they were running back as fast as they could. They clambered onto Rain’s fur and scrambled upwards to a disturbed Lyra. The rats then passed her the stolen bottles one by one.

 

“Erm, thank...you?” said Lyra with an armful of bottles.

 

The leader rat waved and winked at her as it sunk into Rain’s fur.

 

“With this Red can be healed, right?”

 

“Yes, but I can't switch to my wool space without problems with my invisibility, I think, so uhm, we’ll need to find somewhere private.”

 

“Not here?”

 

Lyra eyed the mouth of the alley. The street outside was busy and it would only take a glance in their direction to be seen.

 

“No, not here, there’s a better place than this, a place where we are unlikely to be seen at all where no one bothers to go.”

 

“And that is?”

 

Lyra held the potions tight. “The library.”

--

The library was a massive structure, a crumbling sprawl of connected buildings that seemed to have been added to over centuries and centuries of use. Because of that it was a mish-mash of differing architecture, huge pillars and pointed roofs and sandy walls or cream white walls and sloped roofs and rectangular windows dotted amongst arched. About the only one thing unifying the complex was the creeping ivy that wound its way over every other surface.

 

The place was as deserted as Lyra implied, the streets around the library near empty, and nobody headed toward its vast steps.

 

Rain approached the grandiose entrance, wary. 

 

He didn't have much to worry about though, the library was of little interest to the city’s citizens.

 

He passed between towering pillars of the entrance for once feeling that the architecture was more fitting to his size, and entered the building, his caution not lowering in the slightest.

 

The entrance hall was quiet and empty of all but a few people, which wasn't all that surprising, even Lynthia’s small library that Rain had snuck into as a child to try and study his way out of his level zero predicament was like this. He had a vague theory as to why that was. Libraries just weren't that popular with a fighting populace… which was basically everyone, and were considered the purview of dusty old mages... who were also often wealthy, which was why the library still managed to make a lot of profit.

 

He drew in a breath through his nose to scent the place and had to slap a paw over his face to keep from sneezing as a wash of dust slammed into his nostrils. He had the instinctive feeling that a sneeze at his size would instantly destroy Lyra’s invisibility.

 

He passed by a desk where a purple scaled Drake sat, a pair of wire rimmed spectacles balanced on the bridge of her muzzle. It wasn't the first time Rain had seen a Drake but he was always surprised by how similar they looked to Kobolds. In a lot of ways they were to Kobolds what Orcs or maybe Humans were to Goblins, the larger stouter leveler cousins of the monsters. 

 

Looking at her now he wondered for a moment if Bean was simply an extremely stunted and skinny Drake, but then Drakes did not have neck frills, nor did they have fangs long enough to peek from their lips. It didn't seem likely. Bean was an enigma.

 

The purple scaled drake paused in her reading and looked up. 

 

Rain blinked. “Those glasses, she can't see us, right?” he whispered.

 

Lyra gripped his ear. 

 

“No, they aren't violet lensed, they‘re just normal glasses, keep going.”

 

Rain took a step forward and let out a breath of relief as the Drake's gaze remained, unmoved, a puzzled expression on her face quickly replaced as a long bearded mage approached her. Rain swiftly stepped by them and entered into the library proper, passing into one of the many shelf lined passages leading out of the hall.

 

Stairs and shelves. The complex wasn't an open place and as he went deeper he found the place almost claustrophobic, barely enough space for him between towering shelves that reached the ceiling and spread in every direction, rows and grids sometimes, but more often than not the shelves went in out in any angle, a crazily branching maze lit gloomily by glowing glass orbs.

 

When there weren't branching rows of shelves there were halls like the entrance hall, two-storey spaces open in the middle with reading desks.

“Not here, deeper, where no one goes,” murmured Lyra.

 

He continued on through the maze of passages until it opened up on one side and he froze seeing the view over the railing.

 

The floors dropped away beneath them into the gloom, floors and floors lined with books, a vast rectangular chamber dozens of storeys deep, countless bridges reaching across from gallery to gallery, the space stretching into the distance, unending shelves, unending books. Here he could distantly see people, if only because of how much space it encompassed. 

 

The truth was the library wasn't entirely underused, it was just so mind-bogglingly vast that even thousands of people could disappear in this place.

 

He passed on from the huge chamber and back into the warren of passages where the passage split, then split again and again. The area they were in now appeared more run down than others they had passed through, and very very old. He had to put real work into not sneezing from the disturbed dust.

 

He walked for minutes and didn't see a single other person. It was perfect. He stopped at the next reading space, a smaller more cloistered spot with a privacy door and maybe a dozen reading desks.

 

Lyra dropped the invisibility and climbed awkwardly down from his shoulder to the floor.

 

“This is perfect. No one will find us here, at least I hope not, but I mean who would even come here? This place is a dump!” She looked around at it proudly, hands on hips.

 

Her wool suddenly washed to black and Red, who had apparently been leaning against the other side in wool space fell through with a yelp and crashed to the ground. A skull with green flaming eyes was latched onto his head.

 

He flailed around clutching at his leg in distress “OWOWOWOWOWW!”

 

Lyra rolled her eyes and grabbed the edge of the bundle of cotton on his leg then jammed the neck of a healing potion bottle down it. A few glugs of fluid poured out and she then snatched it back and quickly screwed the cap back on.

 

“Oh gods the pain! The… pain?”

 

Red paused and examined his leg, experimentally moving it back and forth. 

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yes, oh,” said Vash from atop his head. “So this would be one of the libraries you mentioned brute.” he sniffed and jumped off Red’s head, his chicken bone spider legs cushioning his landing.

 

“This is what I want your help with, I want to know what I am, what kind of monster, and…” he paused and glanced at Opal “What dangers that might cause,” 

 

Vash followed his gaze, “Ah, I see how it is. The follies of the living, to create new life in such a way, how nasty.”

 

“You play around with rotting corpses! You don't get to talk,” glowered Opal who was busily perching herself on one of the reading area’s chairs.

 

“Play. Please, what I do is art in one of its purest forms. Necromancy is using nature's base clay to its utmost, whereas the living are but a child’s clumsy mud pile a great undead is a sculpture’s masterwork unparalleled amongst life.”

 

“Necromancy isn't what you are here for. I need your help as a scholar, not as an undead.”

 

“You don't have to tell me that, and I am quite familiar with this particular library.”

 

Lyra and Rain stared at the skull. “You… what?”

 

This just seemed to annoy Vash. “Yes, look around you, how many centuries old do you think this place is? I spent years in libraries when I was alive, many of them in this city, Florens, and that includes this one.”

 

Rain recalled the kind of old snooty mages that frequented the library in Lythiia. Yep, the skull’s outlandish claim did somehow seem believable.

 

Vash narrowed his flame eyes and flicked a boney limb at the shelves. A cluttering rattle came from beneath them and after a moment small white bones began to spill free with a wash of dust. Amongst the bones and buckets of dust were rat skulls. 

 

“Not of the worst quality,” tutted Vash as he examined the bones which were piling up and forming skeletons. “I suppose a library is much like a tomb in keeping remains at least a little respectable.”

 

The twenty or so rat skeletons finished forming and scampered toward him, forming a row on the floorboards.

 

“I didn't ask you to do that,” gravelled Rain, eyeing the rat skeletons with concern.

 

“Do you want to find out what you want to know this century? Do you have any idea how vast and absurdly disorganised this library is? Trust me, this is the way to do things, take advantage of my expertise in navigating libraries and I shall have researched your peculiar species in no time at all. It will be easy.”

 

The rats began to work, scurrying over to the shelves then up, pausing by each book and looking it over, sometimes pulling a book free if the spine was too worn to read so they could examine the cover. 

 

Rain had to admit that his chances of finding out the truth went up a lot with Vash’s help. He watched as they worked their way through the room, some of the rats darting out into the hall to explore the rest of the library as others remained.

 

“I shall, ah, just do a little solo study, this library is very large, it will be most efficient if I work alone, I shall see you… momentarily.”

 

Rain watched the skull scuttle casually toward the door. In a flash his paw whipped out and palmed the skull, lifting it into the air, chicken bone legs waving madly.

 

“What is the meaning of this!?” cried Vash.

 

“Did you think I would just let you do as you please? To go wandering off into this library never to return? You don't have to say it, I can read you like a book. You thought this was your chance to escape.”

 

“Nonsense! Not true, n-not true!”

 

Rain’s paw closed and the skull’s bone let out a creaking groan as a huge amount of pressure was applied, about to buckle and pulverise.

 

Vash’s voice stilled in fear.

 

“You take me for a fool because I am a monster. You call me brute because you think I am one step above being a mindless animal.”

 

Darkness rolled and boiled up around the skull, nightmarish claws and teeth and talons and pincers scratching and scraping against the skull’s bone.

 

“You can keep thinking that if you wish Vash. But you will be sharing that body of yours.”

 

“Wh-what?”

 

“Sharing it... with me.” Rain lifted his lips in a wolfish grin and a centipede snaked out of the darkness, coiling around the skull and then slipping through the opening for the spine. In moments the two foot long centipede had slithered into the skull's empty cranium and had curled up into a tight ball.

 

Rain placed the skull on the nearest table.

 

Vash remained frozen, his eye flames unmoving.

 

Opal prodded it.

 

“I think you killed him.”

 

“He’s still there, just not very happy about the situation.”

 

The skull slowly tilted to the side, a black centipede leg could be seen moving in the back of its eye socket.

 

“I-,” said Vash, “Don't like this. I feel… strange.”

 

“Good. This way you cannot leave without my say so. If you try something I will have that thing I placed inside your skull drag you back to me. You won't be able to fight it. It's very strong. It would only take flex of its body to shatter your skull to pieces and then you will once more be comatose until your bone regenerates.”

 

Vash suddenly rounded on him, eye flames flashing.

 

“You treat me, the greatest necromancer of a century as- as some disobedient pet?!”

 

“Yes.”

 

Vash’s jaw flopped open in wordless outrage.

 

“You won't even notice it’s there, you don't have a sense of touch, you are literally made of bone.”

 

“It still feels wrong and- and heavy! Gods damn you! Even I don't know what this material you are able to conjure is, you could have put dangerous toxic poison in me for all I know!”

 

“Can skulls get poisoned?”

 

“Well... no, but that's not the point!”

 

Rain rolled his eyes. “You agreed to help me find my species. Will you keep your word or not?”

 

Vash drew up on his chicken bone spider legs. “I always keep my word, I intended to keep my word from the start! I am a skull of honour!”

 

“Sure. By that you mean you intended to leave your rats to search for the relevant book while you left. I think you are underestimating how hard this is going to be. If you had left and your rats couldn't find anything then you would be breaking your word. Don’t deny it.”

 

Vash seemed more peeved by the accusation than having a centipede put in his unfeeling cranium, although Rain was fairly sure what annoyed the ancient necromancer most of all was that his plan to flee had been thwarted by an ‘uncivilized’ monster.

 

The skull harrumphed and turned his back on him. The rat skeletons continued to check book after book, occasionally pulling one free and dragging it down to be piled by one of the desks for them to examine.

 

Opal swung her legs back and forth as she perched on the chair.

 

“Sooo, what am I supposed to do?”

 

“That’s simple,” said Rain, “I’m going to teach you to read, this time for real.”

 

Opal squinted at him. “I guess that’s... good,” she patted her belly. “Plus it would be neat if I could teach this ‘reading’ too.”

 

Rain carefully perched on a bench on the opposite side of the desk from her, which by some miracle managed to take his weight, albeit with an alarming dip in the middle. A rat skeleton approached to his surprise and handed him a book. He examined it and found it was a book aimed at teenagers. He pushed it across the desk toward Opal who looked at it with curiosity.

 

Lyra stood awkwardly by them.

 

“So, ah, I think I’m going to go do some sleuthing and investigating, for, you know, your murderers? Libraries aren't really my thing...”

 

“You can’t go out there, it’s too dangerous, what if you are attacked by a gang again?”

 

“That was just because it was a bad area. You think that kind of thing would happen in the place where we picked up the potions? There’s no way there will be any gangs around there, the wealthy and leveled wouldn't stand for it. I should be fine, and I mean, how else are we going to find out what you need to know without talking to people?”

 

Rain didn't have an answer for that. After a moment of internal struggle he agreed with some stipulations. 

 

“Take Red with you and.. something else.”

 

“Really? He’s useless!”

 

“Hey! I swung a sword!”

 

“Yeah, into your leg.”

 

The dimensional bag had been placed on the desk by Opal and Rain picked it up as they argued and overturned it. Gold poured out onto the floor along with various other treasures, including the paired Inkerchange, the smaller other half of which was in Lyra’s back pocket. He placed it on the desk then pushed it to one side, putting down the now empty dimensional bag beside it, all while ignoring Red’s complaints about disrespecting the gold.

 

He raised his paws over the desk’s surface and waggled his digits, a crafter readying to work. 

 

Darkness poured from his fur and formed a blob of shadow between his paws. The now over two foot wide blob came to rest on the desk, a pitch black spot in the room that magnetically drew the eye.

 

He focused on it and pushed his will into it, forcing it to form as he desired. The blackness started to take shape, a cat’s head forming at one end, a pair of centipede pincers at the other. The black at the base sucked upward, cat legs appearing, the claws like talons similar to a Panthara. He finished his creation off in a burst of inspiration, a pair of owl wings emerging from its back, stretching out and fluttering. He’d created a super sized house cat with wings and talons and a centipede for a tail.

 

The cat chimera blinked up at him with starry eyes, then experimentally flapped its wings.

 

Perfect. Sort of. He was still getting the hang of this. He doubted the thing could actually fly, but it didn’t matter. 

 

He turned to the bag and lifted it, the cat happily scampered across the table and hopped into the bag, disappearing from sight.

 

“Uhm, it's cute but I really don't think this is a good idea…”

 

“Cute?”

 

Rain shook his head, that really wouldn't work. He'd gotten so caught up in making it that he hadn't considered what he really wanted it to do which was to protect and intimidate. He held his paw over the bag and darkness waterfall into it, a storm of nightmarish talons and teeth and centipedes, a stream of horrors.

 

Lyra paled. “S-slightly less cute, uhm, I hope you don't expect me to walk around with that?”

 

Rain held out the bag for her.

 

“I’m only letting you do this extremely reluctantly, if something goes wrong I want you to use this and then flee, use your invisibility while they are distracted by the bag... Got it?”

 

Lyra hesitantly took the bag of horrors.

 

“I shouldn't have to use this, it should be fine…”

 

Red and Lyra left through the door as Opal tried to sound out words from her book.