The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

Ptolema

You know, looking back, I should have realized we were being led around like a dog chasing a bone. I mean, the doors were all sealed off, so we gave up on going outside. And then this gas starts pouring in, so we end up running upstairs to get away from it. It's like we were following a script! We might as well have been golems, y'know?

I dunno much about psychology or anything like that, but I feel like if you can guess what people are gonna think the lowest-risk thing to do is, you can probably get them to them do whatever you want most of the time. There's some kinda market economics theory around that my dad talked about once, I think-- Whatever. What I'm tryin' to say is that we probably should have just busted out through a window or something, even if that would've been way more dangerous, just so we could throw the asshole planning all this off.

...assuming there was another person doing it. I mean, my gut was skeptical, but...

Ugh. Never mind.

We went up the stairs, and arrived at the second floor. Obviously, going down to find Seth had taken... I dunno, three, maybe four minutes? So I hadn't expected to see Fang or Anna there - they were probably at the armory already.

But something really surprising happened, because I saw Fang up ahead after all! It was dark and I didn't get a good look, but it was totally them. They were stepping through a door into a room I hadn't been into before, that didn't seem like one of the bedrooms, since the other doors near it were way more spaced out.

"Was that Fang?" Seth said, seeing it too.

"I think so," I frowned. "Where are they going, though? That's not the way to the armory."

"Maybe something happened?" he started whispering. "Or maybe they're up to something."

My eyes kinda boggled. "You mean, they might be--"

"I didn't say that," he cut me off. "Look. Let's just... We'll follow them - quietly - and take a look. And if it doesn't seem like they're doing anything weird, we'll say hi and link back up."

I frowned a bit. "But if we're like, sneaking, won't that make us look pretty suspicious, too?"

"We'll sneak in a casual way," he told me, with kinda a snarky look. "C'mon, let's go."

Again, I wanna go on the record as thinking this was kinda a dumb idea. Still, we slowly made our way down the hallway and approached the door, which looked a little different from the others, too - a little wider and with kinda a dark blue coat of paint. Seth reached out to pull the knob.

Of course, the door made a noisy creak that would've made us trying to be stealthy pointless anyway. Inside, though, was a different kinda surprise than getting our faces blown off because we couldn't stay quiet.

Unlike every other room we'd been to all night, this one was actually lit up. And not just in some ordinary way, mind you! The wall had this ornate pattern on it that was covered in bio-light, glowing a deep, pretty blue instead of the goldish-white from the lamp Seth had found. It looked like it was meant to depict the waves of the sea, but that might be me jumping to conclusions - it was kinda weird looking, with the lines sometimes forming what looked like more abstract-y kinda shapes.

It wasn't even that bright, but even just being in a lit room felt like a breath of fresh air. It felt like we'd been stumbling around in the dark for days!

As for what was actually in it, as I guess you'd expect with the decor, it was some kinda spa - like the one over by the guesthouse, but nicer. There were a few separate pools that I'd assume were kept at different temperatures most of the time, or maybe were for different people to use separately, or something like that. The light twinkled on the surface of the water.

There was another door opposite us, on the far side of the middle pool, that looked like it probably led out to the other side of the floor.

"Woah!" I said. "I didn't think there'd be a place like this in here!"

"Really?" Seth said, looking around. "I'm not too surprised, to be honest. Seems about par for the course--" He blinked a few times, then scrunched up his eyebrows at me. "Ema, we're supposed to be sneaking."

"Oh." I blinked. "Oh, sorry."

"Well, it doesn't look like anybody's actually in here," Seth said, looking around. "Fang must've already left."

"Yeah. I don't see anywhere to hide," I said. My eyes scanned the room, just to make sure I wasn't being stupid.

Then, all of a sudden, a brighter light sprung to life on the far left side of the room, against the right. For a sec, I thought we were under attack, and totally panicked! But then I looked closer, and it seemed like it was from a projector...? It was in a solid square on the wall, and the origin seemed to be a little box that'd been set up by the side of the pool.

"What the heck is that?" I blurted out.

Then, as if it could hear me, the projected image suddenly flickered, and changed from pure white light to what looked like text.

It read, in kinda over-the-top script like you'd see in a kid's book, 'THE TALE OF THE FAVORED PIGLET'.

"Oh, gods," Seth said. "What the hell is this?"

Fang

"W-Wait, Ptolema, don't-- Ahh, shit! Shit shit shit."

Okay, I'll admit: I kinda dropped the ball. Or like, acted a bit out of character, I wanna say? I like to think of myself as the heroic action star type; the sorta sicko who'll run straight into a burning building to save a damsel in distress! Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

I should have gone with her when we heard Seth scream like a baby - no offense, Seth, but your screams do have some pretty baby-adjacent points - instead of just sticking around at the top of the staircase and letting her basically leap straight off the banister half way down, which by the way was a really cool move. I guess I was juggling too many thoughts at the same time and had lost my edge.

Plus, Anna did stop me, taking hold of my arm. I mean, you know, I could have suplexed her or something. But that wouldn't really be gentlemanly behavior, you know?

"Stop it, you imbecile," she chided me. "Do you have a death wish? She's heading right back towards that beast."

"Yeah, that's why I'm trying to save her!" I objected.

"Don't be foolish!" she said, getting kinda hissy. "There's safety in numbers, we need to stay together!"

Ptolema was already gone - I couldn't even see her lamplight - and I'm not as athletic as I look, so it wasn't a sure bet that I'd catch up even if I went for it. And I knew that if I went after her, Anna wouldn't follow me, so one way or the other I'd be losing somebody. It felt like the best bet was just to let it go and hope things worked out!

That checks out, right? No...?

Well, let's just say I had a hunch nothing bad was gonna happen to her just yet. Or at least, half a hunch.

"Hey, easy!" I said to her, leaning away. "I'll stay! No need to get all handsy."

"Please give a modicum of indication that you are taking this situation remotely seriously," she said. "This is grave. That girl could have just walked right into certain doom. We could be next. And what's more, it is imperative we get out of here as swiftly as possible - if we miss our transposition window, we might as well have signed our own death warrants."

"Eh, don't worry too much." I looked at my watch. "We've still got... 40 minutes? Plenty of time." I grinned.

She looked at me like she kinda wanted to punch me a bit. I mean, I can't completely blame her.

"Okay, well." I said, clearing my throat as I made an effort to make a more serious face. "Let's, uh, get going to the armory. Then we'll go looking for the others."

We headed further up the stairs, up to the third floor, and cracked open the doors! Nothing seemed odd, so we headed straight back for the weird little lounge. On the way, I struck up some conversation with Anna, since this whole situation was, well, really fucking weird!

"Hey, so: Be real with me," I said. "Do you know what that thing which attacked us down below was? That some kinda dark secret you've been keeping locked up in a secret vault, or whatever?"

"No," she replied bluntly.

"No offense, but you're kinda lousy at lying," I told her.

She frowned. "Excuse me?"

"You've got kinda a tell? I mean, maybe it's not something you've noticed since, you know, your body changed and everything. And you usually keep your hood up-- I figure you put it down to make sure the golems would know who you are if we ran into any? Yeah, that'd add up."

"My-- What?"

"You squint," I told her. "Like, with your eyes. It happened back when you were talking about Hamilcar, too."

She said nothing, turning her head so I couldn't see her as she walked. Pretty cute behavior for a thousand-year-old lady.

"So what's the deal?" I asked. "With the monster. C'mon, you can bring me into the loop."

"There is no 'loop'," she replied, getting testy. "As I just told you despite your accusations, I have no idea what that creature was. There is no rational explanation for its existence."

"No rational explanation, huh."

We made it to the door to the armory, stepping inside - the passage behind the bookcase was still open, so we walked right in. Anna went straight for the grenades, not seeming to want to mess around.

"Here's what I'm thinking right now," I went on. "Right now, it seems like you're rattled in a way you haven't been all night, right? And like, you seem like the type of lady who really grounds herself in logical thinking. Even though lots of crazy crap has happened, you've done a really good job keeping your cool." I glanced around the room, just in case anything had changed. "If you knew nothing about what'd just happened, I think you'd still be like that - trying to think of a logical explanation."

"We should get the grenades," she said.

"So I think you do know what it is," I said, "but just think it's something that can't exist."

Seth

There's kinda a feeling you get after a while when wild shit just keeps happening.You lose your trust in reality and start to feel like you might be dreaming. That anything could happen next.

I was getting pretty damn close to that state at this point, though I'm sure that was exactly what the culprit wanted. My great uncle is a stage magician - don't ask - and he always used to say that the trick to that stuff is knowing how to direct people's attention, how to keep them looking where you want, or more important not looking where they shouldn't. Get that down, and you can shove a rabbit under the table in plain sight.

The slideshow rolled out pretty damn fast, to the point that I didn't even catch what everything read the first time. Still, I got the gist of it.

After the title, the second frame read: Once, there was a little piglet who lived with many other animals on a beautiful ranch in the countryside.

"Ranch?" Ema muttered, confused.

The frame flipped over. This time, it was a drawing, like something from a kid's storybook. It depicted a stereotypical looking farm like you usually see in these kinda things - big barn, wooden fence, you know the drill. The kind of thing that hasn't actually existed since the First Resurrection, but kept hanging around pop culture like the smell of piss after a bad party. Standing at the front was a man in a brown worksmans chiton holding a pitchfork, and behind him were a bunch of animals. Horses, pigs, cows, a bunch of different kinds of bird. One piglet in particular was resting against the side of his foot.

Wow ,I thought. Pretty archaic, huh.

It flipped over to a third frame. The rancher did not grow any crops. He made all of his money from selling meat in the local town. Every week he would take an animal into his shed to slaughter and take to his friend at the butcher's shop.

"Uuughh, gross!" Ema said, sticking her tongue out.

The next image appeared, showing the ranger leading a sheep into a small wooden building, then leaving with a dripping bag.

"Yeah," I said. "Guess this is from when they used to actually kill animals for meat instead of just growing it."

"They haven't done that since the Imperial Era!" she protested.

"Yeah," I said. "Dunno where the hell this is from... Or why it's started playing." I glanced around the room, double-checking to see if there was anything I was missing, but didn't spot anything odd. I even turned for a moment to look in the pools, the idea suddenly coming to me that maybe the killer could be holding their breath and hiding, waiting to ambush us once we were distracted. But the underwater illumination made it easy to nix that theory.

I did notice that the coloration in the biggest one seemed a little off, like it was dirty.

Yeah, yeah, I know... I was being kinda stupid, here. Leave off.

The story being shown on the slides continued, each section of text followed by a cutesy illustration.

However, there was one little piglet that the rancher became fond of. He decided he did not have the heart to slaughter him, and would instead keep him as a companion. So as other animals came and went, the piglet remained at the rancher's side.

The rancher let the piglet come into his house, and even play with his children and their dog and cat. But sometimes the piglet decided to sit in the field with the other animals. He would watch what they did and listen to them talk to while away the hours.

...but even when he did this, he wasn't sad when it was their time to be slaughtered. After all, the piglet knew it was just the way of things at the ranch.

When the proud and noisy goose that would saunter around the ranch was brought to the shed to be slaughtered, the piglet only watched.

When the little lamb that had only been in the farm for a few weeks and would always cry for its mother was brought into the shed to be slaughtered, the piglet only watched.

And even when the older pig, which had been at the ranch the longest, was brought into the shed to be slaughtered, the piglet only watched.

Sometimes, the rancher would keep a little meat for himself and his family, and sometimes, even share a little bit with the piglet. The piglet didn't mind. It was the way of things, after all.

"This is really creepy," Ema said, as the images flashed one after the other. "Like, this kinda story... In a way where it seems like it's meant for kids..."

I nodded loosely, kinda taken in. The last image showed a close-up of the piglet being fed what seemed like a chunk of steak, a happy expression on its weird little piggy face, while the rancher affectionately petted its back.

But one day, a new animal came to the ranch. It was a little calf who got along with the piglet very well. They liked to talk about the same things and play the same games, and soon became best friends.

So when the calf's day came to be taken into the shed, the piglet was very sad. It squealed and squealed, trying to stop the rancher from slaughtering the calf, but no matter what it did, he would not stop. After all, even though he was fond of the piglet, this was his job. Slaughtering animals was how he made a living.

After this, the piglet became resentful. Every time an animal was brought into the shed, he could only think of his friend being brought inside. Eventually, he started to hate the rancher, and think of himself more as like the other animals in the field.

So one day, the piglet followed the rancher into the shed. And right as he was wielding his knife, the piglet took him by surprise and tripped him up. So instead of killing the animal, the rancher fell on it and died.

Triumphant, the piglet ran into the field. "Wonderful news, wonderful news!" he cried out, expecting to be hailed as a hero. "I've slain the evil rancher who's killed so many of our kind!"

But instead, once they saw the rancher was gone, the other animals attacked the piglet. The sheep knocked him to the ground. The birds pecked at his eyes. The cattle stomped on his chest over and over until his bones broke. And when he was dead, the other pigs ate his body.

Why do you think that happened?

THE END

There was absolutely no pause from this final slide, which depicted the animals fleeing the ranch and leaving the torn-up body of the piglet behind in the distance (drawn mercifully in pretty low detail - not that the few slides previous had held much back. If I wasn't already going to be having nightmares for months just from having seen Bard's body, this would've been enough to linger for at least a couple nights) and the next, which was back to the title and starting the whole thing over.

"Oh gods," Ema said. "Was that it? That was awful!"

"Yeah," I said, slowly frowning.

"That poor pig!" She said, despondent.

"Yeah," I repeated, nodding along, and then blinked a few times, looking to her. "I'm, uh, not sure that was the-- Well, never mind. That's not important." I scratched my head. "Why the fuck would someone leave something like this set up for us to find?"

"I mean, it's gotta be the culprit, right?" she theorized. "Sending some weird message about their motive, or something."

"Maybe," I said, a little surprised I hadn't thought of that myself. "Whatever it was, though, it wasn't meant for us. I mean, not only do I not get it, I haven't even done anything."

"I guess..." she said, looking at the ground. "Come to think of it, though, what made it go on right when we came in here? I don't see anything that could've triggered it without the Power around. Do you think maybe Fang set it goin' by mistake on their way out?"

Or Fang and the culprit are the same person, I thought. And they just caught the wrong bait.

Bait.

"Oh, shit," I said, and ran back to the door we came in from.

"W-What is it?" Ema said, thrown off.

I tried the handle, only for my fears to be confirmed. "We're locked in!"

Ezekiel

Stop looking at me like that. I really don't think it's such a strange thing to have done.

I waited until the group had passed into the second floor corridor before I followed them up the stairs. I almost lost them right then and there, but eventually I caught notice of their voices again and tracked them down to one of the personal rooms belonging to the inner circle. I slipped into the adjacent room, which if I am not mistaken had been the property of the traitor-- Hamilcar, I mean to say. It was sparsely decorated, but seemed to have Ysaran styled furnishings, and the bed was obviously designed to be accommodating to someone with, to say it kindly, unusual physical circumstances.

What? Do I remember anything more specific about the room? Why would I?

Whatever. Anyway, as it turned out, the walls are rather thick between the bedrooms, so I wasn't able to make out a great deal of conversation, though I caught snippets about their apparent plot. Talking about people dying, making it up to the roof. I admit I relaxed during some points; it's tiresome pushing the side of your face into cold stone.

Anyway. After.. I don't know, five minutes? There was suddenly this strange, beast-like sound from overhead. I couldn't quite speak to what it sounded like; the Rhunbardi girl is the animal expert. There was some stomping, though, that did remind me of the creature we encountered down below. So perhaps it was simply capable of creating different manners of cries.

Regardless, those thoughts soon escaped my mind, as there was suddenly an incredibly loud gunshot from outside, which I recognized as the discharge of a Mnemonic League L14 Matter Acceleration Rifle. This took me quite off guard, and I feared that I'd been found and was under attack. So I concealed myself behind the frame of the over-large and obviously reinforced bed, hoping to ambush my pursuer. I heard Kamrusepa shout some sort of threat from outside, and I thought for certain the moment was upon me.

However, that turned out not to be the case, and I soon heard my quarry begin to move on. I surmised from their movements they were headed towards the stairs.

I will confess to some weakness of fortitude in this moment - shaken and unsure by what had just occurred, I decided I would not follow them at once, but take a moment to investigate the room they had just departed. From the state of it, I deduced they had stolen some valuable from the late doctor, and had also pilfered something from his supply of drugs, though what was a mystery to me.

I was quickly punished for my failure, however, as I suddenly heard movement from the doorway. I turned sharply as it opened, and--

There it was. Standing dead in front of me.

...what do you mean, 'what'?

The monster, of course.

Fang

Anna didn't say anything, and just went around the corner to the grenade shelf. Which, y'know, seemed about right - she's the type who seems good at keeping her cool, keeping things on the down low... Keeping generally. But you know me. I'm the type of person who doesn't see a point in getting up in the morning if I'm not gonna push my luck.

"I'm gonna put down a theory here. Just spitballing," I said. "You and the other council members have been trying to cover something up through all of this. Something that, up until now, you've thought has been unrelated to the actual, well, murders."

"This is baseless speculation delivered at the worst possible time," she said, as I tip-toed around the corner after her.

"I mean, fair, this is a bad time," I admitted. "But baseless? Ehh, not so sure about that." I leaned my hands behind my head. "I keep going back to when we first found you in the tower. You said that Durvasa had vanished when you and others had gone looking for supplies, right? Isn't it kinda weird that you split up in the first place, when you'd just seen that message from the culprit?"

"We had no context for the severity of the threat," she said flatly.

"Right, right! I think somebody made a comment like that." I curled my lip under the side of my forefinger. "But that's kind of like saying that you'd have no problem shoving your hand into a wasp's nest because it might be abandoned, don't you think? Just by getting that message and making some quick checks, it'd be easy to tell that whoever you've up against was some kinda insider with control over the system you have here. Most people would be spooked enough by that to stick together."

She didn't reply to that one.

"And you didn't seem too spooked about it, either. Even when there was a giant hole in the floor. And even when there was a reinforced door leading out of the sanctuary that looked like it'd been ripped off its hinges behind that."

"If you're accusing me of murder," she spoke, slowly turning her head to face me, "then say it plainly, child."

"Woah, slow down," I said, holding up my hands. "I'm not accusing you of anything. Well, at least not murder."

"Then what exactly are you suggesting?" she asked, looking kiiiinda like she wanted to rip my throat out.

"Man, how to put this into words..." I scuffed my boot against the floor a bit, looking over the rifles lining the shelves. "Like, if there was a guy who claimed every time he went out into the country that he saw a UFO, and then one day went on a trip with his friends where they all saw one together, only to be all shocked and go 'oh my god, a real UFO!' ...that'd be a little suspicious, don't you think?"

Anna frowned at me. "When I said to speak plainly, I meant it, not to use a confusing and meandering metaphor--" Her eyebrows perked up, and she sniffed the air. "Do you smell that odor?"

I squinted, sorta confused, and sniffed the air. "You mean the, uh, corpse-stink? From the body?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Not that. Something more recent." She craned her neck upwards a bit. "It smells like gas."

I wrinkled my nose.

The two of us went around the corner, to the source of both of the weird smells - the hatch. It seemed basically the same as earlier. Body? Check. Multiple story drop? Check.

"Huh," I said.

"There must be some manner of leak down below," Anna spoke up, her tone a little tense. "Perhaps caused by what happened earlier. This is problematic. Now it will be risky to make use of our weapons - including the grenades and soon to even make our way back downstairs."

"Huuuuh," I repeated, drawing it out.

I sniffed again, this time a little harder.

"We'll need to leave at once," she said. "Make for one of the remaining doors. It is dangerous, but if we move quickly, we might--"

"I'm gonna go maverick for a sec," I said.

She seemed thrown off a bit, stopping in the middle of her sentence and turning to gawk at me in confusion. "What?"

I grabbed a pistol off the shelf, knelt down, and shot it.

Ptolema

"Oh, hell!" I said, as I tried the other door, only to find it was locked too. "I feel so dumb! We totally got tricked!"

"The key I got from Theo's dad ain't working," Seth said, as I heard metal clattering around on the other side of the room. "They must have done something to fuck up the lock or block the door-- How the hell didn't we hear?

"That stupid slideshow!" I shouted. "It was so weird I stopped paying attention to anythin' important!" I looked over at him, getting worked up. "What are we gonna do?!"

"Guess there's no choice," he said, stepping back and gritting his teeth. "If we can't open the door, we'll have to kick it down!"

He said that, and I wanted to get hyped about it, but to be honest, I was kinda skeptical. I mean, the doors here are weirdly big and thick, just the rest of the building. And Seth is, well. Kinda a scrawny guy.

Still, he gave it a good shot! He ran at it with what was basically a battle cry and smashed his heel into the wood, and then when that didn't really do anything other than make an honestly pretty subdued thud, he tried over and over for about a minute, even as he started sweating and gasping for breath like crazy. In the end, I basically had to yell at him that he was gonna hurt himself before he'd finally quit it.

Even then, he wasn't exactly happy.

"Fuck," he said. "Fuck fuck fuck! We're like rabbits caught in a trap! Something's probably gonna pop out and kill us any second!"

"Cool it!" I yelled, trying to stop him from freaking out. "There's nothing in here! They're probably just planning to leave us here until they can light the gas and cook the whole building!"

"You say that like it's better!" He protested, eyes wide.

I blinked. Now that I thought about it for a second, it wasn't really much better. "B-But they'll need to wait for the gas to be thick enough to do that! This place is all brickwork - it'll take forever to burn if they just start a fire downstairs and leave it at that. So we still have some time!"

"We're trapped," he said, his teeth almost chattering a bit. I know I can be the same way sometimes, but Seth really acts like a scaredy-cat when he's backed into a corner. "Even if we have time, there's no way out."

"Yeah there is," I started rifling through my bags. "I've still got my surgical tools. I can use my bone saw to cut through whatever they've jammed it with, or even the door frame if I gotta." I found the tool, which was basically just a rectangle of sharp metal with a little magnetic motor attached. (I usually just used my artificed one which could slice through anything under the sun in seconds, and had only brought this old-fashioned model to the conclave since I got neurotic and over-prepared - thank my lucky stars for that!) "It's reinforced bronze. It can get through basically anything!" I clicked in the little trigger-thingy that was supposed to make it start working.

But when it started whirring, something was off. The motor made a weird whining noise, the the blade moved weirdly slow.

"Oh, crap..." I said, frowning.

"What's wrong?" Seth asked, looking worked-up.

"It's busted," I said. "I think the motor's dying. This might end up taking a while."

"How much time?" he asked.

"Uhh," I said. "I dunno. Depends on how much I gotta saw through."

As it turned out, it was kinda a lot!

Ezekiel

I didn't shy away from the fight, but all the same, the thing - man or monster, or whatever else on Anue's earth - was on me like a ravenous beast. It leapt at me and threw us both to the ground, my lamp falling from my hand and rolling towards the window, casting the entire scene in darkness.

We wrestled. I felt its body upon me, felt it bring its all to bear in a savage effort to pin my limbs to the floor as I desperately tried to find purchase on its leathered, feathery hide. It seemed preternaturally strong and unresponsive even as I struck it, and was utterly silent even as what must have been its beak pressed painfully against my face.

I cannot say how long we fought - the white fury of combat overtook me, and for a short time I gained the advantage, wrapping my arms around its wretched, slimy body and throwing us both backwards towards the door. I could feel it wince and I delivered the blow. Things continued in such a manner for a time, but eventually it touched my face with... Something, and I began to feel myself losing consciousness. I fell backwards towards the window and the light, getting my first look at it for a while, albeit as my vision blurred. I saw the light shining on its brown-red form.

However, something seemed to preoccupy it suddenly, though I could hear nothing to indicate what. It sharply turned and ran from the area, leaving me behind.

I thought to strike it from the rear as it left, claiming my due satisfaction, but even though whatever it was doing seemed to have stopped too soon to knock me out completely, it was still enough to render me prone for some time. I could barely move my arms and legs, only watch hopelessly as it scurried away, its head jerking animalistically around the corner.

I lay like that for some time, forcing my eyes to stay open, until finally my strength returned to me to an extent. I managed to take hold of my lamp and stumble out into the hallway.

By this point, the scent of gas had grown noticeable even on the second floor, and in my diminished state I could think of nothing else to do but to try and seek higher ground. If I was already too late and the others had already perpetrated the murder they'd seemingly been planning, then so be it; I would face my fate, come what may.

I stumbled my way to the staircase and ascended half way, but whatever that damn thing had done to me, it lingered. The exertion made it feel as though I was Sisyphus himself, and fell on one knee, all but gasping for breath. My muscles ached, and my head ached even more; I couldn't even focus enough on the present moment to try and guess at how I'd probably been drugged; all my years of education in Neuromancy felt like a distant dream.

I was only vaguely aware of voices calling out at me from further down the stairwell; three figures, different from the ones I'd been tracking earlier.

The Mekhian. The Viraaki. Theodoros. They ran over to me and hoisted me to my feet.

They seemed to have a mind to drag me with them upwards, and I had little ability to protest, nor even to voice of the potential danger-- Try as I might. But as my head lulled and my eyes fell downwards... I saw it, perched at the base of the stairs. Not the smaller one, but the true beast we'd encountered in the underground, grotesque and impossible, like a daemon out of old lore.

And then, like a leopard, it leapt.

And in its wake came fire.