The Mother of Monsters

The footsteps raced across the marble floor, but echoes in the chamber muddied up Teyva's sense of the closest intruder's position. She re-planted her grip on the knife. Is the knife even going to help? What if they're made of something it can't cut? What if [Chill Touch] won't work?

Her thoughts were interrupted when she realized that the echoes were subsiding— the running had stopped. She looked left and right— but no one had jumped out to kill her. She let out a breath she had forgotten she had been holding. She steeled herself and turned over to crawl to one side of the sarcophagus. From there, she eased her head out just enough to peek into the tomb. Her eyes went wide.

A woman stood, her back to the closest pillar to Teyva and the sarcophagus. She was peering over her shoulder and past the pillar into the gloom beyond the exit. She was tall, broad-shouldered, and athletic— her skin color somewhere between a slate gray and very pale green. She wore a sleeveless tunic— some sort of chain-mail peeking out from the edges of the cloth. In her right hand, she brandished a sword that made Teyva's knife feel woefully inadequate in the case of a fight.

With her head turned, Teyva couldn’t get a good look at her face, but she could see flared points of her ears on the side of her head and a severe ponytail of dark gray hair pulled back behind her head. She was all business. Judging by the way she was huffing, though, she had been running for a while.

Before she realized, emerald green eyes rounded on Teyva.

Teyva darted back behind the sarcophagus, cursing herself. Bad habits die hard, don’t they? she thought. Here she was, gawping at the elf when the lady was probably ready to kill her. Of course she got caught. She closed her eyes and groaned, “Stupid!” she muttered, pressing her head against the smooth stone behind her. She drew up the knife again. It felt pointless.

“You.”

Teyva jumped, looking guiltily back and up at the woman who had stepped around the sarcophagus to crouch just a few feet away from Teyva. Her sword was in her hand, but it was also lowered. Teyva glanced up at her pretty face and swallowed.

“Uh… me,” she responded stupidly.

“Name yourself,” the woman demanded, “Why are you in a place like this?”

Teyva blinked, taken aback by the blatant command in the woman’s tone. Her first instinct was to just answer the question, but something felt wrong with that. She frowned, shifting her weight a little to keep her back away from the woman.

“Who’s asking?” She shot back; “Kinda rude asking someone’s name without giving yours first, don’t you think? Especially since you’re the one trespassing,”

It was the woman’s turn to look a bit affronted; she jerked back at the sharp response; “Excuse me? Trespassing?”

“I live here!” Sure, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense and it wasn’t exactly accurate, but it at least partially answered the question, “So are you going to tell me why you’re in my home or not?”

Yeah— that’s right Teyva— throw the question back at the scary lady brandishing a longsword. She could only probably kill you in half a dozen ways before you could get up. Teyva’s smile widened— possibly a bit too much as it hit her that it didn’t matter— she’d just come back to life shortly thereafter.

To her surprise, the woman nodded curtly. “Azrael Unabi— I am a Warden in the service of the Azar people,” She said, raising her left hand to her right shoulder and inclining her head; “I am currently fleeing a group of humans who seek my death. I was tasked with visiting their lands to deliver a message of peace from my king.”

Teyva blinked. There were about a million questions that came to her mind now, but she would have to let those aside for a moment. There wasn’t time, considering those other humans were in shouting distance.

“Ian- er… Teyva Akura, call me Teyva,” she responded clumsily. “Woke up here about a week ago. Maybe more. Broke the Tomb Guardian. It’s been a while— been trying to find a way out of this tomb when you showed up.”

Azrael raised her eyebrows.

“What? You wanted an honest answer. There it is!” Teyva shot, finally growing tired of holding her knife and dismissing it back into her inventory. Azrael glanced down at Teyva's hand and back up at her face.

“Was that your Aspect power? A pocket space?” She asked.

More questions sprang into Teyva's mind. Why had she assumed it was her Aspect power? Did no one else have an inventory like she did? She supposed since she got the ability from [Spark of the Outsider] that meant it was outside of the normal rules of the world. Teyva searched quickly for the best answer she could come up with on short notice; “One of them, yeah.”

“One of-” Azrael asked, incredulous, only for the very distant sound of shouts to interrupt her by echoing into the chamber. Azrael shook her head and drew in a bit closer; “Can you use your Aspect powers to fight? You said you killed a tomb guardian.”

Teyva turned away, scratching her neck a little; “Uh… maybe? I just got them.”

“Just got— oh Goddess help me,” Azrael groaned, “How did you defeat this guardian of the tomb then?”

“I got lucky! Jeez! I didn’t sign up for an inquisition!” Teyva shot back, “Why do I need to fight anyway? You look plenty tough. And I don’t have any issues with the other humans!”

“You are not wrong. But— I can't subdue them on my own— not with the mage they have in their group. I would have to kill them,” She paused and grew serious; “More importantly, you will have to defend your own life when they arrive.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if I can tell that you are not human, they most certainly can. That is excuse enough for them to kill you,” She explained, looking a little frustrated; “Have you not met humans before?”

“Uh— yeah. Plenty,” Teyva ground out; “None of them tried to kill me, as far as I know.”

“You did wake up here alone, yes? Who brought you here? Are you sure there isn’t anyone else?”

“That isn’t—” Another shout cut off Teyva's retort. The two women looked toward the entrance of the tomb. There was still no sign of the humans approaching. Teyva let out a breath and scratched her head. There was no point in arguing about this right now. “Okay, okay, what do you need me to do?”

“What do your Aspect powers do? You should instinctively understand the basics, at least,” Azrael said.

“I can… make cold with my hands and cause pretty bad frostbite, I think— I haven’t tried it yet. I can also make very small creatures that produce acid from their fangs.”

Azrael made a confused face and canted her head to the right. She gave Teyva an appraising look; “What are your Aspects called?”

“Pale Dawn and the Facsimile,” Teyva answered, confused.

“How do—” Azrael began to ask before holding up her hands in exasperation and surrender. She was becoming just as confused as Teyva was. It sounded like the humans were searching every inch of the space outside the tomb, or choosing to move slowly in the dark. It was fortunate they hadn’t found the tomb itself yet. That said; Teyva had no idea how big the rest of the tomb was, or how deep they were underground.

“How many of your creatures can you make?” She asked.

“Well, I can find out right now,” Teyva responded, pulling back her sleeves. She hadn’t expected to try out the [Create Mockery] ability just yet, but now was as good a time as any. A little excitement crossed her face as she held out her hand. Power inside of her raged like a beast pulling against a chain in her grip. She eased her grip on the chain. Something flooded through her like the warmth from drinking hot cocoa on a winter day. The warmth began in her chest and moved out to her limbs.

Something oozed from her palm; a colorless, formless mass that steadily took the shape of a disk in her palm. Before long, color began to flood over its surface until it turned into what she recognized as a single golden coin about two inches across. It shone a little bit in the ambient firelight, glinting like real gold.

“Is that a coin?” Azrael asked, peering into her palm.

“It’s called a mockery,” She said, and almost jumped when the mockery abruptly grew four, tiny spider-like legs. About a half dozen eyes formed on its disk-shaped body in random places; blinking slowly as if waking from a deep sleep. A twisted coil of a mouth formed along one side; needle-like teeth bared as it inspected its surroundings. Teyva gaped in wonder, beaming at the mockery. “It’s so cute!” Teyva crooned, reaching with her free hand to stroke the rim of the coin. The creature hesitated and then leaned into the affection.

Azrael just stared at her.

“That is a mimic.”

“A very tiny adorable one,” Teyva responded.

“A flesh-eating predator,” Azrael insisted.

“And I bet he’s super hungry— aren’t you, sweetie?” Teyva asked the tiny creature.

“I cannot believe I am asking you this, but— can you make more?”

Teyva looked up at Azrael, who had a mixture of fascination and disgust on her face. Teyva grinned and set the creature down on her knee before holding out her palm again. “Let’s find out!”

Teyva made a total of twenty of the little darlings before she began to feel woozy. “Hoo, I feel dizzy! What's up with that?” Azrael looked bewildered, but recovered to explain. “That's… mana sickness. You— why do you need to be tol— you need to stop. You’re drawing on your mana too fast. Being off-balance when the humans arrive will be fatal. The dizziness will wear off as your mana replenishes.”. Teyva wasn’t sure if the number she had made was impressive or not, but Azrael didn’t complain. Azrael watched as twenty gold coins crawled over nearby surfaces, some climbing slowly up the walls with no issue.

Azrael stared intently at the mockeries and looked back at the tomb exit. Teyva let a mockery dangle from her arm, laughing as the tiny legs tickled her skin.

“I have an idea,” Azrael said, a smile crossing her face. “You may just be the key to getting both of us out of here unscathed.”

A tone drew Teyva's attention away from Azrael for a heartbeat.

Teyva read the notice. Azrael waited on her response.

Teyva’s first instinct to was to refuse; this was dangerous. Secondly, Azrael had brought this danger to her doorstep. Teyva hadn’t asked for this. But she thought. At the same time, though, if what she says is true… Well, the quest confirms it. These hunters won’t have any mercy on me if I let them take out Azrael. Working together was the best way out of this mess. She smiled inwardly. My gamer senses are tingling. Haha! Reputation with another character! She couldn’t resist that. Fortunately, Azrael seemed competent enough that her quest would probably work out.

“Alright, I’m in. But— you owe me for this,” Teyva said, raising a finger.

Azrael hesitated and opened her mouth to argue, but nodded and conceded the point; “Fine,” She said, not sounding overly enthusiastic about being in debt to a stranger.

“Great. So what’s the plan?”