The Mother of Monsters

It took two days for Teyva and Azrael to clear out the first floor of the catacombs above the library. The two of them had been fighting constantly since they agreed on their plan. They had opted to take turns, going back and forth between resting, meditating, and fighting in order to maximize their time and experience. Teyva was still suffering with a penalty to her experience growth which slowed things down a little. Even so, about four hours before Queenie came back empty-handed and reported the first-floor clear Teyva hit level eight with Azrael hitting level seven shortly after that.

Teyva and Azrael took turns resting and distributing their attribute points. Teyva opting to dump all of her points into Influence to bring it up to match her Willpower. With the overall strength of her spells increased she hoped she could provide some sort of magical aid with her non-[Pale Dawn] related abilities. She also had to consider that her influence empowered her summons as well. After that she spent her Aspect Shard, spending quite a bit of time deciding on what ability to pick. She had been originally planning on picking up another [Pale Dawn] ability when they came down into Nulukam but with the current situation, she turned her attention to her other aspects.

Eventually, she settled on [Labyrinthine Shield] as a security blanket.

Azrael on the other hand decided to spend her Aspect Shard on her [Warden] aspect, awakening an ability called [Crucible] in which her defense and damage increased as the number of nearby enemy combatants increased. It was as they were going over their new abilities with one another that something occurred to Teyva. She turned to Azrael and raised a hand, “Question.”

Azrael rolled her eyes, “Yes?”

“Why haven’t you used your [Packleader] ability yet? It sounds pretty cool to get your own Wolf companion,” Teyva said thoughtfully.

Azrael shook her head, “Not interested, I’ve never been really fascinated with summoning magic to begin with and like I told you a while back, summoners tend to form strange bonds with their summons. More importantly they normally have a significant mental burden that comes with maintaining any number of creatures.”

“I haven’t felt anything like that,” Teyva said.

“I know, it’s weird,” Azrael retorted, making a playfully disgusted face, “You’re weird.”

“Hey!” Teyva laughed, “My babies have been plenty helpful.”

“Can’t argue there, you really do get used to them too,” Azrael said, scooping up one of the mockeries as it skittered past her and let it crawl over her hand like a spider, “I will admit, they’re pretty cute once you get past just about everything about them.”

Teyva let the backhanded compliment slide and glanced at her haul of loot. 

There was also an ever-growing pile of [Labyrinthian Hook Blade]s laying on the ground next to her. She hadn’t the foggiest idea what she was going to do with them but she had them ready to be collected when they left. She figured having the mountain of items clogging her inventory was a bad idea. What she hadn’t expected was how little they found in the way of variable loot. No special gear, no drops, no cool items of any kind. Just money and swords. It hadn’t really bothered Teyva, she had some good stuff already thanks to Tiisha, but it still felt a little odd to her. She figured she was just applying logic from home to something that really didn’t work the way she thought.

When Queenie returned from her latest trip a few hours later, Teyva and Azrael decided it was time to actually go down and explore the floor below. They’d grown fairly comfortable in their campsite and so they had to spend a little extra time breaking everything down. Teyva decided to leave the walls up just in case they had to make a quick retreat and Azrael agreed it was for the best. With their gear collected and the lazy Nephral awake and set on her shoulders, they finally made their way down the hall and into the main building for the first time.

The pair descended the stairs until they opened up into a large antechamber that stretched forward toward a pair of open doors. The first thing Teyva noticed was a heady stale odor in the air, it smelled just faintly of death. The air was thick with humidity, which didn’t bode well. Like many Labyrinthian structures Teyva had seen before, the first thing she noticed was the light source. Pillars about the height of a person were spaced throughout and topped with large bowl-shaped braziers that burned ceaselessly. In the flickering light, Teyva could make out murals on the walls and Labyrinthian writing engraved beneath. She frowned and stepped away from Azrael, following the wall around the room and taking the time to read the passage. It described the construction of what was actually a place of learning for their people. Not just a library, but an entire school. Apparently, they had intentionally built the library beneath the lake to use it as a water source.

“It’s a school,” Teyva said stepping over to another set of words. Azrael moved to follow her but Teyva held her hand up, “Wait, let me finish reading before you look at them too closely.”

Azrael froze in place while Teyva continued to read. She felt a stirring of pride in her gut that she knew wasn’t her own. The way the words were written were to instill a sense of spirit in those who read them, school spirit? She chuckled a little as she went over a passage describing the first headmaster. The man had one hell of a name, ‘Paraklytus’. According to the wall the man had stepped down from his position as vizier to Teyva Rani in order to spend his last days as an educator of the new generation. Teyva shrugged and stepped away, “It talks about the founder, that’s about it. He used to work for Teyva Rani,” She said, “Her name is all over the place, ‘built in her glory’.” She spat on the ground. “What a conceited-”

“Teyva, don’t let her get to you,” Azrael said, “You’ll beat her in the end.”

Teyva sighed, “Yeah, I know, that’s why we’re here,” She said more for herself than for Azrael’s benefit.

She ran her clawed hands through her hair and approached the pair of doors at the other end of the room, framed by yet another set of brazier-capped pillars. She peered through into the space beyond and froze, “What the hell is this?”

Azrael hurried to her side and stopped in the frame of the doorway to stare in horror at the scene before them. There were bones everywhere, big and small, bodies lay strewn through the halls laying in various poses of distress and lamentation. Some were curled on their sides, some lay the rotted remains of cloth mats, others were huddled in corners with their hands over their heads. The bones were thin and emaciated, some were damaged, and many were clearly not warriors in any way. Teyva turned her head to look down the hallway that stretched down to her right, there were open doors here and there leading into what she could only assume were lecture halls and offices.

“Are those children?” Azrael breathed, raising her hands to her mouth.

“I think so,” Teyva said grimly, stepping into the room. “What happened here?”

Nephral leaped from her shoulder and prowled through the bodies, sniffing the air and peering at the bones. He stopped now and then to examine a corpse while Teyva and Azrael tried to get their bearings. Teyva pulled out Queenie and peered at the coin, “Can you show me where the stairs going down are, sweetie?” She asked. The creature’s wings burst out of its body and it hurtled into the air with a mental affirmative. She watched it rocket down the hall to their left and stop at a doorway at the end of the long hall. Teyva called the creature back and looked to Nephral.

“What do you think Neph?”

“This person starved to death,” Nephral murmured, “This one was very sick, there is mottling on the bone,” he added, “This one was wounded.”

“You told me once that there was a war against the Labyrinthians,” Azrael said, “That the other races rebelled against Teyva Rani.”

Teyva felt her stomach tighten, “You’re probably right. Civilians and wounded soldiers.”

“And the warriors who stayed behind to protect them,” Nephral said, “Are likely the ones we have been doing battle with.”

Teyva gripped her arms, “We don’t have a choice.”

Nephral nodded, “Harden your heart to it, Mother, it is a merciful thing to put down their restless souls.”

“Easier said than done,” Teyva said, swallowing hard, “It was easy to fight them while they were running down the hall like a bunch of mindless beasts. Knowing that they were just protecting this…” Teyva trailed off and looked at Azrael. 

Azrael turned and gave her a hard look. “Nephrals right, Teyva. We have a job to do here, we made a promise to the King and Elat is out there handling things without us so we can have time to do this. Do not back down now.”

Teyva let out a breath and shored up her resolve, “Okay, let’s keep moving then.”