by Ian Rodgers
With a satisfied nod, Long-Tail then crawled forward a few feet into the safe. Once her knees touched metal, she rose back up onto her feet. Enrai followed behind and did the same, while, Dora and Enrai waddled along to where the guide and their friend awaited them.
“Ow!” Ain suddenly cried out as he started to pass through, and he reached up and felt the tip of his right ear. Blood came away in his hands, staining it red, and he winced in pain. “What in the…?”
“AIN! Don’t move!” Dora shouted at him, and the Spellsword froze. “Okay! Now, crouch down low. Lower, dang it! There, better! Forward! Shuffle forward now!”
He did so, obeying Dora’s commands, and made it across safely. Once he reached the metal portion which was acting like a porch, the half-orc rushed over to him and began healing his wounded ear.
“What was that?” he demanded, glancing over his shoulder. There, suspended in midair, was a crimson droplet of his blood. On closer inspection, however, numerous strands of razor-sharp wire had been stretched across the entrance to the safe, utterly invisible in the dark.
“Why is the entrance to an empty safe boobytrapped like that?” Ain demanded angrily, massaging the regrown skin of his ear.
“It teaches the young to be respectful and humble when in the face of the unknown,” a weak, croaking voice stated, coming from the back of the giant safe. It lacked the speed and double words of Long-Tail-Shadow, speaking of a person who’d lived a long time among other cultures.
Heads turned, and Dora blinked in surprise at the pile of ancient fur and bones that was still somehow alive. An extremely elderly Rakkar lay on a bed of pillows, each one different from the rest. A few plates of food surrounded him, as well as a large ceramic jug of what smelled like alcohol. His fur was purest white, and it shone in the light of several enchanted lamps that filled the interior with light.
“Err, greetings,” Dora said, bowing her head politely. Ain and Enrai followed suite, though the Grand Elf still had an annoyed frown on his face.
Despite Ain’s less than pleasant attitude, the elderly Rakkar smiled thinly at their display of respect.
“Good, not many show respect to others these days. Even fewer willingly show it to my kin,” he said, his tone happy. “From what I’ve been told so far, you want to ask me questions. For your kindness in helping one of my clan, I will answer what I can.”
“Thank you!” Dora said, breathing out a sigh of relief. She straightened up and put on her business face. “We want to know of a way to travel to the Abyss. If that is not possible, we want a way out of Down, and Gaeum. One that doesn’t have us walking right back into the city guards who no doubt want to arrest us for, uh, making a mess a few Floors below.”
The old Rakkar snorted with laughter. “Keh-he-he! Yes, word of your antics in the slave market have reached my ears already, and I must applaud your work. And thank you for the death of Glast. He is no friend of the Rakkar. Sees us as dirty, and often has us killed on sight.”
His face twisted into a pensive frown. “Your request for transportation to the Abyss is not an easy one, though. I am aware of a place that might lead you to the outskirts of that forsaken realm, but it is perilous. But I am willing to pass this information on to you, for a price.”
“I thought you’d tell us what we wanted to know,” Ain pointed out bitterly, to which the elder cackled.
“I answered your question in my own way. Besides, what I ask from you is well within the limits of your power. All I want is this: Allow some of my clan to steal from you.”
“What?” Dora exclaimed in surprise, and even Long-Tail-Shadow looked stunned by the elder’s request.
“Great-great-grandfather, that is…”
“My price,” he said, cutting off his descendant’s complaint. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Dora. “What do you know of my kin? Of the Rakkar?”
“That you are people known for being thieves,” she replied, repeating a bit of what Long-Tail had told her.
“We are thieves. Anyone one who says otherwise is a liar,” the elder snorted. “To be more precise, the Rakkar are a cursed species, doomed to forever be forced to steal from others in order to keep on living.”
“Cursed?” Dora gasped, as surprised by this revelation as the others were.
“Long ago, one of the Rakkar’s ancestors tried to steal from a God of Thieves, and was cursed for it. As punishment, all who possess that distant soul’s bloodline are forevermore bound to steal. Those who do, get to live. But if a Rakkar is caught stealing, or if they refuse to steal, then their life ends. To stay alive, after becoming adults, we must steal. To go without theft for a single year will be the death of us,” the ancient Rakkar responded. “Even putting off stealing for a month or so weakens us, and causes pain.”
“But in a cruel twist of fate, the more a Rakkar steals, the longer they get to live. I should have died many a decade ago, but my skills as a thief have ensured I’ve lived years beyond the norm,” the elder responded. “Sadly, not all of my clanmates are as talented in the art as I am. Long-Tail-Shadow here is one of the few who shows any promise. That is why I ask you let my kin steal from you: it doesn’t work if they try to take items from members of the family or close friends, it has to be strangers for the curse to be appeased. Do this, and I will give you the knowledge you seek.”
“So, you just want to let them steal whatever?” Dora asked slowly.
“Anything will do, but the more sentimental or valuable the items, the longer the curse can be sated,” the wizened rat-man replied.
The Healer thought it over carefully. A part of her wanted to help ease the suffering that some of the Rakkar would be feeling. She’d detected no lies in the elder’s words, and from the pained expression on Long-Tail-Shadow, the curse was very much real.
Another part of her chafed at the idea of letting herself be pickpocketed, even if it was for a good cause. As noble as she might have become, she still had selfish thoughts.
Pragmatism won in the end though. ‘Better charity now with things I can afford to lose, then not have what I need later,’ Dora thought. She folded her arms and nodded at the ancient rat.
“Alright, fine, I agree. Just me, though, if Ain and Enrai don’t want to have their stuff stolen, they don’t have to. Not that I’ll be making anything too valuable be available.”
“That is fair,” the clan elder said with a bob of his head. His tail twitched feebly and he reached out with a gnarled claw for some food on one of his platters. “Care to join me in a midday snack before we begin?”
Four pairs of stomachs growled loudly, and Dora nodded. “Yes, please!”
As she sat down across from the old Rakkar, she mused, “I just realized that we haven’t eaten anything since we ate some mixed nuts at that bar in Down! Gods, it’s been hours!”
She happily helped herself to the assorted fruits and cheeses on offer, filling up her rumbling stomach. Ain and Enrai waited at the side, unsure of the etiquette required for a meal with a clan elder. But, after seeing Dora and later Long-Tail-Shadow eat the food without care, and the ancient Rakkar smile indulgently at their hearty appetites, they joined in as well.
“It does my old heart good to see young ones enjoy their food,” he chuckled dryly, plucking a pink strawberry from a pile of other odd berries. “Meals always taste better when it is lively.”
“I’m surprised you’re able to find this much food in the first place, given how barren this Floor appears to be,” Enrai commented, sampling an odd yellow fruit that had tentacle-like protrusions.
“We’re very good at scavenging and stealing,” the elder said proudly. “Plus, some of this produce the clan grows itself. Empty houses can become lovely gardens with the right tools and effort.”
The meal eventually had to come to an end, and so Dora and her two traveling companions rearranged the contents of their Bags of Holding, and moved some of their less than important items to their pouches and pockets.
Besides s
ome cheap odds and ends Dora didn’t mind ‘losing’ she left a few watered-down potions in easy to reach places, and a handful of copper coins from Erafore that were useless as currency here in Gaeum, so better to have them be useful in another way.
Lastly, Dora gave a long, hard look at a cast iron statuette she’d stuffed to the bottom of her pack and left to waste away. Naliot’s idol was riddled with cracks, and she could feel an intense loathing seeping out of it. Within the Aether, the presence of the gods could latch onto tokens of their faith much more easily.
With a snort of disgust, the Healer stuffed it into a pouch at her side, and silently hoped one of the young Rakkar pickpockets would take it from her. She no longer wanted to associate with the God of Chains. The fewer means he had of contacting or observing her, the better.
“You two ready?” she asked, and the Monk and Spellsword nodded. “Okay, then. That’s good.”
She turned back to the clan elder, who gave a thin smile. “Make your way out of the building. Once you do, my descendant shall rejoin you, mind filled with the information you wished to know.”
“Thank you,” Dora said, bowing one last time towards the white furred Rakkar. He returned the gesture of respect with a small nod of his own.
“Go in peace and safety, Chosen One,” he said, and smirked at the shocked look on her face. “Oh, don’t be so surprised! I’ve lived long enough to have known other Fate-touched heroes. Try not to die on whatever insane mission has you heading into the Abyss!”
With the wheezing cackle of the ancient rat-man behind them, Dora and her friends crawled out of the safe and began to re-trace their steps back towards the lobby of the former bank. In the shadows, they could make out the tiny forms of the young Rakkar gathering around them. Dora, Ain, and Enrai remained politely ignorant of the attention they were getting, and pretended not to notice the sounds of chittering, or the way the darkness squirmed with rat-folk.
Every so often, Dora would feel tiny hands clumsily grope her pockets, trying to sneak something out of them. She rolled her eyes at the poor attempts to rob her, and out of the corner of her eye could see Enrai struggling not to laugh. Ain just looked bored, and the half-orc sympathized with the elf. This wasn’t how she’d expected she’d go about acquiring the knowledge needed for entering the Abyss.
As they wandered the deceptively empty building, they did got lost a few times, much to Dora’s embarrassment. Backtracking through the various hallways and empty rooms of the bank made their exit longer than it had when Long-Tail-Shadow had guided them.
“I think we need to go through this corridor. There should be a staircase leading up,” Dora said hesitantly as she stared down a hallway filled with trash and bent iron nails stuck in the walls. “I remember these nails, all stabbed into everything without a care in the world…”
“You sure? Because you said the same thing in that hallways with the empty picture frames,” Enrai reminded her, and she waved him off.
“I’m sure! I know where I’m going!”
“We could just try and find a window or something,” Ain suggested.
“No! We’ll find the lobby and leave the bank that way! We can do this! We don’t have to punch holes in the wall and throw ourselves out of them in the hopes it leads to freedom!” the half-orc stated angrily, leaving Ain and Enrai looking at her worriedly.
“Um, no one said anything about jumping out of windows, or making holes in the walls,” Enrai said slowly.
“I know! But you were thinking it! We all were!” Dora retorted, before stomping off down the nail-filled hallway. “Now, come on!”
“Ah-ha! Told you!” Dora cheered as they located the staircase they’d been searching for.
“Finally!” Ain sighed in exhausted relief, and the group hurried up it, emerging into the lobby of the bank at long last.
“That took forever!” Dora complained. “But, we did it! Who has a terrible sense of direction now?”
“Still you,” Enrai stated as they sprinted out of the building the Rakkar clan had claimed as their own. At the bottom of the stairs they spotted a familiar rat-women sitting on the second-to-last step, idly kicking her legs as she waited.
“Long-Tail?” Dora gasped. “How did- how long have you been waiting for us?”
“Not too long,” their guide said, shooting them a smug smile. Dora chuckled a bit at her antics before smiling back at her.
“Well, we’re here now. So! Where do we go now? Did the elder give you anything specific for us?”
Long-Tail-Shadow nodded, her expression turning serious. “He imparted to me the location-area of a dimensional portal. According to him, it’s a semi-permanent one, opening-activating more or less on a schedule, and it leads to a section-region of the Abyss that is, for lack of a better word-term, stable.”
“Great! Where to?” Enrai asked, masking his apprehension behind fake excitement.
“The Thirteenth Floor,” Long-Tail-Shadow said solemnly, and Dora felt an ominous shiver run up and down her spine.
Chapter 11: Stare not into the Abyss…
“I didn’t think it was possible for a Floor to feel even more abandoned then the one we’d just left, but here I am, proven oh so wrong,” Dora said, a hint of bitterness in her tone. Ain merely nodded, while Enrai tried to start a fire as they all huddled in the crushing darkness of the Eleventh Floor. Long-Tail-Shadow kept an eye out, watching the shadows beyond their campsite for any signs of monsters.
The travelers had been on the move ever since Long-Tail-Shadow had informed them of their destination. Heading up to the Thirteenth Floor had not been easy. As soon as they’d left the debatable safety of the Floor Nine slums and ascended to the Tenth Floor, it was as if they’d stepped into a whole new ecosystem.
The darkness, ever present in the city of Down, returned with a vengeance. It was almost tangible in its thick, cloying presence, and Dora’s Light magic had been hard pressed to push it back.
There was a surprising amount of infrastructure left, though. The buildings, while run down, didn’t look much different to the derelict state of things on the Floor below. That only served to enhance the eeriness, and a disturbing number of monsters prowled the ruins, having evolved to take advantage of the crumbling cosmopolitan setting.
They’d eventually made it out and up to the next Floor, but by then, tiredness and hunger had caught up with the quartet and they’d immediately entered the nearest intact building to hide for the night.
“The upper levels have been left to the predations of the more monstrous entities in Gaeum, it stands to reason this place would suck,” the Monk said as a pathetic little fire finally got started and gave them some decent warmth and light. He scowled at the tiny flames that danced and flickered weakly. “Wish that the Dark mana was a little less potent, though. It’s making it hard for me to cast my magic.”
“This place is old-old, and the Elements of Earth and Darkness have reclaimed it from civilization-mortals,” Long-Tail-Shadow said, uneasily watching the entrance to their tiny little abode. The group had chosen a mostly intact building to hide within. It was small, and had at one point been a guard post, one that had watched over the people coming and going back when this floor had had people living in it. Nothing of value was left, though. Any weapons and armor had been looted long ago.
With their backs against the walls, all four could watch the doorway in case a monster was foolish – or desperate – enough to try and munch on them while they rested. It was not the most comfortable situatiion, but Dora had slept in worse places before.
Seeing the fire going, the half-orc began to remove rations from her backpack and began setting up for a small meal.
“Let’s see, a pot for water, bowls and spoons for eating, and some turnips and jerky to cook with… sounds like a feast,” the blonde Healer joked as she cast Summon Water and filled the pot up with freshly conjured water, before placing it atop the fire.
“It sure does! Though honestly, I’m more in
terested in sleep,” Enrai admitted. “We’ve been awake for over twenty-seven hours! Only copious use of coffee-flavored Energizer potions have kept us awake at this point.”
“The crash will be spectacular,” Ain said dryly as he took charge of watching the pot of water boil, occasionally adding in the ingredients as needed.
It didn’t take long for the smell of boiled turnips and reheated salted meat to fill the cramped confines of the room, and the group members began to drool in anticipation.
“Long-Tail, join us,” Dora offered, handing the Rakkar a bowl and spoon. She looked taken aback by the offer, but took the items and scooted closer to the fire.
“I still have trouble-problems dealing with your kindness-goodness,” she said softly, staring with teary eyes as some of the soup was ladled into her bowl. “I am… not used-accustomed to such things.”
“Better get used to it,” Enrai chuckled. “We’re a band of fun-loving nice-guys! And gals.”
“You are certainly… different-unique,” Long-Tail-Shadow mused, sipping at her portion of soup. Dora and her friends tucked in as well, drinking their meal eagerly while also starting to yawn as their wakefulness potions stopped working.
After consuming some more of her meal, the Rakkar woman nodded to herself as she observed the weariness taking hold of her companions. “I shall take first watch, and make sure nothing disturbs us this evening. Rest well.”
“Thanks, Long-Tail,” Dora said, stifling a yawn. “I gonna… grab a pillow…”
The Healer barely had the strength and energy to grab the item she wanted from her Bag of Holding before sleep fell upon her. Being awake for so long had been a harsh experience for her.
Nearby, Ain and Enrai also prepared to rest, although with slightly more wakefulness than Dora. Partly because the former was an elf, and thus generally needed less sleep than others, and the latter due to his training, which involved meditation and ignoring weariness through esoteric methods.
