This Thing Don't Look So Tough

[Dane Regan]

A day late, ended up longer than I expected.

Thud.

Dane gave the corpse a kick, feeling her soft flesh squish against his foot. Limp. Dead. Definitely dead. Winding up his leg, he swung harder, hitting with enough force to roll the body over and send it skidding across the floor.

Heh.

Two things ran through his mind. First - how did she get inside? Second - why was she reaching for the rug? He couldn't see anything important under it.

The first was answered by another brief scan of the room, and him noticing a slight chill had developed. One of the windows, one he'd assumed had been barred, was open but just a small crack. It was still clicked in place and locked by a pair of rusty metal latches, but not quite closed fully. Barely open a millimetre. He was sure it'd been sealed shut before, and silently walked over to push it flat. It didn't budge immediately, not until he applied a tad more force.

That implied, whoever this woman was, that she didn't usually take this window entrance. Otherwise, the joints would have been a little looser and he wouldn't have been blessed with an answer to his question. 

The second was more complicated, mainly because no amount of staring gave him the answer, even after he flipped the carpet over and tossed it to the side. It still just looked like normal planks of wood. Bloodstained, but relatively normal barring a small amount of rot. Normally, he'd have assumed the rug was just to cover up the unsightly decay, but today he was in super-suspicious-detective mode. And he'd just killed someone, so clearly something was going on here.

Shrugging, he turned his eyes to the corpse again, wondering if she had anything useful.

Just two knives and a dull silver ring with a crude amethyst on the front. No notes or other tools, like a key. Then again...

Sloppily, he curled a fist around her finger and tugged the ring off, then slid it up his ring finger. It didn't feel magical, but the rough gemstone matched one of the rotting imprints. Crouching, still invisible, Dane gently punched down into the rot, not expecting much. It was awfully elaborate, and why put a secret door - or thing - in plain sight? If it was in one of the guest rooms, he'd never have found anything.

Yet, nonetheless, a deep magenta glow shone from the stone the moment it touched the grime, causing the wood to appear to melt away. Hastily, Dane stepped back, noticing that the blood was now dripping around the edges of the hole, slowly falling down the sides while sticking to the walls.

Lined with stone and full of grime, a long ladder rested, pinned to the edge of a deep square hole. There was an obvious lever not far beneath the surface, but little else he could see in the dark. It didn't look too deep, fifteen metres tops, so without thinking much about it he drew both swords and hopped down, enjoying the brief moment of freefall.

Crunch.

The stone cracked beneath his feet, scattering fragmented rock and brick into the air. The echo came with enough force to break through Dane's silencing spell. A standard wooden door sat in front of him, with a rusty steel ring door knocker.

"What was that?"

"Is someone out there?"

"I heard something."

"I'll go check."

About four different voices, maybe even more, came from the other side of the door, most muffled but with a couple getting closer.

"Allice, was that you? You're late, and I told you to be quiet because someone had the idea to invite guests." The door swung inwards, away from Dane, revealing a buff man with lizard scales for skin and a large tail. His jaw and teeth also jutted forward, a bit like an alligator. Only one eye was normal, and the other looked like a snake's. He didn't look normal. Even for a lizard-guy-thing, Dane thought he was more deformed, like a messed up hybrid or science experiment. Behind him was an open hall. It appeared to be a storage room from what Dane could see, given the number of crates and sacks. One lean man, probably about seventeen, was leaning back on a box and watching roughly in Dane's direction. No one else was visible in the room from Dane's current angle.

"I told you. They paid well." The voice sounded like the old hag from earlier. "We needed the Omnilium."

"Right. Sure. Whatever." The brute waved a hand behind him dismissively, then stared at the seemingly empty space by the ladder, and the large crack on the floor.

Dane smirked, idly swinging his swords about in the air, pivoting his wrists, bending his elbows, and rolling his shoulders, and warming up. 

"Allice? Ssstop your tricks. We have work to do." The lizardman crouched, waving his hand over the crack. Dane lifted one leg and stepped back with the other, avoiding the arm.

With a faint pitter-patter, two drops of blood fell from above, landing in the back right corner of miniature square space. Lizard-guy blinked, then looked straight up, beautifully presenting the weaker scales on his neck. His eyes widened, the new paint job Dane had inadvertently given the upper layers of the hole clearly visible to his mismatched eyes.

Not giving him any time to react, Dane drove his shortsword upwards, jumping into it from a crouch and putting his full force into the blow. The sharpened steel cut through the lizard neck like butter, impaling it and getting wedged in the humanoid skull.

Whoosh.

To say Dane overshot would be putting it lightly. Both he and the spasming lizardman had been pushed up with enough force that the dying scales had almost impacted upon the ceiling of the main lobby above the ladder, falling short by a couple of inches.

At the peak of the flight, Dane tore his sword free, then kicked the lizard to the side just as he was about to fall down the hole once again, causing Dane to skid on his feet by the side of the ladder top and the lizardman to ragdoll onto the rumpled rug, rolling and sliding with a few quieter thuds.

Grinning merrily at his easy victory, and the subdued yelps and shouts from underground, Dane skipped down the hole again. It was a tad annoying he had to fight so soon, and he was confident striking when he did was the best time. But, given that they all wanted the place to stay secret, and that he'd accidentally killed one of their allies or friends, either he had to leave or something was going to go down. Considering he didn't really feel like running away right now, naturally, there was only one possible outcome.

Crunch.

His invisibility flickered for a moment after his fall smashed the tile under his feet, but the magic held. Bending his knees and pressing his knuckled against each side of the open door, he leant forwards and slotted the bones into little grooves, smirked, then pounced forward, impaling the leaner boy from earlier who had been warily approaching the ladder. It was a swift death. Dane's longsword had been pulled free from the guy's heart before he hit the ground, while the invisible shortsword sliced over his neck, silencing any screams of pain before they could properly form.

Rotating, Dane let the body fall to the side as he stepped into the dim storage room. With a click of his tongue, an orb of light shot up through his sword, floating and searing away most of the shadows while casting new ones of its own. To the right, there was another room with six people, all standing or sitting around a table, most of them were armed. In front and to the left, there were just more sacks and crates.

Invisibility took time to get used to. He was in plain sight of them, and yet, none of their eyes focused on him. Instead, most were moving to look at the blood coming from the stairs, or the glowing sphere.

"Fuck, is Karl? And where is Bruce?"

"Show yourself, attacker."

"It might be the guard."

"No one should know we're here."

"Prepare to fight. Stick together." The old crone hissed, drawing a dagger and slamming the tip down on the table in front of her. Despite clearly being the weakest, she must have held some weight over the group. Despite the expectations the lizardman had given Dane, they all looked to be normal humans, varying in ages from young adult to about thirty to forty-ish besides the older hag. There was one woman beside the decrepit shell of skin and bones, likely in her mid-twenties, she had long blonde hair and fierce blue eyes. Arguably, she would probably be considered attractive, more so if she wasn't covered in dirt and wearing cheap rags.

Grimacing, she vaulted over the table, drawing a rapier and analytically stabbing it in the air. A low growl escaped from her lips, and she delivered a threatening slash through the air while the four others flanked her. "It's invisible." She sniffed the air, making Dane raise an eyebrow. Wanting to see what she'd do, he opted to leave her alive for longer, and immediately teleported behind the guy on the furthest left, slicing his throat before blinking to the other side and doing the same to another bloke. The second was dead before the first hit the floor.

To his surprise, before he could teleport away, blondie lunged with her rapier, nearly hitting him. She would have if he hadn't been quick enough to jump back, crashing into a chair and making his position obvious. She thrust again but hit empty air. Having no intention of drawing this out, Dane teleported behind another man, driving his shortsword up their throat, jerking it free, and kicking the body towards the woman.

It crashed into her with a thud, glancing past her shoulder as she pivoted out of the way. Instead of lunging another time, she drew a knife from her thigh and drove it through the air, throwing it like a dart by the side of her remaining ally's head. She was just in time to get a perfect view of his throat splitting in half, followed by a small spec of blood spraying along her dagger's flight path.

Dane grunted, his invisibility flickering away as the steel delivered a fine cut to his left cheek. "Nice shot."

Her face contorted to sheer horror, mixed with rage. Almost everyone she knew, dead in under a minute. "You monster," her voice broke, trailing off into silence for a moment. Biting her lip, her teeth tore into her flesh, drawing a trickle of blood. Barely a fraction of a second before she pounced, claws springing from her fingers - four-inch spikes of razor-sharp keratin. Her jump was perfectly in time with Dane's last quick teleport, causing her to lose her target and his strong swing from behind her to fall short.

The rapier clattered to the floor, and the woman spun around, opened her mouth, and growled, jagged canine teeth forming in her maw. Before she could pounce again, Dane noticed the older woman had manoeuvred past them, running towards the ladder, most likely in some silent agreement that wolf-girl would hold him off. What also drew his eyes were the corpses. While they used to be completely human, each of them were slowly developing animalistic features. As if reverting to their natural state. A couple had horns, while the other two were growing little tufts of fur.

Dane focused for a moment, staring the woman down. Compared to her former build, strong muscles bulged, veins visibly pulsing. He wasn't sure he wanted to take a hit from those claws, even one he could block. Nonetheless, she seemed content to act as an obstacle, slashing and preventing him from heading upstairs. That didn't bother him. After a few seconds of concentration, he was behind her, sprinting and then jumped, effectively flying the whole way up from the force he delivered to the shattered tile.

Surprisingly, the old crone was already at the top, either waiting for him or her ally. She hissed, then opened her mouth impossibly wide, jolting and twisting her body forward. If he hadn't reacted, her jaws would have engulfed his head. But, he was quick too, already having begun to work energy into his arm when he started the chase. With a sharp turn, Dane's short sword swing into the side of her head, fracturing her skull with the force rather than breaking it. The recoil jolted down Dane's arm, and he gritted his teeth. Meanwhile, her skin appeared to turn inside out as she fell, arms and legs moulding into her body, turning into a long green snake nearly one foot thick. That didn't stop her skidding into the wall, but it did give her the ability to lunge back. 

Snake mouth wide open with deadly teeth ready to snap into him, Dane immediately tried to dodge - only for a sharp set of claws to close around his legs. He hopped, falling back towards them rather than fighting the grip. His heel landed on a hairy face as he kicked the werewolf down the pit, letting himself drop a few metres with her to avoid the snake before swiftly jumping back up.

Breathing deeply, he shuffled back away from the ladder, swirled his swords, and lined up his opponents. Little streams of blood pooled from the front of his calf, but besides his now aching arm and the expenditure of mana, he wasn't much worse for wear. The snake had a large gash, however, likely only holding together through some form of magic, while the werewolf just had some bruises.

Two versus one. Shouldn't be too hard. 

Dane spent 1sp to use T1SU - Blink. So he's at 5/6 sp now, since he's rested. Hasn't fully healed, but only suffered a scratch so he's gud.