To the Bitter End

[Izvilvin]

((Continuation of Behind the Veil ( http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18499)))

Izvilvin had never gotten used to the disorienting nature of a magical portal. Though the transportation took a split-second to occur, he was aware of the movement and the strange sensation of being forced through a separate dimension.

He reemerged in a dark place, unsure of his surroundings. Bron’s portal was supposed to bring him to Step’s headquarters, and so he was immediately wary. His eyes adjusted and Izvilvin discerned he was in an uninhabited part of the base – but he couldn’t guess where.

His nose still ached, but the drow was thankful for the potion Alydia had brought him. He’d drunk half as instructed, and it had halted the bleeding. Beneath the bandages on his right arm, the wound he’d sustained against Shynt Aubrey atop a moving train was fully healed. Izvilvin had yet to notice.

The portal had opened in the center of this small, dark room. It was completely silent save for the dull hum of the magical door, and crates lined the walls. A kind of storage closet, it seemed, but Izvilvin suspected it had once been something more. At the back of the room was an elaborately-decorated chair that looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. If the book was as old as Bron suspected, its portal could have been used for anything.

Drawing a sai in one hand, the drow approached the lone door and turned the knob slowly, carefully, cracking the door open to peer out. Unlike the room, the hallway outside was brightly lit by orbs of floating light every few feet. The walls were of jagged stone, but the hallway curved out of his view.

Izvilvin sucked on his teeth and slid the sai back into its leg holster. He didn’t like not knowing what lay in the opposite direction, didn’t like not knowing what lay beyond the curve in the hallway. A guard, a spy, an assassin could be lurking anywhere. He feared Step knew he was there, somehow, could detect the magical opening of the portal within their lair.

He fought against the confusion and his mounting sense of dread. If there was any time Izvilvin needed to focus, it was now. He shut the door carefully.

[Alydia Ettermire]

It was Aly's first time in a portal, and she shook her head to clear it as she stepped from the blinding brightness of the jump to the deep darkness of the room. Her vision cleared after only a couple of seconds, throwing everything into soft purples and reds. Her eyes shot around the room, but aside from the warrior who had preceded her, there were only neat stacks of large crates filled with only Thayne knew what.

Silent footfalls took her to one of the stacks and gloved fingertips dragged languidly over a dozen, pulling them into the non-existence where only she could reach them. They might not be the best of ammunition, but who knew if there would be a statue or a pillar to take and drop later, or if she would need to actually fight her way out of a dangerous situation?

Izvilvin was crouched at the door, shining orange and yellow, rather than red and orange. She was sure she was registering the same anxious temperature spike. Each breath he pulled into or pushed out of his lungs was timed precisely, deliberately - part of a ritual to steady himself before the oncoming trial by blood, she recognized.

Alydia watched him for a second. She and Izvilvin had been through the trial of evading and bringing to justice the serial murderer Shynt Aubrey over the past few days. Together, each doing their parts, they had brought him first to justice, then to death. Separately now they would face Step. It was going to be dangerous for both of them, and if neither of them made it back out, she wouldn't be very surprised. It was a foolish move to go with him, but it increased his chances tenfold. Izvilvin's skill with his blades was nearly unrivaled; just the distraction her presence would provide their pursuers might be enough to secure his safe escape. It wasn't the first time Aly had been known to do something stupid for the sake of a friend.

Besides...I couldn't miss a heist this grand. Alydia started her own pre-heist routine: she stretched her arms and legs, rolled her shoulders, and tilted her head side to side a few times. At the door, it seemed that her companion was almost ready to face his demons.

A smirk slashed across Alydia's face, and she strode over to the warrior, grabbing his bandaged arm and squeezing the bicep firmly. Then she nodded.

"Ori'gato udossa alu."

(("Let's go."))

[Izvilvin]

Alydia appeared quietly, stepping out of the portal to share in Izvilvin’s anxiousness. They were here for different reasons, of course, but shared in the danger. He knew she could take care of herself, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if Alydia was somehow cornered and made unable to hop through the shadows, she’d be eaten alive in battle.

It was then that, somehow, the detective began to seemingly take some of the large crates, pocketing them in some magical means that Izvilvin could not fathom. They appeared to be shrinking and disappearing all at once at her touch, a phenomenon that had Izvilvin staring in wild, unabashed wonder. He’d never quite been comfortable with the workings of magic.

He resisted the urge to ask. He didn’t really want to know.

Rising as the female approached, Izvilvin showed slight surprise at his bicep being healed. It brought out a small smile, and he relaxed slightly. It was just what he needed. He nodded in response to her, opening the door an instant before the magical portal closed, effectively trapping them in an unknown area within an unknown base found in an unknown region.

Izvilvin led, glancing both ways before heading toward the curve in the hallway. The floor was man-made despite the rocky walls and ceiling, smooth and white against their feet. Peering around the curve as they went, the pair made steady progress until they came to a junction which presented three new hallways to travel down. Izvilvin didn’t know where to begin searching, couldn’t guess what these halls were used for or how often somebody traveled them.

He was reminded of his first time in Jya’s Keep, a fortress he’d snuck into on Step’s command. Instead of fulfilling his duty of assassinating the Jya, he found a home in Fallien and dedicated his life to protecting her for some time. It was the turning point in his relationship with the organization he now planned to destroy.

“Vel'bolen gos vel'klar?” he asked aloud. “Jala ul'hyrren??”

(("Where goes where? Any ideas?"))

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia looked from side to side, checking for anyone who might be coming through the gently lit halls of Step's headquarters. Which way should she go to get to the tome? The halls to the left and right looked exactly the same. Thankfully the area rang only with deafening silence, broken by Izvilvin's softly muttered question, rather than the clamor of angry and alert soldiers.

"Gi. Xas." Aly blinked. Bron had just given her the only map they had of the citadel a few minutes before, and she'd already forgotten about it. She didn't normally take things like maps to heists; normally she spent hours memorizing a building's layout so she could move through it quickly and efficiently without getting caught. The former detective reached into a pocket on the red side of her coat - currently the inside - for the detailed map, holding it out to Izvilvin.

The assassin scanned the paper quickly, committing as many details as he could to memory in a brief amount of time. It looked like the main area of the headquarters was to the right and through a series of rooms. Getting through wasn't going to be easy. Then again, he'd known from the day he joined Step that if he ever betrayed it, the word 'easy' would never apply to anything for him until his very last breath.

Having absorbed as much information as he could, the lavender-eyed warrior looked at the detective once more and nodded, silently wishing her luck. She gave him a sultry, confident smirk in return and leaned up to kiss his cheek, like she had on the crossing to Alerar before they'd faced down Aubrey. "Kyorl dos gajak," she murmured into his ear, echoing that dawn farewell. Too nervous to be flustered, he handed her back the map and turned to go, leaving her to her own fate while he went to face his.

Alydia stayed still for a moment after Izvilvin had gone, tracing her own route with her finger. The path to the tome, if it existed, would take her left, through a dizzying series of corridors and chambers. It was truly going to be the most challenging, dangerous heist she'd ever faced. What a pity so few people knew of Step and would hear of this. If people knew, she'd be an overnight sensation.

I guess we'll save the sensationalism for another day.

She wheeled around and started running quickly in the opposite direction from Izvilvin, coat rustling quietly behind her and soft-soled boots barely making a sound as they fell on the tile. She stuck close to the rough stone walls; she didn't want to just burst out into a hallway and find herself face to face with a dozen unexpected enemies.

When she reached the end of the corridor, Alydia stopped, pressing into the wall and looking down both directions of the new corridor. It seemed Bron had set them in a deserted area of the fortress; it was still empty and silent as far as she could see and hear.

According to the map, she needed to take a right now, and that was where the bad news began. From the end of the hallway sounds so soft they might have been imaginary fell upon her sensitive ears. Aly tugged her hat down lower over her eye. Voices meant only one thing: people.

(("Oh. Yes." / "See you later."))

[Izvilvin]

Winding hallways, chambers, storage areas, labels he didn’t recognize… The map was elaborate and detailed, but Step’s headquarters was not terribly elaborate. These halls seemed to be mapped out to intersect often, branches off of a main wing of the base which led to storage closets and personal quarters. At least, that’s what it looked like.

He was off immediately, a route mapped out in his head. His heart was beating quicker, and with each passing moment the warrior worried less about Alydia and more about himself. This was about ending years of fear and worry, after all.

The passageway he took was a longer one than Alydia’s, bringing him around another curve which led to another junction, but one heading only left or right, not ahead. Bright bulbs of magical light on either side of him, Izvilvin went left and crept slowly down that way, stepping lightly as he focused forward. His advantage over whoever dwelt within here was that he could see and hear much better than just about anybody.

Finally he came to a straight section which led into a great chamber. At the end of the hallway he could see a guard, standing with his back to the hall. Izvilvin slipped through a nearby door into a room similar to the one he’d arrived in, then purposely tipped a crate over from a high perch to send it crashing to the ground.

He went to the side of the door just as it opened, letting the guard come in to see what happened. In a single movement, Izvilvin kicked the door shut and seized the guard, pressing a dagger against his neck with one hand and grabbing the wrist of his main hand with the other, so he couldn’t reach to a sheathed sword as his hip.

Elven?! he thought, intrigued at the ears and lithe build of the guard, who remained perfectly still in the face of the diamond dagger.

“Explain where we are,” Izvilvin spoke in the common tongue, hoping the elf spoke it.

The guard didn’t respond. Truthfully, he didn’t know what to do. There was no way for an outsider to gain entry to this base – was the person assaulting him defecting?

The elf had no time to contemplate it. Izvilvin released his wrist and drove a fist into the elf’s face so fast he had no time to notice it. He staggered, and Izvilvin swept his feet out from under him with a swift kick. Immediately the drow was atop him, dagger held hard against his throat.

“Now!” he warned. The elf got a look at his face, then, but showed little reaction. Of course it was an Alerian, the filthiest of people, who was betraying his comrades.

“I resigned myself to death long ago,” the elf said. His face was eerily calm, understanding, waiting. It disturbed Izvilvin to the point of enraging him, and the drow drove his fists into the elf over and over, to little reaction.

Shaking, he drove the dagger into the elf’s neck, spilling his blood. He tugged it across and jerked at just the right angle, tearing his esophagus. He’d killed many this way, so fast not a sound could be made.

He fell backward against the floor, trying to compose himself. This was all happening so quickly.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aly listened carefully in the direction opposite where she intended to go. All she heard from there was comforting silence. Sneaking up on people worked a whole lot better when one was not being sneaked up upon themselves, so her luck had not yet run out.

Darting to the other side of the hall, Aly slid silently along the wall, moving slowly so her coat wouldn't make a noise and give her away. Three distinct voices were muttering from around the corner, speaking a dialect of Coronian Tradespeak peculiar to the area around Jadet. Well, it made sense for Coronians to be in the headquarters of an organization founded to protect the best interests of Corone.

A final glance down the hall assured her that she hadn't yet been seen, so the Alerian slid a small mirror out of her pocket. It was the same one she used every morning to make sure her lipstick was applied correctly, but she appreciated its other uses as well. Gingerly, with her back pressed hard against the rough-hewn stone, she edged the mirror around the corner at hip level. Unless an unlucky glint of light caught it, it would be unlikely that any of them would spot it that low.

There were two humans and an elf talking, seemingly about some sort of plan. It had nothing to do with her, and with any luck, they'd never know what had hit them. Her free hand spread reflexively, and one of the boxes she'd pulled into storage fell upon them with a loud clatter. Aly tucked the mirror back into her pocket and stepped around the corner to see a bloody mess beneath a pile of broken wood and at least five hundred pounds of flour. The scent of fresh blood assaulted her nostrils, and Aly cringed. Though not the first lives she had ever taken, these were the first she'd taken in cold blood, by ambush, and that act made her breakfast fight for its freedom. Half a century of murder investigations kept her bile in its place, though, and she started stepping into the hall.

Death by daily bread...how pleasant.

Step had claimed Izvilven's soul. Would freeing him from it claim hers? No... No. As much as she wanted to claim otherwise, though she owed him a great debt, it was more for the sake of Alydia Ettermire than Izvilvin Kazizzrym that she had invaded the organization's stronghold. Would her own ambitions cost her her soul? Or would she lose her life first?

She started looking for the least floury path, desiring not to leave tracks. One of the men groaned softly in his dying agonies, but she couldn't bring herself to look down at him. The thud of footsteps sounded from the hall behind her; the sound of her attack had alerted more men in the surrounding area. Without another thought, she slipped into the shadows at the junction and back out further down the corridor, but she'd been seen and was being pursued.

A grin slashed across her face despite the heavy thoughts at the back of her mind. The chase was on, and she could lose any larger concerns until she had to stop running.

[Izvilvin]

The elf had been like him, Izvilvin decided. A Step agent who had fully lost his identity, being used for the organization’s purposes and nothing else – what could the guard have done? Disobeying meant death, and escape from such an elaborate complex might be even more difficult than the drow imagined.

He hadn’t regretted killing the guard in the first place, but regretted it even less now. The people here were slaves as much as he’d been. Any kill he made was merciful and beneficial to him as well.

The hallway was now clear, so he approached the chamber ahead. There was something in the air, a certain excitement that extended beyond Izvilvin. As if the base was becoming alive with movement. He didn’t overthink it.

The room was uninhabited, but cavernous. Except for the floor it was like an underground cave, lit by those strange orbs of white. Wires ran along the highest sections of the walls, disappearing down dark hallways every which way. Izvilvin had a basic understanding of technology, but couldn’t guess what they were for.

In the center of the room, painted upon the white tiled floor, was a map of Althanas. Red flags upon poles were places in certain areas, atop specific regions within different countries. It appeared that Step used this as a kind of planning room. Seeing it infuriated the drow, but he maintained his composure. He couldn’t afford to get emotional anymore.

He heard footsteps – many of them – coming from a nearby hallway. Distracted, he’d let them get too close. He turned to face the coming group, a dwarf, a drow and a human. It was clear to them that he was the enemy.

Izvilvin made no move to run. He’d come here to stop running - to fight, to kill and to destroy. He drew his swords and beckoned them to come.

No more running.

[Alydia Ettermire]

She'd awakened the beast with her noise, and now there were half a dozen men of various races pursuing her as the hounds chased the fox. They drove her relentlessly, forcing her to run recklessly in whichever direction she thought least perilous. Each sudden turn, each attempt to double back disoriented her within the monolithic structure. Even if they failed in their ultimate aim, their presence might have caused her to lose sight of hers.

A crossbow bolt whizzed past her ear, stinging her cheek with its smooth, sharp tip; another few hairs to the right and her chase would have been permanently over. Three more bolts peppered the wall beside and behind her. Aly bit back a curse, whirling around to see the archer kneeling just behind the throng. It was high time to get these dogs off her tail; if more of the pack showed up, the clever fox's luck would bend to the breaking point.

Holding out her hands, Aly dropped three more of the huge supply crates, sending them dropping down on her hapless pursuers. One broke open to reveal several bolts of cloth, likely vlince, since that could be traded for other essentials or used to make a puncture-resistant armor for their operatives. A human was dead beneath it, a dwarf nearly so. Beyond them were a trio - unrecognizable anymore - who had met death by beef jerky, and the archer, a Fallinese, had met an end under a pile of canned vegetables. Five more deaths on her hands, six soon enough. These lives didn't bear the same heavy sting as the first three; she had been actively defending herself and the adrenaline was surging through her body. For now, there was no time for reflection or remorse; survival demanded that she keep moving.

If she survived long enough for there to be consequences, she would deal with them then.

Aly stepped over the bodies, running back the way she'd come, pulling her map out of the interior of her coat to examine it and get her bearings back. She was farther now from her goal than she'd been when she parted from Izvilvin, so she started tracing an alternate route to the room that hopefully contained the tome she'd come all this way to take. There were only eight crates left in her arsenal, however, and she was pretty sure that she needed to find more ammunition.

In halls not so distant, she could hear a murmuring, a flurry of footfalls rushing in her direction. The hive was fully awakened, and it was angry. Alydia hoped Izvilvin was doing all right, but knew that the likelihood of both of them making it out alive was slim. The foe was too numerous and strong to give them good chances.

[Izvilvin]

The dwarf was the one who hung back, drawing a crossbow and letting fly with a bolt as his two allies closed in with melee weapons. Izvilvin moved his face an inch to the side to avoid the projectile.

They attacked with poise and precision, one high from the left and one low from the right. Izvilvin parried both and fell back a step to avoid the follow-through, but immediately closed back in with crossing slashes that took his opponents off guard. Mjolnir dashed high and low with rapid slashes too quick to be countered, Icicle the same.

Mjolnir retreated from battle long enough to deflect a crossbow bolt aside. It was back without missing a beat.

Izvilvin was surprised at these guards. They were nowhere near the level of skill Step’s many assassins had been. He suddenly crossed his blades and attacked from reverse directions; neither guard could block the sudden surprise attack. He saw the dwarf about to let fly, but Mjolnir, quick as a flash, thrust forward to launch a lightning bolt into the stout fighter. He slammed hard into the far wall and made no move to continue fighting.

He exhaled loudly, sheathed his blades, and entered the hallway they had come from. He’d forgotten the layout of the headquarters, but felt like this direction may be right.

He was moving at top speed, those orbs of light flashing past him as he tore down the hallway. He passed junctions but stayed the course. As he began to pass one, something moving at his left took him by surprise.

There was no time to dodge, so he jumped into the hammerhead. It slammed hard into his armor, reversing the lithe drow’s momentum and throwing him backward against the ground. The powerful enchanted armor had protected his bones, but the wind had been knocked out of him. From around the corner came a massive, muscled Draconian, a face of dragonlike green scales and a pronounced maw. In his hands was a silver hammer probably the same height as the drow.

Izvilvin rolled backward and to his feet, drawing his swords again. He knew how to deal with foes like this, whose weapons were too long to keep up with his own. With agility like his, Izvilvin knew he could dance around the bigger warrior.

Growling, the Draconian twirled his hammer above his head like it was a toy, smashing it down into the floor where Izvilvin had been laying just a moment before. It was back into a ready position in an instant.

The drow knocked his blades together in challenge. Mjolnir growled to show its approval.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Droplets of blood spattered on the edge of the map from the cut on Alydia's cheek. She'd have done something to deal with the annoying sensation of the sticky, vital liquid trickling down her face, but the heavy footfalls resounding in corridors all around counted the seconds between her and her death like a tolling bell. Stopping to deal with the stinging cut could prove fatal.

Light feet sped over the smooth tile floor while she sought both direction and escape. The building she was in - if it could be called a building for all it resembled a cavern - had multiple levels to it, not unlike a termite mound. She was up too high to reach the tome she sought, so she needed to find a way down.

If she was reading the map right, there should be a juncture...

"OI!"

Gah!

The sound of hob-nailed leather screeching against tile told the thief she'd been spotted, and more footsteps started pounding down the halls in her direction. She glanced up from her map, no longer trusting to her peripheral vision to keep her oriented and aware. A burly Dwarf was thundering down the corridor in front of her, and a glance behind showed a lithe human sprinting toward her. Soft footsteps tapped down a passageway just ahead and to her right, but the path she needed, to the left, sounded clear.

The shadow-coated thief sped up so that she could make it to the intersection before any of her pursuers could. She whipped around the corner with both of them on her tail, so close that the Dwarf's sword tugged at the edge of her billowing coat when he swung it at her. If he hadn't swung so hard, Aly would have been in trouble. As it was, there was a hollow clang of steel on tile behind her before he could regain his balance.

The thief raced down the latest stone tunnel. Unless she was lost, and she doubted she was at that precise moment, the room this hall emptied into was a junction with catwalks and ladders to facilitate the movements of Step's agents between the different areas of their headquarters.

There wasn't a door at the entrance of the bottomless room she'd been running toward, so she plunged through without looking to see if there was anything she needed to be wary of. Not that she had the luxury of caution with a trio of would-be executioners breathing down her neck.

The narrowly-spaced rungs of the catwalk beneath her feet was typical of the beams spanning the chasm, and she could see them criss-crossing the levels beneath her. The room was abnormally warm and she could feel updrafts of stagnant air hitting her cheek and playing with her hair.

The men behind her hadn't stopped chasing just because she'd entered a room, and their thundering steps rang behind her, shaking the catwalk that felt less sturdy than it was. Aly kept a close eye on the other cast iron passageways that formed an intricate lattice beneath her feet. When she finally was standing above the next one down, she spun, crouching down. Ice blue eyes watched the oncoming attackers like a cornered cat would watch a pack of coyotes. Behind the dwarf and human she knew about was the Alerian she'd heard coming. A gloved hand latched onto the side of the catwalk as the leader, the dwarf, brought his sword up with the intention of bringing the woman's head off at his next step.

He never got to take that step.

The catwalk vanished from beneath his feet as though it had never existed, and he and his two companions plummeted downward into the abyss, likely to meet their demise upon impact with the distant floor. Alydia fell, also bound by the laws of gravity, but landed fifteen feet down on the next catwalk. Her landing neither made a sound nor jarred her; a drop like that was nothing. A louder metallic crash sounded from below her, and the black-coated thief glanced down to see which of her pursuers had found a landing before the floor and find out where he was.

Unsurprisingly, she locked eyes with the Alerian. Very surprisingly, as soon as he got to his feet, he aimed a pistol at her. Aly bolted to her feet at the sight, and a retort resounded through the chamber. A searing pain grazed across Aly's thigh, right where her head had been a split second before, and the bullet tugged at her coat as it punctured through.

"Orthae SHU!" Aly couldn't remember the last time she'd even seen a gun, much less been fired upon.

The click of the hammer drawing back for another shot followed immediately after Alydia's uncharacteristic lapse into profanity, and with speed borne of desperation, she reached out her hand and dropped a crate on her attacker. A second retort still followed, but the shooter's aim had been thrown off by having a storage crate full of rice dropped on his head. Hot lead brushed harmlessly by his target's hat.

Aly lifted the map once more to look at it and get her bearings, but the paper rattled loudly in her shaking hands. She couldn't read it, as unstable as it was an unsteady as she was, so she tucked it back into her coat. A light jump took her down to the next level, which was at least about where she wanted to be. She knew that with the gun going off, she didn't have much time before more Step agents showed up at the junction, so she stumbled to an exit, almost clumsy between the burning pain of the bullet graze and the adrenaline surging through her blood.

Not far down the rough stone corridor there was a door, and she pressed an ear to it, listening for any sound at all. Only silence met her sensitive ears from beyond it, and muffled stirrings were coming from behind and ahead of her. Without much choice, she opened the door to the darkened room, closing it behind her and looking around carefully.

(("Holy SHIT!"))

[Izvilvin]

The Draconian met Izvilvin's charge with a powerful lunge of his own, hammer angled horizontally to catch both blades and force the smaller fighter back. The drow slammed into the wall of the hallway, jagged rock scraping loudly against his flexible armor. He slid along the wall, spun away from it and the hammer, and dragged Icicle around in a slash toward the beast’s leg. The shaft of the hammer spun to parry and drive the short sword aside.

The polearm followed through with a heavy smash that Izvilvin ducked, narrowly avoiding the heavy hammerhead as it swept through his hair. Dragging Icicle along the floor, Izvilvin retreated several steps as the huge warrior pursued. Unaware of the enchanted blade’s effect, the Draconian slipped and slid, but didn’t fall. In fact, he managed to avoid a slash from Mjolnir.

The crackling sword had only been a distraction, however, as the true strike from Icicle came up from below in a deceptive, rising stab. It slid under the Draconian’s plate armor and into his belly, but Izvilvin felt resistance there. The creature’s hard scales had prevented the blade from going deep.

Surprised, Izvilvin wasn’t ready for the Draconian’s sudden fury. The shaft of the hammer slammed into the side of the drow’s head, driving him face-first into the cave wall with enough force that he saw stars. Instinct alone had him dropping to his knees an instant before the mallet-like weapon crashed into the stone with a deafening boom.

Blood trickling down the side of his face, Izvilvin knew he was in trouble. Still winded and with his vision dancing, the agile elf rolled backward and to his feet an instant before the Draconian was upon him again. To try and stall his opponent’s progress, Izvilvin slashed Icicle through the air a few times, creating a wall of mist neither of them could see through.

It backfired. Thrust forward, his opponent’s long hammerhead pierced the mist and smashed hard into Izvilvin’s face. His quick reflexes allowed the drow to absorb some of the blow, but it still had him staggering backward. If his nose hadn’t been broken during the battle with Shynt Aubrey, it certainly was now.

He was suddenly aware of talking behind him. No, not quite: chanting.

Before he had a chance to react, Izvilvin felt heat overwhelm him and a dizzying sensation of a concussive blast. A fireball exploded over him from behind, sending him toppling forward from the momentum. Thankfully for the drow, his Draconian opponent was surprised as well, and reeled. The effect of the spell was dampened, made weaker by a certain amount of magical resistance Izvilvin had.

He risked a glance behind him. It was a harpy. A harpy wizard, eyes shut and wings folded behind him, more words of power flowing from his mouth to try and kill the bothersome interloper.

The Draconian was upon him again, and a dazzled Izvilvin struggled to keep up. The hammer’s strikes were nowhere near as quick as his blades, but they were measured and expertly sequential, so the creature’s momentum carried him into the next attack. A downward swipe led to an attack with the shaft, which carried the hammerhead back forward as the powerful beast twirled the heavy polearm easily. Izvilvin used his lighter swords to catch the strikes and push them aside expertly, but there was always another attack to come.

All the while he kept his ears open. When the harpy went silent, he dodged to the side as an icy beam passed by, striking the Draconian in mid-attack. The spell had the effect of slowing his movement, but Izvilvin was already gone, having pivoted as quickly as he could to sprint in the other direction.

The harpy hadn’t expected the sudden approach, and he had no spells prepared to deal with it. Pink-feathered wings shot forth in a weak attempt to deter the drow - Izvilvin severed them with two fluid strikes. The harpy’s cry of pain was caught in his throat as Icicle slashed across his chest and gut, sending the creature to the floor.

His blood was pumping now, and Izvilvin was losing his sense for the things around him. What mattered was the battle, the struggle of instinct and skill against anything which tried to slow him. Izvilvin’s fire-singed hair put the smell of war around him, reminding him of large-scale in battles in Corone alongside Letho Ravenheart and Christina Bredith, people he’d betrayed because of Step.

Like all the friends I’ve ever made, he reflected, turning to see the approach of the heavy, powerful Draconian. He sheathed his swords and replaced them with two iron sai; the familiar feeling they gave him were infinitely more powerful than any pain.

[Alydia Ettermire]

The room was completely devoid of living heat signatures, much to the trembling thief's relief. All that she could see in the room were towering file cabinets. Aly breathed deeply, trying to calm herself down enough to think straight after nearly being shot through the skull.

Footsteps in the nearby hall told her that she wasn't likely to be the only living being in the room long. Once more, Alydia cast her eyes desperately about the room, this time searching for a good place to hide. In the corner there were a trio of cabinets squeezed in; there hadn't been anywhere else to put them with both the walls and the floor all but completely covered with the massive amount of organization the paperwork for Step required. The way they were situated, she couldn't be seen from behind, so she ran for them, jumping over and hunching down in the little cubbyhole they made.

Her breath was coming in loud, harsh rasps, and she hurried to silence herself, listening intently to the door. Desperate to not be defenseless, she gripped the dagger Bron had given her, holding the handle as though she would choke it.

She hadn't even been huddled in the cramped chill behind the cabinets for a minute when she heard the soft click of a door knob being turned and the latch releasing. Another, deeper click sounded from beside the door, and the gentle hum of electricity filled the room as the lights flickered on. Alydia hadn't taken the time before that to think about how the subterranean base was lit, but she had to admit she was impressed. It was difficult to generate enough electricity to power simple stuff, even in the most technologically advanced city in the world. Magic was still a more reliable and cheaper option; for Step to have an entire base wired was a poignant reminder to its members just how powerful and far-reaching it was.

Her musings were broken abruptly by the careful tread of armored boots making their way across the black tiled floor. She could hear the greaves dragging, meandering slowly through the narrow aisles between information that must have rivaled what Bron had access to. It was maddening; she wanted to scream that if he knew she was there, he should just find her already.

But she sat there instead, huddled into a space that was only barely big enough for her. The blood on her cheek was congealed in a hot, sticky layer that clung to her skin, but she couldn't wipe at it for fear of making a noise. The welt where the shooter's bullet had grazed her had turned her entire right thigh into a throbbing mass that she needed to stretch out, but she couldn't move because then she would be spotted.

Even more damning, as each slow step brought the lone agent hunting her nearer, Alydia began to itch. It started out with a small but aggravating itch at the tip of her nose, then another at the base of her neck. Soon it spread all over her body so that sitting still and keeping quiet was torture. But she kept silent and still, stomach in knots and heart in her throat.

Finally, after a couple of minutes that felt like hundreds of years, a grunt of dissatisfied frustration sounded from what sounded like a human male, and the tread moved briskly away. The lights went out with a sharp click, and the door shut with a loud bump and a soft click. Now wasn't the time to cease vigilance, though. Ever so slowly, Alydia stood, using the rough stone wall at her side to lever herself up into a crouch. From there, she rose so that her eyes could see over the very top of her barricade. A quick scan revealed no one, and she stood up the rest of the way, peeking out like a gopher from a hole.

There was no one. The room was empty.

Abruptly, all of Alydia's itches faded to nothing and the overwhelming pain in her thigh sank down to more manageable levels. The thief took her hat off of her head, wiping nervous perspiration from her brow before setting it back, tugging it down, and wiping the blood from her cheek. That wound was already scabbing over, and the heat of the bullet had made the flesh swell closed over the wound. A little blood still escaped at the sides, but it was absorbed by the black fabric of her catsuit. While she had the time and ability to deal with it then, treatment might actually force her to slow down before the chase was over.

She couldn't afford that, so she left it be.

Momentarily safe, Alydia extricated herself from her cramped hiding hole and turned to the rest of the room. There were things to be learned in here.

[Izvilvin]

The hammer cut through the air, a dull hum by his ear telling Izvilvin just how close the blow had come. He’d barely ducked it as the Draconian adjusted his strike to try and catch the drow in his dodge.

He came forward to take away the creature’s range advantage. The Draconian wore heavy plate mail that barely slowed him, but he had no protection on his legs and several sensitive areas were exposed. Izvilvin knew he could take advantage of those openings, and he began to do so by driving one of his sai handle-deep into the beast’s thigh. The scales didn’t resist so much this time.

To the drow’s shock, the Draconian merely grunted and swiped him aside with the shaft of the hammer, quickly reversing his momentum and bringing the hammer down in a vertical strike. Izvilvin dove to the side an instant before the weapon smashed the tiled floor, the sound of it resounding down the hallways.

The elf was up before the hammer was, rushing around the bigger warrior and nimbly leaping onto his back. With all the quickness and force he could muster, Izvilvin drove his other sai into the front of its neck. The Draconian growled, tried to shake him off for a moment before abandoning his hammer and reaching up, plucking Izvilvin from his back and throwing the elf to the floor.

Izvilvin felt a brief numbness come over him as his head struck the floor, but he knew he had to react. He’d missed the Draconian’s windpipe, lodging the sai deep into its neck but doing no real damage. It took all of the elf’s gumption to roll to his feet, but the Draconian was already upon him, grabbing him by the face with a massive, scaled hand and driving him against the cave wall.

He couldn’t hope to overpower the Draconian and push him back. Izvilvin reached down and drew a dagger from his thigh, driving it upward into the creature’s tricep. Its grip didn’t loosen; the beast dug his claws into Izvilvin’s head, drawing blood, pressing his skull into the gritty wall and raking it back and forth. The drow tugged on his dagger, trying to tear open a bigger wound, trying to rip a tendon, anything.

From between the Draconian’s fingers, Izvilvin saw him raise the hammer with one hand, grabbing it just beneath the mallet and balancing the weapon horizontally. The dragon-like adversary was going to drive it into his face, and Izvilvin couldn’t move out of its way.

A feeling of desperation overcame him, a sensation he hadn’t experienced in years. People did unexpected and unconventional things when they were otherwise hopeless. Izvilvin saw the situation in a new light, looking for any option that would save him from death.

He used the Draconian’s strength against him, lifting his feet up and wrapping his limbs around the creature’s muscular arm. Its grip on his face didn’t loosen, but Izvilvin hadn’t expected it to. He drove his foot forward into the handle of the sai in the Draconian’s neck, driving it forward in such a way that the prongs of the weapon, behind the creature’s esophagus, were forced forward. The force of the kick caused the sai to twist and turn out of the front of the beast’s neck, ripping its throat in half in the process.

A splatter of blood hit Izvilvin’s face a second before the Draconian released him, dropping the elf to the ground. The clang of the warrior’s hammer against the ground came only a moment before his massive frame followed; the Draconian died clutching his throat in disbelief.

Izvilvin lay flat on his back, panting, his nose bleeding and five small punctures around his face leaking blood. His right ear was filled with blood and his chest was aching, and he couldn’t focus on one point in the ceiling without getting dizzy. The back of his neck, his rear and his head were burning from the wizard’s fireball.

Despite all this, his left ear was tuned in to the goings-on around him. He could hear footsteps in the distance, perhaps a few hallways away, and Izvilvin knew he needed to move. He sat up, feeling a wave of vertigo through his head as he did so. Reaching under his shirt, he produced the remainder of the potion Alydia had given him, which had healed a few wounds before they’d traveled through the portal into this base. There couldn’t have been a better time than now to drink the rest.

He immediately felt better, though Izvilvin was still in bad shape. His vertigo and dizziness were gone, which was most important, and his bleeding slowed significantly.

He retrieved his weapons and turned down a nearby hall, trying to stay ahead of the sounds he heard and avoid another painful confrontation. He paused when he did, for in the distance was a stairway leading downward and next to it, a small doorway which he believed led into a different part of the complex. Izvilvin knew the series of hallways and their storage rooms offered him nothing, so he began to make his way toward it.

[Alydia Ettermire]

A single gloved finger reached out toward the light switch, flipping it on with an almost languid flick. Harsh yellow light bathed the little room, illuminating the labels on the vast array of filing cabinets before her. Aly knew that this room didn't hold all of Step's vast array of knowledge. It was a mere five strides by six across, so there was no possible way it could have everything.

Still, the chances of it having nothing of interest at all were equally remote. Inquisitive blue eyes flitted hurriedly over labels slapped onto the drawers, hurrying to find what she thought would be most relevant to her. It would only be a matter of time before the agents that had already excluded this room discovered she wasn't anywhere else, either, and came back to search again. She didn't intend to be trapped in a tiny room when they found her again.

At the far end of the room was a low oaken desk stocked with pen and paper, presumably so the agents in charge of organizing information could conveniently access it, amend it, and then tuck it in place once more. She doubted she'd find anything there; the desk was so conveniently located that unless something was being actively worked on, the likelihood of there being anything useful on the desk was almost nil. Even so, she glanced at the surface.

To her surprise, there were two files on the desk, one bland folder laid casually over the other. The fact that they were out at all was more than enough to pique Aly's curiosity; an active file was definitely going to guide her to Step's immediate priorities. Booted feet squeaked softly on clean tile as the thief strode to inspect the information that had been so readily presented to her.

The name on the top file was penned in a careful, neat hand...and if she hadn't expected to find anything out, she certainly wasn't expecting the subject: Kazizzrym, Izvilvin.

She picked up the file in her left hand, reaching up with her right to rifle through it...but the file underneath it, labeled in a blocky, crude hand, was more surprising still: Ettermire, Alydia del.

...Alydia of Ettermire. This file must have been started better than forty years ago... She had dropped the 'del' in her name a long time before; despite the fact that all young orphans in the area were technically "of Ettermire," but when she had become one of Ettermire's leading young sleuths, she'd dropped the anonymity of merely being from the great city.

She pulled the chair out with a soft scrape and sat down, setting Izvilvin's folder to the side and pulling her own closer. She stared at it for a moment, unsure if she even wanted to know what they did. What if their knowledge of her went deeper than her own? Did they know who her parents were? Did she want to know?

Aly shook her head. It wasn't the time to be getting cold feet. A determined flick of her fingers opened the file, and she started reading.

Ettermire, Alydia del

Mother: Derahel, Brizolin
Father: Everhgym, Zakin

Aly closed her eyes. She didn't know how she was so important that they knew or even had been able to find out her parents' names; before she had accepted the Chief, and then her boys as her only family, she had exhausted every resource available to her to find them. And here it was, sitting in an old folder on a yellowed sheet of parchment. Opening her eyes, she read on.

It was a bare bones text, little more than a timeline. Her father had left when she was less than a year old, her mother had sought him out. When she was four, apparently her mother had found him. The entry simply read: "Brizolin Derahel dec'd at hands of Zakin Everhgym."

Her father had killed her mother. Why? What for? Why had her own father orphaned her? She would have to seek out that information later, if she had the time. Other entries followed.

Age 7: Exhibits early signs of having father's talent with darkness.

...

Age 12: Captured by Ettermire police.
Age 13: Adopted by Ettermire Chief of Police.

From then on it listed cases she had worked on, ones she'd failed, ones she'd solved, and then her heists. She noted with some smugness that they didn't know the names of all of her boys; despite the fact that they thought they had her, they couldn't keep themselves completely informed. Flipping her file closed, she turned to Izvilvin's.

His file was a lot less detailed than hers for the early years, which gave her some pause. He had actually been an agent, she hadn't. Why was his so sketchy? In the year or so before he'd joined the organization, and then after he was a member, his file fleshed out. Each of his weapons was listed as well as his skill with it, his missions were listed, and so was his disobedience. They had tracked him closely, it was almost as though the man never had any privacy.

The very last thing in his file froze her blood. Forgetting her determination to search for the files on Zakin Everhgym and Brizolin Derahel, the thief tucked the two files into the folds of her coat and pulled her hat down firmly over her right eye, hastening herself out of the room. She had to find Izvilvin if she could, after that the tome would become important.

The very last entrance in his file had been from late the night before: "Kazizzrym seen entering the city of Ettermire in company of Alydia del Ettermire."

Step knew they were together. Knew they were coming. Had they had time to prepare? Or had the heedless haste of two dark-skinned Alerians put too much pressure on the organization?

[Izvilvin]

He could hear sounds of pursuit behind him, screams of direction among the Step agents whose voices barely pierced the alarm’s wail.

Izvilvin slid through the doorway at the end of the hall and slammed its door firmly. With a strain, the drow gripped an iron rod attached to a locking mechanism and it smoothly clicked in place, heavy iron mechanics inside clicking. Immediately the sound of the alarm was muffled as if stuffed beneath a pillow.

The warrior rested against the door, taking notice of the room’s interior for the first time. Dozens of screens faced him, each showing something different and each with a colored bulb by its picture. This mosaic of moving pictures rose several feet into the air and stopped just short of the ceiling, where black wires draped neatly across and down the far wall, flanking Izvilvin and the doorway.

He stepped across the room and stared transfixed at these colorful squares, unsure of what to make of them. They were unworldly, as if part of another universe that was completely beyond his realm of understanding. Wary of magic to begin with, the warrior felt unnerved. Moreover, his aching head was swimming with a new kind of dizziness attributed to the magic squares.

He shut his eyes and rubbed them with one hand, wondering how exactly he had intended to make any kind of impact on this complex. He hadn’t come in with a plan, had merely intended to create as much chaos as possible, to lash out angrily at the hand which once governed his life.

Alydia’s presence within the headquarters had been her own decision, he knew, but Izvilvin regretted her arrival now. As he considered it, the drow realized that he had come to this place with every intention of dying in a blaze of glory. What was the point in living if he had to be constantly vigilant of assassins, unable to make friends without putting them in mortal peril? Alydia is a victim of that very thing, he thought, opening his eyes to once more examine the colorful, glowing pictures.

And there she was, as if summoned by his thoughts. Alydia was on one of the small square boxes, gliding through a dark corridor but almost immediately disappearing from it. Izvilvin balked, confused, and tried to find her again on one of the many others.

He looked down and for the first time noticed a grey panel covered in various knobs, buttons, dials, meters and slides. Izvilvin could make nothing of them for few were labeled, and those that were seemed to be mish-mashes of random words and numbers that had no significance to him. He smashed the panel with his fist, enraged and confused and lost, and an immediate effect took over the room he was in.

The lights immediately shut down, leaving him in pitch blackness. The curious moving pictures had all disappeared. The alarm from outside the room had stopped. He had hit something significant, that much was obvious, but Izvilvin could not guess what.

His eyes adjusted to a different spectrum, illuminating his surroundings according to their heat and movement. Without the pictures to distract him, Izvilvin noticed a small latch in the far corner of the room. He knelt and examined it – at his touch, a square panel slid to the side revealing a ladder leading downward.

He thought of the map Alydia had shown him. The bottom floor of the complex included a room that had not been labeled or even drawn out completely. Izvilvin thought that if he should pursue anything, it would be finding out what that area contained. If it was of any significance, he expected to meet much resistance there.

Sliding carefully so that his foot touched one of the ladder’s rungs, Izvilvin began to descend, unsure of what he would find.

[Alydia Ettermire]

The alarm shut off abruptly, leaving behind an intense and eerie silence. Alydia paused to take stock of her situation now that the alarm wasn't blaring through her head like a giant, banged-up trumpet in the hands of a young child. From in front of her and to her right, distantly, there were calls of "all clear!" and "search over there!"

They didn't sound TOO close. Yet.

She'd been running in a spiral pattern, keeping her footsteps light on the slick stone floor. In her driven search for Izvilvin she'd made several stupid mistakes. First, Step's stronghold was so large that her standard search pattern was unlikely to locate anything, particularly a moving target, especially under dangerous conditions and most especially when she was only searching on one level. All her current strategy would do was get her lost and into trouble.

Aly started moving again, wheeling around and hugging her coat, black side out, close to her body to present a smaller profile and make less noise. She hated reversing her coat, not only because the more stealthy black stole the dramatic flair of the scarlet side, but also because it redistributed the weight she carried and rearranged where she had everything. In a second of crisis, the time it took her to remember what she had in which pocket could prove dangerous, and grabbing the wrong item because she reached for where something else should be could be disastrous.

All right, my first order of business is survival. I need an edge here. Easiest way to get that would be to take away the light...and if I had a generator big enough to power a complex of this size, I'd put it in the basement. Plenty of space, won't take everything else with it if it blows, maybe disturb the structural integrity of part of the level above it.

If Alydia hadn't been Alerian and hadn't grown up in what was practically the technological capital of Althanas, she probably wouldn't have the knowledge required to locate the generator. As it was, she wasn't nearly familiar enough with the technology to figure out a delicate way of sabotage. She figured that if she just ripped something vital out it would take them longer to restore power than she needed to find the tome and figure out a way of escape.

If Izvilvin is still alive, the darkness will help him, as well. She wasn't sure he would still be alive; Bron's attitude back at Ankhas had not only been a hesitance to allow Alydia to do something dangerous, she was sure it was born of concern that the warrior was bent on not surviving Step. His death would leave her completely without backup, and she didn't even have an escape route planned yet. All in all, it wasn't her best idea ever.

Aly had made her way to the central juncture without being harassed, although footsteps constantly made their way closer and closer to her. Carefully, she peeked into the large cylindrical room that vaulted up into the air and plummeted down into the depths, connecting the various levels and sections of the subterranean citadel like a giant nervous system.

It was mercifully empty, from the far reaches of what she could see above her all the way to the murky depths three levels down. A hastily thrown-together rope bridge above her jarred with the lattices that ran through the rest of the levels, telling her that come hell or high water, the men and women stationed here would not let a little thing like a stolen catwalk prevent them from getting quickly from one area of their base. Still, the pair of ropes - one to ease across and one to hold onto - made the thief grin. She'd brought some disorder to Step, and it was a good start.

The ladder down was on the other side of the shaft, and the voices Aly could hear told her that if she didn't move, she'd never reach the bottom level. They were so close now she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck prickling in nervous anticipation, much like they did when she was on a good chase and on the verge of getting caught.

But being caught now wouldn't be satisfying in the least.

Without further hesitation, she set out over the catwalk, hoping that she had enough time not only to reach the other side, but to scramble down to the lowest part and make her way to the generator. She kept her steps light - and on the lattice, that meant a quick walk. The full-out run she'd have preferred would have resonated and roared like a wounded bull ox.

As it turned out, stealth was useless, so she might as well have run.

A shadow fell across the opposite entrance as a huge man stepped in, brandishing a truly gargantuan sword. Aly wouldn't have been surprised if the weapon weighed more than she did. He wasn't alone, either. Other shadows flickered in where the big guy didn't completely eclipse the light.

Without a convenient landing beneath her or a strong enough jump to grasp hold of the rope ten feet above her head, the shadowy Alerian whirled around to run for the exit just in time to see a motley group of four boil in with weapons drawn.

Caught like a rat between two sides of either certain death or certain torment, Aly looked the only way she could: down. It was forty feet to the bottom with nothing to catch her fall in between; a fall like that would kill her. But she did have something that long, if only barely.

With a noisy rattle, the catwalk she'd stolen less than twenty minutes before clattered into existence, leaning at a dangerously steep angle between the bridge she stood on and the floor. Still, given an escape, Aly took it, leaping onto her jury-rigged slide and plummeting. Her left foot led, pressing lightly into the grate and controlling her movement so she didn't tumble off one side or other. Her right foot and hand pressed harder, the foot trying to keep her upright and the fingers fighting to keep her on the lattice. She could feel the heat on her hand as the leather of her gloves started to peel and tear beneath the abuse. Her left hand, stretched in front of her, was to keep her balance. She was sure she was doomed to fall.

Her method, while precarious, was a lot safer than the big brute who pursued her. With a mighty roar and a leap, he plunged after her. He bounced once, then twice on the steep slide and then seemed to fly from it, tumbling through the air like a stone. His shoulder caught on one level, and on the next down he hit his head with a nasty crack. He reached the ground just before Alydia, but he didn't rise to challenge her.

His cohorts, either smarter or less suicidal, were clambering down the ladder as quickly as possible, and one was even climbing down her catwalk. But that didn't matter. She was right by the door, coat swirling behind her as she moved to it.

This one was locked, but it was only a simple lock and one she could pick in a matter of seconds. It was also a lock that doubtless one of her pursuers had the key to. Aly reached into her coat and closed her fingers around a length of twine. She released it instantly, and snatched her lock-picking kit from the other side of her coat. Already Step's agents were nearly down the ladder and time was running out.

Quickly she jammed two different tools into the keyhole, jimmied them, and felt her heart freeze when it didn't give. She heard feet across the room from her reach the floor and heard their heavy boots stomping across the floor toward her.

She tried again, over, curve, dip, press, push, slide, wiggle. To her relief, the door unlocked, and she pushed it open to slip through the crack just in time to avoid being skewered on a short sword. She slammed it shut instantly and heard it lock again automatically.

It won't hold them long.

To give herself more time, Aly released the heavy crates she still held in two neat stacks, two high and two wide.

Aside from the muffled thumps of her pursuit trying to break through, the short corridor the thief found herself in was silent save for a loud electric hum. It opened up into a large room where wires and an ugly amalgamation of parts all connected to a softly glowing generator.

Looking around for a part that looked vital, Alydia stumbled across a lone technician who was working to keep Step's power facility functioning smoothly. He yelped when he first saw her, and then he whipped out a pistol, aiming it for her head at point blank range.

"D-don't move!" He stammered. "P-p-put your h-hands up!"

Aly sighed, slowly complying.

[Alydia Ettermire]

The thief's mind raced while she stared down the shaking barrel of the gun. The twitchy human in front of her was more a danger than he perhaps realized; each futile thump at the door brought a flinch from him, and any one of those could squeeze the trigger wrong. This was what came of running off unprepared into a place she knew was dangerous, and then separating from her highly-lethal new friend. A smirk snaked its way across her lower face.

"You really don't want to do this." Her voice wound around the middle-aged man's shuddering breath, smooth as silk and soft as velvet. Her body tensed beneath her coat when his finger tightened on the trigger.

"Why don't I?" He demanded, a blubbering sound that seemed lost in the chaos.

"Because I didn't come alone." She lifted her gaze, looking pointedly over his shoulder. Her hat tilted to indicate something behind him. Reflexively, he whirled, pointing the gun at the non-existent threat. Aly moved when he did, kicking off of the ground and onto the control panel, then leaping for the balding human and his gun. Unexpectedly, he recovered in time to face her and fire.

The bullet ripped through the front panel of her coat, grazed her thigh like a swarm of fire wasps, and sank itself into the circuit board. Pain ripped up and down Alydia's leg, but her hand closed on the gun, and in an instant, it was gone. Doughy hands flailed, grabbing for the thief, but closed on empty air. Angry sparks spat from the machinery, and on the other side of the curling smoke, a gun's hammer clicked. The technician stared, wide-eyed and trembling, at the black-coated she-devil who was pointing his own weapon at his face. Her hand was steady, her eye was cold. The scent of sharp ammonia filled the chamber as the human faced his own mortality.

"That's pathetic." The sultry tone had changed; now it was hard and flat as a brick. "Cut the power. Now. I want every light off in every section of the building."

"I- I can't! It's not p-p-p ... oh, please..." Tears choked the man's voice, and Aly's scowl deepened. Of course it was possible; this bank connected to the main circuitry. But the rivvil was useless; caught between his fear of his employers and his fear of immediate death, Step was the greater terror.

No wonder Izvilvin was so anxious at the prospect of being here. To be more afraid of something than of death itself...

"Kneel, iblith, and put your hands behind your head." Inwardly, Aly winced. She could see this man's veins throbbing beneath his skin, and wasn't sure his heart could take much more stress. He whimpered piteously as he complied. The thumping at the door had stopped; it was only a matter of minutes before her pursuers came down another path to find and end her.

A few quick strides brought to to the human's back, at the edges of his foul-smelling puddle, and only the the utmost of control kept her from letting the lancing pain in her leg slow or unsteady her. A quick flip of the firearm, a swift, hard strike, and the human slumped forward in merciful unconsciousness.

Footsteps resounded in the hallways around the little enclave; her window of opportunity was dwindling quickly. A gloved hand reached up to the column of wire and paneling, gripping the warm metal and insulation. "I'm an educated Alerian, sir," she addressed the unconscious male. "I know how electricity works." A whole section of the column vanished.

An instant.

A dash.

A flash.

A darkness.

The low hum that permeated the Step Compound died, leaving stunned silence for an instant or two in the wake of the sudden darkness. That was followed quickly by a cacophony of shouting in several languages, and heavy footsteps scattering blindly in all directions.

Time to go.

With a flick of her wrist, Alydia discarded the chunk of column next to the technician. Then she limped to an inner wall, listened carefully, and took it, putting it back in place behind her.

[Alydia Ettermire]

A long, empty hallway stretched into cool violet darkness on the other side of the wall. While Aly could still hear people scrambling around her, the hallway echoed only with silence, and nothing stirred in her vision.

Aly took the reprieve to crouch down and peel back the thin fabric covering her injuries, the criss-crossed welts laid upon her right thigh. Her leg screamed in agony and protest, even at that little bit of attention, but the wounds themselves were minor; mostly nasty burn welts and a little bit of a cut, mostly sealed at the moment by how much the rest of it was swelling. The thief reached into her coat, digging in various pockets for the things she had taken from Bron's medicine cabinet earlier that morning. She had gauze, salve, disinfectant, and bandages - useful things. She supposed that Bron's plan had been for her to stay with Izvilvin, if she insisted on going on his fool's errand. The warrior was supposed to protect her, and she was supposed to open the way and keep an extra set of eyes out. The medical supplies were supposed to be for him, to keep him going that extra little bit so that maybe one or both of them could come out alive.

Of course, she'd left his side almost immediately upon arriving... But best laid plans and all, as the humans said. She had reached a point where leaving her wounds untreated were hindering her more than taking a moment to clean and bind them would, so in the minute or five she had to breathe, she needed to take care of herself.

Alydia removed her gloves, rubbed a little disinfectant on her hands, then braced herself. This was going to hurt, and she didn't know if there was anything beyond her vision that could hear her scream. She breathed deeply, put her gloves in her mouth, and tipped the bottle over her wounds. Agony erupted through her, beginning at her thigh and lancing up and down her leg, through her spine, organs, fingers, toes and even teeth.

"GGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

As the beast subsided, at least a little bit, Aly spat her gloves out, breathing in harsh rasps and sobs while tears streaked down her cheeks. Quickly, she wrapped a bandage around her thigh, then listened. Only welcome silence greeted her ears, and she sat back, waiting for the fire in her leg to cool some. Her supplies went back into her pockets, she stole the rips from her suit, and a candle, match, and map came out.

The sputtering light revealed smooth gray stone all around her and a door with heavy locks and seals behind her. That was the entrance from the main compound; obviously the rank and file weren't supposed to get in here. Neither was there noise beyond it, which meant they hadn't figured out where she'd gone yet. Or they had, but the people with the ability to open the door were dealing with Izvilvin, or dead at his hands. Either way, she was safe for the moment.

Examination of her map revealed the room she'd just come from, but not the tunnel she found herself in now. Beyond here be monsters...

Aly snuffed the candle and stood up, returning everything to its place. Her pulse quickened, and the pain fell away in a surge of adrenaline. The map hadn't said where, exactly, the book she was seeking was kept. It hadn't even said that it was there. Even Bron had only hinted that it might be here somewhere. Her initial assumption was that a highly valuable text would be kept at the heart of the facility... But...

In Ankhas, the collection of secret tomes was in a part of the library that no one was supposed to know existed. The best-kept secrets contained the best treasures.

Or the things you aren't supposed to know will kill you.

On a whim, she turned her hat and coat back to their red sides. There was no point going beyond the borders if she couldn't do it in style, after all.

Barely limping, she hurried down the tunnel to whatever might wait at the end.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Bright light permeated the room at the end of the tunnel, throwing deep shadows behind objects and in corners. While the rest of the compound - or most of it, at least - had been cast into darkness as black as N'Jal's soul, this room (and perhaps others) had its own generator. Blue eyes scanned the room, taking in its high vaulted ceiling, the platforms stationed at various heights, the dangling ropes and chains, none of which seemed to have much purpose.

Around the room...

Thayne alive!

It was the greatest horde of treasure Alydia had ever seen, relics from all over the world - and several she'd only heard rumors of; items of great historical value that had disappeared hundreds, even thousands of years before. Alydia's heart stopped and she felt the air flee from her lungs. Just one of these would be the greatest heist of a lifetime; all of them?

She forgot everything. Izvilvin's plight, her own peril, the people in her organization who had gone missing, the face of the man who had raised her. There was nothing in this moment besides her and these stolen monuments. She wandered through, moony-eyed, like a Raiaeran student on her first visit to Istien. Had she ever seen anything so beautiful? Would there ever be anything so beautiful as this?

The thief paused in the middle of the room to look at a stand. It was about waist-height at its tallest, with a map of the world - from the western-most end of Salvar to the eastern-most end of Kebiras, from the frozen seas at the top of the world to the empty ice at its bottom. She would have taken that, but it was an image projected by a screen. Beneath it were buttons with numbers, and she tapped a few experimentally. A dot lit up on the map, and an archway on the wall crackled to life in response, displaying dense jungle with crumbling stone ruins. The plant life seemed consistent with Dheathain, corresponding with the mark on the map. The fresh air that rushed into the musty chamber told her it was real.

Ah. All right. Latitude and longitude. From this spot, she could travel anywhere in the world. The possibilities were endless!

Something began niggling at the back of her mind, the beginnings of a hunch. Something didn't feel right.

A touch shut the machine down, and Aly continued moving, now picking up her feet more carefully, peering behind lost statues and the facades of ancient buildings. How was all of this here? Who was responsible for it? Who could be?

Lil V'drin Barra.

Aly's blood turned to ice in her veins. The Sleeping Shadow. He was just a rumor, more of a myth. He had been credited with stealing items as far back as eight thousand years ago, and so was rumored to be more a "them" than a "he." No one could prove he existed, and so far, his exploits were far beyond what she could imagine were possible - and she could imagine a lot. If he had allied with Step, had access to their resources and that portal...

But how would he move such large items?

Age 7: Exhibits early signs of having father's talent with darkness. The words from the file came threading back into her mind. At age seven, she'd started pulling sandwiches out of existence to bring them back later, where she could eat them safely. Taking a large chunk of column to ruin a building's electrical systems had been beyond her imagination then, and a mere half hour before, she hadn't given it a second thought.

The floor shook beneath her, cracking a pre-Coronian painted plaster. "Oh..." Aly winced; that was a priceless artifact, and seeing it ruined was like a knife to her heart. Either her interference or something Izvilvin had done had shaken the compound to its core, and it wouldn't be safe to be here at all before too long.

Alydia picked up her pace; she needed to find the book, if it was there. Instinctively, she went to the side farthest from the door - the most valuable piece always should be the most work to get to. With every step, her suspicion grew stronger, that nagging itch at the back of her mind deducing things while she searched.

...father's talent with... No.

That idea was so preposterous she dismissed it out of hand.

[Alydia Ettermire]

The book was right where she thought it might be; right where she would put it if this was her collection of successfully stolen items. It was carefully sealed inside a glass case, as though it was a showpiece in a museum. Just like she would do, if it were hers. The thief brought her lock picks out again, but right before she could stick them in the delicate mechanism, a shadow shifted over her head.

Aly ducked, spinning out of the way despite the pain that lanced through her leg again. A spike of darkness narrowly missed her head, stabbing instead through the case that protected the item she sought. She shot her hand up, through the shower of glass, and touched the book as other fingers grabbed for it. In an instant, she'd taken it for her own, secreted in a darkness no one else could reach.

She looked up into a frosty blue glare. The man was hanging from one of the ropes above like a spider in its web, and the rage on his face boiled down onto the younger woman. The face wasn't unlike her own; he had the same ink-black skin, the exact same eye color; even his features were similar to her own, except that his were hard and full of hate.

"Alydia Derahel," he growled, calling her by a name she hadn't known until just an hour earlier.

"Zakin Everhgym," she returned evenly. "Lil V'drin Barra."

He chuckled, dropping silently to the ground. He stood an inch or two taller than her, and his white hair was cut short. With his handsome features, his confident posture, and his chiseled body, he cut a dangerous, dashing figure. His muscles were tense beneath his skin-tight suit; she had invaded his space and taken something from him.

"Give me what is mine."

"No."

He advanced upon her, coagulating a razor-sharp shadow around his hand, crunching shards of glass menacingly underneath his hard boots. "Do not assume I will not kill you simply because you share my blood."

Aly backed away slowly. Her leg was on fire, she was exhausted from running, and now she was faced with a man who was far her superior in experience and probably abilities. At least, she couldn't lift half of what he could, and she certainly couldn't create solid, deadly shadow. "I don't care where my blood comes from. I simply wouldn't care to lose it."

Platforms. Ropes. Deep shadows and a room full of invaluable obstacles. This wasn't just a collection; it was a playground. I can play too, Shadow.

The room shook again, cracking the stone and jostling some of the objects to the floor, where several piece of priceless pottery and ancient murals cracked and shattered. The Shadow's hand drew back and his blade shot forward, but by the time it reached Alydia, she had moved up to one of the platforms, taking refuge in one of the deep shadows.

"Did you expect to survive invading Step?" Zakin leapt up on the case that had held the book, grabbing back onto a rope and making his way to the platform, where Aly again evaded, using her strong leg to power a jump that took her back to the bottom floor, amidst a collection of temple artwork from Dheathain's glory days.

"Do you think I do not know your tricks, Alydia? Do you think you can escape your father?" He melted into sight in front of her, lashing out lazily, taking a chip out of a stylized stone face when she whirled around the wall and ran.

"I know my father, Everhgym. My father taught me to read, made sure I went to school, and sat up with me when I had bad dreams." An old Fallien statue vanished, telling her hunter where she had gone, but they both knew she wouldn't stay there. "I come from bad blood. But my father is a good man."

Another tremor rocked the ground beneath Zakin's feet, and he growled. "Having it both ways, child? Knowing in your heart that you were born to take things, seeing where it came from, and being preposterous enough to claim paternity of a lawman?"

Aly had rushed back to the portal, working to set coordinates, but she could sense the Shadow coming. Quickly, she stepped back into shadow, coming out on one of the platforms. She had the right latitude for her destination, she believed, but had abandoned the portal's control before she had the proper longitude put in. "Simply giving the man who raised me his proper honors." She saw him look up and spot her, and in a moment of spunky rebelliousness, she struck a pose, turning her profile and pulling her hat down a little bit. "And if this is 'join me, and we shall steal all of Althanas together' ... I don't like your methods, and must decline."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia's brazenness earned her a spray of razor-sharp shadow, while Everhgym leapt back up into the ropes and chains to resume the attack. Aly ducked behind her coat, letting it take the worst of the punishment, but found her throat beneath Zakin's fingers when she came out of it. Purple and red exploded in her vision, making it impossible for her to see another shadow to latch onto and hide in.

Another tremor shook the room, powerful enough to rattle the chains that hung from the ceiling and send the platform the two thieves stood on crashing toward the ground. The Shadow vanished first, leaving the red-coated woman to fall on her own, but Aly, free again to breathe, was only an instant behind, ending on a platform above and opposite him. Her vision swam wildly as she sucked in greedy breaths, valiantly fighting against the bright spots that still dazzled her eyes. She bled and stung from a dozen small cuts, and the bandage on her gunshot grazes was digging in and making them hurt worse than ever before.

Still, this wasn't over, and Aly wasn't about to let this man be the end of her. Not when she still had so much to do. "Everhgym!" Her voice left her lips hoarsely, as though the normally-smooth sound had to run over glass and gravel before leaving her mouth. "I am not my mother."

The announcement was met with a dark chuckle. "No, you are not. She was prettier, and less fun to kill." With that, he leaped for one of the chains, nimbly making his way up and across.

Aly launched herself too, watching where he was and anticipating where he would go. Chain. Chain. Chain. Rope. Another tremor shook the ceiling again, trapping both combatants in a brutal barrage of living metal. It also brought Zakin's rope close enough to Alydia. Wrenching her knife from its sheath and locking her legs around the chain to which she clung, she grabbed his rope with one hand and sawed it. Amidst the turbulence, he couldn't successfully grab another handhold, and it had been too soon since his last teleport. He fell, plunging more than forty feet into hard stone and broken artifacts.

When the tremor subsided, Alydia moved back to the portal panel, hurriedly searching for coordinates. Eluriand... I need to get to Eluriand.

A groan and a growl sounded from her left, prompting Aly to work faster. A shadow shifted in the corner of her eye, and she waved her hand, dropping the Fallien statue just ahead of it and to the side, prompting walls with examples of Early Alerian Fresco to topple like dominoes, impeding his path.

Alydia winced, even as her hands flew over buttons and dials. So much history in this room. So much carnage. This was art genocide, and she was party to it. It was almost worse than taking the lives of those unsuspecting Step agents. Another few seconds, and she had her coordinates, but she could hear Zakin closing in despite his own injuries and the many obstacles in his path.

"Why are you doing this, Alydia?" His voice was breathy; he'd probably punctured a lung in the fall.

Again, Aly drew her knife, but instead of turning to face the Shadow, she jammed it into the machine, locking its power mechanism into the on position before snatching it back out. "Why, Zakin?" She looked at him over her shoulder, one blue eye blazing. She opened her mouth, then thought back to Shynt Aubrey, and his very similar question to her. "Because I never learned better than to hunt a monster in a maze." Red lips pulled into her trademark smirk.

The tremors started again, stronger than before. The compound was dying; it was time to go. She started running, and so did her opponent, but he only got to the stand, while she reached the portal. As he grabbed for it, she pulled out her gun and fired, hitting the machine twice. The portal started to waver, and Everhgym swore as the control wouldn't respond to his commands. Alydia smirked and tossed the firearm into the rubble.

"Next time, Shadow," she purred, and stepped through.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Rather than Eluriand, Alydia landed in deep snow that crunched beneath her boots, froze the blood on her cuts, and utterly dashed her hopes of reaching war-ravaged Raiaera. She looked around desperately; Zakin Everhgyn must have managed to change her coordinates before she disabled the machine. She was out in the middle of Thayne knew where, far from her intended destination, after having just committed the desecration of priceless historical artifacts and the out and out destruction of lives.

The portal rippled shut behind her, stranding her where she was.

She had killed people today. Her, Alydia Ettermire. She had killed people. Her hands were figuratively as red as her coat. And while most of them had been out to kill her, how could she justify it, when most of them were probably as much victims of their circumstances as Izvilvin had been?

Izvilvin.

Aly stood up, blinking away icicles that were already forming on her eyelashes. She hadn't seen him since they had arrived at the headquarters. She didn't know if he had managed to escape. What if it was she who had caused the destruction of the compound? What if she had killed her friend, too?

The wind blew harder, ripping through her clothes and body as though they weren't even there, and she hunched over.

Was this worth it?

Visions of Eluriand swam before her eyes. The hordes surrounding it would take it soon, and she had spotted survivors among the ruins. There was a hope that she could still save some people from death and worse.

I have to keep going. I have to help them. There is still time.

Standing up once more, the thief tied her coat around her as tightly as she could, then blew a kiss toward the now-vanished portal. "Kyorl dos gajak, ussta abbil." See you later, friend. She would trust that he was strong enough to escape until she learned otherwise. She'd ask Bron to keep an eye out for him. In the meantime, she had to survive, because she still had people she needed to help.

For the first time since arriving, Alydia looked around. Mountains rose to her right. To her south, judging by the sun. Salvar. Salvar, near the northern border of Raiaera. There was a village somewhere near here, she thought, where she might be able to heal a little and get a night's rest. From there...

Alydia started limping east. From there, let's see if the rumors of the Legion of Light are true.

This is the last of a four-part quest, including:
And Once More We Return (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?18413-And-Once-More-We-Return) (70)
Homecoming (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?18461-Homecoming) (78.5)
Behind the Veil (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?18499-Behind-the-Veil) (62)

For Quest Series Spoils, I would like Alydia to get The Book of Secret Histories, one of a set of two. This book contains powerful magics and long-lost, forgotten, or obscured facts.

[Alyssa Snow]

Izvilvin (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?329-Izvilvin) Gets:

1,638 EXP
125 GP

Where in the World? (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?8606-Where-in-the-World) Gets:

1,699 EXP LEVEL UP!
125 GP
The Book of Secret Histories, Part I (To be used as a story/quest only item. Any gained/used abilities from the text must be approved by RoG in a level up.)

[Alyssa Snow]

EXP & GP Added!