Roach

[Atzar]

Closed to Pyralis.

The creature fled across the desiccated field, making for the dark city not two miles hence. It looked human enough, with two arms, two legs and a head, though the scrawny musculature matched that of an adolescent more than an adult. The glowing yellow skin, however, belonged to no human Jance had ever seen. It shone candle-like against the gloomy darkness of Ettermire’s evening as it charged its devilish power. It had teleported away from his snare once already, but the hunter was of no mind to let it do so again.

He had surprised it, flushed it from hiding before it could ready its devious magic. One of his ‘partners,’ if a man could call them such, ran at his side as he gave chase. Chuan ran with practiced grace, his breaths coming in an even, measured cadence. He was a small, lean man, reliant on quickness rather than power. He sported light leather armor, his steel sword rested in a sheath slung across his back and a small knife was tucked into his belt.

Rete, his other associate, cut across the field at an angle in front of him. He wore a similar leather outfit, and he held his bow in one hand while he ran. The archer was the man Jance was worried about the most. The plan revolved around Rete’s ability to lame the creature, to shoot it in a nonlethal place before it could blink away.

To hit a moving target from that distance at all would be a fine shot. To do it in poor lighting in such a way that it incapacitated but did not kill? Unthinkable. But Rete had insisted that he could pull it off, and their employer had signed off on the idea. An error of six inches could spell the end of everything he had worked on for the last month. The boss wanted the creature because of some magical ability it could bestow, yadda yadda yadda. He hadn't paid attention to that part of the briefing. Magic was useless to him. The payment, however, was another matter entirely. If Rete screwed this up, Jance and his family didn't eat.

The icy palm of anxiety gripped his heart as he watched Rete draw back his string and fire his first shot. Missed. Jance urged his tired legs on, pleading for more speed. In his hand he clutched a dagger, the key to his entire plan. It glistened with a coat of special poison that sealed magic.

A few paces later, the archer attempted a second shot. The hunter couldn't see the arrow in the gloom, but he could see the glowing creature’s reaction as clear as day. It cried out and fell, clutching its left leg. Relief and grudging admiration washed over Jance as he closed in on their quarry. He slid on his knees to a stop in front of the fallen beast. It looked up at him with flat, soulless eyes. Then it vanished.

The hunter screamed his frustration and slammed the blade into the earth.

[Pyralis]

"Did you have something to add, Lufe?"

The child stared down at his primly clasped hands, nails caked thick with grime. "Virny said if you don't cremate someone, they come back and haunt you," he mumbled at his grubby palms.

"Did not," Virny sneered through tangles of wild hair. The dim light flashed off her pearly teeth, and for a split second she looked more macabre creature than girl. "And I didn't say haunt, I said eat." She gnashed for dramatic effect and the youngest began to cry again, loud enough to burst eardrums as the echoing tunnel amplified his wails.

Pyralis pinched the bridge of her burning nose, closed her eyes, and sighed. The sound was lost to the noise and additional rush of water which ran not far from their feet, the only barrier between them and sewage being their small community's most recent loss. The body laid on its back, hands folded neatly at its waist with a single stolen posy wedged between them –– courtesy of Lufe, of course. The yellow shone bright in the dank sewer, and the rest of the dead child's body remained indistinguishable from the mud beneath it. The change had spread fast –– too fast for Pyralis to help this time. "If you can't be respectful, you'll never come to another funeral again," she warned the more outspoken of the procession.

This didn't faze Virny a bit. "At least I came. Where's Helethra, anyway? I thought she was one of us now."

The eldest dark elf continued to fold in on herself, rubbing her temple with thin fingers. She stared blankly at the flower, too weary to bicker with a mongrel less than half her age. "Give her time."

"Can we go back now?" meek Lufe spoke up, his crooked arm draped over the small one's heaving shoulders.

Their leader nodded. "All three of you, go," Pyralis said, gesturing toward the passage behind them. The warm hint of sunlight beckoned and Lufe reached out to take Virny's hand. The beast girl accepted it eagerly, and she stumbled over dislodged bricks as the boys guided her toward the surface.

Her attitude might have upset them more, but they were all painfully aware that out of everyone, Virny was probably next. For that, Pyralis conceded that the girl was allowed to be as angry as she pleased.

When the children's voices disappeared into the distance, she nudged the corpse into the sewage with her feet and watched as the current swept it away into darkness.

[Pyralis]

Pale violet eyes squinted as they met direct sun, or at least the closest that Ettermire ever experienced. It glowed fiercely behind the dark smog and stagnant, dry heat sat heavy over the city as Pyralis' boots scuffed against parched pavement. Even in that temperature, the elf burrowed into her oversized coat, further diminishing her already frail form. She swept unnoticed through the streets, taking the long way around to avoid running into such characters as Gravebeard; one could always count on the dwarven cobbler's lackeys prowling about, eager to catch on when a child went missing. Gravebeard's shoes were famous for their unique, exceptionally soft leather.

As Pyralis slipped into an alley, she noticed a figure shy away behind some fencing in a brief flash of faded gray. From the individual's stature and the remarkably pale –– nay, perhaps even glowing –– glance of a limb as it fled, she knew in her threadbare heart what must be done.

Even socially inept Pyralis was practiced enough in her speech at this point to confidently approach this mysterious creature, simply repeating a scene which happened all too often. No matter how many they lost, there was always another to take their place.

"Are you lost?" she asked quietly, maintaining a cautious distance.

It took a long moment for the skittish someone to acknowledge her question, but soon it lifted its head above the fencing to peer at her. It was difficult to make out its appearance from beneath the blanket it had shrouded itself in, but it had two eyes, a nose, and a palpable fear of its own mortality. Pyralis could empathize with that. It shook its head.

"Do you have somewhere to go?"

Again, negative.

Pyralis considered something for a moment, glanced over her shoulder toward the street, and looked back to the hunched form. Her brown brow crinkled with a mixture of pity and reluctant sense of duty. "I know of a safe place."

[Atzar]

Atzar had spent the previous week in Ettermire, but he had judged it within five minutes of his arrival at the docks.

It sucked.

Radasanth seemed a palace of cleanliness in comparison. The river water didn’t flow; it oozed. The wizard was morbidly convinced that every breath of the hot, toxic air chopped a day off of the end of his life. Even from the “nicer” parts of the city were the factories visible, black monstrosities that belched smoke into a hazy gray backdrop.

The dark elves might as well have been dubbed “The Bruised Ones”, their skin tones encompassing a variety of blacks, browns and purples. They were a standoffish bunch, and the few glances they sent his way were laden with xenophobic distrust. He didn’t even meet a single one who was willing to give him a ride in an airship. The dwarves tended to be a bit more friendly; the sober ones, at least. But they also weren’t typically the ones with the airships, so he didn’t care.

But now he was done with it! He had reached the end of this ill-conceived venture, and it was time to begin the long journey back to good old – okay, mostly just old – Radasanth. Even so, his spirits were higher than they had been all week as he traversed the grimy, crowded street on his way back to the river’s edge.

He grunted and winced as a Bruised One stuck an elbow right in his midsection. The mage spared an irritated glance back at the guilty party, a tall fellow with deep gray skin and shockingly white, flowing hair. He couldn’t tell if it had been intentional. Didn’t matter. He wouldn't let the ignorant pustule ruin his day.

Atzar turned back with a smile. He heard a crash and a grunt behind him as the dark elf tumbled, almost as if some vengeful scoundrel had tugged a cobblestone up beneath his feet. Magic had absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever. After all, the clumsy fellow should really learn to look where he was –

Sprite.

The mage only got the shortest of glimpses, but even so he was nearly positive. The flat, unblinking eyes and glowing skin were giveaways. What was the sprite doing in Ettermire? It walked with a pronounced limp, and it followed another Bruised One. Despite the heat, the dark elf shrouded itself in a heavy overcoat, so that Atzar couldn't even determine its gender. What a strange pair.

Strange or not, they were heading quickly in the wrong direction. After a brief-yet-agonizing second of indecision, the wizard wheeled and followed them. He had heard tales of the wondrous gifts passed on by sprites. As badly as he desired to wash his hands of this Aleraran misadventure, this opportunity was far too rare to miss.

[Pyralis]

It didn't take long for Pyralis to notice their unwanted shadow. She reached out with her left hand to grasp the foundling's wrist; her right remained firmly stowed away in its pocket, held tight against her body. "Trust me," she whispered. Its skin was the same as hers now, a warm brown with a purple flush, but Pyralis didn't have time to analyze the change. It only confirmed her suspicion that this might possibly be one of them: Ettermire's meager, but steadily growing, population of mutated youngsters, developmentally affected by poor and polluted living conditions. There was a price to such great progress in technology and industry, and it fell on their generation to pay.

As the pair rounded a corner into an alley, Pyralis glanced over her shoulder to steal a glimpse of their follower. The fair foreigner stood out like a sore thumb amongst the largely dark elven populace, his avoidance of passers-by evidence that he was perhaps just as lost as he was determined to tail them.

It might have been Pyralis' paranoid sense of self-preservation which warned her of this danger, either to herself or the creature whom she strung along with increasing force. It stumbled after her, gripping the blanket over its shoulders as it urged its limp into a pained half-jog. The elf didn't care to look in her hurry, but in their wake they left an inky trail of blood which stained the dry earth an odd, alien indigo.

"We have to run now," she explained to the foundling, her voice cool and quiet. "Not far." That was as much coddling as she'd offer before taking off, tearing down the alley and dodging into a second which ran between two behemoths of buildings. The gray stone around them rose so high that the structures blocked out what modest amount of sun the smog allowed, casting deep shadow over the narrow path. The other end opened at the river's edge, where she knew a place their pursuer could not follow…

But the foundling was so terribly slow with its injury, and no amount of insistence could coax it to move quickly enough. Pyralis slowed to get a good look at it, sizing it up, but it was no use –– in spite of its somewhat smaller stature, it was too big to carry.

"Can you speak?" she asked, watching under its faded gray hood for some sign of comprehension.

After a short silence, the sound of footsteps approached from behind as their shadow caught up to them. Pyralis' sigh of lamentation caught in her throat as the foundling finally replied.

"Run," she thought it said.

[Atzar]

“Hey! Wait!” the mage called after the pair as they retreated away from the main boulevard. They gave no indication that they heard his call, ducking into first one passage, then another. Atzar cursed under his breath. He had heard horror stories about Ettermire’s underbelly, of murderers and mutants and monsters. He felt no inclination to learn how many of those tales were rooted in fact, and truth be told he returned the Aleraran hostility toward outsiders with a distrust of his own. His fingertips danced to and fro as he ran, ready to call forth his magic at a moment’s notice.

But the sprite’s injury slowed the pair down greatly. Atzar wasn’t going to win many races without cheating, but he nonetheless caught up to them in short order. They pulled to a halt in the deep valley between two grand structures and turned to face him. Written on one face were the frown and hard-eyed stare of defiance; on the other, sheer panic.

The wizard returned their gazes with one of irritation, somewhat out of breath after this unexpected exercise. “Why are you running?” he demanded of the dark elf. “I just want to talk.”

”Talk?” The single word dripped with sarcasm and a hint of a threat. She was a small thing, even cloaked as she was. Even so, she stepped in front of the sprite protectively.

“Yes, talk,” he threw her acidic tone back in her face. Not the most tactful of responses, but then Atzar wasn’t the most tactful of men.

“You’re not from around here, are you? You should be careful who you follow into dark alleys.” The fact that this line came from the mouth of a diminutive dark elven lass who came up to his shoulder was funny. The fact that she then drew a hellish, serrated dagger from within her coat was not.

This wasn’t going at all how the mage had hoped. He sighed and held up his hands, palms out, as a sign of peace. The gesture meant nothing given that he was a wizard, but she didn’t need to know that about him just yet. “Look, I’m Atzar, okay?” he said. “I’m not looking for a fight. I just have a couple of questions that I’m hoping you can answer.”

The sound of heavy footsteps interrupted their cheery small talk. The wizard whirled to see three men entering the far end of the alley. Two of them reached for swords; the third notched an arrow to his bow. “Stay where you are,” the swordsman in the front commanded. “No sudden moves.”

The archer sank to the back and stopped, his arrow trained on Atzar. The other two continued to advance. The mage heard a whimper from the sprite. Fear? Or something more?

“We’re doing this one of two ways,” the leader announced, still advancing with sword at the ready. “Either the human and the elf get lost, or they stay here and die. Because that sprite is mine, and I don’t care what I have to do to get it.”

[Pyralis]

As the additional men entered the alley, Pyralis whispered over her shoulder to the foundling. She'd never heard of a "sprite" and she didn't particularly care; no matter what it was, she was involved whether she liked it or not, and it was in her nature to take the side of the underdog. "Out there is the river," she said, keeping her eyes on the encroachers. "There's a passage under the bridge. Keep right. Got it?"

"Got it," the foundling muttered, and it hobbled as quickly as it could toward the light.

Meanwhile, the archer raised his bow to incapacitate the sprite, but as he drew back to take aim, his hand and the arrow it steadied suddenly became encased in ice. A sharp chill ran up through his arm and he growled as the yew crackled, threatening to snap under the sudden change in temperature. "We've got a mage, here!" he warned the others, both of which had taken off to pursue their mark.

Atzar wasn't about to let the sprite fall into someone else's hands. He intercepted the two men as they flew by, pulling the cobblestones from under them and sending them staggering. The smaller man tumbled and found his feet again with expert grace, continuing his flight down the alley without missing a beat, but the leader proved to be more easily distracted than his cohort. The broad man stumbled, caught himself, and redirected his energy –– and sword –– toward the young mage.

The sprite hadn't gotten far by the time the second man approached, cutlass drawn, and Pyralis blocked his pursuit bearing her own vicious little blade. As he went in for a slash, she reached out with her right hand and caught the weapon against her forearm. The impact sent a shiver through her and, in her opponent's momentary pause of surprise, she got her own jab in. The elf's knife caught him shallow across the shoulder, tearing more cloth than skin with her shorter reach, but she'd effectively proven her bite.

"Step aside, kid," he said, allowing a breather to size her up. He wasn't a large man, himself, lean enough to know better than to underestimate someone for their build, and his cool gray eyes sought whatever she'd used to parry his attack. Her limb remained hidden inside its oversized sleeve, however, giving no hint of armor or otherwise.

And alas, no one could tell Pyralis what to do. "Fuck off," she snarled, slinking backwards down the alley as she reached for something inside her coat.

[Atzar]

The chaos of battle ensued, but Atzar felt in control nonetheless. The archer was harmless, his hand frozen to his now-useless bow. The sprite fled as best it could down the alley, no doubt interested only in its own skin. The other two fighters righted themselves and split up, one following the sprite, the other advancing on the wizard. “I know how to deal with your kind,” the man snarled, sheathing his sword and reaching for the knife at his belt.

In the face of apparent life-threatening danger, the mage grinned. In his experience, the more a man claimed to ‘know how to deal with his kind’, the less he actually did. As far as Atzar was concerned, this oaf might as well have eschewed the knife for a pen to write the words ‘humiliate me’ into his own leather tunic.

The wizard happily obliged. A ball of ice crashed into the man’s chest, sending him stumbling back several feet. He regained his balance only in time to receive another frosty projectile in the midriff, knocking the air from his lungs. The hapless swordsman’s heels caught on the dislodged pavestones behind him, and he sprawled heavily on the ground.

An ominous crackling noise reverberated up the alley then, and Atzar’s nostrils filled with the peculiar scent of burning air. The man struggled to right himself, and for an instant the mage almost felt bad about what he was going to do.

The dark, grimy alley lit up with a loud crack as lightning struck the struggling man. He sank back to the ground, motionless except for the occasional involuntary twitch. But it wasn’t all bad for the fellow; Atzar’s electricity was rarely fatal, and the cool scars might help him with the ladies.

The archer, frozen limb and all, leapt over his fallen comrade, a dagger held in his good hand. The mage jumped backward instinctively, his sense of control evaporating. He was too close, too much of a threat. Atzar couldn’t toy with him without risking life and limb. Flame erupted from his outstretched hands, engulfing the helpless hunter.

Here was where fairytale magic differed from reality. Writers without magical talent liked to paint it as a noble weapon, a clean weapon. The wizards would cast their fireballs heroically, assuming epic postures and raising hands to the sky. There would be death, of course, and maybe some singed clothing, but no torment, no disfigurement; they left those parts out.

But Atzar watched reality unfold right before his eyes, a scene he had seen too many times. The archer shrieked and dropped his weapon, clawing feebly at his face. His hair burned away, his skin melted, and he collapsed to the cold stone of the shadowy alley. It took him all of a few seconds to succumb to his wounds, but that length of time was enough to make nightmares of the nicest dreams.

Atzar turned his back on the archer’s remains. This was no longer amusing, no longer just a dangerous game. Gone was the carefree, mischievous mage. He was painfully, horribly aware of what lay not ten feet behind him, but it was just another notch in the handle of his metaphorical blade. He had killed many times before, and now he looked to the other end of the alley, ready if necessary to do it once more.

[Pyralis]

From within her jacket, the tiny elf extracted a carefully crafted shiv and threw it at the approaching man. His flinch saved him, the menacing blade lodging itself in his shoulder just above his collarbone. He tore it out without hesitance, throwing it to the dusty ground and soaking his pale shirt in blood. It was at this point that he decided he was done with warnings and lunged toward the waif, eager to do away with her as quickly as possible.

The next moments passed in a blur: he slashed, but got in too close and suddenly found himself host to a stabby little parasite. They struggled in a mess of swinging arms and staggering legs, blades finding flesh on both sides, until he caught her what he hoped to be quite viciously across the abdomen. It was difficult to tell in the shadow of the grand stone structures around them, whatever wounds she bore hidden under layers of oversized clothing, but her own blood wasn't shy. It glinted black as it coated her left hand, braced against her injured side.

She hunched over, nearly stumbled, and he stepped forward to finish it. However, in their scuffle, the man hadn't thought to check back on his comrades; he regretted this as the horrific stench of burning hair and flesh reached their end of the oven-like alley. He glanced just long enough to take in the corpse of his comrade, rancid smoke and unbearable flame, their leader prone nearby. Atzar's triumphant confidence was not promising.

The reflex to look turned out a grave mistake, as that was all it took to lose focus. He returned his gaze to Pyralis just in time to experience her mean right hook, the ensuing combination of surprise and pain something not entirely unlike what one might expect of a sledgehammer.

He swayed, just slightly, and she hit him again. This one fell perfectly across the cheekbone, something cracked, and before he knew it he found himself dizzy on the ground. Her silhouette floated above him, an untimely glimpse of night cast over the smog-ridden sky. Her following strikes blurred together into a sticky mess of crushed bone and spattered blood, and all went dark before he understood just how little she planned to leave of his face.

[Pyralis]

"Maybe the cockroaches raised her," Virny speculated through a mouthful of dry bread. "The giant ones Pyr says live deep below –– big as a train, she says, and always hungry for tasty morsels like us. Maybe she eats kids, too."

Cozied up in their damp, underground kip, the three children partook of their midday provisions –– or rather, two of them, at least. The smallest picked at his, more crumbs lost to the mud than what found its way into his frowning mouth. He huddled in the corner opposite the pile of bricks that Virny had fashioned into a throne of sorts, furry limbs sprawled in front of her.

"Don't say that," Lufe scolded her, shaggy nut-brown hair obscuring his face as he looked down to check on the youngest. Of similar size and age, he felt it was his sacred duty to keep her stories from sending their newest companion further into despair. "Helethra's just like us… only worse off, living all alone. I'd go batty, too."

The youngest only stared back with wide, pale eyes, offering naught more than a blink of acknowledgement. They'd never heard him speak, but he surely had lungs on him from all the crying he'd done in their few days together.

Virny laughed, a short cackle which petered out into a wheeze. "If you don't tell us your name, we'll have to give you one, and you might not like it if we do." She addressed the child with the same cruel humor which defined her personality, ever darkening with each passing day spent in their sewer hovel. The sharpness seemed to compensate for her gradual loss of sight and, with it, independence.

"Leave him alone," Lufe said, sitting up straighter as if it might help defend. He paused when the youngest reached up and tugged his tattered sleeve, then pointed to the entrance of their dank little chamber. The elder boy wrapped his arm around the child's shoulder, voice lowered to a whisper. "Is someone coming? Pyr shouldn't be back yet––"

Something changed in Virny's posture, back hunched, taloned fingers gripping her chipped armrests. Even in the dim light, Lufe could see her hair prickle. "Maybe it's her," she said, words rumbling in the back of her throat until they digressed into a low growl.

The three children then waited in silence until the slosh of footsteps grew louder, carrying the intruder ever closer. When a shapeless figure stepped into the doorway, their breath caught in their throats, until the old blanket loosened just enough that they recognized what little they could make out.

"Pyr?" Lufe spoke up as he stood, the tension easing. "What are you doing back so early?" He approached, quickly noticing her change in appearance. "What happened to your clothes…?"

Their friend shied away, stepping back into the tunnel and glancing over her shoulder as if expecting someone.

Lufe frowned, his stomach sinking. "What's wrong?"

"Run," Pyralis said, clutching the blanket tighter. With that she turned and continued deeper into the sewers, bare feet splashing in the stagnant water as she picked up speed.

The children wailed from their hiding place, all scrambling to follow. "W-wait!"

[Atzar]

The wizard let his magic dissipate; it had fulfilled its purpose here. Unfortunately, expelling the remnants of the scuffle wasn’t nearly as easy. Atzar wished he had just gotten on the freaking boat like he had planned. Instead of washing his hands of the city, he had charged directly into its grimy, stinking underworld. He was interested in the sprite, but perhaps not this interested.

He approached the dark elf. Blood stained her clothing and glistened on her left hand, testament to some injury she had sustained during the scuffle – or perhaps just the mangled body spattered on the ground in front of her. When she glanced at him, he indicated the carnage that befouled the alley around them. “We should probably be somewhere else,” he suggested. The local police would doubtlessly object to their little display of violence, and Atzar felt no pressing desire to get the full experience as an Ettermire inmate. “Where’d the sprite go?”

“What’s a sprite?” The willful dark elf suppressed a wince, drawing her right hand further into her clothing. It was only for that reason that he swallowed a retort about the annoying habit of answering a question with another question. Admonishing an injured girl just seemed in poor taste. Instead, he threw her tactic back in her face.

“You were protecting this creature and you didn’t even know what it was?” Atzar shook his head in disbelief. “Sprites were put in this land to irritate the crap out of people,” he explained. “Frequently vandals, occasionally thieves, always tricksters. They have some magical talent. They can all teleport as far as I know. Your buddy can disguise itself, but it either sucks at it or that injury is really hurting it. I could see right through it.”

He could almost hear the gears humming in her head. A faint shadow of concern clouded her violet eyes, and she glanced at the end of the alley down which the sprite had vanished. “Dangerous?” she asked.

The mage shrugged. “They can be. If that one can't even hide itself, though, it's probably not good for much." Not alive, anyway. He glanced nervously at the end of the alley. "We should really leave.”

The dark elf spun on her heels. “Do what you want,” she answered over her shoulder as she hastened after the sprite.

Atzar stood in her wake, trying to discern whether her offhand dismissal could be construed as permission to follow. The curious, adventurous side of him screamed ‘yes,’ and the get-away-from-the-dead-bodies side of him was happy with nearly any destination. Besides, he had just helped her deal with the thugs. That had to be worth something. The voices of his reasonable and Ettermire-really-sucks sides were drowned out in the roar.

Having successfully twisted her words in his head, the mage took off in pursuit once more.

[Pyralis]

Following the trail of the alleged sprite, Pyralis descended into the sewers through the passage by the polluted river. Her peripherals recognized that the mage boy followed, but her fixation didn't allow her to stop and deliberate over whether to ditch him or not. Her senses consumed by the cool, foul air, her mind could only focus on one thing.

She'd made a mistake. She had to fix it.

"Shit," she hissed when she came across their empty kip. Atzar followed behind, watching his shoes more than the dank environment around them as he avoided puddles of muck. His eyes took longer to adjust to the dim light, vision floundering as Pyralis seethed and panicked. He thought her heard her kick something. "Shit!"



As Jance staggered down yet another narrow alleyway, its dusty beige walls so similar to all the ones before it, he considered leaving Ettermire before she heard of his failure. No sooner than the thought crossed his mind, however, did the Queen of the Pit catch up to him, confirming his suspicion that she held some sort of omnipresence over the entire gods-forsaken city. Swanra'ann wasn't a queen, she was a goddess, and he was just another mortal pawn. He felt the reality sink in with every pained step, worse as he staggered to a halt before the figure who blocked his way. His head throbbed with vertigo and his body ached from the force of a thorough electrocution, but none of it mattered. He knew he was truly fucked.

"Nice try," the dark elf sneered. Jance stumbled, held out for a wall's support, and found himself caught by the collar instead. The fist wrenched itself into the cloth of his shirt, hard knuckles pressed against his gasping throat. The sorry man wasn't sure how it happened, but the next thing he knew, he felt stone at his back. He might've hit his head. It was hard to tell.

Somewhere behind the shadow prevailing over him, disembodied voices aired complaints. "Makes more work for us, hirin' this kinda scum. Now we gotta play cleanup and finish the job."

Jance gasped against the pressure at his trachea, his voice accomplishing nothing but a sputter.

The elf tsked, then slashed.

Jance died.

[Atzar]

Atzar knew a guy back in Radasanth who had spent some time hiding in the sewer from the authorities. The man had told him that he had grown accustomed to the stench after a while. The mage cursed him for that misinformation.

The odor was as vomit-inducing now as it had been when he entered the tunnels, twenty long minutes ago. Little light penetrated the gloom down here, and so he was forced to wade blindly through a knee-deep stream that no amount of wishing could turn into clean water. One grimy hand followed the wall at his left; the other reached into the inky blackness before him. He still recoiled in disgust every time an unknown (but easily imagined) object brushed his fingertips or sodden pant legs. The dark elven lass bounced along the top of a series of stone blocks jutting out of the sewage, her attuned eyes easily picking out the path that Atzar could not see. He had considered using fire to provide some light, but it occurred to him that the repulsive air was also quite possibly flammable. It wouldn’t do for him to be destroyed and forgotten forever in a mire of shit.

The girl offered neither pity nor assistance, or even much interest at all. She forged through the gloom on her way to who-knows-where, and since she was the closest thing the mage had to a guide, he had little choice but to blindly follow her. Some undeterminable length of time later, she stopped and hissed at him for silence. Atzar complied, a resentful retort jailed behind clenched teeth. They stood for a moment, listening. For a moment nothing rose above the steady trickle of sewer water, but then the mage picked out something else. Something like… children’s voices?

The dark elf took off like an arrow. The wizard sloshed slowly behind, wondering who the hell brought children to a place like this. Next, the mage was greeted by the two most wonderful sights he had seen in his entire life: a source of light and dry ground. He gratefully clambered out of the stream behind the girl, surveying the new chamber.

Tall stone walls encompassed the big, roughly square room. A pair of barred windows cut high into the wall opposite him, peeking out into the world outside the sewers. The light was muted – not strong enough to be daylight, even by Ettermire’s standards – but the hapless young mage welcomed it nonetheless. A fair amount of filth served as a décor, though the chamber was a vast improvement over the brown stream from whence he had come.

Four figures huddled near the side of the room. Three of them were young; a soft noise of concern escaped the dark elven lass’s lips as she approached them. But Atzar scarcely even noticed them, for his attention focused squarely on the fourth member of their group. It sat against the wall, nursing a bad ankle.

And aside from its attire, it looked exactly like the dark elf who had just led him through the sewers.

The mage knew who – and what – it was immediately, of course. And as the disguised sprite’s gaze lifted to meet his, he saw realization dawn like sunrise. Atzar’s eyes narrowed. The creature’s widened.

Razor-like shards of ice appeared almost instantaneously in front of the mage’s outstretched hands. He had been assailed by a ragtag band of ruffians and then dragged relentlessly through a mire of excrement and gods-knew-what-else. His patience was gone. This ended now.

The creature shimmered as it ditched its masquerade, resuming the yellow skin and flat, deadened eyes of its natural form. Then, in a craven move borne of selfish cowardice, it shoved the youngest of the dark elven children in front of it, ducking behind to shield itself from the bloodthirsty mage’s wrath. But Atzar didn't miss a beat. He dispelled the frosty blades and built an icy wall around his prey, intending to entomb it in a wintry coffin.

For the first time, the sprite showed a backbone. With a growl and a swing of its slender arms, it exploded through the ice in a crystalline spray. Then it grabbed the youngest child by the nape of the neck and again ducked behind it, a rumbling growl escaping from its throat, in its eyes the desperate glint of cornered prey. Only then did Atzar stay his hand.

[Pyralis]

As the sprite ventured to do the only unforgivable thing in Pyralis' desensitized mind, the young elf cursed her own naivete. She bore a bleeding heart for others like herself, it was easy to forget how easy it could be to stumble upon something far more dangerous than a lost mutant.

"I'll tear your fucking head off," she snarled as the golden figure took her charge hostage yet again. This time, however, the boy didn't remain shocked into silence; he began to cry, harder than they'd ever heard, and then he began to scream. His voice hit such a pitch that the broken ice trembled like shards of glass in an earthquake, sparkling starlike on the floor of the dusky chamber. The walls around them groaned, the earth itself disturbed by the unfathomable noise. It hit everyone hard –– Pyralis, Atzar, the children –– and they all dropped to their knees, grasping at their ears to block out the noise. It eventually ceased even sounding like a child's scream, but rather the aural embodiment of searing white pain.

By the time it stopped, the child had found his way back into Lufe's arms. Along with Virny, they pressed their small forms as deeply into the far corner as they possibly could. As Atzar regained his senses he caught the sprite, better off than the others after such a disruption, slipping toward the tunnel which led back to the surface. He moved to act, but before he could, the creature stopped in its tracks.

Someone was approaching, blocking its escape.

Pyralis cursed, and as she did so, Lufe herded his companions into the closest passage, one of the smaller pipelines built off the chamber. As they disappeared from sight, the approaching parties came into view, and the eldest dark elf cursed again.

Three scoundrels, recognizable by their offensive, leatherclad swagger as lackeys of the Queen of the Pit, stalked toward them in their hunt for the elusive creature Atzar wanted for himself. They had some sort of light by which to see the stepping stones, and they were nearly upon them.

Alarming in itself, their distress only increased as an odd scraping echoed down one of the larger tunnels. It arrived fuzzy and distant to their numbed ears, but as it neared, the bone rattling vibrations of something large and impossibly heavy compensated thoroughly. The slabs of concrete shuddered ominously under their feet.

Pyralis didn't look back, her gaze fixed intensely on the encroachers as she readied herself for a second round. Atzar, however, found himself morbidly curious about the sensation, and turned to peer down the tunnel behind them toward whatever fate awaited.

He regretted doing so immediately.

Lurking in the shadows just out of grasp of the dim light was something gargantuan and alive, its inky carapace glinting what little reflections reached its battered surface. Eyes larger than his head watched him in return, waiting in eerie silence, as if for a signal.

As Atzar's panicked mind attempted to devise some escape, it found itself interrupted as another strange dark elven girl emerged from the tunnel, ducking out from underneath the creature lying in wait. She wore a tattered jacket much too large for her bony frame, bare feet and legs riddled by knotty growths which reminded him of ancient, mossy roots. Her emerald gaze met his with mild interest, then glanced to the other in his company. "Pyralis," she spoke, her voice powerful as it broke against their deafened eardrums. "Who are they?"

"That's a 'sprite'," the girl answered, her eyes never leaving the tunnel ahead. She didn't bother deigning to acknowledge Atzar's presence, regarding him as inconsequential in light of the greater problem. "Swanra'ann wants it. Here they come," she braced herself.

"Can't have that," Helethra chided, a cold grin creeping across her childish features.

[Atzar]

The dark elven girl’s lack of regard made up Atzar's mind. Gratitude, it appeared, was a human trait. What need had an elf of a man who had saved her life not an hour ago? None, apparently. Well, Haidia could take the street urchin and the rest of the Deformed Orphan Brigade. He’d had enough of Ettermire’s people, its sewers, and the city itself – in that order. He had but one thing left to do here before he could leave this putrid sinkhole behind forever.

Heart hot with anger, he turned to the sprite. Surreptitiously it tried to back down one of the uninhabited offshoot tunnels. The mage could see the fear in its eyes. Lost, exposed and reviled, it had no allies left, no safe haven to run to. Once more, shards of ice materialized at his will. No sniveling little orphan (damn that wail!) could protect him this time.

A bone-chilling roar erupted from the tunnel behind him. The quaking began anew as the monolithic monster rumbled forward toward the leather-adorned thugs. Then everything burst into the large stone chamber at once.

Atzar cursed and turned. Three of the ruffians crashed into the room, swords at the ready; how many still filed down the tunnel, he had no idea. The dark elven girl squared off with one, jaw locked, eyes narrowed with hate and hands no doubt seeking out weapons hidden within her coat. The other two came for the him and the sprite. The mage sneered. This would be easy.

But before he could react, the room filled with screams and a horrific sizzle. The acrid stench of burning flesh overpowered even the odor of sewage. One of the thugs fell to the ground, writhing for only a second before going stiff. Behind it, the mandibles of the massive killer bug dripped with acid. The sprite took off down the side path, limping as quickly as its lame leg would allow. The third ruffian followed in hot pursuit. The overgrown household nuisance’s slime-covered visage pointed in the direction of the next target: Atzar.

“I’m not your enemy!” he screamed. Even as the words exited his lips, he knew they wouldn’t help him. In a split-second he conjured a wall of ice before shooting toward the passage after the sprite. Just as he reached the mouth of the tunnel and disappeared inside, he heard a terrifying splash and sizzle as the corrosive goo hit the wall near his head.

The tunnel continued only a short distance before opening into a second chamber, smaller than the first but with similar features, including barred, light-giving openings near the top of the right wall. A quick glance told Atzar that this was a dead end. Huddled in the corner was the hapless sprite. Standing over it, fumbling at his belt for a dagger, was the ruffian. The mage could not let him kill the sprite first, could not let him take the gift he had endured so much to receive.

So he killed them both.

A barrage of icy spikes littered the air, piercing flesh and shattering into iridescent dust upon impact with stone. When it was over, two bodies lay amidst a pool of blood and wintry, jagged shrapnel.

No blinding light or peal of thunder heralded Atzar's inheritance, yet the change was palpable nonetheless. He could feel the magic as it left the sprite's body and entered his own. He knew, as if by instinct, exactly what it did. But he had to see it in action. He had to know that this whole midden misadventure had been worthwhile. So he tested it.

He felt light. Airy, even.

He looked downward and saw right through himself, right through the sodden, grimy clothing that clung to his slender frame. His body eddied and whirled as if made of smoke. On an impulse he flexed his legs and jumped in the air. Gravity, it seemed, had relaxed its stricture to a degree. Not removed; simply lessened. He floated in a graceful arc before gently touching back down to the ground.

And then it was over. His knees nearly buckled under his weight as his body returned to its normal opaque self. This new smoke form wasn’t without its limits, it seemed. Still, what a gift it was.

Another ear-splitting roar brought him back to reality. He heard footsteps from the tunnel, but worse, he heard the unmistakable tremors of the great chitinous monstrosity. Despite this, Atzar felt no fear. Finally, for the first time since entering the sewers, he felt his much-coveted sense of control returned to him. As impending danger again reared its ugly face, Atzar’s own reflected nothing but serenity.

He turned, triggered his newfound toy, and leapt through one of the windows, his form swirling as it ghosted between the bars.

[Pyralis]

With the help of the girl and her beast, Swanra'ann's men didn't have a chance. As soon as Atzar had disappeared from the chamber, Helethra shouted an order and the mammoth arthropod barreled down the tunnel from whence the intruders came, taking out two stragglers with its crushing weight and vicious venom.

The sewers may not have been the most hospitable place to most, but for a small handful of children who had no other home, they were a sanctuary worth protecting. Together, they flushed out the corpses, along with the withered remains of the sprite. Pyralis' mind drifted to Atzar one more time, one single curious second spent wondering how he'd vanished so cleanly, and then her thoughts turned to her family of foundlings.

"I made a mistake today," she said once they'd returned to their kip. She took a long moment to look around the room, taking in Virny's throne of bricks, their hodgepodge bedding, the little treasures they'd collected over the months and years. Lufe, Virny, and the youngest clung together in a post traumatic bundle before their guardian, linked by hands and shared anxiety. Helethra stood at her side, an unsettling presence in the chamber. "It's always been my job to protect you, but as we learned today, I can't. You deserve better, and thanks to me, this place isn't safe anymore. I––"

"You're leaving us," Virny interrupted, staring blindly at the floor. "Aren't you?"

Pyralis breathed deeply to stave off sorrow, brows furrowed. "Yes."

The littlest began to sob and Lufe spoke up, her betrayal apparent in his wide eyes. "Why? Why would you do that?"

"Because I can't protect you and Helethra can," Pyralis sighed painfully, her confession punctuated by a low growl from Virny. "Someone offered me a job (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25493-Scholar-s-Mate), one that could pay for us to find some real help. We might not get another chance." She felt the weight of her lame arm in its sling accentuated at the prospect; there truly was no choice. She couldn't bury another of their own. "You're going to live with Helethra now. She'll keep you safe."

"No," Virny wailed, and the rest of the children followed. Pyralis glanced to Helethra and shrugged, clearly at a loss. The younger girl frowned, considered, and reached into her coat. From a pocket she withdrew a small bit of something which radiated a soft blue glow, then knelt and offered it to Lufe.

He accepted it, drying his tears to inspect the peculiar mushroom. "What's this?"

"Down where I live, they're everywhere," Helethra explained. "Don't be afraid. There's always some light, even at night."

[Atzar]

A short while later, Atzar found daylight. He stepped out into a deserted alley, shading his eyes even against the muted Ettermire sun. Never again would anything in this city feel so much like home. He grinned, raised his arms above his head, and called forth a stream of water, letting it wash away the filth of an adventure best forgotten.




Requesting this new ability as a spoil. It's going to look something like this:

Ethereal Form: Atzar can briefly change his form into something resembling smoke. In this form he is transparent and, for all practical purposes, nearly weightless. Solid objects, such as projectiles, will pass through him with no apparent damage. It also affords him access to some places his solid form could not reach (rule of thumb: if a substantial amount of air cannot make the journey, then neither can the Ethereal Form). While in this form, he is able to jump up to twelve feet off of the ground. He is also much less likely to sustain injury from a fall from significant heights. Lastly, the catch: he can only maintain the Ethereal Form for five seconds at a time. While he could trigger it again relatively quickly, the ability requires significant effort. He would be able to activate the spell no more than three times in an hour.

Let me know if any modifications are necessary. Thanks!

[Mordelain]

Experience and gold added.