Author's Notes: Well, I'm back. Again. I'd like to give a big thanks to Russian Hunter, who took the time to message me and get me writing again. I guess all I needed was a little nudge in the right direction. Anyway, to all my readers: I promise to finish this story one way or another, even if it takes a while for me to do so. Remember to like/comment if you're enjoying it, so I know you're still out there too!
Undersong, CH 7
The sewers of Noxus weren't really sewers at all, but a mazelike network of catacombs and caverns that stretched for miles under the city-state's domain. It was the product of centuries upon centuries of civil war. Lux could vividly recall the lessons from her history textbooks; there was a time in Noxian history when the nation saw the rise and fall of no less than seven regimes in three decades. Seven. And every time a new authority rose to power, it seemed as though the city itself would burn to the ground only for a new one to take its place over the ashes. History had shaped Noxus, literally, like the rings of a tree and here Lux was, huddled under the roots of its magnificent civilization… in a tunnel barely tall enough for her to crawl through.
The journey so far had been arduous to say the least. Every inch felt like a mile, every minute an hour. How long had they been down here anyway? There was no way to know for sure. The tunnel they were slogging through at the moment seemed to snake on forever, with no end or beginning in sight.
Speaking of sight… Lux's magic was fading.
Normally she could gather energy out of the atmosphere itself – from the light of the sun and the warmth of its rays – when she needed to replenish her mana. Doing so required proper rest however, something that she'd had little to none of in the past few days. Lux had long since pushed herself past the brink of exhaustion and as the light vanished from her eyes, and the shadows began to play tricks on her mind, the tunnel walls themselves drew closer and closer.
You're fine.
Everything's fine.
Everything wasn't fine. She hadn't told her comrades – hadn't told anyone ever, in fact – but there was another little issue that was beginning to become more and more apparent the longer they remained down here. Lux was afraid of confined spaces. Deathly afraid, as in any moment now she was liable to collapse in a pool of her own sweat and tears, and that would be the end of that.
"How much further?" Her voice remained remarkably even-keeled when she spoke though, seemingly devoid of any and all stress despite everything that was going on inside.
"Just a teensy bit more. The tunnel ends up ahead," Twitch's voice echoed from somewhere beyond the darkness. His spindly little form appeared to flit and flicker between the shadows, dancing in and out of existence as if his presence were nothing more than a figment of her imagination. Talon and Xin Zhao weren't much further ahead of her either. Several times in fact, Lux had to catch herself from stumbling over their heels. Normally being here with them – Talon in particular – would have put her mind at ease, but down here like this… with her magic fading and her connection to the weave severely weakened, she might as well have been alone.
The seconds turned to minutes and Lux's chest grew tighter, her breathing ever more labored. It was as if there were hundreds of tiny knotted ropes coiling about her entire body, digging into her ribs and constricting her limbs. And to top it off, her lungs were beginning to feel heavy and bloated, like they were filling with water.
Oh god. Am I drowning?!
Lux shut her eyes.
No.
She bit her lip as hard she could, drawing a bead of blood.
Everything's fine. I'm fine.
It's all in my head.
Everything's-
"Open your eyes, Lux."
A deep, low voice shattered her concentration. Talon's voice.
Slowly the world came into focus and Lux found herself at the end of the tunnel, staring into a giant cavern more than four stories tall. They'd come out on a cliff ledge near the top and the unmistakable sound of rushing water seemed to echo up from the ravine floor. There was a river somewhere down there… a river of… something. Sewage most likely, given their position under the city.
"I suppose we can set up camp here for now." Twitch's nose quivered ever so slightly as he sniffed the air, his beady crimson eyes darting furtively between Lux and her companions. With a huff he set his knapsack aside, but not before palming a handful of cross bolts from a small quiver dangling from its strap. "The three of you look… and smell… like hot garbage, believe me. I should know!" He snickered at his own joke, his snout baring two rows of sharpened incisors in the process. "You should rest a bit, I'll go on ahead. Maybe do a little scouting and see if there's a safer way to the surface."
"Safer?" Xin Zhao quirked his brow. "Implying we haven't nearly died a handful of times already?"
"The key word being nearly." Twitch continued to cackle, his misshapen grin never faltering nor wavering. "It's only about a half-mile to the city walls now, but the going gets tougher from here on out. Tricksy traps and the like." The rat's ears flickered from side to side as he tilted his head. "I assume you'd still like to make it there in one piece?"
"Just don't go too far," Talon replied as he plopped down cross-legged near the cliff ledge, his tattered ebon cloak splaying behind him. "Without you we're not getting out of here in any case."
"Oh Talon… be still my heart! Your concern is duly noted." Twitch nodded vigorously. "In the mean time though…" His tail whacked the ground with a resounding thud. "Nobody touch my stuff. I'll be back before you know it!" With a final teensy titter the rat cocked his crossbow and waddled off into the shadows… only to pop his head back in mere moments later, right next to Lux's thigh. "By the way blondie," he whispered, gazing up at her through the cracked glasses of his goggles, "you really don't look so good. Might want to try and rest your pretty little head, while you still have the chance."
And with that, Twitch disappeared into the darkness for good.
Lux sighed as her body went limp and all her belongings clattered unceremoniously to the floor. She slumped to her shins and shut her eyes, tired fingers moving to work the stress from her sweat-caked brow.
You're fine, Lux.
The voice inside her head sought to assuage her fears and calm her nerves.
Everything's fine.
She took in another breath and silently began to count each beat of her heart, noting every time she felt a pulse in her temples. Slowly but surely the tightness in her chest began to ebb away. Perhaps she had always harbored some fear of the dark. It was something primal and almost too cliché not to imagine – for a light mage, especially. One thing was for certain though.
She hadn't always been claustrophobic.
In Runeterra, the life of a spy was perhaps one of the most dangerous pursuits any sane person could ever choose. No soldier in his right mind would volunteer for that line of work – you were considered expendable after all, disavowed by your own country and hated by practically everyone else's. Lux was different though. For one thing she wielded the power of magic, and her fellow countrymen were nothing if not distrustful when it came to anything arcane. Lux threw herself into the world of espionage the first chance she got, for little reason more than to leave it all behind – the politics of her family, her responsibilities… Jarvan and his machinations… everything, really. Never mind that she was actually good at her job, good at wearing a mask and hiding her true feelings or intentions about anything and everything, burying it all beneath the surface of her smile to never see the light of day. Damn was she good. The Ghost of Valoran, they called her – the bane of Noxian counterintelligence for nearly half a decade.
Still, nothing could have prepared for when she got caught.
It was on one of her final missions into Noxus and a routine one at that. Right before the fall. She'd been so careless, so foolhardy. And they were ready for her, lying in wait the whole time.
They tortured her for days.
Noxian interrogators were quite fond of knives, you see. They'd slice her open every which way, leaving dozens of tiny cuts too shallow to cause any lasting damage. The blood though… there was always so much blood. They forced her to watch while it dribbled down her body and pooled in a drain on the floor. Then when they were finished with her for the day, they'd lock her in a box barely large enough to sit in and leave her like that to bleed out for hours on end.
She hadn't always been claustrophobic. Not before then, anyway.
"So, Talon." Xin Zhao broke the silence first by striking a match along the cavern floor. A spark flared to life and for a moment the man's features were laid bare in all their weathered glory, scars and wrinkles alike basking in the flicker of a warm glow. The light vanished as quickly as it appeared though, and all that was left in its wake was the smoldering orange point of a lit cigarette. "Humor me, if you will. I'm curious about your little friend… the rat. What a peculiar creature."
A weary sigh drifted up from somewhere in Talon's general direction.
"We're not friends."
"Oh come now," the general pursed his lips and exhaled a billowing cloud of smoke from between the scraggles of his facial hair. "We've all made acquaintances we regret from time to time. Haven't we, Miss Luxanna?"
"Indeed." Lux was all too eager to chime in, her features softening as pangs of mirth brought color to her skin. She had her hand folded loosely over her mouth as if to feign some sense of decorum, but those smiling eyes of hers could do little to hide the fact that she was probably enjoying this more than she should've been. "Actually," Lux lilted, "I think it's kind of cute that you're making new friends, Talon. Better late than never I always say."
"Remind me to kill both of you when this is over."
Xin Zhao burst out into laughter and Lux couldn't help but follow suit. Even Talon could feel a smile tugging on the corners of his lips, though with his back turned to the others they would never have known it.
"I'm sorry Talon," Lux managed to squeak through her fit of giggling, "I…I can't stop laughing!" Lithe fingers rose to dab at phantom tears pooling under her lashes. "Forgive me?"
From his seat overlooking the ravine, Talon cocked his head to level a glance at her over his shoulder; presumably to saddle Lux with one of his trademark death glares. Slowly his lips parted to form a smirk, but before he could say a word the ground beneath their feet began to groan and shudder ever so slightly, as if the earth itself were answering on his behalf.
"What… was that?" Xin Zhao's half-spent cigarette tumbled from his mouth.
Lux froze in her tracks. What little mirth she'd been harboring only moments ago had suddenly given way to that familiar sense of dread. "It isn't safe here," she whispered in the softest of breaths, as if her voice alone might trigger a collapse. "Maybe we should keep moving?" Her sapphire gaze rose to search Talon's amber-flecked one.
She wouldn't get a reply.
Another rumble echoed through the cavern and suddenly the ceiling was crashing down upon them. It all happened so fast, and yet she felt as though she were stuck in slow motion. One moment Talon was sitting there in front of her, his silhouette practically bathed in her shadow, and then Lux blinked and he was gone. Vanished from sight as a jagged boulder took his place and the ground beneath him crumbled away into nothingness.
Lux's heart plummeted into the pit of her stomach. She could feel the earth below her own boots disintegrating and her body beginning to tumble forward into the abyss like a broken rag doll. Her lips parted to make a sound but nothing would come out. Neither a scream nor whimper.
"Luxanna!" Xin Zhao broke her reverie and suddenly his hand was around her forearm like a vise, yanking her back from the precipice at the last possible moment. The pair fell backwards into the relative safety of the cavern tunnel from whence they came.
"NO!" Lux cried at the top of her lungs. As the cave-in subsided she shrugged off her companion's grasp only to crawl back towards the edge of the cliff. Lux screamed Talon's name, her cries echoing in the darkness till her voice went hoarse and her body rigid. Her bleary gaze darted to and fro, but to no avail. There was nothing down there. Nothing but broken stone and the sound of rushing sewage water churning ever deeper into an underground abyss.
"I…I'm… here…"
A low voice cut through the darkness, soggy and weak but somehow steady, and Lux's gaze shot down in its direction to see a waterlogged silhouette slowly crawling out of the river at the base of the ravine more than four stories below. At first she couldn't believe her eyes. A fall like that would have surely maimed any normal human being. But then a heavy lump formed in the pit of her throat and any notion of reason or rational thought quickly went out the window.
"T-Tal…on?" she sniffled, tears streaming down her cheeks en masse.
"The water's warm," Talon managed to sputter between coughs, his ribcage rising and falling with every breath. "But I don't recommend it."
"Unbelievable…" Xin Zhao popped his head over the edge, a grin forming on his face from one ear to the other. "You Noxians are like goddamn roaches, I swear. Practically unkillable!"
"Thanks… I… think."
"Y-you stupid jerk!" Lux's heart wouldn't stop thumping against her ribs, the action threatening to tear a hole through her chest at any given moment. "I thought… I thought you were…" she gazed down at him through a haze of tears.
And then froze.
There was something else down there. Something else in the water behind Talon. She couldn't make out what exactly – the sewage was far too murky for that. But she could definitely feel it. Sense its presence. The eddies in the river seemed to be flowing so unnaturally for some reason, breaking at all sorts of odd angles as if to give but a mere hint of what lurked below the surface.
"Talon." Lux's heart began to pound even faster. "Climb."
The assassin scoffed as he gingerly rose to one knee, his hands moving to wring the water out of his cloak. "How about you two come down here instead?"
"Talon please…" Lux pleaded this time, desperation dripping from every word.
All of a sudden a shadow crested over the water, something long and stringy like the body of a python… or worse yet, a tentacle. In a flash it slithered around Talon's legs and just like that he vanished into the darkness again, this time without a sound – barely even a splash – as if he'd never been there at all to begin with.
Lux's eyes went wide.
"Talon!" Xin Zhao barked as he hefted up his falchion, steel gaze searching frantically for a way down the broken cliff face. "Come on! We need to get down there!"
"No," Lux whispered. Her chin tilted, eyes all but obscured under a matted plume of golden strands with only the streaks from her tears visible on her cheeks.
Xin Zhao raised a brow. "What do you mean no?"
"There's no time…"
Her head rose to reveal her sapphire gaze glimmering in the darkness, as if a spark had somehow ignited from within. Her bangs began to float about in tumultuous revolutions, shining like silken sheets of platinum caught in a violent undertow. Lux's lips began to move as well, wordlessly at first but then with more conviction, more fervor. Her body jerked as mana seeped out of her pores and roiled across her bare skin. She hadn't rested properly in days. There was literally nothing but fumes left in her tank and yet still she called upon it all, even pleading with her spirit to take more.
"Luxanna!" Xin Zhao staggered back, shielding his eyes with his forearms as the light overtook them both.
Lux could feel her limbs growing heavier with each passing moment. Her head, her breast, her heart… all cold and numb as every single ounce of mana she had left in her tiny body came rushing to bathe her fingertips in smoldering silver-blue. The feeling of raw arcana coursing down her arms was almost too much to bear; without her baton to focus it all she'd likely burn her fingers to a crisp. But she didn't care. There was no time, and she wouldn't lose him.
Not again.
The cavern walls caught fire a second later as a brilliant beam of crackling energy – nearly three feet in diameter – tore the darkness asunder and touched down on the river below, parting the water like a spear from the heavens. For the briefest of moments everything was as bright and clear as a summer's day: the jagged cliff face, the murky sewage water, the submerged buildings of centuries long since passed. Then there was Talon's battered form, tangled in darkness and struggling below the surface… and last but not least, the horrific silhouette of something truly monstrous floating in the depths beneath him.
For a moment all was exposed.
Then the moment passed and the creature bellowed as the beam of light tore a searing hole through the center of its body, filling the air with an earsplitting rumble that threatened to rend the very ground they were standing upon. Giant tentacles whipped the walls as the creature sank into a pool of inky blackness, and the cavern began to collapse once more.
The last thing Lux would remember before losing consciousness was the sight of Talon breaking the surface, gasping for air, and the sound of water rushing to greet her spent form as she plummeted like a pebble into the river below.
