Ch 23
They've been hiking for a while now, the boy's eyes couldn't help but wander across the empty space though shrouded in darkness as colors and faint sparkles shine through. His eyes continued to adjust to the weak lighting as more structures of the caves became visible, each time he looked everything seemed more brilliant since the last view. He wished he could just sit down and watch one area slowly light up as he watched, but he knew he came here for something else. He always returned his eyes to Mizryn in front, the dark elf leading their way to the city where Atrea was staying. The body paint has started to feel more natural on his skin, hopefully it's convincing enough that no one suspects he's a human disguised as a dark elf.
As they're walking, Mizryn comes to a stop, "We're here." Ahead of them is a cliff face, a massive wall of waving colors now very clear up close as it faded into the shadows in all directions. But it didn't appear like any part of a city, still very rugged and much like the other stone structures along the way.
"But there's no one here, I though we'd see more people along the way but now..." the boy stated. He walks forward to get a closer look at the wall before gently being stopped by her arm.
"Careful, there could be traps."
"Traps?" He shouts in shock, jumping backwards in the process.
Taking the front again, Mizryn begins to pace forward along the edge of the cliff with her eyes scanning the dusty ground beneath them, "Going through the main entrance would just attract unwanted attention, so we'll be taking a back way entrance. It's usually used by military scouts so watch your back."
"You really think this is better," he shouts back at her as he looks around them. "So what if we get seen by someone, isn't that what this face paint is for?"
"Believe me, if going through the front was an option we'd already be there. The paint is just so no one takes a second look at you as an obvious human, they'll still easily recognize me."
The boy reluctantly follows behind, mumbling to himself, "You? You look the most like them, how would they-"
She quickly interrupts him, "A female ranger who had already quit trying to become a priestess goes to work for humans. After Vandree returns, she then comes back asking questions about an Arachne somewhere in the city. Even if Vandree doesn't have guards looking for me specifically, someone will get suspicious if we don't do this right. Trust me, this way is safer." A few more steps and she comes to a stop, halting the boy as well. Getting on one knee she starts digging through the soft ground and finds a thin string, she whispers to herself, "Found one."
The boy looks over trying to see what's going on, "What, that tiny thing?"
"Clearly set up by some new recruits," she says as she reaches for a pair of scissors and starts cutting other lines hidden in the silt. "Nothing I can't handle."
The boy just stands back, getting a little annoyed how much it's slowing them down, "Can't we just step around it?"
"Not yet. It's important we take our time out here."
Rolling his eyes as he waits for her to finish, the boy looks back behind to look out along the wall again. Just then, something seems to move up the wall out in the corner of his eye. He immediately looks above but only sees the wall as get fainter as it goes up, maybe it was just his imagination? He looks around them in all directions, nothing appears out of the ordinary, just a soft breeze before a small rock begins to tumble down the cliff a long ways away from where they are before plopping into the sand. "Did you hear that?" he whispers frantically trying to get Mizryn's attention.
She doesn't even lift her head or seem to notice him, still digging through the sand. "Tch, amateurs," she lets out.
The boy trembles starting to get a little nervous, "It's not one of those Cloakers again is it?"
"Nah, they don't come this close to the city. They know better than to intersect with elf patrols." Another moment passes as nothing seems to happen, she then gently calls out to the boy, "Hey, could you go up ahead about ten feet?"
"Huh? Why?"
"Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
Still suspicious, the boy does as she says. He steps around her and moves forward. Nothing happens for a few steps, he looks back to see she still has her head down with nothing behind them. He slows down a bit listening for something, only hearing the rumbling of the caves. He takes another step, trying to sense something around him as his foot takes another step. A shadowy figure suddenly drops down in front of him, cloaked in black mantle and roughly his height with a slim build and a dark face with purple war paint. A sheen of light reflects from a black knife as it's just pulled out, they grab him in a flash with the knife firmly against his throat. Grabbed by a dark elf and held facing back at Mizryn, the boy looks back as two more figures have dropped down behind her. She slowly stands up rather calmly, there's no surprise or fear in her face, just the same bold look as always.
The other dark elves begin to pull out their knives as she elbows the one to her left, sending him stumbling back as she turns to brawl with the other. She finishes him with a sweep of her legs and another elbow down to his back. As the other recovers and rushes up to her, she grabs his arms mid-swing, pulls him forward and forces him to the ground. She grabs their knife and moves towards the boy and his captor. The boy can feel them quivering as they try to take a step backwards before being shoved to the ground. They throw their knife at Mizryn as she dodges, barely missing her head, as they pull a pistol from their belt. Before it can fire, Mizryn steps over the boy as she kicks upward at the stock of the gun, knocking it from their hand followed by a palm to their chest to knock them back. In a single moment, the last one regains his balance before being shot in the shoulder from their own weapon, falling backwards in pain.
The boy gasps trying to regain his breath, so much happened in a blur in front of him he just now got the adrenaline rush. Mizryn walks back and helps pick him up from the dirt.
"What the hell was that?" he wheezes looking at the fallen bodies as he pulls himself to his feet.
"I told you, this place often trains newbies. They teach us how to ambush very early and some days send a test through. And these boys clearly weren't ready."
"So that was all for show? No one's actually hurt?" He asks looking at the fallen bodies. A few painful groans escape them, especially the one who just got shot. For a moment the boy started to think it was just a rubber bullet for training, but the more he looked at his pained expression the more it sunk in it had live ammo.
"What better way to teach," she says as she unloads the pistol she had stolen from the other elf, "but anyways, now that we've dealt with them lets go in already." Not even waiting for him to catch up, she walks up to a space in the stone cliff. Looking closer, the boy sees there's a huge metal door blended into the cliff face, if it weren't for her focusing on it or how long they had spent in the darkness he might have passed it by if he were on his own. Mizryn then grabs a knocker to the side of the door and starts banging on it, shouting loudly to the other side, "Let me in Holbar, I know you're back there. Your students were a massive disappointment."
A moment of silence goes by before the door suddenly sinks into the wall and slowly slides into the stone wall, grinding the sand beneath it the whole way. Light blue light shines out from behind as the two are greeted by an elderly looking dark elf with five more dark elves standing behind him, suited much like the three that ambushed them earlier.
"Holbar?" The boy asks, "Is it someone you know?"
Mizryn lets out a heavy sigh, "My old teacher."
The old man has stern look on his face with a long white beard and a scar over his right eye, shorter than most of the elves he's seen but about the boy's height. Looking over to the fallen soldiers, he snaps his fingers and shouts an order in a rugged voice, "Take them back to the barracks. Except him," pointing to the one Mizryn shot, "take him to the punishment block." The other elves set out, stepping around Mizryn and the boy as they drag them away behind the door. After they've left the man turns to Mizryn, walking forward to her with his arms stretched out and a smile suddenly widens, "Mizryn, is that really you? It's been so long." He gives her a hug as she reluctantly allows him, patting his head. "What brings you to Spind'laran?"
"Business mostly. Hav there been any new developments on the mermaid side? Something like a spider woman?"
The man pulls back a bit to stroke his beard, "Hmm, now that you mention it, there has been a white drider in the media. Well anyway, stay as long as you nee-," the man turns to the boy standing just behind Mizryn. His happy look tones down to curiosity, then disgust. The boy gets a little nervous, thinking the paint or hair dye might have washed off somehow. "What's wrong with him?" The old man comments towards him.
Mizryn quickly answers, "Oh he's my nephew or something, I promised his parents from the surface I'd show him a real city so I'm kind of stuck with him."
Still getting a skeptical look from the man, the boy decides to say something, "Hi, I'm a dark elf too and... I like spiders." After a moment trying to smile as the others looked at him awkwardly, even he starts to think what he said sounded stupid.
Mizryn then moves closer to the man's ear to whisper, "His parents were a little 'down' on their luck."
The boy feels insulted by her comment as he grunts back, "What was that?" Just a terrible thing to say even when there's nothing wrong with him.
"Ah, I see. Well just keep him out of trouble."
As the man steps aside, Mizryn grabs the boy by the wrist and drags him along through the doorway, leading to a long stone corridor lined with bright blue and green crystal lights. The boy continues to stumble as he pull back on her grip, not enough to pull loose but trying to get her attention. "What was that about," he whines, "you didn't have to introduce me like that."
"No, but it got us through quicker," she says as she tugs him along. "We're in and hopefully no one else knows we're here."
"Could you at least let go of me, I can walk on my own."
She releases them as they continue straight through the hallway, leading to an open archway out to another large cavern. Unlike the network of caves and formations, the area was completely hollow. Illuminated by gentle lighting, to was bright but not blinding, the boy's eyes were adjusted for the darkness but absorbed the new sights just fine. They stepped out onto a circular platform covered in polished white crystal tiles reflecting all the light around them. Black paint laid across it in some intricate pattern looking like a spider design from above. Bridges along the edges connected to a network of more platforms of varying sizes in the distance, dotted with lanterns glowing across the cityscape and highlighting towers of black steel which otherwise blended into the dark walls in the far background. While the underground world was mysterious and breathtaking, this world seemed cold and intimidating, nothing hidden in darkness yet much of it appearing just as black with much of the color removed. As they continues on, all around them were other people, dark elves in more numbers than he had seen before, maybe a few other demi-humans but very rarely. But while demi-humans from his country were paired with humans and blended in with everyone else, the ones here seemed worse off, a Centaur sweeping outside a shop owned by someone else, a Minotaur in a cage possibly being sold, at one point he saw a human beggar down an alleyway.
Taking in the sights, the boy then hears something skittering behind him. Something like Atrea's walking but much smaller. Turning around he just barely catches a gimps of a giant black spider roughly the size of a dog as it pounces onto him. The boy flings himself onto his back as the horror crawls up his body, trying to hold it as it's fangs come in plain sight of his face. Too scared to scream or throw a punch as he's forced to look back into it's many eyes, just before a whistle is heard.
"Veronica, down girl." The spider stops pushing towards the boy as it scurries back off to a dark elf woman with short hair. The boy catches his breath again to see the spider at her feet excitedly shaking it's abdomen, much like a dog. "I am so sorry, she's usually so well behaved."
The boy stumbles in his words, trying to think of something to say that won't sound stupid, before he can Mizryn steps in sounding rather cheerful, "It's fine, no problem at all miss. The boy loves spiders." It sounds like she just said the same thing he did, except no one questions it. She then quickly pulls the boy to his feet getting him to walk away with her.
Before they can get far, the elf woman calls out to them, "Hey, were you on the surface recently? She tends to get excited from smelling people like that."
"Surface? No," Mizryn quickly responds, "He just works out in mushroom fields is all."
"Really? Hm, maybe I'm mithtaken."
They continue walking, the boy trying to ignore the woman and not look suspicious. He tries to calm his nerves and move his mind to something else, thinking of times back home. But then he feels a sharp pain in his hand, letting out a small yelp as it hits. It feels like he just burned himself on a stove out of nowhere, the more he tries to pretend it doesn't bother him the worse it feels.
"What is it now?" Mizryn whispers sounding upset. Looking to his right hand, they both see a glowing red pentagram burned into the back of it.
"Hmm, ithn't that interething?" The boy look back in terror, the elf woman from before approaches holding her pet spider in her arms. Her eyes begin to glow as her face shifts into the last thing he wanted to see, a familiar face from the surface all the way back home. Keeping her skin dark and hair the same, her face becomes that of Melanie, the demon working for Vandree during the play.
Mizryn is stunned along with the boy, they know they've been found out but everyone else around them doesn't seem to notice, and she's not making a big scene. She seems to be the only one who knows who they are. "Alright you demon bitch, what do you want?"
"Oh harsh," remarks snidely. "If you mutht know, Vandree hired me to catch you two thaying you'd no doubt thneek in."
"Speak properly, if you're going to threaten me at least let me understand you," Mizryn says.
Melanie makes an angry look at her as her jaw seems to twist beneath her mouth, "Fine, Vandree sent me to stop you but honestly I only agreed so I could see my little Darling again."
"Me?" the boy questioned, still gripping his burning hand. "What do you want with me?"
She giggles lightly looking directly at him, "Isn't it obvious? You still owe me a date."