Gotham City July 21st 2010 12:00 AM EDT
The look on Lady Shiva's face was pretty fucking amazing, I'm not going to lie. It wasn't fear, which was pretty impressive considering how scary Jim could be when he put his mind to it. It looked more like she had sucked a lemon or something, but still very amusing to see and expression like that on someone so clearly capable. I'd told her Jim was my mentor, but I suspect she wanted to drag me back to her base and hand me off to her boss, thinking even Jim wouldn't fuck with the entire League of Shadows.
Clearly what she hadn't wanted was to get into a fistfight with a ghost. Because I didn't care how skilled she was, no martial artist in the world was taking on Jim and winning. The pretty assassin woman sneered out into the dark, unable to tell where my ghostly teacher was, which was fair because I couldn't either. She sounded pissed when she spoke "Craddock! Are you setting yourself against the Shadows? The Demon's Head will not be pleased." Her aura was seething with repressed rage and wariness as she spat the words.
Jim snorted and the toll of that eerie cemetery bell cracked the night, literally shaking the ground under our feet and cracking the road between Cheshire and Lady Shiva. His voice boomed out again, still coming from everywhere and nowhere "Don't throw around your Lord's name at me girl. The Demon's Head and I have had words before, and he knows better than to beard me in my den. The boy is my apprentice and is under my protection. If Ra'as has a problem with that he can come and tell me himself."
That seemed to piss her off more than the implied death threat. "You dare blaspheme The Demon's Head! Pitiful specter! You'll regret this!" She seemed to want to lash out at him, but since she couldn't even see him it was pretty futile. Cheshire stood back and seemed wary, not that I could see the look on her face through the mask. Lady Shiva waited for Jim to respond, but he didn't and she seemed to realize she wasn't going to take him down with her razor sharp tongue so she spun on her heel and stalked off into the dark.
It was probably in poor taste to watch her butt when she walked away, but in my defense, it was a phenomenal butt, and she had her back to me anyway so it wasn't like it was bothering her. I both loved to see her go and very much enjoyed watching her leave. I expected Cheshire to go with her, but to my surprise she stayed behind. Her aura was complicated, guilt, gratitude, a small amount of amusement, and a not inconsiderable amount of fear all mixed together into a cocktail of emotions that I didn't have the faintest guess as to the cause of. She stood there for a minute, just staring, until I thought she might be mute or something.
Finally though, after an extremely long pause, she spoke "Gentleman Ghost. I hear you're mentoring my sister." I froze. I...had known Artemis had a sister, she mentioned her a time or two in passing, but she never went into detail, which made perfect sense now that I knew she was with the Shadows like Artemis's dad. It also explained the weird familiarity during our brief skirmish. I recognized her moves because I'd sparred with Artemis a dozen plus times. Presumably they had both learned their skills from Larry.
She paused for a bit again, but the silence was heavy, she clearly had more to say and was just figuring out how to speak. Jim must have gotten that too because he didn't speak either, and eventually she started talking again. "Thank you. The Shadows aren't always kind to the children of their members. I wanted better for her. Maybe being a professional thief wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but then again I'm an assassin so I can't exactly take the moral high ground here. Thank you, for keeping her safe. I've checked in on here the last few weeks. She seems happy."
She very specifically didn't glance at me, but I had the very disturbing feeling she knew who I was as well, which admittedly wouldn't be hard to figure out if she knew who Artemis was learning from. Still, I could see in her aura that she had no plans to leak the information and I was grateful for it. Jim finally appeared, stepping from the dark in the span of a split second without any warning, the glow of his brilliant white suit pushing back the night as he strolled up to the both of us.
He stopped a few feet away and tipped his hat to the cat masked assassin "Your sister is a joy to teach, and as you've seen today I take care of my own. Don't worry about her safety, she's in the best hands possible." Standing this close, and with his magic still active, I could feel Jim's presence crushing down on me, like an unnatural trying to smash me flat into the pavement. He seemed to notice out discomfort because between one second and the next the energy disappeared, leaving us both feeling much better.
Cheshire nodded again and turned to leave stopping a few feet away with her back to us. "Can you...not tell her you saw me? I know it's not a fair thing to ask, but she's happier without me around. With you watching her back she might finally have a chance to be free of that deadbeat dad of ours, but that won't happen if she drags herself back into things because of me." Her voice sounded sad and resigned, and I got the impression that this was an unusual amount of selflessness for the older girl.
Jim nodded again and she vanished into the dark, following behind Lady Shiva. We watched them leave and stood still for a minute to make sure they were gone before we turned and headed for the clock tower. Jim chuckled as we strolled along "You certainly have a knack for attracting dangerous women don't you lad?" That statement seemed to have a deeper meaning so I gestured for him to continue. "We ran into traces of your old flame today, and we have a problem." His voice sounded grimmer than I'd ever heard it.
It did not bode well when my spectral mentor was worried. "What kind of problem could she possibly be for all of you? She's a delusional, mentally, and emotionally unstable sixteen year old girl who was just brought back from the dead. And judging by her last plan she wasn't really much of criminal mastermind even before all that. What do you mean you found traces of her?" Deep down I'd been afraid of this, terrified they wouldn't be able to catch her, but I hadn't expected it to really happen.
Jim was silent for a minute. "There is a man. A legend in our line of work. They call him the Designer. His plans are famously intricate, perfect to the last detail. The Designer ruled over the criminal underworld for decades in the twentieth century. The Designer wasn't like Holiday, he wasn't a household name. Only the right people knew he even existed, but he was considered such a power that even the Court had to pay heed to him on the rare occasions when he chose to come here." He sounded...impressed by this guy. Which was pretty scary all on its own.
He shook off the distraction quickly though, returning to his train of thought. "His sojourn here was before my time in Gotham, mind, but not by much. I heard about him when I arrived. Well today I met him, after a fashion. Your former paramour seems to have contacted him somehow and hired him to design a plan that would enable her to reach her goal. How she achieved this I haven't the faintest idea, but she has. We spoke to one of his corpse puppets when we were tracking her, he uses a chemical that lets him use the dead as servants."
That sounded...bad, but not like the end of the world. "Well now you know he's involved so we can work around him. We just need to find out where she is and we can go get her. Who cares if this guy is some arch criminal, doesn't mean you can't kick his ass. Solomon Grundy was working with Morgana and you took him out easy. That's some major firepower, you can take some old timey criminal puppet master." I didn't get the big deal here, Jim was a powerhouse and this guy sounded like a regular person.
He shook his head sadly "I could. But I would have to find him first. That is the terror of The Designer. He doesn't use brute force. From the moment he became involved every step we took was one he anticipated. Don't misunderstand, I bow my head to no one, I do not fear The Designer and I believe we could circumvent his plans. But not in time. We only have a few days remaining. We will continue to search but Nimue and I are also acknowledging that the Labyrinth may come to Gotham no matter our plans."
My shock at that announcement must have been obvious even through the mask, but I had to say my piece anyway. "That's insane! We can't just give up. You want to just let my psycho ex become a goddess and lord over all of Gotham with the powers of however many sacrifices she manages to get? Because I'm gonna be honest boss I don't think this is going to be a great place to live once Annabel is running things. She seems to have been indoctrinated into the whole Court supremacy thing pretty early and bought it hard. She'll have Talons patrolling the streets,assuming she even leaves any normal people alive and doesn't just convert them all."
I could almost hear the eye roll "Don't be insipid boy, I didn't say that. The arrival of the Labyrinth is the beginning of her plot, not the end. She needs the sacrifices to accrue her power, and she needs to wait in the maze to grow stronger. The Designer will be helping her raise the Labyrinth, but he can't plan the Labyrinth. No one can, we have no clue whats inside. I'm saying we lose the battle so we can prepare to win the war. We strengthen ourselves so we can assault the Labyrinth before the sacrifices can be gathered and stop her before she can ascend."
I hadn't considered that. It made sense though. We had been treating the ritual like the end of our problems one way or the other but we had other options here. We could storm the Labyrinth and take her down before the sacrifices made her too strong. Hell she'd even asked me to meet her in the center, so clearly it was possible to get there and she was confident I could do so. We arrived at the clock tower and Jim led me inside, where Blood, Madame Xanadu, and my team were waiting.
The Shadowpact was out trying to track down leads, but that was fine. This was Gotham business. Jim explained to everyone else what he had explained to me and we told them our plan. Blood and Madame Xanadu knew of course, but everyone else seemed almost excited. We talked over the general outline our our plan, specifics wouldn't be doable until we got a look at the Labyrinth, but we had a direction, a goal. They would keep looking for Annabel but I had other ideas. if we were going in to the Labyrinth I wanted my team at full strength. We had to be ready for what was to come.
The Clock Tower July 22nd 2010 12:00 PM EDT
When Jim had talked about preparation I'd expected him to be talking about more lessons like the ones we'd had before. He'd been working us pretty hard the last month and now that we had an emergency inbound there was no reason to expect that to stop now. That, it turned out, had been wishful thinking on my part. Our lessons weren't as strenuous as they had been before, they were more so. My particular lessons were in something I'd considered using my points for in any case, namely my sword work.
I had an extremely solid grasp on the use of a sword in very specific circumstances. I was a master assassin, and my skills with my tanto led themselves to quick brutal strikes from hiding. With my enhanced reflexes I could take advantage of openings to use those skills to deal damage, but against anyone with actual combat experience anything but an attack from stealth or a first blow that was faster than expected would be useless.
Despite the fact that he mainly used a long sword, Blood was apparently a master swordsman so he would be taking charge of my training. I wasn't sure who the others were training with, but I had enough on my plate with just learning from Blood. Training in the sword under an actual Arthurian knight sounded awesome, but in practice it was more painful than interesting.
Blood, as one might expect from a man possessed by an actual demon who learned to fight when child labor laws didn't exist was a little vague on the concept of holding back. I expected to be able to lean on my reflexes for this but sadly that was wishful thinking. Which was how I found myself here undergoing literal hell training. The flat of a dull but still definitely metal sword smashed into my fucking ribs from my blind spot and I went sprawling onto the ground in pain.
Blood clicked his tongue, staring imperiously down at me "Too passive boy. I told you, you can't win every fight by reacting. You have to take the initiative. And seasoned swordmaster has means of dealing with a faster opponent. You can not keep counting on your instincts to save you." He had told me that. Multiple times. Each one on the tail end of a fairly vicious beating he seemed to enjoy giving me a bit too much.
I saw his point. Obviously. I would have to be an idiot to miss it after he spent two hours beating it into me. Through a combination of feints, experience, and what I could only describe as manipulating my perception, he kept getting through my guard. If he couldn't find an opening, he made one, and even when I saw what he was doing he managed to avoid my counter. I'd thought Lady Shiva was scary, but Blood was a fucking nightmare even in human form.
The problem was I didn't have any follow ups for my attacks. My assassination techniques weren't designed with contingencies. If you missed or got blocked you were pretty much either supposed to vanish into the dark never to be seen again or die trying. I climbed to my feet, scowling "I keep telling you I'll attack when you teach me how. I don't know any actual swordplay, I'm just really good at shivving people when they aren't paying attention." I kept telling him this and he kept hitting me anyway and it was really starting to piss me off.
He didn't swing again, waiting for me to reset. "And I told you, I won't be teaching you techniques. They would be useless with that short blade of yours in any case. You aren't listening to what I'm saying. I've given you all the tools you need to progress, you just need to evaluate the things you've learned and put them to use. If I have to coddle you and spoon feed you every technique it won't matter how strong or fast you are. Regurgitated stances and forms are how you make a meat shield, not a warrior."
I growled in frustration and lunged at him, doing my utmost to stab the smug prick in the shoulder. Not lethally, though he told me not to worry about that anyway. But enough to fucking hurt. But as usual he deflected it with ease and shifted the momentum back to him switching from his deflection to a backhand chop aimed at my collar bone. I considered everything he'd said so far, and going with my gut I dodged his blow by moving closer instead of retreating.
Naturally he reacted instantly, changing his attack seemingly before I even finished my movement and aiming for the side of my skull with the flat of his blade. I decided to take his advice about proactivity and mix it with the experience he'd been using against me. Instead of blocking or evading I tucked my head down low and shoulder checked him in the chest. He stepped back to keep balance and I finally caught an opening.
I drove my tanto down at his thigh, which was exposed by his off kilter stance. His blade flicked down to deflect it almost like magic (though he swore it wasn't) but this time he backed off afterward. He nodded approvingly. "Good. You couldn't find an opening so you made one. And you used your entire body and not just your blade. It takes most men decades to learn that lesson, if they ever do. Being willing to take a blow to give one is also a necessary skill for any warrior." For the first time in these lessons he sounded genuinely pleased with me. It was a nice change.
Instead of having me reset again my new teacher began to lecture, placing the tip of his dull blade against the ground as he spoke. "Now I can see in your movements that you know how to track the center of gravity in combat, that's good, but it's only the beginning of what you need to know. Your major issue is that you think of your attacks as contained events rather than a select portion of a larger whole." I'd been using Artemis's training in our matches so that part I got but I was confused about what the rest of that meant.
That confusion was clearly evident on my face because Blood interrupted my question before I could even ask it. " Think of your battle as a game of chess. When you attack me, don't think of the result if you make contact. Think instead of my response, then consider how you might respond to that response in turn. The further ahead you can predict, the more effective you can be. You noticed my tendency to create openings when needed, but creating them at the drop of a hat isn't always possible. Where you might not find a gap in a single exchange, finding a flaw in the overall situation may save your life."
That made sense. It also kind of highlighted the major flaw I'd already noticed in my combat style. One and done attacks and back stabs didn't really fit well into the flow of battle. Aside from not knowing what to do next and leaving me open and off balance mid fight, even worse was that assassination stressed doing maximum damage with maximum speed and ferocity. Putting everything into you attacks and springing from ambush was great, but then you ended up with nothing left energy wise if you missed.
Blood had me reset again and we gave it another shot. I tried to do what he said. In concept it was pretty simple honestly, the kind of thing anyone would consider. But in the heat of battle when you're focused on making every move count focusing on the present seems like the only way to survive. All the thought I put toward the next exchange was thought I wasn't giving to my current self and that went against every instinct in my body. Fighting was a visceral immediate thing, getting to the point where you could think while doing it wasn't as simple as it sounded.
Every time I tried to game out my next move and his next move I ended up slipping up and leaving him an opening, and despite what some would have thought he did not let em skate on them. He punished me severely every time I slipped up, stopping just short of breaking bones with every blow. My entire body was a giant bruise but I kept going. The main problem I was having was that I was trying to chain the assassination sword strikes together into a usable style, which took active concentration.
All my muscle memory was for the singular attacks I was trying to move past so I couldn't rely on reflex to make up for the gaps. I tried fixing a sequence of moves in my mind and focusing entirely on that while reacting to his attacks on reflex, but Blood kept finding the seams in my moves and interrupting them. I pulled back, and he let me go, listening to my frustrated voice as I ranted. "I don't have the experience to know what you're going to do. I can't plan for your next attack because I have no clue what you're going to do!"
He smiled "That isn't as much of an impediment as you think it is. You say you don't know what my next blow will be, but you know it'll be a sword blow. You can anticipate the approximate direction it might come from. You aren't at a level where you can perfectly map every movement a person will make like precognition, but you don't have to be. You can come up with more general counters to certain broad sets of moves. That should be enough for your mind to use as a template when you act on instinct. It doesn't have to be one or the other boy."
I blinked. He was right. He said to predict what he would do but he didn't tell me how specific to be. I was the one who took his chess metaphor and decided he was talking about becoming basically precognitive. I tried it, coming up with a few broad variables to help manage my reactions and then attacking. He blocked, like I figured, I countered and he dodged. I'd been expecting a deflection and got caught in the ribs but he was right, this was much less complicated. We went again, and I did better, and again, and I improved more.
Of course it was hard to map my improvement considering Blood was increasing the difficulty as I went, but perfect memory comes in handy and I knew where I was doing better. The exchanges got faster, not much faster, but faster. It was good my muscles had stamina because this was more a marathon than a sprint but even so, I eventually got worn down and had to call it. I expected Blood to force me to keep going but he didn't seem upset. He seemed to trust my understanding of my limits.
He nodded to me as I put my tanto away. "Well done boy. You've learned quite a bit. I must say i find myself in the rather unfortunate position of agreeing with Craddock about something. You really are an extraordinary talent. Mind you, we're far from finished, you have much more to learn. But this was as good a start as any I suppose."
With that he sheathed his blade and walked out of the room, leaving me to crawl over to the water bottle I brought for a drink. I smiled slightly to myself as I dumped the cold liquid in my head and slipped my phone out of my pocket. Since I had some downtime I might as well call my girlfriend. Talking to her sounded like the best way to cool down after a hard training session.
Metropolis July 24th 2010 6:00 PM EDT
I checked my watch again. It was the third time. I didn't even know why. She wasn't late, we weren't supposed to meet for another ten minutes, but I was just so damn nervous. This was my first date with Zee. I didn't count our little make out session or our day out when we were just friends. I'd even considered wearing one of my good suits but I thought it was a bit formal. I checked my watch again. It was literally the exact minute it had been the last time I checked and I winced and forced myself to calm down.
I hadn't been this nervous with Annabel (though I probably should have been obviously) but something about Zee was just intimidating. She was just so gorgeous and fun and together and dear god I needed to calm down or I was going to give myself a fucking panic attack. I distracted myself thinking about what today was. The full moon. The Labyrinth would arrive tonight. Jim and the other heavy hitters were scouring the city still but it looked like we were going to be reacting instead of acting this time.
I was glad Zee was out of the city today. Reggie and Artemis were in the tower and safe, but Zee was the one I was most worried about since she was name checked in my stalker ex's yandere love letter. But Annabel had to be in Gotham to pull off the ritual so she couldn't be here to bother us and by the time I got Zee home it would be moonrise and time for her to make with the magic. Once she was in the Labyrinth all we had to do was go get her. It was a simple plan but simple worked.
I felt a minor disturbance in my senses just out of sight and smiled. Clearly Zee had teleported in. She stepped out from behind the building just as I expected and I just kind of...gaped. Zee was beautiful. Always. Every second I was around her I was mentally marveling at how gorgeous she was, but what I hadn't known before was that Zee didn't TRY. I could say this for certain, because if this was what trying looked like I had definitely never seen it before.
As a guy I knew literally nothing about makeup. I didn't know what eye shadow was supposed to look like when applied properly, didn't know about lip lines or any of the other shit I'd seen girls mention in movies or tv shows. But looking at my girlfriend standing there in front of me it became obvious that the breathtaking beauty in front of me hadn't been wearing any makeup before, because this took her previous level of perfect to a whole new level.
Whatever she did with her eye makeup made those piercing blue eyes blaze, her generous mouth looked perfect with that lipstick on, and her hair fell in soft waves around shoulder bared by the black off the shoulder top she was wearing over a jean skirt and a pair of thigh high boots, that made her already shapely thighs look even more amazing. I was pretty grateful we hadn't started walking yet, because this was the level of awe that made movie character accidentally walk into open manhole covers.
She tucked a strand of hair shyly behind and ear and gave me that brain melting smile of hers and I swallowed hard. She bit her bottom lip lightly "So I guess you like it? This is my first date so I wanted to try dressing up. How do I look." The faint blush dusting her pale cheeks made her look even more gorgeous if that was possible and I had to reboot my brain a little to get my head to a sp0t where I could actually respond.
It was crazy how your perception could change based on the place someone had in your life. When I'd been with Annabel Zee had been a good friend and her objectively god level sexiness had just kind of gone right over my head. Once I...well broke up with was an incredibly polite term for how things ended with Annabel, but once that ended I'd started to notice how gorgeous she was immediately.
Now though...now she was MY girl. I'd felt her against me, tasted her lips, something about a gorgeous girl being your gorgeous girl takes her beauty up to the next level, and Zee's level was pretty high to start with. I cleared my throat "You look..." I honestly couldn't form coherent words strong enough for how much she was effecting me, so I tried to undersell "Absolutely breathtaking." She flushed prettily again and I almost fell into another daze.
I was incredibly happy Zee was a hero, because with how infatuated I was already if she'd been plotting some murder-y shit like Annabel had I'd have missed all of it. Come to think of it that was probably how I missed all the signs with Annabel too. Despite not being quite as jittery or nervous around her I'd still gotten plenty stupid around the pretty blonde. Apparently I was just really susceptible to acting like a moron in front of beautiful women.
I offered Zee my arm like I did last time but she pushed it down. I shot her a puzzled frown, but she just gave me a shy smile and reached down to twine her fingers in mine. Handholding on the first date. How lewd. In all seriousness though my heart was pounding so hard I felt like she could hear it from where she was walking, every thing we did seemed to have so much more meaning now, every gesture was more intense and I couldn't stop fucking smelling the air because she smelled amazing.
I was so wrapped up in how out of my element I was I almost jumped out of my skin when she actually spoke. "So, did you have anything you wanted to do today? I mean we could come up with something together if you want but if you had any ideas I don't mind doing whatever you want." I tried incredibly hard not to think about how I could take that last statement if I wanted to, focusing instead on what she'd actually meant. I had done some research on things to do in Metropolis, though most of it flew right out of my head the second I saw her.
I tried to sound cool and confident when I spoke "I thought we might go to the Ace of Clubs. It should just be opening up. Unless that's too much for a first date, we could just do dinner and a movie or something." The thought of dancing with or even near her was pretty intoxicating but honestly I would agree with her if she said it would be fun to amputate our legs together.
She brightened "No way! That sounds like so much fun, I've never been to a club before. I can use my magic to get us in." She blushed a bit "I've never really been dancing though, so if I'm not any good at it don't laugh ok?" Looking at her long legs in those thigh high boots and extremely generous amount of booty straining at that skirt I literally could not think of an action she could perform physically that would look silly to me, but I kept my mouth shut and nodded.
The ease with which Zatanna manipulated two pieces of cardboard into perfect fake IDs for us to get us into the club was honestly scary, and even I had to admit her magic was damn convenient. My power was broken but Zee was no slouch in terms of versatility. I wasn't sure what her limits were but I honestly wasn't in the mood to ask about powers. I just kind of trailed behind her in a daze as she led me out onto the dance floor my the hand.
Annabel and I had kissed. We'd cuddled. There had even been a bit of groping. I'd kissed Zee before too, so I thought I had a bit of a resistance to physical interaction with pretty girls. I was wrong. Zee led me out onto that dance floor with her bright happy smile and in the dim light, the music started and I was just...blown away. She'd made me promise not to laugh at her dancing, and I had assumed she was being ridiculous and I'd love anything she did. I'd dramatically underestimated the amount I would love it.
It started with her hips. First a sway. Side to side and then in a circle. One of her feet slid to the side spreading her legs about shoulder length apart. Then she started to move. It was hard to describe how she twisted her body. There was some grinding in there, a bit of rolling, but none of those words captured it. Her body twisted and curved like a snake to the music hair flinging back and forth as she lost herself in it.
I'd seen Zee fucking teleport, but what she did on that dance floor was more magical than any spell any of my mentors had ever cast. Because it wasn't just something I watched, I was a part of it. She moved against me, with me, and I was so absolutely besotted with how perfect she was that I almost forgot to be turned on by how fucking sexy she was moving for me. Almost.
I put my hands on her hips as she rolled them and pulled her against me and I felt her brush back against me and then slide away. I wasn't sure how long we'd been out here but the song had changed at least five times by now, but it didn't matter. Her body made every note perfect no matter what song it was a part of. She looked over her shoulder at me as we danced and her pupils were huge, dilated with arousal and excitement. I leaned forward and kissed her and she wrapped her hands in my hair again.
My hands moved up her body, running over every inch I could touch. My fingers skating over the taught skin of her stomach as I trailed them under her shirt and then up her ribs. I expected her to stop me, but when I ran them over one of her pebbled nipples she just gasped into my mouth and pulled me tighter against her. It was an act of pure torture to stop, but I did it. This was too fast. Just like last time.
She blushed bright red and gave me an embarrassed smile as she tried to wipe off the copious amounts of lipstick smeared on my face and then her own before we both started laughing. We went to separate bathrooms and cleaned up and then out to dinner after out night dancing so we could cool down a bit, and I spent the rest of the night smiling and laughing and trying not to fixate on how tightly she'd fisted her hand in my hair when I rolled her nipple between my fingers.
Finally the night was over, and we took a bus back to Gotham so she could teleport home once we got to my place. I smiled sheepishly "So, our first date huh. Sorry I maybe got a bit pushy there for a second. I tried not to lose it but you looked so damn gorgeous and I kind of screwed up. Did you have fun?" I knew Zee was kind of religous, and groping her tits on the first date seemed like a bridge too far. I really didn't want to ruin this. I'd been perfectly well behaved at dinner but you can't exactly unring a bell.
She giggled and leaned against me as we came up over the bridge into Gotham and the rising moon illuminated her gorgeous face. "It's fine. Dancing got me a bit excited too. Maybe we should keep to less physical activities for our next date." I smiled at her dumbly. She wanted another date. We were going to go out again. She leaned forward to whisper in my ear "But I did have fun. I wouldn't mind if you did that again. You have soft hands." She kissed my ear and giggled again snuggling back into me.
My pulse pounded a little faster and my smile got even stupider. I liked the sound of that. I was about to ask a follow up question or two and maybe try for a repeat performance when i felt a strange sensation settle over my mind. Zee sat bolt upright, looking at me with worry and confusion. Suddenly a voice flooded my mind. A female voice I hadn't heard in weeks and dreaded ever hearing 's cheerful manic tone rang through my mind.
[Ladies and gentlemen of Gotham rejoice! Your adventure has come! Venture down below the city into mighty Labyrinth to seek treasure and fortune! Find magical artifacts and face deadly monsters to become more powerful! Your destiny awaits!] Huh. Well that was definitely one way to get sacrifices. I hadn't been expecting that.
The Clock Tower July 24th 2010 10:00 PM EDT
Zee had headed home quick after the odd mental message and I headed back to the clock tower to meet with Jim and the others. I figured they would have a handle on the situation and know what was going on, but their response didn't thrill me. I glared at my mentor "What the hell do you mean we can't seal the Labyrinth. We can't just let hordes of idiots flock into the depths to get wiped out and feed her."
Jim gave a helpless shrug "Agreed. Which is why we tried to close any entrance we managed to get close to. The problem is that the Labyrinth doesn't exist in this plane. It both is and isn't currently part of the catacombs below the city. Since we can't access the space itself we can only seal the entrances. But every time we try the damn thing opens a new one and they move constantly. People are probably finding their way into the depths as we speak." He sounded frustrated, which weirdly made me happy. At least it wasn't just me.
Reggie raised a hand "Am I the only one worried about where these supposed treasures are coming from? I didn't exactly study Greek myths in my spare time like Arty but even I know the Labyrinth wasn't a fucking dungeon. Or was this something else the old stories got wrong?" Reggie made a good point. I'd been more concerned with the fallout than the how of things but if the Labyrinth could do that it would have been nice to know. Had Madame Xanadu been holding out on us or was this new.
Unfortunately it seemed like the latter, the ancient sorceress looked as disturbed as we did, which unlike Jim's consternation was NOT comforting. She shook her head ruefully "You aren't. I've been studying the magic emanating from the Labyrinth and it seems to have been altered. Most people have seen the maze glyph on the floors of the courthouse in Crete. What they don't know is that Minos used that as a template for the Labyrinth. The actual structure
Deadalus made was less...concrete than most think." She hesitated as if trying to figure out how to explain something.
The words came slowly, like she was finding her way. "The Labyrinths structure exists mainly in higher dimensions humans can't see. Deadalus was a once in a lifetime genius and he utilized magical principles even I would find it difficult to mimic. The three observable dimensions the Labyrinth is constructed of aren't fixed and it's form and execution are substantially different this time around. The template the observable portions of the construct are based on is different and the power is allocated differently."
Artemis chimed in "But how does a new template equal treasure. I could see maybe a new layout or even some new monsters, but treasure? How does that fit into the structure of the Labyrinth?" She was right, it didn't. This thing was a converter made to focus all the magical power to one spot and create a god. It made zero sense for it to waste power on random bullshit like magic items. Sure it would lure people in but what if people took the stuff out without dying? That would be a huge loss.
Madame Xanadu grimaced "That one I have managed to puzzle out. The new template works in a tiered structure instead of from the outside in. The power gets pushed downward to the lowest level, which serves the same purpose as the center of the maze did before. But because the original template was an uninterrupted circuit that led to the center and the new one has actual physical barriers the objects and creatures absorb some of the energy as it descends. The deeper you go the higher the concentration of energy and the more powerful the monsters and items will appear."
I was beginning to have a very bad feeling about this. It reminded me of something Annabel and I had done together on our days off, and if my suspicions were right the city was about to get real fucking complicated. I stood up abrubtly. "Alright we need to go take a look at one of these entrances. I think I might know what template she used, and if I'm right we're going to need help. Lots of help. Because people will be flooding in from all over to try their luck and the Labyrinth will get stronger very very quickly. If we really can't stop people from getting in we're going to have to do our best to get to her fast."
Jim nodded "That won't be a problem. From what we can tell, the weakest monsters and items are at the top. We looked inside but felt like actually entering and putting ourselves inside the construct was a mistake without learning more. If you have insight we welcome it lad." He gestured for me to follow him and led all of us outside. He rapped his cane three times on the street and a white fog rose up, coalescing into a glowing white version of his Silver Ghost. I had to admit, that was pretty damn cool.
We climbed in and he drove us down a few side streets before stopping at an old run down house. The door was ajar, hanging at an angle and the inside was full of dust and cobwebs. Reggie whistled loudly "Wow, this place is a dump. If these kinds of places are connecting the Labyrinth this is going to get a bit crazy. Desperate people live in places like this. Them getting random magic items is a bad thing." We followed Jim into the house and down a set of rickety old steps into the basement.
The basement was empty of most things, a few boxes, a mattress some more cobwebs, but one thing stood out. A white marble mausoleum with a steel gate on it. I recognized it and it gave me a really bad feeling. I desperately hoped Annabel hadn't used the template I thought she had. I turned to the others "I need to go in. I have to check something. Good and bad news though. Good news is that if she did what I think she did she isn't going to ascend anytime soon. Bad news is that the power from this thing is going to spread all over the place."
I walked up to the mausoleum and opened the grate descending a set of steps to come out...inside a tomb. Fuck. It was a huge sprawling maze of corridors and stone floors. It looked like some kind of city of the dead. I saw a white marble coffin with a bronze lid in front of me and stepped forward, sure to be in my ready state in case I was attacked. I pushed open the coffin and a shape popped up from behind it. A skeleton wielding a crude wooden club with nails in it. I swung an arm and knocked the bones apart and the thing collapsed under the blow.
I stared at the bones to make sure they wouldn't move and then sorted through them. I found a few pieces of gold and beat up looking short sword. I stared down at it. [Short Sword: Damage 1-6, Durability 24, Requirements Strength 18.] The list of attributes appeared in my brain when I looked down at it just like the voice had earlier and I winced. I turned around and decisively walked back up the stairs and out into the basement. "Well, do you guys want the good news or the bad news?"
Jim seemed to have picked up the fear and uncertainty in my voice he just shrugged and left it up to me. I decided to start with the good news. "The good news is I know what template she used. Annabel and I dated for a month, aside from parties and politics Annabel's one vice was old school video games. A particular favorite of hers was a dungeon delving game called Diablo. The game consisted of sixteen levels of a dungeon that randomly generated a layout when you entered. You fought your way to the bottom to get to hell and fight Diablo."
Reggie's eyes widened. "No fucking way!" He bolted down the steps, coming back after a few minutes with a dazed look on his face. "That was the fucking Cathedral! Like the real thing. I saw a pile of bones, did you kill a skeleton? What did it drop?" He seemed excited as hell, which I could understand, Diablo was a fun game. Annabel had made me play it a few times and I'd gotten hooked. It was still pretty popular even decades after it came out despite having terrible graphics, because the mechanics were a blast.
The issue was that Diablo was infamous for its gear system. It dropped items that could increase stats and abilities as well as potions and powerful scrolls. I could not imagine what kind of damage a large group of people with access to that kind of gear would be able to do, especially people from a place like Gotham. I turned to Madame Xanadu "What are the consequences of the curse on Gotham for the Labyrinth, will the power flow into it?" If the magic in the city could just leak in we were looking at a crazy god in a much shorter time frame.
Luckily she shook her head "Not directly. It's a converter not a gathering spell. The magic will be carried in on anyone who enters, but with it being spread to every monster and item in the place she won't ascend quickly. The problem is that based on the format you described more and more powerful beings will enter the Labyrinth to try to get the stronger artifacts. The more powerful the beings that enter and shed blood or burn power the stronger the Labyrinth will become. In some ways doing this is madness, but in some it's even more brilliant. Long term gain for short term loss. Accruing the needed power with a steady trickle of sacrifices would have been stable but slowed down towards the end. This will be the opposite."
She was right. The more people who went in and came out with powerful gear the more of them would try their luck. Most of them would probably die within a few levels and be absorbed completely, the lucky few that got stronger would serve as an advertisement for those who hadn't tried it. Annabel had always been good at manipulating people. It was something I noticed even when I was just getting to know her, and this showed that she might be crazy but she wasn't stupid. She'd thought out every step of this plan.
I sighed and turned away "We can go. The levels aren't something anyone will be able to get through quickly. We need to
prepare and plan. The layout details change but the overall themes are consistent. If they're the same as the game we can make some contingency plans." I also needed to save up some points and pick up some new powers if I could afford them. This was going to be complicated and time consuming. On the upside I could bring Zee with me, Diablo didn't control the upper layers, not directly, so neither would Annabel.
I had a bad feeling this was going to be a big mess, but I had to admit I was a bit excited. This could be an interesting development for me and my friends even if it could also be a mess for Gotham. What I needed most was to come up with a way to leverage my powers to get better gear for my team, I had a feeling we would need it in the days to come. on the upside I was pretty sure I could focus on skills and abilities, I would be good on items for a while. I was also pretty excited to see if I could learn magic. Maybe my points could be used for mana. This could be fun.
The Cathedral July 25th 2010 12:00 PM EDT
I'd gone home last night and wanted to immediately buy myself a new power. Of course, then I realized that I couldn't do that because I didn't have the points. So I decided instead to bank as m,any as possible while I was in the early levels so I could hopefully afford something nice once things got harder. Despite having played Diablo a few times, I still had zero idea how it scaled against real space. A level might take us days or hours.
I was kind of hoping we might be able to get some magic gear for me and the others to make up for the lack of powers and maybe even use as a fake reason for new abilities but I knew it was rare on level one so if I did I'd probably just give it to Kit or Artemis. My cousin and both my friends had come with me, which I had been expecting, I had not been expecting to mention our trip into the Labyrinth to my girlfriend and get railroaded into adding her to our party. Not that I was complaining about an excuse to introduce her.
Plus, with an Archer, a Thief, a Mage, me for up front fights, and Reggie playing support we had almost a whole party. We hadn't seen anyone else, which implied to me that this place was instanced, which at the very least meant no one following us around and trying to kill us for treasure when our backs were turned. I'd made sure everyone had blunt weapons and I was pretty positive we were in zero danger on the first level with a group like this. Our biggest problem would be when we got to level two.
I turned to the others. "Ok, like I said before we came down here. I'll be up front. Zee, you stay behind me." She opened her mouth and I glared, cutting her off. "No! I don't want to hear anything about me being patronizing of babying you. I told you I would bring you along if you listened to my set up and I meant it. Mages at the back." I shifted my gaze to my best friend "Artemis, for now you'll be with her playing bodyguard. Arrows don't really work on skeletons sad to say but your close combat experience will make you a good protector."
Artemis raised an eyebrow and smirked "Oh that's fine. From what I've seen the skellies are weak anyway, I'd much rather tel embarrassing stories about you to your lady love." I tried desperately to conceal my look of horror, but judging by the way they smiled I didn't manage it. She shrugged "As long as I get first dibs on any bows, magic or otherwise I'm all good." I nodded at that. It only made sense for her to have first crack at ranged weapons. I had dibs on and short swords and Zee would be getting any staves we found.
She might need some supplementary gear to use one if we found it, we couldn't level from what I could tell but we did have stats. Not ones I could actually see though, so we would have to estimate based on the effect of new gear as it came in. Zee was staring at me and I nodded for her to go ahead, figuring it would be best to answer questions for everyone. "So, you said there was magic down here. Do you know how that works? Like can I even use it?" I'd done some thinking on that and I had a basic idea.
I paused for a second, trying to formulate my response "I think so. I'd have to test it, but it probably works like the games. Scrolls have magic in them anyone can use. I'm guessing mana is based on the intelligence stat like it is in the game. Everyone should have a bit and some people will have more. Gear that increases intelligence will make magic easier to use and learn. New spells can be learned from tomes, and some staves have them built in." I could see the excitement in her eyes and I felt it too, but I had to add some context.
I held up a hand "Not all good news. Some skills and spells are supposed to be innate and you can't learn them. There's a possibility they'll drop tomes anyway to compensate for the lack, but if not identify scrolls are going to be worth their weight in fucking diamonds. And staves of identify even more so. Speaking of which recharging staves is going to be an issue for most people, but with how flexible your magic is you might be able to do it yourself which would be a huge advantage."
She seemed to be drinking in all the information, nodding eagerly. She shot me a brilliant smile "Sounds good. I can't wait to start learning some new magic. The tomes sound amazing, they just beam the information on the spells into your brain, this is going to be amazing." She was gushing, bouncing up and down on her heels in excitement in a way her very tight shirt made slightly distracting. "So can we start?" Everyone else looked just as eager to get going as she was, and on level one we should all be fine.
I nodded grudgingly holding up my hands to stop them "Before we go though. Just want to go over the important stuff. Level one is easy enough, just a few weak monsters, but be careful, some of them can still hurt you. Watch out for skeleton captains, they're stronger than your average skellie. The fallen are little imp demon bastards with big swords, and scavengers are weird demonic hound things. Zombie's carry plague's I think so Artemis will drop them with her arrows if we see one."
The more I talked about it the more worried I became, but they wouldn't ignore this so we had to go anyway. Best to be prepared. We stepped out into the first room of the Cathedral, which of course was full of skeletons. Four normal skellies that were no threat and one big son of a bitch with somehow thicker bones I knew was probably a skeleton captain. I charged forward as the captain, hoping to engage him first, and the Reggie and Kit spread out to try to attack the others with their clubs.
Zee spat out a word and a fireball arced out and smashed into one of them and did...nothing. I cursed and called over my shoulder as I dodged a sword blow "Zee, I forgot they're immune to magic. Try throwing rocks or something with spells, that should work." I hoped. I was a bit busy to check because the captain was on me and the son of a bitch was fast. Only my training with Blood and my reflexes let me avoid the attacks he was sending my way.
I glared as I dodged and weaved, my club blows deflected expertly with that fucking shield. "How are you so fast? Hell, how are you moving, you don't even have muscles!" The captain of course, did not answer, swinging his sword at me. I didn't even try to parry that huge fucking weapon with my tanto, and could only dodge and knock it aside with my club, trying to find or make an opening. It took me about five minutes to finally kill the fucking bastard, and everyone else was finished before I was.
Of course, they didn't just stand around watching while I fought, they spent the time doing the favored activity of adventurers everywhere. Looting. Bags of gold and a few random weapons a dagger or two and a sword. We also found a short bow, which Artemis was over the moon about, cooing over the workmanship even if it wasn't magic. Of course her current bow was better, but the short bow was the bitch tier beginner bow so that wasn't shocking. She put it over one shoulder and we moved on to the next room.
The next room we got ambushed. My reflexes saved us all and I was glad I went first, because the fallen ones that jumped me was fucking FAST. I barely managed to parry their oversized (for them) blades as the two imps engaged from both sides. My tanto was pretty much perfect for this however, and despite being fast as fuck they weren't very good with the weapons. I managed to keep them busy while the others took out their skeleton backup and then Artemis put an arrow through ones throat and Zee caused the other one to slip right into my blade.
Again we looted the corpses and again we moved on. We found some potions as we went, a few healing and mana, and we tried them out. Zatanna was in love with the mana pots, magic power being pretty much her only real limitation even if she didn't have any big ticket damage spells yet. The healing mostly went to me since I was up front, and I had to admit it was almost addictive going from being in pain to being in perfect condition with a single pull. Shame they tasted like fucking boiled mud though.
We spent three hours going through the rooms, killing anything we ran into. The others didn't seem upset about that since these were all monsters and they were trying to murder us, but I made a mental note to talk to them about what we were doing, just to check in. Eventually though we had to turn back. Zee had to get home, her dad had been called away for an emergency, probably for THIS emergency actually but the instancing meant we wouldn't run into him. Despite that he wouldn't be out forever. Though I was curious if Batman would even let the rest of the League in to help.
Some of the lower levels had truly horrible beings in them that would probably pose a threat to even some of the Leaguers. With powerful magic and waves of dangerous demons. I hoped they proceeded with caution, but who knew. Zee promised to bring it up and try to feel her dad out. On the upside the fact that he was going to be so busy meant more time with my lady, which was a definite plus as far as I was concerned. We eventually stopped and I turned to the others. "Ok guys, I think it's time to turn back."
Reggie nodded "Agreed. This place is fucking huge. I don't know how big but the hours we've spent down here don't seem to have put much of a dent in the first level. I say we head back and reconvene down here in a few days. We should take a look at the situation up top, this kind of stuff spreading around Gotham is going to be pretty rough, and we need to see how things have changed." He was right, on the upside I hadn't needed to use any points so far, so I was going to be able to keep banking them.
Everyone agreed that we should head back up and we made our way back through the Cathedral with my perfect memory, re tracing our steps. Zee hadn't found any tomes, but we had found a staff of town portal that she was giddy about in one of the chests, and she had a small collection of mana pots she was going to hide in her bedroom. When we made it topside everyone scattered, Artemis, Kit, and Reggie heading back while I with Zee back towards the tower on another route. We stopped behind a building and Zee smiled at me. "I have to head back home. Gotta hide all this stuff before daddy gets home. Before I do though, I wanted to thank you again for bringing me to do this."
She reached up to stroke my hair. "I know you were worried and it means a lot that you trusted me to take care of myself. Even though we had people with us I consider this our second date. So I wanted to get a proper good night kiss." She grabbed me and slammed me against the wall molding every inch of her body against me and kissing me desperately.
When she pulled back her face was flushed and her eyes were unfocused. She licked her slightly swollen very shiny lips and gave me a wink before turning to walk away. I couldn't tear my eyes off the extra sway in her hips as she walked down the alley, making sure to give me a nice look before she teleported. God that girl was amazing.
The dungeon crawl begins! The Labyrinth is open! Gotham is changing and nothing will ever be the same. I'm having a ton of fun with this arc and I think you'll all enjoy it. Meanwhile in the advance chapters our boys power evolves! the daily point total rises and new hope for more powers is found! pat-reon has the five advance chapters of two thousand words a piece for a minimum of ten thousand words of advance content at that site /malcolmtent. Hope you all enjoy and let me know what you think.