The Dustbin
Day 6: Night School (Part 3)
Unknown Location, Presumably 26th of the Great Tree Moon, Late Night
"WHOA!" Byron exclaimed as he rolled out of the rusted iron maiden's lightning javelin, peppering his back with loose gravel flung up from the impact, "DAMMIT ALL!"
The rusted machine with the iron maiden's visage roared out its internal workings once again as its gleaming eyes dotted towards Byron's location, ascertaining its visuals before forming another lance of light to stake into him.
Its worn cogs whirred, its neck creaked as it tried to stake another lance into where Byron stood...
"[Miasma Δ]!"
A ball of bright purple gas shot towards the machine's shoulder, causing its arm to jam, and the lance to explode in its brass hands.
Byron looked towards where the magic came from, and from the darkness, he spotted the hooded visage of Professor Karna Yuga, limping on one side of his leg, his back slouching from fatigue, and his stretched out hand trembling slightly.
"Professor!?" cried out Byron, "you're alive-"
"GET DOWN!" barked Karna as his cast out hand emitted another concentrated cloud of purple gas, "[Miasma Δ]!"
Another gas cloud hurled towards the half-mangled sentry, briefly stunning it and allowing Byron to make a hasty retreat away from the automaton's field of vision, with Karna himself now following suit and sliding into where Byron hid.
"So... professor..." spoke Byron, finally catching breath as the automaton aimlessly searched for them while they hid behind a piece of giant rubble, "... doing alright?"
"Been through worse," replied Karna, taking off his glasses and wiping the lenses with the hem of his cloak, only for the glass to crack upon contact, "... still, even though this is not my first time entering into a seemingly-normal complex and finding a deathtrap in its underbelly, the fact that I got others involved for the very first time... is rather, shall we say, unfortunate."
"Well, suffice to say..." Byron remarked as he peered out from the cover, only to duck back in as the automaton's head creaked towards his direction, narrowly missing him, "... it seems that we're the only ones that thing is searching for."
"Come to think of it..." asked Karna as he placed his cracked glasses back over his eyes, "... where're the others?"
They looked around, and found the three conspirators, two of the Black Eagle House, and one third party-affiliate, lying on a pile atop of each other right in front of them.
"Don't worry, they're fine," Byron remarked as he brushed his hair up his head, "that thing seems to be completely stationary. Look."
He pointed towards the bottom of the automaton, finding the sentry bolted to the ground, akin to a ballista platform battened down to castle walls.
"We can work with that, then," nodded Karna, "still, we can't afford to neglect it lest it starts targeting someone else-oh no."
Karna spots the automaton's hand starting to glow with a javelin of light forming in its tack-like fingers, illuminating the veiled face of Topaz below it.
"Byron," Karna remarked, "no time to explain, take Topaz and drag her back here where is safe."
"Wait, wha-"
Karna then jumps over the cover and throws a rock at the automaton's iron maiden-like visage.
"HEY TINPOT!" taunted Karna, the sentry creaking its head towards the cloaked professor, "PICK ON SOMEONE ON YOUR OWN SIZE!"
The broken sentry then clumsily hurls its lance of light towards Karna, the latter dodging out of the way of the blast, allowing Byron to sneak by and retrieve Topaz, picking her slight frame over his shoulder and dragging her out of sight.
"Okay, that's one..." Byron grunted as he laid the unconscious veiled female classmate to the cover of the rubble that he returned to, "... that just leaves the Almyran giant, the McCarthy twins... and Vidar-oh hell."
A certain incident flashed across his mind, a young Vidar, bandaged head to ever since his youth, surrounded by the corpses of bandits, his wraps stained with splashes of bright red, just like the snow he stood at on that same day.
He was only left alone for a while, and something snapped within the bandaged boy that day. Since then, Byron became his sole anchor, even driving himself to graduate Faerghus's Magic Academy early just to make sure he doesn't do something reckless and get himself killed.
"... Better find him quickly, lest he goes berserk," he thought as he resumed groping around the darkness, glancing back at the cloaked Professor, still keeping the mangled sentry busy, "come on Vidar, where are you?"
He was half-tempted to cast [Fire] to illuminate the place, but considering that Professor Karna was keeping the sentry distracted, any minor deviances to the plan would prove potentially fatal, like say, him being the one to act as a distraction and potentially harming someone from the sentry lightning.
Still, time was of the essence, and he's not going waste any precious time over making extra illumination.
"Come on, come on, come on-"
"Urp..." a gruff voice groaned out beneath Byron's clouded vision.
"Vidar!?" Byron asked as he lowered his head down, only to find a face with a claw tattoo underneath her right eye, "oh, it's just you."
He then spots the other McCarthy twin, Selene, lying just across from Sorcha.
"No time to explain," Byron parroted Professor Karna's words to Sorcha as he picked her up by her arm and slung it over his shoulder, "I'll have to come back for your sister later, that alright with you-"
Sorcha simply jabs at his nose, causing it to slightly bleed.
"... Alright, I can at least save myself an additional trip," Byron remarked as he dragged his feet towards Selene as he wiped his bleeding nose with his sleeves. He then picks Selene up and hoists her over his other shoulder.
"Okay, now hopefully I can sneak back without being blasted where I stand..." he grimaced to himself as he trudged his feet across the arid mason floors peppered in loose gravel.
Byron considered himself as a well-bodied individual, like any good Faerghus inhabitant, and although he's well aware that he's nowhere near the physical levels like the rest of the Blue Lions, he can still carry his own body weight without much issue.
However, carrying an additional two proved to be a challenge, even moreso when being under pressure on top of just recovering from his injuries that he sustained from his fall, and the half-broken automaton potentially spotting him.
He glances back at where the sounds of explosions were coming from, still catching that the sentry was still occupied. In a matter of what it felt like minutes, Byron sets down the twins next to Topaz.
"Okay... now for the worst part," grimaced Byron as he looked around, finding Cyrus's head behind the piled on three conspirators, causing him let out a sigh of relief, "well, at least the trip is short to compensate for his horse-like weight."
And weighed like horse Cyrus did. His large frame was heavy as a dead horse that Byron tried to pick up once back in his youth, and him being unconscious played in part of his weight, as he once heard rumors about sleeping babies being heavier than babies that are awake and active.
Eventually, Byron lays the giant down before the three girls.
"Okay, just need to find Vidar..." Byron remarked as he wiped his brows before he looked out over the covers, trying to find his bandaged friend in the darkness, occasionally illuminated by the flashes of spells being blasted throughout this chamber, "damn it all, where is he?"
He keeps scanning the area around him, pivoting his head wherever the flash was being emitted from. Each interval, a quick explosion of light emitted where the bolt from the rusted sentry golem had thrown landed, only finding more scattered rubble and occasional dust cloud kicked up upon the blast. Still, no Vidar, and with each failed attempt of finding where he landed, his worries grew more and more, fearing that Vidar either have disappeared, or worse, dead.
Out of all the people he'd ever met, Vidar was the only one who he can him a "friend", in spite of all the logical fallacies that came with the bandage-faced person comes with.
"Where are you dammit..." Byron panicked as he continued to search the area with increasing urgency, with each passing flash slowly extinguishing his sense of calm that he's trying desperately to hold together, "... Vidar, where are you, dammit!?"
One image of Vidar's bloodied visage blinks past, another passes by, this time, the trail of bloodstains left behind in the snow, another, a Duscurian settlement being set ablaze right before him.
He then looked out where the Professor was at, facing the broken automation with fatigue mounting on his expression, spotting him slightly wince upon landing on his left leg, crouching down at an longer interval, almost getting caught in the blast of lightning from the creaking sentry, weren't for the fact that he rolled out of the way, singing the hems of his cloak in the process. Still, it was evident that he was now down one good leg, now fending off the mangled giant of brass and cogs with a limp.
He then looks back towards Sorcha, Selene, Topaz, and Cyrus, none whom he'd ever considered actual friends from the start, but despite everything, out of everyone else in Garreg Mach, the people in the Dustbin were the only ones he can truly trust. Pragmatically, yes, but still, there was something in himself that if he leaves them to die, it'll be the end of him as well shortly after.
Surviving by himself was all he did before meeting Duscurians and later Vidar, and now, in a pit where the only thing mattered was that a crazed mechanical contraption was out to maim them, Byron, for the first time in his life, began to care for other things that weren't Vidar, his survival, and his books.
... They all have been good to me, he thought as he continued his search while breaking through his mental shackles, the flashes of light and gas explosions intensifying with each second passed, the explosions drawing in closer and closer towards the people that he can call his friends, to leave him and everyone else alone to die by the hands of some synthetic security machination is an insult towards myself that I cannot allow!
Byron always fancied himself as a practical-minded and rational human being ever since he's lost his Noa family by the Death God Bandits, but this time, even he knew that "practical" wasn't going to get them anywhere, let alone, trash the lethal contraption before them.
Against all pretense of logic tied to guaranteed survival, Byron steps up to the rubble, facing down the automaton attending to the Professor with lightning javelins, and takes in a deep breath...
"VIDAR!" he yelled out with all of his air in his lungs, "WHERE ARE YOU, DAMMIT!?"
The rusted iron maiden-gigant torqued its head towards Byron, redirecting its next bolt of light towards the student. A bolt of light was cast towards where he stood, kicking up a cloud of dust upon the impact.
"BYRON!" Karna cried out, trying to run towards him, only for his leg to give out into a limp at the last second, "argh, dammit! Move!"
From the cloud of dust, a loose coat was flung out of it, shrouding the golem's sole functioning eye upon contact onto its maiden-like brass mask, causing it to flail its sole arm around sporadically in its attempt to remove its blinds.
Upon the contraption being blinded, Byron dashes out of the cloud, gritting his teeth hard as he could as he runs around the blinded sentry and past Karna in blinding speeds, the pain from the fall being minimal enough to ignore with some effort.
"BYRON!?" Karna cried out upon seeing the student sprint past him, "WHAT ARE YOU-"
"NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!" he barked back while he ran around the darkness, actively searching for Vidar, "VIDAR!"
He continues to run in the dark, only the sounds of his own footsteps and the whirring of the cogs from the automaton echoing off of the chamber's walls.
How big is this place? Byron thought as he raced across the cracked mason floors, moreover, how deep did we fall to be separated apart like now?
Byron's mind then recalls back at the moment when he and the others fell through the trapdoor, noting that Vidar was all the way at the front, with Byron himself being in middle of placement when they fell.
Wait... Byron thought as he begin to piece things together as he ran in the darkness, ... let me get this straight. In the order who was in the front to rear... Vidar, the stranger, Hans with Cyrus clinging onto him, Iago, myself, Professor Karna, Topaz, Sorcha and Selene in that order...
Suddenly, he figures out the chamber's placement, with the hypothesis that Vidar might be hugging by the edges of the room. Meaning that he himself had to reach for the room's edges to close in his search radius.
Now regarding placement... thought Byron as he continued to run towards the walls, ... judging how each of us fell from the trapdoor, how much did we all deviate from our initial positions?
Aerodynamics-wise, they shouldn't have scattered too far, as evidenced by the three assailants and Cyrus, although depending on how light or heavy a person is, it can affect their falling trajectory.
... And if Byron recalls correctly, Vidar weighs less than a single bread roll, despite him being able to easily incapacitate people roughly five times his size on a bad day.
"Well hopefully, at least he's able to stick near the walls..." Byron muttered to himself as he continued running and finally spotted a dead end, the walls themselves looking like typical masonry brickwork, fittingly worn from erosion and age, "now, onto actually finding him. Hopefully, he should've gone that far from where he fell from."
He then brushes his hand across the worn stone walls of the chamber as he began to pace adjacent to it, in hopes of finding Vidar. Along the way, he notices some segments of the walls being more worn-out then the other, the markings almost resembling something was dragged across it.
"You son of a..." Byron remarked with a toothy grin, "... I knew a fall like that ain't enough to slow you down."
He then finds Vidar, his back laid against the walls as Byron hypothesized, his breathing being slow, yet steady enough to indicate that he was still alive. Upon closer inspection, Byron saw that Vidar's fingers were bleeding through their bandages, most likely after scraping it against the walls during his descent.
"Vidar? Vidar, are you alright?" Byron asked the bandaged youth, the latter letting out a grunt, "good, hang in there. We'll make it out together."
Byron then carries the bandaged youth on his back, trudging his feet upon the sensation of pain being reintroduced back into his consciousness after ignoring it for so long during his rush.
"Come on... almost there... just a little more..." Byron heaved out while carrying his friend on his back, his feet trudging through the darkness.
He then spots the rubble that the others were tucked away in from a dim distance.
"Almost there..." Byron huffed out, his ears now beginning to ring from exhaustion, the world around him going ambient in his moment of narrowed focus, "we're almost-"
A sharp trauma shot up through the side of Byron's hip. From the moment of the impact, Byron looked down, and saw a metal tendril with his own coat hooked onto the rusted digits, the blunt end dug into his clothes and flesh beneath it.
"... Oh hell..." Byron breathed out as he caught a glimpse of the iron maiden's sole eye glaring at him, "... I messed up."
Time resumed back to normal, and Byron found himself being flung across the room, his ribs shattering as his body skid across the rough masonry floor, with Vidar knocked away from his contact.
As he saw that the iron maiden raised its hand towards Byron, its palm emitting a faint glow that turned into a blazing bolt of light, Byron tried to raise his hand and cast his own spell in retaliation, but his recently-shattered ribs from the initial strike caused him to recoil his arm back, canceling the spell against his will.
Dammit, I'm going to die at this rate... Byron thought, feeling his body grow cold as the chamber that was soon about to be his own mausoleum, the lance of light glowing menacingly in the sentinel's sole metal hand, ... is this feeling... fear? Is this what it feels like... to die weak?
As his eyes were about to see the light, a faint blast of bright violet explodes next to the sentry's shoulder, knocking its sole arm off, and letting loose the bolt of light across from Byron's general location.
"... Professor?" Byron weakly remarked before he fainted from fatigue.
The sentry, upon losing its sole method of offense, its gears begin to overclock out of desperation, now with numerous wisps of light surrounding it, each spark growing larger and larger, readying itself to unleash its deadliest attack.
"Well, this is unfortunate..." Karna remarked as he put his right down while his mouth curved into a wicked grin, "... for you to play your trump card at the worst timing possible."
In a flash, a vaguely-humanoid silhouette pounced onto the iron maiden's visage, its rusted mask being pried off like a boiled crab's shell, revealing a mess of cogs running inside. Mounted on the machine was Vidar, now fully awake and mad enough to make Demons from Hell look like corralled sheep to his rage.
Screams of hate and metal parts being gutted bare like a fish boomed throughout the now faintly-lit chambers, the wisps of light surrounding the sentry now popping into rain of smaller sparks with each cog tossed aside from Vidar's one-man-warpath against this golem that dared to hurt his friend.
"YOU! HURT! BYRON!" Vidar screamed out as he dug his bleeding hands deeper into the sentry's inner workings, tearing through one cog after another in rapid succession, "BREAK! RIP! TEAR! DIE!"
His eyes then spot a glowing orb encased in a bronze shell. With his hands reaching towards it, Vidar grabs onto the orb, jolting his whole body with electricity upon contact, but compared to his rage, it but a mere singe to Vidar's own inextinguishable hellfire of a rage, the shock barely fazing the wild boy.
With one last bellow of rage, Vidar rips the orb from the sentry's insides, and shatters the whole thing, bronze casing included, in his grasp, crushed like a rotten fruit made of glass and rust.
Upon the orb shattering in the feral boy's hand, the last remaining wisps pops like sea foam bubbles, the rusted sentry finally retiring for good.
"... Never in my whole life traveling, I saw a person rip steel apart like wet paper," Karna bemusedly remarked as Vidar continued ripping out every single cog in the now-malfunctioned sentry's hollows, slightly bemused at this primal scene, "...you know what, I think I can learn a few things from this class of misfits."
Back Outside...
The grounds outside the main chapel's entrance stirred with the wind coming from the wingbeats of a wyvern. Atop the wyvern was Seteth, bags under his eyes, accompanied by other wyvern knights whom landed shortly after.
"I swear, if I find the chapel trashed as soon as I enter through the door, I'm going to fleece Professor Karna's monthly paycheck to the marrow..." Seteth grumbled to himself as he dismounted, "fan out!" he ordered the other dismounting knights, "apprehend the bomber and secure the students! The Professor is mine!"
All of the knights then spread out throughout the chapel plateau, with Seteth walking into the main chapel building, expecting it to be completely ransacked.
"... Hm, spotless, sans for the dirt of the boots on the marble floor," remarked Seteth as he inspected the church, slightly relieved at the fact that none of the inner sanctum was turned over like a tavern post-bar fight, "still, where are they? Don't tell me they jumped into the waters and swam for it?"
He shakes his head, realizing to himself that at the height that the plateau was in, a plunge from that high would most likely break both legs for a normal person, and potentially death.
"No, Seteth, our students in the Officer's Academy are in no doubt, exceptional... but they're not superhuman freaks of nature..." Seteth grumbled to himself, trying to keep his bearings together, "just focus on what's present at the moment, like those footprints that mar the floors of the chapel... I'm going to need to pay the janitors extra. They just polished the floors a few hours ago..."
Strangely, Seteth expected the trail to take a turn out to where the cemeteries were at, but instead, the trail of dirt-caked footprints stopped cold at the end of the hallway, with no indication of the runners turning, not even a single slanted footprint.
"That's odd..." remarked Seteth as he inspected the trail of footprints stopping dead cold at the end of the halls, "... it's almost as if they stopped running just right before reaching outside," he thought out loud as he looked out towards the exit leading out to the cemetery, "... strange."
Seteth then walks towards the end of the hallway, stops before the wall's engravings, and brushes his hand against it.
"Hm?" exclaimed Seteth as he felt something off about the wall, noticing a slight dent on it, "what in the goddess's name is this?"
He squints at the perceived dent in the wall, seeing an indentation around the dent, akin to something like a hidden pressure plate or a button.
"Don't tell me..." gawked Seteth as he looked down onto the hall's floors while feeling his fingers across the dent on the wall's metal engravings, "... I thought we sealed the place away decades ago!"
Upon connecting the dots, Seteth immediately runs out of the chapel building and meets up the one of the knights returning from his patrol.
"Sir?" the knight asked.
"Inform the Archbishop," Seteth ordered, not breaking from his pace, "I've confirmed the worst-case scenario. Request Lady Rhea for a whole search party! We're in capital security breach!"
"Yes sir!" the knight saluted before he mounted back onto his own wyvern and flew away from the mainland and back towards the academy. As Seteth mounted back onto his own wyvern to fly elsewhere on the plateau, only one thought crossed in his mind.
If somehow, by fate's twisted sense of humor, that I find you, and the others in there of all the possible places... Seteth thought as he flew towards the lower end of the plateau that he was on, ... then I can only pray that I don't find you in there to begin with, so I don't have indulge in what I have to do with you and your accursed karma has brought upon!
Back Inside...
Sorcha groans for a bit before letting out a coughing fit, before resuming back to groaning as she slowly regained consciousness.
"Ugh... where the bloody 'ell am I?" the Brigidian girl with the claw tattoo groaned out, rubbing her eyes trying to discern her new surroundings, assuming that it was only dark due to her eyelids, "... argh, my head's throbbing."
"You're awake?" a youthful, yet stern male voice remarked towards Sorcha.
"... Byron?" Sorcha replied, still blind in the dark, unable to find where the voice was coming from, "where the 'ell are ye?"
She then felt a hand touch her shoulder, causing her to react violently by grabbing it and twisting its shoulder towards her front.
"Owowowowowow! That really hurts!" Byron's voice winced, with Sorcha realizing that she was grabbing onto Byron, whom she now released him from her grasp, "... I just broke my ribs... argh..."
"Oh... sorry about that," she apologized, "I can't see shite in the bloody dark. Can't even see my own hands."
"Well... take your damn time," winced out Byron, his voice strained from his injuries, "... your eyes should naturally adjust to the darkness, or are nights at Brigid never this dark?"
"What, are nights at Faerghus this bloody dark?" asked Sorcha, calming herself down for a brief moment.
"Winter... was never kind to us there," replied Byron, "not to any noble brat, and certainly, not to some noble brat whose family and home were ravaged by Fodlan's deadliest bandit clan."
"... You miss em?" Sorcha pointed out, her voice being more somber as she remembered her own father and mother back home, both of whom she and her sister were ripped away from them by the Adrestian Empire, "... you know, your folks?"
Byron goes silent for a moment before replying.
"Will missing them ever bring them back?" he replied, "will remembering them help me forget the tribulations that I had to go through in order to survive?"
The Brigid girl goes completely silent in shock at the boy's reaction.
"... Huh, sorry if I asked," she sheepishly apologized, "Selene's the only one I could call my family here on a rock that doesn't show us a lick of respect."
"So did for me to Vidar," Byron replied, "speaking of your sister, she's right next to you."
"I know," she replied, her face bearing a small smile, her hand stroking a strand of braided hair below her hip, familiar to her own hanging from her left side of her head, "... I can tell, ya bloody dolt."
Byron cracks out a stuffy chuckle before wincing in pain.
"Ribs... broken..." he winced before letting out a small heave to ease his pain.
"... Sorry 'bout that," Sorcha replied.
"Hey, are you two still alive?" remarked an adult male's voice, revealed to be Karna, lying on the other side of the rubble, "I can hear you two talking. That usually indicates you're doing alright."
"Byron's ribs are broken," pointed out Sorcha, "... still alive, though. I think that's a good thing?"
"Well, Vidar's all tuckered out, as one would put it," the cloaked Professor replied back, his occupant next to where he's sitting fast asleep, "if you're going to ask if you missed anything, let's just say that it all worked out in the end and leave it at that."
Something brushed against Sorcha's shoulder, the latter looking where the former was coming from, finding Topaz's veiled cheeks rubbing slightly onto her shoulder.
"... Never took you for a cuddling type," remarked Sorcha, trying not to chuckle out loud at the admittedly-adorable sight.
"As soon as we see daylight, may we never speak of this ever again," deadpanned Topaz, shooting a sharp glare at Sorcha, "failure to comply, I will come to deliver your head unto Azrael."
"I thought the sneaky types weren't supposed to inform their prey that they're coming for them," snarked Sorcha as her face adopted a wry grin, "I mean, I sure as hell don't tell my rabbits that they're gonna end up as soup before I chase em down."
"Then it's our job to make sure that notion won't matter in the end," fired back Topaz, "I am called 'the Rattlesnake' after all."
"Right, they rattle their tails before they bite," pointed out Karna, "... 'once bitten, twice shy', to put it mildly."
"Wait, they have actual rattles for tails?" asked Sorcha, genuinely curious about the creature she'd never heard of.
"There's more to the world than just Fodlan, Miss McCarthy," replied Karna, "as soon as all of you graduate, would all of you like to journey with me?"
"... I'll think about it," the McCarthy twin replied with a small smile on her face,
Then four sounds of groaning came from front of Sorcha, followed up by the sounds of tumbling and grunting.
"Get off of me!" a pompous voice remarked, revealed to by Iago.
"Get your bum off my leg!" a deep voice replied back, surmised to be Hans.
"I can't! There's something heavy on me!" an unfamiliar voice cried back, implied to be the bomber.
Then a shrill scream is emitted from the top of the pile, clearly Cyrus freaking out upon finding himself in the darkness by surprise, causing the four of them to collapse onto the floor with a noticeable thud.
"... Where am I?" Cyrus remarked, still reeling from his broken leg, "why is it so dark around here?"
"I distinctly recall..." winced out Iago, "... falling through the floor that we were walking on."
"Sure as hell don't make any sense of the word..." grumbled out Hans, "... whodunnit again?"
"I recall it being the gravely injured one," the stranger replied, "... whom collided against the wall. He's the one responsible for our current predicament."
"Oh right, him," remarked Hans, "... come to think of it, who the hell turned off the lights?"
"You dolt, we're deep underground," grumbled Iago, now nursing his leg with the green glow of his own [Heal] Faith Magic, "of course there would be no sunlight where we fell into."
Cyrus then begins screaming and thrashing around the other three in panic, the latter group wincing at the sheer cringe of someone large as Hans being utterly lost in nerve.
"SOMEONE GET US OUT OF HERE!" screamed Cyrus as he flailed pathetically.
"WOULD YOU PLEASE SHUT UP!?" a shrill female voice cried out from Sorcha's direction, revealed to be Selene, who's now fully awake, but rather displeased mood-wise, "I CAN'T SLEEP WITH ALL THE BLOODY SCREAMING GOIN' ON HERE!"
Cyrus then goes quiet after listening to Selene's outburst, followed up by a small whimper from the terrified giant as the other McCarthy twin returned to her slumber.
"... Sweet mercy of the goddess, was that really Selene of all people?" pointed out Byron, taken aback by the reserved girl's sudden departure from her default mood, "... well, I guess in hindsight, anyone would be maddened by his incessant whining."
"... She usually has an orderly sleeping schedule," remarked Sorcha, stroking her twin sister's right braid to calm her back asleep, "I don't wake her before sunrise for that reason alone. She knocks herself out on her own at a set time, so bugging her while she's sleeping is... rather scary."
"Well, at least that makes sure that all of us are alive after that fall," pointed out Karna, pulling himself up from where he was sitting against, "... take a breather for as long as you all need. After you're all feeling better, we'll try to find a way out, alright?"
Grunts of agreement were sounded to those present.
"For now, stay where you are," Karna instructed, "rest assured, there's air flowing into here, so we won't have to worry about suffocating to death. I'll try and put a light on, okay?"
A flicker of light then was heard, followed by a small glow.
Karna then puts out his [Fire] after lighting his compactable travel lantern that he pulled from beneath his cloak, setting it next to where he sat, and began inspecting the chambers from where he was.
From the looks of it, this place seems abandoned after it was constructed, judging by the brickwork surrounding us, that is, of course, if they were building a well, but I doubt any wells would have half-mangled killer automatons stationed here if it were the case, he thought as he observed the walls and the wind flow caressing his skin of his cheeks, far as I can tell, this place seemed like it was sealed off, implying that there's someplace else beyond these walls, due to the wind flow coming through them.
Karna then began sniffing the air around him, picking up a faint smell of melted wax and burned-out wicks, as if something was to be living down around here.
Strange... thought Karna, ... are there people who live underground? If so, for what reason and how long? Although there have been rumors floating around of a certain place in the underground, presumably sought out by to those who wish to escape prejudice or simply trying to find security in an ever-tensing continent. Still though, should I take into the fact that there might be other people down here as a good thing or a bad thing?
He shook his head, dismissing his concerns.
Ugh, I'm getting ahead of myself, he thought as he dragged himself towards the chamber's edge, taking his travel lantern with him, following the wind coming through the faint gaps in the walls, just focus on not being trapped here until we're all bare bones covered in cobwebs.
Soon enough, he found himself pressing his ear against the brickwork, listening for any sounds of life. When that failed to yield any results, he then took to pressing his nose against the walls, sniffing for where the air is flowing from.
"Found it," he said out loud as the nose he pressed onto the wall began to tickle with a faint breeze, "now, for my next trick."
Karna perks up his lips, sucking in the airflow into his mouth, and began whistling a shrill tune through the gaps. Transitioning in-between sucking in air and blowing air out to keep up with the tunes, he'd hoped that the place beyond isn't deserted at this time.
Then, he hears footsteps coming towards his way, presumably towards where his whistling was coming from.
What is that sound coming through the walls? a stuffy female voice remarked, I was about to return to my quarters for my daily beauty sleep until this infernal suddenly sounded out out of nowhere.
You want me to punch the wall down to see what's in there? a gruff male voice stated confidently, maybe i might end up finding a new animal that whistles so I can pawn it off to pay back my debts.
"H-HELLO!?" Karna cried out, "I HAVE PEOPLE TRAPPED BEHIND THIS WALL! CAN YOU PLEASE GET US OUT OF HERE!?"
Wait, there's someone behind this wall? another female voice spoke out in slight urgency, who put em in there of all places?
Whoever is behind that wall, please stand back! a smooth male voice cried back.
Karna scrambled away from the wall that he was pressing against, followed up by the said wall exploding, illuminating the darkness that he and the others were trapped in.
From the light, four distinct silhouettes shown from the backlight, two males, one effeminate in form and poise, one masculine and large in frame, and two females, one regal in bearing, one casual is posture.
"Well... this is something that you don't see every day," the effeminate male with shoulder-length, lavender-colored hair pointed out.
"On that notion of there being other people being down here other than us, I concur," the regal female with bright-blond and indigo-blue hair noted.
"So... are they friend, or foe?" the tanned casual female with long orange-scarlet hair asked her compatriots.
"They sure as hell don't like my debtors I recognize. I should know, because they sure as hell don't dress like us," the large, muscular, and bare-chested male replied with a shrug.
"So..." Karna spoke out, "... mind lending us a hand?" he begged, his voice expressing relief, "a few of us broke our legs from the fall, and a killer giant made of rusted metal tried to kill us."
"Hmm, I suppose even if you're out to harm us, you're in no position to do so," the lavender-haired male pointed out, "so, we'll bite. Tell us, are you lot from the surface world?"
"By 'surface world', you mean that we 'fell into this place', yes," answered the cloaked Professor, "it's a miracle, may I point out once more, that we even survived the fall to here."
"Professor?" Byron's voice cried out deeper into the room, "... are they here for us?"
"In a matter of speaking, probably, assuming if they're hostile," Karna shouted back, "... may ask for your names? Just to get us started? Or at the very least, find out if you're intending to do anything to us?"
"The guest complies with the request first," the regal female replied as she took out a hand fan and flicked it open, obscuring her face as she looked slightly away from Karna, "it's the bare minimum of civility for ruining my bedtime. My skin doesn't care for itself, if you must know."
"... Name's Karna," greeted Karna, "Karna Yuga, Professor of the students of the Dustbin."
"The guest has greeted, so I will reply," the lavender-haired male remarked, "my name is Yuri, and I am the one who leads the Ashen Wolves."
"I am Constance," the blond female remarked, still averting her gaze from the Professor behind her hand fan, " and I suppose we will have to bear with your presence for the time being."
"Name's Balthus, the greatest Grappler in all of Fodlan!" the burly, bare-chested male greeted with a wide smile, "haven't seen any new faces in a while down here, so it's nice to meet ya new folks!"
"... Hapi," the scarlet-haired female with the tan skin greeted, "... don't ask me why I'm down here."
"So, that gets greetings out of the way... sans for everyone else behind me," Karna remarked, "so, what is your humble abode that we rudely stumbled unto called? I suppose me calling this place as 'underground' would make things a bit awkward."
"At least this uncouth one acknowledges his current bearing..." Constance muttered to herself, still peeved as her sleep was interrupted.
"Now now, Constance, that's enough," Yuri remarked with his hand raised, "if you must know, welcome to where all of Fodlan's undesirables, from ethic minorities, outcasts, and runaways gather."
The whole dimly-lit chamber was then swarmed in with armed men and women, helping Karna and the others back up to their feet, or slung over their shoulders to those whose legs were broken or too injured to support their body weight.
"Welcome, newcomers..." Yuri remarked as Karna and the others were guided out of the chamber and into an extremely-elaborate residence with winding staircases and halls all interconnecting into various chambers and rooms, wooden rafters and loose ropes dangling all over the place, the whole underground being illuminated by numerous candles and lanterns, "welcome my dear guests, to the Abyss."
To Be Continued...
Author Notes: Moved into a new home, just got back to writing, and I was writing this chapter through my own phone's hotspot.
A lot happened in 2020, and for me, a shitload happened too fast at the tail end of this year and I had to take a mental health break for week.
So, for the record, I did not purchase the Ashen Wolves expansion pack due to me already spending money on Pokemon Sword and Shield's Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra DLC, so a lot of in-game content will have to be researched from third-person should I end up there. For now, I just barely dipped my feet into this segment, so forgive me if the characters I write come off as off-character here.
I am stretched thin here, and for the record, I do not deal with pressure very well.
With that said, this fic is still crapshoot upload-wise, so the next issue might come whenever I can tackle it.
We got another year of staying indoors and the vaccinating, so, like me, hang in there. It's the least I can say and do. I got another semester for my second year in college to get over with.
Also, support conversations will be featured next chapter. Just give me time to implement it later on.