The Dustbin

Day 31: Ghost Stories Part 2

The search for the missing Flayn has begun as the many cogs of differing machinations begin to turn.

The survey itself, the seeking for assistance, the maintaining of calm, and the moving of the kidnapped. Everyone moved within the shafts like scurrying mice, much about in haste to get done what must be done for each of them.

Regardless of objective, no one stood still. Not the pursuers, not the kidnappers and not the world and the stars surrounding it. Time runs infinite, but mortal patience does not.

8th of Horsebow Moon, Underground

In total darkness, time and reality become divorced from one another and the only things that kept Karna's group perpetually awake for two days straight without sunlight were the sound of rats skipping across the fetid sewage and the constant array of enemies that practically lived down in the underground.

... Or in their case, it was the Flame Emperor's hired goons, drawn towards the underbelly at the sight of gold. Simple human greed does that to the most desperate of people.

"Hello there, hostile dullard number 'I don't care anymore'. Do you know where your kidnapper boss went about their way with a sack the size of a prepubescent little girl?" asked Karna, putting a facade of a civilized human being despite snapping at any moment.

"How about I send you to the afterlife for free?!" barked the hostile Mercenary as he and a pair of rouge Soldier charged towards them.

But before any of them could reach Karna, all three were disposed of. Byron casting [Frost] to thicken the water into slush to slow the three bandits down before drowned the two Soldiers in the sewage with his raw strength pinning them down to their last death throes. The Mercenary was jumped from behind by Topaz emerging from the waters below, climbing on top of the swordsman before slashing his throat open with her [Bolo].

"You okay swimming in sewage, Topaz?" asked Byron as Vidar continued holding the Soldiers down underwater, "... you know that most of the waters down here is fetid piss and dung, right?"

"Back home, blood and bricks were our piss and dung," Topaz snarked as Vidar lets out a sigh before snapping both of the drowning Soldiers' necks to put them out of their humiliation, "the fact that this land can expend so much water expelling these things out of their bodies shows how spoiled you lot are."

"Ah right," Karna remarked, "being nothing more than a sea of sand and arid earth, I presume?"

"You presume correctly," she nods as Vidar takes the Soldiers' own [Iron Lances] before planting their pointed tips into their necks to make sure that they're dead, "... so how many does this make?"

Karna then looks at the map and his notebook to trace any references that he and his group had made along with counting their rations remaining. "So far, that makes..." he then tallies their current number of kills for the past two days (from the amount of meals that they've eaten), "... that is fifteen. Holy Seiros these gutter-dwellers want us dead. Just how much are they being paid to fight in piss and dung?"

"Not much, given that they're already dead," Byron spat on the Mercenary's corpse, "worst of all, they're not even carrying anything worth of value. Just dice and whetstone for their weapons."

"Come on," Karna remarked as he lit another [Torch] as their old one was on the verge of petering out from running out of lamp oil, "keep moving before the rats come to feast on us instead."

The four then leave the corpses behind with their burnt-out torch, continuing to traverse through the pitch black tunnels dead end after dead end. As more of the map itself is updated with newly-drawn passages and crossed out old shafts blockaded by erosion or brick sentiments.

As boots splashed through refuse and piss galore, the four then began to talk mid-travel as Karna himself updated the map with each unexpected encounter.

"So, gotta ask," Byron spoke to Topaz, "how did you end up in Fodlan anyway?"

"... I... remember..." Vidar grunted, "... you... after... someone..."

"But from whom?" Karna pointed out as he kept the group together by tying ropes around their waists while leaving behind marks on the walls to act as indicators of where they once passed through to prevent them from getting lost, "and before you say anything, we're underground. No one but us and soon-to-be-dead bandits are listening."

Topaz lets out a faint sigh. "... Fine, but what I tell you, stays down here. Swear absolute secrecy, understood?" she asked, to which everyone else nodded, "... I'll hold you all to it," she then begins to explain her past in detail, "as you already know, I am indeed from Almyra and I am sent here to kill someone only to end up being found out and having all of my possessions stolen and well, trapped here, essentially," she pointed out, "however, allow me to confide on whom had hired me: it was Prince Shahid the Great."

"Prince Shahid... Prince Shahid..." Karna muttered to himself before reaching a conclusion, "ah! You mean the Prince Shahid! Whom is the third eldest of his many half-siblings and one of the few famed Gurgan who's led many raids toward Fodlan's Throat countless times! I met him a few times in my travels. Quite the character, a bit of a snake but one who's more than capable of backing up with his bite," everyone else but Topaz blinked awkwardly, "... what? The Shah himself is allowed to have a harem. I think the amount of kids he'd sired numbers to double-digits."

"He's now the eldest, the current Crown Prince, and the amount of siblings remaining has fallen to single-digits," pointed out Topaz, "all three only happening because he covertly hired my people to poison his 'competition'."

"And of the younger ones?" asked Byron.

"All whom aren't an importance until the Prince declared them a substantial enough of a threat to his ascension, but given how many years had past, I'd be surprised if any of them walk this earth anymore," she explained, "even I myself had to dispose a couple of the heir candidates along with their appointed Sultans who either refused to cooperate with him or knew too much," Topaz pointed out, "I was sent to Fodlan in the first place after proving my worth as an assassin to confirm a rumor that he'd heard."

"... A... rumor?" Byron tilted his head to the side.

"Apparently, he's heard that one of his younger half-brothers, Khalid, had survived his assassination and has fled back to Fodlan where his mother had came," she explained, "Prince Shahid tried to torture the mother for information, but since she wouldn't budge in the slightest, he used her as an example of what would happen if I returned empty-handed: tossing her into the ravine between Almyra and Fodlan's Throat," she pointed out, "the mother was a great warrior herself too, so we had to poison her several times over with a tainted drink and food, blowdart ambush and Prince Shahid himself having to confront her himself in a weakened state with a poisoned dagger to calm her down long enough to actually torture her in the first place."

"From the sound of it, you seem rather... disappointed of how it happened," Karna remarked.

"Agreed. Neither my people nor I hold any love for Prince Shahid," Topaz pointed out, not acknowledging the whole "Crown Prince" part of his bearing, "but since he'd managed to locate our secret hideaway, our lives are now in his hands now. We may seek death and wish to spread the ultimate truth throughout the masses, but we die to be remembered as bringers of orders, not to be forgotten by a snake such has him!"

"Small world," Byron rolled his eyes, "guess even in differing countries, scumbags are still the norm."

"Call it human nature," shrugged Karna, "age, gender, profession, region, faith. All of it are irrelevant to human selfishness."

He then stops before a punched-open hole in the sewer wall. Karna then draws a circle at the breached wall before labeling it possible entry.

"Damn," Byron looked into the hole with the lit [Torch], "whoever we're after must hate brick walls."

Vidar then sniffs the air inside the tunnel. "... Iron... blood..." he grunted out as he kept sniffing before sneezing, "... this way."

The four then go into the tunnel inside the wall, the scent of human refuse being replaced with regular musk of dust and age, fitting for more of ancient ruins than that of manmade sewers. Whatever lied beneath and where Flayn was presumably kept, at least they don't have to make their way through completely soiled. Or at least, moreso then they usually are.

"I swear, if we have to fight another Golem down here..." muttered Byron as he ground his teeth, "... well, I'll still fight it, but only to take my frustrations out on that hunk of autonomous iron."

"I doubt we'll be fortunate enough to fight another half-broken one," Karna rolled his eyes, "or better yet, our kidnappers figuring out how they work and recalibrated their inner workings to be aimed specifically towards us."

"... Vidar... crush... anything..." he boasted, "... that stands... in... way."

"Well," Topaz muttered, "don't leave us out-TRAP!"

She then runs ahead of everyone else before picking up a rock and throwing it ahead of her, triggering a pressure plate that unleashed a bed of rusted [Iron Lances] from the floor before retracting back under.

"... Dammit," Karna muttered to himself, "guess we got another place underground to map out..." he sighed as he and the group walked around the pressure plate, "and all the booby traps galore..."

"How did you find that out before us?" asked Byron.

"Holes, and the air blowing across the indentations," she replied, "back home, we had over 900 different types of booby traps utilizing every method of murder possible. Spikes, snares, snakes, spiders and scorpions, nothing was out reach for us."

"And how did Prince Shahid get past all of them to find your people-oh for the love of..." Karna sighed in contempt, "don't tell me he brought an entire army's worth of people to trigger the traps for him!"

"To his admission, they were all convicts from his proposed 'penal battalion'," she pointed out, "although unlike the the church, he was smart enough to not let them stick around too long. Their first assignment was to be their last and my people are their 'replacements'."

"... That is messed up, even for me and Vidar," Byron looked at Topaz in shock, "and we once had to occasionally eat other people during winter seasons during our bounty hunting days! Doubly so in Galatea!"

Karna then kicks over an old vase, finding nothing inside, thinking that there would be something in there like he'd heard about the tales of an old Hero-King's adventures that he'd heard once in the past.

"... What was I expecting?" he muttered to himself as he illuminated the room with his lit [Torch], "jewels? Holy hell, two days underground is doing worse then to my mind then a whole week of torture at Lonato's dungeons..."

"Well, not like we were sane to begin with," Byron shrugged as he peered ahead, "come on, we got ground to cover."

The journey below was far from over. It was only beginning its new chapter towards the depths, each shadows cast over every corner creeping with death.

"... Hey Topaz," Byron spoke, "Prince Khalid is actually Claude, isn't it?"

"How did you figure that out?" asked Topaz.

"Just a guess," he shrugged, "and maybe your people's involvement in his childhood explains why he's so invested in making his own brand of poisons during his spare time..."

"He's a self-taught amateur at best," Topaz rolled her eyes, "even then, he stifles his own potential by refusing to kill with them."

Above Ground, Before the Old Dustbin Classroom...

"Bloody 'ell, how many thin's are down der'?" Sorcha snarled in frustration as she and the others were excavating their old classroom of debris and rubble with their shovels and pickaxes, "I mean, our old class' a mess, but not dis much of a dumpster!"

Cyrus backs away as the rubble he picked off gave away to a cascade of more actual garbage. "I concur," he agreed, "whoever blocked this place off afterwards really hates us finding what's under there."

"Bigger question is, how did they find out in the first place?" Gilbert remarked as he and his men kept digging deeper, breaking through more garbage (including one diaper, much to their disgust) than actual rocks and debris, "as in how did they get in the Abyss in the first place before figuring out that this specific place was a weak spot?"

"Maybe... dey could've simply could've slipped in the same way that these underdwellers come in?" Selene pointed out, "I mean, is der even a checkup process or anything of sort? Or de ye just let anyone into de Abyss as long as der not dicks?"

Gilbert himself goes silent for a brief moment before letting out a sigh. "... I was afraid that would be the case..." he sighed out, "... the Abyss was meant to be a place where people were supposed to escape persecution from within our own... system, although we have no solid evidence to back that claim up, it may sound that someone used the Abyss as a loophole to break into the monastery grounds..."

"Ye know, de Church of Seiros feels like the ones lighting flames under people's arses and puttin' em out the second after," Sorcha pointed out, "yer still a bunch of dicks tryin' to look good while doin' thins' that make some people hate ye lot."

"I think the saying is... 'making your cake and wanting to eat it'?" asked Cyrus.

"Yes, you might be correct," Gilbert acknowledged the paradox, "the Church isn't perfect, I admit it. However, despite everything, it's better to do something rather than do nothing about it."

"Still makes ye lot look like a bunch of dicks despite everythin'," Selene also pointed out, "personally, it's better to own what ye did with pride den try to make the losers feel better. Do the latter, and thins' will git worse in de future."

Gilbert lets out another sigh, knowing that Selene also has a point of honesty rather than healing wounds that only exists at pity to those being treated. "The three of you, take a break," he ordered, "we'll call for you when we need you back down."

Sorcha, Selene and Cyrus all climb back out of the mineshaft that was their former classroom before they washed themselves off of dirt and grime with buckets of water splashed over their heads.

"Bloody 'ell," Sorcha groaned as she plopped down on a crate, "dis all happened because we tried to make a new friend."

"Maybe we really are cursed," snorted Cyrus as he splashed himself with another bucket of water, "trouble and us aren't strange bedfellows."

"Two days of digging, and nothing to show for it," Selene groaned as she laid on the dirt, "even the garbage of Fodlan treat our place like a dump. I mean we don't go there anymore but still, way to kick us while we're down, ainnit?"

The three then let out a collective sigh of annoyance as they lazed around in silence in the ambience of picks and shovels breaking through the rubble below. Unlike their nights where they were supposed to share scary stories with each other, but with Flayn's disappearance, despite not being their fault entirely, the weight of the guilt still weighed in on them, of the fact that they weren't fast enough to catch her on time despite the kidnapper being only a few paces away from them.

They were ultimately mad at themselves. For not being fast enough. It ate away at their heads deep inside.

"... I actually worried about lil Flayn lass," Sorcha sighed out, "she's a good kid. She doesn't deserve dis, especially when it comes from us."

"Are you feeling bad?" an accented voice spoke, to which both of the McCarthy siblings grimaced at upon knowing who it was from.

"Princess," Selene groaned out, as she and Sorcha looked towards where the voice came from, spotting their former liege, Petra Macneary, "de hell are ye doin' ere?"

"Class was over a while back," Petra pointed out, "what about you?"

"We're digging out our old classroom that your upperclassmen tried to kill us under," Cyrus remarked, "granted, they're dead, and I heard that their whole families had all of their possessions taken before being jailed, but still, a helluva way to start the year."

"Edelgard did apologize," she pointed out, "so I thought things would be bygones now-"

Sorcha lets out a roar as she got up from her crate before walking towards Petra and shoving her against the wall. "Edelgard this, Edelgard dat," she snarled, "DE HELL HAPPENED TO YE?!"

"What do you mean-" Petra was then slapped across the face.

"I'M TALKIN' ABOUT YE PRIDE AS A BRIGIDIAN!" Sorcha exploded, "WHY ARE YE TALKIN' LIKE YER FROM FODLAN?! WHY ARE YOU PUTTIN' ALL YER HOPES ON THAT ONE WENCH FROM A NEST OF VULTURES?!"

"EDELGARD'S NO VULTURE!" Petra then kicks Sorcha off of her, sending her skidding across the dirt, "SHE'S MY FRIEND! I BELIEVE IN HER!"

Sorcha spits to the side. "... She's no friend of mine, Princess," she growled, "wat makes ye think that she'll do any good for Brigid when she ain't even from der?"

"We only got into this mess because yer dad dragged us into a feking war!" Petra snapped, relapsing back into her native Brigidian dialect, "HE ASSUMED THAT THEY WERE WEAK TEN YEARS AGO AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED! AND NOW LOOK AT YE! YE CAN'T EVEN ACCEPT THE FIGHT IS OVER! I'M TRYING FOR PEACE HERE, SORCHA! I DON'T WANT ANYONE ELSE TO DIE!"

"FEK DAT!" Sorcha then ran back to Petra before punching her across the face, "PEACE?! NOT WANTING ANYONE ELSE TO DIE?! DER DE ONES DAT NEED TO DIE! I FEKING DON'T WANT BRIGID TO LIVE UNDER A BOOT OF SOME BASTARD THAT DON'T EVEN KNOW US! YER A SELLOUT, PETRA! A FEKING TRAITOR!"

"As much as I love a good catfight..." Cyrus then picks the two Brigidians up by their collars and holding them aloft like kittens, "... Gilbert's calling for us."

Sorcha clicks her tongue before looking away in disgust. "... Look Princess," Sorcha spoke, "if Edelgard's yer friend, den why didn't she come and save me sister's arse from those creeps at the restroom before I had to make things ugly? Were you in on it? Hung us dry like fishes and put us here in de first place?" she asked, "was it some sort of loyalty test? Of choosing yer new girlfriend over us, who's served ye and yer family for generations?"

Petra tried to answer, only for Sorcha to turn away.

"Forget it," she spoke in perfect Fodlan accent and dialect, much to everyone's surprise, "let the records show, my father taught me that I was supposed to die for you, but I can't even recognize you anymore," she sobbed a little, unable to bare to look at Petra's defanged (by Brigidian standards) state, "... when me and my sister came with you as hostages, you were the kind of person that wasn't afraid to die for Brigid, and I respected that. Now, you're talking of not wanting anyone to die, even though those bastards humiliated us by by denying us a warrior's death, and turned our people into their farmhands and imperial tribute fodder. So you know what, fuck off. Have fun with your imperialist friends. And I hope that you die with them mourning you, my traitor liege. Because I'm not going to even shed a tear if so happens."

Cyrus then looks toward Petra awkwardly, the latter looking absolutely devastated both physically and emotionally. "... So should I let you... go?"

Petra remains unresponsive as she swayed hanging from his grip.

"... Okay... just gonna gently let you down..." he remarked as he kept Sorcha (who was now kicking and clawing at Petra's direction) while Cyrus gently lowered Petra onto the dirt before letting her go, "... you know, that Goneril whore and I also have a history, but I get the feeling the your two might be... a tad bit more... hurtful, just saying."

Petra was then subsequently left behind as Cyrus took Sorcha where Gilbert and his men were at.

"Took ye long enough," Selene remarked as she and the others stared into the open shaft stinking to high heaven, "and for the record, I already accepted de fact that Petra already fell in with Edelgard when she didn't vouch for us."

Sorcha smirks to hide her pain of disappointment.

"Anyway," Gilbert then shines a lantern into the tunnels below, "... down there, the Abyss, I presume?"

"You already sent a messenger?" asked Cyrus.

"Indeed," an Armored Knight remarked, "while you two were lallygagging, we actually did something."

"Point made," sighed Sorcha, "can we go arm up before we go down there? Knowing us, der's gunna be fighting when we spot any of the culprit or worse, his 'hired help' because for fek's sake, we can't keep things simple round ere."

A crate was dropped behind them. Cyrus opens them up to find their weapons as the sound of an echoing bray followed up by a thundering drumming of hooves up ahead.

"Don't worry," Gilbert reassured as Darius licked Cyrus' face, "we know and we appreciate you lot for always preparing for the worst."

"Alright," Sorcha grinned, eager to distract herself with something else, "let's suit up."

Sorcha took the [Armorslayer], a [Levin Sword] and the two [Claymores] she had with her since the raid at the Conrad Tower before strapping all four of the blades behind her backs while tightening the straps of her [Iron Gauntlets] around both her arms, banging them against each other to make sure that they're ready and sturdy enough to cave in skulls.

Selene counts her arrows inside her quiver full of arrows to make sure that they were in max capacity before tugging on her [Iron Bow]'s strings to makes sure that it holds up, even going far as to take her [Rusted Lance] and tap it against its shaft before sheathing behind herself and checking for her own polearm's durability, not counting on it to be sharp enough to pierce through flesh, but more resorting to a last-minute bludgeon or a shiv.

Cyrus gets on top of Darius, strapping in both his [Iron Bow] and the quiver on his saddle (that he'd requested for sometime yesterday) as he twirled his [Killer Lance] around his grip before spotting a [Javelin] inside the crate before taking it for himself and putting it next to his bow in case where he needs a mid-range option while he's in pursuit of the culprit.

"Alright," Gilbert then lit a [Torch] as he faced towards the chasm's opening, "let's move!"

The company of Armor Knights armed with [Steel Lances] rattling with their massive shields led by Gilbert all marched into the darkness dug below, with Sorcha, Selene and Cyrus traveling ahead acting as forward scouts due to their mobility and familiarity in such claustrophobic environments.

"Ye okay down ere'?" Sorcha asked Cyrus, looking up towards the latter, seeing him slightly tremble.

"... Honestly, if I were alone down here, without Darius, I would be too scared to move," he nervously answered, "but I know for sure that the Abyss is way more open when we get there. I'm not scared! Not at all! At least in the long term!"

"Short term?" asked Selene as she adjusted her vision back and forth between her 'normal' and 'hyperopia' states in the dark.

"I peed a little," the twins then walk further away from Cyrus, "you can't prove it! You can't see my pants or the fact that they're wet!"

"Ye just told us, ye dingus," Sorcha groaned as the three then argue among themselves in front of Gilbert's group.

"... Sir," an Armored Knight with a lit [Torch] remarked, "was it a mistake to bring them down here? I mean, we have to remain professional for these... Abyssinians, as you call them."

"On the contrary, the three are just fine the way they are," Gilbert replied, "if Seteth's testimony is correct, the three of them should already have a rapport with them prior to their first, accidental visit," he stated, "and besides, do you think a bunch of faceless Armor Knights clad in iron armor led by a crusty Fortress Knight such as myself would inspire a cordial discussion with normal people who escaped the outside world?"

"... When you put it that way," the Armor Knight then looks toward the three up ahead, already done bickering and are now joking with each other, "... they seem to be the kind of people who would fit into the Abyss in the first place."

"Exactly," nodded Gilbert, "our job is to intervene when a fight breaks out. Those three's jobs are to act as our faces, despite their... crass dispositions."

The group keeps marching deeper into the underground tunnel, with Sorcha and Cyrus picking up a faint sound of a person's grunt coming from up ahead.

Cyrus himself then comes riding back to Gilbert's column. "Can I borrow a light?" he asked, "need to make sure that I don't trample over anyone or anything up ahead."

Gilbert lends his [Torch] to the young Battu lad right before he takes off deeper into the tunnel where the sound was picked up from. As Darius' hooves drummed across the sordid earth bored through the crust, the rancid scent of rubbish begins to grow as Cyrus rides further into the tunnel.

"Strange..." Cyrus muttered to himself as he rode further into the darkness, "... the closer I get... the further I ride in... the more it smells like a... like a garbage bin..."

Suddenly, a question sparked inside Cyrus' head: where do the Abyssinians take their garbage?

Like all human civilizations, humans and waste were an irreconcilable pair. They cannot exist together for a prolonged period of time until one of them moves out. So to allocate what the humans consider/classify as "garbage" away from themselves, they designate a certain place to concentrate all of their non-essentials.

"... Oh Mother Earth, don't tell me!" he then snaps Darius' bridles to get him to ride faster and the first thing he spots from his illuminated proximation was that of a barrel full of rotting foodstuff that someone had put into the tunnel's shaft, "... damn it."

He then turns around and rides back. Back to where the others were marching at. Back in time for the others to hear the drumming of Darius' hooves and spot the faint torchlight beckoning them closer.

"About time," Sorcha remarked as Cyrus returns to their group, "der an exit?"

"Yeah..." he nodded, "... but you're not gonna like it. Don't ask why. You'll all know upon exiting."

"Why?" asked Sorcha as Cyrus killed his own light.

"Just close your eyes and keep on running. It's safer for your little heads that way," with that said, Cyrus lets out a "hiyah", signaling Darius to gallop.

Everyone then takes his words for granted as the kept running blindly through the dark tunnel, and by the time they reach the exit, all of them smell like if they were all squeezed out of a giant rectum as they all found themselves surrounded in mountains of garbage.

"THE KIDNAPPER CAME OUT OF THE GARBAGE CHUTE?!" screamed an Armor Knight as he and the others all ran away from the filth quickly as possible to avoid the stink.

"OH GODDESS! I STINK!" another one cried out as he and the others ran rank.

"Dat's weird," Selene remarked, not as bothered by the disgusting area that they've found themselves in, "can't remember the kidnapper stinking to high heaven on that night."

"Is there such thing that kills all smells?" asked Cyrus, "if the kidnapper has one, I'm getting one from him before I gut him."

"What's going on here?!" a booming voice cried out, revealed to be a giant of a man with an open-chested coat carrying a crate of broken wares before noticing the three Dustbin students among the panicking mob of Armor Knights (Gilbert being too stoic to elicit a reaction except for "silent depression"), "big guy? The twinsies?!"

Sorcha then look at the giant man, finally recognizing him and his bear-like physique. "De King of Grapplers in debt?!"

"We're in de right place," Selene smirked, "and no half-broken Golem dat he has to bail us out of."

"Eh, at least you remember my title," Balthus sighed before looking at the three that he'd remembered several months back, "... what brings you down here of all places? Going dumpster diving? Did that a few times myself back when I was younger."

"Oh, right," Cyrus slapped his cheek a few times before blowing a shrill whistle that caught everyone's attention, calming them down in their filth-riddled panic, "... listen Balthus, we're not here for a pleasure visit. We kinda need your help with a kidnapping case. Mind taking us to your boss?"

"Uh... sure," the giant of a man replied with a few blink as he dropped the crates of scraps onto the floor, "... as for the stink, don't bother. We're kinda used to it down here. Except for Constance."

The group were then led by Balthus further into the Abyss, and upon reaching the underground main square, they all spot Yuri and Constance standing next to a billboard with a new notice put up on their own bulletin.

"Oh?" Yuri turned to find a crowd of Armor Knights and three familiar-looking faces standing behind him and his noblewoman friend, "what brings you down here?"

"And smelling all soiled..." winced Constance as she covered her face with her fan, "... clearly, the Dustbin lot and the word 'decorum' are a paradox it seems."

All three of them (all at once at first before Constance chastises them into talking one at a time) explain the details of Flayn's kidnapping down the very last detail, including the fact that the kidnapper in question used the garbage chute as his entry point before it was blocked off with layers of rubbish packed like ores within stones.

"I see..." the Ashen Wolves leader scratched his chin, "although it is strange to think that the kidnapper in question came out of of the garbage chute right around the same time when someone suggested something."

"Something... what?" Sorcha pointed out.

"Our old rubbish pit was filled to the brim, packed!" Constance threw her hands up into the air, "but, with someone discovering a new tunnel that was completely empty, the proposition was already put into place of relocating the Abyss' weekly garbage pit to said open vent. Never took your old cellar classroom to be on the other side of the wall. ... Or the fact that you six were almost buried alive in it several months prior... which led you lot down here in the first place."

"Yes yes, fate is rather abstract when it comes to it's cosmic sense of humor," snarked Yuri, "but still, I take it that the man who suggested using the new pit as the new garbage disposal site as a cover for his running path..." he mused, "... crude yet crafty. Plausible deniability for both sides."

"Were there any other people with him?" asked Gilbert, "and of the culprit, what did he look like?"

"Indeed, around a couple indistinguishable hired brawn that aren't strangers to these parts," Constance answered, "the perpetrator himself was also rather inconspicuous-looking."

"Yeah, looked like some other nondescript bloke found off of the streets," Yuri mentioned the kidnapper's appearance, "I can list at least over a dozen people from Enbarr who looks exactly like him. Even his weapon looked like a regular [Steel Sword] from a distance. Although his eyes... they definitely look that of a villain's."

"Did ye at least git a name?" Selene asked.

"He's a shy fellow that one," Yuri sighed, "gave me the slip before I can ask for it-"

"Metodey," someone yawned out, revealed to be Hapi, still lackadaisical and semi-comatose as usual, "... I overheard him talkin' to some masked guy with heavy armor... probably some hired thug who got paid."

The three looked at each other in raising suspicion and rising nervousness at the revelation unfolding before them, unable to believe their luck on who's involved in Flayn's kidnapping. "Hapi-lass," asked Sorcha, "did dat masked dastard happened to have feathers around its shoulder armors and a head crest lookin' like a rooster's?"

"... Uhh... yeah," she shrugged, "don't know how he moves around in that cumbersome-looking thing..."

"It's official," groaned Cyrus, "the Flame Emperor's at it again."

Everyone, including Gilbert's battalion and the man himself all let out a frustrated groan.

"Him again?!" the Armor Knight bemoaned, "and rubbing shoulders with Miklan's cartel wasn't enough for him?!"

"One thing's for sure," Gilbert sighed out, "both his remnants and the Flame Emperor's have one thing in common: they both have the persistence and elusiveness of mold."

"Huh, explains why they were so insistent of packing last week's trash all the way at the back of the tunnels before disappearing," Balthus remarked before he turned to the other three of the Ashen Wolves, "you know where those guys went?"

"Actually, scratch dat," Sorcha remarked, "how de fek did dey git in ere' in de first place?"

"The Abyss is actually interconnected through a system of tunnels that stretches all across Fodlan's three regions," explained Yuri, "I myself was able to make my way from Gaspard to Varley in a matter of hours, on foot. Or was it a few days? Eh, travel's faster when there isn't any bandits or bad weather affecting your footpath."

"Point being, as long as they look, anyone can find their way here," Constance remarked, "... even ragamuffins such as those from the Flame Emperor's side. Gods, I told you that we needed a vetting process to plug up that loophole."

"What do expect we do after they came all the way here, kill em?" Yuri remarked, "I mean, sure, that's valid, but the Abyss is trying to avoid making the same mistakes like the Church above. I'm not against killing, but only out of self-defense only!"

"Okay, enough of this place's literal anthill-like structure, where did the kidnapper come from and where are they situated down here?" asked Cyrus.

"You're asking us to search all of Fodlan's underground?!" Constance gasped, "be more specific, you vulgarian!"

As the two groups devolve into arguing of which course of action to take to find the culprit behind this twin-pronged mess they found themselves in, a burly Brigand saw the commotion, let out a sigh, took out his horn, and blew a loud note through it, culling the tension and stopping the argument.

"Hey, all of you," spoke the Abysskeeper, "I got something to report. Aelfric's gone missing and a note was left behind."

"Give it here," Yuri ordered as the Abysskeeper handed him the slip written with the following:

Come to the underground sluice gates if you wish to see him.

We know have the thing. We saw you lot sneak outside months prior.

Bring that with you or Aelfric will die.

Come alone. The four Ashen Wolves.

"Of feking course..." snarled Sorcha as everyone else saw the note, "one kidnapping wasn't enough of a feking mess."

"Think de kidnapper might be de same as the one who took Flayn-lass?" asked Selene.

"Either that or it's all a coincidence," Cyrus glared at the note, "the fact that it was written down in the first place might indicate a trap."

"Oh and uh... regarding asking for help," spoke the Abysskeeper as he introduced Seteth armed with a [Silver Lance] escorted by his squadron of Wyvern Riders, "... here's your permission?"

"Oh shite..." sighed Sorcha, "... don't spaz out just because de kidnapper is nearby."

"I know," snarled Seteth, "but I don't like it," he complained, "this reeks of a trap."

"I agree," nodded Yuri before adopting a fox-like smile, "so we'll counter a possible ambush with our own."

"Playing dirty as usual?" Constance asked, to which Yuri nodded, "... very well. Not as if we get far for playing fair in a war anyway."

"Question," Sorcha raised her hand, "how?"

Yuri then pulls out a roll of paper before unfurling the scroll into a map that showed a connection of interwoven paths before taking out a quill and an ink bottle. "You see, the underground sluice is labyrinthian even by Abyss standards," he explained, "various levels, various pathways, waterfalls left and right... it's honestly quite the mess. No guard rails or fencing around the paths to boot," he then drew a circle around a certain open area at the waterways, "this spot right here is the only place any visible light can be shone, with everywhere else being too dark or too loud with water. This place is the most likely where we'll meet our kidnapper Metodey, just to set the pretense of an exchange."

"And of the thing?" Balthus asked, "will we be actually bringing it with us?"

"Balthus my friend, we are not," Yuri replied as he went elsewhere before coming back with a small chest containing a golden grail, "we will instead use a dummy I had crafted in my spare time."

"The luster..." Constance looked at the grail, "it's the same kind of gold that they use to mint Fodlan's currency!"

"What is that thing that supposedly a replica of?" asked Cyrus.

"Just a goblet," Hapi answered literally.

"Yep, pretty much a regular old goblet you'd find at a tavern underneath the gilded facade," smirked Yuri, proud of his work before facing the others, "the rest of you will have to sneak in complete total darkness. I'm not trusting Metodey to honor his deal on the accounts of him not letting us get away as 'witnesses', so he might have a few Snipers and Warlocks planted around the outer rim."

"Pick em off?" Selene asked.

"Duh," Hapi snarked.

"How long will the exchange last before the inevitable bloodshed?" asked Cyrus, kind of excited to go into the carnage again to bite off his fear of closed spaces.

"Count to a hundred," Yuri reassured before he faced Seteth, "from the moment you hear everything going south, that's where you and and your flyers come in."

"Sound enough, if enough Snipers are taken out to not be considered a substantial threat," Seteth replied, "and what of Gilbert and his men? You do realize that their armor isn't suited for stealth, correct?"

"Don't worry, they'll hide in the first level," Yuri pointed to the corridor near where the circle was drawn, "their job is to prevent Metodey from escaping, or at the minimum, make him swim."

"Alright," Balthus pounded his fist against his open palm, "let's kick some behind! ... After Yuri plays the enemy for a fool."

"Any questions before we head out?" Yuri then spots Sorcha raising her hand.

"Eh... is der gunna be any Golems spinnin' about?" she asked, "if so, are dey at least broken enough to not be a a threat to us?"

Yuri lets out a nervous chuckle at her mentioning those nightmarish mechanical contraptions. "... Try not to die when you see one. They're surprisingly fast."

"FEEEKKK!"

At Another Part of the Underground...

"Okay, that makes 30 since we got in here," Karna pulled his [Crescent Sickle] from a dead enemy Brawler, "Vidar, you okay back there? The Brawler clocked you hard enough to get you pushed all the way to the very back all the way from the very front."

"... Vidar... strong..." he grunted through his broken jawbone being mended by Byron's [Heal].

"Yeah well, the Mage could've wasted you if he got another [Thunder] in on you!" chided Byron, "seriously, you were on death's door right there!"

"I made sure to kill the Priest first," Topaz remarked as she looted the dead bodies of their valuables, "the most dangerous kinds of enemy are the ones that can keep fighting."

"Aa miracle given how you got past the Brigand at the very front, given we were all traveling down a linear funnel," Karna pointed out, "small or not, even mice tend to be noticed in such a cramped environment."

"Not cramped enough for me," boasted Topaz, "if anything, Vidar's perfect harmony of resilience and savagery of both body and soul is more impressive. I only became so elusive because I don't expect to survive more than one hit."

"Silver lining," Byron remarked, "at least I'm only dealing with one of him. Imagine if Professor Karna were to act up like Caspar or Raphael from the other houses," he snarked, "then my workload would be significantly increased!"

"... Less... work... good," coughed Vidar, "... work... smart... not... hard."

"Valid," Karna nodded as they all finished resting post-battle, "alright kiddos, double time," he ordered as he mapped the new set of underground tunnels that they've found inside the sewers in his notebook, "bad guys aren't gonna be waiting for us to come. Except for the rats, that is."

The four then continue traveling, the torchlight flickering with every step further into the darkness that they take, the heavy ambiance of the pitch becoming more suffocating as their light continued to grow ever dimmer with each step taken.

After walking for several hours, despite their sense of day or night being completely thrown off-kilter due to two days without seeing the sky, the four then come across an isolated room with a lone chest standing at the middle.

Karna looks around the room. "No one's home," Karna pointed out as he looked back at the chest, "any of you familiar with trapped chests?"

"Almost lost my fingers picking the locks on one," Byron remarked, "and I think Vidar one time when he brute-forced a lock open got sprayed with some sort of noxious gas that made him ill."

"More over, who'd leave this very obvious looking trap in a middle of an empty room?" Topaz sighed out as she pointed towards the obvious vents at the wall, "what am I? Prince Shahid?"

"From what you describe of him, he seems to be the kind of person who doesn't think things through," Byron replied as he climbed up on one of the vents and spots a crossbow bolt at its end, "is he that daft?"

"Prince Shahid is a great warrior, but as a tactician, he's subpar at best," Topaz sighed out in annoyance, "he could only think of things in the short-term and actively goes out of his way to deal with long-term consequences out of the fact that he'd rather not worry about them later."

"That explains the meatshields that he'd brought with him," Karna grumbled as he sat on the chest's lid, "it's as if he doesn't care how many dies as long as he gets what he wants. A terrible kind of king that is one bad day away from demanding human sacrifices upon an alter."

"... Vidar... hate him... already," he droned out, "... bad king... bad person."

"Alright, we've wasted enough time here," Byron then jumped off the walls back onto the floor, "let's bounce before anything stupid happens-"

He was then suddenly rammed by something. Something akin to a flat of a wall being violently shot towards him that sent him flying off of his feet like a compressed storm in a specified area. Byron then slid his back across the floor a couple paces, feeling his frontal bones shatter like dropped pottery with his back skin feeling if they were lashed with a thousand whips.

"Oh crap," Karna cursed as they all saw a lone Fortress Knight with a goggled visor and pipes spewing steam and smog alike throughout the room, fogging their surroundings and strangling their torchlight, "we took too long."

The enigmatic Fortress Knight lets out a stifled cough before more smoke and gas filled the room, the fumes spewing out the chamber's entrances.

"We gotta... we gotta..." Karna slurred as he felt his own body grow numb and his senses dull and wither, "... we gotta run..."

As soon as Karna falls deep asleep on the floor, everyone else follows suit upon being suffocated by the encroaching gas.

"... I would... kill all... of you..." the Plaguebringer gasped in his choked breathing, "... but I'm told... to bring you all... alive... for information..."

At the Abyss' Sluices...

"About time you showed up!" Metodey shouted over the surrounding waters' roaring around the sluices, "you got the thing?!"

Yuri then showed the dud grail disguised as the real thing. "The [Chalice of Beginnings], right here," he declared with faux-grandiosity, "and of Aelfric?"

The Assassin wrestled the kidnapped man off of the floor. "Seriously, tell this guy to go on a diet," Metodey grunted as he held up the unconscious Deacon, "for a guy in charge of a rat's nest, he feels as if he eats too well down here!"

"Come on," Balthus remarked, "thing aren't that bad down here. I mean, how do you get a body like mine eating nothing but rats?"

As the four Ashen Wolves kept the Assassin distracted, Sorcha and Selene were on the dim upper levels of the sluice, completely out of sight of the kidnapper and in the dark as his supposed accomplices. The two of them were crawling on their bellies in the dark and unblocked bridges to sneak around the legions of Snipers and Warlocks who were just as in the dark as them (the latter not bothering to light their way though the dark to not give away the fact that this was an ambush).

"Blood ell', dis place is more moist then Brigid's spring shower seasons..." muttered Sorcha as she and her sister evaded the just-as-slow enemy Snipers above them, "... I really wish Topaz was ere' to ye know... do this better dan us?"

"I'm okay seein' in de dark but me vision is not helping'," Selene sighed, "too close, can't see the slingers. Too far, I see nuthin' but water."

"Come on," Sorcha grumbled, "at least Cyrus isn't doin' any better dan us... which isn't a good thing, but gotta find the bright side to dis somewhat."

As the two kept crawling on the precarious bridge in a web of bridges, Cyrus himself was without Darius and forced to crawl with Seteth across the bridge.

"Quit your whimpering," Seteth chided, "the enemies will smell your fear!"

"Nope," he winced, "that's my piss."

Seteth retches at the revelation. "Are you that emotionally bound to your horse?!" he hissed, "you're a grown man yet you behave like a child whose toy was taken from him!"

"Battu, the horse is one's lifeblood," explained Cyrus, "we drink their milk, we ride on their backs, we combine our strengths, and we eat their meat. To be without a horse in Battu is guaranteed death, so yes, call me overly attached, because me and my brothers are raised that way!"

"Well, this is Fodlan," Seteth remarked, "things work a little differently here than your backwards land."

"I prefer the term 'practical'," protested Cyrus, "it is usually easier to take than to simply create. More time to refine what we're good at: riding and killing."

"Life isn't solely about those two things only!" the administrator hissed, "we actually have culture and a civilization to live for. A place where people are safe and free from the dangers of the savage wilderness."

"I only see penned animals," Cyrus rebutted, "I see walls that allows disease to fester and people to remain close-minded. I see defanged wolves who can no longer go back to their true calling. I see nothing but insular cowards who are afraid of death to the point of denial. I see weaklings thinking that they're now gods of their own tiny domain spitting on the faces of the true masters of all creation, Mother Earth and Father Sky. Tell me adherent. What is there to be proud of living against our own natural instincts, regressed into these sorry excuses that you call your own people?"

"Because not all people wish to die," Seteth bluntly replied, "not everyone is from Battu, where death is presumably around every waking hour like some sort of immortal predator."

"And yet, you have no problem killing those who disturb the peace despite preaching peace," spat Cyrus, "at least the wolves back home have the integrity being who we are rather than you lot deluding yourselves as shepherds when you're really the butchers."

"Not everything is absolute," Seteth declared, "I see our world as a ship endlessly drifting across a black ocean of oblivion. We are at war with ourselves as we are with outsiders. We don't assume we have everything figured out because time always changes those who live in its tides."

"Then tell me," asked Cyrus, "will sheep someday eat their shepherds or will the sky suddenly fall upon your empty heads? From your belief, you make it sound as if you actually believe that the weak will somehow supplant the strong, going against nature's law of them being merely fodder."

Seteth lets out a sigh. "I only believe in one thing, Mr. Iskandar," he stated, "I still believe in the human soul that your people had long abandoned in the name of survival."

"Eh, not worth much if you had it or not anyway," the Battuian youth shrugged, "we all return to the dirt whence we came, so why bother?"

"Your people don't believe in heaven or hell?" Seteth asked, "not even an afterlife?"

"Bah, we see the world as it is. One life is enough," Cyrus answered, "we couldn't be bothered with the supernatural unless all of us want to go blind. Or deaf. Or mute. Or have one of our senses be stripped away to commune with Father Sky's whims up close. Kinda like staring at the sun, gonna hurt after a while."

"On that, I can sort of agree," the administrator nodded, somewhat perplexed at the boy's latest statement of Battu's spiritual connection being associated with physical handicaps. Perhaps his people see magic as heresy or a cursed blessing?

Regardless, Seteth refocused back to where it really matters: finding Flayn before something bad happens to her, and her kidnapper is right there, so close, for the taking-

Suddenly, a whirring sound was heard before the two of them. They looked up, and spotted a Golem's pair of gleaming eyes staring right at them.

"... Quick question," Cyrus gulped, "can these Golems be hijacked solely to attack us, or are they completely incapable from distinguishing friend from foe to begin with?"

A bolt of energy generated from its metallic hands.

"... Latter," he answered, "RUN!"

Thunder itself crashed where the two were crawling at, the explosion being heard all across the sluices even through their equally-thunderous waterfalls.

"What was that?" Metodey drew his [Venin Sword] before grabbing the unconscious Aelfric closer towards him, "did that stupid Golem that I hijacked see a rat or something?"

"Eh, jig's up," sighed Yuri as he flung the fake [Chalice of Beginnings] full of ash, clouding the eyes of the kidnapper before slipping in to retrieve the Deacon back to their proximity, "I got him!"

"ARGH! YOU DASTARDS!" Metodey screamed as he took out a whistle before blowing a shrill note into it, signaling the Snipers and Warlocks to ready to shoot, "PUMP EM FULL OF HOLES!"

However, a segment of the firing squad was disrupted when Sorcha slashed several of them off of the ledges with her [Claymore] and Selene's [Rusted Lance], knocking them down into several different levels of the interconnected bridges, causing a small avalanche of falling bodies that hit several brick corners before diving into the waters as a bloodied mess.

"Come on, you aren't the first scumbag we'd had the displeasure of dispatching down here," Yuri snarked as he drew his [Levin Sword], "fight an ambush with another ambush, and for all of your bluster, you've literally chosen the worst possible battleground possible for your side."

"ARMORED KNIGHTS! MOVE IN!" Gilbert's voice barked in the corridors outside the waterfalls, "LET NONE PASS!"

"RUN EM OVER BOYS!" a thuggish Warrior hollered from the same halls, "CRUSH THOSE BUCKET-PUKES!"

From the local chasms, numerous Assassins and Heroes with [Silver Swords] led by one Trickster armed with his own [Levin Sword] came towards the four Ashen Wolves.

"This operation is a bust!" Metodey barked out, "don't let any of them escape if one of you want to see your loved ones ever again!"

"No choice in the matter..." the lead Trickster gritted his teeth, "... alright! Kill those brats!"

"I don't get killed so easily!" Balthus growled as he bashed his personal Relics, the [Vajra-Mushiti] against each other, "come and get some, you punks!"

The giant King of Grapplers immediately begins throwing his hands around as Yuri jumps into the fray with his [Levin Sword] while Constance and Hapi fired their respective magic spells towards the mob of desperate bandits.

At the upper levels of the sluice, Sorcha and Selene were pushing off Snipers and Warlocks left and right before they can fire their own spells, or simply falling off the precariously-high ledges due to a burst of recklessness that made them slip their footing on the surprisingly-damp stone arches. Sorcha took advantage of the unorthodox footing by using her [Claymore]'s superior reach and width to corral the shooters off of the ledge en mass, causing various bodies to fall into an cascade of screaming bodies before they were all promptly silenced upon hitting their heads and drowning. Selene meanwhile, realizing that her [Rusted Lance] had practical uses of allowing her to use it as a long-reaching bludgeon to knock off nearby enemy Snipers off the bridge. With that knowledge, she then uses her [Rusted Lance] to push nearby Snipers over the ledge while picking off any wary Warlock off with her [Iron Bow].

It didn't matter if the hit was fatal or grazing, one hit was all took for anyone on the bridge to fall to their deaths.

"And ere' she goes!" Sorcha then lifts the Sniper over her head before tossing her towards the bottom levels towards her death, "okay, let's never fight ere' again-"

"LOOK OUT!" Selene then pulls Sorcha out of the way from a stray bolt of energy coming from up ahead. The darkness then gave itself away to be a Golem, its internal mechanisms whirring, its pair of gleaming red eyes flashing menacingly towards the twins, and one of its snakelike hands of bronze raising itself up forming another bolt of energy to strike down upon the two. "Come on, now of all times?!" she then spotted the clasped wheels clamped around the bridge's edges, preventing it from falling off of the strips of masonry that it patrolled, "welp, only one way out. RUN!"

Both of the McCarthy twins ran for their lives as the Golem hurled its energy bolts towards them, shooting them and bandits alike in its rampage.

"HEY!" a Sniper cried out, "I THOUGHT YOU GUYS HIJACKED THOSE THINGS IN YOUR CONTROL!"

"OUR ENCHANTMENTS MUST'VE WORN OFF!" the Warlock replied, "DAMN THESE ANCIENT CONTRAPTIONS-"

Both the bandits were blasted off of the ledge by the Golem's firepower.

Sorcha and Selene managed to reach the end of the bridge and made their way downstairs towards the levels, only to be met with the Sniper's arrows and Warklock's [Ragnarok] spells thrown their way, forcing both of them to retreat.

"Eh, silver lining," Sorcha shrugged as the two of them took cover at the stairwell, "at least the Golem can't follow us down ere'-"

The Golem's segmented arm then slithers down from the upstairs entrance, reaching down towards them as if it were trying to get the two were loose marbles that have rolled under a tight cabinet.

"Ye were sayin'?" snarked Selene, "stuck between a rock and a hard place. Got any ideas?"

Sorcha takes a peek around the corner of where they've just came down from before looking ahead at the Snipers and Warlocks pinning them down with consecutive fire.

"Idea..." she twitched her eyebrows.

At the other side, Cyrus and Seteth were on the run from their own Golem firing its own energy bolts at them. The Snipers and Warlocks that were caught in between were forced to choose between either making a run for it or kill the two then make a run for it, with neither result being met either due to Cyrus' sheer size pushing off Snipers and Warlocks off of the ledge with Seteth actively batting away the enemies with his [Silver Lance].

"GOT ANY IDEAS?!" Cyrus cried out as he swung his [Killer Lance] wildly as he and the administrator ran from the Golem, "MY LEGS ARE ON FIRE!"

Seteth then lets out a shrill whistle, calling for his wyvern mount to come aid him. "Desperate times call for desperate measures!" he pointed out as he then began taking a more aggressive approach to clear the way of Snipers and Warlock, "cull them for a safe getaway!"

"Better idea," Cyrus then lets out his own whistle, calling for Darius to stampede his way towards the Battu boy like a force of nature, "Darius is a fighter of his own."

He then jumps down towards the sluice level where his Battu Steppe King mount was galloping at, perfectly landing on the stout steed's back and proceeding to sweep away his opposition like if they were mere dust in the wind to Cyrus and Darius' combined perfect storm.

"My goddess," Seteth gaped his jaw upon at the slaughter that was happening below, all in the pairing of one formerly-nervous young man and his demon that was only wearing the skin of a horse, "that's just one," he remarked as he offhanded a Warlock off of the ledge with his [Silver Lance], "how does a whole horde of them even fathom?!"

His thoughts were then cut off by the Golem's own sniping with its flurry of energy bolts, the blinding array of javelins of light annihilating everything in its aimpath, enough to send the whole bridge that Seteth was standing on to crumble, forcing him to jump himself and allow his mount to catch him midair.

"Thank you Charming," Seteth petted his wyvern mount by his head before flying off, spotting Cyrus and Darius managing to escape the crumbling right side of the sluice bridges, taking all of the bandits and the Golem down with it towards the waters below, "... time for the backup to move in," he then takes out a bugle horn before blowing a note into it, signaling all of the Wyvern Knights to attack.

"The calvary has arrived!" Yuri cheered as he electrocuted an enemy Hero with his [Levin Sword], "with impeccable timing to boot!"

"Well, the drinking water will taste of dead bodies for the foreseeable future..." snarked Constance as she fired her [Sagittae] spell towards an Assassin, "... oh well. Hope the tea tastes no different."

"We can always clean up," Hapi remarked as she fired her [Swarm Z] towards the lead Trickster that tried to sneak a blow towards them, causing him to retreat back before he can get creamed by Balthus' herculean might that swept numerous enemy swordsmen into the air with his swinging arms, "... later I guess."

"FIVE, TEN, OR HUNDRED! I'LL DESTROY YOU ALL!" cackled Balthus as he then grappled an Assassin before planting him headfirst into the mason floor all the way down to his shoulders touching the floor with his toes pointing up, "THE KING OF THE GRAPPLERS WILL NOT BE DETHRONED BY THE LIKES OF YOU SORRY SCUM!"

"Argh! Can't you idiots do anything right?!" screamed Metodey in frustration as he then pulled out a glass bottle full of his narcotics before he threw it into the middle of the fray, aiming for Yuri, "TAKE A NAP, PRETTY BOY!"

"Look out!" Balthus then tackles Yuri (along with several Assassins) out of the way, taking the full brunt of Metodey's bottle full of liquid sleeping gas that shattered against his bare chest. Upon the gas being released, he was then knocked out cold from sniffing the weird odor along with several others that were also nearby.

"Finally!" the Trickster then broke off his planned engagement with the disgraced Nuvelle scion and her lackadaisical friend to go after the sleeping Balthus' Relics, "if I can get the Relic, then she'll be fine... if I can get the Relic, then she'll be fine-"

"OUT OF THE WAY!" roared Cyrus as his [Killer Lance]'s spearhead cleaved across the Trickster's neck from behind by complete accident, sending his hatted head flying off of his neck with only one thought in his mind.

... Monica... daddy's coming home...

"BALTHUS!" Yuri then runs towards where the giant was sleeping at before picking him up and dragging him across the floor towards where Seteth's men formed a perimeter around the sluice's hearts, "... you're a big guy..." he grunted, "the worst kind to take a nap... now of all times."

At the left bridges, Sorcha notices that the number of Snipers and Warlocks have lowered enough to make a break for it. Behind them, the Golem's serpentine hand was still reaching down towards the stairwell, slamming its iron hands up and down trying to catch the twins like if they were rats being clawed by a desperate cat. At the side, she saw Seteth and his squad of Wyvern Knights finishing off the stragglers that were either coming out of the waters or clinging onto the ledges on their side.

Needless to say, the whole battle started as a chaos before ending up as complete chaos.

"Aw well, fek it," she grumbled before she looked back at Selene, who was cowering at the slapping metal hand of the Golem reaching for them downstairs, "sis, on me mark, run straight, run em through, and don't stop."

"Wait," she stuttered, "what-"

"RUN!" Sorcha then took off with Selene following right behind her, making a desperate dash across the precariously-thin and slippery bridge crawling with Snipers and Warlocks.

To everyone's surprise, the Golem somehow jumps off of its designated patrol path and lands onto the very same bridge that the twins were currently on, rolling across the strip of stone and causing everyone to flee en masse from its rampage.

"BLOODY ELL'! SINCE WHEN COULD THAT BUCKET OF BOLTS CAN JUMP?!" Sorcha cried out as she swung her [Levin Sword] as a prod to shock anyone that standing in their way to clear them out.

"JUST SHUT UP AND RUN!" Selene cried out as she swung her [Rusted Lance] around while running, batting anyone that got in their way.

The Golem chasing after them began forming a spear of light in its hands before driving it into its path, the blast sending it skyward off of its tracks, its pair of glowing red eyes hovering over everyone's heads before landing on a couple Snipers and a few Warlocks, crushing them under its weight before resuming its pursuit, this time towards the opposite direction.

"OKAY, WHICH ONE OF YOU GENIUSES THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO TEACH IT HOW TO JUMP?!" an enemy Sniper cried out.

"I THOUGHT THE HIJACKING COULD'VE USED MORE FLEXIBILITY!" a Warlock replied, "IT WAS AN EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE! I NEVER EXPECTED ITS CONDITIONING TO BE INDISCRIMINATE!"

"YER ALL FEKING MORONS!" Sorcha barked back before they were all blasted by the Golem's energy spike tossed at them, "WELL, IT CAN'T JUMP UP, CANNIT?!"

The twins then make a break for the stairwell in hopes of getting back upstairs, only for the Golem to fire a volley of energy javelins towards their exit, annihilating their way out into a pile of rubble.

"... Well, we're boned," Selene gulped as the Golem menacingly rolled up towards them, "any other way out?"

Sorcha looks down, only finding water and seeing some bandits make their way out of the shore. "Just one," she answered before grabbing her sister's wrist and running off of the ledge, "JUMP!"

The twins found themselves falling towards the sluice waters below, crawling full of flailing bandits trying to swim ashore and being stopped by Seteth's men. The twins then found themselves diving into the waters below, once pristine springs turned fetid with blood and bodies floating about.

They both resurface, clinging onto one of the slain bodies floating about. But just before they can swim ashore, a Wyvern Knight dives towards them. "WHOA WHOA WHOA!" Sorcha cried out, "WE ON YER SIDE!"

"... Oh, sorry," he apologized, "you all look the same to me."

"Hurry up and please take us back to dry land," Selene requested, choosing to ignore the Wyvern Knight's insensitive remark.

As soon as the two found themselves coughing and heaving on the sluice's main platform, the fighting began dying down, with Metodey seeing that the grail was fake, he decided to cut his losses and swim his way out of the mess, slipping into one of the underwater vents in the middle of the chaos.

"Okay..." Yuri sighed out at the sight of dead bodies of bandits strewn everywhere throughout the sluice, "... this was all a complete waste of time. I feel as if we got played."

"Eh, at least the guy behind this mess went back to his masters empty-handed," Cyrus remarked as he picked up the dummy [Chalice of Beginnings], "can I keep this? Looks good enough to drink out of."

"No, destroy it," Seteth ordered, "a replica of a Church artifact will cause unforeseen confusion. Speaking of which," he then looked towards the leader of the Ashen Wolves, "the real [Chalice of Beginnings], where is it?"

"Eh, it was just an elaborate ruse," Yuri smirked, "the [Chalice of Beginnings] wasn't even taken to begin with. Just had to go on a bit of a covert sketching trip and had all the crafting materials procured. Even had to eat a few bugs for a few days just to maintain my cover."

"Come now," Constance huffed, "we're not the Dustbin. We wouldn't be so brazen taking a precious artifact off of its alter."

"I heard dat!" Sorcha cried out before looking back at her peers, "... we aren't dat bad, right?"

Selene hears nothing. "... I don't think people don't trust us dat much, sister," she remarked, much to her twin's chagrin.

"Yeah..." Hapi trailed off as she watched over the still-sleeping Balthus, "... you guys look really shifty, just sayin'."

"Enough," Seteth sighed out as he saw Gilbert's men return from their chokepoints, "status report."

"Several of my men are gravely injured, but no casualties," the Knight of Seiros replied, "the enemy retreated as soon as the noise died down."

"Alright, great work everyone," the adherent sighed out in relief, "kidnapper escaping aside, nobody got hurt too badly so everything should be fine now-"

A thunderous thud was heard from where everyone looked at Seteth's background.

"... Oh right," Sorcha remarked with a nervous grin, "one of dez nuts that we fought off said dat he taught one of de Golems how to jump durin' its hijackin'."

"... You and I are going to have a long talk after all of this is over, Miss McCarthy," Seteth growled as he calmly picked up his [Silver Lance] off of the floor, "for now, RUN!"

Everyone scrambles out of the underground sluice with the last berserk Golem chasing them out. The chase continued until the Golem's own internal engines burned itself out from excess magic that was given to it by the hijacking process, and the Golem itself was later repurposed into scrap that the Abyssinians can use later on.

Back at the Underground Encampment...

"... Son of a..." Metodey grumbled as he wringed his clothes of water after swimming back to his home base set up by the Flame Emperor, "... the whole kidnapping operation was a bust and not even a single Church artifact to boot! ... Damn kids... why are they so difficult to deal with nowadays?!"

He then freezes up upon hearing a familiar-sounding heaving and coughing echoing from the corridors. The Plaguebringer's back.

"... Come on, this day cannot get any worse..." he moaned as he decided to greet his superior officer without his shirt on, "... forget the Flame Emperor tanning my hide for my failure, I'm pretty sure that the big lug will toy with me until I croak!"

The Plaguebringer then enters the room, dragging Karna by his heel and carrying the three students over his shoulders. "... Is the... cage open?"

"Uh, yeah," Metodey pointed to the cage behind him, "what are they here for?"

The Plaguebringer wheezes and coughs for a brief moment before answering. "... Interrogation."

"Thumbscrews? Hot tongs? Bullwhips?" Metodey suggested, trying to get on his good side, "what sorts of information do I need to get them out of?"

The Fortress Knight heaves heavily for a moment. "... Why... are they... here... in... first place..."

"Eh, seems legit," Metodey shrugged, "botched my last job and came back empty handed. Mind if I take a swing at them as soon as they wake up?" he suggested, in hopes of nulling his punishment through his proactivity.

"... Not yet," replied the Plaguebringer as he screwed in the shackles around the new captives' wrists, "... they breathed in... your sleeping gas... a few... days... worth."

Metodey grumbles upon the realization that he won't be able to escape his punishment for his failure anytime soon. If he does live, then at the very least, he'll be able to take out his frustrations on them.

For now, hell awaited. For everyone involved.

"... By the way, where did you take the girl?" asked Metodey, distracting himself from the "you know that she ain't gonna be worth anything as a corpse, right?"

"... Don't fret..." reassured the Plaguebringer, "... she has something... that is... important..."

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: Sorry about being a week late for this chapter. Got sick with a cold over the weekend prior and it affected my performance.

Anyhoo, this chapter is a bit of a major case of "pragmatic adaptation" of "Danger in the Dark" and "Betrayal" chapter due to me already planning to adapt the Abyss story in a climatic fashion (and it will be around two months in that they'll be strong enough to punch up to enemy level +30 units). For now, it's messy dirty fighting made even dirtier due to my brain not being at full performance due to my illness. Don't know why that occurred to me, but I assure you, this will probably be the last instance where the schedule slip-up's consequences will have any effect on the story's pace. The whole battle at the sluice was the cold medicine still swimming through my brain, so apologizes for the filler.

Also, Three Hopes is out, and I had to make a name-correction for Sylvain's dad at "Joint Sessions Part 1" chapter, and there will be an addendum mentioned there as of me releasing this chapter. As for the game itself, I get the feeling that the game as a lore piece, solely exists to fill in the gaps of the original Three Houses game's lore, and as for the game itself, it's not like Fire Emblem Warriors, so make of that what you will. For me, it's an in-between the Fire Emblem Warriors and Breath of the Wild: Age of Calamity's in terms of overall quality.

As for Topaz's relationship with Claude/Khalid's older half-brother, I can kinda see the whole Almyran royal family akin to the Britannian Imperial Family from Code Geass with Shahid as the Clovis of the litter, but can actually hold his own in a fight, and only got lucky finding Topaz's people similarly to how Clovis found C.C. in the Thought Elevator and inadvertently kicking off the whole plot. Khalid/Claude is the Lelouch of the pack with a tendency to become Schnitzel after one bad day (which in the Golden Wildfire's "Normal Ending", "peace through tyranny" become his bread and butter upon abolishing the Roundtable). And with his mother being the "Demon Queen" in Almyra, she's obviously the Marianne of the pack, being a fierce warrior-queen before settling down and having a kid, and right down to getting her offed by Shahid, meaning that Shahid is a composite of Clovis and V.V. with his Pluton/Geass Order cult. With that little reveal in mind, I'm thinking of making a Cornelia-expy for an in-between of Shahid's megalomania and Claude/Khalid's cunning. Any badass Arab women in Middle Eastern history? Point being, I'm actually invested in exploring the dynamic of the Almyran royal family. Kinda wish we had more for Brigid aside from Petra's supports, so there's that.

And for the overarching plot of the Plaguebringer, well, wait until the next chapter.

And yes, I am a 40k fan. Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne, Let the Galaxy fucking burn. I would've gone further in if I had money or friends to play with. For now, "fanboy" is an appropriate term.

References:

- Karna's group running into another underground maze is a reference to Darkest Dungeon, with the regular Fire Emblem Three Houses enemies acting as encounters and the second dungeon itself is a composite between [The Warrens] and [The Ruins]. Also, the reference to the "Hero-King" is a reference to Alm in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, and the "jewels" inside the pots are a reference to Rupees from the Legend of Zelda franchise.

- As mentioned in the Author's Notes, the Almyran royal family is based off the Britannian Imperial Family from Code Geass, here are the parallels (so far):

* Shahid: Clovis la Britannia and V.V.

* Claude/Khalid: Lelouch vi Britannia and the potential to become Schnitzel el Britannia

* Topaz (and her Hassashin People collectively): C.C.

* Tiana von Riegan: Marianne vi Britannia

- Sorcha's "Idea..." line is from Angel during the supermarket shootout scene at Hot Fuzz.

- Seteth's wyvern being named "Charming" is a reference to Cinderella's Prince Charming, befitting of an aspiring children's storybook author like Seteth.