[Mkguild] Truce

[Ian Jones]

Hello, everyone!  I'm glad to say that my half of Hallan's quick little
scene in part 4 of Last Light is finally done!  Now you know everything you
need to know about the giant wolf in the sewers!  Enjoy!







*February 26, CR 708*



After a while of searching in the darkness, the wolf noticed an orange
light in the distance, coming from past the end of the tunnel.  Reaching
the corner, it saw that the light illuminated a large square antechamber,
most of which was a collecting pool for the waste that flowed from the way
the wolf had come.  The room was large enough to act as an overflow buffer,
capable of holding the excess water from storms and the spring runoff.
Refuse came into the room from several large pipelines at water level and
many smaller ones lining the walls above the side ledge, then drained
through a hole in the middle of the room.  The light itself came from a
torch in the far corner of the room which highlighted the many pillars
holding up the ceiling and the platform above the muck spanning the middle
of the room.

The torch was placed in a wall sconce above a pile of ragged blankets that
were arranged in such a way that vaguely suggested the shape of a sleeping
body somewhere among them.  The wolf couldn’t distinguish the possible
smell of this person from this distance over the ever present miasma, so it
walked across the platform to the other side and continued on the ledge
into one of the other large tunnels.  The wolf was gratefully surprised
that this sewer had such a walkway at all, as not every sewer system that
had been constructed had been well maintained.

In the days of old, when the elves had constructed their great cities that
married stone and wood, they had included a sewer system in every one to
keep the great edifices unmarred by the natural waste.  Then the elves left
after the Dragon War, and the humans let their great constructions fall and
decay.  The wolf remembered the days when the Suielman Empire attempted to
repair the sewers, operating under the superstition that concentrating all
the filth and disease into one place would placate Tallakath, or weaken
him, or create an altar of sorts to him, but nobody cared what it did as
long as his attention wasn’t on them.  In the centuries after their fall,
however, the various city leaders started taking the sewers for granted,
and didn’t think about maintaining them as long as they kept the city’s
waste off the streets.  As a consequence, most sewers these days were
falling apart, leaking into the groundwater, getting blocked by cave-ins or
the waste they were supposed to ferry away, and generally being more of a
hindrance than a help.

The wolf was thankful that this sewer was not even close to approaching
that level of degradation.  It could faintly smell new mortar over the odor
of the toxic river, used to repair cracks in the walls, and a steady flow
of water kept the offal from stagnating.  It could even feel sconces on the
walls for when the sewer rats brought down torches to light their work, but
none of them held anything at the moment.  Though there was no more light,
the wolf navigated by following the channel wall.

Walking through the tunnels, the wolf kept searching for one of the secret
rooms that infested sewers, especially old sewers like this one.  Any other
environment would have made finding the door nigh impossible, but the air
in the sewer was special.  Normally, sewer air sat stagnant, weighed down
by the warm rot away from vents to the outside.  However, in order for a
door to a secret room to open, it could not be completely flush with the
wall, leaving a miniscule space.  The air would flow through this space,
disturbing the miasma and giving a signal to those sensitive to it.

The wolf crept down the walkway, nose to the wall, searching for the
telltale sign.  If it had had enough light, it would have searched for
signs of scraping on the floor, but the sewers were not even lit by any of
the various strains of glowing fungus.  It might have even been able to
find a room from memory, but the sewers changed too much too frequently,
and the old rooms might have been sealed up and new rooms hewn out of the
walls.  Still, it soldiered on through the maze, scanning the joint between
floor and wall for signs of a hidden, safe room.

Eventually, its search paid off.  A thin haze of burnt beeswax with a
slight tinge of blood hung around a small section of the hallway.  The
scent was quite subtle amongst the malaise of the sewer, but after a quick
stop and reversal of pace, it could tell that the air was slowly spreading
from a hairline-thin crack along the wall joint.  This door was especially
well made, only sitting the barest minimum distance off the ground to allow
it to move.  Of course, now that the wolf had found the door, it had to
open it.

Any of the stones on the door might have been the trigger, so the wolf
simply reared up and planted its forepaws on the wall.  They were big
enough to cover the width of the doorway when placed side-by-side.  It ran
its claws down the wall, pressing on each stone, making a bit of noise as
its claws faintly scratched the surface.  In the middle of the wall, one of
the stones pressed in until it made a small *click* as the latch released
its weight, pulling the door open.

The wolf’s first view of the room was spoiled by a flare of light that
ruined its vision.  After the pitch dark of the tunnels, even the small
flame burning on a cloth on a nightstand took several long moments to
resolve in its vision.  Even so, it still scanned the room with its other
senses.  It could hear nothing but the small crackle of the flame and the
flow of the water behind it, but the room smelled of several different
creatures.

A bit of blood that belonged to something smelling like a mixture of fruit
bat and human had been soaked into that cloth before it started on fire.
House cat pervaded the lower air level, along with a faint trace of
mustelid. Perhaps either a ferret or mink, but too indistinct to be sure.
The most recent odor was a human female of indeterminate middle-age, and it
faintly tickled the wolf’s memory.  That scent was more concentrated than
should be possible, as if instead of entering the room and diffusing her
essence through the air currents, this woman had simply sprung into
existence in the middle of the closed room and walked into a corner.  Its
vision clearing, the wolf turned to look at that corner – and froze.

Memories rushed through its mind: polished steel armor with swords, an
overconfident smile, betrayal, secluded forest, suspicious leave of
absence, a ruined breastplate and purple silk tunic, betrayal, the rising
new moon, past victory, brilliant yellow hiding cold slate, and a betrayal,
all revolving around the small, knowing smile centered on the face that now
crouched in the corner.

The woman whose face had borne that smile was pale, but not unattractively
so.  Her voice, even spoken in anger and frustration as it now was,
remained a smooth and rich alto with an edge of authority behind it.  Long
locks of raven-colored hair, instead of flowing to her shoulders and
accentuating her chest, framed her face before sweeping into a braid that
trailed down her back.  She had traded expensive court attire for fine
mottled black leather, tailored specifically for her body so as to protect
but not impede movement.  Her hand, and the small crossbow held within it,
was what finally concerned the wolf.

It dodged sideways as she fired, immediately charging to prevent her escape
and running straight into a chair that she swung wildly at its head.  As
she dove under a desk for a hidden tunnel, the wolf smashed the desk aside
to slam its paw on her boot.  When she didn’t try to wriggle out of it, the
wolf pulled, trying to drag her out to rip her in half with its jaws.  She
stopped moving before she could completely emerge, most likely clutching a
support beam, when the wolf drew back its paw with a yelp.  A taloned foot
drew back into the tunnel after raking the wolf’s paw, and it shoved its
head into the tunnel to snatch at the retreating shapeshifter.  She brought
her crossbow back up, though, and the wolf quickly pulled back before it
lost an eye.

The wolf expected her to close both the passageway and the door from inside
the tunnel, sealing it in the room.  Thus, after several tense seconds of
waiting, it was not surprised when a bolt raced from the tunnel to smack
into a loose stone by the side of the door.  It was surprised, however, by
the rapidity with which the door moved when released, and before the wolf
had the time to try to prop the door open, it had ground closed.  Then it
heard the nock of another bolt in her crossbow, and dodged back out of the
view of the tunnel.

This next bolt mocked his efforts to hide as it sprang out of the tunnel
with the loud buzzing of a hornet.  Upon hitting the far side of the room,
it bounced off the wall without losing any speed, smacking off the cockeyed
desk and pinging off the wall behind the wolf before finally lodging itself
painfully in the wolf’s rear end.  Out of surprise, it yelped, but it still
didn’t miss the sound of another bolt being nocked.  Her confident voice
carried from the tunnel, saying “I have plenty more just like that one,
Saelor.”  The wolf growled low as she used the name that it had first met
her with, suppressing another flood of memories to hear her next words.
“Now shut up and listen or I'll fill you so full of them you'll think you'd
been born a pincushion.”  She took a deep breath, then continued, “I’ll
make you a deal…”



Some time later, the wolf slowly paced around the small room, taking in its
surroundings.  The room was very sparsely furnished, in keeping with its
previous occupant.  The desk was sturdy, if a bit scuffed from being thrown
aside.  A small mirror lay broken amidst the pieces of chair on the floor,
having been thrown from the desk in the fight.  A wooden chest stood on the
floor off to one side, smelling like it contained salted meat, dried fruit,
and hardtack.  Satisfied, the wolf walked back to the desk, lifted its leg,
and marked the piece of furniture, just to spite her.  The spite would have
been received much better if the desk had been crafted to her usual level
of opulence, but all the furniture in the room was surprisingly simple.
Wondering what dire straits could make her give up her expensive tastes,
the wolf then padded back to the middle of the room, lay down, and prepared
itself for the six-day wait.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.integral.org/archives/mkguild/attachments/20121109/a964f1f2/attachment.html>