DREADWOLF - Chapter 113

“She’s right, there’s no air coming out,” said one of the children, her hands held up against Rain’s nose and mouth. “It’s dead!”

“Aww but I didn’t even level once!” groaned the other child.

“What are you talking about, he’s fine,” said Opal, appearing beside Lyra. “Just sleeping… Right?”

Lyra looked down at the black furred mass she stood on. Maybe there would be movement if she watched closely, his chest expanding, drawing in air, alive, the vibration of his heart beating … But there was nothing, he remained completely and utterly still, the stillness of death, was his body already cooling?

“I… I-…” a rush of horrible thoughts snatched her voice from her throat, had she accidentally killed him? Her Skill had been used incorrectly somehow, in the wrong way, she had… Killed Rain? Breathing suddenly became much harder, her airway constricting with anxiety. She was guilty of his death, and now she was alone, without him. She suddenly felt very exposed and vulnerable, her subconscious feeling of safety ripped away in a moment, obvious now in its absence. That Lapine would only be the first now that a wanted poster was out there, an unstoppable wave of levelers would come for her head, she didn’t stand a chance.

Opal fell to her knees beside her, fingers curling through black fur. She pushed at Rain’s back creating wrinkled folds.

“Hey, wake up, Rain, wake up, Rain just w-wake up.”

Lyra was a dead person walking, she knew that, and Opal? A Goblin alone? She was painfully aware of the fate of unwanted Goblins in Florens, what happened to them, what happened to an unwanted pregnant Goblin.

The guilt was too much and she could do nothing but stand and watch as Opal became increasingly frantic, pulling then hitting at Rain’s back, fierce at first, then weak limbed, until finally, she buried her face in his fur, her face…

And the black horn on her head.

A moment passed with the horn pressing against him, then his body spasmed, once, twice, then pressure, pressure in his chest, ending in a deep bass thump that caused dust to fall from the ceiling, his heart squeezing out a reluctant starting beat, and along with it a sharp gasp of breath, eyes shooting open, legs and arms flailing, rubble flung across the room. Lyra was tossed off and sent sprawling as Opal cried out in surprise, then from her mouth came a bubbling laugh as dark shadows crawled over Rain’s fur, teeth and claws, and slavering jaws, talons and pincers and stingers and nails and spines. The Goblin didn’t mind, it didn’t affect her, and she straddled his back as he slowly lifted his head from the ground with shaky arms, her tear reddened eyes squeezed shut with joy.

The family of Elves minded slightly more and openly screamed at the horrifying sight, backing away in a panic, weapons raised, the terrible realisation dawning on them that the thing they had been unable to harm in any way shape or form was now moving, and looking like something that had crawled out of the deepest darkest pit of nightmares.

Rain shuddered, his jaws straining, just trying to draw in air, many long strands of drool falling to the ground, hyperventilating as his fur billowed with predatory dark things, predatory dark things that were spilling onto the rubble, creeping between the stones and shattered furniture, looking for something to devour.

Lyra pressed back against the wall, alarmed, but more so filled with an overwhelming feeling of relief that he was alive, her shoulders easing and a long breath being released. Fortunately the dark seemed uninterested in her and surged toward the Elves who were understandably freaking out. The male Elf stabbed at the roiling carpet of darkness and shouted in distress as it ripped off the end of his spear leaving him with a useless stick.

“G-go! The door!” cried Lyra pointing.

“No, stay, let wolfy eat you!” cackled Opal.

The Elvish family seemed to gather together some basic semblance of rationality and they dived for the exit, forcing wide the rubble blocked door and fleeing down the hall out of sight.

“Aww, why’d you have to say that?”

“You’re not having Rain eat a family of Elves, even if they did kind of try to murder him.”

“You weren’t so fussy when it was Orcs!”

“You think I haven’t tried telling Orcs to stop being so murderously Orc like before? No thank-”

Rain let out a long groan and for the first time the creeping darkness which had covered most of the room’s floor started to slow in its spread.

“Where- where am I? Is this someone’s house…?” Rain slurred, head swaying as he blearily tried to look around.

“Er, it belongs to a family of Elves, you fell through their wall, I think.”

Rain turned his head toward her and Lyra couldn’t help but blanch. There was blood in his eyes, not just bloodshot, but reddened with blood from fully broken veins, a well of red filling the lower half of the yellow.

“I… don’t, everything is fuzzy, I was… I was in a place with gold, there was…” He suddenly leaned to the side, arms almost collapsing, and had to catch himself, shaking his head slightly as though to clear it.

The fact that the frighteningly strong monster that was Rain had almost been killed by herself, a diminutive half Woolie with a weak Class, was not lost on Lyra, especially after an entire clan of Orc’s had failed to do as much… But how?

“Do you know what happened? You went into my wool space, and then when I activated it again in town you tore free instantly, I uh, lost track at that point.”

Rain’s swaying slowed and he seemed to gather himself. “I… remember going in, I was in you, I remember it being fine, at first.”

“But then?”

“The longer I was there the more out of breath I felt, like I had run a marathon, but no matter how hard I breathed I just felt worse and worse, sweating like a pig and wheezing, I thought I had been poisoned, or the space was doing something to me, rejecting me.”

“I don’t understand, my Class is supposed to save people, not poison them, this doesn’t make any sense!”

“I remember Vash was there, tossed amongst the gold. He knew something, I remember him talking as things were starting to go dark. He said it was my size, that all the air had been used up, but that makes no sense, I could breathe, It just… didn’t help.”

“Oh,” said Opal. She had been happily wiggling atop Rain’s back but as he finished she paused. “I know what happened and why.”

“You do? Wait, why would you know? Your entire existence was spent at the bottom of a dungeon, you know nothing about Skills!”

Opal gave her an annoyed look. “I know because Gobbos have to swim to escape predators sometimes. A good place to hide from a Panthara or a cave bear is an underwater air pocket, they don’t like water and you can stay there until they leave. But Gobbos who don’t know better will stay too long, or a pocket will already be full of bad air, and they will die.”

“Bad air?”

“Yeah, when there is nothing to refresh the air in an air pocket it turns bad if Gobbos breathe in it too much, breathing bad air makes a Gobbo pass out and drown.”

“… I… didn’t know that… Am I… genuinely learning something from a Goblin? I’m… not sure how I feel about that,” said Lyra faintly.

“Typical leveler thinking you know everything, tch. Unless you have perfectly sealed air pockets on the surface why would you know? Anyway, that’s what happened to Rain. It’s a whole room in there, not just a small pocket, but being really really big probably turned the air bad really really fast because of bigger breaths.”

“And I nearly died from it, I don’t even remember escaping, I was in the room and then nothing.”

“More than nearly died, more like dodging death by the skin of your teeth,” murmured Lyra.

“Mhmm,” said Opal tapping her horn. “Your heart was stopped until I restarted it with this. Guess it recognised home and tried to help.”

As she spoke the last of the carpet of predatory darkness pulled back into Rain’s fur, slipping in silently. Once it was fully inside Rain rolled, shifting and turning over so he was sitting cross-legged, the last of the rubble spilling from his back as Opal slipped down onto the floor.

“I… should be grateful I’m not dead,” he ran a paw over his face, “Let’s be a bit more careful in future with your Skill, yes?”

“S-speaking of being careful, there’s a small problem with my bounty.”

Rain lifted a brow at her expectantly as she nervously tapped her index fingers together.

“There’s a wanted poster in this town… of me.”

“How is that possible? Lord Wranvyre is miles behind us in Lynthia.”

Lyra grimaced. “We aren’t the only ones with an Inkerchange. He’s wealthy and connected enough to have his own, and he would likely have left one of the paired books on his estate before travelling to Lynthia. It’s the only thing that makes sense. They wrote out my description in the Inkerchange, which was received in Florens, then drew me from the description for a wanted poster… Which probably explains why it doesn’t look very much like me apart from, you know, being a white wooled half woolie…”

Opal scratched her ear. “Too bad that bunny knows you can make your wool black huh? He’s probably telling everyone who will listen right now, makes me wish I hadn’t scared him away so quick.”

“I thought that at first too, but no, I don’t think he will. I mean, would you? That’s critical information for taking the bounty, if I wanted fifty thousand gold coins I would keep that super important knowledge close to my chest.”

“…True. I suppose he’ll want to come back even without the bounty,” said Opal, pushing something into Rain’s mouth.

“He will?”

“Yup, to recover his ears, and probably his tail too, he really seemed offended that I took that.”

Rain chewed and swallowed.

“Tastes like intense chicken,” he gravelled.

Lyra stared at Opal then at Rain’s teeth.

“Did you… did you just feed… oh, my god.

“What? Rain needs to heal and he heals faster when eating lots.”

“Nevermind me, that Lapine is going to put his everything into ending your life if he finds you again!”

“He can try. I don’t mind if food wants to deliver itself.”

“You are unbelievable you know, he’s a dangerous problem not- not a meal!”

Opal shrugged. “He didn’t seem like a high leveler. What do you think would happen if Rain was between him and us? Rabbit dinner, that’s what, he doesn’t have a clue about wolfy here.”

Lyra opened her mouth to reply but found she hadn’t an answer for that. It was true the Lapine would be in for a surprise if he did try something again while Rain was there.

“Okay fine. But he still might not be alone, and more importantly, he might have gone for the town guards, he doesn’t need to tell them about my black wool to take advantage of the situation, just swoop in at the right moment.” She paused, recalling something, “Even if he doesn’t fetch them, that Elven family certainly will.”

Rain struggled from sitting and managed to get his feet beneath himself. From there he shakily rose, head banging against the ceiling as he stood forcing him to awkwardly lean down. With one paw he picked up Opal and held her underarm. The Goblin girl seemed pleased by this and snuggled against his side.

He held out a massive paw toward Lyra.

“Then we should leave. At least this mess happened here and not in Florens. We’ll use your Invisibility for now. Hopefully, we won’t come across any Elves with lenses.”

Lyra stared at the large paw then hesitantly took hold, her hand grasping one of his pads.

“Uhm, right. On three, One, two,-” she twitched as her black wool returned to white and she activated her invisibility Skill. She seemed to fall into shadow to Rain’s eyes and he nodded. Good.

Lyra blinked as the paw she was holding closed, engulfing her arm. Without preamble she was lifted into the air and Rain stepped through the destroyed wall, stones falling around his shoulders as he stepped out into the sunlit alley.

“Uh, this is a bit…” said the helplessly dangling Lyra.

“You want up top?” not waiting for an answer he lifted her and placed her on his shoulders, legs spread wide around his head and neck, hooves dangling on pecs. She grabbed for his ears and held on tight in alarm. She had been up here before, but not when he was well over nine foot tall! With her height added she was even further up, and the ground was distressingly far away, she could quite clearly see into second floor windows!

Her hands tensed claw like, gripping onto his soft ears like vices. This was going to take a little getting used to.

No sooner had Rain started striding away than guards entered the other end of the alley, their armoured boots striking cobble.

“No Elves yet,” whispered Lyra. “Don’t run, you’ll break the invisibility, smooth and steady.”

They turned the corner just as the guards cautiously approached the hole in the wall.

Stratothrax

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