He hesitated in response, mostly because he refused to believe he smelled as bad as Lucy claimed.
“Wait… I don’t smell of liquor and depression …Do I?” You could feel the metaphorical pit sniff coming from him when he said that, even if he didn’t physically dip his head. He refused reality in spite of the floating girl who mercilessly confirmed it in front of him.
“Oh yes, definitely. Even if you’re a vampire, you smell exactly like a human with stress sweats. I can also smell the whiskey from last night on your breath but that’s not the point!” Raising one hand up, Lucina sent Minerva into a tizzy with her next words.
“Yes, wish time!”
“Lucy, don’t!” The dragon maid pleaded to no avail, for Lucina was already manic with WGS(wish-granting syndrome). A single snap of her fingers and everyone but the enchanted piano was whisked away; tossed into the abyss where the Silversteins remained.
The Light in the Dark
Before Lucina and her party arrived during the course of Cotiso’s ritual, the underground acropolis that his people called their home bustled with life not meant for its walls. The bomberman who had attempted to send Minerva to an early grave had been delivered back to his master, Vincentio, in the western wing and the resulting explosion from his death devastated that area. The cultists could only watch in horror as bricks of stone were expelled into the darkness below, assuming that the youngest of the four brothers had perished in the destruction.
Caught off guard and consumed by their emotions, the remaining three siblings expedited their plans. Like guards escorting prisoners en masse to the gallows, they took the Silversteins from their cells one by one and hurried them off to the main hall of the grounds. They paid no attention to the lone wolf who was left behind in their wake, and so Caldur, the unfortunate bastard that he was, was left to rot in a cell with naught but a single watchman to keep him company.
That watchman, as it turned out, still had his tongue; and more than enough boredom to go with it.
“So they left a dog like you, eh,” the lone man asked while raking a stick across the cell’s bars?
“Guess you just got caught in the crossfire, then. Makes no difference to me, though. A dead dog’s a dead dog no matter whose blood he carries.” Nameless guard number 1 left Caldur there after that one sided conversation, returning to his post while munching on the piece of bread that was his lunch. He hadn’t a care in the world, certain that no one would come to that corridor for a long time. After all, the ceremony hadn’t even started. The guests had just left and it was no short walk to the main hall. Nothing to do but wait.
Caldur, on the other hand, knew a different story. After the guard had ventured further down the hall and back to his table, the sound of ominous breathing drifted from the opposite end. Heavy footsteps followed shortly thereafter, loud enough to gather attention back to the wolf’s cell.
“Who’s there?! hurk!” One moment the guard had started a sprint back through the cell-block. The next an arrow flew toward him, piercing the man in his throat and eliciting a gruesome gurgle. Caldur saw this arrow, but not the bow that loosed it. All he heard was the breathing of a shadowy figure that soon walked in front of his cell.
“Shit… I’m dead, aren’t I?” The question came on the heels of an overwhelming sense of dread for the lone wolf; yet even then he had not fully grasped the depths of his own fear until this new host of his physically walked through the bars between them. Drawn apart by some unseen force in the presence of the masked assassin, the metal rods twisted like puddy, parting the way for them to walk straight through.
“Yep, definitely dead.” Contrary to what Caldur believed when he asked,
“Can I at least have one last smoke,” however, he was not in danger of being struck down. The seemingly asthmatic shadow brought out a pick from their pocket instead of drawing one of the weapons they possessed, and knelt down next to the man before releasing him from his shackles.
“You can have one after you help save the Silversteins,” they said in a voice caught somewhere between masculine and feminine; and this was swiftly accompanied by further explanation in the same voice.
“There are currently 3 groups that must be rescued. You should head for the main chamber while I go after the other two.”The shadow spoke nothing more than this, even as Caldur strove to begin a conversation or inquire as to the identity of his savior. That person left rather than answer, sprinting off in the blink of an eye at a speed far beyond that of any normal human. Katerina and the others had already been bound in the main hall by the time that person reached their destination, and it was assumed that Caldur would soon arrive to rescue them.
The shadow, on the other hand, traveled to a secluded chamber on the eastern fringe of the acropolis. Eva and Guinevere had been brought to this place by the cultists, joining the third that had been captured before their arrival. They stood secluded in that chamber, guarded on the outside by two sentinels of black that stood in silent watch. These guardians were neither living nor dead, and only budged when the masked warrior came close.
Golems they were, yet whatever metal they were composed of crumbled easily under assault from the warrior’s maul. They seemed to summon it from a jewel on their hand, the act generating a flash of iridescent light as the weapon materialized. Then with the same flash it was gone, disappearing just as the crumbled limbs of the sentinels attempted to twitch back to life.
Having bested the cultists’ creation, the phantom attempted to unlock the door in front of them until their attention was foisted away.
“I thought I smelled a rat.” Mahai, one of the four brothers, had finally come to murder Eva and the others. The shadow had turned to face him as soon as they heard his footsteps at the other end of the bridge, but had naught the time to prepare an ambush before being spotted. Instead, they stood breathing as the ethereal smoke billowed from their plated mail, hand on weapon and eyes peeled.
“You’re no Silverstein,” Mahai remarked as he stopped a fair distance away,
“that’s for sure. But you’re definitely not a friend either after what you did to my brother’s golems. I’ll just have to remove you before I deal with the whelps then.”
The sounds of an intrusion in the main hall echoed through the complex then, just as Robin drew Seikou against the 2nd strongest leader of the cult.
