IceAndWave/TheLairOfTheBeast

The Lair of the Beast

In which a reluctant hero is born, several unfortunate creatures are killed, and a relationship finally consummated...

The 2nd Day of Descending Air, Realm Year 763

It's been a number of weeks since the battle with the beast in the streets, although Sian's wounds healed rapidly as is the Exalted's wont. The talk on the streets of Whitewall was about nothing but that fight for two days, until the next set of corpses were found - three this time, all in one place and horribly mutilated.

Sian, of course, outrageously exploited Aia's goodwill, staying in bed far longer than was really necessary. When she found out she was more amused than angry, but she did cap off the day by dumping a bucket of icy water onto Sian's crotch - something that got him out of bed right quickly.

While tending to Sian's "wounds", and not throwing icy water onto his privates, Aia spent a lot of time in the bath, something that provided Sian with plenty of opportunity for surreptitious glances through the door crack, something that he didn't complain about.

Aia also managed to gather a small, but varied, wardrobe - some practical clothes, and some frilly showy things as well. Aia has, of course, modelled each one for Sian, much to his appreciation.

Of course, with Sian now up and about, albeit with a soaked and chilly crotch, Aia insists on leaving the apartment with him, dragging him out onto the streets.

Sian grudgingly goes with her, picking her up if she should ask.

She stops off at the same eaterie as before the encounter with the beast, the proprietor looking at Sian and Aia and winking broadly before heading back to his work.

Sian eats contentedly with one arm around Aia's waist, waving a little to the man.

Aia finishes her meal and then gets up from her seat and turns to leave, stopping suddenly. She taps Sian on the shoulder and whispers, "I think we have guests."

Sian turns to see a group of about twenty people have gathered at the back of the eaterie, representing a major cross-section of Whitewall society. One of them, an middle-aged man, steps forwards, "Help us. Please. The beasts are killing us, and the guard aren't doing anything about it."

Sian stands, wiping his hands with a napkin. "What do you mean? I've seen them myself; they are doing the best they can.

What do you expect me to do?"

"You fought them, you've seen them. They're killing us. We are too weak, but you, you are one of the Chosen."

Sian opens his shirt a little to show where the wound's mark is still fading. "Look. It did that with one blow, to me, one of the Chosen. I can't fight them any better than the guard can."

The man backs away from you, "Then we are lost..." and as a group they turn and walk out of the establishment.

Sian puts an arm around Aia and leads her out once they've gone. He stays silent until he puts a large dent in his door when they get back home - he no longer feels like shopping.

Aia looks at Sian, her eyes downcast, "Why did they come to you for help? Didn't they hear that you barely survived?"

"But I'm a Chosen, Aia. I can do anything." He locates some wine in the kitchen.

Aia follows Sian into the kitchen and hugs him carefully, to avoid the tender areas, "Don't you want to help them?"

Sian puts the arm around her that isn't holding a glass of wine. "I do. Which is why I'm going to go out after the monster, idiot that I am." He sighs defeatedly.

Aia looks puzzled and moves around him, "But the people in the shop... they said, 'they', not 'it'."

"I know. I'll get what I can, and report to the Syndics when I can't do anymore." He shrugs a little.

"You should get some help." She taps Sian's chest, "Or at least some armour."

"I've got armor. And I'll get some guardsmen with me."

Aia leans forwards and kisses Sian softly, "Be careful. Please."

Sian smiles half-heartedly. "Well, I have you to take care of, and I can't do that dead. Don't worry, I'll be careful."

Aia smiles back, "Good. Let me help you get ready."

"Thanks."

Aia gathers Sian's javelins, some of which still bear the stains from the creature's blood, and then hunts around for his breastplate.

Sian straps it all on, after changing into a slightly more durable set of clothes. He looks quite the warrior, even if he doesn't feel like it.

Aia waves from the apartment window as Sian heads out towards the nearest guard post, just over four minutes away at a walk, on Sessuren Road. The soldiers on duty there bow politely as Sian approaches.

Sian waves to them a little. "No need for that. And look, I need about... ten men to help me with these beasts, okay? Volunteers. I'll go alone if I had to, but I'd much rather have help."

The soldiers nod and one darts back into the guardhouse, returning a short while later with an officer, a lieutenant by his rank badge. He bows, "Lord Sian, it's good to see you fully recovered from your battle. I have been told that you wish to hunt the beast down this time?"

"Wish to, no. Have to nonetheless, yes." He smiles a little. "Any of you want to come with me?"

The lieutenant nods, and after a couple of minutes almost twenty soldiers have gathered outside the guardhouse, all armed and armoured as if preparing for war. "Where shall we go, my lord?"

"Where was it last reported seen?"

The officer checks his report sheets before replying, "There was a sighting two nights ago on Jural Avenue, about a quarter-mile from here."

"Jural." He thinks for a bit. "Okay, then. Might as well start there."

Jural Avenue is a sombre place, the mood is subdued amongst the people and the major reason for this is visible in the form of a series of dark red stains spattered across the walls and ground. Sian makes an unhappy face at the stains, but approaches them and starts investigating, looking at bloodtrails and spatter and trying to figure out what the thing might be. Beyond able to hurt Dragon-Blooded with a single swipe of its paw.

Tiny scraps of blood other markings such as scratched cobbles and dislodged sand leap out to Sian's magnified awareness and provide a clear trail to follow, the beasts - for there were two of them on this occasion - heading down Jural and turning right towards the walls of the city.

Sian doesn't like the possibilities this brings to mind. He gestures to the soldiers. "This way," and leads them to the walls.

The trail of scratches and marks leads Sian via a winding route through back-alleys and tiny streets, to an old house, broken down and abandoned for years, if not decades. The door shows signs of recent use, and swings back and forth in the low breeze without the creaking of hinges one would expect for such an ancient dwelling.

Sian speaks to the commander. "I don't know strategy, I'm afraid, so I'm going to have to trust you to cover this house effectively. If it escapes, tell me, and we can track it again; it can't run forever, after all."

The lieutenant nods, "Take some men with you, sir. You never know what might be in there."

"Just a couple. I'm more worried about the things escaping than getting hurt."

The door opens easily, tell-tale scratches on the tiled floor clear signs that the beasts came in this way. Moving in cautiously, the air is filled with the smells of blood, death and dirt.

Sian sniffs a little, trying to locate the strongest source of the smell. He gestures the men behind him slightly. The source of the smell become quite obvious, when in the room that was once the kitchen of this long-abandoned house, he discovers a pit in the floor, burrowing deep into the rock and soil beneath Whitewall.

Sian crouches beside it and examines the edges. The pit is approximately 6' in diameter and, judging from the marks on the floor surrounding it, was dug out by handtools over the course of weeks or months, involving the work of approximately 10 people. It goes through the foundations of the city, and into the bedrock below, curving outwards towards the city walls.

Sian hmms, and starts looking around again, keeping his ears open. He wants to find out who these people are.

One of the soldiers stands at the edge of the pit, looking down into the blackness below, "What does this mean, sir? Who did this?"

"That's what we're here to find out. Assuming what they've let in hasn't killed them, of course."

After a quick search of the remainder of the house it become apparent that it bears little evidence of the horrors it has birthed. In a long-disused closet are a number of shovels, picks and other tools used to break through the floor, while the rooms further back from the kitchen are filled with rock, dirt and detritus from the tunnel. The hole it is... Sian thinks and heads back, men in tow. "I can only assume that the people who did this are outside the walls. If not, then we report back to the Syndics, get this filled in, and hunt down any beasts left inside the city."

Down into the pit, leading the pair of soldiers deep below the city, Sian heads forwards. The tunnel passes through rock and ruins, eventually coming to the telltale paleness of the white stone of the city's walls, which penetrate even this far below the surface. The once proud walls, impenetrable to all but the most puissant magics, have been sundered by little more than the labour of men, working for weeks with pick and shovel. The hole cuts through the stone, big enough around for a man to walk through, and leading out of the city. Even so, neither Fae or Dead could enter through this gap without someone from

the inside inviting them in.

Sian marvels, not for the first time, at the amount of work it must have taken to get through this. Especially as he passes by the broken walls. "How did someone do this, sir?" A soldier asks, her lips tight with fear, "How did we not find out about it before?"

"Very skillfully." Sian taps a bit of broken wall. "Some sort of magic has been used to get through this, I suspect. As for not discovering..." He shrugs. "An old house, out of the way. There was no reason to look into it."

The wind blowing in from outside the city changes slightly, and a charnel-house smell wafts down. Sian makes a face. "You want to go back, I'm not stopping you."

"We'll stay, sir. This is what we do."

Sian nods silently, and continues leading them further into the tunnel, which has now begun to head upwards. Reflected sunlight is visible from ahead, while the smell of carrion grows ever stronger. Also, just barely audible, is a soft, rhymthic, growling.

Sian gives the soldiers another look, as if asking them again, then very carefully approaches the end of the tunnel.

It opens up into some kind of natural underground chamber, the light of the sun shining in from the mouth some distance away. The stench of dead flesh is almost overpowering, as arrayed around the tunnel entrance are three of the beasts, all apparently sleeping and with various rotted and decomposed remains scattered about them.

Sian gestures to the soldiers to each take a beast, himself moving to the one furthest away.

The soldiers move around carefully, long swords at ready to strike at Sian's given signal, when a loud crack of bone snapping underfoot suddenly reverberates through the cave. Out of fear and reflex the two soldiers strike, their swords biting deep into the fleshy throats of the beasts, spilling dark blood all over the cavern floor.

Sian flings a javelin as soon as he hears the crack, wincing inwardly at his mistake.

The two wounded beasts stagger drunkenly to their feet, while the third leaps to its feet, just avoiding the hastily flung javelin, its mishapen face distorted even further with a growl of anger and hatred, and Sian notes that it only has one good eye.

"Ah. You." He hefts another javelin. "Come on, then." Sian flings two javelins at his one-eyed friend, another held behind his back. Whilst inwardly confident, he's praying that the soldiers can take out their own beasts, as more than one is far too much for him to handle. The first javelin flies wide of the creature, while the second skates across its tough hide, raising little more than a thin red line.

The soldiers, having gotten a good strike in each before battle was joined, fare a little better - their shields and armour deflect the claws of the beasts while they jab and slash at the heavily bleeding things.

Sian throws two more, still prepared to defend should the beast attack. Unfortunately, his third shot misses, but the fourth lodges deep in the beast's shoulder, blood leaking out from around the wound.

The creature lunges forwards, its claws raking across Sian's enclosed chest, bruising ribs and battering flesh as showers of sparks issue from the metal. One of the other beasts has fallen, the soldier bleeding from a nasty wound on his thigh in return, while the last beast, despite issueing blood from all over its body, is still standing, albeit unable to get through the soldier's guard.

Sian staggers back, but manages to gesture at the freed guard to help him. She moves up behind the beast, forcing the creature to split its attention.

Sian flings another two javelins, in a last ditch effort. Thankfully, creature reels under the impact of the javelins, dark blood spouting out from its wounds as the creature staggers, and crumples to the ground, ichor pouring out of its mouth.

The final beast, staggering already under the rain of blows from the soldier, falls to the ground, it's entrails spilling out from a particularly nasty wound in its stomach.

Sian grimaces as he retrieves his javelins, wiping the blood off on his shirt. "Do either of you know how many of these there were supposed to be?"

The two soldiers support each other, and one of them looks up, "We didn't know that there was more than one."

"Some of the townspeople talked to me about it today. They said more than one." He considers. "In any case, we know how they got in. So we can stop anymore of them doing the same."

The two soldiers hobble forwards and then stop, when the more severely wounded one looks down at the corpse next to him and pales, "Sir, I... I think these were people." He points to a faded blue mark on the forearm of one, a sailor's tattoo.

"Shadowland creatures, yeah." Sian crouches down beside him. "So dealing with a necromancer as well."

"What do we do?"

"Burn them. I doubt burying them will stop the ghosts, now, so might as well just get rid of them as definitively as possible."

"Very well. But what about the people who let them in?"

"We don't have any leads as to who they are, unless you know something I don't. So we fill in the hole, watch the house, and wait to see if they reappear. All we can do, really."

The wounded soldiers hurry back through the tunnel, and a few short minutes later their companions arrive, carrying fuel and torches and together they set about burning the once-human things' corpses.

Sian holds his chest with one arm, watching impassively as the twisted things burn.

Returning to Whitewall via the tunnel Sian recieves a hero's welcome. A large crowd has formed, as the wounded soldiers told everyone they saw of his bravery in the battle and its lead-up. Work crews have gathered and enthusiastically begin shovelling the rock and dirt back into the pit from whence they came.

Sian waves off the attention, making sure that the wounded man receives treatment before he gets some himself.

The lieutenant grins at Sian, "There's going to be a party tonight, sir. Quite a big one."

"Please not in my honour. I didn't do that much, really."

"It's too late for that, sir," the officer looks around, "Best you head back home while the streets are only packed."

Sian sighs, but is clearly exaggerating. "I'll see you later, then," and he heads home.

Aia is waiting at the door, her face at once terrified and elated, and a question writ large on her face.

Sian waves at her tiredly, breastplate held in one hand. "Hey. Apparently, I slay a wounded monster, and I'm a hero."

Wrapping her arms around Sian, Aia kisses him deeply, "I was so worried."

Sian murmurs something that gets muffled by the kiss, but drops the breastplate and kisses her back. "Sorry to have worried you, then."

Aia ushers Sian back into the apartment and sits him down on the bed, carefully divesting him of his weapons and fetching the healer's herbs when she sees the bruises on his ribs.He tries to fend her off, but worried catgirls are relentless! Eventually, he just sighs and lets her work, vaguely wondering about this party.

She strips Sian down to his shorts, and busies herself tending to him. "All done!" she smiles, Sian's entire chest covered in bandages.

Sian sighs. "Don't think that was a bit too much?"

Aia frowns slightly, "Well, perhaps a little. I'm just glad you're safe!" She bounces onto the bed behind him.

Sian shakes his head, and turns to lie down beside her. "You feel like going to a party tonight?"

She drapes some cloth over Sian's face, which he realises after a few seconds is the silk blouse she was wearing. "You feel like having a party right now?"

Sian blinks a little, picking up the blouse and looking at it quizically, then at her. "Huh?"

Aia slides around to straddle Sian, naked, and smiles, "You really can be a dope at times." She leans down to kiss him.

Sian looks a little bewildered, but soon figures it out. He wraps his arms around her and kisses back, warming at each small noise she makes. He is very careful with her, knowing how her previous experiences have been less than perfect. He is quite a good lover, as it turns out, perhaps more than she can handle; he spends several hours methodically exhausting the poor girl in every way he can.

Hours later, when the sun has long since set and the party in the streets of Whitewall has long since hit its stride, Sian stirs awake, the unwelcome feeling of another presence in the bedroom making itself known again. Lurking in the shadows beside the window, a bare three feet from the bed, squats the black, featureless figure from before. Eyes glow a dull red and this time, a broad grin opens, the pointed teeth shockingly white against the outline.

Sian grabs the javelins, this time left within reach. He hefts one menacingly, instantly awake. "What do you want?"

The dark figure doesn't move, the grin only widening somewhat, "What I want is irrelevant, Terrestrial. I am merely an observer. But, my master... what my master wants could very well be the difference between life and death for this delightful morsel you have claimed."

"If I see any of you freaks near her, I guarantee you will live a long, pain-filled life. Get out."

"A life?" the thing rears back and laughs, a horrible hissing sound, "Oh my, how ironic." The figure stands suddenly, almost seven feet tall, looming over the bed, "Rest assured, young Chosen. If my master wanted her there is nothing you or your kind could do to prevent it. I have tarried here too long, and must depart. I would wish you health and happiness, but I doubt you would accept." It leaps out of the window, leaving only a chill in the air.

Sian mutters, "Just get out," before lying back in his bed, unable to sleep.