Breaking the Rules Pt. 17

Breaking the Rules takes place in an RPG universe, and is the sequel to Bending the Rules. To understand the characters and how the world works, please start from Part 1 of either series. Not based on any particular gaming franchise or storyline, but there may be guest appearances.

Looking back at all that has changed in our brave new world, I have to say, I am so thankful for everyone past and present who have read, rated, commented, and fav'd, to say nothing of my supporters past and present. Connection has been difficult the last years - years! How the time has flown. I try to practice gratitude because so many situations are beyond my ability to change any other way. Here on Lit, where I might and still sometimes do expect to find only the most common of denominators, you have all shown me the heart and the joy that makes life beautiful and gives meaning to the human condition. Yes, the constructive criticism I am grateful for, too. Thank you all so much.

Last note before we get to the fun; I'm trying something slightly different this time around: viewpoint change! Wait for it...

*****

Nuru's gut twisted, considering Tatenda's words.

'When someone makes that decision about you,' he'd said, about sacrificing someone for personal or political advantage.

There were things Furaha wasn't telling him; things she was keeping just between herself and his pacted succubus, Sanaa. They'd both been mistreated in their lives, especially by men, and that was known to cause people to become jaded, bitter, and cynical, and gave them something in common that he would never be able to match. The very real possibility that either or both of them were willing to throw him away for personal gain was disturbing on a painfully deep level; maybe he was being naive after all. The choice to trust them might still be the right one, but he hadn't really considered it logically. He'd just done it unthinkingly, somewhere along the way, because in their own ways they'd been his only hope at the time. Now, he had many more opportunities - and suddenly, so did she. If the raid at the Legion compound had or would free her for career advancement, what would she choose to do? He was a powerful bit of leverage right now, and she was the one best positioned to use him, the most effective means of which would not be to his advantage, just as Katlego was trying to do. But Sanaa wouldn't throw him away, would she? He was a pact holder, and that link was unique to him.

...unless she'd pacted with Furaha at the beach. It had to be negotiated 'in person' to some degree, and Sanaa herself had said that the summon ritual made her real enough for everyone's purposes. Nuru's head swam with possibilities.

"Focus," he muttered to himself.

Wild speculation wasn't going to help him. He was sure of the fact that Furaha was still a bit raw and vulnerable. Sanaa had sensed the emotional brutalization the half-elf had been through, and which had shaped their interactions since he'd met her. The guilt and shame that still plagued her had shattered her ego, and he had earned her trust by helping to rebuild that, even if she was still fragile sometimes, and that vulnerability meant she wouldn't be bold enough to turn on him yet, not when most of the world was still against her.

And as for the succubus - she wouldn't have renewed the pact with an addendum if she planned on throwing him away. She would have just slowly squeezed him for whatever benefit remained, and left him with nothing before casting him aside. She wouldn't help him level faster by using his libido to get them both some EXP when she so desperately needed to level up herself, if that was the case. Tatenda might have a point in general, but didn't know the details of Nuru's relationships, he concluded.

But what to do now? He could run off, chasing leads about what had happened to all his friends, but he had a scheduled meeting with Katlego he didn't want to miss. It was close to Quartz Port, which had been convenient at the time, but now was dangerous. He'd have to come up with a plan to get there safely, and if he had to do it by himself, it was going to take him a lot longer to arrange, so he'd better get started. He'd do some reading and then, in the evenings when the adventurers all wrapped up their quests for the day and hung out at the social places, he could go get some information and, who knows, maybe even have some fun. If he was extra lucky, his companion for the evening would already have a room paid for.

"OK," he said, getting to his feet.

"Going somewhere?" Raziya said, casually lounging in a doorframe.

"Yep, places to be, things to do. Tatenda said you could show me another way to approach, from the street?"

"You've really charmed him. Or, the man's getting soft, I can't tell which."

Nuru tugged at Sanaa.

/Oh my, really looking for a hopeless challenge are you?/

(I haven't got a chance with her, have I?)

/Long story short, no. I could turn my auras on for you, but by the time it affects her enough to make her open to sleeping with you, we're well past the point of overriding her conscious consent./

(Just making sure.)

"So?" Nuru said, gesturing for her to continue.

"So I'm wondering if I don't need to twist your arm a little to restore the balance. I hate to see my boss get taken advantage of."

"Careful, I might get off on it, you don't know," Nuru said, tilting his head sarcastically.

"Oh yeah? How about this?"

The elf snatched the blade free of its scabbard on her back in the blink of an eye.

"No escort to stop me taking your head this time," she growled, holding the sword at his throat.

"So you think," Nuru said, turning his face down to look at the steel.

He put a finger up and pressed gently on the edge of it, pushing it up by the tip so he could look down the length of it.

"Mm. I admit I am not an expert on these things, but this does look mighty fine," he said. "Very sharp."

"So sharp I'm pulling back so you don't cut yourself on it," the ranger frowned.

"That'll teach me to go easy on your boss," Nuru smirked.

"You know what you are? You're a reckless gods-damned maniac," Raziya said, putting the sword away.

"You say maniac, I say man with confidence. But I guess there's room to be both," Nuru chuckled. "Goodness knows I've been called that before."

"Say, uh... no hard feelings, right? You know I'm just doing my job."

"Sure, sure. I won't tell my rogue friend you totally attacked me the moment we were alone. I'll send him your love instead."

"Good, good. I- hey! Don't you-" she growled, eyes flashing angrily at the word 'love'.

She caught herself and glared. "Alright, you got me, I like the guy. Not like it was any less obvious the last time you were here."

"Sure, but feelings can change. Now I know yours haven't."

"Come on then," she huffed. "It probably doesn't even matter. He's already got a girlfriend and she'd be a fool to let him get away, and he doesn't seem like the type to get involved with fools. Present company excepted," she glared.

"You're mean. I think I'll-"

Nuru blinked, shook his head trying to clear a sudden haze. He was now lying on the floor of a shop, facing out to the street. Raziya was nowhere to be seen; he turned to look behind and saw a closed door marked PRIVATE - KEEP OUT.

"-have to tell him... Well. She has a dramatic streak too, apparently," Nuru said, rolling back in his memory to figure out what happened.

The images were nonsensical; his mind rebelled at the interpretation that his eyes suggested, but as he thought carefully through it, the briefest moment that his consciousness had perceived was actually a long minute of moving walls, falling, rising, spinning in place, and the ceiling becoming the wall next to the door he was currently facing. Several minutes later, he had counted the number of heartbeats it had taken him to travel however far it was. Twenty-two heartbeats meant that it had been far enough he could have fallen and broken his neck in the intervening space, but he could still see the different levels from the outside, if he went and looked. There had been a long moment of profound depth as he saw a room far larger than the building he was currently in, spread out around him in all directions, before the strangest hallway he'd ever encountered had swallowed him back up and spat him out here. He turned to walk away when he heard a noise and turned back to find Raziya stepping out of the wall, which had temporarily become a hallway.

"No puke? Good. I thought you were made of stern enough stuff for the grand exhibit."

"Ahem," Nuru cleared his throat. "As I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted. You're mean and also have a hallway which is slowly devouring the fabric of reality and he should probably stop you before someone loses their marbles."

"Oh, don't worry, nobody goes flying out into the empty dimensional space if they're not breaking in unexpectedly. That trip is very popular, I have people begging to let me send them out that way all the time. It's the most memorable part of the visit, usually."

"Sure, but they're prepared for it."

"I guarantee you they never are."

"We're on the second floor now, near the overpass. How did I fall and end up higher than before?"

"You're more perceptive than you look. You have Eidetic Memory, by chance?"

"Perhaps."

"D'Shemil save me from passive-aggressive panty-waists."

"You're being difficult, too. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"If there's a chicken and an egg in the same place, the chicken is older and came first."

"You're intentionally missing the point. Yes, I'm being difficult; you started it, I'm just giving some of it back."

"Let me introduce you to someone. Charm, this is Nuru. Nuru, this lovely ephemeral concept is called 'charm'; you may know it as the difference between you, and a clever clap-back."

"Since my polite consideration is clearly going unappreciated, I will just say I admire your prowess from last night. Good day."

"You're welcome," she said, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him back. "But we're not done here. You see this door? Don't try to go through it. Twist the knob and pull down on the wall, like this. Down, NOT up. In case you didn't guess, pulling the wall up does bad things. Just, don't do it."

With her right hand, she turned the knob; with her left palm, she pressed against the wall and dragged it downward. There was no gaping chasm anywhere to be seen, just an ordinary staircase.

"Do take care who you tell about this. We try to keep renovations to a minimum, but if the entrance is compromised, we'll do so. It's happened at least a dozen times so far, that I know of."

"I understand. What I don't get is how you can pretend to know charm better than I do."

"Great. Tatenda said you're a big boy and you can handle the real me, so I'm not going to sugar-coat it, because I might leave you with the wrong impression of what I do around here, which is expedite... what is the saying, 'a fool and his head are soon parted'? Thanks for stopping by, etcetera, etcetera."

"I think it's 'a fool and his money are soon parted'."

"Yeah, sometimes I do that too."

She hopped onto the staircase, and the wall lifted back up of its own accord as soon as she released the door handle. Though no longer visible, Nuru felt her eyes boring into his back as he exited the shop, at something less than a sprint.

*****

Dayo took a deep breath and looked at the instructions for the tenth time. There were only enough ingredients to try this once; they were only semi-rare, but that was enough to keep this from being done casually. Everything was there, which was good, because the nearest merchant was now miles away, and any oversight would have taken hours to correct.

The problems were many. Dayo had never been to Tatenda's, and though Furaha certainly knew him well enough, she was now settled in at Spectrum HQ to wait out a siege, and it would take too long to reach her by letter or courier. Without an introduction, Tatenda might as well be the end boss of the whole world, for all the likelihood of reaching him, even starting the one place Dayo knew, The Zoo. No doubt Furaha would help, but Chosen weren't particularly welcome in the City of the Damned. Necromancers had a long history of 'fetishizing' exotic species and hybridizing them for their own purposes, and there were also many personal grievances nursed from old conflicts between the two factions. Additionally, Spectrum were untrusting of outsiders in general, and the tightly-controlled passages would be exceptionally difficult to navigate as a lone necromancer. They had parted ways at the travel agency, which Dayo had not been able to exit, and had needed to go back to Home Town overnight.

Ace had gone dark, which wasn't helping Dayo strengthen the bond of trust, but at the same time made it harder for one person being caught to expose the others. He had a message waiting for him at Ruby Metro, if he stopped there - which he might, on his way to City of the Damned. But it was too important to get Nuru out to stop and make sure everybody regrouped, even if that might help Nuru in some circumstances, so the valkyrie couldn't blame a thief for running straight into the teeth of danger without so much as a wave.

"You better not be dead, Nuru. I'll raise you and kill you myself."

It was an idle threat, but there was nobody there to call the valkyrie on it. The hobgoblins didn't count, of course; they wouldn't be saying anything ever again. The valkyrie went down to one knee, and began the incantation inside the circle. The sparrow - a poor substitute for a hawk, if it came to combat, but there hadn't been any hawks available - lay lifeless in the necromancer's hand, and only stirred at the end of the chant. Dayo threw the bird high into the air and fell over; their human body was still working, but flying as the sparrow took every ounce of concentration as their Proficiency with the Soul Split ritual was nearly non-existent. There were three lesser avian souls occupying this particular body, and they knew how to move the wings, but fighting the instinct to go back to regular sparrow life required concentrated willpower. Following directions, the sparrow took off high towards the coast, with Dayo keeping an eye out for birds of prey. Once there, it followed the water line until it reached the town of Quartz Port, at which it turned and flew low, looking for the cave Nuru had been using. Taking up a spot on a nearby tree, Dayo was suddenly happy that they were not occupying a hawk; it would have been much more conspicuous, and the primary need now was information, rather than attack power. Several men were standing around outside the entrance, and paid the sparrow no mind.

Dayo strained to listen. The bird's ears weren't tuned to process words, only tonality and volume. With careful attention, however, a few facts became clear. There wasn't much to see in the cave, Nuru wasn't there and, just as importantly, they didn't know where he was. Some tracker had come in, declared no sign of a struggle, and left. This was odd: when the Legion brought someone in, they expected results. They wouldn't get paid unless they produced some evidence of where he had gone. For them to give up so easily meant either they had given up the chase or, more likely, considered the gathered Legionnaires to be a liability somehow, and were slipping free of them to pursue alone. Which, in turn, meant they had a trail to follow after all. With so many people around to take credit, the reward must have been divided far enough that none of them were particularly interested in going the extra mile and instead were simply following their orders to the letter. So the superior officers hadn't got wind of Nuru's trail, and only the few trackers had it; that was the good news. The bad news, of course, was the silly bard had very little experience blending in anywhere, and without Ace had very few safe places to go - all of which would be very closely watched.

All of them, that is, but one. Diamond Dales had a good number of entrances, however, and if Nuru had any sense he'd be in some kind of disguise. He could very well walk right past and they'd both be none the wiser, because of course Dayo was being sought by the Legion too, and couldn't just stand around fully revealed on the road; the Legion was stirred, and while they may or may not know Dayo's own role in the recent event, they certainly still harbored a grudge about the statue destroyed at Home Town and which they had been forced to tacitly acknowledge in Nuru's trial and, knowing how these things had gone, probably still steamed about whatever had goaded them to attack the Chosen at Fortress of White Rock that the statue's destruction had been revenge for. Whether that was even where it had started was doubtful, but the Legion preferred to pretend that the Chosen no longer existed, and thus any sovereign territory was just "anyone's for the taking," and the assault wouldn't be recorded by anyone else that way. Onyekachi would know, but only rarely was unfavorable news shared, especially with a lowly valkyrie.

This left one option with any hope of success. They would have to find, and thwart, the tracker or trackers. Nuru would be unable to leave by Travel Service, so if the Legion tracked him to a town and alerted the barracks (which were everywhere) to post a watch, he'd be trapped long past his ability to pay for room and board. He'd be forced to find work and then - it didn't bear thinking about what hellhole they'd drag him off into, and what would follow. Dayo would have to make sure they didn't learn where he'd gone. The way the tracker had gone was betrayed by the gestures the Legionnaires were making. The sparrow took off, following that way, gaining a little altitude.

There they were. That hadn't been so hard, but Dayo would have to now catch up and devise some means to distract them. A false trail, if possible. And if not - glorious combat. Dayo's consciousness snapped back into their body, and the diresnake swallowed the small gang of hobgoblins, to keep them from getting lost or left behind. Now it was their turn. Dayo hated lying in the snake's throat, looking out its open mouth through a small crack in an egg, but sometimes it had to be done.

*****

In the dim light, something wicked stirred. Gleaming eyes peered into the equally black and shiny surface of the obsidian mirror on the wall, one of the few non-essential "luxuries" retained over the long years. Clawed hands reverently brushed the edges, rough from where pieces of a larger whole had once been attached, creating a full-length mirror, before the many intruders had overcome the wards and broken some of the hard substance free in the violence of the attempt at claiming her life. She had come to think of it as a valuable tool, however.

"You're such a lovely thing. Mother would have been proud."

She smiled, noting the steadiness of her voice purring to herself, carefully posing and looking at her own face from different angles in the reflection, making sure any smudges or blemishes were hidden or wiped away.

"Don't you think?" she continued, addressing the diminutive figure gawking from the doorway by turning her head to look over her shoulder, and sticking her ass out.

"Gwwwrahg!" the little creature said, tongue lolling out as its head tilted, greedily drinking in the sight of her.

Its head tilted so far that it toppled over, and it regained what sense it had, shaking off and running away.

"Tell your master he should come see me himself!" she called out after it, giggling at the still-drunken discoordination of the retreating lesser demon. "Hmph. Ought to know better than to send a homunculus to spy on a Setangarayu. Unless..."