The sewers and tunnels beneath Shandil seemed to go on forever. Sari didn't know which way she was going, or how Rana knew where to direct her. She just knew that Rana would hiss in her ear.
Left. Forward. There's a lip here. Up.
Through it all, the distant echoing sounds of shouts and cries. Clashing swords. Crackling spells. She had mental images of the entirety of Shandil coming down into the sewers, armed with swords and spears, to purge the monsters that they had discovered...only to turn into ghouls and zombies and wraiths and vampires in the night and the stinking muck of the sewer. Then, suddenly, she emerged from the tunnel she was in and into a rough tunnel. The tunnel cut through the earth, low and thick with roots and dangling vegetation. Then she stumbled again as Rana cried out. "Look out!"
Sari fell forward.
And her head went into the water.
But when she burst from the water, the ghoul she had dragged all this way floating next to her, face down in the water, Sari found herself surrounded by glittering lights and the scent of rose petals. Her eyes widened as she looked around herself. To her left and right were stone pillars carved with sensually curved women, their arms artfully covering their breasts, while their hair seemed to merge with the ceiling to support it. Garlands of glowing crystals hung around the statues, and glowed with the same welcome warmth as candlelight. The walls were decorated with mosaics of blue and red chips of stone, which formed into images of lakes, houses, horses with flat profiles and people walking into water, their nudity more hinted at than drawn explicitly. The tunnel that she had come through was the only mar to the wall, a gaping mouth that went into the sewer system, with a collection of pickaxes and shovels as the only clue as to how the tunnel had appeared.
"Well, I'll be saved," Rana said, laughing as she looked around herself. "It's a Chanti bathhouse. It must have been buried and unearthed by workers from the sewers. Since it's night, no one is working here."
Sari brushed her soaked hair back behind her head. The water of the basin filled from small circular holes cut in the sides of the rectangular pool - but it looked fresh and new, unblemished by any mud or dirt. Even the dirt and mud that she had tracked in was gone. The water itself bobbed and floated with flower petals which seemed to come from nowhere. Sari shook her head slowly.
"I'll be...I..." she blinked, then rummaged in her belt, under the water. She pulled the Chanti crystal from its pouch and held it up. As she did so, the lights in the room glowed brighter, reacting to the crystal. "I bet it was close enough to trigger the water before we arrived - or else...I'd have landed head first in an inch of water, snapped my neck and-"
The ghoul surged to life.
Or.
Well.
Surged into
motion
at least. Her hands sculled at the water and she shot towards the edge of the pool with an animal speed that shocked Sari. Sari lashed out, grabbing onto the ghoul's ankle with one hand, surging forward into the water. The ghoul responded by kicking her in the face. Sari jerked her head aside at the last second, but the heel of the cold creature still glanced off her jaw, leaving her head ringing. She let go of the wrist as the ghoul scrabbled at the smooth stone, her claws not quite biting into the stone, unable to find purchase for a few comical seconds. Sari tried again, throwing her arms around the ghoul's belly, yanking her back into the water while shouting. "Hecate!"
Saying the ghoul's human name had worked great last time. This time, Hecate slammed her head backwards against Sari's head. Something went crunch and blood started to stream down her nose as Sari released Hecate, who surged, swam down, then launched herself from the pool by shoving off the floor with her legs. Water soaked the ground behind her as she landed, looking around wildly for an exit. Sari, shaking her head, made a vindictive, growling noise - and then pointed her finger at the pickax. Purple light flared around it and she twisted and jerked with her hand. The pickax bit into the soft earth of the wall, then ripped away and the entire tunnel crumbled, then crashed inwards, just before the ghoul reached it. Hecate hissed, jerked backwards then snapped her head around to glare a single baleful yellow eye at Sari.
Sari, panting, put her hand on her nose. It didn't feel broken.
But in the momentary pause, she could...get a look at Hecate.
The woman had been brawny, broad and tall before her death. Death had stolen all but the tall. Her muscles had become smaller, shrunken - but it was less as if she had become emaciated, and more like someone had put her on a rack and tightened everything with a winch. Her limbs were longer, her legs were longer, her neck was longer, her whole body had the inhuman outline of a scarecrow. But her face was the same - the same beautiful lines, the same carved jaw, the same fierce eye. It was just bright, bilious yellow now. And rather than an eye-patch being simply kept on by cloth, it was now kept on by nails and stitching, pressed right against her skin with stitches that matched the fine work that had reattached her head to her body. Her fingers were long and gray and tipped with metal tines that had been attached to her with the same surgical means.
The ghoul hissed at her as Sari shook her head. "What did they do to you Hecate?" she whispered, then started to slosh towards the edge of the pool. She pulled herself from it with a grunt, using her upper body strength to swing herself around with a single smooth motion - while Rana chuckled.
"We exchanged a butch for a beast. I have to admit, I rather like it," she said. "Oooh now that's interesting."
Sari didn't dare risk a glance at Rana - she had locked her gaze back on the ghoul, worried for any rush or attack...but instead, she saw that Hecate was cocking her head to the side, regarding her. Sari blinked, then glanced down and saw that her clothing had become utterly soaked and now had glued itself to her body like a fine layer of paint. Transparent enough now to show hints of her...she flushed and put her arm over her chest. The ghoul let out a hiss and Sari swore it was a
laugh
. Sari got her legs under her, then tensed as she saw the ghoul putting her palms on the floor, assuming the four limbed stance that she had used for running and fleeing across the city.
Sari frowned.
The ghoul narrowed her one eye, then slowly slid her tongue out. It was long. Very long. Very black. Very rubbery.
Drool dripped and pattered onto the tile.
Hecate let out a single word.
"Meat..."
"Right," Sari said.
Hecate exploded into motion. Sari focused and shoved with her magic - and an explosion of frost swept across the floor. The ghoul's claws bit in - but her feet swept and skittered, throwing out. Her arms twisted almost out of her sockets as she flipped around and her expression was so comical that Sari almost laughed. Instead, though, she sprang forward, planted her boots, and skidded on the ice right towards the stuck, flailing ghoul. Her knee slammed into Hecate's gut and sent her ripping free and tumbling around, her limbs flopping.
Sari finished her slide, her arms flailing to keep herself from falling onto her ass.
Hecatae's limbs
snapped
back into place with a series of sickening pops and cracks. Her head snapped around at that last as she snapped several of her own vertebra to get her head around to glare furiously at Sari. Black fire flared around her body as the void energy that sustained her worked to keep everything working as flesh and bone tore and shattered. Sari reached for her sword...
And blinked.
"Uh, it's at the bottom of the pool, honey," Rana said.
"You could have-OOF!"
Sari flew backwards as Hecate shot into her and slammed home, head first. The two women went flying backwards - the ghoul might have been rangy, but she hit like a battering ram. The smooth tile of the ancient bathhouse made it a shockingly gentle slide as they came to the rest next to a wall - which smoothly unfolded with the proximity of the Chanti crystal that Sari bore, revealing bottles of luxurious and beautiful soaps, shampoos and lubricants. Sari, fumbling, grabbed onto one and brought it shattering into the side of Hecatae's head. The glass shattered and the ghoul let out a hissing croak as her head snapped aside. Sari shoved herself backwards and scrambled to her feet.
Hecate looked like a red ruin. Shampoo ran like blood, while glass shards jutted from her bedraggled, long hair. She reached up, wiped some shampoo away, and flicked it away from her good eye, and gave Sari an expression that was so close to 'really now? Is this a
bar fight
or something?' that Sari almost laughed.
