Chapter 176

◈ Chapter 176:

A Minotaur was sitting on a step at the end of the alley, playing cards alone, one hoof lazily tapping on the cobble. He turned over a card, a queen, a dragon queen, and clucked his tongue in annoyance.

He picked up the card with chipped nails and wiped a few scattered droplets of rain from its surface, squinting down at the illustration as if hoping that if he stared hard enough the card would change.

No such luck.

Lyra and Opal peered at the frustrated Minotaur, their heads peeking around the corner as they looked into the alley. Despite the rain it was still a warm and humid summer's day in the depths of the slums, sunlight bathing the mossy cobble as the occasional drop of rain fell from the near cloudless sky.

"You won't know unless we ask." gravelled Rain from behind causing Lyra to jump in surprise, scrambling back to avoid falling over.

"I- I know, I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask okay?" She blew a droplet of rain from the tip of her nose in annoyance.

There was an awkward pause where Lyra remained exactly where she was.

Opal rolled her eyes.

"Just pretend you're a brave sheep, fake it until you make it," said Opal as she stepped out into the alley proper.

"W-wait, hang on, he's not going to respond well to a goblin," hissed Lyra hurrying after her.

The two found themselves walking toward the Minotaur, their pace slowing as he noticed them. His dark eyes took in Lyra then shifted to the goblin at her side, narrowing as he noted the singular horn on her forehead.

"If you know what you are doing, then I know that you know that the evolution of that goblin is more interesting than most." He shuffled the deck of cards. "But a goblin is just a goblin in the end. You are going to have to show off what she can do. Mind if it doesn't interest I'll throw you out on your ass."

"Er," said Lyra, caught off guard. "I'm not here to sell this regular goblin with a sexolution- I m-mean evolution, ahem."

Opal glared up at her.

"I'm actually here to sell a much much much more dangerous and scary monster than a regular goblin."

"I'm dangerous and scary," muttered Opal, "Don't make me show you how dangerous and scary I am."

Lyra carefully ignored that. "This monster I have is a monster that any leveller would kill to be able to kill, a beast from the darkest depths of the dungeon, something worse than any panthara, a monster to make you hide under the bed covers and pull your blankie over your head."

The Minotaur flicked through the cards while giving Lyra the side eye. "I've changed my mind. You have no idea who we are and I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh? Does the mere idea of such a monster scare you that much?"

"No. Now leave before I make you. You won't like how I manage that." He nodded to his side, indicating a broad double headed axe leaning against the wall by the steps.

"Aha, playing hard to get are we? Well, look at this!"

Lyra flourished the card that Warwick had given her. A piece of paper with a crude butcher's cleaver drawn on it.

The Minotaur looked at it blankly. "I have literally no idea what this is or what you are trying to prove."

Lyra deflated a bit. This wasn't going to plan.

"Listen okay, you may be pretending that you aren't who we think you are, but you're going to drop your pretending the moment you see what I have to offer. I guarantee it. Rain, get over here!"

The Minotaur didn't react to her words until Rain stepped into the alley, then he jerked back in shock, miss-shuffling his deck and bending half the cards in half.

Rain loomed over the Minotaur, trying his best to project a 'If you kill me you will get lots of levels impression', whatever that was. It seemed to unsettle the Minotaur, a lot, although that might have just been Rain staring him down, he was significantly larger.

Lyra stepped up beside him and patted Rain's thigh. "Here we go, one prime grade monster, just brimming with levelling potential. No injuries, or illness, all in perfect health, glossy furred and sparkly eyed, fantastic musculature. You could put this one to work and it would go for years if you wanted maximum value, or you could end it quick and stabby stabby and get all the levels you could dream of. Trust me you won't find a deal like this anywhere else."

The Minotaur stared at Rain, then at Lyra.

He stayed silent for a moment as Lyra finished.

"...Wait here."

He stood and opened the door behind him, stepping inside and closing it with a bang.

The three of them looked at the closed door.

"Do you think that went okay? I think that went okay, don't you?"

"You sounded like you were trying to peddle a used horse," muttered Rain. "Are we even sure this is the right place and you aren't just selling me into regular monster slavery?"

"Hmm, pretty sure? Right Opal?" Opal didn't reply. "Right? Opal?"

"Uh, well, nobody is going to really know where this abattoir is, right? Not really anyway, otherwise it couldn't exist, cause it's against city rules. But this dwarf I spoke to, she reckoned at least one of the five or seven rumours she'd heard about its location was accurate. So, uh, this is the first rumour."

Lyra stared at the goblin. "Am I literally about to sell Rain into regular slavery?! H-He didn't recognise the card! I'm selling Rain to be some rich asshole's pet!"

She was on the verge of freaking out but then the door swung back open and the Minotaur stepped back out. Behind him came a lamia, one with long black hair.

Lyra froze for a moment as it appeared Wranvyre was emerging from the doorway, head ducking below the mantle due to their height.

But then they looked up revealing the lamia to be female… although she still looked very much like Wranvyre, attractive, black hair, black scales with a touch of red. Lyra had to remind herself that Wranvryre had a truly ridiculous number of offspring who themselves would have their own offspring.

Of course her being one of his came with its own problems.

"Uh, we- I mean I w-want to sell my m-monster and- "

The lamia's eyes drifted over Rain, one eyebrow raising before she suddenly slithered closer to Lyra and bent down, the far taller Lamia looming over her. She plucked the cigarette in her lips free and breathed smoke over Lyra's head causing her to cough.

"Cute disguise with the dyed wool. Too bad my siblings are about as likely to pay for you as grow a second tail. I'd have liked the money."

The words took a moment for Lyra to process. Rain's paw twitched beside her, about to eviscerate the slaver.

After a moment of panic she managed to choke out a "Why?"

"I've been long outside my family's care or favour, but more importantly it seems the top thirty or so in the detestable progeny ranking have managed to kill or cripple each other and burned down half the estate. To be frank it has become a familial war. Turning up with you might ensure you a painful death but I wouldn't find my purse any the heavier. Lucky for you I suppose that vengeance doesn't interest me even slightly."

"Something the matter?" murmured the Minotaur. He casually picked up the axe and palmed it.

"It's nothing. Personal matter." She turned to Rain and gazed up at him. "I've heard strange rumours about a wolf monster as of late. Very confused rumours of a wolf amongst tigers and snakes and panthara and all manner of disturbing things, monsters possessed by a summoner everyone is terrified of irritating. The funny thing is that I have also heard a rumour from my family, a snatched glance of a disguised wolf on our estate."

She smiled sweetly. Then her hand snapped out and ripped the axe from the Minotaur's grasp, whipping it in an arc over head and slamming it down at Rain's head. He smoothly caught the haft in one paw, halting it dead an inch from his muzzle. He pressed his thumb digit against the wood and applied pressure. With a crackle of splintering wood he snapped the haft and the head of the axe crashed to the mossy cobble below.

The lamia tossed aside the now axeless shaft and laughed. "Oh yes, you will definitely be worth killing. My compliments to you sheepy, you've trained this one well. I will be willing to take it off your hands, a piece of evidence like this implicating you in whatever mess you've made must be burning up your fingers."

Her hand dipped into a bag at her side and pulled out a heavy sack, one that stretched the opening of the dimensional bag it was so large. The thing was clearly immensely heavy and it rattled with coin.

"Five thousand. A generous offer."

"Are you kidding me?! Have you seen this thing? This monster is one of a kind! I know you know, cause I saw you looking and thinking, thinking about how despite being in the business for years you've never seen or heard of a monster like this. Five thousand is a bad joke," scoffed Lyra.

"Yeah!" backed up Opal.

The lamia gave Lyra a sour look. "Ten."

"Twenty.

"Fifteen. You're being hunted."

"Am I? Twenty."

"You need to offload evidence. Sixteen"

"If I were then would I be bargaining? I think you've misread the situation. I can simply walk away. It would be easy for me. In fact the price has gone up. Twenty one."

Rain watched in amusement as an increasingly irritated Lamia was slowly driven into a corner by Lyra, who seemed to know well that she absolutely could not let the opportunity to purchase Rain slip through her fingers. By the end of it eight massive sacks of coins sat on the steps and Red, who had leapt from Lyra's own dimensional bag, was making quick claw calculation to estimate how much coin each contained.

The lamia's eye twitched as she watched Red look over it all.

"Are you sure?" murmured the Minotaur behind her, who seemed to be a little in disbelief that such huge quantities of money were just being dumped out in an alley, all for just one singular monster.

"Yes I'm goddamn sure" hissed the lamia. "Do you have any idea how many monsters I have sourced over the years?" She ran a hand over her face and sighed. "For putting the screws on me sheepy I won't be taking the evolved goblin off your hands. I might have given you a good deal on it, but not now."

"Oh that's fine." said Lyra brightly which just seemed to annoy the lamia further. She blew smoke from her mouth as she puffed on her cigarette.

"Give me its damned heart pin control then kindly get out of my sight."

"Er… heart… pin?"

"Yes, the thing you use to control the monster. It is clearly infinitely stronger than you are. Give me what you are using to stop it attacking us where we stand."

Lyra scratched her cheek. "Uhm, he, uh, doesn't have one?"

The Lamia's cigarette exploded, the tobacco burning up into a fraction of a second and billowing out into a cloud of wildly shifting grey smoke. The smoke slammed into Rain's body as if moved by the hand of a god, spiralling around his limbs and chest and drawing tight in an instant, clamping down and holding him as more smoke crashed into his muzzle and into his mouth, flowing into his nostrils, charging down his throat and into his lungs. He was so surprised by how swiftly it happened that he was slow to react, but when he did he found his limbs bound, his movement hindered as if weighed down. Worse, his lungs were filled with more smoke, making it hard to breathe properly.

He was about to break through and rip the lamia apart when Lyra leapt in front of him.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

"Controlling it. You were insane enough to go around without a heart pin. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? A monster will pretend to cooperate and act as passive as can be, and then they will turn on you. I've seen too many naive levelers discovered dead in their homes, their bodies partially eaten. With this the monster will be stymied and stupefied by my smoke."

Rain had to admit that was true, the smoke seemed to stick in his lungs like glue preventing him from drawing even a partial breath. He felt like he was being suffocated, becoming drowsy. If anything was going to kill him with ease it was suffocation, he had no answer for it, Lyra herself had almost accidentally suffocated him to death.

Still, he felt confident that he could kill this lamia before he ran out of air. If this was necessary to get into the abattoir, then so be it.

"This is none of your concern sheep. The monster is mine. Shoo."

She gestured at the smoke manacles wrapped around Rain's forearms and they drifted forward, pulling him along. Opal and Lyra looked on in concern as he passed by.

The lamia turned and slithered back through the door with Rain following behind. The smoke slammed the door shut behind and Rain found himself alone with the lamia.

He looked around.

Was this the abattoir?

It… seemed a lot like someone's living room if he were honest, with sofas and a coffee table and rug.