Chapter 174

◈ Chapter 174:

The sun beat down overhead and the air sizzled. The sound of insects provided background noise and songbirds chirped softly in the courtyard's one tree. Rain gazed up at the endless sky as he lay against the trunk, his view partially obscured by the leaves. Sunlight dappled across his body, the leafy shadows shifting in the breeze.

It was an incredibly soothing day, one that demanded sunbathing and cool drinks and body weary peace, relaxation to the bone.

Rain couldn't say he felt it. Despite his best efforts to calm himself little worries still gnawed at him, his breath coming a tiny bit faster than it should, a little core of tension just below his ribs.

He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them. Yep. Still there. A bubble of anxiety that just could not be willed away no matter how he wrestled with it.

Time was the problem. Running out of time had an inescapable gravity all of its own, and with it came a sense of unease welded to its surface that could not be separated no matter how he mentally pried at it.

His head rolled down with a sigh and his eyes lazed to the side to see Pickle racing through the long grass, her siblings chasing behind. She had a donut held overhead, apparently stolen from her sister judging by the bite taken out of it and the trails of jam that were rolling down her white furred arms, not that Pickle seemed to mind.

Kala suddenly leapt, jumping into a flying tackle and crashing into Pickle's legs. They went down rolling head over heels before coming to a stop. A moment later pickle pinged back up, a jam donut impaled on one of her tiny nub horns, an explosion of jam all over her face.

She blinked as she realised what had happened. Then she dabbed at the jam with a digit and sampled it. She smiled happily.

Kala climbed up beside her and looked in dismay at what had become of her donut.

"What the hell Pickle!"

"Nice!" said pickle quite happily.

"Not nice! Bad! I was eating that!" Kala snatched the donut from her horn. It was fairly deflated but still edible. She nibbled an edge and brightened up as it still tasted good despite the few blades of grass stuck to it.

Their brother neared with his own donut and looked smugly at his sister's inferior donut.

Pickle paused in licking jam and noticed his pristine donut. The light of greed entered her eyes and she reached out a paw.

"NO!" snapped Kala, slapping her paw away.

"Need," said Pickle, deadly serious.

"No, you don't need another donut, why are you even pilfering food Pickle? We can get as much as we want now we're rich."

"New food. For Bean."

"You want to— absolutely not, that's like feeding the rats behind the dumpster! Stop encouraging that horrible thing!"

Pickle crossed her arms and looked down her nose at her sister.

"Gib."

"Or what?"

She snapped out a paw and pointed. After a reluctant moment Rain realised she was pointing at him. Was she expecting him to intervene in this donut negotiation?

Kala followed her pointing to find Rain and blanched as she realised he was watching them.

Rain rolled his eyes. "You can't just point at me and expect people to do whatever you want Pickle. It doesn't work that way." he gravelled.

Pickle's hand drooped, clear shock on her face at this utter betrayal and backstab.

Kala, realising that she no longer had anything to worry about from Rain lit up with glee.

"You can't just yell 'Big Fluff' anymore when you're not getting your way Pickle, I know that's totally a bluff now!"

Pickle looked at her sister, then at the fresh donut in her brother's hand. It was lightly dusted with powdered sugar and chocolate sprinkles. Magnificent. She still needed it. Obviously.

She reached out a jam covered paw for the donut and the brother took a step back, hugging the donut protectively.

Possession of this 'donut' was a necessity in her consideration, meaning that she had to resort to more desperate measures. Her ultimate reserve weapon.

Pickle drew in breath, her small chest expanding and then she let rip her voice.

"HERE BEAN!"

The call for reinforcement was like a whip crack of alarm across the courtyard, Kala flinching and stumbling back, real fear on her face.

Behind her Velatha jerked away from the fancy new outdoor dining table and looked around, searching for any scaleless intruder into their little courtyard garden. Even Warwick was looking around sourly, ready to deal Bean a carefully placed boot.

No one appeared however and Pickle was left looking a little deflated. The others seemed all too pleased that Bean hadn't heeded the call however.

Rain watched out of the corner of his eye as something pink and red scuttled along beneath the overhang of a roof like some kind of horrifying spider. Bean's bloodshot pink eyes peaked from the edge and carefully looked at the family relaxing in the sun, something so disturbing to look at contrasting so completely with the perfect summer day. There was a certain measurement there, with the way Bean looked over the family. It was almost protective…? Bean's eyes came to rest on Pickle's jam covered face and— did Bean just roll his eyes?

Rain wondered if he was seeing things as the scaleless lizard gave Pickle one last check over to see she was okay then disappeared.

"Hah! No ones coming to save you Pickle, no ones going to protect a donut thief! Now come here!"

It was Pickle's turn to back away in concern as her sister took a threatening step toward her.

"Stop messing around and come eat." Came Velatha's cutting voice "And by that I mean come now or you won't get to eat at all."

That finally got their attention and they turned to the table where Pickle's mother was putting the finishing touches to lunch. A lunch that was over the top luxurious, the same as all the things this family did since becoming filthy rich. But at least it was more reasonable than the night before when things were really absurd, putting on the kind of feast a noble would throw, and that included the booze. Still, Rain thought they were getting a little better as the days passed. Pickle and her sister weren't running around in tiara's, and none of them had their fingers crammed with rings anymore. The newly rich phase was slowly passing.

He noted Lyra standing at the table, picking at a bowl of strawberries and cream.

The sheep girl had sort of gotten over being pregnant? After hyperventilating all morning and refusing to leave her bed while babbling about what her parents might think she had eventually calmed down and slowly taken her mind off it. Although that might partly have been because Opal kept climbing into bed to try to fondle her which a sober Lyra was not having.

She bit into a strawberry and glanced over at Rain, catching him watching her. She blinked and swallowed, then raised an eyebrow in question.

After a minute where Rain didn't reply but kept watching she tried to pick up a nearby plate, or rather platter, which held a small mountain of meat.

It was way too heavy for her to lift of course, and after a moment Velatha stepped in to help her, the muscles of her exposed arms bulging as she took most of the weight herself, laying bare her past as a dungeon diver and her strength based Class.

"This isn't for me, I uh, don't eat that much," Lyra glanced down at the arc of her belly, suddenly recalling she had a story to keep up. "I mean, right now, other times I eat a lot! Like this morning, which is why uh, I'm uh, like this, uhm. This happened before! It's from eating too much! Haha! I just ate too much!" came Lyra's voice, growing increasingly hysterical.

Velatha squinted at her. "Girl, what else could it be? You were flat as a washboard just yesterday. Eyes bigger than your stomach don't you think? Or maybe not it seems."

"R-right."

Together they carried it over to Rain who sat up and took hold of it.

Rain looked blankly down at the snack. It wasn't even that appealing. Sure he was hungry, but that was being muffled below the agitation he was feeling.

Lyra seemed to notice his disinterest and stayed behind as Velatha returned to the table

"I should be the one looking all worried, not you, considering…" she made a face and touched at her midriff.

Rain glanced where her hand rested and grunted.

"I know."

He put the platter to one side and lifted a paw and pressed it against her front, engulfing her hand and belly. He felt Lyra squirm beneath, not displeased by the touch.

This was a whole other box of things he needed to mentally process and was putting off. Putting off very carefully. Maybe that was why he was obsessing with the other things.

"So, what's wrong?"

"I feel like time is running out to do… something, to get at Brax… except I can't. He's somehow, I don't know how, he's gotten strong, stronger than me. Too many levelers have seen me, know of me now, sooner or later things are going to go wrong… more wrong than they did at the party. I feel like I have to act now or soon, because if I don't, any last chance will be gone, and I won't be able to stay in Florens any longer."

"Er, are you saying you want to do something reckless? Because that's not a good idea…"

"No, it's not. And I don't." Rain rubbed at his brow in frustration.

"Hey hey," Opal waved over at him from where she sat cross legged in the grass. In front of her was Red who was also sat cross legged. The kobold was squinting down at a piece of paper with a single word written on it and a crude picture. The kobold's efforts in reading were going a lot less smoothly than Opals had, despite Opal's best efforts. "...Burrrd." said the Kobold, extending the syllable.

In front of Opal were reams of paper, her notes taken from the dwarves, information about Florens' gangs.

"Why are you worried about that leveler who's so far up his own asshole that he can gargle his own stomach acid when all you gotta do is get stronger than him? You have it easy, just eat more!"

"Your solution to everything is literally just eat more Opal."

"Yes." said Opal, with complete sincerity.

Lyra sighed and rubbed her brow. "Don't tell me you want him to eat a few streets of random people because I'm not—

"No, not that, just go after one of the actually big gangs!"

She quickly shuffled through the papers spread around the grass in front of her, found what she was looking for, and bounced up before skipping over and shoving the page under Rain's nose.

On it was a crude scrawl of some cages with what looked like monsters clutching at the bars, as well as a vague description of a gang and where they were based, it had a lot of notable leaders listed.

"What's with the cages?"

"This gang is different, they don't interact directly with the slums, in fact they never even see each other, but the slums really really really hate them. The dwarf who told me about them couldn't stop grinning at just the idea of us going after them. I couldn't either after she said what they were."

"...Why?"

Opal scratched her nose. "They run a forbidden Monster Abattoir. The biggest one. And it's a very bad place that does bad things to monsters. So we should totally get them!"

Behind her Warwick's drink came down with a clunk on the table and he turned to stare at the goblin.

"Madness," hissed Warwick. "You're talking of attacking—"

"You know of it?" gravelled Rain.

"Know of it? I used to work for them! What did you think I did before my team was lost to the dungeon, before I found Pickle? We took up monsters that weren't allowed on the surface, and what paid best for that was The Abattoir. Our work for them built this place!"

Rain carefully pushed the platter to one side and shuffled awkwardly over to the table on his bum. He looked at the old grizzled monster hunter who sat across from him.

"What is the Abattoir?"

It was notable that Warwick didn't even hesitate to talk with the giant wolf monster sat before him now. He seemed more annoyed that Rain was plying him for information than the fact that Rain was a monster.

"It's not a single place, it's a company. It's impossible for it to remain in the same place for long because sooner or later, no matter how hard they try, a powerful monster inevitably escapes causing the guard to come down on their heads. Every time a monster gets out it gets into the slums, and then it begins indiscriminately killing the weak. That's why the slums hate the Abattoir, the Abattoir's greed means their deaths, and these monsters that get out, they are truly awful. The very strongest we brought them were considered weak compared to what they kept in their cages. …Doing work for that lot, it wasn't— I don't do that anymore."

"They are bold enough to keep monsters as bad as that on the surface?"

"We're talking about a place where a panthara is considered a common sight. So yes. It's a place for the wealthy, a place to purchase and fight a forbidden monster outside of the danger of the dungeon. Any with a great need to level massively and swiftly go there, whether that's in greed or fear. It's a place for the careful, the ambitious, the impatient, and the desperate."

"I'm most of those things, sometimes I think all of them." Rain shrugged. "I've given you enough money to drown yourself in several times over, so tell me about this Abattoir, you have no reason not to since you don't work for them anymore."

Warwick considered this.

"You want to attack them?"

Rain nodded.

He blew out a long breath. "I'm no fool, I have some idea of what you are capable of, driving off a succubus, that mess with the nobles. The Abattoir is a blight on the slums. If you take care of this… that would only be a good thing for so many here."

Warwick raised a hand. One moment his hand was empty, and then the next he was holding a card. He placed it down on the table revealing a picture of a butcher's cleaver crudely scrawled onto it with black ink. He slid it across the table to rain.

"This is what we were given as trusted suppliers to the Abattoir. The Abattoir is well defended. You can use it…."

Opal snatched the card from the table and examined it.

"Oh, I get it! You think we should sell Rain to them and then once he's past their guard he can cause all kinds of mischief!"

Warwick nodded.

"Wha— we're not selling Rain!" cried Lyra. "Why would they even want him?!"

Warwick gave her a funny look. "You know why, don't play games. Any leveler can tell by looking that this one is well worth the kill, a rich vein of levels for the taking. The Abattoir will pay a small fortune for him."

Red perked up from his reading hearing that.

"I one hundred percent support this endeavour."