“Stop!” Bassi exclaimed, frustration evident in her voice. “Stop, stop, stop… stop before you hurt my best distraction.”
“Sorry,” I apologised, both to her and to Lark. Carefully, I put my daggers away, ramming them home into the sheathes at my hip with a practiced ease that I had never practiced.
“Clearly whatever happened to you when you were dropped on that rooftop extends to more than just fae magic,” she groaned, rubbing at her eyes for a moment. “Goddess, you’re a tough one to figure.”
“She’s a tough one not to get stabbed by too,” Lark commented with a grin, still holding his sword loosely at his side.
“Yes, I can see that,” Bassi grumbled, opening her eyes again to frown at me.
Moving back to lean against a worn and weathered stone pillar, Lark raised an eyebrow at the grumpy snake woman. “Kinda reminds me of you, boss.”
“Yes, I know,” she hissed, tapping at one of her sheathed short swords as she frowned in thought.
“What do you mean?” I asked Lark, finally getting a prompt that might sate my growing curiosity. It had been another week of training, starting with Basilisk saying that we weren’t making any progress with my magic, and that turning into a shadow was still pretty useful for now. Instead, she’d started testing my combat skills, since I’d mentioned I had none.
As she pitted me against various guild members, that had quickly been proven false. I was deadly with my daggers, to the point that she had called me off like this multiple times because whatever instinct I was running on was geared for killing, not sparring.
Which brought me around to my curiosity. Not once had she been my opponent, and in fact I hadn’t seen her even draw the twin curved shortswords that she almost lovingly referred to as her fangs.
Lark nodded to me, answering my question. “She’s like you, can’t spar. Not because she can’t stop herself going for killing blows like you… nah, she’s—“
“Lark,” Bassi interrupted, a warning in her voice.
“What?” Lark frowned, rolling his eyes. “She’s one of us now ain’t she? Just tell her! No need to be all cagey.”
Bassi didn’t respond, simply glaring at the man with her terrifying eyes until he backed down, raising his free hand in surrender.
I felt disappointment wash over me, then hurt as I realised she didn’t trust me. Sure, we’d only know each other for three weeks, but I’d thought we’d been forming a pretty solid friendship. I stayed silent as the emotions washed over me, finding a pillar like Lark had and leaning against it, trying to keep my expression neutral as I waited.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” she told me quietly, her eyes losing some of their ferocity.
“Will I?” I asked, hurt turning to frustration as it was infused into my words. She and I had become pretty fast friends over the past few weeks, or so I’d thought. Shit, I trusted her enough that I could smile and laugh as she came at me with a knife, I figured that might have been reciprocated at least a little. What the hell was so bad about her fighting style that she didn’t want to talk about it?
I realised my tone was a mistake when her eyes hardened again, her mouth opening to spit words back at me. Before she could though, Lark interjected, clearing his throat, “You know… Bassi, there’s a place with an overabundance of perfectly murderable training partners beneath our feet. Just take her down there.”
She stood there and considered him for a moment, tonguing at her fangs again in thought. Her gaze flicked to meet mine again, still with that green fire lighting their depths. “Possibly…” she murmured, her eyes hardening even further into a glare. “But that will mean that I have to fight, and I would only consider that if someone doesn’t ask questions about the why and how of what I do. Understand?”
“Oh, I understand,” I sighed, resigning myself to being one of the untrusted. I guess that wasn’t really fair, she’d taken me in while knowing I hadn’t given her the whole story. Still, it stung a little, and I closed my eyes to keep her from seeing that.
Seeking the comfort it brought, I tugged the mask up from around my neck, making sure it fit properly, covering my nose and mouth. I liked the mask, it hid me when my confidence was hurting, keeping any from reading my emotions with any clarity.
“We’ll be down there for a couple of days,” Bassi told me as I opened my eyes. “Pack a bag, get a bedroll and lightstone. See you at the safe house entrance at noon.”
Then she was off, leaving the room to go up into the main hideout. Good job Mist, now you have to spend a few days alone with her while she’s pissed with you.
“Be gentle with her,” Lark said quietly, drawing my attention back to him. “She’s only as strong as she is because of what she’s been through. The strongest people are forged in fire, or so they say.”
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I nodded. Made sense, which meant that I was just being a dick. Although, I was still a dick that was hurting, I wanted to be trusted by all these people, to be one of them. Bassi most of all though, she was fun to hang out with, bantering and teasing each other.
With a sigh, I followed in Bassi’s wake and headed up towards the main hideout again. I could deal with any painful emotions. It’s not like I hadn’t dealt with far worse than something as simple as this in my short life.
I spent what was left of the morning packing up a bag as tightly as possible. I didn’t want to be lugging all sorts of crap around in a place that apparently had dangerous monsters in it. A change of underwear or three, simple travel rations from Navigator and a bedroll. I found a whole drawer in one of the storage rooms, full of lightstones, which were literally just stones enchanted to give off light. They each came in little pouches that were designed to stop the light from coming out if a thief needed to stay hidden.
Noon rolled around, at least according to the numerous clocks that hung all over the place. Hard to tell time when there were no windows. Down at the entrance, Bassi was leaning against a wall, rolling a lightstone around in the palm of her hand. When she glanced up she gave me a tentative smile, followed by pushing herself off the wall.
“Ready to go?” she asked succinctly, expression closed after her smile faded.
I nodded. “Yeah. No idea for what, though.”
“Monsters,” she shrugged, turning and unlocking the main door.
Right, because that totally made sense. Monsters. What monsters? Why, monsters of course!
Regardless of that lacklustre briefing, I followed her out the door and into the ruins. I was starting to suspect that the ruin’s purpose was the one it was currently used for. It was a dungeon, pure and simple. Well, and a sewer apparently, which had me hoping against hope that the two functions were kept separate… because that would make for a very gross next few days.
Bassi was silent as she led the way through twists and turns that had no discernable purpose. Corridors led this way and that without any reason, leading to rooms that seemed to have no point for existing. Fountains of fresh water burbled happily in some rooms at least, quelling any fears about having to drink sewer water. I couldn’t keep my silence any longer, I had to ask her.
“Bassi, why does it seem like these ruins have no purpose?” I asked quietly, hoping she would at least reply.
She turned slightly to glance back at me, then with a sigh, she slowed her pace until we walked side by side. “Always so many questions,” she said wryly, although without any real malice to her tone. “It is a ruin, Mist. It doesn’t have a purpose anymore.”
“That’s what I’m trying to say though, it doesn’t seem like it had a purpose even back when it was in use, if it ever was,” I said, gesturing to the boring grey stone walls around us. “Who in the hell even built this place, why? It makes no sense. It almost seems like it was built for the purpose that the city currently uses it for. I haven’t seen any of the waterways that the city keeps dumping its trash into, like it’s entirely separate from the parts with monsters in them.”
“It is,” she said bluntly. “The waterways very rarely intersect the dry sections of the ruins. I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at though, just because we do not understand the intended purpose of some of the rooms and such that are down here, doesn’t mean they had none.”
“Right, but there should be a few things that would be easily recognisable to us, if the people who built this place were even remotely like us,” I explained, trying to think back on my history classes. “If a race of beings needs to sleep, they will have safe places to do so, living quarters or bedrooms. If they need to defecate or otherwise pass waste, they will have safe places to do so as well. Both of those things are situations in which a person or animal is vulnerable, and it is reflected in pretty much every culture since the dawn of time.”
Her eyebrows rose as I explained myself, furrowing quickly as she glanced through another doorway into another useless room. “You know, now that you mention it… I’ve never seen a place where one might… pass waste, as you called it.”
“Right, and I’m assuming if there were any beds or furniture at the higher levels, it’s been ransacked already,” I nodded. “There’s a whole list of things I could go into about the needs of a society, and I see pretty much none of it here. It’s creepy.”
Bassi snorted in amusement, lightly punching my arm. “You know, I really could have done without that insight. Now I feel like we’re walking into some ancient murder dungeon.”
“I think we actually are,” I chuckled, my heart soaring for a moment as she gave me a genuine smile. “Just… for the monsters, not for us. I mean, what ancient mega-architect intentionally builds a bloody great maze, hides valuables in it and then creates traps and seeds it with monsters, then says, yup, job well done. This will make a fine place to live.”
“You’re right, the implications of that are pretty unsettling,” she said, losing her smile as she stared around us. Then it was back with a vengeance as her face quirked into a smirk. “Don’t fret though little Mist, I’ll protect you.”
I rolled my eyes. “You are such a gentlewoman.”
“That I am,” she agreed, a cocky little wink punctuating her next words, “That is… until I’m not.”