Solo [The Underground] Balance is the Norm

[Crypt]

29th of Spring, 513 AV Transaction : Bottle of wine - 12 gm Chicken - 1 gm Total - 13 gm So. Here we are - I am - again. A white rose. A glass of wine - of white wine, medium-bodied and fruity in flavour, swirled around in a champagne coupe by a hooded man, watching the bubbles rise towards and disperse at the surface of the pale amber liquid. He took a large sip - it would send a wine connoisseur reeling and gasping for breath, so uncouth and so unappreciative of the wine it was - and without any regard for its delightful taste, drained the entire glass before snatching the bottle from its position in the middle of the table, pouring another generous measure of the Moscatel into the glass. Crypt was not an alcoholic by any means - it was more of an occasional indulgence, perhaps even recreational, but it also helped with the melancholic moods he would sometimes be in. There was no pain to dull; Dira's conversation with him had seen to that. Her gift was still on his left palm, and he would bear it to his dying day - perhaps even beyond, even after he met the old bastard Lhex. There was only a void, slowly being filled by the drink he was imbibing. Minutes passed, and he began to slice the chicken in front of him into bite-sized pieces, spearing each one on his fork and consuming them almost laboriously. A man sat down at his table and stared at him. Crypt continued to slowly chew his meal, eyes still on his half-filled plate, on his wine. The Djed had already started churning again within him, readying itself to be consumed, to satisfy the hunger for magic Auristics would create. A tap of the fork on the plate as he plunged the three tines into another piece; it was ready. He raised his head slightly, staring at the man. His aura constructed itself around his body in the form of an elongated icosahedron. It was cerulean blue in colour, but it shifted rapidly between each second and the next, never remaining constant. There were instances where Crypt felt something trying to break free from within. It was strange, it was magical, it was familiar. Crypt looked past the physical details - yes, he was six feet tall, had an inordinate amount of chest hair, and his flesh would taste excellent - similar to chicken though - when paired with citrus fruits and mint. All this he gleaned after spending some time observing him, but he dug deeper. He wanted to know who he was. A minute, and the information filtered in. His djed was remaining static, spread around his system as it continually reinforced the physical matter of his assumed form. It was meant to be unstable, continually failing, but the Djed supported it, kept it the way it was. Analogous to the buttress roots of a giant tree, he supposed. It was possibility crystalized; myriad wave-functions that happened to to factorize when the Morpher decided what to transform into. It was transcendence of the human form, it was potential realised. "Arthan." His once-master smirked once, then allowed the transformation to recede. Back to his original form, back to normality, accursed normality. But was it really that bad? After all, everyone began as a normal person. "My family has requested to speak to you, Crypt." As direct as always - where's the customary joke? Crypt wrenched his focus away from the shifting aura that denoted a Morpher to observe what he could of Alban's emotions, that once displayed themselves in colours splashing across the geometrical shape - but no emotion bled from his aura. Alban was being serious for once. "You're being serious, Alban. Why should I assent to their... request?" "Rewards." The single word caught his attention. Crypt straightened up fractionally, finishing off another piece of chicken as he cut short the flow of Djed that allowed him to see auras, closing his eyes for a moment as dizziness washed over him - mostly due to the alcohol-rich wine he had imbibed; over-giving had not occurred yet. "Items you may be interested in." "Keep talking." "But you will have to provide your services for a period of time. They will test you. And you will have to pass. The tests are... dangerous." "I have met Dira herself. I do not fear death." He raised his left palm to show Arthan the black tattoo that marked him as one of Dira's chosen. "Death may be the least of your worries." "Then so be it. What is life without risk? Boring. Humdrum. Monochromatic. Let us go."

[Crypt]

Some bells later.

They had slipped into a back-alley two streets down.

It was dark enough that they were hidden from most.
Arthan's face was as inscrutable as ever, but his hands told a different story; fidgeting uncontrollably, fiddling with a small piece of quartz. Crypt could detect a slight tremble.

Arthan was nervous. This did not bode well.

They entered the Underground through a small ivory door, stepping onto the seemingly fragile staircase. It was a sea of glass grass beneath, tickling his feet every now and then as gently as real grass would. And it led down. It always led down.

The Asylum awaits.

A possibly random thought, but Crypt knew better than to disregard anything, even if it was most ridiculous.

Grains of truth, my boy, grains of truth in every sand dune of lies.

The silence was familiar. Many a time Crypt had sunk to the utter depths of depression after his father's death, unable to even move himself from his bed. It was a familiar, albeit distant, domain. But he had mastered it, and so would he do the same to the silence, the all-encompassing silence.

The bells wore on, and they trudged through the Streets Below, drowning themselves in numerous draughts of the despair, the tristesse, the miseria that the Underground embodied. It was a nocturne most dark; it was a hand grasping the human heart, stifling its motion.

Like gravity it was, almost concrete and physical in nature.

The trembling of Arthan's hands had stopped chimes before, their owner having sunk into a dreamlike state.

Crypt himself fared better; these were the nocturnal doldrums he sailed in, but they were seas he had sailed through and survived. He was alert as always, persevering through the darkness of the Underground. And it was him that sensed a disturbance first.

The echo of footsteps on the plank-covered street broke him out of his nightmarish reverie.

Sight beyond sight then.

He was expecting a burst of colour when he activated Auristics - or, as he liked to call it, the magus senses - but it appeared that the Underground would not be so kind as to allow him that.

He could see the auras, shape and all, but he could not read them. No colour existed for him to examine, to infer conclusions from, and there was no depth in the auras. Concentrating on the aura of a plank beneath him, Crypt received nothing at all. Nothing. No information, not even a hint of what the plank would taste like if he ate it. It remained there, slowly pulsating to some peculiar rhythm he could hardly determine.

Sight is dulled here. I can't read any auras. So I cannot use my eyes, but what if I were to use other senses?

He closed his eyes, and was greeted by the peculiarly loud footsteps of whatever was approaching them down the middle of the street. The sounds became clearer; more importantly, they became distinct.

Each footstep, though mingled with each other, resonated at different frequencies with him, each sending small shivers down different parts of his body. Crypt paused in his slow walk, placing a hand on Arthan to halt his motion as he utilised a simple breathing technique, repeating the cycle of breathing in and out every ten seconds, allowing the sounds to wash over him and give him what he needed.

Eight.

He breathed in again.

The sounds of crumbling earth and rock grinding against wood. Yukmen, most probably. Landspawn. And given that they were created in Alvadas, in the Underground... There's no telling what they be like.

Crypt let out his breath, tapping Arthan on the shoulder.

No response. The Morpher was still in a daze, staring blankly at a nearby wall.

A well-placed slap broke him out of his reverie.

"What?"

The explanation took a matter of seconds. Arthan frowned, looking into the distance. He removed his eye-patch, allowing his eye to gaze into the darkness, searching for the Yukmen ahead.

"I see them. Best prepare for a short fight, laddie. Nowhere we can run to - The Underground's capricious at best, and dangerous to all that enter except a select few. I'd like to see you at work, so I'll leave two. Or three. Prepare whatever you want to prepare. They'll be here in about a chime. No swords or daggers, or I'll gut you before taking you to Ionu's Mercy."

Crypt grimaced. He had no wish to be gutted by Arthan - knowing him and his sense of humor, whatever he stuck into his abdominal area would be barbed. And long. He especially had no desire to undergo the tender mercies of Irene Caene, who Arthan seemed to have a soft spot for.

Pushing that thought aside, Crypt collected himself and lifted his left hand in front of him, tapping it with a finger. He moved it around the knuckles, using the tip of his finger as a guide for his Djed to follow. Repeating the cycle, he created an easily replicable pattern that would allow the Morphing to proceed more smoothly. It was slightly easier this way - in lieu of a focus glyph, Crypt would be using this pattern as a focus for his Djed, to enable him to concentrate more fully on the Morphing process.

Start slowly. Think of your Djed as not a finite source of magic, but as you. You are not using up your Djed; you are manipulating it, pushing it beyond its set boundaries. You will feel it stretch - the Djed is elastic in nature, and if you pull too hard, it will rebound and you will not enjoy it.

His flesh and bones in his left hand had became clay-like as he recalled the lessons in previous years. The Yukmen were closer now, but they would still take some time to reach them. Crypt grasped his left hand with his right, pressing his left thumb into the hand. It sank into the flesh, melding with it flawlessly. It was a strange sensation, losing all semblance of feeling in his left thumb, but he would get used to it in time. He absent-mindedly noted that if he could replicate the numbing sensation, he would be able to artificially raise his pain tolerance. Only if there were no wounds, though.

Knowing that the Yukmen would probably break his fingers if he held them out, Crypt opted to instead mold his entire hand into a blade of bone, as dense and sturdy as he could manage.

A piercing scream broke his concentration, distracting him from his assigned task. He frowned. It was apparent why the Yukmen were taking so bloody long to reach him. They had other victims. But there was no other sound, indicating the possibility that the Yukmen had already finished.

Are they cannibals? No - they're not even human - but do they eat meat? Maybe. There'll be time to finish. If they don't sense us already, which the Underground is likely to do.

He growled. Casting his eyes on his half-finished transformation, he decided not to go all the way through. There was not enough time for experimentation, and he probably wouldn't be able to construct an entire layer of bone thick enough to withstand the Yukmen. Bone spurs would have to do.

He released his left thumb from the confines of his flesh, fighting the strong urge to fidget as a feeling reminiscent of ants crawling all over his hands made itself known to him. He twisted the Djed, allowing it to remember what it once was, releasing part of the morph to allow his thumb to 'spring back' into shape.

"I can't do it. Not now. I'll have to use my dagger."

Arthan snorted, but spoke nothing.

Taking his silence as a sign of assent, Crypt withdrew his dagger, clutching it tightly in his right hand, pointy end down. He was ambidextrous in his childhood, but he grew accustomed to using his left hand much more often than his right, such that only traces of it was left. But it was enough.

He continued the same pattern as before, encouraging the bone to grow there. The skin and muscle beneath the epidermal layer soon turned milky white, changing its structure to that of bone. Crypt, knowing that bone was sometimes hollow, opted for a fully solid structure, warping the Djed to his will, forcing it to fill the gaps he could sense and widen the bone outwards.

The bone erupted outwards, forming rough pointed, conical shapes approximately an inch tall, distributed unevenly around the knuckles but concentrated around the first two. Crypt was inexperienced, and this showed in the overall aesthetic of the transformation.

But it would have to do for now.

I should try to get a knuckleduster of some sort, perhaps even combine it with a blade for a greater kick, not to mention an excellent source of injury.

Arthan nodded to Crypt.

"I'll be watching you, boy. They're here. Looks like only a few - the rest must be somewhere in the distance."

The distinct high-pitched sound that marked the presence of Yukmen grew louder. Distinct shapes made themselves known soon after.

Taking on Yukmen with just a dagger and a badly-morphed fist? Perhaps certain suicide, but there was one mitigating factor that would absolve Crypt of most doubts about his sanity.

This was Alvadas, after all.