“You have my blessing, Star,” Kitten softly said, earning a surprised look from the jinx. “If my master wants you, then he shall have you, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure he gets what he wants. He means that much to me after all.”
Star faintly mewed something in response as Kitten looked into her eyes with hardly any of the usual intimidating, piercing power her gaze usually held.
“I… I don’t know what to say,” Triska uttered. “I never thought I would hear such words from you, or at least not anytime soon. You really have changed since-”
“Kitten?” Eirene spoke up with a raised eyebrow. “Should… I leave you two girls alone?”
“Show us where the fucking doctor is right now or else I’ll skin you alive, cat!” Kitten roared at her with such ferocity that the gargoyles nearby hopped a bit on their pedestals and Eirene jumped back with a surprised yowl. “My master’s property is on the verge of dying here, so move your ass and show us the way or so help me I’ll paint this tunnel with your blood! My master is not losing anyone else, no fucking way, so move it now and show me how to save this girl, you old bitch!”
Eirene stared at her with wide eyes while the gargoyles slowly rubbed their ears as the cambion’s loud cry echoed all throughout the tunnel. After a pause Eirene blinked then looked behind her while Kitten was snarling at her like a rabid animal.
“Um… okay then,” the copycat managed to say before waving Kitten after her. “This way, we’re almost there.”
“Enough talking then, start moving!” Kitten ordered. Eirene smiled weakly at her and nodded then took off with a hastier trot that the cambion closely followed. In her arms Star was staring at the demon in surprise still, with everything she just heard distracting her from the overwhelming pain her body was in.
“Well, you’ve mostly changed,” Triska concluded. “Though I still think it’s for the better. Also, please stop calling the girls ‘property’ when addressing them.”
The copycat and demon made their way deeper into the mountain tunnel, with the corridor soon opening up into a large underground chasm. The main path extended on and slinked around a steep pit that dropped into total darkness, the winding road sticking close to the wall while lowering and curving around a bend further away. Bowls of fire were hanging from the ceiling and walls while the gargoyle statues that were in great number before now became quite scarce with only a few seen here and there on small pillars next to the trail.
“That way leads to where we’re going,” Eirene said pointing ahead. “However it’s the long way. It gradually lowers and spirals around many times before reaching our destination, which is why it’s only used for convoys or fellow monsters who are too large.”
“Too large for what?” Kitten asked.
“For the lift,” Eirene said pointing to the side. Next to the women on the other side of the trail was a cave dug into the wall, this one being constructed not of the same design and elegance as the gargoyles’ architecture was, seeing as the crude stone pillars and arches built to fortify the hollow appeared a little uneven and placed together like a lazy troll decided to just stack the bricks however they might have fit and then called it a day. Inside the cave there were three lifts made for speedy travel between the surface and what awaited below, however at the current moment only one of them was waiting for the women while the other two had already been lowered.
There was a platform in the middle that appeared to be made of old steel plates fastened together with bolts and had a few dents here and there on it, the lift being large enough for a group of people to stand on with ease while they would need to keep away from the edges as there were no guardrails on any side. Instead there were four large chain-link lines fastened to the corners of the lift that led upwards into holes in the ceiling between the bricks.
“Here’s the fastest way down,” Eirene said gesturing to the lift. She grabbed hold of a torch from one of the stone columns and began walking towards the platform before she noticed Kitten just staring at her skeptically.
“By having it fall apart and letting you drop to your death?” Kitten flatly asked. “Because that thing looks like a piece of shit. Don’t get me wrong though, when it breaks and you plunge to your new grave I’ll just fly down and find this Doc person myself. It won’t be any trouble on my part.”
“It’s perfectly safe,” Eirene droned with a roll of her eyes. She walked over onto the platform and stomped on it a few times, the echoing thuds conveying there was empty space beneath it however the floor didn’t budge from the hits.
“It may not look pretty but it’s quite sturdy,” Eirene boasted. “It can actually handle the weight of an ogre, although it takes a little longer to ride for them given their… increased weight. The winches have never once failed us in all the years we’ve used them, and we constantly inspect them to make sure nothing is falling apart or threatening to give us trouble. I ride this thing daily to the surface from below so I know it’s going to hold just fine. Now do hurry up, we have places to be right now, and I have many more matters to attend to today other than this.”
“If you say so,” Kitten dryly commented. “Just know that when that thing does fall apart I’ve already got my hands full, so try to land on your feet when you fall.”
“I always do,” Eirene winked. “Now are you coming or not? If you want to take the road it’ll be quite the hike, whereas this way will take considerably less of our precious time.”
“Whatever gets us to the doctor the fastest, I don’t care,” Kitten muttered. She walked over onto the platform while Star was again holding her stomach with distressed mews. Eirene chuckled at the demon before reaching over for a lever in one of the nearby stone columns. With a hard pull a loud clank was heard, activating the winches above that were heard jangling and grinding away. The chains rattled as the floor jerked down a bit before it slowly started descending. As the lift traveled down into a deep pit beneath the boarding station Kitten cautiously observed her passing surroundings, seeing small openings with lit hallways behind them here and there while a few gargoyles were seen hanging on the walls as they descended.
A prolonged silence ensued between the countess and Kitten, something the demon grew steadily uneasy from as they descended further and further into the unknown. After listening to the clacking chains and the creaking platform below her while almost swearing to herself that she could hear whispers of voices in the nearby corridors, Kitten decided to strike up a conversation with the copycat that was watching her with a playful grin the entire time.
“Now that I’m sworn to secrecy in your little club,” the cambion sharply spoke up. “And we apparently have time to kill seeing as this thing moves so incredibly slow that I’m contemplating pushing you off and flying down to the bottom in order to save time, might I ask you something about Kroanette?”
“If either that or being pushed off this thing are my only two choices, I’ll opt to answer your question instead.”
“Why didn’t she come to see us instead of Calam, or even accompany her at all? It’s been days since she left our group. Why did she come here of all places instead of back home to her family?”
“I’m afraid she ran into trouble while traveling severely off-course from Ruhelia’s general direction,” Eirene sighed. “She claims to have known the way towards the centaur homeland, but she didn’t appear to know it very well.”
“That sounds like her,” Kitten flatly agreed.
“Though it wasn’t just getting lost that she suffered from,” Eirene continued. “The poor thing had a run-in with some rather unsavory hooligans out there, monsters that belonged to The Sisterhood.”
“What happened to her?” Kitten inquired.
“She was ambushed. We had a returning scouting party come across her as she was attacked by those monsters. It was a good thing too; she not only broke her leg during the encounter but was also subjected to some very vile toxin from a gremlin. She wasn’t in good condition at all when
she came here.”
Eirene ruffled her hair with a saddened mew before smiling a little at Kitten.
“Don’t worry though, she’s going to be okay. My people brought her here so she could be safely hidden from The Sisterhood and nursed back to full health. Doc is the one who personally tended to her.”
“She’s okay now?”
“Getting there,” Eirene replied with a small shrug. “Her leg was the easiest thing to heal for us. Oh my, she was certainly freaking out when she saw the break, but Doc is a miracle worker of sorts. At the time we had nobody present who could tend to the injury with magic, but Doc was able to use a special elixir she concocted to speed up the healing. According to Doc her leg should be fully mended and ready to support her by tomorrow, you needn’t worry.”
“She broke her leg,” Kitten repeated, looking down in thought while Star was cringing and trying to suppress her painful mewls. “So that’s why she hasn’t run back to my master yet?”
“Well, one of the reasons,” Eirene explained. “The other was that dreadful toxin a gremlin used to incapacitate her. It was an especially potent poison, designed to inflame the lungs and throat so the victim chokes to death in a very painful manner.”
Kitten and Star turned to her in surprise from that before the copycat held up her hand.
“She’s fine, you can relax. We’ve had her on an herbal remedy that’s been curing her of the poison, we were just lucky the scouting party had some on hand otherwise Kroanette would have been dead on that very night. She’s able to breathe again, she just needs a little more time with the medicine to make sure the poison is out of her entirely. At the moment she’s confined to bedrest, and let me tell you having a centaur confined to a bed is certainly a headache for everyone involved. Those girls love to run, and get incredibly irritable when they’re not able to.”
“So… she’s really going to be fine then?” Kitten clarified.
“Yes, she’s going to be perfectly fine,” Eirene assured. “She just needs a little more time to heal her leg and remove the toxins in her body, and then she’ll be running about like usual. We’ll visit her after we get Star squared away with Doc. She’s not contagious, you can sit in the room and talk with her to your heart’s content, she just can’t leave her room until Doc gives the okay.”
“I see,” Kitten mused, looking down with a serious expression.
“So that’s why Kroanette didn’t come back and had Calam send a message in her stead,” Triska pondered.
‘A fitting story, however I’ll reserve my relief for when I see Kroanette is alive with my own eyes.’
“Do you think she’s lying?”
‘To be honest, I’m not sure what to think anymore after coming here. All I know is I’m not letting my guard down just yet.’
“I can understand if you’re still troubled by this,” Eirene added. “Or if you choose to distrust me until proven otherwise. I’m in no position to expect anything else from you as of now.”
“It can’t be helped,” Kitten pointed out. “After all, even if your city above is full of deceivers for your supposedly noble charade and your words are somehow true, hearing of a centaur in Stonegate only makes me think about a lamb in a butcher shop. It’s rather hard to imagine a centaur being kept here under any other pretenses.”
Eirene merely laughed heartily at that remark, with Kitten and Star observing her closely as the copycat found great amusement in the demon’s words. With a sudden clang the platform came to a stop on the stone floor, the women now standing in a small cave at the bottom of the long shaft. Torches were lit around the walls while an opening into a stone brick hallway was seen through a curved archway of similar sloppy design as the boarding station further above.
“You’d be surprised how many centaurs we’ve tended to,” Eirene chuckled as she led them towards the hallway, casually placing the torch in a holder and walking through the archway. Kitten followed the copycat as she guided them through what appeared to be an underground monastery, with dozens of adjoining passageways and large chambers being passed by that were bustling with copycats, gremlins, and trolls. The many monsters were dressed in dreary clothing as per usual, however there was something that immediately struck Kitten and Star as strange.
It wasn’t the creepy looking hallways or weathered old wooden doors that were seen in the passageways that had to have been constructed decades ago at the very least, or the gloomy lighting provided by lanterns hanging from the walls here and there that was reminiscent of what one might find in a dark, foreboding dungeon, and it wasn’t even the fact that they were literally surrounded by monsters that had a terrible reputation amongst those in Eden for their heinous actions and lustful nature. Not even the fact that they were far, far under the surface of Eden where not even Twilight herself could find them was something they thought of at the moment. Instead it was one glaring distinction between what they saw on the surface of Stonegate and what they were now seeing deep below it.
“Hello,” a goblin said with a kind smile on her face.
“Excuse me,” a gremlin said as she passed behind Kitten with a friendly wave.
“Newcomers?” a copycat asked her sister, the two smiling curiously at Kitten and Star.
“I love that dress,” another copycat purred as she eyed over the demon’s attire.
“Coming through, watch it,” a troll said as she and another were carrying a large crate through the hall, with passing monsters along with Eirene and her companions stepping aside for them. As the workers headed through they smiled and nodded at Kitten, with the demon showing a very bewildered look on her face now. Slowly she gazed around at the surrounding monsters as something very disturbing was easily noticed by her.
“Everyone’s fucking smiling and happy down here,” she bluntly pointed out. “What the hell?”
“Follow me,” Eirene laughed as she waved her over. “It will all make sense soon.”
“I doubt that,” Kitten commented as she followed the copycat further into the busy corridors. She watched in puzzlement the sight of seeing an arachne helping a goblin repair some broken bricks in an archway with webbing and new stones, she passed by a copycat that was reading through several papers she had while a gremlin was following her and talking about an alchemic formula they should try next, and rounding a corner she immediately stopped as did Eirene in front of another unusual sight.
“For the last time, those don’t go in this wing!” argued the first annoyed woman with a heavy snide accent.
“And I’m telling you they do!” shouted the second. “I’ve got a catalog right here; this crate needs to go with the others in storeroom eighteen. Can’t you read?”
“What the fuck?” Kitten breathed out in surprise.
“It can’t be…” Triska softly said.
Star rubbed her eyes then stared in surprise at what was actually in front of her.
“Ladies, please try to calm yourselves,” Eirene sighed as she stepped forward to help with the argument. Before her was a cyclops with a large crate resting beside her, the monster having a flustered look in her single green eye while she crossed her muscular arms in discontent. In front of her was a woman dressed in rugged boots, dirty black pants with a long blue leather skirt around her hips, a brown tunic that had its buttons almost ready to snap off as they struggled to hold in her large bust, and chestnut hair that had to be tangled in permanent knots given how unkempt it looked. Her eyes were red and glaring at the cyclops while her hands were keenly set at her hips with one of them holding a large mallet. However there was something very specific that set her apart from everyone else Kitten had seen so far.
She was human.
“What seems to be the problem here?” Eirene asked with a tired smile.
“She’s the problem!” the cyclops shouted, pointing to the upset woman. “I’ve got a box of salvaged armor and ore here, and orders to store it in storeroom eighteen. But she thinks there’s a mistake when clearly it’s writte
n right here on the goddamned scroll!”
“I can see better than you can, and we both know it!” the girl angrily replied with a snooty tone. “You’re the one with the hearing problem, lil’ lass, because I’m telling ya those materials are stowed in storeroom sixteen! So haul that crap out of here and quit wasting my time, I’ve got important shit to be doing here!”
“Okay, let me take a look at the catalog,” Eirene ordered, snatching the scroll from the cyclops and reading through it while the two women continued to growl at each other. After a moment the copycat shook her head and handed the scroll to the upset monster.
“Have to side with Hilda,” she said, with the cyclops turning to her in dismay while the human snidely chuckled with a smug grin. “Sorry, Vevil, but it looks like there was a bit of a smudge on the paper. It actually says storeroom sixteen.”
“What?” Vevil cursed as she brought the paper up close to her eye. “Dammit, really?”
“Told ya so,” Hilda scoffed with a snarky smirk.
“Did you even look at the paper?” Eirene questioned her.
“No. Didn’t have to. I already knew that stuff didn’t belong here.”
“So you didn’t even check the catalog to make sure it wasn’t a mistake, you just assumed Vevil was in the wrong right away and cussed her out for it?” Eirene quizzed the lady. Hilda mumbled something around her grunt as she looked away, offering no clear answer to that question.
“Next time take a moment to actually check the catalog before going off on one of us. It was a simple mistake made by some dirt, something you could have clearly and kindly pointed out to her rather than starting a fight with her about it.”
“She started it!” Hilda shouted, pointing to Vevil with her hammer as the cyclops lifted up the heavy crate with an annoyed scoff at the woman.
“I know for a fact you started it, Hilda,” Eirene sighed. “You’re always quick to draw your tongue in an argument with others and, I hate to have to point this out again, but every time I get a report about you getting into a fight with someone it’s always because you struck first. If anyone dares disagree with you or question what you say they get your hammer to their face it seems.”
Chronicles of Eden - Season II - Act II Page 21