"Everything fine for you?" I ask Hrurim as I eye his pulling of the wagon. The strapped-up man looks my way and nods up, a slight bend to his lips. For the moment, the extra weight ain't too much of an issue for the human. Still.
"Comfy as I'll ever be," he tells me, and I smile in appreciation for his sarcasm.
"Wonderful." I chirp, slowing my pace down to get back in line with Pops as his mind wanders. He blinks forcefully, his eyes throwing themselves onto me. A palm comes up, and he rakes it down my quills. Their stems quiver happily, bringing a little smile to my face.
"We need to find a replacement for our lost goods." he says, though, as obvious as it is, I want to chastise him for saying it.
"But, what? The goods we were carrying weren't exactly treasure. But there's still a lot of lost money in what we did have." I say back to him, eyeing the ground for anything that might look like an odd ore vein or something that's escaped prospecting eyes. Unfortunately for us, these tunnels are bare minimum in the centuries of age. More than enough time for the travellers of it, let alone the diggers of the tunnel to pick it clean.
"Something that can get us the money to pay off the problem." Pops tells me and I nod, understanding the fundamentals of it.
"I have to repeat." I say, and his palm pats my head with growing force, though he never gets rough. It stops and slides down to my cheek, gently squeezing it.
"Heiya... We're not in a situation where I can answer the question. We simply have to keep moving and hope we will find what we need." he's right to point out and I nod in understanding. His paw goes back to his side, finding his weapon stock soon enough.
"Still, we can go over things, no?" I ask, a bunch of impromptu jobs already rolling through my head. There's always some small gang we can go after. A drug dealer we can rob. An arms deal we can interrupt. The tunnels hide a lot from the eyes of the law, bribe-filled paw or not.
"No point until we know what we're dealing with." Pops is right to say, and I look away, a grumble building up in my throat. My lips break open, a raspberry disturbing the tunnel's air.
"It gives us something to do..." I finally mutter and I meet Pops' hard stare. I shuffle away, hoping to put some distance between me and how uncomfortable that stare makes me.
"Walk." he answers, silence settling between us and I speed ahead back to Hrurim.
"Don't let it bother you, Heiya. He's got a lot on his head." Hrurim says and I feel an obnoxious sense of déjà vu swamp me.
"I know..." I spit, a snarl coming to my lips.
"Come on, don't ruin that pretty little face of yours," he tells me and I smack him with my musket's stock.
He knocks it away and uses his human size to reach over and grab my head, "Get off..."
"Smile." he orders and I force the fakest of them all up onto my face.
"Thatta girl," he lets out, releasing me.
"So... Any ideas as to what we might get up to, to try and solve our lost delivery problem?" I ask, hoping to have something else to occupy the time with. Looking at rocks is cool and all, but it gets very boring. Very fast.
Spent too much of my life looking at rocks. They're so gods and goddesses be damned boring! Grey. Grey. Grey. Grey. Oooooo! These ones have lines in them! Bah... Bah.
"We can find a racing gang and beat them up? Not like they're ever well-trained." Hrurim huffs, his mouth popping off like their muffler removed customs. Obnoxious vehicles.
"Guns are still guns." I let out and Hrurim scoffs.
"The Madame's establishment was filled with people who felt the same way. Experience is one powerful circumstance changer," he tells me and my head shakes as that's hardly a fair comparison. It's like comparing my singing in a bath or shower to professionals. Much less my favourite, Serelv Preslav.
I giggle as an image of the man flashes through my head. If I'm lucky, my music player might still be intact and somewhere in our supplies. But, it's no biggie if it isn't. Can always steal one from whatever shop the next town has. No way they won't have the one way to enjoy the greatest sensation in the music world. Not one way!
"Well, I certainly know that's not because of what I've just said. So, how about it?" he questions, his eyes having all the direction of a straight charging ryphurgok.
"H-How about what?" I ask, shutting up with a fur-hidden blush.
"Your thoughts are of something dear," he flatly lets out, a smirk building.
"Just... Music." I struggle to say without any struggle at all. I huff my way into silence, a slight smile remaining.
"Oh, yeah, that's right, you got a crush on one of them big singers?" he goes and I glare.
"One of them...?" I question, the offence dripping with enough acidity to melt the path beneath us.
"Yeah, you know. What-his-face. The one with the weird pout and hip thrust. That thing." he dismissively goes, his face hiding away behind his palm. The flame of his lighter comes up, but I know he has nothing there. He even goes so far as to blow imaginary smoke...
"Serelv Preslav!" I snap, knowing that he's teasing, anyway. Making a mockery of the greatest musician the world has ever seen... The most handsome, sweet-sounding piece of quilled meat out there-
"That's the man!" he claps, chuckling at the end. A glare overtakes me, his words interrupting my daydreaming.
"Stupid human..." I mutter and his hand comes over, giving my quills a quick ruffle. He pre-emptively pricks himself on them, but it does not stem my wrath. I smack him with my stock, again.
"Alright, alright," he lets out, waving me away as we reach an artificial crossroads. Turning my head, the opposite way to Hrurim's, I spot an odd sight. Light. Lots of it.
"Hey... Pops... What's that?" I ask, calling him over and getting the attention of our human companion as well.
"Light." he quips and Pops smacks some silence into him.
"Not right." Pops grumbles as a breeze of all things reaches us. I close my eyes and something grainy catches in my fur. The breeze dies down and I rub a paw across my face to pick up the debris. While the light is messing with my natural night vision, I'm able to adjust.
"This is sand." I point out, noting the earthy dust all over the tunnel this way. Again, what is with this light and breeze? Is there a town this way? Are we higher than we actually thought we were? No, that can't be right.
"Now I know I've heard of fancy resorts down here. But this is certainly not one of them." Hrurim comments, his fingers already dancing a tailor-made through his fingers. He flicks a rhythm into existence. Open, close, open, close, a song of a gas fire all throughout.
"Perhaps we will find out soon enough." Pops says as he wanders off a short distance. He bends over, picking something up and stabbing it upright for us all to see. Looks like the town we're headed to is the direction of this strange light.
"Is that wise?" I ask, and he meets my eyes with a harsh stare.
"Wisdom is for those with a choice," he tells me and I nod, gulping as I do so.
"Heiya..." Hrurim whispers, his mouth close to my closest ear.
"I know." I say, shrugging him off and walking after Pops.
"Eugh... My favourite, turning." Hrurim complains and a feeling snaps in me.
"It's got a proper frame!" I almost shout back at him, and he waves me off. My attention returns to Pops and I keep watching him as he practically marches without any slip up. I'm wandering left and right, my pace is inconsistent and I'm bouncing my baggage around.
He's straight as anything can be, his weapon in hand. Whatever danger is ahead, he's showing no concern or regard to it. A pace he was willing to maintain before is now not here. He's too fast for us.
"Pops..." I mutter, watching him as he surveys some of the tunnel. Boulders and collapsed chunks of rock have impaled quite a bit of the road-smoothed path. Yet, the destruction around here is odd. There's so little of it, and a lot of sand instead.
Did a container airship or something crash here? Some kind of rock formation exists amid all the sand, but where did it come from? How does this much sand suddenly appear? Almost as if to suggest an answer, the wind blows again.
Hiding my face from the flicking of the grains, I sniff it. A scrumptious windy pudding of fresh air. In the underground. Fresh air underground and we're nowhere near the tunnels to the surface...
"What the...?" I let out as I notice a ray of light coming from a crack in the tunnel's ceiling. Standing in the light, I look up and gasp at the sight of a cloud going through it. It passes by, revealing the all-too familiar outline of the Orbital-Halo.
My head moves away and I look to the light and the sudden realisation. We're still deep underground, but something has destroyed the surface so much it has reached us. The surface really is heading towards us. I meet Hrurim's passing with wide eyes.
"This is what I think it is?" he asks, and I nod.
"Yeah..." I breathe, sniffing the peculiar air. I'm no witch, but I know what is and isn't magical. It reminds me of the way the air smells back when we did our exchanges with Tobaballe and the Acadamites. The air is drained of magic. There's nothing.
I eye a rock hidden amongst a pile of sand. The stone down here might not be exposed to the emerald wealth of the Wind Mountain, but the magic still seeped down here over the millennia. And, yet...
"Gods and goddesses." I whine uncomfortably. My foot settles on the rock and it cracks apart with nary an effort applied. Just like all the deals we had back with the Tobaballians. It's just like the Thunderstricken Wasteland.
"This isn't right at all..." Hrurim lets out, his lighter finally finding its real purpose. The smoke in his lungs comes out, burning with flickers of blue. He coughs and double checks the cigarette, but not throwing it away.
"Those things are stress relief, aren't they...?" I question, following along with Pops' example even as the sight becomes even more unsettling. I raise a paw at Hrurim's silent offer and jog ahead to meet my still father. He points up at the distant mountain in the sand.
"Skeleton." he says and I see it immediately.
"What is that thing?" I question, quivering uncontrollably at its immense dead scale.
"Our money." Pops answers, a knowing smirk on his face. I turn to face him, eyes wide and my mouth agape.
"You can't be serious..." I let out, letting him leave me in what remains of the underground's darkness as he sets out into the unwelcome halolight.
We're underground, deep underground. So very far from the surface and yet, here we are, looking right up at the sky from an impossible distance. Hwardgon live this deep in great numbers, like we always have. So, why is the sky here?
Where is all the magic in the air gone? Why is it stale? That giant is no doubt the answer. And, I worry.
"We're going to be running into humans." I mutter and Hrurim lets out a noise of agreement.
"Whatever it is that Ivahstar wants out of this, we need to be moving quickly. He thinks the hwardgon mafia is going to give him a hard time? No government in the area will let something like this go uncontested." Hrurim explains, and my brow settles with firm determination.
"Hop to it, then." I say, bringing my musket out of a comfortable position and getting it ready. Rushing ahead, I once again abandon the human and leave him to struggle after us. If Pops is sure that this is our way around the current problems of money, then I will help. I can do nothing other than help.
Each step I take, every stride forward, I leave the underground behind. The sky comes out openly and I might as well be running through a desert valley. Yet, for all the sand and clear air, there's no arid oppression. It's just that, magicless.
My eyes find the dead giant's skull head, and I lock onto its empty, shadow-filled eyes.