"Kid," said Bauer, hissing through his clenched jaws, "you better have one hell of an idea if you think we'll be getting out that easily."
"You got a better plan?" yelled Kane, snarling at the robed men that tried to get a hold of him, kept at bay only by the edge of the sword.
"Yeah, for starters, stop yelling! You're too loud!" he yelled, failing to follow his own instructions. "Now get me off this thing!"
Kane nodded, quickly pulling Bauer off the altar, though the needles were too far lodged into his limbs, causing them to break off the altar as well.
Bauer grunted in pain, struggling to stand for a moment, before the adrenaline set in, knowing there was a chance that he could make it out alive. He took a deep, shaky breath, before gesturing for the sword, to which Kane handed over with no hesitation.
"Alright you bastards," said Bauer, stretching his neck as he stepped forward, going against the numbing pain in his legs and arms as he two-handed the weapon, "either you have a death wish, or you're gonna let us go peacefully."
"Yer not goin' anywhere ya slimy bastard," said one old man with his heavy accent, stepping forth with a dagger in hand, mimicking Bauer's two-handed stance. His wrinkly face just as bald as his shiny head that reflected the light above.
Bauer, with a brow raised, looked down and then back up, exchanging glances with the other men before saying, "Your blade is smaller than mine."
"There's always someone bigger."
"Excuse me?"
The old man, ignoring Bauer's words, charged forth as fast as a snail, yelling at the top of his lungs as he held the dagger above his head.
Bauer waited a few seconds before cutting down the man with a single swing, splitting him in half.
"Well," said Kane, peering from behind Bauer, "at least he lived a long life."
Bauer raised the sword, pointing the edge toward the mob. "Any more of you dumbasses ready to fuck around and find out?"
"Oh shit!" exclaimed one of the men, attracting everyone's attention as he held the top of his hat with one hand whilst running off to one of the many archways. "He's too cool! I'm gettin' the hell outta here!"
But after a bit of running off, he stopped in his tracks and pulled out two wands from robes, pointing them at Kane and Bauer, firing green pulses of magic as he said, "Sike bitches, you thought!"
Kane and Bauer ran immediately, feeling the heat of the projectiles just a hair's length away from their necks. Bauer cut down those who dared block their path, while more projectiles were flung around the room.
With their head's still intact, the two made it to the stairs, running up without taking a look back as the others chased after them.
"How do we get out of here?" asked Kane, ducking just in time to avoid a green pulse. "The slide is too steep and wide to climb."
"Yeah, we're not trying that." Bauer looked back, using the black blade to deflect another green pulse. "Just follow me and we'll be out safely in no time."
"Alri—"
Bauer looked back upon hearing a thud, finding Kane struggling to pull himself out of the grasp of a man who'd grabbed onto one of the brown bags wrapped around his waist.
"Get the fuck off my money you pickled zombie!" yelled Kane, snarling as he tried kicking him, staring at his rotting, green face and blackened teeth that dripped with saliva.
"Kid, forget the bag!" yelled Bauer, running down the steps as he watched more of them racing up. Without a second thought, he swung his blade at the small piece of rope the man held onto, freeing Kane from certain doom.
"No!" yelled Kane, laying back on the stairs as he watched the man fall with his bag of moonshade that spilled everywhere.
Immediately afterward, Bauer hopped over, landing right between him and the rest of the men, killing them without mercy.
"That was my source of money you bastard!" continued Kane, retreating further up as he watched the already somewhat red walls become painted in blood.
"Fuck the money!" retorted Bauer, staining his face and clothing in blood as he slowly backed up the stairs, before he broke off from the fight and ran past Kane. "Now start running!"
Kane listened without another word, running up the stairs as he stared at Bauer's back, until they ended up in the armoury, where he stopped only to pick up another longsword for himself.
Unfortunately for them, however, they'd find themselves pincered in the armoury, where the only way out was blocked by four men wearing a scaled cuirass and pauldrons worn over red robes, topped off with a tungsten coloured helm.
"You deal with the laymen," said Bauer, staring at the arrival of the armoured men. "I'll deal with the militiamen."
"But I don't know how to use a sword!" yelled Kane, watching as the laymen turned the corner, slowly surrounding them as they drew their daggers and wands.
"Just deflect the magic and swing at them!" yelled Bauer, charging at the militiamen, taking the fight to them. "You better learn today or die trying!"
Kane clenched his jaw, beads of sweat running down his forehead, with eyes and a mouth that trembled just as much as his stance, he yelled, "Alright bastards! Prepare to learn the Art of War!"
"The Art of War?" repeated one of the men, his tremulous voice travelling an octave as he stared into the eyes of Kane's, which glared back, intoxicated in a bloodshot rage.
"That's right!" Kane charged forth, swinging the blade erratically as he rushed them, whilst announcing, "I don't know what I'm doing, so neither do you fuckers!"
And so the culling began. Bauer demonstrated his expertise with the blade and incredible strength as he fought against all four militiamen at the same time. Though he had a few close calls and suffered some minor injuries, he was able to pull through, cutting off the hands of the militiamen before decapitating each one.
On Kane's side, his Art of War certainly did prove effective... or rather, the laymen proved to be pathetic. For someone who'd never held a weapon before, it was quite pathetic of them to lose to someone of no notable qualities, but perhaps that itself was something notable for Kane, who went on to eviscerate his enemies in his barbarous fit of anger.
Why was he angry? Well, he had one chance at making a decent bit of silver, and now a third of the moonshade he collected was gone... plus the one that the squirrel stole. At least, that's how he viewed it, failing to realize that money had no worth when he was just a hand's length away from becoming a dead man walking.
Luckily, that hand retracted itself as Bauer helped him clean up with the rest, letting them continue their escape as they ran across the room, where another flight of stairs awaited them.
"We should reach the surface after five more staircases," said Bauer, looking back to find that they were no longer being chased, or so that's what he was led to assume.
"Five more? That's one-hundred steps!"
"You're concerned about a hundred steps when you decided to explore a nefandite hideout?"
"What is a nefandite!?" yelled Kane, wanting to know the answer all these years, looking back just in time to deflect a green pulse. "Everyone keeps talking about them but never explains it!"
"Those are nefandites you moron kid! Those are nefandis laymen!"
"Hey! I'm not a kid! I'm sixteen and three-quar—"
"I don't give a fuck if you're a newborn or nine-thousand! You're still a kid! And I just got out of that torture dungeon of theirs so shut the fuck up!"
"Listen here motherfucker, that's not what I said, and I'm the one who got you out of that mess!"
"I don't care! Now duck, kid!" ordered Bauer, stabbing the blade through the air that Kane's head once occupied, digging the sword into the wall, before he carved out a barrel of the marble wall and sent it down the stairs.
Kane stopped to see what was going on, grinning as he watched the marble barrel tumble down the stairs, hitting a strike with a new batch of nefandites that chased after them.
"You got a death wish?" yelled Bauer as he ran past Kane. "Fine by me! But if you don't, then I'd suggest you start running!"
"Alright, fine, just shut up!" retorted Kane, breaking out of his ecstatic trance and continuing with his sprint up the stairs.
At the very least, the light at the end of the tunnel was closer, but Kane sighed, knowing that he was going to have to return back to Thalamar with what little he was able to forage; knowing full well that Sage Maleagant was not going to be pleased. Of all nights, it was tonight that he just had to get distracted and piss off the nefandites. At the very least, he finally knew what they were, which was one thing everyone refused to properly explain, as though it were taboo to talk about them back in Thalamar.
Though, his brooding had to be put on pause as the two came across another onslaught of laymen from above, bearing all manner of weapons in hand this time, ready to put a halt to the chaos the two stirred up.
Bauer took the lead, guarding Kane with his broader and larger body, using his sword to block arrows whilst attacking the horde of melee fighters ahead. Kane, on the other hand, watched as the laymen became distracted with Bauer, before he started stabbing at the laymen's shins, adding some vocals to the clashing of metal.
With their guards dropped, Bauer had an easier time thinning the horde, until they eventually reached the archers, who began fleeing to the next room too late, finding the black longswords impaling their abdomen.
"Good work," said Bauer, covering his nose as the stench of blood and spilt organs filled the small rooms and staircases. "We should be able to go smoothly with their laymen guards down."
"That's good," replied Kane, sighing out of relief, knowing that they were one step closer to escape. "Let's get out of here quick."
With the danger eliminated, Bauer felt a sharp pain in his arms and legs once more, forcing him to the ground, before Kane wrapped one of Bauer's arms around his shoulder and held him up, struggling to do so with how weak he was for his age. Though, that wasn't much of a surprise, given his malnourished physique.
Yet again, though, Kane would return to questioning how he was going to explain everything to Maleagant. All he had to return with were some moonshades and some vines he'd never seen before, of which he didn't think Maleagant would pay him for.
So much for becoming rich, so he thought, sighing as he helped Bauer up the stairs.
Bauer noticed the frown on Kane's face, caught off guard by his somber mood. Having spent not even half an hour with the boy, their few exchange of words had him expecting another argument to start.
He sighed, feeling the pain in his arms and legs once again when nothing occupied his mind. "What's your name, kid?" he asked, trying to distract himself, though it wasn't going well.
"Kane... just Kane."
"Your name is Just Kane?"
Kane raised a brow as he peered at Bauer from the corner of his eye. "Yes," he replied awkwardly, wondering why Bauer was suddenly so interested in his name, "just Kane."
Bauer looked back ahead, with a tight lipped face as he slowly nodded. "Alright, Just, my name's Niemand Bauer."
Kane's head slowly panned his gaze over to Bauer, revealing a twitching eye while the other remained wide open, before saying, "What the fuck did you just call me?"
Bauer frowned, tilting his head as he looked at Kane, confused about what prompted the hostile question. "What? I thought you said your name is Just Kane?"
"Yeah," he raised his brows as he smiled, "it's just Kane you moron."
Bauer's frown quickly turned into raised brows as his mouth lay open in shape of an 'O'. "Why the fuck do you have to say 'just' then? Just say Kane!"
"Why the fuck are you saying 'just' then?"
"What?"
Kane ignored Bauer's confusion, realizing that his question was indeed out of the blue and quite stupid, before saying, "Who the fuck says their name is 'just Kane' and you think their first name is 'just'?"
"I don't know. I saw this one play, where the fucker said his last name, then his first and last name together, so I thought you were doing that!" yelled Bauer as they both entered the final room, which was astoundingly different from the rest.
While the other rooms were red and took on a flesh-like appearance, this room was simply grey, like the rocks one would expect to find out in the wild. It was rather empty and carried no other distinct features, save for the natural erosion and a hole that led to the surface.
"That's our exit," said Bauer. He looked at Kane, who stared at the hole in the ceiling and watched the blue moon pass over a thick gathering of trees, peering through the small gaps between leaves. "Let's go."