Gargoyle

by Mr101

Chapter IX - Prison Break Part III - They weren't always like this...

        Crystal and I ran down what appeared to be the six tunnel now and we couldn’t see any signs of us getting out. The tunnels that had any sort of vague familiarity for me were either caved in - my guess from the loud battle Crystal told me about - or I’d simply couldn’t find them again.

        “Vault, do you have any idea where we are going?” Crystal asked.

        “Not exactly,” I replied.

        “Fantastic,” she said with sarcasm.

        “Look ,right now I’d rather just keep running and wing it then stop and try to think. Lest you forget the thing chasing us!” I snapped back.

        Crystal huffed but didn’t reply. Weather it was fate or just pure dumb luck, we hadn’t run into the Alpha or the one called Invidia.

        “Look on the bright side,” I started, trying to cheer the mood up, “at least were not being chased by—”

        “DER DEY GO BOYZ! AFTER DEM!” a Hoboll shouted.

        “You just had to say that!” Crystal groaned.

        I couldn’t help chuckle which only further annoyed her as we darted down a tunnel that turned left and slightly deeper into the mountain. After a while I began to feel the weariness of the running catch up to me and leant against a wall to catch my breath, Crystal also used this as a chance to catch her own breath and fell onto her rump panting softly.

        “Think… think we lost them?” she asked.

        “I think so…” I replied.

        Whilst we caught our breaths, I looked around the tunnel to see if I could see any indication of familiarness about it to try and pinpoint where we were and hopefully find a way out. The tunnel, however, was completely new to me and it even looked… abandoned.

        I squinted into the darkened tunnel and tried to focus on anything and could just make out in the distance a fork. I knew I was supposed to be trying to find a way out for us, but something inside of me was wanting to explore the two paths. Besides, maybe it could lead to a way out.

        “Hey, Crystal,” I said.

        “Yes?”

        “Rekon one of those paths could take us back outside?” I asked, pointing down the tunnel.

        She followed my finger down the tunnel and I watched her glare slighty.

        “Well, the left one leads to more tunnels and the right one… seems to lead to something that looks like it was actually built as opposed to natural formation.”

        “Wait, you can see down there? I can only barely make it out.”

        “All Changelings can see in the dark,” she replied with a shrug, “it’s common knowledge.”

        “I’m not from around here, remember?” I grumbled.

        “Where exactly are you from anyway?”

        “Brighton.”

        “And where’s that?”

        “Long story, I’ll tell you another time alright?” I quickly replied.

        “Alright…” she replied with a suspicious look.

        “Anyway, let’s just see where the right one goes. Shall we?”

        “Okay, I’ll lead if you want. ‘Cos I can see better then you,” she replied sticking her tongue out.

        “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered.

        I stretched my back and flexed my arm, giving my warhammer a twirl as I followed Crystal down the tunnel.

        I let out a roar of anger as I blasted a nearby chair in a pillar of golden fire. The Hobolls that were in the room with me shivered with fear but I couldn’t give a damn about them right now.

        “So… you lost him,” I growled at them.

        “Y-yeah.. we’re sorry boss! We didn’t—”

        I ignored his apology and grabbed his face with my hand and proceeded to incinerate the scum, the screams were like a childs laughter to its mother. Beautiful. I smiled in satisfaction as I dropped the charred, smoking corpse to the ground and slowly turned my attention to the other Hoboll who right so, was shaking with terror.

        “Find… him… or I will kill every last one of your kind…”

        “Y-yes sir!” it whimpered.

        I watched as the wretched cur fled the room as quickly as it could before the Alpha entered.

        “What… do you want,” I hissed.

        “Some of the boyz reckon d-dat they might have gone into the old c-city…” he mumbled.

        “Then get after them!” I shouted

        “B-but the old city.. n-no Hoboll who ‘as gone der ‘as ever returned…” he gulped, “it’s cursed!”

        “I don’t give a flying damn if the black dragons themselves were in there, FIND THAT GARGOYLE AND BRING ME THE BOX!”

        The Alpha gulped and quickly left the room, shouting orders at some nearby Hobolls. The second I was on my own, I groaned in pain and clutched my stomach. Doubling over and falling on my hand, propping myself up shakily up on the desk.

        “I used to much power against that dragon… I need time to re-charge,” I coughed.

        With a loud grunt I forced myself to stand up right, wiping the sweat from my brow and slowly reverted into my snake form as I cursed the dragon for his deception.

        “Your deception has only delayed the inevitable dragon… I will have my prize…”

        As we walked down the tunnels, I felt a mixture of feelings wash over me. Curiosity, fear, nervousness to made a few. There was something about the tunnel that just didn’t seem to sit right with me, at all.

        “Hey, Vault?” I asked.

        “Yeah?” he replied.

        “Do you get the feeling that we’re being watched?”

        “Not really, why?” he asked.

        “Nothing… probably just my imagination,”

        Vault seemed to be fine with that answer and simply carried on walking beside me. In truth, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that we were in fact being watched. We proceeded through the tunnels without any more sound save for the echo of my hooves and his feet hitting the stone floor.

        We came to the end of the tunnel and my jaw dropped.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Vault saw me suddenly stop and my jaw drop and poked my head.

        “Hey Crystal…. you alright?”

        I heard him, but didn’t acknowledge him. I was simply too dumbstruck by what I was seeing. Right in front of me was a vast city, and I mean vast. It was carved into the mountainside itself and easily was triple the size of a Changeling hive.

        Some of the buildings seemed to just reach up and beyond the caverns ceiling,some spires stopping halfway. Bridges connected buildings together with beautiful and almost impossible looking arches that seed to descend into the abyss far below them forever, despite the lack of light allowing me to see any form of colouration of the buildings, I could tell they had taken a long time to create.

        “Amazing…” I whispered.

        “What is?” I heard Vault ask.

        “Can’t you see?” I asked him.

        “See what?” he grumbled, ”not a Changeling, me no see in the darkey. Remember?”

        “It’s a city… a huge stone city…”

        “You mean… there could be dwarves?” Vault asked, a hint of excitement in his tone.

        “What’s a dwarf?” I asked.

        Vault sighed loudly and looked a little disappointed as he waved a hand at me dismissively.

        “Oh… nevermind,” he grumbled, “you want to go and explore?”

        “Sure, a little digging around can’t hurt I guess. See if you can find something to make a torch with.”

        He nodded as we headed down a stone staircase that led towards the nearest building, the feeling of being watched getting stronger with each hoofstep.

        As I followed behind Crystal, I was trying not to let my disappointment of the fact my psyche hadn’t created dwarves get to me.

        “Man… having a dwarf as a companion would have been fun, all the laughs we’d have… the fighting, the drinking, the playful banter…” I thought to myself

        How would you know? I heard my mind say, you’re only going by how our friends have played them in dungeons and dragons!

        “Actually… I was thinking more along the lines of Gimli. He fits those traits.

        … Good point.

        “When do I not have a good point?”

        Are you really asking me that… I have a twenty page list of reasons why you never have one—

        Aaaaand ignoring you now.

        I began to hum a loud song inside my head to drown out the enraged voice who was angry at the fact I had interrupted him. We soon entered the nearby building and I grumbled to myself as the darkness got more intense.

        “I’m pretty certain Gargoyles can see in the dark…” I muttered internally.

        They can, you can’t because you suck.

        “I think I’ve already told you this, insulting me is insulting yourself because we’re the same person.”

        …

        “Exactly.”

        I smirked to myself as my mind decided to keep quiet and let my thoughts drift off to wondering who used to live in this city. Could it have been long extinct dwarves? Or maybe a figment of my imagination made real by some weird space ray?

Because I wasn’t paying attention, I didn’t notice Crystal had stopped walking and accidently kicked her butt.

        “H-hey!” she squeaked and blushed, “watch it!”

        “Sorry!” I apologised, “was miles away.

        “Whatever, I see an old torch mounted on the wall up. Reckon you can pull it off?”

        She pointed to the torch in question and I reached up, easily yanking the thing off the wall mount. Her horn lit up and she fired a small blast of magic onto the end and ignited it. I stared at the flames as they danced about and blinked slowly.

        “Vault?” Crystal asked.

        “Crystal… why do we need a torch? Surely you could’ve just used your horn.”

        She opened her mouth to answer but quickly closed it as no words came out. She scowled at me and walked on ahead with a loud ‘hmmph’, I chuckled and followed behind her and looked around at the walls.

        I had to admit, she was right.

        The carvings and etchings that had been put into the design of the interior was breathtaking. Everywhere you looked there was some form of intricate design, from what appeared to be a depiction of whoever lived in this city too simplistic - yet stunning - patterns.

        As I continued to marvel at the etchings, I became increasingly aware of some of the recurring images and suddenly made the connection.

        “Crystal,” I said.

        “What is it now?” she huffed.

        “I think I know what used to live here…”

        “What?” she asked looking back at me.

        Before I could reply, we walked into a large room and this time both our jaws dropped at the scene. It appeared to be a home that clearly belonged to a wealthy family but that wasn’t the reason why we were shocked. The reason why we were shocked was because of two statues in particular.

        Statues of Hobolls wearing armor that was similar to a knight’s armor.

        “What in the…” I muttered.

        “I don’t believe it… the legends are true.

        “What legend?” I asked.

“Well… legend says that the Hobolls weren’t always ruthless barbarians,” she started.

“Really?” I asked in genuine surprise.

“Mhm, its said that about five thousand years ago, the Hobolls were a proud race of warriors who had their own culture, cities and even a language. But something happened and over the years they devolved into dumb, mindless savages.”

“Interesting… wonder what caused it,” I replied.

        “Same here… my historians argue over whether or not this claim is true because no record of their culture survived, as Hobolls tend to live underground.”

        “Now we know why there was no evidence,” I chuckled, “I highly doubted anyone was able to get deep enough into Hoboll territory to find something like this and get out again.”

        “True, but this is pretty amazing, Vault,” she said, a clear happiness in her voice, “think about it, we’re going to be the first in ancestors know how many years to be able to actually see what Hobolls used to be like!”

        “History nut then?” I chuckled.

        “Sort of, father always insisted I was taught by the very best and I just happened to have a keen interest in the subject,” she replied.

        “Oh? Who ‘s your father.”

        “Let’s just keep looking around, we won’t get another chance like this.”

        I figured it must be a touchy subject for her, weather it was general father issues or something worse. I decided to drop it and continued to look around the room.

        The search reminded me of Dungeons and Dragons so much. Each time I looked inside a drawer. I would roll a D20 die inside my head and pray I found something good, though today it appeared my rolls were doing me no favours at all.

        But not for Crystal.

        As I kept finding old clothing or other various generic household items locked away in boxes, she would take them and place them on the large wooden table that rested in the middle of the room and examine them. The only things I found of any worth, was a leather pouch that I fastened to my belt and bunch of jewelry which I put inside the pouch. I also placed the cube that the dragon had given me inside it as well and was surprised they could all fit, albeit the pouch was bulging slighlty.

        One item in particular caught my interest. It was a golden ring that had a strange insignia on it in the shape of a sword with two eagles wings coming out of its side and I figured it must be some form of coat of arms that the ancient Hobolls had and decided to hand it over to Crystal, who let out a happy squeal and examined it carefully. I couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

As I searched the area, I came across an old tattered curtain that was hanging on something which I assumed was a painting and pulled it down off the wall.l. I coughed as the dust washed over me and blinked a few times, finding myself looking at large painting that hung on the wall. What was on the painting itself was amazing.

“Whoa… check this out,” I called out to Crystal.

“What is it?” she asked as she came over.

“This,” I indicated the large painting before me.

She stood beside me and we both studied the painting. As I focused my attention on it, I suddenly noticed something I hadn’t before. Judging from the gasp Crystal gave beside me, I figured she’d spotted it to.

“You seeing what i’m seeing?” I asked.

“The fact that the painting is of the Hobolls themselves in battle with some form of large furry creature?”

        “Yeah.”

        “Then yes, I see it to.”

        It was incredible, there had to have been at least thirty Hobolls in the painting. They were all wearing armour that seemed to be like the ones we’d been fighting were wearing, only cleaner and looked in better shape. From the looks of how the painting had been done, the Hobolls were losing to the large creature they were fighting.

        “I wonder what the hell that thing is,” I said, “certainly doesn't look like a Hoboll…”

        “What’s this?” Crystal asked.

        I looked over to see her squinting at a small, bronze plaque that was fixed at the bottom of the painting. I leaned down to try and get a better look at it but I couldn’t make it out, which surprised me, given this was my dream and so far everything had been in english.

        “That’s weird… I can’t read it,” I huffed.

        “How could you? No one can read ancient Hobolian anymore.”

        “Guess we will never know eh? Though… I do wonder—”

        “The demon had no name, no origin, it just was. The scourge of our noble race, laying waste to any and all Hoboll clans who dared to capture this wild beast… the very sound of it’s roar was enough to drive any Hoboll insane.” Crystal read out loud.

        “Of course you can read it… well, maybe my psyche just allowed you to after I complained,” I said.

        “... What?” she asked, giving me a confused look.

        “Nevermind.”

        “You and your Vault moments…”  she giggled.

        I ignored her and focused my attention back on the painting. I couldn’t help but admire the large creature. It had some similarities to a Hoboll but it was larger and looked like it shared some traits with a diamond dog, but with a more wolf like head. The creature was clearly built to handle itself and combat even without armor. The artist had taken great deal to paint in the red eyes that had what seemed to be red mist flowing from them - more to add dramatic effect and further implant that this thing was an evil demon or something I figured - as well as a surprisingly good amount of detail on its dark fur.

        I let my eyes wander over to what it was holding seemingly produly in its right paw. A huge, fuck off hammer made of a shiny looking material.

        “Wonder that that hammer is made of,” I mumbled.

        “It looks like… crystal?” Crystal replied.

        “Doubt it, it looks nothing like a Changeling,” I smirked.

        “No I meant— oh har har,” she giggled, “very funny.”

        “But yeah, I think you may be right…”

        Crystal started to wonder off to go and look at other things in the room as I focused on trying to determine what the hammer was made of, something caught my eye. Something… that honestly really surprised me and caught me off guard.

        “Uh… Crystal?” I asked.

        “Yes?” she replied, looking at me and walking back over.

        “Does… does that hammer have a moustache?”