Timothy's Side Story

by SilverEyedWolf

Chapter Three

Timothy finally regained his legs, a little shakily. He'd wasted half an hour staring at the thing, and he still had work to do. He needed to find out where it had come from, mostly. He had a suspicion, and he needed to do something anyway. Looking back into the mouth, he gingerly reached in and touched the white blood splatter on the roof of its mouth, then scratched at it.

While normally blood would have been just sticky, the drops in the moist roof of a mouth were completely dry, and extremely powdery. Wiping the dust on the scales on top of the thing's head, Timothy took out a knife again. Carving a circle into the scalp of the creature, wiping away the already dusting blood, he carefully inlaid the runes for fire.

Pouring in the mana, he quickly walked away as the fire quickly spread over the skin of the beast. Looking back only when he reached the doorway he'd entered through, he watched the red flame and black smoke leave their mark on the floor and ceiling. Socia sniffed at the air, growling lightly. Turning his back, he hoped he hadn't poisoned the air. Then he hoped that the combination of creature and fire he'd set wouldn't consume stone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Timothy crawled over the pile of rubble that had been impassible the day before, blue fire once again his light. The walls on either side seemed to have been pushed over, and the remaining rubble had a trench in the middle. Looking at the scales and white splotches he found, Timothy figured that the thing had literally shoved its mouth into the pile and opened its jaws, pushing stone and dirt into the holes in the walls.

The air was wetter, danker on the other side, and Timothy wiped what appeared to be moss from the walls when he touched them. The ceiling here was covered in scrapings, both old and new, seeming to spiral and spin around themselves. The walls here were beat down, and small plants grew on either side, in the rubble and dirt.

In the left room was something Timothy had expected, but hoped not to find.

A nest of large, leathery brown eggs.

Looking away, the marshal pulled a knife and did what he needed to, making sure none of the eggs ever hatched.

Pulling a clump of moss away from the wall, he cleaned his blade and sheathed it, refusing to look at his handiwork until a happy chirruping forced him to look at his shoulder. Socia was tensing its legs, but when it tried to jump into the nest Timothy caught it gently.

"No no, Socia. If you're hungry I'll feed you, but please don't eat... that."

Socia snarled angrily, but she didn't bite or claw at him, just crawled back up his sleeve. Timothy reached into a pocket and pulled out a large chunk of dried meat, putting it directly into the awaiting maw. He had to snatch his fingers away as angry teeth mashed the food quickly, and with a swallow, Socia was feigning sleep on his shoulder.

Sighing aloud, Timothy stepped out of the room and checked the other side, mercifully empty but for flora. Walking down the hall, Timothy dodged puddles and scat, looking into rooms and peeking around doors. At one point he came across a carcass that looked like a slightly smaller version of his kill, and assumed it to be the father of the eggs.

After finding nothing too out of order, he came across a set of large doors, an enchantment shining across the wood. Touching it lightly after tossing pebbles and small concentrations of mana at it, he laid his hand gently on the wood. It felt warm, as though it had been sitting in direct sunlight for the last four hours. The surface hummed slightly as he pressed on it, not audibly but physically. Leaning against it produced a larger vibration, and a soft smack nearly numbed his arm.

Leaving it for now, Timothy continued down the hall, coming quickly to a dead end, of sorts. It lead down a steep set of stairs, and all he could smell from the top was water and decay. Muttering a spell, he condensed the fire he was using as a torch into a glowing ball, and then tossed it down the stairs.

Leaving small splotches of flickering fire wherever it touched, the blue ball was out of sight quickly, and Timothy had plenty of time to summon another torch before he heard the hissing as the fire met water. Clapping his hands over his eyes and briefly scrubbing them, he shook his head and wondered what he was thinking before taking the first steps downstairs.

A hiss sounded in his ear, and Timothy jumped and smashed himself against the wall when an unfamiliar weight jumped off of his shoulders. Looking up, he saw Socia standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at him. With a swish of its tail, it was gone.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, gazing at a copy of the same door that had stopped him earlier. He was two steps up from where the water started, gazing at the slightly darkened wood near the middle of the door, perfectly marking the shape of his hand. Looking into the water, Timothy stepped in and laid his hand on the door, covering the other print.

Once again the door buzzed, but Timothy pressed harder, gripping his other hand into a fist. The enchantment was weak, much more so than the first door. Dipping the fist into the water below him, he cocked it back and concentrated on the wetness of his hand.

"Glacia," he muttered, then rocketed his fist forward and moved his palm. The water on his fist crystallized, and shattered when it met with the wood of the door. The wood seemed to groan, then opened, forcing the water into a wave that crested on Timothy's knees before it was stopped by the wall. He massaged his chest for a second, before moving through the door.

The other side of the door was remarkably clean, but for the water covering the floor. Even it seemed clear, the liquid only marred when Timothy walked slowly into the hallway. Looking around, he noticed and walked over to a crease running along the wall. Peeking inside, he spied a row made of crystal, dotted every few meters with runes. Looking over the letters, he grinned and touched the fiery hand he was using for light to the nearest grouping.

Letting his mana course into the crystal, Timothy was delighted to see it seem to catch fire, mirrors reflecting the blue light into the hallway. He watched the line turn a corner and go up a specialized pillar, swirling around and flowing across several arches as Timothy slowly lit up the entire hallway.

Cutting off the mana when he felt that he'd put enough into it to have light for an hour or so at least, Timothy gazed around at his mostly plain surroundings, bathed in blue firelight.

There also seemed to be a stabilizing element to the runes, as the light didn't flicker like flames normally would have. Striding slowly through the water, Timothy admired what appeared to be marble walls as he walked down the new path he'd been presented.

Walking to the intersection the pillars stood at, he looked down the three ways he was presented, as well as up the walls. It really wasn't much of a choice, as two ways were completely identical to the one he had just walked down, closed door and all. Up was a smooth marble, mostly the same as the walls, except for the slow leaking of water from a drain. The last seemed to be pulling the water towards it, and Timothy cautiously followed it.

Near another turn he came to two steps up, out of the water. There was a steel grate in the bottom step, and the water cascaded into some unknown depth. Stepping up, Timothy half expected something to reach out and grab him. The only thing that happened is that he was now a foot higher than before, and out of the water.

Walking slowly around the corner, he came to the first unsettling piece of this hallway, a pillar lying across the hallway. The light on the other side was noticeably dimmer, with an incorporeal line connecting the broken segments. Pausing to kindle the lights on the other side of the break, Timothy stopped to chew on some of his jerky and to pull out one of the cords that connected to the inside of his coat.

Sticking the tip of his index finger into the opening and connecting to the silver filaments inside of it, he ate the food and drew on the reserve of mana inside of himself, pouring it slowly into the tube. He stopped when he was done with the dried meat, tucking the cord back into his coat.

Climbing over the pillar, he continued down an increasingly dusty hallway until he reached what seemed to be a door, another of the set he'd walked through and seen at the ends of the other hallways. Slowly laying his hand against it, he found this one lukewarm at best, and it easily opened as he pushed on it.

Instead of the stairs he expected, the door opened on a black room, dark as a night without stars. Looking over the walls, Timothy noticed a square of crystal, same as the trenches behind him. Pressing his palm to it, he slowly fed a little mana into it, lighting what seemed to be a dungeon. Instead of multiple cells, there was only one, directly in front of him, covered by what seemed to be steel bars. Caked in dust, they sat broken and torn, twisted away from the black pit that remained.

"Well Tartarus," Timothy muttered, moving into the room and gently resting a fingertip on the sharp end of a bar. "What was in-?"

He spun, his blades whirling out in front of him as he drew them. He was quick enough to see something, some shadow, disappear through the door. He gave himself some leeway on not noticing it quickly enough, seeing as it crawled along the Celestia damned ceiling.

He held his stance for a minute, calculating the odds that it had actually left for a moment, before he heard a large splash and quick steps leading away.

He looked back at the cell, then at the newly opened doors, before he nearly threw his knives at the ground.

"Buck!"