The glass elevator sure looked impressive stretching up to the admin tower.

It didn't look so good sinking into the earth, surrounded by smooth concrete on all sides. An agonizingly slow minute passed, the elevator creeping down into the depths of... The warehouse. Bobby shifted from left to right, drumming his free fingers on his thigh. Alys stood opposite him, calmly leaning against the side of the elevator. She had her arms crossed and a neutral look on her face.

Bobby fished through his pockets. He landed on his phone, then grunted: there wasn't good service down here. Then he checked his other one. Empty. "Lys, you still got my keys? Can't remember if I asked ya for them."

She reached in her pockets and dug out his keys, jangling them at Bobby. The man snatched them from the elf, scowling at her wry grin. " You're not planning on driving back, are you? Your arm is, uh, a little... How do you say it-"

"Messed up? Yeah." He stuck the keys in his pocket, and pulled out his last cigarette- much to Alys disapproval. "Just keeping an eye on things- ah- hey, don't give me that look."

She pointed to the only conspicuous sign on the elevator: a white circle with a crossed out cigarette on it. 'NO SMOKING,' it read, in big bold letters.

Bobby rolled his eyes. That sign wasn't there the last time he went down to see Benji. He opted instead to roll the cigarette between his fingers while watching the sub-levels pass by.  None were quite as spacious as the upper warehouse. But they all fulfilled important functions in the many, many services provided by Red Clay. He couldn't even count how many functions they had.

The elevator smoothly sunk down, further and further. They went through the Surveillance and Security sector- SurSec for short. That was his usual haunt, when Benji wasn't sending him off on tangents and errands. Below SurSec was logistics and information, and between all of those floors were the plumbing, piping and other vital things like HVAC that kept the lower depths running. He couldn't put a number on how large the operation was: just that it was big and had more surprises than even he could count working there as long as he did. The loose floor plan didn't help, things rearranged themselves as needed to keep it all running reasonably smoothly.

The elevator stopped when they finally hit the lowest floor. It was familiar to Bobby, he'd been here plenty before. This was just the lowest the elevator went- they still had a ways to go, and the shaft continued on to show Benjamin's... Office. Being so far underneath the earth, the air was stiff and hot even despite the ventilation. They stepped out of the elevator into the carved stone "human access halls" for the Crucible. His boss had another way out that he liked to use, but for everyone between a foot and ten feet tall, they used the access halls. 

The halls weren't long, but they did give plenty of room for the smaller employees of Red Clay to get around when the boss wanted to hold meetings. Off to the right big iron doors hid a conference hall, and to the left hung an extremely conspicuous sign proclaiming that this stony hole in the wall was the break room. Bobby thought he saw a TV in there, and a mini-fridge. Who stocked that?

"Hey, hey, wasn't expecting to see you two!" The familiar, lilting accent of a Yssian greeted them as they stepped off. Coming up the hall at his own pace was...

"Rory?" Bobby squinted.  The halls had dim lights. Largely for Benjamin's dramatic preference. It made it hard to see and Bobby always complained about it.  But he recognized that giant of a... Man was a stretch, being, would be more apt. Giant of a being that seemed to fill the hall with his presence.  But putting the voice and the multitude of eyes and limbs together, he finally recognized the creature, a smile splitting Bobby's stony lips. "Oh, shit, what're you doing here, buddy? "

"What're ya doin' here ya bastard?" Rory let out a hoarse laugh like an animal. "Thought you bought the farm."

Bobby coughed. "I wish."

"Yeah, figures." The bestial being slipped through the hall, sinuous form blending with the shadows. Feathers and claws and dozens of eyes swiveled around to focus easily on Bobby and Alys.  "You smell like shit."

"And you look like it, twenty eyes and seven noses. Ugly-ass." Alys rolled her eyes at the banter, but after trading a few more light barbs the man and the horrifying shapeshifting chimera broke into laughter. "No, really, what are you up to? You're still uh, who is it- you still work for Lua, is that it? How's she doing?"

"Just running a quick errand for her. She needed to speak with her little brother." Rory slinked on to the entrance of the elevator. "She's well. Has to manage the brood. I get to play nanny sometimes, but, well-"

Bobby cut him off. "I heard. Is something up? Boss said it was about family business. Something urgent?"

That made the shape shifter hiss something out of the canid muzzle poking out from his shadowy form. "Y'know, not even I know. But... Well, Benjamin, that's what you call him, just go see him."

That made the magician's brow raise. "It's like that, huh?" Rory slithered into the elevator, his voluminous form consuming the light and the space inside of it.

"Hey, just go talk with him. I ain't gonna keep ya." With that, an appendage of indeterminate function and type clicked the button and sent the shifter back up to the surface, leaving Bobby and Alys to sweat.

"I don't know how you two get along." The elf broke the silence with a curious look towards the man. "You usually don't... Like, those nonphysical types."

Bobby shrugged. "He's solid enough. If the bastard pisses me off I can shoot 'em." He wiped his face of sweat, tugging at his collar. Already his clothes were darkening with the sweltering heat. "When they're just a disembodied voice is when they tick me off."

"Right. And then you use magic designed to kill pact magicians- which you are- to blow them up." She pursed her lips.

Bobby groaned and took off towards Benjamin's office. "For the love of Christ, Alys, can you drop that? It's- it was makin' a damn racket and I was trying to sleep."

"One of these days, Bobby, one of these days."

He groaned and pushed further and downward, under the thresholds of the steel gates and entering into Benjamin's chambers.

---

 

Cavernous couldn't even begin to describe Benjamin's office.

Bobby had his suspicions that the whole place was inside the spacial pockets of a Gate system. Something sequestered out and far away from any prying eyes or sensors on Earth. He just couldn't wrap his head around a cave so big and so large that an echo couldn't travel back to him. Not when it was under the pleasant hills and mountains of his home state.

The stairs down to the meeting area were carved from granite and set in place by dwarves skilled in their craft. Each step down gave out a noise that resounded through the space. For Alys they were a series of careful, well-spaced taps.

Bobby trampled down them, muttering under his breath. He lit up his last cigarette, he'd be done with it by the time they got to where they needed to get.

Halfway down the stairs the stones opened up on each side, letting water from some aquifer or- some other source, Bobby studied magic not geography, geology, whatever rocks were. The stone opened to spew forth and spray water, the air growing humid and a little cooler- but not by much.

With as poor as he felt, his shirt could've put out a fire and been squeezed for salt with how much he was sweating. He grit his teeth and trudged on, trailing smoke behind him.

The two finally got down to Benjamin's... well, the whole place was his office. But he liked to meet his guests at the Circle.

It was a grand disk of granite, about as large as twenty paces end to end. The masons had worked it over, not with carvings or stories to tell in stone, but rendering it as smooth and perfect a surface as magical eyes could glean. Even from afar, in the dim light cast by torches along the stairway, it caught all sorts of reflections of things from its place at the mouth of the underground lake. It was raised above the surface. Bobby noted that there were still ripples and waves going along the water.

"Right." He clenched his cigarette stepping onto the Circle with Alys. They gripped the sides- all carved from one piece of stone- and leaned over the edge to peer into the choppy, inky black void that Benjamin resided in. There wasn't any other sort of life in the lake. Despite it all, the office had a neutral, almost lifeless smell. It was just humid and hot. He had no desire to swim in that lake... But he reckoned there wasn't much life to be found in it, apart from- "Hey, Benji! We're here! You needed to see me?"

It took a minute. Bobby drumming his fingers idly, Alys straightening her flowing hair. But it took a minute, until at once the great and twisting coils of the serpent worked their way to the surface.

He had no idea how big the lake was. All the man knew was that he couldn't see the other side of it. And he had no idea how big Benji was, just like he didn't know how big the lake was. And the two had much in common, the clear water dark and catching reflections, almost a mirage to cover the jet black scales of the beast. He counted one, two, three dozen coils all working their way up to the surface of the water, until finally a great squared off mass broke the waves. Benji, the serpent- had arrived.

In spite of his size, it was a smooth surfacing. The water barely lapped against the base of the stone Circle. Big.... Couldn't even begin with Benjamin. Just moving made the whole world tremble, the air vibrating, the man's chest sinking in and sucking in wet air. Even Alys had to steady herself as their patron rose and rose, before ceasing, and resting his entire upper half across the banks of the lake, positioning his head a scant few yards from the Circle.

Bobby had no doubts in his mind that if Benji really wanted to, he could go out into whatever ocean he wanted to and snack on a whale. The dragon's massive head could pass as a hill, each nostril the entrance of a cavern, the teeth neatly lined in his mouth stalactites, and his scales glittering stones water washed down. Never once in his life has Bobby reckoned he'd ever seen the tip of his tail or his head at the same time: he could've been as long or as short as he figured, but he was as wide as a highway, imposing as one too.

"Hey, boss." Bobby coughed once he'd finally found his words again. "You, uh, needed me?"

"Yes." The serpent's tongue flicked out- and the air pushed out threw a tidal wave of water into the lake. The voice didn't come from Benjamin's lungs, that was a sound that would deafen anyone foolish enough to listen. It merely came into being inside of his head-and he figured Alys' too- and telepathically relayed the words to him. "I'm glad you came."

"And I'm glad we could make it." He leaned across the railings and looked at one of the slit eyes staring back at him. The pupil was at least twice as large as he was tall.

A great rumbling emerged from Benji. Bobby thought it was a chuckle. "Do you mind? Please, put that cigarette out. You know our new smoking policy."

"Right, right, sorry sir." Bobby blinked- but he complied, snuffing the menthol out and sticking the butt in his back pocket. "You know, Sir, I haven't read the employee handbook since I signed my contract."

"i gathered as much. You're rarely in the office nowadays." Benji, always the cordial one, cracked a... Grin. The rows of teeth looked especially shiny. "But we do have a smoking policy now, and I expect you to abide by it."

"Yes sir." Bobby flushed a little, straightening up. "Now- Benji, do you mind telling me what's so  urgent? You pull me out on a dime, there's a messenger from your sister outside, I mean, hell, everybody in the warehouse floor is talking about it. What gives?"

Alys piped up. "Sir, you didn't even let me know. I had to drag him out of bed."

Benjamin let out a mental chuckle this time. "Have you not done that before?"

That made even the tips of her ears turn pink. "Benjamin!"

"Do I not speak truth?" The dragon's eye shifted to watch Bobby. The man shrugged and kept his gaze steady. "No matter. I'm sure you're eager to know what business I have for you."

"Sir, eager is a word, yes." Bobby's whole body let out an ache- especially his arm, the skin sweltering in the encased armor. "Well, I guess I kind of am. You've kept me on edge long enough."

"I suppose so." Benji blinked. Or winked. Bobby could only see one eye after all. The dragon shifted and got comfortable, and the shock waves damn near knocked him off his feet. "Yes, it is a family matter. We'd like to keep it on the... How do you say it, down low?"

"On the down low, yes sir."

"On the down low. Thank you, young man. I don't know what I'd do without you." Benji cleared his throat: it almost popped Bobby's eardrums. "You saw Rory, on the way out, yes?"

"Of course. What's he here for? Is your sister- does she have a party planned?" Bobby rolled his shoulders. "Or is this a little bit more pressing?"

Benji shifted, the wave of air throwing Alys' hair back. "You usually don't call us here on such short notice, sir, I'm curious as well." She piped up.

"I'm in need of representatives for a... Certain kind of task." The dragon's voice kept steady. "It appears my brother's, let us say, devices, have been unearthed."

"Lua? Devices-" Bobby had to process that for a second.

"His brother, he said his brother." Some of the color washed out of Alys' face.

"You have a brother?" The magician raised an eyebrow. " Since when? And why didn't you let me know-"

Benjamin's eyes narrowed. "Damnatio memoriae. It's a term your people used a long time ago. He has, so to speak, been erased from the common memory of Ys. Most of his works as well- it's why I don't speak of him without good reason."

Bobby nodded, watching his patron carefully. "And I suppose ya have a very good reason?"

The great serpent lifted up and let a plume of smoke escape his nose. "Yes, you could say, it is a good reason. I campaigned against him, as did my sister. We... say, disposed of him, what would have been some three or so decades, it's a very fresh memory in my mind. Yet-"

The magician coughed. What a rough family, he thought, but he chose not to interrupt. Benji gathered his words before speaking again.

"-I'd like you to check on his old roost for me." He spoke those last words with finality. "At your first opportunity, of course, I see your arm is in, how should we say it, Bobby... Poor, condition?"

"Sir, I'm in a little bit more than poor condition." 

"Obviously. What got you like that?" Benji crooked a... smile, if you could call it that. "Light magic?"

Bobby thought it a reminder that each of his teeth was bigger around than two men side by side. With one quick snap of his jaws, his boss could consume him, in whatever furnace ought be a dragon's belly. The thought escaped him, and he composed himself quickly. "Yes, sir."

"Right. Now I don't expect you to have to deal with anything too dangerous. We razed it to the ground. But... I'll allow you to conduct yourself as you wish. It's in the Wildlands, like every dragon's roost." Benji began to rise up, twisting his neck from this way to that, the vertebrae letting out deep drumbeat-like cracks as he stretched. "And you know how it gets out there. Always have to be prepared, and that's why I wanted you on this."

"Oh, certainly, certainly." Bobby nodded. "Well- boss, is that... it?"

"It what?" Benji looked at him with a steady gaze. "You were expecting something else?"

The magician coughed. The dragon- his patron- his boss... wasn't the type to give him such seemingly-mundane tasks. "Yes, sir, I was.  Ya ask me to speak with demons and silence the dead when they get uppity. Visiting an old... you say it's a roost, sir? Destroyed, too?"

"Razed, child, razed." The correction came quickly, his head coming back down to focus both eyes on Bobby. It made him feel tremendously small under his gaze. "You'll be getting backup from Lua and some of her brood. I'll be preparing a dossier for you. You've been to Penelope I see- let her know it's something low-intensity. Verbatim, no conflict expected."

Bobby squinted. "You're being awfully specific."

"Your doctors require me to be." Benji counted. "Penelope is merely the most... say, egregious, about it."

He pursed his lips and rubbed his forehead, the thoughts beginning to run in his head. "Still. It's just Alys and I?"

The dragon puffed out smoke again. "This is a joint operation, with my sister. She'll be sending some muscle to help out. I'd love to go there myself, but... well, the politics of Ys are a little charged right now."

"Ah, right." Bobby nodded, nodded again, then looked between himself and Alys- who seemed to have grown terribly quiet and withdrawn with the conversation. Her hair was still and her shirt clung tight with the sweat coming off her. "Sir, why are you sending us there?"

Benji twisted, slithering back into the water where he rested. As his coils began to sink into the surface, throwing water this way and that, he turned back and gave the two a stern, solid look. "My brother left many things behind, most Lua and I destroyed. I'd like a little peace of mind we were absolute in our task."

"Yes sir. I think I understand. So- should we be getting ready-"

Benji disappeared under the waves without another word, casting great clouds of water up, and thoroughly wetting the two with the warm water of the lake. He cussed under his breath- surely audible to the dragon's mystical senses, before turning back to Alys.

If she wasn't miserable before, she sure was now. The water didn't help a bit in cooling them off: it just got their clothes soaked. "Oh devils, that's what he wanted?" The elf wiped her hair out of her eyes and ground her foot into the Circle. 

"Sounds like you know something about this whole deal." The magician drug his heels but made his way back up to the elevator and the access hall with Alys in tow. His stomach churned and his whole mouth tasted like acrid smoke, and he had to steady himself on the rocks just to get back up to the employee break room. Then he turned back and yelled over the lake- "And don't you just hate it when people leave stuff unexplained all of a sudden?"

Alys scowled. "Stop that. He might revoke your pact." The elf weakly suggested, shaking her head. "For real this time."

"I think I'd know by now if that was going to happen." A few final steps put the two of them at the access halls, where they ducked back into the cooler stone and scurried into the break room. "One of these days I'm gonna knock Benji upside the head. One of these days."

"You can't even reach his head, Bobby. He's..." Alys did some math in her head, no doubt slowed by the unbearable climate of Benjamin's office. She poured herself into a chair by a fan and cast a quick spell in her elven language. The fridge at one end of the break room opened, and Bobby peered inside of it. "Damn it, is there anything good in there?"

The man looked. "It's- Ah hell."

"What?" The elf practically melted into the leather couch. 

"Alys... it's- it's the dollar store cola."

Her hair practically lit up. "From the dollar store!? He's how rich? And he gets the cola from a- what's the store's name-"

Bobby cussed and threw her one. "Dollar general." Then he reached over and snatched one of those knockoff coffee pods, a cup full of ice and making himself a single-serve of ice coffee. "We have six figure salaries, he's got more money than God, and he puts dollar store cola and the Walmart coffee pods in here, what, do the kobolds down here like that stuff? Do they?"

The cola hissed in Alys hands, the woman chugging it down without pause. Bobby watched her crush it both ways, hardly taking a breath- and then perfectly landing the crumpled can in the trash opposite the room from her. "I guess! It's sugar water."

"Alys, it is all sugar water." Bobby groaned and sat on the other side of the couch, catching his breath. "I just wish he got some air conditioning, or, hell, keep one of them icicle bastards on call. I feel like a low country boil."

"Low- what?"

He paused. Right. She couldn't come by very often for when he got invited to his mundane friends' get togethers. "Big ole' pot full of taters and sausage and crabs and corn. It's really good. Lots of butter and salt. I think you've had it before."

Alys furrowed her brow. "I... will have to try that."

Bobby nodded, and sipped his watery coffee. They took a short rest before getting back up into the elevator, blessing it for the cool air as they ascended back to the main floors.