---

Floor 31

The Shattered Race

---

 

I suppose you could call what was nearby a hill, though it was a far more nefarious thing. Even from the distance that we were at we could see the holes in it. They were entryways into tunnels that interlaced beneath the ground. It was very much similar to an ant hill, a fact that unnerved me given that each hole was large enough to let a grown man through.

 

Lisa had found a small stream of water to play at while the rest of us had taken to studying the nest. Adam and Lance were deep in discussion with a third person, Giln, who had been sent along to offer support by Viva.

 

I knelt next to a small boulder for cover, hand placed against it for balance, while I studied the holes on the hill. From the darkened interior I could make out small glimpses of movement as guards stood at the ready near each entrance. “This is different,” I commented to Kuzu who was to my left, “they never nested before.”

 

“Is this a good idea? I mean...should we be helping shifters?”

 

“If it was back on my first time through I never would’ve helped them.”

 

“So why now?”

 

“Things change.” I pointed at the hill as evidence for that fact . “That is new. The way they are acting is new, the fact that they even have leaders and social groups is new. I don’t know if it was intended or not, but the shifters aren’t just animals anymore.”

 

“Neither were the goblins,” Kuzu pointed out.

 

“True, but you can’t negotiate with goblins, they’d sooner eat you,” I jerked a thumb back over my shoulder at the brothers, “those two have proven you can with shifters.”

 

“So this mask relic is important enough to die for?”

 

“Relic, I suppose that’s one way to put it” I said with a chuckle, “Pierre’s creation made into something grander.”

 

From behind the sound of gravel crunched as Adam walked up close to us. “Alright, Giln is heading on ahead to set up near the portal. We’ll prepare a small ambush in the forest south-east of here while Lance secures the spy.”

 

“What?” I couldn’t hold in my surprise at the strategy laid out by Adam. “Why is your brother going into the nest alone?”

 

“Don’t need no help, you’d just slow me down,” Lance boldly stated while he started to strip off his arm guards and clothes.

 

“You said yourself if the Doppelganger’s don’t get this mask back that they’d lose their hold on floor thirty,” I argued, while pointedly ignoring Lance’s stripping, “sending in only your brother sounds idiotic not to mention suicidal.”

 

Adam eyed me for a short while before he glanced at his brother. “Lance, take him with you,” he ordered his brother, “you know he’s right, we can’t risk the Bloods getting the mask.”

 

“Fine! Fine!” Lance threw his hands up in the air before he started to walk away from the nest and over to the nearby stream. “Follow me smart guy.”

 

“The nest is over there?” I commented with a quick point at the large mound.

 

“Ain’t going there first, something we need to do,” Lance continued to walk ahead of me.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Strip.”

 

☗ ☗ ☗ ☗ ☗

 

The rate at which we approached the hill was slow enough that I had plenty of time to wonder about my future plans quite thoroughly. The hours that we spent crawling over the grass, dirt and mud was enough to let night begin her steady appearance on the horizon. To add onto the aggravation the crisp evening air teased at my mud-clad body.

 

Lance had taken the lead, a fact that did little to help with my discomfort. Whenever he went still I followed suit, hoping that he knew what he was doing. Prior to the start of this odd mission to infiltrate the nest Adam had told me to believe in his brother, but I barely knew the man.

 

When we reached one of the dark holes that lead into the nest Lance came to a stop, and with one hand motioned for me to do the same. A dark figure loomed within the shadowed interior, what I could only assume was a guard. The fact that it had failed to notice our approach only showed how horrid the creature was at it’s assigned task.

 

A noise to the right and the dark blob shifted it’s attention away from the front. When the gaze of the shifter turned back to our direction a golden hand floated in the air before it’s face. Before the monster could hope to cry out in warning the hand grabbed hold of it’s head and smashed it into the ground.

 

We both rose from the muddy ground and darted to the open entrance as more hands formed about the shifter guard. By the time we had passed through to the interior the sound of bones breaking could no longer be heard, the hands crafted from my magic dissipated into thin air.

 

What greeted us on the inside was the complete opposite of what I had anticipated. Rather than a small and dark tunnel, the pathways of the nest were wide enough for three people. The height of each tunnel was twice what one would expect, a waste of space in my opinion. The most intriguing aspect of the nest hallways were the fungus patches that grew throughout it, each patch producing dim light.

 

“How are we going to find this spy?” I whispered to Lance.

 

“That ain’t too hard, leave it to me,” Lance responded as he strode ahead, confidence obvious with each step.

 

For a long time we walked through the tunnels that wound through the nest. I could feel a slight incline in the paths, and a few curves, which meant we were heading down deeper into the ground. Every time we came to a junction we would pause before Lance moved on. Though I couldn’t tell how he picked where to go, the fact that he walked so confidently only helped to bolster my belief.

 

Somehow we evaded contact with the enemy shifters. While we had rolled around in mud to hide our scent it was still odd. If what Lance had told me was right, and the sense of smell from a shifter was extreme to the point of detecting even clothes, how had we avoided them?

 

At one point we paused near an entrance into a large subterranean room. I could only guess that it was their version of a larder, as it was filled with dead animals that were in the middle of being bled. There were a couple of shifters that stood in the room, but their backs were turned to the door.

 

What bothered me the most about what I saw in that room was that one of the guards wasn’t any type of animal I could recognize. Instead it looked like he had somehow created a new form, something that I hadn’t known they could do. I could only hope it wouldn’t become a problem in the near future.

 

After we walked past the larder we reached yet another intersection. It was then that Lance grabbed my arm and pulled me back, one hand lifted to his mouth to signify a need for silence. I didn’t struggle against the pull, but for a moment I couldn’t figure out why he’d done that. A few seconds later I barely made out the sound of some sort of creatures approaching the intersection.

 

We sat there tucked around the corner, hidden as best we could be in the tunnel, while a small group of shifters slithered through the corridor near us. Out of all of the available paths they luckily chose one that we weren’t on. Lance remained still for a few seconds longer before he returned to the intersection.

 

Whenever I attempted to engage with a quick and quiet conversation with Lance he hushed me into silence. For once his gaze was serious and gone was the silly man from the previous floors. It was a reversal I could only consider caused by the amount of danger we were in.

 

Another hole in the tunnel came up on our left and we approached it slowly. Lance slipped up to the edge of it, peered inside, and then stepped back over to me. “There’s nine in there,” he whispered to me in a voice so quiet I could barely even hear it.

 

“And the spy?”

 

“In there as well. The room is a sleeping area with lots of space, think you can do that hand thing on all of them?”

 

“Let me take a look,” I slipped past him and peeked into the darkened room.

 

What lay within was far removed from what I considered a sleeping chamber. The condition inside the bedroom was spartan to the point of idiocy, with no form of cushioning on the grounds except for a few leaves brought in from outside. A shifter had dug out shallow holes in the floor to serve as the beds, of which many were full.

 

Each of the shifters was a dark ball of fur and scales, a hybridization of a bear and some sort of lizard. The taloned paws coupled with their pronounced snouts extending out from an ursine face made for a surreal animal. Their overall size was larger than what a normal man would be, but thankfully smaller than some of the beasts I’d run across in the past.

 

“They’re too far away from the door,” I informed Lance when I pulled back from the doorway, “I could throw my hands at them but they’d be able to react to them before they get there.”

 

“Gotta fight, eh?” Lance growled as he glared at the doorway.

 

“What about the spy?”

 

“I’ll handle her, let's clear out the other idiots first.”

 

“How do I recognize which one is the spy?”

 

“I can handle that easy.”

 

“Want me to make a weapon for you?”

 

“Naw.” Lance waved me off. “Ain’t gonna need that.”

 

He stepped away from me and walked through the doorway of the bedroom. Unclothed, unarmed, and coated with mud he had no problem confidently striding into the view of all the shifters. While most of them were asleep a couple were still aware enough that they noticed his arrival.

 

“Isa! It’s time to go!” Lance almost yelled, even as he casually punched a nearby shifter in the head before it could finish standing up.

 

My ability to watch Lance faltered after that point as three of the shifters rose from their resting places. Each of them lunged at me with no finesse or subterfuge. Before the three could hope to even reach me I had already summoned two short swords into my hands.

 

The golden blades sliced through the body of the first shifter, which slumped to the ground with that single attack. His brethren ignored the death and came at me, their claws swiping with what I considered an obvious lack of experience. A quick flick of one of my swords knocked askew one of the claws, and I also sidestepped the other attack. I pushed off of my right foot, extending my sword deep into the nearest of the two shifters, and impaled him through where I hoped his heart was.

 

The shifter let out a wet gurgle as blood poured from the corners of it’s misshapen mouth. As I slide the sword free from the chest and turned my attention to the remaining shifter who’d attacked me. After I’d so readily dispatched it’s ally it had opted to pull back, but only a few feet. Behind it two more shifters moved in to join it, and so I went from a one on one to a somewhat unfair fight once again.

 

“Guess I’m not too lucky,” I muttered, since I had to deal with five of the nine.

 

Two of the three began to stalk toward me, their bodies low to the ground. With each step their bodies rippled and the flesh seemed to crawl randomly across their bodies, though their black eyes never once moved from me. I brandished my twin swords in front of me, taking on a more defensive posture as I waited for one of the shifters to make another mistake.

 

What came next caught not only myself, but all of the shifters, by surprise. A single long blade extended through the head of the two shifters in front of me, the blade itself originating from the hand of the shifter behind them. It had extended out the fingertips and pierced it’s allies, and even as I struggled to adjust to this the shifter whipped it’s hand from side to side. The motion caused the extended fingers to slice the heads in half.

 

The remaining shifter in front of me stood up straight and it’s body began to ripple. Soon enough a form that looked almost like a human with clothing replaced the strange bear-lizard hybrid. Long black boots stretched up pure white knees, while the almost translucent legs ran up until they vanished beneath a black skirt. The skirt itself hugged so tight that it looked like it was part of the skin itself. A white belt ran around the waist, while the black bodice held back a chest that was obviously exaggerated.

 

A mask covered the face of the shifter, one that looked to be made of a bronze-hued metal with ruby dust etched into it. Across the entire mask swirled intricate patterns that looked to hold no purpose, though I knew what it was supposed to do. A pure white hand reached up to the mask and removed it. The face that was revealed was that of a youthful girl with crimson lips, red eyes, and hair that had been styled short and wild.

 

“What are you doing here!” the girl yelled as she turned away from me.

 

Thanks to that I was reminded of Lance and so I turned to survey what had happened. What I saw was the mud-caked man splattered with shifter blood, along with fresh four corpses. In truth I hadn’t expected that he would’ve won against them, but somehow he proved me wrong.

 

“Shut up, Isa,” Lance shook his hands to remove some of the excess blood that covered them. “Viva sent us.”

 

“Mother.” Isa spat on the ground. “Why’d she send you, and what’s this little one?”

 

“I’m an Elf,” I told her.

 

The fact that she was the daughter of Viva registered but didn’t matter much. Instead the mask that she held in one hand continued to garner my interest, the intricate design significantly similar to what Pierre had utilized in the past. Yet I could make out alterations, shifts in the swirls and patterns that most definitely resulted in a different effect.

 

“The Bloods contacted Viva,” Lance said, “apparently they wanted the Dopples to stay out of a fight for this nest. She said yes, but that means you’ll get caught in the crossfire.”

 

“Makes sense, she wouldn’t want to lose her precious toy.” Isa casually waved the mask in her hand, her face contorted into a look of disgust.

 

A tremble ran through the ground, a hint at something quite unpleasant, as the sound of shifters echoed from the tunnel outside the room. “I think we need to leave,” I commented.

 

“You and Isa head for the portal, I’ll lead them away,” Lance stated as he motioned at his blood splattered body, “they’ll be able to follow me anywhere with this. I’ll draw them away before hopping into that stream outside.”

 

“Good, bye, try not to die,” Isa flippantly said to Lance while she started to walk out of the cavernous room, “you coming Elf guy?”

 

“Wait, Lance, are you sure about this?”

 

“Tch. Ain’t nothing to it,” Lance told me before he grinned wide, “keep Isa safe, I won’t forgive you if anything happens to her.”

 

When I left the room I paused at the door to look back over my shoulder at Lance, yet the man retained his calm demeanor. “Good luck,” I told him.

 

Ahead of me Isa had already walked down the hallway. She had a confident strut and didn’t spare a glance at me when I started to walk next to her. Instead she was focused on the walls and tunnel, eyes narrowed while her head was cocked to the side. Through the whole of the nest the howl of the shifters resounded.

 

“Figures, a few dozen already on their way down,” Isa muttered.

 

“We shouldn’t just leave Lance behind, he can’t fight that many alone,” I discarded the gold swords which caused them to vanish into thin air, and the blood that had been on them dropped to the floor, “he came all this way to help you after all.”

 

It was a comment that made Isa stop in her tracks and twist around to face me. “Look here, Elf thing.” Isa flailed the mask at me as though she planned to smack me with it. “Lance can handle everything just fine, we need worry about someone getting this mask instead!”

 

“What makes you so confident he can take on dozens of shifters alone?”

 

Isa laughed as she straightened her back, while her free hand lifted up to cover her mouth. “Wow he didn’t tell you anything did he? Figures. There’s no way my brother can die so easily.”