Chapter Text
Floor 40 - Chapter 3: The Pit
Sat on the banks of the River Weir, under a rather pleasant sky with sun shining down onto the trees that hid the four of them in their shade, "Mademoiselle Ecarlate" began to reveal more of herself to them - including her name, that being Tieze Shtolienien.
Unsurprisingly, Jet thought, she was a noble woman, but more surprisingly, she wasn't from around here - literally, she was from the same kingdom that Ronie had ruled over, something that had taken all three of them by surprise.
She had left home at a young age, being taken in as a member of the Royal Court on this floor, having learned skills desired by many nobles - reading, writing, dancing… and sword fighting - before her adoptive parents had attempted to marry her off.
Given everything they'd learned about her so far, it was completely unsurprising that she had not been too fond of that idea, and had found herself here in Perranzabuloe instead. Other stories she had told them seemed so completely far-fetched that even he had struggled to believe everything she had said about herself.
Namely that she had at one point found herself in a relationship with another young woman, whose parents had not exactly approved of the relationship and sent her to a religious institute… and so, Tieze had become a nun, rescued her lover, then dropped a dead body in her lover's bed and set fire to the room…
All for a relationship that had failed about a month later.
There was something to be said for never doing things by half, he supposed, and from everything they knew about Tieze, she didn't do anything by halves…
"So, what's with the ruby?" He asked.
"Can I not give a beautiful lady a gift?" She asked, and Jet found himself wondering if he could call her Captain Jack yet… "No, it has meaning to me - almost a calling card for myself, I suppose."
"So… it's not a magical artifact?" Rain asked, almost disappointed at the revelation that it was just a stone. A very shiny and pretty stone… but still a stone.
Tieze laughed. "Sadly not, Rain. If I had magical rubies, I would be rather more wealthy than I am! Still, I am not in this for wealth - I suppose you could call me an adventurer of sorts; like yourselves."
"So, why'd you end up here?"
"This land is beyond wicked - the lord of the town suppresses those he does not like with an iron fist, and then guilds of assassins lurk in the Outlands. I viewed it more as a stop on my journey, but I came to realise that, for once, I could help here."
"Mademoiselle Ecarlete is just a cover then; the bold and daring opera singer…" Jet thought aloud, impressed by the audacity of the whole thing. He'd heard the story before - that of the Scarlet Pimpernel, an Englishman in the nobility of the time who hid his tales of daring do and rescues of the French nobility behind an air of pomp and idleness… "What a way to hide in plain sight, eh?"
"I am glad you are suitably impressed." Tieze smirked, clearly basking in the admiration… yeah, she was definitely a noble of some kind. "I do try."
Before he could accidentally stroke her ego any further, Koharu interrupted. "So what are you actually trying to do here?"
"I told you, this land is wicked, and I plan to change that as best I can." Tieze said. "These men in charge, they will do many things for a pretty face, and say even more. With the things I have learned, I could bring their endeavour crashing down on them…"
"Hardly heroic, is it? Blackmail them into change?"
"I wish I could do it another way, but this has proven the most effective way of doing so." Tieze shrugged, and he could tell she wasn't exactly fond of her own methods either. "But that leads me to my question for you… that monster in man's skin, who was he?"
"Albion - he's… one of us. Kind of." Jet began to explain, a scowl on his face as he did. "Like everyone, there's groups of us - he's part of one called Laughing Coffin. They're a murder guild, and well, the clue's in the name as to what they do."
"I assumed as much, but you were familiar with him…"
"We've run into him too many times before." His expression fell dark as he remembered each encounter with the evil bastard… and the bodycount he'd left behind with him.
Eydis and Ronie, both murdered in cold blood, just because. Albion had had no reason to do so, but he had killed them anyway, and if what he'd said at the mansion was true, he'd done so because he enjoyed the thrill that came from taking a life… and here, he could do so with almost impunity.
He still had the image of that scene in the White Chapel burned into his mind, and the utter depravity of it.
"He's taken too many lives, and next time, I'm putting him down like the feral dog he is." He said darkly, ignoring the voices in his head that told him that he was not judge, jury and executioner.
"See, that is where I don't think you will." Tieze stated confidently, and he snapped around to face her.
"Excuse me?" He asked her, an interrogating tone in his voice at the… was it an insult to think he wouldn't do something like that?
"You strike me as the archetypal hero - someone who fights for what he sees as good and just - and that is why I believe you will not kill him. A hero never kills, do they?"
"I'm not a hero." He said to himself. "I'm just an idiot who finds himself in these kinds of messes way too often."
"An idiot or not, I couldn't say, but you do not seem like the type to willingly take a life. Even a life as despicable as that monster's."
"I don't want to admit it Jet, but she has you pegged pretty well there." Rain admitted.
"That comes later, I think." Tieze smirked at the innuendo, and he found himself choking on air. What the hell was even happening here anymore, he wondered as he looked towards Koharu, who had now gone bright red too…
A few seconds passed by, and Tieze stood back up, wiping away the dirt and grass from her skirt. "As much as this has been enlightening, I should be back at the amphitheatre - if I am seen with all three of you, there will be yet more scandal…"
"Yet more?" Koharu asked, an eyebrow raised at the statement.
"I may have fought three noblemen for the hand of a lady…" Tieze admitted. "And then events happened. Let us say I am now banned from Floor 10 for what happened afterwards…"
Koharu sighed, as if realising something… "Jet, are you absolutely sure you two aren't related?" She asked, and he gave a slightly offended look - one that was absolutely put on as a bit.
"Hey, I'm not usually kicked out for my flirting…" Even if it probably was bad enough to get him kicked out of most places, it rarely resulted in duelling anyone… "Besides, you enjoy it often enough." He smirked, and Koharu looked away with a blush on her face, mumbling something…
Tieze gave a short laugh, before heading away, and the trio all gave a confused look at the suddenness of her departure. "Well, she was…"
"An interesting character." Rain agreed. "Though I agree with Koharu - if you two aren't related in some way, then I will be amazed…"
"Wait, how would I be related to an NPC?!" He asked, now genuinely confused by that. It wasn't like the NPCs could be related to players, was it? And if they could, then how on… well, Aincrad, did that work?!
"Huh, she left this." Koharu looked at the ground below, and found a sliver of fabric that seemed to have been snagged by a plant of some kind. "Oh? It's got some writing on it… and I don't know what language that is."
"Uhh, it's French, but my French is kind of atrocious." He told her, remembering that time he had asked for a swimming pool and chips when doing MFL at school; because the words for Fish and Swimming Pool were apparently close enough in his mind to forget which way round it was…
Still better than Sam, who'd asked for a horse and cart instead of fish and chips. Was it petty that he was never going to let him live that down? Yup. Was it also very funny to his thirteen year old self? Oh absolutely…
"It says "Meet me outside the gates tonight."." Rain translated fast enough that it was almost as if she spoke fluent French, and didn't have to think about the translation… "Why are you both looking at me like that?"
"You speak French?"
"Oui, porquoi?" Rain answered, almost showing off at this point, though he knew her as too humble to be doing that. "Est-ce étrange?"
"Never change, Rain. Never change…" He smiled at her, though she seemed genuinely bewildered by what the hell he was on about…
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The afternoon had been spent explaining to the rest of the Concord what they now knew, and deciding on a plan of action.
With Laughing Coffin bloodied after their attack on the ball last night, he figured they wouldn't be coming back for the next few days at least, but that simply removed one problem from the game board, not all of them.
There was still the Lord to deal with, as well as the Assassin's Guild hiding out in the plains, and that had led to the decision to split the Concord into two groups:
One would keep digging into the Lord, to see exactly what he was doing, and ideally prevent it - as well as any bloodshed, should Tieze decide to take action - whilst the other would scour the plains outside of the town to find any signs of the Assassins Guild, and work out exactly what they were doing… given the Lord hadn't actually said anything other than that they were harassing the nobles of the town (something he didn't exactly blame them for, if they were all like the Lord…).
Before they'd left though, Rain had given him the ruby that Tieze had given to her - her reasoning being that he always had more space in his inventory, and slightly fewer swords meant there less chance it would be damaged as they went along, though he wondered if Rain had some other plan in mind with that.
If she did though, he had no idea what it was.
And with that plan in action, he and Koharu took Nautilus and Yuna out into the plains to look for any signs of the assassins' hideout, whilst everyone else headed out to investigate the lord. If he was honest, they had the easy job - Perranzabuloe was a labyrinth of passes and alleyways that led all across the town, and he'd figured that had been how the assassins had gotten away with everything for so long, mostly.
The other part was sheer incompetence on the part of the Lord's private thugs - after all, hired muscle weren't generally known for their brains, he decided. He'd seen his uncle's company, and decided that their careers advisor was wrong… it was possible to get a job when you didn't bother with school, just that it'd be one as cannon fodder.
"Meant to ask… where did you two go last night?" He asked the question that was on his mind - a question he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to. Not because he thought either of them had sold them out, but more because he had an inkling they had snuck of for a very specific reason…
"Oh, we, umm…" Yuna turned away awkwardly, and he decided that it probably was what he thought the reasoning was… and didn't particularly want to know about their love lives. "You won't be mad, right?"
"Why would we be mad?" Koharu asked, confused.
"We wanted to go find a quiet place so I could practice my singing." Yuna sighed. "I didn't think anything would happen, and well, by the time we knew something was going on…"
"Ohh…" He felt like slapping himself for going for the… Well, very them answer.
"Why? What did you think it was?" Nautilus asked, an eyebrow raised at his look of awkwardness.
"Nothing." He answered far too quickly, but thanked any deity that neither of them had caught onto his line of thinking. "Just wondered, that's all."
"Are you okay though? Koharu did say that Albion messed you up a bit…" Yuna asked, changing the direction of the conversation towards him.
Nautilus chimed in too, though it felt more like he'd finally caught onto his earlier insinuation, and was now getting his own back a bit… "Not sure why he tied you up like that either. That's messed up in its own right."
"Eh, I'll live." He shrugged. "Which is more than I'll say for Albion when we catch him…" He said with a sense of darkness radiating from him, one that even he could feel…
Nautilus and Yuna exchanged a worried look between themselves, and then with Koharu, who quickly changed the topic of conversation again. "What are we looking for?"
"Anything that might help us work out where they're hiding." He answered, before spotting something flash by in his periphery… "What was that?"
"What was what?" Koharu asked, her expression changing as she must have spotted it too. "Where did it go?"
"Where did-over there!" He called out, spotting a fast blur against the Plains. What even was that, he thought to himself - it didn't look human, that much he was certain of…
And whatever it was, it was running away from them at quite some speed, and on all fours too… yeah, that wasn't human!
"After it!" He called out, with the rest of the group following him in giving chase to the mysterious creature…
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A couple of minutes had passed, and the group found themselves under the town, in the old Gaols that had once been used for holding the prison population of the town. These days though, the cells appeared rather more lively than that, with a scattering of players lurking around them; players that they had all decided it was rather better that they avoid for now…
Four of them, versus forty others, was not a fight Jet reckoned they could win…
"What is this place?" Yuna asked from behind.
"It was an old jail system, I think." Nautilus explained quietly. "Though it looks like the inmates have taken over now…"
"I don't think they're the inmates…" He muttered, spotting one of them, and more importantly, spotting a tattoo on a poncho covered person…
A coffin with a laughing face.
Even in his anger, seeking down Albion to kill the bastard before he could do any more harm, he was not usually stupid enough to launch a reconnaissance run into the home base of the murder guild known for torturing people… "We're in the belly of the beast…" He realised, his eyes wide with horror. "We need to get out of here, as quietly as we can and report back."
"You never suggest running away though? Not unless…" Koharu, for the first time in a long time, looked as if she was genuinely terrified by that statement, and even Nautilus and Yuna seemed to be getting more anxious as he spoke. "Oh. Oh no…"
He looked in his inventory for a teleport crystal, though to his frustration they had all been used beforehand, and they hadn't had a chance to stock up again… "You've got to be kidding me…"
As he backed away slowly, he realised something else - this was a strategy meeting for Laughing Coffin; almost a dark mirror to their own meetings, as little parties of the murder guild took their positions, whilst a group of cloaks stood behind a central figure on the stage.
A man in a poncho.
The mysterious leader of Laughing Coffin, a man no one had lived to tell the tale of… and now, they were eavesdropping in their meeting. Fate really did have a sense of humour, didn't it?
"Evening to all you thugs, rapists, murderers and other reprobates!" He bellowed, an almost nightmarishly affable demeanour to him, as if he were hosting a late night talk show, rather than a meeting of how to kill people…
And the worst part - the crowd were lapping it up, almost worshipping the man…
Scratch that, this was no late night TV show; this was a televangelist preaching to the idiots and senseless who believed in them…
"Oh, I'm so glad all of you are here tonight!" He announced, an evil smirk on his face. "Because we've got quite the show for you all!"
A show they wanted no part of, he'd quickly decided, as he turned away to head back out of the caverns that had led them here, before a chilling sentence was uttered…
"We've got the Knight of the Wind, and a beautiful songbird for you tonight! And the best part, they volunteered for this!"
Oh fuck, they knew they were here, and that meant it had been time to leave five minutes ago!
"Oh, don't think you'll be leaving here… I promise you, it'll be a show to die for."
Quickly, and without a single word being uttered, the group began to sprint through the tunnels, hoping to get out before the goons could get up to them from the main stadium, and as they did, he'd sent off a message to Asuna telling them they were going to need help, and that they'd found the Laughing Coffin base…
It had been as that message was sent that the tunnels began to fill with a noxious gas… "Cover your noses!" He shouted, feeling his head going light as he did.
"It's… not…" Koharu's voice fell quiet as the gas overwhelmed her, and his eyes burned. Two more thuds against the wall told him that Nautilus and Yuna were out for the count too, and it couldn't have been more than seconds later that he felt his legs give way beneath him…
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In the end, he wasn't sure how long the gas had knocked him out for, though he could tell it had been at least a few minutes, as the four of them had found themselves in some kind of makeshift arena, formed out of some kind of cellblock, each cell releasing into the walkways around it, whilst a view from on high was afforded to the murderous spectators…
"So, with that little delay dealt with… you know the rules of the game, don't you?" The man in the poncho asked, and for the first time, Jet was able to get a good look at the man beneath it - he wasn't Japanese, he knew that much for certain, and if he had to guess, he'd say the man might have been South American in origin, given the twang in his accent; and with tattoos across his face…
Other than that, he'd have said the man was quite handsome, if it hadn't been for the "currently attempting to murder them" part…
"First to die loses, last to live wins!" He told them with a wicked grin, before turning to the audience. "And every minute you stay alive, you win a point… and you know what points mean…"
"Prizes!" The audience bellowed back, and he decided he was never, ever, listening to I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue again after this… the man was more deadpan and deranged than Jack Dee, and that was an achievement!
"With you till the end, yeah?" Koharu asked, trying to smile, despite their imminent deaths...
"Kind of hoped it'd be a bit longer than this though." He admitted, and prepared himself mentally for the upcoming fight. If they could hold out until Asuna and the rest of the Concord found them, then they might just survive this…
He quickly shushed the part of his mind that told him that rescue could be hours, if not days, away, and focused himself on the battle. No time for goodbyes, and all that… though he had one last thought before that.
"Nautilus, Yuna… I'm sorry. This is all my fault, and now…" He admitted, before realising that the younger players had been kept off to one side, almost like a sick game of football, where they would be kept offside, before substituting them, should one of them die or otherwise bore the murderers… "Well then, if you were expecting some noble speech… don't waste your breath."
"One last battle then, partner." Despite the smirk on his face, he knew Koharu could sense the terror in his eyes as he spoke.
"Once more unto the breach." She agreed, and took his hand in hers one last time before their foe came out to play…
A towering red and grey monster, easily seven to eight feet tall and wielding a staff with a pair of blades on it like a fork, whilst the other end of the staff was simply a spear…
Attached to his wrist was a chain that led to a beast, a silver creature covered in spikes with monstrous red eyes, and a jaw that split into three distinct fangs, the beast being not too much smaller than its master…
Above it though, was the thing that filled him with the most terror:
Maxilos the Gaoler.
"It's brilliant, isn't it!" The man in the poncho, apparently named PoH if the crowd's chanting was anything to go by, exclaimed with a sick sense of glee. "Now, little songbird… sing them to their deaths."
"Let them go!" Yuna exclaimed defiantly. "Or let us fight it too!"
"Oh, you're too valuable for that - that singing skill of yours… think what we could do with you boosting us…" PoH grinned, and for the first time it set into him… that shadow creature they'd seen, that must have been the beast luring them in.
They'd wanted Yuna for her skill, and the rest of them were just an added bonus; a bit of light entertainment as they broke the young songstress and turned her into their puppet…
A knife came across her throat, as added "encouragement" from PoH's goons. "Now sing! Give them all the strength you can… they'll need it!"
"Let her go!" Nautilus shouted from his position, hands and feet tied with two guards behind him…
"I refuse to!" She told him, defying the bare metal on her throat…
"The boy, throw him in too." PoH rolled his eyes, as two of the guards threw the still tied up Nautilus into the arena. "Let's see how defiant she is as he gets ripped apart, shall we?"
"Naut!" Yuna cried out, as Koharu cut him free, whilst he took note of the arena in a bit more detail - looking for any exits, or ways to exploit the arena to their advantage. None, short of severing the walkways on top of Maxilos, or tricking it into bashing into them, and using the chaos to escape…
"Don't worry about me, I'll keep you safe Yuna…" Nautilus told her, and as the three of them stood there, their weapons at the ready, Jet looked for an exit strategy. "No plan for escape then?"
"Short of causing a riot, no."
"I don't see any downsides there…" Nautilus shrugged, trying to act nonchalant even in the face of overwhelming odds against them...
"No guarantees we could get out in that carnage though - not before they pull the same gas trick again, anyway." He pointed out with a sigh.
"Then I guess we fight until we die." For the first time, there was a genuine sense of comradery between the two boys of the group, and a nod of agreement between them. "Sorry I dragged you into this, both of you."
"Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to kill you when we get out of this." Nautilus smiled, with a nod.
"Back of the queue there, Nautilus." Koharu told him with a smirk. "Oh, and don't think I'll go easy on you either…"
"Wouldn't have it any other way…" He laughed, though there was a lack of mirth to it as the clock counted down into single digits... "Well then, here we go…"