The Cave

"Four symbols?" muttered Jaron, heading back to the lock. "Is it that obvious?"

While Jaron started to move the symbols around, Kendrik let go of him and turned around to face Reyes. The hound was uncomfortable to not have Jaron in his sights, but something had been eating at him for the past half-hour, or however long it had been since Reyes had helped him to get the shore. "Sorry fer takin' ya hostage back there," Kendrik whispered, looking away and crossing his arms. "Yer a good kid, and I was freakin' out."

His frown hardened. "Y'know what it's been like fer us? We ended the war, went up north, and we've been wanderin' 'round in the ice and snow. 'm lookin' to find my family, he's lookin' to get his arm workin'. It ain't been fun. When every person ya meet might want ta kill ya or steal from ya or somethin', it kinda messes with yer head. I'd kinda like ta see some of my old friends. Even Aegeas. Don't regret much, but yeah, sorry fer that."

"Oh," Lucifer said, blinking. "She's old."

Then, when he realized how rude he sounded, he began to profusely apologize. "I'm sorry! That wasn't nice of me to say at all. I mean, you do look really good for being older than a hundred?" He nervously rubbed the back of his neck, looking very, very sheepish. He hadn't been thinking straight; he was honestly surprised by her age, and the words had just come out of his mouth.

He looked back over at her. "I don't understand. How can she sell her soul to a god? The closest I can do is a contract, and those are really, really special. You have to be incredibly close to the person you're making a contract with. Also, you don't end up sharing the same body?"


"Whoa," Kartiel said. He hesitantly took a step closer and stared at where the quartz had entered her body. He started to reach out a hand to touch the area, only to stop when he realized how inappropriate that might seem. "Could I-Could I touch it?" he asked


"It's alright," Reyes said. "I've, er, dealt with worse before."

He did have to admit that getting taken hostage was a new experience, but he had been put in dangerous situations as the result of the fear of the people responsible - ghosts tended to be especially good at overreacting and trying to defend themselves against what they didn't know.

Although it was just a little strange to hear someone refer to him as a kid after all of these years.

"That sounds tough," Reyes added, watching Jaron out of the corner of his eye. "I admit that I haven't been involved in a war for quite some time, but I do remember what that was like. War isn't pleasant, from the little I've seen."

Apophis glances at Auryon. "Why don't you go ahead and explain it, Sarah?"

"Leave her alone," Kratzer growls at her.

"Don't you get all uppity on me next or I'll fetch Boomslang to deal with you, dreizhen." This shuts him up rather promptly, though it's plain he holds no respect for the demon. Apophis stands behind Auryon, putting her arms over the human's shoulders. The latter pretty much ignores her, used to such actions, and not really caring at this point.

"I signed a contract selling my soul to Apophis in exchange for vengeance when I was twelve," she said blandly. "As long as I'm bound to her and she's alive, I'm alive."

"Sure." Adeline nodded and adjusted the tunic. Her body was more like a vague sillohuette of a woman- it had no details. Though, of course, those she met always started at her because of what she was made of, she honestly didn't think about it all that much.

Kendrik shrugged. "War's ugly," he said, "But it ain't all bad. Wasn't fer me, anyhow. I met Jaron, got to run 'round the world, and, y'know, save it. Life now ain't all roses, but it's better than what me or him were goin' through 'fore we found each other. My scars ain't from war, and his scars - you can't see 'em, but they're there - ain't from war either."

Behind him, Jaron shouted out a curse in an old language. Not something that Reyes could understand, but Kendrik knew well enough. Turning around, the hound saw that the door, like before, stayed shut.

The hound walked over and got on his knees behind Jaron, who was pounding at the lock. "Guess it was too obvious," Kendrik said. "We'll get in there, but maybe later."

Jaron sighed and nodded.

It was when Kendrik pulled Jaron up that they both heard the rustling again. Much closer this time. Their ears perked up and their heads moved in unison, focusing on a half-destroyed building nearby.

The hound reached for his sword, but hesitated. In this place, he wasn't sure if anything he ran into was friend or foe. Might as well wait to see which would be the case here.

"It is," Maahes agreed. He looked down at himself, then back up at James. "I'm not restricted to human forms, either. I can take on the form of anything. Any person, any animal, and even objects, if I really focus. I've just been using human guises for so long that it's become like second nature for me to take on a human guise."


"That kind of sounds like what I'm used to," Lucifer said, trying to simultaneously understand how something like that would work and why a twelve year old would be so determined to get revenge. It seemed like a bad decision that she undoubtedly regretted now. But since he wasn't sure how to broach the subject, he continued with what they were already talking about. "When a god makes a contract with a human, the human immediately becomes immortal. As long as the contract is upheld, the two both remain alive. You just, uh, can't kill a god."


Kartiel pressed his hand up against the place her heart would be. It felt smooth to touch, and he couldn't help be amazed at this entire moment. It had been so long since he had seen something that didn't fit with what humans were used to. Seeing her like that made him feel like he wasn't so alone, even if they would never meet again after today.

He pulled his hand away, letting it dangle at his side.

"I'm actually not human myself," he said "I was reincarnated as one, but I can still access part of my original body and all of its magic. Want to see it?"


Though he couldn't hear things quite as well as the two, he still readied his chain-sickle when he saw them look towards the half-destroyed building. There was a tendency for people to appear in this cave, oddly enough. But there was also the chance that whatever was in there was the reason this place had become deserted in the first place.

"Who's there?" Reyes said, taking a step towards the building.

"It's me!" rumbled a muffled voice from the pile of rubble. Kendrik recognized the voice instantly. Him. The hound had hoped never to hear that annoyingly chipper sound again.

Still, at least it was someone he recognized. Kendrik took a few steps closer, spotting a large hand trying to shove aside a massive piece of stone. The tawny color of the fur on the hand told Kendrik that it wasn't, in fact, the person he hated. More like that person's understudy. Good enough.

Kendrik ran over, jumping across nails and shards of broken grass. He grabbed onto the edges of the piece and strained, feeling the muscles in his legs burning. After a couple seconds, the piece started to move. It cracked and groaned until, finally, it slid down the small hill of debris and landed on the stony ground. Kendrik had just enough time to rest his hands on his knees and take some deep breathes before the now-exposed figure jumped out and gave Kendrik a hug.

"Kendrik!" the figure said. The hound opened his eyes and looked down to find the familiar face of a lion with an oversized, dark brown mane. As usual, the lion wore a purple toga, small red bows allowing some of his mane to cascade down his shoulders. The lion was just as big as ever, and his thick sandals smashed the broken glass as he dropped Kendrik and moved over to Jaron. "And Jaron! It's been so long since I've seen you! Did you ever receive my invitation?"

The hound would've responded, but the lion was already hugging Jaron. Jaron smiled awkwardly and wheezed a hello.

"And who's this?" said the lion, setting Jaron down and turning to face Reyes. "A friend of yours? A partner?" Kendrik was worried the lion would try to hug Reyes, but the lion walked up to Reyes and shook his hand instead.

"I'm Thytes," the lion said. "Who might you be?"

Spoiler

Thytes Aurelius, the son of the former Lord Regulus. I've already described his appearance, so I'll just say that he's skilled with his claws, good at throwing people around, and has a pretty nice personality. The Lord Regulus's children inherited his genes more than his personality.

"Oh, he thinks I'm a god. I like him, Sarah," Apophis says in Viper's ear, smiling to reveal too-sharp teeth.

"You would," she replied, rolling her eyes.

"It all depends on what you'd call a god, really. But yes, I'm pretty much immortal. Ask Kratzer, he tried to kill us twice," she gestures to the stony-faced German.

"Yes please," she breathed, her eyes lighting up in excitement. If the descriptions of his dragons were any indication, Adeline was prepared to have her mind blown. Humans mistakenly called her kind's beings and behavior magic, but she knew the cold truth. Real magic had always fascinated her.

Reyes made the chain-sickle disappear; there was no point in having it out when the person they had encountered was one of Jaron and Kendrik's friends. "I'm Reyes," he said. "Reyes Eberhardt. I ended up running into your friends when we all ended up in this strange cave." He gestured at the area around them.


"You're not a god?" he asked, bewildered. He looked from Kratzer to Apophis and Viper. "But I thought your name was Apophis?"


He took a deep breath.

The magic began to wash over him, leaving a warm familiar feeling in its place. Black scales began to grow from his skin, covering every inch of body. His fingernails elongated into what was more akin to completely black claws. His hair grew longer, and his green eyes took on a purple hue. They both began to glow, one of the few parts of his godly heritage. As a final touch, he grew about an inch.

He looked down at himself, nodded when he saw everything looked the way it should, and looked back up at her.

Adeline's mouth opened slightly. She stared for a couple of seconds before smiling and clapping her hands gently.

"That's marvelous!" She stepped closer and tilted her head, studying his scales, "I guess that makes us opposites. May I?" She reached her hand out to touch him, hovering.

"What a wonderful name!" Thytes said, still shaking Reyes's hand. He let go. "Well, you certainly couldn't have found two more competent people to be exploring depths like these. I only just woke up, you see. And I am a tad privileged; that's my weakness. My clothes, uh" - he gestured down to his toga and fur, both of which were covered in white and gray dust - "Are something of a mess, and I quite dislike that." He pulled a brush from a pocket in his toga and began to brush the dust off his clothes.

After a minute, seeing that he wasn't making much progress, he sighed and put the brush back in his pocket. "Is it still only the two of you?" Thytes said to Kendrik, who now stood to his right.

"Yeah," Kendrik said. "We got yer message, but it was kinda late."

Thytes huffed. "Late? Never! My family would love to see you. You can't spend all your time alone. Even a third person, like this Reyes fellow here, could keep you good company."

Kendrik grit his teeth. "We're fine, thanks."

The lion rolled his eyes. "Not like that. Just someone to talk to. Three is a crowd, after all." He paused and looked to Reyes. "I'm not barring you from this conversation, am I? I am intrigued by that weapon of yours. How did you make it vanish like so? Were you capable of actually hitting me with it, I'd imagine it'd do quite a number on me."

"I mean, I was worshipped, but I exist whether or not people believe I created their world," she says with a shrug. "I was both Apep and Quetzalcoatl. Now I'm just the Viper."

James nodded, not having much to say in reply, as his body began to remind him again that he wasn't treating it well. It was catching up to him again, now that he was no longer caught up in his own emotions.

He was still tired. Still sore. And now very cold after sitting in the rain for quite some time. He shivered.

"Maybe we should... get out of the rain."

"Sure," he said. If she let him do it, he had to do the same for her. Besides, he had never had someone react to this form like that. The few times that he had accidentally been seen by other people had either resulted in violence or the person running away.


"You're not," Reyes assured him. Though this was the first time he was in a situation like this, he had been in situations with ghosts where they would cluster together and exclude him. He knew they meant no harm by it, so he tried his best not to let it get to him. There were plenty of other things to be worrying about in the meantime.

He made his chain-sickle appear again, holding it out so Thytes could get a good look at it. "I'm not really sure how it works," he admitted. "I was just able to create it one day, and that's the form I chose for it to take. All I have to do is imagine it disappearing, and it does exactly that."


"Oh, wow!" Lucifer said, eyes wide with curiosity and awe. "So you're not just the inspiration for Apophis - you're the inspiration for other myths, too! That means different people met you and interpreted your life in different ways, and now you're a part of their history. I can't wait to tell my brother about this."


Maahes got to his feet.

"That sounds like a good idea," he said.