541 CHPT 541: Furnace

"Alpha, take me to the Furnace."

A simple sentence that broke the mold. A simple sentence never before uttered within the Alpha's Tower as it infinitely climbed towards the Moon.

Claude came in submission. He approached the Alpha as someone less then. Shoulders low, eyes to the floor, knees bent. If he had a tail it too hung towards the floor. Even so, the phrase was a command. Laced with dominance.

Alpha stomped over to him in his usual lumbering knuckle dragging style. The gargantuan hybrid smelled like saltwater, blood and fire. Claude kept his eyes on his feet, nails caked with dirt and grime. Thumbs tapping the steel floor like he was thinking. His trench coat fluttered in the silence around his legs.

The Lunar Artifacts were louder….

Alpha sniffed. Claude could hear the wet flesh of his nostrils expand at the end of his bluish snout. He could smell the anxiety in the room. It rose his ow—

"[Thats it. Stay lo—]"

SHLAP!

Alpha swatted him in the face so hard Claude could feel his cheekbone shatter in his face. A pain that quickly faded behind the sharpness of his back connecting with his assigned boulder.

[14% HP Remaining…]

Claude opened his eyes to find the sky spinning. A brilliant spinning cyclone of cirrus clouds sprinkled with stars growing brighter as the sun fell. Slowly, a darkness punched its way into the sight like a physical venom. Odorous, dirty, painful.

Everything spun but the eyes.

"Weak…"

He almost sounded like her.

"Good." Alpha reached down and picked him up. "….HOO hoo— Walk." Alpha added after setting him on his feet.

The task would've been so much easier if his toes didn't tingle and the pulse in his face didn't burn. Either way…

"Keep going." He told himself as he reached the backend of the room.

No Silver Cursed occupied the space. A stained ring of piss marked the location— explaining the absence of bodies where the hole in the floor didn't.

The shadows were thick like quilts. But he could feel how deep the stairway down went. He could feel it in the air, in the sound of it brushing against the walls— in the way voices and movements echoed and distant lights lost the battle against the dark.

"Still." Alpha muttered as he took off his collar.

Clink!

The collar and metal chain hit the floor. Claude felt the Hex's disappear, leaving him weak but able to recover.

He wasted no time and began walking down the steps, trying to mask his speed as best as he could.

"[If I may…]"

"Go for it, Arne."

His eyes adjusted to the dark, showing him the next floor below where scraps and evidence of prior inhabitants remained. Soon the floor above would look the same way. And the next. And the next. He wouldn't be present that long. He couldn't.

"[For whatever our plan involves, it now balances on those stat points. It's effectiveness, that is.]" Arne commented.

Claude tried his best not to squirm as Alpha loudly stomped down the steps behind him.

"[You see the hex negates you as you are. Not as you will be….]"

"How poetic."

"[Do you understand?]"

"Nope."

"[Bloody hell. Claude focus, the hex. It weakens you in your current state. So if you apply those points you just gained now to your strength, it all gets weakened again when you're back on the collar.]"

"So I need to get him when I'm off the collar and high on stat points. Which means if we fight, it starts in the Furnace."

"[Slow your roll mate, we don't even know what this Furnace is….]"

Claude wiped the sweat from his brow. He could see steam in the shadows. It was blazing. All the while he considered the origin of the points. Obviously it was Ursula.. or Cassidy, killing something. But it's just that. What were they killing? Students? In a rage at his disappearance? Professors? Monsters? The tournament was over what the fuc—

"[….Yes. Let's focus on the Furnace first. The furnace that somehow kills Silver Cursed in droves. Something's not right here.]"

"Nothings right. Let's fix that."

And further down they went.

By the time they reached what had to be the last floor, Claude's skin stung from the heat. It felt like a dozen needles. His reactive Aura cloaked him so thinly it blended in with the sheen of his sweat. If he stood in place too long, his skin melted to the floor.

The General promised hell, Claude wasn't convinced. But this wasn't helping his stubbornness.

Suddenly Alpha grabbed him by the shoulder and punched the wall.

"HOO HOO!"

BANG BANG BANG!

Because of the sporadic punching pattern an odd tune reverberated off the walls.

"The way the walls are built. There's weak points." Claude noted as someone approached the last set of steps.

"Yes, Alpha."

Out came Don Garraplatta. The mysterious young WereWolf….and Tower Elder. He looked calm even though he smelled terrified. His eyes reflected the scarce amount of light inside like dying lanterns.

"Take." Alpha shoved Claude.

"Yes, Alpha."

Don grabbed Claude's hand and led him down the stairs.

Claude let his nose fill in the blanks as the heat rose.

Metal. Blood. Burned flesh. Nothing notable. He rubbed the walls with his other hand.

Imperfections. Brittle and worn from the ocean in high tide—

"Where are your shoes? The crocs should've gave you so—"

Claude wrapped his hand around Don's mouth to silence him.

"Quiet."

He listened for Alpha's ascent.

After a few more steps he let go.

"I don't need shoes."

"Oh….. you sure? Because I can smell your feet burning. And you're bleeding. You heal slow. What are you?"

"What's the Furnace?" Claude replied with a question of his own.

Not that he needed to. They'd reached the bottom.

Steaming buckets of Liquid Metal acted like silver lanterns that scarcely illuminated the grounds.

Grounds that were made into a maze. He noticed it as glowing buckets began to disappear behind nooks and crannies. Bending walls and platforms.

Young shifters and women travelled in lines through the maze,causing the glowing buckets to slither through the labyrinth like snakes.

Snakes….

That was a fitting word considering their god was at the maze's center—

"RUUUUUARRRRRGH!!"

FWSHHHHHH

Flames blew across the maze like a red tide, hitting the ceiling with enough force to make him dizzy.

The quick flash of light allowed him to witness the creature.

Red scales. Thick and jagged like cruel armor. White underbelly. Random shards and splashes of metal grafted to its skin. A chain dug so deep around its throat oldblood boiled and caked. A plate of metal left the creature blind, but that didn't take the fight out of it. That didn't stop the spread of its malicious dark wings that swallowed the air overhead like storm clouds.

Nothing could take the fight out of their kind.

"[By the gods….]"

"That's….. that's a Dragon."

"Her name is Furnace."