Chapter 10 – Oh, Glorious Pebble!
Rain's second day in the Labyrinth proves to be rather uneventful. Well, at least comparatively. He doesn't detect or encounter any more Fel, and he doesn't trigger any more traps. That said, he does spot several floor distortions that resemble pressure plates, but he has no idea what they would have triggered. He's a curious guy, be he's also very attached to living, and his luck in the Labyrinth has been simultaneously golden and abysmal so far. He'd rather not push it.
So, day two in the Labyrinth comes and goes. As does day three. Despite the relatively uneventful couple days, Rain never repeats his mistake of trying to accelerate his pace. He keeps his senses sharp, searching for traps and Fel alike...he doesn't let his guard down. More importantly, he makes steady, clear progress towards the Temple he needs to find. By day four, his Mark is noticeably warmer. He's not sure if it's reliable to gauge how close to the Temple he is by how close to painful the warmth is, but...he feels like he's close to the halfway point.
On day five, Rain encounters his next Fel. He spots it down one of the corridors as he's coming up on a branch point in the Labyrinth. It's much quieter than the Harbinger that found him, so he doesn't hear its movements until he's almost upon it. As he leans around the corner of the branch point, looking into the corridor he can hear it in, he's relieved to see that its back is turned toward him.
The creature looks similar to the Harbinger, except that its stature and posture is much more like a human – limited hunching of its back, walks on two legs, less than two meters tall, and less pronounced claws on its hands and feet. The last part is probably the reason it's quieter. That, and the fact that this one doesn't really seem to be moving much, it's just staring off into the Labyrinth away from him.
As Rain covertly eyes the creature, mulling over what to do, he's surprised to notice a new sensation in its presence. One that he didn't have around the Harbinger. It's as though the Ichor inside him, or at least what he assumes is Ichor, is stirring in response to the Fel. He can feel...something...radiating power from inside the creature. He gets the distinct impression that the Fel is stronger, more dangerous than him; though, he knew that without some Marked sixth sense.
Setting aside this new side of his perception, Rain focuses on how to deal with the creature. He's at a three-way branch point, but he can't progress in any direction through it without risking detection by the Fel. So, he can kill it or sneak past it...or double back. If there was an unexplored branch point recently, he'd be inclined to do the latter. However, the last one was far enough back that he thinks he already picked the right path on it last time.
He hasn't eaten in a couple days, and he's hungry, so killing it is semi-appealing. However, he's only hungry...not weakened yet. He got plenty used to hunger in the Rim. Plus, he's sure that he'll encounter another Fel before much longer anyway...Aron did tell him to avoid the Fel whenever possible, and this one obviously hasn't noticed him yet.
'Okay...sneaking it is...'
The problem is that, while the Fel is mostly facing away from him, positioned a few meters down the left corridor, if he tries to go straight or right he'll probably enter its periphery. Ideally, if it was facing fully down the left corridor, he could sneak past it quickly and continue in the corridor directly ahead. He could throw his makeshift javelin down the corridor past it as a distraction, but it's his only one...they can't be summoned and dismissed like Relics, and they're too heavy to carry multiple ones on a long journey. So, he'd lose his only weapon. Plus, the thing isn't subtle...the Fel would have to be really dumb not to put together that it came from Rain's direction.
After a moment of internal debate, a dumbfounded expression suddenly finds its way onto Rain's face. Then, he shakes his head in pure exasperation. Pursing his lips, Rain summons a Relic into his hand...the Glorious Pebble.
'You're still a dumb excuse for a Relic...'
Sighing internally, and unwilling to apologize for all the mean things he's thought about it, he pulls his arm back with the pebble in hand, then launches it down the left corridor over the head of the Fel. The pebble skitters across the floor past the Fel, and as soon as its head turns towards the sound, Rain sprints toward the forward corridor as quietly as possible. After he passes out of the creature's potential line of sight, he focuses on dismissing the Glorious Pebble and re-summoning it into his palm as he jogs ahead. After a slight delay, the familiar black mist swirls above his hand again...Rain lets out a humorless smile.
'Fine...maybe it's not entirely useless...'
*****
The rest of Rain's fifth day in the Labyrinth also passes without incident. On the sixth day, he encounters another Fel of the same type. Like before, it's near a branch point in the corridors, and he uses the Glorious Pebble to distract the Fel while he sneaks past it down a different path. On the seventh day, he encounters yet another Fel only a couple of hours into his journey.
Since it's just standing in the middle of a corridor with no alternative routes, he decides to double back to a recent branch point and alter his course. However, several hours later he encounters his second Fel of the day, and there's no recent branch point available. Looking around the corner at the unavoidable creature, he groans internally.
'Well, it had to happen eventually. Besides, I'm getting pretty hungry, and it seems like the Fel are becoming more frequent now. Who knows how long it'll be before I lose the chance to pick off loners like this.'
The idea of fighting another Fel certainly makes Rain nervous, but not as much as it would have several days ago. The primary reason for this is...he's pretty sure now that this one is a Fallen. Every Fel that he's seen in here recently has looked almost identical, like a smaller, weaker version of the Harbinger. In other words, all the Fel in the Labyrinth have been of the same type – humanoid – even though he knows that many other type of Fel exist on Earth. In fact, humanoid Fel rarely emerge from the Rifts on Earth, they're usually of other types.
Rain isn't sure why the Fel are limited to one, rare type in the Labyrinth, but it does tell him that those smaller Fel must be a less advanced form of the Harbinger he saw. Ergo, they must be Fallen. So, while they are certainly stronger than him by a fair margin, his Paragon-like weapon and Demigod armor well outclass them. Plus, Fallen and even Harbingers are notoriously dim-witted. If he can lure the Fel in closer before exposing himself, he's certain that he can land a surprise blow.
Glancing around the corner once more, Rain sees the Fel facing away from him, about ten meters down the corridor.
'That's not going to be close enough...'
Making sure to lean against the wall as closely as he can, he summons the Glorious Pebble and tosses it gently around the corner. As soon as he hears it clattering, he dismisses it. At the same time, he hears a low growl from the Fel, followed by the familiar sound of its lightly scraping footsteps moving down the corridor. When it sounds like the the creature is about to come into his line of sight, Rain readies his makeshift javelin and lunges around the corner at full speed.
Setting his sights on the Fel's bald, grey head, and resolving not to lose focus like he did with the Harbinger, he thrusts his weapon at its head right as the Fel locks eyes with him and lets out a bloodthirsty whine.
Unfortunately, while he's much more composed than he was the first time, his hands are still unsteady enough that he misses his target slightly. Instead of piercing the creature cleanly through the side of its head, his blow lands off-center, grazing across the creatures face. However, the superior Prestige of the weapon saves Rain, allowing the glancing blow to slice through the Fel's face like butter and destroy both of its eyes.
Quick to realize his mistake, Rain leaps back from the creature, trying to create distance between. His decision is just in the nick of time, as the Fel lets out an enraged scream and begins swinging its clawed hands wildly at where he was just a moment ago. Its face is mangled, with bits of flesh flapping gruesomely as it violently swings its arms, but it's still very much alive.
'Shit...missed my chance to make this easy...'
The Fel continues wailing and swinging its arms wildly in front of it, but it must be able to sense Rain to some degree, because it's slowly moving forward to close the distance between them – albeit in a somewhat zigzagging fashion. Walking backwards to buy time, he tries to consider his next steps.
The creature isn't any bigger than him, and it doesn't have any weapon or armor. Plus, it's blind. If he can just get one clean shot at it's face, it won't be able to block the lethal attack. The only problem is that its reach is about the same as his. While his weapon length will keep it from tearing his guts open, at least one of his arms will get mangled when he attacks. He could throw his weapon instead, but he doesn't really have the skill for that.
Weighing his options, Rain quickly makes up his mind and transfers the Ideal Protection to his right arm, leaving his chest exposed. At the same time, he grabs his makeshift javelin at the very end of its shaft. Then, he steps forward, stopping just outside the Fel's reach, and thrusts his weapon at the creature's face with his armored hand.
Rain watches as the tip of his salvaged bolt flies past the Fel's arms unimpeded and crashes directly into its face, before piercing its brain and protruding out the back of is skull. As expected, at the same time he's delivering the fatal blow, the creature's claws come crashing into his arm. The force of the blows are enough to make his teeth rattle and his arm go numb, but the Ideal Protection holds without so much as a scratch.
As the Fel's final blows fail to seriously harm Rain, the creature goes limp and falls back onto the floor with the weapon still stuck in its head. There it remains...lifeless. Rain lets out a shaky breath as he looks down at the creature, then gives a grim smile.
"Well...dinner's served, I guess..."
As though it's as unamused with the joke as he is, the Echo begins whispering to him.
[You have slain a Fallen...]