Deep Below - Wyrm's Return

Fireworks burst outside as Wyrm handed over the slip of paper he had gotten in the mail earlier. Zheyna had been suprised and very interested in what Wyrm could have possibly done to get called into the royal palace. The high energy pouflon had been nearly impossible to placate, considering that Wyrm didn’t really know what he was getting called in for himself other than the unspecific ‘guard job’ that was listed on the summons. Synth eventually remembered that Wyrm had let the palace know that he had, at one point, been a royal knight, which must have led to them putting Wyrm’s name into a potential ‘reserve’ list for work that no one else wanted to do.

Wyrm didn’t truly recognize much in the large castle, not only due to the loss of his memory, but also because the palace had grown and changed since the last time he had been in it. Every once in a while, he got a slight sense of Deja Vu, but overall, it mostly just seemed to be a new building for him. The knight, Arkadia, that Wyrm had handed his summons in to beckoned Wyrm through a solid wooden door. Very quickly Wyrm realized that the stairs were to the dungeons. Makes sense. The summons had mentioned this being a guarding job.

Wyrm had assumed that he would be watching over one of the simpler areas to free up guards that wanted to go to the Crocus Festival outside, but they were getting quite far into the earth. Wyrm could distinctly tell better than most pouflons would be able to due to his experience searching out potentially dangerous magic. The background power that emanated from the plants in the earth got quieter and fainter as they were further and further insulated by the amount of earth and soil that dampened the natural magic that pouflons and ursuki typically pulled on. As a Dragon Hybrid, Wyrm would typically keep his strength under the earth, however the pouflon royal palace had very distinctly removed all gems and most soft rocks that would be easy to pull on or remove by vespires, the solid bedrock that the palace was built on being layers upon layers of solid basalt. As Arkadia lead Wyrm deeper into the dungeons the ceiling started to get lower and the walls got closer together the further down they went. Wyrm even had to lower his head to avoid scraping his horn against the rocky ceiling after a while. Clearly the stairwell had not been designed with a pouf the size of Wyrm in mind. Eventually Arkadia directed them both into a doorway off the steep stairwell.

“Now Wyrm, I must warn you. This prisoner is incredibly dangerous, you are not to talk to them, to listen to them, to do anything that they ask you to do. This is of utmost importance as it will continue to keep the castle as safe as possible.” They waited until Wyrm nodded. His clothes made noise as they rubbed against themselves as he sat down at the corner of the hallway so that he can keep an eye on both the prisoner’s cell and the incoming hallway. 


Arkadia nodded approvingly.

“I will come to relieve you in the morning. There is some water available down the hallway for you when you get thirsty.” Wyrm dipped his head in acknowledgment. He often went semi-nonverbal in new environments, and his heavy gas mask that filtered out dangerous environmental magics muffled anything that he would say anyway.

The poof falls of the knight slowly faded out as they left Wyrm in the gloom. It was quite dark in the dungeons with only two torches by the door to shed any light.

Wyrm brought the runes that clustered around his horn into the visible spectrum, their whispers of destruction from the rift were annoying, but easy enough to ignore for the light that they shed. After a moment Canary poked his head out of the special pocket on Wyrm’s rift walking suit. The small gnut fluttered his wings a few times before darting out of the pocket entirely.

Wyrm’s face didn’t show any emotion as he watched the gnut flitter this way and that, checking out all of the little corners in the hallway, checking for both surveillance magic that might be keeping an eye on Wyrm as well as any other potentially dangerous spells or runes in the area. After a few minutes of the gnut checking out all the nooks and crannies that he could find, Canary fluttered back to Wyrm where he buried himself into Wyrm’s thick mane at the nape of his neck. 



The area sufficiently secured, Wyrm stood up and slowly used the sharp point of his horn to tear open a hole in the fabric of the universe into the rift, soft yellow light and flickering fluorescents flashed against the wall opposite of where the rift opened, casting a sharp shadow of Wyrm’s as he stood in front of the hole.

Synth bounded out of the rift none the worse for wear, and in fact, incredibly happy.

“WOOHOO! I love ya Wyrm!” The small vespire leapt up to give a big kiss to Wyrm’s cheek. “Now then, are ya ready for your wonderful boyfriend to relieve you of what would have been the most boring twelve hours of your life???”



Wyrm chuffed happily as he closed the rift.

“I would put up with any number of boring hours to spend time with you Synth.” That he already sort of had went unsaid. It wasn’t the time to bring up the past pain.

“Awww, you big sap.” Synth hid his face in his paws to try to conceal his blush. He did this all the time, and it never worked considering that the blush wasn’t visible through his fur in the first place, and that there were now two giant glowing rainbow paw prints covering his face. Wyrm wasn’t gonna stop him though, it was cute.

To distract his boyfriend from shriveling up from embarrassment Wyrm levitated a small deck of cards from one of his many pockets. He shuffled them loudly enough to get Synth’s attention, whereupon he suddenly had a VERY interested vespire perking up and sitting in front of him, his cheeks still fading rainbow. 



“Go Lotta or Slaps?” He chirped up at Wyrm. 



“Well, it depends if Canary wants to play?” Wyrm directed this more to his pippet who had now fallen asleep in his hood. “Huh. Slaps I guess.”



“Awesome!” Synth grinned, his sharp teeth reflecting the light from Wyrm’s runes.

A small shuffling noise came from down the hallway. Not from the direction of the stairwell, instead from the solid rune-encrusted door.

Synth and Wyrm both perked up, looking intensely down the darkened hallway. There were no torches past the two besides the stairwell door, meaning that there was no light whatsoever besides Wyrm’s runes. The voices that typically whispered of death and destruction when they were out also quieted down, replaced by confusion, as far as Wyrm could tell. 



Synth slowly got to his feet, looking intensely down the corridor, lowering himself into a stalking position as he started creeping towards the door the sound had come from. Wyrm watched in concern, but not moving towards or away. Since he was the light source, it would be best if whoever, whatever, was in the cell didn’t know the exact distance they were from the door.

Synth reached the bars and carefully peeked inside. He paused for a moment before stepping more in front of the door. 



“Hey, hey! A-are you okay?” 



A croaking voice answered him.



“Could, could you get me some water please?”



Synth looked back at Wyrm, clearly distraught by whatever he saw within the cell. 



Well. A not boring twelve hours indeed.