Lucky Rabbit

Several forms huddled against the walls of the large room in which Pandy found herself, and at first she thought they were sleeping. A cold but well-lit cellar seemed like a strange place to nap, but gradually she realized that some of them didn’t seem to be moving. At all. As in, she couldn’t even tell if they were breathing.

Those that were moving did so sluggishly, too-bright eyes flickering open, then closed again without taking in anything around them. One twitched, then seemed to spasm, causing a loud clanking sound to echo throughout the chamber. Pandy instinctively ducked back into her little burrow, but no one came to investigate, so she began creeping forward.

As Pandy moved from person to person, she found only two things that connected them all. The first was the heat that practically rolled off of them, their faces flushed and eyes feverish. The second was more literal – a long chain that passed through a metal loop attached to their ankles. Shackles?

The chain connected every one of them, alive or dead, and ended at a metal plate sunk deep into a wall that looked much more professional than the shoddy barrier Pandy had broken through. This wall was made of uniformly sized stones, stacked just so, with smooth, solid mortar between each one. It made Pandy realize that the wall she’d broken had probably just been thrown up to conceal the ugly space beneath the stairs, which made her feel quite a bit less accomplished.

There were men, women, young, old, pale, sun-browned, and – judging by their clothes – poor and middle-class. Pandy didn’t see anyone who looked particularly wealthy, but more than one had on well-made garments that showed little signs of wear. She counted sixteen in all, and in spite of her initial belief that several were dead, she thought most were only close to it. One was very definitely gone, while another was either about to die or recently deceased, but the other fourteen were in various stages of illness.

The last one was Augustus. Pandy almost didn’t recognize him, clad as he was in rough brown garments, stained here and there, but showing evidence of an unskilled attempt to mend the few holes and tears. He looked like a man who was down on his luck, but not yet destitute, someone who was probably desperate for work. There was dirt behind his ears and on the back of his neck, and his hair was greasy.

Still, Pandy would know that nose anywhere, so she crept closer to him than she had to any of the others. At first she thought he might also be dead, since she couldn’t feel fever-heat blazing from him, but when she finally dared press her nose to his hand, she realized that he either wasn’t sick, or hadn’t yet developed a fever. His skin felt like skin should, even when his hand shot out and grasped her neck.

He released her again almost instantly, sitting up more quickly than she would have believed possible, given the way he was slumped against the wall a moment before. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and she could clearly see the anger in his gray eyes as they darted from her to the poorly constructed wall with the Pandy-sized hole in the bottom, then to a dark, empty opening that probably led back to the rest of the cellar.

“Pandora? What are you doing here?” he whispered, voice hoarse.

Pandy couldn’t speak, but the floor was made of packed dirt, so she used a claw to carve out the letters P-R-O-F, before Augustus gave a little grunt and wiped them away. “Damned interfering dragon,” the chancellor muttered, absently attempting to scrape back the oily strands of hair falling into his face. “I told him I’d be fine, and I am.”

It was Pandy’s turn to give him an incredulous look, then stare at the thick metal band latched onto his ankle, barely visible beneath his pant leg. Augustus smirked, then reached down and touched the band. It fell away, opening on a heavy hinge. He caught it before it could land in the dirt, and pressed the two sides back together so snugly that Pandy couldn’t even tell it had been opened.

“I’ve been in far worse situations than this, little rabbit,” he told her, something like the teasing tone he sometimes used when talking to her creeping into his quiet voice. “You, on the other hand, probably have not. Have you?”

Pandy’s ears grew hot, and she looked away, refusing to answer. He chuckled, then – to her shock – reached out and gathered her to him, stroking her head gently. Chunks of dirt and webbing came off as he did so, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“You need to go, Pandora,” he told her. “You show remarkable resilience and ingenuity, but the Shadow Exchange isn’t to be messed with. These people will kill, and,” the corner of his mouth hitched up again, “if normal killing doesn’t work, they’ll cut you into tiny pieces and burn them before burying the ashes in a dozen different places.”

Pandy’s eyes grew wide. That was…very specific. Had Augustus spent some time thinking about what it might take to kill someone who could recover from literally falling apart? It seemed like he had, and while that was probably wise, given that he didn’t actually know her all that well, it was also, well, not very nice to think about.

Still, Pandy shook her head, then looked toward the hole through which she’d come. If they could make the hole large enough – now that she knew it probably wasn’t holding up the floor above – he should be able to reach the stairs. They could break the cracked step the rest of the way through, and the two of them could run for it. If he ran while she bit and Scratched everyone in the tavern, surely he could-

Misinterpreting her look, Augustus nodded and set her on the ground, giving her rear a little push. “Good. However you got in here, you can get back out. I believe in you. But you need to hurry.”

Even if Pandy had meant to run, those words would have frozen her in place. Augustus…believed in her? Her? The woman who had once mistakenly eaten a styrofoam hotdog? Yes, it tasted strange, but…that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that she wasn’t leaving without him. Hopping down to his ankle, she nudged at the shackle, but for some reason it didn’t come open like it had for him. She was just trying to decide if it would be safe to Bite something attached to his leg when he snatched her up again, this time stuffing her into his baggy brown shirt.

“Too late now, Rabbit,” he murmured, leaning back and curling forward around her. “They’re coming.” He fell still, even his breathing becoming shallow, as Pandy desperately attempted to ignore the warmth of his skin and the smell of Augustus that surrounded her. Admittedly, he was a little funky at the moment, probably to be as convincing as possible, but-

“Are they ready to go?” the smooth-voiced man asked, and Pandy heard the thud of several pairs of heavy boots on the earthen floor.

“Over-ready, some of ‘em,” another man muttered. Something thumped to the floor, and chains rattled.

“Leave the dead ones,” the first man said, voice as matter-of-fact as if he was discussing eggs that had broken during shipping. “They didn’t give us a shipment date. That’s on them, not us.”

“What about this one?” a third man asked. “Can’t walk, for sure.”

A beleaguered sigh reached Pandy’s ears. “Get rid of him, too. Get the rest of them up. The meeting is at two, and we don’t want to be late.”

Chains scraped and rattled, then Augustus shook as someone jostled him roughly. “You’re not even that bad yet, y’scunner. Get up ‘n walk. We’ll haul you if we have to, but y’won’t like it.”

Moans arose from outside the thin cloth barrier, and Pandy huddled against Augustus, shivering. He was up now, but still hunched forward, probably to conceal the rabbit-sized lump in the front of his shirt. It sounded like others were rising as well, and while Pandy had never liked horror movies, she knew the sound of zombies when she heard them. Feet shuffled, more wordless groaning echoed around the room, and then one of the Bad Men howled in fury.

“He bit me!” the man shouted angrily, and a meaty thud sounded. Augustus twitched, but didn’t attempt to interfere. Fortunately, someone else did.

“Forget it,” the leader said, irritation clear in his voice. “We’ll get you fixed up when we get back. Come on, get them ready and follow me.” More footsteps announced his departure, and the other men immediately began muttering among themselves.

“Easy enough for him to say. Wasn’t his arm, was it?” one said.

Another laughed. “Just be glad y’can’t get what they’ve got from a bite. Well, not a human one, anyway.”

“Ugh,” a new voice said. “I hate that damned spider. Always turning up when you least expect it. I swear it just stares at me all the time, like it wants to bite me, too.”

“We all wanna bite you, Hankin,” the man who actually had been bitten retorted. “You’re an ass.”

“Well, you can bite my a-”

“Hurry up, you imbeciles!” the smooth man called from somewhere else, and the four – five? – other voices stopped immediately. Augustus jerked forward abruptly, as if someone had shoved him from behind, then moved forward with a jerky gait, his hands holding his belly and covering Pandy’s hiding place.

They seemed to walk for a very long time. Pandy expected them to go up the stairs, but as far as she could tell, they didn’t. Instead, it almost seemed like they were descending, though she couldn’t be sure. She assumed that meant there was another way out of the basement, and that way was some kind of tunnel that went to…where? The sewers? Wasn’t that the traditional place for such villainy? She wished she could ask Augustus, or perhaps that he would have whispered a running update as they walked, but she knew he couldn’t. Still, she grew more and more worried the further they went. What if Professor Beeswick couldn’t find them when it was time to bring them back?

Finally, Augustus came to a stumbling halt, and Pandy’s ears lifted as the sound of running water reached her. She sniffed, but the smell hadn’t grown noticeably worse during the long walk, even though Augustus had started sweating. This definitely wasn’t the sewer, then. At least not the part where the really disgusting things ended up. A stormwater drainage system, maybe? It had been raining a fair bit.

It seemed that Pandy would find out when Augustus grunted, then said, “Whassis place? Some kind of-?” What kind of thing it might be, he didn’t get to say, because someone punched him in the belly, which also happened to be exactly where Pandy was. The chancellor’s hands still covered her, and they took part of the blow, but it was enough to make red numbers rise into her vision.

-7 LF

Wait, numbers? They were faint, but they were there, and Pandy thought,

Minor Heal successful. 

Healed Pandora for 7 LF.

Yes! The System was back! Which meant Pandy could use her spells, which in turn meant that she could get them out of this! A few Sparks right in the bad guys’ faces would do it – maybe an Air of Superiority to blow them away. Would Shield of Darkness help with-

System online.

New patch found.

Updating in 3…

No. No no no no no. This was definitely Keros’s fault. Pandy didn’t know how or why, but she was absolutely certain the god was responsible for whatever was about to happen. She hadn’t even noticed when the System came back online, which meant the ‘disorientation’ Keros had mentioned wasn’t because of that.

2

Pandy’s vision started to blur around the edges, then grow dark. She could feel herself tremble, her limbs curling in as her body assumed a fetal position. Something moist touched her nose, so either she was drooling or bleeding from somewhere. Neither of those was a good thing, but she was utterly helpless to do anything about them.

1

Everything went black. Really, why did this keep…happening….