New Beginning 23: One for the Record Books

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Knight waits for it to jump again, then gives a mighty tug as the fish is in midair. The strings come free, along with something else. A burning fire that, just as suddenly as Vault lays eyes on it, scattered and putters out. The Lava Fish sails through the air, and Vault can tell that it isn't a fish anymore. What's flying toward him now isn't alive, it's a corpse. Knight had used those strange threads to pull something out of this fish, and it had died.

He dives out of the way as the fish comes crashing down onto the topaz floor.

He looks up to see Knight pull a knife out of his robes and advance on the carcass. "Don't worry, this won't take but a moment." Vault looks away as soon as Knight starts cutting.

-------

They move along the topaz tunnel. Vault walks. Knight rides.

A loud skittering echos through the tunnel, coming from Knights mount. The former fish leaves a trail of blood and the occasion gut as it clatters along on its ribs. Knight had sliced open the dead fishes stomach, fiddled around in there for a few moments, said some sort of prayer, and was now happily riding along, covered in blood and entrails, on the head of the macabre new mound like it was nothing.

He'd asked Vault if Vault wanted to ride. Vault had very politely reused. He'd asked Vault if Fishhead was a good name for the creature. Vault had very politely answered that it was an okay name. Other than this there had been no conversation between them.

"Sure is taking the fox a while." Knight said idly.

Vault had not been calling for a fox. If fact he had just sort of started walking and Knight had followed, filling every tunnel with the smell of rapidly rotting fish. He supposed he ought to call a fox. Yes, just focus on the fox. He sent out a Siren's Signal to the fox, without the usual theatrics.

[Philote]

A fox begins running at you, as before, but this time something strange happens as it approaches. Its front legs get pulled out from under it and it becomes caught in the air by an invisible force before it can hit the ground. It begins to whimper.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Oh what fresh hell is this?" Vault says. "All I want is a few foxes. Is that so much to ask?" He starts walking toward the fox.

"Be careful, it could be some sort of trap." Knight calls, but Vault waves away his complaint.

"You can't interfere with other hunters." He says, approaching the whimpering animal and reaching out to grab it with the gauntlet. "Come here, you."

[Philote]

The gauntlet stops just short of the fox's muzzle. Vault gains the sensation of reaching into an invisible spider web as his hand becomes caught.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Vault gives two frustrated tugs, then sighs. Turning his head, annoyed, to Knight he says. "Stay there. It's a trap."

"We're under attack?" He asks, visibly tensing up. "Are you sure. Last time it was just fire."

"Yeah, well, last time I didn't get stuck reaching for a fox. This is a trap. Probably for the fox." He glares at the fox. "You wouldn't have fallen for this, right, if you saw someone else fall into it? YOUR SMARTER THAN ME!"

"Bet you can't do this, though. Moonfire." he said, as sparks of white fire jumped between his fingers and formed into a luminescent orb of flame. He held his free hand over his head so that the shadow was directly under his feet. "Sticking to the Shadows." he said, and sank slightly into the shadow. He tried to move his feet, checking to see how securely trapped they were. Satisfied with that, he shouted out "Moonlight Taxi Ride!"

His shadow moved as the fire in his hand jumped and sparked, jerking backwards all on it's own and pulling Vault with it.

[Ericus Europaeus (Bug)]

CONTENTS DELETED

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[Philote]

The threads holding Vault's hand do not seem to be built to withstand such a force and they pop loose as Vault zooms away. The fox falls from where it was suspended in air as threads break, but its paws and legs still seem to be bound, preventing it from getting up and fleeing.

At Vault's Moonfire light though, a new entity is revealed in the tunnels. A hairy creature with long limbs climbs slowly across the ceiling, using its claws as hooks to sneak in on its prey. Its eyes reflect the Moonfire light back towards you.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"A spider?" Vault asks, stepping back.

"It looks like a spider. Is that a spider?" Knight asks his wrist.

How the hell should I know if it's a spider or not?, a voice echoes in Vaults and Knights heads.

"Exactly, it's an alien lifeform. They might not even have arachnids on this..."Vault trails off, turning to Knight. "Wait, was that you?"

Knights mouth gapes. "You can hear him?"

Good thing he only started now, huh? He didn't hear anything I was saying about him.

"What is that?" asks Vault.

"I'm sure I mentioned the voice in my head, Mr. Vaultboy." He points to to what looks like a bundles of sticks and hair wrapped around his wrist. "Him. That's him. But why can you hear him?"

"I must have gotten a new po-", Vault started, before grabbing his head in pain and screaming. It was like someone was crushing his brain with a hammer made of ice. Even his eyes were freezing cold. He collapsed and curled into a groaning fetal position on the ground, defenseless as the moonfire flickers out.

[Philote]

Despite some spider like features, you notice that this creature only has four limbs which it is now using to maneuver itself over the captured fox. A line of sticky thread forms between its claws, which it attaches to the ceiling and then tosses down towards Vault. More threads are already being form on its other limb.

(Its the Thread Sloth. Sloth / Spider hybrid.)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Mr. Vaultboy!" Knight shouted, placing his hand on the head of his mount but without enough time to chant a spell. But his shout alerts vault to the coming danger. He lifts his head just high enough to see the thread streaming at him and, with incredible reflexes, leaped out of the way from his prone position. He flips end over end and rolls to a stop beside Knight.

Knights eyes quickly flit to Vaults lower back and he gasps. "What in the world?"

"The fox." Vault manages to eek out, and Knight immediately hops to attention. That's right, they needed the fox if they wanted to win. They couldn't let that creature eat it. He took a deep breath and spoke as quickly as possible.

"Noble Dead, Holy Ghosts, Let this vessel relive the memories of life. Let it shape the power that we share, and give it purpose." There's an outpouring of power flowing into the fish from Knight, who begins to pull something grey from the fish. It doesn't take a moment to see that it's the fish he's pulling from it, a grey translucent copy of when the beats was alive. With a spasm the fish catches fire, a green spectral flame that engulfs the entire shade as it hovers over his hand. Knight leans back and throws the flaming fish shade like a javelin at the Thread Sloth. "Living Memory!"

[Philote]

The Lava Fish, being the alpha predator as you learned earlier when you summoned it, easily overcomes the Thread Sloth. However, you have a new problem as it does so. The spirit of the Lava Fish continues on, after burning the Thread Sloth, into the Topaz walls and melting them into a stream of lava as it would if it were alive. The lava from the ceiling is now falling down towards the Compass Fox which you wish to capture as well as towards anything else that might be in the area.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Suddenly a stream of lasers , so think that it was unmistakable from a single continuous beam, shot around the fox and burning  away the bindings holding it. It dropped to the floor just as Vault reached it. Sprinting at an insane pace, the gauntlet seemingly proving to be much less trouble, and dived, scooped up the fox, and rolled under the stream of lava just before it can crashing down.

"Mr. Vaultboy!" Knight called through the lava now blocking the passage. Mr. Vaultboy, are you there?"

He was, though he was having some trouble restraining the terrified fox. The creature was doing its level best to sink its teeth into him, but was unable to find purchase anywhere. All it was doing was causing some painful scraping sounds. "Good try, but I'm made of metal." He said to it, before staring down at the thing and blinking three times.

When he opened his eyes from the last blink, the fox had ceased struggling. In fact, it was frozen solid, its skin taking on a blue hue and little flecks of ice sticking to its coat. Satisfied, he turned back to the lava. Freezing the fox had actually given him an idea about this.

His form twisted and shifted, taking on a liquid like, blue goo sort of appearance. He shrank down, changing.

Knight was on the other side, as close to the lava as he could safely be, wondering what he should do when all of a sudden a tiny yellow monster holding a frozen fox teleported in next to him. It through the fox to him, then dissolved into a blue sludge and reformed as a majestic, dark blue feathered bird as big as he was was. The bird opened up its beak and out shot a blue beam that, when it impacted with the lava, instantly cooled it to topaz. It kept this up until all the lava was frozen, before changing into the blue sludge again and reforming in the guise of a man.

Vault shook his head, and grasped it with one hand. "God, it's like I ate all the ice cream in the world."

"Mr. Vaultboy, wh-"

"Powers." He said quickly. "I just got a whole bunch of them all at once. Startigo told me what to use."

Knight smiled at him. "Well, may I say your performance was Purrrfect."

"What?"

"I was just saying, your cat like reflexes were something to behold."

Vault narrowed his eyes.

"They might even have been "the cats meow, "as they say."

"I have a tail." Vault said, not even bothering to look.

"Two." Corrected Knight. "And ears."

"I can't decide if that's better or worse than the cow ears."

"It's a good thing you don't have to decide, then."

Vault's eyes shot open and he reached up to his ears. They were still cone-like and floppy and big stupid cow ears. Dreading what he would find and sent his hand further, up to the top of his head.

Yep, there they were. Right where you'd expect them to be.

I was when he went to bury his face in his normal hand that he saw it now had claws. He glanced over to the gauntlet, which now also sported claws.

"This might not be the best time to ask this." Started Knight. "But were your eyes always blue?"

Vault didn't answer. Instead, he just threw the fox to Knight and started walking toward the exit of this tunnel. "Bad things happen whenever I try to call one. Let's just find one legit, huh." He said.

Knight put the fox in the fishes mouth and hopped on, following Vault into the tunnel network.

[Philote]

(How are you keeping track of time to know when the competition ends? )

The two of you wander through the caves some more and occasionally cross paths with other competitors which inevitably ends with the two of you darting off different paths.

You do not catch sight of any more Compass Foxes until you enter into a large, ravine-like section of the caves. You come across a scene of a Correnian man chasing after a Compass Fox who takes a running leap over a river of black sludge that is falling off into the ravine. The fox lands on a ledge opposite and the Correnian gives up in frustration, turning down a different tunnel for an easier catch.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

(Computer Entity. Being a computer means I have an onscreen clock.)

Vault is trying to figure out how to approach the fox without scaring it off when Knight throws out his hand and sends the black thread towards the thing.

[Philote]

The fox is not even aware when the black strands strike and latch onto it. There is still a trail of flowing black sludge between the fox and your group.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Vault takes on that blue, gooey consistency again and emerges in the shape of a yellow plumaged Pigeot. He takes wing and fires over the sludge river toward the prone fox.

[Philote]

A horrible, nauseating smell rises up from the black sludge as Vault enters the air above it. Whatever the material is, it is definitely not compatible with organic beings.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Vault quickly snatches up the fox and flies, as high as is possible, back across to Knight.

[Philote]

You have a relatively miserable time as you fly across and the fox, either from Knight's black threads or the sludge, is dead by the time you reach the other side.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Vault shifts back and hands the fox to Knight, shaking his head and gagging. "That stuff is sick. Hold on, hold this."

He walks out of the tunnel they're in to take a deep breath as Knight holds the dead fox. He walks back in and exhales, a thick layer of amber forming over the top of the black muck.

He then takes the fox back from Knight. He holds it in both hands, there's a barely discernible flash, and suddenly the fox is alive and struggling again. He locks eyes on it, blinks three times, and the creature is frozen just like the other one. "Well, there's two. I'd say we're doing pretty well. Here, add this to the collection." He extends the fox to Knight, who's just staring at him in slackjawed amazement. "What?"

"That was True Resurrection." Knight says in an awed voice. "You brought that creature back to life."

"So? So do you." Vault said.

"No, I fill a soulless vessel with energy. Like turning on a broken machine, the machine is still broken." Knight says frantically. "You, you, you FIXED the machine. You pulled that creature back from the other side!"

"It's not that big of a deal." Vault replied, carrying the fox to the fish and shoving it in its mouth himself.

"No big deal? No Big Deal!?" Knight says, running up to him. "Sir, there are mages who have trained for their entire lives who couldn't manage what you just did."

"Well, I'm not a mage. I told you, I get this stuff at random. It just happens to me." Vault replied, agitated.

Knight quirks his head to the side, a quizzical look played across his lips."...why?"

Vault laughs bitterly and shakes his head. "Wish I knew." He turns his head down the nearest passage and starts making his way down it. "C'mon. We only have two of these. We need more if we want to win."

Knight stares after him for a moment, a head buzzing with questions. He didn't sense that Mr. Vaultboy was hiding anything, save perhaps his real name, but then again he had misplaced his trust before. Nevertheless, he resolved not to ask anything further. Climbing onto the fish, he followed the man again into the caves.