Muur hummed a cheerful little tune to herself as she strolled through the ground floor door heralded by a crack of lightning exploding the door before she sealed it with a sheet of white-gold ice, leaving behind her handiwork. Two thirds of the body from the feet up was apparently the magic ratio for restraining someone with ice without risking them dying of hypothermia or asphyxiation, according to some of the instructors she’d poked. That, together with a Sleep spell to make sure they stayed out cold and she was confident leaving them there for pickup.
Which meant it was time to dive into the shithole proper and get to work. Although ‘shithole’, at least this far in, didn’t quite fit. Mind you, it wasn’t the best kempt place in the city, but it was just an average level of miscellaneous clutter… with quite a bit of purple here and there hinting at what was really going on.
A crash told her that Umbrage was still busy upstairs, but they each had their jobs to do here and hers was ensuring nobody got to scuttle away in a hidden tunnel. Then she could go join the fun topside.
“Die ye fuckin’ adventurin’ piece of shi—!” Speaking of! Right as she went to check on the door closest to the entrance, some axe wielding thug burst out of that very room as if on cue. Swinging his weapon at her neck, Muur didn't have time to cast any sort of spell…
Unfortunately for the man, her staff training hadn't exactly been orthodox. There wasn’t even conscious thought, just awareness of a threat and an instant addressing of thereof. An address that came with a disgusting wet crunch as she slammed the spiked butt of her staff into the brigand’s foot then used the opening to hand-chop at his throat.
Making a trachea cave in was always messy business, but she had enough common decency to spit a Scathe at his face to finish him off before asphyxiation gave him a far more miserable death.
That first body barely began to cool as three more Alacran tried to get their hands on Muur. These ones, she was prepared to encase in ice, not caring one whit about the sound of breaking and dislocating bones as the white-gold crystal swallowed them and their weapons none-too-gently. After that they were in enough pain and cold enough a single cast of Sleep left the lot slumped over unconscious.
With that brief moment of excitement out of the way, Muur was left with three new bodies to her tally. She was given all of four seconds to formulate such thought before another crash upstairs told her that the pattern was holding.
An illegal brothel this size had no reason to have half a dozen guards, and near half a dozen more thugs on the ground floor. Alas, she had no time to ponder on that because her horns had just caught what sounded like whimpers of fear from one of the nearby rooms, and not the kind that thugs regretting their life decisions made.
Cracking open the door they were coming from. She heard a soft gasp and just barely caught sight of something darting out of sight. The room itself was a mess, boxes and supplies that a brothel might need—the less said about them, the better—littered the space and even climbed up to the ceiling. A quick bit of mental gymnastics told Muur that this would have been the side-shop, guess it’d been turned into storage after all.
“I’m from the Ossuary, here to help.” Muur tried making her voice gentle, but she’d always been dogshit at reassuring people.
There was no verbal response, but the sound of ruffling clothes reached her horns and a timid, fur-covered face slowly peeked from behind one of the boxes. “Don’t get tricked!” right up until it was yanked back into its hiding spot by a childish voice. “We can’t let them catch us again!”
“I don’t think it’s one of the bad people.” Responded the, or so Muur guessed, peeking child, “She had horns…”
Silence stretched for just a moment, then two small heads peeked around a box, both clearly feminine and distressingly young. One belonged to a little calico coloured member of Myrrh’s race, the Hrothgars.
In all honesty, she was adorable. A large patch of black fur not only swallowed both of her big, twitching cat ears, but half of her left eye too! irregular splotches of orange fur covered her nose and the area right under her eyes, almost like oversized freckles on a bed of white fur.
But for all that she looked like a house kitten decided to get up and walk on two legs, her eyes truly were those of a lioness. She glared at Muur, a mixture of hope and wariness swirling through dilated pupils as she studied the adventurer for any sign that she was looking to hurt her precious cub…
A cub that was quite timidly hiding behind her courageous protector.
This second girl was much smaller in stature than the Hrothgar, making it hard for Muur to see much of her at first. But as she leaned away from her friend, the Thaumaturge was greeted by what she thought to be a nu-mou at first.
In her defence, almost every trait of the premier casting race of the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games were on display. Plentiful fluff and long droopy ears that almost reached the floor most of all.
But as her gaze lingered on the girl, she realised that some elements weren't right. nu-mous had a snout, yes. But it was short, almost squashed, and their wide eyes were prey-like, for a lack of a better term. More to the side of their head rather than right above their nose.
In contrast, the little lady's eyes were more forward facing and remained sharp even as fear and innocence widened them. Not to mention that the muzzle they sat above of was quite elongated and almost triangular in its shape.
Once she noticed this, everything clicked in her mind. She was looking at a Bangaa! An extremely young one at that, considering that there was nary a patch of scale-like leather to be seen. Something that could only mean she’d yet to even start shedding.
“See?” She squeaked, pointing to Muur’s horns in wonder, “She’s got horns! And scales! Like the big misters of the sands! Maybe she’s their wife?”
The leonine kitten wasn’t nearly as excited to see the lizard wizard though, “I dunno. She looks kinda scrawny…”
“There’s a bunch of clobbered insensate Alacran who’d beg to disagree.” Muur snorted.
“Ahl-A-crane?” The girl asked quizzically before letting out a little growl of frustration.
“The bad people.” Her friend helpfully provided.
“Ooooh, the bad peoooooh no! The bad men! Miss, they're doing something awful upst–!” The poor Hrothgar girl didn't have time to finish that sentence before Muur could taste it.
The Void's smoky flavours suddenly filled her mouth at the same time as Umbrage's voice filled her horns with a scream of pain.