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Mordie’s last words had a ring of truth to them. She had seen others in her journey down into this pit. Some she knew, others she did not, but rather than call attention to herself, she would hide in shadows till they passed her by. Paranoid? Not in this case. So many had different views of how this matter should be handled. She had no desire to end up in a fight with other vampires plus dealing with the familiar, yet different, creatures she was encountering so far.

She knew Mort and the otter man. Mordechai she’d trust with her life. His advice made sense.

‘Meow!’

She looked down at the cat, who seemed agitated by something. ”What is it, my love?” she whispered to its mind. She never deluded herself into thinking the cat understood her, but the animal did not do things for no reason. If it was a threat, her reactions would be totally different, so what was it?

She strained her hearing, sense of smell and eyes to try and see what the source of the matter was, and blinked.

A soft sound like running water was coming from the distance.

”Excuse me all,” she got up and dusted herself off. ”Well? Show me.” she ‘told’ Ginny. The cat padded off in the direction of the sound and the girl followed. She did not watch the path, but the cat. When Ginny changed direction, she followed. Her familiar could see the traps far easier than she could. Once she led the gypsy around a spot where a very large creature sat in semi-sleep. The smell was growing now as well as the sound, despite the stench of the creatures or their roaring or snoring. ”I swear. Next time I am bringing a couple gallons of cheap perfume down with me to toss on these things.”

A final turn and she waited as Ginny explored the area around the fountain that was bubbling blood instead of water. She had seen them before in her journey, but they were rare. Why would sirens put something like this in place? Were they blood drinkers as well, or perhaps this place had been (partially) built by vampires in the past and this was a ‘refueling station’?

Or the snack bar?

Or a feeding trough for the creatures?

Zodiac sat on the lip of the fountain and focused her abilities to heal upon herself. A familiar feeling slipped into her body for a moment. She lifted her blouse and saw the spike damage was gone. She flexed her left arm and found it moved smoothly now. No more pain. Perfect.

”If you ever tell anyone you saw me like this? I will make that black furred thong I always wanted out of you.” she told the cat and she leaned down and began to drink the blood as an animal would. Lapping and swallowing until she felt full again. Then Zo started to summons spirits to help her replace that precious energy within her that allowed her to use her powers. It was a cycle of drink and summon for several minutes until she sat back up and leaned against the wall.

”Oh, that’s so much better,” she sighed. She was full and felt healed and recharged with mystic energy again. As she pulled a rag from her bag to clean up with she saw Ginny disappearing back into the darkness. ”Hey guys!” she called out to her sibling. ”You can follow Ginny to a blood fountain, if anyone needs a top off. There is a trap along the way, just follow her lead and you’ll avoid it.” She said nothing about the stinking beast along the way. One of them would have fun with that.

She relaxed while she waited on the others. She wasn’t sure Mort or the Viking was on the same page, but she knew Mordechai was. She actually hoped she was wrong about it all, but she could not convince herself of it. People had told her Cobb could not return from the Shadow Realm. Really now? A 25th generation vamp, if he or she kept their calm and worked at it could come back with ease, but some first gen from over a hundred years ago could not do it? ********.

He may have been back for longer than most would think. Zodiac had tried to put herself into his shoes when she considered it. If it had been her.

She waged a one vampire war against old arrivals and recent converts who were still trying to get their feet back under them. It worked, for a time, but then she got sloppy. They caught her out in the open and the response was huge when word got out that she had been cornered. It took a lot of them, but they ended her and sent her to the realm they had recently escaped from.

What was next?

If it was her and she had been living in the real world all the time the others were trapped? She would have had infrastructure in place. Sources of income, people she trusted. The moment she would have returned to the real world she would have went straight underground. Who could say what things that still churned away in the business world (here and elsewhere) was not hers? Everything was in place so it just kept going, leaving her time to heal and get even stronger and have the time to prepare for a proper war against her kind. Sending out feelers to other groups to see what willing (and maybe not so willing) allies she could muster. Who told the paladins our kind had returned? Who taught the ones who became blood thieves that it worked? The crime families, the gangs, now giant spider women and dolphins?

It was all a test, till now. She’d be sitting back, taking notes, studying how the vamps reacted. Sitting in some forgotten lab as how to win became clearer and clearer, and once it was obvious how predictable vampires would respond to things?

Showtime.

That’s what she would have done anyway, and it would work. Queen ***** of the underworld arises and claims what is hers. All of your asses out of here on a one way trip to shadow land.

But without a scrap of proof Cobb was actually alive, she was hard pressed to guess who was running this entire show they all had a cameo in.

As long as the four of them agreed on stopping the Admin from having his way, she’d keep the rest of the details to herself.

Mortll wasn't sure what was happening but she could sense it happening. She wasn't sure that any of them had come down here to group up and fight together but something instinctual once they had found one another told them that they would be doing better together than they would apart. She did not have much to say to the question about what she knew. Of course she had heard the stories . Hell she had talked to Chad about things before he had done his disappearing act. Cobb she had met personally and if she had the chance she would repay the bullet he had put in her brain the first night of her existence as a vampire.

She had never bought into The belief that he was gone ... if someone could stay in the Shadow Realm for 200 years or more in some cases and find their way out. It goes to say that Cobb could do it too. He was just good at preserving his own *** and not showing his cards until he was ready to play them.

Mortll stood there silently listening to the talk when Zo excused herself to follow Jinny. Mortll had seen this before. That cat of hers seemed to have a extra knack for finding things. Mortll didn't want to disrupt the Gypsys extrasensory communications with her muse. So she quietly followed keeping to the dark a few yards behind. Keeping the woman in sight she followed. Mortll watched as she healed herself in the blood fountain. It was always a delight to sit and watch her as she preformed her magic. Many here in Harper rock knew how to heal and call spirits but when you got someone that was learned in the arts and ways It was something to view there was a grace and ability that made it that much more magical. Watching Zo was almost like watching a intricate dance with nature .

Mortll smiled to herself and almost applauded but she didn't want to interrupt. She waited until Zo had sent Jinny to find the others to make herself known . "You know my dear I never did understand where these things come from and how they are blood unless this place is alive and we are just in its belly which is quite a disturbing thought " she chuckled and wiped a stray strand of hair out of her face. "One big gulp and we are gonners "

“Why the hell not, could be fun to explore with a party. It’ll be like a real-life game of DnD,” Luffy replied as he followed the conversation of the others. He stretched as both women took off down the halls to explore. “Though normally, they say not to split the party.”

He closed his for a moment, only to have the meowing of a cat and Zodiac’s voice interrupt his thoughts. Luffy rose to his feet, brushed his pants off and began moving. “Looks like we’re being summoned.” He began following Ginny through the hallway. He stepped around the switch for a spike trap before disarming it and taking the parts to sell later.

Both Mortll and Zodiac were nearby a fountain of blood as Luffy entered the room. An eyebrow went up as he stared at the blood that spewed up from the floor. “Well, that’s different,” he commented as he made his approach. “What kind of freak show have we walked into exactly?”

He sat at the edge of the fountain and cupped his hands underneath the falling liquid. “Bottoms up and all that.” He drank the blood from his hands and sighed slightly. “This thing is creepy, but tastes pretty good.” He took another drink when a low growling rippled through the shadows behind him.

“Oh good, company. We should probably play games with it.”

Mordechai waited silently by the door, watching over Zodiac, as she drank and healed. The killer had never felt the urge to look down on others that did not have his experience and abilities. He silently waited with the patience of a sniper as his eye roved the shadow, holding overwatch, for his sister, and the new arrivals. They had barely finished their preparations, when Chaos swung into tight contact with his shoulder simultaneous with his lowering head obtaining an optimal cheek weld against the synthetic stock. Luffy had looked up at the noise as well but the shot was clear. The report of the .300 whisper was barely above the sound of the spent cartridges tinkling in the mesh brasscatcher mounted to the receiver, Three low bursts of air as the Hornady 240gr’s burst across the room were the only audible warnings, as the first two slammed into the chest cavity of the deformed greenman, milliseconds before the third punctured a half inch hole in the center of its forehead. Slipping the key into the door the massive killer shouldered it open and braced it, “We are going to need to go much deeper into this pit to discover what they search for I believe, but search each floor well, none of them can be trusted.”Holding out his hand towards the newest set of stairs a silent smile slipped into place as he bowed “After you sister- mine”

A soft smile crossed her lips as she watched Mortll approach her. As the woman began to speak, she cocked her head as she considered the idea. ”If anyone else suggested that to me, I would think the butter had slipped totally off their noodles.” She lifted her left hand and caused illumination to light the small chamber while she took a small knife in her right hand and used the hilt to strike against the wall above the fountain. It did have a hollow sound to it. The first one she had discovered she tried to inspect it in more detail. Her hand had slipped into the opening where the blood came through easily enough, but where it led to she had no clue.

”I say that because even though we are from two different schools of magick thought, we know nothing is impossible. If this is some complex internal system of some creature, that would make the things down here antibodies. And us? We are germs, food or viruses. And when too many germs form in the system, the beast would either try to kill, expel, or digest us.”

The smile vanished from her face as she replaced the dagger where she carried it. ”Thanks for that bit of sunshine to consider.”

The Otter came next. His observations were not too far off the mark. She wondered what he would think of Mort’s idea that they were inside a giant digestive system. She was about to speak when she heard the sound of a thing close by, only to be followed by gunshots.

”Ohhhh, Mordie found it.” She watched as he dispatched it with ease. Once the beast fell, Ginny emerged from the shadows and ran to where she sat. Zodiac listened and nodded in agreement with Mordie’s advice. It was what she had been doing all along, but so far all she had to show for things was silly little statuettes that reminded her of figures from some cheap bowling trophies or something and the occasional key. A few parts to some weapons, but little of value worth carrying along for later. She kept a couple of the figures and had pitched the rest of them.

She stood up, reshouldered her bag and made her way to where Mordechai was waiting by the newly opened door.

”Thank you, brother mine,” She smiled and winked as she passed. Rather than walking the steps, she jumped out a bit and let her levitating skills carry her down to the floor below while her cat jumped ahead. As had been her habit so far, she risked illuminating the immediate area around her to get a look at the new ground. Yet another style/type of brick work greeted her eyes. Ginny had already gone off exploring, so she held point near the stairs while the others made their way down to join her.

Mortll wasn't sure what she was thinking but this night kept getting stranger and stranger. Here she was in the bowls of a dungeon with blood fountains and beasts intent on having her for lunch. One good swallow and this weird *** dream would come to a abrupt end. Since crazy was on the menu she thought why the **** not she plunged her hand into the blood pool. Gore covered her arm to the elbow clotted thick blood clung to her arm and she felt something brush across her hand almost like fingers. She shuddered as her fingers felt something hard ane metallic she grasped it and pulled it out. It was heavily laden with blood clotted so thick she couldn't make out the shape or what it was. She tucked it into her pack something to be taken home and cleaned to asses its value later. She hurried to go through the door that Mordichai had opened for the party it seemed like the deeper they got into this pit the more they would be relying on the Giant of a man too dispatch of the beasts that roamed here it was a good thing she was along to keep him in good repair.

Luffy shook head as the creature dropped dead from Mordechai’s shot. He movd to the downed beast and begin digging through it for loot.

“Yep, we got a total DnD 4 characters crew here. A Ranger, a Healer, a Sorcerer; complete with a familiar, and I guess I’m the shapeshifting Druid.”

He tossed the prize to Mordechai as he passed through the door and began exploring the immediate area, He found a few small holes in walls, but nothing of consequence.

“Well, so far this room is clear,” he shouted back to everyone, as he continued to explore.

She had to laugh at Luffy’s observation as he walked by. This could indeed be a round of AD&D, if the stakes were not so high. ”And if you start singing? You get to be the Bard of the group.” She sent her thought after him. Next came Mortll. She looked at the woman curiously as she passed. She knew that look. Had she found something? The gypsy could not be certain, but made a mental note when they all gathered at the next doorway to ask.

Her thoughts were broken by the sound of the door closing above her.

”Mordie?” she looked up but saw no sign of the giant. Only the door sliding slowly shut above her. ”MORDECHAI!” she shouted mentally and she ran back up the steps. Her fists met the door as it slammed back into place. She pushed with all her strength, but the door refused to move. She knew from her experiences so far that there was a trip switch that would allow one to go backwards– up– into the last level, but she held her hand from finding it. If she opened it, could he pass down to where they were?

She did not know.

”YOU OVERGROWN OX! YOU BEST BE ALIVE UP THERE!” she shouted into his mind as her small fist pounded on the door. ”You best be talking to me. Right NOW!”

She sat on the steps and listened. A quick conversation before she stood up and made her way back down the steps. A look of disgust on her face. She supposed he could not keep the door open forever.

”We've lost our tank.” she thought to herself while pulling a small flute from her bag. She blew a couple of notes and waited until Ginny came running back to her. ”Well? Show me what you have found so far, love.”

Ginny meowed, then sniffed about as if realizing something was off suddenly. The mystic encouraged the cat into motion and followed it down a dim lit hall. She extinguished the light in her hand and walled with arms spread. Hints of shadow blades dancing about her fingertips as she heard noises ahead of her.

Mortll heard the tell tell clanking of the door shutting "Well **** "she said under her breath "That cant be good" The conspicuous absence of the Giant of a man affirmed her fears. She looked around at their surroundings grimly. The stone was different here darker absorbing whatever light might have been present. She could hear movement and a rustling in the distance almost like the dragging of lumbering feet. She imagined it was like the rest of the things down here foul rank and ancient and they all wanted one thing you dead. She aimed her gun towards the sound as she watched Zo summonsing Ginny " Well we have to either get a key and go back up or wait for him to come down. Either way we are going to need a key."

She found Mort just out of reach of….whatever this was. Her words made sense. Did they go back and wait till their ‘tank’ found another key or did they press on? The gypsy knew they could not depend on him forever. Sooner or later some things would fall to them to do. The bits of darkness faded from one hand as she brought light to the room. Instantly, the thing turned its attention from Mort to the source of the thin, dim light.

”Do you fear this thing, dear one?” There was no mockery in her voice at all. ”You may see a monster, but I see my newest dance partner. See how eager he is– and who can blame him? Perhaps all male seek to dance with a gypsy? After all, all my kind is supposed to be is wanton sluts seeking to seduce and rob their lovers. Sometimes kill them? Or perhaps enslave them?” Her walk was slow and paced. Hips rolling with every step. It was a distraction just as the tiny bit of light was while her eyes studied the thing in front of her. She had never seen this type before so she was taking in every clue she could find on where it would hurt the most to hit.

”And he is so lonely down here. Can’t you see, Mort? He wants me. Who am I to deny him?” Her mental voice purred as she stopped just inches from its reach.

”Watch your eyes, doll,” she warned her friend as the light suddenly was gone as Zodiac cupped her hands together. ”And if this doesn’t work? I’ll be hanging around on the front porch of this dump.” She could tell the thing was staring into the darkness where the light had been a few seconds ago.

Suddenly, a small sun appeared in the near blackness. The thing shrieked in pain as its eyes were assaulted with far more light than it had ever experienced. It failed at the light as lances of darkness made solid ripped into its body.

”Oh come on,” She taunted as she began to move. Never staying in the same spot for more than a second. The thing did manage to tag her once or twice, but for every blow it scored, the mystic managed 3 to 4. ”I know males who would kill to dance with me, and all you are doing is bitching and howling! DANCE WITH ME!”