[center][h1][b][color=af002a]Theodore Valentin[/color][/b][/h1]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/d2x4Jzk.png[/img]

In cooperation with [@ERode]

[b]//A3 - The Abyss, 1st Layer[/b][/center][hr][hr]
The first layer gives the impression of an open field atop a mountain. The air is sharp and humid here, a breeze passing by that's more a refreshing than it is cold. Piles of whitestone rubble are here and there, and there's definitely some ups and downs present, as well as patches of white fog, but there are patches of wildflowers too, of a species that Theodore wouldn't recognize. No monsters are present thus far. He'd note that the wall that he was on top of before this would continue into the Abyss itself, serving as a perpetual boundary.

Around him, his fellow crew members immediately start eating the food they were given.

Theodore gave the surroundings a cursory glance around. No danger yet. Then, as the saying went, he did as the locals did - he ate. The only blooded creatures here so far were the workers and he doubted any would be keen to be fed upon, now or later. His human follower copied him, while the vampire lady pouted. With an eye roll, Theo beckoned her. Frowning, she complied. With an ease that revealed the two's familiarity - if not exactly comfort - with the idea, they exchanged nutrition sources.

In other words, he received her lunch, and Maris bit into his neck to drink some blood. It was easy enough to mistake for an intimate embrace, though neither was that particular about the actual exchange getting noticed. Ezra watched with a predator's gleam in his eyes, licking his lips, but Theo ignored him.

As if there were nothing unusual going on, he turned to a group of workers. [color=af002a]"You've done this before, yea? What's to watch out for - do monsters just...appear?"[/color]

"Nah. Heard stories 'bout them popping outta thin air in the lower layers, but on the first, you can expect em to pop out from holes or the sky."

The one who answered him upended the sack, shaking it out in hopes of anything he had missed. It was empty though, so he went to tie it around his belt.

"Lotsa fog 'round these parts. We try 'n avoid em, but most times we can't, and that's where the bigger ones like to lurk." The worker turned his attention to Maris. "That your woman? Kinda stupid, bringin' her down here."

[color=af002a]"Huh,"[/color] Theo remarked. He'd not heard that about monsters. Seeing the man seeking more food, the dhampir tilted his head. He still had a bit of his left, given he'd had two portions. He offered the remaining piece of bread and cheese to the man. He figured he might as well reward his cooperation. 

[color=af002a]"I see,"[/color] he nodded. The fog, huh. He wondered if Maris could sense hidden danger, but a glance her way revealed nothing except her satisfaction after a good meal. [color=af002a]"Can any of them be fought, or do we run?"[/color] he wondered. The man, unsurprisingly, made an assumption about their relationship, pointing it out with an insensitive question. [color=af002a]"Ah, she's--"[/color]

The vampire literally hissed as she turned towards the worker, fangs exposed. "You [i]dare?[/i]  You, a mere [i]human,[/i] would question my prowess?" Theodore sighed, and put a palm on her shoulder. [color=af002a]"She's her own lady, and a feisty one, you see,"[/color] he answered, lips quirked in amusement. [color=af002a]"On a good day, she can even beat me."[/color] Evidently, the backhanded compliment didn't soothe her ruffled feathers any. "If I had my sword, I'd slice you to ribbons [i]in a second[/i]," she glowered. With an offended sniff, and a graceful turn, she walked away - not anywhere far, of course, just the few steps it took to make her point.

[color=af002a]"Feisty,"[/color] Theodore reiterated. He was smiling; inviting, friendly, charming. [color=af002a]"What brought you here?"[/color] he asked after a beat. Even though more focused on talking, he still scanned the surroundings intermittently.

The man waved it off.

"You'd need it more. And as for fighting monsters...well, dunno where your lady-friend's sword went, but that's what the boss's for. We run and he handles it. Unless it’s too much. Then we're all running."

He looked up. The elevator was descending once more, the trio that oversaw the group about to arrive.

"Just a money thing for me. Risk and reward, yea? Crazier that tidy folks like yourself'd do this though, when you could be an actual adventurer. 'less yer trynna get a dungeon divorce."

Theo shrugged off the refused offer, and stored the food. His eyes tracked the arrival of 'the boss'. He chuckled at the last question. [color=af002a]"No, I like her around just fine. I would be an adventurer, but, well...We've just arrived, and are left with nothing – a common enough story, I’m sure. But all in its own time, no?[/color] Speaking of, it looked like it was time to venture forth.

Once the trio of well-armored adventurer-supervisors descended, one of them handed out pickaxes to the labourers present. The labourers then headed off, fanning off over the layer. They were to give a shout when they came across a particular cave or tunnel opening in the ground. The practice struck Theodore as odd, so he asked about it. 

He learned that the Abyss was a living environment; the caves opened up from time to time across the first layer. One could mine common ores from it, but that was also how the monsters of this layer armed themselves, so there was often a risk of encountering monsters when descending inside. Of course, the supervisors wouldn’t care unless there was a monster inside, so the labourers were expected to get in and get as much work done as possible. Once they found one such cave system, all the labourers descended into it, mining for stones and other materials around the cave, while the adventurers mostly stayed outside.

Theodore was informed that they would have to show the contents of their bags when they left. He could see this lead to disputes between labourers if one of them came across a rarer sort of material. But that was a worry for later. More immediately, the first tunnel system had a ceiling so low that Theo and Ezra had to be in a perpetually-crouching position within. It was extremely uncomfortable, but at least, there was no sign of any monsters.

A tunnel collapse, however, was always a possibility.

A possibility he and his followers ignored as they diligently mined as much as they could.

As Theodore continued to just straight up exist in the Abyss, he got the sense that something invisible was clinging onto himself and his followers. It was a sort of aura or energy, and it was ever so slowly gathering around them. Drop by drop, the energy condensed, yet it barely made a difference. He estimated they would have to make several trips into the Abyss for the energy level to become significantly larger. Out of curiosity, Theo [i]flexed[/i] the aura, and he thought it sort of moved as he wanted it to…but that didn’t seem to do anything. Nor did he sense anything similar anywhere else in the area. So, he simply let it be for now.

Since his followers did not appear to notice what he had, Theodore moved to give them a heads-up. However, this was when he heard an alarmed call, accompanied by the sounds of fighting.

Two monstrous wolves with goblin spearmen riding on their backs descended into the tunnel. More were obviously outside, being handled by the adventurer-supervisors. The intruding monsters lashed out at the labourers nearby; the cramped space and low ceiling made it hard for the labourers to get out of the way, while the spears themselves were certainly proper iron spears that had no issues piercing flesh.

After the immediate clearing out of their surroundings, the monsters beelined straight for Theodore.

[color=af002a]“Fuck.”[/color] The tunnels were too low and convoluted to run well; there wasn’t much beyond the drops bags of ore to hide behind either. Rushing to the nearest bag, Theo picked out a chunk of the mined material, and hurled it at the wolf’s snout. It snarled, but wasn’t cowed. No regular animal, that’s for sure. [color=af002a]“Everyone! I’ll keep them busy – just attack when you can! We can get these bastards down, adventurers or no!”[/color] His confidence, and the willingness of his two followers to help was enough to embolden the workers too.

Theodore kept going from bag to bag, throwing rocks and ore at the monsters. When a goblin rider got to close, he blocked or parried it as best as he could with a pickaxe. Obviously, against a spear, the tool wasn’t up to task. He’d thought about breaking or stealing one of the spears, but that was no go.

So, he focused on dismounting the creatures from their mounts. Throughout his attempts, his followers and the other workers pitched in when they could, dealing glancing blows, and preventing the two riders from moving him down. Eventually, with clever tactics and luck, he dislodged one goblin.

…

Only for that goblin to jump right on him!

The little bastard was clawing at his chest, trying to scratch his face, and had even picked up a rock to smash his face in. 

As Theodore raged and snarled and defended one of his best features, Ezra was the one to notice his predicament. With a smug smirk in place, he came over, and held down the goblin. That was enough for Theo to bite into the creature and drain it dry.

The blood was thin, bitter, and acidy – but he [i]could[/i] drink it. He felt he could do this safely only because of his Divine ability rather than any natural dhampiric trait, however.

A quick glance around let him know the fight was over. The goblin-less wolf had been put down by a group of labourers, and the other rider had likely been weakened by his followers before being killed by some desperate workers. Three workers he didn’t know laid on the floor, slain. Two had major wounds, and five others had sustained minor injuries similar to Theo’s.

With a sigh, he turned to Ezra. The human didn’t even bother trying to suppress his glee. [color=af002a]“So, how bad is it?”[/color] Theodore asked, cautiously raising a hand to his face.

“Mmmm…rudimentary marks made by lowly beasts, but…Delicious,” Ezra commented with a purr. Between one blink and the next, the man was already touching his face, tracing the wounds with a disquieting eagerness. Theodore merely rolled his eyes, however, and lazily slapped the offending hand away.

[color=af002a]“Right, never mind. Forgot you were a blood-freak,”[/color] he snorted. And that’s a [i]dhampir[/i] saying that, yes.
The worker who he’d spoken to before approached. “Aye, good work, there.” Secretively, he handed over a goblin’s pouch to Theodore. With equal furtiveness, the dhampir stashed it away. [color=af002a]“Thanks. Good job on living. What’s the name?”[/color] The man introduced himself as Greg, and Theodore nodded. He asked about a water source, but apparently there was nothing substantial.

Just in case, he decided to check outside. There, the combat had settled down as well. The adventurer-supervisors were definitely surprised about the amount of monsters that seemed to just zoom in on them – there had been seven pairs total – but money was money. Those with major injuries were being helped up by their fellow workers; they were to be escorted back to the walls, awaiting an elevator up. The corpses, of course, were looted by the survivors.

As all this was going on, Theodore knelt down by a patch of damp grass, and gathered dew between his fingers. With meticulous care, he patted down his face, ensuring that the scratches would at least clean – as clean as he could make do with dew from Abyss. It wasn’t optimal, but it was what it was.

Soon, the supervisors drove them back to work. The intensity of the attack had been a surprise, but also not too out of the ordinary. Theodore noticed the adventurers and the boss had no injuries whatsoever. 

Before Theodore returned to work, he observed the adventurers. They went and looted all the monsters’ corpses, even the ones they hadn’t killed themselves. They took any pouches the goblins had hanging from them, and sliced open and removed the liver. They broke off the canines of the wolves for storage, and removed the hearts. They also took the spearheads, but not the spear shafts of the goblin spears. The dhampir memorized the process; these were the valuables from these types of monsters, then.

Once back in the cave, he nodded at the survivors. [color=af002a]“Back to it, then, aye? Let’s celebrate surviving by mining the heck outta these damn rocks,”[/color] he grinned. Maybe it was weird for him to be so perky, but he’d learned much in this one trip.

[color=af002a]“Oh, by the way – if anyone’s ever looking to save on food costs by being able to drink blood, you’ll want to keep me in mind.”[/color] He threw that out there, just in case. Couldn’t hurt to have a little advertisement for potential would-be followers.