[i]Team up[/i] with a Royal Hunter? A dark storm roiled in the back of Rook's throat, sulfuric at the idea of joining forces with a transmogrified weapon. He hadn't lost the shift of her fingers into talons or the way that unnatural sharpness slipped into the rock. How much power should the Crown be allowed to collect? Surely a power that belonged to the ancient earth should be distributed among the people, not hoarded by a single puppeteer.

At the same time, that purposeful power [i]was[/i] keeping the Old Gods from claiming more victims, no matter the motive. If Rook failed alone, his wouldn't be the last pair of hands to be added to the monster's gait.

He braced against a whistling wall of wind. The water below seethed white and angry. The low and wide cavern entrance opened only a little farther below his feet, and his arms were getting tired.

"[color=82ca9d]Killing blow gets the shard.[/color]" It wasn't an agreement to work together, but it wasn't a refusal. If this meant he could knock out this Old One with fewer of his own broken bones [i]and[/i] keep another God Shard out of the Crown's mana factory, he could tolerate playing nice with a chimaera.

Rook dropped the rest of the way, then swung a quiet landing at the corner of the cavern's mouth and tied off the rope for the way back. The water was close enough now that the rock floor glistened slick and spray misted the black inside. Just beyond the darkened wet rock, the cavern walls were covered in thousands of pale handprints.

Water, he knew from the elders, was vital to this Old One. Most of its body was water. It was sensitive to sound and vibrations, but its vision was poor. He tilted his head to peer up at the chimaera with a silent indication to keep quiet.