7th of Ash, 4621
One at a time, Arkash scrubbed the bricks laid out before him. With his coarse washcloth, he pressed hard to the smooth, stone surface and worked both his weight and strength into the scrubbing motion that broke away loose dirt and collected grime. When he was done soaking the stone, he reached over and dropped the washcloth in the pale of soapy water that he had in his company and collected the rough-bristled brush. With said brush, he used an angle to rub down between the cracks that bordered that particular stone, then retrieved the cloth to collect more dirt before he returned it to the pale and wrung it out.
Another cobblestone down, Arkash lifted his head to look at his progress and found that he'd complete three cobblestones in the corner out of the entire hallway, and had an entire room left to go. His shoulders went lax and he sighed exasperatedly.
"Tired already?" Asked the other floor scrubber, Eira. She didn't look at him once and kept her eyes to the floor as she wrung out her washcloth. "We've only just started the day," she reminded.
Yes, it was early. Arkash did not need to be reminded just how much more work was ahead of them. "Yeah, I know," he replied, then sat back on his feet to alleviate the pressure on his knees.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" She asked, still scrubbing.
Arkash thought himself spoiled. His first thought was that he didn't want to scrub the entire floor; his back hurt, his fingertips got wrinkly whenever they were wet for too long, and the pressure of his knees on the hard stone floor was unbearable. Somehow, he didn't think telling his supervisor that he didn't want to scrub the floors would fly. He needed some other excuse, but he had to think of one. His eyes fell on the veteran slave then. How did she do it? He couldn't stand so much as a few days in his new role, but she behaved like she'd done it for years. What in Bel was she made of? "Eira..."
"Yes?" She asked in turn.
"...I need you to cover for me."
The slave paused, then looked up from her duties with a furrow to her brow, clear beneath her scraggly black hair. "What?"
"You know, like... Pretend I'm here, working, when I'm actually not."
"...Why would I do that?" She spoke with clear aggravation in her tone. "Do you have any idea what will happen if we fail to complete our tasks? We'll be starved, or flogged!" her nose curled in disgust, and her anger reflected clearly in her expression. "Why? What will you do instead?"
The disguised rathor pursed his lips at first, then pulled them back in an uncomfortable cringe. He hadn't really thought about what slacking would do in the big picture; they'd done well enough without him for the past however long it had been since they were enslaved. Besides, it wasn't as if Arkash could clean floors quickly. It had been a long time since he worked the mines in Lorien, and though he'd gotten stronger, his conditioning was lost. "...My knees hurt," he admit, somewhat ashamed. "Sorry, Eira. I just need to stretch my legs, I swear I'll be back. I..." What did she want? Surely fulfilling their master's wishes wasn't her highest priority, was it? "I'll give you my food tonight? Is that fair?" He took a shot in the dark. It was something she mentioned as a concern when he first asked to slack off; perhaps it was something she cared a lot about?
The slight woman stared at him from the other side of the room, peered into his eyes, then looked to the floor with something of a pout. "You should get used to your knees hurting," she warned. "Go. Keep your food, too. You'll need the energy for tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that."
Arkash watched then as she returned to her duties. The transaction left his chest heavy with regret, he'd chosen selfishly in contrast to Eira, who treated him with compassion. Sure, she was annoyed, but who wouldn't be when they were let down by someone they were made to rely upon? "...Thank you," he returned, then wobbled to his feet. With a sigh, he turned away from the downtrodden slave, then proceeded down the hall toward the staircase.
Eira was fresh on his mind as he proceeded down the stairs, passing by some armored men on the way down. Why did he care if a weakling treated him with kindness? He could leave and never return whenever he felt like it. Hell, he'd already broken out of the fortress in the dead of night once, then returned before sunrise. It wasn't his fault that she'd chosen to resign herself to a life of servitude rather than seeking freedom. Still, why was his heart so heavy? If that was really how he felt, why did it affect him so?
A sigh and a shake of his head cleared his head as he approached the room in which his face was remade by the Veir. It was dimly lit in the hall that preceded the laboratory. Walls of stone brick and cobbled floors stretched ahead of him with a sort of circular curve that reached around out of sight. Despite the poor vision, Arkash knew he was alone by his superior hearing and the silence ahead of him. Even so, he peered with wide-eyes to the end of the hall while he stopped at the door, then knelt before it to inspect the lock. He squinted.
The lock looked more complicated than other pieces he'd inspected before, but he thought it would be a similar concept to the others. The keyway was shaped like an X, as opposed to the usual misshapen line that he normally faced while picking locks. Would he need two picks? He'd have to bleed again to blood shape another pick.
An idea struck then, seemingly from nowhere. Why would he bother with another lockpick when he could just replicate the key? His understanding of locking pins, tumblers, and keyways came in handy when he was able to manipulate and mold the blood in his veins into whatever shape he liked. Why hadn't he thought of that before?
With a shake of his head, he produced his lockpick and pressed the point to his wrist. It wasn't the most fitting tool for the job, but it was better than trying his useless human claws and teeth. His skin sunk with the pressure, and his muscles began to ache beneath. Then the skin gave way with a sudden burst of pain, and the lockpick embedded itself in his wrist. His nose curled a little and his jaw pressed tight; he'd had worse. Even so, his mouth turned dry as he pulled down on the pick to open his wrist more, tearing his skin. His fist clenched tight and his entire face curled in pain. His arm shook under the tension and his breathing quickened before he finally relented and put the focus of his mind to leeching the power in his own veins.
With the gathered vapors, he whisked the running red and wrapped it like a thread around the lockpick. Almost as though he was weaving silk, but much grimmer. Once he had enough material, he pulled and snapped the thread before he wrapped his human lips around the wound and wettened his palette with his own lifeforce. He was becoming hungry; he'd have to feed again soon. His own blood did nothing for his hunger, but the rich coppery tang was comforting. A soft sigh of satisfaction broke him from his trance, and he broke his lips away before he wove a tight band around his wrist to keep pressure on his open wound.
Then, with the gathered, hardened blood around his bloodshaped lockpick, he formed a misshapen ball, and pressed it to the keyway. There, he forced the material to extend outwards, then press into the surrounding pins until each of them clicked. He could only imagine what the inside of the mechanism looked like while all the arms of his makeshift key reached out to unlock the chamber. He hardened the stretch of blood at the entry of the keyway and put pressure on the tumbler while his free hand gripped the handle and twisted.
Finally, the mechanism clicked and the door unlocked. At once, the ball of blood withdrew and returned to its default, blobby shape. Carefully, he pushed against the door, and let himself into the room.
It was just as he'd last seen it with several operating tables in the middle of the room, scattered flasks and jars all along the thick board shelves at the back of the room, some knives and cutting utensils left on the table against the left wall, and what looked to be some alchemical equipment and glass-blown tubes on the other wall. Arkash furrowed his brow as he scanned his surroundings with his night eye. Where was it? The necromancy stuff?
Gently, the rathor closed the door behind him and began to search through various drawers and the like in search of the tools he needed to understand. In one of the final cupboards, he found a safe with a stack of tomes beside it. Arkash furrowed his brow, then drew one of the books before he flicked through the pages. As he might have guessed, it was all written in a language that was not common. He couldn't even read common, let alone whatever the heck he was looking at.
With a deep sigh, he closed the book, then set it back atop the tomes. His gut told him the tools were in the safe, but there was no keyhole to speak of. There was a mere combination dial, which Arkash hadn't encountered before. The rathor sighed. Raphael took his security seriously, that much was obvious. How was he meant to break into a safe, if the tools were really there? He gave the dial a few experimental turns before movement caught his senses. Someone was coming down the hall.
