Theo heard the voices down the narrow tunnel growing closer- luckily they were partly obscured by the vines along the way.

  "Shit! Let's double back, maybe we can-", Vaz began to say but Theo pushed him against the wall.

  "I don't think this is the time for this?", Theo shook his head. "No, I have another skill I haven't told you about. Just stay still, and be quiet..."

  The voices grew louder. He hadn't tested this before, but it should be fast acting.

  [Chameleon] the skill sounded in his head.

  He felt his clothing become a bit heavier as some kind of blanket-thin material apparated over the exposed parts of Theos body, draping his clothing. It was colored and textured just like the tunnel wall.

  Theo breathed a sigh of relief. It would suck if it just changed his actual skin.

  Vaz was breathing hard and fast, draining their little air in the pocket space created by the skill. Making it hot and humid, difficult to breath. 'Slowest people ever!' Theo thought, as the guards slowly passed by.

  Their voices finally faded down the tunnel. The disguise had worked perfectly.

  Did doing something like that count towards leveling up? It should, he used the skill exactly as intended. "Bah!" Theo took a breath of fresh air as he stepped away from the wall. The blanket crumbled away like dry mud.

  "You know I think someone else might be coming, we should hide again." Vaz said jokingly. Theo scoffed; "You're acting pretty calm considering we're in the belly of the beast here." they started walking down the tunnel again.

  "What? I shouldn't be happy?" Vaz whispered. "Yes. You shouldn't be happy, I mean, how did you even get caught to begin with?"

  Vaz was taken aback by the question; "You know damn well how I got caught! And I don't care to revisit that!", Theo was about to ask another question, about this criminal organization but Vaz raised a hand stopping him.

  "Shh... We're here. There's the door." he pointed to a wooden ramshackle door.

  "Okay, what's the plan?" Theo asked. "Simple. We peak, wait for them to clear out a bit, and walk out like we own the place."

  Theo thought he had dumb plans. But that was the dumbest plan he's ever heard.

  'SLAM!' the door burst open and a panicked man- old and scrawny fell through. He looked up at them. "Run! He's coming!" he pushed through them and sprinted down the tunnel whimpering.

  Vaz and Theo exchanged a confused look. Then looked at the door that now hung ajar. It was too dark to see, and there were a few rooms before the actual warehouse itself. But... If he listened, he could hear the sounds of a skirmish.

  "Fuck! Of all the times! Why isn't anything ever easy!" Theo punched the wall, but his fist just sunk into the soil lamely. Vaz patted him on the shoulder. "We got this far, who knows maybe they're on our side."

  "Are you kidding me, did you see that guy? He looked like he saw a demon!", Theo clenched his fists and thought. 'What now?'

  "Demons would never be this far south." Vaz said after a moment of silence. They crept up to the door and looked into the room- it was abandoned. They heard a shout- no, a cry- heading straight for them!

  'Crash!' a body flew through the shabby wall in a bloodied heap.

  A figure stepped out through the dust. A beast of a man, rivaling Sinatra, or Sir Thomas in size. 'Why are they always big? Can't that be me sized just once?' Theo murmured a quiet prayer to himself as the figure walked over.

  "Well?" they asked. They had a suit on, black and form-fitting. He was dusting off a wide-brimmed hat as he looked at them.

  "Uh, we were just leaving. We're not friends of the people here so if you don't mind we could just-", "Hah. Sorry buddy. No witnesses and all that. But what am I saying? You're not human." he started walking forward casually. He had no weapons, what was he going to attack them with?

  They exchanged one final look, then ran.

  Could anyone blame them? If a wwe wrestler said; 'no witnesses' would anyone stick around? They turned and sprinted down the tunnel back the way they came.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  But the figure took off after them, after what seemed to be a small head start. He had to crouch lower and pull through the countless vines, but he was gaining on them anyways.

  "Shit, Yosef- keep going! I'll hold him off." Vaz slid to a stop. He didn't have to tell Theo twice- he redoubled his efforts and ran even faster. It reminded him of that one saying, that he didn't have to outrun a bear. -He just had to outrun his friends.

  Not but a moment later Vaz cried out- causing Theo to make the mistake of looking back. Just then a body flew into him at fifty miles per-hour. They both flew out of the tunnel half sliding into open air. They cleared the ledge and were now in free fall into the vast cavern below.

  "AAAH!" they shouted, air whipping by them. Vaz was weaving magic rapidly and somehow the rune he drew followed him as he fell. It glowed and grew in size.

  It took Theo an hour to climb this wall, how long would it take to fall? He had to think quickly-

  'Thud!'

  They splattered into the muddied floor below.

  ---

  If you were a prisoner to the local Thieves guild in Soma, or at least nearby in the warrens beneath the city, the hidden caverns there- you would've seen two bodies collapse into the mud below.

  They looked on curiously at the now broken bodies, shards of bone sticking up through the mucky crater they left behind.

  Then they looked up, as if to see the cause of their fall.

  And they saw another figure falling.

  'CRUNCH!', he landed feet first onto the top of a prisoner turning them to mulch in an instant. A spray of viscera flew into the air and fell onto the now screaming prisoners. The finely dressed man adjusted his tie, and smiled.

  In the carnage the man didn't notice. As he slaughtered countless of the captives and members of the thieves guild. He didn't notice the spider crawl out of Theos clothing.

  ---

  Theo groaned, it was hard to sleep. His ears rung.

  [Assimilation]

  There was so much... Screaming. And pain. He slapped his neck- it itched badly. He felt his bones popping into place. He looked towards where Vaz must've fallen. He had dampened his fall with some kind of air blast, judging by the shape of his crater.

  [Assimilation]

  But it wasn't enough, he laid in a broken mess. But so were the other prisoners, torn apart as if by some animal. Theo looked to the direction of the rest of the cavern and a unit-sized hole was in the gate.

  Screams and the sound of combat echoed through the shanty town.

  'Wait- is that a spider?' Theo saw a black widow the size of a baseball standing on top of Vaz. It's eyes flared red then it bit down viscously on his neck.

  "Hey! Stop that!" Theo swatted at it, and it leapt away effortlessly. It hissed.

  Then he heard the sounds of bones popping and flesh squirming. Vaz groaned. "Vaz! Damn, you tough son of-" his jaw was hanging off. He had sat up, and his face was still destroyed. Then in a swift movement his jaw swung up and latched into place with a disturbing 'pop!'.

  Theo blanched at the body horror he was now seeing as Vaz's flesh reknit itself.

  "Theo!" A voice came from the spider. "Grandma?" he asked. "Eat the spider!"

  Theo looked at the spider with a thousand yard stare. "Ew, fuck no.", "You don't have a choice look around you! Are you really this accustomed to blood and gore?"

  "I have a skill to make me calm- what would eating a spider even do?" he asked. At this point Vaz's eyes had regrown in their sockets.

  "It's a homebrew! It's broken as shit! Call it an insurance policy! You better hurry, he's mopping up the others like a superman rip-off in one of those fucked up super hero shows!"

  Theo tilted his head. "You mean like from the 2020s?", "Yosef... Why are you talking to a spider? Am I dead?"

  "You're going to be if Yosef doesn't eat the spider! Hurry! Hurryhurryhurry!" the spider bounced on all eight legs with every 'hurry'.

  He took a deep breath and picked up the spider in both hands. "After you eat the spider, get out of the city and just run. Don't go back to the guild, we can't chance a monster like that discovering it! Run to the coast, I'll find you on the way to that island! South!"

  Theo swallowed hard. "Okay." he threw it into his mouth munching it down as quickly as he could. The thorax crunched away and a slimly innards of the spider exploded into his mouth. Tears formed at the edges of his eyes as he forced it down, slurping the spindly legs in.

  "Don't kiss me. Ever." Vaz said incredulously, looking between him and the carnage. Fires were starting and the screams were dying down.

  Theo collapsed to his knees as a sudden pulse of pain ran through him. Black started to run down his veins- his eyes changed color becoming a vibrant glowing gold. His shoulders jerked and expanded, his body grew. His vision shrank to a pinprick- he felt distant and enraged. He wanted to pound the dirt into the dirt.

  [Assimilation], it felt like his last charge for the day. But it brought him back a little.

  Vaz was shouting at him. "Yosef! We got to go! Do that wall climbing trick!" he was pointing towards the smoothed cavern wall behind them. He reached out and saw that his arm dwarfed Vaz- and it was his changeling skin. But bronzed and reflective. He was like a dragon, minus the tail.

  But Theo hardly registered any of that- he threw Vaz onto his back and leapt fifty feet into the air. It was so satisfying to break something, anything. He raked his claws into the stone not bothering to use [Wall Climb] or just not remembering to.

  In seconds he was at the ledge again with the tunnel. Vaz scrambled off his back.

  "Okay let's go.", Vaz gestured for him to follow and Theo hunched down to all fours so he could fit into the tunnel. The movement felt very natural for him. But then he felt a fist wrap around his ankle. Theo snarled like a beast and whipped his head around. The man was standing outside the tunnel.

  "No witnesses." he said again smirking.

  Theo moved to attack but then he saw a figure floating over the mans shoulder. The mafia boss from before, wearing the heavy black furs.

  "Our business isn't finished, fool." and a black claw appeared from thin hair and smacked him back down to the cavern floor before he could react. The man went to fly back down to where he had struck him- but stopped and looked at Theo knowingly. In his enraged form, he felt the urge to jump at the man, but Vaz was behind him pulling on his massive arms shouting for him to follow.

  "Go, doppleganger... I believe we'll meet again. Perhaps fate does exist." just then a blur tackled the man into the ceiling of the cavern, causing the entire place to shake and quake sending debris falling to the ground.

  "Theo! Theo!" he heard distantly, his hears were still ringing, it was a muffled sound. He looked towards the source of it to see Vaz shouting. "Yosef! Let's go for gods sake, I'm not leaving you here!" Theo nodded absently and followed him. Pushing his shoulders through the wooden braces that held the tunnel together.

  It felt as if it would all come down any second. Those two were both monsters in their own right, Theo instinctively, even in this form- knew better than to try his luck against them.

  The warehouse was washed in gore as well as they barreled through. Outside was a ghost town, never has Theo heard the town so quiet.

  It was similar to the drunken night before- a blur, all so distant from him in the moment. But he remembered his grandmothers words, somehow. "Leave the town, head to the coast." she said.

  He grabbed a protesting Vaz and threw him onto his back once more and leapt roof to roof until he was in the wilderness outside town. His body was so heavy, but felt so light. He leapt onto a thick tree trunk that had fallen over as he thought it would easily support his weight. He was wrong and fell right through snapping it.

  His vision was growing to a pinprick again, and he didn't have [Assimilation] to sober him.

  He just kept hearing a voice shouting from far away.

  "We're far enough! Stop!"

  After awhile the voice stopped, and replaced with the sound of lapping waves as Theo fell asleep.