The rain seemed distant now, muffled as if the whole alley were underwater. He blinked hard -- but the text never faded.
'The... coin's a relic?' he couldn't process it. The coin he'd picked up after bumping into that cloaked figure... could it really be so?
Each letter hung there, ghost bright in the air.
[Flip to Decide]
His lips quivered at the words. A dry sound escaped him -- half gasp, slight laugh."hkk--"
It wasn't loud, but in silence... it was enough.
A head turned. One of the guards froze mid-step, their visor catching a faint glint of motion behind a curtain of cloth.
'Shit...' Bast's breath hitched. His fingers clenched around the coin -- the words still plastered across his vision.
Whilst the guard stared at the corner drowned in darkness, it prompted a reaction from Silver -- the man whose count had almost reached one step from zero.
"What is it?" he asked, his voice cutting through the quiet; calm and precise.
The guard didn't answer straight away... he just stared ahead, his hand drifting to his side. To not immediately reply to his superior, Silver turned his gaze to the direction his subordinate was staring daggers at.
A few of the onlookers stared, light mumbles escaping their mouths, "...fuck." The old man's pipe trembled slightly in his grip -- his brows scrunching in the stress. Someone shuffled back, boot scraping wet stone.
The only noise was the faint crying of the woman whose child was held in a guards grasp -- their mouth clamped shut with a firm hand. "Sit still," the guard called, as he too turned toward the dark corner Bast was hidden.
Everyone was staring now.
The message still hung overhead -- faint, unreal -- its glow reflected even as he gazed to the floor of wet stone. A few seconds had passed. It was safe to assume the count had been stopped early. "Step out," Silver said, as if on cue. His voice wasn't raised to a high degree, but it certainly held such -- cutting through the rain like a blade drawn quick.
There was no reply.
Only the sounds of shuffling, dropping rain, and beating hearts.
His mouth parted again, "I said," he continued, his voice distorting the last word into a growl, "step out."
A pin drop. No--something smaller could be heard in such silence.
"Fine. We'll drag you out."
Bast's pulse pounded against his skull. A silent command to move in was ushered by Silver, prompting a guard's boots to grind against the wet stone -- his steps slow, but closing.
'It's over. I'm screwed.... to think I'd actually be holding a relic.' his throat tightened. His mind screamed to run, to move, to do something... nothing would listen. The only remaining constant in the barrage of emotions was the floating words in front of his eyes.
[Flip to Decide]
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The air was still as everyone watched the guard rummage closer -- everything under Silver's watchful eye.
Bast's eyes darted through the gaps of crates. To the kids watching from afar, the woman huddled together, the men stood still with arms to their side.
They tried to prevent the inevitable... something that was certain, now that he'd actually had such a thing in his possession. As his amber eyes shifted, there was one person he was trying to find...
'Tov.'
That kid wasn't back yet.
'Maybe it's a good thing,' Bast thought.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Everything seemed to slow, as the steps came. All the eyes around seemed to blink slower.
He looked down at the coin.
A faint flicker laid beneath its cracked presentation. Something deeper lay within -- soft, golden, unreal. For a second, it almost seemed to breathe in his grasp.
No. He couldn't be thinking...
Something clawed at him from within -- the steps getting closer.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Everyone knows what happens when a relic answers back. The whispers said 'your will and its hunger become one.' That they always demand a cost. Most who have tried without a ritual were found empty -- faces twisted, bodies beyond recognition, their names rubbed from history.
His pulse pounded harder:
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Or was that the ever closing steps.
It all didn't matter. None of it did.
'I'm good as dead anyway,' he thought; his eyes running back up to the guards, before returning to the coin.
A sharp breath escaped Bast, his thumb brushing the coin's cold, sharp edge. The world around him blurred; the smell of damp filling his nose.
He muttered under his breath, barely audible, but still real. "What do I have to lose?"
The coin slipped from his fingers, before he flicked it up -- its brown edge, flickering gold.
It turned once.
Twice.
Dink!
A faint sound echoed through the Warrens at that moment -- too sharp, too clear. It cut through rain and steps alike.
Every head flinched even as they stared in the same direction. Even SIlver's visor tilted slightly.
And then...
The words, pulsing across Bast's eyes flickered again. It twisted, reshaping mid-form as he watched; both scared and filled with something purer.
The letters burned white:
----------------------------------------------
[Relic Classification Updated]
Item: The Beggar's Coin
Type: Memory/Echo Relic
Tier: I I (Woken)
Bonding Stage: F - Awakening (Ember)
Status: Active (Unstable)
Emotion Registered: Desperation. Guilt. Defiance.
-----------------------------------------------
The faint echo of noise bled out slowly, swallowed by the darkness. The words hung there for a breath longer, then vanished, leaving nothing but a faint ringing in Bast's ears.
Bast's fingers trembled around the coin.... it's surface had changed. The coin pulsed, a beat stronger in his palm now.
There wasn't enough time to honour its new presentation. One of the guards shifted, the faint dink still sharp in his mind.
Silver's eyes honed in on the corner, his fist clenching under the faint drops of rain.
"...Found him."
The words hit like a punch.