The blue wrath rolled, plunging under the furious swipe of claws that passed mere inches from his skin. He tumbled into the beasts legs, knocking its feet out from under it. The werewolf collapsed to the floor, scrambling to get back up with a loud feral snarl.
Coming out of his roll, Raziel immediately sprang forwards breaking into a run. The creature galloped after him on all fours, the rest of its pack joining it as they came across the corner.
Raziel kept running, casting occasional glances back over his shoulder as the pack followed him.
What betrayed the next attack was a mere soft scrapping noise coming from above which Raziel’s ears only just managed to pick up. Turning his upper body he moved just in time to meet one of the creatures as it dove from its hidden perch on the buildings around him.
In that spilt second there was only one thing he could do to save himself from being struck. The wraith pushed his right arm up to meet the diving beast and at the mommy his talons met the fur he called forth his soul in the form of the Reaver.
The wraith blade burst forth , sliding effortlessly through the flesh of the werewolf and exploding out its back.
Flesh and bone fragments burst out to splatter against the stone wall on other side of the narrow corridor.
The werewolf let out a gargled cry with its body contorting into a death grimace as Raziel dropped it to the ground. When it died and its soul left its quivering flesh it was quickly absorbed by the Reaver.
Unlike before where the Reaver had been competition for the souls he needed to sustain himself, now that the blade was a projection of his own contemporary soul the energy fed him directly. The boost was just what he needed and he burst into a run again away from the oncoming pack.
He had killed many of them of course before he had been forced into flight but in the end there had simply been too many of them, all attacking at once and with such animalistic fury.
By now his situation was quite desperate for having fled so much he had become hopelessly turned around, unable to get any sense of direction.
Too late did he realise this was the point of this place. He was trapped inside a giant maze that had been created solely for the wolves to hunt their prey through. Perhaps the masters of Fanum-Divus tossed unlucky humans in to be hunted for entertainments sake.
Passing by an entrance to another passageway Raziel was only just able to turn in time as another three leap out at him from the shadows; attempting to cut him off long enough for the rest of the pack to catch up.
One snapped at him with its huge jaws seemingly in an attempt to bite his head off. He ducked low to avoid it and a second came at him with its claws jabbing forward. Raziel caught its arm, grabbing its wrist and yanking it forward. The werewolf, perhaps a tad younger then the others, let out a startled dog like yelp in its pain and surprise as Raziel slashed it across the face with its talons. He didn’t hit anything vital, missing the eye and only catching the nose but the beast stumbled back with ears lowered.
The third pushed past the inexperienced pup and came at him snarling with claws descending on his shoulders. Raziel slid back away from the lunge and back into the side of a wall, leaping up high against it.
With an acrobatic skill that only his thing skeletal body provided, he rebounded off the surface and high into the air. He soared up and over the werewolves head and then down its back, raking through muscle and flesh with his talons.
The beast let out a scream that was disturbingly human like and he kicked it in the back, sending it tumbling into the oncoming rush of the pack.
The few extra seconds of confusion amongst them was vital as he raced on but he was forced to skid to a stop as he came into another large open square like area. Other passages led off from the sides of it but he was quite sure they all eventually came back here anyway.
Set into the floor was another of the large trap doors that the pack had emerged from although this one was still shut tight.
There was a low menacing snarl from behind him and Raziel spun about, talons raised.
One by one the werewolves emerged from the passages, converging on him. He backed away from them step by step ready for the moment when they would all lunge towards him.
He did not fear death as his nature did not permit it but he was anxious to what would happen to him where his physical form to break. He could sense no spectral realm here as he guessed the realm of the dead did not extend beyond the rim of time. If he were to loose his manifestation here anything could happen to him.
To his alarm he felt the floor sway underneath him and glancing down he could see that he had backed up right to the middle of the trapdoor in the floor. It bent slightly under his weight. It was not bolted shut, just spring loaded and left to lie closed.
Four wolves sprang towards him all at once.
“No stop!” He cried. His attempt to reason with them was quite futile. For all he knew they were so much like animals they were incapable of understanding. If they did they were moving too fast to stop when they landed on top of him.
The trapdoor could not support their combined weight and it swung down, parting in the middle to let the five of them tumble down through the gap and into the darkness below.
.
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“I fell for quite some distance, tumbling end over end so that I could not even glide to break my momentum. I could only hope to land on something soft.”
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.
Falling, they struggled desperately to free themselves from the chaotic tangle. There was a loud yelp that quickly died away as they hit something, one of the werewolves carried off.
Raziel kicked another in the chest and he was free, free to tumble and fall alone. He had the vague impression of stone walls flying past but he was moving too fast to make it out properly in the dim light.
He hit something with a loud crack and his body was knocked almost upside down from the floor, still falling. The sharp blow depleted a great deal of his energy reserves as his body repaired the damage.
His hands fumbled uselessly for his wings desperately trying to catch them and glide but they were billowing out above and well out of reach.
“Hold on Raziel!” Ariel yelled in his mind and a moment later…
*thump*
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“Which against all odds I managed.”
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The shock of impact was still enough to leave Raziel stunned and he lay there face down on this soft material, arms and legs outspread almost comically.
It took him perhaps about five minutes for his mind to recover enough to force his body to move.
Groggily he pushed himself up, shaking his head and letting out a pained moan. His ruined body did not feel pain as much as others but that fall had indeed left him aching.
Raziel held a hand to his face, wanting to wretch despite the lack of intestines. It was the inertia that had been the most damaging.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the item that had given him a soft landing. It was a large leather sack about the size of a horse, stitched together in patches and tied up with rope to his left. There was enough dim light to reveal it was only one of perhaps a dozen such bags all laid out in a row, some up on thick stone shelves above.
“You are unhurt?” Ariel asked as he slid down to the top of the bag to the stone floor. Unlike the city above it wasn’t cold down here. In fact the surface of the floor was surprisingly warm.
 “I’ll live.” Raziel muttered indignantly, the dizziness still clogging his mind. As he came down from the top, his talons tore the fabric of the bag and its contents spilled out in a small cascade. It was dried grains of many types, barely, wheat, oats and more.
Raziel thought it odd that such things would even be needed in such a city much less desired.
On the far side of the room there was a doorway leading out. Light from coming from beyond throwing long black shadows. The blue wraith slowly made his way towards it, laying a hand on the wall to steady himself.
When he got to the entrance and looked out at what lay beyond, he stopped dead in his tracks; his eyes widening to near white circles.
“My god…”
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“The chamber that lay before me was massive beyond anything I had seen before. Stretching off into the far distance were boxes all stacked in precise order.”
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The chamber stretched on so far he could not even see the far end; stacks of crates larger then houses lined up in seemingly endless rows as far the huge arching ceiling high overhead. Metal stairs with thick steps ran up to walkways that reached each level, a complex of containers and platforms that reminded him intently of the layout of the interior of Janos’ hidden sanctuary.
As if in a daze, Raziel wandered amongst the towering structures his eyes everywhere.
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“When I got closer I perceived my error. They were not boxes. They were cages.”
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Each of the containers held different examples of animal life. Some of them had lounging beasts of burden, others small rabbits or rodents and some were even filled with water with fish swimming about inside. No two containers held the same type of animal
“This is indeed a bizarre zoo.” Ariel said sounding as perplexed as he himself as Raziel wandered alone through the strangeness of it all, noting absently cats, dogs, wolves, bears, a multitude of insects and animals unknown to him.
He stopped in front of one container and looked inside. The interior was filled with mud and water and stretched out inside were long animals foreign to his eye.
“I do not believe I have seen this thing before.” Raziel said, kneeling down to look at the creature more closely.
It was squat, bend kneed with its belly close to the ground but long. It was obviously reptilian with its hide of thick scales, its tail long and vertically flat like a rudder. The creature turned its head to look back up at him along its snout and let out a short huffing noise, its mouth parting to show the jagged teeth.
It was certainly a new species to him for as far as he knew reptiles did not grow this large anywhere in Nosgoth.
“It is a called a crocodile.” Ariel remarked to him absently. She had not chosen to manifest her ghostly form since they had arrived in his bizarre city but he could sense her essence, her presence, all around him, “It is too cold on the Nosgoth mainland for it to survive so you would not have seen it.”
Raziel stared at the creature, meeting his gaze before shaking his head and looking up at the multitude around him with clear puzzlement. There had to be nearly if not all examples of animal life contained kept here. The collection was incredible. It explained the grains in what he guessed now had to have been a storage room with access to a loading pit, a way to deliver and store the food needed to feed these odd exhibits.
“What is the point of all this?” He asked.
Neither Ariel, nor the crocodile, had any answer for him.
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“And so we continued, walking amongst the tall cages and containers each on holding animals of intense verity; Ariel absently pointing out to me such beasts as Elephants, Bison, Anacondas and a myriad of others. I puzzled over this strange collection of life and its purpose in the city of the Divus.”
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Could this be another source of entertainment, this zoo? Where the masters of this city that bored that they had to devote so much to diversions? He supposed with so much space in this massive construction they could afford it.
Still this seemed too well organised to be a mere form of amusement for the Divus. These animals were being kept for a purpose but he could not for the life of time figure out what that might be.
Then he paused, tilting his head up and sniffing sharply.
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“Suddenly the now recognisable scent of those beasts which had hounded me made itself known. A wet dog smell coupled with the tang of human sweat.”
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It was the tang of werewolf smell, strong and from all around. Quickly the blue wraith turned, seeing the beasts appear one by one emerge from the shadows amongst the stacks. Inside their cages the contained animals shied away from the entrances, huddling away.
What startled Raziel then was that amongst these werewolves came humans, or rather they looked human but the gave off the same wolf smell as the feral beasts in their company and showed no signs of near at being so close. Many of them were armed with swords and axes.
“You go no further, beastie.” The voice came from behind him, thick with a strange sort of archaic accent. The blue wraith turned and saw the speaker standing amongst a group to his left.
He was medium sized with a toned body covered in what Raziel saw to be whip lashes across his shoulders and arms. He wore little apart from a thick belt that held a tattered drape in place over his waist; the tartan pattern lost to wear and tear.
His face was square and his eyes a bright almost neon blue, glaring at Raziel from under thick red eyebrows.  His beard was close cropped to his face and braided down each side of his cheeks.
Raziel was quick to realise just who these men where, if indeed the word ‘men’ was applicable for those in their situation.
“How well trained you must be to have such loyalty to your masters while in human form.” He said; arms held out at his sides ready to fight.
The man with the red beard, who Raziel summarised was their leader based on how the others human and werewolf alike made way for him, snorted and started forward. There were manacles clasped around his wrists with chains that jingled occasionally as he walked.
“This has nothing to do with loyalty, demon.” He said and there was a definite growling undercurrent in his voice, like the slowly building rumble of a wolves snarl. “I’ll not suffer you near the territory of the Lycanthropes.”