Romedeus Filch was pretty good at crime, as far as shady characters went. He would even go as far as to say he was proud of his work. Sneaking through shadows and hauling illicit goods was hell on one’s knees; but he got up every morning, did his stretches, gave them a bit of a rub to work out the tension, and went about his dirty business. He was an honest criminal after all.
Filch's honest work had taken him into a system of mining tunnels just outside of Millpoint. They were dark, creepy, and generally not his favorite place to be, but he prided himself on providing his customers with the best possible service. Satisfied customers were repeat customers after all.
His "best possible service" now had him dragging a rickety old hand truck through aforementioned dark and creepy tunnels. The truck rattled incessantly on the roughly carved ground to the point that Filch worried the thing would come apart before he actually made it into town. He didn't relish the idea of hauling his cargo back through the tunnels without its assistance, his knees were already sore enough.
At least his walk to Millpoint was mostly downhill, all he really had to do was keep the hand truck from rolling past him and into the darkness beyond his lantern's glow. There was no telling where it would careen off to in here.
It wasn't that Filch was afraid of the dark. Some of his most lucrative business was conducted in there after all. No, he and the dark had a working relationship. A real thief in the night sort of dynamic. He snuck around, and the dark kept him hidden. It was by far his favorite relationship in his life. The dark had yet to disappoint him.
The darkness in the tunnels should have been no different. Dark was dark. And yet, he was on edge. It was all the earth, he thought. It surrounded him, like the belly of some monstrous beast that had swallowed him up along with the sky and stars. It was unnatural, a man being underground like this. The earth was meant for corpses. No wonder the miners had abandoned the place.
Filch spat at the tunnel wall defiantly and shook his head. He wasn't scared of no ghosts, he'd walked these tunnels dozens of times without a single haunting! There was nothing for him to be scared of. It was just him in these tunnels. Him and his hand truck. All alone with the faint footsteps echoing from further down the tunnel.
Footsteps? In the tunnel? The empty and not-at-all haunted tunnel? He stopped. The crunching sound of distant boots felt deafening in the sudden absence of the hand truck's rattle.
His thoughts raced ahead of him, "Do ghosts wear boots? Do monsters?" No, that was silly. Nobody even knew about these tunnels as far as Filch was aware. It was much more likely it was an animal of some kind that had wandered in looking for shelter for the night. An animal wearing ghost boots; and no ghost-booted animal was going to scare him, no sir. He started forward again, taking small comfort in the incessant rattle that followed as he walked. He could almost imagine he hadn't heard any footsteps at all. For an honest criminal in a definitely-not-haunted tunnel, ignorance was bliss.
Andromeda's bootsteps echoed through the tunnels, not quite lost in the metallic din. She wasn't quite at a full run, but she was certainly beyond a walking pace. Being a tall woman, her stride was long and it didn't take much for her to move quickly. The closer she got to that metallic clanging, the faster she wanted to go. She'd been spinning her wheels since she got here, even a chance of some sort of progress on this job was encouraging.
She rounded the corner at speed and slammed into a hooded figure, sending him sprawling to the floor and knocking over his hand truck with a resounding CRASH! The two of them stared at each other for a split second.
Annie's first thought was actually to apologize, but just as she opened her mouth to begin the man shouted, "GHOST BOOTS!" and leapt to his feet, shoving her away! Annie, being the mountain of a woman that she was, wasn't as effected by this as he might have expected. The shove didn't actually do much to push her away from him at all. Rather, it sent him spinning backwards to narrowly avoid falling sprawled on the ground once more.
"Ghost boots?" Annie asked, then felt a buzzing at the base of her neck.
A pistol appeared in the man's hand as he spun and Annie had just enough time to duck beneath his arm before fire blazed from its mouth with a deafening roar. Sparks ricocheted off the tunnel walls as the bullet sailed into the darkness. Pain rang in her ears and sound vanished from the world, as if the Stranger had suddenly had her head plunged underwater.
She snatched the man's wrist and felt the pistol go off again, the shot kicked violently in his hand and nearly wrenched his wrist free from her grip. She smashed his hand into the tunnel wall once, twice, three times before he dropped the gun. She was dimly aware of him yelling and cursing at her, but that didn't stop her from grabbing his throat with her other hand and pinning him against the wall. His mouth was still moving but she couldn't hear him yet, she doubted he could even hear himself right now.
She tightened her grasp around his throat and watched him wheeze, then relaxed it again and let him cough. His mouth stopped moving along with the rest of him after that, so he seemed to get the message. She was surprised he didn't struggle, just stood there and let her hold him against the wall like some sort of ragdoll.
His mouth started to move again, and she picked out the words among the ringing in her ears, "... when I'm... ma'am... give... trouble..."
She shook her head and tilted it to the side, "Come again?"
"Said I won't give you no trouble ma'am, I know when I'm beat!" He hollered, muffled but audible now.
"That was quick," she mused, "Who're you?"
"Romedeus Filch, ma'am."
"Whatcha doing here, Filch?"
"Bit o' business is all."
"Why'd you try to shoot me, Filch?"
"Apologies for that ma'am, you gave me a right good scare you did! Glad to see no harm done to you though."
He seemed genuinely apologetic. Polite, even. Annie was taken aback, "It's... fine?" she said.
"Any chance o' you letting me go now ma'am?"
She shook her head, "Politeness will get you pretty far Filch, but I do draw the line at getting shot at," the man didn't seem like a murderer to Annie. If he had the kind of strength the bodies she'd seen had suggested, there was no way Annie would even be holding him here now. Still, it was suspicious to see someone else in the secret and supposedly abandoned mines, "What kind of business brings you to a place like this?"
Filch's cheeks reddened and he pressed his chin into her knuckle to look at his feet, rubbing a toe into the dirt, "Can't tell you that ma'am," he said sheepishly, "That'd be violating client confidentiality that would!"
"What?" Annie tightened her grip, eliciting a choking noise, "Really?"
He nodded frantically, "I take my clients' privacy very seriously ma'am. Keeps me in business it does!"
The Stranger had to admit, she admired his dedication. That was real customer service! Shame she had to choke him over it. She tightened her grip further and then slackened again.
"Filch," she said seriously, "I don't really want to hurt you, since you apologized and all, but I really do need to know what you're doing in these tunnels."
"And I really can't tell you, ma'am. Truly sorry about that... And this!"
The electrified hum of magic filled the air, making Annie's hair stand on end. She leapt back as pale green threads of light surged to life around Filch, gathering around the tip of a small rod he now held in his hand.
Filch was a Mage.
He had a Needle! A gods damned Needle! Annie was kicking herself, she should've checked for that. She'd been so focused on the pistol she'd left his other hand free to grab it. Stupid!
Most Mages needed a focus of some kind to draw on ambient threads of the Veil. Needle wands were by far the most common, being easy to make and easier to mass produce. Filch had clearly customized his, it was a rough-looking metal with small engravings that glowed with green light, and some kind of leather had been wrapped around the lower shaft to make a handle. Threads of the Veil had been caught inside a hole towards the pointed tip and now trailed after it. Filch waved the needle through the air in a wide arc with a look of fierce concentration, muttering under his breath.
Annie bristled and her fingers slowly wrapped around the grip of the sidearm strapped to her waist. "Filch..." she said warningly, "We don't gotta do this!"
He didn't answer her, just kept muttering as he traced his needle through the air. Each enunciated word created a floating point of light along the threads’ arc, anchoring it in space and gradually creating a jagged geometric pattern in front of him that seemed to writhe against its anchors like a living thing.
Annie couldn't make out his words, but she didn't like magic being pointed at her at the best of times. Magic being pointed at her by a man who'd already tried to shoot her made her understandably uneasy. She drew her pistol and leveled it at him, pulling back the hammer.
“Last warning Filch!” She shouted.
He shouted the last words of his incantation, utterly incoherent beneath the sudden rush of air. It was as if he’d captured a hurricane just to unleash it in the tunnels, battering the Stranger with gale force winds. Annie pulled the trigger and was met with a click. The damn thing was empty.
The enchanted winds tore her off her feet and sent her flying down the tunnel, tumbling through the air like a very upset leaf on the breeze until she slammed into the far wall and crumpled to the ground. Spots danced across her vision as she stared up at the stone ceiling, seriously reconsidering the life choices that led to her being tossed around like a ragdoll. She should charge Connor extra. A lot extra.
She fumbled around for her empty pistol until her fingers wrapped around the smooth wood of the grip and held it above her head. Not yet determined enough to get up she flipped open the cylinder above her, pointing the barrel at the ceiling. It was, in fact, empty and Andromeda berated herself for not bothering to check it before leaving the motel.
After a failed attempt at digging around in her hip pouch while it was smothered between her hip and the ground, she rolled to her feet with a groan. It had only been a minute or two since Filch had knocked her over, and she could hear his hand truck’s frantic rattle as he booked it in the opposite direction. Annie figured she had a few minutes to load up before she gave chase.
She tugged open her pouch, peered briefly at its contents, and then fished out a handful of vials. Each had a small label with a tiny symbol and a stripe of color glued to it. Casually, she tucked the vials into her bandolier; one grey vial with a storm cloud, two red ones with small flames, a light blue vial with a snowflake, a green vial illustrated with a open-palmed hand, and a dark blue one with a lightning bolt.
Then she dug into her pouch again and produced six small bullets, otherwise normal for a revolver of that size except for the small ring of tempered glass visible on the edge of the cartridge lining the bullet. She casually loaded the rounds into the chamber and snapped it closed, then returned the pistol to its holster and squared her feet. After a deep breath she shouted, "I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS, FILCH!" and took off running towards the sound of the hand truck.
