Oh boy, hearing Ynett's name at this point was kind of wild. Chloe had been dealing with that snake lady for what felt like forever. Well, not forever forever, obviously. More like since she'd become a zombie. Actually, wait, she was still a zombie now kinda, mostly. That comparison completely fell apart the moment she thought about it. But anyway, the point stood.
Ynett had somehow managed to slither her way into Chloe's life over and over again, always showing up at the worst possible moments with some new scheme. Chloe had been absolutely convinced Maeve had turned her into snake paste the last time they'd crossed paths, but Ynett must have some crazy resurrection power because she just didn't seem to ever really die.
Honestly, though, the more she thought about it, the less surprising it became. Ynett had always been weirdly good at surviving situations that really should have killed her. She was like some kind of cosmic cockroach, except more smug and with a lot more scales.
"How... when did she even get here?" Chloe asked, blinking at Liz.
"Not too long ago," Liz answered with a shrug. "But she's definitely made a splash in the underground. Her crew is small, but if you ask around, you'll know that she's done some damage.
That sounded concerning, but also, totally expected coming from Ynett. Chloe suspected that the snake lady might have "convinced" people to join her by using some of that crazy mind magic of hers.
Z turned toward Chloe. "I believe you have encountered Ynett at least once before, yes? I recall reading about your encounter with her in that winter village back in the mortal realm."
"Yeah!" Chloe threw both hands into the air. "And she was a total jerk back then too!"
Liz looked toward Chloe with a slightly uncertain expression. "So... is going to Ynett for help going to be a bad idea?"
Chloe nodded immediately. "Totally, one hundred percent. We should definitely find literally anyone else."
Sure, there was technically a chance Ynett might help them. There was also technically a chance a piano could fall out of the sky and land on Liz's head. Both things were possible. Chloe just didn't think either possibility was worth betting on.
Liz stared at her for a moment before shrugging. "Well, in that case, I'll head back and check on my brother. Then we'll keep looking for Greg ourselves. If we find any leads, I'll let you two know."
"But wait. how are we supposed to contact you if we're all splitting up?"
Liz pointed toward Z. "Gave her my phone number."
Z nodded. "I will contact you if I discover any information regarding this Greg fellow as well."
That apparently settled the matter. Chloe looked back and forth between the two of them, feeling vaguely like everyone else had already agreed on a plan while she was still trying to catch up.
Part of her wasn't entirely convinced splitting up was the smartest idea. Then again, standing around doing nothing wasn't exactly helping either. If Greg really was the key to whatever was going on, finding him sooner rather than later was probably important. Personally, Chloe still wasn't completely sure what the big deal about Greg was. And a part of her was beginning to suspect that Greg himself might not even know why everyone was looking for Greg.
***
After leaving the flooded building behind, Chloe, Z, and Liz eventually split up to pursue their own leads. Well, technically Liz split off while Chloe and Z stayed together, which meant Chloe's reward for surviving a fight with a terrifying water wizard was getting to do even more walking.
The underground city stretched endlessly, and Chloe found herself wondering if this place had been specifically designed to make people's feet hurt. She suggested to Z that maybe they could just fly, but Z said that would probably draw too much unwanted attention, and Chloe figured that was fair enough. On the bright side, at least she wasn't swimming anymore.
Z had suggested that approaching one of the major families might actually be a reasonable next step. Chloe wasn't completely sold on the idea.
But, Z had countered with something sensible about needing to pursue every lead available. Once Z started saying sensible things in that logical voice of hers, arguments became difficult. So now they were walking. At least Chloe wasn't particularly worried about getting into trouble. Z was absurdly powerful, and after everything Chloe had seen, she was pretty sure there weren't many people in the underground city who could actually threaten her.
And if something did go horribly wrong? Well, Chloe would simply run away. It was a strategy that had worked surprisingly often. Besides, she had developed a fairly impressive track record when it came to not dying.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
What was bothering her, however, was Z. Specifically, the fact that Z had been staring at her phone for almost the entire walk. The woman wasn't even looking where she was going anymore.
Several times Chloe had to step in front of pedestrians before they collided with Z. Twice she physically grabbed Z's sleeve and pulled her out of someone's path. At one point she had to steer her around a food cart because Z had apparently decided that reading whatever was on her screen was more important than acknowledging the existence of the people and stuff directly in front of her.
Wasn't it common sense not to walk around while staring at your phone? Eventually, Chloe's patience ran out. She reached over and poked Z directly in the shoulder.
Then she poked her again for good measure. "Hey, Z?"
Poke.
"Z."
Poke.
"Hellooooo, Z???"
Finally, Z blinked and looked up from the screen. "Hm?"
"If you need to use your phone that badly, maybe we should go sit somewhere first? I've been doing traffic control for like ten minutes. You almost walked into three people, a wall, and that guy selling noodles."
Z looked genuinely surprised. She glanced behind herself at the noodle vendor they had just passed, then looked back at Chloe. "I nearly walked into a noodle vendor?"
"Yes!"
A faint look of embarrassment crossed Z's face. "My apologies, Chloe, I did not realize I had become quite so distracted."
The apology sounded sincere. Unfortunately, it lasted all of three seconds, because almost immediately afterward, her gaze drifted right back down at her phone screen.
Chloe stared at her, and Z kept staring at her phone. Eventually, after several increasingly awkward seconds, Z seemed to realize she was being watched. "Right."
A small cough escaped her as she finally lowered the device. The screen went dark with a tap of her thumb before she slipped it into her coat pocket. "I was simply looking up several names within my database."
Chloe immediately folded her arms. "For the Greg thing?"
"That, but I was also reviewing information regarding the major families that operate within the underground city. I wished to double check several of Liz's claims, and based on the records available to me, her assessment was largely accurate. The Bright Family and the Graves Family have controlled most of the city's political and economic activity for years."
"The who?" Chloe asked.
"The Bright Family and the Graves Family, the two leading families down here. You were paying attention before when Liz was speaking, right?"
"Of course I was! I was just uh, testing you." Chloe said confidently.
Chloe had admittedly skipped over large parts of Liz's explanation earlier. In her defense, Liz had spent several minutes talking about a lot of pretty boring stuff. Chloe's attention had survived for a while before wandering off to more important topics, whatever those were.
Fortunately, Z had apparently been paying attention the entire time. Not only that, she'd taken notes. And even more importantly, she didn't seem interested in giving Chloe a hard time for forgetting half of what Liz had said.
Z adjusted her glasses before continuing. "Our best option is to gather more information about the Bright Family. Given their influence in this district, locating one of their associates should not prove difficult."
"So we're basically going around asking people where people from the giant crime families hang out?" Chloe asked.
"I would phrase it somewhat differently."
"But that's the plan?"
"Essentially, yes."
As it turned out, finding someone connected to the Bright Family or the Graves Family was significantly harder than Chloe had expected. At first, she'd assumed it would be easy. These were supposedly the two biggest organizations in the entire underground city. Surely somebody would know where to find them, but apparently not.
The first few people they asked either claimed they didn't know anything or immediately found somewhere else to be. One guy actually turned around and walked away before Chloe had even finished asking her question.
After several hours of wandering through crowded streets, marketplaces, and dimly lit tunnels, Chloe had started noticing a pattern. It wasn't that people didn't recognize the names. The problem was that the moment somebody heard "Bright Family" or "Graves Family," they suddenly became allergic to conversation.
But, despite these setbacks, the search continued anyway. Hours later, just as Chloe was beginning to wonder if asking random strangers questions counted as a form of torture, they finally got something resembling a lead.
An older orc lady running a sandwich shop had reluctantly informed them that representatives from both families were expected to appear at a bar later that evening, and this bar was called the Broken Halo. Apparently the Brights and Graves were expected to have some kind of confrontation there, and according to her, anybody with common sense would stay very far away from the place.Naturally, Chloe and Z decided that that's where they were going to go next.
Not too long after, they found themselves walking through a section of the city that felt noticeably different from everywhere else they'd visited. The streets were suspiciously quiet, and most of the nearby storefronts were closed, while the few people still present moved quickly and kept their heads down.
Chloe looked around uneasily. "Z, are you sure this is the right place?"
Beside her, Z slowed her pace and narrowed her eyes before raising a hand and pointing toward a large building at the far end of the avenue. "I believe so."
Chloe looked and wow, the place looked ridiculously fancy. Polished black stone, enormous windows, and enough expensive decorations to make Chloe wonder if anybody had ever actually gone there just to drink. What really caught her attention, though, were the dozens of fallen angels standing guard outside the entrance and on nearby rooftops, all armed with what Chloe swore were either guns or laser blasters. Honestly, she couldn't tell the difference.