Leo just laid on the ground for a couple of minutes before he felt his body had recovered enough. As he stood up, he could feel his muscles ache in protest. Unfortunately, Leo could not wait much longer as the night was still dangerous. Even if Leo just killed a streetwalker, there were other monstrosities that hid in the night.
Hobbling past the streetwalker, he got a better look at its body. The right hand was completely crushed, while the arm itself was discolored dark purple from the broken bone that Leo inflicted. The head was obviously missing completely, while the stomach had a large bruise from Leo's punch. The left hand was only missing its nails, while the rest of the body was untouched.
The arms extended down to the creature's knees and was completely pale, far beyond what a normal human's arm looked like. The legs were also extremely long, the creature at full height was a good two heads taller than Leo.
Looking at its clothing in more detail, Leo couldn't place the origin, but he could have sworn to have seen something similar recently. That mystery would have to wait. Considering that he would probably never be able to look at a streetwalker so freely again, Leo didn't linger long and wanted to get back to Tom.
Leo considered trying to take off the mask, but at the same time he couldn't be sure that the bleeding wouldn't resume. In the back of his mind, he recognized the mask manipulating him into wearing it for longer than he needed to, but bleeding out was still a very real concern.
Pushing through the exhaustion that permeated throughout his body, Leo began to walk back to the building. Climbing the stairs was torture as adrenaline had long stopped blocking the pain from his left leg.
After an excruciating half hour of climbing the stairs, resting, and then climbing once more, Leo finally made it back to the third floor. Walking towards the room that Tom was in previously, he ended up kicking a few pieces of rubble that were not there before.
Most likely during the initial moments of the fight when Leo had called out to the streetwalker were the cause of these pieces of rubble. He had heard it run into multiple walls on its way to the northern staircase after all.
Leo finally approached the door and knocked.
"Leo?"
Smiling behind the pure mask, Leo walked in.
"Aye, it's me."
"I heard some horrifying noises come from that thing, how in the hells did you get away?"
"Ah, well you see, I killed it."
A silence hung in the air as Tom began to process what Leo said. Leo could tell that the old man was likely stunned. Just distracting a streetwalker and living was already a feat worthy of respect in the slums. But to kill one? It would be more believable if you said that you fought a hundred gang members solo and won.
"Yo.. you.. you killed it?!" The shock and disbelief in Tom's voice was palpable.
"Well, it gave me a bit of trouble. Bastard almost disemboweled me a few times, but in the end, I got the prick. In fact, if you looked down into Finch Courtyard, you'd see its body."
Leo could hear the man stand up and mutter to himself a couple of times. The man took a step and began to pace. Finally, the man sat back down and sighed.
"Ok, so you not only distracted it, got it into the courtyard, but then also killed it there?"
"That is correct, really go look." Leo chuckled but swiftly regretted it as pain exploded throughout his body.
The old man stood up once more and walked out of the room. Leo could hear the man's steps towards the other side of the building before he heard him exclaim in shock. Shortly after, Tom ran back in.
"You took its bloody head off! How!"
Leo took a deep breath, his lungs still sore from the fight.
"I came to possess a pure mask, I don't think I need to explain any further?"
Tom practically collapsed onto the ground. Leo could almost feel the man's eyes widen as he stared at the corner Leo was sitting in.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I need help hiding it and now you owe me. This thing is cursed; it negatively impacts anyone that approaches it. I obviously can't wear it during the day anyways without the guard trying to capture me, nor can I just hide it in my clothes without hurting people around me."
Tom was silent for a few minutes, Leo suspected he was weighing his options. Turning Leo in was obviously a great choice, but slumfolk had a certain allegiance to one another when it came to matters of the puritans.
Judging by the life Tom had led before this day, Leo was fairly certain that he would adhere to that allegiance and not sell him out. That wasn't to say that some slumfolk wouldn't sell him out or try to steal the mask for themselves, but that was why Leo wanted Tom to owe him in the first place.
Loyalty, however earned, was a powerful thing.
"What would you like me to do?" Tom finally replied. It would seem that he agreed to Leo's proposal.
"It's rather simple, I need to hide the pure mask. It can't be somewhere that it would be found easily and that I can access without much trouble."
"Making it tough on me aren't you. I'll tell you what, since you killed the streetwalker, that means that its lair in the basement of this place is now empty. If you want to hide it somewhere, that is your best bet. The tricky part will be if another streetwalker tries to take up the space, but I'm sure you'll work something out."
"The basement?"
"Yeah, most slumfolk wouldn't dare enter the place due to the risk of a streetwalker even if they try to explore the building. You can't see it now due to how dark it is, but the basement is marked as a streetwalker lair, so anyone that came in the day would avoid it like the plague."
Leo put his hand to his chin. A streetwalker lair was definitely a good place to keep something hidden, and now through Leo's own actions, one was conveniently empty. Not only that, but since this building was right across the street from the dump, it was fairly simple for Leo to check on the mask.
"I'm a little weak at the moment from the fight; we can stop by and check it out in the morning. Let's get some sleep for now."
"Rest well Leo, you are one crazy bastard I'll give you that."
***
Leo felt strange, normally he doesn't dream, but tonight he found himself dreaming of walking down a strange well-lit hallway. He felt afraid and terrified as he came to a stop at a metal door.
Looking down and saw a hand open the door for him. He lifted his head to take a look inside the room and then he awoke in a cold sweat.
The room was still dark due to being in the center of the building, away from any windows. Leo checked on his body's status. All of the minor wounds had scabbed over, with the major wound on his leg had simply clotted and was in the process of scabbing.
Leo ripped part of his pant leg off and wrapped it around the wound and tentatively tried to stand up. His body ached; muscles screamed in protest that they wanted more rest, but Leo was unable to provide that relief. He had things to do.
Making sure to pick up his old mask off the ground, Leo walked out of the room and saw Tom standing by one of the windows overlooking the Finch Courtyard.
"Morning Tom."
"I still can't believe you killed that thing." Tom said without looking back.
"Well, it wasn't easy." Leo said as he walked next to Tom.
Tom looked unwell as Leo neared and turned to face him.
"You really have a pure mask... I can see why you would want to hide that thing away, I'm not even wearing it, and I feel sick to my stomach."
"Exactly the issue, that and it doesn't like to be taken off."
Looking at Tom, Leo could tell the man was probably around 50 years old, judging from his skin that was visible and the white hair that covered his head. All things considered he was one of the oldest slumfolk that Leo had ever met. Slumfolk usually didn't even make it to 40, much less one of the miners. Tom was likely to be one of the most experienced and cautious miners in the entire slums.
Leo looked down into the courtyard and could see that there was a giant commotion around the streetwalker's body. There were even three guards there, one observing the body and two to keep slumfolk away from it.
Even one guard was probably enough to keep a crowd of slumfolk at bay, but to have deployed three of them? Clearly Leo had underestimated the gravity of what he had done.
"Shall we go? If we wait any longer the lines will be too long, and we will miss breakfast." Tom said as the pair of them watched the crowd gather.
Leo simply nodded to his new partner in crime, and the pair began to descend the building. The had to stop at every floor so that Leo could rest, as his body was still in rough shape from the fight. Before long though, the pair arrived at the markings of the streetwalker's lair carved into the building's wall next to the basement's entrance.
"I just thought about this, but how will we see down there?" Leo questioned.
Tom held up a finger and he started to dig through his pockets. A moment later and he held out two strange identical devices. The were a metal tube with an odd piece of hard glass on one end, a clip on the side and a button on the other end. Giving one to Leo he began to walk down the stairs to the basement.
"These tools are called a torch and provide us miners with light in the dark mine. Think of the dark as another way to protect your pure mask."
Leo was mildly impressed, he had heard that the miners worked in the dark, but he was never quite sure how. Tom showed him how to activate the device with a simple click of the button. Instantly the basement was flooded with light.
"We use the clip to attach it to our clothing or mask, so we don't have to carry it with our hands." Tom said as he continued to explain the features of the device. "Now they don't last forever, so we usually carry a few on us at a time, but for something like this where you are only using it for minutes at a time, yours should last a couple of months."
Leo nodded his head, and as they entered the basement Leo had to suppress the urge to vomit. The smell was awful, and Leo was used to the disgusting air of the dump. Tom was not so lucky, and Leo could hear the old man throwing up in disgust.
Tom looked at Leo once more, clearly trying to catch a breath, "Well, just another layer of defense I suppose."
"I suppose it is, and it's only going to get worse too." Leo said with a grimace.