Staring back at the eyes in the alley, Dean felt no malice from them. Possibly a bit of curiosity but he was not going to push his luck as he did with the flowers. The bauble glowing brightly in his hands he cautiously stepped forward his nail hovering over his free hand.

Aggie took a step forward saying, “Lady Andromeda gave her word that we would have safe passage through her lands.”

Deep throated coughing came from the alley as the creature cleared its throat. It took a step forward coming into the dim light of the street. It stretched and stood up at as straight as it could. Even with its hunched back and underdeveloped legs it still stood 2 stories tall. Balanced on its oversized front hands it leaned closer to Aggie breathing in deeply. Then it stepped back into the shadows of the alley and disappeared.

From far above them they heard a deep voice speak in a slow drawl, “This is no longer the land of Lady Andromeda but the land between hers and Baron Dorios.”

Dean whispered to Aggie, “I think we should hurry. This place is creeping me out.”

“I agree,” Aggie said staying closer to Dean and the light of the orb.

Creeping down the alley they occasionally heard movement in the shadows. Their only light barely letting them see a few feet in front of them. The shadows pushing more heavily upon them the further they walked into the alley.

Dean’s 3 nails floating quickly around them ready for an attacker. Aggie stopped suddenly his ears twitching as if he heard something.

“Quickly draw a circle in the ground with your nails and power it,” Aggie said urgently.

The nail reacted with little thought from Dean as their tips scored a line in the grime of the alley. His nails slammed into it powering the circle with silvery light before returning to Dean’s hand.

Suddenly a wave of rats slammed into the boundary of the circle. Flashes of silvery light erupted from the circle’s boundary as it repelled every rat that collided with it. Dean watched in horrid fascination as the rats climbed over one and another as they tried to claw their way through the forcefield.

Aggie looked on at the rats watching them calmly from the safety of their circle. “Dean, I’m going to teach you your first sigil spell. You will need to control the amount of power you discharge when casting this or you will faint. Or at worst die.”

“Do you think this is a good idea? I mean I’m pretty sure I can mow through those rats as I did with plants,” Dean said a little nervously.

“If those were rats I would agree but that is a rat king,” Aggie said. “if you look at their tails you can see they are all knotted together magically. Now it's more akin to a hydra than a mischief of rats. The more rats you kill the bigger it will get.”

Dean looked more closely through the horde of rats seeing all their tails knotted together. Rats seemed to be constantly birthed by the knot. Slimy and bloody as they pushed themselves out of the knot as their rat siblings were squished to death by the weight of there brethren

“Can’t I just blow us back to our world? Like I did last time,” Dean asked.

“You would need your 5 iron nails for that to work,” Aggie said.

“That makes no sense,” Dean said.

“Your magic takes on aspects of the metal it uses. Iron is a natural bane to most magic so when you powered your circle you literally overpowered the magic around us. Silver will work better to channel your magic but isn’t the antithesis to magic like iron is,” Aggie lectured. “Now I need you to focus and prepare to cast your first sigil spell. This will be the basis for all magic you will cast for now on.”

Dean attempted to swallow the dryness in his throat as he held the three nails in his hand. Nodding at Aggie to continue the lesson he couldn’t help but feel nervous. Like he was about to take a final in school and hadn’t studied. Then suddenly realized he was naked in front of the class type of nervousness.

Aggie continued on with his quick lesson as the unrelenting tide of rats began to weaken the magic circle. “You have the power to cast spells and the foci. But not the intent. By opening yourself up to the magic you will be able to instinctually create a spell sigil. That you will then carve into a surface with your nails before powering it,” he said all of this while demonstrating with his claw.

“This is all very closely related to the magic the Sisterhood created and imbued me with. Over the months I have theory crafted this spell work for you to build upon Dean,” Aggie said as he looked up at Dean.

The circle protecting them began to flicker and dim as the rat king continued its assault on the magic circle.

Dean released the nails from his hand as he opened up himself to his magic in a meditative trance. The nails floated above his hand as he reached metaphorically into his soul focusing on what gave him control over the nails. As Dean pushed further into his magical self, the connection to his nails became visible. They were connected to him with strings similar to a puppet. His will acting as a controller.

Feeling that psychic bond with his nails strengthen he drew a circle in the air with his nails. A glowing outline of silver light hovering in the air as his nails continued drawing. The silver of his nails emanating the feeling of a shield to him so he focused on that. An outline of a kite shield drawn in silver light formed in the floating circle. Opening his eyes he saw the specter of the silver shield in front of him.

Nodding his head to Aggie that he was ready. Aggie broke the circle as Dean pushed his will into the shield yelling, “golpe de escudo!”

The shield flew from the circle in a solid form slamming into the rat king sending him flying. As the shield was smashing against the rat kind Dean and Aggie had taken off running as Dean held the glowing orb in front of him.

Running out of the alley, the orb led them straight to a storefront door. Lowering his shoulder Dean didn’t bother opening it as he slammed into it. Breaking the door open he stumbled into a dimly lit tunnel similar to the one they had already been in. Aggie following close behind him went through the door in a much more controlled way.

The broken door immediately began to sink into the floor until nothing was left of it. Looking back to where they came through Dean saw only unbroken carved rock strung with light. As he looked closer at the lights, he could tell that electricity powered them and not magic. But the glass bulbs definitely looked handcrafted and dingy from age.

“Did we escape the Grimmlands,” Dean asked Aggie as he held his arms over his head to catch his breath. As he slowed his breathing and heart rate, he couldn’t help but feel another fatigue that he felt related to casting his shield bash spell.

Aggie sniffed the ground as he investigated their surroundings. “No I think we are still in the Grimmlands but we might be in someone’s dominion,” Aggie said. “Possibly whoever was banging on metal when we first entered the tunnels.”

“Nice spell by the way,” Aggie said. “Didn’t expect you to be able to draw in the air, but we will need to experiment with that when we're not in the Grimmlands.”

“Thanks, I didn’t mean to even do that. That kind of just happened,” Dean replied as he held the magic orb out. “I think the silver affected how the spell worked also,” he added.

“That makes sense with how your magic reacted with the iron nails earlier,” Aggie said as he watched Dean spin around in a circle.

No matter which way Dean pointed the orb now it continued glowing.

“Any idea which way we should go now,” Dean asked Aggie.

Aggie just shrugged his cat shoulders and began walking in an arbitrary direction without consulting Dean. Dean just followed his nails hovering above his free hand ready to attack.