Overhead, the City groaned. It didn't groan in a direct sense that one would expect from an animal or a beast. The City, the all-pervading, omniscent creature of cement and iron in which all surviving things lived, did not have a mouth with which to growl, did not have organic flesh and blood that it did not utilize to create creatures separate from and subservient to it. It did, however, groan. The beasts in its thrall looked up past the City's gleaming, ethereally empty skyscrapers and bayed loudly into the air. The flocks of crows, shadowy darkspawn above, cawed in ominous tones that, were any of the people populated in the City alive before the creature ate the Earth, would have sounded off to anyone, not like any crow they ever heard. The street lamps flickered, the electric hum resonating louder than any true street lamp could have- but they are only lamps in the barest, aesthetical sense. The buildings, immense and majestic and almost all completely, totally empty, groaned as unseen and unfelt forces pushed them, moved them, sent them sliding along on some extradimensional plane. And, somewhere off in the distance, there were other sounds. Gunshots, roars of an unidentifiable creature, maybe an Afflicted, even the alarm of the rare, but still extant, automobiles that the City sometimes lines parts of its streets with. All these sounds combined, formed an audible din that was just barely there on the edge of peoples' hearing, compounding to their already tense, uneasy feeling.

The City was awake and attentive, looking inward at two Sectors and the branching, dead paths that connected the two. There were other Sectors, other paths, other quadrants, but the City's attention was almost wholly focused, and while it could not directly do anything, what it could do was increase the tension, the internal panic, the fear in the hearts of every man, woman, and child who weren't fearing a more immediate threat at the moment. The fear was palpable, clear on everyone's faces, and while there was no panic, no frightened attempts to do something stupid, no outright rebellions or attempts to escape, the way people went about the hectic humdrum of what they could scarcely call their daily lives has changed. The way they interacted, looked around, even the way they walked. Trouble was brewing in the air, but nobody wanted to let out the feeling, as if letting it out would unleash the metaphorical Pandora's Box and start the very thing they were fearing.

The two Sectors were going to war. It was close, waiting around the corner. While the Sectors felt it the most, even the people wandering the active zones, lone wolves, nomads, traders and moving families or bands of people felt it as well. They all felt the coming conflict, and kept silent.

Both Sectors, Sector Nine doing its best to send out its Retrievers to go into caches and gather supplies and armaments for the impending battle, and Sector Three doing the same thing, but with forced conscription of hapless and unknowing people and beasts in an attempt to increase their numbers. And across both Sectors, both citizen and council member alike were tense, wound up to the breaking point. It would only take one chance encounter, one clash, and both Sectors would snap at the seams, and the best case scenario of both sides entering a truce while heavily battered was diminishing rapidly by the day. The story begins here, in the tense, agonized calm before the storm...

----

Councilman Bertram Connelly was watching the buildings move. He couldn't see the buildings actually move from the window in the refurbished high rise that Sector Nine called its Council Building. As the person in charge of the Retriever teams and the person overseeing their operations, he kept a number of radio transceivers mounted to a bulky, unmovable setup the table, an old battered thing that nevertheless did its job fairly well, and currently only a small number of those transceivers blared any sort of legible news. On occasion Bertram would turn and answer one of the signals on one of the transceivers and then turn back to the active City visible from his window. He could tell that buildings had changed- sometimes they changed completely, but other times only certain buildings shifted positions or grew or shrunk.

It was a game he played with himself to ease the tension that comes from overseeing teams of young, bushy-tailed recruits, or when he didn't hear word back from the more jaded but reliable team leaders. The Sectors on the brink of war was no news to Connelly; as one of the Councilmen of Sector Nine he knew the coming hostilities even before most of the other citizens. To lose any teams of Retrievers was bad, almost catastrophic. But, on the other hand, losing teams was almost unavoidable. Some of the best teams have stayed in business for almost eight years or more, while some groups had to get replaced within their first mission. He heard the passing of many people, and even though he couldn't see the carnage, the pieces of jumbled audio that sometimes came through transceivers when the Retrievers were lucky enough to radio in but unlucky enough to avoid catastrophe sent chills up Connelly's spine. The screams, the inhuman roars, sometimes the faint, meaty sound of flesh being torn and other, equally unpleasant sounds. As a former mercenary and Retriever himself, he knew the sources of some of those sounds and the reasons for some of the teams' demises, bringing him back into hairy, tense situations where nobody's survival was guaranteed. How he managed to get all but a very small few of his former teammates alive throughout all those near-catastrophic missions was an anomaly to him. That brought him back to thinking about the coming war.

'How many of the people I tried to save are going to be in there? In the other Sector's army.' He shook his head, deciding to dismiss it. He looked back to the skyline outside his window. Surprisingly enough, he could count the changes on one hand. Two buildings had shifted position when he wasn't looking. He sat back at his desk and waited for something to break the tension.

The general humming of the shoppers and vendors in the marketplace was occasionally interrupted by the guttural roars of the City’s beasts; it seemed they were becoming more excited, restless even, especially with the City buildings’ recent activity. It had been over a week since Cat Ferguson was sent on a looting mission. She roamed the market stalls and prodded her earpiece all the while, expecting her higher-ups to call at any time. With a mere 500 Cells to her name, she was growing antsy; the empty streets of the Dead Zones get old after traversing them for so long without any busywork – and her empty stomach only intensified the situation.

Cat approached one of the shabby stalls, which was supported on one side by a wooden plank and on the other by a stack of old magazines. The old man behind the stall eyed her suspiciously and pulled his ragged scarf tighter around him.

“How much for this Winchester stock?” she asked, picking up a rifle stock off the stand and feeling its grip. Her current one was beginning to peel around the edges from overuse.

“Two hundred Cells, no barter,” the old man responded curtly.

“Two hundred?” Cat repeated, dumbfounded. “That’s twice as much as it should be! One hundred would be fairer, don’t you think?”

“No barter.”

“Fine,” she spat, slamming the stock down and turning away. Cat was trying to save for a secondary firearm, perhaps a Magnum revolver, so she couldn’t afford spending nearly half her money fixing up her rifle.

As she strolled through the market circles, she looked around carefully at all the buyers and sellers; extreme attentiveness was a common side effect of living in the City. There was something in people’s eyes lately, a vague uneasiness underlying those desperate faces that were just trying to get through the day as if nothing was wrong. Cat recognized it in herself, too; a tight knot in her gut that wasn’t completely due to hunger. She figured the mounting tension between the Sectors was the culprit. After all, the sporadic skirmishes and heated council discussions were bad enough; no one was looking forward to an all-out war, at least no one who wouldn’t benefit from it. The Sector hostility, in Cat’s eyes, was a wholly unnecessary complication in her life; she believed the City itself was the true evil, and because she theorized that the City was an embodiment of humanity, it was the hostilities between the councils that are causing the City’s more frequent changes. She didn’t exactly have any evidence to back up her hypothesis, but there was a sensation she felt whenever the City’s rumbling began anew, the feeling that they, the humans residing in it, were what distressed it most.

She disagreed with her own Sector’s practices, particularly the slavery and the forced consignment, but she held little loyalty for her Sector anyway. Loyalty was probably the furthest from the truth, in fact; Cat blamed Sector Three’s councilors for sending her mother on the mission that resulted in her disappearance. Considering the fact that the City’s beasts rarely, if ever, held humans captive, she doubted that her mother was even alive anymore; the only thing she could do was hope that her death was a quick and painless one. The only reason Cat stayed in Sector Three was because the pay and benefits, what little they were, were significantly better than being a Wanderer or a freelance; and if there was one thing her mother taught her to do, it was to look out for herself. Cat intended to do that, no matter what ‒ or who ‒ got in her way.

She ended up buying a particularly pearly apple at a produce stand for 2 Cells and proceeded to lean against an adjacent wall, munching it slowly. She was bound to receive a mission sometime today, so she figured she’d pass the time at the market until it called in.

The City hums with an odd sense of electricity. Members of The Flock bergin to encircle in the skies, sending lightning down in brilliant, jagged arrays, one of the few beautiful natural phenomena leftover from the fall of the Earth, appropriated by the creatures conscripted to be at odds against the City's denizens. Time and space seemed to distort, hazily, and where the epicenter of the activity was, the sky above seemed to shimmer an unnatural hue in comparison to the City sky's usual faded blue complexion, a color that could arguably be considered a shade of green, perhaps turquoise. The buildings beneath the halo began to shift uncontrollably, in odd positions and at odd angles. The decor, like empty newspaper stands, traffic lights, and streetlights began to shift, too, replaced in strange and sometimes implausible places, like on the walls of the buildings. Even parts of the ground had shifted, moved, even hovered, positioned almost as if in mid-fall, far above the City ground. Then, in a single instant, all the unnatural anomalies in the City corrected themselves, an action that the City rarely cares to do unless it wants a street to look unassuming. The decor, ground, and buildings, tossed about haphazardly as if pushed to the sides to make way for some new piece of scenery. The ground that had levitated fell in an instant, crumbling against the ground and, in seconds, being absorbed into the street itself, refilling the craters it left behind. The only thing left were the crows, the glow, and the new addition to the City intersection.

In the center of the intersection lay a grate, such a shade of sterling silver as to stand out against the rest of the scenery like a shining gem. In the center of one of the edge was a pronounced handle, through which the hatch would lift, allowing those who came across it to descend. This was the site of a Cache, and given the amount of redecorating and changing that had occurred, it was immense. From the corners, shadows moved and watched with pinpoint eyes and grinned with slit smiles in an almost grotesque anticipation. In one of the windows came a steady crk-crk-crk as something not quite fully human shambled its way. Slit purple eyes, not quite catlike but not quite serpentine as well, glowered out over the City, coming to rest on the grate, knowing its purpose and the creature's purpose for being brought there. It would do its duty well.

The Cache is located almost the exact same distance from Sectors Three and Nine, although the window of opportunity while the surrounding buildings and people relocated by the will of the City would cause any such action to be a gamble on when exactly they would get there.

---

Bertram Connelly saw the halo of green, felt the disturbance, and watched as the erratic lines of lightning danced across the sky. He knew what had happened even before the crooning blares of of one of the walkie-talkies began, and a voice, high and squeaky came out. "Councilman," the voice came crackling, "A Cache has been formed within 24 blocks of the northern edge of our Sector.

Bertram closed his eyes, sat back, and mulled. While to an outside observer it would seem he was dozing at an inopportune time, in reality he was filing through an endless cavalcade of candidates on Retrieval teams, but almost all of them were out scavenging in lesser caches, and all of them were between ten to twenty two blocks in a southeastern direction, hunting down a cluster of smaller Caches formed not even two days before. There were very few candidates he could select from quite in time, although he knew some wandering City mercenaries may be amicable enough to do the job for a cut; however, he wasn't so sure if this was the route they were supposed to go. The mental rolodex was filed, and other than politicians, repairpeople, medics, and a number of non-combatative jobs, he could name the number of Retrievers in the Sector at the present time on one, maybe two hands, and everyone listed was either injured and still on leave or hopelessly inexperienced for a job of this magnitude.

"Sir?" crackled the voice again. Bertram grunted, hoisting himself forward and pressing hard with his ring finger on the talk button of the walkie-talkie.

"I read you," replied Bertram. He paused for only a half-second more, and said, "I don't know anyone we have on-hand that we can send out on such short notice."

"But, sir, if Sector Three gets to this Cache--"

"I know," Bertram replied, slowly resigning to the inevitable conclusion, the only possible conclusion. "We'll have to assemble some sort of team quickly. At this point we only need one, maybe two combat experts in the group. The rest would only necessarily be support of some kind, and extra hands to haul more equipment."

"Sir... we can't possibly allow that."

Bertram grunted, "In any other time, in a better economy, when we're not in danger of annihilation, I would ignore this Cache or send in my best and, if my best weren't on the line, I would have some choice words for the City and let the damn treasure hole rot. But we need this Cache. I'll send out an open request. Hopefully we can get people together. Otherwise.." Bertram stopped. he wasn't going to finish that train of thought for the person who surveyed his cooperation as the Councilman in charge of Retrievers. 'Otherwise, I'm going to have to get out of this nice comfy chair and have to go back out there.'

The surveyor, much to his surprise and chagrin, seemed to already guess the line of thought Bertram was going by, and replied, "Sir, no Cache is worth that much to this Sector."

"...you're right," Bertram said, his voice weary. "You're right. You got me. Just please send out the recruitment request to the people. Maybe some people will be crazy enough to give this line of work a shot." The voice quickly affirmed and carried out Bertram's decisions, leaving the middle-aged former mercenary alone in his office, with no radio blaring and no thoughts in his head but the one that would not let itself go. He knew that whatever was inside the Cache, it was meant to be a catalyst, brought there by the City. But no matter the outcome, the City's end result would be the same. He knew the truth. He knew how valuable that Cache really was. And he wouldn't be standing on the bylines watching war break out.

Kat Wythburn

I was pulling shards of glass out of my hands when I saw the eruption of green light across the City.

The street I had been moving along had been quiet, just a narrow cement path winding its way to what I thought was another Deadzone, flanked by two immense skyscrapers wrapped in opaque glass windows, reflecting off of each other and making it a bit of a struggle to see too much detail. I was tranquil, the City was respectful, and similar to how two lovers can be sitting in opposite sides of the room, we were intimate, yet apart.

And, like after spending some quiet time with a partner, the City decided to become bitchy far too fast for me to figure out what was happening before it was over.

All I can attest to clearly was that all of the windows of both the buildings blew out all at the same time in a shrieking roar, throwing me off my feet with it's impact. I'm fortunate that the razor sharp shards didn't slice me apart, instead they mostly just knocked me to the ground, and then threw me back up again. I was flung away from the middle of the street, and driven off to the side of one of the buildings amid the sound of wanton destruction. Clawing my way forwards, I clasped desperately at a newly exposed girder from the side of the building to keep from being dragged back down into the deadly center of the street, the impact site for so many newly created knives. I was so startled that I didn't scream or cry out. Besides, if I had, I would have died shortly drowning in my own blood, there was so much glass in the air. I had kept my back turned to the street, protecting my face from the worst of it. There was a silence, and it seemed as if all of the City had spent all of it's accumulated rage and noise in a single (literally) shattering climax. I small trickle of blood rolled its way down my cheek, hesitating briefly at my chin, before continuing to fall down onto my somehow undamaged vest. Thinking it safe, I let out a shuddering sob, and then another. I still couldn't hear anything, and when I tried to speak, I couldn't decide if the violence had torn the voice from me, or if I had lost me hearing. Blinking heavily, I pawed roughly at myself as my gaze swept across my body, assessing the damage.

I knew then that the City was playing some sort of game, because none of my clothing had torn, and my backpack, other than sporting a few more pinprick holes than it had moments prior, was looking no worse for wear than it had before roughly a ton of broken glass pummeled me.

My hands, however... I was thankful that I could still open and close them, and that none of the arteries or tendons in my wrist had been torn. Beyond that, I struggled to think of a time when they had looked worse than this. The skin had been mostly flayed from them, and minuscule shards had embedded themselves in me, creating hundreds of tiny welling pools of pain, and feeling a thousand times bigger than they were when I shifted my hands around. Groaning with the pain, I shifted my weight and began to cascade down a pile of the glass into the middle of the street, away from the buildings. I rolled slightly, and ended up on my back, with my bag cushioning me from the piles of damaged glass beneath me.

More glass from high above the buildings continued to rain down, though now they were little more than glimmering streams of dust, trickling from way up in the sky and pooling directly at the sides of the buildings.

At this time I started to be able to hear things again, the cawing of the crows, perching themselves in the busted window panes of the buildings, grooming themselves and laughing at me for not being smart enough to fly away from the disaster that had thrown me around.

I stumbled to my feet, the deadly ground shifting beneath me. I heard the crunch of the glass under my boots, and when I spoke, it was in a husky voice, clear for me to hear,

"fuck this shit."

Then, louder again.

"Fuuuck. Thhiis. Shiiit."

Looking up at the now empty window frames of the two buildings, I saw some crows nodding their oil feather necks at this wisdom.

Grasping my thankfully intact canteen, I opened it up with my teeth, and poured the water onto my hands, rinsing off the worst of the blood and glass.

I closed up the canteen, standing at the bottom of a small valley formed by the broken glass, the debris sloping away from the center of the street.

Nodding my head, I continued to mumble invectives to myself and my corvid audience as I stumbled down the street, moving at roughly the same pace I had been previously.

The street made a sharp right turn, with the flayed open buildings hemming in the broken glass road. Lowering my hand to my pistol, I began to fumbling open the holster as I turned the corner.

I now saw that the alley emptied out into a spacious thoroughfare with smaller brickwork buildings lining the street and elaborately worked metal lampposts standing at attention at regular intervals.

I relaxed for a moment, and took the time to pick at some of the worst glass shards still in my hands as I studied which way to go.

After a beat or two of this silence, a blistering sheen of green light erupted from down the street, distant, yet not so distant that I wouldn't arrive there in time to snag something.

Nodding to myself, I began to jog towards the fading light, ignoring the murder of crows that lazily trailed after me, landing on the lampposts as I passed them.

The city was certainly an odd place. If one took a moment to think about it, it wasn't hard to believe that anything was possible. Even according to stories told about the world before the city took ownership of it, it seemed anything was possible. Only now, that possibility seems to have been realized. If a city block can be one thing in one hour, and something completely different the next, and creatures could spawn from it's bowels with the ability to manipulate human minds, in addition to the laws of nature, then truly anything was possible.

It was these types of thoughts that made Nova feel, while not hopeful or optimistic, content. He knew that the city would never run out of surprises, and in a weird way, that was the only thing constant about it. It was also these types of thoughts that he tried to push aside while he continued scrubbing carbon buildup from one of his pistols. The brass brush was doing it's job well, and with the help of some solvent and oil, the black imperfections scraped off of the inside of the slide without much trouble. After a few more moments, Nova inspected the parts of the silenced pistol for any more rough spots. He had spent almost 15 minutes cleaning it before finding the cleanliness and smoothness of the firearm to be at an acceptable standard.

That having been done, Nova oiled up some of the moving parts and contact surfaces before reassembling the handgun. He had left the integral suppressor alone, mostly because it was a pain in the ass to clean, but also because it wasn't really necessary just yet. He just liked to keep the moving parts in order. He slid the barrel pieces back in place before replacing the slide and screwing the forward part of the suppressor back onto the main body of the barrel. He locked all of the parts together by pressing the trigger guard back into place and giving the slide a solid yank to make sure everything worked properly. With a satisfying *chak*, the action cycled without any issues, provoking an upwards quirk on one corner of Nova's mouth.

A particularly loud outburst from the North prompted Nova to look up and observe the city's new look. Even in the few minutes it had taken him to buff his pistol, he didn't recognize half of the skyline. He could even perceive some movement amongst the many skyscrapers in the distance, still shifting ever so slightly. The city was experiencing a particularly strong perturbation today; usually a good indication that a large cache had opened up somewhere. He scanned the skyline and spotted the epicenter several kilometers away, noting the abnormal look the surrounding sky had taken. Regardless of the fact that he was close enough to Sector Nine to not be in severe danger, he wasn't about to take any chances with the city shifting as dramatically as it was. Reluctantly, he holstered his pistol and gathered his things before leaving the roof of the small three story apartment building. Sector Nine was only about half a kilometer away, and Nova planned on covering that distance as quickly as possible.

---

The bustling streets within Sector Nine were abuzz with rumors about many things; chief among which was the possible impending war with Sector Three. Even for someone who strayed from civilization most of the time, Nova at least knew about the rising tensions between the two sectors. They were essentially opposites in terms of ideals, and with the occasional skirmish breaking out between their hunters it was no surprise that war was in the forefront of peoples' minds.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing he picked up on as he sauntered about the city. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't the only one who saw the new cache open up, and as he passed by a group of people whom he presumed to be a part of the Sector's administration, he thought he heard mention of them being short on "retrievers". It crossed his mind that money and supplies had been tight as of late, at least for Nova. Cache hunting wasn't exactly in his usual line of work, but it would undoubtedly yield some good benefits. Plus, with how active the city was lately, the likelihood of him meeting someone brave enough to traverse it currently was low. Perhaps this was his best option as of right now.

He decided to head towards the Council Building, hoping someone could point him in the right direction. It didn't take long to find the towering structure, and upon entering he was greeted by a jaded "Who the hell are you?" from the receptionist.

"Just a guy looking for a job. Got anything?"

"A job?" the receptionist replied. "We talking full time, or just a one-off, or what?"

"Probably a one-time thing. I heard you were short on retrievers. I figured you might need some extra hands to help with that shiny new cache that opened up."

"Mmmm," the man behind the desk grunted, reaching for the phone. "Well, you're not wrong. I'll let someone know you're here. In the meantime, take a seat," he said, gesturing to the chairs lining the walls. Nova casually sat in one of the chairs, adjusting his gear as he did so. The sawed off shotgun that was belted to the small of his back was the biggest discomfort that he had to compensate for, but that wasn't saying much. A small adjustment made it a nonissue.

"Yo Jonesy, what's up?... Yeah, there's this skinny dude down here looking for work; retrieval, most likely. Should I send him up?... Alright, will do... Yeah, I know, I'll tell him." The receptionist put down the phone and addressed Nova. "Alright, so you're gonna head up those stairs and talk to a guy named Connelly. Make sure you leave any weapons you have in one of those lockers before going up. Take the key with you, grab your things on the way out, yadda, yadda. Got it?"

"Of course," Nova replied. He walked over to one of the unused lockers and opened it up, placing his shotgun and two pistols inside before locking it up and heading for the stairs.

Bertram Connelly

Bertram rubbed at his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He just received word from Jones, something along the lines of third in command of the Security Division and the one delegated the likely very dull task of directing visitors to the councilmen they would like to speak with and make sure they stay in control and don't attempt anything. Speaking with the convened council all at once is next to impossible and currently under Jones's watch it is completely impossible. A skinny man who lives outside the boundaries of Sector Three in the City proper has come talking about the very large Cache to the north.

Normally he was not impartial to delegating Retrieval work to outsiders and generally he tried to keep amicable, as opposed to a great many of the xenophobic Sectors farther away in the City, but given the growing tensions between the two Sectors he was afraid of being misinformed of the full size of the Cache in order to accumulate a large number of important items, or a double-cross at the hand of the freelancer in question if he or she believes the Cache is worth more to another Sector, or, if Jones's over-analyzing security measures are justified, if the kid throws a knife into his chest.

But beggars can't be choosers, and he was fairly sure that he'd worked with this one before. Not too many wanderers or groups of wanderers have come up to talk about Retrieval work. A handful have scavenged and then pawned off the scavenged items, but Retrieval is one that the repeat visitors who didn't die within their first few missions because they were used to a moderately comfortable part of the active City Bert could barely reach double digits counting. No, he had to set the terms there and then. If the man broke the terms then he'd lose quite a bit of potential work in Sector Three, and in any case he wasn't planning on just sending the kid.

When the wanderer came in, he motioned to one of the three chairs in front of his desk- what were essentially dining chairs refurbished for office use and still on their last legs, so to speak- and then Bertram crossed one leg over the other. He looked behind the wanderer and saw Jones standing within five paces of the doorway to his office. He looked to the box on which were mounted all the transceivers between the deployed Retrievers. They were currently being transmitted to someone else, another Council member with not too much on their plate at the moment. He didn't risk people listening in on Retriever locations and Cache points. Also, it was just rude. Bertram crossed his fingers and, secure that all precautions had been taken, addressed the Wanderer, who he was fairly sure he had seen in his office before. Bertram began, officiality in his speech and dripping with as much persuasion as he could muster, not yet giving the man time to speak until all the terms were on the table.

"It's very clear you've noticed the Cache up to the north, and judging by the amount of activity the City had been giving off in that time, it's a big one. Now I think you know that currently this Sector is having tensions with another Sector to the west, so you're aware that I have to take every precaution to make sure you don't sell out, no offense. And besides, I'm going to make a big enough offer that you can go and probably buy a number of the items back if you want. The highest I will possibly go is 3,500 Cells. That's the most I pay anyone, and usually I only pay it to caravans. No, this isn't a normal fee, but this isn't a normal case. I'm going to be sending you with at least one other person if I can, for the sake of insurance and also to keep up appearances to Sector Three members possibly in the area. You're just leading someone on a guided tour. Now of those 3,500 Cells, 250 is telling me if you learn anything from any potential Sector Three insurgents, and 750 is making sure that at least most of the items are listed and accounted for. 2,500 Cells is still big, but not as big as it could be, and it's the difference between a few months of rations and half a year of rations. And that's quality rations. Now, if I don't hear back from you within a day or two of radioing in, and I don't hear from the person I'm going to put you with and the Cache has suddenly gone empty, there are going to be very justifiable jumps to very justifiably negative conclusions, you understand, and those justifiable conclusions mean that it'd be safer for you to head down south about as far as Sector Five. I'm sorry for the precautions, normally I'd be fine with you taking a few choice items, and if there's anything you want from the Cache and if you bring it back to me first by all means you can have it. It's just dangerous times right now, and it's difficult to fight in a war that you aren't prepared for, combat or mentally. But you do this job, you do it with your partner, and you come back with the stash, you, and your partner in one piece, and not only are we kosher but you've earned yourself at least a couple favors with us once the war is over. Our way of saying thank you for putting up with the red tape and getting things done."
Bertram paused, for a moment, both studying the Wanderer's features and running his mind through the possible people he could partner with the Wanderer and then added, "Do you have any questions, Mister...?"
-----

Meshach Kalas

Meshach was looking for spare cash. It wasn't clear how many people had died to Afflicted on his watch, or other, rare beasts that haunted the City, but he was getting quite the stigma for it. He simply didn't care. If they proved to be worthwhile enough to want to save, then they got saved, and the creature came down a few minutes faster, with the wanted help. But it's not like he couldn't do it on his own. He'd been doing this from a young age, as a Wanderer in the service of a much more dangerous and antagonistic mentor than, currently, any of the bourgeois of Sector Three were. There was slavery, there was talk of experimentation, and there was a bit of a classist air that hung around those who were born in the Sector. They got cushy jobs, they were immediately stuck with decent pay and better deals and honestly, that got to Meshach more than the slavery and possible experiments. He was very open about his beliefs, and he was very open to the merchants who gypped him due to his ex-slave status and the blue-blooded Councilman in charge of the Hunters, who used very, very choice words whenever Meshach let one of the "pure ones" in his Hunting team die. Meshach didn't bother saying that he did, in fact, warn them, and they disregarded his warnings using many of the same choice words. He used to, but all that happened was set the hypertension in the Councilman's veins into overdrive till it look like his temples were fit to burst, and began talking about Meshach's inferiority in a manner reminiscent of black-and-white vids he watched on the vidmachines with some kind of general addressing a few thousand people marching in formation, right down to frantic pointing and gesturing. Meshach always wanted to let the Councilman know, but he was pretty sure that would outright kill the man by sending him into veritable apoplexy.

The Councilman for the Retrievers, on the other hand, was far less obtuse and far more open to giving him work, but Meshach was a creature killer. That was his lot in life, fighting things with acid and teeth and horrifying memetic effects and, in one case, the ability to grow hands that it controlled. Hands literally everywhere. That was a fun time. He wasn't used to fighting people with guns, he rarely took the time out of his life to fight a Shadow Grapher or a piece of the Flock. But he was running low on money. Hence why he was entering the marketplace, with a veritable sack filled with moldable chitin from an Afflicted that could be accurately described as either a lobster shaped like a tree, or a tree with the skin and head of a lobster. Either way it was painfully simple.

He went to the general merchant and hoisted the sack of chitin onto the counter. The merchant, old and with lines from years of fretting and scowling, opened the flap of the sack and peered inside quizzically, then shutting it back again, his eyes wide. "Well, shit." It was an involuntary reaction once he fully grasped who Meshach was, and his scowl deepened to near anatomically improbable levels, like one corner of his mouth had gone limp and sagged down to near chin level. "What am I supposed to do with this crap?"

"You could get some good deals off of selling it to armorsmiths."

"Ain't worth my time, ain't worth the effort. Nobody wants armor made out of..." he peered into the sack again, "Crab."

"Lobster," Meshach replied.

"Yeah, yeah." The merchant eyed Meshach distastefully, then, after a bit of thought, said, his scowl lessening. "Alright, sixty Cells, no more."

"Sixty?!" said Meshach incredulously. "Do you know how much--"

"Sixty. Cells." The merchant replied, his tone flat, enunciating each word. "No more."

Meshach groaned and accepted the offer. The merchant took the sack of chitinous shell and then reached behind him, pulling out sixty Cells, counting to make sure it was the correct amount, and handing it to Meshach. Meshach couldn't dislike the guy. He was a hard-ass on everyone. If the upper class of Sector Three didn't outright voice their contempt to anyone and everyone on the Council up to and including the Councilman in charge of the marketplace, the merchant wouldn't be so unnecessarily hard on him. Only about as hard as he is on everyone else, and that's as close as the man could get to amicable.

Meshach's stomach growled, and he looked over to a nearby wall where a young woman was loitering, finishing off an apple. He asked the merchant, "How much for an apple?"
The merchant glanced over as far as he could, noting the face of the woman eating the apple, and growled, "Five Cells."

Meshach felt there was something off, but accepted it and laid the five Cells on the counter. The merchant, grinning, took the five Cells back and put an apple on the counter. It would do. He walked across from the merchant's stall and crouched down, almost sitting, back barely touching the corner of a housing complex, and began eating the apple. He wanted to wait before talking to the Councilman of Hunters. He didn't want to hear him have a conniption just yet. He had time.

Upon entering Connelly's office, Nova immediately felt the stark professionalism that the man carried himself with. There was some sense of familiarity, and Nova knew that he had probably had dealings with this man at some point before. He took a seat as asked and allowed the councilman to speak his piece. The payout was definitely good; more than enough to keep Nova satisfied for a while. He knew he was probably going to refuse the 250 for gathering intel. He would do the job as asked, but not much more. Get the cache, lay claim to a weapon, get his pay, then go.

Connelly paused for a moment, seemingly fishing for the young man's name. "Nova," he replied. "Nova Viridian."

He leaned back a bit and crossed his arms. "Sounds pretty straightforward. Help one of your men, or possibly just another freelancer through to the cache, and come back with the goods. I'll make sure it's done." He stood up as he said his next words. "I will, however, have you know I'm not interested in your faction war. I understand that you using me to gather information grants Sector Nine plausible deniability if Three finds out, but I'm not going to take that risk, for two reasons. One, I fight for me, myself, and I. With all due respect, I don't want to get involved in your conflict. Two, if they do find out that I was under the employ of Sector Nine, that would no doubt exacerbate the tensions between you two, and that wouldn't be good for anyone."

Nova sat back down before continuing. "That being said, you can rest assured I have no intention of holding out on you, nor on betraying Sector Nine while I'm under your employ. You can keep the 250, plus another 250 to show there are no hard feelings. I hope you understand; I'm not interested in making any enemies." He raised a finger. "I will say, however, that if I happen across someone from Sector Three who gives us a hard time, I'll make every effort to... apprehend them for a time and see what I can figure out."

He returned to a relaxed position. "I know that's probably not exactly what you wanted to hear, but those are my conditions. 3000 cells, and no confrontation with anyone from Sector Three, if it can be helped. If not, then you may very well get what you want."

Nova stood up once more, content that he had made his stance perfectly clear. "Fair deal?" he asked, extending a hand towards Connelly.

A cache is forming! The thought kept repeating through Taija's head as she raced to get a better vantage point. Although hardly a unique process, it was one she found strangely beautiful. The dark form of the city's servants shifted and danced above the skyline, their storm marking the location of the cache. It was a big one this time, bigger than most of the other caches that had formed around the sector in the past weeks. Definitely something worth sending a team towards. Taija thought. Then she realized the direction of the cache, and it suddenly seemed far more urgent that a team be sent out to get what they can from the cache before there was another stupid standoff with Sector Three. There had been far too many retrievers and hunters in the clinic with bullet wounds recently. And far too many who never made it back for treatment. She shuddered. It was bad enough they had the dangers of the City itself to deal with. It seemed ludicrous to her that people would waste such effort killing each other, when there were so many other problems to deal with. Despite the horrible things the people in Sector Three were said to have done, they were still human.

The clinic was largely empty as Taija walked back past the beds. The few people that were there simply needed to spend time resting, and with most of the retrievers at least a day south, there wouldn't be anything urgent happening for some time. Taija stopped suddenly, a possibility suddenly opening up in her mind. Th majority of the retriever teams were gone, or laying in the beds around her, and there was a new cache that would need a fast response. A quick mental tally of the retrievers she knew of, versus those that she knew were gone meant there were probably only a couple skilled city-goers left in Sector Nine.

Barely a moment after, the radio confirmed her suspicions, calling out for any who would be willing, and maybe just crazy enough to head to the council offices for work outside the deadzone. Bubbling with excitement, Taija headed out to gather her things. She waved a quick goodbye to Suzie, the nurse manning the reception area of the clinic, yelling back that she'd be gone for the rest of the day. And possibly a bit longer, depending on how the cache recovery goes. But Suzie didn't need to know about that.

The small apartment the family shared wasn't too far from the clinic, and as usual, remained uninhabited. A boon, considering Taija was hardly in the mood to have the same argument about venturing into the city, or be further lectured about its dangers. Taija had certainly seen what those creatures could do first hand. Shaking her mother's voice out of her head, she went back to gather supplies. Most of her worldly possessions were already stored in her bag, but a quick inspection revealed her first aid kit was lacking in bandages and painkillers, and she could probably use some more food for the journey - a quick fix at the market, but it would take a bit of time. Finally ready, she jotted down a quick note for Jess to find, and headed out towards the council building. Taija could deal with her family's outrage after she made it back alive.

---

Roughly an hour later, Taija finally found herself standing outside of the council building, her excitement ceding to apprehension as the building loomed before her. Gathering herself, she flew up the stairs and through the doors. The reception area was distinctly...clean. A pleasant break from the pervasive bloodstains of the clinic. The man sitting behind the desk looked up boredly.

"Taija Willow, I'm here because you needed some spare hands on that latest cache." Taija interrupted him before he had a chance to say anything, bouncing on her heels slightly as she talked. "Unless of course you've already got enough people...?" She trailed off, leaning forward slightly as she waited for his reply.

The receptionist gave her an odd look, then leaned back, barking out a harsh laugh. "Well, suit yourself. That request is getting more of a response than I ever thought it would. I'll let 'em know you're here. In the meantime, feel free to take a seat." He then turned, picking up a phone. Meanwhile Taija paced in front of the chairs. She was far too apprehensive to sit down at a time like this!

"Got another one responding to that cache... Yup... Alright." With the brief conversation over, the receptionist turned to Taija once more. "Looks like Connelly is meeting with the wanderer now. You're welcome to head up and wait outside. Make sure you leave any weapons you have in one of those lockers before going up. Take the key with you, grab your things on the way out, got it?"

Taija nodded when the receptionist finished giving his directions. "Thanks, I'll be sure to head up. But I don't have any weapons to store, so I won't be needing the lockers." The receptionist gave his most incredulous look yet with this last response, his eyebrows climbing up into his hairline, but Taija was in the stairwell before he could inquire much further. Apparently Jones had some trouble believing this as well, as she received a fairly thorough search before being left to wait outside Councilman Connely's chambers.

@TheMadAsshatter@brokndremes

Bertram Connelly

Connelly sensed the young man's demeanor changing within seconds of entering the room. The way he carried himself, moved, and intently listened to Connelly's offer. There was something in his face, in his eyes, especially when it shifted to the criteria for the last 500 Cells. A sort of restlessness, perhaps a hint of subtle consternation, something like an interior groan. Bertram was never good at reading people right off the bat, and even in his slowly advancing years it still took him quite a bit of time, but he understood when certain things just didn't appeal, no matter how much energy you put behind it. When Connelly finished, Nova gave his name- definitely a name that Connelly had heard before in some aspect, and then made his case quite known. He was not to be dragged into the messy dispute between the two Sectors. Connelly figured as much. It was worth a shot, though. If he tried to push for it any further he may lose the only active specialist of Nova's caliber that the Sector wasn't needing to keep close.

"Well," Connelly said, extending his hand and shaking Nova's, "It was worth a try in any case. Yes, it's a fair deal. I can more than understand that. I mean, look how well Sectors have turned out for us currently-" Connelly ceased that line of thinking, the casual wit that he used to make everyone feel like some kind of old friend. It was good to make allies, but he didn't want to elaborate his thoughts on Sectors. He saw one of the kindest Sectors he had ever done work for, a place so benign he decided to stay there, become a slave- and experiment-driven empire. Now the Sector he fled to that he thought was better was being dragged into a deadly war. And he'd rarely seen any other Sectors as benevolent as the two had been. "- and in any case I trust your judgment. I wont ask for you to play any part in the conflict. Just get as much as you can back here and you'll be paid the full 3,000 Cells. I just need to figure out who I can send with-"

As Connelly was finishing that sentence, he heard the old but functional phone in the hallway outside his office blare to life. Jones, who had until this time been keeping guard a few paces out of the office, moved and picked up the phone. Bertram glanced at Nova, keeping his face apologetic. Connelly's mind was focused on two things at once. The phone only rings when a person who requires clearance and isn't connected to one of the Council's personal divisions comes in. Which means that there's a second visitor coming up to see one of the Councilmen, and he was curious as to who it could be. On the other hand, he was also trying to figure out who to send out. None of the Retrievers have called back in yet, they were still dealing with a slew of Caches on the southern end outside the Sector, and all Hunters, soldiers, and security personnel had to stay accounted for. It was getting dangerously close to wartime, and he couldn't deploy the handfuls of combatants the Sector had currently, it was like asking to become easy pickings. In any case, to keep up the ruse, he needed someone who would go fairly unnoticed, or who Sector Three might think was doing something other than Retrieval duty. Possibly a messenger? Perhaps a medic. More than likely it would be a medic, as sending anyone out singlehandedly to open and retrieve a cache as large as this was almost like sending someone out to die, no matter how strong they were. But with a medic, or a doctor, probably the odds could turn, and even encountering Sector Three grunts wouldn't necessarily spell out the end there. But who?

Jones poked his head through the door, "A Miss Tajia Willow here to speak with you about the Cache." Bertram inhaled sharply, perplexed at how fortune like that can just come about by happenstance.

"Tell the receptionist she can come up, I'll speak with her shortly. She'll have to wait outside the hall, I haven't quite yet finished my deal with Mr. Viridian here." Jones nodded assent, then kept the door open behind him. Bertram leaned farther back in his chair, having sat back down after the handshake. He looked directly into Nova's eyes as he spoke. "Well, I believe we may be in luck and have found the person you will be, well, 'guiding' rather quickly. Now is there anything you would like to ask me about the assignment?"

Just as she finished off her apple and discarded the core, Cat noticed what appeared to be an older man – though it was difficult to tell from the angle she was at – be sold an apple from the same stand she just bought from for more than twice the fare she was offered. The man approached the wall she was leaning against and began to eat his fruit; meanwhile, Cat went through the various possibilities in her head of why a person might be charged more than the normal price. He might be an Afflicted, but judging from the many Afflicted skins he was wearing, she doubted that. Maybe he simply had an unflattering reputation. It wasn’t unheard of, considering the many things one can do in this City to gain infamy: double-crossing a Sector, having specific political opinions, and being a particularly brutal mercenary are some possibilities. She didn’t recognize him, but from the glares that produce merchant and even random passersby were giving him, she figured he must be notorious for something big. It was too bad she didn’t keep up with politics or recent events much.

Her train of thought was interrupted by an earth-trembling, explosive noise; at first, she thought it was the City changing scenery yet again, but then she saw it: the massive burst of green light almost due north of the marketplace. Having been a Retriever for several years, Cat knew it was unmistakably a newly formed Cache, and from the sheer size of the beam, she judged it to be an extremely valuable one… And a valuable Cache always comes with tough security.

Cat was conflicted, to say the least. Despite her distrust of strangers, especially ones who look like they could shoot lasers out of their eyes from pure hatred, she knew she wasn’t capable enough to recover a Cache of that significance by herself, and it was far too short notice to be dispatched an official squad. Her imagination raced eagerly with the thoughts of payment and treasure; she had to make up her mind fast, before someone got to the Cache before her.

Hesitantly, she sidled closer to the callous-looking man, and cleared her throat before speaking with her firmest tone of voice.

“Hey,” she said, brushing her bangs to the side to get a better look at the man’s face, “Listen up. I don’t know you, and I don’t expect you to trust me. I sure as hell don’t trust you. But – you saw that giant green light, right? My job is to get Caches like that. I don’t have a team, so I won’t be able to get that by myself, but you look like you can handle yourself pretty well. If you help me retrieve it and bring it back to my bosses in Sector Three, we can split the payment straight down the middle – and you can take anything from the Cache you want to keep. What d’ya say?”

"Oh!" she added, her mind having slipped. "I'm Cataline, by the way, but you can call me Cat."

Meshach Kalas

The very first thought that voiced itself in Meshach's head when the young woman nearby shuffled within conversation distance and cleared her throat in an unceremonious and very conspicuous fashion, he assumed to catch his attention, was, 'Can't I just have one meal in peace?' He didn't know who the woman who was about to harass him was, and he didn't much care. He assumed some officious classist member of the hoi paloi of the Sector, who was stingy enough to eat a bargain apple from a merchant on the iffy side of the marketplace. The annoyance and subtle resentment that was permanently a part of his expression, like a carving etched in stone, usually warded most people away, but he supposed it couldn't work on everyone.

However, as she shifted her hair out of her eyes and leveled her gaze to him with a steely and confident look in her eye, and told him, on no uncertain terms, her honest request, his disposition of her changed almost entirely. She told him exactly what she felt, she said on no uncertain terms what she was asking, and she voiced her distrust and, fairly enough, guessed his own. That meant a lot of things. First, it meant she was honest; the cold, calculated, self-serving brand of true, brutal honesty that Meshach could get behind. Second, she was observant. Observant enough to notice that the Afflicted skins of his jacket indicated he had some combat experience- or, perhaps it was the face; sometimes it shows in the face, surprise surprise- and that people had been shooting him dirty looks as he downed his fresh, overpriced apple, indicating that he had attained some level of infamy, to the point that she was relatively certain he could help her out. Third, she was willing to ask for help, from him. Most people who refused his help got their fool selves killed, and it all added up that, in about a minute's time, he respected her far more than half the obnoxious, supremacist incompetents the slave-happy Council liked throwing into the fray. There were problems with what she was asking of him, though.

Mainly in that it was a retrieval job. Meshach was a killer, yes, one of the best damn hunters of Afflicted this side of the City had ever seen, yes, and against other humans he was average enough to get by, also true. But he was no Retriever. Caches attract a lot more than Afflicted, and you can't pawn off Flock birds or Shadow Graphers for money, and Towerspawn never usually leave certain sections of the City, which meant there'd be a lot of wasted bullets with no payoff. However, usually the Afflicted the City took from within itself to guard the Cache were top class creatures, worthy targets and quite a bit of money for their hide. There was just one other thing that nagged him.

Meshach realized he had been staring at the girl, Cat, for a few seconds after she finished speaking. He looked away, subtly self-conscious about it. He did a lot of his thinking at his own pace, and sometimes he lost track of time due to introspection. If there was a brooding contest, he would be the grand champion up until and even possibly after his death. Either way, he had a reputation to uphold, and he hoped he had been giving an icy glare, or at least a thoughtful stare, instead of a thoughtless vacant look in his eyes. That would be a chink in the armor, and socially speaking a chink in the armor is death. He pressed his thumb up to his teeth, and pretended to regard her statement, although in his mind it was already pretty much decided.

"Well," he said, standing up to his full height, "First of all, I know what a Cache is and I know what a Retriever is. Second, you're right about me not trusting you, and, to be frank, you're probably right not trusting me- you seem smart, and you feel like someone who knows how to get things done without getting yourself killed, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna help you if you do end up getting yourself killed." He let that sink in for a couple seconds, seeing if she'd back down from the offer. He expected that she wouldn't, she didn't seem the type. Besides, money talks, and they both needed the money. Finally, after about a five-second pause to look into her eyes and see that she didn't back down, he sighed then loosened up a bit, but not quite enough to crack a smile. Again, he had a rep to uphold. "Half sounds fair, I guess. You make an offer that's hard to refuse. You've got a deal."

"That said, you've got to know something right off the bat, and that's I don't give a damn about the war, and I don't give a damn about making it a permanent position." It wasn't entirely true, on a personal level the war breaking out meant he would either be sent out to die, called out like some sacrificial lamb and die, or be forced to wander, and wandering had the wretched possibility of leading him back to Papa Legba. And he'd wish he was dead if that was the case. On a more personal level, however, it was true. Politics didn't sit well with him, especially in a shithole world like this where the world itself and every single unnatural abomination you could think up was already trying really hard to kill you or make your life a living hell. Did they really need to add the threat of human violence, too, just for, what, a measly bit of self-appointed power in a recently invented sociological system over ten-thousand or so people who honestly didn't even care so long as they weren't getting getting torn open from throat to pelvis and eaten like a Hot Pocket? "I'm only saying that because from where the green glow is in the sky, it's almost right in the center between us and Sector Nine, and knowing how sick the City's sense of humor can get, I'm guessing that it's at least a little intentional. My sights are set on the Afflicted, and I'm not going to waste bullets taking out a couple of Niners if I can help it."

Finally, he slackened a bit, and intentionally copying her last comment, said, "I'm Meshach by the way. Hunter. And no, you can not call me Meesh."

---

The City whipped up winds, furious, icy things, in the clearest paths to the Cache. It wanted an exhibition. It wanted a show. Where the wind went, the buildings began to erode. Not completely, not like old wrecks, but glass began to fade and crack slightly, the steel began to rust and entire frames began to loosen from their supports, threatening to come off. Lamps flickered out and died, and in many places potholes formed. It had prepared this exhibition for a very good reason, on top of just letting two teams of Retrievers try to snag the Cache and, hopefully, igniting the war. It needed to let itself be known. Also, there was an unruly Servant trying to snag something from the Cache, and that simply wouldn't do. So, The City did what it did best, it conjured and changed. Buildings around the Servant unlatched from the foundations, tilted, leaning dangerously on each other. Cracks in the ground formed as the street buckled and swayed. It wouldn't be impossible to get past it, but it would be a big enough ordeal that the Servant couldn't simply make a run for it. Besides, it was the Servant of a Constant, an Afflicted outside of its control. The mere existence of such a creature angered the City, and even if it was just a big enough fight to keep the Servant occupied enough for the two teams to converge, then so be it. It didn't even have to kill the Servant, and in all honesty it didn't want to. It just wanted to teach it and all Servants and Constants that thought they could walk freely within its active streets a very good lesson about pecking order. So, in order to make it all fun, The City conjured Shadow Graphers. All four sides of the intersection, the shadows formed, coalesced, small twinkling dots and slits of light in the shade swirling and taking definite patterns, before they began to rise, bubble and take form from the ground, reaching tentative, dark hands into the air, grinning slits of light going from one shadowy ear to the other. Shadow Graphers were among the simplest things to create, and they would be a simple challenge. The Shadow Graphers waited on most sides, but the side of the intersection with a running Servant, the one where it toppled two buildings against each other and buckled the pavement, the shadows began to fuse together, some elongating, mouths and eyes forming together, dark shadows taking an almost sharp point as they elongated and twisted into something akin to tentacles, as the rest of the Shadow Graphers began to fuse into something vaguely resembling a creature of the ocean depths, or some kind of Shoggoth. Not too powerful, but just enough to hold the Servant off until all three sides could converge. Then the fun would begin.

Nova's expression turned to one of satisfaction as Connelly acknowledged his reservations and likewise respected them. "No questions at all. You've got yourself a retriever." He began to turn around and take his leave when a thought occurred to him. Turning back to face Connelly one more time, he added "I know I shouldn't tell you how to do your job, and I'm sure you are already well aware of this, but just in case; speed is of high importance, and I'd advise you make your next few interviews quick, and I'm sure you could do us both a favor in telling them to move quickly if they need anything before leaving. I'll be at the North end of Sector Nine; tell them they can meet me there," he finished, giving the man a nod before turning to leave the room.

On his way out, he noticed a woman standing at the door, no doubt the one referred to over the phone. At first glance, she didn't exactly seem like the type who would be capable of venturing far into the city, much less looking for a cache, but if she was here, Nova figured there had to be more to her than he was seeing. "Don't take too long," he said half-jokingly, flashing her a smile before heading back towards the ground floor. Upon re-entering the reception area, he went back to his locker and retrieved his weapons, taking the time to properly re-attach them to his person and ensuring he was comfortable before heading back out into the streets.

The first thing he did as soon as he was out of the Council Building was head for a food stand to stock up on some food. He had about enough cells to afford a few days worth of food and water; enough to make the round trip, plus a couple of days for good measure. That being said, he headed towards the markets to collect the aforementioned supplies.

---

"You gotta be kidding me!"

"I'm not."

"That much, just for six cans of soup, six bottles of water, an apple, a potato, and a protein bar? You're serious!?"

"How much longer are you going to bitch at me? Time's money!" Clearly this wasn't the first time the merchant had gotten heat for his prices, and yet the prices remained. And, unfortunately, Nova didn't have time to continue arguing, nor search for another stand with food in as good condition.

Clenching his fists and scoffing, Nova fished out sixty two cells, leaving him with only three leftover. He placed them on the counter and took his food, placing it in a pouch with what he had left and putting it into his backpack. He supposed it was good that he at least got what he was looking for, but it was still costly. Even still, time was of the essence, and Nova picked up the pace, heading towards the northernmost point in Sector Nine. Funny enough, it was the same place he had entered from, and once he was there, he decided to perch himself just next to what was considered the border, propping himself against a building and waiting for the rest of the group.

I had clicked into that perfect gait; stride long, breathing in long, rhythmic patterns, and Lazarus keeping up with me, bounding along on the tarmac. My backpack was strapped to my body, so there was little chafing from the backpack.
I was feeling the most confident since Tsefahn had released me from Service. The City had shown it's frustration, and should therefore be calm around here now. It created the cache as a promise for me, an apology gift for collapsing two walls on me earlier.

Or maybe the City was just doing things beyond any idea of thought, and was unthinkingly throwing these events together. Either way, I was feeling good.

I guess the City has a strange sense of humor for what happened next.

My first clue for the changing mood of the City was when the pavement started going bad and the surroundings started to creak like they were ready to collapse.

"Lazarus! Heel!"

Lazarus looked at me, perking his ears up and moving to my side.

When the buildings do start to collapse, I've already taken the precaution of moving into the middle of street, so the slumping crashing of the buildings don't get me.

As I stop to catch my breathe, I sense Lazarus raise his hackles an hear him growl softly.

Looking up, I see the shadow graphers. Not many, but they were forming off into things.

"Alright, Lazarus. Let's get ready to kick some ass."

Pulling my blade from it's sheathe, I sic Lazarus on the forming shoggoth beast. Lazarus's jaws are perfect for tearing apart beasts like that. Lazarus speeds forwards to the shoggoth beast, leaping into the air to slam into it, jaws at the ready.

Meanwhile, I'll just have to carve up some shadow graphers.

Lunging forwards with my blade, I swing a heavy downwards chop towards the nearest one, intending to slice it apart.

Bertram Connelly

Nova had left Bertram with very concise and very meaningful words. Time was most importantly of the essence. Unlike Sector Nine, who favored Retrieval duties to hunting, Sector Three was far better at slaving and Hunting, or had more forces in those two branches of its operation than any other. But that didn't mean Sector Three's forces couldn't come in quickly if the Sector didn't take the advantage. While it may be mostly accustomed to Afflicted and person hunting, that did not mean they were so stupid as to led a hoard like this go to waste. The Sectors, as overzealous and ruthless as one was and as equally driven to destroy the opposition as the other one was, the Sectors feared any imbalances between them. The Small Caches that most of Sector Nine's Retrieval groups were returning from had no doubt reached the ears of Sector Three, and a Cache of this size and magnitude of creation meant that they'd be scrambling quickly to beat Sector Nine to the punch, or more unlikely some scavenger that could come across it.

So, noting that the words of the freelancer, who was currently saying some words to Taija that Bertram couldn't altogether make out, had some merit, he admitted Taija enter into his office as soon as she ceased talking with the well-built wanderer. He motioned her to the same seat that Nova had recently arisen from, but as she sat down, something in her demeanor caused Bertram to suddenly have a change of heart on her involvement. He started to feel like maybe it was best if she didn't see the City in all its horrors. She may have lost much, and she may have known what had taken it, but she had never truly seen how persuasive the City can be in taking. He knew Taija and her mother well, his Retrievers who were injured in the line of duty noted with great satisfaction and gratitude of the great, hospitable service their clinic provided, and they had an altogether good reputation and were on great standing with the people of Sector Nine. He wasn't sure if he wanted to send Taija out there; someone that medically skilled and valuable to the Sector who, like everyone in the Sector, he invested personally, as much as he knew personal investment in people was what crushed his drive the first time. It was tentative, the connection to the people of the Sector, and it was strained through the weeks of weariness and conniptions over the building war as the tensions inevitably grew, but it was there.

He wouldn't be able to live with himself and he would never be able to look Taija's mother in the eye if she died. Not too many people died on his watch as a leading Hunter and Retriever in Sector Three- most of the pain came from the way the Sector betrayed him and all the positive altruism he had poured into it and the people he had once cared for- but he remembered that before that, the handful of deaths that had happened on his watch ate him inside as if his stomach had filled with lava. He did not want that to happen again.

This flashed in his mind, just looking at the girl, someone who he knew wanted to do nothing more than give to people and help and understand the world she lived in, veritably bouncing with excitement, eyes brimming as she no doubt perused the possibilities. She had always taken too big an interest in the City. That attitude sobered him, made him feel hope for new generations, and at the same time it scared him. He had met a lot of people with her attitude, about the City being wonderful and endless and full of possibility. The only possibilities presented to them were the endless possibilities of how fucked up their minds would become for seeing things too long. Just because almost all Hunters and Retrievers had survived didn't mean he didn't experience losing people in a less corporeal way. Many bright eyed people became jaded, harsh, afraid. The few deaths didn't help, and the people closest to them or the people there when one of his own died were forever broken, mentally shattered in a way that could be partially recovered, but leave them never fully whole again. One of his experiences brought one of his own in contact with a Constant, one that looked mostly like a man, but with a book forever open in one hand, and his eyes were gaping voids into nothingness. All it took was the free hand resting on the young Retriever's head, and that was all it took for the poor child to enter a catatonic, semi-waking nightmare, talking about how all the things he knew caused his head to feel on fire, how he wanted to rip out his eyes because he saw everything. He died after four months of unbearable pain. He imagined Taija with the dead, jaded eyes, glazed over in bitter acceptance of the horrors of the world. He imagined her having the broken, thousand-yard stare that the even less fortunate had come out with. And, worst of all, he imagined Taija's eyes in the manic, psychotic state of the kid who encountered the Constant, staring and seeing nothing, pupils shrunk to pinpoints of black in endless milky fields of white and bloodshot vessels, glancing around hastily at everything.

He couldn't say no to her, though. Time was of the essence if they wanted to beat Sector Three to the punch, and it was good fortune that she showed up when she had. He also just wouldn't be able to tell her no right here in his office. He decided that he needed to lay down ground rules. Noting Nova's comment on brevity, he made his words quick and concise after only the few seconds that had passed between his change of heart and his final decision, but not altogether as flat or official as he had with Nova.

"Alright, Miss Willow," he began, but then deciding to correct himself and stay formality. He was rarely formal with anyone outside of new recruits and mercenaries in any case. "Taija. You understand what you're agreeing to, right? You might think you know how the City takes, but reading it and seeing it are two different things. I will understand if you want to back out." It was a futile gesture; she wouldn't back out, but he still had to give it one more try. He tried to keep his eyes cool and collected, his manner that of an official, and that the mere act of being behind the desk gave him impartial authority over the person on the other side. It was a lie; he tried to be detached and not let his emotions affect his face, his eyes, but he felt the worry come across his face and he hoped she didn't notice. Sometimes, he wished he was much like the Council of Sector Three that betrayed him and fell to slavery and inhumane acts. It must feel so nice to have little empathy, no conscience over your shoulders. After a second waiting for a response, he continued, "If you take this job, the most I can offer is 1,500 Cells. The clinic will, of course, get all medical equipment recovered from the Cache by default, and on top of that you can take a couple things that aren't weapons, ammunition, or body armor; the main objective is to get that." He handed a piece of paper to her, and scribbled on it were orders to retrieve from the weapons lock-up two Beretta 92S's and four magazines with fifteen 9x19 mm bullets in each. In total about sixty bullets. "Give this to the receptionist, he'll know what to do. If he complains about it, tell him that's a direct order from me. I'm giving you these for personal defense, and sometimes just one gun just won't work. It's last resort though, I want you to mostly assist and play the part of a medic en route to a different point, and Nova is to pretend to be your guide. If he gets in trouble and can't fight or if you're in a situation where he can't help you, then fight. If you feel like you're in danger..." He sighed. Normally he didn't give this out to anyone going out for Retrieval. But he'd rather lose the Cache than one of his best medics. "...then run. Just run back here and keep away from whatever it is that's trying to kill you. Alongside that, I just want you to let me know if you see any activity with Sector Three operatives or if Nova does try to take something before letting me know, although I don't think he will. I also trust that you'll bring along some medical supplies in case either he or you get injured. I don't know if Nova's any good at tending to people; he's certainly not as good at it as you or anyone in your family, so just do your best, please, not to get hurt. Once it's done and if you have the Cache, just give the weapons and ammo back to the receptionist to put back, report to me, tell me what you want from the Cache and I'll make sure you get it as a reward for doing a great service like this. It means a lot to me and everyone that you're willing to go through with an assignment like this." He didn't know how many minutes he wasted talking, but he knew that at least a few had passed since Nova had walked out the door and left the Council building. "Time is short, and Nova will be waiting on the northern border of the Sector for you, a few blocks north of the marketplace. So, fifteen hundred Cells, two items from the Cache that aren't weapons, armor, or ammo. Do you accept that, and do you know how dangerous what you're agreeing to is? And, since we have a little more time, is there anything you want to ask before you go?"

---

The City was furious. It saw activity in Sectors Three and Nine, but neither had begun the venture yet. It thought it could identify one from Sector Nine, just the way it perched, impatiently, on the side of a building on the edge of the Sector closest to the Cache, as if waiting for someone. It could not clearly see activity that it could easily discern as preparation from Sector Three, but something surely must be happening, preparations being made for some kind of Retrieval team. It normally was a creature of infinite patience, omniscience incarnate, watching through the eyes of every bird, looking through the sockets of every creature in its sway, looking down through the windows and the towers and the skies. With its awareness currently focused and occupied on the scene taking place a mere block from the Cache. The Servant, Katrina, and her dogs, were attacking The City's Graphers. Katrina's hefty Bowie knife danced, and it did little to impress The City, although objectively it would have likely mesmerized a human with relative ease. Shadow Graphers split where her blade danced, where Shadow Graphers were too foolish to dodge or move away from, bifurcated and bisected, fell apart into wreathing shadows, until they moved in the form of a black primordial ooze, faster than she could perforate them in their weakened states, before coming back, concrete yet shadowy hands finding purchase in the world more quickly. A dozen individual Shadow Graphers attacked her, falling to pieces at the primal, trained dance-like motions that befit the Servant of one of the Constants that infuriated the City, the Constant of the Thrill of the Hunt, Tsefahn.

Tsefahn had not earned its ire as much as other Constants. A great many were, admittedly, stronger than her, and these strong ones had the power to wrench the City's power away from itself, to carve and completely recreate the area inside their domains of influence into their whims. The City had veritably howled in pain those days, and it was those Constants it hated more than any. But Tsefahn also earned its ire. Her and her Huntresses had led on Artemisian crusades throughout the City, slaughtering so many of the City's most beloved creatures. Each Afflicted was as perfect and unique as a snowflake, the great stags and beasts it kept in the City it kept out of fascination, but Tsefahn's Amazonian Huntresses easily bypassed its defenses and slaughtered the great beasts. So, Tsefahn was a rare case, where it hated when she had not truly been able to leave a direct mar on the City itself, and due to the shattering of most of Her power by another, more powerful Constant, it was unlikely she would carve out her own piece of itself any time soon. But still it retained its grudge.

While a dozen or so Shadow Graphers were locked in conflict with Katerina- although the number increased drastically every time she cut one in half, two more rose from the shadows, weaker but still able to overwhelm her potentially with the speed increase and numbers alone- her incessant Mutt Lazarus was currently sinking its fanged maw into the Shoggoth's shadowy, sinewy flesh, tearing away chunks after chunks, biting well into its soft, vulnerable flesh. However, Lazarus was now firmly latched to the Shoggoth, and it could extend its head, little more than a gaping maw filled with circles upon circles of obsidian-colored, surprisingly sharp shadow teeth. The chunks that flew off the Shoggoth were trying desperately to come back into the tentacled folds, although most of the smaller bites had no consciousness left inside them and so they dissipated into the nothingness. Shadow Graphers were amassing into the Shoggoth, causing it to grow larger. The Shoggoth had lost a few of its lower tentacles to the dog, severing the thin tendrils with its teeth. The City hatched a plan. Using the Shadow Graphers pouring into the Shoggoth, it grew, extended its tubular shadowy neck as new tendrils spilled from its ethereal skin, and slowly, the shadows of the Shadow Graphers closed in on the mutt's front paws. Tendrils moved fast, trying to close in on the dog Lazarus as it would inevitably focus on freeing itself from the shadowy bonds with hits canines. It needed to yelp in pain, grab Kat's attention, draw her away, focus her attention on the big thing in the room. It had three tricks up its sleeve that it could use almost in tandem. The first, however, it would surprise her with. Quietly and subtly, the City poked holes in its own pavement, tunnels leading far below the entry way, curving around, and poking back into the ground. It made several such tunnels, so small in diameter as only someone with incredible vision could detect it. Kat, likely, had such incredible vision. But it didn't matter so long as it made too many holes to guess where its surprise would come from. All it needed was for cat to turn around and save that poor dog she was so attached to. The City knew she would win. Even if it wounded her or seriously injured her, it sent its weakest of creatures after her, albeit in a larger form and with more Shadow Graphers than it usually amassed, and Huntresses had an infamously high regeneration factor, as did her dog. It was all about making sure Katerina Wythburn, former Huntress of the wretched Constant Tsefahn, was preoccupied until she could properly have the time to meet the cordially invited guests of two Sectors.

Kat:

If I was still with Tsefahn, I wouldn't have hesitated pulling out my gun and blasting apart these jumped up shadow puppets, but since I've been scrounging for everything on my own, I've found it much harder to get the same supply of ammo as I had before.

So I had to stick with chopping up these annoying shades with my ineffective blade.

I prefer fighting people or beasts. Something with meat. Something I could grapple with, drag down, and then stab in the guts, gushing it's blood everywhere. Oh, how I love that.

But instead, I had to deal with this. And, most frustratingly, be kept away from the beckoning Cache.

Slicing open one Shadow Grapher, I smack it down with the flat of my blade, making it collapse to the ground. With a focused exhalation, I smash my boot down onto the fallen Shadow, dissolving it into a puddle of dark. No way it could come back from that.

With my free hand, I grab the arm of one of the approaching Shadow Graphers; making sure I don't break the arm apart, and then fling into the air, propelling it away from the center of conflict. I don't even track it's flight as I turn back to the fight.

I hear Lazarus yip panickedly and let out emotions of fear.

Forgetting all about the Shadow Grapher I had been cutting apart, I turn towards him and the Shoggoth.

The Shoggoth was much more clever than I had originally given it credit for- it had started to overwhelm Lazarus, and the poor mutt didn't know what to do, as it tried to pull free from the creature while more of him was being overwhelmed by the Shoggoth.

"Laz, rush forwards!"

Letting out a barely audible snarl, the large dog lunged forwards, forcing the Shoggoth to wrap itself out and around the dog.

Sheathing my knife in a practiced motion, I drop my head and begin sprinting towards the Shoggoth, barreling through any Shadow Grapher's that get in my path.

With a "Hup!" I leap into the air and shift my shoulders, ramming full on with my backpacks weight.

At the same time of my impact, on command of Laz, he rushes forwards as well, straining the Shoggoth's grip on him.

Hopefully, these two pressures would blast the Shoggoth apart. The shadows will likely reform, but it'll take a little bit to get this big again.

Cat observed Meshach as he considered her proposition. The minute changes in his facial expression were intriguingly different from what was expected; they were calculated, yet natural. A paradox of emotion. One expression in particular was an intent glare right into her pupils ‒ the glare only lasted a second, but if he actually did have eye-lasers, she was sure she’d be a pile of ash by now.

As he explained his stance on her offer, Cat couldn’t help but appreciate that he was willing to be as honest as she was. Honesty was a two-way street, and she could tell he understood that on a deep level. Possibly too deep. He’d been hurt by people before ‒ the way she had, maybe even worse. It wasn’t enough to let her guard down around him. However, she couldn’t hold back a slight smile when he finally agreed, especially since he seemed like he had quite a tough time coming to a conclusion. She was certainly expecting him to say “no”, the way he futilely tried to scare her off. Quickly, she adjusted to a more serious countenance.

“We’re on the same page, then,” she agreed when he brought up the imminent war. “The Sector disputes are senseless, and I’d prefer we avoid any level of interaction with Sector Nine, if possible.” Despite her superficial optimism, she had a feeling that coming across Sector Nine Retrievers would be inevitable. The next thing Meshach said surprised her. It felt like most people she worked with didn’t even consider the idea of traveling with her more than once – but this guy, he seemed to have either misunderstood her intentions or was simply unfamiliar with the territory. “Oh, no, of course not!” she responded, holding her hands up in an assenting manner. “This is a one-time deal – I know you Hunters tend to work together for longer periods, but Retrievers go case-by-case.” She remembered how her mother had a small team of five members that hunted together for months at a time, though she figured some Hunters were skilled enough to modify their combat styles with new teammates for each mission. This Afflicted-skin-wearing man definitely looked like that type, but she was more than fine with that.

“Meshach, huh?” she said, enjoying the consonant sounds. It rolled off the tongue, in a way. She shook his hand casually yet firmly, her other hand in her pocket. “So, now that we’ve had a bite to eat, you’re ready to go, then?” Her asking was more of a formality than anything, since she had already began a swift pace toward the direction of the Cache. She turned her head a little to make sure he was following.

Meshach rose quickly to follow Cat, tossing away the core of the apple behind him to land on the sidewalk. Yet another reason she was rapidly gaining respect to him- it was quite clear that she went by her own pace and seemed to only partially care about if people were going by that same pace in a beneficial sense. That was smart of her to do, sometimes trying hard to help people who just couldn't be helped or couldn't catch up was more of a hindrance than it was worth. Meshach believed that most lives are valuable, or at least have the potential for great value, but he was no cultivator and didn't care much. He also wasn't that much of a follower, but yet he still followed, taking long strides to catch up with her more quickly but otherwise not changing the pace of his footsteps. He didn't know exactly why.

Mostly, he knew, it was the fact that usually at the end of the rainbow there was some big scaly thing next to the metaphorical pot of gold that would fetch him a good price and teach the new Hunters coming in who exactly is the more experienced member of the team. However, it didn't help him more than momentarily, although cashing in anything useful from the corpse did stuff his pockets with well needed Cells. After all, some experienced hunters sometimes went out on expeditions beyond the normal scope of Hunter activities, by unshakable decree of the ever-meticulous and eternally malicious Council of Sector Three. And many of them never came back, including Hunters he had appreciated before and very shortly after his tenure as a slave. Although, a part of it was that he rarely met people who understood the kill or be killed world, even though the fact that their home itself is trying to kill everyone should have been an indication of it. This young woman did. He didn't expect nor care to hang around other people that long, but the few people he did find himself admiring and respecting he did try to stick with. After all, the very next day they could have gotten themselves eaten or flayed alive. The City is not a place to cultivate friendships, only grudges.

Though something kept nagging at him, even as they walked, mostly in silence, outside the boundary of the Sector closest to the newly-formed Cache. Something she said stuck in his mind, and the way she spoke, reacted to his response, walked in a careful, sharp, defensive manner, eyeing the surroundings as if every window was hiding an unnatural beast, and, to be fair, she was likely right more often than paranoid, although in a literal living Hell like the City paranoia and acceptable levels of caution are one and the same thing. Finally, when he picked up on what it was that irked him, he debated whether or not to even bring it up. In all honesty, it was an acceptable risk this close to their home Sector, but conversations simply lead to attachment, and attachments lead to mistakes. Meshach weighed the two options, then seeing no point in trying to suppress his curiosity, spoke up suddenly.

"Do you mind if I just say something? Something you said has been bothering me, though I didn't pick it up until now. How do you know about Hunting setups and organization as well as you do, being a Retriever? And I can't chalk it up to simply basic knowledge, because Retrieval worked the exact same way as Hunters until a little over five, six years ago, when the so-called 'Traitor' Connelly fled the Sector and a bunch of his teammates loyally followed him out and you did not even allude to it in any way, shape or form." Meshach allowed himself to shrug and raise his hands casually, the Colt Service Revolver firmly gripped in his left hand. He didn't know why exactly he was doing it. He usually was silent, only speaking through simple sentences that rarely exceeded four words as a maximum, except when discussing strategy or reprimanding idiots for not following said strategy. He tried not to be verbose on a general rule, and this deviation surprised him, even as it was coming out of his mouth. "I could be wrong. But something tells me I'm not. Now, I understand if you don't want to bring it up, Hunting's honestly a pain a good deal of the time, and I wouldn't want to bring up anything about myself either. I just wanted to say that I just thought it was-" Meshach fell silent quickly. Out of the corner of his eye on the red brick wall of a building only a block ahead to the right of an intersection, he noticed a flicker of movement. Anywhere else it would be merely a change in lighting, a quick casting of darkness over the wall followed by light. But the way it moved was unmistakable. Just to make sure, although it was more out of curiosity than precaution- he was already setting himself in a defensive shooter's stance from the waist up while still walking, revolver held up and arms steady to aim and fire at anything that came close- he looked at the street light directly across from the City block. Sometimes the lights occasionally crackle with what could possibly be electricity or maybe something else. The street light was dead, and it had been. Meshach looked up and to the left in the fifth story window of a tall, looming steel structure. In the panes of glass he could see at least five, six dark silhouettes against the glass, arms bent above their heads as if pressing themselves to the wall, peering outward. He saw the faintest glint of what might be rationalized as a white dust mote travelling in their field of view, but he knew that wasn't the case. Shadow Graphers were everywhere. The more places he looked the more places he saw them looming against the walls in dark spaces and around corners. It was a fairly small number of them in total, about a dozen or so, but if that was how many Shadow Graphers there were on the outer perimeter entire blocks away from the Cache at the epicenter, then there were far, far more nearer to the Cache itself. A lot of Shadow Graphers can create some large and nasty, if easily killable, creatures. And a Cache was never guarded by just a small platoon of weaksauce living shadows.

"Hold that thought, you might want to get ready for company..." Meshach muttered.

---

The City had expected Katerina to take action and dice the Shoggoth into pieces. It was a strange surprise that the young ex-Servant dispatched the Shoggoth in the way she did. The Shoggoth strained around the mutt Lazarus as it tried forcing its way deeper into the shadowy flesh of the creature. It did try to strain to keep the dog inside of itself, and it stopped its sharp shadowy tendrils in their tracks as soon as the dog was so far in that it would suffocate in a more excruciating death than its razor sharp tentacles could provide. Instead, the girl ran at an astounding speed, then leapt at and into the Shoggoth, backpack first, not before entering within quick slicing range of a few of the tendrils, which lashed out at her with speed that meant that it was highly unlikely she would dodge them all, especially if she was otherwise trying to destroy it. A lot of the Shoggoth's attention was otherwise- many of the Shadow Graphers consisting its paper-light mass were seeping out of the creature, extending and filling like a liquid into the dozens of small holes that extended from right below itself through tunnels and out elsewhere at various places in the street. When Katerina landed on the Shoggoth bag-first, it did not completely destroy the Shoggoth however. Instead it merely bust its top half like a ripe tomato. The lower tendrils erected to their fullest length and twitched there for a few seconds, as if the Shoggoth was stiffened in agony. Then the tendrils lashed. The shadowy flesh around Lazarus parted as the Shoggoth creature relaxed its grip to pay full attention to trying to mend itself and work at attacking the girl who burst the creature in half. Many gobs of shadow splattered over the edifices and facades of the surrounding buildings and street, giving everything dark, oily splotches. But that was one part of the fun surprise. The City expected the Shoggoth to burst apart fully, but this was going surprisingly better than conventionally expected of any mortal denizen within itself, even a skilled Servant such as her. The fact that the Shoggoth did not completely explode, only the top half, meant that Kat was soon to face an attack in three simultaneous stages. First, Kat and the newly freed Lazarus would have to dodge the now frantically swung tendrils of the remains of the Shoggoth, which now that they had their full attention back to fighting the creature, they likely would. But that was simply the first piece of the attack. At the same time, the gobs of oily shadow on the walls and ground elongated and formed thin, cylindrical tubes, at least nine inches long and with sharp, pointed ends- or as sharp and pointed as a corporeal shadow can be- which then hurtled themselves quickly through the air trying to hit Kat or Lazarus. Its third stage was preparing itself shortly, and once it was prepared not even a Servant of the Adderess herself could forsee it.

Kat

Hmmmm. Somehow, this had played out better in my own head than it did in reality.

My shirt had been torn up from the Shoggoth, and I had cuts all over me that are started to scab over already. Thank Tsefahn, if I had been a baseline human, I doubt I would have done so well. As it is, the City seems intent on mauling me over, so it would be best if I got out of the flailing shadow beast.

"Laz! To me!"

Drawing my blade again, I hacked down the writhing tentacles nearest to me as I pulled myself out from the Shoggoth, while Lazarus crushes several tentacles with his jaws. Snarling, Laz, bounds away from the smashed creature. I stumbled while pulling away, the ground had warped, and it was dangerous for me to stand.

Lazarus was panting, and he had horrible cuts all over his body. They were scabbing over, but he was going to be as sore as me once this was over.

More and more of these Shadow Graphers were flooding in, and it was becoming apparent that this wasn't just a measly ambush from some remote focus of the City.

With a sigh, I popped open the holster for my gun, drawing it out.

"Alright, Laz. Here's the plan. I shoot, you bite. We good? Good."

It was at that moment that a shadowy lance came piercing down towards me. The broken Shoggoth pieces were rushing at me!

Pivoting on my heel, I came to face the lance, pulling my pistol up and firing into the lance head on.

As more and more of the shadowy lances came pouring down towards us, I continued to fire off with my Afflicted-enhanced accuracy. At the same time, Laz was busy with mauling stray tentacles and shadow graphers, grabbing them, smashing and tearing them apart with his strong jaws, and then bounding off to the next target, being sure to stay away from anything big forming up.

Cat attentively eyed her surroundings as they walked down a derelict City street, mossy growths and debris peppering its countenance. She thought things seemed oddly darker, more obscured for some reason, but attributed it to the simple anxiety of being with a new partner. She mulled over Meshach’s behavior. He appeared to be either the “strong and silent” type or the “walking time bomb” type; She couldn’t figure out which of the two he was yet, but either way, she wasn’t going to start pressing any of his buttons if she could help it.

As she was thinking these things through, he spoke up. Cat listened to his awkward, stilted language closely, trying to guess his accent while still scrutinizing the environment. As he was explaining, she failed to understand the source of his accusation. It could be that, due to Sector loyalties, anyone who wasn’t a City Wanderer couldn’t possibly switch jobs that easily, so Meshach must have assumed that she wasn’t an ex-Hunter. She wasn’t offended by his skepticism; after all, it was what she would have wanted to know if she were in his position. They seemed to be one and the same when it came to chronic paranoia. Still, she wasn’t going to spill her life story to him 10 minutes after meeting him. In fact, hardly anyone got to know about her mother’s fate, besides some of the City Councilors. If there ever came a time when the two of them could be friends (which she highly doubted), then she’d consider it – but not now.

She turned to him and was about to give a simple, not untruthful explanation that she knew someone who was a Hunter and so was intimately familiar with what a Hunter’s schedule was like, when Meshach cut himself off and directed her attention elsewhere. As it turned out, the tension in the atmosphere wasn’t just her imagination. Every direction she looked, there was a tiny, malevolent face.

They were surrounded by Shadow Graphers.

Cat did her best to calm herself mentally, knowing that this amount of Graphers wouldn’t be much of a threat to the two of them – as long as they kept their wits about them. She pulled her rifle out and jerked the breech, readying it. None of the Graphers were in range of her old model firearm, so it wasn’t safe for her to make the first move. The monsters seemed to be morphing and changing shape, moving ever closer to their position. She put her back gently to Meshach’s to ensure they couldn’t be taken by surprise.

“Okay, so my gun’s not suited for this range,” she admitted in a low voice. “And unless you’re some kind of sharp-shooter, you’re not going to get anywhere with that revolver, either. But there’s no way to advance without taking them out first. So we have two options: we can wait for them to form into something possibly deadlier, or we can draw them closer and take them out one by one. Your call – I’m the one who dragged you into this, after all.”

Taija waited impatiently outside the door to Connelly's office. The receptionist had mentioned that there was another person who had volunteered to go to the cache, and she wondered who it could be. Almost certainly someone with a great deal more experience with the city that herself, though that hardly narrowed the field down. It could even be someone from outside the sector. The possibility grew on Taija the longer she considered it. There certainly wasn't enough retrievers in Sector Nine at the moment, and many of those who would be able were exhausted or injured. She'd never really known any of the nomads, those who wandered sector to sector, but they had always seemed like the most cynical people in the world.

Her mind wandered to the cache once more - it was definitely something big, the storm that had conceived it was larger than any had seen. But its size also meant more danger, more guardians and traps for the retrievers - for Taija - to prove themselves against. It was a sobering thought. The caches the city spawned often served as supplements to the sectors, providing goods and luxuries they couldn't produce on their own. Without them humanity would be in a far worse position. But they were never gifts given freely. And that brought Taija back to a problem she had never been able to answer. What was the purpose of those caches? Their goods seemed to serve no purpose to the inhabitants of the city. Shadow Graphers didn't use guns, or painkillers.

The door opened, snapping Taija back to reality in time to see a man exit. The face wasn't one she recognized, he definitely wasn't one of the Sector's retrievers, and she didn't think he was a hunter who'd decided to try going after different prey. Yet, he held himself like one who spent time outside the deadzones for a living, ready for anything. Perhaps more than just working outside the sectors, but living with the city. A nomad, then. "Don't take too long." he quiped. As if Taija needed reminding of how urgent this cache would be, especially considering that Sector Three would certainly have sent retrievers out already. "I'll be out before you know it." she riposted, returning his smile. He was setting a good precident for not being a total cynic.

Once through the door, Taija faced the head of Sector Nine's retrievers. Bertram Connelly. The man was quite renowned, both for his time in Sector Three, as well as his excellent leadership. Today, Taija was meeting him not as a civilian, or a medic to deliver bad new, but as a retriever ready to head out into the city for the good of the Sector. She couldn't help but smile as she entered, though she did keep her excitement contained. She gave him a skeptical look at his attempt to convince her to back out. He had to know she wouldn't accept it, though she couldn't blame him for trying.

As Bertram continued to describe the conditions, offering her advice, and weaponry, Taija grew more serious. She did know what she was getting into. Though, she had hoped that the trip would include another retriever or two. For the most part, his conditions were reasonable. Taija wouldn't leave her companion to die though. It wasn't something she was capable of. At least I hope not. She thought. Living through the deaths of patients was hard enough, and the death of a travelling companion would hit much harder to cope with.

"Of course I accept, did you really have to ask? I had hoped that there would be more than two of us going out there. I can't imagine the city is going to make this easy for us." She grimaced at the idea, though the small party would probably be able to move faster, and slip past any sector three goons they might run into. "Though I guess there's no time to go find any other retrievers. As both you and Nova have pointed out, we don't have time to spare. Now I've gotta get this requisition filled" Taija left the room, then glanced back with a smile. "Relax, what's the worst that could happen?" she said sarcastically before leaving. Probably not her best call, as soon she was considering all the horrible things that could occur out in the city...

---

Despite a small hangup getting the pistols, which were holstered on her right hip and thigh - Taija had never been comfortable drawing with her left hand - she thought she had made pretty good time getting ready. The rendezvous was towards the edge of the sector, and after a quick search she was able to spot Nova leaning against a building. Taija waved and headed over to him. "Taija willow, I mostly work as a medic here in Sector Nine." She offered him a handshake. "I'll be travelling with you for the near future. Nova, right? You're not from the Sector, are you? Also, I don't think there's any more support coming for us, so I'm good to head out as soon as you are."