Ethan took a step back as Florence launched himself into the car. He turned to the woman with the cable. He nodded and stepped to the edge, handing her the motor. She nodded to afirm she had a good grip on it, and he let go. Ethan was then approached by the old fellow again, who needed his help lowering the car. He nodded again. If he did much more of this his head would pop off. Ethan crossed to the brake and took it in both hands. He had driven a lot of things, but a rickety old trolley was new to him. He squeezed the lever and inched it off a little bit. The trolley began to drop, very slowly.

Ethan got impatient and moved it further, and the trolley dropped down, scaring the hell out of everyone. Ethan yanked the lever back and they smashed to a halt. "Sorry everyone, it's my first time" he said, grinning. He moved it to a middle position and they lowered right on level with the next floor. He stopped the car. "This stop, infirmary and hopefully not certain death!"

The city had never been so quiet.

You never realize how much noise you're used to until it's suddenly gone. It's strange to hear your own heartbeat, and you strain to hear something else, anything familiar and comforting. People could go mad in that sort of silence.

The trolley lurched and creaked, but it held together well enough despite the scary state of its gears. With a bit of effort by Ethan and Liam, the old trolley locked in at the first emergency landing, where an unused door was set into the side of the wall. There was no railing, very little standing room, and not much between the trolley doors and a long fall.

Ethan caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of his eye.

BAM!

Something terrible slammed into the roof; the trolley dropped a few jolted inches with the impact. The black-scaled beast stood unscathed from the dent it had made, and it scraped into the metal with its claws; it raised its ugly head and peered at Ethan with murderous, unsettlingly human eyes. With a fangy muzzled grin, it whipped the air with a scorpion's tail and tore open the roof of the trolley like it was paper.

Another one -- dark and fanged, with antlers and spikes and claws like knives -- crawled headfirst down the cables with the ease of a terrible monkey. It paused, and it took hold of Katrina's wire and gave it a powerful yank.

A noise was picking up at the top of the wall. Sounded like hissing and chattering, scratching and cackling.

The first of them skittered down the mirrored inside of the wall -- some of them fell, with wings tilted back -- some of them suckered their way down, slick as frogs. But the sight to be seen was at the top of the wall, where they all crowded up to look over the edge at the city, chittering and whistling and howling and snarling. They were a dark, monstrous mass of matted fur and dark feathers, stony scales, razored horn, putrid slime and dripping fangs -- the stuff of nightmares, terrors brought to life. Occasionally, something almost-human and heartless flashed among the teeming army, and somehow that was the most frightening of all.

Periphery was theirs for the taking.

Vincent felt the trolley drop as he stared at the pink soul stone. He realized that his quick quip earlier was actually the facts. This was a soul. "Huh..." His mind wandered at what he could do with the stone. He then winced internally now wishing that he paid better attention in Father's lessons. He glanced around at the stone statues all around the area. He felt like it was a waste for so much power to be left behind, but with the Grit coming there wasn't much time to grab anything more than what was in his hand.

Vincent pocketed the stone and as he did he heard a loud bang causing the trolley to drop a bit more and he caught himself the best he could. He looked up as he heard the sound and saw all sorts of creatures climbing over the wall. He chuckled a bit madly. So much for building a wall. Maybe the Queen should have built a roof with the sky painted on the ceiling. No wall could do anything against beasties that could climb them without problems.

Vincent didn't think, he acted. He grabbed at Kat's arm and looked her in the eyes cooly. "C'mon." He dashed towards the unopened door just off the landing. He wasn't one hundred percent sure that it was an exit, but anywhere was better than standing in front of a stampede. While he was grateful for whatever moron destroyed the city, Vincent didn't want everyone to die. He attempted to open the door praying that it was unlocked.

Smiling tightly to the blonde gentleman (every muscle in her was clenching, like they were bracing for impact- they still haven’t messaged back. Why would they leave it so long?- which made it hard to smile properly), Kat kneeled down and tied her end of the cable to the motor, setting it on the floor. She kneeled down and kept her hand on the motor, steadying it, as they began to move. She breathed a sigh of relief- the wire unwound smoothly from the reel with little resistance, and the motor seemed to be heavy enough to pull out the wire with its own inertia without sliding.

Kat stayed quiet on the move down; she felt a little rude doing so, but the truth was her mind was whirling, trying to analyse the possible things that could have happened to her siblings from every angle, which ones were more likely and less likely, how she would be able to help them. And yet, as she did this she felt her head thudding against her ribcage, and the quiet voice in the back of her head got louder and louder. Every heartbeat without a response means it's more likely they’re not saying anything because they’ve been hurt. Or worse.

Still, she looked around the trolley as they juddered down (Kat was reasonably confident the trolley would hold up, so the rickety setup was no cause for worry), and if anyone caught her eye she tried to offer a comforting smile in their direction.

BAM!

It took a couple of seconds for the Grit to register to Kat, so lost was she in her own thoughts. And, for a few seconds, looking around the trolley at the grotesque, inexplicable monsters was almost a relief. There’s no way this can be happening. I must be dreaming.

She found herself looking in to the eyes of a bizarre fanged Grit with every viable surface ending in some kind of point- a claw, an antler, a spike, as it crawled towards her. The threat to her life this represented seemed vague and fuzzy, like she was watching a LiveIt™ move on her tech-specs. Must be so awkward, being all spikes? You’d destroy the upholstery of any car. Also you'd be so unpopular in a cramped club.

The creature stopped, paused to look at the wire linking her motor and the other side of the wall, and yanked. It’s strength was incredible- the motor flipped up and shot out the side of the trolley, punching a hole through one of the windows. Kat, more by instinct than any conscious decision, had moved her hands out the way as soon as the monster had reached down, but still had to duck out the way as the motor went flying past her head. Fortunately, she had anticipating something like this may have happened were the wire to run out, and so she had ensured no-one else was in harm’s way when setting the motor down.

Turning back, she looked back to beyond the wall, covered in Grit of so many different shapes, sizes, colours and forms it reminded her of a densely wired circuit board. It was almost entrancing, to watch them move about.

Well, I guess no-one on the other side is going to be dragging this thing back anyway. She thought, absently.

Suddenly, a hard grip on her left arm bought her back to reality. Sounds, smells and the shaking of the trolley which had previously felt so far away suddenly came into sharp focus. Turning, she saw Vincent, looking her in the eyes cooly. He’s dealing with this much better than me.

“C’mon.”

Before she even had a chance to nod in agreement, or protest, she was being dragged along as Vincent dashed towards an unopened door just off the landing. Reaching it, he attempted to open it- and it swung open immediately, revealing a pitch- black interior.

Her tech-specs had night vision, but she didn’t want to drain the battery any more than she was already doing whilst tracking the location of her siblings. Taking them off and putting them in a jacket pocket, she clasped her palms together, lifting her hands to her lips as if in prayer.

Theo, Katrin, Jakob… I’ll get through this, and then I’ll come find you. Please wait for me. Please don't be dead.

Releasing her hands, the sigil of light on her right hand began to glow. It didn’t produce much light from a distance, but it was enough to dimly illuminate the features of the room in front of them. Holding it out in front of herself and Vincent, Kat quickly looked over her shoulder at the others as she ran inside.

“This way!”

The ride down in the trolley was slow and silent, save for the grinding of the trolley against the wire it rode on. Maria sat against a wall, the puffiness of her jacket making it very comfortable, which was why she had brought it. Seeing how strung-out the skinny man next to her was, she unzipped a pocket and removed a small, pink hard candy, with translucent pink wrapping paper. "Candy? It's homemade. Passion fruit flavor!" She said to him with a smile.

Whether he took it or not, Maria settled down in her corner. Her jacket felt like a blanket being wrapped around her, and she gradually dropped off into a light doze.

BAM!

Maria shrieked as her eyes flew wide open. For a moment, she wasn't really able to process what she was seeing; then the fact that she was staring at a huge, bestial monster, at a Grit, a Grit who was staring back at her, hit home. Instinctively, she whipped out her notepad and pencil, and wrote down what she liked to call her "Air Mine" sigil, which was three wavy lines surrounded by a circle. She thrust the sigil into the face of the Grit on the ceiling, causing the sigil to emit a blast of air directly into its face. Whatever the results, Maria took whatever time she had to shout "Run!" and sprint as fast as she could after Kat and Vincent. "Wait for me, guys!" A faint crackling could be heard as she ran from the elevator, though it quickly faded from hearing.

"Well. Sure. Isn't this just peachy.."

Otto let his legs give out when the trolley was bombarded by the beasts. Scratching, clawing--these things ripped metal as easy as paper. Lying on the trolley floor, he crawled with haste to his sledge hammer, which was propped in the corner. As he grasped the hammer in his left hand, his right buried into his robes and felt for one of his leather patches. It had been years--decades--since Otto used his trusty sigils. The leather patch closest to his armpit felt like a spiral was branded within a perfect circle.

"Oh no. No, not that one."

Immediately below the first, the second patch was similarly branded. Instead of a perfect circle, it more closely resembled a two-dimensional egg. Branded within the egg-shape, a small paw print. Otto covered the old leather with his hand and sat up in a crouched position, back facing the landing door.

POP

Salt and dust slammed into the side of the trolley, leaving behind white smoke approximately the size of an adult male. Otto sailed through the air and slammed into the landing's door frame (not at all gracefully). He looked in all directions, and made eye contact with the others who made it into the dark doorway. "Still works!"

Flor had helped himself to his feet after flying into the trolley. He didn't sctivate his sigil this time and bruised his back as he slammed it into the metal grating. Fortunately the other two were fine. The trolley began to creak and whine as it made it's way lower, that is until the operator got a little greedy and let to much of the brake out. The short fall stopped his heart for a moment. He was used to the fall himself, but his mind instantly went to the sight of everyone in the car crushed flat from a fall at that height. Fortunately they got the trolley back under control and stopped at a hopeful infirmary.

BAM

The Grit had already made it up the wall and were attacking their trolley. Flor was more concerned with the one on top of the trolley that had peeled it open. He had his pipe, but he wasn't sure how to go about attacking the monster. He couldn't swing to wildly with the others so close, and a weak attack would just get him hurt. Fortunately the others acted quicker, blowing the thing back for a moment and blasting a powder bomb in the trolley. Flor rapidly followed the old man into the room a little more gracefully, until he saw the old man in the doorway and flung his momentum in another direction to avoid him. He may have been able to catch himself, but then a woman was in his way. He shifted himself just enough again to avoid her and fall flat on the floor. Regaining his control, he got up again. "I'm fine! What are we doing now?"

Vincent slipped in after a few people entered the dark room. He kept the door open a crack and stayed near it to glance outside on occasion. He was quite curious to see what the Grit would do. As scary as a force as they were, he was interested in why they hadn't attacked until now. Perhaps they knew this incident was going to happen. What if this was a plot to destroy the city. He was all for hitting the reset button, but he wanted to know about the aftermath.

Secretly, he hoped that they didn't do anything with the soulstones, so he could gather as many as he could. He was already establishing a list of objectives: gather soulstones, invade Father's library and study Rune Magic, experiment. No one here entered the teen's plans, but he did prefer if they survived.

He exhaled as he suddenly realized that he nearly died today, and with the Grit roaming the streets his survival over the next few days would be questionable. He had to take advantage of the people here in order to make it through to the next day. He closed the door and slid down the wall into a seated position. He could barely see in the dim light of Kat's sigil. He would have to inspect that sigil in order to learn it.

"Anyone hurt?" Vincent called out to the people in the room.

BAM!

Instinctively, Maria whipped out her notepad and pencil, and wrote down what she liked to call her "Air Mine" sigil, which was three wavy lines surrounded by a circle.

While Maria's sigil took shape, the Grit stuffed its head down into the trolley, snuffling and hissing, ropes of ooze dripping from its fangs.

Moth had apparently lost it, because the young auditor stuck his hand out toward the creature's nose as if to pet it -- as if this grotesque, scaled, spiked thing were no more dangerous than a puppy.

The Grit's nostrils flared, and it snuffled at his hand expectantly -- but when he had nothing to offer, it shoved Moth aside and lunged at Florence.

Maria thrust the sigil into the face of the Grit on the ceiling, causing the sigil to emit a blast of air directly into its face.

The surprised Grit yelped and yanked out of the trolley, shaking its head and coughing. A split-second later it took out its rage on Ethan, the only human on the trolley roof. The Grit tackled him in a flash of scales and claws and teeth, but it snapped its jaws on empty air. Ethan had, of course, used a sigil to jump himself to safety.

Vincent didn't think, he acted. He grabbed at Kat's arm and looked her in the eyes cooly. "C'mon."

Before she even had a chance to nod in agreement, or protest, she was being dragged along as Vincent dashed towards an unopened door just off the landing. Reaching it, he attempted to open it- and it swung open immediately, revealing a pitch- black interior.

Maria took whatever time she had to shout "Run!" and sprint as fast as she could after Kat and Vincent. "Wait for me, guys!"

POP

Salt and dust slammed into the side of the trolley, leaving behind white smoke approximately the size of an adult male. Otto sailed through the air and slammed into the landing's door frame (not at all gracefully). He looked in all directions, and made eye contact with the others who made it into the dark doorway. "Still works!"

Flor rapidly followed the old man into the room a little more gracefully, until he saw the old man in the doorway and flung his momentum in another direction to avoid him. He may have been able to catch himself, but then a woman was in his way. He shifted himself just enough again to avoid her and fall flat on the floor. Regaining his control, he got up again. "I'm fine! What are we doing now?"

Releasing her hands, the sigil of light on Kat's right hand began to glow. It didn’t produce much light from a distance, but it was enough to dimly illuminate the features of the room in front of them. Holding it out in front of herself and Vincent, Kat quickly looked over her shoulder at the others as she ran inside.

“This way!”

Vincent closed the door and slid down the wall into a seated position. He could barely see in the dim light of Kat's sigil.

"Anyone hurt?" Vincent called out to the people in the room.

"ARE YOU HURT?" A robotic voice beeped from a corner of the dark room.

Kat's sigil dimly illuminated the dusty white floors, empty white walls, stacked padded chairs, and plastic-wrapped machines of an unfinished infirmary. Covered hospital beds were lined against the wall to the left, and curtain rollers had been installed without curtains. Directly across from the door was a set of double-doors labeled "SURGERY", a smaller door labeled "STAIRS", another labeled "TOILET", and the last: "ROOMS 8F1 - 8F4".

The wall to the right had been stuffed with shelves of boxes and hospital supplies. There was also a big, metallic blue robot with flashing eyes.

"DO YOU HAVE AN APPOINTMENT?" the robot announced eagerly. It creaked as it stepped out of its corner and whirred toward the gathered group. "ALL THE MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS ARE CURRENTLY BUSY. IS THIS AN EMERGENCY?"

BANG BANG SCRATCH

The door to the outside rattled as the Grit pushed and scraped at it, determined to get at the prize that had got away.

Somewhere in the distance outside, a long low howl rang out.

The Grit abandoned the door, its attention attracted elsewhere. All seemed quiet.

BANG BANG SCRATCH

The door to the outside rattled as the Grit pushed and scraped at it, determined to get at the prize that had got away.

Somewhere in the distance outside, a long low howl rang out.

The Grit abandoned the door, its attention attracted elsewhere. All seemed quiet.

"Uhhg."

Otto let out a groan, followed by a pair of wheezing breaths. The startling presence of the medical robot had made his stomach twist into a knot, but realizing the lack of danger he quickly relaxed. His back, neck, elbows, forearms and hands burned in agonizing pain; the kind of pain he couldn't easily put away in his mind. Unbeknownst to him, his hood had fallen from his head revealing a bald, reddened scalp. His wrinkled face showed little expression and his eyes (mostly black, bordered with gray) showed little soul. After replacing the hood and pulling on his gloves snugly, Otto released his iron-grip on the sledgehammer and crawled into one of the hospital beds, letting both arms hang loosely from the sides.

"We're in bad shape, people."

Speak for yourself old man. Liam chuckled as he gave Otto’s shoulder a quick pat before sitting in a bed next to him. As Liam sat down and noticed that his hands were trembling. As a matter of fact his whole body was trembling. The second that grit ripped open that roof Liam’s whole body froze up. All he could do was move his eyes and breathe on that trolley. Luckily the blast of one of the passenger’s sigil shocked him back to reality and he managed to lazily pull himself out of the cart.

As Liam thought about everything that happened up to this point he let out a slight frown. As much as he wanted to hate the Grit with every fibre of his being, he could not help but feel curious as to what exactly they were. What if they are merely misunderstood… What if they merely seek to take back what once was theirs…maybe periphery was built on some ancient ruin that the Grit worshipped…Maybe I am just imagining these things and am overthinking this situation.Maybe they are just mindless beasts that want to destroy our city. Liam thought as he pulled out his gun and started checking it. But there is some truth to what you say Mr…. Said Liam never taking his eyes off his gun and looking around the room.

We are under prepared for the situation we currently are in. We need, or at least most of you need some proper weapons if we even want to think of surviving today. Say all you want about your sigil’s but I seriously doubt that those things can keep you alive against something like the grit. So I suggest that one of this …..group? are we even grouping? Ah no matter as I was saying I suggest that one of our priorities should be to get you lot armored up properly. Oh and I’m Liam by the way nice to meet you all. He said with a quick smile before standing up and moving towards the surgery door and opening it slightly and using the barrel of his pepperbox to slowly open the door all the way.

I also suggest that we get off this wall as quickly as possible. I doubt all the grit charged the city at once so my best guess is that some are roaming the floors of the wall and I would hate to run into another one today. He said looking back at the group before slowly entering the surgery room.

As the med bot came rolling out and the room was illuminated by one of the girls, they could tell they were in an infirmary. Flor gripped his pipe tightly ready to attack anything that might break through the door. Fortunately for them, a howl in the distance grabbed the grit's attention and they left the group alone, for now. Flor looked back at the room and saw all of the medical equipment. In a situation like this medical supplies would help a lot. With as many spikes as the grit had, they would need all the bandages they could get.

As Otto announced their bad situation, and Liam wanted to arm everyone, Flor began raiding the medical shelves. He began grabbing gauze, pads and wrap. As he kept moving along the shelves he noticed some healing sigils. "Sweet!" He exclaimed. He began to grab as many as he could before he realized his arms were getting full. The healing sigils would help in varying amounts against basic ailments like headaches, upset stomachs, and even the common cold. He began to search around the room for some sort of bag to hold all of this. Unable to find anything quickly in the first room, he followed Liam into the surgery room. He didn't notice any bags, but he did quickly notice the sustainment sigil. "Yes!" He quickly darted over and barely managed to put the sigil between his fingers. It was capable of sustaining someone near death in a coma for a few hours. Doctors used it to keep patients under and alive during intensive surgeries, but he also saw it used to keep someone alive in a movie once. He left the room again and moved onto room 8F1. He noticed an EMT's bag in this one and ran over setting his supplies down next to it. Not really knowing what it was he opened it and found all sorts of supplies. It had everything he already picked up, even a sustainment sigil. There were a lot of other supplies in the bag as well that he wasn't familiar with, but maybe he could figure that out later. He walked back out to where the others were and waited for the others actions.

Once the banking of the Grit against the door stopped, Kat breathed a sigh of relief. The pounding, scratching and growling was setting her already tense nerves even closer to the edge. Thank goodness she’d already recovered from her hangover.

”Uhhg.”

Looking over to the groaning middle-aged hooded man, Kat almost exclaimed in shock. She hadn’t really paid much attention to any of their companions so far, but this guy looked like he’d been having a really bad day. And, given that it was highly unlikely that anyone in the group she was in could be said to be having a ‘good day’, that was saying something.

The man crawled into one of the hospital beds, looking exhausted.

”We’re in bad shape, people.

Speak for yourself. Kat thought, looking around the room. Her first priority was getting down the wall to Periphery itself. The sign mentioning ‘stairs’ looked like a good start- but on the other hand any time spent wandering about the wall could be the difference between life and death at this stage. Kat felt adamant she couldn’t make any mistakes.

Walking up to the robot, she moved her right hand towards the base of its neck to check the model number. It was a pretty old one, not quite ancient but certainly not the most up-to-date. That served Kat fine though- newer models she had less experience with, since her job was to fix up broken down bots when their owners had worn them out.

Pulling out a fat disc-shaped object the size of her palm out of her rucksack, she flicked a switch on the side and waited for the disk to display a small menu screen at its centre, listing several different model names. Scrolling through, Kat reached the model name which matched the robot in front of her. The robot would probably recommend the evacuation route to Periphery if we asked it now, but perhaps there is a faster way…

The tall muscled man, who introduced himself as Liam, suggested they get armed and off the wall, distracting her from the screen of her her PalmPulse. She looked up and watched him walk into the surgery room. If it meant they could get off the wall with all their limbs attached, then armour was a good plan. Another question for the robot perhaps, but it was unlikely it would tell them where any armouries were located on the wall- not unless they were royal guards.

Looking around at the rest of the ‘group’, Kat gave a casual wave.

“I’m Kat. I’d say it’s nice to meet you all, but I kinda wish I was meeting you in a different circumstance…”

Hoping she hadn’t come across as too rude, she quickly looked down at her PalmPulse, and then raised it to show the screen to the others still in the room.

“I’m a mechanic, do all kinds of jobs really but my speciality is robots. I think I can try and get some useful information out of this robot if I just quickly adjust its loyalty circuits with this.”

Moving the PalmPulse so the base of the disk pointed towards the robots head and the screen towards her, Kat pressed the model number on the screen. To avoid just anyone screwing round with a robot’s core, most models responded to specific pulses which allowed the computational core of the robot to be accessed. The pulses changed quite regularly to try and outsmart hackers, but through the local mechanics guild Kat had access to them as soon as they were updated.

The Palm Pulse glowed faintly blue for a moment, sending out an electromagnetic pulse towards the robot, and then stopped. Sure enough, at the back of the robots head part of its outer casing hinged away in response to the pulse. Quickly skirting round, Kat pointed her right hand through the gap left in the robots outer casing.

That bit looks like the loyalty circuit… If I just bypass it entirely then it’ll give out sensitive information to anybody instead of just authorised personnel.

Kat replaced her PalmPulse in her backpack and pulled out the soldering finger attachment, putting it on her left index finger. Kat touched the base of her finger with her right hand and recalled the fear she’d felt on the trolley just before, the fear Vincent had snapped her out of. The tip of her soldering attachment began to glow slightly red, as the heat sigil on her left finger did its work.

Forming an ‘ok’ sign with her right hand, palm facing towards the robot’s insides, Kat raised her right hand to her eyes. Activating the magnifying sigil on that hand, she leaned in towards the robot, reaching her soldering attachment out and into the dense circuitry inside.

Deattach this one… attach to this… Then this… Ah, I should check to make sure the overrides don’t trigger…

She didn’t realise it, but Kat was humming tunelessly to herself. Complex circuitry and machinery was the equivalent to a fine wine to her; it was something to be relished, something that when you tasted it consumed you, asked you to take your time on it. The whole exercise took only a few minutes- the complexity of the circuitry didn’t mean that for Kat, this was difficult work- often the first stage in a more complex process if the robot was seriously faulty was ensuring it considered you authorised to run a full diagnostics. Here, she was removing the entire concept of an ‘authorised person’ to save time, and so that others in the group could ask it questions, which was much less elegant but also a lot less effort.

“There!” She said, breaking the magnification sigil’s circle and closing the back of the robot’s head. She deactivated her sigil as well, keeping the soldering attachment on her finger as it cooled down. I don’t know why, but that helped calm me down. Maybe we can beat these Grit together.

Circling round to the front of the Robot, Kat gave it a once over.

“Please tell us the fastest route to Periphery from this room. Also, please indicate in your description any nearby armouries.”

In the dark and dust of the unfinished hospital room, Moth fell heavily into a corner and slumped to the floor. So far, he had been nearly struck by lightning, picked up and thrown into a crowded trolley, attacked by things out of his childhood nightmares, forced down a narrow, pitch black hallway inside the Wall itself, and finally trapped in a room with a bunch of strangers who were talking about arming themselves and gallivanting off to save the city. He didn't even have breakfast yet. Moth moaned to himself and covered his face with his hands.

Coherent thought had been lost to him over the past hour or so, and as his mind worked to catch up, he thought back to the trolley. A massive claw punctured the roof and tore a hole in it. People screamed and the Grit tried pushing their way in, spittle flying from their gaping snouts and fangs shining like black metal blades. Moth had looked up, and could see others behind them on the roof, and more coming down the wires above. One of them locked eyes with him. It was all black and flowing, like smoke beneath the dark waters of his subconscious. It was small, and shaped like a human, and the only features Moth could make out were its shining, pink-gold eyes. Stunned, Moth slowly stretched a hand out to it, and then the other people in the trolley reacted and the Grit were gone. Moth knew what it was. Who it was. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.

It was me.

His mind continued to spin, there in the dust of the abandoned medical ward, as people around him continued to move and plan.

An eye peeked through his fingers as realization hit him. The digital Network was almost certainly down with the loss of electricity in the city, but his suit was connected by a WideBand receiver to the main office. If he could reach someone at CMYB, they could pass word up to the accounting partners themselves. The four partners held so much power in Periphery City that the entire damn military would be at their command! His fingers flew across a keyboard on one arm, the amber light a welcome warmth against his face. He pulled up the data settings and...nothing. Connection Not Found. That was impossible.

A WideBand connection was simply a stretch of the theoretical Ether that all magic passed through, with a portal on either end. Once created, the portals would be connected to one another forever, with no magic needed to hold them open. Only an electronic receiver locked to the right frequency was needed to reach it. Receivers could be anything from simple TechSpecs and handhelds to something as complicated and rare and highly illegal as a full-body biological-neural-wetlink. If the WideBand was out of reach, which Moth still thought of as impossible, then anyone with a neural link to it...

Best scenario, they'd be dead. If someone with that much of a connection still lived, they would be brain-fried, or comatose, or...psychotic. At least one of the partners was rumored to have some less-than-legal biotech. Moth shuddered. So much was going on that he didn't understand and didn't want to understand. He was hungry, and exhausted, and his head was starting to hurt, and...

"I need to pee."

A moment passed before Moth realized he said it out loud. The talking had stopped, and in the silence Moth could feel himself turning red.

A puff of thick, white smoke bellowed from Otto's lips and nostrils following a hearty pull from his trusty pipe. More smoke escaped his mouth as he spoke beneath his hood, "Young lady, nicely done with the machine. Perhaps before it sends us off gallivanting throughout the city, it can direct our friend in the corner to the nearest wash closet..." He subtly tipped a salute to Moth with his pipe and returned it to his lips, continuing a slow and steady drag/exhale.

Weapons? What sort of weapons would do this lot any good? Are there any former soldiers among us? It's been years since you practiced healing, old man--at least ten since you practiced any work as a medic. From the look of things, you are in need of a medic more than this lot.

Aggravated at himself for his negative (yet factual) thoughts, Otto flexed his hands and rolled his shoulders in an attempt to alleviate the throbbing soreness. He had no experience with practicing medicine in a clinic; he would be a little use without his suitcase of supplies. Weapons would be of little use to him. Without his personal stash of readiness items, the best alternative would be an herb and tonic shop. The worst alternative would be to collect what he needed outside of the Periphery City boundary walls, which seemed more like the punchline of a ill-timed joke.

"We're in bad shape, people."

Vincent gave the man a dismissive look. He was perfectly healthy and definitely hadn't given up on the grim situation. After all, he had already found the silver lining in all of this. He held the raw power of a soul, and he imagined a few of these folks had grabbed some souls out of curiosity all without knowing what they held. If he could figure out how he could bring back whomever he wanted back from their petrified selves, or he could use their soul for more interesting acts. If anything despite the circumstances, he was excited.

We are under prepared for the situation we currently are in. We need, or at least most of you need some proper weapons if we even want to think of surviving today. Say all you want about your sigil’s but I seriously doubt that those things can keep you alive against something like the grit. So I suggest that one of this …..group? are we even grouping? Ah no matter as I was saying I suggest that one of our priorities should be to get you lot armored up properly. Oh and I’m Liam by the way nice to meet you all. He said with a quick smile before standing up and moving towards the surgery door and opening it slightly and using the barrel of his pepperbox to slowly open the door all the way.

I also suggest that we get off this wall as quickly as possible. I doubt all the grit charged the city at once so my best guess is that some are roaming the floors of the wall and I would hate to run into another one today. He said looking back at the group before slowly entering the surgery room.

Vincent nodded in agreement with this guy. Getting off the Wall would be ideal. Staying here for much longer would be wasting time and risking the Grit coming back knocking. He glanced at the door that had been scratched at by a Grit not at all too long ago. He definitely wasn't interested in whenever it came back for round two.

Someone started rustling through the medical Sigils and Vincent thought briefly about joining him to grab one each so he could study and learn the design of each Sigil so he could add more to his repertoire. He restrained himself though, because he'd definitely think less of himself for looting and he definitely didn't want to be judged by the people around him either.

Kat got to work on the robot after introducing herself, something he supposed he'd have to do himself soon.

"I need to pee."

Vincent's gaze turned to the nerdiest looking person in the room. He blinked a couple times. What could this guy being doing up here? Well that didn't matter. Vincent's expression changed to an "are you serious?" expression as he gestured towards the room with the label "TOILET" on it.

"I'm sure you can take care of yourself," he told the man. He sounded calmer than he probably should considering what just happened, but Vincent never processed emotions in any normal fashion. There were a few times that his butler called him a "high-functioning sociopath". The man was quickly replaced as such behavior was not tolerated.

“Please tell us the fastest route to Periphery from this room. Also, please indicate in your description any nearby armouries.”

Vincent shook his head. That was no way to talk to a machine. All it would say is for them to go out the door and take the trolley down just like they came up and they knew that wasn't an option. He cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should ask it a different question? The thing could just say go out the door and hit the trolley." He turned his attention to the robot. "Do the stairs go all the way down to the ground? Also, tell us of any armories along the way down if any and any that are near the base of the Wall itself." He didn't care about walking down stairs. In his free time he did nothing but traipse around town, occasionally with a new fling around his arm although all of them were his age, not older.

He glanced at Kat before quickly looking at the robot for its answer. Someone older, even if not by much was definitely new territory for him. He ignored the compliment towards Kat by the man who stated they were in bad shape as he had already clearly gestured towards the bathroom that was in this hospice and didn't need to waste time with asking stupid questions to the robot.

After replacing the hood and pulling on his gloves snugly, Otto released his iron-grip on the sledgehammer and crawled into one of the hospital beds, letting both arms hang loosely from the sides. "We're in bad shape, people."

"Speak for yourself old man." Liam chuckled as he gave Otto’s shoulder a quick pat before sitting in a bed next to him.

Walking up to the robot, Kat moved her right hand towards the base of its neck to check the model number. Pulling out a fat disc-shaped object the size of her palm out of her rucksack, she flicked a switch on the side and waited for the disk to display a small menu screen at its centre, listing several different model names.

Flor began raiding the medical shelves. He began grabbing gauze, pads and wrap.

"But there is some truth to what you say Mr…." Said Liam never taking his eyes off his gun and looking around the room. "We are under prepared for the situation we currently are in. We need, or at least most of you need some proper weapons if we even want to think of surviving today. Say all you want about your sigil’s but I seriously doubt that those things can keep you alive against something like the grit. So I suggest that one of this …..group? are we even grouping? Ah no matter as I was saying I suggest that one of our priorities should be to get you lot armored up properly. Oh and I’m Liam by the way nice to meet you all."

(As Flor kept moving along the shelves he noticed some healing sigils. "Sweet!")

"I also suggest that we get off this wall as quickly as possible. I doubt all the grit charged the city at once so my best guess is that some are roaming the floors of the wall and I would hate to run into another one today." Liam said looking back at the group before slowly entering the surgery room.

Unable to find anything quickly in the first room, Flor followed Liam into the surgery room. He didn't notice any bags, but he did quickly notice the sustainment sigil. "Yes!" He quickly darted over and barely managed to put the sigil between his fingers.

Looking around at the rest of the ‘group’, Kat gave a casual wave. “I’m Kat. I’d say it’s nice to meet you all, but I kinda wish I was meeting you in a different circumstance… I’m a mechanic, do all kinds of jobs really but my specialty is robots. I think I can try and get some useful information out of this robot if I just quickly adjust its loyalty circuits with this.”

Flor left the surgery room again and moved onto room 8F1.

Flor had only stayed long enough to scan the surgery room before he was off again, on the hunt for all the loot the infirmary had to offer.

Liam, however, still lingered.

The surgery room was clean and mostly bare of supplies except for what Flor had just carried off. Machines dominated the room, some with frightening attachments meant for all manner of cutting and threading and implanting and uploading. A locked cabinet contained various sizes of prototype artificial limbs and bionic implants, while another quite certainly held link chips and brain-scan backup drives.

Something dim and pink glowed underneath the surgery table.

A stone statue of a little girl was curled up under the table, hands over her ears in fright. A pink stone floated at her chest.

"I need to pee." A moment passed before Moth realized he said it out loud. The talking had stopped, and in the silence Moth could feel himself turning red.

Vincent's expression changed to an "are you serious?" expression as he gestured towards the room with the label "TOILET" on it. "I'm sure you can take care of yourself," he told the man.

Flor walked back out into the infirmary carrying a hefty EMT bag.

“There!” Kat said, breaking the magnification sigil’s circle and closing the back of the robot’s head.

More smoke escaped Otto's mouth as he spoke beneath his hood, "Young lady, nicely done with the machine. Perhaps before it sends us off gallivanting throughout the city, it can direct our friend in the corner to the nearest wash closet..." He subtly tipped a salute to Moth with his pipe and returned it to his lips, continuing a slow and steady drag/exhale.

Circling round to the front of the Robot, Kat gave it a once over. “Please tell us the fastest route to Periphery from this room. Also, please indicate in your description any nearby armouries.”

Vincent cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should ask it a different question? The thing could just say go out the door and hit the trolley." He turned his attention to the robot. "Do the stairs go all the way down to the ground? Also, tell us of any armories along the way down if any and any that are near the base of the Wall itself."

The robot's eyes flashed and glittered, and it stood up straight, a head taller than Liam. A big square of light turned on at the robot's chest and displayed a map of the wall.

"THE FASTEST ROUTE TO THE GROUND LEVEL IS A STRAIGHT JUMP FROM THE OUTSIDE LANDING." A red dot appeared at their location on the lit-up map, and a dotted line followed it as the dot leaped to the ground.

"THE QUEEN'S ARMORY IS LOCATED AT THE NORTH WALL, LEVEL FOURTEEN, 2D6." The view changed, and another dot appeared at the appropriate place at the north side of the wall.

"ADDITIONAL ARMAMENTS ARE LOCATED EVERY TWENTY FEET AT THE TOP OF THE WALL." A view of the circumference of the wall appeared, dotted red.

"EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ARMAMENT STOREROOM IS LOCATED DIRECTLY BELOW YOUR CURRENT LOCATION LEVEL SIX ROOM 5Q4." A map of the interior of the wall appeared, with their current location marked and a red dot blinking far below, closer to the ground.

"BATTLE-READY IMPLANTS ARE LOCATED ON THE CURRENT FLOOR SURGERY ROOM." This time a map of the infirmary and the surrounding rooms appeared, with a red dot in the surgery room.

"PROJECT WILLOW LOCATION IS UNKNOWN." The red dot disappeared.

"THE STAIRWELLS EACH DESCEND FIFTEEN LEVELS AND ARE LOCATED IN CLOSE PROXIMITY AND MAY BE ROUTED TO THE GROUND." A map of the wall interior appeared again, with the stairwells highlighted in red. The stairwells were staggered every fifteen floors but could be easily navigated to the ground.


An enormous noise thundered outside, and the room shivered slightly as if from impact.

"THE WASH ROOM IS LOCATED TO YOUR LEFT."


The second time, the explosion was clearer. The Grit were in the process of knocking a hole through the wall, down at the ground level.

Flor watched carefully as the robot displayed the map on the wall. Even though he didn't give input, he agreed that arms and getting off the wall were pretty important. The room became quiet as everyone listened to what the robot had to say. He laughed at it's first set of directions. "It seems like this robot likes to take the same path as me to get off of the wall." He listened more seriously again as it continued with it's directions.

He waited until the robot was finished before he spoke again. BOOM Changing his attention to the building itself, he tried to figure out what had just happened. BOOM He quickly realized that the speed and similarity of the impacts probably meant the wall itself was being attacked, but what could be that big to shake the wall. He tried to figure out a good plan of action considering the situation's pros and cons. "I think we should get going down now. The armory in the North wall could take to long and the grit could flood the wall before we know it. Going back up for additional arms would probably take to long as well. I don't know how quickly we can adorn the implants, but if they don't require surgery, we should use them. Also we should stop at the emergency armory. That one is on the way and we can quickly get weapons then. I can even jump down the center of the flights and scout ahead. I'm not one for arguing what we do, but I don't really want to fight my way out and I do want to act."

"Perhaps we should ask it a different question? The thing could just say go out the door and hit the trolley." He turned his attention to the robot. "Do the stairs go all the way down to the ground? Also, tell us of any armories along the way down if any and any that are near the base of the Wall itself."

Kat let Vincent pose his more accurate question at the robot, whilst biting the inside of her lip in annoyance at herself. He’s right; I’m just being too impatient. She didn’t typically have to talk to the robots after she’d messed around with them, except for a quick diagnostic check.

Still, she was mildly pleased with how she’d bypassed the overrides on this one, so she decided not to be too harsh on herself, and smiled back at the pipe-smoking gentleman who had complimented her on her handiwork.

The robot came out with its description of where they were and a variety of options for where they could be going (including an unhelpful base-jumping option, which to be fair was the best answer to her original question). There was one thing which stood out in Kat’s mind.

Why on earth did it feel the need to bring up something called ‘Project Willow’..? Did it do it because I asked for weapons? Is it a weapon?

Pushing down her curiosity (there were likely many things about Periphery she didn’t know, and now was not the best time to try and figure them all out), Kat focused on the situation.



That shaking… They’re attacking the bottom of the wall! Are they trying to let through the Grit that can’t climb?

"I think we should get going down now. The armory in the North wall could take to long and the grit could flood the wall before we know it. Going back up for additional arms would probably take to long as well. I don't know how quickly we can adorn the implants, but if they don't require surgery, we should use them. Also we should stop at the emergency armory. That one is on the way and we can quickly get weapons then. I can even jump down the center of the flights and scout ahead. I'm not one for arguing what we do, but I don't really want to fight my way out and I do want to act."

Pausing only for a moment, Kat looked the man who had spoken firmly in the eyes and nodded.

“Sounds as good a plan as any. I can’t imagine base jumping into a horde of Grit, or waiting here for them to come find us will work better.”

Then we just need weapons… If the surgery room has battle-ready implants, at least some of them won’t require any complex surgery. The ones that do will take too long for me to implant.

“Liam! Grab any implants that looks easy to use and let’s head out! ” Kat called, then paused for a moment. “Anbaric is a good brand, if you can see any!" Decent shoulder tendril and forearm ballistic implants, and their subdermal electromagnetic skin-strips pack a punch. Assuming the Grit can be electrocuted, that is.

Kat looked around the room for anything she could pick up before they headed out. Given that the surgery supplies had already been raided, and Liam was hopefully picking up some bionic implants, there wasn’t really any reason to stick around in this room. But something was still niggling her at the back of her mind.

Turning to Vincent, she started to say something, stopped, then shook her head and looked at him frankly.

“Do you think there’s any way we can ask a question to find out more on that ‘Project Willow’? If not, I can just extract the bot’s central data storage unit and analyse it later.”

She felt a little guilty for caring about this when her siblings could be in danger, which probably showed on her face- working on the bot had calmed her, but things still felt unreal. Yet given all that was going on Kat couldn't help but feel they needed all the information they could get… Especially if some huge weapon had gone missing. We need to hurry. But like earlier, I shouldn't let my impatience get in the way of the information we might need.

Maria had been standing nearby, rather shocked. She hadn't really been thinking earlier in the trolley, and was now gradually taking in the events of the past few minutes. It looked like some of the survivors were questioning a robot about returning to the surface, while another duo went to loot the place they had holed up in, which looked like a sort of hospital for the wall-workers. Maria had mostly sat silently against the wall near the door while all this was going on, idly wondering how they were going to get out of this.



Maria gave a short, high-pitched scream and leapt up from the wall, scrambling towards the other side of the room. After she realized that the boom was coming from far below them, rather than right behind her, she calmed down - though she still jumped a bit when the second one sounded. The pair who were interrogating the robot seemed to have hit on some sort of plan, and it seemed like they would be leaving soon. The woman's face, which was facing the robot, and by extension Maria, seemed drawn and worried. Maria promptly began digging around in her jacket pockets. Hmm... Butterscotch? No. Caramel? ...Maybe. Oh, a rum ball! She does seem like the kind of person who'd enjoy a bit of alcohol. Holding the rum ball, Maria walked over and tapped Kat on the shoulder. "Excuse me, miss? I noticed that you looked a bit worried, so I got this for you. It's a rum ball. I've always thought that candy helps people relax a bit, so I wanted to give you some." Maria paused, looking a bit worried herself. "...If you don't mind me asking, what are you so worried about?"