jasbraq
Noctis
FernStone
NoriWasHere
YummyYummy
Mixtape Ghost N
ctrlsaltdel
Suicharte
Carlyle
The Songbird
Abyssal Forge Chapter 4 Part 1
Event: Abyssal Forge | Location: The Heart of the Beast
One day on the road, you might hear a tune.
A melody the wind sweeps and carries away.
Up high in the tree, the songbird with beautiful plume.
Singin’ her song, all through the day.
But the world is not kind to the songbird who shines.
For the bird who is singin’, to the nest they ain’t bringin’.
To the tune comes the beasts who sharpen their claws.
And the bird who ain’t ready is bound for their maws.
The song is so precious and must be held safe.
Keep her from here, keep her from there, shut out the war.
It's all built with care, the walls made of gold and her bed made of silk.
A kind gilded cage where she worries no more.
But now it's so quiet, no singin’ not a croon.
Because no matter how shiny, the bars kill her tune.
So what do I say…
Let her go, let her fly, let that songbird touch the sky.
Who knows where shes goin, or where she will rest.
You may have to worry, you may want to stress.
But the mystery there makes life all the best.
You gave her her freedom, you gave back her song.
And if you be ever so lucky, she might tag along.
A melody the wind sweeps and carries away.
Up high in the tree, the songbird with beautiful plume.
Singin’ her song, all through the day.
But the world is not kind to the songbird who shines.
For the bird who is singin’, to the nest they ain’t bringin’.
To the tune comes the beasts who sharpen their claws.
And the bird who ain’t ready is bound for their maws.
The song is so precious and must be held safe.
Keep her from here, keep her from there, shut out the war.
It's all built with care, the walls made of gold and her bed made of silk.
A kind gilded cage where she worries no more.
But now it's so quiet, no singin’ not a croon.
Because no matter how shiny, the bars kill her tune.
So what do I say…
Let her go, let her fly, let that songbird touch the sky.
Who knows where shes goin, or where she will rest.
You may have to worry, you may want to stress.
But the mystery there makes life all the best.
You gave her her freedom, you gave back her song.
And if you be ever so lucky, she might tag along.
- The Songbird, an uncovered song from 'The Later Works of Leon Solaire'
The Operators
Leon had been uncharacteristically silent on the elevator ride down. He leaned back on the copper handrails at the back and looked at the doors ahead. Looks toward the others were rare, passing glances. This was far from the person they had seen in the fountain square before the fog.
He wandered to the door by the desk and looked inside. The door did not budge. What it did have, however, was a button right next to it. Should it be pressed, it'd merely light up, and gears would begin to turn inside. Something was ascending towards the door, much like the elevator they had just taken. In the meantime he investigated the desk next to it.
The desk itself was alabaster white much like the walls, though it wasn't integrated into the foundation, just like the chairs. There was nothing on it. Three drawers could be searched, one with blank papers, one with a stapler and paper clips, and one completely empty.
Except, the last one seemed just a little shorter than the other, or rather the marble back end was much thicker. Upon experimenting with touching and the gift, he'd find a little compartment containing something made of metal. It was a small key, the key wards and post fashioned in the style of a fish's tail.
The Rettanese thought Seviin's choice of door an odd one, seeing as it was clearly designed for cargo, not to be used by people. As such, she tried the door next to it, expecting to find herself in the same room without having to wait for the door to roll up, but she instead found herself faced with a square flight of stairs leading down. They were brightly lit and fit the same architecture of the waiting room, making them a bit more inviting than the warehouse, but only just. They were descending, after all, and descending brought her closer to that *thing.* Her hesitation was just long enough to hear Seviin say that they should stay in pairs.
Xiuyang peeked around the corner into the warehouse, her face an unreadable sheet of white. "Right," she agreed easily enough, as she stepped into view, taking a few hesitant steps. The line between the waiting room and the warehouse felt like a natural divider, and the relatively much greater distance Seviin had put between them compared to Leon made the proposition of switching these imaginary parties awkward. Was now really the time to worry about being polite? Seviin was still on edge about something, the air between them charged, if not tense, exactly...
No, she decided. Each party should have a binder. There was no need to make it any more complex than that with unnecessary thoughts. "Be safe, Suunei." She made the sign of Oraff and excused herself before Yvain would start his joyride.
Turning to Leon, her eyes locked onto the object in his hand, the fruits of his search. "Strange key," she observed, somewhat blankly. It was hard not to notice that neither of them was as chipper as their perceived "normal." She was always meeting famous people at her lowest, it seemed. How... awkward.
This sucks, she thought with a short sigh, easily missed. "If we want to find that magic dampener thing, the smart money's on the locked door, I think... we should find that first."
The performer was seemingly snapped out of a daze when Xiuyang brought attention to the key. Whatever theatre played out in his mind had its curtains drawn as his attention was brought to the forefront. He inspected the key's piscine ornamentation.
"Strange key, hmm? It is certainly fishy." With a chuckle, he held it up near his head a gave them a jingle. Xiuyang could tell a plastic smile when she saw one, the sudden shift in mood was unconvincing given his earlier behaviour. But at least the attempt seemed earnest enough. Xiuyang snorted in appreciation, his remark coaxing out a smile that, really, still looked like a frown.
Then his eyes surveyed the elevator. It seemed slow. He had intended to wait it out but it didn't seem to be going anywhere and there was plenty to explore.
"I have a feeling the door we seek is down those stairs. Maybe you would like to join me?" He spoke in a friendly manner with a familiarity that didn't befit how little the two knew of each other. Perhaps that settled the awkward air between them, he didn't look to show the toll the fog had placed on him and seemed to look passed the toll it had on her. Maybe that only made things more awkward.
Xiuyang looked back. Yvain was riding a metal mammoth in circles, and staying in the vicinity of it was not very appealing. Eventually, he seemed to get a hold of what he wanted, but it was emitting a rhythmic, high-pitched screech that put her equally on edge.
Ding
A few minutes ago, Leon had inadvertently summoned an elevator, and now it had arrived. Why it took so long was something they would find out sooner or later, but for now, the bowels of the much smaller means of transport than the previous one they had taken remained open until ordered otherwise or recalled. From a first glance, there wasn't anything flagrant about it: A mirror, metal bars for support, and more instructional glyphs they couldn't read. The keypad remained out of sight for now.
Did simply having the key in their possession cause it to open, somehow? Xiuyang pondered. Anything seemed possible. "I'm more curious about the route that warrants a lock, even if it does go to the same place."
"I agree. Seems it's some moving contraption like the last one; not an unpleasant ride. With a small step a pivot to the side, he gave a gentlemanly bow and gestured inside. "After you."
Calm, composed, the new Leon looked like he had it all planned out as he aimlessly pressed buttons on the inside of the elevator with the hopes of sending it down.
There was no response from the loudspeaker just yet. More music, the same jazzy loop for those who patiently waited on one of the seats.
The elevator's interior wasn't particularly unique, and the only new thing they'd come to discover was the keypad inside, by the door. There were eight locks, all with numerical glyphs that resembled Rettanese for the first three numbers and then deviated into unknown territories, though perhaps this would be an easy means to learn basic numbers.
Clicking said locks did nothing, obviously, which contrasted with the other switches so far. They also came in different shapes.
Their discussion was interrupted by a series of voices in different languages by Seviin, one of which Xiuyang managed to catch. "They're using some kind of tool to translate, but I don't think they have a handle on it. They said it changed again. Oi, maybe stop touching it?" she barked back in Rettanese, hoping in vain to reach them.
When she returned her attention to the elevator, she saw Leon pressing the locks as if they were buttons. "One, two, three... fish," She quipped, deadpan. "I do wonder if it works on any of these, though."
"Ah, yes of course, I knew that." He very apparently did not. Instead of pushing the locks, now he tested the key on each until one worked.
The right one so happened to be the fifth one. Who could've seen that coming?
Ding
The door began to close. Slowly. The two waited patiently, having no idea they lacked a key to return.
The elevator door closed and ...
A little thud. Then a little shake. And then it went down.
Not too slowly. Not too quickly.
Leon was about to start his speech to Xiuyang. Then disaster hit; his nose itched. It was unbecoming of his persona to itch his nose in front of her. He held back on the rails, hoping it would go away. But in the meantime, he let it be silent between the two. He whistled along to the tune.
"Do you trust that Perrenchman?" Xiuyang asked, without warning, as soon as a floor had been put between them and the said Perrenchman.
Leon paused. She was straight to business. The performer preferred to warm up with gossip and small talk. But it wasn't the time or place for that.
"I do." He replied bluntly and leaned back on the rails to look up at the roof. "We fought together against the White Thresher in spite of the flags we were born under... But you're well aware the Forge has a greater draw than some sea monster, aren't you? You think I should be worried?"
"I don't know. I haven't spoken a word to the man. I'd like to believe that you're right, but this is a soon-to-be war, not a school trip." While Leon gazed at the ceiling, Xiuyang inspected the floor. "We should be disabling the magic dampener and meeting our mysterious, faceless associate soon, if we can trust what he says. The more cards get put on the table, the messier the game gets. I just want to know where you stand before then. The Perrench at school aren't exactly lining up to offer olive branches to me."
"I can see your anxieties about it, I worry about the draw this Forge will have on our companions. But he is a good friend in spite of everything. Let me handle Yvain."
He was looking back at her at this point. "I've been meaning to ask: what brought you to this hell vacation? Or would 'who' be more appropriate?"
Xiuyang was silent for a moment. The urge to blame someone else circled about like a hungry thresher, never quite settling on a name. How much did Ciro know? How much did the Doge know? Was the voice in the box higher even than him on the pecking order? "I went in place of someone else, to protect them. I thought I was stronger and would stand a better chance. I was not," she decided.
Leon shifted his attention away from her. He wasn't studying her body language intensively, but there was a curiosity in trying to understand someone he had far too little contact with for who she was. "I gathered you didn't come on a matter of your own desire. Was this a labour of love?"
"Does it matter?" Xiuyang sighed, slightly irritable. "If it matters, I'd rather not hear a song written about it until I know how it ends." Irritable became grumpy, and a pale facade gave way to slightly colored cheeks.
He took notice of the girl losing her cool exterior. "Of course it matters Xiuyang, it drove you to this place against your own interest. I'm happy to know it's love over coin. But I'll save you the ballad until you're old and grey if you want." He finished with a jesting grin.
Then it was back to business. "What do they want with the Forge?"
"I don't know, but it isn't hard to imagine," she replied speculatively, glancing up to meet his eyes. "I hope you'd tell me if you knew more."
"No, it isn't hard to imagine." Leon maintained eye contact. "And you should go back and tell them the Forge was destroyed a long time ago." The proposition was firm, and he only broke eye contact when it was concluded.
"Bring them back a resident as a souvenir," he joked.
"A resident? You mean a cadaver?" Xiuyang raised an eyebrow. "If you're proposing we fail the mission, then how do you propose we get out alive?" There was also the matter of standing a chance against Perrence, but to assume Leon had any interest in solving that problem might be a step too far, too fast.
"A walking cadaver. It would certainly make a statement at parties." He answered dully. "Let's keep it away from the warring world. I don't think anywhere on Sipenta deserves to be turned into a replica of this place, friend or foe."
"But I'm not proposing we fail. There is power in that Forge, I'm sure of it. How about instead of handing assets off to Ciro, you become that asset instead."
A bit more color and emotion returned to her face. How easily Leon understood her real reason for being here. Perhaps it was just a lucky guess, but he did. It created complicated feelings inside her. How she spent much of her life yearning to be understood, but at the same time, feeling so understood made her feel like she was being manipulated, and it was hard for her to separate the two.
"Give the Doge a sample of this biological freakshow? I think I'll pass," Xiuyang quipped back. "But if it helps me protect the people I love, I'll take a power boost, and let tomorrow-Xiuyang worry about the whole 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' problem." Her frown became a half-smile. "You know, in ReTan, it's not good to stick out, but I don't think I care much about that."
The truth was he had no idea what Xiuyang or Revidia was planning. He simply expressed what he wanted to happen and acted as though he had some clue. Leon didn't hide the fact that he was weighing her measure, who she was, what she valued, if his proposal had really gone over that easily. She wasn't just a puppet of the Doge; it was a settling thought.
But he didn't press any further. He simply leaned back again, broke eye contact, and relaxed. "Unless you're one of the Twin Emperor's of course. Maybe you should start thinking of yourself on their level after this." He grinned at her, his tone was only half-joking.
"I don't want to live forever," she chided, with a half-serious tone that mirrored his. As if in response to her comment, the elevator stopped, having reached its destination. "Or force anyone to marry me," she added with a playful huff, as if she knew that he wished to know how she felt about them, too.
As the elevator stopped, Leon joined her by the doors. "Well if you change your mind and need to do some Ciro-wrangling, I'll help." He returned a playful wink as the doors opened.
"They say the hells hath no fury like a woman scorned, but I guess I wouldn't know." The playful drunk was starting to come back out again.
He only chuckled in response to her joke. A terrifying flurry of pots and pans from a second-story window in rural Eskand came to mind.
He wandered to the door by the desk and looked inside. The door did not budge. What it did have, however, was a button right next to it. Should it be pressed, it'd merely light up, and gears would begin to turn inside. Something was ascending towards the door, much like the elevator they had just taken. In the meantime he investigated the desk next to it.
The desk itself was alabaster white much like the walls, though it wasn't integrated into the foundation, just like the chairs. There was nothing on it. Three drawers could be searched, one with blank papers, one with a stapler and paper clips, and one completely empty.
Except, the last one seemed just a little shorter than the other, or rather the marble back end was much thicker. Upon experimenting with touching and the gift, he'd find a little compartment containing something made of metal. It was a small key, the key wards and post fashioned in the style of a fish's tail.
The Rettanese thought Seviin's choice of door an odd one, seeing as it was clearly designed for cargo, not to be used by people. As such, she tried the door next to it, expecting to find herself in the same room without having to wait for the door to roll up, but she instead found herself faced with a square flight of stairs leading down. They were brightly lit and fit the same architecture of the waiting room, making them a bit more inviting than the warehouse, but only just. They were descending, after all, and descending brought her closer to that *thing.* Her hesitation was just long enough to hear Seviin say that they should stay in pairs.
Xiuyang peeked around the corner into the warehouse, her face an unreadable sheet of white. "Right," she agreed easily enough, as she stepped into view, taking a few hesitant steps. The line between the waiting room and the warehouse felt like a natural divider, and the relatively much greater distance Seviin had put between them compared to Leon made the proposition of switching these imaginary parties awkward. Was now really the time to worry about being polite? Seviin was still on edge about something, the air between them charged, if not tense, exactly...
No, she decided. Each party should have a binder. There was no need to make it any more complex than that with unnecessary thoughts. "Be safe, Suunei." She made the sign of Oraff and excused herself before Yvain would start his joyride.
Turning to Leon, her eyes locked onto the object in his hand, the fruits of his search. "Strange key," she observed, somewhat blankly. It was hard not to notice that neither of them was as chipper as their perceived "normal." She was always meeting famous people at her lowest, it seemed. How... awkward.
This sucks, she thought with a short sigh, easily missed. "If we want to find that magic dampener thing, the smart money's on the locked door, I think... we should find that first."
The performer was seemingly snapped out of a daze when Xiuyang brought attention to the key. Whatever theatre played out in his mind had its curtains drawn as his attention was brought to the forefront. He inspected the key's piscine ornamentation.
"Strange key, hmm? It is certainly fishy." With a chuckle, he held it up near his head a gave them a jingle. Xiuyang could tell a plastic smile when she saw one, the sudden shift in mood was unconvincing given his earlier behaviour. But at least the attempt seemed earnest enough. Xiuyang snorted in appreciation, his remark coaxing out a smile that, really, still looked like a frown.
Then his eyes surveyed the elevator. It seemed slow. He had intended to wait it out but it didn't seem to be going anywhere and there was plenty to explore.
"I have a feeling the door we seek is down those stairs. Maybe you would like to join me?" He spoke in a friendly manner with a familiarity that didn't befit how little the two knew of each other. Perhaps that settled the awkward air between them, he didn't look to show the toll the fog had placed on him and seemed to look passed the toll it had on her. Maybe that only made things more awkward.
Xiuyang looked back. Yvain was riding a metal mammoth in circles, and staying in the vicinity of it was not very appealing. Eventually, he seemed to get a hold of what he wanted, but it was emitting a rhythmic, high-pitched screech that put her equally on edge.
Ding
A few minutes ago, Leon had inadvertently summoned an elevator, and now it had arrived. Why it took so long was something they would find out sooner or later, but for now, the bowels of the much smaller means of transport than the previous one they had taken remained open until ordered otherwise or recalled. From a first glance, there wasn't anything flagrant about it: A mirror, metal bars for support, and more instructional glyphs they couldn't read. The keypad remained out of sight for now.
Did simply having the key in their possession cause it to open, somehow? Xiuyang pondered. Anything seemed possible. "I'm more curious about the route that warrants a lock, even if it does go to the same place."
"I agree. Seems it's some moving contraption like the last one; not an unpleasant ride. With a small step a pivot to the side, he gave a gentlemanly bow and gestured inside. "After you."
Calm, composed, the new Leon looked like he had it all planned out as he aimlessly pressed buttons on the inside of the elevator with the hopes of sending it down.
There was no response from the loudspeaker just yet. More music, the same jazzy loop for those who patiently waited on one of the seats.
The elevator's interior wasn't particularly unique, and the only new thing they'd come to discover was the keypad inside, by the door. There were eight locks, all with numerical glyphs that resembled Rettanese for the first three numbers and then deviated into unknown territories, though perhaps this would be an easy means to learn basic numbers.
Clicking said locks did nothing, obviously, which contrasted with the other switches so far. They also came in different shapes.
Their discussion was interrupted by a series of voices in different languages by Seviin, one of which Xiuyang managed to catch. "They're using some kind of tool to translate, but I don't think they have a handle on it. They said it changed again. Oi, maybe stop touching it?" she barked back in Rettanese, hoping in vain to reach them.
When she returned her attention to the elevator, she saw Leon pressing the locks as if they were buttons. "One, two, three... fish," She quipped, deadpan. "I do wonder if it works on any of these, though."
"Ah, yes of course, I knew that." He very apparently did not. Instead of pushing the locks, now he tested the key on each until one worked.
The right one so happened to be the fifth one. Who could've seen that coming?
Ding
The door began to close. Slowly. The two waited patiently, having no idea they lacked a key to return.
The elevator door closed and ...
A little thud. Then a little shake. And then it went down.
Not too slowly. Not too quickly.
Leon was about to start his speech to Xiuyang. Then disaster hit; his nose itched. It was unbecoming of his persona to itch his nose in front of her. He held back on the rails, hoping it would go away. But in the meantime, he let it be silent between the two. He whistled along to the tune.
"Do you trust that Perrenchman?" Xiuyang asked, without warning, as soon as a floor had been put between them and the said Perrenchman.
Leon paused. She was straight to business. The performer preferred to warm up with gossip and small talk. But it wasn't the time or place for that.
"I do." He replied bluntly and leaned back on the rails to look up at the roof. "We fought together against the White Thresher in spite of the flags we were born under... But you're well aware the Forge has a greater draw than some sea monster, aren't you? You think I should be worried?"
"I don't know. I haven't spoken a word to the man. I'd like to believe that you're right, but this is a soon-to-be war, not a school trip." While Leon gazed at the ceiling, Xiuyang inspected the floor. "We should be disabling the magic dampener and meeting our mysterious, faceless associate soon, if we can trust what he says. The more cards get put on the table, the messier the game gets. I just want to know where you stand before then. The Perrench at school aren't exactly lining up to offer olive branches to me."
"I can see your anxieties about it, I worry about the draw this Forge will have on our companions. But he is a good friend in spite of everything. Let me handle Yvain."
He was looking back at her at this point. "I've been meaning to ask: what brought you to this hell vacation? Or would 'who' be more appropriate?"
Xiuyang was silent for a moment. The urge to blame someone else circled about like a hungry thresher, never quite settling on a name. How much did Ciro know? How much did the Doge know? Was the voice in the box higher even than him on the pecking order? "I went in place of someone else, to protect them. I thought I was stronger and would stand a better chance. I was not," she decided.
Leon shifted his attention away from her. He wasn't studying her body language intensively, but there was a curiosity in trying to understand someone he had far too little contact with for who she was. "I gathered you didn't come on a matter of your own desire. Was this a labour of love?"
"Does it matter?" Xiuyang sighed, slightly irritable. "If it matters, I'd rather not hear a song written about it until I know how it ends." Irritable became grumpy, and a pale facade gave way to slightly colored cheeks.
He took notice of the girl losing her cool exterior. "Of course it matters Xiuyang, it drove you to this place against your own interest. I'm happy to know it's love over coin. But I'll save you the ballad until you're old and grey if you want." He finished with a jesting grin.
Then it was back to business. "What do they want with the Forge?"
"I don't know, but it isn't hard to imagine," she replied speculatively, glancing up to meet his eyes. "I hope you'd tell me if you knew more."
"No, it isn't hard to imagine." Leon maintained eye contact. "And you should go back and tell them the Forge was destroyed a long time ago." The proposition was firm, and he only broke eye contact when it was concluded.
"Bring them back a resident as a souvenir," he joked.
"A resident? You mean a cadaver?" Xiuyang raised an eyebrow. "If you're proposing we fail the mission, then how do you propose we get out alive?" There was also the matter of standing a chance against Perrence, but to assume Leon had any interest in solving that problem might be a step too far, too fast.
"A walking cadaver. It would certainly make a statement at parties." He answered dully. "Let's keep it away from the warring world. I don't think anywhere on Sipenta deserves to be turned into a replica of this place, friend or foe."
"But I'm not proposing we fail. There is power in that Forge, I'm sure of it. How about instead of handing assets off to Ciro, you become that asset instead."
A bit more color and emotion returned to her face. How easily Leon understood her real reason for being here. Perhaps it was just a lucky guess, but he did. It created complicated feelings inside her. How she spent much of her life yearning to be understood, but at the same time, feeling so understood made her feel like she was being manipulated, and it was hard for her to separate the two.
"Give the Doge a sample of this biological freakshow? I think I'll pass," Xiuyang quipped back. "But if it helps me protect the people I love, I'll take a power boost, and let tomorrow-Xiuyang worry about the whole 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' problem." Her frown became a half-smile. "You know, in ReTan, it's not good to stick out, but I don't think I care much about that."
The truth was he had no idea what Xiuyang or Revidia was planning. He simply expressed what he wanted to happen and acted as though he had some clue. Leon didn't hide the fact that he was weighing her measure, who she was, what she valued, if his proposal had really gone over that easily. She wasn't just a puppet of the Doge; it was a settling thought.
But he didn't press any further. He simply leaned back again, broke eye contact, and relaxed. "Unless you're one of the Twin Emperor's of course. Maybe you should start thinking of yourself on their level after this." He grinned at her, his tone was only half-joking.
"I don't want to live forever," she chided, with a half-serious tone that mirrored his. As if in response to her comment, the elevator stopped, having reached its destination. "Or force anyone to marry me," she added with a playful huff, as if she knew that he wished to know how she felt about them, too.
As the elevator stopped, Leon joined her by the doors. "Well if you change your mind and need to do some Ciro-wrangling, I'll help." He returned a playful wink as the doors opened.
"They say the hells hath no fury like a woman scorned, but I guess I wouldn't know." The playful drunk was starting to come back out again.
He only chuckled in response to her joke. A terrifying flurry of pots and pans from a second-story window in rural Eskand came to mind.
Ding
They had arrived at B4. For a few seconds, nothing was happening. Then there was another Ding and the doors slowly opened like a curtain unveiling a long-awaited scene.
A hallway. Just a normal, white-walled with grey tiles on the floor and more of their low buzz on the ceiling lighting. With their limited range, they couldn't really sense anything out of the ordinary.
She exited the elevator first, the muzzle of the shotgun she found earlier slung over her shoulder. "This buzzing is giving me a headache."
The buzzing droned on. The tiles felt like any other tile, and the hallways spanned a good sixty meters on each side until they branched out in two opposite directions, with directions written in the same glyphs as before. Lined up on the walls was the occasional door with a lock. Although before they could even reach one, the lights instantly shut down along with the buzzing.
In its place, a high-pitched alarm rang ceaselessly. Lights flickered on and off, making their movements appear as though they were in slow motion.
The elevator door had since closed.
"ᛁᚾᛏᚱᚢᛞᛖᚱ ᚨᛚᛖᚱᛏ! ᚨᛚᛚ ᚱᛖᛊᛁᛞᛖᚾᛏᛊ ᚱᛖᛈᛟᚱᛏ ᛏᛟ ᛁᛟᚢᚱ ᛈᛟᛊᛏᛊ!"
Behind them appeared a red specter resembling Xiuyang.
In front of them, about a second after the appearance of the first ghost, was one mirroring Leon.
Both beings swelled with energy, asphyxiating the duo of more than just air.
"ᛁᚾᛏᚱᚢᛞᛖᚱ ᚨᛚᛖᚱᛏ! ᚨᛚᛚ ᚱᛖᛊᛁᛞᛖᚾᛏᛊ ᚱᛖᛈᛟᚱᛏ ᛏᛟ ᛁᛟᚢᚱ ᛈᛟᛊᛏᛊ!"
Without thinking or saying anything, Xiuyang took off running, using every ounce of her available magic to speed herself up and fight the inability to breathe. Why would she make the deadly assumption that a mirror match in this place would be a fifty-fifty? Of course, the ghosts would be superior to them in every way.
She had the right idea, if this wasn't a relatively tight hallway. She was made to collide with the translucent copy of her's that had displaced itself to get in the way. In retaliation for this collision, immense heat accumulated in its body. A familiar killing move.
Leon tilted his head at his own clone. Handsome, but red was decidedly not his colour. Considering they lacked corporeal form and the performer lacked his typical magic, he resorted to the only tool he knew was effective. He played the lyre in the same instrument chords as the fountain district.
He quickly discovered the complete artistic ineptitude of the cheap copy. Where the power of music was sollicited, the might of the laser death beam was conjured by the imagery. Surprisingly similar to the performer's finisher, just as Xiuyang's arcane spells were akin to how her copy was trying to end her.
"Make it quick then, bitch!" Xiuyang screamed at her other, leveling the shotgun with its featureless face.
--
In the background, between announcements via the intercom, there was a lot of bickering between individuals. Yelling came to shoves, shoves came to more yelling with culturally relevant slurs flung about. Eventually, one had the upper hand and raced for a control panel within a room full of them.
On the screen above was the corridor with the spectral executioners about to scorch the entire narrow pathway.
Click, tap, tap. And then a twist of a key.
--
"ᛟᚢᛖᚱᚱᛁᛞᛖ ᛁᚾ ᛈᚱᛟᚷᚱᛖᛊᛊ
Both ghosts froze in place. They did not touch the ground, they didn't even flicker. They just froze, all the energy they had solicited slowly dissipating to nothing.
Unconvinced, Xiuyang turned in every direction, expecting the real opponent to have simply teleported again, leaving a fake behind. It was a good twenty seconds or so before she calmed down.
The lights changed to dim lighting shining from the thin corners between the flooring and the walls.
"See that, Xiuyang?" He remarked, awfully proud of himself. "The power of music. And I was just warming up too."
She only looked at him with tired eyes. "They seem to draw energy from this place. We destroyed some kind of energy hub earlier. Maybe their supply has run dry. We should run before they move again."
But before a decision could be made, one of the doors in the hallway opened. It was swift, just like the four armoured humanoids that spilled out of it. Clad in marine-blue riot gear and gasmasks, though they may as well resemble monsters to Xiuyang and Leon, they pointed their weapons, guns as big as their stocky forms, at the duo.
There was shouting from all of them, muffled by the masks and intelligible to the Constantians. There was a lot of cannon waving and anger. One of them was already beginning to press on the trigger.
The room dimmed, not from darkness—but to better showcase Loeon. His aura made light itself a servant. Another hoard approached but the undead wretches of this place were fools to oppose him when he had the skeleton key to their fate. Further entranced in his tune of divinity, he fell to his knees, busting it down on the melody.
They didn't shoot, but his performance only had them shout even louder.
Xiuyang just stared at him for a moment before playing her only card: the universal language of dropping her weapon on the floor. There was no urgency on her face or in her body language; no fight left. She was simply tired. The mission had ended the only way it was going to.
“Can you hear me?” it was the voice again, but in Avincian. “Wait, that's it, I got it!” cheered the unseen woman. The glee, however, did little to pacify the armed individuals.
“Oh, crud, wait. Darn it. Uhm, you music man, stop that.” she ordered without much authority or conviction in her voice. “Just, get on your tummies and hands behind your heads. I promised them you'd cooperate! So, uhm, pretty please?”
"People?" He blinked a little bit, dumbfounded at the soldiers in front of him. It took him a while to adjust, the flow and energy he had put into his performance had come to a dead stop. He put the lyre away but stayed on his knees instead of fully obeying the orders. "I don't think there's any need for that. We can talk now. How about we do that instead?"
"What else did you promise on our behalf?" Xiuyang replied—however, she did as she was instructed. "What is there to talk about? They get what they want or we die."
The enforcers approached, not shouting nearly as much except for the one that got very close to Leon. The barrel of the heavy gun pressed against his temple while a butch but feminine voice ordered him around.
“That you would also accept being interrogated. And imprisoned. Pleaaaaase comply!”
The other three surrounded the duo, less on edge but still pointing their guns.
No more witty retorts. Xiuyang merely waited.
Seeing immediate danger in front of him, Leon finally complied.
Cautiously, the enforcers cuffed the two humans with metal bracelets. Their magic remained, but the bindings were advanced enough to potentially be trouble even if they hadn't been hampered.
“Thank you soooo much! I promise you'll be okay.” an awkward pause. “I hope.”
They were escorted through the door they came from, where a simple and unused office was found. The head of the enforcers operated what would be known as a thermometer, which in turn opened a concealed door to yet another elevator.
--
They were on some unknown floor. It wasn't nearly as bleached or proper; the walls were blue with cracks on the paint and the floors were carpeted with some sort of synthetic green material. Each was brought to different rooms - interrogation rooms, clearly, with the whole setup, although their window wasn't one-way. The chairs were on the low side, as were the tables. There also wasn't any sort of bright light in the middle of a dark room, it was all just buzzing with lights from the ceiling.
After being alone for a moment, each was visited by an enforcer. An odd contraption was pointed their way like it was a gun, but all it did was produce a few beeps before being put away. Whatever it said, it was enough to make the Hegelans comfortable with removing their helmets.
Xiuyang's designated interrogator was the same blonde woman from the poster she hadn't seen, barring the worker's get-up. Or at the very least resembled her.
Leon was graced with the presence of an elderly man with a tripped but thick grey beard and a big, toad-like nose. His hair was about as long as his beard.
Both made away with some of the padding of their gear, revealing ribbon-like threads coiled all over their bodies like a full-body jumpsuit, except for their heads. Almost exactly like the 'living' cadavers they had encountered outside.
Both sat opposite their attributed humans.
“You will be asked questions. Please answer them truthfully. They have their translators up to date.” the woman behind the loudspeaker assured. “I will be checking on your friends.”
The initial questions were:
- Name
- Place of Origin
- Level of Capacity
- How did you get in here?
- Who is in your group?
Xiuyang slowly followed the old hegelan to the elevator. "So... what exactly am I clear from, and why are you taking me to a lab, in chains?" she asked hopelessly.
“From being turned into a prisoner, for now.” answered Orvil as he twisted a key on one of the floors, speaking as if it were a casual conversation. “Like those you saw outside.”
"Ah. That's... good. I think I'd rather die," she replied numbly. He hadn't answered her question, but she didn't press the issue. He wasn't going to.
They had arrived at B4. For a few seconds, nothing was happening. Then there was another Ding and the doors slowly opened like a curtain unveiling a long-awaited scene.
A hallway. Just a normal, white-walled with grey tiles on the floor and more of their low buzz on the ceiling lighting. With their limited range, they couldn't really sense anything out of the ordinary.
She exited the elevator first, the muzzle of the shotgun she found earlier slung over her shoulder. "This buzzing is giving me a headache."
The buzzing droned on. The tiles felt like any other tile, and the hallways spanned a good sixty meters on each side until they branched out in two opposite directions, with directions written in the same glyphs as before. Lined up on the walls was the occasional door with a lock. Although before they could even reach one, the lights instantly shut down along with the buzzing.
In its place, a high-pitched alarm rang ceaselessly. Lights flickered on and off, making their movements appear as though they were in slow motion.
The elevator door had since closed.
"ᛁᚾᛏᚱᚢᛞᛖᚱ ᚨᛚᛖᚱᛏ! ᚨᛚᛚ ᚱᛖᛊᛁᛞᛖᚾᛏᛊ ᚱᛖᛈᛟᚱᛏ ᛏᛟ ᛁᛟᚢᚱ ᛈᛟᛊᛏᛊ!"
Behind them appeared a red specter resembling Xiuyang.
In front of them, about a second after the appearance of the first ghost, was one mirroring Leon.
Both beings swelled with energy, asphyxiating the duo of more than just air.
"ᛁᚾᛏᚱᚢᛞᛖᚱ ᚨᛚᛖᚱᛏ! ᚨᛚᛚ ᚱᛖᛊᛁᛞᛖᚾᛏᛊ ᚱᛖᛈᛟᚱᛏ ᛏᛟ ᛁᛟᚢᚱ ᛈᛟᛊᛏᛊ!"
Without thinking or saying anything, Xiuyang took off running, using every ounce of her available magic to speed herself up and fight the inability to breathe. Why would she make the deadly assumption that a mirror match in this place would be a fifty-fifty? Of course, the ghosts would be superior to them in every way.
She had the right idea, if this wasn't a relatively tight hallway. She was made to collide with the translucent copy of her's that had displaced itself to get in the way. In retaliation for this collision, immense heat accumulated in its body. A familiar killing move.
Leon tilted his head at his own clone. Handsome, but red was decidedly not his colour. Considering they lacked corporeal form and the performer lacked his typical magic, he resorted to the only tool he knew was effective. He played the lyre in the same instrument chords as the fountain district.
He quickly discovered the complete artistic ineptitude of the cheap copy. Where the power of music was sollicited, the might of the laser death beam was conjured by the imagery. Surprisingly similar to the performer's finisher, just as Xiuyang's arcane spells were akin to how her copy was trying to end her.
"Make it quick then, bitch!" Xiuyang screamed at her other, leveling the shotgun with its featureless face.
--
In the background, between announcements via the intercom, there was a lot of bickering between individuals. Yelling came to shoves, shoves came to more yelling with culturally relevant slurs flung about. Eventually, one had the upper hand and raced for a control panel within a room full of them.
On the screen above was the corridor with the spectral executioners about to scorch the entire narrow pathway.
Click, tap, tap. And then a twist of a key.
--
"ᛟᚢᛖᚱᚱᛁᛞᛖ ᛁᚾ ᛈᚱᛟᚷᚱᛖᛊᛊ
Both ghosts froze in place. They did not touch the ground, they didn't even flicker. They just froze, all the energy they had solicited slowly dissipating to nothing.
Unconvinced, Xiuyang turned in every direction, expecting the real opponent to have simply teleported again, leaving a fake behind. It was a good twenty seconds or so before she calmed down.
The lights changed to dim lighting shining from the thin corners between the flooring and the walls.
"See that, Xiuyang?" He remarked, awfully proud of himself. "The power of music. And I was just warming up too."
She only looked at him with tired eyes. "They seem to draw energy from this place. We destroyed some kind of energy hub earlier. Maybe their supply has run dry. We should run before they move again."
But before a decision could be made, one of the doors in the hallway opened. It was swift, just like the four armoured humanoids that spilled out of it. Clad in marine-blue riot gear and gasmasks, though they may as well resemble monsters to Xiuyang and Leon, they pointed their weapons, guns as big as their stocky forms, at the duo.
There was shouting from all of them, muffled by the masks and intelligible to the Constantians. There was a lot of cannon waving and anger. One of them was already beginning to press on the trigger.
The room dimmed, not from darkness—but to better showcase Loeon. His aura made light itself a servant. Another hoard approached but the undead wretches of this place were fools to oppose him when he had the skeleton key to their fate. Further entranced in his tune of divinity, he fell to his knees, busting it down on the melody.
They didn't shoot, but his performance only had them shout even louder.
Xiuyang just stared at him for a moment before playing her only card: the universal language of dropping her weapon on the floor. There was no urgency on her face or in her body language; no fight left. She was simply tired. The mission had ended the only way it was going to.
“Can you hear me?” it was the voice again, but in Avincian. “Wait, that's it, I got it!” cheered the unseen woman. The glee, however, did little to pacify the armed individuals.
“Oh, crud, wait. Darn it. Uhm, you music man, stop that.” she ordered without much authority or conviction in her voice. “Just, get on your tummies and hands behind your heads. I promised them you'd cooperate! So, uhm, pretty please?”
"People?" He blinked a little bit, dumbfounded at the soldiers in front of him. It took him a while to adjust, the flow and energy he had put into his performance had come to a dead stop. He put the lyre away but stayed on his knees instead of fully obeying the orders. "I don't think there's any need for that. We can talk now. How about we do that instead?"
"What else did you promise on our behalf?" Xiuyang replied—however, she did as she was instructed. "What is there to talk about? They get what they want or we die."
The enforcers approached, not shouting nearly as much except for the one that got very close to Leon. The barrel of the heavy gun pressed against his temple while a butch but feminine voice ordered him around.
“That you would also accept being interrogated. And imprisoned. Pleaaaaase comply!”
The other three surrounded the duo, less on edge but still pointing their guns.
No more witty retorts. Xiuyang merely waited.
Seeing immediate danger in front of him, Leon finally complied.
Cautiously, the enforcers cuffed the two humans with metal bracelets. Their magic remained, but the bindings were advanced enough to potentially be trouble even if they hadn't been hampered.
“Thank you soooo much! I promise you'll be okay.” an awkward pause. “I hope.”
They were escorted through the door they came from, where a simple and unused office was found. The head of the enforcers operated what would be known as a thermometer, which in turn opened a concealed door to yet another elevator.
--
They were on some unknown floor. It wasn't nearly as bleached or proper; the walls were blue with cracks on the paint and the floors were carpeted with some sort of synthetic green material. Each was brought to different rooms - interrogation rooms, clearly, with the whole setup, although their window wasn't one-way. The chairs were on the low side, as were the tables. There also wasn't any sort of bright light in the middle of a dark room, it was all just buzzing with lights from the ceiling.
After being alone for a moment, each was visited by an enforcer. An odd contraption was pointed their way like it was a gun, but all it did was produce a few beeps before being put away. Whatever it said, it was enough to make the Hegelans comfortable with removing their helmets.
Xiuyang's designated interrogator was the same blonde woman from the poster she hadn't seen, barring the worker's get-up. Or at the very least resembled her.
Leon was graced with the presence of an elderly man with a tripped but thick grey beard and a big, toad-like nose. His hair was about as long as his beard.
Both made away with some of the padding of their gear, revealing ribbon-like threads coiled all over their bodies like a full-body jumpsuit, except for their heads. Almost exactly like the 'living' cadavers they had encountered outside.
Both sat opposite their attributed humans.
“You will be asked questions. Please answer them truthfully. They have their translators up to date.” the woman behind the loudspeaker assured. “I will be checking on your friends.”
The initial questions were:
- Name
- Place of Origin
- Level of Capacity
- How did you get in here?
- Who is in your group?
As soon as Xiuyang saw the woman wrapped in the familiar bandages, she knew she'd made the right call. Compared to her and Leon, these opponents may as well be immortal, given the circumstances. Given their level of technology and the presence of their own allied, disembodied voice as well, they probably already knew or had easy access to the answers to most of these questions. They were, in Xiuyang's estimation, probing for cooperation and truthfulness first, before asking the truly important questions—and there were no useful lies to be told here.
So, Xiuyang answered honestly. She gave her name and capacity, Revidia as her country of origin, and made sure to mention that she was a student at Ersand'Enise. It was always harder to sweep a death or disappearance under the rug if the school was involved. She recounted the story of how she arrived here as she perceived it: she'd received a mysterious letter which had essentially advertised an opportunity for adventure. She downplayed how suspicious it was, claiming such notices were not unusual at the school, but didn't hide her frustration at how she was essentially kidnapped and forced to cooperate with strangers, under penalty of death. She'd been told to expect opposition from "ghosts," traps and other "devices," but no living, sapient beings.
She told the woman that there were three in her "group," eight total that she knew of, and left open the possibility that there may be more, remarking that she didn't trust the "man in the box" to give her truthful information, either. There was no confidence in her tone or body language, with all signs showing that she had abandoned all hope.
Every piece of information given was recorded into a device integrated in the table. The blonde Hegelan woman merely stared right into Xiuyang's soul, occasionally nodding. Her lips were concealed under her thick yet well-kempt blonde beard, making her expression difficult to determine beyond her half-lidded blue gaze.
“Box?” Rurin repeated without the translator. “What do you mean a box?” This part was translated, taking what she had said in her native tongue and swiftly converting it once she was finished. “What information did this man share? Is the other half of your group still communicating with him?” There was an intensity in her voice - not quite panic but deep concern. “What did the box look like?”
The interrogator then uttered something to the guard posted by the door, hand on the translator device on her collar to silence it.
Xiuyang smiled mirthlessly. Of course the one puppeting them was the only thing that would concern their captors. "Small, with a covered hole... a filter, like cheesecloth," she tried, demonstrating its rough size with her cuffed hands. "He shared very little. Told us barely enough to survive by our fingernails. He said none of the other groups he'd sent before made it as far as we did, but I don't believe him. He said we would see him soon, then went quiet. I don't think he's communicating anymore."
Rurin furrowed her eyebrows. She turned to the guard again and did a writing gesture, prompting him to quickly leave the room for an errand.
“Others have come to Halge Larchelon.” she confirmed. “We ward them off, punish those that persist, but none made it this far.” she leaned in closer, arms crossed over the table. “Why did you accept coming here?”
The guard had returned with a notepad and what looked like a pen. It had a pointed end and did not look quite like those she would use in Ersand'Enise. The material used for it was novel too - plastic! “Draw the box.”
"I knew it would be dangerous, but I thought I could handle it. I was given almost no information." She drew the radio to the best of her ability, but her lack of artistic skills and understanding of what the box was definitely showed. "As I said before, I wasn't informed that there would be opposition from living people. I thought this would be something like an archaeological venture. No one told me it was some puppet master's suicide mission," she growled bitterly.
The enforcer chuckled dryly at the naiveté confessed by Xiuyang. “A lost city that's not truly lost. I would be afraid.” when the sketch was finished, the bearded woman squinted before stepping off her seat. Without an additional word, she left the Revidian alone with only the silent door guard scrolling through some sort of device in his hand.
"I was afraid. Now I'm just... tired," Xiuyang admitted to the female enforcer. It was truer than she realized. In the roughly ten minutes that Xiuyang was left alone, she nodded off.
So, Xiuyang answered honestly. She gave her name and capacity, Revidia as her country of origin, and made sure to mention that she was a student at Ersand'Enise. It was always harder to sweep a death or disappearance under the rug if the school was involved. She recounted the story of how she arrived here as she perceived it: she'd received a mysterious letter which had essentially advertised an opportunity for adventure. She downplayed how suspicious it was, claiming such notices were not unusual at the school, but didn't hide her frustration at how she was essentially kidnapped and forced to cooperate with strangers, under penalty of death. She'd been told to expect opposition from "ghosts," traps and other "devices," but no living, sapient beings.
She told the woman that there were three in her "group," eight total that she knew of, and left open the possibility that there may be more, remarking that she didn't trust the "man in the box" to give her truthful information, either. There was no confidence in her tone or body language, with all signs showing that she had abandoned all hope.
Every piece of information given was recorded into a device integrated in the table. The blonde Hegelan woman merely stared right into Xiuyang's soul, occasionally nodding. Her lips were concealed under her thick yet well-kempt blonde beard, making her expression difficult to determine beyond her half-lidded blue gaze.
“Box?” Rurin repeated without the translator. “What do you mean a box?” This part was translated, taking what she had said in her native tongue and swiftly converting it once she was finished. “What information did this man share? Is the other half of your group still communicating with him?” There was an intensity in her voice - not quite panic but deep concern. “What did the box look like?”
The interrogator then uttered something to the guard posted by the door, hand on the translator device on her collar to silence it.
Xiuyang smiled mirthlessly. Of course the one puppeting them was the only thing that would concern their captors. "Small, with a covered hole... a filter, like cheesecloth," she tried, demonstrating its rough size with her cuffed hands. "He shared very little. Told us barely enough to survive by our fingernails. He said none of the other groups he'd sent before made it as far as we did, but I don't believe him. He said we would see him soon, then went quiet. I don't think he's communicating anymore."
Rurin furrowed her eyebrows. She turned to the guard again and did a writing gesture, prompting him to quickly leave the room for an errand.
“Others have come to Halge Larchelon.” she confirmed. “We ward them off, punish those that persist, but none made it this far.” she leaned in closer, arms crossed over the table. “Why did you accept coming here?”
The guard had returned with a notepad and what looked like a pen. It had a pointed end and did not look quite like those she would use in Ersand'Enise. The material used for it was novel too - plastic! “Draw the box.”
"I knew it would be dangerous, but I thought I could handle it. I was given almost no information." She drew the radio to the best of her ability, but her lack of artistic skills and understanding of what the box was definitely showed. "As I said before, I wasn't informed that there would be opposition from living people. I thought this would be something like an archaeological venture. No one told me it was some puppet master's suicide mission," she growled bitterly.
The enforcer chuckled dryly at the naiveté confessed by Xiuyang. “A lost city that's not truly lost. I would be afraid.” when the sketch was finished, the bearded woman squinted before stepping off her seat. Without an additional word, she left the Revidian alone with only the silent door guard scrolling through some sort of device in his hand.
"I was afraid. Now I'm just... tired," Xiuyang admitted to the female enforcer. It was truer than she realized. In the roughly ten minutes that Xiuyang was left alone, she nodded off.
Leon was cooperative and sat across from the old Hegelan. He tried being friendly at first, but that faded as he met with the geezers' overly professional grump. It didn't take long to move on to the questions.
"Leon Solaire, the Sun King, Champion against Dark magic, the Trave..." He stopped noticing the Hegelan stopped writing at his name.
"I come from nowhere. One day, I simply was."
"Limitless."
His mood dipped at the fourth question. "I was drinking myself into a stupor in rural Meatu. Then I woke up in the remains of this place."
He took some time to consider and remember who was with them. He was no more cheerful than during the fourth. He answered seriously. "Eight I believe. Myself, Xiuyang, Yvain, Yuli, ..., Kaureerah, Juulet, ..., I forget the other two's names, both white hair yasoi though."
With each sly answer from the Revidian turned wanderer, the elderly Hegelan let out a chuckle. Sometimes dry, sometimes of genuine amusement. The 'limitless comment' had him cock his eyebrows in skepticism with a look that reeked of 'You don't look so tough'.
“Where is?” he asked without a translator. He tried again. “Friends, where?” he prodded the bit he could actually use from Leon's testimonies. His next query he conceded to the translator machine. “How did you make it all the way here? You should be dead.”
Leon moved past the first question. He could gather what the hegelan was saying, but he didn't have good answers for him. Instead, he furrowed his brow at the second question. "As I said, I woke up in the wasteland out there somewhere and then wandered around until I found you all. What do you mean I should be dead?"
“Nobody ends up here without wanting something, be it real or chimeras.” the old hegelan known as Orvil remarked, taking none of Leon's evasiveness. “There's a good reason you're the first to make it here on our own in over a thousand years, boy.”
The interrogator was interrupted by the blonde enforcer, beckoning for him to step out with her. Both captured humans were left to marinate in their interrogation rooms for a good ten minutes or so.
Leon didn't make any quips or parting jabs at Orvil on his way out. But his eyes followed him with a focused stare unbecoming of the performer who had spent most of the interrogation joking around.
"Leon Solaire, the Sun King, Champion against Dark magic, the Trave..." He stopped noticing the Hegelan stopped writing at his name.
"I come from nowhere. One day, I simply was."
"Limitless."
His mood dipped at the fourth question. "I was drinking myself into a stupor in rural Meatu. Then I woke up in the remains of this place."
He took some time to consider and remember who was with them. He was no more cheerful than during the fourth. He answered seriously. "Eight I believe. Myself, Xiuyang, Yvain, Yuli, ..., Kaureerah, Juulet, ..., I forget the other two's names, both white hair yasoi though."
With each sly answer from the Revidian turned wanderer, the elderly Hegelan let out a chuckle. Sometimes dry, sometimes of genuine amusement. The 'limitless comment' had him cock his eyebrows in skepticism with a look that reeked of 'You don't look so tough'.
“Where is?” he asked without a translator. He tried again. “Friends, where?” he prodded the bit he could actually use from Leon's testimonies. His next query he conceded to the translator machine. “How did you make it all the way here? You should be dead.”
Leon moved past the first question. He could gather what the hegelan was saying, but he didn't have good answers for him. Instead, he furrowed his brow at the second question. "As I said, I woke up in the wasteland out there somewhere and then wandered around until I found you all. What do you mean I should be dead?"
“Nobody ends up here without wanting something, be it real or chimeras.” the old hegelan known as Orvil remarked, taking none of Leon's evasiveness. “There's a good reason you're the first to make it here on our own in over a thousand years, boy.”
The interrogator was interrupted by the blonde enforcer, beckoning for him to step out with her. Both captured humans were left to marinate in their interrogation rooms for a good ten minutes or so.
Leon didn't make any quips or parting jabs at Orvil on his way out. But his eyes followed him with a focused stare unbecoming of the performer who had spent most of the interrogation joking around.
The blonde demoiselle wasn't taking any shit when she entered the room. “What are you looking for?” She aggressively asked, hands slammed on the table. “What are you trying to do in this facility?!”
When the blonde enforcer came in with anger and slamming fists, he let restrain fall away. "I'm looking for a hope of saving this world! You know damn well what I'm looking for!" There were no jokes, no skipping around the issue, he was direct and met the blonde hegelans energy in turn.
Rurin exhaled figurative steam from her nostrils. “Non-compliant.” she determined. The guard posted at the door opened it for his superior. “One moment.” she disappeared out the door for just a minute before returning with ...
Was that a slug? Some weird, spiny slug thing. With teeth.
“Open your mouth. This will speak the truth for you.” Four steps in a brisk pace were all she needed to close the gap between herself and Leon. The gurgling critter in her hand could smell him and outstretched itself to better scent him.
He recoiled at whatever the creature was; he didn't want it anywhere near him. Though he didn't respond out of fear. "The Abyssal Forge... I'm, we're looking for the Abyssal Forge. The 'power to save the world', I had thought nothing else around here would fit that description."
“WHAT IS YOUR GOAL HERE?!” shouted Rurin, shoving the creature closer to his face. The guard was stepping closer, telegraphing an inevitable restraint of the performer. “Do you even KNOW what is in here?! What it can DO to the world?!”
The creature gurgled some more.
Then, Rurin slipped. Just a little. “What did the man in the box tell you to do?!”
"I've seen the wasteland, I've seen what it can do. But I've seen what people can do outside of this mountain too. A time when men turn to monsters is coming fast." Whatever hostility remained turned to some form of pleading, a desperation. "I think it should remain hidden from the world. But let me pass through it. Let me take what I can from it to save those where I am from as well."
The man in the box was mentioned. A person he had little idea about nor any theories. He was Don Cojones and he had followed along with the instructions. There was little honour between him and that man who kidnapped him though. He answered honestly. "He gave us instructions to reach the Forge. Though he didn't see fit to mention you or instructions what to do once we got here. The first task was to shut down the magic dampener."
Rurin was unimpressed to say the least. Had Leon grown a beard, perhaps she would have been more charitable, but he was categorically not her type. But as she was about to dismiss Leon and perhaps dangle the creature a little more, she flinched. The very last bit shared by the musician had the enforcer toss he critter onto the table, soon revealed to just be some sort of marionette that had remained stiff without a will to control it.
“Goat-cock!” The translator found the closest equivalent to her very regional slur. “Lock it all down. Don't let the others get close to the control room.” She had forgotten to shut off her translator, not that she dwelled on it as Rurin hurriedly scampered out of the room, leaving Leon with the guard once more. And the inert slug-plush thing.
His eyes followed the woman in her brief panic about the magic disruptor. She had heard his desperate plea and returned nothing for it. They would never let him near the Forge. The hegelans kept it on close guard for a reason, likely a virtuous one. But they would still deny him access, and for that, they were the enemy. He needed to do whatever he could to disable the magic disruptor, but now wasn't the time. It was the time for temporary compliance and smiles.
When the blonde enforcer came in with anger and slamming fists, he let restrain fall away. "I'm looking for a hope of saving this world! You know damn well what I'm looking for!" There were no jokes, no skipping around the issue, he was direct and met the blonde hegelans energy in turn.
Rurin exhaled figurative steam from her nostrils. “Non-compliant.” she determined. The guard posted at the door opened it for his superior. “One moment.” she disappeared out the door for just a minute before returning with ...
Was that a slug? Some weird, spiny slug thing. With teeth.
“Open your mouth. This will speak the truth for you.” Four steps in a brisk pace were all she needed to close the gap between herself and Leon. The gurgling critter in her hand could smell him and outstretched itself to better scent him.
He recoiled at whatever the creature was; he didn't want it anywhere near him. Though he didn't respond out of fear. "The Abyssal Forge... I'm, we're looking for the Abyssal Forge. The 'power to save the world', I had thought nothing else around here would fit that description."
“WHAT IS YOUR GOAL HERE?!” shouted Rurin, shoving the creature closer to his face. The guard was stepping closer, telegraphing an inevitable restraint of the performer. “Do you even KNOW what is in here?! What it can DO to the world?!”
The creature gurgled some more.
Then, Rurin slipped. Just a little. “What did the man in the box tell you to do?!”
"I've seen the wasteland, I've seen what it can do. But I've seen what people can do outside of this mountain too. A time when men turn to monsters is coming fast." Whatever hostility remained turned to some form of pleading, a desperation. "I think it should remain hidden from the world. But let me pass through it. Let me take what I can from it to save those where I am from as well."
The man in the box was mentioned. A person he had little idea about nor any theories. He was Don Cojones and he had followed along with the instructions. There was little honour between him and that man who kidnapped him though. He answered honestly. "He gave us instructions to reach the Forge. Though he didn't see fit to mention you or instructions what to do once we got here. The first task was to shut down the magic dampener."
Rurin was unimpressed to say the least. Had Leon grown a beard, perhaps she would have been more charitable, but he was categorically not her type. But as she was about to dismiss Leon and perhaps dangle the creature a little more, she flinched. The very last bit shared by the musician had the enforcer toss he critter onto the table, soon revealed to just be some sort of marionette that had remained stiff without a will to control it.
“Goat-cock!” The translator found the closest equivalent to her very regional slur. “Lock it all down. Don't let the others get close to the control room.” She had forgotten to shut off her translator, not that she dwelled on it as Rurin hurriedly scampered out of the room, leaving Leon with the guard once more. And the inert slug-plush thing.
His eyes followed the woman in her brief panic about the magic disruptor. She had heard his desperate plea and returned nothing for it. They would never let him near the Forge. The hegelans kept it on close guard for a reason, likely a virtuous one. But they would still deny him access, and for that, they were the enemy. He needed to do whatever he could to disable the magic disruptor, but now wasn't the time. It was the time for temporary compliance and smiles.
Orvil, the older Hegelan, stepped into Xiuyang's interrogation room. In his arms was a broken radio, looking exactly like the one she had first encountered. “Is this it?” inquired the man, repeating the question a few times like he was in a hurry. “Are you sure?”
She was startled awake when Orvil arrived, and it took her a few seconds longer than the man's patience for her to remember where her last conversation had left her. "Yes, that's what it looked like. There were several of them all around the city, and underground. What is it?" she asked, curiosity finally gaining the upper hand over fear.
Orvil pursed his lips, hidden under his big moustache. “A radio, but not from here.” he sighed and leaned back into his chair. “Not from your world either. Or sea people. Or other mountain people. Or Tree people.”
The posted guard shuffled uncomfortably.
After rubbing his eyes, Orvil continued. “This is from Missai.” he pointed at the broken device, his gaze now that of a hawk ready to predate. “Who are you really? How did you get through the Director?” There was a deep, buzzing ire in his voice. A man that saw things, a man that was afraid of what this omen could mean.
Xiuyang couldn't know what a radio was, but she got the impression that it was not a point worth lingering on. "I've not lied about who I am, and I... don't know what you mean by a director," she admitted sheepishly. "Was that what caused the hallucinations?" she speculated.
Orvil shook his head. “That is the fog. A defense against intruders, meant to be non-lethal dissuasion.” he explained. The chewing of his cheek was an obvious pacifying gesture, the man was concerned. There was no more mention of this 'Director' however. “Hmmm.” he regarded Xiuyang with an evaluative gaze. She was exhausted and clearly out of her depth. Orvil made a decision.
“You're clear.” he determined. But before he could get on his feet, he paused. “What was the last thing that radio told you to do?”
"To find something called a magic dampener and shut it down," Xiuyang answered plainly. "He didn't tell us where it would be, other than 'inside.' Or what it looked like." She still wasn't hiding her annoyance with the 'man in the box.'
The elder Hegelan straightened his posture and shook his head. As he was about to speak, the loudspeaker cut him off.
“Orvil, bring her and the cleanshaven to the lab. Their stories line up. And I forgot to cut the translator- Goat-cock!”
Orvil chuckled. “Never change, Maiv. In chains?”
“In chains. We've a conflict of interest. I'll explain soon.”
Orvil stood up and gestured for Xiuyang to follow. They would pick up Leon on the way and.
You guessed it.
Another elevator was imminent.
She was startled awake when Orvil arrived, and it took her a few seconds longer than the man's patience for her to remember where her last conversation had left her. "Yes, that's what it looked like. There were several of them all around the city, and underground. What is it?" she asked, curiosity finally gaining the upper hand over fear.
Orvil pursed his lips, hidden under his big moustache. “A radio, but not from here.” he sighed and leaned back into his chair. “Not from your world either. Or sea people. Or other mountain people. Or Tree people.”
The posted guard shuffled uncomfortably.
After rubbing his eyes, Orvil continued. “This is from Missai.” he pointed at the broken device, his gaze now that of a hawk ready to predate. “Who are you really? How did you get through the Director?” There was a deep, buzzing ire in his voice. A man that saw things, a man that was afraid of what this omen could mean.
Xiuyang couldn't know what a radio was, but she got the impression that it was not a point worth lingering on. "I've not lied about who I am, and I... don't know what you mean by a director," she admitted sheepishly. "Was that what caused the hallucinations?" she speculated.
Orvil shook his head. “That is the fog. A defense against intruders, meant to be non-lethal dissuasion.” he explained. The chewing of his cheek was an obvious pacifying gesture, the man was concerned. There was no more mention of this 'Director' however. “Hmmm.” he regarded Xiuyang with an evaluative gaze. She was exhausted and clearly out of her depth. Orvil made a decision.
“You're clear.” he determined. But before he could get on his feet, he paused. “What was the last thing that radio told you to do?”
"To find something called a magic dampener and shut it down," Xiuyang answered plainly. "He didn't tell us where it would be, other than 'inside.' Or what it looked like." She still wasn't hiding her annoyance with the 'man in the box.'
The elder Hegelan straightened his posture and shook his head. As he was about to speak, the loudspeaker cut him off.
“Orvil, bring her and the cleanshaven to the lab. Their stories line up. And I forgot to cut the translator- Goat-cock!”
Orvil chuckled. “Never change, Maiv. In chains?”
“In chains. We've a conflict of interest. I'll explain soon.”
Orvil stood up and gestured for Xiuyang to follow. They would pick up Leon on the way and.
You guessed it.
Another elevator was imminent.
Xiuyang slowly followed the old hegelan to the elevator. "So... what exactly am I clear from, and why are you taking me to a lab, in chains?" she asked hopelessly.
“From being turned into a prisoner, for now.” answered Orvil as he twisted a key on one of the floors, speaking as if it were a casual conversation. “Like those you saw outside.”
"Ah. That's... good. I think I'd rather die," she replied numbly. He hadn't answered her question, but she didn't press the issue. He wasn't going to.
The Infirmary
Both groups were now in elevators, going down. But then they stopped and the doors didn’t open, nor could they sense anything other than a wall behind their doors. After half a minute of nothing, with Orvil keeping quiet during the whole ordeal in the first group, eventually they felt a thud on the ceiling. Something unhooked.
Then they moved, but horizontally. Because there was no window, they could only use their senses to realize that …
They were floating. Hovering toward something they couldn’t see. Yvain and Seviin could guess by the distance they had made that they were likely parallel to the massive, spherical core they had seen deeper in the hole, and now they were about to be perpendicular.
“Arrival imminent. Please hold onto one of the bars.”
A kind warning from Maiv that came a little too late to both parties. They both experienced a very loud thud and the entire box they were sealed into shook violently. Not enough to cause people to propel to the ceiling, but enough to hurt.
Then there was another waiting period, about the same time as before.
“You’ve arrived!” exclaimed Maiv. “Please hurry to the first room on your right. I’ll be there with the Director and her husband.” a message dedicated to Yvain’s group, though Orvil’s was privy to it too.
The doors opened to a hall with multiple four-way intersections and ending at a massive blast door parallel to their elevator. The first on the right held an automatic dual door that opened when approached.
“You made it!” A pudgy and quite short hegelan woman with a shaved neck but very stylized moustache came to greet them. She wore a white blouse with a green jumpsuit under it. “Come, quickly!” chipper yet undeniably a nervous little critter, she was quick to get the job done and escort her guests.
The laboratory was white - walls, ceiling, floor and even the tables. The picture of sanitary. Vats filled with liquids and machinery with flickering lights were abundant. There were hospital beds with modern equipment where Yuliya was guided, as well as any other needing a checkup, and a single, middle-aged-looking Hegelan woman waiting for them.
“Thank you, Maiv. I’ll be taking over from now on.” With a pleasant nod, the helpful yet somewhat skittish younger Hegelan girl backed away and the matriarch regarded the taller humanoids with an evaluative look. “To this day, it was inconceivable that someone could reach the Forge. And yet here you are.” She gestured toward one of the beds big enough to hold even an Ougaraq.
“I am Zuri, Director of what you call the Abyssal Forge. I invite you all to take a moment to recuperate.”
Orvil’s group arrived shortly thereafter, escorted through a longer maze than the first group, but they made it all the same with Zuri introducing herself once more.
As they turned the corner to meet the others, he was recounting some comedic, unusual, but ultimately meaningless tale to Xiuyang. His head turned and he was met with the sight of Yuli unconscious in the bed and Kaureerah recently healed from bad burns and crippling injury. The visions of the fog stabbed back into his mind like a dull knife and the colour in his face drained. His composure was just held thanks to no small amount of effort.
Kaureerah swayed back and forth, these days, not literally, but emotionally. There was, as ever, a desire to care deeply about the world, about her friends, and about herself. She had braved that awful place and fought a monster with only her special magics to call upon. She had rescued Yuliya, whose sanguinaire manas were, even now, coming apart and warring on each other. She had come to this place, after all, perhaps for Leon.
Yet... every victory was either a small or an ephemeral thing. Always, there was some fresh hell, some new monster, some circumstance that was well beyond her capabilities to handle. Maybe that was why she had sung. Maybe it had been to lighten the mood, but there had been nothing tonally appropriate about it. Maybe it was just her way of... dealing with everything. Maybe she sang so that she wouldn't cry, or perhaps she had passed beyond the threshold of caring. Whatever the Gods had planned for her, they would carry out, and Ahn-Dami's promise was iron pyrite at best.
The cuffed performer looked over Kaureerah, he didn't speak a word, his eyes slowly drifted to the floor, was it shame? Guilt? Like the eeaiko's injuries rested solely on his own actions. Then his attention shifted to Seviin, whose manas still seemed to radiate under the effects of the magic dampener. "Are you the one to thank for healing her?"
He was there, and Kaureerah was not sure if she loved him or resented him, but he would not meet her eyes, much less speak to her. He was hurting, beneath his facade, but there was a coldness there too: one that only she or another as close to him might recognize. He was plotting but, first, he addressed Seviin, who inclined her head at Leon's question.
"I serve Mother Oirase," she replied. "I have done all within my power for the both of them and I require no recognition." She furrowed her brows and one could not see the nervous curling and uncurling of her fingers as they were hidden in her long sleeves. Her eyes swept Xiuyang and she was well enough in body if not in spirit. She was handcuffed, and something began to boil inside of the sixteen-year-old. She breathed and returned her attention to Leon. "Are you, too, in need of healing?"
He looked over the priestess and only now recognised how young she was. Too young to have a target on her head. For Oirase, for virtue, or because she could, she had helplessly saved Kaureerah when it may have been against the interest of some hypothetical Tarlonese mission. It was a debt he could only pay back by warning her about the bandaged woman after her life. But it was not to be said in front of everyone. "No, I don't need any healing. You say you don't need recognition, but I will thank you regardless." She thanked Leon in turn.
<Leon. Seviin. Can. Others. Be. Trusted.> Kaureerah had, for some time, known pinch language, thanks to those long afternoons spent with Keearah at the relay station, when she'd been her younger sister's guardian. For a moment, a pang of loss hit her. She had not seen Keearah in over three years. She had not seen any of them, but that was neither here nor there. <Send. Message. Back. If. You. Know. Language.>
He did feel the sensation of the pinch language, furrowed his brow, but didn't show recognition. He had never learned it outside of 'hello', 'thank you, 'goodbye', nor did he recognise the sender of the message.
Instead, he walked toward Kaureerah unsure what he could do. It seems his greatest sin was neglect but he was unsure if dumping attention on her would resolve anything or make it worse. A performer who only knew affection to solve the world's problems was lost to understand the woman in front of him, despite the months they had spent together. What came out was an awkward chuckle and a bashful smile. "We're both still breathing. I'm glad you're well, I'm really happy... I would hug you but..." He rattled the cuffs in front of him.
"Well, eet looks like they finaully did whaut they shoolda done yeers ego," she teased Leon, pulling his hand close and wrapping it up in hers for a moment. She looked at him with large eyes that communicated more than others who didn't know them would understand. Work with me here. I'm up to something, Leon.
"And it looks like you got away with everything." He teased back but he returned her look. One of understanding and one who believed her to be in the same mind. She cared for Yuli just as much as he did and that meant going to great lengths.
Somehow, Xiuyang had managed to make it this far without giving up the one piece of information she most wanted these people not to have: the knowledge that the key to their infiltration was inside their bodies. She didn't want to speculate on the kind of invasive experiments that would surely ensue if they knew of the "seeds." Yet here they were anyway, in a lab, leaving Xiuyang with just one question: did Leon sing? Or, did they somehow just know? Or, did they have fun terrorizing outsiders?
The Director turned out to be a person, which was obvious in hindsight. Was she a tethered whose detection they'd somehow avoided? She gave them a moment to breathe, but it was too soon to consider her an ally. They had no reason to ever let the students return to their old lives with the intel they now had, and every reason to keep them alive just long enough to patch the holes in their defenses, then do gods only knew what afterward. As the superior force, they had no incentive to follow through on their end of any bargain involving their cooperation in the capture of Juulet or the man in the box.
There were no viable cards to play, so for now, Xiuyang simply waited for their captors to dictate terms.
The tyro priestess' white robes and hair had been restored to their usual resplendence during the elevator ride. Now, she might've seemed almost a natural thing in this place were it not for the... hardness of it, and the faint warm glow of her skin, the subtle uncertainty of her darting eyes, and gentle ruffle of her hair and fabrics - in short, her softness. Yet, as her dose of plushtail had worn off, it had become increasingly clear that she stood alone in this place as the sole being with the Gift.
For a moment, she gave her attention to the gosoi as well, but these did not trust them. The others had had their Gift dampened, and she felt that this was an unholy thing. Indeed, most gosoi were unholy creatures who warped and chained and manipulated the Gifts of the Pentad in ways that were arcane and unnatural. Most, but not all, she allowed. These ones were guilty of it, though; she was certain. They were guilty of it and, if they knew that the Goddess had blessed Seviin so that she retained full use of her Gift, they would move to strip it from her. I place myself as a bulwark before those who would do your people harm. I know not fear, for thou art with me, she reminded herself. Wisdoms, 42:40.
As much as Seviin could, she began to very gradually and subtly release the extra energy she carried, as she fidgeted about: just a regular twitchy yasoi, nothing special, nothing plotting: just a bit of kinetic energy. That was when she felt the pinches behind her ear.
A soft wince left the Perrenchman as they made impact with the floor they were destined for. At least there was some form of a warning. What greeted them was a complex that felt even further removed from the world that they had known. It was so sterile, so devoid of life, of the pleasures of art that Ipte would weep upon gazing onto this sight. Yet he followed the given directions, for could he really afford that with his friend in danger?
As they met up with the pleasant voice from before, he would take the opportunity to lay the sanguinaire down onto the gestured bed. Then another hegelan who introduced herself as Zuri became another center of his attention. "Well met, Lady Zuri." He lowered his head to make eye contact with the other.
"Now, if you do not mind me asking. This does not feel like a forge in the way I have been taught in my years." He cleared is throat. "I would also like to know if there is any procedure to help with my friend's condition."
Zuri's warm presence darkened, her expression turning grim. “I'm afraid ...” produced from one of her pockets was a stethoscope, one that was conveniently multi-purpose. “This is a very advanced condition of dampening poisoning.” she shook her head, proceeding to a few physical examinations, from testing eye reactivity to drawing from the gift. “My husband may elu-”
“Zuri, beloved, I never thought you'd ask!” A hegelan man with a thick, black beard suddenly popped out of the automatic back door. He had been waiting for his moment ever since he had been stalking the situation. “Tarvin, Head Forgemaster and husband to our number one Director.” he did, in fact, offer a handshake to every humanoid that wasn't his wife. For those in cuffs, they happened to unlock the moment his hand approached. Zuri facepalmed. “My emerald star, they want to know about their friend.”
Seviin, meanwhile, was ever the gracious guest. She did not allow Yvain to annoy her, and she bowed and introduced herself to these gosoi who mocked the goddess' work as a priestess of Oirase. "I cannot use much of the Gift at present, but I remain a trained binder," she offered. "I am willing and eager to help if you need me."
"Thenk yoo for the rescue end yoor waurm welcaum." It still lingered in her mind's ear. She'd smiled and shook hands and and introduced herself as Neki Kaureerah Wenhan. None had answered her message from earlier. It had been a long shot anyhow.
Tavin wagged his pointer finger. “That's right, that's right!” he shuffled over to Yuliya and conducted his own test, starting with the crude pricking of her shoulder with a large needle. “Is she an assimilator or beast by any chance?” he began, completely casual about it all.
Her eyes flicked to the others. There seemed no point in hiding it now. Perhaps she had even said something during her song without meaning to. "She's a sanguinaire," the eeaiko replied, with equal nonchalance. Still, she did not wholly trust these people, but the voice in the box was all but brazenly using them as cannon fodder. These could hardly be worse.
Tavin furrowed his thick brows. “Is that how they call them now?” he then shrugged. “That makes sense, I think I'll name a next batch something akin to that!” ever jovial, until the reason for his inquiry hit him. There, his expression became grimmer than his wife's. “Errr ...” he sought reassurance from his partner, but she too did not know how to communicate the problem.
“They can't help her.” Maiv broke the ice and quickly shut off her microphone.
Tavin looked away, Zuri exhaled in frustration.
“The dampener, and even the air of the city, poisoned her. There is nothing that can be done.”
Yvain's composure was lost for but a moment as the fishy woman revealed his friend's secret with zero care. Yet the words from the man after shocked him even further. Next batch? What do you even mean, next batch? Were these scourges upon humanity hegelan-made? It couldn't be, it's a disease! Even the mind of a hegelan most vile would not think of something so horrid.
"So she is going to die, no matter what?" He crossed his arms, hand clenching his upper arm to keep himself mostly composed. However the frustration was visible upon his expression. "If there isn't even an attempt at saving her life, then it was nothing but an empty promise."
After shaking hands with Tavin and the cuffs were off, Leon moved past Kaureerah with an affectionate gesture along her waist then sat at Yuli's bedside looking at her condition. He did flinch when the reveal of her sanguinaire identity was let out, but it was muted. Maybe the craziness and hell of this place had become the norm. To learn this secret either didn't have time to register or he had become numb to such twists. He only wanted to see her better.
"You can turn off the disruptor." Leon remarked coldly, his eyes still fixed in worry on his friend. "You say theres nothing that can be done, but you're still poisoning her."
Xiuyang watched the cuffs fall from her hands with some measure of detachment, like the gesture didn't mean anything. For a few seconds she did nothing, as if expecting Tarvin to correct his mistake, then she simply pulled the inferno blanket closer to her body. It also took a moment for her to process that Yuliya was going to die.
But that meant... two of them were going to die, and then these horrible people who saw flesh and blood as nothing more precious than mud and dust would be one clue closer to knowing that there was something useful to be learned by taking her and her friends apart like a child's wooden doll collection. She looked at each of them in turn, her eyes seeking... what, exactly? Even she wasn't sure.
Zuri stared down at both men who protested. “We cannot.” cold, detached and distrusting. She knew where this could lead and for whatever reason, such alternatives could not be tolerated.
Tavin backed up, but still in range of Yuliya. He continued to non-invasively examine her.
“I am sorry. I will not torment you with a speech about the many versus-” she cleared her throat. “When you've likely heard this from warmongers from your home already.”
“She is too merged with the disease to restore ...” mumbled Tavin just loud enough to be heard by the group. “Although, we may buy some time if we keep her cold.”
"Too merged? But isn't she supposed to be able to fight it better than any of us here?" He paused; that was slightly unprofessional on his part. After an exhale, he continued. "Will her body be able to fight it off if we keep her cold? Will you try to find a solution for this?"
To think he'd get lectured about those speeches so far away from his very home. It only caused him to get further frustrated with the situation.
"As for my final question, do you have a way to keep her cold?"
“No.”
“No.”
“I might find a solution in a few years. Maybe.”
“Yes.”
Were Tavin's answers to Yvain as he stared at the young man, wide-eyed.
"Put her in some kind of temporal stasis if it takes years, then!"
Yvain knew these people were beyond his own scope in terms of advancememt. There had to be some way.
"If it helps you may even use my own body to save her."
He had some clue on the adaptibility of his own manas. And if they created these 'batches' surely his very essenve could be useful to this effort, no?
Nobody could see inside of Kaureerah's head, and it was just as well. She shook her head sadly and walked over to stand by Yuliya. "I do naut like this deceesion," she said with a shake of her head, expression inscrutable, "baut I aunderstend it. The needs auf the meny autweigh those auf the few. They cennaut toorn the dempener auff jaust to seve her or thees whole plece coold faull epaurt." She took an unsteady breath and pinched the bridge of her nose, hanging her head in regret.
Leon keep his mouth shut but his mind raced. How much did he trust these people? Was Yuli's condition really so far gone that disabling the magic disruptor wouldn't work? Or did they just want to keep it on and let his friend pay the price? It was yet another reason to disable the disruptor. These hegelans were neither friend nor ally. He sat beside her with a hidden anticipation rising. He wasn't going to let Yuli die; he wasn't going to let these people hold him from the forge.
Seviin found herself standing beside Xiuyang. She rested a hand upon her friend's shoulder and squeezed. "Do you remember what happened in Belleville and how you felt?" she whispered to her shorter friend, mouth barely concealed behind the top of the shorter girl's head. "This is nothing like that."
"A lot of things happened in Belleville," Xiuyang replied quietly. "Which one are you talking about?"
Perhaps they did not know each other well enough, Seviin supposed. Perhaps she had been too oblique. She tried a different approach. "Our hosts," she whispered, "kind of remind me of Dory, actually."
Dorothea—one of very few people that Xiuyang supposed Seviin wouldn't disapprove of her for killing, but also a person that she felt powerless to do anything about. Yes, that about summed it up. What exactly did Seviin expect her to do, here? Of the ever-shrinking list of things she imagined possibly adding to the blank page of solutions in her mind, violence had been dismissed long ago.
While others argued with some sense of urgency, Xiuyang simply took a breath and spoke when it seemed like there was a pause, and nothing was going anywhere. "So, I'm inferring that shutting off the magic dampener could theoretically save her, but it's not an option... so, we can assume that, if 'nothing can be done,' that you have no intention of ever letting us leave, either," Xiuyang interjected, her emotionless words cutting the mood of the room like a scalpel. "What's next, then? Someone said something about a conflict of interest..."
She held her arms around herself in a self-soothing posture, in contrast to her confrontational words.
Some showed resentment, some understanding and one even bargained his own body. Zuri, as a leader, had dealt with crisis before, but hardly ever with outsiders, and even less with such an existential threat.
“Not just this place.” corrected Zuri, predictably more amicable when working with an understanding voice. “The dampener keeps our most insidious enemy at bay, not just outsiders. But also,” Tavin reached for her shoulder, imploring her to think twice before admitting to the next bit. “We will all die, as well as over two-hundred million people on this side of the globe, should we shut it down now.” deadpan, emotions stifled and voice modulated after years of leadership. She had to be sure nothing detracted from the message.
“We cannot let you leave.” the director nodded toward Xiuyang. “Not until we've uncovered the truth regarding your group, and rounded the last two.” she then looked up at one of the hidden cameras. “Get Rurin to gather the enforcers and retrieve the remaining outsiders.”
Meanwhile, Tavin had been taken by a peculiarity in Yuliya's body. Lowering his goggles, he sifted through the different lenses. “Do you people usually eat big, undigestible seeds?” he inquired upon turning towards the others, lenses very much trained toward their stomachs. “I could not sense them either. Very odd.”
"What enemy?" Leon replied almost as soon as it was mentioned, his eyes remained on Yuli. "I can understand the decision, it seems she wouldn't survive it either way then. But what are you holding at bay?"
Kaureerah tilted her head as well. She had faced something monstrous out in that factory and managed to escape and possibly destroy it through luck and the mixing of large amounts of extremely volatile chemicals. Surely, nothing could've survived that explosion. "Is there enauther headless?" she asked, suddenly raising her eyes and becoming intense.
“The last surviving founder of this Forge.” answered Zuri. “We haven't seen him in generations, but he's the one ...” Tavin interrupted his search for seeds to interject. “He knows our technology's limits and has been creeping closer. We had to find new solutions.”
The comment on a 'headless' prompted the couple as well as Maiv in the control room to freeze and stare right at Kaureerah. “Another? Did you mean that big thing without a head?”
“That would be the Director.” said Orvil as he found it appropriate to step in from the other room he had been listening from. “Director Makerty. He sacrificed himself to stop our enemy.”
“What did you mean by another?” asked Zuri, riddled with concern. “There's only one. And he's only kept at bay because of the dampener.”
“And now he is as big of a problem as the founder. A short term remedy becoming a long term curse.” Orvil sighed, seating himself in a corner to not be too intrusive.
Kaureerah blinked. "Deed he naut die een thet hooge explosion?" Her eyes darted about. "Sorely, yoo aull felt it."
“That was a big explosion.” emphasized Tavin to his wife.
The woman shook her head. “It's only gotten stronger since our last encounter with it.”
“Wait.” interjected Maiv. “You said you blew it up. It was pursuing you. You survived ... Director!”
It hit the Forge's leadership figure in that moment. “If it's not dead, it will probably be after the other two. Get in contact with Rurin!” Zuri rushed off in a hurry.
"I... deedn't caunfoorm anything," Kaureerah admitted. "I waus raunneng foor my life." she gestured to Yuli. "end hoors." She shrugged. "Though I cen't eemegine enytheng soorviveng thet."
“Can you imagine something living without a head?” retorted Orvil using the translator.
Kaureerah shrugged helplessly. "Es I sed, I cooldn't caunfoorm." There was a hint of an edge to her voice now. "baut I em aulso only waun mege, who ees naut very straung, who did naut heve use auf her fool Geeft."
Maybe they couldn't defeat the founder. But he had a chance, Juulet had an even greater shot if it got between her and the forge. To save Yuli, to gain passage to the forge, it was a necessary risk.
"We could only pray that a sunrise would bring them to rest. I will side with what is right." He delivered it in a defeated tone as if accepting the hegelan's decision. The phrase about a sunrise would have been meaningless to them, but to the others it said 'I am willing and ready to face whatever comes'.
The current situation the hegelans and others were discussing was beyond his comprehension and thus he only listened. While it annoyed him to no end with how little of the current givings he understood, all he knew was to make sure his friend would be safe. Hearing Leon give up on Yuliya ticked him off. Oh, how he wished to curse him out, even if he knew his conclusion made sense.
Xiuyang's body tensed at the mention of the seeds, and relaxed when the subject was changed. It was subtle, but not impossible to notice, especially for Seviin.
"Is this founder... the man who speaks from inside the radio?" she ventured cautiously.
“Proof say yes.” Orvil said without the translator. “Box. Missai. Old Boss.”
Tavin continued to scan through everyone's bellies. “That would explain the seed. A new tool, no doubt.”
He prodded further. “So these seeds ... Did you willingly take them?”
Xiuyang visibly reacted when it was her turn to be scanned by Tavin's device. She looked to Orvil. "You believed me when I said he was using us as pawns, right?" she pleaded, a hint of hesitation still in her voice.
The forgemaster nodded.
Seviin shrugged. "Then you have your answer."
"We didn't," she confessed to Tavin. "He said we would die without them. I don't know what they do. I don't know what they'll do if you try to remove them. He made it sound like he could use them to do anything he wanted to us if we defied his orders. I just—" she sobbed. "I don't know anything..."
Tavin raised his goggles and caressed his beard. “You are clearly able to use some of your abilities, when the signal should be making it near impossible.” he remarked, now deep diving into his hypothesis. “Then it would be logical that the one who sent you was truthful. The toxic air and the signal are made to have you slowly succumb to it. And yet, here you are.”
Xiuyang always relied in her wits to survive when her RAS wasn't enough. She could see the board moving, but the value of the cards was obscured to her. She didn't know anything and couldn't do anything. Her friends were drawn to violence, the default reaction to the unknowable, but this place had taught her that violence was always useless and always punished. Running away had always been the answer until now, there was nowhere to run to. She had nothing and felt like nothing. Where did her friends get their confidence from? Was she pathetic, broken, useless?
She just didn't know anything.
An alarmed Maiv spoke through the microphone. “Orvil, you're needed in the first floor, now! Forgemaster Tavin, please get to your panic room!” the elderly soldier wasted no time and wore his mask mask helm before rushing out. Tavin, worried, addressed the group.
“S-stay here. Maiv will help. I need to find Zuri.” with that, he rushed off too, leaving the group alone in the laboratory's infirmary room, surrounded by cupboards and closets, although most seemed locked - barely a hard limiter to those with an ounce of the gift.
It was eerie silent, there wasn't even the constant buzzing from the lights like in the other rooms and halls. At least they could sit and lie down semi-comfortably. But Yuliya was there, dying and not 'cold' like they had proposed.
Yvain stared at the scene and walked over the dying sanguinaire. "Least you could do was to help keep her cold before leaving." With what little of his capacity he had, he began to draw the heat from the Vossoriyan, trying to regulate the body's temperature to cool down.
Even if he wasn't the biggest fan of cryomancy, he knew that among the people, or rather from what he has seen from them, was the most adept in the thermal sub-school.
Leon wasted no time once the group was alone in the laboratory. He went to the closed door to sense that there were, in fact, no guards. However, the doors did not open when he got closed, in contrast to their total obedience to every hegelan that passed through. A keypad with ten keys, a waste of time to try guessing the combination.
Yuliya's body got colder, but her internal functions hadly changed. She was an icevein, after all. The process was a bit more complicated than just keeping her cold.
“The Director-” Maiv began. “Our Director, is the granddaughter of the Director outside. He's the real reason we can't just shut it down. If we do, he'll destroy everything.” there was a brief pause. “Please don't try to escape. I know it isn't convenient but we need to confirm he's dead first.”
The eerie silence when Maiv wasn't speaking was deafening to some, but enlightening to others. Kaureerah, in particular, with her fine hearing could pick up on subtler cues.
There was, in real time, a loud commotion happening just outside the spire, where they had entered the Forge from. Still, even an advanced sonic mage would be hard pressed to detect this when subjected to the dampener.
The elevator crashing down and causing a loud explosion at the top floor, however, was enough for her to identify the threat. Something bad was happening, but it was too far to really get a good idea of what.
“I just lost sight in the main lobby. Uhm ...”
Xiuyang slumped onto a nearby bench. She'd all but begged them to find a way to free them from the seeds, but there was no urgency for anything except keeping the magic dampener intact, even if what competed for their attention was the chance to make allies toward that end. "...What are you doing?" Xiuyang inquired of Leon idly. "Surely not thinking of wasting the only ounce of goodwill I've managed to find in this hell?"
In his mind, it was fifty-fifty. On one hand, the Director the hegelans worried about was knocking at the door and causing full alarm. On the other hand, it might be Juulet and the bandage woman with her gun. Of course, he wasn't about to allude to the latter.
"You have your magic disruptor up and the old Director seems to be giving you trouble regardless." He replied back to Maiv, making no effort to hide that he was looking around for a code for the door. "We could help, but we're useless like this. You could disable the disruptor and take a chance on us or you could hope that your own forces are enough... But you just lost sight in the main lobby."
There was a brief moment of nothing.
“You don't understand.” spoke Maiv, sounding slightly exerted and nervous. “If we turn off the dampener, the thousands of people he has eaten and turned to more ... Layers.” Xiuyang in particular could recall the thick layers of fabric around that thing. Fabric full of manas and power, that had recently sucked up the energy from that bizarre terminal. “People, prisoners, even power sources. All in one big body. Imagine, a hundred of you-”
Another interruption, along with another 'goat-cock' curse.
“Imagine that, but without a mind to guide it. It will unleash all of its power in an instant.” She spoke grimly. “It will wipe out the entire city in a flash, as well as the forge. If the core is hit, then the Director's assessment of two-hundred million is ... Conservative. It doesn't consider the poison that will end up in the air.”
"She isn't lying," Xiuyang offered. "It... stripped bodies of their flesh and added them to itself. Juulet and I already fought it. It was functionally invincible."
Leon face turned learning the reality of it. Yes, he had confidence in his own abilities, but not nearly enough to think he could go toe-to-toe with a one-man legion of thousands.
"Then what if we help with the Director issue? Would there be a chance to help her then?" Yvain looked rather serious about his question. "We are not at our strongest but we should be able to be of assistance."
Kaureerah stood there, silent as the others talked. As their captors gave reason after reason as to why they should just stay the course and let Yuliya die and probably just die themselves. She strode over to Seviin and got on her tip-toes and whispered something in the yasoi's ear, since she hadn't responded to pinch messages earlier. She had sensed it. She knew it for truth, and it was their only shot.
Seviin straightened. She swallowed uncomfortably. Her eyes went to the door and the siisoi was right: there was no more room for vacillation. I serve life by destroying a place that warps it, she told herself. "Father Exiran, empower me," she muttered under her breath. Then, louder, she turned to the others.
"My manas are blessed by the goddess," she called out, "and I have full use of them. To sit idly by is to serve death best by dying meekly." She stalked towards the door. "I will not die meekly and I doubt that you wish to either. Whatever may come next between ourselves and our captors, both will die if we do not intervene." She placed her palm upon the heavy door and it exploded outward in a shower of sparks and debris. If she appeared calm and focused, the fact that she nearly jumped out of her skin at the commotion put the lie to it.
"You are weaker than I for the time being, so do not act rashly. Do not force me to waste my strength rescuing you, because I will. I serve life. Stand behind and allow me to be your shield. Act within your abilities and we will decide what comes next." With that, she strode through into the smoke and alarms.
It was a strong leap in the right direction. Leon gave the songstress an approving smile. She flashed a smile back.
Leon let the priestess pave the way forward. Seeing her devotion reminded him of that debt, she had saved Kaureerah's life, he could help save hers. While others followed Seviin's lead, he hung back and gathered Xiuyang's attention.
Some time between the moment Xiuyang realized no one was going to listen to her and Seviin's rousing speech, she'd pulled out the mirror again just to check if she might see someone on the other end. The answer, of course, was still no.
Slowly, her eyes raised to meet his. "Sure. Let's hear it. Whatever pep talk you have in mind, I'll stop listening to the voice of reason in my head for one minute. What's it done for me lately, anyway?" She laughed absurdly as she stood up from the bench and prepared to follow the group of either damn fools or fearless legends that stood before her.
He did not match her laugh and surrender to madness. His tone was serious and direct, he didn't sense ample time. "The priestess, she is your friend, no? But she is still Tarlonese, do you trust her?"
"More than you," Xiuyang replied. "...With my life, more than anyone," she added, as if regretting the bite of her first choice of words.
He got real close, spoke words only she could hear. "Between you and me, the bandaged lady has an itchy trigger finger for her." Then he stepped back and went to join the others.
For a moment, Xiuyang was left behind, stunned by the admission. Then, she sighed heavily and followed, as if against her better judgment.
“I don't even-” again, Maiv was distracted by something. “Prisoners have entered the Forge. Err, right, right ...”
In the midst of her panic, Maiv hadn't noticed Seviin actually going through with her ramblings. The door was blasted, the destruction causing a very mild reverberation throughout the giant sphere they were in.
“Why did you do that?!” an absurd question. “You don't even know if the Director is even-”
A perfectly timed interruption had her change her tune.
“Oh fuck, the Director's here.” she said absently. “OH FUCK, THE DIRECTOR'S HERE!”
Something had stuck the outer shell of the spherical building they were in.
The alarm was activated, lights on the floor guided all toward the exits, though soon some of the horrendous, fabric-wrapped thralls that dive bombed into the Forge would push into these openings in spite of their shattered bones.
Kaureerah set about her other task. If the Director was here, then that likely meant Juulet and Pluurii were as well. She scurried over to a closet she had idly opened earlier and grabbed a pair of forearm crutches from it. They were made of a strange, lightweight metal and seemed to be adjustable. They were currently on the shortest setting they seemed to have, but she didn't exactly have time to examine them in-depth. Olives and branches.
Then, suddenly, Juulet popped in the middle of the group as they prepared to leave. Covered in blood, dust and other, peculiar sludge.
“Yo.” she said, barely balancing herself with her spear. “So, uhhh, short people with guns found us. So did head-guy. Turf war ensued aaaaaaaand fuck it all, it's after our asses.” big shrug. “Yeah, I dunno guys, the thing doesn't give a shit how much we punish it. Also why the FUCK is the magic not on?!”
"The whole place blows up if we turn it on." Leon walked up to join her. "We need to take this thing out before that... and quick." He added, thinking about Yuli.
“Oh.” Juulet nodded. “Right. So we're ass-fucked.”
Kaureerah was hurrying through the breach when she appeared. Kaureerah merely arched a brow and tossed her the crutches. "Cetch, bruja. Be e tripaud egein, end it's because we aull tried taulkeng foorst." She shrugged. "Lessaun learned."
A sudden eeaiko crutches reflex-checked Juulet. Being high off escaping the monster, she'd have what it takes to catch them. However, she was having a twitchy addict moment. “OW FUCK!” she screeched, although it didn't register that it was from the eeaiko. The moment she realized they were crutches, however, her tune changed to perfectly-twitchy normal again. “Oh, nice. Grassy-ass.” Tripod Juulet was back and she could follow without too many hitches.
Seviin started when the one-legged yasoi appeared, stumbling back towards Xiuyang, who seemed to have just finished a discussion with Leon, but she could not afford to fall to the middle of the pack. It was her duty to be the shield here. "Suunei? Can you follow?" she asked in a softly urgent voice, reaching a hand out. Her eyes cast about, nonetheless, for Pluurii. There was something about the sniper that unnerved her. She wasn't sure what yet, but she reeked of Tarlon, and not in the way that a Chad or a Tyrel might've.
"Yes," Xiuyang replied, a sense of urgency finally returning to her voice. Whatever Leon had discussed with her must have worked to spur her to action, somehow. "I'll be right beside you."
Seviin shot her a quick smile back and moved to shield the others from the approaching threat. Tearing liberally from things that did not appear particularly useful, she began to form barriers and hiding places. She began to warp the floor, to make it sticky in places and impossibly slick in others: small things that would buy them time and protect them. They could use every bit imaginable.
No matter how much Yvain tried to help his friend, nothing seemed to show any sign of true effect. It seems resorting to violence was the one and only solution. Violence in a way to protect was his mantra for most of his life, but as of late, he had tried the pacifist's route. The diplomatic way out of conflicts. "Then I guess I should join in the coming struggle."
He clenched his new sheath. Why was fighting all he was adept at? Thoughts on the upcoming conflict raced through his mind for just a second. Would he be a hero of his people, or would he be a butcher, an executioner? He stood up to abandon his post by Yuliya's side. "I say we don't delay this any longer."
“Wait!” exclaimed Maiv through the loudspeaker. “... If you do kill the Director, you'll need the keys to the jammer. Some of you come to the control room. Follow the blue lights.”
The emergency lights on the flooring split off, green ones showing the exits while blue diverged from them. “Doors unlocked too. Hurry! I hear them!”
Leon was one of the first to branch off. There was little he could do to fight this monster, instead, he would follow the blue lights. He gestured for Kaureerah to join him, but it was half-hearted, knowing her primordial proved useful against the headless earlier.
There was a gamble to be had. A risky one, but if all seemed lost, they could do it. Turn the magic back on and pray Juulet could send it to space before it blew.
Kaureerah glanced at Leon as he began to split from the others. She hesitated. "Leeaun, shoold I stey aur shoold I go?"
He stopped in his stride, turned back to look at her with worried eyes. Something processed through his head, then again as if he didn't like what the answer was the first time around. A subtle gulp of nervousness.
"We do this for Yuli. If that thing doesn't die, then it's all for nothing. You have the power to change things here, follow your heart, and stay safe." He wanted more than anything for her to be safe. But maybe her joining the fight was the best chance they all had, including her. With that, he turned his head back to his task resigning himself to let her choose. Maybe she would join him, maybe she would not.
Kaureerah took a few steps after Leon before pausing. "You theenk I shoold fight." She paused for a moment that couldn't have been more than a second or two, but seemed longer, somehow. "Stey sefe, El Sol." She winked and took a few steps back. Then she turned and ran to join the others.
"And to you, La Luna." He remarked a parting goodbye, against his heart and desires allowing her to run into danger. There was nothing to be done about it. She was precious to him, but he had to relinquish the need to keep her safe. She was the one who the world needed this time while he sat incapable. He had to shut out the piercing visions of the fog, every thought that screamed at him; he had to trust she would succeed.
“Fear not, sunbro.” Juulet zipped to Leon's side with a big, fat grin on her face. “You 'n' I, bucko. I also deserve a break from horrors beyond my comprehension. It's, like, five today at this point.”
With all that running through his mind, he wasn't so quick to greet Juulet with a beaming smile and hello. "Let's hope we don't see any horrors on the way then." He quipped somewhat mirthlessly.
Then they moved, but horizontally. Because there was no window, they could only use their senses to realize that …
They were floating. Hovering toward something they couldn’t see. Yvain and Seviin could guess by the distance they had made that they were likely parallel to the massive, spherical core they had seen deeper in the hole, and now they were about to be perpendicular.
“Arrival imminent. Please hold onto one of the bars.”
A kind warning from Maiv that came a little too late to both parties. They both experienced a very loud thud and the entire box they were sealed into shook violently. Not enough to cause people to propel to the ceiling, but enough to hurt.
Then there was another waiting period, about the same time as before.
“You’ve arrived!” exclaimed Maiv. “Please hurry to the first room on your right. I’ll be there with the Director and her husband.” a message dedicated to Yvain’s group, though Orvil’s was privy to it too.
The doors opened to a hall with multiple four-way intersections and ending at a massive blast door parallel to their elevator. The first on the right held an automatic dual door that opened when approached.
“You made it!” A pudgy and quite short hegelan woman with a shaved neck but very stylized moustache came to greet them. She wore a white blouse with a green jumpsuit under it. “Come, quickly!” chipper yet undeniably a nervous little critter, she was quick to get the job done and escort her guests.
The laboratory was white - walls, ceiling, floor and even the tables. The picture of sanitary. Vats filled with liquids and machinery with flickering lights were abundant. There were hospital beds with modern equipment where Yuliya was guided, as well as any other needing a checkup, and a single, middle-aged-looking Hegelan woman waiting for them.
“Thank you, Maiv. I’ll be taking over from now on.” With a pleasant nod, the helpful yet somewhat skittish younger Hegelan girl backed away and the matriarch regarded the taller humanoids with an evaluative look. “To this day, it was inconceivable that someone could reach the Forge. And yet here you are.” She gestured toward one of the beds big enough to hold even an Ougaraq.
“I am Zuri, Director of what you call the Abyssal Forge. I invite you all to take a moment to recuperate.”
Orvil’s group arrived shortly thereafter, escorted through a longer maze than the first group, but they made it all the same with Zuri introducing herself once more.
As they turned the corner to meet the others, he was recounting some comedic, unusual, but ultimately meaningless tale to Xiuyang. His head turned and he was met with the sight of Yuli unconscious in the bed and Kaureerah recently healed from bad burns and crippling injury. The visions of the fog stabbed back into his mind like a dull knife and the colour in his face drained. His composure was just held thanks to no small amount of effort.
Kaureerah swayed back and forth, these days, not literally, but emotionally. There was, as ever, a desire to care deeply about the world, about her friends, and about herself. She had braved that awful place and fought a monster with only her special magics to call upon. She had rescued Yuliya, whose sanguinaire manas were, even now, coming apart and warring on each other. She had come to this place, after all, perhaps for Leon.
Yet... every victory was either a small or an ephemeral thing. Always, there was some fresh hell, some new monster, some circumstance that was well beyond her capabilities to handle. Maybe that was why she had sung. Maybe it had been to lighten the mood, but there had been nothing tonally appropriate about it. Maybe it was just her way of... dealing with everything. Maybe she sang so that she wouldn't cry, or perhaps she had passed beyond the threshold of caring. Whatever the Gods had planned for her, they would carry out, and Ahn-Dami's promise was iron pyrite at best.
The cuffed performer looked over Kaureerah, he didn't speak a word, his eyes slowly drifted to the floor, was it shame? Guilt? Like the eeaiko's injuries rested solely on his own actions. Then his attention shifted to Seviin, whose manas still seemed to radiate under the effects of the magic dampener. "Are you the one to thank for healing her?"
He was there, and Kaureerah was not sure if she loved him or resented him, but he would not meet her eyes, much less speak to her. He was hurting, beneath his facade, but there was a coldness there too: one that only she or another as close to him might recognize. He was plotting but, first, he addressed Seviin, who inclined her head at Leon's question.
"I serve Mother Oirase," she replied. "I have done all within my power for the both of them and I require no recognition." She furrowed her brows and one could not see the nervous curling and uncurling of her fingers as they were hidden in her long sleeves. Her eyes swept Xiuyang and she was well enough in body if not in spirit. She was handcuffed, and something began to boil inside of the sixteen-year-old. She breathed and returned her attention to Leon. "Are you, too, in need of healing?"
He looked over the priestess and only now recognised how young she was. Too young to have a target on her head. For Oirase, for virtue, or because she could, she had helplessly saved Kaureerah when it may have been against the interest of some hypothetical Tarlonese mission. It was a debt he could only pay back by warning her about the bandaged woman after her life. But it was not to be said in front of everyone. "No, I don't need any healing. You say you don't need recognition, but I will thank you regardless." She thanked Leon in turn.
<Leon. Seviin. Can. Others. Be. Trusted.> Kaureerah had, for some time, known pinch language, thanks to those long afternoons spent with Keearah at the relay station, when she'd been her younger sister's guardian. For a moment, a pang of loss hit her. She had not seen Keearah in over three years. She had not seen any of them, but that was neither here nor there. <Send. Message. Back. If. You. Know. Language.>
He did feel the sensation of the pinch language, furrowed his brow, but didn't show recognition. He had never learned it outside of 'hello', 'thank you, 'goodbye', nor did he recognise the sender of the message.
Instead, he walked toward Kaureerah unsure what he could do. It seems his greatest sin was neglect but he was unsure if dumping attention on her would resolve anything or make it worse. A performer who only knew affection to solve the world's problems was lost to understand the woman in front of him, despite the months they had spent together. What came out was an awkward chuckle and a bashful smile. "We're both still breathing. I'm glad you're well, I'm really happy... I would hug you but..." He rattled the cuffs in front of him.
"Well, eet looks like they finaully did whaut they shoolda done yeers ego," she teased Leon, pulling his hand close and wrapping it up in hers for a moment. She looked at him with large eyes that communicated more than others who didn't know them would understand. Work with me here. I'm up to something, Leon.
"And it looks like you got away with everything." He teased back but he returned her look. One of understanding and one who believed her to be in the same mind. She cared for Yuli just as much as he did and that meant going to great lengths.
Somehow, Xiuyang had managed to make it this far without giving up the one piece of information she most wanted these people not to have: the knowledge that the key to their infiltration was inside their bodies. She didn't want to speculate on the kind of invasive experiments that would surely ensue if they knew of the "seeds." Yet here they were anyway, in a lab, leaving Xiuyang with just one question: did Leon sing? Or, did they somehow just know? Or, did they have fun terrorizing outsiders?
The Director turned out to be a person, which was obvious in hindsight. Was she a tethered whose detection they'd somehow avoided? She gave them a moment to breathe, but it was too soon to consider her an ally. They had no reason to ever let the students return to their old lives with the intel they now had, and every reason to keep them alive just long enough to patch the holes in their defenses, then do gods only knew what afterward. As the superior force, they had no incentive to follow through on their end of any bargain involving their cooperation in the capture of Juulet or the man in the box.
There were no viable cards to play, so for now, Xiuyang simply waited for their captors to dictate terms.
The tyro priestess' white robes and hair had been restored to their usual resplendence during the elevator ride. Now, she might've seemed almost a natural thing in this place were it not for the... hardness of it, and the faint warm glow of her skin, the subtle uncertainty of her darting eyes, and gentle ruffle of her hair and fabrics - in short, her softness. Yet, as her dose of plushtail had worn off, it had become increasingly clear that she stood alone in this place as the sole being with the Gift.
For a moment, she gave her attention to the gosoi as well, but these did not trust them. The others had had their Gift dampened, and she felt that this was an unholy thing. Indeed, most gosoi were unholy creatures who warped and chained and manipulated the Gifts of the Pentad in ways that were arcane and unnatural. Most, but not all, she allowed. These ones were guilty of it, though; she was certain. They were guilty of it and, if they knew that the Goddess had blessed Seviin so that she retained full use of her Gift, they would move to strip it from her. I place myself as a bulwark before those who would do your people harm. I know not fear, for thou art with me, she reminded herself. Wisdoms, 42:40.
As much as Seviin could, she began to very gradually and subtly release the extra energy she carried, as she fidgeted about: just a regular twitchy yasoi, nothing special, nothing plotting: just a bit of kinetic energy. That was when she felt the pinches behind her ear.
A soft wince left the Perrenchman as they made impact with the floor they were destined for. At least there was some form of a warning. What greeted them was a complex that felt even further removed from the world that they had known. It was so sterile, so devoid of life, of the pleasures of art that Ipte would weep upon gazing onto this sight. Yet he followed the given directions, for could he really afford that with his friend in danger?
As they met up with the pleasant voice from before, he would take the opportunity to lay the sanguinaire down onto the gestured bed. Then another hegelan who introduced herself as Zuri became another center of his attention. "Well met, Lady Zuri." He lowered his head to make eye contact with the other.
"Now, if you do not mind me asking. This does not feel like a forge in the way I have been taught in my years." He cleared is throat. "I would also like to know if there is any procedure to help with my friend's condition."
Zuri's warm presence darkened, her expression turning grim. “I'm afraid ...” produced from one of her pockets was a stethoscope, one that was conveniently multi-purpose. “This is a very advanced condition of dampening poisoning.” she shook her head, proceeding to a few physical examinations, from testing eye reactivity to drawing from the gift. “My husband may elu-”
“Zuri, beloved, I never thought you'd ask!” A hegelan man with a thick, black beard suddenly popped out of the automatic back door. He had been waiting for his moment ever since he had been stalking the situation. “Tarvin, Head Forgemaster and husband to our number one Director.” he did, in fact, offer a handshake to every humanoid that wasn't his wife. For those in cuffs, they happened to unlock the moment his hand approached. Zuri facepalmed. “My emerald star, they want to know about their friend.”
Seviin, meanwhile, was ever the gracious guest. She did not allow Yvain to annoy her, and she bowed and introduced herself to these gosoi who mocked the goddess' work as a priestess of Oirase. "I cannot use much of the Gift at present, but I remain a trained binder," she offered. "I am willing and eager to help if you need me."
"Thenk yoo for the rescue end yoor waurm welcaum." It still lingered in her mind's ear. She'd smiled and shook hands and and introduced herself as Neki Kaureerah Wenhan. None had answered her message from earlier. It had been a long shot anyhow.
Tavin wagged his pointer finger. “That's right, that's right!” he shuffled over to Yuliya and conducted his own test, starting with the crude pricking of her shoulder with a large needle. “Is she an assimilator or beast by any chance?” he began, completely casual about it all.
Her eyes flicked to the others. There seemed no point in hiding it now. Perhaps she had even said something during her song without meaning to. "She's a sanguinaire," the eeaiko replied, with equal nonchalance. Still, she did not wholly trust these people, but the voice in the box was all but brazenly using them as cannon fodder. These could hardly be worse.
Tavin furrowed his thick brows. “Is that how they call them now?” he then shrugged. “That makes sense, I think I'll name a next batch something akin to that!” ever jovial, until the reason for his inquiry hit him. There, his expression became grimmer than his wife's. “Errr ...” he sought reassurance from his partner, but she too did not know how to communicate the problem.
“They can't help her.” Maiv broke the ice and quickly shut off her microphone.
Tavin looked away, Zuri exhaled in frustration.
“The dampener, and even the air of the city, poisoned her. There is nothing that can be done.”
Yvain's composure was lost for but a moment as the fishy woman revealed his friend's secret with zero care. Yet the words from the man after shocked him even further. Next batch? What do you even mean, next batch? Were these scourges upon humanity hegelan-made? It couldn't be, it's a disease! Even the mind of a hegelan most vile would not think of something so horrid.
"So she is going to die, no matter what?" He crossed his arms, hand clenching his upper arm to keep himself mostly composed. However the frustration was visible upon his expression. "If there isn't even an attempt at saving her life, then it was nothing but an empty promise."
After shaking hands with Tavin and the cuffs were off, Leon moved past Kaureerah with an affectionate gesture along her waist then sat at Yuli's bedside looking at her condition. He did flinch when the reveal of her sanguinaire identity was let out, but it was muted. Maybe the craziness and hell of this place had become the norm. To learn this secret either didn't have time to register or he had become numb to such twists. He only wanted to see her better.
"You can turn off the disruptor." Leon remarked coldly, his eyes still fixed in worry on his friend. "You say theres nothing that can be done, but you're still poisoning her."
Xiuyang watched the cuffs fall from her hands with some measure of detachment, like the gesture didn't mean anything. For a few seconds she did nothing, as if expecting Tarvin to correct his mistake, then she simply pulled the inferno blanket closer to her body. It also took a moment for her to process that Yuliya was going to die.
But that meant... two of them were going to die, and then these horrible people who saw flesh and blood as nothing more precious than mud and dust would be one clue closer to knowing that there was something useful to be learned by taking her and her friends apart like a child's wooden doll collection. She looked at each of them in turn, her eyes seeking... what, exactly? Even she wasn't sure.
Zuri stared down at both men who protested. “We cannot.” cold, detached and distrusting. She knew where this could lead and for whatever reason, such alternatives could not be tolerated.
Tavin backed up, but still in range of Yuliya. He continued to non-invasively examine her.
“I am sorry. I will not torment you with a speech about the many versus-” she cleared her throat. “When you've likely heard this from warmongers from your home already.”
“She is too merged with the disease to restore ...” mumbled Tavin just loud enough to be heard by the group. “Although, we may buy some time if we keep her cold.”
"Too merged? But isn't she supposed to be able to fight it better than any of us here?" He paused; that was slightly unprofessional on his part. After an exhale, he continued. "Will her body be able to fight it off if we keep her cold? Will you try to find a solution for this?"
To think he'd get lectured about those speeches so far away from his very home. It only caused him to get further frustrated with the situation.
"As for my final question, do you have a way to keep her cold?"
“No.”
“No.”
“I might find a solution in a few years. Maybe.”
“Yes.”
Were Tavin's answers to Yvain as he stared at the young man, wide-eyed.
"Put her in some kind of temporal stasis if it takes years, then!"
Yvain knew these people were beyond his own scope in terms of advancememt. There had to be some way.
"If it helps you may even use my own body to save her."
He had some clue on the adaptibility of his own manas. And if they created these 'batches' surely his very essenve could be useful to this effort, no?
Nobody could see inside of Kaureerah's head, and it was just as well. She shook her head sadly and walked over to stand by Yuliya. "I do naut like this deceesion," she said with a shake of her head, expression inscrutable, "baut I aunderstend it. The needs auf the meny autweigh those auf the few. They cennaut toorn the dempener auff jaust to seve her or thees whole plece coold faull epaurt." She took an unsteady breath and pinched the bridge of her nose, hanging her head in regret.
Leon keep his mouth shut but his mind raced. How much did he trust these people? Was Yuli's condition really so far gone that disabling the magic disruptor wouldn't work? Or did they just want to keep it on and let his friend pay the price? It was yet another reason to disable the disruptor. These hegelans were neither friend nor ally. He sat beside her with a hidden anticipation rising. He wasn't going to let Yuli die; he wasn't going to let these people hold him from the forge.
Seviin found herself standing beside Xiuyang. She rested a hand upon her friend's shoulder and squeezed. "Do you remember what happened in Belleville and how you felt?" she whispered to her shorter friend, mouth barely concealed behind the top of the shorter girl's head. "This is nothing like that."
"A lot of things happened in Belleville," Xiuyang replied quietly. "Which one are you talking about?"
Perhaps they did not know each other well enough, Seviin supposed. Perhaps she had been too oblique. She tried a different approach. "Our hosts," she whispered, "kind of remind me of Dory, actually."
Dorothea—one of very few people that Xiuyang supposed Seviin wouldn't disapprove of her for killing, but also a person that she felt powerless to do anything about. Yes, that about summed it up. What exactly did Seviin expect her to do, here? Of the ever-shrinking list of things she imagined possibly adding to the blank page of solutions in her mind, violence had been dismissed long ago.
While others argued with some sense of urgency, Xiuyang simply took a breath and spoke when it seemed like there was a pause, and nothing was going anywhere. "So, I'm inferring that shutting off the magic dampener could theoretically save her, but it's not an option... so, we can assume that, if 'nothing can be done,' that you have no intention of ever letting us leave, either," Xiuyang interjected, her emotionless words cutting the mood of the room like a scalpel. "What's next, then? Someone said something about a conflict of interest..."
She held her arms around herself in a self-soothing posture, in contrast to her confrontational words.
Some showed resentment, some understanding and one even bargained his own body. Zuri, as a leader, had dealt with crisis before, but hardly ever with outsiders, and even less with such an existential threat.
“Not just this place.” corrected Zuri, predictably more amicable when working with an understanding voice. “The dampener keeps our most insidious enemy at bay, not just outsiders. But also,” Tavin reached for her shoulder, imploring her to think twice before admitting to the next bit. “We will all die, as well as over two-hundred million people on this side of the globe, should we shut it down now.” deadpan, emotions stifled and voice modulated after years of leadership. She had to be sure nothing detracted from the message.
“We cannot let you leave.” the director nodded toward Xiuyang. “Not until we've uncovered the truth regarding your group, and rounded the last two.” she then looked up at one of the hidden cameras. “Get Rurin to gather the enforcers and retrieve the remaining outsiders.”
Meanwhile, Tavin had been taken by a peculiarity in Yuliya's body. Lowering his goggles, he sifted through the different lenses. “Do you people usually eat big, undigestible seeds?” he inquired upon turning towards the others, lenses very much trained toward their stomachs. “I could not sense them either. Very odd.”
"What enemy?" Leon replied almost as soon as it was mentioned, his eyes remained on Yuli. "I can understand the decision, it seems she wouldn't survive it either way then. But what are you holding at bay?"
Kaureerah tilted her head as well. She had faced something monstrous out in that factory and managed to escape and possibly destroy it through luck and the mixing of large amounts of extremely volatile chemicals. Surely, nothing could've survived that explosion. "Is there enauther headless?" she asked, suddenly raising her eyes and becoming intense.
“The last surviving founder of this Forge.” answered Zuri. “We haven't seen him in generations, but he's the one ...” Tavin interrupted his search for seeds to interject. “He knows our technology's limits and has been creeping closer. We had to find new solutions.”
The comment on a 'headless' prompted the couple as well as Maiv in the control room to freeze and stare right at Kaureerah. “Another? Did you mean that big thing without a head?”
“That would be the Director.” said Orvil as he found it appropriate to step in from the other room he had been listening from. “Director Makerty. He sacrificed himself to stop our enemy.”
“What did you mean by another?” asked Zuri, riddled with concern. “There's only one. And he's only kept at bay because of the dampener.”
“And now he is as big of a problem as the founder. A short term remedy becoming a long term curse.” Orvil sighed, seating himself in a corner to not be too intrusive.
Kaureerah blinked. "Deed he naut die een thet hooge explosion?" Her eyes darted about. "Sorely, yoo aull felt it."
“That was a big explosion.” emphasized Tavin to his wife.
The woman shook her head. “It's only gotten stronger since our last encounter with it.”
“Wait.” interjected Maiv. “You said you blew it up. It was pursuing you. You survived ... Director!”
It hit the Forge's leadership figure in that moment. “If it's not dead, it will probably be after the other two. Get in contact with Rurin!” Zuri rushed off in a hurry.
"I... deedn't caunfoorm anything," Kaureerah admitted. "I waus raunneng foor my life." she gestured to Yuli. "end hoors." She shrugged. "Though I cen't eemegine enytheng soorviveng thet."
“Can you imagine something living without a head?” retorted Orvil using the translator.
Kaureerah shrugged helplessly. "Es I sed, I cooldn't caunfoorm." There was a hint of an edge to her voice now. "baut I em aulso only waun mege, who ees naut very straung, who did naut heve use auf her fool Geeft."
Maybe they couldn't defeat the founder. But he had a chance, Juulet had an even greater shot if it got between her and the forge. To save Yuli, to gain passage to the forge, it was a necessary risk.
"We could only pray that a sunrise would bring them to rest. I will side with what is right." He delivered it in a defeated tone as if accepting the hegelan's decision. The phrase about a sunrise would have been meaningless to them, but to the others it said 'I am willing and ready to face whatever comes'.
The current situation the hegelans and others were discussing was beyond his comprehension and thus he only listened. While it annoyed him to no end with how little of the current givings he understood, all he knew was to make sure his friend would be safe. Hearing Leon give up on Yuliya ticked him off. Oh, how he wished to curse him out, even if he knew his conclusion made sense.
Xiuyang's body tensed at the mention of the seeds, and relaxed when the subject was changed. It was subtle, but not impossible to notice, especially for Seviin.
"Is this founder... the man who speaks from inside the radio?" she ventured cautiously.
“Proof say yes.” Orvil said without the translator. “Box. Missai. Old Boss.”
Tavin continued to scan through everyone's bellies. “That would explain the seed. A new tool, no doubt.”
He prodded further. “So these seeds ... Did you willingly take them?”
Xiuyang visibly reacted when it was her turn to be scanned by Tavin's device. She looked to Orvil. "You believed me when I said he was using us as pawns, right?" she pleaded, a hint of hesitation still in her voice.
The forgemaster nodded.
Seviin shrugged. "Then you have your answer."
"We didn't," she confessed to Tavin. "He said we would die without them. I don't know what they do. I don't know what they'll do if you try to remove them. He made it sound like he could use them to do anything he wanted to us if we defied his orders. I just—" she sobbed. "I don't know anything..."
Tavin raised his goggles and caressed his beard. “You are clearly able to use some of your abilities, when the signal should be making it near impossible.” he remarked, now deep diving into his hypothesis. “Then it would be logical that the one who sent you was truthful. The toxic air and the signal are made to have you slowly succumb to it. And yet, here you are.”
Xiuyang always relied in her wits to survive when her RAS wasn't enough. She could see the board moving, but the value of the cards was obscured to her. She didn't know anything and couldn't do anything. Her friends were drawn to violence, the default reaction to the unknowable, but this place had taught her that violence was always useless and always punished. Running away had always been the answer until now, there was nowhere to run to. She had nothing and felt like nothing. Where did her friends get their confidence from? Was she pathetic, broken, useless?
She just didn't know anything.
An alarmed Maiv spoke through the microphone. “Orvil, you're needed in the first floor, now! Forgemaster Tavin, please get to your panic room!” the elderly soldier wasted no time and wore his mask mask helm before rushing out. Tavin, worried, addressed the group.
“S-stay here. Maiv will help. I need to find Zuri.” with that, he rushed off too, leaving the group alone in the laboratory's infirmary room, surrounded by cupboards and closets, although most seemed locked - barely a hard limiter to those with an ounce of the gift.
It was eerie silent, there wasn't even the constant buzzing from the lights like in the other rooms and halls. At least they could sit and lie down semi-comfortably. But Yuliya was there, dying and not 'cold' like they had proposed.
Yvain stared at the scene and walked over the dying sanguinaire. "Least you could do was to help keep her cold before leaving." With what little of his capacity he had, he began to draw the heat from the Vossoriyan, trying to regulate the body's temperature to cool down.
Even if he wasn't the biggest fan of cryomancy, he knew that among the people, or rather from what he has seen from them, was the most adept in the thermal sub-school.
Leon wasted no time once the group was alone in the laboratory. He went to the closed door to sense that there were, in fact, no guards. However, the doors did not open when he got closed, in contrast to their total obedience to every hegelan that passed through. A keypad with ten keys, a waste of time to try guessing the combination.
Yuliya's body got colder, but her internal functions hadly changed. She was an icevein, after all. The process was a bit more complicated than just keeping her cold.
“The Director-” Maiv began. “Our Director, is the granddaughter of the Director outside. He's the real reason we can't just shut it down. If we do, he'll destroy everything.” there was a brief pause. “Please don't try to escape. I know it isn't convenient but we need to confirm he's dead first.”
The eerie silence when Maiv wasn't speaking was deafening to some, but enlightening to others. Kaureerah, in particular, with her fine hearing could pick up on subtler cues.
There was, in real time, a loud commotion happening just outside the spire, where they had entered the Forge from. Still, even an advanced sonic mage would be hard pressed to detect this when subjected to the dampener.
The elevator crashing down and causing a loud explosion at the top floor, however, was enough for her to identify the threat. Something bad was happening, but it was too far to really get a good idea of what.
“I just lost sight in the main lobby. Uhm ...”
Xiuyang slumped onto a nearby bench. She'd all but begged them to find a way to free them from the seeds, but there was no urgency for anything except keeping the magic dampener intact, even if what competed for their attention was the chance to make allies toward that end. "...What are you doing?" Xiuyang inquired of Leon idly. "Surely not thinking of wasting the only ounce of goodwill I've managed to find in this hell?"
In his mind, it was fifty-fifty. On one hand, the Director the hegelans worried about was knocking at the door and causing full alarm. On the other hand, it might be Juulet and the bandage woman with her gun. Of course, he wasn't about to allude to the latter.
"You have your magic disruptor up and the old Director seems to be giving you trouble regardless." He replied back to Maiv, making no effort to hide that he was looking around for a code for the door. "We could help, but we're useless like this. You could disable the disruptor and take a chance on us or you could hope that your own forces are enough... But you just lost sight in the main lobby."
There was a brief moment of nothing.
“You don't understand.” spoke Maiv, sounding slightly exerted and nervous. “If we turn off the dampener, the thousands of people he has eaten and turned to more ... Layers.” Xiuyang in particular could recall the thick layers of fabric around that thing. Fabric full of manas and power, that had recently sucked up the energy from that bizarre terminal. “People, prisoners, even power sources. All in one big body. Imagine, a hundred of you-”
Another interruption, along with another 'goat-cock' curse.
“Imagine that, but without a mind to guide it. It will unleash all of its power in an instant.” She spoke grimly. “It will wipe out the entire city in a flash, as well as the forge. If the core is hit, then the Director's assessment of two-hundred million is ... Conservative. It doesn't consider the poison that will end up in the air.”
"She isn't lying," Xiuyang offered. "It... stripped bodies of their flesh and added them to itself. Juulet and I already fought it. It was functionally invincible."
Leon face turned learning the reality of it. Yes, he had confidence in his own abilities, but not nearly enough to think he could go toe-to-toe with a one-man legion of thousands.
"Then what if we help with the Director issue? Would there be a chance to help her then?" Yvain looked rather serious about his question. "We are not at our strongest but we should be able to be of assistance."
Kaureerah stood there, silent as the others talked. As their captors gave reason after reason as to why they should just stay the course and let Yuliya die and probably just die themselves. She strode over to Seviin and got on her tip-toes and whispered something in the yasoi's ear, since she hadn't responded to pinch messages earlier. She had sensed it. She knew it for truth, and it was their only shot.
Seviin straightened. She swallowed uncomfortably. Her eyes went to the door and the siisoi was right: there was no more room for vacillation. I serve life by destroying a place that warps it, she told herself. "Father Exiran, empower me," she muttered under her breath. Then, louder, she turned to the others.
"My manas are blessed by the goddess," she called out, "and I have full use of them. To sit idly by is to serve death best by dying meekly." She stalked towards the door. "I will not die meekly and I doubt that you wish to either. Whatever may come next between ourselves and our captors, both will die if we do not intervene." She placed her palm upon the heavy door and it exploded outward in a shower of sparks and debris. If she appeared calm and focused, the fact that she nearly jumped out of her skin at the commotion put the lie to it.
"You are weaker than I for the time being, so do not act rashly. Do not force me to waste my strength rescuing you, because I will. I serve life. Stand behind and allow me to be your shield. Act within your abilities and we will decide what comes next." With that, she strode through into the smoke and alarms.
It was a strong leap in the right direction. Leon gave the songstress an approving smile. She flashed a smile back.
Leon let the priestess pave the way forward. Seeing her devotion reminded him of that debt, she had saved Kaureerah's life, he could help save hers. While others followed Seviin's lead, he hung back and gathered Xiuyang's attention.
Some time between the moment Xiuyang realized no one was going to listen to her and Seviin's rousing speech, she'd pulled out the mirror again just to check if she might see someone on the other end. The answer, of course, was still no.
Slowly, her eyes raised to meet his. "Sure. Let's hear it. Whatever pep talk you have in mind, I'll stop listening to the voice of reason in my head for one minute. What's it done for me lately, anyway?" She laughed absurdly as she stood up from the bench and prepared to follow the group of either damn fools or fearless legends that stood before her.
He did not match her laugh and surrender to madness. His tone was serious and direct, he didn't sense ample time. "The priestess, she is your friend, no? But she is still Tarlonese, do you trust her?"
"More than you," Xiuyang replied. "...With my life, more than anyone," she added, as if regretting the bite of her first choice of words.
He got real close, spoke words only she could hear. "Between you and me, the bandaged lady has an itchy trigger finger for her." Then he stepped back and went to join the others.
For a moment, Xiuyang was left behind, stunned by the admission. Then, she sighed heavily and followed, as if against her better judgment.
“I don't even-” again, Maiv was distracted by something. “Prisoners have entered the Forge. Err, right, right ...”
In the midst of her panic, Maiv hadn't noticed Seviin actually going through with her ramblings. The door was blasted, the destruction causing a very mild reverberation throughout the giant sphere they were in.
“Why did you do that?!” an absurd question. “You don't even know if the Director is even-”
A perfectly timed interruption had her change her tune.
“Oh fuck, the Director's here.” she said absently. “OH FUCK, THE DIRECTOR'S HERE!”
THUD
Something had stuck the outer shell of the spherical building they were in.
The alarm was activated, lights on the floor guided all toward the exits, though soon some of the horrendous, fabric-wrapped thralls that dive bombed into the Forge would push into these openings in spite of their shattered bones.
Kaureerah set about her other task. If the Director was here, then that likely meant Juulet and Pluurii were as well. She scurried over to a closet she had idly opened earlier and grabbed a pair of forearm crutches from it. They were made of a strange, lightweight metal and seemed to be adjustable. They were currently on the shortest setting they seemed to have, but she didn't exactly have time to examine them in-depth. Olives and branches.
Then, suddenly, Juulet popped in the middle of the group as they prepared to leave. Covered in blood, dust and other, peculiar sludge.
“Yo.” she said, barely balancing herself with her spear. “So, uhhh, short people with guns found us. So did head-guy. Turf war ensued aaaaaaaand fuck it all, it's after our asses.” big shrug. “Yeah, I dunno guys, the thing doesn't give a shit how much we punish it. Also why the FUCK is the magic not on?!”
"The whole place blows up if we turn it on." Leon walked up to join her. "We need to take this thing out before that... and quick." He added, thinking about Yuli.
“Oh.” Juulet nodded. “Right. So we're ass-fucked.”
Kaureerah was hurrying through the breach when she appeared. Kaureerah merely arched a brow and tossed her the crutches. "Cetch, bruja. Be e tripaud egein, end it's because we aull tried taulkeng foorst." She shrugged. "Lessaun learned."
A sudden eeaiko crutches reflex-checked Juulet. Being high off escaping the monster, she'd have what it takes to catch them. However, she was having a twitchy addict moment. “OW FUCK!” she screeched, although it didn't register that it was from the eeaiko. The moment she realized they were crutches, however, her tune changed to perfectly-twitchy normal again. “Oh, nice. Grassy-ass.” Tripod Juulet was back and she could follow without too many hitches.
Seviin started when the one-legged yasoi appeared, stumbling back towards Xiuyang, who seemed to have just finished a discussion with Leon, but she could not afford to fall to the middle of the pack. It was her duty to be the shield here. "Suunei? Can you follow?" she asked in a softly urgent voice, reaching a hand out. Her eyes cast about, nonetheless, for Pluurii. There was something about the sniper that unnerved her. She wasn't sure what yet, but she reeked of Tarlon, and not in the way that a Chad or a Tyrel might've.
"Yes," Xiuyang replied, a sense of urgency finally returning to her voice. Whatever Leon had discussed with her must have worked to spur her to action, somehow. "I'll be right beside you."
Seviin shot her a quick smile back and moved to shield the others from the approaching threat. Tearing liberally from things that did not appear particularly useful, she began to form barriers and hiding places. She began to warp the floor, to make it sticky in places and impossibly slick in others: small things that would buy them time and protect them. They could use every bit imaginable.
No matter how much Yvain tried to help his friend, nothing seemed to show any sign of true effect. It seems resorting to violence was the one and only solution. Violence in a way to protect was his mantra for most of his life, but as of late, he had tried the pacifist's route. The diplomatic way out of conflicts. "Then I guess I should join in the coming struggle."
He clenched his new sheath. Why was fighting all he was adept at? Thoughts on the upcoming conflict raced through his mind for just a second. Would he be a hero of his people, or would he be a butcher, an executioner? He stood up to abandon his post by Yuliya's side. "I say we don't delay this any longer."
“Wait!” exclaimed Maiv through the loudspeaker. “... If you do kill the Director, you'll need the keys to the jammer. Some of you come to the control room. Follow the blue lights.”
The emergency lights on the flooring split off, green ones showing the exits while blue diverged from them. “Doors unlocked too. Hurry! I hear them!”
Leon was one of the first to branch off. There was little he could do to fight this monster, instead, he would follow the blue lights. He gestured for Kaureerah to join him, but it was half-hearted, knowing her primordial proved useful against the headless earlier.
There was a gamble to be had. A risky one, but if all seemed lost, they could do it. Turn the magic back on and pray Juulet could send it to space before it blew.
Kaureerah glanced at Leon as he began to split from the others. She hesitated. "Leeaun, shoold I stey aur shoold I go?"
He stopped in his stride, turned back to look at her with worried eyes. Something processed through his head, then again as if he didn't like what the answer was the first time around. A subtle gulp of nervousness.
"We do this for Yuli. If that thing doesn't die, then it's all for nothing. You have the power to change things here, follow your heart, and stay safe." He wanted more than anything for her to be safe. But maybe her joining the fight was the best chance they all had, including her. With that, he turned his head back to his task resigning himself to let her choose. Maybe she would join him, maybe she would not.
Kaureerah took a few steps after Leon before pausing. "You theenk I shoold fight." She paused for a moment that couldn't have been more than a second or two, but seemed longer, somehow. "Stey sefe, El Sol." She winked and took a few steps back. Then she turned and ran to join the others.
"And to you, La Luna." He remarked a parting goodbye, against his heart and desires allowing her to run into danger. There was nothing to be done about it. She was precious to him, but he had to relinquish the need to keep her safe. She was the one who the world needed this time while he sat incapable. He had to shut out the piercing visions of the fog, every thought that screamed at him; he had to trust she would succeed.
“Fear not, sunbro.” Juulet zipped to Leon's side with a big, fat grin on her face. “You 'n' I, bucko. I also deserve a break from horrors beyond my comprehension. It's, like, five today at this point.”
With all that running through his mind, he wasn't so quick to greet Juulet with a beaming smile and hello. "Let's hope we don't see any horrors on the way then." He quipped somewhat mirthlessly.
