by Peter John
Our first obstacle came when we arrived at the stairs. They led down or up. According to the intel we had, Mala was upstairs on the third floor, and the Princess was downstairs. We knew we had to go upstairs first, but the yawning darkness beckoned to me and the barrage of the psychic assault seemed to pull me in that direction. It wasn’t until Raúl put his hand on my shoulder. I realized I had unintentionally started towards the stairs leading down to the basement.
“Are you alright Armpit? What are you doing ‘mano? ‘Mala is up this way.”
“What? Shit!… sorry man, I just want this mission over, you know?” I said unconvincingly, and he eyed me speculatively. I could feel his unease and my own was growing as the pull to go downstairs intensified.
“Don’t you feel it, Raúl? Something wants us to go down there.” I showed the gaping maw of the dark stairwell. As if to stress my comment, some rubble moved down below and we both crouched lower to get out of sight.
“este huele peor que el otro” said Raúl and my mind took a second to translate the Spanish into “this one doesn’t smell as good as the other one.”
This shift in focus made me do a double take on my actions and freed me up from the sinister influence, seeming to be guiding my impulses.
I took a slow, steady, deep breath, steeled my mind further, imagining a steel vault, locked and sealed around my mind as I gathered my thoughts into it and allowed the whispering voices to batter harmlessly on the outside, I then nodded to Raúl and we began to move away from the mysterious pull of the stairs leading to the depths and steadfastly moved up the stairs to find Mala, taking care to press against the wall and avoid anything on them that would make any noise. Our boots of silence were working overtime with all the glass littered about in what I can only describe as an apocalyptic debris field, consisting of almost everything that used to be functional in the building, was now broken, torn and scattered about haphazardly and barred our way.
It made the creeping around slow and precarious and I could feel my heart rate beating loudly in my ears. It doesn’t matter what people tell you, or how tough they are, or even how experienced they are. When you insert into a building and creep around with danger close, your heart-rate skyrockets and every noise is a potential source of discovery.
As we moved past the opening for the second floor, some movement within warned us, as the crunch of glass echoed above the noises of dying and screaming men and monsters coming from outside through the broken windows. We both activated our spells almost instantly and froze, pressed against the walls to either side of the opening. A large Reaper lumbered into view, shuffling along. One of his arms was missing. Not all the enemy had left the building and as it drew nearer, its ungainly undead shuffles suddenly halted. We both held our breath as it froze, then quickly with a grunt it lunged into the stairwell between us. Neither of us moved. My heart was beating so loudly I had to consciously calm myself. I had no weapon in hand but knew that it was a thought away.
The creature froze again. It was a meter away and there was a strange sound coming from it. A kind of wheezing sniffing sound. It turned its head first towards Raúl, then towards me. I could see its dead eyes, glazed over, and yet they faced towards me, unblinking and piercing as they scanned the darkness, the sinews of its neck distorting strangely as its head turned. The wafts of dark magic extending beyond the boundaries of the skin a few centimeters before snapping back to the constraints of its pasty putrified flesh. Then it seemed to inhale deeply, chest expanding and air whistling across and into the ruin of its nose and it left me in no doubt that it sensed something was not right.
The voices and whispers increased to a roar around me, but I kept my mind tight. Locked. Inaccessible. My breathing stilled as I forced myself to control it, but my heart threatened to burst out of my chest as the adrenaline surged through me. A large drop of sweat beaded on my forehead and began to trace the contours of my cheek, trickling down the side of my face. First past my eye, then into my stubble, then as if my shear will opposed it, it paused. The trickle beckoned like an unbearable itch.
Then suddenly gravity won the contest of wills and it slid further, progressing to my chin. Its trajectory distracting and confirming my palpable fear. If it dripped from me, would the creature detect it? I was just about to conjure my Katana and sever its head in one mighty sweeping arc when suddenly the Reaper turned away and with its ungainly shuffle moved back into the corridor beyond and resumed its stuttering patrol. The drop of sweat fell from my chin, landing noiselessly on my boot. I had faced terrorists, even psychopaths in hostage situations, and they had made less of an impression than this creatures’ hideous deathless stare and ominous sniffing.
At least we knew our spells worked, but I never expected to test them out so thoroughly so soon. It had been within a meter of me and I had smelled the corruption of its putrid flesh. The unnatural presence of its infection seemed to swirl within it and around it. Dark swirls of the Mana that controlled its movements seemed to project from it, just slightly ahead of its physical presence. I got the impression that the magic within it was like a spirit. That the dark Mana spirit shape moved first, then the body, left devoid of this energy tried to catch up somehow with the dark spirit that powered it. A kind of dark possession tethered to its flesh and in total control of the dead corpse. Whether anything of the original person remained was impossible to know, but if I didn’t know before, I certainly knew now that I would have no second thoughts, no hesitation if I had to kill one. They were pure evil.
As it moved away, the voices pounding against my mind receded and we both moved away as silently as we could up the stairs towards the third level, with our spells firmly on and draining our Mana away.
As we got to the third-floor stairwell landing, the doors in the stairwell were still intact which allowed us a chance to try observing what was on the other side. A lot of rubble was being moved around out there and we could hear moaning through the doors. According to my map, the doors opened to a long passageway extending all the way to the end of the building down its center with rooms to either side and if we turned right, we would see another passageway doing the same. Our plan was to expose ourselves for just a few seconds to attract any guards and then disappear, hopefully losing them as they ran past us. When we saw at least ten Reapers still active on the other side of the door, I modified the idea slightly.
Raúl carefully opened the door, it made a creaking sound that stretched like a rubber band and it silenced everything on the other side of the door except the noises of the battle going on outside. We had their attention. Suddenly it was like a car had rammed into the door. They smashed open, with one of the doors tearing off its hinges and splintering and clattering against the far side of the stairwell. Both Raúl and I were cowering down, either side of the door, against the wall, our spells like cloaks around us. Our movements completely halted. They had reacted much sooner than both of us suspected or expected. Fortunately, it was the same as when the assault had begun outside. They all had responded. With frightening force and reckless abandon.
They crammed into the immediate area and started to press against each other to make room. Some of them by now against the banister. Their soulless eyes scanning in every direction and in particular, those near the banister were leaning over it, looking down. My back to the wall, they passed within inches of me. Their foul, fetid stench filling the entire place. Death and nightmare combined. As one, they came to a sudden halt. I had placed three of my makeshift grenades at various locations along the banister. The dripping wet rags around the bags of gravel and explosives seemed pitiless when I considered the wall of putrefying flesh before me. In fact, as they streamed in and halted between me and the explosives, I realized I would have to move to get a clear shot at them. I had not expected so many of them, nor to be so terrified. How was I going to access my magic without the calm mind and force of will?
Not only that, but I had to create a barrier that would protect Raúl and me
from the blast. Raúl had to get into the passageway, out of the stairwell first before I did anything though, so I watched him slide down the wall, his insubstantial form blurring as he moved ever so slowly and then on hands and knees edge ever closer to the opening. The door that had burst and broken apart was still now bouncing down the stairwell from the initial impact. It acted as the distraction we needed.
When suddenly a latecomer to the party hurtled into the scene. It obviously could not see Raúl as he was on hands and knees and invisible. I could hardly make him out in the doom and gloom, but this latecomer Reaper had been running and suddenly met an invisible force before it in the doorway, about knee height. Still, without sensing Raúl, it tripped over him and fell tumbling into the back of the last Reaper compress gathered in the stairwell. Strike! or more like a Golden Turkey, the skittles tumbled. The ones in front began to fall down the stairs and like a row of dominoes, they fell against each other. As one after another pulled and pushed each other, the situation got worse in the writhing mass fumbling on the floor and I saw one grenade fall from the balustrade to land amongst them, a contorting mass of undead flesh. I could never hit that.
Another of the grenades was missing and must have fallen over to the floors below. The last teetered as it wobbled. The balustrade vibrated again with the battering and flailing Reapers. This was too much for it and it fell too, bouncing off flesh and stumbling bone to land on the first step leading down. Right on the edge of falling down the central stairwell and just barely out of my view. It landed and rested against a support beam for the banister. A slight nudge and it too would be on its way down the three floors. One thing I knew with certainty was that a lightning bolt would never hit it directly. I could barely see it while standing tall, then to aim with my fingers and hope a Reaper didn’t get in the way? Not even a one in a million shot.
Out of options and guessing as much as relying on luck I back-stepped around the doorway and fired my strongest lightning bolt spell with at least a 25% drain on my Mana bar, right over the writhing unbalanced bodies of Reapers piled around the top of the stairs at the balustrade and along the banister which fortunately for me was made of metal. Metal, besides being a good strong material for structures such as balustrades and banisters, was also good at conductivity. The wet bag of explosives resting against the support strut dutifully sparked and ignited the explosives within. The resulting fireball must have been spectacular to witness. Perhaps less so if witnessed too closely, I was too busy diving to my left to see what happened.
There had been a lot of noise as the Reapers careened into each other, but the noise from that explosion dwarfed them all. The fireball from the explosives swept out into the passageway, casting gravel, body parts, metal, and concrete and singed both Raúl and me where we had taken cover. That explosive stuff was impressive. Note to self, stand well clear when igniting.
We then heard an ominous creaking groan as the building began to tremble and the entire stairwell began to collapse, a cascade and cacophony of falling mortar and concrete that rumbled through the floor and the sound drowned out anything and everything around us. It finished with a final plume of dust that billowed out of the stairwell door. My internal alert bar had lit up for the battle log, but I closed it and ignored it. I then crept forward to see what remained beyond the doors leading to the stairwell and was horrified to see that the broken jagged remains of the stairs would never support a person nor Reaper ever again. That messed up one of our egress points, but fortunately, we had come prepared.
Of the ten Reapers, not a one made it back through the door. I held out my hand to help Raúl to his feet and said, “HHF”, my Hit hard and Fast mantra playing in my head.
Chuckling ruefully he brushed the dust from his fatigues. “You are one loco MOFO amigo, those explosives are insane.”
Our spells disengaged as we took a knee to assess our next move. Since we had entered the building, less than fifteen minutes had passed and we still had to get Mala out if he was here.
“It looks like we got all the Reapers in one,” I stated hopefully.
Raúl just shrugged. “I didn’t expect any to remain behind from the initial Rebel attack, so there must be something worth keeping up here. Let’s find him.”
We moved out to the right. It was the direction we could hear the strange moans and if it was Mala moaning, then he was in a lot better shape than we had been led to believe.
The fifth door we reached was sealed and locked. The moaning was coming from in there and I could discern that whoever it was they were saying “Help me!” over and over. Standing back, I rapped my knuckled hard on the door. The knock resounding and loud and immediately the groaning went silent. Then a tentative voice called out. “Who’s there?”. Okay, I don’t know why, but I had the malicious urge to reply “Mikey” Why Mikey? well because ‘my key doesn’t fit’. Okay, it really wasn’t funny and sounded better in my head, which is where I left it.
I replied, “Can you open the door?” “No, I am locked in here. Who are you? Let me out!”
I turned to Raúl and saw he had a quizzical look on his face.
“What?” I said.
“What language are you speaking? I’ve never heard you speak that language before.”
I frowned at him then reviewed what I had been saying and realized I had been speaking in the Scalar language. When had I learned that? That was strange. Then I remembered my upgrades and the new ability called Lucid Languages had gotten an upgrade. I had spent little time reviewing it, but it was reasonable to assume it included the Scalar language and this guy was probably not Mala.
With a focus of will I kicked the door and found that my augmented kick had, well, it had a kick to it. The lock crumpled, and the door slammed open and before us on the floor lay a stocky, wounded Scalar. He was in bad shape, both his legs were broken and both arms on his left side were badly damaged too. He had regular cuts or claw marks in his chest that looked like a jealous girlfriend or a passionate lover had been at him, depending on how your mind bent, but it was clear he had put up a fight before being captured. He wasn’t going anywhere without a great deal of effort. I began to tend to him.
“We need to pull chocks Armpit. This guy needs to take care of himself,” said Raúl. I was pulled from my conversation with Aditya. It turned out Aditya was a Scalar scout who had been captured the day before and was too injured to be a useful Reaper. He seemed fearful of us and wanted to know what we wanted with him. He eventually passed out when I gave him a healing potion. I didn’t want to use my precious Mana on him unless absolutely necessary and here the healing potions would do the trick. I could sense the magic coursing through his body, healing his hurts and aligning his bones, but it wouldn’t heal them completely.
His room faced to the mountainside, so we were unable to see how the battle was progressing. His window was shattered as were all the windows we had come across and several shards of glass had been lodged in the poor Scalar fellow adding to his injuries. He wouldn’t be able to walk out of here on his own steam, and Raúl was right. We didn’t have time to worry about this guy. We left the room and moved onwards down the corridor, checking every room.
The last door at the end of the corridor was also locked and this time Raúl smashed the lock with his hefty boot.
When we rushed in, weapons poised we came across a bizarre site. The room was a makeshift laboratory. It looked very similar if not identical to the one I had recently been upgraded in back on the Absinthe ship. It had insertion tubes, a bank of humming servers, and a translucent bed platform. The apparatus had been installed here recently as all the tables and chairs that must have been here originally were stacked in one corner out the way. The computers had cables leading out the window and up towards the roof. With blinking lights, it was still very much operable and left me wondering what the hell was going on here in this research station. We found no one living or dead though and left the room, both of us deep in our own thoughts. We had one mor
e passage to clear.
Arriving at the stair junction again, I checked the stairwell, but nothing had changed besides perhaps more rubble had shifted. We turned right and began clearing the rooms. Again we found nothing and the brief glimpses of the fighting in the reflecting fires burning outside showed that the Rebel Scalar with Hugo’s help were carrying the day. There were considerably fewer Reapers than the fighting Rebel force now, unlike when the battle had started. Their formation still held, and it looked like they had turned the tide.
At last, we reached the final door at the end of this main corridor. This had to be it. Again we did a brute force entry, swarming in to kill anything that moved.
This time, however, we finally found Mala. A burley brown haired and well-built man, naked and splayed out upon another lab table. He was hooked up and had been so for some time. His beard and mustache long and thick obscuring his face but he definitely looked like Mala. There was a cable attached deep into the back of his neck, and the other tubes were protruding from his various orifices. It disturbed me how vulnerable he looked and reminded me of how much like an entomologist's trophy insect he was, pinned and mounted in a prize collection.
