Post by nocreditneo on Feb 16, 2022 0:58:43 GMT
It had been a fight, unseen by the world in a musty and secluded reliquary. Even on the road leading to this hidden underground complex, there was the husk of a tactical vehicle and the telltale signs of an ambush in the form of ricochets and scarred ground. Underground was a menagerie of tripped traps, locked or busted doors, and spent ammunition.
The Minevan search team was situated in the largest chamber on the northern end of the complex, after having methodically disarmed traps and taken a pair of detainees along the way. The Minevan Travelers’ Commission was thorough, screening for dangers and cataloguing every item they had come across. Even though they had expected a significant find, they had not expected a lead to give them a discovery of this scale.
The brass rang off of the floor as he discarded it, joining the myriad other shell casings littering the room. Cartridges of two sizes, which he surmised to be from a handgun and an intermediate rifle. More worrisome was the chunks of stone scorched from the ceiling, which trickled the slightest amount of dust at every significant noise the occupants of the room made. A dented battery pack next to a battered and scrapped cyborg answered his question; Jace recognized the accessory to a Capitolite tachyon rifle. But where is the gun?
Jace Falkoner squatted next to the body, or rather the remains of one who seemed to be more machine than man. A grizzled looking man with peculiar tattoos upon his face; Jace swiftly recognized the symbol of the Hydra Guard, and upon his neck was a sinister necklace of fangs. Jace frowned, unceremoniously ripping the necklace off.
“What do you got?” The man looming over him asked. Jace looked over his shoulder, seeing the husky and usual-boisterous Borcha Weaver whose furrowed brow were accentuated by the low, grey lights.
Jace held out the teeth. “War trophy. Got ourselves a real piece of shit.”
Jace dropped the necklace on the ground. Borcha grunted, a hint of disgust evident on his face.
“Hell of a fight in here. That blood we ran is Minevan, so our fugitives definitely came through here.”
“Where there is smoke…” Jace trailed off. His eyes darted across the cyborg’s torn clothes, curiously examining his ample wounds. Shotgun slugs and pistol rounds had blown holes clean through him, and the amount of burns and blunt trauma he had sustained was remarkable. The singe marks and melted synth-skin looked like it had been dealt by some sort of construction tool. Metal bones had been permanently mangled and caved in. “There was at least one other gunman, and unless you found some welding tools laying around I’d bet our mechanical friend here met another robotically-inclined individual.”
“That fits,” Borcha remarked, “We’re one step closer to stopping this spree.”
“Starting to look like our three friends are in a bind. This just got more complicated,” Jace shook his head. Maintaining his poker face, he began removing the clothes off of the mangled corpse’s upper body. The wounds were glaring enough to show that instead of a fleshy pleural cavity, there was little more than sleek machinery and advanced hydraulics. Many of the parts were damaged. Jace took out his knife, making a cut from where the man’s navel would be all the way to his artificial sternum. Jace continued to speak as he proceeding to go digging his arm in the man’s chest cavity. “I’m willing to bet the local law has not been very charitable.”
Borcha came up aside him to dig through the clothing, pulling out a small digital device and some physical credentials. Using his own wrist-mounted digital tool, he was able to crack the encryption of the device with relative ease. “Alexandros Stratos. If you couldn’t guess, some Hydra Guard old-timer. Old man out of time and out of a job. Looks like… correspondence with a… Count Klieber?”
With a ‘clunk’, Jace removed a fist-sized object from Alexandros’ chest cavity. A small golden chassis, with what appeared to be synthetic flesh exposed in the shape of blood valves. Before Jace could examine it further, the flesh began to smolder, metal growing warm in his hands and instinctively dropping it. He coughed, waving the small cloud of smoke from his face. He stood, poker face cracking into a sheen of concern.
“Those girls aren’t fugitives. They’re in grave danger,” Jace said, turning to quickly walk by Borcha and begin on his way outside. The search team had been working diligently, and the magnitude of their discovery warranted Jace to call for some significant help. The artefacts and tools they were finding were both esoteric and powerful in nature, and it was almost worrisome to him that a plethora of destructive items were being stored in mundane locked crates and being delivered to an ensemble of middling nobility in a local rat race.
“Uh, Mr. Falkoner?”
His head snapped to look at the inquiring researcher, who in their hands was holding a sizable metal orb, covered in exuberant decorations. Gold. The faces of many animals embossed along its equator, most contorted into fierce expressions of predators. The Minevan holding it looked down in uncertain fear. The other searchers froze. Borcha stared. Jace’s eyes grew wide, the muscles of his jaw visibly clenching.
The lights began to flicker, sputtering between dim and abject darkness.
Jace could barely make it out, but through squinted eyes he was able to see that the animal mouths were now open slots. With a hiss, they began spewing thick clouds of tan dust in every direction. The orb and its holder were completely engulfed in the blink of an eye. The nearest man froze and was swallowed as well.
That was enough of an indication for the rest of them to run in a panic, before the lights had cut out completely. It was a mad dash back the way that they had came, but the darkness had slowed them down and disoriented them significantly. Jace was the closest to the exit and was the first one out, gunning down the corridors that had previously supported sentry guns and anti-gravity traps. Those in the rear were not as fortunate, some taking a wrong turn in the chaos and others who had began running too late or were too close to the dust in the first place.
The run lasted a couple dozen seconds, but had felt like a lifetime as they clamored up the stairs, into the above-ground temple and out the ornate doors into the open sunlight. Behind them, the particulate cloud followed but was thwarted away by the rays of sunshine casting down.
The survivors of the search team were catching their breath. Borcha was the last out, his skin breaking out in violent hives and the orifices of his face streaming blood. Seeing his labored breathing and walking, Jace darted up, throwing the larger Borcha’s arm over his shoulders and helping him walk through hoarse groans of pain.
The frantic outer cordon teams had responded in a few short moments, weapons at the ready as they tried to find the unseen enemy. The squad leader of the riflemen lowered his weapon once he realized their foe was one he’d encountered a long time ago: decadizing particulate.
In a few short minutes, the clearing in the forest holding the reliquary was turned into a hasty landing zone. A small complement of troops and equipment had taken control of the local area, much to the chagrin of the local authorities. As Jace laid his friend down on a casualty-evacuation craft, he reflected that the overall situation had escalated in a few short moments to something well beyond any scale they could foresee.
He had to find those girls, and fast.
The Minevan search team was situated in the largest chamber on the northern end of the complex, after having methodically disarmed traps and taken a pair of detainees along the way. The Minevan Travelers’ Commission was thorough, screening for dangers and cataloguing every item they had come across. Even though they had expected a significant find, they had not expected a lead to give them a discovery of this scale.
The brass rang off of the floor as he discarded it, joining the myriad other shell casings littering the room. Cartridges of two sizes, which he surmised to be from a handgun and an intermediate rifle. More worrisome was the chunks of stone scorched from the ceiling, which trickled the slightest amount of dust at every significant noise the occupants of the room made. A dented battery pack next to a battered and scrapped cyborg answered his question; Jace recognized the accessory to a Capitolite tachyon rifle. But where is the gun?
Jace Falkoner squatted next to the body, or rather the remains of one who seemed to be more machine than man. A grizzled looking man with peculiar tattoos upon his face; Jace swiftly recognized the symbol of the Hydra Guard, and upon his neck was a sinister necklace of fangs. Jace frowned, unceremoniously ripping the necklace off.
“What do you got?” The man looming over him asked. Jace looked over his shoulder, seeing the husky and usual-boisterous Borcha Weaver whose furrowed brow were accentuated by the low, grey lights.
Jace held out the teeth. “War trophy. Got ourselves a real piece of shit.”
Jace dropped the necklace on the ground. Borcha grunted, a hint of disgust evident on his face.
“Hell of a fight in here. That blood we ran is Minevan, so our fugitives definitely came through here.”
“Where there is smoke…” Jace trailed off. His eyes darted across the cyborg’s torn clothes, curiously examining his ample wounds. Shotgun slugs and pistol rounds had blown holes clean through him, and the amount of burns and blunt trauma he had sustained was remarkable. The singe marks and melted synth-skin looked like it had been dealt by some sort of construction tool. Metal bones had been permanently mangled and caved in. “There was at least one other gunman, and unless you found some welding tools laying around I’d bet our mechanical friend here met another robotically-inclined individual.”
“That fits,” Borcha remarked, “We’re one step closer to stopping this spree.”
“Starting to look like our three friends are in a bind. This just got more complicated,” Jace shook his head. Maintaining his poker face, he began removing the clothes off of the mangled corpse’s upper body. The wounds were glaring enough to show that instead of a fleshy pleural cavity, there was little more than sleek machinery and advanced hydraulics. Many of the parts were damaged. Jace took out his knife, making a cut from where the man’s navel would be all the way to his artificial sternum. Jace continued to speak as he proceeding to go digging his arm in the man’s chest cavity. “I’m willing to bet the local law has not been very charitable.”
Borcha came up aside him to dig through the clothing, pulling out a small digital device and some physical credentials. Using his own wrist-mounted digital tool, he was able to crack the encryption of the device with relative ease. “Alexandros Stratos. If you couldn’t guess, some Hydra Guard old-timer. Old man out of time and out of a job. Looks like… correspondence with a… Count Klieber?”
With a ‘clunk’, Jace removed a fist-sized object from Alexandros’ chest cavity. A small golden chassis, with what appeared to be synthetic flesh exposed in the shape of blood valves. Before Jace could examine it further, the flesh began to smolder, metal growing warm in his hands and instinctively dropping it. He coughed, waving the small cloud of smoke from his face. He stood, poker face cracking into a sheen of concern.
“Those girls aren’t fugitives. They’re in grave danger,” Jace said, turning to quickly walk by Borcha and begin on his way outside. The search team had been working diligently, and the magnitude of their discovery warranted Jace to call for some significant help. The artefacts and tools they were finding were both esoteric and powerful in nature, and it was almost worrisome to him that a plethora of destructive items were being stored in mundane locked crates and being delivered to an ensemble of middling nobility in a local rat race.
“Uh, Mr. Falkoner?”
His head snapped to look at the inquiring researcher, who in their hands was holding a sizable metal orb, covered in exuberant decorations. Gold. The faces of many animals embossed along its equator, most contorted into fierce expressions of predators. The Minevan holding it looked down in uncertain fear. The other searchers froze. Borcha stared. Jace’s eyes grew wide, the muscles of his jaw visibly clenching.
The lights began to flicker, sputtering between dim and abject darkness.
Jace could barely make it out, but through squinted eyes he was able to see that the animal mouths were now open slots. With a hiss, they began spewing thick clouds of tan dust in every direction. The orb and its holder were completely engulfed in the blink of an eye. The nearest man froze and was swallowed as well.
That was enough of an indication for the rest of them to run in a panic, before the lights had cut out completely. It was a mad dash back the way that they had came, but the darkness had slowed them down and disoriented them significantly. Jace was the closest to the exit and was the first one out, gunning down the corridors that had previously supported sentry guns and anti-gravity traps. Those in the rear were not as fortunate, some taking a wrong turn in the chaos and others who had began running too late or were too close to the dust in the first place.
The run lasted a couple dozen seconds, but had felt like a lifetime as they clamored up the stairs, into the above-ground temple and out the ornate doors into the open sunlight. Behind them, the particulate cloud followed but was thwarted away by the rays of sunshine casting down.
The survivors of the search team were catching their breath. Borcha was the last out, his skin breaking out in violent hives and the orifices of his face streaming blood. Seeing his labored breathing and walking, Jace darted up, throwing the larger Borcha’s arm over his shoulders and helping him walk through hoarse groans of pain.
The frantic outer cordon teams had responded in a few short moments, weapons at the ready as they tried to find the unseen enemy. The squad leader of the riflemen lowered his weapon once he realized their foe was one he’d encountered a long time ago: decadizing particulate.
In a few short minutes, the clearing in the forest holding the reliquary was turned into a hasty landing zone. A small complement of troops and equipment had taken control of the local area, much to the chagrin of the local authorities. As Jace laid his friend down on a casualty-evacuation craft, he reflected that the overall situation had escalated in a few short moments to something well beyond any scale they could foresee.
He had to find those girls, and fast.