SoS B1 C5 X6: Keep Moving
Tears rolled down Immuena's face, getting caught on bits of Vannik as they fell. The Faecha could do little more than roll off his corpse and wail in agony. Slapping her head, then clawing, only wanting it to crack open and leak out the images burned into her mind.
Something broke in Allarah. She knew that pain too well. She became numb as she looked away from Vannik. She met Synna's eyes only a moment before walking into the room.
"Gruist, Dmitri! Get that damned door closed now! Seal it if you can." She went right to Immuena, taking off her coat. She propped Immuena as best she could and wiped the blood off of her face with her coat. When she finished she held her tight to keep her nails from her face. "Get a hold of yourself. I need you to pull together just long enough to get out of here."
Immuena gave no effort to be consoled, thrashing, shoving with what meek strength she had in her. Though her wails became loud sobs, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... ahh.. Vannik... I'm sorry... Sorry, sorry, sorry... by the gods... I'm sorry..." she repeatedly muttered as if she were a broken record.
Gruist and Dmitri hurried the door, strong arming it closed. Ijin fell to her knees, hands grasping at the air around Vannik's crater of a head.
"Knock her out," Dmitry yelled back. "Before she off and kills herself as well."
Allarah leaned away, pulled back her hand, and slapped Immuena hard across her face. "Immuena!" She commanded to be heard this time. "Calm yourself! This isn't the place or time. Don't make me listen to Dmitry!"
Slowly, Immuena raised her eyes to meet Allarah's, mouth half open. After a brief pause, she crumpled the blanket like coat in her hand, gritted her teeth, and choked out a, "May I?" Her sharp breathes and occasional sobs were still uncontrollable.
"Of course." Allarah nodded, moving away from Immuena. "Ijin..." she didn't know what she could possibly say to her in that moment.
Tskhan stood in shock; he wasn't prepared for anything like this to happen. He couldn't do anything for Vannik and passed on responsibility to Immuena who is now suffering. Tskhan wanted to run to Immuena but with all that happened it would be best not to overwhelm her in the fragile state she was in. He fell to his knees remaining in the direction he was facing. An enemy with meaty bits to slash or set a flame with immolation he could deal with, but not this.
Wiping her face of tears and loudly blowing her nose, Immuena remembered her surroundings. That is, until she saw Ijin. Half crawling, Immuena pulled herself closer to Ijin. She held Ijin and whispered, "I'm so sorry I failed you- failed him. He loved you dearly..." sobbing a bit, she took a deep breath and continued, "Really, you were all his final thoughts..." Then Immuena just held Ijin, as much as she'd allow.
Ijin pushed Immuena off, practically knocking her to the floor again. "Don't touch me," she hissed, face knotting into seething hatred. She grabbed Vannik's pistol, wiped her tears from her eyes, and stood. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
"Ijin. I don't think he should be left here... Not here. But the choice is yours." Allarah didn't move towards Ijin, nor could she look at Vannik. She saw a different man lying in his place.
Ijin wrestled with her internal narrative. Training against the Sylo had taught her not to bother with a body once it was down, that doing so was just inviting yourself to die as well. She wiped her tears away. "Just a corpse, now. God has him."
Immuena sluggishly got up, "Let's go. No need to protect the turbines if they're not attacked." She kept her distance from Ijin, but couldn't help glancing at her every so often.
Allarah paused over Vannik and saw the glint of metal around his neck. She slowly unhooked the necklace gazing at the tags. Taking her coat she cut the sleeve off and placed the rest of it over his still frame. "I'm sorry Vannik. You deserved more." Whispering more to herself than anyone else. She turned to Ijin and placed the tags in her hand, her own shaking in the process. Synna’s injury became her next focus as she dook the strip of sleeve and tied it over the smaller woman’s shoulder to staunch the flow of blood. "Alright, we need to move. We'll find the Trundler on the other end of Vien. Let's go."
Gruist patted Tskhan on the back. “-Brother,-” he said in Saza. “-Vannik is within The Wheel now. There is no more pain for him. Come.-”
Tskhan lead, Immuena followed, and Allarah, Ijin, Dmitry, Gruist, and Synna took up the middle A spider web of confusing halls and twisting paths would have spelled certain death for the party were Dmitri and Allarah not calling out signs as they passed them. Tskhan ran ahead each time to see if bulkhead doors or debris barred their path, more than once they had to retrace their steps.
To their surprise, the monsters hadn't yet appeared in droves. Here and there one might pop up, but one was not much of a challenge for six, and they crumbled under a pelting of gun fire before they could make much of a sound.
The lights slowly came to life as they ran, humming back to full brightness after decades of shadow. The team stood witness to horror after horror along the route. Whatever happened here hadn't been entirely instant--many rooms were locked off with monsters that were once people within, and the sudden power in the air was bringing them out of hibernation. They beat on the doors as the party passed, scraping on the heavy glass with distorted, crumbling limbs. Most had lost the ability to vocalize, and so there was an eerie quality to them, a silence that made their gruesome appearances louder.
Just as they were reaching full power, the lights began to dim. On the NRV-DIV bands, higher up, Immuena picked up disturbances. She could sense the ghosts all around them, deprived of form by the sheer amount of energy running through the power lines. Once they leeched enough power from the turbines and the power went out they would be able to corporate, and all the mag-locked rooms full of monsters would open once more.
"Hey... I can feel them." Immuena forced herself to project, "The ghosts. We need to dispel them before they can attack. I- can someone help?"
Allarah's lead turned questionable as phantoms of her past stepped out from the shadows to bait her on or scare her off. Whispers and chants of "Blood traitor" seemed to be carried on the ghastly cries of the ghosts trying to manifest. The icy chill of their attempted manifestations chapped the skins of the party as a whole but...
Immuena seemed to come back into herself a bit, pointing out where the specters were so that Tskhan could blast them with plumes of energy. The spells proved taxing quickly, and Tskhan had to stutter out his attacks to keep a constant cycle of mana.
"We're going in circles!" Dmitri growled. "It's not going to be much longer before the ghosts arrive."
Allarah dug her nails into her arm hard, enough to make it bleed, in an attempt to focus. Taking a deep shaky breath she cast her eyes about again.
After distracting her mind with ghost spotting and immolating meta, Immuena gained enough lucidity to see Allarah visibly struggling.
"Everyone stop a second." though Immuena's voice wasn't as commanding as she hoped, it at least had volume. "I need to return a favor." she caught up to Allarah, stood square with her, and sighed. Propping up on her tiptoes, she slapped Allarah with what strength she could muster. "We need you, and we need your eyes. They're the best we've got. And..." her voice dropped, "I'm sorry... From here, I'll do my best."
Albeit Immeuna was far from true mental clarity, divination was her strong suit.
Allarah placed her hand over her cheek for the briefest moment, smearing it with a combination of her and Vannik's blood. "Careful touching me." She said in earnest. "You don't want to see what I do." The corner of her mouth twitched as if she had meant to smile, but it never reached her face.
"Uhh-- here." Immuena pulled out her knife and cut off a portion of her sleeve to hand to Allarah. This saved her the embarrassment of standing on her toes again, while hopefully helping.
Tskhan stopped when he noticed that the rest of the group had stopped and decided to see what all the commotion was for, at the very least it was no skirmish. It was probably the end of whatever had transpired; there was just some minor misunderstanding. The issue was obvious; the stress of the situation, hell, everything that has transpired up until now. He took his duty as a team member lightly before but not this time. "Immuena, Allarah. We can't let this place get to us."
Allarah nodded her thanks to Immuena and walked to Tskhan. Lifting her hand to pat his shoulder, she stopped, flinching at the noise no one else could hear. Letting the hand fall, she turned to a corridor. "Come on. I think it's this way."
At last the party caught thread of the path to the exit: a capillary rail path from the main artery cutting through the heart of Vien. It must have been used to get supplies deeper into the city. They followed it, feet crunching on the gravel lining the floor under the rails, breaths echoing on the distant walls and coming back as distorted and grotesque as everything else in this damned place.
In the distance they could see the point of light that was the second gate of Vien, the north gate, through which the Trundler would be waiting. If they looked back over their shoulder they could see the south gate. Both seemed remarkably distant, especially given their size.
Through the dim lights of the tunnel, and back lit by the white light of the south gate, they saw something forming. It was as though all the monsters were falling upon each other, converging, morphing into something greater. Grit'm all over again.
"Faster, faster!" Laemon cried out.
The lights of the tunnel all flickered.... and died.
The darkness that followed was full of the party's exhausted gasps, the crunch of gravel, and now... a hum. A hum interwoven with a chorus of hysterical screams as though heard from a distance and approaching quickly.
A new light. All around them, gaining form, shaping into humanoid figures.
The ghosts were manifesting.
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