SoS B1 C6 X1: Finding Dessir
After the chaos of Vien the quietude of the following days fostered stifling tension. They left forest for plains, staking out over tundra. With how featureless the land and sky were, visibility might've just as easily been five meters as five miles before steely mist bridged the gap between grey earth and grey sky.
Ijin conversed with none save for Narissa.
From time to time one of the crew would raise a cry, claiming to see something in the mist. Sometimes the phantoms were solo, sometimes they were in groups, sometimes they were large, sometimes they were small, always they were products of the mind. There was nothing save the errant twisted frame of a tree's corpse or a random jutting stone.
Boisterous Gruist hadn't laughed since Vien.
Tskhan kept close to Immuena as schedules allowed. She had not slept very well. Any solace that the days brought her was destroyed by her dream every night. She couldn't look at Ijin without seeing...
Ijin's breasts glistening with sweat. Her smile wide. Yawning, wider and wider, lips breaking open into mandibles. Dark worms crawling out from inside. Her face morphing further, skin bleaching pale, features growing delicate. Her jaw split down her torso and she fissured open into a screaming black maw.
...without seeing Vannik's final thoughts. It did no favors for her confidence that the Somnolent's main form of communication with the Somnolent came in the form of derisive remarks from Tyodore and disyllabic responses from Dmitri. It was an improvement, at least, Dmitri had only been grunting before.
Lysjho kept close to Allarah as schedules allowed. He seemed to enjoy teaching, and was handy at it. Allarah quickly picked up what she had forgotten about Sazashi grammar and began work on pronunciation.
On the dawn of the third day, tundra gave way to foothills and scrub. By noon, Dimmu called out over the radio. "All halt! There's a road over there, I see signposts. Do we want to check out any of the settlements along our path?"
"Perhaps. Let me check the maps and see if it's worth our time. Shouldn't take me more than twenty minutes. Nice catch." Allarah paused over the intercom a moment before stepping away. She grabbed the maps and sought out Morkun. She needed a second opinion and knew he would be blunt and honest, more so than the others.
The duraweave cloth maps glowed with hologram symbols as Allarah laid them out. Saumai lacked a functioning orbital grid, so they had to find their position via guesswork. Morkun was good for that.
"We might be on the outskirts of Dessir," Morkun said, prodding the hovering city name. The letters splayed out into a paragraph. "Farming and meatpacking town that supplied to a good chunk of the region before it was moved to the other side of Vien."
"Think there's anything there worth a trip?" Allarah glanced at the nearest towns on the map. "Or do you think it would be best to move on?" She looked up at him expectantly.
Morkun's shrewd gaze stared at the map as though seeing a bird's eye view of the world rather than a cloth-bound hologram’s minimal representation. "It's less built-up than Grit’m or Vien," he said. "I don't imagine it's very vertical, and so far we haven't seen many ghosts or monsters out during daytime, so we could probably take the trundler through and make multiple, block-wide expeditions into buildings if we really wanted to."
He straightened. "I'm curious as to the history of Saumai, why there were no Sazashi in Lady Venistasia's Starcrest Castle and why they seemed so impoverished and rare in Karim. Dessir might have answers for us, but I'm not sure it's worth the risk. Our supplies are on track and so are we. If you want to pass through I'm confident that it would be low-risk, but we may not have much to gain and may slow our journey. I'd be hesitant to be caught in any ruins at night, given events so far."
"Grit'm." She mumbled. "Grit'm was a predominantly Sazashi settlement and it was in ruins. They knew those people had holed up in the middle of town, but I don't have much confidence in their attempts to send aid... they sent us to take power from the city's defense without elaborating whether or not there may be survivors as well. I don't think there were but.. That's bothered me ever since we got back." She glared down at the map a moment. Looking into his eyes with a softer expression she continued. "I don't mind pulling through with the trundler because it minimizes risk, but I don't want to risk people. If we check it out it would be you, me, and two others. We'd return well before the sun set. So, it's up to you Morkun. A day or so won't hurt us, and honestly, I want to know as well."
"Khalizim worried the same," Morkun muttered, tracing lines around the town, following the various roadways. "If we go it should be with the trundler or none. It might be low threat but that doesn't mean I'd like to be stranded anywhere outside of running distance from the trundler. I didn't go to Grit'm or Vien, so my first experience with anything was what I saw chasing you out of Vien. Ultimately, it's your call." His tone rattled with exasperation on the last line.
"Of course we're bringing this beast." She rapped her knuckles on the table. "I haven't completely lost my damn mind yet. She will be parked right in the middle of town. We will be the only ones stepping foot off was my point, with Immuena and Tskhan if you have no objections. They were with me both times I encountered the beast you saw chasing us. I think they're more common than I'm comfortable with." She scratched the back of her head uncomfortably.
"What happened to Khalizim? The last I saw of him, he was on the bike going in the same direction as the Somnolent party. The implications alone..." her voice drifted off. She shook her head. "Sorry. We can talk about that some other time. I need to tell the others to get this thing into town." She stood. "Are you alright with this?" Allarah looked at him coolly. Her tone changed to match. "You won't have your people with you. They will be close by, but you're going out on a limb right? You don't know us, so you don't know if you can trust us. You know Feao don't smile, so that must be suspicious to some degree. Are you okay with trusting me?" She never broke eye contact and she kept her face passive.
"Faeo and Aen have too much in common," He said, giving a wry smile. "We smile, but never when we mean it. Let's do this."
The trundler was easy enough to navigate through the wide main streets of Dessir, which had been paved to make way for much larger vehicles, but the side streets broke from the main arteries into winding veins that quickly narrowed down to narrow capillaries hardly two or three feet wide. This lent a hive-like feel to many of the roads, and amped up the paranoia to no end.
The trundler pulled to a stop in the center of town. To the north a church of Bastet rose through the mist, topped with a spire of the Lady herself holding The Wheel up to the heavens. To the south and east both was a mixture of residential sprawls and small businesses, and to the west were all the factories, farms, and meatpacking plants.
"Goddess..."Allarah whispered looking at the church. She'd only been a few times, but The statuette seemed to call out to her. While the other buildings warranted attention, the church held her gaze. She had a feeling many Sazashi chose to hide there during the initial attack, and that if they had many had died doing so. The church was bound to be dangerous, but if they were going to find anything, they would find it there. "Goddess guide us. Keep us from harm." She prayed.
Allarah looked to Morkun, Tskhan, and Immuena in turn. "I think we should go to church. I hope I'm wrong in what I expect to find... but if I'm right, it's safer to go now, while the sun is highest. Any objections?"
Tskhan turned to Allarah and said "The Path of the Wheel is always the correct one." He stepped forward but looked back at Immuena "Any objections?"
Immuena gave a light chuckle at Tskhan's replication of Allarah's actions and words, "None here. Though I recommend we prepare spells, especially after what has been happening lately." her tone broke the lightheartedness of her previous laugh.
Allarah gripped Immuena's shoulder. "We'll do just that. This isn't a necessary thing so we'll leave if it gets out of hand." She smiled. "Thank you for coming. Let me know if you get overwhelmed. I know you haven't felt well."
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