Elise had heard of Vexvours during her studies at the Arcane Academy back on Erde Nona, but she had never seen one in real life. The vampire in her wondered what the creature’s blood would taste like, but the scholar in her chastised that instinct. Luka seemed to know what she was doing, which was more than could be said about most of the chattel locked up in these barracks.
Still, there was no reason she couldn’t be shrewd about this.
“First pick? I didn’t come here to barter with slaves. Let’s see what your crypts have to offer, then we’ll talk.” Elise said, crossing her arms. The two magic-hungry women held eachother’s glare for a few moments, which turned out to be a mistake on Elise’s part.
“You smell cursed, red-eyes. Maybe I have second thoughts about cooperating with a vampire.” Luka snapped. Several of the slaves, who had been taking turns freeing themselves from their chains, all snapped their attention onto Elise at once. The punk girl grimaced, but stood her ground.
“Like I’d want to wet my lips on you, dusty bitch. You already look half-juiced.” Elise snapped in return.
“We have more immediate god-damned problems.” Strazio growled in as loud a whisper as he dared. He stood at the doorway of the barracks, keeping an eye on the movements around the quarry. He hefted the guard’s weapon clumsily, shouldering it in the way he’d seen done for the past few weeks.
Elise craned her neck around the threshold of the door to see the trouble, and heard voices approaching.
“Probably coming to change the watch. Did you have a plan after this part or…?” Strazio seethed with increasing anger.
“Shut it, husk. We cut off the head and let these dogs tear eachother apart.” Elise said, making a snap decision to kill off the leader of this operation. If nothing else, that would surely slow down the cult of Darkseid. She pointed at the modular shack where Strazio knew Ramley was snoring away quietly.
“Wait! I thought we were getting out of here!” Luka protested. Elise bloomed into a fanged grin and glanced back at the froggish woman.
“Who’s we?” Elise taunted before sprinting off around the corner. There came a sudden series of shouts and bloody screams. Strazio looked back at Luka with a strained expression before chasing after the undead hellion. By the time he rounded the side of the garage, Elise had already torn a hole open in one of the bandit’s chest, and was hastily, noisily dismantling the second.
Even the seasoned brawler had to swallow a lump at the sight. Vampires had never meant much to him; fairy stories meant to warn young mages away from flirting with undeath. Seeing what Elise could do with her bare hands brought context to Luka’s hesitation.
No time to back down now. Already whistles and distant cries started to arise around the quarry, both as the dead men’s screams alerted the other watchmen, but also as haggard, desperate slaves started to scatter across the digsite like ants from a hill.
“You go get their head guy. I’ll raise hell here. Do you know how to use that thing?” Elise said, gesturing at the gun in Strazio was stirring around.
“It’s a rifle. The loud end points at the other man.” Strazio spat defensively. The vampire raised an eyebrow.
“That’s a shotgun. Have fun. I’ll come get you in a few minutes.” she winked. Strazio growled some profane response before wheeling around and sprinting into a low dash toward’s Ramley’s office. Satisfied, Elise bent down and rummaged for keys on the dead men’s person. Their walkie talkies were already squawking with shouted reports, along with the staccato reports of distant gunfire.
Strazio seemed like a fun guy. Too bad he was probably going to die, she mused.
The vampire finally found a set of keys among the gorey limbs at her feet, and briskly let herself into the compound’s main garage. The building was dank with old diesel fumes, and the air itself had an oily potency which made the vampire grin. Bandits and raiders loved their little truck workshops and garages...poorly ventilated and filled with inflammable liquids. You really couldn’t ask for a better bomb.
She immediately set about unstopping all of the scattered fuel canisters and gleefully spilling them around the perimeter of the workshop. She kept her ears pricked for any dumb guards bursting into the building, but they apparently didn’t need any wrenches or motor oil to hunt down a pack of escaped slaves.
Good.
It was at that moment that a cold blade slipped into her back. Despite her vampiric resistances, it was surprising enough that she yelped aloud and clawed at the air behind her. There was nothing there, but a shape scuttering beneath a nearby work table and along the wall. Muted sounds of combat came through the corrugated metal walls, but otherwise, silence settled over the dark garage.
“Real cute.” Elise growled, yanking the shiv out of her bloodless flesh and letting it clatter to the floor. Whatever this creature was, it clearly could see in the dark like her, and skulked accordingly. She thought back to her erstwhile skaven friend in Ledrillo. Maybe a cousin of his lived here. Time was wasting, however. She couldn’t dawdle here indefinitely fighting some rat mechanic; she had to at least try to keep her promise to the white-haired madman. The vampire found a torch lighter next to the propane tanks and quickly scraped a burst of sparks onto her trail of fuel.
In a matter of moments, and in a rush of heat, the workshop was illuminated like the inside of a crematorium. It was so violent, in fact, that Elise was caught off guard and staggered into a pool of flickering gasoline.
“Ah! Shit!” she cursed, throwing her black cloak onto the ground as it began to smoke and burn. She turned to make a hasty exit, when a small, sharp body jumped onto her face and began stabbing at her with another rusty shiv.
“Killy you! Make her bones!” the creature shrieked. Elise, also shrieking, grabbed hold of her tiny assaulter and violently wrenched the assailant off of her lacerated, oozing face. The vampire flung the furious little...thing...off into the cluttered workshop and felt her way along the wall towards the door. Little bastard had put her eyes half out...it would be a few minutes until she could see clearly again. Too small to be a skaven. Too brave. Whatever. She fumbled for the garage door button as she slipped out the door, and a rush of cool desert air slipped under the new, yawning portal to feed the hungry flames.
She did her best to make her way in the vague, blurry direction of the jeeps, where Greenstripes was still waiting in their jeep. The fire in the garage had been noticed, of course, but at this point the compound was in such chaos that the few responders could only vainly spray at it with handheld extinguishers.
“Hey! You!” came a voice from behind her. There was a racket of gunfire from yards away, and the vampire fully expected to get gunned down...but her already raked flesh stayed intact. Instead, she felt a cold, clammy shoulder lift under her bulk as Luka helped her towards the jeeps. Most of them had already been taken away to chase down escaping chattel, but Elise pointed towards her own car and muttered.
“Red one is...mine…”
“Don’t look too deeply into this. I didn’t want to...hang on.” Luka muttered, firing a few adroit shots at something Elise couldn’t see before continuing, “...didn’t want to owe you my life.”
“I’ve seen your life...not impressed.” Elise grunted as the vexvour hefted her into the passenger seat of the jeep. It struck the vampire that this particular species looked much stronger than their wiry, silvery appearance would suggest. Her pondering was interrupted as Luka abruptly screamed, and Elise reached out with a supernatural grip to grab the barrel of the submachine gun.
“What the fuck?!” Luka yelped, trying to wrestle the gun into firing position as a gelatinous, writhing mass boiled up through the gap beneath the gearshift.
“Stop! This is my familiar! Chill!” Elise shouted over Luka’s indignant whining.
“Greenstripes! Take us to the office.” the punkish wizard shouted over the growing din of chaos. Her familiar obliged and set about starting the haggard jeep with angry, whirring cranks of the engine. Elise shook her head and pinched at her eyes as her vision started to swim and whirl back to her. Luka was crawling over the back seats of the jeep to take up a firing position, muttering “Ick! Ick, ick ick.” as she wiped terratopus mucus off of her skin.
Greasy black smoke was rising high into the crisp, Rojanian night, and everywhere was full of violence and angry shouting. The jeep finally turned over, and their mollusk driver wasted no time in swinging the junker around in a spray of sand and gravel. The tired, weathered wheels blew a rooster tail of debris into the air as the car rocketed towards the main office, just as the main fuel repository in the garage exploded.
The thunder rocked the jeep, but it the tough old car ground to a halt outside of Ramsley’s quarters. Elise was sure that Strazio was either dead or had moved on by this point, but it was worth a shot. She leaned on the Jeep’s pathetic, meeping horn and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Strazio! Straziooo! We’re leaving!” she roared, even as smoldering debris from the detonated warehouse began to rain down on them...
Quest: Cult Troubles (Unmaking Quest)
Elise
Post WC: 1625
Quest WC: 5,515/5000