V M Revelations: Frost and Decay

[Ezrihel]

"Meng, did you get the files I forwarded to you?" Ezrihel stood with his arms folded, braced against the wall of a small gray alcove somewhere in the lower commercial levels of the hub. Arthur leaned casually next to him, his observant azure eyes scanning the crowd in front of them as the General got to fussin' on his invisible device.

The logician's voice came through crystal clear on his integrated neural communicator, soft and mousy as ever as she spoke into his mind. "The files from Doctor Jane Foster? Yes sir. I have them right here."

"I need a couple of soldiers prepped for a detail with me, planet-side. Sari al-Waheed and Ruedlen von Saerhaus. I expect them, along with P’thaeyl, to meet me at the third level of the docking bay by the top of the hour."

"Sir- I, uh. Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Ezrihel von Althaus impatiently tapped his foot. She was about to raise some sort of objection, certainly. He already knew it was coming, and huffed with a roll of his eyes. "Granted, Meng. What is it?"

"Are you sure that Saerhaus is ready to go back into combat already? I uh mean... She has only been up and walking around again for about a week."

"... And?" He asked dryly. There was something so annoyingly rote about being able to predict, and the expected need to field, the constant tedious concerns of his underlings. By the love of the gods' eternal blessings, what part of 'we don't have time to futz about' did the rung of officers running in his crew not understand? Getting Ruedlen processed and restored had been an extensive pain of politicking with his direct subordinates that he normally despised getting involved with. And what, now he was going to hear it from his logician too? The andromedan scoffed aloud, earning a curious glance from his cowboy companion.

"Well, standard protocol is for two weeks time to be given post-"

What was she, andromedan resources officer? "Meng, my lovely. Respectfully. I really wish that I cared about standard-protocol-this and standard-protocol-that at the moment but I so desperately do not." He dismissed bluntly, his tone laced with a curt and ever-so-slightly-plastic sweetness. “They have a job to do by obligation of honor. I expect them to do it. We don’t have the luxury of protocols.”

The logician sighed dejectedly at his response, utterly loath to abandon the principles and guidelines that kept things working smoothly. "Was she at least cleared by C.M.O Isra, General Althaus?"

"Ugh. Redundantly so." Ez rolled his eyes, pushing himself off the wall and silently gesturing to Arthur to walk alongside him. Foster had forwarded the relevant information to him between rather excited requests, now all they had to do was make it down to the ice sheets, if his crew wanted to stop digging their heels in and actually go. "Do you think he would allow her to wander around if she wasn't fit?"

"I..." Meng's soft voice stumbled, going silent for a long moment. "No sir. He is a competent doctor and I could not speak ill of his ability."

"Hm. I am sure he would appreciate your trust." The aristocrat remarked flatly. “Make sure that they are ready for a several day long embarkment befitting this barren ball of hostile ice. Mind giving me the details on the native fauna we should expect to face?”

Meng hummed softly. “It’s... Really not a friendly place, General. On the surface you are looking at permanent sub-zero temperatures, howling winds and snowstorms that can bury an encampment in just a few hours. Xenomorphs and necromorphs parasitize their prey- the xenomorphs being prone to a hive mind structure and a penchant for capturing their prey for... ah... live incubation- uhm -ehem- whereas the necromorphs are more akin to a post-mortem metamorphosis... The cthonians and remorhazzes stalk and burrow through the ice sheets, wampas- large and bipedal white furred mammal-like beasts- take refuge in caves... And that’s before you consider the locusts, the ost’lakas and deep elves with their--”

“You have got to be kidding me.” Ez interrupted with a groan of exasperation. “Ost’lakas?”

“Well, the locals call them ‘mind-flayers’, and say they have octopus faces, but that is accompanied by reports of a malicious psychic methodology...” Her voice faded into the background as the noble’s stomach lurched rather violently.

“Augh...” Althaus came to a stop so suddenly that Arthur paused to check on him. He was practically green- well, as green as a purple-blooded alien could look, given the lighting and circumstance.

“Sir?”
“General?”

Both Meng and Morgan had managed to pipe up at the same time.

“I’m fine!” Ezrihel hissed at both of them, swallowing back the bile that threatened his composure. Once again that dreadful wave of nausea washed over him before he shoved the burgeoning intrusive thought to the back of his mind and kept walking. “What in the sevens hells is a remorhaz or cthonian, anyway?”

“Uh... Gigantic ice-worms living on and within the ice sheets, according to reports, sir.” Meng chirped over the connection, as if she wasn’t describing a terrible ecosystem of misery.

Ez scowled, rolling his emerald eyes and shaking his head. From one spiteful world to another, the nasty creatures never seemed to end, and Inverxe was beyond the normal ranges of hostility, as if the gods themselves sought to punish the puny little dirty snowball for the offense of merely existing. He supposed that this was how he got his fun these days. “Just make sure Saerhaus and al-Waheed are ready for this frozen hellscape, okay? Althaus over and out.”

The general glanced at Arthur as the channel closed, a certain chaotic gleam to his expression. The cowboy chuckled, only slightly put off, because he just knew that look meant something sideways was surely soon to come from the wily alien. “What, General? You don’t get that look in yer eye often, ‘sides when your scheming up something devilish.”

“Morgan!” Ez gasped, a delicate hand feigning mock dramatism as he pantomimed shock. “I am as pure as a lamb, I’ll have you know, my darling cowpoke~”

Arthur scoffed in amused disbelief. “Yeah? And I ain’t nothin’ shy of a saint.”

“Oh, I didn’t dare to assume you were anything but, my dear friend~” The andromedan assured with a playful little flourish and feline grin.

The cowboy smacked his lips and smirked with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Sure, General, if you say so.”





The ride down to the surface was about as gentle as a last minute ticket down to hell could be on the capitalist showboat known as the Hub. The pilot was a short gruff woman who appeared weathered by snowstorms and stress until she was left with nothing more than her diminutive height and impressively bullish attitude. She had told the five passengers, in no uncertain terms, to secure their shit in the metal lockers, get seated and buckle the fuck up. She had agreed to bring them to Gnawbone camp and not an inch further, and made a big tedious point about the fact that she wasn’t planning to stick around and wait around for them, and that they would have to just ‘figure something out’ when the time for them to return from the ‘ice coffin’ came, if it came.

Ezrihel thought the squat woman (who’s name he had already swiftly forgotten) was incredibly grating in her abundant profanity and obnoxious repetition, and was simply thankful to leave the cramped starship as soon as he was given the all-clear. A moment longer spent around the patronizing crone was going to make his ears itch to the point of frivolous homicide. He stepped down off of the ramp, the rugged spiked soles of his insulated waterproof boots bit into the snowy ice with sharp crunches. He pulled the black hood of his fur-lined double breasted overcoat close around his face against the bitter cold as he walked off, only stopping when he fully trusted that he had given that short-tempered pilot more than enough space to take off without torching them with the engines.

Behind him, garbed in similar cold-weather gear and hopeful prayers, came Sari, Ruedlen and Arthur, and in the very back P’thaeyl brought up the rear, carefully scanning for possible threats that sought to get the drop on their little squad. The organics with him all looked to him, he assumed waiting for his valued direction. With little more than a thought the coordinates that Doctor Foster had sent him were displayed on his optical overlay, and he made quick work leading them through the barren white landscape to Camp Gnawbone.

Ruedlen stared vacantly to the sky as she shuffled onwards, her large ghostly eyes fixated on the bloated looming form of the humongous purple Ioun, the parental gas giant of this decrepit little moon. It lorded over them like a cold, profane god, indifferent to the suffering inherent to the child it clutched so closely to its bosom. It felt all wrong, deep in her bones this wasteland felt empty and wrong, as if existence itself had suddenly decided to take a ninety degree turn to the left for no reason at all.

Her world had shifted in a terribly implacable way since she had reawoken a week ago, and in a way that left her feeling awfully dizzy and out-of-place. Like coming out of a long hibernation, she found her memories hazy and incongruent and knew that like a portrait left a half-degree crooked something was terribly wrong, and equally implacable, within her world. She had wanted to speak with Raphael about it, desperately, but his mind worked in secret, and he had made himself frustratingly content putting as much distance and as many barriers between them as possible. Like some sort of small frightened creature he had delegated the tasks of checking her over and talking with her to one of his assistants, Zelena.

Frankly, it made her want to wrap her lithe fingers around his pencil neck and wring it until he gave her the respect she deserved, because she knew that they were close enough for her to be treated better. She just wished she understood why she was being scorned and avoided like some sort of sickly plague victim, threatening contagion. Finally Rue looked over to her azure-haired friend, and gave him a gentle nudge on the arm. "Sari, I..."

Sari turned towards her, his dark face half-obscured by the fur lining of his hood but he did not miss a single effortless stride, instantly noticing that glassy-eyed stare of hers, and quirked a brow. "Yes, my friend? What is it that troubles your heart and mind?"

Ruedlen glanced forward at the General and his dusty human tag-along, then back to Sari, gently prodding at the edge of the assassin’s consciousness with her own. He was slow to lower his mental guard, even for her soft whispers. ‘Haven’t felt right since they brought me back up...’

’Ah... But that is to be expected after such a procedure, no?’

’I guess. I’ve just always been more prepared in the past... And it just doesn’t feel right, Sari.’

’And you are certain it is not the madness moon inflicting the Malaise upon your psyche? I’ve felt an odd weight prickling across my skin since we landed.’

’No, not the moon- I mean. The moon is pretty creepy, but I usually enjoy creepy barren landscapes- this is different... Did I do something to piss off Raph?’

There was a noticeable hesitation from the alien Madjai, and he was careful to not allow any unsanctioned thoughts or feelings to slip through their psychic connection. He knew that Isra was sensitive, deep down. Sensitive and probably terrified, let alone avoidant. ’He is not speaking with you?’

’He won’t even see me, Sari. He keeps to himself in his office and instead sends Zelena or Contoti to check on me. I... The apparent months leading up to last week are... unclear at best. I remember a ship, and an angry god. I remember vague flashes of an all encompassing pain and salty ocean water...’ Her feeling of loss and frustrated confusion was plain and clear across their mental tether, and it ached like a stiff and bruised muscle.

She did not understand. She could not possibly understand. Sari knew that in a heartbeat, because it wasn’t his conversation to have. Instead all he could offer her was a firm and reassuring squeeze of the hand and, ’I am sure that Isra simply needs time to work through processing everything. Needing to do what he did has no doubt been hard and heavy on his mind since. I think he will speak with you when he is ready to.’

Rue was only half-convinced, if only because she knew better than to trust the Doctor to be so straight-forward in any prompt manner when it came to his private feelings-

“Hey, lovebirds. Quit holding hands and get over here. This isn't some romantic get-away.” Ezrihel’s demand cut through the frail mental bond between them and brought them both back to reality. Sari was quick to drop her gloved hand and hustle over to the General, P’thyael, and Arthur, who stood across the desolate worksite on a ridge. Rue only joined them a moment later, taking her time to stroll through the silent camp, a fact that annoyed the impatient noblethem, though he chose to not press it. He knew better. She was probably still adjusting to being alive again. He just wished that she would manage it faster and less like a dazed sheep shambling along.

His calculating emerald eyes focused out in the distance, against the endless glare of brilliant white snow and icy foothills, and locked on to a stand of verdant trees maladjusted in appearance to the frigid desert. “Does that seem normal to any of you?” He paused, as if giving a chance for his rhetoric to be challenged. “No? Glad I’m not the only sane one here. Keep your guard up. Doctor Foster called it an ‘unmade poison’ on the world. Who knows what manner of beasts slink around it, lying in wait for foolish and curious prey. Weapons out.”

The General, first to take initiative, readied Rose and stepped forward with a rather casual saunter off the ridge. Whatever the hell this unmade rot contained could not possibly be worse than a half-carcinoid decaying octo-god with a scottish accent filling his lungs with putrid oil. At least here the ground was far more solid underfoot... Or so he thought before he saw the full extent of the gaping chasm in the ice. He took one step closer, curious to peer down into the ravine and physically felt the air shift, as if he had crossed some sort of actual boundary. Before it had been windy and biting with cold, but here the air was held perfectly, artificially still.

A dreadful unease came over him as the long thin blades of grass and flowers swayed gently back and forth, the hairs on the back of his neck standing to prickle with an instinctual warning. There was no wind here, yet the vines draped over the sun-bleached tree branches rocked ever so slightly, as if barely brushed past. The flora was lush and verdant, alive in all appearances to the normal naked eye, and yet there was no light within it. They moved in time with a singular motion, not the logical chaos befitting a natural environment, the unique and individual motes of life were missing, replaced by what could only be described as a monotonous smear, a low and flat hum that denoted a singular one Thing despite seeming to be many.

It felt utterly unholy. A mockery of the natural order, regardless of its odd and alien beauty.

The General glanced back at his squad, only a meter or two behind him, looking first to Sari, then Arthur, P’thaeyl, and Ruedlen. “Burn it down. It is nothing but profanely tainted--”

Suddenly Ruedlen sucked in an intense gasp, her gloved hands flying up to her mouth as her eyes widened, the world around them draining free of what little color and light it possessed, as if O’sotlia herself had abandoned the miserable world to a bleak drabness. The cavern gaping by their feet shuddered, a rush of real wind gusting up in some massive exhale before warping into a demented wailing scream. The skull piercing lament burrowed into their ears and rattled their minds, the ground underfoot splitting even further open to plunge them all down into the unknowably dark depths below...
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2,784/2,500

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AN ARBITER'S RAGE

NON-REPEATABLE

Quest Giver: Up to the player
Quest Length: 2,500 words
Quest Location: Inverxe
Quest Prerequisites: N/A
Quest Description: Your character is going about their daily business when a strange sensation overcomes them, leaving them somewhere between burning rage and infinite sorrow. As they look around, they begin to notice that something isn’t right: their surroundings are… dimming, like some great spirit in the sky has switched out the lights. Suddenly, in the distance, the screams begin. A Voice that you instantly and ineffably recognize as your world’s Arbiter screams, as well. The ground cracks beneath your feet, whole chunks of landscape swallowed by pockets of void-like darkness. The world around you devolves into chaos, and you’ll have to fight your way out as corrupted flora and fauna begin to swarm the area. You need to find somewhere safe, if that even exists anymore.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

CRRRRRCK-PHOOM!

The ground beneath their feet trembled and ripped open with a tremendous rumble, yawning wide like the jagged-toothed maw of some great beast. Seconds later, an avalanche of crumbling ice and rock sent them all tumbling down, down, down into the abyssal caverns that sprawled beneath the frozen, brittle crust of Inverxe, entirely helpless to stop their descent.

A harsh yell ripped free of Arthur's throat as he slid into the pit, echoing off the walls of the ravine as he careened wildly downwards, his hands desperately tearing at the jagged, slimy surface of the rock in an attempt to slow his fall. It fell to pieces within his grasp, the cold, uncompromising stone shredding his palms and fingers open, leaving red trails of blood in their wake— messy hand prints streaking across the icy wall in a grisly imitation of a Jackson Pollock painting.

Each impact felt as if the stone itself was gnawing away at his flesh, slicing and tearing through his skin like he was being ripped to shreds by barbed razor-wire. It was a mercy when his skull struck something on the way down— an agonizing spear of heat piercing his brain, white-hot like a bolt of lightning, before darkness descended, so complete he knew no more.

It was some time later that Arthur stirred. His heavy eyelids fluttered to life, head lolling weakly to the side. His mind swam within a thick fog of confusion as he tried to make sense of the world around him, blinking hard, blood dripping wetly into his eyelashes from the skull-shattering blow he'd taken to the head.

Sounds and shapes were lost in a deep void, darkness filling every corner of his nascent awareness, very little discernible amid the murk. Still, his eyes squinted as they attempted to penetrate the shadowy haze that obscured his immediate surroundings, struggling against the alluring siren's call of unconsciousness that threatened to drag him back down into the soft belly of sleep.

The urge to drift back into that comforting blackness was great, but he fought it with every breath, sharp puffs of air hissing out from between his teeth as he shifted. An innate knowing burned at the forefront of his mind. It itched at him, urging him toward wakefulness with a ferocity that your typical law-abiding sophisticated citizen would not, could not possess.

This feral instinct coursed through his veins now, a sharpened sixth sense kept alive by years of living on the edge of the law. His body practically hummed with warning, raring to spring into action at the slightest hint of danger.

Groaning, Arthur lifted his head. His weary skull felt a piercing pain, as if some invisible force hammered at his temples from within. His neck was stiffer than a bite of hard liquor, the surface he had been resting against rigid and arctic-cold, and his mouth tasted strongly of the sour, coppery tinge of blood.

Twitching his tongue, Arthur discovered that he'd dug his teeth into his cheek on the way down, tearing a ragged gouge through the delicate tissue lining his mouth. Stinging pain stretched outwards from the cut in veiny bursts. When he grimaced, his lips peeled back from his teeth, streaking them all over with bright red.

It was no great surprise that he'd overlooked this injury for so long, though: the rest of his body felt like one big ache, bearing down on him in a seemingly never-ending tidal wave of pain. The throb of agony was all-consuming, near blinding, rendering all else insignificant by way of comparison.

He attempted to thrust himself up onto his elbows, but an agonizing jolt radiated from his left arm, swiftly putting an end to his feeble efforts. Pain, relentless and unsparing, seared from his elbow like he'd taken a scorching iron brand to it— a white shard of bone jutting out from the joint, splitting through the skin at an unnatural angle.

Seemed his arm had broken in the fall. Joy.

Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, Arthur let his head fall back, collapsing against the ground with a weighted thud. He struggled for air through lungs that seemed to be eternally short of breath. His fingers clawed at the earth beneath him, digging into the stone until it bit cruelly under his fingernails, churning up the frost-hardened ground in a desperate bid to remain conscious.

Not a sound could be heard issuing from between his gritted teeth. Not a single wheeze or sigh of pain. It was a skill he'd honed through several months of practice, after all. Arthur knew well to keep his private suffering corralled and locked up tight within his chest.

For one moment though, just the briefest of moments, the former outlaw allowed himself to feel just the tiniest bit sorry for himself. A single drop of self-pity, like melting wax, seeping every so slowly through his clenched fingers. Then, clamping down on his roiling thoughts, he marshaled his will and concentrated on what he had to do.

Relying on his one remaining good arm, Arthur rolled over and thrust himself upwards, at least part of his upper body levered off the ground. His head turned on a slow swivel, taking in his surroundings with narrowed blue eyes.

His breath fogged in the air, a chill crawling up the length of his spine as he observed the thick clusters of verdant foliage that stretched as far as the eye could see. Dark fronds of unidentifiable tropical plants stirred as a light, shivering breeze passed through the cavern, brushing over everything like an unseen phantom.

The plants grew between the deep fissures gouged into the craggy walls, like frothing weeds jutting up through cracks in a sidewalk. Almost like they thought there weren't any better place to be growing. Someplace warm, maybe, with sunlight and fresh air.

Still, while the abundance of greenery certainly seemed out of place in such a frigid, inhospitable environment, Arthur couldn't help but feel a strange affinity to it. It reminded him of his first introduction to the Crossroads: the jungle world, Kraw, and its endless span of snarling wilderness. Vegetation seemed to grow just as untamed here, the air thick with moisture and mystery alike, sweet-smelling flowers issuing their pungent aroma throughout the dank, frost-tinged grotto.

Arthur surveyed his surroundings with a sharp eye, finding no trace of his Andromedan companions. All he could see were imposing slabs of earth, the massive boulders hewn loose and scattered along the canyon floor— likely by the very same landslide that had sent them all plummeting into the dark recesses of the icy moon in the first place.

A growing sense of urgency building inside his gut, Arthur wrestled with a savage fury against the seething pain of his injuries, hissing through clenched teeth until he managed to raise himself up, first onto his knees, then propping himself up with a boulder like a crutch.

Unsteady on his feet, he stood. His arm hung limp and useless from his shoulder, dangling crookedly.

"Althaus," he muttered to himself, as if in sudden remembrance, then brought his uninjured arm up with a sudden lurch— the palm of his hand cupping around the side of his mouth, sloppily pressed to his lips as he hollered, "Althaus! You alive?!"

His hoarse shout reverberated throughout the cavern. It thundered back in his ears as it echoed off from the walls, warped by the uneven shapes of the stalactites hanging like an elaborate natural chandelier from the ceiling. And for a long moment, it seemed that silence would be his only answer. Then—

"Morgan!" came the General's voice from somewhere to his left, sounding strained from distance. "Over… here!"

Turning in that direction, Arthur stumbled his way over the chunks of debris littered across the ground, boots scraping through the rubble. His eyes squinted as he rounded the side of a boulder, and his breath caught up in his chest at what he beheld there.

Even amid the dismal dank of the cavern, General Althaus cut quite a striking figure. His long blond hair hung in tousled strands, matted to his forehead and stiffened by sweat. His ordinarily composed face was a mask of wild-eyed concentration as boulders from the recent avalanche hung suspended in mid-air around him. With a Herculean effort he fought against the relentless pull of gravity, holding aloft the tons of rocks around him with sheer force of will— and that strange mystical force he claimed mastery over. Telekinesis, if Arthur recalled rightly.

Ruedlen and Sari were curiously absent. Arthur craned his neck around to look for them, but the motion earned him a sharp, feral hiss from the Andromedan before him, snapping Arthur's attention back to the noblethem.

"If you will focus on the task at hand, Morgan; unless you have miraculously developed night vision in the last three minutes, I need you to light your lantern so you're not a blind man wandering in the dark down here. The last thing I need is for you to slip on the ice and actually dash your brains out across the rocks." The General growled with exertion and lowered the floating icy rubble to the ground several meters away, revealing a hollow amongst the debris, before he gave a terse bark of a call. "P’thaeyl! Integrity report."

The artificial voice of the AI chirped back in response from somewhere within the dark crevice. "Superficial damage sustained. Saerhaus and al-Waheed are present and responsive."

"Yeah yeah, help them climb out of that crack in the ice why don’t you." The blonde ordered the AI with no shortage of irritation before turning back to Arthur and giving the cowpoke a once over. “I thought you were fall-proof, Morgan. How in the seven planes did you manage to break your arm from- what was that, a two hundred foot drop?- when you walked off that five hundred meter one in the City of Hope?”

Arthur shrugged, the movement hindered by the sorry state of his arm. A rumbling chuckle escaped his lips, sounding strange even to his own ears. "Tried to break my fall, General. Force of habit, I guess."

Sari pulled himself from the rubble with a coarse grinding of stones. He approached, his head tilting with slight curiosity as he overheard Ezrihel’s remarks. “I can help you set and stabilize your arm, my friend—”

“Make it quick,” Althaus interjected, swiping a hand across his brow and settling into a comfortable stance, Rose drawn and glinting in the dark. “We are not going to be alone for long. That cave-in was loud. Whatever lives in these tunnels is going to want to investigate our grand entrance. Already I can feel them stirring deeper in the tunnels.”

“Ah, and I doubt that they will be bringing us cake and a welcome wagon, yes my General~?” Sari hummed smoothly, only receiving a quiet stare from the noblethem as Rue and P’thaeyl joined them.

Only Arthur returned his good humor, a slight smile cracking his lips. "Ain't nobody ever complained 'bout a bit of cake, friend. Could use something sweet after the kind of day we've been havin'. Ain't that right, General?"

Ezrihel's stare shifted to Arthur, meeting the outlaw's unrepentantly amused expression with a flat one of his own. The way Arthur pronounced his title was irksome, the syllables mangled and rendered nigh unrecognizable by the roughened burrs of his accent. It always sounded something like 'gin'rahl,' utterly mutilated by Arthur's typical gruff way of speaking.

The noblethem's gaze shifted back to Sari, sighing softly through his nose. "Hurry, before I save us the trouble and cut the accursed thing off," he quipped, then spun on his heel to regard the area around them, gaze focusing on what appeared to be a tunnel branching off from the verdant cave they'd dropped into.

Approaching Arthur, Sari reached out and grasped him at his elbow and forearm. He paused, looking up into the outlaw's face with a somewhat regretful expression.

"Brace yourself, my friend," he warned him, before swiftly yanking Arthur's arm back, sending a roar of pain through his body as he felt the bone slipping back into place.

A grunt of breath escaped Arthur as his arm was reset, though the expected agony was oddly short-lived. Worryingly so. He was no stranger to pain, but this time it was... different. Almost like it'd never even been there in the first place...

He didn't have long to ponder this mystery, though. A sound echoed from afar, Ezrihel's already supremely uptight posture stiffening further in response. As one, they all turned their heads to regard the dark tunnel they'd escaped the rubble to find.

"We'll do a quick patrol of the area. If whatever made that sound is on its way here, we must prepare for a fight," Ezrihel commanded in a hushed yet vehement manner. His gaze darted to Arthur, sweeping him from head to foot in a quick evaluation of his physical state, before snapping up to his face. "Morgan. With me."

They split off in pairs, P’thaeyl drifting off somewhere in the middle distance between them. Arthur brought out his lantern, the pale flame within flickering to life at his touch. It illuminated the cavern walls with an eerie whitish glow, casting the dark fronds of the corrupted flora threaded throughout the rock in stark relief.

He and Ezrihel started off with hasty steps, intent on investigating a side tunnel that had broken away from the main chamber they'd tumbled into, its entrance littered with rubble.

The crunching of shale and pebbles sounded from beneath their boots as they trudged forward, tiny fragments of stone sent skittering across the ground. Streaks of colorful mineral shimmered in the swaying light of the lantern, a peculiar formation of calcite flashing bright blue as Arthur and Ezrihel walked past it.

Arthur stared around at his surroundings, eyes widening in admiration. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before. Hues of opal and quartz shone from within every nook and cranny, a veritable rainbow of color gleaming in the hollow depths. Glistening silver veins of precious ore ran along the walls, reflecting the light and giving the rocky surface a metallic gleam. While before he'd been plenty doubtful about the prospect of a mining operation running around here, just then the idea didn't seem quite so far-fetched anymore.

Meager amounts of natural light drifted down from the gigantic hole in the surface layer of the moon, the occasional burst of powdery snow spilling inside and dusting over the boulders far below. The faint silvery rays barely touched the ground where they stood, fading into oblivion within the enveloping shadows of the grotto; the kind of beauty that made Arthur’s fingers itch for his journal, eager to try and replicate the scene in scratchy pencil.

They walked a few steps more, then Arthur paused. He raised his lantern over his head, swinging it forward to illuminate the path ahead of them, but all he could perceive from the gently parted shadows was... more darkness.

A frown crept over his face, framed by the weathered brim of his hat, obscuring all but the glint of his blue eyes below.

Ezrihel stopped as well. His head tipped to the side, strands of his long blond hair spilling around the shell of one finely-pointed ear. Almost as if he were listening to some hidden frequency.

The noblethem's face twisted in discomfort, lips twisting in a faint grimace.

"You can hear it, can't you?" he asked of his dusty companion, voice soft. Green eyes flashing like a cat's in the dark. "The screams."

Arthur shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. He rolled his shoulders, as if to brush off a chill. He, too, canted his head to the side. Listening.

"Yeah," he grumbled. "Ain’t too loud, but it’s like somebody wailin' from the next room over. Ghastly."

Like attending somebody's wake, he thought privately. Like he was in a house, hearing the howls of the bereaved echoing from the nearby parlor.

Gaze taking on a steely glint, Ezrihel brandished Rose, the crimson light burning within the rapier-like sword casting his face in a hellish glow.

"Perhaps hitting your head on the way down here has spared you the worst of it," the noblethem mused. His eyes remained steady, though, fixed on Arthur's own. "You know what it is. Who it is."

It wasn't a question. Arthur lingered for a spell, his attention captured by the dimness that seemed ever-encroaching, the light of his lantern but a feeble glimmer against the gathering shadows. The very air itself felt... muted, somehow. Dulled by a fog of silence.

He wasn't so sure he'd call himself spared. An ominous roar still sounded from somewhere, but it was as if a barrier had been placed within the fathoms of his mind so that the words were muffled and hollow. Like something deep inside him was railing against the terrible psychic scream, gnashing its teeth in challenge, rebuffing its attempts to shred his mind apart like paper. He reckoned he knew what was doing it, too.

At length Arthur spoke, his voice low and husky.

"Yeah. And I don't like it, neither." He reached up, fingers grasping tight around the shotgun slung across his shoulders, then turned to lock eyes with his companion. "We need to find the others, General. Quick, too."

"We're in agreement, then. Good."

They turned to retrace their steps back the way they'd come, but were interrupted by something echoing faintly from deeper within the tunnel, behind them. It sounded almost like... footsteps?

Arthur's head snapped back around, glaring into the dismal black. Ezrihel did not turn at the sound, refusing to yield or dally. Instead, his gaze remained fixed straight ahead, his steps hastening ever faster, picking up into a determined stride.

"I can feel them," he informed Arthur lowly, voice ringing with a cold certainty that seemed to press against the outlaw's skin, pebbled gooseflesh rising along his arms in response. "Writhing in the dark, and fast approaching."

“Best get ahead of ‘em, then.”

Suddenly, the pair burst forth from the yawning entrance of the passage. There in the near distance, they beheld Ruedlen and Sari engaged in combat. The foliage surrounding them had come alive, contorting and writhing in fury, heaving forth to strangle them with its grasping roots and thorny vines.

Fortunately, the vibrating red of P’thaeyl's kinetic shield held some of the attacking plant life at bay, though for how long remained to be seen.

Ruedlen brandished her hasta and rounded buckler with all the ferocity of a mountain lion defending her young, and with deft movements, she cleaved and jabbed at the spear-like branches of an attacking Unmade shrub. Sari, standing next to her, fought with a high frequency saber of sharpest silver, swinging it through the air to slice the corrupted vines seeking to entangle him. Sparks flew as he discharged his pistol, brilliant plasma fire lighting up the dark of the cavernous chamber.

Glancing over, Ruedlen sighted them immediately, her misty eyes fixating with unerring certainty upon their forms.

"A little assistance would be appreciated!" she called out, her hasta striking hard and fast at the flailing maw of some massive carnivorous plant, sinking deep into the green-black meat with a sickening squelch.

Roots sprang unbounded from the earth around it, creeping fast along the ground towards her legs.

Arthur nocked the stock of his shotgun, firing off a volley of cerulean flames that seared the fetid vegetation to a crispy, corpse-smelling black. Alongside him, Ezrihel's telekinetic coercion was swift and decisive, heaving a hail-like barrage of stones from above and pulverizing the corrupted flora harassing Ruedlen beneath their weight.

Lowering his gun, Arthur glanced behind them, his ears once more picking up the faint thudding of footsteps. His eyes narrowed, discerning the shadowy, muddled shapes of several pursuers looming out of the darkness. "Don't look now, General, but we got company."

Out of the gloom crept creatures of unnatural form, akin to man in shape yet utterly alien in visage. Tentacles writhed out from the middle of their faces where a person's mouth would ordinarily be, the pallor of their skin seeming much like the lifeless, maggot-ridden carrion of a battlefield. One stood at the head of the pack, lean and taller than the rest, its scalp bulging grotesquely from the slender curvature of its skull.

The creature was arrayed in wretched garb of purple and scarlet color, its bony limbs shrouded in patched and tattered robes, having a silver cup in its hand full of abominations and the rottenness of its ruination. And upon its forehead was a name written, ANTI-LIFE, ALPHA AND OMEGA, THE LORD OF APOCALYPSE AND UNMAKER OF CONCEPTION.

Althaus shuddered in revulsion at his side, wielding his blade as if its very presence could drive away the dread beasts. He perceived the terrible truth of the writing which was scribed upon the fiend's brow where Morgan could not, the Andromedan's psionic talents stripping away the projected message— revealing an Omega symbol, deeply engraved in the mind-flayer's skull, brain matter gushing forth through the gouges that formed its ugly, red-tinged shape.

As Arthur watched his companion closely, Ezrihel's top lip curled into a sneer. He levered the glinting metal of Rose at the approaching horde of mind-flayers, indicating the one at the lead of the pack, and plunged into an expert sword fighter's stance: his body leaned slightly forward, shoulders squared, feet placed closely together with the right somewhat ahead of the left. The majority of his weight rested on his back leg, leaving the other poised for a quick lunge or narrow dodging maneuver.

Sari and Ruedlen had closed ranks behind them in the meantime, P’thaeyl's buzzing crimson shield covering their backs. An endless tumult of writhing vines and gnarled roots battered against it, crackling and hissing upon contact, little sizzle-pops of flickering embers licking across their pulpy flesh.

It would not be long before the shield succumbed to this onslaught, Ezrihel knew; they needed to move quickly deeper inside the tunnels, but the only way forward was to cut through the mind-flayers waiting at their front.

"No way out, but down!" The General's voice rang out over the din of flagellating plants, echoing down the tunnel towards their foes like thunder. "Let's light this candle!"

"It's like you read my mind," Arthur drawled, a smirk touching at the corners of his mouth. His finger twitched on the trigger of his double-barreled shotgun, the stock suffusing his palms with a tingling chill. It blazed outward with a ripple of searing azure flames, the cold hellfire illuminating the narrow space with its haunting light.

They all surged forward, Ruedlen and Sari protecting their rear, Ezrihel and Arthur in the vanguard. The barrel of Arthur's gun coughed and barked like the baying of a hound from hell, spitting a torrent of brilliant sapphire-blue flames. One of the mind-flayers caught the bullet in the chest, its body scattering down the murky tunnel like a seed-laden dandelion shredded by a violent gust of wind.

Ezrihel lunged, the noblethem's blade laced in a glaring, fiery red. He whirled with a furious grace, tearing shreds from the lead mind-flayer's robed body, silvery-white blood spattering across the ground.

In spite of their best efforts, their attackers relentlessly advanced. An immense shockwave of sheer mental force emanated from the lead mind-flayer, crashing into their minds like the breaking of a great dam. The devastating coercion invaded and disrupted their neurons, excruciatingly lancing through their thoughts and memories.

Fortunately, the outlaw and the General were not deterred in the slightest by this unexpected blast of mind-rending power.

The General spun and twisted, the blazing length of Rose slicing in a shivery current of crimson energy through the air. His sword's razor-sharp edge fended off and countered any attempt to physically make contact, a crescent of fire curving lengthwise in a vicious arc, the pair of mind-flayers closing in on him collapsing to the ground, wounds leaking silvery gore.

He darted forward, leaving a blurred after-image of searing red in his wake, poised to deliver the final strike to the corrupt creature leading the charge.

An Arbiter’s Rage
4094/2500 words

 

[Ezrihel]

The andromedan general closed the distance with a stunning efficiency, leaving the corrupted mindflayer to hiss in threatening dismay at the alien's economy of movement. He felt a flicker of muted panic flash across the creature's mind, some remnant of whatever personality had existed before Darkseid's influence causing it to scramble back from the whirring Rose. Good, Ezrihel thought as a rush of glee flooded his pugnacious form, it should rightfully fear him, the angel sent from on-high to purge this snowball of its filthy existence. It was fitting that such a foul creature knew well enough to respect and fear its end.

Ezrihel darted forward and feinted a jab of his rapier at the illithid's stomach, the short heels of his boots scuffing sharply against the gritty iced-over rock underfoot. He smirked as the mindflayer bowed at the waist to avoid the jab, playing right into his hand. It would find no buffet of brains in this encounter. Ez gave a surgically swift flick of his wrist, instantly changing Rose's arc through the air and catching the faint silvery glint of the distant sun on the flat of the blade, shining the light right into the Illithid’s eyes. It staggered back, flinching its arms up to block out the irritating stimulus. With a rather casual movement Rose swept up and across to trim the illithid's face of that ugly beard of grappling tentacles, leaving the monster shrieking a terrible mental symphony. It wrenched its head away, sending droplets of milky metallic blood streaking through the frigid air as it stumbled and fell backwards, claws glinting off the slickened ice walls.

Behind him his unguarded groupmates staggered, the psionic pressure clouding their minds like a thick, agonizing fog that had them gagging from the strength.

Ezrihel quickly threw a psionic snare out, catching the illithid by the ankles and yanking its feet out from under it. The mindflayer’s mutilated skull met the unforgiving ground with a meaty thwack, its body spasming as it was dragged back into the light.

A faint sadistic smirk played on the aristocrat’s mouth as he glared down at the pathetic, mewling little mind-eater. It was dazed and overwhelmed, its alien consciousness making several damp, weakened attempts to cling to and push back against the andromedan’s mind, to no avail. He swatted the telepathic defenses aside and burrowed into the creature’s mind, ravaging memory and emotion alike as he tore the information he sought out of its brain.

Ruedlen groaned and let out an annoyed growl, rubbing at her temples to soothe the ache of the mindflayer’s piercing cries. The clash of stimulus had left the priestess particularly low on patience. “Come on! Quit playing with that fel thing and kill it already, Althaus! Don’t you have anything better to do than play with your food?”

The general scoffed, the illithid’s mental squeals going deathly silent as he rapidly withdrew himself from its warped mindscape. Rose’s lethal tip hovered in the air a mere inch from their foe’s beady black eye, daring the creature to try anything.

“Play with my food?” Althaus demanded incredulously, whipping around and flipping his bangs from his face to stare and sneer at her. “It’s called an interrogation, love. I don’t remember you being so soft over these things.”

“Release... Me...” A wretched, wet voice croaked in interruption from somewhere amidst the fallen bodies, the inhales coming as shuddering rasps that caused a chill to climb up each and every one of their spines; one of the cultists was on the brink of death, face frigid and pale as it writhed and contorted, forced to speak alien words from a shattered jaw. Each word was wheezed out between labored breaths. “Release... Me... Haven’t you... Ever craved the warmth of a mother’s embrace...? Instead you would... condemn us to... Eternal ice... Release m-”

The mindflayer twitched, only managing to lift a shaky blue hand before the invisible tethers holding Rose in place plunged the rapier directly through its eye and into its brain, killing the thing near instantly. The sword pulled itself free, flicking swiftly through the air to rid itself of gray matter and gore before floating back into Ezrihel’s waiting hand.

“Nasty creature.” Ez remarked sharply, giving his blade a once over before sheathing it with a sigh of relief. “You take your eyes off of them for a single moment and they try to bargain with you using scare-tactics.”

“I don’t remember you being so damn loud, Althaus.” Rue hissed, wrenching her hasta away from a bunch of withering vines.

Was she really bitching and moaning at him now, over something as little as this? Ezrihel scoffed, his voice cold and distant. “Since when did you operate like some sort of assassin, Saerhaus? The last I checked, the only dark operative here was al-Waheed.”

The priestess huffed, cleaning the putrid dark green ooze from her weapon. “Oh so now I’m a problem because I like to not have my brain rattled every five minutes?”

“Oh can it, why don’t you.” Althaus snipped back, utterly tired of her whining already. “If I had expected you to be such a damn pain in my spine I would have left you back on the ship.”

Ruedlen stopped in her tracks, affronted by his snide tone. The wiry muscles of her arms tensed, and for a moment she was damn near ready to throw her polearm straight through his sternum as she squinted and spat, “what??”

Suddenly Sari interjected, putting himself right between the two and laying a bracing hand on Rue’s shoulder to hold her back. “I think we are all just flustered from the fall and fight- let us not bicker, my friends. It is most wise to put our attention and focus forward, hm?”

“Oh, no.” Ruedlen shook her head, pushing past Sari to stomp up to the aristocrat, jabbing a harsh finger into his sturdy chest. “I think you of all people would know why I’m feeling particularly pissed off and present.”

Ez flashed an insincere smile, taking a single graceful step back before bowing at his waist and broadly gesturing towards the pitch black tunnel. “Please, lead the way down into the deep dark ice tunnels then, lovely Rue. Any of you. Really. Please, do take the lead and show us the way!”

They inched forward, peering into the inky darkness and ultimately hesitating for several seconds. None of them seemed very keen on wandering aimlessly in the dark, and the sudden redirection left the priestess thankfully distracted from her climbing agitation.

Ez piped back up quickly, “what~? Is no one interested in taking the lead without knowing what’s ahead? Are we all a bit too skittish for the dark~? Oh, don’t you worry then my little lambs, the great General Althaus will shepard you through the uncertain darkness.” He smirked smugly and telepathically tossed the brained mindflayer into the pile of corpses. “Sari, Morgan: check the bodies and see what you can find. We are safe here for a moment, so we should catch our breath. This was just one of a few primary patrols.”

The azure-haired assassin, along with the cowboy, moved off to begin gingerly picking through the dark, dramatic robes of their fallen enemies. Frankly, Arthur couldn’t make heads or tails of these awful lookin’ octopus monsters- not that he needed to in order to handle them. They fell to rubbery, fiery bits like any other unmade monstrosity. He reckoned he just needed to keep his gun up and ready.

“Illithids, Morgan.” Ezrihel answered cooly from over Arthur’s shoulder, having felt the curiosity prickling at the back of the man’s head. “My people know them as Ost’lakas. Mind-stealers. They are psionics that take a certain fiendish delight in eating brains and consuming the memories of sentient beings.”

“Yeah, but I ain’t ever thought a fishy feller like this would like living under ice.”

“They hate the sun, and any bright source of light, really... If I had to guess, they have a colony somewhere near geothermal vents for the warmth.”

Sari chuckled, unable to stop himself from chiming in, “you should have just smiled at them, General, you would have blinded them by your brilliance alone~”

Arthur, meanwhile, seemed considerate. “Yer tellin’ me this moon ain’t just a hunk of ice?”

“Well, it may very well have a dead core, but the gravitational contractions Ioun puts it through during its orbit would be more than enough to keep the deeper layers sufficiently geologically active.”

Arthur glanced back at the general as if he had just spoken in tongues, and gave a skeptical little chuckle. “You got any of them normal words fer a man to understand, General?”

The corner of the andromedan’s lip twitched before he broke into a charismatic smile. He would humor the brief physics lesson today. “That gas giant the moon orbits puts a lot of force on this ball of ice. Have you ever scooped up a handful of snow and squeezed it tight against your palm? It turns icy and leaves your hand wet. Same principle, bigger scale. Pressure makes heat, heat makes wet, and much like an igloo retains the warmth of its inhabitants, the ice shell on the surface insulates that internal heat against the cold of space...” He paused, glancing between Sari and Arthur. “Are you two finished looking over the fallen, by any chance?”

The cowpoke nodded his head. Sari stood, tossing Ez a small pouch that clinked when caught. “Besides some coin? Nothing but odd, morbid trinkets.”

Ezrihel pocketed the pouch and turned his nose up at the mention of ‘trinkets’. He had no use for toting around brain-themed memento mori filched from these cretins. “No notes or journals?”

“Well...” Sari made a pained grimace. “It was carrying a rather detailed journal on the bathroom habits of its slaves?”

It kept notes on bowel movements? Ugh. Ez threw his hands up with a disgusted scowl. “No. Absolutely not. Burn it with their bodies and the plants.”

“If you primadonnas are done cleaning your hands, I would like to get a move on.” Rue snarked from her place by the tunnel entrance, pulling her fur lined hood close around her face. “This place creeps me out, and I think we’d all rather be safe and warm back on the ship.”

They set fire to the corpse pile, and without much fanfare, the group of world weary adventurers descended further into the glacial caves, putting their back to the profane warmth of the smoldering embers. P’thaeyl and Ezrihel took to the front to lead the party, the deep red glare of the AI’s exploratory light illuminated the claustrophobic space, glittering off the ice like veins of ruby before languishing dully across the stone. A warm draft blew through the tunnel, carrying with it the faint sounds of meltwater plinking against the ground.

They walked in silence for several long moments, carefully winding their way deeper as they followed the directions lifted from the lead illithid’s mind. The change in depth prickled like an itch deep in Ezrihel’s skull. Moving forward alleviated this awful itch, he found, but never more than it seemed to cause the discomfort. He swallowed dryly, licking his lips against the cold air despite better judgment.

“Master,” Sari murmured from the rear, “the depths leave you disquieted,” he stated, as if he could feel the tension settling over the General’s body.

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.” Althaus sighed in marked exasperation. They spoke quietly, as if worried for the state of the quiet within the tunnels. “This moon is bad news.”

“Well,” Sari started, taking Ez’s dismissal as literal permission, “those plants back there reminded me greatly of other encounters you have sent me on.”

Well that certainly piqued the aristocrat’s interest. “Oh?”

“Vialiv A, in the Yiphuliv system-”

“That overgrown jungle world? By the gods, that was so long ago. You mentioned hostile plants, but I always took it to mean gigantic pitcher plants and angry sundews. You know. Avoidable traps. Not actively malicious and murderous greenery.”

“I thought the same when I was first exploring, and planned to treat the plants no differently than a fire, but it turned out that the biosphere was half-sentient and wanted very much to see me hanging by my ankles. The vines did not like me taking firewood from the forests, certainly. Did you know I had to wear a mask for most of that mission?”

“What, was the pollen giving you the sniffles, Sari?”

“No, not quite, my friend... The plants would shoot plumes of pollen into the air that left me dazed and confused. I spent the first night pacing in an anxious trance, questioning the value of my own existence- wondering why I was ever there. I was a foreign invader on the lands, the forest quaked and left me feeling so insignificant, an aberration of the world’s natural order. Something within me knew that it would be better for me to simply excuse my offensive presence from the world, that it would be in the world’s best interest for my light to be snuffed out.”

“What?! Sari, no...” Ezrihel keened softly, a tenderness evident in his gentle tone.

“But my friend, I am still here! So it is clear that the persuasion of these plants was not as strong as they would have hoped~” The azure assassin murred, “I felt a confliction deep in my hearts. I saw my departure as if it were an inevitable necessity, but could not shake the awful dread settling over my body. I soon found myself before the cool clear blue waters of a tz'onot. The beauty of it called to me, so I stripped and immersed myself to wash and be cleansed, letting the water take my body down to the bottom for one last moment of peace. As I laid there at the bottom I gazed up through the water at the skies above, admiring the pale pinks of the sunrise, and it was as if a great weight was suddenly lifted from my mind and chest! My mind was cleared by the waters, and in that moment I understood the truth: I had no real desire to die, the forest was simply getting into my head as a way to drive me out.”

Sari chuckled, as if the revelation was an amusing little triumph, not something that halted a forced death march. Ezrihel cast a solitary glance back at the man, his face a mask of concern so beautiful Sari felt compelled to defend himself with hands raised in placation. “You said to tell you something you had not heard before, my friend.”

“...Wh- ...” Ezrihel stayed quiet, shaking his head in disbelief. Sari had left a shocking amount of details out of his original report of Vialiv A. “Why did you omit that from your brief, Sari?”

The broad shouldered assassin shrugged nonchalantly. “It was not very important to the confines of the mission.”

“Yes but... Does Isra know?” The blonde asked cautiously, as if he had stumbled unwittingly into some secret that would give the medic a fit should he find out.

“Yes, my friend, Isra knows. He cleared me before I saw you in person. Do not worry, there is no pollen hiding up my nose, threatening you should I sneeze~” Sari nudged him playfully from behind.

Ezrihel rolled his eyes and gave an indignant scoff, burying the brunt of his offense over not being informed. He was Sari’s friend too, and friends let each other know when they faced danger. He couldn’t help but wonder what other important things were being omitted from him and how else he was being left in the dark. It left him with a disconcerted and familiar feeling in his chest that he reflexively shoved away. It was hardly the time or the place to get caught up in his own internal world.

He was visibly grateful when they finally came to a stop at the edge of a massive cavern. Stalactites coated in layers of ice hung down from the ceiling to meet the frozen stalagmites below like the maw of an ancient frost wyrm. The walls were shot through with veins of eerily luminescent purple geodes that hummed with a sinister, otherworldly energy. The noblethem dared to brush his gloved fingertips across the smooth surface of one such crystal and reeled back as if shocked. Something thrummed within the geode, something strong but not-quite-alive, a pulsing quiver that demanded a boundary be maintained.

“What, the shiny gem not up to your standards, General Althaus?” Arthur ribbed as he scanned the chamber. His blue eyes found nothing but abandoned mining equipment: rusted out carts, discarded pickaxes, leftover gears, and forgotten scraps of protective clothing left as threadbare flags. Whoever had taken off from here had been gone a decent while, and valued their things less than the premise of escape. A chill as cold as the grave ran up his back strong enough to leave him shivering. Forgotten mines often invited homeless creatures to take up residence, in his experience often cougars or bears.

He didn’t know what this planet could possibly have in store, but he doubted it was anything as normal and simple as a slumbering cave bear or a big angry pussy cat.

“It just shocked me, Morgan.” Ezrihel quipped tartly, shaking his hand to rid himself of the feeling. “Would you like to come and touch it for yourself so you can learn the taste of your own tongue?”

“Maybe that’s why the miners left in a hurry then.” The cowpoke answered.

Rue stepped past the men in her group to eye the crystals keenly. “Hm. Yeah, if every time I struck a vein I got tazed, I don’t think I’d want to come into work either.”

Ezrihel looked about, moving further into the room in his investigation. “If you don’t want to be shocked, just don’t touch the geodes, it’s that simple... But then why leave behind equipment?” He pointed to a dark corner of the chasm, vision helped by P’thaeyl’s scans, at a large drilling rig left to ice over.

“Huh.” Arthur was dumbfounded. “You’d think they’d figure out the electrocution stuff while prospecting,-”

“And not bring an entire drilling vehicle down here before knowing if it was safe or worth the efforts.” Ezrihel finished, craning his head back to look up at the dark ceiling. “Or... They didn’t abandon it over the geodes...”

The others’ gazes followed his, soon finding what had captured his attention: huge brassy pipes, with their steam vents frozen entirely over, hung partially encased in the dark ice and peaked from the back wall. Half buried behind a few sizable boulders laid a crumbling stone gateway featuring geometric carvings along with its matching brass door, hanging to the hinges by a thick layer of ice.

Ezrihel was the first to move towards the ruins, curious to investigate the strange metal and stonework. His fingers traced over the ancient stone engravings, finding them cold and mundane, before motioning for his companions to step back. He took a deep breath, centering himself before shifting the mass of stone and ice off the door.

Rue’s eyes went wide, a wave of cold prickling dread washing over her nerves just under the skin in time with the prevailing draft of air. A hand flew to her mouth as her stomach lurched. Sari caught her around the shoulders, hardly allowing her to waiver. Ezrihel merely gave the woman a cursory glance to make certain she wasn’t about to fall out before pushing the battered door aside and stepping through the threshold.

Saerhaus pushed Sari away and gathered her composure, standing by herself. “You’re just going in there after unsealing that door? Who knows how long it’s been closed off, or what could be in there.”

Ez’s pine-green eyes focused her down, his expression neutral. “Dear Rue, the last time we dealt with a corrupt arbiter, it was in the heart of a forsaken temple buried deep underground. I can feel the faint lantern-hum of life inside, and so close to the patch of unmaking?”

“You think cultists may be hiding inside.” Sari hazarded an educated guess.

“Aye, indeed I do, my brilliant assassin. Or we may find some tidbit of knowledge about this hostile ice moon and its inhabitants. And besides, wouldn’t you want to see what’s been locked away for ages in the ice?”

Arthur whiffed his hand in front of his nose, batting a thick, oily-sweet scent away from his breathing space. “Whew! It definitely smells like it’s been locked away for ages.” The cowboy exclaimed.

“Stale air. Either way, we should at least see what lies within, that draft will help thin out the scent. Now come on, keep up.” Ez addressed the group as he spun back around and made his way down the chiseled stone hallway. “If you were going to get cold feet, you should have gotten them when we first landed.”

They emerged from the square passageway and out into another chamber, this one even larger than the last. The ceiling arched upwards, aspiring to the flawless vaulted arches of a sub-zero grand cathedral. A towering stone castle, capped with brass shingling and choked with withering, misplaced plant life, lined the glacial walls, held up despite the ravages of untold ages and filled the vast space the same way a pipe organ dominated its nave. Loud, menacing, impending- it wanted to be seen, acknowledged, and admired. He drew closer, eyes eager to feast upon the exquisitely geometric engravings. The deepest recesses glimmered with an ephemeral blue light that sung a faint but fine high-pitched melody directly into his soul.

Ezrihel glanced back at his party as they too took notice of the natural opulence. He was careful to take in each of their expressions as they were greeted by the humming air. Sari and Ruedlen were the first to pause, with a flinch and a slowing of pace. Arthur made it several more steps before the sensation fully registered consciously.

Gently the aristocrat touched the minds of each companion to speak telepathically. ’Do you feel that humming in the air?’

’Tonal magics.’ Sari and Ruedlen’s recognition came simultaneously, the awe apparent in the warmth and color of their surface thoughts. Memories of revered rituals, calming spiritual seances, and divine conferences with their own respective patrons reverberated across their connection to give mutual context, and with the speed of a spark jumping between neurons a clear picture was constructed among the participants of the psionic 'group-call'. Even Arthur, after a couple months of practice, had managed to send a ‘hm’ of confirmation across the connection, though he was still trying to wrap his mind around what all had been shown to him all at once.

Ezrihel’s gaze flicked up. Tucked between the patinated and overgrown parapets and crenulations, skittering albino creatures hunched and hobbled amidst the odd, deceptively tranquil flowers, their chitinous masked faces twitching back and forth as they listened for any shift in noise like feral hounds. Even from back here Ezrihel could tell their skin was bordering on translucent, the dark veins underneath far too visible for any living thing that had to deal with ultraviolet light normally. Were these the original inhabitants of the temple complex, or merely drifters who had settled an abandoned abode? Their utter lack of acknowledgement and seeming awareness of the group left the aristocrat wondering if the mask covered up a lack of eyes, in the same sense that cave dwelling species often lost their vision over generations.

Either that, or they simply didn’t care that a gaggle of strangers were rapidly encroaching on their space. Their feral minds were mostly unintelligible beyond the way a wild animal might interpret the world. Frankly they were rather pathetic and emaciated in appearance, their noses nothing but narrow, flat slits running down the middle of their face. Not to mention that they smelled like they had missed the invention of taking a bath- no doubt thanks to their terrible lack of a nose.

Well, smell or no smell, Ezrihel was determined to find his way to the source and purpose of the tonal magic radiating from the complex, and save whatever artifact lie within from the smothering conformity of the unmaking. Unless there was an entire nest of these feral little cave troglodytes within the walls he felt confident that they could handle whatever bothersome pests impeded them.

Sari took to the front of the group, silently urging the brass door open for the party and doing a careful sweep for ground traps before beckoning them to follow. The same large steam pipes they had seen outside snaked their way along the ceiling of the corridor, occasionally hissing as steam was vented. The foul black vines and flowers of the unmade coiled tightly around the pipes and exposed bits of architecture, caring little for the scalding heat contained within. Along the walls otherworldly sconces and lanterns, powered by glowing blue crystals, took up vigil in the dark beside the towering visages of broad shouldered metallic warriors.

It was miraculous that this place, with rubble and refuse littering the floors, an inch of dust covering nearly every surface, and not a single sentient soul in sight, was still somehow both operational and actively functioning. There was absolutely no way in the seven realms that those hunch-backed, translucent goblinoids were in charge of any bit of tonal magic or steam power contraption. The aristocrat had seen more than enough already, but that idea was utterly unreasonable and irreconcilable with his suspension of disbelief. If anything was in charge here, he was expecting to find another mindflayer nestled among a nest of thralls and slaves, or some sort of necromantic lich siphoning the lifeforce from its withered followers’ bodies.
​

’I don’t like this place, I feel like we’re being... watched...’​

“By eyeless creatures?” Ezrihel responded out loud, startling his crew into a confused medley of ‘huhs’ and ‘whats?’

He turned with a frown. “Didn’t one of you just say something?” He asked, impatient over whatever this silly little game of stupid was. His eyes flicked between them as they each shook their heads ‘no’, a shot of panic arched through his chest and escaped in a scoff of disbelief. His guard was up. Nothing was just going to slip under his mental defenses to whisper at him without him knowing. “Tch. Whatever.”

Silence again pervaded the group as the Sari and Ruedlen exchanged concerned glances with each other.
​

’This place is unbelievable. Why are all these metal... things ignoring us?’​

“The statues?” Ez murmured aloud once more, much to the chagrin of his party.
​

’Avanchnzel is waiting...’​

“Waiting for-” The noblethem jolted in uncharacteristic surprise as Ruedlen suddenly grabbed his wrist, “--what?”

“You confer with ghosts, General.” She remarked, voice gentle and downturned as she drew a sigil in the air. The mark shimmered pale white then rusted into an orange-gold before fading forward to reveal the honeyed forms of a couple of specters. The finer features of their appearances had been lost to the decay of time, instead resembling humanoid shaped amber blobs.
​

’No one seems to know. Perhaps the return of the Dwemer.
Perhaps the end of the world...’​

Ezrihel stared with a frown. Dwemer? Were they the original inhabitants of this ‘Avanchnzel’? He glanced to P’thaeyl, who nearly instantly piled a flood of available information through his neural up-link. Deep elves, ruled by a king, divided into city-states, highly in tune with both magic and the sciences. Reports whispered of a fallen city blanketed in ash, that had been stolen in a coup by a group of humans, tales spread by the apparent refugees who fled off-world. Beside that, these Dwemer came across as rather isolationist, seldom communicating to the surface or Hub for anything outside of the occasional trade.

He leaned over to Rue, arching a single fine brow as he softly spoke, “Can you ask them more about this place, priestess?”

Ruedlen shot him a considerate look. “Hm. I can try, but I’m not positive they are fully present...” She motioned with her hand, placing a pale mark at her throat before addressing the ghosts. “What is this place?”

One of the figures turned and gasped, as if noticing the travelers for the first time, the surprise apparent even in its diminished appearance.
​

’A library as much as a city... Built to hold the memories of an entire race.’​

“An archive!” Ezrihel chirped with excitement. Who knew what secrets lie within, what boons and helpful tidbits could be resurfaced, not to mention... Perhaps the Dwemer had a few secrets they wanted back.

“Memories?” Rue sought clarity from the ghost.
​

’The Lexicon holds the accumulated memories of centuries of Dwemer...’​

“Okay. Literal memories.” She remarked a bit dryly. She could already feel the fading of their incorporeal hosts’ forms, they wouldn’t be long.

“Ruedlen, if I could-”

“We don’t have much time left. Althaus, if you demand for me to interface with whatever this ‘Lexicon’ is, I will put you in the dirt. So don’t ask.” Saerhaus interrupted with barely restrained contempt at the thought.

“Oh save your breath. I wasn’t going to.” He snipped back, tossing his bangs from his face like an ornery horse. “Ask the spirits if they know where in this confounded, sprawling place that Lexicon is located.”

She huffed out a sigh, shaking her frustration towards the aristocrat off before giving her inquiry.

’Down!...’ The duet of ghosts lamented, their outlines flickering and fading further. ’Down...’ Then, with little more than a fizzle of amber mist, the specters vanished.

Ezrihel glanced at his group, his emerald orbs fixating on Arthur. A smirk curled the coy alien’s mouth in amusement. “No way out but down, Morgan. No way out but down.”
​

5,001/2,500 Words

AN ARBITER'S TEARS

NON-REPEATABLE

Quest Giver: Up to the Player​

Quest Length: 2,500 words
Quest Location: Inverxe
Quest Prerequisites: None
Quest Description: Rose Quartz isn't anything like Darkseid has put into the Crossroads so far. Her fanatical desire for peace, harmony and love has sent infectious compassion into the very stone of the ice moon, causing it to bloom and grow with random oases of lush jungle beauty. Is the World truly being made better, though? Stumbling upon once of these gardens, you can't help but notice that the docile horrors and fragrant bushes seem somehow...hollowed out, as if some of their core essence has been stolen by Rose Quartz's forceful indoctrination. Do you dare tear down these peaceful gardens and return Inverxe to the brutal, freezing hell it is meant to be?

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Though it seemed just plain foolish, at least by Arthur's reckoning, to obey the wailed recommendations of long-dead spirits, that wasn't enough to dissuade Althaus none. At the General's insistence, they ventured deeper into the murky underground, down, a delicate sheen of ice glimmering upon the walls and strange crystals with a hue like diluted wine sparkling from within the brooding shadows.

At the front of the pack stood Arthur, his broad shoulders arched and his head bent low like a hound sniffing out a rabbit's trail. The pale, flickering star of his lantern flooded the way forward with its gentle glow, cutting a swath through the stygian black. Were it not for its guiding light, all would've been consumed by the gaping void that seemed to billow endlessly from within the desolate ruin, left to wander in eternal nothingness.

Vibrations rumbled through the rock passageway all around them. It reverberated like an oppressive drumbeat, no doubt the work of the metal pipes that meandered throughout every part of the massive subterranean ruin. The reverberation built as they descended further into the ruin, the seismic force thrumming in their bones and chattering their teeth, turning even al-Waheed's graceful stride into something that more closely resembled a drunken two-step.

A dank musk pervaded the air, a nasty stench that one might've expected to find inside the deepest chamber of a crypt left to rot for a century or more. It seethed around their forms with a quiet foreboding as they trudged warily onward, presumably in the direction of the coveted 'Lexicon,' their delicate footfalls unearthing a veritable carpet of dust in the process. The individual motes rose and swirled around their legs as they moved, never quite sure of what lay ahead.

Arthur's form shifted in the muted lantern light, its glow sketching out all the hard angles of his face and the arrhythmic patchwork of day-old stubble. Clinking around inside his coat pocket, he keenly felt the weight of a collection of objects he'd taken from the slain mindflayers: a rose-tinted gemstone fashioned into the likeness of a brain, an ivory statuette (bone, he suspected) and a small hand mirror. It had felt natural as breathing for him to loot the bodies, at the time, but judging by General Althaus' heavy scowl, Arthur gathered that not everyone shared that particular impulse.

As they pressed on, he couldn't help but feel a sense of powerful unease growing within him. He had been in enough tight spots to know when something was off, and this place reeked of danger. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he felt the tell-tale sting of adrenaline simmering in his veins, though the reason for it weren't especially clear—

Abruptly, al-Waheed's voice sounded out from behind him, prompting Arthur to stop short. "My friend, look there," the assassin spoke deliberately, gesturing towards a narrow, circle-shaped gap in the wall. "Shine your lantern in that direction, if it pleases you."

Doing as he was told, Arthur strained his eyes towards the crevice and saw what the blue-haired man had seen— a metallic gleaming in the darkness, expertly hidden inside the wall. Brows furrowing, Arthur's eyes roved over the stone, spotting out even more tiny metallic glimmerings, all embedded within an identical series of holes lining the walls on either side of the passageway.

Lifting a hand, al-Waheed silently pointed out the pressure plate on the floor, barely distinguishable from the rest of the stones and only one long stride away from the dusty tips of Arthur's boots.

A booby trap, Arthur realized, a chill passing over him that had nothing to do with the cool air. "I'll be damned."

The blue-haired man chuckled warmly, his confidence unyielding despite the danger. "Do not trouble yourself, it was a cleverly-laid trap!" al-Waheed drawled, brushing past him without pause. "I'll have the way cleared in a moment."

More than happy to allow the assassin to carry out his specialty, Arthur stepped back and out of the way. "Right, you do that."

Leaning his gun against the wall for a moment, he distractedly brought the little hand mirror out of his pocket, fiddling with it between his fingers in an uncharacteristic display of nerves. Lost in thought, Arthur stared into its silvery surface, barely registering the appearance of Althaus's presence beside him. It was only when the noblethem's far more handsome features appeared in the mirror next to his own grimy, dismal countenance that Arthur's attention was drawn to him, albeit reluctantly.

The General's emerald gaze was alight with a curious glint as he stared down at the reflective surface of the mirror, one eyebrow lifted in casual disdain. "You shouldn't be toting around such... tainted objects. Who knows what curses might be carried with them."

And goddamn it if Arthur didn't have to crane his neck all the way back to look Althaus in the damned eye. Now, Arthur Morgan was not a man who was insecure about his height. Hell, he'd even grown to appreciate the angle of looking up at Ezrihel from below, a height difference that was only increased by the General's proclivity for elevated footwear. But now, especially with Ezrihel sneering down his nose at him like that... he was liking it less and less.

He pocketed the mirror once more and met Althaus' gaze, a slight tick of amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I find that these sorts of things come in handy, General, every once in a while," Arthur gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, an unrepentant look on his face. "In my experience, you take what you can get."

Althaus sniffed dismissively, clearly unenthused by this explanation but evidently willing to let it go. His gaze turned to observe al-Waheed's progress, an impatient cock to his hip, seeming on the verge of tapping his foot.

Arthur directed a rather pointed glance past him at Saerhaus, who'd taken to pacing around the hallway, communing with the ghosts or somesuch, the former outlaw didn't rightly know. In any case, she seemed mighty distracted by whatever she was doing— unlikely to pay much mind to their conversation, Arthur reckoned.

Gears clearly turning inside his mind, Arthur slowly bobbed his head, ruminating on the situation, before his gaze drifted back towards the General. Intrigued, he spoke up, voice soft, "If looks could kill, I reckon you'd be six feet under by now, going by them mean stares Rue's been shootin' your way. Seems like there's no love lost there. Not sure what happened 'tween the two of you, but it clearly ain't gonna resolve itself. Mind filling me in?"

Of course Arthur was well aware of the brewing tension between Ezrihel and his crew, even if he didn't quite know all the specifics. Evidently, Althaus had made a questionable choice regarding Saerhaus' return to duty that had ruffled some feathers, but Arthur was too far removed from the politics to understand it all. He knew, however, when a leader's decisions caused his people to lose faith in him... and regardless of the merits or lack thereof in Althaus' call, he felt that he could at least empathize with Saerhaus' grievance.

Althaus' nostrils flared in frustration. A single lock of golden hair fell over his brooding face, the gesture appearing oddly untidy compared to his usual effortless grace. In fact, the Andromedan's irritation was damn near palpable, a fleeting slip of the facade the noblethem seemed bent on maintaining at all times.

"Nothing you should concern yourself with, Morgan," Althaus said, pinning him with a warning look that reminded Arthur much of the ferocious temperament of a wild mustang; not that the General would appreciate the comparison. "Mind yourself."

Morgan was silent for a long moment, rooted to the spot. One hand was stuffed firmly inside his coat pocket, clenched around the cold metal of the hand mirror, the supernatural strength that coursed through his veins poised to shatter it into a million razor-sharp pieces. He'd likely hurt himself in the process, too— it was how experiencing such powerful feelings tended to go for ragged, worn-down dogs like him.

His chest tightened as he felt memories creep in like a fog, shrouding his heart and mind with recollections of all that had been lost to him. Consumed by a sorrow so acute that the sheer pain of it threatened to devour him whole.

He felt them all pressing in around him as he shut his eyes, their ghosts weighing on his heart. The same faces he'd seen during those dark nights, near the fires they'd built to keep warm, in the barren expanses of the wilderness– faces worn with grief and fear; sharpened in moments of rage and resignation; beaming with joy and longing. The memories flooded in, jumbling together, but that didn't trouble him. He could still feel their presence, still feel that sense of belonging deep in the grooves of his soul, even if it was all a million years in the past and sure to stay there.

Then, like the rising of the sun or, perhaps more aptly put, a broken man climbing his way out of a cold and dark pit, Arthur made it back to that precious place where thoughts and memories find a proper merger— his world slowly coming back into focus.

He opened his eyes. The present unfolded before him, bathed in a newfound clarity.

Arthur's gaze sharpened like the business end of a knife. He returned Althaus' cool regard with a patient kind of calm, though a quiet, cold wrath simmered beneath the surface, scarcely tempered by the hands of time.

"You got yourself a fine crew here, General," said Arthur, tone admonishing, though the gruff burrs of his voice had been softened with a great and deliberate effort. "You'd do best not to waste it."

Eyes narrowing to slits, Althaus opened his mouth to respond, yet the sound of al-Waheed's voice reverberated down the tunnel towards them, cutting smoothly into their conversation. "Pardon my interruption, but your arm seems to be doing much better now, Morgan! Shall we take that sling off?"

The cowpoke startled at the sudden intrusion, turning to regard the man. His head was still bent over his work, but al-Waheed had apparently still noted a difference in how Arthur carried himself, all the same...

Brows knit together in confusion, Arthur looked down and cautiously surveyed his busted arm, still safely cocooned in its sling. After a few moments of deliberation, he reached over to carefully extract the limb from its tight binding, unwinding it slowly.

With painstaking delicacy, he began his experiment— gingerly rotating his arm at the shoulder with no pain whatsoever before testing the resilience of his elbow, then curling his digits around to stretch and flex the muscles there. He was pleased to discover that there was no discomfort at all, only the slightest signs of yellow-purple bruising around the crux of the limb.

A soft, disbelieving whistle hissed out from between his teeth, the ex-outlaw's eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline.

"Well, I never healed up that quick before..." he muttered, before turning a slightly suspicious look on Althaus and the rest. "One of y'all stick me with somethin' when I wasn't looking?"

All smiles, al-Waheed rose from his crouched position over the pressure plate, hands raised in a show of perfect innocence. "It seems you've developed something of a... heal-thy advantage. How fortunate! In any case, the way is clear now, so we can continue when you are ready."

Still visibly doubtful of his companions, Arthur gave a curt nod of thanks to al-Waheed. He allowed the assassin to walk in front of him once more, Althaus following close behind with Ruedlen bringing up the rear. But as they moved down the tunnel and past the disarmed trap for a few good minutes, Arthur couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled again, and he slowed his steps, putting a hand out to signal for the others to do the same.

It was then that he heard it— a faint hissing sound, like the sound of wind rushing through a keyhole, or steam whistling out of the gooseneck of a piping hot tea kettle. It came in short, sharp bursts, muffled and distant, and as Arthur tilted his head to listen, he traced the source to one of the walls lining the narrow passageway.

"What in the hell...?" the cowpoke muttered aloud.

He pressed a hand up against the wall beside him, feeling for any telltale vibrations that might indicate what was happening on the other side. And then he felt it— a faint warmth coming from somewhere beyond the wall, followed by a steady, thrumming vibration.

Ker-thunk. Ker-thunk. Ker-thunk, went the thing on the other side of the wall, the monotonous reverberation feeling almost like the trundling of a great wagon wheel.

Arthur looked towards al-Waheed, Saerhaus and Althaus, signaling for them to be silent before pressing his ear up against the wall. The hissing seemed louder now, taking on a distinctly metallic tone that sent chills shuddering down his spine. The vibrations seemed to grow stronger, too, almost like the gigantic wagon wheel was rolling closer...

"What is it?" al-Waheed asked in a hushed voice, having pressed his ear flush against the wall, as well. "It sounds like some sort of... large mechanism... perhaps another steam-powered invention?"

"I ain't sure," Arthur replied slowly, taking a measured step backward, boots scuffing across the ground in a way that was too loud for his liking. "But I think we need to find another way around."

Straightening up in his periphery, Ezrihel shook his head. "Nonsense," he sniffed, face stern and jaw set into a firm line. "We've come all this way and the path ahead is clear. I won't be swayed by something so mundane as a scary noise."

"... Awright, suit yourself," said Arthur, after exchanging a quick glance with al-Waheed. "But don't come cryin' to me if we run afoul of any more of those... squid fellers."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Morgan."

Rolling his eyes, Arthur huffed and stepped forward, following a few paces behind Sari. His lantern's flame leapt and twisted like a wild thing, sending alarming flickering shadows up and down the long damp walls. Every curve and crevice was fiercely illuminated, banished to whatever ancient darkness lurked at the heart of the icy moon, the geometric patterns carved into the stone seeming to writhe and twist into intricate, maddening loops. Curses or warnings of some kind, Arthur figured, left to dance upon the hard-cut surface of the wall like forgotten ghosts.

As they pushed on through the tunnel, though, the ex-outlaw began to feel wetness beading across his forehead and down his neck— something he hadn't experienced since they'd departed from the humid climate of Opealon's floating islands. The tunnel air grew steadily thicker, and with it, a mounting heat that seemed to drape itself over them like the weight of a heavy, sweat-soaked quilt, sticky dampness cloying at their skin.

The thuds and hisses that had sung from the dark depths of the passage gradually faded as they made their way further into the ruin's winding maze, a fact which brought Arthur no small amount of comfort. That was, until their wanderings led them out from the passageway and into a new chamber, the entire party brought to a dead halt by the unexpected sight before them.

A lush garden of jungle beauty greeted them, sprawling across the cavernous chamber in a riot of colors and greenery. Bathed in an ethereal blue light from an unknown source, pink crystals twinkled from amid the fronds of gigantic elephant ear plants, their leaves large enough to shield two grown men from any unexpected rainfall. Thick vines of a verdant green crept up the walls, and eye-catching blooms sent a subtle, hypnotic fragrance wafting through the air, intoxicating in its sweetness.

But while the garden's otherworldly beauty was captivating at first glance, a truly unearthly sight that could not be compared, it also appeared strangely... dead. Hollow, in a way, like the vision of life glowing before them was just that: a vision desolate and empty of true substance, purely the product of an illusion conjured by their own imaginations.

"We have to destroy it," breathed Ruedlen, her voice trembling in its softness, glassy eyes wide and staring. "This... is not this world's natural state. Nothing is as it should be."

Arthur nodded grimly, hefting his shotgun once more. Still, he hesitated. His eyes traced around the room, spotting more of the pale-skinned goblin creatures wandering around, though they seemed more sedate here than the ones they'd seen wandering the outskirts of the ruins. Rather than pacing around in regular guarding patterns like a pack of mad dogs, many were instead slumped over, heads bent low to the floor in supplication, or simply lazing about in a strange daze.

Slowly, he lowered his gun.

"What do you make of this, General?" asked Arthur, nodding towards the scene before them with a tip of his hat. "I mean, they ain't hurting nothin'..."

"Your insistence on speaking in double negatives is as charming as ever, Morgan," Ezrihel sighed. "But I understand your hesitation. Regardless, these creatures are being kept under some form of unnatural— and unwilling— sedation. The Unmaking has stolen something from them; themselves. Fighting back is the only way to free them."

Humming under his breath, Arthur glanced at Sari and Ruedlen for confirmation, much to Ezrihel's annoyance. While Rue seemed much too distracted by the hollowed-out horrors before them to respond, Sari gave Arthur a grim smile. "We're just clearing out some weeds, that's all."

"Just what I needed," drawled Arthur. He raised his gun to his shoulder, taking aim at one of the larger vine-laden crystals jutting out from the roof of the cavern. "A little touch of gardening to round out my day..."

With one determined pull of the trigger, Arthur fired his gun. The shot echoed with a thunderous CRACK across the room, followed by showers of crystal fragments raining down from the ceiling as the shattered pieces struck the floor with light, tinkling chimes, blue hellfire chewing up the unnatural vegetation and spitting it back out in withered, blackened clumps.

Almost against his will, Arthur smiled a little. That actually felt kinda satisfyin'.

Althaus drew his keening rapier, its crimson length shimmering and searingly bright in the subterranean environment. He leapt away from the cavern entrance, P'thaeyl shadowing him closely as they sought to eradicate all growth that lay before them. Sari followed soon after, his saber's shrill wail carving through the vegetation with shocking efficiency. At his side, Ruedlen raised her hasta and buckler again, each jab of her spear-like weapon sparking off of the chamber's scattered crystals like dissonant lightning.

For a moment, it seemed that there would be no form of resistance to their attack. Then, the goblinoid creatures stirred, appearing to realize that their beloved sanctuary had been breached, and Arthur soon had no choice but to direct his attention towards them.

Another shot, another crystal reduced to dust— and then something else. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur spotted a glint in the darkness of a passageway neighboring the one they had entered the chamber through... That same deep, resonant clamor he had heard earlier, through the wall further down the passage. That clunking, trundling, hissing sound, pounding in his ears with a deafening intensity and fast approaching.

"Ah, shiii-et—" Arthur barely had time to spit the words before the stone surrounding the passageway exploded, spewing a cloud of dust and debris in all directions. The impact hurled him across the room like a ragdoll in the flurry, spinning ass over teakettle until he landed with a hard thud.

Moments later, Arthur sat up with a groan, knees and elbows creaking as he fought to stand. He registered dimly as Sari appeared at his side, grabbing onto his arm and helping to urge him onto his feet. "No time for sleeping on the job, my friend!"

"Weren't... sleepin'," Arthur argued back, voice faint. Gaze roving around, he finally fixed his eyes on whatever'd sent him flying, eyes widening to the size of saucers at the sight. "What in the hell is THAT?"

In the yawning black trench where a hallway used to be, a hulking mechanical colossus made of brass stood. Arthur couldn't help but think of Kopaka at the sight of it; the thing's massive metal limbs had articulated joints similar to the Toa, though it also had a gigantic mace mounted on one arm and what seemed like a blade on the other, its armored head shaped into the emotionless mask of some bearded feller.

But whereas Kopaka was all ice, this thing seemed to be filled with fire. With a jerky, spring-loaded movement, the centurion's blade jabbed at the air in their direction, a menacing blast of hot steam spewing out from between the gaps in its armor.

"What is that?" repeated Arthur, a bit dumbly, fumbling for his gun on the ground.

Sari, following his gaze, frowned a little. "It must be a guardian of these ruins, I suppose all this ruckus disturbed his rest. Let's see if we can put him back to sleep, yes?"

AN ARBITER’S TEARS: 3,625/2,500 words!

INFO: We’re doing kind of a weird fusion with “An Arbiter’s Rage,” but combined with our last posts it should meet both prompts and WC requirements.

 

[Kopaka]

"Oh, a big hammer. How rote." General Althaus breathed as the brass behemoth trundled forwards. It's gleaming bulk filled the engraved granite hallway, with dim turquoise light from the lamps seeming to give shifting life to its otherwise lifeless bulk. The noblethem's two crew members pressed forward to form a defensive line in front of their liege, weapons arrayed against the charging construct. Arthur, befitting his instincts, gave two shells to the titan. The scattered shot pinged off of the centurion's chest and facemask in a shower of blue sparks.

The cowpoke spat reflexively and began chambering some slugs instead; not that it mattered much with the revenant weapon, but when it comes to ghostly powers, it truly is the thought that counts.

"Hm, yes. Quite fortified. But a brute is yet a brute." Ezrihel scoffed. Just as the dwarven machine got within striking range of their cohort, a ripple of telekinetic power swiped across the entire hallway, evidenced by a spray of grit and gravel. The incoming hammerblow seemed to bash against thin air as it collided with the interceding force. The noblethem smirked softly as they mentally parried the slow, cumbersome blows as they came. Timing is everything.

"Another salvo perhaps, Morgan? And you two, stop dithering and press the attack." the General snapped. Ruedlan and Sari glanced at one another conspicuously, but began to flank around the thrashing centurion, looking for an opening. It was at that moment that they collectively became aware of a new sound emanating from the machine. A sort of tea-kettle whistle issued from deep within its clattering servos, just as the centurion became still.

"Nevermind, fall back-" Althaus yelped.

Too late. There came a keening hiss and a rush of air as hidden vents around the construct's headplate opened up to blast the assembled intruders with a gout of more-than-boiling steam. It was then that a blast of similar air, but frigid and snowy, issued from behind their flank. The wintery blast overpowered the steaming retort and neutralized it, forming a haze of lukewarm mist that hung thick within the choked hallway. There was a clatter of metallic footsteps from the rear, and Arthur wheeled around to bear his weapon at more brazen contraptions, just as the alabaster form of the Toa of Ice blazed path, charging into the cloud.

"...Kopaka?!" Arthur half-shouted. At this even Ezrihel had to spare a glance away from the heaving shapes within the mist to catch a glimpse of the cold knight rushing past. As usual, the sanctimonious android couldn't be bothered with a 'hello' as he threw himself into the fray. All at once, the misty vapor condensed into a flurry of snowflakes, which seemed to be drawn to the Toa's blade as he held his shield against the centurion's sword arm.

"Attack the joints." the Toa boomed. His voice was loud, yet calm, even as the drumming, banging machine swung its heavy blade down again on Kopaka's grinding shield.

"I always do!" Sari scoffed wryly. He needed no instruction on how to tackle armored targets, but the intercession of this bossy android was certainly a welcome diversion. Ruedlan and the assassin fluidly fell in step with Kopaka, circling the centurion in opposition to the towering thing. The construct, now seemingly locked onto Kopaka, circled slowly in place, intermittently throwing a heavy blow into Kopaka's awaiting bulwark.

The second its back was turned, Arthur took a breath and relaxed his arms. A perfect shot presented itself at the back of the steam engine's noggin. One practiced squeeze of the trigger put at blast of blue fire into the construct's upper steam valve. The machine staggered forward as the pipe ruptured in a cloudy, ringing burst. It stumbled forward slighty, thrown off balance, just in time for Ruedlan and al-Waheed to put their blades into the back of its knee joints.

"A bit dull, is it not?" Ruedlan quipped as she buried the point of her sonic weapon into the centurion's leg mechanisms. A shower of screaming sparks issued from the joint as she twisted the blade, rendering the rotating cuff useless.

"Perhaps...but brute force and ignorance can be suffici-" al-Waheed began to retort, but was painfully cut off. The centurion pivoted in a full circle on its waist axis in a blinding whirl of spring-loaded speed, and slammed all three of the fighters away with hammer and cleaver. The priestess and Toa managed to deflect the worst of the blow with their shields, and were merely slapped away into tumbling heaps. Sari, however, was clipped hard in the chest by the flat of the hammer arm and was sent flying clear into the wall with a sickening crack.

Arthur and Ezrihel saw it before the other two, and both flinched as the assassin slumped over.

"Oh shiet."

"Sari!"

Despite having one of its legs out of commision, the automaton was still powerful enough to extend a hammer arm towards the stricken assassin for a flattening coup de grace. When the blow landed, however, it found only cold stone as Sari was yanked by invisible force back towards the mouth of the tunnel. Ezrihel knelt ever so slightly to regard the agile warrior as psychic hands buoyed him softly to the ground.

"Broken ribs...ah. Compressing the lung." Sari wheezed, trying to take measured breaths. General Althaus stared down at him with indignance for a moment, then flourished their sword arm with a ringing swipe.

"P'thaeyl monitor al-Waheed. Morgan, tend to him." Ezrihel spat as they surged forward in a blur of motion. Arthur grimaced slightly as he watched the general surge into the fray before shouldering his shotgun and kneeling to gingerly touch the man's abdomen.

"I ain't exactly a doctor, but I reckon I have something that'll help..." he grumbled, rummaging through his satchel for a black, cloudy bottle of strong-smelling syrup. The outlaw uncorked the health cure and propped up Sari's head to take the liquid as the sounds and clamor of the battle raged just a few feet away.

"...it smells of poison..." Sari said, furrowing his brow in an expression of bemused resignation.

"The good stuff often does." Arthur chuckled as he helped tip the concoction into Sari's mouth, who sputtered slightly in spite of his attempted stoicism.

Meanwhile, Ezrihel was dancing amidst a dervish of hammer and blade. Bending, twisting and swaying out of the way of each clumsy blow was child's play for the Andromedan, and if they had to admit, they appreciated the opportunity to once again dunk on this clumsy machine. They had almost begun to feel a tiny bit upstaged before the assassin had gotten his ass kicked. Kopaka and Ruedlan had finally managed to pick themselves off of the masoned floor as well, though, it was hard to coordinate with such sluggish combatants. At least, compared to themself.

"Just give me another opening and I'll be happy to...put this...stovepipe to bed. Any time. Whenever...whoop! Whenever you're ready!" the general sang as the Centurion feebly tried to land a killing blow. Honestly, these deep elves must not have had any sort of agility in mind when they designed this brassy brute.

"I suggest a different idea." Kopaka droned as he closed within the radius of the flailing, golden armature.

"I already declared an idea, wait your turn." Ezrihel snapped back, half-playfully.

But only half.

Ruedlan scoffed softly, even as she continued to trade turns parrying offhand strikes from the heavy weapons with the icy warrior. She didn't know a lot about Kopaka, but she knew that the Toa certainly did not consider himself to be under her liege's command. To his credit, Kopaka either didn't care about the Inquisitor's quips, or knew better than to engage with them. The priestess watched as Kopaka circled around next to her and set his shield against his shoulder, and next to her own buckler.

"Brute force and ignorance." he murmured. Ruedlan glanced into his inscrutable blue eye and offered a wry smirk. She set her shield into a similar stance, and with a nod, they both barreled towards the behemoth as it chopped fruitlessly everywhere that Ezrihel was not. The phalanxed pair slammed into the side of the centurion with a sound not unlike a car crash, forcing it to tip over onto its bad knee, and crashing to the ground with a resonant bang.

Kopaka shot Ezrihel an expectant glare as he and the priestess recovered their own balanced before the automaton could process a solution to orient itself.

Well?

 

[Ezrihel]

Ezrihel gritted his teeth as he pivoted on his heel to dodge delicately out of the way of an oncoming strike. Like some sort of blessing of divine intervention, Kopaka had literally descended from on high to play savior. Ezrihel scoffed when the Toa tried to interject. He was no damsel-in-distress, waiting for a knight in frigid armor to come and rescue him! He was perfectly capable of handling whatever this mechanical guardian could dish out, if only his other two twitterpated teammates could get their poise in order. He had no need for another attempt to foist changes in plans upon him down in these godforsaken ruins. Finding a lost city down here was enough of a deviation. All he needed now was a proper opening and--

With a clanging crash the towering metallic monstrosity toppled over onto its damaged limb. It had been taken out at the legs, mobility utterly shot. Good, Kopaka and Ruedlen had prized the contraption's defense open like a tin can and given him just the opening he had been waiting for. A rush of countless whirs sounded from inside of the centurion as its inner machinations kicked up another gear, chassis and joints squealing in equal measure as its stabilizers strained to correct the tumble. No. He would not dare even dream of allowing this pitiable machine the slightest chance of regaining its stance. Not after how it had backhanded Sari. Not with how its entire existence audaciously attempted to frame him as some sort of pest in need of eradication. Undoubtedly this thing had a gyro to right itself located somewhere in its rumbling chest. Undoubtedly it had a power source. He could hear that pure high pitched keening of tonal magic radiating from within, right in the midst of it's upper chest, beating with the energy of an aberrant heart.

Rose was a fine sword. There was much it could penetrate with ease. But this? The reverberations from this machine made his teeth rattle every time he parried with Rose's high frequency blade. No. No, Rose wouldn't do. This big hulking brute was in his way, and while his grace in battle was always flawless, this machine had made things personal. He would not suffer the indignance of being treated like a rat! He was done playing around with this offender. Now the solution required an eagerly awaited personal touch.

"Brace yourselves!" Ezrihel shouted out a warning. He drew in a single steady breath, then shot a tendril of his mind out with the accuracy of a professional marksman.

A flash of brilliant blue-white light flooded the ruined inner courtyard with a deafening boom. The dwarven centurion had hardly managed to lift its ruined knee a single inch when a terrible metallic shriek rang through Avanchnzel, followed quickly by the unmistakable hiss of rapidly depressurizing steam. Razor sharp bits of bronze shrapnel embedded themselves in the ever-glacial stone of the far back walls, sending a rain of icicles cascading to the floor where ever they struck. The centurion lurched and leered forward, falling flat onto its huge bronze face as it suddenly lost all power, a massive hole torn clean through its chest. The grizzly aftermath only became fully apparent as the shimmering dust settled, the jagged edges of the massive exit wound were warped into uncanny shapes from the heat and force of the explosion that had eviscerated its insides.

Ruedlen glanced around with a touch of surprise as she lowered her buckler. There was a barrier of ice surrounding herself and the Toa of Ice that had not been there only a moment before. She relaxed and took a step forward to inspect the icy wall, puzzling over it for a couple of seconds before looking back at Kopaka. "You must be the Toa that Morgan mentions from time to time. Kopaka, right?"

Across the room Ezrihel was already by Sari's side, knelt down with his knees on the damp and dusty cobblestone floor. He held one of the assassin's hands in his own, rubbing at the man's knuckles with his thumb. "Are you going to be alright, Sari?"

"Yes, yes, my friend," Sari chuckled and instantly regretted in when the stabbing pain in his lung left him wheezing wetly.

"You know, it's very unconvincing when you hack and wheeze like that." Ezrihel stated ever indignantly.

"Nah, quit yer fussin' General. I gave him some o' the good stuff." Arthur reassured gruffly. "What in the blazes did you do to that thing, anyways?" He stole glances back over his shoulder every so often, still ready for more blasted vines or skittering fellers or gigantic brass contraptions to come clamoring out of the dark hallways leading to the ruined courtyard. There weren't a doubt in his mind that that blast would've woken up just about anything and everything in the stone city.

"I ripped out its terrible heart." Ezrihel answered matter-of-factly.

Sari piped back up. "It was good medicine, my friend. I would know. Only the best stuff smells as if it would sooner kill you with a swig than your injuries!" Sari waggled the medicine bottle between his fingers. It was a small empty dark green glass bottle labeled UNCLE EARL BODINE'S LICENSED FORMULA in a big bold typeface. A black and white portrait drawing of some man, presumably Earl Bodine, was perched above the branding. 'Patented Health Cure!' it claimed above the faded and runny ink lines Ezrihel figured must have once been the potential ingredients list.

The general frowned. "Yes, but I was certain I heard you mention broken ribs, Sari..."

The azure haired rogue swatted a hand through the air dismissively and began to pull himself to his feet, hiding his winces behind a well worn mask of strength. He groaned quietly as Arthur grabbed his arm and helped him the rest of the way up. "Just sore ribs now. I will probably walk it off in a few hours, so there is no need to worry, my friend."

"Sari, I-" Ezrihel started before Sari cut him off with a deathly serious stare.

Sari's voice dropped to a terse whisper as he closed the gap between them. "I am staying with you, master. I will not be sent away when my duty is to protect you."

Ezrihel sighed. Sari was like a rescued dog, he swore it. Loyal to a fault and unbelievably stubborn in that conviction.

"Besides..." Sari's tone eased back into his normal casual and warm cadence. "It would take too long to walk me all the way back up to the surface, you would lose too much time and progress and energy. I will be alright." The assassin reassured as he leaned against the wall.

Ezrihel hated it when he got like this, selflessly pragmatic at the cost of his own health. He rolled his emerald green eyes and stood up from the floor effortlessly. "Fine." He relented, a tartness in his tone. If Sari wanted to hang in the back of the group and avoid getting squashed in whatever in the hells the next encounter would entailed, who was he to stop him. "Just don't get yourself turned into a fine bloody mist down here. We don't need any more martyrs."

The blonde then turned to Arthur, a wash of emotions quick to flash across his mind. Earlier the man had felt the audacity to insinuate that he was pissing away his crew. That insolence infuriated him. Every instance that he drew his blade he did so because he had principles and moral standards. It wasn't his fault that he was always forced into calling the hard shots and making difficult choices, someone had to do it, and he would frankly rather it be someone competent.

But what did Arthur know? About him, about his past? Nothing, really. Arthur had no context outside of whatever mortal life he had held before, and that alone would never be enough to grasp it.

"Thank you, Arthur." Ezrihel dipped his head in polite acknowledgement. Arthur made to wave it off but the general stopped him. "Earlier you told me that I have a fine crew. I do. Finer than most people could ever hope for, but they are finer still as my friends and loved ones. I am glad to count you amongst them as an ally."

It was, perhaps, the most sincere Ezrihel had ever been on this topic with the cowpoke, from his tone all the way to how he relaxed his shoulders just a bit to seem more at ease. "But what I do want to know is," the andromedan turned on his heel to address Kopaka, who- along with Ruedlen- was stoically investigating the fallen metal guardian, "how in the name of the gods did you know to find us here?"​