mogust

Bonus chapter release. If this is the first one you're reading in the last few days, you may have missed (40 - That Again).

Chapter 41 – Beneath the Surface.

Rachael was still asleep when Crystal awoke, sunlight peeking through the trees and the cool touch of dawn still lingering. She caught an acorn as it dropped down on her, a guilty squirrel giving her a nervous squeak before it scurried to a different area of the oak. She could hear birds tweeting their morning song, small animals running through the undergrowth, and the cry of something larger in the distance. The world was coming alive around them.

Crystal gave a contented sigh, snuggling deeper against Rachael. This was the way to wake, cuddling up with your lover. She closed her eyes again, just enjoying being there.

‘Don’t you have training to do?’ queried Spectre.

Crystal opened her eyes again to find Spectre sitting in front of her, looking at her with his dark emerald eyes.

“I guess,” she grumbled. As much as she wanted to argue the point, he was right. She had a lot of catching up to do. She got up, the two cat-foxes moving to take her position beside Rachael, probably their plan all along, though as magically powered pieces of technology she doubted their need for warmth.

Crystal summoned three orbs of light, trying to make them identical in intensity. They were close, but the difference was still noticeable. She added another two to the mix, also all slightly different. Crystal had queried why the creating of light balls when Rachael had said that internal magic was the easiest first step, Rachael stating that it was one of he most natural offshoots of their magic’s aspect. Making them now did indeed feel instinctual, but until she could make them all identical she wouldn’t be happy with the result.

Letting the orbs dance lazily around her, she summoned her sword and shield, and moving a few meters away from Rachael she started going through her training routine, quickly becoming lost in it. There was something soothing and meditative about going through the steps and motions, the sword slicing precisely through the air, the shield in perfect companionship with it. There was intent and purpose behind each swing, but also harmony and balance.

She could feel Warrior through it, her presence strong, as if she standing there with her. The being of self improvement, battle, and of overcoming, as old as time itself. Not just her either, but snippets of those that Warrior had blessed over the ages. Including the ageless queen, the one whom the armour had been forged for, with magics so powerful they had split the sky.

“It’s entrancing, watching you do that. Warrior’s influence is unmistakable.” Rachael’s sweet voice cut through, bringing her back to the now.

Crystal finished the sequence, dismissing the armaments, then scuffing the grove’s floor with her heel as she stood their feeling a little embarrassed. But also happy. Rachael stood up, making her way over and giving her a quick hug.

“You don’t find yourself doing something similar?” Crystal asked.

Rachael shook her head. “Warrior’s touch on you was much stronger than for me. I think I just got the side effects initially, before we were pronounced as her chosen.”

She then had a thoughtful look. “For me, perhaps it is the fights themselves.”

it effects you both in different ways,

it also harmonizes with your draconic nature,

for better or worse...

Crystal made a face, then gave Rachael a worried look.

“Promise me your not going to go and challenge some super powerful being just for the thrill of it.” She didn’t want to lose Rachael that way. Actually, she didn’t want to lose Rachael at all. Ever.

“Huh? Why would I want to do that?” Rachael looked entirely innocent of any such thoughts.

It was mid morning by the time they reached their destination, the walk pleasant and the road empty save themselves. Crystal continued to practice the regulation of her magic, while Rachael alternated between observing and experimenting with her own levels of reinforcement. By the time that they arrived Rachael had concluded that the manifestation of the wings and tail wasn’t just dependant on how much power was used, but other factors as well. Exactly what those other factors were she wasn’t at all sure on. She was however quite taken with them, as was Crystal.

There was no mistaking the site, even with the road continuing on past it. It was nestled in a younger grove of trees, the signs of felling still evident. High stone walls partitioned the site off from the rest of the Ethis Plains, the occasional rusted spike all that remained of what would have been the barbed wire that ran across the top of it. The original gates were long gone, and the wooden one that currently stood there, albeit open and at a skewed angle due to the top hinges having also long given out, were probably installed during the initial exploration of the site three hundred years ago. A fairly new tent had been erected just behind the gate, but it was vacant of any life, bedrolls, blankets, canteens and the like strewn across its floor.

“This place has the stench of death,” Rachael commented as they walked into the compound.

Crystal could sense it was well. It wasn’t as much as smell as an aura that hung in the air and clung to everything around it, making her feel rather uncomfortable.

Inside the wall were a dozen structures, the four that were closest to the walls built from wood and in a decent, if aged, condition, while the rest had been constructed from stone and brick. It reminded Crystal of a military compound, not the open barracks that you’d find in a town, but the secret kind that they hid away in the middle of nowhere. The wooden buildings of course did not match the rest of the site, and she assumed that they had been built as part of the original exploration there, just like the gate. They looked utilitarian, which reinforced that assumption. A quick examination of them showed that they had been used somewhat recently, like the tent at the gate, but of life there was no sign.

The presence of the wooden buildings however was odd. Even given it’s size, a place like this wouldn’t take that long to strip of anything useful. The lodgings suggested that they had expected to be there for quite some time. Unless they had started at the site while the town was still in its infancy, or there was a lot more to the site than was evident and/or it had been well secured.

Of the remaining structures, there was a large warehouse with a flat rounded roof in the centre of the compound that took up the majority of the space, the rest being smaller buildings that surrounded it. Judging buy its shape, one looked like a refuelling point for vehicles, though of those there were none – they would have been the first things taken away, not that she had seen any indication of any at Cannonsgate either. The rest would have been offices and living quarters. They were quite squat and solid looking, the very thick stone walls evident from the couple that had collapsed over time. The majority of them looked to be in reasonably good shape though. They had been built to last, a surprise given the building practises of the time.

“It’s in the warehouse, isn’t it?” asked Crystal. The aura seemed to hang thicker around it than any other building in the compound.

“I’d say so. Something is very wrong though. This was meant to be an active site. Where is everyone...” Rachael looked just as Crystal felt. Worried and on edge.

The aura of course probably held the answer, but she didn’t want to think too much on that right now.

While a number of the upper windows, all quite small, were smashed (it had no lower windows at all), a walk around the warehouse confirmed that it was all locked and otherwise sealed, apart from the large hanger-like doors at the front. They were also closed, but examination revealed that they weren’t locked. Not that they could open far however. The ground of the compound had been covered with concrete, but a lot of it was now cracked with grass and small trees poking through, or warped from the roots of the larger trees that would have grown in the grove before they were cut down, and even in front of the warehouse it was a mess. They wouldn’t be able to open the doors much before it got stuck.

“Here be abominations and dark knights,” Rachael joked dryly as they pulled the doors open, the wheels complaining with a massive screech.

“And they will fall this day,” added Crystal. The memory hurt a lot less now, given that she was now in part Pyre. Still, it wasn’t something that she ever wanted to face.

They made enough space for them to slip through, and then did so. The inside of the warehouse was just as massive as it looked from the outside, one big open space with wooden partitions dividing it into sections. Sunlight filtered in through the skylights in the roof, dust hanging lazily in the air. Big steel cages lined the wall near the door, recent and empty, the cage doors either unlocked or broken. There wasn’t a lot that could be seen inside the warehouse, it had indeed been stripped clean.

A growl emanated from the top of the cages, a sleek but scrawny looking large golden cat crouched there, of a similar size to the Grazeyes. It’s eyes were fixed on them, weary but unmoving.

“It doesn’t seem aggressive...” Rachael said.

“Perhaps it just wants to escape?” Crystal added. It didn’t look as healthy as she would have expected.

Keeping an eye on the cat, they moved away from the door till they were up against one of the partitions. Watching them intently, the cat got up, and jumped to the floor. It quickly made it’s way to the door, and then disappeared out of it.

“That was odd,” Rachael observed, echoing Crystal’s thoughts.

There was no other living beings in the warehouse however. Scouring the area revealed that members of the current site team had been camping in the warehouse, sleeping gear and personal effects scattered around in clumps behind a number of the partitions, but of the people themselves there was no trace. Judging by the amount of gear, there would have been quite a lot of them too. There were however plenty of traces of blood on the ground, a whole lot by the front entrance, and even more leading down into a workman’s pit that would have been used for the maintenance of vehicles. At the back end of the pit was a steel door that had been barred closed from their side, the locking beam slightly bent as it someone of considerable strength had been trying to force it open from the opposite side.

“The lady from the bakery did say that they had apparently found a secret area, didn’t she,” Rachael observed, standing at the top end of the pit. “Though this seems a little too obvious.”

“Perhaps the new area is much further in?” Crystal was in agreement. “If there was indeed a significant area behind that door that would probably explain why they built the buildings outside though.”

But if that was indeed the case, why had the door been barred, and why all the blood?

The smell hit them as soon as they opened the door, Crystal doing her best not to retch, the stench of death strong and thick. The body of an an incredibly muscular man lay just behind the door, bruised, mauled and lifeless, blood staining the floor underneath. He was dressed just like all the other mercenaries that she had seen, a heavy war-hammer lying on the ground beside him. He had been dead a while.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Rachael muttered, creating balls of light to float around her. Crystal did likewise. She then looked back at Crystal. “You okay to do this?”

Crystal nodded. “We came here looking for answers, and we aren’t who we were any longer.”

Rachael gave her a smile, and a quick kiss. “Let’s get this over with them.”

A single corridor stretched out before them, pitch black, matt steel walls and floor. The steady dripping of water from a broken pipe by the door was the only audible sounds, the drops mixing with the man’s blood and forming a small pool by the door. Steeling herself, Crystal stepped over the man's body and followed Rachael down the corridor, the clicking of her heels loud against the floor. Anything down here would be able to hear them coming, ignoring their light sources as well. The two cat-foxes, pattering along behind them again were not making any sounds at all.

The corridor ran for a short distance before a set of stairs descended further down into the earth. From there it opened up into another short corridor, a number of doors down on either side, and an elevator shaft in the middle, it’s door open with a deep black hole and a latter fastened to the side of the shaft. A number of thick ropes and a set of pulleys were also fastened to the top of the shaft. No sign of any emergency stairs. A brief look at the rooms on this level showed that they had long been stripped clean, all that remained was a thick layer of dust. The doors had once been locked, force being the key that had opened them. Nothing of interest remained at this level. Taking a cat-fox each the descended down the ladder.

“Straight to the bottom?”

“Straight to the bottom.”

The shaft ended six floors down, the elevator box jammed into the shaft just below the door level. If there was any more levels below here they couldn’t tell, as they had no way of going any further. Like all the floors above the doors were open, a dark corridor stretching away from it. Numerous dents and scuff marks indicated that this was where all the activity had been taking place, at least in terms of the cargo that had been hauled up and down via the ropes. Streaks of blood coated the floor just outside of the elevator shaft.

The corridor went a short way before opening up into a large room with a high ceiling, gear and weapons stacked all over it. There were a number of large steel cages down here as well, at odds with the age of the facility, their doors again all either open or broken. One of the doors out of the room looked new, locked from this side with a hazard symbol painted on it. Spectre walked over to it, looking curiously and giving it a sniff.

‘There’s toxic gases behind there. A lot of them, and only just contained. Some of them are leaking through, albeit in small doses. We probably want to limit our time down here.’

“Were they mining them here?” Crystal queried. There were a number of large steel bottles lined up against the wall.

‘Perhaps?’ Spectre gave a cat-fox shrug. It was kinda cute.

A snarl echoed around them as three forms padded through one of the adjoining doors into the room, fangs bared as they glared at Crystal and Rachael. Standing at shoulder height to her, they were just like the one that Crystal had fought on the train, or fairly close, their hides wisps of blackness, and their eyes a sickly purple.

“Dark Wolves...” Crystal didn’t like the implications at all, though that is why they had come here in the first place.

time for some payback.

A howl reverberated around the room from the back wolf, Crystal feeling a sharp pain in her ears. Examining the spot resulted in her fingers coming back stained in blood. That was so not fair. Crystal frowned, calling the shield and sword to herself as a flash of light exploded around Rachael, wings and tail materializing.

feed some mana into erstes solas,

as much as you use for your orbs.

Crystal did so, the blade becoming wreathed in flames of light. That on the other hand was awesome.

The front two wolves lunged at them simultaneously. Crystal dashed off to the side, narrowly avoiding colliding with a wooden crate as well as the teeth of the wolf. She swung her blade as she then stepped back, drawing a line of dark blood across its muzzle, the flames of the sword searing it’s skin. It hissed in pain, swiping with one of it’s claws in an attempt to gouge her. Crystal blocked with the shield, the sheer strength of the wolf still pushing her back, something that she wouldn’t be able to avoid without reinforcement magic, a quick counter attack slicing deep into its limb.

Gear scattered around the room as one of the other wolves was thrown clear across the room, impacting the wall with a sickening crunch, Rachael leaping after it, her fists and horns glowing with flames of light. An intimidating image for anyone except her she was sure. The term hot was aptly appropriate.

Taking advantage of the distraction Crystal leapt forward, shield slamming into the wolf’s face where she had wounded it before, forcing it off balance as she then danced off to it’s side, another deep cut, this time its rear flank. The wolf snarled, trying to twist and snap at Crystal as she stepped just out of reach, another cut to it’s face. Hate seethed in it’s eyes as finally brought itself around, lunging at Crystal with both claws and fangs. Crystal blocked one claw with her shield, using the wolf’s own momentum to push her out of the way as she again countered with the sword, another deep and seared cut with the sword. A lunge from the wolf, a block or dodge from Crystal with a follow up cut as they danced around the room.

“You’re just playing with it!” Rachael exclaimed with a grin as she moved away from the limp and very much broken body of the wolf she had been fighting. Rachael had brutalized it. There was no way that it would be getting up again, the wisps of darkness fading away just like it had for the one on the train.

“Maybe...” Crystal murmured. There was a sense of satisfaction in knowing that the fight was completely in her control, the wolf playing into her every move. It helped that she had already fought one and knew what they were capable of.

you two are more alike than you realise.

That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing was it? It just meant that they were more compatible...

Crystal feed some more mana into both the sword and shield, both glowing a brilliant blinding white as she stepped forward instead of back, shield easily blocking and parrying the wolf’s attack as she swung the sword with as much strength as she could muster, cleaving clean through it’s front right leg. Blood splattered everywhere, a sudden look of terror in its eyes as it became off balance, Crystal flowing with the motion, spinning and then cleaving straight through the other limb as well. The wolf started to collapse in front of her, a final swing to complete the movement decapitating the wolf before it hit the ground.

“Happy?” she asked with the most seductive smile that she could manage, her voice coated with power and desire.

“Very,” Rachael responded, licking her lips, the distraction almost causing Crystal to miss the fact that the last wolf had finally decided to move, lunging straight for her.

Crystal blocked the attack, sword slicing deep across one eye as Rachael slammed into the side of it, throwing it clear across the room and into the wall with a sickening crunch as her wings, tail and horn bled light. Crystal dismissed her weapons, taking Rachael by surprise as she stepped up to her, pulling her in for a kiss. Rachael only hesitated for a split second before happily returning the kiss. There was something special and tantalizing about being passionate when Rachael was in full draconic mode, an intensity that hadn’t been there previously. Something that they’d definitely have to experiment with.

Crystal internally sighed and finished the kiss as a low growl emanated from the side of the room as the wolf tried to pull itself up. Feeling on a high, up close and personal and with Rachael, Crystal reached out with one hand, pointing at the wolf.

“Bang,” she teased sweetly, making a trigger motion with her fingers.

The tattoo on the back of her hand glowed brightly, a small orb of energy gathering in front of her finger before streaking across the room and slamming into the head of the wolf.

Crystal just stood there looking stunned, the wolf shrinking back against the wall, blood seeping out of the fresh seared wounds, remaining eye watching the pair with fear.

“You hadn’t expect that to happen did you, oh flirtatious one,” Rachael said with a giggle, giving Crystal another kiss.

Not at all. Not that she was complaining or anything. Instead she just sunk into Rachael’s kiss.

“Should we kill it?” Crystal asked once she had finally stepped away from Rachael.

“Do we need to?” Rachael seemed unsure either way. It looked kind of pitiful there now.

the darkness is not its natural state,

it was not chosen, rather made by force and circumstance.

it will be consumed if you do not do it the mercy.

Crystal sighed, and walked up to the wolf. It watched her as she approached, before bowing its head down.

“May you find peace,” Crystal prayed over it as she summoned her sword, imbuing it with her magic before she plunged it deep.

“I guess that’s the way we’re going then?” Crystal then asked, turning to face the door that the wolves had come from.

“I’d say so,” Rachael agreed.

They went through the doorway, travelling along another corridor and then up a short flight of stairs to what was indeed their destination. It was not something that Crystal had wanted to see. The room looked like it had been locked at one stage, probably recently too, but the door was completely busted up. The smell of blood and death was the strongest here of anywhere in the site, a large pile of bodies on one side of the room, tossed there once they usefulness was over. A massive array sat in the middle of the room, familiar yet different, carved into the stone of the floor, its channels still filled with dry blood. A stack of familiar cannisters sat to one side, glass tubes sitting stacked on a table, a strange device sitting at the apex of the array. A couple of misshapen forms lay groaning against another wall, their skin splotchy with inky blackness, a pool of said darkness creeping across the floor, centred on the device.

The taint still screamed wrongness to her, but this time it’s presence felt muted, and manageable.

“This time it is our fight,” Rachael stated, looking at the Taint.

indeed.

you have been gifted the tool.

Crystal looked at the tattoo array on the back of her left hand, the much simpler bullet one on her right having faded back to its normal golden colour straight after the fight.

“How do we actually use it?” she asked.

“My guess would be that you place your hand down near the Taint and channel magic into it? Most priestesses had to draw the arrays, but on the other hand the ones for our transformation seemed to flow out of us and the Arkchildren.”

It was worth a shot. Walking as close to the taint as she dared, Crystal knelt down, placing her hand on the cold floor. Focusing on the array, she visualized her mana flowing into the array. As if on queue, she felt her magic being pulled into the array, golden lines flowing out from her, the array forming around her and the taint as Rachael knelt down beside her, placing her hand beside her own. Crystal gave her a grateful smile.

More and more magic seemed to flow out of Crystal, the lines of the array glowing brightly as she began to feel slightly faint. Then there was another big pull, the entire chamber being washed in light.

mogust

Thought I'd release an extra chapter above the normal 2/week that I usually do.

Enjoy :)

Thanks for reading as always. Comments and/or questions welcome.

Next Chapter (42 - Deja vu) will be out early next week as per usual.