—Confidential—
[Ambient Mana Recognized — Incoming Message from Master-Advisor Maxwell Oldsmith]
Blackedge still stands. The initial assault has been pushed back to the chasm. Our partners have been striking the town’s wards for the better part of the past two weeks, but their finest assets are unable to draw close due to the Town Lord’s deterrence. Despite Blackedge’s garrison taking catastrophic losses, their defenders somehow managed to withstand and keep the vicar from fully breaching the town’s wards, offering Master Roland Arrow enough time to return and attune his soul with Starhawk’s Perch. Intelligence suggests that they have created a grand and temporary teleportation anchor at the center of the city.
Rationing has been instituted in town due to the bombings they’ve suffered to their food silos and other critical supplies. They are also utterly and completely enveloped. Despite this, the envelopment needs to maintain a considerable distance due to the threat of the Town Lord, with the closest units hiding within the chasm. Our “partner” has tried several more direct attacks, even one led by himself, but the losses they took were beyond horrific. To bring this dreadful affair to a conclusion, we are now trying to transport the final piece of the vicar’s weapon to the surface. This way, Blackedge will finally fall, and Starhawk’s Perch will be disabled long enough for Roland Arrow to be subdued.
Our agents have also spatially intercepted various Slayer Teams mid-jump from the town. Most of them were dispatched to the capital bearing messages of warning and requests for aid. Five teams were eliminated outright. However, we have secured two members from one group and are currently processing them for proper interrogation and eventual liquidation.
That being said, there have also been setbacks in our efforts: The captured Young Lord Adam Arrow and our agent are still missing. Latest reports suggest them to be in the Umbral Depths somewhere.
Additionally, matters in Gate Theborn grow increasingly unpredictable. An incident has occurred inside the gate realm that has stalled the final delivery of the weapon. Though the core is secure, what started as a Master-Tier brawl has become a greater state of emergency. The Gate Lord claims we have been infiltrated by an agent of New Albion, and so Gate Theborn is under critical lockdown.
Our partner will not be pleased with this. In fact, I, myself, am greatly displeased about being fixed in place. As such, I would humbly request that you direct a missive to the Lords of Law and implore them to apply the proper pressures on Low Marshal Confriga to reopen the path to the surface.
The resolution to the problem of Blackedge, Roland Arrow, and his most heinous and illegal Quest against our Republic depends on it.
-Spell Sealed Sync-Letter Stolen from Inquisitor Szjik of the Yellowstone Republic, signed by Master-Advisor Maxwell Oldsmith
40 (I)
Stealth
"Do you guys really, really think he's still down here?" Siggy asked, doing everything she could to keep her terror in check. Using her Adept-Tier Visual Calculus Skill, the goblin Pathbearer scanned her surroundings again. She really didn’t know why they made someone like her come down here.
Here she was, patrolling Cargo Containment Sector 42B3, in absolute pitch-black darkness. What made things worse was the rest of her team—she didn’t much trust any of them to keep her ass alive if things went wrong. The dimensionals dispatched to support them she trusted even less, because they answered directly to a psycho Necromancer Demon Gate Lord who was currently raging all over the city, demanding that every Pathbearer, demon, and guard under his command find the “New Albion Vermin.”
The New Albion Vermin that, according to some Pathbearers Siggy asked, managed to incinerate a small army of first responders and wound the Gate Lord after an already Super destructive brawl with a Master-Tier orc.
Somehow, the Aviary spy survived his encounter with Confriga—which meant they were a High Master at the very least.
Meanwhile, Siggy’s ass wasn’t even a High Adept yet. Her usual gigs were finding things people lost or spying for jealous lovers. She only picked up this merc stuff because she really wanted to save up and leave the Abyss after ten years of misery and madness.
Shows you just how smart I am, she chided herself. So much for making my escape faster. Walking around the dark here might just end with someone dragging a dagger across my neck…
“Get your shit together, Siggy,” the stocky human leading her current team sneered. He sneered a lot. “We don’t get paid to complain, we get paid to deliver. You wanna easy job? Go pick up a trade or some shit. Of course, you’ll end up making piss and shit compared to a real Pathbearer. So keep those little ugly eyes open and tell me if you spot anything.”
“Sure thing, Hugo,” Siggy spat. She was technically supposed to call the fire mage boss or something, but he was an asshole, and she wasn’t big on respect. It was part of the reason she was down in the Abyss anyway: a lack of respect for the proper authorities leading to a very special arrest warrant.
In her defense, she really didn’t expect that noble bastard to fucking drown chasing her.
The containers around them were stacked high and marked with fading paint. The dust here was practically up to her ankles. Every now and again, she would see a group of dimensionals, demons, or another Pathbearer team pass by again, and that would make her feel better. But then they would be gone, and it would be her, Hugo, Coghell, and Lies.
Siggy looked at the other two members of her group and frowned. Coghell was a large automaton that made so much noise with every step that Siggy felt like she was walking alongside a marching band. Lies was an Umbral Jump Mage with more scars than personality. Siggy always found her creepy. Mainly because of how she had a habit of walking into the woods with a few select slaves while they were on caravan duty and coming back alone thereafter.
The goblin Pathbearer was no saint, but at least it was just a thing of business for her. Everyone else was incompetent, drunk, drunk and incompetent, a total maniac, or just generally untrustworthy. And those sure were the types you wanted by your side while walking through the darkness, trying to find a missing spy that could trade punches with a Heroic Pathbearer.
“Is it just me, or has it been a while since we saw another group?” Siggy asked. The tension inside her was drawn taut. She needed another hit of reassurance by this point.
“It’s just you,” Hugo sneered. He lifted his heavy faceplate and took a sip of liquor. “Godsdammit, Siggy, if I knew you were going to be such a pussy, I would—”
“Whoa, stop!” Siggy said. Her eyes caught something. Something the rest of the group missed. “There.” She pointed at the edge of a cargo container. “Get some light on that.”
The fire mage sent a hovering torch of flame to light the edge of the container. There, he saw what she indicated: a bloody handprint.
“Taint my ass,” Hugo breathed. “Never felling mind. You’re still a pussy, Siggy, but you got nice eyes. Good catch.” He licked his lips and examined the handprint closely. “I guess the Gate Lord hurt him plenty bad. Bad enough we might be able to finish the job.”
That was another thing Siggy didn’t like about Hugo—he was someone she regarded as a hyper-optimist. The breed of idiot that got himself and everyone he led killed against something they shouldn’t be fighting at all. “Maybe we should get back to the checkpoint and inform the rest of the patrols?”
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Hugo scoffed. “And screw ourselves out of a sweet, sweet bonus. Taint that. We find this bastard ourselves, and then drinks are on me at Little Gomorrah.”
“Closed right now,” Lies whispered. The damned creepy Umbral started giggling. “Saw them burst in earlier. I saw them blast in through the ceiling. A man armored in bone and an orc fighting. It was bloody. So much vibrant red.”
Siggy blinked. “Wait, you saw him
? The spy?”The Umbral kept laughing to herself. “Yes. So much rage in him. He kept fighting. Like he didn’t know anything else.”
“Shit! Godsdammit! Lies, why didn’t you tell us this shit earlier?” Hugo glared at the Umbral.
“Because I didn’t want to,” Lies said, grinning.
The fire mage just growled.
Suddenly, a shriek pierced the air. This was followed by a series of deafening and heavy impacts. The ground shook. Something knocked a container aside, sending it screaming across the ruined concrete. Siggy was clenching her shortsword so tight she felt like she was about to crush the handle.
“Alright!” Hugo said. “The fish’s been hooked. Let’s go get the tainted rot-cock!”
He took off in a rush, and Siggy followed the group despite herself. There was only one thing worse than being in the dark with people she didn’t trust, and that was being in the dark entirely alone.
When they got to the source of the noise, Hugo twisted around a cargo container with a fire spell crackling in his left hand. Then, just as he prepared to unleash hell, his eyes widened, and he froze. Then, Hugo did something Siggy never saw him do.
He doubled over and gagged. A second later, his visor was lifted, and he was emptying the contents of his lunch onto the ground. The rest of the group learned why as they saw what he did. A scene of nightmarish carnage stood before Siggy. A dozen meters away, two containers had been slammed together—with an entire group caught between them. The remnants of their bodies were squeezed out from the edges of the container like paste. A twitching mechanical limb flopped like a dead fish upon a puddle of blood.
But that was only the beginning.
Beyond the containers was a slaughterhouse. The ground was cracked and destroyed. Several more cargo boxes were broken or dented. And dozens of bodies were pasted against the ground, spread out in smears of gore. Organic, mechanical, and dimensional corpses were caked against the shattered concrete as if they had been stomped flat by a giant's boot.
Nearby, blood and viscera coated the underside of a badly dented metal box.
“Oh, Broken Moon, oh shit, oh taint me, oh shit…” Siggy began to wheeze. Her heart was going faster and faster. She was… she needed to—
“Help!” A voice cried around another corner. Hugo looked up and had to fold back over to retch a final time. “Please! Help me… Someone…”
The cries were deep and desperate, and a trail of blood led behind another set of containers. Hugo growled as he summoned a massive torch of fire over them. “Let’s—let’s go see who that is. Siggy, on point!”
Siggy stared at him in disbelief. “What?”
He grabbed and shoved her forward. Siggy’s legs started shaking, and she nearly sprawled as the mage booted her forward. She wanted to turn and glare at Hugo, but she just kept her eyes open and peeled. In case the spy was out there, watching her in the dark. Siggy could feel Hugo’s breathing, could hear the mechanical whine of Coghell’s joints, and even Lies was muttering something to herself.
Oh, shit, oh gods, oh System, please…
Preparing herself, she rounded the corner with her shortsword raised. Only to find a badly injured man laying against a container. He looked like an elf—though his face was covered in so much blood she couldn’t be sure. His armor was like nightglass wrapped around by an enchanted gambeson or something, but even that was ripped up. His left arm looked pretty messed up too. Burned, even. But Siggy never quite recalled seeing burns like that on someone’s body.
“Hey, hey!” Hugo said, shoving Siggy aside. He knelt down beside the wounded elf and shook them. Because Hugo was an asshole and did asshole things as the first resort. The elf moaned in pain, but Hugo didn’t care. “Did you see him? The one that hit you? Did you see where he went? How fast was he? What do you think his Tier is?”
The elf whimpered. “Too fast for us. He’s going to be… too fast for you too.”
Hugo sneered. “Yeah, we’ll felling see about that.” A fire spell took shape over his head as he began summoning a dimensional. “Alright. Siggy, Lies! I need you two—”
“Wait! Look!” The wounded elf said, pointing up at the top of a nearby container. “There! He’s—he’s—”
Siggy turned first, a scream of terror leaving her lips as she prepared to face the monster with just a shortsword. But as she gazed up where the wounded elf was pointing, she saw no one. She saw nothing at all. Then, a splash of hot, coppery wetness covered her face. Siggy blinked and yelped. She stumbled back, swinging her sword blindly, but lost her footing and fell on her ass. Wiping a hand across her face, she realized what just blinded her was blood, and her heart started going fast, like it was going to rip out of her chest.
Then, something fell next to her. Someone. Siggy’s mind was blank as she realized she was staring at Hugo. His eyes were open but unblinking, and he had a look of absolute confusion on his face. His armor was mostly intact, but there was a gaping wound through his chest that gushed out rivers of blood. And his heart… Where was his heart?
“Let go! Let go!” Lies shrieked. The Umbral was kicking and stabbing at the wounded elf. Her nightglass dagger speared straight into his right eye—and the dagger snapped. The wounded elf didn’t react immediately. He just stared at the Umbral’s face for a while longer, as if contemplating something, and then he spoke. “Yeah, Uva’s right. I don’t think I got the chops to pull off being a woman.”
Siggy didn’t understand. Her dread and confusion only grew as Lies suddenly gripped her chest, and then she went limp. The elf chucked her aside too. Siggy was about to start calling for Coghell, but a sparking sound made her look up, and she saw the smoking remnants of an automaton flattened against the ceiling. Components began to rain down. Bolts, screws, and other parts that used to make up a mechanical life form. A second later, Coghell fell, and it broke apart just a meter away from where Hugo lay.
And now, Siggy was the only one left. The only one other than the elf. The spy. The monster.
Slowly, she looked up at him, and her breath hitched as a swirl of ash and fire lifted off his body, revealing his true form. A skeletal nightmare loomed over her. Behind him, a cloak of midnight black held together by faint threads of glistening silk fluttered, blending partially into the dark ambience. The figure stood tall, if judged by the standards of a human. He was huge, too, built more like that newborn orc Siggy killed that one time. The bones armoring the figure’s exterior had a metallic sheen to it, and Siggy saw small grids of armor lining the surface with her Visual Calculus. Numbers flowed through her mind. The thing standing before her was probably just a bit over two meters tall, but the way the ground was starting to crack beneath him made her guess he carried over a ton of mass.
Then, suddenly, the cracks stopped, and her skill was confused. He was back to being maybe around two hundred kilograms or so. Still massive for a human.
And then she saw his eyes. Pools of black dotted with irises of gleaming white. And he was studying her too, looking at her face, holding a dagger of metallic bone in his right hand. His left, though, hung a bit limp by his side. Her Visual Calculus screamed at her, telling her that he was injured there, that she should target the limb. But she ignored the skill, because she was doing everything she could not to shit and piss herself.
“Well,” the monster said, his voice sounding surprisingly… normal. A bit deep, but normal. “I guess it’s just you and me on this floor, now. That took a while.” Siggy tried to talk. She made a low whine instead. “Please don’t scream. There’s no one else left. Not on this floor. Or the one below it.” He gave a bitter, tired chuckle. “Would you believe I tried to do this quietly? That I tried to slip out? Ah. I’m not really cut out for this spy or infiltrator stuff. Even with an Adept Stealth Skill. So. I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you’re going to answer. Does that sound good?”
Siggy failed. She really tried her best, but she couldn’t help herself. It was all too much. She whispered to the monster, trying not to cry.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“I… I shit myself,” she admitted, her lip quivering.
“Ah,” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “Uh. I think there was another goblin I killed earlier—wait, here.” A flash of crimson mana pulsed along his wounded arm. A Biomancy spell took shape, and with a gesture, he tossed a new corpse beside Siggy. It was, indeed, a dead goblin, as the figure claimed. A goblin with his skull caved in, and pants already soiled judging from the smell.
Siggy swallowed. “I… uh, I think I’ll keep my pants.”
“Why?” the monster said. “Just take his. It’s only his head that’s been destroyed.”
“Yeah, but… I think he shit and pissed himself too.”
The monster looked at her, glaring at her with those savage, white irises. Siggy prepared to die, begged the System and all the gods to give her another chance. Then, the monster sighed. “Shit. Right. People do that when they die. Sorry about that.”