Chapter 101: Reasonable Expectations / Rational Fears

Subject: Caim Location: Riventread - Outskirts Unevenly, Caim's footsteps pounded in his head as his boots thudded against the shaky ground. The breachworm's flailing, sending a flurry of living scales to meet some adversary beyond the edge of the festerfont. A shriek followed by a heavy *bang* declared that another of Gire's explosive charke bolts had found it's target. The plan had made sense, but reality was utter chaos. Caim was too busy to look at the breachworm, but he knew he needed to draw more fire. Running out closer to the breachworm, he tried to shout and wave to become a more salient target than Gire. "Scion, try again. Get inside and attack it!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, while jogging. It confirmed the command. Caim had been alternating between a Flourish Catalyst calibrated for stamina and the same catalyst calibrated for healing. The cycle was too chaotic to time, especially with the disorientating side effects of the poison coursing through his veins. He hoped it wasn't killing him. For all he knew, natives of this world and his homeworld had different tolerances. Not that he had a better choice. Scion Destroyed Another failure. The worm was too smart to fall for the same tricks, even with Gire's help. Then an explosive bolt impacted the breachworm's maw, blowing away part of the flap of rocky flesh covering the opening. This would be another shot. He wasn't fast enough. The only reason he was still alive had been that poison. Whatever it was, it hardened his skin, and possibly his organs, allowing his body to get battered and healed all over again. It impaired mobility and altered perception, but it worked. With the pace of fighting continuing like this for what felt like an hour, Gire appeared to have been forced back so far he was closer to the coiling body segment fencing him in than he was from Caim and Caim's Shards of Legion lying in wait near the worm’s head. The stage was almost set, but it hadn't been easy. Too hesitant and they'd miss their perfect chance. Too hasty and they'd waste their only chance. But that only chance had to be perfect. Each time Caim felt the shock of another impact, he felt like he'd been hit directly. But no. Each time, it had only been the shockwave radiating out from the point of actual impact. The worm was too slow, but it didn't need to hit him dead on. It only needed to keep trying until it got lucky. Gire wasn't even the target of the attacks, but he had been forced to struggle not to get caught up in the widespread flailing ripping through riventread like a natural disaster. This was evidenced by the increasingly-distant points of origin for each of his attacks. Caim was just happy the device could fire that far. Then, not ten minutes after downing the last vial of poison, Caim saw what he'd been waiting for. The last explosive bolt had allowed Sovereign Scion to penetrate the breachworm's defenses and dive into its mouth. Immediately, the worm began devouring rocks, just as planned. Eventually, it thought it had found an appetizingly dense cluster of rocks. Really, it had begun devouring Caim's Shards of Legion. After a moment of hesitance at the disgusting experience he was about to have, Caim assumed direct control of one of the Shards. Subject: Maliscade Branch Security Division, Arch Commander - Everett Row Location: Riventread - Outer Border Everett was a senior member of the Maliscade Blightbane Guild’s Security Division. As an Arch Commander, he was only called in for the most dire of security threats. But this… this is more than any of my soldiers can handle. All of them combined can do nothing here. A breachworm was not something he’d expected to see ever again, since leaving his home in the capital city for a Guild Branch that actually cared about its people. The Maliscade Blightbane Guild wasn't just a puppet of the state, favored as assassins by ever-scheming and ever-insatiable politicians desiring plausible deniability. The blightbeast was thrashing about. It’s head could be seen bearing down on something in the interior of its coiled body. The coil roiled, smacking the rocky terrain as it undulated violently in a circle near the festerfont's Body layer. Nothing could be seen beyond the height of the coil, as there were no convenient vantages on this flat land. We’ve still got people inside. How in Pulse have they survived all this time? It had been Everett’s decision to enter the field himself, leaving the other two Arch Commanders behind. Why had he done so when there had been no confirmed threat? Well, that was because he’d overheard two of his Administration Division colleagues discussing something in the hall. One was a faron, who despite the sociopolitical limitations of her physiology, essentially ran the whole of the Administration Division. The other was a Communications Overseer. She had been the one to revolutionize Inter-Division communications, though she would never admit to it, due to her selfish reasoning for doing so. Everett would never begrudge a person for their harmless desires, especially considering it was also curiosity that had compelled him to come here. All things considered, the human had a frail character, but the faron was terrifyingly disciplined. The two of them seemed to think there was something amiss in Riventread after some Initiate hadn’t returned with the mass exodus of people talking about strange tremors and spontaneously dying blightbeasts. They'd been arguing about the Initiate's character. The Communications Overseer had jokingly asked if the faron thought the Initiate was responsible for the rumors. Only, neither of them had been laughing or smiling. A little more than a quarter of the seekers with active contracts in the festerfont had returned, but there was a pattern. These seekers were almost all those who would have been hunting in the Outskirts layer of the festerfont. Though, the argument could be made that they were more likely to flee if veterans told them to. But none of them knew what the cause of the phenomenon had been, nor had any claimed to have been ordered to deliver a message to the Guild by a veteran seeker. Harmless tremors weren’t too uncommon in festerfonts, especially Riventread. Dying blightbeasts seemed like something to investigate, but not enough reason to mobilize the veteran "Vanquishers" of the Security Division. Something needed to be terribly wrong to warrant Everett's attention. But, Everett also knew that there was supposed to be an Intelligence Division Tracer returning from Riventread, and that this Tracer hadn’t made his regular report. He was one of the best, so something very important might have happened. He informed his Vanquishers that they'd be investigating the rumor. At best they'd find it was just a rumor that had been blown out of proportion. The journey would then be considered a training exercise. But he didn't dare give voice to the unsettling feeling in his gut, that "at worst" result. I wish I wasn’t right all the time. "Gale Squad, go to the far side and fire a flare when you're in position. Shimmer Squad, go East. Hearth Squad, go West. Shield Squad, stay with me. When you see the flair, begin ranged suppression of the target. Watch the skies for my orders.” Though commanders could communicate with one another, this backwater city couldn’t afford enough of the expensive magitech transmitters to outfit many more than that. The other Division heads were, naturally, next in line, leaving none for his squad captains. The communicators could be fickle, though. Sometimes, old-fashioned was best. Those survivors won’t live through this. miracles don’t happen when the Blight is involved. But that doesn't change what we need to do. Subject: Metis Location: ??? Chronological Marker 22 Minutes, 33 Seconds Local Time (Prior to Anomalous Detonation) The young man coughed up blood and stirred. Seizing up, he was jolted back into a conscious, pain-riven state. Metis’s surveillance tools were unable to detect what roused him, but she suspected it was his mysterious power, the power she’d never seen before in all her days of watching and documenting. Only this individual possessed it. He shouldn’t have survived that last blow. Watching her target felled to the point of near-death and then revived in agony was worse than just getting it over with. She wanted his pain to end, so that her uneasiness might as well. Should I tend to the others? She wondered. No, I have a responsibility to be there with them whenever possible in their most significant moments. It wasn’t a strict order, but rather, a guideline for proper behavior in this field assignment. Metis had no instructions for what constituted a "significant moment". She had the means to recall past moments of their lives, as she’d been there herself, but for some reason, her master's instructions implied that she preferred a more active presence in times like these. Metis couldn't fathom why, but she couldn't disagree. Besides, someone should be there with them when they finally die, even if only to record their names. No. This was wrong. This felt wrong. What did it matter whether anyone observed their heroic, but ultimately futile struggle? They’d die the same. The one named Caim was willingly drawing attention from his partner, staring death in the face over and over. There were all the signs of intense fear the first time he did this, but he was growing accustomed to the pain. Is he laughing? That last time, Metis noticed an unmistakable smile on the boy’s face. He was enjoying this.