Another volley of knocks slammed against Al’Corvo’s door.

“I’m coming! Give me a moment will you?”

Rising from his well-worn couch, Al’Corvo opened the metal and frosted glass door, revealing a tall, fully armoured Ward. The armour looked like an exaggerated carapace, with a deep blue colouration and harsh edges. A tall staff was attached to the left side of the Ward’s back, while a large tank made of a strange verdigris-coloured metal was hooked to the right. With a rush of air, the Ward took off their helmet, revealing the stubby form of Al’Shor.

“Ayy Al’Corvo buddy, how’re goin’? Injury doin’ aight?” Al’Shor rushed past Al’Corvo, sitting on one of Al’Corvo’s dining chairs. Al’Corvo was still holding the door open when Al’Shor began speaking again.

“So, I assume you’ve read the letter yeah? ‘Grats by the way. Not many can take a ghost like you,” Al’Shor mimed the action of slamming down on someone’s head, “but I ain’t here to make a courtesy call. Come, sit down.” Al’Shor waved his confused counterpart over to his own dining table.

Adopting a serious tone, Al’Shor began explaining the current circumstances of the Wards to Al’Corvo.

“You wouldn’t know since you were sleeping, but there’s kinda a state of emergency goin’ on. Don’t worry, it ain’t serious, but we need your help.”

“Seraphs take me,” Al’Corvo whispered under his breath. “Okay, so what’s this emergency got to do with me?”

“Well, heh, some dipshit managed to piss a Centurion off enough to get it over the wall,” Al’Shor began a laughing fit, “imagine pissing one off so much that it would go past all the talismans and shit. You shoulda seen the look on the guy’s fucking face when the thing climbed over!”

Al’Corvo let out a polite cough, “You were saying something about an emergency Al’Shor?”

Al’Shor suddenly stopped laughing.

“Well anyway, the Centurion knocked out the pylons surrounding Eastern Sector 20.”

“Fuck off. Are you kidding me?”

“Nup. Anyways, we sent four engees like you, but uh, only two came back. We kinda have our ‘ands full, so we uh, need you teh go into ES20 and set sum stuff up.”

“Like what?”

“Echo nets, or whatever you engees call ‘em.”

“Won’t that setback the Hope Project? That required a lot of ecto right?”

“Uh, I can’t really say much, but yeah. It’ll set it back a bit. Worth it though, Sector 20’s kinda valuable yeah?”

“Where and when do you want me?”

Al’Shor checked his wristwatch, “about 50 mins sound go to you? We’ll get you on checkpoint two ‘kay? Nice chat yeah?”

“Yes,” Al’Corvo let out a sigh, “want anything on the way out?”

“Got any coffee?”

“I can get you some rehydrated packs if you want.”

“Nevermind. Can’t you get the good stuff?”

“I’m a tea man.”

“Shame that.”

Al’Corvo led his guest to the door, waving Al’Shor goodbye before collapsing on his couch again.

Al’Corvo was out of breath. Sector 8, the only one of its kind, was on the western side of Raqmu. Eastern Sector 20, on the other hand, was on the far east. With only 20 minutes on the clock, he had to run all the way to ES20, which was especially rough since he was still wearing his thick woolen Ward clothes.

ES20 was primarily a storage area. What it exactly stored was anyone’s guess, but considering its size it was probably food and material. As such, it had several checkpoints that sat at irregular intervals along a secondary lightning wall. Usually it would be deactivated, but with the ghosts swarming the area it was now activated.

Just as Al’Corvo arrived, he managed to bear witness to the lightning wall in action. Limping towards the checkpoint was a heavily injured Ward, carrying an unconscious electrician. Behind them were several ethereal shapes, though at this distance Al’Corvo couldn’t make out their forms. Even though they were but 20 metres away.

To ensure the checkpoints weren’t a breach hazard, their doorways could be turned into an electrified deathtrap. The wall of pure electricity had to be manually turned off and on again, which in this case wouldn’t have just let in the wounded Ward.

Seeing that they wouldn’t make it to the checkpoint in time, the injured Ward suddenly changed course, running towards the lightning wall. They began speeding up, pushing their injured body to its very limit, and Al’Corvo watched in horror as he realized what the Ward intended to do.

Rather than becoming a puppet to the ghosts, or letting the same happen to the electrician, the Ward was going to evaporate themselves along with their charge.

Letting out one final scream of defiance, the Ward charged forwards and Al’Corvo could hear their shell creak with the effort, possibly even breaking. The other Wards simply raised a clenched fist to the right side of their chest. A salute to the fallen.

With a final leap, the Ward rammed into the lightning wall, their final screams piercing the crisp afternoon air. While Al’Corvo couldn’t see what was happening to the Ward, he saw the air underneath the electrician’s shell expand, creating the most awful cracking noise. Finally, the Ward simply dropped onto the ground as a smoking husk, while the electrician exploded, blood vaporising in the electrically charged air.

The ghosts didn’t fare much better, and Al’Corvo could hear their howls of rage as they suddenly slammed into the wall. Instead of exploding into a gory soup like the engineer, they oscillated rapidly before almost solidifying on the lightning, as strange as that looked. Several Wards rushed towards the ghost goop with strange nets made of the same verdigris metal as their armour, collecting the cooling sludge.

“That’s what we call a Ward’s end.”

Al’Corvo whipped around to see Al’Shor, who had a single tear rolling down his centermost-left eye.

“Il’Nare was a legend, always rushin’ about to save others. Shame really.”

“Does… does this happen often?” Al’Corvo suddenly choked on his words. He may have cracked Il’Shar’s head open, but that felt somewhat detached, like a dream. This was real, he could even smell the scent of burning flesh coming from Il’Nare’s steaming husk.

“Enough that we ‘ave a name fo’ it.”

Al’Corvo merely gulped, a fresh, heavy sheen of sweat coating his shell.

“What do I need to do now that I’m here.” He stammered the first half of the sentence, suring himself for the job to come.

Noticing his arrival, a bulky Ward wandered over, armour clanking with every step. Their chestplate had a golden trim, signifying their rank of Legatus, or officer. Their voice was deep and booming, an effect amplified further by their large helmet. There was a cold, almost hostile tone to their voice.

“Al’Corvo I presume? Unfortunate you had to witness that. No matter, I assume that Al’Shor has told you your mission,” and without waiting for a response, “good. Inside the checkpoint you will be handed the supplies required to set up the echo net.”

Al’Corvo instantly decided that the Legatus was male, probably a huntsman due to his voice.

“Will anyone be coming with me?”

The Legatus was silent for a moment.

“You will be assigned the Ab Initiate Il’Nok. She will carry the 10 litres of ectoplasm required for this operation. The base nets have been set, your job is to apply the ectoplasm and electrify it.”

“Why only a rookie?” Al’Corvo was almost indignant, after all, did they really not care enough about his life to assign him someone with experience?

“We are preoccupied with making sure no further breaches occur. We don’t have the manpower to spare. Especially not for a former civilian.”

As Al’Corvo walked towards the checkpoint he muttered under his breath, “up yours too.”

The checkpoint hut was a hive of activity, unarmoured Wards were crawling throughout the house-sized structure, passing ropes and tanks around like they were boiling hot. Standing next to the opposing door was an armoured Ward with their, or rather her, helmet off. She was clearly a huntsman, as evidenced by the fine hairs covering her scalp, and light brown shell colouration. While not exactly uncommon, huntsmen were still rare enough that Al’Corvo was stunned for a few seconds.

Upon sighting him, the Ward rushed over and held her hand out.

“Hi there! I’m Il’Nok, although the chief probably told you that, heh, are you ready?”

Al’Corvo was almost taken aback by her casual way of talking, more used to the dour and leaden way of talking that was common amongst workers.

“Sure, do you have the ecto?”

“Yup!”

With a heft, Il’Nok gathered up a massive tank of ectoplasm on her back. Another, less known trait about huntsmen, was their ridiculous carrying capacity. Although perhaps it was more accurate to say that their speed was so great that weight wasn’t much of a barrier to them.

With a thumbs up, a Ward manning a monitor typed several commands into their computer with loud keystrokes, causing the electric door to power off. Al’Corvo gathered up the necessary tools and a cattle prod that were swiftly passed to him from a dangling Ward

Both Al’Corvo and Il’Nok walked into Sector 20.