Kael hadn't seen much of Shaela these past few weeks. Their schedules conflicted too much for them to cross paths. Perhaps that was why she approached Gus and Kael with a plan for the day, having confirmed they were both off work.
"I'm not saying no, Shae, but are you sure?" Gus questioned as they walked toward one of Scithio's elevators.
"Yes, I'm sure! This is more important than anything else we were doing. And Rachel confirmed that today would work..." Shaela trailed off.
"And what will we do with all those people once they're free? Is Jacoby going to take them in?" Kael chimed in, willing to help but needing to verify she had thought this through.
Shaela leaned in, whispering over the noise of the bustling streets around them. "Apparently the revolutionaries are in the business of smuggling people out of the city."
Gus was taken aback. "Alexander's group? Is he here?"
"No, listen!" She insisted. "I've made contacts in the lower levels. If we can get the slaves free and clear from the mines underground, then all we have to do is pass them off to the revolutionaries. They'll take care of the rest."
"And Rachel was fine with this?" Gus questioned, knowingly. He had heard Shaela vent about her mentor figure plenty over the weeks, during the little time they had together.
Shae shrugged. "She said she wouldn't stop me."
She shook her head, then waved dismissively. "And that I was right to inform her, whatever that means. I don't expect them to help us, but that won't matter, if things go well. Which they will!"
She excitedly continued, "I've been casing the underground when I can, and I have a target in mind. He's not made many friends in the area, and it doesn't seem like he has a backer, either. And I'm only going after about a dozen people, so the response from the guard shouldn't be too heavy."
They fell quiet until they had passed the guards stationed around the elevator's entrance on this level. Shae gave them a smile as she received her ticket, the boys following behind her.
A convex ramp just inside the station helped them shift their orientation from the pillar's horizontal pull back to the planet's default gravity. Kael didn't appreciate the reminder that down was just a suggestion in Scithio.
They emerged into the broad tunnel that served as an elevator, circumventing it via the walkway that ran around its edges. They circled the tube until they had reached a small segment meant for pedestrians, and waited for their signal.
Kael fidgeted, not having used Scithio's highway system before. He watched as blurs shot past their level in an almost constant flow. Vehicles and individuals alike fell up and down at terminal velocity.
Some slowed before reaching their level, disembarking at designated points, or being floated onto broad platforms of energy, in the case of most vehicles.
It didn't seem very safe, to him, but that may have just been his general discomfort with Scithio's gravity systems, still lingering in the back of his mind even after spending weeks here.
His only reassurance was that he could now read some of the enchantments that served as cushions and restrictions around the walkways.
Shaela witnessed him leaning in to take a closer look at one section. She hummed, "Hmm, you've been learning enchantments, right?"
Gus had been watching the tuned into the conversation, also interested to hear about Kael's experiences.
"Yeah, I can recognize some of the basic ones in here, like gravity, stillness, negation, redirection," he pointed out individual symbols amongst the mess, "and this section here might be about identification..."
"Those are simple?"
"Oh, yeah, they're pretty close to some of the primordial aspects - like Space, Dark, Stone, and Water - so they're not too complicated. The further you get from those, the more complex the symbols - or combinations of symbols - have to be. When you get into more niche effects, you might have weirder concepts involved, or need bigger combinations to achieve what you want. Things can get a lot harder. It's usually easiest to just mimic someone's facet."
"Why would that be easier?" Gus spoke up.
"Well that's how most runes are discovered in the first place - by translating people's Aspects and facets into language."
Shaela jumped on the idea. "So runes made from my facet would let people store stuff?"
"Uhh, probably, but it's kind of a whole process. Teasing out the concepts involved is the first hurdle. Space and Preservation are two I can think of off the top of my head for you, maybe. But then you have to know how to translate those concepts into runes, if you don't know the specific runes already. That usually means getting someone with a facet related to language or translation."
Kael continued, leaning on half-remembered lectures, "Then anyone can write runes for their own concepts, if you're familiar enough with them, but they'll usually be pretty weak, and fade quickly. So you'd probably want to get an Engraver or two. That's usually someone who can enhance or preserve the runes, or can arrange them for maximal effect.
"But Engravers usually work in teams, because anytime you want to write something that's not specifically related to your facet, or if you want to make up a new effect," his hands twisted in the air, "you'll need someone who can write any rune down. Which means having a facet related to writing, imprinting, infusing, or uhh... others. It's why they leave all these out in the open," Kael waved to the enchantments around them, "most people won't be able to do anything with them anyway, and there's a lock on modification." He turned back toward the nearby segment. "Probably built into the identity stuff?" He trailed off.
Shaela poked him. "...so you can't turn my facet into runes?"
That was about the extent of what Gus gathered from the explanation, as well.
"Umm, no. But you can, if you know the concepts. You might even be able to spot runes that feel like they resonate with you. Those'll be ones that overlap with your facet."
Shaela nodded in thought. Then, she pulled out a simple device, and held it out to Kael. "And this?"
Kael took it, flipping it in his hands to find the runes. One side of the small square merely had a faint light and a knob, currently set to glow red. The other side of the device had just a few runes. Kael was able to distinguish "light and... synchronization?"
Shaela pulled out an identical device, showing off the same red glow. She turned the knob on hers, flipping it to yellow, then blue. The one in Kael's hand matched the color changes of Shaela's.
She instructed, "Hold onto that. We'll be using it in a bit."
Their booth gave a rising chime, and another light flashed on above them, to indicate their section of the funnel was clear.
Kael pocketed the device. His hand then found his ticket, and clutched it tight as they stepped forth.
One by one, they began their plummet. Shaela casually stepped off, zipping downward with a wave. Gus gave a hop right behind her.
Kael focused on thoughts of runes as he walked off the edge, and when that failed to calm his nerves - as he began to pick up speed - he pretended he was a raindrop falling to the ground.
He managed to hold in the scream as the wind rushed by.
Thankfully, he slowed to a stop several moments later, far down the pillar from where he started, and was safely deposited next to Shaela and Gus.
When they stepped out from the station - one more wobbly than the others - they emerged quite close to the surface of the planet, where the city's traffic was most heavy.
The air wasn't quite as bad as it was in the more industrial districts just above, but it still held its fair share of smog, which clung to the base of Scithio under its warped gravity.
The smell - and taste - didn't agree with Kael. "Eugh, that's putrid. I'm tempted to call down rain just to clear the air..."
Gus, meanwhile, had converted his nose to metal, and used the minor malleability of the shifted skin to close off his nostrils completely.
"Don't do that." Shaela handed Kael a mask, to cover the lower half of his face. "We don't need another district-wide incident, especially with what we're here to do."
"Right. 'What we're here to do.' We could use a little more specifics, now, yeah?" Gus prompted Shaela, in a slightly nasally voice.
"Yeah, just a moment..." Shaela distractedly replied, as she looked to the surrounding streets.
When she found what she was looking for, she led the boys to what appeared to be a barber shop. Truly, the red and white stripes of a barber's pole were universal.
Inside, they saw a woman with an afro, who was giving a cut to a bedraggled man sitting before her. The man's hair - in contrast to the rest of him - was quite nice, coming down to his shoulders in waves.
Around their feet were the remnants of the trim, forming a dark carpet which - upon seeing the trio enter - the woman switched to sweeping up.
Shaela exchanged nods with the woman while the three of them waited for her to close up shop.
When the woman returned from the front, and the man had stood up from his seat, Shaela began introductions.
She gestured. "This is Huey." The man waved with a smile.
She then opened her hand to the woman, whom Kael could see was chewing bubblegum as she leaned against a counter with her arms crossed. "And Chanelle.
"Chanelle is one of the employees I met at a soup kitchen, where she usually works when she's done here."
Chanelle eyed the three of them, her look lingering on the new faces more than Shaela.
She paused to speak. "Hi." And resumed chewing her gum in the resulting silence, Kael and Gus returning the greeting.
"Chanelle knows some revolutionaries-"
"Not with 'em, though. Wanna make that clear."
Shaela merely rolled her eyes, buying that about as much as she did the first time.
"Right." She then passed Huey a folded cloak, which he took - slipping an object from the folds into his clothes - before putting it on, though he left the hood down. "Huey works for me."
The boys exchanged introductions.
Shaela resumed, "Huey can soften things." The man picked up a nearby comb, swinging it through the air to showcase its sudden flexibility and elasticity. He quickly returned it to its default state at Chanelle's arch look, however.
"And Chanelle, blows bubbles." Chanelle's gum inflated before her lips in demonstration, reaching nearly the size of her head before popping cleanly.
The boys blinked, Gus nodding with an "Alright," while Kael contemplated the concepts that might be involved in their facets' activation.
"They're my exit plan for the group," Shaela began. "I'll be heading down through a separate elevator from the usual ones. This one goes underground, to the city's mining and quarry operations, where a lot of the city's slaves are forced to work.
"It uses a separate ticket system, of which I managed to get one. I'm also hoping to be discreet until near the very end, so I'll be going alone.
"All you two need to do," Shaela pointed two fingers at Gus and Kael, "is hang out with these two," the fingers switched to Huey and Chanelle, "somewhere nearby, until I'm on my way out with the group I'll be recovering.
"When I'm nearing the elevator, I'll flip the lightswitch," she pulled out her copy of the small device from earlier, "to yellow." She twisted the knob, and Kael's presumably flipped with it. "Then you guys will make sure Huey can prep our landing zone, at the top of the elevator. He'll take some time to spread the effect deep enough to make it safe, so you might have to cover for him if any guards happen to be looking.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"Once he's done, you'll flip your switch to blue, and we'll hop into the reversed gravity, riding it to the top.
"As long as we don't bring down any captains on our heads - which I won't, and you guys won't give them any a reason to - they won't be able to disable the elevator, so we'll be good to hit Huey's cushion.
"Once we're on the surface again, Chanelle will evac the former slaves, while we slip away.
"Any questions? No? Great. Let's go."
There were several questions.
----------------------------------------
Shaela emerged from the smaller elevator station into one of the hubs of the underground. The rock down here had been hollowed out into a miniature town, branching off from the broad cavern into the various mines owned by competing barons.
The town provided plenty of amenities to the workers within, so long as they paid the fees that would otherwise go toward their debt, effectively keeping them trapped down here while they worked in perpetuity.
Those with more useful facets would have the suppression cuffs and collars removed temporarily to do their work. Guards, usually with specific facets meant to counter theirs, would watch over them.
The regular slaves had overseers as well, of course. Guards were the other main population down here.
Shaela had been through here twice before. Once, with Rachel to guide her, and the second, on her own while she investigated her target - the same man she had seen her first night out, who purchased a batch of slaves.
To be operating in the lower levels, she had expected he wasn't particularly wealthy or well-connected, but had to second guess her conclusion when she considered her own situation. Then, she confirmed she was mistaken when she discovered the man worked for the Vikar.
She had slightly downplayed the significance of her target, not wanting the boys to dispute her plan today.
They weren't nearly on the same level of wealth as Jacoby, but the Vikar were still fairly respectable barons, who primarily dealt in vehicle manufacturing and logistics. Part of those logistics, of course, was the handling of slaves.
Shaela wore an embroidered cloak as she stepped into the artificial lights. She had stolen it on a job just a week ago, and chose to incorporate it into her infiltration plan.
Upon seeing the Vikar insignia, most guards left her to her business. They were either already paid off by the group, or feared facing the wrath of the family for impeding one of their agents.
The underground town contained plenty of winding alleyways and branching tunnels for her to navigate, with many of them continuing Scithio's trend of utilizing the walls and ceilings for space, only requiring the simplest of gravity enchantments along the tunnels' edges.
Heading down a side tunnel, Shaela pulled out another enchanted object she had procured from some wealthy victim. This one was a wheeled contraption, sized for one person, and propelled itself rapidly down the way while she held on to its base.
By the time she had arrived at the Vikar's main base of operations, she had barely needed to interact with any guardsmen, though that would be changing now that they had more reason to confront her.
She zipped through the gate entrance, bypassing the two guards with a disdainful wave, expecting they'd choose inaction for the moment.
She vaguely knew her way through the compound, having scouted it out on her previous venture down here. Instead of heading toward the main building, where she'd be expected to report first, she turned past the nearby dorms for the slaves, breaking line of sight with most of the compound, and rode into the mine entrance nearby.
Smaller lights were regularly placed along the walls, giving the mine shaft a dim glow.
As she came upon an intersection, one guard did finally hold her up, lifting a rock wall to block the way when it looked like she might bypass him as well.
She hopped off her vehicle, pocketing it behind her, and began speaking to the guard, delaying as she closed the distance. Once she was close enough, she pulled out a dagger, having seen that his facet required significant motion to activate, and went for a stab towards his neck. Unfortunately, smaller sheets of rock apparently didn't need as much of a wind-up, and a small pole of stone shot out from the nearby wall, deflecting the dagger away.
Before he could call out or signal someone else, Shaela unpocketed a spear, already engaging in a thrusting motion with her other hand - as the weapon appeared inches from the man's head. He failed to react before it pierced him, that time.
Traveling deeper into the mines - in a direction where she could hear noise - she came across another guard, who was overseeing a group of four slaves chipping away at a vein of orange ore. He was already on alert from the noise, but had no passive defenses in place besides his armor.
Shaela spoke once more, acting as though she was bringing her hand up in a wave. Instead, as soon as it was level with the guard, a small firearm appeared in her hands, already loaded, and she fired her bullet through the guard's head.
The slaves stood up at that, ready to defend themselves, but cautiously hopeful that the murderous possible-Vikar wasn't here to kill them as well. That hope was tempered by the thought that they were dead anyway, considering their overseer - and possibly more - had just been killed with them close enough to take blame.
"Don't worry. I'm here to get you all out of here."
"Hah." A mirthless laugh emerged from a scrawny blonde man.
Next to him, a broad-shouldered man - with the same shade of hair as the former - filled the resulting silence, raising his hands in a call for peace. "What my brother means to say, is that the other guards won't go down as easily as that, and unless you have a quick way out of here, you will be fighting your way out."
The man continued, "We won't be able to help you with these collars blocking use of our facets, either." He motioned to his neck. "The keys are kept in the main building outside. Again, it seems you'll have to fight if you want to follow through on what you say."
Shaela shook her head, approaching. "It won't be as difficult as you think, actually."
She approached the man, assuming he'd be the least likely to panic out of the four, and touched her fingers to the collar - popping it into her pocketspace with no issue. Its suppression effects were entirely targeted inward. Stronger collars existed, able to mitigate external facets, but they were far more expensive, and only used on specific slaves.
The man reached to his neck, feeling the absence of the collar for the first time in weeks. He flexed his hands. "That will help, though my facet will be worthless unless you can get me under the sun."
"That's fine. What can the rest of you do?" Shaela approached the others, removing their collars one by one.
The scrawny brother smiled as he looked at his own hands, though the grin had a manic edge. "I can use light. The more of it, the better."
Of the other two, one was still despondent, staring at his fingers between his lanky strands of hair. "My bones can shift..."
When Shaela reached the final man, he smiled as he eyed her up and down. "I can pick any object I see, and make it the most desirable thing in the room."
Shaela tried to ignore his gaze, instead pulling out a moderately-sized twig, which she forcefully pressed into his hands. "Here. Demonstrate it on this."
He shrugged, and suddenly everyone's attention was locked onto the item.
Color faded from the room.
Nothing else mattered but the twig.
Though the bone-man barely shifted, the other two and Shaela lunged for it, with Shaela immediately pocketing the item on touch.
Once it had vanished, the room returned to normal, everyone but the desire guy blinking and shaking themselves back to normal.
"Okay! That's handy. Great for a distraction. You yourself are immune to it?"
"Mhm."
"Alright, anyone need anything? Food? Water?" She pulled out bottles and condensed snacks on request, giving them a moment to gather themselves.
She turned back down the tunnel once they were finished. "Let's get going."
This next part wasn't planned out as well as the others. Shaela had hoped some of the escapees might have facets that would open up her options - which they did, though she'd try to recruit more before re-entering the main Vikar area.
They passed the rock-wall guard's corpse, and turned down another, longer path. They could hear chatter in the distance, as the tunnel opened up into a cave large enough to hold several stacks of material, along with a set of mine carts in the center. A group of guards joked around a table to the side.
On seeing them, the bone-man's breathing grew rough, while the scrawny blonde began to subtly glow, drawing from the lights on the walls.
The bone-man cried out, running toward the guards before throwing his hands out in front of him with his fingers extended.
From his fingertips emerged narrow chains of bone, seemingly composed of copies of his phalanges. He whipped them into the guards, who were just now rising from their game. Where the bones struck skin, they tore through.
The unluckiest guards allowed the whips to make contact with their own bones through the tears. When that happened, the guards gave tortured cries, then erupted in spikes, impaling themselves and their companions, who - on being pierced by the newly emerged bones - joined the former guards in torment. All of the enemies in the room rapidly bled out, having barely been able to react to the vicious attack.
Shaela hesitated at the ruthlessness, willing to kill slavers, but not quite like that...
"Well done." The scrawny blonde complimented, while the desire-inflicting man admired the handiwork.
Shaela turned to the bone wielder, who turned out to be in the midst of collapsing to the floor, unconscious.
Apparently, such an extreme use of his facet - out of practice and malnourished as he was - thoroughly exhausted him. The bone growths might've even drawn directly from his body's reserves of nutrients, before he began to pull on the guards' instead. It sounded like something might've cracked when he hit the ground.
"Not so good. Can anyone carry him?" The other blonde - who had earlier claimed his facet was worthless for as long as they were underground - volunteered, scooping the bone-man onto his shoulders before they continued.
For further rooms of guards, the light-wielder and the desire-inciter took turns. In both cases, the rest of the group barely saw what happened. In the former's case, because the light was sucked out of the room when he entered, while in the latter's, no one wanted to experience the desperation he was inflicting on the rabid guards before executing them.
They found a few other groups of slaves in this section, though few of them were prepared to fight - she had gotten lucky finding 3 out of 4 combat applicable facets in her first batch. She offered each group food, water, and clothes as needed.
On their way back out of the mines, when passing through one of the moderately-sized caverns, Shaela discovered they may not have been as discreet as she expected.
The wispy man who had purchased slaves in front of her all those weeks ago led a small contingent of guards through the room, stopping on noticing her group - though the man did so before they had turned the corner.
Thankfully, they all wore Vikar regalia, indicating they likely wished for it to remain an internal matter, not wanting to have to bring other guardsmen in to defend their own property, let alone having to suffer the hit to their reputation.
"A thief?" He gave Shaela a disdainful glance, before his gaze passed across the necks of the surrounding slaves - all free of their collars.
The man continued, "I suppose we must've suffered a tragic cave-in, for all of these slaves and their guards to have died. Wouldn't you agree, gentlemen?" Those behind him nodded along with varying degrees of reluctance - unwilling to speak up for their deceased comrades in front of the man.
Shaela had established a basic plan for a scenario like this with her group.
"Eyes!" She called out, and every former slave shut their eyes and turned away, while the desire-inflicter tossed a coin through the air, drawing the attention - and then fascination, before they could turn away - of their opponents.
Unfortunately, a coin was the wrong choice of implement for this scenario, as the wispy man quickly raised an arm and tugged the coin through the air, straight to his palm. He simultaneously blasted away any competition, his men's own armor betraying them as it hefted them against the walls.
When his hand closed around the coin, hiding it from view, the effect faded from everyone but him.
While the man was busy catching the coin, the desire-inflicter had raised the gun, borrowed from Shaela, and fired across the room. Unfortunately, the projectiles were metal as well, and the man instinctively paused their flight as they approached him.
He left the bullets hovering in the air for a moment before he reversed their flight, propelling them back to sender. Thus the escapees' main form of crowd control died.
Whether through ferrokinesis or a facet of magnetism, their opponent then lifted spikes from the mine cart's tracks, and launched a new volley toward the escaped slaves. While several more died, others were able to duck, having opened their eyes shortly after the desirous effect faded.
Shaela, however, dashed forward.
The metal projectiles touched her, but that's all they did - Shaela had pocketed them mid-flight, just as they made contact with her skin and clothes.
Not expecting her to have ignored his assault, the man yanked out the tracks themselves, and the mine cart itself, sending them toward Shaela.
She crouched down, unpocketing a pair of tower shield-like ramparts, which she embedded in the ground around her. They deflected the initial impact, and before the man could pull on the shields as well, she re-pocketed them.
She stood and pulled out a stick, which attracted every eye in the room for just a moment, before the effect faded for the last time.
While every eye was distracted, Shaela had flung out several pebbles toward the man from her other hand.
A split second later, they exploded - a memento of the bandit leader all those weeks ago.
The wispy man suffered the heat and shockwaves, able to keep himself standing with his mental grip on the metal armor encasing his torso, but he wasn't prepared for the wooden stake through the eye.
He collapsed, dead.
The exchange had only lasted a few seconds from the start of Shaela's dash.
The guards had nearly recovered from their previous tumble, and had conflicting responses to the man's death, though before they could rally, the light was sucked fully out of the room, concentrated on one man.
Shaela rapidly moved to the side of the room, allowing him and the others to finish the job.
Once they were done, Shaela provided potions to the worst of the wounded, and stored the corpses of the dead slaves for later burial, ignoring the dead guards and slaver, except to pocket their armor.
She had the former slaves ensconce themselves in the guard's outfits, while she re-equipped her embroidered cloak. They left the mines.
It seemed the Vikar had kept things in-house, as they emerged into the Vikar's compound to find it business-as-usual. Those aware of the situation were likely expecting the man to re-emerge with his escort, though the "new" group of guards wasn't anything too out of the ordinary, so long as they didn't get a second glance.
They exited the compound in plain sight, travelling back to the main hub of the underground, where they would wait near the elevator out for Kael and Gus to confirm their readiness to receive them. Shaela flipped the switch to yellow.
However, when they returned to the grand atrium, exiting the long tunnel that led out of the Vikar sector, one escapee cast off his armor, stepping out of the tunnel to look down on the underground city's hub.
"Perfect."
The scrawny blonde began glowing, pulling in light from all around the cavern.
As Shaela turned around and saw that the man had stripped out of his disguise, she moved to stop him. His glow layered upon itself, nearly blinding in its intensity as the cavern seemed to dim.
Just before she touched him, the man unleashed his accumulated energy, concentrated into a broad laser.
The pillar of light burned through the guard's rest hall at the center of the cavern, then twisted to the side. It melted through every structure it touched, sending the guards and slaves alike into a panic.
His brother, still carrying the unconscious bone-man, sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Shaela let out a quiet "Oh."