You greet Andrew and Cardus as you pass by their table. Piscar and Sarkon seem to be somewhere else entirely. One of the Breeton walks over to you and nods its head succinctly, “Do you have what we need to go get?” He asks in a deep voice.

You take a closer look at he approaches. He's got a hairy sort of snout, in fact he's hairy all over his body. His black and gray uniform saves your eyes from wandering too far, but unfortunately it seems to be skin tight, so it doesn't really leave much to the imagination.

“Yes, quite a bit, unfortunately. I doubt we'll be able to get it all from one source, but we can try first with Bunker 31, that should be the one Yaldabaoth and Tiburr are stationed at,” Jesse says.

“Okay, I think Darmande is preparing Bunker 29 for a scouting mission to locate any surviving Dromedan. Should I have Jonan call them as well?” The Breeton asks.

“I suggest waiting, Bartz. Maybe have him call there as a last resort because if they're busy with mounting a search we don't want to interrupt that when they could find important info out.”

“If only Pamen were here we could just as easily just have him scope out any other bunkers he's in,” Bartz moans

“That would make things easier,” Jesse thinks aloud. “Unfortunately we don't have that luxury, but we can go and scope out some of the other bunkers nearby once we check up on them.”

“All right, that's fine,” he says turning to you, “Would you be going also?”

You nod your head, “Yes, I'm Alex, by the way.”

“Bartz,” He doesn't offer his hand, but then again you think it might be better off because you notice his chubby hand looks like it is bigger than your own head. There would be no feasible handshake to accommodate the size difference between you and him.

“I can go ask Fayr and the girls if they want to come along if you two want to ask the council members,” Bartz asks.

“Won't we need someone to stay here?” You ask.

“You think that we're the only ones in this bunker treating hundreds of wounded? Dear lad we'd be overrun through our gullets. The bunker has a few dozen workers who are right now on the level below us tending to the critical condition patients.”

“There's more of 'em?”

“Yes, the ones I showed you were a lot, yes, but those are the ones that were at least stable enough to earn themselves rest. This bunker is two levels, the bottom more hidden away in the case of an invasion like this.”

“Huh, that's good to know.”

“So that's it then? We good?” Bartz asks.

“Yeah, we'll go ask them and meet up here. Ask Jonan if he can handle the calls to the other bunkers.”

“Sure thing,” he says, walking away.

You turn around to Cardus and Andrew behind you, looking at them expectantly. “Well, you two eavesdroppers know what's up, you in for an adventure?” You ask.

“I'm all for it,” Cardus says, getting up and stretching his stalky legs.

“I'm going to hang back. I'm getting up in my years and could use a nap,” Andrew says.

“You sure?

“Yeah, I'm not really all that useful for protecting people.”

“Okay...” You say, not really knowing how to follow up with that.

“Maybe when you get back we can have that talk,” he says, standing up from the table slowly.

“Okay.”

He hobbles off to the back and exits through a door like the one you'd originally come out of. You look over to Jesse, “What's his deal?”

“Before Earth fell he lost his wife. He's felt responsible ever since.”

“That's like...five thousand years of guilt. How is he still alive?”

“A sick twist of fate? I don't know the specifics. A lot of Earth's last years are muddled in the archives...were muddled. Details about the event were few and far between, you'd probably be best asking him yourself, it's odd for him to want to speak about it with anyone.”

“In all the years that I've known him not once has he opened up about Earth to me,” Cardus says. “I'd consider yourself lucky,” he says.

“Or maybe the opposite, maybe it's something totally awful,” you begin.

“Either way it's nothing we can do with now. I'd like to think the medicine takes precedence than hearing an old man's tales.”

“Right right, where's Sarkon?” You ask. “We should see if he wants to come along.”

“Sarkon left a little bit ago,” Cardus says. “He went to visit Jakkon. I think he has family there.”

“You think he does?”

“Sarkon also isn't a very talkative individual. He's more a business kind of guy. Really the only ones super open about themselves is Darmande. That guy loves to boast about himself,” Cardus finishes with a laugh.

“I just thought that a group of heroes would have known more about each other,” you say.

“Then you've a lot to learn, then,” he says. “Who knows, if we survive this mess maybe I'll lean on you for a story to tell.”

“That's always the hardest part, then,” You say.

Bartz walks over to you with Jonan by his side. You can see that Jonan is a little bit smaller and that his tusks are set in his snout a little bit shorter. You don't know if you're nitpicking, but his hair looks shorter too, but it's entirely possible that's placebo.

“Okay, we have half the list confirmed over at bunker 31. The rest we can scrounge from the surplus at 32. Tiburr volunteered to organize that bunch for us so we don't have to spend an eternity there,” Bartz says.

“Okay, good. Do we have a team all set up for going out?” Jesse asks. “If possible we might even be able to split into two teams and each pick up our share and come back in half the time.”

“Right now counting us there are nine people willing. Esio didn't want to come, says she has someone here she needs to watch over.”

“And Esio is...” You trail off.

“She's a real small thing, that one. I'm okay with leaving her here because she's the runt of her genome,” Jonan cuts in, his voice deeper than Bartz's which surprises you.

“Esio is an Illith,” Jesse whispers over to you.

“Ah, small guys, got it.”

“Girls,” Jesse corrects. “All female race.”

“How does that work out?” You ask out loud by mistake.

Jesse laughs, “There's some sort of dust they collect over time which is used in some reproduction ceremony. Think of flowers, you get that analogy, right?”

“I do, though that is kind of weird.”

“What is normal, though?”

“True.”

“Anyway,” Bartz clears his throat, “If we wanted to split it down four and five we could each go to 31 and 32, if you wanted to go through with that plan, that is.”

“Yes, I think that will do just fine. Anything to get some more lucradites for the guys and gals in the infirmary.” “Adhesive for severe bleeding,” he whispers to you.

You nod.

“So how about Jonan and Bartz go on different teams? We could use your defenses if one of us comes across any Dromedans,” Jesse says.

“Sounds fine with me. Why don't you and Alex come with me to bunker 31?” Bartz asks.

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“That sounds fine with me,” you say.

“I'm okay with it.”

“Okay, that's three on my side, Do you want to take Fayr? She's kind of a pain in my side,” Bartz says.

“Fine, fine, but you owe me one,” Jonan replies.

“I'll buy you a drink when we're next available,” he laughs.

“Or you can take Jiarg,” Jonan says, a smirk on his face.

“All right, fine. I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to get ya' to take him anyhow,” Bartz says.

Jiarg, you think you've heard that name before, and that's when you remember the Garexian that was talking with the Cæ before you stepped inside the Particle Transmitter. You remember specifically how he looked at you when you passed by, you can feel your entire body shudder once more.

“Okay, so my team is about set, we just need to grab Jiarg, where's he at?” Bartz asks.

“I think he might be on the lower floor. He had a kid who was injured in the blasts,” Jesse says.

“That's awful,” You say.

“This whole mess is.”

“Well, we can go fetch him while you go get your team together,” Bartz nods off to the two Illith in the distance. “And go see if you can find Fayr also.” Jonan nods and he walks off towards the back of the room. Bartz turns to you and nods before doing so to Jesse and then Cardus. “Well, if you've nothing else here we can go down and get Jiarg.”

“I can go, he's least likely to lash out on me,” Cardus says.

“Why's that?” You ask.

“Respect for authority,” Cardus winks his beady little eyes.

Weird, you didn't even think they could wink, but here you go. He begins walking down towards the medical wing and disappears from sight.

“I feel bad taking him away from his son, are you sure he wanted to come?” You ask.

Bartz nods his head, “Yes, he was quite insistent on it. Muttered something about clawing out my innards if we left without him.”

“Ah, well that's nice of him.”

“Jiarg's a...delicate case,” Jesse says. “Most Garexians are, but him especially,” he begins walking and nods for you to follow him.

“So he's got a bit of a temper problem?”

“I mean, wouldn't you if your son was caught in this disaster?”

“Right.”

You head down a hallway and see another sign hanging above you.

“Armory and Ammunition,” Jesse says.

“Oh,” you say, still following him down. You reach an iron door that is barred shut. “I thought things were peaceful here before all this?”

“They were for the most part, doesn't mean we should remain defenseless. That's just stupid.”

“That's true. Do you know how to shoot?”

“Only small stuff really. I don't get much free time. How about you?” He asks, pulling the bar up and opening the vault-like door.

“I never touched a gun before in my life, and I'm sure what I had access to back on earth was vastly different to what you have here.”

He steps in, you follow in right behind him. You look like you just stepped onto the set of Star Wars with how many kinds of look-alike blasters hang on the wall in front of you. “Sheesh, and you're the one telling me I'm too much into science fiction,” you say.

“Well, it's not lasers this thing fires,” he says grabbing a small blaster off of the wall. You watch as the lights turn on and it glows a bright green, and the white plating extends past his wrist as a sort of guard.

“What does it shoot, then?”

“Waves.”

“Like...from the ocean?”

“No, not quite,” he laughs. “Everything resonates at a specific frequency, that's how we exist. These waves break down if they make contact with an exact match, a wave tuned specifically to one another. Organic matter tends to vary, as we all are made up of different amounts of near everything. Finding someone's exact waveform would be near impossible unless you dedicated an entire lifetime to it, even then you might have different results since we also change as we age.”

“So, what's the use, then?”

“Dromedans aren't organic matter. The large of them, anyway. Each of their waves remains the same since their very creation. Of course, they vary from Mark I to say, Mark V units, but every single Mark I unit was mass produced the same.”

“So if you found out the waveform of the Mark I units you could effectively have a weapon against each and every single one.”

“Exactly. The one problem is collecting data on those waveforms. We didn't exactly see the need to research them when they weren't a problem, so the only data we actually have are on the civilian units, the Mark II and III units.”

“And they aren't fit for combat, are they?”

“No, I could see them using them for a sort of line of defense, or maybe even recon, but anything combat specific I don't believe they'd be a part of.

“Well, what does the process of data collection entail?”

“The gun has a scanner here,” he points to a light on the tip of the barrel, it syncs up with any material it scans and gives a preliminary list of possible frequencies.”

“That sounds really simple, how is it that you couldn't do something like that with you or me?”

“I'm making it sound simple because there's a lot of complicated technology going into this. Organic matter is always moving and growing, decaying, replacing itself. You can't get a solid read on something that is constantly changing.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Anyway, I just wanted to pick up a few in case we run into trouble. Cardus is proficient in weapons like these, so he'd really be the one to go for any questions on specifics on handlings.”

“I don't want to know how to shoot it, to be honest,” you say.

“No desire?”

You shake your head, “I don't think I could do that. I understand how hypocritical that sounds, but like, I don't want to become that again.”

“It's okay, I understand. Why don't we head back?”

“Yeah, that's a good idea,” You say.

Back in the bunker you see the door to the medical wing open once more and in comes Cardus followed by Jiarg. Now that you're focusing on him you do remember seeing him. He's almost too big to fit in through the door, you can feel your body begin to shake very slightly and you feel really warm. The shaking stops after a few seconds, but you still feel really hot. Jesse walks over to them and hands them each a blaster. Jiarg shakes his head, refusing the gun as he walks passed you. Bartz takes it happily and sets it into a holster at his side.

“Okay, so Team A is just about ready,” Cardus says. “Are we all ready to head out?”

Bartz nods his head, Jesse gives a thumbs up, Jiarg doesn't respond, and you feel like someone turned up the thermometer thirty degrees. You're not staying here in this dirty bunker, though. You know that if you tell Jesse that you're feeling weird he'd make you stay. You know that you'd also listen to him. There's something familiar about him that feels comfortable. You nod your head.

“Excellent, so I say that we should head out immediately, that way we can make it back before sundown,” Cardus says.

There's a sound that calls out and echoes throughout the bunker, it is a high pitched siren separated by two seconds of silence before repeating.

“It looks like Sarkon's giving us a call,” Jesse says. “Who's at the calling station?”

“I don't know, we can answer it here,” Cardus says, running over to a small desk. He places a small circular device that looks like an eye on top of it and begins pressing all sorts of different buttons on the side of it. A light projects out onto the wall. You see Sarkon's bloated face in the lights, he looks distressed. Behind him are what look like the skeleton trees on the outskirts of Pandera, but they're a sickly yellow.

“There is big trouble,” you hear come out of the feed inbetween breaths. “Very big trouble!”

“Sark, calm down. What's going on?”

“Jakkon has been poisoned! The waters have been tainted and...”

“What? Sark, slow down and tell us what's going on. Was it the Dromedans?”

The feed disappears for a moment, but then you see the view has just changed, it's now showing a small village with houses constructed out of the skeleton trees. The ground is covered in patches of murky brown water and a pond sits in the middle of the village. What's weird are the dozens of statues scattered around the town. There could almost be hundreds, but you can't even begin to see them all.

“Gone...they're all gone. Every single one of them here is dead. It's a massacre.”

Your mind flashes back to your conversation with Jesse.

“Psarcians for example can't deal with extreme heat. If the water in those sacks on their bodies dry up it's game over for them, so the deserts to the north of Pandera aren't really an optimal place for Psarcians to visit.”

“Really? That's all it takes to kill them?”

“If their water supply was poisoned...that means all those statues are...?”

Jesse doesn't answer, he has a look of pure horror on his face.

“Sark, you need to come back to the bunker, now. It is not safe for you out there.”

“MY FAMILY IS DEAD HERE,” he screams so loud it echoes through the chambers. It seems to highlight the silence that follows.

“Sarkon, please, we will find out how to stop this from happening, but you need to come back here. Andrew's here and he can help you through this,” Jesse says.

“I WANT THEM DEAD. I WANT THOSE FILTHY MECHANICAL MISCREATIONS TO KNOW WHAT TRUE SUFFERING IS. EACH. AND. EVERY. ONE.” The view is shaking and then cuts out.

“What do you think is out there still?” You ask.

“I don't know, but whoever poisoned the supply could still be there, and if Sarkon finds them he'll most definitely want to have them pay for their crime.”

“If he does that he'd use up a lot of energy and water,” Bartz says.

“He'd have no way to replenish it,” You realize.

“I will go to Jakkon,” Jiarg says, breaking his silence.

“Jiarg?” You ask.

“He will need assistance coming back anyway, and you lot need Bartz's help getting to bunker 31, so I volunteer to travel to Jakkon to bring Sarkon back.”

“What about your son?”

Jiarg looks directly at you, his piercing green eyes seem to stab you, “I trust that you will be enough to bring the medicine back here. For that task I thank you in advance,” he nods slightly. For a moment you believe you see the faintest of smiles.

“Okay, then it looks like we have our plan. I'm sure Team B will be leaving a bit after us, I think they still need to find Fayr. We can head out now,” Jesse says.

“Right,” you say. You've been here for such a short time but you've already experienced so much death around you. You just hope you start feeling better, or else you might join them soon enough.