Chapter 95: Watching Them Die

Subject: Metis Location: ???

They were dying. Everywhere, humans, cartemi, and other species were dying. But what mattered to Metis were her surveillance targets, and two of them were in immediate danger.

Just as she was contemplating something she couldn't come back from, Metis recieved an encrypted transmission from a colleague. It was text-only, signed with the coded string of characters, of which very few would be able to decipher.

"Do you remain faithful to our Luminary?"

This form of communication was long distance and instantaneous, but it was also costly. Though Metis knew the sender, her understanding of their motivations was limited.

She wrote back.

"Yes, my faith is strong."

Her thoughts were a torrent of questions.

"Do your orders concern you? Do they seem incomprehensible?" came a near-instantaneous reply.

She hesitated before sending back.

"It isn't my place to question the rationality of my orders."

There was a long pause. Metis almost thought her colleague, who she was definitely not supposed to be in contact with, had given up. But it was only the prelude to something more.

"I'm not asking whether you question anything. I'm asking you if you'd be willing to trust someone whose already brought the faction back from the brink of annihilation once already."

One person came to mind when she read those words. That person, though not to her knowledge affiliated with the sender, was the sole reason she'd gotten involved in the first place. At least, the hadn't been affiliated when she left for her current post.

"Why me? I'm no one," Metis cautiously wrote back.

She couldn't let her eagerness cloud her judgement.

"She wouldn't want me to lie. You are important because of whom you are watching."

So, Metis wasn't the important one. Her idol only cared about one of these people on her list of targets. The truth hurt, but it was also a gift. The dull ache reminded her of what it felt like to have proper attachments, attachments to peers, not these lessors on her list.

"Something is wrong with me," Metis ventured.

"Do you question your health because you're starting to care about your targets?"

"Undetermined."

Panic was flooding her mind. She didn't know what she was admitting to. What would her peers do with this knowledge?

"You are not ill. You are also not the only one suffering under our current leadership. Rather, she would ask that you watch over someone for her."

"Who?" Metis asked, scanning her list of targets, acutely aware of the proportion of deceased targets relative to living ones.

A long pause built tension.

"The name will come at a later time."

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Subject: Caim Location: Riventread - Outskirts

The Riventread festerfont was experiencing a terrible calamity, but it was unclear what was was causing it, what the level of danger was, and what should be done about it.

Fear nestled deep in Caim's chest, but the warmth he felt while helping his fellow seekers made him want to help this new person. From the look of the hand gripping the flat rock at the top of the newly-riven festerfont ground, this person was human.

Caim also wanted to know what it had been like for this person to claw themselves back aboveground. To put it bluntly, he was being an absolute idiot. If Mille were here, she'd berate him into submission.

He skidded down the ridge, entering the body layer of the festerfont.

"Are you alright?!"

He gripped the person's wrist to help them up. Caim then targeted what turned out to be a wounded human male with a Flourish Beacon, set to the default configuration.

Concerned eyes focused on Caim’s Initiate's seeker badge.

"Ugh, stay away..." he groaned as Caim pulled him over the edge.

Caim's muscles, still poorly suited for physical labor, were barely able to do the job. The stranger didn't have a heavyset build, nor was he shorter than Caim.

The man's face had been drained of color, with eyes sagging from fatigue. That vigor was starting to return, but he didn’t look any more grateful.

"A mage? Still an Initiate. Doesn’t matter. Just listen this time and leave this place! Tell the Guild to send a subjugation force here immediately. The best they’ve got. Oh, and give them this," he added, pressing a pouch to the Caim’s chest. "They’ll know what to do with it, and don't you dare open it."

I wonder if that mess earlier today will affect how they handle... whatever this is. This guy's probably been down there for a day at least. Probably hasn't been back there.

He looked back in the direction of Maliscade. The Guild was probably still in shambles from all of that violent business before. First, a squad of Hexknights had gone throwing their weight around, beating on people afraid to defend themselves. Then, to make matters worse, humans began exploding. Obviously, it had devastated morale.

Nonetheless, Caim nodded and back-stepped as he began to leave. But then he saw the stranger's face. He wasn't just waiting to catch his breath, he never intended on following. He didn’t look like a seeker, so Caim wondered what the man’s business had been here.

"You’re not coming?"

"I'll be right behind you," the stranger lied, too exhausted to sound even remotely believable. "Don’t worry about me. My name is Gire if they ask. You may not know this, but a Guild Intelligence Division 'Tracer', what I am, is higher in the Guild’s power hierarchy than you are. Anyone would be. I’m ordering you to listen to me. Now... Go."

Gire was staying behind for some reason. The man's whole body was shaking, but still he kept calm.

The tremors picked up, and the crack Gire had crawled up from shuddered, and split open even wider, like a wound in the planet's crust. One of many.

Catching his balance, Caim took another step away and... Well, It was hard not to worry with all of this going on. The Tracer looked ready to make some kind of final stand.

Caim recalibrated Gire’s Flourish beacon for healing and did the same for the host Locus targeting himself. He didn’t want to run.

More cracks appeared behind them, and the ridge slowly slid down into the ground. Rocks fell away along a long stretch of the path out of the festerfont, leaving a widening chasm behind. If he’d just made a run for it when he'd been told to, he’d be safely on the other side of the divide. Now, it was a much longer path out.

Or, he could make a very risky leap, a leap that he had no intention of actually attempting. It was a long way down. Caim decided to run for it, jogging over to a narrower gap in the geographical scar.

Screams echoed through Riventread. Caim looked around and found the source of the calamity. Diamond-shaped objects were streaming through the air, like atypically-uniform shrapnel, embedding themselves in the backs of fleeing seekers. Far in the distance, Caim watched the gory show. There was nothing he could do.

Gazing further out in the direction of the outer border, he learned more about what was happening. An earlier volley of projectiles had cut down dozens more seekers. Caim didn't need to run over to see that the seekers were dead. No doubt some of the ones he had helped, and many more who hadn't quite run far enough in a short enough time were gone. But what were these lethal objects? They didn't look like blightbeasts... Was this a natural disaster?

Scratch that. They were very much alive. Scurrying creatures, like diamond-shelled beetles were twitching in the distance. It was too far away to see clearly, but they were gathering around the corpses of fallen seekers, twitching with greater intensity. The blightbeasts were devouring the corpses whole.

Some of the seekers were busy fighting the creatures, just as they would any other blightbeast. Perhaps, there was a little more determination in their struggle to survive, but danger was always a part of their lives, so the would fight if they had life. Caim, on the other hand, had never witnessed a death in a festerfont to date.

This can't be happening... Caim resisted, unwilling to accept this reality.

Gire was busy feverishly rummaging through his pack. Whatever was going on, it had shaken even this veteran Tracer to the core. The man found everything he needed and took a deep breath. Cut off from fear, he was prepared to do what he could.

I can’t leave this guy here. I may not have Legion, but I have Vera’s powerful sourcetech. There must be some way to help him.

As Caim thought hard about what he would do next, his choice was made for him.

Something else, besides the beetles, was moving down there in the chasm below them. Something had intentionally cut off their escape. Gire was facing the other way, but Caim could clearly see an enormous section of rock scraping violently against the far rock wall, moving upwards against the pull of gravity.

Living rock gave him a familiar feeling. Was it some kind of "elder krust"? If so, it’s form had undertaken a severe change. The krust he knew scuttled like a crab, albeit a horrific, bestial crab. This was more like…

Caim jolted in alarm when he heard the Tracer's voice.

"What?! You’re still here? It’s too late now, you sunspun fool. The creature's locked onto me for some reason, which means you're now caught in the trap too. The breachworm is coming for us..."