Pain coursed through Arthur’s veins. Like molten fire, it slithered through his flesh and bones and blood, searing his body as it went. It was not just pain, but it felt like everything and nothing, all at once. Like thought and action joined in a perfect union. It writhed through his body, groping at his very Mind trying to find purchase, but it failed to grasp anything more than his flesh.
He did not know how long it lasted, but light soon returned to his eyes. He was in the cave Kelish and he had found Velke’s lab, his helmet placed to the side and a puddle of blood under his face. He scowled as he wiped his blood-stained mouth and jaw, then put his helmet back on, “Exo, you there?” he asked as he looked around. The cave was just as they had left it with two exceptions. One of them were the two puddles of blood left in his and Kelish’s wake-- the woman herself slowly sitting up while groaning-- and the second one was a strange divot in the rocky floor, as if a circular boulder picked itself up and walked away.
Kelish had just managed to put her helmet back on and share a look with him when Exo’s reply came over their radios, “Inquisitor, your superior has released a statement about thirty seconds ago. I will play it now,” he said.
Arthur’s visor shifted, not showing through the carboglass anymore and instead showing Arthur’s superior, sitting at her desk, her mouth still leaking blood, and her clothes and desk stained with blood, “Inquisitors. You all have a new assignment. You are to remain wherever you are or continue to wherever you were heading to. You need to survey the local population for any damage, changes, or something of the sort. This is an order from me directly, so I do not know what you need to look out for, but be careful. I will send out files regarding any details whenever I receive them. You have your work cut out for you. Dismissed.”
As soon as the words were said, the video cut off, and Arthur and Kelish shared a look, “What was it that you said? Duty calls?” Kelish asked, a small smirk in her voice that died with her next question, “What do you think is going on? Actually… Was that guy actually right?” she asked, turning to look at the body. Arthur looked at it as well, but it looked wrong. He would have said it was tampered with, but he did not know of any hands, claws or other that could remove the blood from a body without making some sort of discernible mark.
“I don’t know, but if he was, then the upper echelons will have a bit of information to go over. Exo, can you send them everything we found here?” he asked. Exo’s waveform just bobbed, “Thanks. Kel, we’ve got a job to do. Let’s go.”
“I hear you, boss,” she replied with a tone that told him that she was rolling her eyes. They filed out of the room and were on their way through the tunnels once more. They were silent as they walked, but Arthur was fine with that. He had a question to answer. And that was what the hell happened with the divot in the ground? He was not a superstitious man, but there was something strange going on. Chunks of rock did not disappear without something moving them, and, if that madman’s ravings were at all true, then he had a feeling that they were dealing with something greater than them all.
They arrived back at the outpost a few minutes later, and pandemonium had broken out. People were running around as if the world had ended-- which was not as much of an overreaction as Arthur would have expected, considering the circumstances. The company muscle had returned, and they were standing around, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop and hordes of bugs to sprout from the walls.
The pandemonium slowed, then stopped altogether as the pair entered the outpost. The workers and mechanics who were so panicked a few moments before slowly began to follow the pair of Inquisitors as they walked towards the central landing pad, and the forewoman’s office beside it. She proved to be much more proactive than most would be in that situation, and made a beeline for them from beside the landing pad when she saw them. “Inquisitors!” she shouted, rushing up beside them, then standing awkwardly as they stopped to meet her, “Do you know what happened?” she asked, fidgeting a bit.
“We do not,” Arthur replied, “We have completed our mission, but we have new orders. We are to assess any damage or change to anyone nearby, then wait for further orders. If there have been any changes since the incident, then you will need to inform us,” Arthur said, more to the assembled people than just the forewoman.
There was a moment of silence among the spectators, but they all looked around at each other. Arthur, though, could tell that they were all suspicious of the others. None of them had anything to hide, though there was always the one in a million chance that they managed to fool him.
“If there is nothing else, we will be surveying the local wildlife, then. There may have been changes among them as well,” The forewoman seemed torn between encouraging them and trying to get them to stay, but her desire to not hinder them seemed to win out in the end. She just meekly nodded and began to organize her people. Arthur and Kelish shared a look, then left the outpost, walking through the same tunnel they had gone down before, “Exo, how long were we out?” Arthur asked over their radio.
“About eleven hours. You should have gotten something to eat while you were there, Inquisitor. You have likely burned through what food you had left in your stomach and other digestive organs.”
“Strange, I don’t feel particularly hungry,” Kelish replied, shaking her head since they were out of sight from others, “Also, what kind of changes are we expecting here? That the bugs suddenly became sapient?”
“I don’t know, Kel, but what do you suggest we do? SIt around and just wait for whatever happened to take root in these bugs? We need to be preemptive here. We can assume that the people in the outpost have not done anything, and if they have, then they probably don’t know it. But with the bugs, they will not hesitate to press any advantage they can. Whatever that ends up being.”
Kelish just sighed, pulling out her shotgun, “I’m not looking forward to this, but let’s dive head first into the unknown, yeah?” she asked. Arthur did not reply, and they continued on for a few more minutes. Luckily, they had only found a few Hlaphids around, and they were all still unconscious. Their luck soon turned, though, and a quartet of stomping steps came from around an upcoming bend. Arthur instantly turned his sensor module on and scanned the upcoming beast. It was a cataphract, but the heat sensor was going wild, acting as if a raging bonfire was turning the corner.
It was not malfunctioning, though, as an orange glow was the only other thing that foretold the arrival of the cataphract. It was one, but it was different. Glowing orange… something coursed through its veins. Fires flared and smoldered along its body with every pass of the orange stuff-- whatever it was-- and it roared out as it felt them. With its roar, the fire on its body raged, licking the wide walls of the tunnel despite being multiple feet away.
“Kelish, next time you are about to say something improbable, please don’t,” Arthur said as he drew his beam carbine, firing a shot into the thing’s eye. Instead of the eye being destroyed, as he expected, the fires surrounding it surged forwards, catching the purple beam. The flames, for a brief moment, took on that color, then returned to their normal orange. “Dammit.”
“Don’t blame me for Murphy’s law screwing us over,” Kelish replied, walking forwards, “Do you think bullets will get absorbed?” she asked as she aimed her shotgun at it. After a thunderous bang, the cataphract stumbled back, but limped forwards nonetheless. Kelish shot it again, and it went down for good, “See, that wasn’t that hard!” she cheerily said.
“I’m sure,” Arthur replied, walking up to the body. Apart from the flames, it was an entirely normal Hlaphid cataphract. Though, the glowing orange stuff in it was not normal. Not at all, “We need to bring this back to the outpost and dissect it.”
“Why can’t we do that here?” Kelish asked, looking at Arthur’s pack, “Wait, you don’t carry a knife, do you? Nevermind then. I’ll help carry it back, then.” She walked up to the side of it and picked up one of the front legs. Fully. And lifting a bit of the torso along with it. Kelish stumbled back a bit, then mumbled a few swears, “I think something happened,” she said. Before Arthur could reply, she balled up her fist, turned to the stone wall, and punched it as hard as she seemingly could. The wall caved a bit, leaving a spider’s web of cracks on the wall. “Uh…” she trailed off, “Are you going to kill me now?” she asked.
“No, i’m not,” Arthur replied, “Hell, this could be some sort of recessive gene brought out because of the… Exo, has anyone named what happened yet?” he asked. He was tired of referring to the thing that was, apparently, a galaxy-wide occurrence where everyone and everything, all at once, fell unconscious, became stronger, and rarely received fire powers as ‘the Incident.’
“There has not been a consensus yet, neither in the wider population from the League, but some have started to call this an ‘awakening.’ The source of this name is unknown, but it seems like people are already beginning to discover the true extent of the changes,” Exo replied.
“Then we will simply call it the Awakening,” Arthur replied.
Kelish snorted, “Sounds kind of childish to me,” she added, grin in her voice.
“Kel, we were just attacked by a flaming bug that still isn’t going out and you are suddenly able to make cracks in highly condensed stone. Names are not very important right now.” Kelish just shrugged, “But can you please help me bring this back? We do not want to waste time here.” Kelish nodded, and they began to pull the body back to the outpost. The strange thing about the body was that it was hot-- scaldingly so-- throughout the entire journey. And it never seemed to become lighter. If he were honest, Arthur was pretty sure that it would have been impossible for him to bring the corpse back alone, but he was able to manage his pride well enough. He also kept his sensor module running the entire time, as he did not want to be ambushed by a poisonous Hlaphid or something similar.
Once they made it back, making the trip take half an hour in total, there was a semblance of order again. Barriers were set up around the outpost and special kill zones were established with the purpose of keeping the bugs far away from the drillers. Everyone was pulling their weight, but the sight of two Inquisitors pulling the weight of an entire cataphract-- which also happened to be on fire-- made the majority, if not them all, pause in their work.
The Janissary, Norman, was the one to snap them out of their break, “Get back to work! We’ve got to get these set up before something like that comes through that tunnel!” he shouted at the men and women, who got back to work at his words, “Inquisitors. Do you want help with that?” he asked, pointing at the cataphract corpse the pair were dragging around.
“We do not. Thank you for the offer, though,” Arthur replied, He and Kelish dragging the body past him. The armored man just shrugged and got back to work. After another minute of dragging, they dropped the corpse next to the doctor’s office, “Kel, I’m going to get some dissection equipment. Stay here and keep the locals away from that,” he said, nudging his head at the body.
“You got it,” Kelish replied, standing tall and scanning around for trouble. Arthur just smiled to himself and walked over to the doctor’s office door and walked through. As he expected, he could hear a male voice speaking from upstairs, but he heard another coming from the same place.
He decided to snoop a bit, and closed the door as quietly as possible, “Doc, is there anything you can do for him? We-We don’t know what happened, and it could get him killed! Can you chop it off or something?”
“Oi, I’m not letting you chop off my arm!” another male voice cried out.
Another voice, likely the doctor, sighed, “Miss, I don’t know what you want from me here. We both know that he didn’t mess with any of the forbidden crap-- he’s not even a scientist-- so we should just tell them. I doubt they’d think he’s screwing around with something he’s not supposed to be if they see this, right?”
“Doc, look at him! He looks like he dipped his arm in a vat of liquid rock! How the hell are they going to think about anything other than ‘he’s doing something stupid!?’ Look, I’m not asking you to betray them, I’m just saying that, if we do this and then, I don’t know, give it to them, then we would have proven that we didn’t do it.”
“Hey, don’t I get a say in this?” the third voice asked. There was a short silence, and the man sighed, “Sorry,” he meekly replied.
“Why is this such a big deal? Do you not trust them?” the doctor asked, with some suspicion in his voice, “They already found who did it-- dammit, Vilke’s body is rotting out there! We know that they were going to leave before this hocus pocus stuff happened. So why are you… like this?”
Another silence stretched before the woman sighed, “Doc, just remember how they think.The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That’s how they think, man. I’ve seen it. Inquisitors not being stopped by hostages. It’s never something they care about. Unless an entire planet’s being held hostage, they don’t care.”
“But no one’s being held hostage! It’s just his arm!” the doctor nearly shouted back, “Dammit, I’ll go out there and wait if you’re too scared to.” There was a shuffling of feet, with the second voice running after the doctor. The latter stopped at the top of the steps, though, as soon as he caught sight of Arthur standing there with his arms crossed. “I-Inquisitor… I… can assume that you heard what we were discussing?”
“You may. What happened?” he asked, stepping forwards. The doctor just sighed and beckoned him upstairs, an invitation that Arthur took. In the room above the lobby and the morgue, there was a large clinic with two rows of beds. On one of them, there was a young man, sitting with his right arm cradled in a sling. He jumped as he caught sight of the Inquisitor, blinking at the armored man.
Beside the bed was the forewoman, sitting in a stool and staring at Arthur, “I-Inquisitor, please, he didn’t do anything wrong!” she shouted, standing so fast that she knocked her seat over.
Arthur took one look at the arm, seeing that it was indeed like the man’s arm was sculpted from stone, then turned back to the forewoman, “There is no need for punishment,” he said, stepping forwards, “This can be considered a strange form of prosthetics, and unless you are hiding an arsenal of weapons within that stone, you are not in any sort of trouble,” Arthur said as he walked over to the man, “I am required to examine any changes that occurred in the local population, so please give me your arm.”
The man did not hesitate to obey, giving Arthur the limb. He examined it, using everything from his sensor module to his analyzer module. Everything told him that it was supposed to be a completely inert stone limb somehow fused to the man’s arm. But that was not right. It twitched and pulsed like a normal flesh limb, something that not even the most advanced prosthetics could replicate. Arthur eventually released the limb and met the man’s eyes with his helmet’s visor.
“You are not in any trouble, but it is likely that a scholar will find you to study your change more closely. If that is all,” he said, turning to the doctor, “I require some of your autopsy equipment. A Hlaphid cataphract ambushed myself and my partner and it is perpetually on fire,” he said, realizing how strange the sentence was.
To his credit, the doctor just nodded, bringing him down to the morgue. The forewoman followed, and while Arthur grabbed the needed supplies, she coughed lightly, “I-Inquisitor… I’m sorry for what I did… I’ll accept whatever punishment is fitting…” Arthur just stared at her, “What…?” she asked, fidgeting.
“While you attempted to hinder my ability to perform my duties, you only did so to prove that you had no part in it, and were planning on undoing any hindrance you would have caused after the fact. There is no reason for you to receive punishment. If you were assisting a user of forbidden technology, then it would be a different story, but that is not the case,” he said, leaving the room. As he left, he heard her sigh, and sat down at one of the chairs in the room.
When they left the room, the doctor followed Arthur, “Sir, if I may, is it possible for me to help with this autopsy? This feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…” he trailed off, blinking after a moment and showing Arthur a sincere, enthused look.
“There is no need, but I will accept your help nonetheless,” Arthur replied. He did not want to say that any expertise on the local fauna would be sorely needed, but he could accept the help and save face since the help was offered. The doctor just looked happy and took a doctor’s bag with him as they left the clinic.
When the pair entered the ‘street’ beside the office, a small crowd was gathered, staring at the strange corpse while maintaining a healthy distance from something actively on fire. The doctor’s eyes went wide as he looked at the corpse, “This is even stranger than the kid’s arm…” he muttered, kneeling down beside its flank. He poked at the flesh, then pulled his hand back speedily, “Ouch!” he cried, “Still hot!”
Arthur did not dignify that comment with a response and crouched beside the creature’s thorax, using a scalpel to open up a small unarmored section of the bug’s body. As soon as the cut was made, a strange orange liquid began to seep out of the wound, running down the creature’s body and pooling on the ground. The liquid bubbled and boiled, but nothing really came of it, apart from the stone becoming a bit blackened.
Arthur next used a bonesaw to open up a larger part of the cataphract’s abdomen, sawing through the chitin with a bit of effort. When he managed to saw through the armor, he found that the flesh was deeply saturated with the orange liquid. What made Arthur want to scratch his chin was the fact that the heat of the orange liquid did nothing to burn the Hlaphid’s body. The flesh looked as if it was left in a room temperature environment, unaffected by the fiery liquid.
After searching a bit more, cutting his way through the bug’s flesh, sawing through some internal bones-- which was likely just a product of the Hlaphids’ typical anatomy-- and pulling strips of flesh away, he found the heart of the beast. And it was the heart that helped him make sense of things. He was eventually able to deduce that the orange liquid was the creature’s blood. Which answered the question of why there was a suspicious lack of red liquid in the creature’s veins. It also begged the question why the flesh of the creature was filled with blood, rather than other proteins, but that was hardly the most confusing issue, “Exo,” he said with his helmet’s speakers disabled, “Can you help me analyze this stuff?” he asked, stirring the orange blood with an armored finger.
“Certainly,” Exo replied. Windows full of data appeared and disappeared on his visor’s hud at rapid speeds, and what little Arthur saw made just as little sense, “This does not make any sense…” Exo said, as if agreeing with Arthur’s assessment, “This is physically impossible, it breaks the fundamental laws of the universe… It breaks the law of conservation of mass and/or energy, and is acting in ways that suggest it also breaks at least one of the laws of motion. Inquisitor, I need to send this to headquarters. Give me a moment,” Exo said, his waveform dimming.
Arthur just looked at the blood and internally sighed. It would have been nice if Exo told Arthur and Kelish, who was on the line, how exactly the strange blood was breaking the fundamental laws of the universe. After a few moments of Exo not returning, he went back into the Hlaphid’s body and began to carve through its flesh and circulatory system, trying to find any other changes. Luckily, the doctor pointed at one of the thousands of capillaries in the bug’s body, “There,” he said, “That one looks different. I think there’s something different going on with it.” Arthur did not verbally reply, but began to cut around the capillary. What he found, after sawing through more and more chitin, was something like a secondary circulatory system. But instead of being centered around a heart, it was centered around the brain. What was even stranger about it was that Arthur was sure that the orange liquid was much denser in the secondary circulatory system than in the primary system. “How does this work?” the doctor asked, poking at the odd vein-like flesh-- with a pair of old oven mitts-- and moving it around, “The brain isn’t a muscle like the heart, so it shouldn’t be pumping anything, yet that strange orange stuff is much thicker in it…”
“It likely has to do with the changes the body underwent overall. Perhaps… it is utilizing some sort of inherent property of the orange liquid instead of manually pumping it as the circulatory system pumps blood,” Arthur replied, slightly turning to the doctor. He then leveled his gaze at some of the exposed, burning flesh and began dissecting it.
As it turned out, the burning flesh was actually something like a massive, deformed gland, one that possessed a long strip of flesh that felt… different. It was as if the liquid had been condensed into a solid, or had seeped so deep into it that it had become indistinguishable from the flesh itself. Arthur poked at it, moving a bit of the liquid with the prodding. Fire flared on the gland, shooting out at Arthur’s face and bathing his helmet with it.
Yelps and gasps came from the gathering of people around them, and Kelish knelt beside him, her head turned to the gland-like organ “You alright?” she asked over the radio, a grin in her voice.
“I am,” Arthur replied by the same method. He then used his scalpel to cut out the gland, turning to the doctor when done, “Is there anything you can use to store this?” he asked the man. The doctor just nodded and rushed into his clinic. Arthur took a moment to look around, noticing that the onlookers’ numbers had diminished significantly over the previous half hour. With most of them gone, Arthur could give Kelish a quick lesson, “Kel, how much do you know about anatomy?” Arthur asked.
“Practically nothing,” Kelish replied, “Apart from a few buzzwords, like neural degradation, or physiological decay, that is.”
“In that case, I will give you some general readings that will be useful when fighting a nonstandard creature. Being able to distinguish a joint from a lump of fat is important when fighting something. But, as a general rule, assume that a creature can hit you if you are within two limb-lengths of it. Just assume that, because it’s possible that they have some sort of hyperextension biology built into them,” he said, turning to the doctor as he returned with a few titasteel containers and a small bundle of glass vials. Arthur thanked the man, putting the gland-like organ into one of the boxes and scooping a bit of blood up into a vial, “It is unlikely that this is the only one of these out there. An evacuation would be pertinent until the threat of the wildlife can be determined and countermeasures to them can be developed.”
There were a few mumbled whispers passed around, but the crowd, including the doctor, dispersed, seemingly to discuss the option. Arthur, though, simply put the box into his pack and walked towards the tunnel they came from, “Arthur, are we going back out?” Kelish asked, drawing her shotgun and following him.
“We are,” Arthur replied, “I doubt that there are only fire-soaked Hlaphids running around down here, and if there are more types, then more samples will be good to get. We are running on no information whatsoever, so any we get is important. Speaking of, Exo, did you submit the findings?”
“I did. There have been many discoveries, but you two seem to be the first that have run into these… ‘elemental creatures.’ I do not know what to call them, so I am just drawing from popular culture. I have nothing to add, but there has been… contact with strange peoples. It’s still working its way through the system and being published, but rumor has it that we aren’t alone anymore.”
“Sounds like a horror story,” Kelish snorted, “Did some freaky stuff go down while everyone was sleeping?”
“As much as I wish I could share your humor, Inquisitor Balak, that is exactly what happened. There was an incident on Vlachac VII where a great deal of damage was dealt to the surroundings. The worst part is that every camera within a five mile radius of the damage was wiped clean, from the internal drives to the off-site drives. There were also sightings of odd armored figures, but no video recordings have been taken of them.
“As it turns out, there are also people who have undergone similar… changes as the Hlaphids, similar to the man you examined, Inquisitor Wan.” Kelish gave him a look shrouded by her helmet, but continued forward while listening to Exo, “People have received odd powers as well, but information is being hindered from spreading to not cause mass panic, but official statements and documents are in the works to explain it all. Despite that, no non-sapiens have been recorded to have received a boost. Before now, anyway. For now, our orders still stand, and we need to continue examining the local population.”
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“Which is so simple while we’re so far away,” Kelish muttered, “Sorry, I know, but I feel like we haven’t had enough time to rest between these fights, you’ve gotta give me that. Probably part of the job, too, so I can’t complain for long… Whatever, let’s just drag some icy bastard back and dissect him next.”
Arthur sighed, “Caution is important, Kel. Also, don’t piss Murphy off too much,” Arthur warned. She just shrugged and forged ahead while Arthur Pulsed to get a sense of what was sneaking up on them, if anything. As it turned out, something was, indeed, sneaking up behind them. It was directly behind them. Arthur whirled, blasting his beam gun at the exact spot where the Hlaphid was supposed to be. Instead of a sneaking bug, though, all that met his beam fire was a shadow. One that screeched as the purple light banished the darkness away.
Kelish turned just in time to see a Hlaphid leap from the shadows and stand underneath the blue light of the bulbs, hissing and roaring. The pair had just enough time to fire off shots at it before it dove back into the shadows. Their shots struck stone and little else, and Arthur was forced to Pulse again. He found the Hlaphid in their own shadows cast by the blue bulbs, and shot at it. Instead of retreating, it leapt at them, tackling Arthur to the ground and biting into his left arm. Its teeth were not sharp enough and its jaw not strong enough to do any damage to his armor, but it did definitely pull and flail like a wolf, ripping Arthur’s arm this way and that.
He had to punch it in the head three times before its jaw loosened, and even then, it held on for dear life. Then Kelish came up beside it, shoved her shotgun’s barrel in its head, and shot it dead before it could sink into the closest shadow, which happened to be underneath Arthur. It cried out as it flew into the opposite wall, hitting the wall with a crunch and sliding down.
The blood that flowed from its head was pitch black, with not even the slightest glimmer of reflected light. The pair watched it to make sure that it remained dead, and when it did not return to harass them, Kelish chuckled, “I think I’ve been doing better than you have been lately,” she quipped, pulling him up.
“If we run into a Hlaphid bathed in metal strong enough to block your shotgun and you are still saying that, then I will accept it, but I’ve just been having a bad stroke of luck so far. Give me a moment,” he said, Pulsing and using his sensor module at the same time. What he found was not what he wanted to find, by far. His range for both devices were limited to a few hundred feet around him, but even then, he felt hundreds of return Pulses crash into his mind. Much to his dismay, his sensor module was picking up the same thing. There were dozens of tunnels being dug underneath them, with dozens more above and to their sides, “Kel, get ready for a fight,” Arthur warned just before the stone around them erupted.
Instantly, Arthur Suppressed the entire group of Hlaphids, all of whom seemed to take that as the perfect reason to charge from their burrows. Dozens of workers and soldiers rushed forwards, clambering over each other to get at the pair of Inquisitors. Arthur unleashed a pair of plasma payloads, shooting at the gaps between the two shots to clean up any Hlaphids that managed to pass through the bursts of superheated matter. Kelish used her shotgun to blunt the oncoming wave on her side, then used her newly-found strength to crack chitin and pulverize gray matter. The wave of Hlaphids let up for a moment before more workers emerged from their enlarged burrows, heralding the arrival of a group of half a dozen cataphracts.
“Shit,” Kelish said, pulling her beam rifle out and holstering her shotgun, “Well, it was nice knowing you,” Kelish said.
“Kel, we can take them. Use your mobility to your advantage,” Arthur replied before sprinting into the three cataphracts on his side. As he expected, they were stunned for a moment that their prey were coming to them, pausing, which gave Arthur the perfect opportunity to get a few hits in. With pinpoint precision, he nailed each of the three in the eyes, causing them all to stumble back in turn.
He then got in the middle of them, and began to shoot at the lead cataphract’s abdomen. It roared and whirled, careless of the destruction it caused as it did so. That helped Arthur immensely, as the cataphract’s reckless turn batted the other two away for a moment, which Arthur used to single out the one he had been dealing with. He lifted his boot and slammed it into the roaring creature’s mouth, dropping its jaw to the floor, while putting his carbine right in front of the burnt eye he had shot out before. With a few rapid pulls of the trigger, the Hlaphid’s brain was fried, and it was left dead. While the other two recovered, Arthur spared a glance at how Kelish was doing.
She looked like she was having an easier time of it than he was, as she was fighting one with her bare hands, punching its skull in, while the other two were flipped on their sides. Arthur smiled about her control of the situation and turned back to his two opponents. The pair had circled him while he was watching Kelish, the one on his right lunging at him a moment later. It was a sloppy lunge, though, and all Arthur needed to do to avoid it was dodge a few steps to the side. The cataphract continued its lunge and nearly collided with its partner, only barely being able to stop itself from crashing into the other one.
Seeing, or rather sensing, their ‘strategy,’ if it could be called that, foiled, they seemed to decide that it was better to just continuously pursue him instead of trying to flank him. That only made it easier for Arthur to lead them around. When one charged, he would step into the other’s blind spot, getting a shot off on its abdomen. When one held back, Arthur would charge it, nearly dealing the finishing blow before the other would come in to save the first.
Attrition took its toll, though, and the two cataphracts were on their last legs soon enough. As one charged him once again, barely faster than its walking speed, he kicked it in the side of the head, then blew its brains out. The last cataphract, as Kelish had dealt with hers already, stepped back a bit, then let out an ear-piercing roar, even louder than any before. Some strange light gathered in its throat, and a spout of freezing air erupted a moment later, coating everything in front of it in ice, from the stone to the roots to the bulbs to Arthur himself.
There was a problem with the bug’s plan, though. Astrosuits were designed to resist the utterly freezing cold temperatures of outer space lightyears away from any star. Some chilly wind did nothing to harm Arthur, and he made the Hlaphid pay for its attack with its life, shooting shot after shot into its throat until it let out a last, weak gasp before dying for good. “That was weird,” Kelish said, stepping up beside him, “It didn’t even look like one of the fancy boys. Well, at least we got our next specimen,” she added, nudging her head at the Hlaphid that was hopping around the shadows.
“That is true, but we should take that one as well,” Arthur said, pointing at the origin of the sudden frost-flash, “We do not know what caused it to be able to do that, and I doubt being able to pull out frost breath is an inconsequential ability.” Kelish just shrugged, and Arthur Pulsed one more time, to make sure that they were not about to be ambushed. What he found instead of the non-sentient Hlaphids were a small group of very sentient, even sapient creatures slowly digging through the wall, “Kell, we’ve got company. Different from the bugs,” Arthur warned, watching her holster her beam rifle and aim her dinged-up shotgun at the place Arthur was.
They waited for an agonizingly long minute before they finally heard something through the thin stone wall, “I think they’ve left,” a female voice said.
“Ye better hope so, or else we’re gonna get it when we get back home,” a male voice replied.
There was silence for a long moment, then the wall suddenly… peeled away. It was like the stone was simply sucked into the wall, leaving a few pebbles on the ground. The opening was not large, only just above five feet, and a group of people walked through. They were not normal, though. Stone skin, stone hair, golden eyes, covered in chitin and metal armor, with pickaxes and shields in their hands.
The group of rock people paused as the pair of Inquisitors stood there, “I don’t think they’ve gone,” one of the females-- the larger half of the rock people-- said from the back. The group turned to look at her and she just raised her hands, “What? I’m not wrong.”
They all turned back to Arthur and Kelish, the pair of Inquisitors a bit hesitant to do anything, “Arthur, any protocol for first contact with a bunch of magic rock people?” Kelish asked.
Arthur looked at her from the corner of his eye, seeing that she had not moved, “No, there isn’t. There are some outlines on how to deal with sapient genetic creations, but they never explained what to do if there were more than a pair. Or if they were made of literal rock”
“Umm…” the lead female rock person said, stepping forwards, “Hi there… We’re… uh, we’re dwarves, right?” she asked her companion, the male ‘dwarf’ with a rocky beard.
“That we are,” the male one replied, stepping in front of his taller companion, “Yer supposed to be…Inquisitors, if memory serves… So, what now?” he asked, sharing looks with his group. They all shrugged, turning back to the stocky dwarf, “Well, we weren’t supposed to have met ye before we got settled, but do ye want to come for a visit? We could trade knowledge?” he suggested.
Arthur and Kelish shared a look, lowering their weapons, when Exo chimed in, “I suggest exercising caution, Inquisitors. I have just received information regarding these new beings. Most are violent, but there have been some neutral and even some friendly beings, so caution within reason is required.”
“Thanks, Exo,” Arthur replied through the radio, switching his speakers on, “We would not be adverse to your offer, but where is your ‘home?’” Arthur asked. As an Inquisitor, he was trained to do many things. He was trained to kill, to destroy, to do his duty without causing unneeded harm. None of his training taught him how to deal with a group of rock dwarves with pickaxes and chitin armor, though, and he metaphorically was flying blind.
“Ah, it’s about a half hour’s walk this way,” the rock dwarf said, nudging his head to the tunnel behind him, “First, though… that bloodbug over yonder looks like a wonderful source ‘a materials. Do ye mind if we take it?” he asked, pointing at the Hlaphid with the inexplicable shadow powers.
“You may, but we want to study it, first, and take a few samples from it. Specifically, a bit of the blood and, if it is there, the gland that produces the anomalous powers,” Arthur replied. The dwarf just waved his hand and ran up to the body, pulling it over his shoulders.
At the same time, the lead female stepped into the tunnel they fought in and began to order the other dwarves around, “We don’t want the chitin to go to waste, so get as many a’ the Knights as possible! If ye can carry anything else, bring the Footmen too!” she shouted, the seven dwarves running to gather the cataphracts, “Are there any ye need… uh… sir?” she asked Arthur tilted her head a bit, shrugging a moment later.
“That one,” Arthur replied, pointing at the cataphract that spat icy wind at Arthur, “It was able to use anomalous powers despite lacking any physical features, so further study is required.”
“Oh, I can answer that one,” one of the other female dwarves replied as she hoisted a cataphract’s upper half over her shoulder, despite being just as tall and a fraction as large. She held out a hand, closed her eyes, and seemed to concentrate very hard. A moment later, a bulb of blue light, very similar to the ones all around them, sprang into existence. Arthur had to, for a moment, restrain his sudden urge to step back in surprise, as he did not know-- and very much doubted-- if the ability to make blue balls of light was entirely normal, “It’s called ‘mana’ or somethin’. Makes everything wacky work,” she explained.
“It’s more complicated than that,” one of the male dwarves, one that was abnormally thin compared to his companions, added, “There’re a bunch a’ rules to it, ones that’re just out ‘a reach!”
The others sighed, some mumbling that the dwarven man should stop talking, before they returned to their work. It was only a few minutes before they were all packed up and ready to leave, and they all began to file back into the tunnel, using some of the-- what Arthur hesitated to call-- magic to widen the path enough for them to pass through with their burdens and to raise it enough for the pair of Inquisitors to follow. The two Inquisitors went last, but when Arthur turned to look at Kelish, he saw her with three Hlaphid warriors over her shoulder. The pair just stared at each other for a few moments, “What?” Kelish asked.
“Why are you bringing that with you?” Arthur asked.
“Greeting gift,” Kelish replied, “We don’t want to make a bad impression, do we?” Arthur had to concede that point; ruining the first contact with a strange, seemingly magical species of people just because he did not want to carry a few mammal-bugs would be a stain on his record and a colossally idiotic thing to do anyway. So, he picked up a few Hlaphid warriors and followed the dwarves into their tunnels.
The thing that Arthur learned about dwarven tunnels was that they were dark. As expected. He had to use his sensor module to guide him through the tunnels, as well as guide Kelish through them. There were a few points of illumination, where the roots of the massive flora poked through and brought light, but it was pitch blackness for the majority of the walk. The dwarves did not have a hard time navigating the tunnels either, which suggested either night vision or echolocation, but it was impossible to determine which one it was, as their literally-golden eyes did nothing to betray their method of seeing.
A while later, Arthur began to notice more tunnels at the edge of his sensor module’s range, as well as a few more teams of dwarves running around in them. In total, he estimated that there were about twenty five of them out and about, but he still did not know how many were in their main ‘home.’ That answer was given a short few minutes later as they came upon a few very abnormal, likely ‘anomalous’ lights. He used the term because he had no idea how they worked, and he would rather disobey orders than call them legitimately magical. They were like the blue light bulb the dwarf woman showed him previously, but hovering above a stone plate in the ground. The dwarves walked right by it, one even dragging the lower half of a cataphract over it, but nothing disturbed the ball of light, with the strange energy phasing through the cataphract’s leg as if it were not there.
After walking down a flight of stairs, they ended up in the middle of a respectably-sized cavern, with only a few dwarves wandering around. There were a few interesting things around, like the forges and smelters and workbenches, but the thing that caught Arthur’s eye was the large elevated platform with a quartet of divots in it, one of them filled with blood. “This could end poorly,” Arthur warned Kelish over their radio. She ever so subtly nodded, and they followed their hosts down the flight of stairs.
They all deposited the Hlaphid bodies beside a dwarf man, with a long, sharp cleaver in his hand. He turned to the dwarves escorting the Inquisitors, then to Arthur and Kelish, then back to the dwarves, “Found a couple new friends, eh?” the chef-like dwarf asked, picking up one of the Hlaphid soldiers-- one of the ones without the strange powers-- and expertly pulling it apart as if he had been doing it throughout his entire life, “Why don’t ye give them a tour, eh? Trade pointers or somethin’.”
Most of the dwarves shared glances and dispersed, leaving the male-female pair at the front of the pack behind. The two looked up at Arthur and Kelish, the male one nudging his head towards the rest of the cavern, “How about it? Ye want a tour? Our leader’s sleeping right now, but she’ll be up soon. Probably… Anyway, come along, now,” he said, leading the three away. The female dwarf and the chef dwarf shared a whispered conversation, and the latter put the anomalous soldier Hlaphid and the anomalous cataphract Hlaphid to the side, presumably for the two Inquisitors.
The tour was not very long, and consisted of only a half dozen things, those being the forges, the smelteries, the crude rock shelves full of resources either mined or harvested from the Hlaphids, the massive stew pot in the center of the cavern, the barracks room, and, of course, the elevated platform, “This is where new people come from,” the dwarf woman said, gesturing to the four divots, “Stone deep beneath the surface for resilient flesh. Blood buried under the mountain like a tomb for living essence. Gold refined in a foundry for a noble mind. Steel refined in fires burning bright for strong bones. I don’t know how it works, but whenever we put them all together, we get new people.” Arthur could have sworn that he was missing something, some part of the cadence of her voice that was strange, but the way the dwarves spoke threw off his usual ways of detecting lies, anyway, so he did not think too much of it.
“That’s everythin’,” the dwarven man said, “Now then, is there anythin’ else ye want to ask, or do you mind if we ask a few questions ourselves?”
“I have two questions,” Arthur said, pointing at the altar, “First of all, where do you get the blood for your… people from?” he asked.
“The bugs,” the man replied without hesitation, “They died underneath the stone and mountains, so they became our living essence.”
“I see. In that case, I have one more major question. Where did all of you come from? Rock people do not usually spontaneously exist, you see, so there must have been some sort of cause for your existence. Do you know what that reason is?” he asked. He could not be sure, but if they were willing to answer that, he may be able to bring it to the Inquisition. It would certainly help explain if, in the future, a race of crystal or gas people were to come about. It would definitely save the time of Inquisitors to not have to deal with investigating it.
The pair shared a look, then shrugged, “Not a clue. We just kinda… existed,” the dwarven man replied, “We know that things are supposed to be a certain way, like speaking, and writing, and making stuff, and who ye are, and each ‘a us have gotten a special field ‘a knowledge from birth, but other than that… nothin’. Sorry if that doesn’t help any.”
“That is not a problem,” Arthur replied, “I cannot demand knowledge you do not possess.” Arthur knew that they really did not know. They spoke in a more sincere way than most people could manage when telling a baby that the terran sky was blue, “In that case, what do you want to ask of us, then?”
“Fightin’,” the dwarf woman asked, “How’d ye beat six knights between the two ‘a ye? I didn’t get to see it, but it was a bloodbath!” she excitedly said, smiling wide. Arthur subtly glanced at the man, and he looked bored out of his mind at the question. It seemed that, as their sizes suggested, the females were the warriors of the dwarves. Arthur was a bit hesitant to give away Inquisition secrets, but he had few qualms about giving out personal experience for such valuable information. So, that was what he did.
“The key to dealing with creatures like the Hlaphids is to use positioning to put them in a disadvantageous situation. If you are dealing with three, put yourself in a position where only one can effectively fight back. If you are with comrades, bring the enemy into a wide-open area and surround them. Amplify your strengths and limit your weaknesses, do the opposite for the enemy. It is a basic strategy,” Arthur explained.
The dwarveness nodded sagely, “Yeah, that makes sense. Alright, what did you want to ask?” she asked to her companion. The dwarf took a moment to look at Arthur and Kelish’s armor, squinting for a while, then shaking his head, “Ye hammerheads…” the woman sighed, slapping the man lightly on the back with a grinding that sounded like the two stones in a dicing machine, “Anyway, we’ll be carving up the haul soon, so if you want a few parts, that’d be the time to get it,” she said.
Arthur and Kelish spent the next half hour listening in on what the dwarves had found in the tunnels. Most of it was expected-- save for the very strange fact that the rock people could smell gold, iron, and other hard metals-- but most of it was not very interesting to Arthur. They found no less than five crude oil deposits, which they called liquid coal, hundreds of gold deposits that would have been worth a large fortune if taken from an asteroid, and thousands of other metal deposits.
Eventually, the eight dwarf teams returned to the central cavern, all carrying some manner of resources, masses of iron or gold, other Hlaphids, or even some random plant that they felt was important. They all barely spared a glance towards Arthur and Kelish, more concerned with depositing their burdens to their proper spots. Once all of the corpses, metals, and plants were in their proper places, the chef dwarf dragged the anomalous pair of Hlaphids over to the workstations. At the same time, a few of the dwarves peeled off from the main group, exhaustion in their eyes. “He’s about to start carving up the bugs ye wanted. Do ye want to help?”
“It would be appreciated,” Arthur replied. The she-dwarf nodded, bringing them over to the chef dwarf. The man took one look at Arthur, then motioned for him to look at what he was doing. The dwarf was making shallow marks on the Hlaphid soldier’s exoskeleton, “Do you have a knife for me to use?” Arthur asked.
“I do,” the dwarf replied, reaching around his back and pulling out a knife from somewhere. Going by the fact that the only clothing he was wearing was a pair of leather pants, Arthur did not want to think too hard about where the knife came from, “This’s one of my sharper knives. Ye best be careful, or you’ll butcher this to be unusable. The key here is to avoid hittin’ the internal organs. Or at least puncturin’ them. They can lose their flavor if ye do that.” He raised his fist after another moment of carving and punched the chitin he had been marking. The hard material broke in perfect lines, coming apart in plate-like pieces. “Good thin’ a bit ‘a hittin’ doesn’t do much to hurt the flavor,” the chef dwarf laughed.
A moment later, he began to carve up the meat of the Hlaphid, carving them into human-hand sized chunks and handing the cuts to any of the dwarves behind him, who threw the meat into the central pot. He then carefully pulled out every internal organ, like the heart, liver, kidneys, and the like. The other dwarves threw away the unusable organs into a hole the dwarves had dug into the ground while putting the heart, liver, and other useful organs onto a shelf that was somehow wafting vapor as if it were a freezer. When he got to the gland in the flank of the Hlaphid, he gestured to Arthur, “I think this was one ‘a the ones ye wanted,” the chef said, pointing at the gland, “Don’t think that’s edible, so you can have it.”
“I will take it, then,” Arthur replied. With practiced ease, though stymied slightly by the lack of familiar tools, he dissected the Hlaphid’s flank and pulled out the gland not a few minutes later. He then put the gland into one of his containers, scooping up a bit of blood at the same time, “Now that I have this sampel, I will need to look through the other Hlaphid’s body, to find what caused it to have… the ability to use these powers.”
“It’s magic,” the dwarf replied, stubborn conviction on his face, “But ye do what needs to be done. I’ll carve it up next-- tell me when ye want to have a crack at it yerself.” The dwarf then began to carve up the other Hlaphid, pulling out flesh and organs for the others to organize.
While the dwarf was carefully digging through the Hlaphid’s abdomen, Exo came ringing, “Inquisitors, you have new orders. You must return to Fortress Gamma at once.” Arthur could hear the haste in Exo’s voice, and before he could ask any questions, the AI continued, “I have already undocked Inquisitor Balak’s station from the astrodock. The dropship is ready to pick you up as soon as possible.”
“Slow down, Exo. What happened to cause such a quick change?” Arthur asked, “We still need the sample from the Hlaphid to discover how it could use its powers, figure out where these ‘dwarves’ came from, and build a bit of rapport.”
“With all due respect, Inquisitor, that does not matter anymore,” Exo replied, “There are much more important things to do and to learn. This is not an order from your superior, but from your superior’s superior’s superior. This is from the top.”
Arthur sighed, making no movements visible from the outside, “I see. I can assume that you reported the existence of these rock dwarves to headquarters?” Exo’s waveform nodded, “Good. Do you have any orders on what to do with these people, then?”
“None apart from standard first contact procedure. There have been multiple protests about the ‘dwarves’ ownership of the Moskt Bellara system, but seeing that it is a planet uninhabited by sapients, the drilling companies’ claims are being shot down in court as we speak,” Exo explained.
“Quick for lawyers,” Kelish added, snorting derisively. Arthur would have said something about that comment, but he was in agreement. Lawyers could be the banes of progress at some points.
“Either way, we will need to make our excuses and return to the fortress,” Arthur replied, standing up and turning his helmet speakers on, “I apologize for the rudeness, but we are needed elsewhere,” Arthur said to the chef dwarf.
The dwarf looked up at him, then shrugged, “Eh. One less mouth to feed. Ye better get a move on, then. Been feelin’ shakin’ in the stone. Ye big-folk have been leavin’ quickly, so the camp ye’ve been usin’ might be crawlin’ with bugs by now. Ah, ye best keep the knife. Tools like that’re important.”
“In that case, thank you. We will be off, then,” Arthur replied, standing up straight. He and Kelish made the journey back to the outpost location, with the only interruption coming from a small group of Hlaphid workers who decided to attack the pair of Inquisitors. They did not last long, and the pair arrived at the outpost a few minutes later. As the chef told them, it was practically abandoned, with no one but the occasional, nosy Hlaphid. Those nuisances were dealt a swift death, and the pair of Inquisitors stood upon the landing pad a few minutes later, “Exo, we’re at the landing pad. How long until you’re here?” Arthur asked.
“A minute, at most, Inquisitors. Please stand back from the launch pad,” Exo replied. As he predicted, massive doors in the ceiling opened a minute later, and Kelish’s dropship descended down to the massive pad, landing with a small thud, “Please board post-haste. The order was urgent.” The pair nodded, boarding the dropship and holding on as it ascended into outer space. Arthur, though, felt like he missed something vital and important. He had been feeling that way a lot, though, ever since Kelish captured the Oni cultist, so he put the sense to the back of his mind and prepared for their journey back to the fortress.
*=====*
The Matriarch yawned as she left the Cave of Rest, looking at her fledgeling kingdom with fond eyes. Her kin were all eating around the central pot, though the stew was a bit darker than usual. She just smiled and walked over to it, sitting down beside the Chef, “Good morning, everyone. Did everything go well while I slept?” They all murmured that their tasks were completed easily, but a few of them shrugged. The Matriarch frowned, “What happened?” she asked, ready to club anything that threatened her kin-- her children-- to death.
“One ‘a those Inquisitors showed up,” Pathfinder replied, his short beard showing his frown, “They were nicer than ye told us about, but they were mighty suspicious of us. I doubt we’ll be rid ‘a the big-folk from now on.”
The Matriarch, with her goddess given wisdom comforting her, gave a small smile, “It appears to me that we passed the test,” she chuckled, “We will be safe from them for the time being. Did you all keep your mouths shut?” she asked. They all nodded, “Good.”
“Matriarch,” one of them, the Goliath, her muscles just a bit smaller than the Matriarch’s own, began, “Are ye sure this’s the best idea? I could smell the blood ‘a those big-folk, and they’re warriors. Bloody killers, gore splatterers… death bringers. The man was worse, but the woman was gettin’ there. They’re deadly, but is hidin’ the Goddess from them wise?” The Goliath’s question was valid, the Matriarch thought, but the First knew what he was talking about. The Goddess favored him in their deal and returned to him the knowledge about the Inquisitors, the ones who brought death to those who disobeyed their laws. The Matriarch had no clue whether or not following the Goddess was something they forbade, but she would not take any chances with her people.
“It is not just safe, it is required. We do not know if our worship will mean our extinction, so we need to handle everything with caution. Does that make sense, Goliath? Speaking of, none of you have spoken about your names, correct?”
They all nodded, save for the Chef, “They probably just thought that I was ‘the chef’ but they don’t know that it’s my name. At least they don’t know the Arcanist's name.” The Matriarch had to agree with that. Magic was something those Inquisitors might think is heretical, so keeping their knowledge secret would be critical.
“I see. In that case, I commend you all,” the Matriarch replied, giving them all a sparkling smile, “We have weathered our first quake, but more will come. Therefore, we need more dwarves among us. Chef, how much food do we have on hand?”
“Enough, ma’am. If I scraped the bottom ‘a the barrel, I could feed twice our number for a year. If not, then six months. But food is coming to us constantly, so I doubt it’ll be a problem.” The Chef gave her a nod, and stirred the pot, scooping out a bowl of dark stew, “This’s courtesy ‘a the Inquisitors. Killed a shadow bug and let us have most ‘a it.”
The Matriarch smiled, taking the piping hot bowl of stew and drinking some of the broth. It tasted like fear, and shadows, and anticipation, “This is quite good,” the Matriarch said, smiling, “But I do not think we can subsist on game alone…” She lowered her head in prayer, “Goddess, please, let our next kin be one who can understand the roots and flowers better than I,” she begged. She heard a deep, powerful chuckle from the back of her mind, so that was good, “Thank you, Goddess,” the Matriarch said. No words came, but the maternal love came through loud and clear.