East of Osiris

The battle was over.

The Wendigo soundless reverted to ash, leaving behind a black dress and bone-white mask. Tantalus reached down to pick up the mask. As he did so, he saw a long wooden object inside of one of the dress’s pockets. Tantalus picked up the mask and branch-like object. The object was a wand of some kind. It was inscribed with various words in Iron Script. Tantalus put the wand in his pocket.

“Clear?” Ashcroft called out to Tantalus after a dozen seconds had passed without incident.

“Clear!” Tantalus responded.

A moment later, Tantalus saw the heads of four Revenants pop out of cover. They each independently surveyed the scene to make sure there were no remaining contacts within the area. Once every Revenant present was confident that the fight was indeed over, the tension disappeared from their posture and expression.

The silence was broken by a groan of pain from FullDan. “Oh God, why did I do that?”

Tantalus saw as FullDan’s hand healed from the hole he had shot into it. The whole hand writhed and morphed as FullDan’s Rapid Healing ability replaced a significant amount of flesh. In the process of reconstruction, FullDan’s ring finger withered and fell to the ground. Apparently, Rapid Healing had decided that FullDan’s ring finger was not salvageable.

“Why does it have to hurt so much?” FullDan complained loudly.

Ashcroft walked over to FullDan and patted him on the back. A moment later, Mozaic approached and threw an arm over FullDan’s shoulders.

“Dude, that was badass!” Mozaic laughed.

“What was up with the entrance?” Ashcroft asked. “Did you teleport?”

“That was my Talent,” FullDan said, smiling despite the pain. “It’s called Misty Step.”

“Where’s Clock?” Tantalus asked.

FullDan grimaced. “She was hit in the second blast. Hell, I would’ve been hit if I hadn’t heard you shouting, Tantalus. I made sure she was healing herself before I teleported here. She was pretty torn up when I left, but I don’t think any of the damage is permanent.”

“Sounds like we need to check up on our squad leader, then,” Ashcroft spoke as if it was obvious.

The four Revenants began to head toward the central staircase. As they walked, however, they saw Clock exit the stairwell. She was absolutely covered in blood, and her uniform was covered in scrapes and abrasions. Despite this, Clock walked upright with no signs of injury.

“You okay, Clock?” Ashcroft asked. It was rare to see the Captain of the Ashen Knights show concern for someone’s well-being.

“Of course,” Clock smiled. She didn’t seem to pay any mind to the ragged state of her outfit. “It hurt a lot, and I lost half of my Blood Points, but that’s all in the past. Great job taking out the Wendigo.”

“Do you think we should turn back?” Tantalus asked.

“No, we’ll move forward,” Clock said with certainty.

Upon leaving the office building, Strike Team One saw the terrible state of the structure from the outside for the first time. It looked like it could collapse at any moment. It was as if an angry god had struck the building with a gargantuan hammer. They were happy to escape from the building when they did.

“Wendigos, man. I’m not looking forward to fighting another one,” Ashcroft muttered as the Revenants gazed at the devastation wrought by the wendigo. They had split up the loot such that Ashcroft was carrying the wendigo’s mask threaded around the strap to his satchel. Clock had taken the black dress. Tantalus couldn’t be certain if Clock intended to wear the dress. It would have to be patched to remove the holes put in it by the shotgun shells. Tantalus was able to lay claim to the wand. Nobody else present knew anything about magic at that point.

Strike Team One slowly traveled a mile without resistance. Soon, they reached the point where Clock had seen the Garands. Expecting to run into fierce resistance, they sent FullDan to scope the location out with his rifle.

After a few minutes, FullDan returned to the dark corner that the rest of the squad had turned into a temporary base. The corner they had hidden within was almost completely hidden from any prying eyes.

Upon returning, FullDan said, “I didn’t see any contacts. The area seems to be completely unguarded.”

Clock became contemplative for a long moment upon hearing this. After a long pause, she said, “Let’s move, then.”

There were five factories within the area marked on the map. Strike Team One stacked up and cleared out these factories one by one. The first two were completely empty, but the third factory contained a small squad of five Goblins. The Goblins were killed without any significant effort.

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Within this factory, they saw a number of large wooden boxes scattered around the ground level. The other four stood as far back as possible as Ashcroft moved forward to inspect one of the boxes. As second in the stack, he was the designated “bomb guy.” It was his job to check enemy emplacements for traps. Five minutes after Ashcroft reached the boxes, a single long trill filled the large empty space within the factory. It sounded as if a lone bird had become trapped within the factory.

All clear.

The remaining four Revenants of Strike Team One moved into the factory. Mozaic blinked, and his eyes began to glow yellow. He must have been recording, Tantalus assumed.

As they got closer, Ashcroft lit up the room with a winning smile. He reached into the box and withdrew two long objects.

“Jackpot,” Ashcroft said. In each hand, he held an M1 Garand. “You were right, Clock. These things are filled with Garands and en bloc clips.”

Ashcroft was right. There were five wooden boxes within the factory, and each contained more than a dozen Garands. They had only expected to find one or two. This was much more than they could have hoped for. Tantalus suddenly felt very worried.

“We got lucky. Now let’s get the Hell out of here before our luck runs out,” Tantalus said in a voice which filled the factory.

Each Revenant in Strike Team One switched their bolt-action with a Garand. Each Revenant also slung two additional Garands across his or her back. Tantalus begrudgingly left his shotgun and bandolier within that factory. He had grown quite attached to his weapon, but he had to save as much space as possible to carry the priceless Garands.

Tantalus also dropped all extra ammunition he was carrying with him and replaced it with M1 Garand en bloc clips. Absolutely stuffing his pockets and satchel with clips, he was able to fit sixteen of them on his person without significantly affecting his own mobility.

“Everyone, shut up for a second,” Clock said as she held up a finger. She slowly lowered her head to the ground and listened.

“Something’s coming from the south,” Clock muttered after she raised her head from the ground. “I’d guess it’s another horde of Deluvians. There are more in this group than there were in the last group.”

“What’s the plan, Sarge?” Ashcroft asked. It was clear that a part of him wanted to try out his new Garand.

“Now that the mission’s done, it’s time to RTB,” Clock said. Tantalus unintentionally let out a sigh of relief. He was happy to not fight for his life a second time in one day.

They left a minute later. Ashcroft fell behind for a few seconds. As the rest of the group was leaving, Tantalus saw Ashcroft standing next to a wooden box holding a hand grenade and some duct tape.

“What was that?” Clock asked as Ashcroft rejoined the group.

“I just wanted to leave a parting gift for our adversaries,” Ashcroft said.

It took a full hour for Strike Team One to return to the East Gate. They moved slowly through the bombed-out buildings within the area, and Clock ordered them all to go prone three times as a group of Deluvians moved past. At one point, an explosion sounded as Ashcroft’s booby trap went off. This drew most of the Deluvians away from Strike Team One, and they were able to make significant progress in their journey back to the East Gate.

It was an incredibly slow process, but it yielded results. They reached the East Gate without getting into a gunfight. As an additional benefit, the Deluvians didn’t follow them back to the East Gate.

Once they were spotted by the defenders of the East Gate, they began to hear the sound of cheering and laughter. The five Revenants of Strike Team One sprinted the last one hundred feet to the East Gate. They passed under the portcullis without incident.

“Close the Gate!” Clock shouted as soon as everyone was through. Almost immediately, the portcullis began its slow descent to the ground.

Ashcroft held his rifle up in one hand so that everyone at the East Gate could see the Garand. He shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. “Mission accomplished!”

The portcullis closed behind them, and an atmosphere of unfettered joy filled the East Gate. Operation Eastern Front had been an unqualified success. They had acquired fifteen Garands and several dozen clips to go along with them, and they sustained no losses. Tantalus was never seriously concerned for the safety of the S-ranks, but he was convinced that some of the untrained defenders at the East Gate would have died if they had brought a horde of Deluvians with them.

About a dozen of the defenders asked to shake hands with Tantalus, five of them patted him on the back, and two of them pulled him into a hug. Tantalus, consummate professional that he was, suffered through the celebration with an actor’s smile. Ashcroft was hanging around with Squads M3 and M4, the all-female squads of the East Gate, and telling them about the horde of a hundred Deluvians they had killed.

Suddenly, Tantalus felt a powerful arm pull him into a headlock. He looked up to see Ashcroft’s face high above his own. Tantalus was suddenly reminded of the in-game press meetings the Scions of the Blue Flame held after every major tournament win. Every time Tantalus and Ashcroft were paired together, Ashcroft would pull him into a headlock just like he was doing at that moment.

There was a gasp of surprise among the women Ashcroft was talking to. They were surprised that anyone would treat the Captain of the West Gate so casually. It was clear that they expected Tantalus to explode in anger, and they were surprised when Tantalus merely looked resigned to his fate.

“Hey T, tell them what happened,” Ashcroft said with a smile. “They don’t believe that we killed a hundred of ‘em out there.”

“Yes, we engaged with a company-sized unit of Deluvians,” Tantalus said with a resigned tone of voice. “We killed all of them. Though,” Tantalus suddenly smirked, “I got their leader.”

“You could’ve left that part out…” Ashcroft said, slightly crestfallen.

Tantalus used that opportunity to break the headlock.

A few minutes later, the defenders had dispersed to the point that Tantalus could speak in private with the other officers. The Revenant High Command of Ashcroft, Tantalus, and Mander decided informally to send four Garands to each of the three Gates, and the remaining three would be used as a baseline to mass-produce more Garands.

With that, the S-ranks split up and returned to their designated positions within Osiris. Clock stayed at the East Gate with Mander, Ashcroft and Mozaic departed for the North Gate, and Tantalus departed for the West Gate.

Holding two M1 Garands under each arm, Tantalus walked back to his red pickup truck. He placed the rifles in the bed of the truck and drove back to the West Gate.

“Today is a good day,” Tantalus said with a smile.

End of Arc 1 - Osiris.