Bells rung out through the entirety of the Market District like the peal of thunder. Silas winced, quickly getting his hearing under control with his fear energy. Ironside didn’t have that many bells, leading him to believe it was the same figure that saved them a few days ago. What was his purpose now?

Only empty houses and the silent urban sprawl greeted Silas after that, the bells only chiming once. Every downstairs window was smashed. Not a corpse was found, mutant or otherwise, inside or outside. Where originally the corpses were left behind with their hearts dug out, it seems whatever was collecting them had found use for the rest. The likely possibility sickened him to think about.

It didn’t take him long to eventually reach his house in the Market District, no longer blocked by a horde. His house was a rarity in the district, having been entirely refurbished from the storefront it once was. He could barely even buy the place if it wasn’t for Sebastian sending money back.

The two windows on the front of the first story were smashed in with their curtains drawn apart. Strangely, the door itself was still intact and locked, as was the bay window upstairs. Narrow alleyways led down both sides of the house, barely wide enough to fit a person. It wasn’t fancy by any means, built with wood and clay tiles for the roof.

But it was home. Silas unlocked the door slowly and stepped inside, locking it behind him and then drawing the curtains closed.

Inside was an absolute wreck, albeit he didn’t have much in the way of furniture anyways. Both sofas were overturned while the coffee table was smashed in, claw marks dug deep into the wood of the end table. The paintings and pictures on the wall still hung high in their spots, untouched. It didn’t seem like a thief taking advantage of the chaos, but rather a systematic search.

Marks made their way upstairs too, scratching the hardwood floor every step of the way until it reached the empty bedroom and workshop. They ended there.

A search for what, people? The mutants seemed to have done this, but why? And where did they take the corpses? He went back downstairs and easily pushed the two porcelain cabinets in front of the windows before taking stock of his food supply. With what he still had from the Villa, and what food still remained from the house, he probably had about a day or two.

Silas gathered it all and put it in a sack in his bedroom, ideally spending most of his time there recovering. He took a quick hot shower in the upstairs bathroom while silently applauding himself for upgrading the boiler when he moved in. The medicine cabinet also had the necessary items to clean and bandage his wounds again.

Eventually he made his way back to the workshop and sat at his desk. This is what he was, what he did; he made things. A craftsman. Artisan. He made ammunition and guns. Now he was suddenly a million other things.

Sighing, Silas pulled out the drawer on the left and pressed a button inside that blended into the wood. Then he closed the drawer and the desk leg next to it suddenly clicked, revealing a compartment at its base with a small iron key.

Then he pulled the desk out a foot from the wall and slid the key into the drawer, yet the drawer didn’t open. Instead, the entire surface of the desk clicked and Silas simply lifted it off, revealing a rather shallow compartment. Inside was a bronze pocket watch, a silver-black six shooter, a brown belt made from Hex Beast leather and a few dozen high deium content bullets.

As the student of a rather famous gunsmith in town, getting robbed was an expectation. After the first few break-ins, he started hiding the real expensive stuff that his teacher wouldn’t simply replace for him. It was a little overkill, but Silas didn’t mind the process. These were for Sebastian’s birthday.

The belt holster alone cost him several months of gold in salary, beast materials being very expensive for civilians. Everything else was scrounged together from remnants of jobs at The Golden Gun. Even the revolver was originally a refurbishment job that fell through when the owner died. Silas called it Noble Eye.

He silently apologised to Sebastian in his mind for taking his birthday gift and slid the belt on. It had two holsters as Silas knew Sebastian would already have his own, so he was able to carry both Noble Eye and Glass’ revolver easily. The bullets were fastened inside small metal boxes arranged to look like pouches on the front of the belt. That way, falling or collisions wouldn’t damage the bullets unless the box was crushed.

Two loaves of bread and half a pound of jerky later, Silas blocked the door to his bedroom with his armoire and fell fast asleep in his own bed. It was, maybe, one of the best naps he had ever had. For about four hours.

The sun was still bright outside- Ironside was built into the cliffside and as such, other than the parts technically underground, it received sunlight until the sun went down. It was still strange looking out the window and to the sky, seeing only the Sun without it’s Companion Stars.

After another hot shower and getting dressed with new clothes, he quickly whipped up a few eggs to go with his two loaves of bread this time. He knew that opening more gates would increase his appetite and so would replenishing blood energy, but he just hoped that it wouldn’t be like this all the time. Especially since it means his food supply isn’t as long lasting as he thought.

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Familiar bells rang out in the Market District just as Silas finished up reapplying his bandages. This time the chimes didn’t all overlap but instead seemed delayed. One bell would go off, then another a minute later. Over and over. The fourth bell had run when Silas was met with the familiar blue text in his vision and his expression soured.

[Wayfinder approaching rapidly. Be advised]

Certainly a terrible way to be reminded that the Ascension Lotus was a thing. Whatever was happening was loud and it didn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon. It felt like hearing a death knell when he heard another toll of the bell and realised it had gotten much closer in a mere minute.

It had likely attracted all the mutants in a considerable radius.

Silas, at this point, had absolutely no idea what to do. The mutants were being led to attack the Lower City but the groups he had seen or heard didn’t even account for a single percentage of the city’s population. The only thing he could reliably believe was that most of the variant mutants were in the Lower City.

That still left a considerable amount of mutants in the Market District and he didn’t even want to think about the Upper City and how the Church forces were doing. He could deal with a group of mutants, sure, but once the numbers started breaking past thirty, he doubted he could do anything but run.

The size of the horde on its way right now was definitely beyond thirty. Those bells were so widespread that a good half of the District could probably hear them. Silas sighed as he realised he couldn’t wait it out in his house anymore.

Silas quickly packed up what he could, namely the food, and made his way outside. He even made sure to block the door off again to dissuade any scavengers on the off chance some people still survived as scavengers.

And then he fucking booked it.

Not a single bone in his body believed it was a good idea to stay and wait for this unknown Wayfinder to lead these things straight to him. He rolled up the sleeves of his overcoat and climbed up the side of his house and onto the rooftops. The fog was a little less dense up above.

Blood and fear energy surged into his eyes and the fog quickly faded from his view, seeing only row after row of tile roofs and brick chimneys. Looking towards the underground portion of Ironside, he heaved a sigh of relief as the power still seemed to be working. The refineries and mines were that way.

A signature screech tore through the silence from a house a few rows down and Silas caught sight of a Screecher for the first time, standing on another rooftop. Its head was practically split into by a gaping maw filled with teeth and a several foot long tongue. The limbs were long and spindly, standing on all fours rather than upright. The skin of its stomach was oddly transparent, showing off its pale grey organs with every breath it took.

Silas felt no remorse for the human it once was when he pulled a tile from the rooftop and threw it as hard as he could at the creature, splitting it’s head from the neck when the tile exploded on impact.

Another bell rang and nearly a dozen shrieks as Screecher after Screecher made itself known on the rooftops. The blue text warning him of another Wayfinder now filled a good chunk of his vision and not a single direction seemed safe. If he went above, he’d be tracked. If he went below, hordes were likely. Into the depths it is.

Various curses and expletives escaped him as he saw a dozen Voiceless similarly appear around their respective Screechers, the distinctive groans and growls of mutants in the alleyways beneath him. He had gone from alone to surrounded within a few brief moments and Silas suddenly felt nothing but resentment for the person who had once saved his life with that chime.

“Hm?” Silas looked down into the street and saw a man running through the fog in green light armour, The man looked exhausted on all accounts, the armour torn in some places with blood leaking onto the cobblestone beneath his feet as he ran. Several dozen mutants ran behind him, their ears stained black with blood.

[Wayfinder in immediate vicinity]

With a frown he leaped back onto the street, removing the advantage of open space for the Voiceless and turning this back into a maze game. He wasn’t worried about their speed unless they had space to run in a straight line. The Screechers seemed preoccupied with rooftops but he couldn’t guarantee they didn't hide on the ground either.

“Help, please!” Bell Guy screamed out wide wide eyes, waving his arms wildly as he saw Silas land on the street. “We can fight together! I just need help!”

No, no we can’t. Silas knew about the Voiceless up above, this man did not. Even as Silas ran towards him, the man had no idea what was happening until Silas lowered his body, tossed him over his shoulder with one quick grab and started to sprint in the opposite direction.

“Please stop screaming.” Silas requested weakly as he weaved his way through the backstreets and alleyways deeper into the underground. Artificial light rapidly replaced the natural light as the sky above them was replaced with cavernous rock. The Voiceless were like wild beasts as they tried to keep up, their speed making it too hard to turn or stop in this man made jungle.

Silas eventually made his way into an empty building tucked away in one of the less savoury alleyways, a tavern the orphanage kids often used as a fence when they were still on the streets. The sign above it’s door still swayed in the weak wind but the people inside were long gone, leaving only bloodstains and toppled furniture.

Bell Guy fell to the floor with a hard thud as Silas dropped him from his shoulders and quickly got to searching through the storeroom. Silas could tell during the run that the man’s armour was some sort of leather that he couldn’t recognize and his presence felt rather unlike any of the people he’s met so far.

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