With Fayde’s curiosity about her food allergies sated and the related crisis averted, they entered the large government building in the center of the city. To their surprise, the government building was clear of crabs on the ground floor. It did have a large hole in the middle of the ground. It was clearly man made as it was constructed out of the rusted metal like the rest of the building. There were four columns, one to each corner, that held now empty pullies. Each wall of the shaft had grooves carved into it that suggested the platform that would have been used had gears or tracks of some kind as well. Unfortunately, the platform wasn’t in sight as they peered down the shaft, although there was an access ladder for the shaft. They decided to leave it for later exploration before looking for a way to access the upper floors.
They eventually found a mostly intact stairwell for them to use as they moved floor by floor, scouring the building for anything relevant to project 5H3N-100N6. They scoured what served as filing cabinets, finding that most of the documents inside were waterlogged to indecipherability or in a completely foreign language heavily divergent from anything back on earth. That was until they entered a seemingly important office near the top of the building. Laying on the desk of the office was a seemingly untouched folder. Matter of fact, the entire room was perfectly preserved with not a drop of water in sight.
“What’s this?” Guidry asked as he picked up the folder.
His question was quickly answered as the folder had ‘Top Secret: Project 5H3N-100N6’ written on it in plain English. It was suspiciously convenient. Was the Tower scanning their brains like the Allum to create scenarios to test them? If so, where was this file the only one in a language they could read? Fayde wondered if this was partially due to Noesis’ influence. She tried prodding the ring’s conscious with her own but got no answer. Fayde made a mental note to ask Noesis when they spoke gain, but who knew when that would be. They only talked when there was something they could contribute. Fayde motioned for Guidry to read the file on their quest target.
According to the file, Project 5H3N-100N6 was an attempt to harness the innate power of a local sea beast as a power source for the city. The beast had the power to summon massive storms which they planned to use power the generators that kept the city afloat. Things were progressing well for a while, but something happened to the beast while it was in their captive care. It hadn’t escaped but had fallen victim to a disease that was slowly killing it. They had called for the best healers and doctors in their sector, as they called it, but no one seemed to be able to revitalize or cure the creature.
Thankfully the creature laid a clutch of eggs before it died, leaving them with hope for the future. The storms weakened as the elder creature died, but as one of the eggs hatched they returned to their normal levels of activity, securing their power supply. The freshly hatched beast also grew incredibly quickly, meeting the size of its forebearer within a mater of weeks. However, the spawn was soon afflicted by the same sickness as its parent. One by one the cycle repeated. The creature would die. An egg would hatch, and the spawn would grow only to become sickened and die. When the last egg hatched, it would lay another clutch of eggs, displaying it’s ability of asexual reproduction, to not needing fertilization of another of its kind. The cycle seemed self-perpetuating if inefficient. They would restrict power usage while the between the death of one creature and the hatching of another. Yet no system could be perfect. Each time an egg hatched, the time the new creature would remain alive grew shorter and shorter until the last documented clutch only lasted a few months before one of the spawn would die. The project was labeled a failure, and the research base was soon abandoned.
Yet the last page in the file took a different turn from the rest. It wasn’t a report but a proposition. One of the scientists at the research base had suggested that instead of using the creature to power a building, they could convert its life energy into and unique abilities into a unique set or armor that could summon a storm at the whim of its user. The scientist explained that he was near perfecting the production a dual affinity mental he called Storm Soul Steel. He highlighted in his reports that it could contain the immense energy the creature could create with storms while infusing the metal with the latent spirituality of the beast to aid in the control of the energies. The scientist had even clarified part of the identification number of the project. The last creature left alive within the facility before it was abandoned was the sixth egg of the one hundredth clutch. While the majority of the proposal referred to the creature as number six, there was one pleading line where it was referred to as Shen. It seemed like a promising proposal, but the paper had a stamp on it demarking the denial of the proposal.
“So, we have to finish the research that scientist started to complete the quest on this floor?” Matia asked as she looked over her nephew’s shoulder.
“Seems so.” Guidry said. A frown was plastered in his face. “Those poor creatures though. Being held in captivity like that and used as an experimental power source. I can’t imagine what they all must have felt.”
Matia put her hand on her nephew’s shoulder before pulling him into a hug. “I know Giddy. People are cruel.”
“Do we have to complete the projects?” He asked. “It would be like switching one prison for another.”
“We’ll see if there is another way to complete the quest.” Fayde said. “I have no idea if quest failure is even an option supposing we don’t die.” A moment passed in silence as they considered that terrifying thought “Let’s make our way back down to the ground floor and use the access ladder of the shaft.”
“Are we sure that’s the safest way down?” Enki asked.
“We didn’t see another way down when we were exploring the ground floor.” Said Trevor. “All of the stairwells went up, not that many of them were useable.”
“So, we have to climb that ladder all the way down?” Matia asked.
“I don’t think we’d be able to survive a fall from that height, even with our boosted bodies.” Lith acknowledged.
“Well,” Guidry said as he put the folder back on the desk. “Let’s go see about saving Shen.”
Returning to the ground floor, they started to descend the rusty ladder to the lower levels of the government research building. Flickering lights let them see the rungs of the latter as they climbed. They were starting to wonder just how deep below the surface the actual research portion of the base was. They had been descending for what seemed like an hour. They had even taken the time to rest while climbing, looping their arms and legs on the ladder, several times during their descent. Lith and Fayde were very aware that climbing up and down ladders was tiring work from the drills they used to perform while in the service and as a security contractor, respectively.
Finally, they came to what seemed to be the bottom of the shaft. Stepping down onto the surface caused a groaning creak. Fayde, leading the group down the shaft, kicked her foot against the surface. More metallic creaks and groans were elicited, but the ground didn’t show any sign of giving way. One by one, they stepped off the latter and onto the floor. Each new person caused the floor to make more unsettling noises, but it remained stable. Looking around the bottom of the shaft they’ve found themselves in, they were unable to see any doors. The only thing they did find on their level was a half dead console that occasionally sparked from exposed wires below.
“This can’t be the bottom floor.” Matia said. “There is nowhere to go.”
Looking around, they came to similar conclusions. There were four large fenced off squares in the floor near the corners of the shaft. The fence of each hole was bent in towards the center of the floor, like something heavy had hit them, trying to knock them over. Past the fenced off squares were piles of stone rubble. That’s not to say that there was not rubble strewn about the floor, but the corners seemed to be where the stones strewn across the floor came from. Fayde, Lith, and Mita worked together to move the larger pieces of rubble out of the corners. They were looking for safer ways down than the four large holes. Beneath the largest pieces on the corner were several fist sized holes. Based on the positioning of the holes, they were likely for the cables used to raise and lower the floor they stood on, which means the stone all over the floor was the counterweight for the platform floor they stood on. Looking down the holes they could see more lights heading down. Lith kicked one of the smaller pieces of rubble into one of the fenced openings. It clanged against the side wall of the shaft before bouncing off to hit another. The rock elicited clanging noises as it traveled further and further away from the platform until they could no longer hear it. Just how deep below the surface was this research base?
“Well, any idea how we keep going without falling to our death?” Asked Lith.
“Jumping down is out of the question.” Stated Matia.
“The ladder continues past the platform.” Mentioned Enki. “But it’s too far for us to jump from one of the openings.”
“Then there has to be some kind of way to access the ladder.” Fayde encouraged. “Guidry, help me take a look at the console.”
The console in the center of the platform was flickering on and off in time with the sparks from the exposed wires. It was two sided and seemed to operate on a touch pad program. There was an arrow pointing up, and arrow pointing down, and two strange symbols that they couldn’t rightly understand. Calling the up and down buttons ‘arrows’ was also a guess as they only closely resembled arrows. Pressing either of them caused a voice to emit from the console.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
“Ek..a. Na p..sh et ap..dea.” The voice came in broken static, cutting the foreign words into further undecipherable gibberish.
“I’m going to assume that means we can’t use the elevator platform since it’s not moving.” Suggested Guidry. “Strange though.”
“What is?” Matia asked.
“The written language from the file was in English, but the spoken language is something we can’t understand through the static, although I doubt we’d be able to understand it if it weren’t staticky.” He observed. “The symbols on the console are foreign as well, although some of them look like ones we’re used to.”
“Maybe the Tower is only translating what we need to complete the quest and leaving the rest for us to figure out?” Lith offered.
“Maybe.” Guidry said as he pressed one of the other buttons on the console as it momentarily lit up.
It was yellow and vaguely resembled a hatch opening. Thankfully, a hatch did open. Below the ladder they had climbed down, a part of the floor pulled away from the wall, allowing access to more rungs leading downward. Bodies still aching from the journey so far, they took a bit to let their muscled relax, which included eating a bit of dried meat and taking a few swigs of water during their break. They took their time to stretched before continuing down the long shaft to the bottom.
What seemed like hours later, they finally reached the lower floors. Sparks would regularly fly from exposed wiring above the waterline. Thankfully, the knee deep water at the base of the shaft didn’t seem to be carrying any current, so they could safely navigate to the section of the base that held the last of the creatures. A door was open on each of the four walls. Next to each door, on both sides, was what could best be labeled as a map. The bottom portion of the base was circular in design, almost as large as the top portion of the base and separated into three sections. From the map they were able to gleam the intended purpose from each area. The topmost section of the map had some esoteric symbol that made them think of a battery. More than likely this area would be where the scientists stored the collected energy from the storms. The lower left section had a symbol that both looked like a beaker and a gear while the section to the lower right had a symbol resembling some snake like creature. They made quick mental notes about the map before heading to their first destination.
As they made their way to the section where they would most likely find the creature, they found their path barred by monsters. Mostly it was more crabs, but the lower levels of the base also held new enemies in the form of highly electrified eels and metallic fish with razor sharp fins and teeth. Matia took up her role as the group’s vanguard as she activated Alabaster Skin to take care of the eels, her stone like skin serving as a proper insulator to its conductive forces as she skewered them on frozen stone tridents. Meanwhile, Guidry was tiring off tendrils of lightning at the metallic fish, their aquatic nature and metal like flesh multiplying the effectiveness of his attacks. That’s not to say that the rest were not helping out. Lith‘s ethereal claws were ripping through eels as they struggled to determine which of his three bodies to attack. Fayde was a blur as she slipped in and out of the diluted blood water slashing away as the creatures as they came. Enki picked off a decent number as the eels and fish rushed at them from down the long hallways of knee high water. And while Trevor’s fire based skills were less effective with so much water around, she made do with her sword skills and recently training sessions with her Allum.
It took a few hours for them to navigate around collapsed or completely submerged tunnels as they wove up and down in mysterious ways, all while fighting the variety of aquatic creatures making the lower sections of the base their home, but they did manage to find the room holding the solitary creature. A massive tank, larger than any belonging to a single aquarium back on earth, took up the majority of the available space in the room. Its glass was scarred by long marks, like something had tried to break out of it. Yet the glass containing the water remained unbroken, as there was a haze in the tank, more than what would form on old glass.
The aquarium tank wasn’t the only thing in the room. The walls were covered in display screens, what they assumed were the original inhabitant’s versions of keyboards, and what they assumed were diagnostic machines geared at monitoring the creature inside of the tank. There was one other contraption in the room that stood out from the rest. In the middle of the room was a cylindrical capsule with an obscure outline sitting inside of it. Guidry approached the capsule, wiping away the layers of dust as he looked inside.
“Woah. What’s this?” He said softly.
What was behind the glass was a rudimentary representation of a non-humanoid skeletal system. It brough to mind a snake with legs, although the bulk of the limbs, as well as the skull were missing. It was roughly the size of an average human and made completely of metal, although a shade of deep blue.
“Looks creepy.” Said Matia as she stood over his shoulder.
“Think it’s part of the project?” Fayde asked.
“Maybe.” Guidry thought. “Might have something to do with the proposal that was denied.”
“Let’s have a look around.” Suggested Lith. “Maybe we can find out how to complete the quest without killing the creature. There has to be a way to free it.”
“You think freeing it will cause us to fail the quest?” Fayde asked.
“If we can’t complete the project, we can’t finish the quest according to the proposal.”
“And if that get’s us stuck here until we die?” Enki asked.
There was silence for a moment after Enki’s question. They hadn’t put much thought into the consequences of failing the quest or making it to where they couldn’t complete it. Guidry and Matia had already made their opinions know that they didn’t want to kill the imprisoned creature to complete the project as the quest commanded. They wanted to free it, break the cycle that its forebearers were stuck in for a hundred generations. The act would go against their moral sensibilities, but that did lead to the possibility that they would all die here.
“We’ll go through the process of completing the quest.” Fayde instructed. “If we can find a way of freeing the creature while completing the objective then we’ll do that instead. No one is dying here.”
“But mom!”
“But Grandma!” Matia and Guidry said in unison.
“That’s the end of it.” She said adamantly. “Your survival, the survival of this family is the priority. I’m sorry, but if I have to choose between you and a creature that’s been in captivity all its life, I will always choose you. Death is a preferable outcome to being in captivity. It is merciful.”
Silence remained in the air after Fayde’s decree. It was a somber one, holding the life of an innocent creature in your hands, but Fayde had a point. Their survival was paramount. Death was preferable to captivity, especially isolated captivity.
“Deaaath.” Came a voice that shook the room. It was deep and gravelly, and while it wasn’t loud, it seemed to be coming from all around them. The room stopped its shaking as the word came to an end
“Who’s there?” Asked Fayde as she drew her weapons.
“Neeew.” Came the voice again. “Freeeedooom. Deaaaath.”
They looked around the room for where the voice came from, fining nothing.
“Show yourself!” Challenged Lith, the construct claws of Rake already covering his right hand.
They were all still looking around as the voice repeated the drawn out words.
“Death. Freedom. Death. Freedom. Death.”
Guidry’s eyes were drawn to the viewport of the massive tank that should contain the creature. Faintly he could see arcs of lighting from within that sent the hairs on the back of his neck to standing upright. He approached the glass.
“Death. Freedom.” It repeated, the words coming faster and less drawn out.
Guidry stopped a foot away from the glass as he watched the arcing lightning from within. Then two small blue eyes met his gaze. They were faint in the water, and seemingly distant. The gaze caused his heart to race in panic, and he reactively activated Electrokinesis, causing electricity to crackle over his own body. The constant chanting of death and freedom stopped, as the eyes grew larger as the creature inside the tank grew closer.
“Storm-Child.” The voice said quietly, almost in awe before the mood changed once again.
The eyes grew rapidly closer and impossibly larger.
“STORM! DEATH! STORM! FREEDOM!” the voice shouted, shaking the room more violently than before.
The creature ran its massive head against the tank, which was apparently made of twenty foot thick glass based on how far away it impacted. Not even a crack was left by the impact. The creature itself was massive. Its head alone took up the entire width fifty foot of the viewport, bright blue eyes shining and a crown of antlers growing from its brow. It swam up, showing off the torso sized azure scales of its long body as they rubbed against the glass like a snake. Massive, clawed hands scratched the glass as they passed.
“STORM! DEATH! STORM! FREEDOM!” it continued.
“Is that a dragon?” Lith asked.
He was right. It did remind them of the Shenlong from Chinese mythology. Going off the paperwork from the file, it also made sense. Shenlong was a spirit dragon, or Loong if using the Chinese word. God of the tempest and storms, and master of rains. They had captured a mythical god and were trying to make it into a power source. Blasphemy of the highest level. The nickname used one in the proposal also made sense. Shen. Shenlong. Even the project number was an allusion to it. Switch a few letters for similar shaped numbers, and an O and Shenlong became 5H3N-100N6. Was this a joke?
“We should go, right now.” Trevor suggested as she grabbed her son’s shoulder.
“No wait.” Guidry said as he pulled out of her grasp. He put his hand to the glass as he made his skill cause his body to wreath in electricity again. “Shen!”
“Guidry?” Enki asked. “What are you doing?”
“Just hold on. I’ve got an idea.”
Trevor tried to grab her son’s shoulder again only to draw her hand away as it was shocked by the wreath of lightning on her son’s body.
“STORM! DEATH! STORM! FREEDOM!” The Shenlong continued as it railed against its cage.
“Shen calm down! We will free you.” He shouted.
The shouting from the Shenlong stopped and the shacking of the room lowered to a low vibration. The long body of Shenlong continued to move in the tank until the massive head once more took up the entirety of the viewport.
“Freedom.” It said more quietly although the room still shook. It’s eyes were locked on Guidry as lightning continued to course over his body.
“Yes.” Guidry said a bit exasperated from the situation and from the exertion of his skill. “We’re going to try and free you.”
The eyes of the creature moved from Guidry to the cylinder in the center of their room.
“Death. Freedom.” The Shenlong said, its voice both a question and a statement.
“The project?” Guidry asked. “Yes, the project said it would kill you in the process. Project. Death.”
“Death. Project. Freedom.” It continued, shaking its head side to side.
“I don’t understand. You want to continue the project even though it will kill you?”
It shook its head in the affirmative. “Death, Project, Freedom. Death, Freedom. Freedom, Death.”
“Death is preferable to captivity.” Guidry said in a whisper, echoing what his grandmother said earlier. “Fine. We’ll complete the project.”
The Shenlong nodded its head once before swimming back and away from the viewport. As it swam away, Guidry deactivated his skill, dispersing the lightning that covered his body. His heart was still racing from the experience even though it felt like it was caught in an emotional vice. A pair of arms wrapped around him.
“Baby, are you okay?” His mother asked.
“Yeah.” He said wiping a tear from his eye. “Let’s just get this over with.”