Dear Margaret,

  It is done. The mission I have been sent out to complete is finished and I can come home once more. Except I do not feel joy or a sense of closure. I sit in my quarters mere moments after his departure.

  Whether it was departure to the afterlife or to another city from which he would rise once more, I do not know. A monster, he was. It all started on a normal day like any other, with my crew chasing the wake of his destruction...

  That’s when the barrelman shouted from atop the crow’s nest of another half-sunken ship. This got the attention of the sailors manning the sails who then brought it to my attention. I was at the wooden helm when we approached.

  It was too far out to be a fishing vessel, and far too large to be a trade ship. No, as we approached I recognized the masts, and the lone flag flying in the salty breeze.

  It was one of Kayle’s war vessels. Who managed to take one down, the answer eludes me to this day. The frightening part was the lack of movement or signs of life. Not a single limb floated around the debris.

  I immediately gave the order for a few of my dinghies to examine the wreckage. After several minutes, the crew shouted for they had found a survivor. At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me; Kayle, that Kayle was on his own and was right before me.

  He was seated in a lotus position, meditating while adrift on top a single plank no wider than himself. Not wanting to excite my men, I kept silent as they brought him aboard. As they cuffed and threw him onto the deck I intervened before he was beaten unconscious.

  This was a man not to be underestimated, admirals far greater than me had failed to capture him and I was not about to ignore the gift the gods had granted upon me.

  ‘The legendary Kayle, I welcome you aboard the Cathay.’ I spoke in front of everyone. That simple sentence gripped the hearts of every single sailor on this ship and silence soon followed as a natural phenomenon.

  Upon realizing that I knew of his identity he looked up at me from below and smirked. When he attempted to get onto his feet, my left-hand man shoved his rifle’s barrel down Kayle’s mouth and dared him to get up again.

  Without missing a beat, Kayle bit down onto the rifle and continued to raise himself. I did not even have time to stop him before my left-hand pulled the trigger. There was a small splatter from the bullet ricocheting off of the deck. But Kayle continued to stand.

  He was no immortal, but reckless and cunning. By twisting his head to the side the bullet went through his cheek. With a gaping hole large enough to put my thumb through, he kept on smiling and spoke in a voice so parched it became detestable. ‘My name is Kayle, would you do the honours of introducing yourself, captain?’

  I had seen drunk stupidity and recklessness, but that performance was unnerving. I knew that he had no way to escape, so I led him into my quarters where I would let him write his death letter.

  Being alone with him in a room was the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had, but one of the most enlightening. As he talked, the manners in which he perceived the world, the way people work together and as a society...but I digress.

  Having finished his letter, I led him to the walk. With my entire crew as witnesses, I had his left pinky cut off and thrown into the waters.

  Within moments the bites appeared, three fins circling where he would fall. Before taking that step he turned and said, ‘Make sure you deliver that letter.’ And then he took the plunge.

  My first surprise was that he hit the water in one piece, the bites seldom wait for their prey like so. The second was the lack of blood and surfacing of either man nor monster.

  That was it, no sign of Kayle or the bites were left. As soon as he entered the water all of them disappeared without a trace. Whether he died or survived through some divine intervention, I do not know nor do I care.

  For now, I cannot wait to return home. The man who tyrannized the river of Diverlo and threatened to perform its impossible conquest, is no more.

Polyctor Olaru’s letter to his wife following Kayle’s apprehension.

********

[And...they’re gone. Rane.]

It took a second to process the message.

“What do you mean they’re gone? Lar.”

I spun around to face Rane, sending the ragtag metal plates we all wore jiggling through the thick forest. They were identical, held together by a sloppy weld job, simple nuts and bolts.

‘Fucking rip off.’

[You see on this screen here? Rane.] Rane turned a square screen displaying a map towards Lar.

[Well their dots were here and here. Rane.]

Rane zoomed in onto the tower where we left the fresh meat.

‘No shit their dots were there, we flipping left them there.’

[And now they’re gone. Rane.] He then put the screen back in his backpack and crossed his arms.

[Poof. Gone like magic. Red.]

‘Now this bastard is starting up again.’ He came in between me and Rane, making an exaggerated mushroom cloud.

[You stopped me from scrapping those asses when we had the chance and now look what happened. Red.]

“You sure there isn’t a parrot running your chip? ‘Cause you keep repeating yourself over and over. If we stopped to scavenge them, we may have gotten mixed up with the mentor and his buddy fighting the roving mob. Lar.”

This was not the first time I had brought this up.

“You sure you don’t want your ass scrapped? ‘Cause that’s exactly what would have happened, and shit, I would’ve helped them do it faster if it meant getting rid of you. Lar”

The other guys pulling the crates-on-wheels stopped and observed us.

“Rane, did they break off their collars? Lar.”

[No, the last messages from all three were green and steady, then they stopped. No sign of damage done to them prior. Rane.]

‘The heck? They didn’t damage the collars but the signal is gone?’

“We’re going back. Lar.” I eyed everyone before facing  the way we came from.

[What for? Without a signal there’s no way in hell we’ll find them! We already lost potential resources by not scrapping them, and now you want us to waste even more of our limited energy? Red.]

He still hasn’t moved from the earlier spot. ‘What an annoying idiot.’

“That is exactly why we need to see what happened. Perhaps there is something there we can extract, or something erected a dampening field - in which case we’d hit the jackpot. Hey, come on, we have no goal right now but to scout out the place anyway. Lar.”

The idiot just stood there, eyeing me without end.

“Now you’re either with us or on your own.”

I sensed hesitation between the two members, but none decided to stick around with Red. ‘I can’t believe they’re actually starting to listen to him.’

‘But at the same time, I can’t blame them. We are running on fumes, most of us are at fifty percent energy and we have no spare materials to exchange for a recharge.’

It took us about fifteen minutes of hauling our asses to get back to the tower. The doors were left ajar, a clear invitation for anyone to enter.

‘This place has been abandoned since...forever, there shouldn’t be anything left…’

Not wanting to show hesitance or weakness, I proceeded through the doors without breaking stride. As expected, there was little light, and no immediate signs of the three we left.There were, however, very clear prints in the dust and dirt layered on top of the floor.

“Pan out and see if you spot anything.”

I looked back to see the other four leave those big crates behind and start searching. I went down the middle, reaching the other side a minute later empty-handed.

[By the left side. Rick.]

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

‘That’s in reference to the entrance... so over there!’ I trailed along the wall until I met the others clustered around a trap door. Beside it was a backpack, the same one I left with those three.

“If they ran away, they wouldn’t have left their stuff behind. Lar.”

‘That should shut him up for a bit.’ As I approached the hole, the others made space for me to look down. Darkness, that’s all that was visible.

“Get the flashlights. Lar.”

Rick jogged back to get them from the crates. Within seconds he was back and we were peering down the hole while pointing our flashlights around, flooding the chamber below with light.

[The heck is that? Some kind of balcony? And look at the bottom, something was there but broke off. Rick]

“Rane, is there any interference here? Lar.”

Rane took out his little pad again and started tapping on it.

[No, although the walls are a natural obstacle for signals to get through. Rane.]

‘So the three must have gone down there...somehow, they didn’t have any rope or other means to go nine meters down. At which point the floor and the walls must have blocked any communication from the collars.’

“We’re going down there. Get the ropes and hooks ready. Lar.”

[Are you crazy? We have no intel on what’s down there! It could be trapped or infested with some shit not worth taking on! Red.]

Red’s outburst caused the others to freeze up and look at us again.

“Our merchandise is down there, and you know we can’t play safe anymore. If there is anything of value somewhere, it will be where there are no available intel - meaning no one went there. Lar.”

[That’s not worth risking our lives over. Red.]

“We would be risking our lives even more by turning around and wasting more time and resources wandering around again. So shut up and do as you’re told. I’ll be going down first. Lar.”

There were no more retorts from Red and the rest got to work without issue. Before going in we closed the doors and left anything unnecessary in the crates, guarded by Rick. Everyone else slid down ropes which were tied around the trap door, our jingling ornaments echoed loud and clear.

With four of us safe on the balcony below, we started examining our surroundings. The railings had a significant bend to it, not too far from which two metal bars attached to the wall. The bars were a few feet long and had jagged ends to them, like something had ripped the other part of them off.

I shone the flashlight towards the ground for any sign of tracks, and sure enough, there were three fresh ones.

“They went this way. Lar.”

The others followed my lead and we started searching for our merchandise.

[We have lost contact with the detectors outside, the only communication left is with Rick. Rane.]

Patter.

[Wait! I just picked up their signals. They’re not far. Rane.]

“Listen! Lar.”

I froze in place and threw my left hand to the side to stop our convoy.

Pitter patter, pitter, patter.

“Search for the source of the noise, high alert. Lar.”

They did not wait for me to finish. Guns were readied in a single, swift motion. We’ve become moving spotlights searching for whatever was responsible for the sound.

There was nothing on the balcony. I motioned with my hand to come to the edge, ‘Holy shit…’

I scrambled to take a flare out of my backpack.

[Are those all molers? Fuck. Look at their numbers! What ass did they crawl out from? Red.]

An incoming wave of thirty centimeter long, fur-covered turds on their four feet scrambled up the wall. They were almost here. There wasn’t enough time for all of us to get up the two ropes.

I ripped the top part of the flare off and threw it over the edge. The entire complex was flooded with dazzling orange light as it made an arc over the railings and started falling. My core froze as I saw it.

It wasn’t the number of molers, no. It was the monstrosity on the ground floor, some twenty meters below.

[What. The fuck. Is that?]

Without their name, I had no way to tell who asked that but I did not blame them. It was four meters tall with its underside two meters wide and six meters long with the tail. It looked nothing like the creatures we have encountered so far.

“Rane, what is that? Lar.”

[Seems like it underwent countless mutations, with parts beaver and mole being the most obvious. Rane.]

I glanced down one more time I could barely make out straight, black whiskers in the front and a flattened tail on the other end. It had the standard four limbs, but that was all we could make out from here. Seeing the flare approach it, the monstrosity opened its maw and prepared to swallow it whole. The rows of jagged teeth took up an orange tone. With a final chomp, the light disappeared.

‘Does that fucker not burn at all?’

[Who the fuck cares? We need to get out of here first! Red.]

“All of us won’t make it up. We need to hold our ground and back up to the ropes. Send Rick a message to give us any support he can provide from atop. Lar.”

There was not enough time for us to argue, we sprinted towards the ropes. By the time we made it, the first batch of molers were climbing through the gaps in the railing.

“Open Fire!”

At my command gunshots reverberated across the entire structure, echoing off the barren walls.

‘Activate target tracking.’

I struggled to keep my thoughts at bay while activating the command.

[Target Tracking Activated]

Dozens of molers had red boxes placed on them in my vision. I wasted no time activating the second part, ‘Automated Turret.’

[Checking for Target Tracking...Confirmed.]

[Seizing body control…successful.]

I watched with the same awe as my body started dispatching the molers with a single shot to their head, or two if the first missed. Each second led to the deaths of two to three more. My body switched targets several times a second, all while taking slow and tentative steps back.

It was far too fast to keep track of. The molers were falling in droves, like grass being cut by a scythe, except it had teeth and kept growing back towards you.

So far there were no issues, we were being pushed back, but the rate at which the molers’ casualties were piling up could not last. Not unless there were over a thousand of them. For each step we took back, several dozen of them fell.

‘We’re beyond screwed if their numbers are that large.’

There were gunshots coming from above us, that meant they were close enough that Rick could see them...which meant we had no space left to take back. My body tried, but it was right up against the other four.

We made a semi-circle, with our backs against the wall.

‘Just how many of these fuckers are there?’

[Die you shits! Die! Die! Die!]

By this point their bodies started making haphazard piles oozing blood all around us. They had to climb over their dead to reach us, that was when they began to let out screeches. Right away, a road came from below, silencing all of them. They stopped their onslaught and retreated over the railing.

‘Shutdown sequence.’

[Automated Turret Shutting Down…Done]

[Target Tracking Shutting Down…Done]

Then rumbling came.

“That’s not an earthquake, is it? Lar.”

I looked over at Rane who was back to his tablet, [Negative. Rane.]

‘Big ol’ mamma is coming out to play.’

*********

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The automated sensors fired off inside my head one by one. I leaned my head back against the trunk.

‘Why must fools come to bother us now of all times. The one time there is an oddity in the group.’

“We’ve got seven intruders moving in fast.”

I looked over to my partner standing on the edge of the branch. He was holding his one prized possession. The L45-R Mk IV. With a kill range of four kilometers, there was no running away from him. Perhaps hiding behind a concrete wall will give you a minute to prepare for your death.

[This is why I hate booking appointments.]

Chuckle

“Meetings are a pain in the ass, aren’t they?”

[We need to go.]

An enormous explosion sounded and shattered the trees a bit away from us. The pillar of flame reached far above the remaining treetops.

‘How? They aren’t here yet...did they know in advance? Wait, that’s near the oddity!’

“Return to the meeting spot immediately.”

I sent out a group message to the litter and rushed towards the source.

[Incoming! Seizing Control.]

My body leaned back and then crouched. Two bullets whizzed past my head and obliterated the tree beside me.

“They have a sniper of a high enough caliber to cause some serious damage to us.”

An explosion rang out as the L45 was let loose.

[He’s too far, two klicks south-east. He just dodged the bullet.]

‘Thought as much.’

We hopped off the branch and landed on the ground. The fire was licking the tree around it black, but that mattered little.

Our guests arrived and weren’t too eager with introductions. Perhaps a bit shy to knock on the door, but I already knew their exact position.

“I am known as The Mentor. If that means anything to you, leave and we won’t give chase.”

[Why don’t you pass the fresh meat behind you, and we will do just that?]

‘Refusal, unfortunate.’

‘ERF activate. Two pulses.’

As soon as the first pulse went out, the first one of them went down, crashing onto the ground from a tree. His chest disintegrated by the bullet which exploded inside him after going through the tree.

That left five.

********

‘God damn it, those things are fast when not climbing.’

[Keep running guys, we got energy to spare and they’re close enough to bite my ass!]

‘Real reassuring Gash.’

[We won’t outrun them at this rate!]

There was not much else we could do. I had already dimmed the light to its lowest state, giving us just enough to see where we were going.

[Ey! Our friend, the sun, decided to pay a visit!]

I looked over my shoulder. A bright, orange ball, was falling close from the spot we came from. Everything around it was dyed orange as it fell.

The pattering behind us died down.

[They stopped chasing us.]

Looking behind, there weren’t any of those things anymore so we stopped and looked into the distance.

“Do you guys see anything?”

That’s when I noticed several sources of light directly behind us, they were oddly similar to my own flashlight.

Bang

The first gunshot sounded out, followed by hundreds of others in short succession. I recognised them from when I first awoke, when that robot was shot.

[We need to go. Now!]

I had no idea what, or who that was, but the distraction saved us without a doubt.

Anyhow, the three of us kept racing down the balcony when another roar washed over the noise, deafening everything once more.

Then came the shaking.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

[What is that?] Nick asked.

[I know it’s not my stomach.] Came Gash’s reply.