Joey keeps hoping this day can’t get any weirder or wilder, and she’s been proven wrong time and time again. She’s also restocked with every deadly chemical, magical booster, and utility equipment she could grab from the lab before it went out in a blaze of glory, and she hopes those bastards got cooked from the blast.

After all, she knows her detonators quite well by now. I really don’t want to think of the body count now, because I’m a many-times-over serial killer by this point. Wait. Does it count if they’re all trying their hardest to kill you? Yeah, you know what, Julia’s right, as long as you aren’t shooting first, it’s fair game. Until it isn’t. Great. The nightmare continues.

“Joey?” Drenar says softly, and subtly peers down. She's gripping his hand very tightly, and she lets out a slight huff.

“I’m good. We just need to be ready for anything. Let’s go get our dragon wizard on the line.” The mesh doors of the lift iris open, and they’re deep underground now in the bowels of Asqualia–gray bricks, glowing green mold, and those obnoxious wisp lights that now come in ten different colors. These ones are an ominous poison green, and light up the atrium as appropriate. It makes for a grim mood, to put it mildly.

She needs to focus on the task at hand. Even with Volkir’s guidance, his insistence that the place was a little…unmanaged is not really something she wants to dwell on for too long. There could be any number of magical traps, monsters, or other nasty surprises even from the environment.

“Great, a dungeon crawl. I can cross this one off my bucket list,” Julia says with resignation. “Give me mooks any day, but fighting through stone and steel corridors against things that are the stuff of nightmare fuel? No thanks.”

“Yeah, you probably don’t want to be punching most of these monsters. Stick to autobows. Or the stick,” Joey adds as an afterthought to her compact staff. She grabs a few canisters off her belt and hands them to Drenar, Julia and Angela, who have taken the worst of the abuse tonight, by far. Angela gags at the flavor.

“Cinnamon?!” she says before forcing it down, with a reflexive cough. “This is just noxious levels of cinnamon–oh Fates Julia, are you chugging that?!”

Julia nods with a grin as she gulps it down, and makes an exaggerated sound like it was refreshing to her. “Cinnamon flavored energy booster, from my favorite flavored alchemist!”

“It’s not that potent!” Joey protests angrily. Has she dabbed it on a little too strongly? Probably. She’d hate for people to get a scent of kitsune, and if she goes more than a day or two without a shower she smells a little like…something her mother described as earthly. Like roots, with a bit of a scent that was unique and sharp.

Kitsune biology is weird, and she is one. Four thousand years of subtle changes though, have at least taken the edge off the manic psionic powers.

“It’s…pretty strong, but I get that you work with chemicals,” Drenar says uneasily. She has to keep reminding herself that despite his tactical acumen, he’s still a teen. And almost charmingly awkward with his words at times. She peers at the stone doorway while Volkir flashes up on Drenar’s armband. He regards him with warmth.

“You know kid, you’re lucky you made it this far. I had ten to one odds–”

“Listen Volkir, I’m pissed off at a lot of people right now, and you don’t want to be on that list of people I owe a chewing out to,” Drenar states with remarkable restraint, even as he eases the door open, and an autobow is drawn. He keeps drifting his hand back to Luminari as if it’s the more reassuring weapon to him. “We need the fastest way down, right now, because Val is coming. We got everyone out, which means we don’t need to hold back anymore.”

“Fates, you’ve been holding back?” Angela, looks at him as if he’d uttered something absurd. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see you ever running full tilt in combat.”

“You don’t. And neither do I. Volkir, is this as straightforward as navigating this maze?” Drenar taps the armband, and Volkir’s head dips to the side, and he puts a claw to his snout.

“Yes. But uh…do mind the waste disposal area. You have to go through there, and the maintenance golems have been um…unresponsive of late. I got a bit behind on keeping them in tiptop shape. A couple of command code runes needed replacement.”

“What’s in waste disposal?” They continue down the gray stone corridor, and come across several rusted metal doors–all locked, though one swings open and they’re greeted by the vacant stare of a skeleton. One arm and one leg are missing, and it’s left with an open scream in death. “Hey Volkir, here’s a tip. Do some spring cleaning sometime? This poor Dave here looks like he’s uh…been here a while.”

“Stealing supplies,” Volkir growls. “There was a plague going on. I made an example of him, because his actions killed many others through greed.”

“Great, capital punishment. Because that works so well.” Nick is on point and getting his own barbs in, while stepping gently over a tripwire that everyone deftly avoids. “Volkir, explain this to me. Why have you been hiding for seven centuries?”

“Researching. Everything that has tied into the Kilnstar’noth, started before the device was ever activated by us. I think there are stranger things than just fixing a few million dragons, having a collective case of absolute stupidity, and trying to jet off the planet.” He shakes his head in annoyance. “Honestly, I could have told them it was going to go badly, and they didn’t listen. Stupid Conclave probably wanted it to happen.”

“Damn it, have you been listening to King?” Joey hisses. Volkir tilts his head quizzically.

“Who is King, exactly?”

“A megalomaniac who likes making deals and screwing with people’s lives. So you know, about par with what we’ve expected from this giant fiasco,” Drenar states with a roll of his eyes, and keeps pressing forward. He stops, and cuts a tripwire at waist height–the tension releases and it snaps so fast the air lets out a crack.

She’s glad that didn’t trip, because it would have cut a line right through him. “Volkir, I have questions.”

“Ask them, young–er, young alchemist,” he states. She swears he was about to say ‘kitsune’ in front of every single one of them, and Nick looked frozen in fear for a second. She’s got a good enough read on Nick to know that if anything can startle him, for even a split second, is a surprise that he doesn’t want to be telegraphed.

Great Nick, do you know too? Out of this entire crew of misfits, I’d figure you might be the one to know, and never say a damn word. She sincerely hopes she’s not projecting these thoughts to others, because there had been more than a strange reaction from Julia and Angela from the past few hours. A tether of something connecting her to them, just like Drenar, though with him it was almost instant. She can’t focus on it at the moment and presses on the more interesting question when they work past a steel clad door. The hinges creak in the dank air, and a wisp light flickers at the motion.

“Volkir, this device. It’s dangerous. They’re running it, and they reinvigorated a dead biozone. What else can this device do that you know of?” She holds Drenar back from another tripwire, and he gently cuts this one so the tension doesn’t snap at someone. “Also I’m gonna be pissed if any of these traps kill us.”

“Oh those are just trip wires, nothing harmful.”

“Razor wires?” she asks menacingly. He whistles as if absolved of his short-sightedness. “You dragons are all crazy, every last one of you.”

“I feel slightly offended by that, but I’m only half,” Julia says with a breeze of words and takes point, and points to a sign on a door down the row marked with hazard symbols, and toxin warnings. “This looks like a bad door, we should not go this way.”

“It’s the only way that doesn’t take hours,” Volkir snaps with a testy bristling of his copper and green feathers. He is quite a remarkable specimen–darn it, they’re people, not science experiments, she keeps reminding herself! Experiments come later, when they’re not in immediate danger, and they clean out this mess from Asqualia.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Hopefully, the Valkyries get here in time to put boot to backside against the Talons soldiers inevitably crawling behind them, and hopefully falling into the traps they’d left intact behind them. Joey peers at the sign, and converts from draconic to English. “Oh, this is a bad door, Volkir. Hydrothane pentazine? This stuff is bad news.”

“You try waste disposal with anything less potent!” he huffs. Julia scoffs at this, and a glint of amusement is in her eyes.

“Sure, upsell it, Volkir. We’ve handled worse tonight. Actually, it’s better if we don’t talk about that stuff till later, because I’ll probably need a therapist. And more guns. For the mooks. And not my personal collection.”

“Justifying guns pretty hard there, Tsundere,” Nick chuckles.

“Hey, your collection is absolutely divine, but I need one to respond to threats of all kinds! And something close-range. My fists don’t do nearly enough damage. Dragons don’t get monk class levels,” she mutters before easing the door, and freezes at what she sees, then slowly closes the door with a click. She looks nervously at Joey. “How uh, how deadly is that chemical you mentioned?”

“Deadly,” Joey states gravely. “Why?” Julia doesn’t bother with the why part and opens the door again, and Joey peers inside, and groans.

“Oh, this is just fantastic.”

She’s staring at a catwalk and several maintenance platforms where waste is disposed of–in a giant cavern, and at the bottom of which is a toxic blue liquid that seems to gleam with its own light. There are a few larger adjoining platforms where rusted constructs take various components, trash, and sort them on a conveyor belt, and the refuse goes down into the lake and…dissolves. In rapid order. Joey peers at the group behind her and ties her hair back. “You touch this stuff, it’ll burn a hole clean through you without protective gear. So don’t fall in? Pool's closed, folks, swim season is never.”

“Savage. You do sound like the Wendy’s girl!” Drenar says with amusement. Does this kid not get horrified by anything? A lake of acid that could make him a liquid puddle in about three seconds definitely should, out of all things! She points down for emphasis and drops a bolt from her crossbow into it.

Not only does it catch fire when it contacts, the silvery sheen of what is left of the metal is floating on top, before dissipating into the toxic material. “Yeah, even your scales won’t shrug this off. Luckily it’s the pentane version. The hexene version is volatile and emits fumes unless kept under pressure.” She starts crossing the catwalk, which seems to wobble under her footing.

She really should have not expected anything less than an utter death trap down here, given Volkir’s inclinations as of the present. She just hopes she lives long enough to chew him out for his utter disregard for safety in any way, shape, or function. Even Kyle is quietly counting MOSHA violations. Those are like OSHA violations. But about ten times deadlier.

Angela’s right, most mages are insane to be handling these kinds of hazards and with such casual regard. Drenar is right beside her, steadying the platform with quick bursts of his kinetic field. Maybe to balance out the platform so it doesn’t sway? It does seem she has firmer footing, even as a kitsune. “We need to keep moving. Volkir, where does this connect?”

“Storage area with an access stairwell, and a lift. It’s not on the main path, but it’s still serviceable,” he grunts. “I’ve also been keen on checking that area out, but I’ve been busy. Heard some rumbling and little scratchy sounds that kept me up late, some nights.”

“Scritchy sounds bad,” Levine mutters and nearly stumbles into the side guard of the platform before Nick steadies him. “Thanks.”

“Hey, age before beauty,” Nick says with a quick smirk. Levine scowls, but tries to hide a smile when he presses forward. Joey keeps them on point and avoids a damaged section–likely eaten by a splash of acid. Would she catch fire or dissolve in this liquid? Both sound exceedingly painful. And unpleasant. She’d only worked with it once, and the instructor had been giving the chemicals a wide berth in case anything happened. Because, melting a single undergraduate would have been merely a hand slap, and not immediate grounds for expulsion if one of the faculty died doing something really stupid.

They make their way to one of the little islands, where the automatons are working without a break. She sees a pile of chicken bones that might have been from the small kitchen earlier in the week, various garbage, and–an old America Online CD?!

Who still has those, anyway? The bots toss it in without a second thought, burning the physical existence of that era away. When she walks by, the automatons spot her, and their eyes flash. Volkir peers at them closely from the projection on Drenar’s armband, and he adjusts the glasses on his horns. It’s a very human gesture–for a dragon. “Er, these fellas have been working without a break for years. Looks like I did the maintenance routine runes quite well.”

“You programmed these?” Kyle whispers. “Look Volkir, I know you think you're hot shit and all, but uh–there’s a subtle art to avoid an automaton revolution scenario.”

“Refuse off the conveyor belt,” one says in a highly mechanized voice. Joey blinks, and realizes they’re talking about them. The bots clank toward them, and Drenar draws his blade, while she gets her staff ready to knock some automaton heads off.

“You think I’d get used to everything going wrong at once,” Joey sighs.

“Welcome to the last month of my life. And I want a frosty cone after this.”

Even though that biting wit needs a dose of acid to neutralize, she can’t hide a fox-like grin as they bash away the golems. Their sole existence now is trying to toss them into the sorter–which really just breaks large things into very small things, then breaks those things into even smaller things. Drenar’s sword does incredible work against the automatons, and Joey’s staff has a force impact well and above its weight range.

Still though, wasting stamina on these threats seems rather a poor use of time.

They finish off the last bot, with Julia leaping and kicking the automaton’s head off with her boot, and it goes splashing into the acid, It doesn’t actually melt this time, the automatons seem to have a coating to prevent the instant chemical destruction normally afforded by this compound. Volkir stares at them, and grunts. “You know, I have to replace those.”

“Great. Add it to my tab,” Drenar snipes before he and Joey press forward. They get no further than the connecting platform before the platform lifts upwards, and he hops up to grab it but misses.

An alarm is going off, and she has a feeling that this slight against the facility is not being received well. There’s a sliding of metal above them as a hatchway opens up, and Kyle has to stumble backward to avoid being smashed into the metal platform by a new automaton, roughly humanoid, with a boxy head, silver plating from head to foot, and–

The four-foot-long claymores for arms are going to be a big problem, she grimaces as it whirls the blades in a deadly fashion.

“Death by Swiss army knife. Great. We’re getting more and more exotic in our options for courting death,” Julia growls. Joey has other choice words to describe it while there’s an audible groan from Volkir, who is putting a claw to his face.

“Totally forgot the security protocols. Who could have foreseen fledgling dragons and kits would be smashing my maintenance golems?”

She’s gonna kill that stuffy old dragon if anyone was paying attention to that last comment.