Episode 3: The Writing on the Wall

Mickey was waiting at the new hiding spot. He welcomed us home, with a slightly odd tone to his voice, but it was the runes scrawled all over the walls that really grabbed our attention. The chalk-graffiti actually confounded us so much that it took a brusque reminder from the surgeon to get most of us moving in to action. We'd have to figure out what it meant that the runes were all the way down here, but Surgeon was right, keeping people from dying came first...especially Kiyoshi.

The rest of the day was a haze for many of us. Rei and Kiyoshi were still unconscious, Sue and Moses were bleeding so bad that they were barely conscious (despite Moses' patch-induced protestations to the contrary), and Surgeon kept High Dive and me busy assisting him. When time to sleep came, I collapsed under the table that Kiyoshi lay on. I wanted to be nearby in case anything bad happened.

I woke up to the *dunk*...*splat* of Moses... what? mopping?? Oh no! The big overly-helpful lug had washed off every single rune in the room. Damn it. He said it was biomade stuff so it had to be bad. *sigh* Maybe he had a point, but it still would have been nice to know what it said. Moses and Sue looked better, but the other two were still out cold. We continued fixing up wounds, including some nasty infections in Rei, and preparing to move to the next spot. With the biomade being able to read minds, I wonder why they aren't already knocking down our door.

The next morning things are going smoothly when Kiyoshi started going into spasms. Great Sages it was scary! Surgeon put some nasty big needles into him, apparently expecting improvement, but his convulsions continued, and I started to get very worried. He could not die! I have watched too many of mine die! At this point my skin started to tingle, like I was going to sweat acid or something, and I started to - I kid you not - glow blue. All over. I grabbed Kiyoshi's hand thinking it couldn't make him worse, and fervently prayed it would make the seizure stop. The whole room filled with the blue light, then shrank back into me. I think it focused to my hand, but at that point I passed out.

I woke up to Moses shaking me like a rag doll. I told him he could put me down and he dropped me. That guy is too good at following directions. *grimace* I looked over and Kiyoshi was talking in urgent tones; I was just overjoyed that he wasn't in a coma anymore. I walked over to him and noticed that his bullet-wounds had healed up dramatically. Wow, blessed blue light! I tried to think about what happened, but the conversation around me started to sink in slowly.. What? Going..? Oh! We're going NOW-now. Crap, and through what!?! This escape is going to be the death of me.

We all ungainfully manage to shimmy down a 160-degree shaft and drop down to a VERY high I-beam, into the most polluted air I've ever experienced. The molten rock from the room that was bombed right behind us is still searing painfully into my thigh, but that's the least of my worries as a whole bunch of biomade soldiers come out of nowhere and start hassling us.

By the time we've dispatched with those soldiers, the bullet-spitters in the refinery are sufficiently intimidated by the massive mob outside that they refrain from attacking us. Sue leads us outside and gives an incendiary speech, cuts open the gates, and lets the throng into the horrible, horrible refinery. I hope they melt it down. Completely.

Sue and Amos say their good-byes. Mickey will lead us to the new hidey-hole. I hope he's up to the task. Back down further into the caves. Sometimes I feel like the whole weight of Karia is pressing on my chest. It's been so long since I've seen the sky...

We follow Mickey down, down, down until we reach a point that's too narrow for some mechifieds to go through. Odd that Mickey doesn't remember not being able to go through part of the passage. The fact that he had a run-in with a mind-warping biomade is making me very nervous at this point, but Kiyoshi sees First Mind runes and assumes all must be cheery. So Moses carves a new tunnel, boy I think we should turn back, but we all enter the next "room". Mickey looks up, and true there is a blue light like he's been looking for...but where's the hideout?

Rei opens the biomade door that lets us through the acrylic wall marked with First Mind runes. It looks lovely, but what is it doing way way way down here? We enter and are greeted by yet another self-important teenage punk, standing with his hand on white stone. Natural stone very much like what was suspended over my fellow vorax before the world exploded... He demands access to Rei's memories; it seems to be yet another brother. We all hold a breath as we wait for the word from Rei to defend her, but she seems scared. Honestly scared.

She acquiesces. Hopefully this guy isn't too clumsy while he's fishing around. I would NOT like to be around a biomade assassin when she looses every shred of sanity left of her already meager supply. Everything seems to go okay. Rei retains consciousness, and this guy - Nero, just leaves. Rei looks like she just barely avoided brawling with an angry supernova. That pretty-boy can't be that powerful, can he?

Once tension in the cavern room drained out, we took interest in the white stone again. Moses tried to get off a chunk with his ridiculously clunky and smelly machinery, but to no avail. Then Kiyoshi took one of his 'special' deep breaths and - wow - a minuscule shard brakes off. No wonder there's so much of this special stone here, if only runic First Mind blades can chip it! The stone tingles when I touch it..."mana"...he said. What is it?...

Moses and I peek out the door, after finding out from Nero that HE altered Mickey's mind to get us here, so now we had to find the real safe house. A couple of steps later *WHAM* I kid you not, a cart full of black rock hurtles past me and plows into Moses. A voice, "Stop trying to recruit us, we're not interested in fighting your battles!"

To make a long story short, the voice belonged to a Gogajin who was the de facto leader of a large bunch of male donkey-sons. I'm surprised that I didn't pass out from the excess of testosterone in one cave. This leader and Moses admired each other's ability to play catch with carts of ore, then they took us home and got drunk. They got drunk, most of my lot rested, and much dancing and revelry was had at the finding of - well- me. The first vorax they had seen in a very long time. *sigh* What bittersweet revelry.

2 comments:

Aric Clark said...

Yay! the post is complete.

Ah, so many details yet to be revealed, so much exposition yet to come. What are these runes? What is whiterock? What is Nero after? What did he find in Rei's head? Does the GM actually know any of this or will he just make it up as he goes along?

Anonymous said...

You write very well.


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