You're an immune cell, taking out threats to the world's body.
So are the others, no matter how much they may try to run and hide.
Talos has decreed.
Our silence serves no purpose, we get drafted anyway.
Adventure awaits for the willing and unwilling alike.
What is a job?
A thing of the past, when horologs weren't being pissed on.
There is no point to your ruminations, Sar'kana Sav Syrakh. Drink your pathetic excuse for tea and get back on patrol.
Somewhere in the wastelunds, a lone fay sits in her interceptor; a brazen soul craving stimulation, stormhog with nothing to fix.
Something to do, something to solve.
Something to prove, something to absolve.
We'll call her Sara; complex names don't have much use out here.
Sara looks into a feeding horn, quietly waiting for dirty water to reach the boiling point. Where does the warmth come from?
Magic.
Still must obey the laws of thermodynamics.
Smart magic.
Looking at her horolog, twenty-nine seconds have passed. There's more waiting to be done. Sara sighs.
Impatience in the absence of any real need.
Child's play.
Let a girl have this.
Peering out into the wasteland, she sees the same thing she saw thirty seconds before; a rhythmorod pulsing with power, fed by the musical pulse of a faraway hurnamid. From this vast distance, the pyramid barely peeks over the horizon, horned prongs radiating a multi-color glow, fluctuating between chromatic alignments; those that live in these lands, all according to their needs.
She can see at least three settlements within the rhythmorod's protective shroud; built over water wells that regenerate, by means you don't have to worry your pretty little head over. Speaking of water, a meek ding catches Sara's attention. She looks down at the feeding horn; water boils behind a transparent plastic surface.
"Excellent."
She reaches into the glove compartment, takes out a bag filled with strange herbs. These are not from the lunds her interceptor is currently parked in, nor of any lund in general. On closer sniff-spection, these are cut up leaves from a rare plant; found only in the aerials, in between realms that separate the surface from the hateful sun.
Grand Crezip, nothing better to calm the wait.
Sara opens the feeding horn's iris and waits for the filth to radiate out. Once she's satisfied, in go the tea leaves. It's not completely clean though. Not even sure this method of purification is effective.
I went beyond the realm of caring several centuries ago. Besides, it adds to the flavor.
The normal ritual of creating leaf water commences, giving Sara some time to drown herself in deep thoughts. Deep enough to reach her soul, to commence in metaphysical time. Meta ruminations, if you will.
Three mankinds walk into a bar. Tyling, dworf and fay. The ghoulish bartender asks what they'll be having.
The tyling says "I'll have a little bit of everything, let me try!"
The dworf says "Give me the strongest you have, I'm staying!"
The fay says "Give me some for the road, I'm leaving."
Three species, evolving in different environments.
Different hairless apes, varying degrees of hairy.
I am reminded of that one creature, no more than a sack of bones with leather stretched over it...this creature chose to starve.
Why?
We never found the answer.
Inconclusive Evidence.
So the debt rises, where does that leave us?
Nothing has changed.
It's one mystery amongst thousands, insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
I disagree.
Why?
We do not have photographic memory.
Wouldn't choose to remember anything unless it meant something.
...
There is-
Philosophic deliberations within her soul are cut off by sudden horncore blaring in her radome. The thrumball spins in its slut, producing noize, throwing it in Sara's face like a bad idea. She's startled, but this is routine. Centuries of the usual. Before the riffs can even start in earnest, she touches the thrumball to claim the song, anxious others in her cohort might jump on it.
Images of water being poured down uncontested pipes. Fleshy windpipes. Sharing is caring, or so they claim. Chromatic discord radiates from the rhythmorod not even a klometron away from me.
Shouldn't we read into the music a little more?
What else is there?
Need to move before I bore myself to death!
"I'm near, taking this one."
Turning the ignition, the interceptor roars to life. Sara drives down to the rhythmorod; the metallic spike stabs up into the air, honest attempt at any noize spewed out by the distant hurnamid. It takes her mere seconds to park the interceptor right outside the entrance.
She's not in a hurry.
She IS the hurry.
Stepping out of her interceptor, something feels off kilter. There is no putting fingers on it, Sara feels the out-of-whack from the rhythmorod right away. Her raspirator is straining a bit more to repel invasive Runes in the ambience, the eir-filters draining much faster than before.
Can't place the alignment for now, too much noize.
She enters the rhythmorod. Whatever invaded her gut feeling has shaken her stride...something in the building is acting a bit silly. A tinge of goof, pulsating in the heavy zaturation.
Hard to tell through all the Noize, even with all the nuxlar dampeners.
She advances, keeping her eyes peeled for anything out of the norm. Typical nuxlar neerogs, strapped into their pods, copper wires leading into the air spike's base. The heart of the rhythmorod; throbbing with heavy metal energy just yearning to discharge where needed.
She sees something funny. Deeper inside, behind the spike; one of the pods is slightly ajar.
Bad closure, someone was in a hurry.
Must've heard us coming.
Interceptor is rather loud, isn't it?
So, whoever it is, can't feel the noize.
Sara steps closer to inspect the damper pod with more clarity. A body that should radiate dork, radiates psychana instead. Sara contacts her Marshal. Riffs blare in her pointy ears, but she remains unfazed.
"Going to need a new neerog in a rhythmorod..." She looks at a local map in her tulva, which hovers in front of her face because magic. "...one-hundred and sixteen degrees; thirty-seven kloms, bring-"
Sara hears a pin drop behind her. She whirls around just in time to realize that it's not a pin at all, but a man armed with murder!
She manages to dodge the knife strike, there is no time to grab her blaster; she regrets not drawing any weapon sooner, cursing her own impulses.
The man tries to stab her again; critical failure.
Sara's palm crackles with pink electricity, she plants her palm on his torso; his body convulses comically, he falls prone.
Making extra sure he's dead, Sara blasts him with magic lightning; twenty-nine seconds of constant ZAP, and his heart stops forever.
Out of immediate danger, the fay carefully inspects the intruder's corpse, her discoveries taking her to a new location.
I know these overalls...
A neerog aqua-miner from nearby, the pattern matches those owned by the Daal-theans.
Any of their compounds nearby?
Affirmitave, several klometrons; we have enough go-juice for the mine itself and then the compound.
Excellent, though one thing still bothers me: what's this liquid in his feeding horn? Surely not tea.
Bathwater.
...lo and behold, the Princess Pool continues to spread; like a venereal disease...kirmelle.
Sara arrives at the water mine; driving took roughly one hour. The town itself is completely abandoned, no signs of life visible anywhere.
Alarming.
There's at least dozens of thrashers inside, possibly the entire village.
Zaturation in the air confirms a chromazone, the alignment still eludes us due to heavy noize nearby.
Let's go in and investigate!
Bollocks to that.
Stormhog or not, we don't know the terrain and they outnumber us.
Got a better plan?
Peek this.
Sara taps into the Helhound's frequency, and requests numbskull backup on her chords. She has to wait for them arrive, another few hours; when they do, their numbers fall somewhere between "plenty" and "fuck-ton". Many bikes, and a few kaggs. Sara's ears point upwards, two knives reaching for the sky to indicate her surprise. There are at least two dozens of them, by her initial calculations.
That's at least one-fourth of our strider's neerog population!
Probably should've been more clear about the severity of the threat…Oh dear, here they come; I'm surrounded!
The brazen numbskulls scramble off their bikes; out of their kaggs, and sprint towards her shouting with excitement. A raggedy ensemble of eager neerogs, ready to do a stormhog's bidding with no sense of self-preservation.
"Got sum for'us?!"
Sara takes a deep breath, and carefully points at the mine entrance.
"I heard some thrasher's in-" she's cut off by all of the numbskulls screaming; they run into the cave brandishing their weapons. Sara stands outside the mine, listening to the carnage taking place inside the dark; for at least a few minutes.
So eager, those numbskulls.
Do you have a reward prepared?
"...kirmelle!"
Realizing two things: the carnage is nearing its conclusion, and there is a distinct lack of numbskull reward in her pockets.
The Marshal will force me to sleep in the same room as Duncan again.
She looks inside her interceptor, nothing. Out of time and options, Sara contacts a certain dworf woman on her tulva.
++ ring ring ++
...
++ ring ring ++
...
++ FUCKING RING RING ++
...
A click, the other end finally answers. Sara can hear the numbskulls coming back, she must make haste!
++ Yes, bestie? ++
Luna Lucretzia's face fills up the small screen, her sideburns especially greasy today. "Luzy, need another favor, can you-"
++ Okay, I'll do it. ++
Just like before, and the hundreds of times this has happened throughout the centuries, Sara is dumbfounded by the lack of hesitation. "You don't even know what-
They're at the entrance. She better hurry, unless she wants to witness another mass suicide. "Doesn't matter, they're here!"
++ Good luck, darling! ++
Luzy manages to wink before Sara cuts the feed and focuses on the two dozens of Numbskulls gathering in front of her, eager beyond imagination. They're waiting for their reward. Sara gulps, hoping what she's about to pull out of her ass is enough.
"Good work, numbskulls. Your reward is another free lovecraft session with Luna Lucretzia!" Dumb, drooling expressions is all she gets. She can hear their brains struggling to comprehend what she just said.
Why are they like this again?
Puts less pressure on the shubs if we spawn them dumb.
Ah, of course.
Clapping her hands together to grab their drifting attention, Sara tries again; this time she'll speak on their bandwith.
"Free fucky wit stunty, hairy sheila tonite. All ye can nom." They all cheer dumbly and scramble back into their vehicles; hopping on bikes hard enough to hurt groins regardless of gender, filling up kaggs to bursting. Numbskulls drive off into the horizon, excited and horny.
With all of that taken care of, Sara enters the mines with her blaster out just in case. On her way into the depths, she mentally marks down details for every body, approximating weight for each one. She's no Tally; she can't tell exactly how heavy they are by sight alone. What she has is more than good enough, insecurities be damned.
We're close, I can feel the chromazone's zaturation reaching terminal atrocity.
Sara clutches her raspirator, the filters in the mask working frantically to repel the runic miasma. It's at this point Sara can definitively identify the chromatic alignment.
Magenta.
Ermagerd, same!
Suspicions confirmed, it really is derived from the Princess Pool.
Question is, how did it get this far?
Stowaway on a strider?
Plausible.
With ours?
Impossible.
There's no way any of us wouldn't notice.
Not all of us are always paying attention.
I would've entertained that theory if Duncan wasn't with us.
That blonde bloodhound spots thrashers before they even develop a dwolm.
Point taken.
Finally, she arrives at the bottom, where the chromazone is laid bare for her to see. A magentic lake sitting vertically at the end of the mineshaft, where an aqua-miner's pick presumably struck. Tendrils of watery magenta flow out of the "lake", seeking anyone to misalign. Sara thinks back to all the bodies, how none of the alignments were of magenta; the most common chromatic alignment in the Mythos.
Must've eaten them all, no remains to find.
What remains must be the few miners with different alignments.
She makes another mental note, thinking she'll have to inform the local Daal-thean cloister about what happened. The chromazone pulsates in response to her alignment; Sara feels warm all of a sudden, not in a good way.
Right, let's get this over with.
Sara takes out a knife hidden in her boot. The lake of magenta pulsates panic when its own amaranthine light bounces off the metal's coppery sheen. The tendrils of wet magenta try in vain to hurt Sara, but her compatible alignment makes the metaphysical moisture sploosh harmlessly as she advances menacinly towards the bubbling wall.
That reminds me, our tea must be cold by now, no?
It is.
Ah, no matter. I'll warm it up agai-
You accidentally spilled it when scrambling for a numbskull reward.
"Kirmelle!" Sara curses under her breath, casually stabbing the chromazone into nonexistence. The metaphysical disaster drops into the gulf, where it finally dies after eons of persistence.
Sara sheathes her copper knife, and leaves the mine. Entering the interceptor, she ponders her next destination while driving towards it.
I'll ponder my next destination while driving towards it. Ponderings such as: ‘where is it?'
These mountains have many twists and turns, there is a slight issue in navigating a natural labyrinth of this size.
Not to mention the hostile wildlife, wandering halo's tend to be their namesake; seeing them floating close to the lunds isn't unheard of, mountains would be their first stop.
Chance of syrigg?
According to sensors, slim to none.
Need to plan my approach. What do I know about the local daal-thean chapter?
Are they nice, or has their memory of past atrocities never waned?
A moot point.
We're female.
Well and good, we've arrived.
The sun's glare is long gone by the time she arrives at the well-hidden mountain monastery; the gates are still lit up, the walls manned by robed women. When they notice Sara's interceptor, a silent alarm only they can hear blares across the monastery. Little do they know, Sara's pointy ears can hear the frequency. She's well aware of their suspicion before their blasters are even trained on her interceptor.
"Step out of the kagg with your hands up!" one of them barks.
Well, I'll be damned...this chapter upgraded from bows and arrows!
Will wonders never cease.
Sara steps out of her vehicle, hands reaching for the night sky. A search light illuminates her, revealing her violet skin, sweat stained from today's sun glare. Noticing her lithe, feminine figure, the daal'theans lower their guard slightly. "How did you find us, outlander?"
Sara turns her left hand so that the back of it is clearly visible to them, and "flashes her badge" as they say; a glowing brand materializes on her backhand, four ᛏ Runes arranged in an X-pattern. It sizzles with metaphysical energy that no chromatic alignment has any power over. Sara knows this, her cohort knows this, and so does anyone in the Mythos; a result of stories carried through word of mouth.
"The Talos brand, all the way out here?! Something terrible has happened, sisters!" says one of the younger daal'theans, clearly not aware that Sara can hear her just fine. The more mature among them realizes how strong a fay's hearing really is, and chastizes the younger sister for her carelessness. Sara shrugs, not really caring in the slightest.
"Can I come in? I can hear you perfectly fine, but I'd prefer not to shout."
The gates open, and Sara drives the interceptor inside. She exits the kagg again, and waits for a sister to approach her for talks. For the second time today, she's surrounded; this time by daal'theans clearly suffering from nervous apprehension. One of them steps towards Sara, her robes clearly indicating a high-rank.
"Sister Superior, I presume?" The boss sister nods; Sara bows graciously. "A pleasure. My name is Sar'kana Sav Syrach. I'm afraid I bear ill tidings, and-"
"Your mere presence spells ill tidings. Out with it, bronze. The hour is late." says Sister Superior, her eyes heavy with disturbed sleep.
"One of your aquamines accidentally uncovered a chromazone. Everyone is dead." Sara drops the news deadpan. The crowd becomes agitated, their frenzied whispers letting Sara know more about this monastery's situation.
Let's break it down: It was their only aquamine; there are no more to be found for thousands of kloms in every direction; they'll have to stop producing brundy, meaning their neerogs will have to be put down.
Got all of that?
No, I was thinking about the tea...
The sister superior calls for silence, as she addresses Sara once again. "Bronze, is there nothing to be done to save the mine? We have limited cwenpower," so much hatred for males, they refuse to even say ‘manpower'. A level of spite that could rival Slam Duncan. "due to our war with a local gang. Surely-"
Sara cuts her off with a sharp hand gesture, her wisp-thin patience running shorter than a dworf in tar. "If you're talking about the Myriocks, my fellow stormhogs took care of them earlier today, shortly before I took out the chromazone in the mine."
There is a collective sigh of relief. The sister superior orders a group of about two dozen sisters to go out to the mine and secure it.
It'll take some time for it to get back on its feet completely, but all in all...things will work out.
Job's done, time to find a safe place to sleep.
As Sara prepares to leave, the sister superior grabs her attention. "Would you like a reward, bronze?"
What am I? A numbskull?
...
"Yes, please."
Sister Superior snaps her fingers, sending a few other sisters running to fetch something. They come back minutes later holding two bottles of brundy; presenting the bottles to Sara like treasures from a forgotten age, when the sun's hatred hadn't reached terminal atrocity.
Sara thanks them, and drives off. The day is now officially over, all that's left is gemwork. She decides to leave it until next morning, when she has to return to the Helhound. She drives back to the same rocky outcropping this episode started in; parking her interceptor in the exact same position, she takes out her feeding horn and fills it with filthy water from the interceptor's water reserves. Looking at the last tea bag; cut up leaves from a rare plant, she smirks.
"Right, let's try this again."
She goes through the routine, boiling the water with magic and waiting impatiently; once it boils, she puts the tea bag in, dunks it, and waits. After what feels like hours to her, the tea is finally done.
"At last, I can-"
Horncore blares in her radome, startling her so bad she drops the feeding horn into her lap; boiling hot leaf water scorches her crotch.
