Post by echidna on Apr 2, 2013 17:16:31 GMT -5
Once again, Samhain found himself questioning the wisdom of this mission.
Chicago was not the Brood's back yard (not by a long way, they were hundreds of miles away from The Maw) and its tunnels ran deep. It was no wonder the Vivern (the nocturnal giant spider-like creatures of the brood) had chosen them as her home, he thought, it was like the place was designed for them. That would have been fine... there were plenty of rats of all sizes for them to eat, and given that few humans seemed to venture into the depths, this would have been a lovely arrangement - Mother had approved, given the growing food shortage in The Maw.
That is... until she found something. Samhain's eyes darkened a little, and his grip on the LDR50 carbine tightened. Wardens were not given to spiritual introspection (they didn't have to wonder on the existence of gods; they knew they existed and that is not the same thing as faith) but the thought of the blue, the glow that caused her to go insane, and he found himself wishing he'd thought more on the subject.
To be truthful, the Tactician Samhain, current leader of the Deathwalker warrior squad had been thinking a lot about the gods lately. He was closer to death than a lot of others, and he'd stared his demise in the face in Amity Park, nearly suffering the same fate as the Deathwalkers' previous leader - his brother. Would gods accept them? Or were there gods for Raveners? There were gods... were there demons? Could they be damned? Did they have a... he stopped himself there. He couldn't let his squadmates know he thought like this - it would do nothing for their morale... but even so, it bothered the Warden to his core.
The darkness would have comforted him if he didn't know what it contained. Viverns had gone insane in the past - they would eat almost anything, despite their malign intelligence and usually that meant it turned on just about anything alive... but before, they had been able to be helped. So when it came across the blue substance, the glowing object in the deepest parts... well, rats had nibbled the stuff too, the cave she had found it in was littered with big fat ones. Mother had forbidden her to eat the blue substance... so she'd eaten the rats instead. It'd taken... maybe two weeks for her to start aching, to start hallucinating, to transmit intense rage across the link. To protect the Brood from the influence, Mother had forcibly removed her - Severed her.
A spike of apprehension made him wince as the thought of severance assailed him. By the way their hides momentarily tensed as they silently tromped through the shadowy halls, his comrades caught a wiff of that from him and thought about it too. Severance... was a terrible fate. Only one Warden had ever suffered that, and he took his own life in a day, so... dreadful was the sensation of ultimate isolation from a connection they were born into. The Brood was there for you... every waking moment since you were able to think. The thought of being alone, of not knowing their mother loved them... it was terrifying to Wardens. Samhain prayed silently to any gods that would listen that the rogue Vivern had done something similar... the thought of facing one that had truly gone mad... it wasn't one he relished.
Samhain was a young Warden - by their standards, that meant his consciousness had existed for nine months, sixteen days. His coat was jet black and, unusually, had splashes of dark red that wreathed his eyes and made patterns in his coat. He wore the Tactician's mantle - a metal helmet made from interlocking plates that ran down his snout and over the back of his head, bound to him with red cloth woven into his mane. He stood at seven feet, nine inches - about average for Wardens his age (Maybe twenty by his peoples' standards) - and the Schuller LDR50 sniper rifle had been modified for his use, with a lengthened grip, ironsights, reinforced trigger and a retooled carbine format. It was his baby, his most prized posession. The .50 caliber rounds it required were hard to make and he'd only found a few... but, as the gunsmith Naucilles had said, it was a fine weapon, and he'd made it his own.
He did a check of his bretheren, not so much turning to look as simply... feeling out for them.
Lohir was beside himself with excitement, and this was not unusual - Samhain had never understood how on earth the brown-coated, black-spotted warden could be so... untouched. The youth had fought beside him like a demon in the battle of Amity Park, he'd seen death and stared it in the face, he'd watched his leader die and then wordlessly disemboweled the human who'd done it. He was three months older than Samhain and four inches shorter, a good deal more slight of build and one of the finest warriors in the Brood. Human weapons, let alone body armor, were not a popular choice among Wardens but after Amity Park, more than a few had seen their usefulness - Lohir among them. He was a better marksman than Samhain himself, but automatic weapons were too distracting for Tacticians (who relied on their ability to concentrate) to wield reliably, so Lohir used one of the assault rifles Armacham had used to rain hell upon his bretheren - and no other Warden used one so fluidly. The youth wore an armored vest, a harness he'd looted, and he wrapped his forearms and hands. Lohir chose his name in battle, and it wasn't just his job - it was his passion. Samhain could just visualize Lohir's little grin - the flame of his excitement was as familiar to him as it was comforting.
Lohir's larger brother, Argus, a massive nine foot tall Warden, had not been so fortunate. The duo were dervishes in Amity, back to back until the RPG struck Argus in the left arm. That was just... bad luck. He'd lost that arm, and the blow did terrible damage to the left side of his face and his organs, but even so the monster of a warrior had managed to put six spines through his attacker's sternum at six hundred paces in under two seconds, and he'd just been... too damn stubborn to die. He cauterized his wounded arm, and despite delirium at the blow to his head and the blood rushing from his mouth and ears, he killed four other soldiers before going down. They hadn't been able to save his arm because of the cauterization but the Scientist, the human known as Charlie, bless her, had made for him... an arm to replace it, and a plate for the left side of his face. The rest had been a matter of recovery. Argus had been a bit more like Lohir before that - vibrant, excited for life, but he had been so close to Samhain's brother - after Amity, he was just never the same. Lohir and Argus did not talk about it, but Argus was dreaming almost every time they rested about Amity Park, and it weighed on him. Fresh was the wound, and Samhain didn't know how to even approach the subject with him.
Haimish was a strange one. He shared the psychic talent with the leader, but he was not one of them... at least, not yet. He was a Sympaton - even the word among them was relatively new, and by a long way he was the eldest among them. He was almost two years old now, and he had been there, steady, reliable, and professional pretty much from the moment any of them had opened their eyes. He was like... a father figure, someone they could lean on. He was a brother, but... a big brother. After Amity, he wasn't about to let the group go off to do this alone, despite that they'd voulenteered. It was Haimish's unfortunate fate to be fascinated with the world, and with medicine in particular. His philosophy about living energy had been instrumental in Mother's development of the healing matrix, and the thought of something that could mutate one of her children, drive them mad... he'd been fascinated before when Viverns went a bit haywire, and his work had seen more than one cured of their affliction. His participation was more than convenient, it was almost expected!
Two weeks ago, they had left the Maw and headed west, taking refuge as they found it in daylight and moving cross country at night. There had been plenty to eat, and it had been Haimish's call that they should avoid any and all human foodstuffs for the journey beyond what they had taken with them.
To say things had gone smoothly at first was a terrible lie - once the foodstuffs they were used to ran dry, the squad had been distinctly displeased with him... But it had been good, hadn't it, when they brought down that creature together? What had Haimish called it? A Deer? They got all the food they needed for a week from just one, and the Sympaton, who had traveled like this before and eaten of these creatures already, had taught them to dress and quarter it, how to cure the meat, and suddenly it was like a door had opened. These creatures, these 'deer' didn't live on Manhattan, favoring instead the forests and areas away from the large cities they were so familiar with. Suddenly, the idea of human-made foodstuffs... Was second best. Remarkable.
Negotiating their way into Chicago's underworld had been... Interesting. The Windy City was... So much different from NYC and Gotham. It was... Or at least it felt taller, more... Structured, less... Friendly. Towers of glass and steel barked at the moon and growled at gravity and the treacherous winds that shook windows at higher elevations. Its industrial parks were... Old, hinting at eras of prosperity that came and went in bursts. Architecture in the city spoke of this as well, and of brilliant minds making humble and not so humble contributions.
Simply put, it was not home.
This had been made pointedly clear when they did at last make their way into the city's belly. There were people there, living under all the modern brutalism and unashamed businesslike coldness of the city. They stared hard at the darkness as they warmed themselves beside drums and generally said little. Any sound the squad made felt... Felt... In a way, like an intrusion into the hush of some temple. The deeper they went... the more they felt that they did not belong here. Humans did not come down here. That was no comfort.
The silent watchers on the dark underside of the city's population were so much better than the silence, broken only by the breath in their lungs, the distant occasional roar of the train systems above, and ancient drains dripping their foul contents into shallow, stagnant pools. This place did not want them here - the feeling chased them all the way down as they followed the Vivern's trail... Ever downward into silence.
Chicago was not the Brood's back yard (not by a long way, they were hundreds of miles away from The Maw) and its tunnels ran deep. It was no wonder the Vivern (the nocturnal giant spider-like creatures of the brood) had chosen them as her home, he thought, it was like the place was designed for them. That would have been fine... there were plenty of rats of all sizes for them to eat, and given that few humans seemed to venture into the depths, this would have been a lovely arrangement - Mother had approved, given the growing food shortage in The Maw.
That is... until she found something. Samhain's eyes darkened a little, and his grip on the LDR50 carbine tightened. Wardens were not given to spiritual introspection (they didn't have to wonder on the existence of gods; they knew they existed and that is not the same thing as faith) but the thought of the blue, the glow that caused her to go insane, and he found himself wishing he'd thought more on the subject.
To be truthful, the Tactician Samhain, current leader of the Deathwalker warrior squad had been thinking a lot about the gods lately. He was closer to death than a lot of others, and he'd stared his demise in the face in Amity Park, nearly suffering the same fate as the Deathwalkers' previous leader - his brother. Would gods accept them? Or were there gods for Raveners? There were gods... were there demons? Could they be damned? Did they have a... he stopped himself there. He couldn't let his squadmates know he thought like this - it would do nothing for their morale... but even so, it bothered the Warden to his core.
The darkness would have comforted him if he didn't know what it contained. Viverns had gone insane in the past - they would eat almost anything, despite their malign intelligence and usually that meant it turned on just about anything alive... but before, they had been able to be helped. So when it came across the blue substance, the glowing object in the deepest parts... well, rats had nibbled the stuff too, the cave she had found it in was littered with big fat ones. Mother had forbidden her to eat the blue substance... so she'd eaten the rats instead. It'd taken... maybe two weeks for her to start aching, to start hallucinating, to transmit intense rage across the link. To protect the Brood from the influence, Mother had forcibly removed her - Severed her.
A spike of apprehension made him wince as the thought of severance assailed him. By the way their hides momentarily tensed as they silently tromped through the shadowy halls, his comrades caught a wiff of that from him and thought about it too. Severance... was a terrible fate. Only one Warden had ever suffered that, and he took his own life in a day, so... dreadful was the sensation of ultimate isolation from a connection they were born into. The Brood was there for you... every waking moment since you were able to think. The thought of being alone, of not knowing their mother loved them... it was terrifying to Wardens. Samhain prayed silently to any gods that would listen that the rogue Vivern had done something similar... the thought of facing one that had truly gone mad... it wasn't one he relished.
Samhain was a young Warden - by their standards, that meant his consciousness had existed for nine months, sixteen days. His coat was jet black and, unusually, had splashes of dark red that wreathed his eyes and made patterns in his coat. He wore the Tactician's mantle - a metal helmet made from interlocking plates that ran down his snout and over the back of his head, bound to him with red cloth woven into his mane. He stood at seven feet, nine inches - about average for Wardens his age (Maybe twenty by his peoples' standards) - and the Schuller LDR50 sniper rifle had been modified for his use, with a lengthened grip, ironsights, reinforced trigger and a retooled carbine format. It was his baby, his most prized posession. The .50 caliber rounds it required were hard to make and he'd only found a few... but, as the gunsmith Naucilles had said, it was a fine weapon, and he'd made it his own.
He did a check of his bretheren, not so much turning to look as simply... feeling out for them.
Lohir was beside himself with excitement, and this was not unusual - Samhain had never understood how on earth the brown-coated, black-spotted warden could be so... untouched. The youth had fought beside him like a demon in the battle of Amity Park, he'd seen death and stared it in the face, he'd watched his leader die and then wordlessly disemboweled the human who'd done it. He was three months older than Samhain and four inches shorter, a good deal more slight of build and one of the finest warriors in the Brood. Human weapons, let alone body armor, were not a popular choice among Wardens but after Amity Park, more than a few had seen their usefulness - Lohir among them. He was a better marksman than Samhain himself, but automatic weapons were too distracting for Tacticians (who relied on their ability to concentrate) to wield reliably, so Lohir used one of the assault rifles Armacham had used to rain hell upon his bretheren - and no other Warden used one so fluidly. The youth wore an armored vest, a harness he'd looted, and he wrapped his forearms and hands. Lohir chose his name in battle, and it wasn't just his job - it was his passion. Samhain could just visualize Lohir's little grin - the flame of his excitement was as familiar to him as it was comforting.
Lohir's larger brother, Argus, a massive nine foot tall Warden, had not been so fortunate. The duo were dervishes in Amity, back to back until the RPG struck Argus in the left arm. That was just... bad luck. He'd lost that arm, and the blow did terrible damage to the left side of his face and his organs, but even so the monster of a warrior had managed to put six spines through his attacker's sternum at six hundred paces in under two seconds, and he'd just been... too damn stubborn to die. He cauterized his wounded arm, and despite delirium at the blow to his head and the blood rushing from his mouth and ears, he killed four other soldiers before going down. They hadn't been able to save his arm because of the cauterization but the Scientist, the human known as Charlie, bless her, had made for him... an arm to replace it, and a plate for the left side of his face. The rest had been a matter of recovery. Argus had been a bit more like Lohir before that - vibrant, excited for life, but he had been so close to Samhain's brother - after Amity, he was just never the same. Lohir and Argus did not talk about it, but Argus was dreaming almost every time they rested about Amity Park, and it weighed on him. Fresh was the wound, and Samhain didn't know how to even approach the subject with him.
Haimish was a strange one. He shared the psychic talent with the leader, but he was not one of them... at least, not yet. He was a Sympaton - even the word among them was relatively new, and by a long way he was the eldest among them. He was almost two years old now, and he had been there, steady, reliable, and professional pretty much from the moment any of them had opened their eyes. He was like... a father figure, someone they could lean on. He was a brother, but... a big brother. After Amity, he wasn't about to let the group go off to do this alone, despite that they'd voulenteered. It was Haimish's unfortunate fate to be fascinated with the world, and with medicine in particular. His philosophy about living energy had been instrumental in Mother's development of the healing matrix, and the thought of something that could mutate one of her children, drive them mad... he'd been fascinated before when Viverns went a bit haywire, and his work had seen more than one cured of their affliction. His participation was more than convenient, it was almost expected!
Two weeks ago, they had left the Maw and headed west, taking refuge as they found it in daylight and moving cross country at night. There had been plenty to eat, and it had been Haimish's call that they should avoid any and all human foodstuffs for the journey beyond what they had taken with them.
To say things had gone smoothly at first was a terrible lie - once the foodstuffs they were used to ran dry, the squad had been distinctly displeased with him... But it had been good, hadn't it, when they brought down that creature together? What had Haimish called it? A Deer? They got all the food they needed for a week from just one, and the Sympaton, who had traveled like this before and eaten of these creatures already, had taught them to dress and quarter it, how to cure the meat, and suddenly it was like a door had opened. These creatures, these 'deer' didn't live on Manhattan, favoring instead the forests and areas away from the large cities they were so familiar with. Suddenly, the idea of human-made foodstuffs... Was second best. Remarkable.
Negotiating their way into Chicago's underworld had been... Interesting. The Windy City was... So much different from NYC and Gotham. It was... Or at least it felt taller, more... Structured, less... Friendly. Towers of glass and steel barked at the moon and growled at gravity and the treacherous winds that shook windows at higher elevations. Its industrial parks were... Old, hinting at eras of prosperity that came and went in bursts. Architecture in the city spoke of this as well, and of brilliant minds making humble and not so humble contributions.
Simply put, it was not home.
This had been made pointedly clear when they did at last make their way into the city's belly. There were people there, living under all the modern brutalism and unashamed businesslike coldness of the city. They stared hard at the darkness as they warmed themselves beside drums and generally said little. Any sound the squad made felt... Felt... In a way, like an intrusion into the hush of some temple. The deeper they went... the more they felt that they did not belong here. Humans did not come down here. That was no comfort.
The silent watchers on the dark underside of the city's population were so much better than the silence, broken only by the breath in their lungs, the distant occasional roar of the train systems above, and ancient drains dripping their foul contents into shallow, stagnant pools. This place did not want them here - the feeling chased them all the way down as they followed the Vivern's trail... Ever downward into silence.
