Right then, Chapter Two. Introduces one of the 'natives' of the new region, and gives some very minor background for those of you unfamiliar with the Elder Scrolls series.
Shield Shiefson ripped the wooden shafted arrow from the body of a slain deer. He flicked off the bulk of the blood, wiping it once on his pant leg before returning it to his quiver with the rest of his arrows.
He laid aside his family heirloom bow, a masterpiece of long since forgotten Elven craftsmanship. One of his distant ancestors had acquired it directly from one of the famed craftsmen of the Altmer, known as the High Elves to most other races of Tamriel.
Shield had left the cold northern land of Skyrim for the warmer climate of Cyrodiil some twelve years ago. Now, he was coming up on his thirtieth year, and his seventh as an Empire-sanctioned forester. The job paid him to do what he already wanted to do: live off the land, and use his prized bow.
Half his work was simply camping out in the woods. The other was split between hunting (for food or sport) and dealing with the occasional bandit. It certainly helped that the wealthy city of Skingrad was just south of his current encampment. Their level of security alone was enough to deter most potential criminals from even being near his location.
Shield lifted the body of the buck over his shoulders, shifting it and beginning his trek back to the small camp. He'd clean it there, where he knew he wouldn't be disturbed. He'd taken the liberty of setting up a few rope snares and iron-jawed bear traps, ensuring that nothing would get within twenty meters of his bedroll unless he wanted it to.
He was about fifty meters out when he heard the familiar snap of one of his bear trap's metal teeth. Instead of the usual howl or roar of a wounded animal, he heard a stream of shouts. Human sounds.
Shield dropped the deer, unlimbering his bow and nocking an arrow in one smooth motion. He could make out sounds ahead, but not the usual screams of pain that accompanied a man's leg being cut to the bone. Shield had even seen shorter men lose legs at the knee to such traps.
Instead of agony, it sounded like…cursing. Shield couldn't understand whatever language the voice was in, but he had more than enough life experience to recognize profanity when he heard it. Still, it didn't change the fact that a foreigner sounded more annoyed than anything after having set off one of Sheild's more lethal traps.
A second voice followed, a combination of surprise and mirth from the sound of it, apparently responding to the first's predicament. Either the unfortunate man's companion was a sadist, or the injury was so insubstantial that laughter was appropriate. Shield pressed himself against a tree, taking only a slow look as he grew closer to the men.
There were only two, but with each decked from head to toe in armor, Shield wasn't about to let his guard down. One was prying open the beartrap still attached to his leg, biting his armored leg below his knee. The powerful springs had irritated him to no end, but it hadn't even penetrated the armor. It looked like faded steel or iron, but had to have been much stronger for the trap to leave little more than a few scratches. Their helmets concealed their entire faces, and had a pair of tubes protruding from the lower portion, reaching back behind the helmet.
The first one flipped his middle finger to the second, then grabbed hold of either side of the bearstrap's jaws. With a metallic screech, the trap snapped in two as he pulled in apart at an angle. Shield hastily pulled his head back, taking a quick and deep breath. Few natural things had strength like that, and what few that did were rarely benevolent.
Even worse than their armor were their weapons. The one who'd ripped apart the trap had picked up a massive, multi-barreled weapon, with a trailing strip of iron that led back to a large backpack. The other held a much smaller weapon, but it, too, was alien to Shield. Both weapons (assuming that's what they were) seemed vaguely reminiscent of some of the magical artifacts that he'd seen. He'd also seen the destructive power that such arcane constructs could hold, even in the hands of those lacking any real combat skill.
Shield kept both hands on his weapon and listened. The two were still speaking in their foreign tongue, and still a good distance away. All he could do was wait and hope they didn't notice him. He didn't want to risk attacking with on the off chance that their bizarre armor could stop arrows.
"Aw, man," Laura laughed, bracing herself on her knees, "I can't believe you didn't see that thing."
"Fuck you," Carter kicked the broken bear trap, mangled by his efforts to pry it off his leg, "Didn't see you trying to warn me."
"I could have done that, sure," Laura propped her rifle against her shoulder, "But this way was a lot more entertaining to watch."
"Whatever," Carter grunted, pushing through the foliage with the assistance of his armor, "Maybe this at least means I can shoot the guy that set the damn thing…" He paused a moment, then looked back to Laura.
"Wait, so this means-"
"You just figured that out?" Laura raised an eyebrow behind her helmet, "Yes, of course it means that there are people here. What else would set a trap? Bears?"
"Well, it is a bear tr-"
"Just stop right there," Laura sighed, pushing past him and walking ahead, "Before you say anything else to make me think you're any more of an idiot."
"So's that it?" Carter shifted his weight to take some of the edge off the weight of his heavy minigun.
"Is what it?"
"That trap. Briggs said he wanted us to report back soon as we found a 'sign of civilization.' I'm guessin' the trap qualifies as that." As much as Laura hated to admit it, Carter had remembered their superior's order to a tee, and she'd planned on pushing on.
"Fine," she responded after a moment, "Did you remember to mark the distance?"
"Yeah, yeah," he used a free hand to check the small pace monitor hooked up to his multi-pouched belt, "We are…two-point-four miles out, east south-east."
"Alright," she stooped down and picked up the beartrap, "We'll take this back and see if Briggs has any use for it."
"Fine by me," Carter shouldered his minigun, "But you're carrying the damn thing."
Shield waited until the footsteps faded away, and then a short while more to ensure that they'd truly left. He took a slow glance around the tree trunk, scanning the trees while exposing as little of himself as he could. Nothing moved within his line of sight.
He took a few cautions steps out, keeping his bow out and an arrow nocked. He swept the weapon over the area, then allowed himself to relax some. He was only some ten meters away from his encampment. It took only a few seconds to get to his bedroll and, more importantly, the rucksack beside it. He sifted through the supplies he'd left inside, fishing out several items, among which were a piece of parchment and a crude pen.
Setting the parchment on a reasonably flat rock, Shield hastily scrawled his report. He tried to keep it as formal as possible, but he gave most priority to getting down the overall message of urgency and the nature of the problem.
Once the report had been completed, he took out a third item: a small, glass vial, stopped up with an aging cork. He pulled out the cork with a pop, taking care to pour no more than a single drop on the center of the page.
The magic-imbued liquid did its work quickly, despite the small quantity. The drop ignited the paper from the center, consuming it in a bright blue flame in an instant. Shield re-corked the bottle and returned it to his bag. Now, he would wait, and see whether or not his superiors deemed this situation to be important.
Dirge glanced around at the surrounding woods. He'd been able to navigate the wastes well enough to survive, but with this much greenery, everything looked like the same patch of forest, repeated ad nausem. Eulogy thought they might find something of interest by wandering the woods, but Dirge thought they'd be lucky to find their way back to camp.
A sharp whistle caught Dirge's attention. The chem-addict clicked back the hammer of his revolver, pushing his way through the foliage and to the source of the sound.
Dirge and Vince, the third member of the man scouting team, converged on Barret. Dirge was prepared to ask what the almost-mute had summoned them for, but it was obvious enough from what Barret had to his back: a carved stone structure was behind the soft-spoken pyromaniac, a protruding ring of columns with a stone circle mounted on top.
But more importantly was the relatively small structure the columns were mounted on, especially the spiraling staircase that sank into the stone to an engraved door.
"Hot damn," Vince whistled, shouldering his faded Type 56 rifle, "That's something, ain't it?"
"It's somethin'," Dirge tapped one of the stone columns with his pistol's barrel, "But that don't tell us what it is…"
Barret jumped down the steps, running a hand across the door. The symbols led down to the circle in the center, which protruded slightly. Barret turned the primer at the muzzle of his custom flamethrower, igniting the tiny blue flame that served as the weapon's ignition. He kept a hand on the molded grip and a finger over the trigger, letting the worn strap hold the bulk of the weapon's weight as his free hand pressed the stone circle.
He took a few quick steps back as the door groaned open, sliding apart at the middle and into a pair of recessions in the walls. He was tempted to fill the entrance with a burst of napalm, but that could alert any persons inside of the new presence, not to mention a waste of fuel.
Barret reached up to his vest and flicked on the miner's light attached there. The small but strong beam illuminated the darkness, sweeping from side to side, revealing a cramped hallway, followed by a drop, presumably more stairs.
"Hey," he called out, softly enough to avoid alerting anyone inside, but loudly enough for Dirge and Vince to hear. Dirge turned at the rare sound of Barret's voice, following it to climb down the stairs to his companion. Vince followed suit.
Barret gestured down the hall. Dirge got the messaged, and tapped Vince's shoulder before indicating Barret's next move. His general policy of silence allowed him to read the signs perfectly. He put both hands on his flamethrower, moving ahead of the other two on point.
Barret's flamethrower was both an upgrade and a downgrade from the original US Army model. He'd forgone the large backpack that had adorned the original, replacing it instead with an underslung, compact tank between the trigger and the foregrip. The barrel was a bit longer, with a custom painted shark's mouth cover on the front, charred from years of use. It would have been useless, if not dangerous, had Barret been in the middle of the formation, but in the rear or, especially the front, it was a valuable tool against anything in such confined quarters.
The staircase led down only a few flights before opening into a massive, dark chamber. Vince switched on his rifle's side-mounted flashlight, while Dirge simply held his own high-beam beside his revolver.
An abrupt burst of light caused all three to turn their weapons to the source: a hand-cut stone perched atop one of the short pillars that dotted the open room, glowing a gentle blue.
Dirge poked it with his revolver, half out of curiosity and half out of caution, then lifted it from its metal holder. He turned it over in his hands, looking for a power source. It wasn't particularly warm, nor was there any other means to light it up. It felt a bit lighter than it probably should have for a rock that, with the bulk of its weight concentrated at the wrought iron casing at the base.
"Can't find a battery…ain't hot, either. Hey, what's that word for those fangly-fish that glow without heating up?" Dirge turned to the others, holding out the stone, "Bio-somethin' or other?"
"Bio-luminescent," Barret answered without hesitation. Dirge raised an eyebrow at Barret. The pyro shrugged, then continued to look through the room. One of these days, Dirge would need to ask what he had done before they'd met. He was a lot brighter than most people gave him credit for.
"Hey," Vince called out, "Another one here!" He plucked the stone from its perch, slinging his assault rifle and reaching back to his rucksack. He unbuckled the top flap, dropping the stone into the mostly empty bag. He took another, and slowly the blue light began to bleed through the gaps in his bag.
"Keep it down," Dirge whispered, "We still don't know if anyone's in here."
"Yeah, right," Vince dropped another into his bag, clattering against the others, "Place's quiet as a grave. This is a damn ruin. All Indiana Jones' n' shit."
"Yeah, but those places were all riddled with traps."
"Whatever. You gonna help me carry some of these or not?"
A commonly cited fact about frogs: if you drop one in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. But, if you place it in normal water and slowly heat it, the frog will die before it realizes the fatal change in temperature.
As much as humans like to think otherwise, they're ultimately little more than animals with a particular adeptness for tools. This amphibious fact can be seen with humans, especially at this very moment with the trio within the Ayleid ruin.
Each of the glowing stones generated a comparatively small amount of light. When combined with the other stones in the room, they provided dim but nonetheless adequate lighting for the entire chamber, brushing away darkness from all but the high ceiling.
A small group of shadow-shrouded figures crawled along the ceiling, making use of their own strength and dexterity, not to mention the grooves long since carved into the stone. They bided their time, watching as the three humans snuffed out, one by one, the light that the stones provided. The change was gradual, and their own lights made it hard for the men to notice that they were, slowly but surely, plunging the chamber into total darkness.
One of the figures cocked its head, filthy back hair hanging past its face. It focused on one of the men, the loud one. Its eyes closed a moment, once a dull brown but otherwise normal, then opened. They turned a deep red, with reptilian slits for pupils. For the creature, the entire world was light up as bright as day, albeit with a red tint.
The prey was talking again in its foreign tongue, looking over to one of the others, grinning in its ignorance. The figure above dropped down, landing noiselessly behind the first man. The others above watched as it flexed its claw-like hands and bared its fanged teeth, hands dancing over the man's shoulders as its teeth plunged into his neck.
Vince screamed in pain as the thing's teeth sank into his skin, just where his neck met his shoulder. The wound spurted blood, some landing on the head of his flashlight, bathing the area in a dull red light.
"Jesus Christ! Get it off!" Dirge didn't need to be told twice. He lifted his revolver with one smooth motion and fired off a round, clipping Vince's shoulder but, more importantly, catching the thing behind him with the full force of the .44 Magnum round.
It skidded across the tiled floor, dripping Vince's blood from its mouth and its own blood from the hole in its right pectoral. It let out a feral screech, bending its knees and hurling itself forward towards Dirge with superhuman litheness.
Dirge's revolver boomed twice, the first bullet a rare miss. But the second caught it just beside its nose, blowing half its face off. The momentum from its jump carried it to crumple at Dirge's feet.
"Fuck! Up! UP!" Vince screamed, dropping his rifle and drawing his sidearm while his other hand pressed his still-pumping wound. Dirge and Barret both looked up, only to realize that a good five more of the things were right above them.
Barret let lose a stream of flames even as the attackers were falling towards the trio, engulfing one in incinerating flames. It landed with an unearthly screech, charging the pyromaniac despite the fires that engulfed it.
Dirge fired his revolver as one was reaching out to him, still airborne. Its fingers were nearly touching the barrel when the massive bullet blew its hand into chunks, scattering his fingers on the floor and showering Dirge in blood.
The beast landed, nearly naked except for a ragged loincloth. If Dirge hadn't seen what they were capable of, he could have mistaken them for horribly unkept humans. It swung its good hand, catching Dirge's arm and sending his revolver skittering across the floor. Dirge's eyes widened in surprise at the thing's speed as it struck his sternum with the bleeding stump that was its other hand, hurling him halfway across the chamber as more of its allies landed.
Dirge hit the ground hard, rolling across the floor to avoid being crushed by another falling figure, this one decked from head to chest in gleaming obsidian armor. It seemed better kept than the others, probably a leader of some sort. None of that was any concern to Dirge as he reached for his belt, drawing and firing his N99 10mm pistol.
The hollowpoint ammunition traded armor penetration for the ability to devastate muscle and flesh. The bullets were second to none against unarmored targets, which encompassed most creatures in the Wasteland, but were of significantly limited use against body armor. Despite its almost medieval appearance, the hulk's plate armor proved far sturdier than Dirge had hoped. The rounds sparked off his cuirass, denting it, but failing to penetrate. The man was unfazed by the new attack, reaching to his own hip and drawing a wicked shortsword.
Dirge pulled himself to his feet with a new weapon in hand, this time in the form of a syringe, bound to additional vials with brown tape. The auto-injector sent a cocktail of combat drugs into his system, spreading in seconds and taking affect in only a short time more. Hopefully, it would be long enough to have him ready before he'd get his head lopped off.
Vince's breath came out in gasps, due both to fear and pain, as he pulled the trigger of his Colt 1911. The eighth round sped from the chamber and punched a hole in his foe's shoulder. The bearded man looked down at the bloody hole, smirking and turning his demonic eyes back to the shocked slaver. The previous seven rounds had either missed or inflicted similarly useless wounds on the second half-naked creature that advanced on Vince as his pistol clicked empty.
The beast opened his mouth and bared his fangs as a torrent of flames consumed him, turning him into a screaming, dancing torch. Its companion whirled to the source as the butt of Barret's flamethrower smashed into his jaw, breaking teeth and sending him reeling.
The man recovered quickly, grabbing hold of the flamethrower's barrel and forcing it up as another stream of flames burned into the ceiling. It was clearly not happy about being anywhere near the intense flames, but proximity was clearly more preferable to outright consumption. Barret swore, trying to wrestle the weapon out of its grip.
Mustering the courage to help his savior, Vince tackled the creature from the side, throwing it off the weapon and landing in a heap beside it. He kicked one of his booted feet against its back as it flailed, trying to right itself, and pushing himself away from it. He covered his eyes as Barret turned the flamethrower on the thrashing creature, incinerating it with a continuous stream.
Dirge dropped his empty pistol, drawing his knife from its sheath behind him. But even in the dim light, he realized that he expensive-looking combat knife he'd stolen from the Enclave supply crates was noticeably more elaborate than he had noticed beforehand. In his haste to find something worth stealing, he'd simply picked what he thought was a sizable knife, not seeing the two-part grip or the large teeth that made up the serrated edge.
The armored man laughed at the smaller weapon, twirling his sword and swinging it in a downward slash. Dirge lifted his own weapon, catching the shortsword between the teeth of the blades. He pushed the high-tech weapon with his free hand, barely holding back the one-handed strike with both his own arms. The attacker laughed, revealing his fanged teeth. Dirge's grip began to give. The man's strength was almost far beyond the human norm, and only the Psycho running through his veins was allowing Dirge to hold as long as he was. In desperation, Dirge reinforced his grip with his free hand, involuntarily squeezing the second portion of the grip.
The weapon's roar filled the chamber, followed by the metallic wrench of the shortsword's blade being sheared from its hilt. Both men were frozen in shock for a few seconds, marveling as the teeth of the knife whirled like the edge of a chain saw. Dirge recovered first and saw the opening, forcing the aptly named 'ripper' past his guard and into his throat. The man gasped as the rotating blades bit into his unarmored neck, ripping their way through his windpipe.
"Who's laughing now, huh?" Dirge forced the blade further into his throat, oblivious to the spray of blood that splattered his face, "Who's laughing now?"
Dirge stopped the weapon's rampage when it started grinding against vertebrae. He tore it from the ragged gash that used to be his foe's neck, then let him topple like a felled tree.
He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself from the Psycho's rush. His fingers were still twitching, and would probably stay that way for a few hours. The drug had boosted his strength, reaction time, and endurance, but it had the nastiest withdraw of any of his addictions. As such, he avoided its use whenever possible.
"What…the fuck," Vince barely choked out, "What the fuck was that?" He gestured wildly with his empty gun, spurts of blood still seeping through the fingers pressed to his shoulder.
"Eh," Dirge shrugged, "Vampires?"
"Vampires?" Vince shouted, "Fucking vampires? Since when do vampires even fucking exi-"
"I don't want to hear anything about 'I don't believe in vampires'," Dirge cut him off, lifting a finger to silence him, "Because I don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what I saw is fucking vampires!"
The fifth and final 'vampire' sank its teeth into Dirge's outstretched arm. He howled in pain, landing an instinctive fist onto the beast's face, breaking its nose and throwing it back. It regained its footing only for the top of its head to vanish in a spray of gray matter and a loud boom.
Barret blew smoke from the muzzle of Dirge's revolver, then tossed it to its rightful owner as he tore a strip of medical gauze for his wounded arm arm. Dirge grunted and holstered the weapon, hoping his drug-fueled rant was wrong.
"Grab your bag," Dirge grumbled, gesturing to Vince's rucksack, "Let's get the hell out of here before more of the local wildlife finds us." No response from Vince. He was probably still making a big deal about his injury, or-
Lying facedown, Dirge sighed internally. Vince was lying prone on the ground, still leaking blood. Dirge knelt down and slapped his shoulder.
"C'mon, ya' pussy," he grabbed hold of his shoulder and shook it, "Get up. We're…ah shit." Dirge put two fingers to Vince's neck, feeling for a pulse.
"…well," Dirge stood, picking up Vince's bag and rifle and slinging them both, "Let's say a few words in his memory when we've gotten out of here."
He looked over to Barret, who'd just cut a small pouch from the waist of the armored 'vampire'. He shook it, and heard the familiar jingle of coins. He shouldered his flamethrower and wordlessly joined Dirge. At least the trip wasn't a total loss. They hadn't known Vince terribly well anyway.
Same deal as usual, R&R, anonymous accepted.