Uroboros: Resident Evil V

Chapter Twenty Six: Power of the Sun

"This place is built like a maze." Sheva commented as they surveyed the area as best they could from there. "Even if we can avoid the villagers, how on Earth are we ever going to figure out where the plague doctor went?"

Chris wasn't the best tracker in the world, but in this case there were a few things that they had going for them, beginning with the fact that the villagers weren't aware of their presence. This gave him the time he needed to thoroughly examine the area, with the first thing that the Agent noticed being all the dirt that was on the carved stone floor. It must have been constantly falling into the chamber from the holes above… huh, wondered if anyone ever fell in by accident… and this dirt allowed him to see footprints.

There were a few sets of them, each heading off in different directions, but there were two obvious facts that allowed him to narrow it down. The first was that since he hadn't seen any women or children around inside the city so far, the plague doctor's prints were going to be the smallest ones around. The second fact was that every villager the Agent had seen so far was barefoot, while their new target was wearing boots, once again making it easy to spot hers out of the group. It wasn't a perfect trail, but it was a start, so the two agents began moving down the corridor as silently as they could.

Every once in a while they would encounter a patrol of villagers, but the infected were loud in both movement and how they chatted back and forth, so each group was pretty easy to avoid so far. A couple times Chris got nervous when he couldn't see any more of the plague doctor's footprints, but each time he just kept going in that same general direction, and luckily another print would appear in the next dirt pile. The bad part was that as they moved farther into the city, more and more villagers were around, so it was getting harder to sneak around.

"In here." Chris whispered, pulling her into some kind of storage shack just as another patrol came around the corner. "Get down."

They entered the tiny building through the open doorway, and then ducked down below the window as the group of three infected passed by, with both of them holding their breath and pressing up against the low was as flat as they could while the villagers stopped for a moment to grumble something at each other… before the two agents were able to relax when the group started walking again. There had to be a better way to go about this, since it was getting harder to sneak around… what they really needed were some real weapons, and… hey, maybe there was something in this room that they could use.

Peeking out the window to make sure that the corridor outside was clear for now, Chris moved over to the other side of the room where a bunch of supplies were stacked. There he discovered a bunch of burlap bags filled with rotting stuff that was maybe once food, some broken pottery that might have been for holding water at one time but was long since evaporated, and… a long iron spear. It was just like the ones that some of the villagers were carrying, and it was better than nothing, so the Agent picked it up and tried to hold the thing properly while Sheva tilted her head to the side.

"That's an interesting choice for an American." The young woman said, putting her hands on her hips. "Do you even know how to use one of those?"

"Yeah, sure." He replied, trying to adjust his grip. "Pointy end goes into the bad guy, right?"

Rolling her eyes, Sheva stepped forward and told him to stick to your guns, cowboy, before taking the weapon and demonstrating the proper way to hold it at the ready position. Well, if she really wanted the spear it was fine with him, since Chris already had the flare gun with five cartridges left, although now it was up to him to carry the flashlight since her weapon needed two hands. There was enough light in this place to not even need it, so the Agent put it in one of his pouches as they left the storage room.

Honestly, Chris was trying to avoid the parts of this chamber that passed by the large pyres or reflective gemstones, since that was where most of the villagers were, but the options were running out, since the plague doctor had apparently waltzed right through the center of the city as if she owned the place. This meant that the new target was probably carrying a control plaga on her, which hopefully she wouldn't use once they cornered her, but suddenly the Agent's thoughts were interrupted by some kind of commotion coming from around the next corner.

"Kuleta sadaka mbele!" A loud voice ordered. "Mleteni kwa Liza!"

The voice was coming from a villager in a large wooden headdress who was standing right next to one of the reflective gemstones, although this one was smaller and set into some kind of decorative alter that looked kind of like those telescopes at national landmarks. As soon as he said those words, there was a scream that echoed through the chamber as two villagers dragged a woman into view, bringing her in front of the chief or whatever he was, and forcing her to kneel down on the corridor that was below him.

"Chris, I don't think that woman's infected." Sheva whispered as the chief continued his speech. "He's saying that they see her as an outsider for denying the gift, and now she is to be offered to the ancient god, Liza. Chris, we have to do something, they're going to sacrifice her to the old Sun God."

"That's just what the Ganados did to anyone immune to Las Plagas." Chris replied, checking to see that his flare gun was reloaded. "Don't worry, we're not gonna let this happen."

In order to perform the sacrifice, the chief probably had to come down and slit the woman's throat or something equally barbaric, so all the Agent had to do was wait until he was coming down from the alter before firing the flare, preferably when he was next to the largest number of infected, but his plan came with both good and bad news. The good news was that Chris had been right about the chief performing the sacrifice himself, but he was way off as far as the method used to sacrifice someone to the old Sun God.

Instead of walking down from the alter as soon as his speech was finished, the chief stepped behind the reflective gemstone and tilted it ever so slightly until it glowed with the sun's light… before erupting outward in a beam of concentrated yellow energy. Focused into a laser beam that was about as big around as a beer can, the temperature was instantly raised throughout the whole area when the beam struck the carved stone floor, to the point where Chris was sweating as badly as he had been in Kijuju City… and then it swept forward down the corridor.

Kicking up little bursts of flame as it traveled across the stone, and leaving a black scorch mark in its wake, the beam went right toward the restrained woman, who didn't even have time to scream again before the yellow energy passed right through her… cleaving the sacrifice neatly in half while causing each side of her body to burst into flames as they fell to the floor. Now the chief and all the villagers cheered while jumped up and down, and the Agent knew that it wasn't their fault, not really… it was only because they were infected… but he couldn't allow such a sickening display to happen again.

Fwoosh-BOOM! It might have been too late to save that woman, but maybe he could spare any other non-infected survivors her fate, so waited until the chief was no longer holding the gemstone, before stepping out of cover and firing the flare gun right at him. It was a lot harder to aim this kind of weapon than a standard firearm, because his aim was slightly off, not that it really mattered with an explosive, since it went off right behind him, anyway.

Striking the large pyre back there and apparently hitting something flammable, the whole thing blasted apart into a spray of fire and pieces of wood that knocked the chief down onto the corridor below, raining burning wood down onto all the others… while the reflective gemstone was tilted so that it started to glow again. Now it was the villagers' turn to scream when the light was focused once again, making them burst into flames as the laser went down the corridor… in multiple directions?

One of the falling pieces of wood must have cracked the gem or something, because now there were five different beams, one moving down the corridor like normal while the other two swept across walls and other paths… only to come back the other way as the unmanned gemstone alter kept swinging back and forth. One of the beams was strong enough to blast right through the wall Chris and Sheva were hiding behind, forcing them to dive out into the corridor in order to avoid getting torched, but then they had to roll out of the way when another beam came too close.

Now it seemed like there were even more beams, and they were all sweeping sideways as if the alter was slowly spinning because of another hit. Either way, the yellow heat beams were everywhere, forcing the two agents into an acrobatic obstacle course of rolling, jumping, and ducking their way down the corridor. Their only hope was to get past the alter where the beams weren't able to hit, and there were a couple close calls where Sheva almost got hit when she fell down, but Chris was able to grab her by the hand and drag her out of the way just in time.

Some of the other villagers were starting to notice the commotion, running into the corridor in front and from behind with spears raised to kill the outsiders, but they weren't paying attention to the heat beams. Chris couldn't help but marvel at how advanced the people who built this city must have been to have such a weapon… a weapon that was now incinerating the pursuing villagers while the outsiders got away. All around them the attacking infected were cut down, realizing only too late what was happening, but this allowed the two agents to make one last jump in order to get out of the gemstone's range.

Hitting the carved stone floor and rolling to a stop against the next wall, Chris and Sheva scrambled to get out of sight before the next group of villagers came to investigate, but luckily this was still the way they needed to go, since the first thing the Agent saw after rolling to a stop was another one of the plague doctor's footprints in the dirt next to his face. A few more of the infected were heard crying out as they were incinerated, and hopefully this would give them all the cover they needed in order to catch up with their enemy.