Far Cry 5: The Collapse
Chapter 21: Why we fight.
He was walking down the path towards the massive white tree in the distance when a surge of light green fog enveloped him once more.
Just as his body was surrounded in fog so to was his mind as he fell to the ground and could feel things around him shifting, his black wings disappeared and the slight tickling scent of burning grass that had been following him went with them.
When the fog cleared he was back down on the ground confused but otherwise feeling... lighter somehow. He stood and looked through the surrounding fields of tall grass and wildflowers as rabbits and birds flew around him either not noticing his presence or being utterly indifferent to him. Finally he laid eyes on another white flower covered tree. This was a smaller and bushier looking tree then the massive oak he had been walking towards a moment ago.
The path to this tree was lined with more stripped light grey tree trunks with all of their strange twists and turns, and at the end of this path at the base of the white tree he could make out a small woman in white dancing around its trunk.
With increasingly steady steps he approached the tree and the woman, but as he neared the woman dressed in white with locks of brown hair and with matching brown eyes poofed into a cloud of light green smoke.
"Even those who fight against us seek salvation. You're proof of that. We all need guidance in times like these." The woman's voice rang out all around him as in the background behind him he could hear... a man's voice.
The man sounded as if he was preaching and his voice and words stirred something with in him and the fog on his mind lifted a bit.
'Joseph Seed.' He thought as he turned around and around trying to pinpoint the voices when out of the fog that had tried to envelop him once more the woman emerged and took each of his hands in hers.
'Faith Seed.' He thought as he looked up and past her to the tree that he had seen her dance around only moments earlier or was it longer? Nonetheless at its base a tall thin bare chested man spoke to a group of people sitting around him on the grass, most of them wore white clothing that roughly resembled a uniform of a sorts while another man stood out. He was of a darker complexion and wore body armor baring the label of 'US Marshals'.
'Burke...Pencil pusher!' He thought as the surge of anger helped to clear his mind further even as he was pulled towards Joseph and his group.
"Now you'll see. Now you'll truly understand." whispered Faith as she pulled them closer to the preacher.
As they neared Joseph looked up Roger. Faith peeled off and stood just outside the circle of listeners as he continued to close with the yellow sunglasses wearing preacher.
"Because those on the outside will see what we have built here together, in our New Eden... the love. And they will come. And they will try to take from us all that we have built." Joseph said as he neared the Deputy and stared him down even from his far shorter height. His face was hard and judging as he spoke once more.
"You judge me. You judge us. The things that we have done..." He said as he reached up and grabbed a hold of Roger's shoulders. He turned his gaze back down and to the side in thought as his monologue continued. "People say... that I'm crazy, but when you wake up in the morning you look at the same news that I do. Do your eyes not fill with horror?" He said as he walked behind Roger and held up his hands as if welcoming a old friend. In the distance in stark contrast to the ever present smokey green fog all around them a fiery orange mushroom cloud rose from the horizon.
'Doesn't look all that high. Probably either a very low kiloton yield nuke or just a large conventional explosion.' Roger thought automatically as Joseph went on. The sight of the explosion and the instant mental calculations seemed to have done much to push away the fog in his mind making it far easier to think.
"This is the world!? This is the world we built for our children? Communities being torn apart. Walls being erected. Because leaders are too impotent to act. Bullies are too addled to lead righteously." The preacher spoke and as he turned to face Roger once more he stretched out a hand and the Deputy was pulled back towards him where his shoulders were once more grasped by Joseph as he spoke in a soft whisper.
"I did not ask for this. I was chosen." He said almost sadly before he leaned his forehead against Roger and a bright white flash that when it started to fade showed that they were no longer in the field of Bliss flowers but at Joseph's personal compound. Only this time the sky burned orange from the light of a thousand fires, the air choked with black smoke, and the ground littered with wreckage from buildings to burning vehicles. Joseph's church was now just a charred black husk of what it once was but even in spite of all the destruction the cult's heretical eight pointed cross still was clear as day above the blown out front doors to the church.
"See, everything is coming to an end. You can feel that. I know you can... See, mankind is weak... and vulnerable." Joseph said as he walked around the wreckage emphasizing his point. "And we are hurtling towards our destruction and no one is willing to do anything about it. I can see that. You can see. And we are not crazy."
Within the depths of his mind now mostly unsuppressed by the fog a smile and then a laugh threatened to make itself manifest.
"So what are we supposed to do? We just sit back and await the inevitable?" The preacher went on now nearing exasperation. "I don't claim to be a perfect man, but I saw what was coming and I chose to act. To lead. Because society is broken and the only way forward... is to go back to the way things once were."
'Oh child... you know so many things that simply aren't so.' He thought as he was struck by ever strengthening boredom with the lightest touch of annoyance.
"Innocent and pure. So safe and protected... in our Garden. I can save you." Joseph rambled on as he bent down and plucked a unblemished Bliss flower and offered it to the massive man before him. "But you have to have Faith."
"Are you done?" Roger said as he took the offered flower... and it burst into bright orange and yellow flames.
Joseph took several steps back in shock. "Oh I'm sorry did I break your concentration?" Roger asked with a smile before waiting a moment to let the burning flower fall to the ground to join with the ashes all around them.
"Oh you were finished. Well allow me to retort. Do you think that you are something special? That you have it all figured out, how the world really works? Well let me tell you something right now Joseph... You. Aren't. Special."
He started to pace around taking in the sights of the burning compound and breathing deep the smell of burning wood and earth. "You think that society is broken? Join the club, you have dozens of online groups, and political lobbyists that think just like 'you'. That the only way to progress is turn back the clock, tear down the individual, and prop up the community at all costs. That through collectivization that the world can be rebuilt to be more sensitive, more caring, and more inclusive."
He turned and let is own blue eyes pierce through the preachers own eyes into his very soul. "But as you said mankind is weak, and inevitably there will be those bullies that take advantage of the new system just as they did the old. Brick by brick they build a wall around the weaker people and then sit a top of it, so they can cast down judgment upon those that either try to join them at the top of the wall... or break free of the wall."
Roger chuckled evilly as another thought occurred to him. "Oh Joseph, while I can safely say that you are certainly more active then the average Twitter shit poster in meeting your goals your logic is still flawed because you still don't have answer for when someone says 'I want to do something for myself.'. You don't have an answer for when someone asks 'At what point do I start and society ends?' And vice versa."
It was now his turn to grasp the smaller man by the shoulders. "We are indeed hurtling towards destruction but it is not total destruction but in fact a societal revolution. You can't give a man freedom and expect him not to use it, its why your flock sooner or later will begin to push back because eventually the free agency that God gave man will manifest itself when those in the flock are no longer sated by the community garden. They will want to have their own garden. their own space to be sheltered and safe in, away from the eyes and demands of society... even the new one that you want to build."
He bent down to Joseph's eye level. "Society is made up of individuals. Progress is made by individuals trying to improve their lot in life and the lots of those that will follow them. It's the frame work that we all build off of. Better individuals will build a better society... naturally. In the end you are just another bully sitting on top of his wall passing judgment and striking down those that dare to progress outside of your vision lest they sit on your wall or worse get out and build something bigger."
He was just about to let go when he looked back at Joseph. "One other thing... I do watch the news and I see what you see but unlike you I can laugh at their words. Laugh at how wrong they are time and again as they guess at how the gears of the world move. I am one of the few men whose job is to watch those gears and make sure they spin in the right way, sometimes that means I insert myself and make the gears spin differently or in your case I smash the offending gear and let the bits get ground to dust in among those in society whose lot in life is to be the lubricant that keeps things moving smoothly."
Joseph looked back at him wide eyed in horror. As soon as Roger was done talking he ripped himself out of the other mans grasp.
"No! You're lying... you can't know anything... I know! God chose me! GOD TOLD ME!" He cried out as he backed away. Suddenly the burning compound was replaced by a thick dark green fog far and above anything he had experienced before.
"So you think you know more than God. John was right, 'Pride' is one of your greatest sins." Joseph spoke from the fog now much calmer having broken visual contact with the other man.
Roger smiled. "I don't know I still think 'Wrath' followed by 'Lust' would be my greatest sins."
Even if he couldn't see Joseph he could practically feel the other man's stare. "Just think about what you could do if you rid yourself of your sin. Create instead of destroy, choose peace over war... would a yoke crafted by God chafe so bad against your so called 'individualism'?"
"If God really made a yoke for me he would at least give me the choice to wear it. Your yoke only has two options: wear it or die." He snapped back with a touch of anger.
Joseph sighed heavily. "Perhaps you should see what wearing the yoke would have actually gotten you instead of dealing with guess work and 'What ifs?'."
The fog got thicker around him and it seemed as if he was being crushed by the pressure of the fog. He shut his eyes to spare them the direct pressure until suddenly the pressure was gone. He slowly opened his eyes and found himself in a rustic styled kitchen with a dark haired woman humming some cult hymn.
She was lightly built with her hair tied back in a long braid that hung over her shoulder and she wore a simple dress that was of the purest white matched by a black apron that didn't fit all that well due to the fact that she was also extremely pregnant.
Roger's heart stopped, the ever turning gears of his mind stopped and started sheering teeth as they struggled to process what he was seeing.
Joey was standing in a kitchen, their kitchen he thought and was with child. Of all the 'What if's' that he would think on in the darkest hours of the night in the loneliest of fox holes in the most God forsaken lands on Earth... this was the end result to the question of if he hadn't gone into the Army and later into Black Ops.
It was the one thing that no matter who he was with, no matter how intoxicated he could get, no matter what manner of torture he could be put through. He would never share this 'What If' with anyone including his own family.
"Hey Roger, if you came to help with dishes I'm sorry to say but I'm almost done with the last one." She said happily.
He slowly approached her his mind trying to figure out if he was dreaming and if he wanted to leave anyway. He knew deep down that he could be happy here, a happy blissful life with the woman he loved and the child they would raise.
Joey finished scrubbing a well polished sauce pan and set it beside the sink to dry before turning to him and embracing him as best as she could given her baby belly.
"Have I ever told you how happy I am to be with you?" She asked as settled into his arms.
He couldn't find the words he wanted to say and instead just held her close. But as he did little things started setting off his mental circuit breakers one by one. His head was against Joey's but they were on equal heights, then he breathed in and the heavy chemical laden smell of synthesized pistachio scented shampoo hit him life a freight train.
He remembered back when he and Joey had been dating that she had one day ran out of her usual strawberry scented shampoo and instead bought the only available scent it being pistachio.
On their date later that night he had commented on how foul it had smelled after one of their make out sessions. After that night she had sworn never to use that shampoo scent again.
He then glanced at the freshly cleaned sauce pan and could make out his reflection, he had long and wild hair with a beard that up until now he hadn't even noticed. But most importantly was his body. Gone were the mountains of muscles that he had worked for years to develop and in their place was a thin and weak body more appropriate for... a peggie.
He let go of Joey and pushed her away. "This isn't real... you're not the real Joey..."
Joey backed away until she bumped into the sink. "Roger you're scaring me... please stop and think about this... I am your wife. We're so happy so... Blissful together. Why are you acting like this?"
He was beyond thinking as he seized a large chef's knife from a nearby knife block. 'I really hope that I am right otherwise God help me.' He thought as he expertly threw the knife into the false Joey's head.
Before even the first drop of blood could fall the false Joey flashed into Faith Seed and a moment later she too burst into light green smoke.
"What kind of monster are you?" Faith asked from somewhere beyond his immediate perception as the whole kitchen dissolved into light green fog.
He walked forward into the fog and soon came out of the fog bank. He looked at his arms and hands seeing once more the muscles that he had worked for, his face was once more clean shaven and his hair now once more carefully buzzed under his black Stetson.
He looked at the horizon and saw once more the massive white oak down the dirt path between fields of Bliss flowers. He made another step and felt a pair of sharp knifes being stabbed into his mid back, with a loud yell the pain stopped as he looked at what had appeared. He once more had his black wings but now they were joined by a second pair of equally massive jet black wings.
His pain quickly subsiding he started once more walking toward the tree, in his wake now wider than ever the grass burned and the bloody foot prints he left in his wake now audibly boiled. A rabbit darted from one of the fields and jumped behind him instantly being flash burned and became little more than a solid rabbit shaped hunk of carbon as it landed on the smoldering ground. The sky once only partially cloudy now had a definite storm front following behind Roger.
His eyes snapped opened as he gasped for breath and could feel once more the CPR bag being pressed over his nose and mouth.
"Just breathe Roger, just breathe..." Joey said as she steadily pumped air into his lungs.
He could feel the cool relief of the water as his cell door turn bed finished lowering into the water and in another minute he could feel his breathing stabilize. Joey shortly after pulled the mask away and smiled as she looked down at him.
"You were having another one of those trips weren't you?" She asked.
He nodded as he slowly held up his massive hand for her to take into her own hand. "It was the best and worst one Joey. I'll tell you about... it later when I can talk more than focus... on breathing."
She wanted to tell him about grabbing Feeney and share what Dmitri had gone through when over on the next bed Marshal Burke started shaking and shuttering.
The Sheriff was talking with his son when he saw the Marshal coming out of his Bliss induced coma.
"Tracey! Get over here with that adrenaline!" He called out as he tried to calm the struggling Marshal.
The young woman rushed over with a syringe and bent over the Marshal to try and inject him even as he held out his arm to keep her away. "No! No drugs! No drugs!" He yelled and managed to kick away Tracey hard sending her sliding across the floor, he tried to punch the Sheriff in the face but in the struggle between the two men he missed and landed a hard blow to the older mans chest knocking him to the floor.
"Burke! For God's sake calm down!" The Sheriff said as he struggled to get up as Burke got up off the bed he had been in.
When the Sheriff started reaching for his revolver Joey stood up and raised her shotgun to keep the wild US Marshal from running off but from behind the Sheriff, Edward Whitehorse rushed up with his Mosin-Nagant and shoved the bayonet in Burke's face threateningly finally getting the man to stop panicking quite so much.
"It's ok Burke, its to help you burn off the Bliss." The Sheriff tried to explain. From the entrance of the medical ward came rushing in Dr. Ferguson followed closely by Dmitri now back in plain clothes his rifle already up in hand as they responded to the commotion.
"Marshal Burke, I'm Doctor Ferguson. You are coming out of a very severe Bliss coma and we need to administer some additional adrenaline to help you burn off the rest of the drug in your system. If we don't it could take weeks to pass naturally." The Doctor said trying to defuse the situation occurring in his ward.
Burke's eyes shot around rapidly at the multiple people around him but he kept going back to the bayonet only a few inches away from his face.
"No... no drugs... put your guns down and who the fuck gave the kid a spear?" He said as Ed ignored the order to lower his rifle.
"Grandpa I think he's still scrambled in his head." The boy said.
The Sheriff nodded at his grandsons words. "You can't come out the Bliss clean Burke. I had to go through the same thing when the Resistance pulled me out of one of Faith's Shrines, I got better and you can too."
The other lawman shook his head in denial. "No! I... can... I can come clean. I'm stronger than that. Put your guns down. I'm not scrambled... just stay away from me!"
From the doorway now stepped in Marcus and Jessica Rook, the latter with her RPK at the ready and the former lugging a massive MG 08/15 that he had been working on only moments earlier.
"If the man says he's not scrambled I would say that he's scrambled enough to not realize it." Marcus called out.
"I'M NOT SCRAMBLED!" Burke yelled as he tried to take a step to move away from the bed but Edward stood his ground and poked the Marshal in the soft material of his body armor with the end of his bayonet.
"Burke... if you try to move again I'll will shoot you. You aren't strong enough to shake the Bliss... I know from experience, it's messing with your head right now. Take the shot and you'll be feeling better in a few hours. I promise." The Sheriff said pleadingly.
Joey had slowly moved to the other side of Roger's stock tank and slung her gun on her back trying not to look threatening. In truth she doubted that Burke would care but she felt confident that she could at least save him from forcing everyone to shoot him by grappling with the smaller man.
She shared a quick glance with the Sheriff and he seemed to understand her idea as Burke started to shake and lose control again. "I... I am... NOT... SCRAMBLED! I'm fine... I'm strong... I can beat this... so just put your guns down... and get this kid off me for fucks sake!"
Burke made a push to swat away the bayonet at his chest and the break in his concentration gave Joey the opening for her to rush him and seize one of his arms and put him in a tight armlock. He tried to break free but much to his shock he couldn't over power the woman holding him.
Joey kneed him behind one of his own knees and brought him down facing Roger's stock tank.
"You see that motherfucker?! The Bliss doesn't care how fucking strong you are! If it can bring Rook whose more man then what you could ever hope to be, down to being crippled like this then what hope do you have?" She snarled as they both watched Roger struggle to bring up his left hand and flip off the Marshal. Joey then turned to Tracey who had recovered and been watching the proceeding back and forth.
"Tracey if you would please?" She barked.
Instantly Tracey stepped up to the pinned Marshal as he tried thrashing desperately to break out of Hudson's impossibly strong grip.
"One shot coming up." She said harshly as she injected the lawman in the neck and almost instantly he slumped over like a puppet that had it's strings cut.
"Adrenal overload. According to Feeney's notes that I have had time to go over it's a fairly common reaction to those being treated for overdoses within the cult. Bliss puts a lot of baseline strain on the human adrenal system and it gets worse in large doses, so when you add more adrenaline if the body can't take it anymore it just shuts down. He must have had a lot of Bliss in him to go that fast though." The doctor said as he watched Joey move the man back into his bed.
Ed safetied his rifle and slung it over his shoulder as he was rewarded by a smile and pat on the shoulder by his grandfather and they both went back to the other Whitehorse members who had watched the entire episode.
Doctor Ferguson sighed and turned to Dmitri. "Could I ask you to stick around for the next few hours? Just in case our... Marshal does something stupid?"
"I would be happy to doctor." The spy said placing his rifle on his back.
As the situation in the medical ward wound down Joey turned to go back to comforting Roger alongside his parents.
"Cougar Lead to Grey Reaper please respond!" Marcus's radio went off and he picked up his radio to respond. "Grey Reaper here. What do you have kid?"
Mack on the other end ignored the kid comment as by now he knew it was in good jest and not the insult that some of the other Cougars had first thought. He and the Cougars had earned the old man and his men's respect for their support in taking the Misery and for bagging Feeney, it had been a turning point for the group of teenagers as they all now felt they had contributed to the war in a major way.
And here he was about to do it again.
"We just got a recon report in, the outpost at Nolan's Fly Shop is being moved wholesale. Everything including defensive guns are being loaded up into ATV's with small trailers and taken to Deer Tiger Mine." He said proudly.
Back in the medical ward the news was met with shocked looks from all that had heard the message.
"How sure are you of this?" Marcus asked not fully believing that this was happening.
"Completely. I actually sent a second team to follow one of their convoys along the river till they reached the mine. They are actively staying off the roads with this stuff, probably worried about Mr. Rye if he is in the area." The young man replied as he looked at his own map of the area before continuing. "What I don't know is why they are packing up or why they are going to the mine."
Joey listened and tried to answer just that question. What would be gained by the cult moving to Deer Tiger? Mack and Marcus continued to update and debate over the other recon reports and what the next move should be when she looked back at Roger.
He was smiling and tried to mouth something without having to strain himself with actual speech.
"Highway?... Highway!" She said and his smile jogged her memory.
In the Henbane Region there was one dominating cave system that could be mostly traversed without too much trouble that the records called 'The Highway'. Before Deer Tiger Mine was opened it was once only known as The Deer Cave, and that cave spidered through out Mt. Harrison.
For a local cave it was a roomy affair hence why Roger knew about it as he had been alongside her as they mapped it in their late teens. There were a total of four entrances: Deer Cave now Deer Tiger Mine, Lydia's Cave, Horned Serpent Cave, and a underwater entrance near the Whistling Beaver Brewery.
"They're moving everything to King's Hotel, through the caves!" She exclaimed a bit too loudly and made everyone in the ward jump.
"Can they drive through those caves?" Jessica asked once she recovered.
"Maybe through the mine portion but once they hit the main cavern the cave floor is probably too rough and stalagmite covered unless you wanted to wreck the cave and even then that's a lot of work. No they would be carrying everything on foot, since the route is protected until they are easily within range of King's Hotel the slow pace they would have is more than acceptable. Not to mention Horned Serpent cave is full of sulfur lakes that you would have to work past."
"Lydia's...Trap..." Roger whispered and got another grin from Joey.
"Stand by we're coming up with a plan as we speak, Joey is getting that look again." Marcus said as he turned to face the smiling deputy. "Ok Joey so we at least think we know what the cult is doing but what is 'Lydia's Trap'? I've never heard of it."
"It's not an official name but its the name that Roger gave the junction where Lydia's Cave meets with the rest of the Highway. Its basically T-shaped intersection with a twenty foot drop into a natural cistern that is usually dry save for the part where it exits at the Henbane. The main path narrows suddenly from about five feet wide-ish to barely more than two with said drops on either side, Lydia Wellerman once lured the Confederate Major who had murdered her family in the Civil War to come after her in that cave and he fell to his death in that cistern. He remembered that little bit of information from the county archives so hence why he gets the credit for naming it." The Deputy said remembering how excited they had been when they first found the junction.
The two other Rook's chewed on the information until Jessica spoke up. "Ok so how does that fall into your plan?"
Joey shrugged "Pretty simple. In the cave there is little to no room to maneuver unless you know about various side passages so if I go in shooting the peggies will have only two choices. Stand..."
"Or run." Marcus said realizing her idea.
"Exactly running around in a dark cave they don't know, under the stress of having 'The Demoness' show up and start shooting at them will mean I can easily drive most of them into that cistern. If I don't kill them all first that is."
"You would be alone Joey. Anyone besides Roger runs a high chance of winding up like the peggies if the cave is like you say it is, also if they do survive can they get out of the cistern?" Marcus asked.
"There are two paths but they are hard to see and they are steep, between 35 and 45 degree slopes. If they try to swim through the cave to the Henbane they would need to swim a bit less than half a mile completely submerged with no air pockets given how high the river currently is. It would be a fairly easy and straight forward swim but cave diving tends to surprise even the prepared and the peggies are far from that." She rattled off.
Marcus nodded. "Well then when do you want to leave?"
It was getting dark by the time Joey had made her way to the entrance of Deer Tiger Mine. The mine had originally just had a single vertical shaft that sunk down over 200 feet to the original working faces but later surveys came back with more coal in shallower seams within the mountain itself thus the mine expanded straight into the mountain now.
The main tunnel entrance was a massive affair so the dump trucks and dozers could easily enter and exit with little worry about traffic congestion. From what she remembered beyond the entrance was a large open gallery where most of the actual loading of outgoing coal was done and smaller tunnels lead deeper into the mountain to where the working faces were, the exception being the tunnel that lead to the natural section of Deer Cave. As part of the permits needed to expand the mine the company had to preserve access to the natural cave instead of blocking it off as they had originally wanted to.
She wondered about what could be inside the cave proper that had changed since she and Roger had last been in there but eventually she brought her mind back to where she was at the old Seeley house.
Seeley had been much like Tracey someone who had joined the cult but later quit, only at the point that he joined the cult had gotten far more extreme with their policies and he was later found dead along side the river almost two years earlier. His death had been just added to the pile of murders and disappearances that were connected to the cult but unsolvable with what evidence they could find.
Now his house served as the outpost for Mack's Cougars as they watched the both the road and the surrounding area including the Jessop Conservatory.
'Got to admit that these boys and girls are a lot braver then what you would normally expect from teenagers. Being this close to Rachel's main base could mean having endless numbers of cultists coming after them if they got found out.' She thought as she returned to looking at the buildings surrounding the Deer Tiger Mine entrance.
The various offices and out buildings for maintenance and storage of equipment for the miners were all dark, in fact even the lights that would normally illuminate the yard itself were turned off. The Cougars had seen regular convoys of ATV's coming up from the river bank during daylight but they would enter the mine and then quickly leave empty. Now nothing seemed to be coming or going.
'So they are just dropping off things which means they aren't driving through the caves. I wish I could see the entrance from here but unless they have most if not all lights out, the gallery would be casting some glow outside on to the lot. Just what are you fuckers doing?' She thought before turning to return to the Seeley cabin.
The sun had finally fully set and with it Joey bid the Cougars goodbye as she slipped out of the blacked out cabin and into the night. The cool crisp air seemed to energize her as she crept through the trees and brush that enclosed around the mine with Roger's Barrett in hand.
She found a nice cluster of bushes to set up in and pulled out a pair of binoculars trying to find some sign of life in amongst the buildings. After nearly ten minutes of absolute stillness a brief crack of light coming from the door of the front office revealed a lone Chosen stepping out into the night and walking towards the main mine entrance. She thought about shooting him but instead moved into the yard proper never loosing sight of the Chosen as he neared the gaping mine entrance, when she finally had positioned herself so she could look inside the mine and see the gallery she could see a pair of tiny dim lantern lights at the very back of interior gallery.
Their small size and dimness suggested that the batteries were likely fading and that they had been on for quite some time. She watched the figure of the Chosen walk through the empty gallery until he reached the lanterns and one by one they went out and came back on at full brightness before he turned to return the way he came.
The lights now at full brightness now casted light on a previously unseen pile of boxes and crates. The pile was sloppy and haphazardly made suggesting that it had been made quickly by the peggies in charge of driving the ATVs from the Fly Shop.
'Ok that pile is pretty big so they either don't have many people moving stuff or they had a lot of equipment at the fly shop. In any case I have to clear that office first before moving to the cave.' She thought as the Chosen left the shelter of the cave and was once more in the open yard.
She swapped the Barrett now for her Beowulf and used the surrounding equipment and buildings to dash unseen around the outer edge of the yard til she was nearly at the office building. The office was a typical industrial affair. Single story white sheet metal construction on numerous concrete blocks that suggested that with the addition of some wheels and axles it could likely be converted into a mobile trailer for redeploying to a different mine site.
Several window air conditioners were actively roaring giving her good sound cover for her foot steps as the Chosen returning from the mine walked up the short set of stairs leading to the door. Moving as quickly and as quietly as possible she whipped around the corner and thanked the mine owners that the stairs they had used were of solid construction that didn't creak under her weight as the Chosen opened the door and pulled back a heavy blackout curtain revealing a well lit interior.
The Chosen stepped inside letting the door slam shut on its own failing to notice that it took an extra moment for the door to close. Inside the trailer him and six of his fellow Chosen prepared to turn in for the night. The office desks had been roughly shoved into a corner giving them space to set up seven cots and small shrine to The Father.
Their main task was to make sure that the mine entrance stayed secure during the day and retreat indoors at night, the idea being to make the mine look as quiet and unassuming as possible so as to avoid drawing suspicion to their position as the supplies from Nolan's Fly Shop outpost were moved to reinforce the Hotel after the loss of the nearby Misery.
It was a vulnerable time for the Project and a gamble on Herald Faith's part as she moved to consolidate their holdings and make them too fortified to attack without massive losses on the part of the sinners. Personally in the very darkest parts of his mind he had doubts as to Faith's plans but his own faith in the Project and The Father thus by extension his Herald made him suppress those nagging thoughts.
His thoughts were suddenly ended as a 400 grain projectile roared through the back of his head.
Joey had slipped in behind the Chosen as he passed through the black out curtain and enter the office interior. She had been somewhat surprised to find a bunch of other Chosen bedding down for the night but she without preamble raised her rifle and with a suppressed bark and executed the man she had tailed. Instantly all the other half asleep and otherwise distracted Chosen turned towards the noise and tried to scramble for any weapons on hand.
But having 99 additional belt fed rounds of big bore AR ammo in a confined space like the office meant that she was the one holding all the cards as she drew lines of deadly lead across the grouped up bunks. A few seconds later she was alone once more as the cult's best laid broken and dead before her.
'I really am getting better at this real world fighting thing.' She thought as she started to look around the dead men for orders or notes or anything of use.
As she did her thoughts returned to Roger back at the Jail. He was getting better and his convulsive episodes were getting shorter, but even then she still found herself wishing he was beside her pointing out all the mistakes she was probably making in fighting the cult. She ended that train of thought and refocused on the single piece of golden intel had found on one of the Chosen... a schedule.
Today was the last day dismantling the outpost at the Fly Shop and in three hours from now the first group of load bearers from the hotel would be reaching the mine and start grabbing stuff to take back with them.
'Three hours... you could go from here to the hotel IF you knew the caves well and were traveling light. Still I'll bet I have time to meet them at the junction.' She thought as she pocketed the schedule and exited the trailer before turning towards the mine entrance and its two bright but otherwise lone lanterns.
Even as she crossed the empty expanse of the main gallery she could only marvel at the size and openness of the man made cavern as its roof soared over 60 feet above her so as to make room for the massive coal hoppers that held the coal extracted deeper in the mine for the big rigs and dump trucks to be loaded. On either wall of the gallery silently stood the various specialized mining trucks and continuous miners with their massive spiked digging heads, inter mixed with the machines were modular containers likely full of the never ending need for spare parts or heavy tools needed to keep the mine productive.
'Good thing the cult didn't try to weaponize more of this equipment. Some of these would be the stuff of nightmares if it were coming after you especially with a fucking cultist at the controls.' She thought as she reached the pile of crates and took a moment to dig through some of them.
In among the boxes were a lot of lab equipment and carefully packed seedlings of various strains of Bliss flowers. Faith was consolidating her assets and especially those involving their R&D elements but oddly enough she was pushing them away from her main holding.
'She knows that we want to stop the development of the Bliss and push comes to shove they can make do with their current blends... oh Rachel I think I see your game now. You already have your production and storage squared away so anything that's not ready to go is held out for the Resistance to go after. Is she buying time for Joseph or Jacob to send help? Is she trying to plant spies in among the Resistance? Roger I really wish you were here to run the numbers on those questions.' She mused as she walked toward the lantern framed entrance to the natural cave system.
Above the entrance was a sign posted by the mining company warning that no equipment was to pass this point and beyond it she could smell the change in the air of cave verses the gallery. It brought back a lot of happy memories of caving often with Roger at her side and reminded her why for so much of her life she wanted to get into Geology.
"Well time to clean out the cave." She told herself as she swapped for her shotgun, turned on the flashlight she had attached to the front of her armor, and descended into the darkness.
Underground away from the sun or even the stars time moved in seemingly strange ways as in seemingly no time Joey could hear and feel the cave opening up as she came to the junction.
It was as she had remembered it years ago, three narrow arches over the natural cistern below that joined with a central pillar of rock about big enough to park a car on. As her flashlight played over the area she noticed that the peggies had placed a simple white sign with a black cult cross and matching arrow heading towards Deer Tiger Mine.
She grabbed the sign and tossed it into the cistern where it landed with a wet clatter against the rocks below. 'Ok so the cistern is virtually empty, not surprising since... good God the thunderstorm Thursday night!'
She hadn't really paid much attention to the passage of time since Joseph Seed had kicked off his war on Hope County. They were now three and half weeks into in the war, and so much had happened within that short amount of time.
She back tracked to the Deer Tiger side of the Junction and found a gap in the surrounding stalagmites where she could sit and watch the Junction and be mostly hidden. She then turned off her own light and began waiting for the sound of inbound peggies, as she let her mind wonder over the realization of just how much time had passed as she was wrapped in perfect darkness.
'It's been ten days since Roger rescued me from John's bunker... in ten days I got back together with him, help kill a man eating moose, liberate the county jail, blew up Joesph's statue, and now I'm waiting in a dark cave for a bunch of peggies to fall into my trap.' She pondered to herself as she listened to the silence of the cave, that silence only been broken by the occasional glug noise coming from somewhere in the cave that lead from the cistern to the Henbane.
'River level must be dropping... still I wouldn't want to have to try my luck swimming out of here.' Any further thoughts were halted by a loud clanking noise coming from the direction of the Horned Serpent cave.
"Watch your step brothers, we are getting to a dangerous section of the cave." A older sounding voice echoed throughout the cave.
"Why in the Father's name do we have to do this? There has to be other ways for Dr. Feeney to move his experiments besides us blindly walking... OOOOFF!" The man speaking could be heard falling back to the ground with a crash.
"I am increasingly seeing that your faith is weakening. I worn you Brother Patrick... if I even hear one more complaint about our work I will see you made a Angel by dawn." The older man growled his voice made all the more menacing by the reverberation off of the cavern walls.
The next few minutes the sounds of feet scraping echoed through the cave until she could see the glow of their electric lanterns as they neared the junction.
The older sounding man at the front of the seven man and one Archangel precession halted the group as he shined a flash light along the ground until he found where the path narrowed.
"This is the dangerous part of our route brother's, not only can you get turned around in this section but one false step will send you into the depths. We don't have rope on us so don't fall otherwise you will die in those depths." He preached to his men before carefully proceeding.
Joey peered carefully from between the stalagmites and saw the lead man a red masked Chosen leading his lesser brethren and the Archangel bring up the rear of the group. As they reached the center column she decided to taunt them and mess with their heads.
"You are right about one thing peggie, this a dangerous part of the caves." She called out her voice echoing off the walls.
The group stopped and held up their lights as they tried to fruitlessly locate her. "SINNER! Show yourself! Show yourself and let justice be done to you!" The Chosen yelled.
His words made her laugh and the following echo made the already shaken cultists start to desperately bring their rifles up. "Justice? Funny I thought that was my job. You know I warned Rachel or Faith as you know her, not to send her people into my caves. You said it yourself it is dangerous around here especially if you don't expect the literal pit falls and ledges that are so common in these caves. Not mention you guys must have had a time getting past the sulfur pools near the start of your trip here."
"Who are you?" One of the cultists said earning him a stern look from the Chosen at the groups head but nothing else.
She laughed again for effect trying to emulate a bit of Roger's act from his commercial with John's headless corpse. "Me?... Who do you think I am peggie?"
"A sinner that's about to be killed." The Chosen snarled back.
"Try again peggie... I'm having fun here so I'll give you two more tries... if you guess right you'll win a valuable prize."
Silence took over as both groups waited for the other to react, the Archangel sensing the mounting tension in the chamber started growling and stomping on the ground in frustration.
"Brother Quentin keep our blessed brother calm please..." The Chosen tried to whisper but in the utter silence of the cave even the smallest of sounds were magnified.
"Awww... is the cult's science experiment getting out of hand? Is it getting upset? Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to bring something so hard to control in to the caves?" She taunted happily.
"Why are you doing this to us?!" The now clearly panicked Brother Patrick spoke up.
"Shut up you fool!" The Chosen barked.
"Why? Why am I doing this? Oh stupid peggie... it's because you are here trying to pass through my caves." Joey toyed once more.
"Are you 'The Collapse'? Oww!" Another peggie said earning him a slap from one of his brothers.
"No try again... If I were 'The Collapse' you would have been dead the moment you set foot in this chamber, he tends to be serious like that." Joey cooed.
The Archangel was now getting livid. It could hear someone who was an enemy of The Father but no one was moving to attack and the stress was rapidly building.
"Please calm down. Please calm down." His handler chanted as he patted the monster on his shoulder as he made more calming sounds.
The Archangel threw its head back in a loud eardrum bursting screech that Joey thought briefly could be heard through the entire cave system. Then much to her and the peggies shock it actually managed to speak a single clear coherent word.
"DEMONESS!" The monster cried as it slapped aside its handler and barreled forward send him into the depths of the cistern.
'Ok not what I had planned but I'll take it.' She thought as she slipped out of her place among the stalagmites and turned on her flashlight once more as she entered the chamber drawing the Archangel toward her and through the remaining peggies as they turned to raise their guns at her. The Archangel charged slapping away anyone in his way sending them falling.
The Chosen had only just shouldered his rifle as he was batted away into the cistern screaming as he fell until his hit the floor head first.
The Archangel having done most of the work of tossing the peggies into the cistern now charged unhindered toward where Joey stood with gun raised as she calmly sent round after round of heavy buckshot into the monsters face shredding it as they hit.
Her gun locked open and the Archangel fell flat before her. As the echos of her gun shots faded into the dark depths of surrounding caves silence once more ruled the day, she walked over the massive dead monster's body and looked into the cistern below.
Seven broken bodies now littered the rough floor as their own lanterns revealed the pools of blood that now were mixing and flowing with what little water there was left in the cistern as it flowed toward the exit.
"I warned you fuckers that you would only find death in these caves." She said as she looked up toward the cave that lead to the Horned Serpent section and then her watch. If she had thought to bring some explosives she would have half a mind to go and attack the Hotel.
Her gaze didn't move as her mind started to throw together a plan. Feeney had been working at the Hotel that means they had to have even a small amount of Bliss on hand. Instantly her mind replayed the night that she and Casey had attacked the River Chalets at the start of the second act of the war and how a single poorly thrown grenade had blown up a house and severely damaged another from probably only a few small containers of Bliss.
'All I would have to really do is find their storage tanks or store room and find away to blow them up without getting myself caught in the blast. Hell they have put so much importance on the location that they have to have an armory of some sort and with it an ammo dump. Roger what would you do?' She wondered.
She shut her eyes and focused... before she stepped forward toward the cave that would take her to the Hotel. They had momentum and the cult was reeling from the loss of the Misery so much so they would give up a outpost to consolidate their forces. Yes, now was the time to strike to keep them off balance and the keep making them desperate.
She moved quickly up through the cave as she weaved through the passages and walked around a few of the first dark yellow sulfuric laden pools that made in her experience the single most dangerous hazard in this part of 'The Highway'.
She pressed on her eyes burning from the amount of sulfur in the air and until finally she started seeing the old biohazard signs put up by the county parks department in the 1960's. She then passed a large opening to the surface. It didn't have a name that she had ever found or heard of in the records. Also its remote location on the side of the mountain so close to the proper entrance of the Horned Serpent Cave meant that besides being a danger to hikers that could suddenly fall in if they were blind it was otherwise unremarkable.
She got the distinct feeling that wouldn't be the case anymore as dozens upon dozens of Angel bodies now lay, lining the floor of the opening as if they had been tossed in for disposal. Some looked fine for Angels but others had shots to the back of the head as she cautiously neared the bodies.
'Burn marks on skin around the entry wound. These Angels were executed, I wonder just how many Angels wind up as failures like these guys. How many of these were once just local people or were these all cult members and became Angels?' She thought as she turned and marched back into the cave towards the main entrance.
For her the hardest part of this cave was crossing the large 'lake' of more sulfur laden water. It required stepping on a few rocks that poked above the surface. Most were fairly large but some were barely big enough for a adult to stand on.
The last signs that she was close to the entrance was the number of cult marked boxes and barrels of Bliss that must have been placed here as part of a supply cache. She dug through them quickly not finding anything immediately useful to her but the cult's food and ammunition would serve just as well in the bellies and guns of the Resistance.
She climbed up out of the cave entrance and took a deep breath relieved at being out of the sulfuric atmosphere of the cave. From the entrance she could look down at the cult pickup trucks in the caves parking lot. Given they were unattended as far as she could tell in the waning moonlight she then turned her gaze to the hotel down the road.
The interior was dark and the exterior was dotted with only a few lamp posts and a few small solar powered lamps lining the pathways to and from the hotel's parking lot and the hot springs that laid behind the hotel. If she didn't know better she would have said that the building was unoccupied.
She glanced at her watch and saw how close it was to dawn. If she was going to attack she was running out of time before the cultists would likely start waking up and starting their day. She took her rifle in hand and started a easy jog down the half mile stretch of road until she reached the every edges of the hotel property and hid behind the burned out husk of a cult truck from Nick's attack the previous day.
From where she was she could now make out over a dozen Chosen patrolling around the perimeter of the building and confirmed that not a single interior light seemed to be on.
'Ok the hotel is dark inside so everyone inside must be asleep. I just need to find a gap in the patrols...' Her thought was interrupted by the sound of a loud truck exhaust accompanied by someone blaring 'Disco Inferno' at full volume.
From out of the woods to the west of the hotel a oversize dune buggy came thundering down crushing its way through the brush before reaching the hotel proper. Joey knew that only one nut job could be behind the wheel and playing Disco music all the while.
Charlemagne Victor Bowshaw IV aka 'Sharky' was like his older cousin the infamous Hurk Drubman Jr., not considered the model of a productive member of society. In fact last she had heard he was still out on parole for his latest series of arson charges but little else until now.
In true Sharky fashion he was doing donuts in front of the hotel main entrance while a roof mounted flame thrower was spewing napalm over everything with in a 50 foot radius add to that Sharky firing a 40mm grenade launcher that he couldn't have possibly gotten legally before the war, it was the normal for him kind of chaos his presence tended to cause.
A number of the Chosen patrolling the exterior had been run over by the dune buggy and more were caught in the spray of napalm. The few survivors were torn between shooting at the buggy, directing the cult members now waking up to a literal firestorm, and trying to aid their fallen brothers.
Sharky then suddenly stopped doing donuts before driving back into the mountains as quick as he arrived leaving the peggies to clean up the mess. Joey took this as her chance to start shooting the remaining Chosen from behind the cover of the burned out pickup she now hid.
One... two... three... four men fell to short control bursts of her Beowulf as the fires started to consume the hotel. She raced out from behind her truck around the back of the hotel, and found three more peggies filling buckets of water from the hot springs and racing inside desperately to keep the fires at bay.
"FIGHT THE FIRES BROTHERS! IF IT REACHES THE BLISS TANKS WE WILL HAVE TO WAIT AT THE GATES OF EDEN!" One man in the garb of a chemist called out as he bent down to fill his buckets.
Joey snapped up her rifle and put a burst of fire into the chemists back sending him face down into the hot spring as she turned to address the next bucket carrying peggie exiting the building. He didn't immediately consider her a threat until he saw his friend face down in the water by then it far too late to drop his buckets for his sidearm. His death cry was lost in the increasingly loud roar of the fire that now started consuming parts of the roof and upper floors.
She marched inside the back exit and found herself in the kitchen were another chemist was trying to desperately attach a garden hose to one of the sinks as another cultist cried out from the front lobby of the hotel.
"WHERE IS THAT FUCKING WATER?! THESE TANKS ARE GOING TO BLOW!" A panicked woman cried.
The chemist had just turned on the water when he looked up and saw Joey standing there her rifle raised.
"Why God?" He muttered before her rifle puffed once more and the chemist suddenly found himself as yet another victim of acute ballistic lead poisoning. Not stopping Joey turned off the water and followed the hose to where it ended and someone had placed a three way splitter each hose then led to a peggie trying to hose down and cool the dozen large IBC tanks of Bliss they had stored right in the lobby.
Joey was about to shoot one of the closest peggies when she watched one of the containers start to visibly sag to one side and the top begin to bow upward.
"OH SHIT!" She yelled as she left the remaining peggies yelling about where their water was. She raced out of the kitchen back outside and sprinted towards the largest of the hot spring pools. She had only just jumped when the burning tanks finally burst, and the resulting cloud of Bliss that was kicked up served as a perfect atomized fuel for the fire and burned rapidly.
The resulting flash easily ruptured the other nearby Bliss tanks they too being on the brink of bursting themselves and with their rupture the fate of anyone in the nearby the hotel was sealed. The explosion ripped the wood and stone structure like it was nothing and nearby centuries old trees were handly ripped from the earth and thrown all over the mountain and some into the nearby Henbane river.
The earth shook briefly from the shockwave and even at the jail the night guards noticed the vibrations before the roar of the explosion reached them. They then saw the brief glow of the explosion to the northeast of the jail just barely peeking over the mountains.
In the medical ward Dr. Lindsay was covering the night watch and bolted out from behind his desk when everything started shaking awakening most of the other patients save for Burke who still slept through it all.
Roger could feel himself swing slightly on his jail cell door turn bed as he smiled. 'That has to be Joey.' He thought as he worked to go back to sleep confident that besides the shockwave that nothing was wrong and there was no reason to panic, perhaps if he could say more than a sentence at more than a whisper he would have told the doctor who was running around the room checking on everyone but in the end sleep was a much easier to accomplish act.
Joey had hit the water and covered her ears as she exhaled to help her sink deeper into the hot spring water that was on the brink of being too warm for her to stand. But seeing the bright flash above her followed by feeling the sound and shockwave passing overhead convinced her that any discomfort she was dealing with was small price to pay for survival.
Finally she ran out of air and had to surface, instantly she started regretting her idea to attack tonight when she breathed in the resulting smoke of the explosion and felt her vision start to spark slightly under the effects of the Bliss but the deed was done.
The old hotel was now completely flattened, its foundation now more crater than foundation. Oddly enough she thought back to all the ghost stories that had surrounded the hotel and wondered if now with such utter destruction if that might have released any bad voodoo that might have been here.
"Grey Reaper to Demoness please respond." She heard over her radio. Breaking her out of her trance as she started moving back to the parking lot in the vain hope that she could find a working vehicle.
"This is Demoness, go ahead." She replied.
"Joey... just what the hell did you do? The explosion was big enough we felt it here at the jail." Marcus asked relieved to hear her voice.
She didn't answer for a moment as she wondered just how she could explain this. "Well long story short I cleaned the trash in the cave and decided to hit the hotel before they realized something was up. Next thing I know Sharky comes out of the mountains with a grenade launcher and a vehicle mounted flamethrower. The fires he started did most of the damage and I just made sure that their weren't enough living cultists to put them out."
Marcus laughed as the Sheriff lifted his glasses and massaged his tired eyes. "Here I thought leaving Sharky alone would mean he would stay in his trailer park and not get us killed."
Jessica turned to him. "I guess even with the war going on Sharky isn't going to become any more... reasonable."
Minkler now stepped in. "Can you imgine trying to tell him not to burn or blow something up so we have something to use after retaking it from the cult?"
Marcus stopped laughing. "No you might as well start talking to him in Latin at that point." He keyed his radio once more. "Well Joey as long as you are alive I will take whatever victories we can get. Do you need any help?"
Joey had reached the parking lot and found all of the remaining cult vehicles thrown up against the surrounding rocks and few remaining broken tree trunks as if God had taken a push broom to them.
"Yeah I need a lift home and I could use some sleep." She said sarcastically.
Within the hour a Resistance pickup came and gathered her before racing back to the Jail. Joey fell asleep right after she belted herself in and until she was gently shaken awake by the rear gunner.
"Deputy we're home. Thanks for sending those cult bastards to hell for us, folks really do appreciate everything you've done." He said.
Joey smiled as she got out of the truck. "I'm just killing cultists, its you guys are doing to real work of supporting and rebuilding our home."
The man nodded accepting the praise as she walked through the personnel door of the jail's main gate. She couldn't help but smile at the cheering coming from the weary night guards as she neared the door leading into the interior of the Jail. Cheeseburger perked up with all the commotion from his spot beside the door and growled happily as he got a good head scratch from her as she passed.
Inside she approached the main planning table where the leadership was now gathered but Jessica stepped up to stop her.
"Joey don't worry about the debrief right now, you go and get some sleep first then when you have done that we'll get some food in you followed by the debrief and fill you on developments here." She said warmly.
Instantly she thought about Roger and almost started to get excited. "Is Roger up?" She asked hopefully.
The smile on Jessica's face faded a bit and she shook her head. "No sadly not but he is starting to get better still. We learned about something important from Feeney that could help us finish off Faith. But that is for later so go to bed young lady."
She smiled in return and mocked in good nature. "Yes mom."
At the Jessop Conservatory Faith angrily threw on a robe as she went to see who dared to bang on her door so early in the morning. She had already been waken by the wind shaking the windows of her quarters earlier but now this.
'I swear to The Father that I will hand this person over to Feeney's people for experimentation.' She thought as she got her self under control and cracked open the door. A tired smokey green eyed Priestess was on the other side.
"My Herald I'm sorry for the early intrusion but we... just got a message from the Whistling Beaver outpost..." She trailed off shyly not doing anything for Faith mood.
"And? What is so important that they would send a runner to me this early in the morning." She growled making the Priestess jump.
"O-Oh I'm sorry my Herald... it's that there was a fire at the Hotel... its gone. The whole building has been destroyed." The other woman finally said.
"A... fire? Wait... was Feeney at the Hotel still?" Faith said as she opened the door further and waited for a reply.
"No ma'am I thought to ask the runner and he said that Feeney would be at his home by now. He hasn't been in contact with them since day before yesterday shortly before the attack on the Misery." The other woman said hoping that she wouldn't be blamed for not knowing some fact that her Herald would demand of her.
Faith chewed at her lower lip. Feeney was... a special case. Some of his best work had come from his times when he would retreat to his personal lab at his home but it came at the cost of him being out of contact for usually a few days at most.
If he was at his home then it was pointless to send a messenger to him as he tended to lock himself inside and not answer any form of contact until after he had felt his work was complete. The only thing she could do now was wait to hear from him.
'I really wish that Inquisitor Fergus and her people would reach Fall's End already. I need to know what the Resistance is doing because we can't keep taking these kinds of losses.' She thought before turning to the Priestess.
"Thank you for the message Sister, if you would send word that we should prepare to grab any supplies left at Deer Tiger Mine and bring them here. You are otherwise dismissed." She said firmly.
"Happy to serve my Herald." The woman bowed as the door was shut once more.