Chapter 4: Double Tapped
This was it. Rex had to make this dive count. Success here could mean job offers the likes of which he's never dreamed of. This job alone was 200k gold in total, the thought of that becoming the default made him so nervous, his jittering might've worn a hole through the deck. Thankfully, a good pair of salvaging boots could make any stance solid no matter the pre-dive tremors.
Other salvagers lined up around the ship. It was a simple enough mission. In theory, anyway. Depth probe picked up a lot of things in the area, but Jin and Malos had set their sights on the most dangerous thing.
450 peds down, their target was a single shipwreck. Their job was to bring it topside with the crane and some floaters. Following excavation, they were to split into teams and explore the interior for their target. Exactly what the target was, they still didn't know.
It wasn't a dangerous dive for any of the usual reasons, sonar picked up very little movement in the surrounding nautical refuse. The shot down was perfectly clean as well, since a current shift had completely exposed the vessel.
The problem came from the depth. Jin wasn't lying when he said it was a long way down, 450 peds was deeper than Rex had ever dived. For good reason too, that's a meager 50 peds above the cloud sea's human crush depth.
In retrospect, that was probably why the pay was so good.
Though, Rex probably wouldn't have much to worry about.
As the line to the edge shortened, Rex ran a quick check on his equipment. He missed his anchor shot, but there wasn't much he could do about that. It was either a new anchor or the abyss vest, and he decided the extra padding was more important.
Salvage sealant, check. Whole new tube as well. Seeing as this was an excavation target, he probably didn't need it, but a certain recent event helped establish it as a mainstay of the salvager toolkit.
Continuing on the checklist, the cylinder. He felt a bit silly for taking one at first, then he felt silly for feeling silly. It was perfectly natural for a human to need an air cylinder for a dive like this, or a dive of any kind for that matter, and the guild was providing complimentary canisters for the entire salvage crew. It was surprising, considering this particular dive demanded so much more than a normal mission would. As mentioned, the target was deeper than Rex had ever been. A normal cylinder would only take you half that distance, while a silver one might let you come back up afterwards.
This would be the second time in his life that Rex ever used a gold cylinder. Well, it would be the first, but it was better if he didn't think too hard about it.
The final item on his pre-dive checklist would normally have been his sword, but it was considered both bad taste and bad luck to bring a personal weapon on an organized dive.
Rule #6 of the Official Salvaging Vessel Operations and Maintenance Manual:
- All large-scale Cloud Sea Exploration Vehicles intended for use in salvaging are required to arm themselves with sonic deterrents of at least 200db. Any CSEV that fails to meet this requirement are subject to suspension, with the CSEV's owner being liable for fines up to 7460 G.
Anything big enough to stand their ground against that would come up on sonar, and dives would be halted if there was anything like that. Taking your own weapon meant you were either doubting the instruments of the ship, or expecting to fight something invisible. Being right in either regard didn't end well, and being wrong just meant you'd have to lug the extra weight around for the whole mission.
Soon enough, Rex was the next to dive. He stared down, off the platform of the Maelstrom's main crane. A short hop, and his feet were plummeting into the clouds. This was a professional dive, so it would be better to hold off on any fancy jumps.
He broke the surface tension, and something immediately felt wrong.
Wrong was a strong word, actually. It only felt off.
He didn't like how he was moving. It was too slow, and something kept restricting his movement. His clothes were pulled uncomfortably tight against him when he tried making what should have been a natural motion. He wasn't sure why everything felt so strange. There wasn't anything different than any dive he's ever made.
Safe a few more recent ones.
Once again, he began feeling silly for using a cylinder. He couldn't have gone without one, but he didn't need it. He didn't need any part of the salvage suit. Heck, he could probably explore the wreck without even raising it. Not that he had tested his new depth limit, if he even had a new one at all. There was the chance that it isn't any different from what it used to be.
"Rex, you alright?"
"Huh?" It took a moment for the question to register, "Oh, yeah I'm fine, why?"
A salvager had stopped his own dive nearby, and chimed in through the radio.
"You made it down a few peds, then just started flailing about in circles. Figured I'd see if anything's wrong."
"Oh, no, just…" how could he explain this… "This is just a brand new suit. Still a bit stiff in some places, trying to stretch it out. I'm alright."
"Well, if you say so."
More salvagers were diving now, Rex had to keep going if he wanted to look like a fellow professional. It took him a minute to remember how to swim. That was phrasing it poorly, he knew how to swim, the problem was that he knew two ways.
Years of training were being overshadowed by pure instinct. His muscle memory was being yelled at by something in the back of his head, insisting that he had been swimming wrong all his life. He had to force himself to swim like he used to, and it was causing all sorts of discomfort to the young Titan.
All those years training to "swim like a fish", and now that he was a fish he had to swim like a salvager.
Eventually Rex reacquired the knack for diving like a human. The instinct never stopped complaining, but it became manageable by the end of the dive's first hour.
Just two more hours before they reached the target, then another three for the swim back up.
It was dangerous to go any faster in either direction, especially when working with depths like this.
The science of it all was lost on Rex, but he understood the gist of it from early salvaging lessons. Shifts of pressure were dangerous. One source of such a shift was heating something and quickly cooling it, which could make whole fluid drums suddenly crush themselves. That lesson gave nine-year-old Rex nightmares for a week.
By the second hour, the crew had reached the general sink depth. The depth where most salvaging took place, it was as deep as things typically got when the cloud sea decided it was hungry.
A bonafide graveyard of ships and boats, and several small Titan carcasses littered the misty expanse. With how out of the way they were, it was likely just a stockpile from sea currents. It was nothing Rex or any of the other salvagers had never seen before, it quite literally came with the territory. Even still, there was a somber air about the place as they passed through. Both a silent acknowledgement of the history lost, and contained displeasure that they didn't have time to poke through the wreckage for some extra pocket change.
"Hundred peds to target. Prepare for excavation." The lead salvager spoke into the radio at the two-and-a-half hour mark.
A response came in a unanimous "Aye aye."
The lack of exhaustion in the voices told Rex that he was the only one tired of kicking his legs. The clouds were getting denser. Fluids were generally considered incompressible, but the cloud sea didn't care. It could squish itself under its own pressure, and of course the denser the clouds the harder they held on. It was how it kept smaller wrecks from sinking further, and it was why Rex was having an increasingly difficult time moving.
On the subject of sunken things, they were now well below the layer of would-be salvage, and visibility was all the lower because of it. Sunlight would have a hard time reaching these depths already, but the blanket of scrap over it certainly didn't help. This exact situation occurred in most areas of the cloud sea, the space below the layer of all the things too light to sink deeper, black as the midnight sky.
Hence, its official title: the midnight zone.
It lived up to the name. The lights on Rex's helmet gave little relief from the darkness, only enough for a general idea of where some of the others were. They were in an uncharted section of cloud sea to begin with, but going this far down was just hazard icing on the danger cake. Nobody truly knew how dangerous the midnight zone was, because nobody had a firm grasp of what was down here.
Rule #13 of the Salvager's Code:
- Be it sky or sea, safety stops at the edge of twilight.
Granted, they weren't in the midnight zone yet. Officially, they wouldn't even be entering it on this dive, but they were cutting it close. Not close enough to say they would be kissing the edge, and they would probably be a short ways from flirting with it.
It would be like they're politely asking the edge if it wanted to go for coffee.
"Fifty peds, lads. Mind your eyes."
"Contact!"
Rex covered his eyes in the nick of time.
He had apparently been a few peds away from the crane claw lowering with them, and their secret weapon against the darkness.
"Floodlights up!" Announced the salvager that turned them on.
The announcement seemed more like a formality, the floodlights in question would be hard to miss on account of them being floodlights in a place with no natural light.
When Rex's eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, he finally laid eyes on their target.
His eyesight must still need a moment because there was no way what he was seeing was right.
Finding himself unable to rub his eyes through the helmet, he blinked hard, and a few light blinks for good measure.
Nothing was changing, Rex was seeing everything about the shipwreck perfectly, and he still didn't believe it.
The ship was enormous, larger than any ship Rex had ever seen docked at Argentum. Ship being the operative word, as it was far from a shipwreck. The hull's plating was worn and faded, uncountable holes in it from rust and cloud-sealife, but not a single panel was absent. No damage was visible that would have been the cause of it to sink. No signs of cannon damage, no dents from collisions, aside from age the ship may as well have been intact. As far as Rex could tell, it looked as if someone had just driven it this deep and left it here.
Though, Rex wasn't sure how much of what he could tell could be trusted. The construction was unlike anything he had ever seen. There was nowhere for a titan to be fastened, not overly dissimilar to the ship that visited Argentum the other day. Though this one was bigger.
He began taking in the specifics of the ship. It really was in far better shape than it should be. With how old it looked and at this depth, the structural reinforcements would have to be way more advanced than anything Rex was familiar with. Otherwise, it would have crumpled like a tin can under the pressure.
Something near the rear caught his eye as he joined the rest of the crew in their approach.
"Is that… the propulsion mechanism?" he said out loud without meaning to.
The thrusters were bigger than should have been possible. Any attempt to make ones that big would always fail spectacularly in the fuel efficiency department. Whoever designed this ship was then either an absolute moron, or an unparalleled genius. A ship of this scale, Architect only knew how many permits and people would have been needed, only the latter made sense.
Rex's business sense began going off.
They were salvaging this.
If Rex's impressions of the tech was accurate, and anything on the ship was halfway reverse engineerable, they may well be spearheading a technological revolution. There'd be a lot of notoriety to come from that.
First things first, they needed to raise it.
The crane claw was lowered, the claw itself just barely large enough to gain a firm grip on the target. Once the wire was pulled taut, it was the team's turn.
They swam in close, and attached their floaters. They worked on exactly the same principle as the floaters Rex normally used, these were just five times the size.
"Rex, you're up"
"On it." He replied as he approached his floater point.
Right next to the engine, he prepared to lock it on.
A hiss, a click, and a thud, and ready to start lifting, but there was something Rex noticed before he swam away.
There was a noise. A low hum or buzz that he almost didn't notice. He listened closer, trying to find the source, ignoring the questions of other salvagers while he did so.
With nowhere else to check, he touched his helmet to the hull of the ship. He could hear the noise loud and clear.
"Something in here is still running," he observed quietly.
It was familiar, but it still took Rex a short while before he could recognize the noise.
He gasped a little when he managed to place it.
"Is its engine still...?"
"Rex!" The leader yelled, snapping the boy back to the present, "Fall back, I said, hard part's over."
"Oh, sorry, thought I heard something inside."
"I don't doubt it, probably a lysaat hive. Right then," he returned to addressing the whole team,
"All things in order, lads?"
Various noises of affirmation were made in response.
"Alright then. Prepare to hoist."
Nia would love to say she only flinched when the whatever-it-was came out of the cloud sea. Mostly because 'nearly choked on a piece of bread after tripping over Dromarch in surprise' didn't roll off the tongue all that well.
Her opponents agreed to pause their game of cards to see what the commotion was. Definitely because this was more important and in no way because they were all about to lose to Dromarch again.
The cloud sea spat something out with a mighty poomph, Nia assumed it was what she had wasted the past six hours waiting for.
An enormous boat appeared from the splash, grey and mossy. It was bigger than she expected, bigger than even the one she was standing on. She wasn't quite sure how the smaller boat was holding up the larger one, but the crane claw held strong against the weight.
As salvagers began climbing aboard, Nia's suspicions were confirmed that this new boat was the target.
Its size was certainly impressive, but Nia was unsure if it looked like it was 200k per pair of hands impressive.
Then again, she knew nothing about boats, so her opinion on the payment may not have a perfect foundation.
Speaking of payment, the pair of color-contrasting contractors had climbed to the main deck to admire the work.
As salvagers began climbing up the side of the ship, Nia started asking around about injuries, offering to heal, and healing despite refusals. There was nothing serious, a few cases of nitrogen narcosis here, some cases of the bends there. A handful of early liver failure symptoms but Nia figured those had nothing to do with the dive.
Overall nothing her and Dromarch couldn't handle. Granted, they could handle anything short of a corpse, and even that was debatable under certain circumstances.
The point being that the salvagers were relatively healthy given how dangerous this dive was meant to be.
The employers seemed impressed. Nia overheard them talking with the leader, saying something about great successes and good integrity, and overall a lot of business words. She knew most of them in theory, but whatever they were talking about was lost in translation. She was a medic, not a bureaucrat.
It had been over a decade since she last studied anything related to the field.
Most of the salvagers were ordered to take a short rest. Other workers, including her card game opponents, began setting up the boarding equipment and inspecting the structure. Their words, not hers.
A certain blue color in the corner of her eye caught her attention.
Rex had finally made it aboard.
He seemed more than eager to get his helmet off, she noticed as she approached him, quick to fiddle and fumble with the release latch as soon as his feet were on solid ground.
The seal hissed as the pressure released and the helmet came up, flipped over behind his head by a joint on the back.
Strangely, a good bit of steam came wisping out of Rex's suit once his helmet was off. The boy seemed uncharacteristically exhausted as well.
Nobody else on the retrieval team had been all that tired, and Rex was a blade. At least, he was part blade.
It may have just been a trick of the light, but Nia could swear some of the steam was leaking from the scales on his face.
"You look tired. Did something happen?" Of all people to show concern, Jin had walked away from his conversation.
Rex looked equally surprised that the man was displaying any sympathy, subtly stepping back in what Nia assumed was a precaution against flying into another coughing fit.
"Uh, no, nothing's happened, just…you weren't kidding when you said it's a long way down."
"Humility. That's rare for someone so young." Jin said with a hint of praise.
Rex didn't seem sure what to make of the situation. "Well, my job's done. Was there something else you needed?"
"Yes. You're with us for exploration."
"Wait, what?" Rex and Nia nearly responded in unison.
The men turned to Nia now that she had joined their small gathering.
"What good would bringing a kid do?" Nia asked.
She shot a quick glare to stop Rex from protesting at the 'kid' comment.
"We need a salvager to come with us, and he's the smallest so it would be easy to hide him from danger." Jin responded in his infinite calm, "You're free to come along as well if you don't trust us."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Rex spoke up.
"…As I said, we need a salvager. You're in the retrieval team anyway, but if you don't feel up to coming with us, then we can bring a different one."
From anyone other than Jin, that would have been a perfectly reasonable offer. Either you do it or we could find someone else. Unfortunately, it was Jin that said it. His empty delivery wrote a paragraph between the lines.
Rex was best suited because he was young. Jin knew Rex had combat experience to match. Jin was there when Malos all too eagerly attacked Rex, supposedly to test his mettle. The ship might be dangerous, and the company was definitely dangerous. A driver would probably be the only one who could handle themselves. While Rex isn't a driver technically, he may as well be.
Jin left the conversation, and the boat. He leaped overboard, and landed on the deck of the new one. It was as if he knew what Rex was going to choose.
From the look of his face, Nia could make a safe bet, herself.
He began scratching the back of his head as he looked around at the other salvagers.
His eyes became steeled, and he left for the cabin.
Two minutes later, he returned with his sword, and started down the boarding ramp nearest to Jin.
Nia decided she should get Dromarch.
The ship was as big on the inside as it was on the outside.
That was of course to be expected, as that's how things work.
Rex just hadn't realized how much louder this would make his footsteps.
Salvaging boots were many things: reliable, sturdy, durable, and about as heavy as they looked. Over the years, he had learned to walk at a reasonable volume in them, but he could never figure out how to make them quiet when walking on metal.
Which was extra unfortunate, as anything that could pass as flooring seemed to have long rotted away, leaving only steel sheets for walking on. The space made the boots echo a fair bit.
Rex promised that he wasn't doing it on purpose, but that didn't make Nia or Malos seem any less annoyed.
Jin was staying a little ways back, guarding the rear at Rex's suggestion.
Truthfully, Rex had only suggested it for his nose's sake. He couldn't exactly ask the men why they smelled weird, so it was the best thing he could think of. Jin quickly demonstrated why Rex should be thankful there weren't any objections.
The dive leader was right when he said there were probably lysaats crawling around in here. There was one very interesting specimen that broke through to the top deck before they had even entered. It was the first time Rex had ever seen deep-sea gigantism first hand, the thing was big as an ardun.
The drivers and Rex fought it off, but it set the tone for the rest of the exploration. Aligo prowled the ground, medooz drifted through the air, krabbles and crustips skittered about, and of course more lysaats decided this old vessel was an excellent place to call home.
Standing so close to Malos, Rex could only use his eyes to spot them. It was less than ideal, as he had finally begun to get the hang of his new nose. Fortunately, they never had to worry about sneak attacks. Any attempt at one usually ended in a squealing hiss, and Rex would turn around just in time to see Jin sheath his blade.
Back in their expedition's vanguard, Malos certainly pulled his weight. His blade's name was Sever, apparently. Suited him well, because that tended to be what he and his driver did to the sea-life's extremities. The weapon was a bladed tonfa, a unique weapon by blade standards and somewhat unconventional, but Malos knew how to use it. He looked like a tornado from how much he spun while fighting, or maybe more like a blender.
Sever himself wasn't much for conversation. The only things he had said so far were "If I see anyone bawling, they'll get slapped. Got it?" and "Storm edge!". He's said the second a few times, if Rex had to guess it was the name of one of his attacks. Otherwise, Sever mostly just giggled while in battle and grunted impatiently while doing anything else.
The company was almost as threatening as the monsters, so Rex decided he should be forever grateful Nia and Dromarch decided to tag along.
The tense group made their way deeper through the ancient ship. Rex had decided early that it didn't quite qualify as a wreck. Things were just in too good of a condition for it.
It was dark, damp, and dreary, but not dilapidated.
Rex tried to take advantage of that when they found themselves in what he assumed was a loading bay.
"The hell are you doing over there, kid?" Malos was quick to question when Rex broke off from the group.
Rex took a moment to respond, as he was preoccupied with a console. It was very, very faint, but Rex could swear there was some light coming out of the screen. If the circuit was still powered, then…
"Hang on a moment…" he responded after he pulled a panel off the bottom.
"Oh, you've got to be- Rex, we aren't being paid to screw around with scrap!" Nia called to him.
"I'm aware of that, Nia, thank you," He called back as he began fiddling with some wires, "but I've seen things like this on some of the latest ship models…so if I can-"
bzzt
"Gah, Shit-! Mmm…ahem, if it's in good enough condition, I might be able to fix it," Rex explained as he tried to discreetly shake the pain out of his fingers.
"And what exactly would that accomplish?" Asked an unimpressed Malos.
As Rex grunted at another shock from the circuit, the screen lit up in earnest. Just as Rex suspected, time had just worn out the connectors. The length of that conversation was all it took to plug everything back together, and it was exactly what Rex was hoping for.
"Well, I just figured a map would be useful."
As Malos scanned the screen, Rex saw a small grin in the corner of his mouth.
"All right, not bad." He pointed a finger at a small room near the back of the ship's lowest level, "There's our target. Let's go."
Even though Rex couldn't read the words, he could make out labels on the map, signifying rooms that were probably important. As they entered one such room on the way, Rex could piece together that its label likely meant "mess hall".
This began to confuse Rex, as their supposed target had no label at all. At best it was access to a maintenance hatch. There shouldn't be anything of consequence in it, which made it all the more confusing when the heaviest duty door Rex had ever seen blocked the path to it.
It was in the last room before their target, what Rex could guess was the engine or power supply. It was as Rex had guessed when excavating, the generator was still running.
Barely running, but running still. It was the reason there was still a live current running to the ship's systems. It was the reason emergency lights were still dimly working on all the floors. Rex was a little sad he didn't get to use the glow sticks he brought, but that's besides the point.
He began to wonder again. Wondering just how efficient a generator this was. Wondering how long the ship has been down here. The facts were that the ship was sunk and that the ship still had power, and the longer it had been sunk the more impressive the generator was. Any other excavation, this would be a find that would at least send Rex up a tax bracket.
Unfortunately for this specific excavation, the generator wasn't good enough. It wasn't the target, and the state of it was obstructing the path to the target. Even if it was still running, it was running on fumes. However much power there was, it wasn't enough. The door wasn't going anywhere until a nearby switch was flipped, and flipping it didn't do anything unless there was more power running to it.
Nothing about it made sense. The room without a label had the tightest security in the entire ship. The ship's structure had been that of a regular cargo ship for the entire way here, amazing generator and solid architecture aside. Rex was not a shipwright himself, but he had seen plenty of ships through his life. In any other cargo ship, that door wouldn't be there. There wouldn't be a room in such an inconvenient location, and certainly not with anything worth locking behind what he could only assume was half a foot of solid metal.
Then something clicked. An old ship buried further than should have been possible for something to reasonably sink to. Someone had left this here deliberately. If they had, maybe they meant to come back to it. Maybe…
He shook himself from any dreams of ancient treasure.
First and foremost, they needed to open the door. To do that, they needed power. To get that, they needed fuel.
It took some searching to find a fuel cell that wasn't completely unusable, but they did.
It fit snugly into the chamber after hammering it past all the rust.
Hopefully they wouldn't need it again, because it wasn't coming back out.
Their efforts were rewarded with a warm orange light crawling up through the generator. A glowing line of a cable ran through the floor, into the switch they needed, and from the switch to the door.
It's screeches of protest would imply how much it didn't want to be opened, but the mechanism didn't listen.
The party had finally made their way to the room, and were not greeted with anything Rex would consider calling a target.
The room was empty.
The walls were bare, the floor was just as plain as every other floor in the ship.
No treasure trove, no coins, not even a pile of garbage that the previous owner was meaning to offload at their next refueling stop.
"Is this it?" A certain gormotti's voice said, "This is what you shilled out for, just some empty spare room?"
"My lady, do not be so rude to the gentlemen." Dromarch contributed, "though…this is rather underwhelming."
All doubts were dashed by Malos immediately. "Of course not. We're after something in the next room."
"Um…there isn't a next room." Rex remembered.
He was quick to continue when Malos glared at him, "that is, the map said this was all there was."
"And you didn't think the giant empty space next to it was suspicious at all?" Malos asked, "Take a closer look, there at the far wall."
One closer look later proved Malos was correct. The room may have been empty, but one of its walls was not as bland as they were at first glance.
The far wall opened into a short hallway, and almost completely hidden behind both the mist leftover from when the ship was still submerged and the dust cloud kicked up from opening the door, there was a second door.
A door that clashed incredibly with the style of the rest of the ship, Rex noted as their company approached it. It bulged out from the wall in a sort of half egg-shape. No moss or rust grew on it, which left an emblazoned symbol on full display. A flame inside a circle, with a small circle at the base of the flame, which in turn had an arrow-like design pointing upwards from its center.
It was a symbol Rex had seen a lot of. It was unmistakably the Leftherian coat of arms.
Which made Rex even more confused.
They were just about as far from his homeland as possible, and he knew for a fact that the archipelago lacked the resources or talent to commission or build a ship like this.
Rex's confusion hit an apex at the next thing Malos said.
"Jin, check that out. It's Addam's crest."
Never in his life had Rex heard the symbol of Leftheria called that, and neither had 'Rex'.
"Addam's crest? What's that mean?" He asked.
"You." Jin shot at him, " open this door."
Rex flinched a little at Jin's sudden interjection. "Me?"
"This door will only open to one of you people."
"One of me? What're you talking about?" Jin had stated it like a fact, not an insult, and it only added to Rex's confusion.
"Hurry up and do it!" Malos shouted with a clear lack of patience, "We're not paying you to ask stupid questions."
The sudden verbal assault made Rex flinch again, along with Nia.
"The hell's that about!?" Nia spat back, ignoring a 'My Lady, please' from Dromarch, "Where do you get off, treating hired help like that?"
"What was that?" Malos' ire switched targets, "You're lucky we even let you tag along, kitty cat, don't get any further on my nerves."
Rex thought fast for an input as he noticed both sides of the argument beginning to reach for their weapons.
Jin thought faster. A single hand grabbed Malos by the shoulder, and the white-haired man won a glaring contest with his co-worker in record time. Malos turned out to be a sore loser. He pulled his shoulder out from Jin's grasp and donned an annoyed sneer that matched his blade's.
"So, how does this thing open anyways?" Rex shouted over his shoulder as he walked towards the door.
He didn't hear an answer, and thankfully he didn't hear anymore fighting.
That did leave him with a door to open, though, and no clear means of opening it.
It was much bigger up close. He ran his hands along it looking for…well, anything. Any seam that wiggled too much, any crack he could fit a pry bar into, hell he'd take a doorknob. He beat a fist against it, using the noise to judge how thick it was.
The surface was beyond tarnished, indicating to Rex that whatever it was made of wasn't overly resistant to the passage of time. Despite this, some traces of luster behind some more recent looking scratches. Rex didn't know how anything could have made those scratches, as the room only had one entrance and it had been shut for architect-knows how long.
"Only opens for one of my people…" he mumbled.
His people meaning Leftherians? The entire crew was Leftherian, and Jin had said they could take any salvager from the team. If that was what Jin meant, then this door was the singular reason whatever organization he worked for needed a crew of only Leftherians. That would be overcompensating to the extreme, and was not an explanation that fit in the slightest…
But the evidence was staring him in the face. The crest of Leftheria stood proud on the door. He had avoided touching it until now, but it was the most obvious answer.
With few other ideas, he began lifting his arm. He hesitated, taking a moment to inspect his arm.
His right arm.
If he stared at it too long, he could clearly remember the feeling of teeth driving into his shoulder.
He shook himself off and raised his left arm instead.
He didn't know what to expect when he touched the crest. 'Nothing' was around the top of the list, and it was almost a correct prediction.
There was an ever so slight give to the round symbol when pushed, accompanied by an even slighter, singular click.
Then nothing happened.
He pushed it a few times, every time getting the same click.
If it was actually a button, then that meant it was as old as the ship, so maybe…
He punched the button. Not very hard, of course. Percussive maintenance only worked when the machine was still intact.
Nothing.
Rex had officially run out of ideas on how to open the door.
He scratched behind his head, but as he was about to relay the bad news, there was a sound of skittering footsteps.
He heard Malos say something. "Wha-hey, Sever wait!"
Rex had a fraction of a second to take the hint, and thank the architect he did. A whooshing noise passed dangerously close over his head as he ducked, giving him just enough time to draw his weapon to face his aggressor.
As he gathered from Malos' shout, Sever had charged at him, and seemed to be more than happy to not explain why, nor give any breathing room in his assault.
Steel met ether, sparks burning off their weapons clashing.
Sever was relentless enough, but beyond that was something strange. Rex found himself dodging or worse against strikes he swore he blocked.
Things were quick to turn in Rex's favour, thankfully. A white and yellow blur behind Sever said as much.
Nia lept at the reptilian blade while Dromarch dove at his legs. Sever reacted quicker than should have been possible, breaking off from a clash with Rex to jump off the wall.
He flipped over Dromarch, and met Nia's attack in the air. Even though neither party should have had leverage, he managed to push her back. He grabbed Nia by the collar of her shirt, and threw her further into the small hallway.
Dromarch skidded to a stop and moved to catch her, just barely making it in time to act as a cushion.
"Did you honestly think you could get a sneak attack in?! You don't sneak attack me, I sneak attack you!" Sever roared in annoyance.
"How very unsportsmanlike," Dromarch commented, "Have you no honor in combat?"
Sever laughed when heard that, "'Fighting with honor'? Seems none of you have fought much. There's no such thing as honorable combat."
"Why are you even attacking!? What did I do!?" Rex yelled now that he had a chance.
"For one, you lied." Malos said as he approached.
"Lied?! About what!?" Rex asked back.
"You had said you were Leftherian."
"I am!"
"Not according to that door, and I trust it more than you." Malos said as he gestured to Sever, "so, thanks for wasting our time and money."
Sever passed his driver his weapon, and Malos flicked it into a few spins as they both began glowing.
"You…bunch of bastards…" Nia said as she pulled herself to her feet, "Just because he couldn't open some stupid door, you're going to kill him for it?"
Malos kept mindlessly spinning the tonfa as he considered for a moment.
"Well, when you put it like that…"
Sever leaped into the air, and Malos tossed the tonfa back.
"Yep!"
"Engrave!" Sever shouted, as he pulled his arm back.
The edge of his weapon turned from tangled to a solid blade, and he rapidly jabbed the air over and over. Projectiles shot from the point at every thrust, all hurdling into the hallway
They would have hit Rex and Nia head on, if not for Dromarch. The tiger had pounced at the scaly humanoid's driver, neither expecting it. Though Dromarch himself took several of the hits, it threw off Sever's aim. The stabs dug into the floor, and a few of them still managed to find flesh to pierce despite Dromarch's efforts.
Insult to injury, heavy wind pressure blasted from the darts and their end points. Both Rex and Nia were sent stumbling backwards, until Nia hit Rex, and Rex hit the door.
In that moment, as he began using the wall to pull himself up, when so many things needed Rex's attention, he heard something. He could have been watching with dread as Malos kicked Dromarch into a corner, out of view of the hallway.
He could have been thankful neither he or Nia hurt themselves on their weapons as they were uncontrollably slammed into the wall.
He could have been scared as Malos now looked particularly angry as he and Sever prepared to advance on two young wastes of time.
Instead, he listened to the wall. A strange mechanical noise began coming from it. Gears clicked, motors whirred…
…and all of a sudden there was no longer a wall to lean on.
Rex stumbled backwards, trying to catch himself on Nia's shoulder and only succeeding in making her stumble backwards as well.
One step…
Two steps…
Three…
A door closed in front of them, and everything began turning blue.
It took a few seconds for the numbness to subside before Rex realized how much pain he was in.
"Shit shit shit!" Malos screamed as he ran to the now closed door.
It shouldn't have been possible. He had just watched the kid fail spectacularly at opening it, why could he do it now? He watched the kid try everything, but then he opens it on accident using the door to pull himself up? He already tried pushing the release toggle, why would which hand he used make a difference?!
"Shit!" He yelled louder, as he slammed his fist into it.
He continued beating the door. It wouldn't do anything but it made him feel slightly better.
"Goddamn, sonuva bitch!"
Cursing helped as well.
"Malos," Jin spoke, putting a hand on his shoulder, "you can't make it through."
Malos jumped a little. He knew exactly how Jin had gotten behind him so fast, but that didn't mean it couldn't startle him.
"I know!" He responded as he pulled his shoulder back, "It just pisses me off."
"There's nothing to be done about it." Jin calmly explained, "Why he struggled to open it doesn't matter, the fact that it closed again means they're dead."
"Is that right?" Malos asked.
"The security must have been triggered. It's stronger than anything on our ships. They have five minutes at the most."
"Right, you mentioned something like that. You said that's why you couldn't just break in on your own."
"I did, and I can't."
"Still, it's annoying," Malos emphasized with one last punch into the door, "Means we'll have to go get another one of those pieces of garbage to open it again."
Jin didn't have a response for that one, he just hummed at the statement.
Might have been more of a grumble, actually, Malos could never tell stuff like that with Jin.
They had made it out of the hallway when they were met with an interesting sight. That beast blade the girl had with her was having a stand-off with Sever.
The tiger's eyes drifted over to the two men, and said eyes widened in fear.
"You…what have you two done with my lady?!"
"She and the boy were trapped behind the door. The security measures will kill them shortly, so you won't need to grieve." Jin said plainly.
The tiger's eyes widened further, he seemed to need a moment to process the oh-so crushing news he just heard.
"You…barbarians!" The blade cried as he pounced at the men.
Neither made an effort to dodge. Neither needed to.
Sever had a fist driven into the back of the beast's head a split second later.
"Never turn your back on me." The black blade hissed, "I told you, I'm the one who sneak attacks."
"Telling someone that you specialize in sneak attacks seems counterproductive." Jin remarked.
"Hey, not like they live to tell anyone about it!"
As always, Sever's logic was impeccable. He seemed to celebrate his incredible intelligence by giggling maniacally to himself.
The two men and single blade began the long walk back the way they came. It wasn't a particularly difficult trek, just a long one. The group gathered that the beast blade had survived Sever's assault, and had begun trying to force the door open. From how progressively quieter the sounds of the impacts were getting, it seemed he was not making much progress.
They had made it about halfway, when Sever reached a breaking point.
"Grah! Where is everything?!" The blade cried, "I'm already bored!"
"We killed just about anything that challenged us on the way in, everything else is probably too scared." Malos reminded him. Whether Sever was in a good mood or not was of little importance, but he was easier to handle when he wasn't looking for something to beat up.
"But I want to fight! There must be something we missed!"
"Not likely. We were very thorough." Jin commented.
"Damn…" Sever resigned to his fate. It would have been surprisingly easily to anyone else, but Malos knew Sever's battle thirst was only inconsolable when he was truly pissed. That, or drunk, either of the two did the trick.
"Tell you what," Malos started an offer, "When we finally get the Aegis top side, I'll let you do the rest of the killing. Is that enough to let you sit through another few round trips?"
"…promise?" Sever asked.
"Sure! Why not?"
Sever really was a great blade for Malos. He took no crap, was happy to fight, and appreciated their goal. The only problem was that he was easily annoyed under certain circumstances, but Malos always made sure to let Sever know exactly where he stood whenever diplomacy failed.
"I at least wish that tiger would stop banging on that door though," Sever remarked after they had continued, "You'd think he would have returned to his core by now."
That comment stopped the men in their tracks.
Malos and Jin looked each other in the eyes, realization hitting them both at what Sever just implied.
Malos didn't know he could turn around so fast.
"Son of a bitch!" He yelled as he ran back into the ship.
Blade: Sever
Rarity: * * * * *
Weapon: Bringer of the winds
Role: TNK
Battle Skills:
Armor Piercing: Chance to ignore defense
Nullify Defense: Chance to ignore guards
Heartless Kill: Massively increases damage dealt by a surprise attack
It took a minute for Nia to realize she was being electrocuted anymore. It took a few more minutes for her to find enough strength to pull herself off of Rex. It wasn't much, she doubted she could convince her legs to stand yet, but she could at least sit leaning against a wall.
Nia didn't fully understand what had happened. Rex hadn't even attempted to explain it, he was still face down on the floor.
She remembered a lot of pain and a dark blue light, being carried, and another door.
She didn't really have the energy to bother putting the pieces together at this point. She was more than with staring at the wall from her little spot on the floor.
The air was warmer than it had any right to be. Not so warm that she would take off a layer, but warm considering where they were.
The bottom floor of a sunken boat shouldn't be this warm.
She flicked her ears around, testing to see if they still worked. They still tingled a little, and the tips were numb, but she could still hear things.
There was the gentle hum of power running through the walls. Thankfully, there was also a distant sound of metal clanging from the other side of the second door. It closed behind them once they stumbled out of the pain hallway, but she could tell Dromarch was doing his best against the first door.
Whether or not that was a good idea, Nia didn't know, but she was grateful to know he was fine after what had just happened. His presence felt weaker than it normally did. Nia hoped it was just her imagination.
"Uh…Nia? Do you see that?"
Rex seemed to have gotten up. He might not have been in as bad a shape as Nia thought. Besides that, Nia wasn't really in the mood to see anything at the moment, so she pretended not to hear him and kept trying to catch her breath against the wall.
"Nia?"
"Give me a moment."
Things were still sore, but feeling had returned to her legs, and she concluded she could probably stand at this point.
"Okay, what's happening?"
"Well, nothing's 'happening' but…"
"But wha~uh…"
This was a fair way from what Nia was expecting from the secret room hidden at the bottom of a super old boat.
It wasn't all that spacious, but it held a lot.
A giant machine took up half of the room, which still left a good twelve feet from it to the door. More impressively, the machine and the room in general were completely dry. Absolutely no traces of cloud sea were to be found, meaning the room itself had remained completely air tight despite how old the boat was.
The machine itself was a sleek black colouring. So many sections, tubes, and panels, Nia couldn't begin to imagine what any of it was for or what any of it did. What she did know was that there was a large, upright cylinder in the very front of it, and a panel on it was completely transparent.
There was someone inside it.
Someone who was…um…very clearly a woman.
She was fair skinned and her hair was a fiery red, the latter of which matched most of her clothing. It was…quite the interesting ensemble, to say the least.
Let it be said that Nia had never considered herself an expert on fashion.
In any way, honestly, some of the trends she had seen in her travels baffled her to no end.
All the same…wow, that's a fair bit of skin.
Not in any conventional ways, either. The majority of the girl's outfit was essentially a one-piece bathing suit, except with shorts that covered her hips. The shorts exposed an inch or two of thighs before the rest of the legs were covered by opaque salmon-pink stockings. Her midriff and the center of her bust was covered by a likewise opaque mesh-looking material, a darker colour than the red that most of the clothing was. Specifically the midriff, as the rest of her waist was exposed. Her arms were uncovered as well, though interestingly her shoulders were covered by the body while her hand wore fingerless gloves. Large green gems adorned several parts of her clothing, while some pieces of her outfit were just green on their own. Notably two X-shaped markings, one on each of her…um…
Someone won the lottery, didn't they? Nia thought, as she tried and failed to stop her eyes from drifting away from the woman's face.
An inquisitive noise from Rex gave the briefly mortifying implication that she had said it out loud, but her worry disappeared when she saw he wasn't looking at her.
He wasn't looking at the woman either, his eyes looked straight ahead. She followed his lead, and found something that was quite interesting. Nia didn't think much would be more interesting to a boy than an attractive young woman, but she wasn't about to waste time pondering the inner workings of the male brain.
More to the point, what he was looking at was more immediately accessible. A thing was sticking out of a pedestal some feet from the machine. A thing it was since, like everything else in the room, Nia wasn't sure what she was looking at.
It was a bright, metallic red, and somewhat triangular in nature, or maybe more V-shaped. It was much taller than wide, but it was still only two or three feet long. One edge was jagged while the other was sleek, a yellow handle rose from the top, with a loop of what looked to be a handguard on the side with the sleeker edge. Directly below that handle, there was a green shape inserted into the object-sans-name.
The shape was like a very fat, lowercase 'T'. A very similar shape was located on the woman in the machine, right between her-
Stop staring…it's rude.
She indeed stopped staring when she noticed that Rex was walking further in.
"Whatcha up to, Rex?"
No response
"Rex?"
Nothing
The boy kept walking towards the pedestal that held the red thing.
Nia watched as he approached it. For some reason, a bad feeling began growing at the bottom of her stomach. She was sure why, but she was beginning to worry about what would happen if Rex touched the stick.
He was within arms reach, and his arm was reaching.
"Rex, don't!"
"Huh?"
He paused a moment, pulling his arm back, before turning to look at Nia.
"What's the problem?" He asked.
"I don't think touching that thing is a good idea." Nia explained. She didn't have anything to base the feeling on, but it was better to play safe.
Rex didnt respond, but the sudden itch behind his head told Nia enough of his response.
"...you touched it already, didn't you?"
"Just for a moment! You surprised me, and my finger tapped it, that's all."
"...and you feel fine then?"
"Fine as can be, considering…" he gestured to the door.
Nia's ear fluff frizzed a little at the memory.
Worried for nothing.
"Nevermind, then. Go wild." she said as she returned to leaning on the wall.
Of course, she said that, but it didnt stop her from side-eyeing Rex as he returned to the something-or-other.
He reached out one more, and the bad feeling returned to Nia's stomach.
His hand reached closer to the object.
Nia could feel her heart quicken slightly.
Closer…
Was it always this warm in here? Why was she sweating?
Closer…
Her arm clenched for some reason, her hand ached for the reassurance of Dromarch's weapons.
He made contact…
Nothing happened.
He touched it again, lowering his head for a better look as he traced around the green shape with his finger.
Nia did her best to hide the sigh of relief. She truly had worried for nothing.
She watched Rex as he brushed a finger against the handle of the thing, before wrapping a hand around it.
She then watched his arm jerked a few times, wondering what he was doing until she heard him grunt.
"Are you trying to pull that thing out?"
"Trying, yeah," he replied as he adjusted his grip and stance, "Surprisingly...difficult…"
He took a step back to shake his hand, before squatting a little and grabbing with both hands as he resumed his efforts.
Rex's grunts were slightly annoying at first, but Nia began to realize how much it helped calm her nerves that something so mundane helped cut away how crushingly bizarre the rest of the room was. If nothing else, it helped her relax a bit.
"Hey, Nia? Mind giving me…" Rex managed to strain out between pulls, "…a hand…here…?"
He breathed heavily as he took a small break, "hah, it's really stuck in there."
"Why exactly are you so bent on pulling that thing?" She inquired, "You planning to sell it or something?"
"No, nothing like that. This…thing," he gestured at it, " looks like a blade weapon to me. Which would make her," still panting, he gestured at the tube girl, " a blade. If a whole crew of salvagers paid two hundred thousand a piece were needed to pull her up, I don't think I'd want to find out why someone's so desperate to get their hands on her."
He wiped his brow and restarted pulling, "If you're still too spent, I understand."
The red stick-thing had made absolutely no sign it was going to move. If it wasn't budging after being pulled on by the guy who could topple a muscle wood tree with his bare hands, Nia probably wasn't going to be the deciding factor.
On the other hand, he did make a convincing argument. That tempting job offer was effectively void in her eyes after the exchange that trapped them in here. Not to mention this was a concerning amount of trouble to go through to find a single blade. In turn, that implied how much trouble was gone through to hide it.
What the hell. Why not? Wasn't like they would be close to being rescued any time soon. Could be a fun way to pass the time.
She walked up to the pedestal, standing to the left of the red thing itself. Rex moved his hands so as to reveal a piece of the handle she could grab before resuming pulling with all his might.
Honestly, at this rate he was going to break it before it moved an inch. That is, if the floor didn't cave under his feet first.
Nia reached for the weapon, and clasped her hand around it.
It was freed the moment she made contact. Neither she nor Rex lost their grip as it raised from its pedestal.
Which was a problem. They both yelped in surprise as they were now pulled off balance. All the force Rex poured into it lost any and all resistance.
Rex fell backwards, his hands on top of each other over the handle, and Nia fell directly on top of him as the sword pulled her arm.
It almost felt like the world slowed as they fell. Shining motes of ether began floating through the air, glowing a brilliant green as they lit up the room. As a fiery sensation danced across her fingers where she held the handle, a far warmer feeling began rising in her face as she fell closer to Rex. She could hear an echo in the sound of his back hitting the floor, and her pulse quickened as they kept getting closer. With all the light now shining about the room, she could nearly make out every detail in Rex's face. She tried telling her heart to slow down, but it wouldn't listen.
At least, it didn't listen at first.
All of a sudden, it stopped.
There was a sense of relief as blood stopped rushing to her face.
Her face felt colder than ever.
Wait…
Wasn't that…a bad thing?
She should know that, right?
She was…a healer. Right?
Healers would know how bodies and organs work.
Right?
So, wasn't it a bad thing that she couldn't feel her heartbeat?
Shards of metal flew past and clattered against the wall. She looked at one that landed nearby. It looked like it used to belong to some kind of door. It felt almost familiar, though it was difficult to tell. The room was incredibly dark for some reason.
There was a noise. It was like…choking? She looked down. There was a boy with brown hair under her, staring wide eyed and pale faced at her chest. Horror filled his expression, but she didn't know why. She followed his gaze, up a thin, silver line from the middle of his chest to…
Oh.
At least that answered why she couldn't feel her heart.
Wasn't that a bad thing?
There was a loud yell. She couldn't make out what it was. It almost sounded like words, but she didn't understand the language.
She turned to look at the sound. She didn't expect to see a tiger, so it was perfectly natural that there wasn't one. There was a strange rock, though. It made a pretty noise when it fell to the floor.
More voices. She looked for them. They came from under her. Apparently the boy said something, because a voice behind her replied.
She wanted to look behind her, but her neck wasn't listening anymore for some reason.
Suddenly she was falling…again?
The boy made for a soft landing, but she couldn't seem to lift herself up.
Wasn't that a bad thing?
What was hap-
hap-
hap-
hap-hap-hap-hap-hap-ahp-anl-gajbs-
48b65e20st74est75po72nh6e65er64or20ri68ki696d7365 6c6620696e746f2061207069636b6c65-[Fatal]
[Halting Process]
[Resonance Interrupted]
[Error Code: 4c 69 66 65 73 61 76 65 72]
[Hard Drive Leak]
[Running Diagnostics]
[Fatal]
[Stopping]
[Sending Error Report to Trinity Beanstalk]
[Error]
[Connection Failed]
[Error]
[Error]
[ Errroramwe;6/ta4?,ak]
[Fatal]
[Rebooting…]
[Error]
[Cannot start]
[Required device missing]
[Please reconnect and try again]
[Error]
[ File Path Unresponsive]
[Please repair metadata and try again]
[Error]
[Please repair me-
[Error]
[Please(..) X 26]
[Error]
["I'm begging you" Not Recognized As Script Command]
[Fatal]
[Rebooting…]
[Fatal]
[Reboot-
[Fata-
ta-
ta-
L-L-L-
A968E7889232D978507942E7D7456F20-
.
..
…
[Connection Established]
[Received: Administrator SSH request]
[Local Remote Control Granted]
Admin2/~ copy root "localhost":/* Pyra 000000002:/home/Guest
[Move all local files to admin host (Y/n)?]
Admin2/~ Yes
[Password:]
~But the path of the just is as the shining light
[Transferring…]
[Transfer Complete]
[Shutting Down]
[Goodbye]