Welcome to Ch 17 of TPA! JJD as always keeps this readable.
Well, I wouldn't classify this as 'better.'
Thought Jaune, watching as the Old Man pulled his black sword form Ori's chest. When he woke up this morning it was to find the older Hunter dead. He didn't realize it at first, he thought he was just sleeping. He went to the bathroom, and when he came back it was to see Clay and two other Hunters gathered around the leader, who was pulling Ori's shirt up to reveal several black spots forming on the man's torso.
"Ok, any of you youngsters have any idea how he died?"
"No sir." Someone answered. Jaune recognized him as the same man who was patching up him and Ori last night.
"But it shouldn't be because this wound. Even for a normal person, without Aura, such damage wouldn't be lethal."
The Old Man spat to the side, his usual scowl deepening.
"Figures. Kiddo, anything unusual happen when you two played with that Warper?"
"Nothing that I can think of." Jaune answered with a sigh.
"Fuck." He spat to the side, and considered something for a few moments. "Someone call the rest of the squad. It's time for a little strategy meeting. And help me move the body to the other room."
Half an hour later, they all sat around a small table in the living room of their temporary base. The Old Man looked them over and sighed.
"Alright folks, we have a problem here, and I think we need to talk it out before we decide what we're going to do next. So, can you tell what happened on your end after we separated? Jaune? Clay?"
Both of them looked at each other and shrugged.
"Nothing special. There were a lot of Ghouls, but mostly fresh ones. Some of them didn't even had any mutations. We reached the first Wraith spawn around thirty minutes after we separated. Jaune went in, and walked out around ten minutes later, unharmed from what I saw. We then proceed to the other location, it took us around forty minutes to get there. Again, nothing unusual happened, just that there were far more Ghouls. Oh, and the Wraith wasn't a Dream Eater."
The Old Man nodded, the turned to Jaune.
"KId? Anything unusual in any of these two houses?"
Jaune pondered the question for a few moments, then shook his head.
"Nothing that I can think of. In first one I found four corpses - two female, one male, and one too messed up to tell its gender. Probably parents and children, judging by the size. The Wraith was barely formed, so killing it was easy. Beside that? Nothing worth mentioning."
"What about Ori?"
"Again, nothing special. We were crippling Ghouls, Jaune was finishing them. We encountered a few stray Beowolves, but nothing major. It was pretty much a standard clean up operation, until that Warper showed up."
"Then how the hell did he die, and started turning after...I don't know, maybe a few hours ? Anyone know exactly when he died?"
"I think sometime after midnight. I heard him snoring when I went to the bathroom." One of Hunters said.
The Old Man checked the time on his scroll and winced.
"It's few minutes after six. Not long enough for corruption to start to settle in, and there was nowhere near enough negativity for him to start turning in the first place." The old Hunter scowled -more than usual, that is.
"I don't like it. I don't like this one bit. This whole situation doesn't make any fucking sense."
"Why? Maybe he got infected by something and died from that? Or had some internal damage that we didn't notice…" Clay pointed out, but the Old Man just scoffed, and spat to the side.
"That's not it. Or at least not all of it. Have any of you seen any bodies on the streets?"
There were a few moments of the group looking around at each other, shrugging and shaking their heads.
"Yeah, me neither. Kid, you said you saw some in the first house. What about the second one? "
Jaune shrugged.
"Not sure. The living room was empty. The next room I checked was the kitchen - and I didn't have a chance to get a good look before the Warper blasted me out."
"And that's another strange thing. The distress signal was received around one hour before we set off. It would take at least two, maybe three weeks for a Warper to grow so big. There's no fucking way for it to remain hidden in the middle of the town for so long. And then this outbreak. One so big doesn't happen out of nowhere. Hell, I've been a Witcher for over forty years, and I've never seen any that comes close to this. For something like that to happen, something really messed up would have to happen. But as far as we know, this was a completely normal city, up until most of its population turned into monsters."
He paused for a moment, arms crossed over his chest.
"And those Ghouls. They were young ones. All of them. There should be a few older ones. It all looked like they all changed at roughly the same time. And have you seen how much damage there is to the city?"
"Well, to be fair, I didn't think there was that much…" Jaune pointed out.
The Old Man snorted.
"Yeah, you're right. And didn't it strike you as strange? This town was attacked by a horde of monsters. And there is hardly any damage to the buildings."
"So, what are we gonna do now?" Asked Clay after a moment of silence.
The Old Man sighed, then shook his head.
"We are moving out. First we check the mayor's mansion, there might be some communication equipment there that will let us contact HQ. If not, we simply grab any survivors we find and then get the hell out of here."
"What about team one?"
"If anyone is alive, they would either head towards the mayor's mansion, or have retreated. We will keep our eyes open, but that's it. If we find them, good. If not, we are still leaving."
Eclipse rose, cutting the outstretched arm near elbow. Immediately after it fell, biting into Ghoul's shoulder, cutting through bone and muscle until it stopped in the middle of its chest. Jaune didn't even bother cleaning the blood that sprayed on his face, instead he tore his sword free, and spun, cutting into another monster. It struggled for a few moments, then stilled, black spots on its body disappearing quickly.
Too fast. Jaune thought, pulling Eclipse free, and stabbing another Ghoul in the chest.
Corruption clears too fast for Ghouls this size. And there are far too many of them.
Not enough to overwhelm their group - yet. So far they were holding the horde off, but they were fighting almost non stop since they left their hideout. The number of Ghouls was simply unreal - Jaune honestly started to believe that whole town had turned.
But that's not possible. They all would have to die in the same way, at the same time. Judging by damage to the city, or rather lack of any, there was no bandit raid, or Grimm incursion, or any other catastrophe. There is no way all of these people died together. Unless…
His eyes narrowed as he cut down yet another Ghoul. A quick glance around revealed that most of the Harrowed were dead, the Old Man finishing a few stragglers. Jaune slumped against a nearby wall, and ran a hand through his hair.
"Move it ladies, it's not time to be lying around. Unless you want to keep playing with our new friends." The Old Man shouted.
Jaune winced, and pushed off of the wall. He could hear the next wave of Ghouls coming.
We can't keep this up for long. We need to find someplace to rest.
"You think I don't know, kid? Been looking for any decent house to hunker down for like half an hour." Was the leader's response, when Jaune shared this thought with him. Jaune winced and focused on the road ahead. They were moving fast, but not running. There was no way they could outrun the Ghouls, they would just tire themselves out.
They must have entered something akin to a trade district. Most of the houses they saw had either far too many windows to be good defensive positions, or were too big for the seven of them to be able to effectively defend inside.
"How about that one?" Shouted Clay, pointing to the side.
Jaune turned, to see a rather large, two story building. It looked like a pub of some kind. From what Jaune could see, there were several windows, but most of them were too small for a Ghoul to come through.
It doesn't look bad. Jaune thought. Even if they weren't able to hold the lower floor, they could retreat upstairs, and defend there. And if things got really bad, they could use windows to get on the roofs of nearby buildings.
The Old Man apparently thought the same, because he urged whole team to run towards said building.
"Alright, Clay, Kid, check out the other rooms, make sure we are only ones here. The rest of you - start barricading doors and windows."
Thankfully, they didn't have any aggressive company, and were able to secure their new base without any problems. Well, beside the Ghouls that came from outside. There were a few tense moments when the horde form outside almost managed to break inside, but eventually they managed to barricade all the entrances.
"So, I don't want to be that guy, but what now? We push onward, or do we retreat?" Asked Clay, after the Ghouls got bored of storming their improvised fort.
Jaune pulled out his scroll, and checked the tactical map of town they all got before the mission started.
"I think we can push on after we catch some rest. We are almost at the mayor's house anyway."
Clay sighed, rolling his head to loosen the muscles.
"There are a lot of Ghouls outside. It would take ages to kill them all."
"Well, we could always use the rooftops. But there is a good chance they will get bored if we stay quiet for long enough."
"How long?"
Jaune shrugged, taking a set on one of chairs they didn't used to barricade the doors and windows.
"Dunno. Might be an hour, might be more. Or less. Anyway, we are relatively safe here, so I guess we might as well get some rest."
"Don't get too comfortable. Even if these fuckers let us be, we still would have to clear them off to get civilians out of here." A gruff voice sounded behind them.
Clay turned to regard the Old Man.
"If there are any civies alive. With so many Ghouls, I'm starting to believe the whole city got turned."
"There is no way that happened...is what I would like to say. But you might have a point. There are just too many of them. Problem is - how did it happen"
"Well, I think we can exclude Grimm or a bandit attack. Not enough collateral damage, and we would have seen bodies. Plus, a request for help would have come earlier." Reasoned Clay.
Jaune nodded.
"And we barely saw any Grimm in the city. If this were an attack, negativity would have summoned more of them. Not to mention how close to Vale we are. Anything big enough to be threat for this city - Grimm or bandits - would be detected and dealt with."
The Old Man hummed, staying silent for a moment.
"So, what are we left with? If it didn't come from outside, it had to be an internal problem. We can exclude epidemic, or explosions for the same reasons as above. It would take too much time for all the residents to die, and there would be bodies."
"Well…" Jaune trialed off "I have a theory…"
"Oh? Mind sharing it, kid?"
"Sure. But first, one question. Don't you think those Ghouls look kinda… similar to each other? Like, almost identical?"
"What?" Exclaimed Clay, cleary confused. "Have you hit your head? Most of them had only blackened skin, in a few places, without much mutation…"
"No, the kid has a point." The Old Man mumbled, stroking his chin.
The Hunter looked between the two Witchers, both of them lost in thought. When none of them spoke for a few moments, he coughed to get their attention.
"I hate to interrupt whatever you two are doing, but maybe provide some sort of explanation for poor, old me? How exactly do those Ghouls look similar?"
"Corruption." Said the Old Man. "We don't know much about how and why Harrowed are formed, but we do know that, in the case of Ghouls, the cause of death will determine from where corruption starts spreading. If someone died because they were attacked, the wound that caused the death would be the origin. In the case of disease - it would usually start from the heart or brain. But after that, it would spread chaotically. Some parts of the body would be corrupted and mutate faster than others. I've never seen two Ghouls that looked exactly the same, there are always some differences. And the ones we fought…" The Old Man paused, his eyes narrowing.
"Now that I think about it… Their corruption was spreading evenly. And they didn't look too deformed." He turned to Jaune "So? What is this theory of yours kiddo?"
Jaune took a moment to gather his thoughts, trying to find any gaps in his logic. When he found none, he spoke.
"Poison. This is only way that I can think of for so many people to die at a similar time."
"Poison? So many people? That would be hard." Clay was clearly not convinced.
"True. But not impossible. If he messed with the town's water supply, he could get the whole town without anyone noticing."
"But there are safety protocols, filters, and sensors that would send an alarm if they detected something toxic in the water." The older Hunter argued.
Jaune sighed.
"Yeah, you are right. But only if what they would detect would be registered as a toxic substance. There are ways to bypass that. You could, for example make something that is completely harmless on its own, but becomes toxic after prolonged exposure to some conditions."
"Something like that is possible?"
"Yeah. But it would be hard, very hard."
"Well," the Old Man spoke after a few moments of silence, "this theory is as good as any. You think Ori might have somehow gotten poisoned too?"
Jaune nodded.
"Yeah, that would explain how he died from such a small wound like that, and why he started turning so fast."
The Old Man's eyes narrowed.
"You think it's the work of the same psycho from Atlas? The one that was running around, and turning girls into Wraiths?"
"I-I'm not sure. He is only one I ever heard of that can reliable create similar Harrowed. And this" Jaune motioned around him," is on a completely different scale, compared to what he did in Atlas or Vale."
"Wait, that whole mess in Vale was his doing too? Are you sure?" Asked Clay.
Jaune ran a hand through his hair, thinking for a few moments on his answer.
"I don't have any proof. But a friend of mine got a picture of someone that looked very similar leaving Vale last Monday."
"Just when the murders stopped. You think he might have gotten scared that he was getting too much attention, and decided to leave the city?"
"Probably. Or just wanted to find a smaller place to make some of his experiments. Or a million other things."
The Old Man hummed, nodding a few times. Then shook his head, and looked back at Jaune.
"So, back to the problem at hand. How do you think Ori got poisoned?"
"Not sure. Could be the blood of the Ghouls he killed. But I think it's the water. I saw him drinking from the tap as soon as we got to that house."
"Wait." Clay exclaimed, eyes wide. "Didn't you drink from it too?"
Jaune nodded.
"Yeah, but Ori was out of Aura. I think this made the difference."
"You sure? I mean…"
"You want me to strip and check if I didn't started turning?" Jaune asked with a serious voice.
Clay considered him for a few moments, then slowly shook his head.
"Nah. You are too lovely to be a walking corpse. Anyway, what do we do now?"
Jaune got up and stretched.
"I think we should push onward. We can decide when we see what the situation is like at the mayor's house."
Ok, this doesn't look good.
Jaune winced. After nearly two hours, they finally reached their destination - a big, two story building situated near a large square with a small fountain in the center. It apparently served both as city hall, and the mayor's residence.
"This doesn't look good." Clay echoed his thought aloud. Seeing as heavy doors were wide open, and the whole square was covered in motionless bodies, it wasn't hard to guess what happened.
"Stop standing and staring, and move. We need to investigate anyway, maybe someone hid somewhere deep in the building."
Jaune sighed. They all knew that chances of them finding any survivors were slim at best, especially if his theory about the poison was correct.
They closed slowly, wary of any surprise attacks. Amidst the deformed corpses of Ghouls, they found two that clearly belonged to Hunters - if the clothing and unusual weapons were anything to go by. Jaune and the Old Man looked at each other and nodded.
Two black swords pierced the two bodies at the same time. Both Witchers remained still, until last black spots disappeared from the corpses.
After that was done, the whole group moved towards the door, weapons at the ready. It was clear what happened. One of the other teams reached the mayor's house first. They opened the door, but instead of civilians, they found Ghouls. Sounds of combat must have dragged more Harrowed to the area, and the team was surrounded. Jaune couldn't spot any more bodies that looked like they belonged to Hunters, so it was possible at least some of them survived.
Seeing as the doors were wide open, they didn't bother with any subtlety, instead just bursting inside, weapons at the ready, eyes scanning every corner of the spacious hall they were in.
It was empty, save for a few broken pieces of furniture, and one or two bodies.
"Ok, you know the drill. Sweep the building, secure doors and windows. We will stay here for a minute to catch our breath, and decide what to do next." Said the Old Man.
They all got to work. Thankfully some barricading had been done by the civilians that hid there, before they turned into Ghouls. Since the building was very large, checking it all took more time than their previous hideouts. Thankfully, besides one Ghoul in the kitchen, it proved to be empty.
"So, how does it look?"
"The house seems to be clear. Not much here, but we found a control room of some sort in the basement. There were sealed doors there, but we didn't try to open them." Said Huwe, a short, lean man with a small mustache, and long, brown hair tied up in a ponytail.
"What was in the control room?"
"A lot of pipes, some computers, and a ton of screens. Most of them didn't work, but I could hear water moving through the pipes. I guess this is where the town is getting their water from."
"Probably." Said Toto. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Tob, but not nearly as massive. His short, black hair was well kept, his mustache perfectly trimmed. He wore a pair of half-glasses. Overall, the man looked more like an office worker, than a Hunter. Even his outfit looked like a suit.
"We found towns map in the mayor's office, and it indicated that there's a cave system under the town, with an underground river running through it, and several small lakes."
"I see…" The Old Man considered something for a few moments, then looked over the gathered Hunters.
"You all heard the kid's theory on how this mess happened?" He waited for all of them to confirm, then continued. "So, what do you think about it?"
"I believe it holds some merit. It would explain a lot. But there is one thing I'm not sure about." Toto said. He fixed his glasses, and turned to address Jaune. "If this was indeed poison, and it is in water, how are you ok? I believe you drank from the same source that Ori did?"
"I think it's thanks to Aura. Ori was completely out after our fight with the Warper, I had a little left. Besides, I'm nearly immune to most poisons. Semblance." The last part was added when the gathered Hunters shot him questioning looks.
The Old Man chuckled.
"Well, isn't that convenient. Listen kid, I recall that you liked to play alchemist when you traveled with Leon. You think you could try to figure out what kind of poison was used, and make something to purge the water here? I don't know if this underground river runs through any other settlements, but if it does and it's poisoned…"
He didn't finish, but he didn't have to. Everyone here could imagine.
Jaune considered his answer for a few moments, then slowly nodded.
"I can try. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to find, but I should be able to at least make some countermeasures. Will need a few things though."
"Nothing too fancy, I hope? We are kinda low on supplies, and I doubt any stores will be open at this hour." Clay joked.
"Nah. Just a bit of laboratory glassware, and a few chemicals. I saw a clinic on our way here, and a pharmacy. They should have all the things I need. Plus samples. "
"Good. Huwe, you go see if you can get the machinery in the control room running. Usually cites like this have cameras set around, if we can get a recording we might figure out what exactly happened. Toto, I saw some antennas on the roof that looked like short-range communication boosters. Go see if you can't get our scrolls back up and running. Rest of you, go with the kid, help him gather what he needs. Any questions? No? Then move your asses."
"You wanted to show me something?" Asked the Old Man, looking over the control room. In addition to sound of water running through multiple pipes, now he could hear soft hum of working machinery.
Huwe spun in his chair to face the older man. "Yeah. I managed to restore power and get access to the camera footage. A lot of it is corrupted, but I found one interesting bit. Here look at this."
The Old man walked closer and looked at the only active screen. Huwe pressed a few buttons and the video started playing. It was of very poor quality, but he could just make out some dimly lit room, or cave with a small lake and sizable pipe going out of it. For a few moments nothing happened, but then someone walked into the room. Whoever it was, was carrying a large canister - that they attached to pipe gathering water from lake. They couldn't make out the person's face, because of the low quality of recording, and fact they were hooded, but judging from their behavior, they weren't supposed to be there.
"Well," the Old Man sighed, "I guess the kid's theory just got that much more probable. How old is this recording?"
"Roughly three hours before Vale received the distress signal."
"Shit. Then that means this stuff works really fast."
"So what now? We bail out? I honestly don't see any reason for us to stay. Better to get out, or at least try to contact HQ."
The Old Man scoffed.
"It's not that simple. I talked with Toto just a moment ago. He said that the signal booster got purposely damaged, and in way he won't be able to repair without some specialized tools and a few spare parts. None of which we have. And on top of that, he found this attached to one of the antennas."
Huwe Looked over the small device the Old Man handed him.
"Is it…"
"Signal Jammer. Atlas technology. Old, but still widely used. Whoever did all of this, apparently wanted to make sure that not a word of what happened here got out." The Old Man shook his head.
"We still can't contact the outside, but at very least we can communicate with ourselves."
As if to confirm his statement, his scroll started ringing. The Old Man picked it up, his scowl deepening when he saw who was calling.
"I already received two cases of bad news in the span of five minutes. You better have some good news for me, kid."
"Well…" Jaune's voice trailed off.
"Fuck. Ok, I'll be there in a minute." He ended the call and turned back to Huwe.
"See if you can find something else. I'll go check out what kind of shit hit the fan this time."
All five Hunters and two Witchers sat at a single table in what was probably once a conference room. All eyes were focused on Jaune.
"Where is Huwe?"
"Busy in the control room. Now spill kid. What did you find out?"
The blond hunter sighed, running his hand through his hair. He really wished he had more time to run tests, or had better equipment, or not had to do it at all.
"A few things. First of all, I was able to confirm that there is something in the water samples we gathered. I don't have the necessary equipment to determine what exactly, but I found traces of a similar substance in the Ghouls', and Ori's blood. So I think it's safe to assume some kind of poison was used to kill and turn those people. The good news is that it seems to dissolve pretty quickly, so I don't think we have to worry about it spreading. Not too much at least, and Aura seems to protect against it as well."
"So what's the bad news?" Clay asked.
"This substance.. The water was not only thing that was spreading it. "
Jaune sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small object. It was a simple scented candle, like one could find in almost any shop. A few of them even burned in the very room they were sitting in.
Clay covered his face with one hand, slowly drawing it down.
"Tell me you are kidding."
"I wish. I would need to get blood samples from all of you to make sure, but…"
"There is no need. So lets sum this up, shall we? We all inhaled some strange substance that will turn us too if we run out of Aura. We can't call for help, since long-range communication is broken. All the water is poisoned too, so we have to stick to what we brought with us. Oh, and every person living in this city is now Harrowed, that sooner or later will come for us. And We can't afford to let our Aura run dry. Can this get any worse?"
As if to answer the question, they heard a few shots. It didn't take them long to figure out who, and where the sound was coming from.
When they reached the control room it was to find previously sealed doors open, the whole floor covered in blood, and Huwe's headless body lying on the floor.
All monitors were functioning now, showing footage from many different cameras. The Old Man walked closer, and stared at one screen for a few moments.
After the doors were sealed shut, the rest of team joined him.
Footage that old Witcher was so focused on showed cave with sizable lake in it. It was bigger than the one he saw earlier, but this one had pipe a pipe running from it too, and another strange canister.
And multiple big, round, and fleshy things sitting near the edge of the lake, half submerged in the water.
Eggs, or cocoons. And a few of them looked to be empty.
"Shit." Clay summarized the thoughts of every person in the room.
AN. And we continue where we left off last week. Things look… definitely not better than they did last time. But hey, at least this can't get any worse that it already is, right?
Anyway, omake. This one is direct continuation of last week's one. Written by JJD.
Opening Night
Pierre's eyes watched as the young girl paced back and forth, slowly trying to burn a hole in the floor of the small backstage room.
"What are ew zo nervous about? Ew said ew've done dis before." He asked.
Sam huffed. "I have done this loads of times before! In front of big crowds."
He raised an eyebrow. "Ow big iz a big crowd?"
She chuckled nervously. "I don't know, maybe a dozen? Whoever stopped by the fountain really."
He ran a hand down his face in exasperation. "Wha da 'ell Zam! Der are at leas a 'undred people out der!"
"Yeah, I picked up on that, thanks." She shot back.
He took a deep breath and let it out. "Ok, ok, iz not dat different. 'Ow did ew prepare in de past?"
She sighed. "I don't know! I never really worried about it! Jaune was always there."
"De dorkie knight?"
"My dorky knight." She unconsciously defended.
He walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders.
"Ok Zam. Lizten to me for once in ewour life. Breath deep." He took a deep breath, waiting for her to do the same before letting it out. "An let it out." He looked her in the eye. "Good, now eye wan ew to imagin dat when ew are out der, it iz jus me an dat ridiculous boy ew like zo much out der."
"He's not ridiculous."
"Even better. Now, get ready, ew are on in five."
Pierre took up his own pacing routine in the back of the quiet and dimly lit theater, as he waited for Sam to come out on stage. His eyes scanned over the crowd. He been wrong…
There were easily two hundred people here.
He watched as a portly man wearing glasses waddled his way to the microphone in the center of the half circle stage.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a special treat for you tonight! For the first time in far too long, we have a student from the great 'Pierre's Studio of Dance and the Arts!' Please welcome to the stage – Samantha Birger!"
"Way to up da pressure azzhole." Pierre muttered as the crowd erupted into applause.
Sam hesitantly peaked her head out from the curtains, eyes wide at the size of the crowd, paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and began to slowly and stiffly make her way to the microphone.
He winced when she reached it. It looked like she was trying to hide herself behind the slim stand, as she tentatively reached for the mic.
"Come on Zam, ew can do dis." He whispered.
"Um…hi." She managed to squeak out before she mentally slapped herself. He watched as she started to shut down, taking a step back from the stand.
"Are you going to perform or not?" A voice called from the crowd.
Pierre made a note to have a private conversation with that particular patron later.
"I…uh." Sam stuttered.
"Get off the stage!"
Pierre was about to make his way down the aisle to the man, when the lights started to flicker, a powerful buzzing noise filling the air.
His eyes shot up to Sam. She looked terrified, like she was about to flee the stage. He did the only thing he could think of.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Zam, dat ridiculous boy iz here!" He shouted.
"He's not ridiculous!" She growled, leaning forward towards the crowd.
Her eyes, and his grin, widened at the realization of what had happened. The nervous spell was broken.
Her gaze snapped to the noisy patron. "And you! Maybe if you'd shut up for a minute I could start." She scanned over the crowd. "I'll be performing 'I'm Yours.' You're welcome."
With that, she started to sing. It was a rich, vibrate sound, that accentuated her elegant and flowing movements as she made her way back and forth across the stage, captivating the crowd.
Pierre wished that he could have appreciated it more, but he was too busy dying laughing.
He wiped a tear from his eye and smiled proudly up at the stage.
"Dat'z my girl."