Last Bastion, Kahje

Day 1, 1805

"See anything?"

"Nngh… give me a minute."

Sarah continued to tread water, lending a little of her biotics to the effort as she peered up at Ekris. The drell was half way out of the water, looking vaguely like a gymnast on a bar as he balanced on the lower sill of a window above their heads.

The group had endured a gruelling swim across the 'lake', with the drell doing their damnedest not to expose themselves to the water too much, and all four of them doing their damnedest to avoid the steel debris, floating like icebergs in the middle of the expanse. They had finally made it after fifteen or twenty minutes' effort, mostly propped up by biotics - Irving, the only non-biotic, had nonetheless fared well now his arms were free of his bulky armour.

"Stairwell," Ekris reported, wiping the condensation off the window with one forearm and balancing precariously on the other. "Looks like it goes up for a fair way."

"It should run from top to bottom," Solara nodded. "This is where we need to be. Can you break the window?"

"It's thick…" the other drell muttered. "Don't think I could get through with biotics."

"Breaching charge?" the 'administrative assistant' suggested, causing Sarah's eyebrow to pop skywards.

"Only got the one. If we need to make an exit…"

"An exit's pointless if we never make an entrance," she pointed out. "Lieutenant?"

Silence for a moment, before Sarah snapped back to attention, and mumbled:

"Err… yeah. Do it, Ekris. If we're really desperate for an exit, we can work our way back down here."

The assassin nodded, and with another gymnastic effort, he hauled his whole body up out of the water, swinging his legs up so that he was lying on the window sill on his back, and reaching for one of the many compartments on his belt. Eventually, he found a small, circular disc, and held it up to his eye, scrutinising it.

"No water damage," he concluded. "That's nice."

"We don't need a narration," Irving growled, "just get on with it!"

"Alright, alright…"

The drell shifted slightly, and for a moment Sarah feared he was about to plunge back down into the water, but his balance remained steady, and with his arms now free, he was able to lean up, apply his omni-tool to the back of the device, and then fix it firmly to the centre of the large glass pane.

"Timer?" Solara guessed.

"Contact," he muttered, shaking his head. Then, without warning, he swung his free hand up and tagged the charge with his omni-tool. The omni-tool flashed, the device gave a high-pitched whistle for half a second, and…

Bang. The blast was… quite understated, actually. A little, muffled impact, and the sound of cracking glass, as the pane shattered outwards from the centre without actually giving. The device itself was gone, reduced to a few smoking scraps and some bouncing sparks, which quickly disappeared into the water - where it had been, a large circular hole in the glass was all that remained.

"Is that it?" Irving frowned, examining the tiny blast mark.

"It's designed to take out a lock," Ekris sighed, explaining absent-mindedly as he reached for his sidearm. "Plant it, set it off, and give the door…"

Whack.

"…a quick push."

The whole pane seemed to ripple inwards on itself, collapsing into the stairwell beyond with a series of delicate crunches. A few jagged shards remained on the lower lip, but Ekris quickly bashed them out with the muzzle of his Shuriken, before rolling through the edifice and disappearing from sight.

"Clear!" he called, after a moment. "But… whew, you guys should probably come see this…"

"Ladies first," Irving grunted, gesturing sarcastically to the broken window.

Rolling her eyes, Sarah kicked off towards it, and she and Solara reached it side by side, both using a draft of biotics to haul themselves up, over the sill. The drell jumped down nimbly, landing next to Ekris, while the lieutenant paused a moment longer, surveying the ground before sliding down, to the crunch of glass under her boots. As she straightened up and glanced around, Irving was clambering up behind her, grunting and grumbling. Finally, he thudded down behind her, clapping his hands together and shaking off the worst of the water, still clinging to his arms in beads.

"Down there," Ekris muttered, nodding to the downward stairs.

Reaching for her pistol with one hand, Sarah glanced down, biting her lip as she did. The entire stairwell below them was flooded, dark water welling up from beneath, and floating on the surface was a greyish form…

"Son of a bitch…" Irving rumbled. "Husk?"

"Mhmm," Ekris nodded. "Dead, too. Didn't think those things could drown, to be honest…"

"It was… probably crushed, rather than drowned," Solara noted, business-like as ever. "The water pressure in the deep is… more than sufficient to break a human body."

Sarah, however, wasn't looking at the husk. She was looking at the water, watching it closely as it shimmered and hovered below a certain step… and then spilled over it, cresting it like a tiny wave.

"It's rising…" she murmured, absent-mindedly.

"Huh?"

"The water. It's… rising. This thing didn't fill from the top, there's a breach down there."

"Good thing we just smashed a drain, then," Irving grunted, nodding to the broken window. "It shouldn't get any higher."

Sarah nodded, in vague assent, before casting her eyes around once more.

"Solara, how do we get to the administrator's office from here?" she asked.

"Up," the drell replied, pointing to the ceiling as she did. "It's three floors above us, on the north side of the tower."

"Lead the way. And … weapons ready, everyone. If there are husks down there" - she pointed at the flooded stairwell - "I'm willing to bet they're above us, too."