The team gathered around the kitchen table on the morning of the nineteenth, diving into the plentiful supplies that loaded down the table – Tads had clearly been busy over the last day or two stocking up the pantry and making sure that there were plenty of raw ingredients for the family to use.
"Once we've done with this Aden business, we definitely need to see about some more work. Funds are getting a little low." Kai said before biting off a large chunk of bread roll, still steaming. He realised how hot it was and sat with his mouth open, furiously blowing on the bread held between his teeth, trying to cool it.
"Why? I thought we had a bunch of money, from the work we've just done?" Aswon said, his eyesbrows knitting together with suspicion and deep furrows appearing on his forehead as he glared at Kai. "What have you spent it on?"
"Me? Nothing, don't blame me," Kai managed to say around the chunk of bread. He pointed a finger at Marius. "It's all his fault anyway."
"Do not blame me. I have not had any money from you – I wish I had, as there is plenty to purchase!" He looked around at the team who were all staring at him, returning their looks levelly. They could see no sign of humour in his face, and Marius certainly wasn't one to lie, so they transferred their gazes back to Kai, who had just managed to get his glass of orange juice to his lips. He lowered his glass and sighed.
"Well, ok, not Marius directly, but his wife. She has more plans, you see, and she caught me one night after dinner, and started explaining stuff. There's digging she wants doing, and steel box sections and fabrication, and pipework and all sorts of things."
"Oh – is that why there's a bunch of massive holes round the back? Though I'm guessing that's your handiwork, Tads, as I've not seen any cranes around." Hunter glanced over at the shaman, who put down the slice of toast she'd been about to nibble on.
"Yes, Nadia had some plans for me to work from, she said that she's made arrangements with Kai on her next project, but if I was willing to dig the holes it would save us a huge amount of money." The team's gaze swivelled back to Kai who had at least managed to take a drink.
"She was talking about underground basing and things. I asked her about containers, and she got very cross – kept telling me that while you CAN bury a shipping container it's a very stupid idea due to the construction, as they're not designed to be weight-bearing on the roof and all kinds of structural nonsense, but…"
"She's not wrong." Hunter interrupted. "Plenty of people have died from burying containers and then trying to live in them. They're designed to take weight on the corners, not evenly distributed."
"… well she seemed very definite anyway. So she wants to get some stuff made, and some stuff underground. But she said it was going to cost a bit, and then she showed me her spreadsheet and started to go into detail, and I sort of got lost in all the project phases, so I just told her to go ahead, and transferred some money to her to get it organised."
"How much?"
"A hundred thousand…" There was quiet around the table as they all stared at Kai with slightly open mouths – all apart from Marius who looked oddly proud and pleased. "Look, she was talking about phases, and critical path dependencies, and milestones and stuff, and I just wanted to go and have a snooze!"
"So how much have we got left?"
"About a hundred and forty five thousand, Aswon. So we're ok for fuel and supplies for a while."
"Oh, good. That's not too bad then."
"Ahh, but you didn't see the spreadsheet. It had scrollbars…. I suspect there's a lot more phases to go!"
"Huh. Well, if Tads has dug out the pits for any underground construction, that will save a lot of money. And I'm guessing once whatever Nadia is building you can just cover them back over afterwards?" Tads nodded to Hunter. "Yeah – that'll save a lot of time and effort with the placement. But if she's getting pre-fabricated modules made up and then put down into the pits, she's going to need mobile cranes and stuff. So I wonder if we need to 'take care' of the crane operators afterwards." Hunter saw Tads bristle and quickly spoke "No, no, not like that. I mean alter their memories and stuff, so they forget they've seen our underground base…"
"That's still very rude, and I don't like the idea at all. What gives us the right to interfere with their lives?" She looked around the table for support, but nobody else seemed to agree with her, even Aswon who was normally what she considered her staunch ally. Clearly he was thinking about the security implications of people talking and rumours spreading about such an unusual task. "Well, it's something you should bear in mind – it's not a nice thing to do to people. Can't you just pay them more to keep quiet?"
"That rarely works, Tads. And at least this way they just don't remember exactly what they did – maybe they were just laying sewer pipes, rather than underground bunkers. And they get to go home and carry on with their lives, none the wiser." Hunter shrugged. "It's better than the alternatives…"
"Anyway, let's cross that bridge when we need to. What time are we flying out, Marius?" Kai steered the conversation away from the issue into safer waters.
"Dusk. We're going to fly east, out over the Caspian and then turn south. Run roughly down the centre of the sea until we hit the northern shore of Iraq, streak across the coastal plain and then pull up and into the mountains and get lost amongst the clutter. Through the mountain passes and steer slightly east of the smuggler base, directly to the Mountain. We are right at the max altitude for the aircraft to reach the waystation, but we managed it before. As long as we do not run into horrific weather, we should be fine – and the forecast says that it will be clear tonight."
"What about the border? Any problems with the defences?"
"I do not believe they will be an issue. We will make a very low level transition from the sea onto the plateau, near Sisangan Beach and then into the Forest Park – that will cut down on the number of sensors that could tag us and any visual sightings. It will also let us follow the route of the Kojur River where it cuts a defile into the mountains, and use that as our route up – so we only have about four kilometres of exposure on land before we reach the mountains. We can cross that in less than thirty seconds, so the chances of interception are minute. It is only if we are detected approaching land that we will have issues, and I plan to come in just above the waves."
"Sounds like you've got it all worked out then. Great stuff – well, everyone chill until this afternoon, and be ready for launch around dusk."
They went about their business for the day, and took off just as the light was fading, the sun casting long shadows across the helipad as it slid behind the mountains far to the west of them. As they headed east with the last rays of the setting sun on their tail, Tads called out a question to the team.
"Do you think we can get codes from Aden, for getting in and out of the country? Without having to sneak, I mean? If he told the border guards to let us through, I don't think they'd argue with him!"
"I doubt it. Aden is reviled by the government of Iraq for his destruction of Tehran. Though they're a lot more careful about how they address him and their opposition - he's still generally hated and feared amongst official circles." Aswon shook his head at her. "It's possible that he has agents placed in their government – in fact I'd be very surprised if he didn't. But I'm not sure he'd risk them to give us access to the country's airspace."
"Uh, I guess so. Well, it was worth asking!"
True to his word, Marius blasted just above the wavetops and sent their aircraft screaming across the abandoned beach, concealed by the powerful spirit Tads had summoned, it left barely a furrow in the rocks and coarse sand before pulling up slightly to roar across the Si Sangan Forest Park. The deciduous trees were barren, but the passage of the aircraft just a few metres above them still sent a ripple through the trees, a spreading v of motion behind them as their turbulence sent the trees shaking in response to their passage. They felt the aircraft angle up as they started to climb, and Shimazu saw the imposing blackness of the mountains ahead as they angled up the steep canyon, following the twisting path the river had carved over the course of thousands of years.
A few minutes later, they heard the sounds of the engines change, the usual background roar rising in pitch as they struggled to raise the craft higher and higher through the thin air. Marius suddenly called back to them.
"Be aware, a small dragon is flying off the port quarter. It does not appear to be hostile – so far. It has identical markings and colourings to the one that 'guided' us down here before."
"We didn't piss it off, did we?" Kai asked, and looked around to get a number of head-shakes. "Ahh, good. Ok, assume it's a guide or an escort then, and follow it down to the landing point. Let's not mess around though, and get onto the ground as soon as possible."
They landed soon afterwards, next to the waystation they'd visited before – the aircraft filling the flattened area next to the stone hut. To their west the ground fell away sharply, the rocky hill fading off into the darkness and dropping thousands of metres, while to the east the mountain rose sharply, more rocks littered on the shoulders of the mountain. Hardy vegetation poked through the frost and ice that covered the ground, blowing back and forth in the strong breeze. The team climbed down out of the aircraft, closing it up behind them and headed over to meet the drake, who was waiting crouched on all fours, ears flattened back along its skull. As they approached through, it raised its head and the ears twitched forward. Kai stopped and composed himself for a moment, then gave a respectful little bow, inclining his head downwards to stare at the ground below him for a moment. As he straightened, the drake returned his respects with an answering nod of the head – perhaps not quite as deeply, but clearly indicating he was acknowledging the gesture.
"Ach, you're right on time. Good, good!" The team were taken aback by the accent, as the voice rolled over them. The powerful and rich baritone voice had a thick Scottish accent that just seemed incongruous from the red-hued scaly being that sat before them.
"Well, we do try to be punctual. I hope you're well?" Kai managed after a brief pause.
"Aye! Aye, 'Tis well enough. Are ye ready to get on? Ye have everything ye nee'?"
"Yes, thank you. As far as I know we only really need Hunter here, and we definitely have him!"
"Follow me, then. Watch ye steps, now!" The drake led them up a barely defined path, and they found themselves stumbling over the rocks as they climbed up the slopes. The air was thin here, and the team found themselves slowing a little as they climbed, trying to draw in enough oxygen to power their muscles at the high altitude. The complete lack of light on the mountain only made things harder – the night was clear so there was starlight at least, allowing them to make out enough of the details to avoid falling, but it was a difficult climb. Fortunately it only seemed to go about a hundred metres from the waystation before the drake paused, and began to speak in a guttural language none of them had ever heard before.
Ahead of them the mountain opened up, a tunnel forming that was easily twenty metres across that angled down into the mountain side at a ten-degree angle. Tads flicked into astral space to examine the magic and caught the tail end of the spells mana shaping the earth and her eyes widened. It felt broadly similar to her own spell that she used for digging – but was far more powerful, covering a much wider area than she could, and seeming to go far deeper as well. The magic also felt odd, a strange twist to it that she'd not encountered before.
"Can ye see in the dark?" Their guide asked them. Looking ahead there was no source of light visible at all in the tunnel – just a faint pinprick of light far ahead that did nothing to illuminate the tunnel. From what they could see the floor was perfectly smooth, though there was no reassurance that it would remain so.
"Ahh – no. Not all of us." Kai said. The drake waved a fore-claw in the air and muttered again, and a pale white light appeared around him, rising in intensity like a floodlight as it warmed up. The drake moved into the tunnel, and the team followed along, starting to descend along the smooth tunnel that had been bored laser-straight into the mountain. After they'd travelled thirty metres or so, the air stilled and the breeze disappeared as the tunnel closed behind them, sealing the entrance up with hundreds of tons of rock and earth. Their guide didn't break step though, continuing downwards at a brisk pace.
They reached the end of the access tunnel and came across an oddly-shaped room – an octagonal shaft dropped down vertically below them, disappearing into the darkness, with no handrail or safety barrier between them and the indeterminate drop. The room at their level, though, had three other tunnels branching off, each of which had an octagonal profile too, extruded from the complex geometry of the room they were in, with equilateral triangles formed to make a perfect mesh in-between each of the octahedral tunnels. Several of the triangles glowed softly with a pearl light, the source of the faint glow they had seen from the entrance, casting an even glow around the room and perfectly lighting it from all sides.
"Well, whenever you be ready, down ye go!" The drake gestured into the pit with a claw, and Aswon inched closer to the edge, glancing down. The light from the illuminated panels faded after perhaps ten metres, but the shaft gave the appearance of going way deeper than that. He thought he could see another faint pin-prick of light far below them – but it might have been a trick of the eyes.
"Um – sorry? Are we supposed to go down there?" Kai asked.
"Aye, aye. To see the laird."
"I'm not sure how we'd do that. It looks…deep?" The drake nodded in agreement, then turned towards Tads.
"Are ye not good with the floating spells, then?"
"Not really, and I can only do one at a time. It might take a while, depending on how deep it is."
"Ach, we don't want to keep him waiting. Mighty testy, he gets. Excuse me for a moment then." The drake moved to the side of the tunnel, and they saw there was a small recess in the tunnel, an alcove of sorts which contained a few items. The drake reached for a bundle of cloth, and then transformed before them, shedding his draconic visage and morphing into a broad-shouldered man who stood naked before them. A mass of unruly red hair flowed down into an equally hairy body, upon which several tattoos or woad markings were intricately carved into his flesh. The bundle of cloth was shaken out, and with the ease of years of practice the Tartan was quickly fashioned into a kilt that covered his body. "Right, sorry about that. Now, let me concentrate for a moment." There was a shimmer of magic, and a disk of force appeared over the tunnel, covering the twenty-metre shaft with blue pearlescent energy. Kai, Shimazu and Aswon could see the power radiating from the disk, and the link to the drake – Aswon in particular guessed that one of those woads or tattoos now concealed by the kilt would be glowing brightly while the spell was powered up.
Tads squinted at the spell – it looked like her levitate spell in some regards but was subtly different. The magic was just…different. At first her brain had thought to use the word 'twisted', but that implied some sort of taint or malaise to it, and it certainly didn't feel like that. It was more like if all of her spells were a two-dimensional picture, and this was the first thing she'd ever seen in three dimensions. There were layers or concepts here she'd never really experienced before, and she was struggling to find a right way to even think about them, let alone work out what was going on.
Hunter and Marius, of course, stared at the blue glowing disk with a mixture of distrust and horror. They both leaned over the edge and stared down at the potentially bottomless pit through the translucent energy and then at each other, before turning towards the rest of the team, waiting for one of them to be the first to test just how solid it was. They relaxed slightly as Tads strode confidently onto the energy, not sinking a millimetre into the surface and held in place effortlessly, and she was quickly joined by the others. They noticed that Aswon stayed right by the edge, but he waved them on to the disk confidently, and they both edged on – finding the surface just as solid as walking onto a rock or a concrete floor. There wasn't even that slight dip you felt as people moved onto a lift and the mechanism absorbed the weight…
The drake strode on as well, his kilt rising slightly as he crossed the edge of the disk and the slight updraft from the tunnel was funnelled through the thin edge between disk and wall, and then with no warning they started to descend, picking up speed quickly with each passing moment. Aswon brushed his hands against the exterior wall and as he activated his gecko tattoo he stuck there for a moment, before turning off the powers and dropping back onto the disk. They'd descended a good five metres in the time he'd taken to run his experiment, and he bent his knees deeply as he landed, absorbing the impact.
"I was just curious…" he said, when the man gave him a look. The disk accelerated, and the light above them receded into the distance, the smooth walls blurring past them. Hunter tried to keep a track on how far they'd dropped, but his GPS wasn't picking up any signal – in fact all electronic signals had long since faded away, blocked by the mega-tons of rock surrounding them. Even his cybernetic spatial recognisers were glitching out, confused and disoriented by the perfect geometric shapes and lack of identifying features to latch on to. Far below them the speck of light started to grow as they quickly drop towards it, revealing the bottom of the shaft.
"A thousand metres, maybe more." He muttered under his breath, while his systems reset themselves as they had solid reference points to lock onto once more. The disk slowed, still descending but dropping in speed, and each felt themselves pressed down into the translucent energy as their apparent weight doubled under the force of deceleration. The force eased off as they entered the top of the chamber, and the topmost part of the rock began to glow, casting the same even light they had seen in the room far above them, down into the space. Tads did a quick check in the astral plane of the glowing panels.
"Looks like a fairly simple light spell anchored to a detection spell of some kind, both fairly low in force."
Looking around at the mirror of the room far above them they saw four access tunnels leading off, all again carved as perfect octahedrons. There were no labels or signs of any kind, and no distinguishing features they could see, but their host seemed to pick his route with confidence and stepped off of the disk and into the bottom of the tunnel, leading the way.
Progressing down the tunnel, they spotted some irregular holes in the sides, the first signs of imperfection in any of the construction so far. Drawing level with the hole, Hunter and Tads peered at the formation of rock with interest, stopping for a moment to examine what they could see while the rest of the group followed the guide. They scurried after them to catch up, and the others overheard their conversation via their earpieces as much as their physical voices.
"Definitely looked to be caused by pyroducts – classical lava tube formation."
"Absolutely – did you see the steps and serrations at the bottom marking the flow of different heights of lava."
"Yes – and they twisted and undulated along with the striations in the rock. Definitely looked natural."
The group passed another of the holes in the wall, and the rest of the team stared into the dark hole, the light from the top of the tunnel quickly being swallowed as they stared into the stygian depths, the tunnels leading off into the distance, curving and twisting gently in accordance with the natural makeup of the rock.
They walked for another fifty metres or so, until finally they reached another of those unusual geometric junctions, but this time instead of tunnels, it appeared that the exits were into a series of rooms – each of the main facets being closed by a door, some of which were at unusual or odd angles that could only be reached by flying or levitating travel – or creatures who can just move in three dimensions naturally. They shared looks, but then followed the guide into the door he'd opened, leading into a short corridor that opened up into another chamber, this time a regular rectangular shape. The walls were the same beige stone they'd seen in the tunnels, and above them were the faint lit rocks they'd seen in the ceilings outside, casting a soft and even light throughout the whole room with no shadows visible. In the centre of the space was a large stone plinth, smooth and perfectly flat on top, but with rough cut marks on the sides. It rose up to about waist height, and looked vaguely like a burial tomb or stone sarcophagus, and Hunter gave it a slightly unhappy look. Laying on one corner were a set of bronze tools – knives, pliers, retractors, rib-spreaders, all laid out on a roll of leather that itself looked ancient. The design of the tools look refined, but the metallurgy screamed of ancient techniques and there was an indefinable air of antiquity to them. Kai moved closer and squatted down to bring his head level with the tools, his hands holding the roughly cut stone on each side to keep himself steady.
"Wow… those are old. Very old. From the design I'd put them perhaps third or fourth century BC. I think Greek, or somewhere very near, culturally speaking."
"Do you want those sterilised, Hunter? I mean, given what we know, it's likely those are going inside you…" Tads offered.
"Huh. Don't ask me, ask whoever's gonna be using them!"
Tads' response was interrupted by the arrival of another man, a short human wearing a toga or primitive gown of some kind. His head had only a small ring of hair around it at just above ear level, the top of his head being completely bald and displaying shiny pink flesh, but the curly brown hair on the side of his head flowed down into a large and impressive beard and moustache. Clear brown eyes looked out at them from under bushy eyebrows, and the slender figure moved with a certain amount of grace and confidence.
"Good evening, sir?" Kai offered, holding out his hand to the newcomer, who looked at it briefly and then moved around him to adjust the tools on the corner of the stone slab.
"Ahh, you're here. Well, let's get on with it, shall we?" Kai flicked into the astral plane to look at the man, but he appeared to be just a mundane human being, without any cyberware, bio-implantation and without even the vaguest hint of magic. He tried again, but it made no difference – the man just appeared to be a normal, run-of-the-mill average human. And that made Kai very suspicious…
"So – what's going on then?" Hunter asked.
"Well, we're going to put this inside you." The man reached under his robe and pulled out a small wooden box. It was polished and waxed, and the top fitted snugly onto the base, decorated with a row of fine black and white triangles that must have been individually cut and inserted into the framework with painstaking effort.
"And where's that going – because there's not that much of me left, you know. Not the fleshy bits, anyway."
"Oh – into your chest cavity. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find room." He didn't sound concerned, but then most of his attention were on the instruments, which were being laid out and adjusted with intense concentration.
"And it won't interfere with stuff? That's already in me, and how I work?"
"Pfft. It won't let your primitive machines affect it. Be not concerned, the operation will be simple, though alas not painless."
"You've not answered my question!"
"That is indeed the case." He finished adjusting the instruments and then looked up and over to Hunter directly for the first time. "You may now take your position on the table."
Hunter looked at him with annoyance, but his gaze seemed to be just swallowed up by the other man's expression, and he sensed he wasn't going to get a straight answer. Instead he started to strip, passing over his gear and clothes to Marius. As he was getting undressed he realised that he'd caught a faint hint of an accent from the man, but he couldn't quite place it – and it was starting to bug him. He thought for a few moments, but whatever it reminded him of wasn't coming to mind, and he felt a stab of envy for Marius and his superb memory. Once he was naked, he climbed up onto the slab, suppressing a gasp as the cold stone made contact with his sensitive flesh, and laid back until he was staring up at the ceiling.
"You may now anaesthetise him however you see fit."
"I don't want to be unconscious."
"Don't be daft, Hunter. He's going to cut into you – you can't be awake for that." Kai remonstrated
"I don't want to be asleep!"
"Look – you have to be. If you twitch or move from the pain, it'd be dangerous. And besides, we're all here to keep an eye on you. Unlike poor Marius…"
"I don't like it. But whatever…" Hunter closed his eyes, and Kai moved around with his medkit, selected a sedative and loaded it into the injector before stabbing it into his upper arm. Then he pulled out a tranquiliser patch, peeled off the backing strip and gently laid it on the forehead of the ork, pressing down firmly. Attaching the probe from the kit to the side of Hunter's neck, he could see the vital signs slowing already as the chemicals went to work. Hunter's body relaxed and sagged, the head lolling slightly to the side and the jaw dropping open. Kai moved it a little more and tilted the head slightly, making sure the tongue wasn't blocking the airway and then nodded at the man who had moved around to stand next to the plinth, bronze scalpel in hand.
The man leant forward and deftly made an incision, cutting down the line of the ribs just above the heart, parting skin easily with the blade as if it were made of the finest modern materials rather than bronze dating back over two thousand years. The flesh parted, but no blood seeped out, and both Aswon and Tads flicked into astral space to see that some kind of magical field was flickering over the top of Hunter's body. As Tads assensed the magical field she picked up the tell-tale weave of a health-domain spell, recognising the 'flavour' and weave of the magic from her own healing spells. But, like the translucent blue lifting disk, it had layers and subtleties to it that intrigued her, and she lost herself in examining the magical construct, trying to work out just what it was. Aswon picked up just enough of the spell to realise that it was something benign – and probably accounted for the lack of blood – something had slowed down the processes of Hunter's body drastically, preventing it to reacting to the surgery he was undergoing.
Kai, Shimazu and Marius meanwhile were concentrating on the surgery itself. Marius lacked the medical training of the others, but had an advantage with his cybernetically enhanced eyes, and as he zoomed in the precision optics could see the incredibly precise and dextrous movements of the surgeon as he deftly cut open the skin and underlying layers of tissue, then worked the rib-spreader into place, carefully applying the exact amount of force needed to open the ribs up enough to reach inside them. Kai and Shimazu watched with a certain amount of awe as the doctor worked to expose Hunter's slowly beating heart, before carefully inserting the device they'd had made next to it, overlaying the major blood-vessels. The device was glowing now in astral space, interacting with the magical field over Hunter's body and seemed to flow down and into the blood vessels and the edge of his heart, fusing itself with the flesh while the doctor or surgeon carefully moved it into a position he was happy with. Whatever magical shenanigans were going on aside, the doctor clearly knew exactly what he was doing with meta-human anatomy, and was soon carefully moving organs, blood vessels and body parts back into position as he pulled out from the vitals.
"You may now treat the wound." The doctor stood up, and they noticed that his hands were still clean, no trace of blood or bodily fluids on them at all. Kai pulled out the medkit and grabbed some supplies, dumping anti-biotics straight into the wound and then using his suture kit to reattach flap of tissue back together, drawing them closer together until he could use a bonding agent to seal the two sides back into one whole. Whatever magic was slowing the bleeding process down was fading away, and things were starting to ooze as the body started to react more normally, and he worked quickly – the damage done to the chest cavity by the implantation was fairly extreme, and even the exquisite care taken by the doctor was still going to leave Hunter flat on his back for weeks by the looks of things. Working together Kai and Shimazu closed the outer layers of skin, making sure they had a drainage tube in place to help out.
"Tads… can you do something here? Tads? TADS?"
"Umph, sorry? Oh, yes. No problem." Tads snapped out of her examination of the magical field that was almost gone now and examined the wound, a frown forming on her face. The damage was extensive, the wound reaching right down into his core, blood was now starting to fill the chest cavity as the body processes started to experience the flow of time normally. And of course, Hunter had polluted his body with all manner of implants, and she knew from bitter experience just how difficult it was to channel her healing magic through the polluting and retarding factors that were cyber-ware.
She stood over the body, and the golden glow started to form from her hands, bathing the ork's chest in golden light that increased in intensity as she tried to repair the damage to his internal organs and body parts. She struggled to overcome the resistance of his cyber, feeling the high-tech parts choking her magical energies and stunting the flow of mana through his body. It was working, but not well enough, and she dug deep, trying to pull on her reserves to push through the bottlenecks.
A sudden wave of power washed over her, permeating her body and giving her a rush of energy that made the hairs on her head tingle and felt like a drag of feathers over her skin downwards to the bottom of her feet. It was almost orgasmic, making her flash back to life back at the village in the frozen north and her first experiences with the other sex. Power coursed through her, and her brain seemed to trip slightly, and she had a weirdly odd experience. For a moment she felt like she was astrally projecting, looking down at her own body from above herself – but her body didn't collapse to the floor and rest like it would normally, but instead stayed as it was, channelling the mana into Hunter. She almost giggled with joy as the power washed over her, finding a thousand different ways to bypass the implants in Hunter's body and sending golden energy around the wound, suffusing it in life-giving energy.
With a start something in her head clicked as she realised what the strange feeling was – it was the same as she'd had while looking at the other spells here, the feeling of looking at something deeper, something with more dimensions than she was used to. Was this why Dragons were so powerful? How such massive creatures were able to fly, in defiance of Physics and the other natural 'laws' of the world – because they were pulling on power and forces from some other dimension or facet of the world that meta-humanity hadn't tapped into yet? Thoughts flickered through her head, but she tried not to delve too deeply – she didn't want to lose her concentration on what was going on, and ruin the spell. Not when it was working like this…
Thirty seconds later, the golden glow faded away – as did the scar across Hunter's ribs and in fact any sign that he'd been cut open at all. The bio-monitor at the side of Kai showed a completely normal set of vitals, and Hunter started to blink as consciousness returned. A 'plop' sound echoed around the chamber as the drain was ejected from his flank, landing on the plinth and letting a few drops of blood ooze out of the end of the tube – but there was no sign of any damage on the body.
"Wow… that was… unusual." Tads gasped, still slight starry-eyed as she tried to remember and capture the feeling that had washed over her.
"Hmm – good job though, Tads. Very impressive. It looks like you've completely repaired all of the damage. Is the chamber attuned to the domain of health and healing?" Aswon commented.
"Perhaps." She left it at that, not sure that she wanted to discuss it further at the moment – not in front of the doctor anyway.
While Kai helped Hunter to sit up, and detached the medical probes from him, the doctor had slid most of his operating tools back into the leather case, all apart from the bronze scalpel before stepping back from the plinth. Hunter hopped down from the stone and carefully walked over to Marius, testing for pain and discomfort and finding none, then quickly reclaimed his clothes and equipment and started to get dressed.
"Stay there." The doctor said to Shimazu, who blinked at him in confusion, then with signs of alarm as the doctor raised the knife in front of him and walked towards Kai, grabbing his clothes in an outstretched hand and forcing Kai to stagger backwards towards the wall, the knife moving closer and closer to his throat. Shimazu went to take a step forwards to intervene and protect Kai, but found his feet bound to the floor – unable to move at all. He glanced down and saw the spell holding him in place, powerful beyond anything he'd seen before. He tried again, but there was no give in the incredibly strong binding energy that held him in place.
The doctor pushed Kai back one more step, and as Kai reached the wall he lifted, hoisting Kai into the air until he was a good thirty centimetres up the wall. The doctor didn't look strong, and he wasn't as tall as Kai, but he seemed not even to struggle or strain as he held the elf up with one hand, holding the knife in front of him with the other.
"Put him down or lose the hand!" Shimazu spoke quietly but with deadly sincerity, and the blade had appeared in his hand in an instant. He still couldn't move, but was leaning forwards as far as he could, holding the sword ahead of him. He was still a few metres away, seemingly out of range of the drama going on at the wall – but he started to gather power in himself, concentrating the mana from the air into his body. Unlike Tads as a shaman, who generally channelled the mana through her into a spell that reached out to affect the world, Shimazu as a physical adept pulled mana inwards, charging his body with raw potential to be able to carry out the super-human feats of dexterity or ability that adepts were known for. In his hand, the blade glowed brightly in astral space, charging with power…
Tads saw Kai being lifted up as well, and she too pulled in mana to her body, trying to levitate Kai away from the doctor – but despite her best efforts he didn't budge at all. The grip the man had on Kai must have been like a vice, and she released her efforts, realising that trying to pull Kai free was only going to hurt him.
The doctor leant forward, leaning into Kai's personal space, looking up at his face. It shouldn't have been an imposing position. He was below Kai, and looking up at him – and even holding Kai pinned up against the wall, it was not an imposing or intimidating position. Normally. At Kai looked down into the doctor's eyes, he saw him blink, and for just a moment the pupils changed shape, elongating and becoming reptilian.
"I made a promise that I wouldn't kill you. I never said anything about maiming you. Do not be so quick to test my patience again." The words were spoken quietly, barely above a whisper, yet they carried a ponderous weight to them, and a chill ran up Kai's spine as the sincerity of the threat washed over him. He nodded, for a moment dropping all attempts to control the natural reactions of his body, and letting raw emotion show. His attention was drawn by the inrush of mana across the room though, as Shimazu saw the doctor continuing to threaten his protectee, and finished drawing in mana, releasing it in a single massive and convulsive heave.
Shimazu swung the blade through the air, as if striking at the doctor. Mana flickered on the blade, coruscating from the hilt to the tip in a complex pattern that writhed around the blade. He was several metres away, and there was no way the physical blade would hit the doctor. But, just behind the man, several metres away from the physical blade, a ghostly representation of the blade sprang into existence, slicing down in a swift slash that would drive in at his shoulder and cut through to exit at the other hip, slicing him and half and sending the top and bottom of the doctor's body falling in separate directions. Shimazu focussed his power on the strike, sending everything he had into it, ignoring the surprised looks from the others at the ghostly blade's sudden appearance. He'd been working on the technique in secret for months, keeping it in his back pocket for when it was needed. He'd seen other adepts who had mastered the art known as 'distance strike,' letting them focus their melee punches and kicks across several metres. He'd worked tirelessly whenever he was alone to adapt that to work with his sword, and now the weeks of constant drill paid off.
The room wobbled. Mana rippled through the air, and for the briefest of moments the entire team felt like they were simultaneously floating and falling, turning and standing still. It passed in less than a heartbeat, less than the blink of an eye. Perhaps less time than it thought to wonder "what the hell was that"… but when it passed, the sword blow was slashing down inexpertly, aimed in a rush and a desire to do something to help his boss, reaching out with desperation and a desire to do something, quickly. And the doctor leant to the side and let the blow slide past him harmlessly, only a slight movement of the air tugging at the small amount of hair left on his head.
"Kai. Please. Apologise for whatever it was you did." Aswon didn't know what that feeling was, but he knew he didn't like it. And he also knew that Shimazu didn't miss. Yet he quite clearly hadn't connected with whatever the hell new technique that was. And that made him very nervous. He kept his own hands still, making sure he wasn't moving them anywhere near his own weapons, in any way, shape or form. He wasn't sure what was going on in here, and that unsettled him more than anything else about the situation.
"I think he's said his piece. And I'll see him again I'm sure, some time from now in the long grass." The rest of the team wasn't quite sure what Kai meant by that, but the doctor either did, or had made his point anyway, because he lowered Kai to the ground and released him, then slid the bronze scalpel into the leather tool roll. A second later Shimazu staggered forward a step or two as the magical bonds securing his feet were released.
"Um. Thank you for your assistance." Tads said into the sudden quiet, making the rest of the team snap around to look at her, wondering what about that little drama there was to thank him for. The doctor looked at her though, and give a tiny nod of the head, before starting to walk towards the door. "Do we need to do anything for post-operative care at all?"
"No. He will be fine."
"But what does it do?" Aswon blurted out.
"It makes him better."
"But how?"
"It just does. Now, enough with the questions. You will leave soon." And with that the doctor swept out of the room, closing the door behind him. The team barely had a chance to take stock of the situation before there was a knock on the door. When it opened, it was the Drake, still in the form of a human man, clad in a kilt.
"I believe you are ready to return to your aircraft now?"
"I'm not sure. What's next?" Aswon asked, regaining his composure. Normally his age and experience, and his significant experience with magical phenomena kept him grounded and feeling in control, but the odd events of the last few minutes had left him feeling very unsettled, and feeling like he was stood on the edge of a cliff, in danger of falling.
"You carry on with your lives, I would assume, and go about your business. The laird has finished." The man shrugged, and then swept his hand towards the exit, slowly starting to usher them outwards. The team headed out, with Hunter and Marius taking the lead, more than happy to get out of the underground lair, with the rest of the team following along behind them.
"What about the horror? I'd assumed that this was to help with that?" Tads asked.
"Horror? What horror?"
"Well… it started when we went into a temple, north of here near the city of Tashkent…" Tads told the story, covering the highlights of their descent into the temple to rescue Rocket and his team, and the escape of some creature, and then their fight against it some time later at the burial site in Sioux lands. She skipped some of the details – the apparent death and rebirth of Shimazu, but made sure to detail the horrific and frightening nature of the creature. The story took some minutes to tell, which took them back along the tunnels and onto the lifting disk, and most of the way back up the huge tunnel towards the surface.
"Well, that all sounds quite dangerous. But I'm not sure it's anything to do with what's happened here. If it is, then the Laird has not seen fit to inform me. And it's not my place to ask."
"Well, can you pass on some feedback to him then?" Aswon said, a bit of an edge to his voice.
"I can, but I won't. If you want to criticise him, you can do it yourself, face to face. I mean, you can ask – but I won't do it. So I think it's best not to bother."
"But we need more information, more experience – we know we're going to fight that thing again, sometime, somewhere. We didn't defeat it – it just left."
"I'm sure all will become clear in time. Just carry on, and do your best." It could have sounded pithy and condescending, and like an insincere platitude – yet somehow Tads didn't. It felt more like the voice of long experience. Maybe she was reading too much into things, but it almost felt like an omen to her – if not from 'the Laird' then perhaps from her own totem. She nodded her head at the drake, then looked up at the light far above them, watching as they closed upon it.
"Do you deal with the rebel fighters?" Shimazu asked.
"What fighters?"
"The ones in eastern Turkey. Or Kurdistan, rather. I think they're called the PKK. We've got a complaint about them, and their behaviour." He quickly explained about Yez and his 'assault' on Kai at their last meeting. "Basically, if we're going to deal with them again, then they have to treat us with some courtesy and respect, and understand we're doing the jobs they can't do."
"Ahhhh – so that's what this is all about!" The man smiled, tugging at his beard and staring into space past Shimazu. "That makes a lot more sense now. Hmmm."
"Now look, we're not blind to the situation they're in – civilians being shelled and people losing those homes and such like, but we saved many lives with what we did, and stopped the shelling as quickly as we could once we had the job. We dealt with the situation, and destroyed the threat." The man nodded at Shimazu, not offering any argument. "And I'm owed a hand".
The disk reached the top room, and after a moment to orient himself, Shimazu stalked off the platform into the entrance tunnel, not waiting for an answer. The man in the kilt shrugged, and then gestured for the others to move off the platform as well.
"He's not wrong, you know." Kai said. "Though his feelings are a little strong on the subject."
The man in the kilt muttered something under his breath, speaking in a lilting language this time – then started to unravel the kilt. The team looked elsewhere as he got naked, not out of embarrassment but out of respect, and they heard the cloth being neatly bundled back up into the alcove and the complicated sounds of limbs popping, skin stretching and hardening and wings being shaken out and then folded back into place. The drakes head appeared in their peripheral vision, and with a flick gestured up the tunnel.
"Well, we should be getting along now."
"Excuse me. Do you need permission to share your knowledge of magic? And spells?"
"Well, it depends on the spell somewhat."
"Well, the light spell you used for starters, perhaps. That seems very useful. I'd be interested in learning that from you, if I could. And I'd be happy to trade something in return. I have designed some spells myself that might be of interest. One provides oxygen to a living being – or rather to all living beings in an area around you. Another generates a field of powerful but short range lightning sparks all around a person to protect them when they're fighting."
"Hmm… those are unusual. Intriguing…."
"I could perhaps come back at some time to spend some time discussing with you, and exchanging the formula?"
"That I would need to arrange. Perhaps we will discuss this in the future. But for now… " The drake spoke again in the guttural language it had used before and the tunnel wall ahead melted away, opening up into the opening that led to the mountainside. "I believe this is goodbye, for now."
"How do I get in touch with you?" She asked.
"Use the number you already have." The drake shooed them out, watching as they left and when they were clear of the entrance, the tunnel melded shut behind them, leaving them alone on the darkened mountainside, the wind tugging at their clothes and goosebumps forming on their exposed flesh. They started to move down the mountain – it was too cold and exposed to have a discussion, and they wanted to be away and back to the ranch as quickly as they could. The descent down the slippery rockface proved to be if anything slightly tougher than the climb up, and several of them were sweating by the time they got back to the tilt-wing, with Aswon warning them to get into dry clothes as soon as they were inside.
"Hunter – can you climb in through this side door, please?" Tads gestured to the starboard side – the one where the ward stayed up even when the door was open. "I just want to make sure they've not done something weird to you that will affect your aura." Hunter gave her an odd look, but nodded and climbed through the doorway – while Kai, Shimazu, Aswon and Tads all concentrated on the ward. It didn't ripple or twitch, giving no sign of alarm or unusual activity at all, and they nodded at him to continue. At least that was one thing they didn't have to worry about!
Marius was already warming up the engines and doing the pre-flight checks, while the rest of them got settled into their seats.
As Hunter settled into the co-pilot's seat up front, he snagged the safety harness and pulled it down over his shoulders and went to attach the waist strap to the central clip, then frowned as it didn't reach. Looking down over his broad chest, he craned his neck forward to examine the seat-belts, wondering if they were snagged on anything. It wasn't, but for some reason it looked to be about twenty millimetres too short to make the connection. Frowning, he breathed in and tried again, but found it was still a good centimetre short. He muttered under his breath and worked on loosening the straps, feeding the webbing through the clips to provide a bit of extra reach, and then fastened the safety harness with the usual reassuring click.
Two minutes later they lumbered into the air, Marius tilting to port and diving down the mountain for thicker air, picking up speed and heading back into the twisting passes that led back to the coastal plain and the Caspian Sea. Their journey back was as uneventful as the trip over, and an hour later they had landed back at the ranch and made it back into the warmth of the living room. Away from the strange facility, they got Hunter to relax and sit in the middle of the sofa, and Kai started to run a full medical diagnostic on him, while Hunter attached his deck to his data-jack and did a self-check on his own cybernetic systems. Tads, meanwhile, sat on the other side and cleared her mind – then assensed him thoroughly, looking at his aura and trying to work out what was going on with him.
The medical and cybernetic checks both came back fine – the medical system reported no difference in his blood work or chemistry, though his pulse and blood pressure were both slightly elevated – but that was hardly surprising given the circumstances. Tads seemed more confused than anything else when she broke off from her examination.
"You've changed, in a subtle way. Don't panic, I'll explain!" She waved for Hunter to relax, as he started to surge out of his seat. "Listen before you act. Your aura is damaged, at least from my point of view, compared to Kai, or Aswon or Shimazu. Both you and Marius. The things you have implanted strain your aura and make it harder to push mana through you. You know this, right? Right. Well, whatever happened tonight, it seems to have fixed that a bit. I'm not sure how, I didn't think it was possible. But your aura seems stronger somehow…" She thought furiously for a moment, until she worked out what it reminded her of.
"You know the shapeshifters we encountered in Yakut, the ones that attacked Samara base? Your aura feels like that in some ways – stronger than a normal metahuman. But still damaged now, with your things. But… stronger than it was."
"So what difference will that make to me?"
"Well, you'll be easier to heal, I suspect. You're aura is closer to 'normal' now, closer to Aswon or Kai's than Marius's. So that's good."
"Or… does that mean I could get more cyberware installed? More upgrades?"
"I suppose. But that would damage your aura even more."
"So make it more like it was before? I'm not seeing a problem!" Hunter grinned at her as Tads shuddered.
"So, from the medical scans, he's good to go. Are you concerned magically, Tads?" Kai asked.
"No. Mentally yes – he wants to put more things in him. But as far as I can tell, he's the same old Hunter he used to be. Just… more."
"Yeah. I noticed that. I didn't want to say before, but you might want to lay off the snacks, Hunter. Look." Kai gestured to the trouser and jacket fastenings, both of which seemed strained with the effort of containing his body. "But diet aside, it sounds like we're good to go." He turned towards Shimazu. "Get on the comm with you and confirm with your friend Sato that we're still a go for the mission. If we are, we leave in the morning."
Shimazu nodded at him and tapped out a swift message, getting confirmation back almost immediately.
"Ok, breakfast as usual, then we load the bird with everything we need and take off after that – next stop the plains of the 'stans." Kai looked around the team and checked for nods, making sure everyone was in agreement. One by one the team headed off to bed, making sure they got a good night's sleep before starting on their next mission.
