There was no light in the substructure. They turned on their light sources.
"Wrex, are you receiving this? Is everyone okay?"
"Yeah, just scratches, nothing the salarian can't patch up. Wreav's truck made it out too."
"The turians had to call off the airstrike. We'll need a new plan for dealing with the Reaper."
"First we'll have to find you. Where did you end up?"
The dark ruins they walked through shook around them, interrupting Shepard's reply.
"Underground. We see ruins of some kind."
Eve joined the channel. "Commander, that's the city of the ancients."
"How do we get out?"
"No maps exist. It's been abandoned for thousands of years."
"If only we weren't in a war… the things we would find…" Arius whispered to Liara. She nodded back to him, also sharing the sentiment.
Wrex rejoined the call. "You're a trailblazer, Shepard. Get through there, and we'll find a place to meet up. Nothing will stop this cure."
The shuddering occurred again, shaking the entire subterranean structure they advanced through. In whatever way the krogan had originally built it - it was made to last. Shepard didn't know if the tremors were new or old, but the building and its passages remained uncollapsed after thousands of years. The walls and small details built into them appeared to be constructed of congruent, flat blocks of grey stone. On the archways and the empty halls were expressions of simple aesthetic design, all very angular and consisting of many patterns of straight lines. This was ancient krogan culture, no doubt about it. Some metallic-looking inlays adorned columns, and when Shepard turned around a corner with her flashlight looking for a way out, she saw something that made her seriously pause in spite of the urgency.
A mural was painted on a large, flat wall laid from triangular, interlocking stone. It depicted three krogan in a line, kneeling before a fourth perched atop a red circle, a large staff in hand. The artistic design matched the rest of the details they had seen - shapes textured with straight lines, like the lines on Eve's shamanic garb.
"Gorgeous," she heard Arius whisper while he tapped on the side of his helm to record what he was seeing.
Liara, too, drew closer, shining her light on the artwork from left to right. "Fascinating. This painting suggests that krogan had an artistic side."
The tremor occurred again, and their lights shook from the movement. The structure groaned and grated under strain.
Arius caught himself splitting his stance to maintain balance. "That's not a normal tremor. These tunnels would not have survived this long with constant movement like this."
"Wrex, are you feeling these tremors?"
"Not up here."
"It could be something else, Commander," came Eve's voice. "It is said that Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws, lives in this region."
"Which is another reason to get your ass out of there, Shepard. Step on it!"
Liara turned to Shepard and Arius, brow deep with concern. "Did I hear that right? 'Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws?'"
Arius shone his light into another alcove, which displayed a different mural. On it, an artistic drawing of a long creature with snake-like vertebrae and a large head with jaws opened wide. Around it, tiny in size were pictures of the same artistic representations of krogan. "Yes. On the Normandy, Eve told me of an old krogan story - a prophesy fulfilled by a great krogan leader who united the tribes in ancient times. It was said he had commanded the ancient guardians who lived deep underground with their queen." He turned to Liara. "The story predated the rachni. It is not difficult to guess who it referenced."
The asari gulped audibly. "If that's what we've been hearing down here… I suggest we get moving."
They hurried, but another mural stopped them. Krogan holding staffs were riding large beasts, reminiscent of rhinos from Earth. Above them was the red circle, doubtless the sun or some symbolic equivalent. Indeed, the krogan had once created things of great beauty before their society crumbled.
Their flashlights raked the walls and ground in front of them, looking for a way out when they stumbled upon something decidedly not ancient. It was the corpse of a rachni Ravager. "More rachni. There are bound to be more than just the ones we killed. Wrex, we've got rachni here. Keep an eye out."
"I know. A few of them just attacked us. All that matters is getting to that Shroud. Find us fast."
"They must have arrived from a surface point… there," Arius pointed. "Stairs ascending. Natural light."
"Finally, light." Liara hurried up the steps, shaking off the heavy feeling of the dark forlornness. "In my younger days, I would've loved to have spent time here studying these ruins."
Arius nodded in agreement. "Calls to question what might have become of the krogan had they not annihilated themselves. It may yet be realized."
They emerged into a place they did not expect. It was a large, sprawling courtyard that reminded Shepard of palace grounds or a public forum of great import. The architecture, though heavily ruined, was stunning. Shallow artificial ponds to collect water ran under open balconies. The walkway they trod on was layered with shapes made of interlocking tiles. Aside from the buildings, there were plants. Great roots had broken through the walls, and large leaves had begun emerging from the rubble. Beyond the walkways and bridges rose a massive, pyramid-looking building, a temple perhaps.
"And the colour green," Laira noted, examining one at their feet. "I thought plants were extinct around here. Maybe Eve is right. Curing the genophage might lead to a krogan renaissance."
Aries tapped his helm again, taking more stills of their surroundings. "I certainly feel inspired."
Yet the contemplative moment was not to last. The enemy was already waiting, and they walked right into them.
The ground shook, even stronger than before. Some of the ruins, already crumbling, began tumbling to the ground in great showers of shale.
"That has to be Kalros!"
"Stay sharp!"
They didn't need to fight; they only needed to get to an exposed space for a pickup. The trio ran along the courtyards toward one of the spires. Along the bridge leading to it were stone statues of armourless krogan, the very picture of Krogan pride.
"Shepard, we're coming under the bridge! Get down here, and we can get to the Shroud."
She saw the trucks approach them, slowing to stop. "Will do."
But just before Shepard jumped down from the bridge, a new tremor shook the entire complex, and a massive, slithering body emerged from the sands behind the truck.
"Wait, Kalros!" The truck accelerated, swerving out of the way of the monstrous trunk of maw. "Break off! We're getting out of here!"
"Wrex?"
The spines on the back of the leviathan-sized thresher maw collided straight into the bridge they had been standing on, shearing the rocky construction of it completely in two. They struggled to maintain their footing as it slid from under them.
"Kalros' territorial instinct confirmed!" stated a very bemused Mordin over the channel.
"She's not gunna get us!" hollered Wrex, swerving left and right to shake the mother of thresher maws from their tail. "Go on ahead, Shepard. We'll shake this thing and find you!" Following the truck were the lurking spines of the maw, visible like a shark fin in shallow water as it snaked to and fro.
"Thresher maw getting closer!" came the very insightful observation from the STG scientist.
"Tell me something I don't know!" growled Wrex.
"Metal in truck an excellent iron supplement for maw's diet!"
The truck veered off over a hill, and they lost visual.
Liara looked back at them, her eyes sinking back into her head. "This planet is one giant deathtrap."
"And the thing is, I bet Wrex is enjoying this."
The trio advanced through the open pyramid building. Inside were arranged more krogan statues. The statues faced each other, looking towards a central obelisk in what was once a triangular fountain.
"I wonder what kind of building this is."
"Perhaps some kind of memorial?" Arius suggested.
The enemy was here too. Thankfully, the cover was plenty.
"Shepard – Wrex busy driving truck! Are you still alive?"
"Doing what we can! What about you?"
"Alarmed yet entertained. Kalros is quite persistent."
"Wreav, stick close!" she heard Wrex call.
"Drive faster!" came a response. "I can smell the damn thing's breath!"
"Shepard, we've almost lost Kalros! Get down from there, and we'll find you!"
They jumped down from the building's level to the wide steps at its base. Around the bend arrived the trucks, spitting sand under their tires.
"Shepard! Get over here! Wreav, keep an eye out for that maw! I don't want it sneaking up on us!"
"Make it quick, Wrex," Wreav urged, "We're exposed!"
The truck came to a grinding stop in front of them. Shepard motioned for the team to get their asses in. "Go, now!"
The ground shook, and a geyser of sand erupted behind them.
"It's Kalros!" warned Wreav.
The massive spine of the maw snaked through the sands like a freight train, narrowly missing them but connecting squarely with Wreav's truck. It disappeared under the sands in seconds, nothing remaining, not even a hail from the radio.
"Move, Shepard!"
"We're in! Let's go!"
Wrex stomped on the accelerator, and they sped off.
"What about Wreav?"
"No way he survived that," Wrex reasoned, peeling out of the ruins and towards the Shroud. "As he was a pain in the ass, anyway. Now let's finish this. There's a Reaper waiting for us."
.
And waiting it was. Between them and the Shroud was a symmetrical double tower complex, each a hundred stories tall, rising on the edges and meeting at a low point in the middle. Behind it paced the Reaper. Behind the Reaper was the Shroud.
They exited the truck and craned their necks upwards to view what they were up against. Wrex looked angrier than anything or anyone else. If he could have headbutted the Reaper into submission, Shepard had no doubt he would have. "We're curing the genophage no matter what it takes! Everything my people will ever be depends on it."
Thoughts of impossibility skirted on the edges of their minds, but those assembled had all overcome their own impossibilities at one point or another.
"Kalros." Eve stated, voicing her proposed plan. "We summon her to the Reaper."
A memory shot to the forefront of Shepard's mind, and it must also have for Arius as he turned to her in surprise, both thinking the same thing. It was the story she had shared with him from her search and rescue days - the story of the mining crews, explosives and the thresher maws they contended with. Just like how they had drawn the maws away with explosives, they could draw them to something else. "How would we summon her? We don't have any explosives to create enough of a disturbance."
Eve pointed towards the towers that loomed over them. "The towers were built in an area devoted to Kalros' glory. The salarians thought she would scare away intruders."
"Appeared to have worked," remarked Mordin.
Eve turned back. "There are two maw hammers here, the largest in existence. If you activate them, Kalros will come. That should distract the Reaper."
The plan, as ludicrous as it was, was a solid shot, and Shepard felt better instantly knowing they had a path.
"Two years ago," she told Wrex, "you trusted me to find a better way to cure the Genophage, and we blew up Virmire. Today I'm paying back your trust. Let's all get out of this alive 'cause, damn, we're going to have one hell of a story to tell." She cracked her knuckles, getting herself fired up for the action.
"Wait–" Wrex implored her, halting her from getting a move on. "Before you go, I want you to know that no matter what happens…" He said, walking up to her and looking her in the eyes, "You've been a champion to the krogan people, and friend of Clan Urdnot…" he offered his hand. She took it. "... and a sister to me. To every krogan born after this day, the name 'Shepard' will mean 'hero!'" She grasped at the handshake and raised it in a warrior's greeting, nodding to him with a grin. Wrex pounded his fists together. "Now let's show them why!"
.
Shepard ran up the steps leading to the second level of the tower complex, firing bursts from her rifle, occasionally punctuating a pause with a whipped singularity. Wrex had raised the hammers and was awaiting manual input to have them come hammering down into the sands.
"By the goddess! To our left!"
The Reaper stood between them and the Shroud menacingly. She jumped a narrow gap between two sections of the bridge connecting the right and left towers, but as she did, a laser-thin beam of superheated metal raked through the air in front of her. She jumped back on instinct, and the beam descended downwards right after, shearing the stone bridge into two. Having been standing on it, the bridge collapsed under her, and she fell a story into the rubble, the wind knocked out of her. Realizing she was easy prey, she rolled downhill and scrambled to her feet. "Everyone all right?"
"Did we just get shot by a Reaper?"
"Consider that practice."
A red eye appeared at the center of the Reaper's face, trained on them. They were covered, but the area next to the hammers was completely exposed. There was no way they could activate them without getting vaporized.
"Okay, Shepard – I've raised the hammers. You need to activate both of them! My advice is to avoid the giant laser!"
Shepard ran into the area, diving behind the cover of a decorative pillar that afforded some protection. A beam from the Reaper arrived half a second later, nearly shaving her for how close it had been. It ripped through the stone, sending debris into her face. "Stick to cover!"
Another blast arrived next to her, and the stones in front of her exploded in a shower of earth and rock. Bit by bit, the team moved up while one of the members was targeted.
"I can't believe we're actually doing this!" yelled Liara.
"Don't stop!"
The Reaper was now right over them, a building sized menace, and the singular red eye of it stared down at them, ready to strike. There was no more cover from this angle; it could now see them from above. But then, aerial gunfire broke out, striking it near the eye. The Reaper turned, trying to protect it, engaging with the source of the fire. It was the turian squadron; they had returned to distract it. The wine of the small crafts rang in their ears as they zoomed over their heads. It was perfect timing.
"Commander, this is Artimex Wing! We'll try to give the Reaper something else to shoot at!"
"Opportune timing!" Arius exclaimed.
"Arius! Activate the hammer on the right. I'll hit the one on the left. Liara, on me. Let's push ahead!"
The arena at the foot of the hammers was directly underfoot the Reaper. Within seconds, it turned into pandemonium. Brutes slammed into the ground from the air, and they lunged at them with frightening speed, grasping at them with their lethal claws. Shepard ran and rolled while she fired burning inferno rounds into their thick armour. She tossed her grenades indiscriminately, not having the time to anticipate movements properly, but the proximity was close enough that it didn't matter. They popped one after the other, bursting over the feet of some of the brutes, stopping their charges. Liara warped their armour, cracking it, and pumped the bodies with explosive rounds, bursting chunks of their hide off. Arius dropped his gear to reduce weight and began swinging his sword - the ancient one. In what seemed like an instant change, he became blisteringly fast, dashing headfirst into the fray and kicking up clouds of debris underfoot as he weaved his way through paths of gunfire and outstretched claws. The Brutes, defending their heads from Shepard's fire, covered themselves but had to stop dashing, leaving them stationary targets for Arius. With swings that cleft down to the molecule, the Brutes and all their armor were shredded into showers of gore.
Shepard ran for the first hammer. Overhead the distracted Reaper fended off the swarming fighter craft and stepped into their fray, squashing one of the brutes underfoot into a deep hole, then shifted, catching Shepard sideways as it rose out. It felt like getting hit by a craft, and she saw nothing but stars for a moment while she recovered her wits. Blood was in her mouth, and she spat, rising to her feet towards the first hammer. She punched the hammer's activation button. The whole mechanism dropped down, plunging into the space under the area. "Arius, the second hammer!"
At the other end, Arius was already at the second hammer, having already punched it, but nothing had happened. Something was wrong. He hit it repeatedly, and the outcome was the same. He looked up at the tower that housed the hammer. A huge chunk of rubble the size of a rapid transit shuttle had lodged itself in the way of the hammer's descent. It was blocked.
Returning the sword to his back, he jumped onto the metal supports around the hammer's central column, climbing the rungs of circular metal rings into the sky. "Second hammer is blocked. On it."
Shepard, seeing his ascent and the obstacle they faced, paled. She activated a medi-gel application within her suit, needing an emergency patch-up from the Reaper hit. She took a deep breath and got moving.
"Shepard, get that second hammer going!"
"Second hammer is jammed! There's also a Reaper in the way, Wrex! We're working on it!" She ordered Liara to move up. "Keep them off Arius!"
Shepard and Liara positioned themselves before the button to the second tower, and the brutes all converged on them. Shepard set her sights on the only path toward them and held down the trigger of her refurbished M7-Lancer, not letting it go for a second. It spat death down the kill zone like holding a full-automatic machine gun turret, and she counted in her head while the rapid-fire rifle rounds continually exploded out of the front of the gun. Any other weapon would have long tapped out, but the shaking of the discharging gun continued against her shoulder while the heat dissipator grew red-hot. He had told her the weapon could provide one hundred continuous rounds before forced cooldown, and every round found purchase into a charging Brute.
Above them, Arius reached the blockage. While hanging off the tower, he reached up to grab his sword and sunk it into the offending chunk of rubble using the intent of cutting. He then sent his second intention into the artifact - the thought of dissolution, of the unstoppable forces of entropy that touched every state in the universe. The sword began to subtly vibrate in his hand, slowly at first, then began climbing higher and higher to frequencies he could no longer hear or feel. The rock began to crack around it, a web of veins spreading rapidly outwards. Cracking sounds began, and he grabbed the handle, pulled it out of the rock, and struck it back down. The car-sized chunk shattered totally into gravel, the order within its structure broken. The hammer was free. "Now, Shepard!"
She punched the button, and the twin hammers came down simultaneously. The impact of the hammer's pounding against the Tuchankan ground impacted through their bodies as if they were being played like drums.
"Go! Get back to the truck! I'll take care of the cure!"
Sensing something was amiss, the Reaper turned its gaze toward her before realizing it had a much larger foe to contend with. Something was swimming in the sands, and it tried to hit the advancing form with its beam, but the creature disappeared under the surface each time, swimming through tonnes of sand and rock like it were water. She heard a massive screech from far away, then a second identical one closer, and then, it was upon them.
For all their stereotypes of brutish, violent warlords, krogan eyes were situated on the sides of their heads, as generally found in prey animals, and not forward-facing like those found on predators and in every other Citadel race. This begged the question: who were the predators of Tuchanka? Who placed themselves above the territorial, tank-like, redundant-organ, blood-rage-aggressive krogan in the food chain? Today, Shepard had finally answered at least a small part of that question.
Kalros was a thing of myth, towering above them like a skyscraper amidst the storm of sand it had kicked up, its large jaws flaring wide. Around it, the ground had crumbled, and as it snarled in a fury, the entire floor beneath them began to roll, metal and concrete groaning at the strain. Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws, breached the sands, reared up, and struck the Reaper with its huge jaws. This was Ragnarök as far as Shepard was concerned, and Kalos was the world-devouring serpent. The Norsemen had been right about the whole thing - only the planet was probably unforeseen. And now, these titans were fighting above her.
"Holy mother of –"
Maw and Reaper were tussling, and the Reaper was trying to dislodge itself from the creature's jaws. It spun itself towards the tower, smashing the maw against the Shroud, damaging the structure, and Kalros let go, hissing. The Reaper moved to fire its weapon, but the maw rapidly retreated back into the sands like liquid sucked up like a straw, way too quickly for Shepard to feel comfortable with.
While Shepard scrambled over the ruins to escape, the Reaper looked around in a panic, stomping and readying itself to fire. Kalros emerged from the sands and leapt high into the sky, high enough to blot the starlight above them and slammed into the Reaper from behind. The Reaper collapsed into the dirt, firing its main gun in vain face-first into the ground. Like an anaconda, the thresher maw wound its long body, as thick as a highrise, around the Reaper and squeezed as it pulled it beneath the sands. The sound of crumpling Reaper echoed for miles around, and in its place upheaved a small sandstorm. Just like with Weav's truck, the maw and its prey disappeared under the sands of Tuchanka.
The great worm had defeated the Reaper.
.
Shepard ran into the base-level administrative room of the Shroud. Fires were burning within, and debris was strewn everywhere. Mordin was quickly typing away at a console. Above her, the Shroud was beginning to collapse, damaged from the maw thrown against it by the Reaper.
She hurried down to the steps toward the salarian. "Mordin! Is the cure ready?"
"Yes. Loaded for dispersal in two minutes. Procedure traumatic for Eve, but not lethal. Maelon's research invaluable." The scientist's hands on the keyboard were a blur.
"She's okay?"
"Headed to safety now. Her survival fortunate. Will stabilize government should Wrex get any ideas. Good match, promising future for krogan."
High above them, a piece of the Shroud exploded and fell into a burning wreckage, destroying one of the consoles. It nearly landed on them. Shepard braced herself from the debris it kicked up. "Damn!"
"Control room at top of Shroud tower. Must take elevator up."
"You're going up there?"
"Yes. Manual access required. Have to counteract STG sabotage. Ensure cure dispersed properly."
"Mordin, the whole thing is coming apart. There's got to be another way!"
"Remote bypass impossible. STG countermeasures in place. No time to adjust cure for temperature variance."
The tower was getting rocked to pieces now, the explosions above them becoming more frequent.
"No. No other option. Not coming back. Suggest you get clear. Explosions likely to be problematic." He began walking toward the elevator.
"Mordin, no!"
He entered the elevator and turned to her. "Shepard, please. Need to do this. My project. My work. My cure. My responsibility." He gave a deep inhale and closed his eyes for a moment. "Would have liked to run tests on the seashells."
Just like he had made his decision, at that moment arrived hers: Sacrifice her friend to save a species or save her friend and doom them. The two evils beckoned to her with outstretched hands. She knew in her heart the right decision, and he did too.
"I'm… I'm sorry."
"I'm not. Had to be me." The elevator door closed. "Someone else might have gotten it wrong."
The elevator began moving upwards, and she watched it ascend the tower's length. Shepard ran out of the building to put enough space between herself and the falling debris, then turned, watching the top of the tower earnestly. She prayed for some cosmic sleight of hand or perhaps a miracle in which the cure would disperse, and the elevator would come back down to rejoin her, but it was not written in the cards.
The tip of the spire erupted into an inferno as explosions rocked it to pieces, and Shepard felt a stab of sorrow in her heart at the loss of another friend to the war. But from the explosion, a blossom flourished outward, the wisps of the cure spreading out into the atmosphere like a wondrous flower blooming for the entire world to see.
Wrex and Eve, having just arrived, got out of the transport and looked to the sky in awe, shielding their eyes from the bright light that shone like a beacon to Krogan everywhere. Something like snow fell for the first time on the dry and barren land of Tuchanka - the cure falling from the heavens, within it the hope and future of a species.
As they rode back to the base, the flower that had seeded the world with life crumbled and fell back to the sand - its work done, its sins atoned. There wasn't a thing to say as they drove back through the desert way, past silent seas of sand, and through the ruins of a world lost in stone. And although they could each see the dry, desolate past echoing all around them, they could each sense the vibrating energy of the planet picking up again from the sands. Life on Tuchanka had begun again.