A Hive of Bone and Chitin [A Biomancy and Hivemind Litrpg Adventure]

Life resumed in New Delport like it was wont to do, there was no grand stop, no great reorganizing. Just the slow build up towards a recession as the Aetherite mines slowed down to keep the city afloat as long as they could. Without the Wyrmlord's energies to harvest, there was nothing to create new crystals once the mines ran dry.

Salaries fell and unemployment rose even more. Some might have even starved but most turned to Lower Gerankir for salvation, whatever form it may take. For some it was cheap work as mercenaries or prostitutes, for others it was the sweet oblivion of rapidly dwindling Red Powder. For the most desperate, those with loved ones reliant on them, they would simply disappear and their loved ones would then find unmarked packages full of crystals at their doorsteps. Perhaps it was a kindness that they never learned what happened to their missing friends, family members, and lovers.

Those were not the concerns of the men and women in the small crowd outside the club. No, they were here for one thing and one thing only, Red Powder. That great panacea to the ills of Dellish society; inequality, exploitation and the fact that their skills and class choices were too entrenched, too specialized to let them branch out without losing whatever little they still held, be it food or just the occasional escapism from the drudgery of their existence. The great sickness of life under the boot of those too powerful to be touched that they all hated but not enough to seek a permanent cure to, only a temporary reprieve. And that was if they were fortunate enough to not be bound by numerous geasses that foreclosed the possibility of rebellion altogether. Not that no one had ever tried, even then. Some just let themselves be killed to grant power to others so that they could rise above their station and avenge the fallen. Or they had been felled by aspiring revolutionaries with tears in their eyes and steel in their hearts. Such massacres brought down the hammer of the hidden overlords of Gerankir swiftly, brutally and with the express purpose of not just stopping them but making examples. Whatever be the reason, blood pumped in the bowels of Gerankir and it circulated all the way up to the Illustris Palace of New Delport.

That, more than anything else, was what made the Dragon's operation such an aberration. No one could have pulled off what he had, possessing clerks, misplacing reports, and making inconvenient whispers reach certain ears until he had an army of his own. Until he was among them, in the skins of people that weren't themselves anymore.

The man shook himself back to awareness. It was not his concern now. Nothing was. Not after the events of that party and what followed.

The gang was gone. It had devolved into civil war after the death of his boss for his territory and then the security guild had struck to eliminate them altogether. Hundreds lined up and blamed for collaborating with the Dragon to the cheers of the Dellish citizenry.

"When the Great Father Regdren fought the mad Wymrlord to death, he gave us this land. He gave us this city and its bounty!" A man was screaming at the top of his lungs. "By his blessings and his sacrifice, we thrive. And yet, there is greed among us. These VERMIN" He spat the word out like a curse. "These kobolds colluded with Kalist to return him to this land for personal power. And here, we have the evidence for it." He pulled out sheafs of paper and read them out. Records of infiltration, of necromantic rituals to contact the dragon, even kidnappings to create kobolds for his army. Of course, all of it was fake, no matter whatever "independent investigation" they claimed. He knew. After all, Fim had been a part of the gang for years of his life. Still, he pulled his cloak tighter around himself. He always felt something was watching him nowadays and that certainly didn't help with his paranoia.

The list of charges were long and by the end, the bound captives were being assaulted by everything from words to weak zaps of magic. Fim briefly entertained the idea of trying to save someone in the confusion but discarded it almost immediately. He didn't think it was worth it, not for them.

Eventually the charges ran out and then heads flew to wild cheers. He resisted the urge to sneer. Always with righteousness, always with excuses for barbarism. He was a crook but he was honest with himself about it.

Several hours later, Fim found himself drunk out of his mind again and at a certain hideout that had nothing to do with the Five Jackals. He shared it with possibly the only living person he had a good relationship with that wasn't strictly professional. A supposed gentleman who had been with Fim and Vinny from almost the beginning of their lives and had joined the Five Jackals with, when every other member of their childhood gang was slaughtered after angering the wrong people. He had managed to escape the purge just like he had. Hevacs didn't work in the open like he had, no, he simply pretended to be in a rival gang as a spy. Of course it was all pointless now that the scavengers were cleaning up what was left of the Five Jackals and inevitably, Hevacs' true allegiance would be revealed. And so, once again, like they had done decades prior after losing different friends, they found themselves in the hideout and arguing about what to do. The only difference being that there were only two people now, not three.

"Listen, dude. I'm telling you, we need to get out of this shithole. Most of the gang is dead and—" The other man shut up when Fim leveled a venomous glare at him.

"And what? What do you suppose we do, Hev? Sell ourselves to slavers? Or do you imagine yourself fighting your way out of the city and through the Great Forests?"

"No, I mean we could lay low for now." He answered a bit too quickly, a reflexive urge to get the last word outrunning the part of his brain that realized a moment too late that it was inconsistent with what he had been proposing earlier. Fim didn't seem to notice, or perhaps he didn't care. There were a lot of things that Fim found himself unable to care for nowadays.

"And then what?"

"Nothing. Listen. Forget what I said. I have an idea. You know the Powder is running dry and the other gangs are fighting for what's left?" Fim nodded. Hevacs had another one of his harebrained schemes in mind but unlike before, Fim didn't have anything other than his life to lose and unlike before, he had the feeling that he would lose it regardless if he waited around like he had been.

"Well, before I left, I heard that some kids got their hands on some Red Powder and will be selling it. To the public." Fin raised an eyebrow.

"Are they insane?"

"Nah. Just stupid kids who don't know what they are doing. Like we had been. Anyways, I know you don't like to hear about the gods but this seemed like an awful coincidence, fate even, and you got me thinking about something. You know the gangs will come after them. Multiple gangs at once. It would be chaos."

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"And you want to see if we can sneak some out in that chaos and sell it?" Hevacs just nodded.

And that was how Fim and Hevacs began a last desperate attempt to stay afloat before they ran out of all money and the city ground them down to nothing.

The club was sleazy in the same way that all establishments of its station were. It was hot, humid and cramped. The kind of heat that didn't allow for sweat. Men and women with clothes that only clung to their bodies because of skills moved as one and fell upon the crowd before dispersing once it became apparent that these were neither rich nor starved enough for companionship. Hevacs looked like he might be receptive but a bolt of blue energy brought back to the present and the job they were supposed to be doing. Fim had his sins but alcohol never distracted him on a job like it did for Hevacs and his promiscuity.

Women , clad in bikinis of crystalized light were dancing at the center of the bar, the light dancing on their faces and exposed bellies and thighs in a way that had to be intentionally titillating. It even blew their hair back with the rhythms and reverberations of the music. But by far the strangest and the most disconcerting thing was the way their eyes seemed to constantly make eye contact with anyone who glanced their way and glinted invitingly. A younger Fim would have joined many of the drooling people there but now he could only think about how it wasn't that different from the Illustris Palace, just stripped of any excuses and pretensions. Just pure animal carnality and hedonism.

A boy and a girl, barely in their teens, were sitting at a table that the crowd made its way to. No Red Powder in sight.

"Treg?" A man with some kind of unhealing scar on his left cheek asked and the smallest of the boys answered. "That's me." Fim noticed that he seemed oddly relaxed. His companion on the other hand was on edge and one of her hands was wrapped around and squeezing what had to be an Aetherite crystal.

"I don't see any Powder. Where is it?" The man demanded, pulling up to his rather impressive height. Fim suppressed a snicker but the giggle besides him told him that Hevacs hadn't. Almost instantly, wires of steel loosely fell around the man and then tightened. He froze. The girl stood up and walked up until she was inches from the much larger man.

"Listen you tub of lard. We didn't come here to fucking cheat you but we are not going to walk around with the Powder. You will get it. Or you can walk away. Are we clear?" The man nodded, more so in awareness of the coils of sharp metal around him than anything else. "Good. That applies to the rest of you too. We—" The boy, Treg, raised his hand and the girl fell silent. He smiled. A cherry innocent smile that seemed to be at odds with what they were doing and the kind of upbringing that would cause a teenager to peddle Red Powder. Something about Treg was unsettling.

"Please pardon my companion. I'm Treg as you know and I have the Red Powder in a spatial pocket that only I can take it out of. I'll provide a small free sample to one of you so that you rest easy that my stuff is legit. Please feel free to discuss among yourselves who the lucky connoisseur shall be." Treg smiled benevolently as the crowd turned inwards with rushed whispers and hushed arguments. Fim didn't care about that. Something about Treg was wrong and yet very familiar.

Finally, someone was agreed upon to sample the goods, so to speak. An elderly man, stooped and broken by the abuses he had endured stepped forward and Treg rose and flicked a hand. A tiny glass box with a smidge of glittering red powder inside appeared and the man grabbed at it greedily. It went through his fingers.

"Before you have it, can you tell me your name?" Treg asked.

"Ootif."

"Well, Ootif. Why do you want Red Powder?" There was no reason for Ootif to answer and yet he did. And despite himself, Fim found himself listening rapturously.

"Uhh. I used to work in the crystal mines and caught something in there. Dunno what but it constantly drains mana and it hurts. Only Powder helps. I tried everything. From biomancers to getting new skills but the pain is still there."

"What happened in the mines?" Treg asked, his voice as serene as a lake at dawn. And just like the lake, there was something else lurking underneath that he couldn't figure out. Treg reached out as he spoke and gently caressed the sickly pox-ridden face of Optic.

"I don't get it. Something about mana corruption and malignant mutations. I don't know. I think they were lying! I don't know. They told me that I was dismissed the next day. I was still in pain then."

"Very well. I can see why the biomancers failed but why didn't the latter work?" Fim shifted uncomfortably, the heat was so bad in the club. Why did this thing have to happen in the afternoon?

"The mana drain also crippled my levelling speed. Couldn't even finish a level 40 class in years."

"And was there nothing that could have been done?" Treg didn't stop smiling, even though it was a pitiful compassionate one now. And yet it was so angelic.

"There was something. Full mana channel reconstruction but that's beyond my ability to afford."

"I see. Is Red Powder affordable to you then? Is this the only reprieve you have? I'm not judging you and I will not moralize to you but I'm curious."

"Yes. Honestly yes! I swear to the gods it is."

"Very well. I can understand why you would prefer to leave this world for what Powder offers then. You can have it." Treg snapped his fingers and the box turned solid and fell into Ootif's shaking hands.

He opened it hastily and bringing the box to his face, upended it all into his mouth, careful not to spill any. Fim had seen enough Red Powder addicts to know that it was legit when Ootif's eyes went slack and he started drawing shallow breaths. He was not with them anymore and won't be for hours. Treg smiled even wider than before and Fim let out a breath. Somehow the oppressive heat was less oppressive now. It wasn't gone but it was a lot more tolerable now.

"And now, I will take payment fro—" whatever Treg was saying was interrupted as something exploded in the club.

Fim wasn't sure what happened after the gangsters stormed them but somehow he knew that he, and everyone else in their corner of the club found themselves incapable of resisting and were rounded up almost immediately. The next thing he remembered was one of them seeing Hevacs and recognizing him. He remembered her calling out that she found the rat. And he remembered trying to convince them to spare Hevacs but his mouth was not working, trying to rush towards him stupidly, foolishly, and getting punched so hard that he felt his skull crack for his trouble. Falling back in the grasp of the classer who was holding every buyer hostage, watching through one eye as another friend died.

"Hand over the Powder or both you and her will die right now." A man called out. Fim couldn't see him, couldn't turn his head but he was sure that he knew the speaker. A thug for one of the rival gangs. He had fought with him before but he couldn't remember the name, something that started with a guh sound?

He couldn't see the man speaking but he could see Treg. The facade had all crumbled now. Just a scared child, pretending to be strong. Now he just looked defeated. With his head hanging low, he spoke.

"Sure. Just promise you will let us go."

"Of course we will. We aren't animals." The older man lied effortlessly and Treg nodded. Another wave of his hands and a crate landed with a thump.

"Alright. Let her go now."

"Not so soon, check it." Someone opened it, just out of Fim's vision and presumably gave the all-clear sign. Then a sickening squelch and there was a hole in Treg's stomach. Blood rushed out. Treg seemed shocked but for a single moment, a moment that Fim was certain was not his imagination, Treg's eyes flickered with a very familiar orange heatless flame burning in triumph before his body failed him.

He had to get away. He had to get out and warn someone, anyone. He had to avenge Vinny and Hevacs. He had to—

And then something was being shoved into his mouth that was neither Powder nor a gag. Whatever it was, it burned. Not just in his mouth but in his entire body. He moved his tongue experimentally. It was skin. Somehow it had infected even him. He heard a voice in his head, the terrible one that had come out of Vinny's mouth.

'Apologies but I can't let you ruin the game just yet.'

And then he felt his body move under a Will that was not his as he tried to attack the leader. The man's eyes flashed in recognition and Fim felt several holes appear in his body as he collapsed, gurgling out a warning that no one could understand.