NOVEL NEXT 193 - Leading the Blind
With the Witness calling out for us, it made tracking it down a simple affair. Destroying the eyes it had collected seemed to anger it, if not cause it pain. The scream it had sent out way was unnerving in how inhuman it sounded. Something without a proper mouth, yet it could mimic the process all the same. Oh, almost like me.
"Want to go knocking, or wait for it to turn up here?" Roxy asked.
The super already had her fists up. A look in her eyes like she didn't want to lose them. After being showered with exploded eyeballs, neither of us really looked happy about the prospect of fighting something that could do that to people.
[Let us hunt and get the upper hand.]
She nodded, and we set off toward Furnace Three.
[That lava ball is pretty impressive.]
"Yeah?" Some of the tension left her brow as she glanced my way. "I've been getting better at… manipulating the lava. I'm not even sure how."
[I think superpowers are more like magic than most people think. With enough practice, who knows what you could do?]
We walked up to the next set of doors in contemplative silence. This exit was as large as the original blast door, but it split in the middle. An original design and not something forced by the monster. The strange slime and blood splattered across it was probably new, however.
Roxy paused by the door. "I was thinking… like a sword?"
[A greatsword made of lava and solid stone?]
She nodded. "The stone part needs work. Crumbles too easily. When I perfect it, though…"
[Armor plating.]
It was simple enough to imagine her in a suit of armor made of dense rock, lava running between the joints. Perhaps a neat helmet that jettisoned flames. Not exactly practical in a pinch, but in some situations it could make the difference.
"Well, I've got to stay one step ahead of you, haven't I?" She smiled, and for a moment it took me out of this dim place. As if we were back home in the kitchen.
//Clara: Not to ruin the moment, but there is an eldritch horror to be dealt with.
//Clara: It is not happy that you have been popping all those eyes it collected, Gunquake.
//Clara: Cameras in Furnace 3 have now been cleared and promptly disabled.
[Did you get a look at it?]
//Clara: Yes, briefly. And now I must die.
//Clara: Fortunately, I have you two between the monster and this security room.
//Clara: Gunquake, there should be a new application in your lens I have just sideloaded.
//Clara: It will replace your vision with a low-poly augmented reality mock-up.
//Clara: So you won't have to view the Witness directly.
Roxy scowled. "What about me?"
//Clara: I am only Gunquake's sidekick.
//Clara: If you are in need, I know of a good cybernetic eye supplier, Rockslide.
While the super muttered to herself, I checked my lens for the mentioned application. It was appreciated, and I wasn't about to ask how she had done that without access to her own electronics. My mind was too preoccupied with the question surrounding how a mercenary designed to neutralize superheroes was able to disable eldritch powers subconsciously. Probably nothing to read into there.
I loaded up the program, and my vision flashed gray before blocky shapes filled in. The door in front of me, and surrounding machinery and tools, became simple geometric shapes shaded with pixelated gradients. Enough to interact with the basic positioning of things. I turned my attention to Roxy, who was now a collection of circles and rectangles painted orange.
"Two can play this game," she mumbled, raising up the blocky shapes that were her fists.
A thin line of yellow appeared over her brow, which promptly extended downward to form a curtain over half of the front of the oval that was head. Exhaling like a steam train venting pressure, the hue of the yellow block changed to orange and then a dark red. Her warm hand held onto my shoulder.
"I've certainly made some stupid choices since dating you, Dubs," she said dryly.
[You only have yourself to blame. Clara, are you able to activate the furnace if that's where it is holed up? Any assistance the plant can give us?]
//Clara: It takes an hour for the furnace to heat up enough to become a worthwhile threat.
//Clara: I have been opening and closing a couple of the interior doors to annoy it.
//Clara: Which has bought you the time to have this little side talk.
[Appreciated. Next time we should bring the rest of the Disasters.]
Roxy groaned. "One of the idiots would lose their eyes. Next time we should tell the League to go fu-"
Another echoing roar came from beyond the door. This time it sounded angry. Closer.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Refusing the task wasn't exactly an option. While we were mercenaries, it was in all but name alone. We weren't independent. That said, even with the work we had been given as of late, I preferred it to the life I had lived under Boss.
A thought that soured my mood further, remembering the man met this afternoon. Couldn't there be a month or two where I had nothing on my plate? Even a week felt like a stretch. I was just designed for this. A constant spiral of problems.
[We'll chew them out tomorrow. For now, let's go kill a monster.]
The orange oval with a patch of red across its face gave me a nod and a squeeze on the shoulder. We were problem solvers, after all. This was an eventuality from as soon as the League had sent us the message.
Destined for greatness. With eyes or not.
I pushed the dark gray rectangles apart, and the pair of us stepped through into the wide corridor. For me, it was further flat shapes of various shades of gray. Strip lights illuminated the path, although most were either dirty with blood or slime. There was a thick smell in the air, much like the odd stench that radiated from the dead bodies we had come across.
The debris down this tunnel was rather nondescript. Box shapes. Patches of the plain ground were painted in varying shades to signal dirt or gore. Two bodies that I just had to assume had no eyes.
An oppressive presence drew me to the door on the left. Roxy's extended left arm turned a brighter yellow in my low-poly vision. This was hopefully going to be the longest build-up for the shortest fight in our careers. For our sanity's sake.
//Clara: When I unlock this door, you'll mostly be on your own.
[Perfect. What more could we need? Are you ready for this?]
"I've covered my eyes with rock to fight an unknown monster beyond normal comprehension." I imagined the super rolled her eyes at this point. "Half tired. Half just banking on you having some bullshit way to defeat whatever this bastard is."
[Here I was hoping you'd be doing all the heavy lifting.]
"We're quite the pair, huh? Let's get this over with. Hit the lock, Clara."
//Clara: Unlocking now.
There was a clunk of machinery as whatever locking mechanism held the door shut stopped doing exactly that. They groaned as they slowly opened, sinking into the walls rather than swinging on hinges. I half expected something to assail us immediately. Roxy and I stood with arms extended as my V-Force burned with Overcharge.
While no Aberration appeared to attack us, our senses were almost overwhelmed.
A constant hum vibrated in my ears. Not really a sound, but more of a pressure in the air. The smell was so much worse in the furnace room. Roxy gagged. My eyes scoured the low-poly reimagined terrain for anything that might be a threat.
The room itself was almost as large as the delivery hangar, but had a large box of darker material taking up the majority of the far end. My current visual restriction made it difficult to really make sense of most of it, but I assumed that was the furnace itself. Across the floor were blocky green shapes. Ritual runic symbols, part of my brain told me.
A few candles spread across the rough circle. Traditional, if not stereotypical. As I quickly glanced over the summoning runes, they turned from a bright green to an inert gray. I really needed to talk to someone about this in the near future.
Although the lighting in here was low, I could still see block green textures splayed across the wall. Various limbs, shorn from their mannequin bodies, were stuck to these unknown splodges, like holiday decorations. The two dozen or so workers that used to own said limbs had been turned into nothing but oddly shaped blobs. Again, not even eaten. Whatever they had been attempting here, I didn't think bringing a Witness to this plane of existence was it.
"Gross," Roxy hissed through clenched teeth.
I could tell that she wanted to curse a lot more than that, but even eking out that single word was a test of how well she could keep down the meal from earlier. Even through my re-breather, it was terrible. Thankfully, she wasn't given much opportunity to complain even more.
The dark square that was the furnace vibrated. A scream rang out, loud and unending. It rose it pitch until it bounced around the tall room like an air-raid siren. I powered up my leg V-Drives as the sound continued to blare. Roxy's grip on my shoulder tightened, her warm fingers biting into my skin.
Then the furnace cracked, like a bad egg. Rather than move its way through the intake chamber at the front, the Aberration pulled the structure in half from the inside.
It was perhaps a boon that I couldn't see the evil for how it truly looked, although the low-poly shapes led it to look underwhelming.
Slender arms extended out, pushing the stone and metalwork apart. Six of the limb, that I could tell at a glance. Long and rope-like. All connected to an oddly shaped body that my restricted vision struggled to parse. Ironically, it looked similar to a volcano, or maybe an upside-down tornado. A tube of dark green that oozed and wavered in form, thicker by the floor and thinner, more erratic at the top.
Whether or not it had eyes or other defining features, I couldn't tell. Aside from the wave of disgust rolling through me in seeing the eldritch monster, it solidified my resolve.
[Give it everything you have.]
Roxy couldn't see the monster, but that wasn't necessary. She gave me a gentle push to the side, and we split by a dozen feet. Triple shot ran through my gun-arm as it guzzled up the steel spheres from the loaded magazine. As soon as it mentally hit the trigger, I set my synapses ablaze with Reflex.
To my left, it looked like Roxy was casting spells, given how I saw the world. Partly a wizard casting fireballs, yet there was also a primal sway to her movements and fervor. In addition to solidifying lava and rock balls to toss toward the creature, her fingers were also digging into the floor and pulling up the very terrain to lob.
In return, the Witness threw part of the broken furnace our way. I rolled to the side, avoiding the twirling rectangular lump. It struck Roxy. She stumbled back two steps before growling back in rage. Before I had the opportunity to reach for my next magazine, she flung the heavy object right back at the Aberration with just as much force.
The eldritch abomination had slithered to the side to avoid my constant peppering, but the tossed scenery collided with two of its slippery arms. They snapped back, crushed against the back wall before disconnecting from the main body of the beast.
Yet the Witness focused solely on me.
Either because I could 'see' it, even in this abstract manner, or because it could sense something about my nature trying to unravel it.
I raised my left hand and tried to push my magical strength into holding a Dispel. A writing hand lashed out at me quicker than I could react to. An open palm five-feet in diameter struck me in the chest, pushing me back until I struck the back wall.
It didn't have flesh in a traditional sense. Physical, but the hand now grasping me was more the rough side of velcro. Needle-like fibers tore away my clothing and sought to shred my flesh. A second arm flickered in to grasp for my head.
There had been enough clues with the dismembered bodies along the way. I knew what it intended to do with me.
Unfortunately for the Witness, it didn't know what I was about to do to it.