A form coalesced in the darkness, stepping out of it I beheld crudely formed armor lining every surface, darkness leaked from every crevice and eye pieces that had a thick malevolence as it stared down at Zehal who was still slowly stepping back. I detected a minute sound as it stepped forward toward her that I realized was laughter, its right arm extending toward her.
Rage coursed through me as I viciously channeled power into my gauntlets and I leapt forward, energy arcing as I reached for the figure reaching for Zehal.
It looked up just in time for my left hand to grasp it by the back of its head, my right thundering into its mouth, I connected the energy arcs between my hands, blasting energy between them, I obliterated first armor, then whatever passed for its flesh. I heard it attempt to scream out in agony as it punched out, trying to dislodge me, but despite its surprising strength, I held on, unwilling to let go of my prey.
As its flesh continued to disintegrate it began clawing at my own helmet in desperation, trying to wrench it free, but the clasps held firm and it did not find a grip on the smooth angles of my helmet and left only claw marks behind. Finally, its arms began to weaken, before they finally went limp and fell to its sides as all beneath my gauntlets finally sloughed away in a mix of molten metal and ashes and I gently lowered its body to the floor.
"Uh..." Zehal gulped visibly as she approached the corpse. "What... what did you do?" She whispered, her eyes wide with shock.
"I protected us by killing a fell creature of the Dark before it could alert anyone to our presence."
"That..." She trailed off, gesturing weakly at what little remained of the creature's head, the metal still glowing in the dark. "That was not an easy thing to see."
I nodded as I realized that, for someone who had never seen death before, even for something that wasn't properly alive, that would indeed be a most gruesome thing to witness.
"I'm sorry." I said, staring down at the body. "I'm sorry you had to see that. It didn't occur to me..." I trailed off.
"What didn't occur to you?" She asked, her eyes still wide.
"I was, long ago, desensitized to war. I have seen some terrible things, many of them as a child, things that hardened my heart and steeled my soul. This..." I gestured down at the ruined body. "This does not faze me like it would have, long ago, it never occurred to me to shield you from seeing something so horrific, to spare you such a grizzly sight. I acted to save your life and to save the integrity of my mission, at the time, nothing else mattered, in the future, I'll try to shield you when I can."
She stared at the body for a moment longer before slowly shaking her head. "Like the Vrokanden did?" She whispered.
"What?" I asked, not understanding.
"The Vrokandin, they tried to "shield" me from the world, to "protect" me from it. They spent MY life shielding me from it. In a manner of hours you've helped me peer past that veil, and though the majority of what I've seen is terrifying, it is also the real world, and I'll not turn away from it just because it is ugly, or gruesome."
"Still." I said. "No one should ever be exposed to something like this so quickly, not at your age."
"Did you not just admit that you saw terrible things when you were but a child?" She asked, her eyes coming up to meet the lenses of my helmet, her gaze seemed to directly meet mine. "I am not a child and I am tired of being treated like one. If this is what the real world has to show me, then so be it."
"Zehal." I whispered softly, my gaze distant. "There is much that day took from me, that first day that, as a child, I saw things no person should be forced to see, and that took things from me, things I never got back. I don't fully understand what it is I don't have, but I know I never smiled like the other children did after that day, I never played like the other children. Be careful what you wish for."
Zehal stared at me for a moment longer before opening her mouth to say something, then shutting it again and looking down. "I don't even remember seeing other children." She whispered, her own eyes distant.
"The Vrokandin Varr have much to pay for." I growled. "Come, we must depart, we've lost too much time here already."
We turned back to our course and began to make our way further into the tunnels. I gave the Energetic Crystalis back to Zehal for her to map our way as I replaced my helmet, making sure to instruct her not to touch anything without my first authorizing it.
She turned back to me with a snort. "That won't be difficult." She said,
We set a quick pace, a light jog allowing us to cover ground quickly. Zehal kept looking through the Energetic Crystalis at regular points, making sure our way was safe, but it was not long before she commented that she was beginning to see more and more energetic and after exchanging it with her at several points to view it myself I realized whatever was going on it was beginning to fill the place up with its backwash trace energy, which ironically helped us as it made it traceable and we were able to quicken our pace to almost a full out run and yet I felt dissatisfaction at the pace but we could go no faster without being completely reckless and at extreme risk to run into possible traps.
That was when we turned a corner and I didn't need to be looking through the Energetic Crystalis to be stopped dead by the sight ahead of us. The passage widened out into a vast room that wound upwards for some ways, the floor turned from the gray stone of the sewers to a rich yellow metal which looked similar to gold but looked too lustrous, like the dream of a child who didn't know what gold actually looked like. Looking at the walls and ceilings they appeared to be coated in the same metallic substance, whatever it was. However that wasn't what drew my attention. There appeared to be groups of people huddled together ahead, in groups of ten to twenty. We slowly approached, walking quietly into the vast room.
"Are they sleeping?" Zehal asked, I could hear the confusion in her voice.
"No." I said grimly as I stepped up to the closest of them. An elderly man bound in ancient rags was a husk of his former self, his cheeks hollow, his face utterly gaunt, his eyes sunken to invisibility. The trace energies I did detect were so minute as to be unnatural, even the dead should give off more energy than this.
I looked over at Zehal to see she was loosely holding the desiccated hand of a small child who was, somehow, even more withered than the old man I'd just examined. A little girl, I thought, of no greater age than five. I knelt beside Zehal and gently placed one of my gauntlets on her shoulder. "We must go." I whispered. "Whatever dark reason this is being done for, I sense it is near its conclusion."
"What... what happened here?" Zehal choked out the question.
"They were sapped of their energy." I said, shaking my head.
"Was it painful?" She asked, reaching out she touched the tattered cloth covering the emancipated chest of the child's corpse.
"Do you really want to know?" I asked.
Her head whipped toward me, teeth gritted in a snarl. "Yes." She growled out the word.
"Yes." I said. "It would have been painful, at first, but over time they would have just become numb, the pain would fade and they'd simply drift off to sleep."
"The children would have gone first?" She asked.
"Yes." I said. "More then likely soothed into a deep sleep by their parents, they would have actually have felt a transference of energy akin to warmth that is generated by intense feelings of a positive nature like love, they would have passed to sleep literally feeling the love of those around them, and if they dreamed it would be sweet dreams without care."
Zehal nodded, slowly standing she stared down at the child, her left hand balled into a fist that I personally knew could hurt a great deal, especially at high speeds.
"Are we going to find those responsible for this? Make them pay?" She asked.
"We will if we can." I said. Her head flipped around so fast that her hair arched around like flail. "
She just stared at me with those icy blue eyes, I felt them bore into me like twin glaciers of the darkest ice filled with brimming fire, her right cheek glistened slightly with what might have been the trail left behind by a tear but it was to indistinct for me to know for sure. "Kovorran, if it is at all possible for us to make them pay you promise me that we will, promise me that!"
"Not for vengeance." I said.
"What?" She blinked.
"I will not sacrifice you, me or the memory of the fallen for vengeance Zehal." I said bluntly. "That anger you feel, that outrage, the burning fire within you, it is only natural to want vengeance for that, believe me, I know that fire. But if we forge on ahead, blindly seeking to meet fire with fire we are only the more likely to lay down in early graves and all in vain! Our enemies want us blind with rage, our enemies want us unfocused and unseeing! Thwart them Zehal! Harness your anger and use it, control it! Do not let it control you!"
Her icy blue eyes continued to bore into me, her rage almost palpable as her hands shook. Finally, she stilled.
"Can you go on?" I asked
"I can not stay here." She said,
"Good, let's move.
We ran through the chamber as swiftly as we were able toward the far side that emanated a great deal of energy from a single passageway wide enough for at least two Offarion in full armor to pass through. As we entered it I began to hear distant beats of drums, hundreds, possibly even thousands of them all beating in unison. For some reason it reminded me of the sound of a beating heart, a huge, utterly massive beating heart.
I took one look at Zehal and I saw the look of utter resolution in her eyes. We sped ourselves up to a full sprint and came speeding to a halt just inside the archway and what we saw took our breath away.
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