Allan followed the Ascendancy and Nox. Though why they left half the creatures behind the wall of air Allan didn't understand.
It was worse than he thought anything could ever be. The blood. The smell. Everything was nearly dead before he actually found the will to weave a fireball. Training was different. He'd never actually fought in something like this.
Nox had fallen to his knees, he had used the power and a crossbow while he looked about ready to die... how did he do that? Why did he fall to the ground.
The Ascendancy's fury was apparent as he roared in the cavern. What had happened? Jay offered Nox a flask and Allan wondered really what was going on. Was this how it was always going to be?
Nox was partially aware of what the others did. He felt the intense power of the Ascendancy himself. Allan was near by, but that was about it. Where were Jay and Marcus? But the reality of it boiled down to the fading pain that had been the horde dying excruciating deaths. Maybe bringing a bunch of godlings with him had been a poor choice as a first go through now that he was connected to the horde. But they didn't seem to mind the connection. They barreled through regardless -- he was not one of them. He retained his humanity, he wasn't mindless and catering to the foreign creature inside of him. Nox wondered how much was a mutation and how much was the parasites? What did these people think the were creating. This was not a super soldier, it was a fucking world ending monster that over takes the world.
A silver flask drew into his view pulling Nox from the pain and thoughts. Nox reached for it without care and took a swallow before making a face. He knew deep down it hadn't been water. He knew... He handed it back to the person who handed to him only to realize it was Jay. What had happened to him? Nox wanted to ask and care, and.... He turned to look at the Ascendancy the fire still burning in his eyes. Nova scampered to him, then past him to the cavern exit where they had entered. The cavern was flame filled, the stench of burning flesh and hair. The bodies of the creatures and their victims bleed onto the ground. They'd have to burn it all. The denizens had scattered and Nox prayed none of them were bitten. He didn't feel the taint the directions they'd ran. He only felt the horde fleeing the fire and destruction someone had reigned down on them.
"Where is the Consul?" he asked before the Ascendancy's fury filled question he answered. "Welcome to what it means to be Atharim." He didn't really know the full story, only that the man before him had once been one of them, hunted to his prior position and beyond. Nox didn't care why, but this was the life of the Atharim. Horrible things happened. And this is what they were meant to stop.
Nox stood up shakily. The pain still lingered in his mind. The power still danced around hi. "Make sure there are no survivors in the carnage. It's all going to burn. Kill them with mercy, this is not a life they want to live."
Nox pulled out a bottle of his homemade napalm from his bag and poured the contents slowly along the ground, along the dead, the bodies. Nox walked a path around everything. "Barricade all the entrances to the cavern with a wall of air and a knot to dissolve in about an hour." He wove one quickly while he was passing an exit, tying it off with a knot that would decay. Timing wasn't perfect, but still a knot that would die and let the world pass through the corridor without them having to return.
Nox stood by the entrance where Nova waited, and they had entered. "We know nothing of this parasite, we can only hope that it dies in the fire like Chupacabra. Who wants to do the honors?"
Marcus wasn't really sure how long things lasted. He was in that place, again. As the Angel of Death, Malik, he would get lost in the work, the careful sowing and harvesting, husbanding of pain and reaping of justice. This wasn't quite the same. The game wasn't mental, a seeking of the best way to break a person according to what they personally hated or feared most.
But it had been a long time and the tension had built up, almost to a point of pain, he realized, nearly sexual in nature. A case of psychological blue balls and he released it all at once in an orgiastic frenzy of burned and cut and exploded bodies, limbs and viscera. The wall had come down at some point and he had pressed himself with the Force, this weaves seeking them out even as they ran, the scent of carnage and fear filling the air that he heaved in great draughts as if to pull it into himself.
At some point during the melee, without conscious thought, his eyes began to glow and he felt himself expand slightly, giving it up to his Malik hunger, the desire to kill, to destroy, to reign down fire and death from on high suffusing him, waves of pleasure and peace and contentment radiating through him in ever greater waves, lulling him down the tunnels, the promise of still more...
Marcus stopped, the sound suddenly going quiet except for the scrambling of the remaining horde. He looked around and bodies lay everywhere- mounds he hadn't remembered walking past. Regaining himself took a moment and he looked back. He was far down from where he had started. The wall of dead that had built up against Nox's wall had slumped over, a wide swath he didn't remember making giving him a place to pass through.
Where were the others?
He gave on last look in the direction the remaining creatures had run to- noting it with a promise to come here again. Marcus might not be able to hunt anymore above. But down here...- and then went back in the direction he'd come.
It was chaos. Apparently, some of them had fled to a homeless encampment. The torn remnants of tents and boxes mixed with that of bodies- human and inhuman. Ascendancy, Nox, Carpenter and Allan were burning everything, their faces grim. Not just burning. More than one person suddenly went from frantic pleas or painful movements to stillness. Puzzled at first, he then remembered Nox's words.
He nodded approvingly. It had to be done.
He went back to where he had been and wove fire and air. He didn't move as the tunnel became an inferno. Wind picked up, superheated air rushing around him as bodies blackened and the smell of charred meat filled his nostrils. Viruses were nasty things and the tunnel needed to be sterilized. He didn't step back even as the heat became too much. His cheeks felt tender and his eyes watered, but he didn't stop or move until it was done.
He turned to rejoin the others, heedless of thread that gave his eyes that glow.
It was a little concerning watching the Ascendancy move from spot to spot and the silence that followed. Not so much that people were being put out of their mercy, but that Jay didn’t really mind it.
It was a strange disconnect. Knowing he probably should feel something. Regret or shock or something. Waiting for it. Any moment now? Nope. Nothing.
Nox’s plan made sense. Jay knew jack shit about parasites and super bugs. He wasn’t even that great with walls and knots and countdowns. But fire?
He gave Allen a nod to go ahead and work on the wall. He was better with those nuanced flows anyway. As soon as the clear was given from Ascendancy, flames sparked from Jay. He may be a numb son of a bitch now, but the thought of burning anyone alive horrified him in ways that made his soul want to scream.
The fires did its job. Jay made sure of it.
((We can advance the time a few hours if necessary to regroup))
The fire encompassed the room and there was a still silence in the air. The fire crackled and burned the bodies, the stench was unbearable. Allan watched as Nox crossed his fingers from the top of his head to his heart and across his shoulders. He muttered, "Et dimitte peccata et det tibi pacem"* It sounded like Latin, but Allan had never actually studied the language. But he never asked the other man what the words meant, they sounded sorrowful and full of regret. A mourning right, perhas?
They stood and watched the fire burn. Nox turned and headed the way they came. He clicked his tongue and the vile creature dog thing he'd spoken to followed along. "Why do we suffer this creature to live?" Allan shouted after Nox trailing behind him angrily. Allan seized the power inside of him and wove the weave for a fireball to eradicate the beast where it stood.
* Forgive the sins and grant peace.
The fire would burn until it died. No one else would suffer their fate Nox hoped. He wasn't a religious person, nor was he steeped in tradition, but innocent people died today -- they deserved respect. Aurora would be proud of him.
But he didn't think long on his dead sister lest she show up in his mind. The darkness was enough to deal with in the shadows of the world. The further they went the deeper and darker it would get and the larger the horde grew Nox would feel more and more of their influence.
The menacing presence behind him grew in attunement as Allan spoke of killing Nova. Nox wove a spirit wedge and turned and sliced through Allan's weave even before it was fully formed. "Touch Nova and..." Nox didn't exactly threaten the rod of dominion. But he left it lingering as it was. There was an emptiness to his voice. Nox felt the emptiness of the power where he kept the darkness from touching him. But even that wasn't enough to stem their influence "The ones I can control can help us eradicate the rest and whatever creatures lurk in the depths of the tunnels."
Allan's eyes grew wide with the realization of what Nox said. His face grew red with rage. "How do we know you aren't the reason those people are dead?"
Nox growled. "You don't!" He turned on his heal weaving an wall of air around him that nearly encompassed the width and height of the tunnel around him in a 3 feet deep box, with him at the center. Nova scampered ahead of him. He tied the weave off so he could focus on other things. "You will have to trust me."
The wall was gone he'd erected earlier, and Marcus was returning to them. His eyes glowed red. Illusion and appearance never really seemed like something that was useful. "If the glow i helpful tie it off, no need to expend power on theatrics."
Nox nodded ahead of him. "I stored gear for the long journey up past the next junction." He said to the crowd behind him. He didn't care if they came or went at this point. The pain still seared from the horde's death. They were hunting, and Nox was hungry. Food would be required sooner rather than later.
Confrontations underground rarely ended well. Jay kept an alert eye between Nox and Allan, but inwardly he really hoped none of them would have to step in. For shit sake, who would he even stand with? An old friend or a brother in arms? Since Jay was keen to not have to make that kind of shitty call, he played it cool until the spark dissipated on its own.
As they walked, Jay found himself closer to Nox than the others, even if he was kept at a literal arm’s distance by the invisible barrier Nox shut himself in. The dog, or what was the dog loped alongside apparently meek as a lamb – an ugly lamb. It wasn’t a kitten, but Jay didn’t want his ankle bit either. He had no desire to amputate a leg. Or anything, truth be told.
When he spoke, it was for Nox to hear, but neither was he whispering. Just chatting like anyone might chat in that kind of fucked up situation.
“Allan has a point. I sure as shit know I can’t trust you,” he smirked at the poor attempt at a joke. He almost added something about the danger of being alone, but held it back for mixed company. If Nox was in there, he’d surely find the morbid humor amusing.
“Really though. What the hell happened to you?” He asked. Just to illustrate the point, Jay poked the box.
“Welcome to what it means to be Atharim,” Nox said.
Nikolai halted in his tracks, staring at Nox.
“Never call me atharim,” he cut short only to move away while Jay and Allan sealed the chamber.
The flow of fires engulfed everything behind him. Nik didn’t watch. The heat slicked the skin beneath his suit. He underestimated this fight. He hated that mistake. That he had the capacity to even make a mistake.
In a way, they were at Nox’s mercy. Nikolai was not completely cut off from the world above, and as explained, could depart the group and return to it, but Nikolai could not abide that kind of defeat.
While Jay and Nox walked ahead, Nik briefly studied the color to Marcus’ gaze. It was impossible to miss in the dim light and gave Nik an idea for future use. Changing the way other people saw you could be useful, but was there any physical advantage? Maybe he would experiment down here. Allan was rightfully concerned.
Marcus watched the byplay between Nox and the others. The tension in the air was palpable. He could almost reach out and caress it, as if strings ripe for the plucking. Without thinking his hand drifted up as if to touch a single strand, the siren call of the chaos and potential sweet to him. Just one touch...
He had never noticed it so clearly. Perhaps it was the pressure of the tunnels that focused his vision. Perhaps it was the Force that coursed through him. He realized he didn't often keep that power close to him when dealing with others- aside from force-suggestions or punishment. But the heightened senses made things more clearer than he could imagine.
Nox's sword of spirit slashing at Allan's peaked his attention. He filed that away. That was very useful.
He hadn't realized his eyes glowed until Nox spoke to him. Instead of ending it, he tied it off, left it there. It felt right, down here amid the death and destruction. Where else should a Sith Lord not look at home than in this place.
Instead of joining them, though, he drifted to Ascendancy. Frustration and anger played across his face. For some reason, Marcus had could not understand why. Looking around the carnage of the tents, he wondered if it was the death of the innocents. He pitched his voice low. "You made the right choice. It was a mercy to them." That was true enough. Becoming a zombie wasn't something people chose for themselves. Everything was still. Quiet.
His hand brushed the hilt at his hip. "New things come. New dangers." His eyes met the Ascendancy's.
Nox ignored the Ascendancy's words. He hadn't called him Atharim... he'd only meant this was what it was to be Atharim. Even if the lord and overseer of this great nation was former Atharim, he didn't want the association. Nox didn't blame him, but despite his own upbringing he was nothing if not Atharim.
Jay... Nox turned around with a smile on his face. Jay didn't trust him. Nox smirked. "I love you too." He rolled his eye at Jay, but then he went on, asked a pointed question -- what happened to him.
There had been no retaliation for his slicing Allan's weave, and even while he glared at Nox he followed none-the-less so Nox dropped the box sliced through the box with another weave of spirt. The shards of the pattern falling away like silver tinsel only a man could see. The darkness before faded with the humor of Jay's word, though Nox could feel the hunger welling up inside just outside the emptiness. Nox pulled a jerk stick from his bag and carefully unwrapped it. It would not be good to pull the horde to them while everyone was on edge from the last fight. They were in the free in clear now that the horde went the opposite direction for a short while anyway. Feed one hunger before the others got away from him.
"I lost an arm -- but it's more than that." Nox said. He waited for Jay's footsteps to match his own and they walked side by side. Nox's voice dropped but he doubted it was for Jay's ears alone, the power sang all around them."It changed me. Darker impulses thrive in my brain. And I can feel them." Nox waved his hand off in the direction of Nova and the rest of the horde. "They have three modes -- fight, feed and fuck. Not necessarily in that order and definitely not the words to describe the reasons. The live to breed and feed -- survival at it's basic elements. And you being here." Nox pointed to the ground, "Is both good and bad. Good because you remind me I'm human, and two well I have more than one reason to avoid your charms." He smirked.
They rounded a bend in the tunnels and Nox made a beeline for a pile of tumbled rocks. He easily shifted the rock and revealed a hidden cache of supplies. "Sleeping bags and rations for the journey. This isn't a one night only thing. This is a journey to the center of the fucking earth until all the horde is gone. When I feel dead inside and completely alone in my head then we'll go home. So now, if you have more important things to do you should take the route," Nox pointed back the way they came, "we just came from and follow the next junction back to the surface. The land warriors will lead you topside. I won't promise it's safe, nor will I promise you won't get lost. But the horde is not that way. We go deeper in. If we find the lab, we destroy it because nothing about these things is natural."