Tattoos & Rail Guns Chapter 17: Every Piece Moves

Deezle the Defiler felt something, an itch at the back of his skull. He had been left alone on monitor duty, he was always left alone on monitor duty, and so he had begun to trust that itchy feeling. He looked at the various scrying mirrors that they had set up; each was paired to another mirror at a different location, allowing the demons to keep an eye out on what happened at distant sites. Most of them looked normal; all but the one had a crack through it and had gone black; it wasn't even reflecting.

Its partner had been the chetan trap. Its partner must have been destroyed.

They had set the trap up to bind the servants of nature so that they could be used to attack local towns, something that the birds would never do. Chetans were guardians of nature; as long as people didn't do anything too destructive they could care less what the apes did. But, with the proper binding spell, oh, the havoc they could wreak. He smiled at the villages and towns that they had used the birds to destroy, especially as the binding spell partially transmogrified them, making them skeletal versions of their normally robust selves.

Watching the birds betray their more intrinsic nature had been especially gratifying to watch and had provided the demons with countless hours of enjoyment even as they had terrorized the environment.

But now the mirror had been destroyed. That could only mean that not only had someone happened upon the site and released the birds, but had also triggered the aggressively exothermic fire blast trap, and several of the chetans' would-be liberators would have been reduced to ash. While he was somewhat saddened that there would be no cooked bodies waiting for him, he smiled: They had at least done the survivors the favor of utterly cremating the bodies.

Lellend would be so pleased to find that his trap had worked. A simple trap, one designed to lure would-be heroes looking for a demon to defeat, and then literally blowing up in their faces when they tried to free the birds. Hopefully, at least two of the birds had been killed in the attempt; he really hated those birds. He smiled again as the carnage reminded him of the roasted turkey in the refrigerator. He moved in that direction, hoping they still had a decent red wine to go along with it. And some potato salad. Sure, this plane had some magical issues, but the foods were at least decent. Few planets he had been to had such a variety of foods, and that was even ignoring the people themselves.

Which reminded him: Who were they having at the next barbecue? He needed to send out some invitations. He smirked as he realized that there were fewer people to worry about inviting: Some poor soldiers were one with the wind. He grabbed a rind of brie as he headed back to his seat at the monitoring station. The day could only get better. Lellend would be pleased; he had been curious where the humans at Fort Solace were exploring.

* * * * *

Kev was inspecting the new crater. He had seen no bodies, but the charcoal surrounding the crater implied that no one had survived. Lieutenant Sawyer was barely holding in her anger at the situation as she called in the situation. Lieutenant Prowse stood guard, looking for something to show up and be just hostile enough to justify self-defense.

Lieutenant Sawyer finished her call and walked over to Kev. “Anything to note?”

Kev motioned for her to follow him to the deepest part of the crater. “Yes. You should look at this.” He pointed at a hole leading to a tunnel under them.

“Definitely signs of worked earth.” She looked around through the hole. “There are no stalagmites, and the floor is too smooth.” She took a step back. “Can you widen the hole?”

He reached into the hole and pulled. Two huge chunks flew towards opposite ends of the crater. Lieutenant Sawyer knelt down and flashed a light into the darkness. That it was a tunnel and not a natural cave was now obvious; wooden support beams could be seen. Trails had even developed; loose dirt was virtually absent from the center but was instead piled near the walls. It was even easy to see patterns of movement, as two trails had been pressed into the dirt; one for each direction.

She stood up and took a couple of steps away from the hole. “I hate coincidences.” She pulled out her tablet and started pulling up maps, plotting out circles. “Yeah, it appears that this silo's just off-center of the towns that were hit, but if we had another town here,” and she added a dot to the map, “then the location of the silo makes perfect sense. But that places the extra town underneath a mountain.” She put the tablet back in its holster and looked at Kev. “Ready to do some spelunking?”

“Certainly. This could be interesting.”

She shifted to subvocal. “Bring all of the vehicles to the center of the crater; we've found something that needs to be explored.”

She called in to Fort Solace that they had found a tunnel and that they would be investigating the tunnel before heading in. Over the next twenty minutes, the three of them managed to bring the flivvers and the Kronus to the center of the crater, throw camouflage nets over the flivvers, and even place some mines around the vehicles. When they had done that, Lieutenant Prowse entered a password into the Kronus. “Okay, it's in defensive mode. Ready.”

Lieutenant Sawyer nodded and then turned to Kev. She handed him a flashlight, which he accepted. “You're first if you don't mind.” He nodded then dropped down the hole; he then assisted the other two down. They were soon a few hundred meters down the tunnel.

* * * * *

A flash of blue and Samuels was throwing up on an otherwise gorgeous ridge. Rodriguez was smirking, even as Walker was slowly rising. Douglas was enjoying Samuels’ suffering possibly a bit too much. “Normally, I would have warned you, but I figured given the choice between a warning and saving your collective butts, you would prefer me saving your collective butts.”

Rodriguez saluted him. “Thanks for the save, kid.”

“No problem, sergeant.”

“So, no glow, kid?”

“Yeah, well, we did teleport just outside the zone: No zone, no mana.”

Walker wiped away the residue on his mouth. “That could take some getting used to. I take it's something that you get used to over time?”

Douglas stopped smiling. “It took me a good dozen tries before I stopped throwing up. Maybe a few dozen tries after that before the urge to hurl completely disappeared. Turns out the trick is holding your breath before you teleport.”

Samuels finally rose. “I'll remember that next time.”

Rodriguez was looking at the sun. “I'm guessing we were transported about two clicks due east of where we were.”

“And you would be correct. I had to get us out in a hurry, so I just grabbed who I could. However, it was a desperation move, so no finesse.”

Rodriguez pulled his brim forward. “Well, we've got a good half hour of walking to get back to the vehicles. You guys ready to go?”

Walker nodded as did Samuels. Douglas started walking. “Yeah, we may as well get going.”

“I don't think so.” A teenage girl's voice came from just over the ridge.

Douglas stopped and slumped. “Not now, Priscilla.”

A young woman in denim pants and a silk blouse with long green hair stormed over to Douglas. “It's 'Morgana', and you know it, Douglas!”

He turned to the rest of the group. “This is the sorceress 'Morgana'.” He bowed before the young woman. “Or 'Priscilla' to those who have known her since she was in diapers.” He stood up straight. “What do you need?”

“You're a hard person to find, bro. It took a while for Exo to figure out where you would be. You've been rather mobile of late. Your teleport allowed us to figure out where you were.” She slapped her forehead. “Oh, yeah. Forgot something.” Her hand glowed and she tossed the energy straight up, where it blossomed into a neon yellow rose. “Others will be here soon.”

Rodriguez's eyes squinted as he looked at Douglas. “I thought you said people couldn't do magic outside the zone.”

Douglas tilted his head a little. “I'm a wizard, she's a sorceress. The rules are different; basically I'm more powerful and well-rounded, but she's not limited to the zones.” He smiled. “And I'm better looking.”

Morgana glared at Douglas then Rodriguez. “At least, that's what he tells himself. But yeah; our connection to the magic is different. It's a casual fling for me while it's his closest ally; we may run together but she can be fickle, while for him as long he respects her rules, she's at his beck and call.”

He focused on his sister. “So again: What's up?”

She twisted her hair. “I can't just check in on my favorite brother?”

Douglas looked at Rodriguez. “Her only brother she means.” He looked back at her. “We see each other every month.”

She sighed deeply. “Fine. We've been seeing an uptick in storms and portal generation. Exo has been tracking the pattern, and there's been a series of storms being formed in a straight line towards Fort Solace. Worse, each storm is more powerful than the last. Shrike has also noticed that there have been a series of regions transformed, however temporarily, into extra-dimensional landscapes as well as outright portals. This has lead to an increase in xenos, both the good kind and the not-so-good kind.”

Douglas' eyes rolled. “Fun. At least Fort Solace is outside the zone. Any ideas as to what may be causing it, or is it something I need to look into?”

She tilted her head. “What do you think, genius?”

He sighed. “Okay, I'll look into it.”

“Cool.”

A rumbling could be heard, and soon enough a large ATV popped up. It came close to the group before stopping. Two teenage males popped out, a lanky kid in green cloaks and more athletic redhead in head-to-toe denim.

Douglas walked over to the guys. “Exo! Shrike!” The two ran over to him, and they all hugged tightly. They had a few moments to catch up until they were joined by Morgana. After a second round of hugs, the other three mounted the ATV and drove off. Douglas walked back to the group, smiling.

Walker looked at Douglas. “Fort Solace is outside the zone. Why would it be targeted?”

“Well, it is the only military base in the area.” Douglas focused on Rodriguez. “Time to head out?”

Rodriguez glared at Douglas. “We couldn't get a ride?”

“We weren't going their way, and they need to track down a couple of other wizards. Big things are happening, and they need to nip them in the bud. They’ll need the extra firepower.”

“Fine. Let's move out.” Rodriguez started walking and the other three soon joined him.

Douglas walked over to Walker, bringing out his own tablet as he did so. “Wanna see something?”

Walker was unnerved by the request. “Um...sure?” Walker looked down at the tablet; the cracks around the edges and generally dustiness made it one of the oldest tablets he had seen. “Just how old is that thing, anyway?”

Douglas glared at him. He pressed a few buttons, and a map of the area around Fort Solace popped up. “Okay, this is the map you're used to.” A few more buttons pressed and part of the screen turned blue. “This is the current zone around the base.” By now Rodriguez had sauntered over, easily keeping pace with them. “Now, entering the points Morgana mentioned,” and he pressed a few more buttons leaving behind triangles on the screen, “and you see that they line up to a location just north of the base.”

Walker stopped, then caught up. “There's a skyscraper right there.”

Rodriguez went through the geography in his head. “That would be the Rochester-Fallon building. Scary place.”

Douglas shut down the tablet and put it away. “It may not be a bad idea to figure out why it's such a scary place.”

[The last chapter is here.]