Under the cover of night, a boat made landing on the north shore of the West Elwynn, underneath the ruins of the eastmost of the bridges between Shirekeep and its younger neighbor Lichkeep. Short-statured figures disembarked upon the shore, being careful not to touch the water, despite their protective measures. The toxin, they knew, would be insidious borne by water, and some of them - those, at least, that were still able to feel pity in a pitiless job - spared a thought for those downriver who might suffer from it. It was a measure of the young Queen's wisdom that she was already taking her own actions on that score.
The figures approached the gate, one following after another. The sections of the city wall facing the river were not being heavily guarded; the presence of Lichkeep on the other side was an effective enough deterrent to combatants approaching from that side, and the forces of the Apollonian Guard were urgently needed elsewhere. For the two lonely Guardsmen keeping watch, already made paranoid by a cabbagehead attack hours earlier, the size and sight of the eerie procession caused them to draw back.
They were, if not definitively human, at least humanoid in shape, but the appearance of each was entirely obscured by armor, if armor it was. It was a strange amalgam and patterning of metal with what looked like chitin, its curved, organic forms suggesting something... grown, or extruded, rather than constructed. It was studded in a small selection of spines and protrusions at different locations, evidently of some intentional purpose, though what purpose that was was difficult to guess. Each head was encased in a helmet with... what appeared to be a selection of eyes, dark and gleaming. There was a faint hissing of air being indrawn, purified by some unguessable process, and expelled again.
And, each figure bore a device, of the same strange hybrid nature as the armor: some kind of container or tank shouldered on the back, connected by a sort of hose to a long, slim, handheld tube with a nozzle at the end, with a long, serrated spine, like a particularly evil bayonet, just above.
Private First Class Sonderman who was nearest and was staring in horror at their approach, made a sound like hngk before finally managing to speak. "Halt! No unauthorized military personnel are allowed into the city!"
The line of trooping figures slowed to a stop. Their leader, or at least the one in front, very slowly turned its head to face the Guard who had spoken. It did not even come up to his shoulder in height, but somehow this failed to be comforting, especially since it showed no particular inclination to put its... device down.
At last, it spoke in a voice that, while quite human and probably female, was faintly distorted, scratchy and buzzing, as if being replayed on a gramophone. Crossbred with a bee.
"We are not military personnel, sir. We have no intention of taking on a combat role in the current struggle. Our purpose is solely to contain and eliminate the threat of cabbage infestation." In the dim illumination from the street lighting near the Multi-Temple, the gleaming tube seemed to Sonderman to shift slightly more toward him. "We are of the Biological Containment Corps, and for the sake of this land, we will submit it to purification."
The Guardsman swallowed. There was no hint of threat in the voice, none at all. There was no command made. It had simply been a statement of how things were going to go. Sonderman decided that a mere private had no place to argue.
"Ungk. ...Uh, that is, p-please proceed. And thank you for your assistance."
He stood well aside as the purifiers trooped past. This country gets stranger every day, he thought.
-----
The squad strode up the street for several blocks before pausing at the intersection with Kaiser's Boulevard. The ancient Temple of the Quintessences towered over them; they ignored the sight, their attention given to one of their own number. It appeared to draw in the air with one of the armor's claw-tipped fingers; where the tip passed, a line of golden light hovered in the air before fading. When the drawing was complete, a complicated symbol appeared in the space before the drawer, slowly rotated like the needle of a compass, and collapsed into series of glowing arrows, of various sizes and brightnesses before fading.
The ritualist murmured in his own tongue. <<Minor infestations all over, with several large concentrations,>> he said. <<The military managed to clear out a lot of them, I think, but now that they're occupied with the forces outside the city, the cabbage is starting to creep back.>>
<<How far to the nearest concentration?>> the squad leader asked.
<<Seven hundred meters east-northeast. Looks like the Railway Express building.>>
The squad leader nodded. She aimed the nozzle of her device at an empty portion of the intersection, pressed a particular spot on the device... and white-hot flame burst forth, lasting for only a moment, but leaving a faintly glowing patch of road behind it when it disappeared.
She nodded again, in apparent satisfaction. <<We will deal with those minor infestations we encounter upon the way. Cabbage or cabbage-eaters - if we encounter them, we remove them. The city is to be purified... at all costs. Firebeetles, move out!>>
Flamethrowers at the ready, they moved west up the boulevard.
Purification
Moderators: (Shireroth) Prefect of Shirekeep, (Shireroth) Steward, (Shireroth) Kaiser
Purification
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
Re: Purification
A dark chamber, even by the standards of the Deep Singers. Squad-Alpha Nuli Ri had only ever glimpsed one of the Incarnates on a single previous occasion, in public and from a considerable distance; but it was rumored, according to those blessed few who had actually spoken to one, that a number of them preferred to lurk in the shadows when holding audience. The Squad-Alpha wondered why, although what she could make out of the being in front of her made her relieved she couldn't see the rest. It was a pinnacle of biological modification that stood before her as she knelt there, one of the guiding lights of her kind, and she loved it... but she feared it as well.
She wondered if it knew this, and if that was why it chose the darkness.
Ten, or perhaps twelve, eyestalks peered in different directions; dozens of spindly, keratin-enclosed legs moved in the darkness, lit by brief flashes and flickers of golden light erupting from their tips. From the tempo of their careful dance, it was clear that their work was winding down; as it did so, the legs ceased moving, and, one by one, the eyestalks turned to look at Nuli and the other volunteers, still kneeling respectfully on the floor.
At last, the Lifemesher spoke, in a slow, hissing voice. Like its shrouded body, the sound of it gave no clue to whether the Incarnate was male or female... if, indeed, that still mattered on anything but a chromosomal level.
"Young ones... we were grateful for your willingness to volunteer for a mission so poorly described. Although we know your duties always contain an element of severe risk, it is natural to be leery when informed of a task with high risk of death, and no blame would have attached for refusing it. Now that you have been more fully briefed on the nature of what you have volunteered for... I must ask you again. Is there any among you who would prefer not to participate?"
A tense silence.
With a heavy, scuttling sound, the Lifemesher walked down from its dais and meandered back and forth before the volunteers. "Understand this, young ones. You have faced many horrors, and I know this all too well. Biological modification has its... risks. When experiments have gone wrong, when a rogue mutation has spread undetected, you have been at the forefront. But very, very few members of the Biological Containment Corp have faced fellow humans or posthumans in such dire straits. With our own genome, we are as careful and prudent as ever we can be, and there have been thankfully few instances where it has been necessary to terminate any mistakes. Some of you in this room, as many as we could locate, have participated in those instances, and they may be steeled for what comes. But for the rest of you, be aware: this mission will almost certainly require you to do so, repeatedly and with attention to detail. You will be looking fellow sapients, genetic siblings, in the eye; you will be hearing their screams; and yet, through all this, you must be ready, willing and able to purify them, and the flora used to spread their condition, with extreme prejudice."
The Incarnate paused to allow the last sentence to sink in, and then continued: "You may also have noted the political implications. It would have been our preference to devote as many resources as we could spare to the eradication of the cabbage and its human hosts, which are already widespread throughout the Imperial County and southern Elwynn, with possible incursions into Goldshire. The militaries involved are more concerned with facing off against each other and positioning themselves around the capital, leaving the cabbage to flourish and leaving an ever-increasing need to contain the threat on a large scale. Nonetheless... none of the parties involved, I am sure, would look kindly on large-scale interference from the Garden. We have worked hard to mitigate the mistrust of abovegrounders in the past few years, and attracting their wrath by invading their lands en masse is not a risk we can take. As it is, operating in Shirekeep with a major squad is likely to be viewed as unwelcome, no matter how little attention the powers that be are paying attention to it, and regardless of the circumstances."
The spidery creature spun around to face them again. "Understand, young ones: there will be no acknowledgement of your actions from the time you cross the Elwynn. You will be on your own. If and when you return to the Garden, we shall protect you as best as we can, but until then you are rogues and zealots, operating without official sanction. Attempt to avoid the abovegrounder militaries if you can. If you cannot, attempt to reason with them about the urgency of the cabbage threat and the necessity of facing it. If they will not listen, then allow yourselves to be escorted onto Lichbrook's soil, or else attempt to escape to it... but, above all else, all else, do not allow yourselves to be captured or drawn into combat. If the choice is between those things or death, your armor will be fitted with systems to allow the latter. Do you understand?"
Another long silence. Some of the volunteers, perhaps having a change of heart, departed from the rows of kneeling volunteers, murmuring apologies; they had long lives of accomplishment to look forward to, after all. But many stayed. Nuli was among them.
The Lifemesher's forelegs unfolded in a gesture of acknowledgment. "Your steadfastness will be noted. Go with the blessings of the Garden. Act for the greater good."
-----
Giggling, cabbage-waving madmen poured onto the boulevard. Flamethrowers erupted lances of white-hot fire; sidearms were drawn, spitting needle-sharp spines into heads or chests. The ritualists drew their diagrams in the air, struggling to call out the locations of the infested before they came into range, and to locate hidden cabbages.
One of them pointed at a stately home, sited opposite the bulk of the Museum of Fine Arts. Nuli ducked into a bush on the house's lawn, and withdrew two round balls from a hollow in the armor's side; she placed them on the ground and gently stroked each one. They unrolled, revealing themselves to be insects, like overgrown pill bugs; she ran her finger along the back of each in the direction of the house, made a faint twittering noise, and then jumped out of the foliage. She jumped around, yelling, and then ran back toward her squad, several of the brassica-addled occupants of the house cheerfully chasing after her. None of them paid any attention as the two bugs scuttled across the lawn.
They crept into the house, their instincts urging them on to find an open space with lots of plant-based material around. Lots of oxygen, lots of fuel. They made their way to what had probably once been a ballroom, with a wide wooden floor, but which now housed trays full of soil, a small cabbage growing in each one.
Inside each bug were two sacs, each containing a different fluid, separated by valves. The creatures having found their destination, they opened the valves.
As Nuli urged the squad away from the house, its ground floor was consumed with a sudden WHUMP of pressure and heat. Flame dripped from windows, climbed walls, leapt joyfully to neighboring houses.
<<Purified,>> the Squad-Alpha stated. As she watched the flame continue to spread between houses, she felt a brief feeling of satisfaction ebb away. Steeling herself, she motioned for the Firebeetles to continue up the boulevard.
For the greater good, she thought.
There were still many more targets ahead.
She wondered if it knew this, and if that was why it chose the darkness.
Ten, or perhaps twelve, eyestalks peered in different directions; dozens of spindly, keratin-enclosed legs moved in the darkness, lit by brief flashes and flickers of golden light erupting from their tips. From the tempo of their careful dance, it was clear that their work was winding down; as it did so, the legs ceased moving, and, one by one, the eyestalks turned to look at Nuli and the other volunteers, still kneeling respectfully on the floor.
At last, the Lifemesher spoke, in a slow, hissing voice. Like its shrouded body, the sound of it gave no clue to whether the Incarnate was male or female... if, indeed, that still mattered on anything but a chromosomal level.
"Young ones... we were grateful for your willingness to volunteer for a mission so poorly described. Although we know your duties always contain an element of severe risk, it is natural to be leery when informed of a task with high risk of death, and no blame would have attached for refusing it. Now that you have been more fully briefed on the nature of what you have volunteered for... I must ask you again. Is there any among you who would prefer not to participate?"
A tense silence.
With a heavy, scuttling sound, the Lifemesher walked down from its dais and meandered back and forth before the volunteers. "Understand this, young ones. You have faced many horrors, and I know this all too well. Biological modification has its... risks. When experiments have gone wrong, when a rogue mutation has spread undetected, you have been at the forefront. But very, very few members of the Biological Containment Corp have faced fellow humans or posthumans in such dire straits. With our own genome, we are as careful and prudent as ever we can be, and there have been thankfully few instances where it has been necessary to terminate any mistakes. Some of you in this room, as many as we could locate, have participated in those instances, and they may be steeled for what comes. But for the rest of you, be aware: this mission will almost certainly require you to do so, repeatedly and with attention to detail. You will be looking fellow sapients, genetic siblings, in the eye; you will be hearing their screams; and yet, through all this, you must be ready, willing and able to purify them, and the flora used to spread their condition, with extreme prejudice."
The Incarnate paused to allow the last sentence to sink in, and then continued: "You may also have noted the political implications. It would have been our preference to devote as many resources as we could spare to the eradication of the cabbage and its human hosts, which are already widespread throughout the Imperial County and southern Elwynn, with possible incursions into Goldshire. The militaries involved are more concerned with facing off against each other and positioning themselves around the capital, leaving the cabbage to flourish and leaving an ever-increasing need to contain the threat on a large scale. Nonetheless... none of the parties involved, I am sure, would look kindly on large-scale interference from the Garden. We have worked hard to mitigate the mistrust of abovegrounders in the past few years, and attracting their wrath by invading their lands en masse is not a risk we can take. As it is, operating in Shirekeep with a major squad is likely to be viewed as unwelcome, no matter how little attention the powers that be are paying attention to it, and regardless of the circumstances."
The spidery creature spun around to face them again. "Understand, young ones: there will be no acknowledgement of your actions from the time you cross the Elwynn. You will be on your own. If and when you return to the Garden, we shall protect you as best as we can, but until then you are rogues and zealots, operating without official sanction. Attempt to avoid the abovegrounder militaries if you can. If you cannot, attempt to reason with them about the urgency of the cabbage threat and the necessity of facing it. If they will not listen, then allow yourselves to be escorted onto Lichbrook's soil, or else attempt to escape to it... but, above all else, all else, do not allow yourselves to be captured or drawn into combat. If the choice is between those things or death, your armor will be fitted with systems to allow the latter. Do you understand?"
Another long silence. Some of the volunteers, perhaps having a change of heart, departed from the rows of kneeling volunteers, murmuring apologies; they had long lives of accomplishment to look forward to, after all. But many stayed. Nuli was among them.
The Lifemesher's forelegs unfolded in a gesture of acknowledgment. "Your steadfastness will be noted. Go with the blessings of the Garden. Act for the greater good."
-----
Giggling, cabbage-waving madmen poured onto the boulevard. Flamethrowers erupted lances of white-hot fire; sidearms were drawn, spitting needle-sharp spines into heads or chests. The ritualists drew their diagrams in the air, struggling to call out the locations of the infested before they came into range, and to locate hidden cabbages.
One of them pointed at a stately home, sited opposite the bulk of the Museum of Fine Arts. Nuli ducked into a bush on the house's lawn, and withdrew two round balls from a hollow in the armor's side; she placed them on the ground and gently stroked each one. They unrolled, revealing themselves to be insects, like overgrown pill bugs; she ran her finger along the back of each in the direction of the house, made a faint twittering noise, and then jumped out of the foliage. She jumped around, yelling, and then ran back toward her squad, several of the brassica-addled occupants of the house cheerfully chasing after her. None of them paid any attention as the two bugs scuttled across the lawn.
They crept into the house, their instincts urging them on to find an open space with lots of plant-based material around. Lots of oxygen, lots of fuel. They made their way to what had probably once been a ballroom, with a wide wooden floor, but which now housed trays full of soil, a small cabbage growing in each one.
Inside each bug were two sacs, each containing a different fluid, separated by valves. The creatures having found their destination, they opened the valves.
As Nuli urged the squad away from the house, its ground floor was consumed with a sudden WHUMP of pressure and heat. Flame dripped from windows, climbed walls, leapt joyfully to neighboring houses.
<<Purified,>> the Squad-Alpha stated. As she watched the flame continue to spread between houses, she felt a brief feeling of satisfaction ebb away. Steeling herself, she motioned for the Firebeetles to continue up the boulevard.
For the greater good, she thought.
There were still many more targets ahead.
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
Re: Purification
The Deep Singers said of themselves that they had a way of life, but no religion. They had the Incarnates, but no gods. They had an idea of advancement, but not of salvation. And they certainly, certainly had no equivalent of Balgurd. The very idea of damnation was alien to them.
Squad-Alpha Ri, however, believed she was beginning to get her mind around it. She thought she had seen it, or at least reflections of it, in the last few days:
It was sealing off the entrances to a building, sending in detonators, and waiting for hundreds of formerly-sentient lives to be extinguished.
It was listening to the explosions and the fires and the screaming.
It was seeing the figures, many of them burning, staggering out the doors, and turning the flamethrowers on them.
It was watching in horror as part of a wall collapsed, and a horde of maddened cabbageheads poured into the streets in an uncontainable deluge.
It was seeing fifteen of her squad down inside of five minutes. Some of them, their armor breached, had activated the self-destruct functions rather than risk contamination.
It was having all but one ritualist dead, and that one close to exhaustion trying to repair and rejuvenate the squad's armor.
It was fleeing, holing up inside a office building, and desperately fighting off insanity from without and within.
Half the squad had been killed on the fallback to the building. They'd managed to keep their attackers at bay from inside, but they were going nowhere. If there was some small blessing in the debacle, it was that there seemed little chance of further infestation in this portion of the city; the cabbageheads had been barricaded into this neighborhood by the students at the University, backed by the Apollonian Guard, and the destruction of the railway station had eliminated most of those inside the cordon. The remainder were all gathered outside the office building, trying to get at the squad.
Nuli stared out the window at the ruined cityscape, pondering what to do next-
BOOM.
It was too small a word to describe what happened. Even here, nearly on the opposite side of the city, windows shattered and eardrums ruptured.
As the lingering echoes died away, the squad-alpha staggered to her feet. A quick check had found that their armor had protected the squad from the sound and the flying glass; but judging from the screaming outside, the cabbageheads hadn't been so lucky.
Within her helment Nuli gritted her teeth in determination. If they were going to get a chance, this was it.
<<They're in chaos down there,>> she said. <<Prepare to move. Hit them as hard as you can.>>
Squad-Alpha Ri, however, believed she was beginning to get her mind around it. She thought she had seen it, or at least reflections of it, in the last few days:
It was sealing off the entrances to a building, sending in detonators, and waiting for hundreds of formerly-sentient lives to be extinguished.
It was listening to the explosions and the fires and the screaming.
It was seeing the figures, many of them burning, staggering out the doors, and turning the flamethrowers on them.
It was watching in horror as part of a wall collapsed, and a horde of maddened cabbageheads poured into the streets in an uncontainable deluge.
It was seeing fifteen of her squad down inside of five minutes. Some of them, their armor breached, had activated the self-destruct functions rather than risk contamination.
It was having all but one ritualist dead, and that one close to exhaustion trying to repair and rejuvenate the squad's armor.
It was fleeing, holing up inside a office building, and desperately fighting off insanity from without and within.
Half the squad had been killed on the fallback to the building. They'd managed to keep their attackers at bay from inside, but they were going nowhere. If there was some small blessing in the debacle, it was that there seemed little chance of further infestation in this portion of the city; the cabbageheads had been barricaded into this neighborhood by the students at the University, backed by the Apollonian Guard, and the destruction of the railway station had eliminated most of those inside the cordon. The remainder were all gathered outside the office building, trying to get at the squad.
Nuli stared out the window at the ruined cityscape, pondering what to do next-
BOOM.
It was too small a word to describe what happened. Even here, nearly on the opposite side of the city, windows shattered and eardrums ruptured.
As the lingering echoes died away, the squad-alpha staggered to her feet. A quick check had found that their armor had protected the squad from the sound and the flying glass; but judging from the screaming outside, the cabbageheads hadn't been so lucky.
Within her helment Nuli gritted her teeth in determination. If they were going to get a chance, this was it.
<<They're in chaos down there,>> she said. <<Prepare to move. Hit them as hard as you can.>>
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST