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Bloodsworn Ch. 32
🕑 Added 2024-11-20 23:54:34 +0000 UTC32.
The entryway to the floating docks had a pale yellow light emanating from them now. Several of the smaller energy cores harvested from the flesh golems had been inserted into ports along the doorway and with a pneumatic hiss they parted for Erak as he walked up to them. Its hallway was dim but clean, the steel floor polished to a sheen, protected from the day’s chaos by the heavy locks.
An Engineer lvl. 7 was working, a heavy toolbox at his feet with several of the energy cores stacked around him as he tried to open up other doors. The woman had a thin line of grease across her head and she swore with the virulence of a sailor but with the vocabulary of a scholar. Behind Erak a trail of people followed after, muddying the floor with their ashen boots coated in blood.
Lieutenant Nevia, still beside his elbow even though her mission was completed, and her squad of survivors. Prince Sammus had managed to tuck himself into their number and was now exchanging lightning quick verbal exchanges with Sergeant Constance. Rutledge and Julius had appeared and followed behind them quietly. Erak didn’t mind the company as long as they didn’t slow him.
The Engineer looked up and saw Erak then Sammus. Her face paled as her hands suddenly trembled, threatening to drop the tool she was working with. She bowed her head violently enough that Erak thought she may have incurred whiplash.
“Are the elevators working to take us up to the docks?” Nevia asked without prodding.
“Yes. Uhmmm, nobody has gone up there though. I was waiting for an escort just in case anything had infiltrated the docks. Are you my escort?” Her voice was thin and reedy, pleading that the Emperor’s Voice and an Imperial Prince weren’t there for her.
“We are now. Open the doors. Constance, rearguard. Professors, it may be best if you wait till the pathway is secure.”
“Julius shall shield me,” Rutledge said with a thin smile. The other scholar paled and looked about with worry on his face. Erak had to restrain himself from tapping his foot as the Engineer hurriedly shoved an energy core into the slot she had uncovered.
The small elevator’s door opened soundlessly and they all stared at it. Erak might fit in it. If he squeezed in tight.
“This is a personnel elevator. We haven’t figured out how to open the service and loading bay elevators yet,” the Engineer explained. Erak shoved himself into the elevator, shield, sword, and spear all having to be set into a corner so he could wedge himself in it.
Erak lifted a finger at the Engineer and pointed to the thin sliver of room left in the elevator. The woman was visibly shaking as she stepped into the gap and turned around, her toolbox pressed tightly to her chest with the remaining energy cores inside of them.
The elevator doors shut and they started upward. A speaker played something Southern and brassy, the music frustratingly irritating. Erak waited a moment then reached over and ripped the speaker out of the corner of the elevator, letting the ruined metal fall to his feet. The Engineer gulped loudly as the now silent elevator kept streaking upward.
The doors opened and the woman bailed out without looking. Erak took considerably longer to unfurl himself, pulling his weapons out and readjusting them. The heavy kite shield on his left hand, the sword on his left hip, and the spear in his right hand. Erak turned about in the near pitch black corridors and cursed the Imperials for their lack of height. His head threatened to scrape along the top of the ceiling and all of the doorways he could see in the dim depths were small and narrow.
The elevator left, racing back down to continue ferrying people up to the docks. Erak nudged the Engineer softly and the woman almost fell to the ground. She looked up at him, fright and pain writ across her face.
Erak pointed to the dead light housings and imitated his best shrug. It was hard when he was locked into a mountain of hard steel.
“Oh, the lights. Yes, I think it should be close by. There’s a power junction and that’s where the other housing spots appeared. Inside of a breaker box. Ummm….can you come with me?” The last bit was nearly a whisper and Erak just nodded. She sighed in relief and took off instantly, still clutching her toolbox and the cores tightly.
Erak followed after, twisting and stooping every time they came to a hatchway. The woman was much more suited for the tight confines and slowly started to outpace him, her focus on the job outstripping her fear of the dark.
They entered a long hallway and kept moving forward when Erak heard a rustle of leather. He leapt forward, wrapping the woman up and covering her just as a wave of fire ignited in the tight hallway, consuming where she had been.
His armor glowed, shield pulsing in the heat, but nothing affected the Engineer. The flames disappeared and Erak uncoiled and lunged at where they had come from, his spear shooting into the darkness with a blur of deadly speed.He met resistance and pushed through it and a familiar screech echoed out.
Not demonic. Something primal and old. It stirred his blood as memories of the hunt came flooding forward as something twisted and a curse was spat out. The curse was similar to the hacking, coughing, brutal language he had heard them speak.
“I’ll turn the lights on! Keep it from frying me!” Erak was too busy grappling with a slashing sword while what he had stabbed twisted and writhed on his spear. Something heavy banged into the wall and another cry came out as Erak ripped his spear free. A sword strike sent a shower of sparks off his helm, giving the lightning quick impression of something large and scaly.
Erak lunged forward again, stabbing twice more, each strike piercing flesh and eliciting another pained cry. Pressure and pain overwhelmed him suddenly and he was weightless, flying backward through the air to clang heavily to the ground. Erak had lost his spear, still embedded in what he had stabbed, and he rose up drawing the longsword just as the lights flickered on, hardly piercing the dark and creating a dark gloom.
Pools of blood sat, dark in the light, where he had fought whatever it had been. His spear wasn’t there though. A line of blood was smeared across the deck, leading deeper into the docks. The Engineer came back around the corner and skidded to a halt at seeing the dented and bloody walls where Erak had briefly battled.
“Damn thing, I don’t think I can get the lights any brighter, now without a bunch more of these.” She lifted one of her remaining power orbs before continuing.
“Are we going to go and get your friends?” she asked.
Erak pointed toward where they had entered the docks and flicked his fingers in a shooing motion. She slowly turned and walked back the way they had come, glancing over her shoulder before turning and dashing away. Erak hunched over and prowled forward, his old instincts taking over. There was a hunt to be conducted and a spear to be retrieved.
