Takes place a few days after: Ad Astra, on the evening of January 30th; occurs at the same time as First Strike, Into the Deep, and Two Against the Dark
Lysithea, Malus, and Michel took the westernmost entrance. Any illusions that this would be a quick and easy trip were immediately dashed when the ground turned from mud to membrane.
It was cold already, but the deeper into the tunnels they descended, the more frigid it became. Patches of ice were gradually replaced with oily stains, and by the time they’d reached their destination, slick black sinew that spread from floor to ceiling.
The youma had been close; their devices were all registering the same cluster of them.
Coordinating with Valhalla had been seamless. They struck at the same time.
Maybe it made a difference, maybe it didn’t. In the end, they all got the job done.
The trio had waited until the signal. Almost hadn't been able to, but by no fault of their own.
Michel's patience was worn thin by the time the first youma appeared. They were on high alert, and yet it still arrived with no energy signature. Dropped from the ceiling above them.
Vines crept over every inch of visible space. The floor was uneven and bumpy, and the twitching tendrils coiled and buckled. They hugged the walls, writhing slowly, like crawling slugs. Sticky black webs, more leather than silk, made it impossible to traverse without getting stuck on something.
By the time the first youma attacked, Michel was glad to have something to hit--and when they were done with the hoard of them that followed, he hacked everything else they came across.
Mostly, it was the foul, sticky webs--vines stretched so thin that they wove together like string. They came in all sizes, though--and all of them were unpleasant to deal with. The thickest vine was the width of a person--and it would have been better if that was the only person sized thing they ran into.
Once they were deep enough into the lair, it was impossible to ignore the human shaped husks tucked in piles along the wall, mostly pressed into corners. To an untrained eye, they just looked like oddly shaped lumps.
To someone looking for a reason to hate the Negaverse, they looked like withered corpses, picked clean. Mummies, wet with some slime, and mostly dissolved. Michel had seen them. He didn't know if Malus or Lysithea did.
He kept them away just in case.
The Negaverse was capable of a great many evils, so this came as no surprise to them.
But there was a goodness in them, a light that the world hadn't yet snuffed out, despite its best effort.
One day, they'd see something so evil, something so horrible, that it would change them irrevocably.
Chaos--and pure, human evil--had already damaged them both so much, taken so much. If he could spare them of it, he would.
Besides, there was nothing to gain. There was no saving the decaying husks of once-humans, and by his guess, there weren't any starseeds to recover. The youma probably got to them long before the rot had.
It was too bad that Cahir hadn't come to face them.
Michel would have loved to tear him apart.
Cahir was here--somewhere.
Once they cleared the room, they didn't stop looking.
