Holding the cold blue stone that now housed Edwards soul, Paz contemplated tossing it over the side. While he had been a constant pain in her ass and possibly compromised the Bureau in ways they didn’t even know about yet, his knowledge and experience with the Eldar Ones might just outweigh those points. Before she could decide, Hattori grabbed the stone and stuffed it in one of his socks.
Edward seemed unfazed by this.
Paz knelt down next to Cyril, checking him for any signs of life. His wounds were to great, well beyond her ability to heal. In addition to his self inflicted gunshot wound, the parts of his body that had been affected by the USS were also missing whole sections of skin or muscle, presumably erased by the device. She cast gentle repose on Cyril, lightly caressing his face as she did. The party agreed that he should be taken to the surface to be buried, they owed him that much at least. R4D gently put the body over its shoulder after wrapping him up in a blanket. The party decided to head back down the tower, as there was little else to do up here. R4D grabbed Edwards broken ass robot body by the leg and dragged it behind it as they descended the stairs to the main room.
Reaching the main floor, Edward remembered seeing some kind of archives on the map at Tower Two. His muffled suggestions that they look around for them were ignored but coincidentally Hattori managed to find the hidden switch that lowered a staircase down to the ancient library. Unfortunately for them, time had made the materials in the archives unusable. After yelling at a bunch of disintegrating paper, they decided to check out Tower Three and see if they could find the portals shown on the map.
They approached the web wall that covered most of this section of the city, looking in to the cut that the Hive swarm had emerged from. Inside it was dark, although Paz and Hattori used light on R4D to create a mobile source that could punch any problems that appeared. Webs covered the buildings, with tunnels and openings throughout that the former inhabitants used to get around. A ragged path had been cut through the webs, leading back all the way to Tower Three. The path was littered with bits and pieces of the giant spiders, legs, flesh chunks, and mandibles were scattered among the ruptured remains. Edward recognized this as the after effects of the USS, used to create more Hive Warriors in a manner similar to what had started to happen to Cyril. He repeated his statement that if they had come here sooner, they could have killed Maynard and the small amount of warriors that fell into the city before they greatly increased their numbers. It was then pointed out to him that they may have had to fight the spiders at the same time, which could have been even more deadly, seeing as they could not be erased like the Eldar God servants.
As they followed the path to the tower they found cocooned remains of dwarves, who had somehow made their way into the ancient city. In the remains they found various items of note and took them, leaving the bodies. Reaching the tower, they found more webs and body parts, this area appeared to be where the worst of the carnage happened. The tower itself held little of value, what they had come for was found behind it.
The domed cavern sloped down to meet the ground behind the tower, with a house sized opening directly behind it. The area directly around the opening was completely clean, no webbing, no parts, nothing. The arc of the opening had two clusters of crystals, various colours and shapes, with no other adornment. Further in, they could see a console table and three gates. The largest of the three was in the center, it went up to the ceiling but was broken, with debris blown out in front of it like it had exploded from within before closing forever. To the left of that was a gate half as big, still in perfect condition. On the right was a gate about the size of a regular door, also pristine.
Reith blinked in to the area, next to the console. Immediately beams of white light shot from the crystal clusters, scanning Reith. They lingered on him for almost a minute before stopping.
Nothing happened.
Paz rubbed her chin then picked up a spider leg from the ground outside the clean zone. She looked at it a moment then tossed it into the cleared semi-circle. White light scanned the leg and before it could hit the ground, black beams fired from the clusters and disintegrated the leg.
Paz grimaced, then spoke.
“Sarenrae hates a coward.” She said through gritted teeth.
She entered the clean zone, was scanned without incident.
The party looked at each other, then hesitantly walked in. Edward’s sock was scanned for the longest time of the party, but in the end not even the defences could bring themselves to finish him off.
There were a few crates, old but intact, waiting for them. Hattori opened them and sorted the contents as Reith and Paz worked the console.
They were able to bring up a map of the world, which looked almost identical to the world they lived in today, save for a large circle in the central landmass that currently was ocean. On the map, it was still part of the continent. Names started to appear over locations, the large circle was Hylantic, the full scale weapon city that scoured the surface of life. It would seem the blast vapourized that whole section of the world, leaving just water in its place. Their current location was labeled Arcspire, with the two connected by a dotted line that blinked red. A third location was connected, also by a red blinking line: Magrathea. The anchor city appeared to be somewhere on the south eastern part of the map, although its location seemed to constantly shift around. Reith moved his finger back and forth across the map, seeing what else would light up, starting at the bottom. As he went, 5 different points lit up but then turned red and faded out. As he slid his finger over their current location another square lit up and early morning sunlight came pouring into the room. The smallest door was now filled with a sunrise, with snow and tree visible. Looking though, they could see out in to a valley between mountains, with the sun rising between the clefts, a small stream frozen just outside the shallow cave the gate was in. Walking though, they found a carved door and a small control panel, which explained where the dwarven remains had come from. Looking up the side of the mountain, they could see Silversun. They decided to return there to ask Helmok what to do with Cyril.
It took most of the day to return to a path that went up the mountain but they arrived in Silversun just as a wagon train of reinforcements emerged from the tunnel to Kaz’Borim. Paz brought Helmok Cyrils guns, telling him that Cyril died by his own accord, that he died a free man. Helmok held the guns and sighed.
“I’ve known Cyril his entire life. His father and I were partners back during the Diaspora, while we waited out the Long Winter. I helped raise him. He was one of the finest men I knew.”
Helmok held back tears as he returned the guns to Paz.
“His father has a tomb in Kaz’Borim, his wishes would be to be buried there with his family. Cyril wasn’t a man of many possessions but he would want to be buried with his guns. Anything else he had, he wouldn’t care about.”
Paz then took Helmok aside and spoke quietly with him, Hattori and Reith listened in as best they could. She spoke of the Bureau buying the mountain and it being closed off. She said a figure but they couldn’t make it out. Helmoks eyes grew huge, so it must have been enough. She patted him on the shoulder as two Bureau agents came up from the wagon train.
“We need to close this whole area off, please begin a full evacuation of the mountain.” She said. They nodded and returned to the wagons to begin.
The party returned to Kaz’Borim, saying their goodbyes to Cyril and leaving his body with the local branch with instructions for where he would be laid to rest. On the train back to Bellcea, they had their first rest since arriving in the snowy mountains of Dun Thandol. The party placed Edward in a box to keep him quiet, something he still hadn’t figured out how to do on his own.
Upon their arrival in Bellcea, the party made their way to the Bureau headquarters as quickly as they could. A lot had happened in the days since they had left to investigate an apparent relic sighting in the North. Arriving in their usual meeting room, Dessa entered as they did. Paz immediately pulled Dessa away from the group and began speaking quietly with her. As she did, Dessa became visibly upset for the first time in the parties dealing with her.
Opening the box that contained Edward, Dessa took the fist sized stone and held it up at eye level.
“You brought a Elder God relic in to the Bureau and then used it to house your soul?! Do you have any idea what you have done?” She shouted.
“I-” Edward replied.
“These extra dimensional gods can only interact with our world via these relics. Since our discovery of them, we have taken great pains to prevent these gods from knowing what we did and how we operated. You have spent months with giving one of these Eldar Gods-”
She paused. A look of horror passed over her. She held the stone close to her face.
“You only brought the one relic, right?” She whispered, menacingly.
“I-uh-there may have been-umm-another one. Mine was from Mantorok but I found another from Xel’lotath.” Edward stammered.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” Dessa shouted, slamming the stone down on the table.
The room was silent for a moment.
“You have undone nearly 200 years of work on the part of the Bureau, we have now had whole sections of our operation compromised, exposed to two of the three known Eldar Gods. You-”
Dessa picked up the stone again.
“-will be held to account for this. But…”
She stopped to think before continuing. Edward spoke while she thought.
“Just so you know, the rest of the group knew the whole time about both relics.” You could almost hear Edward crossing his non-existent arms.
Dessas gaze swept across the party. Everyone found somewhere else to look at that moment. She continued.
“Edward, your actions may have grave consequences, we won’t know until they do. In the meantime, the knowledge you gained as a result from your connection to these Eldar Gods may be useful enough to make you worth keeping. Maybe.”
Edward began to talk, mostly in an attempt to justify his actions. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to stop, Dessa opened a drawer on the desk and took out a portable hole. Opening it on the table, she dropped Edward in and closed it.
“As for the rest of you, you are now among a select few that know the full details of what we face. We may need to change your standing with the Bureau to reflect that. It may be time to create a new section, to ensure that you can get the support you need while keeping you away from the average rank and file. We’ll talk about it after you’ve had some time to rest. You are dismissed.”
Dessa opened the portable hole and removed Edward. She tossed it to Hattori.
“Do something with this for now, I’ll deal with it later.”
Paz remained as the party departed for their rooms.
Early Frost Warning 