Chapter 9 Part 1 of 5 (Patreon)

Erik turned Roderick’s arm around, where the pod teeth had hooked into his skin and the venom had entered his body.

“Poison body?” Erik spoke softly, they had stopped using all their formations and spells so as to not attract attention.

Roderick nodded.

Erik looked at his arm and pulled out wraith’s touch and a knife.

Roderick grunted, looking away and nodded.

Erik rubbed the salve around the angry wound, he held himself back from using a clean spell and poured alcohol on the blade.

He quickly cut into Roderick’s arm, cutting away the skin and infected fat and muscle, working blind without his organic scan.

Erik worked quickly before Rdoerick’s body could neutralize the salve.

He continued cutting away the infected tissues, he passed the blade to Nymeria who cleaned it and passed him healing powder. He sprinkled it on the wound, stored it.

The wound was already starting to close up, pushing out yellow earth based poison, the blood bubbled settling down after a few seconds.

Erik continued to check Roderick and cut out the infected spots, He used the wraith’s touch as Nymeria passed him his cleaned blade and continued his work, cutting out three more sections in his legs and one in his neck.

He patted Roderick on the side once done.

“Good to go.”

“Thanks boss.”

Nymeria returned his blade to him.

“Thanks, I’m gonna find Rugrat.”

Erik put the blade into his belt pouch and grabbed the old first generation automatica rifle. Unlike the newer versions it didn’t rely on formations and spells to function.

He looked around, they were in some burned out ruin, part of the walls had collapsed here and there.

The Special team members peeked through windows, or were stuffing some quick food in their faces under their sniper sheets, formation sown to remove any sign of presence.

Erik moved out of the rest area, each footstep sounded like a saw being dragged across stone as he walked over the dust covered floor, avoiding piles of rubble and roots.

Erik reached Tully who was peeking through a hole in the wall, watching the street.

She raised her head in greeting and pointed over her shoulder with her thumb.

He patted her on the armor and headed in that direction, keeping low, carrying his rifle in-line with the floor.

Egbert was sitting on a broken set of stairs in the middle of the house. Erik felt the shifting winds, elements and mana being drawn towards him, removing their passive mana signatures.

He sat against the wall, one leg up on the step, a bow laying along the other as he went back to reading his book.

Erik nodded One plus about being mana crippled, don’t have to worry about leaking mana. He shook his head and kept moving, passing team members, he saw Esther, sans helmet, wearing her cuirass festooned with pistols.

Should get her a helmet.

He saw Rugrat through a broken part of the roof, on the second floor with Big Momma.

Erik looked into the next room where Roska, Edmond and Kameela planned their next move under an extra large sniper sheet.

Harrod was sitting on a chair in an adjoining, looking through a broken section of wall. Robert was chewing on something leaning against a wall, looking through what had been a window, he noticed Erik’s approach and raised his head turning back to his watch.

Erik looked at the sheet and then looked up at the hole above, he whistled, making Rugrat look over, he held his hand in an okay sign.

Erik jumped onto a section of broken wall and jumped up into the second floor, he sunk with his landing, deadening any sound, he paused and got down, inching up on Rugrat’s side, away from the hole he was using to look out on the rubble and building outlines that carried into the distance.

“How are they?”

“Few scrapes here and there, a broken bone, sprains and cuts. Only Roderick needed my help, poison was being a pain,” Erik said.

“Roska still canoodling under her sniper sheet with the Marshal?” Rugrat rested his chin on his left hand, the right tapping the selector as he kept scanning.

“Yeah, guess they’re still trying to figure out our next moves.”

“You see the look on his face when she stepped forward to do the planning.”

“Kameela about near kicked him through a wall.”

“Heh, yeah she did, she’s got some fire.”

“You sure you’re not interested?”

“Brother, those two still got something burning for one another. I ain’t interested getting between them.”

Erik felt the pin pricks of pain in his chest, he shifted to only get the faint and dull aches trying to ignore the itching that replaced the pain.

“How you doing?”

“Not bad, chilling in some lost city, working on my shtank with airships above us that want to kill us and then natural wildlife all around us looking for a snack. Fucking Oorah brother.”

“Oorah,” Erik muttered.

“Not like you haven’t dealt with the shit before. Leaving the Army to join the Marines, what kind of backwards slide move was that.”

Erik snorted and coughed the tight skin on his neck pulling, causing him to shift onto a piece of shrapnel.

“You good?”

“Yeah, just some dust. You?”

“Just trying to ignore the shards. Thankfully my mana core is pulling in mana so not leaking all over the place, but, shit I’m getting tired, two days of ducking and running. This body is only human.”

“I can take watch if you want to get some sleep.”

“You aren’t superman either my dude.”

“I’m dragging in elements, keeps my body going, kind of nice here without mana for me, less for my core to pull in to tear up my channels again.” Erik said.

“Yeah, but we both know how the elements resonate with the shrapnel and fucking suck.”

“Embrace the suck.”

Rugrat grunted.

They fell silent, Rugrat kept watching the street.

“Sorry man,” Erik said.

“What for?”

“For getting you into this shit.”

“Dude, as much as I love you, fuck you, I’m a grown adult last time I checked and I made decisions that led to this, so shut the hell up.” Rugrat lifted his helmet giving him a ‘you dickhead’ look, pulling the helmet back down.

Erik smiled and checked his helmet.

“Across Eight worlds and a sub-realm huh?”

“Eight? We’ve only been to seven realms, I think the eighth was somewhere in the seventh.”

“Earth genius.”

“Ah, yeah, guess that counts.”

Erik heard someone shifting below.

He looked at the hole, he could see Egbert on the stairs who pointed at him.

He saw Roska fall into a crouch and saw him, he waved to her.

She bounded up the stairs, silent as a cat as she moved with her rifle.

“Looks like we have news.” Erik moved back from Rugrat and leaned against the back wall away from the windows and openings, she settled down next to him.

“What’s the word on high?”

“Dujardin wants to go back up to the surface, he only has maps for topside. Get some reference points and we can figure out where we are in relation to his plans. Most of the transition points are a no-go, but he knows one that should be unprotected so we can get a ride out of here. I want to move to a secure position, get somewhere defensible and then head up when it is safe.” She sighed.

“Having troubles with our friends?”

“I can see why they wanted to kick him out, dude’s bullheaded as fuck, has his own plan and there are no variations he’ll accept. Kameela is the only one that can get him to listen, might’ve been looking down on me because it wasn’t one of you two?”

“He led us into a fucking ambush,” Rugrat’s voice carried back to them.

Erik shrugged and Roska sighed.

“Yeah, remember someone saying that this was supposed to be an easy job, just sit on the airship and look scary, now we’ve got fucking sentient nails falling out of the ceiling and the plants are trying to eat us.”

“Not ideal.”

“No, not ideal, how are you two?”

Erik opened his mouth, breathing in, feeling the building pain and aches. “Alive.”

“The pain?”

“We’re good,” Erik forced.

Roska paused and shook her head.

“Just don’t do something stupid that gets yourselves killed. My ass on the line here.”

Erik grimaced.

“No stupid shit, agreed.”

“Thanks,” She sighed and leaned her helmet back against the wall.

“So what is the plan?”

“We find a position to hold up in that isn’t all broken walls. Get our bearings and then start heading towards this transition point.”

“Well we’ve got two months, good thing they started the coup early on,” Rugrat said.

Erik just stared at the back of his friend’s head.

“Small blessings,” Roska said.

Rugrat clicked his tongues, silencing them both as he wen to glass.

Erik moved forward, laying down to push up next to him.

Roska sat up and raised her rifle on her leg, using the scope to look through the wall.

The Under City was quiet, the stagnant air hiding its deadly occupants.

Erik looked through his scope at what Rugrat saw.