Broshe - Blade-bound F Tall, muscular (-- Blue-skinned --)
Ghill - Velocity M Grass on his back
Igno - Gem M Lizard, rock mouth
He'lesh - Blood M Orange skin, smoking emotions, three fingers, tall
Penumbral - Bone F completely white, black freckles
As the team swam out of the lake and put away their diving gear, they got their first good look at the castle.
It was imposing, definitely an entad building, or built with entadic help. Its aesthetic evoked a post-imperial, pre-modern architecture, with three humongous towers surrounded by smaller buildings of irregular shape, linked together by corridors into a mostly cohesive ensemble. It was clearly not a place built to be defended.
To the fireteam, it felt a little at odds with the locations cultists were usually found in; most cults were struggling for funds from day one, and had to make do with private farms, ghost towns, and exclusion zones. The castle felt more like it belonged to a major imperial polity. None of the team members commented on the oddity.
Twinkle unsheathed her broadsword, and glanced at the rest of the team.
"Roll call." she said in a quiet tone. It wasn't strictly necessary, but protocol was protocol, especially now.
"Rook green," the Ghill replied. The others chuckled. It was a worn joke by now, especially since he'd painted his back-grass grey for the mission.
"Baron green," the Igno replied. He had rifled through his satchel and put an assortment of teeth-gems in his mouth.
"Diamond green." The He'lesh was vaping a substance he's described as "nervous and attentive". He was standing at the ready, assault rifle in hand.
"Eclipse green." The creatively-nicknamed Penumbral had equipped two bandoliers of bones, and was carrying a single handgun.
Twinkle nodded. "Good. We're starting audio, radio and memetic silence. Gimbal only." She signed for them to move.
They walked up the slope towards the castle. They could quickly see the main entrance, a giant wooden gate surrounded by floating candles. Two sentries in suits of pre-imperial armor were patrolling, moving back and forth at an eerily constant pace.
Twinkle signed, and the team moved towards a patch of tree in the backyard. They needed to find a covert entrance.
Danger stay, Diamond signed. Twinkle looked in the direction he was pointing. A solitary leafless willow was there. It took Twinkle a few seconds to notice what had Diamond spooked. The willow looked like it was breathing. Twinkle nodded and signed.
Stay clear.
He looked at the castle. Up on the walls, more of those armored sentries were patrolling. If they could see her team hiding in the bushes, they gave no sign of it. Finally, there was a gap in the patrols, and Twinkle signed for her team to move.
They were walking at a fast pace: if anyone was looking at them from a window or a castle slit, their weapons and their diverse body builds would immediately out them as a fireteam. And there was always the possibility that cultists were using some unknown entad to monitor the perimeter. They had to assume that they might get spotted soon, and move fast.
They reached an arch, leading to an interior yard, with the surrounding corridors leading deeper into the castle.
The usual approach to the situation would have been to progress in a bounding overwatch, clearing side-corridors as they went, but they had a velocity mage with them, which opened up possibilities. Twinkle gestured to Rook, who took a large breath, and then was gone in less time than it would have taken someone else to exhale.
Ten nerve-wracking seconds later, he came back.
Clear. He signed.
Twinkle let out a nervous breath. This was seriously starting to feel like an ambush scenario. They entered the castle, guns out, progressing at a good pace.
According to the briefing, this was supposed to be a cross between a private middle school and an Athenaeum, dedicated to a small, private community of Anglish humans, teaching them use of a mass-produced entad (Eclipse had choked on her drink when she heard that part) that allowed them to master unique magics. In Uniquities parlance, that last part was code for "You're going to be fucked". The briefing hadn't included many details on what the unique magics would do, which... kinda felt like the sort of thing that really ought to figure in a briefing.
The castle-school had supposedly been taken over by a rogue faction of former students, whose stated ideology seemed like what you'd get if you taught only the most vile, unconscionable subset of Second Empire philosophy to someone, that person severely misunderstood what you did teach, and built their entire moral outlook around their garbled understanding.
Their mission was, of course, to find the rogue faction, swiftly dispatch the leaders, and free the school faculty and students.
As the fireteam progressed through the corridors, guns trained on their surroundings, Twinkle felt increasingly nervous. Part of it was the bad intel, but it was mostly the surroundings. Portraits on the walls felt like they were staring at them. They would move in the corner of her eye, and when she'd glance at one, it would be still, always glaring at her. Armors like the ones they'd seen outside were lining the walls of one corridor, and Twinkle couldn't help but feel they were going to jump at her any second now.
One of the doors they passed by lead to a room that looked like a classroom. Twinkle signed, and her team stopped. She signed again, giving more detailed instructions. Twinkle and Rook moved towards the classroom in spear-and-shield formation, Twinkle acting as the shield, Rook and his assault rifle as the spear. The other three where covering the rear, with Eclipse at the center of the formation, bones at the ready.
Twinkle and Rook moved passed the door, and quickly glanced around the room. It looked empty. The fireteam leader gestured for the others to follow.
Diamond and Eclipse moved through the door. Just as Baron was about to follow, it brutally swinged shut.
"Fuck!" Eclipse hissed.
Well, audio silence was probably moot anyway.
"Everyone, watch the room. Baron, work on that d-" she caught herself. "Nevermind, I'll do it. Diamond, red sword."
Normally, cutting a wooden door with a broadsword would be ridiculously impractical, if not impossible. But being blade-bound meant the rules were a little different.
Some blood magic could help, too. Diamond grabbed her sword's blade, tight enough Twinkle worried she was going to cut herself, and the blade quickly started to glow red-hot starting from Diamond's hand, then spreading to its entire length.
Gunshots and gem magic blasts could be heard outside.
As Diamond released the broadsword, Twinkle stabbed it once, then twice, going through the door's hinges like butter. She made two sweeping cuts, drawing a red X on the door, then nodded at Diamond. The He'lesh finished vaping an anger-and-excitement dose, then charged at the door and kicked it open. Pieces of it went flying, and the squad left the classroom.
Baron was down, still breathing, surrounded by two dark, hooded corpses. It looked like he'd taken cover behind a suit of armor when the ambush had started, and started returning fire. The suit had a bludgeon in its hands, and was now picking Baron up.
"The armors are entads!" Diamond said. They had to assume every empty suit was a potential hostile.
Other dark figures were hovering close, wearing black capes and hoods and white skull masks, like they were the fucking villains in a Utherian piece. They were all wielding wooden wands, and shooting red and green beams of light from them.
As the dark figures saw her squad emerge, one of them raised a wand, and the suit started walking away, Baron on its shoulder.
"They're taking him!" Eclipse shouted.
Shit. "Rook, detach and cover our backs. Team, fall in, we're pursuing." She was breaking protocol, but they were not leaving a man behind. Field experience had burned this principle into her the hard way; all other protocols were secondary.
The three Uniquities agents moved at a brisk pace, Eclipse and Diamond returning fire as Twinkle parried the beams of light the dark figures were shooting at them. Behind them, gunshots were echoing. The cultists weren't bulletproof and Rook was a velocity mage with a gun; he was mowing through them like grass.
The trio chased the cultists through corridors, into a large dining hall. The hall was divided by four large tables, and a fith at the end on a raised platform. There were candles everywhere, on the walls, on chandeliers, and many just floating in the air on their own. The roof of the room had a strange effect that made it seem open, and they could see the night sky above them, even though that made no architectural sense at all.
Baron was nowhere to be seen. Worse, at the end of the hall, sitting at the head of the raised table, an humanoid creature was staring at them, petting a fairly large snake. The creature looked vaguely like a non-anima: it had pale white skin, even paler than Eclipse's, red eyes, two flat slits where its nose should be, no hair and no ears. It looked distincly feminine.
The non-anima sneered. "Kill the spares," she spat.
Other cultists emerged from side-doors, and unleashed a barrage of bolts at them. Twinkle parried the best she could, but a green bolt hit Diamond and downed him. Twinkle picked him up over her shoulder and carried him back, closing the doors behind him.
Eclipse lay a hand on Diamond, and her eyes widened. "He's dead."
What? That shouldn't have been possible. Fuck, fuck fuck, what the hells?
"We need to leave." She unceremoniously dumped Diamond's corpse. They jogged away from the doors. Hostiles would be on them soon. "We regroup with Rook and- Where's Rook?" He should have been there by now. The distinctive characteristic of a velocity mage was that they did not make you wait for them.
Eclipse and Twinkle crossed eyes. Yeah. Three down. This mission was not looking good. They picked up the pace to a full run. Behind them, footsteps were echoing, closing in.
"Got anything for speed?" Twinkle asked. She was running a lot slower than she could. Broshe ran a lot faster than Penumbrals.
"Yeah. Rook gave me, a tooth." Eclipse panted. "It's good for, one burst, of velocity." Velocity was one of the rare magics that could be usefully tapped from a bone.
Two cultists cut them off. Before they had time to fire their wands, Twinkle cut one in two, and Eclipse got a headshot on the other. They barely slowed down.
"But I'd have to leave you behind." Eclipse continued.
Twinkle nodded. They were running back, retracing their steps. As they went through a door... the hells?
They emerged into what looked like the interior of a large, hollow tower. Above and under them, flights of stairs were flying, changing which landing was connecting to which at any moment.
Did the fucking architecture of this place change when they weren't looking?
Twinkle considered charging ahead. If they fought their way forward and stayed ahead of hostiles, they'd find an exit eventually, right? No, there was no guarantee, especially if the cult controlled the layout changes.
"Change of plan. Take that burst of speed now. Find a group of cultists away from the others, take them out, take one prisoner, interrogate him. Tell him you'll drain the knowledge from his bones if he doesn't comply."
Eclipse hesitated, then nodded. "And you?"
"I'll try to follow the sound of gunshots. I'll be fine." she lied. "Don't wait for me."
Eclipse hesitated again, long enough Twinkle almost shouted at her. Finally, she nodded again, retrieved a tooth from her satchel, and left in a breeze.
Footsteps drew closer. That would be a bigger group, that Eclipse would avoid. Twinkle went right towards it.
It was all about making a big enough distraction, after all.
The bells jingled as Valencia walked back into Bethel. She briefly shared pleasantries with a few children who had become regulars of the sweets shop, nodded at Bethel's avatar behind the counter, and walked in the back room. Bethel had placed a table and two chairs there. She waited until Valencia sat in one of them to manifest another avatar. She didn't want to seem too eager.
"What did they think?"
Valencia paused, which was answer enough. She was using a devil.
"I'd rather hear what you thought first. What was your experience?"
Oh, they were doing it this way then. Bethel tried to collect her thoughts. She'd spent the afternoon fielding questions from customers and random passerby wondering why the neighbourhood's sweets shop had disappeared for a day. During that time, the experience had been in the back of her mind, but she'd had trouble untangling her own opinion of it.
"I think it was interesting, at the very least. It was an exercise in balance."
Valencia nodded, and made the 'go on' gesture with a small smile.
"I had more than enough power to tear these men and women apart with but a thought. But I had to pretend I didn't, so that they would feel they were meeting a fair challenge. It's something I sometimes did in the Pit, when I was torturing people, but... It felt different back then. I'd yank their chain, present them with some solvable challenge so they'd think they had a chance to survive if they figured it out, and then I'd kill them anyway. The difference is, I wouldn't actually try to make the challenge fair. I'd try to give them an illusion of agency, until I got bored with the game and killed them. This time I had to commit to the illusion."
Valencia nodded. "Is that how you felt during the exercise? Like you were re-living your past?"
Bethel shook her avatar's head. "No. The parallels were there, but like I said, it didn't feel that close. I had more creative freedom. And a guest actor." Valencia beamed at that part. She was the one who had suggested the Hogwarts setting, and asked to play Voldemort. Knowing her, she was probably disappointed she hadn't gotten the opportunity to act more. The fact that she was three weeks pregnant had added some limitations.
Bethel made her avatar frown, as she tried to put her next thoughts in order.
"The point I was trying to get to... It felt strange, to have that power and be asked to exercise a very specific portion of it. Usually people just expect me to hold back. But there... I had to actively think about what things looked like from the fireteam's perspective. They were coming up with ideas, and I had to think 'Would this actually work?'. The blade-bound's idea to interrogate a death eater felt like it made sense, so I put one in the path of the bone mage."
Valencia nodded. "So you think you have a better understanding of role-playing games?" That was, after all, one of the exercise's main points. Though it was unclear how useful it actually was, with Juniper missing or dead.
"Maybe. It makes more sense to me on an intuitive level now; but I don't think I've gained any special insight. It was all things Juniper had already explained."
Valencia nodded again. Her face was still strongly neutral, the underlying muscles slack in a way that was hard to achieve deliberately without the fine control of a devil.
"Would you want to do it again?" she asked.
"No," Bethel replied. That was the one thing she'd already figured out before this conversation. "I think this was useful. But one of the ways in which it was useful, it that it gave me a glimpse into what I'd have become if I'd embraced my old self and blackslid towards violence. As my current self? It was an interesting experience, but not something I enjoyed. I'm not this person anymore."
Valencia smiled. "I'm glad you got something out of it anyway, then."
"What did the uniquities think?"
Valencia's smile strained a little. She was still using a devil, so that had to be deliberate.
"They don't want a repeat either. They thought the exercise was unrealistic. The team was sent in without enough intel, with unclear objectives, and were immediately overwhelmed. They don't think their agents learned much from it. They don't like that only the bone mage made it out. The squad leader felt there was no action she could have taken that would have changed the results. One of the directors I talked to said that in a real scenario, they would have sent overwhelming numbers against that cult, not a single fireteam."
Bethel frowned. "The point of the scenario wasn't to be realistic. It was to present a situation where the team would be outmatched, and need to retreat. They chose to give chase and fell into an ambush. Those are elements they'll face in real-world situations."
"I know, and I argued that much. It wasn't very productive, it devolved into an argument about specific regulations and operational precedent. Except I wasn't cleared to know most of that, so these directors were mostly alluding to things and talking down to me. When they realized I knew more about Uniquities procedures than they assumed, they just doubled down. I didn't insist too much, I was starting to get Jorge in trouble." Valencia took a breath. She was upset, and letting it show a little.
"He backed me up, but they weren't listening to me anyway. I think they just don't like to be reminded that sometimes they'll send agents in situations where they'll die no matter how competent they are. They wanted an exercise where the agents felt in control."
"So they don't want a repeat."
"Well, that was part of what we argued about. They wanted you to come back, and enact a scenario they'd write with no room for improvisation. They'd hand you a list of requirements to follow, and you would just be left as a simulating environment. I didn't get the impression you'd be open to that."
Bethel examined the idea, and found that she only felt disgust at it. She was a home, not a tool to be manipulated and shaped like a lump of clay at the whims of some bureaucrats.
"No."
Valencia nodded.
"Well, then I suppose it's settled then. I'm happy you got what you could out of the idea. You'll just have to take the good, forget the bad, and if you don't want to, we don't need to speak of it ever again."