Link to article: As Bruises Linger and Munitions Molder.
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[[=]] [[span style="font-size:90%;"]]**<< Previous Tale | [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/swords-unto-scramjets Swords unto Scramjets] | [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/hybrid-analysis-and-advisement-hmid1014 Next Tale] >>**[[/span]] [[/=]] [[module css]] .footnotes-footer { visibility: hidden; } [[/module]] [[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] > //"Is it raining in [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7636 Cherinmark]?"// > [[>]] > —An expression of resigned certainty, used worldwide > [[/>]] It was, of course, raining in Cherinmark. Sixteen miles from the still-glowing ruins of Fort Gräd lay a sprawling graveyard of aircraft—Foundation-provided NUZ-21s and GOC-affiliated Caterwaulers, plus the bastard generation produced by neighboring kingdoms in their fight over fertile-but-fraught territory. Wings and flaps and wheels glistened in the persistent drizzle. Open cockpits were inundated already. Between those that crashed and those abandoned under disarmament treaties, its tragic metal forms numbered in the thousands. Cherinmark cared for all cast-offs equally. It was, in the same vein, raining over the broad wings of a prototype bomber which never received a designation despite how much care was invested in its design. Bays yawned wide now, cavernous expanses sheltering any number of bugs, birds, and bats; its shadow sheltered too, allowing for a fire that had burned low while its owner was occupied. Mealworm stood only 5'4" compared to her dig site's intruder, who seemed closer to 7' when cloaked in the layered, loose-flowing garb that had become popular among adventurers. It left her scavenged uniform looking all the more motley, with armor plates and extra pockets aplenty, with a ventilator still hanging around her neck from that morning's excursion underground. Close-cropped hair and a grimy coating further emphasized the difference between herself and the handsome man whose blade glistened with rainwater. "Easy to go feral these days, isn't it?" said Mealworm, circling the fire pit to keep it evenly between them. A ball-peen hammer shifted in hand as she slowly reached for one pouch in particular. "Do you deny the caravan at the crossroads was your handiwork?" Five steps to his right, sword in a relaxed guard. "I meant you should have blown my head off from a hundred yards away instead of stomping down here. What, did some knightly honor gestate after pretending too long?" Five steps to her right, fingers undoing that sole button. "'Tis not I who–" "'Tis not, prithee, //my liege//! Aren't you from one of the TAMPER teams? Did the Coalition never teach you self-respect?" His upper lip twitched, moving in time with a crinkle between neat eyebrows. Its parting revealed a golden canine—equally fashionable among his cohort in imitation of true magi's conductive maws. "Is it respectable to worship what long-since slipped away? There is no Coalition left here, no Foundation, no groups willing to anoint themselves in old ashes. Did Alpha-85 not teach–" Mealworm threw a handful of metal shavings across the fire pit. More spilled out as she leapt forward, hammer swinging upward, but a quick lean backwards avoided it. Nictitating membranes protected his eyes from harm as a full swing of his bastard sword caught her side. Skidding across the mud wasn't pleasant by any means, nor were bruised ribs, but a few quick pats confirmed that only the blade's flat struck true. "Where is your weapon?" He stomped past her makeshift encampment, startling a few nervous birds from their nests in the plane above. "Where are the peerless blades? Is that not what slew my brethren at the crossroads?" "Don't kid yourself. Nobody needs a magic sword to kill some hopped-up adventurers." He charged as Mealworm got her feet under her, swinging down with his blade's lethal edge this time. It was well-maintained and better-sharpened, so much so that parrying with her hammer seemed rude, base tool chipping away at art. The maneuver only required precision at that distance, something Alpha-85's trainers always attempted to instill for a world where they lacked overwhelming firepower. Her foe was no hastily trained militiaman though. Following through with that diverted momentum, he drove a knee square into her forehead. Colorful light, deafening sound, no senses quite captured the concussive experience nor the disorientation of falling backwards into a limper roll. Birds fled in earnest by then. Bats chased the bugs that scattered, and raindrops fell all the while. A few even leaked through the metal behemoth, landing square between Mealworm's eyes as that would-be knight loomed above. "Unifying was the proper path after being cast off here; adaptation and acclimation, our only options to avoid a stray's life. Call it foolhardy if you wish, but we fools will carry on!" With that, he chopped again. Her hammer flew from an outstretched hand moments later, spinning past his head as she took the chance to roll aside, kicking at one hamstring in the process. A combination of mud, geometries, and half-learned jiu-jitsu helped lever him over, bringing both into a singular squabble of holds and counter-holds. Joint locks. Pain points. Elbow into a nose, then thumb into an eye. Blood dripped onto Mealworm's face instead of rainwater as one calloused hand pressed against her throat, displacing mud while he grasped for a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. She relaxed just enough to allow its drawing. Being bigger, being //stronger//, such heroic figures always assumed that any advantage was their inborn right. Once clear of its sheath, Mealworm jammed a hand against the knife's pommel—forcing the serrated blade back into his leg and holding it there. More blood gushed out, staining that cloak a proper color as centers of gravity shifted again. Tight-clenched fingers never left her throat though. Darkness crept in as iron-cut odors overcame petrichor. Her own fingers closed around the knife's abandoned hilt, already written off as a wound he couldn't help, and one sharp tug pulled it free. An even sharper stab drove it into his sculpted abdomen. Thankfully, that proved enough to drive him back. Mealworm reached for the fire poker standing proud beside smoldering embers. Bioengineering and TAMPER training weren't enough to withstand a blow straight to the temple. He collapsed face-first, twitching in the mud as she simply breathed, urging rampant heartbeats back into time. Nothing like a life-or-death struggle to spark memories of flitting between forest encampments and nondescript forts across two worlds. That her own trainees had been unable to achieve the Foundation's objectives was a single failure among many, but it continued pricking all the same. One last blow with the poker caved in that handsome cranium, stilling residual twitches in full. How could anyone proclaim that most perennial grudge to be forsaken when there remained blood ready for shedding upon its altar? All she needed was the right blood, the right puzzle pieces, the right long-buried keys, and the struggle that gave her life—any life—meaning could be unsealed once more. The Foundation would return once a gap between worlds allowed new danger through. The Coalition would flock back in strength rather than cede ground. Armed with //civilized// weapons, they could finally settle what had been left adrift in the decade since. Mealworm had already salvaged plan upon plan to see that much done. Barely outdated PSYOPs. Newly revised hit lists. So much capacity for violence had been abandoned in the retreat from this world, but triggers never stayed untouched for long. ----- > //A Cherinmarker's mansion.// > [[>]] > —Term for unusually large basements > [[/>]] Although scant few inches of those territories went untouched by rain, even fewer stood on truly solid ground. Caves and catacombs, crevices and chutes, all drank deep of what the sky provided before siphoning it away into depths unknown. How could visitors from another world help but add their own specialty? Thousands of tunnels still laced Cherinmark's borders to neighboring kingdoms' tighter than any stitch. Silos and bunkers accompanied them—filled and unfilled both—lying ready for the order to escalate beyond proxy warfare. Even in the Banner Burning's final days, there was no dragging their full contents back through gaps widened by paratechnology, nor intent to do so. What did either side care for a world they would never see again? Of that deterrent's priesthood, a number were left behind by hurried evacuations: those who knew the hidden hatches and panel passcodes too well, who secreted themselves away like the vaults they tended. And how was anyone to live off leftovers alone? Some sold access to adventurers who saw their defenses as yet another dungeon to be braved in that most honorable tradition despite awarding guns instead of gold. Others traded openly, willing to abandon what abandoned them if it meant filling empty stomachs. Few managed to conserve supplies without concern for the world above, and even fewer permitted its eventual intrusion. "Never got your orders after all that fuss, huh?" asked Mealworm, squinting against flood lights which failed to illuminate more than a sliver of the hanger she found herself in. Giant, motionless golems draped in shadow outnumbered living occupants by far—namely, herself and the lanky woman whose mane had grown so extravagant that its red locks swept the floor. "That's how it always is," said Aster. She put a steaming mug on the table in front of Mealworm, then took a seat with her own in hand. Light caught the metallic ports on her arms and neck, which offered access to however many nerve clusters and lymph nodes were necessary to sublimate a consciousness within the armored warriors resting around them. "Prepare for the last war with all your might, stumble into the next without what you need, never think to use what you actually have." "Yup. Just how it always is." Mealworm sipped, ignoring the taste of whatever vile fluids had been stored in the mug previously. Industrial lubricant, maybe, or at least runoff from some drainage port. She sipped again. "Our side wasn't much better at the end of the day. Not even after they realized the game plan yours was running." "We had a plan? You'll have to brief the 108 on it some day." Both laughed, a harrowing sound when left to its own devices; one harmonious, one harsh, they echoed around around cleavers the size of billboards and guns the size of chimneys, around fists powerful enough to crush heavy armor with ease. Eventually it sounded like those PACER units were laughing too. Perhaps they even had that capability tucked away somewhere. Such noise would surely be enough to demoralize any foe when issuing from land-borne battlecruisers. "Did you ever test one out?" asked Mealworm. Aster's eyes drifted toward the nearest golem, misty in the way that only poets described. Elegant fingers found the ports implanted in her neck, brushing away hair, then stroking each like a comfort object. Mealworm could only sip tea and chew sunflower seeds while she waited. "I still run their diagnostics directly during maintenance," said Aster. Her voice carried an uncertainty that never rose in the letters they exchanged through intermediaries. "But to take control... It would be difficult, quite difficult, to do that without feeling how lonely they are. I'm starting to worry they'll outlive me and be all the worse for it." "What'd you reckon the lifespan on their bioreactors is?" "That's classified," she snapped quickly enough to make them both burst out laughing again. "I'm sure someone back home already knows. Probably got the plans from a mole and everything." "No doubt full of inaccuracies. Spies always think everything they snatch must be flawless; they wouldn't have snatched it otherwise!" Smiles lingered as they sipped disgusting tea over a table that might have once hosted those selfsame plans. Dirty fingernails matched against clean ones. Travel grime in excess of what industrial showers left behind. Mealworm thumbed the goggles hanging from her vest after finishing, all too aware of the sore spot she was about to prod. A considerate person would let it lie, but a considerate person wouldn't be in her position at all. "Yeah, I reckon they can't last more than twenty years without refueling. That stuff must get caustic." Aster's wince came worse than expected, leaving her to pick at a patch of natural skin rather than fixate on whatever was bubbling within the weapons she so clearly cherished. "Fifteen at most. But as I said, classified." "Seems only right that they get to see the light of day before then," said Mealworm, scratching a scab of her own. "Not just through Cherinmark's clouds, but real, proper daylight." "Set against who though? Not to brag, but they aren't interested in knights on horseback." What Mealworm leaned in to whisper wasn't for electronic ears, dead as they may be. It shouldn't have been for Aster's either, not even as she tucked locks of her mane behind them, but what was war without a few good conspiracies between the parties most involved? Her eyes went wide, then narrowed to self-satisfied slits that clashed against the calm air she maintained. "They always warned us how devious the Foundation could be." "We're real bastards. They told us stories about the Coalition's bloodthirsty ways too." "Oh, we're much worse than that. I can't wait to properly crush you dogs beneath my hooves, to fire my main cannon at last..." Aster sighed and sipped her tea again, clearly immersed in imagining sensations beyond human ken—nervous systems exceeding what could ever be contained in a single, fleshy shell. And why not? Such were the joys afforded to those who sacrificed and forced others to sacrifice in turn. It was only a question of when they needed to be made. ----- > //Worth a mage's tooth.// > [[>]] > —Casual expression of price[[footnote]]Archaic: A precise unit of measurement for precious metals.[[/footnote]] > [[/>]] "Whoresons," rumbled Gregor the Sonorous, archmage (former) of the Seven Organ Towers, advisor (disgraced) to at least one loyalist army, person of interest (current) in any number of counterintelligence investigations. Even that sounded like a spell through gilded teeth, each molar, canine, and incisor having been shaped to imbue mortal speech with immortal power. Only careful enunciation prevented a simple curse from turning into something far more baleful. Until then, they simply sparked when gnashed, each engraving stained a different shade by the stumpy cigar clamped between them. "Any particular whoresons this time?" asked Mealworm. "Must I differentiate between them now? Gods below." He exhaled a billowing cloud that seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the corner they occupied in the Huntsman's Copse—one unseemly tavern among Allaingar's many. Tributaries and trade routes couldn't help but sprout more every year. Gregor's wrinkled hand reached through the stationary cloud, clearing enough space in front of Mealworm for letters to form: MIDAR IS LISTENING. "Just the typical whoresons then." "Typical indeed. Witness the horseshit I've been forced to clean since the Towers grew a conscience." He waved the worst smog away, though enough animate wisps remained to illustrate his litany of humiliations. "Horseshit in truth with the city's sanitation spells. Basilisk infestation in the sewers. Ghosts in the royal crypt. Do I, perchance, by some miracle, seem an apprentice of twenty years setting out to make a name for myself? Do my knees not creak and does my back not ache? Is this not a truly magnificent beard befitting a magus of my stature?" He flopped two feet of off-white hair in Mealworm's direction as more smoke sketched out their surroundings on the stained table. The Huntsman's Copse stood central, sidled up between tight-packed row houses and a guard post on the river. MIDAR agents occupied the latter, no doubt having displaced normal guards with authority handed down from the royal Master of Whispers, through his Foundation-established intelligence directorate, through Group 13 or 44, until it ended up with the types Mealworm herself trained to cause trouble. How typical. "You should just quit," she said casually, tracing a path through the smoky grid with one finger. "Can't be too hard for the //Hero of Mt. Daendil// to find a new patron." "Bah, whose whelps did we brush from its face? Their mothers hold long grudges, and besides, Her Majesty would never permit my retirement. 'National asset' and all that hogwash." "You've got my deepest sympathies. Watch this for me." He received her unopened beer bottle with grace, placing its neck between golden teeth before she even turned. After a quick flash of light, he spat out the clean-cut glass and began drinking from its new opening. A few strands of smoke followed Mealworm toward the tavern's washroom. Although faint, they kept pace while she went out an unlocked window instead, tumbled into the dumpster below, and slunk through alleyways with an appropriately uneven gait. Gregor was an old hand at being spied upon and knew how much to distract in the meantime. Even Allaingar's less reputable streets were brighter than most, enjoying all the Foundation left behind. Whatever reactor rumbled under the royal palace was more than enough to keep every lamp alight, dispelling shadows as well as notions that such measures held "distasteful practices" at bay. Mealworm ambled past a mugging, or perhaps a different form of peacekeeping, then crossed the street in a horse-drawn carriage's blind spot and slipped behind the guardhouse in question. Two stories—not too old, not too new, a few ceramic tiles already sliding off the roof. Its upper windows were wide open, probably to facilitate the collection taking place. Gregor could never help but be at the center of everything. She moved one of those persistent wisps of smoke to the back door's lock, careful not to disrupt its cohesion while doing so; gasses soon became solid enough to shift pins into place. Its knob offered little resistance as she eased forward. Movement on her left. Mealworm spun quickly enough to turn the pistol's silencer aside, runes stifling sound far better than conventional technology could. Two gunshots barely whispered past her face as bullets dinged off a dumpster farther back. It was even quieter than her switchblade, which had barely extended before finding his throat beneath unshaven chin. Whatever words he tried to form through that slit were lost beneath Gregor's yelling out front. "Show yourselves, maggots!" he boomed, no doubt waking whichever half of the neighborhood was asleep. Mealworm wrestled for the pistol as it went off twice more. Activated runes burned in hand, noise shunted into a different form. "Face Gregor the Sonorous and know his displeasure!" The next bullet caught her shoulder, but she still sawed the knife to one side, splitting even more necessary meat in the process. "I have fought, and bled, and died four times over, and I will not be made a fool in my own lands!" Those fingers finally relinquished their grip on the pistol. Just in time too, as heavy boots clomped downstairs. Mealworm leaned over to see a man in black leather and soot-stained chainmail approach the front door, and firing twice into his back proved simple at that angle. The silencer practically smoldered by then, but no matter. She only needed to push the new body aside before letting Gregor in. He drank from that bisected bottle while stepping over the MIDAR agent, spilling a little on already-stained robes in the process. "Such a tragedy to befall the loyal soldiers who protect our nation. Alas, I arrived too late even after realizing something had gone awry. Ah, well... This will be blamed on you, of course." Mealworm coughed as Gregor exhaled another cloud, then clacked his teeth together in a word that didn't properly translate in her ears. Most of the smoke diffused, seeking out every nook and cranny that might hide reports or recordings of his various wrongdoings. "Just remember how useful the Foundation can be when we're allowed." "No need to convince me, little Mealworm. I very much anticipate returning to a proper order of things. Not this... playacting at peace." With that, he sucked the cigar's nub between his teeth and began chewing. Nothing in it offered much resistance. "Here, the promised key. Whichever gap you choose to reopen, I pray it will prove correct; few places are better guarded these days." She accepted the key with both hands—a proper example, wrought from old iron that nevertheless thrummed with power. The gun was left alongside other evidence of Foundation meddling for Gregor to show off. A bit convoluted perhaps, but he had his games and she had her own. So many pieces were assembled that it almost seemed too easy, bleeding shoulder aside. What were a few wounds when she sought plenty more? [[=]] [[span style="font-size:90%;"]]**<< Previous Tale | [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/swords-unto-scramjets Swords unto Scramjets] | [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/hybrid-analysis-and-advisement-hmid1014 Next Tale] >>**[[/span]] [[/=]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]