[Crystal One: Dust]
Arthen's Perspective
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Wouldn't it be so convenient if one could remember everything? If one could recall, in perfect detail, all their beloved anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, meetings…
Arguments.
Lies.
Betrayals.
Deaths.
Wouldn't it be so… convenient?
If one could never forget their first kiss? First love, first date---
First blood?
I wasn't a sadist. That's why, despite being a soldier, I hesitated to kill. Perfect memory didn't equate to perfect technique. It didn't fix my lack of dexterity or poor reflexes, and it certainly didn't prepare me for the randomness of combat.
But mostly, my hesitation came from guilt.
If I killed, I would remember… forever.
Luckily, we already had enough warriors in this unit. That wasn't the role I was meant to fulfill.
Thorne silently clambered up the Citadel wall and tossed a rope down for the rest of us.
I'd been thinking wishfully---I'd climbed over the merlons, hoping our target would be in plain sight. Perhaps I would spare myself the tachycardia that usually came with night missions like this.
But… nothing.
fwmp.
We remained silent as we helped Thorne drop his rope down the other side. This far into Hillcrestian territory, we could very easily be heard, found, and shot---not necessarily in that order.
Though, suicidal missions like this made me question if Reminisce even intended for us to return alive in the first place.
The Citadel's geography was nebulous in the darkness---the various buildings little more than silhouettes. Pavement connected some of them, cobblestone brightly reflecting moonlight, but the area was more turf than anything. Maybe to hide traps? The scouts had been thorough, but they couldn't account for every blade of grass.
The moment our boots touched the ground, our sleuthing began. For the breadcrumbs of information we'd been given, sending an elite unit was a bold choice. Most intel would be instantly waved off if it came from any source other than a memory crystal---but apparently, this source was 'credible,' and Hillcrest was 'of particular interest.'
So, they sent us.
"Scan this," Sandman commanded, handing me a scroll of documentation. The words were barely legible in the moonlight---but I only needed a glance to lock them into memory. We'd pull my crystals once we returned home.
I remained in the center of our formation for protection. Despite my perfect recall, I hadn't been exposed to the… trauma that created the finer soldiers in the Vanguard. I was the only one in our unit with a stock longsword.
Though perhaps my precaution wasn't exactly necessary. At least not now. One would expect a defensive bastion such as this to be brimming with sentries, but that was a misapplication of logic. Hillcrest didn't want the territorial lines or runeiron deposits coveted by the other factions. The endless wars. The nameless battles.
They wanted sovereignty. Secession.
And though they surely thought themselves meek enough to be ignored, open rebellion against Reminisce was not permissible---
Especially not if they were crafting a weapon like Gaia.
"This one," Sandman whispered, handing me another scroll. Supply-chain manifests. Hardly useful---we knew where the supplies were heading before they had even been gathered.
"This one." Experimental longsword techniques.
"This one." Reliability plots.
We were fruitless so far. But we couldn't leave empty---
DOOON!
Runemagic? Whose? Why?
Plip.
Plip.
Blood.
Just inside the foyer of our next building, a Hillcrestian sentry slumped against the wall, his skull crushed.
"Are you daft?" I whispered harshly. We'd certainly been heard---and I wasn't inclined to wait for the next two in the sequence.
"I screwed up," Ragnor panicked. "There was an enemy---"
Thorne, Sandman, and I silently brushed past him and took shelter in a nearby building.
"Leapfroggers," Thorne scowled. According to his files, Ragnor had jumped from Private to Lieutenant, purely due to his ability as a runemage. It was common practice; Reminisce couldn't risk losing unique runemages to frontline combat. But 'leapfroggers' never held the esteem of career soldiers like the rest of us.
Especially since they were often liabilities.
The metallic smell of blood hung in the air. Ragnor's kill was sharing the room with us. He was specifically designated to use his rune only to destroy Gaia;That was the whole purpose of letting him run his first mission with experimental hammers.
"He took me by surprise! I flailed!"
Leapfroggers, I thought.
DOOON!
FWOOOSH!
More runemagic, this time from outside. And judging from the smell, our enemies intended to immolate us.
My squadmates looked at me expectantly. It was then that my heart rate spiked. I'd been working with Sandman and Thorne for over a decade---they'd learned to expect me to have the right answer. To them, I was essentially an encyclopedia. Their expectation had merit.
The Citadel had been well scouted. So, I knew the exact location of a hidden passageway, just opposite our current position.
"Ragnor," I instructed, pointing to the wall in front of us. "Tear down that wall. We'll escape through there."
DOOON!
CRASH!
Ragnor slammed his hammers together, channeling his runemagic through himself to increase his might. He then charged through the wall in a constellation of dust and debris, and we used the impromptu smoke screen to rush into the hidden path.
We shut the door behind us ]before descending the staircase into an underground bunker---as austere and rugged as a repurposed cave. The air was hazy with torch smoke, but aside from our breathless gasping, it was silent. We had no tools to escape this place with brute force. If the door was our only exit…
"Night-ops," Sandman hissed at Ragnor. "Stealth mode. Why, why would you use the loudest weapon in your arsenal?"
"I told---"
"Where is your discipline!?"
Sandman was rightfully furious. But if our leader lost his head, we'd all die fruitlessly behind enemy lines. Ragnor dropped his gaze in shame, but no amount of reprimanding or disciplinary punishment would unscrew our current situation.
But perhaps there was an opportunity. Our mission so far had been an utter disaster, but…
"We are currently under the Citadel," I reasoned. "The fact that we haven't been found yet means our location is either remote or secret. If Gaia is anywhere, it's probably here. If we can find and destroy it, then mission accomplished. No?"
They all nodded in resigned agreement, acknowledging that the part where we returned home was conspicuously missing.
Boof.
Sandman's preferred weapon was memory crystal dust, the most useful of which caused lethargy or delirium. By trapping the door with a cloud of it, he bought us time to flee in case we were discovered.
But it dissipated instantly in the explosion.
DOOON!
CRASH!!!
A rune detonated on the other side, reducing the door to high-velocity splinters.
All that remained was a menacing silhouette in the frame; a robed man, his features lost in shadow. He held two hooked swords, far-eastern weapons known as Tiger Head Hooks.
This soldier, then, was the Tiger's Fang.
DOOON!
DOOON!
DOOON!
Runebolts flew from behind the mercenary, embedding into the stone floor. Some charred their points of impact into disorienting clouds of smoke. Fire magic.
"Scatter!" Sandman shouted, dashing away from the door.
I followed him down a tight corridor, but amidst the chaos, we lost Thorne and Ragnor. The torches became hazards themselves, the smoke they produced clawed at our throats as we ran, leaving us even shorter of breath than we already were.
Eventually, we reached the end of the hall, gasping for breath. There was a door, conspicuously marked: LAB ONE.
"We scattered," I huffed. "Thorne and Ragnor are M.I.A."
"Missing, not dead," came the blunt reply. "We'll be cornered if we don't open that door."
"I'm just saying," I reasoned, "it would've been better if Ragnor and I had run together. That way—"
"Perfect memory has you only thinking retroactively, Arthen," he interrupted, turning toward the door. "That will get you killed."
He tried the handle… and it opened easily.
We were immediately assaulted by the rancid odor emanating from the room. As we trudged inside, I saw the source of the putrid stench.
Bodies. Burnt. Necrosed. Haphazardly flung across autopsy tables and unceremoniously littered with countless documents. Yet another horrific sight to add to the ledger. I usually tried to remain detached and analytical; it was how I protected my psyche in the line of duty. But this…?
"Scan as many of these documents as you can," the Sandman said, pointing to several covered boxes emitting strange, almost mechanical chattering. "I'll see what they've been storing down here."
I nodded and obliged—and my, these documents were fascinating.
Hillcrest intended to secede by any means necessary. The bodies were the result of fire-magic experimentation. They were trying to determine how severely and in which locations they could burn their soldiers to generate the most powerful Fire runes without permanent debilitation. These bodies, then, had failed the experiments.
Why would they commit such a grave taboo? I wondered, flipping through the documents.
Then I saw it.
A Nemonik. Or, in other cultures, a Dream-Eater. Avaricious memory parasites.
Which meant that the mechanical chattering from the boxes—
"I-I can't do that for you," the Sandman stammered, to no one in particular. Or rather, to the restrained Nemonik. Seeing as these creatures were usually much faster or much stronger than humans, there wasn't much study around their behaviors or capabilities. In that case, telepathic speech wasn't an unreasonable assumption.
Hillcrest, then, was either attempting to use these monsters in their revolution against Reminisce… or they were preparing for an incursion.
I had reason to believe the latter.
Then, footsteps. Down the hall. The enemies were coming.
I dropped my documents and silently crept to a nearby table. The torches had to be lit somehow, I reasoned, rummaging through the drawers until I found what I was looking for.
A Fire rune.
I crouched near the doorway and waited until the enemies walked through. This rune wasn't mine; it would shatter once I used it.
Tp.
Tp.
Tp.
I waited until one enemy passed the doorframe. He locked eyes with the Sandman and cried:
"They're ov—"
I shoved the Fire rune into his mouth and slammed it into his teeth with the flat of my sword.
DOOON!
CRSH!
His head combusted into flame as his esophagus detonated with blood and shrapnel. He loosed a bloodcurdling screech before passing to Valhalla.
I compartmentalized the gory sight and dove back toward the Sandman as more enemies filed in—
Boof!
The Sandman dust-trapped the doorway, catching two enemies in the haze. They didn't fight or struggle—merely quietly collapsing, asleep.
That was where the Sandman got his name.
The enemies closed the door, buying us a moment to breathe.
"This door is a good choke point," I said, "but there's another one on the other side of the room. I don't know what's there, but if they pincer us, we're finished."
"Good point," the Sandman said, loading another dust sachet into his sling. "We'll—"
DOOON!
The door shattered once again into countless high-speed splinters, forcing us to duck for cover. Three enemies smartly used the diversion to file in unopposed, attempting to surround us.
Among them was the Tiger's Fang.
"Arthen!" the Sandman cried. "Hand me your sword!"
I gave it to him immediately, and he bashed open the lock on the Nemonik's cage.
S̷͓̪̯̼̾͐̅̓C̴͙͋̂̾R̸̺̰̘̺͔̿̿͋͌͠Ě̵̦̓͂̈́Ę̷̗̻̜̥͊̂͐̄̓͝ͅĘ̸͍̭̳̹̇̾̊̀Ē̸̙̘̺̜͋̾͊Ẽ̵̪͇͚̺̞́͋͐Ḛ̴̢͍̱͓̿͗̊̍̍̕͜
It cried triumphantly, crashing out of its holding. It was an arachnid the size of a large dog. Torchlight glinted off its silvery-white runeiron exoskeleton.
It lunged at the enemies, tackling one soldier to the ground and driving its razor-sharp mandibles through his helmet. I averted my eyes—but I could hear the beast gnashing through the enemy's skull, draining his brain of memory essence.
Sandman and I sprinted to the opposite side of the room and dove into the adjacent lab. The last thing I saw was the Tiger's Fang's fear-frozen expression. He'd certainly had a… history with these creatures.
"What the hell was that?" the Sandman asked, breathless.
Of course he wouldn't know. Nemoniks had long since been reduced to folklore, burdened with countless unfaithful descriptions.
I told him as much, but I didn't tell him the purpose of the experiments.
"What!?" he exclaimed. "Weren't they—"
"Driven out?" I finished. "Dumb question, considering you just saw one. But I'd prefer if we kept it out of this room."
"The door has a lock on it," he noted.
"We are evidence that no one gives a damn about locks," I replied. "There are Fire runes around. Do you think they burn hot enough to fuse the door shut?"
"This is Hillcrest," he reasoned, "it's a solid maybe."
He fetched a fire rune from behind the torches, and I reached for my sword.
But it was still in the other room.
I cursed under my breath and scanned the lab for spare resources. As the smell of death and rot faded, it was replaced by a smoky, oddly sweet aroma. With my adrenaline ebbing, I realized just how blisteringly hot the room was.
Racks of weapons lined the opposite wall, and to my left—
"They have a forge down here?" I muttered. "How are they even venting this place?"
More importantly, where there was a forge—runic or otherwise—there was runeiron. After a brief search, I found a small piece and used it to cast the rune between the door and its frame.
DOOON!
CRSH!
SZZZ!
The rune detonated immediately, as expected, singeing my fingertips and bloodying my hand. But my hypothesis was correct. Thor himself couldn't move this door.
"I have a feeling you might need a real weapon," I told Sandman, pocketing the chunk of runeiron and gesturing toward the weapons racks. His sling and memory dust were clearly insufficient against our current… opposition.
I began gathering and skimming loose documents while he inspected Hillcrest's inventory.
I kept myself unarmed. Sandman probably thought I was merely incompetent with polearms. An accurate assumption, in all fairness.
But at the same time, why would I need a weapon if I didn't need to defend myself?
"Anything in those papers about glowing spears?" he mused, examining a green, luminous glaive among the others.
According to the notes, Hillcrest had developed a special type of runeiron they'd coined 'runesteel.' Memory crystals were apparently water-soluble, and the resulting solution enchanted runeiron weapons and tools with aspects of the memory.
Which was to say, their alchemy was more advanced than ours. Runes didn't commute between people, but crystals did. Hillcrest could arm an entire platoon with these weapons while exploiting only the suffering of a single person.
But of course, I wasn't going to tell Sandman that.
He'd be surprised later.
"The data in these papers is a disaster," I lied. "I'm not sure they even know what they're doing."
"I don't buy—"
DOOON!
S̷͓̪̯̼̾͐̅̓C̴͙͋̂̾R̸̺̰̘̺͔̿̿͋͌͠Ě̵̦̓͂̈́Ę̷̗̻̜̥͊̂͐̄̓͝ͅĘ̸͍̭̳̹̇̾̊̀Ē̸̙̘̺̜͋̾͊Ẽ̵̪͇͚̺̞́͋͐Ḛ̴̢͍̱͓̿͗̊̍̍̕͜…
The Nemonik's voice died slowly. It had perished at the hands of the Tiger's Fang—and we'd soon be sent to Yggdrasil too, if we didn't move.
The Sandman picked up the green spear from the rack. It was one of the more successful experiments, imbued with poison ivy. Not that it, or he, would ever see battle beyond today.
DOOON!
CLANG!
The Tiger's Fang tried in vain to shatter the metal door, but it merely dented inward. Sandman and I darted to the next lab, and I stumbled over a body in my fright.
His face was bloated and purple, as if he'd drowned and been left floating for days. Upon closer inspection of the room, there were at least half a dozen corpses that had shared the same fate.
"Thorne?" Sandman and I called simultaneously.
"Alive," he said, dropping from a support beam overhead. "And I've found Gaia."
***
"This is egregious," I gagged.
"Some of them would like to be recognized by their families," the Sandman agreed. "But if you've truly found Gaia, maybe this isn't an impossible death sentence."
"We should find Ragnor first," Thorne suggested, ignoring our complaints.
Thorne was a spearman, and his rune contained some of the most potent venom in Reminisce. How he'd survived it long enough to make magic out of it was a mystery.
DOOON!
CRASH!
As if on cue, the sounds of fierce battle erupted from an adjacent room. There was no door. At least, not anymore. The opening looked as though it had been struck by the angered fist of Thor himself.
Or perhaps it was just Ragnor, brutalizing any enemy who crossed his path.
The enemies didn't cry out when struck down. They merely whimpered, weakly accepting their fate as they were sent to meet the Valkyries. Four—no, five mangled bodies littered the floor, some twisted and wrung like wet towels.
DOOON!
"RAAAAAAHHHHH!" Ragnor bellowed, smashing his two hammers together. His rune pushed him just beyond the threshold of superhuman strength.
That was why he'd ended up a leapfrogger.
SPLURCH!
He crashed one hammer into a soldier's head, liquefying everything inside the skull. Another soldier tried to skewer Ragnor from behind.
CRK.
The spearhead snapped on impact with Ragnor's backplate.
Ragnor turned slowly. The soldier squeaked and tried to step backward.
Ragnor growled a single word.
"Coward."
He placed a hammer on either side of the enemy's body before—
CRNCH!
Twisting the soldier's torso, snapping every vertebra in his spine, killing him instantly.
That was the last one.
And I'd thought Thorne had been gratuitous. But this was nothing compared to what I had waiting.
There was yet another door, and the clamor behind it suggested enemy movement. Ragnor dented it inward, jamming it shut. For now.
"Ragnor," Sandman called. "You're up."
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