"Maybe trap." Heiya's Father cautions as we come to a stop at yet another crossroads. Keeping my arm up, I ease the sledge to a stop so it doesn't catch on my heels. The old man's daughter raises her gun, surveying one tunnel through its sights. Vapooliar yet again takes a peek down the others.
She spins with a slight swish and her posture smoothly transitions. While I hesitate to think of it as calm, she's hardly... Well, explicitly on edge... Thank the gods my thoughts are not hearable.
"I can't hear anything other than them." Vadei says as she takes a couple of steps into the open. She turns around and then again, focusing her ears down the many tunnels. Their attention returns to the one with the swears and curses, and she turns with the pair.
"There is no strong magic signature around here, either." Vapooliar points out, a hand gently throwing itself into the air and around the area. The elderly creature near her knees simply shrugs.
"Move." is all he has to say and the wisps reveal a corner. We take the turn and go down the length of the tunnel, coming out to a mess of another tunnel. Seems like it was being made, the call coming at some point to abandon it. I frown at the signs of bug claws, but still no bugs themselves.
"Your ears should start being able to hear them now." Vadei comments as she walks by me. Nodding by instinct, I once again get going and follow the group as Vapooliar starts to test her sword on a wall. She takes in a deep breath, her body vibrates and it spreads to us. The air pops and she bangs into the wall, blasting it open.
"DON'T JUST LEAVE US ON OUR OWN AT THE VERY LEAST YOU ACCURSED, SHELLED FREAKS!" comes to us clear and furious, alongside the shaking of bars. Amidst all the extra noise, I somehow catch more whispers on the wind. I shake my head and pick up the pace, not wanting to linger on it.
Everyone's already hurrying along to the sound of living people. I do not want to be left behind. I'm in no position to be, either. Not here and not now. Most certainly not!
We go past even more chambers and tunnels, and, watching them, the pattern continues. There are no bugs at all anywhere. No dead ones, no somehow sleeping ones... There is nothing at all.
"H-HEY! WE HEAR YOU! SHOW YOURSELVES DAMMIT!" roars what seems to be the same man as before. Thunderous bangs drown him out, then a storm of arguments between what sounds like a dozen or more people.
"Calm down before you bring them on top of us!" I screech through clenched teeth as I finally manage to catch up with everyone else.
"I'll break the cage. Everyone make sure to cover a tunnel. We need to move quickly." Vapooliar explains, rushing ahead the moment the prison enters her eyes.
"Val... Valkinvar! You made it!"
"Valkinvar!?"
"The Valkinvar is alive!?"
Coming to a stop with the others, I look inside the prison. Towards the dozen or so soldiers. Each one is wearing ringed coats of some kind. It's such a something that Vapooliar is bright with excitement. I never expected to ever see such an expression from her, like but one of many weights is gone. Whoever they are, the feeling is mutual and I block out the mess of a conversation.
"Go to him. He has what you need to arm yourselves. Quickly!" Vapooliar cuts them off with.
"Yes, Valkinvar!" one gruff voice answers and he shoves the men ahead to get them going. I try to hold my ground as I am swarmed. If it could, the crate would be screaming as its treasure trove vanishes. Only one gun remains and I stare back at it. My eyes shift to the other items in there, things that might as well be nameless to me.
Still, as there's some other stuff, I better hold off on disconnecting myself from the sledge. I groan at how overwhelming the crowd is and shuffle closer to the prison. Knocking a loose fist on the rusty iron bars, I find myself a bit perplexed. It is odd seeing a prison with bars. Back home bars are a physical metaphor for the meritocratic lifestyle we have. Another thing here that differs from life in Tobaballe.
I know it's all arbitrary, really... But... My head shakes one load of thoughts out, only to let another lot in. Thoughts of home.
Bars make it hard to move forward, but with skill and determination, one can move ahead. If you're skilful or try hard enough. The prisons back home were always solid walls because of it. No going anywhere until you've spent all the years you've racked up as your debt. You will wallow in your right-done misery.
"Is everyone familiar enough with how these weapons work?" Vapooliar asks the soldiers, bringing me back to the unfortunate present. Her response is a mixture of shrugs, eager remarks about our departure and what I assume to be salutes.
"What's the plan, Valkinvar?" a distinctly filthy-faced and bearded man asks, the way he is dirtied soot black helping him stand out. But one of many details, actually. His uniform is far puffier and, unlike everyone else, is notably rivet-less. Somehow, the whites and shades of grey still show on his uniform.
I spot a black-edged badge of some kind and try to get a good look at it. The symbol it's marked with seems to be a cannon and a battleaxe. For how small the thing as a whole is, both bits have a lot of detail. The man shifts, showing his badge off a bit to Vapooliar, who nods at it and something else.
"We escape. Now, where are the bugs, Battcomm?" Vapooliar asks him.
"None! They just seemed to disappear from our sight... However long ago that was!" Battcomm answers, his attention shifting to the gun. He becomes visibly frustrated and hits a random bit of it. The behaviour is the same among them all. It seems a little odd that they are all struggling the way they are with the guns, actually.
"I need you to be more specific, Battcomm." Vapooliar insists as her sword-grip tightens. She minds a tunnel, no doubt glaring down it.
"Yes, Valkinvar, sorry, Valkinvar. About one cycle ago." Battcomm clarifies as Vapooliar's attention shifts back to us. She looks around this inter-section-like space that we are in and I emulate her.
"Jaadagoren, go away... Dammit... Just go away. No one wants your trickery." I swear quietly as Vapooliar struggles to make a choice.
"Nin, Vadei, do you hear anything?" Vapooliar asks, the gentle rise of her sword moving the soldiers aside. The winds speak to me again and still, no one else hears it.
"Whispers." I mutter as I scratch my head. A direction seems to be coming to me instinctually and I look towards the strange noise's influence.
"I can't pick out anything with all this volume..." Vadei complains, the two shooters coming forth. Vadei tenses up and then relaxes.
"We push." Heiya's Father tells us as he gestures down one path. The whispers carry on and I leave the four to bicker and argue. Wandering further and further away.
The whispers are coming or something from the tunnel that is on our immediate left. One that would take us on a sharp turn somewhat back the way we came, if I go back to the tunnel we took to get here. Gods above, I hate this maze. My head shakes and I do my best to stare down the dark hole. Let's see if I can actually hear them rather than keeping them as the same incoherent noise.
Or, rather, the whistle of the wind it seems...? No... That makes no sense-
"Nin. Don't wander off." Vapooliar warns, her hand locked tightly on my closest arm. Blinking the sense back into me, I look back at her. I nudge my head towards the tunnel.
"There's wind coming from this tunnel." I tell her and it seems that everyone hears me. They've all gone quiet and are looking my way.
"What happens if it's just another path back to the forest!?" Vadei complains, reigniting the arguments from before. The small chamber seems all the smaller for it.
"Quiet!" Heiya's Father barks with surprising power. Everyone is quiet now, easing the pressure on our ears. Heiya's Father settles his gun into one of his little furry hands. His distinctly worn, grizzled features survey the tunnels he can get a clear view of.
"It's a risk we will need to take... Everyone, form up. I want you all ready to shoot our way out if need be," Vapooliar orders the soldiers as she brings me along with her initially. With a tug, I free myself from her grip and fall behind. Most of our new escapee companions overtaking me.
But Battcomm, quite specifically, lingers at my side. I turn a bit and meet his stare and look away. I look again, meeting it once again as an unsettled nerve breaks inside of me. Dirty fingers brush his bushy, perhaps usually ill-kept beard. A noise comes out of him, like a strong cough.
"What's a kid like you do to get the Valkinvar-Imdvarce's ear like that?" he asks, and I blink at the way he refers to Vapooliar. That's quite the mouthful, I want to admit.
"V-Vapooliar?" I ask, just to make sure I am understanding him right. His seemingly judgemental eyes not doing much to goad a positive attitude from me.
"Valkinvar-Imdvarce." he growls firmly, almost like a warning. If his words and tone are not clear enough, his newly equipped weapon slaps gently into the palm of his free hand.
My instincts and memories clash. Whilst I have felt a bullet break against my forehead, I am not keen to feel one of these things do the same. Bullets are one thing, steel-melting fire, light, whatever is something else. So, I play along with his warning.
"Right, the... Val... Valkinvar." I stick to saying, as I am at least able to pronounce that well enough on the fly.
"Just be glad I ain't got a boom-pike. If I had one of them, I'd ram it up your front and drop the barrel," he tells me and I am left further confused. What's a boom-pike...? I know pikes are long, pointy sticks, but what does the 'boom' entail? Is it a gun with a bayonet? It must've been, right? What does 'dropping the barrel' even mean?
"So... So, to answer your question, anyway... I... I helped her escape. I am helping her escape." I explain, correcting myself halfway as I otherwise stumble through the stammers. An embarrassing vocal klutz is what I am shaping up to be, apparently.
"She helped you." Battcomm scoffs as he pinches my thin, scrawny arm.
"Can you not, Battcomm?" I ask, and he guffaws in my face.
"That's not my name, Kid, it's Rohlant." Rohlant clarifies with annoying eyes and I frown.
"And mine is Nin, not Kid..." I tell him, giving him that same look right back.
"That's enough, both of you." Vapooliar says back to us as I break off the glare. Looking down at my armoured arm, I sigh quietly. I know I don't look like the heroic or powerful type. But, since waking up in this damn mountain, really, I've been quite strong...
Breaking rocks, trees and getting shot in the head!
I guess it doesn't matter now, anyway. I'm not going to have to prove myself, if at all. I don't need to, either. By sheer gods-given luck, we managed to walk in on enough soldiers to nearly empty the crate. We now have a small army to rely on. Each one with a gun to fire at the bugs!
I can just linger at the back and let the professionals do their thing. However, I am still not sure about these whispers. Some conversation is keeping everyone sane right now, but I can still hear them. The whispers are surprisingly noisy, always in my head... Never heard by anyone else.
"What's up with you?" Rohlant asks, clearly catching on to my mental turmoil. A wisp flutters near us, bathing us in its emerald light. Revealing Rohlant's scarred, pale eye. My head moves away, my chin going over my shoulder.
Towards the stalking darkness, "I don't know..."