Arriving on the other side, the putrid stench of decay and rot immediately greeted us with a punch to face. Engaging the built-in air filtration systems in our armor, I was about to suggest we take a moment to survey the room when the Eldar and Sisters of Battle fell to their knees gasping for fresh air. Forgetting that they were the only ones without the means to handle this environment, I used the Clear Skies shout to remove the toxic gas for a few minutes and handed out Personal Protection Equipment to each of them. Helping them get the masks on, as the gases began flooding into the room again, the Eldar and Sisters thanked me profusely for the equipment.
"Victor, if you have a method for cleansing the body of harmful foreign substances, I strongly recommend using it on them immediately. My sensors are detecting large quantities of parasitic spores mixed in with the toxic gases.", Mane warned me, "I am not sure what sort of reaction they will have to them, but given the decaying bodies around us, I doubt it will be good."
Heeding their warnings, I immediately used spell on them to pacify any spores they inhaled. Letting out pleasant sighs, as the spell also cleansed their bodies of dirt and sweat, they seemed a bit more comfortable now that they were clean. Having the team secure the corridor outside the room, while the Man of Iron, Tech-Priests, and I took a moment to survey the room, we barely began to explore when the Eldar Warriors let out a horrified scream. Leaping out of the room with my lightsabers drawn, I looked around for enemy troops but only found everyone looking up at the ceiling.
Glancing up to see what made them scream, a heavily rotted Eldar woman looked at us with hallowed eyes. Held up by large meat hooks driven through her back and thighs, large chunks of her flesh were missing exposing her blackened, maggot ridden organs inside her abdominal cavity. Thinking we were someone else, she began pleading for us to just kill her and be done with it.
"…*cough*…why will you…not just…let me…die already…", she wheezed, as black bile dripped from her mouth, "I have…no information…to give…you…"
"Amallyn, why are you here?! You are supposed to be several hundred thousand light years from here!", one of the female Eldar said, "Give us just a moment, we will get you down!"
Using their laser rifles to destroy the chains, the Eldar woman fell to toward the floor unable to move her body to catch herself. Seeing that her kin were more than fine with letting her hit the blood covered floor, I caught her with the Force gingerly scooped her up in my arms. Gingerly removing the meat hooks, I cast Full Heal, Purification, and Regrowth on Amallyn causing her to scream and writhe around in agony. Giving her something clean to bite down on, she continued screaming till her external wounds closed. Using Clear Skies again, I put a mask on her face and told her to take it easy.
"Your internal organs are going to take a few minutes to completely regenerate. Take slow deep breaths till the process is done. I am sorry there was not a less painful way to do this.", I said, looking at her with pity.
"Thank…you…", she groaned, as the pain began to slowly lessen, "I wish…all humans…were as nice…as you…"
"Ranger Amallyn, we need to know why you are here and what happened to you. Please tell us immediately.", the Eldar Leader demanded, making no move to take her from me.
"I joined hands with…a Rogue Trader named…Janus Draik. I heard that this place…might have the technology to…rebuild Biel-Tan. He was leading an expedition here…so I signed up and…joined their group.", Amallyn explained, her breathing becoming ragged, "We…we started out as a team of…fifty people. By the time we reached this floor…we were only twelve strong. The walls on this floor do not change…so we started mapping things out…till we ran into a swam of…monsters!"
Going into cardiac arrest, I used my Healing Magic to bring things back under control while Mylene used Calm to settle her nerves. Grabbing hold of his collar with a death grip, Amallyn looked at him with pure, unadulterated fear.
"I have been to many places in this galaxy, but I have never once encountered these creatures before. All of them possessed strange abilities such as teleportation and stealth camouflage, a few of them could even sap your life force away with a beam of energy. We did everything we could to escape, but our fates were sealed the moment those floating bastards showed up!", Amallyn cursed, "Eldanial, my long rifle barely even scratched their hides! They brought a whole host of monsters upon us, and there was not a damn thing we could do to stop them! In the end they overran our position and tore all of us to pieces. I am not sure what happened after that, when I awoke a few weeks ago, I was hung from the ceiling like a damn animal…"
"Wait, you have been here for several weeks?! How the heck did you survive so long with those gruesome injuries?", Eldanial inquired, knowing that there was no way she could have held on that long without external assistance.
"There are these eight or nine foot tall abominations that show up every other day to give me food, medicine, and water. They have kept me alive because they think I know how to awaken this fortress.", Amallyn answered, as the last of her internal organs regenerated, "I have no idea where my former companions are, but I hope those monsters let them die instead of prolonged their suffering. Their torture methods are far worse than the Chaos Space Marines…"
Nodding his head, Eldanial discussed the topic with his fellow Eldar while excluding Amallyn. Using this opportunity to retrieve some clothing for her from my inventory, I selected a pair of boots, boxers, jeans, socks, and a t-shirt for her to wear. Since I was carrying her in my arms, the clothing items I selected fell onto her almost causing her squeal in fright. Confused why I was giving her clothing, Amallyn quickly remembered that she was currently stark naked right now.
"You must be rather uncomfortable holding me, right human?", Amallyn stated, knowing what most Imperial Citizens thought of the Eldar.
"Yes, but not because you are an Eldar. As a healthy, young man, it is only natural that I have some problems carrying a stunning, naked woman.", I chuckled, "If my words are offensive, please forgive my rudeness. We have a race of people called Elves in our country that have a similar appearance to the Eldar. Unlike them, I am happy to say that your people are rather well endowed."
"You…you are saying you find me attractive?!", Amallyn gasped, having never anticipated hearing those words from a human.
"Yes, very much so. Now then, would you like some assistance putting these clothes on? My wives can assist you, if necessary.", I said, turning to them, "Apologies in advance, I do not have any female clothing with me so you will have to make do with my spare clothing."
"It is better than being naked.", Amallyn laughed, dryly, "I should be able to put them on myself."
Attempting to put the clothing items on, Amallyn quickly discovered it was much harder than she anticipated. Looking back at the other Eldar, they ignored her gaze forcing her to request assistance from my wives, much to her dismay. Lending her a helping hand, they got her attire sorted out and put her hair up for her.
Thanking them for their help, as I set her down, I affixed a Holtzman Shield to her shirt and handed her a spare laser rifle. Having never seen one like it before, she shakily lifted it up and tried to aim it. Unable to keep it up for long, Amallyn nearly keeled over from exhaustion after just a few moments. Falling back into me, she immediately apologized for being too weak to help fight right now.
"My body…it is too weak to work properly right now.", Amallyn stated, clinging to the rifle tightly, "Please leave me behind, I will only drag you down."
"We are not going to leave you behind, Amallyn. You just need some time to rest and recover your strength.", I told her, firmly, "Eldanial, is anyone in your party able to help carry her?"
"I am sorry, but I cannot burden my team with the responsibility of carrying her.", Eldanial refused immediately.
Irritated by his instantaneous answer, I was curious why he seemed so callous toward her. Given their low birth rates and dwindling population, he should have wanted to help her at almost any cost. Instead of that, this asshole was acting as if her life or death was of little consequence to him.
"Man of Iron, would you consider carrying our injured companion? If you cannot or do not want to, I understand.", I asked, turning to the ancient robot.
Taking a moment to process my request, the machine bent down to take Amallyn from me.
Handing Amallyn over to him, he cradled the battered Eldar woman like a baby with his normal arm. Doing a quick test to confirm that he could use his other arm, which had a gatling gun for a hand, UR-025 was satisfied that he could continue to render assistance to us unhindered by his passenger. Knowing we had a limited amount of time to get food and water into Amallyn, we had to find a safe place to hunker down before she died of malnutrition. Making sure everyone was aware of this fact; I cast Find the Path and began the treacherous journey through these damned corridors.
Getting only a few thousand feet from where we found Amallyn, we ran into a pack of Imps who were wandering around aimlessly. Spotting us the moment I came around the corner, they came barreling down the hallway in a frenzy. Grabbing hold of the group with the Force, I lift them into the air and crushed them like grapes.
"Leave the frontlines to me, I need everyone focused on attacking the enemies that appear at our rear. If you get overwhelmed, let me know so I can give you some breathing room.", I ordered.
Acknowledging my commands, we closed ranks and quickened our pace to avoid being pinned down like Amallyn's group had. Getting halfway down the hallway, a large group of Imps and Pinkies rounded the bend ready for a fight. Drawing my lightsabers, I launched myself forward tearing the Lesser Demons to shreds as I flew past them. Opening fire upon a group that suddenly appeared behind us, I heard Eldanial and Ionica calling out targets to ensure we conserved as much ammo as possible. Realizing this was going to be a longer day than expected all I could do was focus on the path ahead of us and keep an eye out for any potential Safe Zones that might exist here.
---Evening---
Slogging through what felt like days of nearly unending fighting, a peculiar room caught my eye as it was sealed off from the rest of the space by a powerful energy field. From what I could tell from afar, the room was far too small to be a Boss Room, so I took a gamble and led our group toward it. As we drew near the room, Eldanial and Ionica informed me that their teams were completely out of ammunition. Switching to melee weapons, another swarm of Lesser Demons appeared in the corridor we had just come from.
"Victor, I hope you have some sort of plan!", Ionica said, not liking the minimal space she had to move around in.
"Let my men take care of the rear, their weapons have a built-in power source so they cannot run out of ammunition.", I told them, as we arrived at the edge of the room.
Attempting to walk through the field, I was immediately pushed back with equal amount of force. Searching around for a control panel, my troops began bombarding the monsters with their laser cannons and rifles. Joining in the fight, Lucoa and Mylene began using their magic while Samus used her plasma cannon to pick off the more armored Demons.
"I do not mean to rush you, but we are steadily losing ground here.", Samus told me, in a calm voice, "What is the hold up?"
"We are outside what appears to be a Security Room. I am trying to find the control panel so we can get inside and have someplace safe to hunker down tonight.", I answered, locating a hidden access panel, "Found it!"
Connecting several wires to the exposed terminals, I had Jarvis attempt to brute force his way into the fortress' systems, but he was unable to break their security. Scripted in an ancient machine language that we had yet to encounter, he was unable to lend me a hand in this situation.
"How are we looking?", Ionica asked.
"Still working on it.", I said, taking over for Jarvis.
Instead of trying to take control of the door system itself, I switched my target to the hardware components that operated the door. Moving my wires over to what I thought might be the components, my computer began spitting out data in Qubit programming language. Offering to take things from here, seeing what I was trying to do, I told Jarvis to let me handle this as I began rewriting the component's code.
"Victor, we are running out of time!", Lucoa shouted.
"Almost there, and…", I said, deactivating the energy field controller, "The shielding is down, everyone get inside!"
Disconnecting my wires and pushing the panel shut, everyone shuffled backward into the room. Generating a wall of Force Disintegration in front of me, I sent it down the hallway to atomize all the Lesser Demons and stepped back into the room just as the field reengaged. Letting out a sigh of relief, Luxion and Mane analyzed the air in the room to see if it was breathable. Confirming that the toxic gas was not present here, aside from what came in when we entered, I used Purification to sanitize everyone and everything here so we could remove our masks.
"Our we certain the barriers will hold?", Samus asked, examining the energy field projectors closely.
"Yes, but just to be safe, we can take turns keeping watch.", I said, looking down the hallway at the Lesser Demons who were observing us from afar.
Using Illusion Magic on all four exits from this room, I made it so they could not see in here, but we could still see them. With our enemies unable to see what we were doing now; I suggested we get started on dinner and set up camp. Wholeheartedly agreeing with me, while I got to cooking everyone else rolled out their bedding for the night. Setting Amallyn near me, UR-025 took up a position in the corner of the room to monitor all four entryways. Thanking him for his help once again, I provided the Eldar woman with a little snack and some water.
"Thank you.", Amallyn said, looking at me warily.
"There something you want to say?", I asked, pulling a Magic Stovetop out of my storage.
"What are you hoping to achieve by being so kind to me?", Amallyn questioned, "Since you expressed an interest in my body, is that what you are after? If so, while I appreciate your kindness, I have no interest in being intimate with a human."
Finding her line of thought amusing, I shook my head and assured her that was not the reason at all.
"While I do find you attractive, that is not why I am being kind to you. My hope is that we can become close allies and friends in the future. We share a similar goal of wanting to eradicate Chaos so I believe we can work toward that goal together.", I told her.
"I understand, if that is truly the case, I can agree to both of those things.", Amallyn acknowledged, seeing the value of having powerful allies in her corner, "So what is on the menu? Dried meat and stale bread, or maybe that disgusting Corpse Starch?"
"Victor and his team are not from the Imperium of Man.", one of the female Eldar told her, walking over and having a seat, "They are from a distant country that overflowing with food. You should have seen the food we had this morning…just thinking about it again makes me even hungrier."
Surprised by this revelation, she opened the wrapped snack I gave her to see what was inside. Smelling the scent of dried berries, fruit, and nuts inside, she peeled back the wrapper and started at the energy bar. Taking a small bite, at the behest of her colleague, Amallyn was overwhelmed by the burst of flavor that filled her mouth. Scarfing the rest of the bar down, she chugged the water afterward and let out a pleased sigh.
"I have not had anything that good in millennia…", Amallyn stated, her ears wiggling with delight, "So…what is on the menu then?"
"What sounds better, honey glazed ham or roasted turkey?", I asked everyone.
"You have an entire ham with you!?", Ionica shouted in disbelief.
"Actually I have several thousand hogs' worth of pork with me, same goes for the turkeys.", I chuckled.
"Given our strong emotional reaction this morning, I think we should have something a bit less flavorful.", Eldanial remarked, reminding everyone that they had to keep their emotions in check.
"If that is the case, I can make all of you Tofu Steaks while I roast a turkey for the rest of us.", I suggested, "It is made from beans so it should not be too extravagant for your taste buds."
"I apologize for the inconvenience, we have to be wary of expressing our emotions too much as our mortal enemy might steal our souls from us.", Eldanial explained.
Already aware of their situation, I was grateful my cooking this morning did not cost them their souls. Promising to be mindful of their circumstances for the rest of our expedition, I got to work cooking while the others set up camp and recharged their weapons.