Chương 52: The Facility

The temperature dropped the moment they crossed the threshold. The sounds of battle faded behind them as the heavy stone corridor swallowed up the noise. Andy could still hear distant explosions, muffled screams and the unsettling sound of Sessaly laughing. The corridor continued to stretch ahead. Stone walls and iron doors. The entire ceiling was lined with pipes. The pipes resonated with his horn. Magic essence. Andy slowed looking up.

"What is it," Kesseroth asked"The pipes are filled with magic." The sensation of standing next to a rushing river flooded Andy's entire body. Whatever was moving through these pipes was being transported in quantities that bordered on absurdity. The magic pressed in on his senses from every direction. The pipes hummed softly and his horn hummed back. [AMBIENT ENERGY DETECTED: DEATH MAGIC (UNNATURAL)] [YOUR HORN IS RESONATING WITH AMBIENT DEATH MAGIC.] [ABSORPTION POSSIBLE. ABSORB? Y/N] Andy nearly tripped.

"No." The prompt remained. [ABSORPTION POSSIBLE. ABSORB? Y/N]"No!"

"Andrew?" Kesseroth asked.

"The system wants me to drink the death pipes." There was a pause.

"The what?"

"The death pipes." Reggie slowly looked back up at the ceiling then back down at Andy.

"The… death pipessss?"

"The pipes are full of death magic." Andy glared at the System. (Which was really Andy just glaring at the open space in front of him where Kesseroth happened to be standing.)"Who sees a giant pipe full of unnatural death magic and thinks, yeah baby lemme drink that up? Well–maybe a goth? That seems like something they'd do. Or a vampire. Kess, are there vampires?" Kesseroth stared at Andy as if he were afraid Andy'd gone absolutely bonkers. He adjusted his grip on the flaming sword.

"Andy, come on, we're almost there." The prompt waited patiently. [ABSORPTION POSSIBLE. ABSORB? Y/N] Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Still no." The prompt vanished. [ARE YOU SURE?] Andy stopped walking.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Andrew, are you okay?" Reggie asked cautiously.

"No." [YOU ARE NOT SURE?]"No, I'm very sure that I don't want to absorb the death magic."

"Andrew?"

"Reggie, I'm okay. I've been able to absorb magic before, life and fire. I'm being given the option of death but I don't want that. For some reason the System is being insistent." Kesseroth put a giant hand on Andy's shoulder.

"Whatever you do. Do not give in to absorbing death magic." Andy swallowed and nodded. The prompt seemed to be staying away… for now. They continued deeper into the facility. Smaller pipes fed into the larger one they had been walking underneath. Some of the pipes disappeared into walls, others continued forward toward something else. Thick valves and junctions connected entire bundles together. Every single one of them hummed with unnatural magic essence. Not all of it was death, but all of it was wrong. Tainted.

Andy tried very hard not to think about where it was coming from. Or for that matter, where it was going. A distant clang echoed through the corridor, then another. The sound was followed by a scream. It lasted only a brief second before getting cut off. A door up on the left seemed to be the source of the cry. The trio looked at one another. Kesseroth nodded and then rammed the door open with his shoulder. Inside, a human dressed in a labcoat was attaching a machine to a young sophont bear.

It locked eyes with Andy and projected pain and two words.

"Help me." Reginald hissed and the researcher who was in the process of looking toward the noise froze solid while looking at Reginald. Stone began at the researcher's nose and spread outward covering his entire face. The petrification raced over his neck, across his chest and down his limbs. The man managed half a scream. He hit the floor, a statue, mouth agape in eternal horror. Andy stared.

"Why didn't you tell us you could do that?" The Basilisk went from looking quite shocked to straightening himself and his cape.

"I Ssssir Reginald Boggart Hemsssworth the Third: Primordial Basssilisssk wass waiting for the proper moment to unleasssh my ssssecret weapon." Kesseroth was busy removing the bear from the machine. As he had feared the machine was connected to a pipe which went to the ceiling and out of a wall. The bear whimpered. The poor thing wasn't much older than a cub. Kesseroth was removing tubing and wires as fast as he could. The bear looked exhausted. Its eyes darted between the three of them.

"Help me." The bear collapsed. That's how they found themselves going room to room petrifying researchers and collecting stray sophonts. They were in various states of wellbeing. Most were dehydrated, drained of energy, exhausted, malnourished. Some were gone before they'd even made it inside.

By the time they'd mostly cleared the hallway they'd gathered a wolf that could barely stand, a bucket that contained a sapient slime mold, a very very very large scorpion who was missing a leg, and a bipedal mushroom person who was unconscious. Andy used healing magic on the mushroom as Kesseroth carried him. A room that had been some sort of storage or office space was cleared out to be a temporary triage for the victims of the Harness' horror.

Reggie was playing guard and nursemaid to the sophonts passing out supplies from the knapsack he had previously been riding in.

"They're all stable," Andy said.

"I don't want to drain any more magic until we're safe to get out of here, but they are good for now. Reggie, I want you to protect these people. You, who crossed three countries to rescue them. If anything happens get them out of here and as far away from this place as you can. There's only one more room down here, and then according to the maps, upstairs is Madam Tempest and the Harness." Reggie saluted with his tail and straightened his collar before going back to feeding the bear a ration bar.

Andy and Kesseroth made the long walk back down the hallway. He was preparing himself for the worst, they hadn't yet found Auri. He took a deep breath.

"Okay last room." Kesseroth shouldered the door open. Inside was something Andy was not prepared for.

"Veronica?"