Chương 86: Mindless Violence

The scraping sound outside the office continued, but it seemed to be moving slowly. Unfortunately it was moving slowly towards the office. Róise knelt behind the desk in the back room, gritting her teeth. She didn't dare stick her head out, but she prepared at any second to fire off Seven Drunken Nights. A loud thud rocked the office door. Róise couldn't take it anymore and peeked her head out - which was pointless anyway. The office door was solid wood and she couldn't see through it.

There was a long, languid scrape against the wood. She could hear splinters being torn out of the material and something dragged what she imagined to be a long claw down to rattle the doorknob. Róise looked desperately around the office - there must be some way out other than the front door! How did people breathe in here? They must have some sort of ventilation! Then she saw it - a small metal vent. Unfortunately it was directly above the front door.

"This is the worst designed mine," Róise complained. She waited for another hour, but the scraping never stopped. Sometimes she thought it had, only to start up again as soon as she started to creep towards the door. Róise couldn't wait here much longer - she wasn't even sure how long she had been down in the mine at this point. Eoin's six hours might pass her by before she even realized it. Enough. She stood, and walked resolutely towards the door. There was no help for it.

As soon as she made any noise the scraping at the door became a loud thudding, then a crash, as whatever was on the other side seemed incensed at the idea that a target might behind it. The door itself jumped in its frame. Too loud! Róise took a deep breath and opened the door in between crashes. An enormous Crockern tumbled into the room, sprawling over the reception desk, knocking Róise off her feet and back against the wall.

She jumped up quickly, ready to dart between the Crockern and the door, but it also recovered too fast. Standing up, it turned to leer at her with an unnatural slump to its shoulders. Róise stifled a scream. Half its face was missing. Skin seemed to be sloughing off its skull on the right side, turning into sludge like the sand-and-gravel mixture they used to make the roads here. She couldn't make out its coloration in the Mistlight, but it seemed darker than it should have been.

All over its body there were holes and missing pieces. It made a choking sound at her and lurched forward in her direction. Too rattled to even activate a technique Róise just slashed with her fórsa blades. With Fourth sharpness and with her strength behind it, they should have made quick work of the Crockern, but she gasped as they skated off the Crocken's reaching fingers, setting off sparks.

"What in Pixie's name is this?" Róise shouted, stumbling backwards towards the rear office, the fingers ruffling her silk scarf. She had to focus. Activating Banks of Red Roses, she rolled backwards to give herself some space. She clattered against a filing cabinet, but it was enough to give her something to kick off of, sliding across the floor under the Crockern's reaching arms. With the power of a Fourth technique to break the unbreakable, she slashed at the Crockern's hamstrings.

Amber sparks flew, but she penetrated the skin, severing the tendons. The Crockern tumbled to the ground making more choking noises. One of the sparks landed for a second on her wrist and at the instant she felt the pain it was clear what this was. This Crockern was completely suffused with iron. How is that possible? Róise thought with horror.

She thought back to the Fifth that Miriam had pinned against the iron barrier back at the First Ring tunnel - just a few minutes of contact with the metal had absolutely wrecked that man. How could this Crockern be living with it inside his body? As the Crockern writhed on the floor, trying to turn its large body around in the rear office doorway, Róise concluded that maybe it wasn't. Deciding that she had no need to finish the job here, she turned and ran out of the office.

As she crossed the threshold she had a thought and quietly shut the door behind her. It was clearly mindless - it might not be able to escape the office on its own. She didn't need that thing coming after her. The ready chamber was no longer silent. She could hear shouts ringing out, but she couldn't tell from which tunnel. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! Ok. Time to leave.

She rushed quickly up the tunnel she'd come in from, only to see lanterns approaching from the other way, blobs of vague glowing light in her Mistlight.

"Damn it, Eoin!" Had he misjudged the times for the shift change? Six hours couldn't possibly have passed already! It didn't matter. She couldn't stay in the tunnel. Running back to the ready chamber, she had to make a choice. Hide in an offshoot tunnel - back to the office or maybe the unexplored Infirmary? Or, go deeper into the mine? Deeper, Róise decided. She didn't want to be trapped by Crockern from the surface or… if there were more of the corrupted Crockern. At least deeper there might be more room to move.

She picked a tunnel on a whim and followed the mine cart tracks down. ✧✧✧ Teilgcheárta Market was a surprisingly anemic place. Miriam and Cormac wandered the stalls and storefronts casually, as if just taking in the city for the first time as new guests. The Crockern here all seemed equally subdued. There was none of the lively community they had enjoyed at Lathair Maol, nor the boisterous maze of subtle politics and intrigue that had marked the many markets of Shirren - at least according to Cormac.

"There were some years the lumber mill in my home town fell on bad times," Miriam said.

"When everyone was still doing their jobs, but everyone knew that any day might be their last day as the company had to trim down to stay afloat. This feels a lot like that." Cormac agreed.

"I've never felt less inclined to buy something in a market. Just the atmosphere makes you clutch your coins to your chest and prepare for heavy rain." Both of them had been surprised to find they had greatly overslept - Sol had been gone for hours by the time they woke. Cormac blamed the lingering effect of the steel chainmail suits. They had hurried out to the market, eager to see what they could find. What they did see was a populace whose mouths were shut tighter than Teilgcheárta gates themselves.

Even when Cormac began aggressively weaving luck threads, anyone barely let anything spill. The most they had gotten was from a fruit merchant selling bushels of dusty apples, who had complained offhandedly how slow business was, but that after last year it was better than it had any right to be. He had gone completely silent when pressed about what happened last year. What they did hear was plenty of praise for the Regent-Elect. Among the Crockern of Teilgcheárta Ferris Einion had nothing but fans.

If there was a reason why the city was faring better than it should, they all credited that reason to be Ferris Einion's doing.

"Pretty rare for a mine boss to be so popular," Miriam mused.

"I've certainly never had a boss I liked so well," Cormac agreed. Miriam raised an eyebrow.

"Have you ever actually had a regular job?"

"Of course!" Cormac said.

"Sometimes if I was casing a mark I would have to pretend to do a regular job to get close. Turns out I'm an excellent employee."

"More likely that you were just lucky enough not to get caught doing something wrong," Miriam grumbled. They had concluded that the market was a bust for gossip and were debating if there was any merit to seeking out scuttlebutt in the meal line when suddenly Eoin appeared in front of them.

"Ah, I'm so glad I found you!" Eoin said, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"Eoin? Aren't you supposed to be with Róise?" Cormac demanded.

"Ah, yes, I am. That is the problem. You see things have… well, things have really gone to shit." Eoin beckoned to them.

"Follow me." Eoin led them back towards the emptier parts of the city, where the entrance to the lower tunnels were. Along the way, he explained the scheme he and Róise had put in place to knock out the guards.

"That should have all worked out fine, except the door reopened three hours early. I thought it was Róise, calling it quits before she was supposed to, so I didn't do anything different - I maintained the illusion of the two guards standing at attention."

"But it wasn't Róise?" Miriam was getting a very sinking feeling.

"No. There were two Crockern that stumbled out, both bloodied and limping. They rolled the door closed as fast as they possibly could and began shouting to the guards to get help." Eoin grimaced.

"Unfortunately my illusions don't survive being touched. When they went to shake them for being non-responsive the whole technique fell apart and they saw the real guards, drunk on the ground.

"Panicking, the less wounded of the two ran off to the Regent-Elect to get help while the more injured one stayed." Eoin shook his head.

"I thought the best course of action was to get you two and figure out a way to extract Róise from the situation."

"But what actually happened?" Miriam asked.

"Why were the Crockern so panicked?" Eoin sighed.

"It meant nothing to me, but they were beyond terrified when they said it. They kept screaming that someone had freed the Iron Dead."

"We have to go faster," Cormac said, shooting ahead of them with his Fourth speed. Eoin smiled at Miriam reassuringly.

"I'll catch up to him. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid." When Miriam finally reached the gate of the lower tunnels, out of breath and with a stitch in her side, there was no sign of either Eoin or Cormac. There were dozens of Crockern milling around the entrance, each looking terrified.

"We're here," someone whispered, and Eoin wrapped her in his Invisible Mist as well.

"There's no way we can get in there," Miriam said.

"I don't see one," Eoin agreed.

"Well, we have to. We can't leave Róise alone with whatever these Iron Dead are!" Cormac was trembling, and Miriam realized that Eoin was holding him in place.

"Wait, something's happening," Miriam said, pointing. One of the older Crockern she had seen here, giant and barrel-shaped, walked through the crowd. The soldiers parted for him instantly, as if afraid to even touch him. Behind him was a very small human-like figure holding a notebook.

"Sol," Miriam whispered.

"That must be Ferris Einion." With a wave of his hand the Crockern rolled open the door. Leading the way, Ferris Einion descended, followed closely by Sol.