Chapter 44.1: Adapting the Plan

“But why did you open them all to begin with?” Ventyr asked, scanning the room. “Simply opening my chamber and Scholar Yissa’s would have been enough.”

Alongside him Minkus also took in the scene.

The mad skelk raged about the center of the room, stumbling and slipping in gore as it slashed and snapped at two, bloody murellow cubs who still managed to evade it. Their siblings had not been so lucky: caught, ripped, and strewn to form the very mess that the skelk now lost its footing in. The skale, which had previously been nearest to the group at the console, chittered throatily as it threw its reptilian frame into one glass cylinder after the next, moving away down the line and slamming into each one until glass, machinery, or bones broke. The stalker was nowhere to be seen. The broken asura wandered from chamber to chamber alternately tugging equipment free of its mounts, rolling on the floor in tears, and snickering giddily at his own incoherent babbling. The charr was the one Minkus found hardest to look at, having temporarily survived the crushing weight of the glass only by pulling his torso free of his legs. The energetic rage on his feline face projected far more power than even Minkus knew he could have, bleeding and spilling out at the waist as he was.

Amid it all, only the moa had taken any active interest in the four of them or the console so far. The lanky bird bobbed closer, hopping into a jog, stumbling, and straying from side to side as other things, both real and imagined, drew it off course. Its eyes seemed to spin in its head, but it always returned to that drunken curiosity in the people behind the half-circle of steel and screens, its big, cracked beak snapping wildly in their direction. It was only a matter of time until it, and maybe several other subjects in the room, reached them.

Minkus shook it all away, keeping the room in mind but returning his attention to Ventyr. “I didn’t open them all,” he said. “Well, not the first time, anyway. There— there was a human here, with another asura. He did it—the human, I mean. He opened the chambers, and then he just left.”

Yissa touched his ear, and Minkus reflexively hopped out of reach, casting her an uncomfortable glance. She only inspected him more closely, doe-eyed and grinning. She was still alarmingly underdressed.

“The bandit did it?” Ventyr confirmed. “He raised the cylinders?”

“Bandit?” Minkus asked. The man had seemed familiar, but that didn’t speak anything to his profession.

Ventyr continued watching the moa. “Yes. The man. He was the leader of the bandit group that kidnapped us on the road from Divinity’s Reach. I don’t know why or how he’s here, but it is him. Of that I’m certain.”

Minkus frowned in thought, scanning back through his memory of the last season. “The leader of the— wait.” It came to him, and Minkus’ ears shot up in surprise. “Him? Well, yes, I suppose that was him. I think it was. How did…” He trailed off, flushing as he realized Ventyr had just said that he didn’t know how the bandit had gotten there.

“The two of you recognize that human?” Yissa asked, giving more attention to the discussion than Minkus now, which was a relief—and also a little bit not. Yissa was confusing to him.

“It’s a long story,” Ventyr said with a groan. “Not something we can get into now.”

Minkus could see Yissa’s attention flit from one thing to the next as she reviewed their situation. “Excelsior, then. We’re in a hostile research complex with a loose human highwayman, an unconscious rescuer, and a room full of ravening test subjects. And we’re still no nearer to the jade we’ve come all this way in search of—not in any practical sense, anyway.” Yissa stroked her chin. “Technically speaking, we do have a sizable portion of mursaat magic within the minds of these subjects. Of course, how we’d ever extract it from them is a question I’ve not even begun to ponder. It’s conceivable that—”

“Scholar,” Ventyr barked. “We don’t have time.”

Maybe a dozen yards away from them now, the moa had slowed but was still approaching. Worse, though, was the babbling asura who’d taken interest in the bird and stalked fumblingly along behind it, clawing at his own forearms and cackling, his beady eyes bouncing from the bird to the console and back again.

Yissa’s eyes popped. “Yes, oh yes, of course. Apologies. My question— my point: what exactly do we do now? What’s our plan?”

“Plan?” Minkus mused, tugging at his ear.

The others looked at him, and he realized he’d spoken, but before he could blush, he understood why the question had caught his attention. “Oh, the plan! We do have a plan! I— well, I got distracted.” Now he did blush, but he continued. “The plan is for me and Wepp to get the others—now that we’ve found you, I mean—and set you free while all the Inquest are at the north end— the north end of the facility. I need to go get everyone else!”

“North end of the facility?” Yissa frowned. “Why would all the station’s staff be there? It does appear that they aren’t here, despite the evident need, but—”

This time Ventyr physically moved in front of the scholar to cut her off. “Minkus, who are these others?”

Minkus grinned. “Jinkke, Penny, Jindel, and Crusader Yult.”

“Oh, of course. The alarm!” Yissa piped. She waved a finger and continued as though the sylvari hadn’t said anything. “You triggered the alarm, sending the station’s personnel on a northward evacuation route. A simple strategy, but clever.” She gave Minkus another of those welcome, unwelcome glances.

Ventyr sighed, waiting for the scholar to stop talking again. “Crusader Jindel and Yult are here? Has Captain Gelwin sent a strike team?”

“No,” Minkus fumbled. “Um, not really. It’s— well, it’s just us— us four. I don’t think your Captain really wanted us here at all.”

It was only when Ventyr’s careworn face fell again that Minkus realized it had previously lifted at all. He breathed deeply, hardening himself, and the slightest flicker of his green glow pulsed through the cracks in his face and arms.

Yissa slipped out from behind the sergeant, once again engaged. “There are six of you here? Only six, intending to remove us from an absurdly overstaffed Inquest krewe? You’re courageous, my jungle boar. I’ll give you that. But you’ve also critically, comically, miscalculated your odds—at least it would be comical if we weren’t staring into the oblivion of our own unavoidable demises.” She buried her wide face in her hands and started to pace. Her braids, still somehow curled up at the ends, bobbed with each step. “Amma always said, ‘the handsome ones are the dumbest, Yissa. Always the dumbest.’”

Minkus tugged at his ear. She wasn’t wrong, not about the odds. Jinkke had said as much.

“I propose we save everyone a substantial quantity of time, complexity, and all-but-certain destruction by simply leaving this place together, right now. Is that agreeable?” Yissa’s eyes darted between the pair. “We can regroup with your associates, enlist the help of our orders, and return with resources far better scaled to the task.”

“Yes, you should.” Ventyr nodded.

Minkus exchanged an uneasy look with Yissa. At least his look was uneasy. Hers seemed more flustered.

She hopped around to face the sylvari. “You mean we, Sergeant. We.”

“No.” Ventyr shook his head. “I mean you. I’m not leaving yet.”

He turned his gaze once more to the moa and asura, but the little female grabbed hold of his arm and flung her weight to bring him back around. “What in the Alchemy do you mean: you’re ‘not leaving yet’?” She threw a finger at Minkus. “If his assertions are correct, Minkus has successfully cleared the corridors for our departure. However intriguing a full study of these slathering, bloodthirsty creatures could prove to be, these are hardly ideal study conditions, even in a scientific sense. What reason could you possibly have for remaining in such a dangerous scenario?”

Eyes flat despite the snarl that quirked his barked face, Ventyr met Yissa’s gaze. “I am not letting that jade remain in these people’s hands.”

Scholar Yissa blinked, and Minkus could almost see the rush of thoughts that washed over her in that moment. “Alright. Alright, yes, I comprehend. The historic and scholastic value of the jade can’t be over-emphasized.”

Ventyr glowered at her. For once it was enough to refocus the scholar.

“And it is, of course, very dangerous,” she amended. “Among us, though, only Minkus is in a condition to even consider emancipating the jade from its current possessors—my ears, Sergeant, you aren’t even clothed!”

“Stop debating with me and go,” Ventyr snapped. He flung a hand toward the tall steel doors at the opposite end of the chamber, beyond the nearest row of test chambers and at least half the freed subjects. “I’m getting through that door. It’s where they store the weapons they’ve been building.”

As he said it, the Vigil sergeant spotted something amid the test cylinders, most of which were still standing. Minkus then saw it too: the stalker had reappeared. Ventyr’s face darkened at the new obstacle dropped squarely between him and his objective, and several motes of light sparked to life in his hand, spiraling into a tiny ember of a flame.

It took the elementalist an unusual degree of focus to create even that small effect, but something even more important than that held Minkus’ thoughts. “Weapons?” he asked.

“Yes, weapons.” Ventyr said, glancing back. “That’s what happened to all these creatures, and to them.” He pointed at the asura and then the charr.

Yissa fell solemn. “And it’s what might have happened to us if you hadn’t intervened.” Minkus felt her eyes on him, differently than before.

“But weapons?” Minkus went on, working to make sense of what he was hearing. On their way into the wildlands, someone else in their party had suggested that’s what the Inquest were doing, but Minkus hadn’t taken it seriously. He didn’t want to. He still didn’t want to.

“Weapons, Minkus. I assure you that’s what they are.” Ventyr’s hard eyes brokered no further questions on the issue. He gestured at Wepp. “Get Scholar Yissa and your friend out of here. They can’t be of any more help.”

Screwing up her face, Yissa squared herself to the sylvari. “I do not think you comprehended my assertion, Sergeant. I no longer have any intention of fleeing. If you are staying to discover and confiscate their jade holdings, then so am I.” The wiry, honeyed braids bounced once as she pressed fists into her hips.

Ventyr shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t watch you while—”

“And how,” Yissa demanded, “do you propose handling the jade without exposing your own psyche to it? Has your extensive study of the mursaat and their magical practices taught you their methods and precautions?” She barely took a step, but she stood, shoulders back, like she’d already disarmed the whole facility with her own two hands. “You need me, Sergeant.”

Ventyr pinched the bridge of his slight nose, mouthing something to the ceiling. “Scholar,” he said, looking back down at her, “that argument might have been convincing, had you not spent the last several days explaining, at length, how little your records hold about all of mursaat magic.”

The corners of her proud grin came back down.

“But,” the sylvari went on, shaking his head, “it’s not worth my time to try to stop you. Stay behind me. Stay safe.”

Minkus eyed the doorway to the hall outside, which it seemed increasingly likely he would be traversing without either Ventyr or Yissa. He supposed that had technically been the plan all along, but now that plan was making less sense. Very little about any of this seemed to him to be making much sense, however right it all might feel.

“You can’t— I mean, the two of you can’t stay here. Not alone. I should— well I should stay. Or you two should—”

Ventyr put a hand on Minkus’ shoulder, quieting him. “Wake your friend and go get us the help you can. Now. You’ve wasted enough time.”

Minkus nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Alright, but first, I— well I should…” Trailing off, he extended one hand to Ventyr’s bare chest and the other to Yissa’s shoulder.

Yissa didn’t seem to know what to make of the gesture, but she blushed rather than turning him aside. The sylvari understood.

Closing his eyes, Minkus felt the warm light of compassion flow in and through him, along his arms and into his friends. It rooted into the cracks and crevices of their worn-out bodies, turning from light to heat that healed whatever it touched. Minkus breathed deeply, feeling his own regeneration wane as he pushed it toward the needs of his friends.

“That’s enough, Minkus,” Ventyr said, pushing him away. “I thank you, but it has to be enough.” The sylvari flexed his hand, and the spark that had been there burst into flame, swelling against the confines of his palm.

Minkus stepped back with a sigh and a nod. “Yes— well, alright.” He tried to shake off the satisfied weakness that always followed a healing.

“My ears,” Yissa gasped. “I’ve never— well, that is to say, I’ve never been healed by magical means before, and it, well— my ears.”

“Go,” Ventyr commanded, taking aim at the stalker that was now approaching him at an uneven gait, roaring and wimpering as though actively being tortured.

Nodding again, Minkus stepped back to Wepp and knelt, getting an arm and then a shoulder beneath the robust asura, but something impeded his lift. Something on his back. With a yelp, Minkus remembered: he still had the anti-agony projector on his back!

Sliding Wepp back to the ground, Minkus spun to the others, stripped the pack off, and dropped it beside the console. Ventyr was already moving toward the stalker, so Minkus grabbed Yissa’s arm. “Here— I— you’ll need this— I mean, if you need it, it’s here.”

The female eyed it questioningly, but before she could get a word out, the sylvari called back again, his patience threadbare. “Minkus, go!”

“Yes— I— yes, alright.” Too frantic to think, he breathed deeply of the magic his own body was receiving once more and ducked toward Wepp, hoisting him up to a shoulder and backpedaling a moment as he met eyes once more with Ventyr. Even without words, the sylvari managed to command him away, and he obeyed, running the northern length of wall and ascended the few stairs to the landing.

Just before he hit the steel door that would lead them back out to the hall, though, Minkus kicked something. He stopped, looking down to find the shock-prod that the bandit lord had used on him.

“Yissa,” he called back, waving the device in the air. “Perhaps this will help too!” The female nodded, and Minkus tossed the device. She activated it and promptly set to waving it in the general direction of the moa.

Minkus gave the pair one last look, spun to the door, and lunged into the hallway before he could give the situation any more worry. He would be back. He would. And with help.

Recalling the path back to the courtyard was simpler than the trip inward had been. The less Minkus tried to reason his way through it, the more it came back to him by instinct. He skipped doors that he and Wepp had meandered in and out of, hurtled himself around corners without pause, and sprinted past unimportant junctions as though he’d walked those halls a hundred times before. He couldn’t have said how he remembered it all, but he did.

He passed a straggling pair of engineers who were also headed to the courtyard but at less than half Minkus’ own pace. They looked like they seldom ran at all.

“Keep going,” Minkus sputtered as he passed. “You can make it.” There was no real fire for them to escape, of course. He knew that. But— well, they looked like they needed the encouragement.

The two watched him confusedly but said nothing, and Minkus pressed on, eyes forward once more. He just had to make it into the courtyard, to exchange Wepp for his small group of friends and return to aid Ventyr and Yissa. Wepp might even be the perfect reason for Jinkke to stay behind, as someone would have to care for him. She wouldn’t necessarily like it, but she also wouldn’t refuse.

Minkus rounded another corner and finally saw it: the glow of the outside world just beyond the courtyard doors. He thought he could see people a small distance from the mouth of the corridor, but that couldn’t be right. His friends were supposed to stay in hiding until his arrival.

The closer he got, the clearer it all became, though. It wasn’t just people out there, it was a sizable number of people. And they certainly weren't his friends; these were asura, all of them. The closer he got, the wider his view of the outside world became, and the more asura he thought he saw. Maybe— it was a trick of the light?

As the thought of the light struck him, so did its reality. He burst out into the blinding light of day, and for a second, the whole world vanished to him, and he stopped. But as Minkus’ vision adjusted, everything he thought he’d seen came back, and then some. A shiver ran down his spine.

Not only were there people in the courtyard, milling aimlessly, nervously about the southern end of the road that ran through the complex, there were a lot of them. And they were still coming: a handful from the western complex and even a few jogging down from the north.

The north? Minkus froze, starting to panic. The krewe was supposed to be going to the north, not from it. What had he done?

“Hey!”

Minkus blinked. Even among the cacophony of voices, he recognized that the voice was aimed at him. What had he done?

A hand gripped his arm, and he came back to himself, looking into the cool, square eyes of someone he’d never met.

“Hey,” the asura said again, gesturing just north of the main crowd with his free hand. “Bring him this way, and tell me what happened.”

Hardly thinking about it, Minkus followed, still staring stupidly at broad group of Inquest engineers, guards, statisticians, and whatever else they were, all around him.

“Did you hear me?” the other repeated, inspecting Wepp as they went. “What happened to your associate?”

“I— he— well…” Minkus was looking for anything to say, his focus finally returning to the asura beside him.

“Site emergencies are distressing for everyone, I comprehend. But I’m a medic, I’m taking you to my colleagues, and we cannot perform our duties if you don’t assist us with at least basic information. He looks unconscious. Why is he…” The medic broke off, eyes widening at the blackened hole in Minkus’ tunic. The other asura slid in front of Minkus and stopped him, bending to inspect the wound, which of course had almost entirely healed. 

“Alchemy, what happened to you two? You must have been at the very site of the incident, and yet it doesn’t seem you—” He shook the train of thought away. “Regardless, give him to me.” He waved Wepp toward his own shoulders. “You need to be triaged as well.”

Shellshocked, Minkus followed.