Chapter 46.1: The Value of Field Testing

“That’s Kikka?” Penny scoffed. “She’s barely bigger than an asura… child.”

Minkus heard the mockery in her voice die between the last two words. Something dark came over her.

Ventyr stepped forward, drawing Kikka’s attention. “I will give you one opportunity to stand aside.”

“Stand aside?” The asura laughed, her volume rising with her spite. “Minutes ago you were inside one of those containment chambers, and now you imagine yourself positioned to make threats? In my facility? My facility?”

Her eyes left the sylvari to scan the rest of the room: each person, each torn carcass, each shattered cylinder, and seemingly every last scrap of debris. The grimace she’d only faintly controlled to that point drew back into toothy snarl. “What have you done to my testing lab, you interfering simpletons?”

She looked back to Ventyr, and he met her gaze, retaking a two-handed grip on his staff. “The same thing I intend to do with every ounce of the magic you’ve been experimenting with.” He nodded toward the room beyond her. “Now stand aside.”

Minkus’ eyes widened. He could swear he saw the air rippling around Ventyr’s arms.

Kikka’s sharp-toothed grimace curved back into a troubling grin again. “You want what I’m storing in lab Delta? Then please, you impertinent fern, make an attempt to retrieve it.”

She scowled up at the golem beside her, and everyone’s attention followed. “This will have to serve as a preliminary function test before we trounce those bookahs outside.” Kikka took a step back from the doorway. “Enforcer, run test protocol alpha, targeting sapients at current positions ten, eleven, one, and two, in order of active threat.” Her sharp teeth glistened in the firelight.

Without hesitation, servos sprung to life, and the monstrous steel figure moved one step forward. Its head and chest made contact with the wall above the doorway, and its right arm hit the wall beside it.

Minkus drew his sword and the magnet he used as a focus. He could already feel protective energy funneling through him and into the weapon, ready to burst into a shield at a moment’s notice. Penny too had taken a reflexive step away and reached for her guns. She, however, stopped shy of drawing them, arching an eyebrow instead.

Minkus followed her gaze to the golem. It now blocked half the doorway, but it had stopped, standing motionless against the other side of the wall.

“What the hell is it doing?” Penny murmured.

Minkus shrugged, glancing at everyone else in the room for answers. They all seemed to be doing the same, while keeping an eye on the giant machine.

Just beyond the golem, Kikka’s posture screamed of frustration. Minkus couldn’t tell at first if she was as confused as they were, but she certainly wasn’t happy. Back hunched, hands balled, and teeth gritted, she squawked at the construct. “Bypass environmental stops.”

Nothing changed.

“Disable structural caution.”

Nothing.

“Forego environmental protections!”

Still nothing. The golem just stood impotently at the wall.

“Alchemy take you, Vadd!” Kikka finally screamed. She spun, running away into the next room and leaving the enormous golem where it stood, not moving and certainly not engaging them in battle.

Beside Minkus, Penny shook her head, blinking at the sight. “Now I’m serious. Can anyone tell me what in Torment is happening right now?”

Minkus had no answer, and no one else responded. Jindel addressed Ventyr. “Sergeant, I don’t think we’re going to get a better chance to escape.”

She paused, waiting for his reply, but Ventyr only stared into the doorway, more through the golem than at it.

“I’m not leaving that woman with the weapons she has back there,” he finally said, moving toward the door. The sylvari extended his staff toward the shattered remains of his stone wall, and the pieces seemed to come alive at the gesture, rolling, fleeing from his path. “Follow me.”

 Without pause the norn was on his heels, the hammer back at his hip and his massive greatsword drawn out before him. A second later, Jindel followed, though more tentatively. Penny too was in motion before Minkus realized it.

Jinkke still knelt beside Yissa, several yards away. The scholar had started to stir, and though Minkus hadn’t sussed out the extent of her injuries yet, he knew she was in no shape for more of a fight.

He scanned the rest of the room, quickly spotting movement in the rubble toward the room’s entrance. Whatever that was, it wouldn’t be good. Away to Jinkke’s right, he also noted the erratic shadow of an asura cast by the light of a burning test cylinder. And nearer still was the low growl of an invisible stalker. Dangers remained throughout the room.

“Ventyr,” Minkus called, flushing urgency into the name.

The sylvari halted, casting a hard look back at him, past the three people following in his wake.

“Yissa can’t continue,” Minkus called, gesturing to the unconscious asura, “and we can’t leave Jinkke to protect her alone. The subjects—well, most of them—are still here.”

Ventyr looked to the doorway and then again back at Minkus. He was torn. Yult, Jindel, and Penny watched and waited, and beyond them, the hulking golem stood unmoving.

“He’s right, sir,” Jindel agreed. “She won’t make it alone.” Ventyr’s dim lines of bioluminescence flared as he inspected the young woman.

The sergeant’s callous expression gave Minkus pause. He flashed a glance from Ventyr to Penny and back again, recognizing a similarly dark air to each of them. It gave him a chill.

“Crusader Yult,” Ventyr commanded with a hot reluctance, “on with me. The rest of you, stay back. Defend the scholar, clear the room, and be ready to go.”

Fjornsson was the only one pleased with the order. Jindel obeyed, and Penny nearly barked a rebuttal before Ventyr cast his hard eyes on her. She acquiesced. Both returned toward Yissa, as Ventyr and Yult reached the broad doorway, paused cautiously, and lunged past the golem.

Its motors whined instantly to life, and it turned to pursue.

Minkus exchanged looks with all those gathered around him. Worry dressed Jinkke’s face, and Penny only gritted her teeth, guns in hand. Honestly, Minkus was surprised Penny had obeyed Ventyr’s order at all.

Exuding a sudden resolve, Jindel stepped past him, drawing her axes to a defensive posture against whatever remained in the room. “You’d better get her up and ready to go,” she said to Minkus. “I don’t think we’ll get much time.”

He nodded, pointing out all the places he’d noticed motion amid the debris. Jindel and Penny took opposite positions as Minkus knelt beside Jinkke and Yissa.

He inhaled deeply, allowing compassion to wash over him anew as air filled his lungs. The sense of restoration flowing through him was a welcome relief from their current circumstance. He could feel it pooling at his center, pushing to a peaceful overflow as he looked back down at Yissa again. She was waking now, but the darkly discolored bruises across her chest, shoulders, and arms told him that wakefulness might not be a welcome state.

“Minkus?” Yissa whispered, wincing. “What are you—” Her words trailed off into a pained groan through shallow breaths.

“Two o’clock,” Jindel hissed. Minkus couldn’t help himself, glancing up to see the woman set herself lower to the ground. He couldn’t see beyond the cylinder at Jinkke’s back, but he had a feeling Crusader Jindel was staring down those little figures from the entrance of the room.

“Yeah, I got a problem now myself,” Penny hissed. She checked her ammunition while tracking the motion of the deranged asura hopping toward them. “We could really use that rifle of yours, Smalls.”

Jinkke looked to Minkus, who nodded her toward the humans. “I can do this. They need you more.” She smiled nervously, kissing his forehead before rising to join the others.

“Any day now, Biggie,” Penny barked, firing the first shot.

“Yes— ah, yes,” Minkus mumbled, resetting his focus on the magic already fading out of him.

He opened himself more fully, laying one hand on each of Yissa’s shoulders. He only just saw her frightened eyes meet his again before he closed them, focusing on the sort of resonance his magic would send back to him as he returned to searching her body for injuries. He’d already begun a flow of general restoration, but for a more targeted healing, he had to know where he was going.

As he’d expected, the damage was centered beneath the bruising, and it was bad—perhaps not as bad as it could have been, but certainly not good. It felt like at least a broken collarbone and rib, probably among other fractures, and those breaks were putting a strain on her breathing.

Minkus held his eyes shut, trying to keep focus on her needs, but the sudden sounds of rabid animals and Jindel’s grunting attacks threatened to distract him again.

Behind him as well, Minkus heard the beginning of the conflict between Ventyr, Fjornsson, and the golem; unnatural rumbles of earth and wind set over heavy, mechanical footfalls came from the next chamber over. Everything around him seemed to be chaos once more, and in the back of his mind he knew that this was only the start. The longer they stayed in here, the more likely what awaited outside would come in upon them.

“Attempt to draw them away,” Jinkke called out.

Somehow the instruction meant for the others snapped Minkus back to his present task. He shut his eyes tight and focused. He had to hurry.