The odd long box, like the people, was behind a locked door in one of the lit rooms.
"The Bleachers are very dangerous." Rai agreed with Kavax as her hand hit the door frame. Eyes still closed, she felt her way up to standing before shakily stepping through next Amelia, and started to gasp like someone who had been drowning being brought onto dry land. She braced herself for a few moments as gulped and spluttered.
"Awkward, guess I can't take in that much yet." she shook her head, licked her lips and then opened her eyes, looking up at Amelia. The 'whites' of her brown eyes glowed a faint green which itched at Amelia's memory but nothing yet came through. "Thank you... I'll help get the others out, then I need to find my bondmates and the rest of what's left of my people here so we can go home, together, finally.
She wiped tears from her eyes and made her way to Jessica's door with awkward steps. Looking over the console, she became confused, "This door's unlocked - I thought I'd heard that so why isn't it... With a flick of her wrist, she raises shadows from the floor and with the next she flung them at the door with a hard bang that shook the door open. She waves the shadows away as she looks over the console. "Jessica, if you can follow my voice, your door is open. If I can figure out which ones turns down the lights, it'll be easier for you to see your way out. They've turned on so many things in your room - might be easier to try to overload it at this point, though I'd rather not while you're in there..."
Jessica paced. Her frustration was so great it was impossible to keep the Fury at bay. It railed at the indignity of capture and the inability to break free. To have to wait to be freed.
Jessica heard the voices of her friends, but nothing happened. She wanted to call out, but whatever she might say would sound like she was asking for help. To be saved. And the Fury could not abide that.
Rai's voice called out to her. The door was open? She didn't know if the wards created by the runes etched into the floor would still keep her imprisoned, but she had to try. Sword out, ash-wings flapping, she hurled herself at the barrier.
There is a crackle of energy as Jessica passes and breaks through the sigils in her box and out into the hallway.
Jessica now stands in a comparatively very dim passage way with a metal floor, fairly bare warehouse wall now with a large gash near where Kavax is standing. She can now see her cell was a very bare glass box, as are the boxes of most of the others that she'd been hearing.
"Great, now we can get Maren out. Rai gestures towards the person who had been on the other side of her box, who is siting as far back from the glass as possible, head down, face hidden by bright red hat and long green hair. Her awkward walk past Jessica and Amelia, she pushes the intercom button and in sing-song voice, "Maren, need to come this way towards the door." as she starts looking around the buttons on the console. The person in box waves Rai away with a sigh.
Eyes blazing and inhuman with condemnation, Jessica flicks her sword around which sends its flames dancing. She gives Kavax a glare, then shifts to a two-handed stance with her sword. "The Bleachers will pay for this," she mutters in a barely human voice.
"I presume that these 'bleachers' are the cretins running this place? For what purpose are they here, do either of you know?" Amelia eyed the battered door with moderate concern, and decided to make sure she had a brief flash or light spell in case the girl swung the shadow her way.
Rai glanced back over her shoulder to Jessica with a smile, "They'll regret running their experiments on us and ours,"[b] with a sharp edge to her voice, energized by Jessica's words.
She returned her attention to the console as she answered Amelia's question, [b]"I can't remember the proper name for them, but yeah, Bleachers kidnap or force summon people to experiment on - sometimes whole...sometimes not. Some talk about the rewards they get for us or our body parts, others about learning how to harness and combine the magic of people like us. Why here, I don't know, not sure where here is..."
A bolt slid open, [b]"Oh, the round blank buttons are connected to the locks - at least on Maren's not sure if they're all the same.[b] Rai continued unlocking the door.
Kavax finished unlocking the door, opened it, and then drew his sword and struck it through the binding circle to release the two dragonkin.
"So I suppose we're doing a full breakout here, huh? Certainly don't want to leave anyone in the hands of those kind of folks. Hopefully everyone here's reasonable."
"None should remain in there custody," Amelia agreed. "But that means if any are a danger then we must take responsibility for them."
"Mortal, you overestimate yourself to think you are responsible for one such as I," Androleteira rasps.
She immediately looks away, squeezing her eyes shut. "Stop it, stop it, stop it," Jessica repeats to herself. After a few seconds she manages a bit of self control. "Sorry. It's just that... they've pissed me off." Her eyes remain burning pits of condemnation, and her terrible wings flap in agitation.
Bleachers?
Carlos was unsure about what was going on, but he knew he didn't want to watch people get experimented on.
"We should get out of here. How many people are trapped in this place? And why?" He really wanted to know, but ultimately the safety of those inside were more important.
"Jessica, how are you feeling? They do anything to do?" He saw the eyes on her and didn't get close, who knew what she was going to do.
"They summoned me without purpose and kept me locked behind a runic circle but otherwise I'm okay," she replies, her voice wavering between Jessica's and the Fury's.
Rai and the "Kimaris butt-kisser" smiled at Androleteira's response, the shadows around Rai rolled and hummed for a few moments, "There's no need to apologize Jessica, it's understandable." Rai again used her shadows to open Maren's door.
The dragonkin looked at each other. With a bare nod between them, they moved to follow Kavax out of their cell.
Maren rose slowly. A pale curvy woman, she walked to the doorway and leaned against the frame, arms crossed, not stepping onto the metal walkway. She watched as Rai practically bounced past to the next cell.
Rai looked over the console for a moment, before she carefully picked her words for Carlos, "Bleachers have been taking people for years and have places all over. Here, now, there is just Jessica, Maren, Kimmsie... she made a noise much like a hiss, then a growl, "and Boxie. There used to be a lot more, Jessica's cell used to have several werewolves before the last few were pulled either as they weren't efficient or they were worried about pissing off one of their competitors and they repainted and enchanted the place. I arrived with more than a dozen other Bedimms, but we've been whittled down by them.
Maren was terse, "For someone who hates Bleachers, you keep taking them at their word.
Rai glared at Maren for a moment, then turned the other way to the dragonkin and Kavax, "Can you help Boxie - someone has to lift them out of the box, might need cracking to get open. They're not connected to the box so it shouldn't hurt them. I don't think..."
She smacked the intercom button and starts to unlock the next cell, "You want out with unstable little me, Kimmsie?
A warm chuckle, "Your nicknames are getting more cutsie, child."
"Did you prefer Kimaris butt-kisser? Demgel? Angon? Contralto? Fuzzy shape #666?"
A barking laugh "Very teenage human response. Not quite a Bedimm yet. Now try asking for what you actually want..."
"Rai..." Maren low voice.
"Story goes, your master is meant to help find lost treasures, make people better fighters, and a bunch of other things. Can...Will you help? Find the others and get us all out? Or are you going to zip out once the sigils around the doors break?
"Normally humans offer things for such services..."
Splitting his attention between what's happening outside, and what he can hear inside, Jerry calls from near the outside wall, "We're here to get Jessica. We've done that, so anything else is incidental. If they don't want to help out in their own escape, move on."
Part of Jessica tried to follow the conversation between the other captives, but it was hard to focus past her immediate desire for vengeance. The human part of her tried to feel alarmed at the inhuman creatures that were about to be unleashed, but that, too, felt almost trivial.
Hearing her summ-- Jerry's voice settles her somewhat. Her anger still burned, but she tries to focus it so that she didn't feel like lashing out at everything. A truckle of reason enters her thoughts. "If we don't stop them, they'll resume their experiments. We can't just move on."
Jerry enters the area where the others are. "They'll put you all right back -- and the rest of us, too -- if we don't move."
"They may try," Amelia responded serenely. "Such rarely goes as well as one might dream, but from what the foolish ones outside said, they wish to create...drama, to catch the eye of the masses with spectable. It is perhaps possible that this is what they wish, for all to be broken free and to respond in spectacular fashion. Be wary and aware of such."
Turning to the freed creatures, she jerked her chin towards the door of the still sealed door. "Alas, I know not the words and names you have used to describe this one. Can you tell us what he is, and what might be the dangers of letting him free?"
Maren nodded in agreement with Jerry, with a pointed look to Rai.
Amelia's question was answered by the specimen in question, approaching the glass, "Her "Kimaris butt kisser" was the most accurate. Kimaris is one humans have argued whether to classify as an angel or demon or divine helpful spirit or what since well before I was around to... join their service. One only as dangerous as anything unknowable to mortals."
"Such services require payment the child cannot provide, and her fears run along the wisdom from the gentleman outside, for good reason, she's seen previous attempts. I'm not fool enough they'll appropriately compensate me anymore than they have an appropriate purpose for your winged friend, but the child is a child, somehow already more than thrice bound--"
"Can't you just do it for fun? Or revenge?" Rai sighed.
"You don' know what my ideas of fun or revenge are. Be grateful I'm not taking advantage of your human recklessness."
Rai pushed the last button, staring at her hands. "It's unlocked.". She looked over towards the box.
Kavax considered the goings-on. The dragonkin felt... familiar. He'd probably remember something about them sooner or later. The rest he was less certain of, though he could make some guesses.
"Hmm... Hey, what kind of compensation are you asking for, anyway? Because with what's been said... is it one of those magic things where the deal is part of the magic? Eh, either way, these Bleachers sound like trouble. The kind of trouble where maybe I'm going to end up having to have a talk with them where I tell them that they can either stop on their own, or I end up killing them all. Because I'd rather stop there than have to kill them all, and everyone tangentially related to them, and flatten every building they ever set foot in, and then light it all on fire."
"Lets do our best to not kill anyone, and one of the best ways to do so is get out of here." He looked at Jerry, "He has the right of it."
Jerry glances over his shoulder in the direction of the hole Kavax tore in the wall. Thinking of the flamethrowers and the drones and over-sized monsters in the parking lot, he asks "Does anyone know of another way out of this building? I can make a break for my truck, come around to pick anyone up who needs a lift, and get out of here."
Jessica gives Jerry a look that clearly states she doesn't need a lift. Then her expression changes to a slightly questioning one. "What's with all the crashing and shaking? What's going on outside?"
"Large creatures outdoors, being herded with firewands of some kind." Nodding to Jerry, she queeried, "Will your vehicle be large enough, or shall we acquire more?"
"If we can manage to find another vehicle, that would be a good idea. But if not, I can at least get people away from here in the bed of my truck.
"I'm a very safe driver." Jerry is glad that Zeke isn't around on this mission.
"Safe driving or not, we're kind of limited in our options."
He wanted to move somewhere quiet, somewhere where he could gather his thoughts before considering the ramifications of these people and their meddling.
"'Firewands?'" Jessica asks, glancing at her own sword still in hand with its flames dancing up and down the blade.
She sets her jaw, not liking the talk of running. "Whatever. Are we going to fight these bleachers? Or are you running away?"
"I fear the answer shall be 'both', but the first task is to remove the innocent, the wounded and the non-combative from this place and to one of safety." Amelia paused. "And yes, devices that spurted flames from the end. The men wore suits of metal fabric to protects themselves from the heat."
"She means 'flamethrowers,'" Jerry explains. "Is there a backdoor, or are we fighting our way out the front?"
Kavax snorted as he thought.
"Well, I'm not really afraid of flamethrowers, if we need to deal with them... but I'm much more concerned about the fact that this has been... too easy. Why isn't this place even guarded? It's almost like they want the prisoners to escape. I'd stay on watch for traps or trickery. That said, I'm not for leaving a bunch of prisoners in the hands of these Bleacher folks."
Kavax also went to investigate the room with the box in it if it hadn't been opened yet.
Jessica looks up. "I thought I saw some walkways earlier, but I don't know where they go."
If the walkways she sensed earlier are there are open to the lower area, she spreads her wings and flies up to them, vaulting over the railing.
"I believe they wish to create exposure on the a paranormal, indeed," Amelia agreed with Kavax. "Now, in my day a warehouse had a place for the loading and unloading of goods to a vehicle. If one is to be found then that seems the likely place." She had no idea where such a place might be, of course...
The metal metalway the hunters are on goes to doors on either end. There is also a walkway above at the same level at the lights. It takes a bit of finding, but Jessica finds her way up there. The hum of generators is louder, and there are toolboxes and random bits left on the floor. There are doors on either side of the walkway.
The dragonkin go in with Kavax into the last room. There is a large long old wooden box. There are loops for locks on the box, but the locks aren't on it. There are shipping stickers on it in various languages.
Rae turned at the mention of flamethrowers, fear and rage, "They're out there? Right now? With those--" She moves but is grabbed by Maren who pulls the Bedimm towards her door - and the well lit room beyond.
Maren sighed, "We've heard metal shuttered over beyond the last cell She gestured past where Kavax is. That's where they bring in supplies and caught groups. They mainly use white vans, but they have trucks for all the equipment, and sometimes for their 'hunts' -- they've attached those flame throwers, nets, all sorts for those. What's there now... She shrugged, her grip tightening on Rae.
Amelia's eyes lit up at the idea of acquiring a truck with such equipment. She couldn't drive it - the arcane rituals and motions required had yet to be one of the things she had learned - but the weapons looked no more difficult than a crossbow or flintlock. "What do you know of the giants being fought outside?" she asked, her mind being pulled back to the task at hand.
Carlos listens to Jessica's confusion, "Flamethrowers of some variety, though I don't know if they technically use sticky chemicals or not."
The hunter moves toward Rae, "Why are you so worried about flamethrowers? I mean outside of the damage they would normally do?" He needed more information to untangle this mess, and was hoping to get it through a little bit of subtlety.
"Giants?" It took Carlos a moment to recognize what Amelia was saying, it was not an easy task for someone who quite literally could be seeing giants and beanstalks.
Casually slashing out with her sword to damage the lights, Jessica strides toward the door that leads in the direction that she believes the Bleachers' Major went.
"Alright, before we move out, I'm going to see why the Bleachers put a box in a holding cell."
Kavax pried the long box open to view its contents, though he would move to catch up with the others soon enough.
Rae didn't fight against Maren's grip, though stepped back as Carlos stepped towards her, her fear and rage still there as she looked up at him, "What do you think they hunted me, my bondmates, my friends down with? Try being in a forest with those things, or back home where they bleach the ground with them..."
Maren considered Rae before briefly answering Amelia's question, "Sounds like the failures." before she pushed a confused Rae towards the door beyond Kavax, kicking the still closed door of as she went past. It cracked a bit and some of the sigils in the room changed colours which made the person inside chuckle briefly.
Kavax easily gets the box open and sees placing for several items, but all that's left in the box is a large sword in a purpose-build cutout.
Through the gaps in the metal walkway, Jessica can see Rae and Maren going one direction and heard what Maren had said about trucks and other equipment. If the Major was still in the building, it would be reasonable that they would likely be with important tech - and if not, such tech could be the best way to find them.
Jessica groans in frustration; she still wanted -- no, needed -- to do violence, and the delays weren't helping. She goes in the same direction that Rae and Maren are going, if the upper walkway goes in that direction.
With no better plan Amelia followed the two women, assuming they had some idea where they were going.
Kavax's eyes narrow in distant recollection as he looks into the box. "I know this. Certainly not leaving it in the hands of these madfolk. I'll have to find someone who's right to use it."
He pulled the item out of the box, revealing a hefty six-foot long greatsword, obsidian black in color, with the same kind of reflective sheen, and a distinct curve to it. A closer look showed that the blade was in fact made of a single, massive tooth, naturally sharp and serrated on the inside of the curve, and artificially sharpened to a razor's edge on the other side, with a relatively simple and very robust-looking hilt somehow fused to the root. Those attuned to such things could sense potent destructive magics woven into its form... or perhaps naturally imbued into the fang that was its material.
What might be really worrying is the implications of a creature with six-foot long teeth. And that somebody made a sword out one of them.
The Dragon-Fang Greatsword thus retrieved, Kavax went to follow the others. Perhaps it would call to one of them, perhaps not.
Carlos wasn't sure where to go, but he waited for Kavax to come back out.
It didn't take long until he saw the six-foot long weapon, he didn't know how he knew it was six-feet, but he knew it was smaller than Kavax but taller than him. "What in the world's is that?" He was wary to approach much closer to it, feeling the ebb and flow of energy from Kavax, "And why was it in a box?"
The hunter could probably figure it out with time, but he had no luxury with that here.
"Obviously it is a sword of some sort... But I'm assuming that because you know what it is, that isn't a good sign."
While the others are heading out the back, Jerry makes a break out the front for his truck. If he makes it, he tries to find a way around to the back of the warehouse.
"Old story short? It's my right-front fang. A previous incarnation of me, anyway. Forged into a semi-intelligent empathic weapon that will now be seeking for a Wielder to bring under my banner to use it. That it is here is worrying. Along with these two dragonkin here, who I don't quite remember but can tell are... relatives of a sort. Though some of it, combined with Jessica over there, just shows that the Bleachers really might as well have been reading down a list of 'what can we summon that will horribly murder us when it inevitably breaks containment?' and calling up everything on it."
"Wielder? So you're saying that the harbinger has a harbinger?" He was trying to make small talk, but as he kept walking he kept remembering what Kavax was. It didn't make him worse or anything, but it made him... More aware of what was at stake.
Hearing about the summons worried him, "What could they be summoning then? I really hope they aren't just drawing names out of a hat."
Kavax snorted, a small whiff of steam exiting his nostrils.
"Oh, yeah, I've got tons. Usually I'm one of the very last ones to show up, actually. There's at least five more of these weapons made out of my body parts lying around somewhere or another for one thing. And an indeterminate but large number of lesser dragonkin. A few other odds and ends as well."
He then shrugged, jaded to his own nature. "As for what they're trying to do here? It kind of looks like they're trying to cause a catastrophic incident of some kind or another. Only reason I can think of to stick a bunch of dangerous creatures who do not appreciate being confined in a bunch of cells with frankly rather poor security. Plus the whole 'driving monsters towards the road' thing."
There was no warning, no way to know it was coming. Only a dot in the distance that went from nothing to death in mere seconds.
The first wave of fire was preceded by the roar of a fighter zooming overhead, the building engulfed in a wave of flame like water. It was beautiful, in it's way, orange flickering to bright reds and golds as the fire began to flow into any open entryways, slowly consuming the building. The layer of destruction sat on top of the building too, the ceiling of the warehouse beginning to glow the unsettling cherry red of heating metal.
As the building groaned out its death, thin metal giving up the fight against chemically enhanced fire that stuck to it like glue, a figure appeared in the midst of the hunters and the creature they had recused. it is covered in loose robes that leave it's head bare and holds a thick tome in one gloved hand.
It looked old, at first glance, but a moment's study revealed the truth - its age and gender was indeterminate under scars, dozens of layers of grotesque, disfiguring injuries. Jennifer, especially, feels horribly unsettled by the figure. Androleteira especially recoils.
"Tsk," a masculine voice croaks out. "This is not at all according to the script. Still, with a little editing, it can be saved." Holding up the book it flows open, pages of fine silver flickering until the settle on a page coated in fine, dense writing. With a flicker, the world vanishes.
----
Moments pass. Minutes pass. Days pass. Years pass. The stars and moons burn out and die. Planets crack, shatter, crumble and are reborn. Suns burn to embers, collapse, and burst back into atomic life and fury.
Time flickers, and the hunters are in the cold desert at night, there equipment, vehicles and Kavax's new allies sitting around them. "There. Better." The scarred figure turns empty eye sockets on the hunters, nodding in satisfaction and snapping the tome shut. "Since the fault is with those I know, allow me to make recompense: a question a piece. Genie rules, of course - don't ask me if you can sit unless you really, really want my blessing. And an answer for free - no, I am not an actual genie. Just well read."
Jessica looks around wildly, holding her flaming sword up at the ready. She blinks at the grotesque figure and opens her mouth to ask, what the hell just happened? but nothing comes out. Something inside her stops herself from blurting out an inane question and wasting this opportunity.
A bunch of questions immediately spring to mind and whirl around her brain, so she shuts her mouth tight before anything slips out. Questions like, where are we? and what was that with the fire? are immediately discarded. Where she happens to be doesn't matter so much given her ability to be somewhere else if she chooses, and what happened at the warehouse could probably be figured out.
The question Jessica kept coming back to is, who are you? However, her instinctual reaction to this being is making her pause. She's not entirely certain she wants to know.
She looks at Jerry and then back to the robed figure. "I don't really understand."
"Then it is probably a good thing that your part in this situation does not require understanding, only action," the disfigured man replied sardonically, although he seemed somewhat wary of the angel-host.