Chapter 91: 91: The Broken Tunnel

The-female-who-was-not-Needle turned and made noises at the Staring One; he was doing what he did best: staring. Hopefully listening, too. We were running out of time.

“This isn’t a vision of the future, sir. It’s something that is happening right now. One of the Guards must have taken a Totem with them; it wouldn’t be the first time that the Little Guardian was attracted to a Totem-bearer in need. Though I have to say, it looks like they have even more effects than we thought, if he can show us something like this,” not-Needle said. “Worth noting.”

“I didn’t see any indication of where we could find them, though. They could be trapped in any of the nearby tunnels,” the Staring One responded. I was really regretting that the giant Coreless wasn’t holding onto a Totem. It would have made finding out if he was going to take me to my trapped Coreless far easier. Instead, I settled for slithering towards the one Coreless that was certain to have some understanding of what was going on.

“I think the little guy knows, not that he can tell us. Still, I can probably -” she cut herself off with a startled yelp as I leapt off of the slab of darkwood that I had been resting on, sticking to her ore-flesh with an application of [Clinging Grasp] before working my way back to my customary perch. “Well, looks like I don’t need to grab him; he’s ready to go. It’s probably best to just take him out of Orken and see where he leads us from there.” The-female-who-was-not-Needle turned her head towards the moving-wall that marked the nest’s exit, slipping the Totem she held around her neck. It fell against her skin of ore-flesh, taking away the emotion-sense I had of her the moment it lost contact with her natural flesh.

The Staring One nodded towards the other Coreless of the nest. “Councilmen and Councilwomen, I apologize for the inconvenience. We will have to reconvene after this has been handled.”

“Of course, Captain Wren. And if those Guardsmen really are in trouble right now as your Seeker suspects, I think we’ll have something new to discuss.”

“That we will.” I turned to watch as the Staring One swept up the few Totems that remained free of bearers. The moment that his fingers touched a Totem, I felt a powerful thought-hiss of emotion; a mix of negatives and positives, of worry and fear mixed with determination and promise, all bound up within a casing of iron-clad will.

[RESOLVE]

“I’ll be taking these for now. If some of those Guards are as injured as they appeared to be, a calming aura might be the thin barrier that stands between themselves and panic.” He made a slightly pained noise. “May have to amputate that leg, if it’s bad enough.”

A few of the other Coreless paled. Maybe they all did, but I couldn’t see very far past the Staring One with the nest’s lack of light. He turned to follow as the-female-who-was-not-Needle swept past him, trailing us past the moving-wall and out into the open air of the many-nest. He sighed, exhaling a deep breath of air. “You’re faster than me, Valera, and that might mean the difference here. Mark the tunnels that you end up taking; I’ll see about gathering up some men so that we can dig out and bring back the wounded. Hopefully, some of the other Seekers are back from their hunts by now. If not, we’ll make do with what I can get. Go.”

“Sir,” not-Needle nodded and looked towards the many-nest’s edge, where I knew the not-sinks waited for us. Her muscles tensed. I gripped tight, reapplying [Clinging Grasp] just in case.

A moment later, as the world began to blur by, I was thankful that we did.

===

As frustrating as communicating with the Coreless had been, being carried by the-female-who-was-not-Needle more than made up for the wasted time. She dashed through tunnels on long limbs and fast feet; occasionally, she would be forced to slow down at a split in the tunnels, unsure where to go. When that happened, I would use [Illusion Spark] to flash a light in the right direction. She would mark something on the wall for a moment, and we would be off.

With that in mind, it didn’t take long to get close enough to see the broken tunnel.

“Shit.”

Not-Needle threw herself down at the base of the rubble that blocked the tunnel, fingers desperately searching for a way through; a stone that could be shifted, a rock that could be removed. She found none.

“Fuck!”

I didn’t need a Totem to sense her frustration.

“...is someone out there? Please; Oh Skies above, is someone actually out there?” a voice spilled through the cracks in the barrier, muffled and only barely audible. There was a crash somewhere on the other side, far louder than the voice had been. An agonized scream followed, worming through the cracks.

The sound seemed to energize not-Needle; she scraped and scoured at the stones with a renewed desperation, searching for anywhere that would give.

“Hold on!” she shouted, heedless of the way that the noise bounced around in the tunnel. “We’ll get you out of there!”

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She wedged a fang between two stones, using her weight in an attempt to leverage them apart. For a moment, the stones held - until, at last, there was movement. The space between the fallen stones widened.

Barely anything; a space that was only large enough for a few of the Coreless’ giant fingers.

It was more than enough for me. I slipped through, leaving the-female-who-was-not-Needle behind so that she could continue to work at the stones. I didn’t have a way to shift them. My job was different.

The world behind the wall of stone was much like what I had already seen. There was the corpse of a bad-thing; giant and crushed, yet still somehow intimidating. There was the injured Coreless, one with a leg crushed beneath fallen stone, while others suffered from their own scrapes and bruises. There was the vibrating wall, cracking from the strain of holding back the bad-things that threw themselves against it, causing dust to filter down to the floor.

And then, finally, there was my Coreless.

She was easy to find. Even if I hadn’t followed the Totem to her, hadn’t seen it strung around her neck, I would have recognized her. I would have recognized her by the way that she looked at me.

It was the same look that my tiny Coreless gave me each time I came for them, the one that inevitably sent their fingers questing towards a [Little Guardian’s Totem]. I sunk my fangs into the connection, sensing hints of her emotions through the Totem.

[relief/wonder/hope]

“Are you…” she said, trembling. “Are you the Little Guardian that Anna mentioned? It was true? Is this real?”

[hesitance/worry/fear]

My Coreless always seemed shocked the first time; as if, though they saw me, they still couldn’t believe that I had come.

It was probably pointless. I didn’t know what the sounds meant, and there was no real reason to suffer the pain of forming them - but some of those noises seemed familiar. I heard it often, spilling from the lips of my tiny Coreless, nearly every time they looked at me. The same ones that I had heard when she was nothing but terror, panic, and desperation.

And so, despite the pain, I did it anyway. It didn’t cost mana, or light, or anything else that I truly needed. It cost me nothing more than some pounding in my head-scales.

I hissed, drawing on [Sound Shaping] one more time, hoping that the sounds that I was making would be the ones she needed to hear. The pain spiked. The noise warped.

“If the stories are real, please save us. Please find us, Little Guardian,” the Coreless’ own voice seemed to say.

She froze, palming her Totem with both hands now, causing it to sing with her raging emotions.

[RELIEF/WONDER/HOPE]

The stone beside me vibrated again, cracking slightly under the force applied against it. I turned, hissing all the while. Though it had worked, doing that had been stupid. Painful.

My head-scales pounded, and the racket of the bad-things was only making it worse, causing my anger to spike. It made me want to sink my fangs into their flesh; to do anything that might stop the constant crashing against the walls. That was fine, I guessed. They had tried to steal one of my Coreless from me; I would need to deal with them anyway.

I found a gap in the wall; barely anything, really.

It was more than enough for me.

I slipped through.

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