Chapter 5: Band of Misfits (1)

It took him some time to fully realize where he was, what had happened and more importantly, who was speaking to him. Several Seekers surrounded him. He could count four of them, but he had heard a fifth voice at some point. He couldn't see anyone else at the moment, however.

Their gait made their profession reasonably obvious, as none of them even remotely looked or acted like civilians. They appeared to be the rest of Hojosa's merry band. They had arrived surprisingly fast contrarily to what the mage believed. Speaking of mages, Seneos noted with mute shock that three of the four individuals he could see around him were mages themselves. Their staves made it quite obvious.

Seneos had some obscure memory at the bottom of his mind telling him that mages using staves had a very specific name, but he couldn't quite place it. He might have had a concussion, it would certainly explain why everything was spinning. He felt two hands push against his cheeks and was forced to look to his right. A fairly young-looking beauty met his eyes as she inspected his face, moving it from left to right, up and down.

"Can you hear me, sir?" She asked, and if her face hadn't given him an idea of her age, her voice certainly sufficed. She looked and sounded far too innocent to be in this place, at this time. Even he did not look that way. Oh certainly he did not have the look of a veteran, but something about his depressive behaviour and his soulless eyes gave away the number of horrors he had seen in his short career.

He had no more time to focus on her face, however, as he had to answer her lest she started to think he was still unconscious.

"I can hear you l-loud and.....Ugh, clear. My head is still buzzing a bit, sorry." He apologized with as smooth as a smile he could muster. No need to look more pathetic than needed in front of them. He still had to somehow save face if he wanted a recommendation later on. His uselessness up until this point had already significantly reduced his chances. But this group seemed far less uptight than the Sleepers he was used to. Perhaps they would give him a chance. Or perhaps he would fail and just go back to drinking as he always did. As of this moment, the buzzing in his ears told him that this was a highly moronic idea.

"Alright, we have already sent someone inside the beacon to help Hojosa, no need to worry about him, sir. I need you to remain here and apply this liquid to your forehead to heal the damage done to your brain. "

He saw her move away from him and add another part for her teammates as she thought he couldn't hear her from there.

"The explosion did a number on him. Hojosa went way too far, and I have a feeling that he didn't take our aide's rank into consideration." She whispered to the Sleeper who appeared to be the leader of the group. A handsome face, slick black hair and sharp eyes, were all the clues Seneos needed to gather. He was certainly the most dignified member of the group and his equipment was laughably in a class of its own compared to what the rest wore. The healer that had taken care of Seneos could pass as a civilian if she removed her only piece of actual armour, that being the coat she wore over her shoulders upon which were embroidered several unknown glyphs.

The apparent leader, however, was draped in fine clothes, a mix of white and black topped with a circlet over his forehead. He was wearing a three-piece suit, giving away his preference for image over actual protection. It was far easier to make good equipment out of actual armours, rather than everyday pieces of clothing.

Unfortunately, Seneos seemed to have missed a bit of conversation while he was busy bubbling in jealousy over the much more expensive and useful equipment everyone around him had. As he focused once more on what was happening with the group, he admonished himself for thinking that if they ended up dying, he could take away all that made him green in envy. As if he would be able to survive whatever could kill them.

He listened intently to what the mountain of a man behind said while rubbing on his forehead, the blue liquid that the healer had given him. He could tell that it was some sort of booster turned into an applicable gel. It was thicker than the content of a booster but had the exact same colour.

"My proposition is that we go in, save that dumbass' life and carry on with the mission. I'm not waiting for Hojosa to recover, I don't care. It's his punishment for disobeying." The buffalo in human form exclaimed, only to receive groans as answers.

"As if you would have actually obeyed yourself. You are simply disappointed that he started without you. Don't think I can't read you, Big Bear." One of the three mages drawled out. This one was clearly more experienced than the rest, and quite older too. She looked just as old as the leader, while the other members of the group, Hojosa included, seemed to be in their twenties. She possessed a beauty he had not seen in any woman but Jeol herself. However, she lacked the aloof coldness of the one friend he still had on this earth. She reminded him of a teacher he once had, not that he could remember the person all that well. His childhood memories had been hazy at best for a long time. But he could distinctly remember a woman that held the same charms as the one before him. 

Yet he was certain that this person he had once known couldn't have been as....Exotic, as the mage was. Black hair, golden lipstick and a robe with a very deep cleavage served to anchor in Seneos' mind just how right Hojosa had been a few minutes prior to their fight with the wolves. 

"Yeah, that's exactly it. Congratulation on having noticed, now are we going in or what? I certainly ain't waiting for Hae-Yun to come out anyway." 

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Seneos finally felt the pain in his body subside as he pushed on his legs and met the gaze of the group's warrior. 

"I'm going with you. I pretty much did nothing while Hojosa protected me, so I'm not going to wait just because of some little injuries." He offered with a small smirk. He had to act tough, he always had to. Perhaps this time he had acted tough at the wrong moment. A small lapse in judgement, really. 

He already regretted his words when the giant simply clasped a thick hand on his shoulder and grinned toothily. 

"Good. I'm Ben Hwang, but you can call me Big Bear. Now, we kick asses. Hojosa and the twig should have come out already, so something went wrong inside. And when something goes wrong....." He moved his head closer to Seneos'. " I get all excited, that I do!" 

And so the small lapse in judgement saw Seneos getting dragged once more inside of the beacon. He could only hope that the others would follow. Then again this time he was entering with someone far more suited to fighting large groups, and in close combat at that. And the giant seemed to have a brain, small as it may be proportionally to the rest of his body. 

Seneos stopped the chuckle that threatened to escape his mouth at the thought and simply followed Big Bear. The smell of burnt flesh immediately assaulted him once he went through the beacon. But that was to be expected when looking at the carnage that had resulted from the fiery Sleeper getting a bit more serious. 

The wolves had been reduced to steaming pastes on the floor, and yet Hojosa was nowhere to be seen, as was the last member of the group who had supposedly been sent to retrieve the mage. 

"Well, I'll be damned. You know, that might be why I love this guy so much. He just can't restrain himself." Big Bear snickered like a child before noticing the distinct lack of any other life forms in the vicinity. 

"Huh, strange. I don't remember there being a passage here." Seneos remarked as he looked at an odd corridor to his left. The room had been devoid of any doors except for the ones at the very back and lacked any forms of windows or openings in the walls. Yet a corridor had just appeared out of nowhere. 

"A hidden passage...Just like a dungeon, hehe. And our demure boss is again going to comment on how we can't treat this shit like a game, but he obviously never played any if he can't see the fucking resemblance. I'm telling you, man, it's a bit scary even." Big Bear commented while moving towards the corridor. He had apparently decided that Hojosa must have left through the opening, and Seneos was happy with just following behind. 

"What do you mean by that?" He could not help but ask. He never really liked being around other Sleepers without engaging in conversations. It was not a natural reaction, but rather a habit he made sure to cultivate. He had previously been deemed quite odd and chilling even, as he accomplished his missions while remaining completely silent and devoid of any emotions. Apparently, it made working with him an unbearable experience. 

"Well, you know. The nightmares are all somehow creatures that we have imagined or some shit like that, right?" Big Bear scratched his head and remained silent until they reached the end of the corridor and found a long set of stairs stretching towards what looked like the surface. " A perfect threat shaped by humanity's own imagination, that's what they say in school. I mean I skipped most classes to become a Sleeper, but I still remember this. And then, the beacons themselves look like they come from games or some fantastical story. I'm telling you, man, It's creepy. " 

Seneos simply took this information in a silence of his own, having already remarked the same things. Not that Big Bear and him were there only ones to have seen that. Decades after the appearance of the beacons, Humanity could not make head or tail of this puzzle. Seneos preferred to let the rest of Humanity deal with the theories. He would rather deal with what he was already on his plate than try to understand what was even going on. All that he needed to know was that the world was a much better place now, and that was it.

Oh certainly, few would agree with him, but he couldn't care less. If he was called weird because of that, he would agree and move on. He could understand why barely anyone thought like him, but above all else, he needed a purpose in life, as well as an outlet for what he held inside of him.

The beacons and the nightmares they contained, had all of that in spades for him.

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