I Was Legend ((Closed))

[Letho]

The wasteland was a monotonous sight to behold after a sandstorm. The dull gray of the sand was everywhere, painted over the world by the harsh winds that whipped the land like a slave driver on a bad day. The horizon was blurred out of vision by the smooth particles that still hung in the air after the storm had passed and the land sank into the dead calm. Even the sky, that faded blue constant that housed the blistering sun, submitted to the general theme of the destroyed world of Althanas. There were no sounds to be heard, no birds chirping in the trees and no trees to offer shelter to the birds, no travelers on the roads and no roads to travel on, no creeks bubbling and no water in the river beds. That was the reality of today, harsh, bitter, desolate. Lifeless.

Well, perhaps not completely lifeless.

On one of the sandy hillocks, in a land covered with deteriorating sand dunes and dead vegetation, a gas engine was rumbling irregularly, coughing like an old lady with terminal lung cancer. The jeep it powered was a rather pitiful contraption, assembled from so many different parts that none of them seemed to fit the right way. Then again, that wasn’t a surprise given the fact that the roadster was an original creation of its owner, the spunky redhead that sat behind the wheel. None of her hair was currently visible, though. Driving through the sandstorm was even worse than walking through one, and the only chance one had to survive the sandy onslaught was to wear an environmental suit. Made from flexible carbon fibers, the full-body attire looked like a really tight and really dusty leather outfit, but the protection it provided was significantly better. Getting one nowadays, though... Chances were you had to either kill or rob someone for one. Oftentimes both.

With the sandstorm subsiding and the line of sight expanding by the second, Lorelei stood up from the driver’s seat and gazed into the distance. Nothing. Not even when she wiped off the sand from the eyes on her mask and strained her brown eyes. A miniature sandy whirlwind here, a dune there, but little else. Definitely no fences with barbed wire and no facilities behind it. It seemed this venture would be another waste of gas.

“There’s nothing there,” she said, her voice distorted by the filters in her mask. There was a touch of irritation in her voice, the kind that made her frown deeply and reminded her why she should trust no one. The kind that those around her knew quite well by now. Three were with her today, each in their own usual seat, each wrapped in their own set of thoughts. And even though she never considered them friends, right now they were the closest thing she ever had to a family. But that wasn’t uncommon in this day and age. Families were something you chose, something that came and went unlike in the olden days.

“That bastard sent us on a wild goose chase,” Lori continued in the same tone, plopping back into the bumpy seat of her buggy and setting her foot on the gas just enough to keep the engine alive. She checked the fuel gauge, then the clock behind the broken glass on what might’ve been the dashboard of an ancient car and then back into the wasteland. “Sealed research facility. Yeah, right. And maybe the lost ruins of Ettermire are out there as well, just waiting for us to...”

The sassy girl fell silent as her eyes caught a glimpse of something to the right of their current position. Something that looked like a huge skyscraper... No, not a skyscraper. Not enough windows. It was a concrete silo, the kind that was used to store grain back in the day when there was still enough fertile soil to produce such large quantities of food. As the weather kept clearing up, it unraveled more of the complex: hangars with broken windows and decrepit roofs, offering glimpses of rusty machinery; broken down connecting bridges between the towering silos; remnants of emergency ladders that spiraled around the constructs. But even though it was an interesting sight – and pretty much anything is an interesting sight in the wasteland – it wasn’t what Lorelei wanted to see.

“Great. No research facility, but we can get a tractor running and start working in agriculture instead of scavenging. Some tip. We’re getting out of here.” She pushed the clutch twice, lightly at first and the second time all the way before she put the shifter into first gear.

[Karuka]

"Lori. Stop and let me look."

Ashling had slept for most of the journey; sand storms were boring and when she was bored she tended to "peer." Seeing the past wind its way back through time immemorial produced images as much disturbing as useful...and in most cases, looking into the past only served to make her melancholy. The women in her line had been clairvoyant from time immemorial, but the gift tended to differ from mother to daughter. However, as far as she knew, her gift was unique. She'd never, not even once, seen the future. But who cared about that when the future was so bleak?

As the jeep sputtered to a stop and Lori grumbled about...who cared what Lori was grumbling about? Ash stood up, lifted the helmet off her suit, and looked at the vast building in front of them. For a moment, her eyes went unfocused, and time around the structure flowed backwards in her mind's eye. Ghosts of yesteryear floated before her eyes, looking for all the world like a holovid running in reverse. They walked, and worked, and...

"Agriculture, huh? Some agriculture...I'd say that the silo is just a cover up, Lori."

She blinked, bringing her focus back to the present, tapping her fingers slowly over the "oh shit we're gonna die" rail while trying to make sense of what she had seen. While to modern eyes, the area looked like an old-style farm...what she'd seen of the past had only little more vegetation than the area now.

"H'mm...my mother told me once that her mother told her that when this whole world started going to hell...some enterprising scientists thought that by reviving the great heroes of the past, the woes of the present might be solved. Experiments to clone them from bone marrow and tooth DNA failed, however...damn, why is it so hot here?!"

She plopped back down in her seat, rubbing sweat off her beaten-brown skin and into her braided black hair. The guys didn't really so much as bat an eyelash, they'd all gotten used to most of each others' idiosyncrasies. Really, she was cursing the fact that it was so hard to explain all this history stuff.

"I think this is the place where the second phase of experiments started...the attempt to find descendants of such heroes and reconstruct them from that. However...most of the subjects were failures, and eventually, when things started getting worse, the project was abandoned."

She shrugged, dropping the helmet to the jeep's cluttered floor and leaning forward, crossing her arms on her red-headed companion's back rest. "Even if we can't do the experiment, I think, if we go in and start looking underground, we can find equipment we can use."

She pursed her lips. "And I am getting right at the point where I'd make up something to get out and stretch my legs, because my butt really hurts right about now."

[Saxon]

Sitting in the back of the rusty jeep, Ian slipped his bowie knife back into its sheath as he blew the dust off the nails of his other hand. Glancing passively towards the silos that stood in the distance, the young man had shown little interest in it at all. There was no reason to get into a huff about such things, for with the company he kept he was bound to stumble onto something anyway. Generally, Ian had made it a practice to stay out of the way of those he traveled with. Especially when it came to travel destinations, because there was no way of telling what there had been and what there could be just beyond the next rise. Let them do the heavy lifting with decisions about our lives, he had thought, I'm just here for the ride.

Ian had called it 'playing possum'.

As near as he could figure, Ian was in his mid-twenties and was about six-foot even on a good day. He was also lean, and his sunken face looked like it was carved of ivory, giving him a charisma that few women or sometimes even men could resist. Looking about the jeep, Ian distinctly remembered those of his companions he had gotten to know intimately and those he had yet to indulge himself in. When it came to Ian Slade, he liked to indulge in life's more earthly pleasures as often as possible.

Ian had either killed for or stolen whatever it was he was wearing. Back in the old days when the 'law' was still around, some authorities might describe Ian as a walking criminal trophy case. From his biker boots to even his knife, Ian had a grisly story to tell about where and how he had gotten it and wasn't afraid to chat about it either. In the wastes, there was really no reason to be coy about things such as killing another man or theft. It was almost a prerequisite to stay alive, and those who took the moral high ground measured their lives in days rather than years.

Not that Ian had cared. Ian lived fast and he lived hard. No in-betweens and no exceptions. Whatever it came too; sex, drugs, even music, Ian tried and liked it all. Those he confided in, however few those may be, he often said he did it because life was short and he hadn't even expected to make it to twenty. Most of the time that was a lie and Ian had reasons that ran far deeper and far more secretive than he would care to admit.

Running a hand through his shaggy platinum blonde hair, Ian stifled a breath as he tried to take in as much of the overpowering stench of gasoline that leaked from the vehicle as possible. Feeling the urge begin to sink back into what was left of his mind; Ian pushed the door of the vehicle open. "You heard the broad, let's hoof it," Ian had called to the redhead in a rich voice before climbing out of the side of the jeep.

[Breaker]

The fourth and youngest of the foursome in the jeep rode shotgun, reclined in his seat for most of the ride. The way his body jostled loosely each time the vehicle banked off a bump suggested he might be asleep, but his hazel eyes were open and alert behind the frames of his blast goggles. The youth wore casual, loose fitting clothing - a pair of coarse burlap shorts and matching T-shirt, the collar of which was torn enough that his left shoulder showed through, signifying that the garment needed a replacement. A black bandana was folded and knotted over his mouth and nose, the only protection his airway required against the blistering sand and wind.

Those who knew the teen called him Static, and those who didn't usually avoided him. His golden-brown tanned skin stretched tight over compact, wiry muscles. He was pure gristle and sinew, the gifts of his lineage having made him strong as well as immune to the toxins that poisoned the post-appocalyptic atmosphere of Althanas. While his clothes were meagre and disposable, his footwear were inavaluable. The legendary Breaker Boots had been passed down in his family form generation to generation - often lost, but always found and returned to the rightful heir.

Stat received his nickname as a child, and it quickly replaced any other title family or friends could attach to him. The boy was constantly bursting with energy, but coralled it well enough that he resembled a bolt of static electricity, ready to go from stationary to full speed at any second. He was antisocial, to a degree, enjoying the company of his friends while never being the type to do much talking. It was an adventurer's appeal that had brought him into the group that day. Whether they found the equipment they sought, or wasted the day digging in the sand, Static enjoyed the thrill of the search.

The jeep shuddered to a halt, and a second later Stat went out the window as if fired from a cannon. With the friction on the bottom of his ancient boots reduced to zero, he skated across the sandswept ruins as if on ice. He sped towards the concrete silo and circled it twice, eyeing the structure in a way that spoke of experience beyond his years. Any ordinary person would have advanced with caution, wary of obstacles and pitfalls, but the boy's genetic advantages had made him incurably reckless. He hopped over rusted tractors, skidded around derelict machinery, and ground to a halt in wave of freshly turned grit. Approached the cigarette shaped construction and wiped the crusty sand from a large section at waist height. A manic smile spread across his face as his toe dug at the base of the silo. Only one way to confirm his suspicions.

Gleefully enjoying the oppurtunity to exercise his restless power, he kicked the section of silo he had wiped clean. Nothing happened, except for a dull ringing as the Rythadine boot rebounded off the sturdy structure. He kicked the same spot again, harder, testing the give. Unable to contain himself, Static laughed out loud as he spun and kicked a third time, his boot following his thoughts and drastically increasing its weight. Well aged dust puffed outwards, frosting his goggles amidst a noise like an explosion of nails on a chalkboard. The concrete cracked, a large section falling inwards.

He paused only to wipe his goggles clean with calloused fingertips before diving through the hole headfirst. The infallible Breaker Boots clung to the walls of the silo and he stood sideways, staring down into the darkness. Perhaps eight feet below ground level, he could just make out the chunk of concrete, surrounded by its seedlings on a sparsely lit floor. The smell of time - that musty, creeping scent - rose upwards and filled his nostrils. With both feet planted on the far side of the silo and one hand braced just above the entrance he had made, Static looked like a load bar in a transport truck. He extended his free hand outside, beckoning blindly for his companions to come.

"This looks like one way into your underground lair eh! I can lower you down one at a time, grab my arm!" His voice echoed around the inside of the cylinder, sounding as always like a cynical bozar* on burst fire.

*Bozar: a futuristic sniper weapon featured in Fallout 2.

[Letho]

Lorelei hated being proven wrong. This emotion was most likely a derivative of the fact that she was a sore loser, taking every loss perhaps a tad too close to her heart. If there was a thing such as a heart in the world of today, that is. But in spite of her desire to drive away even after Ashling did her hoodoo (and her hoodoo was seldom wrong), the redhead decided otherwise and went along with the rest of her team. After all, they were a team and it probably wouldn’t sit too well with them if she left them out in the middle of the desert. Ian would most likely cut her throat open in her sleep.

Unlike Static who darted away from the jeep like a dog chasing a ball after a long time without one, the rest had some footslogging to do. With nothing in the barrens to oppose the howling winds, the sand was blown onto everything, making every footfall a couple of inches deeper than it would’ve been on solid ground. But the trio was quite used to it by now, leaving the crummy-looking roadster and entering the compound in less than a minute. Of course, by then their hyperactive friend had circled the whole thing twice, punched a hole in the concrete and found an entrance. Probably stopped for coffee somewhere along the way as well.

The farming facilities around them were empty and forgotten by both man and gods, glaring back at the three with eyes made of broken windows and rundown walls. They would’ve been spooky as well if Lorelei didn’t venture into countless similar settings by now. The first one is creepy, and perhaps the second and the third one. Everything after that was just plain boring. There were no ghosts of the past within the ruins, no restless spirits or any other magical mumbo-jumbo. It was just buildings, brick and mortar and shedding façade and zero mystery behind it. There was probably a story behind the complex and Ashling could probably tell them more about it, but Lori cared little for the past. Instead, she always looked ahead, secretly hoping for a big score that would get her out of this man-made hell.

They found Static in one of his gravity-defying positions, standing on the interior wall of the silo and offering a helping hand. Lorelei didn’t accept it immediately, though. She turned on the flashlight on her belt, the beam of yellow light barely reaching the far wall of the silo through the thick dust that Static’s entrance uplifted. Moving it around proved fruitless at the beginning; nothing but concrete fragments, sandcrawlers fleeing from the light and an unsolvable jigsaw made of pipes that were once used to funnel the grain. A couple of seconds later, a shape of sealed, metal doorway came into view. Lorelei pulled back for a moment, pulling out the pistol from the holster at her hip.

“You know, Static, I was always wondering,” the redhead said, a shadow of a smirk appearing at the corner of her dry lips. She checked the clip of the 14mm firearm, cocked and locked it before she returned it to the holster. Only then she accepted Stat’s helping hand. “Do you move that fast when you fuck as well? Because if you do, I feel sorry for your girlfriend.”

Her question brought a smirk to more than just her own pale face, maybe a chuckle as well, but perhaps her timing could’ve been better. Because in response she got exactly zero help in her descent. Static simply released her hand and made her land hard amidst the debris he created seconds earlier, her joke affording her a bruise on her ass and a whole bunch of coughing out the dust she inhaled after the fall.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” she muttered, her voice louder than she wanted it to be, echoing faintly in the vast interior of the silo. Rubbing her rater scrawny behind, the smarmy redhead got back on her feet, her eyes and flashlight already staring at the door. There was never any long-lasting grudge over these little jabs at each other, no bad blood between the four. Spending so much time together, they learned each other’s boundaries and knew how far they could push before they were shoved back.

“Right, let’s see what we have here,” Lorelei said more to herself as she approached the door. The heavy metal of the pressure doors looked quite sturdy, despite the blotches of rust that started to eat at its surface, and she doubted that even Static’s mad bludgeoning could bring it down. There was, however an electronic lock on the right, the kind that required a keycard and a hand print. “Nothing a little magic can’t help.”

Magic in question had nothing to do with the fabled ancient wizardry that supposedly existed in the world, when the land was young and the gods weren’t dead, but rather with a little device she pulled out of her pocket. A one-size-fits-all key card attached to what looked like a calculator lacking its mask was introduced to the lock, negotiated for several seconds, produced an error, tried again, crashed, rebooted got a couple of hard hits from her hand and ultimately received the desired ‘access granted’ from the flat woman’s voice behind the console. The door, however, opened into naught but another wall. On it, a small keypad rested, as clean as new, as if nobody reached it in a millennia. The voice from the console explained the obvious:

“PLEASE ENTER THE CORRECT CODE.”

((I figure Ashling can do her thing and then the whole floor of the silo opens up into this circular stairs that leads us down into the research facility. Have fun with the facility itself all of you and describe it any way you wish.))

[Karuka]

Ash hadn't followed Lori directly to the door, taking her time to poke around. They were running low on food, and she was one of those rare few who could go out where there hadn't been anything to eat in years and find something. This old mockup of a granary wasn't any different in yielding up its bounty; there were canned goods behind a chunk of rock, and those lasted forever.

It wasn't until the panel spat out its request for a code that Ash re-joined everyone, reaching up on her way past Stat to ruffle his hair, despite the fact he was taller than she was. "Don't bounce around so much, kiddo. If there's a sniper system in there that learns we're intruders...if you didn't break its tracking device, you'd get all the rest of us killed. And really...don't I have to sew you up enough, you reckless kid?" Aside from their hoodoo expert and provider of food, Ashling was the one that put bandages on the worst of their injuries.

That said, she looked over at the number pad. Well, they hadn't made one of those yet that she couldn't break into. Once again, time flowed backward around Ashling, and she watched a few times as various scientists punched in the access code - the most recent access was centuries before any of the little group of scavengers had even been born.

"Well, we're lucky. This thing doesn't have an automatic code change every standard amount of time." While she could still find codes if they were buried in time like that, it was an algorithmic process rather than an intuitive one. And with a ten-digit code...it would have taken hours.

With the code punched in, the massive door slid hesitantly open, creaking and groaning like a arthritic who hadn't moved from his favorite chair in too long. Beyond it, old electric lights flickered on, revealing a long winding stair case. Of course, there was also an elevator, but no one had used those in decades. After all...electricity was hard to come by.

"Wow...there's still..." a soft hum reached her ears, and Ash turned to Lori, who would doubtless be excited by this new turn of events. "This place still has a functional generator! Imagine how much power it might have stored up since the last time it was used. Come on, guys."

For a couple of minutes, only the sounds of their footsteps resounded off the bare cylindrical walls, until they got to the bottom of the stairs and met up with a hallway. A quick "look" didn't reveal which way the interesting parts were, so with a frustrated burst of air that blew back her bangs, Ashling removed a family heirloom from around her neck.

The lodestone pendulum only came off of an O'Sheean neck under two circumstances: to use, although how that bit of hoodoo worked, they hadn't known for generations...or to pass to the daughter when the mother was on her death bed. As such, unlike Stat's boots, it hadn't ever been lost.

She let it swing idly, looking back at her peers. "I can't tell you guys which way to the good stuff...so...we can let this thing choose at random, or we can pick a direction at random and go that way."

I'm sorry if I took it too far...anyway, you can either pick a direction or choose which way the magic pendulum points.

[Saxon]

Watching the woman at work, Ian stared at the pendulum as it idly twirled in concentric circles, his mind slowly beginning to drift this way and that. He had little regard for Ashling's 'hoodoo' as she had called it, but when it had worked it worked in spades. But this was something he could've easily done on his own. Why don't I just drop my drawers, take a leak, and decide the direction by following which way it drips, he wondered conceitedly.

Fate didn't need elaborate rituals.

Shielding his eyes, Ian gazed past the illuminating fluorescent lights and down one of the unexplored corridors. Black, velvet shadows hung in silence, sometimes dancing upon the walls as the same lights that lit their hallway flickered. Even the air smelled stale and tasted dry, keeping intact the illusion that they were walking into a tomb that hadn't seen the light of day in decades, maybe even centuries. But that wasn't what had caught Ian's eye.

Glancing to the side with an old trick taught to him by a drifter in a roadhouse, Ian caught the same glint of metal in the darkness. Slowly, as if hanging on by a breeze, it moved again into the shadows. "Forget the damn rock," Ian snapped as he slowly pulled his knife from his sheath and took step after hesitant step forward. Feeling the eyes of his companions bore holes into the back of his head as they loudly began to ask what it was he was doing, Ian raised a hand for silence as he began to move upon the glimmer.

And then it moved.

(Insect. Hundred Legs. Black and Big.)

[Breaker]

As usual, Static was about fourteen steps ahead of his friends.

Arbitrary decisions were the teen's specialty: whenever possible, he avoided all the weighing of pros and cons most people suffered from, and just made his mind up.

The way the floor seamlessly turned into wall and then ceiling allowed him to skate along often at a forty five degree angle. Down to the end of a darkened hallway he shot, one instant on the floor, then the wall, and then sprinting along the ceiling like some odd bipedal newt. I wonder how often Lori thinks about me naked? The boy pondered as he dove through a doorway. Probably all the time.

Many people (his closest friends at the top of the list) thought of Stat as being at least partially suicidal, but in truth he constantly assessed the risks around him, his quick mind providing crystaline scenarios, almost like Ash's clairvoyance, except he used logic rather than goat skulls and rooster blood. The boy landed flat in the middle of the mysterious room and spun like a top on his stomach, head twitching as he listened for threatening sounds. Nothing.

Standing up with a fresh layer of dust superimposed atop the sandy grit that already covered his body, he snatched a flare from his back pocket and tore the end off. The short stick sparked to life, casting flickering shadows as fire consumed the tip.

A kitchen. Smallish, comfortably sized for about three people. Everything was made from stainless steel which had corroded to a tarry black in patches, as if plagued by a parasitic disease. Static ran his hand along the countertop, opened an empty cupboard and tugged on the fridge. The handle came off in his hand, but breaking things was not new to him so he tossed it away with a clatter, wedged a finger into the crack and pried the appliance open.

A wave of meagre light spilled out, and the refrigerator's motor kicked in, working to keep the contents cool. Stat never got a chance to see what it contained, however, for the thin strip of light illuminated friendly, familiar machine.

Tucked into the back corner of a countertop, the percolating coffeemaker bubbled contentedly. Stat let the fridge close and approached the newfound object, holding his flare high.

If Ash is right, and this place has had a functioning generator all along, then...

It made sense that the shelter would be programmed to keep the kitchen working, to keep supplies fresh. But someone had left the coffee on.

There was only about a cup left in the bottom of the pot, and it looked as black as ink in a coal mine. How long has this been stewing for? The boy wondered, and licked his lips. He was on a constant quest to find stronger coffee.

Arbitrary decision made, Stat hefted the pot in one hand and drained it in one long gulp.