Desperate Remedies

Death swept path Kyl like a morning breeze. Or rather, it was the morning breeze that swept death away from Kyl. His eyes flew open as his lungs gasped for air. Darkness rimmed his vision as he stared at a starred sky. Aches and pains rattled his body, but nothing extreme. Testing his muscles, he stretched and flexed his limbs. All in relative good health. Bruises can heal, aches would fade. Kyl rolled and sat up from the ground. Memory flickered like a dying flame and he scanned his surroundings.

Nothing but stone and mud. The edges of a cliff face lined the horizon of mountains and storm clouds. Kyl made his way to the edge and found the marker he was looking for. Tarble, of the Shattered Ones, knelt in the valley below. The statuesque monster rivaled the mountains in size, yet no trees, moss or any plant life would grow on that synthetic aetherized skin. Seeing the dead creature, Kyl remembered a barrage of events. 

Squad 66 had undergone a drop from the airship, stealthily entering the border of Vetrak. There had been contact with the W.A.F., and then… Kyl’s memory was blank. Priorities began to shift in his mind. He had to find his squad, but he first needed back his equipment. Kyl checked his belt and found his knife. His vest still had 3 vials of Harc, and he downed one. The healing liquid flooded his system with life. Kyl groaned with a hand to his head at the disorienting revitalization. Shaking out the jitters, He pushed over rocks looking for a weapon. 

Kyl found the remains of his backpack, squashed and ripped. The thing would be useless to him, and he tossed it over his shoulder. Fearing the worst, Kyl flipped his knife into his hands. The dull blade hummed to life at his touch. With blade out, Kyl crept around the mud pile he awoke in. No bodies covered the area. No indication that anyone had been here. The humming grew louder as his hands shook. Deep breaths did little to steady him, and so he chose to proceed quicker rather than silent. 

Kyl sprinted along the mountainside, keeping to rocks instead of the mud. He was like a squirrel jumping from tree to tree, like a hunter having spotted its prey. However, Kyl had no idea where he was going. There was no communication from 66, which meant they didn’t know he had survived, they were all dead or gone, or W.A.F. had found a way to block ward signals. The last being very unlikely, if they could block warding then his knife wouldn’t be filled with Aether. The bloody thing hummed constantly, as if screaming in defiance of the theory. If the squad was gone, Kyl was on his own. 

Risking a ward communication crossed his mind, but the chance of enemy interception seemed far too likely. Kyl would have to find his way across the border before attempting anything of the sort. The rocks thinned out. He would have to travel through the mud. Kyl slid off his boulder and began trudging through the thick muck. As he walked, something tripped him.

Falling face first into the mud, Kyl scrambled to get back on his feet. He spun to see what had tripped him. Low and behold, a rifle stood in the filth. Sheathing his knife, Kyl retrieved the rifle and checked its use. Besides some mud in the back where the thumb would rest, the rifle was in good shape. The barrel wasn’t bent, and the secondary slider for hard ammo slid easily. Kyl scooped the mud from the ward rest with his fingers until it was clean. It was Lather tech: W24 Twin Semi Fire. Then Kyl noticed the name carved in the grip. Nels. 

Kyl swore. Nels would never have left his weapon behind. That meant the squad was down a member. Two without him. 66 surviving this mission started to seem less likely. No time to grieve, and perhaps it wasn’t true. Kyl surged forward through the knee high swamp of a mountainside. He kept his thumb next to the ward rest, no need to chance an accidental aether shot. 

At last the mud ended and Kyl could tread on grass again. Kyl could see the smoke billowing from below. A forest to his right, a lake to his left and the damn airship ablaze below him. Options of what to do scrolled through his mind. W.A.F. could be swarming the ship if they downed it. But it would be the first place to check to see if any of 66 had survived. Or rather, he could see if they left behind any corpses. 

Kyl chose information over safety. If 66 was still proceeding they would have cleared the area, and if not he was practically a dead man walking anyways. Kyl wanted to make an aether leap. The quick descent would save him precious time. But to do so safely, he’d have to break the fifth circle of the Aetherward. At that point he might as well walk into a W.A.F. base with a sign saying “Shoot me.” Instead, Kyl chose a landslide. 

Slick with mud, Kyl slid down the mountain face with frightening speed. As he did, he bent reality to his will. Opening the first circle of the Aetherward, he forced the experience of sight to relay information to him twice as efficiently. With that enhancement, he was able to time a jump and roll that displaced his momentum. He reduced what would have been a crippling injury to a sharp twinge of pain in his legs. Creeping towards the fallen embers of the airship, Kyl kept the rifle up and ready. His thumb hovered over the opening of the weapon, ready to force aether into a shot at any moment. 

Here there were bodies. Hole riddled camo, and blood stained K78s told it all. W.A.F. agents were dead. Their helmets had fried Ward Coms, and Harc vials were broken. Kyl frowned. That was a little more brutal than he had come to expect from his squad mates. No traces, Kyl supposed. Yet as he searched what remained of the airship, he found no bodies of his team. Not even a pilot had been on the ship. Kyl took it as a good omen. 66 could be out there. Or they had at least escaped with the dead. 

Satisfied, Kyl turned to press on. Yet as he looked up, he was met with a metallic hand to the face. He flew back, slamming into the wreckage. Kyl screamed as metal seared exposed skin. He stumbled away and grabbed Nels’s rifle. As he did so, a metal foot stepped on the weapon. Kyl looked up and finally took in his opponent. It was a damn Woven! The grey giant stared at him behind synthetic red eyes. Kyl froze in the shock of it all. No one had seen a Woven since the Shatter War a millenia ago. The creature extended its arm, and Kyl braced for another blow. But the attack never came. Kyl opened his eyes to see the thing with a hand outstretched, palm upward. 

With a soul piercing gaze, the Woven spoke. “Forgive us,” It’s voice rumbled, clear of any metallic muffling one would have expected. Kyl blinked, confused. “We did not mean to harm you.”

Kyl cleared his throat and his hand drifted to his knife. The Woven noted the movement. The creature knelt, placing its hands on its knees and bowed.

“Please help us.”