MISSION STATUS // 8Hkio4374”@dfEE0 / UNDEFINED / ONGOING

  CURRENT LOCATION // 2843 3857 / CITY OF JESTRIFF / NORTHERN RILLESTIA

  CURRENT OBJECTIVES //

  -Secure the Masserlind Succession

  -?????

  WELCOME TO SITE-17 // INACTIVE / DORMANT

  REQUESTS UNAVAILABLE AT THIS TIME // REACTIVATION / REQUIREMENTS UNMET

  The buzzing intensified by unbearable magnitudes as the glowing white text revealed itself letter by letter in the centre of his vision. Something alien, something other, an unknowable presence scraped and scrabbled against the outskirts of his psyche. The room, the dais, Boozehound, everything swam out of focus and he reactively slapped his hands down onto the floor to steady himself. It felt like he was viewing the world like the surface of the ocean from ten metres below, an invisible storm lashed and distorted its blurred surface as invisible currents buffeted him from all angles. His lips began to split into a feral snarl as the last words formed before the mind-splitting sensation suddenly receded, leaving the world suspiciously silent and crystal clear. He allowed his shoulders to slump forward as he took several ragged breaths, only now becoming aware of the hand on his shoulder. Boozehound’s face was a mixture of concern and guilty relief as he offered a steadying presence.

  “Do you see what I mean?” He asked softly with an encouraging smile.

  “I don’t-” Alter began before taking a moment to shake his head and tenderly clamber to his feet. “I don’t think I share your enthusiasm for this particular discovery.” He admitted.

  “Are you alright? What happened?” Whim and Vangroover came rushing up to them before Boozehound could respond.

  “Divine revelations.” Boozehound announced with exhilaration and a grand gesture towards the plates.

  Whim fixed him with a withering stare for a long second before turning to Alter. “What actually happened?”

  “I’m not sure.” Alter shuddered. “Do you remember when shortly after we raided the Badlands fort, the command team saw a bunch of text? It’s happened again, only this time it was much more violent.”

  “How so?” Vangroover tilted his head to one side.

  “Like something was trying to force its way into my brain but didn’t, or couldn’t, understand why it wasn’t working. Kept slamming me around like a kid trying to open a tupperware box.”

  Whim turned his malevolent gaze towards the plates and pushed his way past the other men, moving onto the dais with slow, deliberate steps. He folded his arms and regarded the thin metal eyes with an imperious air as if daring the words to do the same to him. Nothing happened, at least not visibly. Whim made an impatient noise and turned back to them with a shrug.

  “Looks like I’m not worthy of your great enlightenment.” His voice dripped with sarcasm as he descended, stopping on the first step to maintain his height advantage.

  “It was only the command team that got the message before, it makes sense for this to work the same way. I wonder if Rip is seeing the same thing.” Alter mused.

  “We should go and check.” Vangroover jumped on the idea, clearly desperate to leave the building.

  The men nodded in agreement and, despite Boozehound’s reluctant glances backward, they made their way back outside into the street. A palpable sense of relief washed over Alter as he felt the warmth of sunlight and the gentle shift of free air on his face. All thoughts of shopping or any other forms of market research had been forgotten for the moment. Other than a couple of half-hearted attempts at conversation the men walked in silence as they made their way back towards the estate. Osprey Hall was weirdly empty when they returned, however the sound of merry thwacking, yelps, curses and laughter could be heard echoing from nearby.

  Upon investigation, the rest of the squad had settled into a relaxed afternoon beating the snot out of each other with wooden swords in the central training yard. The men had donned, or more likely been forced to don, thick leather jackets that gave their arms and chests a tree-like appearance. Even thicker leather gloves somewhere between baseball mitts and industrial-grade oven gloves grasped training weapons that slammed and ricocheted off both sets of defiant apparel. For now, only a pair of combatants were active, Boats was chasing a disarmed Pavejack in circles around the space while Riptide and Walross lounged on a straw bale and cackled at the teenager’s desperate protests. Each of them bore the sorry markings of blunt impacts, none of them seemed to particularly care. Riptide noticed their arrival first and waved them over as Pavejack flopped to the floor in defeat with Boats crashing down on top of him shortly after.

  “How’d it go? Are we broke now?” The lieutenant asked with a mischievous smile.

  “Things have taken an interesting turn, that’s for sure.” Alter grimaced momentarily. “We need to have a command team meeting, now.”

  Riptide looked left and right, a moment of confusion and worry passing across his face.

  “Sure.” He quickly levered himself off the bale and shed the jacket and gloves.

  Leaving Whim and Vangroover to join the others in the noble art of pokey-sticks, the command trio returned to the hall and climbed the stairs to the relative quiet and isolation of the briefing room.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “What’s this about?” Riptide asked, his worry not yet alleviated.

  “We got another mission update text-in-the-air thing, when we were visiting one of the local god’s temples.”

  Alter launched into a full explanation of all that he had heard, seen, and felt during the whole process. To his credit, Riptide stood quite still, offering his full attention and making no attempt to inject any of his signature quips or on-reflex deflective humour. Stranger, though, was the fact that Boozehound was also silent. Given his zealous confidence in the temple, Alter had anticipated more than one preacher-like interjection. However, the Frenchman was eerily quiet, it was as if he had withdrawn within himself and was ignoring the outside world in favour of his own hidden thoughts.

  “It doesn’t sound pleasant, but I should probably go and see this for myself.” Riptide spoke slowly, resigned as he anxiously scratched the back of his neck.

  “Not a bad idea, I’d suggest you take the others with you and see if any of them get a reaction.” Alter suggested.

  “I’ll do that. Anything else?”

  “Not yet, come see us once you’ve returned. Here, take this.” Alter slung the coin purse over to him. “Just in case you see something that takes your fancy.”

  “I’m sure I can find something to waste this on. I’ll see you later.” Riptide saluted comically and left the room, his footsteps quickly fading from earshot.

  With one companion dispatched, Alter turned his attention to the other, more sombre body in the room. “You finished pulling yourself together in there?” He asked.

  “I …” Boozehound began, his eyes glued to a point somewhere between the floor and the unending abyss. “I’m feeling more like myself now. I think.” His voice lacked any certainty of belief.

  “What made you act like that?” Alter asked. “I mean, you were in there much longer than I was, did it affect you differently?”

  Boozehound began to move, he took a dozen miniscule, unsteady steps and sank into a chair, hands pressed to his face as if rubbing away an invisible stain. “I was so … happy. Elated. Utterly convinced that my theory was proven correct, and how wonderful it all was.” He sighed and shuddered.

  “You’re certainly more receptive to the idea of living deities than me. Perhaps this difference in opinion changed how we were affected. Not that I’m ready to simply accept this as fact, it could still be a coincidence.” Alter theorised as he leaned against the table.

  Boozehound opened his mouth sharply at his last statement but no sound emerged. A moment later he began to speak in a more measured tone. “It is my belief that Kalaton is the one that sent us here, and that he, she or it is guiding us forward. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it faith, and I’m not going to insist on treating them like people treat their gods back home. That said, I’d like to go back there soon. I’d like to feel that warmth again.” Boozehound’s head turned slowly, wistfully, towards the window.

  “Can I trust you, Marcus?” Alter’s voice dropped. “You’re my friend, and I will respect your decisions. But I need you to tell me you’re not going to wander off to chase this feeling, we need to stick together if we’re all making it out of this.”

  “Out of this?” Boozehound asked, his voice barely above a whisper. His eyes tracked glacially back across the room to look at him anew. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.” There was no bitterness in his voice, no accusation. Only sheer weight.

  Alter found himself shivering at those words and hurriedly broke eye contact. “I can’t believe that. For myself, for everyone that’s dreaming of getting home.” He vowed, more to himself than his companion.

  Boozehound did not respond, his head was already drifting back to the window. A small eternity passed in the room. The two men barely moved as time ticked by, measured only in the passing of distant clouds and the dancing of dust specks in the intermittent rays of sunlight that illuminated the far corner of the room. At one point Whim stuck his head through the door with half a question on his lips, but the heavy pressure of the conversational purgatory caused his words to die and he left without another sound. Finally, the door opened again, and a grim-faced Riptide strode through with purpose.

  “I have approximately two thousand, four hundred and seventy-six questions right now. And I reckon you might be able to answer three of them.” He stalked his way over to the stone windowsill and planted both hands upon it with a pair of thuds.

  Both Alter and Boozehound snapped out of their respective melancholies at his declaration, but neither made much of a sound.

  Riptide sighed. “I saw the writing, and I felt something similar to what you described. The others felt nothing.” He wrapped his knuckles against the stone work a handful of times before turning around. “The information we got seems legitimate enough, there’s plenty of new things to discuss though.”

  “Agreed. First though, what did you feel?”

  Riptide began to pace up and down and he considered his answer. “I felt focused. Determined. Like I had been given a critical job that only I was capable of completing, with the weight and expectations of the world upon my shoulders. Uncomfortable now that I think about it, but my swelling pride shielded me at the time.”

  “Another completely different response to being in Kalaton’s presence. Possibly affected by our own feelings about being in this world?” Boozehound asked, perking up with the knowledge that someone had felt similarly to himself.

  “The two of you are certainly happier to be here than most, and I lean more towards making it back. Good thing Walross is one of the unaware brigade or he’d likely burst into flames.” Alter chuckled dryly.

  “We’ll go forward with that theory for now, let's move on. We’ve got a new objective, and a mystery one at that.” Riptide continued. “Although, there’s not much we can do with a bunch of question marks.”

  “I think it’s most likely been triggered by our actions, and given that it's not divided from the succession objective I’d wager it's in a similar vein. We’ll call it progress and keep moving. ‘Welcome to Site Seventeen’. Catchy name, doesn’t sound particularly religious.” Alter followed up.

  “Kalaton has been presenting information to us in the style of a videogame since the beginning, this is just a continuation of that. I have no doubt that if we ever visit a temple in a different city then it’d have a similar designation.” Boozehound added.

  “That assumes this is Kalaton talking to us to begin with. I’m not ruling out a coincidence just yet.” Alter argued.

  “Let’s not get riled up over theology here.” Riptide stepped in. “From the rest of the wording, these sites will allow us to communicate or interface with this god or system at some point. My guess is completing objectives will work towards this unlocking.”

  Alter shrugged. “That would make sense to me.”

  His sentence was cut off as a politely coughing figure appeared in the doorway which Riptide had left open when he returned. Oliver stepped through the threshold with a sheepish expression.

  “Apologies for my sudden arrival gentlemen, but Winslow’s work has borne fruit and I’d hurried over to give you the news. I will admit, I found myself listening from the corridor for a while. You were having quite the odd conversation there, care to tell me a little more about it?”