The Collector

Well, life had certainly gotten more interesting as of late.

Mercury had quite a bit on her mind, and while a lot of it was pretty intimidating not all of it was as scary as it arguably should have been. She had been quite the busy bee between performing her duties as an ace and member of Silver Wolf, keeping up regular training hours five mornings a day with Vandrad -- as well as piano lessons, slipping into the surprising role of guide and mentor to the young Tsubasa, working out plans to help Vandrad both with connecting with his brother and dealing with the suspicious Patricia Reeves, as well as continuing the work for her own mission. Mercury had so much work to do that she was pretty heavily occupied throughout the day and into the night, passing out earlier than she normally did and waking up in the mornings to get back to the grind. But despite the workload, the lightning speed at which her brain typically operated meant that she was still more than capable of multitasking those things and thinking about the general state of her life so far.

And during that time, she’d had to acknowledge one simple, but striking, truth: She really liked Vandrad. And not just in a platonic, “It’s nice to have a real friend” kind of way. Of course Vandrad was certainly her friend, there was no denying that. But ever since he had met up with her at Silver Wolf, Mercury had been having a lot of thoughts that were both exciting and daunting at the same time. He had rushed so quickly to meet her there due to the unwittingly worrisome way that she had worded her message, and eventually admitted that the reason he’d done so was because he’d thought she was going to tell him he’d gotten her pregnant. He hadn’t, of course, and that alone hadn’t really been much of an issue. She had reassured him and let him know it wasn’t a concern he needed to have.

But then things had gone a step further, and he’d responded to her attempt to assuage his fears by telling her it really hadn’t been much of a fear at all. In fact, Vandrad had thrown her off entirely by telling her that not only was he not adverse to the idea that she might have been pregnant, but that he would be more than willing to fulfill any desire she had to have children of her own by helping her sire them. Mercury had made it clear to him, if gently, that she did not want children, if only because her lifestyle would not permit it. He had taken the vague explanation and not pressed the matter, and things had gone back to normal pretty quickly.

Still, Mercury couldn’t get that conversation out of her head. She had decided a long time ago that she would never bear any child and bring them into the fucked up horror show that was her life. That just wouldn’t be fair to them, and all it would result in was one more life being used and abused, and her heart breaking when her kid would ultimately be taken from her. In the same vein, however, she’d never really thought about whether she actually wanted kids, even in a perfect world. Thinking about those things would just lead her to fantasize about things that would never happen. It was a waste of time.

Yet here she was. If somehow, magically things got better… if the Nazru were eliminated and she was set free to live her own life however she wanted to… what would she want? Would it include things she never thought she’d be able to have, like a significant other and a family? Would it even be feasible? Genetically Mercury knew that she could bear children from a human partner -- Xocili were compatible with most humanoid species reproductively. But they were also much longer lived. On Average, humans lived less than one hundred years. That was merely a fraction of Mercury’s lifespan, assuming that something didn’t force her death sooner. Any human like Vandrad would pass away from old age long before she did. Even in a perfect world, would she want to risk attaching her heart to someone that would likely die long before she did?

It didn’t matter. Mercury didn’t understand next to anything when it came to matters of the heart, but at this point she couldn’t deny that she was already much more attached to Vandrad than she had realized. More than she should be. As irritable and grouchy and disinterested as he could be at times, she really, truly liked him. These last few months with him had shown her that he was more than he appeared on the surface. He was sharply intelligent, impressively disciplined, and quite the force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. She’d never met anyone as unsettlingly attentive as he was, and despite his often coarse and blunt mannerisms he could be sweet or even downright charming when he wanted to be. After weeks of shoving the weird experiences from Bellum deep down into the recesses of her mind, the memories had come roaring back with a vengeance. The way he’d been so playful with her in Bellum, holding her hand, teaching her new skills, complimenting her with sweet words and even sweeter kisses in a way she’d never been given before…

No, there was no denying anymore that she felt something for him. Mercury couldn’t tell him that of course, and maybe he’d figured it out already even before she did. Maybe he even returned the affections, which would explain… well, a lot. But she could never tell him, and he seemed to realize he couldn’t ask. He knew more than enough about her at this point to understand that there was something bigger going on for her that prevented her from having such niceties, even if she wanted them. She couldn’t do that to him, or to herself. If Mercury told him how much she liked him, she would have to explain that she couldn’t do anything about it, which would lead to more questions that she couldn’t answer…

And any answers she gave, chances were he would hate her at that point.

So Mercury had elected to suffer in silence, contenting herself to just have him as a part of her life and knowing he was there for her, occasionally allowing herself to daydream about what could be if things were different for her. It was bittersweet and probably not good for her, but given how much she’d been deprived of for her whole life she simply didn’t care. She deserved a little happiness right? Even if it was fleeting? Surely they would send someone after her eventually, but it wouldn’t be today.

Instead, today she was to spend her time with a new recruit to Silver Wolf. He had recently been brought into the pack, and not a lot was known about him yet but so far the word of mouth from the others in the guild was that he seemed pretty bright and had been expressing an interest in the Scholar department. Since no one had yet gotten the chance to really see him work yet, Mercury figured it was a good time to bring him along on a job to see what he was made of -- and she had just the one in mind.

Today, she was dressed down in a dark blue sleeveless shirt that tied up the front, leaving a bit of her belly exposed. A pair of fashionably ripped up and ratty looking denim jeans covered most of her legs, leaving large gaps of her thighs down to knees exposed, with a thick belt to secure the garment around her hips. Her feet were clad in knee high brown leather boots, and as always she was equipped with a number of leather pouches around her hips. Mercy was also safely holstered on her right side. She wore a simple silver necklace with a small pendant on it, and on the middle finger of her left hand was the emerald studded ring that Vandrad had given her, along with a few bangle bracelets on the wrist of that same hand.

Making her way through to where she had been informed the new recruit was staying, Mercury found the room in question and knocked on the door, her sensors already confirming that he was in the room. She waited for only a second or two before he answered, opening the door with a curious look to see who was coming to call. “Khelben?” Mercury asked, wanting to make sure she had found the right person.

His hazel eyes blinked in surprise as he took in her smirking form. Then, he opened the door a little more so he could lean comfortably on the frame, giving her a confident and charming smile. “For you? Definitely,” he told her. He was much taller than she was, standing at least six feet if not a little higher than that. Dark grey-blue hair adorned his head in short, shaggy locks and there was a well trimmed goatee of the same shade on his chin. Appearing to be in his late thirties or early forties, he had the look of maturity to his features but still seemed quite young. He certainly had quite the fashion sense. A long blue trench coat with darker blue stripes along the hems and white cuffs on the sleeves covered a dark purple striped shirt and a wine red vest with a pristine white lapel. Two leather belts in a light camel color rested crisscross over his hips, and a green scarf was loosely wrapped around his neck beneath the lapels of his vest. He bravely wore a set of white pants beneath the entire ensemble, as well as a matching pair of slick, dark blue dress shoes.

All in all, the man was pretty damn good looking, and apparently he felt the same way about her and wasn’t keen on hiding it. Her smirk grew as she gave him another up and down look. “I guess it’s my lucky day,” Mercury said with more than a little flirtation in her tone. Offering him a hand to shake, she told him, “My name is Mercury Arseneault.”

Khelben took the offered hand and shook it gently. Without letting the limb go, he casually turned the hand over in his own, holding it loosely so she could easily pull away if she wished but continued to hold it confidently, using the fingers of his freehand to trace it along the skin of her palm and wrist. “Ah yes, you’re the ace of the Scholar branch, right? I’ve heard quite a bit about you, though no one prepared me that you were as pretty as your name.”

“Oh, well aren’t you charming?” she purred, more than content to let him continue to draw light little lines along her skin and talk complimentary words to her. “I can already tell you’re going to get me into even more trouble than I normally do.”

“From where I’m standing, you don’t seem to mind the idea.”

“Hence the trouble.” The two of them smirked at one another. Despite her recent revelation of how much she liked and was attracted to Vandrad, those feelings couldn’t change her base nature. Mercury was a flirt and could never turn a blind eye to a handsome face and charming tongue. However, she also wasn’t one to simply roll over and show her belly over a few pretty words, so after a few seconds she strategically removed her hand from his hold. “I’ve been hearing from the Pack that you’re interested in joining up with the Scholars.”

Khelben nodded, slipping his hands inside his pockets even as he continued to lean against the door frame. “Yes, ma’am. I like to study things: where they come from, how they were made, what makes them tick and how they could be improved. I’m a bit of a tinkerer in my free time. Nothing worth talking about, just a few hobbies here and there. If I’m being honest, I tend to get distracted real easily by new things. Can’t make up my mind on what I want to learn.” He grinned at her a bit sheepishly, though not without losing any of the confidence he seemed to have in abundance.

Mercury chuckled. “Sounds like you could use a few lessons in discipline,” she told him playfully. “I might have just what you’re looking for.”

He raised a curious brow. “Well, don’t keep a man baited with suspense…”

“I found a job at a place called Divide Island. There’s a bunch of scientists there digging into the landscape and doing research on the place. Sounds like they unearthed some nasty little critters that are ruining their work and making the area pretty dangerous. Given Silver Wolf’s interest in the world of science, they reached out to us for help with fighting the beasts back and helping them a bit with their research. Since you’re new to the guild and haven’t really gotten the chance to show your stuff yet, it sounded like the perfect excuse to bring you along and see what you’re made of. What do you think?”

Khelben reached up a hand and gently stroked the hair on his chin. “A little bit of science and a little bit of swinging my sword, all while spending time in the company of a gorgeous woman such as yourself? Sounds like fun. Alright, count me in, Miss Arseneault. When do we leave?”

“Soon as you’re ready to go,” she told him with a smirk.

The older man grinned. “Alright, then. Let me just grab my weapon real fast.” He pushed the door open a little more and retreated back inside, leaving the space open for her to get a look at his room. It was pretty bare, with only a few essential things laying about here and there. He didn’t appear to own many belongings. The only thing of note was a giant broadsword that was about as long as he was tall, with intricate blue and gold designs along the pommel and guard, and up the center of the flat of the blade. Strapping it comfortably onto his back, Khelben joined her out in the hallway, locking the door to his room behind them. “After you, miss,” he told her with a charming smile, gesturing for her to take the lead.

With a knowing smirk, she led him down the hall and out of the guild building to start the trek toward their destination.

Admittedly, one of the last places Mercury wanted to be was out on the open seas again. Her last and only experience had been… well, not great. She wasn’t eager to relive traveling by a boat, but it wasn’t going to be feasible to try and get both her and Khelben across the waters through the use of her hover disc, so their only real option was the boat. Still, Mercury had led them down the mountains and toward the coast at a rather casual pace, in no hurry to get there. The two of them chatted a bit on the way down until they finally reached the docks at the south end of Fiore and boarded a ship that was headed toward Divide Island.

While she felt that she hid it well, Khelben seemed to pick up that Mercury wasn’t entirely comfortable on the boat. He leaned up against the railing next to her, glancing down at her from the corner of his eyes. “Not a fan of sailing?” he asked candidly, though not without some empathy.

Mercury blinked at him in confusion before smirking a bit. “That obvious?”

“Just a bit. Hard to miss the stiff posture and the way you’re glaring out at the water like it stole your favorite sunglasses.”

She chuckled, realizing that she was a bit stiff, her hands clasped together tightly as her elbows were propped against the railing, her jaw even clenched just the smallest bit. “I’ve only been on a ship once before,” Mercury told him simply, her tone candid despite the obvious bad memory. “And it wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences.”

He raised a brow at her with interest. “Oh? What happened, if I may ask?”

Mercury debated for a moment on telling him the story, but ultimately decided there was no harm in it. It was mostly just embarrassing. “I was sailing to Ca-Elum with my partner for a job we’d been assigned to out there. It was a couple day trip, and about halfway through we got attacked by a sea serpent.”

“A sea serpent?” he asked, his tone conveying that he’d never heard of such a thing before.

“Yeah, a snake that lives in the ocean. Fucking huge. Hundreds of meters long with a mouth so big it could swallow this ship whole without even feeling it.” Mercury gestured broadly to the boat they were currently on, which wasn’t as big as the last ship but was still fairly sizable. He looked around, impressed and letting her continue. “Anyway, my partner and I were the only real warriors on the ship, so we were the only ones that had a chance at fighting it. I’m still not entirely sure how we managed to survive. We should have died. I almost did. I fell in the water at some point and almost drowned, cause at the time I didn’t know how to swim. Thankfully, he found me and resuscitated me in time.”

Khelben nodded appreciatively, giving a soft whistle. “That’s pretty intense,” he admitted, staring at the sea with new consideration to the types of dangers the seemingly calm waters could be hiding. “Sounds like you two had quite the adventure. I can’t say I blame you for not wanting to get back out here any time soon.”

She shrugged. “Well, I know how to swim now at least, so I’m not as worried as I might have been a month or two ago. He thought I had drowned because I was too exhausted to swim my way back to the surface, which I suppose was part of the reason. I had expended just about all my energy. But a few weeks later when he realized that it was mostly because I didn’t know how, he took the time to teach me. I may not be great at it yet, but I’m at least confident I wouldn’t sink.”

“That’s good, at least. And very thoughtful of him. This partner of your another member of the guild? I’d love to know who to thank for keeping you alive along enough for me to get to meet you.” Khelben flashed her a flirty grin.

Smirking back, she side eyed him playfully. “Nah, he’s with a different guild. Fairy Tail. They’re allied with Silver Wolf, so we do a lot of jobs with their mages. Onyx Moon, too.”

“Oh good, then I don’t have to worry about him being there to block my way to your door if I’m feeling bold some night in the future.”

Mercury snorted. “Don’t worry, hot shot. Even if he was a member of Silver Wolf, he wouldn’t stop you anyway. Well, maybe he would. Depends on how late it is. I don’t get any leniency from him during training if I stay up too late and don’t get enough sleep.”

“Well, then I guess I’ll just have to make sure I wear you out enough that you fall right asleep.”

She eyed him with a smirk, giving him a considering look. This guy was right out of the gates with his flirtations, wasn’t he? Certainly didn’t beat around the bush. “Oh, a big game talker, eh?” Mercury teased. “Am I going to have to keep you focused on the job at hand? I can’t have you getting killed trying to get in my pants. That’s just embarrassing.”

He grinned at her. “Don’t worry, ma’am. Business before pleasure. I only mix the two during a rare exception.” The way he looked at her didn’t reassure Mercury that he wasn’t thinking of her as one of these rare exceptions, but she supposed she’d have to wait and see how he handled himself. Not that she would mind if he decided to get a little handsy. He was pretty attractive, after all. She probably wasn’t supposed to fraternize with the members in that way, but she had a feeling that wouldn’t stop him if he was that interested in sleeping with her. “So where are you from? How long have you been with Silver Wolf?”

Mercury turned and leaned her back against the railing, giving him a bit more of her full attention. While his interest in her was flattering, he was asking far too many questions about her, more than she could talk about. It was time to start deflecting. “Oh, I’m not from around here. Only been in the area and with the guild for a few months. Close to a year. What about you, hot shot? Where you from?”

Khelben flapped a dismissive hand. “Nowhere, really. I’ve been a nomad most of my life. It was fun in my younger years, and I still have a bit of adventure in me, but I’m ready to settle down for a little while, I think. Have a place to call my own, even if it’s a small one.”

“Is that why you joined up with Silver Wolf?”

“Yeah, it seemed like a nice place. Lots of cultural study and scientific intrigue. Lovely hot springs. Welcome company.” He shot her a small wink. “Seems like a good place to kick up my shoes for a while.”

She chuckled. “It’s a pretty nice place, not going to lie. I’ve quite enjoyed myself with them, and they provide a lot of opportunities to learn and expand myself as an engineer.”

“Oh, yeah? You the tech guru of the joint?”

“More or less. There’s certainly a number of other members with similar talents, some of them probably more skilled than I am, but I’m in charge of the Scholar branch where most of them work so I suppose that makes me the guru, as you say. I just enjoy fiddling with things and seeing what they do and how they can be improved. Speaking of skills, you got any I should know about? It would probably help for me to know what you’re good at before we get where we’re going. What kind of magic do you use?”

Khelben reached up a hand and patted the flat of his blade behind his back. “This right here is the only magic I need,” he told her with a confident smile. “Being a nomad isn’t exactly the safest existence. I had to learn a long time ago how to protect myself and I like to think I’m pretty good at it, seeing as how I’m still alive so far.”

She smiled back at him. “Well, good. We need more of us tool users in the ranks.” Grinning, Mercury patted the hilt of her own weapon, safely holstered at her side. “I’m sure you’ll get plenty of use out of that thing on this job. From the sounds of it, these critters they unearthed are pretty big. Granted, bigger doesn’t always mean tougher, but we won’t really know until we get there and see what we’re up against.”

They continued to make small talk all the way to the island. There was something interesting about Khelben that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He was charming and charismatic, but equally as elusive in talking about himself, giving vague statements here and there without really ever answering her questions -- not that she asked too many personal ones. It wasn’t anything suspicious, but still something he took note of. He was a man that was clearly also used to not going into too much detail about himself, often going out of his way to try and keep the topic focused on her but not to the point where it was raising any red flags. Still, he was a little bit of a mystery and Mercury liked those. Already she was setting her mind to trying to unravel all his secrets and see what kind of juicy bits of information laid hidden behind his humor and flirtations.

But first, they had a job to do. The trip on the boat only took a couple hours before the island was in sight, and it didn’t take a genius to understand why it had been given the name that it had. It had a large mountain range that took up much of its landscape, and the tallest of these mountains looked as though it had been cut open with a knife right down the middle and split apart. It was quite fascinating to behold, and Mercury wondered what could have caused the split. One of the many questions she would surely ask when they met with their clients. The ship landed and they disembarked, paying the captain and thanking him for his services before the two of them followed the path that would lead them to their contacts, following it up and into the mountains.

It took them about an hour to reach the camp where the scientists were headquartered, which was a makeshift building that had been magically crafted to give them ample space for both research and living. The camp itself was located at the base of the mountain, right at the point where the divide started on this side of the island. A number of workers were running around going about their duties, but once the pair of Silver Wolf mages wandered into the area they were quickly greeted with a warm welcome. Mercury explained why they were there, and one of the scientists escorted them into the building and toward one of the labs where their client was currently working.

“Ah, yes! Silver Wolf!” the man said, carefully setting down what appeared to be a sample of sediment and coming around to greet them. He was an older man in his late fifties, with dark skin and scraggly white hair on his hair and face. His hands were weathered from a lifetime of scientific labor, but his dark eyes still twinkled with a youthful energy that could only have been a result of loving the life he was in and the job he had. “Doctor Isaac Schaefer.”

Mercury accepted his hand when he offered it to her to shake, giving the man a friendly smile. “Pleasure to meet you, doc. I’m Mercury Arseneault, head Scholar at Silver Wolf. This is one of our newer recruits, Khelben.”

The other Silver Wolf mage also shook the doctor’s hand pleasantly. “Khelben Calahan,” he told the man, “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Isaac seemed more than eager to get down to business, inviting them to follow him out of the lab. “I’m glad you’re here. My team and I have been researching the island, specifically trying to determine the cause of the split in the mountain to determine if it was natural or if something external caused it once upon a time. We’ve been spending a few weeks digging into the rock and ground at various points along the crevasse, analysing the various samples we find and seeing what kind of data we can extrapolate from its sediment, among other things. While most of what we have found has been quite captivating, we unfortunately stumbled upon a nest of creatures living deep within the mountainside.”

He led them to another room a bit down the hall, where there was a bit of a lounge area with more comfortable seating, and gestured for them to rest. Mercury took a seat in a padded folding chair with Khelben taking the one beside her. “Can I get either of you something to drink after your long journey?” Isaac asked as he wandered over to a small table where there were a number of paper cups and a few dispensers with liquid refreshment. “We’ve got water, lemonade, tea… or if you like something hot there’s some coffee and hot tea options as well.”

Mercury’s ears perked up at the mention of coffee, but as delicious as it sounded at the moment it probably wouldn’t do much to actually hydrate her. “I’ll take a lemonade, thank you.”

“Cold tea would be fantastic.”

The doctor gathered the requested drinks, getting a lemonade for himself, and carrying them over to the pair who accepted it graciously. Mercury hummed appreciatively as the sweet and slightly sour liquid coated her throat and eradicated the dryness from her tongue. As Isaac sat down in another chair across from them, she asked, “So these critters you dug up. I understand from the request you sent us that they’ve been the cause of a few deaths and put a stop to some operations. What’s the damage report there?”

He sighed and shook his head a bit sadly. “Unfortunately, quite a number of my team perished in the original attack. We have a few remote bases littering the island at various points around and within the mountain. One of the bases located in the divide was the one that unearthed the beasts, and the entire crew that was present at the dig site was slaughtered save for one survivor that managed to get back to the base in time to warn us, but not in time to keep the base from being overridden. We lost contact sometime in the middle of their S.O.S. and I don’t have anyone here that can handle a rescue operation.”

Khelben frowned softly. “You came out here to do all this research without taking any precautions to protect yourselves?” It wasn’t an accusatory question so much as an expression of confusion as to why an archeological expedition hadn’t brought along anyone to handle protective details in the wilds.

“Divide Island has been around for quite some time, and it has never had any dangers of note. Most of the wildlife here is not very aggressive, ranging between shy to outright friendly, and there have never been any signs or evidence that larger creatures might be lurking within its depths. Scientists like myself have been scavenging this island for years and never come across anything more dangerous than a feral monkey or two. These beasts, whatever they are, were trapped within the bowels of the mountain and were only released when we dug too far and exposed them to the rest of the island.”

“So, have you been able to send anyone to check on the area since the attack?”

Isaac shook his head sadly. “Not directly. A couple of our technicians put together a drone and flew it over to survey the area remotely. It’s been fully infested by the creatures. If anyone is still alive over there, we have not been able to confirm it. At this point we’ve assumed that there were no survivors, and have ordered the teams from the surrounding bases to keep their distance and to stay alert for migrating beasts. We don’t have the manpower to handle this ourselves, and I don’t want to lose anyone else trying.”

Mercury nodded. “I understand. Silver Wolf is more than happy to help with this. Khelben and I will go to the base and deal with the infestation, and try to find any survivors there and at the dig site. Once we’ve cleared the area, we’ll help you resecure it. And if you want, I can also help you upgrade your security measures at the bases as well. I myself am quite adept with technology and should be able to give you much sturdier fortifications than what you currently have.”

“That would be wonderful, miss. You have my gratitude.”

“It’s no problem at all.”

“What do you need from me to get started?”

“Well, why don’t we start with a map of the locations of your bases, particularly the one that was hit. After that, anything you can give us on the creatures themselves would be helpful…”

They spoke with the doctor for some time, gathering information on the operations that had been going on at the time of the attack and what had been reported back to them before their communications went radio silent. They hadn’t gotten much on the beasts themselves outside of the fact that they were huge insect like creatures, the smallest of which were still the size of an average man. As far as what they were capable of, no one had managed to get those details to them before the attack was through. He showed them the footage from the drones his techs had gotten, which indeed was proof enough of large beasts resembling maggots or centipedes milling about the base.

Other information they collected was the names of all the research crew that had been there that day, as well as images of what each of them looked like. If there were survivors, it would be ideal, but otherwise it would greatly help them to know for sure who had died and whether or not there was enough of a body to return to their families. Mercury reached into one of her pouches before they left, providing Isaac with a couple of communicators and an iLac sized tablet that they could use to stay in contact with one another reliably. Khelben eyed the equipment curiously, particularly as the doctor complimented its make and Mercury admitted that she had made it herself, but otherwise said nothing.

Once the two of them had everything they needed, they took a quick moment to capitalize on getting refreshments and nourishment before moving on, making their way through the woods to the invaded base. They talked only briefly for the first portion of the trip to get a game plan together and work out how they wanted to approach everything, and after that they both went silent, not wanting to alert any potential predators of their existence. Granted, Mercury would know far in advance if they were getting close to anything of such a substantial size because of her radars, but explaining that would open up a line of conversation that she couldn’t get into, so it was best to just play things off like she was any other human.

As they got closer and closer to the base, the two of them took more precautions to traverse quietly through the terrain. Once they were fairly within range, Mercury silently stopped Khelben with a hand. She reached into another of her pouches and withdrew a handful of her golf ball sized drones. Tossing them in the air, they immediately began to hover, awaiting her directions. Her companion watched her with open curiosity as she took out her tablet and punched in a few commands. Off the drones flew, zipping silently through the trees to scout the immediate area ahead.

On her screen, they mapped out what they found of the base and the creatures that lurked there. There were quite a number of them still, a few that had managed to get inside the main building, but most were just loitering out in the fields outside. Using silent hand gestures to point and indicate which directions they would both come at the place from, the two split up and quickly positioned themselves to start a fight, with Khelben waiting for Mercury’s signal to move. The Xocili quickly and agilely moved to a perimeter position where she could more easily reach a larger group of the bugs that had gathered together in a cluster. Producing a grenade from her pouch and taking a fleeting moment of self pity to lament over not being able to just conjure a bunch of guns and wipe everything out in an instant, she pulled the pin to the grenade and tossed it in the middle of the group.

As soon as it exploded, she was off, dashing into the smoke with Mercy drawn and blasting the large creatures left and right. They shrieked in agony and everything in the area panicked, rushing toward her with violent intent. She heard when Khelben joined the fray, the sound of his great sword ringing through the air as he whooped a battle cry and began slicing the creatures apart. As one of the beasts died from her blaster fire, it deposited a bunch of tinier fist sized bugs that began to swarm toward her, but Mercury had no intentions of letting them anywhere near her. Swapping the mode on Mercy, she began blasting the ground in large bursts, wiping the smaller bugs out dozens at a time, until finally everything outside was dead save for the two of them.

“Well, that was exciting.”

Khelben found Mercury shortly after the fight ended. He sported a healthy spattering of blood and puss on his clothes and his sword, but didn’t appear to have received any injuries himself. He still wore his confident, somewhat cocky smile that Mercury could only assume was a consistent expression, much like her own. He didn’t seem all too perturbed by the messy state, but it got Mercury thinking and she looked down in dismay to find herself covered in similarly grotesque gunk. “Ugh,” she complained in disgust, brushing off any dirt and debris that wouldn’t just get smeared around and made worse by the process. Mercury genuinely loved fighting, but absolutely hated when those fights got messy. There was no worse feeling than being sticking and filthy and saturated with grime. There was no point in trying to clean herself up too much yet, though. The job was nowhere near finished, and she was certain there would still be more critters to fight moving forward.

Holstering Mercy for now, Mercury palmed her tablet and approached one of the centipede carcasses. With a quick command punched into the device, she recalled the drones that she had used to scout ahead and they quickly rushed down to her and began circulating the corpse, scanning it with rays of blue light and feeding the information they found back to the tablet. She was more than aware of Khelben coming up to stand behind her, close enough to peer curiously over her shoulder at the details being generated on the small screen. “That’s a neat trick,” he told her. “Is this your magic?”

Mercury chuckled. “I suppose you can call it that if you really want to, but there’s nothing magical that I’m doing here. This is just science. Science and technology. Anyone can do this with the right equipment and understanding of the process.”

“I suppose that’s fair enough. I’m a fair hand with tech myself, so I definitely appreciate the system. It’s just your equipment. I have to say, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s so sleek and quick. Very… well, advanced. Almost out of this world.”

You have no idea, she thought to herself. He seemed more than a little fascinated with the tools she was utilizing, and honestly he wasn’t the first one. Since arriving on Earthland, and particularly once she’d joined up with Silver Wolf, a lot of people had expressed a great deal of interest in her alien wares. It was to be expected when working so closely and so consistently with dozens of other people that had similar mindsets and interests as she did. “It’s amazing what money can buy when you know the right people,” she told him slyly, looking to brush the line of inquiry off as she had countless times before.

Unfortunately, he was more persistent than others. “Oh, you bought this stuff? I figured you made it yourself.”

She shrugged, using her booted foot to casually kick the centipede corpse over so the drones could continue their scan on parts of the carcass they hadn’t checked yet. “A lot of the gear I use is of my own design, I won’t deny that. But some of it I purchased, some I found, some I… acquired.” Mercury turned her face up to shoot him a wide, impish grin. Khelben clearly understood what she was implying as she returned the expression with a similar one of his own. Returning her gaze to her equipment, she went on. “But remember, this is what Silver Wolf does. Technology is our playground, knowledge and tools our toys. Our entire mission is to uncover and preserve the artifacts of the world, both magical and mundane; to learn from those items and use them to further our own technology and skills. We boast the most expansive libraries in the world, stocked with all manner of things that you would never dream to have existed. So, it stands to reason that the gear our members are supplied and create are well above that of the average guild, or even that of society as a whole.”

Why was she getting so defensive just now? That was odd. Her demeanor and tone didn’t necessarily suggest the feeling, but it was still there lingering lightly beneath the surface of her mind. There was no reason for her to feel this way as Khelben hadn’t asked or said anything beyond the scope of what other Earthlanders had before him, yet there it was still, a slight twinge of something that set her ever so slightly on edge. There wasn’t any logic behind it. It was just a gut feeling, with nothing solid for her to pin down. So she took note of it, but brushed it aside for now.

Luckily, he hadn’t seemed to have gotten that impression from her. “Fascinating,” Khelben said, sounding genuinely impressed with what he was seeing. “I can’t wait to get my hands on some stuff back in the labs and see what there is to play with. If this gear is any indication of what’s available, I think you’re gonna be hard pressed to get me to do anything but tinker.”

“Oh good, you’ll fit right in, then.” Her tablet beeped to signal the end of its analysis, and Mercury overlooked the findings. “Alright, so it looks like what we just faced was still fairly young, not an infant for its species and matured enough to reproduce, but not aged to full size yet.”

“Wait, how can you tell that?” he asked, leaning further down to take a closer look at the screen.

She pointed at some of the data. “Look at the numbers here. What do they tell you?”

Khelben peered for a moment, studying the data. “Oh wow, look at the hormonal enzymes. The shape of them… they haven’t fully formed, yet. And the quantity is equal to what you’d find in a teenager, or young adult.”

“Very good,” she told him with a grin, pleased at how well he was able to pinpoint the data from which she’d extrapolated her findings. “So, this means we have to be careful moving forward. As far as their attack methods go, they’re not that different from run of the mill beasts, but I learned the hard way that some of the females can spew spawn that is immediately hostile and able to swarm. Be mindful of that. But, we also need to be on the lookout for ones that may be bigger or nastier. If these aren’t fully formed yet, then there’s no telling what kind of tricks and skills they have at full maturity.”

“Agreed. So what’s the next step?”

Mercury put the tablet away and once again removed her blaster. “Right now it’s to check the building for more monsters and survivors.”

“You really think anyone is still going to be alive in there?” he asked, turning to face the main building of the outpost with her.

“It’s possible. None of the scientists were trained warriors, but that doesn’t mean they were helpless. Even if they weren’t able to fend them off, it’s entirely possible they managed to secure themselves somewhere. I’m not saying it’s worth getting our hopes up for, but it’s not that large of an improbability.” Truthfully, she could sense several life forms within the building. None of them were moving very much, and she couldn’t tell their shapes and sizes, but they were still there. Most likely they were more of the centipede creatures but it was possible that one or more of them could be survivors. Not likely, but possible. “Alright, let’s stick together inside. I’ll push the front while you keep an eye on our backs. We’re not going to have as much room to maneuver inside so it will be better if we don’t separate.”

The two of them made their way through the inside, picking their way carefully through the rubble. Within, they did indeed find more of the large bug-like creatures that had managed to worm their way into the building, destroying much of what was inside. Along the way, they found a number of bodies that had belonged to some of the scientists working at the base. Most of them they were able to identify, though a couple had been disfigured beyond recognition and would need to have their remains sampled against whatever genetic information the homebase had on their workers before the incident. Together, Khelben and Mercury cleared a larger room of most of the larger debris and brought each corpse they found, laying them side by side together.

“Hmm,” Mercury mused out loud as she stared at the bodies. “We’ve searched just about the entire compound, but we’re still missing a lot of bodies.”

Khelben finished drinking from a bottle of water he’d found inside a fridge whose contents had managed to remain intact. He was resting on a desk, catching his breath a little from the lifting and moving. “Well, a few of them were over at the dig site, right? We’ll probably find the rest of them there.”

“Maybe, but there still should have been more people than this here. He said that there were thirty-six people stationed here, and normally only a third of them were ever at the dig site at once. There’s only thirteen bodies here; less than half.”

“Maybe some of them were eaten?”

Mercury grimaced. “What a way to go. Though you may be right. We don’t really know how much these things eat. It’s entirely possible they’ve completely consumed a couple of people and there’s no bodies left to recover. We should--”

Both of them jumped to their feet, weapons in hand as a loud clattering down the hall caught their attention. She’d thought they killed all the centipedes, but clearly she’d been wrong. Waving to him, she silently gestured for him to position himself and he took a stance in the center of the room where he’d have enough room to move and space to wield his sword. Mercury silently shuffled toward the doorway, pressing herself up against the wall with her gun ready to aim as they waited for another sound, some kind of further indication of where their prey was headed. Her sensors picked up a small ping with low lifesigns making its way slowly toward the door, and it didn’t take long before she could hear the footfalls with her own ears. Giving Khelben a look to prepare him that she was about to move, Mercury whipped around the corner and trained her sights down the barrel of her gun.

The woman just on the other side of the door screamed and practically jumped out of her skin. “Please don’t hurt me!” she cried.

Mercury immediately raised her gun, already recognizing the woman as one of the scientists stationed at the base. “Whoa, it’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you. I thought you were one of those bugs.”

She seemed to recover fairly quickly, but then again she also looked too exhausted and ramshackled to be further traumatized by anything else. “Who are you? Were you sent to find us?” the woman asked. She was shaking and looking a bit frail. There was no mistaking that she’d been wearing the same outfit for days as it was covered in dirt and wrinkles.

“Dr. Schaefer sent us to clear the base and try to find any survivors. We’re wizards from Silver Wolf. What’s your name?” Mercury pulled her inside the room gently and guided her to the desk Khelben had been sitting at before. Her guildmate looked more than a little surprised to have discovered a survivor, and he quickly stepped out of the room to go get another bottle of water and something for her to eat.

“Maddy. Madeline Cruz.”

“Glad to find someone alive, Maddy. I’m Mercury, my buddy that just ducked out there is Khelben. Are there any more of you?”

Maddy shook her head, tears starting to fall from her eyes. “I don’t know. Everything happened so fast. I was in the main lab when the attack hit. Managed to seal myself in the storage closet where we keep sediment samples.”

Mercury nodded, and Khelben returned, offering the woman a water and a couple snack bars he’d managed to find. She quickly got to work eating through them, and it was clear that she hadn’t had any food in days. Reaching into one of her pouches, Mercury took out a few instruments and used them to check the woman’s vitals. She was running a slight fever and showing signs of severe dehydration. “She needs a medical team, and quickly,” she told Khelben.

Pulling out her tablet, she rang up Isaac, who answered almost immediately. “Mercury! Did you find anything.”

“The base has been cleared and we’ve recovered a few bodies. You’ll be happy to know that at least one of them is still breathing.” She turned the device around and gave it to Madeline.

“Maddy!”

“Isaac, thank God!”

Mercury allowed the two of them a couple minutes to talk to one another and share some information before taking the device back. “Khelben and I are going to move on to the dig site. You need to send a team here to pick up Maddy. She needs immediate medical attention.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” the woman asked, looking pale.

“Hey, you’re gonna be alright,” Khelben told her. “Merc and I already cleared this whole place, inside and out. You’re perfectly safe here, I promise.” He reached down and took her hand, his voice soothing as he gave her a charismatic smile that not even a post-trauma woman could ignore. Wiping away her tears, she nodded. “Atta girl. Your people are gonna be here before you know it.”

“Here.” Mercury gave the woman another of her spare tablets and showed her how to use it. “This has a long enough range to contact Isaac. You can also use it to reach us, just in case. We’ll be back, but we have to get to the source and finish getting rid of these things, okay?”

“Alright. Please be safe. And thank you so much.”

Once they were set and ready to go, they confirmed the directions to the dig site with Maddy before heading off to what would, hopefully, be the final stretch in the mission...

The dig site wasn’t terribly far away from the base, though they were still traveling for the better part of half an hour. Why they had set up their remote headquarters so far away from their place of interest was beyond her, but she imagined it had something to do with making sure the base was never shaken by the tools and magic being used to dig into the mountain’s base. The construction site was rather large, and was unfortunately littered with bodies and other centipedes. It took them a few minutes to mow the over large creatures down to secure the immediate area outside of the cavern the scientists had been digging. After that, she and Khelben took a fair bit of time tracking down every body they could find. In the end, there were still a lot of missing people and they were forced to conclude that some of the scientists had been eaten. That, or they had been hopelessly lost out in the woods after making a break for their lives.

Mercury took a number of pictures of the various corpses, sending them back to Isaac so he could have an update on who had been recovered. Then, she sighed. “Well, I think we’re going to have to go spelunking,” she told her companion, casting her gaze toward the entrance of the cave that the scientists had been exploring. “I doubt we’re going to find any more people, but at this point it’s about pest control. If these things were hiding underground, chances are there are more of them that will come out eventually. We should do what we can to clear them out to make sure the area is safe for the scientists to return.”

Khelben shrugged. “Works for me. I can’t say the thought of cave digging for monsters sounds particularly appealing, but if we don’t do the job right the first time we’re just going to have to come back later. May as well get it done and be done with it.”

“That’s the spirit.” She grinned wide at him. Pulling out her tablet and another series of drones, the Xocili sent the devices ahead of them, where they scanned the halls and sent the information back to her, giving her a clear blueprint of the caverns within. Mercury whistled. “Man they sure were busy. Look at all these tunnels. I don’t even know where to start.”

He came and peered over her shoulder, looking equally as impressed as daunted. “Looks like they’ve been digging for a while. Some of these passages go deep. Maybe we should start with some of the dead ends and get those out of the way while your droid thingies keep exploring the other areas?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking something along the same lines. Alright, let’s move out. We want to be done before it gets too dark out, I imagine.” They made their way into the cave, and when it started getting too dark to see she withdrew a few more drones to shed some light on the area as they followed the pair around. Her tablet guided them rather easily down the first path, while Mercury’s sensors told her well in advance that there was nothing living anywhere near them. The first dead end yielded nothing in the way of either corpses or centipedes, causing them to have to retrace their steps back until they got to the next passageway.

The pattern repeated itself over the next few tunnels, with each being as uneventful and fruitless as the last. After the fifth such dead end, with no bodies or monster to account for, Mercury sighed. “Well, this is boring.” She’d figured that being cooped up in a tight space with a nest of flesh eating, over sized bugs would have been a bit more exhilarating. They made their way out and down one of the longer tunnels. “I’m starting to wonder if there’s even a nest left to destroy. Statistically speaking there has to be. I’m certain that these creatures couldn’t have lived this long being undisturbed without procreating like crazy, but I’m not even getting any life signs on this thing aside from our own.” Mercury held the tablet aloft to emphasize her point. “Maybe we really did kill everything already. Or maybe these things have already vacated their underground home and spread their way out through the rest of the island.”

Khelben hummed thoughtfully. “The latter seems more likely, though don’t you think if that were the case then these things would have been spotted already at some of the other bases?”

“Yeah, most likely. We probably just haven’t gone deep enough yet. We haven’t even found the next yet, whether empty or occupied. I just wished the journey were a little more exciting. If I wanted to walk around aimlessly, I could have done that back at the guild.”

The man chuckled lightly. Then, after a pause, “I mean, if you want something to do, I bet I could think of an activity or two…”

Mercury threw him a sly smirk, emerald eyes peering at him playfully through the dim lighting of her drones. “Is that so?”

“Oh, absolutely. I’d put money down that I could make this venture a little more… active.”

“Right here in the middle of the caves, huh? As tempting and exciting as that sounds, can’t say it strikes me as the wisest idea I’ve heard today.”

Khelben grinned at her. “That’s what makes it all the more fun,” he informed her, sidling a little closer as they walked. “A little bit of danger goes well toward heightening pleasure. Besides, you said it yourself that there’s nothing even around us. What’s the harm in a little fun? Unless, you’re just not interested..?”

It was Mercury’s turn to chuckle. “Oh, there’s plenty of interest, don’t get me wrong. You’re certainly a bold one, and I can’t say that doesn’t do anything for me. It’s not every day a new recruit tries to get into my pants the first day they meet one of their bosses. But I’m not entirely sure you strike me as the following through kind of guy. You seem more like the kind that flirts up a big game an--”

Welp, apparently she’d called his bluff. Before Mercury could even finish her sentence, Khelben had his hands on her waist and was gently, but commandingly, backing her up against the cavern wall. He pressed himself right up against her and she only had enough time to see the impish smirk on his face before his lips were on hers, kissing her deeply with desire. Mercury was more than a little surprised, but certainly not disappointed. A piece of her mind was left lingering on the mission at hand and knowing that they really should stay focused… but on the other hand, what was the harm in an adventurous quickie with a relative stranger in a dark, monster infested cave?

After only a moment to let her brain catch up, Mercury fumbled to shove her tablet back in her pouch, wrapping her arms around the man’s neck and kissing him back fervently. There was no mistaking where either of them intended for this to go, each kiss more passionate than the last as they made relatively quick work in building up to the good stuff. Hands and mouths roamed for several minutes until Khelben elected to chance trying to remove some of Mercury’s clothing. By that point, the Silver Wolf Ace was all too willing, her own hands scrambling to return the favor.

Unfortunately, they wouldn’t quite get far enough. Before any garments could start to get flung, Mercury’s sensors started screaming, both in her head and from the tablet in her pouch. “Fuck..!” she breathed, coming up for air with a frustrated growl and yanking the tablet out of her pouch once more. Not that she needed to do so, of course. She was already more than well aware of what was happening, but she still needed to act like she was fully human.

“Oh, come on,” Khelben grumbled, equally as irritated as he quickie tightened up the pants that she had just started to loosen -- pants that were already fitting a bit more tightly than usual. “Centipedes?”

“Five of them, heading straight for us.” Muttering a string of curses, she whipped Mercy out of its holster once more and dragged Khelben into a small crevasse around the corner that they could use to stay out of sight long enough to get the drop on the creatures. They ambled slowly past them, not wholly aware of the danger in their midst until after Mercury and Khelben had already attacked. Within only a minute or two, the creatures were dead and both of them were covered in a fresh layer of bloodied muck.

Both of them stood there for a moment, panting as they recovered. Khelben glanced over at her. “So, I uh… I don’t suppose you still wanna…”

“Yeah, no. Sorry. Moment’s gone. Only thing I want right now is a long, hot shower.”

“I had a feeling you were going to say that.” He sounded disappointed, but not too much. Rather, it seemed like the mood had been killed for him, too, as much as he wished otherwise. “Guess I’ll just have to take a rain check. In the meantime, I’d be lying if I said finding that nest and burning it to the ground didn’t sound extremely satisfying right now.”

Mercury was certainly on board with that idea, and with that feeling. Luckily, the emergence of the small patrol of centipedes meant they were heading in the right direction. It didn’t take them a whole lot longer to finally find the nest, and true to his word Khelben did insist on setting the place on fire. For one, there were far too many of the creatures for the two of them to beat them all single handedly, particularly when there was a massive broodmother toward the center. Secondly, the creatures would be hard pressed to survive being trapped in a cave filled with fire and smoke, which would be a far easier and more effective strategy than anything else they could think of. Mercury used her drones to deposit a thick layer of oil around the perimeter and then they lit it, trapping the bugs in the flames.

Their dying screeches echoed out into the hallway for quite some time, with Mercury and Khelben both keeping as close as they reasonably could to keep an eye on the situation and make sure none of the monsters made it out alive. They had to retreat a ways for their own safety in order to keep from inhaling too much of the smoke themselves. It was a slow culling, but in the end it managed to kill nearly all of the beasts. The few that survived were heavily injured and easily put down by their weapons until the entire nest had been well and truly extinguished.

Once that was done, they returned to the nearest base where a medical team had indeed arrived to see to Maddy. Mercury explained what they had found in the caves and how they had handled it, leaving Isaac and his crew with a strong word of caution about digging further into the mountains. While they had cleared out this nest, there was always the possibility that there were more, and that was not a fight the scientists were keen to have again. At least, not without being better prepared. Mercury made sure to pass along the readings she’d taken of the creatures so the crew could use the information to better defend themselves against the centipedes in the future, and after that it was time to return home.

The trip back to the Phoenix Mountains was a slow one, with Mercury dreaming longingly for her shower the entire way there. Khelben kept her sane with small talk, the two of them trying to pass the time until they could return to their rooms to pass out from exhaustion. As they made their way through the hall in the dormitories and made to go their separate ways, Mercury gave him a smirk. “You did good today, Hot Shot,” she told him. “I can’t say you wouldn’t have been a good fit for the Hunter branch, but I certainly won’t complain about you sticking with the Scholars. Just means I’ll get to see you around a lot more.”

He grinned at her. “Well, I’m certainly hoping that will be the case. Thanks for taking me along. It was quite the adventure. I’ll certainly remember it fondly… or at least, certain parts of it.” Khelben gave her a wink that drew a small chuckle out of the Ace.

“The feeling is mutual,” Mercury informed him, giving him one last glance over. “However, my interest in flirting has been severely overrun by my desire to be clean. Catch you later.”

“Have a good night, Miss Arseneault.”

With a small wave, Mercury turned and made her way upstairs to her own room, completely oblivious to the calculating way that the man watched her until she was out of sight. Once she had retreated, he made his way into his room and shut the door behind him, his mind rife with thought. She certainly seemed to be carrying herself the way that she should. The woman had easily dismissed and brushed off a number of his questions, even when he tried digging past her defenses. The scout had also acclimated well to this strange world and the phenomenon known as “magic” that permeated it, finding a way to use Xocili technology to put her on par with the people here that seemed capable of breaking the laws of the universe, even going so far as to claim that her highly advanced tech was simply a byproduct of working for this rather academic and scientific guild. All in all, her ability to sell herself as a native was rather solid.

But that still didn’t change the fact that she was up to something. Far too many of her reports had been missed or outright sloppy, which was not in line with her track record. Mercury had to have found something here, something that she felt was worth risking the consequences of what the Nazru would do if they confirmed that she had become insubordinate… and that was not something that Khelben could allow. But for now, he would hang back and watch from the shadows, doing his own research and gathering the facts before ultimately revealing himself to her. At least, if she didn’t figure him out first. With an expression like cold steel, he set his weapon down and made for the showers so he could get cleaned up.

After all, he had a lengthy report to write after today.