ᴀʟʟ ʜᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴜꜱʜʀᴏᴏᴍ ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅ [ antipriest | Nazgul ]

[antipriest]

••●───── ☢⋅ ☣ ⋅☢ ─────●•• Written by antipriest & Nazgul "Chemical halo, burning bright in a sodium haze" ••●───── ⋅ ☢ ⋅ ─────●••​ ⋆₊ ⚠︎ ── Themes : noncon dubcon manipulation power imbalance mutation dystopian post-apocalyptic low-cyberpunk ⋆₊ ⚠︎ ── Playlist : WIP​ ​

 

[Kleine Koninck]

The pilgrim peered through the thick green fog laid out before the group, holding onto a walking stick, the top of which had branches affixed in the shape of the symbol of an atom. Behind him was a group of travelers, who seemed to look to the pilgrim for guidance. They wore heavy protective clothing, CBRN suits and gasmasks, heavy cloaks and leather trenchcoats, some of them even armed with rifles and pistols.

"The green field," the pilgrim said, his voice heavily distorted by an old model gas mask, hailing from the 1950s.

The leader followed the gaze of the pilgrim straight through the green field. Once there had been a forest here, "Straight through the field you said?"

"Yes," the pilgrim answered, the modulator on the gasmask heavily transforming his voice, so that it wasn't clear whether the rasp was his or that of his mask. "Straight through..." The green field was one of the most radioactive hotspots in the entire area, almost impossible to traverse if you didn't have a guide that knew how to maneuver through it. The pilgrim himself was not clothed in much protective gear, the gasmask standing out as the most obvious feature, masking his face entirely with black-out lenses that hid what lay beneath. For the entire trip, and the original meeting, he had not taken it off either.

The travelers appeared uneasy, most of all the leader. "And you didn't want payment?"

There was no answer, at least not from the pilgrim, as he pointed his stick forward, gesturing towards a set of trees. "That way."

Beyond the green field was an - as of yet - unopened facility that belonged to some government agency. It was a local myth that that facility held the key to what happened in this region, and also a way to undo it. But these travelers, the pilgrim knew, were mostly just looking for valuables, old tech they could use, bionic arms and weapons, anything worth some money. They were not like him, did not respect the new world order and the hierarchy that came with it. They were just scavengers, looting that which was no longer protected. Vultures... parasites. Come here to disturb the sanctity of this facility - his facility.

Twenty years ago this would've been a large forest, hiding the facility from view, separating the nearby town from whatever was going on there. Smaller facilities were present in the entire region but most if not all of them had been cracked open. The facility beyond the field was the only egg that remained uncracked. And everyone wanted into it. The entire Grayline was essentially looking for a path to the riches that laid within, originating from the time period just after the Ash Rain incident.

The traveler nodded and gestured for the group to follow him. Together they set off, hoping their equipment would shield them from any missteps off the path they were guided to. The first steps were easy enough. The geiger counters beeped loudly, but were still in levels that the suits were able to protect them from. Then, suddenly, the geiger counters beeped so rapidly that it almost felt as if they were wrong. A hot pocket of radiation, here?

Confused, the traveler looked back at the pilgrim, who was just in the process of removing his mask. In horror the man watched as the pilgrim appeared to commit suicide, as breathing in the toxic air here was an almost certain death. But when the mask came off, all that was left was those green, glowing eyes staring back at him from under the bandaged face. His look of horror turned to a fuzzy, hazy mess as slowly his vision began to fade. "Something.. something is wrong," the man managed to utter, "it's.. it's Him.." A finger pointed at the pilgrim accusingly, before the arm dropped and the man collapsed.

The rest of the travelers suffered a fate much the same as the sudden onset of a pocket of radiation -- seemingly from out of nowhere, as if it had been moved there by something or someone -- caused them all to slowly wither away in nuclear agony. The lenses on their gasmasks bulged and bubbled, as if they were melting from both inside and outside, before they finally cracked under a pressure that should not have been there. Least of all because radiation should not produce any pressure, but also because the path was supposed to be clear.

The pilgrim approached the group, despite his lack of protective equipment, his geiger counter beeping ominously as he tread the radioactive, dead grass. When he reached the crew he moved straight for the leader, and reached inside of the pocket of the leather duster the man had been wearing, rummaging until he found what he needed. When he pulled his hand out he held an official document, a pristine-looking black notebook with the emblem of the United States government on the front.

Project Luminous Lure it said on the cover, above the emblem. Below it, Task Force Sentinel Zero. Whoever printed this notebook had taken a lot of care to make sure it'd remain in good condition, whatever may come. The pilgrim did not need to open the book to know what it contained: detailed schematics on the facility ahead of them, the security measures, and how to defeat them, and a very detailed outline on the project that was performed within.

He had seen this book before. Long ago.

Now it was his.

With his left hand he pulled open his own coat, and slid the book into the messenger bag hidden underneath. Then, he slowly moved away, putting on the gasmask again while he walked. He had what he needed now - or, at least, a part of it. And while the conventional defenses would be easy to breach - locks, doors, gates, hermetically sealed bunkers - the true issue was the biometrics. Whoever had written the book was dead. Long dead. He remembered how the life drained from that woman's eyes as he...

Well. It mattered very little how she died. She was dead, and her DNA would no longer open the doors. And that left very little options, he knew, as the chance of finding any one of her children was remarkably slim. No, perhaps he had to hack his way into the system, or find a way around. Blow open a wall. Dig a tunnel. The possibilities were endless, but not endless enough. To achieve any of this, he would need help - for the first time in his long, way too long life. An agent that could move between the regular people of the Grayline without attracting the attention he would. Freak that he was.

He kept moving forwards, towards the hub of the Grayline, the town that most people congregated in. It was not much of a trek from the green field, which was a bit odd.. building a town this close to the most dangerous area in the entire Grayline. But he supposed that, back then, when things were just getting started, people figured they'd find a way through the green field quickly, and would be able to loot the biggest facility of the Grayline. How wrong they were.

 

[antipriest]

The Devil's Lair sat low and wide against the broken pavement, lantern light bleeding out through red curtains strung in its windows. Its walls were patched in mismatched scrap– sheets of corrugated tin hammered into brick, old signage laid sideways with their slogans half visible beneath years of rain and rot. The paint on its door had long ago peeled away, leaving only the smear of oil and chipped wood. The building itself had no need for prettiness. The men and women who worked there– those who were still young enough or hardened enough to pull coin from the weary– stood near the entrance in their tired silks, calling soft promises to broken people. Their laughter was brittle, carried by the smoke, but it was laughter all the same. The air around it was heavy with perfume, sweat, and the acrid tang of cheap spirits; a mix that sank into each and every brick.

Violet slipped out beneath the lantern light, boots catching against the cracked steps. The red curtain light washed her pale face in color, but did nothing to hide the scar carved deep along her right cheek from the corner of her mouth: an ugly, silvery-pale ridge against otherwise smooth skin. She pulled the hood of her coat up as she moved, though it was habit (and an attempt to escape the light drizzle) more than shame.

Everyone in the Grayline had scars. Hers just happened to stare back at strangers before her eyes could. She adjusted the strap of her pack against her shoulder, still sore from where her last client had grabbed her too hard, and cut down the uneven path toward the bar a few doors down.

The front door stuck on its hinge, groaning as the woman pushed her way inside. Inside, the bar smelled of sour beer and wood that had soaked up at least a hundred different spills. It wasn’t late enough for the place to be rowdy yet– just the regulars, the drunks too broke to buy themselves out of misery, and the occasional desperate soul with something to trade. A few faces lifted from their drinks– no one surprised to see her, no one calling out either. A man with a shorn scalp shot Violet a look, squinting as if he might ask her for something, but thought better of it once he caught the cold weight of her stare. She crossed to the counter with a steady step, the old floorboards creaking beneath her weight, and slid onto a stool near the corner. It was only after she pulled her hood back just enough to show her face when the bartender nodded in recognition, neither friendly nor hostile, and set a chipped glass of amber liquid in front of her.

“On the house.”

She took it in one swallow, the rum burning a path down her throat. Warmth spread quickly, blooming along her sternum and down further, though it wasn’t nearly enough to soften her edges. She hadn’t come here for the drink, but for the eyes and ears. Work traveled fast in the Grayline, and most of it washed up here sooner or later. Around her, the room shifted. She kept her silence while the men around her muttered about debts, one about a shipment gone missing. Rumors of the green field, scavenger groups disappearing. She listened without seeming to, filing details away in the back of her mind. A contact here, a lead there. No partners, no loyalties– just names that paid well enough to keep her fed.

“Anything moving tonight?” Her voice was low, raspy from smoke and a life of bad air quality, but the barkeep leaned in anyway.

“Nothing worth your trouble, Vi,” he said back, “unless you fancy hauling crates for half your worth.”

Her plump, chapped lips curved, faint and humorless. “I’ll pass.”

For a while longer she stayed, letting the noise, the bustle of the bar, and the bitterness of her second and third drinks wash over her. It was almost comforting in a way– life in all its ugliness, better than the quiet that waited outside. The longer she sat, the more the voices around her began to blur into static, the smoke curling tighter, until the itch beneath her skin told her it was time to move. The hour had grown late, and she had no reason to linger any more than she already had. Violet slid a coin across the bar and pushed herself up onto her feet. Eyes tracked her as she left, but no one followed.

Not yet.

The street beyond was emptier now, most of the strip drained into the haze of their own stupors. The Grayline was never quiet, not really– steam hissed from pipes, distant generators rattled, metal groaned as if the ruins themselves were restless. But compared to the bar, it was near-silence. She drew her coat tighter around her shoulders, boots crunching against gravel as she made her way through.

The walk home stretched longer than it should have, every corner yawning like a throat ready to swallow her whole. Lanterns burned dim, their halos of light small islands in an ocean of shadow and industrial rot. She told herself she knew these streets, had walked them enough times to navigate with her eyes closed. But knowing them didn’t stop her from hearing things that weren’t there…or, at least, that she couldn’t see. The scrape of something down an alley. A shuffle too quick to be wind. The faint creak of metal, as though something– someone– shifted its weight just out of sight. Her hand brushed over the hilt of the blade at her hip, not drawing it, just testing the comfort of its grip. The scar down her face pulled as her jaw clenched. She didn’t quicken her pace. Not yet.

She wouldn’t give the night the satisfaction of seeing her run.

Still, her senses were strung taut, each step thrumming in her ears, until the space between one lantern’s pool of light and the next felt like stepping off of a cliff. The fog looked heavier tonight, the shadows thicker, as though they weren’t just darkness at all but something breathing, waiting. And Violet– alone, scarred, too tired to admit she was afraid– kept walking into it.