"Nobody's answering."

Ylva states the obvious. Rothgar says nothing. Ohm is leaning against the interceptor. It falls to me, yet again, to pick up the pieces. Initiative is like that, you know. Pieces of broken glass. The first one to pick it up might cut themselves. On purpose? Go on, find a razor and start cutting! Don't ignore m-

We are four RIPPERs, standing on the winding path that leads to here: Edgehog Point. A small lighthouse from before the SoS played to an audience of bleeding ears. It's been renovated to a happy little outpost, painted in the corner of fucked-bum nowhere. Like a proper anulus, ready to be spread by daddy's-

Fuck, I hate the Runes. I hate the atmosphere of this place even more. I can't see the Realm jutting up on the horizon because of this damn fog! I'm starting to think this air is runesmitten. If that is so, I-

"Krow, something amiss?" Rothgar notices the language of my body. Because of our jack-suits, it's all he has to go on. I twitch more than usual when the Mosh is bleeding into the real. 

"There is pandemonium beyond this portal...Ohm, call it in." My command is obeyed without question. I'm like a bird in a coal mine. You mean the ones that have to die, so that humans may live? Typical that you would think yourself so high and mighty. I'd personally lump you in with a cancerous growth.

"Rothgar, break it down." Ylva becomes bossy when my back is turned. My insides shiver when the crack of broken wood reverberates through the air. 

Not a woodland to be seen for kilkreaths around, and here it is. A contradiction to the layman. You can see it, right? Someone fresh from the Gulf, stumbling into this place and asking "How could there be wood in this place?" their bewildered ejaculations tainting the air with naivete. Instead, this place has you: A creep that already knows better. A smartass kunt. 

Of course, there were woodlands before. The Age of Embers has seen many disappear. Just on that cliff alone there-

Inside, the picture doesn't become any clearer. There are blood stains everywhere, leading to the northern chamber, which is slightly ajar. We move tactically, in our favourite formation: Rothgar takes pointless to a whole new level, I cover his right flank (with what? Harsh words), Ylva his left. Come on, Krow...she deserves a flank too. Ohm has our six (which is also how many men it takes to lift her giant tits). We call it the "Dimebag". We're working on a new one that makes more sense and is less disrespectful to legends.

The room is dark. I take exception to that, and carve a Stave into the wall. Ignoring the fact your helmet has dark-vision features.

That's when I notice the writing in blood. "EET FUK" in letters massive enough to cover the entire door, which reaches Rothgar's height of two kreaths. Its meaning eludes me. I guess I had to be here to get it. An inside joke for outsiders to throw questions at. I have none of those, nor the time to ponder why grammar starts to suffer once the Mosh starts poking through. When instinct takes over, who has time for rules? The rest of the room has nothing, only bloody trails. All lead to the vandalized door.

"I got turret stance, fling it open." I say with misplaced confidence. Ylva and Rothgar take up either side, while Ohm aims her bolt-action blockbuster right behind me. I switch off the audio in my helmet, just in case an artillery shell flies past my head in the next five seconds. The sound would make you deaf anyway. The jack-suits spectacle helmet isn't soundproof.

The doors fly open with dramatic speed. Inside is darkness of such pitch, the third dimension takes a holiday. All I can see are small pinpricks of glowing magenta. Several clusters, one containing about a dozen, another only half that number. The amount varies by individual. Once I'm convinced that Ohm won't open fire into the inky wall of black, I switch my audio feed back on. 

Mommy, you taste so good. Daddy, don't quit your day job. Make more of me, please! I want moremoremoremoremo-

Gnawing, biting, chomping wet noises that I've had the "pleasure" of hearing many times before. Oh, how the centuries have been kind to my sensations. I crack a flare, and throw it into the penumbra. 

Don't look at me! I belong in the light-room, with all the other DRETCH. They were right, you were wrong! We're all gonna die, and it's your fault. Just look at what happened to sis. Fuck, mom. What the hel is wrong with you guys?

They don't even budge. Vantablack creatures in shapes vaguely reminiscent of canines...do not mistake them for dogs. These things were once human, and the glowing pins of magenta are their many eyes. It allows them to see things they wouldn't believe. There are three-dozens of them, feasting on what appears to be small bodies. There's not enough hair for them to be dwarfs, and we know for a fact that only bregen settled here. 

Welcome to Edgehog Point. Don't worry, you won't cut yourself...now, let's get you settled in.

"Helhounds..." Ylva says in our intercom, so that the creatures don't hear. It isn't often I detect terror in her voice. Yet there it is. A slight crack in the delivery, laden with the foreboding omen of our situation.

Mother, what did the brazen men want to do with me? Why did they have needles?

I know what must be done. I activate my conduction, tapping into all Runes at once. With that in my brazen eye, I try to calculate how close this place actually is to-

Images of violence, stupidity and panic rush your senses. The magentic impressions left on the Runes is flung harshly into your human brain, and it hurts. The audacity makes you want to puke.

"Please, this is for your own-"

"Stow it, RIPPER! My baby isn't getting THAT showed into their flesh!"

"Kill them all!"

"At dawn's first light, we strike. Red Iron Patrol can't have them too!"

116%

After I collect myself, back to the coolest dude this side of the Gulf, I make my orders very clear and concise on the intercom, measuring my voice by the nankreath.

"...this place has reached terminal atrocity. Close the door slowly, then back away even slower. Ohm, with me...slowly now."

You are slow. Slower than grandpa off his meds. How do you even know what a grandpa is anymore? Back in my day, we lived in caves and shit. People got all wrinkly and died before cancer could claim them. Sometimes it did anyway! Do you hear me, Krow? Or should I call you me? Why aren't you dead yet?

The retreat was nerve wracking to say the least. When we make it back to our interceptor (ten minutes later), I tell Ohm to report our findings, while I take a seat in the passenger...seat. All the while, I hear Ohm talking in her calm, lilted timbre. 

"X-07 to Marshal...terminal atrocity verified at Edgehog Point lighthouse. One-hundred and six-teen percent, more than dozens of helhounds currently feasting."

When she's finished, and the other two enter the back seats, we drive off, away from Edgehog Point. Once we've cleared several kilkreaths, we notice a drakkar in the distance swoop in. It launches a drop pod. Singular. Its velocity clears the fog, like a bullet through smoke, and it crashes violently into the lighthouse.

Feline features hidden by a bony mask, created by each individual personally. Here they come again, applying their murderous craft of deadly pain...sport to them. The great game.

"...guess they only need one to take care of them, huh?" Ohm says, watching with glee(?) as the lighthouse is lit up like a yuletide tree. It's over in about two minutes, then the building blows up.

How else does a pantera return to the ship? He leaps up, the shock causing an explosion strong enough to melt concrete. Or maybe he's off to search for the walrus pit?

That's all we care to see. We drive even further, putting more distance between us and that grizzly scene of pointless barbarism. We find a ruined building occupied by a ghast of ghouls, and decide to accept their hospitality. One of the perks of working for Red Iron Patrol. 

As opposed to the cons, with numbers some might call "priceless". 

Later that evening, I nurse a horn of tromatosh with reckless abandon. As the poisonous effects of the fishy liquid start messing with my memories, I see...chunks of rock floating in the air.

私を置いて行かないでください。

Shut up..

愛してます。

Shut up.

行くなよ。

Shut the fuck up! 

...

SHUT-

"Keep'em coming, yeah?" Ohm sits down next to me, at this makeshift bar in the middle of bum-fuck. 

Nowhere? Nah, it's somewh-Shut up. Enough. Cease. Damare.

"You're bothered. Not hot, but still on edge." Ohm says, downing three horns before I can finish my second. I try not to make the conversations happen, they just do. Other people initiate first contact, I just live here. Or at least, that's how it feels sometimes. 

"It's nothing. I saw the outline of what happened there, but it leaves something to be desired."

Like the fact they didn't want you to-

One more time, and I'm adding red iron to my 'tosh."

...

She raises an eyebrow at me. I hear Ylva losing a game of Omnicide. I recognise that indignant huff even amidst the din of scampering ghouls. The ghast has become lively. Other RIPPERs from Toecutter Company are joining in, interceptors filling the "parking lot". 

Denny would be proud. 

"You? Desire? Must be a puzzle unsolved, yeah?" Ohm's wit isn't as sharp as mine, but she has her moments. Not this one.

It's a strange thing, for tears to be welling up in my good eye. Yet, I cannot definitely displace them without drowning my frustrating sorrows. "What did the words mean?"

Before Ohm can ask a follow up question, she's interrupted by a loud crashing sound. Rothgar went through a wall again. Another brawl is imminent, I imagine.

No need to imagine the inevitable.

While she doesn't hurry to grab medical supplies (in case Rothgar's new friends need emergency first aid) her steps are slightly quickened. It doesn't matter, the puzzle still perplexes me.

"That damn door...what was the point of that scrawl at Edgehog Point...?"

I look into my horn. An oily, golden liquid stares back at me. I chug it all down, letting the poison whisper bittersweet nothings into my soul.

Kill yourself.

…that's not bittersweet. That's just mean.

There's a knock on my helmet. Why haven't I taken this thing off by now? Well, at least the spectacle is up. Ylva is trying to get my attention. I feel like there's an easier way to do that, one which doesn't involve rattling my skull with a wooden club.

"Captain wants to see you. She's about to send the report."

I sigh, and track down Captain Bosco. Ylva steals my seat, giddily entering a conversation with Ohm. I could care less. That tells us nothing about the level of how much you care.

When I finally track down the Captain, she's surprised to see me. In fact, she's furious I interrupted her session with an Astranite we...borrowed a few realms back. The boy seems none the worse for wear, considering Zorya's...appetites. 

Chains choking life within a milkreath of its threshold, where the Gulf beckons, so tantalizing, never mind. It's gone.

"Kurwa! What the fuck do you want?" she hurriedly puts her bra back on. I clear my throat, and calmly explain to her that she summoned me. When she denies it, I piece the puzzle together.

"Right, Ylva did the thing again."

If looks could kill you? Don't threaten me with a good time, Krow! Captain Bosco rises to her feet, and makes her way downstairs. I demand to know what to do about the report. The Marshal needs to know...things! Like...where does the moon go when the sun is asleep?

"I know you have the summary in your brain, wyrlock! Just shove that in his face. I have words for that she-bitch!"

And off she goes. Leaving me with things I don't want to do. I've yet to piece it all together. It's been a frantic week, more so than usual. SLeaving me with only one choice. Procrastination...until tomorrow.

I re-join my comrades downstairs, and drink tromatosh until I reach the threshold.