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Scarlet Code

Imagine a time without death. Perhaps it's a utopia where noone dies at all. Or perhaps it's a wasteland filled with nothing. But what if I told you you had to die for the first option to come true. Would you believe me? Let me tell you this. I am dead. Yet I couldn't be more alive.

brother_pheonix · Ciencia y ficción
Sin suficientes valoraciones
48 Chs

45 00110100 00110101

The guild house door was hanging crookedly as we drew close. The creak in the digital wood as haunting as those horror films entailed. The windows had either cracked or broken entirely. Even the floor boards were split, splintered, and broken in places as plant life grew through them. The plastered walls were cracked, shattered, or otherwise hole riddled with vines and scales sticking to the debris.

A massive hole through the back wall showed the back of the house behind us. The chandelier on the ceiling had fallen and cracks spanned across the plaster roof. Even the stairs had fallen apart. The banister and railings torn off and the steps crushed and falling or fallen into the basement. But this wasn't the most worrisome.

I saw Beth laying on the floor in her civilian form. Her left leg had been torn off and thrown across the room. Her arms were both broken and twisted at odd angles. And the rest of her seemed to have scratch marks and indents from punches or hits of some kind.

Lily was embedded next to the big hole in the back wall and was trying to work herself free. Though it was difficult as she was also missing her right arm.

I ran inside to Beth while Hoy and Henry went to help Lily.

I was the teams healer I guess. And it was in my nature to help those I viewed like family at this point. But I couldn't start healing Beth till I had everything all together. My healing can only do so much.

I sent a couple scarabs to grab Beth's leg and bring it over while I figured out what to do. The only healing abilities that I could offer was the coffin. And with its healing ability all I had to do was watch my health levels.

I pulled the coffin out and opened the stone lid. The rolls of bandages inside seemed to glow a deep crimson as I did so. I quickly laid Beth and her leg inside. Though I had to make sure her leg was sitting right as it had been ripped off just below the knee. Wouldn't want her having a foot at an awkward angle. She would hate me for that.

And as she tried to rasp out something I quickly closed the lid and felt the disturbing feeling of my HP being traded to heal her. Though I didn't mind as I watched my health bar carefully. It was being hit 5 HP every minute.

When I was left with only 10 out of my 120hp I opened the coffin to turn it off and examine Beth's condition.

Beth's arms were repaired and her leg reattached. She still had a few scrapes and cuts which left her obviously a little worse for wear. But she was now able to function.

She held out a hand to get some help up which I happily gave. The war veteran was no doubt accustomed to being in pieces at times by the looks of it as she seemed unconcerned.

Lily on the other hand was hauled over to me. But I couldn't put her in the coffin till my health was full. Thankfully she did some tinkering with the faction house's main screen and added a healing function for when the members were inside the faction house. Though it didn't heal lost limbs it still helped. Every second my health was rising by 10/second. So it only took half a minute for me to get Lily in and her healing process started.

Funnily enough I hardly felt the health drain. The healing function on the house made it almost impossible for me to lose HP. Which I found to be awesome personally. And Lily was back to her old self in no time.

But even though they were back to normal I still had questions. How had they been so thoroughly beaten? Who was that woman? What happened to trash the faction house so badly?

Lily gave me a thankful nod when I pulled her out of the coffin before she pulled up the house screen. The blue screen highlighted the damaged areas as little digitized blocks began to fill the holes and cracks. The boards creaked and shivered as they shifted back into their places.

The grown plants split into bits of data as the house righted itself. The split and fallen stairs jumbled and clammered with the sound of wood colliding. The pieces shifting together as they began to float and fit themselves back into their selective spots. The fallen metal railing that had twisted groaned as the metal stretched and crawled like a centipede climbing the stairs before erecting itself on the edge of the steps.

Soon the house was back. Its walls cracks were filled and the floors though dirty were left flat, even, and splinter free. The chandelier now hung back in it's nice position with its ghostly flames flickering with their mystical haunting light.

Now we would've normally just moved as the damage was so extensive. But the house had seemingly repaired itself without Lily actually doing anything. Which made all of us a little more nervous.

On Lily's blue screen appeared a message. [A house warming gift of repair. From yours truly M]

And even though everything was righted we all knew what was happening next.

The strategy table lit up as Lily flew to stand by it.The hologram that appeared being the woman who had just left. Her appearance just as serpentine as before. But this time. Her face had become slightly blurred. "So that's one of the administrators." I whispered. The many monstrous arms made this woman look horrifying. Her very presence on the holo-table Left me shivering.

Lily looked at Henry, Hoy, and Me. "Don't tell me you met her on your way here?" She said her mouth slightly agape.

We all nodded.

"Yeah. The old hag threw Sil clean through a building just for shits and giggles and left without much else to say." Henry said as he pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the door.

Lily put her head in her hands in frustration as she let out an agitated sigh.

"Why are all the people who matter seemingly targeting me all the time?" She said.

"Maybe because your dad helped make a death bot that destroyed the human race while also trapping us here in this digital meth crazed hellscape?" I said.

Everybody looked at me with glares.

"What? You try being smashed through a house with no rhyme or reason and see how you do nerve wise." I said.

Beth pointed over her shoulder at the now fixed walls. "What do you think happened to us genius?" She growled and I knew I did something wrong.

Hoy patted Beth and I on the shoulders.

"Now now. No fighting. We all got handed a sour pickle to eat. No use fighting over who got it worse when we all couldn't do a thing." He said trying to bring some calm to the conversation.

"But she'll come back. Won't she?" I said looking around worriedly. "I mean. She's pissed at us and I certainly earned it it seems. If I'm right about that damn snake I faced a while ago." I muttered nervously.

Everybody gave small nods in agreement. "The only problem is that we all have to stick together. Because no matter where we go she will find us. After all since I'm the generals daughter she seemingly tends to vent her anger at me." Lily said rubbing her arm. Her lips scrunched together in frustration.

Awkward silence fell over the faction house. Even the cleaning scarabs could be heard as they skittered downstairs. The tension could almost be felt with a knife as we all stood there.

Until Lily had enough that is.

"We are all training together from now on. No single practice allowed. Not one. Nobody goes anywhere alone. And since we're all stuck here for now we are going to be making sure that all of our skills are put to use."

She pointed at me. "You said you were good with programming and hardware. That will be a skill I'm going to be pushing you to use and get better at in here."

"Beth. You will be training everybody in hand to hand combat. No arguments. We all got beat. And we all need to retrain. We got too soft so now we reaped the consequences." She said looking around the table.

"Henry... I still have no idea what you were before coming here..." Lily said sheepishly as Henry laughed.

"I was a firearms engineering and repair expert. Or a gun nut as some people called us." He said crossing his arms.

The table stared at him blankly for a moment before going back to the topic at hand. "Since there's noone here who can use guns as equipment then that means you'll be an auxiliary." Lily said which almost made Henry vomit blood.

"Hoy is obviously more into tactics and design. So perhaps another tactician is good to have. But what other things were you good-" Hoy suddenly cut her off by raising a hand.

"Nothing useful boss. I was about construction, home design, and art when I was alive. Not much help here besides my love for tactics and war based games." Hoy said loudly.

Lily looked at him for a moment before grimacing a little and pointing at Beth and I. "You two will be the first for the hand to hand training. After that Sil will come up here to practice his coding and application skills with me. Henry and Hoy will be in the Holo-room." She said as she pointed at Hoy. "You" She then pointed at Henry. "Will be teaching him Tactics and formations."

Both Henry and Hoy visibly grimaced.

Beth punched my shoulder lightly. "Come on Sil. Time for some practice." She said as she smacked her fist into her palm seeming to relish the coming training.

"Great." I groaned.