Chapter Thirty Two: Change is in the Air

Half an hour later, Scalpel had checked everyone's eyes and Silas was up, shaky though she was. Holding her tight to him, as though he were defending her, Ronin said, "Ok...what's going on."

Abster looked up, the lights having come back on in the interim, and said, "Neyk. In order to understand what's happening here in the Guildless territories, you need to understand what's happening in Neyk."

The lights glowed brightly, and with the shadows gone Abster had finally relaxed.

"Neyk has always been a dangerous place to live, for everyone. Guilds warred with each other, Guildless lived free, criminals from outside the city came here to escape capture and, with the exception of the Horizon Suns, the guilds let them. Humanity itself has always been its greatest threat...but within the last couple of years, strange, new creatures have been wandering the city, killing on a whim, taking those they don't.

I hesitate to even call them Deviants because so many of them are so far beyond anything that I've ever seen that I'm willing to doubt some of them were even alive."

Listening intently, Ronin got the feeling he was being watched, but ignored it as he asked, "What happened a couple of years ago?"

 Abster shrugged and said, "The air changed. You know how cities are...there's a current in the air, almost like electricity, constantly charged by the very presence of life...but within less than a day, that air changed. Not all at once, mind you, but slowly. Some places got the feeling worse, Guildless territories feeling the change most abruptly and dramatically.

It was a new tension, almost like the very air were trying to instigate conflict among the people."

Ronin thought for a moment, thinking of airborne chemicals and behavioral control and Abster continued, "The first thing that changed definitively though...was the High Cathols."

Looking at him, Ronin asked, "Who are the High Cathols?"

Smirking derisively, Abster said, "A guild built entirely around the worship of some god they claim only they can worship.

They've been around since before Neyk was what it is, hundreds of years. They've always employed...aggressive recruitment strategies, but within the last couple of years, they've upped their tactics noticeably. Everything from forced recruitments to outright kidnapping."

Silas said, "This started two years ago? Do you think the change in the air has to do with the High Cathols?"

Abster shrugged and said, "No idea. Near as I can guess, they were affected the same way everyone else was."

Ronin motioned to him and said, "Go on."

 Nodding after he gathered his thoughts, Abster said, "Lately it's like monsters from your worst nightmares have been climbing straight out of the shadows to kill you, or worse, take you. Nobody knows where the people who disappear go...but eventually, inevitably, their corpses show up...elsewhere."

Azue stood and asked, "Does anyone know where they're coming from?"

Abster shook his head and said, "Mostly we just wait for them to go away...nobody's really worried about where they're coming from."

"Are any of the guilds having this problem?" Silas asked.

Abster said, "Near as I can tell, anyone who's underground has this problem, so mostly no. It's mostly us Guildless who are being attacked, though I imagine the only guild that resides underground isn't in a hurry to report much of anything."

Ronin thought for a moment and asked, "We had to pass through several dark hallways to get here...why weren't they infesting that place as well, or the tunnels a floor down?"

Abster started to answer and stopped, his eyes widening a bit as he started again, "I….I don't know...now that you've mentioned it, you're right. I've never even considered it before...I've always kept those halls dark so that people have a hard time making it here uninvited, but now that I think about it, there are a lot of places that don't get attacked…"

Silas tapped at her datapad and said, "Maybe there's something making the creatures appear, and those areas are out of its radius."

Trigger nodded and said, "I've developed weapons that can function like that, causing miniature explosions within a set radius without destroying the device itself."

Ronin continued, "So, removing the shock value of the method of attack, the dead, and the sheer confusion, I've got as to how they managed that, it's basically a weapon, which means this is probably just an attack strategy."

Walking to the stairwell leading up, Ronin said, "Well...the attack on the Guildless we can't do anything about, but you helped us, Abster. I think I know how to stop it from bothering this building."

Turning to the rest of his team, he smirked and said, "Guys, get me a bunch of lamps and weapon tech, I have an idea."