Antelligent Design

24. Back from Patrol 1

Mirryn was exhausted. Her body ached from top to toe, and she had a sneaking suspicion one of those toes was broken. The mental fatigue may have been the worst of it. She hadn’t slept in what felt like three days. Why the hell did she let herself get talked into this rubbish?

“Donnelan, remind me why I let you talk me into this rubbish?” she asked irritably.

Her equally exhausted, yet strangely animated fellow Legionary, turned back to her and she swore the light of madness danced in his eyes.

“After two weeks on the Bulwark, you want to spend our precious leave sleeping? I’m going to eat and drink until I’m sick, then do it again!” he declared, and continued threading his way through the crowd.

Mirryn had to admit the idea held some appeal. The things she’d seen, done and been made to understand since her baptism had obliterated her understanding of how the world worked.

Only now did she understand what an underdeveloped and ignored pocket of the world Liria had truly been.

The trainees hadn’t been given any time to question or absorb their new circumstances before being thrown into gruelling training. The commander himself tirelessly drilled them. Two days of practice in the living rock suits, known as Abyssal Armour, and they were thrown into live combat patrols. Three days after that, they’d been broken up and sent to various forts that formed part of the Bulwark, the network of defences that locked a bubble of Dungeon off from the lower levels.

“Time you find out the sort of the thing the Legion really does down here,” the commander had informed them gruffly.

And find out they had. He’d taken the group on an extended tour of the Bulwark, inspecting the forts and dropping the trainees off as they went.

Deep down, Mirryn always felt as if she were tough, as if she were made of stern stuff. Nothing like the commander, obviously. Though still tough. The Legionaries she met at her fort were so damn tough, they probably didn’t need Abyssal Armour at all. The monsters would snap in half when they tried to bite them.

She’d reported to her new Centurion on arrival, a grizzled veteran named Tannar, and been shocked at the man’s age. If he was a day under sixty, she’d have been shocked. Thin and wiry, the tendons in his neck plain to see, Tannar had very quickly eliminated any concerns about age from her mind.

The man fought like an angry bear and sounded like one too. His Legionaries hung off every word that came out of his mouth, and Mirryn learned rapidly to do the same. This man knew the business of killing monsters, and business was good.

Too good.

If the wave above had been brutal, down here in the second strata, it was worse. Each fort was tasked with locking down one tunnel, preventing monsters from coming up and going down. Shorthanded and undersupplied, the Legionaries fought for hours on end, every day. When they couldn’t stand up anymore, they were rotated off to rest until they could. Then it was back out in the thick of it.

Mirryn hadn’t even taken off her suit the entire time she was out there.

She was also made to see some of the other measures the Legion had been forced to take in order to hold the line.

She grimaced.

“Did you have any irregulars at your fort, Donnelan?” she asked.

He paused his push through the crowd, then started up again.

“I see a bar over there, come on,” he muttered grimly, pulling her across the street.

They parted a curtain that hung across the front of the establishment. Like most buildings in Rylleh, it was shaped out of the stone, creating a dark and cool atmosphere inside. Glowstones dotted the walls and roof, providing a soft illumination that revealed a crowded bar area, with tables and booths toward the back.

Behind the bar, a massive figure stood. A golgari, one of the stone people. Easily seven feet tall, and quite literally looking as if he’d been carved from a mountainside, the man could probably crush two human heads in one of his massive palms. Mirryn had heard the golgari weren’t actually made of stone, just that their skin was so dense, and combined with the greyish texture, gave the appearance of rock. Who knew if that were true? All she could tell was that he looked like he was covered in stone.

His thick hands moved with surprising grace as he poured drinks and fetched glasses for his clientele. Barely pausing to take the scene in, Donnelan stepped up to the bar and slapped down a coin, flashing it at the owner, who nodded as he finished serving his current customer.

“I guess we know what those prisoners were for now, eh?” The mage forced out a laugh as he played with the coin in his fingers.

“The what?” Mirryn asked, leaning onto the stone bar next to him.

“The prisoners,” he repeated, staring at her. When she continued to stare back blankly, he continued. “Remember? When we came down here to Rylleh, the Legion brought a bunch of killers and criminals. Where did you think the irregulars came from?”

Her eyes widened with understanding. “Oh.”

Donnelan grunted. “Right. Oh.”

When the massive bartender made his way over, Donnelan ordered two tall glasses of ‘something with kick’ and paid the man.

As the huge figure with skin that looked like solid rock poured out the drinks, Mirryn wasn’t sure how she felt about the irregulars. They’d certainly helped in the fighting. Not as strong as a full Legionary, but stronger than most normal people. Now that she knew where they came from, she didn’t know if it was right or wrong.

The criminals had been sentenced to death. In most ways, they’d died as humans anyway. She’d seen the irregulars, seen them eat. She certainly wouldn’t call them people. That’s what happens when a person eats Biomass.