From Dark Waters, Part 1

“No, no,” the stern voice of Shion interrupts the latest attempt at table-setting for tonight’s dinner when the squad to return from the latest greytide culling. The greytide culling contracts are always the worst because Brun worries the clothes are going to come to life and try to eat her while she washes out the spores.

The head housekeeper seizes the cutlery Brun just laid out on either side of the plate and obsessively arranges it on one side, atop a triangular napkin arrangement. Of course she’d be stuck working for a Type-A. “They need to be arranged on the same side, like this,” Shion explains to her like she’s a child. As if a bunch of hungry private military folk are going to care where their fork and knife are. Besides, obviously having them arranged by handedness is the most efficient. That way they can grab the fork, grab the knife, cut the food. The Hunters like it Brun’s way.

“Entschuldigung, Frau Shion dood,” Brun offers a limp-toned apology, earning her a backhanded whap on the top of the head. She straightens her back and salutes, “Entschuldigung, Frau Shion dood!” Answered by another slap atop her head.

“Speak Japanese,” the sharp-eyed maid commands.

Brun hollowly repeats her straight-backed salute, “Apologies, Miss Shion, dood.” Apparently good enough, because her boss forces another tray of settings into her chest. Brun has to grab it with her clumsy flippers before it clatters to the floor and earns her a flogging. She hops down from her stepping stool and nudges it to the next place, where she arranges these ones in Shion’s obviously inferior way.

The housekeeping work is interrupted by the ringing of a bell outside of the arched windows. They remain broken, not yet repaired since the corps claimed the castle, allowing a chill breeze from the fields of Limbo to blow in and rustle the white tablecloth. What fanciful scenery Brun could see, if her head could reach over the windowsill. Vast plains of ashen white. Vast skies of ashen white. The occasional giant monster crawling out of ashen white ravines in the ground. Exciting stuff. “Get that,” Shion commands curtly. “I’ll finish setting the table.”

Suit herself. Brun slides the tray onto a side table and waddles her peg legs awkwardly down the stairs toward the front gate to answer the bell. It’s only a small selection of people who would be out here ringing the bell. Anyone in the corps would have just let themselves in. A monster would have just smashed the door and let itself in. Anyone with a contract from the city would have just sent a magically-propelled letter, or a messenger who slips the letter into the door slot and then runs away before a monster notices and eats them.

That narrows it down to… basically only the Hunter’s Lodge. As a fellow collection of crazy people living in the middle of nowhere monster-infested wasteland, they and the corps have a lot of dealings with one another. Seldom does that include popping over for a cup of salt, so Brun wonders as she waddles up to the door, what business do they have today?

The answer brings her down to the entrance hall and its double set of curved stairs. Another waddle down. Stretching up as far as her stubby legs will go, Brun awkwardly grabs the handle of one of the double doors and walks it back. A hand on the other side pushes once it starts to open, and the familiar neon-on-black hoodie of Logan Ace greets her. It’s like something out of a cyberpunk setting. “Oh, good. I was just looking for you,” there’s a clipboard tucked under his arm, like the one Brunhilda used to carry at the power plant. He has it with him almost everywhere, with a series of scrolls attached. Brun holds the door aside with one leg to let him in, balancing precariously on the other. The courtyard outside is still exposed to the fields of Limbo- the outer walls need more work.

“For me, dood?” uncharacteristic excitement edges into Brun’s voice, and Logan raises a brow behind his dark glasses. She’s usually anything but excited for hunter duty. Gears are turning though, and equations waft through Brun’s brain as she tracks the time. Logan’s survey expeditions are usually the easy ones. And if she’s out with him for long enough… She’ll miss the entire greytide cleanup day! Brunhilda’s eyes light up with a glittering gleam as she looks up at Logan. “Vhat are ve doing, dood?”

There’s not a reply at first. Logan has to flip to one of his note-taking scrolls and jot something down. Brun waits patiently, hopping from one peg leg to another and spinning around in premature celebration. “Strangely… excited today…” the young man mumbles to himself. “I’ve been assigned a survey beneath the Canal district, where the water flows strangely.”

Always strange to imagine that this vast limbo exists beneath the city above. Like the Hollow Earth conspiracy, a tangle of realms defying reason. The strange physics that govern the water channels Logan refers to titillate even Brunhilda’s long-dormant scientific ambition. “Mmhmmm,” a melodic hum vibrates up into Brunhilda’s beak, as she rubs one of her flippers beneath it. “I vill begin packing, und get ze rations! I am most eager to get undervay, dood!”

Brunhilda leaves Logan at the door in a whirlwind, as she scampers through the castle to collect her camping gear and a string of smoke bombs.

Bright white, snow-like ash sweeps across the terrain in twisting whorls. The sky betrays no hint of the city that supposedly floats above, only more pallid gray. Together they create a stark whiteness that burns the eyes without being bright, like a starkly overcast winter’s day. At the edge of a series of layered chasms, Brunhilda and Logan look down into the large basin that is Lake Eien. A seemingly endless spring of water bubbles from the chalky soil between jagged cliff-jaws, spiraling into the sky. They vanish into the cloud blanket, up to where they join the waters of the canal district. Normally the waters flow in a choppy, unpredictable path that makes it nearly impossible to ride them upwards without being torn apart or thrown out into open air by wild currents. Today, they travel as smoothly as the canals themselves.

The clipboard in Logan’s hands is loudly being scribbled on. “Recently, Chimeras have been entering the canal district through the Eien Channel,” he recites from the reports that lead them here. Brunhilda half-listens while she ponders the waters. Something changed in the mechanisms that regulate their flow. Closing her eyes, Brunhilda reopens them to peer at the world’s aura. An energy source at the heart of the strange, unstudied (by her contemporaries in the mortal world) phenomena responsible for many of the physical workings of the lands between. Currents of it run parallel to the vertical column of water, like a tube ferrying it through a plumbing system. There can be no doubt that this pseudonatural phenomenon of limbo has been adapted into an intentional construct.

Second-sight granted by her reincarnation had allowed Brunhilda to study the phenomenon, and also to peer into people. “…destroyed the filters and began attacking civilians,” Logan continues a thought she wasn’t fully attentive to, when she turns to him. In spite of his claims to demonhood, Logan’s aura is blazing bright like the sun. Compared to him, the aura running up from the depths of the lake are seething with black malice. Noticing her staring, Logan looks down. “Sorry. Were you trying to say something?”

“Somesing is doing zis intentionally, dood,” closing her eyes to let the second-sight fade, Brunhilda reports, “Und it is ill-meaning. Zey are totally trying to spill Chimerae into ze city, dood. Ze aura ist black as Nacht.”

“Where is it coming from? Someone in the city?”

“Nein. Kommen from below ze lake, dood.”

Face ever stoic, Logan reaches into their pile of supplies and grabs some rope. “I’ll need to dive down and take some samples.”

Bobbing up and down in the quiet waters beyond the upward currents, Brunhilda stares up at the column of water from below. A rope tied tightly around her body keeps her tethered to Logan while he explores the depths in his plasma-bubble. It displeases her that she was brought simply to act like a inflatable buoy, because of her unnaturally buoyant body. But as long as nothing comes to chew on her she can pretend this is, like, a beach vacation or something. Every one in a while, a plasma beam evaporates a large portion of the lake as Logan vaporizes some unfortunate monster below, and the lakewater swells back up to fill in the gap from its seemingly limitless supply.

Brunhilda finds that she cannot relax, however. Something here puts her always on-edge. Proximity to the corrupt aura must be the cause. Eventually the anxiety turns into irate boredom, and eventually-er her companion finally surfaces. The water sizzles off of the red-purple oval of energy encasing himself, and he drags Brunhilda with him to shore, reeling her in. Only once they are both on shore does he release the shield, putting a stop to the crackling and popping. In his hands are several vials of murky-looking water, some of which have seared Chimera chunks in them, marinading in their own ashes. Logan’s face looks anything but thrilled.

“The deeper I went the more Abyssal ink I found in the water,” he explains, while Brunhilda grabs a towel to dry herself off. “I think an Abyssal vent opened somewhere under the lake. Even if we can stop the Chimeras, I’m worried about this tainted water getting into the city.”

Not the news Brunhilda was hoping for, but even her willful ignorance could not discount the likelihood. She shudders. Abyssal delves… to call them her least favorite kind of expedition would be understatement. Everyone hates climbing down into the place. “Dood- I cannot go under ze vater,” she posits hopefully. “You vill need to find someone else to assist you, Herr Ace, dood.”

“Someone? This is a whole-lodge situation. Maybe a joint action situation,” he responds. “If everyone can’t swim down, we’ll need to enter the Abyss somewhere else and go in from the side to find what’s causing this.”

“Ach… zat is vhat I vas afraid you vould say.”