Microsoft Zone Archive/Player Chronicles/Arrivals

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Arrivals

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by Berserker

“How do I get into these things?” Berserker, as we shall call him, thought to himself. Not twenty days ago he had been drawn through a rift in the time-space continuum (or as he would have called it had he used the word continuum more often; instead to him it was “Bloody Hell. . .”) and landed in the middle of a swarm of giant, insect-like creatures. They had fallen upon him and borne him into a dank pit where he was immediately set to stirring a pool of the unidentifiable yuk these creatures enjoyed so much. Even so, he marveled at their curious behavior, their titanic size, and above all, the complete control they had over the other humans within their nest.

“These people must have been down here a long time. They've got no spirit anymore.” His blood boiled as he looked over at a tiny girl no older than five years of age as she cowered away from a patrolling insect-thing, a member of their warrior or hive guardian class, Berserker determined. “And she must have been born in this lightless hole.” He silently vowed that if he ever found a way to escape, he would get these people to safety, and then the creatures would pay for every drop of innocent blood they had spilled in front of his very eyes with a dozen of their number.

He was roused from his dark plotting by a meaningful shove from the resident worker. As he returned to stirring the food pool, he noticed a commotion coming from a tunnel he suspected to lead, eventually, to the entrance. A new group of prisoners had been brought down, and they looked to be warriors; some were still wearing bracers, or helmets, or other pieces of armor. Their weaponry and most of their other personal articles were in a large open chest that two of them were being forced to haul between them. These people must have been in one of the legendary towns Berserker had heard about, although he imagined them more like fortified outposts that resisted the things' rule on the world. He continued his stirring, but kept his eyes locked on what was transpiring. As he stared, the prisoners were forced to place all they owned, save for some articles of mundane clothing, into the chest. A soldier nudged the lid shut, then hooked the heavy key on a claw and dangled it in front of the nearest human. Wordlessly, seeming to understand perfectly the silent demand, she knelt and locked the chest, then placed the key on the ground. A second soldier stepped forward and, with a remarkable show of intelligence, vomited a stream of acid onto it. The assembled prisoners groaned as it melted into little more than a black scar on the cavern floor, and Berserker was at the same time dismayed and terribly impressed.

“These creatures are either very intelligent or have dealt with this sort of thing before.” Berserker grimaced. “Or both. How am I supposed to escape from here? From what I've discerned by their actions, these things have an uncanny motion sense and probably an excellent sense of smell. And now I find that they have enough intelligence to not only subjugate other species and use them as slaves, but also to guard against escape or revolt? I'm going to need a lot of luck, and some good planning to make it out of here alive by myself, let alone all these poor souls.” It was then that he spied one of the new arrivals fiddling with something in his arm. As Berserker watched, the other man drew, one after another, several long metal slivers, probably part of what used to be a shield or suit of plate mail, from his bicep with a grunt of pain. These shards he dropped to the ground.

“Ah.” He thought. Now I've got something to go on. . .”

A few days later, he had become acquainted with the woman who had been newly stationed at his slime pool. She was a slender, petite Sho with the characteristic dark, almond-shaped eyes and black hair. She introduced herself as Li Yao, the leader of her village's foraging party. They were currently in the middle of a heated conversation.

“I tell you, no one has ever been captured and seen again, alive or dead!” she hissed. “The Olthoi are inescapable!”

Berserker frowned; this was not going well. “I don't know about all that, but I didn't ask if we could escape. I asked that if you had your equipment, could your party kill some of them? This seems to be a small structure, with only a few of those soldiers around. Could you do it?”

She shrugged expressively.

“Probably. There are quite a few of us, and if there are only a few soldiers like you say then there is a good chance that we can kill or cripple nearly all of them, especially if we can recover Brethym's wand and spell components. That is to say, if we had our weapons. But everyone saw that Olthoi turn the only key to that chest into a blemish on the stones under our feet! It's impossible to recover them now, since none of us has the strength to break the lock.”

Berserker shushed her just in time to keep from alerting a passing worker.

“That may not be necessary. I took the liberty of collecting some things your injured friend left behind the day your group arrived here. I made you a little present with them. . .” He lifted a stone and removed from a small depression what looked like a collection of bent wires on a crudely fashioned ring.

Li's eyes widened. “Lockpicks!” she gasped. “But where did you get them?”

Berserker chuckled. “Like I said, I made them. I . . . was a “locksmith” back on Ispar.”

She looked sideways at him. “You mean a thief?”

Li's eyes narrowed. Like most Sho, she had a deeply ingrained contempt for those that skulked in the shadows instead of doing honorable battle with one another.

“No, but everybody has to have their little hobbies, yes? While other members of my clan dabbled in alchemy and the School of the Arm, I concerned myself with more worldly pursuits. I taught myself to read and write, filching texts from our wizards when they weren't looking, and in my studies I learned some of the healing arts and, as you can see, I took a keen interest in locksmithing.”

Li looked him up and down as though reappraising him. “You are in many ways an unexpected person, my friend.”

Berserker grinned wolfishly.

“That's the way I like it.”

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