"Come on, come on, come on. Gods, I hate this place."
Kimmy turned to the mumbling driver, who was clutching in death grip his lucky charm with one hand and steering wheel with another. Luster was nervous, like all of them, peeking through the windshield with bent neck, switching erratically between loading in trucks people, shooting turrets, and diving abominations. She told him nothing on his ramblings, trying to observe everything outside their current situation.
Horizon in front of them didn't provide any signs of additional danger, she checked five times already. Except continuous chaos with attacking from the skies monsters and creeping somewhere from behind ghosts, they were fine. Free road ahead, just drive away, and all of them will be okay.
'As if.'
Would it have been better if they listened to the madman initially? Maybe. But that was not the time to think about this, anyway.
She switched the comm to the private channel and waited for the commander of their little army, or at least what was left of it, to finish giving another order.
"Tei, how long?"
"Kim? Ah… Almost done here, a minute and last ones will be seated. Drive off in thirty."
"Copy."
Reclining from the dashboard, she glanced on her colleague.
"You heard him, be ready."
Finally hearing some good news, Luster took the wheel with both hands, already holding a foot on gas, prepared to floor it at any moment.
"Oh, I'm totally ready to get the fuck away from this hell, Kimmy, thank you very much."
With a nervous chuckle, driver briefly looked at her, before turning back to the road ahead.
Pressing her hand to the ribs, Kim turned back in seat, to check on others. She saw only Dorn's legs peeking from the dinning place and Belle in the corridor, who was treating big man's wounds. Belle was the only one who came out more or less unscathed, thanks to his abilities.
If only these abilities was enough to finish vile horror off.
During the messy defense, Irregulars were distracted only for a second with the crush of one of the Tyrants in the central building. And this was enough to almost miss the second one, diving on the nearby roof, where Dorn and Quentin were.
As a result, giant lost his arm, and she didn't even want to think about Quentin. It was a miracle, the guy wasn't squished and managed to survive both, the direct landing of a massive creature, and a fall through several floors.
Cohort managed to damage the second Tyrant heavily several times, but that was not nearly enough to eliminate it. After delivering an especially painful wound, they managed to scare abomination away, or at least that what it looked like. She still wasn't sure of how exactly their desperate attempts to attack the mad thing made it fly away.
What she was sure about, was that if one of the impostors joined them, they would have managed to kill the thing. But then again, another one would probably survive.
Her thoughts went back to the Ascended.
'He knew, it was a Tyrant, but didn't knew there were two of them. What else was wrong in Brail's data?'
It was the first discrepancy, but was it the last? What if they will stack? Was it really a good idea to rely on these, as she liked to see them, 'revelations'? Sure, they were not relying blindly, checking everything they could, but still. She didn't like making assumptions based not on the confirmed reports. Through…
'…the most frustrating point is that for now he was always right.'
With a muffled shout of a man in question, Samara jumped inside from the roof, her expression tense. The hatch closed behind her instantly, with a loud smash, and in the same moment fierce whirlwind enveloped the Rhino, circling raised dust and falling snow around.
"He told to drive and look only at the devices, not on the road."
Luster didn't need to be asked twice, and the carrier drove forward.
Not asked question was answered instantly, as spiraling winds pushed away an impenetrable fog, appeared out of nowhere. Kim tried to pierce the mist with her ability, and it worked, as before. Though, it was impossible to see anything except faint colorful spots, as the view further than half a meter beyond the windshield was completely blocked.
"This is not the same as in the mountains."
"Brail said that big ghost is probably here too. I guess that's why the fog is denser."
Kimmy and Luster weren't happy hearing this.
"A big ghost? Like another Tyrant?"
"That's the fifth in a week. Can we have a break?"
A hand pressed on the driver's seat, and a low, as if trying not to laugh, voice spoke mockingly.
"You will maybe have a break, if you won't now press the brake."
Lith left the captain's room, ensured that scientists were fine, and moved to the cockpit, somehow unnoticed by seating in front crewmembers. Luster answered, not turning his head from the radar, map, and other screens.
"Listen, Master Lith, your jokes are not helping. It's not that easy to drive blind, even with sensors. Disturb me more, and I guarantee, we will hit something."
"Just lower the wedge then and drive, stop whining."
Luster raised a brow and threw a brief bewildered glance at the warrior.
"You do realize, it's not that durable, right? It still can break if I ram something like fortified wall on high speed. And there is a lot of fortified walls."
Lith was silent for a bit.
"Isn't it suppose to be a moving fortress?"
"It's a Personel Carrier. Not a fortress, and certainly not a siege engine."
Master narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"But the thing over there is a siege ram."
Getting no response on that, Lith sighed.
"Okay, if I just make sure it won't break, you will have no problems with ramming through everything if needed, yes?"
Kimmy glanced at the tall Ascended.
"How exactly will you do this?"
He chuckled, crossing arms, and switched to the lecturing tone.
"Simple! I'll just infuse the wedge with my ability."
"You can fortify things?"
"Fortify, weaken, yes. If I touch it, I can for some time change density, or you may say strength and flexibility, of things. Own parts of the body included."
Catching two strange glances from female part of the cohort, he smiled crookedly.
"Don't look at me like that, ladies. I'm taken."
Kimmy instantly turned away, face red. Sam just raised a brow, ignoring his antics.
"So, you can not only empower yourself, but reduce the damage basically. That's why you were so nonchalant, after taking such punches from the golems."
"I can't empower myself, I'm just strong. But mitigate recieved damage? To a good degree, yes. I mostly just harden the armor, through."
"I see."
"Let me guess, you though I'm just that insane, charging Tyrants head on, and taking hits one after another? Just because it's fun?"
"Actually, I did. Though, how then it happen with the last one?"
Lith looked on his mangled arm.
"That was my mistake, poured too much too quickly, armor cracked under the pressure. Anyway, you are a technician, right? Can you draw me a scheme of the wedge mechanism?"
Samara nodded, already moving to the command center, and pressed something on the table. The table lit up, and in a second a whole set of small three-dimensional blueprints was hanging in the air. She picked the right one, making it bigger, and motioned to Ascended.
"Wow. That's… much better than the drawing."
"Sure is."
***
It took Lith less than half a minute to thoroughly learn the scheme, and head to the hatch. Climbing on the roof, Lith saw Brail, standing on one knee, bow in hand, trying to get a good aim at anything that will try to get close. Somehow hearing the hatch open, his friend turned to see who was mad enough to get out in such situation.
"What are you doing here? I told everyone to sit tight."
Regardless of the hundreds different simultaneous sounds, his voice was clear, like there was nothing happening around.
"Why is everyone whining today, huh? You wanted us to be faster, right? I'm helping."
With all this cacophony around, it was hard to even hear himself, but apparently Brail did catch every word.
"How exactly, may I ask?"
He shot another arrow, killing a wailing ghost. Or that were just sounds of the whirlwind? It was hard to discern which sounds were which, considering they were moving, there was a howling tornado, shrieking from everywhere abominations, constant physical and magical explosions, and dozens of turrets firing.
'Well, if he hears me anyway…'
Lith dropped his attempts to shout, and spoke in normal voice, walking towards the retracted ram.
"With this visibility we may crash into things. So, when it happens, we need to break through and clear the road for others, instead of slowing everyone down, right? I'll just make it harder to damage the Rhino."
Clearly surprised voice came from behind.
"You want to reinforce the entire thing?"
Grabbing the small railing near the wedge, Lith tried to somehow reach it with wounded limb and not fall off.
"No, eh… just… shield and sword of this machine."
Finally pressing one hand against the slightly warped metal slab, he forced his essence into the thing. It would be much easier, if the wedge was a monolithic piece of metal, as it looked from outside, but it also had a quite complex retracting mechanism, with a bunch of stoppers, fasteners, connectors, and sliding parts. So that needed to be reinforced too.
Not like it was too difficult to strengthen all of it, it just required a lot of essence, and distribution in correct proportions. Finishing fortifying the thing, he headed back. Stopping before getting in, he turned to his friend.
"Hey, maybe you need help here?"
Explorer didn't turn, focused on fighting flying enemies off.
"I'll manage, go inside. And one thing. If I stop dispersing the mist, don't open the hatch unless it goes away. And even if this happens, don't stop moving, okay?"
Lith took a long second to look at explorer's back. It was dangerous to leave him alone here, but it wasn't like warrior could do much against phantoms from the fog. He could fight effectively only in melee, and, from what he saw, if even one of these vile Catchers touches him, he's as good as gone. So he decided to trust Brail to deal with this problem. If something happens, he just needed to be quick enough to help.
Jumping down and closing the hatch, Lith walked to the cockpit.
"Lower the thing and speed up. Even if you will try to drive through all the buildings on the way on purpose, we should be fine. I guess."
Throwing a doubtful glance at the warrior, Luster chuckled and pulled a small lever under the dashboard. The wedge dropped down just in time, as Rhino almost instantly crashed into the wall.
"I didn't mean that you actually should do this."
"I was just driving by the map."
Everyone looked at the driver skeptically, totally not believing his words.
"Yeah, sure. Just don't play in catch them all."
Couple minutes after, APC shook a little, coming from the smooth asphalted path to the destructed one, indicating that they exited the town. Outside the base, road was mostly straight, so Luster accelerated to the maximum he deemed appropriate, considering they still were driving blind. Neither ghosts, nor Devouring Cloud were going away, but nobody yet attacked their carriage directly, as they were mostly fighting for the prey.
But it wasn't like they fought only between each other, as several trucks were already gone, considering the radar data and roll call they had after driving to the mountain slope. An utter cacophony was still raging outside, and everyone were trying to survive in the chaos, but all they could do now was just driving forward, trying to escape both hordes.
***
Half an hour later they were moving between two cliffs, not so long ago blocked by the flesh golem army. The road was harsh. Even though it had been cleaned up around the town, there was still a lot of trash blocking the way along it. Small debris were not the problem, but at some point they managed to ram through the several-meter-tall rock, casually standing in the center of the road.
Thanks to Lith's fortification and Luster's driving skills, they came out unscathed, and even devices showed no malfunctions in Rhino's operation capabilities. For now, it was only one occasion, but if this will happen again and again, their escape may not end well.
Except periodical catch ups from the convoy members, the only sounds Irregulars focused on were coming from the outside. The crew already gotten used to occasional rumbling of collision with scattered debris and quiet howling of the hurricane, so everyone was focused on other noises.
Gunfire and shrieks of the Devouring Cloud at this point subsided significantly, but it wasn't clear yet is this was a good sign. What was totally not a good sign, though, is that noises from movement of the convoy itself were growing increasingly faint. They were fewer now, and radar screen was consistently confirming this, showing less and less white dots behind the Rhino.
Inside the cabin there was a somber silence, as nobody was speaking a word, listening to continuing chaos outside, and trying not to distract the driver. So, the driver was the one who broke this silence at some point.
"Shit, that is wrong."
Awakend in the cabin turned to Luster. Lith leaned over not entirely understood yet screen, tapping it.
"What is exactly?"
"Not sure yet. Automapping works fine, but now it shows intermittent signals, like these ones, see? We're like in some twisted canyon."
Ascended frowned and tried to fruitlessly discern at least something beyond the protective vortex.
"But there was no such terrain on your paper maps."
"Yeah, and that is the problem."
As they drove off, Irregulars never slowed down, and never changed the path. Now, Luster was forced to drop the speed, and move forward more carefully, so they wont crash into a sudden wall. And that was a totally right decision, as in a moment they narrowly avoided a landslide of giant rocks half-blocking the path.
The problem appeared on the screen, as Irregulars soon understood, came to be an aftermath of the Nightmare Creatures march. When horde was approaching the military base, it seemed like horrors were following existing path, squeezing between the cliffs. But apparently before that, they were carving their way through the peaks, destroying parts of the mountains' terrain.
Pieces of triggered by the march rockfall now were significantly slowing them down, but for a while everything was more or less stable. They were evading major collisions, and breaking through the smaller piles of stones, paving the way for the following vehicles. However, at some point, they finally stopped before another stone wall, preventing them from driving further.
Lith almost flew into the dashboard when the APC came to an abrupt stop. He wanted to curse. Kimmy wanted to ask. Turned to others Luster wanted to say something too. But none of them spoke.
Because all the sounds they were listening to before were gone.
Disappeared in a second, right after the screech of several sets of tires halted behind them.
Monsters didn't scream, turrets didn't shoot, abilities did not whistle.
Only quiet low hum of the engine and even quieter breaths were heard.
The next moment billowing fog become even more dense, enveloping everything. It was like there was nothing behind the windshield except for the everchanging wall of gray.
And then it dawned on them - another sound was lacking. The fog did not become thicker, just whirlwind protecting them was not there anymore.
Then, a dozen-meter-high landslide before the Rhino became visible, as the mist disappeared too. Swirling substance was just lifted like a curtain, almost instantly dissipating into the air.
For a while there was a deafening silence, until a faint, tinkling sound pierced it.
All the curses evaporated from Lith's head, as well as all the thoughts, as he lowered his gaze and raised a hand. The crystal ornament held by a thick gilded ribbons was in form of angular flower of five parts. A core, tied to an owner, and four petals, tied to other bracelets.
And now one of these petals turned into a scattering of falling shards.