Embrace The Ether

How had any of this happened was beyond him.

"Droh, you awake?" Deus nudged the Faun awake as he continued to scan his head around the room. "This is all beyond my understanding… did I lose time, or was this all in an instant?" He wondered, unsure which answer he"d prefer.

Droh slowly rose his head as he wiped his eyes, almost as if he had been woken from a long nap. "Deus? What"s going on?" He murmured out, slowly exhaling as his sight became clearer.

"I don"t know, we gotta get moving, anyway," Deus proclaimed, trying to rouse his companion onto his feet.

Deus continued, "You heard that voice, right? The one that told us to sit back and wait?"

Droh nodded as Deus started to speculate. "Is that so? Then maybe this was caused by whoever that was? I don"t know… that voice… I"m sure I"ve heard it before, somewhere."

He knocked his brain for not remembering where he had heard the voice from originally, only for Droh to tilt his head in confusion. "That was that Thaddeus guy, right? I"m shocked you didn"t recognize his voice… I did instantly."

"What?" Deus replied in question, "Thaddeus? That b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d?" Droh mimicked him as he had been caught off-guard by the sudden name calling.

The two stared at each other for a moment, forcing Deus to let out a long-drawn sigh. "Right, Thaddeus… I had caught that b.a.s.t.a.r.d acting sneakily, even talking to someone in one of the rooms that Elias marked."

"Wait, what? When was this? Why didn"t you tell me about it?" Droh jumped back with a flurry of questions.

"Hey, it"s not like you asked!" Deus tried to reason, "I didn"t think it was relevant at the time… I only had a tiny bit to go off of, so I decided to just quietly keep my eye on him myself."

Deus brought his hand to his chin as he thought, letting out an abbreviated sigh, "I suppose I should stop keeping secrets… I"ll tell you next time, I promise."

Droh could only accept his reasoning and move on. "Fine, fine. So, where are we anyway?"

"I"m not too sure, truth be told. After we heard that voice… what happened?" Deus thought for a moment as he recalled everything he remembered. "First was that sudden voice… then it was Roland arriving along with those guards of his. Oh! Can we talk for a moment about Roland? What the absolute h.e.l.l is he?"

Deus emphasized himself as he asked, leaving Droh in bewilderment. "W-what do you mean? He"s the clan master…"

"I mean the… you know… monstrous body? How do you not find that terrifying?"

Droh blinked once as he started to understand everything. "Oh, right. I didn"t warn you ahead of time… but I figured you"d already suspected it... Ah, I keep forgetting just how weird you are. You didn"t know what a Faun was, you didn"t know about the Lords or those worms… you didn"t even know where Direfell was or how to scavenge."

Deus was at a lost for words.

"You"re weird. Weird, weird, weird. You"re lucky you have me looking out for you, else you"d probably be dead in the desert by now." Even though Droh had intended it as a joke, it held some truth within it.

Deus knew fully well just how unprepared for this world he was. He had been thrust into this position by forces beyond, placed in a world of death and darkness, where even walking around causes his body to ache and cry out. Monsters were the norm within Midnight, and even though he"d come to understand this, he hadn"t fully grasped what it meant yet.

"He"s right… I hate to admit it, but I"ve only been here for what… a week? Less? I don"t even know how time flows here since there doesn"t even seem to be a day and night cycle…"

"So Droh, I"ve screwed up our plans enough as is, I"ll let you lead the way for once." Deus smirked as he looked toward the Faun, asking, "So where are we headed?"

The young little Faun was surprised by this sudden outcome but quickly gathered himself as he wandered the room, feeling the walls for any secret corridors or pa.s.sages. "I don"t feel any air or wind coming from this wall, perhaps it"s solid? Ugh, I hate this… where are we? Why did we just wake up here?"

"Yeah…" Deus shared Droh"s concerns, and he understood them all too well. "Were we drugged? Pa.s.sed out? s.h.i.t, are we dead? Is this h.e.l.l…"

A faint clicking sound could be heard as a portion of one of the walls folded in, making way for a pa.s.sage. Before either two could hurry toward it, two silhouetted figures appeared in the doorway, blocking their path. A bright light was illuminated behind these two forms.

One spoke in a youthful voice, "Here they are, now are you happy?"

In response, the other figure seemed to nod his head which sat atop a relatively thick neck. "Thank you so much, please tell your master that I"ll cooperate."

"Very good," the youthful figure stepped away, leaving only Deus, Droh, and the heavier-built person behind. Deus squinted his eyes, finally realizing who it was that stood in their path. His jaw practically slammed to the floor as he approached him, all the while Droh kept his distance, still unsure of everything.

Deus called out, relying on a hunch.

"Mister Rufus… right?"

The man opposite him turned to face him, stepping out of the bright light"s trajectory and revealing himself to both of them. "Mister Deus, I"m so happy to hear that you survived that awful crash. When we were hit, I was terribly frightened. Not of my own fate, but of the fates of those below deck."

Rufus went on to explain, "You see, I had been attempting to salvage the Nijaden before we finally crashed. I hadn"t long, though… only a few brief moments. After we hit the ground, I felt a terrible eruption as the sand kicked itself up around me. After a bit of wandering through the debris field, I was spotted by that mister Thaddeus, who seemed to be lurking about."

"Thaddeus again?" Deus asked, murmuring mostly to himself as he noticed how everything seemed to involve that sly individual. "Who is Thaddeus? A soldier of Direfell, perhaps?"

"So what happened after you met? I didn"t hear anything about you throughout this whole situation… truth be told, I think everyone believed you to be dead."

Deus was rather blunt, which sent a mental blow to Rufus as he tried to calm himself.

"Dead? Oh heavens no, I"m very much alive... You see after I found Thaddeus, he practically dragged me to this place," Rufus seemed to chuckle to himself as he recalled everything, "I had no choice. He was a vanguard while I was only a pilot… in that circ.u.mstance, he had the command. So I followed him… but it was definitely a shock when he led me into a hidden bunker next to that huge tower."

"A bunker?" Droh stepped forward and repeated, his interest had obviously been piqued.

"Yessir," Rufus grunted out as his mustache shuffled and bounced to his speech. "That"s where we are, truth be told. This bunker is controlled by the people who man that tower, and it"s even got a single pathway connecting the two… turns out Thaddeus has a few more connections than we thought."

"A few?" Deus chortled out, taken aback by the casualness of everything. One minute he was being bombarded by the soldiers of Direfell, the next he was coughing up his own stomach as he watched Roland arrive, and now he"s comfortably relaxing beneath the earth, in some secretive bunker owned by the very people he was fighting mere moments ago.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on around here… this entire world isn"t normal…" He grumbled out as his head fell into his hands, rubbing his temples.

"Are we free to leave?" Droh asked innocently, awkwardly shuffling around as he had been unsure if they were even prisoners or not.

"Free to leave? I"m not entirely sure about that… but I know for a fact that you"re not prisoners or captives." Rufus reasoned.

Countering him, however, Deus replied, "How are you so certain we"re not captives? W attacked them, which resulted in not only a death toll to their troops but even the destruction of a centipede. I don"t know much about this place, but I do know how dangerous it is to leave potential rivals and dangerous people alive."

"A rival?" A new voice spoke in a rough accent, surprising everyone except for the old pilot, Rufus. He arrived next to everyone as the glaring light"s slowly faded from his face, revealing his features. He was large and well-formed as his skin was brown, like brickwork. He stood nearly two meters tall as everyone had to raise their heads to match his determined and harsh eyes.

"Sir," Rufus simply chuckled and lowered his head, respectably greeting this new visitor.

The man slowly waved his hand around dismissively as his attention fell upon Deus, repeating his previous comment so as to reemphasize it. "Do you consider yourself a rival? Or perhaps you believe yourself to be dangerous. If that"s the case, I"d be happy to eliminate you here and now, so we can avoid any sort of bravado."