Mune'stahr and Pylott: HELLMARROW, a tale of the Ventriculum

Part 12, "This Bitter Day's Twilight Beckons Beasts From the Gloom..."

He could feel the sizzling heat from it as it came nearer him from the deepness of a shadowed arch. He couldn't make out whether it was male or female, human or mutant. Draped in crackling, agonizing emissions of fiery electrical energy, as if bonded to hungry bolts of lightning, something living swiftly ran past him, howling as the wild energy slowly disintegrated its body...

It wasn't an attack. The wretched thing was obviously blind, its eyes burned out. Mune'stahr's mind immediately catalogued the event as likely the result of target-bonded ionic disruption. No Manifold Predator had done that. The poor unfortunate had probably been standing too near a feedline from an energy nacelle when the container had ruptured.

It wasn't going to live for very long, but every moment until them would be filled with unimaginable agony. No one deserved to die like that.

He raised his left arm and targeted the running figure, then let loose a single mercy round from his forearm gauntlet's particle-bolt projector. The tortured creature abruptly staggered as it vanished in a burst of blue-white brilliance.

Mune'stahr had locked onto Pylott's signal and had moved relentlessly through the mayhem that had seized the lower section of the metropolis at which Fellmanghul's command craft was docked. He saw that her path was a meandering one, no doubt due to the armed resistance she encountered, that led up through a system of tubular,multi-chambered lift conveyances. The people-movers were built into the massive stalk supporting the vast urban acreage for this sector of the city, and, due to the combat and rioting rampant throughout the metropolis, many of the lift conveyances' tube-housings were damaged. Their progress was far slower than he had patience for and made even more so by having to allow for Klauvane Tregg's mobility-impairments following his matter-transporter exertions. To his credit, though, Tregg pressed doggedly, almost single-mindedly, onward, angrily determined and heedful not to further burden Mune'stahr.

"How're you holding up, wizard?" Mune'stahr asked.

Tregg bristled. Those who considered themselves scholars and practitioners of despised the casual use of the derogatory terms "warlock", "magician", "enchanter" or "wizard" towards them --- the words were demeaning and defamatory with implications the person towards whom they were directed was a charlatan and a trickster. The words revealed a social bias that devalued the societal status and academic accomplishments of the person towards whom they were directed. The terms ignored the fact that whosoever mastered the various arcane disciplines of Magyckal Arts had to make painful and frightening sacrifices in their personal lives, often resulting in them becoming outcasts and social lepers. Tregg knew Mune'stahr meant no direct insult to him, but he could not let use of the slur pass. Tregg, a Temporal Chronadigitator, a rarity among even Reality Mages, and he was a Maven Adeptine, a high-ranked master at his chosen discipline.

"Careful with your loose tongue, you foul-tempered walking gunsight, this 'wizard' is the one who saved your nanite-infused, weaponized ass from getting charbroiled only a few moments ago...!"

"Touchy, aren't we? Relax, it should be obvious I meant no insult..."

"I know, but beneath your churlish ungraciousness, you're an intelligent man and you should choose to address your comrades more respectfully."

Mune'stahr half-turned to regard Tregg. Even past the helmet and carapace of his armor, he appeared surprised and more than a little amused at Tregg's indignation over what the former Star Legion fleet mercenary considered to be an inconsequential discourtesy. He shrugged and dipped his head in a brief, self-deprecatory nod.

"So I'm 'ungracious'? Duly noted. Apologies. Now how about providing a bit more value to our partnership and maybe use your abilities to divine some kind of useful intel about that huge ... thing ... hovering over top the skyline?"