Sovereign

Entry 22: Pine Street Report (2)- Sep 24 2010 - 03/06

I pulled grenade from my waist, flicking my finger across the sharp edge on the top to draw blood and activate it before throwing it into the middle of the corridor. I turned away as it exploded, blasting away the bodies and walls with the full force of my soul fragment. There was a groaning sound from somewhere in the building as the wall fell away, not crumbling to dust and stone, but dripping down in viscous globs the colour of Pepto-Bismol.

“The hell is all this?”

I turned as Iona emerged from behind one of the melted walls. I was glad to see her, but tried not to let it show. She’d probably just insult me for it.

“The house is showing us what it really is.”
“Which is?”
“I honestly don’t know, but zombies are falling out of the walls.”
“Well, one of us is having fun,” she muttered, crossing over the bloody mangled bodies and heading back towards the lobby. I followed closely. I couldn’t lose her again.

“Shit!”

Her sword was out before I could see what had alarmed her and a severed zombie head went flying across my vision. I pulled my guns quickly and faced the room, now filled with at least fifty of the…revenants? I couldn’t tell if they were actual revenants or just beings created by whatever this house was supposed to be. The bodies came at me and I let off as many shots as I could, trying my hardest to be accurate before I ended up draining myself. While I didn’t have to reload the guns with ammo, I didn’t exactly have a limitless supply. There was only so much soul energy I could waste before I ceased to function.

Iona charged, using her invisible energy blade to decapitate and dismember as many as got in her way. I continued to shoot, catching most of them just when they were within arm’s reach. They were moving faster now, rushing, trying to overwhelm us with their numbers. They just seemed to be pouring in through the corridors and into the lobby. Midway through the fight, Gazel appeared, gauntlets charged and glowing. He punched into the floor as we jumped, creating a rippling shockwave that knocked most of the revenants to the floor before he reached into his left gauntlet and pulled out a crude pointed obsidian flint dagger. He stabbed it into his palm, barely wincing before he directed the hand into the air.

“Seji dempa nsoinamo, kareabisa seochiyema.”

The dagger shot out and exploded, curdling black dust into a cloud which loomed over practically everything in the room. He clasped his hands together and grunted. Larger versions of the obsidian dagger formed from the gathered dust, raining down on as many revenants as were underneath. They fell as they were stabbed by the onslaught. Iona cut away the last of them and once again we had silence. Until Gazel cleared his throat.

“We still don’t know where these things are coming from.”

I agreed. “And we just wasted twenty whole minutes on them. We need to move faster.”
“So…upstairs?”
“Upstairs.”

We used the stairs. Because nobody was stupid enough to actually try the elevator. Every floor was met with more revenants, but we fought them away and climbed higher. The numbers of revenants only seemed to increase. Which was good; it meant we were getting closer to the actual problem.

At least, that’s what video games lead me to believe.

We reached the sixth floor, but couldn’t quickly advance because of the sheer number of them. They were at least five hundred. Agile, vicious snarling things. They also seemed more intelligent, fighting us with better coordination than the first batch.

I just kept shooting.

Somewhere in the middle of fight, I lost Gazel and Iona. I was also losing strength. A lot of my soul energy was going into the grenades, and I had used over twelve on this floor alone. They were effective, but only for a few seconds before I was surrounded again. Gazel’s hexes couldn’t work here because they too long to set up. I spotted Iona down the corridor, hacking away at anything that came within reach. She was holding them off too.