Chapter 79: Aberrant |
Cole heard the chittering again, and it was definitely closer this time. Like, he could hear scraping now – probably claws on rail. Well, whatever it was, it sounded like it’d be on them in seconds. He tightened his grip on the cutlass and pulled his projectiles into a tighter spread, ready to let them go the second he had a target.
Sure enough, a pair of creatures showed up about fifty meters down the tunnel, rounding the bend at a full sprint. At that distance, his NODs couldn’t resolve much – just two low shapes moving fast, hugging the ground.
Based on the overall profile and the chittering from earlier, Cole had to assume these were rats. The only problem was, the size was completely wrong. He almost couldn’t believe it, but shit, these things were several times larger than the mutants that prowled New York’s subways.
He waited until they’d closed to about twenty-five meters before letting the volley go.
The lead rat went down pretty easily, the stone projectiles passing clean through. The second one had been running so close behind the first that it ate some of the shots that pierced the first. Both skidded along the rails, tumbling before ultimately stopping dead at around the ten-meter mark.
Cole condensed a few more projectiles from the loose debris and double-tapped each rat, just to play it safe. He held position long enough to confirm nothing else was coming around the bend before pulling warmth through his muscles and moving up.
He stepped past the first rat and went straight for the second, kicking it over with his boot to get a look at the head.
Even through night vision, the thing barely looked like a rat anymore. The skull was still recognizably that of a rodent, but everything past the neck was so fucked that Cole genuinely wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The whole torso had swollen unevenly, bloated in places and caved in in others. Some spots of the skin were furless and broken, nothing there but raw tissue that looked inflamed even through night vision.
The hind legs were the most confusing part. One of them had grown a good two inches longer than the other, bowed out at an angle that had no business supporting the thing’s weight. Except it obviously had, because this same rat had been sprinting at him less than a minute ago. Cole didn’t even know how to square that.
Cole stepped back to take in both carcasses, mostly out of morbid curiosity. “Damn, these things are fugly.”
Miles walked up beside him. “What the hell is even that?”
Ugly as it was, Cole couldn’t stop staring. It was like a car wreck – hard to look away, even when he wanted to. “Right? And I thought the New York sewer rats were bad.”
Miles nudged one of the carcasses with his boot. “Fuck no. What kinda rat’s got arms comin’ out its damn back?”
“Aberrant Rats,” Graves said from behind them, having come up to investigate. “The affliction is called Aberrance. It arises where demonic miasma has long corrupted the mana of a place, and those creatures that live under it do not remain as God made them. They grow ill-favored and violent, and are little governed by fear.”
Cole looked down at the carcasses again. “We never got briefed on these.”
“We’d not thought to encounter such beasts here.” He sighed, looking down the tunnel. “In all my years, Captain, I have not known Aberrants to appear, save near the Rift, where the miasma has lain upon the land for centuries. That we should find them here, beneath a port so near to Ashpoint, is no small matter. I am inclined to think the ritual here has been at work for days – perhaps weeks.”
Knowing his luck, Cole already knew what the answer would be – but he asked anyway. “Think the naval guns can reach this far down? You know, get rid of all this?”
Vale snorted. “Had I thought the guns equal to the task, Captain, I should not have held my tongue. No – we shall eradicate this corruption ourselves.”
Cole sighed. He hated the answer – nobody ever loved hearing that the only option was the ugly one – but Vale was right.
“Alright. Let’s keep moving, then.”
They rounded the bend and pushed into the tunnel proper.
The infrastructure here had taken a beating – or rather, time had taken a beating on it. The rails had rusted to the point where the original metal had all but disappeared under a crust of oxidation. The walls hadn’t fared much better, having been subjected to the eroding force of seeping groundwater over the course of centuries. The water collected in puddles that continued to grow, drop by drop, in a steady, arrhythmic patter.
On the bright side, water seeping in meant they probably weren’t going to suffocate down here. Unfortunately, it also meant that the tunnels could sustain life, so it was only a matter of time before they ran into more rats.
As expected, they ran into another pair about five minutes in. Vale cut them apart like they were goblins, hardly even slowing down.
They pushed on for another five minutes or so, encountering – and subsequently eviscerating – the occasional Aberrant. Eventually, the ceiling started pulling away, the edges of the platform finally coming into view.
Cole approached slowly, only to find that the whole place was a nest. Even if the dozens of rats across the platform hadn’t made that obvious, the stench bleeding through his air bubble would’ve done the job on its own.
Now, that would’ve been fine if he had another way around, but he didn’t. The coastal line connector was on the far side, which meant they’d have to cut through the entire damn nest just to reach it.
Cole formed up the team and pushed in.
It took them about fifteen minutes to clear the station, and it was hands down the most tedious fight Cole had been in since arriving in this world. The rats just kept coming – not in any organized way, but in a constant, stupid trickle out of every dark corner the place had to offer. Each one went down in a hit or two, and ordinarily, that should’ve made things easy. But doing something easy a hundred times? That’d wear anyone down.
Cole had practiced with a sword before, but only sparsely – just enough to actually get the hang of it. He’d never really appreciated how physically demanding sustained swordwork was until he had to do it for real. Movies made it look effortless – some hero cutting through a crowd, barely breaking a sweat, moving on to the next one. Physical enhancement alleviated some of the effort, sure, but casting that required effort in and of itself.
Worse, every single one of them had a revolver on their hip that would’ve made short work of this. A few cylinders’ worth and the station would’ve been clear. Instead, they couldn’t risk a single gunshot, so here they all were, hacking away at mutant rats like a bunch of medieval exterminators.
By the halfway point, Cole had stopped thinking of it as a fight at all. It was just cardio with a blade – repetitive, sweaty, and profoundly unsexy. When the last few rats finally broke off and scattered into the deeper tunnels, he felt like he’d just finished a full workout.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
After making sure there weren’t any more stragglers, he had everyone take a breather – inside stronger air bubbles, of course. They found some benches that miraculously hadn’t been defiled by the rats, and sat down. They spent the next few minutes recovering, mostly rehydrating, topping up their mana with small potions, and overall just catching their breath.
“How much further we got?” Mack asked after a sip of his canteen.
Cole cast a soft flame, letting it hover just over his shoulder before pulling out his map. On paper, it was simple – just one platform over to the coastal line, then one stop east to the port station. In practice… yeah, better not mention that out loud. “Uh, not far. One more stop, then we’re under the compound. There’s another commercial plaza at the port station we’ll have to get through to reach the surface.”
Mack groaned. “Lemme guess. More fucked-up rats.”
Ethan walked over, placing a hand on Mack’s shoulder. “The more you dwell on it, the worse it’ll get. Embrace the suck, remember?”
“Fuck the suck.”
They spent another minute in silence until a screech echoed from back down the tunnel. It sounded far off, but it carried.
Graves rose to his feet. “We must not tarry, Captain. Sunrise lies less than six hours hence, and our presence here has not passed unnoticed, it would seem.”
Cole agreed on both counts. He capped his canteen and stood. “Alright, wrap it up. We’re moving.”
They hopped off the platform and back onto the track, picking up the coastal line connector about two hundred meters south.
They ran into a handful of Aberrants over the next ten minutes or so – singles, mostly, with the occasional pair. Compared to the nest they’d fought earlier, these encounters barely even qualified as nuisances.
They picked up the pace after one too many screeches echoed from behind them. Cole made the decision out of operational discipline, obviously. Definitely had nothing to do with the fact that it was creepy as shit down here.
The first sign they were getting close came about five minutes later, when the tunnel started getting brighter. The lights flickered a bit, with some in disrepair, but they were enough to confirm that they’d made it under the compound.
Cole flipped up his NODs and had the Celdornians drop their spells. It felt strange seeing the tunnel in actual color after an hour of monochrome – mostly because it made the rat shit on the walls that much more visible.
They continued forward and discovered increasing signs of habitation over the last stretch, so much so that Cole had actually expected contact the moment they arrived. Yet there was nothing to greet them when they reached the platform.
He glanced around. Based on the near-fossilized droppings, it was clear this area had been abandoned for a while.
Elina frowned. “Where have they gone?”
Miles glanced toward the stairway on the far side. “Reckon they went up. This station’s got that big plaza right above it – ain’t hard to figure.”
Cole figured he was probably right. He slowed the team down and took the stairs carefully, weapons up. Unsurprisingly, the shops around the stairway exit had been smashed open from the inside, and the trails of debris and waste all led toward the plaza.
They didn’t make it halfway there before the chittering started.
Cole held up a fist and had the team wait. He moved up alone, using the pillars and the gutted storefronts as cover, working his way forward until he had an angle on the plaza.
Turns out Miles was right. The plaza was crawling with them – well over a hundred Aberrants spread across every storefront and most of the open floor, the majority of them wolf-sized. A few of them were going at each other, but not nearly enough to make a dent. Pushing through this one wasn’t an option.
He was about to turn back when a cluster of rats near the center suddenly swarmed one of their own. The thing was already on the ground – dead or dying, hard to tell. It didn’t matter. They were on it in seconds, and by the time they scattered, there was nothing left but a carcass and a stain.
Well, that answered the food question. No wonder they’d been rushing his team on sight – there was nothing else to eat down here.
Cole pulled back and returned to the team.
Elina had read his expression before he even spoke. “Must we engage them?”
“Uh, I’d rather not,” Cole said, already scanning the area. He found a directory mounted on the wall near the stairway – one of those mall-style maps with a bright indicator showing their current position. Most of the text was in Istraynian, but the layout was visual enough to work with. He found the plaza, traced their position relative to it, and started looking for alternate routes.
A storefront on the near side had a footprint that dwarfed everything around it – easily the biggest retail space in the station. More importantly, it connected through to multiple corridors on the far side, one of which ran past the plaza entirely and linked up with the eastern concourse. They wouldn’t have to set foot in the plaza at all.
“How about through here,” Cole said, tapping the directory. “Big store, connects to a bunch of side alleys on the other side. One of them runs straight to where we need to go.”
Nobody had a better idea, so they settled for it.
Cole snapped a picture of the directory with his phone, then led the team over to the storefront.
The entrance was still grand, even after centuries – tall glass doors under a chiseled archway, with a faded logo above it that featured some kind of star. Cole didn’t know what it said, but between the scale, the aesthetics, and the sheer amount of glass, the place had department store written all over it.
They eased the doors open and stepped inside. Like the initial concourse, the air here was stale but clean – despite the infestation just a few storefronts down the lane. Seemed a bit odd until it clicked. No rat food in a clothing store, after all.
The sales floor that greeted them was enormous, even by department store standards. Being Istraynian probably had something to do with that.
They started across the floor, passing through what had clearly been the clothing section. Most of it hadn’t aged well; the lighter fabrics had long since disintegrated into brittle heaps at the base of the racks, and even the sturdier garments had gone stiff enough that trying any of them on would probably end badly. The suits on the mannequins had held up the best, faded but still recognizable as quality work. At this point, they were basically museum exhibits.
The jewelry section told a different story. The glass cases had kept everything inside in pristine condition. Some of it was recognizable enough – gold, gemstones, standard high-end fare. The rest was entirely foreign. A few of the pieces still carried a subtle glow, which meant whatever enchantments had been put into them were still active. Istraynian stuff really was built to last.
Elina slowed as they passed. “We ought to appropriate these relics, Captain. It would be a terrible waste to leave them here, I think.”
Cole smirked at the thought. “Never took you for the looting type.”
“From whom would I be looting, Captain? And Istraynian enchantments may yet prove of considerable use. It would be irresponsible not to recover them.”
Cole had to give it to her – she made a fair case. “Alright, alright. We can come back after we’ve dealt with the cultists, and maybe after we have the Ashpoint guys clear out these rats.”
He then checked the photo on his phone and realized they’d barely covered a quarter of the store. He picked up the pace to a light jog, and the team followed, weaving through row after row of clothing displays until they reached a stairway near the center of the floor. They took it up to the second level, which was sparser – home goods, maybe, or whatever the Istraynian equivalent was. From there, Cole followed the signage toward a rear exit that, according to the directory, placed them on a walkway above the plaza.
The colony’s chittering filtered up through the floor the whole way across – not exactly the most comforting soundtrack.
They pushed through more alleys on the far side, following the path Cole had traced on the directory until the corridor widened into a familiar shape – the concourse entrance. Surprisingly, the doors on this end were open – a first, given that every other way in had been either welded shut or buried under rubble.
Cole jogged ahead, but slowed when he noticed a faint shimmer across the archway. It shifted as he moved, barely visible at a distance but definitely there. Up close, it resolved into a translucent barrier anchored to a small security kiosk between the inbound and outbound lanes.
He pressed a hand against it. Yeah, it was completely solid. Knowing Istraynian magic, it’d be tougher getting through this than the welded doors.
Graves stepped forward and studied the barrier for a moment. “It is a ward, Captain, and a sound one at that; I should think it laid upon this passage in the Istraynians’ time, and restored since with the return of power. There is a switch within, by the look of it, but alas, it lies beyond the barrier.” He glanced back. “With Sir Gideon’s aid, and Lady Elina’s, I should expect it undone within ten minutes.”
Cole was about to ask whether they could speed that up when a screech cut through the corridor behind them. He turned and spotted two Aberrants rounding the corner from a restaurant alley – wolf-sized and already turning to face them.
“Graves, get started. We’ll hold the line.”
