<Alex, Real - S.O.S., Charred Halls of a Fallen Base>

The dark halls of a more-than-singed base were the creepiest place that Alex had yet to encounter.

His string of lights and headlamp both gave him greater views of the world around him, but it didn't help much.

Charred, soaked bodies lay everywhere, mostly motionless, but occasionally one twitched unnaturally.

Alex would have simply ashed them all, but from moment one, they were under constant assault, and for the first time in what felt like ages, he was concerned that he'd run out of health and mana if he ashed everything.

Undead staggered out of side rooms and corridors even as stronger, faster variants sprinted at them down the hallways.

Their group had bypassed the main stairs as the liberal coating of undead made it clear that that path was trapped in some manner that they didn't understand. It seemed similar to what Lenka could do, but with more magic involved than she employed.

Regardless, even as they quested through the building, looking for another way up, they continued to occasionally hear the whoosh of flame or the sizzle of acid from those front stairs.

If Alex had to guess, the fires had originally started when a more resistant undead had caught fire and continued to other parts of the base, acting as the proverbial and literal spark that kicked off the conflagration.

Regardless, they didn't want to go up those stairs.

Alex's dadao—and skills with that weapon—were getting a real workout. Beside him, but a little behind, Grant was using his warhammer to great effect, shielding Alex's off side with skill and judicious applications of blunt trauma.

On his other side, Natasha's spear lanced out, harrying and hampering any undead she targeted.

Alex did dust the undead that would have impaired their progress, as well as any that didn't seem to truly go down with their head removed or destroyed.

That was a surprising number, unfortunately, but at least the fodder and ravager variants stayed down.

John had upped the power in his shots while keeping his accuracy. Now, each retort of his weapons was accompanied by a head turning to mist or a hole completely coring out the heart—the only other organ that seemed mostly needed by the undead.

He was blessedly courteous with his chosen victims, so Alex was only misted on rare occasions, and those farther back weren't dirtied at all.

As a result of their combined efforts, their progress was steady and less mana intensive than other ventures, but it was quite a bit messier for their environment. This time, the grime came on fast enough—even with John's courtesy—that there was no danger of Alex ignoring it or building up a tolerance.

He was gross, and he looked forward to getting truly clean.

There were a few close calls, and undead even occasionally got teeth or claws on one of their group, but Alex was always able to heal the injury and remove the undead taint in short order. He, himself, was protected from even those minor scraps by his glorious coat.

The group came across two supply rooms with promising contents. One was mostly destroyed, crates broken open and food charred and soaked by fire and water respectively. The other had some damage, and the contents were definitely wet, but many of the boxes seemed to have held the water out for the moment.

Alex blessed the impulse that had led him to empty most of his Inventory before this mission, and he took the boxes that seemed in the best shape.

The others took what they could, but they had to leave quite the haul behind.

They took an extra couple of minutes to shift things around to maybe preserve the rest until someone could return, but it wasn't a sure thing, and they didn't have time to do more.

They were about to give up and try their luck on the main stairs when an otherwise nondescript door revealed the back stairs.

Bless fire codes. In Alex's experience, the only reason such stairs existed was because of such codes.

As they entered the stairwell, they found an odd assortment of items scattered about. There were clothes, some supplies, and other knick-knacks. There was also a noticeable lack of undead.

John even pointed out a painting crunched against the wall as they began moving upward.

They rounded the first landing, and were able to see a butcher's worth of knives embedded in the concrete walls and the metal floor of the stairs.

They seemed to have been flung outward from a singular point, along with all the other various stuff they'd already noticed.

At that central point? A young woman lay, throat missing and evident bitemarks across much of the rest of her.

The wounds didn't seem consistent with the undead that they'd seen, and she hadn't turned, so they were left a bit confused as to what had happened.

John briefly knelt beside the body as they passed. "I'd say feline teeth of some kind."

Natasha gave the man a skeptical look. "Like a house cat?"

He huffed and shook his head. "Only if it was the size of a mountain lion."

The Russian grunted. "Ahh." She frowned, then. "What happened here?"

Grant was continuing his steady, mostly quiet progress up. "Another Initiate? Or did you mean the Inventory emptying. It's been too long since the initial mission, and I didn't see any damage to her diaphragm or upper torso. So, I doubt that's what killed her. So, I'll restate. Another Initiate is the most likely cause of death."

"But why?"

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Grant just shrugged.

Alex frowned, something seemed off to him, but Natasha put it to words before he could. "If something killed her, and that caused a violent emptying of her Inventory… wouldn't there be a shadow of where that person or thing was when the woman died?"

He looked around and realized that the Russian woman was right. The spray seemed all but uniform. There wasn't anywhere that looked like the spray had been blocked. "Maybe there's a delay so that it's not simple suicide to kill someone with an Inventory?"

Natasha grunted. "Or she took time to bleed out… maybe both."

"Maybe."

John grunted, holstering one gun to pick up a couple of things and tuck them into his own Inventory.

Alex didn't bother trying to figure out what he had grabbed. Alex had snatched a few knives as they passed, taking advantage of his growing ability to take things into his Inventory with simple proximity. He could do so out to almost four inches by that point, and some of the things had looked quite nice.

The stairwell only went up one floor, but it was a large floor, apparently, because there were three switchbacks, each with their own landing, before they reached the first and only other door, the stairs stopping at that landing.

It was incredibly odd that no undead had come in here, but Alex supposed that they might have invested some of their Base abilities in keeping it clear as an emergency means of escape.

Too bad it hadn't seemed to have worked.

Come on, Alex, you don't know that. It's possible that most of the Initiates made it out. We don't even know how many—

The System finally decided to give him a notice.

Hidden Quest All dead? Is it permanent?

You've reached the heart of another team's base and have found no evidence of living Initiates. Discover the fate of the fallen or fled, and help if you can.

Rewards: Experience Supplies Items Depending on Result

Initiates' Fate Discovered: 2/6

The other's slight hesitations showed that they'd likely gotten the quest as well, and Natasha's words a moment later confirmed it. "So, six Initiates, and we've already found two."

John grunted. "So it seems."

Alex slowly pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and revealed what seemed to be an overseer's box, or security room, or something.

It was mostly empty, though the overturned furniture seemed to indicate that it had been abandoned in a hurry.

To one side lay a pair of massive cats, each easily the size of cougars, though their markings and body shapes weren't quite right for that species, as Alex understood them. He tried to analyze, but nothing came back. He got the feeling that he didn't know how to use the skill on dead creatures, whether that was due to a skill limit, or his own inability that could be overcome, he didn't know.

There were wounds on their dead bodies, but none seemed to be lethal. John went to them immediately, pulling back their lips and finding blood and some flesh in both. "These, or something like it, could have killed that Initiate in the stairwell."

"Yeah." Grant agreed.

Alex was scanning the rest of the large room. Huge glass windows looked out, down on the floor below, though the outsides of all but one were heavily obscured with smoke and soot build-up.

The level was twice the normal height with crazily vaulted ceilings, and this room nestled in the top of one corner. What he could see seemed to reveal a maze of artistic displays, mostly destroyed in one manner or another. There also seemed to be all sorts of traps and other deadly effects, given the clusters of unmoving undead among the many that still wandered about.

"There." Natasha had joined him at one window, and she pointed to a sidewall where a door stood slightly ajar, revealing stairs going up. "That's our path up."

"So, down to the gallery level, then up once more, into the rest of the building?"

"Seems like the best plan."

There was no quick way from this observation room down the gallery floor, showing that Alex's assumption about fire escapes and codes had been incorrect. Even so, they could drop down to the floor below, as one of the windows had broken in the heat of the now extinguished fire, leaving a path down.

They were whispering, and none of the undead below seemed to have noticed them, so they would at least have the element of surprise. Their lights didn't seem to be noticed, likely due to the low-level emergency lighting in the gallery below.

Still, once they dropped down, they would have a hard time getting back up here, so Alex wanted to do a thorough sweep of their current location.

He was no detective, nor had he been a boyscout or anything like that. Even so, it seemed like there had been at least a few people living in this room up until recently.

There was no steaming coffee cup or anything so tropish, but there were neatly piled mounds of trash, and even a couple of sets of scattered clothing.

A single sleeping bag was also present, likely having belonged to the dead woman in the stairs.

Otherwise, there was a computer station and a bank of screens on the non-windowed wall, but they were all dark, as made sense.

He had a moment of excitement when he found an overturned chair in one corner, but when he stood it upright again and sat down, he grimaced.

Grant gave him an odd look, but Natasha just rolled her eyes.

John, at least, was somewhat sympathetic. "Not comfortable?"

Alex sighed. "No… not at all."

"I'm sorry, buddy."

"Eh, I'll live."

John clapped him on the shoulder as they all gathered near the broken window.

Natasha was looking around the edges. "I'll put a force shield over the bottom edge. No need to cut ourselves up jumping through."

"Good thinking." Grant grinned at the older woman.

"Alright." Alex nodded. "Me first, Natasha last?"

They all agreed. Grant added, "I'll come right after you."

Everyone seemed more than fine with that.

Below, there were a number of mindless undead, seemingly getting more agitated as they likely sensed the living nearby but couldn't seem to find them.

How to do this…?

<Alex, Imagining - The Plan, Death from Above>

Alex boosted himself through the window with one hand, swinging his legs through with grace borne of his more intimate connection to his skills, before he dropped the twelve or so feet to the ground.

He landed gracefully, but not silently, leading to his gathering a lot of undead attention. Good. I can draw them in for the kill.

His dadao came out of his Inventory and straight into his hands as he met the first charge. Grant landed behind him a moment later to join in the slaughter.

<Alex, Real - S.O.S., Art Gallery Turned Charred Fallen Base>

Alex nodded to himself, making eye contact around the group. "Ready?"

After getting everyone's nod of acknowledgement, he vaulted out through the window, not wanting to let himself start to hesitate.

That turned out to be foolish for two reasons.

First, Natasha hadn't cast her Force Shield yet, so the hand he planted to vault with got a nasty, deep cut across the palm.

Second, because of the aforementioned, unexpected pain, his kinesthetic skill had him instinctively reduce the pressure on that hand. He still wanted to get out the window, so he was continuing forward. Thus, with the conflicting knee-jerk desires, he didn't vault very well, causing one of his feet to catch, sending him into a tumble that lasted a terrifying second before he crashed down atop the first of the undead.

There was an instant of silence—broken only by a stifled, half-barked laugh from above—before the surrounding undead howled and rushed in.

Moldy cheesecake…

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