The Drachen Chronicles

The Shrill

The next morning Quincey woke up to the sun shining on his face. He got up and walked to the ration bag and picked out one. Quinn walked up behind him and said,

"Don't I get the first pick? I did win after all." Quincey quickly before she could see it bent the light around the MRE he had and made it invisible. He stepped back and let his sister look through the bag,

"Weird, they don't seem to have put the pancake one in this bag. I loved that one; the small little pancakes and syrup. Whatever, I'll just have this one." She pulled an MRE out of the ration bag and walked to where she was sitting previously,

"You gonna tell me about last night? Or is it just up to me to guess?" Quincey sighed, as he opened up his MRE, "Some wendigos jumped me during a perimeter search. They jumped me and got a quick jab at me." Quinn looked at him, "So using your fist was the only option? No light daggers or fireballs your fist." Quincey was about to say something but stopped and thought a bit,

"They umm surprised me. I wasn't thinking just fighting instinct took over when one of them cut me." He showed the cauterized wound that was covering his tricep. Quinn winced and squirmed,

"Owww that must have hurt. Smart to burn it though; clear any infections or maybe possible poisons." Quincey nodded, then stood up,

"Well let's get to it; we have a ruined research facility to find and who knows what inside to fight." Quinn sighed and got up and began to pack up their camp. Walking through the destroyed city; trees had sprouted up everywhere making this once concrete jungle into a jungle brimming with life. Birds sang their tunes and flew around; the atmosphere had changed dramatically from the night before. They stopped by a stream for Quincey to wash his hands,

"Quinn, what does the map say? How far are we from the research facility?" Quinn pulled the map out of her bag and opened it,

"Umm, we are about five minutes, no wait, ten minutes?" She handed the map to Quincey,

"Okay, so we are here." Quincey pointed to a spot on the map with a stream just like the one he was at,

"So we need to head here." There was a circled building on the map labeled artifact. Quinn pointed in a direction and Quincey grabbed and moved it slightly to point in the right direction. After a few more minutes of walking, they reached a building that seemed to be newer than all the rest,

"There it is!" Quinn was a little too excited and yelled a bit,

"Shh," Quincey put a finger up his mouth,

"the thing that killed them could still be around. As much as I love your enthusiasm I enjoy the element of surprise even more." They slowly made their way towards the doors of the facility. The doors were bent and broken. Stepping through them into a destroyed reception area; papers and bits of rubble from the broken walls were everywhere. The weirdest thing we're these strange markings on the wall painted in crimson red. Quincey went right and Quinn went left clearing the room before they met up,

"If death had a smell it would be this iron and decayed flesh, but notice no bodies sister. The smell is as strong as ever, but no bodies. These glyphs on the wall too." Quincey scanned the room and on a table, he saw a cassette voice recorder. Quincey walks over to the table and picks it up,

"What is this?" He was moving it around in his hand and pressing buttons. Quinn walked up to Quincey and plucked it out of his hand,

"ooh, this is kinda old age tech. It records you via channeling magic through it. I've always wanted one of these things," Quincey chuckled to himself,

"What do you know? Your knowledge of old junk has finally paid off one of these missions." Quinn ignored her brother's comment and continued to fiddle with the device,

"It works by channeling magic through it. Now since the original user is probably dead his magic will be fading. That means we won't get everything, but maybe enough." With her last words, the cassette tape glowed a bright blue and started to pull away from Quinn's hand. The blue light grew and eventually took the form of a gnome. Gnomes being small human-like beings, the average height being three to four feet tall. With ears that curve up towards the end and also unnatural hair colors and big noses. Quincey stepped forward when Quinn held out a hand and held a finger up to her mouth. This gnome was a bit tall for a gnome and had mutton chops with a mustache. There was no hair where a goatee would be. He had Medium-length, messy, and blondish red hair. He wore a lab coat and began to talk,

"Personal log number twelve we finally found a way to properly imprint runes onto the body of the subject. The rats then either explode or start to glow where the runes were placed. Further study of side effects is needed and then maybe we can move to more human test subjects. Every step brings me closer to seeing my wife and being free. I need to find my glasses. I seemed to have lost them again. Scientist Rodger Swall signing off." The accent of the gnome was British and high-pitched. Then all of the sudden his form flickered and then disappeared. The cassette player dropped to the ground making a clanking sound. Quinn picked it up from the ground and sighed,

"I guess it was missing some parts of it. That was the risk if the host is dying or weak." Quinn put the cassette player in her back pocket. Quincey turned around and began walking towards a doorway, "Rune experimentation that can't be good." He silently told himself

"What was that brother?" Quinn ran up behind him, "oh nothing just said let's keep going." As they made their way through the research facility Quinn began to feel like she was being watched and heard something moving in the walls. She began to look around anxiously, slowly moving her hand to pull out her glave. Quincey noticed as they went deeper into the lab the glyphs they saw at the front of the lab became more and more frequent and seemed to be a lot messier,

"Brother look!" Quinn ran towards a desk and grabbed a cassette,

"wonder what it says?" She quickly pulled the cassette player from her pocket and popped the old one out, putting it in her bag and put the new one in. Instantly it pulled away making the same gnome this time with glasses,

"Personal log number 34. I got to see my dear Camellia after what felt like months of being forced to try and make these super soldiers. We finally cracked the code and the rats seem to be stable after a month of having runes on them. We will now move onto human testing. I am sorry, my Camellia. I know I promised I wouldn't hurt anyone anymore, but for you, I will break that promise." Quinn looked at her brother with a worried expression on her face,

"Was he a slave? I thought during the first cassette he meant he would be done ya know? Free from working on it again. I-i " Quincey held up a finger to his mouth and let out a quiet,

"shh." Quinn shut her mouth instantly and began to listen. There it was again crawling in the walls. She already had her glave in her hand and raised it in a combat stance and slowly walked towards her brother. BOOM a loud crash followed by wood and plaster going everywhere Quinn felt a sharp pain on her leg and instinctively swung her glave. It met resistance. She looked down to see a giant rat with a glowing yellow symbol on its back. Her glave was stuck in its side. Quincey, who was more prepared, flung a dagger at one of the rats that were jumping for his face, hitting it directly in the chest. A surprising and bright flash of light. The rat exploded everywhere in a mess of blood and guts. Quincey closed his eyes to protect them from the explosion. Another rat popped out of the wall and jumped at Quincey while his eyes were closed.

A burst of pain on his arm and a scream of more surprise than pain followed suit. Quinn bashed the rat off of her leg and stabbed it through the head. The rat just ripped off its head and grew a new one. Quinn hesitated for a second and the rat quickly clawed at her leg. Blood spewed as Quinn gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the pain. She made finger pistols and aimed at the rat. A wet thunk as an ice spike made it through the creature's torso pinning it to the ground but just missing the glowing glyph on its back.

Quincey grabbed the rat that had bit his leg and lit his hand ablaze, burning the flesh straight off of the creature. Leaving nothing but a skeleton, but the glyph on its back seemed to reach through its flesh and was branded to the bones. Coming from the middle glyph were smaller ones covering the entire bone structure of the rat. Almost as quickly as Quincey could take that all in; the flesh of the rat grew back and without thinking Quincey stabbed straight through the glyph and before all of its skin was back the rat exploded. A shard of bone just grazed at Quincy's temple leaving a line of red behind it. Quinn following her brother's example stabbed the rat that was pinned to the ground and sure enough, an explosion followed. Quincey looked at his sister and sighed,

"Well, that was interesting."

"Yea, what in the worlds were they doing here? Those glyphs were all over that one rat's bones." Quinn looked at her greaves and saw a white rock-like object jutting out of it. She bent down and found that luckily her greaves had stopped a two-inch-wide piece of rat bone from embedding itself into her shin. She pulled it off and examined it; as she looked closer she saw grooves, "Brother look at this."

She handed the bone to her brother and he looked at it as well,

"The grooves of those lines on the bone weren't just magic on top of the bone but deep-set grooves. When this was happening it would cause immense pain like taking a Dremel to your bone." They found themselves in a sort of living area; there were bunk beds and footlockers along with some closets.

Quinn heard something in one of the closets; she slowly walked towards it and unsheathed her glaive,

"Sister, come over here." Quinn quickly turned around and started walking towards her brother. Quincey held out another cassette tape and handed it to her,

"Do the thing ya know."

"Make it work? Sure thing." Quinn took the old cassette out and put the new one in. The gnome materialized in front of them and began talking,

"Personal log number 46. We have found test subjects; it seems as though some people have found a way to live on this planet. We told them that we were here to help them. What lies though it does make me feel better that we are testing on people who aren't living the best life. There are six of them ranging from 30 to 18. Dear gods, I hope that the experiments with the rats truly gave us an understanding of these runes and that these people survive. Scientist Rodger Swall signing off."Quinn looked at her brother,

"Do you think that the human test subjects are the reason why this facility went dark?" Quincey sighed,

"I sure hope not. Those rats were hard enough; I don't want to know what a magic-user could do with that type of power." Quincey sighed,

"Let's keep moving." They made it out of the bunk room and as they left saw a sign that read contamination rooms,

"Guess we go that way." Quincey pointed up at the sign and Quinn nodded. After a few minutes of walking through and seeing a few more runes on the walls and walking over broken brick and metal shards. They turned a corner and saw an iron door that had been blasted off its hinges and left a crater in the wall in front of it. Inside the room that the door previously kept shut was a b****y mess of an elven body. Quincey walked closer to the body and began to examine it; as he walked into the room he saw that the white walls were covered in crimson red runes. The elf had a rune carved into his chest and both ears ripped off. Deep cuts seemed to run to the bone that covered his body. His eyes were gone and holes ran from his eye sockets to the other side. In his hand he was clutching a cassette tape; Quincey picked it up and looked over at Quinn who was studying the wall.

All of the sudden a thudding sound started and was approaching fast.