Mimics and Ghouls
Eta’s new upgrades made her look artificial. Her arms have been reinforced and she has more bulk and weight than ever. She has her old heart, and an artificial second heart she had installed. With a platinum-encased head for her brain. She has little real human flesh and most of her limbs have been replaced to compensate with her new frame.
She seems to have a lot of money for the procedures to upgrade herself. I’ve seen a lot of people in Changye who became half-machines. Some do it because they lose their limbs on the job and others do it to become battle-ready. Changye has a place full of them. It’s probably the only place where you have the option to hire who you think is good for the job.
Marv’s a spellblade so he has an obvious reaction to our colleague's new frame. Spellblades tend to prefer their original limbs because it has more finesse than artificial ones have. Magic works best with flesh and to translate magic into the artificial has been one of the leading studies among the Mages.
Our investigation of anomalies has been curious. Most of the time we have been dealing with repeated anomalies. Which brings us to question something, leading the crew to search the areas under questioning.
Marvin, as a spellblade, became my usual partner in some of these cases while the Boss and Eta stayed in the office. Our job took us to this street in the Twilight Tunnels. A network of underground passages and walkways connecting different parts of lower Changye, enabling easy navigation in the depths.
It was a street where you feel like the homes were carved out of stone. There are areas in Changye where they prevent you from making homes, but this place has none so there are many companies who carved homes out of this area and made box-homes where they can stay for a fee
Crowded and full of people. You don’t find any vehicles since it’s underground and narrow. Children are running out and some of these children have itchy hands. Just an hour ago we saw two citizens catching two little kids, preying their wallets off their hands. Some ended badly. People these days tend to lose their patience.
The place was like an underground train station made into a small village. We do find small places here where people eat and sleep. Capsule hotels are available here and honestly it’s quite packed too with many of them pinching most of their day salary for the renting of the hotel.
Took me and Marvin a while to find the place. It’s on the lower area of the twilight tunnels and it’s mostly the most troublesome area where we got eyes the moment we entered the place.
“Marv, show them.”
“Got it.”
Marvin drew a sigil and lit up his blade and clad us in bubbles of protection against projectiles. I drew the sword Riki made and carried it with me until we reached the block where we were heading.
The owner of the building greeted us. Sweating, palms rubbing together, the old obese man had some nasty augments. Cheap ones you can find in the market clearly, but easily replaceable.
“Aiya, thank you for visiting. W-we heard you were interested about the anomaly?”
“Show us, Sir.”
“It’s this way.”
He led us into this area where staring at it made me think it was far. I composed myself and wondered to myself what’s wrong with the view I’m having here.
“The distance is not far, Sir. It seems to disrupt the vision.”
“Should I cast another spell?”
“Save it.”
I took out my transmitter and activated the camera. The camera showed the passageway as normal. Marvin took out his and followed me until we reached the end of the passage. The end of the door was full of this gum-like meat. My guts told me how bad it would be to open this so I told the owner to walk back while Marvin prepared sigil wards on the floor, the two walls and the ceiling.
Moving back to a good distance. I had Marv conjure a projection of his hand to open the door.
The moment the door opened. The gaping mouth of the room tried to swallow something, only for Marv’s sigil to explode, causing the sigil to shake. The monster’s tongue and spear-sized teeth retracted.
“Sounds like you wanted to get us killed, Sir.”
I lifted the man with my left and my sword’s bleeding him. He was sweating buckets. His augments made noises only plastic would make.
“N-no, Sir. That can’t be true.”
“Then explain to me before I explain why I’m legally allowed to rip your throat out.”
The thing about being an Agent to the most powerful organization the world relies on is the ability to have excuses when it comes to killing folk. I don’t relish the idea of it, but some folk deserve to be gutted sometimes. We are also in the right here so gutting him is the righteous move here. And my intuition is telling me something is very off with this bastard.
He was trying to explain to me how it wasn’t really like that. But he was lying to his damn teeth. Even Marvin, who is a pretty nice guy, a happy family man doesn’t buy the shit he’s spewing.
It was too wasteful to spill his blood on my blade so I dropped him to the ground and broke his legs instead. We had some of his tenants take care of him and we made sure he isn't going somewhere until we checked it all out.
“Asshole wanted to screw us didn’t he?”
“Yup. Good thing he doesn’t know how to lie or we could have been anomaly food.”
Marvin examines the area. He gave the tenants a look, the walls, and took note of something.
“Do you think the other tenants were on this?”
“Depends. If they have a trove behind this sucker. Then they really are into it. You have no problem if we bring some folk from the OB if that happens?”
“I don’t.”
Marvin’s pretty agreeable. The nervousness he had for the last few weeks he had been with the office has been long gone. He has adapted to our work and in a way has grown to accept what the job entails. He’s a spellblade too so it makes working on jobs like this easy. People tend to avoid spellblades because of the obvious fact they can throw spells at you and one of the few things they can do is burn you or heat any metal on your body if you let them.
The anomaly we were seeing seems to be a sort of room that has become a monster room. I called Kei with my transmitter and she picked it up. Could hear the AC’s making a loud noise in the background. I explained to her what we found.
“Another one. Yeah, it’s not a new thing. We call them mimics now, and honestly it’s more into the monster anomaly. Mimics can be an object, item, and the worst case is a large room with a treasure trove in the middle. Since the monster tried to bite you, it means it’s still quite young. Send some pictures, please.”
I took pictures of the door and sent it.
“Well, looks like it’s the room-type. A shame it isn’t a new anomaly, but still better than nothing, I guess.”
“About that. The owner tried to lure into the door. I broke his legs.”
“Smart. He still can pay us and we can sue the living shit out of him. If it works out we can have the 7S take care of the area and get some extra income. Sato might ‘forgive’ us then.”
Sato’s been nagging us about what happened with Eta. Bruising an Inquisitor is a headache and since when you bust the head of one, another one comes to investigate. Eta was forward about her crimes and since Eta had records of fighting with holy wars, they gave her leniency based on her records and with the 7S backing her up; we got it settled.
“How do we handle this?”
“We hit and run the bastard. You carry explosives?”
“Nope.”
“Not even a grenade, Akun?”
“Forgot to bring any. I do have some explosive shots here.”
“Not enough. We need some real firepower and smoke. Shrapnel ain’t going to do it. I’ll have Eta here help you out instead of sulking here.”
“Sure, send her here.”
“Forgot, can Marv cast some fireball or something?”
I asked Marvin.
“I don’t think it’ll work.”
“Too bad. Anyway, we’ll have Eta check it out too. Girl, stop sulking and help the boys out. They need some explosives.”
I ended the call and watched the residents looking over. I approached them with the best ‘I am an asshole’ face and made them go away. Don’t want to see them as stains on the floor if they get too curious.
“Marv, we need to secure the area. I want you to keep them out, can you do that?”
“I can conjure a spirit to stop them from entering.”
I started to do my part as well. I informed the residents how there’s a monster and they should stay in their rooms and keep their heads out of any potential harm.
Around 2 PM Eta arrived at the area packing explosives and carrying her LMG on her back.
“Where’s the mimic, A?”
“Down the hallway.”
I grabbed her hand and let her walk down the passage. She has augmented eyes so anything supernatural is filtered by her digital eyes.
She unpacked the explosives and started setting them up to throw. It’s rather easy. We’ll have Marv open the door and she’ll throw the explosives on the mouth of the room and let it explode.
“You got the measurements of this thing? I don’t want the whole place to collapse on us.”
I got the deets from the owner whose legs I broke and handed her the schematics of the whole building. She judged the thickness and the length of the building before readying herself for the throw and placing a deployable shield in front of us. Marvin set himself up and focused his mind on the opening and twisted the knob open, flinging the door open.
Before the monster could snap its spear-like teeth. It swallowed the explosives Eta threw and swallowed it whole. Eta flicked the safety of the device, and made it explode. Causing the innards to blow towards us, spewing viscera and organs, the intestines lacerating the walls.
The explosion could be heard everywhere. The wards Marvin placed was ringing out and the spirits he set up were telling folks to stay where they are.
Eta took her two-hander out and led the way inside the room. Parasites, the size of a fat cat jumped us. She swung her two-handed hand easily. I pulled my blade out and cut down five or more before moving forward where we found the beating heart of the mimic. The thick membrane encasing the mimic seems to have been protected. Below the room, down a floor seems to be this meat bag. The hand sticking out was the cue. I risked it. I opened the meat bag and the victims popped out of the meat bag. Men, women, children, and the elderly. Looks like the owner was having a hard time luring folks out.
Marvin who went down saw the gore. He was a calm guy. A family man who wants to spend as much time with his wife. But Marv has a fury in him. He knew what was up and dragged the owner on the spot.
Eta helped in dipping the bastard on the blood and gore of the victims until he confessed and told us what was up. Apparently, he was a butcher and he has been selling ground meat in his shop. Meat that came from the wastes of the mimic after it devours enough biomass material.
I recorded his confession with my transmitter. It was something we couldn’t handle alone so we had to call the OB about this. Not an hour later, a dispatch arrived and the folks in the resident were questioned and accused.
I heard later most of the residents were found guilty partaking on human flesh and had been labeled as ghouls by the Bureau and punished extensively by the TCU for their crimes against humanity.
Mimics and Ghouls
Eta’s new upgrades made her look artificial. Her arms have been reinforced and she has more bulk and weight than ever. She has her old heart, and an artificial second heart she had installed. With a platinum-encased head for her brain. She has little real human flesh and most of her limbs have been replaced to compensate with her new frame.
She seems to have a lot of money for the procedures to upgrade herself. I’ve seen a lot of people in Changye who became half-machines. Some do it because they lose their limbs on the job and others do it to become battle-ready. Changye has a place full of them. It’s probably the only place where you have the option to hire who you think is good for the job.
Marv’s a spellblade so he has an obvious reaction to our colleague's new frame. Spellblades tend to prefer their original limbs because it has more finesse than artificial ones have. Magic works best with flesh and to translate magic into the artificial has been one of the leading studies among the Mages.
Our investigation of anomalies has been curious. Most of the time we have been dealing with repeated anomalies. Which brings us to question something, leading the crew to search the areas under questioning.
Marvin, as a spellblade, became my usual partner in some of these cases while the Boss and Eta stayed in the office. Our job took us to this street in the Twilight Tunnels. A network of underground passages and walkways connecting different parts of lower Changye, enabling easy navigation in the depths.
It was a street where you feel like the homes were carved out of stone. There are areas in Changye where they prevent you from making homes, but this place has none so there are many companies who carved homes out of this area and made box-homes where they can stay for a fee
Crowded and full of people. You don’t find any vehicles since it’s underground and narrow. Children are running out and some of these children have itchy hands. Just an hour ago we saw two citizens catching two little kids, preying their wallets off their hands. Some ended badly. People these days tend to lose their patience.
The place was like an underground train station made into a small village. We do find small places here where people eat and sleep. Capsule hotels are available here and honestly it’s quite packed too with many of them pinching most of their day salary for the renting of the hotel.
Took me and Marvin a while to find the place. It’s on the lower area of the twilight tunnels and it’s mostly the most troublesome area where we got eyes the moment we entered the place.
“Marv, show them.”
“Got it.”
Marvin drew a sigil and lit up his blade and clad us in bubbles of protection against projectiles. I drew the sword Riki made and carried it with me until we reached the block where we were heading.
The owner of the building greeted us. Sweating, palms rubbing together, the old obese man had some nasty augments. Cheap ones you can find in the market clearly, but easily replaceable.
“Aiya, thank you for visiting. W-we heard you were interested about the anomaly?”
“Show us, Sir.”
“It’s this way.”
He led us into this area where staring at it made me think it was far. I composed myself and wondered to myself what’s wrong with the view I’m having here.
“The distance is not far, Sir. It seems to disrupt the vision.”
“Should I cast another spell?”
“Save it.”
I took out my transmitter and activated the camera. The camera showed the passageway as normal. Marvin took out his and followed me until we reached the end of the passage. The end of the door was full of this gum-like meat. My guts told me how bad it would be to open this so I told the owner to walk back while Marvin prepared sigil wards on the floor, the two walls and the ceiling.
Moving back to a good distance. I had Marv conjure a projection of his hand to open the door.
The moment the door opened. The gaping mouth of the room tried to swallow something, only for Marv’s sigil to explode, causing the sigil to shake. The monster’s tongue and spear-sized teeth retracted.
“Sounds like you wanted to get us killed, Sir.”
I lifted the man with my left and my sword’s bleeding him. He was sweating buckets. His augments made noises only plastic would make.
“N-no, Sir. That can’t be true.”
“Then explain to me before I explain why I’m legally allowed to rip your throat out.”
The thing about being an Agent to the most powerful organization the world relies on is the ability to have excuses when it comes to killing folk. I don’t relish the idea of it, but some folk deserve to be gutted sometimes. We are also in the right here so gutting him is the righteous move here. And my intuition is telling me something is very off with this bastard.
He was trying to explain to me how it wasn’t really like that. But he was lying to his damn teeth. Even Marvin, who is a pretty nice guy, a happy family man doesn’t buy the shit he’s spewing.
It was too wasteful to spill his blood on my blade so I dropped him to the ground and broke his legs instead. We had some of his tenants take care of him and we made sure he isn't going somewhere until we checked it all out.
“Asshole wanted to screw us didn’t he?”
“Yup. Good thing he doesn’t know how to lie or we could have been anomaly food.”
Marvin examines the area. He gave the tenants a look, the walls, and took note of something.
“Do you think the other tenants were on this?”
“Depends. If they have a trove behind this sucker. Then they really are into it. You have no problem if we bring some folk from the OB if that happens?”
“I don’t.”
Marvin’s pretty agreeable. The nervousness he had for the last few weeks he had been with the office has been long gone. He has adapted to our work and in a way has grown to accept what the job entails. He’s a spellblade too so it makes working on jobs like this easy. People tend to avoid spellblades because of the obvious fact they can throw spells at you and one of the few things they can do is burn you or heat any metal on your body if you let them.
The anomaly we were seeing seems to be a sort of room that has become a monster room. I called Kei with my transmitter and she picked it up. Could hear the AC’s making a loud noise in the background. I explained to her what we found.
“Another one. Yeah, it’s not a new thing. We call them mimics now, and honestly it’s more into the monster anomaly. Mimics can be an object, item, and the worst case is a large room with a treasure trove in the middle. Since the monster tried to bite you, it means it’s still quite young. Send some pictures, please.”
I took pictures of the door and sent it.
“Well, looks like it’s the room-type. A shame it isn’t a new anomaly, but still better than nothing, I guess.”
“About that. The owner tried to lure into the door. I broke his legs.”
“Smart. He still can pay us and we can sue the living shit out of him. If it works out we can have the 7S take care of the area and get some extra income. Sato might ‘forgive’ us then.”
Sato’s been nagging us about what happened with Eta. Bruising an Inquisitor is a headache and since when you bust the head of one, another one comes to investigate. Eta was forward about her crimes and since Eta had records of fighting with holy wars, they gave her leniency based on her records and with the 7S backing her up; we got it settled.
“How do we handle this?”
“We hit and run the bastard. You carry explosives?”
“Nope.”
“Not even a grenade, Akun?”
“Forgot to bring any. I do have some explosive shots here.”
“Not enough. We need some real firepower and smoke. Shrapnel ain’t going to do it. I’ll have Eta here help you out instead of sulking here.”
“Sure, send her here.”
“Forgot, can Marv cast some fireball or something?”
I asked Marvin.
“I don’t think it’ll work.”
“Too bad. Anyway, we’ll have Eta check it out too. Girl, stop sulking and help the boys out. They need some explosives.”
I ended the call and watched the residents looking over. I approached them with the best ‘I am an asshole’ face and made them go away. Don’t want to see them as stains on the floor if they get too curious.
“Marv, we need to secure the area. I want you to keep them out, can you do that?”
“I can conjure a spirit to stop them from entering.”
I started to do my part as well. I informed the residents how there’s a monster and they should stay in their rooms and keep their heads out of any potential harm.
Around 2 PM Eta arrived at the area packing explosives and carrying her LMG on her back.
“Where’s the mimic, A?”
“Down the hallway.”
I grabbed her hand and let her walk down the passage. She has augmented eyes so anything supernatural is filtered by her digital eyes.
She unpacked the explosives and started setting them up to throw. It’s rather easy. We’ll have Marv open the door and she’ll throw the explosives on the mouth of the room and let it explode.
“You got the measurements of this thing? I don’t want the whole place to collapse on us.”
I got the deets from the owner whose legs I broke and handed her the schematics of the whole building. She judged the thickness and the length of the building before readying herself for the throw and placing a deployable shield in front of us. Marvin set himself up and focused his mind on the opening and twisted the knob open, flinging the door open.
Before the monster could snap its spear-like teeth. It swallowed the explosives Eta threw and swallowed it whole. Eta flicked the safety of the device, and made it explode. Causing the innards to blow towards us, spewing viscera and organs, the intestines lacerating the walls.
The explosion could be heard everywhere. The wards Marvin placed was ringing out and the spirits he set up were telling folks to stay where they are.
Eta took her two-hander out and led the way inside the room. Parasites, the size of a fat cat jumped us. She swung her two-handed hand easily. I pulled my blade out and cut down five or more before moving forward where we found the beating heart of the mimic. The thick membrane encasing the mimic seems to have been protected. Below the room, down a floor seems to be this meat bag. The hand sticking out was the cue. I risked it. I opened the meat bag and the victims popped out of the meat bag. Men, women, children, and the elderly. Looks like the owner was having a hard time luring folks out.
Marvin who went down saw the gore. He was a calm guy. A family man who wants to spend as much time with his wife. But Marv has a fury in him. He knew what was up and dragged the owner on the spot.
Eta helped in dipping the bastard on the blood and gore of the victims until he confessed and told us what was up. Apparently, he was a butcher and he has been selling ground meat in his shop. Meat that came from the wastes of the mimic after it devours enough biomass material.
I recorded his confession with my transmitter. It was something we couldn’t handle alone so we had to call the OB about this. Not an hour later, a dispatch arrived and the folks in the resident were questioned and accused.
I heard later most of the residents were found guilty partaking on human flesh and had been labeled as ghouls by the Bureau and punished extensively by the TCU for their crimes against humanity.
