The Infinite Bk. 05 Ch. 05

They left the lab, walked down several corridors, and then arrived at a chamber where another two Profane were waiting. "It's about time," a male ghoul said, speaking with a lower jaw split down the middle and opened horizontally instead of vertically. The other was a a female ghoul with white hair. "Yes, yes, start the meeting," said Curcio, placing his hand on the wall. Vents opened up in the ceiling, and streams of colored smoke poured onto circular panels on the floor. The smoke didn't spread, as if bound in an invisible container, and instead organized itself into various shapes, taking the form of other members of the Profane. "Before you say anything, I know I'm late, so let's just get on with it, shall we?"

"I agree. We have pressing matters to attend to," said one woman, a full-blooded fiend similar to a centaur, but with a spider body instead of a horse body. Her smoke form mimicked her speaking, but her voice came from the ceiling.

"Prince Lupin has gained two powerful allies, and they are turning the battle for Welindar against us," another ghoul said, once a dwarf like Curcio with a braided black beard.

"And who are these new allies?" the white-haired asked.

"One is Valia Zodiac, the Sword Goddess," another man said, speaking from the end of the room.

"Didn't we have dealings with her brother?" a succubus asked, wrapped in her wings.

"Yes, we traded relics and artifacts," said Curcio. "I myself made off like a bandit, if I do say so myself."

"If her power is as great as the stories say, it's no wonder the prince is making such strides," said Tysinger.

"The other is someone you've already met: Noah, the Wandering Spirit," the man at the end said.

Tysinger's brow furrowed. "Lord Scyler, that's impossible. I reduced him to ash myself."

"Apparently not, his presence has been confirmed, and he's assisting the prince. He has created a poison that works against our troops, and he's captured several mid-level members of the Pack, including Dradam."

"Ugh, sloppy," the female ghoul said.

"I remember that name," said the succubus. "He was in Sylphtoria when my Leanne was performing her mission. He's the reason why it all fell through."

"Who is this man anyway?" the split-jaw ghoul asked.

"A knight of Uther, and the rumors about him are... well it's difficult to tell fact from fiction," said another male ghoul, towering over the others with his lanky body. "I know that there is a price of a hundred gold coins on him, and he slaughtered an army of bounty hunters and piled their heads in front of a church in Colbrand. He also tortured the two other Uther princes, one to the point of attempting suicide. Tysinger, you faced him, what's he like?"

Tysinger paused. "In terms of destructive ability, he's not worth mentioning. However, his agility, his technique, his killing potential, they're practically inhuman. He crushed Deacon without suffering a scratch, and his skill with a blade is equal to mine. I offered to make him a ghoul and he declined. Had he accepted... he'd be the strongest of us."

His words sent a shiver through everyone.

"My creations are supposed to be foolproof," said Curcio angrily. "No one could make a poison against them in so short a time."

"According to our double-agents, he's unlocked the secrets of the Enochian technology. He is no ordinary human," said Scyler.

"We should assume that the Pack members will talk when questioned. Everything they know, Uther will soon know," the spider woman said.

"Tell Kaisen that it is time to move up the schedule. If his whelps want more power, they're going to have to earn it," Scyler declared.

"And what of the interlopers?" the split-jaw ghoul asked.

"They'll either join us or die."

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It was a quiet night, lit only by a sliver of the moon. A wagon caravan was traveling down a forest path, but no torches or candles were burning. Monsters were not enough to invoke such caution; the fiends guarding the wagons could defeat any creature roaming the lands. What they feared was detection from people. Therefore, the beastmen, corrupted and not, focused on their sense of smell. Every time the wind shifted, they checked for any scents that didn't belong. Everything was fine. Everything was still. Until it wasn't.

They rained down upon the caravan, orbs of light that burst with a teeth-rattling crack, leaving the beastmen blind and deaf. More balls of light appeared overhead, floating above the forest and casting their light down like flares. As the Pack struggled to regain their bearings, the rain continued, this time with poisoned arrows.

With a shout, soldiers and knights rushed from the woods, discarding their disguises of sod and brush. They had also been doused in chemicals to erase their scent, and their muscles were stiff from waiting so long. They attacked the caravan from both sides and assaulted the weakened fiends with weapons and magic.

The fiends were once unstoppable goliaths, but now they could barely defend themselves. The soldiers ran them through with spears from all directions to pin them down, and the knights delivered decapitating strikes to finish them off or hacked off limbs so that they could be taken alive.

Leading the charge was Valia. Fighting poisoned enemies didn't sit well with her, so she targeted the fiends who had escaped the arrows. She ran up and down the caravan with her super speed, using her mana-laden blade to sever heads and limbs. Also present was Noah, walking calmly through the battlefield with his sword in one hand and an illusory gun in the other. Every time a fiend lunged, Noah would shoot him in the face, causing the monster to trip up as his mind rebooted, and during that window of vulnerability, his sword carved through flesh and bone.

A fiend spotted him and charged, and rather than firing his gun, Noah simply pointed at him with his sword. The enraged brute was closing in, wielding a mighty axe, but was stopped when an arrow, launched from the woods, planted itself in the side of his head. Nourished by the black venom, a head wound like this was not enough to kill the beast, but once the poison on the arrow spread through his brain, things got nasty.

Nearby, a fiend grabbed a soldier, raised him up, and ripped him in half at the waist in a shower of viscera. As the fiend grabbed another soldier, Noah pointed his sword, and an arrow flew through the air and struck his throat. The fiend struggled to breathe, and a second arrow found its home in his eye socket, setting off a catastrophe within his skull. Noah turned in the direction of the arrows and nodded. He could not see her, but Shannon could see him, and that nod was enough to make her ears twitch in giddiness.

Soon enough, the battle was over. All the surviving members of the Pack were bound in heavy shackles and weighted muzzles. While Valia and the knights went after anyone who might have escaped during the fighting, Noah examined the cargo on the wagons.

"Sir Noah, is it there?" Reynolds asked as he approached.

"Yeah, we struck gold. It's enough dilthim for an army," he said, opening a barrel full of stems and leaves.

"Ha! Our third score! The Pack won't know what to do! We're unstoppable!"

His joy was correctly placed. The shipment they had just intercepted carried various plants, powders, and liquids, all needed to cultivate parasites. The contraband was subsequently burned, minus a portion Noah took to use in his experiments. Noah, Valia, Shannon, and all the knights and soldiers returned to Welindar the next day in high spirits.

Things had certainly changed since Noah and Valia first arrived. Without the middle-echelon members substituting for the missing leader, the lower-level members of the Pack were without orders. Thanks to all the info Noah was gathering through his investigation, Lupin's forces were shutting down every lab in the city, and now that shipments of dilthim and other plants were being interrupted, maintaining the fiends was next to impossible.

Though they still roamed in the wild, Welindar had fallen securely back into Lupin's control. Any fiends that caused trouble were killed and put on display, not just as a warning to would-be rebels about defying the prince, but to show the public the ugly side of the Pack and let them know what kind of horrific monsters they would become should they join.

Upon returning to the castle, Noah, Valia, and Sir Reynolds went to speak to the prince. "Well done, all of you. With this, we've ripped Welindar from the Profane's clutches," Lupin said.

"We've definitely made progress, but the war is far from over," said Noah. "Looking at those bags under your eyes, I can tell you know that as well."

The prince gave a weary chuckle. "I've been hard at work while you've been gone, taking out lab after lab and shutting down the fiends' support network. I've also been putting a lot of work into public relations, working to fully assimilate Welindar into Uther."

"Any idea as to their leader's whereabouts?"

"Only rumors that Kaisen is somewhere to the north, beyond our reach. He may have given up trying to retake the city. He appeared shortly after Welindar was taken, preaching for rebellion and trying to rile people into fighting back for the sake of beastman supremacy. He is a mighty warrior and killed one of my gold knights, so people were quick to flock to him. He disappeared around the beginning of summer, but there were no rumors about his death, only that he had set off to recruit more beastmen to the cause.

"So far we've seen how the Pack functions without him," said Valia, "but I worry what will happen if he should return."

"I'm more concerned about the Liege," said Noah. "After three raids and countless interrogations, we've still gotten no closer to discovering his identity. No one I've spoken to has ever actually met him in person, only through letters and messengers. The dilthim and other plant shipments change multiple hands before being handed over to the Pack, so we can't identify the source."

"I've had suspicions that someone has been thwarting Uther's expansion from back home for quite some time. I can think of at least a dozen nobles, clergymen, and underworld figures who would profit off this ongoing conflict."

"Well it's clear this man has been helping the Pack fight against Uther for years, supplying resources, funds, and information, and by extension, helping the Profane. It's no question that he is the third side of this terrorist triangle. I'm going to stop in the lab and speak to the prisoners once more. After that, I noticed that this castle has a library, so I think I'll spend some time researching."

Noah returned to his lab, though it wasn't in the same place it had always been. With all the work going on and all the equipment Lupin's forces had seized, Noah's lab had been moved out of the evidence room and into a much larger chamber. Here, the prince's experts, those who had struggled to make sense of the parasites and the Pack's tech, now worked as his assistants and maintained the lab while he was in the field.

Noah walked along a row of cylindrical tanks, each large enough to hold a person and used for that purpose. Floating within were captured fiends, dismembered and heavily sedated. Along with a feeding tube supplying them blood, other lines were hooked up to their bodies and parasites, collecting various substances for research, such as venom and the stabilizing agent.

"This solution in Subject 8's tank looking murky. Lower the pH and add some avedicine."

"Yes sir!"

"What are the NTO readings on Subject 3?"

"7.8, sir!"

"Good, begin harvesting the spinal fluid and dose him with eight milligrams of levenol."

"Yes sir!"

With their fancy robes and long beards, these learned sages, who had initially scoffed at Noah's explanations, now followed him around like lovestruck schoolgirls, eager to receive more otherworldly knowledge. He was careful with how much he gave them, such as advanced alchemy and specific compounds. Noah stopped before a tank holding a different subject. Rather than a fiend, it was the ghoul captured with the middle echelon members. Most of his bone armor had been harvested, and he hung in a suspended animation like the others.

"What do we have on Subject 4?"

"Subject 4's parasite seems to be a different breed from the fiends, with much more potent venom. Any attempt to inject it into other subjects causes violent rejection and extensive mutations. Just look at poor Subject 12."

Noah looked to the end of the line at a destroyed tank, where a twisted mass of bone stood, looking like a gnarled, diseased tree.

"Hmmm, an extremely high level of compatibility must be required. How are the prisoners?"

"Very eager to talk to you, sir."

Noah left the lab and went down to the dungeon, where howls and snarls mixed with the rattling of iron bars and chains. Before Noah arrived, such sounds were due to the captured fiends' refusal to cooperate, thrashing around in their cages like wild animals. Any attempts to question them were met with screaming curses and threats, proclaiming the downfall of Uther and the rise of a new beastman kingdom, and anyone who got too close would be met with the fiends' fangs and claws. Now, with Noah in charge, the prisoners' attitudes had done a full 180º.

"Please, I'll tell you whatever you want to know!"

"I need my medicine! I need my medicine! In the name of the spirits, I'm begging you!"

"I'll do anything! Please, just a drop! I'll make you feel good!"

These soldiers of the Pack, and even the middle echelon members who had worked directly under the former king as generals and advisors, had now become shadows of their former selves. They reached their arms out as if begging for food, and as Noah walked by, their desperation grew, throwing themselves at the iron bars. Where pain had failed to make these corrupted souls talk, pleasure opened the floodgates, pleasure in the form of a syringe full of Elutrin, the only thing more addicting than the parasite's venom. Just as he had used it on Mark Saveat, it worked wonders in getting the Pack members to spill their secrets.

He stopped at one cell and revealed the needle. "Sorin, the details you gave me on the three shipments proved truthful, so you get a dose."

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" He thrust his arm out, exposing the darkened veins, and licked his lips frantically like a dog trying to eat food off a counter. The syringe went in, and as Noah pressed the plunger, the man's deranged face melted into a look of hedonistic euphoria. He collapsed to the floor, relishing the high.

"Now, the next dose goes to whoever can tell me the identity of the Liege."

The men all started shouting names, locations, and details, none of which matched, and soon, they all started arguing with each other, throwing around accusations of lying. That was the problem with using Elutrin to gather information. They were addicts and would say anything to get another hit.

"I don't like what I'm hearing. If nobody gives me anything I can use, then nobody gets their medicine."

"We don't know who he is!" one man sobbed. "We keep telling you! We never met him in person! Only the Profane up top have seen his real face! Please, we'll answer any question you have, but we can't tell you anything we don't know!"

"That is quite disappointing. Do any of you have any real leads I can follow?" Everyone was either silent or continued shouting lies. Noah went to the crying man and gave him a dose to reward his honesty. "Now, the rest of this syringe goes to whoever can tell me where the beastman prisoners are being kept. Your forces have been sweeping the west and snatching up the nomadic tribes, so I want to know, where have you been holding them?"

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