For the first time in his life, Al’Corvo stood on top of the wall. It was at least 5 metres thick, and the other side was coated in yellowed, peeling paper. From above he could barely make out the faded ink coating each sheet of paper. From what he knew, they were talismans, spells designed to ward off centurions.

Further out was a scene of pure devastation. Giant skyscrapers toppled over, rents in the land deeper than what could be seen. The skyscrapers themselves were covered in moss and vines, and a few of them even had waterfalls falling from within. Other buildings dotted the land, and unnaturally sheer cliffs suggested that the land had once been flat.

In various places there were trees permanently dyed with blood, or so Al’Corvo had heard. All Al’Corvo could really see were their bright red leaves. Contrasting both the serene devastation of the buildings and the sorrowful trees were the giant spines. They were made of hundreds of dark red shards, and must have stretched hundreds of metres into the sky. Many of them were straight and helped form the distinctive spine-like features. Some however, formed solar-flare-like curves around the spines. Al’Corvo could only barely make out the almost spherical shards. They looked like drops of blood.

Running right through the wall and out to the horizon was a river, and he could see several strange creatures drinking from the pure water. They were covered in dark brown fur and had upright ears. They barked and growled at each other.

“So this is what we’ve been missing. Beautiful, though I can’t say I’d want to be out there .” Al’Corvo simply shrugged and turned around. He only caught a glimpse of something white climbing a toppled building.

Before dying, the previous waves of engineers and Wards had set everything up for the echo net. Several anchoring spikes had been driven into the wall, so that Al’Corvo could swing from one side of the wall to the other. A large net had also been set up. It looked more like a thin piece of dark nylon, although Al’Corvo knew from his studies that the sheet was covered in thin hair-like fibres that would catch the ectoplasm like pollen to a bee.

A long tube also lay wound up for use. This would be hooked up to the tank on Il’Nok’s back. All Al’Corvo would need to do is carefully hose the ectoplasm onto the net, while Il’Nok would need to carry the tank.

“Are you ready!” Al’Corvo shouted down to Il’Nok.

“Yup! Chuck the pump down!” Il’Nok let out an excited yell in return. This would be her first successful mission.

Al’Corvo grunted with effort as he threw down the rear end of the heavy tubing. The sound of the tube unwinding went on for a few seconds before a final thud made Al’Corvo jump. In a few moments he heard a quiet thunk as the tube and the tank were connected. Looking over the edge of the wall he saw Il’Nok give him an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Affixing a karabiner to both a sturdy rope and his harness, Al’Corvo grasped the ectoplasm hose tightly and began his work. His hind-arms would be vital for this work, as they would allow him to grasp the stabilizing spikes with ease for both stability and to allow him to move to the next in line.

With everything prepared, he gave the hose trigger a slight pull to see if it worked, and he saw a dribble of bright blue ectoplasm emerge after a second. Focusing on the task at hand, he slowly began lining the top of the echo net with ectoplasm, watching it slowly roll down the net in an almost even coating.

Il’Nok was perplexed by Al’Corvo. At first he seemed nice enough, perhaps a touch abrasive, but suddenly he became… strange. He began losing his cool quickly, and then suddenly he went all quiet. To be fair though, Il’Nok thought, I don’t know him all that well.

For a first mission, Il’Nok was almost happy that nothing truly awful had occurred. Like every other Ab Initiate, Il’Nok was told all sorts of horror stories of times a mission went wrong. An unexpected horde of ghosts, a Labyrinth (she shuddered at the thought) or even a centurion… Well she had lived through that tragedy.

The instant she thought about the centurion, she saw Al’Corvo taking a break on one of the broken pylons. He had hung the hose on one of the many broken supports, and he had hooked his karabiner to another support. He was looking out at the horizon, watching the sun slowly sink below the world. Il’Nok knew that he was seeing the sun’s warm rays reflect off the river, while the purple sky and its rippling clouds framed it all perfectly. She didn’t want to hurry him, it was a gorgeous view to someone who had never seen the sun set nor rise. Besides, there weren’t any ghosts to be seen, as the mist still milled behind them.

Looking back, Il’Nok saw that they had almost covered half of the wall in ectoplasm. Right now it wasn’t electrified, so it looked like someone had coated the wall in dark blue… gunk would be the polite term for it.

Al’Corvo almost looked happy up on the tower. Il’Nok noticed with keen eyes that he had pulled out some olives and was slowly eating them one by one. Where he had gotten the olives exactly, Il’Nok wasn’t sure. Al’Corvo suddenly turned to face Il’Nok, with an ever so faint gold glow in one of his smaller eyes. He looked angry, filled with rage that someone dared to look upon him. Suddenly, his eyes softened, and he scratched the back of head awkwardly. Turning around he got back to work. Slowly but surely coating the walls in ectoplasm.

1 kilometre down, 1 more to go.

It was relaxing. Focusing on work that is, without the burden of worrying about ghosts or something else. Al’Corvo was also happy that for whatever reason, the simple task of hosing down a net didn’t cause any anger. If he pulled the trigger and let a small amount of ectoplasm out, that was fine. He wasn’t too stressed about these sorts of things. The sunset also helped. Had he seen the orange sky before? Of course, the walls weren’t that big. But with the sun, the river and the concrete jungle? Of course not.

What was also nice was that without him even realising it, he had coated the wall. For some reason Al’Corvo could easily slip into a working groove. If it wasn’t stressful or required a particular attention to detail, his brain would run on autopilot and finish the job in what seemed like seconds.

And that’s how I succeeded in advanced maths, Al’Corvo thought with one of his rare smiles.

“Il’Nok, you see the generator down there?!” he shouted. He heard a twinge of joy in his voice. Perhaps he was enjoying his reprieve too much. Something would go wrong, he could feel that throughout his exoskeleton.

“Yup! Seems the engees managed to hook it up before they left,” Il’Nok managed to sound as cheery as ever.

“Well, we’re done up here. The echo net just needs to be lit up and we can return,” and under his breath he added, “and I can finally get a fucking drink.”

Seconds later he added with a ponderous tone, “perhaps tea. Yes, that will help with the nerves.”

“Uh… Which button do I press?” Il’Nok’s voice broke Al’Corvo’s train of thought.

“Pull the chord first, then press the red button. How do you not know how to use a generator?”

“They don’t teach this in the academy!”

“Too busy showing you how to stab things right?”

“Fuck you too!” Il’Nok’s tone of voice indicated she wasn’t offended. Harmless banter, as they say.

With a few whirring sounds and plentiful curses, the generator turned on. As it was cheaply built and poorly maintained, the noise it made was horrendous. Belching noises were interspersed between the loud whirring and grinding noises as the ectoplasm generator got to work. The noise alone set something off inside of Al’Corvo. The mist had so far kept the possessed away, but would it keep them away from such an obvious display of life?

Al’Corvo quickly scaled the wall and ran over to a cable at the end of the echo net. He plugged the thick cable into the electrical socket, causing a current to run through the smallest amount of ectoplasm on the net. Suddenly, the slimy substance became a neon, sparking blue that pulsed with energy. The current spread rapidly along the net, causing the entire net to become a brilliant, and bright, blue colour.

“Fuck.” This was the only thing Al’Corvo could say when he realized what was going to happen.

Il’Nok was stunned by the brilliant display of raw power. The sparking, pulsating wall of ectoplasm looked amazing. However, seeing Al’Corvo suddenly straighten up and look towards the warehouses gave her a bad feeling deep in her stomach. That was when she heard growling, and dozens of clicking noises.

Darkness had long ago shrouded the land as twilight faded to night, but the brilliant glow of the echo net illuminated at least a dozen possessed emerging from the warehouses and streets. Unsheathing her man-catcher, she prepared for a bitter struggle. Against one possessed, she could win. Against two, could be difficult. A dozen? She would be ripped apart. Her only hope would be to get to a nearby anchor point and climb. With her gauntleted hands this would be tricky, but it was her only hope.

The first possessed lunged towards her, and she quickly batted it away with the blunt edge of her man-catcher. Aside from the catcher end of the staff, there was also a ball-mace-type end. This was for enforcement purposes, or for keeping away possessed that couldn’t be killed.

Crouching low, she smashed the mace into the closest possessed, a thick sandy-shelled Story Snatcher, shattering its leg. Somehow it still managed to get up, but this time it tripped with every step. Ghostly fortitude still couldn’t heal injuries. Seeing the second possessed lunge at her, she quickly stepped back before crushing its head with the mace. She could deal with the ghost later. There were still 11 more possessed walking towards her. One she crippled, and the rest uninjured. They probably wouldn’t be as foolish as the possessed that was laid at her feet.

Looking up, she saw Al’Corvo was fighting a single possessed that had hands covered in electrified ectoplasm. How it survived, she wasn’t sure, and didn’t have time to ponder. Another possessed was lined up to attack her, along with two others. If he fought with the same ferocity he had earlier, Al’Corvo would be fine.

Al’Corvo was not fine. Far from it. The possessed was nimble, and flexible in a way that only a ghost could be. Al’Corvo was not experienced in fighting, and despite his best efforts to draw upon the well of strength he used earlier, it was to no avail. He was no slouch agility-wise either, but he still couldn’t move as fast as the undead.

Twisting itself, the possessed managed to both duck Al’Corvo’s clumsy haymaker and shove extremely sharp claws straight into his chest. Al’Corvo looked down, seeing his exoskeleton split open where the claws had pierced. A slight trickle of blood emerged from the wound, and he could feel the air touch his sensitive skin. He screamed in pain.

The possessed easily pulled its hands out of the gaping hole in Al’Corvo’s exoskeleton. Merely watching Al’Corvo fall onto his back, it stalked forward, ready for the kill. Suddenly its prey got up, and raised his fists in a basic stance. Al’Corvo was somehow still alive, if in great pain, and was now determined to bring down his enemy. He slowly moved forward, carefully watching the abnormally strong possessed, making sure he wouldn’t get caught by its broken body.

The possessed responded to Al’Corvo’s caution by dropping on all fours, abandoning the use of its hind-arms. It stalked towards him, chelicerae twitching backwards and forwards, while its mouth-plates clicked. Suddenly, it lurched forward towards Al’Corvo, although such a maneuver was becoming predictable. Jumping back, Al’Corvo responded to the basic attack with a stomp, attempting to crack the possessed’s head. He only managed to get a single hit in, which sent a dull crack echoing down the wall, before the possessed grabbed his leg with a bone-crushing grip.

The possessed pulled Al’Corvo’s leg out from under him, causing him to crack his head against the stone wall. Groggily, Al’Corvo watched the possessed grip his right arm, feeling its claws cut his exoskeleton. He also felt the possessed’s knee dig into his stomach, completing the ghost’s hold on him. He saw the ghost almost smile as it grabbed his right hind-arm, and Al’Corvo’s eyes widened when he realised what was going to happen next. Despite his addled mind, he desperately tried to figure out a way out of the hold.

Al’Corvo felt boiling spittal splash across his face as the possessed let out an unearthly laugh. He also felt a rapidly increasing pressure in his right hind-arm. Turning his rightmost eye to look at his hind-arm, he was scared. The possessed had gripped his arm and was slowly crushing the joint. Soon the laugh was joined by the sound of exoskeleton getting crushed, bone splintering and flesh getting tenderized by sheer grip pressure. With a triumphant howl, the possessed let go of his right front-arm to grip his hind-arm by the wrist. With a dreadful twist, the possessed pulled the forearm backwards from the joint while the other hand slapped Al’Corvo’s hind-elbow upwards.

Suffice to say, if Al’Corvo had an internal skeleton rather than an exoskeleton, the bone would’ve poked out from his flesh. His forearm lay dangling from the hind-bicep, the whole thing only held together by a few strands of dense connective muscle and flexible exoskeleton. The pain however, served to clarify Al’Corvo’s mind. The tradeoff being that he couldn’t even scream because of the sheer agony he felt.

Al’Corvo could feel time slow once again, although this time it was pure adrenaline and endorphins rather than some sort of supernatural power. Playing back his memories, he noticed one key thing about this particular possessed. For all its speed and might, it never used its hind-arms. While that didn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t use them, it at the very least didn’t seem inclined to continue the hold it had on Al’Corvo with them.

The second piece of information was more gruesome, but important nonetheless. Recalling the time he had attacked the behemoth possessed, he felt the knowledge of various gaps in a Story Snatcher’s anatomy flood into his mind. Of importance was the gap that lay just below the ribs, the part that allowed their kind to bend over. As it happened, being underneath someone was the best position to attack this weak-point. It also helped that the possessed was oblivious to the scheming of its prey. Al’Corvo was nothing if not sly when it mattered.

Taking a deep breath, Al’Corvo suddenly roared at the possessed before jamming his clawed hands into the gap in the possessed’s exoskeleton. He could feel its slimy flesh, that was covered in fluids not normally present, but he continued onwards. Making sure to scratch and rip at anything he could get his claws on, he eventually curled his claws inwards before pulling at the possessed’s chest from the inside. He heard a crack, although it wasn’t quite enough to rip the exoskeleton plate off. The distraction however, made the possessed lift its knee off of Al’Corvo’s stomach. With as much haste as he could muster, Al’Corvo kept his hands underneath the possessed before tucking both his legs underneath the possessed’s stomach. With a mighty two-legged kick he managed to not only rip off the possessed’s chestplate, but also his own hind-arm. While the grip on his hind-elbow had let up, the hand gripping his hindwrist did not.

Rolling backwards, he saw the possessed coughing and wheezing, stunned from having its chest ripped off. Taking the moment to strike, he scrambled up and then noticed he had dropped his cattle prod during the initial trading of blows. Lunging, he picked it up before turning around to see the possessed sprinting towards him at full speed. Stepping to the side, Al’Corvo kicked the unbalanced possessed onto the concrete floor, before jamming the cattle prod into a small gap in between the head plate and back plate. He felt the possessed shudder and seize as the high-powered prod unloaded its voltage directly onto the story snatcher’s tender skin.

Within seconds, the possessed stopped moving. He heard a horrific slurping noise as the ghost within emerged from its corpse. The ghost was a pale, translucent mass of colour vaguely shaped like a story snatcher. It was a pale green and blue, with the colours shifting and pulsating like an aurora, which made it hurt to look at. Al’Corvo raised his hand to protect his eyes against the shifting mass, and in that moment it flew straight into him, eager to possess another host.

Il’Nok had only just finished off the last of the dozen possessed assaulting her. Her armour was in shambles, and in some places even broken off. Her mace was covered in sticky ichor, a substance no longer blood and toxic to the living. Looking at it closely, several parts of the mace were damaged as it suffered from the beatings as much as the various possessed.

She simply stood panting, the simple effort of standing too much. Il’Nok couldn’t remember how she managed to kill all of the possessed, only golden light overtaking her vision after one of the possessed began trying to take off her helmet. Looking up with weary eyes, they widened when she saw a wounded Al’Corvo get possessed by a ghost. Whether or not he would die was entirely up to him. It was rare, but some people managed to survive a possession. All her brain could remember was something about ghosts being less real than story snatchers. Her head hurt so much.

Shifting right hand slightly, she stared blankly as the staff simply fell apart. It was roughly split down the middle, as if it had been broken from wear and tear rather than battle damage. She knew the man-catcher was new, so it didn’t make any sense as to why it just fell apart. After removing her left hand from the mace end, which promptly fell to the ground, she felt an ache spread throughout her palm. Dropping the other end of the man-catcher, she carefully put a claw underneath one of the shells on her palm. Pulling up, she realised the shell was only still attached by blood. As it slowly, and painfully, parted from her flesh she saw the skin was a mess of blood and torn muscle.

She collapsed. She screamed in agony as she felt all of the torn muscles and broken flesh that now marred her body. Her armour wasn’t even really opened from damage, so how the wounds had gotten there she wasn’t sure.

Il’Nok looked around, only barely awake. She saw 3 more possessed walk from the warehouses, and knew she was dead. It would all depend on how long it took for them to tear apart her armour. Her exoskeleton was even parted from her flesh, so they would have no trouble carving away her organs. Il’Nok would’ve chuckled if her throat and lungs didn’t burn like they were on fire.

Waiting for the possessed to end her, she found that instead of simple blinks, Il’Nok managed to drop in and out of consciousness. It, at the very least, meant she didn’t have to endure the agonizing wait for them to slowly shuffle over to her prone body. Finally, she watched in acceptance as one of the possessed reached out a claw to rip off her chestplate. She closed her eyes.

A loud bang woke Il’Nok, who didn’t realise she had fallen unconscious again. The possessed who was about to kill her was lying on the ground in front of her, with half of its head missing. Another loud crack echoed throughout the largely silent Sector, before Il’Nok heard muffled curses and the sound of bullets being put into a barrel. One last crack and a bodyfall later, all of the possessed lay dead.

Il’Nok heard another muted sound, which her addled mind perceived as coarse laughter. A light clanking noise soon took over as the dominant sound when the laughter stopped. Il’Nok painfully moved some of her eyes to try and see what the source of the gunshots was. A difficult task as she was fairly certain some of her eyes were covered in blood, or whatever that sticky substance was. She couldn’t be certain.

Il’Nok didn’t have too many expectations for what her saviour could be. If they were wasting ammunition with a gun, then they were probably some sort of nut that went outside of the walls regularly. Perhaps they were some unarmoured prick the Wards wanted to be rid of, someone with a hoard of weapons that needed ‘acquiring’.

Instead, she managed to catch a glimpse of a dust-beaten leather duster and bared feet with several dents in the shell. She saw the story snatcher stop, before she turned her eyes upwards again to see the soldier, or whatever they were.

She quickly saw that the person was a male, or at least probably male judging by the slightly larger fangs and chelicerae. He was wearing a plain, dark wide-brimmed hat which covered the upper-left eye. His shirt was made of light, yet coarse spider-silk, which was somewhat comparable to cotton. The shirt too was devoid of any marking insignias. Looking up again, she saw that the neck and mouth of the story snatcher was covered in a thick cowl that could be pulled up to cover the rest of his face. Il’Nok could also barely make out various shiny objects hanging from his neck that she later realised were various religious items. From once-common Seraphim Totems all the way to taboo Root Cult coins.

In his right hind-arm was a presumably modified coach gun while a normal hunting rifle hung from his back. Il’Nok did a double take when she saw what appeared to be a longsword also hanging, sheathed, on his back.

“Seraphs girl, ain’t seen someone fight like that since the bloody Root assault,” he leaned in closer to examine her eye before pulling away. “Yup. Figured. Well, you should get some rest. The Wards should be here soon.”

Il’Nok watched as the strange story snatcher walked away, but not before croaking out, “who… who are you?”

“Al’Bot. Good luck by the way, you should see me again soon. There’s a Labyrinth getting awfully close by.”

With that, Il’Nok finally felt her consciousness drift away. It had been a long day.