Hoplite dragged a massive tank-sized chunk of rock free from its position atop a small mound of rubble, the grinding of stone against stone loud in his ears. He then heaved it down the hill toward an unoccupied area, where it would impact in the bare soil away from any workers. Hoplite had taken care to ensure the rubble he tossed didn't injure or kill anyone while he searched, the last thing he wanted was to crush a civilian by accident.

The piece he had just tossed would certainly kill anyone unlucky enough to be in its path, but again, Hoplite ensured that wouldn’t happen. He watched as several other pieces of debris, both large and small, began following down after the first rock he had sent down the mound. That initial tank-sized piece he threw began breaking into cloudy chunks in its descent, raining rocky shrapnel on the earth below. Hoplite readied himself in case that massive piece managed to create a small avalanche, with how it was smashing into other debris as it went it could destabilize the whole mound. The chunk collided with the tainted dirt of the Fiendwood, embedding itself deep into the sickly soil with a loud crash. The dirt that was kicked up from the impact plumed out in spirals, descending in the same fashion and somehow arranging itself upon landing into even further spirals.

This was a sight he had grown used to after the first dozen times he had seen it, though he still had no explanation for how it worked. All he got from Lance was ‘The Death Spiral taints even the soil’. Did that mean that this dirt could infect those walking about without a hazmat suit? If that were truly the case then surely there would have been signs of spreading infection by now, but no one had been infected yet as far as Hoplite could tell. These people seemed to understand how the curse could spread, and Gali had told him that the dirt could not ‘cause significant enough pain’ to spread the curse.

The mayor had said it as if the dirt would rise up and stab him if it could.

While Lance seemed mostly ignorant of what made a fiend what it was, these Fiendwallers knew a great deal. Firstly, only humanoids could catch the most dangerous strain of the virus… or curse, while animals for some reason, could only catch a weaker variant. Those animals could die normally, but standard fiends could not. None knew as to why, but humanoid fiends simply could not be neutralized unless every scrap of flesh was burned away.

Interestingly, they could also be sapient in incredibly rare cases.

The Death Spiral curse didn’t take away the infected person's sanity on its own, rather, it was its effects over time that took their toll on the infected’s minds. Every single pain or ache that a fiend felt after being cursed was permanent, it never healed and the pain never faded. This pain would eventually snowball to a point where it would drive the fiend insane, the agony becoming far too much for them to bear. After they passed over their pain threshold, they would go looking for uninfected hosts to spread the curse too, rendered essentially mindless.

The reason being this: If a fiend causes pain to any living thing not afflicted by the curse, their pains ease, and their wounds heal. Eventually they are driven by the agony they feel to cause pain and spread the curse by any means necessary, despite any previous moral standings. Anything to get the unceasing agony to stop.

This information actually made Hoplite… feel… bad? Yes, bad for the wretched infected. The feeling of sympathy was a rare one in him, Hoplite rarely felt it for anyone, even fellow Ternans falling on the battlefield. It was a privilege to die for Terna and the Octopus after all. Yet…The thought of eternal agony that never faded, forever undying and just feeling that pain until you reached the point of desperate insanity? A cruel, cruel fate indeed, no wonder anyone infected committed suicide before the spirals could taint them.

Hoplite shook his head to get his mind back on track, it was a small motion, one that would have been imperceptible to anyone but another Hoplite. He looked down into the rubble cavern that the large piece of debris had been blocking, only to see nothing in the darkness below. It had been two days now since he began his search for the shuttle, and still he hadn’t found it.

A team of men with pickaxes approached the chunk of debris Hoplite had just tossed aside with pickaxes and hand carts, all with sheens of sweat at their brow that shone in the fading light of the day. It was like that across the valley on this side, everyone that was free was out clearing rubble and breaking apart the bigger chunks to be carted off. A small camp had been erected on this side of the Fiendwall, with a guard patrol of Defenders and Tongues surrounding the worksite to ward off any new fiends that arrived from the south. The debris that was taken away was simply dumped in a large pile a good distance away from the breach. There had been talk of reusing the rubble to make a temporary wall around the camp but Hoplite didn’t know if that would ever come to be.

His mind was mostly on just finding the crashed pod.

Whoever was in this shuttle would be wise to ration whatever they had, otherwise they wouldn’t have lasted very long. Hopefully, it was an Eighth Arm pod… if it wasn’t…

If not, then Hoplite would deal with it as protocol dictated.

Lance was far below, helping another elf woman, a Tongue, lift a boulder that was many times smaller than the one he had just chucked. The Tongue seemingly stared jealousy at Hoplite's arms. Perhaps she wanted to be as strong as Hoplite, moving around chunks of stone this size would surely impress Zodd.

He did not bother to tell her that moving the rock was mostly the suits doing, Hoplite had barely had to exert his own muscles for the task. Lance herself just stared concernedly at Hoplite as she heaved the rock into a nearby cart, a broad shouldered dwarf hauling it away as soon as that piece was added to the collection of other chunks. The dwarf huffed and puffed as he dragged the bowing cart, its wheels sinking beneath the massive weight of its load.

A strong branch of mutation that one was, the strongest base human Hoplite had ever seen could pull that sure, but there weren’t many that could. That dwarf was broad across the shoulders and quite plump, with a large gut that hung out from beneath a sleeveless shirt. He had seen other dwarves occasionally, ones far broader and without the paunch. How much weight could the stronger ones tug?

He turned his attention back to the pile, rummaging for a long while until he heard a familiar voice call out from atop the significantly smaller rubble hill. A female voice. Hoplite checked his camera without turning and saw the half-elf Twindil, standing atop the rubble and wiping a sheen of sweat from her brow.

“How goes it Hoplite?” Twindil shouted with a wave “Is that Lance down there!?” She called, carefully descending the treacherous terrain “I see you’ve cleared out most of the fiends already, we heard about it in the camp.”

As she finished speaking, the rest of her companions followed. The blonde gold-armored man Alistair rubbing at his eyes with a lazy hand, staring annoyed at Theopalu as the old elf scarfed down an entire loaf of bread, promptly burping before asking for more. The pale man, Kid’ka, promptly offered Theopalu another loaf from his bag. Before Theopalu could take it however, Alistair caught Kid’ka’s hand with a deep frown that bordered on exaggeration.

“No.” Alistair said simply before letting Kid’ka’s ghostly pale wrist free, “We have to save our food, not pump this worthless old fart full of everything we have!” He shouted, adjusting his red headband with a growl.

“But he’s helping us…” Kid’ka said with a small frown “I mean, man’s gotta eat right? He’ll need his strength if he’s gonna guide us.”

Theopalu then began picking his nose, whispering inaudibly to himself while staring longingly at the morsel Kid’ka was packing away. The woman with the oddly symmetrical face, Nolvi, then came over the hill, fussing with her hair and sneezing. The sneeze was unguarded, falling upon the back of Alistair's neck and forcing him to tense up with disgust.

The two then began arguing and Hoplite turned his attention away from them, seeing Lance jog up to meet Twindil. Hoplite turned away, lifting yet another large boulder to reveal nothing below, and tossed it aside as he did the last, continuing as he half-observed the interaction between Lance and Twindil below.

“Twindil!” Lance shouted happily “It is good to see you again, I am afraid I haven’t had the time to do as you requested. I don’t suppose you’ve found out who it is yet?” She said, clutching Twindil’s hands in her own.

Twindil smiled, that small scar at her lips tugging it down slightly as she shook her head “No I’m afraid not. I’m beginning to suspect that he may have not been a watcher.”

Lance sighed and let go of Twindil’s hands “Well if you’re from Umant then I don’t know who else it could be… maybe an overly-curious elf from the Bastion?”

Twindil put a hand to her chin in thought “Maybe, but… well, I’m not sure if you know, but Umant does not… that is to say, pure-blooded elves are…” She continued slowly, her eyes sinking to the dirt.

Lance put a hand on her shoulder “It’s okay, I know all about what they do.”

Lance looked… angry at the mention of Umant… furious even. What was this ‘Umant’ and what did they do to pure-blooded elves? In truth, this wasn’t important to his mission, but listening in was distracting him from the growing frustration he felt at not finding the pod. He then heard another shout from the hill and turned his attention that way, seeing the red devil-looking mutant Elum with his gray patched arm stretched high, waving to Hoplite.

“Ho there Hoplite!” Elum yelled “I heard that there was another one that fell here, so tell you what, we’ll make it a contest! Whoever finds it first owns it, what do you say!?” Elum shouted as he began to descend the rubble "I warn you though, these horns are lucky and will guide my path, best to give in now and settle on splitting the loot with me!"

Hoplite didn’t respond, keeping his attention on his work.

“Don’t be like that!” Elum whined, stumbling and almost tripping as he gestured that graying hand toward Hoplite.

Curious… had the tumorous gray patch grown since he had seen the red mutant last? The bulging veins seemed to have broadened and lengthened across the limb… Likely it would need to be amputated if it was cancerous, he doubted these people possessed the technology to cure such a strange growth. Yet… was that truly cancer? He’d never heard of tumors growing externally… It didn’t matter. He was hardly an expert on the subject of exotic skin diseases.

Now that all of the rest were here… where was the ‘angel’ Baomiel? Maybe the man had thought it wise to keep the mutant out of sight of common people? Hoplite could not imagine that even the locals of this planet would find it easy to stomach the sight of such an abomination.

That was what made sense to him anyway.

Hoplite moved aside another boulder as the party approached him, with Lance leading the way. They all stopped at the foot of the rocks he stood upon, craning their necks to look up at him. He paused his work and cocked his helmet their way, waiting for a response.

“We can help with the boulders if you want.” Kid’ka said, scratching his cheek “We thought we were coming to fight but it looks like that’s all done with.”

Twindil nodded “Well from what I hear there are still fiends that are coming across the Great Bridge en masse, it's a simple matter of keeping them away from the clearing efforts.” She said, sparing a glance for Kid’ka before turning back to Hoplite “So when they do show up, we’ll fend any off, and when there are none, we will help the Fiendwallers clear this out.”

Hoplite simply nodded before turning back to his work. As Twindil said, the rest of the party began to work on clearing the rubble alongside the rest of the defenders and Hoplite. Despite Kid’ka and Nolvi’s frames, they were still capable of lifting far heavier rocks than they should have been able to. Before he would have said it was bionics… but nowadays Hoplite wasn’t too sure.

Alistair outlifted everyone, save for Twindil, who still was capable of picking up table-sized chunks of stone on her own. Twindil seemed to be physically the strongest despite not being any taller than Lance. Certainly she possessed a wider frame than Lance and was corded with lean muscle, but table-sized chunks of stone should have been too much weight for her to lift on her own.

Elum didn’t seem to outperform anyone in feats of strength, but he didn’t seem to be tiring out despite the intensity of the work. Theopalu for his part, did nothing, laying flat on his back to stare up at the darkening sky. Everyone besides Hoplite and the misfits seemed to tire of the work far more quickly. They were keeping pace with Hoplite? How could that be? Nolvi didn’t look like she was built for long winded work such as this, with that slight frame and those thin hands.

Something to think on while he worked. An hour passed of digging through rubble, putting the debris on carts to be tugged away and being frustrated until Alistair suddenly called out.

“I am sanctioned! I am an Atheyare and I must summon my eidolon! Do not panic!” Alistair shouted from atop a rubble mound a hundred paces from Hoplite.

Many fearful eyes turned upon Alistair as he began to summon forth what Hoplite presumed to be Baomiel. Just as the creature had vanished days ago after that encounter with the fiends, it appeared in the blink of an eye, looming tall beside Alistair. With that creature helping him, Alistair would have been able to work much more quickly, so why wait until now to summon it? Why not just announce himself as sanctioned beforehand so the work could get done faster?

Many shouted their fear and a few ran when Baomiel appeared, its slathering lower tongue licking up small pieces of debris as the upper half folded its arms, its all too human eyes staring down upon the mewling mortals beneath it. At least, that was the impression it gave off. Alistair pointed to a jutting section of rubble, and Baomiel complied, its two lower arms gripping the stone and dragging it away to reveal a glint of gleaming metal-

Hoplite leapt from his position and quickly scrambled up the rubble toward Alistair and his angel, more people screaming as Twindil brought out what she was insisting were sanctioning papers. Some stopped to look at them, others still ran, screaming ‘Pillar-Born’ or ‘Godling’ in sheer fright. Ignoring their screams, Hoplite topped the hill, seeing what Baomiel had revealed beneath its feet.

He saw the crimson octopus insignia on the door, the symbol of Terna.

He quickly began digging away more rubble, clearing away whatever rocks that buried the shuttle before gripping the lip of the door. Hoplite strained, dragging it out with the screech of metal scraping against stone. Many of those who didn’t flee at Alistair's proclamation clutched their ears and did not let go until the pod was finally level atop the hill. It had been horribly damaged in the fall, twisted metal and jutting cords marring what should have been a smooth surface. The tungsteel alloy that made up the pod should have only suffered a few dents, even after the collision… so how had this happened?

It doesn’t matter. Focus.

He entered in the pod code used for the Sparrow, but not even the beep of him pressing the keys could be heard. This shuttle had lost all power, unsurprising given the damage it had recieved. Hoplite gestured for Alistair and Baomiel to step back as he gripped the edges of the door. Hoplite had to do this once before when one of these pods lost power on him thirty years ago, it was rare but did happen occasionally. Again Hoplite strained, his fingers denting the metal of the door until he could get a good enough grip to peel it away.

Which he did, tearing the door completely off and setting it down haphazardly next to him.

The bent metal slid away, clanging down the hill as Hoplite stared into the darkness within the pod. If there had been more sunlight to see the interior of the shuttle, he was sure Alistair would likely be retching more than he already was. A pale corpse lay flat in the middle of the stinking shuttle, cheeks sunken in beneath a full black beard. Behind it were the corpses of several Ternan marines that were stuffed behind the cockpit’s entrance. Fluid leaked from the slightly parted door… raw sewage, blood and entrails now seeping out across the floor of the pod now that it was leveled.

It rolled across the body in the middle of the pod, and Hoplite was shocked to see it raise its head, staring in apparent disbelief at Hoplite. The marine’s black armor was stained with every bodily fluid imaginable and his white flesh was beginning to yellow. Black bags the size of quarters swelled beneath bright blue eyes that looked hollow with despair before recognizing Hoplite for what he was.

“Sir…?” The marine said with a trailing cough “What took you guys… so long…?”

Hoplite stepped in, caring not for the vile fluids that roiled around his boots as he gently lifted the man from the ground. The marine had apparently removed his helmet at some point, revealing a head of close cut black hair that shone in the waning sunlight as he removed him from the pod.

“It's cold out here…” The marine coughed with a shiver.

He was a brawny man, but those hollow cheeks spoke of a lack of food… had he not been able to eat because of the reeking stench of the pod? Dried vomit caked the man’s beard, and a split in his scalp indicated that he had at some point hit his head. The wound was festering, the sewage that had splashed into the wound exacerbating the infection. If only Hoplite had been quicker… if only he-

No, now was not the time for that.

He carefully descended the hill, the Marine groaning with every step until finally they both reached the tainted soil.

“Cold…” The marine repeated.

A small whispering crowd gathered around them, all staring with wide eyes at the two Ternans.

“What’s your name marine. Stay with me.” Hoplite ordered sternly “I need medical staff ASAP, take me to them now.” He nearly growled, head tilting up at the crowd.

Twindil came running up then, her normal smile gone and replaced with a determined frown “I know where the medical tent is, please come with me Hoplite. There are things I can do for him, but after that it is in the Pillars' hands.”

“My names… Michael, sir. Name’s Michael. Is Nate with ya…?” The marine rasped, empty eyes looking around at the gathering crowd before focusing back in on Hoplite “Please sir, I’m so cold… can ya… can ya get me a…” Whatever he had been about to say was cut off when his head fell back, limp against Hoplite's arm.

Those blue eyes then began to glass over, staring at nothing as his breathing ceased.

Hoplite adjusted his grip and quickly pressed a gentle finger to Michael’s neck…

No pulse.

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!” Hoplite shouted, turning his body fully towards Twindil, who stared worriedly at Michael.

“Afina… please.” She whispered, placing a hand to Michael’s brow “Let his diseases be cured, let his heart beat, let him continue to be tranquil in life!”

A warm golden glow then emanated from her gloved hand…