The Krivbeknih

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door opens onto a long, narrow spit of rock. Brackish water rises on both sides. "Sorry about this," Ellen says, "but this was the easiest door for me to bring you through without either trying to navigate the swamps alone or taking the chance of running into the other two Paladins. We're at the entrance to a lighthouse off the southern shoreline of the swamp area right now. I'll show you my Pip-Boy map as soon as we're on proper ground."

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"The catfish get a little territorial, from what I've seen," Ellen says. "If there weren't two of them here, then this one's probably been busy keeping other fish out of the area. I don't know about the pigs, though. We'd better stay on alert... you weren't hurt or anything, were you?"

(She always worries about people who aren't wearing her level of body armor.)

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo gives himself a quick once-over - the struggle with the catfish dirtied him up some, sure - but there will always be stains he can never manage to get out of this uniform.

He looks up and shakes his head. "Still in one piece. You?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Same condition I was when we started," Ellen says. "Give me a moment to stuff these things in the storage deck and we'll get moving. I hate leaving meat to rot."

She's not sure how long the meat will stay good in there, but things don't really seem to age in the storage deck, so she's hoping the answer is 'a long while'. Having the ability to cause an object the size of a seven foot mutant catfish to vanish into an object the size of a deck of cards without taking on extra weight is kind of amazing.

"Remind me to thank Karkat when we get back... anyway, let's go. I don't want to still be looking for this stupid thing when it gets dark, scent trail or no scent trail."

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo's got no problem with that. He might have low-light gear, but Ellen doesn't.

The ground as they go along is mucky and sucks at their feet, but it's not like it's pulling off their boots. Voodoo's just grateful he's not crotch-deep in muckwater by now.

It's a bit of a walk before a chance turn of the head reveals something on one of the trees - long, vertical slashes in the bark. Voodoo stops and runs his hand over the trunk - it looks like it was done by something of Ellen's height, but at the same time, it's far too neat to be claw marks.

"Ellen." He jerks his head toward the tree. "C'mere."

When she's close enough, he taps the trunk with the back of his hand. "Gashes in the bark. Think someone was trying to mark territory?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen glances at the gashes through her goggles. "They stink of human," she reports. "We're getting close-"

She turns to look around for more traces of the familiar faint orange glow.

"This way," she says, and starts shouldering her way through the mucky mess of swamp growth. It's not long before the trees start to give way and the ground starts to grow firmer and slope upwards.

The stakes in the distance with multiple doll heads impaled on them are probably not really the best sign.

[boston_bruiser]

Yeah, no. Voodoo's going to stare at them for a while.

Then:

"Okay, so they're the 'harmless and senile' kinda weird. I can live with that."

Then, as an addendum:

"Looks clear, far's I can tell."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I hope you're right," murmurs Ellen, moving forward with the plasma rifle at the ready. "... wait, are those dolls hanging from the trees? Like, by their necks?"

It's kind of disturbing and weird, it's true, but let's face it: on Ellen's first day out of the Vault she encountered the home of people who used human limbs and torsos as room decoration. Her wrongness meter is calibrated considerably differently from most people's.

"Looks kind of like the set for some kind of weird drama or something..."

[boston_bruiser]

"Your dramas are way different from my dramas, kiddo."

He takes a look around, prodding at some of the doll heads.

"Was this where you met the guys who spoke iambic?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"They're farther west," Ellen says. "But that doesn't mean it's not the same people. If you were the kind of person to buy an evil ritual book from a man who did lobotomies and kept the brain pieces in jars in his closet, I don't think you'd be very likely to try to use the evil rit-"

She was going to finish the sentence, she really was. But Dogmeat started growling, and she glanced his way and beyond, towards what looked like the ruins of a house surrounded by impaled doll heads.

"Voodoo," she says quietly, "if you're carrying anything that you can use to filter your breathing, you should probably put it on. There's human scent going straight into those ruins, and the air close to the ground in the middle is all covered in the same kind of gross haze I saw in Tobar's shack."

[boston_bruiser]

See, he knew he was carrying this gas mask for something.

Just because they hadn't planned on going near that freaky-ass punga plant doesn't mean it'd oblige them. Or that circumstances would let them get away with it.

He stretches out the straps, setting his helmet down in the muck before taking a knee.

"Masking up. Cover me."

His facial hair is less of a hassle than you'd think - soon enough, the mask is secure on his head, and he takes a few deep breaths and tweaks the filters before putting his helmet back on. He buckles the chinstrap and tightens it before standing back up, the carbine's stock on his shoulder.

"Ready."

To paraphrase what they say - shit might get real.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Covering," Ellen says, and does so. She really doesn't like the look of that smell. And as soon as he's done-

"My turn. I'm putting my helmet on."

Tesla armor and T-45d gear alike have serious filtration systems built into the helmets. She walked into the basement in Andale unprotected. Not again. Never again.

"Okay. Let's get moving... and I think this time Dogmeat stays here."

[boston_bruiser]

"No argument here. I call point."

He moves forward through the ruins, every step deliberate, measured. Beyond more spiked doll heads and a half-destroyed wall of a cabin lies a storm door, the wood of which is beginning to rot. Beyond that lies more bushes and barren trees.

All is still. Silent. In the rest of the swamp, this might be tolerable. Here it is insufferable.

He grunts. "All clear," he says, lowering the carbine.

A whiff of something pungent makes him turn his head, and he turns his head and walks back, eyes settling on the storm door as his nose wrinkles.

"Jeezus."

He shakes his head. "'Gross' - that's a word for it." He taps the wood with the toe of one boot. "How much you wanna bet it's whatever's beyond this door that's stinkin' up the place?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I don't bet on certainties," comes Ellen's voice from behind the mask. "Ugh. It's too bad this place is so wet. I'd say it needs cleansing fire... once we find what we're here for. Ready?"

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo takes up a position on the side opposite the handle and reaches over, gripping it with one hand. When he's set, he nods.

"On your go."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods. "One, two-"

Voodoo yanks the door open. Ellen's got her rifle trained on the shadows beyond; she takes a moment to flick her helmet light on.

"... that may have been a mistake on my part," she says, as the light plays over several impaled skulls, a crudely improvised altar, and an incredibly unfortunate sacrificial victim strapped thereto. "Ugh, I think that's one of the lobotomy tribals..."

She moves forward and down, carefully, keeping close to the wall. The dead tribal on the altar is pretty fresh, but the floor's stained that peculiar shade of brown you only get with blood at least a few days old.

"At least the crazy cultists back home just worshipped the Bomb. They didn't kill anybody."

[boston_bruiser]

"Good a place as any to count your blessings, am I right?"

His NODs provide less detail than Ellen's flashlight, but there's only so much detail you need when you're checking out something like this. The gas mask is doing its job, but he can feel the stench settle in on his skin.

It is going to take one nuke of a shower to square himself away after this.

Unlit torches line the walls, and a locked safe sits in a corner. A crude tunnel lies off to one side - Voodoo checks it, but it's empty.

"All clear," he says, walking back down the tunnel towards Ellen. "If you wanna give these guys last rites, I'll cover the door."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Thank you, I will," Ellen says. "This shouldn't take long, poor fellows."

Just because she doesn't like the lobotomy tribals' practices doesn't mean they aren't entitled to the same final consideration as any other human. This man's going to be lucky if his tribe even remembers where they saw him last- and the other people here, well...

She'll do her part. Maybe someday someone will do theirs for her.

When it's over and the dead man's down from the altar (it's an awkward process, but power armor makes it easier), she glances around the room. "Do you mind if I try to get that safe open?" she says. "I have a little experience with picking locks, and something like that in a room like this... it kind of stands out."

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo glances over from his place at the door. "Go ahead," he says. "All's quiet up above, from what I can see."

(Admittedly, not much.)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods and crouches down beside the safe as best her armor will allow. This close up, the light from her helmet reveals more than she'd seen before.

"Huh. Someone's painted... this design actually looks familiar," she says as she eyes the pattern of lines and crudely scrawled letters. "I'm almost positive I've seen these markings before. Not that they make any sense, but they really do look familiar."

Not that she's going to let it stop her. She's got a moderately rusty lock to pick, and whoever killed that poor tribal could come back at any time.

"Anybody coming?"

She really hopes not, because the lock just made a very audible click under her fingers.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo takes his eyes from behind the sights and blinks. Nothing moves.

"You're in the green, kiddo."

Voodoo's finger taps on the magazine well, once, twice, thrice.

(The sooner he can take this gas mask off, the happier he will be. It's starting to get...moist - in here.)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Great."

Ellen eases the safe open carefully- with her luck it'll be boobytrapped, or screech on its hinges or something... but no, no. Nothing of the kind. There's a foof! of swirling pollen of some sort that makes her very glad to be in her armor, though. Inside the safe there's a thick-walled earthen jug, which she sets aside untouched, and-

"I think we have our book," she announces. "Let's get up to the surface. I'd be happier checking this out anywhere that wasn't here."

[boston_bruiser]

"That makes two of us. Moving out."

Voodoo flips the goggles off his face and jogs up the steps to fresh air, taking a knee once he's out. The carbine's stock rests on a thigh, and he turns his head this way and that, checking the wastes.

"Still nothing up here. Secure a place as any."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Good," says Ellen, who's tucked the book under one arm while she carefully removes her gauntlets. "This thing looks like somebody bound it by hand or something- I've seen a lot of restored books since Moira started her print house, and this sure as heck didn't come from a factory."

It's an almost solid black cover, leathery-looking, but oddly slick under the fingers. Someone attempted to hand-emboss designs on the front and didn't do very well. They did manage to mark out the word KRIVBEKNIH across the top, though, so that's at least something. Ellen glances around a moment, but there's nothing to be seen; she flips the book open and eyes the first page.

It's a pity she's got that helmet on. It's a little hard to read expressions through that much metal. She does make a faint "Huh" sound, and then a slightly louder one, as she flips a few of the pages.

[boston_bruiser]

It's enough to pique Voodoo's curiosity, and he stands up, backtracking to Ellen to read over her shoulder.

And then he's gotta take a closer look, because...he just wants to be sure the mask's not distorting his vision.

"'Nay, by Aklav,'" he reads aloud, "'am I the man or is he? Which of us is the ghost of the other? Mayhap these mirrors are but windows through which we look into another-' okay, I don't know about you? But this don't read like no...'evil tome of cursed ancient lore' to me. Just...some guy havin' an existential crisis thanks to quantum mechanics."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's worse than that, Voodoo," says Ellen as she runs a finger down the page.

“See and believe,” droned the wizard. “Man must believe to accomplish. Form is shadow, substance is illusion, materiality is dream; man is because he believes he is; what is man but a dream of the gods? Yet man can be that which he wishes to be; form and substance, they are but shadows-"

"I've read this before. Only last time, it had pictures." She turns to look up at him, the effect a bit spoiled by, well, helmet. "This is a Grognak the Barbarian story. As in, the comic book. Either it's a novelization of the comics or somebody based the comics on these stories, but either way, it's not evil lore, it's fiction."

On a hunch, she hurriedly flips to the back and starts turning through the last few pages. Several of them are stuck together. Very, very carefully, she slides one of her lockpicks between them and pries the sticky parts apart with minimal paper damage.

"Oh, for Pete's sake.... Looks like Mr. Blackhall was right. The book was his family's responsibility... assuming he's related to 'Dark Heart of Blackhall Publishers, Inc.'. Am I allowed to hit him over the head with it when we get back to his house, Voodoo?"