The metallic din of hand truck ahead of her started rattling faster and emerald light blazed to life further down the tunnel. A frantic buzzing started against Annie’s chest and he glanced at the spiraled metal emblem bouncing wildly on its chord in time with her steps and emitting a stark white glow.
“You rat bastard! You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” She ripped the bundled blade off her back and began to pull at the knotted string keeping it closed. “These’re always tied too damn tight… Never learn my fucking lesson…” She muttered through gritted teeth.
Annie skidded around the corner to see the smuggler standing with his arms thrown wide in front of a writhing and sparking line of green light suspended in the air. He looked over his shoulder at Annie and then smashed his hands together in front of him grabbing fistfuls of the electrified threads of magic and twisting them hard. A squealing shriek pierced the air and a hole in reality ripped open as though it were the jaws of a hungry beast.
The world around them distorted like a smear of running ink being pulled towards the opening. Annie could feel herself being dragged forward towards the tear and she leapt up and grabbed the cable linking the electrical lights together, then dug her heels into the support beam it was attached to in order to try and anchor herself against the pull, clamping her bundled sword between her knees. The smuggler was doing much the same, hauling himself away from the ragged hole in reality with a thick coil of green energy, the end of which was swiftly vanishing into the tear.
Every tear in the veil is different. This tear in the bowels of the earth was blacker than night, not even the glimmer of Filch's magic could illuminate the oppressive darkness beyond its devouring maw. Then, as suddenly as it had began, the dragging force of the tear stopped, dropping both Annie and Filch to the ground in a cloud of dust.
The silence in the cave was deafening after the shrieking of the tear. The edges of it fizzled and cracked quietly, throwing off sparks. Slowly, painfully, a grey and sallow hand reached out from the darkness within the tear to grip the edge; it surged and sparked where the hand touched and the tunnel filled with the choking smell of dirt and burning flesh. A second hand, more withered than the first, reached from inside and gripped the tear as well. More emerged, one after the other, dragging some unseen mass through the darkness and out of the hole in reality; their fingers reached down to claw at the dirt with broken and bleeding nails, their skin sloughed off where it scraped against the earth.
A long and ragged moan echoed from within the tear, Annie and Filch looked at each other, then back to the tear. A rusty and broken pickaxe shot out from the tear and buried itself in one of the craning hands, piercing the hand and pinning it to the ground in a pool of dark ichor. A sagging grey human face emerged from the dark, long strands of wispy black hair slipped out from beneath a beaten and battered mining helmet and were stuck to its skin. The thing's wide eyes stared blankly out into the tunnel and the face opened its mouth as if to speak, then its neck bulged and it gagged and retched before vomiting dirt and gravel from its mouth in a dark stream.
It let out another low moan and lurched forward, dirt spilled out from the tear as the creature dragged a pulsating mass of emaciated grey skin out into the tunnel. More human faces pressed out from the mass, straining against flesh that bulged like a sack full of gravel and tore open to let dark earth pour down its body in rivers. Gaunt human arms reached out from its bulk in random places, dragging it across the floor leaving a streak of gore behind. Hands carried pickaxes seemingly at random, burying them in the earth heedless of the creature's own flesh barring their path.
Annie watched in horrified fascination as the last of its bulk spilled to the ground from the hole in reality. The mass of flesh shifted, the sightless eyes of it's dozens of heads passed aimlessly about the tunnel until they settled on some unseen point directly above the Stranger's head.
"Oh. Fuck me." she cursed and scrambled to her feet.
The creature lurched towards her, its massive bulk swaying wildly as its many hands and pickaxes dragged it forward like a drunken centipede, filling the hall with a ringing cacophony of metal hitting earth. Annie snatched her pistol from its holster and jammed a vial from her bandolier into the socket in the glass sphere built into her gun's core. Shimmering liquid flowed from it into the chamber and she returned the now empty vial into her hip pouch before leveling her gun at the shambling monstrosity and pulling back the hammer.
"Please..." a small voice begged. Annie met the sightless eyes of a human face as it tried to choke words through mouthfuls of dirt, "I can't see... It's so dark..."
Hands grabbed at the Stranger's duster and she jerked away, stumbling backwards to put distance between herself and the begging face. Then a searing pain in her side brought her crashing to the ground. The thing had embedded one of its pickaxes just below her ribcage, and used it to drag her into it. A wave of its grasping hands grabbed at her, pulling at her legs and coat to try and pull her further into its mass leaving smears of its fetid gore wherever it touched her.
Annie screamed and twisted away, wrenching the pickaxe from her side in a spray of blood and batting hands away with the heavy bundle. Then she shoved her pistol into the monster's flesh and pulled the trigger. The tunnel was flooded with an explosion of light and sound as fire leapt from the pistol's mouth and collided with the monstrosity. Its skin crackled and bubbled as flames erupted across its body. The force of the fireball launched the thing down the tunnel, leaving mounds of incinerated flesh and torn limbs in its wake.
She struggled to her feet and pressed a hand to her side, failing to staunch the steady flow of blood oozing from the gaping wound. Every shallow breath burned and threatened to split her in half. She looked at her hand, painted in her own blood, and her head spun. Annie grit her teeth, spat, and shoved her pistol into its holster. She bent down and picked up her sword, shaking off its cloth wrapping that had been torn to shreds in the struggle. The threads of silvery metal in its blade glowed gently and cast faint strands light around her that danced on the walls like ribbons in the wind. Then, with a deep breath, she dug her fingers into the wound with a cry of pain.
Hot blood seeped around her fingers as she pressed against it viciously, coating her hand with it. With relief she pulled her hand away, then carefully traced it along the edge of her sword like a gruesome paintbrush. The silver rings hissed and sizzled at its touch, and the light of the blade now cast the tunnels in a hazy crimson.
She fumbled at a case strapped to her thigh until her fingers brushed against the latch and released it with a click. Inside were several small mechanical injectors filled with a thick rust-colored fluid. She pried one loose from a clip that held it in place and gripped a small lever on it between her teeth, then tugged. The needle point of a short syringe sprung out of one end and a small ring sprung from the other.
She wrapped a fist around the device and threaded a finger through the ring, then jammed it into the wound. Annie felt the alchemical concoction flood her veins with ice and the ragged flesh on her side seize up like a horrible muscle cramp. Then all feeling around the hole in her side faded away almost as though it were being carried away with a gentle current. Annie hissed in relief.
She could hear the ringing of pickaxes begin further down the tunnel, like iron ghosts of men forgotten down there beneath the earth.
"Fucking demons." she said through gritted teeth. She replaced the injector and pulled two more from the case. Her blood-slicked fingers slipped against the smooth metal and they slipped from her grip and fell to the ground with a clatter. She swore and wiped her hand against her duster, trying to dry off the blood, then picked them up from the ground and jammed them into her leg one after the other.
The world seemed to shift focus around her and the dank gloom of the tunnel seemed to clear away. Suddenly every crack and groove of the stone walls was clear, the shadows creeping from every corner vanished, and to Annie the underground mining tunnel became as bright as if she stood in the midday sun.
The demon rounded the corner with a mangled scream amidst the deafening ringing of its pickaxes and it surged towards the Stranger. She tilted her head to the side curiously, as if seeing it for the first time. Every one of its screaming faces bore an expression filled with fear, casting their sightless eyes around wildly searching desperately for something unseen.
She drew her pistol and pulled back the hammer, then fired it once more, unleashing another torrent of flame that washed over the demon and knocked it to the ground. It screamed in a chorus of agony and clawed at its flesh, tearing burned strips of grey skin open and letting dirt and gravel pour from its wounds.
Annie watched in horrified fascination as it ripped and tore at itself. The demon's body sagged and deflated, like a sack tipped on its side and slowly emptying out its contents. Huge bundles of loose skin now hung from its frame like fetid robes and dirt streamed from its wounds to pool on the ground like chunky black blood. It shoved itself upright, stumbling and nearly knocking itself to the ground again as it tried to adjust to its new weight.
Then it lunged at Annie with incredible speed, knocking her gun from her hand and spearing her to the wall with its pickaxes like a pinned butterfly. The impact forced the air from her lungs and Annie wheezed. Then she wrenched an arm free and plunged her sword into the face closest to her, unleashing a spray of dirt as if she'd hit a vein.
The demon shrieked and dropped her to the ground to scramble away. The streaks of Annie’s blood on its hands sizzled like hot oil and ate away at the metal of its pickaxes. It let out a low warbling moan and slapped its many hands against the ground like one would if they were trying to stamp out a fire.
“Blood that corrodes magic sure does come handy in this profession.” Annie dusted off her sleeves and tugged at her shirt, noting a hole one of the pickaxes had torn just below her collarbone and checking over her arms. Clusters of black veins had appeared wherever the pickaxes had attempted to pierce her skin and the Stranger nodded in satisfaction, pleased she wasn't dead.
"Ironblood elixir," Annie twirled her sword up and down in a lazy circle and tapped a net of black veins on her neck, "My own personal concoction. I think it's some of my best work, honestly." she stopped, resting the blade against her shoulder casually, "Let's get this over with!"
She leapt at the demon with a descending slash and severed one of its arms in another spray of dirt before it let out a choked moan and swung wildly at the Stranger. Her blade rose to meet the blow and sparks flew as metal struck metal. She drove her blade down in a deep thrust, piercing its sagging hide and carving towards its core. The demon's body sizzled where the blade made contact, its wounds slowly dissolving at the edges as if the blade had been lined with acid.
It swung at Annie again, knocking her back as it shambled away from her further down the tunnel. She gave chase but the thing was faster than her, having a great many more limbs than she did, and the Stranger struggled to keep up with it. The ringing pickaxes made it easy enough for her to follow, and the Stranger took the chase as an opportunity to collect her thoughts.
It wasn't necessarily a surprise for a demon to flee after manifesting from a Veil tear. Especially one that realized it bit off more than it could chew. Demons built themselves from the energy that surrounded them, energy that was imbued with the thoughts and emotions of the people who had created it. If those people were angry, the demon would be too. The same goes for any emotion: joy, disgust, fear, panic. All of these could play a part in the manifestation of a demon's body and mind.
Annie had felt the fear in this place as soon as she'd entered. That constant feeling of suffocating dread, not knowing if the tunnel was secure or if it would collapse in on you as you dug it. The miners who had worked here had lived with that fear every day, and the demon showed it.
The ringing sound had stopped and Annie skidded to a halt outside of an archway. Inside the room she heard raspy breaths and quiet... sobs? She approached cautiously, creeping into the room and glancing around with her elixir's night vision.
It was the storage room she had passed by when she first entered the tunnels. The demon had barreled into the room and shoved itself into a corner, breaking and battering the abandoned mining gear aside on its way in. Now it rocked slowly back and forth, helmets and overalls were draped over its body haphazardly and it had wrapped its numerous arms around itself in a twisted facsimile of a hug.
"It's so dark..." the demon whimpered, "I can't breathe... It hurts..."
Something in Annie chest tightened at the sight. The adrenaline of the fight drained from her body, leaving her with only an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. She tipped her hat back off her head to hang on its chord and walked towards the demon slowly, holding a wary hand in front of her. It quivered at her approach, but otherwise remained still.
"Shhh," she said gently, "I know you're scared. It's ok."
Hesitantly, she placed a hand on the monster. It flinched away at her touch and sobbed. But it didn't attack her. She leaned down and grabbed a mining helmet from the ground, offering it to the thing. Some of its hands took it from her gingerly and clung to it almost like a talisman.
Fear. This creature was made from fear.
Annie lightly brushed her hand along its skin, suppressing a shudder as it collapsed beneath her fingers like a clammy grey balloon. "It's ok," she said again, "You can rest soon. Out of the dark." the Stranger raised her sword.
The demon's blind eyes stared at the glowing blade, "The light... It's beautiful..."
"It is." She brought the sword down.
