Taken Horizon Origin, volume 2, Descension

Episode 26 : underwater struggles

***
Running through the military base the sounds of screams and gunfire pitched across the night sky in an almost perfect symphony of fear.

"Ahhh!"

"Monster shadows!"

"What are they!?!"

The shouts and screams coming from the buildings in the military base were loud enough to echo across the night sky and beyond the walls of Grigel city to where Pettel and the others were based currently. Wherever the ladies and Yun are in the city they're probably on their way here right now as we speak from all the commotion as well.

"Coming through!" Sprinting past me Thorn in his lupine form dug the claws of his black paws in the rocky street as we ran, running straight after a lone soldier trying to figure out what was happening as they ran out of the building

Not giving them time to even see him, Thorn crashed his ethereal wolf body into the side of the lone soldier banging their head against the hard wall of the building behind them and knocking them out as they collapsed onto the floor.

"Keep up, feral! Haha!" Shooting a barb Thorn laughed as he raced ahead of me taking a sharp left turn down the street.

"Thats not an insult i miss." Feeling Thorn's competitive nature leak into me the aether within my body moved to my will and [mach rush] pushed me forwards at a fast enough burst of velocity that i could still run.

Running around the corner i saw Thorn running only 20 meters ahead of me and acting as if he had already won the race. With another explosion of aether in my legs my entire body thrusted forwards as i pushed off the ground with my boots.

"Huh?" Seeing me flying past him at high speeds, Thorn was shocked for a bare moment as i passed him going further down the dark street. "Mother-"

Crshsh~

A window shattered and out came one of my ink spirits holding a soldier by the neck with it's mucky black hand. The soldier fired round after round from her handgun but the bullets just passed through the vorpal knights black body each time.

Coming to a slowed halt as i diffused the aether that accelerated me, i stopped just in front of a grey brick of a building with a single door covered with chains and locks.

"Little small to be a prison." Observing the concrete square it was no bigger than the size of an average bedroom being 10 by 10 meters all around. Two thoughts came forward as i observed the supposed 'prison'. First, there's probably not enough crime for people to be locked up, or secondly, this is not the prison that random captain gave me directions to. Turning to Thorn as he walked up next to me i asked, "we followed the directions correctly, right?"

"Straight down Albania, one left across Greece, then a northward rush to Bulgaria. Yeah, this is the place." Wondering when Thorn learnt the map of earth i eyed him oddly as he continued. "It's locked up tightly so it's probably the right place. Probably just some sort of solitary confinement."

[skill: conceptualization, drifts matter]

Stretching my left hand out i pressed my fingers against the steel of the door and coursed aether into the alloy, the metal substance turned to sand and dropped onto the floor along with the chains and locks revealing a single unguarded manhole cover at the centre of the room.

"Whats this?" Curious as to what was underneath the metal lid i stepped into the unlit insides of the hollow concrete square to inspect it. Dipping down i gripped the latch atop the manhole and pulled off the metal lid to reveal a hole full of water underneath it. "Water?"

It was a first to see water source anywhere other than the basin where the <quest line> is in <archon hold> apart from Invoker's old base, so it was a surprise to see a community being frugal enough with it to leave it untouched.