Heart and Claw Update

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He fired off another dart, this one impaling it in the chest, and its eyes seemed to dim, the beast holding out its hands as it leaned forward. He felt it take one lumbering step, and then its leg gave out, the beast eating the dirt with a puff of dust.

He turned his headlamp on cautiously, and sure enough, the beast was lying on the floor as though it was resting, its bright eyes only open a sliver. The tranquilizer had worked exactly like Hendrix had told him, Cooper slamming in a fresh dart cartridge with a satisfied expression on his face.

Checking the passageway behind him, he moved over to the slumbering beast, finally able to examine one of these things in earnest. It was ten feet of scales and muscles, its arms and legs tipped with black, cruel-looking claws like he’d seen before. Its underbelly was a creamier colour than the rest of its brown body, like a beige, the scales finer and smaller. Two swirling horns protruded from the top of its head, sweeping to either side of its snout, the tips sharp enough to suggest the thing could skewer prey on them. Yellow teeth poked out from a pair of long lips, too many for Cooper to count, a dull snout and a pair of large eye sockets making up the rest of its elongated face.

Its chubby tail flicked idly behind it, the thing so long it trailed into the stream behind it, adding five or so feet to its overall length. It was the biggest thing he’d ever seen, no wonder these fighting pits Hendrix mentioned coveted them so much.

Working up the courage, he gave the beast a solid kick to the stomach, his hands ready on his rifle should the thing start to wake up. His worries were in vain, the beast not so much as flinching as his armoured boot collided with its hide.

Satisfied he could turn his back on the thing, he returned to the passageway, continuing straight on once he reached the intersection. He stopped to set down a spike mine, then continued on, his headlamp lighting his way. Like the rest of the mine so far, the floor was occupied by more tracks, the metal strips reflecting the glow off his headlamp. He wasn’t sure if it was just his mind or not, but the walls seemed to narrow a little closer together in this particular passage, close enough that the shoulders of his power armour almost grazed them.

After a few moments of silent pacing, he reached another intersection, this one in the shape of the letter X. When he reached the epicenter of the four passageways, the muscles in his chest tied into knots. He could hear more footsteps, pounding against the stone. Cooper wheeled round, pointing the syringer back the way he’d come, the noise picking up in speed.

His headlamp barely cut back the darkness at all, each passageway just a stretch of oily darkness. It was getting closer now, echoing off the walls to make it sound like ten of the things was rushing him down. Cooper couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from, but then with a start, he remembered the flare gun Hendrix had given him.

Sticking the syringer to his belt, he shrugged off his pack, aware of every precious second wasted as he plucked the flare gun from his belongings. He let go of the bag, the pack hitting the floor with a puff of dust, Cooper picking a direction at random, brandishing the colourful pistol. With a clack, the flare discharged, a plume of sparkling smoke arching down the passage, the walls turning crimson as their wet sheens reflected the light.

The flare clicked against the ground, skimming along the rocks for a few feet as it sizzled away. Cooper’s gaze was drawn up to a pair of glowing eyes just lingering out of the flare’s influence, the two orbs reflecting the bright light, shifting hues as it angled its head.

His wild shot with the flare hadn’t come soon enough, the flickering light blocking out as the beast lunged over the flare, indifferent to the sudden influx of light, its eyes rapidly growing in size as it charged Cooper down. The sight reminded him of the time a yao guai had charged him, the only real difference being the stone walls of the mine trapping his world to a handful of suffocatingly narrow passages.

He produced the syringer, filling the passage with darts, knowing the beast was right in front of him, but made invisible as it crossed the threshold between the light of the flare, and his headlamp. The dart tray ran dry, and he knocked it aside, his heart thumping in his ears as he reached for the next spare. He couldn’t tell how many darts had found their mark, so he unloaded every dart in this mag too, and he was rewarded with a wailing groan from the beast, the thing stumbling into his headlamp’s light, its chest and shoulders bristling with darts.

It looked almost identical to the one in the river chamber before, albeit a little on the smaller side. It still towered over him at eight feet and change, with arms as long as he was tall, its scales a deep brown, likely to help it blend with its environment whenever it wasn’t snowing out in the Wastes.

He watched it fall to a knee, then to both as the tranquilizer started to work itself into its bloodstream, its eyes lidding into slits as its chin hit the ground, the beast opening its jaws wide in an oddly human display of tiredness. It gave him a lingering glare, and then went still, its tail folding over one of its legs as it succumbed to sleep.

Cooper couldn’t hear any more noise, but didn’t take a chance for a breather, instead using his time to reload his syringer and flare gun, which he’d dropped in his haste. The gas-powered gun was silent for the most part, but the popped flare would travel far in the mine, and he had to assume he couldn’t rely on stealth for much longer.

Once he was set, he moved up the passage the second beast had come from, the light from the flare petering out as he approached, the world plunging back into darkness. Keeping his weapon trained on the beast, he stepped over its outstretched arms, then its legs, the thing bulky enough to plug the passage like a cork in a bottle.

The path bent a little to the left, eventually opening up into a wide room after a few moments of walking. There were crates of rocks stacked up to one side of the space, the tracks splitting into two sets here, one of which trailed towards the crates. The other track coninuted through the middle of the room into a collapsed wall, the adjacent passage plugged with boulders as big as the torsos of the beasts that now occupied this place. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like someone had been trying to clear the rubble, using the crates to keep the rocks stored. He briefly wondered what lay behind the blocked passage, and then his thoughts were interrupted as he felt the hairs on his neck stand on end.

He turned around, and saw another one of the beasts was standing behind him.

Its wide, unblinking eyes had no pupils to speak of, yet Cooper could feel it making eye-contact with him through the visor. There was intelligence in its gaze, more than he’d expected from an animal. He could read the question in its gaze, what are you?

The creature’s long arms were splayed out to the sides, almost as though it was preparing to trap him in its embrace. Fearing any big movements would set it off, he turned the barrel of his syringer up. Like a snake zeroing in on movement, its predatory gaze angled towards his gun, and the thing snarled, instilling a kind of fear in him that Cooper hadn’t felt since the days before he started hunting.

It took one step forward, Cooper feeling the ground shake beneath his suit. He wasted no time, bringing his weapon up with practiced speed and firing, three of the darts peppering it along the arm and neck, the last three going wide. The thing had ducked out of the firing arc, closing the distance between them on its digitigrade legs, Cooper feeling his lungs empty of air as the thing crashed into him.

He felt his boots leave the ground as he was sent flying backwards, metal grinding against rock as he crashed into the stacks of crates, Cooper’s gaze blurring as a rock bigger than his head tumbled onto his helmet, the metal ringing in his ears like a gong. As the boulder tumbled away, his headlamp illuminated the beast, its giant shadow dancing on the ceiling above it as it slammed one of its feet on his chest. Each of its three toes was capped with a talon longer than his forearm, their colour almost matching the deep, black scales covering the rest of its leg. The talons buried into his chest piece as though the steel wasn’t there, slicing through the metal and inching their way towards his vulnerable body.

The beast slowly raised one of its arms, flexing its hand to reveal the long claws sheathed in its fingers, its hungry eyes still locked to his helmet. It would rip him right out of the frame in a second, but his weapons were below his waist, and he couldn’t move his arms around the foot pinning him down. The only thing in reach was the rock sitting by his helmet’s cranium.

He scooped the rock off the ground, the servos in his suit whining as he threw all his weight into a swing. It would have been unmovable normally, but with the armour, the stone weighed as much as a pebble, Cooper snarling with effort as he struck the beast on the knee. He felt as much as heard the resulting crunching of bone, the beast unleashing a furious roar as it staggered away, Cooper scrambling to his knees as its tremendous weight was lifted off his chest.

He launched for his discarded syringer, slapping a fresh tray into the mag well, then rolling onto his back to face the beast. Its movements were sluggish, the limp in its leg and the tranquilizer from the darts finally taking effect. It made to wrench open his suit with its claws, but it was close enough now that Cooper didn’t miss when he pulled the trigger.

Two more darts joined the rest on its body, and the beast once again voiced its frustration into a snarl, the noise tapering out into a whimper as the sedatives sent it crashing to the floor, fatigue washing over it. It swiped at him one last time, but it was too far away that the movement was in vain, the beast going still save for the slow rise and fall of its chest.

Cooper released the breath he’d been holding, cursing himself for letting things get so dicey. He peered into the passageway as he reloaded, sweat drooping from his brow into his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to take a breather, but he still had two more beasts to deal with, including Omega. He considered the possibility that the one he’d just taken out was Omega, it had darker scales and was perhaps the tallest one so far, but he had a feeling he’d know the pack’s leader when he saw it.

The adrenaline in his veins spurred him on, Cooper leaving the blocked passageway behind as he returned to the intersection, once more stepping over the beast plugging the shaft. He briefly wondered why the thing had watched him rather than just pounce right away, maybe it didn’t know what he was? Maybe it had seen its sleeping counterpart, and it had been curious as to what could have brought down its kin?

He pushed these questions to the back of his mind, picking the passage that led further away from the entrance, hoping his mental map of the place was correct. As he walked through the winding passage, he noticed that there were lightbulbs spaced throughout the shaft, connected by long copper wires. There might be a way to power on the circuit and help light up these tunnels, but Cooper thought that would be a bit much to hope for.

Soon the mine widened out into another room, this one more spacious than any of the others so far. There was a great machine off to one side of the room, and it almost looked like a vehicle, except it was supported by tracks rather than wheels, and the front of it extended out into the shape of an arm, with a scoop on the end, the bucket currently filled with rocks. There was another of its kind a little further in, painted a faded yellow, sitting flush against a wall of minerals that looked like it had been chipped away in places. Sitting next to the outcrops of rock were handmade tools, drills and pickaxes, along with tall, tubular machines as big as a man, wedged into the crevices of rock. These were more drilling machines, if Cooper had to guess. This must be where most of the mining was done here, back before the Bombs.

Like the room with the stream, there were gaps in the ceiling, allowing shafts of light to brighten up the room. Sitting right in the middle of the little pools of light was what appeared to be a haphazard bundle of fabrics. Cooper could see mattresses, blankets, pillows, the sheets stained by the abundant presence of dirt.

Two of the creatures were sitting on top of the nest, their tails swishing along the fabrics as they lounged together. Had these things dragged the bedding here from someplace? It was unusual to see wild animals prefer fabrics rather than just the ground. Then again, Cooper thought, this hunt was the most unusual one in his life.

He thanked his luck these things had not heard him fight the last beast, and had not been riled up by the confrontation. He could see movement in the mound of fabrics, the two beasts were shifting together, the sight coming off as rhythmic. They were awake, then, maybe starting to wake up?

As he took aim with his syringer at the seemingly oblivious creatures, he felt a little off-put by how simple this was all turning out to be. For creatures bigger and tougher than anything else in the Wastes, he had managed to get the drop on most of them so far.

He sprayed the nest full of darts, and the reaction from the beasts was immediate. Two hulking figures rose to their feet, turning their bright eyes in Cooper’s direction. One appeared to be maybe seven feet tall, while the other was eight, and it looked like the latter of which had been laying in front of the other, Cooper noting its back was covered in darts while the former looked unharmed.

The big one stepped in front of the other, opening its chops wide to unleash a blood-curdling snarl, approaching him swiftly on all fours despite the sedatives pumping into its body. It leapt from rock to rock like a pouncing cat, coming in too fast for Cooper to reload the syringer in time before it was on him. Instead, he drew the flare gun, firing a powerful light straight into the thing’s face. Like any animal, having its senses overloaded with smoke and sparks sent it reeling, the beast clutching its horns in its hands as it snapped its eyes shut, stunned just long enough for Cooper to reload, and plug its chest full of tranquilizer, the beast dropping with a groan.

With the big one down, Cooper turned his attention to the remaining beast. It took one look at its fallen kin, and then turned on its heels, its fat tail winding behind it as it raced towards a passage on the far side of the chamber. Cooper aimed, a wave of pity coming and going as he zeroed in on the frightened creature. For something so big and deadly, it knew when to flee, the act betraying the kind of intelligence Hendrix had warned him about.

Two darts hit it in the leg, the creature hitting the ground hard, Cooper feeling the vibrations of the impact travel up his legs even from this distance. He crossed the chamber, noting that the creature was trying to pry the darts out of its scaley hide, succeeding in tossing one aside. Before it could work on the other one, Cooper emptied the rest of the sryinger into its flank, and the beast went still.

Cooper sighed through the rebreathers, allowing himself a moment to catch his breath. He’d downed the whole pack with only a few scrapes to show for his troubles, but again, there was no time for celebrations just yet. These two were much the same build as the others, so the last, remaining beast must be Omega. He was starting to tire out, but he had to push on and find this thing before it found him.

Checking his ammo and dropping another mine, he moved on from the chamber to where the smaller beast had tried to flee, the walls narrowing into the passages once more. All these tunnels looked the same, with the spaced out wooden frameworks, the walls covered in a layer of moisture, the lightbulbs swinging gently as his heavy suit disturbed the earth.

The path soon wound towards the right, and Cooper found himself back at the first junction near the entrance, the mine winding around in an almost circuit-like shape. The last path must be where Omega was holding up, unless it had managed to get behind him at some point…

He fired a flare down the mineshaft he’d come from, but saw nothing, so he proceeded into the unexplored passage, noting that the walls here began to part to a more comfortable distance, big enough that one of those machines he’d seen could pass through unhindered.

The path split into two directions after he ventured a little deeper, one going forward, the other leading left into an offshoot, the latter of which projecting a loud crashing noise. Was that a waterfall, the source of that stream maybe? He made to investigate, but then stopped, a peculiar sight in the passage ahead catching his attention.

There was a great breach in the ceiling, as though the miners of the Old World had taken a massive auger to this spot and drilled right to the surface of the mountain, a circle of cloudy sky visible to Cooper as he stood in the pool of light.

There were pieces of string attached to either side of the vertical tunnel, just high enough that Cooper would have to stand on his toes to reach. There were things attached to it, shirts, pants, coats, slightly swaying as the air filtered down from the open sky. Had someone been camping out here before the beasts had moved in? He didn’t envy being in their shoes, waking up to find your home had been made into a den.

He moved beneath the clothesline, the rushing water fading behind him. After a few moments, the passage opened up into a vast room, maybe ten meters across and twenty deep, the floor made level by strips of wooden planks, arranged almost like pathways as they snaked to the corners of the room.

There were columns of carved wood holding the tall ceiling aloft, covered in scratch marks and rot, but still holding firm. There were no cracks for light to sneak its way into the room, but there were lightbulbs spaced about the ceiling, suggesting whoever had lived here didn’t do so in complete darkness.

To one side of the room were a pair of tables, the desks stacked with odd trinkets, Cooper moving over to examine them. There were wooden figurines that looked handcrafted, along with stacks of paper, held down by stones so they didn’t flitter about.

The workspace was a mess of scrunched up paper balls, most of it littering the floor around an upturned chair, Cooper’s curiosity overpowering his adrenaline as he stooped to pick one up, unravelling the parchment with a gloved hand. There was something written on it in black ink, but someone had crossed over the words with several lines to make it unreadable.

Dropping the paper on the desk, he moved around it, spotting a small pile of books by one leg of the desk. The covers were frayed at the edges, but not as dusty as Cooper would have guessed they’d be after sitting in here for who knows how long. Omega’s escape had been quite recent, he supposed. Perhaps he could dig into them later, see if anything worth selling had survived.

He neared the far end of the room, where more workbenches were stacked up against the stone walls. Bundles of clothes sat off to one side, with pairs of scissors and sewing kits sitting on top of them, but Cooper was more focused on the centermost table.

A single wooden bowl rested on its surface, Cooper catching a sliver of white through the rest of the colourless contents. Wide, flat rocks were sitting in a messy pile, slightly overflowing from the rim of the bowl. As Cooper leaned in closer, he noticed they weren’t rocks at all. Their surfaces were bumpy, with white and brown stripes creating patterns across their hard surfaces. Were these… clamshells?

“You made it a lot further than I thought you would, Cooper.”