“Did you see that?” One of the soldier’s asked, offering his binoculars to Levi.
Levi wordlessly grabbed what he was offered and peered through the binoculars. I let them down while glancing at the other soldier, “See what?”
“That flash? You didn’t see that flash?” The soldier exclaimed, looking at him disbelief. “Ich kann es nicht fassen. Do you just not keep a look out or something?”
“Nein, du banane. I’m supposed to be looking that way,” Levi huffed, pointing in the opposite direction. At that same moment the both of them felt a small tremor, “Great something we have to deal with.”
Levi started to pick up his rifle when suddenly the tremors got worse. Something, he wasn’t sure, just felt wrong and he turned to his partner quickly shoving him away from him, “Bewegen!”
Then it was like suddenly the entire world folded in on itself. There was no more air and like everything around him had been pushed in on itself. Within seconds though he suddenly found himself being tossed across ground, slowly coming to a halt as dust kicked up around him. It took him a second for his eyes to adjust, but he realized he wasn’t outside anymore, instead somewhere illuminated by a single artificial light.
Disoriented he scrambled up bringing up rifle to bear and shaking his head trying to keep focus.
“Oh good, someone else to join in my misfortune,” he heard, coming from the light source. It was definitely Seylosian, but the accent was somewhere far from Ceris, let alone Hodrea.
Levi stood up as fast as he could, shaking his head slightly to clear his vision while aiming his rifle, “Who are you? Did you do this?”
The man stood up, putting little effort into holding his hands up in a form of surrender, “Whoah now, maybe lowing the rifle would be best.”
As Levi’s vision cleared he saw the man’s uniform. Black, and with a patch on the side that read “SEA”. Levi slowly lowered his rifle, “SEA? So close to the border?”
Before the man could even respond, Levi had glanced to his left and stumbled backwards a few feet. They were both in a cave of some sort, short and muddy, but undeniably were the legs of some person protruding from the cave wall, motionless. With wide eyes Levi approached the legs, holding up his weapon towards it. Obviously pointing a gun at a pair of legs embedded in a cave wall was hardly going to resolve anything, but the oddness of the situation made Levi extra cautious.
“Mein gott… is that a person? In the wall?” Levi stuttered out. He was used to all sorts of high strangeness on the border, but this was certainly a new one for him.
Since clearly Levi didn’t seem to see him as a threat anymore he walked forward a bit, crossing his arms, “I’m pretty sure that was my expedition’s former head of security.”
“Expedition?” Levi asked, turning away from the legs embedded in the wall, “Du skämtar. We weren’t informed of any SEA expeditions crossing the border.”
“Interesting,” the man said, approaching Levi, “Three languages in a few seconds. I’m at the Ceris Border Zone aren’t I? North of Hodrea? Only one group of people speaks Eofordan, Axfallan and Kammentsch.”
Levi gave him an incredulous look, shocked he was just ignoring the dead man in the wall, “Ja, I’m Hunderttausend. Enough of that, who are you and what’s happening here?”
“I’m sorry, I got carried away, my name is Dr. Landon Erwann, I’m an expedition group leader with SEA.” He says, extending his hand out towards Levi, “I’m guessing you’re… Hodrean Army? Militia?”
Levi takes Dr. Erwann’s hand shaking it slowly, “Militia.”
Levi’s radio begins squawking, startling him out of the handshake. Erwann watched curiously as Levi answered his radio, erasing his fears that we were too far away from civilization. Levi raised an eyebrow as Erwann observed him, finally taking his hand off of his radio.
“Well?” Erwann asked.
“Not the best out there, anomalies look like they are ripping up the surface terrain. We haven’t seen it this bad in awhile” Levi replied, still eyeing the legs sticking out from the walls. “The dead person in the wall isn’t bothering you?”
“Oh,” Erwann said, turning back to the unfortunate sight, “I apologize. I don’t mean to be cold… but it’s not the first time I’ve seen this. And I’ve only known him for one day, he just walked straight into it even though I warned him…”
“Can we get him out?” Levi ask, cautiously approaching the legs.
Erwann shook his head, “I already tried. We’d be better served trying to find the entrance to this cave.”
Levi silently nodded, gesturing for Erwann to follow. Erwann didn’t need any further convincing and quickly fell in behind the young man as he started to go down the only other tunnel that they could see. There was no natural light they could see yet, with only the light from Levi’s rifle mounted flashlight as well Erwann’s hand flashlight illuminating the path foward. After only a minute of difficult walking Levi stopped, holding up his hand.
“Wait, don’t move.” Levi said, placing his hand again the cave wall. He tapped his foot, as if measuring something and then started to walk backward, “Passt auf. Back up. Something’s coming.”
“Something’s coming?” Erwann asked, trying to figure out what Levi was sensing, but considering his situation, it’s not like he was in a position to question him. Following the young man’s order he back up along the cave wall.
After a few moments the lights from the flashlights began to gently refract in mid air, and only seconds after that it is got even worse as the light was heavily scattered across the cave interior. With a loud sound of grinding rock, suddenly the ceiling of the tunnel in front of the them was ripped upwards, with soil spilling in from the sides until just as soon as it begun it was over. Levi kicked some of the fallen dirt out of the way as daylight poured in from above. Once he made a good enough foothold he started to climb upwards, eventually turning around offering his hand to Erwann.
“How in the world did you do that? That was incredible.” Erwann asked Levi, taking his hand and struggling up.
“What? The anomaly?” Levi asks as he helped him climb up out of the tunnel.
Erwann laughed, “Yes of course, what else would I be talking about?”
Levi heaved one more time as Erwann managed to pull him all the way out. Around them was a somewhat grassy barren landscape, with the occasional bit of shrubbery dotting the uneven terrain. “Entspannen, just making sure.”
He stands up looking around, brushing off his hands and getting his rifle ready, “Not incredible, if you’ve been out here awhile you know the signs for the gravity ones. Light bending, buzzing air, small shakes.”
“Right… fascinating.” Erwann replied, also taking the moment to look around the landscape before focusing in on one spot, “I’ve seen many strange things too, and I think over there is the source of our problems.”
“I see it,” Levi replied, walking in front of him keeping his rifle at the ready, looking at the smoke trail not far from them. “Följ mig.”
“Lead the way Mr. Soldier.” Erwann gestured with a smile. “You know in all the excitement I didn’t get a name.”
Levi didn’t look back as they both kept trudging towards the smoke column in the distance, the ground frequently dipping up and down from the decades old bombardment it had received in the past, “Korporal Østberg.”
“Maybe a first name? I’m not much of a military man myself,” Erwann asked curiously, leaning a bit to the side to try and peer at his face.
“Levi,” Levi groaned slightly glancing back a bit at the older man while tapping his ear, “I need to listen.”
Dr. Erwann gave an exasperated sigh, honoring the young man’s request for silence. They both continued on foot for awhile, making their way over the awkward partially grassy terrain of the border zone. After a few minutes Levi stopped, crouching on the ground and carefully unlatching a pair of binoculars on his belt. He looked through them for a moment before putting them down and then offering it to Erwann.
“Bad news, people around it. But I think I see what’s causing all this.” Levi said as Erwann took the binoculars from his hand.
Erwann looked as well taking a while before he finally replied to Levi, “Definitely somebody found an artifact out here. Looks like it wiped most of them out. We’re just lucky it’s not the Sóivéidreach as it is.”
Partially obscured by the smoke, they could both see it. A rocky substance floating above a destroyed motor convoy. Despite many people using the term artifact, usually objects that displayed unnatural properties weren’t some sort of man made object, but collections of minerals showing characteristics that were impossible for what they should be. Unfortunately the destroyed motor convoy was recent, and still had a few of its original owners about.
“We should leave” Levi said, gripping his rifle again after taking his binoculars back, “That’s quite a few people still over there, and I’m guessing that rock was the thing that ripped apart the convoy in the first place.”
“Exactly,” Erwann replied, “Which is why we can’t leave quite yet.”
Levi turned and glared at the older man, “You’re joking right? There’s half a dozen people still around the thing. I can’t take them on by myself.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you have me,” Erwann says with a grin. Obviously he didn’t present himself as much of a fighter, even with the vaguely military looking uniform he had on from his expedition.
“So… alone?” Levi grumbled looking at him, “This isn’t going to happen. You’re a civilian and I’m getting you back to the border.”
“And I can’t leave an active artifact which is busy dumping people and probably a lot of materials all over half the continent” Erwann says back, “We can’t let this this get out of our sights. Plus I thought you Hunderttausend were even more keen on fighting than the rest of Ceris combined?”
Levi stared at him for a second, a dim view in his eyes before grumbling loudly at Erwann, “Jag är ingen supersoldat, din idiot Seylosi.”
“Alright… alright. I understood that,” Erwann said, holding up his hands. “Look, I get it, but we need to figure something out because that artifact is actively pulling objects and people from half the world away. And I can’t say that I trust the random scavengers that are currently taking care of it.”
Levi narrowed his eyes at Erwann and sighed, starting to take off his pack and pulling off his bulletproof vest, “You have something SEA can track? Something that can make it through this noise?”
The older man thought for a moment for pulling out his mobile phone and a small attachment that he was able fix itself to its data port while stretching out his arm and offering it to Levi, “GPS module that we use on our phones sometimes when we get too deep into red zones.”
The phone was quickly snatched out of his hands by Levi who pocketed it while pointing out towards the artifact in the distance, “I can’t take those guys on, and they seem safe enough standing next to that thing. I’m going to plant your phone on it and your Seylosian friends can bomb it or find it later.”