To Rule In Shadow

Miranda looked down at the burly man. As far as she could tell, he was only unconscious, which was more than could be said for the dead-eyed trio that was still laying in the closet. She'd only intended to make them a bit dizzy and nauseous in order to even the playing field a bit.

Evidently though, the mixture had been more potent than she'd anticipated. Judging by the mild case of vertigo she was currently experiencing; it had even affected her despite the precautions she'd taken. The unprotected kidnappers, who'd done nothing to protect themselves, had been exposed to the full dose.

Shaking off the wave of dizziness that assailed her, Miranda moved down the hallway past the man she'd incapacitated with the strange cylinder. It had turned out to be a brass pole about the size of a relay baton. One end was capped with a small crystalline point, seemingly made of a kind of hazy quartz. Three studs of different sizes apparently functioned as the control mechanism for the device.

Based purely on her experience of the last few minutes, she knew that the largest of them was capable of activating it, rendering the person she was pointing it at unconscious. It seemed simple enough, and having a potent weapon in her arsenal was definitely reassuring. However, there were a lot of unknowns when it came to how such a thing worked, so she hoped she didn't have to rely on it.

The hallways she was wandering through looked like they still belonged to the convention center, but they were strangely empty. Every corridor seemed to lead to another similar one, and all the doors were either locked or opened up into empty classrooms and offices.

She was disconcerted to realize that there was no illuminated exit sign to point her in the direction of the nearest escape path. Combined with the lack of windows and the almost uniformly identical decor, she was starting to believe she was trapped in some kind of maze, as crazy as that seemed to be.

Of course, it became a little more believable when she turned the corner and found herself staring at the still form of the man she'd knocked unconscious a little while ago.

[I'm sure I didn't turn in a circle, and the hallways don't appear to be curved. Perhaps I made a mistake in counting the number of lefts or rights I took?] She thought to herself, trying to reason her way through the situation, but a sense of unease was starting to grow in the back of her mind.

Trying again, she chose a different path, this time making sure to mark the walls with a pen that she'd found on the kidnapper. Every time she was forced to make a left or right turn, she indicated as much with a drawn arrow. So, when she inevitably returned to the unconscious man, it was with some trepidation that she looked over at the passageway she'd taken.

Heart sinking, she saw that the wall next to it was unblemished. As if she'd never marked it at all.

[Damn mystical crap.]

Sighing, she glanced around and considered her options.

[Since I'm stuck here, I might as well make sure that the typical horror movie scenario doesn't play out.] She thought to herself while gathering up a few electrical cords from the janitor's closet to make some rudimentary bindings for the kidnapper, hogtying him facedown on the floor. To be on the safe side, she even gagged and blindfolded him in the event that he had some kind of supernatural ability that didn't require his hands.

In the process, she checked on the other men and determined that they weren't going to be a problem. Or so she assumed based on their lack of breathing. Then again, it was hard to say what her kidnappers were truly capable of. Just in case, she pushed the slightly stiff bodies into the closet and closed the door. Hopefully, if they came back as some kind of zombie, they would have trouble working the handle.

[Alright. With that done, I guess all that's left is to start searching systematically.]

Clipboard in hand, she began charting her progress, hunting for any possible exit. Based on her experiences up to this point, she suspected that she didn't have the abilities or equipment necessary to find it, but she didn't have much choice. Her only other hope was to depend on Adrian coming to the rescue.

Gritting her teeth slightly at the thought, she murmured to herself. "I'll be damned if I give him the satisfaction."

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Adrian frowned as he observed the contingent of guards from the shadows. There were five holding down this particular location, all armed with submachine guns. Several tables were knocked over and stacked into haphazard piles. Evidently, they were meant to serve as a makeshift barricade, blocking three of the four corridors that met at the four way intersection

With Pavuk's guidance, he'd found a way to draw the darkness of the partially lit hallways around him, concealing himself from casual observers. Thankfully, the emergency lighting proved sparse enough that the unusually dark patch which he was hiding in went unnoticed.

"My lord, they have blocked off all the corridors leading to this portion of the building. I believe that this is the center of their activities, or at the very least they are trying hard to make it appear that way." Pavuk whispered from his shadow, having just returned from investigating the situation.

Another rumble shook the building, leading him to suspect that either there was some kind of large scale fight going on, or the structural integrity of the convention center was increasingly becoming compromised. In either case, it was likely a bad idea to remain here for too much longer, which made the actions of the group in front appear quite suspicious.

[I don't understand their objective. It would be one thing to use the explosion and the resulting chaos to infiltrate a well defended location for a specific purpose. It's quite another to actually try and destroy the building you are in while digging in with defensive positions.]

"And you are certain that the initial charges were placed on the main support beams?" He murmured under his breath, confident that the blaring alarms would keep him from being overheard.

"That is my assumption based on the damage. Although it is difficult to tell after the fact, I estimate that they made use of fourteen explosive charges. As there are more than forty major structures that support the upper floors of this building, such an amount would normally be insufficient to cause it to collapse immediately. However, there appear to have been several incendiary charges placed in key locations in the first bas.e.m.e.nt layer, causing numerous fires which might lead to further damage, should they be allowed to continue unchecked."

[I suppose that if they had the time and ability to set up a bunch of bombs in the middle of a convention center, disabling the sprinklers in key locations shouldn't be too hard for them. Still, they've gone to an awful lot of trouble to destroy this building slowly. What is their aim?]

Sighing, he concluded that he simply didn't have enough information to figure this situation out. Whether the guards were part of some kind of invading force from the Underworld, or a rogue bunch of amateurs getting in over their head, or something else entirely, he didn't understand enough about the society he was now a part of to make an educated guess.

[I suppose I will have to rely on a more crude approach.] He thought to himself before standing and boldly walking in the direction of the barricade.

At this point in time, he could only see the heads of two of the guards peeking out over the top of the overturned tables. Apparently one of them was attentive enough to notice him as he approached.

"We've got another one incoming." Adrian heard him mutter before yelling a challenge. "Stay where you are! Take another step and we will shoot!"

Adrian was slightly surprised. Professional mercenaries wouldn't have bothered with a warning unless they were specifically instructed to do so. Based on the circ.u.mstances, he'd assumed that they would have simply opened fire as soon as he came into view.

[Some kind of government agency, maybe? No, any covert operations group wouldn't act this way, and any official organization would have better equipment.]

He raised his arms as if surrendering, while at the same time exercising his control over the Hall's power. Just as the second guard lifted his own weapon and pointed it at him, a nearly invisible sweep of motion cut across the top of the barricade.

For a moment, it didn't seem to have any overt effect on the guards, but then their heads began to slowly tilt to the side, eventually toppling off their shoulders in a spray of blood.

"OH SHIT! OH SHIT! WHAT THE F.U.C.K?!" One of the surviving guards was yelling as Adrian calmly closed the distance to the barricade.

With another flex on unseen power, webs of shadow latched onto the overturned tables and pulled them apart, making a path for him to continue walking and revealing the trio of panicking men that were frantically trying to make sense of what was going on.

The quickest thinking of the group managed to bring his weapon up and began spraying the hallway with bullets. Or at least he tried to. Another imperceptible flash of motion caused him to collapse as well, falling into bloody chunks. The second quickest soon followed suit and was dealt with in a similar fashion.

The only surviving guard responded by issuing a strangled squeak and attempting to run, only to trip over one of the bodies of one of his fellows and fall onto his hands and knees. Palms slicked with blood, it became difficult for him to find enough purchase to stand again, so he resorted to scrambling away to the best of his ability, gibbering in terror.

Sighing, Adrian exercised his power again, dragging the pathetic man back towards him with a claw of hardened darkness. Flipping the guard onto his back, he leaned over and spoke threateningly. "Hello there, friend. I have a few questions I would like answered."

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Adrian allowed the door leading to the Hall to close, leaving his most recent offerings to be slowly absorbed by the realm. After making sure that his clothes were free of blood, he began moving down the corridor again, once more wrapping the shadows around himself.

"Well, that was a waste of time." He muttered to his shadow.

"It does seem odd that this Liberation Front would go so far as to involve the uninitiated in their plans. Perhaps they needed cannon fodder to absorb the Esoteric Order's counter attack while pursuing some other objective?" Pavuk offered.

From what he could gather from the man's panicked rambling, he was part of a team dispatched from a semi-legal security company that primarily worked in third world countries, but occasionally took on protection jobs for criminals. Surprisingly, he was actually the leader of this particular group despite having only been with the company for a few years. The other members of his squad were somehow even less experienced.

"Judging purely on who they placed in charge, I can only assume this group was meant to be expendable. Why they are here at all is the question, though." He replied quietly before asking, "Are we still heading in Miranda's direction?"

"I believe so, but I cannot be certain. There is a strange interference which is making it quite difficult to determine her exact location."

[Well, whatever. So long as I can get what's mine, their plan doesn't matter.]