Chapter 1

  By Severin Glenn

  Flashing lights flickered around the laboratory. They covered everything in red, and that color would be everyone's death if no one did anything about what was causing them to flash.

  Many engineers ran around, trying to finish and stall whatever was happening. Those that weren’t were following evacuation procedures. When they had first started they had a plan. No matter how good a plan, however, it would almost always fall apart the moment things started going too well. As was the case with anything in life really.

  Standing in the midst of the chaos stood Aiah, holding a tablet in her hands. She had almost no clue what was going on. From what she knew none of this should have been happening. Even now, all results were in line with previous readings, but something else must have been going wrong.

  “Aiah, stop just standing there and get clear of the area!” Aiah’s mentor, Oro, yelled at her, “this thing’s going supercritical, we all need to get out of here!”

  “But we’re so close to completing it,” Aiah protested, “if we stop now the Aureate Empire won’t let us do this again.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Oro argued, “as long as we survive our knowledge will pass on. Someone in the future will be able to redo our experiments.”

  Aiah shook her head. This was preposterous. If they didn’t finish this experiment all of their research would be destroyed by the Aureate Empire’s Shogunate. Even if Aiah herself was the only one manning the experiment, she would get it done. If she didn’t she would die trying.

  As everyone was flooding out of the testing chamber, Aiah walked calmly. Energy crackled in the air around her. Inside the chamber, floating in the center of the chamber was a sword with a glowing red blade, the Soulreaver.

  Every engineer in this facility had spent months working on this project. It was practically all they had done. Now they were just a few steps from finishing the process, and Aiah was determined to see it through to the end.

  Looking down at her tablet, it said that the next step was to take the sword in hand and chant the incantation. A rather easy step… as long as there wasn’t a facility crashing down around you. After that step the last one was to wet the blade in your own blood. Easy if you weren’t squeamish… and Aiah was very squeamish.

  Okay, so the odds might not be in her favor personally, but she was confident that she could get through it. Whether or not she would throw up was still up in the air. More than likely she would actually throw up. That didn’t really matter, as the ritual would be complete by then.

  Readying herself for what she was about to do, Aiah took a deep breath, “man do I wish I could put this off till tomorrow.”

  Reaching out, Aiah gripped onto the hilt of Soulreaver, pulling it out of the air in which it was suspended. There seemed to be nothing extraordinary about the blade except for its crimson sheen. Hopefully, that would be changing soon, otherwise they would have spent most of the past few months making a sword that doesn’t really do anything.

  “I hope this works,” Aia took a deep breath in, then started chanting ancient words.

  Though Aiah didn’t know the translation of each word, she knew exactly what they meant. This was due to the words being in an old magic language known as Rooninc. For some reason everyone was able to understand it, even if they might not be able to speak it.

  The phrase that Aiah was currently speaking meant, “the souls who forged you shall reinforce you, and I, who speak these words, will become your ward. You, as payment, will be the blade that strikes at the heart of evil and oblivion.”

  When Aiah started chanting this Roonic passage, everything went silent.All the energy that had been rippling in the air increased in quantity, then infused itself with the sword.

  Red Roonic letters formed along the edge of the blade. Aiah didn’t know much about written Roonic, but she could make out one word being “soul”. Some of the other Roonic words did look familiar though, so perhaps she could ask her other colleagues about it if they got out of this mess.

  Now there was only one thing to do, wet the blade using her own blood. Aiah wondered what way was best to do this. Perhaps she could just prick a finger, but that might not be enough blood. Then she thought about the leg, and came to the conclusion that doing that could end terribly.

  Going through multiple scenarios in ehr head, eventually Aiah decided upon lightly gliding the blade across her palm. That way she could just wipe the blade with her blood. This strategy should work best, at least in her head.

  Lightly pressing the razor sharp blade to the palm of her hand, Aiah closed her fingers around it and slowly dragged the blade, careful not to cut too deep. She really didn’t like the thought of bleeding out, she wanted to be really careful.

  At first, there was no pain, which was curious to Aiah because she thought that it would hurt immediately. Pain then settled in, and Aiah opened her hand to look at the damage. Suffice it to say she started to feel very queasy at what she saw.

  It turns out that she had cut deeper than she had thought. Soulreaver had cut a large gouge into the palm of her hand. Blood seeped out of the large cut, yet it was coming out at a slower rate than expected. Of course, that’s not what she was concerned with at the moment.

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  Nausea started setting in nearly immediately. The whole world started to spin, and Aiah staggered, but managed to stay standing. However, she didn’t know how much longer she would actually be able to stay standing.

  While she still had control over her legs, Aiah made sure to drip some of the blood along the edge of the blade. Droplets of blood beaded up on the edge of the blade. As soon as the crimson red droplets touched the edge of the blade, they started to get absorbed into it.

  In doing this, Aiah had closed her eyes. The last thing that she had seen was the blood being absorbed into the blade. Opening her eyes, Aiah looked down at the palm of her hand. She was surprised to find that her palm had completely healed. Leaving a small, but very visible, scar behind.

  Turning Soulreaver in her hand, Aiah could see the Roonic words glowing brightly along the side. Power now emanates from this weapon, unlike before.It seems like the experiment had been a success.

  Sword in hand, Aiah retrieved her tablet. According to the readings, everything was done properly. Also according to her tablet, there was a sheath for Soulreaver stored in a cabinet by the door.

  Tucking her tablet into her picket, Aiah then went and retrieved the sheath for Soulreaver. She had some difficulty placing Soulreaver into its sheath as she hadn’t really ever used a sword before. Firearms and bows were more up her alley. They were what she had been practicing with most of her life.

  She clipped the sheath to her belt the best she could. It felt wrong, but Aiah assumed that it would, at least for the first little bit. Not bothering to fix it, Aiah walked out of the room into the main area where everyone had been leaving prior.

  The flashing red lights had stopped, but the hazard signs were still on. The red lights had only been on because there was an experiment going on that could be dangerous for the facility. Aiah didn’t like the appearance of the hazard signs, though, as it meant that the Aureate Empire knew where they were and were coming for them.

  What Aiah did not see was her colleagues. There wasn’t any trace of the guards, either, who would be the last ones to leave when evacuating the facility. IF that wasn’t confusing enough, shut down procedures hadn’t been started.

  If they had started evacuating, they would have shut down power to the facility, as well as secure the data room. By secure, Aiah knew that they would shoot the archive rooms hundreds of feet down into the ground. It was secure, and a rather telling way that a facility had been abandoned.

  However, that wasn’t the case here. Everything was still in its place. Aiah assumed that this was because everyone was panicking about the ongoing hazardous experiment. Sensible, as if the Soulreaver experiment had gone wrong, which it was going to before Aiah stepped in, everything would have been destroyed anyway.

  If her theory was correct, then Aiah should be the last person remaining inside this facility. According to regulations that meant that she had to conduct the rest of the evacuation procedures. It wouldn’t take too long, but time wasn’t exactly an abundant resource at the moment.

  Speed walking to the control room, Aiah started the lock down sequences on the terminal. Loud whooshing sounds echoed through the whole facility. Reverberations shook the room that Aiah was in, telling her that the sequences were successful.

  Next on the list would be shutting down the power, which could be done at the entrance. For some reason beyond Aiah’s understanding they couldn’t do everything from the entrance terminal. It would have made things much more convenient.

  Heading for the entrance, Aiah made a stop at the armory. Survival kits had been made and were stored there for emergencies, such as the one currently going on. Though she had no clue what was inside them. Aiah regretted not asking Oroa what was in them when he had helped put them together.

  Stepping into the armory, Aiah started to look around for the survival kits. After persistent searching, Aiah eventually found the bags. They had been stored in the back corner of the room, tucked behind some cold weather clothing.

  Unzipping one of them, Aiah took inventory of what was in the bags. Aiah found that the bag held a disassembled recurve bow, some arrows, trail rations, a sleeping bag, basic camping supplies, and there was still room for more items. Quickly, grabbing some clothing, Aiah folded them and stuffed them in the bag’s empty space.

  Picking up the bag, Aiah decided that she would grab one of the combat rifles and pistols that were hanging from the racks. Taking a holster and strapping it to her belt, Aiah took a pistol and holstered it. Much to Aiah’s chagrin, the sheath of Soulreaver conflicted with the holster, making her very uncomfortable.

  Next, Aiah grabbed one of the combat rifles, as well as a belt. Looping the belt through the rings of the wooden rifle. Aiah slung it over her shoulder.

  At the same time, Aiah grabbed some clips for her rifle, as well as some magazines for her pistol. She made sure that she had more than she needed. If she ran out it would render her weapons useless, and therefore dead weight.

  The final thing that Aiah did was throw some traveling clothes over the top of her lab coat. She would change out of them later, but for now she needed to leave before the forces of the Aureate Empire’s Shogunate arrived.

  “Okay, hopefully I’m not forgetting anything,” Aiah said, finally at the entrance to the facility.

  Punching a code into the terminal near the door, Aiah pulled a lever, shutting down power to the entire base. The last thing providing illumination to the base were the emergency guide lights put in place to let people find the exit when the power was off.

  “Goodbye Facility Fortune, gonna miss you,” Aiah turned to leave after saying goodbye to her lifelong home.

  Closing the door behind herself, Aiah stepped out into familiar forests, but one thing concerned her. There were about no tracks, and no evidence of a large group of hasty people. Aiah knew that her people were good at hiding, and for this reason they usually left behind hidden messages so other members of the Underground Engineering Society of the Old Capitol, or UESOC, could find them. However, Aiah didn’t find any evidence, or messages, of the group's movement.

  “Where could they have gone?” Aiah questioned as she pulled out her tablet.

  Pressing a few icons, a map of other known facilities popped up on the screen. More than likely the other members would be heading towards the closest facility, being Fort Belmoth. According to the notes, Fort Belmoth was the best hidden and protected facility, so it would make sense if lost members of the UESOC were to head there.

  Pulling out a compass, Aiah started to make her way through the trees. For better or worse, Aiah had made up her mind. She was going to head towards Fort Belmoth.