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The Tale of a Crow

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C r o w:
INTERLUDE

The funerals were few, only for the few nobleman that actually had families that were informed about this secret garrison, everybody else was burned on a pyre.
The official report stated that this was the incursion against the biggest pirate hub point in the Fjords, and it was a victory, every dead man was a real hero that fought to the last to save and protect the people of the baronies.

The few that knew the truth were sent back to their family, I of very noble and rich origin, or were being held in custody by the Royal authorities. Emil was among the latter.
"One of the first to notice the attack, the first to organize the defense, suffered combat injuries and actually managed to kill then enemy commander. A truly impressive series of deeds. Unfortunately you are not form a family important enough to be released without problems, so now, you have one option, one you couldn't ever refuse: join the Corps of Recon and Intelligence Ex-State."
"CRIES? Never heard of it."
"It would have been strange of you had. The CRIES is another section of the Royal intelligence department. We directly answer the king and act as his eyes, ears and hands abroad, we are his informers, like spies only more expendable, you only carry intel from outside the Baronies, not from the inside. Still, since our job is full of risks, we have a lot of liberties in it, first and foremost, the dress-code, so no more scenic and shiny armors for you, but you can use literally anything except for that. You better like this option, lad, I don't think you would like to live the rest of your life in prison."
Shrugging his shoulders Emil replies: "I don't think I have match of a choice, count me in."
"Good, your first assignment is tomorrow, I hope you like traveling, because you'll be doing that, a lot.
And this, is your only way to be known as a member off the CRIES section."
He said while giving Emil an little badge with a flying raven depicted with writings around it. It read: "Bonae nuntiae lentae venient, malae alas habent" the man kept talking
"Good news travel slow, bad news have wings" that, lad, should not only be the motto of our section, but its doctrine altogether."

C r o w:
Chapter 4 (four): The crow and the dove

Northern Chaladon,
Years later


A man with a long raven-black armored coat was laying on the little bridge of what appeared to be something akin of a Squid, only that it had only the central section, no side ones, the wheel in the middle and all the engines cramped up behind, leaving no space for an aft gun. The other present guns were two, a field gun and an artemis strapped in front of the ship.
"This thing's just a glorified piece of junk, only made by taking away parts to make the squid lighter. I still can't believe that I accepted to fly on such a thing....
At least it's fast."
"Now, the presumed target location is exactly to the west of Cadia, deep into the Sea of Devils."
Emil looked around, trying to see if any other airship was in the area.
There was none.
"Ufff, so good that finally I haven't got to avoid patrols all the time.
Peaceful Chaladonians my ass, their patrols are annoying as hell to deal with."

The flight lasted two days before he reached his objective.
It was a little island, not wide at all, but very tall.
It was like an anti-social mountain that didn't want to stay with the others on the Chaladonian seaside.
The modified Squid landed in a little forest on the mountain-side, hidden well between the tall trees.
Before Emil disembarked, he put on his armored gas mask, he took a backup duster, a reitterpallach, a dagger and a heavy revolver.
He turned off the ship, and then proceeded to scout the forest.

He was quite the walker, and wandered on the island for some hours, when he saw a cargo ship, flying loudly in the sky, believing that no one would notice it in such a desolate place. It was wrong, some one had in fact noticed it, and was proceeding to follow its movements.

The ship stopped its movement right in front of a little dock, coming out of a cave on the mountainside.
As the engines got quiet, the cargo floated in place and then docked.
A gangplank came out of a side door and serfs on the docks began to disembark the cargo. Many big crates, carried on motorized carts, were shipped inside the cave.

Emil approached the place slowly and cautiously, looking around himself in the possibility of guards patrolling around.
Apparently there were none, probably because the overseer of the facility didn't even think about the possibility of someone infiltrating there, let alone discovering the facility in the first place.

Despite being quite well armored, Emil was making near to no noise, the heavy coat muffled most of the sounds produced by the armor itself.
Even if the gas mask was taking away some of its field of view, it compensated by making him enter a very cautious mental state.

He stood a few dozens meters from the docks, observing the whole disembarking operation.
There were a lot of crates, you probably could have been able to hide inside them a complete royal siege team, with all their equipment, and still have some space left.
After a few hours another operation started, this time, things were being embarked,but instead of many crates there were few, yet extremely big, things.
One appeared to be an entire airship, it had some similarities with the Squid, but looked more "talonish". Behind it there was a cart with some grenade-launcher looking...thingie.
The embark was extremely quick, while the previous operations lasted for a couple of hours, this one was completed in less than a quarter of hour.

After that, the cargo ship undocked, went backwards for a while, and then engaged full thrust ahead and maneuvered towards Chaladon. It took little time to disappear into the horizon.

"Well then, show's over, time to go."

Emil cautiously climbed towards the airdock, that fortunately wasn't very highly located.
If before there were few people on the dock, now there were none. Thus, Emil easily entered the cave and successfully infiltrated into the unknown complex.

C r o w:
Chaladonian unknown facility

Everything was well lit, the walls were painted green, maps of the facility were printed at every corner and crossway, the structure was extremely geometric it was structured like a spider web. Apparently there were multiple entrances, and something very important was in the center of the web.
Many long corridors had plants, bushes, even trees planted in the middle. Some personnel could be found smelling the flowers of the big bushes.
"Typical Chaladonian behavior." Emil muttered as he got behind a couple of guards distracted like that.
He then stabbed with the dagger both their necks and hid their corpses deep in the bushes. Neither of them had a radio, meaning that their absence could go unnoticed for some time.

Then he proceeded towards the center of the structure, finding that the plants were indeed perfect hiding spots.
Large part of the people moving a round were seemingly scientists, the guards were in fact very few.
"I bet they are used to this place being so empty, really I didn't manage to see more than four people walking together at once!"
Emil thought, just as he noticed a lonely scientist inspecting the plants and taking notes about them.

With as much speediness as he possibly could, Emil grabbed the man and dragged him into the bushes, menacing slit his throat hurts with the dagger.
"Shout, and I kill you. Now answer me.
What's in the center of the facility?"
The scientist appeared totally terrified.
"Th-th-the overseer's office."
"Does it have anything special?"
"It-it's sound proof, it has one way windows and they are bulletproof, the walls can even s-s-sustain cannon fire."
"How many guards are there in the facility?"
"L-l-l-less than two dozens."
"Any combat ready airship?"
"O-o-only a Shrike."
"What's a Shrike? What are you researching here?"
The scientist had eyes mad with fear, the man started agitating and shouting.
"N-N-N-NO! NO! Please let me..." His throat was slit. He kept looking Emil with fear filled eyes.
"Don't look at me like that, I told you: You shout, you die." The body remained where it stood, deep within the bushes, which so far has acted as the main movement way for Emil.

Research facility central area

Emil looked at the map printed on the wall. Beside the usual one, there was also a zoomed one, portraying in detail the central area.
Three things caught in particular Emil's attention: the first was the "Overseer's office, the seconds was "Experimental Cavy Test Lab, and the last was the "Shrieking Lab".
"I know what the first is, I guess that the last one is where that Shrike thing is being developed, but this "Experimental Cavy" test lab sounds fascinating.
First things first: the commander must die." Emil thought.

C r o w:
As he approached the office, he found that there was an antechamber, with the doors to the side, covered by little walls.
He heard chatter, two voices, most probably guards guarding the office's entrance.
"Help! I'm stuck in the door! Anyone? Help me!" Emil said with most tragic voice he could do.
"Hold on! We are coming!"
Apparently the guards took the bait.
As they turned around the little wall Emil dashed forward, piercing trough a guards chest with his reitterpallach and stabbing in the face the other guard with his knife.
The guards barely had any time to get surprised.

Locking the doors to the antechamber, Emil then headed for the office's door. He enters slowly, this time preferring to use his handgun, as the room was both bulletproof and soundproof.

He found a man in his 50es talking to a radio, he was looking trough a window in front of him and was giving his back to Emil.
"What do you mean that another one died?!? Why are your experiments failing this much? Do better! If we don't show results, this facility will be shut down!
How many cavies are left anyway? ONLY ONE?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Huh, so this one seems the one with the best chance to survive the treatment? Go on, even if it barely works, it'll be a progress, and we will be given more cavies to continue researching.
How about the Shrikes? How many are ready? Oh, that's very good, I think they only let us research this way because we have delivered those ships.
Very well, keep on working, call me again when you use the last cavy."
Then she switched off the radio and turned around to reach her desk.
Only to find Emil a few steps from her, pointing at her his gun.
"Who are you? Have you any idea who I am?!?"
"No, and neither I care, now, tell me, what is the purpose of this facility."
"Who sent you?"
"Answer me!"
"I can pay you the double, just let me do my job."
"WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS FACILITY?!?"
"Oh, well, no way I tell you anything about it."
Emil sighed profoundly, then straighten his aim towards the man's neck.
"So be it, the Baronies send their regards."
"So you a-!" She never ended her phrase, as she was shot right in the neck, the bullet breaking trough skin, muscle and bone, landing behind her, cracking a layer of bulletproof glass.

Only one being in the facility sensed that shot. She was very surprised about it, but was also filled with hope by it.

After he hid the guards' corpses into the office, he took every document found on the overseer's desk and then put the sign "Don't disturb" on the door handle and then left for the Cavy Lab.

"Even the overseer was very concerned about the cavies, so that may be some very important stuff.
Bless their overconfidence in this island's location, this place is too big and heavily under-guarded. They are making this a cake walk."

He ran hastily towards the lab, even in the open corridors, not caring anymore to hide, he was feeling in his guts that he was about to be discovered. The place was bigger than he actually thought.
He only found a scientist and two guards on his way to the lab. Emil killed the scientist and left the corpse in plain sight to bait the guards that he heard coming in the distance. Then he ambushed the two as they were checking the corpse.
Only after that, he tried to hide the bodies, but there was already a large pool of blood on the ground.

"That's certainly going to make someone suspicious." He commented as he finally entered the lab.

Inside a man was looking trough a small window and talking on a radio.
"Deja vu" Thought Emil.

C r o w:
"...and by tomorrow at 6p.m. the subject must be under the effect of the drugs, we don't want her going berserk like subject 008 and 032, understood? Very well, get going."
After the man ended the conversation, he didn't even turn around, he just faced his notes and kept reading them.

After seeing that no one was in the room exception made for them, Emil raised his gun towards the scientist and asked:
"What do you intend to do to the cavy?"
"Flak off you moron, this kind of things are far above your pay grade!"
"Oh, please, I do insist."
Only now the scientist actually looked directly at him.
"What's the meaning of this?!?"
"No, no, no, it the man with the gun that makes questions, now, YOU answer ME: what is the purpose of this facility?"
The scientist remained very calm, strangely enough.
"Here we research and develop new prototype weaponry, medicines, drugs and other substances."
"What do you intend to do to the cavy?"
"Uh, the cavy, well, I suppose the plan is to use them to see what would be the effect of said substances"
"I heard the overseer talking about a special kind of cavy, what about it?"
"Oh, that, lad, is a secret."

Then very quickly the scientist took a vial from near his notes and injected himself with a strange substance.

He suddenly looked a bit taller, wider, and had a very strange look into his eyes.
Emil recognized that look. He has seen it only once before he joined CRIES: that man was about to go berserk.

In a second, even before Emil could pull the gun trigger, the scientist dashed towards him, punching him in the middle of the chest and sending him flying a few meters back.
As soon as Emil touched ground, he shot twice, both shots missed.
The madman charged again, and Emil rolled away, shot again once and missed again.
Finally Emil got back up, dashed sideways to avoid the furious swipes of that beast and managed to shoot again twice.
He missed again two shots.
"Damn, gun's empty." He thought as he avoided another of the man-beast attacks.

Then, as there was another charge from the berserker, Emil threw his gun in the man's face, stunning him a second. Just enough for Emil to dash forward and strike the beast's neck with his reitterpallach, effectively chopping off its head.
Blood started to spill out of the chopped neck like a torrent, even more torrenting than it should normally be, the blood had even an unusual aspect too.

"Now, let's see this special cavy."

Emil walked toward a door with written on it "Only permitted personnel allowed."
He opened it.

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