"Two Scavs with bear traps. Might be near a Scav Den. Go around?" I asked Mira.

"Hmm…" She went silent for a moment, rubbing at the mask. "Doubt we could clear a Scav Den by ourselves. At least, not without proper equipment. SMG will be too weak to get through subdermals."

"I'll mark the location then." No way we leave a Scav operation untouched. I dropped a pin on the Mapp. Best I could do given the nature of this place. "Jade Fang will be super interested in hearing about it."

"What are our options? Blitz through and go around?" Mira asked. Her hands clenched her gun. I bet my bacon the only reason she didn't want to attack the den was thanks to our current mission. So what if we had proper equipment? She was a crack shot. Could easily outpaces any of the scavs in combat. They were one of the weakest groups combat-wise that relied on ambushing weak prey.

"Reroute might take a couple hours…" Going around would seriously cut into our time.

"Could probably zero two slags without alerting the whole Den." She had passion in her voice. I could understand. This was probably burning at her to intervene at least somewhat.

"Don't suppose you brought a silencer and subsonic rounds?" I asked, my voice filled with an ember of hope.

Mira simply handed me a knife and nodded down the tunnel. "You know those are heavily controlled."

That wasn't a no…

We hatched a quick plan after I relayed all the intel. Once she was in position—a bit of ways back from the Scavs standing guard—I moved forward. My Perks were active, though only Stalk mattered given the situation.

The tunnels were massive, so I easily skirted my way around the edge of the chemlight. I stayed low and slow, trusting in my Perk to hide me from peripherals. They didn't spot me working around the edge of the intersection toward Patch guy.

I picked up a pebble and tossed it down the tunnel. The rock bounced down the path, creating light noises. Oldest trick in the book, and also a good one against low-quality guards.

"Fuck! You see what that was?" The one not on major withdrawals moved to investigate.

"N-n-nah m-man… th-think its a g-ghoul? "Patch just jittered in place, glancing down the tunnel. Neither noticed Mira creeping up into position just behind me.

I had my first move. I crept up behind patch. My eyes caught on the bits of flesh suck to his welded armor. Poor victims probably suffered immensely to make that. Chrome of the dead locked as a safety measure. Good intentions behind such a feature, I suppose… Completely worked around by ripping it while the person was still alive.

I struck light lighting and ripped the blade across his exposed throat. I wrapped my other hand around his mouth and yanked backward, exposing even more area. The knife easily sunk through flesh, grating against bone and chrome. Blood sprayed, though his reactions were far too slow to actually matter. I pulled him to the ground to finish off.

"What was that?" 'Course, such a move wasn't entirely silent. The other guard immediately turned back, but it was too late for him as well.

Mira, for all her lacking stealth skills, was damn good at combat. Before he could fully turn, she was already moving on him. Just as went for his gun, she chucked a brick at his head. It connected with a horrid crack and sent him spiraling to the ground. She flashed forward, smoothly disarming and icing the guard in the same motion.

Just like that, the Scav checkpoint was cleared. I pulled the knife out and wipe it off, careful to avoid too much arterial spray. I rifled through his pockets for loot- nothing. Broke as could be. His gun was shit too. I'd probably have to pay someone to take it.

"That was eas-" I cut myself off with a chill down my spine. I cast a superstitious glance around. I didn't jinx us, right? Bad Shiro! That was just like saying 'is it over?'

"Is it over?" Mira cursed us without a care. She casually wiped off the blood and stood up like nothing happened.

"Mira! Don't say that!" I quickly pulled her into the shadowy recesses just in case. Nothing. Just the dripping of water. "Phew."

"Sometimes, I just don't get you." Mira flicked her flashlight down the tunnels and nodded. "Which one?"

I looked between the tunnels. Considering we wanted to avoid the Scav Den, we should just go north. The glowing red paint was territory markings, so the tunnel covered in them probably led back to the den.

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"North." I grabbed Patch's arms and dragged him down the tunnel. Mira followed with the other guy. Hopefully it'd delay the eventual discovery? I messed around with their guns and jammed up the barrels. Whoever tried to shoot next would be in for a nasty surprise.

We continued on, walking amongst the ruins of ancient sewer systems and subways. Dozens of paths led to dead ends or other groups. We avoided them the best we could. None of the groups were as easily identifiable as the scavs, and we didn't want to get into a fight we might not win. While it was shoot first down here, avoiding trouble was also common.

I checked the map while we walked parallel to a rail line. Debris cluttered the once pristine tunnels, and the rails had long rusted over. We were slowly closing in on Talus Tower.

Mira stopped in front of me, making me slam into her back. "Ugh- sorry, sorry."

She lifted a finger to her mask in a shh gesture. "I hear… growling? A bit up ahead."

"Might be rodents?" I stepped around her. "I'll check it out."

Mira once more struggled. A sigh escaped her, and she slowly shook her head. "Good luck, Shiro."

"Thanks, mikata." I turned off the my light and once more edged forward. I made a mental note I'd probably forget; get low-light augments next time. Image Enhancers didn't really matter if I couldn't see in the first place-

I lunged backward, instinct hitting me. There was a hole in the floor, completely covered in darkness. I peeked over it, hearing growls from beyond. The drop plummeted deep. Half the rail line had caved in at some point into a massive chamber filled with dozens of different pips leading into it.

The bottom of the hole was dark, and not too dark to see. Massive growths of the glowing lichen ran rampant across the cavern, illuminating the surrounding areas semi-decently. It looked to have once been a control station of some sort, with hundreds of valves and pipes intersecting across the gargantuan chamber. It was hard to tell for sure. Age hadn't treated the place well at all.

Shambling shapes stumbled around the rubble, light shining through the holes and thin spots in their flesh. Their skin was stretched tight, giving a clear view of bones and rotting flesh. Eyes, forever lost of their humanity, stared ceaselessly around as they groaned and growled at each other primitively. Ghouls.

I flicked on Aetherial Perception. Little kernels of something corrupt filled each of hte ghouls. It was nauseating to look at. They emitted sickening pulses of darkness that attempted to imitate light in a way that was just wrong.

I looked around a bit more before I radioed into Mira. "C'mon up. And watch your step."

She tried to move quietly. She really did. The shifting of her gear was enough to hear her long before I saw her. Each step crunched on the worn cement like she was intentionally trying to alert the ghouls below. "What was it?"

I pointed down towards the ghoul nest. She hesitantly edged up closer and flicked off her flashlight. I almost kicked a pebble down to startle her, but rationality won out in the end.

"Why are you smirking?" Mira asked and backed up from the straight drop into the chamber.

How could she see?! The mask should cover everything. "N-no reason. Let's keep going."

"Yeah… poor people." Mira pounded the ground behind me. Every other step clanked against the subway rails. She really didn't have a clue about subtlety, did she?

We followed the subway tunnel for a long time through the darkness. Graffiti and posters of an age long since past covered the walls. The occasional glow paint sat atop the foundation of ancient markings, depicting all sorts of things. Gang icons, territory marks, and even just normal art.

The subway had been such a good find. It went almost straight north and hand enough branching paths and caves that we could easily skirt around trouble. 'Course, also increase the likelihood of an ambush. None ever came. It took us almost all the way there till about a mile out.

"Damn, what happened here?" Mira asked.

We approached a flat area of the subway. We ran across a few in the past, but this one had an actual train. Its parts rusted and slopped off, and was on its side. The entire thing was so aged even the windows inside were covered by debris.

That wasn't the eye catcher- no, that honor belonged to the state of the place. Bullet holes littered the walls, and there were hundreds, if not thousands of bones scattered around. Some looked new, and some looked ancient.

Humans weren't the only thing down here either. All sorts of weird mutant animals and monstrosities I could only try and guess the identities of. Even a few giant spiders, which were horrifying to look at.

Sure, corpses weren't anything new down here, but the amount of bones far outpaced the last several miles of occasional corpses. Just like elsewhere, they were mere remnants of gnawed bones, with many of them missing whole sections. Most likely, the missing bones were taken by scavengers over the long years they'd been down here.

They were almost all human-looking, though they probably weren't humans themselves. Kinda. The state of the corpses—most only laying in tatters—and slightly off human bones, suggested the majority were ghouls. It must've been a rather large ghoul nest too based on the body count. At least thirty, though I got the feeling I was undershooting it.

I looked around the place. Most of the bullets looked as though they were fired at the same time. A few, though? Looked much more recent. "Seems like a big fight."

I made a move to head further forward, but was stopped by Mira. "I have a bad feeling about this… let's just- let's move in slow, okay?"

"Right." Insight wasn't triggering at all, so I didn't have a similar feeling. Still, probably best to listen to the resident combat expert. She had been training for most of her life to fight, so she definitely had a far better grasp than I did.

I moved forward, though slower to follow her request. I checked a few shells buried in dust. FSA bullets. They had clear munition markings across them. They were old too, I'd say about a decade. Definitely fit our time frame.

"I'd say the FSA." I crouched down and brought my flashlight a bit closer to the ground. There were splatters of blood, looking slightly fresh. "What do-"

"Look out!" Mira tackled me to the ground in the split second I felt the icy cool caress of Insight cover my body.

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