There was unease in the air as the contingent of guards made their way towards the guest wing of the Keel. Admiral Broadsen wasn’t taking any chances with whatever monster he was dealing with, it pained him to do so but he had also brought half a dozen hybrids with him. They were always a volatile bunch but blind love for their king had kept them in check, now that he had been sent off to the capital, the hybrids were getting restless. Part of him had hoped to enlist Phi, the zealot was a bit on the preachy side, but overall he was good at controlling his inner demons.
Shame the man had disappeared from the medical wing.
They arrived at the door, the guards assembling on either side of it as they readied their weapons. Broadsen commanded the door to open, it argued for a moment about privacy before he gave the necessary commands to override the privacy settings. The door slid open begrudgingly, revealing the lone object of note in the room; a coffin.
The now deceased diplomat of the Wrymblood’s had brought this large box with him as his ‘protection’. A lot of good that did him. If the man’s words were to be believed, there was an extremely dangerous hybrid inside; kept asleep for its own and everyone else's safety. The other members of the Cabal had refused to take the coffin back with them to the Flotilla, stating that should the inhabitant wake up in transit there would be little they could do to stop its rampage without its brother.
That left the Coast in an awkward position. They couldn’t leave it alone, there was no telling when it would awaken. The thought had occurred to Broadsen to simply throw the coffin into the ocean, but aside from the moral reasons, he feared that whatever was inside would be only mildly annoyed at such an effort. No, this was the best solution he had come to. There was no telling how much longer the hybrid inside would sleep without Vauhn to watch over it, so it was best to rip the bandage off, get it over with while it was on their terms.
Broadsen stepped into the small room, he gestured to the hybrids that were under his command. Without a word the six monstrous individuals made their way in, encircling the coffin as they readied themselves for whatever was inside. With a deep breath Broadsen reached down towards the chains and clasps that held the box shut. His dead hand glowed as he rapidly oxidized the steel chains, rust quickly spreading and eating at the metal until it crumbled to dust. He readied his hands to open the coffin, looking one last time in the eyes of the assembled hybrids, each of whom nodded slightly.
Pulling aside the lid with a jolt, Broadsen prepared himself for whatever horror was awaiting him. The lid crashed to the metal floor. He readied his sidearm, but came to a halt midway as he looked inside the box. The coffin was filled to the brim with obscene machinery that looked more organic than artificial, various runes and sigils lined every inch of the box's interior, the inside was filled with a milky liquid that reeked of decay. There, in the middle of the mass of wires and tubes and undulating plastics, was a horned man, at least, Broadsen thought it was a man. Everything but its face was covered in the viscous liquid, its mouth and nose obscured by tubes and wires.
The hybrids looked towards Broadsen with uncertainty. He wasn’t much better, his mouth hung open in shock at the nightmarish contents of the coffin. Before he could speak, the eyes of the man in the box shot open. They darted back and forth rapidly, he seemed to be trying to move his head but there was a clamp in the back of his skull holding him in place. The man met Broadsen’s eyes and he could see the absolute terror in them. The pleading for help. Some machine inside the coffin seemed to sense that its victim was awake, there was a monotone voice that emitted from the nest of machinery. “CARDIAC ARREST DETECTED, STABILIZING.” The viscous liquid was just clear enough to see small insect-like arms unfold from the depths of the coffin, each arm had a different unsettling attachment. It wasted no time cutting open the man’s chest, blood quickly mixing into the murky waters as it a series of drills and blades got to work making a hole in the poor man’s rib cage.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
A moment later the man’s heart was floating in front of his own chest, the small arms of the coffin began to massage the heart back into rhythm as the arms injected various chemicals into the man. As the heart seemed to return to a normal beat, the coffin quickly returned it to the waiting chest cavity, there was a flurry of activity from the insectoid limbs as they made short work of repairing man’s chest, they were so precise that despite knowing where they had operated, Broadsen couldn’t see any signs of the procedure.
“Fuck!” Broadsen shouted. He turned back to the waiting guards. “We need a medical team. Send for Abigail and Master Bran as well!” He turned back to the coffin.
What the fuck was going on.
It had taken Abigail an hour to be sure that the arcane markings on the box weren’t some kind of trap, and another two grueling hours for Bran and his engineers to try and make sense of how best to release the boxes captive. Mercifully the doctors were there to monitor the man and make sure the coffin didn’t need to resuscitate him again. Broadsen was right that the poor soul had been a man, and judging by the horns, slit eyes, and the slight scales on the man's body, he was a Wyrmblood. There was something familiar about that man, though he couldn’t seem to place why.
They had the man on a gurney as they double checked to ensure that removing him wouldn’t trigger any other surprises from the hellbox.
Broadsen was in the middle of speaking to his captains when he heard the man begin to stir. The doctors were quick to ready some more sedatives, there was no telling how the man would react after being trapped in that, ‘thing’. The man opened his eyes, looking around the room in confusion. When he spoke his voice was raspy and quiet. “Where am I?”
Moving to his side, Broadsen spoke gently. “You are safe, you are in the capital of the Black Coast. Can you tell us your name?”
Blinking for a moment, the man responded. “The Coast? Yes, that’s right, I was supposed to be sent there as a representative of the Cabal. But, but, I was attacked by something.” The panic was starting to creep back into his voice, the doctors primed to step in.
Raising a hand for the doctors to wait, Broadsen pushed again. “What is your name?”
“My name, my name is Vauhn Brimrock.” The man was starting to hyperventilate, he sobbed gently as he began to thrash around. “I remember answering the door on the eve of the trip, I saw it! The thing turned to me, it was wearing my own face! It smiled with my own smile!” Vauhn began to scream, a blood curdling, primal scream from the depths of his soul. The doctors cursed as they sedated Vauhn and tried to hold him down while he howled in anguish.
Broadsen turned away, walking back into the corridor. There was something foul about this whole situation, how had a Faceless made its way through all of their security? How had the Ono, their archenemy, not realized that there was such a creature right next to them? Why bring a coffin with the person you are impersonating with you across the continent?
Rubbing his forehead, Broadsen sighed. Troubling times were on the horizon, it felt like the whole world stood united against the Black Coast.
