Meltdown

Trevor turned to Jakub & replied, "That one is easy. They were massacred. No radio contact has been attempted. No word sent back, nothing. This entire sector has gone dark. It's obvious that any & all of the search parties & Eradication Units are dead. Or worse." Trevor turned back to the large building, sweeping across it with his eyes. "personally, I'd have preferred taking our chances with the Ulfkin."

Tim felt it was time to chime in, "Well, if they welded this door shut from the outside, they pretty obviously wanted to keep something in. There are two prime varibles in that equation, the first being what they wanted to contain and the second being who 'they' were. If we solve one, the other may become more apparent. So, did this guard unit have the equipment to meld the gap between two halves of a huge steel door?"

"All you need is a concentrated fire from more than one Crusader flamethrowers." Responded the Inquisitor.
"However, if they were able to contain it, why would the city still be affected? Well, there is only one way to check for sure."
He rose, and pointed to a small opening in the wall, well above the main door, solidly fortified by steel plates.
"See that? I'm pretty sure one of us could fit in there. We could probably figure out a way to climb it, too. Inside, there should be a control panel that opens up an emergency hatch on the side of the Halls. I can take you there... but you don't need to go with me. I just ask for your help with opening the side hatch, you don't have to follow me inside. Whatever it is, it's probably very fucking dangerous."

Trevor scoffed. "Whatever beast that lies in wait in this fortress would devour a single squire. No, you get to take the whole squad." He put specific sarcasm on the word "squad". Really, a tiny scientist, a pyromaniac tree fucker (Let Odin sort that one out), a Inquisitor in training, & an entirely too brazen Norseman are going to just waltz in, storm the castle, & save the world? He chuckled. This was amusing, if nothing else.

"Yes, I am a squire. But I have enough experience and training to stand my ground against many threats up close. You can't say that about my knowledge and skill in using firearms, which is close to none. But we are again drifting away into meaningless talk, and wasting our time. I'd suggest we start acting."
Jakub turned towards the scientist. "You better get ready to climb."
The young Inquisitor took the silver-encrusted crucifix off his neck. He grabbed it with both his hands, and twisted it. Two sharp hooks extended from the base of it, giving the cross a shape of a makeshift anchor.
"Now... we just need a rope."

Trevor dug into the ammo box, & found what he was looking for. He pulled out an ammo belt for one of the larger speed shooters, & threw it to Jakub. It landed squarely at his feet. He then said, "I'll be damned to Nifelheim before I take all of those bullets out, but that should be sturdy enough."

"Good enough." Said the Inquisitor, attaching the ammo belt to the chain of his cross with a clever use of two or three loops and knots.
He stood back, aiming at the small opening above him, and swung the resulting climbing device couple of times before releasing it. The crucifix anchor landed right in the firing slit. The Inquisitor tested it, it was sturdy enough, before holding it towards the scientist suggestively.

Tim could honestly say that he had never climbed into a sealed off church potentially filled with zombies on a belt of ammunition before, but there was a first for everything, especially in this world. He wrapped both hands around the makeshift rope, the tips of the bullets on one side digging into his hand and the backsides screwing with his traction. Once he found a passable handhold, Tim began his ascension, focusing mainly on using his arms to pull himself upwards, his legs were pactically dead weight without something wide enough to push up off of, so he just wrapped them around the belt and tried to gain some traction upward with them. This delicate and surely unconventional process repeated itself until it found the young scientist to the top, his destination. He was somewhat surprised by how quickly he had reached it, and looked inside the unholy building. Darkness. He help off on his urge to shine his flashlight beam in there, decided to wait for Jakub to ascend. For now, he made sure the grappling hook/cross was secure and signalled the Inquisitor to mount the rope.

"None of us will fit in this firing slit. In an emergency, this room should be sealed off from the rest of the building. You'll find controls to a hatch leading out of the room, and out of the building. If you open it for us, we can climb and meet you there." Replied the Inquisitor.
"Can you do it?" he added. "The worst thing you can find in that little room is a dead guard. But I doubt it.".

"Or maybe some bowels splattered across the walls. Nothing quite like organic paint." Trevor adjusted his Back rig. He didn't like waiting at the gates like this. It was a coward's job, really. Still, it gave him time to think about who was behind this. It wasn't the Satanists, he now knew that. No way that pack of cowards could possess Ulfs. It just wasn't possible, even if they got up the nerve, the astral energy projected by their spells couldn't amass anywhere near the requirement for that task. He had a basic theory on who was behind this, but he prayed to Odin he was wrong.

"Okay, will do." Tim replied to the rest of the group with security in his voice. He figured the task was simple enough. With a click his flashlight shone in a wide arc all throughout the room, finding nothing blatantly out of place, no bowels strewn upon the walls. He went down into the room and looked back up to the window where he had entered, warm firelight shone through, casting its orange beam upon the opposite wall at an angle. He kept the flashlight on, looking for a control panel. Bingo, off to the left of where he stood. He went towards it, a simple steel item that protruded from the floor, a few buttons on it with their individual purposes abbreviated on their surfaces. A few moments spent examining individual buttons in turn, until he found one that said clearly: 'EMRG HATCH RELEASE' in simple white letters. He double checked, to make sure it said what he thought it said, then pushed it without further hesitation. Another moment passed, and the sound of pneumatic levers hissing and gears turnng. The hatch eased back from the wall it inhabited, resting itself upon the ground. The warm orange firelight shone through there, too.

"Excellent. Now, everyone... follow me." Said the Inquisitor, walking up to a part of the wall in which the emergency tunnel opened. He turned his gaze up, towards the brightly lit tunnel leading straight to the room where the scientist was now. Not saying a word, Jakub started climbing it. First thing he did when he reached the top, and ascended onto the floor was to check the small space for danger. There was none. The door was shut, a textbook emergency procedure. "You've done well." he nodded his head at Tim as a display of respect. Not wasting his time on awaiting the others, the Inquisitor walked up to the firing slit and pulled back his crucifix, as well as the young viking's ammo belt. He quickly twisted the cross back to normal mode and hung it on his neck.

Trevor hefted his burden & began to patrol the building, looking for this emergency hatch the Inquisitor spoke of. "C'Mon, witch." He stated plainly. "We haven't much time." He had begun to realize something. The little one feared him, he could smell it. How odd. Everyone seemed to fear the Norse Men, but they hadn't waged war on much of anyone in the Sector, they always waged war with the surrounding area. Word got out, he supposed. He finally found what he was looking for. A large, broad, steel plated door, it looked like he rotated on it's axis to open. "Hurry the fuck up.", he found himself muttering.

The Inquisitor waited patiently for everyone to regroup in the small guard room. When the young pyromaniac finally reached the top of the ladder and stood up in the room, the Inquisitor closed the hatch with a single press of a button. "Now we know no one is going to bite our asses. This Hall is huge. Behind this door, we will find ourselves in a fucking labyrinth of corridors, rooms, doors. The Hall is shaped like a fish. It's divided into 7 sections, 7 floors each. We are on the second floor, in the tail, the living quarters for the poorest. The center of the building is called the eye. It goes 7 floors up, and also around 500 feet underground, where it spreads into some top secret bullshit. I'd say that is what we are looking for."
He walked up to the door leading from the guard room into the rest of the mammoth of a building.
"So... everyone ready?"

Tim nodded his consent, though he wasn't entirely sure whether or not he actually was ready. Nonetheless, he brought his rifle to bear, the one Trevor had called a speed shooter. He reached with his supporting hand into his waistband to find his flashlight. "Wait just a second, I have to do something." He reached into his backpack's side pocket and took out one of the bandages Jakub had given to him, took a knee and set the rifle atop his horizontally facing thigh. He laid the flashlight alongside it on his thigh, took the bandage and tied the flashlight to the foregrip of the rifle, where he could reach the switch quicly but not where it would interfere with his grip. He made sure the bandage held it snugly and tightly, using a clean, low profile knot to finish off the bond. He aimed it off to a distant wall and clikced the light on. The wall shone brightly, the shadow of where the foregirp and the barrel obstructed the beam showing fuzzily. He clicked it back off, turned to the door and nodded again. "Okay, I'm ready."

Trevor chuckled to himself slightly. "You forgot something, scientist." He shifted the bandages away from the clockworks in the grip. "Had ye left it there, your bandages would be caught in the gears eventually, & you'd lose your torch. Remember, most of our weapons work differently than your trash." He once more adjested his rigging, & began to trek into the depths of the halls. "You girls coming or.." He stopped walking, eyes transfixed. "Odin's Beard...", he murmured. "You might want to erm...take a look at this."

"My name's Tim, asshole," Tim responded in a low murmur, "and much as I appreciate your help, I think we'd all much prefer it if you weren't such an elitist prick about everything. We understand you're a big warrior, you won't let us forget it, now act like we, too, are capable fighters, because we are." He had snapped, but better now than in the middle of a battle. Tim then clicked on the flashlight and wandered over to where Trevor stood, aiming it at something he couldn't readily identify.

Trevor continued to eye his surroundings. What a fucking mess, this was. The room was perfectly spherical, carved out of beautiful white marble, complete with several statues of the Christian saviour in all of his humble poses. Seemed ironic to Trevor, considering how much that "humble" pose must have cost. It didn't really matter much, though. Not with all the blood & insides swashed along the place. Worse still, it seemed someone had been trying to clean the place up without actually cleaning the place up, leaving the edge of the room filled with excess gore & organs, with red smears covering the floor throughout. Trevor knelt, looking very closely at the mess. The Christians used powder firearms mostly, so if there had been a battle, there would be residue in the mess. No such luck, what in Odin's name happened here? He stood & looked at the wall. Too dark to make out. "Alright then, Timothy, may I see that rifle?"

"That won't be necessary." Said Jakub, quickly walking up to the middle statue, kicking away the piece of gut that stood in his way. He reached his hand towards the pedestal, swiftly flipping a light switch. The room bathed in light, providing them with an even better picture of the horrific massacre. "Christians might be using black powder firearms, but they still are civilized enough to have electricity.", added the Inquisitor. The large round room was surrounded by seven doors, including the one they just went through. "All of those doors" he spoke again "lead to different guard rooms, just like the one we came through. All except one. It leads further inside of the Halls" He pointed at a door directly in front of them.
Through the most unfortunate circumstances, the back up generator powering up the lights in the room stopped working.
The massacre surrounding them got swallowed by impenetrable darkness once again.
There was only one sound.
The cavalry saber, coming out of its sheath.

"They come!", Shouted the Viking. His burden hit the ground, the sound resonating through the hall. He drew his axe from it's holster, looking towards the doors leading to the hall. The doors groaned. A splinter broke off the door, & it gave one final groan before falling to the door, broken into pieces. Through the void in which it stood, several glowing, yellow shapes could be seen. "Undead.", the Viking stated. "We should never have come here. We've sealed our grave." He brought his pistol to bear on the horde, & fired.

Trevor's shot echoed loudly through the nearly acoustically perfect spherical room. An instant after the gun fired, the sound of a bullet connecting with rotten biomatter. The zombies were oddly bioluminescnet, an anomaly that might warrant further study, or dismissal considering current company. Tim was thankful for not having to give his position away sighting them in with his flashlight, and that the Vikings had been considerate enough to put reflector tape on the rifle's sights for night combat. He targeted the undead corpses individually, aiming for what remained of the intact brain to put the bastards out of comission for good, downing each with a shot or two. Upon reloading, Tim briefly turned on the flashlight strapped to his gun and pointed it around the room. There were many mor ehe hadn't seen, many more who hadn't been glowing. Some even had swords that they were aimlessly flailing about. Tim decided it would be best to keep the light on, it seemed to daze the horde and it merited substantial visual benefits. It was a necessary risk. Again he began targeting individual zombies in turn

"Sealed our grave? Are you giving up already?" roared the Inquisitor, his back turned towards the statue in the middle, waiting for the undead to pass next to him, as he did not want to charge into the group and possibly get killed by his frantically firing comrades. When the Trevor had to take a quick break and reload his pistol, he allowed the undead to come closer. That was something that Jakub was waiting for.
A perfect cut of his saber went through the dead's arm and skull, the rotten flesh and bone provided no defense against the damascene steel. He prepped his arm for another swing, this time a backhand, that sliced through the undead's jaw. The Inquisitor's movements with the blade were graceful and deadly accurate, as he gave Trevor enough time to reload his pistol by taking down the undead one after another, every slash cutting the decaying skulls horizontally or diagonally in half. As soon as the Norseman resumed the carnage, Jakub leaned towards the other side of the statue, where Tim was spraying the undead with a warm rain of lead from his repeater. The Inquisitor waited patiently for the scientist to run out of bullets.
He did, and the saber danced.
Soon, the walking dead were tripping on their own fallen brethren.
But that did not stop them a bit.

"Giving up? Odin's beard, no. But they might have a thing or two to say to us." He was referring to the beings advancing quickly through the Horde. They were called Wolves, though they were something far, far, worse. Being comprised of dead predators held together by tendrils of darkness, their eyes glistened with hate-filled red. Crimson red. Blood red. They moved with unnatural speed, but in reality were of little use in a fight. Still, scary as shit & evil as Hell. Trevor swung the Axe & fired his pistol, beheading an undead legionnaire & grazing one of the wolves. His Axe's weight was becoming glaringly obvious, so he sheathed it, drawing the impromptu sword from the Berserker fight out of the weapon box. It swung mercilessly, cutting down several of the mindless horde, sending limbs sprawling. He fired upon the Wolves once more, & once more he missed. By the Gods, they were fast. If they couldn't close the distance, this could end poorly.

The Inquisitor was quick to pick up on the young Norseman's plan. The wolves were almost impossible to hit from a distance. He had to be the one who closes it. Putting all of his faith in his comrades aim, he darted from behind the column, swinging his weapon at the zombie in front of him, making the upper piece of a rotten skull fly in the air.
That was his last obstacle. Now the only thing that mattered was the crimson monstrosity.
He ran forward, ducking, as Taylor and the scientist barraged the zombies with bullets, getting them out of the Inquisitor's way. He finally stood in fron of the beast. Standing nearly as tall as him, the canine was a horrible abomination, with a grotesquely distorted snout, both eyes on the front, one above the other. The wolf growled, showing it's shining, razor sharp teeth.
Stance.
Excitement left Jakub as he stood in a perfect defensive pose, with one hand behind his back, and the blade of the saber diagonally protecting his front.
The Inquisitor took a deep breath, as the wolf prepared itself for a deadly pounce.
Claws, talons and steel flashed as the beast flew past him, the Catholic successfully sidestepping all but one paw, and delivering a quick backhand slash at the leaping beast. The giant talons ripped into the man's side, leaving four shallow gashes, that quickly soaked his t shirt in blood.
The leaping creature collapsed heavily on the ground. The upper portion of it's head fell right next to it a moment after, with a loud splat as the creature's brain spilled on the richly decorated floor.
"One down..." grunted the Inquisitor, grabbing his bleeding side with his free hand.

"Five to go." Finished the Viking, darting gracefully (Okay, debatable) in front of the inquisitor, quickly firing off three more shots, one of which grazed a beast, the other two were fairly useless for anything but spooking them. Shit, that left him with two shots left. Finally, the foremost beast leapt through the air, it's face raw with hatred, it's scent filling Trevor's lungs...and leaving his underside completely exposed. So much for psychological warfare. At about two feet away as the beast was sailing, Trevor raised his pistol & fired the last two rounds, separating it into two pieces. Slowly, the crimson faded, & the endless movement of the tendrils slowed out as the dissipated. At the rate they were currently killing these things, they would be very, very dead soon.