The rumbling's louder now, and it sounds like it's right behind us. I'm still sluggish from one of those darts the whirly things were throwing, not to mention all the tasings, but I guess I can still run quickly. We slid down a long incline; I think we're lower than we were when we entered.

Run.

Phoenix made his last stand, and I don't think he's going to rise from the ashes this time.

Running from whatever it is behind us, we slid into a four-meter drop. Phoenix landed badly; it looked like he tore something in his leg. He staggered away from the drop a bit, but when Partridge went to try to heal him, he waved him away. He told us to run, and to have a beer for him, and then he took his gun in hand and turned to wait. The last I saw of him, he was blasting away at something I couldn't see with a tentacle the size of my leg wrapped around his waist.

We're all shaken up. After managing so well since the botched run itself, we've lost two people in under half an hour. I don't know if any of us will live to see the exit, if there even is one. Up ahead, the hallway is a mess of flying razors, buzzsaws, and suspicious-looking holes, but we've got no choice unless we want to take our chances with whatever killed Phoenix.

Cardinal is saying a prayer for us, and for Phoenix and Raven.

Cardinal lost an arm. Partridge would have lost a head if it weren't for the blue glow he shielded himself with. He said, apologetically, that he'd never learned how to create it on anyone other than himself.

All these spells are taking it out of him. He can barely stand, but he bound Cardinal's stump and then did his thing. I want to tell him how much I appreciate all he's done, but this doesn't really seem to be the time. Hawk and I came through the blades mostly unscathed; a few scratches here and there, a slash just under my eye that's making it hard to see, but pretty much ok.

Hawk surprised me. He apologized to us for the fact that we're here, that he wanted to explore; he said he and Phoenix had thought that maybe the data we were after was hidden in a research bunker. He hadn't realized how far we'd gone.

That giant, tentacled thing has been hunting us now for hours. We dash from tunnel to tunnel, sometimes just centimeters away from the flailing tentacles, and we never seem to get away. It seems to be trying to herd us away from something, though… an exit?

Good stuff.. Im enjoying it a lot.

We can see it now. Past the groping horror, across a narrow catwalk over an unpleasant-looking writhing mass of metal, and through a set of sliding doors. Beyond is an employee lounge, stocked with coffee and donuts. Whoever built this maze has a sick sense of humor.

Less than thirty yards, but all of them in the open, and Cardinal and Partridge are in rough shape.

Hawk and I are going to try to draw the thing off while they cover the distance. Then we're going to run like hell for the door and pray.

I don't understand. It had me. That thing had its tentacle firmly wrapped around my leg, but as soon as my hand slapped the floor on the other side of the doors, it let go and slithered away into the darkness.

These are the best donuts I've ever eaten.

It's a good thing we didn't go through the door first. There was a group of people waiting outside, and in the state they were in, Cardinal and Partridge didn't fire on them immediately. They say that they're fighting against whoever has taken control of the Arcology. It's either a single person or a group masquerading as a single person, calling himself Deus. They don't know how he did all of this, but they say that people get let loose in that labyrinth pretty frequently, and that every so often someone like us makes it out again. We're the most heavily armed people they've seen come out, but we're also apparently the first group they've seen to have been attacked by "the guardian" on the way out and survive.

I'll try to feel honored.

I told the others today that if I buy it, take my head. I figure one of them should recover this journal. Seems a waste to let it go now.

They've got a regular village set up in one of the women's bathrooms here.

I guess it's to avoid the cameras. They cut a hole through to the men's bathroom and use that for its original purpose; in here, they've got a few bunks, a makeshift medical station, and some bunsen burners for food. There are maybe fifteen of them in all, four of whom met us coming out of the labyrinth.

They told us tales of the horrors they'd seen. Experiments on people, grafting strange contraptions to captured sararimen, trying to graft parts from animals onto people, endurance tests and damage resistance tests and pain resistance tests and more. They also told us about drones. Some, like the rolling ball-things and the spiders and the raccoons (they called them medusae, but they look like raccoons to me), we'd already seen. Others, like the tiny bumblebees with lethal stings, or the mechanical frogs with monowire tongues, or the electrifying walker in the shape of an ordinary hairbrush, we hadn't seen. There were even a few, like the shocking spheres and the spinning tops, that our hosts hadn't seen yet. They also told us about the blueyes, greeneyes, and whiteyes. The Banded, they called them, with bands on their arms to signify rank or something. Once good men and women (well, some of them anyway), this Deus has twisted them into creatures more drone than human. At least they're easy to identify.

They showed us pictures of one experiment subject they'd recovered. A girl, no more than six, with more metal than flesh now, peering out of an eye that was now slitted like a cat's. She had some scars that looked like bullet holes, and she was badly burned.

What kind of person could do this?

They asked us how we'd gotten in, but their disappointment was obvious when they found out that the way back out was blocked. Maybe with enough weaponry, but it's a long way down… they say we're high up, at least a hundred and fifty floors.

One of the things these people do is shuttle refugees down the arcology and out into the world. We've been asked to go down to the next floor to help guard a group on its way down. I'm not sure if we're up to helping on this one, but we told them that we'd help soon. This might be our way out of here.

It's been two days now. Cardinal seems to be doing much better now, thankfully; he took losing his arm well.

The four of us will be going down to join the caravan with a woman who calls herself Lily. The name rings a bell; I think she might have been a runner.

It's been what, maybe a week, but it feels like it was another life outside, a tale I was told long ago.

I never asked the girl serving ice-cream down by the park what her name was, or if she'd like to go to a movie with me. I never said goodbye to her.

Three scared sararimen, a traditional Japanese housewife, two kids, and an old man. We're clearly not going anywhere in a hurry.

Lily and Partridge are taking point, Hawk and I are covering the rear, and Cardinal is doing what he can to babysit the group itself. With a pistol in his one hand, he's probably worth the other seven in a fight, but it's our job to make sure it never gets to that.

One of the ball-things has been rolling after us for the past fifteen minutes, though it's been laying low since Hawk took a pot-shot at it.

Ooh, I can fulfill another childhood dream. "I have a bad feeling about this." No, wait, I already did that.

Word is that we've got four floors of safety before we have to leave this emergency stairwell and find another way down. A few floors below that, there's a group of refugees who've blasted a hole through the floor, so that'll get us another floor. Just like climbing down a ladder, one rung at a time.

Hawk talked with me for a while about why he runs. I didn't know he had a little brother in the hospital, or that he wanted to make enough money so that he could ask his girlfriend to marry him. I've met few more efficient killers. I guess there's a lesson about judging books by their covers here.

Still, when it comes down to it, are we redeemed? Sure, some of the people around me have noble causes, but that doesn't change the fact that they're still killing, stealing, maiming for a nuyen. Or were the people destined to die, the goods and data meant to be stolen or destroyed? But if that's the case, there's no point in thinking about it, because it won't change anything.

I guess it still comes down to what Cardinal said. If we're judged by our actions, we're screwed. If we're judged by our intentions, we might just have a chance. I w¶É·?¸N

Tuesday, August Seventh, King's Highway

The Legion is on the march again, towards the camp of the traitor Duke of Whitechapel. His army has pitched tent in the forests near Otter Ferry; if we can catch him before he crosses the river, we can trap and destroy his forces in their entirety, ending this civil war before it begins. Roger, our captain, is determined to deliver the Duke's head to the king within the week.

William warns us against overconfidence, however. The heresiarch Douglas Black Tree is with the Duke, and if he wields even a fraction of the foul sorceries attributed to him, we face a powerful foe.

Wednesday, August Eighth, Outside Otter Ferry

What manner of devilry is this? The very dead themselves have risen against us! John, second captain of the archers, was pulled beneath the ground by a groping hand; Peter, first captain, would have suffered the same fate were he not carrying his knife. Meanwhile, in the trees around us, the shambling dead wait to be returned to the ground. Slow they are, slow with death, but as numerous as the leaves on the trees. This is the work of Black Tree, I know it.

Goddamned AWESOME! Just don't stop the story. If this is a reflection of your GMing abbilities, I'm saving to buy an airticket ... and a shotgun in case you refuse to GM for me

Why thank you

~J

I'm also thoroughly enjoying the story as well, please keep it up.

I'm also passing this story to the players I've sent through the Arc, to show them what their adventure should have been like .

Thursday, August Ninth, Otter Ferry

In the face of the rising tide of walking dead, Roger has ordered us back to the town. Here, we prepare our defenses and hack to pieces any corpse that comes near. The townsfolk have begun evacuating across the river already; we plan to follow once they are safe.

Friday, August Tenth, Forest Outside Otter Ferry

It was less than three hours ago that Roger revealed his plan to us. While the main body of our forces retreats across the river to cover the escape of the townsfolk, a small band of men will make their way to the Duke's camp, there to slay him or die trying. I was one of the men selected to accompany the captain.

Thus far, we have evaded detection, or perhaps we are beneath the notice of the shambling corpses. I am burying this journal, in hopes that someone may find it if I die today.

If we fail, the combined armies of the King himself may not be enough to turn back this foe.

I'm so tired. We've been negotiating with the Furahama representatives for three days solid, and talks with ArtechderaCO are in danger of breaking down completely. Only Wutsu seem at all interested in dealing, and we're convinced that there's something they aren't telling us. We're squashing bugs as quickly as we can find them, but having to watch what we say, even in the shower, is really wearing on us. Sometimes I really wonder if this is all worth it.

No one wants to agree on pollution guidelines. The software divisions want ultra-tight controls so they can look good to the people, the manufacturing and heavy industries people would rather die than allow that, and the consumer goods folks can't decide on a balance between good PR and cheap production costs. And that's not even one of the big issues right now.

Everyone's got hired operatives crawling all over the place. So far everything's been surveillance, but it's only a matter of time until someone gets antsy and pulls a trigger or orders an extraction. This could easily turn into the bloodbath of the century.

I have to go. I have an appointment to try to drink a Russian under the table while negotiating an exchange of technology. If I survive the alcohol poisoning, I'll write more later.

Curse you, Red Baron!

Your maze, their maze, my maze.

One of those whirling things nailed me but good coming out of a stairwell. After that, I must have been picked up by the greeneyes. They've taken me and four others to a room filled with thin catwalks suspended over what looks like metal spikes far down below. There are weird things on the ceiling. Three people have already been sent in, one by one; the first two had catwalks give way underneath them, and the third dropped dead where he stood after trying to take it slowly. I think I saw one of those bee-things flying around him.

There goes the guy in front of me. It's my turn next.

The greeneyes showed no reaction to the screaming. I wonder if they removed their consciences with those cybereyes?

Ouch. He was doing pretty well at first, but then a catwalk gave way. He managed to twist around and grab the ledge behind him, but by the time he hauled himself up I think one of the bee-things got to him.

Time to go. Those spikes look painful…

I'm a lot more fit than I was before all of this. I haven't stopped running since I started back in that maze. I don't know how I managed to make it out; it almost felt like there was something, some sort of presence, guiding me. I'm probably just cracking from the strain.

I don't know how high up I am now, but it looks higher than I was. I've made my way down three floors and across most of the building; with luck, I'll be able to find an unguarded elevator before too much longer. If I find a service elevator, though, I think I'm going to pass it up.

Fuck. So close.

I'm sitting less than ten meters away from an elevator, but three of the raccoon-things are sitting directly in front of it. All I've got is my knife and my emergency bullet.

I think someone's coming out of the elevator.

It was a team of Red Samurai. A full team. The raccoons just tore them apart, though it left two of them dead (destroyed? I guess they're drones or something, but they act like they're alive) and one badly damaged enough that I managed to jump on its back and jam a knife into an important-looking bundle of wires. The damn thing still managed to open a slash from under my right eye up across the top of my head. An inch to the left and I'd be seeing monocular right now.

On the bright side, I now have weapons, an elevator (if a rather bloody one), and just maybe some sort of hope of getting down to join the others.

Shit. Shit. Shit. What have I done?

When the doors to the elevator slid open, I saw someone on the other side. I fired instinctively, I figured it was one of the raccoons or the top-things or the blueyes. It was a little girl, maybe five years old. Hell, she was even carrying a doll. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. What was she doing here?

I'm going to open my eyes. Maybe she won't be there. Maybe it'll be something else, a statue or something. Maybe I just imagined it.

Shit…

Maybe it's not such a bad thing. I mean, what kind of life could she have looked forward to in here? She probably would have been experimented on, just like that girl in the picture I saw. Or maybe she'd just get sent into one of those mazes. Or…

Fuck. I just want to die…

I hear gunshots nearby. Maybe it's the team.

God damn it all, I need to snap out of this. I'm not doing anyone any good like this.

…At least I'm not doing anyone any harm.

Gah. That's enough. I can at least do something to begin make up for it before I die.

It was them. I found Cardinal's body near the stairs with one of the sararimen. This damned building is chewing us up and spitting out the bones.

The sarariman had a gun in his hand. Guess he ended up doing something after all.

On another note, I started work yesterday, so this'll probably be getting posted more slowly on the weekdays. It'll just be worked on, though.

~J

It's good to be near someone I can trust again. Lily almost shot me on sight, but Hawk talked her out of it. God, I was so glad to see him alive I could have cried. Partridge was looking even more tired than before, but other than that he seemed ok. Three of us left now. Three out of our original team, and probably Sparrow as well. We were a big team, too. The three of us, Cardinal, Sparrow, Phoenix, Raven, Bluejay, Kite, Robin, Wren, Heron, that's what, twelve people? Twelve people, eight dead. I guess half of those were before we found that blasted door, though.

Lily says we have about a hundred floors to go. I think I'm going to go break down into tears now.

Thankfully, we're resting for a few hours. Partridge must be worse than he looks; he can barely stay standing. Hawk offered to cover me if I wanted to take a nap, so that's what I'm going to do.

Two floors in five hours, four of those spent trying to slip from room to room, praying that no one would walk in on us. The greeneyes are everywhere on these floors, and there are more than a few blueyes around, plus those weird kids. Whiteyes, I guess. Weird thing is, they seem to be giving the orders around here. Maybe it's some kind of experiment like that book from the turn of the century, Ender's Game or something?

What I wouldn't give for a silenced weapon.

Less than half a day after gunning down a little girl in cold blood, and I'm already wishing I had better killing tools. Who was it making comments about people without consciences earlier?

Is that a dog? I think it's a dog. Or at least was. It's got enough metal to be a drone. Hell, it's got enough metal to be two drones. There's a leopard next to it that looks innocent enough, but next to that dog, there's no way in hell I'm tangling with it. Bloody thing probably has more wires than this building.

On a run once, I saw an experiment. An ordinary housecat with an advanced move-by-wire system implanted into it. They released four German Shepherds into a cage with it. This cat was at most a quarter their size, and it tore them apart in seconds.

Thank God! After more floors of greeneyes and blueyes than I ever wanted to see, we're getting back into some less populated territory. I think we spent close to an entire day getting through that, and by day I mean a full twenty-four hours. We're looking for a quiet spot so we can get some sleep. We've still got some Long Haul we never used, but we're saving it until we're closer to the bottom; at this rate, it could easily take us more than the five or so days a single dose lasts to get down. Lily said our destination was the fourth subbasement and the Ork Underground, but after talking to another refugee—they call themselves the "Resistance" in proper dramatic fashion—she's considering going out under an opening in one of the barriers in the B2 garage, and from there to I-5.

We've been running low on food again. Hopefully there's something on this floor we can scrounge.

Partridge looks a lot better now. Well, relatively speaking. Ok, he looks like drek, but that's a lot better than he was.

We're walking down a giant spiral staircase that I'm pretty damn sure wasn't originally here. It's hard to walk on, feels almost as if it's sliding out from under us. Sure seems to go down a long way…

Over half an hour spent riding a giant fucking corkscrew. I don't know how it works, and I don't want to know. How could it have taken us that long to realize that we weren't going anywhere?

I'm sick and fucking tired of this building, of all the petty little annoyances. Some sick motherfucker is out there laughing at us dealing with all his drek, laughing at every mistake we make. I can feel his eyes on me.

I want to rip his eyes out and feed them to him.

What's happening to me?

One of the greeneyes stumbled on us. I didn't even fire, I just leapt on him and started pummeling. A minute later when Hawk pulled me off, the body was barely recognizable. I'm high-strung, on edge; I can't even tell if I'm going to snap like that again.

I just want to get out of here… I want out I want out I want out I want out I want out…

Fucking Renraku. Fucking Arcology. Stupid motherfucking sewers…

Fuck. We lost one of the kids to a sentry turret near an elevator. We were walking up to it, when the thing pops out of the ceiling and just fills his body full of lead. We nailed it quickly, but the kid was long gone. The thing tore him to pieces.

I kept waiting for Cardinal to say a quick prayer, but Cardinal's dead too. Partridge's eyes look dead inside.

We came out of the elevator into a hydroponics facility. It's not the same one we'd been in before; Lily said it was probably either the seventy-first or fifty-first floor.

I wish I knew how far the elevators took us. Or why they take us where they do, for that matter. We just get in them and bam, we're off. No touchscreen, no displays, just automatic delivery to a destination, probably by some remnant of deranged traffic-routing software. It'd be a lot more convenient if we could just take the elevator all the way down, but that'd probably be too easy.

I guess I should look on the bright side. This is the most fresh produce I'll be eating for a long, long time.

We're much lower than we thought! Lily says this means we're probably on the twenty-first floor! We just might make it out of here.

Back to scrambling around inside elevator shafts.

Some of the Blueyes caught sight of us while we were waiting for the elevator, so Hawk and I went to draw them off while the others headed down. We can see it below; I think we may have gone all the way to the ground.

My God. The ground floor. I know I've said it before, but I never expected to be this close to freedom again.

We're following the signs to the parking garage, but it sounds like there's a gunfight over in that direction. There are also some hungry-looking critters eyeing us from the underbrush…

Story on brief hiatus while my laptop gets a replacement keyboard. Should be back by Friday at the latest.

~J

Shit shit shit. Got my left arm shredded up pretty badly by something that looked like a koala with a bad attitude that nailed me from above. We managed to shoot it before it got my throat, but now anyone in the area knows we're here.

I never, ever want to be running for my life with an old man and two kids again. They're too damn slow, but what can you do? The elevator doors closed before they managed to hit anything, at least. It was the motherfucking UCAS military after us.

Sub-basement two, and then I never want to see this building again. Maybe I'll move to Denver, where it's quiet.

We've fought most of our way across the parking garage, but the exit is crammed tight with cars and pieces of car. We've got raccoons, tops, monofrogs, shockspheres, spiders, and a few old-fashioned flying machine guns for good measure all on our tail.

Hawk and I are going to try to hold them off long enough for the others to get out.

>>>>>Thrush gave his life in a valiant attempt to save the lives of the refugees and his teammates. He held the sea of drones at bay for nearly a minute before having his head removed by a Medusa claw; I managed to retrieve the head after the fighting died down. When I left the building, I found that the refugees had walked onto several of the mines lining the onramp to I-5. I dragged Partridge out, but he died of his injuries. Lily's body was barely recognizable. I was the only survivor. Do you know what it's like to dig your nearly-dead friend out from under the corpses of a housewife, an old man, and two children?

Remember Thrush. Remember Phoenix. Remember them all. Many of you out there hate Aztechnology, and not without reason, but I cannot think of a single organization which has so wantonly endangered the lives of ordinary people on such a grand scale as whoever shut down the Arcology. The word on the street says Fuchi, though now there are rumors that a rogue Expert Program being developed by Renraku was responsible. We will find out, and we will let you know who is to blame. I urge all of you, hurt that organization as much as you can. As often as you can. We will bring them down, we will do to them what they did to us. They are going down. They are so fucking dead.

We will have vengeance.<<<<<

>Hawk<

Fin

Well. Comments? Constructive/destructive criticism? Urging for me to do it again sometime? Demands that I never utter such monstrosities again?

Seriously, though, I'd love some feedback. Stuff you liked or didn't like, etc. I'll also get to work on making those drones.

~J

Bravo!! Just, bravo!!

More! More!! More!!!

Awesome. Utterly wonderful. I've been checking the board every couple hours for a week so that I could find out 'what happens next' as soon as you put out another chapter. I would strongly encourage you to write another if you ever get the inclination, as it was the best piece of fan fiction I've read in a long long time.

I especially liked the early stuff in the sewers. You really brought the atmosphere to life, grim hoplessness and fear, and a sense that everyone was in way over their heads but couldn't do anything about it. If I could deliver a quarter of that intensity to a gaming session it would be the best I'd ever GM'd.

Echo the best fan fic I've read in a loooooooooong time!

Really well done. Every time I logged on to DSF since you started the story, I was looking forward to reading the next installment.

As far as criticisms, I do have one: I kinda felt that you left the plot thread concerning the anachronistic/strange journal entries hanging. Did he have his headware memory linked to an internal radio? For a while I wasnt sure if he was really still plugged into a zombie room, with the "escape" being an illusion, or whether Deus was hacking his brain, or whether his mind was just a little broken. Mainly, I would have liked to see a more definitive resolution concerning what was going on in thar regard after he was rescued.

By far one of the best fanfics I've read in a long, long time. Great job!