The wind off the Atlantic had teeth again.
It tore across the Scottish island in long, relentless gusts, flattening grass and rattling the canvas of newly erected tents. The ring stood where they had left it months before—dark, silent, and somehow diminished now that it was no longer theirs alone.
Where once there had been a handful of crates and improvised equipment, there were now rows.
Ordered. Numbered. Catalogued.
Men moved with purpose—some in the familiar coats of the Society, others in the sharper, more uniform attire of Merick & Co.. The difference between them was immediate, visible in posture as much as dress.
One group prepared.
The other managed.
Nate stood just outside the ring, watching as a team checked connections along the lens apparatus. It had been rebuilt, reinforced—refined into something less experimental and more… industrial.
Andrea joined him, her coat pulled tight against the wind.
“It feels different,” she said.
“That’s because it is.”
Across the clearing, a man with a clipboard was speaking briskly to a cluster of workers, gesturing toward stacked crates marked with alphanumeric codes rather than handwritten notes.
Clive Baxter.
Merick’s appointed Expedition Manager.
Nate had taken an immediate dislike to him.
“You ready?” Andrea asked.
Nate glanced at her, then back at the ring.
“No,” he said.
“Good,” she replied. “That would worry me.”
The activation came without ceremony.
No quiet awe. No shared anticipation.
Just a sequence of checks, a signal, and the low, rising hum of the device coming to life.
The air within the ring shimmered.
Stabilised.
Held.
“Proceed,” Baxter said, not even looking up from his notes.
The first group moved through—Merick personnel, naturally.
Then the Society followed.
Nate and Andrea stepped through together.
Aesculon greeted them with heat.
Heavy. Immediate. Alive.
The jungle pressed close, the air thick with scent and sound. For a brief moment—just a moment—it felt like before.
Then Nate saw the camp.
Or what remained of it.
“What the hell—”
Crates lay split open, their contents scattered or missing entirely. Wooden panels had been torn apart, not carefully opened but broken, splintered as though by force.
Equipment they had abandoned in their haste—what little had been left behind—was either gone or ruined.
And everywhere—
Footprints.
Bare.
Human.
Dozens of them.
Layered over one another in the soft earth, circling the site, cutting through it, leading off into the jungle in multiple directions.
Andrea stepped forward slowly, scanning the ground. “These aren’t ours.”
“No,” Nate said quietly. “They’re not.”
Around them, the rest of the expedition emerged—and with them came the shift.
Voices, low at first.
Then sharper.
“What happened here—?”
“Were we followed?”
“Those tracks—there are too many—”
A few of the Society members began to edge back toward the ring.
“I’m not staying here,” one of them said. “Not if—whatever did this is still—”
“Then you should reconsider your position.”
The voice cut cleanly through the rising tension.
Baxter.
He stepped forward, flanked by two Merick associates, a thin sheaf of papers in his hand.
“You are contractually obligated to fulfil your roles within this expedition,” he continued, his tone cool, almost bored. “Withdrawal at this stage would constitute breach.”
The effect was immediate.
Shock.
Then anger.
“You can’t be serious—” someone snapped.
“We just walked into—into this—”
“And you signed,” Baxter replied, tapping the papers lightly. “Which means you stay.”
The jungle seemed to close in further.
Nate felt it—the shift from fear into something sharper.
Resentment.
“Enough,” Winfield said firmly, stepping forward. “We will assess the situation before—”
“You will proceed as directed,” Baxter interrupted. “Assessment is part of that process.”
Alexandros swore under his breath.
But no one moved back toward the gate.
Not now.
Not with the threat hanging over them.
Camp was re-established.
Quickly.
Efficiently.
And with a line drawn straight through its centre.
On one side—the Society. Smaller tents. Familiar equipment, what little of it remained.
On the other—Merick. Larger structures. Reinforced storage units. Ordered, controlled.
Separate.
Deliberately so.
Nate stood at the edge of the clearing as Baxter approached, that same sheaf of papers in hand.
“Assignments,” Baxter said, handing them over.
Nate didn’t take them.
Baxter sighed, as though inconvenienced, and flipped through the pages himself.
“Dr. Nathaniel Chase,” he read. “You’ll be assisting with general labour. Transport, handling, and—”
Nate’s expression hardened. “I’ll be doing no such thing.”
Baxter didn’t even look up. “It’s been approved.”
“By whom?”
A pause.
Then, with faint satisfaction:
“Edmund Dash. Director of Research and Development.”
There it was.
Not implication.
Not suspicion.
Truth.
Andrea stepped forward. “And me?”
Baxter glanced at another page. “Medical support. Separate quarters.”
Nate turned sharply. “No.”
Baxter blinked, finally looking at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
Baxter gave a thin smile. “These arrangements are not open to negotiation, Dr. Chase.”
Nate stepped forward, closing the distance in a single movement, and snatched the papers from Baxter’s hand.
“They are now.”
Before Baxter could react, Nate tore them cleanly in half.
Then again.
The fragments fell at Baxter’s feet.
“She’s not Nurse Meaner anymore,” Nate said, voice low and controlled. “And she won’t be treated like an asset you can reassign at will.”
A beat.
“My wife and I will be staying in the same tent.”
The words landed heavily.
Andrea didn’t correct him.
Didn’t soften it.
Baxter stared at the torn papers, then back at Nate, something colder settling into his expression.
“You seem to misunderstand the structure of this expedition.”
Winfield stepped in before it could escalate further.
“That’s enough,” he said firmly. “Dr. Chase is a founding member of the Hermes Society. A Council member. He will not be treated as hired labour.”
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the Society group.
Even those who had signed.
Even those who were afraid.
Baxter let the silence stretch.
Then, slowly, he reached into his case and withdrew something larger.
Much larger.
A thick, bound document.
He held it up.
“I anticipated… resistance,” he said.
The pages were crisp. Official. Heavy with ink and authority.
“The agreement between the Hermes Society and Merick & Co.,” Baxter continued. “Ratified prior to this expedition.”
He opened it.
Flipped to a marked section.
And read.
“Operational control of all expeditionary activities, personnel assignments, and resource management shall reside exclusively with Merick & Co.”
The words seemed to echo.
Winfield’s expression tightened.
Alexandros went very still.
Nate didn’t move.
“This,” Baxter said, tapping the page, “is not a Society expedition.”
He closed the document with a soft, final sound.
“It is ours.”
The jungle pressed in.
The footprints at the edge of camp seemed suddenly closer.
And for the first time since stepping back onto Aesculon—
It wasn’t the world beyond the trees that felt like the greatest threat.
It was the one they had brought with them.
The Hermes Society
Moderators: Podmore, arcanus, Otto
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Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
Field Journal of Dr. Nathaniel Chase
Aesculon Expedition — Second Phase
Day 3
I have chosen, it seems, to become inconvenient again.
Despite the clear “assignments” laid out by Edmund Dash and enforced by Merick & Co., I have not confined myself to hauling crates like a dock worker.
Instead, I have gone where I am of actual use.
Into the jungle.
With the explorers—those of the Society who still remember why we came here in the first place.
We have already identified several new specimens. One vine exhibits remarkable regenerative properties when applied to damaged tissue. Another flowering plant appears to suppress infection more effectively than anything currently in our pharmacopoeia.
Discoveries.
Actual discoveries.
And yet, each time I return—
The jungle is smaller.
Day 4
They are cutting it back.
Not cautiously. Not respectfully.
Systematically.
Sections of forest cleared to bare earth. Markers driven into the ground. Frameworks erected for structures that do not belong here.
The “collection facility” is no longer theoretical.
It is being built.
The sound of it carries—axes, saws, the unnatural rhythm of industry imposed upon something that had never known it.
Even the air feels different near the site.
Thinner.
Strained.
Alexandros watched it with me this afternoon.
“This is not exploration,” he said.
“No,” I replied.
“It is invasion.”
I did not argue.
Day 5
Andrea has been reassigned.
Of course she has.
Baxter informed me with the same dispassionate tone he uses for inventory.
“She’s been deployed to the secondary processing site,” he said. “Approximately one mile from main camp. Cataloguing and verification.”
“For how long?”
“As required.”
That was three days ago.
She has not returned.
Day 6
I asked again today.
Baxter’s answer did not change.
“She is fulfilling her role.”
“She is not a piece of equipment,” I said.
“Then she should not have agreed to terms that define her function within the expedition.”
I very nearly struck him.
Instead, I walked away.
There are moments when restraint feels less like discipline and more like surrender.
Day 7
The jungle is changing.
Or perhaps I am simply seeing it more clearly now.
The areas around the camp and the new facility are quieter. Not silent—but diminished. The constant hum of life feels… interrupted.
Further out, beyond the reach of their axes, it returns.
Dense. Alive. Watching.
I cannot shake the feeling that we are being observed.
Day 8 — Morning
I am done waiting.
At first light, I unpacked the rifle.
Not as a threat.
As a precaution.
Alexandros saw me preparing.
“You go alone?” he asked.
“For now.”
He studied me for a moment. “You will not find what you expect.”
“No,” I said. “But I’ll find something.”
He nodded once. “Then I come if you do not return.”
“Fair.”
Later
The jungle closes quickly behind you when you leave the cleared ground.
Within minutes, the sounds of the camp—machinery, voices, the dull rhythm of construction—fade into nothing.
Only the forest remains.
I followed the rough direction Baxter had indicated. The terrain is uneven here, rising slightly, the undergrowth thicker. Signs of passage are present—cut vines, disturbed earth, faint tracks from repeated movement.
Not just ours.
Something else.
I heard them before I saw them.
Voices.
If that is the correct word.
Low. Guttural. A series of sounds that were not quite speech as I understand it, but not meaningless either. Grunts, clicks, rough vocalisations that carried intent, emphasis.
Communication.
I moved slowly. Quietly.
The rifle suddenly felt less like precaution and more like necessity.
Through a break in the foliage, I saw them.
Four—no, five figures.
Broad. Powerful. Covered in rough skins.
The same as the one Andrea and I had encountered at the hot spring.
But now—
Together.
They stood in a loose circle, gesturing, vocalising in that harsh, rhythmic pattern. One of them pointed—back toward the direction of the camp.
They had seen it.
There was no doubt.
They were not wandering.
They were aware.
I did not move.
Did not breathe.
For a long moment, I simply watched.
Then, as abruptly as they had gathered, they broke apart—moving with startling speed and ease through the undergrowth, disappearing into the jungle as though it had swallowed them.
I remained where I was until I was certain they were gone.
Then I turned—
And made for camp as quickly as I dared.
Later — Camp
“They’re here,” I said.
Baxter didn’t look up from his notes. “So are we.”
“I’m not speculating,” I snapped. “I saw them. A group. Observing the camp.”
That got a glance.
Brief. Assessing.
“And?”
“And they’re not animals,” I said. “They’re organised. They communicate. They know we’re here.”
Baxter’s expression didn’t change. “Then we proceed with appropriate caution.”
“That’s it?” I said. “That’s your response?”
“What would you suggest?” he replied coolly. “We abandon the site? Suspend operations? We are here to establish a functional presence, Dr. Chase. That includes managing environmental variables.”
“Environmental variables?”
“They are a factor,” Baxter said. “Nothing more.”
Nate felt something cold settle in his chest.
“They’re people,” he said.
Baxter didn’t respond.
“I want Andrea back in camp,” Nate said.
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“She’s at risk.”
“She is under supervision.”
“I didn’t ask for your assessment,” Nate said. “I’m telling you to bring her back.”
Baxter’s eyes hardened. “You are not in a position to issue directives.”
“Then consider it a request.”
“Denied.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Final.
Nate held his gaze for a long moment.
Then turned away.
Later — Evening
Alexandros found me near the edge of camp.
“You saw them,” he said.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
He nodded slowly. “Enough.”
“They’ve seen us.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then: “And the woman?”
“Still at the remote site.”
Alexandros exhaled sharply through his nose. “Then we go.”
“Morning,” Nate said.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No further discussion.
Just decision.
End of Entry
Tomorrow, we leave the camp behind.
Not as explorers.
Not as employees.
But as men who intend to bring one of our own back—
whether Merick & Co. approves or not.
Aesculon Expedition — Second Phase
Day 3
I have chosen, it seems, to become inconvenient again.
Despite the clear “assignments” laid out by Edmund Dash and enforced by Merick & Co., I have not confined myself to hauling crates like a dock worker.
Instead, I have gone where I am of actual use.
Into the jungle.
With the explorers—those of the Society who still remember why we came here in the first place.
We have already identified several new specimens. One vine exhibits remarkable regenerative properties when applied to damaged tissue. Another flowering plant appears to suppress infection more effectively than anything currently in our pharmacopoeia.
Discoveries.
Actual discoveries.
And yet, each time I return—
The jungle is smaller.
Day 4
They are cutting it back.
Not cautiously. Not respectfully.
Systematically.
Sections of forest cleared to bare earth. Markers driven into the ground. Frameworks erected for structures that do not belong here.
The “collection facility” is no longer theoretical.
It is being built.
The sound of it carries—axes, saws, the unnatural rhythm of industry imposed upon something that had never known it.
Even the air feels different near the site.
Thinner.
Strained.
Alexandros watched it with me this afternoon.
“This is not exploration,” he said.
“No,” I replied.
“It is invasion.”
I did not argue.
Day 5
Andrea has been reassigned.
Of course she has.
Baxter informed me with the same dispassionate tone he uses for inventory.
“She’s been deployed to the secondary processing site,” he said. “Approximately one mile from main camp. Cataloguing and verification.”
“For how long?”
“As required.”
That was three days ago.
She has not returned.
Day 6
I asked again today.
Baxter’s answer did not change.
“She is fulfilling her role.”
“She is not a piece of equipment,” I said.
“Then she should not have agreed to terms that define her function within the expedition.”
I very nearly struck him.
Instead, I walked away.
There are moments when restraint feels less like discipline and more like surrender.
Day 7
The jungle is changing.
Or perhaps I am simply seeing it more clearly now.
The areas around the camp and the new facility are quieter. Not silent—but diminished. The constant hum of life feels… interrupted.
Further out, beyond the reach of their axes, it returns.
Dense. Alive. Watching.
I cannot shake the feeling that we are being observed.
Day 8 — Morning
I am done waiting.
At first light, I unpacked the rifle.
Not as a threat.
As a precaution.
Alexandros saw me preparing.
“You go alone?” he asked.
“For now.”
He studied me for a moment. “You will not find what you expect.”
“No,” I said. “But I’ll find something.”
He nodded once. “Then I come if you do not return.”
“Fair.”
Later
The jungle closes quickly behind you when you leave the cleared ground.
Within minutes, the sounds of the camp—machinery, voices, the dull rhythm of construction—fade into nothing.
Only the forest remains.
I followed the rough direction Baxter had indicated. The terrain is uneven here, rising slightly, the undergrowth thicker. Signs of passage are present—cut vines, disturbed earth, faint tracks from repeated movement.
Not just ours.
Something else.
I heard them before I saw them.
Voices.
If that is the correct word.
Low. Guttural. A series of sounds that were not quite speech as I understand it, but not meaningless either. Grunts, clicks, rough vocalisations that carried intent, emphasis.
Communication.
I moved slowly. Quietly.
The rifle suddenly felt less like precaution and more like necessity.
Through a break in the foliage, I saw them.
Four—no, five figures.
Broad. Powerful. Covered in rough skins.
The same as the one Andrea and I had encountered at the hot spring.
But now—
Together.
They stood in a loose circle, gesturing, vocalising in that harsh, rhythmic pattern. One of them pointed—back toward the direction of the camp.
They had seen it.
There was no doubt.
They were not wandering.
They were aware.
I did not move.
Did not breathe.
For a long moment, I simply watched.
Then, as abruptly as they had gathered, they broke apart—moving with startling speed and ease through the undergrowth, disappearing into the jungle as though it had swallowed them.
I remained where I was until I was certain they were gone.
Then I turned—
And made for camp as quickly as I dared.
Later — Camp
“They’re here,” I said.
Baxter didn’t look up from his notes. “So are we.”
“I’m not speculating,” I snapped. “I saw them. A group. Observing the camp.”
That got a glance.
Brief. Assessing.
“And?”
“And they’re not animals,” I said. “They’re organised. They communicate. They know we’re here.”
Baxter’s expression didn’t change. “Then we proceed with appropriate caution.”
“That’s it?” I said. “That’s your response?”
“What would you suggest?” he replied coolly. “We abandon the site? Suspend operations? We are here to establish a functional presence, Dr. Chase. That includes managing environmental variables.”
“Environmental variables?”
“They are a factor,” Baxter said. “Nothing more.”
Nate felt something cold settle in his chest.
“They’re people,” he said.
Baxter didn’t respond.
“I want Andrea back in camp,” Nate said.
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“She’s at risk.”
“She is under supervision.”
“I didn’t ask for your assessment,” Nate said. “I’m telling you to bring her back.”
Baxter’s eyes hardened. “You are not in a position to issue directives.”
“Then consider it a request.”
“Denied.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Final.
Nate held his gaze for a long moment.
Then turned away.
Later — Evening
Alexandros found me near the edge of camp.
“You saw them,” he said.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
He nodded slowly. “Enough.”
“They’ve seen us.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then: “And the woman?”
“Still at the remote site.”
Alexandros exhaled sharply through his nose. “Then we go.”
“Morning,” Nate said.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No further discussion.
Just decision.
End of Entry
Tomorrow, we leave the camp behind.
Not as explorers.
Not as employees.
But as men who intend to bring one of our own back—
whether Merick & Co. approves or not.
-
Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
Field Journal of Dr. Nathaniel Chase
Aesculon Expedition — Second Phase
Day 9 — Before Dawn
We left before the light.
No words wasted.
The camp still slept—or pretended to. The air held that strange, brittle quiet that comes just before morning, when even the jungle seems to pause.
Alexandros moved ahead of me, silent despite his size, cutting a careful path through the undergrowth. I followed close behind, rifle slung but ready.
We did not speak.
There was nothing to say that hadn’t already been decided.
Later
It took us nearly an hour.
The terrain thickened the further we moved from camp—less disturbed, more alive. The sounds returned in force: insects, distant calls, the constant, shifting breath of the forest.
Then—
Voices.
Human.
Different from the guttural speech I had heard the day before. Familiar. Structured.
The remote site.
We approached cautiously.
The clearing had been carved out in the same brutal fashion as the main camp—trees felled, ground stripped, crates stacked in ordered rows. Several Merick personnel moved between them, cataloguing, noting, measuring.
And there—
Andrea.
Bent over a crate, sleeves rolled, hands stained with plant residue, entirely absorbed in her work.
For a moment, I simply watched her.
Then—
“Andrea.”
She turned instantly.
Shock first.
Then recognition.
“Nate—what are you—?”
“We’re leaving,” I said.
No preamble.
No explanation.
Her expression shifted—confusion, then understanding. “What’s happened?”
“They’re here,” I said. “The ones we saw. They’ve been watching the camp.”
That was enough.
She didn’t argue.
Didn’t hesitate.
“Give me a minute,” she said, already moving.
“You don’t have a minute,” Alexandros added, his tone low but urgent.
That drew attention.
A Merick supervisor stepped forward. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Andrea didn’t stop packing what little she could carry.
“She’s not authorised to leave,” the man continued.
Nate stepped between them.
The rifle was already in his hands.
Not raised.
Not aimed.
But unmistakable.
“She is now,” Nate said.
The man faltered.
Others nearby had noticed. A ripple of tension moved through the clearing.
No one stepped forward.
No one tried to stop them.
Andrea shouldered her bag and moved to Nate’s side.
“Let’s go,” she said.
And they did.
Return Path
They moved quickly.
Not recklessly—but with purpose.
Alexandros ranged slightly ahead, scanning, listening. Nate kept Andrea close, every sense straining for movement, sound—anything out of place.
The jungle felt… wrong.
Not empty.
Not silent.
But expectant.
As though something had already begun.
They were nearing the outskirts of camp when it happened.
A scream.
High. Sharp. Human.
Then another.
And shouting.
Panic.
Nate froze for half a second.
Then—
“Move,” he said.
Camp Perimeter
Chaos.
The camp was already under attack.
They came out of the jungle in numbers—far more than Nate had seen before.
Dozens.
Broad, powerful figures, their bodies marked with dirt and crude adornments, armed with spears of sharpened wood, clubs fashioned from bone and heavy branches.
They moved with terrifying speed.
And purpose.
They struck without hesitation—clubbing, stabbing, overwhelming anyone caught unprepared. The camp had been taken entirely by surprise.
Men shouted. Some fled. Others tried to organise resistance with whatever they could find—tools, fragments of equipment, anything that could be used as a weapon.
A tent went down.
Another.
Nate raised the rifle.
Fired.
The crack of it split the air—loud, unnatural, a thunderclap in the close jungle space.
One of the attackers dropped.
The effect was immediate.
The others recoiled—just slightly. A ripple of hesitation.
They had never heard such a sound.
For a moment—
They faltered.
“Back!” Nate shouted. “Back to the gate! Move!”
Alexandros echoed him, his voice carrying, cutting through the panic.
Andrea was already moving, pulling one of the younger Society members to their feet and pushing them toward the clearing.
The hesitation broke.
The attackers surged again.
The Camp Burns
Fighting erupted everywhere.
Close. Brutal. Chaotic.
A kerosene lamp shattered—glass and flame spilling across canvas. Fire took hold instantly, climbing fabric, leaping from one structure to the next.
Smoke thickened the air.
Men coughed, stumbled, shouted orders that dissolved into noise.
From the Merick side, gunfire answered—pistols, rifles, even the boom of a shotgun. The attackers flinched at each report, but did not retreat.
Not fully.
Not yet.
Nate moved through it—pulling, directing, shouting.
“This way! To the ring! Don’t stop!”
Alexandros fought beside him, using sheer force to clear a path when needed, driving attackers back long enough for others to pass.
Andrea stayed close, helping the injured where she could—but never slowing.
They reached the gate.
People were already pushing through.
Some orderly.
Most not.
At the Gate
“Go!” Nate said, turning to Andrea.
“I’m not—”
“Go,” he repeated.
Alexandros took her arm. “Now.”
She hesitated—just for a fraction of a second—then stepped through with him.
Nate turned back.
The camp was collapsing into fire and violence.
And then he saw him.
Baxter.
On the ground.
A broken spear shaft jutting from his abdomen, blood dark against his clothes.
Around him, a small group—two Merick men, one Society member—fought desperately to hold back the attackers. One fired a pistol with shaking hands. Another swung a shovel like a club.
They wouldn’t last.
Nate didn’t think.
He moved.
Rescue
The rifle cracked again.
And again.
Each shot forced space—momentary, fragile—but enough.
“Move!” Nate shouted as he reached them.
The Society man staggered back first, half-dragging one of the others.
“Help me,” Nate said, dropping to one knee beside Baxter.
The man’s eyes were unfocused, breath shallow.
“Don’t—” Baxter tried, voice thin.
“Save it,” Nate muttered.
A quick assessment.
Bad.
Very bad.
But not immediate.
Not yet.
Nate drew his pistol with his free hand, fired once—close, controlled—driving back an approaching figure.
Then he hauled Baxter up.
Dead weight.
Heavy.
“Move!” he barked again.
They moved.
Stumbling.
Running.
Falling forward more than anything else.
The gate loomed ahead.
Still active.
Still open.
They reached it as another wave of attackers broke through the burning camp behind them.
Nate didn’t look back again.
He dragged Baxter through.
After
Cold air.
Scotland.
Silence.
They collapsed onto the ground beyond the ring, bodies hitting damp earth, breath ragged, hearts hammering.
Behind them, the shimmer of the gate flickered.
Then—
Died.
The lens powered down.
The connection severed.
No one else came through.
No one.
Nate lay there for a moment, staring up at the grey sky.
Then he pushed himself up, turning back toward the now-dark ring.
Aesculon was gone.
For now.
And they had not all made it back.
Aesculon Expedition — Second Phase
Day 9 — Before Dawn
We left before the light.
No words wasted.
The camp still slept—or pretended to. The air held that strange, brittle quiet that comes just before morning, when even the jungle seems to pause.
Alexandros moved ahead of me, silent despite his size, cutting a careful path through the undergrowth. I followed close behind, rifle slung but ready.
We did not speak.
There was nothing to say that hadn’t already been decided.
Later
It took us nearly an hour.
The terrain thickened the further we moved from camp—less disturbed, more alive. The sounds returned in force: insects, distant calls, the constant, shifting breath of the forest.
Then—
Voices.
Human.
Different from the guttural speech I had heard the day before. Familiar. Structured.
The remote site.
We approached cautiously.
The clearing had been carved out in the same brutal fashion as the main camp—trees felled, ground stripped, crates stacked in ordered rows. Several Merick personnel moved between them, cataloguing, noting, measuring.
And there—
Andrea.
Bent over a crate, sleeves rolled, hands stained with plant residue, entirely absorbed in her work.
For a moment, I simply watched her.
Then—
“Andrea.”
She turned instantly.
Shock first.
Then recognition.
“Nate—what are you—?”
“We’re leaving,” I said.
No preamble.
No explanation.
Her expression shifted—confusion, then understanding. “What’s happened?”
“They’re here,” I said. “The ones we saw. They’ve been watching the camp.”
That was enough.
She didn’t argue.
Didn’t hesitate.
“Give me a minute,” she said, already moving.
“You don’t have a minute,” Alexandros added, his tone low but urgent.
That drew attention.
A Merick supervisor stepped forward. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Andrea didn’t stop packing what little she could carry.
“She’s not authorised to leave,” the man continued.
Nate stepped between them.
The rifle was already in his hands.
Not raised.
Not aimed.
But unmistakable.
“She is now,” Nate said.
The man faltered.
Others nearby had noticed. A ripple of tension moved through the clearing.
No one stepped forward.
No one tried to stop them.
Andrea shouldered her bag and moved to Nate’s side.
“Let’s go,” she said.
And they did.
Return Path
They moved quickly.
Not recklessly—but with purpose.
Alexandros ranged slightly ahead, scanning, listening. Nate kept Andrea close, every sense straining for movement, sound—anything out of place.
The jungle felt… wrong.
Not empty.
Not silent.
But expectant.
As though something had already begun.
They were nearing the outskirts of camp when it happened.
A scream.
High. Sharp. Human.
Then another.
And shouting.
Panic.
Nate froze for half a second.
Then—
“Move,” he said.
Camp Perimeter
Chaos.
The camp was already under attack.
They came out of the jungle in numbers—far more than Nate had seen before.
Dozens.
Broad, powerful figures, their bodies marked with dirt and crude adornments, armed with spears of sharpened wood, clubs fashioned from bone and heavy branches.
They moved with terrifying speed.
And purpose.
They struck without hesitation—clubbing, stabbing, overwhelming anyone caught unprepared. The camp had been taken entirely by surprise.
Men shouted. Some fled. Others tried to organise resistance with whatever they could find—tools, fragments of equipment, anything that could be used as a weapon.
A tent went down.
Another.
Nate raised the rifle.
Fired.
The crack of it split the air—loud, unnatural, a thunderclap in the close jungle space.
One of the attackers dropped.
The effect was immediate.
The others recoiled—just slightly. A ripple of hesitation.
They had never heard such a sound.
For a moment—
They faltered.
“Back!” Nate shouted. “Back to the gate! Move!”
Alexandros echoed him, his voice carrying, cutting through the panic.
Andrea was already moving, pulling one of the younger Society members to their feet and pushing them toward the clearing.
The hesitation broke.
The attackers surged again.
The Camp Burns
Fighting erupted everywhere.
Close. Brutal. Chaotic.
A kerosene lamp shattered—glass and flame spilling across canvas. Fire took hold instantly, climbing fabric, leaping from one structure to the next.
Smoke thickened the air.
Men coughed, stumbled, shouted orders that dissolved into noise.
From the Merick side, gunfire answered—pistols, rifles, even the boom of a shotgun. The attackers flinched at each report, but did not retreat.
Not fully.
Not yet.
Nate moved through it—pulling, directing, shouting.
“This way! To the ring! Don’t stop!”
Alexandros fought beside him, using sheer force to clear a path when needed, driving attackers back long enough for others to pass.
Andrea stayed close, helping the injured where she could—but never slowing.
They reached the gate.
People were already pushing through.
Some orderly.
Most not.
At the Gate
“Go!” Nate said, turning to Andrea.
“I’m not—”
“Go,” he repeated.
Alexandros took her arm. “Now.”
She hesitated—just for a fraction of a second—then stepped through with him.
Nate turned back.
The camp was collapsing into fire and violence.
And then he saw him.
Baxter.
On the ground.
A broken spear shaft jutting from his abdomen, blood dark against his clothes.
Around him, a small group—two Merick men, one Society member—fought desperately to hold back the attackers. One fired a pistol with shaking hands. Another swung a shovel like a club.
They wouldn’t last.
Nate didn’t think.
He moved.
Rescue
The rifle cracked again.
And again.
Each shot forced space—momentary, fragile—but enough.
“Move!” Nate shouted as he reached them.
The Society man staggered back first, half-dragging one of the others.
“Help me,” Nate said, dropping to one knee beside Baxter.
The man’s eyes were unfocused, breath shallow.
“Don’t—” Baxter tried, voice thin.
“Save it,” Nate muttered.
A quick assessment.
Bad.
Very bad.
But not immediate.
Not yet.
Nate drew his pistol with his free hand, fired once—close, controlled—driving back an approaching figure.
Then he hauled Baxter up.
Dead weight.
Heavy.
“Move!” he barked again.
They moved.
Stumbling.
Running.
Falling forward more than anything else.
The gate loomed ahead.
Still active.
Still open.
They reached it as another wave of attackers broke through the burning camp behind them.
Nate didn’t look back again.
He dragged Baxter through.
After
Cold air.
Scotland.
Silence.
They collapsed onto the ground beyond the ring, bodies hitting damp earth, breath ragged, hearts hammering.
Behind them, the shimmer of the gate flickered.
Then—
Died.
The lens powered down.
The connection severed.
No one else came through.
No one.
Nate lay there for a moment, staring up at the grey sky.
Then he pushed himself up, turning back toward the now-dark ring.
Aesculon was gone.
For now.
And they had not all made it back.
-
Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
The wind had not changed.
It still came hard off the Atlantic, cold and indifferent, tugging at coats and canvas as though nothing of consequence had occurred.
But the island had.
Men lay scattered across the damp ground—some groaning, some silent. Others moved in tight, urgent patterns, hauling crates, shouting for supplies, calling names that were not always answered.
The depot—half-built, meant for storage and distribution—was already being torn apart and rebuilt into something else entirely.
“Clear that table—now!”
Nate’s voice cut through everything.
Crates were overturned, lids ripped free, rough planks dragged into place. Within minutes, a long workbench had become an operating surface. Lanterns were pulled close. Medical kits—those not yet claimed by Merick’s inventory system—were opened without ceremony.
Andrea was already there, sleeves rolled, hands steady.
“Lay him flat—careful—careful!”
Baxter was lowered onto the improvised table, his face grey, breath shallow and uneven. Blood soaked through his clothes, dark and spreading.
The broken shaft of the spear still protruded from his abdomen.
“Don’t remove it yet,” Andrea said sharply as one of the Merick men reached for it.
“I wasn’t—”
“You were thinking about it. Don’t.”
Nate was beside her in an instant, already cutting away fabric.
“Pulse?” he asked.
“Rapid. Weak.”
“Of course it is.”
He glanced up. “Hot water. Clean cloths. Anything we’ve got that passes for sterile—move!”
Two of the Society’s physicians—Mercer and Halliday—were already responding, snapping into action without hesitation. Whatever fractures had opened between Society and corporation—
They meant nothing here.
Not now.
“Entry wound—midline, slightly left,” Nate muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “No exit. Shaft’s broken… jagged.”
Andrea leaned in, assessing quickly. “If it’s punctured the bowel—”
“It has,” Nate said. “Almost certainly.”
A beat.
Then, quietly: “We don’t have the facilities for this.”
“No,” Andrea agreed.
Nate exhaled once, sharply.
“Then we make do.”
Around them, the depot transformed.
Crates became instrument trays. Packing cloths were boiled. Lanterns repositioned to cast as much light as possible over the table.
The air filled with heat, urgency, and the metallic scent of blood.
Outside, voices rose.
Angry.
Accusatory.
But they stayed outside.
For now.
“Hold him,” Nate said.
Two men stepped in, gripping Baxter’s shoulders and arms as his body shifted weakly under the strain.
“Baxter,” Nate said, leaning close. “Can you hear me?”
A faint movement.
Eyes flickering.
“Don’t—” Baxter rasped.
“Don’t what?” Nate replied, already working.
“Don’t… let them—”
His voice failed.
Nate didn’t press.
“Stay with me,” he said instead.
Andrea met Nate’s eyes briefly.
No words.
Just understanding.
Then—
“On three,” Nate said. “We remove it clean and fast.”
She nodded.
“One—two—”
Three.
The broken shaft came free with a wet, tearing sound.
Baxter arched, a strangled cry escaping him before his body went slack again.
“Pressure,” Nate snapped.
Andrea was already there, compressing the wound, blood soaking through the cloth almost instantly.
“Clamp—no, not that one—the smaller—yes—”
Mercer passed the instrument.
Nate worked quickly, hands sure despite the conditions.
“Internal bleeding’s significant,” he said. “We need to close what we can.”
Andrea adjusted position, assisting without needing instruction.
They fell into rhythm.
Surgeon and nurse.
Not Society.
Not corporation.
Just what they were.
Outside, the argument broke.
“This is on you!” one of the Merick men shouted. “You pushed this operation—”
“And you signed off on it!” came the reply—from one of the Society members. “Don’t pretend this wasn’t your design!”
“We had control until your people interfered—”
“Our people? We were exploring—you turned it into a harvest!”
Voices overlapped.
Anger fed on fear.
“And now half the team is dead because of it!”
That cut through.
Silence followed.
Brief.
Then—
“What about those things?” someone said, quieter now. “Those… people. They knew we were there.”
“They watched us.”
“They waited.”
No one answered that.
Inside, Nate didn’t stop.
“Retract—there—hold it—”
Andrea shifted, steadying the field.
“I’ve got it,” she said.
“Good.”
Nate leaned closer, working deeper, faster.
“This isn’t clean,” he muttered. “We’re going to lose him if we don’t—”
“You won’t,” Andrea said.
Not reassurance.
Not comfort.
Just certainty.
He didn’t argue.
Time blurred.
Minutes stretched.
Every movement mattered.
Finally—
Nate tied off the last suture he could manage under the circumstances and leaned back slightly.
“He’s still bleeding,” Mercer said.
“I know.”
“But slower.”
Nate nodded once.
“We’ve done what we can here.”
Andrea checked Baxter’s pulse again.
Still weak.
But present.
“He’s not out of this,” she said.
“No,” Nate agreed. “But he’s still in it.”
That was enough.
For now.
The noise outside had settled into something lower.
More controlled.
But no less tense.
Nate stripped off his bloodied gloves and stepped away from the table.
Andrea followed a moment later.
They stood side by side for a second—just breathing.
Then—
“He might live,” she said.
“He might.”
A pause.
“And if he does?”
Nate looked toward the open doorway, where the others stood in tight, divided groups.
Society.
Merick.
No longer pretending otherwise.
“Then we’ll have questions to ask him,” Nate said.
Andrea glanced at him.
“And if he doesn’t?”
Nate’s expression hardened slightly.
“Then we’ll ask them anyway.”
Outside, the wind rose again.
The ring stood silent.
And for the first time since they had built it—
No one was eager to turn it back on.
It still came hard off the Atlantic, cold and indifferent, tugging at coats and canvas as though nothing of consequence had occurred.
But the island had.
Men lay scattered across the damp ground—some groaning, some silent. Others moved in tight, urgent patterns, hauling crates, shouting for supplies, calling names that were not always answered.
The depot—half-built, meant for storage and distribution—was already being torn apart and rebuilt into something else entirely.
“Clear that table—now!”
Nate’s voice cut through everything.
Crates were overturned, lids ripped free, rough planks dragged into place. Within minutes, a long workbench had become an operating surface. Lanterns were pulled close. Medical kits—those not yet claimed by Merick’s inventory system—were opened without ceremony.
Andrea was already there, sleeves rolled, hands steady.
“Lay him flat—careful—careful!”
Baxter was lowered onto the improvised table, his face grey, breath shallow and uneven. Blood soaked through his clothes, dark and spreading.
The broken shaft of the spear still protruded from his abdomen.
“Don’t remove it yet,” Andrea said sharply as one of the Merick men reached for it.
“I wasn’t—”
“You were thinking about it. Don’t.”
Nate was beside her in an instant, already cutting away fabric.
“Pulse?” he asked.
“Rapid. Weak.”
“Of course it is.”
He glanced up. “Hot water. Clean cloths. Anything we’ve got that passes for sterile—move!”
Two of the Society’s physicians—Mercer and Halliday—were already responding, snapping into action without hesitation. Whatever fractures had opened between Society and corporation—
They meant nothing here.
Not now.
“Entry wound—midline, slightly left,” Nate muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “No exit. Shaft’s broken… jagged.”
Andrea leaned in, assessing quickly. “If it’s punctured the bowel—”
“It has,” Nate said. “Almost certainly.”
A beat.
Then, quietly: “We don’t have the facilities for this.”
“No,” Andrea agreed.
Nate exhaled once, sharply.
“Then we make do.”
Around them, the depot transformed.
Crates became instrument trays. Packing cloths were boiled. Lanterns repositioned to cast as much light as possible over the table.
The air filled with heat, urgency, and the metallic scent of blood.
Outside, voices rose.
Angry.
Accusatory.
But they stayed outside.
For now.
“Hold him,” Nate said.
Two men stepped in, gripping Baxter’s shoulders and arms as his body shifted weakly under the strain.
“Baxter,” Nate said, leaning close. “Can you hear me?”
A faint movement.
Eyes flickering.
“Don’t—” Baxter rasped.
“Don’t what?” Nate replied, already working.
“Don’t… let them—”
His voice failed.
Nate didn’t press.
“Stay with me,” he said instead.
Andrea met Nate’s eyes briefly.
No words.
Just understanding.
Then—
“On three,” Nate said. “We remove it clean and fast.”
She nodded.
“One—two—”
Three.
The broken shaft came free with a wet, tearing sound.
Baxter arched, a strangled cry escaping him before his body went slack again.
“Pressure,” Nate snapped.
Andrea was already there, compressing the wound, blood soaking through the cloth almost instantly.
“Clamp—no, not that one—the smaller—yes—”
Mercer passed the instrument.
Nate worked quickly, hands sure despite the conditions.
“Internal bleeding’s significant,” he said. “We need to close what we can.”
Andrea adjusted position, assisting without needing instruction.
They fell into rhythm.
Surgeon and nurse.
Not Society.
Not corporation.
Just what they were.
Outside, the argument broke.
“This is on you!” one of the Merick men shouted. “You pushed this operation—”
“And you signed off on it!” came the reply—from one of the Society members. “Don’t pretend this wasn’t your design!”
“We had control until your people interfered—”
“Our people? We were exploring—you turned it into a harvest!”
Voices overlapped.
Anger fed on fear.
“And now half the team is dead because of it!”
That cut through.
Silence followed.
Brief.
Then—
“What about those things?” someone said, quieter now. “Those… people. They knew we were there.”
“They watched us.”
“They waited.”
No one answered that.
Inside, Nate didn’t stop.
“Retract—there—hold it—”
Andrea shifted, steadying the field.
“I’ve got it,” she said.
“Good.”
Nate leaned closer, working deeper, faster.
“This isn’t clean,” he muttered. “We’re going to lose him if we don’t—”
“You won’t,” Andrea said.
Not reassurance.
Not comfort.
Just certainty.
He didn’t argue.
Time blurred.
Minutes stretched.
Every movement mattered.
Finally—
Nate tied off the last suture he could manage under the circumstances and leaned back slightly.
“He’s still bleeding,” Mercer said.
“I know.”
“But slower.”
Nate nodded once.
“We’ve done what we can here.”
Andrea checked Baxter’s pulse again.
Still weak.
But present.
“He’s not out of this,” she said.
“No,” Nate agreed. “But he’s still in it.”
That was enough.
For now.
The noise outside had settled into something lower.
More controlled.
But no less tense.
Nate stripped off his bloodied gloves and stepped away from the table.
Andrea followed a moment later.
They stood side by side for a second—just breathing.
Then—
“He might live,” she said.
“He might.”
A pause.
“And if he does?”
Nate looked toward the open doorway, where the others stood in tight, divided groups.
Society.
Merick.
No longer pretending otherwise.
“Then we’ll have questions to ask him,” Nate said.
Andrea glanced at him.
“And if he doesn’t?”
Nate’s expression hardened slightly.
“Then we’ll ask them anyway.”
Outside, the wind rose again.
The ring stood silent.
And for the first time since they had built it—
No one was eager to turn it back on.
-
Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
The depot no longer resembled anything it had been designed to be.
Crates lay split open, their contents repurposed into bandages, splints, makeshift instruments. The air was thick with antiseptic, smoke, and the metallic weight of blood. Outside, the arguments had dulled into low, simmering tension—but inside, there was only work.
Nate barely lifted his head.
“Next,” he said, already moving aside as another injured man was brought forward.
Andrea was beside him, tireless.
“Through and through,” she said, cutting away fabric from a puncture wound. “Lucky.”
“No such thing,” Nate replied. “Just less unlucky.”
They worked like that for hours—wordless when they could be, precise when they had to be. Mercer and Halliday rotated in and out, exhaustion creeping into all of them but never quite winning.
At one point Andrea paused, just briefly, pressing the back of her wrist to her forehead.
“You all right?” Nate asked without looking up.
“I will be,” she said. “Keep going.”
He did.
Because there was nothing else to do.
It was Winfield who finally brought a measure of order back to the chaos.
His arm was bound crudely at first—blood soaking through the cloth—but even injured he carried the authority of someone used to being listened to.
“That is enough,” he said, voice raised but controlled. “All of you.”
The arguments faltered.
Not stopped—but checked.
“We will not solve this here,” he continued. “Not like this. Not now.”
Someone began to protest.
Winfield cut him off with a look.
“You will stand down,” he said. “You will see to your wounded. And you will leave the rest for London.”
There was resistance.
Of course there was.
But it ebbed.
People drifted—reluctantly—back to their respective groups. The invisible line between Society and Merick & Co. remained, but now it held distance rather than confrontation.
For the moment.
By the following day, arrangements were underway.
Transport had been called in—boats first, then trains south. The injured were prioritised, the dead… accounted for as best they could be.
No one spoke much during the journey.
Grief has a way of quieting even the loudest disagreements.
Glasgow received them with rain.
Cold, steady, relentless.
The hospital was a different world again—clean, ordered, controlled in a way the island had not been since before the second expedition began.
Baxter was taken in immediately.
For a moment, Nate thought they would be turned away.
Instead, after a brief, tense exchange, they were allowed to assist.
“Keep up,” one of the surgeons said curtly. “Or get out of the way.”
Nate almost smiled at that.
“Understood.”
The operating theatre was everything the depot had not been.
Bright. Sterile. Precise.
And yet—
The injury was the same.
The damage no less severe.
Nate worked opposite the attending surgeon, Andrea assisting between them with seamless efficiency.
“Internal bleeding—still significant,” the surgeon muttered.
“Bowel perforation confirmed,” Nate added. “We need to resect—there—”
“Agreed.”
It was cleaner work here.
More controlled.
But no less urgent.
Time slipped again—measured in decisions rather than minutes.
At last—
“Close,” the surgeon said.
Nate leaned back, tension draining from his shoulders in a slow, reluctant wave.
Andrea checked Baxter’s pulse.
Stronger.
Still fragile.
But there.
“He’ll live,” she said quietly.
Nate nodded.
“Against his better judgement,” he replied.
That night, Glasgow felt strangely distant from everything that had come before.
The hotel room was small but warm, the noise of the city muted beyond the windows. For the first time in days, there was no one calling for them. No decisions waiting.
Just stillness.
Andrea stood near the window, looking out at the rain.
“We made it back,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And so did he.”
“For now.”
A pause.
Then she turned.
The tension of the past week hadn’t vanished—but it had shifted. Changed shape.
“You went back for him,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Even after everything.”
Nate met her gaze. “I’m not letting that place decide who we are.”
Something in her expression softened.
Then she crossed the room.
There was no hesitation.
No distance left to close.
What followed wasn’t gentle.
It wasn’t careful.
It was release—of fear, of anger, of everything they had carried since stepping back onto Aesculon. The world beyond the room fell away completely, replaced by something immediate, grounding, real.
Later, when the storm outside had settled into a quieter rhythm, they lay together in the dim light.
Neither spoke.
They didn’t need to.
Six months later, London felt almost… normal again.
Almost.
The world had resumed its familiar shape—patients, schedules, the steady cadence of daily life—but something underneath it all had shifted permanently.
Nate and Andrea had stepped back.
Not away from the Society entirely—but from its centre. From its decisions. From the currents that had pulled it somewhere neither of them trusted.
They still attended meetings.
Occasionally.
They still read the reports.
But they no longer shaped them.
Alexandros arrived without warning, as was his habit.
“You look domestic,” he said by way of greeting, stepping into their home as though he owned it.
“And you look like you’ve travelled too far and slept too little,” Nate replied.
“All true.”
Andrea appeared from the adjoining room, offering him a brief smile. “Tea?”
“Always.”
They spoke for a while—of small things, mostly. The kind of conversation that avoids larger subjects by mutual agreement.
Eventually, Alexandros stood to leave.
At the door, he paused.
“I have something,” he said, reaching into his coat.
Two letters.
“One from Brighton,” he added, handing them over. “The other… I do not know.”
Nate frowned slightly, taking them.
“Should I be concerned?”
Alexandros considered that.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Then he was gone.
Nate opened the first letter at once.
Harold Brighton’s handwriting was as precise as ever.
The contents were… unsurprising.
A formal summary of the Council’s findings regarding the second expedition.
Blame, carefully distributed.
Language, carefully chosen.
The Society had reported the prior evidence—the body in the cave, the encounter at the pool—with appropriate detail.
Merick’s assessors, however, had “undervalued” the significance.
Nate snorted softly.
Magnanimous.
Very nearly admirable in its restraint.
The letter continued—acknowledging, in equal measure, that the Society itself had been… eager. That in securing funding, they too had allowed caution to give way to ambition.
That part, at least, was honest.
At the bottom, in a smaller hand—
A footnote.
All work involving the Ethiopian gate had been suspended.
Nate’s expression shifted.
That was… interesting.
He set the letter aside and picked up the second.
No seal he recognised.
No familiar hand.
He opened it.
Read.
Then read it again.
Andrea watched him. “Well?”
He handed it to her.
“Invitation,” he said. “Apparently.”
She scanned it quickly.
“To meet…” she glanced up, eyebrows lifting slightly, “…John J. Merick.”
“At the Ritz,” Nate added.
Andrea looked back at the letter.
“Not subtle.”
“No.”
A pause.
“What does he want with you?” she asked.
Nate leaned back slightly.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
Andrea folded the letter carefully.
“Then you should go.”
Nate frowned. “You don’t find it suspicious?”
“I do,” she said. “Which is precisely why you should go.”
He considered that.
She stepped closer, placing the letter back into his hand.
“Whatever this is,” she said, “it’s not over.”
Nate looked at her.
Then at the letter.
“No,” he said quietly.
“It isn’t.”
Crates lay split open, their contents repurposed into bandages, splints, makeshift instruments. The air was thick with antiseptic, smoke, and the metallic weight of blood. Outside, the arguments had dulled into low, simmering tension—but inside, there was only work.
Nate barely lifted his head.
“Next,” he said, already moving aside as another injured man was brought forward.
Andrea was beside him, tireless.
“Through and through,” she said, cutting away fabric from a puncture wound. “Lucky.”
“No such thing,” Nate replied. “Just less unlucky.”
They worked like that for hours—wordless when they could be, precise when they had to be. Mercer and Halliday rotated in and out, exhaustion creeping into all of them but never quite winning.
At one point Andrea paused, just briefly, pressing the back of her wrist to her forehead.
“You all right?” Nate asked without looking up.
“I will be,” she said. “Keep going.”
He did.
Because there was nothing else to do.
It was Winfield who finally brought a measure of order back to the chaos.
His arm was bound crudely at first—blood soaking through the cloth—but even injured he carried the authority of someone used to being listened to.
“That is enough,” he said, voice raised but controlled. “All of you.”
The arguments faltered.
Not stopped—but checked.
“We will not solve this here,” he continued. “Not like this. Not now.”
Someone began to protest.
Winfield cut him off with a look.
“You will stand down,” he said. “You will see to your wounded. And you will leave the rest for London.”
There was resistance.
Of course there was.
But it ebbed.
People drifted—reluctantly—back to their respective groups. The invisible line between Society and Merick & Co. remained, but now it held distance rather than confrontation.
For the moment.
By the following day, arrangements were underway.
Transport had been called in—boats first, then trains south. The injured were prioritised, the dead… accounted for as best they could be.
No one spoke much during the journey.
Grief has a way of quieting even the loudest disagreements.
Glasgow received them with rain.
Cold, steady, relentless.
The hospital was a different world again—clean, ordered, controlled in a way the island had not been since before the second expedition began.
Baxter was taken in immediately.
For a moment, Nate thought they would be turned away.
Instead, after a brief, tense exchange, they were allowed to assist.
“Keep up,” one of the surgeons said curtly. “Or get out of the way.”
Nate almost smiled at that.
“Understood.”
The operating theatre was everything the depot had not been.
Bright. Sterile. Precise.
And yet—
The injury was the same.
The damage no less severe.
Nate worked opposite the attending surgeon, Andrea assisting between them with seamless efficiency.
“Internal bleeding—still significant,” the surgeon muttered.
“Bowel perforation confirmed,” Nate added. “We need to resect—there—”
“Agreed.”
It was cleaner work here.
More controlled.
But no less urgent.
Time slipped again—measured in decisions rather than minutes.
At last—
“Close,” the surgeon said.
Nate leaned back, tension draining from his shoulders in a slow, reluctant wave.
Andrea checked Baxter’s pulse.
Stronger.
Still fragile.
But there.
“He’ll live,” she said quietly.
Nate nodded.
“Against his better judgement,” he replied.
That night, Glasgow felt strangely distant from everything that had come before.
The hotel room was small but warm, the noise of the city muted beyond the windows. For the first time in days, there was no one calling for them. No decisions waiting.
Just stillness.
Andrea stood near the window, looking out at the rain.
“We made it back,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And so did he.”
“For now.”
A pause.
Then she turned.
The tension of the past week hadn’t vanished—but it had shifted. Changed shape.
“You went back for him,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Even after everything.”
Nate met her gaze. “I’m not letting that place decide who we are.”
Something in her expression softened.
Then she crossed the room.
There was no hesitation.
No distance left to close.
What followed wasn’t gentle.
It wasn’t careful.
It was release—of fear, of anger, of everything they had carried since stepping back onto Aesculon. The world beyond the room fell away completely, replaced by something immediate, grounding, real.
Later, when the storm outside had settled into a quieter rhythm, they lay together in the dim light.
Neither spoke.
They didn’t need to.
Six months later, London felt almost… normal again.
Almost.
The world had resumed its familiar shape—patients, schedules, the steady cadence of daily life—but something underneath it all had shifted permanently.
Nate and Andrea had stepped back.
Not away from the Society entirely—but from its centre. From its decisions. From the currents that had pulled it somewhere neither of them trusted.
They still attended meetings.
Occasionally.
They still read the reports.
But they no longer shaped them.
Alexandros arrived without warning, as was his habit.
“You look domestic,” he said by way of greeting, stepping into their home as though he owned it.
“And you look like you’ve travelled too far and slept too little,” Nate replied.
“All true.”
Andrea appeared from the adjoining room, offering him a brief smile. “Tea?”
“Always.”
They spoke for a while—of small things, mostly. The kind of conversation that avoids larger subjects by mutual agreement.
Eventually, Alexandros stood to leave.
At the door, he paused.
“I have something,” he said, reaching into his coat.
Two letters.
“One from Brighton,” he added, handing them over. “The other… I do not know.”
Nate frowned slightly, taking them.
“Should I be concerned?”
Alexandros considered that.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Then he was gone.
Nate opened the first letter at once.
Harold Brighton’s handwriting was as precise as ever.
The contents were… unsurprising.
A formal summary of the Council’s findings regarding the second expedition.
Blame, carefully distributed.
Language, carefully chosen.
The Society had reported the prior evidence—the body in the cave, the encounter at the pool—with appropriate detail.
Merick’s assessors, however, had “undervalued” the significance.
Nate snorted softly.
Magnanimous.
Very nearly admirable in its restraint.
The letter continued—acknowledging, in equal measure, that the Society itself had been… eager. That in securing funding, they too had allowed caution to give way to ambition.
That part, at least, was honest.
At the bottom, in a smaller hand—
A footnote.
All work involving the Ethiopian gate had been suspended.
Nate’s expression shifted.
That was… interesting.
He set the letter aside and picked up the second.
No seal he recognised.
No familiar hand.
He opened it.
Read.
Then read it again.
Andrea watched him. “Well?”
He handed it to her.
“Invitation,” he said. “Apparently.”
She scanned it quickly.
“To meet…” she glanced up, eyebrows lifting slightly, “…John J. Merick.”
“At the Ritz,” Nate added.
Andrea looked back at the letter.
“Not subtle.”
“No.”
A pause.
“What does he want with you?” she asked.
Nate leaned back slightly.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
Andrea folded the letter carefully.
“Then you should go.”
Nate frowned. “You don’t find it suspicious?”
“I do,” she said. “Which is precisely why you should go.”
He considered that.
She stepped closer, placing the letter back into his hand.
“Whatever this is,” she said, “it’s not over.”
Nate looked at her.
Then at the letter.
“No,” he said quietly.
“It isn’t.”
-
Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
The Ritz did not announce itself loudly.
It didn’t need to.
Everything about it—polished brass, quiet carpets, the low murmur of restrained conversation—spoke of wealth so assured it had no interest in display. Nate felt it the moment he stepped inside: a world of control, of decisions made behind closed doors and carried out without question.
He gave his name.
The clerk nodded once, as though expecting him.
“Mr. John J. Merick is waiting for you, Dr. Chase.”
Of course he was.
The private dining room was understated, but precise. A table set for two. A decanter already open. No unnecessary staff lingering.
Merick stood as Nate entered.
He was older than Nate had expected, but not diminished by it. His presence filled the room in a way that had nothing to do with size and everything to do with certainty.
“Dr. Chase,” he said, stepping forward with a measured warmth. “Thank you for coming.”
“Naturally,” Nate replied.
Merick gestured to the table. “Please.”
They sat.
For a moment, there was only the quiet ritual of pouring drinks, the clink of glass, the deliberate pacing of someone who understood the value of letting a room settle before speaking.
“I’ve read everything,” Merick said at last.
Nate didn’t ask what everything meant.
He had a fair idea.
“My nephew,” Merick continued, lifting his glass slightly, “owes you his life.”
Nate held his gaze. “He owes his life to a number of people.”
“Perhaps,” Merick said. “But you were the one who went back for him.”
A pause.
“I don’t forget things like that.”
There was no overt gratitude in the words.
Just acknowledgment.
Measured. Filed away.
Nate inclined his head slightly. “He was there. So was I.”
“That’s not an explanation,” Merick said.
“It’s the only one that matters.”
Something like approval flickered in Merick’s expression.
Then it was gone.
“The expedition,” Merick said, setting his glass aside, “was a failure.”
Direct.
Unadorned.
Nate didn’t argue.
“It was,” he said.
“Not because the objective was flawed,” Merick continued, “but because it was executed poorly.”
“That’s a generous way of putting it.”
Merick allowed himself the faintest smile. “I prefer accuracy.”
He leaned back slightly.
“You had warning signs,” he said. “Evidence of prior presence. Evidence of hostility, or at the very least… unpredictability.”
“We reported both,” Nate replied.
“I know,” Merick said. “And they were not given the weight they deserved.”
A beat.
“By my people,” he added.
That, at least, was honest.
“By yours as well,” Nate said.
Merick nodded once. “Yes.”
No defensiveness.
No deflection.
Just acknowledgment.
And then—
“We won’t make that mistake again.”
Nate’s expression hardened slightly. “You’re planning to go back.”
It wasn’t a question.
Merick met his gaze. “Yes.”
Nate exhaled slowly. “You shouldn’t.”
“On the contrary,” Merick said. “We must.”
Nate leaned forward slightly. “You walked into a world that responded to you with organised, coordinated violence. That’s not a variable you manage—that’s a boundary you respect.”
Merick didn’t interrupt.
Didn’t argue.
He simply waited.
“You don’t understand that place,” Nate continued. “Neither do we. And until we do, you have no business building facilities there, harvesting anything, or—”
“—Or leaving it untouched?” Merick finished.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then Merick leaned forward slightly.
“I’m going to say something,” he said, “and I want you to hear it as plainly as possible.”
Nate said nothing.
“You’re right.”
That stopped him.
Merick held his gaze.
“We don’t understand it,” he continued. “We underestimated it. And we paid for that.”
A pause.
“Which is why I asked you here.”
There it was.
“I want you involved,” Merick said.
Nate frowned. “In what capacity?”
“Oversight,” Merick replied. “Both operations.”
“Aesculon and Ethiopia.”
Nate let out a short, incredulous breath. “You can’t be serious.”
“I rarely am anything else.”
“You want me to oversee expeditions I’ve just told you shouldn’t happen.”
“I want you to ensure they don’t fail in the same way.”
Nate shook his head. “I’m a surgeon.”
“And an observer,” Merick said. “A man who sees what others miss—and says it, even when it’s inconvenient.”
“That’s not a qualification for this.”
“It’s exactly the qualification I need.”
Nate leaned back slightly, studying him now.
“You’re asking me to work for you.”
“I’m asking you to work with me.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” Merick agreed. “But it can be.”
“I don’t want your quotas,” Nate said. “Or your timelines. Or your… harvesting operations.”
“You wouldn’t have them.”
Nate gave him a look. “I don’t believe that.”
“You would have something else,” Merick said.
“And what’s that?”
“Freedom to say no.”
Nate didn’t laugh.
But it was close.
“To you?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Without consequence?”
A pause.
Then, very slightly—
“No.”
Honesty again.
Ruthless, but clean.
“I have people to handle security,” Merick continued. “Logistics. Infrastructure.”
“That didn’t go particularly well last time.”
“No,” Merick said. “It didn’t.”
Another beat.
“What I don’t have,” he went on, “is someone who can stand in the middle of it all and say: this is a mistake.”
Nate said nothing.
“Not because it affects a department,” Merick added. “Or a budget. Or a timeline.”
“But because it’s wrong.”
Silence stretched between them.
“You did that,” Merick said. “On Aesculon. Before. During. After.”
“And no one listened.”
“I am,” Merick said.
Nate looked at him for a long moment.
“You’re asking me to legitimise this,” he said.
“I’m asking you to prevent it from becoming worse.”
“And if I say no?”
Merick didn’t hesitate.
“Then we proceed without you.”
Of course they would.
That was never in doubt.
“I won’t promise you anything,” Nate said at last.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I need time.”
“You have it.”
A pause.
Then Merick added, almost lightly—
“You won’t just be looking out for my people.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You’ll be looking out for yours as well.”
Andrea.
Alexandros.
The Society.
“Dash,” Nate said.
Merick’s expression didn’t change—but something sharpened behind it.
“Dr. Edmund Dash is… ambitious,” he said.
“That’s one word for it.”
“And useful,” Merick added. “In the right context.”
“And in the wrong one?”
Merick held his gaze.
“That,” he said quietly, “is why I need you.”
The meeting ended without ceremony.
No handshake of agreement.
No formal conclusion.
Just two men who understood exactly what had been offered—
And what it might cost.
The London air felt heavier when Nate stepped back out into it.
He walked for a while before heading home.
Not thinking.
Not deciding.
Just… carrying it.
Andrea was waiting.
She didn’t ask immediately.
Didn’t press.
She let him take off his coat. Sit. Breathe.
Then—
“Well?”
Nate looked at her.
“He wants me to join him,” he said.
Her expression didn’t change.
“In what way?”
“Oversight,” he said. “Both expeditions. Aesculon… and Ethiopia.”
That got a reaction.
Small.
But real.
“And you?”
“I told him he was mad.”
“And?”
“He agreed.”
A flicker of a smile.
Then it faded.
“He’s serious,” Nate said. “About all of it. The risks. The mistakes.”
Andrea studied him.
“That doesn’t make him safe.”
“No.”
“Or trustworthy.”
“No.”
A pause.
“But?” she prompted.
Nate exhaled slowly.
“But he’s not wrong,” he said. “If they go back—and they will—someone needs to stand there and say when it’s too far.”
Andrea’s gaze softened slightly.
“You already do that.”
“Not from the inside.”
Silence.
Then she stepped closer.
“And if you say no?”
“They go anyway.”
“And if you say yes?”
Nate met her eyes.
“Then I’m part of it.”
A longer pause.
Then Andrea nodded, once.
“Then the question isn’t whether it’s a good offer,” she said.
“It’s whether you can live with what happens if you refuse it.”
Nate looked away, just briefly.
Then back.
“That’s exactly the question.”
And for the first time since leaving the Ritz—
He realised there might not be a clean answer.
It didn’t need to.
Everything about it—polished brass, quiet carpets, the low murmur of restrained conversation—spoke of wealth so assured it had no interest in display. Nate felt it the moment he stepped inside: a world of control, of decisions made behind closed doors and carried out without question.
He gave his name.
The clerk nodded once, as though expecting him.
“Mr. John J. Merick is waiting for you, Dr. Chase.”
Of course he was.
The private dining room was understated, but precise. A table set for two. A decanter already open. No unnecessary staff lingering.
Merick stood as Nate entered.
He was older than Nate had expected, but not diminished by it. His presence filled the room in a way that had nothing to do with size and everything to do with certainty.
“Dr. Chase,” he said, stepping forward with a measured warmth. “Thank you for coming.”
“Naturally,” Nate replied.
Merick gestured to the table. “Please.”
They sat.
For a moment, there was only the quiet ritual of pouring drinks, the clink of glass, the deliberate pacing of someone who understood the value of letting a room settle before speaking.
“I’ve read everything,” Merick said at last.
Nate didn’t ask what everything meant.
He had a fair idea.
“My nephew,” Merick continued, lifting his glass slightly, “owes you his life.”
Nate held his gaze. “He owes his life to a number of people.”
“Perhaps,” Merick said. “But you were the one who went back for him.”
A pause.
“I don’t forget things like that.”
There was no overt gratitude in the words.
Just acknowledgment.
Measured. Filed away.
Nate inclined his head slightly. “He was there. So was I.”
“That’s not an explanation,” Merick said.
“It’s the only one that matters.”
Something like approval flickered in Merick’s expression.
Then it was gone.
“The expedition,” Merick said, setting his glass aside, “was a failure.”
Direct.
Unadorned.
Nate didn’t argue.
“It was,” he said.
“Not because the objective was flawed,” Merick continued, “but because it was executed poorly.”
“That’s a generous way of putting it.”
Merick allowed himself the faintest smile. “I prefer accuracy.”
He leaned back slightly.
“You had warning signs,” he said. “Evidence of prior presence. Evidence of hostility, or at the very least… unpredictability.”
“We reported both,” Nate replied.
“I know,” Merick said. “And they were not given the weight they deserved.”
A beat.
“By my people,” he added.
That, at least, was honest.
“By yours as well,” Nate said.
Merick nodded once. “Yes.”
No defensiveness.
No deflection.
Just acknowledgment.
And then—
“We won’t make that mistake again.”
Nate’s expression hardened slightly. “You’re planning to go back.”
It wasn’t a question.
Merick met his gaze. “Yes.”
Nate exhaled slowly. “You shouldn’t.”
“On the contrary,” Merick said. “We must.”
Nate leaned forward slightly. “You walked into a world that responded to you with organised, coordinated violence. That’s not a variable you manage—that’s a boundary you respect.”
Merick didn’t interrupt.
Didn’t argue.
He simply waited.
“You don’t understand that place,” Nate continued. “Neither do we. And until we do, you have no business building facilities there, harvesting anything, or—”
“—Or leaving it untouched?” Merick finished.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then Merick leaned forward slightly.
“I’m going to say something,” he said, “and I want you to hear it as plainly as possible.”
Nate said nothing.
“You’re right.”
That stopped him.
Merick held his gaze.
“We don’t understand it,” he continued. “We underestimated it. And we paid for that.”
A pause.
“Which is why I asked you here.”
There it was.
“I want you involved,” Merick said.
Nate frowned. “In what capacity?”
“Oversight,” Merick replied. “Both operations.”
“Aesculon and Ethiopia.”
Nate let out a short, incredulous breath. “You can’t be serious.”
“I rarely am anything else.”
“You want me to oversee expeditions I’ve just told you shouldn’t happen.”
“I want you to ensure they don’t fail in the same way.”
Nate shook his head. “I’m a surgeon.”
“And an observer,” Merick said. “A man who sees what others miss—and says it, even when it’s inconvenient.”
“That’s not a qualification for this.”
“It’s exactly the qualification I need.”
Nate leaned back slightly, studying him now.
“You’re asking me to work for you.”
“I’m asking you to work with me.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” Merick agreed. “But it can be.”
“I don’t want your quotas,” Nate said. “Or your timelines. Or your… harvesting operations.”
“You wouldn’t have them.”
Nate gave him a look. “I don’t believe that.”
“You would have something else,” Merick said.
“And what’s that?”
“Freedom to say no.”
Nate didn’t laugh.
But it was close.
“To you?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Without consequence?”
A pause.
Then, very slightly—
“No.”
Honesty again.
Ruthless, but clean.
“I have people to handle security,” Merick continued. “Logistics. Infrastructure.”
“That didn’t go particularly well last time.”
“No,” Merick said. “It didn’t.”
Another beat.
“What I don’t have,” he went on, “is someone who can stand in the middle of it all and say: this is a mistake.”
Nate said nothing.
“Not because it affects a department,” Merick added. “Or a budget. Or a timeline.”
“But because it’s wrong.”
Silence stretched between them.
“You did that,” Merick said. “On Aesculon. Before. During. After.”
“And no one listened.”
“I am,” Merick said.
Nate looked at him for a long moment.
“You’re asking me to legitimise this,” he said.
“I’m asking you to prevent it from becoming worse.”
“And if I say no?”
Merick didn’t hesitate.
“Then we proceed without you.”
Of course they would.
That was never in doubt.
“I won’t promise you anything,” Nate said at last.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I need time.”
“You have it.”
A pause.
Then Merick added, almost lightly—
“You won’t just be looking out for my people.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You’ll be looking out for yours as well.”
Andrea.
Alexandros.
The Society.
“Dash,” Nate said.
Merick’s expression didn’t change—but something sharpened behind it.
“Dr. Edmund Dash is… ambitious,” he said.
“That’s one word for it.”
“And useful,” Merick added. “In the right context.”
“And in the wrong one?”
Merick held his gaze.
“That,” he said quietly, “is why I need you.”
The meeting ended without ceremony.
No handshake of agreement.
No formal conclusion.
Just two men who understood exactly what had been offered—
And what it might cost.
The London air felt heavier when Nate stepped back out into it.
He walked for a while before heading home.
Not thinking.
Not deciding.
Just… carrying it.
Andrea was waiting.
She didn’t ask immediately.
Didn’t press.
She let him take off his coat. Sit. Breathe.
Then—
“Well?”
Nate looked at her.
“He wants me to join him,” he said.
Her expression didn’t change.
“In what way?”
“Oversight,” he said. “Both expeditions. Aesculon… and Ethiopia.”
That got a reaction.
Small.
But real.
“And you?”
“I told him he was mad.”
“And?”
“He agreed.”
A flicker of a smile.
Then it faded.
“He’s serious,” Nate said. “About all of it. The risks. The mistakes.”
Andrea studied him.
“That doesn’t make him safe.”
“No.”
“Or trustworthy.”
“No.”
A pause.
“But?” she prompted.
Nate exhaled slowly.
“But he’s not wrong,” he said. “If they go back—and they will—someone needs to stand there and say when it’s too far.”
Andrea’s gaze softened slightly.
“You already do that.”
“Not from the inside.”
Silence.
Then she stepped closer.
“And if you say no?”
“They go anyway.”
“And if you say yes?”
Nate met her eyes.
“Then I’m part of it.”
A longer pause.
Then Andrea nodded, once.
“Then the question isn’t whether it’s a good offer,” she said.
“It’s whether you can live with what happens if you refuse it.”
Nate looked away, just briefly.
Then back.
“That’s exactly the question.”
And for the first time since leaving the Ritz—
He realised there might not be a clean answer.
-
Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
Nate did not give Merick an answer the next day.
Or the day after.
He returned to work. Patients. Wards. Routine. The steady, familiar rhythm of medicine that asked nothing of him beyond skill and attention. It should have grounded him.
It didn’t.
Every quiet moment circled back to the same question.
If I don’t go… who does?
Baxter was still in recovery when Nate finally went to see him.
The hospital room was bright, almost aggressively so. Clean linens, the faint antiseptic smell—order imposed over damage.
Baxter looked smaller.
That was Nate’s first thought.
The man who had stood on Aesculon waving contracts like weapons now lay propped against pillows, pale, drawn, very much aware of his own mortality.
He glanced up as Nate entered.
“Well,” Baxter said faintly, “if it isn’t my rescuer.”
Nate pulled a chair over and sat.
“You’re alive,” he said.
“Apparently.”
A pause.
“I’m told you were instrumental in that outcome.”
“You were there,” Nate replied. “You know what happened.”
Baxter gave a weak, humourless smile. “Bits of it.”
Silence settled.
Then—
“You’re going back,” Nate said.
Baxter didn’t deny it.
“They are,” he said. “With or without me.”
“And you?”
Another pause.
“I thought I knew what we were doing,” Baxter admitted. “Structured expansion. Controlled acquisition.”
Nate said nothing.
“I didn’t account for…” Baxter trailed off slightly. “For them.”
“No,” Nate said. “You didn’t.”
Baxter met his eyes.
“You did.”
“I suspected,” Nate corrected. “That’s not the same thing.”
“It was enough.”
Nate leaned back slightly. “Merick’s pushing Ethiopia now.”
Baxter nodded faintly. “Yes.”
“You think it’ll be different?”
Baxter hesitated.
That was answer enough.
By the time Nate left the hospital, the decision hadn’t become clearer.
But it had become sharper.
At the Society, things were… brittle.
Meetings still happened, but the tone had shifted. Less collegial. More guarded.
Edmund Dash was at the centre of it, as ever—composed, controlled, speaking in measured terms about progress, opportunity, and the necessity of moving forward.
“Ethiopia presents a clean slate,” Dash was saying as Nate entered one such meeting. “No prior interference. No… complications.”
Nate didn’t sit.
“Aesculon was a ‘clean slate’ once,” he said.
The room stilled.
Dash turned slowly.
“Dr. Chase,” he said. “How good of you to join us.”
“I heard you were rewriting history.”
A flicker of irritation.
“Refining our understanding,” Dash corrected.
“You mean ignoring it.”
Murmurs.
Winfield watched, silent but attentive.
Dash clasped his hands behind his back. “If you have a substantive point—”
“I do,” Nate said. “You’re pushing Ethiopia as though it’s free of risk. It isn’t. We just don’t know what the risks are yet.”
“Which is precisely why we investigate.”
“With caution,” Nate said. “Not with another extraction plan dressed up as exploration.”
Dash’s expression cooled.
“You seem determined to obstruct progress at every turn.”
“I’m determined not to repeat mistakes that got people killed.”
That landed.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Dash smiled.
Thin. Controlled.
“And yet,” he said, “you are not involved in operational planning. An interesting position from which to issue directives.”
Nate held his gaze.
“That might change.”
That, more than anything, shifted the room.
Dash’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Indeed?”
“John J. Merick asked me to take an oversight role,” Nate said.
Silence.
Real silence.
Dash recovered quickly—but not quickly enough.
“I see,” he said. “And you’re considering it.”
“I am.”
A pause.
Then, quietly—
“You should consider very carefully whose interests you would be serving.”
Nate didn’t flinch.
“I already am.”
Andrea found him later.
“You’ve stirred the nest,” she said.
“It needed stirring.”
“That’s not the part I’m concerned about.”
He glanced at her. “No?”
“It’s what happens after,” she said.
They walked slowly, side by side, the evening settling around them.
“You spoke to Baxter?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He knows they got it wrong,” Nate said. “But that doesn’t mean they won’t do it again.”
Andrea nodded.
“That sounds about right.”
A pause.
“And Dash?”
“He’s positioning himself,” Nate said. “Ethiopia is his opportunity to reset the narrative.”
“And you?” she asked.
Nate exhaled.
“I think Merick wants me there to stop that from happening.”
Andrea glanced at him.
“Or to give it legitimacy.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
They stopped.
“Do you trust him?” she asked.
“Merick?”
“Yes.”
Nate considered that.
“No,” he said. “But I believe him.”
Andrea tilted her head slightly. “That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he agreed. “But it might be enough.”
Silence settled between them.
Then—
“I think you’re going to say yes,” she said.
Nate looked at her.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you won’t be able to live with yourself if you don’t.”
He didn’t argue.
Because she was right.
The letter he sent was brief.
To John J. Merick.
Acceptance.
With conditions.
Independent authority to raise objections.
Full access to expedition planning.
No contractual constraints on his ability to report concerns to the Society.
It was, he knew, only a starting point.
The reply came quickly.
Also brief.
Agreed.
Preparations shifted almost immediately.
The Ethiopian project moved to the forefront—maps, geological surveys, logistical planning. Reports from Alexandros began to circulate—technical, precise, hinting at progress but withholding certainty.
Aesculon, for the moment, receded.
Not abandoned.
Never that.
But… waiting.
Nate stood at the edge of the Society’s planning room one evening, watching as teams moved around tables covered in documents, diagrams, projections.
It felt familiar.
And entirely different.
Andrea joined him quietly.
“So,” she said.
“So,” he echoed.
“You’ve stepped into it.”
“Yes.”
She studied the room.
“And now?”
Nate’s gaze moved across it—over the plans, the people, the momentum already building.
“Now,” he said, “we find out if I can actually make a difference.”
Andrea looked at him.
And for a moment—
There was something like hope.
Careful.
Measured.
But there.
“Then we’d better be ready,” she said.
Nate nodded.
Because whatever waited in Ethiopia—
It would not be empty.
And this time—
They intended to see it coming.
Or the day after.
He returned to work. Patients. Wards. Routine. The steady, familiar rhythm of medicine that asked nothing of him beyond skill and attention. It should have grounded him.
It didn’t.
Every quiet moment circled back to the same question.
If I don’t go… who does?
Baxter was still in recovery when Nate finally went to see him.
The hospital room was bright, almost aggressively so. Clean linens, the faint antiseptic smell—order imposed over damage.
Baxter looked smaller.
That was Nate’s first thought.
The man who had stood on Aesculon waving contracts like weapons now lay propped against pillows, pale, drawn, very much aware of his own mortality.
He glanced up as Nate entered.
“Well,” Baxter said faintly, “if it isn’t my rescuer.”
Nate pulled a chair over and sat.
“You’re alive,” he said.
“Apparently.”
A pause.
“I’m told you were instrumental in that outcome.”
“You were there,” Nate replied. “You know what happened.”
Baxter gave a weak, humourless smile. “Bits of it.”
Silence settled.
Then—
“You’re going back,” Nate said.
Baxter didn’t deny it.
“They are,” he said. “With or without me.”
“And you?”
Another pause.
“I thought I knew what we were doing,” Baxter admitted. “Structured expansion. Controlled acquisition.”
Nate said nothing.
“I didn’t account for…” Baxter trailed off slightly. “For them.”
“No,” Nate said. “You didn’t.”
Baxter met his eyes.
“You did.”
“I suspected,” Nate corrected. “That’s not the same thing.”
“It was enough.”
Nate leaned back slightly. “Merick’s pushing Ethiopia now.”
Baxter nodded faintly. “Yes.”
“You think it’ll be different?”
Baxter hesitated.
That was answer enough.
By the time Nate left the hospital, the decision hadn’t become clearer.
But it had become sharper.
At the Society, things were… brittle.
Meetings still happened, but the tone had shifted. Less collegial. More guarded.
Edmund Dash was at the centre of it, as ever—composed, controlled, speaking in measured terms about progress, opportunity, and the necessity of moving forward.
“Ethiopia presents a clean slate,” Dash was saying as Nate entered one such meeting. “No prior interference. No… complications.”
Nate didn’t sit.
“Aesculon was a ‘clean slate’ once,” he said.
The room stilled.
Dash turned slowly.
“Dr. Chase,” he said. “How good of you to join us.”
“I heard you were rewriting history.”
A flicker of irritation.
“Refining our understanding,” Dash corrected.
“You mean ignoring it.”
Murmurs.
Winfield watched, silent but attentive.
Dash clasped his hands behind his back. “If you have a substantive point—”
“I do,” Nate said. “You’re pushing Ethiopia as though it’s free of risk. It isn’t. We just don’t know what the risks are yet.”
“Which is precisely why we investigate.”
“With caution,” Nate said. “Not with another extraction plan dressed up as exploration.”
Dash’s expression cooled.
“You seem determined to obstruct progress at every turn.”
“I’m determined not to repeat mistakes that got people killed.”
That landed.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Dash smiled.
Thin. Controlled.
“And yet,” he said, “you are not involved in operational planning. An interesting position from which to issue directives.”
Nate held his gaze.
“That might change.”
That, more than anything, shifted the room.
Dash’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Indeed?”
“John J. Merick asked me to take an oversight role,” Nate said.
Silence.
Real silence.
Dash recovered quickly—but not quickly enough.
“I see,” he said. “And you’re considering it.”
“I am.”
A pause.
Then, quietly—
“You should consider very carefully whose interests you would be serving.”
Nate didn’t flinch.
“I already am.”
Andrea found him later.
“You’ve stirred the nest,” she said.
“It needed stirring.”
“That’s not the part I’m concerned about.”
He glanced at her. “No?”
“It’s what happens after,” she said.
They walked slowly, side by side, the evening settling around them.
“You spoke to Baxter?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He knows they got it wrong,” Nate said. “But that doesn’t mean they won’t do it again.”
Andrea nodded.
“That sounds about right.”
A pause.
“And Dash?”
“He’s positioning himself,” Nate said. “Ethiopia is his opportunity to reset the narrative.”
“And you?” she asked.
Nate exhaled.
“I think Merick wants me there to stop that from happening.”
Andrea glanced at him.
“Or to give it legitimacy.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
They stopped.
“Do you trust him?” she asked.
“Merick?”
“Yes.”
Nate considered that.
“No,” he said. “But I believe him.”
Andrea tilted her head slightly. “That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he agreed. “But it might be enough.”
Silence settled between them.
Then—
“I think you’re going to say yes,” she said.
Nate looked at her.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you won’t be able to live with yourself if you don’t.”
He didn’t argue.
Because she was right.
The letter he sent was brief.
To John J. Merick.
Acceptance.
With conditions.
Independent authority to raise objections.
Full access to expedition planning.
No contractual constraints on his ability to report concerns to the Society.
It was, he knew, only a starting point.
The reply came quickly.
Also brief.
Agreed.
Preparations shifted almost immediately.
The Ethiopian project moved to the forefront—maps, geological surveys, logistical planning. Reports from Alexandros began to circulate—technical, precise, hinting at progress but withholding certainty.
Aesculon, for the moment, receded.
Not abandoned.
Never that.
But… waiting.
Nate stood at the edge of the Society’s planning room one evening, watching as teams moved around tables covered in documents, diagrams, projections.
It felt familiar.
And entirely different.
Andrea joined him quietly.
“So,” she said.
“So,” he echoed.
“You’ve stepped into it.”
“Yes.”
She studied the room.
“And now?”
Nate’s gaze moved across it—over the plans, the people, the momentum already building.
“Now,” he said, “we find out if I can actually make a difference.”
Andrea looked at him.
And for a moment—
There was something like hope.
Careful.
Measured.
But there.
“Then we’d better be ready,” she said.
Nate nodded.
Because whatever waited in Ethiopia—
It would not be empty.
And this time—
They intended to see it coming.
-
Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
The heat rose in layers as they moved south.
It wasn’t the thick, suffocating press of Aesculon’s jungle, but something drier—older. The air carried dust and distance, the land stretching wide beneath a pale, relentless sky. By the time Nate joined the expedition, the machinery of it was already in motion.
Crates. Teams. Schedules.
And security.
He noticed them immediately.
They didn’t dress like the Society, nor like the administrators of Merick & Co.. They carried themselves differently—economy of movement, eyes always scanning, hands never far from their weapons.
Mercenaries.
Not guards.
Not escorts.
Soldiers.
One of them met Nate’s gaze briefly as he passed. No challenge. No acknowledgment.
Just assessment.
Nate looked away first.
He didn’t like it.
Not because they were there—but because of what their presence implied.
Alexandros was waiting near the outer edge of the camp when Nate arrived.
“You took your time,” he said, though there was something like relief beneath the gruffness.
“I had things to settle,” Nate replied.
“And now?”
“Now I’m here.”
Alexandros studied him for a moment. “Then it becomes more complicated.”
“I gathered as much.”
A glance toward the mercenary team, currently checking equipment with quiet efficiency.
“You see them,” Alexandros said.
“I do.”
“They are not for show.”
“No,” Nate agreed. “They rarely are.”
The journey to the source of the Nile took them further than Nate had expected.
The land shifted as they moved—grassland giving way to rock, the terrain rising, narrowing. The river itself became younger, leaner, its flow cutting sharper lines through the earth.
It felt like following something back to its beginning.
By the time Alexandros led them to the cave, the sun had already begun its descent.
“There,” he said simply.
The entrance was unremarkable at first glance. A dark break in the rock face, partially obscured by natural growth and shadow. Easy to miss.
Easy to overlook.
Nate frowned slightly.
“Are you certain?”
Alexandros didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he gestured toward the equipment being unpacked.
“You will see.”
The cave was cooler inside.
The air still.
Sound carried differently—muted, contained.
They moved carefully, lanterns casting long, shifting shadows against uneven stone. The passage narrowed, then opened into a wider chamber.
And there—
Nate saw it.
At first, he thought it was nothing.
A distortion.
A faint irregularity in the air, barely perceptible unless one knew what to look for.
Smaller than the Aesculon gate.
Much smaller.
No larger than a doorway.
Perhaps less.
But unmistakable.
“That’s it,” Alexandros said quietly.
Nate stepped closer.
The shimmer was there—subtle, unstable, like a reflection that didn’t belong to anything in the cave.
“It’s… contained,” Nate said.
“Yes.”
“And weak.”
“For now.”
Nate glanced at him. “You’re certain it can be expanded?”
Alexandros allowed himself a faint smile.
“That,” he said, “is the point of the lens.”
Work began immediately.
There was no sense of reverence here.
No pause to absorb the significance.
Just action.
The components of the lens were carried in piece by piece—metal segments, coils, crystalline elements designed to align and amplify the unseen.
The mercenary team took positions without instruction, securing the perimeter of the cave entrance, watching the surrounding terrain with quiet intensity.
Nate noticed how often they looked outward.
Not inward.
Not at the gate.
As though whatever concerned them—
Was not in the cave.
“Careful with that,” Alexandros snapped as one of the technicians shifted a segment too quickly.
“This isn’t brute force work.”
The man adjusted immediately.
“Yes, Doctor.”
Nate moved closer, watching the assembly take shape.
“You’re confident this will hold?” he asked.
Alexandros didn’t look up. “Confident enough.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It is not meant to be.”
A pause.
Then, more quietly—
“This gate is different.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed slightly. “In what way?”
Alexandros hesitated.
“Smaller,” he said at first.
“I can see that.”
“And… quieter.”
That caught Nate’s attention.
“Quieter?”
Alexandros finally looked at him.
“Aesculon resisted,” he said. “Even before we understood it, there was a sense of… pressure.”
Nate remembered.
The air. The weight of it.
The feeling of something just beyond reach.
“And this?” he asked.
Alexandros shook his head slightly.
“This feels like nothing.”
Nate frowned.
That, somehow—
Was worse.
By nightfall, the ring stood assembled within the cave.
Smaller than the one in Scotland, but no less precise.
The components hummed faintly as power was introduced—carefully, incrementally.
Nate stood back, arms folded, watching.
“Ready?” one of the engineers asked.
Alexandros nodded once.
“Begin.”
The hum deepened.
The air within the ring shifted—subtle at first, then more pronounced. The faint distortion sharpened, pulling into focus.
The small gate flickered.
Wavered.
Then—
Stabilised.
But not as Nate expected.
It didn’t expand.
Not immediately.
Instead, it intensified.
The space within it darkened—not with shadow, but with depth.
A narrow opening.
But deeper than it should have been.
Nate took a step closer.
“What do you see?” Alexandros asked.
Nate didn’t answer right away.
He was looking.
Trying to make sense of what lay beyond.
There were shapes—
Stone, perhaps.
Or something like it.
Not jungle.
Not open space.
Confined.
Structured.
He felt it then.
Not pressure.
Not resistance.
Something else.
A stillness that didn’t belong to an empty place.
“They’re going to want to go through,” Nate said quietly.
“Yes.”
“And you?”
Alexandros met his gaze.
“I will go where the work takes me.”
Nate nodded slowly.
Then looked back at the gate.
At the narrow, impossibly deep opening.
At the mercenaries stationed behind them.
At the machinery already in place to make this… usable.
He exhaled.
“They’ve learned nothing,” he said.
Alexandros didn’t disagree.
Behind them, one of the mercenary officers spoke quietly into a radio.
“Site is secure,” he said. “Proceeding to next phase.”
Nate heard it.
And something in him tightened.
Because whatever lay beyond that gate—
It wasn’t Aesculon.
And this time—
They were walking in armed.
That, more than anything else—
Made him uneasy.
It wasn’t the thick, suffocating press of Aesculon’s jungle, but something drier—older. The air carried dust and distance, the land stretching wide beneath a pale, relentless sky. By the time Nate joined the expedition, the machinery of it was already in motion.
Crates. Teams. Schedules.
And security.
He noticed them immediately.
They didn’t dress like the Society, nor like the administrators of Merick & Co.. They carried themselves differently—economy of movement, eyes always scanning, hands never far from their weapons.
Mercenaries.
Not guards.
Not escorts.
Soldiers.
One of them met Nate’s gaze briefly as he passed. No challenge. No acknowledgment.
Just assessment.
Nate looked away first.
He didn’t like it.
Not because they were there—but because of what their presence implied.
Alexandros was waiting near the outer edge of the camp when Nate arrived.
“You took your time,” he said, though there was something like relief beneath the gruffness.
“I had things to settle,” Nate replied.
“And now?”
“Now I’m here.”
Alexandros studied him for a moment. “Then it becomes more complicated.”
“I gathered as much.”
A glance toward the mercenary team, currently checking equipment with quiet efficiency.
“You see them,” Alexandros said.
“I do.”
“They are not for show.”
“No,” Nate agreed. “They rarely are.”
The journey to the source of the Nile took them further than Nate had expected.
The land shifted as they moved—grassland giving way to rock, the terrain rising, narrowing. The river itself became younger, leaner, its flow cutting sharper lines through the earth.
It felt like following something back to its beginning.
By the time Alexandros led them to the cave, the sun had already begun its descent.
“There,” he said simply.
The entrance was unremarkable at first glance. A dark break in the rock face, partially obscured by natural growth and shadow. Easy to miss.
Easy to overlook.
Nate frowned slightly.
“Are you certain?”
Alexandros didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he gestured toward the equipment being unpacked.
“You will see.”
The cave was cooler inside.
The air still.
Sound carried differently—muted, contained.
They moved carefully, lanterns casting long, shifting shadows against uneven stone. The passage narrowed, then opened into a wider chamber.
And there—
Nate saw it.
At first, he thought it was nothing.
A distortion.
A faint irregularity in the air, barely perceptible unless one knew what to look for.
Smaller than the Aesculon gate.
Much smaller.
No larger than a doorway.
Perhaps less.
But unmistakable.
“That’s it,” Alexandros said quietly.
Nate stepped closer.
The shimmer was there—subtle, unstable, like a reflection that didn’t belong to anything in the cave.
“It’s… contained,” Nate said.
“Yes.”
“And weak.”
“For now.”
Nate glanced at him. “You’re certain it can be expanded?”
Alexandros allowed himself a faint smile.
“That,” he said, “is the point of the lens.”
Work began immediately.
There was no sense of reverence here.
No pause to absorb the significance.
Just action.
The components of the lens were carried in piece by piece—metal segments, coils, crystalline elements designed to align and amplify the unseen.
The mercenary team took positions without instruction, securing the perimeter of the cave entrance, watching the surrounding terrain with quiet intensity.
Nate noticed how often they looked outward.
Not inward.
Not at the gate.
As though whatever concerned them—
Was not in the cave.
“Careful with that,” Alexandros snapped as one of the technicians shifted a segment too quickly.
“This isn’t brute force work.”
The man adjusted immediately.
“Yes, Doctor.”
Nate moved closer, watching the assembly take shape.
“You’re confident this will hold?” he asked.
Alexandros didn’t look up. “Confident enough.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It is not meant to be.”
A pause.
Then, more quietly—
“This gate is different.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed slightly. “In what way?”
Alexandros hesitated.
“Smaller,” he said at first.
“I can see that.”
“And… quieter.”
That caught Nate’s attention.
“Quieter?”
Alexandros finally looked at him.
“Aesculon resisted,” he said. “Even before we understood it, there was a sense of… pressure.”
Nate remembered.
The air. The weight of it.
The feeling of something just beyond reach.
“And this?” he asked.
Alexandros shook his head slightly.
“This feels like nothing.”
Nate frowned.
That, somehow—
Was worse.
By nightfall, the ring stood assembled within the cave.
Smaller than the one in Scotland, but no less precise.
The components hummed faintly as power was introduced—carefully, incrementally.
Nate stood back, arms folded, watching.
“Ready?” one of the engineers asked.
Alexandros nodded once.
“Begin.”
The hum deepened.
The air within the ring shifted—subtle at first, then more pronounced. The faint distortion sharpened, pulling into focus.
The small gate flickered.
Wavered.
Then—
Stabilised.
But not as Nate expected.
It didn’t expand.
Not immediately.
Instead, it intensified.
The space within it darkened—not with shadow, but with depth.
A narrow opening.
But deeper than it should have been.
Nate took a step closer.
“What do you see?” Alexandros asked.
Nate didn’t answer right away.
He was looking.
Trying to make sense of what lay beyond.
There were shapes—
Stone, perhaps.
Or something like it.
Not jungle.
Not open space.
Confined.
Structured.
He felt it then.
Not pressure.
Not resistance.
Something else.
A stillness that didn’t belong to an empty place.
“They’re going to want to go through,” Nate said quietly.
“Yes.”
“And you?”
Alexandros met his gaze.
“I will go where the work takes me.”
Nate nodded slowly.
Then looked back at the gate.
At the narrow, impossibly deep opening.
At the mercenaries stationed behind them.
At the machinery already in place to make this… usable.
He exhaled.
“They’ve learned nothing,” he said.
Alexandros didn’t disagree.
Behind them, one of the mercenary officers spoke quietly into a radio.
“Site is secure,” he said. “Proceeding to next phase.”
Nate heard it.
And something in him tightened.
Because whatever lay beyond that gate—
It wasn’t Aesculon.
And this time—
They were walking in armed.
That, more than anything else—
Made him uneasy.
-
Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
The moment of crossing was not a step.
Not a transition.
It was a distortion.
Nate felt it the instant he moved through the lens—his body pulled, stretched into something impossibly thin, as though every part of him had been drawn out across a distance that didn’t exist. There was no sense of direction, no up or down—only pressure, and the unsettling awareness that he was no longer entirely whole.
He tried to breathe.
Couldn’t.
Then—
It snapped.
He stumbled forward, catching himself against rough stone, lungs dragging air back in with a sharp, involuntary gasp.
“Christ—” he muttered, steadying himself.
Beside him, Alexandros staggered as well, one hand braced against the standing stone they had emerged through.
“That,” Alexandros said hoarsely, “is not an improvement.”
“No,” Nate agreed, still orienting himself. “It isn’t.”
Behind them, the others began to come through.
The mercenaries first.
They emerged with less grace than they might have liked—boots scraping, shoulders colliding with stone as they regained balance. One man dropped briefly to a knee, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Everyone steady,” their leader called, though his own voice carried a slight edge. “Form up—perimeter positions.”
Despite the disorientation, they moved quickly.
Efficiently.
Weapons came up—rifles, a pair of Thompson submachine gun slung forward and ready. They spread out, scanning the surrounding terrain, instinctively creating a defensive ring around the point of entry.
Nate noticed that.
Even here.
Even now.
They expected something.
The gate itself was… different.
They had stepped out not into open air, but through a structure.
A ring of standing stones formed a kind of doorway—larger than the cave aperture they had amplified, but unmistakably deliberate. Beyond it, more stones fanned outward in a wide arc, each one shorter than the last, as though marking a boundary or a path.
A constructed space.
Not natural.
Alexandros turned slowly, taking it in. “We did not build this.”
“No,” Nate said. “We didn’t.”
Behind them, more of the expedition emerged—Society members blinking in confusion, Merick personnel already scanning, assessing, cataloguing.
There was no jungle here.
No oppressive growth.
The air was clear.
Still.
Almost too still.
“Perimeter secure,” the mercenary leader called after a moment, though his eyes continued to move, searching the horizon.
“Secure,” Nate repeated under his breath. “We’ve been here less than a minute.”
He stepped past the ring of stones, moving toward the edge of the plateau.
Andrea followed close behind, her expression tight with focus rather than fear.
“You all right?” she asked quietly.
“I will be,” he said. “You?”
“I think so,” she replied. “That crossing—”
“Was wrong.”
“Yes.”
They reached the edge.
And stopped.
The world below them unfolded in impossible scale.
A city.
Not ruins in the way Nate had expected—not scattered remnants or half-buried structures.
A city.
Wide. Ordered. Layered.
Streets stretched in long, deliberate lines, intersecting at precise angles. Tracks—raised above the ground—cut through the space between towering structures, forming what could only be an elevated rail system.
And the buildings—
Nate had seen Manhattan.
He had stood among its tallest constructions.
These dwarfed them.
Massive, vertical structures reaching into the sky—some intact, others fractured or leaning, their surfaces worn, broken, overtaken by creeping growth.
Nature had returned.
But it had not erased.
It had… reclaimed.
“What in God’s name…” someone whispered behind them.
Alexandros stepped up beside Nate, his usual certainty momentarily stripped away.
“This is not a settlement,” he said quietly.
“No,” Nate replied.
“It is a civilisation.”
Andrea’s voice was softer still. “Was.”
They stood there for a long moment.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The scale of it resisted immediate understanding.
Then—
“They built all of this,” one of the Merick technicians said, almost to himself. “And then they left?”
“Or something made them leave,” another added.
Nate didn’t comment.
But the thought had already formed.
Camp was established on the plateau.
Carefully.
Deliberately.
The mercenaries extended their perimeter outward, setting overlapping lines of sight. Equipment was brought through in stages, the lens stabilised and secured on the far side of the stone gate.
This time, nothing was left to chance.
At least, not visibly.
By late afternoon, activity had settled into structure.
Survey teams began mapping the immediate area—soil, stone composition, the arrangement of the standing stones. Merick personnel catalogued everything they could see, sketching, noting, already thinking ahead.
But the city—
The city pulled at them.
Nate saw it in the way people lingered at the edge of the plateau, eyes drawn downward.
Distance meant nothing when scale like that was involved.
“We should send a team,” one of the Merick staff said. “Even a preliminary—”
“Not yet,” Nate said.
The man turned. “We don’t know how stable those structures are. Or what—”
“Exactly,” Nate cut in. “We don’t know.”
A pause.
“That’s why we go,” the man insisted.
“That’s why we don’t rush,” Nate replied.
“Dr. Chase.”
The voice came from behind him.
Nate turned.
The mercenary leader approached, helmet tucked under one arm, expression neutral but attentive.
“Captain Rourke,” he said, offering his name without prompting.
Nate nodded. “Doctor.”
Rourke glanced past him, toward the distant city. “You’ve seen environments like this before?”
“Aesculon,” Nate said.
Rourke shook his head slightly. “Not like that.”
“No,” Nate agreed. “Not like this.”
A brief silence.
Then—
“I want your assessment,” Rourke said.
Nate blinked. “My assessment?”
“Threat profile,” Rourke clarified. “Unknown variables. Likely points of risk.”
Nate gave him a long look. “You’re asking a surgeon.”
“I’m asking the man who saw trouble coming last time,” Rourke replied evenly.
That gave Nate pause.
He turned back toward the city.
Considered.
Then—
“Empty doesn’t mean safe,” he said. “If anything, it’s the opposite.”
Rourke nodded slightly. “Agreed.”
“That place was built by something more advanced than us,” Nate continued. “Which means whatever ended it wasn’t trivial.”
“Environmental collapse?” Rourke suggested.
“Maybe,” Nate said. “Or something internal. Or something external.”
Rourke waited.
“What concerns me,” Nate added, “is the abandonment. Not destruction. Not annihilation.”
He gestured toward the skyline.
“They left it standing.”
Rourke followed his gaze.
“And that bothers you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Nate exhaled slowly.
“Because it suggests they had time,” he said. “Time to leave. Time to choose.”
A pause.
“And they chose not to come back.”
Rourke was quiet for a moment.
Then he nodded once.
“We’ll hold position,” he said. “No forward movement until we’ve got better intel.”
Nate glanced at him, surprised.
“That’s… sensible.”
Rourke allowed himself the faintest hint of a smile. “Don’t spread it around.”
As evening settled over the plateau, the city below darkened—not with shadow alone, but with something deeper.
Something waiting.
Nate stood at the edge once more, Andrea beside him.
“They’re already thinking about going down there,” she said.
“I know.”
“And you?”
Nate watched the skyline—those towering, silent structures stretching into the fading light.
“I think,” he said quietly, “this place is going to be worse than Aesculon.”
Andrea didn’t argue.
Because for the first time since they had stepped through—
It didn’t feel like a world that had been left behind.
It felt like one that had been… escaped.
Not a transition.
It was a distortion.
Nate felt it the instant he moved through the lens—his body pulled, stretched into something impossibly thin, as though every part of him had been drawn out across a distance that didn’t exist. There was no sense of direction, no up or down—only pressure, and the unsettling awareness that he was no longer entirely whole.
He tried to breathe.
Couldn’t.
Then—
It snapped.
He stumbled forward, catching himself against rough stone, lungs dragging air back in with a sharp, involuntary gasp.
“Christ—” he muttered, steadying himself.
Beside him, Alexandros staggered as well, one hand braced against the standing stone they had emerged through.
“That,” Alexandros said hoarsely, “is not an improvement.”
“No,” Nate agreed, still orienting himself. “It isn’t.”
Behind them, the others began to come through.
The mercenaries first.
They emerged with less grace than they might have liked—boots scraping, shoulders colliding with stone as they regained balance. One man dropped briefly to a knee, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Everyone steady,” their leader called, though his own voice carried a slight edge. “Form up—perimeter positions.”
Despite the disorientation, they moved quickly.
Efficiently.
Weapons came up—rifles, a pair of Thompson submachine gun slung forward and ready. They spread out, scanning the surrounding terrain, instinctively creating a defensive ring around the point of entry.
Nate noticed that.
Even here.
Even now.
They expected something.
The gate itself was… different.
They had stepped out not into open air, but through a structure.
A ring of standing stones formed a kind of doorway—larger than the cave aperture they had amplified, but unmistakably deliberate. Beyond it, more stones fanned outward in a wide arc, each one shorter than the last, as though marking a boundary or a path.
A constructed space.
Not natural.
Alexandros turned slowly, taking it in. “We did not build this.”
“No,” Nate said. “We didn’t.”
Behind them, more of the expedition emerged—Society members blinking in confusion, Merick personnel already scanning, assessing, cataloguing.
There was no jungle here.
No oppressive growth.
The air was clear.
Still.
Almost too still.
“Perimeter secure,” the mercenary leader called after a moment, though his eyes continued to move, searching the horizon.
“Secure,” Nate repeated under his breath. “We’ve been here less than a minute.”
He stepped past the ring of stones, moving toward the edge of the plateau.
Andrea followed close behind, her expression tight with focus rather than fear.
“You all right?” she asked quietly.
“I will be,” he said. “You?”
“I think so,” she replied. “That crossing—”
“Was wrong.”
“Yes.”
They reached the edge.
And stopped.
The world below them unfolded in impossible scale.
A city.
Not ruins in the way Nate had expected—not scattered remnants or half-buried structures.
A city.
Wide. Ordered. Layered.
Streets stretched in long, deliberate lines, intersecting at precise angles. Tracks—raised above the ground—cut through the space between towering structures, forming what could only be an elevated rail system.
And the buildings—
Nate had seen Manhattan.
He had stood among its tallest constructions.
These dwarfed them.
Massive, vertical structures reaching into the sky—some intact, others fractured or leaning, their surfaces worn, broken, overtaken by creeping growth.
Nature had returned.
But it had not erased.
It had… reclaimed.
“What in God’s name…” someone whispered behind them.
Alexandros stepped up beside Nate, his usual certainty momentarily stripped away.
“This is not a settlement,” he said quietly.
“No,” Nate replied.
“It is a civilisation.”
Andrea’s voice was softer still. “Was.”
They stood there for a long moment.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The scale of it resisted immediate understanding.
Then—
“They built all of this,” one of the Merick technicians said, almost to himself. “And then they left?”
“Or something made them leave,” another added.
Nate didn’t comment.
But the thought had already formed.
Camp was established on the plateau.
Carefully.
Deliberately.
The mercenaries extended their perimeter outward, setting overlapping lines of sight. Equipment was brought through in stages, the lens stabilised and secured on the far side of the stone gate.
This time, nothing was left to chance.
At least, not visibly.
By late afternoon, activity had settled into structure.
Survey teams began mapping the immediate area—soil, stone composition, the arrangement of the standing stones. Merick personnel catalogued everything they could see, sketching, noting, already thinking ahead.
But the city—
The city pulled at them.
Nate saw it in the way people lingered at the edge of the plateau, eyes drawn downward.
Distance meant nothing when scale like that was involved.
“We should send a team,” one of the Merick staff said. “Even a preliminary—”
“Not yet,” Nate said.
The man turned. “We don’t know how stable those structures are. Or what—”
“Exactly,” Nate cut in. “We don’t know.”
A pause.
“That’s why we go,” the man insisted.
“That’s why we don’t rush,” Nate replied.
“Dr. Chase.”
The voice came from behind him.
Nate turned.
The mercenary leader approached, helmet tucked under one arm, expression neutral but attentive.
“Captain Rourke,” he said, offering his name without prompting.
Nate nodded. “Doctor.”
Rourke glanced past him, toward the distant city. “You’ve seen environments like this before?”
“Aesculon,” Nate said.
Rourke shook his head slightly. “Not like that.”
“No,” Nate agreed. “Not like this.”
A brief silence.
Then—
“I want your assessment,” Rourke said.
Nate blinked. “My assessment?”
“Threat profile,” Rourke clarified. “Unknown variables. Likely points of risk.”
Nate gave him a long look. “You’re asking a surgeon.”
“I’m asking the man who saw trouble coming last time,” Rourke replied evenly.
That gave Nate pause.
He turned back toward the city.
Considered.
Then—
“Empty doesn’t mean safe,” he said. “If anything, it’s the opposite.”
Rourke nodded slightly. “Agreed.”
“That place was built by something more advanced than us,” Nate continued. “Which means whatever ended it wasn’t trivial.”
“Environmental collapse?” Rourke suggested.
“Maybe,” Nate said. “Or something internal. Or something external.”
Rourke waited.
“What concerns me,” Nate added, “is the abandonment. Not destruction. Not annihilation.”
He gestured toward the skyline.
“They left it standing.”
Rourke followed his gaze.
“And that bothers you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Nate exhaled slowly.
“Because it suggests they had time,” he said. “Time to leave. Time to choose.”
A pause.
“And they chose not to come back.”
Rourke was quiet for a moment.
Then he nodded once.
“We’ll hold position,” he said. “No forward movement until we’ve got better intel.”
Nate glanced at him, surprised.
“That’s… sensible.”
Rourke allowed himself the faintest hint of a smile. “Don’t spread it around.”
As evening settled over the plateau, the city below darkened—not with shadow alone, but with something deeper.
Something waiting.
Nate stood at the edge once more, Andrea beside him.
“They’re already thinking about going down there,” she said.
“I know.”
“And you?”
Nate watched the skyline—those towering, silent structures stretching into the fading light.
“I think,” he said quietly, “this place is going to be worse than Aesculon.”
Andrea didn’t argue.
Because for the first time since they had stepped through—
It didn’t feel like a world that had been left behind.
It felt like one that had been… escaped.
-
Keeper
- Magi
- Posts: 618
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:41 am
Re: The Hermes Society
They didn’t go down that night.
That, in itself, was a victory.
There had been pressure—quiet at first, then more insistent as dusk settled and the city below began to dissolve into shadow. A place like that demanded to be explored. It pulled at curiosity, at ambition.
But Nate held the line.
“No one goes down there in the dark,” he said, firm enough that even the Merick staff hesitated before arguing.
Rourke backed him.
That made the difference.
Morning came cold and clear.
The city revealed itself again in full—its scale no less overwhelming for the light. If anything, the detail made it worse. What had seemed distant and abstract now resolved into structure, into intention.
Into something that had once worked.
Nate stood at the edge of the plateau with Andrea and Rourke, studying the route down.
“There,” Rourke said, pointing. “Natural slope. Least exposed.”
Nate nodded. “We keep it small.”
“Agreed,” Rourke said. “Myself, four men.”
“Five,” Nate corrected.
Rourke glanced at him.
“I’m going,” Nate added.
Andrea didn’t wait to be included.
“So am I.”
Rourke looked between them, weighing something, then gave a short nod. “Fine. But we move as a unit.”
Behind them, one of the Merick observers stepped forward.
“We’ll require documentation of—”
“No,” Nate said, not turning.
A pause.
“Dr. Chase—”
“No,” he repeated. “You’ll get your documentation when we know it’s safe to provide it.”
Rourke didn’t interfere.
That, more than anything, settled it.
The descent was slower than it looked.
Loose ground, uneven footing, and the constant awareness of open space behind them forced caution. The city loomed larger with every step, its structures growing from distant shapes into immense, towering presences.
Nate felt it as they approached.
Not fear.
Not yet.
But… pressure.
Not from the place itself.
From what it represented.
At the edge of the city, they stopped.
No gate.
No barrier.
Just a transition from natural ground to constructed surface.
Stone—or something like it—laid in wide, seamless slabs that formed the beginning of a street.
Nate crouched, running his hand lightly over it.
Smooth.
Worn.
But not broken.
“This has held,” he said quietly.
“For how long?” Andrea asked.
Nate didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know how to measure time here.
They moved in.
The scale changed everything.
What had seemed vast from above became oppressive at ground level. The buildings rose on either side, their surfaces marked by age, by creeping growth, by long neglect.
But they were intact.
Too intact.
“Watch your spacing,” Rourke said quietly. “No one gets separated.”
His men moved with practiced precision, weapons up, eyes scanning windows, doorways, the spaces above and between.
Nate noticed that too.
The vertical threat.
Always present.
“Here,” Andrea said.
They stopped.
A doorway—open.
Not broken.
Not forced.
Simply… open.
Nate stepped closer.
The edges were clean. No signs of damage, no splintering or collapse.
“They didn’t barricade,” he said.
“No,” Andrea replied. “They didn’t.”
Rourke glanced inside, then back out. “We don’t go in yet.”
Nate nodded.
Agreed.
Further in, the signs accumulated.
A structure that might once have been a transport hub—wide platforms, elevated tracks above, silent now but unmistakably engineered for movement.
No debris.
No wreckage.
Just stillness.
“They left in order,” Nate said.
Andrea looked at him. “You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“How can you tell?”
Nate gestured lightly.
“No signs of panic,” he said. “No collapse, no structural failure, no evidence of violence at scale.”
Rourke frowned slightly. “You’re saying they walked away from this?”
“I’m saying they had time to leave,” Nate replied.
“And they didn’t come back,” Andrea added.
Nate nodded.
They reached an intersection.
Wide.
Open.
The kind of place that should have been full of movement.
Instead—
Nothing.
Rourke raised a hand.
The team stopped.
“What is it?” Nate asked quietly.
Rourke didn’t answer immediately.
He was looking at the ground.
Then—
“Tracks,” he said.
Nate stepped closer.
At first, he didn’t see them.
Then—
Subtle.
Faint.
Not footprints in soil—something else. Disturbances. Patterns in the fine layer of dust that had settled over the surface.
Movement.
Recent.
Not ancient.
Nate’s chest tightened slightly.
“Those aren’t ours,” Andrea said.
“No,” Nate agreed.
Rourke’s jaw set. “Then we’re not alone.”
They held position.
No one spoke for a moment.
The city pressed in around them—silent, vast, watching.
Then—
A sound.
Faint.
Metallic.
Distant.
Not wind.
Not settling.
Something else.
Rourke’s head snapped toward it. “Direction?”
“East,” one of his men whispered.
The sound came again.
A soft, rhythmic clatter.
Then stopped.
Nate felt it then.
That shift.
The same one he had felt on Aesculon.
The moment when a place stopped being empty—
And started being aware.
“We go back,” he said.
Rourke didn’t argue.
“Fall back,” he ordered quietly. “Same route.”
No one hesitated.
They moved faster on the return.
Not running.
But no longer exploring.
The city seemed to close behind them, the silence now heavier, less passive.
Nate resisted the urge to look back.
He didn’t want to see anything moving where nothing should be.
When they reached the edge of the plateau again, the tension broke—just slightly.
Air.
Space.
Distance.
They climbed the final stretch in silence.
Only when they reached the top did Rourke lower his weapon fully.
“Well?” one of the Merick staff called, already stepping forward.
Nate didn’t answer immediately.
He looked back once.
The city lay below them.
Silent.
Unchanged.
But no longer unknown.
Then he turned.
“It’s not empty,” he said.
The words landed harder than anything else he could have said.
Because now—
They all knew.
And whatever had driven that civilisation away—
Hadn’t necessarily left with them.
That, in itself, was a victory.
There had been pressure—quiet at first, then more insistent as dusk settled and the city below began to dissolve into shadow. A place like that demanded to be explored. It pulled at curiosity, at ambition.
But Nate held the line.
“No one goes down there in the dark,” he said, firm enough that even the Merick staff hesitated before arguing.
Rourke backed him.
That made the difference.
Morning came cold and clear.
The city revealed itself again in full—its scale no less overwhelming for the light. If anything, the detail made it worse. What had seemed distant and abstract now resolved into structure, into intention.
Into something that had once worked.
Nate stood at the edge of the plateau with Andrea and Rourke, studying the route down.
“There,” Rourke said, pointing. “Natural slope. Least exposed.”
Nate nodded. “We keep it small.”
“Agreed,” Rourke said. “Myself, four men.”
“Five,” Nate corrected.
Rourke glanced at him.
“I’m going,” Nate added.
Andrea didn’t wait to be included.
“So am I.”
Rourke looked between them, weighing something, then gave a short nod. “Fine. But we move as a unit.”
Behind them, one of the Merick observers stepped forward.
“We’ll require documentation of—”
“No,” Nate said, not turning.
A pause.
“Dr. Chase—”
“No,” he repeated. “You’ll get your documentation when we know it’s safe to provide it.”
Rourke didn’t interfere.
That, more than anything, settled it.
The descent was slower than it looked.
Loose ground, uneven footing, and the constant awareness of open space behind them forced caution. The city loomed larger with every step, its structures growing from distant shapes into immense, towering presences.
Nate felt it as they approached.
Not fear.
Not yet.
But… pressure.
Not from the place itself.
From what it represented.
At the edge of the city, they stopped.
No gate.
No barrier.
Just a transition from natural ground to constructed surface.
Stone—or something like it—laid in wide, seamless slabs that formed the beginning of a street.
Nate crouched, running his hand lightly over it.
Smooth.
Worn.
But not broken.
“This has held,” he said quietly.
“For how long?” Andrea asked.
Nate didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know how to measure time here.
They moved in.
The scale changed everything.
What had seemed vast from above became oppressive at ground level. The buildings rose on either side, their surfaces marked by age, by creeping growth, by long neglect.
But they were intact.
Too intact.
“Watch your spacing,” Rourke said quietly. “No one gets separated.”
His men moved with practiced precision, weapons up, eyes scanning windows, doorways, the spaces above and between.
Nate noticed that too.
The vertical threat.
Always present.
“Here,” Andrea said.
They stopped.
A doorway—open.
Not broken.
Not forced.
Simply… open.
Nate stepped closer.
The edges were clean. No signs of damage, no splintering or collapse.
“They didn’t barricade,” he said.
“No,” Andrea replied. “They didn’t.”
Rourke glanced inside, then back out. “We don’t go in yet.”
Nate nodded.
Agreed.
Further in, the signs accumulated.
A structure that might once have been a transport hub—wide platforms, elevated tracks above, silent now but unmistakably engineered for movement.
No debris.
No wreckage.
Just stillness.
“They left in order,” Nate said.
Andrea looked at him. “You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“How can you tell?”
Nate gestured lightly.
“No signs of panic,” he said. “No collapse, no structural failure, no evidence of violence at scale.”
Rourke frowned slightly. “You’re saying they walked away from this?”
“I’m saying they had time to leave,” Nate replied.
“And they didn’t come back,” Andrea added.
Nate nodded.
They reached an intersection.
Wide.
Open.
The kind of place that should have been full of movement.
Instead—
Nothing.
Rourke raised a hand.
The team stopped.
“What is it?” Nate asked quietly.
Rourke didn’t answer immediately.
He was looking at the ground.
Then—
“Tracks,” he said.
Nate stepped closer.
At first, he didn’t see them.
Then—
Subtle.
Faint.
Not footprints in soil—something else. Disturbances. Patterns in the fine layer of dust that had settled over the surface.
Movement.
Recent.
Not ancient.
Nate’s chest tightened slightly.
“Those aren’t ours,” Andrea said.
“No,” Nate agreed.
Rourke’s jaw set. “Then we’re not alone.”
They held position.
No one spoke for a moment.
The city pressed in around them—silent, vast, watching.
Then—
A sound.
Faint.
Metallic.
Distant.
Not wind.
Not settling.
Something else.
Rourke’s head snapped toward it. “Direction?”
“East,” one of his men whispered.
The sound came again.
A soft, rhythmic clatter.
Then stopped.
Nate felt it then.
That shift.
The same one he had felt on Aesculon.
The moment when a place stopped being empty—
And started being aware.
“We go back,” he said.
Rourke didn’t argue.
“Fall back,” he ordered quietly. “Same route.”
No one hesitated.
They moved faster on the return.
Not running.
But no longer exploring.
The city seemed to close behind them, the silence now heavier, less passive.
Nate resisted the urge to look back.
He didn’t want to see anything moving where nothing should be.
When they reached the edge of the plateau again, the tension broke—just slightly.
Air.
Space.
Distance.
They climbed the final stretch in silence.
Only when they reached the top did Rourke lower his weapon fully.
“Well?” one of the Merick staff called, already stepping forward.
Nate didn’t answer immediately.
He looked back once.
The city lay below them.
Silent.
Unchanged.
But no longer unknown.
Then he turned.
“It’s not empty,” he said.
The words landed harder than anything else he could have said.
Because now—
They all knew.
And whatever had driven that civilisation away—
Hadn’t necessarily left with them.