02-27-2015, 11:10 PM
With a grunt, Shang dipped under an erratic scalpel swing. As he popped back up, his fist connecting with the nurse’s saran wrapped-chin. The impact staggered the screeching pseudo-human long enough for the sorcerer to impale her through the chest with one of his arm blades. A gurgling shriek more animal than human slipped through the woman’s lips as she went limp. Pulliing the corpse toward him, Shang placed an elbow beneath her jaw and shoved forward as he yanked back on his arm, tearing the blade from her ribcage.
Retracting the blade, Shang hopped over the dead nurse and continued through the hallway until he reached the double doors that led into room directly above the ground floor lobby. To his left, he heard what sounded like groans and the sound of nails scratching against metal. A look at the label next to the door indicated that the room was the ‘TB Ward.’ Tuberculosis was something that Shang had seen rise and fall, much like a Chinese dynasty or an imperial regime. How long had it been since he’d read something about ‘consumption’? Wasn’t the disease supposed to be something of an enigma in modern society?
Then again, the whole point of the original sanitariums had been to house people with consumption until they died. After that, they’d be carted along to a place where their corpses could be put to the flame. With a shrug, Shang opted to pass on investigating the TB Ward, and he made his way along the wall until he spotted a short hallway. At the end was a door that led to the administrative office, and to his left and right where Archives and the Library.
“Administration.” Shang muttered beneath his breath as he stepped forward and tried the door handle. When he realized that the room was locked, he took a step back and almost casually kicked the door just above its lock, shattering the wooden frame. The broken entrance swung inward to reveal a somewhat lavish boardroom.
Lavish, that is, if you could overlook the fact that all of the expensive leather chairs were filled with bloody corpses. The walls and ceiling were also splattered in dried blood and bits of cranial viscera that looked like something a psychologist would show someone as part of their diagnosis. Upon closer inspection, Shang noticed that the men and women all had handguns near their corpses on directly on their laps. Something had spurned an entire boardroom worth of people in Armani suits to blow their brains out… but what? This was something that Shang hoped he’d figure out, despite the fact that he imagined much of Silent Hill was comprised of random tableaus of senseless depravity and violence.
Their loss. Shang mused as he picked up one of the handguns. Like many things in the sanitarium, he couldn’t tell how long it had been sitting here, but there didn’t seem to be any dust or grime built up on the weapon…just some dried blood spatters. Either way, the .44 was probably capable of making anyone have a bad day, but even if it wound up being useless, he was certain the Spartan would get a kick out of it.
“‘What sorcery do you wield now?’” Shang had to admit that he was getting pretty adept at the gruff and almost snarling intonation of the Spartan when he was filled with ire.
Making his way around the table, the sorcerer made for one of the fancy-looking desks at the other end of the room. Before he started to search through the drawers, he found himself drawn to the large windows that dominating the wall opposite the entranceway. Outside the giant window, he could see as far as the bridge they’d cross on their panicked sprint from the fog-line. Creeping closer, Shang squinted and tried to see if he couldn’t spot the paladin out there in the ‘wilderness.’ How close had Argento been to the women and men who had died in this old building? Would their deaths cause the holy warrior to waver? The questions made Shang snicker, but he quickly moved his mind to more pertinent thoughts.
Key.
The sorcerer turned and dropped into the leather office chair. Reclining backwards, he put his feet up on the wooden desk and pulled open the nearest drawer. Aside from some old sticky notes, fancy pens, and a couple of paperclips, there was nothing of worth. The next drawer down revealed some outdated computer equipment and a pair of speakers that ran off of D batteries. After sifting through the wires, the sorcerer accepted that he wasn’t going to find a thing, and he moved onto the bottom drawer, which opened up to reveal seemingly nothing but random papers.
As Shang was about to shut the drawer, he caught a glimpse of the title on the paper—Transfers to Alchemilla. Scooping up the document, he glanced over the contents to discover that the dates lined up with the little electronic journal entries he had read in the surgical quarters. The only difference was that the report, which was supposed to be a document outlining the transit of goods, failed to include anything about the infected patients that the sanitarium had accepted from the hospital. In their steed, the paper indicated that the shipment from Alchemilla had been a requisition for medical supplies and equipment.
Cover up, eh? Shang set the paper on the desk and glanced down into the drawer once more. It was then that he noticed that beneath the document had been a small metal key. As he picked it up, the sorcerer knew immediately that it couldn’t fit into the infectious ward, because he’d spotted said door on his way up to this boardroom. The locks there were larger and not as shallow, which meant the key had to go into something much smaller… like a lockbox or a deposit safe.
Now where would your box be? He mused as he glanced around the morbid scene. It didn’t take him long to spot a small metal box nestled next to the bookshelf he’d passed on his way over to the desk. Making his way over, he found the keyhole for what was marked ‘Key Return,’ and with a satisfying click, part of the front panel slid open to reveal a handful of assorted keys. Fortunately for the sorcerer, they were all labeled, and it didn’t take him long to find the one marked ‘Infectious Ward.’ As he tucked the key into his pocket, he took a moment to brush some grime off the gun, but in that moment of fleeting distraction, the door back into the hall was thrown wide open.
It was almost instinct at that point. Without skipping a beat, Shang lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet screaming into the wooden doorframe just a few inches to the right of Atelos’ head. The Spartan let out the closest thing to a yelp that Shang would ever expect to issue forth form his lips.
“What infernal magic was that, Sorcerer! ” Atelos raged, his voice raspier and a few octaves deeper than usual. “Do you not look before you release your damned fel powers?”
“Apologies,” Shang muttered as he lowered the firearm. “The atmosphere of this place has me on edge, especially after the nurses cornered my group and me.”
“We can weep for them later,” Atelos shot back, his tone a clear indicator that he wouldn’t be shedding any tears at the mass funeral. “I take it you’ve found something to make this worthwhile?”
“I believe so,” Shang replied with a grin as he walked over to join his associate. “I’d like to go check out another room, and then I think I may have our next destination.”
“Where?”
“Alchemilla Hospital… it’s on the other side of the nearby business district.”
Atelos scowled. “You want to go from one plague-riddled tomb to another?”
“Yes.”
“Just know that I don’t look forward to more of those screaming whores and their knives, Sorcerer.”
“I’m sure you can ma—“
Before Shang could finish his sentence, the window he’d gazed through just moments earlier exploded inward in a sparkling cloud of glass shards as a massive dark shape came shrieking into the boardroom. Spartan and sorcerer bit their tongues and found their weapons as one of the flying creatures from the bridge landed on the other end of the meeting table. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a large, skinless bat with a face too human to be any sort of coincidence. The creature let out another scream as it came barreling down the heavy oak table, each clawed foot sawing through the thick wood as the monster bore down on its intended prey.
With the gun in one hand and a Tarkaten blade projecting from the other arm, Shang felt very little fear. To his right, Atelos’ was focused singularly on their adversary and nothing else. This had happened before to the Spartan—these moments where the veil of composure fell away to reveal someone chomping at the bit to feel the blood of his foes.
These were the moments when the sorcerer most appreciated the company of the Spartan.
Retracting the blade, Shang hopped over the dead nurse and continued through the hallway until he reached the double doors that led into room directly above the ground floor lobby. To his left, he heard what sounded like groans and the sound of nails scratching against metal. A look at the label next to the door indicated that the room was the ‘TB Ward.’ Tuberculosis was something that Shang had seen rise and fall, much like a Chinese dynasty or an imperial regime. How long had it been since he’d read something about ‘consumption’? Wasn’t the disease supposed to be something of an enigma in modern society?
Then again, the whole point of the original sanitariums had been to house people with consumption until they died. After that, they’d be carted along to a place where their corpses could be put to the flame. With a shrug, Shang opted to pass on investigating the TB Ward, and he made his way along the wall until he spotted a short hallway. At the end was a door that led to the administrative office, and to his left and right where Archives and the Library.
“Administration.” Shang muttered beneath his breath as he stepped forward and tried the door handle. When he realized that the room was locked, he took a step back and almost casually kicked the door just above its lock, shattering the wooden frame. The broken entrance swung inward to reveal a somewhat lavish boardroom.
Lavish, that is, if you could overlook the fact that all of the expensive leather chairs were filled with bloody corpses. The walls and ceiling were also splattered in dried blood and bits of cranial viscera that looked like something a psychologist would show someone as part of their diagnosis. Upon closer inspection, Shang noticed that the men and women all had handguns near their corpses on directly on their laps. Something had spurned an entire boardroom worth of people in Armani suits to blow their brains out… but what? This was something that Shang hoped he’d figure out, despite the fact that he imagined much of Silent Hill was comprised of random tableaus of senseless depravity and violence.
Their loss. Shang mused as he picked up one of the handguns. Like many things in the sanitarium, he couldn’t tell how long it had been sitting here, but there didn’t seem to be any dust or grime built up on the weapon…just some dried blood spatters. Either way, the .44 was probably capable of making anyone have a bad day, but even if it wound up being useless, he was certain the Spartan would get a kick out of it.
“‘What sorcery do you wield now?’” Shang had to admit that he was getting pretty adept at the gruff and almost snarling intonation of the Spartan when he was filled with ire.
Making his way around the table, the sorcerer made for one of the fancy-looking desks at the other end of the room. Before he started to search through the drawers, he found himself drawn to the large windows that dominating the wall opposite the entranceway. Outside the giant window, he could see as far as the bridge they’d cross on their panicked sprint from the fog-line. Creeping closer, Shang squinted and tried to see if he couldn’t spot the paladin out there in the ‘wilderness.’ How close had Argento been to the women and men who had died in this old building? Would their deaths cause the holy warrior to waver? The questions made Shang snicker, but he quickly moved his mind to more pertinent thoughts.
Key.
The sorcerer turned and dropped into the leather office chair. Reclining backwards, he put his feet up on the wooden desk and pulled open the nearest drawer. Aside from some old sticky notes, fancy pens, and a couple of paperclips, there was nothing of worth. The next drawer down revealed some outdated computer equipment and a pair of speakers that ran off of D batteries. After sifting through the wires, the sorcerer accepted that he wasn’t going to find a thing, and he moved onto the bottom drawer, which opened up to reveal seemingly nothing but random papers.
As Shang was about to shut the drawer, he caught a glimpse of the title on the paper—Transfers to Alchemilla. Scooping up the document, he glanced over the contents to discover that the dates lined up with the little electronic journal entries he had read in the surgical quarters. The only difference was that the report, which was supposed to be a document outlining the transit of goods, failed to include anything about the infected patients that the sanitarium had accepted from the hospital. In their steed, the paper indicated that the shipment from Alchemilla had been a requisition for medical supplies and equipment.
Cover up, eh? Shang set the paper on the desk and glanced down into the drawer once more. It was then that he noticed that beneath the document had been a small metal key. As he picked it up, the sorcerer knew immediately that it couldn’t fit into the infectious ward, because he’d spotted said door on his way up to this boardroom. The locks there were larger and not as shallow, which meant the key had to go into something much smaller… like a lockbox or a deposit safe.
Now where would your box be? He mused as he glanced around the morbid scene. It didn’t take him long to spot a small metal box nestled next to the bookshelf he’d passed on his way over to the desk. Making his way over, he found the keyhole for what was marked ‘Key Return,’ and with a satisfying click, part of the front panel slid open to reveal a handful of assorted keys. Fortunately for the sorcerer, they were all labeled, and it didn’t take him long to find the one marked ‘Infectious Ward.’ As he tucked the key into his pocket, he took a moment to brush some grime off the gun, but in that moment of fleeting distraction, the door back into the hall was thrown wide open.
It was almost instinct at that point. Without skipping a beat, Shang lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet screaming into the wooden doorframe just a few inches to the right of Atelos’ head. The Spartan let out the closest thing to a yelp that Shang would ever expect to issue forth form his lips.
“What infernal magic was that, Sorcerer! ” Atelos raged, his voice raspier and a few octaves deeper than usual. “Do you not look before you release your damned fel powers?”
“Apologies,” Shang muttered as he lowered the firearm. “The atmosphere of this place has me on edge, especially after the nurses cornered my group and me.”
“We can weep for them later,” Atelos shot back, his tone a clear indicator that he wouldn’t be shedding any tears at the mass funeral. “I take it you’ve found something to make this worthwhile?”
“I believe so,” Shang replied with a grin as he walked over to join his associate. “I’d like to go check out another room, and then I think I may have our next destination.”
“Where?”
“Alchemilla Hospital… it’s on the other side of the nearby business district.”
Atelos scowled. “You want to go from one plague-riddled tomb to another?”
“Yes.”
“Just know that I don’t look forward to more of those screaming whores and their knives, Sorcerer.”
“I’m sure you can ma—“
Before Shang could finish his sentence, the window he’d gazed through just moments earlier exploded inward in a sparkling cloud of glass shards as a massive dark shape came shrieking into the boardroom. Spartan and sorcerer bit their tongues and found their weapons as one of the flying creatures from the bridge landed on the other end of the meeting table. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a large, skinless bat with a face too human to be any sort of coincidence. The creature let out another scream as it came barreling down the heavy oak table, each clawed foot sawing through the thick wood as the monster bore down on its intended prey.
With the gun in one hand and a Tarkaten blade projecting from the other arm, Shang felt very little fear. To his right, Atelos’ was focused singularly on their adversary and nothing else. This had happened before to the Spartan—these moments where the veil of composure fell away to reveal someone chomping at the bit to feel the blood of his foes.
These were the moments when the sorcerer most appreciated the company of the Spartan.
![[Image: Shang.jpg]](http://www.omniverse-rpg.com/images/Shang.jpg)