Chapter 28 – Hitting a Wall

  “Trends and patterns happen everywhere and while the rifts are diverse, they do sometimes have simir creatures to our worlds.” – Order Stabilitas information pamphlet.

  Kurt and Val were somewhat surprised at what they saw but at the same time, knew that rifts sometimes did strange things. This rift apparently decided that a cave with elves made the most sense.

  They had stumbled on a small band of elves sitting in a clearly mined section of tunnel. They appeared to be taking a break, standing around a group of nterns that emitted dim light. Kurt noted that they were short, around five feet tall on average and had a strange grey skin. Their eyes were a uniform red in color, giving off a slight shine like a cat.

  The most notable thing was probably their equipment. There was a low three wheeled cart off to one side of the group with what looked like mining tools. Kurt thought he saw hammers, wedges and picks along with drills and some other odds and ends.

  The elves themselves were dressed more like Hollywood pirates than miners, however. They wore brown trousers and tan shirts with wide belts and tall boots. Each of them seemed to have a sword and a pistol tucked through their belts but Kurt was most curious about the door like shields they carried.

  Propped up on a single stick was a tall, wide shield for each elf. It looked like a door from the back, with wood boards making up its base but had a metal cd surface on the face. They looked incredibly thick and heavy, making him wonder how effective their rifles would be.

  The group of pirate-miner-legionary elves was talking amongst themselves in a moderate tone. Kurt could hear the words but couldn’t understand the nguage in the slightest. He gnced to Val and pointed at his ear. She shook her head and shrugged, clearly not knowing what they said either.

  Still having her attention, Kurt signaled to Val to back away. They retreated down the tunnel a good distance, not wanting to test elven hearing in the narrow passages. Once at a safe distance, they huddled together and whispered.

  “I say we try to take them.” Kurt said. “I counted six and this could be a good test on how they act and fight.”

  “Agreed. Let’s try to bait them into a response. Act like we are retreating and see how it goes.”

  With a pn quickly set, they moved back up to the mined-out section. Kurt moved forward, letting Val get set up a couple yards behind him. He wanted to test something before the shooting started.

  Pointing his rifle at the wall behind the elves, he clicked on his ser, shining the infrared beam where they should be able to see it. Not a single elf noticed so he shined it on one of the elves’ chests. Still no reaction to the little dot of light.

  With a shrug, he took aim at one of the ones on the edge of the group and clicked off his safety. That small noise made one of their ears twitch, but it wasn’t enough to turn heads. The elf standing off to one side suddenly slumping to the ground as a spray of blood and bone showered the remaining ones sure turned heads though.

  As one, they all turned to look at Kurt as the suppressed crack of his rifle echoed around the chamber. Half drew pistols and half went for swords as they all grabbed the tower shields and nterns at their sides. Before Kurt knew it, he was staring at a wall of steel that slowly advanced on him from across the chamber.

  A gap opened between two shields and a pistol was stuck through. It looked like a percussion cap single shot, but it was hard to tell in the low light. The falling hammer, and the echoing boom sure made it look like an old pistol, but it was the cloud of smoke that really sealed the deal.

  The lead ball spped into the wall several feet to Kurt’s right as he retreated down the tunnel. Val took a shot at the face of a shield, and they saw a spark as the bullet gnced off. She fired at another shield that wasn’t as angled and managed to at least penetrate the metal but not the wood. Another gap opened and another boom preceded a cloud of smoke as the elves fires a second shot.

  Their tactic was a sound strategy in Kurt’s opinion. They would have excellent cover and could essentially advance at their own pace, safe behind their shields that could almost completely fill the tunnels.

  Kurt had finally stopped and taken aim on one of the shields that was mostly squared up to him but still fifty yards away. He fired a quick double tap, hoping the extra barrel length on his rifle would do the trick. He was rewarded by the shield falling to the ground with the elf ying atop it, blood pouring from the two punctures to his lungs.

  That was the st they had time for as the remaining six entered the tunnel and their tactic suddenly changed. The two on the edges of the shield wall backed away while the four in the center continued. Kurt wondered what they were doing until he saw them in the back line loading their pistols.

  It was very clever. They would be able to fire over the heads of their shield bearing companions then duck back into retive safety after taking the shot. There they could reload and prepare for another volley. It was a tactic perfectly suited for the tunnels and Kurt felt a little bit of apprehension at facing a rger group.

  Still, the shield wall advanced at a slow walk, perfectly conforming to the width of the tunnel while shields overpped in the middle. It wasn’t enough to keep Kurt and Val from doing their own maneuvers, however. “Back. Past the next bend.” Kurt said.

  They quickly back peddled down the tunnel to where it straightened out before a slight dip in the floor. Kurt and Val ran past this depression and set up on the other side. Just as the shield wall came around the corner, they fired a few token shots to keep them engaged.

  Val was about to ask what the pn was but quickly noticed what Kurt was up to. Once the shield bearers stepped down into the depression, the two pistol wielding elves were left exposed. Both of them were quickly gunned down by a series of rapid shots from Kurt and Val.

  The sudden loss of their offensive capabilities seemed to make the other elves hesitate as they turtled up. They stopped dead in their tracks and hid behind their shields, angling them back slightly to create a sort of slopped wall.

  Kurt made a fist and punched it toward the shield wall, signaling Val to start putting rounds down range. They fired into the shields, easily making rounds connect from such a close distance. One by one, the shields were penetrated, and their owners killed. Val’s rifle managed to penetrate at the closer range and half the kills went to her.

  “Shit, that was unexpected.” Kurt said, reloading then stepping forward a little “I wouldn’t think a shield like that would stop one of our bullets.”

  Val was likewise walking up to the elves that had all succumbed to their wounds. “I think there is something special about that metal.”

  They took a few minutes to inspect the damage they did to the shield. The rounds that penetrated part way through could be seen imbedded in the wood, their bases still visible. Those that went all the way through had tumbled at some point and tore chunks out the back with splinters sticking out in every direction. Some of the bodies had splinters around the wounds, peppering their clothes and exposed skin.

  They quickly took note of the other equipment, satchels, weapons and the nterns. The nterns appeared to be simir to carbide mps, using a chemical reaction rather than fme. Kurt just tossed everything into his ring, helping Val to strip the small elves of their valuables.

  After cleaning up the aftermath, they moved back to the mined-out room to take a look around. The tools were well made but all manual in nature other than the cylinders that looked a little like dynamite. They likewise took all of that to investigate ter.

  The rest of the room appeared to be cleared out to access a vein of some sort of mineral that had been pced into half barrels in the back of a second cart. Naturally, Kurt had no idea what it was, so they just took it all. There wasn’t really anything else of interest in the room and no other paths leading off of it.

  “I say we head back. I want to change up some of our stuff before we try this again.” Kurt said as they took one st look around the now empty room.

  “That would be good.” Val agreed. “It was not a nice surprise to find out my rifle was useless against their shields at range.”

  They retraced their steps, stopping every so often to see if their little encounter had attracted any extra attention. They fortunately didn’t encounter anything but briefly considered taking a peek down the other tunnels. After a short debate, they decided to head back to the portal. Kurt did remember to grab the chem light on his way past.

  “Penny, we- AH, fuck!” Val’s pyful greeting turned into a shout of pain as she had to rip the gsses off her face. She had forgotten that it was much lighter in the hub than the tunnels and experienced firsthand what having her night vision washed out was like.

  “Forgot to take off the gsses?” Kurt asked rhetorically as he rubbed her back. He was squinting heavily even after taking the gsses off, his eyes taking a moment to adjust.

  “Yeah. Oh, gods that sucked.”

  Penny came around the corner of the door frame a moment ter holding a cup of what smelled like tea. “Val? Are you okay?”

  Val just waved blindly at her. “Yeah, I’m fine, just wasn’t expecting light to be painful.”

  Eventually Val was able to blink away her light sensitivity and they got on with business. Kurt filled in Penny about what they were facing, and she seemed very interested in the elves. She asked if they would bring along a camera to record them. They naturally agreed and then proceeded to empty their rings of the loot.

  Penny sorted it out into piles and then promised to get it all apprised and identified for them. Kurt in return promised her a storage ring. That seemed to both fluster and confuse the poor girl who immediately wished them a good night and started transferring the piles of loot.

  Kurt and Val ran through the rain, hustling to get back inside the warm house and get changed into more comfortable attire. Kurt put away their equipment while Val bundled the clothes off to the washer. They weren’t exactly dirty, but the caverns had left a sort of dust on them that looked like it could stain.

  Kurt gnced down at his watch and saw the time was just after one in the afternoon. “Hey Val.”

  “Yeah?” she called from the stairs.

  “What do you think about going out for a te lunch or early dinner?” He asked, trying to make use of their extra time.

  “That sounds great. I am kinda hungry so let’s do a te lunch. Then we can just grab something easy for a snack around dinner time.”

  “Alright, let’s get cleaned up and head out then.” Kurt heard a ‘whump’ of a pile of undry hitting the ground then what could only be described as a scampering overhead. He followed the noise and imagined its path down the hall until he heard the water start flowing followed by both the water heater and well kicking on.

  Footsteps trailed down the hall in the opposite direction, making their way to the top of the stairs. “Won’t you join me for a quick scrub then?”

  Kurt smiled to himself and closed the locker. He quickly trotted up the stairs just in time to see a fluffy tail disappear into the hall. He rounded the corner and saw that same tail vanish into the bathroom, somehow fitting in the gap of the door.

  When Kurt pushed the door open, he saw that Val was already under the water and rinsing the dust off herself. She then turned to look at him over her shoulder.

  “I see my little trick lured you in.” Her smirk finished the job of cluing in Kurt to her little game.

  He stripped off his clothes while walking to the shower. “I should have known you would send the illusion.” He then joined her under the water.

  “Hmm, but this one is all real.” Val hummed as he pressed into her from behind. She was starting to get her hopes up for a repeat of the other night until Kurt nipped her ear before whispering into it.

  “Too bad we have things to do. I will have to rain check you for some more shower fun ter.” He rumbled out as she pressed herself back into him. It took a lot of restraint to not jump her bones then and there.

  After a little light teasing, they actually did get cleaned off. Kurt was amazed at the amount of dust and dirt that he washed out of his hair and more so at how much Val seemed to have collected with her tail and furry feet.

  They both made use of the drying stone or as Kurt had named it ‘Rocky’. For him it worked as expected and he was comfortably dry within a few moments. Val had gone a little too far and ended up with a slightly too poofy tail and hair. It was quickly solved with a brush.

  Before too long, they were dressed, out the door and into the car. Kurt asked where Val wanted to go, but she still didn’t know the area. He ended up taking her to a little deli that he knew about. It was a quiet pce that offered sandwiches made to order along with a soup and sad bar.

  Kurt went for a Reuben while Val tried a meatball sub. She seemed to enjoy the sub, having never tried one before. However, she did not manage to stay completely clean, falling victim to the drip of marinara onto jeans.

  “Awe, come on.” She said while trying to rub the spot out with a napkin.

  “It’s ok, we can change when we get home, and nobody will notice since your jeans are dark anyway.” He assured her.

  They made a quick stop at the grocery store and picked up a few things for some light snacking ter on. While driving home the topic switched back to work and how they were going to handle the tunnels and their occupants.

  “I think I am switching to a slightly bigger gun.” Kurt said. “I have another fourteen-five or you can use mine. That should give you some extra oomph to make it through those shields.”

  “That would be nice. Do you have anything that will guarantee it? Same caliber and all. I don’t have much experience with rger caliber weapons.”

  “I mean I have a twenty inch but it’s a bit of a pike with its fixed stock.” He thought about it for a moment before making up his mind. “How about a sixteen-inch barrel. It should give you the velocity to penetrate without being too much of a pain to swing around.”

  “Wasn’t my issued gun a sixteen?” Val asked, wondering why she had turned it back in if they were going to be using a simir gun.

  “Yes, but it was shit.” Kurt said in his very matter of fact tone. “Your optic was garbage, there wasn’t an IR aiming device, the light you had on it was ughably out of date and the furniture was trash.” He began listing things off that he remembered about it.

  “Well, yeah but it still shot.” Val tried to defend her old gun.

  “Yeah, just not as well as it could.”

  They finished the drive back and went back downstairs after putting things away. Kurt started the ring for Penny while Val put on a movie and snuggled up on the couch, waiting for Kurt to be done. While waiting, her mind wandered to her recent conversation with Kristi.

  Val was happy with her new life, and very much enjoying the company. She did miss her friend and her parents. These fragments of her old circumstances were still part of her, and she wanted to keep them. She couldn’t do much about her parents, due to their circumstances, she could possibly do something about her friend. Something that might be good for both of them.

  “Caddy Shack?” Kurt questioned from behind her.

  Jumping a little, she noticed that she had just pyed the second movie right after the first. “Well, I watched the first one and then this was next on the list.”

  “Oh, fine by me. It’s just not at all the movie I expected you to be watching when I got done.” Kurt said before walking around to sit next to her.

  “You are getting faster.” Val commented, trying to buy time before she asked her question. “Pretty soon you’ll run out of rings.”

  Kurt grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I probably need to order more, now that I know it works. I am also more confident in working with the materials now. But they are pretty hard on my tools.”

  Val just gave him a little smile and they watched the st few scenes of the movie together. After it ended, she had finally worked up the courage to ask him. “Hey, umm, can I ask something?” She immediately groaned internally at the stupid pre-question to her question.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Well, yesterday I was talking to my friend, and she is like us, a half breed.” Val began her question with some context. “She seemed kinda lonely and we used to hang out a lot, so I was wondering if…”

  “Why don’t you invite her over?” Kurt offered before she could even ask. “Or I guess you can go there? I don’t know the rules for us going to the order. But your friends are welcome as long as they are good guests.” He looked down at where she had leaned against him. “You really don’t need to ask. If there is something you want to do just tell me and we can figure it out.”

  Val leaned up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank Kurt.” She wrapped her arms around him and tried to squeeze but failed.

  “Any time babe.” Kurt replied then immediately had to stifle a groan.

  “Babe?” Val said her look of confusion shifting into a smirk. “I’m babe, huh?”

  “I was, ah, just trying it out?” He said, a blush rising on his face. “It’s not that weird to have pet names for each other.” He tried his best to pass it off as nothing. He failed miserably.

  Laughing, Val had to make the most of it. “Sure, it is, hon.” She saw him wince. “Oh, don’t like that one? How about ‘doll’” she was fighting to get the names out with a more serious face.

  “All right, all right. You got me.” Kurt finally conceded.

  “Ooh, ooh, how about hunk?” She was seriously on the verge of tears from holding back ughter.

  Kurt saw the writing on the wall and had to deploy his secret weapon, a tactic so vicious that it would be banned if the UN ever heard of it. He started to tickle her.

  Holding nothing back, Kurt went for her sides, just below the rib cage. “Better stop now.” He said while smiling. “Don’t make me hold you down and tickle you.”

  “EEK! NO!.” Val shouted as his fingers poked her sides and made her stomach convulse. “Stop! MERCY!” She was now ughing for completely different reasons and regretting having wrapped herself up in a bnket that was very hard to escape from.