Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5543592-20170708203641/@comment-5543592-20170713013402

Ward and Duncan proceeded into the city. They had to stick to the outskirts, for fear of being drawn into battle. They could even see Knights trading fire with Handsmen at times--

Handsmen holding an office building, and firing down at approaching knights, only to get wiped out by a mininuke fired from behind the front line.

Knights spraying a street with gatling laser fire, forcing Handsmen to disperse.

A squad of Knights wandering into an ambush, and being torn to piece by armor-piercing rounds, but not before radioing for reinforcements.

A Causer leading a group of Handsmen into a suicidal charge at Brotherhood lines to allow a larger Red Hand force to retreat.

A Handsman disarming a knight with a skillful shot, only for the Knight to charge in and tear the Handsman's arms off with enhanced strength.

Bodies littered the streets, places where the fight had moved on. Piles of dead Red Hand soldiers where a barricade had fallen and they'd refused to give up any more ground. Power armored corpses frozen like statues in the street like statues, their owners dead but the suit still maintaining power, fluid leaking from punctures like spilled wine. Civilians sprawled on their stomachs, laser marks on their backs. In these places the emptiness of Seattle hit one hard. Sometimes Brotherhood Knights moved among the corpses, stacking the dead. Never did they see the Red Hand doing the same. The retreated, leaving the dead where they lay.

That was the important thing to remember about war. The victors dug the graves.

Bug Safari lay in front of them.

A large statue of a little boy in an explorer's outfit stood over the entrance-- the staute was smiling, with it's hands on it's hips, and magnifying glass still proudly on the boy's chest. The statue, which had been made of plaster, had been worn by the weather, and most of the paint had chipped over. Half the statue's face had fell away, and most of one of it's arms had fallen off, leaving the statue with a ghoulish, semi-painted half-smile and a freaky lone hand stuck to it's hip.

Multiple signs had been erected all around Bug Safari, warning away would-be explorers.

DON'T ENTER

DANGER

EMINENT DEATH

WOE BE ALL WHO ENTER

The last one looked impromtu, as if someone had put it there as a joke, and was smeered with blood. Those who had placed the signs were likely too afraid of the building to get close to it-- each sign was at least twenty feet from any part of the building, the "Woe Be" sign the closest of them all. The doors of the place were missing, they weren't barred or blocked in anyway, leaving a gaping black hole into some kind of earthly hell in place that had once been filled with the laughter of children.

Perhaps these signs had been placed by Kheiro to scare off those who would approach what was a concealed entrance to his Undercity. Perhaps they had a very real purpose.

That gaping hole invited them.