Somassa

5 - Questions

     Saffrin threw his helmet against the wall of their room. With a loud twang it fell to the floor with a ringing metal thud, a large dent caved into the side of it. He was irate. None of them had spoken a word while Ulana at last led them from the pit back into the stone walls of Kastow, but Saf pondered what they had seen in his head, progressively making himself more and more angry. Oddly, the fortifications felt much less safe.

    "Saffrin..." Dua began, her hand outstretched to calm him, but Saf cut her off, his eyes ablaze and his face red with anger.

     "Why the fuck didn't they tell us?!" he shouted, the veins in his neck and forehead bulging.

    "Son, how could they even begin?" asked Creldeus, striding over to the helmet and picking it up in his large hands.

     "How about letting us know we'd be up against a monster like that before we even signed up?! We're fucking dead!" He fumbled with the straps of his gauntlets, his hands shaking with rage.

"They wouldn't have hired us if they didn't think we could help!" said Dua, her voice raising to match his.

"Oh yeah?!" Saf replied, his voice quivering as angry tears welled in his eyes. "Or maybe they just want us for experiments too!"

"Experiments?" asked Creldeus, turning to him. "What experiments?"

"The Commission," he stammered, "they've been running experiments on the Sens Sommasum - or whatever the hell she called them - cutting them open and trying to learn about them."

"What?" Dua asked, stepping towards him.

"How do you know that?" added Creldeus.

Saf breathed shakily as his composure began to return. "When Dua and I came to HQ to find you, I read Ulana's journal on one of the tables. She wrote that the monsters instantly die when they try to cut them open."

    "That can't be possible..." Dua thought aloud, rubbing her chin.

     "I don't know why she would write about it in her personal notes if it weren't," Saf grumbled, wiping his eyes on his free forearm. He dropped the now-removed gauntlets on the floor next to his bed.

     "I also read something about a 'collective conscience,' I think. I don't know what that means, though."

    "I've seen such things," said Creldeus, sitting on his enormous bed. It creaked under his weight. "The ilithids have a kind of group intelligence, where all their minds are connected."

    "That's absurd," Dua scoffed. "There's no way any kind of creature can share a mind with each other."

    "Clearly you've never met one," replied Creldeus, raising an eyebrow at her.

    "She just did," Saf said as he stared at the floor. "We all did. Ulana thinks the Sens Somassum are being controlled by someone or some thing."

    "Then it bloody well stands to reason why she would want us here to help," Dua said, crossing her arms. "You saw what that thing did. You said it yourself, the scientists are too scared."

Saf looked at her, annoyed. "Just because Ulana was nice to us doesn't mean we can trust her."

"And yet she's given us no reason not to trust her, Saffrin," Creldeus said.

   Saf continued to stare at the floor, his face scrunched up in irritated thought.

   "I need a wash. We haven't had one since we were on the boat," Dua said, sighing heavily and rubbing her eyes with her fingers. "Feels like ages," she muttered.