Two new chess pieces are added to the board.
A doctor, intelligent and logical, corrupted by unholy desire.
An experiment, secluded and bitter, consumed by religious zeal.
These radicalized wild cards are harbingers of even greater destruction for t...
Veronika sprinted through the forest that encircled Xirxine International head-quarters with a long, loping gait, snarling over her shoulder as tranquilizer darts whizzed past her face. She knocked one out of the air with her shackled wrist before ducking behind a tree, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. She looked back again and quickly pulled her head back as yet another dart flew by.
Blast! she thought angrily. This is going nowhere. She stared into the darkness of the forest ahead through narrow eyes. Beyond the woods is... the city. I can't go out there looking like... him. I need some sort of disguise.
"SV-one-eleven!" one of the Xirxine soldiers barked from behind Veronika. "Surrender now! Don't make this any harder than it has to be!"
Veronika closed her eyes as sweat trickled down her face and leaned her head back against the tree, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
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Phineas exited another cluster of tentacles in the darkness of a half-constructed building in the heart of the Northwest Safe Haven's City District. "Y' ymg' mgr'luh, gn'th'bthnk," he said, looking around at the circle of Faithful that stood around a chair in the middle of the building's highest floor.
"Y' ymg' mgr'luh, mgenah ehye," the cultists replied in unison. One of them—a man called "R'luh", formerly Chairman Jason Adams of Xirxine Northwest—gestured toward the chair, in which sat a woman bound by ropes and gagged by duct tape. "The host has been prepared, Ephaiagl," R'luh rasped, his voice made raw from constant chanting and unspeakable utterances.
"Thank you, R'luh." Phineas—who had taken on the R'lyehian name "Ephaiagl"—pulled his hood over his head and his mask over his face, fixing his glowing green eyes on the woman. "I know this might be a little uncomfortable," he told her in an apologetic tone, "but for the glory of the Old Ones, it must be done." He reached out and gently peeled the tape away from her mouth.
The woman coughed and spat a small amount of vomit onto the floor before staring up at Ephaiagl in fear. "Phineas, why?" she croaked in a desperate voice. "Why are you doing this to me again?!"
Ephaiagl met her gaze with a bland smile. "Because you are perfect for her," he breathed, reaching out and cupping her face with a hand. "You've always been perfect...
"Gale..."
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