The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Hunt for the Market

As soon as they were around the first corner and out of sight of the checkpoint, Lash quietly chuckled.

"Burn you, Lash, you think that was funny?" Naryan turned on him, her expression belligerent.

"I do, actually," the big vampire replied with a grin, returning her hard look with a twinkle in his eye. "I had those big apes sweating, and the wax faces ready to jump in between to avoid a fight!" Then the grin was abruptly gone. "All they'll be able to think about when they remember us is what an arrogant asshole of a vampire I was, and what a useless socialite of a vampiress you were."

"An annoyance, not a threat," Naryan said, slowly nodding in understanding and her expression changing to match. "Every time they see us, they'll dismiss us as another pair of arrogant vampires. We'll blend in by standing out."

"Precisely." Lash scanned the nearby buildings for the IR mark he had instructed the other two to leave behind. He pointed at the first one.

"There's Ballan and Absinthe."

"I got Truk and Narcist," Naryan confirmed, pointing at another building. She then turned to look down a relatively broad avenue that cut between the two the other two teams had taken.

"This one must be ours!"

As hinted at, but not fully explained by the map of the enclave, the underground haven was similar to the Night Market in that it was built in a giant cave. But that was the only similarity the two places had.

Where the Night Market was a legitimate city, with squares and plazas, streets and avenues in a grid and well-defined business and residential areas, the Salt Palace was more like a hideout. With its loose collection of motley-looking, uneven buildings sitting ramshackle on the edge of winding and twisting roads, stuffed into a space Lash felt he could reach up and touch, it was so close, the Palace felt too organic to have been planned. It had just happened.

But, like many Dark Edge enclaves, it had happened for a reason. Dark Edge races needed a place to hide from their common human cousins, who would hunt them down if they knew they existed. Still, if Lash hadn't spent a good amount of training time in caves, learning tactics and warfare in an underground environment, he would've felt a little claustrophobic by how everything closed in on the streets from every direction, built organically in need, or not.

Even the lighting, still that combination of bright LEDs and fluorescents, cast a dystopian feel over everything. He half expected to see people trudging down side streets in radiation gear, escapees from the nuclear fallout above ground.

He had to push those images from his mind to refocus.

"Ready?" he asked, looking over at Naryan. Also refocusing on the task at hand, the Silver Legion officer resolutely nodded. And the two began down the center avenue, looking for the big building set back from the street they were hoping was here.

"Vipers, Viper One. We are past the final checkpoint and on the move," he announced.

While the road they had picked to search was a 'main' road, it certainly wasn't straight or broad. Winding back and forth like a blind snake, there were times it was so narrow, Lash felt he could stand in the middle and reach out with both arms and touch the buildings on either side. And other times it was so broad, they could've driven three tanks down it side by side.

The buildings themselves seemed to be both crooked-walled dwellings and roof supports, each one built right to the uneven cave ceiling to maximize the space. Fresh air was being provided by pumps at the entrances as the scent in the air alternated between the diesel heavy air from the docks, to the salt-laden air from the sea door, and the cool, moist air from a subterranean door.