The Messengers of Sanctuary

53 - Chicory

Chicory stood in front of David, from the Alliance.

It had been strange she had to admit, They'd made amazing time, and they were so close to Sanctuary that she could practically smell it.

Sanctuary wasn't one of their destinations though, that dubious honor belonged to Ironwind. Chicory had to get the Pyros and tunneler to Nina so she could figure out how they fit into the grand scheme of things. After chatting with a couple of messengers who'd been delivering around Silverside, she found out that Roland had paid a visit to Ironwind a while back, and pronounced them trustworthy.

That was good, Chicory had been kind of worried that he'd be mad at her for giving a scientist some contagious heartfire.

He seemed to have taken it well, or at least, that's what Lainey had said. But Lainey had heard it from Kent, who'd heard it from Charlie, who'd heard it from Kade, who was known to bend the truth. So Chicory wasn't entirely sure if Roland was going to kill her when she reappeared, but on the bright side, those three messenger groups were on their way.

"You just missed them." David explained, "They stayed here for two days and kept going, saying something about heading down to a new base somewhere?"

Chicory nodded, "Thanks. Can I leave a letter with you for the next group heading back to Sanctuary? I need to go back south soon and I don't have time to get there."

Surprisingly, the leader of the Alliance nodded, "Of course!"

Chicory grinned, "Thanks!" She handed him the letter, which she'd been trying to get to somebody for the last three days. If she'd had it written before running into Lainey's group, she would have just left it with them, but this was as good as anything.

---

Nina stared at Chicory for two heartbeats, "So, let me get this straight. There are pyrokinetic zombies down there, and zombies that dig."

Chicory nodded, "Basically, yeah. Is there anything you can do?"

Nina looked somewhat lost for words, "I suppose I can look at their blood samples and see how they react to the controlex and cure..."

Chicory pumped her fist, "Awesome! How long will that take?"

Nina blinked, "A couple of days. A week or two if anything odd happens. It's most likely a different strain, right? Not just unranked zombies?"

Chicory shrugged and glanced at Song, who was the only pyro she'd brought inside. Song's wealth of information seemed to be the most valuable skill for the moment.

Song was still staring around at the lab, mostly seeming in awe at the sheer scale of it. "Ah, the scientists back home agree that there are many different strains. I've met some myself, hybrids, aura zombies, undead animals. They never studied the tunnelers, seeing as they're native to the land south of here, but they do agree that demons are not zombies."

Nina opened her mouth and closed it, pulling out her notebook. Here we go again... "Really? You're not a zombie?"

Song shrugged, "I don't know how you classify things here, but for us, if it lusts for human blood it's a zombie."

Chicory tilted her head at that, it was...well yeah it was fair enough. "But you guys are like the opposite of zombies, you attack them."

Nina glanced at Chicory, "They attack zombies?!" Her voice hit a surprisingly shrill note at that one.

---

The pyros seemed uneasy as they each donated a vial of blood, but Nina claimed that the results would be more reliable if she had a variety of samples. It would lower the chances of any outlier results.