The Sketch Survivors: The Enemy Among Us

Stealing Home Base

Soal, armed with the knowledge of Moth and his theoretical procedure, rushed as quickly as a blur across the underground tunnels (of inconveniently long length) that connected the initial Sketch Facility and the Articulian Facility. It was time to enact the second part of his heist, the one that he had conceived independently. However, if they were able to get into deeper conversation, he knew Moth would pride himself on doing it, too.

Huffing for breath, Soal ran on anyways, regardless of the effort he spent maintaining his momentum. After eight minutes, he finally reached the gate to the Sketch Facility, which he violently busted open with a forceful ram. Stairs were in his way now, but he climbed them easily and quickly with his remaining stamina, and arrived at his desired familiar chamber somewhat swiftly compared to his earlier progression.

Catching his breath once more, he stopped to look. He half-wanted to run up against its glass and shock himself with the scope of this Grid. This SMPE Grid- the same one before which Cheshire had caught him and rounded him up into the Congregation. Soal had only one salvation here, and nothing was going to get in his way.

Soal thrust his sword into the glass before him, and dealt a powerful blow, forming cracks in the glass's foundations. He struck again, and the delicate material neared its breaking point. Finally, one more determined attack shattered a section of glass just wide enough for Soal to enter through.

He sheathed his sword before crawling inside, and was especially careful to avoid the reach of other Sketches when he wedged himself between the rest of the glass, and the real wall; cautiously edging upwards without the use of a ladder, all the way to the center of the Grid, where his treasure was imprisoned by a red pin attached to the lukewarm stone. His Sketch.

He unpinned it from the wall, and stared at it as he held it, in triumph. Then he slid down to the floor again, and exited the Grid with minimal differences to its structure; including some broken glass and a missing Sketch.

Soal was prepared. He inserted the Sketch precisely into a plastic bag from his Dwelling, and then returned the bag, with the Sketch secure inside, into his faithful brown bag, which had for such an eternity carried all of his cherished possessions.

But he had to hurry. He needed to find Irene, and get to the time machine, whose location Moth had told him in secret. And he needed to do all of this before the British fleet arrived to free all of the Un-Characters. If that happened while Soal and Irene were still here... they would be history.