Accompanied by Muninn, Rye spent a couple days wandering the beaches. She bought a fishing pole from a traveling fisherman and she fished during the early morning hours. A couple miles down the coast was a small patch of forest, its flora just starting to bloom. She wove herself an impromptu hammock out of the thick vines that swirled around the tree trunks.
She was casually swaying back and forth in the fresh morning breeze, Muninn perched on her knee, when loud crowing stirred her. It was quiet a moment, and then her arm was sharply pinched. Rye leaned up; it was Huginn. He took her index finger in his beak and started tugging. Predictions with animals were always a toss up, but she gave it a try. Through Huginn's eyes, she saw herself following him. Rye swung off the hammock and Muninn hopped up on her shoulder.
"I'm with you," she said to Huginn.
Huginn flapped from tree to tree, waiting for her to catch up before moving forward. He lead her down the beaches, back up the docks, and around the edge of the city. They were getting closer to the side nearest the facility and a pit started forming in her stomach. The times Huginn and Muninn had been together with her, Bloth was there as well.
The raven swooped to the ground in front of a decrepit shack with boarded up windows, a rusted metal door that hung precariously off one hinge, and holes punctured through a grimy tin roof. Huginn pecked incessantly at the ground until Rye saw the print of a large boot and drag marks in the dirt in front of his beak. The bird picked up a piece of cloth and dropped it in her hand. It was a torn shred of leather, the same color of Bloth's jacket. Shit.
"You two stay out here," she said, gently launching Muninn into the air. The pair of ravens took up a sentry position on the roof as Rye cautiously approached the door, scanning every inch for traps. The large metal door opened surprisingly silently and smooth for how bent and rusted over the hinge was. Inside, sunlight trickled through dust and grime, barely illuminating a narrow concrete staircase leading underground. She held her breath each step, waiting for something to snap at her.
The stairs flattened into a dark corridor and at the end she saw an industrial vault door with a glowing key pad on the right side. She looked it over, a standard nine number pad with illuminated buttons. Rye noticed some numbers with a bit more wear on it. She picked the most worn key first, then the second most, and guessed two more. There was a loud buzz and the buttons flashed red for a second. Her heart stopped. Everything returned to silence and buttons went back to a neutral blue glow.
Fuck it. She took out her knife and slowly pried the panel up from around the buttons. A mess of wires sprung out. She sifted through them, looking for some kind of power source. She'd gotten through pin-pads before but nothing this complicated. Rye finally saw a screw underneath a glob of wires and slowly used the tip of her blade to twist it out. A small metal plate started to come out with it and there were three small wires underneath. Before she brought it all the way out, she caught a glimpse of a tripwire the size of a thread barely attached to the plate. She grit her teeth, slid the knife through the small amount of clearance without touching the tripwire, and cut through the first electronic wire. Nothing. Then, she cut through the second and third. She heard the quiet release of a mechanism. Rye took a deep breath and put the pin pad back together.
She pressed against the vault door and slid it to the right, just enough for her to slip in. She left it open just in case she needed to bolt. Stepping inside, there was a looming sulfurous smell mixed with the sting of harsh cleaners and chemicals. The floor and walls were all solid concrete and aside from a few crates and a couple small rooms off to the side, it was a large, dimly lit open area. From one of those rooms echoed the sound of sharp metal scraping against a whetstone. On the opposite end of the chamber, she saw a metal operating table with a figure strapped down to it. Her gut wrenched.
