Factory Settings
Oct. 8th, 2026 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerSudden image of a game show where wrong answers have a raven or crow lightly poke you. We have a little absurdist humor around here.
Disregard Atenists; acquire camel.
Calculations stealth (and Rebecca) used because I swear there were a couple times the cameras were pointing right at Desmond and they were like “nope, nothing to see here”.
Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond and the others stage an assault on the date farm and factory.
Word Count: 4866
Rating: Teen
“You are here with me, Desmond?” His mom’s voice is sharp with panic, which just makes him feel worse, because damn it he thought he’d been getting better. This hadn’t happened in a while.
“Yeah.” It’s an effort and his voice still doesn’t feel like it’s his, like he’s been wrung out. Rukh almost angrily shoves his head under Desmond’s hand looking for some pets, which helps him breathe a little deeper. “Sorry, I just—”
“Dissociated,” she interrupts, tone clipped, and as much of an effort as it is that gets him to look because wait there’s a name for that? Then he winces a little because that’s a headache, but at least he’s feeling that headache. He kind of wants to call Shaun but he doesn’t want to get into the habit of bugging the guy every time he feels a little bad. Later. He notices that she does not continue immediately, folding the handkerchief carefully and putting it back in a bag as she indicates to Mr. Rahal he should take the others and give them some privacy. “It is not your fault. You have learned it is safer in times of stress for your mind to take a step back. You’re hardly the only Assassin with trauma, and knowledge is a weapon as surely as a Hidden Blade.”
“Wasn’t true of him?” he mutters bitterly. Apparently Rukh decides he’s not petting right and turns a little to poke Desmond with his beak, and in a weird way that helps, too. Especially when it’s followed by the soothing feel of petting feathers.
“You believe yourself to be the only Assassin with scars?” That definitely shocks him into the present a little. She smiles a little, sad and weirdly a little defiant. “And what kind of Mentor would I be if I allowed any of mine to just suffer in silence without even offering a hand to help?”
“Guess you disagreed with Dad about a lot of things.” He breathes in deeper. He’s not going to follow Shaun’s checklist now. It’d feel weird. But he can feel the shade of the rocks and ruins on his skin, a respite from the weirdly bright desert sun he can almost taste on the air, alongside the slight metallic tang on his tongue and stickiness in his nose from the nosebleed. The cool, smooth stone beneath his legs and the sand under his shoes. He hears the wind whistling through the rocks. He’s still feeling really tired, but...he’s okay. For now, anyway. And he’s been thinking about how unfair it is that it’s so uneven, that he knows so much about everyone else and they don’t know him, but...there’s an easy way to fix that. Talking about himself has been kind of drilled out of him, between Assassin training and then just common sense when he’d been trying not to get caught by what he’d decided was a cult, but it’s not like he hasn’t done hard things before. “It wasn’t just him. I got captured by Abstergo—think, uh, Templars but all Helwing—and there was a machine called the Animus.” Though he’s really not ready for that story right now, and while she recognizes the word it doesn’t seem to mean something specific for her. That doesn’t rule out the possibility of it still existing here, of course, just under a different name. Probably Orochi tech, if he had to bet. “Shaun told me something to help stop it though.”
Instead of being just worried, she now looks amused and proud, too. And also might be eyeing him to gauge whether he’s up for being teased right now. “He wants to help you a great deal, it seems.”
“Yeah, he does. It’s nice. It’s a little weird, but I’m not sure he gets it either and he still goes for it.” His other hand finds the amulet and it’s almost like he can feel the honeyed brightness of Agartha. It doesn’t feel overwhelming right now, just safe, the tree that would shelter one eagle as he climbs to get a better view of the situation. And he can almost feel Shaun on the other end startle a little and quickly set down the tea to try to avoid spilling it, actually awake and aware of the situation now. Practically feel his racing thoughts as he tries to figure out what’s happening, if it’s a threat, if it has anything to do with what’s going on with Desmond, because Rebecca had actually sounded worried about her surveillance for once but hadn’t wanted to ask because he’s deliberately trying to make the decision to give Desmond his privacy. Finally connect it to the drops of blood when he’d been making the amulet because he’s clever.
Which makes this kind of a betrayal of trust, doesn’t it? Shaun had made a deliberate choice to ignore his instincts and not pry, and Desmond isn’t doing the same, but—he catches the briefest emotion that makes him stay, kind of shocked. Shaun still doesn’t regret it. Instead, he deliberately just carefully backs the chair up and looks down, which is when Desmond gets it—Katherine’s sleeping on Shaun’s feet. And then into a corner of the room, where Alice is curled up on a pile of books like a dragon sleeping on her hoard. Which might not actually be too far from the truth. Desmond barely holds in the laugh, and Shaun’s definitely feeling smug over it.
As, Desmond realizes when the rest of it fades, is his mom, judging by the grin. Huh. He wonders if she’d just made the connection or if she actually sees something specific in Eagle Vision when she looks at the amulet. Whatever. He swallows back any self-consciousness he might have about it. He absolutely refuses to feel any shame for being a sap about Shaun. “I mean, a lot of them do, but I don’t think it’s because most of them want to take me out on a date.”
“You’ve done well gathering a group that likes you for you,” she agrees, Rukh bopping his head lightly against Desmond’s hand as if agreeing. Desmond has absolutely no idea what to do with that either, so he figures he’ll do the next best thing. Might as well check on them now. He glances out to the area where they’re waiting out of earshot and groans.
Judging by the color of the figure walking toward the canyon, Tanis has come to join them. Miriam follows his gaze and looks less than pleased. “I can deal with her.”
“Nah, I’m fine. Maybe I still feel a little dizzy but that’s just in my head. It doesn’t affect my balance.” He holds out a hand and she helps him up smoothly. She doesn’t respond, though, so he adds, “Seriously. I’m feeling better.”
Rukh may have decided Desmond’s shoulder was his perch, but he has the strangest feeling that this time the raven only hopped up there to give him a judgmental look from a shorter distance. “Don’t look at me like that. You and Mom and Shaun helped, okay?”
Rukh fluffs his wings a bit and then starts using his beak to clean his feathers, looking very pleased with himself. Miriam chuckles. “I’m glad I was helpful, too.”
Sometimes, a flock of Novices isn’t too subtle. The way the trainees fall silent at their approach makes it pretty obvious they were gossiping, probably about him, and he has to shove the feeling of shame away again. “Do you have anything you want to say to me?” he asks, and at least Lydia looks a little awkward about being caught.
“What can we do to help?” It’s firm and not at all judgmental, and it’s—he’d expected them to at least have questions about what was going on, or if it’d be safe for him to do anything but rest now, but that’s none of them.
“You don’t need to do anything—” he starts, and now Lydia’s frowning and crossing her arms and Rukh is poking him with a sharp beak.
“That sounds like the wrong answer. We want to help.” Okay, he’d expect that from Lydia. The fact that it’s Chelsea saying this? That catches him a little off guard. His mom, meanwhile, looks like she was completely expecting this and is kind of amused that he wasn’t, which, rude, but whatever.
That actually means he has to think about it, though. Why petting Rukh’s head and talking to Shaun had worked, and why his mom’s presence had been helpful but hadn’t stopped it completely.
“Talk to me, I guess? About stuff that’s not the here and now at first. Reminders that I’m here and now—no, Lydia, that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to pinch me.” And now she’s pretend-pouting, but it is kind of funny. “Just being willing to be there with me matters a lot.”
“Of course. You’re our Mentor, like your mom is Mr. Rahal’s Mentor.” He...really has questions about what, exactly, Mr. Rahal actually said. Probably not intentionally; he doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would bring up even small things about the Assassins on his own, but when it comes to an interrogation from Chelsea and Lydia? Yeah, he didn’t really stand a chance.
“And our friend,” Lydia adds, elbowing Chelsea, who nods, actually looking a little embarrassed herself.
“I was going to say ‘you’ve earned some of my trust’, but all this kumbayah crap makes me want to throw up,” Tanis announces, and Desmond abruptly remembers that this is a big part of the reason he’s not going to be too torn up about the time he can actually bury his Hidden Blade in her neck.
“Isn’t it a great thing that my whole deal doesn’t have a damn thing to do with you?” he replies, as sweetly as he can.
Tanis’s snakes all tense at once, but she doesn’t ask any of them to attack, which is probably the best response he could get, in this situation. “Well, I’d go right back to the café now that you’ve finished my work, but that woman doesn’t stop whining about all her missing neighbors, darkness covering the land, and missed or contaminated shipments. I’d like to shut her up in a way that leaves her still free to make a pot of coffee, and it’d go down nice with just a little more revenge.” Her smile is all teeth. “Berihun, the bastard, keeps trying to comfort me, telling me he can help me salvage my deals even as he sabotages them behind my back and thinks I don’t know. You’ve proved to me you follow your convictions. So for no reason at all, I’ll just mention that you didn’t actually get all the crates. Some of the shipment that got stolen was explosives, too. And I wouldn’t shed a tear if I heard Daoud’s plans and his alliance with Berihun went up in smoke.” That’s probably the closest thing he’ll ever get to a thank you, or an apology. That’s okay. More people need to apologize with explosives and tempting targets.
“Are you going to be okay?” Lydia fusses, obviously having caught on that they’re going to check this out immediately.
Shockingly, he’s actually feeling really good at the moment. Whenever he finally gets around to sleeping for the night, he’ll be out, but other than being a little sore and light-headed he’s doing fine at the moment. And he actually bothers to think about that, instead of just dismissing her. “I can probably sneak like this in my sleep. I’ll be fine. I’ll be a little more tired after, but we’ll probably be hopping back to the Anima Well anyway.”
“You don’t need to carry out duties while sleepwalking for me to be proud of you,” his mom grouses, but it’s playful mocking even as she looks out for a sign of weakness—
No. Hang on, he’s confusing her for Bill, again. It’s not completely wrong; she is trying to figure out whether he can handle it, but it’s concern, not judgment, in her eyes.
“Yeah, but I gotta show off for my Novices and Rebecca somehow,” he argues, and she just shakes her head.
The rest of these cultists are a little more obviously infected with the Filth, skin ashen and, in some cases, veins black under the skin, which he briefly worries is going to set him off. It doesn’t, even as it makes it that much harder to use Eagle Vision, but his general sense of danger tied to Eagle Vision and the Calculations don’t have the same limitation. He tries to figure out his approach—they could use a disguise, but then, these assholes don’t have the same thoughts as Orochi. Orochi personnel, even if they noticed sabotage, would want to keep them alive for painful interrogation. These guys would just go ‘kill on sight’, and while they should probably wear the uniforms to blend in from a distance, if that was all that was needed to just waltz in Miriam would have already tried it.
She’s already shaking her head before he glances at her. “These are smarter, unlike the cannon fodder out there. They would know you before you made it in the entrance. Fortunately, they are not immune to smoke grenades.”
She hands him a few and he grins. Rukh turns his head to keep them in view, probably already having decided they’re his.
They don’t really need them much on the approach. For the most part everybody else is doing a pretty good job keeping clear and sneaking past patrols and guards stationed around, so he doesn’t have to worry about them. He has gotten a little sick of seeing patrols come through with prisoners, though, so he ambushes one of them, the others falling in as backup like they’d coordinated it. Those cultists seem a lot stronger, probably powered by the Filth in some twisted perversion of their worship (or...no, maybe that’s the point of it; Shaun did mention something about them trying to ‘free their twisted sun’ or something when he’d talked about the attack on the Gaia engine). They don’t get a chance to retaliate or even really react before they’re being tugged and hidden between the rocks.
“Go back to Al-Merayah; they’ll need you,” he tells the captured Marya, waving off the thanks.
“Try not to get caught again,” Lydia adds. They’re not too far, so it’s probably not that much of a danger, but silently his mom decides to escort the Marya back, and Desmond’s not too worried about her catching back up. She’s proven she’s good enough to pull it off.
There’s a couple trucks on the way that serve as good cover, but they’re probably also being used for shipments or other terrible things. Desmond really has to ask Saïd about acquiring an arsenal at some point, but at the moment he can just remember their location for now. Although he did actually manage to summon the fireball when Shaun was teaching him. It still doesn’t feel natural, but at the moment, that matters less than the potential arson capabilities. “You might want to stand back,” he warns them, and immediately Lydia and Chelsea retreat into the rocks, pulling Mr. Rahal back with them. The resulting explosion singes his hoodie a little as he backs up, too, but it’s a pretty satisfying sight, and as much as that seemed like overkill, it did serve as a pretty good distraction, pulling away a lot of the guards from the front. It’s easy enough for them to pick their way through the rocks and then start off down the front of the factory, where Desmond finds that Zhara was wrong. The spraypainted Aten symbol isn’t just an intimidation tactic. They’re doing it here, too, and while it’s potentially there to scare prisoners being taken in for processing, most likely it’s just a declaration that this is their land. Which, maybe it is. For now. Even the strongest tyrant can be toppeled, with the right plan.
Rukh takes off, probably to serve as a lookout. Unfortunately, the front door is locked. He starts by attempting lockpicking, and when that doesn’t work he tries just shooting the lock, muffling the sound of the shot, or setting it on fire, but those don’t do anything either. He even gets creative and tries to take the door off its hinges and get in that way, but has no more luck doing that than with anything else. It has to be magically protected somehow, which is disappointing but maybe not so surprising. The cultists hadn’t seemed too prepared for anything so far, maybe because most of them had lost the planning parts of their brains, but Daoud still seemed pretty there for a death cult fanatic, and Desmond’s starting to get the idea that this is their stronghold and maybe they started planning it and building the security system and plans when each contributor had more of their brain still available for them to use. So he goes and hides on top of one of the cars instead, flattening himself against the roof to avoid being seen by a more distant patrol.
“Uh, Desmond…” Lydia whispers behind him, and it’s then he realizes they hadn’t followed him. Rukh decides to accentuate that moment by dropping a large rock on something, shattering glass and metal, and he realizes that he’d somehow waltzed right through the sight path of one of those security cameras people have mounted everywhere in this world without it actually seeing him. He had to have been using Calculations stealth again. At least the fact that it’s becoming instinctual rather than something he actively has to focus on is a pretty good sign.
“Sorry. You should be good to head over now.” They’ll have to move more quickly, assuming anyone happens to be watching the cameras. A broken camera, rather than just looping footage, is a reason to investigate.
Which is, of course, when Rebecca decides to stop just watching and announce that she’s been listening. She comes in over the earpiece loud and clear. “Desmond, tell Rukh to break cameras farther away from you guys. Kings of digital security, these cultists were not. I can just hack the ones in your path, and then we have sabotage and a distraction without putting any of you in danger.”
Rukh had apparently flown close enough to hear, because he croaks once and then circles around to the back of the building, transferring the rock in his talons back to his beak.
It works pretty well overall. They have to time their movements just right, of course, because the only way they’re hacking the eyes of the cultists is with, well, the Calculations. Desmond does have to call on that a couple of times when Chelsea or Mr. Rahal moves a little too far or not far enough. He’d gone with that at first over the smoke grenades, because with the smoke grenades they’re still going to search around and alert others to the general location making it harder to get away, but after a while he just can’t do it. Not because it’s difficult, but because it isn’t. It feels disturbingly like using the Apple again, which is probably because he’s still tapping into that same function. The smoke grenades are more of a challenge, but it’s easier to get away with Rukh pelting the cultists with rocks and magic, dodging any shots they attempt to take.
The crates of explosives, at least, are easy to spot. Unfortunately, the main buildings themselves seem to be magically reinforced, because nothing seems to happen to the wall even when he sets off a couple with a fireball from a safe distance. There’s not even a mark on the wall. Someone would probably have to take it out from the inside. He’s not so disappointed this time, mostly because after the lock he was expecting this.
They didn’t bother to protect the side buildings at all. And the date palm trees, Filth running up through the roots and into the tree itself like blackened veins (he hadn’t even realized he’d gone into Eagle Vision; it explains why everything got darker all of a sudden), are not immune either, which means that a well-placed bomb can deal with a whole grove and a well-placed hit with a sword can topple them. It still doesn’t do as much damage as Desmond would hope, and there’s one point where Lydia has to get out of the way quickly because it’s falling the wrong way, but it still does more than an actual explosion, which, again, points to magic. The fact that cutting down the light poles also doesn’t damage the walls just strengthens that theory. It’s worth doing anyway to mess with the Atenists more, but the fact that they just come to a gentle rest leaning up against the buildings really proves it for Desmond. They’d used some kind of spell to protect from human attack, probably anticipating the Marya, and hadn’t considered nature as a threat other than somebody potentially using nature magic. If they’d considered this particular loophole at all, they’d probably been arrogant enough to figure that the intruder would be caught before too much damage could be done. And, to be fair to them, for once it’s not just arrogance. He’s starting to get why his mom didn’t try to tackle this area solo or even with the few Assassins she came into Egypt, or at least this area of Egypt, with. It probably goes without saying, but the cultists are absolutely nuts. Why the hell do they need this much security and firepower to protect Filthy dates? No, there has to be something else about the compound that made them choose this as their stronghold.
So they continue, cutting down the trees (which hurts but Desmond knows there’s no chance of him healing all of them, and they’d end up poisoned again anyway given the groundwater has been poisoned), destroying farming equipment and shipments of dates and sabotaging everything they can get their hands on, occasionally having to use a smoke grenade to escape. It goes from the huge buildings (probably packing plants and other kinds of processing, if Desmond had to guess) with sandy almost-roads around the outside for easy transportation, the occasional tree or smaller building around the outside, to larger strands of trees with cultists loading up the crates by hand, the occasional guard walking through with a gun. It’s harder to find hiding spots out here, so, reluctantly, Desmond has to lean on the Calculations more.
And then he sees something that makes him pause. They have a camel tied up near one of the spots he’d like to put an explosive, really take out a huge shipment of dates. Rukh circles back down close and croaks, sounding curious, and Desmond kind of has to agree.
“What if we get caught?” Lydia hisses, grabbing his arm to stop him, and Desmond shrugs.
“It’s not infected at all. It deserves to make it out of here.” Plus, he really wouldn’t mind acquiring a camel.
Mr. Rahal eyes the camel and the distance and then sighs. “If you clear a path, I can ride the camel to safety. They have guns, but if the distraction is big enough, they will decide I am not worth the effort. I can ride for that old streambed.”
“You’ll have your distraction, even if it means using up the rest of the explosives,” Desmond promises, giving Rukh one of the smoke grenades. He points out good spots for Lydia and Chelsea to use their explosives, and when they’re all in place gives Mr. Rahal, hiding on the other side of the camel, the signal. Explosions really are a bonding experience. At least, Desmond assumes that’s why fireworks are a thing. Mr. Rahal maybe looks a little terrified, but to his credit he doesn’t let that stop him, urging the camel into a gallop (...is that the right word for a camel? in any case they go a lot faster than Desmond would have expected) and they retreat to a safe distance, aided by a well-timed smoke grenade. Maybe he should just give Rukh his own arsenal of grenades.
Lydia and Chelsea are grinning widely; apparently they both deeply enjoy sabotage. Good for them. Which is when Desmond realizes on the other side of the wall they’re hiding behind there’s a generator.
“I could use my sledgehammer,” Chelsea offers eagerly, remembering this time to stay quieter, given that there’s another group of Atenists gathered on the other side of the wall who might hear them.
Lydia’s fumbling around in her pockets, and she finally finds what she’s looking for, holding up a box of matches triumphantly. “And there’s another shipment of dates they’re packing.”
When it comes to working together, they’ve grown so much. “Go for it.” He can supervise, and Rukh can use another smoke grenade just in case anything goes wrong (honestly, given how much fun he’s having, Desmond is half expecting Rukh to just lob the grenade anyway).
“One other thing, Desmond—the main water source that’s tainted is up ahead, through a crack in the hills, and for whatever reason there’s a whole bunch of barrels of oil stored nearby. Spill a little of that into the water and it’ll burn for a long time,” Rebecca adds quietly. Guess she hadn’t found anything else noteworthy on the cameras.
The Atenists don’t seem to immediately suspect what exactly went wrong, judging by their muttering.
“These Marya saboteurs, unworthy of the majesty of the Aten! Curse them to eternal darkness!” one yells loudly as they walk over right next to the wall, examining the generator.
“And now we must sneak around like common criminals, rather than emerging ready for this holy war with the holy blessings of the Aten upon us. May the outsider who warned the Marya of the entrance burn under the gaze of the Aten!” another agrees.
“Yes, the entrance is now known to them, but the Marya, too, are outsiders. They do not know of the tunnels, built by our ancestors for protection, so they cannot be forsaken.” That’s—a problem. They’ll have to find those tunnels.
“You have the Aten’s light.” Beside him, Chelsea makes a gagging motion.
“Well, I was once once of them, you know, a blasphemer, before I was guided to the light by the Aten’s holy rays.” Which makes him deserving of pity, but maybe not mercy.
“I hear the Prophet once again meets with the Enlightened outsider to discuss our efforts to regain the holy city. The call to action will come soon, praise to the Aten, and the streets will be painted with the blood of the heretics and unbelievers. Perhaps we may even use the explosives we acquired.”
They devolve into the more familiar cultist speech worshiping the Aten, but it doesn’t matter. Desmond’s heard enough. When Lydia creeps back around the wall, looking worried, she’s not alone. His mom’s with her, putting away some documents into her robes. That might be blood on one of the corners, but then, the source is pretty obvious.
“These are important for later, but at the moment I think we need to set fire to that oasis and then urgently warn the Marya.” Desmond nods, and after one last bit of satisfying sabotage they follow Mr. Rahal’s path, just on foot.
Disregard Atenists; acquire camel.
Calculations stealth (and Rebecca) used because I swear there were a couple times the cameras were pointing right at Desmond and they were like “nope, nothing to see here”.
Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond and the others stage an assault on the date farm and factory.
Word Count: 4866
Rating: Teen
“You are here with me, Desmond?” His mom’s voice is sharp with panic, which just makes him feel worse, because damn it he thought he’d been getting better. This hadn’t happened in a while.
“Yeah.” It’s an effort and his voice still doesn’t feel like it’s his, like he’s been wrung out. Rukh almost angrily shoves his head under Desmond’s hand looking for some pets, which helps him breathe a little deeper. “Sorry, I just—”
“Dissociated,” she interrupts, tone clipped, and as much of an effort as it is that gets him to look because wait there’s a name for that? Then he winces a little because that’s a headache, but at least he’s feeling that headache. He kind of wants to call Shaun but he doesn’t want to get into the habit of bugging the guy every time he feels a little bad. Later. He notices that she does not continue immediately, folding the handkerchief carefully and putting it back in a bag as she indicates to Mr. Rahal he should take the others and give them some privacy. “It is not your fault. You have learned it is safer in times of stress for your mind to take a step back. You’re hardly the only Assassin with trauma, and knowledge is a weapon as surely as a Hidden Blade.”
“Wasn’t true of him?” he mutters bitterly. Apparently Rukh decides he’s not petting right and turns a little to poke Desmond with his beak, and in a weird way that helps, too. Especially when it’s followed by the soothing feel of petting feathers.
“You believe yourself to be the only Assassin with scars?” That definitely shocks him into the present a little. She smiles a little, sad and weirdly a little defiant. “And what kind of Mentor would I be if I allowed any of mine to just suffer in silence without even offering a hand to help?”
“Guess you disagreed with Dad about a lot of things.” He breathes in deeper. He’s not going to follow Shaun’s checklist now. It’d feel weird. But he can feel the shade of the rocks and ruins on his skin, a respite from the weirdly bright desert sun he can almost taste on the air, alongside the slight metallic tang on his tongue and stickiness in his nose from the nosebleed. The cool, smooth stone beneath his legs and the sand under his shoes. He hears the wind whistling through the rocks. He’s still feeling really tired, but...he’s okay. For now, anyway. And he’s been thinking about how unfair it is that it’s so uneven, that he knows so much about everyone else and they don’t know him, but...there’s an easy way to fix that. Talking about himself has been kind of drilled out of him, between Assassin training and then just common sense when he’d been trying not to get caught by what he’d decided was a cult, but it’s not like he hasn’t done hard things before. “It wasn’t just him. I got captured by Abstergo—think, uh, Templars but all Helwing—and there was a machine called the Animus.” Though he’s really not ready for that story right now, and while she recognizes the word it doesn’t seem to mean something specific for her. That doesn’t rule out the possibility of it still existing here, of course, just under a different name. Probably Orochi tech, if he had to bet. “Shaun told me something to help stop it though.”
Instead of being just worried, she now looks amused and proud, too. And also might be eyeing him to gauge whether he’s up for being teased right now. “He wants to help you a great deal, it seems.”
“Yeah, he does. It’s nice. It’s a little weird, but I’m not sure he gets it either and he still goes for it.” His other hand finds the amulet and it’s almost like he can feel the honeyed brightness of Agartha. It doesn’t feel overwhelming right now, just safe, the tree that would shelter one eagle as he climbs to get a better view of the situation. And he can almost feel Shaun on the other end startle a little and quickly set down the tea to try to avoid spilling it, actually awake and aware of the situation now. Practically feel his racing thoughts as he tries to figure out what’s happening, if it’s a threat, if it has anything to do with what’s going on with Desmond, because Rebecca had actually sounded worried about her surveillance for once but hadn’t wanted to ask because he’s deliberately trying to make the decision to give Desmond his privacy. Finally connect it to the drops of blood when he’d been making the amulet because he’s clever.
Which makes this kind of a betrayal of trust, doesn’t it? Shaun had made a deliberate choice to ignore his instincts and not pry, and Desmond isn’t doing the same, but—he catches the briefest emotion that makes him stay, kind of shocked. Shaun still doesn’t regret it. Instead, he deliberately just carefully backs the chair up and looks down, which is when Desmond gets it—Katherine’s sleeping on Shaun’s feet. And then into a corner of the room, where Alice is curled up on a pile of books like a dragon sleeping on her hoard. Which might not actually be too far from the truth. Desmond barely holds in the laugh, and Shaun’s definitely feeling smug over it.
As, Desmond realizes when the rest of it fades, is his mom, judging by the grin. Huh. He wonders if she’d just made the connection or if she actually sees something specific in Eagle Vision when she looks at the amulet. Whatever. He swallows back any self-consciousness he might have about it. He absolutely refuses to feel any shame for being a sap about Shaun. “I mean, a lot of them do, but I don’t think it’s because most of them want to take me out on a date.”
“You’ve done well gathering a group that likes you for you,” she agrees, Rukh bopping his head lightly against Desmond’s hand as if agreeing. Desmond has absolutely no idea what to do with that either, so he figures he’ll do the next best thing. Might as well check on them now. He glances out to the area where they’re waiting out of earshot and groans.
Judging by the color of the figure walking toward the canyon, Tanis has come to join them. Miriam follows his gaze and looks less than pleased. “I can deal with her.”
“Nah, I’m fine. Maybe I still feel a little dizzy but that’s just in my head. It doesn’t affect my balance.” He holds out a hand and she helps him up smoothly. She doesn’t respond, though, so he adds, “Seriously. I’m feeling better.”
Rukh may have decided Desmond’s shoulder was his perch, but he has the strangest feeling that this time the raven only hopped up there to give him a judgmental look from a shorter distance. “Don’t look at me like that. You and Mom and Shaun helped, okay?”
Rukh fluffs his wings a bit and then starts using his beak to clean his feathers, looking very pleased with himself. Miriam chuckles. “I’m glad I was helpful, too.”
Sometimes, a flock of Novices isn’t too subtle. The way the trainees fall silent at their approach makes it pretty obvious they were gossiping, probably about him, and he has to shove the feeling of shame away again. “Do you have anything you want to say to me?” he asks, and at least Lydia looks a little awkward about being caught.
“What can we do to help?” It’s firm and not at all judgmental, and it’s—he’d expected them to at least have questions about what was going on, or if it’d be safe for him to do anything but rest now, but that’s none of them.
“You don’t need to do anything—” he starts, and now Lydia’s frowning and crossing her arms and Rukh is poking him with a sharp beak.
“That sounds like the wrong answer. We want to help.” Okay, he’d expect that from Lydia. The fact that it’s Chelsea saying this? That catches him a little off guard. His mom, meanwhile, looks like she was completely expecting this and is kind of amused that he wasn’t, which, rude, but whatever.
That actually means he has to think about it, though. Why petting Rukh’s head and talking to Shaun had worked, and why his mom’s presence had been helpful but hadn’t stopped it completely.
“Talk to me, I guess? About stuff that’s not the here and now at first. Reminders that I’m here and now—no, Lydia, that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to pinch me.” And now she’s pretend-pouting, but it is kind of funny. “Just being willing to be there with me matters a lot.”
“Of course. You’re our Mentor, like your mom is Mr. Rahal’s Mentor.” He...really has questions about what, exactly, Mr. Rahal actually said. Probably not intentionally; he doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would bring up even small things about the Assassins on his own, but when it comes to an interrogation from Chelsea and Lydia? Yeah, he didn’t really stand a chance.
“And our friend,” Lydia adds, elbowing Chelsea, who nods, actually looking a little embarrassed herself.
“I was going to say ‘you’ve earned some of my trust’, but all this kumbayah crap makes me want to throw up,” Tanis announces, and Desmond abruptly remembers that this is a big part of the reason he’s not going to be too torn up about the time he can actually bury his Hidden Blade in her neck.
“Isn’t it a great thing that my whole deal doesn’t have a damn thing to do with you?” he replies, as sweetly as he can.
Tanis’s snakes all tense at once, but she doesn’t ask any of them to attack, which is probably the best response he could get, in this situation. “Well, I’d go right back to the café now that you’ve finished my work, but that woman doesn’t stop whining about all her missing neighbors, darkness covering the land, and missed or contaminated shipments. I’d like to shut her up in a way that leaves her still free to make a pot of coffee, and it’d go down nice with just a little more revenge.” Her smile is all teeth. “Berihun, the bastard, keeps trying to comfort me, telling me he can help me salvage my deals even as he sabotages them behind my back and thinks I don’t know. You’ve proved to me you follow your convictions. So for no reason at all, I’ll just mention that you didn’t actually get all the crates. Some of the shipment that got stolen was explosives, too. And I wouldn’t shed a tear if I heard Daoud’s plans and his alliance with Berihun went up in smoke.” That’s probably the closest thing he’ll ever get to a thank you, or an apology. That’s okay. More people need to apologize with explosives and tempting targets.
“Are you going to be okay?” Lydia fusses, obviously having caught on that they’re going to check this out immediately.
Shockingly, he’s actually feeling really good at the moment. Whenever he finally gets around to sleeping for the night, he’ll be out, but other than being a little sore and light-headed he’s doing fine at the moment. And he actually bothers to think about that, instead of just dismissing her. “I can probably sneak like this in my sleep. I’ll be fine. I’ll be a little more tired after, but we’ll probably be hopping back to the Anima Well anyway.”
“You don’t need to carry out duties while sleepwalking for me to be proud of you,” his mom grouses, but it’s playful mocking even as she looks out for a sign of weakness—
No. Hang on, he’s confusing her for Bill, again. It’s not completely wrong; she is trying to figure out whether he can handle it, but it’s concern, not judgment, in her eyes.
“Yeah, but I gotta show off for my Novices and Rebecca somehow,” he argues, and she just shakes her head.
The rest of these cultists are a little more obviously infected with the Filth, skin ashen and, in some cases, veins black under the skin, which he briefly worries is going to set him off. It doesn’t, even as it makes it that much harder to use Eagle Vision, but his general sense of danger tied to Eagle Vision and the Calculations don’t have the same limitation. He tries to figure out his approach—they could use a disguise, but then, these assholes don’t have the same thoughts as Orochi. Orochi personnel, even if they noticed sabotage, would want to keep them alive for painful interrogation. These guys would just go ‘kill on sight’, and while they should probably wear the uniforms to blend in from a distance, if that was all that was needed to just waltz in Miriam would have already tried it.
She’s already shaking her head before he glances at her. “These are smarter, unlike the cannon fodder out there. They would know you before you made it in the entrance. Fortunately, they are not immune to smoke grenades.”
She hands him a few and he grins. Rukh turns his head to keep them in view, probably already having decided they’re his.
They don’t really need them much on the approach. For the most part everybody else is doing a pretty good job keeping clear and sneaking past patrols and guards stationed around, so he doesn’t have to worry about them. He has gotten a little sick of seeing patrols come through with prisoners, though, so he ambushes one of them, the others falling in as backup like they’d coordinated it. Those cultists seem a lot stronger, probably powered by the Filth in some twisted perversion of their worship (or...no, maybe that’s the point of it; Shaun did mention something about them trying to ‘free their twisted sun’ or something when he’d talked about the attack on the Gaia engine). They don’t get a chance to retaliate or even really react before they’re being tugged and hidden between the rocks.
“Go back to Al-Merayah; they’ll need you,” he tells the captured Marya, waving off the thanks.
“Try not to get caught again,” Lydia adds. They’re not too far, so it’s probably not that much of a danger, but silently his mom decides to escort the Marya back, and Desmond’s not too worried about her catching back up. She’s proven she’s good enough to pull it off.
There’s a couple trucks on the way that serve as good cover, but they’re probably also being used for shipments or other terrible things. Desmond really has to ask Saïd about acquiring an arsenal at some point, but at the moment he can just remember their location for now. Although he did actually manage to summon the fireball when Shaun was teaching him. It still doesn’t feel natural, but at the moment, that matters less than the potential arson capabilities. “You might want to stand back,” he warns them, and immediately Lydia and Chelsea retreat into the rocks, pulling Mr. Rahal back with them. The resulting explosion singes his hoodie a little as he backs up, too, but it’s a pretty satisfying sight, and as much as that seemed like overkill, it did serve as a pretty good distraction, pulling away a lot of the guards from the front. It’s easy enough for them to pick their way through the rocks and then start off down the front of the factory, where Desmond finds that Zhara was wrong. The spraypainted Aten symbol isn’t just an intimidation tactic. They’re doing it here, too, and while it’s potentially there to scare prisoners being taken in for processing, most likely it’s just a declaration that this is their land. Which, maybe it is. For now. Even the strongest tyrant can be toppeled, with the right plan.
Rukh takes off, probably to serve as a lookout. Unfortunately, the front door is locked. He starts by attempting lockpicking, and when that doesn’t work he tries just shooting the lock, muffling the sound of the shot, or setting it on fire, but those don’t do anything either. He even gets creative and tries to take the door off its hinges and get in that way, but has no more luck doing that than with anything else. It has to be magically protected somehow, which is disappointing but maybe not so surprising. The cultists hadn’t seemed too prepared for anything so far, maybe because most of them had lost the planning parts of their brains, but Daoud still seemed pretty there for a death cult fanatic, and Desmond’s starting to get the idea that this is their stronghold and maybe they started planning it and building the security system and plans when each contributor had more of their brain still available for them to use. So he goes and hides on top of one of the cars instead, flattening himself against the roof to avoid being seen by a more distant patrol.
“Uh, Desmond…” Lydia whispers behind him, and it’s then he realizes they hadn’t followed him. Rukh decides to accentuate that moment by dropping a large rock on something, shattering glass and metal, and he realizes that he’d somehow waltzed right through the sight path of one of those security cameras people have mounted everywhere in this world without it actually seeing him. He had to have been using Calculations stealth again. At least the fact that it’s becoming instinctual rather than something he actively has to focus on is a pretty good sign.
“Sorry. You should be good to head over now.” They’ll have to move more quickly, assuming anyone happens to be watching the cameras. A broken camera, rather than just looping footage, is a reason to investigate.
Which is, of course, when Rebecca decides to stop just watching and announce that she’s been listening. She comes in over the earpiece loud and clear. “Desmond, tell Rukh to break cameras farther away from you guys. Kings of digital security, these cultists were not. I can just hack the ones in your path, and then we have sabotage and a distraction without putting any of you in danger.”
Rukh had apparently flown close enough to hear, because he croaks once and then circles around to the back of the building, transferring the rock in his talons back to his beak.
It works pretty well overall. They have to time their movements just right, of course, because the only way they’re hacking the eyes of the cultists is with, well, the Calculations. Desmond does have to call on that a couple of times when Chelsea or Mr. Rahal moves a little too far or not far enough. He’d gone with that at first over the smoke grenades, because with the smoke grenades they’re still going to search around and alert others to the general location making it harder to get away, but after a while he just can’t do it. Not because it’s difficult, but because it isn’t. It feels disturbingly like using the Apple again, which is probably because he’s still tapping into that same function. The smoke grenades are more of a challenge, but it’s easier to get away with Rukh pelting the cultists with rocks and magic, dodging any shots they attempt to take.
The crates of explosives, at least, are easy to spot. Unfortunately, the main buildings themselves seem to be magically reinforced, because nothing seems to happen to the wall even when he sets off a couple with a fireball from a safe distance. There’s not even a mark on the wall. Someone would probably have to take it out from the inside. He’s not so disappointed this time, mostly because after the lock he was expecting this.
They didn’t bother to protect the side buildings at all. And the date palm trees, Filth running up through the roots and into the tree itself like blackened veins (he hadn’t even realized he’d gone into Eagle Vision; it explains why everything got darker all of a sudden), are not immune either, which means that a well-placed bomb can deal with a whole grove and a well-placed hit with a sword can topple them. It still doesn’t do as much damage as Desmond would hope, and there’s one point where Lydia has to get out of the way quickly because it’s falling the wrong way, but it still does more than an actual explosion, which, again, points to magic. The fact that cutting down the light poles also doesn’t damage the walls just strengthens that theory. It’s worth doing anyway to mess with the Atenists more, but the fact that they just come to a gentle rest leaning up against the buildings really proves it for Desmond. They’d used some kind of spell to protect from human attack, probably anticipating the Marya, and hadn’t considered nature as a threat other than somebody potentially using nature magic. If they’d considered this particular loophole at all, they’d probably been arrogant enough to figure that the intruder would be caught before too much damage could be done. And, to be fair to them, for once it’s not just arrogance. He’s starting to get why his mom didn’t try to tackle this area solo or even with the few Assassins she came into Egypt, or at least this area of Egypt, with. It probably goes without saying, but the cultists are absolutely nuts. Why the hell do they need this much security and firepower to protect Filthy dates? No, there has to be something else about the compound that made them choose this as their stronghold.
So they continue, cutting down the trees (which hurts but Desmond knows there’s no chance of him healing all of them, and they’d end up poisoned again anyway given the groundwater has been poisoned), destroying farming equipment and shipments of dates and sabotaging everything they can get their hands on, occasionally having to use a smoke grenade to escape. It goes from the huge buildings (probably packing plants and other kinds of processing, if Desmond had to guess) with sandy almost-roads around the outside for easy transportation, the occasional tree or smaller building around the outside, to larger strands of trees with cultists loading up the crates by hand, the occasional guard walking through with a gun. It’s harder to find hiding spots out here, so, reluctantly, Desmond has to lean on the Calculations more.
And then he sees something that makes him pause. They have a camel tied up near one of the spots he’d like to put an explosive, really take out a huge shipment of dates. Rukh circles back down close and croaks, sounding curious, and Desmond kind of has to agree.
“What if we get caught?” Lydia hisses, grabbing his arm to stop him, and Desmond shrugs.
“It’s not infected at all. It deserves to make it out of here.” Plus, he really wouldn’t mind acquiring a camel.
Mr. Rahal eyes the camel and the distance and then sighs. “If you clear a path, I can ride the camel to safety. They have guns, but if the distraction is big enough, they will decide I am not worth the effort. I can ride for that old streambed.”
“You’ll have your distraction, even if it means using up the rest of the explosives,” Desmond promises, giving Rukh one of the smoke grenades. He points out good spots for Lydia and Chelsea to use their explosives, and when they’re all in place gives Mr. Rahal, hiding on the other side of the camel, the signal. Explosions really are a bonding experience. At least, Desmond assumes that’s why fireworks are a thing. Mr. Rahal maybe looks a little terrified, but to his credit he doesn’t let that stop him, urging the camel into a gallop (...is that the right word for a camel? in any case they go a lot faster than Desmond would have expected) and they retreat to a safe distance, aided by a well-timed smoke grenade. Maybe he should just give Rukh his own arsenal of grenades.
Lydia and Chelsea are grinning widely; apparently they both deeply enjoy sabotage. Good for them. Which is when Desmond realizes on the other side of the wall they’re hiding behind there’s a generator.
“I could use my sledgehammer,” Chelsea offers eagerly, remembering this time to stay quieter, given that there’s another group of Atenists gathered on the other side of the wall who might hear them.
Lydia’s fumbling around in her pockets, and she finally finds what she’s looking for, holding up a box of matches triumphantly. “And there’s another shipment of dates they’re packing.”
When it comes to working together, they’ve grown so much. “Go for it.” He can supervise, and Rukh can use another smoke grenade just in case anything goes wrong (honestly, given how much fun he’s having, Desmond is half expecting Rukh to just lob the grenade anyway).
“One other thing, Desmond—the main water source that’s tainted is up ahead, through a crack in the hills, and for whatever reason there’s a whole bunch of barrels of oil stored nearby. Spill a little of that into the water and it’ll burn for a long time,” Rebecca adds quietly. Guess she hadn’t found anything else noteworthy on the cameras.
The Atenists don’t seem to immediately suspect what exactly went wrong, judging by their muttering.
“These Marya saboteurs, unworthy of the majesty of the Aten! Curse them to eternal darkness!” one yells loudly as they walk over right next to the wall, examining the generator.
“And now we must sneak around like common criminals, rather than emerging ready for this holy war with the holy blessings of the Aten upon us. May the outsider who warned the Marya of the entrance burn under the gaze of the Aten!” another agrees.
“Yes, the entrance is now known to them, but the Marya, too, are outsiders. They do not know of the tunnels, built by our ancestors for protection, so they cannot be forsaken.” That’s—a problem. They’ll have to find those tunnels.
“You have the Aten’s light.” Beside him, Chelsea makes a gagging motion.
“Well, I was once once of them, you know, a blasphemer, before I was guided to the light by the Aten’s holy rays.” Which makes him deserving of pity, but maybe not mercy.
“I hear the Prophet once again meets with the Enlightened outsider to discuss our efforts to regain the holy city. The call to action will come soon, praise to the Aten, and the streets will be painted with the blood of the heretics and unbelievers. Perhaps we may even use the explosives we acquired.”
They devolve into the more familiar cultist speech worshiping the Aten, but it doesn’t matter. Desmond’s heard enough. When Lydia creeps back around the wall, looking worried, she’s not alone. His mom’s with her, putting away some documents into her robes. That might be blood on one of the corners, but then, the source is pretty obvious.
“These are important for later, but at the moment I think we need to set fire to that oasis and then urgently warn the Marya.” Desmond nods, and after one last bit of satisfying sabotage they follow Mr. Rahal’s path, just on foot.
