I'm walking a little ahead of my pack, the Surtur's Forge, trying to take this in. I'm trying to put it all into some rational context, which always a stupid thing to do when stuff like this happens. I'm fighting the dread that's trying to set in, but right now there's mostly just dumb shock. That's good. That means I'm not losing my shit at the moment. As the pack Modi I can't well do that. I figured the rest are concerned about this, because they aren't saying anything, and it's hard to shut our rowdy group up. We've been tracking some Debased for a couple of weeks now and that led us here. This isn't what we expected to find.
It's a massacre. Everyone in the trailer park is dead, and the easternmost section of the park is flame-eaten ruin. The stench of burnt siding, plastic and flesh add to the aroma of open sewage and the nearby paper mill. Oh, and add blood and dead people to that. Bodies are everywhere, disemboweled and torn apart, adults and kids alike. Plus a dead dog here and there. Some people lay dead holding their guns, dying fighting, but it looks like most of the victims were torn apart as they ran. Limbs and guts are all strewn about, like after one of our fights. Believe me, I'm not the squeamish type, but fuck.
Among the dead are lots of tracks. At first I thought they were from a single pack, probably Spirals... what else would do this? But observant Elka -- our tracker and survivalist chick -- pointed out that there were far too many sets of tracks for it to be one pack. She estimates at least three packs, and twenty or more attackers. And she said most were dog tracks. Which makes sense in light of the canine corpses, I guess. It seems we found what we came looking for, after all. The people of this trailer park had been surrounded and torn apart by goddamned dog-blooded...
We decide to split up and check the mobile homes. In one I find a baby, torn apart. Nearby is a malnourished teenage girl with thinning hair, old tattoos and an oversized head (drug addict, maybe?). She was apparently gutted while trying to defend the infant. Bile rises in my throat. I walk back out to get fresh air -- of course, there's none of that here, and I have to fight the urge to throw up. Harms-With-Truth motions us behind one of the trailers, and I go, happy for anything to distract me from how fucked up this place is. No luck there. His expression is grim, which I already don't like, because he's usually the upbeat one. The pale corpse he's pointing to is that of a young man, maybe sixteen, with his right arm gnawed off. His shirt's torn away, and on his exposed back is a branding of the Black Spiral tribal glyph, burnt into his skin with precision; the scar is years old. Harms says to spread out and look for other such signs. And sure enough, there's tattoos and more brands of Spiral glyphs and other Wyrm symbols on the dead.
That these people are -- well, were Spirals and their Kinfolk was confirmed by Firebinder's discovery in the Umbra. I Step Sideways, and the scent in the trailer park's spiritual reflection is one of rot; the rotten egg-smell of the nearby paper mill is even stronger here than in the physical world. Three metis Dancers lay dead in the Umbra. Firebinder says that some of the corpses were dragged here after they died; I'm not sure how he knew that, but he's a Godi, and he'd know if anyone would. The remains of a few Banes are here too.
Between who the mutts killed and how efficiently they did it, it was clear it wasn't just ferals. They targeted the Spirals and their Kin specifically, and then cleaned up after themselves... at least, a little. I have a good idea who did this, which makes me relieved and scared all at once. It's good they hit the enemy, but goddamn, this was brutal. That these guys can inflict this much death is scary, I don't mind saying, especially considering by all accounts they consider us the enemy too...
Then something between a scream and a howl freezes my blood. We run toward the noise (smart of us, eh?). It's coming from a dilapidated double-wide patched with mismatched siding, leaning on crumbling cinder blocks. We all look at one another, and no one has to say anything; I know this is my responsibility. I step up the front steps, shifting to Glabro form and readying Storm Ice, my axe. The front door has been almost entirely torn off, and an awful smell hits me. I fight back gorge and walk in, ready for a trap.
What I see is a woman laying in a drying pool of her own blood, shit and vomit. Her legs and arms are mauled from bites too numerous to count, swollen and yellow-purple with infection; bones poke through the skin at horrid angles. The fingers from her right hand have been bitten or torn off. Her face is rough-hewn and ugly, with prognathous jaws; that some of the skin has been ripped from it doesn't help matters. Her teeth have all been shattered, and her eyes gouged out. More than a yard of intestine lay in her lap. She senses my presence and tries shifting to another form, but howls in pain as her broken bones grind together. She gives up trying to shift and slumps back down to the floor. She's no threat to anybody.
Through her ruined mouth, the Spiral manages, "Go aheh' and 'ill me, bish o' Gaiya. Gimme uh ho'rable det." It's clear she isn't long for this world, her wounds are too severe. I motion for the rest of the pack to come in. The looks on their faces tells me they're thinking what I am. I mean, we kill Spirals, but we give them quick deaths. We don't leave them maimed like this, to just suffer. Her attackers took their time doing this to her. They savored it. I've never felt bad for these fucking monsters, not ever... but this was just wrong. Harms-With-Truth and the rest give me nods of assent, knowing what I'm about to do. No glory to be had in this. Just duty.
Manuel -- our Half-Moon -- lays a hand on my arm as I start to step forward, staying me. He asks the Dancer, "How long you been like this?" She shakes her head; she didn't know or didn't want to answer. He asks one more question: "Who did this to you?"
Her empty bleeding eye sockets shoot open as she screams, "De 'Angar! The 'Angar of Sheriush...!!" She starts sobbing piteously, her stoic facade collapsing.
Cold terror fills my limbs, as not many things can do that to a goddamned Spiral. But I steel myself, and a single blow from Storm Ice is enough to split her fevered skull and shut her up. It's done; I wipe her tainted blood from my fetish, whispering thanks to the spirit inside it. We're going to have to do something with this body and the ones that weren't disposed of before.
Elka, still standing in the doorway, suddenly goes tense; I don't see it as much as feel it through the pack bond, and we all go on alert. We hear movement outside, coming from multiple directions. A dog barks off in the distance. It's answered by another one, and then several more barks, all around us. Fucking hell. The massacre was bait, and the bastards are confident enough to let us know they're here. The mutts must've known we've been tracking them.
Looks like we found our Debased after all.