How dismal, Holden thought, the air tasting stale on his tongue as he stepped through the shimmering portal terminus into the farmhouse. Dust motes moved slowly through the air as faint grey light filtered through cracks in the roof. The buckets for organ transfer lay scattered near the portal, some overturned. Many of them were stained with a strange black ichor, an imperfection. Something had gone wrong. This was unusually sloppy work from the methodical sentinels.
His eyes immediately went to the room's only entrance besides the portal, or what was left. It hung precariously from a single battered hinge, the rest reduced to splintered timber littering the floor. These were clear signs of a forceful entry or exit. My assessment was correct. The boy had to have come through here. A disruption of this magnitude is rarer than precious gems.
Holden drew his flat, non-reflective black metal sword and cautiously approached the ruined doorway. He peered out. The dark and wet soil of the organ farm stretched away under the oppressive grey. The air was heavy with the scent of the strange vegetation and damp earth. He could hear the heavy thuds of the sentinels nearby.
Just as he expected, three cyclopes moved at a snail's pace between rows of floral shapes that constituted the "crops." They performed their eternal tasks of tending and harvesting. But one, Holden noted with a tightening in his gut, seemed to move slower than the others. It dragged one leg slightly, and a glistening trail of black ichor marked its path. One of its hands was severely injured, with one finger missing from its joint. Wounded? Did the kid fight the cyclopes... and survive?
He stepped out of the farmhouse, his boots sinking into the damp ground. As he moved towards the injured sentinel for a closer look, one of the healthy cyclopes paused its work. Its two heads swiveled, fixing on Holden with an unnerving speed. Their hearing was as impressive as always.
A low growl rumbled in its chest, and it straightened, its posture shifting from worker to guardian. The third cyclops reacted a moment later, turning its attention towards the prohibited presence of Holden the inspector. No human was allowed.
Holden braced himself. He knew the danger these lumbering giants posed, even to someone as strong as himself.
The two healthy sentinels threw back their heads and unleashed a synchronized roar. It wasn't just loud; it possessed the whispering delusions that were designed to disorient and incapacitate. Holden pinched his sword between his pit and his side. With his freed hands, he clapped his hands hard over his ears and gritted his teeth as the pressure slammed into him.
The moment the sonic assault peaked, he moved. His hands snapped forward, clapping once as thick black ink sprayed from his fingertips. The fluid coalesced around the blade of his sword before launching forward as two 'slashes' of liquid darkness. The fluid slapped against the cyclopes' faces, hitting their massive eyes simultaneously.
The effect was immediate. The cyclopes were distracted, pawing blindly at their faces with massive hands. Their coordinated aggression immediately shattered.
Holden didn't waste the opening. He sprinted past them, following the ichor trail and the trampled crops. These were definitive signs of an earlier fight, and he had a good idea of who was responsible.
The trail led him away from the central crop rows towards a less-tended area. He scanned the ground, looking for... anything. Footprints? Dropped items? He found nothing conclusive. Confusing. Where had the boy come from before reaching the farmhouse?
Then he saw it. Several yards away, a mound of freshly displaced earth was stark against the otherwise flat, dark soil.
He approached cautiously, sword held ready. It was exactly what it looked like: a poorly filled-in hole. Kneeling, Holden pushed aside loose clumps of dirt. His fingers hit something hard and splintered. Definitely wood, but what was it doing here? He dug further, revealing more fragments, some with torn fabric clinging to them. And then the rectangular shape. The unmistakable wreckage of a coffin.
Holden froze. A coffin? Here? That's just impossible... coffins haven't been used in a millennia! His mind raced, recalling every known fact about the Farm. This domain is only accessible to those who were granted a gateway, likely by a high-ranking member of Axel Road. The presence of this coffin suggests that it wasn't placed here by accident. Right?
His gaze fell upon a more significant, relatively intact lid piece, half-buried. Words and figures were carved into the dark wood, rough but legible. He brushed the dirt away.
REST IN PEACE.HILLEL.514 AA.
Hillel. So, the boy had a name. And a date... 514 AA? Holden's breath hitched. Wait, that's around— He cut the thought short, a colder dread settling in his stomach.
This wasn't just irregular; it was so very wrong. Burial within the Farm itself. Who? Why? If a regular employee did something like this, their head would be buried here instead of in this coffin. This was given clearance by someone powerful within our organization... and the boy... Hillel... he emerged from this coffin? He really rose from the dead?
The only logical explanation that Holden could think of was that the boy was an experiment. Despite being known internationally as a disruptive assassination guild, Axel Road was much more than that. It had many branches and sub-companies, many invested in different evils. Things like unethical sciences, trafficking, and more. In essence, Axel Road was a sponsor of evil. Why wouldn't they do something like this?
Anyhow, Overseer Mahadai needed to know. Although, he probably already knows...
First, confirmation. Holden needed to see the boy again, check his condition, and verify if he crawled from a grave. Then, he'd report his findings to the overseer. He'd choose his words carefully. Very carefully.
Shoving the coffin fragments back into the hole, Holden scrambled and sprinted back towards the farmhouse, ignoring the blindly raging, ink-covered cyclopes. He had to get back to the storage facility. Now.
This routine inspection had turned into something beyond what he would have ever expected.