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Exposure Level 2 v
~ Around them, the tunnel shook. Sven cursed. It would seem that number two was the winner. The wall the symbol was on cracked open, musty air blowing back into Sven’s face. He coughed, using his hand to fan the dust aside. Before him, the wall shifted, opening up to a chamber. There were cobwebs and tree roots everywhere. The roots were strange since there were no trees in the Zanu Desert. Coming here, Sven saw nothing but sand for miles.
Salvay was not as cautious. He moved to step past Sven into the chamber. Salvay’s death was inevitable, but it was not yet due. Sven wanted to make sure he no longer needed the man before he ended him himself.
“We walked through hell to get here,” Sven said, stopping Salvay. “What makes you think that hell is over?”
The chamber was only a few meters wide. Cobwe
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~Vescovi knew the stories about The Coming. About how the city of Zanu was swallowed back into the sands, from where it rose to glory. Details about its demise were sketchy, and for most, it was a mere story. A fable. One that illustrated the dangers of magic and why the use of it should not be taken lightly. Because of the lore, travelers rarely explored the Zanu desert. The locals tried to warn them that their presence would awaken the revenants. Protectors of the secrets of Zanu. According to the locals, the magic thought dormant was very much alive. They spoke of it like it was a living, breathing thing. Vescovi thought they made it seem more ominous than it was worth. That some details were wholly exaggerated. He was wrong. And to their collective dismay—the locals were right. The magic here countered Ava’s shadow magic. Repelled it. Until the peop
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~All around them, the sands funneled up into mini-tornadoes. “Brace yourselves,” Vescovi said. One after the other, the tornadoes formed, encircling them in a ring of swirling sand. Vescovi counted nine of them. Blurred figures stood inside the funnel. The revenants. Men and women who had long since passed. Vescovi wondered how Salvay and Sven had feared on their journey here. Vescovi wished for them the worst kind of death. When the earth shifted under their feet, the sand mound they were on gave way. It sent them sliding down the sides, separating the group. Ava, thrown off balance, lost her hold on the shield. It flickered, then disappeared. The earth kept shaking under them, shifting the sands, making it hard for them to stand up against their enemies. As abrupt as it started, the quake stopped. H
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~8 months … After the virus break and the ill-fated trip to the Zanu Desert. The fallout from the virus was massive. It extended right across the continent with Pentorium taking the brunt of it. So far, they contained the virus to the five cities of Pentorium, but that was not the only thing on the loose. The footage, pictures, eyewitness accounts all gave away the existence of the vampires. To take down the infected and protect the lives of the humans, werewolves had to expose their existence as well. Suffice to say, the humans did not meet their efforts with gratitude. Relations with the races crumbled faster than a house of cards in a category five hurricane. The lines drawn had the humans on one side, and everything else clumped up on the other.
Enter the Shadows The Fallout ii
~Inside the lab, Marx found the others gathered. Helick, Garrick, Zigor, Ichiro, Shea, and Anabella with Martha and Philippe facing the room. Martha started the briefing once Marx took his seat. “As you all know, we finally figured out what the virus was—is,” Martha corrected herself. She was wearing a white lab coat, her honey blonde hair in a pile on the crown of her head. As Anabella said, the events of the last eight months brought about changes in everyone. For Shea, she had gone cold towards the humans, for Martha, she was more self-assured. When she spoke, she did so with authority. Confidence. She, too, had grown. “As we also explained,” she said, referring to Philippe and herself, “the mechanics of it are genetically coded to the DNA of the vampires targeting what we call the primitive gene.” “It being genetically coded,” Philippe picked up, “m
Enter the Shadows The Fallout iii
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Enter the Shadows The Fallout vi
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