The Cave (Shadow Knights Base) [CVnU]

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There's something wrong with the world today. Sea levels rising. Record setting storms. Chemicals in the water. Mass killings. Genocide. Terrorism. Nihilism spreads it's black wings.

Five stand against the tide. This is their home.

Once the sanctuary of Ivana during her endless mutant crusade it fell into disuse when she ascended to the stone throne of the Shogunate. Following his defection from the Strigidae death-cult her son Richard set out on a quest to find her. In the process of retracing her steps he uncovered her old Gothic City base; a cave buried three quarters of a mile below Gothic's bedrock.

A spacious cavern network in a subterranean granite formation the cave is furnished with the spartan necessities with no thought given to excess or comfort. The stone floor rolls and flows, broken by the jagged teeth of stalagmites and occasionally there is clear section with flat steel floor paneling bolted into the stone and illuminated by the harsh glow of halogen lights suspended from the arching stone overhead.

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The primary feature of the Cave is a one hundred ten inch flat screen in front of a desk covered in monitors and other electronic equipment. It sits upon a raised platform, under which is a Linux server farm connected to a large number of ASIC mine machines Ivana used to mine bitcoins before becoming Shogun.

Re-wired by Tessa Callahan to serve the needs of the dark trinity it provides a considerable amount of processing power and digital storage as well as being connected directly into the grid with a 200GB connection.

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One isolated cave has been given entirely over to a rudimentary chemistry lab. Arrachtach once used it to devise and construct new weaponry for Ivana however today it is also used to do forensic work. The walls are scorched where experiments gone wrong left their mark.

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A long steel panel creates a vehicle garage that opens into an underground river which feeds into the Gothic harbor. The garage is currently home to only a few vehicles, an inflatable raft for navigating the river and Richard's off-road bike among them. However it is also home to a plethora of tools abandoned by Arrachtach, including every size of wrench and ratchet in both imperial and metric as well as hundreds of yards of extension cords, drills, portable saws, wenches and pulleys and every type of screwdriver and torx bit.

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Under the unforgiving glow of a halogen bulb lays a home gym. Steel free-weights, scratched and dented kettlebells, a rowing machine, exercise bike and gymnastic bars and hoops are it's only adornment. A black rubber mat covers the steel floor and large section is fenced off for sparring. Beside the raised gym platform is a deep pool filed with clear, clean water that rises up from an underground spring. Typically used for swimming it can also double as drinking water should the need arise.

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There are also raised platforms that served as storage for Ivana's armor, weapons and equipment. Today those platforms hold the equipment of the Shadow Trinity and the workbenches build tools intended to protect lives, not end them.

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One platform is surrounded by a plastic sheets suspected from the ceiling. This is the makeshift medical bay where wounds can be stitched up, shrapnel removed or bullet wounds treated. It is fully stocked with everything from surgical tools to antibiotics to anesthetic, tubing and IV bags.

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One connected cave has been given entirely to Grimmwald, the Horned Saint. This area of the cavern is unique in that it contains no digital technology whatsoever. Electricity supplies an AC unit and a few lights that illuminate a desk, stacks of books and folders full of hand written notes. Not even a calculator is allowed within Grimmwald's sanctuary, lest a technopath or advanced hacker pry open it's secrets and spy upon his sanctuary with a digital eye.

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There are only two entrances and exits. One, through the underground river that leads to the Gothic City harbor and the other, a long climb up a rope ladder that terminates in a trapdoor in an empty field in the middle of nowhere but just inside the legal boundaries of Gothic City.

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@tessa_callahan@grimmwald

The twenty year old vigilante pulled his bike off the raft, having used the underground river to enter the hidden cave that served as the trinities home base. He removed his Strigidae cowl and tucked it into his belt and his shirt followed soon after, leaving him wearing a loose fitting pair of quasi-militaristic cargo pants and a skin tight rash-guard over his powerfully muscled upper body. Cool air washed over his young face and he closed his eyes, breathing deep and feeling reinvigorated. Then he opened his blue eyes and looked about. "Anyone home?"

@hawkshade: @grimmwald

Tessa twirled a finger through her hair, absentmindedly coiling and uncoiling strands of bright copper red hair around her finger as she stared at the gargantuan computer screen in front of her. Numbers trailed down one side - stocks changing - increasing and decreasing with the whims of a savagely capitalistic society. Small dots moved around the tracking map she had towards the side of the screen, and in the center a blown up image of a stylized rose. She shifted in her chair, tucking her legs underneath her criss-cross as she contorted her torso and turned in the chair, angling closer to Richard's general direction. "Over here," she called, even as she turned back and ran her fingers over the keyboard, continuing with her work.

@tessa_callahan: @hawkshade:

This was far from what came to Grimmwald's mind when thinking of the word "cave". He thought of rougher rock, damper air and no light. He thought of the caves he and Richard were thrown into as children, caves were nay a slant of morning light reached their eyes so that they would learn to kill with their sense of sight dulled. They were spoiled with the luxury of light and sight, coddled by it. It was what the Strigidae had drilled into their minds. Everyday he expected someone to shatter the cave's light bulbs with bats like they'd done in his youth. Stepping off the raft and onto the cold metal of a ringed platform, Grimmwald lamented the sad truth. He was too paranoid, too on-guard to enjoy anything.

Everything, real or imagined, was a threat in his mind. It was the price he paid. Pulling the horned cowl from his head to reveal short locks of brown hair, he felt grains of desert sand trickle down his forehead. He scowled. "I'd ask how it got in there but no one ever knows with sand". Raking the cave with his ruby eyes, Grimmwald's voice rasped deep for a name until his eyes found the woman sitting at a screen larger than he thought necessary, "Tess, we need your help finding someone".

@grimmwald: @tessa_callahan:

"What Kellan said." Richard hopped down from the steel garage platform and crossed the cave toward Tessa and the eerie glow of computer monitors, flashing with the digital language of a electronic world that had grown too fast, too mechanized and made the human spirit an alien in it's own home. "The League of Shadows was destroyed. We saw it. What was left, anyway. Whatever destroyed it was strong and left behind markings I couldn't make sense of. We need to find the Raysh Al Shayton. They'll know the truth." He placed a hand on the elevated computer platform and swung his body atop it then set on top of one of the desks, legs long enough that his toes rested on the floor.

@hawkshade: @grimmwald:

Tessa spun in her chair and watched the small wave of sand as it fell from Kellan's tousled hair and sprayed onto the floor of their humble abode. His ruby eyes held hers for a moment before she shifted her attention to Richard as he smoothly traversed the cave, heading in her direction. Her eyes narrowed, shifting to the side as something momentarily caught her attention, before she brought her avid gaze back to Richard. "Do you have pics of the markings? Or..." her gaze shifted to Kellan, a smirk twitching her lips "tracings, something? A name, even? I'm good, but I'm not magic." Not yet, anyways.

She'd had several beads on the League in the past, while working on her own pet project, but it was hard to completely track and identify a notorious horde of assassins.

@tessa_callahan: @grimmwald: [I had an idea and went ahead and posted lol.]

The vigilante sighed and shook his head. "No. All we found were ghosts. And those, not even literally." He ran a hand over his close cropped hair and for a moment he looked his age. Only twenty. Then the weight came back around his broad shoulders and his eyes. "This Al Shayton, he must be on the radar of at least one agency. The CIA. STRIKE. Maybe the NSA. They'll have files." A broad-boned hand rubbed his jaw. I need to shave. "That's a lot to ask.. but if you can confirm the file exists and find where the server is hosted I can get the hard drive the hard way." Probably.

@hawkshade: @tessa_callahan:

It was impossible not to stare at the screen and keyboard. And the more he lingered on the soft glow of the digital world, the louder the low hum of Tessa's server stacks became. He hated looking at computer screens. He felt a thousand eyes on him from the blue glare of the screen, as if he someone was watching him, as if the quick tapping of fingers on a keyboard was someone writing down his every movement. He hated computers, he didn't trust them, so he turned away - lest the Strigidae see him. "I didn't take any pictures", Grimmwald answered, eyes following the cold waters of the river below them. "No name too. But you're good enough to find something on the League's last Shaytan without a name", he paused, glancing over his shoulder with a taunt in the scarlet shade of his eyes, "At least I think you're good enough", he said, daring her to prove him wrong.

Turning his gaze back to the water below, Grimmwald was at the mercy of his paranoia. They'll think me crazy for this but I'm still alive, he smirked, thinking his paranoia a shield against the Strigidae's sword.

@grimmwald: @hawkshade:

She rubbed her hand over the back of her neck, squeezing gently before she lifted her hair and secured it in a haphazard topknot. She knew exactly who would have files on Raysh al Shaytan, and that knowledge sat like a pit in her stomach. "Yeah, I know where to look," she muttered as she reached across her workspace and grabbed a Twizzler, biting into it with gusto.

Her fingers whispered over the keys, barely making a noise as she absentmindedly watched the screen, while monitoring Kellen out of the corner of her eye. His discomfort with tech was well known to her, and something she was constantly aware of. It was a constant line she walked of teasing without torture. She narrowed her eyes, emerald pupils gazing into crimson ones before she winked, her cockiness back in full effect. "Sure am, sweet cheeks," she promised.

@tessa_callahan: @grimmwald:

Richard shifted his weight, slipping down from the desk he had been sitting on and walking behind Tessa, watching her fingers tapping the keyboard with her practiced ease. The worn soles of his army surplus combat boots didn't make a sound on the steel. Not a whisper. His training ran deep. To his bones.

Thickly muscled forearms arms crossed over his broad chest and blue eyes scanned the information that popped up as Richard begin filing data away in the grim halls of his mind palace; information was a weapon and the Son of the Shogun assembled an arsenal inside the fortress of his mind.

Damn... and I thought Vincent was paranoid. Imp's got me beat with Grimm.

@tessa_callahan: @hawkshade:

Eyes on the water below them, Grimmwald felt the glow of the computer screen on his back. He heard the cheekiness in Tessa's voice but said nothing of it. Sweet cheeks, he thought, ears drowning out the soft hum of Tessa's servers. He knew a Sweet Cheeks once, a mob boss as large and round as they came, a New Yorker. He demanded that every mafioso in the Big Apple "Show respect and kiss both sides of this cheek", thus the name, Sweet Cheeks. Grimmwald could have killed him. But he didn't, he didn't have to. Because he paralyzed him from the neck down - permanently. It was not cruel, it was justice. So he stood there in the cave, head hung low, ruby eyes following the river flow as he thought of all the lives he'd saved by being Sweet Cheeks' lack of a conscience. All the people he'd saved from being thrown into the harbor with cement feet to drown in water like the one running before his eyes.

"I knew a Sweet Cheeks once", he said, mouth pulled back into a quiet smile, eyes still on the river below. "How long do you think it'll take you to find anything,Tess?", he asked, refusing to turn but catching a glimpse of Richard's shadow from the corner of his eye. "We'll need to be well armed when we seek out the Shaytan. They might confuse us for mercenaries sent to finish the job started at the League's monastery", he advised, thinking it best to prepare for the worst.

@hawkshade: @grimmwald:

Tessa naturally leaned back towards Richard, almost as if she were pulled into his personal gravity field. A potentially dangerous indicator of how at-ease she now was around the two of them.... although maybe less so around Kellen, who she shifted her gaze to next, even as she continuously tapped tapped tapped on her keyboard. "You know I was talking about your butt, right?" Anything to cut the pain that hazed his eyes. He wasn't looking at her, but she knew the look like the back of her own hands.

Her chest rose and fell, her breath huffing with a deep sigh as she redirected her attention back to the screen. Where there were LeBeau's, there were bound to be assassins. And that's whose files she began to target directly - Lily LeBeau. Tessa had found a back door into the killer princess's files over a year ago, and all signs indicated that she had yet to be detected.

"Oh ye of little faith. I've got info for you right now. He operated under an alias as in in-house cleaner for the Irish Kings in Gothic. Hmmm," she muttered. "Killer with a conscience. He never targeted children. Men, women, metas, mutants, they were all game. He tended to go for traitors over civilians. Records indicate that there was a falling out when he refused a job, moved into freelancing after that like a listless drifter. Lucian LeBeau brought him out of hiding and put him to work targeting cartels down in Mexico. Lily LeBeau was involved, as were others."

Statements scrolled over the screen as she nibbled at her lip, rapt with concentration. "He doesn't like money. Whenever he gets it, he gives it away. Very under the radar." As if that had ever stopped them before. A few more keystrokes and she had what she wanted - a shadowy figure on CCTV cams. "London, would be my guess. He's in London."

@tessa_callahan: @grimmwald:

Hands clasped the back of Tessa's chair and Richard leaned forward over top of her, screens reflecting in his blue pupils as they flicked back and forth, attempting to parse the stream of data she had summoned forth. Eyes burned with focus and the banter flew past him unnoticed; LeBeaus, LoS, Gothic.. he needed to know these things. They wove a web and somewhere within it was a strand that he could follow to discover his mother's fate.

It was impressive work. Richard rarely observed the niceties. When a conversation served it's purpose he hung up. When someone gave him what he wanted he walked away.

Kellan and Tessa were different. They were his family.

"Nice." He grunted.

@tessa_callahan: @hawkshade:

Rolling his neck as if to test whether the reflection on the river was his or some doppelganger's, Grimmwald stared endlessly into the scarlet of his own eyes and Shroud. "With that big security risk glowing at your face, I'd hoped you were talking about something important", he rasped, "But it seems that's not in line with your skills", he shrugged, the air as dry as his words, the quiet pitch of amusement fading from his voice as quick as a heartbeat. Finally, Grimmwald's ears perked as information rolled out Tessa's tongue like a river stream. Killer with a conscience... the phrase left the taste of something bitter in Grimmwald's mouth. It reminded him of himself, of his past... "A LeBeau", he scowled, the disgust clear in his voice. Shaking his head free of the ill feelings he felt for the LeBeau bloodline, Grimmwald focused his thoughts on the Shaytan.

"So it's London we're headed to. Richard", he paused, eyeing his brother from the corner of his eye, "I'll see you there", he smirked, walking off to prepare for the journey ahead.

@grimmwald: @tessa_callahan:

The big twenty year old took his hands off the back of Tessa's chair and stood. London. He wrinkled his nose but nodded at his brother over his shoulder as Kellan departed. "Yeah."

Richard walked to the edge of the platform and crossed his arms, staring out into the midnight darkness over the gurgling underground river toward the far edge of the vast cavern and chewed the inside of his lip, brow furrowed.

He stood there for a long time then jumped down and stalked into the darkness, vanishing like a shadow joining a shadow.