Nandroid Witchhunt VI

	Prudence wobbled back into the darkness towards her fallen oak tree, fishing through the branches for her rifle and the box. After another, less energizing wind-up and a snapping of some thinner branches she revealed her things, the rifle’s butt was cracked beyond repair and the entire action mangled, the barrel just curved past utility. The compass, however, was still functioning perfectly, still drawing a line to the moldering corpse of the monster. She scooped up the compass and returned to the corpse for a last inspection. She expected, upon returning to it, to just take a trophy for the Father and finally be at rest, find a quiet existence in service with him. But as she lopped off one of the creature’s paws she investigated, finding scraps of fabric mingled into the fur. The deep black cloth was unmistakable as belonging to her own people, her exile doing little to efface the memory of their modest clothing. She scooped out the little fabrics and, safely away from the fire, wrapped them around the newly clean needle. The compass bowed and swayed for a moment as it found it’s new north but, settling down again, it pointed directly into the cliff face. She stared at the ominous cave mouth but knew no one in there was alive and, checking again, weren’t even the owners of the parent cloth. She cast the paw into the fire as she started her trek around the towering cliffs to whatever lay beyond.
	It was another two hours before the cliff started to slope down and away and she could, with some scrambling and clawing, make her way up the lessening grade to its top. Now staring out over the lower canopy of trees she checked again and began her linear march onwards, stopping more frequently to wind herself up and adjusting herself for comfort, her gears grinding in the cold. Rising above the forest floor to the small plateau she started again to sweep her vision from side to side, ever vigilant lest some other monster erupt from the undergrowth and stop her. Checking the compass again she slowly rotated it, the needle swaying little as she provoked it - she was close. Rising from a small defilade in the terrain she spotted, in a wide meadow rounded by the trees below, a quaint home, a chimney fuming despite the late hour and the windows illumined. The compass was unwavering as she moved it around again. She was here.
Coming to the house she crouched low beneath the windows, creeping along the ground outside through an empty garden plot to the doorstep. She paused and listened at the entrance and, save for the odd pop of the fire inside, heard nothing nor no one stirring. Standing up again she gently caressed the doorknob and pressed inward, the compass needle swinging to her immediate left. Inside was a cozy homestead, no different than the myriad cottages and shacks in her former home, save for the ominous pointing of the compass. A jacket was hung with care on a rocking chair where a pair of needles and a half-finished scarf lay, the whole of the house arranged around the fire. Prudence slipped between the odd bits of furniture and hanging cookery, taking care not to disturb a single thing as she followed the needle’s dependable direction.
	Stopping in the furthest corner of the house it began again to spin furiously and for a moment she was frozen, convinced she’d just broken into some poor person’s home. As she scrambled to gather herself and make away like nothing had happened her feet dashed on the floor in the corner and, to her ears, a hollow knock rang out into the home. Peering down she could tell the boards were almost expertly arrayed to block any unwanted peeping, save for little knots and splits in the wood itself. Only darkness lay beyond those peepholes but it was enough to warrant investigation. She weighed her options quickly, balancing quick and loud for quiet and slow, and the idea of prying the boards up with her sword risked breaking the blade as well. Reaching into her apron for a match Prudence decided on the former but, finding none, quickly swept the house for some light other than the fire. Seizing a cold candle in its dish she hastily lit the wick in the fireplace before producing two of the cartridges, brusquely tossing them into the corner, their wrappers alight. Stealing herself away and into cover the house was filled with a violent booming and the clatter of wood sounded from some space below. Now in the corner was a small, neat hole that Prudence took no time to kick wider and drop down, descending into a cold stone crawlspace.
	Sprawling around her was a tangled mess of stone walls, wrapping around and beneath Prudence as she crouched low into the short space. This time, mercifully, there was an obvious hatch lying ahead of her which she seized on as the compass straightened out once again. Swinging it open she was met by another swallowing mess of darkness, the only light dancing around her the candle she’d taken with her. Sliding at the pit’s precipice her feet dangled, questing for purchase until she slipped down. The candle cast little peeps of light around the room as streaks of orange and red began to run from the walls. Prudence collected the toppled candle and searched for some more light, the grinding of her machinery quieting the gentle throbbing in the room. As she searched what she figured were tables she sent a lantern clattering end over end as it rolled along, stopping abruptly against the wall. A kiss of flame between them and the room was flushed with a little more light, the thumping in the room growing louder and faster as Prudence adjusted the lantern.
Oil flooding in the lantern roared a little song as the walls groaned and cracked, a great organism breathing and thrumming the walls with energy, the room finally came alight as Prudence finished her fiddlings, turning around to see a wall plastered with viscera, a dozen eyes all frantically and independently darting around in fear, pain or both. At the center was a massive pustule sheathed in veins and arteries, pulsing faster and faster as she and her shining blade neared it. The walls groaned inwards and outwards, the musty air circulating as it was sucked in and out of the trap door, Prudence staring in revulsion at whatever primordial evil sat before her, the eyes slowly focusing themselves all on her. Tendrils of flesh wiggled and tried to reach out to grab her but were dissuaded by a swing of the lantern. She retreated briefly, the compass not pointing her to the beating heart but a side room, adjacent and dark. Her singular beam of light split the room in two and, peering into the stygian void, she caught a prone form lying in the dark.
	Rushing ahead at the needle’s behest she left the groaning room behind for its neighbour, finding a room scattered with people, heaped piles of bodies unstirring and void of their belongings, a nearby table bedecked in stolen jewelry, baubles and more. Prudence ignored them and followed the compass, recoiling as it began to spin again over what her destination, a singular fair-skinned hand reaching out from a heap of locals. They didn’t stir at all as she began to yank and pull at the proffered arm and they spilled limp onto the stone floor as she fell backwards repeatedly, trying desperately to free the man. Another winding and he was free, the only person alive amid the piles and undoubtedly Mister Jeduthan. She tried vainly to rouse him for an escape but his slack body gave no answer, only the weak rise and fall of his chest evidence of his clinging to life. Prudence stowed the compass as she searched among the table of stripped loot for something of use, strings of seashells and carved crosses and more dashed aside as she stumbled upon a singular pistol amid the booty. Someone was keeping an eye on her, she knew, as she jammed powder and ball into it and crammed it into her apron.
	Returning to the main chamber with the Pastor perilously over her shoulder she unsheathed the silver blade again, the eyes frantically reeling around in their sockets as she approached the heart, driving the blade repeatedly into the heart there over and over again. The cellar heaved in muted agony, the grinding of the cobblestones against each other and bits of falling dirt and dust enough to tell her it was time to go. She smashed the lantern to the ground and into a spreading, flaming pool as she made her ascent again. Dragging the pastor through the crawlspace and up into the home again, just avoiding the licks of flame spouting from the basement, Prudence entered an empty home, destitute and cold, the fire having died save for a few blood-red embers. Hefting the man back onto her shoulder she dashed away from the home and frantically in the direction of home, the compass knowing to settle itself on the right axis by some unknown will. A great wailing sounded in the distance.