@subhazard4297

3 months ago

Tulnin's silhouette melded with the darkness as he approached the towering ruins. The persistent drizzle had ceased, leaving a silence punctuated only by the distant echo of droplets. His radio crackled to life. "Cal, I'm climbing up," his voice steady, betraying neither excitement nor the fatigue of the day's labor. "Watch your step," came the laconic reply, the sound of a match striking briefly overpowering the receiver's hum. Tulnin secured himself to the makeshift elevator, its gears protesting as it ascended the slick, alien facade. As he emerged atop the ruin, the small ember of Cal's cigarette greeted him, a beacon in the enveloping dusk. Cal sat, a solitary figure against the remnants of what once was, the smoke from his cigarette weaving into the misty air. "Find anything?" Cal asked without looking up, offering the cigarette. Tulnin accepted it, the gold ember tracing a faint line through the air with the exchange. "Something... curious," he replied, studying the ember before taking a drag. "Not sure what it is yet. It's not like the rest." Cal nodded, the lines of his face illuminated as he took back the cigarette. "Curious can be good, can be deadly," he murmured, the smoke veiling his expression. They both knew the stakes; the ruins had claimed many. Yet, here they were, the old hand and the new, perched on a precipice of the unknown, their camaraderie a silent pact against the vastness of the unexplored.

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