The sky had dimmed, with a very faint pink still in the sky, and the night stars beginning to show themselves more and more. It had been about an hour and a half since his evening drop on the boardwalk, and the sounds of explosions were somewhere far in the distance, not visible. Ryker was perched atop a building, try to spot Central Park, when he began watching some movement through his binoculars, and flicked the night vision on. Something dog-like was attacking an infected humanoid, and dragged it down to the ground, and a few more hounds rushed over to share in the feast. They were Darklings. He'd heard about them mauling some Scouting teams before, and they were ferocious little monsters. Sadly, they still hadn't learned to stay away from spoiled food, and soon started feeling the affects of eating Blackwater infected meat. They soon collapsed, their mouths opening in what he presumed were death cries. The thought of putting them out of their misery crossed his mind, but the distance would probably make for a lot of missed shots, so he decided to save the bullets. They wouldn't show him the same courtesy anyways. "Great." He muttered to himself. "Another goddamn roadblock." If there were some Darklings here, that meant there had to be more around somewhere. They never ventured far from their burrow, unless they were hunting or starving, and Ryker still couldn't judge if either of those was the case. He took a few quiet steps to his right to shift his gaze to the around a tree, and found a moderate sized pack of them were moving around. They passed a sign, which conveniently read [i]Central Park 3 Miles[/i] with an arrow pointing forward. [i]Great. More walking. Into a pack of hungry Darklings.[/i] Suddenly, a screech broke the silence around Ryker. He immediately threw himself away from the ledge onto his butt. His hand found his rifle very quickly, pulling it up to his shoulder, barrel pointed towards the sky where the screech had emanated. He saw a huge wingspan fall through the sky, snatching a screeching and whining Darkling straight off the ground and soaring off. The other Darklings all quickly scattered in different directions. Of course, where there were Darklings, there had to be mutated birds of prey. Ryker quickly pushed himself off the ground, and ran to the access door to the roof. Before, he had gotten to the roof using ladders on the outside, but now he had to clear out the pitch black building, or at least it's stair case. --- The first few flights were empty. The small orb had come out the back of Ryker's left hand came out, giving him a large area of light, making the trip down the stair case a bit less unsettling. A tug on his ankle quickly became a full force pull, sending Ryker off his feet, his left shoulder and side of his face hitting the wall next to him. His leg was pulled further out through the space in the safety rail, until his crotch caught the bar and halted his descent. Ryker cursed in pain, trying to get his other leg under him to push against the pull. He dropped his rifle, and sat up, sticking his lit hand out, peering to see what had pulled him. There, at the bottom of the stairwell, sat a huge plant spore with many, sprawling vine covering the walls and last few flights of steps. It could tell Ryker was looking at it, and let out a sort of guttural noise at him. It tugged at his leg gently, but not aggressively. Normally, these types of plants would be madly tearing Ryker apart to trying to get him down, but this one was... different. It wasn't aggressive. At least not as aggressive. A perplexed look took over his face, and he sat back, starting to think. The gerbil in Ryker's head finally ran fast enough to power a light bulb, and he began quickly trying to take his backpack off. He unzipped it, taking the bag with dried meats and jerky out, extracting a sizable piece. He bit into it, the savory flavors being very welcome to his hungry mouth. He tore his piece off, and then dropped it over the edge, aiming for the plants mouth. It landed in it's 'stomach' and started being digested immediately, almost bubbling. The plant let out an almost happy gurgle, and it's grip on Ryker's ankle loosened, the vine falling down off of his leg. Ryker chuckled at the plant. It was the first sentient plant that hadn't tried to kill him right off the bat. He took another large piece of meat out of the bag and handed it to one of his curious vines, which carried it to the hungry spore's 'mouth'. Ryker slid away from the edge, and stood up, his right leg a bit sore from being yanked. He slipped his backpack on, and still head a piece of jerky in his mouth to eat. He grabbed his rifle by the forward grip,a nd began walking down the stairs, a bit calmer about the plant that sat below him. Soon enough, he reached the bottom floor, and the Spore didn't seem to mind him stepping on the vines. They were very resilient, and his light steps didn't faze them. Ryker held up one last piece of jerky for the plant to have, just to make sure it was happy. One of the vines reached out and took it softly from his hands, and another vine came to help tear the piece of meat in half, handing the other half back to Ryker. He smiled and patted the large spore on it's green side. "Thanks, big guy." Another one of his vines reached out, and opened the door in front of Ryker, showing the dark first floor. Ryker walked forward, and felt one of the vines pat him gently on the back, mimicking the same pat he gave the plant. Ryker gave another chuckled, before the plant gurgled a farewell and shut the door. The smile faded off of Ryker's face as he held up his hand, lighting up the surrounding room. It was covered in a thick coat of dust, and the glass storefront shined in the dim light. Ryker walked over to the front door, shutting off his light checking the street for any dangers. --- How the Darklings had found him while he was pissing was beyond him. Ryker had walked another few blocks, and finally had Central Park in sight, far off in the distance. He figured he would take a quick piss, until a roaming pack of Darklings, whom had grown more active, ambushed him. A few of them got some nice hits on him, resulting in a nice gash or two on his right leg, and a large cut on the back of his left calve. His resilient backpack had managed to shrug off most of the talons that came it's way, also keeping those talons out of his back. Nonetheless, they had chased him down a few blocks, with Ryker taking a few shots at them that did nothing more than attract a larger number of them. He made into a large building, with the Refuge and it's accompanying explosions and gunfire visible at less than a mile away. The grounds surrounding the wall were impeccably clear of most plant life. Ryker had managed to throw a decent amount of junk and furniture in front of the front door, only for a few Darklings to jump through the windows, and chase him up stairs, until he blocked another door with more furniture. He was now stranded on the second floor of a building, his objective in sight, with his ravenous death waiting for him on the other side of a door. As he panted to catch his breath, he turned his radio on, and managing to pant out the words "M-Mia. Ryker here." "Oh hey! How goes the mission?" Mia replied cheerfully. "Not so good." He panted. An explosion erupted and ratted the building a bit. "Whoa, what was that! What did you do??" Mia squeaked. "Me? I didn't do anything! That's the Refuge. They're shelling the shit out of a herd of Darklings. Little fuckers trapped me on the second floor of this building, it'll be a bit until I get to the objective." He muttered, rifle pointed at the covered door. "We can send a rescue team, Ryker." Mia said, her pitch deepening a bit more serious. "Nah, don't bother, I'll get out of here, don't waste the manpower. They'll get shredded. Oh, I got some intel for you, too." "Oh!" Mia chirped."What is it?" "The Refuge's defenses appear to be much heavier than we expected.. Massive walls, Mounted gun nests littered all over the place. I don't know if it's mines or artillery or what, but something is blowing the shit out of that Darkling herd, and it's persistent." Almost to punctuate his sentence, another explosion rattled the building. "They seem to burn all plant life around their walls. It's hard to tell from this distance, but that's what it looks like. Completely unobstructed view. I think they have a moat, too, but I wouldn't trust it. That's some medieval shit." He said, shuffling over to the windows. "Oohhh, interesting." Mia said, seeming to be writing down everything he said."Anything else?" "Oh yeah, at uhh....53rd and Roster, there is an apartment building. Inside it is a Polymelia-Class plant spore." "Need it destroyed? "No no no, it's friendly. First one I've found. Feed it meat and it seems to enjoy it. It seems to learn fast, as it mimicked some of my movements." "Ooooohhhh!" Mia exclaimed excitedly 'I'll tell the scientists immediately!" she chirped. "I'll be notifying the scientists at the Refuge as well, if they have any. I hope you understand." "That's alright." Mia said happily. "We don't have any reason to distrust them. Yet." "Roger that. Ryker out." "Bye!" The radio switched off. Ryker peered out of the window at the Refuge in the distance. He saw a massive amount of Darklings converging around it's perimeter, and the explosions remained constant, with the machine gun nests ripping open endlessly on the herd. If he ever made it to the Refuge, he was sure in for one hell of a grand tour.