Máire sent up a cloud of ash as she hit the ground on the other side of the portal, her arm flipping her back into the air and landing her on her feet. She only had time to cast a quick glance at her surroundings before a new cacophony of alarms ripped her attention back toward Shieldtown, a glimmering blue dome on the horizon. Five miles out? No, closer to seven. Far enough that she wouldn’t be getting back quickly on foot. 

Máire’s eyes dropped to the portal, now barely the size of a baseball. She thrust her hand back into the blackness, her arm severing below the elbow as it closed. She had done what she could, now. If Máire had misjudged and SIlver Fang hadn’t come through here, she would at least have a way of getting back on track. 

She turned back toward the wastes, the near-imperceptible reticles of her eyes turning back and forth as they scanned the area for the ever-dwindling energy signature of the Ripper she was hunting. Silver Fang was meant to be one of the Templar’s finest; doubtless if Máire had picked up the trail with a starting lag, Fang was already on the cusp of running them down. 

Her HUD tagged something. Not a Ripper. It looked like a woman, not far from where Máire had come through the portal, marching through the dust. A sword lanced through the air, and Máire was pulled after it. 

[hr]

Máire’s hand flopped into the damp floor of the sewer like an undesired sea bass, tips of her fingers dangling over the water flow. It sat still for a moment, silver dust drifting silently off the stump where it had been severed by the portal. Then the dust froze in mid air, hanging in the shards of light poking through the open manhole cover, before reversing direction and rejoining the amputated limb. 

The hand bulged and shifted, silver sand flowing over itself as it reformatted and rebuilt itself into a new form resembling a lizard, its head replaced by a stumpy, featureless tendril that raised itself up to the air as though trying to catch a scent. The metallic “reptile” then twisted itself around, reorienting its direction, before skittering up the wall of the sewer and back through the manhole, vanishing onto the streets above with astonishing velocity for what should have by rights been a dead hand rotting with the sewage.