12 Miles Below

There’s something to be said about a good old-fashioned revenge trip.

This time, I’ve descended over-geared and over-prepared, with five elite knights to escort me the entire way, and none of them starting off injured. Every bit of equipment I had was leagues above my old trusty crowbar, may it rest in peace.

Night and day difference from the first time. My favorite fights are one-sided stomps, specifically a one-sided stomp in my favor. Anything we ran into wasn’t running anywhere ever again.

“This looks like a good spot to set up our first camp.” I said, taking in the surroundings. We’d just exited into a wide cavern, filled with waist-deep mist flowing across parts of the terrain. Artificial sunlight by the roof made it seem we were in a deep chasm instead of fully underground, with the light pouring down through the cracks. It did nicely to break up the dark gloom of the underpass tunnels. Blue and green leaves, interwoven by vines, grew wild down here. Anytime the mist receded slightly, more fauna peek by, a reminder of what the cavern hid under the white blanket. Large wooden roots threaded through the rocks and ground, giving everything a more organic look.

Captain Sagrius and the others stopped for a moment, helmets moving left and right, taking in the scenery.

At first glance, it certainly seemed like a random cave that could have occurred naturally, even with the mist flowing so densely on the ground. But a further look finds all kinds of things that seemed almost impossibly perfect. Like the mites were creating a diorama, where everything fit together just right. The color composition itself made me think I was walking through a painting.

By the center, there was a large plateau reaching halfway up the cavern, and a rough rocky path that snaked around all the way to the top. Almost like stairs, only formed of broken chunks of stone. That wouldn’t have looked too unnatural - lucky formation perhaps - but the real clincher was the steady stream of lightly glowing water passing by the base with several large flat stones that made for an obvious walking trail straight to the pseudo-staircase entrance. Like someone had deliberately expected people to climb up to the top specifically to set up a camp there, and was being coy about it.

Mites.

Twinkling lights deep within the stream gave the entire cave a more ethereal presence and contrasted the red plants that grew on the stones. I wouldn’t be surprised if a violin started playing somewhere deeper inside the rocks just to set up a mood, because, let me say it again: Mites.

I pointed to the top of that central pillar. “We’ll have a good view of everything around us there. Plus, with high ground, any ambush would take more time to catch up.”

Sagrius nodded, motioning to the other knights behind to prepare for camp. “I’m not used to this equipment.” The captain said, putting down the sack he carried with pots and pans. “It’s… unfamiliar.”

The other knights agreed. “Seems odd to come with barely any food rations.”

“Well, I, for one, am looking forward to working for my grub. Like humans of old.” I said, patting my rifle. “Unlike the nice and warm surface up above, things can actually live down here without agrifarmers hovering over it all and chasing us out. You’d trade meal ration bars for the fresher stuff down here?”

The knight shook his head. “No, m’lord. Not for my life. Just difficult to put down habits is all. That feeling of… unease at having next to no food left on me. Difficult to wave away. We’re missing so much stuff and carrying such odd equipment instead.”

On the surface, any expedition’s toolkits would have included tents, sleeping gear, and environmental heaters. Food rations of dried bars brought along, and if it was dire enough, frostbloom could be rounded up and consumed raw, usually wrapped around the ration bar for some taste. Normally, returning from an expedition, it was expected to have lost a good percentage of body fat, depending on the time spent out. Food was heavy to carry around and took up space.

Underground expeditions seemed to be the reverse. Surface knights on expeditions never needed this kind of specialized gear, they’d be traveling with the expedition and only clearing out dangers for a few hours at a time. A deep dive like this required completely different equipment.

We brought no camps, no sleeping bags, no tools or items to clean off grime. The armors would do all of that for us, and given how it’s sealed off to the environment, there was little point to a tent other than privacy. All of us could jettison the packs we carried off our backs so that if any fights happened, we wouldn’t put our other equipment in the line of fire. We still had some food rations with us, however, its use was more brought along to counter certain regions underground where food was harder to find. Otherwise, it just took up space and drained energy slightly faster to lug it all around, hence the need to minimize the amount of bars we each took with us.

I waved the captain closer to me. “Maybe actually eating our first meal down here would work for that. Let’s get that done first. See just how screwed we really are if we can’t feed ourselves down here.”

Sagrius stood, preparing his own weapon. “The manual claimed caves like these would have rabbits. Should we make an attempt?”

My trusty captain, already trying to get things working.

“Where else do you think rabbits would be?” Cathida snarked over the comms. “Of course they’re going to be around bushes in the caves. They’re rabbits. Chop, chop, squirelings. Get to hunting!”

The knights all looked at me, as if asking for confirmation of this. They’d never once hunted in their lives, and neither had I. We were like a bunch of rookies all huddled around the manual trying to follow directions. Which was hilarious because I was dead sure the knights I was traveling with were among the greatest on this entire level worldwide, given the winterblossom technique and skills we had on hand. And everyone considered cooking food a basic entry skill down here.

Time to earn my keep, at least.

I pointed at two knights to the side. “Allaris, Zent. Both of you go scavenge for edible herbs and leaves. Use your relic armor to scan the surroundings and help pick out the food source.” I turned my gaze to Sagrius. “Captain, I think you can handle the hunting solo. Bring back something to pair with the vegetables.”

The last two knights gave a glance to me, and then back at the top of the plateau. “You two guessed it.” I said, pointing at the two and jabbing a thumb back in my chest. “With me. Let’s get a campfire going up there and have the cookware setup by the time the food’s all back. Everyone stays within contact range, no funny business, and no splitting the party. Nothing should be far enough that we lose visual contact with one another.”

Revenge trip it is. Now I’m the one asking people to grab weeds lying around the world. I clapped my armored gauntlets together. “Let’s get our first meal going underground.”

I should be cautious not to let this all go to my head.

…

Or I could just enjoy the power trip. Just a little.

Food turned out to be a non-issue despite our initial fear, and Cathida relentlessly got her licks in on all of us for it. Relic armor scanning would highlight all edible food and the infrared scan made hiding impossible for any game animal. Sagrius was back with two rabbits within minutes.

The other two knights and I hadn’t even finished chopping up some of the thick vines for campfire fuel when the away team returned.

“M’lord,” The captain asked, as he dropped the rabbits and began following his armor’s instructions on skinning the dead animals. “If I might ask, how different is this trip compared to usual expeditions?”

Cathida started cackling in the background again like a possessed witch. “It was…” I paused, trying to come up with more socially acceptable words for ‘complete shitshow’.

“Let’s say it was a statistical outlier. First time down here, Father and I didn’t run into a wild jungle like this, instead we entered a mite made city. Or the mite version of a city, which looked more like something you’d see in your dream. Nothing made sense the moment you took a longer look at it.”

He nodded, cleaning off the sections of meat and getting the skewers ready. “Ironreach noted those sections as locations where field rations are supposed to be used and are harsher to traverse through. Nothing lives there, correct?”

“Correct. Complete deadzone, almost sterile. Not even weeds were growing in those cities. Fortunately we already had food and water as part of standard gear. Moment we got into the tunnels, that’s a different story. Mushrooms, plants, goats. Oh gods, the goats.”

“Goats?”

Behind us, the campfire roared into life. I’d been watching them from the corner of my eye. The men had all ended up ignoring the regular techniques and went roasting the vines with the heat fractals in their palm directly. They looked to be having a great time about it, too.

“I never knew you had issues with goats deary.” Cathida said. “They eat your lunch or something?”

“Don’t get me started on the goats.” I said, grabbing the captain’s prepared skewers and passing them over to the cooking squad. They took the skewers and wordlessly got to work with them. “If we see any goats down here, the only thing I’m interested in is how they taste. Shoot first, shoot second, forget questions, and shoot again if they so much as twitch.”

The captain nodded, thinking. “A run in with machines that was caused by goats, I take it?” He asked, standing back up and making his way to the plateau side, looking down at the distant foliage and scenery. Whatever mite colony had made this cavern, they’d clearly intended for someone to stand exactly where Sagrius stood, and look down at the whole cavern before them. They weren’t even making it subtle now, with the rocky raised circle he stood on the middle of.

“Was it my strong, murderous reaction that tipped it off?” I asked, taking a spot next to him and sitting down. “You know, just because I’m demanding to crush and wipe them out on sight doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve had a bad experience with them. I could have other ethical reasons for it, like that they looked at me the wrong way with those beady little eyes of theirs.”

“I strongly suspect that isn’t the case here, m’lord.” Sagrius said dryly.

“Well. Okay. Fine. Perhaps not this specific case.” Behind, I could hear the rest of my knights getting the meal ready, and debating with each other on best practices and what else they could use their basic occult fractals with. “Your hunch is right. I had a run in with goats that caused an entire nest of spiders to come down on Father and I. Not a great memory, all said and done, and I now hate the dumb animals with a vengeance.”

He seemed to flinch for a bit. “I see. Forgive me for bringing up a topic such as that. No positives for that experience.”

I shrugged. “We got out of that with a spider leg as a trophy for his armor to eat. But that was a double edged sword since the spider in question wanted his leg back and went looking after us for it. That’s another story for later. Buy me a drink first.”

The captain nodded solemnly. “I do not have much experience fighting machines yet, but of all the machines I’ve fought in the past few days, the spiders felt far more dangerous thus far.” He paused, checking on his rifle. “If we had not had the First Blade giving us orders in the heat of battle and some of his own more experienced knights at our side, we might have fared far worse against the unknown. The more common variant, you call them Screamers? Those have hardly been any trouble. I’m beginning to believe that we have a warped understanding of Occult weapons and their importance if Screamers are the common enemy down here.”

“What do you mean? Warped?”

“The Undersider knights were far less skilled in combat with occult weapons. I always considered that strange. I would have thought a people who owned so much wealth in relic armors and weapons would be masters with them, able to practice whenever they wished. Instead, it seems to be the opposite.”

Cathida chimed in then. “Your major enemies are other knights, you daft neophyte. Only thing that works against other knights is occult weapons. Of course you’d specialize in those! It’s different in the midrange levels like this one. Rifles do everything better. And explosives do everything even better than better, assuming you have some to spare.”

“Hey now, little miss snarky,” I warned. “Be nice to the captain or I’ll have to revoke your insulting privileges for the next hour.”

Cathida spat, or at least made the vocal equivalent of it. “Think about it. Machines in the livable levels are all cannon fodder, rifles can deal with that. So the city knights at this range don’t need to use occult weapons except if they mess up bad. Killing machines at a distance is always going to be safer than handling them up close and running the risk of getting swarmed like dumb pelf squires. And when Undersiders need occult weapons against other cities being disagreeable, they’ll train to fight with an army rather than a single duel. Fighting with occult weapons outside of an army setup is a status symbol, something for nobility to flex if money isn’t doing the job.” She ended her rant with a vicious tut.

With a full group of soldiers, the first few machine patrols we’d stumbled on were brought down almost instantly, before they could so much as reach us. Machines really did rely on swarming a target it seemed. I suppose that’s what Sagrius was feeling off about. Here we were with the world’s greatest occult blades ever forged, if I do say so myself, and no chance to use them.

“Honored crusader, why do imperials spend time practicing swordsmanship if rifles and explosives do the work faster and with greater ease?” He asked, cautiously.

Cathida cackled. “Deary, beyond the first three levels, machines become real monsters. And the nice little gauntlets are tossed away. Cute things like bullets don’t cut it anymore. And who do you think ventures down past the third strata?”

“Deathless. And Imperials.” Sagrius said, connecting the dots.

“You got that right. We do the hard work. Expeditions into the seventh strata or further don’t bother bringing even heavy caliber rifles with them. Ammunition is going to run dry at some point with no restock. So that’s why we tell the little squirlings they better get used to holding a sword and sleeping with it. At least you surface bumkins never have to break your new squires out of their old habits. You lot already worship occult weapons and duels like they’re the only civilized manner to settle things from the start. We have to beat that philosophy into the new squires first thing.”

The captain paused, thinking. Then he turned to me. “Given that, then I believe we should consider forgoing the use of rifles for this expedition, m’lord.”

Cathida sputtered. “Did you not hear a word I said, young man? Rifles are the safest thing to use down at this level. You’d be throwing away an advantage.” She stopped. I could almost feel her leering at the captain, eyes narrowing with suspicion. Her voice all but betrayed every thought. “This better not be just to use your new shiny toys. Worse than pelf squires, the lot of you! Peh!”

The captain shook his head at that. “No. Honored crusader, I am suggesting this as a precaution for the future, not a slight against your wisdom. There are darker things lurking behind us, and we do not know when the Chosen and that Feather might appear. They were shown once to be after lord Keith, we can expect they will do so again, and can strike with the machines in tandem. I suggest we preserve all our advantages for that moment.”

Cathida was about to go into another lashing, but then she almost audibly swallowed her rebuttal not even a breath into it. “Fine. I get it. You make a point. If the Chosen fellows show up with an army of bullet fodder, better to have the bullets to whittle them down at that point before the blades get pulled out.”

“Makes sense to me.” I said. “Besides, with the Winterblossom technique and the equipment we have, Screamers should have no chance against us. We’ll wipe the floor with them before they get any kind of surround.”

“Drakes are going to be an issue.” Cathida tutted. “Don’t run into those too often up here, but you will eventually given the number of days you need to travel on foot. I’d recommend using your rifles during those encounters. Can’t let the scaly lizards escape, they latch on and never stop hunting you down. Terribly annoying. Also don’t get close to them. They’re chatter mouths that’ll annoy you to death.”

I remember the first Drake. The memory was blurry now, as if it was a story handed down to me, rather than something I’d lived through. “We should be fine with those two modifications, Captain. Otherwise, let’s stick to the manual on handling machines. Mainly, so long as we make sure to kill off patrols fast and then hightail it out to avoid the follow-up patrols, we should be good. Even with all our gear, the machines are still a threat to sneak around. I’m bold, strong, and devilishly handsome, but I’m not an idiot.”

Captain Sagrius remained questionably silent.

“The boy says he’s not an idiot, can you believe him?” Cathida snickered, breaking into the air. “Lies as easily as he breathes that one.”

“Food’s ready.” One knight behind us said, waving us over to sit where the rest were taking their place. The meat had been cooked perfectly, with relic armors to babysit the whole process and let them know exactly when to rotate, and where to sprinkle the salt and spices we’d brought.

Taking off my helmet, I got my first whiff of Underground expedition grub. And it was really something. Ration bars didn’t have any kind of odor, unless you stuffed it right up to your nose and gave a giant whiff. The rabbit and roasted vegetable skewers, on the other hand, only needed to know your general unit address to send a message.

Our group remained dead quiet around the crackling fire for a moment before the first knight reached out and yanked out a skewer from its rest position by the fire, taking an adventurous bite. He chewed for a moment, paused, and then shoved the rest of the skewer into his mouth, forgetting any attempt at decorum.

That broke the spell for the rest of us, and multiple armored gauntlets reached out to claim a skewer and get to work.

I’d never tasted rabbit before. Most meats I’d eat were insect based, and occasionally we’d get poultry or even fish on the few momentous occasions. Rabbit was divine. With the charred mushrooms and other bits of tangy citric vegetables, the medley was something I’d never had before.

It was all silence around the fire for a good five minutes as we piled the food away into our stomachs. The only pause to the chewing was to wash it all down with water from the canteens. Fresh ice-cold water too, just brought up from the stream under us. Heaven.

Only after, in the post-food haze did we talk about the real important topics.

“M’lord Winterscar.” One knight said, “If there is a stream down there, does there mean there might be… fish?”

“Course there’s fish.” Cathida said. “It’s a river. Goddess, you are all worse than squires. If I weren’t here, you’d be reading manuals on how to walk.”

All heads turned to me, the question remaining unasked.

“All right, take out the fishing rods, I’ll show you squirelings how to use them.” Cathida said with a sigh. “Consider this my good deed for the day in her name.”

A few hours after fiddling with the fishing gear and setting up the equipment for that, following instructions and bait, we were now complete with the camp and ready for training. Sleep wasn’t for a few more hours, which gave us some time to cool down and prep for what would come next while we waited for fish to get caught and our stomachs to get some room.

“So, anything stand out?”

The Winterblossom technique and the new school of combat had taken up the majority of their training time till now, but it was time to pick a new occult spell to master. I had a few notes on directions to take after learning the mirror fractal in full, but I’d left the men a chance to make their own choice.

Captain Sagrius pointed at the holographic shared display of the occult notes from Lord Atius. We couldn’t get Talen’s notes uploaded because of that cryptic lock, but everything else was free rein. “One thing I noted, Lord Atius was said to use a defensive spell in his combat style, yes?”

“The dome shield in his left hand? Yes, what about it?” That was one he’d picked up during the time he was more active, delving around looking for pillars to pick up spells from.

“I belive it may be a good candidate to use.”

I thought about it, but couldn't yet see his point. “Notes that the clan lord has said it took him a few decades to properly train. We’ve got about, what, four or five days to go before we reach the undersider city? And we’ll probably run into old friends a little before that, if we’re really unlucky. Which, let’s be real here, is probably a lot more likely to happen because of course it would. There’s a reason I had everyone pack every toy we had on this trip.” I said, patting my knightbreaker rounds by my belt. Each of us had brought two rounds, and one launcher attachment to our rifles specifically made to fire the things. "So given that, what's got your attention with this spell?"

The captain nodded and then pointed out something I hadn’t considered at all. Something Atius couldn't have considered either.

If his theory was right, this humble little occult spell could potentially be the most stupidly broken thing ever, hiding under plain sight all along.

The devil's in the details.

Next chapter - How to abuse cosmic space magic and get away with it

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