12 Miles Below

So. The city’s invaded. A little more than a week ago.

“Are there survivors?” I asked nervously, You said the city surrendered, not that it was wiped off the map.” Kidra was ridiculously strong as a fighter. She’d have survived the fight one way or another.

Hecate gave me a strange look, head tilted. “Yes? That is the definition of surrender. The majority of the city remains intact and casualties are low. The machines have taken the majority of armors and are making demands for the citizens to convert to the Chosen within three weeks. Otherwise the city remains functional.”

Hecate seemed to know the details, so taking a wild guess that she was there fighting at the forefront. And if she was at the forefront, then it’s almost certain Hecate fought side by side with Kidra against the machines. “My sister, she was a surface knight named Kidra. Kidra Winterscar. Did you run into her at the battle? Did she make it down here in the first place?”

A set of emotions passed through her features, but they were gone before I could pull answers from those. “Yes.” She finally said. “There was a surface knight named Kidra. She currently leads the rebellion that remained in the city. They were still active, last I heard.”

Relief sprung through me, unwinding tension I hadn’t noticed before. Of course, she’d be the one leading a rebellion. Thank the gods. She’s both alive, and I know where she is. The hardest parts of this mission are done. If a full invasion wasn’t able to kill Kidra, she certainly isn’t going to keel over anytime soon now that things are more quiet.

I took a deep breath, and the world seemed just a tad bit brighter than before. “I just need to get to the city now, find a way to get in contact with her, and drag her out of here.”

“You’ll attempt to withdraw back to the surface?” Hecate asked, sounding interested.

“No point staying down here. My clan needs everyone recalled.” I said, before realizing I was being rather rude. Hecate’s city had been invaded and here I was saying we didn’t need them for anything so we’ll be jumping out the airship. My fat mouth again.

If the Deathless was disturbed by this, she made no show of it. The opposite even. “Yes, I belive it would be best for Kidra to be returned to the surface and leave the current city. It’s no longer as safe as it was.” She said, completely deadpan serious in her delivery.

I gave her a grin. “So you do have a sense of humor in there. I was getting worried.”

She seemed confused. Which made me think her deadpan delivery was actually deadpan for a reason - she was serious that the city crawling with killer machines was no longer as safe as it used to be, given the killer machines crawling all over the place now. I shook it off for now, ”For my clan, our neighbors are also making a racket.”

”A racket? Why does that tool present any kind of danger?”

”Not a racket racket. They’re not here to play wall ball with us and sulk around like sore losers. It’s more a figure of speech. Something about wanting our complete annihilation and submission, you know, the usual. So that’s why I’ve got to grab Kidra and drag her back to the surface.”

She still seemed confused for a moment, and I decided to swap the topic rather than continue confusing her. “I’m more surprised you’re okay with losing the head of your rebellion for your city. No Undersider pride or anything?”

“I was not originally from that city. And while I was… present in the combat, I do not hold much patriotism. I am simply being realistic.” She said, sounding very careful about her wording.

I jabbed a thumb at the ceiling. “I can always appreciate a bit of boots on snow logic. Talking about that, I don’t want to drag you into my own affairs, so since we both need to refill our power supplies, I say let’s travel together for that part, and split ways after. You can go find your mite-speakers and I’ll continue on to the city. I still owe you a lifedebt for saving my life, I’ll leave you coordinates for where my clan is. Anytime you want to call up that favor, come see us. I’m kind of a big deal up there now.”

The deathless nodded. “We can travel together for the moment and decide future plans at the mite terminal.” She pointed, “In that direction is the nearest working power station that’s been mapped. If we begin tomorrow morning, we should reach it by sunset. We will have to walk to conserve energy.”

“Should we play lots for who gets first shift? I’m not sure if we’ll need to turn off our armors overnight to conserve battery or if their sleep mode would be good enough. Don’t have my helmet to talk to this buckethead.” I said, knocking on my chestplate.

Rather, I had no means at all to talk to Journey. All the fractals within the armor were unpowered, I think it was in some kind of power-saving mode where only basic features were active. And those basic features didn’t consider the newly added fractal system I had going on.

Hecate nodded. “You can power down your armor completely. I have enough energy to remain operational and alert.” She stopped for a moment, and then clarified. “I mean, my armor has that feature. Of course, I will do the sleep like you while we remain here until night has passed.”

“Will do the sleep?” I asked, eyebrows raised. Undersider jargon was so strange. But I suppose we had a lot of idioms on the surface that wouldn’t make much sense to Hecate either. I should consider toning those down since it might confuse her, same way as it was confusing me slightly. I got the jist of it, but I’m going to guess that if I started talking about tumbling around in the snow or telling someone to lick ice, she probably won’t understand what that really means beyond the literal.

On her part, her cheeks flushed slightly before she stuttered. “I mean, I’ll be sleeping too, like a normal person would, yes.” She stopped again, was about to say more before, but changed the topic. “Anyway! We’ll rely on my armor to wake us if there is danger, and otherwise sleep. That’s the important part, yes.”

This is going to be a learning curve.

--------------

Things I’ve learned about Hecate in the past day hiking:

She never gets hungry, but when she does, the most dangerous place to be is between her and her food. She eats fast enough that a finger could be chomped on and eaten before she’d notice the screaming.

Second, I’m starting to suspect she’s an actual witch of some kind. Often, she’s looking across the distance, somewhere far off as if she were listening to the wind or communing with nature. If it happened while we were making headway I wouldn’t find it too odd. Except she keeps doing that mid-conversation, usually staring off to my right or left as if checking if something’s following behind us. If she stopped to taste the stone in order to tell me the history of what animals had passed by with exact timestamps, I’d take it as fact and not bat a single eye. My bets were that she had some kind of passive Deathless sight that let her see far more than humans would.

The armor she wore only added to my theory that she’s a witch. Sleek, ending with small spikes, it looks very different from the more utilitarian plates I’m used to. The part that really grabbed attention was the folded up metal blades at her waist. Now that she was walking along in bright lights instead of sitting down by a dim campfire, I saw more of the detail there. Like To’Aacar’s hand, I realized the blades weren’t held or attached to anything. Rather, they were floating. Occasionally they’d shift around, especially when she sat or had to redress them. Her armor handled it all, moving them for her without prompt. I think it was a different variant then the Undersiders had access to, possibly something more powerful from the lower stratas. She was a Deathless after all, so only makes sense they’d get the best.

I’d bet they could stretch out wide since they weren’t moored to anything. I haven’t seen them unfurled out like wings yet, so it was still a dice roll if they were the actual wings she said she had or if they were just another part of her armor’s strange looks.

Third thing about Hecate is that when she was confident in something, she was utterly unwavering and had no shred of self-doubt. Traversing the area was like following a tour guide, since she seemed to know exactly where she was at all times.

In contrast, she’d often stumble on her words and get flustered easily. When I mean flustered, I mean the whole package - hands wringing, looking anywhere else, trying to change topics in the most awkward way possible and only getting more flustered. Couldn’t win a poker game even if she could wear a helmet.

Problem is that every time she said something that made her go red like this, it made no sense to me why she’d be embarrassed about it. She’d had every tell in the book, except all the wires were crossed. Drawing a winning hand in that proverbial poker game might not make her react at all for all I knew, but someone else standing up for a glass of water could.

And she’s fast. Much faster than Lord Atius. We had no ranged weapons with us, so hunting down meat for food required chasing down and putting in the work. She’d spot animals from a distance, casually walk up until they got spooked, and then simply dash forward with a single stab, perfectly dead center on their head every time. Moved like a predator in that sleeker armor and didn’t hide her skill either. Her speed was on par with a Winterblossom user, so if all the new Deathless are at that level, I can see why everyone’s been making such a big deal out of them.

To’Aacar let slip that they were peasants, just common folks who got Deathless powers and remembered who they were before with the only other advantage from the previous generation being their sheer numbers. Then again, he was a Feather who’s definition of challenge was fighting teams of veteran immortal demi-gods as a starting snack. A lot of knights would rank as slightly stronger than peasants to him, so it’s possible he’d throw them all in the same bucket in terms of power levels.

Father had told me a few other snippets, almost two months ago when we were caught underground. Told me they were unhinged, and had no true loyalty to anyone. They’re known to fight each other mostly, and to be motivated by greed - weapons, armor, trophies, or just general glory. Make their own little in-groups and guilds, like what warlocks did. What he’d heard could be survivor bias where the only rumors making it to the surface were the most dramatic ones. He might have never heard about the other Deathless that rejected the call of arms and tried to return to their old life, only the ones that embraced the new powers and shook it for everything it’s worth.

That left Hecate in a strange place. I could make an argument for unhinged, but not in a dangerous way. And if her speed and skills were commonplace, those would absolutely have already reached the surface as rumors that they fought better than anyone else - but there hadn’t been a mention of their skills being any more or less dangerous than the current Deathless. Cathida had told me the only people she knew that could consistently match that sort of speed were the Imperial Imperators, which were the most dedicated elites of the imperial army. Likely working in her order.

Hecate did say she was once a soldier, although something must have happened to make her desert the army. And she doesn’t seem to be in any rush to kill machines either or get into any fights, despite the nearby events. In fact, she might have been in hiding this whole time, only forced to help the undersider city grudgingly, hence why she didn’t care I was here to pry Kidra out. That’s another point for the retired veteran trying to find peace in their life, away from fighting.

My running theory was that she’s a wayward Imperial Imperator, who’s developed moral objections to the machine war, likely involving the Chosen in some way. Atius had treated them like people who were caught in a crossfire, it could be Hecate ran into the same wall and this was how she chose to handle it - by leaving it all behind. That made discussion about the undersider city very awkward between us as it turned out.

“The citizens there are safe and the machines are not interfering with their lives.” She said as I prodded into that subject. “I do not see a reason to intercede or fight.” Hecate was stubborn about this point. Rather it just seemed to annoy her further. “The pillar heart has been destroyed. Even if the city were to eliminate all machines in the area, they have no means to hold the city anymore.”

Ahead, the path was blocked by a set of cubical rocks all stacked chaotically on one another. Each cube was a little taller than I was. Hecate didn’t slow down, walking straight at the obstruction.

“I know that, but we could at least help them evacuate, maybe?” I said, following behind. “Or at least some of them?”

She paused at the foot of the cubes, and began to jump up, tiny hops that hardly used even her calves and yet launched her straight over and onto each cube. Made it look effortless. What did I say, witch? She’s a witch. “From what danger would they need evacuation? The machines have kept to their terms.” The witch said. “Your goal was to find your sister and extract her from the city. Why does the city’s fate matter to you? Can you not leave them alone?”

She had me there. “You’re right that I don’t technically owe these people anything.” I said, taking a more grounded leap forward and using my hand to help pull myself up the rest of the way. I didn’t want to strain Journey’s leg sections too much. Both arms being broken was something I can work around. But if one of my legs gave out I’d be deep in the scrapshit. “I won’t stay in the city for long, but who knows what I could do while I’m there? Besides, machines have been trying to exterminate us, and have been for as long as we’ve known each other.”

“And humans are better?” She said, looking down on me with a slight frown. “As you’ve mentioned, on the surface, the only enemies you fight are your neighbors, other humans. Who are willing to do far worse than what the machines occupying Capra’Nor are currently administering. Are you claiming that to be a better fate? This is objectively false.”

“Look, if you line up a group of ten humans together, one of them’s going to have a problem because someone stole their wallet or seduced their wife, but at least it’s not something on an extinction level threat. Line up ten machines, and you’ve got ten killer toasters looking to strangle your neck, guaranteed every time.”

“Statistically, most humans do not steal wallets or seduce someone’s wife in their lifetime?” She asked and I could hear the trailing question mark to that. “I admit I do not have enough evidence to confirm my claim. My archives do not have any records of socio-economic data points on this specific crime statistic.”

“Hecate.” I said, slowly, clapping both my hands together, taking a deep breath and putting my resolve together. “I know you saved my life, and I want you to know that I’m very grateful for that. However. If we spend more than a day together, I swear to all the gods I’m going to find some way to teach you a sense of humor, even if it kills me.”

“I have a sense of humor.” She said, puffing out her cheeks and narrowing her eyes. “All my friends have confirmed I have a very good sense of humor.”

“Is that before, or after, you threatened them with your swords?”

“I would never threaten my friends.” She said, clearly insulted. Then her eyes widened, as if she’d just come up with an excellent idea. “If they cede to my demands before I threaten them with my swords, it does not count as threatening.” She turned, grinning.

I gave her a thumbs up. “Solid start. Ten points.”

I don’t know how I ended up on this war path, however it has to be done. It can’t not be done. Someone as wide-eyed and by-the-book as Hecate can’t be left to her own devices. Talking about evidence to back up her claims? What sort of nonsense was a dirty word like that doing anywhere near me?

Forgive me, all gods above and below… but you lot must have known this was a bad idea from the start when you sent her my way, so everything that happens next is squarely on you. I absolve my hands of all responsibility.

Almost as if the gods were smiting me for my heresy right this moment, we ran into problems within moments of my personal resolution.

“We’re approaching the terminal.” She said, up ahead. “However, something’s not quite right. Please approach with caution.” And then she drew swords. Both of them.

When a Deathless is drawing their weapons, that’s when you’ve got a problem on your hands. “Someone in need of threatening?” I asked, hoping the answer was something more lighthearted. Then again, this is my luck we’re talking about and I’m pretty sure I’ve used up all the good part of it, having a Deathless with healing abilities just happen to pass by the same area I was about to get killed at.

“No. Maybe. The terminal isn’t responding. I must take precautions.”

I sighed, drawing out Atius’s blade and taking my own post. “Fine, let’s go threatening together.” The old weapon felt on its last legs occult wise, though the edge lit up bright blue as any occult blade would. Technically speaking, the blade was in perfectly good shape. If it was good enough for the clan lord to use in combat, it’ll have to do for me. So long as I don’t use the blade’s secondary abilities.

Pretty soon the trees became sporadic as the two of us silently creeped up to where the fountain was supposed to be. The mites hadn’t hidden it, at least. It was front and center on the top of a white granite cube, wide enough for me to pace around a few times without issue.

The reason why Hecate had thought something wasn’t adding up right was equally obvious.

A good portion of the cube had a perfectly round void cut into it, going straight through the fountain, into the pedestal, and out the other side onto the ground where it dug a few more inches before fading out. As a result, the entire structure did not look like it would work. At all.

“It seems our actions have been anticipated.” Hecate said calmly.

I’d seen this sort of damage before. “That’s a drake.” I said, pointing the tip of my sword at the damage.

“I don’t understand how that could be, that model shouldn’t be here.” Hecate said. “The battle for the Undersider city eliminated all of their kind in the sector.”

Speaking of the wayward new fan we’d attracted, her hand dropped a sword before I could answer with anything, reached out to my chest and yanked me out of the way right as a beam cut through trees and leaves, zipping straight through the air where my chest had been a moment ago.

That’s twice I’d escaped death by a narrow few inches in one day.

I gave a look backwards, spotting the violet glow of the enemy far above a cliff-side. Exactly the suspect I thought I’d see. The reptile skull seemed to almost leer at me before shambling away, out of sight.

“It will try to assassinate us again.” Hecate said, looking very concerned. “We need to seek shelter where it cannot see you. I don’t understand how one could be here.”

“I’ve amassed a good amount of enemies on the way down here, might have pissed off a certain someone who’s ordered up the banners to come after me.”

The Deathless looked over to the cliff-side again, but the drake was long gone, looking for another good sniping spot. “I belive you are correct. It must have been recruited from a different section.”

She turned and pointed in a direction, starting off in a jog. I followed behind, hoping Journey’s energy reserve would survive the additional strain to wherever we were going. Forest quickly shadowed us. "Shouldn’t we keep an eye on where it slunk off to, instead of showing our backs to it?” I asked.

“Their kind do not attack from the same location unless forced to, or ordered to. They are ambush predators that rely on killing targets before the target is aware of their location. Having failed, it will be currently relocating. I am, however, not certain about its full objectives.”

“That was probably looking for my body, if my guess is right. And when it didn’t find me, it knew I’d be looking for a power terminal next.” I said, keeping an eye on the ridge lest it try to take another cheeky shot at me. “I don’t think I told you the gritty details of why I fell off a cliff in the first place, did I?”

“You have not.” She said.

“Take a guess.”

“Combat.”

“Well yes, but that’s a cheap answer. Zero points.”

She stayed silent for a moment, keeping her pace steady with me in tow. Then her head bobbed up as if she’d come up with an acceptable answer. “Unsuccessful combat.” She amended.

“Two points. You can do better than that.”

She frowned, thinking further on it. “I am hoping you didn’t fall off that cliff on a dare.”

“First off, a lot better, ten points. Second, you’re right that it wasn’t on a dare, there was a dispute that I admit could have been resolved more amicably, with me stabbing someone else faster than he could. And lastly, are you insinuating I’d jump off a mile long cliff if my friends dared me to do it? What sort of idiot do you think I am?”

“The kind that fell off a cliff.” She said, proudly, as if answering a trivia question.

“Praise Urs, there might be hope for you after all.” I said, “Where are we going by the way?”

“There is another registered power fountain further away that is buried in a smaller sub-cave system of this area. I have calculated that it fits all criteria for safety we need as of now, more specifically is is unreachable to larger machines. Once I have restored my armor’s power, I’ll be able to fly to and dispatch the pursuer without issue.”

Great, the best place to hide underground is to hide even further underground.

Mites had their own twisted sense of humor it seemed.

Next chapter - Regrets

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