12 Miles Below

“How’s about there?” I asked, pointing at the three dimensional map outlined over our HUD. "Cozy spot I think."

Cathida cackled, connecting the dots. “Trying to avoid hard work even in this situation?”

What made this spot different from the other possible candidates with weak flooring was a massive stone pillar that was still standing nearby. Which wouldn’t stay intact for very long after we showed up and did knightly things to it.

Pillar falls over, crashes into ground, collapses floor and we've got a way down into the second level. “Work smart, not hard. Never work hard.” I shot back, looking back at my sister for backup. “Right Kidra?”

“If my dear brother isn’t trying to avoid hard work, I would consider him a possible imposter.” She said drolly, ever my loyal and kindhearted sister. Windrunner hummed along, in agreement, the traitor.

“Cutting the pillar down would save a good chunk of time from your way down to the basement directly.” Cathida said. “Plesh-squire plan, but it could actually work out.”

“Any objections?” I asked to my group of critics.

With a few headshakes, our next plan was in motion. And our crew sprinted away like pipe bugs hiding from a search light. We’d shaken To’Avalis’s eyes on us, but the rat was probably cooking up another plan to get visual on us again. So we kept a close eye around for machine sounds, strange signals, and keeping to the shadows.

Halfway through to our destination, we found out what he was up to. Indirectly.

A whole series of previously grayed out nametags on our squad list turned back to green, signifying they were once more in comms contact. The team that got split up from us had found a way out of the tunnels, and so were in general comms range once again now that there wasn’t a few hundred tons of rocks in between our groups.

“Away team, come in. This is Icestride prime, in current command of the split off tunnel team. Respond.” A voice came up on the comms system, following all the standard encryptions.

Windrunner picked up. “This is Windrunner. Lord Atius is indisposed, I’ve taken temporary command. Status?”

“We found a way through the tunnel systems leading into the temple. Sending map data now. We’ll be attempting to advance into the temple, however it looks like we’re some distance from you.”

There was a ping and update on our HUDs.

Ankah showed up on the comms not a moment later, having heard and gotten the update. “Shadowsong to away teams, should we advance into the tunnels and regroup? To’Sefit is no longer active.”

“Negative.” Windrunner sent back. “Keep a lookout for machine reinforcements. When they come, we’ll need to know. You’ll redeploy into the tunnels after visual confirmation, ground team has cleared the tunnels, you should be able to sprint through with little difficulty.”

She sent back confirmation, returning to her vigil along with her two minions and some of the wounded knights we’d left behind.

The tunnel team wasn’t done with their report, hitting us with bad news next. “All teams, be aware, we’ve run into another Feather, capable of phasing through walls with hit and run tactics. Black level threat.” Black level wasn’t something used lightly. That was the most dangerous possible threat assessment knights used, something of the level that would require an entire clan’s worth of knights to fight off. “Weapons seen in use are as follows: A chain whip, longsword, and three knightbreakers.” The Icewing knight reported.

“Knightbreakers?” Windrunner asked, just as stupefied as us all.

“Confirmed. Knightbreakers. Target’s first attacks were to unhook and steal knightbreakers from us before we knew to beware. He’s made further attempts to recover additional knightbreakers from our team. We've repelled him thus far.”

Phasing through walls? That didn’t sound like To’Sefit’s kit, and To’Orda didn’t show any sign of wanting to even move from his spot. Not to mention this Feather was trying to steal my gear. So To’Avalis. Using a chain weapon huh? Someone’s been stealing my ideas on top of my actual gear.

“He’ll phase through walls behind you, unhook the knightbreaker launchers and phase out again, with the weapon.” The clan knight said, continuing his report. “We’ve seen him bait attacks in order to recover the shells. They’re ineffective against him, phasing through his ability.”

To’Orda had gone out of his way to stomp on every knightbreaker he could, and To’Avalis was out here swiping them up from our team. The Feathers were worried about those weapons and taking actions to mitigate how hard we could hit with them. That was worrisome. And also a good sign we had weapons they didn’t want to deal with directly if they could avoid it.

“What’s the counter you’ve devised against theft?” Windrunner asked.

“Nothing groundbreaking or clever, sir. So long as you are situationally aware and prepared, you can twist away and avoid his grab. Holding onto the weapons themselves has proven reliable, but we’ve seen him attempt to cut the round directly out of the launcher tube.”

“That worked for him?” I asked, but surprise was rapidly fading. This was a Feather, and they could move like an intercept frigate through combat. And hit just as hard.

“Negative, your knights improvised against him in time before he could extract the round and run. We’ve noticed he needs to fully pass through walls in order to rematerialize and affect the world again. It takes him a second. Have full lookouts from all directions, including up and down, he’s tried to attack from those directions already.”

“Knightbreakers will be something to be wary of. I liked them better when pointed at the enemy.” Cathida said. “Couldn’t have put some kind of lock down on them? A security feature so this kind of silverscrap isn’t something to deal with? Journey’s distressed about the idea of having to tank one of your nightmare weapons.”

“Had considered it,” I said, sighing. “But putting on the microrockets behind the shells was more important at the time. Plus I didn’t have any good ideas on how to add security. Lock the launcher to be only triggered by relic armors, and they can’t be used in case you don’t have armor anymore. Lock it by some kind of authentication signal, and I’d need to start putting in a lot of circuitry inside each launcher. A physical key would slow down setting up the launcher, and if we lose it, we’re stuck in the wastes with no airspeeder.”

“Excuses, Winterscar.” Ankah said with a scoff. “This is on your head. You’ve created weapons of destruction with little oversight.”

“I didn’t see anyone bringing this issue up when I distributed them around, so excuse me princess.” I shot back. Not to mention there’s nothing stopping To’Avalis from simply ripping the knightbreaker round out itself and swinging it around like Atius had on his second encounter with To’Aacar. I’d need to both add security on the launchers and the rounds.

That was quickly going from impractical to impossible.

“Cut the chatter,” Windrunner ordered. “All knights, note, we’ve found two possible methods To’Avalis can track you.” Windrunner said, “He may have direct eyes on your team, specifically with spiders following in the general area out of sight. Additionally, it’s possible you have transmitter bugs magnetized on your armor. We'll send the reverse frequency and details you’ll need. Now that you’re outside the tunnels, you’ll need to advance to the mite forge without being spotted.”

The armors complied, already sending a data package with what we’d discovered of the little bugs. “Make sure you’ve eliminated all eyes on your team and have an escape plan in action before you jam their signal. You want to vanish into the darkness, and not give the machines any time to triangulate your possible movements the moment you disappear.”

Knights returned all-green on that.

“I need a threat assessment on To’Avalis, this is the first we’ve confirmed an attack from him.”

“Three dead, four wounded.” The knight immediately answered, “Alone and with next to no danger to himself, he’s already caused a significant amount of damage to our team of fully equipped relic knights. The chain weapon’s tip has some kind of occult pulse that’s caused internal damage in addition to heavy knockback. Used to displace and isolate our warriors.” The clan knight said. “The chain itself acts like a knightbreaker’s chain would, but there’s only one. If it wraps around an armor, the effects are almost instant death. With a sword it’s possible to deflect and push the chain off course before it wraps around, the Winterscars figured that out. Transmitting the combat log.”

“How often is he attacking?” I asked, watching some of the footage.

“Only appeared a few times, Master Keith. He stopped once we had begun testing out possible counters. After the sword counter was discovered, he hasn’t yet reappeared.”

“Won’t allow us any practice.” I noted. “Figures. Did the most damage he could, and ran once the knights started to mount up a defense. Souls recovered?”

“Confirmed, we’ve housed the dead knights within our spare soul fractals. They’re safe with us. We’re carrying armor remaints with us as well.” Which meant they'd snapped off a piece of armor that would house the armor's self-repair swarm. It'll take a week or so to bring those armors back online, but far better than to run around with the full armors.

We swapped more details, including what we’d gone through as I went through the combat footage. Word on how Lord Atius was incapacitated rattled the clan knights, but they knew the score with a Deathless. He couldn’t die, and out of all of us, he was the most expendable member if it came down to it. Not a fact the knights liked to think about, but we were on mission. No luxuries down here.

And we had a date with an old molding pillar, specifically to ruin it’s day.

“Shadowsong to all units, detecting movement ahead outside the forest.” Ankah said over the comms.

Good timing that. The group and I were hacking away with blades on a large leaning pillar. From what Cathida confirmed, cutting this down in the right way would hit the ground and knock a hole into the next level down.

“Windrunner actual, copy. Enemy movement?”

“About to confirm. Scans show a large number making their way here.” She said.

“I don’t think it’s a convoy of merchants dropping by.” I said, “Might want to assume it’s evil and head down to rejoin the clan knights.”

A few more careful swipes from our occult blades and the pillar started to groan. Rocks began to break away in puffs of white dust, as the entire thing started to lean. Windrunner hurried to the right side, boot lifted up, convincing the massive thing to fall in just the right away. “The Winterscar has it right. Shadowsongs, fall back into the tunnel system and regroup with I1 and the rest of the knights.”

“Understood.” She said, then paused. “Locke confirms the approaching movement is a machine army. Or the start of one. We have it on our scopes.”

“Chance of holding them off?” Windrunner asked, voice making it clear he didn’t expect much.

“Nonexistent.” Ankah said. “In open terrain, we will not hold for long. Even with our advantages.”

The pillar finally gave in, the last bits of rock holding it up cracking into pieces. It began to topple down in an arc, right to open ground. When it hit, the ground caved in with little resistance. The cloud of particles left behind was tinted red, showing some kind of working light system within the temple’s closed off section.

“Right then, back to the original plan, see if you can regroup with the main forces.” Windrunner ordered. “Bring your wounded with you, the larger group will be the safer location. Continue primary objective of reaching the mite forge. We’ll likely need the backup by the time you arrive.”

“Confirmed,” Icewing Prime and his clan knights sent out over the comms. “We’ll look for the Shadowsongs as they come out of the tunnels.”

A confirmation ping came back, the Shadowsongs moving onto their new objective.

“I’ve got a possible idea.” I said. “On how we can make use of this.”

“Oh?” Windrunner prodded. “I’m all ears.”

“See, Avalis doesn’t know where we are anymore, but he likely knows where the clan knights are right now. They haven’t yet found a good spot to pull off a disappearing act yet. So when the shadowsongs meet up with them, they could start heading to a location opposite of us, and not quite near the mite forge. Avalis might think they’re coming to link up with us.”

“And in the process he’ll send more forces in that direction.” Kidra completed for me. “That could work.”

“So long as he doesn’t think we’re underground, we get some extra points into sneak.” I said, walking over to check out our new way down.

And speaking of extra points, the underground basement level looked quite nice for that.

Kidra and I landed down, deep into the wet gloom. Large puddles spread across the ground here, getting filled up further from the waterfalls of the upper level's water spilling down. The red tint in the air turned out to be from the wall lights, where the mites had embedded some kind of haphazard crystals that glowed. I found myself near one, tapping it with an idle finger, trying to figure out if the crystal itself emitted light, or if they were decoration for an actual light.

Wrath. I sent out. How good is machine sight? Say within your Runners?

Similar to humans in quality. Although infrared spectrum is included, the wavelengths captured are otherwise identical enough.

Then they’d have a hard time looking out for things in the dark that don’t emit heat?

They would. She confirmed. How do you intend to do that?

I looked at the crystal decorations around the wall, reaching out with the soul sight and finding what I thought was going on. Turns out mites do cut corners, they were all regular glass crystals. And the light behind - all wired.

If there’s wire, then there’s a power source. And if we could cut out all the lights underground, we’d have the advantage. Knight helmets had a lot more sensors than just visuals. They frankly had far more sensors than any armored suit really needed, but now it was coming in handy. Here would be an excellent lesson in why more sensors were better than less, even if most of the data was junk.

They had less and we had more. We had a team on the top level that could run distractions, say exploding something near a power source for plausible deniability.

A power source that could potentially light up all of the basement level.

We could see in the dark.

And the cheap mass manufactured machines couldn’t.

Next chapter - Under the temple

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