12 Miles Below

Past the burning section of forest and up the natural valley hills that had contained the burning, we found the original purple and violet trees, along with a thin mist that seemed nearly luminescent on its own. White flowers around the area intermixed with twigs made the rocky forest ground have some life to it, despite it being mostly chunks of heavy rock.

The armors were heavy, so stepping up the hillside had been a hassle against the loose rocks. Lot of it would start breaking into chunk on a too heavy footfall, and then the whole thing would start to slide down. We had to slow our pace down and actually crawl a few times just to make sure the armor’s weight and our sack of goods from the airspeeder weren’t going to screw us over.

But once we got past all that, the mist and forest beyond welcomed us in.

Compared to the complete flat and empty wasteland of ice and snow on the surface, the underground was amazing, filled with life and oddly cohesive. Old human era forests that I’ve seen in media showed all kinds of colors to flowers and foliage, with a general bias to green for photosynthesis.

But there weren’t any other flowers that seemed to compete besides white ones, and they all looked like different species. Some kind of convergent evolution where everything in this grove happened to work better with white pedals? Or were the plants here bioengineered from the start to never change from the main theme?

And why did nothing adapt to grow on the rocks under me? Not even moss or anything, just sterile gray rocks with dirt in between and the odd flower patch that managed to find root. Given the slowly thickening mist of vapor that hung like a blanket around the area, there should be plenty of moisture for life to work with.

The deeper we got past the charred vale, the deeper the fog and foliage grew. Soon the rocks were fighting roots for dominance, and half our steps was over thick bark, which was far more stable to run over.

“What are you thinking about Winterscar?” Drakonis said off to the side, keeping pace with me. “You make me nervous when you’re quiet like that.”

I gave a quick and elegant scoff, the kind a Shadowsong would be proud of, if they ever could admit that to a Winterscar. “Earlier you were complaining I wasn’t clan-knight-ish enough and too chatty. Now you’re upset I’m not chatty enough? Make up your mind already.”

“Fine, if you have to know I’m just admiring the scenery they made here.” I said as we both upped our jog into a sprint in order to jump over a large boulder. Right behind it was a small brook with very shallow water trickling steadily through. We both crashed hard into it, boots spraying up the clear water for a second while we resumed our jog, starting to angle our steps to land on the roots and bark instead of possibly loose stones. “Say what you will about mites, they do make some honestly beautiful biomes.”

Drakonis grunted. “Fucking long ones though. At this rate, we’ll run out of power. Then you have all the time in the world to admire the trees before you die. If you can even see anything with this mist. Are we even going the right direction?”

“You could always check.” I said. “Go jump on a tree, get above the mist level and see if we’re on the right path to the giant tree or not. Or, you know, trust the golden era relic armor’s internal compass and HUD directions didn’t go bad in the last three hours? Don’t know about your armor, but mine’s been around for about three hundred years or so, could be due for a checkup and spa day.”

“Don’t tempt me with a good time.” Cathida said with a light cackle, “And while Journey’s basically certain you’re being sarcastic, it wants you to know it doesn’t need a checkup and that the navigation systems are all working fine, despite your best attempts otherwise.”

Least Cathida was working as normal right now. Blessings in heavy disguise.

“I know the armor’s pointing us to the tree,” Drakonis sighed. “I’m only worried we won’t find anything there. Just some giant landmark like any other landmark, or that the mite fountain nearby ends up decoration.”

“We could have the armors engage in more active scanning.” I suggested. “It’ll be noisy and could draw attention, but we’d be able to spot things from a much wider range.”

“We do that, we’ll draw machines to our corner.” He said.

“If they’re down here, they’ll find us eventually.” I countered. “And I’m not exactly easy to kill.”

“Death happens down here.” Drakonis said. “Even the best Deathless eventually get killed off the longer they stay underground. The longer we can extend that time, the more we have to work with.”

“And if we miss the mite terminal or fountains by doing that? How much time have we won?”

He didn’t say anything to that for a moment. “When we die, you know your armor is left behind. We’ll be back at the nearest pillar with nothing in hand in a strange land of unknown dangers. We’re at our strongest right now, moment we get killed, we’ll be far weaker.”

“Right. We don’t have any of Lionheart’s shiny toys with us. Pity that.”

“Don’t look at me like that, Winterscar,” He hissed back. “I didn’t have any gear worth keeping. Not going to waste an entire recall cube just to bring back armor. We were close enough to civilization back then to get replacements.”

“You do know you’re talking to a surface savage right? Losing an armor is more than just a little papercut. We have entire Houses built around just owning a single suit of armor. And we fight each other for the right to wear that armor. And I don’t mean that as a passing hobby, I mean we spend a lifetime studying and preparing for that chance. It’s kind of a big thing to lose an armor in my culture. Would bring shame to you, your family, your kids and your kid’s kids. Not your kid’s kid’s kids though, I think it stops around that point. Probably.”

Against what I’d thought would happen, Drakonis didn’t answer back or get more annoyed. He stayed quiet, just running side by side and keeping our target in mind.

“...I hadn’t thought of it like that.” He finally said, and it wasn’t his usual tone. “I know surface culture in theory, I heard stories about them. Surface knights have a reputation for a reason. I just never truly had to think about what life would actually be like up there.” He sighed, as if this next part was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “You’re right, I am taking the gear we have for granted. And down here we need to be even more careful with it.”

I was expecting him to throw some kind of snow back at me, continue the banter. It’s been an hour of running forward to the giant tree, this place is huge and this Deathless is the only other target I have to annoy the shit out of.

Instead, the bastard seemed like he actually was thinking his words through and this was as close to an apology as he could get.

Honesty and self-reflection, my one weakness.

“We have more than just a day of power.” I said, coughing a bit and changing the subject. “The estimate I gave was following the eight hours per cell metric, but that’s assuming we’re up and moving every single hour. We’ve got to sleep and eat at some point, armor’s got low power settings when we sleep in it. We could also take shifts and have one armor completely shut off while the other’s keeping watch, they turn back on in a second or two. Last resort would be to make low power more permanent, no more sprinting around until we run into combat, but we’ll still be protected from the elements.”

Drakonis looked down at his feet for a moment, the rocks under blurring together from our jumps and leaps. “I hadn’t known armor had low power settings. It makes sense in hindsight, just never had to use that kind of feature, you know? Always power to spare, even out in the wilds when I was a hunter starting out. What sort of goldshit did you get into that forced you to use low power settings?”

“That’s a very long story that involves your favorite Feather To’Wrathh, one drake with an attitude problem and some shenanigans.”

“Why the fuck did I even ask? How many stories do you have, Winterscar? Can’t tell if you’re a pathological liar or like to spin stories out of nowhere as a hobby.”

To be fair, I think he had a point. “Last few months of my life have been very interesting. I gave you the abridged version, the longer version is a little more out there.” I had skipped a lot of that, just telling him I went to the city to find my sister, ran into Wrath and both of us turned on To’Aacar and kicked his scrap in, and then To’Sefit’s scrap as well, before we had to leave for a mite mission and some rest back at my clan later.

“Fuck it. Start talking then.” He said. “We have nothing better to do on the path there.”

“I don’t even know if this will actually help the Chosen or make you think I’m trying to sell you a bigger box of snow instead. It gets weird and some parts I’ll have to redact outright which might make the whole thing not make sense.”

Plus I had to fit in being a Deathless instead of a sorcerer knight in there. Along with Atius somehow teaching us all his spells and the only way Deathless pass on spells is by actually running on expedition down to specific pillar hearts and attuning to them. So I’d need to make that up too, could have been part of the rest and relaxation period up on the surface. Instead of trying to beat Father, I was going down with the rest of the ‘Deathless trainee’s’ under Atius, picking up all his lore and knowledge.

On the other hand, I could just say ‘Sorry, confidential. Also not actually sorry, but everyone knew that already.’

And then there was Hexis. And the question on if I should even mention my occult master to Drakonis. Technically could not because Deathless don’t use the occult the same way a warlock would. But Hexis was still back home probably collecting more tea sets and other shiny treasures like the pipe weasel he truly is behind that haunty mask.

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But he’d also be the type to roll with a cover story and not blink an eye, depending on the bribe.

In for a pick, out for an axe. I started telling him of my first meeting with the elusive and mysterious To’Wrathh, who’d pretended to be a wandering Deathless when meeting me. As for why she cared for a random surface savage, I was Kidra’s brother and she kind of had a rivalry going with the sword saint at the time. Call it mutual respect between rivals.

“There’s no respect between a machine and a human.” Drakonis insisted.

“Tell her that yourself. Wrath’s a lot of things, but she’s got pride circled a few times over in red on her rap sheet.”

“Journey’s caught a ping on the passive sensors.” Cathida said, interrupting my story midway. “It’s emitting a signal.”

We still had a good thirty minutes to go before reaching the giant tree in this biome at this pace. Drakonis must have gotten similar pings from his armor as we both turned the same direction at the same time. “Machines?” He asked.

We waited for a moment.

“Journey’s using the other armor to triangulate the source.” Cathida said. “It’s not moving at all from the broadcast location.”

“Stationary?” I said. “Should we investigate?”

“I think you already know the answer to that one Winterscar.” Drakonis said. “We don’t have a choice. If it’s an enemy, we’ve got the drop on them and can find out what we’re up against on this strata. If it’s a mite fountain or terminal, faster we get a base of operations setup, the easier it’ll be to figure out what to do next. If there’s even a next.”

“There is. I’ve got friends in high places.” I said, giving him a friendly pat on the back. “You know, on account of me being a dirty machine sympathizer on top of a dirty surface savage.”

If I could see through his helmet, I might have caught him rolling his eyes at that. But instead, just the obvious head tilt backwards and a deep sigh. “Goddess’s golden fucking tits, I apologized already about that. What do you want next, a bribe?”

“You serious? I’d be down for good traditional bribery. What have you got?”

He didn’t give me a good answer to that, instead turning his head down and shaking it with disappointment. “Never meet your heroes.” He hissed to himself, starting a quick jog at our target direction.

Flattering to think the demi-god in training thinks I’m a hero. Pretty sure he’s talking about surface knight reputation in general - which I’ve tanked down to the bedrock by now and started digging - but I’m very good at selective hearing.

The closer we got to our new target, the more sound started to appear. The sort of roar that came with what I’d learned to be a waterfall.

From the thick mist we emerged into a small sanctuary, free from all trees and foliage. Only the rocky ground under us, slowly losing a fight to shallow water lapping away.

At the center of this little clearing was a large rock formation. Like a giant semi-circle of raised wall high rock, wrapping protectively before what stood at the center. Water flowed down the sides of the rock formation, falling into the lake at the feet, the source of the noise we’d started to hear on the approach. Three large stepping stones led slightly from our left, a small meandering path of perfectly flat rock, segmented until they reached the center of the landmark.

At its center was a metal pillar, filled with teal lights and dark tubes littering the ground reaching up to it. Almost organic like, and yet geometric at the same time. Utterly chaotic in comparison to the clean and well defined set pieces that surrounded it.

“Does that look like a mite fountain to you?” I asked.

“We’ll see in a moment.” He said, taking a cautious step on the first rock. The water was actually shallow here, but it quickly deepened with each step. Nothing happened when he stood on the rock, but Drakonis kept his rifle ready and aimed. He took another step, and still nothing happened.

A third and final fourth step had him walk into the mite structure’s metal roots, all gnarled and growing in twisted directions, overtaking the flat stone the whole thing stood on.

“It’s safe.” He called out. “No motion anywhere.”

I waited a few seconds, before he turned my direction and looked a little unhappy. “You can stop waiting for something terrible to happen to me. If a mite trap hasn’t sprung already, there isn’t one. They don’t do dramatic pauses, much as you’d like them to.”

Yeah, but you can die multiple times. I can’t. I thought to myself. A few more seconds of waiting and finding no change in anything, I began to take small steps over the large stepping stones myself, keeping a far more careful eye around myself using the soul sight.

No traps or anything that I could sense. Or if there were traps, they weren’t done in any way I could have recognized them.

That said, if the mite fountain had a lever on it, I was going to strangle someone.

Drakonis was already examining the structure when I stepped over the final stone pad and began to walk over the tangled cables and metal roots leading up to the crazy thing.

“It’s a mite fountain.” He said, hand stretched out to me. “Cell.”

I obliged him, dragging a spent one out of my pack and handing it over to him. He gripped the side of something, twisted, and then pulled. Steam hissed out as he dragged a thin hollow tube behind his pull. Exactly the right size for a power cell.

I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. Mites certainly could have made any shape and size, and yet they had made this to fit the exact dimensions of a standard cell. He dropped the payload in, then pushed the tube back into the foundry, twisting it shut with a hiss of steam.

“Fully functional.” He said. “Pass me the bag. I’ll refill our entire stock.”

I yanked the bulky thing off my shoulders and threw it at him, which he caught with little fanfare. Inside was a mix of spent and full power cells. All seven that were still powered, and five more empty ones that I could fit before the top of the sack couldn’t close.

“I’ll refill our water while we’re here. Get a feeling this lake is pretty clean.”

“Your feeling’s right.” Cathida said. “Journey confirms initial water purity, but your canister can handle anything Journey hasn’t yet detected.”

Drakonis started yanking spent cells one after another, sealing them into the fountain and giving it two or three minutes to fully recharge before he cycled out another. This was way faster than the fountain I’d found with Wrath, but that one had been damaged.

This fountain was perfectly whole, and seemed almost unused. Or meticulously maintained and kept clean.

“Water’s taken care of, and power too. All that’s left is food.” I said.

“Hunting wildlife for food might be difficult.” Drakonis said. “Morally speaking. I’ve hunted game before for food, but never game that seemed intelligent.”

“Fortunately, I don’t think bugs are sentient down here. Yet.” I said. “And lucky you, I know a few good recipes, assuming we can dig some stuff out.”

“Goddess’s golden tits, down to eating bugs and roots now. Fuck me.” Drakonis sighed.

“Sound, on your left, deary.” Cathida warned.

I couldn’t hear anything given the giant semi-circle waterfall all around me. But I trusted Journey’s senses were better than mine. I got back up from filling my water canteen, trying to peer through the thick mist beyond our little sanctuary. I could only see the vague outlines of trees and foliage. “Ping it.”

Cathida did, pointing out the source.

Time to get to work. My hand drew out my blade while the other already had my armguard affixed and ready to use. Drakonis got up at the same time, letting the sack drop and swapping it out with his rifle, pointing it down to where the armor was highlighting a source of danger.

“I’ll go check it out.” I said in the small silence between us. “Keep refilling the power cells, better to have them full if we need to bail.”

He gave a quick nod, letting the rifle drop back on it’s straps while he went back to work on refilling everything we had.

A shadow started to appear in the mist, and I realized it was shaking foliage. I took a step off the mite fountain, onto the stepping stones, then onto solid ground, keeping a loose stance. Blade active and ready to swing down on anything.

“Animals would have noticed you moving about and started running the opposite direction.” Drakonis clicked over the comms, the implication clear to me.

“Might be one of those wolves?”

We waited as the bush rustling grew louder. Whoever or whatever was approaching, it wasn’t trying to be subtle. And given the sheer size of what came trotting out of the mist, I don’t think subtlety was an option in the first place.

“Talk about the machine and you’ll see the glow.” Drakonis muttered, head turned my way while the next cell was being filled. “And it’s got an occult blade in the mouth. Winterscar, I don’t think I need to warn you about this, you’re not that stupid.”

“You talk mighty high scrapshit for someone who got his ass kicked by said stupid. Multiple times now.” I shot back, but did keep my head locked on the new visitor for now.

It was a single wolf. No sign of his pack anywhere. The head reached about my own helmet’s size, and given the armor gave me a few extra inches, that meant this animal was taller than I was. It padded forward slowly, tail low to the ground and almost curled slightly behind, head lowering with each step in a kind of… calculated measure? There was intention there.

It got about ten steps away from me, stopped then spat down the occult blade it held in its jaw. An odd low pitched whine of sorts came out of its throat. It seemed rather insistent, giving a few more whines, nose moving left and right between me and Drakonis.

We both held our ground, waiting for something. “You think it wants to play fetch?” I asked Drakonis, giving him a quick look and letting the soul sight keep a view on the animal. A short test to see if it would try to attack when my attention seemed like it was elsewhere.

Drakonis stopped loading cells, then slowly turned his helmet to stare me down. “Yes, Winterscar.” He said in the most deadpan possible manner. “The clearly intelligent wolf wants to play fucking fetch with the most dangerous weapon known to man.”

It hadn’t lunged at me in the short window I had given it, nor had it made any move away either. Test passed.

“Glad to know we think alike.” I returned, turning off my own occult blade and slowly putting it back on my belt.

The wolf’s head perked up at that, likely understanding the universal ‘We won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt us, yeah?’

It gave a short set of quick barks, feet pawing at the ground while it kept turning its gaze between me and the Deathless a few paces behind. Then stopped and waited.

Neither Drakonis nor I did anything. The Deathless clearly had the same amount of experience I did when it came to animals that could use occult weapons. Still had to check, because that’s just my nature. “You don’t speak wolf by any chance?”

He groaned, then went back to his work.

“Cathida? Can Journey translate what the wolf’s saying or doing?”

She just cackled at that suggestion.

Everyone’s rude today, I’m just asking questions here.

I took a step forward with a sigh, one hand outstretched and showing all my fingers. “Well, this day’s already weird enough. Might as well see what’s happening here.”

Sort of realized right after I’d committed to the movement that while other people would have recognized my gesture as trying to show I didn’t have a weapon in hand, an animal might see a raised appendage with tentacles all splayed out ready to grab as possibly threatening.

The wolf whined again, licking its chops, then took a slow padding step forward, matching my gait.

I reached out my hand slowly, and soon enough it’s nose was close, giving it a few light sniffs. Then it backed off, and shook its mane with a few light yips and a half-hearted tail wag, barking slightly more loudly with each second. It seemed almost skittish now, paws starting to pace a bit.

“Think it’s trying to talk?” I asked, turning to Drakonis who was still yanking cells in and out of the bag.

And then I realized the wolf hadn’t been looking at Drakonis. Not even at the mite fountain. It had been turning its gaze between me, and the semi-circle waterfall the surrounded the grove. As if it knew there was something there.

Cards on the table, I didn’t make that leap of understanding on my own. I have become one paranoid bastard deep down and keeping the Winterblossom technique going at all times has become second nature to me. My soul sight felt like a natural extension of my regular sight, my head having long since adjusted to shifting between both. Even while I was looking at Drakonis, I was well aware of every motion of the wolf I couldn’t see.

The range of the sight wasn’t all great - but one thing that it could do really well was be completely uncounterable by the enemy. Even if they knew I had that sort of sight, they couldn’t do anything about it.

So despite both Journey and Drakonis's armor being at full power, on alert and actively sensing around for threats, neither caught wind of what was rapidly creeping behind the wall of stone and yet being completely unnoticed, despite its utter giant size. Not until it got close enough I could see it in my soul sight.

In hindsight, I should have figured a free unguarded and well maintained mite fountain deep underground isn’t free power.

It’s bait.

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