12 Miles Below

Humans.

Kres was speaking with actual living humans. With all the powers of the ancients at their command. The giants that had once shaped the world, the race behind everything.

These two had eradicated the infestation’s budding swarm, to the point even that demonic bioweapon had tried to flee.

Silverfur had told him they had then battled the guardian of the mite fountain. The same guardian that had followed behind and eliminated the old humans who’d restored the Icon from its dead state.

The greyroamers had believed these two walking myths were humanity returned. But Kres knew it was more than that - these titans were alive in an era where humanity shouldn’t be. And that made them absurdly more dangerous.

He resolved to be more cautious of his approach, planning to study the pair from a distance for a few days until he understood their patterns and behaviors better. Silverfur had claimed they’d been peaceful, but greyroamers tended to make quick snap decisions and follow through without pause. Odin were far more meticulous, and Kres was as Odin as they came.

It was all mute. They’d spotted him within minutes of his arrival, the silent helmet turning effortlessly to stare directly at where he’d perched. Even after hiding under brush and to the best of his skills, they still seemed to know exactly where he’d been.

His instincts were to run. Fly away and make another attempt later. Or seek out the greyroamers and follow them back into the discussion. He squashed them down and forced himself to stay. If the humans had wanted him dead, he’d be dead. Silverfur had told him they had spells and ranged weapons.

Instead of attacking him, or ignoring him, the two humans seemed to read each other’s minds. Working effortlessly like a team, they setup a welcome he had taken a chance on.

They were now speaking easily across the language barrier, with one helmet put down at the center of the table, translating speech back and forth. It had started off so well.

And then it hadn’t.

“The fuck do did you just say?” One human growled at him, the tone and shock replicated near perfectly from the center helmet.

“I hate agreeing with anything coming out of his mouth on principle,” the other human said with a strange arm gesture. The knight named Keith Winterscar. “But I’ll have to make an exception here. He’s really not my type. I prefer smart, pretty, courageous…”

“Winterscar...”

“...clever, intelligent, funny, good looking, maybe clumsy in a cute way… Did I mention intelligent yet?”

The first human grabbed his head with one hand, exhaling heavily. Kres didn’t know what that meant either.

“Plus, he’s also a guy, and I’ve got a preference for women. Sorry Drakonis, I hate to crush your heart like this. You’re too ugly to date.”

“Cry me a fucking river, you miserable twat. Of all people I could be stuck down here with…”

A moment ago, Kres had assumed these two were a warbond pair, and when he’d voiced it out, he’d learned something new about humans. The Icon had always told him humans could be told apart since they had mammary organs like greyroamers, except only two compared to their six. The armor the humans wore hid those, making them both seem about the same. He’d taken a guess, and learned the two humans were not quite as friendly to one another as their earlier teamwork suggested.

The first human, Drakonis as Kres had learned, turned and squashed two fingers together, looking through them at his companion. “Do you know what I’m doing Winterscar?”

It was at this point Kres had realized that there was a second component to human speech. They weren’t only speaking one language - they were speaking two at the same time.

Greyroamers communicated with three, but the second and third language was purely reflexive and showed their overall mood. It wasn’t completely necessary, thankfully. Odin couldn’t smell to the degree needed for the third.

Keith shook his head, left to right, indicating something. Likely agreement, or subtext.

“No idea what you’re doing with your fingers there, but I get a gut feeling it’s not nice.”

Nevermind. These humans couldn’t understand each other.

“I’m squishing your head.” Drakonis said, squeezing his fingers a few more times while staring at Keith.

“Barbarian.” Keith answered with a scoff. “Fish and warmth are wasted on your kind.”

They glared at one another for a moment more, before both started barking out repeating high pitched howls, as if they were about to fight one another.

Was there a sub-vocal language spoken between humans? Kres tried to make sense of it all. It was sound, at least they weren’t using scents, sound should be easy enough to understand. Perhaps part of that howling was on frequencies he couldn’t hear?

The helmet wasn’t translating their words. He focused his sight, beak turning left to right. They noticed him, went silent, and then started howling even more.

Were they about to fight for supremacy? Did he start a war between the two? At a complete loss, he stared straight at the helmet. Which continued to remain silent.

It seemed to notice the unworded question.

“No direct translation available.” It finally said in a far more monotone voice. “Users are laughing. Dictionary definition available. Proceed with definition?”

One was slapping the rock and holding his stomach. The other was grooming his eye, or perhaps scratching it. Two variations of laughing, he considered. The howling was mostly the same, so the movements might be where the type of laughing was classified.

“I understand. I think.” Kres slowly told the helmet while the two humans settled down, then broke out in that barking sound again. “We Odin also laugh…” He considered how best to explain it. “We shake our wings.” Greyroamers wag their tails in a different pattern and look down at the ground. It was far more understandable and fit right into their language already.

In general, greyroamer body language was easier to understand so far. All that mattered was the center of gravity, the angle of their heads, and the tail. The two humans on the other wingtip had far too many different movements possible.

So far he’d noticed each finger could be moved independently from each other, and each arm could make those fingers move in any direction. Not to mention how detailed control they had over the muscles by their jaws and eyes.

But why did the humans even need body movement to communicate anything? Their language was separated from any motion, the Icon had taught them that. It was the hardest thing to understand about speaking ancient human for any Odin learning the language.

Drakonis turned to Kres, exhaling with a large breath at the end of the earlier howling. “I apologize for the earlier outburst. This was nervous laughter… It’s a human thing. When a situation calls for serious thought, instead of cooperating, your body does the exact opposite. You’ve caught us at a strange time.”

“I don’t believe I have any means or ability to catch anything. You are far too large.” Kres pointed out, making sure the two humans wouldn’t see him as a threat.

“He’s got a point.” Keith said, with those shoulders moving.

“Golden tits knows it’s a strange everything right now for us. We’re not diplomats in any stretch of the word, anyone else would be a better fit for a first contact situation like this. And I don’t know about him, but I’ve been running on low sleep, pulled into another strata, unsure if I’m trapped here for the rest of time, attacked by feral animals again and again - rethinking all my life choices and morals - all while the closest ‘friendly’ face nearby, and I stress that word friendly, is him.”

Keith did that odd shoulder movement again, which Kres was starting to put together as vanity feather ruffling of some kind.

Then he had a horrifying thought: Maybe the same way they could move the muscles individually on their faces, they could do the same under the armor? How would the other human even see that?

While he reflected, the two humans were busy bickering with each other.

“I… nnnnn, apologize for the earlier assumption then.” Kres cut in, watching as the helmet in the center copied his words and spoke them back to the two humans out loud in their gibberish language. It was uncanny. “Odin often travel in pairbonds, and mate for life. Since there were two of you…” He gave a short, tiny wing rustle, indicating slight apology from something that couldn’t be helped.

Telling sex apart within the Odin was beyond simple. Just a matter of colors. And not some odd complex mix of colors like the parrot clans. Only ultraviolet patterns. If that didn’t make it obvious enough, there was a clear difference in voice pitch as well.

Humans on the other hand, utterly impossible. Almost everything about them was turning into a headache.

“No, it’s fine.” Keith said, again waving those arms. “We’re technically enemies. He tried his absolute best to kill me a few hours ago.”

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Kres didn’t even know how to tackle that one. But this felt familiar. Everything about these two humans but somehow this felt familiar. To the point he almost threw out a casual reprimand, as if on reflex. To a giant capable of killing him twenty times over without a hint of effort.

The only Odin that had him feeling the same way, right down to telling her to knock it off on a near constant basis… was Astrid.

Oh by the Icon. One of these humans was a land-bound longer legged copy of Astrid.

The mythical humans, capable of fighting even machines to a standstill. Utterly alien to his senses, even their body language couldn’t be understood.

And one of them was like Astrid.

The same Astrid that would hyperfocus on anything shiny, break down even the most patient of their kind, and relentlessly stubborn to the point of near insanity.

He instead turned his beak to the other, who seemed a little less unhinged. If the first was an Astrid, perhaps the second was a Kres. There might be some bastion of reason in all this.

“Fuck off and die.” The second said, staring down at his partner.

No. That one was equally just as insane.

“See what I mean?” Keith said, turning back to Kres with another exaggerated hand movement. As if Kres was some kind of nestmother with final authority.

“I am… unsure what to make of the information. Odin do not cooperate with their enemies, generally. Or travel with them.” That seemed almost basic sense to any living being. How were humans so fundamentally different?

“Winterscar, take this seriously.” Drakonis said.

“We’re talking to a talking bird.” Keith said. “I’m more worried that I accidentally took something from the medkit that wasn’t labeled right.”

Kres could relate to that feeling. He was talking to giant titans who were supposed to have long ago died off. And one of them was a mini-Astrid.

“Your armor would have warned both of us of unstable biometrics.” Drakonis said. “None of this is imaginary. There really is a bird speaking with us.” The human then turned to Kres. “Keith Winterscar and I are enemies, but we’ve come here alone and cut off from the rest of our allies. A truce was needed temporarily. It’s a complicated matter.”

“I remember it being more of a deal. I get you out of here, and you take the time to actually figure out the truth of the situation before continuing the fight.” Keith said, one of his fingers digging into his ear, scraping something out and then flicking it away. Whatever that gesture meant.

The other human growled and then did a head shake. And, of course, as if tailored to confuse Kres in every possible way, the man did that shake looking down at the ground from left to right instead of up and down.

At this point, Kres decided perhaps trying to understand their body language was a fool’s path. The Icon had taught him the human language was only vocal speech and no gestures. The Odin spoke with both entangled together, and perhaps that in itself was a bias. He should trust the Icon hadn’t steered him astray. Formal speech had been made for writing and for communication outside of eyesight, and it worked, even if it was long, tedious and difficult to understand at first. “There are… other humans besides the both of you?”

Keith shook his head up and down, facing Kres instead of the ground. “We come from different factions, and in a desperate gambit, Drakonis attempted to isolate me by crashing an airspeeder through a mite portal leading somewhere unknown. I didn’t appreciate the gesture and made sure he went down with me.”

The human continued to explain the situation the two had found themselves in. And the war between their two sides. The genuine discovery wasn’t the battle. It was that humanity not only wasn’t extinct, but they were doing well enough they could afford to fight each other in a world filled with machines.

“Humanity, then, truly isn’t extinct?” Kres asked. “How do you survive in a world filled with machines? Are all of your kind warriors? Or do machines only hunt humans on this strata?”

“It’s complicated.” Keith said, hand wiggling in front of him. “Many of us do know how to fight, or we have weapons that can be easily picked up and learned in an hour or two of practice.”

Easily picked up and learned in hours, the human had said. In hours.

Utterly absurd to Kres. It took years to master any of the human weapons, or outright additional packs and straps just to carry them. Some of the races would never even be able to hold or make use of the titanic weapons. A longsword weighed more than ten times his own weight!

It only added to Kres’s growing suspicions on what kind of race humanity was. That they could consider mastering any weapon in a few hours as if it were something normal. Were all humans hyper-predators of some kind? They had eyes like hawks and fangs in their jaws like greyroamers. Their thinking might as well be hyper violent.

“But the majority of humans don’t fight, and keep food and supplies tended to instead. I’m certain the Odin also do something similar?” Keith continued, “Spreading the overall workload for specialized members? Craftsmen, scientists, farmers?”

“We do.” Kres said. “The only race I am aware of that do not follow that pattern are the greyroamers, and they are nomadic for a reason.”

"Greyroamers?" The human asked.

"They are four legged and covered with fur, predators like yourself with teeth instead of a beak. One attempted to speak to you at the start, before I arrived."

"Oh, the wolf! So they're called greyroamers. Are your races friendly to one another?"

"We are." Kres said. "There are alliances and treaties between our races, and we work together against common threats. The greyroamers and Odin have been friends for generations now."

“Glad we have some common ground about being friendly to other people and cultures." The human said, his elbow tapping the other human next to him multiple times. Earning a strange set of gestures and eye squinting from Drakonis. "All right, so next thing to check off - what do the uhh, Odin, know of the stratas?”

“The Odin have sent exploration parties, and we’ve followed the deeper tunnels that lead both upwards and further down.” Kres said. “The world is vast, but even in our golden years, there is a limit to how far we can expand and explore. Terrain too difficult to survive in becomes a natural block to how far the Odin can map.”

If the biome took more than a week to fly across, and had no sources of food or water, it was fundamentally the end of how far the Odin could explore.

“Humans of old used machines and vehicles to travel fast distances safely, the Odin do not have such technology yet.”

Metal ships that could travel not only the entire world in hours, but even the more mythical dimensions that exist beyond the stratas. A place where the very air to soar over didn’t exist. The Icon was one such ship.

“There aren’t an unlimited number of stratas. Go out far enough and you’ll eventually run into an end.” Keith said. “Nobody knows for sure how far down deep they go, but we do know there is a final strata further up. It’s in the final three that humans exist. Deeper down, like this area, machines grow too difficult for non-warriors to handle.”

“And those three stratas are on the other side of the black portal?” Kres asked. “I’d done tests and found nothing came back when thrown through.”

“Mite portals follow their own rules.” Drakonis said. “The one we came from may be unique. We need to examine it in detail to discover more, part of our working plan.”

Kres considered it. There was something on the other side of the blackness, but perhaps it may have only been a one-way direction. “What do these… upper strata look like? What makes them habitable to humanity that this strata does not?”

“You said before that you ran into mite biomes that halted your exploration due to them being too difficult to traverse, right?” Keith said. “I think you understand how mite biomes can all look different.”

“The outer edges of our territory are called the Strangelands for a reason.” Kres said. “There is still air to fly on, but the weather or terrain make it unsuitable for any outpost or resting stops. The wildlands alone would rip apart anything stationary for more than a few hours. We’ve long learned the worldshapers are behind it. I take it your own lands are equally chaotic?”

“They are, some are inhabitable to our kind.” Drakonis said. The human did that head shake again, and Kres was now putting together it must mean some kind of approval or agreement. That or they simply liked moving their heads often. He needed to stop thinking about all that, or he’d go insane. “But many biomes are calm and have fertile lands. The limiting factor are the machines.”

Ah, even the humans must have natural limits. They likely surpassed them by adapting in clever ways like the ships and tools they’d made. Perhaps humans lived like the greyroamers? “Are your people nomadic? Do you destroy machine nests, take shelter in them for a time and then move on before more arrive?”

“No, but we do harvest machines for their power to fuel our cities,” Drakonis said as if that also was completely normal.

So, the humans not only survived against both the mite-shaped world and the machines, but founded stable cities and considered machines a resource instead of a threat. Kres was going insane.

Again. Why had they lost in the first place? He paced back and forth, muttering to himself and flinching his wingtips like a bird losing his senses. The Icon had told him all that humans could do, so he’d expected them to be a powerful race. But this was absurd.

“Oh, that’s because undersiders cheat.” Keith said when Kres finally blurted out the question. “Each city has central pillars that repel machines with only certain time periods that they power down.” He pointed the one opposing finger on his hand at Drakonis while the rest curled inwards. “Undersiders, his people, build their cities there and keep it defended during the times the pillar isn’t active.”

That… was more realistic, yes. Kres could follow that logic again.

“We didn’t make the pillars.” Drakonis said. “Mites did. But we do find refuge under them. Do large mite-made pillars exist in your explorations?”

“They do. I think.” Kres said, hoping the humans were speaking about the same pillars he was thinking of. “The Odin don’t have any records of the pillars pushing away machines. But come to think of it, I have never seen machine nests near pillars either.”

It all became somewhat more reasonable to consider now that he had the missing piece of information. Humans were powerful predators, and each could pick up and master weapons in a single hour. But against the might of machines, they had to seek shelter. Machines were tireless and even humans must have a limit on how far they could move and operate.

“We really don’t, come to think of it.” Keith said, after Kres blurted out that question as well. The human turned to Drakonis. “Armor lets us sprint for as long as we want. So long as we keep it powered, we can keep going forever. Or at least I've been able to. Drakonis spent more of his life hunting machines, he should know better.”

Drakonis did a head nod, “With armor, we outpace most machines within the three stratas. Only Drakes can run faster and need to be handled differently.”

Machines were faster than greyroamers, and could travel at that speed for longer than Odin could fly. These humans outpaced that?

“Limiting factor would be sleep and water. We can’t survive for more than a few days without either.” Drakonis added. That was the first normal thing Kres heard from humans so far.

“Yep.” Keith did the head shake again. “We can survive without food for a good few months, assuming we were well fed before having to go hungry. Water and sleep are more difficult to go without.”

“Months?” Kres croaked out. “… how many?”

“About three on average before permanent damage starts to happen.” Keith said.

Drakonis turned to his fellow, “How the fuck would you even know that?”

“Surface dweller.” Keith answered, patting his chest. “Frostbloom is plentiful enough, but we have to know all our potential limits and what we can work with. Knowledge increases survival chance.”

Greyroamers could survive for some time without food, but the Odin could not. A week without food would kill any Odin. “It is a wonder your species lost to machines in the first place.” He eventually said.

“Oh, that’s because the machines also cheated.” Keith said, doing that thing with the shoulders and hands again. Kres ignored it for his own sanity. “Our ancestors should have won the war with no trouble, but the machines turned the golden era weapons against them and turned off all the golden era defenses, all at the same time across the world. And those weapons were powerful. World-breaking powerful. The true war between machines and humans was over in minutes, and after that humanity was mostly wiped out with only stragglers left behind. Took years for the machines to manage and the pale lady had to be paranoid about every possible inch humans could crawl out of. As far as I learned.”

Drakonis turned to Keith, “Where did you hear that?”

“I’ve got certain friends that know the other side of the war.” Keith said. “You should know, you tried to kill them too.”

The two devolved into bickering again, while Kres took a hop back and sat on his haunches, trying to understand the wealth of information he’d just learned.

Humans were still alive. More than that - So long as they had even a tiny branch to perch on, they were a threat even the machine rulers couldn’t easily put down.

And now two of them were here among his strata, sent by the mites. The message was obvious. He only needed to get them working together against the infestation and they would surely wipe out the entirety within a week.

If they didn’t kill each other first.

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