12 Miles Below

The gloom in the tunnel was illuminated only by our suit lights. Father breathed a sigh, collapsing on the side of the tunnel and sliding down to sit. He took a few steadying breaths, getting his energy back. Winterscar looked outright mutilated, dozens of plates ripped into, but otherwise still in one piece. Starting to suspect that relic armor relied a lot more on shields then it did the metal plates. Or that everything down here had already been more specialized at ripping apart metal armor. None of the automatons had any rifles, so far. Knock on metal that trend followed.

A massive thud resounded from the door at our side, doing the knocking for me already. Followed by claw sounds and furious screeches. Our six legged - no scratch that - our five legged friend was not at all happy he hadn't been invited past the door like we had been. That said... "Can they break through the door?"

Father motioned me over with his working hand, ignoring the sounds, then he sat up to kneel by my leg once I scooted by. “No. Nothing is getting through the door.” He said in the darkness as he reached for his boot.

His knife was drawn out, humming to life in the tunnel, looking like a brief halo as he spun it around his palm in preparation. Another source of light besides our own.

Once I oriented my chest light to get a better view at my calf, I could see the steel spike had gone straight through without any resistance. It looked horrible, blood staining the entire weave around the wound. Also wasn't hurting at all. I knew I should have felt something, instead my calf felt stiff and unresponsive, like someone was holding it still.

The occult knife was lowered near to the far side of the spike, cutting off the end, leaving the core embedded into my calf. “Prepare the field repair kit. I’ll pull the rest of the spike, you’ll need to seal both exit wounds right after.”

I stumbled out the backback, taking out the field repair and medical kits.

Sounds and scraping still came from the door, the automaton on the other side hadn't given up yet. It continued to pound against the door, wailing.

Father noticed my attention on the barrier, "Those spiders are difficult to kill. But they don't have anything more than legs to fight with. They lack the tools or firepower they’d need to break open a mite made door. And they're not strong enough to pry it open either."

"I wouldn't be standing around here if I wasn't sure." He said.

More banging came from the door. I knocked back, "Sorry, occupied. Go bang on another door."

There was a pause and then the screeching resumed at a higher octave along with slamming. Hmm, so they could understand english. "Hey buddy, how about we call the whole thing one big misunderstanding and forget all about this?"

The scratching and screaming told me it wasn't going to forget anytime soon. Father tutted. "Don't play around, boy. We gain nothing by taunting the creatures."

"Yeah, but after all the scrapshit these things put us through, I really want to twist the knife into them. Gallows humor, Kidra would call it. Helps me cope with ratshit luck."

Father scoffed, shoving my chest back slightly. "Rotten luck? We had great luck when the door shut as it did."

"Great luck? These doors were calling to us the whole time." I said, elbowing him back.

"And what do you think a trap looks like, boy? Have you already forgotten about the lever? Don't think a few minor life and death encounters made me forget about the three baskets of frostbloom you owe, young man."

Did he just... crack a joke? Or was he serious? Both? Both. The thing caught me so flat footed I hardly knew what to say back. "Ah," was the only word that came out.

"Ah, indeed," He sighed, glancing at the sealed door, resting his back against the wall. "In this case... you made the best of the options we had. The automaton would have chased us down the tunnels even if we’d managed to run. That was a poor plan on my part. There'd be no escape. And the cover shots with your pistol gave me the opening I needed." He paused for a moment. "I would have died without it, Keith. You made the right call."

Father giving me a compliment was something that seemed alien. I didn't know how to feel about that, so... I got busy instead. There was a metal spike embedded into my calf I had forgotten about.

It looked like the spike had only punctured through the muscle at least. The training under my belt was basic when it came to first aid and anatomy. From the angle, it would be a sound guess that the spike hadn’t gone through bone, which would have been a nightmare to deal with. Another stroke of great luck there, I'll grudgingly add another point on Father's side. The kit popped open at my side as I took out the glue gun.

He grabbed the remaining end, and counted down to three. Then he yanked the spike out of my calf wholesale. I didn’t feel any pain, more like someone had pushed something in my calf from the inside. Blood flowed out almost immediately, and I drowned the whole with a shot of glue at the epicenter. Quickly, I turned my calf around and shot the other side. Couldn’t be sure if I had really hit the center of the wound, but the glue was already hardening. I didn’t see any more drops of blood leaking out of it.

Father glanced over at the work. “Good. You'll need to take a pain suppressor from your med kit once the adrenaline wears off. Try not to use your leg, but don't be afraid to sprint if it'll save your life in the short term. Do you understand?"

I gave him a nod and replaced the field repair gun with another syringe from my kit.

Father hadn't set the ruined rifle down on the side of the tunnel, examining it while I'd been tending to my wound. The spikes on the rifle had cut clean through, a mirror to my calf. But better the rifle then the battered armor. It was clear this rifle wasn't going to see another fight.

The weapon was an old thing, well worn and used. Unlike relic armor, this was something Father maintained himself.

It was with a sense of loss that he hovered over it. Even with the full faceless helmet, it was oddly expressive. Down one of his best weapons. Which meant the occult knife, my pistol and one grenade were the only things we had left to defend ourselves with down here.

"I'll need your pistol." No arguments from me, I passed it over without a word. I wasn't particularly attached to guns anyhow.

"Will the extra size of the grip be an issue?" I asked him.

"Oversized grip won't hinder me too much. It's the limited shots and precision that I'm worried about."

A dull pain was starting to come through my leg. A reminder that the adrenaline wasn't going to hang around forever. Better get that painkiller into my system.

I pulled out another vial with the right label, preparing it to the dosage. It was silly to consider just how many precious vials I was running through in a matter of hours. Like reserving all your sweets for a whole year only to waste it in one day. But if it got us back home, I was willing to pay any price. And if there was ever a time to use items instead of hoarding them, it would be now. The vial was set and administered with a tiny hiss.

Black dust drifted off the winterscar armor, flowing across down to his hand, where Father held the bloody spike pieces. I saw the dust consume the entire thing, gore and all. Still, the armor remained horribly damaged. He glanced over to the severted automaton limb, before a particularly loud bang against the door caught both our attention. I think it had tried to charge into the door.

There was still furious screeching, metal limbs scratching against it. The thing was persistent, I’ll give it that. Father didn’t seem to mind, instead lifting up the severed machine limb as if in offering.

The dust consumed that just as easily as the spike. I saw it slowly disintegrate, bit by bit.

Relic armors were good at telling what damage would be critical and what could be survivable hit by hit. So they'd use energy shielding with great efficiency. But Winterscar was seriously toeing the line in these fights. I didn’t know if it always functioned this way, or if the armor knew exactly how bad of a situation we were in. And was trying it’s best to stretch out integrity.

A massive crack on his chest still remained, parts of the exterior plates knocked right off where the automaton had landed a glancing hit on. For the second time, I got a more detailed look at what existed under these armors. Inside, multiple small separate metallic plates connected to a mess of wires. Each had incredibly intricate glowing images carved into the plates, the same glow as the occult weapons had on their edge.

The chest exterior armor made it hard to tell the inscriptions on these smaller plates. The least obstructed was made up of triangles. Massive triangles at first, breaking off into smaller ones. The pattern repeated over and over, growing smaller each time, multiplying in all directions. Other plates also had similar patterns, just different shapes, or designs.

I could understand wiring and circuit boards, but why all of these? They looked like solid chunks of metal, with no purpose other than to hold the glyph.

Were they signs to point out different sections of the armor? Some sort of language?

I discarded those two ideas right out - why go through all that trouble of carving out such detailed images when a simple label would do? Language couldn’t be useful if it took hours to craft one letter. If there was meaning to gleam from the visual, then it would have to be simpler.

Considering more, the only conclusion that made some amount of sense was a crafter's mark. It could be that each armor had many different forge masters behind its creation. Hence all the different plates inside. But what’s with the occult glow?

I didn't get much more of a look at the internals, as the armor's spirit regenerated the upper layer of armor on top. It had greedily devoured through the metal offering until there was nothing left to give. Only white ceramic and strands of black wire fell on the ground, leftovers. The automaton limb had been all used up. But the armor hadn't been completely fixed, there were still gashes by the arm and legs. Odd that the armor hadn't consumed the whole limb, leaving parts untouched. Was it a picky eater?

He turned to glance at me and I unpacked my backpack, rifling through the contents for anything we could spare. The life support system had already been cannibalized to repair the earlier damage against screamers, once we’d found a place to hide. Whatever was left were more essential tools. Rope, crowbar, and other miscellaneous items that would be needed later on. I looked up and shook my head at him. There wasn’t anything inside.

He sighed, then turned to look at his rifle. There was a look of almost mourning when he stared down at the busted rifle. Though I could have imagined that. When he reached for it, I had a more obvious idea. “Why not cut some of the walls here and use that?”

Father turned to peer in my direction, contemplating something. Then he shrugged, taking out his knife and cutting off a piece of the wall. Holding it out, the black dust drifted around it, circling, and then retreating back into the armor. The shard of rock he'd cut remained unconsumed.

“Do you understand? Relic armors have certain materials they don’t assimilate." He said, tossing the rock shard on the ground. "Most well known of these are other relic armors, anything made by mites, and certain clays.” He knocked the walls of the tunnel. “This looks like rock, but the entirety was made by mites. Even the dirt under you was made by mites. Natural dirt and earth is likely miles under us, under the final level, if I had to guess.”

Father reached out to the rifle, mind set. “As far as I know, metal is one of the few mite-made materials that could be assimilated, but it has to be melted down first. Organic material can also work in a pinch, but the returns are slim. We’d have to travel and collect plants for some time before the armor could be back to full condition.” He glanced down at his old weapon, riddled with those huge spikes. “Time I can't assume we'll get. This rifle isn’t going to be repaired with the tools we have here. It’s dead weight now.”

He held out the weapon in offering. The black haze swarmed over, reaching the rifle, consuming it. Including the steel spikes that had ended the gun's long running career. About two thirds of the way, the black haze retreated back into the relic armor’s cracks, satiated.

What was left was a rifle-like shape of metal, the interiors exposed and half dissolved. I could see even the clip had been half-consumed, showing an empty hollow where the bullets had once been, before he'd run empty in the earlier fight. He tossed the remnants of metal on the floor, looking at it for a moment before turning his headlights back down the dark cramped tunnel.

"Well. I guess we can keep following the yellow light for now?" I said. As if it could hear us, a golden light winked into existence, near the end of our light’s range. No question it wanted us to follow.

I had no idea where it wanted to lead us, but it saved my life so it had that going for it.

Father grunted, unhappy with the prospect but finding no other alternative. We weren't going back to the spider automaton death trap. Last I counted, that was the only other option right now. I couldn’t hear anymore noise from that door, but I wasn’t about to try to open it.

"Urs watch over us," Father muttered and took a step down the tunnel, pistol at the ready.

We followed an unspoken agreement to trust it for now. On the first few steps I could feel blood had pooled in my boot. Despite the patch I'd administered, a good amount of blood had already soaked my socks before. Felt like I'd submerged my foot in water by accident. Walking was already awkward in an environmental suit. Now with my calf growing stiff and unmovable, it was slowing me down.

I didn't ask to be carried and instead tried to put all my attention on keeping a quick pace, limping whenever I could. We were going down an unknown tunnel, following an unknown entity with unknown motives. On the other hand, we were walking away from a known death-trap, with an known entity and clear motives to murder us.

I'll consider this a lucky upgrade. Another point for Father.

The first time we encountered a door at the end of a tunnel, it opened as soon as we drew near. Once we slipped past, it closed behind us just as quickly. The process would repeat as we journeyed, each door would open for us without complaint.

Father seemed unnerved by that, but didn't make any more comments, keeping that pistol at the ready the whole time.

We didn't run into any danger along the way, blessedly. The gold light had guided us true so far, except that it wasn't leading us closer to the surface. There hadn’t been any, if at all, moments where we’d had to climb up. That made me nervous, but since we were exploring a branch tunnel, there were no other lights to guide us.

After about an hour of travel, we found ourselves in a dark antechamber. Our headlights surveyed the area, gray stone lit up at each head turn. The golden light had stopped appearing in this cavern, and the only way was forward.

A feeling stirred inside me, that we'd reached the destination the light had been leading us to.

Deeper inside, I realized this wasn't just a cavern; It was an unplanned crypt.

Collapsed on the side of another mite-made wall, lay skeletal corpses of dead humans.

Father dropped to his knees at the sight, once his headlights flashed over all three bodies. Then he brought his hand to his chest, pistol and all, in the most reverent praying posture exodites knew. "Praise be to Urs... We actually have a chance now." He whispered in awe.

I followed his gaze, finding myself going from horrified to similarly awed.

The grinning skulls were all undisturbed and in one piece. The sub-zero temperature must have slowed down the rot. Yet the semi frozen bodies had still decomposed into the bone-white skeletons.

They were ancient. Two of the bodies still had scraps of clothing that I couldn't recognize, color and shape long gone. That wasn't the important part.

It was the third dead man that had brought Father to his knees in prayer. This was what the gold light had been leading us for.

That last body sat contemplatively against a rock, further away from his two companions in death. Calmly cradling an ancient rifle in his lap. A longsword lay propped next to the body, a simple blade with a decorated cross hit.

And one familiar faceless helmet sat by his other side, skeletal fingers resting upon it.

As perfectly intact as the relic armor the man had died wearing. Now a burial gift.

Masterless and desolate, waiting all this time in the dark.

Waiting... for its next wielder.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!