Roberts was not with the group the next time they traveled into the tunnels. Other than him, however, everyone was ready to return two days after the fight, even the man who took the shoulder injury. Serenity learned his name was Ron Williams. That was really all he knew about the man; he was good with a rifle and that was all Serenity needed to know.
Before the retreat, they’d shot all of the basilisks they saw. This trip was to find out if they’d killed them or not. Unlike the previous time, Serenity didn’t listen when they tried to tell him to stay behind because he didn’t want to use a rifle; he’d tried that. It didn’t work. He was immune to the petrification attack. The basilisk could hurt him if it attacked physically but he was still better protected than the soldiers were; their armor did very little against either attack type.
This time, however, instead of over a dozen basilisks, only four moved. One of them was small, like the one that attacked Serenity, but Serenity suspected it wasn’t the same one. It was probably the one that attacked Ron. There was an unmoving lump in the same spot Serenity had last seen the one that attacked him.
None of them survived more than a few seconds after they moved. The greenstone rifles could shoot through the stone that protected the basilisks almost like it wasn’t there. They simply didn’t survive when three shots hit them within a couple seconds.
Serenity was the first out of the manastream. Ita, Williams, and two men whose names Serenity couldn’t remember guarded his back.
Serenity went first to the nearest basilisk body. He could feel a general air of Death in the area but that didn’t mean everything was dead. That one was. A shot from one of the three behind him told Serenity that at least one person thought he’d seen a basilisk move. As far as he was concerned, twitchy fingers were fine right now as long as they didn’t shoot him. The basilisks were a real threat.
Serenity went from body to body, checking the basilisks. Two were alive but unmoving; Serenity’s manablade made quick work of them. Three more attempted to attack Serenity. The first glared at him when he came into view; that was enough to get Serenity’s attention. It did not end well for the basilisk. The other two tried to attack feebly and found out that Serenity was faster than they were when he wasn’t caught by surprise.
The only basilisk that truly held a surprise for Serenity during the cleanup effort was the one who’d attacked him in the river. It didn’t move until he was close; when it did, it revealed that it was somehow still on fire. It blew the cold fire of the manastream at Serenity.
Naturally, the fire did nothing through the protection of the wrap Serenity was still wearing. A single shot from a greenstone rifle was the last thing the basilisk felt.
Serenity hadn’t expected basilisks to be able to do that. They were elementals; while they weren’t simple elementals at all, they were supposed to be of animal intelligence at the most. Very few things in nature threatened basilisks; they weren’t good food and they were dangerous. It just wasn’t worth it unless they started spreading into the area of a powerful creature and it felt threatened.
They were also supposed to be extremely rare which made the numbers Serenity had already seen here very odd. Serenity had never seen anything quite like them in all his years as Vengeance; why were there so many on Earth?
Were they an escaped experiment of the Wizard of A’Atla or maybe of the Order that built the great ship? That was the only thing that seemed to immediately make sense, but it certainly didn’t explain why they were in the engine of all places. Wouldn’t that be exactly where they were supposed to be kept out of?
Alternatively, did they live somewhere else on Earth and get transported “to Tartarus” to either be contained or perhaps act as threats for the prisoners?
Serenity doubted he’d ever know. It probably wasn’t important. It wasn’t like basilisks were unknown elsewhere.
The rest of the basilisks were confirmed dead when Serenity went to check the smaller, flatter shapes he’d seen from inside the manastream. They didn’t move when the other basilisks moved to attack him, so he’d classed them as a lower threat. The first one looked like a basilisk; at least, it looked like a lizard with scales made of stone. It also looked almost flattened, but it wasn’t like something had stepped on it. Instead, it was more like the basilisk had deflated.
Whatever it was, it was definitely dead. Serenity couldn’t tell if it was a basilisk that had failed to survive hibernation or if it was one that died before A’Atla sank and never went into hibernation; the only real clue was the fact that it wasn’t curled up like the hibernating basilisks. A quick check of the other three showed the same lack of information. Serenity was certain there would be people back at camp that would be happy to investigate and would probably do a better job than he would; he’d just have to make sure he saw a copy of the report eventually.
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Serenity stood and turned back to the river. “Come on out; it’s time to get everyone over to this side.”
It didn’t take long to shuttle everyone over to the basilisks’ side of the river; it simply wasn’t that wide and they could move four people through the river at a time. Once they were on the correct side, however, they had to figure out where to go. Despite the fact that Serenity had a map, the labeling on it was poor. He was certain it meant a lot to the designer; unfortunately, labels like “Lt U Nx” didn’t mean much to him. Those were the better labels, too; half of them weren’t translated at all.
Amani told Serenity they were equally unintelligible to her, as well. It didn’t help that she’d never had any kind of a manual for interacting with A’Atla. From what she said, the access he’d given her was more than anyone other than possibly Ea had gotten; none of it came with proper documentation. If there was any, it hadn’t been found yet.
It would have been a reason to want to get into Ea’s temple if it weren’t collapsed. The chances were that anything paper wouldn’t have survived the time underwater, but it was still worth trying. Many important documents had a clay permanent copy in A’Atlan society. There wasn’t just Amani’s word for that; they’d found quite a few. Most were little more than notes used in commerce, but even that was apparently enough to build up quite a bit of information on A’Atla.
Serenity picked the room with the most notes as the goal. He didn’t know what it was, but it was either going to be a control room or something very important to A’Atla’s powerplant. That had to be why it was marked the way it was, even if Serenity couldn’t read the labels on the map.
The route twisted and turned. Serenity could feel large amounts of mana moving through the corridor as they walked. It was nothing like the manastream they’d crossed, closer to the level of the rest of A’Atla. It was still enough higher that Serenity paid attention. This area wasn’t under or even particularly near the mountain of World Core crystal or the “drain” he was trying to plug, so the heightened mana levels were clearly functional rather than circumstantial.
The second thing Serenity noticed was the signs of battle. Some places had clearly been repaired, but there were scars on the wall that looked like residue from all sorts of different attacks. None of them had any mana residue, unfortunately; they were simply too old. Serenity suspected that if they’d had residue, some of it would have been Night Fire.
The group was attacked by individual basilisks three times in the first mile they walked through the snaking tunnels. They were able to hear the stone moving against stone sound of a basilisk uncurling each time, which meant everyone was ready. Two of the three times, the basilisk didn’t even manage to turn to face the group before it was shot down. The second time, it happened to be lucky enough to be facing Liam when it unrolled. The curse-shield Serenity had insisted on placing on everyone paid off in his lack of injury.
The third basilisk was next to an odd lump that Serenity almost immediately recognized: that was a person. A person who’d been waterlogged starting within only a few hours of death in a place where nothing could get in to nibble at it. A place where the temperature was chill enough that the normal decay processes were essentially completely halted. The man had twisted as he dried out afterwards, but there was still no clear sign of rot.
If Serenity hadn’t known better, he could have believed the body was recent. In many ways, the most obvious sign that it wasn’t was the complete lack of Death Affinity mana around him. Serenity could even see the death wound; the man in front of him had clearly bled out from a relatively clean strike to his leg. It was only relatively clean because it was clear that the man had tried to keep moving even with his leg half-severed; the original slash was clean but then it tore farther.
Unlike the earlier bodies, this one wasn’t wearing armor; instead, he was dressed in what was probably once fine clothing. It was hard to tell, now, but the colors were still strong; that was usually a good place to start. A closer look showed that there was metal thread of some sort worked into embroidery on the man’s shirt; that was enough. This was definitely fine clothing of some sort. Serenity didn’t touch it; after what it had been through, it had to be fragile.
“What happened here? Wait, is that - is there someone else in here with us?” Samantha sounded worried. “I didn’t hear a fight.”
“He’s been dead a very long time,” Serenity answered. “There’s little decay in the conditions he was in. Cold, dark, and probably low-oxygen water doesn’t promote decay. That’s why there’s very little smell, too. Now that we’ve been here and it’s warmer, we’ll want to get someone in here to handle the body. The one thing this does tell us is that basilisks don’t eat things that aren’t stone. That’s not a surprise but I like the confirmation.”
“How do you know it’s old?” Samantha still sounded worried. She walked up to the body and took a good look. “That looks painful.”
Serenity decided to tell her the most obvious thing she’d be able to see instead of talking about the way mana dissipated. “There’s no blood trail. Look near the wound; he bled out. There’s a little blood caught in the cloth of his pants but almost none on his skin or the stone. There should be blood everywhere; that sort of wound is very, very messy. That means the blood’s been washed away. Well, either that or he was moved here, but he’s clearly been submerged and since the entire ship was underwater, mostly flooded, for centuries…” Serenity shrugged. It was a straightforward conclusion. It didn’t tell him who the man was or why he was here, but he already knew there was fighting nearby. This man was clearly one of the casualties.