48 A.L.: SARAH

Sarah stopped between four tanks and knelt down to run her fingers over the floor. She tended to give floor tiles more attention than the others since in their shapes they often hid new enchantments. The tile was different from the rest of the floor. When she touched it she could feel the inscription in a ring around its edge.

“Grandmother,” Sarah said, calling the older woman over. She looked up to find Grandmother already standing beside her. Grandmother told Alex to keep watch, before kneeling down beside Sarah.

“What is it?” she asked.

“This tile doesn’t match,” Sarah explained. “I can’t see it, but I can feel an inscription. Can you feel it?”

“Yes,” Grandmother replied. That meant it was a true physical inscription. People who were born inside the structure were more integrated than those who entered after adulthood like Grandmother. The result was that Control could make the structure born actually feel texture that wasn’t there. It was a development that worried Grandmother and frankly terrified Sarah. She didn’t like the idea of being part of the structure.

“Maybe we could see it better in indirect light,” She stood up and looked at the light panel that was three stories up, but directly overhead. “I am going to turn off the light directly over us,” Grandmother said in a loud voice. Alex nodded and Sarah heard an acknowledgement called back to them from Todd above.

Grandmother cast dark, turning the light panel off. They were plunged into shadow. The tall tanks were blocking most of the light from the other ceiling lights. The inscription was clearer but still hard to read. The indirect light also revealed two handles in the center of the tile. They were folded down into groves. Sarah reached up and flipped them out. Grandmother grasped them and tried to lift the tile. There was no movement.

“What spell is it?” Grandmother asked Sarah. Sarah called out the numbers going around in a leftward turn. “I recognize it,” Grandmother said. “Force tap; it is a tier three force weapon imbuement.” Sarah leaned back on her haunches, wondering how that would apply. “Switch with Alex,” Grandmother directed, “I think his sword will work better against anything that might emerge from below. I have an idea about how to open it.”

Sarah stepped back from the opening and into the gap between two tanks. She turned slightly to keep her back to one of the tanks, while she scanned the room for any approaching danger. Alex moved to a position close to the round tile, where he drew his sword and stood ready.

Grandmother leaned over and grabbed the handles again. This time when she pulled the cover popped off. Sarah realized the older woman imbued the cover handles with the spell. She stepped back, away from Alex. This gave him a clear view of what was inside.

“Clear,” Alex said in a strong clear voice. Then he ruined it by saying, “I think. It is really dark inside.”

Grandmother dropped one handle and turned the lid vertical. There was another inscription on the inside. The cover was about two feet in diameter and two inches thick. It looked heavy. The older woman handled it like it was light as a feather. She looked down into the hole. “Sarah, can you turn the light back on?” Grandmother requested.

“Turning the light on,” Sarah called loud enough for Todd and Ellen to hear above before tossing the spell up.

“Hmm…” Grandmother murmured as she looked down. “It really is hard to see very far. Let me set this down,” she said, indicating the lid. “Keep an eye on it.” She turned and slipped between two tanks to set the cover down in the space between the next set of tanks. She took a moment to study the inscription on the inside before returning.

“I’ll be right back,” Grandmother said, before disappearing into the hole. She slipped into the opening so fast that Alex took a step forward in surprise. He looked down straining to see her. Grandmother’s garb continued to darken. It was still a noticeably purple color but a very dark version of it. It vanished into the shadows easily. Alex made a comment on how hard it was to see Grandmother in the darkness. Sarah cast infrared on him and herself. He thanked her as he continued to keep an eye on Grandmother as she descended.

“I think she has reached the bottom,” Alex commented. “It looks as far down as the ceiling is above us.”

“How did she climb down?” Sarah asked. She was keeping watch for anything approaching them on this floor.

“There are divots in the wall she used like a ladder, only they are on either side of the hole instead of just one side. She made it look easy.” Which didn’t really mean it was. “There must be a side passage,” Alex commented. “She stepped to the right and I can’t see her heat signature anymore.”

“What do we do if she doesn’t come back up?” Sarah asked.

“We go down after her,” Alex responded with perfect certainty. “I’m not going back to tell Todd we lost her.”

“True,” Sarah responded. She started considering if they should call Todd and Ellen down before they went into the hole. Anything that killed or even delayed Grandmother would likely kill them as well. Logically all four of them should go down together to retrieve her.

“There she is,” Alex commented. “Now she moved off the left.” Sarah looked at her map and at Alex’s orientation and decided that his left and right would mean an east-west passage. A few minutes passed before Alex spoke again. “She is on her way back up,” he announced.

“There is a passage below. It looks like the interior of a four foot ceramic pipe. The footing is a little difficult because of the slick surface. You have to hunch over or crawl. I am not certain which would work better.” She eyed Alex’s sword and glanced at Sarah’s bow still slung on her back. “The sword might work down there,” Grandmother commented, “but I don’t see bows doing much good. Todd’s spear and my own staff will likely be too unwieldy. We will be down to knives.”

“Do you think it is an ambush?” Alex asked.

“Yes,” Grandmother replied. “I expect at a minimum rats and more likely badgers. One benefit is a tier three force shield should block the entire passage.”

“Are we going down?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” Grandmother replied. “I’ll go fetch the others.” Grandmother headed off to the end of the room, after telling them to keep a lookout.

“Do you want the knife I found as a backup?” Sarah asked Alex as they waited.

“No,” he said. “I have a Speedwell knife in my pack. It has a sheath with it. You should make sure the others know you have that spare in case they need it.”

“I will,” Sarah responded. The rest of their party rejoined them and they prepared for the descent. Ellen slung her bow. Grandmother did much the same with her staff using a small piece of cord. Todd experienced the most trouble with his spear. When they traveled the spear never left his hands. Actually now that Sarah thought about it, the spear was usually in his hands the entire time they were in the structure. He slept with it at night in the rests. He may set it down in the inn rooms at their home square, but she wasn’t certain.

He did sit it down when he ate or cooked but it was always within easy reach. The only time she saw him without it was aboard the Speedwell. Grandmother offered him a length of cord and advice on how to secure the weapon to his back. It was longer than Grandmother’s staff, she warned him he may have to release the heel and drag it behind him. Todd practiced the move a couple times to make sure the spear point was still secure.

When Sarah offered up the knife she collected off the last bear, Todd accepted it. He did have a knife on him, but it was more an eating implement than a weapon. He wrapped the naked blade in leather and slipped it into his belt for the descent.

When everyone agreed they were ready, Alex returned his sword to its scabbard and led the way down. Grandmother’s last minute instruction was that they would head east and to wait for everyone at the bottom before heading out.

Sarah was the second to last. The strange notches on either side seemed easier than a ladder to begin with, but soon tired her muscles as they worked in the new pattern. She reached the bottom unexpectedly in the near total darkness. The heat detection spell allowed her to see the others waiting but not the walls, floor or ceiling of the tunnel they were in. She looked up and cast infrared on Todd, who was already on his way down above her, before stepping out of his way. She cast it on both Grandmother and Ellen.

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“My mistake,” Grandmother murmured as she cast the tier four night vision on all of them, including Todd as he reached the bottom. Sarah wondered why they just didn’t use light spells when she realized there were no light panels here.

They all alternated between squatting down and hunching over, looking for the best position to maneuver in the short surroundings. For once Sarah seemed the best adapted to the new environment. During their last maintenance rotation on the Speedwell she spent a lot of time in the utility access corridors that ran under the main antenna. Those narrow spaces were smaller than this pipe and all the equipment crammed into them made them even more claustrophobic.

They passed the first cross passage when the first rats showed up. Only they weren’t actually rats. They were something between a rat and a badger. They did not have the claws almost every animal in the structure was armed with. Instead they had large padded feet that seemed to stick to the slick material of the walls like glue. They would come at them walking on any surface, floor, wall or even the top curve that Sarah was thinking of as the ceiling.

The animals’ teeth made up for their lack of claws. They were covered by a short coat of spines that made it difficult to stab them without getting jabbed yourself. Todd put on a heavy pair of gloves after Grandmother healed him for the third time. The rest of them did the same, including Grandmother. As a caster she rarely wore gloves but she did carry a light pair. Sarah and Ellen were mostly casting as well, but their tier two and three spells were much simpler and easier to cast in gloves.

At the first riser Grandmother went up, while the rest of them waited at the bottom. She came back down to announce the cover was locked in place with a sixth tree spell. Sarah made a note of the spell numbers and the location of where they found it in her spell diary.

“What was the spell on the underside of the cover we came down through?” Sarah asked as she realized she forgot to look at it herself.

“It was the tier two force shield spell,” Grandmother replied. Sarah made a note of it. She wondered if the inside and outside spells always came from the same spell tree, or if it was just coincidence. Sarah stowed her notebook and they continued east.

“There is a down connection ahead,” Alex called.

“Incoming from behind us,” Todd cautioned.

“Hold here,” Grandmother ordered. “I don’t want anyone falling.” No longer trying to move, they hunkered down and took defensive positions. Alex and Ellen faced front while Sarah and Todd would guard the rear. Grandmother from her center position would provide support to whichever side needed it.

In what could not have been a coincidence, animals streamed up out of the drop ahead to attack Alex as soon as they stopped. Sarah thought Control was using the animals behind them to force them into the drop. When they didn’t fall into that trap, Control released the animals waiting in the downward pipe. Alex was able to use his sword, but not as effectively as in the open. With Ellen’s help they were able to deal with the attack.

Todd was having more trouble adapting to using the knife as a weapon. Sarah supported him with tier two ice bolts. Beside causing damage, the ice spell slowed the animals giving Todd more time to react. Todd himself was imbuing the knife with ice. He preferred using fire, but after the spines on the first animal started to smolder and fill the tube with smoke, he switched.

Todd made the killing blow on a rather large animal when a column of light suddenly emerged from the floor of the tunnel below him. It rose up through Todd and speared into the ceiling above him. The light pillar blinded all of them.

“Shield!” Grandmother called out. Even blinded, both Todd and Alex cast a tier three force shield. Holding the spell in front of them until their vision cleared. As Grandmother predicted, the shields completely blocked the tunnel keeping the party safe.

“Ready,” Grandmother called out, when she could see again. Sarah prepared to throw force darts that would push the animals physically back. “Drop shield,” Grandmother called. Everyone fired, pushing the animals back, giving them space. Soon after that the stream of animals both in front and behind petered out.

“Congratulations on tier four,” Grandmother said to Todd.

“Is that what that light meant?” Todd asked.

“Yes,” Grandmother replied. “I didn’t notice it at four,” She responded. “The first time I did was at tier five. That was much dimmer than six. I think we only saw it now because of the dark conditions and the night vision.” Sarah realized this might be the first time she heard Grandmother admit she was tier six. Sarah remembered the pillar of light that engulfed Grandmother when she reached it. It was one of Sarah’s clearest early memories. Her memories of her childhood before meeting Grandmother at age eight were blurry at best.

They carefully moved past the downward opening and continued east. The pipe they followed turned south. Whenever there was a choice, Grandmother chose to go east. If that wasn’t possible she picked south. They continued through the maze until they found another riser. Grandmother went up again. The rest of the group waited anxiously at the bottom of the shaft. Light streamed down from above when she slid the cover off. Ellen dismissed her night vision so she could keep watch above, while the rest of them ducked to the side. They kept a watch for animals approaching from the pipe.

“Climb up,” Grandmother yelled down to them. “Be careful climbing through the pipes. Some of them are dangerously hot or cold.” Ellen started up first, since she was already in position. She was followed by Alex, then Sarah and finally Todd.

When Sarah emerged out of the cover she found herself in a jungle of piping. She glanced at the cover Grandmother pushed to the side and noted that the spell described on it was a tier three singing sword spell. She dismissed her night vision on the way up, but the infrared spell she cast earlier was still active. It was clear that some of the pipes she was forced to climb and crawl through were at extreme temperatures. She planned her route to avoid the worst of them.

At the same time, small animals darted through the pipes. They would make high pitched warning cries and try to bite. They were so small they were not a real threat. Their teeth couldn’t break through the integrated cloth she wore or the leather of her gloves. The small claws seemed more useful for holding onto the rough surfaces of the pipes, then for offense. Sarah batted at them to chase them off, not bothering to draw her knife. She hit a couple tight spots, where she was forced to pass her bow or backpack forward, or drag them behind her, before finally reaching the top.

At the top of the piping tangle, about five to six feet up, Sarah dragged herself onto a catwalk. Alex and Ellen were scouting out the rest of the room, while Grandmother waited for the rest of them. Sarah was startled when she realized the older woman was holding one of the small animals in her hand.

The animal was making a clicking noise by grinding its teeth together in an attempt to display its disapproval. It was a completely different tone from the chirps Sarah heard from the ones below. The animal twisted and turned in Grandmother’s grip as it tried to set its feet and paws into the leather of her glove. Grandmother was ignoring the animal's distress as she inspected it quite thoroughly.

“What are you doing?” Sarah heard herself say, as her mind struggled to come up with a reason for Grandmother’s actions.

“It reminds me of a squirrel,” Grandmother replied. That response didn’t make any sense to Sarah at all.

“It looks nothing like a squirrel,” Sarah countered as she looked at the tiny animal. Squirrels were forty pound animals that traveled in packs through the trees in the structure's greens. They were dangerous animals that could kill a person.

“Not a structure squirrel,” Grandmother explained, “an earthen squirrel. See the tail?” she questioned. Twisting her hand so that Sarah got a clear view of a fuzzy tail that was flicking angerly. “Very few animals on this world have tails but most of them on earth did. Squirrels on Earth lived in trees, not pipes, but these claws match what they had for clinging to bark. I think the teeth might not be right, I am not certain.”

“How do you know what an earth squirrel looked like?” Sarah asked.

“Before the landing I completed classes on ecology and ecosystems. No one knew what animals, if any, would be on this planet, so they used earth animals to illustrate the concepts. All the animals in the structure were named after something from those lessons. None of them really match. The structure squirrels were named that because they were in the trees. But this little girl matches the description much closer,” Grandmother explained.

Sarah heard a bump and saw Todd was pushing the butt of his spear up through the pipe. She leaned out to grab the end and called down to Todd that she was holding it. He called back, asking her to pull it the rest of the way up. Sarah carefully did so. She flipped the weapon and rested the butt on the catwalk before calling down to Todd that it was secure. She did not release the weapon since she knew how much it meant to him.

She turned back to find that Grandmother was fishing a half finished granola bar out of her pack with one hand. They made the bars on the Speedwell. Sarah thought they ran out of them weeks ago. This one must have been bouncing around in the bottom of Grandmother’s pack for weeks. Grandmother bit off a piece of it, before shoving the rest into a pocket in her clothing. She took the piece from her mouth and offered it to the animal she still held in her other hand. The animal took the piece from her fingers and held it in its paws. Its entire demeanor changed. Its fear vanished entirely as it consumed the food.

“What is she doing?” Todd asked quietly from just behind Sarah, startling her. While watching Grandmother’s display, she completely missed his arrival. She handed his spear back to him.

“I am not certain,” Sarah responded to his question. Grandmother set the animal down. It crammed the rest of the food into its mouth to hold it and scampered away, over the edge of the catwalk and back down into the pipes. “If all the animals are named after earthen animals, what should we call the animals that were in that passage?” Sarah asked.

“Hmm…” Grandmother thought. “We could call them moles or porcupines. Moles lived in tunnels under the ground while porcupines were covered with spines on their bodies that they would use to defend themselves.” Todd flexed his hand beside Sarah as he remembered the pain of getting pierced.

“Porcupines,” he declared.

“Porcupines it is,” Grandmother agreed.