CHAPTER 185

With more than one nervous look behind them, they sped up slightly. Not too much, of course. This was still an unknown, hostile environment.

There was a crash and a roar. It was like a skyscraper had fallen down or maybe two stone elementals clashing together or maybe more apocalyptic. The sound of the earth dying, possibly, loud enough that even this far away it was almost sufficient to deafen him. He would hate to be closer for a variety of reasons.

Tom glanced back. Wind that didn’t belong in the underground smacked into his face.

“By all the gods?” Thor cursed.

Tom ignored the man as his eyes were transfixed by what he could see. Right at the spot they had entered.

Penetrating into an actual thoroughfare of the underground was the glow of dawn.

His mouth went dry. His heart beat thundered in his ears, his fist clenched so hard on the shaft of his spear he expected it to crack.

This…

This was not normal. It was not the surface impacting on the peripheries, it was outside light reaching a core part of the underground.

His jaws ground together, and he could taste the sharp taste of copper. He futily tried to make his hands relax and failed. He shivered. He couldn’t stop himself.

The power needed to…

Something had just….

Everlyn tugged hard on his hands. “Hurry.”

He hadn’t even realised he had frozen and he let himself be dragged forward while sending an anxious glance back at that light. The parts of him that had been shut down started up once more. Part of him hoped he would get to see the monster which had done it. They were at least twenty metres into the underground. That was a lot of nearly impenetrable rock to have dug up. In comparison, the thirty metres of surface stone, which the monster would have to have also dug through was meaningless.

There was another rumbling noise behind them, and terror filled him. He abandoned the desire to see and sprinted away.

Everlyn slowed sightly and then took a hard right. He followed instinctively and entered a narrow crack in the wall. The air did not smell stale, but he couldn’t tell if this entrance would link through to another tunnel or if it would peter away to nothing. Everlyn obviously thought it was suitable as she forged forward. It was immediately apparent why she had chosen this risk. The crack, rather than travelling parallel to the surface like the east, west tunnel they had been in went mostly down.

Good, Tom thought. It was all his shuttering brain was able to manage. They had to get away as quickly as possible.

Tom’s shoulders brushed against the sides and he had to duck his head regularly to avoid the shorter sections.

It all twisted, turned and descended and it felt like it could end at any moment. This was not a thoroughfare. It was also barely lit, which typecast it more certainly than anything else. It was either rarely used, a trap or new. It could be any of those, but the answer was probably the middle option. Everything in this world was the same. The only thing more scary than the monster facing you was the one right around the next corner.

Everlyn must have realised the danger because she suddenly froze and held up her hand.

“We wait.” The words came clearly through to all of them via her party chat, but her power protected them from anything beyond hearing.

Once more, the sounds of the world ending came from above. The monster, whatever it was had dug further.

“What is it?” Sven whispered.

“I don’t know.” Everlyn answered. “I only got a glimpse of it when I stuck my head out. It knew where we were and was perched on the next hill over. By the time my mind registered its existence… well, the rocks were already flying in my direction. I panicked, and I didn’t get off an identification.”

“It would have returned question marks, anyway.”

“Maybe, Sven, Maybe” Everlyn replied neutrally. She, of course, had a massive amount of class points invested in identification. Most monsters would return something when examined by her skills. “But hopefully we’ll never find out whether it would have worked, because I really don’t want to see it again.”

“It ripped into the underground.” Michael pointed out. “If anything is a guaranteed question mark, then it is that.”

“If you say so,” Everlyn said tiredly.

“To dig into the underground…” The healer continued. “What would that need? Rank one hundred?”

“I don’t know,” Everlyn answered, with a trace of annoyance. “Random speculation won’t help. What ever it was it’s clear we can’t fight it.”

“You can say that again.” Michael agreed.

“What I want to know.” Harry declared.

“Shush.” Jingyi snapped.

Harry bit his lip. He had spoken in a soft speaking voice but was unnecessarily loud in the circumstance. “What I want to know,” he continued, this time in a whisper. “Is what the hell something that strong is doing traversing an area with a rank lower than twenty?”

Next to him. Everlyn shrugged. “Probably a sapient.”

“That big?” Keikain asked.

“There’s no limits on size.” Everlyn answered. “Being big doesn’t guarantee you’re dumb, even if the evidence we have suggests otherwise…”

“Hey,” Thor protested.

Everlyn chuckled quietly. He could feel her vibrating next to him. “I didn’t mean it Thor, you know we love you. Tom, Keikain can you manipulate the local earth?”

Tom immediately checked. His mind reaching out with Earth Manipulation to test how vulnerable it was to control. “Barely.” He answered. “I can move the rock, but with a massive hit in efficiency.”

“So we’re not currently in the underground?”

“I don’t know,” Keikain replied. “I know the accepted wisdom is Earth Manipulation won’t work on the structural tunnels in the underground, but both mine and Tom’s Earth affinity is sky high. It’s probable our manipulation will work on the edges and possible in its centre as well. I’m not sure common wisdom applies to us.”

“Let’s bunker here. Keikain booby trap the tunnel from where we’ve come from. Get it ready to collapse. Tom…” Everlyn tapped the stone in front of her. “Do the same here.”

There was another earthquake behind them. Tom could imagine lots of scenarios from the monster scraping deeper along the east, west tunnel to it doing strip mining to find them, but they had descended an additional hundred plus metres and an equal amount horizontally. Tom doubted it would be able to dig this far down, or at least that it would bother. Then even if it did, it would have to find them, which would take time and let them run further.

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“Tom, make sure you don’t panic and close it by accident. We still might need to….”

“I was thinking exactly the same thing, Evie.” He checked, and she had switched him to a private channel. “We might need to keep fleeing.”

Tom went to work, exercising his power. He felt out the roof in front of him identified cracks and slowly, despite the extra effort it took, he worked on those weaknesses. Expanded them. Adding extra damage to existing fault lines. Just wearing down the stability of the supports to where he could collapse it at a moment’s thought.

The regular thunder of shifting earth above them halted. The creature had been digging regularly, but for some reason it was no longer doing so. Hopefully, it meant that the monster had moved on.

Ten minutes passed in silence.

Tom did not relax in the slightest. They could still be attacked from above or below even if the giant monster had stopped pursuing them.

The rich scent of their morning breakfast reached him. He almost growled in response.

“Relax Tom,” Toni said over the chat. “Both scouts approved, and the food will help us function.”

“Our body odour is a bigger concern.” Jingyi told him. “I know we washed yesterday, but it was pretty superficial.”

“Speak for yourself,” Thor grumbled. “You weren’t the one lying in the stream.”

“Children,” Michael reprimanded almost laughing as he did so. “We all hated that stream.”

Tom’s stomach grumbled, and they were in tight space. Everyone heard.

“See,” Toni said knowledgeably. “Your stomach agrees.”

His chat with Everlyn was externally switched to the private setting once more. “Tom. It was a worthwhile risk. Psychologically as much as physically. We need to be reminded the underground is not the boogieman.”

“It is.”

She chuckled silently.

“What?”

“Boogieman is a thing children imagine… A perceived threat that is not there. It’s sort of what the underground is.”

“No, the underground is not a figment of someone’s imagination. It is real and demonstratably deadly.”

“That’s why I was laughing at myself, but it’s also sort of true. It’s an eco-system. It’s not specifically out to get us. We can survive even under ranked… if we’re lucky. It isn’t as terrifying as everyone thinks. It’s not the monster under the bed it’s more a wolf pack in the local forest. Providing you are sensible, you can manage the risk.”

“Unless you need to go through the forest.”

“Even then,” she shot back. “Timing, awareness, climbing trees. They can all help you get through.”

“I guess. I didn’t think… yeah you’re right. We can do this.”

There were sounds of eating and Tom kept watch with Everlyn next to him. A few minutes later he was handed some fabric that contained a thick luke warm meaty gruel from the breakfast Keikain had mostly cooked. He would have preferred that it had been left unopened, but when he ate his share, he had to admit even no longer hot, the quality meal improved his mood.

Another half an hour passed and after a brief conversation Jingyi went up to explore the way to the surface. Collectively, they had concluded that the safest course of action was to retreat to the surface and hope whatever monster had torn into the underground had left.

Jingyi returned almost immediately with his face white. “It’s collapsed. Forty metres from the thoroughfare.”

“The whole tunnel or just one roof fall?” Tom asked.

“What? I don’t know? I’m a scout, not a goddamn geologist.”

“Is it safe?”

“What do you mean? It’s rock.”

“I mean.” Tom said patiently. “Is it safe for either myself or Keikain to go up to see if we can tunnel our way out?”

“Why not both?” Toni asked.

“I’ve set up a deadfall trap in case anything comes from below. One of us needs to be here to man it.”

“There were no monsters.” Jingyi replied… “It’s sealed from the outside so… of course.”

“We get it Jingyi,” Michael interrupted. “But the question was valid. We need to communicate even if that means asking dumb questions. Tom and Keikain who is going?”

“Your sensing skills are more suited to this Tom,” Keikain said after a moment. The earth mage squeezed forward and Tom could feel his magic probing the deadfall that he had created. “Nice work. I’ll bring it down if anything comes.”

“Okay, I’ll check upstairs.”

Tom pushed past in the other direction. It was tight. The crack through the rock they were following was barely big enough for one person to stand comfortably and that was despite the fact Everlyn had paused in one of the wider sections. He picked his way upwards, giving his upper body a workout as he pulled himself up the sections that he had dropped down without a thought when descending. All too soon, the passage came to a halt. A jumble of rocks greeted him. Some of them were as large as he was.

Tom understood Jingyi’s concern. Without magic, it did not look passable. If you pulled the rocks out manually, the whole jumbled collection of stones could come loose and fall on you. Tom flexed his earth sense to the fullest amount possible to get a better read of what had happened. He could follow the pathway they had used. The floor and walls were mostly intact, but heavy stone had fallen from above to plug it. For the twenty-five metres, he could perceive the tunnel was full.

Tom frowned.

There was one more test. He flexed Earth Manipulation and almost groaned in despair. He had been hoping that the broken pieces of rock would have lost their sense of permanency, that they would behave like stone on the surface. Unfortunately, that was not the case. While his magic could safely dig through and excavate the tunnel, the task wouldn’t be easy. A day at least to go through the rock he could sense and if the rest of the tunnel was blocked to the thoroughfare that would add a day. After that, it would depend what the creature had done to that passage. They might get to it and discover they needed to mine another hundred meters to escape. It could take them over a week and maybe longer and that was if nothing opposed them, which, given the surroundings, was unlikely.

That type of mining activity would attract attention and with their low strength that was not what they wanted.

Then, even if they were successful and fought off the opportunistic monsters of the underground, they might still need to face the massive monster they had fled from. While it probably wouldn’t wait for them, its loss of interest was not a certainty.

He returned to the others. “Best case is two to three days to get out. Worst is over a week.” He didn’t mention the last concern. They were smart and were well aware of that risk.

There were hisses from everyone.

“Down it is.” Everlyn said lightly.

“It’s the underground.” Clare complained. “We don’t even know what rank this area is.”

“If it’s too high, we’ll tunnel out.” Tom decided. “But we have to get a feel for how high ranked it is before we come to that decision.” He turned to give Everlyn a pointed look.

She swallowed, then inclined her head. “I’ll scout the way. I’m better placed than Jingyi.”

No one said a thing as Everlyn departed.

Almost two minutes later, she returned. “It mostly flattens out, the air is fresh so I think it connects… but… it won’t be for a while, so you might as well follow behind me. Try to keep about a hundred metres back.”

“How can we judge that?” Thor asked.

“The party interface.” Tom explained. “We want to remain right at the edge of its range.”

“Correct.” Everlyn said. Then took another deep breath. “I hate this. Bloody underground. Just so you know, I’ll be going slowly.”

She set off, and they followed. Tom was surprised to see that Toni walked with Sven. That was good. He needed all the support they could give him. It was slow progress. Kilometres passed, and despite the levelling off that Everlyn had mentioned, the passage still mostly wound downwards. On Tom’s estimate, they were hundreds of metres under the surface and going deeper.

Tom sent anxious glances towards the killers. They were saying nothing, but Keikain’s eyes looked even more stressed than usual.

It was a boring, slow advance.

“Retreat a hundred.”

The slight lack of discipline that had crept into their group vanished instantly. No one dragged their feet as they rushed to obey Everlyn. No elbows accidentally scraped against the rock wall.

They were in the goddamn underground, and their actions reflected that. They moved in near as perfect silence as they could. They rotated as a team and traced their way back. The walls expanded out briefly to be wide enough for them to be three across and while it was not the hundred meters Everlyn had ordered it was the better part of it and more importantly it was the best defensive spot they were going to find for a fair while.

“We’ll fight here.” Michael commanded.

They all agreed. There were no arguments. The only response he got was everyone taking the relevant positions around the spot they had chosen to defend. Tom took the left and Sven on the other side with Thor front and centre.

With melee fighters ringing the entrance, they had Toni and Jingyi on one side with Keikain and Rahmat on the other. Each positioned at the thirty-degree angle so they could shoot between Thor and the warrior on the flank. The two healers at the back line and Harry was putting down a mana recharge circle. Where they stood, two circles would encompass all the fighters.

Tom was privately impressed by how smoothly everyone had reacted. They may not be used to group tactics, but they all knew how to move to face a threat.

They settled into wait.

Tom raised to hand as he sensed movements on the edge of his sensing domain.

“Coming no tail.” Everlyn whispered.

He relaxed. “We’re just ahead. We stopped at the first defensible position.”

The feet he was tracking slowed, and then Everlyn spoke out loud. “Coming through now.”

“Acknowledged.” Michael said immediately.

She squeezed through the crack and then assessed their battle positions. “Good choices.”

“What are we facing?” Clare demanded.

“I have good and bad news. The rank of this area of the underground is only a little over twenty.”

Everyone winced at that, though practically it was about the best they could have hoped for. They might only run into monsters, but fighting anything twice your rank was nearly impossible.

“That’s not ideal.” Michael pointed out quietly.

“No, it’s genuinely bad.” Clare said. “Not suicidal levels terrible, but that makes it worse. It means we’re going to consider continuing.”

“The good news is that we might not need to fight constantly. The eco system seems to be a circular one.”

“What?” Tom said in surprise.

“It’s circular in means…”

“I know what it means. You think we can…” Tom mimed walking with two fingers.

“Yes, I do.”

“Gutsy,” Michael said quietly in the shocked silence. “That’ll take a lot of guts.”

“And luck,” Everlyn agreed. “It’s fortunate we’re stocked up on that.”