“I had wanted to ask you about this topic earlier, but I haven’t seen you around as often lately so the opportunity never came up until now.”
Noreko closed the tome he had opened. He kept an upright posture whilst he sat on a cushioned chair. “I assume this has to do with your memories?”
“Yes. I also had some questions about the world we were shown as well,” Kiran said pausing for a moment. “I suppose I’ll start there. What can you tell me about the world that my memories revealed?”
“I know only so much about this world’s past. Unfortunately, our forefathers weren’t exactly focused on recording events from that period as far as I can gather. Or perhaps whatever events had managed to be written down by them have either been destroyed or not found. There is a high probability of that being the case. Regardless, I sadly am not as well-informed on this topic as you might think to ultimately answer your question to a sufficient enough degree. My knowledge is mostly relegated to the arcane and matters related to it specifically. I do however still find it quite strange that you seem to be a person somehow in possession of memories from that time.”
It is rather strange, isn’t it? It seemed likely that he had lived back then but he hadn’t ruled out the possibility that these memories weren’t from himself but were from someone else. This was nothing more than mere speculation on his part, however. He leaned more towards the thought that they were in fact his own memories but he was always open to other possibilities.
“Let me be the one to ask the next question,” Noreko said. “Have you since then, begun to understand those memories? I scarcely understood them myself. There were far too many rapidly changing memories that I struggled to make sense of hardly any of it.”
Kiran crossed his arms. “Not really. I’ve had some memories in the past that I was able to make better sense of but at the same time, those memories specifically didn’t exactly reveal anything quite like the things shown when you worked your magic on me. Would you perhaps be able to perform that procedure again and somehow get it to slow down?”
“It’s doubtful. Although not necessarily impossible by someone else out there. As for me, I do not believe I am someone with the capabilities to do that. It’s a miracle my procedure did anything at all. I fear I am unsuited to carrying out any more processes such as that one.”
That’s a shame. He was still experiencing them from time to time in a more slow manner, but he felt a desire to experience more of them rapidly. Just not as rapidly as when Noreko managed to get them to appear to him haphazardly.
“As for other more pressing matters,” he said hopping up from the chair. “You should get a plentiful amount of rest to prepare for tomorrow. We will be traveling through an incredibly steep cave according to Frederek.”
Kiran was feeling a bit tired. He supposed he could go ahead and rest his eyes and body to better prepare for tomorrow. Rather than bother Noreko any further, he chose to rest.
The next day he found himself standing with Noreko and Frederek along with a couple of other members of the coalition with mining gear strapped to their bodies.
At the front gates to Frederek’s manor, they were opened allowing the five of them through. Frederek looked back one final time before they were to completely set off. “If we don’t return in half a day or more, alert the others. We shouldn’t be gone any longer than that.”
“Understood sir,” a young man at the gate said.
“Let’s go then,” Frederek said towards them.
Their journey went unabated as they wandered through the streets of the underground city. Frederek knew these parts better than him so he knew what streets to take and which ones to avoid. As a result, they avoided any troublesome folk eager to extort things from them.
Eventually they began finding themselves on nothing more than black rock that had been left in its natural state. The built-up parts underground city itself was towards his backside and nothing more than crevices burrowing deep in the ground lay ahead. They traversed them with care stepping over them or walking around them. If he were to slip and fall into one of them, he imagined he’d never get out.
“I knew one miner once,” said by a younger man by the name of Ghary. He scratched his brown beard as they traversed the treacherous ground. “The poor feller fell down one of these crevices. We heard him calling out for days. We tried sending a rope down many times but we weren’t ever able to get him out. Eventually he stopped calling out for help and went silent.” The thought certainly bothered Ghary. “Poor guy. He even had a family and all.”
In some places, rivers of flowing water appeared causing them to traverse them carefully as well. When he gazed up, all he could see was the vastness of darkness above. It was in many ways fascinating to him how this entire underground space could exist and not fall in upon itself. He supposed the giant pillars that were jutting out at certain spots assisted in that. However, it still was a marvel at least in his mind.
While impressive and undoubtedly dangerous—particularly in these parts outside of the underground city—he much preferred to live above ground. He couldn’t imagine just living in darkness for so long. It’d drive him insane, or so he figured. He hoped some of these people would ride the lift to see some sunshine from time to time. Although from what he could tell, particularly of some of the children he saw, they were quite pale making it appear that they mostly stayed down here in these depths never seeing the sun whatsoever.
“How are you liking it down here?” Frederek said towards him. He kept walking up ahead of the four of them without any fear.
Kiran kept his eyes practically to the ground at all times to assist in him traversing the rapidly changing ground. “I much prefer the city than to this area.”
“What do you mean? I love it out here. It really gets the blood pumping over such a simple activity.” Another young lad who was probably the youngest among them scratched the back of their head. He went by the name of Lou and had muscular arms. “Although, maybe we should maybe consider creating walkways or something to make it easier to traverse these undeveloped parts.”
“I’d rather keep it this way,” Frederek replied. “We want it to be hard to traverse and make it seem unused.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“It’s not like anyone really bothers coming down here anyways. I doubt the caves we’ve been mining through will ever be uncovered anyhow whether they searched for them or not.”
“You may think that but we do ourselves no favor making it easier for our enemies. If this cave leading to the central pillar were to be discovered, do you think the queen wouldn’t send legion after legion down here? She would do it in a heartbeat and our entire plan to seize the central pillar would end immediately.”
Interacting in any way with the central pillar or the pillars outside the city was one of the highest offenses in Liall. If Kiran or any one of them were known to specifically be doing what they were doing by the right people, they’d be hanging with no questions asked if ever captured.
They weren’t exactly planning on doing anything untoward with the pillar, however. They merely intended to scout for today and later swap out certain bits and pieces to grant them access to it for when the queen was done away with. If they couldn’t power the central pillar themselves, they would in effect be committing suicide for all of Liall’s inhabitants if they managed to remove the queen from power. As a result of this, the coalition had to be thorough in avoiding such a disaster from occurring therefore necessitating this step before Kiran was to confront her personally as he had been planning to do with Silvy’s help.
Frederek continued leading the other four of them across the rough rocky terrain. “We’re almost to the cave’s entrance, right Ghary?”
“That’s right,” he said.
After several more minutes of walking, an entrance did indeed appear. It was rather small and fairly well hidden in the darkness. Without knowing it was there, finding it would be a practical impossibility without hundreds of people scouring this particular area that they found themselves in.
It became immediately clear that the cave did in fact have a steep incline right from the get-go. That meant his legs were going to be burning quite soon he imagined.
“Are you all ready?” Frederek said whilst holding onto a torch.
“We have no other choice than to be ready,” Noreko stated beside Kiran. He appeared a bit tired already. He was the oldest among them with gray in their brown beard. Sweat gathered on their brow and he imagined if any of them struggled the most traversing this continually inclining cave, it would be him.
“We’ll take a short break to rest our feet and drink a bit.”
He took a swig of water from a waterskin. Others did as well burrowing their hands into the satchels they kept strapped around their shoulders.
How long shall this journey through this mined-out cave take I wonder?
His question became answered as the five of them wandered up it. It was not a very large cave of their making. No, it was just large enough that a single person could walk forward at a time. They each had to walk behind one another due to the width not allowing for any of them to stand side by side.
Noreko breathed in heavily as they continually walked up the inclining path. “You alright down there?” Frederek yelled back from the front of their group.
“I am quite fine.”
“Are you sure? We can stop for a few minutes to let you take another break.”
The sound of a spell being cast entered his ears. Noreko had been casting spells on numerous occasions to enhance his body and grant some relief. “I can make it.”
Kiran’s legs were managing fine so far, but if it went on for much longer, he imagined he’d be feeling much like the sorcerer did who could cast enhancement spells on themselves just to allow themselves to keep up with the rest of them.
“How much further are we Ghary?” Kiran asked.
“About halfway.”
A pained moan erupted from Noreko. Perhaps Frederek should carry him with those big arms of his. If anyone can manage it, it would be him.
Before long, the inclining came to an end. Noreko pushed up his back against a wall and slid down it to rest himself for a few minutes. Since he didn’t have hair on the top of his head, sweat wasn’t given an opportunity to gather. It instead ran down his face soaking into his robes. Robes were perhaps not the best choice of attire for such an occasion as he thought about it.
Frederek was at least willing to give him a break. As for the space they were in, they were inside a larger area that they all could stand in comfortably. Numerous mined-out paths appeared in all directions besides the one they came out of. There were at least eight of them making it clear that they had spent quite a bit of time creating pathways.
“Which of these is the one we’ll be traveling through?” Frederek asked towards Lou who held onto a pickaxe.
“That one over there,” he pointed towards the second to last path towards the left. “It took us quite a while to find one that would grant us access to those secretive chambers, but we for sure found them.”
“I knew you would.” Frederek gently punched Lou in the shoulder. Lou smiled enjoying his praises.
There were no actual entrances to these chambers. They had been sealed off ages ago meaning that whatever passages once existed allowing people inside had vanished. Their only way in was to break in and the depths made doing such a thing easier since they didn’t have to worry about carrying out such an operation from above where it would be far easier to end up caught.
Once Noreko was rested, they got up and they all traversed down the path that would lead them to the secretive chambers.
The path itself was quite constricted much like the rest of the cave system had been. It would’ve been a lot more unnecessary work if they widened it at all. He didn’t mind the constricted cave since at least for his height he didn’t worry about hitting his head up against the rough ceiling. Frederek however did have to duck down for the majority of the time lest he bump his head.
After a little while, a bit of light poured out of a small opening up ahead. The light itself had a bit of a greenish glow to it as it beamed through the rough rocky opening.
“Here we are,” Lou said. They walked past Frederek preparing to pick through it some more. They sent their pickaxe against the opening causing more light to enter into the cave shaft they were all standing in.
As far as they were aware, these chambers weren’t patrolled by anyone. They were sealed off and left to remain untouched as its only purpose was to act in some manner for making the central pillar work.
The queen could never be underestimated, however. Just because living patrols might not be in these chambers, did not mean that there wouldn’t be some kind of danger that they ran into. For that reason, they had to be cautious and Kiran felt prepared to fend against whatever danger appeared Thankfully they had a sorcerer like Noreko with them. He would be able to spot any potential traps or issues that they might end up running into.
Lou and Ghary kept mining away the wall finding more and more of a small room appearing before them. Its walls had lines of greenish light running through them along with completely smoothed out light grayish floors. A thick glass-like material kept the energy that flowed through parts of the walls and floors from escaping as well.
With a few more thrusts of their pickaxes, they had enough of it mined away to grant them sufficient access to be able to jump down and enter the chambers.
His body felt a bit tense admittedly knowing that they were finally here. He didn’t know what all to expect, only to know, that it was paramount that they were careful wandering around in such a place.