“I just don’t understand how this is here. The tracks are rusted over, but this wall seems in perfect condition,” Kassandra mumbled while studying the monolithic wall of iron. We’d been studying the barrier for a while now and hadn’t gleaned how it operated yet. While the iron was a dull gray in color, it showed none of the rust that caked the rails or other metallic objects in the tunnel.
Well, the girls had been studying it. I was watching the tunnel behind us while examining the new power that the System had offered me to see if it might help, now that we weren’t moving.
Manipulate Element (Lesser) - Cost: 400 SP - User has expanded control of one of their chosen elements.
This can be selected multiple times to improve companion elements.
Well, that is trash. What exactly does ‘expanded control’ mean? I thought grumpily. My reserve only had two-hundred and seventy SP currently, so buying it was out of the question at the moment. It was something I would have to look closer at once this weekend was over. I knew I’d have plenty of SP at that point.
“I think it descends from above.” Rieka’s suggestion broke me out of my thoughts, and I turned to check on the girls.
Rieka was standing right up against the metal wall, inspecting the dull surface and studying several long scrapes in the metal. Kassandra was a bit further back, staring up at it like she could somehow read the scrapes in the face of the door like they were writing.
“I could try burrowing around it?” I suggested when neither girl continued to speak. Both of them turned to look at me in surprise and I just shrugged. “What? That door is not moving, and it doesn’t swing like the other ones. Unless there is some magical way to raise the door, I dunno how else we are going to get past it.”
“He’s got a point,” Kassandra mumbled, rubbing her chin with a finger while she glanced back towards the door.
“From a security standpoint, it would make sense to have the door sealed from one side. Do you think you can do it, Liam?” Rieka tilted her head cutely, her ears flopping to one side in that adorable canine fashion.
“Depends if you want me to be gentle about it. I’m sure I could burrow through the surrounding wall manually with enough power, same with using Manipulate Elements abilities. Since this is set into the shale, then it should be far easier than the granite back at the entrance, and we know I can do it from when I sealed up the monster burrows earlier.” I didn’t state that it would end up consuming more of the earth mana crystals, it wasn’t needed. The girls already were aware of that. I was determined to use my personal mana pool first this time, though. No reason to not use the regenerating resource.
“Do it. I have been studying this thing for so long thinking that there had to be a rune array holding it shut, but I can’t see anything that would confirm that at this point.” Kassandra was the first to cave and her shoulders slumped slightly. “For all we know, it’s just the weight of this giant lump of iron that denies entry.”
Nodding, I walked over to the left-hand side of the immense door. The nearly black slate was coarse under my touch. While the walls had been excessively smooth before when it was made of granite; the wear of time was leaving the border of the tunnel craggy and textured as the softer rock flaked.
I considered my options for a moment before nodding and pressing my mana into the surface. Aided by my hands peeling at it, I pried the stone away from itself and began smoothing it like it was clay. My measly ten mana actually lasted a fair amount of time. It didn’t give out until it came time to turn the tunnel at ninety-degrees to get around the door. I had to dig several feet into the wall right beside the door before I found the edge of the metal frame.
“Cedarfall is going to be so jealous she isn’t here to see this.” I heard Rieka mutter behind me.
“Hell, I’m jealous,” Kassandra replied laughingly. “Liam picking earth was a good choice. It’s given us a lot of utility here. If we didn’t have him, there would be no way we could have explored this complex. The cave-in alone would have been impassible without getting further help, and I have no idea if Rachel could have dug out that tunnel we used to get through.”
“Yeah. At least we are still useful for the amount of damage we can do with spells,” Rieka said with a sigh. I did my best to ignore their conversation while I worked, but it was distracting to say the least.
“Oh, we are useful for far more than that,” Kassandra said teasingly. “You just have to say the word and I can give you two some alone time.”
“Kass!” Rieka’s hissed remonstration was far louder than their normal conversation. I had to strain my ears to catch the next part. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Shaking my head, I turned my focus back on the work in front of me. Rieka would do her own thing, and I would let her decide when to make the approach if that was what she wanted. Until then, I would continue to remind her of my interest without pushing or forcing her. That felt like the right choice to make in this situation.
With how much stone I was moving to open up a path like this, I had to do something with the excess. I’d started out smoothing it along the walls to reinforce the cracked and damaged patches, then spread the extra into the gravel below us to turn that into a flat slab of rock as well. That only consumed the extra stone for a foot or so past the turn, so I began packing it onto the wall to keep it out of the way. This ended up giving the wall a rounded, almost bulbous look from the exterior. After having crawled through the rough burrow at the cave-in several times now, I was making this tunnel wide enough that I wouldn’t scrape the sides and could stoop to get through. Rieka would be able to walk right through, not even mentioning how easy it would be for Kassandra to wriggle her way past.
I’d made it far enough to be around the iron frame of the door when I realized the girls had gone silent. I’d swapped over to my remaining earth mana stone at this point, so I paused and backtracked to check on the girls.
Kassandra and Rieka had been standing watch while I worked. They stood with Kassandra beside the iron door and Rieka by the stone wall. Their light stones were bright enough to illuminate two-thirds of the tunnel in those positions.
My serpentine lover glanced over at me when I emerged from the tunnel and held a finger to her lips. I nodded to her before glancing towards Rieka. The wolf-eared woman was standing with her eyes closed. Her tufted blonde ears were perked up and oriented back down the tunnel. While I watched, one flicked delicately before orienting in that direction again.
“Something is in the tunnel,” Rieka said before I could ask. “I can hear scraping on stone. It sounds like claws scratching on rock.”
“Into the tunnel, you two.” I ordered and stepped out of the way. Rieka did as ordered, but Kassandra shook her head and glanced down at her coiled length.
“I won’t fit with you two there, Liam. Just hurry and I’ll follow after you are through.”
“Get in here, Kass!” Rieka demanded before I could say anything. “You know that Liam isn’t going to leave you out there while there is something coming, so stop arguing and squeeze in here with me. Liam, you can keep shaping the rock while you aren’t touching the spot you need molded, right?”
“It just costs more, but I have a good range. You know that from me sealing the holes earlier.” I urged Kassandra into the U shaped tunnel before stepping in behind her. She had to coil tightly and rather uncomfortably to do it, but Kassandra managed to get her full fourteen feet of serpentine body into the tunnel.
I straddled the end of her tail and stood with my back to her. Pressing the back of my left hand to the stone overhead — I had to use the back because that hand was still occupied by my light stone and the other was still shifted — I dragged on the mana I had pinched between my thumb and forefinger then pushed my intent into the stone.
The rock flowed like honey as I shaped the entire section of tunnel we were in, except for the floor. The girls both made noises of surprise when the walls and the ceiling wiggled and flowed in response. I heard Rieka call something but had to remain focused while I stood watch on the more heavily shadowed tunnel. I swore I could see thrashing forms in the darkness that were edging closer.
The flowing rock dripped down and formed bars to obscure the entrance like stalactites and that served to block even more of the light. This emboldened the chitinous monsters, it seemed.
Scuttling forms rushed forward out of the darkness, using the patches of shadow as cover to approach. A spindly limb thrust between the bars to snatch at me. The bladed tail I had turned my right arm into lashed out and shattered the limb in a spray of ichor and chitin, making the creature scream and flail backwards.
Unfortunately, this only enraged the other shadow creatures and more of them surged forward. Their claws dug thick scores in the stone pillars, but the amorphous stone quickly filled in the slashes they made. I had to use my arm/tail three more times to drive the creatures back when they tried to force themselves through the slowly thickening bars.
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“I have an opening on this side!” Rieka’s voice echoed back from around the bend.
“Confirm it’s safe, then hop out. If it’s not clear, tell me and I will burrow in a different direction,” I barked, kicking one of the flailing arms of the shadow monsters and smashing it flat against the rock. The creature gave a creepy bark/screech noise and jammed its oblong head into the crack to try to bite me, so I drove the spike on the end of my flexible right arm into its head. The blow cracked the exoskeleton there and sent it crumpling to the ground.
“Clear!” Rieka’s statement brought with it a flood of relief and I stepped back more when Kassandra shifted to hurry through the tunnel as well. There were only two long slits, like arrow-slit windows on a castle, remaining of the entrance. The creatures were now restrained to just jamming limbs through in order to try to scratch at me.
I needed to drive them away from the site of the tunnel or else they’d just dig through. They’d proven able to burrow through rock to make their little homes, and I was desperately hoping that we’d just missed some of the earlier burrows rather than the monsters having already clawed their way through the softer shale that I’d plugged them with.
“Liam, come on!” Kassandra called now, and I glanced back over my shoulder to ensure the way was clear. The tunnel that I’d made was now empty, so I made a snap decision.
Moving some mass around, I quickly armored the back of my left hand and forearm with a large, scoop-shaped section of articulating chitin. I jammed that hand, which held my light stone, through the narrowing crack and pressed the glowing rock into the outside of the tunnel.
The sudden blast of light sent the creatures scrambling away. I felt several blows hit the back of my hand and arm. I felt no pain, so I was sure it hadn’t pierced my armor. Redirecting my focus took only a moment, and the slate gripped the glowing hunk of rock firmly at about chest height. With the brilliant source of light right there, the scuttling horrors scampered back long enough that I could completely seal their end of my impromptu tunnel.
It wasn’t entirely dark where I stood, as some reflected bits of light still made it to me from where Rieka and Kassandra were on the other end of the U shaped tube. Gripping the earth crystal in my fist, I backed slowly down the tunnel while filling in as much as possible. I didn’t stop until I bumped into something at the halfway point and had to fight the urge to whirl and attack.
“It’s okay, Liam. It’s safe. You can come through.” Rieka’s voice soothed my thundering heart, and I wrapped my left arm around her to crush the wolf-eared woman to my chest. She grunted cutely at the tight embrace, but I could feel the pressure of her returning the hug through my armor. The tips of her fluffy ears tickled my chin while she pressed her face into my side.
I enjoyed the hug for a few more seconds before releasing her, savoring being safe again.
“Keep an eye on Kassandra for me? I want to make sure this is as sealed up as possible to keep them from burrowing after us.”
“What happened to your light?” Rieka asked, and I quickly explained setting it into the wall before closing it up to drive them off. “Clever. I wish they were easier to make. We could stud the walls with them as we walked in order to drive the critters off.”
“That would take way too many stones. Maybe in an official queendom-sanctioned expedition, but not for us.” Kassandra’s voice echoed oddly in the tunnel. “Come on, you two! You need to see this!”
“I’ll keep watch over Kass. Don’t take too long, Liam.” Rieka murmured into my chest before pushing back to go to her tip-toes. I felt soft lips on mine a moment later. Savoring the quick kiss for a moment, Rieka then separated and hurried back to check on our third member while I returned my attention to shaping the stone. I wasn’t sure if it was just my overactive imagination, but I swore I could hear distant scraping on rock, even through the four feet I’d already filled in.
I kept at it until I’d filled in almost seventy percent of the tunnel once more. I’d made it to the other ninety-degree turn and gone a few inches past that when the crystal finally crumbled in my hand.
With no other crystals on my person, I turned and strode the further five feet to emerge on the far side of the giant iron door. I wanted to see what had the girls’ attention.
I had been expecting either more tunnel, or another empty and dusty station like the first when I stepped up behind where Rieka and Kassandra waited patiently, staring into the shadowed cavern in surprise.
I was surprised on both accounts.
The tunnel continued for another twenty feet past the door and where we stood before it opened up into another enormous cavern. The light of the crystals reached far enough that I could see the tracks curving around and meeting with another platform.
Another train with two cars behind it — this one in far better condition than the scrapped wreck in the tunnel or the one pinned under the cave-in — sat right against the platform. Its head was shaped roughly like a pyramid on its side, with the rest of the train sheltering behind it like logs laid end to end. It gave the machine the impression of a stubby spear.
The two cars honestly looked more like liquid tanks than passenger cars, given their sausage-like appearance. But the mixture of broken and intact windows of vitreous glass told me that they had to be passenger cars.
At the very edges of the light to either side, I could see a tunnel going in either direction that was also blocked off by a heavy iron door. Above the train, hanging just barely into vision, were the same light-globes that I remembered from the previous station.
The entire place was eerily still, but my mind was still telling me it could hear faint scraping noises from the other side of the iron door. The itching feeling was beginning to really increase my anxiety.
“Lights.” I called into the echoing darkness, making both girls jump in surprise at my loud voice.
A distant thunk sounded and light flooded the room abruptly, revealing the true mess that the platform was.
The benches that had been scattered tastefully around the platform we had entered from were all smashed to kindling or piled around a set of doors against the far wall. Several of the ceiling lights had been torn down and smashed into the platform, leaving scattered hunks of crystal and metal that reminded me a bit like a fallen fluorescent light. Unlike the first platform, though, this one was entirely free of dust.
The tiled floor, its mosaic only slightly damaged from the falling lights and shattered benches, was unfortunately also stained with the ancient mess of old blood that colored the grout and had fouled some of the lighter color tiles. There wasn’t much of it. Time had seen it fade and rot but the faint stains remained. There were at least four distinct ‘puddles’ of stained grout and stone on the platform that I could see from here. No bodies lay in those places, but they still bore the ancient marks of something dying here.
“The air is moving,” Rieka muttered. The words broke both Kassandra and I out of our staring. We turned to look at our wolfish companion, and I could see the fluffy tips of her ears stirring slightly, like there was a breeze caressing them. Taking a breath, the air was surprisingly clean for how long this area had to have been sealed.
It took a moment of visual search, but I spotted grates high in the ceiling that I would have bet were air-circulation vents and pointed them out to the girls.
“That is… astonishing.” Kassandra was lost for words as she stared about with a hungry desire to learn and know more. Shifting on her tail, she started forward towards the platform and the intact train. The motion got my brain engaged once more.
“Hold up, Kass.” Thankfully, she actually stopped when I asked, though she shot me a pouting look. “There have been enough dangerous things down here that I think we need to find a secure spot to use as a fall-back. Let’s make sure the station is clear and block the doors before you go digging for discovery, okay?”
Kassandra pouted for several more seconds before sighing gustily and nodding.
“Fine, Liam. You make a good point. I think I see a side door up on the platform. Let's go see if that is somewhere we can rest and secure?”
“Good call,” Rieka agreed with a sharp nod that made her ears bounce.
I idly wondered if she ever suffered from the ‘inside-out-ear’ thing that so many pets did, since her canine ears were the same shape and protruded from the top of her head. The mental image was so adorable that I immediately decided I would keep an eye out for it, but not ask outright in hopes of spotting the cute sight without Rieka feeling self-conscious.
The platform had been set up exactly like the first one on the other side of the train tunnel, though it had far more decorations here.
Ancient metal planters probably held trees or decorative plants at one time, but only held dry earth now. A few pieces of metallic art hung on the walls, but the majority had been torn down to use to barricade the double doors that lead deeper into this complex. The mosaic, exposed due to the lack of dust here, was a spiraling mix of blue and green tiles on a white background. The interlocking pattern looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t have the time to study it more right now.
The side door that Kassandra had spotted was off to one side and in the corner, but not sealed with magic like the one on the outer platform had been.
I led the way in after we ensured nothing was lurking in the shadows of the platform, or in the other two tunnels that were likewise sealed like the first had been.
The room that sat on the other side reminded me so much of a high-end subway lounge that it was ridiculous. The skeletal remains of several pieces of furniture were scattered about the room, some of which showing drag marks ground into the floor where someone had tried to move them, maybe to barricade the door in the past. A wall nearby had dozens of shelves filled with ancient glass bottles, some of which held murky liquids inside them that I could tell Kassandra was excited to examine. Spread around the room and mounted to the wall were several abstract sculptures made of both metal and colored glass. The only one that I recognized was something that looked like how I imagined the statue in the spring outside the complex might.
It was a four-foot tall statue made of tarnished bronze, depicting a human man in a robe holding a pen in one hand and a book in the other like he was taking notes while walking. The intense look in his eyes and the stern scowl on his face matched the marble statue so perfectly that I was sure it had to be the same guy.
Other than the entrance, the room only had one way in or out and had several of the overhead lights to illuminate it. Like the platform, it was entirely free of dust.
“Okay. We camp here and gather ourselves.” Rieka’s voice was firm, and she turned to look us over with a serious expression. “We will explore only once we rest and recover. No one goes anywhere alone while we are down here. We all move as a group, and that includes the necessary.” Rieka blushed slightly at that statement but did not back down.
I couldn’t help but agree with her. Getting attacked while taking a piss would be quite the ignoble way of getting hurt or dying, and I was determined to make sure the girls remained safe.
Kassandra understood the gravity as well and nodded several times, sending her mass of red curls bouncing and shimmering in the bright lights of the room.
“Aren’t you glad I insisted we pack the tent and bedding up?” Kassandra’s question was cheeky, but Rieka just smiled down at her friend. “If you dig out something to eat, I’ll see about carving up some wardstones to act as a barrier for the door. Liam, can you clear us a spot in the corner?”
“Sure thing, Nugget.” I punctuated my agreement with a kiss for Kassandra that got a happy groan from her. Rieka didn’t have a chance to ask for her own before I pulled her into a kiss as well, adding a gentle head-scratch that made the wolf-woman go limp against me with a happy moan and her tail began whipping side to side.