It was interesting to Clarke the way people could take their homes for granted. He'd been given special access to the ratling undercity years ago and never thought much of it, occasionally taking the underroads or stopping in their markets but he'd never really spent much time there. It was like living in Deraforda, most people never went to see the tower the town was built around because it was always there.
He realized how much you could miss when you ignored the ordinary.
Many tunnels later the small party stepped into a large underground cave, ratmade and unnaturally hewn from the surrounding rock. Ratlings scuttled back and forth carrying heavy stones and pushing carts filled with same to some far off dump.
“What is that?”
Gwen pointed at the thing caught in the rock, slowly being chiseled out with picks and hammers. A wall of dull metal poked through, a solid sheet with not a crack, wrinkle or vein.
“We never really knew.”
Twinty stepped forward.
“It's been here since the founding of Deraforda a few hundred years ago and we bumped into it occasionally when we tried to expand the undercity. Sometimes a rat king would take an interest in it and try to find some point to the whole thing, dig it out some more but it withstands extremely high temperatures and cutting into it requires entirely too much effort for very little return so we never bothered with it. Until your mother gave us a clue.”
She led them down a path that had been cut into the stone where the ratlings picked and cracked at the stone little by little. A blue line, scuffed and nicked but bright,ran along the metal and seemed to be guiding them past a point where the rock still entombed it.
“It's a treasure chest.”
“A what?”
Gwen asked. She didn't think she'd heard that and tried to fit in any other words that could have fit in place instead.
“A treasure chest. Or actually a city. They're so big that they could be both. I've seen them all over the world and in them there are such amazing treasures. Machines the dwarves might see once in a hundred years. Magic that would shame an arch wizard. Treasures left from a dead age.”
She put her face to the metal and Clarke touched the side, Gwen following the crowd by testing it with a few strikes that barely registered any noise.
It's cold.
“But I've never seen one so well preserved as this, they're usually scavenged out husks or destroyed from within. Years and years ago, back when I was young, I had found some...I guess you could call them recordings, that spoke of a man-made calamity that these had been built to shelter the remnants of the three races from. My theory has always been that they were castles built to withstand this calamity until it was safe to return, to protect the inhabitants and preserve their culture from destruction.”
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Clarke thought about it and realized he'd never heard an idea like it before but when he looked at Gwen her eyes were alight, big as saucers as she ran her hands over the metal a bit more reverently, almost willing it to open (and failing).
“What makes you think that? Do you still have those recordings or writings or whatever?”
She produced a few stones and held them out for Clarke to look at and he recognized them as the same type of item they'd brought back from the fairy wasp encounter. She wiggled one at him and he took it.
“I lost those long ago in Whaler's Wharf but I've found them all over the world and these in Whilaway's lab. Always containing day to day information, always little views into the lives of the people who came just after their settlement. Some have amazing technologies that could drastically help everyone. That's what I'm looking for in here.”
Clarke imagined opening the stone the same way he'd opened up Gwen's mind and glowing pages of information popped into existence before him, this one of a world of towering spires and this one of unusual looking foods. There were even some diagrams and schematics of devices whose use he couldn't even begin to guess at. He swished his hand through and closed it, feeling overwhelmed.
“Why would people just forget something like that?”
Twinty took this one as someone came to whisper something to Aggatha.
“That's hard to say. If you look at it plainly there are only about five hundred to six hundred years of Elf, Human and Dwarf history and there's almost twice as much ratling and lizardfolk history. You'd think people would notice something like that. But normal people, regular folks, are preoccupied with living their little lives. They don't need to know the long past bits of history so long as they're alive now.”
Gwen finally let the wall free of her rubbing and joined them, turning a thought over in her mind.
“Y'know, I remember hearing something similar when I was a child. One of those things where if you get an old dwarf drunk enough he starts talking about ancient machines and a mechanical world. It's just drunk talk though.”
They looked up at the metal wall and jumped at the loud crash of rock sliding free. Ratlings scattered and ran out of the way as more and more of the rock wall fell away, cascading down to reveal more of the dull metal, dust floating through the air to settle in the fur of the miners. Through the haze and lamplight Clarke noticed something new, a fine line where a door might connect.
“Seems like things are about to get very hectic. Children, please run along and I'll see you both later, okay? Stay out of trouble now.”
She actually shooed them, brushing her hands for them to go and they left the hustle behind for the tunnels, a world that moved along like any other day. Neither knew what to say after all that and walked slowly along the tunnels. Clarke felt a sense of...jealousy? He almost felt jealous that his mother had thrown herself back into some work so soon after reuniting with him and his frown made it evident to Gwen.
“Pretty cool stuff for someone who hasn't seen light of day in over a decade.”
“Yeah. I guess we'll see her later though.”
Gwen tried to think of something to cheer him up but the only thing she could think of was something she'd like. She decided to run with it and squeezed him in close to her.
“Alright, let's go check in with W and A and then let's go get in trouble.”