The Underworld was a strange and fearful place, Gastores had concluded. The expedition into the tunnels the invaders created to strike at Grand Chasm had delved deeper than the young Ogre ever imagined the land could be penetrated. Even with the enemy’s technology it must have taken weeks of excavation.
The tunnels had bored through solid rock in places, round, uneven tubes opened up by the action of countless arms. It wasn’t only solid rock they passed through, however; the artificial passages simply connected open spaces predating the invasion, caves and passages that had eroded or been burrowed out by various animals over millennia. The enemy’s ability to tunnel already far exceeded anything the ogres could accomplish, but it would have been inconceivable to bore such tunnels straight through so many miles of stone.
Throughout the varied terrain the rescue party hewed close to the tracks cut by the passing of the giant magical machines the enemy employed, but the trail seemed to stretch on ever further and ever deeper.
As they walked metal clinked and packs shifted. Gastores’ mace knocked against his leg with each step, a regular soft thud of metal on leather. Near a full day of travel was already behind them, but the trip had been far from monotonous.
In the time since departed from Grand Chasm they had passed through landscapes just as populous as the mountains above. Plants and fungi were everywhere, as were all manner of animals. It was the menagerie of monstrous creatures that were on his mind in particular; the guardsman had never imagined such strange, hostile forms could lurk beneath his feet at he walked the streets of the town far above.
Gastores had no idea what most of them were, but a more learned observer might have regarded many of them as akin to sea or cave-dwellers of earth. The ogre just knew them as dangerous and grotesque enemies.
His parents would have laughed at their son’s intimidation he knew – his people were miners as well as warriors, well accustomed to the underground – but even so few of their people ever dared travel so far from the sunlight into the bowels of the mountains.
Of the creatures they encountered not all were hostile; some retreated before their numbers, like the scuttling, segmented arthropods that slopped themselves from pool to pool around water sources, soft and fleshy tongues probing from the gaps in their jointed shells, withdrawing hurriedly on sensing vibration.
Others moved about without concern or interest in the intruders, such as the flittering crumpled leaves that Gastores was told were bats, each more like folded sheets of tattered black leather than living things, no body visible where the four jagged wings met. Gastores felt a distant kinship as a fellow four-armed being, but the bats were so far removed from his ideas of what an animal should be that it was hard to imagine how they lived at all.
He had little mental space to wonder about such things however. Near three score strong, the mixed party of Chasmites deterred most attackers through numbers alone, but most was not all. In addition to tracking the passing of the enemy their attention was focused on those few creatures undeterred by the size of their force, or the light of their torches and noise of their movement.
They were predators, such as the upsetting mollusks that clung to the stone ceiling and groped blindly with bulbous tentacles from their thorny shells, serrated folds rasping at anything that moved. Those attacked sloughed off the rock to impale their foes with their hard, sharp armor.
Relentless in their attacks on the warm-blooded interlopers, they shrugged off simple magic and light blows, forcing the weaker members of the group to team up to face each one.
Cold had proven their weakness, as Nefret found when she warded off several of the monsters with a shield of ice. Freezing temperatures had proved an easy way to drive back their grasping appendages and allow safe passage. The expedition made better progress after that discovery, ice shields and frost-laden winds pushing back the tendrils that tried to grab them whenever they passed a patch of the enemies.
The presence of the Valkyrie, Nefret, was a comfort for the smaller ogre. She had saved his life and that of his brother during the invasion, and now she was protecting him once again.
He hadn’t quite the courage to actually talk to her however, even to say thanks. She was a noble after all, one of the harpies, the rulers of the Empire. Though she might not be of the highest birth, even so her station was far above his.
That was especially so in the present company - the two of them were hardly alone amid the large expeditionary force. Lady Feme had assembled a group of volunteers made up of many species. There were not only harpies and ogres, but naga and beastfolk and more besides. Everyone in Grand Chasm lost someone, or knew a person who had.
Even a lone naiad had joined them. Gastores had always thought of the water spirits as near-ethereal beings, playful and unconcerned with the troubles of mundane life. Not so the aquamarine-skinned girl travelling beneath the Cyclopean Bones with them. Already she was proving a hard-working, pragmatic member of the expedition.
She didn’t disappoint when it came to the mystical aura about her either, mana and moisture creating a fine mist trailing from her body, turning to sparkles of frost when she joined Nefret in conjuring ice – a task she excelled at more so than even the Valkyrie.
She was tiny compared to Gastores, a mere five foot tall when she stood at her normal height, yet that small figure was packed with muscle. Her body was composed of countless interwoven tentacles that grew from her elongated head, covered in a quilt of yellow rings and swirls. The shorter tentacles on top were akin to hair, while the thicker, longer ones below wrapped together near seamlessly to create a neck and form the shape of a humanoid woman from the shoulders down.
Gastores couldn’t quite understand how those gathered tentacles created so perfect a simulation of a humanoid body, but he could guess there was magic at work, a supernatural ability of her species. He wouldn’t even have known that the lines that traced their way down her body were anything but skin deep if not for her hands and feet, where the tentacles once again parted to create something similar to fingers and toes.
Even so it had been quite a surprise when he saw her scouting one of the waterways they passed – in an instant the girl had transformed, her body unwinding into a voluminous and powerful nest of smooth, shiny tendrils, darting through the water with ease, lifting and moving boulders an Ogre would have struggled with, despite being almost double her height.
The contrast was greater still in her humanoid configuration. The girl had a slim upper half, with dainty arms, full lips quick to smile wide amid elegant features, and a petite button nose that was oddly fascinating to the nose-less ogre. Her lower body hinted at her true mass however, her wide hips and thick legs making her quite bottom-heavy.
In venturing from the water she wore an unusual blue-white dress, a stark contrast to the simple leather and fiber clothing of most of the clothed members of the rescue party.
Formed not of fabric but flowing, bubbling water, she could conjure or dismiss the dazzling dress with a song. The words she intoned were in a magical tongue foreign to Gastores’ ear, but the effect as the waters rose up to embrace her shifting body was enchanting. Once formed the dress adhered to her as she moved, showing no sign of dissipation, the spell maintained even while the naiad was fighting or resting.
At first the young guardsman had wondered how she could maintain so elaborate a spell indefinitely, with such ease, but that wasn’t so strange if one could sense the girl’s huge mana pool. After meeting the lady Safkhet it might seem insignificant, but compared to an ogre the girl had a vast reserve of essence.
He wasn’t sure quite why the naiad had so captured his attention, but whether it was just curiosity or admiration or something else, he felt drawn to her.
Had she been an ogre Gastores would have thought nothing of approaching her to chat, or even try a little flirtation, but ogres were creatures of earth and rock, pragmatic and predictable. Simple and understandable. There was a distinctly unearthly air to the naiad, and no hint of understandability.
But Gastores couldn’t just let himself be intimidated by that. During one of their breaks he plucked up the courage to talk to the girl.
“Ah-afternoon,” he said, trying and failing to sound relaxed.
Normally this part was so easy, but even he thought he sounded anxious. His brown-skinned cheeks were darkening, his nostrils tingling and dilating uncomfortably. Hopefully the naiad didn’t understand ogre body language.
He cleared his throat to try again.
“You’re a naiad right? My parents told me about you when I was little, but I’ve never actually met one before.”
She gave a shallow nod.
From the moment he’d approached something felt off, but now he was sure.
The Ogre took a draught of his leather water-skin and made one final attempt. “We’re pretty deep now. I mean, I’m an ogre, so I’m used to it, but I’ve still never gone this far down. You… um… you doing alright?”
She nodded again. He couldn’t read her expression, but she didn’t look impressed.
“Well, uh, I better get going…. See you later. On the expedition I mean… you know.”
Despite his womanizing reputation, Gastores was no stranger to being shot down, but the laughter of the other ogres as he rejoined them stung. Ripides patted him on the back and passed him some erdroot soup. It was cold, but the bitter taste perked him up nicely.
The ill-fated conversation was quickly forgotten by the time they set off again. Their task was too dangerous to waste time worrying about one young ogre embarrassing himself.
Advancing through the depths of the mountains they were perpetually descending, until Gastores wondered how much deeper they could possibly go – surely even the Underworld had a bottom?
Yet ahead was a square pit, cleaved straight downward through the cavern floor. Glowing red and purple vines clung to the sides, growing up from far below like inverted roots, but the dim illumination faded into a blur long before it revealed the floor below. Areas of torn and bedraggled plants showed where the enemy machines had climbed up.
Climbing down via the vines might have been possible, and if not they had ropes for such an eventuality, but such measures were unneeded – someone had cut a spiraling staircase up the side of the shaft through which they descended. The well-worn steps were almost invisible behind the curtain of leaves, but the exit had been pruned back, presumably when the enemy was marching through.
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“How deep do you think this goes?” Gastores asked Ripides as they descended, the older ogre walking carefully just ahead of him on the uncomfortably sized steps, each a little too shallow for an ogre’s foot. “We must be getting close to the bottom of the Underworld by now, right?”
Sudden chuckling behind him almost made him slip on the stair, but Nefret caught him with her large hand, smiling. “Forget about seeing the bottom of the Underworld, no-one alive has done that. This is the entrance to the underworld, kid. You’re in a Dweomer road now.”
A laugh ran around the climbers. They couldn’t afford to be too distracted, lest they fall and need a harpy to fly after them, but even so there were more than a few who risked a look back up the stairs at the naïve young ogre.
As he shot a defiant look down at the chortling figures Gastores noticed the naiad girl watching him. Her cryptic expression was a puzzle to the embarrassed ogre, but at least she wasn’t laughing.
The descent took what felt like an hour, but in the dark under the mountains Gastores could only guess at the actual time. Finally reaching the bottom, they expedition found themselves in a horizontal replica of the vertical tunnel, stretching out ahead and behind them, totally overgrown with glowing vines.
Marching on the expedition passed through areas where the tunnel walls fell away to reveal bubbles in the rock, caverns of various sizes, often densely populated with flora and fauna. One such rift in the stone seemed the source of vines, the purple plants emerging from deep cracks in the road walls and floor, spreading along the tunnel in either direction.
Further on the right wall simply fell away, vines giving way to bare rock as the road opened into a chamber so wide it could have contained most of Grand Chasm, lit from above by yellow-glowing blossoms that carpeted the roof like the branches of a gargantuan tree.
Improbably idyllic, the stone floor there sloped down to an underground river, lined with lush green-glowing blades of what could have been grass, swaying as if in a gentle breeze despite the still air. The banks were lined with squat flowers that blinked white and pink, perfectly framing the gentle flow. All about flitted tiny flying creatures, soaring overhead and swooping low over the water to snatch wriggling prey up in a glittering spray.
Exploring the otherworldly expanse was not their purpose, however. People were counting on the rescue they aimed to provide for those taken from Chasm in the attack.
Luckily the machines the enemy used had left marks that were unmistakable even without vines, carved into the hard rock of the Dweomer road.
The rescue party marched ever onwards through the improbably square tunnel.
~~~
The echo was as calm as ever, despite the freefall we were currently experiencing. They’d dropped the flight cube office without so much as a warning to me, leaving me plastered against the ceiling for a while until the acceleration stopped.
Now I was just floating in the middle of the room, the cube in freefall. Debris bumped gently off the walls and my body, mostly half-melted chunks of golem. The rest of the contents of the office were secured, to prevent the First Researchers’ work being thrown about every time he travelled down to the anomaly, but still I wondered how the First Researcher could work in these conditions.
Trying to ‘program’ a new path for the flight cube seemed especially challenging, and the echo couldn’t help me while we were in the air, so I’d decided to just wait until we arrived at the research station above the anomaly. According to the echo the station was still intact and operational, so it should be fairly safe right now.
In the meantime I had a good opportunity to talk to my new friend.
“So you said earlier that, uh, citizens are stationed close to where they work right?”
“That is correct, First Researcher.”
“What if someone wanted to live further away? To be closer to their family, or something like that?”
“What is ‘family’?”
“Um… your parents? You know, the people who raised you?”
“Young citizens are raised by experts trained in education and care; they are not permitted to form attachments or continue to interact after reaching maturity.”
“Wow… what about the… biological parents? You know, the person who gave birth to the… young citizen. Don’t they get to help? Or just see their children?”
“That would place undue burden on untrained citizens. The young are raised by experts to help them become the best citizens they can be. This includes lessons in citizenship and training suiting their aptitudes to maximize their future productivity and wellbeing. The citizens responsible for birthing young are unlikely to be able to provide this education and it would interfere with their own work.”
“So… everyone has to do whatever job they get assigned, no matter what?”
The echo widened their eyes in what I guessed was a Dweomer expression of skepticism.
“Of course not, First Researcher, that would negatively impact the mental wellbeing of citizens, leading to disunity and a drop in productivity. Citizens may take up work in any field in which they can demonstrate acceptable proficiency.”
“What if someone wanted to do something that isn’t ‘productive’, like writing poetry or making sculptures?”
“The arts are vital to the species, First Researcher. Art provides emotional support, intellectual stimulation and education. For citizens experiencing mental illness art can also offer relief. More broadly art promotes unity and teaches citizens never to unduly prioritize ‘individuals’. The propagation of the proper species philosophy is one of the greatest goals a citizen can aspire to.”
“That’s… good… but what if an artist wanted to explore a different philosophy?”
“Deviant artists are, naturally, incinerated along with their work and those citizens who partook in it. Treatment is carried out at incineration podiums such as the one outside the Research Institute.”
It was hard to think of anything to say to that.
The Dweomer incinerated people for liking the wrong art!
“Who decides what art is… deviant?” I asked after a while.
“That is the task of the Executive for the Conservation of Citizen Unity. Members of the Executive, commonly referred to as Conservators, are trained in understanding and identifying deviant philosophies. They carefully monitor artistic endeavor to conserve the proper sense of unity.”
“But… what about people who didn’t know the art was, uh, ‘deviant’? It’s not fair to punish them too.”
The echo shook their head. “Incineration is not a punishment; we do not punish deviancy, we treat it, like any illness. The dysfunctional part of the species must be purged before the illness can spread. Those citizens incinerated would be grateful were they of sound mind – their sacrifice preserves the wellbeing of the species.”
“And… the wellbeing of the species always comes first? Even if it means killing people to stop the spread of the wrong ideas?!”
“Naturally, First Researcher. You seem distressed, is this still part of the test? My answers are based on your memories and understanding.”
“I’m… fine. I’m sorry, I’m just tired.”
“Should we suspend the test, First Researcher?”
“For now, yes. How long until we reach the anomaly?”
“3 cubes.”
“Right… obviously I know exactly how long that is, so I’m just going to… rest for a bit. Wake me when we arrive.”
~~~
After several hours following the Dweomer road, fending off the denizens of the upper layers of the Underworld, the expedition from Chasm had run into a new challenge.
The trail they’d been following, grooves carved in the stone from the passage of enemy machines, had ended abruptly. The marks cut off along a sharp line, the tunnel floor ahead pristine as if it were newly carved.
The leaders of the expedition, the Valkyries present, had discussed how they should proceed, but ultimately it was decided that they would continue on in the hopes of picking up the trail again further ahead. Gastores had his own ideas on the matter, but as a mere guardsman he wasn’t consulted.
It seemed likely the enemy had done something to obfuscate their trail, but the ogre wondered why the enemy had left tracks this far, if they could erase them with ease – and why start there, miles from Chasm?
But even if he had suspicions, there were no answers to be had. The Valkyries were right that the tunnel ahead was worth further investigation… otherwise the whole expedition would be for nothing.
Advancing through the square tube some of the more magically sensitive members of the group seemed ill at ease, the naiad girl one of them. Gastores lacked the sensitivity to mana to detect it, but according to conversations he overheard the essence in the area felt strange somehow, unnatural angular flows moving through the walls around them.
As the tunnel opened out into a large, surreally cubic chamber Gastores didn’t need to sense the essence to see its effect. Rectilinear etchings lined parts of the walls and the square buildings ahead, glowing in a thousand colors, the circuits descending into cut-out sections where mysterious devices idled.
In the distance a huge shape was moving, an orthogonal mass of crystalline rainbow metal whose very movements defied reason; concentric spirals of square struts shifted against each other, sliding end on end with a faint ringing of grating metal to somehow create three-dimensional movement without ever breaking perfect right-angles.
The incomprehensible machine seemed to be ponderously repairing the wear of eons on the ruined structures and the cracked and damaged chamber surfaces. As Gastores watched it smoothed away a crumbled section of a building, removing broken metal sections and extruding new ones from within it.
“Impossible!” Captain Berenike gasped. The courageous Valkyrie had led the rescue of Grand Chasm against a huge enemy force and fought on the front line with her warriors, yet her face was pale.
“How could the enemy pass this way without destroying the golems?” Nefret asked no-one in particular, echoing the captain’s alarm.
Berenike gave no answer to that. “Everyone, quick, we’re leaving before it sees us!”
Gastores could hardly believe his ears – Berenike herself had destroyed dozens of golems at Grand Chasm, and she wanted to give up on their mission to avoid just one?
It was as he thought so that he heard the sound of blades being drawn behind them. Not just one or two, but a chorus of innumerable swords!
Spinning around he searched for the enemies, yet far from being met with a legion of soldiers, what he found was a single object, emerging from an alcove that had opened behind them.
Moving by pushing itself forward on spikes that bulged out and retracted from its angular body, the machine was like a smaller version of the golem in the distance, but the mana packed into it was incomparable. Even Gastores, with his limited sensitivity, could tell that it was extremely dangerous. This was no builder, this was a combat golem.
In the open space of the cavern more like it were emerging from the buildings. Together with the one behind them there were ten in total.
Eight harpies were with the expedition, but only four were Valkyries – Lady Feme had refused to allow her precious warriors to leave the city too lightly defended. That meant the bulk of the warriors present were ogres and other ‘lesser’ races.
There was no way they could win, not with their numbers. At Gastores’ side Ripides’ hand trembled on his sword-hilt.
They’d all heard the stories, about how no-one who ventured too deep ever returned from the Dweomer ruins in the Underworld.
“We got to get away….” Ripides murmured. “We run and… they can’t catch all us….”
Similar mutterings of fear and panic rippled through the expedition. Even if they couldn’t all escape, surely some surviving was better than none?
“Quiet!”
Captain Berenike’s mana flared, carrying her deep voice throughout the chamber.
“We’re here to find our friends and family! We’re here to rescue them! We’re not cowards who fly from a fight or abandoning our own! No-one gets left behind!”
“No-one gets left behind!” Nefret echoed.
Berenike’s words rallied the shocked party. She was quick to give orders, calling on the rest of her 4-woman flight of Valkyries to each fight one golem solo, while the Captain herself took two.
“You non-Valkyries, none of you get any stupid ideas here!” she announced. “Just buy us time and keep them off us. Don’t try and play hero!”
Gastores appreciated the sentiment, although he couldn’t help but wonder if it would really be that easy. All the same, he pulled his mace from the leather loop on his belt and un-strapped his shield from over his shoulder.
There was no time for any further preparation.
With five golems occupied fighting Valkyries that left another five, against fifty people.
Five magical automatons far more powerful than those they had faced at Grand Chasm.
Already Nefret was tackling the golem behind them, spears of ice shattering against the hard metal. A moment later the other golems were upon them.
A huge mass of metal screamed into their midst, arms of metal stabbing out at the lead two ogres impossibly fast. One caught the strike on her buckler. Metal wailed as the shield tore from the absurd force, blunting the otherwise deadly impact.
The other ogre was run through at the thigh as he tried to dodge. Blood poured from the cruel square wound punched through his flesh, both of the front-liners out of action, at least temporarily.
A third ogre stabbed the distracted golem with her spear. The tip snapped off against the shifting metal struts. A second golem almost took her head off as she hesitated in dismay.
Chaos reigned after that, coordination and teamwork forgotten as the golems rampaged, those at the front line forced to give everything they could to evading and defending.
Seeing one of their foes trading blows with a naga ahead, Gastores stepped in, swinging down his mace as hard as he could on the distracted machine. The flanges bent against metal far harder than iron. The face of his parma splintered under the glancing retaliatory sweep, but the shield held. The golem ignored him as it pursued the retreating naga.
The battle was hopeless – even with all his strength Gastores couldn’t break a single bar on the golems’ bodies. They had to get help before someone died.
His eye found Nefret through the chaos, but she was still dueling her target, trading blows even as she was incanting spells. The other harpies he could see were similarly engaged.
Distracted as he was, Gastores missed the blow coming for him. Ripides pulled him to the stone floor as it sailed through what would have been his head a moment earlier.
They rolled away as the extended limb swung down to crack the rock beneath them, the guardsmen scrambling to their feet. Ripides seemed to have lost his sword, but simple metal blades could only break uselessly against their foe anyway.
Somehow Gastores could hear singing. Looking back he saw the naiad woman. Mana was floating visibly around her, forming flowing water that arced and danced through the air as she incanted her magic.
The golem didn’t fail to notice either – hers was one of the few pools of essence in the group that could compete with its own. It rolled forwards on its spines, charging her down.
Her eyes widened as the huge mass of metal screeched towards her, but it seemed she couldn’t move from her place at the centre of the spell she was weaving.
Gastores felt something crunch as he slammed into the murderous machine.
~~~
Far above and many leagues South, a lone harpy soared over the mountains.
Her quartet of wings ached from beating the air, the once sharp sound of their sweeps dulled, but still Aellope pushed herself forward through the dappled blue skies.
A light layer of cloud was steadily dispersing, sunbeams bathing the valleys below in gold. Trees and plants glistened like gems with morning dew, the morning exultations of songbirds already begun. The warming land sent up thermals, rising up to lift her as if to soothe the strain on her wings.
The tranquility seemed unreal; alien to her eye where once it had been natural. How could the world be so calm, so idyllic, when it was so cruel?
Peaceful as the Cyclopean Bones appeared, they were a land at war. Beset by subterranean invaders. Killers. They’d already taken many lives, Safkhet among them.
Perhaps the human girl hadn’t shared Aellope’s feelings, had let her down, hurt her even, but how could she not ache at her loss? The first true friend she’d known, the first bond she’d shared with an equal, rather than a servant or follower. The enemy had taken even that connection, by severing any hope at reconciliation.
And now they wanted her sister too. Sweet, honest, brave Arawn. She should never have sent her. She should never have let her become Marshall at all. Not after what happened to their broodmother.
She could still see her, a pudgy child in the training arena, sparring against an adult twice her size as if her life depended on it – all because her big sister was in the stands watching. That was her first real victory, and with it Arawn declared that one day she would be Marshall. Princess Aellope had clapped harder than anyone.
She saw the same girl, older now, clinging to her as they sobbed, the sisters’ world falling apart with the death of their mother; each was the only rock on which the other could alight amid the storm. It was then that Aellope had promised she would always protect her little sister. Somehow over the decades she’d lost sight of that promise, too blinded by her duty to the Empire.
She saw crowds gathered around the Obsidian Throne as her sister alighted, head of a wing of warriors. She spoke anew her oaths as she was appointed the Marshall of all Valkyries, and the siblings shared a strained smile as she rose to stand with her queen. Aellope had never been so proud… or so afraid.
The Stormqueen couldn’t recall how long she’d flown for – through the night clearly – but she knew it wouldn’t be much longer. Her non-stop flight from the Eyrie to Southtown was almost over. Arawn wasn’t far away now.
Already Aellope was incanting her prayer to Nemoi. Nothing would be held back.
She would get her sister back no matter who or what stood in her way.
Only Arawn mattered.