They left the thorn forest the next day and spent the next two days sticking to the backroads of the border states. It was a good idea until they got attacked by a group of organized civilians who set up a blockade with heavy trucks and walkers, which they just rammed right through. Soon, even the back roads were covered with barricades, blockades, and checkpoints of enforcers, bounty hunters, and civilians.

None of it worked to slow them down. The upgrades given by Tinkerton-G’s ants had made the landraider sturdier, so that even cannon fire barely made a dent in its thick plates. Ada was proving to be invaluable as well.

After binding her GEA body to the landraider, Ada became one with the vehicle, and they have been able to make the incredibly large vehicle steer and drive as though it were a steambike. But the GEA made her contempt for all of them very well known. Her body was placed in the driver’s compartment, so everyone was forced to listen to her as she questioned all their decisions and nit-picked every single detail of the landraider.

On the third day on the road, they arrived at a massive waterfall that was hidden deep at the bottom of a canyon. It was far from any town or village, so it was relatively peaceful, and the river banks were solid enough for the landraider to drive on. As they arrived at the bottom of the waterfall, Luna, Baldric, and Ada, in her backpack form, went behind the waterfall and found a massive cave that was big enough for the landraider to go through.

"Are you two idiots sure this is the entrance? Because if we go in there, I can guarantee you we won’t have room to move around." Ada said to both of them. Luna double checked the magnamap, a large handheld device that was constantly tracking their location on a built-in map.

"This has to be it. It’s the only waterfall for miles."

"Alright." Baldric said as they started to go back. "Fill up as much water as we can and say goodbye to the sun for a while."

After filling every clean container with water from the waterfall, they slowly entered the cave behind it. Elizabeth looked out the window as the sunlight faded behind them and was replaced with total darkness inside the landraider. Ada, sensed her fear, began to glow a soft white, illuminating the compartment. The child looked again outside and found nothing but darkness. They felt the vehicle began to go down with Annie and Ada carefully controlling the landraider's speed.

Luna counted with her pocket watch, and they had been going down for hours. While Annie and Elizabeth were sleeping on the couch, Baldric replaced Annie on the controls. Ada spent the whole trip going down in eerie silence, then she suddenly spoke.

"We’re here." Luna looked outside and saw nothing but darkness.

She climbed up to the roof of the landraider and saw that they were in a colossal cavern. The headlights of the landraider were the only lights around, but she could make out some pillars in the distance. Luna grabbed an electric torch from her bag and shined it towards the pillar. The pillar stretched far above them, so high that it could not be seen from where they were. But even as they were down deep beneath the ground, Luna could still feel the cold wind.

When she came back down, Elizabeth was awake and was looking out the window. "Where are we?"

"This sunny, is the underempire." Baldric answered. "This is literally a whole world beneath the ground."

They continued travelling in the dark, with Luna and Ada navigating through it all. To pass the time, Baldric started telling stories about their old contracts to Elizabeth and Annie, who were hearing them for the first time. Then they resorted to playing board games and cards just so the boredom wouldn’t kill them.

Without sunlight, it was impossible to tell the time, aside from the clock on the driver’s compartment and Luna’s pocket watch, which she counted that they had now been travelling for a whole day in total darkness. The other thing Ada was good for was allowing all of them to sleep while the GEA took over and drove the landraider. She could even navigate by herself, so all of them could rest.

Luna was asleep on the floor when Ada smacked her on the head. "Ow what?" Luna rubbed her head. Ada stopped the landraider and pointed outside. Luna stepped down, and she was greeted by a spectacular view.

It was the underempire like she had never seen it before. Bright, giant crystal formations reflected the sunlight from far above them and illuminated the area. What was shown was a massive canyon with an underground forest of tree-sized mushrooms and fungi covering its entire range. There were also some large flobats that passed above them, giant bats with bodies that glowed orange, and beside her, a giant centipede crawled beside the landraider and headed down towards the canyon. Baldric, Annie, Elizabeth and Willow stepped down and gazed at the breathtaking view.

"As I said, sunny. It’s a whole other world beneath the ground."

"Wow! Are there people down there too?" She looked down.

"There are probably. I mean, there are thousands upon thousands of entrances into the under empire. So many people hide down here, but they don’t stay very long."

"Why?"

"Because there are many dangerous creatures and monsters down here." Luna said to her. "Like the Ithraxi, GEAs, or the Inflik."

"Oi! Don’t you be lumping us in with those brainless lot!" Ada said from Luna’s back. "Making us out as some sort of monster in the dark, you have some nerve."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Sorry Ada." Luna said as all of them made their way back inside. "But yeah, there are a lot of monsters down here."

"Ada isn’t a monster, she’s nice." Elizabeth said as they climbed aboard. Baldric snorted while Ada laughed.

“Well, finally someone recognized my sincerity. Tell you what brat, I will make sure when the day of reckoning comes, you and your mother will not be slaves in the new world order."

The bright crystal formations gave them a sense of time on the outside and a view to entertain themselves. The trek down the canyon and through the fungi forest was basically all of them looking outside and admiring the creatures and plants along the way. They passed giant slugs, swiftlers, giant moths, and thornthumpers. A brontir, a giant furry creature as big as an automobile that feasted on the mushrooms, approached the landraider, which Ada blew the whistle to scare it away. Elizabeth was visibly disappointed, but Ada, in her defense, said,

"Those filthy things are filled with fleas."

They passed through the canyon of fungi and back into the darkness again. They did pass by some pockets of light, but it was scarce. All of them were bored out of their minds as Luna counted. They were only two days inside the underempire. And Luna was thankful that at least Elizabeth was a well behaved child who did not ask questions about how long they would still be in the dark.

"How long will we be down here?" Elizabeth asked them.

"Should I tell her? Or should you?" Ada said towards Luna.

"Well Elizabeth we …. don’t know." Luna said truthfully to Elizabeth and herself. "If the map we are following is correct, right now we are still underneath the border states and if we keep following it then we should reach the northern part of the continent in ten… twelve days."

=0o0=

A third day in the dark, and when they all woke up, all of them were drenched in sweat. Luna and Baldric opened the windows and found that the outside was just as hot and the heat was making the engine run hot as well.

They had to conserve water, so they shared sips from a canteen. Luna noted that willow did not even need to drink water once they got down. Luna and Baldric had shed their coats and rolled up their sleeves, with Annie even removing the top part of her overalls to reveal her short sleeved shirt beneath.

"How come all of you have numbers on your arms?" Elizabeth asked, which suddenly made all three of them alert. "Look, Luna has sixteen, Baldric has eighty-four, while Annie has two five three." Elizabeth pointed out.

"Uhhhhhhhhhh." Baldric stammered as he and Annie looked at Luna for answers. Luna looked at Baldric, who was still stammering.

"Well, you see." Annie gestured at Luna to not tell her, "Well, uhmm, you see, this is... our guild... tattoo."

"How come they are all so far apart?"

"We had a lot of guild members."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Baldric joined in. "We had a lot of friends."

"Where are they now?"

"Well. Some moved away, some, like Max, had their own guilds, and some, well, they are not here anymore." Luna answered.

"Brat, stop asking questions." Ada said to Elizabeth. "That’s an order." Ada looked at Luna and nodded. Elizabeth kept quiet as Willow climbed up to her and she rubbed its chin.

=0o0=

Four days in the darkness later, and it started to cool off, but the weather was still far too humid. Lucky for them, they found a river where they managed to stop and enjoy themselves a little bit. Ada did Annie’s maintenance work with an automaton body so all of them could rest and stretch their legs. Annie insisted on joining Ada to check on the engines. After that, the two acted more closely, with Ada now only insulting Luna and Baldric.

=0o0=

Early the next day, Luna was startled awake when she felt the landraider speed up. "What is it Ada?" Baldric, Annie, and Elizabeth woke up as well.

"Bloody ants!" Ada said. "They have been following us! Don't just bloody stand there, Do something!"

Luna and Baldric picked up some rifles while Annie activated the landraider’s defenses. As they peeked through the window, they saw a horde of ant like creatures chasing them. It was the Itraxi, a race of giant insects, and right now they are being chased by Ithraxi drones, a giant ant-like creature with six legs, four barbed arms, and a huge mouth like a giant pincer. It moved incredibly quickly as the horde of drones chased them down.

Luna and Baldric picked up their guns and fired from the gun ports while Annie controlled the sentry automatons. Ada picked up Elizabeth and Willow and sat them right beside her as she continued to drive the landraider.

“Did you drive through a nest, Ada? How come there are so many of them?!" Baldric yelled out. Some of the drones had latched on to the landraider, so Luna rushed down to the storage to get her flamethrower.

"It's suddenly my fault, isn't it?" Ada drove through rock formations to lose them. “Or perhaps they smelled the living meat coming from the inside!”

"Hey, kill the bugs instead of each other!" Luna emerged with her flamer. "Annie, open the hatch, Baldric, give me cover!"

Annie pulled down some levers and gave her the thumbs up. Luna leapt out and started spraying fire at the bugs that had attached themselves to the landraider. She could see that they were trying to attack the secondary storage where all their food and water were located. Luna rushed in and sprayed them with fire, but even as the drones were ablaze, they still bit and clawed their way through, their heavy mouths cutting through the iron plates in seconds.

"Get your own damn food!" Luna kicked and threw them off, but with their numbers, they just kept coming back. Even her flamer was no match against a relentless enemy, as the ones that got burned simply fell off and were replaced with more.

The more they climbed on, the more damage they were inflicting on the landraider. Then, from inside of the storage, Elizabeth’s walker popped out and joined Luna in fighting off the drones.

"You're blazingly useless, you know that?!" Ada said as she fought the drones and threw them off the vehicle.

"Just hold them off!"

Luna leapt into the storage as Ada covered her. She saw a barrel of her fire jelly and dumped a whole jerry can of the Plantir chemical on it. The drones on the outside suddenly went wild as they smelled the chemical and tried to reach it. Luna opened the side door and attached a flare that acted as a marker, and then she threw the barrel outside with all the drones leaping and running after it.

Baldric picked up on the marker and even while moving and at a distance, with one shot, hit the barrel, causing it to explode, killing a large swarm of drones. They managed to escape when the rest of the drones decided to retreat.

Luna checked the damage they had caused and the drones left nothing. Their water barrels were now destroyed, and their food had the drones' saliva on it, which started to rot the food quickly. The one thing she was thankful for was that they did not get into the medicine stores or the other fire jelly barrels.

"So this is quite a problem for you meat bags, isn’t it?" Ada said as the walker went back inside. Luna cursed.

"So you are telling me we have nothing?" Baldric said as Luna went back into the driver’s compartment after they secured the secondary storage.

"We have one last barrel of water, but as for food, yeah, it’s all gone." Luna sat down and started bandaging some of the cuts she got from the Ithraxi. "Aside from the ones we have here and the few rations in the sleeping compartment, that’s it."

"Great." Baldric said as he sat down. "That’s just great."