12 Miles Below

Having been replaced by an upstart didn’t mean his fortunes were diminished. He had been a grand warlock after all, the guild would not allow such a member to appear destitute to outsiders at the very least.

Quiet retirement was the word of choice, asked to step down from his post politely and in exchange he would be given full access to all his prior funds and a nice estate to live out the rest of his days in luxury.

The alternative was to wage a small time war which would end with him and all his followers purged from the guild, and buried six feet underground. A costly affair to everyone.

So when he’d gone to alert the guild he planned to leave for the surface, they were ecstatic - so long as he followed a few conditions, they’d be more than happy to pay whatever he needed.

Conditions being that all the guards and pilots were picked by the guild high council, so that Hexis wasn’t going to try running off to another guild and swap secrets there. This worked out better than the glorified house arrest for the upstart faction. Not only was he banished off to the corners of the earth, he’d also be surrounded by guards and cut off from every loyalist or prior infrastructure.

Hexis would be out of their hair, spending time with the savages upstairs away from proper civilization, during which they’ll have all the time they need to clean the house of his influence.

As such, when he left on the convoy to the surface, it was filled to the brim with men and women who had no alliance or true loyalty to him. The only two who he’d picked himself to accompany him to the surface were his butler, and that surface savage vagabond knight.

At the very least he knew he was safe from assassination. Such things would absolutely break the guild apart in the future. If political opponents knew that defeat meant death rather than a quiet retirement, they would rely on assassination right from the gate than to apply any kind of civilized methods.

All this crossed his mind again and again as the airspeeder shuddered around him, metal crunching heard on the sides, red warning sirens blasting around him. It couldn’t be some kind of betrayal, that would be preposterous.

His chamber door opened up, and a pair of knights walked in.

“Your magnificence, the guard captain’s sent us orders to escort you to the lower deck,” The knight said, giving a quick salute. His partner matched as well, professional even in the face of danger.

“What’s going on out there?” Hexis asked, standing from his seat. These two knights hadn’t come into his room with blades drawn, so whatever game that upstart’s faction was playing, it wasn’t bribing the council’s knights to kill him off. “Bandits?”

“Machines, sir. An ambush.”

That… was far more agreeable than bandits. Machines couldn’t be negotiated with by any faction, the true wild card. This was just a ill timed raid then.

“Well, deal with them already. We’re on the first strata, there’s more than enough knights to handle anything.” Hexis waved a hand, sitting back down in his comfortable seat. “I hardly see any reason to move downstairs for something of this rank.”

The two knights gave each other nervous looks. “Sir, they’ve overwhelmed the lead airspeeder, we’ve lost contact with it already. The caravan has diverted, but we’re being run into a dead end. The situation is serious.”

The hull scraped again, likely because the airspeeder had to pilot through more narrow winding sections of mite terrain.

That wasn’t quite what he’d expected. A convoy of their size would be able to race through most of the dangerous passages with guns blazing and be in and out before the machines truly formed up. “Why are there so many machines chasing down our convoy? This path has been well documented for decades now, it’s nowhere near any strategic positions.”

“Captain thinks a new mite forge is in the area and the machines have gathered up to guard it. Or we’ve run into a newly setup machine nest. Hopefully we’ve run far away enough only the stragglers are still attacking.”

“And if that’s not the case?” Hexis asked, starting to feel worried.

“We’ll need to continue the retreat on foot, and return back to the city to try again.” The knight said. “Without airspeeders, there’s no chance of reaching the surface clan in any amount of time.”

Returning on foot across machine territory was far more dangerous than speeding through. The larger the human forces were, the more machines would gather up to squash them. Traveling on foot would be too slow to escape the growing forces either. They’d need to be quite efficient in hiding and sneaking back home.

“Just do what you’re paid for.” Hexis said, standing back up. “The council doesn’t hire fools. A machine nest should be well within your capabilities.”

These knights had been picked specifically to keep him safe from the surface dwellers. He was a warlock, his knowledge could be seen as something to steal. However unlikely that was to be from a surface clan led by a Deathless.

As elites, they should be more than capable of handling a few machines in the upper stratas.

The knights seemed to breathe a sigh of relief once he began to cooperate with them. The plan seemed simple enough for the moment, the safest place in the airspeeder was the vault. Hexis wasn’t going to travel to a clan without anything to barter or trade with, and conveniently, such a vault also made for the most secure location.

But what if these guards were trying to get him to open that vault up? No, nonsense, Hexis thought.

They were more than well compensated, their continued contract with the warlock guild was worth far more than the temporary short term gain from all this. Their commanders would have them hunted like dogs if they failed their assignment and turned to banditry.

He didn’t trust people of course, but he did trust them to act in their own interests. And keeping him alive and safe was well within their interests.

The vault itself was sealed off, to which he input the codes and walked through with his two guards. There was still a flash of paranoid panic in his mind when both guards stepped through with weapons drawn out, up until they turned back into formation with their blades and rifles pointed at the doorway entrance.

It shut, leaving them in the dim gloom. Neither guard attempted anything nefarious, instead remaining true to their contract. Hexis felt himself relax further.

Machines in the upper stratas were dangerous, he knew that as well as most hunters did. But he had been tasked with forging weapons for Deathless who fought against the stronger enemies in the lower reaches. Locations where relic armor alone wasn’t enough to survive most of the dangers there. Only the gear a warlock could create was worth the price.

The real danger up here were people and the unknown. Given the reaction of his guards, that eliminated the worst danger.

“The first airspeeder, has it returned to contact range?”

The knight shook his head. “No, it was swarmed and the engines were ripped apart, enough for it to crash into the ground.”

“I see.” Hexis said, feeling the ship under him continue to shake and move. An airspeeder that no longer moved was already nearly always a write off. One that crashed near a machine nest was certain death.

By now, that airspeeder would have been covered in machines clawing their way in and killing all the crew inside.

Hopefully they bought him enough time for the rest of the convoy to make it. A pity it had to be the vanguard, that was the one that held the surface knight. Without him, his entry into the clan would be far more difficult.

Not impossible, but difficult. He’d need to readjust his timetables, and probably add more to the initial entry bribe.

“Lost contact with outside team.” One of the knight said. “Machines are swarming into the airspeeder.”

“That’s impossible.” Hexis said, feeling dread return back into his system. “We have a full team aboard, are they all hiding away in the cockpit or something?”

“Not sure yet, sir.” One knight said. “Stay seated off to the side, the vault should be impervious to most machines.”

Not drakes. Hexis thought. Which is why no one was standing directly in front of the doorway. If one had jumped onto the ship and began rooting around inside, it’s very possible a beam would slash through the doorway any mom-

The door panel flashed from red to green. Which was impossible, since he was the only one with the doorway keys.

Then the doors hissed opened.

And on the other side of the doorway was nothing more than a nightmare.

“Pure soul within…” One of the knights next to him whispered, hand holding onto his wooden puritan pendant.

Hexis felt his own hands reach for the same on his own neck. Not that it would save him against a demon of this caliber.

The man looked almost crippled for a demi-god. A metal halo drifted above his ruined features. A violet eye glowed with a tint of insanity deep behind. One side was nothing but metal shards slowly floating in the shape of a hand and arm. Much of his clothing was ripped apart, revealing a stylized mimicry of a human body. The wounds under all showed mechanical repairs deep within.

He’d heard stories of these enemies. Legends that only the Deathless deal with. That they outright dread and fear. Hexis remained ram rod straight, mind reeling at the events. Wondering if this was actually happening or if he was stuck in some kind of nightmare.

“Hexis, I presume?” The Feather asked, the sole working eye locking onto him.

His closest guard attempted to strike out, occult longblade swinging straight for the monster’s head. Given the damage of the enemy, Hexis believed for a moment the knight might be able to win.

A pale white hand snapped out, grabbing the knight’s wrist and holding tight. A moment later, the knight was on the ground, neck snapped.

The monster walked in without a care in the world, as if the quick fight had been nothing but another step in his path.

It seemed utterly unreal to see someone in this state of damage move around with so little effort. But the wounds under the man’s features didn’t show any sign of being new. No snapped wires, no melted sections, nothing to show the damage was anything more than cosmetic.

“You are going to the surface, specifically Clan Altosk?” The Feather asked, snapping the other knight's neck. “I have a business proposition for you.”

Hexis wasn’t sure when he’d grabbed the man and yanked him in range. It all seemed to happen so fast. One moment he was a few steps away, the next he was already lifting the doomed man in the air.

He also had no idea how a Feather could have known enough about his plans or where he was going, but clearly this Feather could break the security at his vault door, so perhaps infiltrating into the city’s security grid would have been child’s play.

In such a case, Hexis had to assume this opponent knew everything there was about him. And since Hexis wasn’t dead, then the Feather wanted him alive. More than that, the monster had gone out of the way to eliminate all witnesses. His guards were dead despite having offered no threat at all, same as Hexis.

He could work with that.

“... A business proposition?” Hexis asked, licking his lips nervously. He considered making sure his relic armor’s helmet was back on, but two highly trained knights were dead already, it hadn’t helped them for a second.

“Yes. I have loose ends to tie up on the surface.” The Feather said, letting the dead man drop down into the floor, taking more casual steps over the body.

“And what exactly are you searching for?”

“Information.” The Feather said, taking the handle of a seat and carrying it behind him. He kicked the dead knight’s body out of the way and set the chair down, sitting a moment later on it. “I believe we may be able to reach a mutually beneficial accord.”

None of them expected their fellows to come back for them. Not with the amount of machines that had swarmed the ship earlier. And especially when the engines had stalled and the ship collapsed into the ground. They were doomed to death here, in some meaningless last stand. If they tried to hide, the machines would rip apart this dying ship plate by plate until they were sure nothing alive remained alive. And if they tried to run, the machines would spot them and chase them down.

Sagrius had considered breaking his way free and walking back to the city, leaving the airspeeder to its own fate. Such a thing would be the safest option to keep his inner body alive. He’d explored and walked through the underground by himself before, it was far easier than in a larger group that could draw too much attention.

An uncaring part of him believed it to be the best course forward. That part of him simply did not care for anyone else around him besides the center body breathing within his armor.

However, he’d need to find another way home afterwards.

With his own funds, he wouldn’t be able to afford such a thing. Perhaps with the gratitude of the crew for saving their lives, he might be able to get something done. And the ghosts within his armor agreed with this. They spoke of his true obligations - he’d taken on a contract to protect the convoy until it reached the surface. Fighting here was part of that contract. Something deeper inside felt the same way. Those words agreed with a core part of his soul.

Stranded as he was, honor still bound him like a law.

So he rose from his seat, and drew his blades.

The doomed crew’s hopes had been crushed until he went to work. Machines reached into his compartment, and he strode out the entrance, only destroyed metal left behind him.

Where he stood, no machines passed. He didn’t have to use the occult either, leaving the soul sight combined with his body’s senses to detect everything happening within the airspeeder. They couldn’t surround him in such tight corridors.

The enemy wasn’t endless. Given a long enough time, Sagrius would have purged the entire ship and whatever dredges continued to pile in. All he had to do was drag the crew into a defendable position.

The airspeeder communicated with him, whispered its schematics and pointed out where the best location would be for such a stand. He stalked through the corridors, grabbing survivors and forcing them to follow behind him. Soon he had nearly half of the airspeeder’s remaining crew all protected within the hold. And at the doorway, he held the ground.

The speeder itself began to send announcements to the crew within, detailing the plan out. More knights and crewmembers flowed into the safe room. Some joined in on the front lines. Others cowered further inside, claiming to be there to defend those who couldn’t fight back.

The dead souls found the notion of that disdainful. All the crew here wore relic armor, and yet only the soldiers seemed to truly know how to make use of such a thing. A waste of armor for the crew here when a simple evo-suit would function to keep them alive on the surface.

Sagrius sliced through the last of the Screamers a half hour into the fight, yanking the dead machine’s head off the chassis and tossing it off the side. He waited for a moment, but found no motion outside the airspeeder walls. No new enemy stepping up to be next.

“They’re gone.” He said, taking a step forward and out the hole ripped into the airspeeder. The terrain outside was still the mite madness he’d grown used to. This one was simple massive tunnels filled with lights and smaller tunnels branching out. According to the Undersiders, these tunnels would remain wide open for miles, letting airspeeders pass by mostly unharmed.

“We survived?” One of the knights hissed, also taking a peek outside.

The machines were all retreating back, hissing away the entire time. Soon, the gloom covered them all, only violet glows fading off.

“Never seen machines act like this before. Are they actually running away?” Another undersider said, turning on headlights to verify the damaged sections. “Shouldn’t ignore a gift in the jaw, pilot! Can you bring the speeder back online?!”

More voices linked in, as the crew went from pure survival to trying to escape. The engines were broken, Sagrius could feel that with his outer armor. Sensors returned messages from the ship, showing him reports.

But the ship was equally sending him more information. “The convoy is returning.” He said. Then said it again, and forced his mouth to move instead of speaking through comms. That caught his fellows by surprise.

“They’re coming back?”

Indeed, further off into the gloom, he could see lights in the distance. “They are.” He confirmed, pointing. Weapons fire began to light up the surrounding area as the convoy opened fire on the retreating machines. The few caught in the bullet fire were shredded to pieces. Most had already scurried off into the tunnels.

The surviving crew began to laugh, cheers coming across. Sagrius simply watched the arriving reinforcements. He should be content with the situation, he’d successfully defended the stranded airspeeder, the machines were cowed into a retreat, and the warlock had clearly ordered the convoy to return.

The machines didn’t return to halt their progress again. The surviving crew were quickly divided up among the other airspeeders, and the warlock had indeed survived the whole ordeal. Apparently he’d hid himself in his vault alone, while his knights had died off while escorting him there, too late to get through the doors with him.

No armors or bodies recovered from the dead, the machines simply spirited them away wholesale. And the ship’s security systems were also wiped clean.

Machines didn’t behave like this. Was the warlock so special? The armors didn’t know, they’d never seen machines act like this either.

Something felt… off.

Next chapter - Soak