12 Miles Below

Theory that this was a portal: Correct.

Theory that we’d survive to the other end: Correct.

Theory that we’d land gracefully and with no complications: Uh, let's put that down as work in progress.

It spat us out into a blue and purple carpet of leaves, at least at first glance. As I was flying above, I spotted the occasional hints of brown bark showing up, meaning we were flying over a giant forest of trees. And the only ground I could spot was the single lake we passed over. All of that was blurring under both my captive Deathless and myself.

“Did we go through the portal?!” Drakonis yelled out, voice half picked up through the dead helmet. His hands were trying to claw blindly at it. There was absolutely a hint of panic, which didn’t bode well for me.

“Shut up, trying to think.” I said, while our chunk of glass was slowly rotating in the air. He probably couldn’t hear that, so mostly talking to myself there. "Cathida, options?"

“The armor could survive getting squashed under your current ride, but getting out from under all that weight might be a lot more complicated than we want it to be.” Cathida said, “Recommend you abandon ship.”

Up ahead I could see our prior abandoned ship had also made it through the portal and was still firing its thrusters, rocketing it forward far past where the glass chunks were currently carpet bombing the trees and local wildlife. It was going straight forward, soon to land on the one place that isn't covered in trees and wildlife. A smoking charred vale on a lower valley.

And talking about that, looks like this was our stop. I didn't have time to strap his armor to my own using the cable locks, so instead I tried to get a good grip on Drakonis and then took one giant leap off the chunk we rode in on.

Got a few good feet out of the way before a smaller chunk crashed right into me and tossed me like a spec of ice off an airspeeder wake. The armor kept me safe from what should have been a nasty bump, but it couldn’t keep hold of the Deathless with the current grip I had on him. He was ripped away from my hold, and I could see him fall further away.

I’d like to say that was the worst part of the landing procedure, but the portal decided two more chunks of glass were in order along with a good splattering of shrapnel and debris. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I had been cursing this entire time nearly non-stop.

Landing itself was anti-climatic: I hit a tree.

The tree did not survive.

Also hit its neighbor, and the neighbor's neighbor, before finally landing on a boulder, bouncing off and faceplanting into muddy ground, sliding a good few feet head first.

Then, blessedly, I finally came to a full stop. “...is it over?”

“Biometrics show a clean bill of health.” Cathida chimed. “Great landing. Only thing wounded is your pride right now.”

“I want a refund.” I hissed, getting back up on my feet. Journey’s vision was black and white, clearly using some kind of spectrum analysis vision since mud covered my entire faceplate right now. My hands tried wiping it all off, and moving on to whatever cloth I had that wasn’t ripped off. Also did a quick pat-pat checkup on my belt, confirming what I’d noticed in the soul sight over the crash landing. Knightbreaker and its launcher were gone, along with my rifle, longsword and Tsuya’s seeker. I got godsdamned robbed. Just about everything that had some heft while being held by straps or weaker material that physics could put to the stress test.

“Entertainment was top tier though.” Cathida said.

“Laugh it up you old bat.” My gauntlets then padded over the gear I did still have. Two knives, one on my boot and one on my chestplate, a single semi-automatic side-arm with forty eight occult bullets neatly organized within their spare magazines, still where they should be. Also had my arm shotguns ready to fire. My armguard had stayed where it should be and by some absolute miracle, none of the shaped charges on my bandolier had gone off.

The last of the mud that I could wipe off was off, helmet was clear and switched to full color again. I wasn’t hearing any more crashing trees around me, probably safe to start moving around without a giant chunk of glass flattening me into the dirt.

"I'm making those jetpacks first thing when I get some free time. Being able to fly around seems too good to put to the side."

“Journey wants you to know there’s three more hours of power before you need to switch to your reserve.” Cathida said. “After that, you’ll have another eight hours of operation before it’s time to really panic.”

Right. Reality waits for no one. Trapped who knows where and cut off of any supplies. “Understood," I said. "Hoarding everything I can get my hands. Talking about that, Journey any way to track down where my gear and prisoner went? I need to vent my frustrations on someone innocent.”

“That Deathless is, quite literally, the entire reason you’re here right now.” Cathida said. “He's certainly not innocent.”

“Oh.” I slapped my head. “Sorry, habit. Usually they’re innocent.”

“And for your other question, yes. Journey can give you an estimate of where some of your stuff might have landed, though if any of it got hit by other chunks of glass or shrapnell, it’s time to start praying to the goddess for free gold.”

“You don’t sound too worried that the little brick of mite tech you died protecting is also among the lost items. Abraxas is going to be extra cranky if we don’t find it, or die of a heart attack.”

The old bat cackled. “He’s lived centuries, if the genetic engineering in his blood has kept the old coot that long out of a coffin, I don’t think a simple heart attack is going to do the trick.”

“Genetic engineering?”

“How else is he still alive? You think people just randomly live for a few thousand years while not being Deathless? Only option is golden era genetic engineering. You didn’t guess that yet?”

“Uhhh…” That’s got to be the filter in effect. Don’t think Abraxas had any blood in the first place.

“Don’t know if he’s lucky or cursed to have stumbled on the fountain of youth.” She continued, “But anyhow, about the goddess’s mite seeker - Imperials aren’t dumb deary, and that is one very important artifact. It has safeguards to be recovered in case of a wipe, or extreme resistance."

"It has an onboard ping?" She did make a point, if this artifact was so important to the mission, losing it in combat had to have been taken into account.

"It can respond with a ping on the right frequency so long as it’s been recently powered in the past few years, which it conveniently has thanks to you." Cathida said. "Walk around a bit and Journey can triangulate it.”

“Any direction?”

“I’d say west, that’s where most of your gear would be. But Journey recommends differently.”

“What’s the armor’s suggestion?”

“Power. You got a limited supply now, remember?” She cackled. “You could try to give a few black eyes to the local machines in the strata, but no idea how deep we are. There’s some terrifying monsters the further down you go. Might be safer to stay out of sight until we know what you’re up against.”

“...you want me to find and loot the airspeeder.” I said, adding it all up. “And that’s not in the direction of my gear is it?”

“Yep. That’s why the armor’s insisting on you to go there first. Get the big ticket items out of the way. In my opinion, I’d also get anything out of the airspeeder as soon as possible, something that big is going to draw attention. Don’t want to be around when said attention comes sniffing.”

“Put a ping on where the airspeeder is, let’s get going.”

Journey did exactly as instructed, and my HUD flashed up with an icon pointing south west. I started to make my way to the mud bank, feet sinking with each step halfway to my knees.

The trees around here were tall, though I could see through the distance one absolute monster of a tree. Above me I could see tree branches spreading and covering some of the artificial lights. “The airspeeder would still have some power cells right?” I asked.

“Can’t know for sure.” Cathida said. “But I’m starting to suspect they didn’t set camp due to low fuel. They picked their battlefield.”

“Drakonis and his scrapshit plan.” I muttered. Could see where he was coming from. He’d move the airspeeder around as a giant lightning rod of attention, make us board it in a group and then drive us off the cliff into the next strata so he could buy his side some time. He’d fight tooth and nail, make a big show of it all, die heroically with the speeder falling and hope his enemy ‘Deathless’ didn’t think to self-terminate as well.

The small group I’d gone with was probably too tiny for him, if I had to guess. I’d want more than just five knights jumping aboard since that plan could only work once. But he spotted me isolated and wanted to nab a quick kill. Jokes on him, I’m armed to the teeth these days.

I stepped out of the marsh, finally feeling solid ground under me. “And talking about our unwilling guide? Any idea where he landed?”

A map ping appeared on my HUD, showing north west. “Got him.” Cathida said. “Either that or we found a high density source of metal, but Journey’s ninety nine percent sure that’s not the case. He’s on the way to the airspeeder, closer than it.”

I turned my head to that direction and began to march through the trees, roots and twigs snapping under the weight of each footstep. I could sprint, but decided to be more stealthy for now. No idea what strata I was, and I didn’t have all my usual weapons to work with. Felt a little exposed. I did bring out my sidearm for my main hand and kept my armguard at the ready on the offhand. Good balance between being able to take anything out with a shield at close range, and able to take anything out that doesn’t have a shield at long range.

Forest was cleared of any wildlife, everything having either run off for their lives, or burrowed down deep until the local cataclysm of black glass was done. So the trip was relatively uneventful.

Pretty soon we passed from living to scorched. Entire trees completely burnt up to cinders, just black husks left with a hint of brown under a handful. Not sure if that was intentional by the mites, or if there had been a wildfire by accident happening around here.

“Still ahead.” Cathida said.

I pointed across the vale, visibility much better in this environment. “Is it by chance behind that giant chunk up ahead?”

It had smashed through a few charcoal trees, and then ripped a small scar in the ground but otherwise it was tall enough I could spot it from this distance.

“Close. Under it.”

“Universe just wants me to suffer. I’m going to have to dig him up, aren't I?”

“Yep. Better get jogging, he’s not in danger of being crushed, but rather suffocated. Armor can’t generate oxygen without power.”

And as expected, found Drakonis is short order, pinned under that giant block of black glass. “Any life signs?” I asked.

“Won’t know until you dig him out.” Cathida said. “His armor’s offline, so can’t get any updates from that.”

I did have a few grenades, those could chunk out the glass, but I didn’t want to waste my ordinance on something like this. Knife and weapons I had on hand were good at precision targets, not mass area of effect. Might be able to dig under it all and get to him like that.

“What’s the fastest way to dig him out? I’m on a time limit here.”

“Punch it.” Cathida said. “Might need a few wacks, but it’ll do the job.”

“Oh.” I slapped my head. “Should have thought of that. Keep it simple and all that good advice.”

Armor was power. It was strong enough to bend metal, pry open turrets, and even overpower machines. Some glass wasn’t going to stand in the way for long.

I wound up an arm, and threw my first punch at the giant chunk. The center part turned from black to instant white, slightly sunken into to glass, with about seven giant cracks forming at the same time, spreading from the center punch outwards.

I gave it a few more touch ups after that.

The cracks grew longer and longer, stretching out until they reached the edges of the chunk, until finally one of my blows didn’t just slam into the centermass, it went through it. The chunk broke into smaller chunks that slid off the main thing. They slammed into the ground and tipped over. Other chunks broke into a shower of shards, crumbling all down in between the larger chunks. My fingers wrapped over whatever large chunks hadn’t fallen down by gravity and did the rest of the work, pulling the whole thing apart.

Still had to spend another five minutes punching and shoving glass aside before I caught sight of my target. And eventually I had him, the dirt being easily scooped out until he slid right out.

“Power cell fluid leaking from his legplates.” Cathida said. “It’s mixing with the mud.”

“We shouldn’t be in danger of explosions, power cell fluid’s pretty stable when it’s not being tapped for energy.” I said. “Unless there’s something in the mud I should know about?”

“Nope, but Journey’s pointing out if you want to recover some of his power, better get him out of there fast before every drop’s gone.”

Drakonis hadn’t said a word in the entire time, nor had he tried to move or use occult. Had a small sinking feeling in my gut when I clicked his helmet release seals and lifted it off him.

“He’s alive.” Cathida said to my relief. “Can see breathing out of his nose.”

“Good, I’d be really disappointed if after all this effort he went and died before I could get my answers. Is he unconscious or pretending to be?”

“Unconscious from the breathing pattern. Slap him a bit.”

“In a moment,” I patted the sides of his legplates and found where I’d executed my earlier cuts. Power cell fluid was leaking out, but the overall plates could be pried open. It was a mess, but I did manage to transfer at least some of it back into my half empty right side cell.

“Got an extra two hours from that.” Cathida said. “Not a lot left in his armor.”

“Not sure if I’ll keep him around or not, but at least whatever power we have isn’t going to leak out while we make a decision. Time for a heart to heart with the bastard.”

One rattling slap later he fumbled back to life, eyes flashing open in a quick bark of pain.

“Wha-?”

I grabbed his armor’s throat guard and slammed him down into the ground, shaking him a bit for good measure. “Rise and shine scrapshit. I have some questions and you’re going to answer them.”

His eyes seemed to focus on me, then his hand tried to grab my wrist, as if the unpowered armor could do anything against Journey. He realized it a moment after, opting to use his occult as a backup. Crackling pale blue lightning appeared on his armor like static before a lighting strike.

I slapped him again.

It knocked whatever focus he was using to power the occult, I could almost see the concept of it vanishing away as if it had the door slammed shut on its face.

Time to dig into my Winterscar roots. “It’s useless Deathless. You’ve lost. And now the only thing in question is my mercy.”

Yes, very dramatic. Didn’t quite get the verbal sneer as well as some other examples from my family, but they practiced that on their mirrors for at least an hour a day. I was largely out of practice right now.

He tried to spit at me, which didn’t work due to gravity, so instead it landed on his armor chest.

“Adorable.” I slapped him again, lightly this time. “Now, you gonna answer my question or keep trying to make this awkward? I’ve got a lot of time on my hand, free schedule today last I checked.”

“Your mask is slipping.” He said instead of answering anything I wanted to know, which got a head tilt from me. “You're not a clan knight at all, are you?"

"What?" I asked, honestly stumped at where the logic in that was.

"You spoke like a clan knight before, moved like one, and dressed like one. But now that you're all alone out here, that mask is slipping off fast. I see right through you. Clanners are fanatics, emotionless killers. And you're rattled, afraid. Talking like an Undersider."

I took a second to process the weird backwards logic before I figured it out. I’d gone with the stoic traditional surface knight stereotype when I first met him. And that's a stereotype for a reason. Looks like most people thought of clan knights as elite single-minded soldiers that didn't have any personality.

"You do realize clan knights are still people under the training and preparation?"

I don't think I got through to him given his vacant stare back. Then he shook his head, as if it didn't matter. "I don't know why you're pretending to be a clan knight when you aren't. Or what convoluted scheme you're running. Why are you even here?"

“Okay, pause. That’s a lot of questions from someone I’m supposed to be interrogating.” I said, tapping my helmet with a finger. “But fine. Think about it all for a second. Do you know anyone else who can master the surface combat schools? Maybe your cousin knows a friend or something? How hard can they be to learn, you’d need… what? A decade or two to master? Easy access, right? I’m sure your friend also managed to find some discount for the lessons too, clans are real friendly to outsiders asking to learn their inner secrets. Yep.”

He stayed staring at me, eyes narrowing down as if the new data point was not sinking in with his current hypothesis and he didn't know what to do with that disconnect.

“Yeah, I didn't think so either.” I said. “Also, as I keep having to remind you, I’m the one with the questions I want answered. I will keep slapping until I get what I want.”

Drakonis gave a strained laugh, his eyes looking around to the trees beyond. “Fine. Here’s your answer: I have no idea where we are, clanner. All I know is that you’re out of the fight for good.”

Assuming he wasn’t lying about that then... “You knew about the portal here, but you don’t know where it led?”

That was a giant gamble on his part. But they had been getting pressed in for options.

“No one does.” He shrugged, though the armor restricted his movements enough it hardly looked like an inch of movement. “No one comes back through the portal. Everything you’ve ever known is gone now. Rot in hell with me.”

“I’m very much alive and not rotting last I checked. And I plan to continue being that way for a long time, thank you.”

He smiled, “I’d hoped you would say that. New Deathless like you… you’ve never died before have you? Too powerful for anything on the first strata. Here’s a lesson: Dying isn’t going to bring you back to your home now. Here, you’ll return to a pillar within on this strata. You can choose of course, but that won’t help anything if we’re halfway across the world. There might not be any civilization in any direction for years. I might be the last human you see before you go insane.”

“You’re on the same airspeeder I’m on, buddy. Literally. I don’t think you want to go insane any more than I do.”

He tried to shrug again. “I died when my team died at the Tower. I already live in hell each day. What more can the world do to me that hasn’t already been done?”

“Dramatic of you.” It was a good line, I’ll give it that. Seven out of ten.

“Dramatics is for films. Have you ever known loss? True loss?”

I could see the rows of metal grave plaques, each with the name of a Winterscar who died fighting against hopeless odds to give me just enough time to equip Journey. And all the other newly named Winterscars, watching solemnly through their environmental suit goggles as the eulogy passed through the open comms. Father's face, harrowed out from the fight with Wrath's first incarnation, slowly dying and at peace with it. Windrunner, rushing through to hold To"Sefit down just long enough. "I have." I said, feeling a flash of anger. "You lost friends, I've lost people who swore to serve and protect me. People I was responsible for leading. Who put their faith that saving me would save more lives than they could alone. Do you know what the weight of that feels like? I am a knight retainer of House Winterscar, Drakonis. When sacrifice calls, we answer it."

I dove back down into the soul fractal, letting the cool feelings bleed away my emotions. There, I took a few breaths before I resurfaced. But I always kept a good portion of my soul linked deep, away from the hurt and pain of the world. Propranolol-7 could only be a crutch for so far, but the soul fractal carried the rest of the weight.

When I felt more like myself, I opened my eyes back into the real world, where I stared down at Drakonis. He seemed genuinely puzzled. “How could you lose anyone with all your power?”

That was.... difficult to answer. And much of it, he wouldn't understand. But there was one answer he might. “We took on Feathers.”

The utter shock on his face was something I’d savor. “Feathers?” He asked, going quiet.

“Yes, Feathers. Capital F. The actual agents of the great machine god controlling everything, you stupid scrapshit. And one such Feather turned sides and is helping humanity for the first time in history. And here you are, trying to kill her people while she’s absent. Great look for humanity, thanks.”

"What?" He asked, with the same tone as my own earlier what. He blinked, "... Just who are you?” He asked, this time with a hint of caution.

I could tell him who I was. He didn’t have any relation to machines and being undercover has mostly passed the course. He thinks I’m a Deathless, and so does Relinquished and all the other machines out there. And he’d know my family name, my sister had seen to that. She'd been at his city before the Tower fell. She'd fought against Wrath single handedly and beat her in front of cameras and everything. He had to know her.

I gave him one last good look. “I’m Keith. Keith Winterscar.” I said.