12 Miles Below

“Surface dwellers!” A rather fat man said, almost rolling off one of the skiffs, landing hard on the ground and rushing up to the undersider knights up front, shoving his way through the line. “Goddess bless this goldforsaken land, we’re saved!”

Two of the knights next to him began to lower their rifles down, before the center knight swiftly chopped the air, then lifted a fist up. All rifled went back to aiming right in our direction, and a few hands reaching to the hilt of their knifes.

The rest of the Winterscar knights behind me came to a stop, Wrath included as we held a standstill for a moment.

“Identify yourself.” That undersider knight at the center called out over general comms, with a deeper timber of an older veteran.

“Odd way to greet friendly faces this far down in the underground.” I muttered. A power play of some kind before the mechants?

Wrath opened comms a moment later, “I overheard their earlier discussion. He’s warning his caravan that our cloaks and clothing are hiding far too much of our armor. This is unnatural to surface knights. Your culture does not hide their house sigils, we are suspicious.”

“He thinks we might be slavers or raiders in disguise.” Father added, taking a step forward beyond our lines. “A reasonable precaution.” Then he stopped in his steps, as if he had a better idea and turned back to me. “Boy, handle this. Diplomacy is a skill, practice it.”

He wasn’t really saying I needed to practice speaking to a bunch of panicked soldiers that we weren’t here to enslave them or loot their stuff. He was saying it’s a good chance to practice our official cover.

I gave a shrug of my shoulders, took a step forward and opened up general comms with a traditional clan salute. “I am Remus Nighthaven, of House Nighthaven. We are knights sent by clan Deius.”

Wouldn’t serve anyone to tell the truth over open comms like these. If machines were picking up signals, or if the Undersiders here had to talk, better they got the info we wanted slipped out. Atius had written it all up, along with a whole fictional story behind the clan and our expedition. I think part of him enjoyed writing up stories, a lot of the details were completely unnecessary. He still insisted, telling us to rely on our relic armor’s HUD to give the quick notes whenever topics showed up.

Plus Wrath and Father both had perfect memory recall, so even the tiniest and strangest details would be dredged up without issue.

“Never heard of that clan.” The undersider knight understandably said, rifle still lifted up. “Only three clans within the area that I know of, Altosk, Yestra, and Nedia.”

I’ll give him this, he really did know his stuff. Nedia was at least a month of travel away from our own clan. Assuming they’re still around at all with the slaver activity upstairs. We only heard from them every few years.

“We were hired to escort Deathless to the lower levels.” I said, giving him a nod. “A teleportation trap triggered and caught us inside. We’ve been slowly seeking a way back to the surface.”

The undersider knight nodded slowly. “Name the three gods of the exodites.” he said.

“Talen, Tsyua, and Urs.” I said without problem. “Not a great question if you’re trying to ferret Othersiders from Surface clans. Culture overlap is a thing and everyone up there already knows about the gods. They’re only exotic to undersiders that don’t travel to the surface clans.”

He gave a dark chuckle. “You’re right, that’s too low a bar. Rust… what’s the staple food you eat?”

“Generally rice, wallflour, lentils, chicken and insects.” I said, counting down a finger for each. “Frostbloom only when we’re scrapped. Again, Othersiders are gonna eat the same diet too.”

Father took a step forward, then flared out the occult around him. “Enough. They were hired to escort me.”

At that, all the rifles went down almost at once. A few of the Undersiders even took a quick knee, one fist quickly tapping their chestplate, murmuring greetings. The center knight also lowered his rifle, a little more slowly but without any malice left. “That’ll do it, Master Deathless. Forgive my questioning, the men and I have been through danger and we can’t take chances.”

Father waved them off. “Precaution saves lives. It is known.”

The merchant who’d been hiding behind the main knight pushed right through, almost waddling forward. “Master Deathless, I am Sir Reginald Quath, merchant lord from Drestin.” He quickly gave a deep bow, then lifted and tapped the Undersider knight’s shoulder next. “This fellow here is Forward Captain Atlas, from the Skar-fist company, hired out to protect my convoy. We are attempting to reach Capra’Nor, and we’ve been traveling for almost a month now. This was supposed to be a known passway between grand highways, but alas, as you can see it’s not as safe as it once was.” There was a nervous chuckle from the merchants around. “Would you be interested in forming a temporary contract? We’re not equipped to travel on the surface so our services can’t assist you on your current mission - however I swear to you good sir, that Capra’Nor is just slightly further out and would serve as an excellent resting spot. After which I can have a convoy drafted up to bring you to the surface clan of Altosk. They’re a clan led by a Deathless like yourself! I am certain he would agree to assist your return to your original lands, no matter how far off they are.”

“Capra’Nor has been overwhelmed.” Father said. “The people have fled to further cities beyond. We know this as I was there personally and witnessed the fall.”

The news instantly stabbed the merchants like a sharpened icepick. A few gasped, others took a step back. The undersider knights just remained stoic at the news, as if digesting it in the privacy of their armors.

The merchants were a different story, emotions easily read. They wanted to protest at first, probably about to ask how he knew this. Then realized Father was a Deathless, and wouldn’t lie about such things. Right after denial came justifications or rationalizations that parts of the city would still be operational, or segmented.

Except it wasn’t some city state dispute. If it had been overrun by machines, there wouldn’t be any kind of civilized takeover.

Bit of an irony here - there had been a civil takeover, but none of the merchants could have reasonably guessed that would happen. There wasn’t any anger phase, they skipped that step entirely. Which led to just sorrow for most of them.

Except for the merchant lord, who seemed to perk up. “And the nearby cities… you mentioned people have escaped to them? Then they must still be operational! It would be an extra detour, however we happen to have a supply surplus, after a rather unfortunate end to some of our colleagues.”

That was a morbid way to view things, but can’t fault the logic.

“The surrounding cities should still be untouched by the machine invasion.” Wrath said, then pinged coordinates to the caravan for the nearby cities she’d mapped out previously while assisting with the evacuation preparations, “We assisted in organizing the possible escape vectors the people would take.”

“We fought the machines to the last.” Father added. “Until there was nothing left to save.”

Atlas nodded, turning to his employer and relaying the news. The merchants instantly turned on one another, debating over a small tablet they’d pulled out that had an updated map. Running calculations and the like on which city was the best to go to.

While they spoke together, Atlas took a few steps forward, signaling to the rest of his team to spread out and keep a watch for any approaching machines.

“We’ve been harried night and day by machines, lord Deathless. I suspected a mite forge may have moved into the area, or machines are migrating. But news of a fallen city makes more sense. The machines must be hunting after survivors.” The Undersider captain gave a look behind him, at the flurry of activity. “I admit, I was mostly convinced we wouldn’t make it to the grand highway at this rate. I’ve never seen surface knights in your numbers before, but given you’re here to escort a Deathless to the further underground reaches, it makes sense. Is your group also following behind one of the evacuation routes?”

“We are not.” Father said, then turned his head back to me. “Address discussions with the Nighthaven Prime. He is in charge of his knights and will know more.”

Translation from Father: I’m tired of talking, you handle them son.

Technically, I was supposed to be a prime for that House according to the document brief Atius had come up with. None of the knights here would feel comfortable taking on that mantle, so it fell to me.

Father turned and went to sit on the side of some rubble, watching me closely.

“We’re looking for an item within the sector for the honored Deathless.” I said, taking a step to the Undersider captain and addressing his concerns. “We haven’t had much luck yet, but if we find a mite terminal that should speed our search up. Happened to find such a thing?”

“As a matter of fact, we have. Passed by it by pure chance, wasn’t noted on our old maps but these locations don’t get any updates unless the path changes.” The captain said, extending a hand out. “I’d give it to you out of principle, but my men’s lives are at stake. I humbly request assistance in making it to the grand highway in exchange for the terminal’s location.”

“Figured you were going to say that.” I said, “No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”

He laughed, “Not in these soul-scoured lands, no. Any other situation, I would have offered it without hesitation.”

“Merging with the traders would be a fairly easy way to hide.” Father said over comms. “We bring them to their destination point, obtain direct coordinates for the map, and complete the first part of the mission.”

Wrath agreed. “Given our rate of progress, and the coordinates for the grand highway they are attempting to reach, I calculate assisting them and obtaining direct coordinates would be faster than finding it with our current resources.”

Made sense. Even if the terminal was significantly further away, that just means we’d have to be blindly mapping out significantly more land to find it. Having neat coordinates to the nearest terminal would solve all our issues.

I grabbed his hand and shook it. “We’re traveling with a Deathless. I think he’d be rather upset with us if we left people to just die off like that.”

Technically, Father would probably allow just that to happen if he had to weigh lives. Probably why he wasn’t a Deathless.

Wrath wouldn’t have allowed it, she always tried to find way to do the best for everyone, the little cinnamon roll.

It was odd in a way, that a machine was closer to a Deathless than a human.

We traveled with the merchants for a few more hours before the lights of the city dimmed for darkness. The night cycle.

No machines came out of the rocks, so they were likely still assembling an attack force to handle what the merchants had.

My group camped out inside an old hotel-like structure with busted windows. Tons of square rooms inside to camp in, but the whole thing was slightly tilted over.

Outside, further by the base of the building, the Undersider knights were all spread out, keeping close eye for any signs of violet in the distance.

“The undersider traders are terrified of the local machines here.” I said, watching them patrol around. “Understandable, I was terrified of them too a few months ago.” I gave a look at Wrath. “Occasionally still terrified, but for completely different reasons now.”

She gave back a betrayed look. Then narrowed her eyes and glanced down at her half-eaten undersider ration bar, before looking at everyone else’s to compare what she was doing differently, adding it all up to one conclusion. “It looked tasty. And they offered it freely.” She justified, quickly hiding the whole thing behind her. Then puffed up. “Additionally, I have seen miss Silverstride eat mica-based pearlescent pigmented metallics before. There is precedent. I am experimenting with possible ingredients to improve her recipes.”

“It’s called edible glitter, and she sprinkles it in her cookies purely because she’s a giant moth with a compulsive need to worship anything that sparkles. She even puts it in her hair.” I pointed at the loot she was hiding behind her. “That, on the other hand, is a half eaten foil wrapper.”

“There is functionally no difference.” Wrath said with a pout. “I fail to see why I would need to shred this into tiny segments instead of one larger segment.” She immediately added when I gave her the look. “And miss Silverstride is a human, not a moth.”

“She’s three moths in a dress pretending to be a human.”

“Algorithms show you are currently lying.” Wrath countered, eyes narrowing further.

“M’lord,” one of the knights asked, before I could mess with Wrath some more. “What is our plan of action when machines come?”

I saw what he was trying to ask. “We still don’t want to have any machine recording us ripping them apart faster than clan knights should, but I also really don’t like the idea of letting someone die simply to keep our own secret. And that’s going to happen if we keep everything we’ve got secret.”

The other Winterscar knights gave small nods. We had all the power to save every single one in this convoy. Even without weapons or the occult, we could still pull it off by sheer speed. Relic armor by itself was stronger than a Screamer, so even without knives or blades, we could punch and rip our way to victory.

Undersider knights could not. And neither could regular clan knights. Limiting ourselves to pretend we were weaker than we actually were could end up costing someone’s life.

“Not a problem.” Father said. “A Deathless traveling at this level is not unheard of. I will protect the caravan traveling forward and ensure no lives are lost. The rest of you will act as standard clan knights.”

Wrath nodded, as did the rest of our crew. A plan was hashed out. Father would pull off the kind of stunts a Deathless could do, flaring out the occult whenever he moved faster than he had any right to, and any recording would have come to a natural conclusion it was just occult scrapshit at work.

With that all set in stone, it was time to camp out and sleep through the night. The merchants had been running day and night without break, taking shifts to drive the convoy forward. Having this many additional knights join them finally gave the whole crew a chance to actually recover.

I gave one last look outside to the campfires among the undersiders below, then slipped on my helmet and locked it in place.

Hexis had left me some entries to read. Quite a ton of it too given the size of the textfiles and images. My master might not be here to personally train me anymore, but next time I saw him, I aimed to have mastered every lesson he wrote down and be damn smug about it.

Half hour for the nightly mental exercises, some meditation within the soul fractal to check that I still can’t quite see concepts of mathematics just yet, and then another deep dive into the next chapter of his left behind lessons.

He said he only spent his spare time writing all of this down, but the amount of detail he wrote under each lesson made me think he wasn’t being honest with himself.

I didn’t get to sleep on time tonight, because just an hour before I actually planned to end my reading, the machines came knocking.

They came prepared to handle a convoy of desperate traders protected by a line of Undersider knights at their wit’s end.

They did not come prepared to take on Father, stalking around the area with silent fury and complete permission to use everything at his disposal to fight.

Unfortunately for them.