Leftover Apocalypse

"Motherfucker."

I looked over at Connie and winced. Her arm was shriveled and ridiculously wrinkled, as bad as those little shar pei-looking old Sahrger. "What happened? Are you okay?"

She started squinting at the chain that led to that arm from her time mana device, and then sighed. "I'm an idiot, is all. I was trying to increase the efficiency and I... well, it's the equivalent of leaving out a comma or something. I can fix it, it'll only take a minute."

I felt less than reassured. "And your arm is going to be okay?"

"Yeah. It'll take a few days to recover all the way, but that's what my whole left side looked like at first. At least it's just the arm, I can wear long sleeves and gloves and... ugh. What a pain. It's degrading the time mana, you know. Just a little. It's like having money in a savings account, I'm mostly living off of interest but lately I've been spending too much and the more that happens the less interest there is the next time which means the problem just gets bigger. It's exponential, I... I'm not good enough at math, and I don't know how to precisely measure the mana anyway. But I think I've got less than a year before I drain this thing entirely."

"We're going to be rich though. Once we find the Duminere we can get you whatever you need, get the very best people on it."

She nodded, but didn't look convinced. "Yeah. I have a translated copy of the contract the people in the original timeline made, it's pretty nice. Should be set for life at that point so... maybe we'll be able to fix it. I just don't want to get my - or your - hopes up. Hammersmith supposedly had the best people she could get work on it, and she's like a third of the president of the Empire. There are two other Lord Whatevers that do other shit. The... Lord Arbiter, I think would be the best translation, and the Lord... Adjutant? It's a reference to the fact that they insist the Clockmaker is actually still the Emperor even though he's obviously dead.

"Anyway. If a third of the ruling body of the Eternal Empire couldn't get me fixed this fucked up mana pattern really has imprinted onto my body. It's possible I could do some extreme experimental procedure they weren't willing to risk, and if nothing else I should be able to get some more time mana once we're rich. Either way, I can probably at least get us past the big day - once that's over, well, I feel like I'll have done my job."

I didn't really like it when she talked about her impending death so casually. "Listen, I know brooding and wearing all black and whatever isn't going to change this fucked up... temporal... mana corruption... whatever. But if you're not going to be hopeful about fixing it you could at least be angry. This thing where you calmly accept your fate is creeping me out."

"Eh. It's my own fault. I'll sound crazy if I try to explain it, like actual tin foil hat giant corkboard conspiracy theorist kind of crazy, but I think I was supposed to go back in time when the world ended - I think there very easily could have been some time loop bullshit going on though, and I... didn't want to. Because what if I had already gone back in time? There's... forces... in this world. Intelligent forces, even if they're not intelligent like people are. And they try to fix things, try to keep things working right. You know?

"The Clockmaker bound a copy of himself to one, somehow. That's how Imperial magic has been so consistent over time when wild magic would shift around as language changed. I'm not going to get into it, it's a whole big thing and I don't know enough to explain it right. But my point is there's something that keeps time working the way it should. I see it, in little ways, when I rewind time - it does something, at the edges of where I effect. It makes sure the new version still lines up, still works. And if I was going to time travel for real, not just thirty seconds' worth, what if it decided the most stable thing would be a time loop where nothing ever really changes? Where, at the end, I always go back in time and make it start over? And then the new me shows up, and the old one presumably dies, and it just goes around and around? Perfectly stable, forever.

"And that's what Ulren's device was meant for, actual real time travel. But I... well. Basically, everything had been collapsed into a single plane of pure entropy and utterly obliterated except for the lab, and while technically all the things that influence magic also reach through time it was essentially a blank slate. Just... me. And you know how we've talked a bunch about how magic is defined and controlled by what people mean, what they think? Well if you're the only one in all of existence, it's all based on you. It's not that simple, of course, and I'm not smart enough to just will shit into being or something so I still had to use Imperial magic as an underlying language. But I realized I didn't need to get things perfectly right, not really, because there were no such things as typos or - " she looked at her wrinkled arm, "- or missing commas if it was all founded on my own intent. So I used a function from this device Ulren had been studying, a bit that looked for where something departed or arrived at a point in time and copied it.

"I think... I think it was the thing that was supposed to send Jake Ross back at the end of the books, put him back on Earth in his original young body. Ulren had salvaged all sorts of shit from Brinkmar. Anyway, I just tweaked it so it would look at when I arrived here in this world and... copy it all to the present, not just my body but the whole world. So you can think of it like me going back in time, I guess, but it's not a loop because I made sure we were both here. I didn't start the game over, I loaded an old save file. Or something. But I have to wonder if I fucked up, if those forces that make time work out right are pissed at me for actually changing shit. Because if I put on that tin foil hat and think about a few things I saw, some things that don't make sense, I wonder if I was supposed to actually time travel and die some other way and this is all a paradox. And now time is, literally, killing me."

I didn't know what to say to all that, and before I could think of anything she was already past me, pulling on her gloves and checking bags. I decided it would just have to go on the ever-growing pile of things to think about later, once we were done with the Necropolis and finding the lost Duminere and maybe even after letting the soldiers into Brinkmar. I sighed, and finished getting dressed.

We were heading out early to the pit at the center of the Necropolis, and had packed up bags the night before. We each had huge coils of rope, lots of food and water, and some magic lights a lot like the ones I had seen in the hospital right after I arrived. There was also an extra stack of food we were leaving behind for the rescued kids, which was enough to feed them for a few days until we returned.

That little voice in my head pinged - the one that warned me when I was being a sociopath or something. "Hey. Is this fucked up?"

"Is what fucked up?" Connie seemed to think her rig was fixed, but was still struggling with making sure it was sitting nicely under her shirt. She'd been leaving it on most of the time anyway, but would for sure have to have it in place going forward if there was any chance it would undo the damage to her arm.

"Well these five kids, they're... I mean the oldest is like twelve and they've been through a lot and now we're parking them in a motel room and leaving them with a bunch of ramen and beef jerky and telling them to just... wait here? That seems like it's not right."

She stopped and tilted her head like she was thinking. "Maybe? It's fine. We lived in a literal hotel room for the better part of a year by ourselves, remember?"

That was true. Uncle Roy had owned an extended stay hotel, and I'd been dumped there by my mom at one point which was an upgrade from her normal routine of leaving me in the woods or the changing room in the Walmart.

The Long Haul Hotel hadn't been a bad place to live. The rooms all had little kitchens like they were almost apartments, and as a nine year old that was pretty much the coolest thing ever. Uncle Roy hadn't known what to do with me and thought that I could probably mostly fend for myself because he didn't have any children of his own and hadn't understood how competent some kids can seem while also being completely stupid and helpless in other ways. He stuck me in room 217 and blocked the television from ordering porn, and promptly forgot about me.

The hotel served breakfast every day and dinner on Monday through Thursday, so as long as I planned ahead I could make it through most of the time without needing to bother uncle Roy. Breakfast was the usual options, many of which reheated nicely for lunch, and while the dinners weren't very good by restaurant standards I had been accustomed to making do with whatever wasn't too moldy when I lived with my mother and so it seemed practically gourmet. The only time that I would bring myself to my uncle's attention was on Friday afternoons right before he left for the weekend, when I would have almost exactly this conversation:

"Uncle Roy!"

"Oh, hey kid. Uh. Yeah, forgot about you for a minute there. You… doing okay? Got everything you need?"

"Sure thing. Can I have some pizza money? There's no dinner tonight."

"Right, yeah. Of course."

And he would dig out a twenty or two from his wallet hand it over, looking very nervous and extremely guilty. He knew this wasn't how you were supposed to take care of a kid, and he knew it couldn't go on forever, but he also didn't know what else to do and felt like it was going well enough at the moment. I'd try to ration out the money and live off leftovers from breakfast and dinner as much as possible, and overall was pleased with the arrangement. If I left my dirty clothes in a bag they would get cleaned and returned by the staff, and most of my essentials were taken care of.

Once I had figured out a routine I managed to saved up quite a stash of the leftover pizza money, and made some pretty big plans that were interrupted by a cop that caught me throwing steak knives at a homemade target out behind the Big & Tall store in the strip mall. He wanted to know why I was playing with knives instead of being in school, and that led to Uncle Roy having to admit he had basically just forgotten that I would need to be enrolled at some point. And so I left room 217 and went back to my mom with only a few days in the custody of child protective services in-between - but that stash of money got left behind, just like the gear I kept in Universal Servicing Systems or the nice boxed set of the Jake Ross books that I left... somewhere.

"I guess my concern is... just because we did it and we're okay doesn't mean it's okay for other kids. You know? Like, maybe our childhood was shitty and bad and we should make sure theirs is better."

Connie sighed as she checked the straps on her backpack. "Yeah, and we are. We spontaneously busted them out of slavery or indentured servitude or whatever that was, and by the end of this they'll have no-strings-attached Dumines. Or duds I guess, statistically. But the point is, if you want to arrange for them to get therapy or something you can do that later. For now, unless you want to stay behind they'll have to be on their own for a few days. Less than a week."

And the problem was, I didn't actually give a shit. I'd worked pretty hard to not get attached to these kids over the last couple days - I'd even avoided learning their names - and I really wanted to delve down into a bottomless pit of swarming undead despite that also sounding like a sort of terrifying thing to do. I was only voicing these concerns because after years of training myself to check if I was being a dick I couldn't really turn it off even though Connie had pointed out that was probably due to some sort of strange false memory anyway. "Yeah. Okay, let's just go."

But I could feel it. That hypothetical better version of me, watching and disapproving. Bill would have been disappointed. He was always so unerringly... good.

The others were all ready and waiting, each with their own pack. Sige was once again hanging from the rafters upside down, Aestrid was leaning against nothing at all, and Cyne was flipping through his little notebook. Mila was digging through her backpack for something but couldn't seem to remember what, and Katrin was trying to figure out the best way to strap her spellbook to the pack while still keeping it readily available. The only one that seemed like he wasn't ready was Errod.

He shuffled his feet. "I'm worried about the kids we rescued."

Connie rolled her eyes so hard I thought she would sprain something, shot me a look I couldn't quite interpret, and then stormed off to help Mila get her bag re-packed.

I walked over to stand with him, and then glanced over at the kids. They were all huddled in the next room, watching us prepare through the doorway. "Just about leaving them alone?"

"Yes. I want... I want to be with you and Katrin, to protect you -" I kept a straight face and nodded. I deserved an Oscar. "- but I also feel like someone should be here with them. This is a strange city, and they've been in Xeyul for most of their lives. If they were to get lost, or... I don't know. I try to live by the ideals of the knights of Brinkmar, and I don't think the Savior of Brinkmar would leave children alone if they were as... ill-prepared as these."

This was perfect. This was the solution to everything. "I was thinking the same thing, but... well, I have to go since Connie and I are technically in charge. You stay here, babysit, make sure everything works out. We'll be back in a few days. Not everyone needs to be with us for this part anyway."

Errod looked conflicted. "Are you sure? I worry about... well, I've heard the animated corpses in the Necropolis are very aggressive."

"Sure, but most of what gets buried in there is sealed in tombs or it's just loose piles of bones, right? There's no way we'll run into many undead at once, I'm sure we can handle it. And hell, Cyne has been down there before and he isn't worried even though he can't fight. Plus, worst case scenario, we have Aestrid and Sige with us to help fight if we do run into some aggressive zombies. It's literally what we're paying them for."

He looked over at Aestrid, and I felt certain he had been hoping to show off in front of her down there. But she was too old for him, and in any case he was more likely to hurt himself than to successfully kill anything. He'd injured himself again while practicing the day after we arrived in the Necropolis - nothing as bad as the toe incident, but still an indication he hadn't improved much in the last few weeks.

I could see he was on the fence, and I selfishly wanted to force him to babysit so I wouldn't have to feel guilty about the kids being alone - so I just took the choice away from him. "Hey guys, Errod has volunteered to stay back and watch our refugees."

Sige dropped down and patted Errod on the back and said that was "a good fucking plan", and Mila asked if she should stay too before being reminded that her abilities would almost certainly be needed to help us navigate through to our goal. It was only as we were leaving that I had a twinge of guilt - or maybe just felt like I should feel guilty - and wondered if I should apologize for forcing Errod into that position instead of talking it through with him and possibly being the one to sit it out. But I didn't turn around.

Because of the cycle of the planes, the days of the month that typically had enough planes aligned to matter were the first, the thirteenth, and the twenty-fifth. That was almost certainly why I had appeared on the first of the month - a particularly beefy one, from an alignment standpoint - and it was why Hammersmith's recent attempt to strongarm her way into Brinkmar happened on the 25th of the month. We didn't have anything we needed to do that would require extra mana from a planar alignment, but lots of other people did which meant if we didn't get assistance going down into the pit today we'd have to wait. Tomorrow was the first, and everyone that we would get assistance from was booked.

Even the assistance we were getting was minimal. The cost for getting a lift down the pit increased rapidly the deeper you went, and they could charge whatever they wanted since only a few people had permission to operate a ferry. Mila could make us a hole if we wanted to start from the top, but while the pit was saturated with mana it wasn't neutrally aligned which meant everyone would be recharging at about the same rate they did in a city - which is to say pretty slowly. Also, the temptation to skip a day's worth of travel in ten minutes was just too great.

When we arrived, it was... underwhelming. Considering the cost I was expecting some sort of luxury elevator with drinks and comfortable seats, but it was just a sort of wicker basket - it looked like the gondola under a hot air balloon, without the balloon. We filed in, barely fitting especially because of the backpacks, and two very squat men grabbed onto handles on the outside. For a moment nothing happened, and then we just... drifted into the air. I felt strangely light, though I wasn't totally weightless - it seemed like they were probably combining two effects somehow, both making it light and then lifting it up. As it moved the gravity continued to adjust and even pointed sideways for a moment, which made my stomach turn. I had to close my eyes until we stopped moving, because part of me felt like we were going to tumble out into the sky and fall forever.

And then the decent began.

From inside the pit, it seemed larger. Up above at the edge, the angle had prevented me from getting a good feel of it - but now that we were being swallowed and leaving the surface behind I could see there was a good twenty feet on all sides of us. Our lights cast strange shadows - especially with the almost random arrangement of pillars, walls, and monuments. I couldn't be sure at any given moment if the shapes I saw moving were just those shadows shifting, or actual creatures. There was an odd smell, more earthy than a smell of rot, and the air was clammy as it wafted up from the depths. The circle of light above us began to look distant and small, and I became aware of other lights deep in galleries and tunnels.

None were particularly bright, and no two looked alike. There was a dim blue glow down one passage, and a tuft of luminescent green moss along a pillar, and a tiny flickering flame somehow still burning on a torch that looked to be at least fifty years old. Little traces of magic, scattered around like it was no big deal. I could feel my heart beating faster, simultaneously dreading the idea of seeing a zombie and hoping one would step out of the shadows and reach towards our passing vessel. Safely out of reach, of course.

We alighted on a sort of balcony, at an area with a high ceiling. One of the men handed Connie a wooden ball. "Break this stem off, see, and it'll float upwards glowing. We see it, we'll do our best to come down for you - but you do that, you had better be ready to pay us the emergency rates. Plus even then there's a limit to how far down we'll go. Otherwise, it's your responsibility to find your way back up.

"I'm not sure how you got a permit, but I know you're new to this so listen close. You show respect, and you make sure you don't disturb any graves that might be still in the resting period. We've taken you down far enough that some here might be, but if you're looking for treasure it'll be with the richer folk and they get buried faster which means they're newer which means they're not fair game yet. You'll want to go quite a ways further down, because the top couple levels of the safe zone are picked clean I'm sure.

"Now my uncle, he's a reanimator and the assistants he makes are gentle as a well-fed baby but some asshole a couple hundred years ago put some down here under instruction to kill any grave robbers and the theory goes those instructions have sort of propagated through all the other ones down here since they didn't have any orders of their own. That means they can be very hostile, so you'll want to avoid them as best you can. Don't let too many surround you, that's the most important part. We've lost a lot of people down here, five already this year although four of them were part of the same group. That last one, his friends survived and they told a very familiar tale - he got more than a dozen of the things on him at once, and while he was a match for any two zombies he could get knocked down like anyone else and that was that."

The other one cleared his throat, and the man that had been speaking startled. "Oh. Right. Well, no time to chat. Good luck I suppose." They grabbed onto the gondola again, still not riding inside, and shot back up the shaft far faster than we had come down. Just like that, we were alone with no clear way back up.

Connie seemed to snap out of some distant thought suddenly. "Okay. Cool. Um. I have some directions here, but it will take a while. We'll want to go mostly downwards, we can look for stairs or holes to conserve mana, but Mila if you're all full we can also just have you pull the floor open. Sige, you're the acrobatic type - if you see good opportunities to rappel down the pit, that's what the ropes are for. That being said, we would want to be certain whatever we hook to is sturdy and I think most of us have never done anything like that so it's... not my main plan."

She nervously looked down into the pit, but I'd already checked - you couldn't see far at all. "Yeah, not something I'm eager to try. But like I said, you see a really good opportunity where it's going to be faster to set up the ropes and tie everyone in safely and stuff than it would be to just find some stairs, you say so. Any normal magic is likely to be burned out, and thankfully that includes most security wards. But once we get really deep, if you see something that's clearly magic it might be an artifact so let's bag it."

Katrin saw the look of confusion on my face and leaned in. "Artifacts are... well, it's like when we talked about demigods. Think normal magic items, but just particularly well made or done in some special way or something. It doesn't necessarily mean the items themselves are better, but chances are if an artificer went to that trouble they didn't do it for a toy or something."

Connie seemed to be going down a mental checklist, and then nodded to herself. "Okay, that's it. Let's move out. Uh. Anyone have a guess as to which way we should go?"

I thought I heard a faint chuckle from somewhere further down the pit, but it was probably my imagination.