12 Miles Below

Book 4. Chapter 23: Sneak level 100

I’m worried about this plan. Wrath said through the soul link, head half buried in the sack. Single working eye watched as the clan knights worked to pass off equipment and gear off the hoversleds. I recalled all forces in the area, including those within this temple. They have lived here for years, its likely they’ve already learned all passages over that time. The new forces called by To’Sefit here may have gotten that information. You could be walking into a trap.

You didn’t know about it. I countered. And you’re their boss.

I didn’t need to know smaller details like this. I am not omnipotent. They may have not known about these tunnels either, if it were hidden well enough.

All right, fair point. I thought. What’s the chances that the machines inside had enough time to scout out all the tunnels?

I am not sure. It depends on how obvious the entrances are. If the tunnels lead into secret doorways, then it is fairly likely To’Sefit’s forces have not discovered them within the few hours since.

Even if it’s a trap of some kind, we’ve got to take it. Up here, To’Sefit will give us no chance at all to make it inside. Down there, could be anyone’s guess.

Long range munitions and rifles were passed over from clan knights to the Shadowsongs, both the minions and their fearless leader. Lord Atius had made a good point about leaving them up here with a few of the clan knights, and the one with a wounded leg.

Perhaps on the surface we might find another method of repairing my circuits. Wrath said. Tsuya may have a possible solution

This might be the last chance we’ve got to access a mite forge, after this they’ll be looking for you anywhere you show your face. So long as you have the unity fractal, Relinquished will know you’re still alive somewhere.

Wrath said nothing to that, sulking further into the sack. I could tell she wasn’t comfortable being so dependent on others. This hadn’t been something she’d ever needed to go through.

Outside of the temple, the worst enemies the knights could fight would be machines in open ground. Other than Drakes, the knights could hold almost indefinitely against any enemy given the Winterblossom technique along with their training both inside and outside the digital sea. So leaving the Shadowsongs up here had made good sense. Inside the temple, experience would be king.

When Ankah had begun to protest on claim of being handled too lightly, Windrunner pointed a hand right in the direction of the temple, slightly up.

To’Sefit.

While we were preparing to dive into Feather central, there was still a good chance only To’Sefit had managed to make it here in time. We might not run into anything at all, fix up Wrath and get out just as quick. I mean, I absolutely didn’t believe that was going to happen, I’m not an idiot. But it was theoretically possible all of this worked out exactly according to plan. In the same way it was theoretically possible that the sun stopped rising at dawn given a large enough calamity.

Anyhow, as far as I knew, Ankah wasn’t going to have it easy even if it seemed like the safer group to be part of. The home team up there would need to keep shooting, from range, at a target that believed artillery spam was a noble strategy.

If anything they’d need to be the most nimble between our two groups. I could already see them strapping the legless knight on one of the hover sleds, planning out the logistics of being able to alternate fire from different sites and run like hell after every shot.

The away team ended up being five of Atius’s knights including Windrunner, five Winterscar knights including Captain Sagrius, then Kidra, Atius and I to wrap up the team. Thirteen all in all, filing down the hidden hollow into the tunnel under us.

We landed with a slash, the walls down here wet with mist, illuminated in small teal lights. A pair of knights waited for us at the bottom, rifles aiming downrange. “No signs of movement. Path seems clear, m’lord.”

Atius nodded, giving a critical glance into the murky depths ahead. “Time’s fading fast. Let’s get to it. Home team, engage To’Sefit the moment she shows signs of moving. Away team, advance.”

The knights began to march forward, weapons scanning across each pathway. The small stream at the bottom of our feet rushed forward in a clear direction, likely towards the temple. We followed as silently as thirteen soldiers could creep, which turned out to be quieter than thought.

Two clan knights and Sagrius took point, trailed behind by the rest of the group. Holding our rear were the Winterscar knights, kept in reserve to hold off a flanking attack.

We passed the first antechamber, a larger cavern filled with different tunnels streaming out. At the center a larger puddle where the streams intersected, flooding forward to a larger tunnel ahead.

The room was filled with familiar metal stakes. A nest. Wrath said, though the team here clearly recognized the signs, rifles pointing up to search for possible targets. We found nothing, only past signs of occupation.

These sisters were recalled to the city. None took over their territory since. This is a good sign that To’Sefit’s forces haven’t had enough time to explore the temple.

Further proof she's simply low on the number of machines to throw at us. I thought.

With the only spider in the room strapped on my back and harmless enough, the group flowed through the tunnel, advancing forward into the larger tunnel.

Soon the walls stopped looking like rock and more like actual temple walls. The HUD on my map showed we’d crossed past the field of water above. To’Sefit was either being bullied by the surface team or hadn’t yet caught on that the majority of the knights were sneaking under her nose.

So far so good. Up until it wasn’t. We turned a corner and slid to a stop.

At the end of this corridor was the clear light of the mite temple. Light bright enough to mimic sunlight. A broken room filled with pillars crumpled on one another, half submerged in crystal blue water, large white walls stacked like fallen dominos against each other, or broken into smaller piles. Green leaves growing in the few places where dirt had piled up, adding a splash of life to the otherwise pristine ruins.

That wasn’t what took our attention.

Ahead at the end of the corridor leading to the outside stood a mountain of alabaster white muscle, interspersed with black lines all across his body in geometric patterns. Small twinkles of violet lights within immediately showed none of this was organic. A massive warhammer that matched his size rested casually on his right shoulder, while a wall of bronze waited in his other. The tower shield looked more like a cut apart doorway, with some kind of ornate painting across the surface depicting a tree. The rest of the details were cut from the rough edges of the shield.

Crude. And completely at odds with the rest of his aesthetic. The massive man’s face was half hidden with a head scarf sloppily held, dropping over one eye and wrapping around his throat.

The other glowing violet eye seemed filled with nothing but apathy as it lazily turned to meet us.

I’d never seen a Feather look more like a hunched musclehead minion before, but here he was. Almost within the same moment he’d appeared, his body lit up in bright yellow sparks all across as the clan knights opened fire from rifles without hesitation.

None of it did anything to a Feather, of course.

Reflex and training was the error here. They’d been too conditioned to respond to threats using rifles, when they should have opened fire with a knightbreaker instead. Atius rightfully called out for a shot the very next moment, the knight at the front responding by tossing his own rifle aside with little care, reaching to the back of his hip for the grenade launcher. Every knight here had one round ready to go, carefully carried from the few we had to work with.

They'd been brought down here to kill a Feather, only fitting they end up doing exactly that, if not the exact original target.

“Nnnn.” The musclehead gunted, unbothered by the spray of bullets impacting his body at all points. He lifted the warhammer, rolled his shoulders, and slammed the weapon straight down into the stone ahead of him.

When the head of the hammer struck the ground, nothing physical happened anywhere.

There was no impact. No crater in the ground. No damage at all even. Instead, Occult light raced ahead of him, filling the hallway with light across the walls and ground, straight at us. One heartbeat and it was already past us, leaving the corridor filled with crackles of blue tinted lighting.

Gravity fled with it.

The knights and I started to float up, desperate scrabbling around only caused us to bounce off each other. The one with the knightbreaker kept a hold, aiming down sight even as he floated off his feet.

“Ropes!” Windrunner yelled out over comms, right behind me. “Get us out of here, now!”

The Wintercar knights behind us had been guarding our backs, and they hadn’t yet turned the corridor. From my peripheral, I saw they hadn’t been affected. Looked like the occult couldn’t turn corners, the anti-gravity field had been a straight line.

My house knights instantly holstered weapons, drawing out grappling ropes with hooks, and threw them into the anti-gravity field, where knights behind me grabbed hold and were pulled out. I got my hands on a rope hook, then reached out to Kidra floating above me, grabbing her dress and yanking her to the rope. She grabbed on just above me.

The Feather wasn’t done. He lifted the bronze shield and dropped it before him. He’d lifted it like it weighed a few pounds, but when it dropped, the ground cracked under. That thing was heavy.

Occult pulsed again, and this time gravity returned - except directly at him.

Down became sideways, and all of us fell directly in his direction. Those of us who’d already grabbed ropes had a chance to hold on, the string growing taut as the full weight of several relic armors held down against it. With the rope swinging us now, most of us slammed into the side of the wall, feet taking footholds.

Two knights and Captain Sagrius up front hadn’t been so lucky. They’d been too far from the ropes. The lead knight hadn’t even tried to attach himself, too busy aiming the knightbreaker in that short span of time.

He’d been quick, his entire movement had only taken seconds. But so had the Feather’s own movements. The bronze shield ahead continued to draw the freefalling knights.

The knightbreaker round fired out. Even in this close range, it still had time to activate the rocket propellant. The round roared to life, screaming straight into the bronze shield, impacting it. Occult chains flared out the sides and wrapped around the tower shield. They connected and then bounced off, repelled. No shields or any kind appeared, the material itself seemed to be outright impervious. In moments, the knightbreaker shell itself also crushed itself flat against the shield, breaking the chains and cutting off power.

The shield remained untouched. The round had hit it with the same impact of a fly against a flyswatter. The Feather lifted a foot, and caught the spent shell as it rolled past him, stomping it into the ground like a paperclip.

The lead knight tossed the spent grenade launcher to the side, already drawing out his blade as he fell directly at the shield. The other two flanking him had also reoriented themselves in the fall, blades equally ready to strike. Strange gravity was nothing to them. They’d trained in the digital sea where gravity existed at odd angles. To them, this was simply a jump from up high on an enemy under them.

The Feather brought his hammer up again, and swiped it across the closest knight before he’d reached the shield. The hit struck the unfortunate knight, carried him down with the swing, into the ground. This time, when the hammer hit ground, it did exactly as a hammer ought to do when swung with superhuman strength. The entire ground collapsed under, ripping apart as occult pulsed across the hammer. The knight was utterly flattened into the ground, armored shield coming online to hold against the onslaught.

The shield held against whatever occult spell the Feather had used in his hammer, but the humans inside hadn’t. Green nameplate instantly turned gray. Medical scans showed inertia had squashed the fragile gray matter against the inside of his skull.

“Nnnn. One.” The Feather said as the knight’s limp armor began to fall out of the crater, pulled by the artificial gravity. He let go of the tower shield handle and slammed the freed hand to the side of the wall. Occult rushed through the white arm, outlining an imprint of his hand in glowing blue. Air began to whoosh through the room, being sucked towards the handprint. The Feather took a casual step back, dragging the stupidly huge shield with him, as the next knight slammed down against it, feet first. He scrambled to leap over the barrier and stab at the mountain of muscle hiding behind.

That moment didn’t come. Even with the relic armor’s power clawing at the shield, the grip slacked and slipped off as the knight plummeted directly into the wall where the handprint lay, as if sucked to an airlock.

Shields triggered from the heavy impact, but nothing near close enough to deal internal damage, the knight was safe. The Feather’s hammer swung down on him before he could even roll, the flat head glowing bright occult blue.

Another nameplate turned gray on my HUD as the rock walls shook from the impact. Too many bones had been fractured, internal organs ripped apart from the sharp shards, the whole body acting more like jelly trapped inside armor, whipped around by mutated physics.

“Two.” The Feather grunted, lifting the hammer off the wall, the dead knight sliding off the crater and down the hallway, body limp. A violet eye turned past the bronze tower shield to stare up at Sagrius. Looking for a third victim.

The captain had the sense to angle his fall against the floor of the hallway, an occult blade slashing a wide cut into the ground, while his other hand drew out his personal rope and hook, slamming it into the freshly cut ground. His speed instantly cut off, the relic armor more than strong enough against the inverted gravity.josei

I spun out my own rope and hook from my belt, launching it directly at him, calling out for him to grab hold so I could lift him to safety.

“Nnnn… Annoying.” The Feather growled, then leaped forward through the corridor, unaffected by the modified gravity or the bullets pinging off his skin sent down by desperate knights.

The hammer swung down for the Captain, bloodthirsty for a third soul to add to his tally.

Next Chapter - Tried