1

Great titanium cylinders revolved somewhere deep behind the walls of stone. Grinding against a series of ancient cogs, they generated a low, reverberating roar that one could feel in his bones. The whole mountain appeared to shudder out of reluctance, or perhaps horror, as the long-forgotten machinery was forcibly restored to life.

“Very good!” Aquiescas called out, his agitated voice echoing between the pillars of stone, down the dark, narrow gallery. “Next, next, you must be quick now!”

Gripping one of the stone handles embedded into the eastern wall, Marcus strained his arms and pulled. The switch, curving like a swan’s neck, previously unresponsive, now steadily gave in, and the man pulled it all the way down to the level of his hips. Without a pause, the invisible mechanism continued to spin in concealment, the ominous growling sustained.

No, perhaps it grew a little louder.

“That’s it! We’re on the right track!” Gronan exclaimed, a cautiously optimistic undertone to his basso. The air in the trembling chamber had become filled with palpable excitement, but also alarm. One mistake could still mean the ruination of it all. Everyone counted heartbeats, until the mechanism’s rumble had reached its peak.

“No time to celebrate yet, gentlemen!” Aquiescas said, turning around. “Next one! It’s your turn now, Faalan!”

Making no sound, Faalan obediently seized his handle on the western wall and pulled, steadily, with determination. He drew the switch down like Marcus before, and again, the mechanism’s revolving speed was accelerated a distinct notch. In response, the sense of triumph grew also thicker.

Izumi’s deduction appeared to be correct.

“Excellent!” the old scholar followed their work from the center of the floor, like a conductor directing his orchestra. The air was cool, yet sweat had begun to gather on his brow out of barely contained thrill and anticipation. He didn’t dare to remove his attention even for a moment to wipe mist off his glasses. “We can do this! Tidaal, you’re up! Ready! Three, two...Pull!”

“Come to papa,” Tidaal remarked, wrestling down his switch with his tattooed arms.

Step by step, the resolution of the puzzle neared, but it was still too soon to think of rewards. A singular error in the order, or an accident in the execution, could mean the end of it all. After building up such a horrifying momentum, an abrupt cessation was liable to break essential components in the delicate, millennia-old mechanism, which no one alive today could hope to repair.

There would be no retries. Only flawless success would do.

Fortunately, everything appeared to be going according to the plan. Even after Aft pulled the fifth switch, the machinery remained in fluid motion, as intended, the sealed gateway but one last lever away from becoming unsealed.

The noise had become something fearsome by now.

Sand dust danced on the vibrating floor, more of it raining down from the hair-fine seams between the great building blocks of the ceiling. By the effect alone, everyone could tell that the hidden gears were in a maddening spin. Just how much power was required to open one gate? Undoubtedly more than the explorers could have ever mustered without the tools the ancients had left them.

The last, the sixth switch.

“Steady now!” Aquiescas called for patience. “Be very, very careful!”

“We’re counting on you, adventurer!” Gronan told Izumi. Everyone’s eyes were on her now. She glanced at Waramoti a few steps behind her, who answered with an encouraging grin and a nod. Turning her head the other way, she made a brief eye contact with Faalan, who nodded as well. Go for it.

Tightening her hold, sensing the right timing, Izumi began to pull.

“Leave it to me, guys!” she confidently exclaimed. “I can tell you, this was a lot easier than Bleakfall barrows—oops!”

——Crack.

Then, something went wrong. The slim stone handle fractured as Izumi pulled it and broke off the wall, a few inches before reaching its limit. There was not enough of it left visible to seize and finish the action.

The sequence was left incomplete.

In a couple of quick heartbeats more, the window of activation passed.

The machinery continued to spin, spin, spin, its purpose unfulfilled, subjected to forces it had long since grown too frail to endure. Bang. A flat, metallic sound rang out all of a sudden, indicating that some individual part of the system was no longer in its rightful place. It continued clanking here and there behind the wall, and was then followed by a low boom, as if it had knocked another, much heavier piece, off its position. That was it. There was no stopping the chain reaction anymore. All those unseen cylinders and the gears were abruptly stilled by a mechanical failure. Boom. Boom. One by one, the components were propelled from their places, and sent crashing and colliding. Dreadful quaking and clouting locked everyone’s ears, accompanied by a lot of lighter clinking and clanking, in place of the previous harmonious rumble.

The thick walls endured the terrible mayhem with only slight tremors carrying through. The people inside the chamber were safe, even if greatly disturbed by all the noise and shaking, which carried on everywhere about them for a considerable while. They looked around, stupefied and cowering, unable to get a word out amid the racket.

What could they even say?

This bombastic symphony signified the failure of their dream.

Finally, the noise died down, things stopped falling apart, and silence returned to the underground gallery. And there was surely no silence like it. The complete absence of sound after such a pandemonium made one want to check his ears.

Then, the band of mercenaries slowly turned their eyes to the woman by the western wall.

“My, my!” Izumi remarked with a sigh, holding up the broken stone handle, and tossed it away. “They just don’t make ‘em like they used to!”

“You...Do you have any idea what you have done?” Acquiescas inquired Izumi, creeping across the floor towards her. He was shorter than she was, a balding, frail man of age, a scholar not a soldier, but his hands trembled with the force of wrath. “You, my lady, have just spoiled the single most significant historical discovery of our time. Everything, everything we toiled and suffered for—Did I not tell you to be cautious!”

His voice grew shrill out of agitation and he stopped.

“But, I thought you said you already got what you came for?” Izumi replied with a shrug, not appearing terribly apologetic. “This was just a bonus, right?”

“That is—!” Acquiescas looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

“Let it go, professor,” Faalan told him in his usual, stoic fashion. “What’s done is done. It could have happened to anyone. We were simply a millennium too late.”

Gronan said nothing. He merely stood further back and stared at the floor, bitter, like a child told he’s too old to play with toys anymore. The other mercenaries more or less shared his reaction.

“This is—this is simply too much!” Meanwhile, the bespectacled professor looked around, unable to cope with their bitter failure. “This could have been the find of our age! Imagine all the things we could’ve learned from the Precursors, all the opportunities—”

“—And all the gold,” Tidaal interjected.

“Why, excuse me!” the older man snapped at him. “This was hardly about gold!”

“It was only ever about gold,” the red-bearded mercenary replied.

“If you truly believe so, then you hardly understood what was at stake!” Acquiescas continued his fervent rant. “We had the chance to peer across eons, into a completely different time! An age forgotten, which no soul has seen in thousands of years! What life was like, what the people were like, all this wealth of knowledge is now lost to us! Oh, it’s still there, mind you! Only a small step away. Information, technology, art, culture, precious beyond compare, unimaginable! And all of it just behind—that—one—little—door!”

As he spoke, Acquiescas kept pointing at the heavy dimeritium gate, decorated with the engraved image of the sun and its dazzling rays.

Cree—!

All of a sudden, the sun disappeared.

Quickly, accompanied by a sharp, scraping sound, the metal square was torn up and disappeared.

Perhaps it was only an innocent coincidence.

The mechanism holding the door had been broken in a way that also disabled the lock, allowing the barrier to open on its own. Or perhaps they had been successful, after all, the last switch had activated as it was supposed to, and Izumi’s accident had ultimately played no role in the procedure.

Or, perhaps it was destiny?

A whim of the powers that be, which control all life and everything that should happen on this little planet, and which had ordained that the gate to the depths should be opened today, no matter what.

Fast forgetting their disappointment, everyone sneaked now closer and peered into the unbarred tunnel that carried off into unknown distance, melting into impenetrable darkness.

“Hey. Lucky us, right?” Izumi said, irony clear in her tone. In reality, she didn’t feel too blessed. The chilling breeze that drifted up from the depths wasn’t one bit inviting.

Nevertheless, it was too late for regrets.

What was done could not be undone.

“Well,” Marcus turned to face the others, waking them from their stupor. “What are you all waiting for? Pick up your things, and let’s get explorin’.”

2

Down and down the way continued. There was a brief tunnel again, followed by more stairs. They went on for about forty feet, then to draw a sharp U-turn, and were followed by another identical set, this time southward. The explorers had to have descended quite a distance below the Capitol building by now, giving credence to the legend of a more elaborate dwelling under the surface city. What manner of people had built their houses in such a lightless abyss where even hardened fighters would loathe to go? Trying to imagine this and whatever should await them below, the crew continued to descend without a word, wondering if they would soon set foot in the core of the planet itself.

Quite that far the path didn’t reach.

Led by Gronan holding a torch, the professor shortly behind him, the group eventually reached the bottom of the stairway. Thence extended another tight corridor, which was beginning to give claustrophobia to anyone, but fortunately improvement was already in view. The corridor was only about thirty feet long, and from the end of it could be seen the glow of natural light.

Up ahead seemed to be a larger room, with fresh air and illumination from ventilation channels similar to those in the puzzle gallery. Making relieved sighs—Hrugnaw, in particular—the expedition members hurried their feet towards the light. And soon came to wish they had taken their time instead.

They came to a chamber, apparently only an intermediary room along the way, built like a wide cylinder, with a gently arcing dome for a ceiling. Short pillars lined the walls, and into the center of the ceiling was pierced a circular opening, through which the light they had seen came down.

The central part of the floor was raised higher, to about seven feet, forcing the entering crowd to split along the sides of it to get past. Behind this raised platform was another opening, whence the way carried on yet deeper in.

But instead of pushing on straight away, everyone halted in the chamber, stilled by a startling observation. Their attention was stolen upon entry by an alarming shape that stood atop the raised platform, basking directly in the pillar of light.

“The Hel…?” Someone mouthed by reflex.

Though the others remained silent, the confusion was likely shared by all in kind.

No welcome sign was posted there to greet the visitors, no uplifting work of art, a show of talent or good taste, or any such tribute to life, heavens, or an earthly patron. Rather, the view could only be described as an affront to creation, an atrocity of most grotesque presence, unbridled violence given form.

The primary, instinctive response that thing evoked in any person, by nature, was to immediately turn and flee. However, as the unreal vision remained perfectly static and quiet, the men shortly overcame and hid any hint of their shock, and stepped further into the room, around the platform, struggling to rationally process what they were looking at.

The inanimate aberration vaguely resembled a man in overall appearance, yet closer scrutiny showed it to dodge all conceivable landmarks of humanity just as readily as calling a train a “horse of steel” would. The similarities were abstract and superficial at best, and any closer comparison was liable to turn downright offending.

The effigy posed upright with a powerful bipedal build, but with each identifiable and naturally admirable trait, line, and shape eerily skewed and corrupt. Long, toned arms and hands it had and something to be called fingers, but looking at said nightly extensions, no one could assume they were meant for the innocent purpose of holding things. The unveiled torso showed clear, heavy musculature, fit for an athlete or a bodybuilder, but at the same time eerily malformed, chaotic and spliced, diverging from the systematic symmetry of standard human anatomy. The lower half of the creature was clothed in rags that were just as much “clothes” as the creature itself a “man”, and more accurately labeled as a sort of solidified oil, with strings of black pearls and polished tiles of obsidian dangling from the shadowy bindings around the midriff. The legs were left bare from the knees down, but those tough, forked, steely limbs held no resemblance to the feet of any living creature known to the explorers.

As if all this wasn’t yet repulsive enough, the worst part about the nightmarish effigy was its head. The crown of that horrid apparition was heavily disproportionate to its size, by all laws of physics impossible for the rest of the frame to bear with the poise and balance it nevertheless exhibited. There were no eyes or nose, or any other such conventional features, nor even any hint of their rightful placement, as if the once held identity had been forcibly seared, melted away, by some unforgivable necromancy. All that was left of the purged face were a set of long, heavily outward slanted teeth protruding from the lipless, degenerate jaws.

All in all, the vision was like some wretched soul caught and maimed by a terrible calamity, still locked in the never-ending process of it. Regardless, it did not seem at all resigned nor pitiable, but oozing such a terrible wrath and will for vengeance, as to become one with the destruction itself. Staring at that vile thing, the explorers could only shudder in utter disgust and loathing. No one could gaze such an abomination for long and not be touched by the dread of it. After all, what stood before them was a primordial horror dislodged from the very abysses of the cosmic sea of unconscious, of which the ancient natives of America had once dreamed of and sought to imitate.

The stunned silence lasted for a lengthy while after everyone had gathered in the round-walled room.

“That’s one uglyass statue,” Tidaal then remarked.

The majority of the audience hadn’t the faintest clue of what they were looking at, but one was an exception. Izumi stared at the ominous figure, frozen, questioning her eyes. But no matter how she wanted to deny the reality of it, the vision wouldn’t disappear, nor reveal itself as illusory or otherwise mistaken, and so she finally forced herself to put her observation into words.

“It’s a daemon.”

The others responded to that mythical term with doubtful frowns.

“A daemon?” Aft repeated, blinking.

“It’s a statue!” Vikland outright refused the idea.

“Look at the dust,” Acquiescas pointed. “It’s been here for as long as that door has been sealed, at least a thousand years, if not more. It couldn’t possibly have ever been a living thing and still be standing here like this.”

The professor’s sound reasoning alleviated the tension in the chamber somewhat, and everyone shifted, relaxing their posture. But Izumi couldn’t. No matter how she looked at the thing, it didn’t seem like a standard sculpture to her. The likeness was simply too striking, as was the attention to detail. It could only have been produced by someone who had seen the subject in real life and possessed genuine photographic memory, on top of being a masterful craftsman. And who would clothe a piece of stone? She looked at the pearl strings that subtly moved, swayed by the draft.

“What if it’s just asleep?” she asked. “What if it’s survived by hibernating? In a sort of self-imposed stasis?”

“And how would you know what this thing is?” Gronan turned to ask Izumi, growing irritated by her apparent fearmongering. “Daemons are a fairy tale. Made up to scare children—and foolish women.”

“I’ve seen one before,” Izumi answered him.

The mercenaries made dubious faces and sounds at her words. How could this woman have seen a creature the likes of which had never been found anywhere in Noertia before? Then again, by now, they had all seen that Izumi was not an average maid either. She didn’t seem superstitious or overcome with mere irrational fear. There was certainly something deeply disturbing about that statue, anyone could agree that much.

“Well,” Tidaal interrupted the restlessness again. “A statue or no statue, I say we bust that thing right up, and be done with it.”

Picking up his sledgehammer, the man moved to climb onto the platform.

“Stop,” Izumi interrupted him. The sense of urgency in her tone made the mercenary freeze in the effort.

“What…?” he asked, shaking his head.

“If that thing is real, you’re not going to kill it with a hammer,” Izumi told him. “And if you end up waking it up instead, we’re all going to die.”

Tidaal looked less than convinced by the suggestion, and spread his arms, turning around to look at the tight-packed warriors. “Die? Killed by what? And here I assumed you knew how to count.”

“It’s not a bar fight you’re looking for,” Izumi explained. “Normal weapons won’t do a thing to it, and we can’t fight back effectively in a cramped little space like this. It would tear right through us, and we’d only get in each other’s way. We’re at a tactical disadvantage.”

“That is absurd,” Gronan commented, and he clearly wasn’t alone with his opinion.

“No. She’s right,” Faalan suddenly interjected and stepped forward, compelling the incredulous mercenaries to quiet down. “Daemons destroyed the emiri civilization and drove them into exile. No matter how I tried, I could never win a fight against a warrior of my mother’s people, and there are none among you, who could win a fight against me. I believe this is the type of math you all may understand.”

The mercenaries murmured sourly at his words but wouldn’t deny his reasoning.

“Then what do you suggest we do?” Gronan asked Faalan, impatience and annoyance over the unscheduled delay apparent in his tone.

“We should leave here,” Izumi answered in Faalan’s stead. “Seal the place again, the way it was, and go back.”

Gronan’s expression became the very image of ridicule and disbelief as he shook his head. She stared back at him without a word, dead serious, hoping to show that she meant every word.

“The records warned us,” she told him. “Never to open the door. I pictured they meant something more casual, like a fire-breathing dragon, an ancient curse, or a sealed deity of evil. Any of those would’ve been fine. But this is seriously bad news. We couldn’t have messed up worse, even if we tried.”

Regrettably, her appeal was not enough.

“And I told you,” Gronan said, stepping towards her. “Were I to run back now because of a spooky statue, not a copper in my pockets, there would be no place left for me anywhere in Dharva! Not now, when the wealth and the secrets of the Precursors are within our arm’s reach! A statue or a fairy tale, it’s there, gathering dust. So I say we leave it be, and do what we came here to do.”

“If that’s your take on it, then you can count me out,” Izumi said, turned around, and left marching out of the chamber, the way they’d come.

Without stopping, she strode down the tunnel, up the stairs, and back to the puzzle gallery without stopping or looking back. No one called after her or tried to stop her either. Except for just one.

“Wait! Izumi!” Waramoti came chasing after her. “Where are you going!?”

“As far away from here as I can, while I still can,” she replied. “Isn’t that clear?”

“You can’t!” the bard told her. “They have all the cheruleum, the keys, you can’t use a snowmobile, or make a camp! You have no food, no fire! You won’t survive the titans or the frostwargs all by yourself! You’ll die out there in the snow, guaranteed!”

“I prefer the giants and doggies to that thing, to be honest,” Izumi remarked.

“Look,” the man stopped, continuing to speak to her distancing back. “I know this is bad. I know the legends. I heard the story about Varnam too. I know what those beings can do. If that thing is real, as you say, then we’re in big trouble—I won’t deny that. But you’re not alone here! And we’re not dead yet! So long as we’re alive, we have a chance to fight. Don’t give up without even trying! Izumi!”

“Why?” She halted and turned around on her heels. “Why should I fight? Why even try? Because it would make for a bad end to your great fable otherwise? The hero quit and ran away? Are you going to call me a chicken? By all means, do. I’m sorry, but this hero isn’t suicidal. Or even a real hero, at any rate. So sorry, but I’m out.”

She turned to leave again.

“Izumi, listen to me,” Waramoti calmly told her. “You will make it perhaps three miles away before the sun sets. Then the temperature will take a steep dive, you’ll have no visibility, no shelter…You know what will happen. Determination can only take you so far. Real or not, that thing can’t do you any worse than the plateau of Amalkan can. Facing the fear is your only hope. And you ours.”

“I’ve seen this movie, kid,” Izumi told him. “It doesn’t end well for anybody.”

“So you’ll leave Faalan to his fate?” he retorted.

Izumi bit her lip, shaking her head in frustration.

“You’ll let him die?” the bard continued to press her. “Take his family the bad news? ‘Yes, your husband and father lies dead under the mountain—and I didn’t lift a finger to help him’! No. That’s not who you are! These people don’t know what they’re up against. You do. So bear with their ignorance. Help us! The time will come when they’ll change their minds.”

Izumi exhaled a deep breath and remained silent for a long time.

Then, she turned around once again and went walking in swift strides back down the tunnel, towards the depths.

“Fine,” she answered as she passed the bard. “But it costs you ten percent of your share of the treasure.”

3

Due to the presence of “delicate lady company”—as Marcus put it—a watch was assigned to the daemon room, to warn the others via the linkstone in case the dust-laden artwork made “any funny moves”. Then, after a good laugh, the rest of the teams on the surface were called to the Capitol, and they all proceeded ahead, to see what more surprises the ancients had left them.

Indeed, they didn’t need to go far to have their expectations exceeded.

After the antechamber, the corridor soon changed to stairs, which took them to a passage much wider and taller than any they had seen before. As they moved through it, the walls suddenly disappeared altogether from around them, and the expedition stepped into a cavern of breathtaking dimensions. There they stopped again.

As grand as the surface city had been, and no doubt even grander in its heyday, the visions extending before their eyes below made it look like mere cake decorations by comparison. It was not any natural cavern they witnessed, where primitive, furtive, sun-fearing dwellers of old had skulked before their untimely fading, but a fruit of enlightened art and craftsmanship, a wondrous treasure of skill and care.

Past the edge of the terrace they stood on gaped a great, rectangular well, piercing straight down through masses of rock, all the way to the black abysses below the mountain roots where no light could reach. And along the sides of that prodigious cavity, on multiple overlapping layers extending sideways, spread the true city of the vanished master race.

From their vantage point above, the travelers could view the full, dizzying splendor of the Precursor’s dwellings. Stone-made bridges, walkways, and stairs ran here and there, unwavering even after several millennia, connecting the various parts of the city for the past inhabitants’ and visitors’ convenience.

The architecture alone showed that this had not been an average human dwelling.

Unlike above, the subterranean builders had favored pure geometry in their designs, sharp, straight edges, clean lines and corners. They had cut their hallways, houses, and passageways like fine pieces of jewelry, with the intent to make them last.

The walls bore no paint or sculptures to adorn them, but only the natural patterns and colors of the rock itself, brought into view and highlighted by meticulous polish. Light shifted in through small ducts pierced through the mountain heights, focused and distributed by grand mirrors, to provide dim but adequate illumination to all corners of that dreamy metropolis, in the absence of electrical systems. By the same openings was delivered new air, keeping the place fresh, cool, and spared of any foul odors of decay.

There were no lamp lights visible amid the distant buildings. No movement on the wide, orderly plazas. No walkers on the stairs. Not a soul came to greet the guests, not the faintest wraith to question their purpose. The ancient city lay quiet and still at their feet, frozen in time, long abandoned and forgotten.

And free for the taking.

“Congratulations.” Gronan got over his amazement first and turned to face the mercenaries. “Everyone standing here now is king. And as kings, we are owed tax by our subjects. Go and collect! Leave no rock unturned.”

Raising their voices into loud cheers, most of the expedition members forgot all about archaeology and historical answers to life’s great questions, if they had ever even entertained such to begin with. Like children freed at a candy shop, they hurried down the staircase to the level below, to see what manner of splendors the city of Eylia was hiding.

Acquiescas and the Dharvic scholars feared for the fate of the valuables in the hands of these savages and that priceless historical finds could be vandalized beyond recovery. But they also knew their protests and words of caution to be impotent alone, and so hurried after the others, swearing, determined to do all they could to save what could be saved.

To the professor’s relief, the mercenaries were not completely mindless, and the extraordinary foreign visions they came across on the way down were enough to banish simple banditry from their thoughts before long.

Upon the first layer of the city, the adventurers discovered farms.

There were great greenhouses of crystalline glass and frames of slim steel, inside which entire fields of edible plantation grew. The men had seen similar buildings up above, but devoid of life due to the ceaseless winter. Now the purpose of such facilities became clear, but nothing they had seen above compared to the scale and elegance of the underground plantations.

The air inside the greenhouses was still warm and humid, with some manner of a self-sustaining geothermal machinery in place, to keep things going even without active caretaking. Incredibly enough, most of the crops were still alive and flourished. Having adapted to the diminished lighting in the centuries of abandonment, they had formed ecosystems of their own, locked in an endless cycle of growth, death, and rebirth from the decay of the old, as in any other corner of the earth.

Long stretches of wheat, rye, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and such grew in wide indoor fields. In smaller rooms on the side were rows of brick-lined dirt beds, where grew, peas, onions, garlic, herbs, and much more, many of the species unknown and strange to the summoned champion from Earth, and others more familiar. Izumi passed through one such greenhouse full of plump, bright red tomatoes, feeling dizzy, unsure of whether she was truly alive anymore, or only dreaming it all.

The Dharves no doubt shared her feelings. What they had found was nothing short of magic and outside the ability of any common farmer. But stranger things still awaited them. In one of the buildings in the corner of the top level, they found a bizarre machine, which Aft managed to activate after some tinkering, to then discover that it could be used to synthesize what looked—and tasted—like ground beef.

Not far from there, they found chambers with large metal tanks inside, sporting valves and pipes, which the experts identified as a distillery of alcoholic goods. There were ready samples too, sealed in airtight glass containers. Hundreds upon hundreds were shelved in long storage rooms, in many varieties, awaiting the delivery day that never came, and still appeared perfectly fit for consumption. So it turned out over the course of the day, that many of the inventions and techniques, which the Dharves thought to have developed in the more modern times of their exile, could be traced back to this place, as adaptations of lore more ancient and honed.

“Well, lads, looks like we’re going to have ourselves a downright feast tonight,” Marcus gave his fresh comments on the extraordinary find.

Eylia’s apparent self-sufficiency, against the remote location and the difficulty of trade, was a mystery no more. With their borderline preternatural devices, the ancients had been able to produce whatever their people needed and more, and the rest was provided for by the mountains. In other storage rooms deeper in, they found blocks of refined cheruleum, barrels of raw oil, as well as imported firewood, and in such quantities that they would have kept the entirety of Utenvik warm for decades.

Below, on the second layer, began the residential districts of the city. The explorers found apartment buildings carved out of stone, houses on top of houses, close and intimate as beehives, connected by refined marble stairs and elegant terraces, coursing freely among and over the buildings. Individual apartments lacked locks, speaking of a culture of openness and unity.

Following the unexplained disappearance of the natives, their slaves had made these quarters their own for a time, as evidenced by the various toys, tools, decorations, and other everyday items that were found and which warred against the underlying aesthetics. Clothing and furs had been all but reduced to dust over time, but the more durable materials were still in a good shape and easy to identify.

The residences continued onto the third layer, with more regal mansions and keeps overseeing them. The visitors walked through lofty hallways where tattered, thin-worn banners of ancient lords and clans still hung from the ceiling, statues of human monarchs raised to guard the passages. But no sign of the elusive Precursors could be found here either, making some question whether they had ever been there, and it was not all proof of the forgotten, purely self-earned glory of the ancestors of Dharva.

Indeed, a few among the Dharves had begun to hold faith in the idea that they had never been slaves to begin with, but that their history was a lie conjured by malicious minds to deny their rightful title as the Kings of North. But here and there in those dark halls empty platforms could be seen, indentations, and pedestals, which quite likely were intended for statues or such, but which were left unused, their nameplates wiped clean. Why? None could say, but even without evidence for or against, it was easy to connect the fate of the missing idols to that of the missing species.

Speculations on historical accuracy were shortly set aside in favor of more attractive discoveries. Unlike the houses on the surface, those on the second and the third layers were not emptied of content, but full of belongings of varied worth. There was a good deal of money, and also jewels, necklaces, and objects made of rare metals, precious rings of gold and silver, beautiful little statuettes, armors and swords, which the mercenaries couldn’t well leave be. Progress came to a temporary halt, everyone occupied with stuffing their bags and pockets.

Izumi participated in searching the apartments in appearance only, unable to get excited.

When she was younger, she would sometimes go gawk outside goldsmith shop windows, and fantasize about what she would buy in the event that she won the lottery. Now, that day had come, everything not bolted to the floor was available for the taking, and the treasures of the underground city outclassed the trinkets of any average earthly artisan in both size and quality. These people never had to mind things like how much pure gold could be used in rings to still keep the market profitable, or how small the diamonds should be cut to sell them. They had crafted these items chiefly for their own pleasure, with the state of the art tools to pursue their fancy, an abundance of raw materials, and only imagination for the limit.

Nevertheless, wealth was far from Izumi’s mind at the moment.

Silver coins felt like dead leaves in her fingers, and she brushed them off her hands, loath to touch any of it. Unease filled her throughout, her pulse irregular and heavy, and she ever kept her back to a wall, windows and exits well in view.

Is it coming? When? Or is it already here?

Not for a moment did she doubt that the monster in the antechamber was anything but real and alive. It was not a question of “if” to her, but only that of time. She had to be ready for when the time should come.

Izumi was stronger now than she had been in Felorn. A lot stronger. More experienced. Faster. She had magic now, she had healing. Yubilea would warn her if there was anything she missed, to save herself, if nothing else. She wouldn’t be so easily surprised or defeated.

But were all her assets still enough to win?

The memory of that slaughter outside Varnam, of being so thoroughly cornered and toyed with, only to be spared on a whim, had dealt a deep dent on the champion’s self-confidence. Was it not true that she had struggled against the elves of Alderia, who in turn had been no less powerless to stop the daemons?

But I’m not alone now.

There were thirty of them. The Dharves were famous warriors, tough and fearless, though not all of them were combatants. There was Faalan, the legendary hero of the Empire. And Waramoti, who might not have been a superhuman brawler anymore, but who nonetheless had training and experience from countless battlefields with him. Against a solitary opponent, no matter how powerful, they should have had an overwhelming advantage.

“Izumi.”

“—Hiii!” Izumi jumped and shrieked, suddenly called by the bard.

“Wow, easy there!” he said, raising his hands. “Aren’t we on the edge!”

“…And why are you so calm? Geez!” Izumi asked him with a heavy sigh. “We could all die down here, you know? Like, for real this time.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” the youth replied with a sarcastic smirk. “I certainly never thought we were going to die out there in the snow, eaten by the frostwargs, or squashed by the titans. Or before that, in Alderia. In Henglog. Oh Hel, at one point, a lifetime ago, I was quite convinced that you were going to be the death of me. There was not one moment on our travels when I wasn’t scared to death, in all honesty.”

“Eh...” Izumi blinked in surprise.

Waramoti had always carried himself with such unwavering sternness and fortitude, that he had appeared a full stranger to fear. Even reduced to a boy again, drained of his former might, he pushed on with upbeat nonchalance, never wavering or doubting himself, as though confident in the destiny’s all-able protection.

Had she misunderstood him, after all? The bard answered the woman’s disbelief with a wry smile, and a face saying the answer was obvious.

“I’m not sure how life looks to you, Izumi, but we’re basically surrounded by death and mayhem all the time. Am I wrong? It’s never nice. Always terrifying. Our journey could end at any moment, for any reason, because we’re human and we’re weak. We must neither deny the facts, nor be crippled by them. To live means to fight the fear of death, each day. We wage that battle—by breathing. So breathe, Izumi. And look alive.”

“Damn it,” Izumi said, drawing a deep breath and relaxing, suddenly feeling incredibly silly. “Cheered up by a kid. Again.”

“I keep telling you, I’m not a kid,” Waramoti replied with a cocky grin.

“Anyway, what were you going to say?” she asked. “Find anything cool yet?”

“No.” The bard shook his head. “I don’t feel like picking up anything when we have to pass it on to their book keepers upstairs, anyway. Let our Dharvic friends do the heavy lifting. I was only going to ask if you’ve seen Faalan around.”

“Faalan?” Izumi raised her brows. “But he’s right there...”

Izumi turned to look across the ancient living room, at the corner where she had last seen the warrior. She had been keeping an eye on him, of course, although her mind had been recently elsewhere. Now, all Izumi saw in the room with them were Phos and Minsk, rummaging through the kitchen area closets. Her gaze then fixed on a small object in the corner of a nearby table. It had certainly not been left there a thousand years back, being entirely free of dust.

Stepping over, she picked up what she shortly identified as an abandoned linkstone and groaned.

“In the rebellious age, are we?”