The party took a short rest in the tower, refilling their Spirit and nibbling nuggets of moist Drissil fungus. It sated their hunger and thirst but did nothing for the fatigue.

>>

(Fatigue 1: 10% penalty to Mana regeneration and 5% penalty to maximum Spirit)

>>

They didn't want to sleep unless it became absolutely necessary. Though only Sashimibandit had expressed concern for his IRL health, it was weighing on all of them. Players often logged in for marathon sessions, some as long as twenty-four hours, but that usually involved regular breaks to drink water, stretch, and check messages, like a sea turtle coming up for air, before reconnecting to the server. Silva and Sashimibandit had already been playing for hours when they left Fallow, and Damwise admitted that if he did not "dream of another world" soon his "dream" wife might check on him. If he couldn't log out of the game to interact with her, that was going to be a problem. She would assume something was seriously wrong, which it was. In the early days of neural net immersion software there had been mistakes; players who surfaced with brain damage, or who lost the ability to differentiate reality from the game. A first-generation virus had given users augmented reality nightmares. Damwise's wife might panic, call emergency services, and a forced disconnect would come with lasting mental health risks.

No one else wanted to be possessed by the spirit of the amethyst, so they left without further conference with the source of their quest. Lawlimi rode piggyback on Silva, harnessed like an animal carcass. She smelled of cinnamon and sweat.

"I'm sorry about this," Lawlimi said, struggling to find a part of her that was appropriate to hold.

"It's fine. Never leave one behind. All that." She paused at a rung. "I shouldn't have threatened you before. This thing has gotten too deep. It's getting to me."

"You were right, I could have screwed us. I've only been in the game a few days, and everything keeps going wrong around me."

"Yeah, you said you got killed in Aegis. Did you try to rob a guard or something?"

"Nothing. I was outside this weird tavern, writing all over the walls, and a girl walked up beside me and stabbed me. Haggitha."

Silva was climbing adroitly, his weight was negligible, but her foot slipped, and she had to catch herself.

"Haggitha stabbed you?"

"I didn't know her name at the time. She just appeared. You know her?"

"Sure. She's the bartender's daughter, and she cooks people, like Sweeney's meat pies cooks people, but she doesn't attack players. The bartender and her have good quest lines all through heroic levels. I've been in and out of that place since I crossed over from mortal and bonded my wolf."

"Have you heard of the Annunomicon?"

"No, why?"

"Another player got me involved in a quest to pick it up, which I did. She said a bartender gave her the prompt, and it just occurred to me that it could be the same guy."

"What level was she?"

"Mortal 5."

"Then it isn't him. You can't get anything out of his bar other than ale and cannibalism until you hit heroic."

They reached the floor of the silo and disconnected. The others were already there, so Lawlimi thanked her and pretended he wasn't feeling a warmth in his cheeks after holding onto her for so long. Silva avoided his eyes and consulted the maps with Damwise.

Sashimibandit, feeling better, leaned in so he could whisper to Lawlimi. "Quick, cut off my hand so I can have the next ride."

They made their way back to the hall with open branches, and there was no trace of the presence I had sensed before. They chose a path that led to an elbow bend opening onto a square pit. Stairs spiraled down into darkness, following the walls. The steel panels, rivets and rust ended with the pit, which was all cut stone. The walls had been sheared by the blades of a vast digging machine. Stairs had been added afterward, and their wooden skeleton protested the imposition of feet.

"Mayhap this was a mine," Damwise said. "The iron for the castle must have come from somewhere."

"Bullshit," Sashimibandit said. He was lighter on his feet than any of the others, testing the way ahead as they went. The task seemed to take his mind off their collective plight. "Some programmer just thought it would be cool to have a bunch of steel towers, so blammo, there it was. This is an afterthought."

"Oh, ye of little faith."

The glass lights they had been following grew scarce, so Damwise produced a set of torches to push back the darkness, one for each of them.

>>

Everburning Torch

Mortal — Utility

Availability : Ordinary

Condition : Good

A fine wooden rod surmounted by a small yellow cabochon. When charged with mana, it will glow with the strength of a normal torch for one hour. Prized by spelunkers and divers alike, the Everburning Torch is among the most popular of the creations attributed to the Artificers of Dadaea.

>>

The pit narrowed to half its original width, and a still black pool was visible at its base. Wavering lights made the water all the more impenetrable, but the stairs stopped well above that point. A board cracked, and Sashimibandit skipped over it. They had come to a pair of passages each fifteen feet square. The torches were their sole illumination.

Two passages fit for giants, one ending on a steel gate and the other leading into a bend. They made for the gate, a portcullis of interwoven bars thick as arms and legs. The rough-hewn stone of the walls, scraped out by the same infernal machine that had formed the mine shaft, hid no levers or switches that could work the gate. They all searched, and I knew it instantly, the device that controlled the portcullis was not there. Beyond the barrier, a stairwell led down, far down, into an intersection, sealed on two sides. It opened ahead on a cavernous, lightless chamber. Something massive slept here, a machine that ran floor to ceiling with piping and gears and chains all silent except for a single sound, the hollow booming of a heart too slow to be a heart. Full minutes passed between each thump, between the rush of fluid within artificial tubes. This machine was alive, if sleeping, a Mechanoborg like a mountain. Locked away. When I tried to analyze the chamber and its occupant more closely, I found myself distracted by the flutter of a cape, a presence disguised by a veil I could not pierce. It came on quickly, and as quickly, my awareness was ejected from that most interesting space.

I narrated everything I saw to Lawlimi. Though I could have addressed the party directly, I still felt more comfortable with him as my interlocutor.

"There's something big past this gate. It looks like a mob boss," he told them. "I don't think we can open it yet."

The distrust that Silva had shown before had mostly evaporated. Having a clear direction to their endeavors made her more amenable, or she felt more comfortable dealing with him than with a disembodied NPC that was not quite the Hollen she was accustomed to. In any case, they had come to broadly the same conclusion.

"The other way."

The stone of this passage was as rough as the other but traced here and there with trails of slime. Insects scuttled and partnered in the cracks and corners, and the floor crackled with dry husks like a fall of leaves. They were roaches, large ones, and they showed no fear of the mana torches, being blind. They avoided the slime, however, and the odd, gelatinous stalactites hanging from the ceiling gave an answer. A foot at the longest, well out of reach of travelers on the floor, but when the roaches tried to crawl across or to fly to congress in the open air, the stalactites emitted thin, frond-like tongues to catch them up.

>>

Cave Worm — Mortal 1

Nadir — Water — Brown

>>

These subterranean creatures feed on the insects and small mammals that form the foundation of chthonic ecosystems. They catch and crush their prey, extending their reach with split prehensile "tongues" that excrete a mild paralytic agent. They are edible, and mostly composed of pure water, giving them their translucent appearance. Many spelunkers have been saved from dehydration by these harmless predators. Their growth is linked to their diet, so they usually grow no larger than a housecat. Theoretically, with the proper nourishment, there would be no limit to their growth, as is the case with Sea Worms.

The casings of their prey visibly digested in their tubular bodies. They would spit them out when they were done.

"This is a high-class place," Sashimibandit said.

Before they came to the bend in the hall there was a door in the wall. It was blocked by a piece of scrap metal, no true door, and sized for humans. Beyond that were a host of tunnels, dead ends, and stairs where nothing moved or breathed but more vermin.

"Let's stick to the big road," Lawlimi said, and Silva agreed.

The vermin ecosystem continued until they reached a T, a human passage on their right, and an audience chamber on the left. The chamber was as free of vermin as if it had been fumigated and power washed. Its surfaces were dusty but clean, and the stone was overlaid with the same dark iron and steel as the towers above. Water was seeping through gaps in the plates, dripping into pools on the floor, but nothing rusted, nothing lived. The chamber was a fat rectangle with an exit along the far wall and a cut away section for the throne.

It was a thing of exaggerated scale, solidly carved from the granite of the cavern and plated with metal, studded with spikes, and fanned with jag-toothed saw blades. It was not empty. The creature that sat upon it could have casually reached up and scoured the cave worms from their clutches on the tunnel ceilings. Its body was concealed in black armor of no natural material, nothing that belonged on Mythopoeia.

>>

Titan's Metal?? — Celestial

Toughness : 300%

Magic Resistance : 90%

Weight : 50%

Not surprising that it had never been added to the game as one of the legendary materials. It appeared to combine the best qualities of all of them. My senses couldn't probe behind the armor, whatever wore it was dead, or at least quiescent. Not a hint of aura seeped between the plates.

>>

"By all the worlds and all the gods," Damwise said. "That is not a man I wish to meet in a dark alley."

"Seems like he's not going anywhere," Lawlimi said.

Silva walked closer. "I don't see any weapons, but there are etchings in the throne and weird crap in his lap."

Braided ropes of hair and teeth had been piled between the giant's legs. They were trinkets or charms, offerings to a dark lord on his dark throne.

"None of this looks like Herald's Kiss, does it?"

"No," I answered, and she startled slightly.

"When you do that," she said, "don't sound like you're at my shoulder."

"As you wish."

The next room was to an even grander scale, though less grand in subject. Thin girders lined the walls, supporting three levels of ancient storage. Barrels and chests and bins labeled with ideographs in the language of the far continent, representing mundane construction goods, equipment, and foodstuffs, enough for a city. Most of it was untouched, but here and there crates had been broken open and barrels smashed, leaving behind muddy stains. The floor was covered in rubber meshing that absorbed footsteps.

Left led to a target range, paper dummies, hanging metal plates, the harsh smell of grease, and flash burns. Mechanical structures running along the ceiling allowed the targets to be moved and replaced at the pull of a lever, but nothing had been recently used. Some of the machines had been assaulted, harvested for parts, but others looked to have been cared for, dusted, and shined like religious idols.

The other direction ended in a heavy metal door with a concealed crawlspace on an adjacent wall.

Silva unbarred the door, lifting a length of steel over her head and dropping it with a resounding clang. Then it was a matter of pulling the handle, hinges protesting, to reveal the room beyond.

Acrid biological smells, piss and feces, and decay, wafted over them. They heard chattering, crying, challenging, many voices rising at once from the pit that dominated the chamber. It was twenty paces to a side and hooded by a diamond link cage. Clasps showed where sections could be opened and food, or another prisoner, could be lowered down.

"Who's there?"

"What do you want?"

"Get out of here!"

"I'm sorry! I won't fight anymore! Please!"

The voices were anxious, the sound of the door being opened had informed them someone was there to hear their screams. The party approached the pit. When they could see those below and they were visible as well, the chorus of calls dropped sharply off to a few stragglers who too were soon silenced.

"This is messed up," Sashimibandit said, then he backed away to vomit.

One hundred and twenty-three Therians were living in this hole. They were Rat Folk, though they would have objected to that label. Rodent Folk had never caught on. Squirrel Kin, chipmunk-kind; they were a little of all of this. Furred bodies and a pair of oversized incisors at the fore of their mouths. Apart from this, they were essentially human. Their coloration ranged from black and gray to bay and sorrel and blonde. They were naked and filthy and thin, and they reached up their small, hard-nailed hands to the newcomers in mute supplication.

"What happened here?" Lawlimi asked.

"Help us!"

"We're prisoners."

"I didn't do anything!"

Damwise began looking for a way to reach them. There were buckets and ropes of woven hair that could be climbed but the clasps were padlocked shut.

"Who's keeping you here?" Silva asked.

"My parents ..."

"I didn't mean it! I'm not like them!"

"The elders put us here."

Silva held up a hand for silence, though it didn't help much now that the dam had broken. "Who are the elders? Who said that?"

The Therians were pressed together in their eagerness to be close to the newcomers, but one near the back hopped up and down with his hand in the air. He was unmistakable, with dingy white fur, two bushy tails, and a vulpine face.

"Me! I said it! The elders are the leaders of our clan."

"Why do they keep you here?"

"Don't say anything."

"It's a trap!"

"They put me in the pit because I ask too many questions. Whatever they want puts you down here, and you don't come up till they say so. Some don't come up ever."

"It's a jail," Lawlimi said, "a jail for some twisted underground fascists."

>>

[Pied Piper — Heroic Quest Level 3]

The Therians of Undercastle have a criminal justice problem. Their jail is overcrowded, unsanitary, and filled with innocent victims of an overbearing ruling council. Find a way to give these tortured creatures a better life and remember that setting them free may not be enough. There isn't room down here for everyone.

Reward — 1000 XP — Potential Companion

>>

"So, what do we do?" Sashimibandit wiped his mouth. "This is sideways for us. Do we have time?"

"I've got to help," Lawlimi said. "This is awful."

"But it might get in the way of us getting out of here."

"We don't compromise the mission," Silva said. "But we help if we can. Some of them may have the information we need for the Engine."

As they were discussing their options, the hidden crawlspace in the hall slid silently open, revealing a trio of ratfolk bearing blades that glinted with poison.

"Party alert," I said, "incoming assassins."