12 Miles Below

Book 6. Chapter 54: Arrival

The ‘trading’ outpost had a few things I should have noticed from a distance.

Mites were at it again and they brought back an old favorite of theirs. Same thing they had at the base of the world tree far off in the distance, and the same thing they had hanging around Capra’Nor.

First: Rocks are supposed to fall down, not float around.

Second: Rocks don’t zoom around in lazy circles.

And third: The above two aforementioned rocks shouldn’t be the size of three Wraths hiding in a fruit box.

Yes, that’s an official term of measurement and I’ll convince and gaslight anyone into believing it too.

Floating rocks were apparently common knowledge here, since not a single greyroamer seemed to think it odd, nor did Kres and neither did Drakonis. It was just known occasionally rocks flew around and gravity was weaker. It’d been that way their entire life, and would continue to be that way until the mites decided to get more creative.

Said rocks flowed all around the ruins of the starship. Besides those and everything being in a forest, the site felt like an expedition from the surface. Although this kind of tech was never found up there, nothing that could be used to go past the stars ever made it to the surface. Knowing what I know about mites, how they make deals with just about everyone including Tsuya, that was probably intentional.

A small part of my head was deeply morbidly curious to what tech could be scavenged from deep within the derelict. Items that were clearly forbidden to the surface, and now I was walking among it.

“Does the ship have a name?” I asked our guide. After a half day of trying to fly with his loot, he’d finally given up on his pride and landed on me, letting me carry him and his ill gotten goods along the way. Not that I felt any weight with Journey doing the work.

Armors did have a lot of cracks and places to stick a claw into, but we eventually settled on the top of my power cell bag, the fabric let him sink some claws into it to help him hold better. The flipside was all of it being less stable and occasionally jumping up and down as the armors smoothly vaulted over logs and other terrain issues.

Kres gave a wingshake, claws scrambling for a second to keep a good perch while I jogged forward. “Not that we know of. It is simply known as the trading outpost of--” He stopped, considered it, then gave a sort of odd warbling sound and wingflick, which forced him to again tighten his hold over one of the equipment straps he was struggling to keep a claw around. “Doesn’t translate.” He eventually ended. “Flowers among the wavering sky paths of this forest region. That’s the literal translation.”

“How about we call it the Wavering Flowers?” Drakonis shrugged. “Might not have the rest of all the details, but seems fine enough to me.”

“I’m more curious how far underground it goes.” I said, finger pointing at the top of the nose. “If that’s just a section of the whole thing, it might even go into the strata under us.”

I had thought it was only the wingtip that rose above the treeline from a distance. Instead, the closer we got to it, the more I realized it was the nose of the ship, jutting out from the broken ground. Which meant the ship itself was far larger than what we could see here.

Going inside it filled me with an odd kind of apprehension and excitement. I had no idea if this was a genuine starship from the golden age, preserved within the mite biome here. Or if it was a recreation made by the mites, just as a set piece that looked pretty.

Wouldn’t know until I was inside.

“It does not go underground.” Kres said. “It was sliced in half, you’ll see when you get there.”

Okay, nevermind. No fun allowed. There’s always someone to throw ice at the heater.

The path up was following a short stream of water. Terrain sloped upwards, and soon enough my footsteps were occasionally stepping on flattened out metal and scraps with half buried circuits. The nose of the ship looked peeled off in sections, vines growing at the base while the rest of it looked more like a decaying skeleton.

It wasn’t abandoned either. Howling came from it, which was answered in kind by Silverfur. A few rounds of howling came back and eventually new greyroamers came out of the forest to meet us. Streaming out from between the tree trunks.

And they stopped to gawk the moment they caught sight of Drakonis and I. We did too, to be fair.

For one, they weren’t gray with fur. It was all colored in weird shades of clashing colors, like they’d splurged on paint. All the gear Silverfur’s pack wore was oddly missing from this pack, no straps to hold bags or any rolled up mats. There were exceptions. Specifically two among their members had occult blades with modified hilts that let them bite down and hold it straight ahead, like a horn. They had metal scraps of armor too, and I got the impression they were honor guards of some kind.

“They think you are machines.” Kres said from the top of the bag. Still readjusting to the abrupt stop.

Drakonis waved a hand to me, “I got it. Don’t bother.” And his other hand hooked over his helmet, taking it off. Face free in the air, he bared his teeth at the incoming pack, then waggled his arm, holding his elbow.

And then he barked. Actually, and honestly barked.

“Kres, when did Drakonis learn how to speak greyroamer?” I asked, wondering what the gods I missed.

“He didn’t.” The bird said. “He only learned how to move to the rhythm of peace, and greet a pack. Both of which are done… somewhat poorly.”

“Somewhat?”

“They understood his intuition.” He said with a wingflip. “Thus, he has successfully communicated his intention.”

“Ah.” I hummed.

The pack ahead gave a wide amount of barks and yips back, both to the Deathless and to each other.

“What’s with the colors?” I asked next.

“They are not hunters.” Kres said. “They do not need to hide from prey, or gear to hunt. They have a more… religious function among their society, and act as traders with the Odin. But not quite religion as you know it. More a role in their society? Lorekeepers, traders in information, given tribute and held in high honor.”

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“Storytelling trader priests?” I asked.

“Close enough.” Kres said.

Didn’t think greyroamers had that kind of bent to their packs. Silverfur and his group seemed completely no-nonsense, I hadn’t heard even a single bark about religion from any of them. No prayers either, I’m sure Kres would have told us.

And now we were face to face with a whole pack that seemed dedicated to the task. They also looked a little disturbed to see us.

“More barking than usual.” I said, looking at the madhouse before us. “Should we be worried?”

“There… may be a problem.” Kres said. “Humans were mere Odin superstition to them, and they do not believe you are humans. It goes against their own teachings.”

“What else could we be?” I asked, a little curious to why this was even a contentious issue.

“Machines. Or an attempt from Silverfur’s pack to undermine their authority.”

“Great.” Drakonis hissed. “Politics. Fucking purple hell.”

“We need to talk to the Icon soon, Kres,” I said. “I get humans haven’t been seen in, well, forever. But we’re on a time limit with the power cells and possible machines finding us. If you want help against the infestation, we need to be able to keep ourselves safe from the machines out there.”

Kres gave a warble. “I know, I know. I will stall them, and Silverfur is an ally in this. He cares more for the infestation to be destroyed like I do than a few packs getting their fur combed. The…” He paused, beak looking up and down before he readjusted his wings, “the religious order here do not have authority over the entire camp, it is shared space for all packs. And the communication array was setup by the Odin smiths, I have authority over this by dint of my race.”

He hopped off my bag, hitting the ground with a bit more of an impact than he expected. Still obsessed with holding onto his bag even now. That didn't stop the bird from puffing up all regal like and exploding with a flurry of barks and warbling in their language.

Which only made the other pack start barking even more, which circled back to Silverfur’s pack equally barking out a storm. Even Drakonis took a step back, hand going to his occult dagger just in case.

Kres turned one beak to us. “Go on into the ship. I believe you will figure out how to command the tower soon enough. I will be there after this. Regardless, Silverfur’s pack are warriors and hunters, the two guards cannot contest us.”

I turned to my Deathless companion. He shrugged back.

“Not our snow to kick in as far as I’m concerned.” I told him.

“Agreed. Can’t say I want to get involved in all this either.” He answered.

We both took a step back from the barking going on, and then went on unopposed up to the derelict. Mostly.

The two honor guard greyroamers seemed about to bar our path, but while they were pretty huge - we were in armor, still loomed over them, and were armed to the teeth. Their heads turned from us, to Kres, and back to us, recognizing the long sticks and hilts we had as weapons. They might not know what the rifles and sidearms were, but they knew occult blades well enough.

Kres had the right idea here, might makes right.

A few barks from the multi-colored wolves got the two guards to back off, padding back to circle around Silverfur in what was universally understood intimidation, so I pegged the two wolves as immediate mooks.

“Shame that.” Drakonis said. “Thought they’d be better than us. But still the same petty infighting and squabbles as anyone else.”

“Why?” I asked, not really seeing where he’s coming from this. Surface clans had politics, Undersiders had them, even Othersiders had their own pecking orders and social warfare going right down to the most lawless of slavers. And now that I’d seen it, machines also had their version of politics and order. Mites had them too, dealing and wheeling with all sides.

Politics seemed universal.

“You wouldn’t get it.” Drakonis said with a sigh. “You’re not a dog person are you?”

“More of a rat person.” I said, “Small, cute, harmless and fuzzy.”

“‘Harmless’ he says.” The Deathless gave a low chuckle. “Thought you lot kept weasels up there though? Rats aren’t pests to you?”

I shrugged. “Do you actually want to know?”

He did turns out. So I told him a few things about the surface clans while we made our way to the ship remnants uncontested.

Not so much of a door into the ruins, just the side of a wall that had been cut apart by a sloppy occult blade and a wooden overhang to add a little presentation or rain cover. Large enough I didn’t need to duck to get inside, but not by that much.

The interior was unfortunately empty. Completely empty of everything. I’d seen something like this before, when the clan first moved into the colony home. It had been mothballed, abandoned and left for the next clan to inhabit. I had that same feeling walking onto the metal platings.

The greyroamer tribes here would come, use the trading post, then clear out once they were done. Whatever that priest group was that intercepted us earlier on, they must have been the current occupants and only just arrived themselves since I didn’t see any signs of anything dropped off or left. Just things tied down that looked aged. Dusty.

Another thing of note was the geometry of the area itself. See, the ship was clearly made with the idea of one side being ‘down’ and right now, it’s nose was pointed nearly straight up like a tower. So the ship’s version of down was to our left at a slight downward angle. Old metal chairs were nearly ninety degrees to us.

“That’s going to be a pain to deal with.” Drakonis said as our headlights illuminated the interior of the old relic. There were interior lights, but clearly set to low power. His were shining straight up, where it was clearly empty space all the way to an open doorway, which equally continued further up.

“Would they even need to go that far up?” I asked. “The wolves don’t look like they’d be great climbers. I could see Kres fly without issue up there, but isn’t this supposed to be used by random tribes showing up?”

“Do you think I know any more than you would Winterscar?” Drakonis said. “I’m just suspecting by law of maximum annoyance that we’ll have to scale all the way to the top to get any signal. Or do you have any better ideas?”

Talking about that… “Cathida, does Journey have anything on this ship?”

“Not a single clue either.” She answered back on our private comms. “It could take a few guesses at what you’d need to get your grubby hands on to get this working, assuming some things are universal enough.”

The HUD updated, and far above there was a small orange square that appeared by one of the consoles that were still working. Other consoles were there too, right by glowing keyboards, except the screens were all cracked or missing shards. The only one that was still working was, indeed, much further up inside the top of the derelict.

I pointed a finger to it, and Journey passed on the information to Drakonis who equally groaned for a moment. “Should have kept my mouth shut. Fuck me.”

“No way that’s the only means to make this outpost work.” I said. “The wolves here can’t climb.”

“Don’t think they need to climb much at all. You feel that on your feet?” Drakonis asked instead, lifting a foot on and off the metal plating under him.

I had no godsdamned idea what he meant, up until I tried to lift up my feet up and down a few times. There was a slight tugging sensation to it, like I was walking on weak plastic suckers.

I gave a few more tugs, and then tried to jump a bit. Armor let me leap up with exceptional height, but here only a tap of my toes got me to lift a few feet off before falling back down with far more gentle of a fall than normal.

“Oh. I’m seeing it.”

“Yeah. Gravity’s not working right here. Happens in a few places by Capra’Nor. The armor is already compensated with electromagnets on your boots, we’re lucky the place is made of metal. ”

“The floating rocks.” I said, fist tapping my palm as I made the connection.

He nodded back, helmet going up again to light up the interior. His hand went on to point to a few of the vertical chairs. “And look at the seats, they’ve got these pallets tied to their back. It’s not for storage or anything, they’re platforms. I’ll take a wild guess that the greyroamers jump from pallet to pallet up the ship to get to the top.”

"They couldn't just get a long wire down here?" Although, I didn't see a single screen that wasn't broken at the bottom. Could be that animals and other issues over time broke all the equipment that was open to the environment, so all that's left still functioning had to be in harder to reach spots.

Still, even with the reduced gravity here, wood can only support so much weight. And heavily armored humans was probably not the intention. The metal chair backbones under those platforms would be doing the heavy lifting.

“A little bit of climbing never hurt anyone.” Drakonis said with a shrug, patting my shoulder. “Don’t fall.”

“After you.” I told him with my best sickly sweet voice.

He looked up, then back at me, and then back up. Then held a hand my direction, curled into a fist on his outstretched palm. “Best of five?”