Book 8 – Chapter 30 – The Old World

Darkness.

Then my boots hit metal flooring, sliding over it without any purchase, before I fell down into nothing. And landed directly into snow a second later, sinking a good few inches. Soulsight had shown me what was around, so the fall didn’t take me by surprise.

My body automatically leaned to the right to hold balance, against a strong gust. Sound surrounded me. Like thousands of small sand grains pinging off the metal plating.

Journey’s helmet automatically triggered flashlights in the darkness, and I saw nothing but snow and sleet ahead of me, blowing hard. Wireframe topology booted up, superimposing around the world.

Rocks mostly, outlined. Although behind me, it looked to be a crashed airspeeder. Tilted downwards, nose smushed up against the ground. The cargo bay doorway under it was opened up, to reveal my origin location. A mite portal of some kind. Stored inside, pointing outwards.

It flashed blue and my HUD showed reconnection with one of the knights. I saw something slip through the portal, sliding down the same metal ramp I had a moment ago, before falling onto the ground with a thud.

Followed by several more flashes of blue from the portal in rapid succession as the rest of the knights all appeared in blown away mists of blue, each sliding down the open ramp, before landing hard against the ice and snow ground.

All except for Wrath who simply floated down, the gust and wind doing nothing compared to the power of her inner systems.

The portal turned off, as if going back to eternal sleep within the dead airspeeder.

The darkness around us was quickly punctured through as the rest of the knights around all triggered headlights, weapons snapping into formation. They all quickly sent green pings, no enemies or targets nearby detected.

“Are we on the surface?” I asked, double checking the coordinates. Because what was behind us felt like an expedition site location, shoved upwards over a small mountain.

We shouldn’t be? Superior sent back. Also, looks like it’s not that cold either.

The temperature meter showed negatives, far below freezing but I could theoretically take my helmet off here and be fine for a while.

“We are not.” Father said, taking heavy steps next to me. His helmet looked upwards, where we couldn’t see anything beyond a few dozen feet into the snow.

Wireframes showed large bridge-like structures ahead and over us. A giant pillar should be up ahead, holding one of those megastructures. “Coordinates are accurate. We are twelve miles below the surface.”

“The last strata?” I looked downwards, then reached a hand to brush the snow and ice.

Journey’s systems lit to life and identified a roadway under us. And under that was just dirt, and earth. In fact, it remained earth for several hundred feet from what Journey was claiming.

“As far as the machines know, there is nothing more under our feet as of now.” Father said. “This is the surface of the original earth. Before the mites began to construct above us.”

I’ve walked through the biomes of dozens of areas, but something about this location felt… like hallowed ground?

Was this road built by mites? Or… old humanity?

“Is the division stone within the ship behind us?” Wrath asked. “Coordinates seem to be indicating it further ahead.”

“Yeah, this was just the closest I could portal us.” I said, looking back at our ride. The airspeeder looked ancient, but… more updated? The frigate class was a warfrigate without a doubt, though it looked to have updated armor platings and weapon systems. Those guns were silent now, frozen over aiming at the last target.

There was an odd feeling that I was looking at a tomb instead of a ship.

The engines behind had exploded due to an external attack, given how the metal warped. It had been enough to knock this out of commission, possibly causing an internal pressure wave that would kill anyone without relic armor, but I didn’t know why there was a mite portal within the cargo bay. Had it been built inside there long after the crash, or was it in the process of being ferried out somewhere?

This didn’t feel like scenery made by mites. They wouldn’t have made all the damage to the ship so lifelike. I had this odd feeling we’d reused someone else’s final failed mission.

My headlights looked over the hull for a moment more, trying to see if I could find a name for it, but if the wreck had a name, it was long eroded away. Along with all the paint and everything that could be sandblasted away.

I turned my head up the roadway, which would be leading us in the right direction forward. The mission must continue.

“Coordinates show four miles of travel, keep weapons up and at the ready.” I said, setting a nav point ping to the rest of the knights. “Not sure if this biome is hidden from Relinquished, or guarded from her. We’ll find out soon.”

The biome was eerie. Snow continued to blast through obscuring vision, but the gusts died down after we made it past the massive bridges, revealing what looked to be the ruins of a city. Unlike mite cities far above us, this one looked real. There was a clear organization to it that felt familiar to the old media I’d seen.

Cars with broken windows littered the roadways further in, many looked abandoned. Others still had occupants within. The cold had preserved them, but whenever the mites had built this strata, it must have been decades after they’d died. Only snow-buried skeletons remained, just traces of the skulls and bones still visible. The ones without broken windows were far more visible, the car keeping the external snow outside where it belonged, while the rest remained a coffin for it’s driver.

Everything in this world was dead. Bones, broken glass and metal, all covered and preserved in the snow.

The city continued onwards for miles in every direction. Giant buildings loomed above us, some tilted over, crashed long ago into others. Almost all these buildings had their windows blasted into fragments. Signs of a distant explosion, like a shockwave had passed through. Not enough to break everything, but certainly enough to pulverize fragile things.

Through all this our team jogged forward, following the roadway, helmet lights and rifle lights keeping the way illuminated in the pale half-light.

It was in one of these giant buildings we found what we were looking for. A mall of some sort? We could access it from the ceilings downwards, as the entrance had been piled up by snow.

Here’s where things changed. Journey’s HUD pinged dozens of metallic figures, buried inside the snow that’d blown in. But in the soul sight, I saw no signs of life or movement. Just dead machines.

The forms were grotesque, clearly built by Relinquished for maximum effect. But I don’t doubt those claws and teeth had certainly killed people already. At least, until they met their end.

Sliced in half. Almost all of them had some kind of damage like that. Including the walls behind them. It was like a wild blender had passed through here.

Further into the mall, the dead machines were more visible, now that snow was piled up all over. It did get darker here, snow having covered the roof windows, making this entire place look more like a pale halflight. Underwater even.

That’s where we found the Division Stone.

Waiting on a snow covered rock, slightly leaned over to the side. As if the whole thing here hadn’t been part of this mall. All around was a circular portal of some kind flat on the ground. Wiring connected it all together, with powerlines leaving past the escalators here, out into the outside.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The face of the Division Stone was smooth, up until it hit the upper edges, where it became far more rock-like. And just like the forge that had fixed up Wrath, it held a single circular hole on the center. Wing-like designs were etched outwards, built into the stone. A giant mess of mechanical arms remained dormant on the left side, so this time they weren’t hidden inside the stone itself.

The entire thing had a soft glow on the edge of that inner circle. As if waiting in the gloom, still powered.

“Whoever moved the stone, they did it by setting this up first, and then summoning the stone wholesale into it.” I said, taking my guess from the look of everything here. And it had been done centuries ago given how dead the entire location here felt.

Father immediately held a hand out and called for a full stop, a ping signalling possible danger.

I had my blade and armguard out, as the rest of the knights equally had their blades lit up in the dark space.

“A dead body up ahead.” Father said. “Not one of the machines. The snow pile next to the stone.”

A few of the Winterscar knights held a hand out, and a shockwave came from each, pushing the snow clear off.

I zoomed in my sight on the stone, getting a closer look at the tiny figure off to the side. And I did see a humanoid shape. Sitting at the base of the stone, hands limp at the side, head resting on the back of the Division Stone.

It looked intact, but when flashlights illuminated the figure, I could see it was anything but. Skeletal, holes ripped into it, skin looked torn off, melted metal, and multiple massive slices all across the chassis. I couldn’t even tell if it was a woman or a man, the clothing had been ripped apart.

“I do not recognize the template model.” Wrath said. “The structure looks unique.”

“It is unique.” Father said. “I saw in Avalis’s memories something similar. This is a proto-feather. A dead demi-god, and even in death it nearly killed Avalis. Do not go near it.”

Whatever could be used to identify which protofeather this body belonged to, that was long gone.

But I had a hunch. This biome wasn’t part of the locations Relinquished knew about, hidden by the mites. Or perhaps at one point she did know where it was, and traded her memory of it for something else. Which means anything within these grounds was outside her scope.