Chapter 86: Some Kind of Secret (1/2)

“This construction completely predates the founding of Greenstone,” Clive said, examining the side of the passage they were in.

“Maybe if we look around,” Jason said, “we might even find something more interesting than a blank, brick wall.”

“The construction itself is fascinating enough,” Clive said. “Are you familiar with the Sky River Aqueduct? The building techniques are identical. There’s no mortar connecting these bricks, yet they form a watertight seal. Remember that we’re under a swamp, right now.”

“That explains the stale air,” Jason said, making a distasteful expression.

“It must have been tricky to build,” Humphrey said.

“Beyond tricky,” Clive said. “Even with powerful and sophisticated magic, it would have been an outrageous undertaking.”

“Maybe it wasn’t built under a swamp,” Jason said. “If the same people who built this also built the big aqueduct, then they might have made this place when there was no delta. Before the aqueduct, the river would have spilled into Sky River Gorge, right?”

“That’s a good point,” Clive said.

“We should get moving,” Humphrey said. “We need to find a way down if we’re going to figure out what happened to this adventurer.”

Clive nodded his agreement, taking out a recording stone and throwing it up to float over his head. It joined the other crystal floating there, which continually restored mana. Humphrey had the same essence ability, both men acquiring it through the magic essence.

“I’m going to record everything we see,” Clive said.

They set off down the corridor, the floating motes of light from Jason’s cloak illuminating the way forward. What they found was a large complex buried underground, with very little to indicate its purpose. Every room and every corridor was empty, small chambers and large halls with nothing but bare, brick surfaces.

“Everything has to have been taken away,” Clive said. “Even if this place has been here for centuries, there would be at least remnants of furnishings.”

“This complex is at least the size of a large village,” Humphrey marvelled. “We haven’t even found a way down, yet.”

“It had to be the site of some massive undertaking,” Clive said. “No one builds all this for temporary occupation.”

Their exploration brought them to a stairwell, but the brick stairs were warped and moulded together. It looked like the steps had been melted and reset from a staircase to a ramp, covered in spiked protrusions.

“Some kind of stone-shaping power,” Humphrey said, crouching to look closer. “These stairs were altered to impede anyone looking to go down them. I think this place was attacked.”

“Maybe whoever they were defending against plundered everything away,” Jason said. “It might explain why nothing’s left.”

“Do we try and use these stairs?” Clive asked. “They don’t look pleasant to navigate, and given how big this place is, there should be another way down.”

“The others might be like this,” Humphrey said.

“We have time to check,” Jason said. “That looks entirely too pointy for my liking.”

They eventually found another set of stairs, this time in their original condition. They descended deeper underground, the stairwell switching back with multiple landings before they reached the next level down. Stepping out into another wide corridor, the difference to the floor above was obvious. The walls, floor, even ceiling were marred with signs of battle. Scorch marks, long gouges torn into the brickwork. A wild confrontation of essence users had clearly taken place. There was debris scattered out, mostly stone torn from the wall. As they moved cautiously forward, they looked around at the damage.

“This is incredible,” Clive said. “Almost nothing is known about the history of the region prior to the original Greenstone Colony. There may actually be answers somewhere in here.”

Checking side rooms off the corridor, they had been stripped clean like the floor above. Some were empty and untouched, others bearing the marks of battle. In one of them they found a pair of skeletons, although with no sign of clothing or equipment.

“These are too old to be our adventurer, right?” Humphrey said.

Clive pulled out the tracking stone, which still pointed downward.

“Based on the angle,” Clive said, “I would guess one more floor down. If it’s as far below this one as we’re below the one above.”

Humphrey crouched down to examine the skeletons.

“The short, broad skeleton is a runic,” he said. “You can still see faint traces of the natural runes on their bones. The big one is a draconian, from the skull shape.”

“Draconian?” Jason asked.

“They're a race that claims to be descended from dragons,” Clive said, “although the claim is not fully substantiated.”

“They have scales and breathe fire,” Humphrey said. “I’d call that fairly substantiated.”

He panned his eyes over the ancient skeletons.

“You’d think there would be rotted clothes or old boots or something,” he said, looking around. “There’s no rusty old weapons, no tools or jewellery. These bodies were stripped.”

“This whole place was stripped,” Jason said. “It’s like whoever invaded didn’t want to leave a trace. Not of who they were, or even of who they were attacking.”

“Then why leave the bodies?” Humphrey asked. “Why not just take the bodies, instead of stripping them and leaving them behind?”

“No one likes carting bodies around,” Jason said. “No one you’d want to make friends with, anyway. Maybe they were convinced that just bodies wouldn’t tell people anything.”

“It could have been due to some religious practice,” Clive suggested. “A lot of religions have taboos around corpses.”

“Perhaps there are more bodies, deeper in,” Humphrey said. “Maybe they’ll have answers.”

They continued exploring, finding more bodies that offered no more clues than the others. They came from every civilisation-building species: humans, elves and leonids, celestines, runic, smoulder and draconians.

They were starting to get a sense of how things were laid out, based on the two floors they had explored and ended up standing in front of a wall.

“More earth-shaping,” Humphrey said. “This should be the stairwell, shouldn’t it?”

“I think so,” Clive said.

The wall was made up of warped green stone, which had clearly spent time as a fluid before hardening. They continued searching, discovering another wall of warped stone.

“I'll try and cut through with my big sword, unless someone has a better idea,” Humphrey said. “Do you have any more of that acid, Jason?”

“I used it all getting us in here,” Jason said.

“So much for being prepared,” Humphrey said, which got a snort of laughter from Clive.

“Oh, you’ve got jokes,” Jason said. He took a sledgehammer from his inventory, letting the head drop heavily to the floor.

Item: [Stonebreaker Hammer] (iron rank, common)

A hammer designed to be effective at breaking rocks (tool, hammer).

Effect: Weight increases in accordance with the strength of the wielder.

“Try that,” Jason said.

Humphrey picked up the hammer, hefting it to test the weight.

“I think I might break something this light,” he said, then frowned, hefting it again. “No, there it is.”

“You were saying something about preparation?” Jason asked.

Clive shook his head.

“This thing gets heavier based on who holds it, right?” Humphrey asked.

“Yep,” Jason said.

“Then how good a preparation is it when you’re not very strong?” Humphrey asked.

“That’s why I prepared you,” Jason said.

“Are you calling me a tool?” Humphrey asked.

“Humphrey,” Jason said, placing an earnest hand on the big man’s shoulder. “You’re far more useful and versatile than some ordinary tool. You’re a complete tool.”

“I’m also holding a hammer,” Humphrey said and Jason skittered back.

“As you were, mate,” Jason said.

Clive stood next to Jason as they watched Humphrey hammer away at the wall.

“That mouth of yours is going to get the cream kicked out of you someday,” Clive said.

“Been there, done that,” Jason said. “You can live your life avoiding consequences, or accepting them. I tried the first way in my old world, and I’m trying the other here.”

“And how’s that working out?” Clive asked.

“It feels good,” Jason said. “Wouldn’t recommend it without healing magic, though. Cripes, he’s putting a dent in that wall.”

Humphrey’s hammer blows were crashing into the wall with the regularity of an aggressive metronome. The stone was covered with impact marks all clustered together, spiderweb cracks spreading out. In short order, the hammer breached a hole in the wall, which let out a wave of wet air, stinking with rot.