Chapter 13-354: Legion Plans (2/2)

“All true,” they agreed. “And yet, she still Damned hundreds of idiots directly, and thousands, even millions more just as fallout...”

“Yes. And they wonder why we want to kill them for having so much fun.” She stiffened in Legion’s arms. “Well, well, well...”

Concentration on The Map narrowed to two points that had just come into range of the spell, ninety miles ahead of them.

One was a cave carved into a massive iceberg, large enough to not be moved or drift around, and somewhat able to withstand the elements. The artificial nature of the cave made it stand out in the Commune with Nature... as did the undead standing inside it.

A tick of the clock to both the east and west in an arc down in the water on the sea floor were groupings of undead, exactly one hundred of each.

Powerful undead, at the level of Black Sea Brines, the highest tier of basic undead.

“Spotters,” Legion deduced instantly. “They are not holding position in the water because they would constantly drift with the current...”

The Old Steed pointedly snuffed out his flames as Traveler tapped his dark skeletal body, and with a ripple of illusion, he turned a pure and snowy white, the exact same hue as the ice and snow all around them.

The three watched as they rode closer, and the second set of posts above and below the water came into range. It was pretty easy to draw a connecting arc and impose it on an overall map of the area, which circled the North Pole quite accurately.

“Spaced every five miles. High points to allow clear views of things moving over the ice, close enough to probably hear things moving under the water. Fifty miles out from the Pole,” Traveler murmured. There were literally thousands of undead involved in this, although the ones in the depths completely outnumbered the spotters up above.

There was a second force of undead at twenty-five miles out, but these were only a mile apart, clearly able to reinforce one another more quickly. A second tier of staggered spotters, set to fill in the gaps from the outer spotters, was in place, too.

The Old Steed hadn’t slowed down, so the miles still raced by quickly, the top of the world coming up on them swiftly, glaringly obvious with the pulse of the magnetic pole streaming out of it.

On the surface, there was nothing.

Down below, there was a very conspicuous mile-wide sphere of complete blankness. But below that...

Their forward progress didn’t change, but everyone was staring in disbelief at the long tunnel that was plunging from the seabed and into the mantle, falling down, down, down beyond the sight of the Commune, even as their range looking down continually increased as they drew closer.

There were signs that it had once been a lava tunnel or something, but it had long gone cold, and there were feelings of carvings and other artificial influences on the shaft.

Pointedly, that long plunge was not filled with water, but air. More importantly, there were no side passages coming in to connect to it.

Traveler took a deep breath. “Someone find a Ghoul Sage and very, very pointedly ask them if this world has a Hollow World inside it,” she said for Markspace to hear, and fingers started stabbing phones.

“Burroughs was right?” Legion muttered. “Pellucidar is real?”

Traveler just groaned in disbelief. “You read those stories?” she asked, and Legion nodded. “Right, then. Where were the main places to enter Pellucidar?”

“Ah...” They thought about that. “Antarctica?” they winced, remembering Master Fred and Traveler had already been to the South Pole, but that was where Hyperborea had somehow been moved to. “The North Pole, and... Africa?”

“The Tarzan stories are full of hidden lands inside Africa, time-lost and isolated from the rest of the world.”

“But... Africa has largely been explored. There’s no such lands of dinosaurs and the like there!” Legion protested, going searching for some more recent maps to make their point.

“There’s a whole severed continent in the Antarctic, there’s a potential Hollow World tunnel here, and you’re certain there’s no hidden lands in Africa?” was Traveler’s reply.

Legion was silent for a moment. “There were a lot of Old Gods in Hyperborea...” they finally admitted.

“And they all had to come from somewhere,” Traveler agreed. “Thankfully, there are no Greystokes, so a great white hunter raised by apes is probably not going to be there... but Beastlords, Rangers, and similar things are all very part of magic.

“If there are time-lost lands, they are likely to have a lot of the more primal Classes there, too.”

“Would other organizations know about these things?” Legion wondered, their eyes narrowing. Queen Rayetizvisha actually didn’t know anything specific. She worked with the modern world, not in the private realms of Old Gods.

“Their records go back a long way, and the Heavenbound did not make many inroads in Africa until the past century or two. My guess would be Hells yes.”

“You never crossed North America with Commune up,” Legion suddenly realized. “Only the general area of Yellowstone, and then... when we went hunting my Hellpact Grantor.”

She instantly focused on that section of The Map, and Traveler quietly opened up the view going down.

Down, to where vast caverns existed in what should be molten spaces, connected by mazes of caves and tunnels, canyons and rifts, as if they had sprung out of nowhere.

Those caverns were teeming with life, some of it sapient, and it all extended off the plotted area on The Map.