The tunnels Iliam had led them to reminded Tim vaguely of those the Hive had found on the edge of the Great Forest, and he wondered distantly if there was another old underground tram system involved. The resemblance was only vague, though; it looked like these tunnels were hewn out of rock and dirt, at least for the most part, or clad in what might have been a form of brick. Forms of cement were also present, but he wasn’t sure it was the same. The tunnel they were currently walking down was also lit by bioluminescent moss spaced in regular intervals, giving him enough light to see by.
He had expected a much smaller tunnel system when their dwarven guide had first mentioned it. But instead of just a few tunnels dug by smugglers to get into or past the city of Iliyan without paying tolls, there was clearly a much more extensive network of paths. In parts, it seemed to be aboveground, simple dirt trails through copses of trees or fields, though whether they were a real part or had been haphazardly incorporated with new connections for convenience he couldn’t say.
These tunnels also weren’t deserted, even apart from monsters. Once already, Iliam had led them through a winding tunnel past a cavern that clearly contained people. Tim suspected all the fighting in this region had made them seek all available shelter. Other times, they’d passed crossings with simple torches lighting the way, some of them gone out but some sill burning, even if they didn’t encounter other people.
And as much as Iliam professed to be able to guide them anywhere, he clearly wasn’t quite as familiar with this underground network as he might have wished. Tim was fairly sure they’d already taken some detours and roads that weren’t the quickest path to their current destination. He hadn’t said anything, though. It wasn’t like he would be able to navigate better, and maybe it had been on purpose after all.
There were clearly older and newer parts of this network, although that might just be an impression given depending on how well they were kept up, and some areas were used much more than others. Right now, they were clearly moving away from any people. Had been for a while. He hadn’t seen any torches, lit or otherwise, in what seemed like hours. The only sounds Tim heard that didn’t come from his own party were furtive scuttling and the occasional high-pitched noise of pests, insects and otherwise. There were probably rats around, judging by the smell, as well as a few other animals he found harder to place. They hadn’t even encountered many monsters recently, and there were a lot more of them down here than up above from what he’d experienced so far.
“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Ash asked, clearly thinking the same thing. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind exploring creepy abandoned tunnels, it’s basically a family hobby, but I thought you were leading us toward an exit.”
Iliam snorted, sounding just a bit too unruffled and disdainful of the question to be believable, in Tim’s opinion. “Are you the guide or am I, Sir Ash? I’m sure we are going in the proper direction here … Fairly sure. It’s not like a lot of people normally head east past the city. Besides, Lord Tim said he wanted to explore the tunnels.”
“I did,” Tim agreed, keeping his tone carefully even. “Like Ash said, it’s a hobby.”
“For some of us, it’s our job,” their Delver mage commented.
“You don’t say,” Alvol, the dark elf ranger, muttered.
“Quiet, please,” Anuis hissed. “I think I hear something.”
Tim pulled his blade-arms in a bit closer to his body and slowed down, the rest of the group mimicking him. They fell silent and continued on cautiously. After a few seconds, he could hear noise as well, something deeper and more regular than the usual background sounds. It was obviously coming from up ahead.
Anuis and Alvol both looked at him and asked a question with their hands, pointing at the tunnel ahead. Tim considered for a moment, then shook his head, pointing a few meters in front of them and circling his fingers before pointing back at the group. They nodded and slipped ahead, but stayed in the range he’d specified. After a quick wordless exchange, Anuis fell back a little as the dark elf continued at the point position.
In short order, the tunnel widened. Tim halted and waited with the rest of the group. Alvol returned after a minute, stepping up closer to Tim, pointed at one of the bags Tirias was carrying, then held up three fingers and pointed at the cave. At his questioning look, he shrugged and nodded. Tim’s eyes narrowed and he nodded back. Then he kept walking, readying his blades and making sure to keep his steps quiet.
He still paused a moment in surprise as he saw what his companion had indicated. There was a larger cavern beyond, lit by sporadic growth of the luminescent moss, and three monsters inside. One stood by the other tunnel while two walked down the cavern. They were all big enough they would have had trouble in the actual tunnels, but not as big as the one he’d seen before. Tim focused on the closest.
The others were similar, he noted, but he only had a second to appreciate it before the golems turned to them. “As before, slow them down and root them, we’ll attack one by one,” he ordered hurriedly.
They set to work quickly. As vines and shadowy tentacles erupted to hold the golem in font of him, others reaching for the other two to slow them down, Tim Charged the monster. He tried a few stabs, but knew they wouldn’t be very effective. Instead, he kept the attention of the golem focused on him, turning it slightly and letting it follow him as he backed away. A few second later, as he dodged a swing from its club-like arm, it started staggering. He jumped forward again, shoulder-checking it and using his blade-arms as levers to hook its leg. It worked, the golem came crashing down.
The sound of heavy footsteps warned him and Tim dodged to the side before the second monster could reach him, turning and repeating his strategy. However these things worked, they clearly weren’t quite smart enough to learn from one example. It let him repeat his tactic and also went crashing down to the ground just a little later.
In the end, the whole fight only took a few minutes. Tim breathed out deeply and shook his head as he trudged to the center of the cavern after stabbing the eye socket of the last golem. “Are these things supposed to be new?” he wondered.
“They could have been here for a while,” Tirias pointed out. “They may not have been a true challenge for us, but they would be deadly to most others who may wander in here, even seasoned adventurers.”
“There’s no way to know unless we check out where they came from,” Ash commented.
Tim frowned and looked at the golems. The others had already killed all three, or deactivated them, depending on your viewpoint. At this point, he was pretty sure they weren’t really alive or at least not really intelligent. These ones were also clearly smaller than the one they’d encountered before, so they fit in the underground chamber.
“You’re right, I want to investigate this,” he decided. “Someone has to be making them. Even if the other one just got loose by accident, people would have noticed if it or others like it had been wandering around outside for a while. But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a lot more somewhere down here.”
“Or hidden elsewhere,” Anuis pointed out.
Tim nodded. “Right. So let’s check it out.” He wasn’t really worried about the danger; his gathered party was pretty strong compared to pretty much any other force, especially in restricted quarters. They’d just have to be careful of ambushes or the like.
The tunnel continued past the cavern, but it was wider and looked to his inexpert eyes like it might have been expanded. There was a little more of the glowing moss, and when he inhaled carefully, he could tell the air was also a bit more humid, which presumably had something to do with it. There were few rats around anymore. It made the corridor smell sterile and lifeless despite the plants.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
They continued on in silence, every fighter in the group on alert and keeping their weapons ready. The golems weren’t particularly stealthy, but they’d still take no chances. Tim kept an eye on both directions and made sure to mentally mark the distance they were traveling, trying to keep a mental map of their surroundings and the tunnel system in mind. The psychic link would’ve made it easier, but he’d make do.
The further they went, the more anxious Tim got, but it wasn’t because he was afraid of danger. Instead, it was like there was something tickling at the edge of his mind, a feeling like he was missing something, but when he tried to reach for it, it remained frustratingly elusive. There were some details he should have caught but didn’t, perhaps.
He was just about to speak up and ask Ash if he felt something similar, before the tunnel finally ended. They’d seen one split already, where another tunnel moved off to the side, but the scouts in the group reported that it seemed less alive, and he felt like continuing on straight was the better idea, anyway. The tunnel was bigger and seemed more important, clad with bricks seamlessly fitted together without leaving any gaps, the material almost seeming to darken a bit as they went on. Then finally, they came to another door, and behind it some answers.
"That’s why it seemed familiar,” Ash breathed. “The Hive.”
And Tim knew what he meant instantly.
Further on, the tunnel opened into a kind of antechamber which in turn led to another underground complex. This time, the walls weren’t just brick, but partly metal. The doors were slightly rounded at the top, a bit bigger than normal for human-sized people, and there were side tunnels leading up or down into levels between this story and those above or below, some of them twisting into a helical shape. In all, the structure was built almost as much on a vertical plan as a horizontal one, and kept open with few doors and instead large rooms allowing for groups of people to gather, for a communal kind of people that liked to do things together.
“What do you mean?” Anuis asked quietly.
Tim stepped up to the wall again, scratching his claws against the brickwork. A tiny part of the surface layer crumbled away, and he rubbed it between his fingers. “This is similar to our Production Drones’ substance, but not quite the same,” he murmured. “Like another variation. Something made for building.” He didn’t need to test it, but he would bet it was fireproof and water-resistant, too.
“What about the metal?” Eduard asked, instantly alert as he scanned the space in front of their group. “It’s not like any I’ve seen before.”
Tim tilted his head, looking at it more closely. “The same as the golems?” he asked.
Alvol cursed softly. “You think they took the metal to make those golems from here?”
“It’s possible,” Tim answered. He took a few cautious steps further into the base. “I think I may have seen something like this before, actually.”
In the psychic link, memories of the old Hivekind base where his Queen had hatched. He wasn’t sure, he was hardly a metallurgist … but at least the stasis pod might have some of the similar material. He wished he still had access to the psychic link to help him remember, to confirm it.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Iliam said.
Tim sighed. “Just a suspicion,” he said. “Let’s explore further. Whatever this place is, it seems someone has found it before us and is using it for dubious purposes.”
“If this really is what you think it is — to think they could just use it as a trash heap to scavenge materials,” Eduard muttered. “It’s almost worse if this is not Ancient. Who would take something like this and destroy it for such a base purpose? It’s …” he shrugged helplessly.
“Sacrilegious?” Ash asked sarcastically. “Someone who wants to make golems, perhaps? I wonder if metals are the only things of worth they can find here.”
Tim grimaced. If they were, was it because someone else had already taken all the other technological marvels from this place? If this was an old Hivekind base, it’s a wonder it wasn’t completely destroyed, but it must have been found and at least emptied at some point. Otherwise wouldn’t some of them have hid here and survived?
The thought almost made him shiver and he sped up a little. Walking deeper into this base, he was almost certain of his suspicion that it was an old Hivekind installation. From the Hives who had come from Haven before the arrival of the gods and the Cataclysm, those with much better technology than his had access to, who might have been very different from the Starlit Hive in other ways, as well.
Judging from Anuis’ grimace and the way Tirias clutched his weapon with white knuckles, he wasn’t the only one who remembered that all those Hivekind had been killed; warred on and exterminated as scapegoats or threats.
They kept walking in silence, through one of the major corridors, down a small ramp and into a larger corridor leading at a slight incline further downwards. Some of the side corridors were clearly smaller than would be comfortable for most people and he wondered if they were made for Swarm Drones. A few were ventilation shafts, and a few kept closed by locked doors.
“Can you hear that?” Alvol asked quietly. “It’s coming from ahead of us, further down.”
Tim nodded and inhaled deeply. The scent of water was slightly stronger in that direction, while there was still little airflow, keeping the air still and sticky. “Let’s check it out first,” he said. If there was someone else down there, they needed to know about it instead of allowing them to maneuver behind their backs while his party explored this place.
There was another tunnel leading downward, soon enough, one large and wide enough that Tim could tell it had been meant to accommodate fliers. It went down at an angle, a bit curved like a slide. He walked down at a fast pace, but still cautious of where to place his feet. The silence of the complex around him was unnerving, and he had the impression they were moving away from the center of the base.
After a while, the large slide-tunnel opened out onto another large cavern, possibly a natural one. The old Hivekind must have used it as either a storage area or workspace for heavy machinery — maybe some kind of vehicle bay? Either way, it wasn’t recognizable. Sheet metal curling inside on the edges like crumpled aluminum foil lay in some spots, while others only held melted slag or amalgamations of metal bent so out of shape it was impossible to tell what they’d once been.
Further in, towards the middle and where a dark hole suggested another entrance, was a cleared space. It looked like someone had taken bites out of the surrounding piles.
As they finally rounded the corner around another slag heap big enough to have been a tank in another life, he had an unobstructed line of sight to the center of the cleared area and realized they’d been too slow. Clearly, despite their attempts at being quiet, their coming had been noticed.
He only barely had a glimpse of a slight figure in dark robes, only long enough to get their System description.
The next moment, the figure finished darting away from them and turned. He had a flash of green eyes in their hooded face, and his ears faintly caught a muttered exclamation. “Impossible!”
Then, before Tim could respond, there was a slight flash of light and the person in the dark robe disappeared.
“Dammit,” Ash cursed, running forward and leaving Tim behind.
He quickly glanced at the others to check they were all still with him and on guard, before he followed Ash. Tim couldn’t see, hear or scent the golem artificer anymore, so it was a good bet they were gone. As he stepped closer, Tim could make out the object on the ground where the person had disappeared — teleported away, presumably.
A plate of metal, at least two meters in diameter. In it was etched a double circle along with several other symbols. Tim frowned as he got closer and bent over the carving, careful to keep his head well clear of the circle itself. It was round enough to be made by either machine precision, good calipers or someone with talent and a lot of experience; he couldn’t tell the difference that easily.
“This is a ritual circle,” Nucme stated, frowning at it as he stepped up beside Tim.
“You don’t say,” Tirias answered. “What does it do?”
“Teleportation, presumably.” The dark elf shrugged.
Tim raised a hand before they could start to bicker. “Long-range?”
Nucme shook his head, glancing at the other mages in the group, who gestured agreement. “No. Prepared like this, it has to be short-range, perhaps just enough to get out of this structure. I didn’t even know it was possible to do something like this,” he added. “Teleportation is very advanced.”
Tim frowned. They’d have to spread out and search for them right away, then, although he wasn’t optimistic about their chances of capturing the artificer. Even just leaving the complex would be a good head start. And they’d have to travel in groups and be wary of traps and ambushes. Still, another question presented itself to him more urgently. “Could they have found this here?”
“Something made by the Hivekind, you mean?” He frowned, then sighed. “I don’t know.”
Tim grimaced and clenched his teeth. Well that’s very helpful. He glanced at Eduard and the others, who avoided his gaze or shrugged. “Like nothing I’ve seen before,” the young Delver said, “but that doesn’t mean much.”
“Well, at least we know a little more,” Ash offered. “I caught his info and Golem Artificer is a very specialized Class. No bet this is the one behind all those golems we’ve found.”
“Probably wasn’t working alone, though,” Alvol added.
Tim sighed, cracking his knuckles. He wouldn’t get anything done standing around. Hopefully they could manage to get this outside, or transcribe it, and he’d have quite a few questions for Galatea the next time she visited. Assuming she could find them down here.
