12 miles below the froze.., p.18
12 Miles Below: The Frozen Realm: (A Progression Fantasy Epic), page 18
He nodded. “Something they’ve leaned into. The Deathless themselves know very little about their own origins. One of the unifying factors across all the generations is that they’ve all lost their memory.”
I’d heard that rumor too, though I hadn’t put a lot of stock into it. “They lose their memories every hundred years?”
“No. As far as Lord Atius knows, only one generation loses their memories each century. The rest lost memories the day they gained their powers.”
“How much do they lose?”
“All of it. There are no Deathless who remember who they were before they gained their title and powers.”
“Some sort of experiment happening underground? And the Deathless are the experiment’s subjects, tossed out into the wild or something?”
“You have such a strange imagination, boy. That’s the first thing that goes through your mind?” He shook his head. “No. The earliest memory Lord Atius had was opening his eyes in an empty room with a written note, in his handwriting, asking him to save a village. No lab or experiment. He suspects he’d stumbled on something while he had been human. There’s more to it, but that’s all I would expect the public could know about. And all I can tell you.”
That was a lot to unpack. If Atius’s previous self had had the time to both write that note and direct it, that meant he’d known what was coming. It could have been a choice to become a Deathless. If he’d been forced into it, he might have mentioned that in the letter. And if it had caught him by surprise, there wouldn’t have been a message in the first place.
“I’m guessing he succeeded in protecting that village?”
“For about a hundred years he did. But it grew too dangerous, so he led that city up to the surface.”
Oh. “The clan.”
He nodded. “That is part of the clan history. He doesn’t go out of his way to point out he’d lost his memory, although he won’t hide the fact either. Consider it an open secret.”
All right. So the Deathless had generations, each building on the previous ones, similar to evolution? Made a lot more sense now why there were so many different stories about the lot.
Memory played some kind of factor that couldn’t be avoided for any of them. Though there was one generation that had it worse in that regard.
“Why is Atius not down here, fighting off the machines?”
At that, Father shrugged. “That is one question I do not have an answer for. I suppose he is up here because he wishes to be. Perhaps the gods did not only choose the greatest warriors to become Deathless, but they’ve also seen fit to choose wise leaders as well.”
I was starting to see a macro pattern here. The surface clans had a renewable source of energy from the celestial flyovers, renewable food from frostbloom, structures that appeared pushed up from the underground built to protect a population, and empowered immortal heroes picked from the best humanity had to offer to lead the clans.
All added together, it pointed that someone powerful had a vested interest in keeping the surface dwellers alive. The obvious answer was the gods. Only they could have such a reach. I wondered what gifts they bestowed on those who lived underground.
“No one knows why all Deathless seem compelled to fight the machines or protect humanity, not even themselves,” Father said. “Lord Atius has a theory that only a paragon would choose to give up all memory in exchange for power. Such a trade is akin to death or to surrendering your body to another soul. He believes that the person’s nature remains, even if their memories do not.”
“Well,” I said, chewing on my ration, “if I were a god in charge of picking people that would stay around for eternity, I’d pick the best humanity had to offer, that’s for sure. Like people who arrive on time.”
People like Kidra would have been who’d I’d elevate to Deathless status, were it me picking. Arriving late to anything might physically hurt her.
“Stay serious, boy. It won’t remain like this forever,” Father said, a note of trouble in his voice.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I doubt we will run into any. However... you need to know what to expect. And it’s only a matter of time until you learn about it.” He nodded, almost as if trying to convince himself. “The new generation appearing, as of a year ago, seem to be… unstable. Unhinged.”
Gods above. Unhinged Deathless? Machines were already an impossible feat to overcome completely, but immortal demi-gods with paranormal abilities turning against humanity?
“By unhinged, what exactly do you mean? Are they attacking the undersiders?”
“They’re still hostile to the machines and fight any they meet, but they have also been known to attack civilians. They fight among each other mostly. For weapons, armor, trophies, or simply the thrill of it. Lord Atius and all the previous Deathless don’t understand these new ones. We do not have a clear picture of the situation down here, only fragments and whispers are gathered with each mission we undertake.”
Deathless are rare. It was common knowledge that each year, perhaps five more appeared—in the whole world. Five unhinged demi-gods could be contained by the other Deathless working together. However... “You make it sound like there are hundreds of them running around.”
“Not in the hundreds,” Father said. “In the hundreds of thousands.”
I froze. An entire army of them stomping around the world?
He continued the strange news, “Already more Deathless of this generation have appeared than all the previous ones put together. Twice over perhaps. All in this single year.”
“How are the undersiders handling it?”
“Not well. Before, Deathless were heroes who were welcome with open arms by their very nature. Now, cities keep a closer watch on them than they would a passing surface dweller like myself.”
That must be a lot of scrutiny. The undersiders hated the surface clans. The only ones who had friendly relationships with us were the more recent clans who’d settled back down and hadn’t yet lost their surface culture. And the imperial pilgrims. Which made sense, since imperials worshiped the sun goddess, and the sun was visible only in one place. It was tradition for imperials to attempt a journey to the surface at least once in their life.
We quite treasured the pilgrims when they did come up. They’d offer us food and tech, and in exchange we would supply them with the best gear, guides, and protection they needed to successfully go out onto the surface.
I might be underselling just how much pilgrims were treasured in our culture: entire blood feuds between clans or great houses were put on hold anytime the pilgrims were around.
Wait. Talking about the pilgrims, “How are the imperials handling it?” An army of Deathless appearing would be alarm bells for the great war of theirs.
“Not well, again.” He sighed. “Many see this as the sign of the end times—as you’d expect. Most don’t know what to think about this new iteration. They used to be seen as the messengers of their sun goddess. Now, nobody knows what the future holds. The world is changing, that much is certain.”
He stood up, signaling the break was coming to an end. “Lord Atius had ordered information about this be kept secret. He wanted to see how events would play out first. However, he knew it was only a matter of time before the next pilgrims arrived up top and shared the news. You would have found out soon enough.”
Rifle left hanging on his strap, he motioned me over. “That’s enough time spent We need to be moving.”
I settled in position on his back, and he took off again up the slope.
We’d soon arrive at the tunnels and leave this endless, multi-layered city. I prayed it would be safer in these caves.
I prayed these new Deathless were still friends with humanity in general.
But most of all, I prayed the gods were watching over us right now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE MEADOW UNDERGROUND
The caverns were lit with sunlight, which was not what was expected for a tunnel system half a mile into the ground. But then again, when did anything that involved mites make complete sense?
In this case, it was a simulation of sunlight, which made traversing through these caves feel more like climbing through a dim chasm instead. There were many ways into these caverns, and hiking up the mountain, we naturally slipped into the first passage large enough to squeeze into. Father didn’t seem picky about which; any would work.
Warm, wide floodlights were scattered across the ceiling, looking like glowing beams of sunlight through the dusty air. Walls took on the shape of geometric cubes intermixed with broken-down rocks. Green lights shone through these, not from mites but actual circuitry inside the rocks. Wherever there were cracks, the interior revealed some sort of electronics.
I couldn’t see any buttons or any way to access whatever these cubes had inside. It all just seemed like pure circuitry. More mite creations, though this was the first I’d seen that was both active and yet missing the mites.
The tunnel quickly became cramped, and I was forced to get off and walk on my own—crawling on my own for some parts.
“The undersiders had a name for a network of tunnels like this—they call it the underpassage,” Father said beside me, ducking under a rocky overhang. “Caverns like these appear on all levels, or at least the ones I’ve been to.”
His helmet turned to me, watching as I brushed my hands over the walls. “And no, before you ask, I don’t know what any of the cubes and electronics on the walls do. As far as I can tell, it is only more mite madness.”
Okay, but where were the mites? This all looked like mite madness for sure, and it was clearly powered too considering all the lights, but I still could not see a single mite. All these lights were from circuits.
“Any trick to navigating here?” I asked. “Seems a little too easy to take a wrong turn and never find the right one again.”
“There are a few... ‘tricks,’ as you would call them, to navigating through the underpassage.”
Father pointed out to those lights on the walls. “Green lights inside the rock cracks signify a tunnel leading up a level. Blue lights mean the tunnels will stay at this level.”
“And the tunnels with red lights?” I asked, pointing in one direction we’d passed by. It led to a rock bridge over a chasm, and the tunnel at the end held only dim red darkness.
“Those will lead you down a level. Obviously, we won’t be going down that direction.”
I was rather glad to hear that. The red passageways did not look inviting. Not inviting in the least.
We continued making our way into the darker green-lit caverns, two lost souls—one carrying the other whenever it was spacious enough. He wasn’t sprinting like he had in the city, but our pace was still quick and efficient whenever he had a chance to push it.
The hike was long and deep into the mountains. Most of the time it wasn’t just some closed-up one-way tunnel but rather filled out into larger pockets with wide cave ceilings, where we’d have to search the walls for the next tunnel out.
The city-building mites had been more like craftsmen, trying to build a massive multi-layered something that when looked at from afar could pass as a city. And inside they’d filled the buildings and pipes with their own constructions.
The cave mites were clearly a different breed. These felt more like true artists with a unified vision. The tunnels and caverns were absolutely breathtaking.
Light shafts almost perfectly lined up with the rock platforms, each chipped in just the right way to both balance circuitry and stone. Waterfalls and stepping stones were carefully placed across the streams. No matter where I stood, the view felt like some kind of painting.
It gave a feeling that these underground tunnels and rooms had been deliberately built to look undeliberate but artistic at the same time. They even had perfect little niches to restock our water supplies, the water clear and fresh with easy access by a convenient stone not-quite-boardwalk... but obviously made to be used like one.
During a section of walking, I got curious about knowing whether we were walking in the right direction or not.
“There’s always one lit-up arrow somewhere in sight at all points, though usually more hidden. So long as you follow the arrow, you’ll follow the color’s intent.” He pointed up at the ceiling. There, about as wide as a hand, was a glowing arrow, pointing the direction we’d been walking. “Mites always follow rules, and having an arrow somewhere at all times is one of them. They are not always easy to find, however.”
“So, if we’re walking down a green path against the arrow, we’re walking down a level instead of up one?”
The entire system screamed of a far more intelligent design, like somehow the mites had gone the extra mile to make them traversable specifically for humans.
We were never lost for long, although some ways upward were more hidden than others as Father had warned, requiring us to climb up to correctly follow the direction. Some he could outright jump over with me in tow, others would need me to use some grappling gear to climb up.
The air here was gradually warmer and more humid. Still cold, to be sure, but no longer cold enough to freeze running streams of water.
The ground under felt, and smelled, like the dirt we’d find on the lower levels of the clan bunker. The dirt we’d use to grow gardens. And where there was fertile soil and warmer temperatures, there was life.
Unlike the empty mite city, here life had found purchase. Green leafy plants littered the sides and center of caves, clumping together around anywhere the cavern lights shined brightest. Smaller fuzzier creatures would make these shrubs their homes, while mold and fungus called the wet sides of the walls theirs.
Insects were everywhere, buzzing around or otherwise seeking out decay anywhere it could be found. And tiny pipe bats swooped around in rippling swarms to feed on those. They stayed clear of us, flying around.
Anywhere my light flashed over, there was something to see. Color swirled around me, one mossy pigment at a time. The ground was littered with clues of life, anywhere from animal droppings to outright hoofprints and other tracks.
All clan bunkers had an ecosystem of some kind living in the lower levels, even in abandoned bunkers. That’s because they all had leaks leading down into the underground. They’d get patched up and walled off as soon as a new clan settled in. Superstition said if any paths into the underground were left open in the clan bunker, machines would eventually stumble upon it and destroy the clan from the inside out. But small things always found a way to sneak past any barriers.
“Are any of the wildlife dangerous?” I asked when I spotted bigger tracks on the ground. The wildlife in the clan domains only ever grew as large as a hand. Lizards and rats were among the apex predators.
Down here, it might be a different story. Father shrugged at my question. “No one travels the underground without weapons, so animals have long learned not to get in the way.” He turned his headlights toward the walls, illuminating the colorful moss.
“Fungus and mold can still kill if you eat the wrong ones; stick with frostbloom if you need food. As for animals, the largest you find down in the tunnels are mountain goats. Predators exist, but they’re far more skittish than the goats.” He patted the rifle on its strap. “Humans are not their preferred dinner.”
“Goats?”
“You’re the one who asked what animals were down here. Goats. They can climb better and faster than you can.”
I’d never seen a goat in real life before, but I had seen them in video archives. Entertainment from the third era was generally a luxury, but it was among the cheaper luxuries. Merchants didn’t care much if those wares were duplicated. Books and files containing knowledge were far more controlled in comparison.
Maybe if I was lucky, I might actually see a goat. That would be neat.
“I’m guessing the big door leads somewhere else we’re not interested in?” I asked, pointing at my discovery, a massive slab of metal shut tight and still. Father had climbed right past it without bothering to investigate.
“They lead roughly the same way that the tunnels do, but mites may fill these with… different things. Treasure chests that mites have made, I suppose you would call them. And a different breed of automaton lurks there too. No guide arrows either once you enter the side passages. The main chambers are mostly safe, so we’ll stick to these.”
He lowered the rope down to me, which I grabbed and used my legs to rappel upward as Father pulled the rope.
“What sort of stuff?”
“Once, we found a relic armor exploring one of these, not from a chest but off a corpse deeper inside. It had been named Resolution by its owner, an imperial crusader who died a century or two ago. The armor was brought back and sold to House Resolution as their first armor.”
“That’s why they renamed their house? I thought they made a big speech about dreams they all had and the will of gods as the reason.”
It was tradition to rename the first armor a house owned after their house name. Father was quite literally wearing Winterscar itself. Subsequent armors were up to whoever owned them first.
But superstition ran deep in our culture. Father agreed with my conclusion. “They couldn’t reconcile the renaming tradition for their first armor with the terrible omen of renaming an armor owned by an imperial. The whole speech was a cover, but everyone knew the real reason for the name change.”
He grabbed my hand once I was close enough and lifted me outright past the rock ridge. Once on solid ground, I folded up the rope to stuff back into my backpack. Without the environmental systems inside, the thing was quite a bit lighter and more spacious.
“It was the only relic armor we ever found in the tunnels in our decades of expeditions. Other things we found in those chests usually ended up being small trinkets or items the undersiders needed. Levels further down have more powerful treasures.”
