Underworld Exploration

 

Ever since Walking Fortress Istanur arrived at the portal, the Protectors watching the activities of Fortress Al-Mir vanished. Nobody had seen one sitting out and observing. None had tried to attack. They just left.

Given the tower’s shadowy nature and their professed loyalty toward the Cloak of Shadows, or The Lady Shadow as they called her, Arkk had to wonder if something about the tower convinced them that he was genuine in desiring a peaceful cohabitation with the denizens of the Underworld. Or perhaps blessed by their god.

The way his luck normally went, Arkk was a little worried that they were plotting something.

However, he couldn’t afford to sit around and ignore the opportunity.

Dakka was right. Something needed to change. The Walking Fortress standing tall in the Cursed Forest wasn’t enough. Perhaps if another dozen dragonoids joined or another few purifiers defected, he could assign one or two to each team just to handle heavy threats. But wishful thinking wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He needed to strike out and seize power where he could.

“There it is,” Arkk said, looking out over the wasteland that was the Underworld. Priscilla and Leda reported back from another outing. Although they had managed to fly out and back in a single afternoon, it took three full days of travel to reach the spot they found. They located a point of interest that Leda described as a kind of temple. Tall, black shadowy spires, grand gates, and statues vaguely matching the one in Fortress Al-Mir’s temple room.

He didn’t like leaving Fortress Al-Mir alone for so long. Vezta was back at the fortress and she could take care of most things but… It just made him nervous. After that ambush at the Evestani supply line, the forces arriving at Elmshadow had been increasing. Slowly. They weren’t yet charging across the Duchy as fast as possible. It was still enough to make Arkk wary about leaving. Especially when he lacked a method of returning quickly.

If something went wrong, his fastest way back was Priscilla carrying him. That would still take half a day.

“You plan to plunder a place the Protectors prioritize?”

Arkk glanced at Savren, riding along on a horse alongside the rest of their team, before looking back to the temple.

It was… a sight. Tall walls, sharp angles, peaked roofs, and long supporting buttresses cast off well away from the structure. It looked like there was glass in most of the windows but the structure had fallen into disrepair. One buttress and a small portion of the roof had collapsed. A wispy statue of the shadowy god had crumbled and broken. Another statue had lost its arms.

That was to say nothing about the surrounding land. It looked like a city had once stood around the temple. That city had long since fallen into decay. A few scattered walls stood, often at angles, but no one whole structure. Just the temple.

It must have been a sight to see back in its prime. The whole building looked larger even than Cliff’s temple to the Holy Light.

“Plunder is a strong word,” Arkk said after a long moment. “Evestani and their Golden Order have a god sitting on their shoulder, handing out boons like they were pies at the harvest festival. The closest thing we have is Agnete and her patron god is cut off from our world.

“What I hope to find here is something more than just a few trinkets or old books. I’m sure they could be helpful—” More so if his spell crafter still had eyes with which to read them. “—but Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, either cannot or will not lend us further assistance.”

Zullie was back on her feet. Unsteady and blind, but awake, active, and even talking. A little. What few words she had were spent on the concept of the [PANTHEON]. Xel’atriss had tried to show her something but that something hadn’t come through clearly. Zullie wasn’t sure if it was a warning, an attempt at assisting, or a deliberate attempt at dissuading her from continuing her line of research.

Regardless, she didn’t think burning her eyes from her head was the intended outcome. Just a side effect of a god not knowing or not caring about the consequences of its actions. Likely the latter option, in Arkk’s opinion.

He would have liked her expertise available on this journey. Savren’s magical expertise was mostly constrained to ritual magics and mind magics. Zullie’s was in spell creation and planar magics. Hers just felt a little more applicable to his current goals. She was, unfortunately, in no state to travel.

“Vezta told me that, in the past, temples like the one we have at Fortress Al-Mir were once used to commune with the Pantheon, petitioning for boons and making offerings. Things like that. I hope to find a way of communing with the Cloak of Shadows here and, gods willing, perhaps a boon.” Arkk paused, directing the horse around a set of wind-worn bricks that might have once made up a wall around a small courtyard. “Failing that… I would like to discover more about the Anvil of All Worlds. The plane associated with the Burning Forge.”

“Ah. Agnete asked an accommodation of you, I apprehend.”

“It isn’t just that. I mean, I appreciate all she has been doing for us but, war going on as it is, there isn’t time for personal quests. The Burning Forge is, however, an active god. At least active enough to push a sliver of power out to Agnete. With Agnete already working with us, additional help seems likely.”

Priscilla drew back her lips, grinning at the sky as she lounged on the long cart they hauled alongside the horses. Zullie’s skeletal horse pulled it, never tiring nor needing feed. “Unless the Burning Forge believes you have received and squandered aid in the form of Agnete and refuses to offer more.”

“Why would that be the case?”

Priscilla shrugged, turning her head so that her icy eyes met Arkk’s. “Gods are fickle. And easily insulted. You have an avatar working for you and yet you can barely beat some human with magical armor.”

Dakka let out a loud and exaggerated scoff. “I seem to recall the fire witch doing a whole lot more than some others. What were you doing again? Lying face down in the mud for the whole fight?”

With a snarl, Priscilla sat upright and glared in almost the right direction. “Shut it, greenskin. You might as well have been beating against a mountain for all you contributed.”

“First of all, tan skin,” Dakka said, leading Priscilla to point a clawed finger at her face. “Second—”

“Enough,” Arkk said, raising his voice. “We’re here. Dakka. You and your team secure the horses and the cart. Shout if anything moves. Priscilla, you’re with me and Savren. Leda.” Arkk looked at the little fairy in the group. “You’re in charge of Priscilla. Keep her out of trouble.”

The fairy started to nod, only to flinch as Priscilla let out a guttural growl from the back of her throat.

“In charge of me?”

“I’ve seen the way you walk around the fortress,” Arkk said. “You bump into the wrong column here and the entire place might collapse on our heads. Let Leda help you or fly back to the portal. Your choice.”

Priscilla opened her mouth, failed to provide an argument, and clamped her jaw shut again. “The fairy can warn me if I’m about to bump into anything. Nothing is in charge of me.”

“As long as you listen when she says to stop.”

“Fine.”

Arkk nodded his head, more for everyone else than for the one who couldn’t see him nodding, and looked around the group. “And everyone shout if you see a Protector. Or anything else for that matter. But, again, try not to attack first.”

Orders given and confirmation received, Arkk turned to the temple.

The good news was that they wouldn’t need to figure out how to get inside. Two great doors, each as tall as three orcs stacked on each other’s shoulders, would have barred the entrance were it not for the massive hinges having come loose in the years of neglect. One of the doors had crashed into the ground, leaving the opening undefended.

With Savren at one side and Priscilla at the other, and Leda hovering just ahead of Priscilla, Arkk stepped on the dry and dusty wood of the door. He tested it with his weight, making sure it wouldn’t crumble and leave him stumbling, then walked forward into the dark shadows of the old building.

He wished he had Vezta here as well. Zullie would have been able to provide specialized magical insight but Vezta was his expert on the Pantheon. Having lived in a time where gods touched the world on the regular, she knew more than most even if she didn’t know everything. Priscilla was a poor substitute despite her insistence that the Stars told her all she needed to know. The dragonoid had been born before the Calamity but only just. The world had obviously been bereft of gods following the Calamity.

Even the Permafrost was a subject of worship more because of her gifts with ice and draconic culture than anything else.

Arkk expected the temple to feel different than the outside air. Even Fortress Al-Mir’s temple room had a certain stillness to it. An odd reverence that closed out the hum of the many people who now lived at the fortress. The silvery waters in the temple’s pools, alleged doorways directly to the gods, emitted this otherworldly aura.

Stepping into the temple lacked any sensation of the air changing. It was cooler than the hot open desert, cloaked in shadows as it was, but that was a physical difference. There was no feeling different. No looming sensation of being watched by a being he couldn’t perceive.

The ceiling of the temple, minus the parts that had collapsed, was high and arching. Dark, obsidian-colored tiles created an illusion of the night sky while glowstones, still brightly lit thanks to the ever-present magic in the Underworld, represented stars. The dominating feature was a depiction of the Cloak of Shadows. A swirling mass of inky darkness, with a pattern that tricked Arkk’s eyes into thinking it was moving and billowing in an unfelt wind. A shadowed, ashen face with bright white eyes peered out from behind the shifting cloak.

An inspiring sight, especially with the illusion of movement, but the awe it instilled still wasn’t what Arkk was looking for.

Arkk stood still, staring up with a small frown for a moment longer before dropping his gaze back to the rest of the massive room. The entire temple seemed made up of just one space. There were a few doors at the far end, behind a section of collapsed roof and a high altar that might have been used for ritual purposes, but those doors couldn’t lead to any spacious sections of the temple.

On the main floor, mosaiced with black and white tiles, ancient bodies littered the temple. Skeletal remains of a small population. It reminded him, for just a moment, of the first time he had stepped into Fortress Al-Mir. Except, in the fortress, the bodies had all belonged to warriors and fighters. Every body had a weapon and armor. Here in the temple, there wasn’t a sword to be seen. Just bodies huddled together.

Given the lack of plant life in the Underworld, Arkk had to wonder if these people had been simple villagers who had run out of food and, thus, starved to death. Arkk well knew the aches of hunger. Langleey Village hadn’t suffered many famines, but… There had been one long drought in his early teens where crops had withered and the river running past the sawmill had nearly run dry.

That hadn’t been a good year. He, obviously, had made it through. Some of the others, mostly the elderly of the village, hadn’t.

Despite targeting Evestani’s food stores and supply lines, starvation wasn’t the goal. It wasn’t a death he would wish on anyone. He wasn’t trying to kill them, just force them to turn back.

Shaking his head, Arkk turned aside. The lack of an obvious direct connection to the Cloak of Shadows almost made him want to rush back to Fortress Al-Mir.

At his side, Leda softly whispered to Priscilla, describing the sight overhead along with much of the rest of the room. The dragonoid interrupted Leda talking about the stone columns along the walls to ask more about the bodies, which made Leda stumble and hesitate over her words.

Savren, on the other hand, spent all of the blink of an eye observing the temple before swiftly directing Morvin and Gretchen to take charcoal rubbings of some lettering inscribed on the columns. The two assistants, formerly of Zullie’s apprentice group and now assigned to Savren, gaped and gawked at the temple far longer than Savren did, earning them a brief reprimand as Savren had to direct them a second time.

He thought those markings were important. Arkk, though he had learned a lot under Zullie’s instructions, didn’t see anything magical about them. But he was still vastly uneducated compared to either Zullie or Savren.

Arkk proceeded forward, carefully stepping over the bodies on the ground. They represented another good reason why undoing the Calamity without extensive research was a bad idea. With the war, he didn’t see that being a priority for some time. It still hung heavy in the back of his mind.

Climbing over a broken pillar and a small segment of the roof, Arkk approached the altar at the far end of the temple. At one point in time, Arkk could have seen the altar being the central and focal point of the temple. The place where the pious would come to pray or make offerings. It held the remnants of mystery in its shadowy stone and the air of a well-cared-for object of worship toward the Lady Shadow.

Breathing out sent a cloud of orange dust into the air. Arkk waved his hands back and forth a few times, clearing it away. As he did so, he noticed that there was something on top of the altar. A cloth draped over the top. Lightly running his finger over the top, he found himself surprised when it didn’t feel like it was going to disintegrate under his touch. In fact, it felt quite firm and strong.

Lifting it, Arkk gave it a light shake, filling the air with another cloud of dust.

It wasn’t a large cloth. Certainly nowhere near big enough to count as the namesake Cloak. Nevertheless, it was something special. Dark and moving even while still in his fingers. It diffused light, making the area around it marginally darker. He could feel some magic in it.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be useful, but he would take it with him.

Beyond the cloth, the altar had a number of items adorning its top as well as littered around its base. Small figurines representing shadowy figures and stealthy beings, candelabras whose candles had long since vanished to time, and an incense burner that still had a unique smell when Arkk leaned in close enough. It smelled just like the air after sunset following a rainy day.

Offerings left by worshippers littered the area around the altar. Gemstones and glowstones, small metal tokens in a variety of shapes, and even the bones of small animals. Despite the obvious deaths suffered throughout the temple, presumably by worshippers of the Cloak of Shadows, the offerings were undisturbed and intact. No one had grown angry and trashed the place in their final moments. The atmosphere was one of hushed reverence, even in the passage of time.

Arkk was about to turn away when he noticed an odd flicker in the corner of his vision. It was like a bit of shiny metal catching light except… backward. Dark metal reflected a shadow in a way that hurt his head to think about. Despite the mild ache, Arkk rounded the altar.

A dagger sat on the ground. Its blade, jagged and twisted, reminded Arkk of a smaller version of the blade the Protector had used. Except, this was clearly made from an unearthly metal. The light entering the temple from the broken ceiling seemed to stop abruptly at the corner of the altar where the dagger sat. It was almost pitch black in the darkness behind the altar. Despite the darkness around it, he could still see the dagger just fine. Not very good for stealth, then. It was probably a ceremonial dagger, given its placement near the altar.

Reaching down, Arkk’s fingers curled around the dark leather wrapped around the dagger’s hilt. He half expected some surge of power to course through his body. Instead, it felt just like any dagger. Weighing it in his hand, he didn’t feel like it was any heavier or lighter than the dagger he had given Nyala.

Moving it did make something happen. As he stood and took a step, the shadows behind the altar trailed after him like a long piece of cloth snagged against the dagger’s tip. It didn’t remove the shadow from behind the altar, just stretched it out.

Curious, Arkk reached down and closed his free hand around the darkness.

It felt like nothing in his grip and yet the shadows pulled away from the ground as he pulled back, leaving the altar in far more natural-looking shadows. The cloth-like shadow was like a far larger version of the smaller cloth that had adorned the top of the altar. Except this shadow was not marred by the orange dust.

As Arkk moved, the dagger kept dragging more shadows to its tip. None were quite so black as the one from behind the altar, they were more like regular gray-colored shadows that had been transmuted into cloth. Most of those dispersed and vanished as he tried to grab at them.

An odd item. Arkk… wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Aside from keeping it, of course. This was, presumably, an artifact of a god. Whether that meant an artifact given directly to the people as a kind of boon or just an enchanted weapon crafted by whatever equivalent to priests the Cloak of Shadows had, it was something special.

Arkk draped the thick shadow from the altar over one arm, the smaller cloth-like shadow over the other, and took the dagger in hand back toward the rest of the group to ask their opinions on the subject.

He paused once again as he crossed through the collapsed section of the temple.

As soon as he stepped into the column of light pouring in, the dagger disappeared. He could still feel it in his hand, he just couldn’t see it. The gray shadows dragged by its tip faded and dispersed in the light. The darker cloths over his arms didn’t, they stayed dark and whole. He quickly moved out of the light anyway.

That was something he hadn’t even been thinking about. These cloths were shadows. Shadows fled from light. He could have inadvertently destroyed the dark cloths or the dagger. It was only luck that he hadn’t.

The dagger came back the instant he moved it out of the light, once again snagging shadows as he moved.

“Savren,” Arkk called out as he drew closer to the warlock. “What do you think—”

A loud shout from outside the temple cut him off.