Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 16 preview (Patreon)

“Last night was rather horrendous,” I said, squatting down beside her. I eyed the “night” sky but unlike the world above, the crystals only started glowing shortly before they went bright. I had a theory it had to do with the angle of the sun, the way it triggered the reaction in the crystals below, even if they spoke of core turnings being the real cause. Truth be told, it mattered little to me, not as the rest of the team slumbered, if fitfully.

Continuing, I added my greatest concern. “We were lucky that they thought Brand was dead. Or that they had intended to deal with him after they finished with the rest of us.”

“It was a close call. The closest that he’s had.”

“We’ve lost others in the class too, have we not?”

Sophia nodded, lips pressed together. “Even in the test, a few fell. Pushing too hard, too fast to try to get the prize.” She snorted. “My team wanted it, but I told them there was no point. Not when you and yours and Rayzan were chasing glory too.”

“Thanks, I think.”

We fell silent for a while and I let it linger, the pair of us staring at the flickering flames and the boiling pot below.

When she next spoke, it was softer, as though she was afraid of the night itself. “The landfang are a nightmare of nightmares. Every time they return, it creates such a fuss. Now, a pogrom will be necessary.”

“A what?”

“Pogrom.” The look that Sophia gave me was one of incredulity. “Where exactly are you from, that you don’t know of the pogroms?”

“Hasn’t happened recently, has it?”

“Not for nearly fifty years, but the scars from the last are still abundant.”

“Tell me about it and what it involves.”

“When the landfang are confirmed, they must be rooted out. There are ways to tell who the landfang are, with careful checks. Everyone is forced to undergo the checks, a series of tests – physical tests and questions to answer – to ensure that individuals are who they say they are. Those who have finished the tests are given a card, and a device to wear on their clothing, to indicate that they’ve been tested.”

“Wouldn’t be a yellow star, would it?”

Sophia gave me a blank look and I shook my head, gesturing for her to continue.

“At the same time, teams are sent sweeping through the city and the levels, searching for the landfang. They can enter any residence, conduct checks on all they find and give the device further marks to indicate you’ve been tested again. Each device is keyed to the individual so it can’t be duplicated.”

“Like an ID card.” I smiled thinly when she stared at me, then she turned away and sighed.

It made sense that there was a need to do a check, but the pogrom sounded wrong to me, on an intrinsic, Earth basis. I knew it wasn’t, that it was necessary, but marking people out to ensure they were who they said they were, adding IDs and basically doing sweeps for the “wrong” kind sat ill with me.

“You know, my grandparents told me about the last pogrom. They always make it to the outer districts more, sweep through regularly. They tear up our shops, destroy buildings and belongings, all because they are hunting for hiding spaces.”

“And they’re more careful in the inner rings?” I said, softly. “And the places where the rich live, right?”

“Yes. When things get bad, when they don’t find enough of the landfang, they start making us move houses. Once, they thought they might be hiding in my grandparents’ neighborhood. They arrested everyone and began processing them slowly, and in the meantime they tore up the neighborhood. Took all the buildings apart, dug into the earth to expose the basement and everything beneath.”

“That far?” I shook my head. “What happened after?”

“What else?” she sighed. “There was nothing for my family to go back to. They didn’t own the building, and the landlords couldn’t afford to rebuild so everything was sold.”

“To someone – or someones – wealthy, right?” I said, softly. “Where was this?”

“In the outer ring,” Sophia said. “It was one reason why my family pushed hard for my father to join the inner ring. It’s where he met Mother.”

“Your father is the one who is Panji, right?” I asked.

“Yes. That side of the family move a lot. My mother, not as much, though she travels with them occasionally on longer hauls. There’s always work for a good laundress. Especially one with the right skill.”

Understanding arrived, though I did need one more piece of confirmation.

“What are the landfang anyway?” I asked.

“How can you not know?” When I chose not to answer that question, she sighed again. “The landfang are a denizen of the core. A group that we believe were pushed upwards during the last great age. Since then, they’ve tried to retreat to the worlds below, but have failed, over and over again.”

“Because of the monsters or us?” I asked.

“Us, at least in the cities.” She shrugged. “Some believe there are outposts of landfang in non-dungeon cities, or some have found their way through abandoned dungeons. It’s hard to say, of course, because, well…”

“Those cities are abandoned.”

“Exactly.”

“So they sneak down?” I frowned, thinking of the lax security between levels. While they did check, it was not as though they were doing a thorough verification. Not as though this world had ID badges – at least not normally – or passports. For that matter, half the time, all those badges, all that security between countries was theater anyway. Sneaking between had been easy – could still be easy – as refugees the world over could tell you.

“They do. They try and get as far as they can. Levels like this are prime hunting and breeding spots, but they will go wherever they can. Supposedly, the deeper they get, the more energy they acquire and thus, the stronger they become too.”

Something in the way she spoke, the look that she had in her eyes, made me curious. I leaned in, murmuring, “What?”

“There are rumors, stories, that they become more like people. That they get more like us, are able to hide better when they get deeper. Like the core makes them smarter,” Sophia said. “Some of the stories, the old stories, they tell of them.”

“Oh?” I said leadingly, hopefully. Wondering if she’d be willing to relate it, to help add to my cultural repository so that I seemed less like a stranger.

She smiled, a thin one. “I used to like those stories. Any kind of story that made you scared, made you feel alive.” Now, her head hung down, hair hiding her eyes and lips from me. Only the edges of the fire threw her hair and the outline of her face into stark relief. “It doesn’t seem that fun anymore, not now. Too…”

“Real?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t push. Wouldn’t. We stayed in companionable silence for long minutes before she dismissed me, sending me to bed. There were only a few hours left at most, but even that amount of rest would help. I did not even bother pulling out a bedroll, just taking the cloak from my pack and rolling myself into it.

By the time I made it to my back, I was dead to the world.