Cenotaph of Bones: Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Chapter 17: Darkness

You might say there was some pushback from the ship’s crew.  In fact, you might say, there was a lot.

“Go deeper into this rat’s nest?!  Are you crazy?!”

“I’d rather just die now, and get it over with!”

“This is ridiculous.  Why don’t we just start tunneling through until we find a way out?”

“They just want us to die, so no one hears about them sinking our ship!”

“Enough!”  The captain quieted his men with a flare of his aura.  Which was darker now than ever.  Fantastic.  I’m sure that won’t be a problem later.  He relaxed as soon as they quieted down again.  “Did you forget what happened when we tried to find our way out alone?  There is safety in numbers.”  He turned to the sailor that had asked about just tunneling out.  “Did you suddenly learn something about mining that I didn’t know about?  These mountains are riddled with tunnels.  You risk bringing the whole mountain down on our heads, or drowning us in an underground lake.”  His stern stare swept over his men.  “We will work together to get through this place, and I don’t want to hear another word about it from anyone.”  The captain's voice was firm, brooking no further arguments from the crew.

“We aren’t saying that we won’t help you get out of here.”  Valerie was standing next to the opening that would allow us to go deeper into the cave network.  “All we are saying is that we need to keep going down.  Sometimes, the only way to get out is to go through.”  She turned and started walking, holding a glow stone high above her head to light the way.

Donny was close behind, with the rest of us following shortly after.  Jamila and Chu were leading the horses, with me bringing up the rear.  I could hear the captain shouting at his people, and the shuffling footsteps of them trailing us soon echoed down the narrow tunnel.  It was going to be a long couple of days.

The tunnel we were in kept going for what felt like hundreds of miles.  It probably wasn’t nearly that long, but the pervading darkness and slow pace made it seem like it was.  It had several slow curves, meaning we couldn’t see very far, even when Valerie tossed a few glow stones farther in front.  Several side tunnels branched into this one, but some exploration showed that all of them either became too narrow for a human to pass through, or they circled back into this larger one.

I was at a loss as to how this cave system was formed.  It didn’t seem to be natural, but there were no tool marks to suggest it had been man-made either.  Unless, of course, a group of mad earth cultivators spent their lives down here, slowly forming this maze of corridors and caverns.  The length and size of the stalagmites and stalactites meant it had been a very long time ago.

We spaced out our travel to match the time it took to recharge the several formation plates most of us were using for light.  Glow stones didn’t require additional qi to function, but their pale green light tended to cast deep shadows, and they were unnerving after a few hours.  The more normal light cast by the fire qi in the plates was a welcome reprieve.

Every other recharge cycle we would stop for a meal and short rest, with a break for sleep every third meal.  Time continued to pass in a blur, and we made progress as we pushed deeper underground into the mountains.

Eventually, after what felt like a week of traveling, the tunnel we were in began to level out.  By now, we had to be deep under the mountains that bordered the north of the empire, but I had no way of knowing exactly where we were, or how deep we had gone.  I had also noticed the air starting to feel a little thinner, and the temperature was slowly getting warmer the deeper we went.  It was still cold, but we no longer had to wear thick furs to keep from freezing.

“I think I found something.”  Valerie had come sprinting back to our main group after scouting further down the tunnel.  “It looks like we aren’t the first ones to reach this far underground.  Not by a long shot.”

We picked up the pace, and a few minutes later we ran into a cavern large enough to hold a small village.  Which is exactly what was revealed, as soon as Valerie tossed a few more glow stones deeper into the area.

“It looks like it has been abandoned for a long time.”  She was almost whispering, as if talking too loud would disturb the former residents.  “I can’t be sure, but this might have been an outpost of some kind.”

I agreed with her.  The village was in a slight depression against the far wall of the cavern, with a dry moat surrounding it for protection.  There was a low wall, about five feet high, that encircled a cluster of ten two-story buildings.  They were arrayed like spokes of a wheel around a central well, with each building lacking any ornamentation or details to let us know what their original purpose might have been.  I thought they looked similar to barracks, but there was no way to be sure.  Their doorways seemed a bit shorter than the norm, but still within acceptable limits.  The walls had a gate almost directly in front of us, the wooden beams long since turned to dust.  There was another gate opening on the opposite side of the outpost, which led into another tunnel that was choked with rubble from a collapse.

“Have you checked inside any of them?”  Chu was holding his glow stone up to the wall, inspecting the stonework.  “That might give us a clue as to why this place was abandoned.”

She shook her head.  “No, I wanted to wait for the rest of you.  There is no telling what could be hiding inside.”

Any further discussion was interrupted by the group of sailors pouring into the cave.  There were exclamations of surprise, and they flooded into the little outpost.  They didn’t even wait to see if it was clear of monsters or traps.  I couldn’t help but feel like they were practically asking for a good shellacking.

“Well, I guess we should get in there and try to figure out where all of this came from.”  Donny let out a sigh.  “Before they manage to destroy any clues this place might hold.”

We all nodded in silent agreement and started working our way down to the gate.  It had clearly been formidable at one time, with the dry moat making the relatively short walls far more effective than their five feet would normally allow.

“This looks like it was probably a guard post of some kind.”  Chu was measuring off the thickness of the walls.  Almost three paces thick, making them almost twice as wide as they were tall.  “Which begs two questions - who were they a guard post for, and what were they guarding against?”

“I don’t know, but knowing our luck, we will probably know soon enough.”  Donny was inspecting the giant hinges, which were all that was left of the gates.  “An even bigger question is, what made them all leave?”

“That doesn’t matter right now.”  I spun up the qi in my brain core to help expand my senses.  “We need to utilize this place to our advantage.  Turning this into a base of operations would let us leave the horses in relative safety, while the rest of us explore deeper into the caves.”  I tried to sense if there were any threats in the area, but I didn’t find anything.  The dense levels of dark qi weren’t making it easy, and the stagnant feel of the energy was still pervasive.  It felt like there hadn’t been anything living in this region for a very long time.

“What about the sailors?”  Jamila had her hand on her katana, her knuckles white from gripping it too hard.  “We still haven’t found out who pushed you.  And I don’t trust any of them with Cloud or Scout.”

“We could secure an area near a gate with wards, and if they tried anything the horses could just run away.”  Donny opened his mouth to say something else, but jumped as Scout bit him on the rear.  We all tried to keep a straight face, but Scout seemed to immediately regret where he had bitten Donny.  I had never seen a horse spit before.  He shook his fist at the horse in anger.  “Or they could just stay here and get slaughtered for meat!”

We all burst out in laughter at the exchange.  It was a welcome reprieve from the pervasive gloom and darkness pushing down on all of us.  Even Donny didn’t seem that upset by the whole thing.

“Okay, I get the horses wouldn’t want to run, but giving them the option seems like a good idea.”  Valerie started walking over to the first building as she talked.  “I’ll clear out the sailors from this one while the rest of you get started on marking out another area for us.”

I pulled out the Dagger of Boom again.  It was still holding a large amount of qi I could use to carve with.  “I’ll set up a ring of wards around the building like the ones in the last cavern.”  I made eye contact with everyone, to make sure they understood not to cultivate light or dark qi outside the wards.  “It will give us a chance to balance ourselves, before moving deeper.”  They all gave me a sharp nod, and we spread out to perform our tasks.  Chu and Jamila used already carved plates several yards away from the building, while Donny was able to freehand designs to best fit the space between the gate and our temporary new home.

The focus required to make the carvings along the base of the foundation meant I lost track of time.  When I finished, I looked up to see my friends circled around the warming stone while Chu was working on frying some flatbread into thick circles.  I quickly cycled some qi through my meridians to relieve the pain in my back from being hunched over for so long before approaching them.

“Glad you could join us.”  Chu flipped a piece of bread, poking it to confirm it was cooking properly.  “We were wondering if you were ever going to finish.”

“Next time, I’ll let you guys make the rune barrier that hides us from the evil guy who uses dead bodies like puppets, and I can sit down near the nice heating stone.”  I spun the now empty Dagger of Boom across my knuckles before popping it back inside my storage belt.  “I wouldn’t want to take away from your practice time, after all.”

Chu looked around wide-eyed, not seeing any signs of support from anyone sitting around the makeshift campfire.  “Now, I didn’t mean -”

“Before my future husband puts another foot in his mouth, I actually have a question.”  Jamila cut him off, holding up a formation plate designed to concentrate qi into a liquid form.  We set them up every time we stopped for longer than an hour to increase our supply, and it was a form that all of us could carve in our sleep by this point.  “Why don’t we just make something like a stamp?  Have each of the runes you carve already pre-made, and just use some earth qi to soften up the stone a bit to allow the stamp to form?”

I paused for a second to think about it.  There were tools already made like she was talking about, but they were usually made of extremely rare materials to ensure they could handle the influx of qi through their structure over and over again.  “I don’t think we have the materials necessary to make them.  A metal or gem that conducts qi, and is stable enough to hold its shape over and over again, would be very rare.”  She nodded, but had a thoughtful look on her face.

“What do you think about taking a few days to work on securing this place, and maybe working on our stockpile of these new flash plates?”  Donny was carving one while he talked onto a small plank of wood.  “You could even finally work on making us new armor and weapons, like you keep talking about.”  Everyone nodded in agreement with his idea.  I had been talking about doing it for a long time now.

“Okay.  We can take two or three days to figure out some replacement gates, explore this place better, and improve our gear.”  I looked back at the building we had commandeered.  “Is there enough room inside for me to set up my mobile forge?”

“Yes.”  Donny gave me a sharp nod.  “It’s basically just one big open space.  The second story must have been made from wood, because it is gone, just like the gates.”

“Well, we have a plan then.  I will get started as soon as we wake up, and the rest of you can work on the gates.”  I pulled out one of the expanding blocks of wood I had gotten from the old shipwreck.  “If you need this, just ask.  I can -”

It was my turn to get cut off.  A huge wave of dark qi came washing over the far wall, through the area, and blanketed us in complete darkness.  There were screams from the direction of sailors, and I felt all my friends spin up their cores.  Stars-damnit.  I was really looking forward to eating that bread.

“Can anyone see anything?”  Valerie’s voice was steady, even if the energy she was putting off wasn’t.

“Let’s move inside the building, it should provide us with some protection.”  I was already walking that direction, so I used some threads of air qi to help guide my friends to the nearest opening.  The dark qi made pushing them out of my hand meridians feel like I had to force them through something thick and viscous, similar to dragging a stick through honey.

As we stumbled into the building everyone started pulling out weapons, and we could instantly see again.  Somehow, the horses had already beaten us inside the building.  They must have felt the disturbance coming, and sought shelter immediately.  Smart horses.

The darkness was all-encompassing outside the wards, but the runes forced it to flow around the building.  I extended my senses to try and see what was happening to the sailors.  Unfortunately, the dark qi didn’t let that happen.  It was too thick and dense for me to penetrate.

“I’m going to try something.”  Donny walked over to the nearest window and tossed out one of the formation plates that flashed out a bright light.  As soon as it hit the ground, there was a sound like tearing cloth, and the darkness around the doorway seemed less dense.  I could even see the glow stones around the warming plate.  They were very dim, but I could still see them.

Almost as soon as it had come, the wave of dark qi swept past us.  I watched as it flowed towards the lowest point, where the well was located.  It acted just like water, and drained into the opening, with a few puddles of qi that were left behind.  As I watched, they were already dissipating, disappearing like it had never happened.

Had this been a natural phenomenon?  Never, in all my years, had I experienced something like this.  If an area was regularly flooded with this much natural qi, it would have surely been a haven for cultivators everywhere.  But, unless they could find a way to balance all the dark qi with light, it would eventually harm anyone foolish enough to absorb that much of one type of energy.  If it was natural, this might explain why the qi was so still in this area.  Nothing living would be able to stay here for any length of time.

“That was crazy!”  Chu had already put his mace away and was walking back to the warming plate, where the chunk of bread he had been frying had burned.  “Could that be why this place was abandoned?”

“Who knows.  Either way, we need to prepare for it to happen again.”  Jamila was already placing tons of qi-collecting plates around the immediate area, trying to capture the puddles of energy before they dissipated.  “Everyone put out your condensing plates.  If we can bottle that stuff, it might come in handy someday.”

With a sharp nod, everyone followed suit.  After tossing out my plates, I went over to check on the sailors.  There were a few people laid out on the ground, and I could see some scorch marks on the buildings near their area that hadn’t been there before.  I approached the captain as he was directing his people to move into a few of the buildings.

“I take it things didn’t go very well for you over here.”  The captain looked over at me, clearly not happy to see me.  I could see he was shaken, but he was doing his best to ensure his men didn’t notice.

“Some of my people overreacted, and it caused a few injuries.  Nothing we can’t handle.”  He flicked his wrist, making a roll of herb-infused bandages appear from a storage ring.  “We will be ready to continue in a few hours.”

“Actually, that’s part of why I came over here.”  I motioned to the walls surrounding the area.  “This is clearly part of a larger civilization.  One that most likely had a way to reach the surface.  My group and I were thinking it would be best to fortify this area, and you wait here.  We could cover more ground with less people.”

He paused to think for a moment, gauging his people’s appearance.  “I can see the benefits of your plan.  But what about that massive wave of darkness?  It was unnatural, like a dense fog of evil.”

“I don’t think it was necessarily evil.  However, I wouldn’t recommend trying to cultivate if it happens again.”  I looked over to the rear gate, near where they had set up.  “If you could figure out a way to block that entrance, my people will handle the other side.”

He gave me a sharp nod, and turned to bark orders at his men.  While they jumped to work, I returned to my friends.  It looked like Chu already had a fresh batch of bread on the warming plate, and everyone was waiting for a piece.  I hurried over to get my piece, before Chu could eat my portion.