Chapter 795 – Evolution

Logistical capacity it not the issue that it is made out to be. Arcadia’s production rate of the floating islands, although it is fast, can still be managed by railway connections. The new Pheonix tactics have been proven to work. Shock and awe was powerful enough that it helped us defeat Ashen Skies.

Pheonix Nest already has its own train station, we are wasting time by talking about the faults in the supply gups. The simple matter of fact is that bringing a spaceship piece to this location is not the challenge it is made out to be, especially when all the spaceship parts are made to replaceable and modular in the first place. Arcadia will supply the floating islands, the trains will bring everything required for them.

But my suggestion would be a transition away from putting all the eggs we have in the one basket that is Arcadia, and to instead issue a general order to the Imperial National Magical Colleges. We need more islands. They are the greatest delaying factor we have in the plan of the Million Man Miracle.

- Excerpt from “M.M.M. Discussions”, an archive of Imperial Policy meetings. This section is credited to Sir Milkalm Trankass.

“There’s a human corpse ahead.” Fer called it out immediately when she smelled it. More so out of sheer wonder and awe at the fact she finally caught a scent that was not the acrid scent of monsters. She would put money on the fact it was a human corpse, although she would put money on a lot of things and she would lose as often as she won. Malam stopped and tasted the air, Neneria raised her hand forwards, her eyes beginning to sparkle blue with that energy. Iniri, Maisara and Fortia stopped and waited for the two other seers of the team to make their own calls.

“It’s inactive.” Neneria said. “If it is there at all, the soul has left the body.”

“I taste nothing.” Malam said. “Although that doesn’t disprove anything, I don’t taste corpses in the air in the first place.”

“I’m sure it’s a human corpse. It smells of…” Well, there was only one thing corpses smelled of really. “Corpse.”

“And that is?” Maisara asked. Fer noticed it was almost always the Goddess of Order asking about the texture and taste of these smells long ago. It was quaint and it was cute though, if Maisara wanted to know, why shouldn’t she be told?

“Corpse.” Fer said and shrugged. “Corpse is a unique smell, there is nothing quite like it. Rot can get close.” She stopped for a moment, why was she even explaining this? “You know what corpse smells like.”

“I thought you’d give it a flavour.” Maisara said. “But I do know what corpse smells like.” She wrinkled her nose and took a deep inhale of the cool, stagnant air down here. “I can’t smell anything though, your nose is more sensitive than mine.”

“Well I am the Goddess of Beasthood.” Fer said.

“Do you know how far?” Fortia asked.

“Possibly a mile, possibly two.” Fer said. “It’s harder to tell inside, the smell builds up and pretends its closer than it actually is.” Malam held her flashlight forward as the party listened to the darkness. The only sound was the echoing off odd gunfire coming from the back and the tools of the blessed Paladins that were still working along with their tools. Drills cut holes into stone, and a nailgun that was more akin to a battering ram would wrap steel around the electric cables they were installing to illuminate this region.

“We must be getting close then.” Malam said as she brought out a paper map. It was incomplete, but the lines were neat and ordered, with junctions that bore fuzzy edges for where the catacombs where unexplored. Although could this even be called the Catacombs anymore? The automap came out too, little more than an autosized phone. Here, the maps were considerably more conclusive, and even now, they were being extended in real time by the other teams of the Second Aris Expedition.

“You’ve had a map this entire time?” Fortia asked. “Really?”

“It’s Paida’s maps.” Malam said. “We’re going at twice her pace. Thrice maybe.” She compared the automap and the paper map as Fer leaned over. Fortia came closer to. “Do you see anything that matches?”

Fortia spotted it immediately, her hand was moving before Malam even finished the question. “Here, this junction, and the junction on Paida’s map.” It was a place they had gone straight ahead on, but Paida had turned right on. The corners behind it were all the same. Paida’s maps had been done by expert surveyors, accurate to a metre, the automap was accurate to inch and the distances before the junction where they had split lined up. The twists and turns were the same, even down to have the same circular arc at one point. Then they separated again at another junction. Paida had been on a spiral though the catacombs, Malam managed an instinctive straight line.

“There.” Fer said. “Where Forti is pointing.” The master tracker had gotten out-tracked. What shame upon her!

“I see it.” Malam said. She looked ahead, into the corridor, then dragged her finger along to a room that Paida had mapped out. It was the pillar room, where the old transcripts had been found. They had been recorded, translated and everyone down here knew them. But still, Malam had to witness them herself to know if they really were true or no.

Fer did not need to be told that if they went as a crow flies, they were on a direct interception course with that chamber. The hairs on her body stood up again, not out of an approaching threat but… Well, it was an approaching threat. Her hairs standing up were never a good sign. “If we go straight, we’ll find the human corpse.” Fer said.

“Then we’ll find it.” Malam said. “We keep on marching, there’s one route down here anyway.” That much was true, they were in a tunnel and in a tunnel, you could only go forward and back. The stone had changed again, ever since that room nest which housed the statue of the Divine neither Neneria and Iniri could talk about. Fer would have pressed one of them, but both? If they were barred, then they were barred.

When Fortia came in to support their theory, and when Fortia practically begged the others to believe them, then Fer did believe it. Something kept her sister from talking about this place. She wanted to know what, so that she could sink her teeth into it and drains it blood. “I still don’t like that statue.”

“They are barred from talking on it.” Fortia came with this endless defence. “But I can tell you it’s a God, it had to be.”

“How do you know that?”

“Did you not see it?” Fortia asked and Fer had no reply. It had obviously been a God. A child would recognise a Divine at first sight, and Fer was no child. There were no two ways about it. The face had been too perfect, the hair too flowing. Even the texture in that room had felt different. Fer didn’t know what it was, but it was akin to stepping into a mother bear’s den when her cubs were in.

“I saw it.” Fer said.

“I saw it too.” Malam said. “And if it was anywhere else, I would tell you that the artist was just particularly talent at crafting perfection.”

“There’s also the other thing I’ve been thinking of.” Maisara said, looking back to Neneria and Iniri. The Goddess of Order had surprisingly taken the best to this rule. She did not question their barring once, believing it flat out, when Malam and Fer had needed to be convinced of its existence. “Why was it human? Or a human looking Divine I mean. Do you know Malam?”

“I have no clue.”

“I mean why would the monsters craft that?”

“Maybe it’s a king monster?” Malam asked. “Some unknown species I never came across? Or it evolved down here?” Fer’s nose twitched as the party continued their march forwards. The smell was indeed getting stronger, this was a body affected by decomposition, but not by insects. “It could be anything.”

“It was very obviously a God Malam.” Fortia said.

“You don’t know that.”

“I also don’t know what the sun is made out of, but I know it glows.”

“Fire.” Fer said. “The sun is made out of fire.” That was her addition to this conversation, although she was barely paying attention anyway. She had realised there were tells now, Malam must have been looking for them too. Whenever the torchlight began to hit an invisible wall of darkness, that meant they were getting close to a monster that controlled miasma. When the patterns in the stone began to repeat, it meant there was something playing with their minds. When a shape appeared in the darkness and then scurried away, they were being watched. And typically, after that, they had about ten or fifteen minutes to prepare for a horde.

“Great.” Fortia said. “But no, it was obviously a Divine Mal.”

“I’m just arguing for arguing’s sake.” Malam said dryly. “I also think it was a Divine, but I don’t think monsters carved it.”

“Same.” Fortia said.

“Why do you think that?”

“They don’t use tools.” Maisara said from behind, so the Goddess of Order was listening in indeed. “And I know we’ve come across things we don’t know, but they don’t use tools. They could make that unless they use their own claws and horns.”

“And if they do?” Malam said.

“Then I am wrong, but I do not see they would do that. The bottom was obviously hammerwork, even if the statue itself was a work of art.

“Hooves.” Fer said. “There’s monsters with hooves, right Mal?”

“There is.” Malam said. “But you Fortia? Or the same reason.”

“Different one.” Fortia said. “The statue was obviously inspired by a human. It didn’t have the classic…” She shrugged. “You know, it wasn’t deformed like monsters are.”

“That’s a better one.” Malam said.

“Inspiration is better at face value but worse long-term.” Neneria said from behind. “The issue is the source of the inspiration. Are they working with a human or a proper Divine. Do monsters do that Mal?

“I’ve heard of cases where they brainwash people to because their spies. I’ve seen it too.” Malam said. “But never with craftsmen for the purpose of making a statue. That goes above their heads.” Malam finished. “You Fer?

“It’s a room and it’s large.” Fer said. “And the monster God is a monster God, or it’s something else, but I can’t tell you.”

“Did it smell of anything?”

“Stone.” Fer said. “And vomit, but everything here smells of vomit so I assume it’s from the inhabitants.” Fortia pointed into the darkness ahead of them.

“How much further by the way?”

“I can’t tell.” Fer said. “It’s getting stronger, we’re definitely going to hit it.” Malam nodded and kept on walking.

“There is one issue though.” She said.

“What?” Fer asked.

“How does a monster killed a person blessed by Helenna’s love?” She asked. “And even more, a Paladin in full kit.”

“Malam!” Fortia moaned. “Why?”

“It’s an honest question.” Malam said. “Because if it can hurt them, then there must some trick to it. I’d rather not be surprised.

“MALAM!” Fortia moaned louder this time. “Honestly, why even tell me these things.” Fer could not believe that this woman was scared even now. She herself had gotten used to the monsters, they were slimy and fast, but snakes were slimy and fast. Malam just chuckled and kept on walking, her pure white had its own faint illumination in the dark. She led them not with the warm of a campfire ahead but with the certainty of a star in the night sky.

Eventually, they got their answer on what could kill a human blessed by a pair of Divines down here. And more than that, they found something that stopped them all, literally, in their path. The end of the tunnel, by Malam’s automap calculations, should be right there. But it wasn’t.

There was a wall instead, of freshly moved grey stone held together by mortar that permeated with the terrible smell of vomit and monster, as if they used parts of themselves to craft it and make it hold together. Cracks ran along the entire, it was amateurish work. And it confirmed everything they had said about the statue. Monsters had not made that construct. If this is how they built, then the impossible smoothness of that God would have been too difficult to carve out.

Pinned to the wall was a member of the original Aris Expedition, still in his unform, with a trio of massive spikes sticking out of him and burying deep into the stone. Malam, for once, did not bother with an explanation on what killed like that. She just stared at the corpse, her flashlight focusing on it as the rest of the Divines took the sight in.

Fortia stared at it, the fear had been replaced by danger and the woman smelled of spice. Maisara was much the same, Iniri and Neneria gave no reaction and Malam looked as if she was to break down and apologise for every poor decision ever made in her life. “They built that.” She had to force the impossible words out. “Monsters built a wall.”

“Did they not in the past?”

“Rarely.” Malam said. “And never with this much purpose. They’re trying to stop us. Maisara spoke up. “Then they’re learning.” She said. “So we can’t back out now. They’ll be more prepared next time.” Malam made a slow now. Everyone stopped and stared at the wall ahead of them as the torch moved away from the human corpse and towards the largest crack instead.        

Malam stared down at her map, then at the wall ahead. “Iniri.” Malam said. “Get us through.”