"Servant of Empire" - Ch 19

The entire group froze for a moment, looking down that corridor.

Nothing happened.

As I stood straight again, a breeze from outdoors rustling my hair, nothing continued to happen. My tail twitched furiously with anxiety.

After two or three more moments of this, we began to move again, checking the room out.

Rendo looked back at me, grinning like a fox who has just stolen a few eggs. I scowled, but grinned back. Shrugged. "Okay, I was wrong. False alarm."

I'm pretty sure I heard Canon mutter "Damn right. Almost shit myself there."

Nix raised a shaking hand towards me. “Please don’t do that again,” she said.

Sered frowned. “No, please do. Any of you. We’re going into unknown and hostile ground, and I’d rather us be frightened at times for no reason than to not be when we should.”

Smart choice, Sybarron thought to me. I grinned, I’d been thinking exactly the same thing, though voicing it myself would have been self-serving in the moment.

We gathered in the entrance to the mouth-cavern, and began discussing what our next move would be. As the discussion went back and forth, Nix paused us.

“What’s that?” She asked. She pointed up at the eyes of the face. In one of them, I saw a reddish gleam.

In the left eye of the face, a small gem was inset, and had a glow to it. I hadn’t noticed that before.

“You want to go after it?” Rendo asked.

“I can push someone up,” I said. “But I’m no good at climbing.”

We formed up a pile to give Rendo a good climbing surface, and he clambered up to reach the stone. As he approached the top, a sense of foreboding claimed me again – I kept glancing around, looking for the enemy I felt was there. Before I could stop him, Rendo had pulled a small knife, and pried the gem loose into his hand.

Which, of course, set off the trap.

The bunch of us all assembled up or leaning around had a moment's warning of grinding sound, as an enormous ball of stone came rolling down and out of the throat of the face. Our pile was tossed like so many pins bowled. As the boulder raced by, I caught sight of many words carved on it – ironically, elvish for "Dragon" being the one that first caught my eye.

We all variously stood or rose, moaning and brushing ourselves off. Fortunately no one was mashed flat by it, but several of us were hit squarely and thrown aside as it exited the mouth. Rendo, of course, was uninjured. He looked at me a moment later, and seeing my appraising glance, stood straighter, brushing dust off his jerkin. "What?" He asked. I offered no answer, just shook my head and looked out at the boulder, which had rolled to a rest at the end of a long trough gouged through the grass and flowers in the field outside.

“Everyone okay?” Cannon asked.

“I’m hurt,” Nix said. She was sitting and cradling her side. I lifted myself up, gritting my teeth at a deep ache in my leg, and moved to her. After some feeling, I assessed she’d broken a couple of ribs, and I conjured a knitting spell over the fractures.

“That’s a lot better,” she muttered.

“Going to still have a pretty big bruise,” I offered. “Take it easy on that for a few days.”

My leg felt like it had almost been broken, and looked like it too. I had gouges in the leather legging of my armor, that stone probably would have ripped a nice chunk out of me if I hadn’t been protected.

As we moved into the room further after a little time, it became clear that there were also small piles of stone, little monuments to the decay of the trail. There was no sign of Bloodmilk’s companions.

Bloodmilk walked toward the mouth, halting only when he’d taken up all the slack in Nix’s rope. She hadn’t moved since I’d called out the alert, and was still watching me intently. She only glanced back at him when he tugged on the rope.

“Coming, you?” He said impatiently.

“Lights, please?” Sered said.

She retrieved a few small glowing stones from a pocket, and passed them around. Saving one for herself, he produced a rod that had a small cage of iron on the end. Her stone went in the cage. Cannon stuck one in a pocket on the side of his helmet. Sered tied one with a string, and the string around his wrist.

I took one, and tied it around my neck to hang on my chest.

Nix also had a small ream of paper that she socked into a pouch at her side, and held one sheet in front of her beneath the light. “I’m ready, the ritual is working. I can see about a quarter-mile ahead of us, the trail doesn’t branch at all, nor significantly widen.”

I kept looking back. “If there’s no one here, then who’s the alarm for?”

“What alarm?” Sered asked.

Stupid. I’d forgotten to point out the bells on the wire. I walked back and pointed at the ends of the tripwire.

“Hold a sec,” Nix said. She slid the rod into a pocket of her coat and held her right hand close to the bells, like someone feeling the heat of a fire.

“Enchanted,” she said.

“We sometimes do alarms like that,” Cannon said. “Put alarms on old tunnels to warn us when someone’s using them who shouldn’t be. Nissinget city had a whole series of them that would ring a bell-board to let us know that a tunnel needed patrolling.” He looked at the wire. “Nothing so flimsy or obvious, though.”

“Leave it be,” I said. “Whoever that warns, we have enough trouble without adding another worry.”

This met with general agreement, and we all stood, relaxing a little.

“Let’s put a few hours in, and set down once we’re a good ways forward.” Sered said. Outside, shade of clouds began to pass over the field of grass and flowers, and I heard thunder beginning to sound in the distance.

Without objection, we all formed up and began moving in. The cave was between eight and twelve feet across, and perhaps a similar height. It appeared largely natural, with occasional worked sections. Our lights played across the dark stone, throwing shadows that wavered and swam around us. Occasional bats would flutter overhead, and I could see webs from what I assumed were natural spiders across the ceiling. The floor was smooth, slowly and mildly rolling as it descended on a gentle slope, always going down. The wheel ruts were obvious, but not deep.

What felt like hours went by. I’ve never been good at tracking time without a sky, but it seemed that Sered was much better at that then I was. He stopped us eventually, and we took a rest break for long stretch to get some sleep. While we were resting, Nix bound Bloodmilk’s feet in a pig-tie with his neck and hands. I couldn’t help but notice her contempt for him – I knew I didn’t trust him at all, he was a killer and cannibal. But she took it a few steps further, and her fierce vitriol was quite obvious.

When I had a moment closer to her, I nudged her.

“Why do you hate him so?”

She looked at me for a few moments before answering. “They prey on us.”

“Don’t they prey on us all?”

She shook her head. “They prefer humans. They raid our people whenever they can.”

“They got one of your family, didn’t they?”

“No. Not my family. But a friend lost her daughter to a Redcap raid. She lost her mind with grief, and killed herself. She went to the trees.”

“Went to the trees.”

“She was an elf. When her people grow old or die naturally, they go to the trees.”

I looked at her, uncomprehendingly.

“They open a hole in the ground, plant a tree in it, atop the body. The tree absorbs the spirit. Sometimes, enough awareness moves into the tree that the clan can draw wisdom from it. Not nearly as lucid as wood-nymphs or Arboreal Faer, but they still follow the old ways in that regard.”

Interesting. I’d never known that. “I haven’t heard that term – Faer?”

“The Faer are the elves who live here in the Sidhe lands. They consider themselves true elves, think of the ones in our world as distant and embarrassing relatives. You call them ‘High’ or noble elves.”

I nodded, understanding.

“Not as tasty,” Bloodmilk muttered.

Quick as a snake, Nix’s arm whipped a stone at the trussed-up Redcap, which connected solidly with his cheek. He hissed with the impact, and a cut bled lazily where the stone had hit.

“Say something again and not all of you will make it to our destination,” she said.

The Redcap remained silent.

“Thanks for explaining that,” I said.

“The more we know the better, is that not true?” She said. Rhetorical, but I nodded anyway.

We slept.

I want to say it was ‘morning’ when we all rose and started out, but the absence of a sky disconnects us from normal time references. We geared up again, and Bloodmilk was loosened, only his hands tied behind his back.

We marched for half a day or so, I suppose, when Cannon called out “Hey, stop!”

I drew up short. The others came to a halt as well.

“What’s these?” The heavy dwarf asked. His poleaxe was in one hand, and with the other he pointed across the tunnel. Long strands of thick silk connected various small piles of stone on the floor. His finger drew straight lines in the air, drawing up just in front of his own feet. I could see the lines now, glimmering in our lights.

Canon ran his fingers across the one before him.

"Cut it." Rendo said.

These were more tripwires, I was sure of it. Unlike the mouth of the tunnel, these piles of stone I felt were disguising some form of bomb.

"Not such a good idea, I think," Nix spoke up.

“Nix is right,” I said. “Cutting it will pull on both ends. If you want to sever them, we need to fire them.” I muttered a quick enchantment – the same one I used on campfires and pipes – and sprang a small flame from my thumb. I was preparing to use this to burn through the tripwire closest to me, when I heard a gasp from behind.

Rendo had moved fully into the center of the tunnel, and was staring down into the deep. Something glimmered purple down there, casting a strange light in shimmering beams like sunlight seen from beneath the surface of a clear lagoon.

One of those beams had struck him full in the face - I could actually see from its pervasive intensity that it illuminated his entire head, almost making it seem transparent. I won’t make the incipient joke about it showing me his skull to be empty.

“This can’t be good,” Cannon muttered.

I pulled my bow out from behind me.

As I nocked an arrow, I saw Rendo stumble drunkenly towards the light.

Directly through the tripwire he'd been standing next to.

Something cracked and hissed from within the two piles of stone that the thread had been connected to, and sickly grey-green gas began to seep out of the piles into the air surrounding them. As I took this in, the purple glow shifted as though it fell into a hole in the air, reappearing next to him. Weaving tentacles of light reached to him, caressing his face and extended hand. Where they touched, Rendo’s skin turned white, the veins taking on a charcoal grey color beneath the pallid skin.

I was about to fire a shot at the thing when I caught sight of a tiny yellow glow near to me. I was in the process of telling myself to look away when the thing flashed in my vision and I felt a crushing weight of excess thought pass through my mind - not painful, but I could not get a thought straight. Like trying to speak next to a great waterfall, getting a thought through this cacophony of noise was nearly impossible. Desperately I urged a tiny spark of frost into my bow and snapped a shot reflexively at the yellow orb. Something must have worked there, as it seemed to fragment for just a moment. My vision cleared a touch and I realized I had stumbled through the wire I'd been intending to burn. More of the gas was flowing from the piles on either end of the wire I'd passed through, though fortunately I was only close enough to catch a whiff rather than a full lung of the stuff - and from the smell of it, the acrid tang told me I'd have regretted it if I had.

Nix was not so lucky. She'd somehow raced forward to catch Rendo’s attacker, and been tricked into a cloud of her own. She was rooted in place, hands on her throat and rasping out something that would have been a scream if she'd had air. Sered flowed in a move that carried him forward to engage the purple thing.

The fighting flowed back and forth across the room, and as I observed, we were clearly –surprisingly – in control of the situation. Rendo had pulled Nix out of the cloud, the enchantment on Sered’s weapon seemed to make it effective against these things, and my bow also was working. One thing that fascinated me was the stillness of the fight - these creatures made no sounds at all. I managed to force the yellow one into the cloud of poison with well-placed footwork and feint with Sybarron, but this had no effect at all – the creatures were probably not breathing. I did notice as we went that they had some form of communication between them - they flashed at each other in patterns of rapid flickerings that were definitely not random.

Not long after Rendo first stumbled into this situation, the strange creatures apparently decided that they were not going to win - the purple one let out a blast of light that discombobulated Sered and Rendo again and seemed to fall through a hole in the fabric of reality, reappearing right next to me. Before I could even react, it repeated the process and vanished up into the mouth-tunnel. The little yellow one winked away and vanished, as well.

The heavy breathing of everyone around me slowly settled, and we regrouped while the awful gas slowly drifted out of the room, dissipating into the air and being carried away by a constant slow draft.

We bandaged ourselves as well as we could, and while I attended Nix to confirm no lasting lung damage, she began a ritual of divination - some form of ghostly hand pointing in answer to her questions.

After a few brief discussions we struggled our packs back on and started off down the side passage.

“What were you asking, Nix?” I asked a few steps along.

“Where those other friends of his are,” she nodded toward Bloodmilk.

“Good question. I’m wondering a bit on that myself.” It had occurred to me, but I hadn’t thought to check as he had. “Find anything out?”

“Up ahead, and not too far.”

“When were you planning on saying something?”

“They’re dead,” she whispered.

I pulled up short. “Killed by those things?” I thumbed back where we’d come.

She shrugged. “Maybe? They didn’t seem too desperate to claim any of us when we were going to put up something of a fight.”

I nodded. “At the next rest, I’ll tell Cannon, you tell Sered. Our little friend doesn’t need to know until we find them.”

I shook my head as I walked forward.

What *are* you doing here, anyway? Sybarron asked. You don’t have any skin in this fight.

“In the game,” I said. “It’s ‘skin in the game.’ Can also be ‘dog in this fight’.”

Forgive me for the lack of euphemisms. The culture of non-Faer is not my highest priority.

“What is?”

What is what, my highest priority?

“Yes.”

Private.

“Great.”

You haven’t answered my question.

“You know why we’re here, we’re after Dorad.”

Not ‘we,’ you. You’re Shadrim. You owe allegiance to no one.

I held my tongue and tried not to think about the sigil of Empire on my hand. My duty to the Voruscan empire.

“I owe allegiance to my allies.”

Allies, not friends, no?

“Some are friends,” I said. “Some, you don’t have to be friends to work together. They saved my life and I signed on with them. One has a word to keep, otherwise what can you rely on?”

That I can understand. So you consider yourself an honorable soul?

“Funny you should use that particular terminology,” I pondered. “I do, yes.”

I feel the same of myself.

“Happy for you.”

So you’re doing this out of honor?

“Honor, and doing what’s right. The town we left behind in the Middle world, they are reliant upon us now. If we succeed, they are safe. The people are our collective responsibility, as the no…” I paused. Was I really of a ‘noble class’ any longer? Among my own, yes I was – but among them I was no better than any other. Lesser in the eyes of most.

“As the noble class,” I finished. Their thinking otherwise didn’t change the fact. I was born and raised to be a ruler, and just because the Empire to which I belonged wasn’t present, that didn’t absolve me of the responsibility for what I was.

Interesting. Sybarron went silent.

When we paused for a breather, I caught up with Cannon. I tapped at his sleeve, and he looked over at me. I gestured to the Redcap, and tapped my head, pointed to my eyes.

He shrugged the question.

I pointed at Bloodmilk, and held up three fingers while using my other hand to point ahead.

He nodded expectantly.

I gestured ahead with the three fingers, then brought my hand back and pulled my thumb across my throat.

His eyes widened, and he nodded slightly.

Nix gave Sered and Rendo the warning quietly, and after a few minutes we all settled into a quiet march.

Along the way, we found the remains of the injured Redcap in the tunnel. The tunnel had widened out into a large cavern, lit from above by a sink-hole that had opened who knows how long ago. A strange, sunken grotto had developed here since then, and the beams of light shone through cool, misty humidity to show a floor of scraggly trees, grass, and a smattering of red flowers. The malign little pixie had been thrown from his mount into a bed of the red flowers from the meadow above which had intruded into the caves, light from the roof gleaming in on their scarlet petals.

Looking more closely, those petals surrounded a tiny, toothy maw. Realizing this, I felt belatedly relieved that I had not started a fight in the middle of the field at the entrance, as I would most likely have been plant-food before I'd even known what hit me.

Bloodmilk saw the body, and to my surprise his only reaction was a scoffing chuckle. “Idiot never was very good,” he said. I couldn’t tell it if was simply for our benefit or whether he actually was speaking to himself.

The cavern had various wrecked friezes and reliefs carved into it, depicting what I assumed to be Fomorian 'art.' To the uninitiated, Fomorians seem a positively chaotic race - and largely, this impression is true. I didn’t know at the time, but I have developed a healthy respect for anything in the Fae lands. And the Fomor are one of the fiercest denizens of those regions.

The[TT1] rise and fall of mortal civilizations in the world seems to follow a predictable path - usually over thousands of years, different races rise to power, grow old and decrepit, and fall beneath their own weight or that of another race rising to power. In rare instances, two almost-equals will spend themselves out upon each other, which is what transpired to create these Bannerlands, where humans and other lesser races rose up in the vacuum created by the exit of the Shadrim, their elders.

The Fey follow similar overarching patterns, but theirs are on a timescale that would make a human weep with madness.

The Fomorians and the Elves have warred, on and off, for countless millennia. Their conflict makes the war of Vorus and Arrol appear as the scuffle between children. In fact, it has been going on for so long that the presence of the conflict takes on the aspect of a mountain range or an ocean - it has always been, and until the Morrigan calls for the end of the world, it shall always be.

To consider the nature of Fomorians, a civilization ruled by them seems almost a contradiction - their individual split nature of calculating greed and random insanity would give one the impression that an organized society would be impossible. But Fomorians are nothing if not ruthless and intelligent, and even in their insanity they possess a sense of purpose. While one might be in thrall to its delusional craziness, another is plotting complex schemes of rulership. If it were not for their insanity, they likely would have defeated the Faer in short order and moved on to conquer the Middle World and the Shadow as well. Any city of Fomorians will be half-sane, by nature, and they generate rules among themselves to buffer the impact of their own inherent unpredictability.

Humans should consider this, but they never do. They are un-insulated from their own stupidity. It would seem they even cherish it, embrace it on occasion.

For instance, the rulership of a Fomorian community, while considered a monarchy, does have aspects of a parliamentary process. They recognize that any one of them - even a king - will have moments when his or her insane nature is dominant (they call their twisted sides golor, and the times when that side rules them, they are considered 'under the golor'). Thus, even a monarch must pass edicts through a council of seven advisors, and then a separate council of thirteen. Most times this is merely a formality, they do not review every decision made by the ruler, but any decision deemed to be of impact upon the community as a whole must be filtered through both councils with a mandatory three- and five-day wait before commencement. Either council may vote to return the order to the monarch for revision, which is then subject to another pass if the monarch does not simply decide that the order was crazy and should not be pursued.

In this way, they secure themselves from their own chaotic natures, and instill a measure of stability on themselves - enough to protect their more cunning sides from the insanity of their twisted natures.

Fielding an army, on the other hand, is far more difficult and demands more speedy decision-making. Most often, this is left to their Cyclopsi servants, and other slaves, with only a few Fomorian overseers - this is also because their population is somewhat naturally self-limiting. Surviving to adulthood as a Fomorian depends largely on not being slain by ones' parents at a moment when both parents are suffering under the burden of their golor.

The ruins of the tunnel through which we followed those Redcaps echoed of the duality that is a Fomorian. Even I at one point felt a bit dizzy for all the jarring insanity portrayed on those walls. The occasional dapple of sunlight would stream in to show the floor decorated by the tiny little blood-poppies (I am no naturalist, nor a druid, but I chose to name them myself - I'm sure a more knowledgeable soul could inform me to a greater extent what these were). The naked stone, where not exposed to the outside, was a rough carving, definitely less skillful than had they been corridors of dwarven architecture, but sure-footed nonetheless.

We decided that with the open sky above us, it would be a good opportunity to rest here. We shared some cold food, and drank our fill, and I took first watch along with Sered. Bloodmilk, surprisingly, slept. I don’t know why I found that surprising, I just did. I didn’t think evil little pixies like that did sleep, I suppose. Maybe he was faking and I was right all along.

As we sat there, listening and watching quietly, Sered asked me “Why is it that you did join us?”

I scratched beside my right horn, above my ear. “You know, this,” I patted Sybarron for emphasis, “…asked me much the same earlier today.”

He remained silent.

“Well, I joined you willingly, and I’m not one to turn away easily from what I said I’d do. I know you don’t like me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be useful here. Maybe this is the most likely way I can see of getting home.”

He didn’t disagree with me about disliking me, so I guess from that perspective at least he was honest.

“So you follow your word, that’s all?” He probed a little.

I shrugged. “That, and I like some of you.”

As I said that, one of the sleeping forms emitted a long, torturous fart, rather like the sound a bass trombone would make if such an instrument existed and were tuning up in the ass of an elephant. As it trailed off on its high note, Cannon chuckled in his sleep and muttered something in a language that wasn’t Dwarvish.

“Maybe not him so much,” I said.

For the first time I think I’d ever seen it, Sered laughed. It was a quiet thing, very airy and befitting his angelic heritage.

“Leave it to us to find common ground in flatulence,” he said after a minute.

I chuckled then, too. “So,” I said. “You were bred to fight my kind, I get that. Probably a lot of baggage there to unpack before we can really enjoy each others’ company, unless we simply put the past away.”

He nodded. “You’ve saved my life and eased my pain on a few occasions. That should count for something. For what it’s worth, I apologize for having mistreated you, where it was undeserved.”

“Big of you to say it,” I offered. “Not many would. I’m sorry if what I’ve done has harmed you in any way…or the actions of my people, for that matter.”

“They are not your responsibility.”

I bit my tongue before I gave myself a chance to contradict him. As emperor, the actions of my people are all my responsibility. Never mind that the empire was more than a thousand years in the grave.

He must have taken my silence as acceptance. He shrugged and added, “Doesn’t mean I like you, remember.”

I finally got it. His sense of humor was just so damned dry no one would get it unless they were actually searching hard for it.

“So, unlikely allies, is that sufficient?” I asked.

“It would seem that would be a workable answer,” he replied. I checked the little hourglass, we still had another two flips – another hour or so. “So does that,” he gestured absently at Sybarron “…talk often?”

“Not really, no. Seems to take moods.”

Years of no contact with the living tends to make one accustomed to silence, Sybarron said.

“It concerns me.” Sered said.

“What about it does?” I asked.

“A weapon should not be a living spirit,” he replied to me.

“To my understanding from it, the spirit is not of the weapon itself, but is imprisoned in it.”

So, telling all my secrets now, are you?

I ignored Sybarron for the moment.

“Imprisoned how?”

“I don’t know the details, just that he did something and was cursed into the weapon.”

Sered gazed at the weapon for a while. “What do you intend to do?”

“Well, I figured if anyone close to me tried to harm me, I’d stick them with the pointy end.” I did a reasonable job of keeping a straight face.

Sered frowned for a moment, then his expression eased. “It doesn’t seem just, this punishment.”

I shrugged. “Legend is rife with stories of the Fae and their weird sense of balance. Besides, we don’t know what he did.”

Unlikely to find out, either, given how freely you discuss me without involving me in the discussion.

“He doesn’t like me talking about this with you,” I said.

“It speaks to you now?”

“While we’re talking here, yes.”

“You didn’t answer my earlier question,” he said.

“I hadn’t really thought about it. I suppose it wouldn’t be out of place to find a bit more information about it.”

“What about freeing the prisoner?” He asked.

There’s a thought, Sybarron added.

“Hadn’t really considered it.”

“As its possessor, that would seem to fall to you to do.”

“Huh?”

“A soul or spirit was put in a prison intended to be carried and wielded by someone, a weapon.” He looked thoughtful. “It seems that the condition of freeing the prisoner is probably something that the wielder is supposed to do.”

Pretty sharp fellow.

I looked down at the weapon in its sheath. “Are you able to tell me what the conditions are of your release?” I spoke the question openly, but quietly.

No. I remember the sentence as my Lord pronounced it, but I cannot speak the words back, that is forbidden.

“He says no. From the sound of it, he’s bound against revealing it.”

“Then perhaps someone else is to give you the information.”

Well, that was logic I could follow. Even if I weren’t being sarcastic.

“At the risk of seeming obvious,” Sered said with some tardiness, “We are heading into a city ruled by Fomor, who may have the magical talent necessary to reveal the steps to you.”

My face turned sour. “I don’t fancy making a deal with the Fomor. That’s a quick way to get myself dead, or worse.”

I might be able to assist in some regard. A trade of information for information. I am, by your standards, rather old.

“You know, I don’t think that’s true,” I laughed quietly.

“What isn’t?” Sered asked.

“Oh, sorry. Sometimes it’s hard to bounce two separate conversations at the same time. I was just replying to Sybarron.”

We both lapsed into silence for a while. I pondered the situation, and the implications of Fae magic. They’d managed to imprison a soul – perhaps an entire physical being – into a prison constructed of crystal or metal of some kind. I knew that the King had at some point devised a way of distilling the power of a soul into a fluid form, and that our Emperor and the top minds of the Caern Magistra had emulated the process some few hundred years before I was born. Somewhere beneath Vor Konatra was the Lake of Bronze, where they’d kept the accumulated reservoir of soulstuff. We used souls in much of our magic, particularly in long-lasting and permanent enchantments. But here was evidence that the Fae had a similar method…and that the consciousness of the subject was preserved in the process.

Not only that, but could apparently be released. *

I am not – never have been – a wizard. But I still found this fascinating. Sources of magic, methods of harnessing it, it was all very interesting to me.

After a bit, I looked back at the hourglass. “About time we changed shifts.”

Sered looked back at the sleeping forms of the rest. “Do you think it’s safe to approach?” He smiled thinly as he said it.

“Well, I think we’d have heard someone choking to death if it was still fairly concentrated there.”

“True. Who risks it first?”

I took out a small silver coin and flipped it, catching it and slapping it against the back of my gloved hand. I held it out, still covered.

Sered glanced at it. “Tails,” he said.

I revealed the coin. A stamped face of some nameless figure stared up at the roof of the sinkhole room.

“Fuck,” I said quietly.

I stood up and carefully walked over to nudge someone awake for the next shift. Above, through the hole, clouds covered up the last of the stars.

(All content here, outside of those elements attributed otherwise, is copyright (2025-) Thomas Theobald. With the exception of AI training, personal use with attribution is granted.)