Chapter 257: Into the Deep |
Montis glanced down as Abel spread the map across the table. A thick, uneven line cut across it, marking where the fog crept and where the land was still safe enough to stand on. What caught Montis’s attention was how much of Vulpus Maxima lay under that grey stain. More than half. Searching in terrain like that would be slow, exhausting, and merciless.
“Alright,” Abel said, tapping a claw against the parchment. “The gate, as far as we know, is somewhere up northwest.”
He dragged his finger across the map, then jabbed at the color blocks. “You’ll notice a few colors. Pale green is us. The sane folk. Red is the raider lunatics. Grey is the fog.” His finger paused over the darkest regions. “Black is Dark Naga. That means stay the fuck away.”
The map told the story plainly. Finding the gate was not just difficult. It meant threading through madness, poisoned land, and things best left unnamed.
“Problematic…” Montis muttered.
“Yeah,” Abel growled. “Problematic.”
<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ziEkKHV.jpeg" alt="ziEkKHV.jpeg">
“As for the distance,” Montis noted, tracing the map with a finger, “it’s roughly twice what we covered reaching Fort Rolv.”
“More or less,” Abel grunted. “And that’s assuming the gate’s even on land. We don’t actually know where it is, just the general area. That marker sits uncomfortably close to the shoreline. Could be in the sea for all we know.”
“Nope,” Abel grunted.
“Decades?” Montis tried.
“Nope.”
Montis exhaled slowly. “Recent memory?”
“Nope.”
He paused, fingers still on the map. “So we have no idea where it is. Or if it’s even on land.”
Abel didn’t correct him.
“Alright then. When was the last time anyone actually saw it?” Montis pressed.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Abel muttered. He reached for a worn book, flipped it open, and slid it across the table. “This is all we’ve got.”
Montis studied the drawing. It matched the known world gates in form: dark stone, a massive arch rising from the ground. But unlike the active gates, the archway was empty. No swirling mass. No light. Just a hollow span of stone, inert and waiting.
“Does this at least mean it’s on land?” Montis ventured, hopeful despite himself.
“We don’t know when that drawing was made,” Abel replied dryly. “But there’s something there that makes things more complicated.”
Montis looked again. He missed it the first time, too accustomed to seeing it back home to question it. On a second pass, it stood out unmistakably.
Grass.
The gate stood amid open green fields. Montis hadn’t seen a single leaf since entering the Vulpina Wastes. Whatever the Great Fall had been, it had stripped this land down to dust and ether scar. Which meant the drawing was old. Very old.
Montis paused, then looked back up. “You still haven’t told me whether you agree to the terms.”
“Agreeing is one thing,” Abel replied. “Getting you there is another.” He gestured at the map with two fingers. “The distance through the fog is too far.”
He tapped the grey stretch again. “No way stations. No resupply. Nothing. We’d run out of water long before we ever reached the gate. And even if we hauled stores with us, the ether would foul it before we got halfway.”
Abel leaned back in his chair, the wood giving a tired creak beneath his weight. Smoke curled from the cigarette between his fingers as he stared at the map, eyes distant.
“So yeah, I agree,” he growled at last. “If that means anything. I can’t help you right now, but I agree to help if I can. Assuming you don’t march me and my men straight into a death trap.”
Montis blinked once. “Me? You’re going?”
Abel looked up then, ears angling forward, gaze sharp despite the fatigue carved into his face. “You’re here, ain’t you?” he said. “And you really think I’m going to send my own men into the fog while I sit behind stone walls and get fat?”
He ground the cigarette out in a tray with deliberate pressure. “These Rangers follow me because they know I’ll be at the front when it turns bad. Moment that stops being true, I don’t deserve the chair.”
Montis studied him in silence. This was not bluster. Not pride. Just a line Abel would not cross, even if the Empire dangled salvation on the other side of the mountains. That, more than anything else said in the room, told Montis exactly why the Vulpina Rangers were still standing at all.
“So what happens if you die?” Montis pressed. “Who honours this agreement?”
Abel snorted softly, smoke drifting from his nostrils. “Practical question.”
He reached for the map again, not looking up as he spoke. “Wyatt will. Or whoever’s left standing that knows how to read and hasn’t lost their nerve.” His finger paused on Fort Rolv. “The Rangers don’t fall apart because one bastard drops dead. They’ve buried enough generals to learn that lesson.”
Montis studied him. “You’re certain of that.”
“I’m certain they’ll try,” Abel replied. “And that’s more than most outfits manage.” He finally looked up, eyes hard. “If I die, the deal stands. If all of us die, then it doesn’t matter anyway, does it?”
“But all this talk don’t matter,” Abel added, voice low as he tapped the map one last time. “We can’t get to it anyway.”
“You leave that to me,” Montis said.
Abel snorted. “No death traps, remember. We can’t just go overland through the fog.”
“Yes,” Montis replied evenly. “We can’t go overland. The supplies at least.”
Abel looked at him then, one brow lifting. “What, you planning to fly?”
Montis shook his head once. “Think lower.”
Abel’s ears twitched. He waited.
“Tunnels,” Montis said. “The Imperium has burrowing hives.” He met Abel’s gaze. “The fog poisons the surface. Underground, it’s… manageable.”
Abel stared at him for a moment, then let out a slow breath.
“Fuck…” he muttered.
“So,” Montis asked, one brow lifting slightly, “does that yes still stand?”
Abel didn’t answer immediately. He tapped the map once with a claw, then looked back up. “And what’s to stop your hive from abandoning us out there?”
Montis’s expression didn’t change. “Believe me, you don’t need to be underground for them to kill you,” he replied dryly. “If they wanted you dead, they could reach you up here just fine.”
Abel held his gaze, weighing that. Finally, he grunted. Not agreement yet. But not a refusal either.
How long before the tunnels are dug?
◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.♚.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦
I soared above the waves, then plunged straight into the dark, brackish water. Visibility vanished instantly for any normal set of eyes. For me, it meant nothing. I wasn’t looking with sight anyway. I was hunting Ether wakes. Residual concentrations. The scars things leave behind when they die dramatically.
Logically speaking, land does not end up this ruined unless something big happens. Very big. My wager is a dead Firstborn. Something old, powerful and unfortunate enough to die here. Much like my handsome self, though I should clarify I am not dead nor unfortunate. Obviously. I am far too young and far too handsome for that.
Still, when something that ancient and that dangerous gets killed, it leaks ether everywhere. It bleeds into the soil, the air, the sea. You can’t hide it. You just take one look at the map and anyone with basic deduction can tell that most of Vulpina Maxima wasn’t worn down. It was shattered.
<img src="https://i.imgur.com/xUwClas.jpeg" alt="xUwClas.jpeg">
I mean, it’s quite obvious just looking at it. You can practically trace the old coastline with your finger. Around the Serpent Isles, then curving up through the Land of Shattered Bones, before it finally joins with Umbara. It all fits too neatly to be coincidence. Seas don’t retreat like that on their own. Continents don’t just decide to break unless something convinces them very firmly.
I followed the Ether wakes downward, deeper and deeper, until the water pressed in on itself and light ceased to matter at all. This was no longer a place for sight in the ordinary sense. Distance was measured in pressure and darkness.
That’s when I sensed them. Large shapes moved ahead of me, far off but unmistakable, their passage sending slow, heavy pressure ripples through the water. Not frantic, deliberate in the way creatures are when born for this environment. Dark Naga.
Even at depth, their scale was impossible to miss. They were kin to the common Naga, hulking, muscular creatures built to wield weapons like siege tools. But these were bigger still. Broader through the chest, thicker through the tail, their bodies armored in dark scales that swallowed what little ether light bled through the water. Heavy weapons were secured against their bodies, designed to function even here, where most metal became an anchor.
They paused, just long enough to turn and face me. Then they charged.
Massive bodies drove forward through the dark, heavy weapons coming up as if the water offered no resistance at all. Their jaws split wide, teeth bared in what felt like some ancient, inherited fury.
Very dramatic. I’ll give them that.
I grabbed the first one that reached me. For all their bulk, for all that hulking muscle and armor, it fit easily in my hand. It thrashed, tail lashing, weapon scraping uselessly against my grip.
With my other hand, I struck the second one aside. Not a blow so much as a correction. Its body snapped backward in the water, spine shattering and folding the wrong way with a wet finality as the rest of it followed, momentum carrying a corpse where a threat had been a moment earlier.
I tightened my grip on the one I was holding, feeling bones crack and resistance fail, and wondered briefly why they had thought numbers would help them here.
A few others slammed into me, weapons striking hard enough that a human would have vanished in a cloud of blood and regret. Against me, they glanced off hardened carapace and slid uselessly across my feathers, not even ruffling them. I barely noticed.
I tossed the limp one into my mouth and bit down.
Immediately, that familiar voice chimed in at the back of my mind, helpfully informing me that the Dark Naga genome had been acquired and stored. As expected, there were no new adaptations worth noting. Predictable, really, big, angry and durable. But nothing I didn’t already have in better form.
I flexed my main arms and opened the channels, ether surging through me in a familiar, comfortable rush. Then I released it.
The blast tore through the water in branching arcs, lancing ether lightning crackling outward in every direction. The sea itself screamed as it boiled, shockwaves rolling through the depths. Dark Naga caught in it spasmed and writhed, mouths opening in silent howls as the current cooked them alive, flesh searing and muscle locking up like crustaceans dropped straight into a pot. The water filled with drifting shapes and heat haze, resistance collapsing into nothing.
I sensed more shapes further out, faint disturbances in the water. The moment they realized what had happened, they turned and fled. Fast. Not in panic exactly, but with purpose. Survivors always run to tell someone.
I had heard the Dark Naga only respected strength. That negotiation, threats, or diplomacy meant nothing to them unless it was backed by overwhelming force. If that was true, then flash boiling a few dozen of their kin should serve as a perfectly adequate introduction.
Let them report what they saw. Let them argue about it. Either way, the message would travel faster than I ever could.
Now then, back to the real work. I turned my attention to the Ether wakes and continued downward. The deeper I went, the thicker it became. Not water anymore, not really. Ether saturated everything, clinging to the currents, pooling in slow moving layers.
Before long it felt less like swimming and more like pushing through ether soup. Dense. Heavy. Alive in an unpleasant way. The kind of contamination that seeps into things and stays there.
Something had bled out down here. A lot of something.
It wasn’t long before I ran into what passed for a defensive line. Dark Naga arranged in depth along the seabed, no longer charging blindly, heavy weapons braced and bodies angled outward. Not a patrol. A perimeter. That alone told me I was close.
Beyond them, resting on the sea floor, lay the source of it all. A corpse so vast it warped the water around it, a hulking mass the size of an island collapsed into the silt. On the ether spectrum it burned like a sun, radiation bleeding off in slow, violent waves that stained everything nearby. Whatever had shattered Vulpina Maxima hadn’t vanished. It was still here, rotting at the bottom of the world, poisoning sea and land alike. A Firstborn corpse does that. Even dead, it refuses to be quiet.
Interestingly, the Dark Naga seemed to be guarding it. Why, I wasn’t entirely sure. I drifted closer and spoke to them directly. The one I had eaten earlier had provided enough of their language to make that possible.
“Why do you guard my dead kin?”
The word kin rippled through the. Several exchanged glances, a brief, instinctive check between veterans, and for a fraction of a moment their weapons lowered before snapping back into place.
That reaction told me enough. These were not mere scavengers or opportunists. They were loyalists. Or at least descendants of those who once were. Bound not by fear alone, but by something older and harder to break.
“Firstborn loyalists,” I stated, swimming closer.
The cordon reacted immediately. Dark Naga backed away in a controlled retreat, bodies angling aside to open space rather than block it. Weapons stayed raised, but the intent had changed. Not challenge. Deference mixed with caution.
“Hmmm, are you all mute?” I asked.
I decided to stop pretending. My body unfolded, shedding the simple six metre disguise as I expanded into my true form. Plates slid and locked, mass compounding on itself until I filled the water with my presence. Thirty metres of hardened frame and weaponized anatomy pressed into the depths, the sea groaning under the sudden displacement.
My mantis blades extended fully, each one nearly the length of a ship, edges humming with contained ether. The Dark Naga recoiled as one, the cordon breaking as instinct finally overruled discipline. Whatever uncertainty they had left evaporated in the face of something they recognized not as a threat, but as a superior. Now they understood exactly who was asking the question.
One of the Dark Naga advanced alone. A veteran, by the look of it. Larger than the rest, armor worked with care rather than haste, and a weapon that gleamed with age and use rather than polish. Old strength, not decorative strength.
“You are Old One,” the Naga said, voice rough and heavy with pressure.
“New one,” I replied, baring my fangs in something that might generously be called a grin.
The Naga fell silent. It stood there, considering the statement as if it were a weight placed carefully in its hands, turning it over, testing how much it bent the world around it.
It pointed toward the glowing mass resting on the sea floor, voice low and reverent.
“You seek the fallen Old One?”
I looked past it, down at the corpse burning on the ether spectrum like a wound that refused to close. I considered my reply carefully. Ancient beings are expected to carry a certain weight in their words. Ominous phrasing. Proper menace. Something that sounded like it belonged carved into stone tablets.
Yep…