Draith
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Chapter 103 - From The Depths
🕑 Added 2025-05-18 14:00:09 +0000 UTCAs we flew towards the western peaks, the wyverns drew closer. While I prepped for an attack, after a cursory glance they left us alone. Well, mostly. One wyvern continued to follow us, but it didn’t attack.
It seemed that with the awakened wyvern gone, they were far less aggressive. Sure, they were out in force but they let us be. In fact, even the one who was following us pulled away if we approached. We weren't the only thing they were avoiding. For some reason, they were keeping their distance from the mountains where they nested, even the one that had been following us at first. Almost as if they were afraid to return to their homes.
Our purpose here was threefold. The first was to look for the Infinite Furnace. Yet if I'd hoped to easily spot it, the shadowed mountain valleys did their best to deny us, even in the early morning light.
Still, we had both its location on the map as well as the coordinates of the nearby Waygate. Between the two Calbern had assured me he could get us close to the right spot. Assuming it hadn't been hidden or buried.
A pretty big assumption.
Second reason we were out this far was the Waygate itself. While the Waygate on the other end was almost entirely destroyed, that was an opportunity of sorts. If I could find an intact Waygate on this end, then it was possible we could take it apart for study. And even if I couldn't determine how they worked, I was certain I could re-purpose the materials.
Finally, the last goal of our excursion was to find out what had upset the wyverns, and hopefully, fix it, so they'd settle down. Preferably before they came after our settlements.
Even as we flew above the mountains, I suspected we’d found the answer to that last question.
On the central peak, the same one where we'd first encountered the awakened wyvern, were a swarm of giant insects. Dozens of ant-like beings, each the size of a small car, were tearing up the surrounding landscape. As we studied them, I saw that several of them were binding the material with some sort of black secretion before… rolling away with the bound material clasped between two pincer like appendages.
Like a self-propelled wheelbarrow that'd had its legs torn off. My comparison to a car had been more accurate than I’d realized.
I disabled Eagle Eyes, then reactivated it, unsure if I was seeing things. But I'd been right. The beings had created a sled out of the torn apart materials, and then basically hitched it to themselves and turned into a wheel. The longer I inspected them, the more their chitinous hide looked like metal. And the more those secretions started to look like… tar. The same sort of sticky tar the old man had shoved into my hands before making me go out onto the tin roof and start patching.
Would've been a lot more tolerable if he hadn't chosen the height of summer. Being on a reflective tin roof with noxious tar while the air temp was over a hundred had been quite the experience. Least I'd thought to get the hose, though that'd made the job a million times harder than it needed to be. I’d survived the heat, so it’d been worth it.
Motioning towards Calbern, we followed the machine-ants back to their nest. I'd been expecting an anthill, or maybe some ancient ruin. Instead, there was a gleaming bunker of shining steel. It was simple but functional. And even from a glance, I could tell it would be strong.
And it hadn't been there when we'd fought the awakened wyvern.
Even half-cloaked in shadow, the polished surface shone in the sun, a beacon we would’ve easily spotted when we scouted the area after fighting it.
We chose to alight on a bluff across the valley from the bunker, one with a full view of the now barren mountainside. The machines were taking everything that wasn't nailed down. Rock, trees, even the grass and loose soil. There were more sets of the machines than the first group we’d come across. Three separate lines stretched out, one of them even descending towards the ocean.
Each route carried back the their tightly bundled spoils, all of it funneling down through the perfectly sized opening in the front of the bunker.
"What do you see?" I asked Calbern now that I could actually hear him.
The winds were especially violent that morning and even after we'd landed he had to raise his voice to respond. "The insectoid-golems are descending into the depths, master Perth. There doesn't appear to be any lighting, though from what I can discern, the space expands somewhat inside the structure."
"How long you think until all this reaches Verdant Point?" I asked, gesturing at the rolling-bug-machines devastating the mountains. Rollerbugs, I decided. Kept their capabilities in mind, but made them feel less threatening. Also, they reminded me of VW Beetles. The old ones. We had one for a while, back when Mom was around. Leaked everywhere. My gaze shifted to the bluff beneath my feet. Even there, the machines had stripped everything bare. Suspected that if there’d been oil, they would’ve stripped that too, somehow.
"Days, if we are especially unlucky. A week at the outermost," Calbern replied, frowning.
"What're we gonna do about them?" Selvi asked, yelling over the wind. “Can’t exactly lasso ‘em and tie ‘em down. Not at those speeds.”
'No idea,' was my first thought. But I didn't say it. The other Tethered we'd brought with us were standing just behind Selvi, their eyes wide. Two of them had kissed Tanis goodbye before we left. It had only occurred to me on the flight over, but now that Balthum was gone, there were a lot of romances popping up among the Tethered. I suspected, if I checked, I'd find out that the herbs they used to prevent pregnancies had lost their popularity as well.
They were starting to plan for the future. A future not just for themselves, but for their children. Children they’d avoided under Balthum.
Even in the face of all the things that threatened to tear down my fledgling domain, the Tethered had somehow found hope.
Couldn't fail them now.
"It would behoove us to perform a proper inspection, do you not agree, master Perth?," Calbern asked, inclining his head towards me.
"Figure we should find out if they're hostile first?" I asked, looking around for where we might be able to approach one on its own. Something nice and isolated.
"Doubt they're holding hands and weaving friendship bindings, what with way the wyverns are cowering," Selvi said, thrusting her chin up towards the particularly curious wyvern. It seemed it’d followed us after all.
"Hostility does seem more likely than not, I'm afraid," Calbern agreed, his hand on his hilt. "I believe I can ascertain their capabilities, at the least."
"Yeah. We're not poking that hornet's nest without a proper plan," I said, stepping back from the edge and approaching my glider. "And definitely not doing so without Inertia. For all we know, these things are related to the Forgeborn."
I doubted it, since there didn't seem to be puffs of steam rising off them. But Inertia could keep her steam fully contained at times, if she felt the need to. She just didn't enjoy it.
"Ah. Master Perth, there is one more thing I should mention," Calbern called over the whipping wind.
I turned back, meeting his gaze as he gestured behind us. "This appears to be the correct location for the Infinite Furnace."
Blinking, I looked down, then turned to stare back at the gleaming profile of the bunker.
"Of course it is," I muttered.
…Mage Lord Isekai…
We didn't dawdle. Once I realized that all three of our goals were intertwined, there wasn't much reason to. Since neither the wyverns or the ant-like rollerbugs were attacking us, we split into three groups, each of us tracking one of the lines of machines going outward.
I went with Selvi towards the ocean. The rollerbugs were casting nets into the ocean from the top of the cliffs, then dredging up everything they could.
It seemed even they weren't willing to set foot into the deep waters.
As Selvi and I were turning back, I caught glimpse of something rising out of the water in the distance. It was a large fin. As I watched the fin rotated and a column of water shot high into the air.
A blowhole, I realized. I'd seen documentaries of whales on TV, on occasion, but I'd never had the chance to see a whale in real life. As I stared in rapt fascination, a second joined the first.
And then another. And another.
Soon, dozens of whales broke the surface. One even came up out of the water, nearly vertical as it soared upward.
Which was when I realized that despite the features they shared with the whales of Earth's oceans, these were definitely denizens of Ro'an. While they did have a general whale-like body, it was closer to an orca than the larger whales I'd been picturing. They also had glimmering strands of light that trailed along their undersides. The one that was rising had their underside lit up in violet and green lights, the pattern like an embroidered edging on a fancy dinner plate.
If that was all, I might've thought maybe they were just a rare or extinct variety I'd never heard of. Of course, that wasn't all. Not even close.
What made me cotton on to the fact they were creatures of Ro'an, was what happened next. Or more accurately, what didn't happen.
Instead of crashing back down into the water, as I'd expected, the whale like creature gave another flap of its frankly enormous tail, and a column of water rose up to push it even higher. At the same time, a deep, rich song filled the air, the sound causing all the water around the whale to ripple outward. It reminded me of the gondoliers of the City on the water, though on a scale far beyond those mortal storytellers. Its song filled me with a sense of wonder, a sort of belonging I’d only felt rarely throughout my life, despite the fact I couldn’t tease out the story.
Only after rising nearly five times its height, propelled along a column that grew not only in size, but in intricacy and detail, by then looking more like an elaborate tower of shimmering sunlight than mere ocean, did the whale allow itself to start its descent.
It did not simply crash. Such an act, I realized, would have been too crass for this majestic creature. No, the tower of water that carried it aloft, caught it, and the interwoven strands of water I'd thought mere decorations bloomed outward. As if the previous demonstration had been insufficient, in a grand display, the crashing foam rose up, playing out scenes. Imagery of whales, or perhaps one particularly special whale, performing grand feats.
Things such as fighting then defeating hydras and dragons. Jumping over an arch of rock even higher than the leap I'd just seen. Smashing through a forest of twisted brambles.
Honestly, the last seemed a little less impressive, though the details themselves were spectacular. All throughout, the whale’s song echoed, carried miles with surprising clarity.
I was so distracted by the unexpected show, it was only Selvi's muffled cry that kept me from veering into the nearby mountain.
After regaining my height, I looked back towards the whales. The show continued, though it seemed the first whale had finished, and it was time for lesser whales to show what they could do.
More leapt into the air, more crafted magical displays of beauty, and more sang their haunting songs of the challenges of the sea.
If I'd seen them first, I would've been stunned.
Yet it was obvious, when compared to the whale who'd risen five times its height into the air as though gravity were a suggestion, as though even that wasn’t its limit, they were all novices.
They continued their performances as they drifted further north, and I felt a pang of loss, knowing that they'd merely been passing by. Even they were preparing for the Howling season.
With more reluctance than I expected, I turned inland. Selvi and I swung back over the rollerbugs once more, and I was reminded of my grim duty.
They couldn't be allowed to spread their destruction.
There was too much beauty in this world I’d come to call home.
Comments
ThoMiCroN
These whales could become a touristic attraction in the future. Where I am we have the town of Tadoussac and the region of Charlevoix that are famous spots for whale-sighting.
Jason Hardman
With a bit of luck he can gain control of the golems as part of his domain. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some way to connect them to the central core.
