“And that leads us to the final, and most important metric of the campaign spoils as a whole: Three hundred thirty seven armors in total, my lord.” The Logi accountant confirmed. “We have also increased our population ranks by five hundred and seventy two. Thirty six percent of all power cells acquired in the raids have been turned to use in heating operations.”

Lord Atius hummed in thought, looking over his assembled council. Youngest of which was Kidra Winterscar, sitting off to the side, simply watching the procedures. “I will leave the military affairs and distribution of the relic armors to my First Blade.” His head inclined to Shadowsong at that. “What of the migration status?”

All reports returned by just about every House showed the people within the clan would have a near unquenchable taste for moving underground now that so many armors were in their control. A fact Atius had long deduced was intentional.

Their intelligence teams had tracked down where the slavers had obtained their freshly printed and unmarked relic armors: Mite forges under the control of machines. Outright delivered and carried by them out into the open, where raider teams would come down to collect and bring them up to the surface.

Given To’Aacar had been killed, that the supply of relic armors hadn’t halted but outright increased in amount led to one conclusion: To’Avalis. He’d taken over the reins of the operation, and needed the clan to be flushed out of the surface underground, so that two fugitives would equally be carried down with the clan.

Shrewd plan. To’Avalis didn’t care if one small clan of humans had more armors than normal. In the grand scheme of things, that wouldn’t tip any needles, nor would it be his problem to deal with. What he cared was that this clan of humans were those who could be used as emotional weight to play against To’Wrathh and Keith. Neither of which would stay hiding on the surface or escaping away to some other clan.

Outright feeding the clan this many armors would inevitably force a schism. Even if Atius himself ordered the clan to remain above on the surface, more than half the clan would certainly rebell and go their own way down.

The only winning move then had been to take complete ownership, and announce the official migration himself. Get ahead of all that before it began to tear the clan apart as Avalis expected.

Much to the dismay of the local alcohol production, as if To’Wrathh’s passing hadn’t already tapped the clan dry.

This announcement stretched their last remaining rations even further. Bootleg and unregulated product were now flying off the shelves, making an entire new logistics problem.

But so long as the Reachers in charge of retrofitting the airspeeders weren’t getting hammered or going blind from poorly made moonshine, Atius could forgive some revelry from the clan and look the other way.

There hadn’t yet been a case of blindness from the homemade booze, as there was an unworded understanding between the clan Chenobis and the bootleggers: Make bad product that is harmful to the clan, and they’d get shut down and jailed faster than they could say ‘cheers.’

Otherwise, the Chenobis were instructed to mostly look the other way. Including the odd increase in homemade projects from the forges printing out metal and glass distillation equipment for ‘science’ as the Reachers swore up and down about.

“So long as they’re not drunk or hungover when the time comes to depart, that’s all we require.” Atius had said. “They know better than to endanger the clan.”

Shadowsong huffed. “The Retainers will be distributing messages within the next day to remind the clan the departure date is imminent and no one should be hungover or hammered during such a time when duty is called on. I have full faith in my House, and the knights I have served with. We will be present and prepared without fail.”

His gaze looked over to the rest of the council chambers, where each Prime readily shook their heads in agreement, implying their House certainly wouldn’t be the ones to be caught having problems.

“The Houseless and Castless are now the population majority,” One of the Logi councilman said. “Given the new influx of clan members who are still applying to multiple Houses for acceptance, they will likely be the most undisciplined in comparison.”

“And your proposed suggestion to counter this?” Atius asked.

“Respectfully, we believe an appearance by yourself may galvanise most members. They are already excited about the idea of the Houses increasing in size or new houses being founded with the spread of additional territory underground, however all surface dwellers respect the Deathless above all.”

“Aye, that can be arranged.” Atius agreed. “Are other preparations for the migration complete?”

“The Logi have already prepared a five thousand three hundred twenty step plan for adapting to the underground, given the topology scans and data returned from scout teams underground.” The representative said. “All great castes have been contracted and their expertise weighed into the document, and all have signed off on it. We expect basic housing to be setup within three weeks, and the full settlement operational within four months after arrival. It will still take a year before all items are settled, accounting for new construction mostly taking the time.”

Atius had seen the document already. Exhaustive, written by multiple houses all working together, including anything from how to transport and re-install aquaponics systems within the new territory, to mass construction plans and city layouts to be added to the fortress they’d scouted underground and House expansions.

Already the Logi had completed most of the mothballing steps required to seal this clan colony up and leave it sufficiently prepared for the next migrating clan to take over, however many centuries that would be.

Most likely what would happen would be future clans in the area choosing to migrate downwards and join clan Altosk’s new city.

After all, the only reason clans didn’t migrate down was that Undersiders rejected them as barbaric. Clan Altosk would not.

And despite the songs about prior clans traveling down to settle, Atius had never seen any recorded history of that actually happening.

Most likely, those songs were simple hope to give people something to work forward to. What ended up happening anytime there were more than seventy relic armors, was a schism between those who wanted to already migrate down, and those who believed that number of armors was too low. Of which, Atius knew from experience, was correct - far too low.

Their clan was in the unique position of having three hundred and thirty seven armors all recovered before any schism could happen. Nobody, including himself, could argue the clan was not prepared for the migration with that number. “Three hundred thirty seven armors.” Atius muttered, his pen tapping on his old desk. A number that rivaled smaller Undersider cities. His own city, five hundred years prior, had only two hundred ninety three armors, and they had survived for decades under the pillar heart. Would have survived even longer, had To’Aacar not taken notice of his existence.

Three hundred thirty seven clan knights, all trained on the winterblossom technique and brimming with occult powers, knightbreakers left by Keith, and all the occult blades the clan could produce. Even if they intended to settle on more hostile lands outside of To’Wrathh’s sphere of influence, Atius was certain their little clan could fight and hold off almost indefinitely against any amount of machines. To the point Relinquished herself may be forced to send more than one Feather at them.

How long could they remain unnoticed by the machine empire? His instincts warned him to remain on the surface, where his people would remain safe and alive.

Alive. But not living. He knew what his people needed, and even if he sat them all down and explained how death was inevitable on a long enough timeline for their descendants, they would all still decide it was better to take fate into their own hands.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit NovelBin for the authentic version.

And their descendants would inevitably survive one way or another. They were surface dwellers after all. Survival was what they did.

“I will appear in person to the Houseless later tomorrow, and make an appeal for everyone to be on their best foot. Perhaps the saying that the next time they will be drunk would be underground in a large home of their own might be appealing to most.”

He turned to the Logi, who quickly flipped through the presentation. “We do have increased distilleries and an entire district dedicated to revelry already penned and allocated for in the documents, my lord. Perhaps you would like a copy to display during your announcement?”

Atius gave the man a wry smile. “Aye. Perhaps I could fit that into the speech, lad.” With a little more flair, that could work.

----

In a path that was growing quickly familiar to him, he made his way down the small catwalks, flanked by two chenobis, until he reached the communal kitchens. There, he found who he was looking for.

The small gangly teenager working hard with a team of cooks, breaking down flour and insect carapaces in order to make the standard day’s base rations. While better and more refined foods existed, that would come at a monetary value, something not all clan members wanted to spend depending on their current finances. Basic free meals that gave all the nutrients needed for survival were always offered. And the cooks here took it upon themselves as a challenge to find ways to make frostbloom taste edible.

Sadly, Atius had a personal theory that Frostbloom was intentionally made terrible tasting. After all, if Tsuya was behind it, she wanted humans to survive on the surface but only that - survive. She had to keep the surface unappealing to most, so that all of humanity didn’t simply travel here and hide. Relinquished would come looking. In a way, the Undersiders served as a lightning rod for her attention.

Making the only source of nutrition on the surface something almost unpalatable would be among her strategies.

As for the clan kitchens here, the station the little teenager was working on would be soon freeze drying the cooked insect bread and then wrapping it with prepared frostbloom along with a few herbs and fruits to attempt masking the flavor, before they would be crated up for knights and Retainers to consume as rations.

Possibly in some long future expedition underground at this rate.

The kitchen came to a complete stop when they noticed their clan lord step in, everyone instantly giving him a salute. He waved them off amicably as usual, walking to the small boy who looked back nervously. “How is the surface treating you, lad?” He asked.

“Uhh, getting the hang of it.” Actus said. “Insect dust has a lot of weird properties compared to just multi-purpose flour, and you people have so many different types of flour up here too. It’s odd, but nothing I can’t handle. Everyone’s really welcoming me in,” He shot a glance around at the rest of his team who were focused on working through the bakery section. “They aren’t giving me any preferential treatment because of what I am so far, I’m… uh, thankful?”

Atius reached a hand out and shook the boy’s shoulder affectionately. “I am glad to hear they’re taking my orders seriously. Once you are done with your half shift, report to the center training barracks, we will continue training your occult side today with the others.”

“Yes clan lord,” Actus said, giving a slight, awkward bow. “I’ll let uncle Quath know I’ll be busy later today.”

Atius laughed, “I’m certain that man can find something else to do quite easily.”

A peculiar travel band, that one. Pilgrimages were usually multiple airspeeders all together moving as a convoy to the surface clans. This time around, a merchant had come with one single airspeeder, and not a single pilgrim with them at all. In effect, they’d only brought a few refugees seeking asylum.

Thirteen of them in effect. Two elderly, others mostly in their thirties, a few teenagers like Actus here, and one seven year old girl with a rather inquisitive personality. She’d known Kidra by name and had demanded to see her above anyone else.

Normally that’d be laughed away. An uncasted child asking to see the prime of a Retainer House, especially one as powerful as House Winterscar.

Even as an undersider pilgrim, that would have been met with a few headpats and a fond explanation that maybe Lady Kidra would come, and they’d at least send a message.

This time around, the chenobis had taken her request with all due seriousness, immediately kneeling down and complying with the seven year old girl’s every request. As to why?

Deathless. A seven year old Deathless. And so were the rest of the thirteen including Actus.

The new generation. He knew becoming Deathless had halted his ageing permanently, and so he hoped the little girl wouldn’t remain seven years old forever more. That would be a bit of a problem to the poor chenobi who were honor bound to follow any order given by a Deathless.

All of them had been trying to escape the undersider gangs and military, as both sides now wanted to press gang them into service while they were still untrained and unprepared to defend themselves. The old Deathless were too far scattered, too many underground still fighting. That left a power vacuum where nobody could protect the new generation from being preyed on by larger systems of power.

And so one little merchant named Quath had found a ruthless new venture: Smuggle hiding Deathless up to the surface, where they would be promised protection and training. Lord Atius had no qualms with such a plan either. He could take his time to train the ones who wanted to learn how to protect themselves, and equally instill them with at least a sense of morality and justice, or at least a sense of not abusing their powers over others.

When Quath had learned this little clan had beaten back an entire slave invasion, earning more relic armor than people had ever considered possible, he’d been understandably interested. When he heard rumors of how the clan planned to migrate down to establish a new city within the month, he was far more interested in staying and establishing a new trade empire here.

He saw the promise Clan Altosk offered simply by their existence. An entire army of sword saints. He saw history in the making.

Given his connections and abilities, Quath was a good pickup for the clan. Merchants such as him would thrive well and assist in the overall migration.

But more importantly, he had given the clan lord some news on the Winterscars traveling underground with To’Wrathh. They were alive, doing well, and still undercover as of his last encounter with them. No casualties, and clearly still on their mission. Avalis must be ripping his artificial hair out of his head, wherever that Feather was.

Lord Atius hummed, making his way back to the sanctum to continue the mapping efforts among the other Retainer Houses. They had already locked in a good location to migrate for the moment, a mite fortress with vertical farm fields built under its walls. It was apparently a jungle under there, as vegetation had grown rampant. Most of the city was protected under a solid metal dome and the surrounding mountains, slits built for weapon encampments to aim outwards, along with artificial sunlight built within the dome. The fortress had many tiers, using vertical space to its best. Thousands of empty rooms and ventilation systems. A lot of it needed some demolition and repairs into something that was actually functional according to the Reachers, but nothing they couldn’t fix up.

And the outer fields beyond the dome had walls, deep trenches and encampments every few hundred feet, allowing expansion and roadways to be built within those trenches. They could make bridges above for pedestrian access and make the entire city bloom.

The surrounding land was wide and expansive, but ended into channels with mountains colliding with the roof layer. This would create natural barriers and chokepoints the clan could control around the territory. Checkpoints and cities built into the mountains could be made just about everywhere. And the fortress itself was in the deepest recesses of that biome, pushed up against the underpassage mountain. They would collapse the entrances there, so that any traveler would need to venture through the entire biome first before they reached the fortress itself.

Even the weather in that biome was a cozy set of temperatures that would overheat most environmental suits.

Such a site that would have been colonized centuries ago by Undersiders - if it had had a single pillar heart. Unfortunately, without such a feature, undersiders chose more poor ground to settle, as a pillar heart would be the ultimate defense.

For the clan, they would take the risk and use their own might to repel machine attacks. Although, it was much more likely those may be of a far lower frequency, as the machines in this domain had once been under To’Wrathh’s command.

They were, according to the reports returned from the knights that had done the mapping, happy to assist and often traded with the clan knights with the same ease and ability as they would others. A small machine town had been built up hand in hand with To’Wrathh Chosen, who lived in the biome next door.

The last that the scout expedition returned, the town was still unpacking their airspeeders there, but the leadership seemed quite warm to clan knights, even allowing them deep within the budding city.

Hilarious to consider that Undersiders viewed the ‘surface savages’ with more disdain than even the machines and human castaways did. He’d keep the Chosen at arm’s length, as Relinquished always had a hand anywhere the machines went, but otherwise there could be some peace and trade between their respective cultures.

Regardless, the orders for airspeeder recalls had been done already, people were already preparing their possessions for the long travel downwards. Today marked the last day people would drink out in public to cheer the events on, there was work to be done.

All Lord Atius could hope for is that Feathers like Avalis did not come searching for additional hostages to hold against the Winterscars traveling underground. And if he decided to, then the clan would fight back with absolutely everything it had.

Given their armaments, skills and martial culture, Atius was uncertain what the clan’s future held. Would they become the heart of a new empire that could resist the machine empire on their own? Or would they be eventually overwhelmed once Relinquished noticed them?

Atius had a strong feeling they would succeed for at least the next century to come however. Not forever, nothing lasts forever.

But long enough to matter.