I found out what happened to Superior.

He had the good sense to send me a quick message the moment he was free, alerting me that after deep consideration, he had concluded that it was unfair I had my very own occult teacher while he’d missed out on that. So he was going to get his own tutor. With better hangar games, poles and a few other unmentionable items

A good investment I think, I’d have done the same if I were him.

Yank me out if you get in trouble, Prime. He paused. When you get in trouble. Hopefully by then I’ve learned a few extra tricks. Have fun in the Darklands, don’t talk to strangers and make sure you look both ways before crossing Logi catwalks.

We waved goodbye for a moment again, and he vanished back beyond the mite territory. The connection from the mite lantern dimming into a very faint line to his blood fractal on the other end beyond.

As for my current victim beyond the walls of this fortress, once the snake was ripped apart with the gun batteries and shards of the biome itself, there wasn’t much more of a resistance. Wrath and To’Orda had the good sense to get out of there after delivering a good opening for me to get the shots in, and the mite fortress admirably handled the rest by herself. With the complete chaos around here, most of the sphere that surrounded the fortress fell away in every direction, breaking apart from the sound waves coming from the fortress cannon rounds.

Once I was sure almost everything was dead or chased off, I got off the guns and started to make my way back outside.

The airlock door clicked green as I held my hand to the panel, and the fortress voice chirped a curt pre-recorded goodbye, and sealed the doorway behind me as I passed through.

Problem with Wrath and To’Orda clearing the area in the chaos: I had no idea where they’d gone and it had been ten minutes now. That wouldn’t have been a major problem, except that this was a biome where scanners ran the risk of upsetting the very delicate terrain. I swapped my view to infrared, but other than spotting a few of the fish running around, I couldn’t see any larger blips.

Which meant finding the pair flying around here was down to luck, visual sight, and possibly good hearing. Impossible.

I flicked through the HUD options and toggled the in-built navigation. A three dimensional compass showed up, already calibrated to the biome’s magnetic fields, and an orange nav point pinged just under my feet, along with an estimated distance.

Fortunately, Journey’s HUD kept it’s own internal sensors and map, so I wasn’t completely confused.

I could try and spend a few hours flying around the local area, looking for Wrath and To’Orda. The same area where a few dozen different swarms of machines would likely start coming to investigate the sounds real soon.

Or… just head directly to the rally point into the Darklands. The Odin were waiting for the group there, and I strongly suspected once Wrath and To’Orda failed to find me, they’d start heading there too.

I took a breath, launched an occult mirror outwards, and followed it with a lash that got me off the metal plating of the mite fortress and into the air. I spun myself midair, felt light pings across my armor as I flew through a shard of now inert glass, until I landed on the nearest slab.

And then I got to work and repeated that process a few dozen times over, in a zen-like meditation. Good practice for controlling the occult, especially with what I had in mind for the mite dimensional cape.

With good preparation, that thing could be the most ratshit item I have on my arsenal. I just needed the right practice.

Traveling from slab to slab was a fun little adventure in keeping quiet and out of the line of sight from other machines too. While I could probably deal with a swarm of fish, I also really didn’t want to unwrap that ration bar and end up with more than I could eat.

A few swarms of fish had showed up, checking in on the dead machine snake carrier near the center of the biome, but since I was under a communication blackout, they were too. Only the ones who were in hearing range had come, and I’d rapidly sped away from the murder site a while back.

The path to the rally point wasn’t very long for me, taking me only one hour to travel completely through. I had to halt my progress every now and then, as there were more of the snake machines lazily slithering in the air between the slabs. Massive things that were oddly silent, but clearly visible from the occult sight. I would have been more worried about all this, but knowing they weren’t using sensor pings of any kind to avoid breaking slabs, I knew they only relied on hearing and eyesight.

I had the occult sight, so I could hide myself deep within cracks long before any of them could spot me visually, and I’d also know exactly when they’d passed by and were out of range. Handy.

If I didn’t have the means to fly around like this, I think this biome would have been almost impossible to traverse. There were glass stairways and other slabs that would slowly pass into range of each other, letting someone theoretically jump from slab to slab, but it would take hours of waiting for each level to be in range. And they’d be harassed by the swarms of fish and snake carriers flying around here, since those slabs tended to be very open and exposed.

One hour later, I spotted the end of the biome. A massive white wall, with black dots all over it where tunnels would lead to the underpassage. One in specific was pinged with my HUD, where a small shelf ahead of the tunnel waited. And a few more moving balls of black feathers and gear waiting there.

They’d setup camp, affixed into the walls. Little upside down tents used like nests, where the Odin were quietly waiting. The machine fish swarms didn’t attack them unless they started flying around too close, according to Kres’s briefing on all this. So, sitting within their little nests, they were perfectly safe even if caught in visual sight.

They gave a beak shake when I landed, having gotten used to watching the human fly around faster than they could. I returned the Odin version of a nod, drew out my occult blade and started to scratch out a quick message in large letters.

‘BEAT YOU HERE.’

I’d write more, but it was taking a bit of time to cut this into the wall, and given it’s the standard imperial language instead of ancient human, there wouldn’t be any doubts for Wrath and To’Orda when they inevitably came here.

After that, I slunk into the underpassage, so I could properly hide from any visual sight by machines. Don’t want to start any kind of fight here. Kres followed behind me, hopping on the stone floor. “Were you successful in your ventures, human?”

I gave him a thumbs up, remembered once again they had no idea what that meant, and unfolded my newest item. “Want to see a magic trick?”

He was suitably impressed with what I could do. After that, I’d taken a short power nap on the wall side, then got back to reading through Hexis’s final tome of power for more interesting occult spells to use and practice.

It took Wrath and To’Orda seven hours to arrive, and both looked disheveled. Like they’d gone through a small adventure to get here. Or got caught multiple times into fights. To be fair to them, they lacked the soul sight that I had, so if they could spot the enemy, the enemy could spot them. And the enemy was on high alert. A lot of the fish by the fortress snake had died, but there were a lot of them. Some survivors would sneak out, join their fellows and snitch on us.

Tough world.

The Odin began to pack up their little nests back onto their backpacks, helped each other tie those down, and then swapped their perch with To’Orda, who just grunted at being the impromptu hoversled for the squad.

He can’t complain much, the birds weighed less than snow basically. And he had such giant wide shoulders, perfect for carrying an entire squad of squabbling ravens.

The darklands were everything the name suggested. The moment we crossed the underpassage, sneaking along the different snaking tunnels within the hour, we came out into the next strange biome, which according to machine maps, should lead to the sanctuary biome right after that contained only a grove and a pillar heart where Drakonis could be relaxing at.

Describing the Darklands was going to be a little difficult.

First of all, we were greeted into the Darklands by one human-looking post with a lantern of blue fire on top. It flickered there, shining pale light all around. The post itself looked decorative, gothic even. The lantern on top equally matched. It was at the center of a platform, with a few black steel benches here, as if we were in some old human train station. Except the stone ground under us was porous, with only the area around the lantern being smooth slabs.

The connection to that era ended there though. Just like the expanse behind us, this biome also had no floor. A few steps in any direction, and the platform would end, showing nothing but darkness beyond. Not even a proper cliff either, the platform jutted out of the wall completely.

There was no ceiling either, or at least it was lightless enough even Journey couldn’t see anything on any wavelengths up there. Scanner pings also simply never returned back.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Besides the pale lantern light here, there were smaller pale lights further off beyond the darkness, scattered around like stars but far brighter. They helped illuminate the outline of the zone.

If we were the size of ants, then this biome was built like a spike trap. Thousands of different stone pillars of different sizes, all mildly coming to a point the further up one went and they stretched out in the hundreds beyond. All of those pillars had small lights of lanterns just like the one on our platform, that helped illuminate the general silhouette of the spike.

Extending out from those lantern platforms, including from our own, was suspension bridges of various distances. Some seemed to stretch out forever, vanishing into the darkness before reappearing near the light of an extremely distant spike. Others were small enough I could see the entire bridge and where it connected to. Mostly. All of them went just about any direction, including upwards or downwards, but they at least went straight and didn’t have any weirdness there.

“So. What’s the catch to this place?” I asked, stepping up to one of the suspension bridges leading away from our platform out into the darkness.

“There is Death that floats beyond in the darkness.” Kres said. “Stay within the light’s edges, or you will die.”

If it was actual death, I think Father would have had a headache looking out into this zone given what his soul sight revealed for him. “What exactly causes the dying part?” I asked.

“We do not know.” Kres answered back. “Only that it is Death.”

“Don’t look at us for more info kiddo.” To’Orda’s rock said. “Machines aren’t in this biome for that reason too. Even non-sentient drones just drop dead if they fly off too far into the dark. Other than a few warnings on the files here, there ain’t no map, nothing. It’s like the pale lady didn’t bother to send anyone here, and To’Naviris also didn’t care to work here either once he realized his palaquine swarm would die off before being able to carry an organ anywhere.”

“The machine generals speak true.” Kres said. “The last time my expedition arrived here, we never found any trace of machines.”

“How did you survive out here?” I asked. “Doesn’t look to be anything that grows.”

“We did not.” Kres said. “The Expanse had nothing that grew, we could not replenish our rations. Once we reached here, we searched for food sources and found nothing as well, forcing us to return home the moment we approached the halfway point on our rations. THe only mercy we found were puddles of water forming on the rock ground.”

Hence why the Odin maps had ended here. And why they’d been quite happy with Wrath, To’Orda and myself being able to lug a lot more food and rations with us.

“We may have an alternative.” Wrath said, looking down at the rock. “I detect quite a plethora of biological signatures under. Insect life primarily, as well as fungi of various types living within the rocks.”

I swapped to infrared sight on my HUD. Wrath and To’Orda lit up, along with small balls of red and orange over all the Odin, superimposed over them. But they weren’t the only ones to light up. The entire rock was glowing slightly warm. And wiggling. I suddenly felt like I was standing on top of something alive.

“It’s rock.” Cathida said on the speakers. “Journey confirms it. The heat source is geothermal vents deeper within it. Everything else you’re seeing are insect maggots and some fungi. Assuming mushrooms are still made of the same thing up in this biome.”

“Edible?”

“For the toaster, yes.” Cathida said. “For you? Journey wants a sample first to test for pathogens and general safety.”

Wrath knelt down, and ran a hand on the platform floor. Then lifted and rubbed her finger with her thumb. “Moisture. Quite a lot of condensation.”

The Odin squad flew off To’Orda’s shoulders, landing on the ground, hopping around. “On our prior expeditions, the rock was too difficult to peck through.” One said. “However, water was abundant. Parts of the rock are impermeable, and collected small pools of water.”

I could see two already, Journey pointing them out before the Odin could find them. They were tiny. Like I’d cupped my hands and filled them with water. Enough for one gulp.

For the Odin, that was a good day or two’s supply of water. The perks of being tiny.

“The light source is too weak to supply standard vegetation,” Wrath said, hand spearing into the rock like it was some thin ice. She then dug a bit deeper, and pulled out some odd brown slime matter. “The energy source feeding this ecosystem likely stems from chemosynthesis. Quite interesting.”

Of course, she didn’t hesitate to eat the slime mold. After a few mouth smacks, she nodded to herself. “It is safe to consume for humans, however I am uncertain on if there are more bacteria that could be dangerous to your stomach flora. Further testing is needed.”

She then grabbed and yanked out a wiggling white caterpillar. A moment of munching later, she nodded again. “Equally safe to consume according to my spectrum analysis.”

Kres hopped over next to her. Then speared down into the hole she’d dug with her hand, yanked out a wiggling white grub, tossed it into the air and then swallowed it all in one gulp. The rest of the Odin quickly hopped over to him, and began to do the same.

It was, according to them, tasty. I’d rather have a few cooked first personally, but I’d had a few snacks on the way through the underpassage, so I was good to go.

“How far away from the light sources could we get before Death hits us?” I asked, going over to the suspension bridge. “If you discovered any patterns to that during your expedition here.”

“It is not instant, you have some time to rectify your positioning.” Kres said. “First will be a feeling of creeping doom. A sense that things are not correct. Then an internal cold of some kind. After which, we are uncertain as the Odin who’d stood in the darkness reported that as the last sign of her condition, before she fell down from her perch dead. After that, we did not repeat any other experiments.”

“I’m insulated with the armor here, not sure I’ll get that tell-tale sign.”

“Not physically cold, that I remember.” Kress said. “Something other. Indescribable. I am less certain about how your armor will affect the speed of this. However if you feel that sensation, turn back immediately.”

“How long could I theoretically travel in the darkness before that happens?” I asked, “My armor’s got a timer function, I could get something clocked in for precision.

“Our companion only lasted a few more seconds before dying after she reported that feeling.” Kress said. “Turn back immediately. Do not take any gambles human, even you will die.”

I would strongly argue against that, I had a lot of backup plans in store for death given my soul fractals, and I was running around with a Feather who’s main occult ability was to either jail a human soul, or heal someone up completely. Of which she’s had a lot of practice doing both.

The suspension bridges were metal wiring on both sides, bolted down braided iron holding it up, and what looked to be metal and wood rungs under. Like a liquid mix of the two. Journey’s HUD made a quick scan and returned steel, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin along with some kind of binding agent that kept the steel interconnected with the wooden sections.

“Should hold our weight.” Cathida said. “Mites made this to be traversable in the end. I’d say you could probably sprint. You can run faster than you can fly.”

“Think this Death they’re talking about is a gas of some kind? Repelled by light maybe, or turned harmless by it.” But that wouldn’t explain why machines don’t travel around here or broke apart.

“Journey doesn’t detect anything, but it’s also begging you not to experiment with this. Poor thing. It’s also preparing medical suites because it’s calculated you’re going to do that anyhow.”

This particular suspension bridge led outwards to the first spike, maybe a good two hundred yards. The centerpoint of this bridge was shrouded in darkness, but only a few dozen yards before light started revealing the other end.

“Is there any protection from this Death thing if we’re on bridges?” I asked, pointing out many such occurrences on the other suspension bridges around the place.

“There is not.” Kres said. “You will need to be quick and fly fast to the other end.”

“I see.” It looked like wide open territory, but looks were deceptive: This was a maze. I could see further down how some bridges led to sections of pillars that didn’t have any other bridges connected outwards. Which meant the person would have to race backwards, or climb directly up the stone spike. Which had quite a lot of darkness as the different levels with lanterns of light were scattered around.

Journey zoomed ahead, and I could see some of the stone spires had platforms with a lantern and no suspension bridges connected to those safezones. Climbing around was possible. Just difficult.

“Wrath, machine maps have where the sanctuary zone is further off right? Can you point out the general direction we should be going towards?”

Journey’s HUD pinged an orange square, along with a distance measurement. Seventeen miles away. “That’s some distance. This biome must be huge.”

“It is non-standard shaped,” Wrath said. “The longest measurement possible is estimated at fifty three miles.”

“Good thing you didn’t continue the expedition here Kres.” I said. “Seems like this biome is tailor made to get lost in.”

The birds all looked at me, and I had a feeling they were more confused at what I’d said. “It would be difficult to get lost in this biome.” Kres said. “The aurora is very stable, and can be seen when looking near the lanterns.”

“The what now?” I asked, looking out to the biome beyond. Just distant lights and bridges. I didn’t see any kind of aurora here.

Kress hoped back and forth. “Hmm. Forgive me, I do not know a word in ancient human for it.”

“I can cover that.” To’Orda’s rock said. “Tell me the normal way.” There was a projection above him doing some odd iconography with an odin shaped avatar, likely repeating the same words in the Odin language.

Kres made a few movements with one or two caws. Journey couldn’t translate that at all, so it didn’t even bother to try.

“Okay, he’s saying the magnetic field in this biome’s pretty stable so they use that to navigate.”

“They can… see magnetic fields? What?”

“Yeah, birds see it like a distant rainbow, except it’s not a gradient of colors, just a band of slightly lighter color. Giant circle that’s constantly there anytime they look out into the distance from anywhere. Make sense now?”

“I’m just surprised they can see that at all.”

“Something in their eyes that you lot lack.” The rock said. “Boss and To’Wrathh can both see it too, and probably your outdated junk of an armor, if you ask it nicely.”

“Come here and say that to my face.” Cathida hissed out. “I could crush you in one hand you little git.”

“Ohhh noooo, help, help, I’m being threatened.” The rock even projected a mock image looking like a damsel in distress.

Looks like the rock flipped the coin and landed on heads, because Cathida started cackling at that instead of getting angrier about it.

At least until Wrath straightened up, wings flaring open. “Hold. We have a problem.”

I had my armguard and rifle out immediately, looking around for trouble. “What did you see?”

“To’Sefit.” Wrath said. “She has arrived in this biome, I’ve gotten a location ping warning. She is still far away enough that we are safe for the moment. It seems they correctly guessed our overall path, though not to the precise location.”

“How’d you know she’s here?” To’Orda’s rock said. “They cut the big lug and myself off the group chat, plus they keep sending bogus coordinates. I ain’t seeing any way to track them.”

“I seized control of Avalis’s comms systems prior, and sent out a viral package. I recall you had the correct instinct to avoid even touching that attachment, but To’Sefit did not share your paranoia.”

The rock laughed. “Avalis was constantly telling her she had crabs and should do a full checkup. Sucks to be her.”

Cathida equally cackled. “The rock’s starting to grow on me like a bad rash, I should do a checkup myself.”

“And a very merry fuck you too, little miss anger.” The rock huffed back, sending an image of arms crossed over its doddle avatar.

“We will need to be strategic about the use of my backdoors.” Wrath said, “The moment her attempt at an ambush is foiled, she will suspect foul play and take Avalis’s concerns more seriously.”

“Right. This could be our first and only chance to knock her out of the game in one go.” I said, going through a quick list of my gear and making sure it’s all green. “Swear on all three gods, she dies today.”