Milc/C.J. Milnes
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Chapter 49 - You stay the hell away from me
🕑 Added 2025-05-07 20:44:19 +0000 UTCI appeared inside a dungeon cell. The air was rank with rot and filth. I looked up and nodded to Glimpse, who cawed quietly.
I don't like this plan, Raymond. It is too risky! He sent telepathically, pulling back the metal band I’d have been stored in for our flight.
“It’ll be fine, bloke, I’m hardly alone!” I whispered back.
The kill team had taken a beating over the last few weeks. They’d had to switch hideouts a dozen times. After the first few nights of mayhem, destroying food supplies, poisoning water sources, and assassinating Mortimer’s Soulbound, the locals had cottoned on. The local Soulbound had actively hunted my men to the point that less than half of them remained.
“Go get Powtu and the ones that are left. Get them out of the city. Kril knows what to do. They’ll get their Souls when I’m done with this little job. Then get back here and be ready to pull us out if shit goes sideways,” I said softly, reaching up to rub Glimpse's forehead through the metal bars of the cell. He gave me a beady-eyed glare and flew off without further comment.
It had been Kril who’d figured out we could stack storage spaces. We could store a bead or ring chock-full of food or water within another ring. It had revolutionised our supply chains from the river and the herds in the north. Naturally, my rings weren’t full of food. I held out a hand and began pulling out my warband.
“That’s fucking weird!” hissed Jandak as he oved to inspect the heavy wooden door. It was bound with iron and looked capable of holing even one of the Fangs if it had to.
Mune and Kos both moved over to join him, Kos peering through the narrow slit at the top.
“It’s quiet out there,” he muttered. “Too quiet.”
“Infiltation successful. No worthy targets within sensor range,” said Bob as a pair of other golems appeared beside him.
“Keep it down, bloke! I hissed. I made my way over to the door and snorted. I activated Shape Earth, and the stone to the right of the heavily built portal flowed and melted into a passage even Bob could fit through without squeezing. I stuck my head out and listened carefully. I couldn’t hear anyone, or more importantly, anything, moving nearby.
“Stealth not required, no nearby targets of note,” the godly-golem replied in Aresk's voice.
“If there are any fucking targets nearby, shut the fuck up! Once the killing starts, it won’t stop till we’re away from here, so let’s delay it as long as possible!” Mune snapped quietly.
“We need to split up to cover more ground. The Source is down here somewhere, but Janko couldn’t find out where before he died. Kos, Mune, take your bots and head left, the rest of us will go right. If you find the thing, send a bot to find us and hold tight. I’ll deal with Hadesti’s pearl, OK? Do not attempt to access it yourselves!” I reiterated their orders once more and got eyerolls in return.
“Yes, Father. We’ll be good little warriors and won’t try to steal your fun!” chuckled Kos.
“Taking the locus of the God of Death’s presence in this world is not going to be fun, you ass. Just trust me on that.” My mind flashed back to my struggle to get to Poseidon's pearl at the source of the Vialith River in the north. Fun was not the word I would use to describe the experience.
“We know, Mond, don’t worry so much!” Mune grinned and, with a nod to Kos, the pair slipped away silently into the dungeon complex below Mortimer’s palace in Urkash, followed by their golems.
Jandak and I went in the other direction, followed by our golems. I peered through the slits in the cell doors and caught glimpses of emaciated bodies, lounging dejectedly in a corner of their room through a few of them.
“Not as many as I’d have thought,” muttered Jandak. “Shit-sitters love to lock each other in boxes.”
“He’s probably used most of the criminals to make whatever he calls the monster on the walls. I expect these people are valuable in some way,” I muttered. We neared an intersection, and I waved my friend and the golems back as I went forward. I paused before looking out, held my breath, and listened. The quiet and steady beat of my heart was all I could hear, so I took a quick glance in both directions. Lights flickered to the right, and the left led into darkness.
“Into the light to the dark?” I whispered.
“We’re hunting for the God of Death, Mond. Darkness,” Jandak whispered firmly. I shrugged, it was a coin flip anyway, and headed to the left.
We found a set of narrow stone stairs and slipped down them silently. I was impressed by how quietly the golems could move when they wanted to. Their metal-tipped legs made no sound as we went deeper into the dungeon complex.
The next floor was below ground level and was lit only by a handful of torches at intersections. We moved from darkness to brief light, then we had to pause to let our eyes readjust to the gloom.
“How many people do they keep locked up like this?” muttered Jandak. “So many tiny boxes to lock free humans away in.” We had paused just past a torch, having moved back into the shadows with the light behind us to wait until we could see properly again.
“This is pretty extensive for a prison, mate,” I whispered.
We explored the rest of this level and found that all the cells were empty. We discovered another staircase and headed down to find the same on the next level.
I checked in with Glimpse for a moment. He had successfully extracted Powtu and his men and was just dropping them off within our siege lines. Kril was in the process of bolocking them for something, but I came back to my more urgent reality and switched back to my own senses.
“What’s the fucking point? We’re ascending demi-gods, and the city is surrounded by nomad rabble! We shouldn’t be fucking stuck down here,” cursed a voice in the distance. The stairs were too long for each floor to be only a few feet below the one above. We were at least a hundred feet below the surface now, and the layers of stone between each floor must have been thick. I didn’t want to waste the mana on Shape Earth just to check, but I was confident we were now deep underground.
“The Champion told us to guard her,” came another voice from the shadows around a corner.
“We ain’t been told to guard her. Just to kill her if ‘that one’ comes anywhere near us.” A third voice, harsher than the rest.
“You know that ain’t right. She’s nursing a baby. Juliper will curse you for murderin’ a nursing mother,” the first speaker argued back.
As I crept closer to the voices, I motioned for Jandak and the bots to stay behind me. I began to creep closer to the guards, whose voices came from around a corner ahead of me. Not watching the stairs was unprofessional, so I had no qualms about killing these amateurs.
“We’re gods in our right now, Lastan. Soon we’ll parley with the deities on an equal footing like King Mortimer.” Number three again. Morty had been fibbing to his minions about how he interacts with the gods. Last time I saw him at the conclave of the gods he’d looked like he about to shit himself. Naughty Morty. I would have to disabuse them of this notion. I made to move forward, slipping my dagger into my right hand when I felt a poke on my arm. I glanced back, and Jandak flashed a series of hand signs in the tribal raiding language.
The literal translation of the gesture was "try to steal the female aurox," but I took his meaning. I shrugged and shook my head. There was no chance I was trying to escort a woman and a young baby out of here before I had found the Source. “Later,” I replied with flickering fingers.
He shook his head at me angrily and pointed at a ring on his finger. Ok, we could stash this woman and her kid in a pocket dimension while we got on with the mission and figure out why this “champion” they’d mentioned was important enough to take his loved ones hostage. He must be someone worth controlling. No, I wasn’t going to ransom his wife and child. I’m not that evil. Sometimes, even in my line of work, doing a good deed, paying it forward, pays dividends in the long run.
Even if rescuing this damsel in distress brought me no benefit, it would still be the right thing to do. I thought for a moment of Fay and my as-yet-unamed son. Jandak was right.
I nodded and slunk closer to the corner. I had no mirror or miniature camera to let me sneak a peek around the corner, so I waited for a moment, then cast Fire Spirit in the middle of the passage ahead of me. The conjuration spun and lunged towards where I’d heard the voices a moment before. Startled shrieks rang out as I ran round the corner and threw myself at the nearest man. My dagger flashed, burying itself in his throat. As the blood spurted out over my fist, I snatched it back, causing a torrent of crimson to flow down his chest with every beat of his heart.
I pivoted, swaying my body aside in anticipation of an attack from my victim's companions, but Jandak and the golems had rushed them and put them down quickly. Bob dropped his target’s severed arms to the sides and assumed an innocent position of parade rest.
Soulbound Servant slain x1
Twenty Souls harvested.
“Oh my god!” cried a woman's voice from the cell that overlooked the table and chairs the guards had been using.
“Easy, woman. We won’t harm you,” Jandak said, raising his hands defensively as he moved to examine the door.
“You stay the hell away from me and little James!” she snapped, and I heard her shuffle away from the door. Jandak looked at the door and glanced at me. I moved forward and then paused.
“Bob, I’d rather not waste the mana. Can you get the door out of the way?” I asked. The golem looked it over with his multiple glowing blue eyes. His shoulder tentacles swung over and dug into the wood by the hinges. Splitters flew, and his more human arms buried their fingers in the lock and handle.
He leaned back and tore the door from its frame with a loud crunch that made me wince.
“They’re dead, Mond. Doesn’t matter if they hear us.” Jandak moved into the cell and spoke quietly to the woman, but she became increasingly hysterical.
“No! Stay the hell away! My husband will kill you if you lay a hand on me!” Her baby started bawling, loud infant sobs ringing out as it responded to the mother's fear.
I heard Jandak sigh. A slap rang out, and then the sound of the baby crying cut off. I raised an eyebrow as he emerged from the cell alone. He tapped the ring on his finger and shrugged.
With our kidnapped innocents safely stored away, we explored the rest of the floor and found nothing. None of the other cells were in use.
The next set of stairs led to a much rougher-looking set of corridors. Whereas above the walls were lined with cleanly cut stones, this floor was rough-hewn, seemingly from the very bedrock of the city above. Wooden supports lined the walls, and the thick beams reinforced the ceiling to prevent a collapse. It felt newer than the previous floors.
The only lighting down here was from faintly luminescent fungus beginning to populate the walls and Bob’s glowing eyes. We moved down the single passageway in the eerie blue light of the golem's gaze.
It twisted and turned, winding ever deeper underground. I had no idea how far down we were now, but the sense of tons of rock hanging over my head, barely propped up by flimsy wooden supports, made the place feel claustrophobic.
Finally, the tunnel opened into a large chamber, at the far end of which was a portal of complete darkness. No light entered or escaped that darkness.
“I think this is it. Bob, go find the others and bring them back here,” I said over my shoulder as I strode forward and stretched out a hand to touch the void.
