Chương 419: The Crack of Doom

The crack was not small as an entry point for Milo, but he pondered how the CHIMERA had ascended through it and finally came to the conclusion that the machine had jettisoned its biological pieces and reconfigured its hull to fit through the four-foot wide opening. Scrapes on the rock and places where it had chewed the gneiss to create a passage showed its path upward. He spent an hour looking at the rock at the top of the crack, prying into crevices and removing ash and soot from many of them.

The path of the CHIMERA was scoured clean, indicating that the soot, if it was that, had come before the machine, which fit what the golem had said. Carver hadn't let anyone into the throne room initially, saying it was not fit to look at, and worried about retrieving the last bodies. When he opened the doors after several hours, the walls were cleaned and the bodies lay in a row, sealed in stone coffins. But the crack hadn't been cleaned, leaving Milo clues.

He filled several vials, sealed them, then scrubbed his hands and claws with the harsh gear cleaner that the Engineers always had on hand. He took the vials to Gendifur.

"These may contain clues about the gas that killed the city. I think something burned and carried the poison upward." She took a vial, stared at it, then put it all away.

"It's a poison, that's for sure, and I think it might be mycological in nature. I'm getting some odd clues, but I need my full set of tools, and I want Harry to look at it as well. If it is from some type of mushroom, he'll figure it out." Milo returned to the crack, ready to begin his descent. His dwarven friends had helpfully found a large bucket and a thousand-foot rope to lower him down, but he passed on their help.

"It's easier if I climb down under my own power. No chance of something severing the rope or a miscommunication." Captain Whale puffed on her cigar and looked down the crack.

"And if it ends up in a thousand-foot drop into a huge cavern? Those exist down there, you know."

"Oh, I know. I've been in a few. I'll crawl along the ceiling until I find a way down, or come back up." The nonchalant way he said it impressed even some of the scavengers. They watched with a great bit of jealousy as he brought out his Smuggler's Stash and equipped the gear he might need. Pitons, a small hammer, a coil of thin silken rope, and several small pieces of cheese that were placed strategically in his pockets.

They watched as flexible, shimmering bone plates covered his entire body, and sharp claws extended from his fingertips and toes. Some of the Scavengers had expressed doubt about a few of the tall tales the Engineers had told about Brother Milo. That doubt faded away as they watched him move down the crack and into the darkness at the speed of a fast walk. Whale turned to Sledgemonkey, "I've rethought some of my trepidation about making the Hollow a full partner in the upcoming expedition."

He tried to keep a straight face, but his eyes sparkled.

"Do tell. And what brought this on?" She punched him in the shoulder affectionately.

"Damn, you're learning how to use some sarcasm with a straight face. I knew that hanging around was having a good effect on you." She took him by the arm and escorted/dragged him from the room.

"I've got a bottle of good rum we can use to celebrate the agreement. Let's go find Clawhammer and get this all settled, and then maybe you and I can celebrate some more." Sledgemonkey turned to his brother Engineers with pleading eyes, only to find them involved in a game of poker at a table next to the fissure, keeping vigil until Milo returned. Only Two-Screws looked his way, but that was to wink and turn back to the cards.

"Who's up for a game of stud poker with Queen's wild?" Milo, meanwhile, was carefully exploring as he went downward. The fissure was easy to climb, the rough rock yielding to his claws. He was careful to always have at least three limbs gripping the rock, and took his time, looking ahead into the darkness and pushing his Stone Sense into the rock surface. After roughly four hundred feet down, he found where the crack had cut through a tunnel. He decided this was a great spot for a break.

Moving down one side for a dozen yards, he came to a small cavern. The walls were covered in soot, and nothing was alive here. Someone had been here, though. From the looks of it, this was used as a rest stop by the dwarves that came from deeper down. Two stone firepits, broken tools, and an old cooking pot were in a small alcove. Curious, he moved to the other half of the tunnel and traveled down it for several hundred feet until his way was blocked. A web stretched across the tunnel, blocking his way.

Beyond it, more webs were everywhere with large web-wrapped bundles hanging on the ceiling. Hanging in one of the webs was the remains of a huge spider, with a body bigger than his, and with legs over twelve feet long. It was obviously dead, only its hard chitin remaining. Something was odd about the webbing, and he carefully touched it. Rather than soft webbing, it was steel wire. Very hard steel wire. His claws cut it easily, though, and he unhooked half the web blocking the passage and bent it back like a door.

Getting closer, he could identify the corpse. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Steel Spinner Corpse (Desicated) The body of a predatory spider. These large arachnids secrete a powerful acid that can dissolve metals and stone. They use these materials to fashion their webs.

Some Sages have argued for centuries over whether the Steel Spinners and Stone Spinners are two different breeds of arachnid, or it's simply that some prefer to work with one material over the other. In any case, creatures paralyzed by their acidic poison and captured by them can rarely break free, even if they survive the poison. The webs are highly prized for their strong wire, both by mechanics and artists. The House of Femore in Bloth is famous for its captive Steel Spinners.

The brood is fed daily with rare Deep Iron ore, and their webs are harvested and sold, bringing income and status to House Femore Milo suspected the hanging pods were dwarves, waylaid on their travels upward. The Engineers could rig a winch with enough cable, and they could retrieve the bodies and inter them in Cracked Rock, a better resting place than this. How deep the spider nest went, he couldn't tell. They would have to move through it, slowly cutting the wire webs and carefully removing the bodies.

He retreated the way he came and continued his descent. As Whale had predicted, he came to a huge cavern, with the floor over a hundred feet below him. Worse, the crack continued down further. He played it safe, setting up a safety line and two different anchors in the rock. Then he carefully worked his way down the final few feet and managed to grab hold of the ceiling. There was a tricky moment when he had to let go with his feet and hope that his claws could grip the rock.

His tail was wrapped tightly around the safety line. He made it to a stalactite with only one minor slip, set another anchor, and caught his breath. It was a hundred feet to where the cave ceiling began to curve and become a wall. He stopped again halfway down to look around, squatting on a small ledge. Below him was a rough cave floor with pockets of mushrooms growing in different places. He carefully made his way down and examined the area.

The rocks that jutted from the stone and the rough, bare patches showed the telltale signs of the now familiar soot, but the soil the mushrooms were rooted in was healthy and flourishing. Most of the beds had two to three varieties mixed together, but this wasn't natural growth; these were farmed mushrooms. In each patch, he could detect one or more shroomlings at work. The ones nearest him were frozen and not moving.

Cognizant of how they could scream and bring bigger myconids running, he leaped from one blackened area to another, making his way through the cavern. Most of the varieties he recognized, but some he did not. Harry would be very upset if he didn't bring back samples, but he didn't want to cause problems just yet. Even with his Darksight, it was hard to see in the cavern. Dust filled the air, and mushroom spores.

His disease resistance was getting a workout, and he was glad that he could filter the air through a woven mask and his armor. In the distance were titanic mushrooms reaching to the ceiling, their caps over a hundred feet across. The grouping almost looked like a small city. That proved to be true as he got closer and saw walkways between the giant stems. Things moved on them, walking slowly. Coming to the end of the farm area, he saw a worn path that headed toward the city.

Standing on that path was a large Myconid, looking more humanoid than the others he had seen. This one was also wearing long robes woven of vines and leaves. The face under the green spotted cap looked at him with intelligent eyes as he carefully approached and then held up a hand." To not progress. To remain in a state of calm and meditation. To communicate intent. To fail and be mulched." Milo stood still. The words had a strange sound to them, but he could follow the language.

"Not progressing. Being calm and curious. To explore and to exchange knowledge. No failure and no mulch."" To have good answers is to not be mulch. This poor creature may be addressed as Green-Spotted-Delver. To enquire a name."

"I'm Milo, a Wandering Sage."" We welcome Sages. Even a sage that has returned some not a few of our people to the mulch. You are known to us, Sage Milo, slayer of Kronk, slayer of Roobazahl. The Mycelium and the Great Collective told us of you several turnings of the mulch ago. To be calm. To follow. To not be mulch." All around them, in a ring fifty feet in diameter, Myconids erupted from the surface. All were over nine feet tall, and their limbs were shaped like weapons.

He tensed, preparing to run and try to leap over them, but they didn't move." The Collective awaits us, Sage Milo. The Collective knows what all of us, anywhere, know. I hope that neither of us joins the mulch before we have time to exchange knowledge."