Ignite the Sun
Chapter 69: The dig site

Chapter 69: The dig site

Tiana led them to a construction site not far from the fortress - for now the trading and transport hub was little more than a hole in the ground, but according to the head of logistics it will be a grand building capable of hosting hundreds of people once the work is finished.

"The entire operation is happening underground." Tiana explained. "Once we find the foreman I’ll leave you in his capable hands - he will answer all your questions and tell you exactly what they need from you."

"You won’t be staying with us?" Alfred asked as they entered the dark tunnel.

"I’m afraid not, there was some sort of an emergency on the farm and they need me there ASAP." Tiana waved to someone. "Gary, over here!"

An older man covered in dirt and holding a stack of documents approached them.

"Mornin’ miss." He nodded."Are those the people for the advance party?"

"Correct, please answer any questions they might have and direct them to the correct tunnels."

Tiana said a quick goodbye and hurriedly left the site, leaving them in the care of foreman Gary.

"So, you lot have something to ask?"

Calen nodded.

"I wanted to ask how are the tunnels supposed to work if your city can teleport."

"A sensible question." Gary whistled and snapped his fingers at one of the workers nearby. "Bobby, bring me that thingamajig for the tunnels."

The younger worker nodded and run off into a different section of the dig site.

"This is something that wouldn’t be possible under normal circumstances, but Lady Sylara requested mister Geodor to come up with a solution, and miraculously that lab of his actually came up with something."

"Boss." The worker came back and handed Gary a strange-looking device.

It was a set of metal discs slightly larger than a watermelon - all of them completely covered in miniscule runes - connected by a fist-sized magic crystal in the middle.

"I won’t pretend to understand the magic principles behind it, but the concept goes like this: the tunnels are divided into short segments, and each of those segments will have one of those things in the middle of them. The function of this doohickey is to extend the main array of the city, with all of its functions."

"So the tunnels also get teleported?" Calen questioned.

"Yes, but they follow a set of rules while doing so - the first and last segment stay attached to their respective cities, so the one here teleports, and the one there is stationary. The real magic happens with the middle segments, with every teleportation they will rearrange themselves to fit the new location without any additional input."

"Fascinating." Isara nodded. "What about when the collective distance from the cities is larger than the original one and ther isn’t enough segments?"

"A situation like that won’t happen - since we can only move along the Emberwall we just calculated how many segments we would need in the worst case scenario and simply made enough."

Calen didn’t need any confirmation to know this was Joel’s and Martha’s work, based on the insane contraptions they showed him and Isara during their cooperation, it was just like other things they created.

"I also have a question, actually." Cassian announced.

"Yes?"

"We’ll be going in there to clear the path of any potential Blight-related disturbances, but do you know what can we actually expect to see in there?"

"Oh, I think your friend over there would be more qualified to answer that, since he was the one to monitor the tunnels." Gary pointed at Alfred.

"I can say with ninety percent certainty that the first half of the tunnels is clean of any corrupted beings." Alfred stated.

"And farther than that?"

"No idea, that’s as far as I could sense without going in." He shrugged. "That said, I think it’s highly unlikely there will be anything big in there."

"Hold on a minute, if the protection isn’t in there yet, how did these tunnels came to be in the first place?" Elira’s brows furrowed.

Alison of all people was the one to explain:

"The Verdant Watch helped, when all the tunnels were in progress over half of our members were occupied with protecting the miners from anything that could jump out of the dirt."

"And? Did something happen?"

"Not really, through the constant three years of digging there have been only two accidents involving a corrupted creature, and they both went by without so much as an injury."

"Strange." Cassian commented.

"Not really if you think about it - the tunnels ale almost hundred metres underground, the only things living at this depth are creatures which are too weak to survive on the surface during the day."

"Don’t ancients live underground?"

"They do, but their lairs are much deeper, and they sleep during the day."

Gray put his hands on his hips.

"Aight, any more questions? We have a job to do."

"Just one." Maya said. "Since we’re under the threat of invasion, don’t you need to finish the tunnels before we relocate?"

"Sure." Gary confirmed. "That’s why you need to do your job quickly, so stop yapping and get on with it!"

***

The tunnels were quite impressive - openings in rock and dirt supported by wood and steel wide enough for two merchant caravans to pass each other easily, they were more like underground highways than secret passages between cities.

Their job was very simple, they were to stay two segments ahead of the installation team and deal with any unforeseen obstacles - onnce every tunnel had the device installed they would go back to the hub and repeat the procedure in another tunnel.

Thought by their previous days, all of them donned full armour and taken their weapons with them this morning, so they were pretty much ready to go right away.

Well, they needed to wait for Alfred to put on the rest of his armour, but it only took a moment.

I’m the end the advance party consisted of 7 people: Calen, Cassian, Elira, Isara, Alfred Maya and Alison, mostly because she was assigned to keep them safe anyway.

The tunnels were reasonably well lit, especially considering how meandering they were.

"Why is this tunnel so..." Maya looked for the right word. "Bendy?"

"It’s to account for the additional length needed in the worst case scenario." Alfred explained. "Plus it makes the tunnel harder to find."

"I noticed the tunnel are wide enough for wagons." Isara commented. "Are purified mounts that common?"

"I wouldn’t really call them purified, since only Lady Sylara can do that, but yeah, mounts aren’t particularly rare."

"If they’re not purified... does that mean mean you’re riding on corrupted creatures?"

"Oh no, It’s a bit more complicated than that..."

"I can explain." Alison offered. "There are a few mostly purified horses and such, but we use them only for manual labour when magic is unavailable. The creature people use for transportation is a very rare and interesting case of a living being adapting to the Blight without losing itself in it."

"Like Mycotross." Calen remembered.

"Precisely, although those are a bit easier to explain, because of the weird relationship the Blight has with Fungi." Alison nodded. "Since you travel around the Kingdom you’re bound to see one of them sooner or later - especially if you’re planning to stop at other settlements."

"Yeah, you can visit the Order - we have a few Striders - but maybe you should wait until the situation there settles..." Alfred agreed.

"Right, do you know anything more about what’s happening in the Order? I asked Lady Sylara, but she wouldn’t give me any details."

Alfred looked torn on whether he should tell them the details, but in the end his need to share won:

"Look, you haven’t heard it from me, but there was a power struggle inside the Order for quite some time, and it finally blew up."

"Someone challenged sir Nickolas?!" Alison looked shocked.

"Worse, there was a coup to overthrow master - I think he knew it would come to that, and that’s why he chose me as an ambassador and sent me here, to make sure I don’t get hurt."

"Still, to think they defeated sir Nickolas..."

"Master might be the only sworn knight in the Order, but he’s still just one man." Alfred shrugged sadly. "He stood no chance against dozens of aura users."

"Wait." Cassian stopped in his tracks. "Your master is a sworn knight? As in a branded warrior of the Sun Kingdom?"

"Yeah, he was born before the invasion - he created the Order and his brand is the only thing keeping him alive."

"Nickolas... as in Nickolas the Pureheart?"

It was Alfred’s turn to freeze.

"...You’ve heard about master?"

"Of course." Cassian nodded. "He was my father’s squire for almost a decade before he got knighted."

"Was a squire...?" Alfred’s eyes widened as he pieced the information together. "Your sir Vandrel’s son! How are you alive? Is your father still alive? What are you doing here?"

"Oh boy." Calen sighed. "It seems like you’re really out of the loop..."