Queen in the Mud: Book 2, Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Rolling, grassy hills stretched out in all directions with only the rare tree sprouting up every here and there. This was much different from the huge expanse of forest we’d spent nearly an entire month in since our departure. After all that time, we were finally reaching the human realms. We had even seen a couple settlements already, but Thaddius had been firm in his insistence that we couldn’t make contact with them.

Evidently this area was full of tribal people with widely varying cultures. Many were peaceful and open to trade, but there were just as many that were violent and warlike. In addition to that, the northern realms were distinctly unsafe for nonhumans, considering this was the area of the Elsian continent where slavery of beastkin races was most prevalent.

I’d been told that you couldn’t always tell how your reception would be when visiting the tribal holdings, so you either needed a good map or a guide to point you towards the more peaceful settlements. We might have been able to use one of our more knowledgeable villagers as a guide, since almost all of them originally came from this area, but given that all but one of the people in our caravan was made up of nonhumans, we instead decided to forgo any attempt at trading with the northern tribes altogether.

Instead, we were heading for the city state of Belshaad, which occupied a prominent trade location on the western coast of the Elsian continent. It was a little out of the way, geographically speaking, but Thaddius informed me that it was by far the safest option for a trade route, considering the merchant city’s neutral stance towards international conflicts.

Apparently border disputes in the human kingdoms were common and had a way of swallowing small trade caravans like ours in the fighting. Since Belshaad was neutral and well known for protecting trade routes in their small corner of the world, that was where my trusted retainer had steered us towards.

Everyone had unrelentingly voiced their concerns that it was unsafe for me to travel to the human realms myself and the compromise we had eventually agreed to was that we would take the safest route to the safest city then straight back home. I was content with that, even if I felt that everyone was being a little too overprotective. Well, to be fair, that was Thaddius’s job, considering he was my personal bodyguard and advisor.

I glanced over at the bearded swordsman who had barely left my side for a minute since we had entered the human realms. He had been practicing mana coalescence nearly every moment of every day since leaving Enzirus, and had since moved on to element shaping - specifically, Earth magic. Thaddius glowered down at the stone in his hand as it haltingly shifted between different geometric shapes.

Like him, I hadn’t spent the last month idle either. Many of my skills levelled up several times from practice or from small skirmishes we’d had with monsters during the trip. That was particularly true of my new Inspiring Leadership skill, which I’d really put through its paces to bring it to level seven.

I hadn’t realized it at the time, but Inspiring Leadership was actually amazing - well deserving of its status as my sole epic rank skill. It gave a small, but not insignificant bonus to all primary attributes for everyone under my command as well as bonus ‘morale,’ which I assumed was more for leading armies than for leading caravans.

The real icing on this proverbial cake was that I could select any number of people under my command to share experience with them. Initially, I had just summed it up as a way to quickly power up lower level villagers, or maybe as a way to make salamanderkin children reach level five faster. Now that I’d had a chance to test the skill out, I came to realize that the experience-share mechanic actually had an interesting loophole.

The higher my level grew, the slower and more scarce experience points became, making it harder and harder to level up further. That was because I would stop getting experience from monsters around three levels lower than myself. I could kill choko-chokos all day long and not get a single experience point from the trail of furry bodies I left in my wake, since they were all far below level ten.

So, to keep on levelling up, I had to keep looking for higher and higher level monsters, all the while ensuring that they weren’t so strong that they would just kill me right off. Since monsters were basically scattered all over the place, and different geographic locations didn’t necessarily have monsters of one level bracket, it made it exceptionally difficult to actually find monsters at an appropriate level to fight.

But not if I used Inspiring Leadership. The way it worked was that it added up everyone’s experience gain and divided it equally among the entire party. So, if there were low level people together with me, and I killed a choko-choko, the low level people would gain experience and split it equally among the party, including with me.

It was a way to powerlevel not only low level people, but also myself and other higher levels from monsters that were readily available and easily killed.

There were problems, of course, such as the lower levels out-levelling the choko-choko fields and not getting any experience from kills anymore. Plus, the experience gain would probably be very small.

Well, it was a safe way to get experience, and that was the important part.

Incidentally, I’d reached level thirteen recently. Every level past ten had given me two stat points to distribute, making the growth of my stats even faster. Out of those six points I’d earned since level ten, I put four into intelligence to bring it to level fourteen, one into agility making it level nine, and one into constitution, which was now at eight.

My salamancy skill, which I had been training with regularly since the assault on the slaver caravan and had even attached the mastery badge to, had only today reached level eleven. It had only levelled because earlier in the day we’d been set upon by ravenous, man-eating beasts!

They had actually been giant, hairy frogs. Yep, they were furry frogs. Furrogs, I preferred to call them.

The image of Thaddius shouting, “Have at thee, foul beast!” while stabbing the hell out of a giant hairy frog would be forever seared into my brain.

Anyway, I’d reached level eleven in the Salamancy skill, giving me the final perk point I would need to gain a new salamancer ability! I’d already been agonizing over the choice for a few hours. It was a big decision, so I needed to carefully weigh my options.

I opened the mana focus page and looked at the choices for new abilities.

[Mana Focus: Salamancer Focus   Available perk points: 4

Blink: This ability is a common pool spell available to all mana focuses, allowing for short range, instantaneous teleportation at a relatively high mana cost. Upgrading this ability with further perk points will reduce the mana cost and increase the effective range of teleportation. This spell has a hard cooldown of at least one second.   This ability may be modified by future perks.   Perk Point Cost: 4

Mana shield: This ability is a common pool spell available to all mana focuses, creating a shield that absorbs all damage so long as it is continuously fed mana. Initial rank of this spell allows for only the user to be shielded with this ability. This ability must be continuously sustained, consuming a small amount of mana even while not actively deflecting attacks. Any successfully absorbed or deflected attacks will consume a large amount of the user’s mana, with additional perk points reducing mana costs of this spell.   This ability may be modified by future perks.   Perk Point Cost: 4

A Bard’s Tail: This ability allows the user to bolster their allies with magically-augmented music. Benefits depend on the particular song played and range from increased offensive and defensive capabilities to increased movement speed and stamina regeneration. Sustained effects require that the user continuously play a musical instrument. The user will learn three basic songs immediately and more powerful songs may be unlocked by investing additional perk points.   This ability may be modified by future perks.   Perk Point Cost: 4]

Now, I might have just bought a musical bow from Pig the spider, but that didn’t mean I knew anything about performing music. As fun as it was to sing songs around a campfire with everyone, I wasn’t really sure I could see myself belting out ‘Killer Queen’ while in the thick of battle.

Still, the choice was difficult. This was actually the first time I’d seen ‘common pool spells’ in the list of choices for Salamancy perks, and the moment I saw blink in the list of those options I immediately wanted to ignore everything else and take it. Blink was one of those iconic abilities that all mages should have, right next to fireball. How could I call myself a mage if I couldn’t teleport!

It wasn’t that simple, though. I was already highly movement-oriented with mana vault and levitating tail. Blink would still be useful, sure, but in many ways, mana vault seemed much more efficient. For starters, to make blink useful, it seemed like I would need to invest a lot of perk points to bring the mana cost down. Why do that when I could just use mana vault for free? There was the fact that I could try to blink away from melee attackers, sure, but I could just as easily mana vault away.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t make sense for me to take blink.

Then there was mana shield, which shared a couple of the same problems as blink did. First off, it seemed like the mana cost would be too steep unless I invested a lot of perk points into it, and perk points were precious! I needed those for new abilities and to upgrade my existing ones. Taking an ability that would only be useful if I threw a lot of points at it felt like a gamble.

On the other side, I had absolutely zero defensive abilities aside from my general speediness with mana vault. And even then, against an agility-focused fighter like Thaddius, that speediness really didn’t mean a lot. That was particularly true for battles confined to a forest, where I needed to be careful where I vaulted to keep from splatting against a tree.

That lack of defensive abilities gave me pause. It was a major weakness that needed to be covered, I just wasn’t sure I was ready to give up my next few levels worth of perk points to make mana shield worth it.

Then there was the last one, Bard’s Tail. Out of the three of them, this one was much more geared towards buffing a group as opposed to improving my own personal power.

I could have crafted a new bow and fitted it with that beautiful bowstring from Pig’s shop and learned to fire arrows, maybe even using that to channel Bard’s Tail abilities. Everyone would probably prefer to have me way at the back of the battle where it was safe, buffing everyone and firing arrows. It all fit together so nicely, so cleanly.

Back on Earth, I’d always enjoyed playing games as the support class, and bards were always awesome, but I just couldn’t really see myself going that route. I didn’t like the idea of standing at the back where it was safe, letting other people put themselves between the enemy and me - relying on their strength to keep me safe.

Yes, I was a mage and mages typically stayed away from the frontlines, but if I needed to jump into the fray to save someone’s life, I wanted to be able to.

This world may have been set up like a game, with skills and abilities, but it wasn’t a game for me. For me, this was a real world, where people could get hurt and die. By some strange twist of fate, I’d founded a small village and been put forward as its leader.

And if I was going to lead, I would do it from the front.

Maybe everyone wanted to keep me safe and away from the fighting, but that just wouldn’t do. How could I be an inspiring leader if I stayed at the back and let people die to protect me? If my people were going into danger, I would be right there beside them, fighting shoulder to shoulder.

This Bard’s Tail ability wouldn’t let me do that. Given that it required that I keep playing a musical instrument, this ability would just get in my way. Maybe it was the smart choice, and maybe it would be a strong ability if I chose it, but it just didn’t fit me. It wasn’t the direction I wanted to go with my magic.

I drew a deep breath as I selected the mana shield ability and confirmed my choice. The next few salamany levels would be going towards this new ability to try and power it up. A stronger defense would mean I could more confidently throw myself into the thick of battle without fear of injury.

The system windows blinked away as I closed out of the mana focus page. Beside me, Thaddius stared down at the stone in his hands. It wasn’t changing shape anymore, simply sitting dormant on the palm of his hand.

His eyes were serious, and I could tell he wasn’t really looking at the stone, even if his gaze was fixed on it. The expression on his face immediately set me on edge.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered to him.

He flicked his eyes in my direction, then returned to staring blankly down at the stone in his hands. “We’re being watched.”

My mouth popped open in surprise and I stared at him. Discreetly, I glanced around the rolling hills surrounding us. We had been moving along a dirt road set at the bottom of a natural valley for a while now, and the dismal state of the road itself suggested that it saw very little use. Not surprising, considering this road led straight north into the dense and monster-infested forests of the unclaimed lands.

Among the gently sloping grassy hills surrounding us, I saw no one.

“Is it people? How many?” I couldn’t keep the worry out of my voice as I spoke quietly to the warrior at my side.

“It’s people. At least a dozen.” Although his body language was deliberately relaxed, the cold violence behind Thaddius’s voice sent shivers running down my skin.

I rubbed my hands together anxiously and whispered. “How strong are they? Are they going to attack us?”

Thaddius slowly nodded, then raised his head. “They’re coming. Look sharp.”

“Hold there, travellers!” A cheery voice rose up over the sound of rolling wheels and plodding feet. Around twenty people crested over the hills surrounding us, many wielding bows, axes and spears that were drawn and levied towards us. The archers drew back their arrows and held them steady.

I held up a hand and the caravan slowed to a halt. The gurba hitched to our wagon bowed its head and munched at the grass at its feet, indifferent to the men staring menacingly with hungry eyes down at our caravan. The few villagers who had come along with us on this expedition carried anxious expressions and I spotted Sib poking her skull-adorned head out from around one of the wagons.

One man, wearing a hodgepodge of metal and leather armor, tossed his shoulder-length blonde hair out of his face and gave us a wide smile from atop a grassy knoll. In stark contrast to the dark expressions of his comrades, this blonde-haired man’s voice and posture were convivial and friendly. “I’m afraid you’ve run aground some poor luck, friends! You see, we will be taking your things, your coins, and any food you might have.” He paused a moment to fix us with another confident, beaming smile.

The other bandits shuffled anxiously along the grassy hillside. They were filthy, dressed in ragged clothes and with their gaunt faces, looked thoroughly starved. A couple of their ranks seemed to be barely out of adolescence, no older than fifteen or sixteen, all with emaciated, hunger-stricken features.

“Now, my companions, here…” The man spread out his arms, his radiant smile full of shining white teeth. “They’re rather antsy with their weapons. You give a man a hammer, and all he sees is nails, you understand? Now, on my honor, I promise that you will be unharmed so long as you surrender without a fight.” He pressed a hand to his chest and gave a small bow, his smile never fading from his face.

It took a moment for my Examine skill to finally pop up. Recently I’d found a way to set it up so that when I was unsafe, the results would appear in an abridged format over the heads of whoever I successfully examined.

It showed their level, health, mana and stamina bars, and gave a general indication of how powerful they were compared to me. The power comparison wasn’t very accurate, but it could at least let me know at a glance if an enemy was either significantly weaker or significantly stronger than me, taking their skills, stats and levels into account.

All around the hillside, these nameplates popped up over the heads of the bandits, and to my surprise, they were all extremely weak. The highest level out of all of them was the cheerily smiling bandit leader at level ten, with the rest of the bandits averaging around level five. There were still a lot of them, though, and if they attacked in force they could kill some of the weaker members of our caravan.

I went to discreetly draw some water from the staff in my messenger bag, but Thaddius put a hand on my wrist and slowly shook his head, giving me a stern look. “I’ll need to handle this myself,” he whispered to me and carefully moved his hand to the handle of his sword.

“Surrender and your lives will be spared, my friends! Now, what say you to my generous--” The blonde man, who had been boisterously shouting and smiling down at us from his perch on the hill, was interrupted as another of the raggedy bandits quickly stepped up to him and, in a state of clear distress, tried to get his attention. The blonde man gave an irritated look to the man in rags, his smile looking pinched. “What do you want? Huh?”

The man in rags whispered into his leader’s ear, looking urgently towards Thaddius and I. The blonde man’s smile crinkled and a look of shock crossed over his face. He turned to the bandit dressed in rags, whispering back to him. The filthy man nodded adamantly and pointed towards me.

“I don’t like this,” Thaddius growled next to me. I nodded in agreement.

Finally, the blonde man put a frail smile back on his face and cleared his throat weakly. “Ah. Right! So. We, ah, apologize, master mage. We had no idea that such an esteemed and… powerful figure such as yourself was travelling on this road. We will… ah, we shouldn’t keep you any longer, of course.”

The other bandits shuffled nervously at this declaration, and a couple simply dropped their weapons in surrender. The leader clearly shared their anxiety, though he tried to keep an amiable smile on his face.

“Damnation,” Thaddius growled darkly, pulling his sword free from its sheath and dropping down from the wagon.

I blinked in surprise and followed after him. “Thaddius, what are you doing?”

He glared up at the bandits. “They know you’re a mage. One of these gutter rats has a skill that worked on you. Damnation, what are the odds that one of these pieces of trash would have such a strong skill?” Thaddius’s eyes were full of murder as he stared up at the men in rags above us. “We can’t let them live.”

At that, most of the bandits threw down their weapons and several turned to run. The leader of the bandits, the blonde-haired man at the top, wrestled a sword off his belt and threw it into the grass at his feet, holding up both his hands. “W-we surrender!” His smile had completely vanished now, and both his eyebrows wiggled anxiously.

Thaddius was at the top of the hill in only a moment, looming over the blonde man, sword pulled back to strike. With a flick of his wrist, he dispassionately moved to behead the bandit leader.

“Thaddius!” I shouted up at him.

He paused mid-swing, the blade of his sword biting half an inch into the man’s neck. The bandit leader gasped in surprise and pain, falling back into the grass and clutching a hand against the small wound across his neck. It was far from a fatal injury, but already red blood was streaming out between his fingers.

I ran up the hill towards Thaddius while the rest of the bandits threw down their rusted weapons, either surrendering where they stood or turning to flee.

“Quee--” Thaddius glanced at the blonde man cowering under him, “Naomi, if word gets out to the human realms that there is a mage that doesn’t belong to any of the major powers of the continent, it will put us in a great deal of danger. We can’t let these men live.”

“They surrendered,” I said, pointing at the weapons laying in the grass. Not a single one of the bandits had attempted to attack us after learning that I was a mage. “And you want to execute them? After they laid down their weapons?” My voice was an iron wall of resolute conviction. It was a firm, decisive voice I had learned to use so that I could better serve as a leader, but the truth of it was that my heart was in a knot and my mind was spinning in circles.

They knew I was a mage. Tutelage for a mage down in the human realms would put a dent in even the most affluent of kingdoms’ treasuries. If it became known that I, a nonhuman, had somehow become a mage far from the ‘civilized’ world, it could bring danger straight to our doorstep.

Even so, I didn’t want these people to die just because their continued life would be inconvenient to me. Their leader had promised clemency if we surrendered. Now that the tables were turned, would I show the same decency? Or would I run the hills red with the blood of these people who, out of clear poverty and starvation, had needed to turn to theft to survive?

I ground my teeth and glared at Thaddius. His sword was still held threateningly over the blonde-haired bandit leader, eyes locked on mine. It would be so easy to give him the order. I wouldn’t even need to bloody my own hands, I would just have him do it.

The thought of it made me sick. It had been such a good day, with the sun overhead and lazy clouds floating through the sky, birdsong in the wind. It had been such a good day, but now I needed to decide if these young men would be executed to keep my secrets.

Thaddius held my gaze, though I could tell he was growing agitated. “Even if they didn’t know you were a mage, we would be justified in killing them. They’re bandits, highwaymen, thieves. They’re rabid dogs and they should be put down.”

“They’re people!” I jabbed a finger towards the bandit leader. “And they surrendered! We can’t just kill them in cold blood - and for what, because they learned a secret? It was going to get out eventually.”

The blonde man cowering in the grass below us perked up at that and held up a finger, putting on a fearful smile. “I wouldn’t tell anyone abou-”

“Shut up!” Both Thaddius and I shouted down at the man, who nodded quickly in acknowledgement.

“Naomi, this is a mistake,” Thaddius declared shortly, as though it were an immutable fact. He lifted his shortsword and pointed it towards the fleeing bandits who were scattering to the hills. “They’re getting away. If you give the order now, we can stil”

I clenched a hand into a fist and shook my head. “I’m not ordering you to stab people in the back while they’re running for their lives. That’s murder, and it’s wrong.”

Thaddius aggravatedly pointed his sword back at the blonde-haired bandit leader and shouted. “They’re bandits!”

As soon as the words came out, an immediate look of regret settled over his face. Not regret for wanting to cut down men in cold blood, I realized, but rather because he had raised his voice to me.

Thaddius, suddenly lacking that brazen confidence of before, broke eye contact and let his sword slowly lower to touch the grass at his feet.

I let out a calming breath, gently uncoiling the tight spring of stress that had gripped my heart. When I spoke again, my voice carried a note of finality. “Stand down and go back to the caravan. We’re not killing anyone today.”

Thaddius obediently bowed his head and sheathed his sword. I knew that he would - even if he disagreed with me, he would still follow my orders. That was the kind of man that he was. He gave me a complicated look before frowning and making his way down the hill towards the caravan.

The bandit leader cleared his throat and tossed a blonde lock out of his face. He picked himself up off the grassy hillside, patting at the wet grass stains on his armor and gave me a bright smile. “My friend, I’m entirely moved by your inspiring act of mercy. From the bottom of my heart, let me tha-”

“Oh, shut up.” I grumbled out as I started back down the hill towards the wagons. The bandit leader stared after me in speechless surprise.

We had no more time to waste on this unfortunate interruption, there were wheels to turn and cities to reach. Unfortunately, I knew that at least one of those runaway bandits would go and tell others about the nonhuman mage they had seen on the road to Belshaad. Even if we had rounded them up and made them promise, or threatened them profusely, it wouldn’t have mattered. Something like that would just be a waste of time. One of them would have talked, it was a given.

Hopefully it would just be taken as baseless rumors, and maybe we could outrun the rumor mill by making it into the city and getting out before anyone caught word of…

I blinked and looked to my side. The blonde bandit leader was walking right next to me, smiling from ear to ear. Did this guy have a death wish?

“The name’s Lucian, by the way, master mage! Lucian Greyriver!” He ran a hand through his greasy blonde hair and jutted it towards me in offering.

I glanced skeptically down at his outstretched hand and back up to him. His eyes danced with mirth and his teeth were gleaming. “You’re pretty cheerful for someone who nearly had his head cut off just a second ago.”

“Ah! What’s a little spit between gurbas? Let’s put all that sour business behind us, I think we can be fast friends!” He stuck to my side as I walked, hand still outstretched for an unrequited handshake. Since the young man hadn’t been watching his step, he had failed to notice a small rock in his path. He tripped comically and fell flat on his face against the grassy hillside.

I left him in the dirt and stifled a laugh. Lucian easily popped back up, rubbing the mud out of his face and trotted to catch up with me, his expression still full of bright smiles as though nothing had happened.

He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “You had better run off like your friends. My bodyguard really will cut your head off if he sees you accosting me any further.”

Lucian paled at that and his smile twitched. “Why, I can’t! You’ve spared my life - my most valuable possession - and I simply must thank you!”

“You can thank me by going away.”

He looked aghast, pressing his hand against his chest. “Surely I could--”

“I can tell you want something from me and I’m not going to give it to you.” I paused to give the blonde man an irritated look. “Go away!”

“Perhaps my services--”

“I don’t want them!”

“But--”

“Aaaah!” I shouted and spun on Lucian, pointing a claw into his face. “Go! Away!”

He held up both hands in surrender and laughed nervously, eyebrows twitching. “O-of course, master mage. Of course! I’ll be on my way, then. Happy travels! Fair weather! Good day, master mage!” The young man, still with a wide smile on his face, gradually backed up and away from me.

I glared at him until he slowly retreated up the hill and out of sight, wary that he might come back and further annoy me. After I was satisfied that he was good and gone, I turned back towards the wagons, eager to get back on the road. Daylight was burning.

~ Mudpuppy ~

Inky darkness stretched out far above and far below me. The pale blue illumination of a lantern painted its faint light against the vertical walls of this abyssal chasm.

An hour had passed as I slowly descended, drifting down through the murky water into the shadowed bowels of this cavernous void. My ears popped from the difference in pressure and I felt a great weight pushing down on me. The water was thick and heavy, making it difficult to breathe this far underground. Not too difficult, though - I could still keep going a while more.

My spear was at the ready in one hand and I was as prepared as I could be for whatever I might find. The lantern light peeled away the shadows from the sheer stone walls as I sank.

Equal parts anxiety and excitement warred for dominion over my heart in thought of what I might find down here.

I had spent the last few weeks preparing, training my skills and practicing underwater fighting. There was no guarantee that I would even find anything down here, let alone some monster of the depths, but it wouldn’t do to make the dive without being as prepared as I could be. It had been weeks and I had tempered my patience for as long as possible. After gathering my things and weighing a shoulder bag down with heavy stones to put my descent at a reasonable speed, I came to the chasm at the center of Enzirus.

Even after an hour of fruitless sinking into endless darkness, I was certain I would find something. There had to be something down here, I could just feel it.

It wasn’t any kind of skill that gave me this feeling, this implacable certainty that something waited for discovery at the foot of this sunless rift. It was more of an intuition, a baser attraction that drew me in and stirred my heart towards adventure.

There was no doubt in my mind as I stared into the darkness below me. There was something down there. The only question was if I could weather the change in water pressure with however deep I would need to go to find it. At some point I would need to turn back or risk not coming back at all.

As much as it was in my nature to carelessly throw myself into the void, I had family and responsibilities waiting for me above ground. I couldn’t let this be a one way trip, even if it meant turning away from the war drum in my chest that drove me forward through lantern light and murky water.

Thirty minutes passed in slow descent.

The pressure was a real, physical pain that pushed on me from all sides. Although it was painful, my health wasn’t deteriorating. I guessed that it was because of the regenerating effect of Enzirus’ waters, equaling out the damage from water pressure and keeping me from losing health.

Every few minutes I needed to check if I could still swim up in spite of the crushing pressure. I’d decided that the moment I could no longer swim up on my own strength, I would immediately put on the ring of burning blood and retreat.

My entire body groaned with pain but I pushed on, gritting my teeth. Minutes passed and I was skirting the very limits of how far I could go. Just a little further, I kept telling myself. Inch by inch I drifted through the water. I had just nearly resigned myself to turning back when the walls fell away and opened up into an endless expanse of dark water.

After seeing that, there was no way I could turn back now with my curiosity boiling away inside of me. The ring would see me out so long as I didn’t go too far, and so I pushed a little further, past the point where I wouldn’t be able to swim up on my own strength.

I slowly drifted down into the chamber, the tunnel I’d been sinking down having given way to the ceiling above me. Shivers ran over my skin and my eyes went wide, searching the darkness, desperate and aching against the painful crushing pressure.

The light of my lamp glinted off of something far below me. Gray metal caught my lamplight, gleaming with a dull reflection, more and more of it visible the further down I sank.

It was an impossible, unnatural kind of metal; flat and precise, angular in places and curving in others. I had seen metal before, rendered in the shape of swords and spears, but this was something that was much more grand, much more complex.

Just the leviathan size of it alone, nevermind the mechanical precision of its crafting, made this thing a clear and distinct anomaly against the natural order of this world. It was so gargantuan that the tiny light of my lamp could barely illuminate a fraction of it before fading into the yawning chasm of darkness all around me.

This colossal metal thing was so completely and utterly alien to me that I could do nothing but float there and stare, transfixed and awestruck.

It was the first time I had ever felt truly small. Not just in the sheer vastness of this great metal thing - it was the implication of it that humbled me.

I knew implicitly who had crafted this ancient thing, the architects of this metal leviathan. This was a thing from Earth, from the place the Queen spoke of. It was the writing that had given that secret away, written in the very language I had been born with.

Sprawling and massive across the gray metal frame were blocky letters written in English, capitalized as though shouting their unnaturalness to the world and painted in crisp white against the metal colossus.

GSS AURORA