“You think this is the same tunnel?” Jay asked Kerr, disbelief coloring her voice.
“No way to know for sure,” Kerr grumbled from where she crouched low to the stone floor. “But what are the fucking chances of there being two tunnels on this gods forsaken, demon infested corner of the world that look like this? Or if it is the same tunnel, what are the odds of us finding it again?”
“My kind of odds,” Jay said under her breath.
“I find it hard to believe these could be the same tunnels you and your companions were lost in,” Willa told Dys where they stood a little further away from Jay and Kerr. “Besides, you said you came out of the tunnel further to the east.”
Jadis had spared a few moments to fill Willa, Jaxton, and Landry in on her team’s experience in the tunnels. Bridget had already gotten the story some time ago. Willa, as it turned out, was already well aware of Jadis’ underground exploits, at least the version of the story that had made its way around the city. The particulars of this long tunnel had been mentioned, though not in great detail.
“We never reached the end of the tunnel,” Dys said, shrugging her shoulders. “We left the caves once we found one offshoot that took us out. The tunnel kept heading north, though, through the Great Southern Forest. It also curved to the left. The west, I mean. Not a big curve, but it did. It’s possible it could reach all the way out here…”
“Why not?” Jaxton proclaimed in his deep, cockney-esque accent. “The gods made the broken hills. They could have made this rubbish as well.”
“Come off it,” Landry scoffed. “The gods don’t do everything. Probably the work of some great beast dragging its scaly arse through the ground.”
“I didn’t say the gods do everything, I said they could have done this.”
“They could have made my shoes, too, but you don’t see me speculating on it since I knows they didn’t cause that’d be stupid.”
“We know who made your shoes, Camden did. Point is, we don’t know who made these tunnels here and it could have been the gods.”
“Toss the shoes out, you’re missing what I’m saying. You don’t always have to—”
Jadis tuned the rest of the conversation between the two quarrelsome orcs out. As much as she liked them, especially since they reminded her of Aila’s two uncles Gerwas and Ludwas, she had more important things to focus on. Primarily, the things that Kerr was pointing out about the ground.
“Scuff marks,” Kerr said as she traced the stone. “Hard to see tracks in stone like this, but there are marks here that didn’t come from any beast.”
“Bandit tracks?” Jay asked, bending to look over Kerr’s shoulder.
“No, wheel tracks. These lines here were made by wheels.”
“Wheels?” Jay exclaimed, her surprise drawing the attention of the rest of the group. “What kind of wheels?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Kerr huffed. “They’re wheels. Probably wooden.”
“Let me see,” Willa said as she crouched down next to Kerr.
The two examined the tracks, seeing things in the stone that Jadis didn’t know how to interpret. Once it was pointed out to her, she could see that there were some faint tracks and scuff marks of some kind, she just didn’t have a clue what they meant. They meant something to Kerr and Willa, though. Even Jaxton and Landry stopped their bickering to take a look. Bridget kept next to Syd, though, not bothering to examine the floor.
“I’m a shit tracker,” she whispered to Syd in response to her questioning look. “Like, I’ve had the training, I’m just not that good at it. I won’t have anything to add that they won’t see.”
“Fair enough,” Syd shrugged. “But don’t sell yourself short. You never know what an extra pair of eyes might see that the experts miss.”
Eventually, the consensus between Kerr and Willa was that the tracks were from a cart of some kind. Likely more than one, in fact. The more they looked, the more scuff marks they found, indicating either multiple carts, or the same cart passing through the area many times. There were also the signs of boot prints, most of them either too disturbed or too faint to be easily identified, but there were a few that were clear enough to tell that there was a decent amount of traffic moving through the tunnel going in both directions.
“Alright, it hasn’t been that long yet and we still need some evidence,” Jay said as she stared into the dark that stretched to the north. “Let’s keep going.”
“Keep quiet,” Kerr told them all as she moved ahead again. “And put those lanterns to their lowest. We don’t want them hearing or seeing us coming. Not a lot of places to hide in this tunnel.”
With lanterns shuttered so that the light was barely more than a glimmer, the group carefully made their way forward down the tunnel. They went slowly, not wanting to alarm any potential criminals that could be further along, but also to make sure they didn’t stumble headfirst into any dangerous monsters like the cave spiders or giant salamanders. Or worse things that existed in the dark depths.
No magic beasts attacked them, though. In fact, for the longest time, nothing happened at all. Their slow progress continued for long enough that Jadis considered calling the search off. She didn’t want to be away from the rest of her companions for too long, especially since there were still dangers lurking above ground. There was a change to the monotonous dark eventually, however, it didn’t come from the direction Jadis or any of the group with her expected.
“What’s that sound?” Bridget whispered, looking back over her shoulder. “What is that?”
At first, Jadis didn’t hear it. All three of her selves looked back, as did the two soldiers. Then Willa did, too. Even Kerr, far ahead and practically unseen in the dark paused, turning back to look the way they had come. After a few seconds, Jadis could hear it. A rumbling, scraping sound that echoed off the stone walls. There was something else, too. A sound that Jadis couldn’t quite place at first, yet it was all too familiar.
Then the light began to shine around the curve of the tunnel and Jadis realized what it was.
“People!” Jay, Dys, and Syd hissed all at once, the same time as several other hissed foul curses.
“Quick, come ahead!” Kerr snapped, whisper-shouting at them all. “Hurry!”
Moving as quickly as they could while staying quiet, they all followed after Kerr who led them a few hundred more feet along the tunnel. Stopping at another crevice in the wall, Kerr waved them all inside, one after another. The crack in the wall was only a couple of feet wide, but it was plenty tall enough for even Jadis’ selves to stand upright. It also stretched far back, opening up into a wider cave after a dozen feet or so. As they slipped inside, those carrying lanterns shuttered them fully, making sure to completely cut off all sources of light.
Jay and Kerr stayed closest to the entrance of the crevice, waiting to see what would come. Jadis had to carefully calm her breathing, holding completely still in the nearly pitch-black darkness of the cave. With the lanterns put out, the only source of light were patches of glowing cave moss, the naturally iridescent plant life omnipresent yet scattered and irregular. The sound of the unknown people coming from the southern direction of the tunnel grew louder with each passing second, the echoes becoming overwhelming. After a minute, the light from what sounded like dozens of people came into view, forcing Jadis to squint against even the dim illumination.
Pressing back against her, Kerr forced Jay as hard up against one side of the cave wall as possible, blocking most of the bodies from view thanks to the uneven nature of the stone. Moments later, the first of the mysterious cave goers came into view.
He was a young man, human, and of average height. He held a lantern high in one hand, a halberd in the other. The armor he wore was instantly recognizable. Standard imperial gear, down to the white surcoat and blue eagle. He didn’t pause as he walked by the crevice, barely even glancing in its direction. His face, mostly visible thanks to the style of helm he wore, sported an almost bored expression. He looked as though he’d travelled the monster infested tunnel a dozen times before.
Maybe he had.
“—and then he told me, ‘You can’t raise smatterlings if you don’t have the right cages for them, they’ll crawl out of the boxes.’ Which is absolute horse shit. Where does he get off telling me about raising smatterlings when he’s never even been on a farm in his life?”
“But he’s right, though. They’ve got all those legs, they’ll crawl out.”
“Now don’t you start too. When have you ever even held a smatterling in your—”
Two more men passed by the crevice, deep in a loud discussion about raising livestock of a kind Jadis thought laid blue eggs. Their conversation was practically shouted as they had to raise their voices to be heard over the wooden cart the two of them were pulling behind them. After they passed, several more soldiers passed by, followed by another cart, then another. Six carts passed by before the procession was done, most of them empty except for the last, which was loaded with sealed crates and barrels.
Every single one of the men and women, nearly two dozen of them, were imperial soldiers. Their armor couldn’t have made that clearer. Even the crates that Jadis could see were stamped with the imperial crest, marking them as official military supplies.
“You saw all that too, right?” Jay whispered as the loud echoes started to fade into the distance.
“Yes, I did,” Willa answered from right behind her.
“That enough proof for you?” Kerr whispered. “I feel like we can pretty confidently say that the military are the ones breaking the law here. No one brings empty carts underground unless they’re planning on bringing something back out.”
“It’s good evidence,” Willa said, nodding her head, “but it would be better if we could see their operation, know for certain that they’re mining eleria. This also doesn’t prove who they work for. We need to know whether this is an isolated group or a larger conspiracy.”
“Then let’s see where the yellow brick road ends,” Jay murmured as she pushed her way out of the cramped cave entrance.
“The what?” Willa whispered.
“Just—never mind,” Kerr shook her head. “So fucking weird sometimes.”
Now certain they were on the right track, Jadis and the others followed behind the train of soldiers. They made sure to stay far enough back that they couldn’t see direct light, relying on the cave moss as they didn’t want to give off any light of their own. The soldiers were, fortunately, obnoxiously loud, which made it easy to follow them without worrying about the occasional noise they themselves made.
After what felt like maybe half an hour of walking, Kerr called for them all to halt.
“It sounds like they’ve stopped,” she told them, her large ears perked up. “I can hear new voices, different from the assholes we’ve been shadowing.”
“Can we get closer, see what they’re doing?” Willa asked.
“Hold on,” Kerr held up hand for silence. “Just wait.”
They all waited in silence for another ten minutes before Kerr lowered her hand.
“Okay, they’ve settled,” she said, looking back at Jay and Willa and the rest. “There’s definitely activity up ahead, but it’s calmed down. But I can absolutely hear the sound of hammers and picks on rocks.”
“Alright,” Willa nodded. “Let me sneak up there. If I can witness them in the act, I can testify what I saw to the Magistrate and in a court of law.”
“Go slow,” Kerr warned her. “Slow and low. The rest of you stay back. The more that come, the riskier this merde is.”
“I’m coming,” Jay told her in no uncertain terms.
Kerr sighed, shaking her head.
“Fine, whatever. Just be quiet.”
The three of them crept forward, taking their time as they approached the source of the noise. It took some time, but Jadis had no trouble taking it slow. She did not want to alert the soldiers to their presence, especially since she didn’t have her armor or weapons with her. She was certain that she could handle a bunch of soldiers at her level, especially with her greatly increased stats. But all it would take was one soldier like Nora to take her down in a flash.
When Kerr abruptly dropped low, belly on the ground, Jay followed suit, as did Willa. It took a brief moment, but after a second, she spotted what the archer had seen. A distant light had come into view around the gentle curve of the tunnel. Within that light were two soldiers, clearly standing guard.
“Now what?” Kerr whispered, barely audible even in the stillness of the cave.
“We can’t get close,” Willa said, “not without them seeing us.”
“Then they see us,” Jay said with a determined set to her jaw. “They just won’t be telling anyone else.”
Jay pulled herself along the floor of the cave, pushing past Kerr and Willa. The two tried to stop her, but neither could do much without making a noise, even if they had the strength to hold her back. Both followed behind as Jay crept closer to the guard, keeping as low to the ground as she could, yet also making sure she was constantly on the balls of her feet.
Having shortened the distance by a few dozen yards, she could hear the men talking. Neither were paying much attention to their surroundings, their boredom evident. They were both in full armor and had shields and spears. The light was coming from a lamp hung from a spike overhead, meaning neither man had a light in hand, just their shields and spears. They were standing to either side of another side tunnel entrance, this one decently wide. Wide enough to fit a cart through, Jadis realized. All the noise they were still hearing, the sounds of tools being used to break rock and dig, were coming from inside that tunnel entrance.
“Do you hear anyone else close?” Jay whispered back to Kerr.
“No,” she shook her head, “but I can’t be sure!”
“We’ll have to risk it,” Jay said, then turned her attention back to the two slacking off guards.
Activating Knight’s Daring Charge, Jay launched herself forward with all the speed she could, entering the full glow of the lamplight.
The man further away saw her first, the human’s eyes going wide as he saw Jay close the distance at an impossible, inhuman speed. He managed to let out a choked yelp for half of a second before Jay was on him and the guard with his back to her. She launched herself through the air and grabbed the closer man from behind, an elf she guessed by the reddish ears sticking out from his helmet. With her left arm wrapped around his neck, she carried him forward, grabbing hold of the human with her right. She took hold of him as well, her forearm tightening around his neck and cutting off all sound as her leap carried her past the cave entrance. Twisting in midair, Jay brought both men with her as she squeezed them tightly against her body before slamming hard into the ground.
There was some clang of armor, but Jay’s body muffled the majority of the crash, enough that it was barely distinguishable from the noise coming from the tunnel.
Jay lay there, the human man struggling against her right arm as she held him in her grip. He made gasping noises as she pressed her forearm against his neck, cutting off his air to keep him from screaming. Strangely, the elf wasn’t fighting back at all. Looking down at him, she quickly realized why.
The elf’s head was twisted the wrong way around, her leap and grab at the unsuspecting man apparently so fast and powerful that she’d snapped his neck. The whole attack had taken less than two seconds.
Sitting up, she let the dead man’s body flop to the ground as she held onto the weakly struggling second guard. The man was clearly losing consciousness thanks to the tight grip she had on his throat. With her free hand, she waved Kerr and Willa over, though to their credit both women were already scurrying up to meet her.
“Valtar’s hairy tits, Jay! What are we supposed to do with these two?” Kerr asked as soon as she caught up with her. “Shit, is that one dead?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Jay replied in a hurry as she motioned towards the cave opening. “What’s down the tunnel?”
“Very, very clear evidence,” Willa said as she stared into the now unguarded entryway, “of illegal mining.”
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