12 Miles Below IV: The Mite Forge: (A Progression Fantasy Epic) by Mark Arrows

Author:Mark Arrows [Arrows, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2024-05-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

THE TEMPLE

Travel underground ended up being categorized by three speeds. The first was a walking caravan. Slowest, easiest to attack, the tool of the desperate but nobody could argue with the sheer carrying capacity if they had prepared ahead of time for the journey. The second speed were Relic Knights, or just soldiers as the Undersiders called them. They’d sprint for quite some time but could only carry a limited amount.

Usually, they ran with a hand on a hover sled that carried the important things, like people or ammo, and whatever could fit in their sacks. The third speed was for military and nobility use, which involved renting out airspeeders. Undersider versions had no external handholds and were smaller than their surface counterparts. They could go very quickly, but only among wide enough roads and stretches.

At knight speed, the temple was expected to be three days of travel. The clan knights sprinted the entire way, pausing only to consume ration bars when needed and only for a few minutes to rest the mind and return to sprinting. The Winterblossom Technique eliminated even the small fatigue of moving an armor that regular knights had to deal with. It was, after all, only the armor moving. At first, the entire clan moved as a unit, since the general direction matched up with the surface recovery point. Day one passed and the group split with only a few words of goodbye.

And now only the dedicated remained, racing against time directly to the mite forge.

The flooded temple of Ordritz wasn’t named for some lost god or people. A hunter team stumbled on this while on expedition to map the surrounding areas during the days the Undersiders were deciding on settling here or in a few other locations of known pillars.

The scout master was named Ordritz, and his team had discovered a lot of landmarks along the way. However, his massive ego wouldn’t put his name on anything that wasn’t impressive enough. The temple counted, and that ended up being the only thing Ordritz put his personal name on.

Interesting fellow. And it did not bode well for the size of this temple.

First sign we’d come close to our target was the water. We loped down a mountainside path, easily clearing the rocks with vaults and precise jumps before landing into a puddle that just never ended. It looked like Capra’nor’s lake, except shallow enough to reach only our boot soles and we couldn’t see the other end of the shoreline, if it even existed. Further past the initial empty stretch of water were trees. Not bunched up, but close enough to slowly obscure any vision through them. They all grew in this pseudo-lake, bright teal and green leaves.

The clan knights dove right into the forest, weaving expertly between the wide trees and leaving only ripples extending out on the otherwise mostly still water. Somewhere at the center of this forest, we’d find the temple.

“Think we made it before To’Sefit could show up?” I asked over the soul link I had to Wrath.

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