Last Gasp (Incidental Inquisitors Book 1) by Aaron D. Schneider & Michael Anderle

Author:Aaron D. Schneider & Michael Anderle [Schneider, Aaron D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2022-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Esselliar

Doughas tried to keep her talking. “If he didn’t run, where do you think he is?”

“Don’t you think I’ve thought about that?” Ferla had started to break down. Tears welled in her eyes, but she did her best to stop them from flowing. The dwarfess took another deep breath and stated, “Harlun’s a foredwarf for DAMS. So if he had to hide, he’d be down by the maintenance tunnels. You know, the ones where they keep the leviathans?”

“Wouldn’t someone have found him by now if he’s down there?” Vor questioned.

Doughas answered first. “They could spend months down there and never find him.”

“He’s right,” Ferla voiced. “The tunnels down in these quarters go for miles. It’s a vast network of intersecting pathways. A lot of them are abandoned.”

Vor still couldn’t catch on. “I’m sorry, I need a refresher on undercity infrastructure. See, in the elven quarter, we didn’t exactly expand down. They restricted development to the multi-tiered necropoli, maintenance, and the commercial district.”

“Down here, tunneling wasn’t always restricted,” Doughas told him. “Anyone could hunt for mines or dig for residential purposes and commercial development. That was a few centuries ago. Over time, it started causing problems. There weren’t enough leviathans to sustain the air, and the integrity of the tunnels decreased. The goblin government implemented restrictions. The tunnels that were no longer needed or weren’t a part of the new building codes, they sealed them off but never filled them in.”

“You’re saying there’s a web of forgotten and unexplored centuries-old tunnels, and Harlun could be lost in there?” Vor surmised.

Both Ferla and Doughas nodded.

“Oh, great.” If he’s not dead and buried down there, he’s alive and lost, which means he’ll be dead soon unless he can find food and water. Even if he did, he could still suffocate!

It looked hopeless. Vor didn’t want to paint a picture of Harlun’s low chances of survival, but he knew Ferla understood the odds. One look at her was enough to know. She was well aware her husband could already be long dead. They might never find his body if those tunnels were as vast as the dwarves made them out to be.

“It looks like we’ll have to go looking in some ancient caverns, laddie,” Doughas concluded.

“There could be poison gas fumes, pockets where oxygen can’t reach, old booby traps, or monsters that the Tunnel-Rakers didn’t hunt down yet.” Vor wasn’t as eager as Doughas to go that far. I said we’d help find Harlun, but we still have raiders to catch and a bomb to stop. I’m not ready to risk my life skipping work to find a dwarf who’s likely two weeks dead already.

Right away, Vor regretted his thoughts. The sorrow in Ferla’s eyes sent a pang of guilt through him.

Damn. He was about to reach for a handshake but then retracted. Instead, he waved and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I think that’ll be all, Mrs. Prammelkoff. We got everything we need for now.”

“We do?” Doughas echoed.

“We do.” Vor whispered into Doughas’ ear, “I have a theory, but it can wait.

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