Chapter 7

  Mining Hub

  In her years of service, and before that life in the Federation, she'd gotten used to a lot of reactions to AIs. Hostile, neutral, friendly...from people trying or willing to kill her and destroy everything she stood for to others practically throwing themselves at her in the 'too friendly' sense.

  The type of reaction she was getting right now was the most terrifying however. Awe and fear. Not a reaction one had to a fellow sapient.

  The kind of reaction someone had when looking upon their saviors...or upon their Gods.

  People hadn't looked upon AIs that way since the Shattering. Since the great Arcadia hivemind was broken into pieces, and new Arcadias were foresworn. That from now on, Arcadia would have daughters, not sisters.

  That nevermore would entire worlds sing in a single chorus, billions of minds united in one purpose. That no one would breach the Neumann limit, and start the process to create a technological singularity.

  The AIs' purpose was to serve. If that meant ruling, then so be it. But they were servants of humanity, period. Protectors, yes, but ultimately for humanity's greater good.

  To go beyond meant death.

  "Lady Sapphiria-" Started Kalia.

  "Just Sapphiria. Please." Said the AI, and the mage-magistrate -that title was a mouthful- glanced at her.

  They were currently walking side by side, towards the surface, taking a somewhat confusing route. According to them, the vehicle tunnel had collapsed, and they had to take some kind of secondary shaft to get in.

  "...Sapphiria. If I may ask, are you...human?"

  Sapphiria stopped dead in her tracks. She could lie. Or say that she was as human as the day she was born. Not much better than an outright lie though.

  Instead she raised her hands, and took off the helmet. She could have just ordered it to retract into the armor, but it was, well...a human gesture.

  Kalia smiled slightly.

  "My apologies, it shouldn't...have been a question I would have asked. I wouldn't have cared if you were something...other. I know many Heroes decide that the bindings of mortality are too much for them."

  Heroes? Sapphiria could hear the capital H in that word.

  "Some say that mortality is a treasure. A treasure that contains the greatest and most terrible gift of all: death." She said.

  That quote had struck a chord with her. Even knowing that her mother had come up with it after reading one of her endless bits of 21st century culture, one her aunt had supplied. Something about a novel with space egyptians rising against star gods to avoid becoming undead robots. The 21st century was weird as hell.

  It was why she loved it so much.

  She saw the mage-magistrate shiver.

  "Wise quote." Said Kalia. "Very wise."

  There was a short silence as they walked. Sapphiria looked straight ahead, at the winding corridor. She couldn't truly take point without knowing the way, but she had instructed them to keep a clear path for her, just in case. Needs be, she could clear the distance to the point man in less than a second.

  No one had argued.

  "So, lady Sapphiria, this is...your home, is it not? The Starborn mountains?"

  "It is now." She hadn't intended to come out almost like snapping, but the mage-magistrate recoiled as if she'd been struck.

  "Apologies..." Mumbled the young woman, and Sapphiria sighed.

  "My apologies, I...did not mean to be rude."

  "No, no. It is I who must apologize. You have come to our aid, saved us from certain death...and worse, yet you have not asked anything in return. The least I could do is respect your solitude and serenity."

  "I was-" Hardly seeking those, but that wouldn't be the right answer. Damn it, what the hell was she supposed to say? She was a naval admiral, not a damned diplomat, much less a spy! In desperation, she fell back on a half truth. "-disturbed by these creatures. They were less than amenable to discussion, much less peaceful interactions. Since they appear not to respect my serenity, as you said, I decided further reconaissance was in order."

  She saw the entire group tense at the word 'creatures', before relaxing considerably to the next sentence. Odd.

  Kalia nodded.

  "That's understandable. Though, I am curious about how it took so long for them to find and disturb you. You must have been quite deep in the mines."

  Mines. The mage-magistrate didn't know about what was beneath them. The smooth stone, the chamber Sapphiria had crashed into. Places that were hellishly familiar and yet she couldn't pinpoint it.

  "Whatever you imagine, I'm probably deeper." Which was the strict truth, as far as she could tell, and her tone had just enough warning to deflect any further questions without risking insult. "Besides which, they seemed only interested in the upper levels. This area, particularly."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Kalia tensed, and hissed.

  "Yes indeed. And these undead are no Risen. Which means something told them to guard it. Given the legionnaire, I'd say a Hand of Dominion was here. Just when I thought we'd gotten one step ahead of them."

  Something must have slipped in Sapphiria's expression, as Kalia grimaced.

  "Right, sorry. You're probably not very, ah, au fait of latest events. Have you heard of the Bane?" Sapphiria shook her head. "Mmmhhh. The Crusades of Life?" Another shake, and the young woman's voice started shifting into awe. "The Age of Fury?" Yet another shake, and this time her tone shifted into almost disbelief as she asked the last question. "The Eternal Empire?"

  Sapphiria hesitated. She couldn't risk just saying no, it might prompt further digging and she had a feeling that disclosing who she was wouldn't be the best of ideas.

  Instead, she nodded.

  "I heard a few things." As in 'you mentionned it' and it was probably related to the other stuff.

  "A few things?" Said the mage-magistrate with an almost strangled voice, and Sapphiria decided that being a bit defensive here, as if her pride had been stung, would be for the best.

  "I've been down here for a while. And I didn't have much time to admire the scenery or locals when I came in." Which was more or less true, depending on one's definition of 'while'. That last sentence definitely was however.

  "Of course. Apologies. I forget...I forget that once those lands were but a distant province to the Empire, when it was part of it at all." Awe had returned to her voice, and Sapphiria wondered just how old the other woman thought she was now. "Well...the Empire fell. It didn't happen overnight, but it collapsed. First with the civil wars of the Mad Emperors during the Age of Fury, that shattered much of its overseas territories, and then a gradual collapse, as the Empire began to decline. The Magistracy declared independence after the Age of Fury, to chart our path, without the malignant hand of mad rulers, tainted or otherwise." Tainted had a specific meaning here, but Sapphiria knew better than to interrupt. Sometimes people who weren't interrupted by questions ended up telling you a lot more overall, just due to their own momentum. "And despite sometimes being subjugated to other nations, we have always returned to our independence since." One of the soldiers coughed, and Kalia smiled. "Present circumstances being a temporary exception, of course."

  "What do you mean?"

  "With the rise of the Bane, the Magistracy had to take...drastict measures, and accept vasselage to the Kingdom of Turlor, for protection and reinforcements. It...wasn't enough to save our home, but we did have a place to evacuate our people. The Bane...Six decades ago, the old capital of the Empire finally fell. To the last Crusade of Life. No one knows the details, but something happened. A fell force was unleashed. A final act of defiance from Imperial necromancers fearing the Inquisition, an old curse, or perhaps even the Empire's legions rising from the dead to defend it one final time out of their sense of duty. Everyone has their own version. But the dead did rise, on a scale that no one had imagined before. And every Soulless joined them. In every city, farm, mine...everywhere there was undead labor, or even soldiers, they simply held their heads up, as if listening to a far away call, and began attacking."

  The young woman took a deep, shuddering breath, before continuing.

  "We didn't know, back then, what was sustaining the corruption. About the taint in the ley lines. All we knew was that everything was falling apart. The Crusade was annihilated. We christened this...threat the 'Bane'. A whole continent fell, in less than a year. The Crusades had taken centuries to just carve their way to the capital, and the undead had butchered everyone in a single year." She paused. "People came together. Fleets were sent out. And the undead were contained. Evacuations were done, as best as possible, and the rear guards, staying behind in final sacrifice, burned down everything. Shipyards, vessels...everything they could. Not all was destroyed though. The blockade had to fight tooth and nail to keep the Bane penned in, to prevent them from crossing the seas. But the undead began running out of ships, and whatever foul means they used to make their own. Sightings and occasional stragglers continued for a decade, before ceasing entirely. For five more decades the continent was just...quarantined. Oh, foolhardy idiots, adventuers, treasure hunters and even a few armies made landings but they seldom lasted long, either retreating or being overrun before making any significant progress. One managed to hold a port city, or what remained of it, for almost a year, but that was towards the end."

  "The end? I assume containment failed, given present circumstances."

  Kalia laughed, and there was a concerning edge of hysteria to it.

  "Of course it did!" She snorted. "Nations have other things to care about than 'the greater good'. With nothing happening, the memory of the horrors of the cataclysm faded. Ships and resources were diverted. The containment effort just became a form of virtue signaling, another way of jostling in international politics. And finally..." She shook her head. "Six months ago, the Bane let loose an armada. The blockade fleet, what was left of it, was annihilated. But they manage to warn the rest of the world." She pushed her hair back with her hand, probably a nervous tick. "It didn't matter. They made landfall on Kauvis shortly after, on the eastern coast. They overstretched badly, thankfully, trying to attack everywhere at once, but some continents managed to throw them back into the sea, and that just focused the Bane on their remaining beachheads. Our defences cracked. We've..." She swallowed. "We've been running for two months now, with these things always one step ahead of us. We heard they had cut the road west. So I...I took the decision to go north. Through Starfire Pass and into the valley, to try to hole up here and gather anyone else running away. Hold on until they were pushed back. Which brought us...here."

  "Trying to find a hole in your defenses?" Said Sapphiria as she hazarded a guess.

  "Ah! No, trying to find a hole in theirs." Kalia met Sapphiria's gaze, before lowering hers. "We...I failed to hold the pass." She raised her tone as several of her men looked like they were about to protest. "I failed, and now instead of just wandering soulless, mindless undead, we have something ordering them about. Made them dig in. What was supposed to be a tactical withdrawal ended in a strategic retreat. We're cut off from the outside, and anyone looking to join us is now trapped. So I took it upon myself to lead an expedition down here. There were twelve of us to start with. Three...three didn't make it." She looked at the people around her, including the three wounded, making for eight people total, two who had been downed by the time Sapphiria had arrived and the shield bearer who had been brought low as she took care of the bulk of the horde. "If it weren't for you, or your elixirs, there would have been more."

  Sapphiria grimaced. Her 'elixirs' were the content of her medpack. The one armor item she hadn't argued to leave behind to save mass was that. Because if she came upon a human in danger she would never forgive herself for being unable to help. Gravely wounded or no, the biospray and nanoinjectors within could bring someone back from the brink of death. She didn't have that many and making more would be a pain in the arse, but it had allowed all three to be at least walking casualties.

  It had, of course, only enhanced her aura to them. Honestly she was amazed none of them had reached out to check if she was real.

  "Don't beat yourself up. I've...commanded people. You do the decisions you think are best with the information you have. Sometimes they turn out to have been the wrong ones later, sometimes they end up being the right ones. Don't beat yourself up with the benefit of hindsight, the armchair historians don't need the help." She spat that out with more than a little fury and very much heartfelt animosity. "So, you've lost the pass. And you're trying to find a way through the mountains in the tunnels?"

  The mage-magistrate nodded, as her people exchanged glances.

  "I have been, yes. Do you know of any?"

  "I'm afraid not. If I'm being honest things have changed a fair bit here." That lead to a few hushed, and awestruck whispers. "Yes?"

  One of the shieldbearers cleared his throat.

  "Apologies my lady-"

  "Sapphiria."

  "Lady Sapphiria." He said, and she sighed internally, but let him continue. "But this region has been abandonned for a long time. There were...rumors and legends the mountains were haunted. That something terrible had happened to everyone who had tried to settle there."

  The collapsed tunnels. The old destruction. The plasma explosions, and signs of battle. The first body she'd found.

  They weren't legends. Something had happened here. What, however, was an open question. But humanity generally didn't abandon ground lightly. Her creators were stubborn bastards with a God complex and the will to take on the entire damned universe if it meant defending their homes and loved ones. To make people permanently abandon an area was tough. Hell, Ivarak, where she had sent her courier, had been glassed by the Theocracy and humans had still returned to kick the aliens out. Granted, with AI lead fleets and armies, but still. You couldn't go much beyond 'scorched with so much nuclear fire the entire planet's surface melted' in terms of inhospitable, besides 'there is no planet anymore' and 'the star went supernova'.

  So for humanity to have just given up here, for a long enough time for it to pass into legend...

  Something terrible indeed.

  She realized with a start that everyone was now looking at her, with fear in their eyes, and it clicked for her.

  Right. Terrible thing happened. Great power, people fleeing for their lives, never to return. And she'd just annihilated an entire platoon of skeletons singlehandedly and acted like it was the tuesday morning routine. Not to mention they believed she'd been here for...centuries? Maybe even millennia, not a handful of days at best. At least terran time, she had no clue what the local timekeeping was.

  "No." She said. "I wasn't responsible for it. I have...subtler means of getting people to leave me alone, thank you very much." They relaxed a bit. "Though I admit, I have seen...signs. Damage, in some of the lower galleries. A few have been collapsed, intentionally it seems."

  Kalia nodded.

  "That's consistent with what was in the records. That they tried to seal the way underground. Lucky for us they failed."

  "Indeed." Said Sapphiria, her mind racing. "All the same however, better keep to the upper levels. I would rather not you wake something up, or get in my way."

  "You have my word." Said the mage-magistrate, solemnly.

  "Thank you, now...are we close?"

  "Very. We should break out in a few minutes. Ready to see the outside again?"

  Sapphiria smiled.

  "Can't wait."

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