124 – Blending in, walking around

  Rox started up the ramp, going quickly. A slight breeze went down the shaft. They spiraled around several times before getting to the next level up. There was some noise above but it drifted by, and was muffled by the lift platform sitting at rest at this top level. Several creatures were hanging on the bottom of the platform, and occasionally on rocks on the wall and ceiling of the passages. Rox presumed these to be some variant on bats, and partly why Cyrril had so far been unnoticed, at least as reported by Caspian.

  Rox and Caspian listened as they waited, there was noise but it was not apparently threatening. From what Rox remembered of the map, this was still more or less a side tunnel so there would not be lots of traffic just passing by, it would be directly at them. The passage directly into the elevator was short and sided directly onto another more or less flat passage that went to either side. Rox and Caspian crept carefully, looking both ways for anybody. Following the plan, they would travel this passage to the main tunnel that circled most of the area, going at about the level of the largest cavern, partly under and partly between the second largest as it circled around. The unknown was how much traffic anywhere, and how to deal with it.

  Rox led to the next intersection. It was all she could do to keep from crouching and sneaking along. Caspian strolled along behind, waiting for someone to make some notice and noise to their presence. Surprising to both of them, there was no one in this tunnel at this time.

  Looking in either direction, this larger passage looked to Rox like the concourse of a mall, with a large wide road, side passages at intervals, some passages at different elevations with ramps or stairs to get both up and down, and the main concourse tiled with pieces of the same crystals as in the first three chambers they had passed through.

  Rox saw that there were several locals in clusters moving purposefully in all directions.

  “Do you sense any magic?”

  Rox looked back as Caspian who stood looking almost bored. She looked back, and put her attention to those senses. She could not sense Caspian’s staff, and nothing along the passage in either direction, so far as her visual range extended.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then quit hiding,” Caspian chided. “Start looking like you belong here, and are not giving anyone any more notice than any other local.”

  “I’m a head taller than you, and head and shoulders taller than they are. Somebody will notice.”

  Caspian scoffed. “About time you noticed. Come back here and let’s do a bit more magic.”

  Rox followed him a few steps back into the passage. “Will anyone notice this?”

  “Only the few magic users around, if they are paying attention.” Caspian concentrated a moment, then spoke a phrase in a language Rox was not familiar with.

  She felt it settle in with the magic already active on her, like an ingredient in a mix.

  “That should keep you from being noticed by anyone not directly looking for you. Problem is it will also keep your daughter from understanding you’re you. So you will have to dispel these spells before identifying to her.” Caspian finished, then strolled past Rox.

  She followed him into the larger passage and simply took up a purposeful walk in the direction they wanted to go. To Rox’s initial surprise, the sparse regular traffic of the locals took no more notice of her or Caspian than they did of each other. As she walked Rox noticed that the crystal tiling of the passage soon alternated in patterns, and included other stones for cobbles. The walls were carved and occasionally had wooden or stone carved arches arched buttressing the ceiling.

  They traveled a bit farther than they wanted, having missed the scale of things a little. The passage turned counterclockwise and started to descend some as they went. Rox had noticed a pattern in the arches that buttressed the ceiling. Every third one was carved stone with the intermediate two being plain wood. Then she came to one that was crystal. It was carved blocks shaped to make the arch, and had a slight aura of magic to it. It did not have a strong field to it, but it did register. Rox almost stopped before going through it.

  Caspian gently took her arm and kept her pace up. “The magic is just for ventilation. It keeps the air moving.”

  They walked on under the arch and past it without much incident. Rox did notice that the breeze had picked up a bit, and was fresher.

  After a few more archways, Caspian pulled Rox aside against the wall. He kept his demeanor as business-like as he could, as if just a local conversing with another over whatever business du-jour.

  “We should be far enough that the second chamber is above and behind us, while the third is ahead of us. Check the tracker.”

  Rox got the tracker from the neck of her shirt and held it out. She had her back to the column and the wall on her right. The dot was nearly to the top, on the side away from her, and bit to her left. Both looked at it, and visualized the map and the actual caverns around them.

  Caspian spoke first. “I think she is in the main one, and a bit to this end of it. So, do I continue with you, or do we split up? If we split up now, that is less chance for us to be both caught before we can start any diversion. Also I can go back and scout the other end of this main cavern, for somewhere to make that diversion. That will leave you on your own, to finalize Diana’s general location, and get there.”

  “I think it is time to split up,” Rox said, as she took the tracker from around her neck and wrapped it around her left wrist, where it would not interfere with using her bow. “I’m no longer jittery about moving through here. I think I got a handle on the tools at hand. I will meet you in this same passage on the other side.”

  Caspian nodded. “Right. Go quickly, but pick your targets carefully. We aren’t here to kill or destroy, just distract.”

  Rox looked at him, pausing before moving away. “That is a surprise, considering what you did to the last locals who crossed out paths.”

  “They weren’t Urnvtai, or from this community.” Caspian turned and strolled away as Rox considered, a moment, then started again in the direction she had been going along this passage.

  Rox passed several openings on either side of the passage, and the traffic was such that she was not alone. She strolled along and kept her self looking as purposeful as she could to any locals she encountered. The locals were head and shoulders shorter than Rox, but appeared not to pay her any attention, her magic cloaking still working. Rox briefly looked at their variety of clothing, but none of it stood out as remarkable; rather it fit for the rolls each played in their community, tradesmen, domestics, the odd constable or militia man, and so forth. The passage soon began descending gently and turning to her left. It leveled off before it finished its turn. Shortly after the turn, Rox paused and checked the tracker. Again oriented with the passage wall to her right, the dot on the tracker was to her left. Rox walked to the next passage on the left side of the passage and into the entry tunnel to the main cavern, where about half of the community was located.

  Fortunately she was alone in this passage. It was the same general size and design as the passage she had been traveling. The gateway arch into the cavern was another crystal one. Rox had passed several more of these and could tell that this one had a different spell on it than the ones in the passage; more so an additional one. But she could not tell what just yet. Rox did not want to risk breaching any magical barriers yet, neither did she want to risk testing one and setting off any alarm, yet.

  She looked across through the archway directly into a residential area. The roads continued to be cobbled and tiled, and there were pillars of shaped crystal on the corners of the houses. The roof looked to be more of the crystals, cur to uneven depths several dozen meters above. Having seen what she could, Rox turned and strode back the way she had come and continued on her way around the ring-passage as she had come to think of it.

  She turned to go in and check the passages into the cavern at every other one. Past the residential area was a market place, then a few open areas that were just open areas. On her right she passed a significant construction area, where stone was being removed from between several passages to create more open space. At one part they were harvesting crystal blocks the size of the workers.

  By the time Rox met up with Caspian coming the other way, she figured she had circled this ring-passage about three fifths of its total distance. The cavern that it ringed had more industrial stuff at this end she was approaching and that Caspian was supposed to check.

  They turned to their right down a side passage into a storage area. The room they entered smelled of food storage.

  Caspian started first. “I found the water works, and I think a barracks and guard house.”

  “I found residential area, some markets, and some open areas that I have no idea of their use. Do you have any idea what the second spell on the arches into the cavern is? Near as I could tell, they alternate which way they move air into or out of the cavern. But they all have that second spell that I don’t recognize, and did not want to risk testing.” Rox leaned against a wall as stretched as she reported.

  Caspian likewise stretched as he listened. Cyrril hopped off his shoulder onto a stacked pile of grain bags. “I think it is related to firefighting. I got the sense that it had to do with moving heat and smoke. But that was not the barrier Cyrril noticed. That one is just beyond the archway, in the main cavern. I don’t think is it a military barrier either. I think it is a varmint barrier. We should be able to walk right in. So how do we do this?”

  Rox took her shoulder bag off. She had been wearing her cape to this point, as it helped to diffuse her shape in the light and hear conditions. She folded and rolled it into a bundle and secured it to her bag. Rox left her bag on the pile Cyrril was crouched on, and added her water bag to it. She did not want to carry anything extra that might get in the way. This left her with her equipment and weapons. She reached into another part of the bag and pulled her chains, and a small box out. She hand not worn these yet for stealth reasons; now she put them on, securing them to her equipment harness, arms and legs.

  Caspian likewise put his own shoulder bags aside. “Leaving these here means either coming back this way, abandoning them, or risking using magic to retrieve them.”