12 Miles Below

I set the helmet down on the table, taking a breath of unfiltered air. Little musty, like water left to sit on concrete for a little too long. The Chosen here didn’t have that much to work with, most of their put together buildings and foundations were all cut into the rock face, where long range weapons wouldn’t immediately break it down. But Undersiders didn’t have the same green thumb Agrifarmers did, our people lived and breathed making plants grow in two inches of soil and three inches of space.

That didn’t stop them from trying, and the process was going way faster now that Wrath had joined in and started sharing all the small quirks she’d learned from her stay at the surface. I’m not surprised she found some time to sneak down to the source of all food and ask how it’s all run, the little gremlin.

Outside, the town had started to move again without issue now that the new clan knights walking around had been put under the ‘friendly’ category. People here moved with a purpose, trying to get their community up and going, and sharing some of the stuff they had with my own team.

Wrath and I had been idly chatting up till now about smaller topics, like the aforementioned farming and how she’s simultaneously teaching three Chosen right this moment exactly how to set up a vertical crop field. Things like that had been what made Wrath so stupidly good at running a city. Logi would give up an arm and leg to have even one percent of Wrath’s multi-tasking ability.

Then the doorway opened and three people walked in, so the official meeting had begun.

First through the door was Lejis, technically supposed to be second in command to Wrath here as the Chosen priest. But it was a strange gray zone. The people he’d been the leader of had been nomads walking around, barely surviving and under the yoke of probably the worst Feather ever.

When he’d returned to his people, it had been to a reforged society, strong and even proud of themselves, led by a young woman from a family of merchants. She’d been the first to befriend the unknown machine tyrant now in command, the terrifying and ice cold Lady To’Wrathh.

At least terrifying and ice cold when she wasn’t absentmindedly chewing a spoon up while learning how to eat soup.

So the Chosen priest wasn’t sure if he was still a leader or not. But he had brought back a smaller group unharmed and came with a pet Fido who could shoot angry Deathless from a few miles away. That gave him some street cred.