bookpower 2.57 Changes
2.57 Changes
57 – Changes
When Andy, Lucy, Omar, Violet, and a train of other residents descended the wide, stone stairwell, they found another group of people already gathering on the landing that led to the underground lake. Among them were Madi, Keshawn, and James, who’d been at the lake gathering fungi and other subterranean plants when Andy purchased the boons.
Before anyone could get a word in, James waved his hand and called out, “Andy! Holy smokes, young blood! The cavern grew, and so did the lake!”
Madi picked up the large wicker basket she’d set by her feet and waved toward the tunnel. “Come on! We’ll show you!”
With Madi and Keshawn leading the way, Andy and the others hurried through the tunnel, and when they reached the opening to the lake cavern, at first Andy didn’t think much had changed. He could see quite a distance, thanks to his Ember Vision, and nothing from the opening seemed all that different; he saw large boulders, a high ceiling adorned with stalactites, and beyond a muddy stretch of “beach,” the mysterious depths of the lake.
When he stepped into the cavern, though, his jaw dropped, for, off to his left, the cavern had expanded and now stretched into the distance with a slight downward slope. He was certain that if they were to burrow straight up, they’d find that they were already outside the bounds of the mesa. Now, it looked as though the cavern stretched for another mile or more into the underground. What was more, all along that stretch of rocky ground, the lake waters placidly lapped, stirred by some underground current.
“Where’s the light coming from?” Lucy asked, which prompted Andy to search around; he’d thought his sight was coming from his vision spell alone, but apparently the cavern wasn’t dark.
“There,” Omar said, pointing, “on the ceiling.”
Andy squinted and, sure enough, he could discern a faint glow coming from the crevices that ran between the hundreds of stalactites. “What is it?”
“Some kind of fungus, I think,” Madi replied.
“That’s right,” James added. “We found some on the walls a bit further down.”
“Huh.” Andy watched as the crowd spread out, everyone exploring the depths of the cavern. He and Lucy spent an hour or two walking along the shoreline, exploring the furthest point where the lake met the cavern wall and then into the darkness of a vast tunnel. He imagined that if they purchased the Deepwater Port boon, they’d have an easier time accessing that dark river, and it highlighted a critical mistake in their earlier theory-crafting: they’d assumed that the underground waterway wouldn’t appear until they had the port, but it seemed that Fisher’s Bounty had certainly opened something up.
They were on their way back to the tunnel, intent on checking out the changes wrought by the Deep Veins boon, when Omar, Bella, and Jace caught up to them. He waved and started to say hello, but Jace cut him off. “Man, we’re going to need more guards down here.”
Andy tilted his head, turning back to regard the lake. “You mean the way the water seems to keep going into the depths?”
“Yeah, man. What if another giant toad comes? What if some kind of underground pirate monsters do?”
Bella chuckled, but when Andy looked at her, she said, “It sounds funny, but he’s not wrong. I mean, Benny and Janice got washed in here from somewhere. There must be another access point to this lake. Well, I bet it’s more like a river as you move away from this cavern.”
“Didn’t he say they were in North Tucson and fell into a sinkhole?” Andy asked.
Omar nodded. “That’s right.”
“So, yeah—” Andy clapped Jace on the shoulder. “—we’re gonna need some guards down here.”
“Maybe not exactly guards,” Lucy said, pointing to James and half a dozen other people who were ankle-deep in the shallow water of the lake shore. Every now and then, one of them would hold up something and exclaim excitedly, showing the others. “I feel like we’re going to have people here a lot of the time. Maybe even some people will want to set up camp.”
Violet, who Andy hadn’t even realized was following along behind them, spoke up, saying, “That’s all well and good, but they need to be prepared to act as sentries. I hate to imagine a boatload of people like those creeps from Construction City showing up in the middle of the night.”
It was a sobering thought, and the rest of them walked in silence the rest of the way to the central shaft. When they descended past the next landing, they all saw firsthand how the stairs no longer ended there, but continued down into the darkness. Andy looked at Omar. “Did you go down at all?”
He shook his head. “Came up to let you know what I saw.”
Just then, a distant shout echoed from the depths, and Andy looked at the others. “Any idea who’s down there?” Nobody seemed to know, so they continued down. Andy set a quick pace, partly because he was eager to see what he’d find, and partly because he was worried; what if someone had fallen during the expansion?
It turned out his fear was misplaced. After descending another fifty yards or so, the stairs opened out onto a rocky cavern floor, and two camp lanterns illuminated a jagged crevice that split the stone wall. Lydia was standing at the rough opening, peering into the depths, and as they approached, she turned to wave.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Hey, folks! Looks like the System gave us a head-start on our mining with this split in the stone.” She shifted her gaze past Andy. “Your sister’s in there, Jace—Lena, I mean.”
“What?” He stepped forward, his eyes glinting in the lamplight, and a low rumble in his chest.
“Relax—” Lydia started to say, but then a rattle of stone from the crevice cut her off and Lena’s voice echoed out of the opening.
“I’m not far!” More stones clattering on stone sounded, and then her face appeared in the opening. “It gets too narrow, but I think I see something glinting further in.”
While they continued talking, Andy turned in a slow circle, examining the bottom of the shaft. The “cavern” where they stood wasn’t so much a cavern as just the flat area at the bottom of the stone stairwell. Still, it did widen, especially at the one end where Lydia and the others stood, watching Lena worm her way out. The sight of her barely squeezing out of the narrow split in the rock gave Andy the chills. “You couldn’t pay me to wriggle in there like that.”
Bella, who was the only one close enough to hear his mutter, turned to grin at him. “Don’t like tight spaces?”
“Not a thousand feet underground!”
She smiled and nodded. “Same.”
They didn’t spend much more time down there, as it was apparent that they’d need to actually start breaking up the stone and widening the crevice to learn more about what might be in store for them. Lydia said she was interested in the project, and when Lena offered to help, so did Jace, though it seemed like he was mostly doing it to look out for his sister.
As people started talking about leaving, Violet pulled Andy aside. “We need to have our meeting!”
Andy sighed. He’d been hoping for some time to continue reading through the Codex entry and making a plan of action with regard to his Improvement Points. Of course, he knew that was selfish; other people deserved to learn what he’d found out, so he nodded to the short, dark-haired woman. “Where do you want to meet, Vi?”
“I was thinking of the cave where the portal was,” she said. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she added, “I think it’s far enough from the top that we won’t need to worry about...well, prying eyes and ears.”
Andy nodded. “Okay. I’ll grab Omar and Lucy. Can you get the others?”
She held up her hand, lifting her fingers as she listed off the other “council” members. “Let’s see, there’s James by the lake, then Bernice and Tucker up in the main cavern with Ed. Who am I forgetting?”
Andy shook his head. “Not Bernice. She said she didn’t want in, remember?”
“Oh, right, but who—”
“Bea,” Andy said, grinning. “And I think we ought to invite Lydia, considering she’s the leader of Grace Refuge.”
Violet shook her head. “That makes it even. We want an odd number.”
Andy thought for a second, then said, “Tell Lydia to pick one of her people.”
Violet nodded. “Okay. Meet you there in a few minutes.” With that, she hurried up the stairs, and Andy turned to let Lucy and Omar know it was time for the meeting. A few minutes later, they were making their way down the corridor to the waterlogged cavern where the portal to the dungeon had been.
“Why here?” Omar asked as they approached the glow of the lamp from the guard post there.
“Yeah, why?” Lucy repeated. “I don’t really love the idea of standing around in the water while we talk.
“It’s really shallow in some areas,” Andy said, but then, in a lower voice, added, “but really, we figured it was a good place to talk without being overheard.”
“Speaking of.” Omar nodded to the two figures standing near the cavern mouth, chatting as they leaned on their spears. It was Hector, the former trucker, and Janice, the draconic woman they’d found by the lake. Andy was surprised but pleased to find her already serving a guard rotation.
“Hey guys,” he called out.
“Oh, look,” Janice said, elbowing Hector’s arm. “It’s that crazy one who jumped in the lake.”
Hector arched an eyebrow, clearly not on board with teasing Andy, and waved. “Hey, muchachos. Something up?”
“We’re going to have a meeting down here,” Omar said. “How much longer on your shift?”
“Like an hour,” Hector replied, glancing at Janice to see if she had an opinion.
She furrowed her scaly brow, her strange yellow eyes with their vertical pupils glinting in the lamplight. “That’s about right. Want us to get lost?”
Andy smiled at her and shook his head. “Was hoping you could move back to the landing to keep watch. We still don’t know how secure our tunnels are—from the Lurikeens, I mean.” Something tightened in his chest at the half-truth. He felt guilty keeping secrets from some of the citizens, but he wanted to give the others a chance to weigh in on the Codex entry and the Lurikeens—how much they ought to share and with whom.
Apparently, Omar felt similarly as he added, “Or anything else.”
Andy glanced at Lucy to see if she had anything to say, but she had a distant look in her eyes as she idly plucked her bowstring.
“Yeah, no problem, Boss.” Hector hefted his spear and started walking, but Janice wasn’t so quick to move.
“What kind of meeting?”
“Council,” Omar replied.
“There’s a council?”
Her raspy, almost growling voice got Lucy’s attention, and she stepped forward, jutting her chin out. “Just for advice. Andy’s the leader.”
“Well, if you want advice, I’ve got plenty,” Janice replied, stepping forward, her considerable bulk making Lucy look small.
Andy couldn’t tell if she was being funny or not; he’d found her to be acerbic, but not unfair in their previous conversations, but he didn’t want Lucy to feel like she needed to stand up for him. He stepped forward and said, “Listen, Janice. I’ll be glad to talk to you later, and if you’re really interested in the council, we’re going to have an election for those seats down the road. That okay with you?”
She stared at him for a minute, her strange reptilian lips curling down into a frown on her stubby snout, then she snorted and nodded, holding a scaly hand out to Lucy. “No hard feelings, short-stack. I just like to tease men who get inflated egos.”
Lucy glanced at Andy and then, matching Janice’s frown, shook the other woman’s hand. “He’s the opposite of that.”
“Okay...” Andy said, moving past the small group. “We’ll be done before your shift’s over, I hope.”
Hector, eyes on Omar, chuckled and whistled softly. “We’ll be at the stairs if you need something.”
Andy only partially heard him; he was staring into the flooded room...only it wasn’t flooded. The stone was covered with a thin layer of silt, and he could see depressions all over the cavern where the deeper pools had been, but the water was mostly gone. He called over his shoulder, “Hey! When did the water drain out?”
“Oh, shit,” Hector said, stopping in his tracks. “I should’ve said something. It started to gurgle and bubble when the ground shook a while back. Then it just kind of slowly drained away.”
Omar moved to stand beside Andy, and he nodded, pointing to the far end of the cave where the water had been deepest. “I bet it drained down into the mine or something. The caves must have grown underneath us.”
Andy tried to visualize where they were in relation to the “lake cavern” up above, and he was pretty sure they were on opposite sides of the shaft from it. Continuing with the exercise, he pictured the mine down below and realized they were directly above the crevice that Lena and Lydia had been exploring. “Yeah, you know, I think you’re right. There must be more caves and tunnels down there—more areas to mine for...whatever.”