fast, but unable to fully turn off the pulses. When the stimulus comes, the body of a Phyrexian is unable to dissipate it. The charge causes movement, always.”
“Not good at ambushes, at least.”
“I wouldn’t say that. They can be quiet and they can go into a catatonic state,” Venser said. “But these states are difficult to wake from, and they are groggy for a time.”
Elspeth put her sword in its sheath. “Well, they are not so much to deal with here.”
“We have mostly encountered small guard or workers,” the guide called into the room. “Their strength is in numbers and speed. Do not feel your skills are greater than theirs. We want to avoid a direct fight, as we would be quickly overwhelmed and destroyed.”
Elspeth looked doubtful. “I have fought these beasts before. I know how they work.”
“Obviously not, if you just figured out that freezing causes them to not see you.”
“And you knew this?”
“Yes,” the guide said. “Their sight is bad. But most times it is not possible to freeze indefinitely.”
“What did we find out coming into this golden room?” Koth interjected.
“That this is older than the columns and their tendrils,” Venser said. “Can’t you see that? It’s clear.”
“Clear to you,” Koth said. “But far from clear.”
“This room is intact from the inside,” Venser said. “From the outside the tendril had grown around it. To me it means that the tendril is newer. Yes?”
Koth nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe the golden metal this room is made of has bitten deep into the tendril? It could be a special alloy.”
Venser stared at Koth a couple of seconds before bobbing his head. “Yes. That is also possible.”
“Thank you,” Koth said.
“But I do not think it is the case,” Venser said.
“Clearly, you don’t.”
Venser looked around the room. He sucked in his cheeks as he thought. “Right,” he said at last. “Should we be on our way?” He did not wait for a response, but walked over to the hole Koth had made and crawled out into the tendril-tube.
The guide led them left and proceeded down the tube in a slightly hunched gait.
They moved through the tunnel until it became thicker. Soon it became high, and then higher still. Then the passage widened into another vast cavern. They made their way down, along the crumbly ore until a floor of sorts became apparent. It was riddled with boulders and dusts of many colors, and even a couple of partial skeletons in various degrees of decomposition. Leagues passed under their feet as they walked along the bottom of the cavern, and then even the bottom of the cavern fell away suddenly. A circular hole so wide across they could not see the other side was thrust up. The bottom was similarly cloaked in darkness. Koth picked up a chunk of slag from the floor of the cavern.
“Do not think of throwing that over the side,” Elspeth warned.
Koth threw the chunk into the air and caught it easily. “Wouldn’t think of it,” he said.
In the blue light from Venser’s wisp, the air looked ghostly and distorted. Venser put his hand out over the hole. “Do you feel anything?” he asked.
The others put their hands out.
“I feel the wind,” Elspeth said.
“I feel heat,” Koth said. “And something else.”
Koth turned his hand over and then back.
“I feel mana, I think,” Koth said. “My hand is tingling. My nose hairs are tickling.”
“I feel that too,” Venser said. He looked up. The hole continued upward for a short time before stopping in a mass of slag and blacked char. The slag that stopped the top of the huge chute appeared different than the dull metal of the surrounding cavern.
“Let me see that chunk of yours,” Venser said, holding out his hand to Koth.
Koth placed the chunk of metal in Venser’s gloved hand. The artificer held the piece out above his foot and dropped it. The chunk should have fallen and crushed his toe, but instead it fell only a short distance before slowing down to float like a feather.
“Well,” Venser said. “That
“How’s that?” Koth said. He reached out and poked the rock, which spun sideways and then continued its lazy fall.
The guide watched all of this. “I do not know of this chute. If we go this way it is into the unknown.”
Elspeth shifted her weight from one thick leg to the other.
“It will allow us to travel down the shaft,” Venser said. “Otherwise it might have been a dangerous climb.”
“My way has a climb,” the guide said.
Elspeth stared at the guide as though he were mad. “A climb?” she said. “I am not in favor of that path then.”
Koth coughed. “You want us to go down that sheer hole?”
“As you can see,” Venser said. “We will float. It will be fast and safe.”
Elspeth opened her mouth but waited a moment before speaking. “That is not the point,” she said. “It is a hole.”
“Yes,” Koth said, pointing at Elspeth. “What she said.”
“This is a stroke of luck,” Venser said. “I think this shaft goes very deep. Almost to the mana core of this metal place. It’s little more than a conduit.”
“It is possible,” the guide said.
“But a blocked conduit,” Elspeth said, pointing upward at the slag plug.
“Exactly,” Venser said. “It seems it once vented, but is now plugged. That is why the mana concentration is so great. Koth can feel it and so can I. It is so dense that the normal force of matter seems interrupted, I would guess.”
“If we float down how do we know there are passages like this one branching off from the stem?” It was Elspeth who spoke.
“We don’t,” Venser said. “But it would stand to reason that …”
“This is foolishness,” Koth said.
“I agree,” said Elspeth. “We could fall forever.”
“This branch is here,” Venser said. “We saw others branching off from the column. There must be other branches.”
“But we have no reason to believe that they are hollow,” Koth said.
Venser took off his helmet. “Have you
Koth pushed his chest out. “Are you accusing me of cravenness?”
“Not at all,” Venser said. “I’m accusing you of bad logic … and that’s worse.”
“I’ll give you logic,” Koth said. A large flame leaped from his right fist. Venser was near the edge of the huge shaft. Koth reached out with his huge flaming hand and tried to seize Venser’s shoulder. The artificer whispered a word and appeared with a sudden strobe of light behind Koth. With one finger Venser pushed the geomancer, who tripped forward and fell headfirst over the edge of the shaft. As he fell his whole body sputtered and burst into flame and the slits along his ribs yawned wide and red. But Koth did not fall far before his body seemed to stop in midair. Then he began to fall as slowly as a leaf falling from a tree in fall. His breeches bagged up as he executed a flip.
“This is amazing,” Koth yelled.
Elspeth looked back along the tube they had just traveled. “Hush, dolt,” she said.
Venser turned to her. “You are next, my lady,” Venser said. He slipped his helmet back on and smiled at her. A strange sight, Elspeth thought. A man in a helmet smiling at her. Men in helmets were usually trying to kill her. “I do not think this is wise,” she said, stepping to the edge. She undid the buckle holding her sword around her waist. Then she slipped the belt over her shoulder and fastened the buckle again. She stepped to the edge and then back
