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Author's Chapter Notes:
already done for us...
The catacombs eventually led into a series of crumbling corridors and passageways whose original purpose Max and his friends could only guess at, there was so little left of it.

Thus far, they had encountered no one, and found no clues to Percival’s whereabouts, nor any hint of treasure. Anything of material worth was clearly stripped from this place centuries ago. And that was to say nothing of all the distinct eras of architecture they had wandered through, hours and hours of blundering around.

“The history of this city truly is arranged in layers…” Maximilian marveled as they came into a new section, appearing to be more sturdy than the section before it.

At least the portions that were still standing, mostly main hallways with a few rooms and side passages.

“Ya know,” Shades mused, “the more I see of this place, the more certain I am that that was no natural earthquake two years ago. I mean, if you look at how much this place has fallen apart, as well as the uneven damage on the surface…”

“Yeah,” Max agreed, “that might just be it.”

“Another dead end,” Justin muttered, the hallway ahead blocked by a long-settled flood of dirt and debris.

“Yeah, I doubt Freedan would be blasting anything down here,” Shades agreed. “This structure’s unstable enough as it is. The last thing he’d do is risk trapping himself, or just bringing the whole thing crashing down on his head.”

“This place would be his tomb.” Maximilian nodded. “Ma’Quiver told me about how his flashlight only worked the first few hours, and after that, he had to crawl around here for three whole days to make it out. Now that I’ve seen this maze for myself, I’m even more amazed that he made it out at all. To think, my father may have got lost down here…”

Staring at a collapsed section like this, they could all feel the full, palpable weight of the entire city of Alta pressing down above them.

This. Is. Nuts. Shades, for one, was ever more certain he had left his common sense behind somewhere back on Earth.

“We have to keep looking.” Max knew all too well, from personal experience, that sometimes the only way to keep it together was to just keep doing, even if it was no longer about results, the first to turn back to the main passage.

“Too bad your pop didn’t think to mark any of these ways.” As Justin had been doing since they left the sewers. “That was the only way I could even begin to find my way around—”

Justin’s remark was cut off by a terrified cry, followed by several more yelps and loud, panicked footfalls, echoing down an unexplored corridor.

The first solid evidence any of them had found that anyone else had been down here in their lifetime.

“Father!” Maximilian cried, dashing down the hall ahead of the rest.

“Wait!” Shades shouted as they took off after him. “That might be one of Freedan’s men!”

Down the hall and around a couple more corners, Maximilian stumbled to a halt in the midst of a hallway full of scattered bones and ragged clothing. Broken sticks stuck out from the walls at random heights and intervals. Only a couple of the wall-protruding spears still intact, sticking out fruitlessly.

The remains of ancient traps, and the remains of ancient people who fell for them.

“Slow down,” Max urged him as he caught up. “This place is dangerous enough as it is. If there’s anyone else down here, we want to find them.”

“Not the other way around,” Justin added for emphasis as he approached the next corner, double-barrel power pistol already drawn.

“Already done for us…” Shades solemnly thanked them, be they graverobbers or just unfortunate explorers.

At least this grim find served to put Maximilian back on his guard.

Justin motioned for them to come forward, giving the All Clear sign for them to turn the corner. In the middle of the short hall was a spiked ball dangling from the ceiling by a chain, its left side painted a sticky, dripping red. A broad streak of blood smeared down the wall, marking the limp form slumped against it.

“Looks like one of Rawne’s men,” Max observed.

“Which means they did follow us,” Justin muttered, “just as I thought.”

“But why was he here all by himself?” Shades wondered, keeping his power pistol trained on the body, even as he knelt down to examine it. Leaving its blood-soaked face against the floor, he laid his finger on its neck, confirming his first impression. “Either way, he’s dead.”

“To think, one of these traps still works…” Maximilian gasped, visibly trying to take his mind off this macabre turn of events.

“Great…” Justin commented, “Not only are there a shitload of traps down here, but enemies as well?”

“Looks like,” Max replied.

After claiming the dead mercenary’s salvageable gear, and giving Maximilian his power rifle, they proceeded with even greater caution.

Off one side passage, they found a small chamber whose floor was all spikes, littered with bones and fallen masonry and part of a metal grating. So far, they had yet to find any of the trigger mechanisms, but that didn’t keep them from second-guessing their every step. Even the fact that both time and tremors had taken their toll on most of the works, the fact that even one trap was still operational was hardly reassuring.

When they started finding sinister red symbols slathered on doorways, it only increased their anxiety.

“It is about the traps?” Shades pondered, “Or something else we’ve yet to run into?…”

Their ominous thoughts came to a grinding halt along with their steps when they found another dead body in another rubble-choked corner, just off to the side of the hall.

A dead body to go with that dead end, one that Maximilian recognized all too well.

“Dad! No!” he wailed, falling to his knees before his father’s remains.

At first, the others wondered how even his own son could recognize Percival in his current condition. Unlike the mercenary, who had blundered into a booby-trap, it was obvious that this one had run into something nasty. Obvious from the way those raw bones had been stripped-down, as if eaten alive. Obvious from what was left of its contorted, agonized pose and gaping jaw.

Those tattered clothes surely the only thing left of him to recognize anymore.

The others stood watch for a long, awkward moment as Maximilian grieved for his father.

“If only I made it sooner…” he sobbed. “I can’t believe I failed… Why didn’t you bring me with you!?”

“You did what you could,” Max assured him, his own voice sounding uncharacteristically choked-up.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Shades told him, though he had quietly feared an unpleasant end to this expedition from the start. “If you need someone to blame…”

“Blame Freedan!” Justin finished. “Blame Rawne! They’re the ones who stopped you all this time.”

“And he’ll pay for that…” Maximilian hissed. “This is not over yet. I swear, no matter what happens, I will not let them take everything our family built! And if there is any treasure to be had down here, I won’t let them take that, either! I will avenge you…”

Then, as if just remembering something important, he reached over for his father’s pack, digging around in growing dismay.

“What is it?” Max asked.

“Edric’s journal!” Maximilian waved his empty hand frantically. “It’s missing!”

“But that makes no sense…” Shades mumbled. “A predator would have no use for a journal. Unless…”

“Rawne!” Justin snarled. “I bet he got here first! We already ran into one of his men…”

“But surely we aren’t going to leave your father like this,” Max pointed out.

They all paused for a moment in indecision.

Before their debate could resume, Bandit started snarling, low and defensive, turning back toward the way they just came, hackles at high mast.

“What now?” Shades tensed up.

They got their answer in the form of creeping shadows crawling down the passage, yellow eyes glaring back at their lights. Looking for all the world, to Shades, like an army of tiny dinosaurs marching on them.

“The fuck…” Justin nearly fumbled his gun.

“Underdwellers!” Maximilian gasped, recalling the trophy in his father’s den.

“Raptors!” Max cried, recalling that creepy statue from back in Layosha.

“Run!” Shades screamed as he did just that, surprising himself by actually finding a second to wonder where Max got that name from…

Justin and Max fired frantically over their shoulders as the ravenous reptiles came racing toward them. By the time one was already nipping at Maximilian’s heels, it was becoming frighteningly obvious what happened to his father, as obvious as it was that they now shared the same fate.

Shades, already seeing where this was going, hastily switched to his stun-sticks, sweeping and twirling both energy blades in a desperate effort to hold the frenzied creatures at bay. Justin fumbled out his crossbow, deciding that now was a good time to use a strategy he originally had up his sleeve for Rawne’s crew down here.

“Close your eyes!” he ordered, firing a flash bolt into the midst of the horde.

His friends didn’t even wait for a reaction before they started running blindly down the tunnel.

The blinding flash of light only seemed to slow them down for a moment, though, before they resumed their pursuit of fresh meat.

“I… don’t get it…” Maximilian panted, “Under… dwellers… haven’t been… seen in Alta… since… Edric’s day…”

Just when the underdwellers were about to catch up with them, leaving no time to worry about dead ends, and Justin running too fast to even attempt reloading his crossbow, the ones at the head of the pack began to slow down.

They could hardly credit their eyes as they looked back to see the whole feeding frenzy grinding to a halt. Wasting no time, Justin slowed down enough to load another flash bolt, just in case. Maximilian, meanwhile, tripped over some debris, skidding and scrambling back to his feet with a horrified cry.

Max was the first to stop in spite of himself, to point out to the others that the little monsters had stopped entirely, and immediately started running in the opposite direction.

“What got into them?” Shades muttered, not liking this at all.

“We’re safe!” Justin crowed. “Let’s get while the gettin’s good!”

“Wait!” Max warned them, wondering why he had such an ominous feeling. Seeing Bandit also stopped in his tracks, staring apprehensively ahead, combined with the concerned look on Shades’ face, he added, “What are they running from?”

They all ground to a halt, as if the same horrifying thought occurred to them: Freedan’s men. Then there was a second pause, considering that these creatures had shown no fear of man or beast. Or energy weapons, for that matter. In that light, it begged the question of what down here might such mindless monsters be afraid of.

“Something even worse than them?…” Shades tried not to picture what that might be.

Just as they were about to start forward again, deciding to take their chances against the unknown, after seeing what lurked back that way, they spotted a greenish glow up ahead.

Flowing down the hallway, filling it from floor to ceiling, a dense cloud of glowing green gas.

Trapped between a rock and hard place, they fumbled to don their respirators again, Shades having warned them of the perils of underground gases, as that mysterious cloud swirled around them like a living, breathing thing.