There was something strange about the wooden seal boarding off the bottom of the old well. For starters, the planks had been laid in somewhat recently—maybe a decade ago, by the looks of it—a sharp contrast to the centuries-old stone of the surrounding walls. But more curious than that was the seal’s slapdash construction: whoever made it had done so hastily and without the proper tools, which implied either a desperate effort to hide something inside or, more ominously, to imprison it. Whichever it was, Kaelis was very eager to find out. With one last heavy stomp she pierced her steeled boot through the boards, sending splinters tumbling down into a cavernous darkness.

  Bracing her feet carefully against the cobblestone, Kaelis cleared away the remaining planks and peered down into the void. Far below her, at the edges of the blackness, she could just make out a vague shape: a pile of debris—the collection of hundreds of years of decay—and under it, the faintest impression of a finely tiled floor.

  Bingo.

  For a moment longer she watched and listened for hints of movement in the dark. She observed only a gentle, deathly stillness. Satisfied with her findings, Kaelis called up out of the shaft.

  “Okay, lower me in!”

  A buzz of machinery answered from above. A bulky hook attached to a braided steel cable pierced through the hazy daylight and steadily lowered into the shaft. Kaelis made herself ready as it neared, unslinging her rifle from her back and lowering the face guard of her steel helmet. With a sprightly hop she transferred onto the head of the passing hook and descended with it into the chamber.

  As Kaelis peered through the dark, the room began to take shape around her. She was in the middle of a domed atrium, immense in scale and ornate in design. Faded frescoes embellished the ceiling, awash with scenes of lunar beings battling obscured, abstract monstrosities. Nightmarish statues lined the walls: humanoid figures, featureless, their skin etched with thin, jagged patterns. Numerous tunnels split from the central hub, each trailing off into deep shadow.

  “Oooh…” Kaelis softly whispered, taken in by the desolate majesty.

  The hook’s descent steadily slowed before coming to a stop just over the mound of rubble. Without a second thought, Kaelis leapt down onto the pile. The loose stone gave way beneath her immediately. Flailing her arms, she awkwardly floundered down the mound and spilled onto the floor.

  “Oof!—” she breathed, her scant pieces of steel armor panging against the marble tiles. Springing to her feet as if nothing had happened, she slapped the dust from her jacket and readjusted her smattering of pouches and weapons. With her gear in order once more, Kaelis moved to inspect the room around her.

  Immediately, a shape caught her eye: an object sitting in the shadows a few paces away. It was a boot, timeworn, shredded with thick teeth marks.

  “Hmm…” Kaelis mumbled, troubled by the implication. Readying her rifle, she moved in for a closer look.

  A few paces past the boot was its prior owner: a pair of skeletal legs long picked clean by the years, clothed in tattered pants and armor. Further on, splayed out a good distance away, were the mangled remains of a ribcage and skull, marred by clear signs of a violent separation.

  Kaelis let out a relaxed breath and loosened the grip on her rifle—she’d been worried there for a second. The body had clearly been there a while—several years judging from what remained of its fashion choices. Whatever had done this was long gone by now… probably.

  “Kaelis?! How does it look?!” called a soft and proper voice from the ceiling.

  Kaelis took one last scan around the room before returning to the mound of rubble.

  “Kaeli—!”

  “It’s all clear down here!” Kaelis yelled up towards the opening.

  Sheah popped her head over the rim of the hole. “Are you certain?!” she asked.

  “Yeah, it’s fine! C’mon down, Boss!”

  After a few moments the whir of machinery kicked in once again. The hook retracted out of the shaft and returned some seconds later with a young woman straddling its base.

  Sheah Ziedler was a tall, bespectacled woman barely in her twenties, with dark, glossy skin and raven hair draped down her back in loose curls. Her fine attire of purples and whites clashed brightly against the dreary surroundings. Kaelis watched her employer with amusement as she slowly lowered into the chamber, her body fearfully wrapped around the cable, her eyes welded shut. On the one hand, there was something to be respected about an aristocrat leaving the comfort of their own landship and braving the perils of the wasteland. But on the other hand, Kaelis was pretty sure Sheah was just going to get herself killed one of these days.

  Once safely at the bottom, Sheah peeled herself from the hook and gracefully slid down the rubble to the floor below. Reaching into the baggy satchel slung around her torso, she pulled out a convertible electric torch: a brilliant bulb housed in a hexagonal frame affixed to an extendable handle. She raised it over her head, illuminating the room in a soft, warm glow.

  “Oh my,” Sheah gasped, looking uneasily around the chamber. Her attention lowered to the floor, the light of her torch catching on the skeletal remains. She hopped back at the sight. “Ah! What is that?!” she yelped.

  “It’s a skeleton,” answered Kaelis. “Keep your voice down.”

  “I thought you said it was all clear!”

  “It is all clear. What’s it gonna do, bite you?”

  Sheah opened her mouth to retort, only to pause instead. Shutting her eyes, she drew in a deep breath to calm her nerves. Kaelis joined her side, and together they studied the bones.

  “Looks like we aren’t the first crew down here,” Kaelis speculated. She peered up towards the newly cleared opening in the ceiling. “Guess they musta sealed up the hole after things went south.”

  “Poor soul…” Sheah sighed, still fixated on the corpse.

  “Yeah. Nasty way to go.”

  After a respectful moment of silence, Sheah resumed her examination of the room. “I do hope this place still holds treasure within,” she anxiously mused, traversing along the walls. “It appears… rather barren, does it not?”

  “Well, maybe a bit,” Kaelis shrugged. “But hey, just look at the vaulting, the way it’s ribbed like that. You see it? This style predates anything in the town above by… a hundred years, at least. Isn’t that fascinating?” She threw a hand on her hip, enamored with the veins of stone running along the ceiling. “The walls, they tell a story, ya know.”

  “Yes, well, walls do not pay the bills,” said Sheah.

  Kaelis bowed her head and sighed. “Yeah, yeah—”

  Gurraghghgh…

  Just then, a coarse and croaking growl rumbled through the dark, spilling from the nearest tunnel. The sound hooked into the women’s ears, yanking their attention towards it.

  “What was that?” Sheah squeaked.

  Kaelis cocked the bolt of her rifle, loading a round into the chamber. “Get behind me,” she ordered. Sheah ducked behind her comrade, her trembling hands wrapped around her torch like a club.

  The moans and wails grew louder, accompanied by a noise of grotesque shuffling. Kaelis slowed her breath. She tightened her grip on her rifle and aimed at the darkness. Together the two women stood, frozen, waiting.

  And then, a shape emerged from the shadows: a humanoid arm, fibrous and slender, elongated by a chain of many elbows. It wriggled across the floor like a worm, burdened by a headless torso with a set of drooling jaws thrust from its stump of a neck. In place of legs it dragged a thicket of leafy branches. Slowly, pathetically, the creature heaved itself towards the pair.

  “…Oh.” Kaelis exhaled the tension from her arms and lowered her rifle. “It’s just a small one,” she chuckled, feeling the slightest bit embarrassed.

  Sheah warily followed her comrade’s lead. She loosened her guard, and together the pair silently studied the malformed creature as it labored across the floor.

  After a few meters, the thing suddenly began to slow, becoming aware of the two women in its midst. Angling its misshapen body to face them, it murmured with bestial curiosity before sluggishly heaving itself closer.

  “Um, Kaelis, it is coming towards us,” Sheah stressed.

  “Oh, don’t worry, small Unbound aren’t usually dangerous.”

  “Usually?”

  “It’s the big ones you really gotta worry about,” said Kaelis. “Now, I’m no expert, but from what I understand, the larger an Unbound is spawned, the more twisted up its insides are—so not only are the big ones in constant maddening pain, but since their stomachs are barely even connected to their mouths they’re also always insatiably hungry—especially for living flesh.”

  As the creature drew nearer, it fixed its eyeless sights specifically on Sheah, veering itself towards her. She took an alarmed step back.

  “Kaelis…”

  “They still get enough nourishment from their plant parts to live, see, but just never enough to feel satisfied. I actually think it’s kinda sad, in a way. I’d be violent too if I was always starving.”

  “Ah, no, don’t touch me!” Sheah leapt back, pressing herself against the mound of rubble as the creature began languidly pawing at her flailing feet. “What do I do, what do I do? Do I kick it? I’ll kick it!”

  “Hey. Hey! Relax,” said Kaelis, raising a calming hand. Casually, she picked up a nearby stone and hucked it into an empty hallway, creating a clatter. The Unbound twisted around, drawn by the novel noise. It crawled off to investigate, leaving the two women be.

  “W—wait a moment,” sputtered Sheah, tracking the creature as it vanished into the dark. “Is it wise to simply let it wander off? What if it goes and alerts the local horde to our presence?”

  “Ah, don’t stress, it’s safer this way,” said Kaelis. “Take it from me, it’s better not to mess with the Unbound, if you can avoid it. If they get hurt, they might cry out for backup, and if that happens it always just… turns into a whole thing.”

  “…I see.” Blinking and nodding, Sheah took a beat to file that information away before exhaling out her tensions. Pushing herself upright, she delicately batted the dust from her coat tails, all the while working to wipe the frazzled look from her face.

  Kaelis lightly shook her head. “Ya know, Sheah, you really don’t have to keep coming on runs with me.”

  “So you have said,” Sheah returned, straightening her glasses. “But if I am to run a proper expeditionary company, then it is crucial that I familiarize myself with every last facet of this business, regardless of what peril it may entail.”

  Kaelis just shrugged. “Alright, whatever.” Wheeling around, getting back to business, she started off towards the chamber’s largest, most elaborate tunnel. “C’mon, this way.”

  “Wait, why that way?”

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  “It’s the biggest hallway. Let’s go!” Swelling with confidence, she marched headlong past the threshold and into darkness.

  Steeling her wits, Sheah quickly dug into her pocket and fumbled out a chunky radio transmitter. She took one last look up towards the top of the well before hurrying off after her comrade, disappearing into the depths.

  The long-abandoned village was little different from any of the other hundreds of ruined settlements Jira had explored across the vast northern wasteland. From her spot on the landship’s upper deck, she could see the breadth of the town in a single view. Craggy foundations of erstwhile buildings lay scattered below her: a battered maze of stone and rubble, its borders fading into arid plains after a short distance. The only notable features in sight were the cobblestone well that sat in the direct center of the town’s crumbling public square, and the lingering hints of unknown tragedy all around it. A legion of rusted weapons and deep burn marks were still visible amongst the ruins, haunting remnants of a riot or struggle from centuries past. Something terrible had happened here, something only the dead could recall.

  Jira leaned against the mounted crane at the stern of the landship, her arms folded, her eyes glazed over. Staring down over the railing, she watched the crane’s steel cable dangle inside the old well and waited languidly for any signs of trouble. After thirty-five years, it all began to blur together: another spec job, another crumbling village, another hole in the ground. The only thing that ever seemed to change was who she was working for that season and what kind of ship they happened to own.

  It had been fifteen months now since she and her business partner had signed on with the young Sheah Ziedler. In that time, her secondhand landship had proven itself to be a decent little thing—painless to helm and packing a punch where it counted. It was more modestly sized than the ships Jira was normally used to, measuring only a hundred feet from bow to stern and thirty-five from dirt to deck, but she found what it lacked in might it more than made up for in maneuverability. With its three sets of eight-foot tires and its elevated suspension, the ship had a remarkable quickness to it, able to drive right over even the toughest terrain without much turbulence, plus its dual ten-cylinder biodiesel engines gave it enough speed to rival even a corporate warship. That said, she only wished it looked as nice as it handled. The ship’s duranthium-steel hull had certainly seen better days, its worn and weathered frame crusted in weeks of unwashed dirt, its vents and piping blackened with stubborn grime. Were it not for her partner Dez and his frequent repairs, the whole thing would have probably come apart at the seams months ago. But in spite of the ship’s rustic stylings, Sheah had done her best to make it presentable, dressing it up with a double coat of crimson paint, as well as a splashy logo emblazoned across its side, spelling out its name: REDLAND RUNNER.

  “Captain, no issues yet,” crackled Sheah’s voice out of the mustard-yellow military jacket draped over Jira’s shoulders. “We are heading deeper inside.”

  Jira pulled the radio out of her pocket and clicked the button. “Right,” she grumbled, heaving herself from the railing. It was time to get prepped. She reached up her brawny, tattooed arms and tightened the headband tied low across her brow, taming her stubby braid of graying hair. Swiveling around, she marched into the bridge.

  As with the rest of the ship, the bridge of the Redland Runner was nothing to boast about. It was a simple, boxy room near the stern, elevated above the lower deck by a short set of stairs. Inside was a fairly standard array of equipment found in any bridge: a wall radio, a map station, and a stout steering wheel attached to a console of assorted knobs and dials and pedals. It was easily the smallest bridge Jira had ever captained, with space behind the helm for only four or five crewmen to stand comfortably. But in a way she appreciated that—it meant less people to bother her.

  Approaching the dashboard, Jira removed a corded receiver from its holder and flipped a heavy switch. The air filled with a soft metallic hum.

  “Dez,” she called.

  The engine room of the Redland Runner was an enormous, pulsing mass of pipes and pistons, cleverly designed to yield a surprising amount of power given its limited size. It was a unique arrangement for a Voyager-class landship, with space between the machinery for a pair of suspended steel platforms connected by a thin maintenance catwalk. Below the platforms was the engine room floor, densely packed with boilers, pumps, generators, batteries, and the pair of hefty twin engines, which powered the front and rear wheels independently.

  On the larger of the two platforms sat Dez, reclining comfortably in his patched and padded chair, lost in his music. A boxy record player lay on a squat crate beside him, belting out an upbeat jazzy tune. Snapping his fingers, he let himself get transported by the wail of the brass and the rhythmic tinging of the high-hat, the world around him melting away.

  “Dez,” Jira called over the intercom once more.

  As the song built to a sweltering climax, Dez lifted the gleaming saxophone cradled in his slender arms. He laid his fingers on the keys and counted down the measures, waiting for his cue to play along. Slowly, he raised the mouthpiece to his lips.

  “DEZ!”

  Frmmpt!

  Dez yelped, snorting loudly into his instrument. He flicked the needle from the record and zipped over to the intercom box on the wall.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “They’re inside,” said Jira, the trilled r’s of her Dierrosi accent slipping through. “Prime the engines.”

  Dez rubbed his bushy mustache. “Expectin’ trouble?” he asked.

  “Always.”

  “Alright, if ya say so.” With nothing more to add, Dez clicked off the intercom. He looked over his arrangement of oil-stained tools, mulling over the best selection for the job ahead, before turning his attention to the engines below him.

  Swinging onto a nearby ladder, Dez descended to the ground level. He moved into the narrow corridor that ran the length of the room between the machinery, all the while running through his usual pre-drive checklist.

  It was time to get to work.

  Sheah was still unaccustomed to the dark. Growing up in the Imperial capital, even the bleakest night still had some semblance of visibility to it. But here, deep underground, there was a totality to the gloom that she found herself continually unprepared for. There was no telling what myriad terrors may be out there, lurking just beyond her torchlight. As such, she felt it best to let Kaelis take the lead.

  “As I was sayin’: one of the keys to any expedition is that a big hallway usually leads to a big room,” Kaelis explained as they trekked down a seemingly endless corridor, imparting her purported wisdom. “And the bigger the room the bigger the loot, if ya know what I mean.” She glanced back to ensure that Sheah was listening.

  Sheah returned a faint nod. “I suppose that does make some sense…” she murmured as her sights became ensnared by dramatic artwork emerging on the walls around them. Splashed across the stone was a series of mottled murals, each presumably depicting some singular moment from ancient history. Sheah hadn’t the faintest inkling of what tales they may be telling, but each of them contained similar, striking subject matter: acts of violence, of bloody persecution and massacre, performed both to and by figures garbed in prismatic robes with ghostly, featureless masks.

  Kaelis studied the odious art as they passed, happily captivated by its gruesomeness. “Yeah, this place definitely belonged to the Yahtte,” she deduced, taking on a professorial tone. “You know, that cult of Su Yaia Var worshipers? I bet this was one of their last bastions before they all died out, probably used the town above as fodder for some kinda freaky ritual or experiment or something.”

  “How very morbid,” Sheah quietly posited, suddenly feeling as though the faceless figures on the wall were all watching her. Deciding that she’d seen quite enough cultish artwork for one day, she returned her gaze forward and, clutching her torch tighter, dared to take the lead, raising her light to better scan the path ahead. As she did, she made note of a large, flat shape appearing on the fringes of the dark: another piece of art—a tapestry of some kind—a dozen feet in measure and hung high up on the wall. Uninterested in seeing what sorts of morbid horrors it too might portray, she paid it no mind, opting instead to hurry straight past it.

  “Oh, hello…” cooed Kaelis from behind her. It took Sheah a few moments to realize that her comrade’s footsteps had ceased.

  “Kaelis?” Sheah softly called. She turned back around to find her crewmate planted before the hanging drapery, utterly transfixed. “Why have you stopped?”

  “Boss, come take a look at this,” said Kaelis, presenting the art. “I think we got somethin’ here.”

  It was at that moment that Sheah realized she had just committed a beginner’s blunder: in her unease, she had allowed herself to pass up potential plunder, unlikely as it may at first have seemed. Rectifying this at once, she hastened back over to give the wall art a proper examination.

  The grand tapestry was an old and weathered thing, meticulous in craft, majestic in design, its imagery blessedly less grisly than the preceding murals. Densely sewn into its gilded fabrics was a spectacular scene of operatic grandeur: a colossal tree-shaped being lording over a palatial city, with beams of emerald energy shooting out from its limbs, transmuting into a swirling storm as they ascended. Surrounding the tree in a perfect halo was a legion of divine humanoid beings, all pulling at the trunk, tearing it in two. From the ruptured roots outpoured a horde of tangled, deformed beasts—unholy hybrids of flora and fauna—and at the bottom of the image, standing between the monsters and a crowd of fleeing people, was a great and golden figure, his heavenly aura holding back the scourge.

  “Quite a specimen…” said Sheah, nodding analytically, sensing something familiar about the art’s content. “What is it, precisely?”

  “It’s a tapest—”

  “I can see that it’s a tapestry, what is it a tapestry of? Surely it illustrates some historic moment, yes?”

  “You kiddin’ me right now?” sputtered Kaelis, staring at Sheah in disbelief.

  Sheah simply stared back at her, certainly not kidding.

  Kaelis gestured at the art harder. “Don’t you see it? The destruction of the Archmother, the expulsion of humanity from the Primordial City? It’s so obviously the Sundering.”

  “The Sundering?” muttered Sheah, adjusting her glasses and squinting. “Is that so?…”

  Unleashing a most judgemental sigh, Kaelis stepped up to the artwork and began to point at its various features. “Look, see? Ya got the Angels there, killing the Archmother, in turn spawning the Unbound and creating the Forever Storm,” she lectured. “Oh, and there’s the God King, sacrificing himself to save the first peoples from the newly-born scourge.” Falling silent for once, Kaelis took a brief moment to gaze reverently upon the golden depiction of humanity’s great savior.

  Sheah’s brows began to lift, at last recognizing the story and its constituent pieces. “Oh. Oh, yes, I see it now.”

  “Didn’t they teach you this stuff at the Imperial Academy?” said Kaelis. “Or grade school?”

  “I have simply never seen it depicted so, um… stylized before.” Sheah quickly pointed towards the stitching of the resplendent skyline below the giant tree. “If that tree is the Archmother, then this city here is…”

  “Ama-Lasria, yeah.”

  “Aha, I see. How old is this piece, do you estimate?”

  Kaelis thought about it for a beat. “Well, based on the style of the art, I’d say something like… five, maybe six hundred years old? Just after the fall of the Egaellean Empire, for sure.”

  “Oh my,” Sheah declared, suddenly intrigued. “Quite the antique.”

  “Hm,” mused Kaelis, nodding to herself. “It’s kinda funny to think—whoever made this lived as many years from the Sundering as we live from them.” She shot a glance at Sheah, elbowing her lightly. “Pretty interesting, eh, Boss?”

  “Yes, yes—You know, there has been renewed demand for Egaellean-era tapestries as of late, due in large part to the recent Tannimahr expeditions. I even read in the trades that one recovered from the palace ruins managed to sell for over fifty thousand saebles at auction.” Sheah leaned in, inspecting the stitching more closely. “Sadly this particular piece appears a tad on the slatternly side, plus it lacks any royal connection. Still, the Dead City is an ever-popular subject; I believe that this could bring in three, perhaps even four thousand.”

  “Aw, c’mon, it’s gotta be worth more than that,” Kaelis presumed. “Just look at the craftsmanship—the hand-stitching! I’m honestly shocked it’s in as good a condition as it is. I bet someone would fork up ten thousand for it, easily.”

  Sheah politely shook her head. “If only the buyers shared your enthusiasm. Regardless, this piece will not be enough on its own. We should press onwards for now, and circle back to collect it on our way out.” With that, she turned and pushed herself onward down the hall.

  “Right, gotcha,” said Kaelis. She took one last look at the sheet stretching to the ceiling before following behind her comrade. “That’ll give me time to figure out how to even get it off the wall.”

  “You… will be able to acquire it, won’t you?” asked Sheah, her anxieties stiffly renewing. “We cannot return to port empty handed. Not this time.”

  “Ah, relax,” said Kaelis. “I’ll think of something. And, if I can’t, well—I’m sure there’s plenty of other great stuff around here, too!”

  Sheah let out a sigh. “I do hope you are right…” she said, squirming at the thought of failure. “I pray to the Angels that we might for once have the good fortune to come upon some actual… treasure…” Trailing off, she suddenly sensed a shimmer of light appearing from the shade ahead of her. Mere meters later, and the walls of the hall vanished away, flaring out into a yawning, cavernous hollow. She puttered forth a few more paces, coming to a stunned stop at the top of what appeared to be an opulent, two-tiered stairway.

  “Ooh, nice!” gasped Kaelis as she joined her comrade’s side, taking a breath to ogle the sight herself.

  Out beyond the stairway, sinking into darkness, stretched a cave chamber of colossal proportions, its natural formations bolstered by great columns the width of silos. Scant rays of light seeped in through narrow cracks in its ceiling, illuminating portions of a wide cobblestone lane that snaked its way through the space. Wedged in along the lane were the remains of a long-forsaken village, its structures forged of wood and plaster, likely constructed in secret some centuries past. The buildings—or what little remained of them—appeared to be meticulously crafted and stately in appearance, with curving, natural shapes embellished with faded finery.

  Kaelis planted a hand on her hip and leaned over, her smirk audible behind her helmet. “See?” she teased before forging ahead down the steps, rifle at the ready. “You worry too much.”

  Sheah followed close behind, nodding to herself softly. Perhaps her comrade was right—not about her worrying, of course, she considered her concerns more than justified. Rather, Kaelis was correct about one thing: down there, in that forlorn burg, was likely a trove of treasure just waiting to be discovered—and with it, fortune enough to fuel her enterprise for years to come. All they need do was slip in and find it, before something in the dark found them first…