Around 20 days after entering the tunnels

  Lou turned the last meager piece of bread around and around in his fingers, mushing it into a ball. He sighed, looking around him at the lights above. The endless, unblinking waves of Lux stretched endlessly into the horizon. He looked down, his gaze falling over Thyrian. The man was slumped against the wall, his fingers in his hair. He looked like he had aged quite a significant amount in the past few weeks.

  “Do you want this bread, Thyrian?” Lou asked. He had stopped using the honorific ‘master’ after Thyrian had respected Lou by calling him by his actual name.

  “No,” Thyrian grunted. “You need it more than I.”

  “But you haven’t eaten for days,” Lou protested. “Why are you giving me all the food?”

  “Because you’re younger than I,” Thyrian answered, “And more enduring. If anyone should survive this tunnel, it’s you.”

  “Good point,” Lou admitted. “But I don’t want you to die.”

  “Shut up and eat,” Thyrian countered. “Now.”

  Lou wasn’t in any position to disagree. The meager pieces of ration bread did barely enough to fill his stomach, and he probably would starve if he shared it with Thyrian. He popped the bread into his mouth and chewed, rolling it around his mouth. It tasted like old boots, made worse from the sweat and mustiness of spending days in a bag.

  “Where are those, and I quote, ‘caches of supplies,’ that you said were located in this tunnel?” Lou asked. “Stories don’t feed us.”

  “I don’t know,” Thyrian admitted. “Nevos told me just that they existed; he didn’t tell me anything about their location or anything.”

  “Nevos is weird,” Lou said.

  “Yeah,” Thyrian replied. “He told us the truth, but I don’t understand him. What are his motives? Where did he come from? Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know,” Lou said, swallowing the last of his bread. That was the last of all the food Thyrian had put in his pack, and Lou was frankly surprised that it had lasted this long. Of course, if only one person was eating, the food would remain uneaten for significantly longer.

  “Let’s go, Lou,” Thyrian said, standing up. “Maybe we can find the caches if we move faster.”

  “Good idea,” Lou agreed, standing up. He watched Thyrian sling his pack over his shoulder, then began to continue walking. Lou followed close behind, rubbing his forehead.

  Eight or so hours later:

  The tunnel abruptly… ended. Lou stood next to Thyrian, looking out in front of him. It continued on normally for another thousand feet or so, then stopped at a wall made of the same shiny material as the rest of the tunnel. As he scanned the wall, he could make out an open doorway, extending into darkness. Thyrian checked his compass, but it had been broken at some point along their travels and now spinned and sputtered aimlessly.

  “Do you suppose that’s a cache?” Lou asked.

  “Only one way to find out,” Thyrian said. Lou looked at his eyes, and saw that they were lit up in excitement. Hope began to surge through Lou. Maybe there was food, or bedding, or just plain old safety.

  They walked to the doorway, which was the size of a regular door. There was another doorway on the opposite side of the latticed walkway, but that one was closed. Thyrian took a deep breath and walked through the doorway. Lou quickly followed.

  If the shiny walkway had been alien and unusual in construction, the vast, square room behind was all that, albeit very grandiose and beautifully constructed. The floor was made out of polished grey stone, and was around 200 by 200 feet wide. The ceiling stretched hundreds of feet into the air, its top almost hidden in darkness. They were in a central atrium, with dozens of floors of wide balconies connected by ramps stretching up into the distance. The balconies and ramps were made of shiny metal, but the walls were made of stone. Each level had dozens of small doorways leading in and out, but only four were on the ground floor, one on each side of the room. Each door had a sign with some sort of squiggly writing on it and a crudely rendered stick figure doing something on it.

  “Wow,” breathed Lou. “This looks like some sort of hub area.”

  “Yeah,” Thyrian said. “I wonder where’s the food.”

  “Maybe those stick figures will tell us,” Lou said, walking to a door. The sign there had a depiction of three stick figures moving it. As he looked at the other doors on the ground floor, the same sign was next to all of them. They must be entrances to other tunnels.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  He sighed and walked up the ramp, pausing at the first door on the second floor. The sign next to it had several lines of writing, and the stick figure was wearing some sort of protective hood and carrying some sort of cauldron with a stylized floating in the air above it. Clearly the area was dangerous.

  He tried another door, then another, and many more afterwards. The stick figures were doing a variety of things, but none of them looked like eating or cooking. Thyrian followed behind, looking at doors Lou missed.

  As the minutes dragged on, he got more and more frustrated. Why did the builders make it so sundamn hard to find stuff? He asked himself. Abruptly, he found a door that looked interesting. It was located near the top level of the room, and depicted a person carrying a large sack and a loaf of bread.

  “Hey, Thyrian!” Lou called. “I found something.”

  “What is it?” Thyrian asked, walking over.

  “This looks like food,” Lou replied. “I want to see what’s behind this door.”

  There were no handles or holes on the door, but it crumpled easily under a few kicks from Thyrian. The corridor beyond led off into darkness, with a few Lux-lamps at sporadic intervals lighting the way.

  Eagerly, the two men began to follow the path. Some doors branched off and went to different areas, but they ignored them. In Lou’s experience, the most important stuff was always at the end of the direct path.

  At the end of the path, they came to a metal door, much like the ones they had seen throughout. This one was ajar. As Lou cracked it open, a great quantity of dust was dislarged, causing the men to cough and splutter as it got into their noses, mouths and eyes.

  The room beyond was a sight for sore eyes. The room was around ten feet high, and was quite wide. The perimeter of the room was piled high with metal crates. Lou felt a sudden surge of hope. Maybe the crates contained food!

  He made a beeline for the nearest one, and peered inside, as its top was nowhere to be found. Inside were dozens of loaves of ration bread, each wrapped in some sort of soft, clingy material.

  “Thyrian!” Lou shouted. “I found food! And it’s not rotten!”

  “Food?” Thyrian exclaimed. He rushed over and looked inside the crate. “Food!” He reached in and picked up a wrapped ration bar. He removed the wrapping and bit into it. “Tastes mighty stale. But it’s still bread.”

  Lou picked up his own loaf of ration bread, and removed the wrapping. He tried to lick and nibble it, but it tasted disguisting and obviously inedible. He discarded it and took a bite of the bread. Thyrian was right. It tasted stale, but still was edible.

  “Yes!” Lou shouted around a full mouthful.

  “Ohh, that’s good,” Thyrian moaned, rubbing his stomach. “Finally.” He began stuffing bars of bread into his pack, fitting as many in until it was bulging. “I wonder if there’s clean water anywhere.”

  It took only a few more crates of searching (the first few were empty) to find the water. There was another crate full of bottles of clean, clear water. The bottles were made of a similar material to the bread wrapping, albeit significantly harder. Lou reached into the crate and withdrew one. It had a hard cap that took some work to remove, but once it was off, the water tasted clean and pure, albeit lukewarm. Thyrian drunk from another bottle.

  “Ahh, much better,” he sighed after draining the entire container.

  “Where will we go next?” Lou asked.

  “Probably downstairs,” Thyrian said. “We were going to the southwest before we got here. That will lead us into the ocean; I don’t presume there’s any people living there. If we go northwest, we’ll eventually arrive under Forest Clan land, and we can find them with ease.”

  “So northwest it is,” Lou said.

  “Indeed,” Thyrian replied. He shoved bottles of water into his pack, then looked around. He stiffened. “Look there!” he said, pointing to an area out of Lou’s vision.

  “What is it?” Lou asked, turning his head. He saw it, and it caused him to flinch. “Gah!” he cried, staggering back.

  Three skeletons slumped against the far wall. The skin, flesh and organs had all rotted away or mummified, and the bones were clean. Laying next to them was a large knife and three helmets.

  “Gross!” Lou cried. “What are those?”

  “Skeletons. Obviously,” Thyrian said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Who were they?” Lou asked. “When did they die?”

  “Probably killed each other, by the looks of them,” Thyrian said, gesturing to the knife. “Maybe some of them killed themselves, which would explain the abundance of food in this chamber. They probably would have eaten it all had they been alive.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Lou said. “Of course they would have eaten it all - you can’t eat if you’re dead.”

  Thyrian chuckled. “Yes. Say, what are those helmets?”

  Lou looked at the three helmets, picking one up and turning it over in his hands. They were each sized for an adult human. They were made of solid bluish metal, with some sort of soft, crinkly material lining their interiors.

  “Should we put it on?” Lou asked.

  “Sure,” Thyrian said, putting one on his head. “It’s just a helmet.”

  Lou donned one, and was only a little disappointed to realize that it was an ordinary helmet. It would protect its wearer from blows, but wasn’t magical. Suddenly, he heard a noise.

  “What’s that?” he whispered, listening closer. It sounded like a group of people walking and talking quietly.

  “Others,” Thyrian said. “Get behind me. They might be minions of the Rain Caste.”

  The speaking got louder, and so did the pounding of Lou’s heart. Suddenly, a loud thumping sound came from outside the room. He huddled behind Thyrian, looking fearfully out over the other man’s shoulder. The walking got louder, and then the door opened.