The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 372 – The Deadzone Hold

After the Day of Dragonfall, Arascus quickly tried to save as many of the lizards as he could. We did what we could, but apart from the dragons that were already out of position, the vast majority of them simply fell asleep in their camps, in their nests and in whatever cities they happened to be protecting. Several dozen we managed to kill, several dozen more we managed to capture and house in our own facilities but Arascus and Kassandora moved quickly.

Dragons were shipped off in mass to be housed in dwarven holds. Strike teams of mages and minor Divines were immediately organised although it was sending men off on suicide missions. There was no reason to take such losses when we were winning, so the majority of the monsters were allowed to enter the holds. Personally, I had no hope, but others in the Pantheon thought that Arascus would keep them close to the entrances.

Once the surface holds were sieged and captured, we found the dragons missing. Where they went is no mystery, they now reside somewhere in that sprawling underground. We know they’re not awake because the ones we have salvaged up here are asleep. Even if they were to wake up now, without Arascus and with the men who tamed them long gone, they pose little more danger than overgrown lizards.

- Excerpt from “Two Hundred Years Later”, written by Goddess Fortia, of Peace.

Neneria tilted her head as she caught up to the front of the main body of the Underground Expeditionary Legion. She had to return to the back to assist with a Tartarian raid again, but the opposing force had been cleared before she even got there. With the amount of heavy machinery being brought down here, it was no wonder. For every man, there was a supply truck, for every two trucks, there was a tank. Some were armed with the rumbling cannons that shook the entire underground when they fired, others were repurposed anti-air vehicles, with four barrels of high-calibre machines once pointed to the air, now pointed straight ahead.

There was concrete trucks and there were diggers. Pre-fabricated housing units were brought on trains from above, the sort of containers that Neneria had seen on huge cargo vessels which had been repurposed into places of rest and recovery. Flamethrowers, specifically to burn away Be’elzebub’s endless swarms of flesh-eating flies, had now reached the front too, a special order said that instead of being built in Kirinyaa, they were repurposed technology from the Ausan Firewalls. Each junction in this stretch of the huge underground highway was being turned not into a military outpost but into a downright fortress, complete with garrison. There were even experimental drones ferrying dropping mines in the Tartarus-controlled sections of the highway.

The engineering units from the back that were coming with electricity cables had reached the front. Whereas Torchbearer tanks still illuminated the tunnels like artificial suns, behind them lamp-posts were being drilled into the stone. Black cars were ferrying scientists down here to test new weaponry based off light, Neneria had heard them call it a laser but she didn’t particularly care about the intricacies. Fresh food was brought in on supply trains, canned vegetables and fruit along with livestock that would be killed and butchered down here by the military cooks.

The Empire was back underground. It had slammed through the front door and instead of testing the floorboards for creaks, it had come running in like a madman. And it was not tiring whatsoever, if anything, it was only speeding up.

The scene beyond those torchbearer tanks made Neneria raise an eyebrow. The men were arguing. Kassandora’s soldiers were arguing amongst themselves. Or not amongst themselves, but against the dwarves that were assisting with navigating the tunnels. Men in dark uniforms were waving their arms and dwarves were cursing as they pointed down one road of the junction.

Should Neneria intervene?

Neneria supposed she should, she was a Goddess after all. And she held rank higher than anyone here as a daughter-Goddess of Arascus. She thought of at least. Right? That is how it worked, wasn’t it? Neneria realised she was wasting time and that these men weren’t going to sort anything out themselves either.

The Goddess of Death closed the distance on the arguing men. She wished she knew the names of the men. She wished she knew the names of the dwarves. Alas, the only names she knew here were the names of her ghosts and they were of no help now. The swishing of her black dress underneath the thick coat she wore for the cold down here brought the argument to a stop. The two factions even had the decency to look ashamed of themselves, but Neneria knew it wasn’t because they regretted anything they said but rather the fact that she had been forced to intervene to calm them down.

“What’s going on here?” Neneria asked in a tone that made everyone who heard freeze. “Your names.”

“Captain Relio Arnold of Second Mechanized!” One man swiftly introduced himself. Tall, looking like a captain. He had a badge of rank on his chest but Neneria didn’t know what rank it was. It didn’t really matter to her, one line meant it was a plebeian. Anything more meant they had control of plebeians; that’s more or less how it went.

“Major Mengesha Assef.” Another man said, darker, this was one of the Kirinyaans. Slightly taller than Relio, with a harder jawline and black hair. Whether it was a Captain over a Major or a Major over a Captain, Neneria had no clue, she assumed they were both high up.

“Sergeant Bereka Eyasu of the Recon Team.” The third man said. This rank Neneria knew: Sergeants were near the frontlines which meant they weren’t important. Eyasu was holding a map in his hands, with dwarven runes and then translated into Kirinyaan, Allian, Lubskan and Dosch. What a nightmare of letters that piece of was.

Neneria turned her dark eyes onto the dwarves and raised an eyebrow. Immediately, they knew what the Goddess of Death wanted. One dwarf pulled an ancient salute from the times of the Great War in a far cleaner fashion than any of the men could. “Forgemaster Gloin, son of Hanli.” Beardless, as the tradition had been broken by Kassandora for any dwarf that wielded a weapon. Their thick beards were so cumbersome that they actually got in the way of armour and helms.

And the next dwarf, with a blocky face and arms as thick as a man’s thighs. “Tunnelmaster Ilkon, son of Halkon.” This was the excellent thing with dwarves compared to when Kassandora organised her armies. What was a Major or a Captain or a Lieutenant or a Corporal? But Tunnelmaster? Well, that was a master of the tunnels. A Forgemaster? It was in the name. What a terribly smart system.

And the third dwarf, shortest person here, the top of his head only reached Eyasu’s belt. “Guildmaster Olin, son of Gloin.” Neneria raised an eyebrow at that and the dwarf bowed apologetically. “Unrelated to the Forgemaster, Goddess.”

Neneria wondered for a moment if Kassandora would handle this proactively. She knew Arascus definitely would, her father would most likely have already sniffed what the argument was about simply by the men’s postures. But she? Well, she had never been too good at managing people. That was always someone else’s domain. “What is the issue?” Neneria asked and none of the three dwarves nor any of the three men looked as if they wanted to answer.

Neneria gave them precisely five seconds, three of her own heartbeats, and then she re-iterated herself. “I will not ask again. You will tell me alive or dead, but you will tell me. What is the issue?”

Assef took charge of the situation by actually having a spine and answering. “There’s a junction in the tunnels, Goddess.” He turned and pointed in the two directions the tunnels split. “The dwarves want to go that way.” He pointed down what obviously was obviously the bend. “Whereas the UEL Vanguard’s trail goes this way.” And he pointed straight.

Neneria tilted her head and blew black hair out of her eyes. There was a broken-down Lynx tank further ahead. And there was a trail of the never-rotting ambrosia fruit. Even up above, they grew so rarely that seeing one of the juicy golden fruit was a clear indication Iniri was in the area. And down here? An apple would have been confirmation enough, ambrosia was pure overkill. “We go straight.” Neneria declared.

There. Solved. Not hard at all.

Inside, Neneria smiled with pure glee to herself as she wanted to shake her hands and jump from one leg to another. Outside, Neneria remained stationary as she looked down at the dwarves. They obviously weren’t happy with the decision, but who was going to say no to Neneria? “Do we have a problem?”

“No problem Goddess!” Guildmaster Olin, the one that was unrelated to Gloin, said. He was in heavy armour, although all dwarves always were when they ventured out of their holds.

“That route leads to Fazba.” Tunnelmaster Ilkon said.

“And?” Neneria asked. The dwarves shared looked between themselves, then made distrusting glances at the humans. Neneria remembered when she had told Kassandora that this distrust of theirs should be beaten out of them. Kassandora had disagreed. Look where that got them. “We are heading to Fazba.” Neneria said. “If we find my sister before then, good. If we don’t, we head through Fazba.” Neneria turned to the men. “Signal to the soldiers, continue the advance, Goddess’ orders.”

“At once Goddess!” The three men saluted and then quickly ran off as the dwarves kept on shaking their heads.

“I will not kill you for your secrets because I care not what we face.” Neneria said. “But if it is dangerous, then it is better to be prepared than not.” That was about as much compromise Neneria could force herself to give. She had an image to uphold, and she didn’t want to be caught in petty arguments with mortals either. Nor would she beg or trick them for their knowledge. The dwarves stalled and waited for a few seconds.

Neneria advanced as Relio and Eyasu and Assef ran around giving out orders to their respective teams or units or brigades or whatever the word that Neneria didn’t know was. “Goddess, wait!” Guildmaster Olin said before Neneria made too much of a gap. “It is a mistake to head into Fazba!”

Neneria smiled at the creature. It barely reached up past her calves. And it told her to wait? “A mistake has a reason, else it is not a mistake. It is a mistake to command me for example, because I will conscript your soul.”

The dwarf averted his eyes as his two armoured compatriots ran up. “The Guildmaster is right!” Ilkon said. “Fazba is a deadzone.”

“And I am the Queen of the Dead.” Neneria replied. And she felt herself slipping into argument. She knew it was petty. It wasn’t dignified. She shouldn’t be spending her time digging in her heels. But she did. The dwarves all looked at each other again. Two of them shared nods. The other just sighed heavily.

“Goddess, we would-“ Neneria cut him off.

“You would nothing.” Neneria said. “Why should Fazba be avoided? I am not here to steal your secrets or judge your history. If it is cursed, then that can be dealt with. If it has fallen, then that can be dealt with. If it is collapsed, then that can be dealt with. But I will not change my mind and I will force the Legion forward until the train tracks we touch Fazba’s gate, and then we will go through it.”

And the dwarves sighed heavily. “Goddess, please.” Olin said.

“Don’t waste my time.”

And once again, the trio of dwarves caught up to Neneria as the rumbling of treads started. A train blew its monstrous horn, and the machine drilling holes into stone for nails which would hold the steel rail turned back on as the Legion restarted its march. Kassandora’s men through and through, anyone else would spend an hour organising the restart, this lot did it in under a minute. “I can explain Goddess.”

“You should already be explaining.” Olin looked back at the other two dwarves and they backed away. Ah. So it was a secret they kept from themselves too. How quaint. “If we are going to enter, there is no reason to hold back, your secret will be spilled whether you want it to or not.”

“We don’t know exactly what happened in Fazba.” Olin quickly began. “I’m not even certain myself, all I know is information that the guilds hold, I’m uncertain if what I even say is correct or just conjecture and I’m not certain that the books have not been re-written.”

“Go on.” Neneria stopped and squatted next to the dwarf so that the little wouldn’t feel as if he had to shout so much. Her hearing was Divine, she could make out his words even if he was speaking normally. “What have you discovered about your own history?”

“When the dragons fell, a hold was chosen to house the Dragonwake Project. That hold was Fazba. The geology fit and the Fazba Faultline provided space for experiments.” Olin sounded as if he was repeating something. “That, I’ve read. That’s confirmed. Most dwarves know that.”

“But your hold was abandoned in year eighty-three of the Great War.” Neneria remembered how angry Kassandora had been when she got the news. “What else?”

Olin shook his head. “There is nothing else. That’s all that exists in the texts, everything else either I can’t access or was never written down in the first place.”

Neneria stared flatly at the dwarf. “So? Why should we stop?”

“It was declared a deadzone in eighty-seven. Normally that sort of classification takes decades, centuries even before we just give up on a section of Highway. Yet Fazba only took four years.” The guildmaster took a deep breath before continuing slowly and carefully. “I can only speculate. But based off the fact that Tartarus has not once ever managed to access the Highway west of Fazba whereas we just gave up on reclaiming it…”

The dwarf could not say it, but Neneria managed to put two and two together. The Dragonwake Project, in some regard, had actually succeeded.

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