We headed for our contact point which happened to be on the opposite wall from the nest. A tavern, several levels below the surface within a marketplace. Louise and Hendryk knew of the place I had in my notes and quickly agreed on a direct route, across a foot bridge about a level below the surface and into a tunnel entrance which led inside The Chasm wall.
From the foot bridge we were able to catch a rather good view of the WingedMen taking on the airship. Leo, Edwynn, and James all seemed to be moving on from the skirmish as most of the crew had been rounded up. The trio were headed far off into the distance, on their way back to Chasm City. The captured crew from the airship looked to be scuttler pirates, maldeviants of a terrible nature.
Without a precursor and without notice, for reasons unknown, the airship exploded. It is believed the vessel was rigged to blow. A few WingedMen were able to fly or glide to safety from the blast, but nearly all were injured. Survivors received burns upon their exposed skin. We could feel the heat emanate from the blast. It was a message sent from Chasm City. They were coming.
The flaming airship floated heavily and it began to lean in towards the bridge. Slowly, but surely, the burning airship made its way in the direction of the footbridge. There was no stopping the collision.
“Everyone inside the tunnel, quickly,” Louise urged us from the foot bridge, “it’s coming this way!”
We hurried our pace and disappeared into the Chasm wall through the tunnel entrance. The airship engulfed in flames crashed into the footbridge with great force, shattering it and caving in the tunnel entrance.
Although dark, they manage to direct plenty of natural light into this vast labyrinth. Those on the inside valued what they couldn’t get, sunlight. Holes were drilled. Long, narrow corridors of chipped away rock to reflect in the natural light. Though, there were still plenty of places the light didn’t reach.
No one planned any of this construction. Barely any of it is mapped accurately. Buildings and storefronts and houses built inside caves, both natural and man-made. Some inside the stone, some standing freely. Then there are tunnels and corridors and passages all looping and circling, some abruptly just ending, all throughout. New bits are carved and chipped away each day. Steam powered chisels, mechanically doing the work of a thousand men in chains over a life sentence in no at time at all. (I believe that was the actual slogan GadgetWorks used in their advertisements.) People did their best with creating new areas. The problem was, though, people often created spare rooms for unsuspecting blokes, as a wall or a ceiling (at worst - a floor/ceiling) crumbled away at the hands of a prospector (Chasm slang term for someone chiseling rock without a permit, but then, no one ever bothered seeking permission to do anything).
There were rules for when things like that happened. Some were absurd. If one did just that, create a spare room due to poor planning, ownership was claimed by the original homesteader. The original homesteader often built a wall and offered the new room for rent to the original prospector. It was by this un-design that The Chasm was riddled with bizarre rooms and passages, unmarked and hidden from view.
The people inside seemed unfazed by looming war. Even if by being inside they couldn’t hear the blast through the stone walls, word does travel. Only a few people came to our assistance as the tunnel entrance collapse behind us. Most people took notice only to look away.
The Strongman looked to the calm people in the market hall, he remarked, “World’s crumbling outside, no one seems to care.”
“It’s not that they don’t care,” Louise said, “it’s just that they’re not scared anymore.”
The thought lingered, but passed.
I took a long look at the grand intricacies of it all. Memories flashed to my previous jaunt to The Chasm: Everything was made up of systems and I fondly remember suggesting studying the universe like a cell, or a molecule, maybe an atom. Perhaps something even smaller. Maybe larger. Something in-between, perhaps. Solar systems, star systems, galactical systems, I would theorize based upon the work of others. Our world within a field of worlds, a multiverse within a large ultraverse that creates a metaverse. And I went on and on with these strange terms. Expansions of infinite realms. Perhaps wrapped good and tight within itself like a cosmic onion. Perhaps like a pomegranate or swellshintoo. Beady bits of fruit encased in a hard outer shell.
Comparisons, analogies, metaphors. Loops of space, round and seemingly infinite to the eye trapped on the inside. Musical to the ear, like the vibrations of an instrument’s string. Alive with magic, a paraphenomenal spark of electricity. Numbers and symbols and equations representing ideas that were so boggling they bordered on being conjured from pure imagination. Circles and cycles and revolutions galore.
I had an entire notebook of meandering ideas. Confined to my cell, a bucket for my waste, they allowed a notebook to write in. I don’t know how much time passed before I started going mad. I wrote in my book everyday to stave off madness. I remember few things that I actually wrote about. Ramblings, eventually. Rantings, at best. Pure nonsense, most likely. They could have been poisoning me in my food. Soon after I filled nearly all of the pages of my notebook, my captors took it while I slept and I was left alone with my bucket.
I believe I was being fed once every twelve hours, always a bowl of gruel. I could have been fed randomly, for all I really knew, but I’m assuming I was fed along with the rest of the prisoners, if there were any. They took my pocket-watch from me before throwing me into the cell. A cell just big enough to allow me room enough to lie down, but not stretch out.
There was no window to see the outside. Above the door, a recessed gas lamp bolted into the wall constantly burned. My meal came through a slot at the bottom of the door, opening only long enough to deliver my gruel. Never a greeting. Never a word.
Sometime between meal five and six, since the time they had taken my notebook, the gas lamp suddenly cut off. It was pitch black until the cell door opened and two men stormed in and held me by my arms. I couldn’t have fought back if I wanted to, I was too weak and too mad to do anything sensibly. I remember laughing hysterically. A third man came in and put a black hood over my head. They sat me down in a chair. I couldn’t see anything. The two men stood behind me and held me in place by my shoulders. I heard a set of footsteps enter the cell casually.
A woman’s voice, accented with the definite tone of someone from Northward Red Empire, “Doctor Arthur Monocle, we’ve read your notebook, the notebook we’ve been letting you keep.” She paused and I remained quiet. I became dizzy. Suddenly my head was floating like an airship. She kept asking me questions pertaining to the notebook and I answered gibberish, most likely. Specific memories are hazy at best. Blurred moments accompanied by the sound of vague conversation. I do remember closing my eyes. They grew terribly heavy. I could just begin to see some light through the hood over my head. Shapes of people within the door frame of my cell. I couldn’t hold on. It just went black ever so comfortably.
I awoke on the outskirts of Chasm City with all my belongings minus the notebook from the cell. Or the bucket. That was my first introduction to Chasm City, greeted by future WingedMan, Leonardo Liani with a canteen of water.
Louise didn’t believe my story. I told her to ask her father, that he would indeed verify its accuracy. It was historical fact that members of the Red Empire had a heavy presence within The Chasm walls.
We browsed through the market square for food. There was a fine selection of fruits and vegetables, from citrus to berries to cander to bananas, and so very much more. We had a brief bite to eat and trekked through the inner metro.
There were actual buildings with offices and flats, a narrow roadway. Fountains and flora decorated the walkways. We had entered into a world hidden and mysterious.
Hendryk took us to a service lift, “This will only take us down so far. We’ll have to walk down a few levels to get there.”
“This pub? How do you two even know the place? How does anyone? It’s truly in the
middle of nowhere.” I asked of them rhetorically in a bewildered manner.
We entered the lift and we slowly descended. It was crowded and stuffy. Uncomfortable and cramped.
“As a WingedMan Aerialist, you become familiar with the places on the lowest sub-levels,” Hendryk replied, “that’s where the scum resides. Criminals a-plenty, doc. I spent years patrolling the lower levels.”
“Not many people want to bother living so close to underdwellars, either,” Louise added. “A lot of places down here have been abandoned only for scuttlers and outlaws to take up residence.”
The lift clunked to a halt and Hendryk opened the doors to reveal a much darker and less vibrant world. It was smaller and cramped. The ceilings, lower. The walls, closer. Light was provided by gas lamps.
“Don’t hit your head,” Louise said to The Strongman.
He could only reply sarcastically, “Very funny.”
This sub-level seemed mostly living quarters and alleyways. Hendryk led us through several alleyways to a stairwell. I can’t be certain, but it felt like we traveled down another three levels. Louise and Hendryk explained that this far down, actual levels ceased to be uniform.
The area was another marketplace and living quarters, albeit an area akin to that of a ghost town. When New Haverton had its mining operations going in full, this is where the miners lived and ate and shopped. It was touted to be the best place for miners to live as it had easy access to their place of work. MineWorks was heavily involved in setting up the area. Unfortunately, underdwellars crept in and almost everyone moved up a few levels. The underdwellar problem is under control, mostly. People tend to be wary of those things, I do suppose. Living here was cheap and there was always a place available.
We made our way towards the pub, a run down place just barely situated on an outside wall of The Chasm. Circular windows were carved from the solid rock walls. They were small in diameter, enough to frame your face within. Fresh air streamed in through the holes. We were so far within the wall itself, these port holes carved from the rock, from pub to the outside, probably stretched the length of a train-car.
What little light coming through seemed to be fading fast, though. The four of us entered the pub from the carved-stone corridor through a set of arched, wooden double-doors of an older fashion. They were the kind of doors one might find on a cabin high in the Northward mountains; decorated with a fine, intricately swirling iron work.
It was dark, barely any light coming in through the windows that faced out to The Chasm wall across the narrow crevice. The floor was laid with old, dry planks of wood and gas lamps hung precariously from the ceiling. The place was nearly empty, but for a gentleman asleep at his table and the barkeep who happened to be wiping a glass clean.
The barkeep took notice of us, a sense of recognition, "Ah, Kilmarten said I was to be expecting you." His accent was thick, that familiar Northward tone. The Chasm had been a popular destination for refugees from The Northward Red Empire.
"Yes, I'm Dr. Monocle, The Strongman, Louise Liani, Hendryk Alvarez," I introduced everyone.
"WingedMen? I wasn't told to be expecting WingedMen." The barkeep sounded perturbed. His accent was thick like that of a mountain man, somewhere Northward, perhaps west of. The decor made more sense, such designs of the high snowy mountains contrasted terribly with the desert setting. I though that he must have brought the door with him from whence he came. He was the type of man who could probably yodel. He decorated his tavern with dark greens, that shade someone from Koehlerachen Metro might display.
"Is there a problem?" I asked, feeling like I had insulted the man.
He kept a wad of seavenly leaves in his lip. He spit a stream of seavenly to the floor, "No. No problem. No problem with me. No problem with you."
"And the crew?" I inquired.
"You're looking at it."
"You?"
"Andy, over there," he gestured.
I looked over to the man passed out and slumped over on the tabletop, "Andy is alive, yes?"
He spoke with a slow, but intense, mispronunciation of words, "Andy is alive, yes. What is it that you do think? That you would take a dead man along with into Chasm? You’d be off from your bleeding rocker. Andy! Andy, get up! It's time to get up!”
In an abrupt and startled manner Andy awoke, raising his head from the table, peanut shells stuck to his face. Drool clung to his lips as his eyes barely opened.
"You are not the crew." Louise looked between the two of them.
"Well, certainly he is crew." The barkeep snapped back, his eyes shifting to Louise, "He is crew. Do you really think anyone wants to go down there? This Kilmarten fellow paid me to get a crew together, so that's what I did. I offered a fair sum to many a man looking for work. Andy's the only fellow who showed an interest. Everybody else? They'd rather stay up here and wait for the war, where it's safe."
"Well, contact Mr. Kilmarten. Let him know we've arrived safely and that our last contact in Fenterwig might have been harmed," I asked of the barkeep. I felt slightly put off having to come all this way just to retrieve a drunkard.
Andy’s eyes opened a bit further, "Oy, what happened to your last contact? What do you mean harmed?" Andy asked, genuinely curious, perhaps fearing the safety of his own life.
I turned to him and replied dryly, "I'm not certain. We were ambushed by assassins."
Andy stood up from his table and walked to the bar. He reached into his pocket and revealed several coins. He placed them on the bar and began to walk out. "I think I might be having a change of mind, Panchenko," Andy said as he crookedly exited the establishment as swiftly as his feet would carry him, stumbling into others in the market hall.
"Hey, more coin for me, right?" Panchenko said. "By the way, Roberto Panchenko. Pleased to meet you. The supplies, in back. Resting quarters, upstairs.”
“We should really head out now.” Hendryk said. “There’s a cave below the metro, we can sleep there for the night. We’ll be out of the way of any incoming.”
“Who made you boss, bird boy?” The Strongman quipped.
“He may be right,” I said, the lingering thought of a bomb detonating in my vicinity worried me something awful.
“Incoming what?” Panchenko cut in.
Hendryk replied, “An enemy airship flew into the metro armed with explosives, the war is definitely on its way. So far there was just the one that we saw, but there will be more.”
“Dr. Monocle, we’re going down without a crew?” Louise seemed genuinely confused and rightly so, she didn’t wait for an answer, “The four of us and a bartender? You’re a mad one, Monocle. Completely mad.”
“Oh, I’m not going with you,” Panchenko said flatly, “I wasn’t hired to participate, just gather crew.”
“A fine job you did at that.” Louise snapped.
Panchenko shot back, “You’re lucky I was able to found anyone!”
“Well, he left!” Louise countered like the fighter she was.
“Enough!” I shouted, the two of their voices ringing within the canals of my ears and striking up a flame of cranial aching, “Enough from the both of you twits!”
“I’ll get the stuff,” The Strongman slunk off to the back room for the supplies.
“The equipment on the table only, don’t touch anything else,” Panchenko grumbled over his shoulder. He turned back around to me as I sat down at the bar, “I will have you know, I did buy you the very best in supplies. Rope, grapples, canteens of fresh water. Everything is new. Shouldn’t have any problems getting down there. And that reminds me, what do you want down at the bottom of this wretched hole?” Panchenko’s curiosity came through in his tone as he abruptly changed the subject.
“Treasure hunting,” I replied.
“Must be some treasure for you to be willing to risk life and limb,” Panchenko feigned concern, “dangerous place down there. Dangerous place up here, too. But certainly more dangerous down there.”
“Tell me, which is m
ore dangerous?” I snarked.
“Wise ass,” Panchenko spit, “all you adventuring dopes are just the same. If you’d like, I’d be happy to hold your coin while you’re down there. And say, maybe you don’t come back in a week’s time, I just get to call it my own, then?”
“I think not.” I said shortly to Panchenko’s attempt to cash-in on our potential demise.
The Strongman emerged from the back room with all of our supplies strapped, affixed, and tied upon his body. He seemed rather cumbersome, but he managed just fine. He had rope slung over each shoulder. Canteens strapped around his waist. Lanterns hanging.
“I’d still rather have a mule than him.” Louise quipped.
“You want to carry some of this? I’d be happy to let you take some of this off my hands,” The Strongman shot back.
“You know the old mining route down?” Hendryk asked rhetorically as he grabbed a spool of rope from The Strongman and slung it over his shoulder, “We’ll take that, should be the easiest way.”
“Are you mad?” Louise barked, “The old mining route is infested with underdwellars.”
I knew that Louise was referring to the rubbish problem which attracted so many underdwellars. Some underdwellars thrived on the discarded muck and waste of others. The old mining route was the passageway down for miners going to and from work. Since the old mining route was unused for its original purpose, it had since become a dumping ground. The unfortunate side effect of turning the mining route into a dumping ground was that it attracted underdwellars to the upper levels and even to the surface.
“Do you have a better idea? What would you suggest we do?” Hendryk asked with a rather pompous tone.
“The old quarry lift,” Louise said, “we can access it through the tunnel system. From there, it’s smooth gliding to the opposite end.”
Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle: That Certain Gentleman Page 30
