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—-------------
/Later…/
/Step step.../
As they walked through the secured entrance and into the depths of the Old Trunk, Dale and Testros were given a small lesson into the survivors' conditions together with where they were as a way to break the ice after a tense first meeting.
They were currently in an area called, the UnderRoot, a complex system of passageways that were built alongside and inside the roots of the Ancient Tree that was once the Old Trunk.
This system was only possible thanks to the nature of the roots themselves, being mostly hollow while being thick and wide enough to allow people to walk through them, albeit most of the time, they were large enough to allow multiple carts to move alongside each other at the same time.
Although, the further away from the trunk you went, the thinner they became.
Still, this did not mean all roots were usable as passageways, some went straight down, being akin to bottomless holes going who knew where, while a few led to the middle of nowhere or worse, to places better never explored...
Even during the time of the Corps, over 80% of those roots remained uncharted, and of the rest that were explored, only a few were useful for them.
Underground passageways connect the entirety of the forest, they were dug out and adapted to serve a variety of means, so much so that it made Dale think…
Perhaps that lengthy underground path connecting the underground of Resko to the Wall was also built in the space once occupied by one such root or multiple.
It would've certainly cut down the time and effort of carving away several hundred kilometers of ground from Resko to the Wall.
However, one might think those roots were an easy way in and out of the forest… But they couldn't be more wrong.
In the past, that might've been the case, but now, many beasts lurk within those pathways, making their way inside and creating their own ecosystems within.
It was already dangerous in the past, the Ancient Tree had fallen many centuries if not an entire millennia before the Corp's arrival, spanning across several Empires since its death.
As the wood of the Ancient tree does not rot under normal circumstances, there is an entire underground world hidden from the sun, who knew what secrets lay hidden beneath the dirt?
When the Survivors first settled in the city, they were immediately forced back due to the beasts and creatures from the Wall that managed to slip inside this ancient transit system through the entrances within the Wall itself.
They were forced to seal dozens of passages, some of which were important ones that led to key areas where supplies and other useful materials might be stashed...
Over the years they tried to raid those places with mixed success.
And of those that were left, they couldn't really risk traversing them either, because if you fail...
Most importantly, they might've been lucky to survive the fall of the Wall, but they weren't lucky enough to recover many of the Corps' secrets.
Even if many engineers and masters of their respective crafts survived, there wasn't a single person that knew all of these paths by hand.
Even if an architect builds a home, they may not remember or even know a fifth of the cable pathways hidden within the walls, even if they projected it, which wasn't their case.
And above all, the Sothern Corps wouldn't commit the mistake of leaving multiple entry points into their major fortresses in the open like that, so despite all of these years, they never found a safe way back to Resko and the outside world.
They knew many ways to reach the Wall, but very few at reaching other places.
And if a path was proven to lead nowhere, then they would partially seal it to prevent creatures from making their way to their home.
What about using the roots as a way to go beyond the Last Fortification or even the Depths of the Forest?
They also tried, but their attempts all led to failure.
Mostly due to inexperience given they didn't have much information to go by, they needed to guess where they were within a poorly drawn map as they navigated within the roots before digging up…
Most roots were many meters underground, with several going so deep the temperature inside became hot enough to boil water...
Of course, that was mostly a legend passed down from the elders to the younger ones, no one ever confirmed if that was true or not.
Even then, if they found a good path that went in the direction they desired, they would have to bypass the wood of the Roots if they wished to get to the other side.
To sustain such a massive tree, those roots were stronger than most metals known, and it is common knowledge that the entirety of the underground beneath the Wall had been reinforced with them.
The Wall may be dozens of meters tall, but beneath it, there were dozens of meters of wood preventing creatures from digging their way through and potentially collapsing portions of it as well.
The secrets for the safe extraction of this wood have long been forgotten, the only thing they had left now was how to manipulate it, which did help with its extraction, but wasn't exactly efficient for their endeavors.
To them, the Underground world was as dangerous as the world above if not more, so in the end, they sealed most of the passageways and lived within one of the many pockets of space within the Trunk, places that were once used as distribution Units of the Corps.
As for the City above, don't even speak about it… It had been long abandoned.
Not because it was dangerous, in fact, there were little to no monsters there…
They would frequently send people up there to scavenge, but that only worked well in the first few years.
As decades started to roll, food and such items became scarce as they rotted away in the basement of one of the many abandoned homes.
It was to such an extent that following that, purple miasma formed in the city, and during those times, they were forced to sever all connections to the Upper City for the sake of their own health.
The mist has now long vanished under the power of nature and time, but it didn't change anything, the city still remained abandoned, being one of the many reasons they never tried to take it over.
The biggest one being due to creatures like the Red Wyvern.
All it took was for one of them to fly close to them and spot them.
Just like today.
If they had chosen to live there, they may have lived with relative peace and quiet, but would they have been able to protect themselves from such creatures?
The answer to this question wasn't an easy one to think of, so they chose to build their shelter by the Old Trunk hidden beneath the canopy of the trees, protected by the Ancient wood.
It served them well for decades… A century almost, but eventually, their peace was disrupted by the appearance of the Singularity.
And that was when things started going downhill.
/Stop.../
After a lengthy walk across the hallways, Testros, Wuril, and Firia stopped in front of a small room carved from the rocks and secluded within a large open area that was akin to a small precipice.
There were no houses here, only a few lit bridges could be seen from time to time in the darkness of the ravine, and its end could not be seen.
Dale had been left behind with the Survivors as he was tasked with calming them down.
"This is the intersection, a structure similar to a Tree's Pith..." Wuril said as he rested his back against one of the walls, taking a deep breath
"Now it's only a deadly ravine..."
"A tree as big as this one had many problems that a normal tree's biology couldn't solve... So it fixed them itself... Some of these don't even look natural..."
"Look at these walls, don't they look too smooth for you?..."
"It's almost as if someone carved them."
"Tche... Regardless during Winter, it's quite the sight since many fluorescent bugs rise from the depths due to the cold, don't ask me why though."
"Somehow, cold wind blows upward from the bottom of the ravine, and the bugs just kind of follow it into the Upper portions of the tree where it's warmer."
As he looked at the darkness, his eyes became melancholic.
"We should watch it if we have the time then..." He said with a small smile as he turned to the side
"Give me a moment to patch up, I'll be with you as soon as I'm... Cough..."
"... As soon as I can stand for a minute without feeling like dying..." He said as he wiped out the corners of his mouth
"Don't worry, take your time." Testros replied as he crossed his arms
/Nod.../
Wuril didn't say much, nodding silently as he left with Fir to heal himself.
Dale's potion had greatly helped with his bleeding, but he still needed to be properly cleaned up and patched.
Testros on the other hand could only think about his future and how unbelievable everything around him was.
"... This time..." He mumbled to himself
'I'm not running away.'
With a determined expression, he turned around and entered the room.
/Clack!/
...
/At the same time.../
/BANG!/
"Dammit, these fucking doors!" Someone exclaimed as they smashed their fists against a pair of massive double iron doors
'How long have we been trapped here?!'
"Stop it, any more than that and we might activate the defensive mechanisms, if this place lits up we won't be getting out of here alive."
"Much less saving the others we'll be the ones in need of saving." A shadowy figure replied from the darkness
"Aren't we already in need of rescue?!"
"Depends on the perspective, as we speak..."
"DAMN IT ALL! By the time they finish their useless contemplations, we'll all be dead due to starvation!"
"..."
/BANG!/
"Now you shut up..." The man exclaimed as he smashed his fist against the iron, leaving a tiny dent behind
'All of this effort only for a small dent...'
'The Corps just had to be so capable at everything... And it wasn't enough.'
'This place won't be my damned coffin!'
He turned back, looking at a group of people laying around everywhere doing absolutely nothing.
And with a frustrated expression, he also joined them, sitting on the ground with sharp eyes.
As he did so, some of them let out sighs of understanding and frustration as well, he wasn't the only one dissatisfied with their current condition.
But what could they do? They brought this to themselves.
It was a battle against time.
"Hey Gerem, want to play some cards?" Someone asked on the side
"... You fucking with me, right?"
"You want it or not?" The man replied plainly
"..."
Not long after 7 adults could be seen sitting around a table each with a set of cards in hand.
...
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Notes
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