Chapter Forty Three: Deep Beyond

"The girl you spoke with, Angel, is...special, even here in the city," Hidden Moon said quietly to Ronin in the dark of her office.

A hologram of the girl floated on the table between them, a knowing smirk on her face, like she knew Ronin couldn't find her in the city.

"Frankly...the fact that she knows Marcus isn't surprising...he makes it his business to know and work with special people...but...this is very unlike what I've heard about her. She always uses the threat of her action to achieve her goals, as far as I'm aware, she's never gone through any one individual before," she continued, in thought.

Ronin looked at Hidden Moon and asked, "The threat of her action?"

From the doorway, Mira nodded and said, "She's threatened the Cathols before and they actually listened to her demands."

Hidden Moon sighed gently and said, "Several years ago, Angel just...appeared and without warning killed an entire guild that had been using guildless as guinea pigs for their alchemy experiments...after that, everyone who mattered was called to a meeting with her. She said that unless everyone present signed a treaty to avoid...certain behaviors...she'd begin destroying a guild a day, killing anyone who tried to resist it."

Mira walked in and put her hand on Ronin's shoulder and said, "Nobody's heard from her since then...I think that made the Cathols feel safe, but if she's around again...who knows what's going to happen."

Shaking her head, Hidden Moon said, "Hopefully nothing too intense...but that said, there is something I'd like you to look into, just in case. We'll keep an eye out for Angel, but the Cathols have started expanding again, this time down. I'm worried that they're going for more guildless, but if they are, they're digging in the wrong place."

"Digging?"

 Hidden Moon tapped the arm of her chair and the hologram of Angel flickered out of existence and became a zoom of an area with signs that said "Old Central Park".

"Old Central Park used to be a beautiful park, but at some point people, in search of Aether, began digging down...now…,"she tapped again and images of sickly people and horrible monsters began to flicker on the table as she continued, "it's a gathering place for the ill and dying, especially among the guildless who can't afford to care for their sick."

Ronin began to point out that Scalpel had opened an infirmary, but Hidden Moon cut him off by saying, "Do you think your work to help people has gone unnoticed? A people that can barely survive is the perfect place for groups like the Cathols. I've heard rumors about guilds killing families that have gone to your infirmary, even if it's just a child who needed help."

Mira nodded and said, "The Cathols are especially harsh on guildless in their territory who seek external help…"

Hidden Moon sighed and said, "That's a problem for later though...right now, we need to figure out why they're digging around under the city...they MUST think something's down there to justify the effort...and given their recent actions with Mira, I am deeply worried about what that might be."

Ronin looked at Mira and asked, "Do you have any idea what they're looking for?"

Frowning softly, Mira responded, "I have no idea...I got missions and did what I was told, they never told me what they had planned for the future except that they were going to change the world."

"As far as I'm aware, there's nothing beneath the city that might be worth finding...but if anyone's going to know that, it may be a guild by the name of The Forgotten Truths…though I hesitate to send you in their direction," Hidden Moon said, shuddering a bit.

Mira rubbed her arm and looked away as Ronin looked around confused and asked, "Why...is that?"

 Laughing nervously, Hidden Moon said, "They're...unusual...they believe that Aether is from a society that came before humanity, that it was left here for us to find and join them out in space."

Ronin cocked his head and said, "But aether was found in Greenland, in it's natural state within the ground."

 Shrugging dismissively, Hidden Moon said, "They claim to have found pre-human artifacts made of Aether, things that do the impossible, which is saying a lot considering what Aether can do."

"Why would they know anything about what's under the city?" Ronin asked, shifting in his seat a bit.

"You may want to ask them that when you see them...their headquarters is close to Old Central Park for easy access."

Ronin nodded and stood to leave as Hidden Moon said, "Mira...I wouldn't mention anything about the whole dragon situation...they seem pretty fixated on them. They're mostly harmless, but they can be pretty erratic when dragons come up."

Mira nodded and she and Ronin left, soon finding themselves in front of what Ronin could only call a bookstore, even though it had the words "Forgotten Truth" written in cursive. The sign on the window, however, had been scratched out and "TRUTHERS" had been painted in bright red paint over the words.

 Ronin cautiously poked his head inside and almost immediately began sneezing due to the sheer quantity of dust within the small room.

In an era where almost all information was digital, this building was filled with so many books that it seemed almost impossible that anyone could meet here, let alone get work done.

It bothered him, on some level he wasn't sure he was ready to acknowledge yet, to see so much information cared so little for.

As he walked in, he heard a shuffling in back and readied his weapon, just in case of an attacker, when a woman taller than him, easily six foot five inches tall, came out from the back, adjusting her glasses.

Suspicious at first, he saw all the signs of a fellow researcher; tired eyes and pale skin told him everything he needed to know that this woman was as likely to have seen combat as he was to take up leisure gardening.

She spoke, her voice surprisingly high and nasal, "Are you the guy for the thing?"

 Sighing exasperatedly Ronin responded, "No, I'm here to ask some questions about Old Central Park."

Squinting through her cracked lenses, the woman said, emotionlessly, "Oh. Right. Hidden Moon's friend. If you're just here to laugh at me like the others, get out."

Ronin was taken aback and raised his hands defensively as he said, "I'm not here to laugh, I just have questions."

Turning away from him, she said, without looking, "Follow me then, it's way too bright out here."

Looking around and at Mira beyond the door's threshold, he mouthed, "Too bright?"

Mira shrugged and entered the doorway, only to jump back as absurdly loud alarms began to blare and the walls flashed red.

The woman stopped dead in her tracks and without flinching, pulled a gun from a shelf nearby and pointed it at Ronin and Mira, demanding, "Who are you really and how did you find us?"

An alarming tone played in Ronin's mind and he stepped forward, so fast the woman couldn't follow him, and, without thinking about it, crushed the gun in his bare hand as he said, "My name is Ronin. Hidden Moon sent us to ask about Old Central Park, how often do I have to say it?"

 Gasping in surprise, the woman let the gun go and said, "That may be who you are...but your friend there is a Drae'Gyn spy and I won't have her in here."

She narrowed her eyes at Ronin and said, "I'm only trusting you because you know Hidden Moon, and even then only because she owes us a favor and Hidden Moon doesn't go back on her word. She swore you were safe...she didn't say anything about that bitch."

Ronin looked at Mira and she shrugged and said, "That place is gross anyway, we'll ask Hidden Moon later."

Nodding, Ronin turned to the woman and said, "I've told you my name twice now...what is your name."

"You can call me Meonin," she said, her eyes never wavering from Mira.

Staring back at her expressionless, Mira said, "I'll burn this whole place down if you don't stop looking at me like that."

Meonin smirked and said, "Typical Drae'Gyn, solve all your problems with fire, well you'll find that this building and everything in it is entirely immune to fire."

Ronin raised an eyebrow and said, "That's impressive."

Meonin smiled for the first time and said, "You're one of the few who thinks so."

Putting his hands up again, dropping the gun he'd crushed, Ronin said, "I think we got off on the wrong foot here...Mira isn't this thing you've been calling her, she's a Nekoum."

Meonin looked at him, smile fading, and said, "What the hell is a Nekoum?"

 Mira pointed at her ears and tail and made a face at the woman, though Ronin thought that gesture may have gone unnoticed as Meonin tapped at her V.U.I. and said, "Well whatever you are, if you're not a Drae'Gyn, I guess you can come in...but any sign of danger from you and I'll put you down faster than you can blink."

Motioning at the pair again, she turned and started to tap on a datapad that flipped out of the wall and said, "From what we've discovered in our searches, Drae'Gyn were a horrible menace, creators of Aether though they may be."

The wall creaked to life and a hidden doorway was revealed as Ronin asked, "Creators of Aether?"

 Meonin nodded and started walking down the stairs the door was hiding and said, "Drae'Gyn were unbelievably advanced, so much further developed with their tech that it might even be called magic. They had the power to control evolution and we believe they could even open doors to other parts of the universe and maybe even other dimensions."

Ronin listened intently, absorbing everything she said until Mira mumbled to herself, louder than she'd intended and echoed in the tunnel, "Unusual is the right word."

Meonin, sighed and looked back as she said, "We believe what we see, even if nobody else will. Everything in this building is infused with fire immunity tech that was reverse engineered from an artifact we found beneath the city."

"Infused?" Ronin asked, genuinely curious.

Meonin nodded, slowing a bit and feeling around for something on the wall and, upon finding it, said, "The Drae'Gyn had the ability to infuse the very nature of things into anything they created, it's really quite incredible and damn hard to replicate, but doable."

Ronin asked, "Think I could get a look at those notes at some point?"

 Tapping on another softly glowing datapad that had flipped out from the wall, Meonin chuckled, "Maybe, if you join the Forgotten Truths, otherwise? Not a chance. We've got enough problems without more people stealing from us too."

'The wall beyond the datapad rippled as though it were water and Ronin's eyes widened in shock as the wall simply disappeared and Meonin said, a smirk on her face, "This is nothing."

They walked through the doorway and Ronin felt all the hair on his body raise, as though he were completely covered in static electricity as Meonin spoke, her voice barely a whisper, "Welcome to The Forgotten Truths headquarters."

All around the room was tech so advanced that Ronin could barely begin to figure out what half of it did. People wearing thick coats wandered back and forth, spheres of ice spiralling around their heads as they walked, moving from station to station for whatever experiments they were conducting.

Along the far wall a massive gate made entirely of what seemed to be bone and glowing stones shimmered menacingly.

Meonin pointed to it and said, "That's what the Cathols are looking for...or rather, something that theirs is missing."

"Theirs," Ronin asked darkly.

Meonin nodded and said, "This is why we're set up under that old bookshop, we found this close to the start of our guild's founding. I believe that the Cathols have one of their very own, though I'm terrified to think of where theirs may lead if they're going to such effort to activate it."

The structure's gateway flashed brightly and a woman wielding a scythe of bone came out of it, a woman that Ronin could tell, despite not s being able to see her face due to her hood, was unbelievably dangerous.

She shook off what appeared to be a black liquid, so dark and empty that it barely seemed to exist, that burst into black flames as it left her person.

Handing a bag to a nearby researcher, she said, her voice reverberating with power, "They're getting more aggressive, I don't know how many times I'll be able to get in. I hope you're getting what you need from this."

Before she could continue, Meonin waved and caught Ronin's attention, saying, "We're over here in one of the side rooms."

She almost dragged him into the room as he tried to catch another glimpse of the woman and said, "We've got a quick way into the deepest parts of Old Central Park, you'll want to go this route since the Cathols have the normal way in totally blocked and defended."

Within the room, some kind of cargo bay from it's appearance, was a massive set of double doors that Meonin walked to and began fiddling with.

After several minutes of punching in data on a datapad, she said, "This'll take you to our private entry point in Old Central Park, you may have to go up several levels to find the Cathols but it's easier to go up than it is to fight your way down."

She pushed a final button on the screen and the doors slowly opened, revealing what appeared to be the inky black depths of space, though Ronin felt as though he kept seeing things - forms and monsters lurking within its depths.

Mira cocked her head and asked, "This leads to Old Central Park?"

 Meonin nodded and said, "It's 99% safe, there has been the occasional issue of people disappearing for up to a year, but that's pretty rare...67% safe."

She pushed Ronin and Mira in just as Ronin began to say, "Wait, what?"