Scout nodded impatiently and led everyone over to a wall. It looked like any other stretch of wall, even when Sophia examined it with her MageSight. Scout knocked on it.

A bright flash of mana that covered at least twenty feet of the wall made Sophia squint. It didn't help, since her MageSight didn't actually require her sight, but she blinked a couple times anyway. It felt like she should.

When she refocused on the wall, the bright glow of magic had faded to a light hint. It also wasn't a wall anymore; it was an open arch that led into darkness. The wall around the arch was smoothed, like concrete; to the sides, she could see some areas that looked more like a rubble fill. Sophia couldn't see the light source that lit the arch, but it glowed in the dim room.

"What is that? What was that?" Sophia demanded.

Scout shrugged. "Top Four Escape Tunnel. Hidden until need. Secrets in walls."

Sophia stared at the android. She wasn't even sure where to begin. What other secrets did the walls hold that Sophia was unable to see while they were inactive?

How did that work, anyway? It seemed almost like it had actually moved the rock as it activated, like maybe it had two different states it could be in, open and closed, but both of them seemed completely stable. It definitely wasn't an illusion before and there wasn't one now, either, but the only magic Sophia could see was the light.

Oh, that was the source of the light. Using mana to make actual light was so common that Sophia wasn't even looking for it. She guessed it made sense; if you had an escape tunnel and wanted to direct people through it, lighting it up would make it a lot easier for scared people to find. It was really more of a surprise that there wasn't a giant EXIT sign above it, but that would be hard to hide if it wasn't part of whatever enchantment allowed the archway to disappear.

"Where does it lead?" Dav was obviously focused on what the tunnel could be used for instead of how it was hidden.

"Above. Secure control four, close. Rockfall command from secure control four." Scout spoke in her broken English.

Sophia wanted to ask Scout to speak in a language she was fluent in so that Sophia could understand her better, but she didn't. Broken English was far easier for everyone else to understand.

"Ready?" Scout tilted her head slightly. The movement looked abrupt and considered, almost unnerving.

Lan'ti started to say something, then paused and turned to Ci'an. "Do you have a messenger bird for Los'en? I don't, I used the last one right before you arrived. I'd rather not use a skyflare."

Ci'an nodded quickly and darted to her tent. She returned with the small box that held the pearls that would turn into messenger birds. "Got it. Anything else we need?"

"Get ready for a fight. I think we might be headed into one."

All Sophia had to do was grab her pack. Dav was similar; he held his pack out for Taika to hop onto then donned it. Ci'an had to run back to her tent for her bow. Sophia didn't track what everyone else had to do to get ready, other than to note that Xin'ri didn't move. Her staff appeared out of nowhere again, but it was clearly always available.

"Sophia, Dav, I'd like to leave one of you down here to handle the ruins apparitions." Lan'ti looked out into the distance for a moment, then shook his head. "But if you both want to go, I'll leave Horus and Mikael. They can handle things with Xin'ri's assistance. It'll mean restricting everyone to the camp area, but we should do that anyway."

"I'm going," Xin'ri stated flatly. "You're going to need me. I'm also not going to pass up the chance to examine a place that is set up to allow the remote activation of an ancient enchantment; this is exactly why I'm on this expedition."

"But-"

Xin'ri interrupted Lan'ti before he could get any farther with his objection. "I can take care of myself. My Sphere revolves around creating items and using them myself. I'm not quite as good in a fight as a true Called, but that doesn't matter for this. It's your job to deal with whoever did this; it's my job to deal with how they did it. So I'm coming with you."

Lan'ti sighed. "Fine! I'll stay behind, then. Ci'an, send for Los'en as soon as you can. You know how fast he can move, get him to come ahead of the rest and reinforce you before you go after whoever it is; this has to be someone sent after us, so he's the best chance we have to-"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Tell him yourself," Ci'an interrupted. "You know as well as I do that no more than one ruins apparition's going to appear in the camp area if we're gone a whole day; Horus and Mikael can handle one. Have a couple of the camp staff keep lookout if that's what you need, but you're right. We need all the firepower we can get. That means we can't leave you down here. I don't want to leave Horus, either."

It took a bit more debating, but eventually it was settled: the group heading to the surface with Scout was Lan'ti, Horus, Azalea, Xin'ri, C'an, Sophia, Dav, Taika, and one of Scout's two guards. Scout's other guard would stay underground to watch for ruins apparitions with Mikael. Lan'ti wanted to leave more people who could fight, but they were all on the surface with the hunting party.

Volat absolutely refused to come to the surface when Lan'ti asked him. He wasn't interested in being there immediately; he could translate things after the danger was handled. Sophia wasn't certain why Lan'ti even asked, since both Sophia and Scout could translate anything that was written in Kestii and they were both already headed to the surface.

The escape tunnel was dark, but Sophia's magelight was enough to let her see what they walked through. It was about twenty feet wide and ten feet tall, far wider than the doorway but about the same width as the area affected by the enchantment. That was enough to make Sophia wonder if that doorway was a later addition when they wanted to hide the tunnel.

It was surprisingly long with a continual gentle slope and a slight curve, as if it had to go around something or maybe didn't want to get too far from the underground facility. Sophia's best guess was that it was about two blocks long, which didn't seem far when she was walking in Manhattan but seemed a lot farther in an underground tunnel.

It ended in another sheer wall that Scout had to open. When she did, they were let into a far larger room that was still much smaller than the open area they'd left. It was also built from stone, but there was dust-covered bits of broken wood and metal scattered throughout the room in a twisted jumble. Sophia almost wanted to think it was the result of violence, but she couldn't be certain. It could have been simply the ravages of time if this place was as old as the facility it connected to.

Another ramp filled the wall on the far side of the room. It led up to where a door had clearly once stood, but the door was long gone. Sophia could see light from the right once she reached the doorway, but Scout ignored it and led the way to the left.

They went down a pair of corridors, turned a corner, and passed through a room with a heavy metal door that rested open on only its lower hinge before Scout set her hand on a wall in a spot that had a faint hand-shaped water stain. Sophia wondered if she'd see the same thing on the wall underground if she looked.

This time, Sophia knew better than to use her MageSight, so she wasn't temporarily blinded when the door morphed to reveal an archway. Scout went in first, but everyone else was right on her heels.

The room wasn't really big enough for all of them, which meant it definitely wasn't big enough to hide enemies. Unless there was another secret entrance, they were too late.

"An authority map," Xin'ri stated in a tone that conveyed shocked surprise. "I've never seen one of those intact and where it came from. But I don't understand; how could this be used? No one knows how to actually use one. Even I don't know, and I know what it is!"

"Had authority," Scout answered simply. "Don't know how. Othala would."

For a moment, Sophia regretted not taking the time to visit Othala before they left. The regret didn't last long, though; she could always ask later and if Othala thought it was important, she'd have told Scout. It was pretty obvious that Scout didn't do anything without directions from Othala.

"We're going to have to track them." Ci'an flipped open her message box and pulled out the right sphere. "Lan'ti? Here. You send the message, but I think we need a tracker as well as Los'en."

A loud crack like nearby thunder echoed through the building as Ci'an finished speaking. Lan'ti's mouth firmed and he closed his hand securely around the message bead before running towards the light they'd seen when they entered the complex. The entire complex was small, probably smaller than the open room at the base of the now-collapsed stairs in the underground facility, so it wasn't long before they reached the exit.

Lan'ti stopped two steps outside the doorway that led into light. Sophia was not long behind him. She looked around as she arrived; it was a clear day, but she heard the sound of thunder again. It wasn't clear where it came from, because there was no lightning nor any clouds to cause lightning anywhere she could see.

They were in a set of ruins, but these looked more like a rocky extension of the hill they sat on than the clear tumbled walls of the original ruins. That explained why they hadn't been noticed … or maybe they had and they just weren't important? All of the interesting things about this set of ruins was hidden behind false walls, after all, so Sophia could easily believe that it had been found and dismissed as unimportant. No one had time to look at everything, and if you thought you'd completely explored a place, why would you look farther?

She could see the other ruins, the ones they'd been staying in, from this vantage point. Sophia made note of that but continued looking; those loud noises had to be coming from somewhere. If this were Earth, she'd probably have assumed they were gunfire or firecrackers, but as far as she knew, neither of those existed in the Broken Lands. On a clear day, that probably meant a fight was happening somewhere.

"They ambushed the hunting party, didn't they?" Dav's words echoed what Sophia was thinking. It was really the only explanation that made any sense.

"I hope there aren't too many of them," Sophia answered. "I don't know what we're facing here. Should we try to find them or just let them know we're here?"

"There can't be many," Lan'ti answered with a frown. "We'd have noticed if a lot of people were nearby. A few could hide. I'm much more worried about how powerful they are. If they were willing to ambush Uncle Los'en while he's with the rest of the hunters, they clearly think they can win. I think they're that way, but they aren't close; I'm not sure we can get there in time to help."

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