"If the Council had mapped this place, we wouldn't need your presence. We don't expect you to succeed, only to do your best. This place is huge."
Lotho pointed at Urgamakka's external walls that would have made even Lith's Tiamat's form look small in comparison. The air and the ground were filled with runes of power still visible even to the naked eye but both the wall and the arrays had been breached.
From the giant hole, a city the size of Valeron was visible. An underground river cut the city in half, forming several ponds and waterways that still retained part of their beauty despite the lack of maintenance.
Judging from the limited damages that the passing of the centuries had inflicted upon the tall stone buildings and from Urgamakka being as bright as day, it was clear that at least some of its arrays were still partly operational.
"My advice is to ignore the cultivated fields and warehouses. Focus solely on the living quarters of those who can be considered as skilled Awakened for their time. I wish you all good luck." Lotho Warped away, leaving the dumbstruck group still in awe.
The Awakened undead were the first to snap out of it. Unlike others, they had both the problem of the sun and of feeding. Their first priority was to secure a safe resting place for daytime and arrange for a source of life force in the case of need.
Beasts, instead, just walked through the hole and started exploring the underground city in small groups. After all, finders keepers was just another way to say first come first served. Waiting would have meant missing the best spoils.
The plant folk followed the beasts' lead, but they used their bloodline skills to dive under the ground and the rock, in the hope to find secret storages or hidden passages that not even magical means of detection could reveal.
"Well, this sure bodes poorly." Athung said. "If this is how the Awakened army will behave, we might as well give Thrud the keys to our homes. You know my contact rune. Call me if you guys need help."
Before starting to search the place, Athung shared her rune with as many people as she could while Lith was still pondering their situation.
"Is everything okay?" He asked after noticing how pale Phloria had become.
"Entering an underground city fueled by a mana geyser and filled with untold enemies brings back too many memories from Kulah." She replied. "That place cost me my career and almost my life."
'Yes, but this time it's just the three of us, we are all Awakened and no array can stop our Spirit Magic.' Solus said via a mind link to cheer them up.
'True, but I still don't like it.' Phloria replied.
Everyone activated their mystical senses, noticing how old yet powerful the runes of the ancient arrays still were. Once they walked past the hole in the wall, Urgamakka shone to their eyes like a Christmas tree.
The city had been built with an odd design. The houses at the edges of the city were one-story tall, but the closer they got to the center, the taller they became until they formed a huge spire comprised of buildings leaning against each other for unknown reasons.
Everything had been enchanted and the power coming from the mana geyser below had preserved most of the arrays despite the city had been clearly been deserted for centuries.
"Who the fuck would live in such a place? It's no wonder the cohabitation of so many Awakened failed." Phloria said with a scoff. "What point there is in having so much space if you just pack everyone together?"
She pointed at the huge spire, making Lith wonder if the mind behind the city was just deranged or if there was a hidden design that he failed to notice.
Before starting their exploration, they followed Athung's lead and offered their communication rune to other Awakened. Phloria even offered the undead to share with them her life force if they needed, pleasantly surprising them.
Lith would have gladly done the same, but now that his life forces had merged, between the influence from the Abomination side and him belonging to a new species, it made his life essence undesirable for most undead and even toxic to some.
He did it anyway because he was sure that among them there had to be people who actually were inspectors for the Council. As Athung had reminded him, the mission at hand wasn't just about pillaging the ruins but about bonding among Awakened.
On top of that, he exploited the presence of the undead to assess what kind of threat level Urgamakka posed. They couldn't die of old age, poisoning, or regular weapons so once he observed them with Death Vision, he would gain two pieces of information.
What their weak point was and in what ways they were likely to die in the immediate future.
'What the fuck?' Lith thought while watching the undead group into a pile of ashes apparently for no reason.
They were supposed to crumble starting from their respective weak point and show him what caused its destruction, yet they just became dust at once with an alarming frequency.
Only after looking around did Lith understand what the problem was. Not only the undead, but everyone he lay his eyes on but Phloria would suddenly turn into cinders under Death Vision's gaze.
"This doesn't bode well at all." Phloria said after Lith shared the information with her.
"Don't jinx it. Maybe it's just the effect of a self-destruct mechanism or something." Lith replied. "Besides, we're not going to take part in this wild goose chase."
He took a small pair of stone glasses out of his breast pocket that actually was Solus in her Eyes form.
"I'm going to scan and ignore all the energy signatures belonging to harmless arrays or to the building's maintenance. Once we eliminate the interferences, the only energy signature left will be that of the security systems protecting the good stuff.
"This way we can avoid searching the buildings one by one and aim straight for the motherlode." Lith sounded confident in his words but his grimace of pain ruined the overall effect.
Solus's weak power core filtered very little and even by sharing the burden, the sensory load on their minds was enormous.
"Lith, stop holding back Death Vision and revert to your Tiamat form. Being human is only an annoyance to you now." Phloria said after seeing his scales and his other eyes pop in and out of his skin out of strain.
"Thanks." He sighed while shapeshifting. "I'm still having a hard time accepting that I'm not really human anymore."
"Don't mention it." Phloria shook her head. "Solus, your family, and even I have no problem with it so you shouldn't be ashamed of what you look like."
Her words took a huge burden off his chest, speeding the scanning process.
"Also, if I remember correctly, your glasses are supposed to be a teaching tool. If they work like the original, as long as I have your permission, I can use them as well. When you feel like you can't take it anymore, I can keep scanning while you rest."
