Souls in Teyvat

Gepard quickly walked through the corridors that were only waked by those guards in charge of buying Geomarrow from the Underworld, but unlike any other time, his face now showed deep worry.

A dozen minutes ago, the time he had needed to assemble his squad, the whole Belobog, Underworld and Overworld alike, had shaken after a huge explosion happened in the Underworld.

And he was the one tasked with not only investigating it, but evaluating first-hand the damages it had caused.

This was why he was taking the strongest people with him, thanking whoever was up there that the Fragmentum monsters were inactive right now.

The Overworld, despite mostly ignoring the Underworld, was aware of everything happening.

The existence of a hostile faction, of Wildfire, and even about the group of robots led by Svarog, a powerful machine designed for combat that could turn hostile depending on the changes in the Underworld.

Hence, the presence of a squad strong enough to fight everyone at once had been assembled, and was ready to enter the worst part of this planet.

Gepard followed the Knight, one of the highest-ranked echelons in the Silvermane Guards, who normally was in charge of conducting the exchange between the Underworld and the Overworld.

"We are getting closer" said the Knight, making Gepard nod. "Wildfire is always trying to keep things down, but tension has been running a bit high lately. I don't believe we will be attacked on sight, but we need to be careful nonetheless."

"Understood" replied Gepard succinctly.

The squad kept walking, but Gepard's face changed, as rare as it was.

He had heard some rumours about the Underworld, but after seeing it with his own eyes, he could affirm that those rumours were completely false.

A bit dirty? No, this place was the very definition of unsanitary.

A bit hot due to the Geomarrow? He was about to boil like a crab inside his armour.

The water smells a bit? His brain was probably cannibalizing the area in charge of the olfactory sense.

Life can be a bit hard? Well, not killing yourself was hard.

Gepard's dark expression, realizing that things were straight up a nightmare that needed to be dealt with at some point, went unnoticed as a white helmet covered his face.

But undoubtedly, the man who would leave the Underworld wasn't the same one who entered, the one who had been too busy fighting day and night against the monsters outside the city trying to enter by all means possible.

"We are here" said the Knight, bringing Gepard out of his grim thoughts. "Should I interact with the civilians here?"

"No, I will" replied Gepard, taking the hidden dart the Knight had sent his way.

Because even if the Overworld ignored them, these people were also citizens of Belobog, the last city of their world.

"Excuse me" said Gepard, his voice muffled by his helmet, and approaching a man sitting on the ground with his hands covering his face. "May I ask what was that explosion?"

The man looked with surprise at the people wearing shining white armours and swords expensive enough to buy even his life, and sighed tiredly.

At any other point, that sight might have made him want to spit at them, but not now.

Everything had lost its meaning after all.

"There was an accident with the explosives" said the defeated man, making Gepard's blood turn into ice. "Someone forgot to turn the key of the lock, and the door was open. A single piece of scraps entered the room, and-"

"What are the damages?" interrupted Gepard, fearing the worst.

"Damages?" asked the man with a wry smile. "Everything. The Geomarrow mine came crashing down."

And Gepard realized that they were doomed.

Without Geomarrow, they wouldn't be able to stop the Eternal Freeze from affecting Belobog, which meant that every single human in this city would die.

The whole planet was in a countdown, that would reach zero the moment their supply of Geomarrow ended.

Unless...

"Can you guide us to the mine?" asked an impatient Gepard. "We might be able to remove the debris and make it operable again."

'Might' was something he had said just to avoid making the man in front of him panic.

They NEEDED to make it operable again.

"Heh, good luck with that" scoffed the man. "Not only has EVERYTHING come crashing down, but even Svarog and his metal cans are around. I guess they were alarmed by the sound."

Gepard cursed for the first time in his life, because things were getting darker than a cup of carbon oil.

"We are ready to face them" replied Gepard, but the man in front of him only looked back at the squad with clear disbelief.

"Never mind, I guess that we are all on the countdown, might as well put an end to it of our own volition" sighed the man, turning around. "Follow me, I fear none of you knows how many floors the Underworld has."

Gepard took the second dart of the day, but stood up ready to follow the man, all while thinking about possible solutions.

The man guided them efficiently through the narrow corridors, but Gepard didn't have the mental capacity to comprehend what he was seeing, his brain was busy thinking of other things.

So it was no wonder that he almost collided with the man they were following after a person appeared in front of them.

"What the hell are you all doing here?" asked Seele with a dark expression.

"Deal with the Geomarrow mine" replied the impatient Gepard.

"Hah! When we were dying, you spit on us and our cries for help. When the Geomarrow mine keeping you alive comes crashing down, the elite guards of the Overworld come running" laughed the girl with pure disdain. "Really shows your priorities, doesn't it?"

"As true as that might be" started Gepard, realizing that the girl was right, they had only come when their own survival was at risk. "Right now we need to deal with the Geomarrow mine. This is not only a problem affecting the Overworld."

"But you only arrived precisely because it affects the Overworld" argued the girl, her bright red eyes glaring at Gepard's helmet covering his eyes. "Would you have come had the Underworld been the only part affected?"

"...." Gepard had the decency to not reply, because as much as he would have liked to say yes...

He couldn't say it after seeing with his own eyes the state the Underworld was in.

"Just let us pass Seele" said the defeated man with a tired sigh. "Is there a meaning in obstructing us now, and eliminating the only chance we might have at surviving? Are you that selfish to take away everyone's only chance to vent your anger, as justified as it might be?"

Seele glared at the man, but her stare returned to the Silvermane Guards.

"Before we all die with our blood frozen inside our veins, and turning into statues that will forever trap our souls, I hope you take a good look at what you have been ignoring until now. And then answer me. Are we so different?" after saying her piece, Seele disappeared between the buildings with a single jump, expertly navigating through the narrow streets she had been walking for about 16 years.

Her entire life.

"Continue, please" asked Gepard, knowing that Seele's words would need to be shelved for later, but he had a mission now.

"She had a point, you know?" was all the man said while guiding the squad towards the Geomarrow mine.

This also allowed Gepard to take a look at his surroundings, now more aware of the environment due to Seele's words.

These people had been ignored enough, finding the answer to the problem in the Geomarrow mine while ignoring them was probably prolonging what they had been suffering for.

Anxiousness, fear, goodbyes, anger, impotence, frustration....

Not only Gepard, but the whole squad was able to see all that and more in the faces of everyone they came across.

And suddenly, having lost track of time, they arrived.

"You are lucky, those metal cans aren't around right now" said the man who guided them here. "Do whatever you need before they come back. Or eliminate them, they have been attacking us for years."

"We will take as much time as we need to solve this situation" replied Gepard, looking at the Geomarrow mine.

And it was horrible.

Not only had the tunnel that led towards the rich veins of Geomarrow collapsed, but the whole structure keeping the mine open had come crashing down.

Not only would they need to dig the whole mine again, but excavate the tunnel before the supply of Geomarrow was emptied.

And even then, the Geomarrow vein might have been crushed by the rocks around it.

"What do you think?" asked Gepard to another Knight, the one who knew about the infrastructure of the mine.

"It's... a disaster" muttered the Knight. "From what I've seen, there is not a single layer standing."

"Can we solve it?" asked Gepard, forcing his voice to stay calm to hide his trepidation.

"....I don't know" but the answer he got was the worst way possible. "We need to dig all sides at the same time to avoid another collapse. The mine won't be open like it was before, we will need to build a gallery to extract the Geomarrow, and that is quite dangerous both for the ones building it, and for the miners as the risk of collapse is a lot bigger. The Geomarrow might even have been turned into powder. If only the central stake had survived, we might have been able to rebuild everything around it..."

"You can do that?!" asked the surprised man who had guided them here.

"Yes, it might take a lot of time and resources, but probably" nodded the Knight, stunned by the man's shout.

"The central stake survived" revealed the man with an excited smile that quickly infected the Knights, even Gepard, who allowed himself to wear a small smile. "The robot's attacks had been getting more frequent, so we reinforced it in case they damaged it."

"What does it mean?" asked Gepard, looking at the Knight.

"That we might have been saved by a mere fluke" said the Knight, with clear relief in his voice. "We will need at least a year, but we have enough Geomarrow."

And Gepard couldn't help but thank whoever was up there.

Maybe, this was a chance for the Overworld to take a good look at what lay beneath them.

After all, a tree could only grow with healthy roots.

"At least we have good news-"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

But Gepard's words were interrupted by another explosion that made him pale.

Because this one had come from the Overworld.

"We need to return!" shouted Gepard, looking at the man to ask him to guide them to the Overworld through the shortest path.

But the man had disappeared at some point, his blonde ponytail nowhere to be seen.

But just like the in a firework shoe, they never came alone.

KRRRRKKK

The ground started trembling as if thousands of people were simultaneously jumping or running, the rumbling making Gepard regret getting up from bed today.

'What is happening...' was all Gepard could think of as a literal sea of robots rushed to them with angry red lights flaring, nothing but homicidal intentions within their hard metallic bodies.

Officially, it was Gepard's worst day.