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Chapter Seventy-Six: ‘Thy buried history...’
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Hector was glad for Amelia Carthrace’s presence. The woman could organize just about anything, seemingly, and she had a handle on his funds. She was almost like an elderly version of Gina, he thought, and he could see why the Queen had asked her to help him out. The only thing he didn’t understand was why Madame Carthrace had actually agreed to.
By mid-morning, Warrenhold already had two separate crews onsite. The first was the preliminary reconstruction team, which Amelia tasked with making immediate and primitive repairs to the aboveground buildings. Their primary goal was to have enough rooms with four walls for everyone by the day’s end.
The second crew was a team of surveyors, and Hector accompanied them underground. At first, they wanted to split up and go in all different directions to help speed their work along, but Hector wouldn’t allow it. He wasn’t going to let anyone wander around down here alone until he was more confident in the castle’s structural integrity. He knew that these people were professionals, but even so, he doubted that many of them had experience with places quite like this. If a hallway suddenly collapsed on someone, Hector wanted to be right there to shield them in an instant. The surveyors were a bit annoyed at his insistence, but the longer they spent underground, the less that seemed to bother them.
They didn’t experience any cave-ins or otherwise have any brushes with death, but that didn’t seem to matter. Gradually, the surveyors all took to clustering around Hector, and they became rather fidgety and irritable. They busied themselves with their work, taking measurements, charting the rooms out, inspecting walls and columns for signs of weakness; but not a single one of these people appeared very comfortable in this place now.
“...Are you guys alright?” Hector asked.
The lead surveyor had introduced herself as Sharon Calloway earlier. She took a deep breath and adjusted her hard hat, then her spectacles. “We’re fine. Don’t worry.”
“There’s something about this place,” said someone else. “I can’t put my finger on it, but...”
“It’s unsettling,” said another.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
I wonder how they will react when they get to the cave and Drowntown, maybe what's keeping living things out is a psychic field?
ReplyDelete"The only thing he didn’t understand [is] why Madame Carthrace had actually agreed [to]."
ReplyDelete"Is" should be "was" I think. Also, the end of the sentence sounds weird. Either "had actually agreed" or "had actually agreed to do so."
"The second crew was a team [was] surveyors,"
A team of surveyors?
The first and third are definitely errors and are now fixed, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThe second one isn't a mistake, though. It's just an alternate phrasing. It would be a mistake if the previous sentence hadn't been phrased "asked her TO help" or equivalent, because then the follow up "had actually agreed TO" would not have the appropriate "to" to refer back to. If that makes sense. I can explain it a different way if you only found that confusing.
Haha Drowntown. Disturbingly appropriate.
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to suspect the castle's construction was never natural. The kind of architecture you describe is astounding but also very likely impossible with the resources of the time. Professionals like these would probably sense, on some level, that the building had required something they'd never even suspected existed in order to be built.
ReplyDeleteOr they are just picking up on the fact that there's nothing alive.
Oh? Some odd signal or field keeping living creatures from entering perhaps?
ReplyDelete