The Tunnels themselves were rather difficult to miss. There were three of them, right in a row, and they were so massive that Hector wasn’t sure they qualified as tunnels anymore, particularly because he could see buildings inside them. There were restaurants, gas stations, a few office buildings, and even what looked like residential housing. Sure, they were a bit crammed together--some being partially embedded into the walls or serving as a foundation to an immense support column--but Hector could still hardly believe his eyes.
Most of all, though, Hector admired the vast inlaid stonework. Perhaps it was because he’d recently been trying his own hand at construction back at Warrenhold. The sheer volume of individual bricks that lined the walls here astounded him.
The Elroys observed alongside him, though did not seem particularly surprised. No doubt, they had already known of this place or even been here before.
Garovel offered Hector some context in private. ‘The Lyzakks made these tunnels. You remember them, right?’
‘Your people,’ said Hector.
‘Yep. The Waress Mountains stood between them and the Armans. But instead of going over, they punched through.’
Hector scratched his head. ‘So I guess these were servant-made?’
‘Servants in conjunction with slave-labor.’
‘Oh. That’s... kind of horrible.’
‘Yeah. It was a different time. A time full of shitheaded motherfuckers.’
‘Mm...’
‘Not that we have a shortage of those nowadays.’
‘A tunnel seems like a dangerous way for us to go,’ said Hector. ‘It’s, um... like, a pretty obvious funnel point, isn’t it? I mean, won’t the Vanguard be guarding it?’
Garovel shook his head. ‘The Waress Tunnels are more than just the three you see here. Just in Sair alone, they number in the hundreds. The Vanguard would have a hell of a time trying to block them all. But yes, in the off chance that the Vanguard picked one of these three, Dimas has taken a scouting party ahead.’
‘Ah...’
From their vantage point atop a southern bluff, Hector could see all the different roads convening in front of the Tunnels. It seemed like some kind of major intersection, what with all the directional signs about, but there wasn’t very much traffic to speak of. Only a handful of cars dotted the road. Hector wondered if it was always like this or if the Rainlords had evacuated the place while he’d slept.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
‘Yeah. It was a different time. A time full of shitheaded motherfuckers.’
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna think this every time I hear about something horrible from the past.
I mean, won’t the Vanguard be guarding it?.’
ReplyDeleteThere is too much punctuation here, right? Though not as if I am the best at such things.
Thank you for the wonderful read Frost.
I know what you mean, but it always amuses me when I see the words "too much punctuation", as though if you have exactly the right number of punctuation marks the grammar will sort itself out. Then again, I'm easily amused.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the pages.
ReplyDeleteOnly the past?
ReplyDelete"a few some office building" one or the other?
ReplyDeleteGot it, thank you.
ReplyDeleteYep, you're right. Fixed now, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThe comma is correct as is, yeah. Appreciate the check, though.
ReplyDeleteAlong with Cracked's "this was before they invented basic human empathy."
ReplyDeleteIn case you are British, or were taught British English in school (which is usually the case in Europe), you are basically right. Brits and Americans place their commas after quotes or direct speech differently.
ReplyDeleteSee here:
http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/british-versus-american-style.html
Still irks me that the teachers at school never bothered to mention that many of the rules we were taught only apply to British English.
This is a little off topic, but maybe it's something Mr. Frost would like to be aware of, if he's not already, the guys who manged to take the number three spot (Citadel) from you have this thing set up where the people who vote for them on topwebfiction are the only ones who can access the most recent page that they've put up (also they've used this as a page buffer when they get behind on writing), this doesn't guarantee that they'll keep a vote, as you can just change your weekly vote to a story you like better, but it does draw in a lot of the readership that wouldn't normally vote, which is probably part of how they took that spot.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit, that's a huge dick move. Well, at least now I know what I won't be reading.
ReplyDeleteReminding people to vote is fine (and I think Mr. Frost should do so once a week for all those people like me who would forget to re-vote), but creating a punishment for not voting just seems wrong to me.
To elaborate I don't want this to be common on the internet, but my irritation with them isn't sufficient to cancel out my desire to read their stuff, I just really love reading
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought it would be better if Frost knew about any underhandedness so he could see it coming
ReplyDeleteand I feel a defensiveness about reading their stuff, also I'm commenting too much, no more comments
ReplyDeletean internet full of shithead motherfuckers
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was also that it's a dick move, however the story's actually pretty good(not as good as this one) and I didn't want to stop reading, so I got used to it and started thinking of it as an underhanded, but clever vote incentive. Also crud I just realized that this should be in the general comments section where it would be less off topic, I also just realized that there is a general comments section.
ReplyDeleteOh, and they still can't beat the guy who holds the top two spots
ReplyDeleteI wondered why the "most recent post" page wasn't working for me. Ah well, it's still a pretty good story, and still readable even if I don't vote (which, good story or no, I'm suddenly not in a hurry to do).
ReplyDeleteDefinitely won't be reading Citadel. I'm only an advocate of cheap and/or dirty tactics when I'm the one using them. Of course I tend to only use them in single player games so ...
ReplyDeleteEh, I don't really give a shit, either way. It encourages more people to visit Top Web Fiction, where they'll see my story listed. Would I use that tactic myself? No. But it's whatever. Top Web Fiction doesn't get a huge amount of traffic, and I find it kind of a pain in the ass to keep up with, anyway. It serves little more purpose than make the writers feel very mildly rewarded when their story goes up in the ranks.
ReplyDeleteStuff like this is pretty common which is why I hate it so much. You don't have to feel defensive about reading their stuff -- you've started it and now you want to see it through to the end, minor annoyances or not.
ReplyDelete