Arrianna - Part Two

Setting the scene where the young woman lives, and the type of person she has grown up to be.

They had come for her late the next day. A man and a woman dressed in somber black robes of silk had arrived at the entrance to her family’s abode and simply let themselves in. The pair acted as if they had had the authority and right to go where they pleased. Her grandsire had been home, but typically, her parents had not; if ever there had been a time when she'd actually needed their help, it was then. As was his habit, her grandsire sat upon a padded chair on the veranda, swathed in blankets, looking out across the city’s vast cavern. Polite yet firm, the intruders informed Arrianna that she was to go with them - immediately - to be Tested. Arrianna had laughed in their faces, shouted at them. Who were they to order her about? There was no way she was going to accompany the strange pair to some testing. Did they not know in whose home they were standing? When her parents found out, she assured them disdainfully, the two intruders would be thrown into the lowest sludge pits of the city…and their pitiful in-bred families...

“Arrianna!” her grandsire had cracked. The sudden authority and command in her beloved old grandsire’s voice had shocked her out of the tirade. “You will go with them, child; you have no choice. In this, even your parents have no say. This once, you will do as you are told.”

In the end, even he had turned against her. Hysterical and hating herself for being so, Arrianna had thrown herself at his feet, crying and begging him not to let them take her but to no avail. He’d pulled her up and actually shoved her toward the waiting pair, his scarred and wrinkled old face set hard, unyielding. They had gestured her toward the entrance but Arrianna had thrown herself at them like a raving lunatic, screaming, kicking, and even trying to bite. Her grandsire had slapped her face, hard, but in truth, the only reason she’d stopped her outburst was the thought of what her affluent neighbors would think.

The city of Denthis, like all the subterranean cities, was in a massive cavern deep under the mountains of Azmoress. Hollowed out seamlessly from the natural stone, and shaped like an inverted, steep-sided bowl, the cavern had a single massive tower in the center that rose from the floor all the way up to the curved ceiling far above. The central tower held all the important functions that kept the city alive, from administration to food distribution, to water purification and hospitalization for the infirm. The denizens of Denthis lived in caves burrowed into the sides of the bowl - though to call some of the abodes mere caves was to call the massive underground cavern a simple hole within the ground. The more affluent the family, the deeper each ‘house’ ran into the bedrock. The home of Arrianna’s parents had twenty rooms carved into the rock, and ran one-hundred spans from the entrance that fronted the city’s cavern to the rear wall of the furthest storage room. The dwellings ran around the cavern wall in great concentric rings. Carved, stone-railed thoroughfares circumnavigated each of the levels; the view from the highest dwellings was as impressive as the drop to the cavern floor was fatal. The Azmorae referred to the levels as Tiers. The politically powerful and well connected (the important somebodies to Arrianna’s way of thinking) lived on Tier One and was the least populated and highest ring. Each successively lower ring became more populated and the houses plainer and with far less rooms carved back into the rock. Tier Ten was on the cavern floor and was home to what Arrianna considered the common masses - the nobodies.

Everywhere one looked within the cavern hung the glow-lights, without which the city would be plunged into pitch-blackness. The faceted fist-sized glow-lights, made of a fragile, translucent mineral, gave off full brightness for twelve hours followed by another twelve hours of feeble dimness and governed the Azmorae circadian rhythm, though one could adjust the level of brightness of each individual globe with a touch. Where and how the glow-lights were crafted, or what set the regular light-cycle Arrianna neither knew nor cared; they simply were. They’d made a pretty sight from her bedroom’s balcony.

One slender stone bridge, set at the cardinal points of the compass, connected each successive Tier to the central tower. Tier Ones’ bridge ran north, Tier Two’s ran east, the next one down was south, then west, and so on down the levels - not that Arrianna had ever been down that far before.

Flanked by her silent guides, Arrianna traveled down to the very bottom of the cavern. Never had she been so low; it was horribly mortifying and she felt her face redden with shame and anger. The few people they had passed (at that time most families were no doubt gathered for their evening meals) were dressed in a variety of vibrantly colored robes not that different from what she was wearing. Though the occasional face regarded them curiously as the three of them passed, most seemed to pay them little heed. While a part of Arrianna was grateful, she had not become a spectacle, she did wonder why they were not all pointing and laughing. Surely important Tier One residents were a rare sight down here. The complete lack of recognition or interest was almost insulting.

For the first time in her life, she set foot on the cavern floor and, following her captors, set off toward the central tower. Though late, the glow-lights were still on their daylight cycle, yet to Arrianna the bottom of the cavern seemed somehow darker, gloomy. She glanced up towards Tier One and the distant cavern roof but hurriedly looked back down as sudden vertigo made her light-headed and slightly nauseous. It was a completely different perspective from down here and drove home how vast the cavern city of Denthis really was.

Approaching the central tower, they passed through a ramshackle maze of dilapidated, single-storied wooden houses. The houses were deserted and had been for some time by the look. Dark, empty window holes gave the place a sinister feel. Arrianna had not known people had ever lived in the middle of the cavern floor, and she had certainly never heard of a house made entirely out of wood. It seemed impossible. Like all Azmorae, Arrianna ate fruit and vegetables every day so she assumed food plants must be grown somewhere. Actual trees, though, were from boring ancient history lessons and fanciful stories of the Outside. The fact people had once used the mythical trees as wood for a mere house seemed ludicrous and borderline sacrilege.

Eventually they reached the massive base of the tower. Arrianna followed her captors as they led her through an open portal and then on inside. They made their way through a handful of brightly lit corridors before starting down a series of tight, circular stairwells bored directly down into the bedrock. Her thighs and calf muscles were aching as they finally reached the bottom, but onward the pair marched her, through seemingly endless winding tunnels. Arrianna had spent her life surrounded by stone and rock carved with intricate designs or painted with colorful murals, the floors tiled with slate, agate, and obsidian and polished to a glossy shine. Now they traveled through naked, roughly chiseled rock. The glow-lights were widely spaced and dim and the air had a decidedly stale and musty taste to it. Arrianna had soon become completely lost.

When her legs were near collapse from the rare exertion, they stopped inside a small, dimly lit chamber far below the city. Numerous tunnels branched out of the chamber, their destinations a mystery. Her abductors left her there and simply melted away into the darkness. Rubbing her arms with a sudden chill, Arrianna nervously waited. 

Reviews

[Sam Marsella]

Enjoying reading Arriana's parts, particularly the detail. I've lost the thread a little though, between parts 1 and 2. Perhaps part 3 will set me straight.

[JR Darewood]

I love the detail you've put into constructing dwarven society (if that's what they are), and the idea of an arrogant high-society dwarf is incredibly entertaining. The scarcity of wood was a nice touch.

I don't have anything critical to say about this chapter. it kept me engaged throughout and was well written.

Though, personally, I would have broken up the following sentence: "Her parents had not been there (which was typical; if ever she had actually needed their help, it was then), but her grandsire had been."

[AJJordan]

Oh no! You really think the Azmorae are Dwarves? They are not. Damn...I guess I'll have to re-write this a bit more. Although I guess if I was reading this for the first time I'd have came to that conclusion too. I mean, dwarves always live in cities under mountains...

[JR Darewood]

well, i don't think you need to rewrite it. you didn't say anything to indicate that (other than that they were short), I just kind of assumed since dwarves have cities under mountains and have cool technology (at least in skyrim). Leave it as it is, and if someone mistakenly assumes they're dwarves... they can be wrong for a while.

I have a lot of human trope-surrogates in my story (the A'elfari are my elf-surrogates, the Orphaned are halfling-surrogates, the O'gog ogre-surrogates, the Magog are minotaur-surrogates so on and so forth so I probably just projected my surrogateness onto your stuff.