Chapter 173: Unresponsive Pit

After lunch, Richard went upstairs to his room.

He started by lining up the three library books along the edge of his desk.

Then he pulled out his stack of copied notes and spread them out in the center.

There were seventeen "Underground Taboo Songs" in total.

Folk ballads weren't like classical poetry; they relied on a rhythm passed down by word of mouth.

The cadence of every line had been polished over and over by generations of miners.

The rhyming sections were usually the thinnest, unable to hide anything.

The parts that didn't rhyme but still flowed naturally were what mattered.

The third song, "When the Miner's Lamp Goes Out," warned that if your lamp died, you shouldn't run around blindly. You were supposed to crouch in place, pull your brim down low, and wait for the torch-bearing search party.

The second line of every stanza had an obvious extra syllable.

The compiler noted in a footnote that this prolonged, dragged-out syllable was an established convention among the miners.

It was likely meant to match the rhythm of the echoes down in the shafts, so they intentionally drew it out while singing.

Richard copied out the words corresponding to those extra syllables and arranged them in a single line:

"Seventh Alley—something behind the wall is listening."

Richard's pen paused over the paper.

Seventh Alley. This was obviously a place name.

He flipped to the seventh song, "Do Not Answer."

It was a nursery rhyme taught to children, singing about what to do if you heard a strange voice down in the mines.

"Hear one call, do not answer; hear two calls, do not answer; hear three calls, turn and leave; hear four calls, crouch in place."

The compiler hadn't left any commentary, only adding a single sentence at the end:

"According to local veteran miners, you must never respond to a voice coming from a place where no one is."

Stringing together the last word of every stanza's first line formed a Latin phrase:

"Os mutum, ne respondeas. (Keep your mouth shut, do not answer.)"

The surface layer of the ballads consisted of miners' slang and superstitions.

But once those extra syllables, unrhymed filler words, and awkwardly articulated lines were stripped out and spliced back together, something else entirely lay hidden underneath.

Several locations had already been deciphered in the text. Richard thought for a moment, then pulled a map of Briston and its surroundings from the bottom shelf of his bookcase.

The map was a version printed by City Hall last year, and the Western Suburbs were drawn in the greatest detail.

After all, that area was the lifeblood of Briston. Dozens of mines and riverside textile mills were packed densely together.

Using a pencil, he listed the two deciphered locations in the margin of the map:

Seventh Alley, Blind Shaft.

He kept chewing through the text.

The ninth song, "The Old Mine Returns None." The eleventh song, "No Shadows at the Shaft Bottom." The fourteenth song, "Ask Nothing of the Black Stone"... He dismantled them one by one.

By three in the afternoon, the number of deciphered locations had grown to three.

Seventh Alley—a branch tunnel in the Third Mine of the Western Suburbs.

It had been closed after a cave-in in the year 1872 of the New Calendar. Afterward, the local government ordered the main tunnel sealed.

Blind Shaft—the earliest ventilation shaft of the Second Mine.

It had been abandoned after less than twenty years of use due to excessive cracks in the shaft walls. Its cover had been pressing down on the wellhead for sixty years.

Blackstone Mine Pit—the ruins of an even older open-pit mine.

Abandoned in the 1820s of the New Calendar, its surface was now overgrown with wild grass.

He found the corresponding positions for all three locations on the map and circled each one in red pencil.

One red circle landed in the northwest, one slightly south of due west, and the last in the southwest.

Connecting the three circles formed an irregular triangle.

Richard pressed his pencil tip against the geometric center of the triangle and paused for a moment.

That specific area on the map lacked any markings whatsoever.

There were no mines, no roads, and no houses. Even the contour lines were drawn sparsely, as if the cartographer had started slacking off when they reached that section.

He looked at the map using Spirit Vision.

The paper itself naturally showed no reaction; paper was paper, and ink was ink.

But the longer his gaze lingered on that blank spot, the more rapidly the leaves of the Tree of Light trembled in his chest.

This was Inspiration issuing a warning.

While not as direct as the time he had divined Hecate, it was clearly telling him that something was very wrong with that piece of land.

Richard shifted his gaze away and took two deep breaths, letting the leaves settle down again.

He didn't look back at the blank spot, instead continuing to decipher the fifteenth song, "Unresponsive Pit."

It was the shortest of the entire set, consisting of only four lines.

The melody was also the simplest, almost a monotonous repetition.

"Call and call, call without reply;

Ask and ask, ask without a sound;

Deep is the shaft, the deeper the stiller;

The road home, a road that returns no one."

The compiler had written a single line underneath: "This song is a drinking tune used by miners in the Western Suburbs during gatherings. It holds no actual meaning."

Richard's mouth twitched after reading that.

A drinking tune with such ominous lyrics?

The compiler probably hadn't even intended to fool anyone; it was a textbook case of protesting too much.

He strung together the first word of every line, then the last word of every line, obtaining two short phrases.

Reading the two phrases together:

"The shaft yields no echo; the deep path yields no return."

Directly following this were two words written together, forcibly separated by a comma.

He restored those two words and wrote them in the center of the blank area on the map: Unresponsive Pit.

The moment this name appeared, Inspiration began to blare a warning again.

The deciphering wasn't over yet. An even denser passage was hidden in the epilogue of those seventeen songs.

After wrestling with it for nearly an hour, Richard finally decoded the entire section and copied it onto the back of his notes.

"The three locations recorded above," the author wrote at the very beginning, "all belong to the category of minor blood-soaked points in our classification."

"During the 1872 cave-in at Seventh Alley, thirty-one miners were buried in the tunnel, and not a single body could be recovered.

In the last twenty years before Blind Shaft was abandoned, over a dozen people died sequentially at the bottom of the shaft. Some burned to death, others suffocated, and no one remembers the exact sequence of events.

"The final collapse of Blackstone Mine Pit before its abandonment swallowed an entire squad of miners, and that's not even counting the sporadic accidents before then."

"These three points accumulated traces due to repeated deaths;

and because those traces lingered for years without dissipating, they gradually formed a pathway."

"Where does it lead? It leads to the center of the lines connecting the three points."

"That plot of land was a naturally formed sinkhole during the pre-Roman era.

At the time, the natives of this region would erect a circle of stones around the pit every autumn equinox to perform sacrificial rites.

These rituals continued uninterrupted for over five hundred years until the Roman Legions swept the area clean of Druids."

"More importantly, the location of this pit happens to correspond to a 'Place of the Hanging Stars.'"

"Thus, this single location possessed three qualities simultaneously.

It is a blood-soaked point built upon repeated death; it is a sacrificial scar lasting centuries; and it is a corresponding node on the star chart."

"According to the classification of weak points, this is a medium-sized, tri-aspect composite veil weak point."

Richard recalled "A Study of Veil Weak Points."

Almost all the examples listed in the book were single- or dual-aspect weak points.

The author had written with extraordinary caution regarding all verifiable composite weak points within the Empire's home territory.

Anything that combined three aspects was marked with a specific serial number, its governing faction, and its maintenance cycle.

A tri-aspect convergence, while not comparable to the highest four-aspect points, was still considered a medium-tier weak point. Ordinary Practitioners wouldn't dare enter one rashly.

He had never imagined that such a place would be located right in the cluster of mines in the Western Suburbs he could see from a distance on his commute every day.

He continued reading.

"A tri-aspect convergence point is essentially a natural channel close to the Second Layer of the Deep World on the level of the veil."

"Because of this, after our predecessors discovered this entrance, they sealed it with exceptional strictness.

The surface entrance has been repeatedly filled with dirt and poured concrete to a depth exceeding thirty feet.

In addition, a nine-layered stone ring of inscriptions was erected, which the Briston Branch Office routinely inspects and reinforces twice a year during the spring and autumn."

"Any inspector not registered locally, regardless of Rank, is strictly forbidden from entering!"

"Trespassers, no matter their purpose, will invariably be treated as cases of 'Reverse Infiltration'!"

Richard set his pen down after finishing the passage.

He understood the term "Reverse Infiltration."

It was the gravest offense in the mystical world.

Seals were bidirectional: they stopped things inside from coming out, and they prevented people outside from going in.

Trespassing into a weak point housed inside a seal, by whatever means, was equivalent to tearing a new hole in the seal itself.

No matter the trespasser's Rank or intent, the defenders would view them as an infiltrator coming from the reverse side of the veil, essentially no different from an evil creature.

There was only one way to handle them: on-the-spot elimination, without a single unnecessary question asked.

Richard committed the location to memory and marked it, along with the three minor weak points surrounding it, entirely in red on his map.

He went on to read the appendix.

The appendix was far more interesting than the main text.

After concluding his survey report on "Unresponsive Pit," the author changed the subject, beginning to document a set of homegrown methods the miners had figured out on their own.

It was obvious he had relaxed significantly while writing this section; his choice of words felt just like a casual chat.

"The main pit was sealed completely, but business still had to go on," he began.

"The mines had to stay open. If they didn't, the city couldn't stand.

Try telling all of Briston that we're done digging coal and everyone should go home to farm potatoes, and see if they don't string you up from a streetlamp first."

"After a lot of back and forth, the Branch Office sat down with a few of our local veteran hands for a talk.

The agreed-upon solution was to seal the main pit dead and let the ring of neighboring mines operate as usual.

If evil creatures seeped out sporadically, they'd be dealt with sporadically. Nobody could hope for a once-and-for-all fix."

"Even though the main pit was sealed, intangible things would still occasionally slip out into the adjacent mines.

These things were basically remnants leaking from the bottom of the main pit. Lacking physical form, they possessed people through the ether layer and fed on human terror."

"This caused a problem. There are dozens of mines, big and small, surrounding the main pit.

We couldn't possibly squat down in the mines and stand guard every single day; if we did, we'd never get anything else done.

So, the people actually dealing with these things day in and day out were the miners who had no idea what 'ether' was."

"But if you underestimate them, then you're the one who doesn't know the business."

"After over a century of going down into the shafts, the ordinary miners—despite not knowing our terminology—had cobbled together an entire system of methods on their own.

Taught from one generation to the next, they're far more practical than the rules we write down in our studies."

Having deciphered up to this point, Richard began to study the text intently once more.

Rule One.

"If you hear someone calling your name down in the mine—don't look back."

"Don't reply, don't answer, and don't ask who it is.

Lower your miner's lamp to shine on the small patch of ground at your feet, take two steps back tracing the footprints you came in on, and get back to work."

The compiler added an explanation underneath:

"If an intangible entity wants to 'remember' a miner, it will repeatedly call his name.

If there's no response within three calls, it will move on to the next target. Answer even once, and it will recognize you."

In his mind, Richard connected this rule with what Old Biggs had taught him.

The "Window Theory"—if you look over, you will be looked back at.

The miners had reached the exact same conclusion using the most unadorned methods.

Rule Two.

"When eating a meal down in the shaft, don't rush to swallow your first bite.

Hold it in your mouth, spit it back into your palm, smear it on the tunnel wall, and only then start eating properly."

"When the old foreman told me this, I asked him why.

He cast me a sidelong glance and said, 'If you don't leave a bite for the things in the shaft, they'll demand a bite from you. Can you afford to give it?'"

"The words were crude, but the logic was sound."

The compiler added:

"This trick works on 'Hunger-type' foul things, but it's useless against 'Resentment-type' and 'Anger-type' entities."

Rule Three.

"Never borrow a lamp down in the mine."

"If your own lamp goes out, go back to the wellhead to fetch another. It's better to climb up in the dark than to ask a companion for theirs."

"And never lend your lamp to anyone else, even if they call your name sounding exactly like someone you know."

Richard placed special importance on this rule.

On an occult level, lending a lamp was equivalent to splitting one's own "defensive line" and giving part to someone else.

If the person borrowing the lamp wasn't a true companion, you were essentially feeding your own defenses into someone else's mouth.

The miners naturally didn't understand words like ether, defensive lines, or disguises.

But they definitely knew that people who had lent their lamps out had never returned home again.

The latter half of the appendix consisted of the compiler's own further explanations, detailing the occult principles behind these rules.

Upon reaching this section, Richard virtually copied and memorized it line by line.

As this knowledge was firmly branded into his mind, the progress bar for [Learning] Lv.2 climbed upward from 82%.

The progress bar only slowed down when it neared 84%. It was a bigger increase than he had gotten from two solid weeks of chewing through dictionaries in self-study.

These were all things that could save a life while exploring the veil, far more useful than any textbook knowledge.

The compiler left a concluding summary at the very end.

"While compiling this volume, I often felt my face flush with shame."

"Those of us hailing from academies, cloisters, and guilds...

We pride ourselves on how many tomes we've read, reciting countless rules by heart, spouting Latin and Ancient Greek with every other breath.

But in the end, the ones who have truly spent decades mingling with these things on the edge of the veil are these miners who have never received a proper education in their lives."

"Using blood for ink and lives for paper, they have written a book that we, sitting comfortably at our desks, could never write."

"To those who come after and turn to this volume, please ensure you hold reverence in your hearts.

Underneath every single one of these rules lies a name. They are a viable path forged through the trial and error of countless lives."