There wasn't much sound over the rhythmic thudding of their ice picks echoing up and around the massive ice cave, bouncing off the walls and vanishing away into a warren of ice tunnels, which Adam couldn't be sure were naturally made or otherwise. He wasn't an expert on ice caves, and didn't know if the structure was the result of a natural phenomenon.

Or if it had been built.

Then again, he saw aliens everywhere he went, quite literally, so his thought process was only natural. Behind them, Etium floated along on the back of his gun for all the world like he was taking a float down a lazy river. If he had looked any more comfortable, Adam might have considered tipping him off and into the freezing water below, but he refrained.

Light filtered down from above painted in varying shades of blue and blue green mottling the ice before them in a strange patchwork of colors that was not so different from stained glass. They were underneath a thick overhang of ice, and the light around them was a deep blue fading towards black, and the tunnels before them were lost in darkness.

In the distance, Adam thought he heard a piece of ice break off one of the glaciers and tumble down into the water. WIth part paranoia, he looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see that some sort of strange monster had risen silent out from the depths of the sea and was reaching for them with its waving tentacles. The thought process was stupid considering he had gone head to head with behemoth and won, and now he was worrying over a potentially fake giant ocean squid thing that lived under the ice?

In his head he knew it was irrational, but there was just something about the deeper depths of the ocean that unsettled him. Space was, bast and open and never ending, and it was incredibly empty, but at the same time it sure didn't feel that way when you were floating in the middle of it. Despite the ocean being full of life and water, its crushing weight was more inhospitable to humans than the vacuum that space was.

"We have a tunnel here."

Adam let those thoughts fall away and clambered upward, digging the tip of his blad into the ice just beyond the crest of the cliff, and allowed Maverick to pull him the rest of the way. Once done he turned and helped both Ramirez and Sunny with the last few feet. Adam could have flown the whole way with his jetpack, but he was one of the only ones in the group that had considered bringing the attachments required to fly. Maverick had opted for a full survival kit, and Ramirez had volunteered to take the beacon,. The item was large and incredibly clunky, taking up half of his torso, but they would need something powerful to get through the meters of ice, if that was even possible.

Adam sure hoped it was.

The Empyrean herself may have been out of range from connecting with Adam's suit, but she could at least see them by way of a beacon which was continuously transmitting their vitals for the ship to monitor and assess.

Krill also had access to that information if he were needed to consult after some manner of injury, but otherwise they were mostly alone.

There was another clattering echo as another chunk of ice founds its way to tumble downward and into the water below with a distant splash. The group of them turned in unison to observe their surroundings, but when they saw nothing, they continued on. The cave ahead of them was large and oval, wider than it was tall, but still big enough to fit Sunny comfortably inside.

They walked together in pairs of two with Etium bringing up the rear and Adam taking point. Sunny stuck at his back like glue and Maverick turned every so often to cover Etium.

A low wind whistled through the tunnel, and touch he could not feel the cold, he could certainly imagine it. The walls and floors glittered in the light of their helmets lighting the path before them with a shallow beam of yellow light that didn't do much to cut into the darkness before them. No one said a word cautious not to make their presence to obvious wo whatever might be lurking in the cave beyond.

Ramirez swept his light to the left and nearly jumped out of his skin.

His sudden startle caused everyone else to jump turning in place to observe the threat, a threat which wasn't a threat at all but indeed something very strange, beyond the wall of ice, illuminated as a silhouette in the beam of Ramirez's flashlight, was a structure. From what Adam could tell the black spire was simply the tip of a much larger structure that plunged downward into a layer of ice. From what he could see it was clear a constructed piece of architecture and not something that was simply created by the elements.

"What is..."

They turned slowly, shining their flashlights all around them only to find the impression of other distant spires, some larger and some smaller, most of them too difficult to see past layers and layers of ice. Adam was reminded of the monoliths back on the red mist planet, and shivered slightly. More cold wind blew through whistling through a crack somewhere up ahead.

"Do you see that?" Sunny asked pointing towards the end of the cave.

"See what?"

"Light, I think."

"I don't see anything." Adam said, but even as he said it, he actively switched off his flashlight to peer more readily into the darkness.

The others followed suit, and to his surprise, Sunny had been right.

Up ahead where the tunnel curved around a bend, Adam could see the soft greenish glow of light building up at the cave's edges. The blackness behind him was complete and unyielding, but it seemed that their tunnel was leading them somewhere. He urged everyone forward and together they trotted towards the opening. Something echoed in the cave behind them and Adam turned to look at Etium, "See anything."

"Nothing chief, but if I dio, you can be sure that I am going to light that bastard up."

Adam had no doubt of that, but he could only prey that Etium was fast rough on the draw. Even if he wasn't he would probably buy maverick enough time to shoot whatever it was in the face.

Etiums untimely death was certainly not something he wanted to think about right now, and he cast it out of his mind focusing instead on the steadily growing light source just to their front. Deep blue walls had turned to light seafoam green, and by the time they broke from the tunnel entrance, light was all around them, more than enough of it to illuminate the scene that unfolded before them.

Maverick muttered a soft expletive.

And Ramirez nearly tripped over the nearest ice block, as the group of them emerged form the tunnel into a much larger cave, several times larger than the one that came before, large enough that inside, it was able to hold an entire hill, an icy clifftop which clambered its way up and around the massive black spiral with its dozen peaks. The structure was colossal stretching down into darkness and plunging into the sea below, but the icy room around it was even larger, and instead of being made out of dark grey metal, or something otherwise, the building was constructed with a material as red as blood spattered in sharp contrast across an expanse of blue white ice.

"Holy shit." Maverick repeated, the group of them turned collectively so their necks craned back to stare upwards at the point of the distant spiral.

"Someone mind telling me what is going on!" Krill's annoyed voice was just enough to break Adam out of his reverie long enough to turn around so krill could see . The little doctor had nothing more to furnish upon them other than a muttered.

"Mmmmm.'

"You think that's what we are looking for?' Ramirez said

Sunny snorted, "No, we were looking for the other mystical red spiral tower trapped for a thousand years under the ice.

"I know you are the saint of Anin, but it seems to me you have no reason to weaponize sarcasm.." Ramirez muttered."

Sunny certainly disagreed, but said nothing as they began their way further into the room trudging their way up the icy hillside and towards the peak, where the hill met the side of the crimson cathedral.

Still staring, Adam had a hard time fathoming what he was seeing. The structure was so strange and out of place, a red jewel against the icy backdrop. What was it? Why had it been put here? Was there any link to the polaris system? Was this maker technology or void technology, it was hard to say.

And what had happened.

Unless these people had been hell bent on building their structures under water, he doubted there had always been water here, or ice for that matter, so why was it here now.

And more importantly, did anyone survive?

That never seemed to be the case, but they had only ever ventured into one other Maker building outside of the light of Revelation, so it was hard to say.

Their footsteps continued to crunch as they ade thor way upwards.

And the higher they went the more uneasy Adam became. For the longest time he wasn't sure what bothered him so much. Below him, rising from the black ink of the underice sea, he could see more crimson towers jutting from the water, none of them as as large or grand as the one before, but still rather large.

Massive rusted chains linked the peaks of the building covered in glistening ice crystals sagging down into the water below like the array of an aged spiderweb.

Maverick leaned gingerly over the edge to look down.

The cliff face narrowed as they went upward maybe fifty yards at its widest as they reached the top, and still his strange unease persisted. He would have chalked it up to nothing in particular, but that was when he noticed the strange score marks in the ice, jagged tears that punctured holes down through the first few layers and causing a splintering effect around the outer edge. In a way they looked like bullet holes or impact craters, but there were thousands of them, chewing up the ice ahead and leaving the ground beneath their feet unstable and difficult to walk on.

"Guys-"

He had barely managed to begin his warning when the sound began.

Or not a sund at first but simply a deep rattling rumble that shook upwards through their feet and into their very bones rattling their skulls inside their heads until his teeth bumped and jittered against each other.

Then the rumbling became a noise, a sort of thrumming rattle and the splintering of ice combined all into one.

And that is when the creature appeared, clambering up over the side of the cliff face to place itself between them and the red cathedral, its many legs skittering in the ice each powerful impact sending chips of crystal bursting into the air to come raining down around itse feet in a hail of glittering shards.

Somewhere behind him, he heard maverick sigh.

"Lovely, Ramirez remarked, giant furry ice crab."