Veskadoth Tunnel System
| Type | Tunnel network beneath Eslura |
|---|---|
| Ruler | Obellius Kalaar |
| Notable inhabitants | Nelazgians |
| Status | Almost finished |
| First appearance | Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened |
The Veskadoth Tunnel System is the network Obellius Kalaar has his Nelazgians digging under Eslura. Its lines reach nearly every minor town and all four of the kingdoms and all lead back to the Sacred City at the centre.[1] Reagan Hideaway worked out what it was from a map painted on the walls of the Sacred Chamber of Zybersia, with a hole beneath the platform and a rope hanging down into it.[2] No name for the network is recorded; those who speak of it call it only the tunnels.
The maps
The same plan turns up three times, in three different hands.
- In the Kella Desert, a crew of Nelazgians camped with a wagon of harvested hexaflares had laid out a makeshift stone map in the sand. Larger stones stood for cities, spelled out in broken sticks, and other sticks connected them along paths running to the largest rock in the middle. A raccoon jumped into the middle of it and scattered the pieces before Reagan or Aero Ellisvat could look closer.[3]
- In Veskadoth, Ferra Ellisvat left a hastily drawn map on her desk. Lumikki Otsby and Remidigon Otsby found a web of lines across the whole of mainland Eslura, touching nearly every minor town and all four kingdoms including Lumikki's own Ovallia, all leading back to the Sacred City. They took it with them.[1]
- In the Sacred Chamber above the grand hall of Elmryn's Castle, a giant map was painted in white chalk across all four corners of the room. Reagan lit it with her new fire and read the labels: Galecrest, Varaar, and the Sacred City at the centre. Seven big red crosses were marked on it. The one covering Zybersia was annotated as an entry point.[2]
The Zybersia entrance
The Zybersia entry point opens off the walkway inside the Sacred Chamber above the grand hall of Elmryn's Castle, a room the Sacred Guard stands outside day and night and which custom closed to everyone but Elmryn and his predecessors.[4] Beneath the platform where the Book of Fire lies, a hole about the size of a semi-truck is cut into the rock with a rope hanging down into it.[2]
Reagan had already met Erwin in that room, and afterwards wondered whether he had been waiting there for her or had come up into the castle from somewhere else.[2] Erwin had brought a tunnel down on her once before, in the drovig burrows out in the Kella Desert, and later boasted at the Avonbourn that he had been sure he succeeded.[5][6]
Reagan and Aero climbed down into the hole rather than follow Obellius overland, Reagan going first. Nothing further is recorded of their descent.[2]
The digging
Calamity, talking to Ferra in her office at Veskadoth, says the plan has moved into its final stages and that the tunnels are almost done.[1]
Reagan put together three things she had seen separately: the explosive hexaflares Obellius had crews harvesting across the Kella Desert, the drovigs vanishing out of their own tunnels under the desert with a single one left behind, and Nelazgians disappearing without a trace.[2] Aero describes hexaflares as flowers that can be harvested and used for a variety of purposes if they are handled very particularly, and one crew alone was carrying several thousand of them in a covered wagon.[3]
Purpose
Where the tunnels lead is not in doubt. Why is. Lumikki could not see what the skeleton of the Sacred City would be worth to Obellius, with the Eyearke Stone gone from it for moons and nothing left there. Remidigon's answer was that it is at least where they mean to set up base.[1] Aero supposed it is where they are holding Reslyn Keiser, and Reagan added that a whole crowd of other innocent Eslurians is probably down there with her.[2]
The books do not say when the digging began, how deep the tunnels run, or what the seven crosses on the chalk map stand for beyond the one over Zybersia.