Angela groaned with fresh agony as a thin layer of skin peeled off her body. The few medics, or at least the ones with a bare passing knowledge of the healing arts, amongst their motley crew, did admirably to ease it with what balms were available but it wasn’t enough to stave off the Curse of course. Her meridians especially burned with throbbing pulses of agony, she really overdid it last night it seemed, but she seemed ever so close to a breakthrough…
A clump of hair fell into her hand as she rubbed her forehead. A pity, it took a while to have it grow as long as it had before, but such was the price of seeking power in this world. With a sigh, she reached for the intercom system and called for a medic to climb the cramped corridors to her narrow quarters right behind the wheel of the Toro Rojo.
“Capitaina, why do you insist on pushing yourself?” Young Tomito had asked as he wrapped her with fresh bandages. Fluid soaked into the fabric near immediately, thick and foul smelling even with the alcohol poured onto them. She did not blink at the sight nor the pain, she had endured worse, Loco’s training ensured that.
“All my life I had been kept from true power, Loco was afraid of my family rising to prominence so he restricted our access to cultivation materials. That is fine honestly, immortality never truly interested me. But to protect you, all of us, I have learned what I currently have is not enough. I need more power.” She answered, face steeled as more stinging pain assaulted her body.
The medic sighed. “If you die where would we be? You were the one who led us out before the Dragon Khan’s armies could take us. You were the one who gave us someone to believe in. And look at you now, you can’t even step in the sun without being wrapped head to toe in cloth.”
She winced, not in pain, but with shame. “Fine, I’ll… slow down a bit.”
“That is all I ask.” Tomito said, though judging by the look on his face he clearly didn’t entirely believe her. She couldn’t blame him for that either, but what else could she have done?
Fleeing North was the only sensible option, but that meant traversing the territory of the Jackalopes. The West was an option, but the tales of the chaos and madness overtaking that region put a rapid end to those ideas, even had they not the reputation of being zealots who hated outsiders like devils. At the very least the Empire did not hate, they were callous and detached to the plight of people not their own, but not anything like the infamous disdain the Westerners had for those who did not share their faith.
That was not to say they were to be trusted, as kind as the first Cultivators they had the fortune to meet were, the Empire lived and died on its war machine. With mechanical monsters in the East and the Dragon Khan doubtless on his way North as well, it was inevitable, not even halfway through their journey they were surrounded by the war-fleets of the Empire seeking to recruit the Toro Rojo to their cause, wilfully or not. But that would of course mean abandoning the people who relied on the great machine and its guns for safety on the trek to the far edge of the known world…
She had prepared for just such a circumstance with a gamble. The Toro Rojo relied mostly on machine oil, but such was a rare commodity, and insufficient for such a powerful machine. In the heart of the ancient war-chariot was a nuclear heart, a repurposed bomb from the Fall, using technology she was certain nobody in her crew, least of all herself, understood entirely. She had threatened to detonate the bomb had the Empire attempted to forcefully take their vehicle, a naked bluff, even if she did know how to actually detonate it, she would not have annihilated her people just to spite the enemy. Thankfully they did not call her on that bluff.
But she knew she would not be so lucky forever.
It was a small miracle they made it up to where they needed to be, to a place where they could settle and perhaps make a new life among the locals by the borders of the endless forest, but she knew she had to take her destiny in her own hands. If her power was not enough, she would grow stronger, it was the only way…
And it just so happened that the same core she used as a bluff was still good enough to Cultivate.
She coughed up another bit of necrotic flesh, a bloodstained clot landing on her hand. It was killing her, she knew, but what other choice was there? Her constitution was on the upper level of their little crew, and without the resources of a Sect of the Empire or even one of the shady cultivator gangs of the Warlords backing her, the path to power was a walk across an endless abyss on a razor-thin line. They say the toxic products of the Fruit of Life could provide a means of slowing the degradation of the flesh, even reversing the worst of the outcomes, without hurting the rate of cultivation but the locals have not been willing to share their secrets with what are still strangers who had wandered in from unknown places. Doubtless, the Empire still had their eyes on them, waiting for a moment of weakness to grab their war machine and every mechanic who knew how to work it to ride alongside their armies.
She would be damned if she let her people lose any more to meaningless violence ever again, but life just kept insisting on reminding her she was still a single, mortal, woman.
“Capitana, Capitana!” A frantic call trickled down from the intercom system, the lookout crew had found something interesting.
With great force of effort, she reached for a button that would connect her with the appropriate crew, ignoring the fresh agony that simmered in her weakened body, and asked. “What is it?”
“Strange figures approaching, Cultivators, Mutants all it seems!” The boy on lookout, Hernán, told her.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“From the Empire?” She asked.
“No, from the forest!” The lookout replied.
The forest… she wasn’t aware anything lived there but the ancient trees and masses of toxic fungi.
Narrowing her eyes, she continued asking. “Friend or foe?”
“Hard to tell, they do not seem armed at least, but with Cultivators you never know…” The lookout said before pausing and inspecting further. “Actually, two of them look familiar… those are the cultivators who helped us with the Mauler! But what are they doing so far north?”
“What?” She practically spat. It took them months to get this far, albeit with some detours and roadblocks along the way, in a war machine of ancient artifice. Cultivators they may have been, but they were still young and far from being able to cross the continent at such speed. The legends may have said that at the peak of their power, the Red Star and the Empire’s Hero had clashed in a battle that tore across the continent in the span of several hours, burning a trail across the sky at speeds faster than a mortal mind can comprehend, but such was only the feats of legends. She had seen cultivators operate, she had seen the sky bleed from the pinnacle of power, and she had seen the gap between those children and that monster.
“I’m looking closer and… they have changed quite a bit but it’s unmistakable. It’s them.” The lookout confirmed.
“Prepare for their arrival as guests.” She decided. “I will come down myself and speak to them as they deserve, but stay cautious for illusions. I want to know how they made it so far.”
None would deny her of course. She knew that, above even her rank and role in corralling the ramshackle band of refugees she was held in the regard of some kind of hero among the people of the Toro Rojo. She could only hope she could continue to live up to their expectations as she got up, leaving a trail of fluid in her wake as she prepared to make herself as presentable as she reasonably could be.
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Coming closer it was clear it was in fact the Toro Rojo, which looked as though it had been parked for quite some time. Tents have popped up around the proud and ancient war wagon, a makeshift village budding around the mass of steel and guns. A column of black smoke rose through the air from the exhaust pipes on its back, indicating its powerful engines were still active, likely to power some of the mechanisms in the machine that the inhabitants had yet to fully establish beyond it. The sight was almost strange to see, the machine was alive but seemed finally at rest. Part of him was very happy for them, another part was reminded of all that had changed…
All that had been lost…
Magni’s multi-eyed face flashed across his mind, making a stupid face even now forever frozen in the past. Last time they had met the inhabitants of the Toro Rojo it had been the three of them, and though it was a party of four that crested over a hill to see the gargantuan machine once more part of him felt it should have been five.
“So this what talk about! So big! Bigger than Golem!” Gorekin, clearly impressed, grunted.
“It is pretty imp huh.” He said with a small smile.
“The designs on that vehicle… they are not of the Empire are they?” Faith asked.
Cobalt shook her head. A quiet fury in her eyes. “No, they came escaping the tyranny of the man who wiped out our sect. Lacking the strength to truly retaliate they aimed to flee as far as they could. In that regard, we truly are kin now.”
“I- I see…” Faith mumbled quietly at that, clearly not entirely sure how to respond. He could sympathise with that feeling at least.
A series of horn blasts echoed out from the Toro Rojo to herald the flaring of a long-distance communication system of some sort, ancient rusted speakers grinding out in a static filled haze several words in slightly broken Glish. “Come forward.”
“Look like they want see us!” Gorekin grunted excitedly as he began to walk forward. The humans looked around at each other before following shortly behind, quickly closing the distance with supernaturally enhanced legs. In all directions, people began to emerge from their tents and dwellings, a gaggle of children pointing and whispering eagerly at John and Cobalt at the front even as they looked apprehensively at the other two members of their crew. It was an interesting feeling to be looked at like this, but he supposed they did help them a lot against the Mauler after all.
[Next time I recommend avoiding so much brain damage, set back integration progress 36.78%] ARTOS snarkily reminded him in his mind.
He rolled his eyes, of course, he would try not to, but well… realistically he couldn’t exactly make promises. It wasn’t as though he planned to get brain damage, was it?
[Data suggests otherwise.] ARTOS unhelpfully added.
The group of cultivators, and one humanoid Spirit Beast, stopped before the gargantuan wheels of the massive war machine as a hatch opened from the side to extend out a large ladder. From within the cramped confines exposed to the light several grease and soot-stained individuals made their way out, greeting the crew of cultivators with varying degrees of excitement, apprehension and curiosity. He couldn’t help but feel there was someone missing though…
“Where is the Capitana?” Cobalt asked for him.
“She is…” A young man in cleaner garments than most in the crew began to say with a wince before he was stopped by the sound of unsteady footsteps from behind.
Before he even saw her he could feel the Si that washed off her body, not like a Cultivator’s carefully controlled circulation, but that of someone who had been blasted by a direct dose of radiation for prolonged periods of time. He knew that feeling, so long ago now when he was commissioned to retrieve an artefact of some sort deep within an ancient tunnel, only surviving because Cobalt on some whim and possibly spite for her father decided to head there herself and take the Spirit Metal from his hands. A mass of bandages, drenched in fresh fluid that seemed more likely bodily than medicinal, pushed its way through. It seemed like every movement in that state would be agony, but despite the pain doubtlessly tearing through her, the Capitana did not show it on her steely face. For who else could it be?
“John, Cobalt… and others. I must say I did not expect to see your faces so far north.” She admitted as she was carefully led down the ladder by a couple of armed watchmen. Her gaze was just as piercing as he remembered them, alone unchanged by the Curse that had ravaged her body quite intensely. “Now, forgive me for asking, but do you come as friend to us or friend to the Empire?”