Those who do not learn have a tendency to repeat themselves.
-Otherworlder saying
*=====*
Mori stood once her skeleton was finally reorganized with a laugh, “Finally! Time to get to work!” she shouted, startling the seven death knights who watched over her as she reconstructed her body, “Let’s get out there and show those snipers what for. Fara’s dad.”
“Fanrik. That’s my name,” Fara’s dad said.
Nodding, Mori took a step towards the borehole, “Fanrik, then, do you and Juka want to join us? I’ll go first in case they have any more of those explody rounds,” she assured, “We should probably go now, though; I don’t want to get left behind by my zombies.” She gestured her undead, both the half-dozen death knights and the couple dozen zombies, forward and brought them into the borehole in the ground, waving to Fara as she descended.
As she reached the bottom of the cavernous opening, Fanrik and Juka landed next to her. She gave them a grin and made a little ball of light mana, lighting up the cavern; she could easily see, but she wanted her companions to be able to see. She stared down the tunnel, her zombies silently following while her death knights bickered about something or other. Finally, once they reached the first intersection between tunnels, Fanrik turned his head a bit to her, “While we’re on our way, I may as well ask a few things about you,” he said, “I’m sure my wife had enough reason to let Fara go with you, but… I just can’t offer blind faith. Sorry.”
Mori shrugged as she finally decided to go left, “Not a problem. So, ask away; what do you want to know?”
Fanrik thought for a moment as Juka paid attention to the bickering of the death knights, “How did you meet my daughter? I would bet a chip or two that there is some history there.”
“That’s a bet you’d win,” Mori stated, “The thing about it, though, is that… well… it has to do with my history.”
“What? That you’re an otherworlder?” Fanrik asked, “Well, then it’s just twice as interesting.”
Snapping her head to the side, she stared at the man for a long moment, “Did Fara tell you about it or is there something I’m missing? Last time I checked, no one had guessed that detail.”
Fanrik smiled, “Well, my something-something great grandad was an otherworlder. He-”
“Wait, Fara’s an otherworlder’s kid!?” Mori asked in shock, “How the hell did that happen!? And why does she not know?”
Twiddling his thumbs a bit, he shrugged, “It’s… a bit complicated. Me and Molly talked about it, back when Fara was just a little baby, and we decided not to tell her.” Mori gave a questioning expression, Fanrik sighing, “It’s complicated. We just wanted her to feel like a normal kid, wanted her to put the past behind her. Even if she doesn’t need a Trait to do magic. I know you two trust each other,” Before Mori could say anything, he shook his head, “I saw how you two just trust each other— I know my daughter better than anyone else. Either way, please don’t tell her. Seriously.”
Mori stared into his eyes for a long moment, her eye-flames flickering behind her faceplate, and finally gave a conceding sigh, “Fine. I won’t bring it up, but if she asks, I’m telling her. And you better tell her someday. Alright?”
He nodded, “Promise. Anyway, you wanted to know how I knew you were an otherworlder?”
“And you wanted to know how Fara and I met,” Mori added, “Trade?”
Fanrik laughed, “Sure, trade. So, the meat of it is that you know that word, hell.”
“Hell? Seriously? That’s it?” she asked in disbelief.
“That’s it,” he replied, “There are a bunch of old stories passed down through my family about my you-get-the-picture being something called a ‘christian.’ Apparently it was some sort of fringe religion in his world.”
Mori stared at him suspiciously for a while, which he obviously noticed. He gave a confused look as Mori sighed, “The thing is, that religion, chrisianity, is a dominant religion in my world. I can’t say for certain if the world your ancestor came from and mine are the same, but it’s…”
“Convenient?” Juka asked.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Odd?” Jel asked.
“Suspicious,” Pride added, “Either way, I do not believe it matters. We cannot go and confirm it ourselves, can we?”
Mori nodded, “Yeah, fairs fair, it’s not that important right now. I hate to do this to you, Fanrik, but I think we reached the place we need to be. Let’s-” A bulge appeared in the wall without warning, bursting like a bubble to reveal an earthshaker wyrm slithering towards them. Like a dog, it spat up the mangled remains of some sort of Clockwork, pierced and punctured by teeth. Mori smiled at the wyrm, walking up to it and petting its side, “Thanks, little bud! Now then, let’s see what you got for me here…”
The Clockwork was, upon closer examination, even more destroyed then she had thought. There were also signs of stomach acid coating the body, which led Mori to wonder how it got there. The wyrms had been dead for multiple weeks at that point, and any remnant acid or blood should have been lost to both the travel and the sand, but none of it seemed to matter.
Thinking back on it, she should have expected something like it from her undead. Back in the reliquary, Fury’s spike-arm, made of bone, did not look like the bones of a mummy despite being out in the sand for hours, but were what Mori expected of a living human’s bones. It was a fine line to draw, but there was a difference.
Either way, Mori put her thoughts aside and examined the Clockwork in front of her. It was very similar to a Scout, but with one main difference. While scouts had two arms, one with a rifle and the other with a multitool, the Clockwork in front of her had its arms fused in front of its chest, a sniper rifle of some sort braced against it. Other than the arms, it was identical to the Scouts, with the same backwards knee and cone-like heads, though with larger eyes. As she examined it more, she took notice of different design choices in the Clockwork. There was, for example, an extendable leg in its back that could pierce the ground and stabilize it, though the end of the leg was destroyed by the wyrm, so it was hard to tell.
Fanrik knelt beside her and poked at the Clockwork, “Hrm. This is a Sniper alright, though it looks like a stronger variant.”
“Variant?” Mori asked, “They can have those?”
“Yeah, they can. Though, I’ve never seen this type of Sniper.”
“I have seen a few variants,” Juka added, “But they never looked like this. I think I heard a rumor about a cannon on legs that stalked the hills of the Wall, but other than that… nothing. Maybe this one has that explosion round?”
Mori shrugged, noticing Jel's approach. The death knight put her face up to the shredded chest of the Clockwork, soon reaching in and pulling something out. It was a cylindrical tank with a dozen holes punched into it. She held it up for a moment before putting it back, “Weird. Do they run on water?” she asked, shaking her head, “No, not water. Different… I wonder why this is…”
Mori tapped Jel on the shoulder, “I don’t want to ruin your train of thought, but can you share what you’re thinking?”
“Oh, sure mistress. But you may not get it…” she warned, trying to blunt the incidental insult. Mori shrugged, gesturing for her to go on, “Alright, well I was wondering what water had to do with clocks… It’s magic, but the way it works is confusing. I dunno?”
“That’s fine, Jel. Anyway, we’ve spent enough time here; let’s get going. First, though…” She was tempted to simply raise the Sniper as a normal zombie and be done with it, but she decided to test the spell she had been sitting on for the week. She decided to cut out the linkage piece of the spell, making the undead simply regenerate
She wove the spell with little difficulty, the only difficult part being the ‘Fuel’ mana, which she was using for the first time. After a few moments, she cast the spell. She stared at the Sniper as it began to writhe and twitch, finally rising with grinding gears and a static buzz. Suddenly, it slumped and nearly toppled, shooting out its third leg to stabilize. Mori looked at it with confusion, “Hrm… so something’s wrong…” she murmured.
“I think,” Fanrik said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “Our definitions of something wrong differ, Mori. Please tell me… how did you do that?” he asked in an exasperated tone, gesturing to the raised Clockwork.
“Oh, yeah, that. I can just do that. I don’t know how, but it’s something I’ll have to figure out one of these days. Anyway, my problem is that it’s… wait… I get it now.” Mori sighed and stepped toward the mechanical undead, morphing her armored gauntlet to make her finger a sharp spike. She carved a quick rune in the Clockwork’s torso, right beneath the tank-like cylinder, filled it with mana in place of paint, and activated it. A small flame appeared, floating there in the center of the undead. Almost immediately, the Sniper perked up, retracting the third leg and standing tall, holding the rifle to its chest.
“Oh?” Jel said, bending over to look at the flame through the perforated body, “I think I get it… You put the fire as the fuel, but that means that fire is needed, right?”
Mori nodded, crouching next to her, “That’s my guess. Also, you looked at my book? When? I doubt you had the time to sneak it by me.”
“Trade secret, mistress,” she giggled, “Though, she isn’t repairing those holes in her chest…”
“She?” Pride asked.
“I agree with her,” Idle chimed, “She’s a she.” Jel gave Idle a thumbs up and a huge grin in response.
Ally sighed, “Guys, if you haven't forgotten, we are trying to stop people from being shot in the head by snipers. Can we hurry it up now?” Mori nodded, staying the almost certain rebuttals of the other death knights and silently led her little army, with the addition of the Sniper Clockwork, through the hole made by the wyrm.
After a few more minutes, the light of the sun shone through the tunnel and she realized that they had reached the spot of her former Clockwork sniper. Having learnt her lesson about standing in the open, she told the others to stay in the hole as she poked her head up. After a single second of peering around the desert, finding a couple of snipers in the process, something slammed into her helmet. She was thrown back into the hole, hearing and feeling the crunching bones accompanying the thud of her landing. With a deep, calming-more-than-breathing breath, she let herself splay out on the sands, “You know what? I think I hate these Snipers…” Her new Clockwork undead lowered her head at her words, “You’re fine, kid.” The undead Clockwork raised her head in what Mori could only call glee at the exemption.