An errant thought in the back of Talia’s mind told her that a leading theory in archeo-arcanistry –the study of ancient artefacts— hypothesized that rune-rot mass formation correlated exponentially with the amount of mana an enchantment was designed to channel.

A load of academic hogwash that boiled down to ‘the larger and more complex the enchantment, the more rune-rot.’

The other option was that the amount of rune-rot created had something to do with how long it had been since the scripts had been used.

If either was true, then the halls around Talia had channelled far more mana than she could even imagine centuries before she was born. Millennia, even. The hard, black substance sloughed off the silverite walls and out into the walkways like natural rock formations, crowding in on the construct that carried her like a mass of petrified spectators.

Now if only I could remember something actually useful…

As they rounded the corner, however, halls began to clear of the substance. Great big lumps of the stuff gradually shrunk down into manageable patches, until they reached a door. The door. About three times taller than she was, and utterly pristine. The construct’s glowing runescripts glinted off their ultimate goal’s untouched surface, haloing Talia and her protector in violet.

Talia yelped as the appendages holding her up loosened, lowering her gently to the floor. The simple motion stirred a current of nausea in her, and she found herself leaning on the metal man’s smooth, silver leg for support.

Once the room had stopped spinning, she looked up at the thing’s faceplate. It stared back, impassive.

“Well? What now?” Talia muttered at it without feeling.

She felt like she might fall over any second.

Predictably, the construct answered the way it usually did. In a series of whistling tones and melodic vowels garbled by the undercurrent of copperplate on jagged rock.

“That’s useful, thanks,” Talia grumbled.

All right, think. It wouldn’t have brought me here if it thought I couldn’t get in, so there must be a way to open the door, right?

The minuscule, indecipherable runescript on the door was free of rune-rot, which implied there was mana left in the enchantments, so that was good. Cosmetically, there was little visible damage, but with such delicate enchantments, even tiny warps in a sub-channel could cause it to malfunction.

Gods, they really had to overcomplicate the simple concept of a door, didn’t they?

The construct stayed stock still as she stumbled forward, its task apparently complete. It didn’t even move when Talia’s prosthesis ruined her balance and threatened to send her tumbling to the floor.

Wracking her brain for anything useful, Talia did the only thing she could do, and poured over the door for anything familiar. An activation switch, for example. Hells, seeing as the script itself was hilariously over-engineered —its sheer elegance did nothing to change that fact— she wouldn’t have been surprised if she had to do a little dance and a prayer to get it to open.

Luckily, the logic of arcanistry, half-remembered and incomplete as it was in her mind, led her to a…panel. A thin plane, set into the metal of the wall, made of a material she couldn’t even guess at. Something told her that even with her memories intact, she’d have been perplexed. It almost felt like glass, if a thin coating of transparent clay had been applied over it. But it was too soft to be glass —it had too much give.

Talia jerked back as the panel spurred to life and magic spiralled into existence above the panel like motes of light drawn through a membrane.

Concentric circles of indigo wrapped around each other, forming something that looked a little like the dial to a combination safe. If said combination safe had been millennia old and powered by magic nobody understood.

Despite her condition, despite the fear that she’d doomed herself, a jet of excitement filled her. Memories seeped in like drops of water through a porous rock.

The Enigma.

Then, as quick as the memories came, the shroud descended once more and she was lost. Growling, Talia turned back to the metal man. Its appendages had retracted back into its enormous chassis, and it stood there, waiting for something.

“Don’t suppose you know the code?” Talia asked, not expecting an answer, and not receiving one. She sighed. “Of course not, ‘cause that would be too easy. Fine.”

Gingerly, Talia approached the floating apparition and poked it with a finger.

It bit her.

“Oww—ahhh”

Her wince of pain drew out into a drooling moan as every fibre of her body locked up tighter than a gnome’s asshole. Head stuck in place, Talia watched as a tiny cut formed on her finger. Blood beaded before trickling down, and yet, something else…didn’t.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

A speck of hazy, glistening fluid extruded from her finger under her very eyes before disappearing into the panel. Talia thought back to her fever dream back in the tunnel, when she’d seen something else in her blood.

Or was it a dream?

Before she could consider further, whatever had a grip on her let her go. She fell like the loose pile of bones and fleshy bits she currently felt like, landing in a heap.

“Erm. Ugh. Ow.”

From her position on the floor, she noticed the light from the panel flicker from purple, to red, through green, then back to red and back to purple.

Then it went out.

Talia couldn’t help it. She laughed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?”

Flipping onto her back was the work of gods, but it was worth it so she could glare at the unmoving metal man.

“This is why you brought me here? This is it? IS THIS IT??” she screamed at it, her voice hoarse and raspy.

HISSS—clunk.

Talia froze as a bright white light shone out from behind her, casting her silhouette against the metal construct.

Holy shit. It worked. It fucking worked!

She cackled some more, this time out of pure relief, and winced as another brief episode of shakes came over her. When the sharp, grinding pain in her chest faded, Talia sighed.

Now what is it?

In that eerily silent manner it had, the construct was before her, its appendages extruding fluidly from its chest to scoop her up. Talia leaned her head against its chest.

“Fine, I forgive you. Now take me to the light,” Talia grumbled.

No metallic voice greeted her, but as it stepped through the doorway, suddenly, that mattered very little. She’d just crossed into another world.

The room itself was a squat cylinder, shaped almost like an amphitheatre with descending steps. Three other hallways led deeper into the…complex? Suite? She wasn’t quite sure what to call it. But seeing as the doors were closed just like the one she’d entered through, she supposed it didn’t matter. The walls themselves were covered in all kinds of odd contraptions. Tubes filled with brackish liquids. Large panels like the one on the door, took up half a wall. Runework. So much runework, covering every surface, shining a blueish silver under the glow of a white arcanolamp.

One area seemed to be a kitchen of some kind, with what might have been cooking implements scattered about across what looked like an abstract rendition of a stovetop and a sink. Next to it, chairs and a short table, hewn from a material Talia couldn’t quite place resting in odd, flowing shapes. All of the furnishings were just a little too big, as if made for beings taller than humans.

About the right size for my metal friend here.

Planters full of dead plants crumbling to dust in bone-dry soil lay scattered about the space, clustered in a semicircle around what could have been a meeting area of some kind, with a large table coated in the same substance as the panels.

The centrepiece, however, took all of her attention.

A tree.

Not gnarled, sad-looking drearwood, but thick, ivory-barked and branching. Dead, petrified branches reached for the huge circular arcanolamp plate set into the high ceiling. And it was dead, looks to the contrary. A halo of ashen leaves and piles of fruit long rotted to dust littered the cracked soil in the centre of the room.

Yet still so beautiful.

And none of it could help her. At least, not at a glance. The room was open enough that if someone had been hiding, she’d have seen them. Nothing that looked like medical supplies screamed out at her, even if it had, anything of use had surely rotted away just like everything else.

Disappointment flooded in on a current of anger.

What the hells am I doing here? I should be finding a way out. Finding people. Doing something.

Instead, here she was in the dead centre of some ruins, being carried by some eldritch—

Talia felt her eyebrows raise into her hair as a portion of the floor that had been perfectly smooth mere moments ago etched itself into an indent. As if it had been expecting it, the construct stepped forward onto the plate.

Talia waited and watched.

The arcanolamp in the ceiling dimmed, then died. Her night-eye pills did that thing where they didn’t work, so she found herself once more peering into violet-tinged shadows.

HISSS-clunk.

She jerked at the sound, recognizing it as the door they’d entered through closing itself.

There goes our exit…gods know if I’ll be able to open it again—

The floor fell out from under their feet and Talia’s stomach dropped before she realized that it was just a lift. She relaxed, sinking into the familiar feeling. The plate of silver metal glided silently down a smooth shaft that glowed with white and violet runes.

This is the way you go up and down a shaft. The safe way, with arcanic safeguards and comfort.

Of course, as the thought passed through her mind, the floor truly fell. The runescript died all at once, and the plate they stood on went from gliding to freefall in an instant.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck—”

Talia gibbered uselessly, frantically trying to think of something she could do as they picked up speed, the metal man’s weight surely not helping things.

I’m going to die.

The irony of surviving a fall down into a massive cistern only to die here in the same way wasn’t lost on her, but she was too numb to laugh. Too tired to cry. She just clutched at the construct’s torso as all six of its appendages began to wrap around her like a cocoon. It curled around her in a protective embrace, and she realized that she just might survive—

BANG—SCREECH

CRASH

The world rocked around her within the near-liquid metal. A bone-shaking impact travelled up through her body and rattled her skull.

Then all was still.

Talia sucked in a breath she hadn’t realized she needed, tears running down her cheeks with the sheer joy of having survived.

When minutes went by and the construct still hadn’t moved, however, panic set in. Her lungs heaved, but each breath wasn’t enough. She was suffocating. She tapped feebly at the thing’s chest, her movements constrained by its odd limbs.

“Let me out, you hunk of junk,” she groaned, wasting precious air.

Another agonizing minute passed and white spots danced in her eyes before the metal man finally stood and released her from its cocoon. Talia leaned back, eyes closed drawing in sweet, musty, stale air for all she was worth.

Wherever the metal man was taking her could wait. The pain and shakes could wait. The existential panic could wait.

Aliiiveee. I’m aliiiveee. Gods, that feels good. That was way too close.

What bothered her most, she realized, was her powerlessness. It was the dominant aspect of her existence ever since she’d woken up with no memory of where she was and how she’d gotten there. She hated it. Loathed it.

It felt like fate was dragging her by the hair down a path she didn’t know the end of. Like her life was careening out of control.

Without the metal man, without the dream, she’d have been dead. No doubt. No two words about it.

If I survive this, never again.

Taking a deep breath to cement her commitment, Talia finally opened her eyes to look around.