“Okay, what the fuck is that over there?”

A roiling mass of what probably wasn’t just water vapor was blasting around across the sea they were coming up against. The experiment was pretty sure it could see a tiger head shooting lighting out of its eyes down near the base, fighting with another weird head that looked like it was trying to spew fire at it. That wasn’t even considering the giant blue tornado flowing upward, or the colorless ‘eyes’ blasting out tendrils of wispy cloud, while tufts of dark fluff contained a swirling ring of plasma. With the sun rising and illuminating the massive structure of nephrological absurdity, it was pretty undeniable that something strange was going on.

“It’s a cloud,” the human said unhelpfully, not even responding to the sight.

“No I mean what’s over there, that’s a very difficult type of cloud to produce,” the experiment clarified. It knew what a cloud was, thank you very much. It was what happened when you had water and gravity too close to each other.

“Oh! That’s where the Grandmist Primordial Sect is based. They are north of the plaguelands, east of the burnt wastelands left behind from the Divine Continent Sect’s pillaging of the area and the salted desert containing the necromantic abominations that spawn beyond it, and next to the grand gulf. You can see the grand gulf right there in front of us.”

Plaguelands. No idea about that kind of climate, but it’s probably one of them. Wastelands would be dry air, the gulf seemed pretty warm from here, and was likely moist on that end, and a salted desert with necromancy definitely sounded cursed. Still missing a few factors though.

“Uh, what’s to the north of them?”

“Just the end of the continent.”

If wind was coming from over there as well, it would probably fill most of the other conditions for ‘weather’. The big question is why all of those different environments have their atmosphere drawn to that one chunk of land. The human didn’t think of the tower of cloud as an abnormal occurrence, which implied a stability to the structure that was near unshakable. Artificial construction that it probably was, it still needed the entire ecosystem to be working in synch to remain stable, and a way to consistently make the area a low pressure system to draw in the various winds.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Wow this place is small.”

“No it isn’t!”

“We’ve gone halfway across the continent in a day.”

“That’s because of how fast you are, and the fact you are immortal and untiring.”

It saw no point in denying obvious facts.

“No, it’s because this place is tiny.”

“Augh! Why are you so impressed by the cloud?”

That wasn’t true at all. As though a cloud could be impressive. They were backdrops, nothing more.

“Well… With all you’ve mentioned it meets most of the requirements for the rarest cloud in existence but one.”

“What’s the last one?”

“Look, if I tell you about it you get a bias about whether or not a piece of evidence correlates to the event. An altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent cloud requires very specific inputs to form, and most of them would stick out in an observer’s mind.”

“There’s the fact the sect is based in ancient ruins?”

Now that was a fact to obsess over. A control unit for the entire system? Some sort of mechanical apparatus to manipulate the weather? The possibilities were finite!

“What kind of ancient though? As in giant pile of rocks, or technology that the world would have no idea how to work or replicate?”

Still easier to just ask about it though.

“The second one.”

“Ah, well. That explains everything. And why they’re called Grandmist.”

Nanobots in the clouds. Great.

It started moving toward the town again. That was definitely enough time spent staring at clouds, trying to see the shapes in it. Once they were out of the frying pan, it could get the human to home in on another bit of its armor. Hopefully the next one would be useful.

“What’s the plan when we get there?” asks the human.

“First, loot the place. Second, get a beeline on my armor. Third, grab a ship to go sailing.”

The standard operating procedure. Need to know where you’re going before you can get there, and if this place was made by the enemy, denial of resources is a classic tactic.