Roberion summoned the roothorn back to the bangle after giving him a little friendly pat. He can’t enter the chief’s place with him.

It’s finally time to meet this mysterious visitor. He knew Shade was here longer than him, and instead of being a nobody, the fiznaults respected this visitor, even more than their chief, it seems. Not more than Kannon, though.

Being escorted by the guards, he entered again the construction. This time, he was guided to a more reserved section. Only some guards could be seen. There wasn’t any of the hectic activity of the entrance and central area.

Walking the darker corridors, Roberion didn’t feel welcome in this claustrophobic place. He was starting to feel comfortable in the presence of the fiznaults, especially in the civilian places, where he could see different people living their lives. He knew he was an outsider, but it was his first time in a civilization, as small as the village was.

He really wanted to see the world. The image of the Rajin’s poster was fantastic. He wanted to capture these images himself. Maybe he would get the chance, sadly for now, he needed to finish the quest. Try all he wanted, but there was a ticking time bomb that he didn’t know when but would explode.

Stopping his musings. Roberion breaths profoundly the damp air as he enters the next corridor. The place seemed like a maze, corridor after corridor, left, right, front, left, the sequence a complete brain twist. If not by the accompanying guards, he would be lost. Kunglau running ahead of them. It seemed the messenger would talk to Shade first.

The more he followed the way, guided by the guards, the more he felt he was going underground. It was the same feeling he had while walking deep into the fellworm’s hole. Did these fiznaults raise fellworms? It doesn’t make sense; the fellworm was really strong, they couldn’t be raised like roothorns. Maybe Kanon could raise one. I feel she didn’t show all her power. But the light the fellworm emitted would be really good to feed Shining Crown. Would a symbiotic relationship work?

“We have arrived”, the guard said, using his device. Roberion, focusing on the voice, looked ahead to where the guard was pointing. An ancient architecture could be seen, reminiscent of the dome temple he and Percival braved.

Roberion gave a nod and looked at Percival with a knowing look. Be on guard.

Entering the place was a complete shock. He believed he’d find a place with drawings and the gray durable material all round. And he did find that, but more, the place was a mess: monitors, mechanical apparatus, books, datapads, weighing scales, microscopes, big machines the size of a wardrobe, and various other objects, even on the floor making metallic mounds.

It was like he invaded a scientist lab and a production line at the same time. But the whole place had a weird look, like the machinery was obsolete. The plant he left after being created wasn’t top of the line for sure, from everything he knew he was a just an expandable product, a weak one at that. But compared with this equipment, the place he left seemed to be from a science fiction.

This place, on the contrary, looked old. The microscope, for example, differed from the implanted memory he had, being four times bigger, of an antique look, not having anything digital, as a normal microscope would have a digital component to help analyze and collect the data, this one was just a manual microscope.

The weirdest of them, though, was the monitors. They were a faded beige, their screens were black, with only white lines showing the data and the information that was processed. Focusing on it, he felt a difference.

Looking all around, he not only felt, he panicked. All the machines, all the equipment. He could feel a glimpse of a blue, almost indigo, colored point, part of a line. His days old pal acquantaince was here too, the transparent neutrality line. The resources that must have been spent on getting these machines must be an absurd.

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From nowhere Roberion felt a hand wrap on his shoulder, the Null panicked, only to take a glimpse to his side. It was Kunglau. The messenger didn’t talk, only signaling him to follow.

Roberion, recovering from the jump scare, follows him. Where more machines waited.

At his left, atop one of the wardrobe sized machines, there was a weird robotic creature. It looked like a bat. But the body was big and spheric as a watermelon, the mouth taking most of the body, making it look like all his body was a big mouth. Inside this mouth there weren’t any fangs or tongue, just what seemed to be small crystals all grouped, like they were some sort of single whole, like a rugged glass.

On top of its head, two big and point ears could be found. They gave the feeling of being two radio towers used to capture radio frequencies. The thing was really bigger than it should have been.

The creature had two pairs of wings, the size small and almost comical to the big creature. In the wings, he saw glowing, runic symbols. He bet this was an enchantment used to the creature to fly. And as with the other mechanical things in this room, he also had some connection to the line.

Kunglau approached the creature and spoke with reverence.

“Esteemed and honorable Shade, I bring you Roberion the Null. Please, we beg you for your assistance in this crisis, that both of you find fortune in your path.”, not waiting for an answer, the messenger was leaving.

The messenger gave a nod, putting his hand on Roberion’s shoulder and giving him a little squeeze. Roberion nodded, trying to express gratitude to the green fiznault, as he left the cramped room.

Not wasting time, Roberion got in front of the mechanical bat and spoke politely. I need to make a good first impression.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, honorable Shade. I’m Roberion the Null, the fiznaults said that I would be your assistant. In what can I help?”

The mechanical bat started “speaking”, with a genderless artificial voice.

“You don’t need to be formal. We will be working together from now on. You can call me Shade, my codename for this mission.”

“Just a moment. I will be with you in a second.”

Roberion didn’t understand what it meant. However, as a shadow started to darken the room, he noticed that something was behind him.

Turning around, he took a look at the astounding presence behind him.

The being looked humanoid, its size is two meters tall and a half. Dressed in a sleek and futurist indigo armor, the black visor hides its supposed face. On the top of the helmet, indigo horns seemed to sprout out from it, looking like a two pairs of curved icicles. These “horns” weren’t much longer than the head, ending near the middle of the helmet’s back.

The armor was made of metal, and what seemed to be resin. The thing looked like a combat armor mixed with a space suit. He bet the being inside was a little on the bigger side, filling the armor, but because of the creature's height, it seemed to be proportional.

Roberion felt in the presence of a giant, a futurist giant. The being gave its right hand in what seemed to be an invitation to a handshake. A little anxious, Roberion accepted the greeting, the hand almost making him look like a kid. His one meter and sixty-nine of height, never felt so small like right now.

“Now that we know each other, could you repeat why you want to do this mission while I store all this?”, the robotic bat spoke.

Releasing his hand, Shade started to go around the place. Things just started vanished as the metallic giant touched. Roberion couldn’t see any type of bag around the giant.

“So, as you already know, I got a quest that maybe pointed for me to search for a location that does research.”, Roberion tried not to divulge the information directly, he was still afraid of his malfunctioning engram punishing him.

“Yes, the fiznaults told me about it. This research station is where I need to go, too. But how have you learned about it?”, the robotic bat asked with its emotionless voice.

“Sadly, I can’t say. What I can say and you can see, I’m not a normal null. Let’s say that circumstances force me to reach this location.”

“I will give you a warning. Any danger that you pose to my mission will be answered with swiftly extermination. But I have to say your own circumstances intrigues me. This whole Null revolt seems suspicious. Especially here. Aside from this archeological site, this planet only has the fiznaults and some low value resources to be extracted”.

Roberion didn’t notice, but the cramped room was now spacious. All the mechanical equipment aside from the ones near the robotic bat are already stored. Before Roberion could formulate a question, Shade has finished packing everything. The bat just now took flight, its wings glowing faintly, capturing Roberion's attention.

The bat flies better than a spherical thing like it should. But before he could analyse the bat some more, he sees again the room darken around him. Dammit, why does Shade wants to jumpscare me? Just stand in front of me.

As he turns around to see Shade, the bat says loudly at his back.

“Time to go!”

Batfreak!