The Alchemist strode through the metal-lined halls of his laboratory.

It was a sprawling labyrinth of tunnels and chambers he had carved deep into the heart of a mountain.

It was hidden, it was fortified and it was good.

His boots clicked a steady rythm against the polished floor, a sound that echoed through the vast emptiness of his facility.

His mechanical legs hissed with every movement, pistons steadily rising and falling.

Pipes snaked along the walls and ceiling, occasionally hissing out bursts of steam, filling the air with the thick reek of burnt oil and other chemicals, all of them highly toxic.

But the Alchemist smelled none of it.

His face was entirely hidden behind a golden mask, its surface dull and scratched, with a long, gleaming tube extending from the mouthpiece.

It ran down his neck and joined a network of small pipes that wrapped all around his body.

Inside each tube ran a different fluid, some were painkillers, some performance enhancers, but all of them he was long since addicted to.

Every breathe came as a low wheeze, that sounded mechanical, like a doll masquerading as a human.

He passed rows of humming machinery, his shadow circling him as he passed each row of hanging lamps.

The thing was out to snatch some food for herself to grow, thus he was alone within these walls. Just they way he preffered it.

Of course she was usefull, but so was the quiet. She could get things done but the silence let him think.

And there was no more dangerous weapon then his mind in motion.

His eyes were hidden behind two winows inside his mask, both fittet with yellow glass to blend seamlessly into the rest of his mask, yet he saw everything perfectly.

One of the drungs running through the tubes, that could as well be called outer veins, was a punch that increased is senses to an almost painfull degree.

He could feel the metal scraping over his skin and thumping against his stumps with every step, he could hear his own heart hammering in his chest and his blood squeech throught his veins. The light of the lamps burned him, despite never reaching his skin.

Thats what the opioids were for.

To make his mind forget, that his body was trapped inside a metallic nightmare, relying on it to move.

Finally, he reached the door of his observation room.

With a flip of a few switches that were build into the wall the massive slaps of metal slid apart, granting him entrance.

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With intend in his steps he walked over to one of the meny terminal stations that littered the room and filled the scene with blinking lights.

The design of the consol almost anachronistic, with brass dials, glass tubes filled with glowing liquids, and knobs that clicked satisfyingly when turned.

A circular screen dominated the construct, its edges rimmed with ornate copper giving it a reddish-golden glow.

The display flickered to life, bathing the room in a yellow hue as a faint whir built into a steady hum.

The feed from one of his drones appeared on the screen. It was shaky at first, but soon the image sharpened, revealing a wierd scene.

He had designed this drone’s helmet to function independently of the body and sent it out deliberately to be captured.

A little insight into his livestock never hurt, after all, and they had perfected the art of hunting down his drones that only recorded.

Thus he had taken the time to craft a way to transmit pictures and sounds throught the air.

And apparently the hours and materials spend on this endavor had not been wasted at all.

Right before him he saw the fruit of his effords, and how sweet it was.

On the screen,slightly distorted by the curvature and faint diffraction of the glass, he saw a man.

No grotesque animalistic traits. No marble-like skin typical for lifestock.

A man with hair, color in his skin.

The Alchemist leaned closer, searching for religous signs belonging to the Church of Light, golden eyes or something of the like.

To his delight he found nothing.

His breath quickening behind the mask, the sound raspy as it echoed within the confines of his tubes and apparatus.

Bbandaged fingers hovered for a moment before sliding down the screen, almost tenderly.

Despite never having met the man, the Alchemist felt a strange kinship between the twoo.

“Another human…” he murmured, the words soft and reverent. Then, his tone shifted, bursting with glee. “Oh, how fortunate am I? After all these years...”

Excitement coursed through him, refusing to be dampened by any of the narcotics that were running throught his system.

The last few months had been a relentless grind, filled with setbacks.

He had lost drone after drone, each failure chipping away at his dwindling resources.

Worse, his ambition to acquire high-level material had backfired spectacularly.

In a desperate gamble, he had dared to provoke the dominant force of another layer, the accursed Church of Light.

It had been like plunging metal fingers into a beehive, and now they were hunting him down, trying to burn him out of existence.

In an religious frenzy they had begun hunting his drones and destroying the stations he had spend centuries building all over the fifth layer.

And yet…

Here it finally was.

Good news.

A new perspective, a new variant, something to break the world out of this suffocating equilibirum.

To set it free.

A human.

The only question was, how would he bring the man to his laboratory?

For a moment, he considered waiting for the thing to return.

He had to ponder her name for amoment. Anara, was it, right?

Perhaps he could send her to infiltrate and retrieve the man.

But after a moment he dismisst the idea, feeling shame for even considering it.

At least he would have but the narcotics took care of it.

This man was not some mere object to be pilfered from the livestock. He wasn’t a resource to steal. No, he was his equal.

A guest.

A peer.

Someone to converse with, to challenge his intellect, to share time with.

He just hoped this one didn’t have the same temper as the last peer who had graced his presence.

It had been such a waste.

The womans brilliant potential snuffed out, leaving him with nothing but a laboratory drowning in flames.

He hated moving and rebuilding, and he had especially disliked loosig his legs in the crossfire between one of the livestock and his peer.

Fire was such a scary thing, especially if both sides wielded it.

Catching his thoughs drifiing a way he did not want them to, grab grabbed hold of a ventil on his back and turned.

The sweet numbness that followed washed the bad memories and worries away.

No, this time would be different.

And it would be a grave insult to have this man delivered by anything else but his own craft.

It was a matter of principle. And what was a bit showing off between colleagues?

A smile curled beneath the golden mask. Not sinister but simply happy.

Good thing he had a fresh batch of drones, fully operational and ready to be unleashed.

Lets see how many livestock they could tremple along the way.