74 – Steampunktopia

Little sounds, groans and hisses of the pipes, strains of metal and mechanism seemed to come from all around. While what they could see was all perfectly still, the noises betrayed that somewhere below the apparently peaceful façade, things were alive and moving, and perhaps watching them with unknown means. Sir Westys’ and his team were walking cautiously now, their pride long forgotten, squeezed between Melina at the front and Lisette at the rear for more protection. They listened to the stronger adventurers’ conversations with a mixture of irritation – this was the case for Sir Westys – and envy at the much more relaxed attitude that only being a seasoned veteran could ever give them.

This wasn’t to say that Ishrin and his team were being careless. They studied their surroundings, checked where their sight could not reach, and held their weapons at the ready, knowing that even the fraction of a second needed to draw them could very well cost them their life, or the life of the people they were protecting. The sounds of the ruins kept them vigilant, and as they made their way towards corridors that were much better preserved than the ones before, no longer broken and rusted and falling apart, a deep hum could be heard deep within the mechanisms that surrounded them.

The rooms were many. Ishrin led the way, at times stopping to check with his teammates, at other times to take in his surroundings. There were many branches in the tunnels, and the visibility was low with all their bends and turns, enough to make even an experienced adventurer lose their way, with how the twisting hallways went up and down ramps and stairs without respect for the rules of space. Ishrin had made another water compass to fix this issue, asking it to point the way ahead towards the heart of the underground complex, and was holding it himself, letting it float next to him with a bit of effort using his telekinetic powers.

There was no magic here. The air was not devoid of it, but its presence in the air was no more than the usual suffused glow of ambient magic, and none of the walls or things that cluttered the corridors and rooms had any magic inside of them. This made the less experienced team uncomfortable, because even they could tell that despite having no magic, this was a place where dangers still lurked unseen. And worst of all, since there was no magic to tell them where to look, everything seemed frightening and deadly. None of them had seen this kind of technology before, save perhaps for Ishrin, but even he was having trouble understanding what most of the mechanisms he was seeing were for.

His reactive armor shimmered as if in response to his uneasiness. It was still charging, and it would keep charging for as long as he fed it mana. Its presence made him feel less vulnerable, another layer of defense added to his arsenal, one that could work even without his active focus, unlike the others. It was a sad thing that he could not gift the armor to the girls as well, but he had ran out of materials for the ritual to cast it, and he doubted that their cores and souls would be strong enough to sustain a magic that never ran its full course, instead always draining their resources, both physical and mental. For him, it was just more of the usual. In fact, he had been feeling naked without some manner of passive magic around him, and every step towards regaining the full suite of spells and rituals he had active in his old life was a step towards once again feeling safe from dangers.

Of which there were many, in this new world. Not as backwater as the god Albert had claimed, or if it really was, then other places in this universe were even more dangerous. A worrying thought.

Somewhat echoing Ishrin’s more curious tendencies, but magnified tenfold, Liù was having a great time exploring the place, touching the little brass chandeliers with small halogen candles, examining the many copper and iron cogs on the floor, fallen from damaged pipes on the ceiling, and sometimes even sneaking into said pipes where they were large enough, only to then have to be cut free when she got stuck. It was in one of those pipes that she finally heard the hum, and it was deep and terrible from within the pipe itself, making her fly out in fright, calling for Ishrin with panic in her voice. He reassured her that nothing was trying to hurt her, but to the rest of the teams the words felt hollow, and a foreboding atmosphere took over the group.

The next section was once again damaged by the ravages of time. Everything was covered in grime. The greasy, dark and fatty substance used to lubricate mechanisms was mixed with dust, and plant matter. Footsteps echoed wetly.

The hum transformed into a clang, no longer having to reverberate through miles of pipes and machines, the echoes blending into each other resolved themselves into something more intelligible. Nobody could pinpoint where it was coming from, beyond the feeling that it was coming from deeper in the underground complex, for the sound traveled through the pipes and the hidden hatches in the walls, the service tunnels and the air vents, coming to them as a cloud of slightly delayed sounds from all directions.

An open space. The ceiling rose immediately after they crossed the threshold of a great gate that stood ajar, as if blasted inwards out of its hinges, until it reached so high up that vapor and cool steam began to hide some of its features. Inside the fog were, like little searchlights, points of brightness that spread and diffused through the thick air until an orange hue was ever present.

Below, the floor was uneven stone, cracked and wet, with moss and small ferns poking out of the cracks. Sometimes metal plates that were bolted to the stone were still visible under the vegetation, reflecting the cyan light that came from the far end of the room. There, three circular openings were faintly visible through the mists, and there was a strong light coming from behind them, and in that light the silhouette of three great machines could be seen. Great automata, with circular bodies and long, prehensile arms, and their heads were large squares that were dull and dark.

Until, suddenly and certainly much faster than any of the teams could decide that the room was not safe enough to stay, they weren’t. Deep, red and foreboding lights came to life like sinister eyes as a screech of grinding metal and awakening old mechanical pieces pierced the air and deafened the adventurers. Everyone almost jumped to their feet, not even having had enough time to take three steps into the room before they were shaken out of their contemplation by the sudden sound.

Not everyone reacted the same. Ishrin took in the room he was in, immediately spotting the three now moving figures who were dragging themselves free from the alcoves they were in. The shadows they projected through the misty air were deep chasms of darkness, and the three circles where they once stood immobile revealed a path beyond, a path that was unreachable.

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Melina and Lisette both panicked for the briefest of moments before coming to their senses. In the commotion they lost sight of Sir Westys and his party, the four boys having seemingly vanished into the fog. There were shapes and shadows moving in the distance, but they were faint, and far, and it was impossible to tell if it was them or just the many reflections of the shiny and wet, greasy metal that played with their senses, with their perception. Their panic didn’t last long however, and they both showed their competence and experience, their focus homing in laser-like on the enemies ahead.

It didn’t matter much if they lost the kids, they both thought at the same time, compared to the threat of dying in this room. Their survival was paramount, and only after they were safe would they go looking for the boys. That Sir Westys had spent most of the time trying to antagonizing Ishrin only made the decision easier.

The central automaton was closest. Its size was the smallest of the three, but even if it was the smallest it stood at more than four times as tall as Ishrin, and with only the sound of the metal groaning and the hiss of pneumatics, it raised one of its many limbs of welded plates up in the air and slammed down. Immediately the limb hit a field of invisible telekinetic force and was pushed to the side, but it didn’t happen with the ease that everyone was expecting it to happen. In fact, Ishrin had to kneel on the ground and his knee had dug deep into the rock, cracking it and leaving a deep dent when he, slowly, pushed himself back to his feet with visible strain.

“Battle formation!” Ishrin yelled, immediately jumping to the side to dodge another incoming arm. The other two automata were each converging towards one of the two girls, and they were bigger, although slower and with less appendages.

Two grunts of strain and effort told him all that he needed to know. In a matter of milliseconds, the battle was on. Sparks raged from his right side, where Lisette dashed towards the metal construct with her blades unsheathed, and was slashing at it while dancing around its body, climbing on it, dodging the prehensile limbs that uselessly slammed into the ground and broke unseen pipes that began to spew gases in the air. She searched for gaps, weak spots where she could plunge her blades and sever vital parts of the grand machine of animated metal. When she suddenly started to move much faster than normal, Ishrin knew that she had been forced to resort to casting spells. Which only meant one thing: the battle was not going well.

On his right, the bright flashes of magical green, tinted with a little hint of white and slight blue he had never seen before, were the sign that Melina too was engaging with her enemy. There was something different about her cultivation, as there had been ever since she had started growing again, as if she had taken a new and better direction of growth, but now was not the time to investigate.

Liù was orbiting him like a small sentry, deploying small faint lasers that mapped the structure of the automaton, until they focused on a particular point at the end of one of its limbs.

Danger!

Ishrin jumped to the side, slightly diverting the giant arm, and firing a Magic Pebble with his sword at it. The projectile hit the metal and dug into it, melting it and leaving behind a circular hole roughly the size of a fist, red with heat and hissing. But the damage was minimal, for it only hit plate and not vital moving parts. As he dodged, he tried to see what Liù was highlighting for him, and he noticed the multicolored scattering of the light, the hue of a crystal he recognized. He had seen it last in Obscuria, tipping an arrowhead that was capable of penetrating even his magical defenses like they weren’t there at all.

One hit by a crystal-tipped weapon could be enough to kill him.

“Careful—” Ishrin tried to warn his teammates but had to dash to avoid an attack leading with the null-magic crystal and ended his sentence with a grunt.

From the other side of the room, through the clang of metal, he saw a glimpse of Lisette weaving around a similar crystal to the one he was dodging around, coating a long flexible sword at the end of one of her automaton’s limb. From behind instead came the wild rush of wind of Melina’s magic, and a strained yell.

“Noticed! They have crystal blades!” She yelled when she had a small window of rest, before disappearing again in a flash of verdant energy to dash at her opponent.

Ishrin’s automaton was different than theirs. It shifted, and its limbs reorganized and changed until they morphed into different weapons: hammers, flexible swords, whips. And all these weapons were coated with the same crystal, the same dangerous substance that could hurt him somehow. And it was fast: he had to cast Brief Stop Time over and over again just to keep up, the gigantic construct somehow able to move with uncanny grace and speed, on top of its unerring precision and ability to predict patterns.

Suddenly a bright red light was in front of his eyes. He had gotten distracted, but Liù was ever watchful and had highlighted the vector of impact of the automaton’s flexible sword as it descended upon him with a red hologram, like an AI implant from Mekano’s world would, and there were ghostly images of him dodging and reposting to the attack, simulating what he could do to counter it. He grinned, taking a stance and exploding out with the full strength of his anomalous Tier 3 power that was more akin to that of a Tier 5, and he used telekinesis to push himself against the ground and change course mid-air until he landed right where one of the thing’s lower limbs were attached to its body. Before the automaton could react, he blasted the joint with all the stored power of his reactive armor, turning it into a weapon, then cast a Pebble from his sword into the resulting hole and jumped away. With the joint weakened, he pulled at it with his mind from afar and yanked it free, and it came loose in a shower of black ooze that sizzled and smoked where it hit the ground.

The recoil sent him sprawling on his back. Even though Liù was there to catch him, he still ended up on the ground, feeling the wetness of the stone and the odd warmth of a gas leak on his back. His pupils widened, and his mind raced. The damage he had dealt should have made the golem stumble at the very least, although he had hoped to disable it entirely. Hitting a critical joint should have done that.

Instead, he was face to was with a giant crystal-coated hammer that was descending upon him. His heart sped up. This was a slip-up. And almost fatal one. He could not get out in time. His armor’s charge was spent, not that it would have mattered against null-magic crystal.

The hammer hit, and for a moment there was silence. It was like even the other fights were momentarily suspended, as if both the automata and the girls were watching with their breath stuck in their throat was had happened to Ishrin. There was a small cloud of dust that had risen where the hammer had pulverized the stone, hiding the hammer and the hole in the ground where Ishrin’s body lay sprawled several layers of pipes and service tunnels below the surface.

The hammer slowly came loose. The crystal on its surface was cracked.

A blue light. The small holographic body of Liù, surrounding her real indestructible body that was the AI cube, flew out and up to the ceiling as if running away from something.

The dust slowly settled around the crater. There was only the sound of hissing vapor and dripping water.

Everything was still.

Lisette and Melina held their breath. Time ticked and ticked. Nothing was coming out of the hole.

The girls could see that Ishrin’s opponent was now turning against them, to team up with the other automata and finally tip the scales of the battle.

A single thought on their mind.

“We will fight until the end. Even if we die.”

Resolve in their eyes, they prepared for their last battle.