I narrowed my optics at the pole next to the pond. Slowly, claw after claw, I stepped around the pond toward the wooden object.

Derelict, It stood. I narrowed my many optics on the object. Indistinguishable charcoal black scribbles lined the plank from one end to the other. The quiet creak of the odd iron hinges was the only sound besides the whistling wind through the trees.

Upon closer inspection of the strange old Terran-reminiscent sign, a single character separated itself from the rest. An arrow pointing upward, which I could only assume meant forward, lay under the rest of the writing.

Raising my head from the sign I walked around it, raising my head to the towering mountain range in the distance. Each peak capped with snow, towering well above the clouds. Such protrusions only could have formed during extreme tectonic activity found primarily in extreme Hell Worlds.

Massive tectonic activity means rare metals must be close to the surface. Rare metals means a much faster repair of my primary Hellbore. Subtly nodding my robotic head, I set off.

The forest seemed quiet. Such silence usually meant predators were around, although I couldn't pinpoint how sure I was of this fact here.

It became readily apparent as I walked that this wasn't Terra or, for a matter of fact, any other known planets in The Hive's countless records.

A good indication of this fact was the double moons looming above the range. The closer I seemed to get the the mountain range, the darker the forest seemed to get. A fog rolled in sometime during the trip, although it did little besides moderately disrupting IR sensors and regular optical viewing.

Upon reaching a large clearing before the mountain, the trees practically parted to make way. They leaned in such a way that almost seemed like a gate and before that, a path.

The grassy field turned rocky within less than a mile of extra travel. The peaks of the mountain reach out like antennas to heaven. Raising my front claws, I crushed a few stones. Using those same front claws, I separated chunks. Nothing extremely useful.

My frame shuddered in minor annoyance. I streamed Nanoids down my claws to absorb what metals and precious minerals I could. It wasn't much. From around thirty stones I seemed to get less than a hundredth of what would be required just to make the barrel of my primary.

I flicked a chunk aside and turned away. I slowly circled part of the mountain before stopping for another moment. In front of me lay a massive gate made of stone. The gate was already ajar, the fog seemed to seep around the edges of the entrance. Perhaps moisture inside was extreme?

The sheer size of the gate seemed incredibly impractical. The size rivaling a bay door of a fleet carrier. All impracticality aside, it seemed like either access to civilization or a perfect entrance to the mountain caves.

With a small boost of power to my legs, I pushed in and through the fog. Exiting the fog I found myself in a vast system, with the gate being an unreasonable distance behind me. Much more than I walked.

Perhaps a sensor miscalibration.

There, in front of me, lay a massive spiral staircase. The middle of the spiral led down a ridiculous distance, beyond sensor range. With a few mental calculations, I decided to descend. The alloy of my frame thudded and cracked bits of stone as I descended.

System clocks identify that it took close to two hours to reach the bottom. A long cavern stretched out in three directions, lit by odd lanterns on the wall. IR sensors seemed to return no heat from them.

Proceeding down the left path was the first option. Doing so, I would inspect left to right. My whole objective to be looking for ore deposits. Lumbering down the large hallway, I encountered sets upon sets of skeletons. Many wearing ancient Terran armor, odd robes, or just plain skimpy leathers.

With the bodies lay their weapons, still dazzling in the light of the strange lanterns. Reaching out my claw, I streamed Nanoids into the swords and daggers. Plenty returned with just iron, steel, or copper. A few returned an odd amalgamation of silver, gold, titanium, and nickel; with little luck separating them, I decided to leave the material be in storage.

Another door rested at the end of the corridor, flanked by two large statues of ancient Terran knights, seemingly royalty from the excessive gilding depicted. With little effort, I strode past them and used my front claws to push open the wooden door. Lying in the middle of the room was another spiral staircase. Past the staircase sat a golden throne. A large skeleton rested on the throne, a silver-colored Greatsword still in its hands.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I paid the oddly sized abhuman little mind, instead focusing on the chunks of stone in the large hall. Besides the spiral and throne, the walls were decorated with pillars and banners, many torn and shredded. Upon even closer inspection, bits of the mountain had collapsed in, and on even closer inspection they had bits of shining ore.

Raising my front claws to crack open a geode, sensors detected a rumbling. Turning my head to the source, which was the throne. The towering skeleton rose slowly, using its Greatsword as a staff to stand. Small sparks of blue coloring it's irises. With a thundering voice, it seemed to speak.

"Peccatum delictum hominis, creatura ferri."

The skeleton spoke. Translators seemed to ping it as a mix of ancient Terran language Latin, and something completely different. It just stared at me for a moment, unmoving besides adjusting its Greatsword in its clasp. A swift cleaning of the dust off my lens is all the time it took for the creature to bound forward, swinging its blade broadly. Its blunt Greatsword slamming its right side, with a ridiculous amount of force and speed.

My frame cracked as alerts screamed. I rolled through the air, skidding to a stop next to the second staircase. The skeleton thundered over slowly, not another word leaving its bony throat. It put its foot on my frame and, with a quick thrust, sent me plummeting down the staircase. Short-circuiting for a moment, I awoke again in a dark cavern.

Slightly aggravated with being shut down twice in one day, I shuddered in malaise. Two of my legs seemed decommissioned, but with a quick order, my Nanoids began filling the cracks and loose wiring. The rest of my hull seemed to be in one relative piece.

After mulling over the delicates inside, making sure everything was in order, I finally managed to get power back to my optics. Coming online at the same time, my audio receptors really added depth to the misshapen scene that awaited me.

The clacking of bones resonated in the cavernous tomb I landed in. Hundreds, if not thousands of all kinds of skeletons shambled about. Bits of flesh stuck to the bones of some, while others seemed ancient.

The one characteristic they all shared was their little mind to my presence. Unlike the behemoth of a skeleton near the surface, these seemed less inclined to move against me.

A skeleton clad in plate armor thumbed against the shield of my front legs, knocking its armored head against my chassis over and over, as if I wasn't even there. A strange occurrence, although little else noteworthy about the odd being.

I sat for a moment, unmoving. I simply watched as they stood, shambled, or occasionally just returned to inanimate piles of bone. Those piles of bone simply rising moments later. No cybernetic augmentations could be detected anywhere on the cadaver.

With the technological level this planet has displayed so far, I have a sinking feeling that augmentations are well out of their scope anyway.

I decided to review what combat footage I could from the top of the stairs. It became readily obvious that I'd need some kind of firepower to face any foe like that in the future.

The only firepower available being the destroyed Hellbore resting in my chassis. With a moderate amount of disappointment, I send a large majority of my Nanoid reserves to the cannon bay. While my Nanoids worked, I inspected some of my log reports.

Surprisingly, my reactor hadn't lost any fuel since I activated; and without a proper time to mark my arrival on this rock, I couldn't precisely mark how long I'd been here with just the one fuel cell.

I pinned a mental note to check more about this later, but my Hellbore finished operational repairs. I could finish small repairs later, I needed to check combat capabilities.

Sliding the barrel out of my chassis, it locked in place on the one-axis turret. The loader clicked in place behind it, followed by the charging wiring.

It took approximately two minutes to finish unsheathing the railgun. Slightly faster than peak operation speeds. Strange.

I siphoned power to the cannon, loading a spare sabot into the loader. The rails sparked with energy as the gun charged. Slightly faster than peak operating times again. Strange too.

I aimed the cannon into the crowd of shambling corpses. With a loud crack of thunder, the sabot flew down range.

The leftover energy on the sabot arched out, singeing nearby skeletons and turning bones to dust. The path one sabot left was approximately ten feet wide and clear of undead, all the way to the end of the cavern.

That.. was not something a sabot was supposed to do. The undead quickly rushed to fill the gaps, piling over each other to swarm where my round landed. Still without a care for my existence.

The few Nanoids I had left began creating a replacement sabot from the remains of the bones, ores, and rock I had accumulated.

Feeling like I had an anti-ship cannon mounted on my back, I scanned the cavern for any sign of escape.

I slowly began thunking my way down the cavern. Bits of skeletons, animate or not, crunched under each leg. It was practically impossible not to destroy one or two each step. Their eyes glowed a pasty red, much different than the abnormally sized one.

Making another pinned note of this, I pushed my way past an uncountable amount of undead. Reaching..

Another damned gate.

This gate seemed more sturdy, more recent. It was all the same. I began charging my railgun, a few skeletons swinging weapons against the gate lethargically.

The railgun sparked with excitement as I fired the second round of the night. Crashing into, and through the iron and stone gate. A large hole remained, desolate of the shambling dead. Railgun does that. For some reason.

With a note to recalibrate that gun later, I continued to the hole. Bits of melted iron and incinerated stone strewn loosely about.

The bright light of the morning shined upon the gap as I stepped out, the loud chattering of the hoard not far behind me.