Without adrenaline pumping through his system, Beck quickly figured out that having his flesh burned to the bone was incredibly painful.
Granted, it hurt plenty while the adrenaline was still there, but he had been able to somewhat ignore it while his life was in imminent danger. Now, he was laid out on the ground, screaming through the leather belt in his teeth as Kenna poked and prodded at the exposed flesh, with Mason and Cora using all of their combined weight to keep him from thrashing.
Despite the soothing effect that accompanied Kenna's healing skill, he was completely unable to focus on anything other than the pain. Every inch of skin regrown or stitched together brought fresh agony as his nerves repaired themselves, the memory of the heat and their brief exposure to air made worse by the fact that he would instinctively attempt to jerk his arm away with every pang.
By the time it was over, he had passed out at least three times, only for the pain to wake him again after however long. The others didn't tell him, but even if they did, he likely wouldn't have processed it. Not like time mattered much down there anyway. His arm still ached even after Kenna finished working on him, his skin a deep purple where the wound was, but that was a significant improvement over nearly having his hand and half his forearm burned off.
He wasn't the only one that had been injured, though his wound had been the most pressing. During his bouts of unconsciousness, Kenna had apparently tended to the others as well; Her and Mason both had been struck with giant icicles or been frostbitten in various areas across their bodies, and Cora not only had a good deal of smoke in her lungs, but the heat from the thing trying to melt her pauldrons had burned her shoulders quite badly.
Once he had collected himself, Beck reached up to place his uninjured hand on Kenna's shoulder and nodded to her. In response, she wrapped a muscled arm around his shoulders and pulled him into her, banging his head on her breastplate. After she released him, he took a moment to rub the pain from his scalp before turning to the others. "Alright, we're all mostly good now, right?" A round of affirmatives followed. "Good. Than let's split up, see if we can find anything to make this whole fiasco worth it."
So split up they did. Beck and Kenna ended up searching the area closest and furthest to where they had come in, respectively, while Cora and Mason stuck close to the machines in the middle. The sound of metal being abused in myriad ways carried throughout the structure as one of them, probably Kenna, began to tear something apart. Judging from the lack of protest from Cora, it probably wasn't something important.
On his end, though, things went slow. There wasn't anything visible that looked to be of any real value, mostly just rocks or scrap metal. So he felt along the wall, searching for a seam or something to mark a door, similar to the one they had entered through. While he went, he decided to check the notifications he knew he'd missed during the fight. A flood of translucent blue windows greeted him.
[Pugilism] has leveled up! +1 Strength! It is now Lvl. 3!
[Pugilism] has leveled up! +1 Strength! It is now Lvl. 4!
[Heat Resistance] has leveled up! +1 Constitution! It is now Lvl. 3!
[Heat Resistance] has leveled up! +1 Constitution! It is now Lvl. 4!
[Mana manipulation] has leveled up! +1 Intelligence! It is now Lvl. 3!
It was overwhelming. More messages than he had ever seen at once. Still, it was welcome. Especially the [Heat Resistance].
He spent a minute sorting through his status screen, at which point he remembered the free points he had gained. His first instinct was to put both into Dexterity, but then he would be confronted with another boon choice, and now was very much not the time to be making such an important decision.
He pushed, causing it to sink into the wall an inch, then click. He jumped back, thinking it was a trap, but the door swung open silently, revealing a small room, similar in most ways to all the rooms they'd been through before, with one key difference. A wooden dresser sat at the furthest end from the door, waist height, with a long, slender weapon resting atop it.
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The dresser itself was enough to draw his attention; even disregarding the above-average craftsmanship, wood was hard to come by in the Rusts. At least, workable wood. There were plenty of small trees that were more similar to bushes than anything else. But the Spellgun sitting atop it was something else entirely. It was made mostly of a dark wood like he'd never seen before, with a barrel and core assembly made from the same blue metal as his focus gun.
The moment he touched it, his assumption about [Longarms] was proven correct. It would apply here. An exploratory pulse of mana through the weapon confirmed how it would be operated, as well as the fact that it was loaded already. Two blocks, flared on the ends to resemble circles, made up the bulk of the mechanism, one with a hammer that needed to be pulled back first, engaging the trigger at the bottom, and another with a much smaller protrusion, which would allow access to the chamber where the ammunition would be loaded.
A small lever inside would keep the first block from moving prematurely if the trigger were to slip. Once the forward block was back in position, and the trigger pulled, the hammer would strike the block in front of it, which held a pin that would transfer force into the waiting projectile. Finally, he had found it half-cocked: the hind block had a second groove for the trigger, where the block rested while keeping the trigger in place, meaning that it couldn't fire unless he pulled back the hammer. None of that really explained how they cast spells or anything, but that was still a lot more than he knew about them before.
Searching the dresser proved mostly fruitful. While the bottom three drawers were full of clothes, but the top had just what he was looking for. Bullets. The proper name was technically Spell-cartridges, but that was mouthful. Regardless of what they were called, the things allowed someone to save a spell for later, or for someone who couldn't cast themselves. They were almost as rare as the Spellguns that used them, though, and just as precious as that would imply.
In the same drawer, he found a strap that fit perfectly onto the rings mounted at the bottom of the butt and where the wood ended below the barrel of the Spellgun, allowing him to sling the weapon across his back. The bullets went in his pocket. A quick check showed nothing else of interest, so he went and grabbed a couple pieces of scrap to prop the door open and went to find Kenna.
It didn't take long. The screeching of tearing metal was easy to follow, despite how badly it hurt his ears. When he got there, he found her standing in front of a large pile of scrap, in which a few different pieces of the Ruin's automatons could be seen. As for Kenna herself, she was currently trying to pull an inert automaton limb from limb, having already removed its head and left leg.
"You sure you don't want to leave anything for gnomes?"
At the sound of his voice, the big woman's head shot up, and a smile came to her face when she locked eyes with him. "Find something good?" Her golden eyes moved to the protruding barrel of his weapon.
He nodded and motioned for her to follow. "Dresser made outta good wood. Mainland type stuff." He shrugged a shoulder, jostling the gun. "Found this just layin' on it."
Once they returned to the room, the pair carried the dresser out and went to find Cora and Mason, who ended up being on the opposite side of the Ruin from them, working on what looked like a small, mechanical gazebo built into the wall.
Beck plopped onto the dresser, idly kicking his legs as he watched them work. "So, what y'all up to?"
Mason jerked his head up and banged his helmet on a rail, causing it to ring like a bell until he was able to get it off. After he recovered, he walked over. "Clink thinks she can get that thing working. If she's right, we'll have a straight shot back up top. Nice dresser, by the way."
Beck nodded and fell back, laying across the top of the piece of furniture. "How long she think it'll take? I'd like to get outta here pretty quick."
His armored friend simply shook his head. "Could be a minute, could be an hour. However long it is, 's probably better than hauling everything you two found back through all that," he waved his hand at the mass of windows and the rooms and hallways behind them.
Beck conceded the point with a tilt of his head, then motioned to the dresser. "We'll get everything loaded up, then. Keep up the good work."
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Cora got the elevator working just as they finished loading the last of Kenna's scrap metal, some of which was used for what she called "percussive maintenance". He decided to not question her choice of terms.
Once they were all safely inside, the gnomish woman threw a lever and they were sent hurtling upwards, each of them having to hang onto something simply to remain standing. Thankfully, none of their cargo fell, with the furthest anything went being a few pieces of scrap that came free from the pile.
Soon, what little light they had from the main chamber of the Ruin was gone as they entered a tunnel near the top. Just as quickly as the light faded, though, the top of the elevator crashed through something that sounded like wood, accompanied by the influx of the light, sound, and smell of multiple forges operating indoors.
They were back to the surface, and now a number of gnomes that had been nearby were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Fortunately, the Clan Elder was seated directly in the middle of the Ruin, which meant that he was also directly in front of them as they disembarked.
Cora vaulted up to his platform with her half-slagged weapon while the others worked to get at least some of the things off the elevator. A number of gnomes had gathered and were starting to move scrap off as well.
"Well, looks like our little troublemaker made it back in one piece, after all. That's good. Now, for the new Deputy-in-training," the old gnome pulled a sizeable bag from his lap, which was hidden underneath his beard. "The Sheriff came by and dropped off yer badge. I stuck it in with yer pay. Don't go spend it all in one place. And come back anytime, we'll welcome ya with open arms."
With that, the old timer tossed Beck the bag. It was a good bit heftier than he had expected, and when he opened it up, he found that it was a mixed back of silver and gold. Enough to last them for a while, at least. "Thank you. Might take you up on that offer here soon."
As they began to leave, Cora called out to them, "I'll get the stuff y'all brought out totaled, get you what its worth. Look forward to seein ya soon."
Beck and Kenna nodded, while Mason waved to her. With that, they left the Folkor Clan's Ruin and re-emerged to Oasis. The amount of green surrounding the town was still somewhat strange, but that wasn't the most important thing.
The Sheriff would be waiting for him.