It gestured towards Vezkig’s sleeping form at the word he. Fulgent looked to the pile of wrappings and rags that was her old clothing. She didn’t want to wear it, but...
“Your old attire won’t fit. May I print an equivalent?” the VI piped up again. Thankfully, Fulgent nodded in agreement. “Of course. Though, why are you so much more lively all of a sudden, though?”
The printer came alive at her affirmation, sputtering a bit before it began spitting out meters and meters of high-quality wrappings. The VI answered with “The power surge did me good, turns out I’m one of the few relatively sane VI still left on the ship. That, plus there are a few limiters to keep us from spooking any aliens. As far as the system is concerned, you’re a human now, and Vezkig is the designated medical expert so he’s supposed to be trustworthy. That means I’m allowed to speak freely while nobody other than you, him, or Armless is present.”
The pile of wrappings on the floor grew. The printer stopped, and began printing a large cloak. Fulgent began wrapping her lower legs, cutting the wrappings at the appropriate places with the razor-like blades her previously brittle claws had become. Then came the arms, and the torso. While the cloak would cover her almost entirely, she didn’t want to risk anything. It was a familiar sensation of slight pressure, but this time she wasn’t hiding shame and pain.
A smile crossed her face as she did the deed, and she donned the freshly-printed cloak gladly. Thankfully, it was loose and large enough that her third arm wouldn’t stick out too much, as long as she pointed the Impaler’s muzzle downward.
“Tell the frog-man he’s an asshole for me,” the VI chirped at her one last time as she left, PDA in hand and Vezkig on a hoverslate in tow. Fulgent didn’t know what a frog was, but she had a feeling she knew who the VI was referring to.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
The bulwark slammed shut behind her as she stepped through the door, and she began briskly making her way to the ship’s central corridor. She walked faster than she ever had, but it wasn’t for any urge to hurry. The simple joy of moving without any sort of pain or struggle made her slowly speed up until she wasn’t as much walking as she was bounding dozens of steps at a time, each bound accompanied with an audible impact. Nevertheless, the ground beneath her feet didn’t so much as shake, having been made to withstand the steps of walkers.
It was the PDA’s sudden and incessant buzzing in her hand that made her stop in the middle of that gigantic hallway. Taking a short glance at it, she realized she had far outpaced the hoverslate, and it not following closely enough for long enough triggered the alert. “Need to slow down…” she mentally chastised herself as she stood there, waiting for the hoverslate to catch up before continuing on, making sure to keep a consistent pace this time. Even so, she couldn’t help but continuously stretch as she walked, delighting in the outlandish feeling of muscles that didn’t cramp or build up waste products. It was as though all it took to flex harder was a bit more focus.
Fulgent couldn’t help but wonder, “Is this what it’s like to be human?”
Left. Right. Left. Right.
It didn’t take long to reach the giant airlock doors. She wanted them to open, and though she lacked the experience to do so intentionally, an explicit command wasn’t necessary. Her body’s new comms array pinged the door, and that was all it took for the Gatekeeper to heed the mental command. Just as she’d seen them do before, the doors stirred and then began to open, just as slowly as before.
Seconds passed, then minutes. She waited for the gap to become big enough to walk through, but just when it did and she began walking again to pass into the airlock, a familiar voice thundered from behind. Far, far behind. “Wait for us!” the old dragon roared with all his might, the thundering of his voice causing subtle tremors to pass through the ground beneath her feet from even this far away. Despite the tremendous noise, Vezkig remained soundly “asleep” on his hoverslate. And so, she waited yet longer, looking out towards the source of the noise. Nesgon wasn’t along, as she expected, but it seemed the Word-bearer and his prospective walker pilots weren’t with him.
It was just Nesgon, Red-eye, a dozen warriors, and what looked to be four fully-loaded cargo platforms hovering behind them, their grav-drives whirring calmly despite the large size of the boxes they carried. “The drives aren’t whining… How come I can hear them?” she thought. Then, she realized she heard the warriors’ footfalls too. She wondered what was in the boxes that they were as light as they were, and with no more than a thought, she found herself able to read the small text on the labels from several hundred meters away.
With the warriors in front she only caught a glimpse or two at the labels, but even then, she managed to make out something to do with “Performance Enhancer”. That’s what they planned to use to even the odds? Human-made drugs? If they were half as effective as any of the restoratives from the medbay, they might just emerge victorious without too many losses. Yet more she waited, and soon enough Nesgon’s group reached her. By the time they did, the airlock door had stopped opening, as though the Gatekeeper VI had calculated how much space they would need to get all the cargo through and only opened the door that wide.
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The warriors paid her no heed, having never seen her for any extended period of time, but both Nesgon and Red-eye regarded her with curiosity as they walked alongside her into the airlock. The three broke off from the rest of the warriors once inside whilst they waited for the outer door to open, Red-eye chuckling as he noticed the ridiculous grimace Vezkig’s unconscious face was contorted into as he slept. “Did he work without any rest again?” Nesgon asked, briefly glancing down at the engineer’s curled-up form as he did so.
Fulgent nodded. She went on to tell a white lie of “Got all the way to trying to do an exam before he passed out on the hoverslate.”
“Whatever he did, it must have helped,” Red-eye interjected, the unflinching gaze of his lilac eye shifting to fixate on Fulgent even as he continued to look down at Vezkig. He slowly shifted to face her properly as he spoke, continuing with “Between how you move now and that you don’t hesitate to talk like you did before, you must’ve been in pretty bad shape. Void burns must be rough for a Builder.”
A wry grin contorted her rebuilt face into a grimace. “The burn was the worst of it, yeah. There were other wounds that went untreated before I ended up in Exile-town, and those… Degenerated. He still helped me when the guards carried me half-dead into town. Replaced my legs after they’d withered away.”
As she spoke, her gaze slowly shifted down to Vezkig, only to quickly snap back up to Red-eye when she finished. “Y’some sort of exiled noble inheritor or something?” Red-eye joked. She would’ve laughed, were it not partly true. Instead, she just… Stared, the brief flare of hatred in her eyes a better answer than words. A crushing silence hanged over them, until Nesgon finally cut in with “The door is open, let’s move.”
And move, they did. Once more rejoining the main group they entered into the greater tunnel, traversing the tunnel’s entire length and reaching the cargo lift. Having quickly loaded the cargo and gathered atop the platform, two of the warriors threw the switches and the great machine stirred into motion. Minutes passed, and they ascended from the bowels of the earth in silence. Then, as the lift rose and the morning light fell upon their faces, they were faced with a city that had come alive in a singular purpose, hustling and bustling in a manner not even Nesgon was familiar with.
Thousands of townsfolk swarmed through the streets and across the walkways, carrying everything from simple food to armor plates, weapons, and printer resin. Nevertheless, there was still more than enough room for them to pass, and the townsfolk went out of their way to make room for them as they stepped off the lift. Some gave greetings as they passed, others simply watched, and others still simply kept to themselves and went on with their assigned duties.
Nesgon wondered who organized the people like this as they walked. His mental question to be answered by the sound of a chaplain hollering in the general direction of a group of Thinkers. “Remember your designations? Good! I want the printers in Sector Seven running within the hour!” he exclaimed, and the Thinkers yelled out “Yes sir!” in a… Misaligned sort of unison, lacking a precise and uniform timing or cadence. Nevertheless, clearly the town was being marshalled even without an Elder’s presence, and Nesgon had no doubt in his heart that it was Armless at the very top.
His assumption would be confirmed, as the deserter chaplain approached them the moment the group of thinkers left. “Elder Nesgon!” he exclaimed, “The skull-faced man left with his walker and a group of newcomers to lay traps around the town gate. He said you went to retrieve vital supplies, did you….?”
A simple nod from the old dragon was enough to dissipate the uncertainty that was evident in the chaplain’s voice. While commandeering townsfolk seemed to come naturally to him, even just speaking of matters relating to Armless seemed to rob the chaplain of all confidence.
“Good. I… Presume you’ll want to take the lead from here. Let us go to a more private space so I may explain the system we’re using to organize the townsfolk.”
Nesgon nodded once more, allowing the chaplain to lead the way for once. As he had expected, he was led to the town hall’s back rooms, with Red-eye and Fulgent both splintering away to go to the bar. The two-dozen warriors, meanwhile, followed Nesgon, bringing the precious cargo to the back rooms with them via one of the cargo lifts.
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Nesgon would go on to rather comfortably slip into personally coordinating the town’s preparations after the relatively simple system of designating groups and parts of town was explained to him, whilst Fulgent and Red-eye retreated to the bar’s backroom in order to wait out the time until Armless’s return in peace. Not for fear of being accosted, but simply to avoid the hectic atmosphere that had become ever-present during their time underground. Besides them, the Accursed Bartender took up refuge in the backroom as well, bringing in a small crate of stimmix and simply stating “I’m still recovering from setting up the Right of Heresy for you guys, I’m not dealing with this bullshit too.”
He had presumed they were aware of the role he had played in the events preceding Armless’s duels with Nesgon and the Ecclesiarch.
The Word-bearer emerged from the underground three hours later accompanied by two Skull Battalion members who had already found their walkers. All three of them were taken by an exceedingly good mood as they waltzed into the Town Hall and the Word-bearer proclaimed that he had gotten the doors in the Vault of Truth open and brought the walker gantries beyond them online.
They would go on to gather another hundred prospective pilots, and return to the underground to have them find their own walkers.
They only missed Armless’s return by a little under an hour. As he returned accompanied by Karzon’s group - who had helped him set up the traps - all seemed to be going well for the people of Canyontown.
Despite the fact they were preparing for a conflict of massive proportions, the townsfolk were…
Alive.