The Manufactorium was surprisingly built like a fortress with thick, robust and ominously huge walls. When asked, it was explained that when the production facility was in full operation, it was too noisy. The imposing fortifications were really there to block the sound from reaching their cities.
That said, the great gates that secured the facility were closed and locked. Apparently whatever had boiled up from their dens in the mountains had seized control of the city, forced its gates shut, and eagerly murdered all who tried to gain entrance to the city-sized facility.
Daveth eyed the looming walls with the massive gate speculatively. He couldn’t tell if there was anything that manned the walls, any sentries that might call out a warning to those inside.
“Wish we hadn’t sent off the cannon with the Brotherhood.” He muttered, and Aldric laughed nastily.
“No plan survives first contact intact.” he replied. “So, how we getting in?” Aldric asked his second-in-command. “Should we knock?”
“Actually, I was thinking of tying a rope around your waist and throwing you up to the top of the wall. Figure you’d probably be able to find something. I mean, it’s not a defensive wall, but there’s gotta be something you can tie a rope on.”
Aldric rolled his eyes at Daveth. “I’m being serious.” He stated, eyeing the rope that Daveth was carefully unspooling.
“...the fuck you think you’re doing?” Aldric asked worriedly.
“The fuck you think I’m doing? You’re going up the wall.” Daveth replied.
“Like fuck I am.” Aldric protested.
“Like fuck you’re not.” Daveth rebutted. “Look, it’s not that far. I’ll lift you up, stand you on my shoulders. Then I push you up, and you catch the edge of the wall and pull yourself up.”
“Send your elf.” Aldric argued, but Daveth shook his head.
“She’s a foot shorter than you, she wouldn’t make it.”
“Asshole, send Morden, then!” Aldric hissed with fury.
Daveth’s eyebrows quirked up. “That’s a pretty good idea, cap.” he agreed.
Aldric and Daveth turned, and Morden just shrugged. “I can do it, seems easy enough.”
Daveth jerked his thumb at Morden. “See cap, even Morden thinks you’re a pussy.”
Morden held his hands out in a warding off gesture. “I’m a file leader, don’t drag me into your shit.”
Daveth passed the end of the rope to Morden, who secured it around his waist.
Daveth went to the wall and locked his hands together to give Morden a foothold up. Morden pulled himself up to stand atop Daveth’s shoulders and then Daveth worked his hands under Morden’s boots, and pushed the man up.
Morden caught the edge of the wall with his fingertips and struggled to pull himself up while Daveth pushed from below. After a few tense moments, Morden was able to scale up the rest of the way. He hunkered down, peering along the wall’s edge, moved to the side, and tied the rope around a heavy wooden post, and then dropped off the inside edge of the wall. Daveth grabbed the rope and scaled the wall and hoisted himself over the side a scant second later.
Aldric took a moment to glance back at the Seventh Seal, poised and ready to move in as soon as the gate opened.
There was a shout from the other side of the wall, followed by a massive metallic bang, as if someone slammed the largest hammer down against the largest breastplate.
The gate shuddered, there was a massive impact that could be felt in the feet, and then the gates opened, pushed by a red-faced and sweating Daveth. As he came out, pushing the door, Morden was seen behind the giant, guarding Daveth’s back with a sword out.
As Daveth finished pushing open the gate, Aldric swung up into his saddle. “Inside!” He ordered, and the Seventh Seal moved in, ranks breaking a little as they cleared the gate.
Aldric paused as Daveth finished pushing open the gate. “Strong as an ox.”
Daveth eyed Aldric. “I have no idea what that is.”
Aldric nodded. “It’s a great big beast. Used for dragging heavy things.”
Daveth chuckled. “I could probably beat it in a fight.”
Aldric barked a laugh. “Get your horse, you fucker.”
*****
The Manufactorium was a page taken straight from Metzcal: a number of cubed buildings grouped together, and towards the center of the facility, a massive ziggurat towards the center. Daveth threw Aldric a look, and the captain nodded; he recognized it, too.
The file leaders clustered around Daveth and Aldric as they prepared their next move. They’d breached the gate, but there hadn’t been any signs of resistance that Aldric could see. Daveth shook his head at that.
“You haven’t seen it yet, but just up ahead is a metal monster I’ve never seen before. I took it out, but I don’t know if there’re more.”
“Metal monster?” Aldric asked, and Daveth nodded.
“You think we should sweep and clear the buildings by quarter?”
“As far as I can tell it’s almost a perfect recreation of what we saw at Metzcal; maybe that city used to be a colony. I dunno.” Aldric muttered, combing his beard thoughtfully. “I don’t like splitting up the Seal too much. Divide them up with two files apiece.” He gestured at one of the larger cubes; something they’d used as a meeting hall on another continent thousands of miles away.
“Daveth, the Wolfblood sisters, and I will clear that building in anticipation of using it as a forward operating point and a fallback position.” Aldric announced. “You run into shit you can’t handle; fall back to here. I don’t need heroes, I need men who follow orders.”
He turned to Daveth. “Show me this metal monster.”
The ‘metal monster’ was a massive, complicated- looking automaton that was vaguely man-shaped. One arm ended in a stubby cannon that looked brutally effective; the other was a mechanical arm. A titanic sword lay nearby.
There was a massive hole in the chest; a reeking amber liquid dripped and pooled with a sludgy black liquid.
“The fuck is this?” Aldric muttered. Off to the side, Arcene struggled to try and lift the titanic sword.
“A golem?” Daveth hazarded, recalling the inner workings of the golem girl in Bel-Arib.
“It might be magical...” Aldric muttered, dipping his fingers into the liquid and rubbing them together. He pushed himself to his feet, and Daveth did the same.
“So how’d you put a hole in its chest big enough for Audra to squirm through?” Aldric asked, reaching for his pipe. Off to the side, Orelia, the Gold Wolfsblood was struggling to swing the massive sword, staggering and wobbling around as she wrestled with its immense size.
Daveth packed his pipe and lit it, then dipped into his pouch and pulled out an iron sphere, covered with a film of crumbling rust flakes. “Threw a cannonball at it.”
“You threw-” Aldric muttered, and cut himself off.
“Audra’s idea. Pretty effective, given the circumstances.” Daveth remarked, and then eyed Orelia, struggling with the blade.
“Give it up, soldier. That sword’s meant for something four feet taller than you and about ten times heavier.”
Orelia wobbled as she turned, the sword sagging in her arms. “Who are you to tell me what I can or cannot wield?” She disputed hotly.
“The voice of reason.” Aldric muttered, but Orelia heard it anyway as he expected, shooting him a hot glare before dropping the massive sword.
“Then let’s see you try, Lord Commander.” Orelia challenged. Daveth flexed his hands and picked up the sword.
“...I can carry it...” He muttered, and gave it an experimental swing. Even for him, the blade was massive and heavy. What the ten-foot tall automaton could carry single-handedly took both of his, and moreover was balanced to be swung in a way that he couldn’t duplicate.
He shook his head, and slung the sword to the side. “It’s pointless to try and keep it.”
Aldric raised an eyebrow. “That’s a whole lotta steel you’re throwing away.”
“You think the Shapers will let us loot it?”
“They’d better.” Aldric replied. “They should have read the contract we signed.”
Daveth nodded and wiped sweat from his face, striding away from the dropped sword and the contemplative looks from the wolfblood sisters. “We loot after we clear out our forward operating base.” he declared, and hefted a cannonball, spinning it in the palm of his hand.
Aldric nodded, and gestured towards the building they’d selected.
*****
As they approached the building, there was a series of bright flashes from the interior, followed immediately by the brutal thunder of heavy gunfire. Arcene screamed and crumpled; Daveth grabbed her and rolled right; Aldric, Orelia, Lynnabel and Alysia rolled left.
The pounding thunder of the gun inside the building rattled to a stop.
“Fucking-” Aldric spit, his pipe in his teeth.
“That’s a fucking crank gun in there!” Daveth yelled, and Aldric nodded.
“No shit, you think?” He yelled back.
Daveth eyed the silver-eyed wolf sister that lay halfway on his lap, moaning. He patted her cheek, and peered into her eyes.
“No good, cap. This one’s out of the fight until we can get some healers.” Daveth called. “You?”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Hale and hearty.” Aldric replied, glancing at the trio next to him on the other side of the doorway. They all nodded solemnly.
“Ideas?” Aldric shouted across to Daveth.
“Lure it out of there?” Daveth offered.
“How?” Aldric replied.
“I don’t fucking know!” Daveth responded.
The thing came out on its own, a twelve-foot gleaming skeleton of steel, eyes lambent red coals of malevolence, thick black smoke jetting from two smokestack-like pipes running out and up its back, its chest rumbling with some fierce mechanical heart. One arm terminated at the elbow, ending with a brutal gatling cannon that seemed to be belt-fed from a compartment on its waist. Its other arm resembled a normal human arm, though proportionately larger and sprouting three wicked serrated sword blades from its knuckles.
Orelia shoved Aldric away and swung her sword against that bladed fist with a scream; Aldric tumbled away from the force of her toss. Daveth jumped up and grabbed at the rotating barrels; he hoped that his weight would keep them from spinning; a gun with this design needed to spin in order to fire. Daveth weighed five hundred pounds, he hoped that would be enough.
The mechanical monster indifferently swatted Orelia away, and then slammed its gun against the wall, trying to crush Daveth against the wall. Daveth hung from one of the lower barrels and barely avoided the impact; the barrels of the gun growled with a strain and tried to spin; Daveth’s guess was right; the gun was unable to fire.
“Support!” Orelia called, launching herself at the bladed fist again. Alysia and Lynnabel hurled themselves at the metal monstrosity, their blades clattering ineffectually against the thing’s legs.
Daveth swung his feet up and braced them against the gun and heaved with his arms; the gunbarrel creaked and groaned as Daveth roared and pulled with all his strength.
Orelia drove her sword in between the thing’s ribs, seeking something inside that would stop the grinding and thumping of its mechanical heart. Something inside caught the end of her sword, rattling against it. Orelia forced the blade deeper, and whatever rattled against her sword snatched it from her grip and snapped the blade in half, leaving her with a shattered stump of a sword. She let out a scream of furious rage and launched herself higher up the beast.
A flight of arrows clattered uselessly against the metal skeleton at the legs, the heart, the metal skull with the fiercely burning eyes as the scout squadron showed up, firing from horseback.
The thing swung its gun arm forward to target the scout squad; Daveth flew off from the momentum of the swing and hit the ground, rolling over and over and over.
The gun tried to spin but the warped barrel caught and something in the mechanism groaned and whined.
With a loud snap of breaking metal, chunks of steel spraying around, the complicated gun began falling apart, individual barrels sliding out of alignment and dropping from the ruined weapon.
The monster pointed its ruined gun at Daveth and ammunition impotently dropped from the mechanism that fed the bullets into the gun onto the ground. It raked the gun in an arc at the scout squad, ammunition spilling across the ground. The mechanical thing was seemingly unaware that the gun was not firing.
Lynnabel and Alysia climbed up the thighs of the beast; Lynnabel spotted a metallic belt running through a series of cogs and wedged her sword in the links and twisted just as the chain passed over the cog.
The chain popped off the cogwheel which spun freely; the chain made a clattering noise as it slipped further down inside the machine’s leg. Lynnabel had no way of knowing what would happen, but guessed that removing the chain would cause some sort of problem.
Having lost control of its left leg, the machine pitched forward in a collapse. As it tumbled forward, Orelia hacked through the thick hoses in its neck, spraying foul chemicals everywhere. There was a hitch in the mechanical heart that throbbed in its chest; its smokestacks belched a cloud of black smoke, and Orelia lost her footing and fell as the giant skeleton stumbled and collapsed.
The top of the skull popped off with a bang, releasing a tremendous wave of heat and spilling out hundreds of metal cards with row after row of punches stamped into them. The motor hitched again, ran briefly, hitched, and then stopped for good.
*****
“Wake up, commander!” Daveth heard someone say, and He pushed himself up with the dogged determination of a practiced soldier, opening his eyes and groaning against the pain from various parts of his body.
Audra eyed him over carefully. “You okay?”
“I hurt in places I didn’t think could hurt.” He muttered and she grinned. “The fuck is that thing?” Daveth continued, pointing at the fallen construct.
“Never seen anything like it before.” Audra reported.
“Well you’re fucking useful.” He complained sarcastically, and groaned at a stabbing pain in his side. He eyed Audra. “Is it a golem, like the other one?” He asked, and she shook her head.
“Mages say not magical at all, boss.” She reported simply.
“That’s fucking impossible. You can’t- I mean, magic has to be involved somehow.” Daveth insisted, and then reached into his belt. He frowned, and gave himself a patdown.
“Where the fuck is my pipe?” He asked, and Audra shrugged up at him with a smile that was sweet and innocent and lacked any credulity at all.
He picked her up, flipped her upside down and gave her a vigorous shake.
“I give, I give!” Audra complained, so he released her and helped her up.
“I picked it up from the ground over there.” She pointed. “From your tracks, I’d guess you dropped it when you jumped out of the way of that... thing?” She asked.
“I .... might’ve.” Daveth muttered, not remembering. “Arcene. Is she all right?”
Audra gave him a complicated look. “We don’t know. Healers say it’s fifty-fifty, but her... sisters say she’ll be fine.”
“I’ve been told their kind heal pretty quickly.”
“What are ‘their kind’?” Audra asked curiously. Daveth shrugged. “I only know a little bit, and I made a promise not to repeat it. Sorry Audra, can’t tell you.”
“I’ll get it out of you sooner or later.” Audra warned, and Daveth laughed. “You can try.”
He gestured around. “Where’s Aldric?”
“He’s inside.” Audra pointed out.
“How long have I been out?” Daveth wondered.
“Not long by my reckoning. You got tossed, and the wolf sisters did some... thing to it to cause it to fall down. Then its head popped open and a bunch of these things came out.”
She handed over one of the punch cards. He eyed it, turned it from side to side, and shrugged, handing it back to Audra.
“I was busy trying to do something meaningful with my arrows, but I- boss, I don’t think arrows are much good against these things.”
He nodded, and made a granking gesture at her to keep going.
“You got tossed, its crank gun blew up when it tried to shoot us, the wolf sisters did their thing, it fell down, and I came and picked you up.” She summarized as Daveth packed his pipe full of tobacco.
“You picked me up?” He asked, and she made a face. “I woke you up.”
“That thing is gonna give us a lot of fucking steel.” Daveth muttered.
“Assuming the Shapers let us keep it.” Audra corrected.
“I hope they do, Lord Commander.” Alysia reported as he came over. “I would definitely like one of it’s claws for my sword. The steel is very excellent.”
Daveth smothered a grin with his hand as he stroked his beard. The rules-and-honor Alysia was talking about loot happily and excitedly.
“We’ll worry about that when we’ve secured the entire Manufactorium. We might even need to hold off until the entire mission is complete. That is a lot of metal, Alysia.” He added, gesturing to the massive thing that sprawled facedown in the dirt.
Alysia nodded. “The Lord Captain has secured the building if you would like to speak with him.” She urged, and rejoined her sister as they attacked the metal monster’s hand, trying to prize out the sword blades.
*****
Daveth moved into the building they’d selected as their forward operating base and spotted Aldric shuffling through a large stack of broad sheets of paper.
“Documents?” Daveth asked, and Aldric pointed out at the metal skeleton.
“Blueprints.” Aldric replied, glanced up at Daveth, sighed, and tried again. “Schematics.” When that elicited no response, Aldric sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Drawings on how to build that thing.”
The mute confusion on Daveth’s face cleared up, and he peered at the drawings curiously. There pages and pages of drawings for each individual part, and complicated script that Daveth couldn’t read.
“Can you read this?” Daveth asked
Aldric barked a sour laugh. “No. Only people that can read the Builder’s language are the Builders themselves.” He paused and then added, “But I’m betting I could sell these designs to some country- say, Toledo ro the Yamato, or even, Nameless Stone so help me, the Merchant Cities. Imagine battlefields with these sorts of things striding across them.”
Daveth shook his head. “What a horrible idea.”
“Are you sure? Bullets have proven themselves time and time again over blades. Sure, a good cannon could probably punch a hole in one of these things and take it down, but how much havok could one of these things wreak on a battlefield before the artillery finds the range and can put a single cannonball on target?” Aldric asked curiously.
“I think we’re talking about the wrong thing here, Cap.” Daveth advised.
“Mmm? What is it, oh-so-wise-and-perceptive Commander Daveth?” Aldric asked curiously.
Daveth reached over and tapped the blueprints. “These are Shaper documents. We were told that an invading force had attacked them. So why are we fighting Shaper machines?”
Aldric blinked, and then shrugged. “Whatever force that the Shapers dug up in their mines co-opted their weapons, and turned them on their creators. Literally no different from when you steal an enemies’ sword and use it to cut their head off.”
“Even something as sophisticated as this?” Daveth asked, and Aldric blinked.
“That’s a word I never expected to hear come from your lips.”
Daveth gave him a complicated look. “I’m always listening to you, Aldric. I might not get the shit you spew all the time, but I do pay attention.”
Aldric immediately raised his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I belittled you. That was uncouth. Keep learning, Commander Daveth, and that’s a standing order until the day you die: Never stop learning.”
Daveth tapped the schematics again. “Mages say no magic was involved.” He paused and then added, “I kinda wish Moore were here to see this. He might cream his breeches. Something like this could easily wipe out one of his landships, but I’m betting he could grasp some of this, at least in part.”
Aldric nodded. “I’ll keep the schematics.”
Daveth waved his hand at this statement. “You didn’t answer my question. Who could subvert weapons of this degree? Who would have the know-how?”
“Apparently this unknown force.” Aldric argued.
“Which we’ve yet to see. Everything so far has been Shaper tech.” Daveth argued.
“You’re implying that the Shapers scooped up a bunch of people to test out some weapon systems?” Aldric asked, raising an eyebrow.
Daveth shrugged. “You see them as a great and honorable people that should be treated with deference and respect. To me, they’re just a client. We’ve had clients that’ve turned on us.”
Aldric nodded. “I’ll keep your perspective in mind, but for right now, a job is a job. Anything back from the other teams?”
Daveth shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything from anyone.”
“You need to fix that. Pull the teams in; get maps of this place put together. Find out if there’s other golems wandering around.”
Daveth nodded and headed out.
*****
“So how are these humans faring?” The question was asked in a massive conference room in one of the towers made of glass.
“They’ve managed to establish two defensible positions; one in front of the mining complex in Black Spire, and another in the Manufactorium. We lost contact with the third group.”
“Did they take any artillery into the Manufactorium?”
The other Shaper shook their head. “Their heavy munitions are parked in a defensive blockade to pin down any threats from inside the mine.”
“I’m disappointed.” One of the Shapers murmured as they examined the map of the industrial compound. “This captain didn’t think things through properly. There is no way they could survive the Manufactorium with bows and swords and spears.”
“You could have told him that.” one of the Shapers offered demurely.
“He could have asked. He was more concerned with compensation.” was the retort.
“Ah, but it was Syna who told him not to use artillery in the Manufactorium, was it not?”
Syna shrugged. “There are a lot of expensive tools and hardware that would be irreparably lost were they mortared into oblivion.” She paused, and then added, “He was certainly free to ignore my suggestion.”
“As inchoate and embryonic as these humans are, they do offer moments of brilliant savagery. They have a rudimentary grasp of tactics, but ultimately it is the end result that counts.” the first Shaper that had spoken advised.
There were murmurs of agreement around the table at this. The end results were all that mattered.
*****
Eight thousand miles away, on a continent that was nearly ninety percent desert, outside of an ostentatious cathedral to the Golden Lady, a relic from before the War of Liberation, three completely different-looking women gathered to discuss the end of the world.