Chapter 51 - The light

Amidst the dark, a light flickered. Not dazzling by any means, but bright enough to stand out like a sore thumb in this dark vista. Despite narrow patches of pipes and fittings trying their best to keep the light contained, it offered them a clear direction.

Ambrose lifted his chin imperceptibly, and his gloved hand extended subtly with fingers pointing onward. The others caught the unspoken command, and with synchronized precision, they advanced, their footsteps echoing in the dimly lit corridor.

They stuck to their planned formation—Ambrose in the lead, Vern in the middle, and Cera in the rear.

However, just a few seconds into the corridor, the pipes around them began to churn and hum with great ferocity. All three of them halted and stood with their backs to each other in a triangle.

The buzzing became faster and faster as they soon started thrumming in a rhythm. Vern reflexively looked at Ambrose, only to see a deep frown etched on his face.

Even he doesn't understand this rhythm?

THRUM

WHIRL

"This…"

In just a few more seconds, the pace at which the pipes thrummed accelerated rapidly, culminating in a peak,

WENNNNGGGGGGGG

A muffled screeching boomed through the surroundings, almost making him want to clamp his hands over his ears due to how grating it was. Luckily, they were in the basement this time, and the piercing dissonance from the whistles atop the stations couldn't seep in down here.

For a second, he thought the pipes around them had gone completely silent. But they started again. The exact same process as before—starting with slow thumps, which soon turned into rhythmic thrumming that culminated into another…

WENGGGGGGGG

The steamscripts were activating non-stop. Was it because they had gotten closer to the source?

Vern quickly came to a decision and said, "We should ignore this and keep moving."

The other two nodded, broke apart from their triangle, and fell back into their previous formation.

The air was thick with a tension that clung to their skin as they navigated the dimly lit corridor. Shadows stretched across the walls like elongated fingers, closing in from all sides. Each step they took seemed to drown in the clamor from their surroundings in these narrow passageways, projecting a sense of confinement.

.

.

.

The group moved in a tight formation, eyes darting to every corner and alcove. Despite the air being cool, sweat glistened on their foreheads. Every creak from their boots, every whisper of fabric, seemed to mingle with the thrumming as if the corridor was absorbing them, consuming their essence one cautious step at a time.

The path was winding, and some of the sections were caved in—large equipment blocking the most straightforward route to the light.

But they were getting closer, and the directionality of all the pipes made it clear that they were indeed moving towards the nexus of the station—where all transmission pipes came together to execute the relays for the queued messages.

WENGGGGGGGGGGGG

After what felt like the tenth activation of Steamscripts in less than a minute, something changed.

With a whirl of metallic clatter, their sole beacon—the yellow light inviting them from across the basement—dimmed and faded into nothingness. What was worse was that after every activation, the pipes became utterly silent and this time wasn't any different.

All three of them came to a halt, and the thumping of his own heartbeat became too clear. Illuminated by just the lamp on his waist, they tried to figure out what was happening in this musty environment.

BADUMP

BADUMP

BADUMP

"p..se d..nt c…e h…re …om …nt h…dle"

Huh?

"Am…Ambrose, did you say something?" asked Cera.

"I? No, I believed the utterance originated from one of you."

Vern shook his head and raised his palm, signaling them to quiet down.

"l…ve"

A sound emanated from somewhere ahead of them, and Vern strained his ears to catch it.

"le...ve"

"...ve"

It was only growing louder by the second.

"l…ave leave"

"leave"

"Leave"

Then suddenly, a dazzling yellow light flashed ahead of them, and the sound turned into a shrill yell, "LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!!"

The pipes to their sides, beating to a rhythm just a few seconds ago, started to wrench free from their joints, curling in on themselves.

"LEAVE US ALONE!!!"

The surroundings began to coil inwards, attempting to encase the trio from both ends. Vern had no plans of waiting around, and it seemed neither did Ambrose. Planting his left foot firmly on the ground, Ambrose leaned forward and morphed his cane into a gleaming sword. With a burst of agility, he propelled himself forward, sword leading the way.

A cyan aura flickered along the blade's edge as he executed a masterful double-slash, carving an elegant cross through the air. Sprinting free from the ensnaring pipes, he left only the resonant thud of collapsing metal in his wake.

Meanwhile, as Vern dashed out of the entanglement, he opened his perception. Focusing on snippets of the environment around him, he aimed to discern what he could and couldn't perceive, all while minimizing his mental expenditure.

Some of the pipes were invisible to his perception, but a big chunk of his surroundings were crystal clear.

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"LEAVE US! GOO AWAY!!"

The shrill voice seemed to come from one of those last-generation metallic recorders. But his assumption couldn't be further from the reality. When he rushed past the first entrapment, he caught a glimpse of it for a couple seconds while he turned the corner.

It was a sphere of yellow light, shards of shimmering metal orbiting around it. As if pulled by an invisible force, more and more fragments of their surroundings gravitated towards the mass.

A cylindrical tube perched atop the sphere mimicking a head, followed by pipes and valves which coalesced to form makeshift arms.

Then another arm.

A leg.

Another—

Just as the mysterious construct seemed about to reach its final form, a radiant blue aura enveloped Ambrose. In a flash, he catapulted himself towards the sphere, his cane slashing through the air in a high-velocity arc aimed at its core.

However, just milliseconds before his cane could cleave through the humanoid figure, a hatch door hurtled into the path, absorbing the full force of Ambrose's assault.

"LEAVE!!" it shouted, as more and more pipes around them came alive and did their best to lock them in.

Vern slipped, crouched, and jumped over one obstacle after another as he made to circle around and approach the entity from a different angle. Their formation was already broken—might as well take advantage of it.

He didn't know what Cera was doing but was sure she could take care of herself. He had his hands full with the current situation anyway.

During his run, he found himself in another open section with a clear line of sight of the fight between Ambrose and the humanoid automaton—which was getting more heated by the second. Literally heated, the automaton was releasing steam from its ad-hoc arms.

He had already interpreted those pipes back in the staircase and found flaws in them, even if there were some aspects he couldn't perceive. But he had no reason to waste his Vision back there.

But this? This was his chance to help.

Vern squinted his eyes and slowed down. When Ambrose lunged for another swing, the automaton brandished its right arm, ready to release a steam jet.

Now!

Executing the instability inducement, he cringed a little, and a tremor ran through his eyes, but he somehow managed to hold his gaze.

It was worth it. Instead of ejecting a jet of steam towards Ambrose, who was already poised to evade, the valve malfunctioned and backfired into the entity's own arm. A scalding burst tore through its makeshift body, warping and searing some of its assembled components.

Ambrose met Vern's eyes across the mesh of coiled conduits for a second and, with a nod, took full advantage of the opening.

Vern quickly disengaged and kicked another set of tubing twisting around his legs—about to lock him down.

"LEAVE! PLEASE! JUST GOO!"

Everything made sense to him to an extent, except what the entity was saying. Obviously, something had been controlling the building, so pipes gaining sentience and trying to trap them wasn't anything new. Neither were all the tactics applied by the entity itself.

But what was it saying? There was even a hint of pleading in its voice. It didn't make sense. It tried to kill them with deadlier force, one after another. First the typewriters, then the statue, then the steam, and now…this.

But maybe it was Vern who was out of his mind for expecting logic from a mechanical entity.

Ignoring the hoarse screams, he scanned for other means to contribute to the situation. They had come down here with an objective, and it seemed increasingly likely that vanquishing this entity could be the key to escaping this confounding building.

His mind raced with ideas, but most seemed futile here. The automaton controlled most of the weapons, and if it adapted, blocking its steam release mechanisms might not even work another time.

He could target the joints as he had with the statue, but he'd need to be more cautious. A mistake this time could lead to more than just a bleeding eye.

He easily dodged the pipes aimed to trap him. Oddly enough, their swift movements seemed almost wasted on such harmless tactics. A well-timed pipe to the side of his head could easily have given him a concussion.

It was almost as if the sole target of these pipes was to lock him down, not hurt him. Yeah, I am really expecting too much of a freaking machine. Shaking his head, he ran for another minute before he jumped over a stack of pressure engines and found himself right behind the entity.

The moment he laid his eyes on their fight, it was evident that Ambrose was barely keeping up. Every time he moved in for an attack, the entity would use its new hand to release steam, pushing him into a mesh of coiled wire that tried to entangle him.

As the automaton prepared to hurl Ambrose into a web of coils yet again, Vern seized the moment. With a precisely timed Vision, he destabilized the entity's makeshift joint, causing it to miss its target entirely.

Ambrose was dumbfounded for a fraction of a second before he regained his senses and dashed back out of the foe's reach—taking this brief moment of respite to catch his breath.

"LEAVE!!! DON'T COME HERE!"

As the mechanical entity swiveled to face Vern, its voice rang out, tinged with a metallic resonance. Aware that his gun would be ineffective against such a construct, Vern rapidly calculated his next best course of action.

Be a bait. To give Ambrose the perfect chance. And what better way to do that than rush in precisely where the entity didn't want him to?

Determined, Vern bolted towards the area where he'd first seen the flickering light. Clearly, the automaton was guarding something vital there. By drawing its ire, he aimed to create a prime opening for Ambrose to capitalize on.

.

.

.

Glancing back every few seconds, he spotted a couple of weaknesses in the assortment that the abnormality's body was.

He planned to exploit them at the last moment to maximize the damage they could inflict. With a comfortable distance still separating him from the mechanical entity, he felt confident he could hold his ground for at least half a minute.

"NOOO!!! DON'T"

SLAM

CLANK

With thunderous clangs, pipes lunged at him just as he'd anticipated. But instead of striking him, they smashed into the wall, missing their mark. If the entity was holding back this much, it wouldn't be enough to stop him.

Moreover, this section was running out of pipes to deploy. While more snaked out from the wall's edges, aiming for him, Vern deftly dodged them, slipping through the makeshift blockade to continue his sprint.

His heart pulsed with a mix of exhilaration and anxiety. The risk was high, maybe too high for his comfort, but he was convinced this strategy would pay off. That is unless the entity decided to quit playing games and truly aimed to kill.

Banking on that, he turned once…twice, and then another time. He knew he was very close to the initial location of the light, but it was getting harder to persist by the second.

HISSSSSSS

Barely avoiding the steam from a pipe, he slid past it, breathing heavily. Where the fuck is Ambrose?

Why hadn't he managed to stop this steaming mammoth already? Right when he was considering his options, he noticed the improvised hand of the automaton reaching out to grab him. Steeling himself, Vern turned around and readied himself to use one of the flaws he had figured out.

BOOOM

But then suddenly, an explosion hit the machine at almost point-blank. It took significant damage—the heat wreaked havoc on one of its sides, even gravely damaging the dimly glowing sphere in its core.

"Vern, just hold on a little longer. Ambrose is almost ready."

It was Cera! She had been charging that shot and used it for tremendous effect.

Aware that Ambrose was orchestrating something worthwhile, he stifled the dread that rose within him from being inches away from the clutches of this abomination, resisting the temptation to rely on his Vision and test his luck.

Now wasn't the time. Not yet. They won't have much effect by themselves anyway.

He dismissed the construct and bolted towards the section where the entity didn't want him to go, using its downtime to gain some lead.

"NOOO!!!"

"PLEASE DON'T!" it said in a very animated voice, a tinge of fear clearly coloring the mechanical tones.

Vern frowned at the emotions that seemed to emerge from this entity. What could be so important that it had driven this mechanical puppet to such desperate measures?

"PLEASE! I PLEAD! DON'T GO."

Vern wasn't naive enough to blindly halt, but this sudden plea made him hesitate. Was he resorting to brute force too quickly? The entity was begging them to leave, and wasn't that ultimately their goal?

The desperation in its mechanical voice unsettled him, making him question whether their initial approach was the right one. Weren't they being too aggressive to an entity that had not killed them even when it had hundreds of opportunities to do so?

Was it really this entity that commanded those puppets upstairs?

So he halted.

"Vern! What are you doing!?" shouted Cera when he turned around and began walking towards the humanoid.

He ignored her and asked the mechanical humanoid, its form slowly disintegrating as parts drifted away and the light within its core dimmed. "Why didn't you let us leave when we tried to go?"

The tube in place of the head seemed to look in his direction. Then, the valves hanging by its impromptu chest began to rotate and turn as the pipes around its shoulders released a low sound,

"it was not her. it was not us. it was not—"

But then, a surge of blue light ignited behind the faltering entity. Even from a dozen meters away, separated by makeshift walls of twisted pipe, Ambrose radiated a fierce blue aura.

For a split second, Vern's eyes caught the flash of—

CRASH!

Like a scorching comet, the blue blaze tore through obstacles as if they were mere paper. In the blink of an eye, the silver segments of Ambrose's cane protruded from the dimming sphere at the entity's core.

CRACK