The first distinctive room he came to was an echo of a seating area. Benches lined the room's middle, all made of rock as though a more practical material had petrified. Arlen crouched to study the furniture. Indeed, there were signs of bolts holding parts together, or rather this was a one-piece stone cast of a version that had used bolts. Then came a room with more seats that all faced a dry fountain, as though it were an entertaining decoration. Or a display system.

"More echoes," he said. None of the equipment seemed functional. It didn't respond to the gem, either. From there, only branching halls of forty-five or ninety degrees led onward. Speculating aloud, he said, "Theory one. This place is run by robots mindlessly building and rearranging a Builder base. I'm seeing hints of what it looked like, and the real stuff is either somewhere in there as a template, or long dismantled. They're either making random bits of true objects, or scavenging them from the real template. But the islanders have been finding bits and pieces for centuries, so my money's on the idea that more is being manufactured. Never anything beyond simple tools and trinkets, though."

He peeked down one dead end, then another. A golem drifted by but paid him no heed, instead pushing a wall segment inward to form a meaningless indentation. "Theory two. The rearrangement has a purpose. It's tied to their behavior on the land outside. So, something like feng shui, guiding magic or other energy flow. Shaping it over and over, to do... something."

In the distance came the sound of grinding stone. Arlen approached down a bent hallway, and came to a new, metal-bound door. One that slid open at his approach, leading to a downward ramp.

Here, the air grew colder and the lighting inconsistent. Arlen held his shining gem in his shield hand and walked through the depths. And here was the reception desk, this one an original. Maybe. The desk was still heavy stone but topped with glass, and the chair was iron with long-ruined fabric. "Plain iron? Never seen any aluminum or anything fancier than brass here."

He sat down and examined the dials built into this version. Then checked for the glowing conduit rod built into the side. A real one was there. Its glow still unnerved him but at this point he took it for something akin to a circuitboard. The control dials had writing on them, and his eyes widened. Same writing system as the islanders, and he should've expected that. Different language, same octagon-like glyphs. He sounded them out and got the weird reminder of how he was speaking in the islanders' tongue. The words were pronounceable but meant nothing to him, except for one that sounded like the local's odd word for "begin". Maybe it was an import from Builder speech. What would he begin? He turned the dial to find out.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Nothing happened. Hmmph. He tried another of the dials, clicking it a notch clockwise, and static noise screeched from a hidden panel. Communications, then. He tried the other settings on that one and got only static, but for a station with faint sloshing noises and mechanical hums.

He used his papyrus-equivalent and some charcoal to record what he could. He could come back and play with this more later. He undid his changes and moved on, picking one of several doorways.

There was a long, stagnant pool ahead, three feet wide, its water murky, surrounded by pillars. A statue rose from beside it, flashed a green light across him, then wobbled closer. In its wake, jets of water shot up and curved, like an attack spell.

Arlen ducked behind a column. When water sprayed past him he let it glance off his shield. With his weapon hand he tried reaching out toward the stuff and pushing magically. It resisted like pushing an incoming punch, but he'd been told you could block a caster that way.

Arlen hustled around the other side and raise his shield. The hovering golem visibly glitched, wobbling to turn and follow him.

Its light beam seemed good only for scanning. More water rose, frothing and freezing into jagged shards that created a weirdly steamy aura around the pool. Arlen feinted from behind cover with his mace and ice shot out, clanging against the shaft. Again, and he got the same reaction. His hand ached from the impacts and the wooden part of the weapon was in danger of breaking. He crouched and ran low, keeping his shield up. Frozen blades thudded against it. Then it missed, twice. He misjudged his footing, found himself about to crash into the pond, and leaped over it. Another blade shot into the wall behind him. Good aim, bad timing. In fact, it missed twice more, seeming unable to turn to face him perfectly. Only in those eighth-turn increments. Aha.

It darted to one side for a better shot, but Arlen knew how to stand just out of its line of fire. This time he leaped over the pool and watched ice whip right past him. He brought his mace down on the golem. Stone crunched and his weapon snapped, but it was enough. The flying machine's lifter failed and it crashed to the floor, twitching. One more dart shot out and he barely hopped over it. Then it lay still.

Arlen wondered if these things were built to a flawed design or just damaged by age. Maybe both. He was still gambling that he was more welcome than the natives were, which implied this was a malfunctioning golem... and that there might be more. He frowned at his ruined weapon; the cord binding it was shredded. He kept the stick and rock.

The architecture down here wasn't the same random jumble he'd expected. Gone were the random branching hallways. Beyond the room of the reflecting pool he reached a completely dark place. He raised his glowing gem to shine into it, and with a whoosh and a flash, something shot out from the shadows to knock it out of his hand!