Katya led Fizzy out of the testing facility and back into her control tower. They got onto the main cargo elevator and rode it up. They made a brief stop to pick up Orrin at Fizzy’s insistence. The giant had previously kept himself busy with some digitized dwarven literature courtesy of Katya’s personal library. This collection coincidentally had some novels he had previously read and enjoyed, though finding out whether the Original Artificer was capable of sending him home obviously took precedence. He wished he’d brought one of those reading tablets with him once he realized how uncomfortably long that elevator ride would be. There was no indication how high up Katya was taking them, but they had a feeling they were headed for the very top of the control tower - higher even than the helipad sticking out of the side of the building.

When the elevator finally stopped and the doors flew open, the golem and the giant were met with a short hallway ending in an enormous door that was far too similar to the Vault’s for comfort. Katya strode over and pressed her artificial palm against a panel on the side, which lit up and beeped affirmatively. The cog-shaped door slid inwards and rolled aside to reveal a pitch-black room. The android took a step inside, prompting countless lights and monitors to flicker to life. Well, aside from the few lamps that fizzled out and died instantly. Combined with the thin layer of dust on everything, it seemed as though considerable time had passed since Katya was last here.

The chamber itself was unlike any other that Fizzy or Orrin had seen yet. Admittedly they weren’t allowed free roam of the facilities and had been shown only a small fraction of New Dragunov, but this still struck them as a one-of-a-kind situation. It was a tall and wide space with four walls that tapered towards the ceiling, like a lower floor inside a pyramid. The left and right edges of the chamber were filled with a familiar assortment of control panels dotted with all kinds of doodads, buttons, and switches. The center was empty and featureless aside from the image that took up most of the dusty white floor. It was a five-pointed star with some foreign yet strangely familiar letters. It took Fizzy a few moments but she recognized it as the same crest she saw when first entering the Vault Beneath the Mountain. It would appear Katya liked to mark her property even if she was the only one to ever see it. Or maybe it was precisely because nobody else would find it that she put that image in such high-security places?

Otherworldly logos aside, the thing that absolutely dominated the room was the enormous monitor hanging off the far wall. It was as big as the broad side of a barn and had a very peculiar set of controls below it. A white semi-circular panel stood at a height around Katya’s waist, with a keyboard in the middle and two apple-sized spheres on either side of it. What made this set of controls stand out was that they were both simpler and fancier than all the others in the room, not to mention their location in front of that obvious centerpiece. The clacking of Katya’s heels drew the visitors’ attention away from the jumbo monitor and towards one of the much smaller screens on the left. She began manipulating the adjacent controls with practiced ease, and within moments the floor started shuddering and groaning.

“Forgive the noise,” Katya shouted over the racket. “Eet has been a while since I did maintenance up here. Also, you need to move.”

“Huh? Why- Oh!”

The golem was about to question what was wrong with being in the center of the room when she noticed the floor split apart, right down the middle of that red star. She and Orrin quickly stepped over to Katya while the perfectly concealed trap door slid open. This woman really liked her sliding doors, apparently. The resulting opening was a square about five meters wide, from which rose a platform bearing a most promising sight. It was an Astral Nail of Katya’s design. It was almost identical to the one that Fizzy first arrived at, except that it was practically brand-new and the runes covering its exterior were actually legible.

“Remarkable!” Orrin exclaimed. “May I have a closer look?!”

“You may inspect eef you wish. Just watch you don’t break it, and be quick. You have four minutes while eet charges up.”

“You’re charging it?” he questioned.

“Of course. Seeing ees believing, as they say, so I am going to show you that I can indeed send you to Earth. No, wait. Pizdec, what was eet called? Ah, you know what I mean.”

In other words, she wasn’t going to insult their intelligence by just showing them what could have been a fancy sculpture. That was what the Priest suspected was going on, hence why he asked to inspect it. It seemed rather pointless since Katya made it seem she was going to turn it on to prove it was functional, but he went ahead and did it away. The giant warily approached the slightly humming pillar until his nose was almost touching it. He could feel it charging up and was honestly tempted to try and jump into it the instant it activated. But he couldn’t just leave. Even if Katya allowed that sort of thing to happen, Orrin still had things he needed to do on Tascuna. Mostly revolving around preventing the wholesale slaughter of the native gnomes’ civilization. His goals seemed to contradict his complacency with Fizzy’s ongoing efforts to facilitate said massacre, but it was all part of his plan. A plan that would surely result in a drastic increase in lead intake should Katya catch wind of it. For now, he put such things out of his mind and focused entirely on the Original Artificer’s iteration on his people’s greatest achievement.

“So? How’s it look?” Fizzy asked after a while.

“It’s remarkable. Impressive, even. Though I’m not a fan of all the metal and wires, it is without a doubt the genuine article. See that slight curve in its spine, almost like a talon or horn? That’s iconic. There’s even a maker’s mark, I assume, at the base.”

“Wow. You really didn’t skimp out on the details, huh?”

“But of course,” Katya sneered. “I do not half-ass anything I deem worth doing. Now if you are done staring, step off the platform. I am ready to begin.”

Orrin complied and walked back to stand by the constructs’ side. A floor-to-ceiling cylinder of pale blue light sprang up around the techno-magical device as soon as he was clear.

“In case it wasn’t obvious, I would not touch that barrier eef I were you.”

Katya’s warning made the giant oddly relieved since he wouldn’t be tempted to abandon Fizzy on Tascuna. The golem, on the other hand, was a bit disappointed. She had every intention of charging through the instant an opportunity presented itself. Obviously it wouldn’t be that easy, but Plus had gotten her hopes up. Fizzy would never berate her alter ego’s relentless optimism, though. The Parallel’s emotional support and unconditional positivity had been a huge help in coping with not only Boxxy’s death, but also Tony’s. Incidentally, because of all that interpersonal interaction, the Parallel Plot Skill was well on its way to reaching Level 7, at which point Fizzy would gain another voice in her head. Given how well the first one had worked out, both personalities were looking forward to having another ‘sister’ around before long.

As for more immediate concerns, it didn’t take long for the Astral Nail to finish charging. The ceiling directly overhead opened up and the room was filled with a loud buzzing as one of those quad-copter drones flew down from the gap. Katya waved a hand in front of her face as if swiping across an invisible wall. The Nail was then enveloped by a bubble of white light. The drone flew into it and vanished in a flash. All of this was familiar to Fizzy so far, as it was exactly what happened back at the Vault. However, this display proved little beyond the fact that Katya’s Astral Nail sent her automaton somewhere. The demonstration didn’t seem to be over, so the golem held her tongue for the time being.

About two minutes later the drone returned in another flash. The Nail powered down, the barrier was disengaged, and the flying machine drifted down to Fizzy. It handed her a freshly picked white flower before flying off into the ceiling. The Paladin was clearly confused at this gesture, though Orrin seemed to grasp what it meant.

“Can I see that?”

“Uh, sure? Here.”

She held up the blossom while the giant squatted down to get a better look at it. He squinted hard for a few moments and gave it a quick sniff, then nodded.

“That’s definitely a fresh elder’s crown. It’s a common herb that grows around the base of Goroth’s Navel.”

“Ew,” the golem recoiled, then remembered. “Oh, wait! That’s the mountain near Dragunov, isn’t it?!”

“Indeed.”

Fizzy had a second look at the flower. She was far from an expert on botany and her nose didn’t work, but she found no reason to disagree with Orrin’s assessment that it was real and freshly picked. That could only mean that Katya’s drone had been to Horkensaft and back. Unless the Original Artificer had some weird terrarium or greenhouse set up here on Tascuna, but the odds of her having one of those were laughably low. Ekaterina Dragunova was quite possibly the opposite of ‘environmentally conscious.’

“Satisfied?” she asked.

“I, for one, am convinced,” the giant smiled. “Thank you very much for this demonstration, Katya. It has brought hope back to this humble preacher.”

“Yeah! I knew it! Suck it, Tascuna! Fizzy’s getting the fuck off this rock!”

Both of them were happy about it, though the Priest’s reaction was far more subdued than the Paladin’s boisterous cheering and fist-pumping. He stood up while she was at it and gave his host a respectful bow.

“If that is all, is it alright if I excuse myself?” he asked. “It is almost sunset and I would like to attend to my evening prayers.”

It was part of his daily routine that Katya indulged since it got the big oaf out of her hair for a few hours. This time would be no different.

“Is fine. Go,” she brushed him off. “Feezy, you stay. I must speak with you in private.”

“What? Oh, sure. Later, Orrin.”

The giant waved goodbye as he made his way back to the elevator. Katya got down to business the instant he was gone.

“You are certain you wish to return to the Kingdom?”

“Uhm, yeah? I mean, I’m not a fan of the place either, but that’s my best bet at making it as an Artificer.”

“Hm. I said eet before as a joke, but this time I am serious. Will you not stay here with me, as my assistant?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The golem was taken aback by this offer. She didn’t expect it, and it was certainly a pleasant surprise. After all, who better to help advance her craft than the Original Artificer herself. Katya’s personality and lack of morals aside, there was absolutely no question that she was an unparalleled genius centuries ahead of her time. Fizzy knew that better than anyone. She had spent over a dozen Terrarian days elbow-deep in her technology, yet she hadn’t even scratched the surface of what Katya was capable of. Not just the intricate bits, but also the scale of her work was leagues ahead of what Fizzy was capable of.

However, she was just one person, and that wasn’t enough to feed a golem’s ego.

“I’m honored, genuinely, but the hermit lifestyle isn’t for me. I’m after fame, glory, and recognition. Success doesn’t mean anything if I can’t shove it in people’s faces and force them to admit I’m better than them. I know you don’t approve of that sort of thing, but that’s what I’m about.”

Katya did indeed dislike clout-chasing, but she appreciated direct answers that didn’t mince words or try to sugarcoat things she didn’t want to hear.

“I see. And you hope to achieve this glory by rising to the top of Old Dragunov?”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“Een that case, there ees something I must show you. Come.”

This particular excursion was far, far shorter as Katya led Fizzy to the jumbo-screen at the other end of the room. It flickered to life when its owner stood at the controls, showing a pale blue page filled with foreign white script and a long rectangular bar that was slowly filling up from left to right. The golem had seen that indicator a few times and grasped its general purpose of indicating how ready the machine was for use. This one would take a while by the look of things. Fizzy didn’t have a problem with that since she was curious about what purpose this enormous screen served. That said, since Katya was obviously going to try and convince her to stay, the mithril construct decided to get a bit more information about the position.

“Mind if I ask why you need me at all? You seem to have things well in hand, aside from that weird jungle situation.”

“Eet ees because I suspect there will be other obstacles before my work ees complete. I am not ashamed to admit you are more flexible een thinking than me, and more familiar with mixing magic and science. Your insight ees valuable.”

“If that’s all, then surely there’s no need for me to stay up here. I could stay in the Kingdom and come visit every so often, like a part-timer. In fact, I can probably be of more help that way since I’ll keep you abreast of what they’re working on in Dragunov. I know they’re just a bunch of pathetic meatbags, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Maybe I can even make deliveries of rare materials and parts that you can’t get on Tascuna. I know you don’t want to be disturbed, but I can keep a secret. In fact, I dare say I’m an expert at keeping my mouth shut.”

That was no empty boast considering everything she went through with Boxxy. Katya obviously had no idea about these credentials, though that wouldn’t be much of a deal-breaker. In fact, the golem’s counter-offer would be quite attractive if it wasn’t coming from a place of ignorance.

“You make sensible arguments, but you will find the ‘part-timer’ ees not an option. Ah, here we go.”

Katya’s software had finished loading, and she quickly navigated the mess of menus and options to produce an image. It was a sight Fizzy had seen in person, albeit from an unimaginable distance away.

“Is that… is that Atica?”

“Yes. Eet ees live feed from my… let’s call it observatory.”

“Ah. Okay. And?”

The golem was expecting to see something that might convince her to accept Katya’s job offer, but she failed to see how this would accomplish it. If anything, showing her the continent she came from would surely only make her want to return even more. Which it did. A little bit.

“Patience, devochka. Watch.”

The android grabbed the two spheres and started rolling them around with her palms. The view shifted and zoomed in. It drifted over to Atica’s northeastern corner, where the Horkensaft Kingdom was located. The image was then magnified further to encompass the country’s northern half and just kept going. Fizzy almost felt Dizzy at how the terrain rapidly became more and more visible, as if she were falling towards it. When the images finally stopped moving, she was left rather confused as to what she was looking at.

“What’s that white blob in the middle?” she pointed. “A technical fault or something?”

“I assure you, eet ees not.”

“Then what is it?”

“You are smart. You can figure eet out.”

The golem turned her attention back to the strange circle. It was the only part of the feed that was completely featureless. There was something that definitely looked like a snow-capped mountain nearby, and the surrounding area had a clearly visible river and road. It really was incredible how much detail there was in this image despite the ridiculous distance involved. Wait, hold on. That wasn’t a road. Fizzy squinted hard at the enormous image as she tried to figure out exactly what it was. After a few seconds, she realized she was looking at an aerial view of a mag-rail track that disappeared into that white blob. And if that mountain on the other side was any indication, it was a line that the golem and her shield-serf rode quite recently.

“Hold on. Shouldn’t Dragunov be right there?” she pointed at the circle again.

“Very good, devochka. Though, to be accurate, Old Dragunov was there. When you triggered Lednik Dva’s self-destruct, you also wiped out the city, just as I intended all those years ago.”

So it was as the golem secretly suspected, and for once she wasn’t thrilled to find out she was right.

“What?! No!”

Panic and realization settling in, Fizzy ran a few steps forward as if she could somehow prevent or undo what she had wrought. No such chance, unfortunately. In an instant, her goals were shattered. Without a Dragunov to return to, she had no hope of attaining the recognition she desired. If anything, this incident could cause the world to shun and revile Artificers much as it had when Katya first made her appearance. And even if that wasn’t the case, there was a good chance the finger would be pointed at one Fizzy Rustblood as the catastrophe’s primary instigator.

Assuming, of course, this was real and not just a manufactured ploy by Katya.

“You’re lying!” the golem whipped around. “No explosion could’ve done that!”

If Lednik Dva’s dungeon core had overloaded, then there would’ve been a scorched crater and a swirling vortex of poisonous smoke, not some round white blob.

“Ees not explosion,” the android smirked. “You are theenking too small, Feezy. What I prepared was far stronger. Something the eediots would never see coming.”

She then cracked a malicious grin.

“I wish I could have seen looks on faces when they realized their eternal spring turned to eternal winter. Should have set up cameras.”

In other words, it was her Regulator. Or the Spire, as it was more commonly known. The weather machine had plunged everything in its sphere of influence into an ice age that, in theory, would never end. The monumental device drew its power from ley lines deep beneath Terrania’s surface. Those were the very same fonts of magic that Azurvale’s mighty hylts drew their sustenance from. The only way the Regulator would stop was if those mana currents ran completely dry. That was bound to happen eventually since nothing truly lasted forever, but by that point the planet itself would likely be a barren rock incapable of supporting life.

However, as devastating as Katya’s final ‘do svidaniya’ was, it wasn’t as flawless as she assumed it to be. She had severely underestimated the tenacity of living creatures, and of the power granted to them by the very same forces that powered her Regulator. The people in Dragunov were still alive down there, huddled around each other for warmth in the heart of the storm where the chill was least deadly. They would not last much longer as the apocalyptic scenario took its physical and mental toll on the survivors, but they had hope that help would arrive. And it had.

In fact, in a delicious twist of fate, an exceptionally powerful individual managed to penetrate the merciless blizzard’s lethal perimeter and arrived at the storm’s source shortly before Katya revealed it to Fizzy. As the android gloated and the golem watched in shock and horror, the white blob on the screen began to disperse from the middle outward. Naturally what lay underneath was completely frozen over, but the outlines of buildings and roads were clearly visible. Especially the still-crumbling Spire, the sight of which wiped the smile right off of Katya’s face. Seeing this, Fizzy steeled her own expression into a doubtful look punctuated by a raised eyebrow and crossed arms.

“I take it that’s not part of your doomsday plan?”

“Eh, was crazy idea anyway,” she shrugged. “Guess ees good news for you.”

“Uh-huh. So long as you don’t decide to keep me here by force so I don’t spread word of who’s really responsible.”

“And implicate yourself? You are smarter than that, devochka.”

“… Yeah. Can’t say the same about Orrin, though.”

“Then let us keep this pizdec between us, yes?”

“Agreed. I can barely tolerate his preaching as is. If he starts spouting any more sanctimonious crap at me I’m liable to break his jaw.”

“Ees good to hear, but are you sure there ees no hard feeling about the eternal winter thing? I don’t know if you had friends down there.”

“Oh, absolutely not. I couldn’t care less that a bunch of meatbags got frozen over so long as the institutions survived. If anything, I might be able to turn this to my advantage. I imagine the Ritz would have a lot more openings available, and I could potentially claim credit for bringing the Spire down.”

This was a cold and pragmatic viewpoint that any monster would take. Granted, Fizzy still had vestiges of her old conscience floating around in her core somewhere, but even that part of her didn’t care too much. Her past self hadn’t shed a single tear over the victims of the Monotal Calamity, and her current personality was even less concerned with the suffering of the masses so long as it didn’t interfere with her plans. As for Katya, she seemed quite delighted to hear the golem was just as much an opportunist as she was.

“Ahahaha! This ees why I like you, devochka! Tell you what. Let us focus on dealing with the gremlins, then we can discuss this part-timer idea of yours een detail.”

“That’s fair. Before that, do you mind if I have a look around? I need to figure out why the Spire went down if I’m going to claim credit for it.”

Ideally it would be some unforeseen malfunction due to lack of maintenance, or if it was sabotage the one responsible would be buried in the rubble.

“Of course,” Katya stepped away from the controls. “Have fun.”

Fizzy went up and grabbed those plastic balls that manipulated the display. It was a bit awkward since they were uncomfortably high for her, but her host was kind enough to summon one of her countless drones to bring a footstool. After that the golem found that the controls were rather intuitive, with one sphere responsible for panning the view and the other for zooming and rotating. She also discovered that whatever telescope Katya was using could provide even greater magnification, allowing her to get an even closer view of the Spire’s wreckage.

As impressive as the tech was, it didn’t yield any clues. The tower was a smoldering mess that had completely crushed the Ritz campus buildings around its base. Unfortunate, but not the end of the world. Moving away from there, the golem found a few camps of survivors strewn across the frozen city. They were rowdy and busy, which made sense considering they were just saved from being turned into dwarf-cicles and gnome-cubes. There were also some extra-large dots here and there that were probably Orrin’s fellow giants.

One of these extra-large individuals that seemed to draw Fizzy’s attention. She wasn’t sure why. At first glance this guy was just another plus-sized dot in the vertically challenged crowd. However, that flowing, dark cloak he was wrapped up in seemed… familiar. He also wasn’t big enough to be a part of the Priest’s congregation, yet far too wide for a human. Intrigued for reasons she hesitated to admit, the golem zoomed in as much as she could, tracking the figure as it separated from the rest and went into the collapsed part of Dragunov. When her view could get no closer, the golem abandoned the controls and physically approached the screen. Like this, it was almost as if she was looking down at this guy from the second or third floor while he stood alone in a ruined alley.

And then, the cloaked figure vanished in a puff of green smoke, leaving behind an all-too-familiar blue slut.

“Devochka? Are you alright?”

Katya’s voice actually had a twinge of concern. She had also seen that display, and did not fail to notice that it left her future assistant shaken. And shaking. The golem’s shoulders moved up and down as if she was breathing rapidly, yet that clearly couldn’t have been the cause.

“No, I’m not.”

Even though she said that with a quivering voice, Fizzy was wearing a smile. It wasn’t a selfish smirk of smug satisfaction, nor was it the psychotic wide-eyed grin of a monster about to inflict pain and destruction. When she turned around, Katya saw a pure and gentle expression of overwhelming with joy.

“But I’m going to be.”