Dellen stretched his arms and legs and let out a sigh of relief.
“I didn’t think I could be relieved to be back here,” Gilgamesh said.
“I know,” Dellen said, reveling in moving without pain. By the end his skin had been shreds of black blotches and pain.
“Still, it means you’ve been going about this all wrong.”
“Oh?” Dellen said, not particularly irate. After four days of pain and torture, his body felt weightless.
“You stopped Thaddeus, and the attack, but it didn’t end the loop.”
Dellen frowned, his last few days had been a haze of pain, he’d been without the capacity to think of the future. “You’re right, but if that didn’t end the loop, what will?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. What if you’re supposed to help Thaddeus?”
Dellen felt his eyebrows rise of their own accord. “Help him? Help him destroy the city and kill people?” His words took on a winter chill.
“No, no, no,” Gilgamesh’s words took on a placating tone, “Thaddeus wants to leave the city, and he wants everyone else to be able to as well. Maybe we can find another way.”
Dellen drummed his fingers on the railing, “The city is an enormous machine that drains the region of Aether. What if we found a non-destructive method to stop the mechanism?”
“Wouldn’t Thaddeus have tried that?”
A thoughtful rumble came from Dellen’s throat, “Perhaps he did and failed.”
“And why would you succeed where he had failed?”
“Let’s send Maisy on her way and go see the Aetheric Cultivators, I have an idea.”
Hours later, he stood in the Aetheric Cultivator’s library in front of Thaddeus.
“My name is Thaddeus Valtair, and I have been cultivating Aetheric Energy for three hundred and fifty years, you will tell me the truth or face the consequences.” His words dropped in the air like stones falling from the sky. “How did you forge yourself?”
“I was trying to get your attention,” Dellen said, going off script.
Thaddeus’s brows drew together, “My attention? Why?”
“I need your help,” Dellen said, “I have a plan to escape the city, and I think you have the resources to help me put in place.”
“Your father didn’t.”
Dellen stumbled, “What?”
“You are Dellen Northcote, the son of Reginald Northcote, are you not?”
“Yes?” Dellen said, his answer a question as much as it was an affirmation.
“Your father had a plan to escape the city, then he died. Your grandfather went into seclusion and hung himself.”
Dellen put his hand on the wall on a wall to steady himself. “My, my, father was trying to help people escape Copperopolis?”
“Leave us,” Thaddeus said to Tristan and Aurelia.
Both Aetheric Cultivators gave wide-eyed nods and left.
Thaddeus led Dellen to a private room in the library, “Corthos, see that we aren’t disturbed.” He pointed at a chair, “Maybe you should sit down.”
Dellen sat. He felt that he’d lost control of the conversation. “My father and my grandfather were trying to escape Copperopolis?”
“Indeed. They had approached me a year or two ago with a plan. It had some flaws, but was ultimately worth pursuing.” Thaddeus pulled a face, “Then your father died under the city.”
“My father was under the city?”
The words seemed to hang in the air, ringing in his ears like the chime of a clock tower. "My father was under the city?" Dellen's voice was but a whisper. His mind spun, a whirlwind of disbelief and bewilderment as the implications of Thaddeus’s words sank in. “Did someone kill him, did something eat him, or was he overwhelmed by the Aether in one of the columns?”
Thaddeus drew back in surprise, “What do you know of the Aether under the city?”
“I,” Dellen began, still feeling as though a rug had been swept out from beneath him, “I know that there are support columns beneath the cogs, filled with Aether, that they pull it from the country around Copperopolis, and I believe it’s used to drive the city and the mining in the chasm beneath.”
“Yes,” Thaddeus said, “The city provides an incredible mechanical advantage.”
Dellen stared at the table between them, his thoughts skipping. “Were the Northcotes trying to destroy the city?”
“Destroy?” Thaddeus said, drawing out the word and steepling his fingers, “No, just stop the Aether harvest.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“You need to take a moment and breathe,” Gilgamesh said.
Dellen spared a glance at Gilgamesh and nodded, “Stop the Aether harvest. That’s what I want to do too. I want what you want.”
“Oh, and what is it that I want, lad?”
“I want to forge, I want to advance, I want to excel.” Dellen flexed his steelskin-covered hands. This is just the barest beginning of what we can be. I refuse to let this city choke off my growth.”
“Do you have the steel that your family lacked?” Thaddeus’s voice was cautiously curious.
“I want your help to explore the undercity, find the control mechanism, and shut off the machine.”
“It can’t be shut off,” Thaddeus said.
Dellen shook his head in disagreement, “Every machine can be shut off.”
“Not this one. The control mechanism is in a column saturated with an unfamiliar kind of Aether. Everyone who has tried to reach the controls has died,” Thaddeus locked eyes with him, “Many of my people tried and failed.” Pain passed over his features, “Some of my brightest, bravest, and most promising apprentices.”
“An unfamiliar Aether?” Gilgamesh said, “Do you think?”
“I can manage the unfamiliar Aether,” Dellen said.
Thaddeus shook his head, “That’s impossible.”
Dellen cocked his head, “In the same way that it’s impossible to forge your entire body in a single attempt?”
Thaddeus’s eye twitched.
“Have Captain Thatch take us to the controls and give me a chance to shut everything off.”
Surprise and alarm flickered across Thaddeus' face like fleeting shadows, momentarily transforming his features. His eyes widened, and his eyebrows shot up, creating deep furrows on his forehead. His lips parted slightly, forming an 'O' shape, as if words struggled to escape.
“How do you know about Thatch?”
Dellen ignored the question, “Do we have an agreement? Will you show me where the controls are?”
Thaddeus sat still and stunned in his chair, then he reached out with his hand, “You can have your chance.”
They shook.
Three hours later, the Nightingale floated in the abyss beneath Copperopolis, floodlights pointed at the control mechanism.
The control mechanism was not just a room, it was an orchestral suite of engineering genius tucked away within the muscular heart of the city's central support column. An intricate marvel of design, it was difficult to imagine what to touch first.
As the Nightingale's floodlights bathed it in a pale, incandescent glow, the sheer magnitude of the control room became apparent. It was larger than Dellen had anticipated. He had envisioned something simple, maybe a lever to be pulled. There were levers, dozens of them. The space was an intricate blend of metal, Aether conduits, and pulsating lights, all of which seemed to mimic the rhythm of a living, breathing organism.
Access to this vital hub was via a single heavy-duty door, forged from a seamless slab of copper-infused steel.
Arrays of windows dotted the room. Each provided a view into the busy interior where consoles, dials, levers, and buttons twinkled and flashed, waiting for skilled hands to manipulate them. In the floodlights' unforgiving glow, it was a sight to behold, formidable yet mesmerizing, a testament to the ingenuity of Copperopolis' founders. Dellen couldn't help but feel a sense of awe and trepidation as he beheld it.
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Thaddeus said.
“You gave your word that you would let me try.”
Thaddeus looked at the metal, then at Dellen, and shook his head. "Thatch," he growled, his voice echoing ominously through the cavernous space. "Get out of here.” The command was sharp, an ironclad order that Thatch obeyed without question, her hands moving on the controls, piloting the Nightingale further from the supports under the city.
Dellen didn't hesitate, didn't allow himself time to second-guess his actions. With a rush of adrenaline, he broke into a sprint. His feet found the edge of the deck, and he pushed. He was suddenly airborne, free-falling into the abyss.
His heart lurched in his chest, terror gripping him for a split second before he reached for the Aether. A surge of Electrical Aether coursed through him, a wave of power that sent tingles down his spine. He focused his thoughts, forced the Aether to his hands and feet, and manipulated it to form a magnetic pull. The Aether reacted instantly, arresting his downward momentum and pulling him towards the massive metallic structure rushing past him.
Dellen slammed into the support column. His hands and feet held onto the vertical surface through magnetism alone.
Chronometric Aether poured into him.
Time stopped.
An almost familiar vision of a clock, hands frozen and still, dominated his mind’s eye.
Aether surged into his hands and out his feet. Copper followed.
Dellen observed it flooding into him, tendrils wrapped around his bones, his skin incorporated copper, taking on a deeper metallic sheen. Metal caressed his heart, lacing its way through it, ductile threads strengthening it. The flow of copper and Aether spread to his lungs, his stomach, and spreading through his body, forging his organs.
The second hand of the clock ticked forward.
Dellen’s hands shot forward, pulling him up.
Copper continued to flood into his body, leaving tiny dimples in the column where his hands had been.
The clock ticked forward again, Dellen climbed.
His heart beat once in his chest, the copper-enriched Aether flowed further into Dellen, continuing its relentless journey. Like rivers branching out across his body, it permeated every part of him, reinforcing his muscles and infusing his nerves. A single breath was a mechanical symphony, the copper coiling around his ribs, the Aether singing through his lungs.
The glacial tick of the clock was his heartbeat, his lifeline, a metronome to his climb. His perception warped, twisted under the influence of the Chronometric Aether. Time was a tangible entity, a current that he swam against.
His fingers dug into the column, leaving the telltale imprint of his touch as he went up.
The constant flow of copper and Aether continued unabated, seeping into every nook and cranny of his body. It was painful, exhilarating all at once. But despite the sensation of his body being remade, Dellen kept climbing. His hand reached the door to the control room.
The clock ticked, and Dellen drew up alongside the door, his heart pounded even within the slow time he crawled through.
He hazarded a glance down. The column went down, and down, disappearing into the darkness. He swallowed, banishing steam squid and other denizens from his thoughts.
Wrapping his fingers around the door’s handle, he slid it open and stepped into the control room.
The surge of Chronometric Aether in his body faded.
The sensation of time's flow returning to its usual cadence washed over Dellen like a swift, cold current. He felt a momentary disorientation, a stark contrast between the heightened reality he'd just left behind and the quiet, humming normality of the control room.
His boots echoed subtly on the metal-plated floor, their noise swallowed by the expansive room and a thick layer of dust. It was quieter than he expected, with the low, constant hum of machinery. Dim lighting pulsed from panels overhead, throwing long shadows over the arrays of dials and controls, casting a cool, ethereal glow throughout the room.
The room was large, yet somehow it felt compact. Everything seemed purposefully placed, each lever, dial, and button. There was a sense of perfect harmony, a rhythm to the gentle hum of the machinery and the pulsating lights. This was the city's nerve center, the place where it was kept in balance, its functions managed and directed.
Dellen surveyed the controls before him, unsure of where to begin.