No additions had been made to Makoto’s macabre menagerie since the last time Sunwhisper had visited the graveyard. His fathers, or what was left of them, were still arranged in a neat row. The border guardian had originally looted them for whatever he saw as valuable, which meant anything that could be converted into mana currency. The mechanoborgs, however, had been a dry well as far as mana had been concerned.

Makoto had stripped them of most of their gold and crystalline components, as far as he had recognized them, for those things had value of a kind anywhere that humanity survived. Crystalline structures in general could be worked into cabochons and used for mana storage, but most of what he had found inside the mechanoborgs had been unrecognizable and therefore undesirable.

The border guardian had no use for quantum GPUs, and those had all decayed to the point of uselessness by this juncture in any case. Sunwhisper was not able to retrieve any more memories, and the part of Starscream that had dared to hope he would be able to plug-and-play himself into a new body of his own was disappointed.

The high magic density of this world caused the wondrous sciences of earth to wither off the vine.

(At least the spears work.) The retraction mechanism of Sunwhisper’s spear was simple enough to survive the steroidal entropy of Hollow, at least for now. They collected the whole set from Syringe’s equipment, light enough to carry, and a good source of titanosteel if they could envision a way to generate the temperatures necessary to work it properly.

They were able to salvage a cart from what had been the baggage train. After stripping it of its more complex systems, it was still far superior to a travois. Sunwhisper could pull it by himself, even after they had stacked it with rare metals and dense plating collected from the bodies of his fathers.

(I’m not going to get a nano-factory up and running anytime soon, but we can still use this stuff. If we disassemble one of Betamax’s quarrying guns, I bet I can get it to go boom again with a mana battery.)

{You want to attach it to your web?}

(Have to scale it down, but yeah, cultivator arrays are regular and reticular, it’s not just chaos. They can be reverse engineered, and the two of us are just the pair of robots for the job once I give you a primer in the fundamentals. If anything, cultivator science is way simpler than real science. Hands down. As long as we get a chance to breathe, I think we can exploit the crap out of this universe.)

Sunwhisper collected everything Starscream thought they could use while still being able to pull the cart. There was some shuffling of components at the end, and some plating had to be removed due to weight concerns, but after a few hours in the graveyard, they were ready to move again.

"I never realized how many demons had come to our border," Janna said. She hadn’t been able to help much with disassembly, so she had done a few patrols with Ogumo and Karasu. "This place is endless."

"Worms…" Ogumo rasped, "were worms." There were bluish fluids around his mouth from repeatedly feeding on the oversized parasites. Sunwhisper wasn’t sure if the giant annelids were native to Hollow, or if they were something that had been brought along inside some of the more alien aliens on display in the graveyard, but either way, they were attracted to movement.

It was a reminder of how far he’d come that his companions had been able to handle a few random encounters without disturbing his work. The worms couldn’t feed on mechanoborgs, and many of the other visitors from the Tree of Heaven appeared untouched as well, so it was likely the worms only fed on what they instinctively recognized as sustenance.

Janna had looked for the remains of Starscream’s exploratory party, but they had either been relegated to a different quarter of the graveyard or far more thoroughly disassembled than Sunwhisper’s fathers. There had been no sign of more mechanoborgs, or of anything else that resembled a machine or modern earth technology.

"I think we have what we need," Sunwshisper said.

(Autobots, roll out.)

********

After the last incident at the warehouse, when an unknown assailant wielding a metal spear had battered and insulted the servants of the Azai while stealing yet more of the Soma crop, the First Elder had ordered the stores be emptied and the town’s supply of spirit fruit be moved to his personal treasure room. It was far more secure than the warehouse, but he disliked drawing attention to the fact that he kept treasures more valuable than the annual harvest beneath his home.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

It would be too much temptation for some.

The metal spear had been an important detail. When Kuei had finally returned from the disastrous hunt, she had shared all she had learned of Makoto Shishio. It was little enough, and though the description of the new thief did not match that of the young cousin of Makoto, the spear they both carried was unmistakable.

So the boy had some means of disguising himself. Not unheard of, but a surprising skill for a novice. Unless, of course, he wasn’t a novice.

Lady Makoto had expressed interest in her elder cousin’s recent activities regarding the Jin ward. Then the border guardian had disappeared. It was a mystery the First Elder did not have time for.

The Azai emissary had been appeased after much bowing and scraping and an ulcer inducing addition to the tithe, the thought of which still caused him to grit his teeth. But it was hard to say what Lady Makoto really thought about anything.

She had odd tastes, and a cold heart. It often seemed that she was as inhuman as her chitinous companion, Ise Ebi, for all that she wore the skin of an attractive young woman. The crime itself had seemed to be no real offense to her, and the increase in the tithe a matter of formality.

Her hatred of local plays was well known, and the First Elder usually enjoyed using decorum to force her to sit through them, but this time he had been happy to send her on her way as soon as possible.

The fact that the hunt had been unsuccessful was no heartbreak, but the idea that Dappo had died while two unstarred thieves had survived had been difficult to stomach. Kuei’s account was incomplete, as the spider had disabled her early in the final battle. She had returned with the scars to prove it.

Makoto Shishio had made some kind of bargain with the demon, or else been possessed by it. That was what she believed, but it might well have been a delusion brought about by blood loss. The First Elder remembered well the origins of the Red Spider, who had begun to harrow the town shortly after the deaths of the men of iron.

From the more careful descriptions they had collected, he and Makoto had come to the conclusion that the Red Spider was actually something left behind from the purging of those demons.

It was hard to imagine such a creature possessing a cultivator, when it was not a thing of flesh and blood itself, but of nameless metals and strange fluids, without a real spirit of its own.

Kuei had come to him again. Eager to prove herself after her failure, she had offered to go after Shishio and the Jin girl, but the First Elder had declined. For whatever reason, Lady Makoto had insisted that she handle them herself, and the Azai could do what they wanted. The thieves were as good as dead, and he was glad to have it out of his hands.

But Kuei had other news this time.

"Honored elder, there is word of the barbarians."

"You mean the bandits you came across on Jigoku? You have already told me of them." The First Elder had no desire to hear of the men of Goth, not when hot tea awaited him in his private room. The audiences he was forced to accept as a part of his duties were mentally exhausting to the point where he longed for the days of his youth, when every challenge could be met with a raised eyebrow and a clenched fist.

With age and maturity came diplomacy, patience, and consideration. The Gomen family had come to him with another complaint about the Jin that morning, and he was growing tired of both. Perhaps he would allow them a public duel to settle disputes between their bloodlines once and for all. It would be fair enough now that both father’s sported similar injuries from the Reaping.

"Honored elder, I do not know what became of those men. They scattered in the caves when the fighting became too desperate for us to control them. As you know, I have been patrolling the foothills. Of late, there have been unusual signs."

"Don’t belabor it, Kuei. What have you seen?"

The brawny woman tapped her head to the floor before continuing. "Signs of large groups moving through the wood. Scarcity of prey. Worse, the hunting party has not returned."

"They left only recently."

"A week, honored elder, when they were allotted only three days."

"You suspect the Spider?"

"That would not explain the signs. The barbarians we met on the mountaintop were bold enough to attack us. A large enough group, against inexperienced hunters, could have proven a threat."

"Bandits come, then they die." The First Elder thought longingly of his tea. He would have to instruct his servant to warm it again. "It seems that their people have short memories, so that each new generation forgets we are their superiors in every way. If there was anything of value in that land I would lead a raid myself to teach them the lesson again."

"As you say, but I beg of your permission to investigate further.. The barbarians we captured before spoke of a warlord driving people before him out of Goth, and it is possible that entire communities have been displaced by him, and may be seeking new lives on our side of Jigoku."

"A warlord? A mortal, you mean." The First Elder snorted. "Do what you wish. I have no time to waste considering matters as low as these." Not when his tea was getting cold.

"Many thanks," Kuei bowed again. "I will not fail you."