Colborn Wedgecraft stood on the bridge of his personal Gearmonger installation, which was located on a floating asteroid made of solid Anthracite Coal.
In truth, there were three other, smaller asteroids that were chained to his flagship facility by invisible bonds of gravity and Flux. They were made of solid Graphite, Lignite and Bituminite Coals respectively.
Outside of his tower’s reinforced stained-glass windows was one of Paraburn’s moons — Llanbog. The other moon, located on the opposite side of the planet, was Llanbat.
In local Paraburnese mythology, Llanbog and Llanbat were the bastard twins of two of the gods of the elemental quartet. There was speculation as to which of the four had birthed the twins through incestual relations, but there was no definitive legend.
Regardless, as the bastard twin gods, Llanbog and Llanbat supposedly governed the elements of lightning and ice. Of course, that was all just stories for tykes and ‘scholars.’ Everyone knew that the now extinct Gearmongers were the only gods to have ever come to Fogum’s Forge.
Normally, Colborn would be in his stasis chamber, instead of staring out at the turning of the moon. However, he’d been pulled out of his deep slumber because of some recent news about his hometown’s latest destruction.
“Hanged Gods, I haven’t been back to Arcwatch in centuries…” he commented aloud as memories of his time as a mortal returned to him.
Towards the end of his natural lifespan, he didn’t have the most accurate of recollections. He’d been in a state of oblivion while he was in the process of becoming…more than just a mere meatsack.
He clenched his low titanium fist, admiring the light purple shine of his metallic exterior. While he did have a single dark titanium Gear in his heart, he was still categorized as a low titanium Gearfiend. It may not have been the strongest rank of fiend there was, but he was still plenty powerful to hold the position of custodian for one of the most challenging Gearmonger installations this side of the Fogum’s Forge star system.
Even after commandeering this installation known as the Fourth Azure Prison for himself, Colborn had been stuck at this level of his development for ages.
Hopefully…the news that awoke him would present a worthwhile opportunity. Besides, it’s not like he had anything better to do than hibernate.
In the beginning of his long journey of advancement — when he first awoke from the hydro chamber that his son, Zebulon, had built — Colborn was nothing but a low cobalt Gearfreak. That time had been…disorienting.
And, maybe, he’d gone just a wee bit berserk.
Honestly, those early memories were spotty at best. He knew that his son stopped him from running amok. But when Colborn grew too powerful, he broke away from the hindrance that was his offspring.
Since then, he’d clawed his way up the ladder towards true immortality.
He slogged through the early Gearfreak ranks, equipping himself with five Bituminite-level Gears with grit and determination. But when it came time to upgrade them to Anthracite-level, he was forced to rely on splicing the genetic material from his descendents who’d been nothing but failures in his eyes.
For that, he’d had to return to Arcwatch and hunt down as many of his remaining children and grandchildren that he could find. In his mind, they had it coming for having forsaken him so long ago in his time of need.
By sacrificing their flesh, Colborn was able to equip five fully kitted out Anthracite-level Gear pieces without losing his mind to Coal toxicity like so many of the weaker bionic bastards that the plebeian Tinkers were more familiar with.
His last big break had been when he was able to obtain some organic material from his son, Zebulon. Just a small sample of the lad’s flesh had provided Colborn the tools he needed to break into the Gearfiend rankings and assimilate his sixth piece of Gear.
Since then, he’d replaced his various integral and adaptive Gears with increasingly higher quality versions, though his last augmentation had been more than a century ago now.
Colborn’s growth had stagnated. And it irked him.
How could he ever hope to ascend to the ultimate rank of Gearmonger and remake this star system in his image if he couldn’t add any more dark titanium pieces to his bionic frame?
If only he was able to obtain more of Zebulon’s flesh, then maybe Colborn would be able to improve once again.
Unfortunately, his son was powerful in his own right. Zebulon roved across the Fogum’s Forge star system and beyond, frustratingly out of Colborn’s reach.
As he observed the rotation of Llanbog moon, his thoughts drifted back to Arcwatch and its recent destruction. If his guess was correct — and it always was — the city had been razed for the harvesting of Gears and genetic material for whoever was the Gearfiend that held power in the area.
The last time he was personally on Crankedge, the Gearfiend that claimed Arcwatch had been Sikandar. At that time, the custodian was a dark steel Gearfiend. However, Colborn was certain that Sikandar must have risen since then.
In any case, if the custodian of the Slate Vaults had harvested the meatsacks of Arcwatch, then he was currently flush with organic materials for splicing.
Maybe it was time for one of Colborn’s personal subordinates to pay his homeworld a visit…
As a custodian himself, Colborn was entitled to 13 of his own lieutenants — one for each type of metallic alloy. He’d spliced them together himself, crafting their combination of flesh, machinery and Fluxcoding with his own two hands until he had 13 Gearfreaks to act as his hands.
They were linked to the Fourth Azure Prison just as surely as Colborn was.
Without taking his gaze from the turning of the moon, Colborn summoned his brassteel lieutenant, Dusear.
He didn’t have to wait long as the image of a metallic frog-faced Gogglemoran appeared on a projection before his eyes. “You called, master?”
Dusear may have originally been from Gogglemore, but because of Colborn’s skill with splicing, Dusear no longer had to live inside of an insulated water tank. Most of the Gogglemoran’s internal organs had been replaced by powerful brassteel integral Gears. Now, the clanker simply summoned his personal mechanized exoskeleton at his convenience.
“You’ve heard of my hometown’s destruction, yes?” Colborn inquired.
Dusear nodded on the projection. “Yes, master. Golina was the one who detected the heliographic wavelength that came from whatever device you left behind in the city. I believe she was also the one who awoke you.”
“That she did. As her reward, she was allowed to harvest a border city on Paraburn for her own needs to supply whatever projects she might be working on. In that same vein, I have a task for you and if you perform admirably, then I will reward you as well.”
While no facial expression could be seen through Dusear’s metal-sculpted mask, his tone betrayed his enthusiasm, “Of course, master! I await your command.”
“Take a cruiser to Crankedge and sift through the rubble of Arcwatch. I want you to find some genetic material from any descendants of mine that died during the Gearmonger invasion. Barter with Sikandar if you have to. You will have my full support as well as the backing of the Fourth Azure Prison in whatever you do.
Return here with those materials and you will have your reward.”
Dusear nodded eagerly, “Consider it done and dusted, master.”
----------------------------------------
“Blast it all, Reina! Move outta the fraggin’ way! You’re ruinin’ my shot!” Thode Stoolbottom yelled at his begrudging temporary partner.
He was a swarthy Paraburnese man with almond-shaped eyes and blue-tinted hair held back by a pair of goggles on his forehead. Clad in his traditional brown scaled-leather bomber jacket — a gift from his pops who’d passed away a decade ago — he never hunted Gearmongers without it. Underneath that, he had on a flexweave undershirt laced with dark cobalt ringlets that were pretty much resistant against anything that the Gearmonger automatons in this mineshaft could throw at him. As for his legs, they were covered by drab doubletwill trousers tucked into the tops of his prosthetic brassteel knees.
His hand shook with frustration as he pointed one of his weaker guns at his partner’s back, looking for a clean shot. Hanged Gods…he really hated thinking of the ex-heiress as his ‘partner.’ It left a bad taste in his mouth.
Terra Firma Pistol (High-Grade Gadget)
Status: Operational
Charge: 100%
This sturdy pistol is made of alloyed low steel and brassteel, imbued with an Earth Flux cartridge. Its bullets are highly condensed stone, which, upon impact, release a shockwave that can knock down even the most resilient of foes. Reload time: 0.5 sec per bullet, 3 sec per round of 6 shots.
Not so long ago, this pistol would have made him giddy inside. It was a solid high-grade Gadget. But now that he was kitted out with enough high end Gadgetry to make even a Gearlord jealous, this pistol was nothing but a throwaway weapon. One that he was forced to use so that he didn’t accidentally kill his temporary teammate.
“Shut it, ya grease monkey! I’ve got this one!” Reina Gunnslow called over her back.
She was a petite, avian Noxdennite wearing a steely beak-mask that allowed her to breathe in any atmosphere, while her black feathered wings draped over her shoulders and down her back like a dark cape. Beneath them, she wore a black depthsuede trench coat with silver trim. The ruffles of a frilly flexweave shirt peeked out from under her collar, which was tucked into some fitted scaled leather pants reinforced with ringmail. Meanwhile, a pair of dark steel sabatons protected her feet and shins.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Her right Gear arm had transformed into a fiery saber, which she used in conjunction with a makeshift hook that had replaced her lost left hand.
With both weapons, she brawled against a sleek mechanized tiger, otherwise known as a Gearmonger sentry. She battled with the construct’s vicious brassteel maw and wicked barbed tail. Her movements weren’t as skilled as they could be and if her old trainer were here, Reina would have been scolded.
She was still learning to use the hook hand that Thode had engineered for her. It wasn’t anything fancy. Not even a proper Gadget. It was just brassteel with bits of dark steel alloyed within. Thode refused to use any better materials for something so mundane.
Reina’s hook hand parried the tiger-sentry’s lashing tail as she twisted her torso to slash upward with her Gear-saber at an angle. Her opponent evaded with an unnatural contortion of its body in a way that only a clockwork machine was capable of.
Growling under her breath, Reina used every ounce of augmented strength provided by her heart and spine Gears to kick the blasted construct away from her. It skidded backwards and she pounced after it, unwilling to give her enemy the opportunity to use any of its onboard weapons.
In the meantime, Thode had given up trying to end the fight swiftly. What was the point? They’d been cleaning up the riffraff that had overflowed from nearby Gearmonger ruins around the city of Glokham for a month now and they still hadn’t found their rhythm as ‘partners.’
Yes, the quotations were necessary.
It was the only way he could stomach the term.
So instead, Thode busied himself with sweeping away spider drones with Fire and Lightning Flux from his mechanical legs. With the tier of upgrades in his Coreforged Walkers, it was a simple matter to crush the brassteel chassis of the metallic insects.
On occasion, he’d fire an icy laser beam to thin the herd of drones that scuttled around the room looking for an opportunity to strike at him or at Reina.
It was boring work, but somebody had to do it. The ex-heiress of the now destroyed House Gunnslow sure wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. And Zeb, Thode’s gyroscopic grandpa, had already berated him once for letting Reina fend for herself. So what if she almost died? It would’ve been one less mouth to feed.
He wasn’t just doing this for her or Zeb’s benefit though. His newest left Gear eye needed to be assimilated further. Now that his set of eyes and ears was complete, he needed to fully integrate the pair of them.
Beholder’s Audioscopes (Upgradeable Gear)
Lignite Coal: Ice (89%), Lightning (93%)
Integration: 82%
A set of integral Gears, these dark cobalt eyes and ears give the user hypersensitive hearing with sonar mapping and advanced visual acuity capable of sight in every environmental condition. This set of Gears also acts as a personal hub that can be linked to up to 36 Gadgets as a remote activator, displaying each Gadgets’ operational status.
The right eye gives you access to an elemental laser beam based on the Coal in its furnace. It also provides an item classifier and a targeting reticle. Current laser: Ice Beam, Lignite-level. Recharge time: 5 sec
The left eye allows you to perceive events in slow motion on command, giving you a tactical advantage in combat or other situations where quick reflexes are needed. It also emits a powerful magnetic field, which can be used to attract or repel metallic objects within a 12 pace radius. This power can be used to manipulate machinery or to deflect incoming attacks. Recharge time of electromagnetic field: 5 sec
Upgrades of right eye:
* Corneal Steel Overlay (High-Grade): -50% Coal usage.
* Tincture Tracer (High-Grade)
Upgrades of left eye:
* Kinetic Brassteel Amplifier (High-Grade): +50% Flux output
* Ring of Recall (High-Grade): Tuned to three specific objects.
* Gyroscopic companion
* Energizing Grenadier’s Bandolier
* Scaled leather bomber jacket
With the addition of his left eye and ear to complete the set, the old features of his right eye were enhanced significantly. On top of that, he now had some actual defensive capabilities. The magnetic shield deployed from his left eye and ear gave him some much needed protection against all kinds of metallic objects like murderous robots or ex-heiresses that tried to punch him in the face all the time.
And because of how high he’d assimilated with his right eye, adding his new left eye barely put a dent in his overall integration rate.
By the Depths, it hadn’t even been as arduous as the first time. Since his right eye and ear were 100% integrated, the left side just had to connect with the dark cobalt pathways already formed in his brain. He only needed a couple of anesthetic potions to get the job done.
Now, his hand-eye coordination was even better than it had been. Plus, he was able to add a plethora of upgrades to his Gear set.
All in all, surviving the invasion and subsequent destruction of his home city of Arcwatch had left Thode more powerful than ever.
A dozen spider drones threw themselves at him and a pulse of his magnetic shield knocked them back. Then, he swept his icy gaze to freeze them in a mangled clump like some awkwardly shaped ice sculpture.
As he stepped over the frozen mess, he cast a glance back at Reina who was still jumping around on a frenetic clash against the tiger-sentry. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. She was skilled enough to handle the smaller wolf-sentries on a regular basis, but these tigers were a step up and still required her full attention. Meanwhile, he would have finished the fight with a couple of well placed shots from his pistol if she wasn’t in the blasted way.
Fortunately, his boredom was about to be taken care of. His sonar picked up some enemies lumbering towards them from deeper in the mine’s passages.
Zeb was riding in its personal ant drone, crawling upside down along the tunnel’s ceiling to serve as their scout. His gyroscopic companion sent back information of the new threat straight to Thode’s Gear eyes.
Finally, something more interesting to fight.
They’d taken a contract out from Glokham’s delver’s union — the Copper Crosses — to clear out a nest of Gearmongers that had been left to fester and ended up forming a series of mining tunnels.
He hadn’t even known there were fraggin’ unions until he came to Glokham. According to Reina, they used to exist in middle and central Arcwatch too, however, since Thode only ever lived in the slums of the Crumbles, he never had the opportunity to find that fact out.
Regardless, they were here now.
Thode dashed past Reina and her fight against the tiger-sentry. He heard her cry out some snarky comment to his back, but he ignored it. His opponents were just up ahead, further down the tunnel.
“I’m comin’, Zeb. Keep those two in your sights for me,” he said in a hushed voice, though he knew his companion would hear it since they were linked through his Beholder’s Audioscopes. It wasn’t long before he came across where the tunnel split in three directions. Luckily, Zeb was already pointing him to the leftmost one.
Without breaking stride, his feet pounded down the indicated tunnel. The echoes from his own footsteps provided the noise his sonar needed to map the place as he ran. The Gearmongers had excavated quite a bit of underground space, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Must be a pocket of Coal somewhere that we don’t know about.
Unlike Arcwatch, the hills and mountains surrounding Glokham were rife with Gearmonger constructs that had overrun the local ruins and spilled out into the countryside. The reason for that mostly boiled down to population.
The city of Glokham was literally a fifth the size of Arcwatch. That translated to fewer delvers to dig into ancient Gearmonger ruins to salvage spare parts, Gadgets, Gears and Coal. Less loot coming out meant less Gadgets to kit out delvers and that meant fewer people capable of fighting Gearmongers.
It was a vicious cycle.
Compounding further, when the ant drones in said ruins had a surplus of supplies, they apparently continued to pump out mechanical creatures nonstop, thus resulting in spider drones and sentries roaming the environs around the city.
Thode could barely fathom how the citizens of Glokham could sleep so soundly behind their massive silicon stone walls when there was a veritable legion of Gearmongers prowling just outside their front door. Even after living in the city for a month, he still slept with one eye open for fear that the blasted mechanical monsters would invade.
Although…maybe that had more to do with the nightmares that kept plaguing his dreams ever since he lived through Arcwatch’s destruction…
He shook his head to clear those thoughts as he ran. The pair of bear-sentries he was pursuing were just up ahead and even with his most recent improvements, he would need to focus when fighting these mechanized behemoths in the tight confines of this mining shaft. He wasn’t looking to have the entire blasted passageway fall on top of his head.
Rounding a bend, he caught sight of his enemies trundling towards him before they saw him. A frosty laser beam immediately slammed into the right mechanical bear, flash-freezing its head and shoulders and taking it out of commission right off the bat.
The one beside it reacted instantaneously, clamping its metallic claws into the packed dirt of the tunnel to ground itself. Then, in the next clock tick, a pair of shoulder mounted heavy machine guns opened fire. Fortunately, Thode was already dodging to the side as roaring Fluxfire filled the space he was just in.
He wished his magnetic shield could protect him from the elemental discharge, but that was just a pipe dream. Instead, he vented fiery electricity from his prosthetic legs and closed the gap in a single breath.
Luckily, his shield could affect the actual metallic body of the bear-sentry itself, so as it tried to swivel in his direction, Thode pulsed his shield and knocked it off kilter.
His ploy didn’t do much since the bear was clamped to the ground, but it did disrupt its Fluxfire. Then, in the next heartbeat, Thode’s brassteel knee caught it upside the head.
Its metallic cheek dented inward from the impact and Thode followed up with a blazing kick with his other leg, delivering enough force that its front paws were actually ripped from the ground. The bear-sentry turned its stumble into an attack by rearing up onto its hind legs and swiping at him.
He desperately twisted out of the way and fired an icy stream of energy at its chest, neck and shoulders. Within a couple of clock ticks, the upper half of the looming construct was a block of ice that tipped its whole body backwards to crash onto the floor in a resounding whoomph.
Neither of the sentries were actually glitched, their important parts were just frozen solid so they couldn’t function at full capacity. Hanged Gods bless ‘em though, they still tried.
Their hind paws scraped along the hard packed dirt in an attempt to gain some traction, but since half their bodies were ice cubes, they didn’t get anywhere. Electrical flames roared out of the vents in his brassteel calves and he promptly put them down with Fire and Lightning Flux — half melting and half short-circuiting them.
With practiced efficiency, he went ahead and dismantled their mechanical carcasses to get to their inner furnaces so he could extract the hunks of elemental Coal that powered them. A quick burst of flames melted his own ice, then he swiftly salvaged their onboard weaponry as well.
No reason to leave perfectly good loot just lying around for someone else to profit off of. After all, he wasn’t running a charity here.
He unholstered a compact Gadget the size of a brick from his bandolier, then triggered its expansion. In a complicated series of clicks and clacks, he held a medium-sized storage container about a pace and a half tall and only half a pace wide — otherwise known as a Canister of Feathers.
After loading up the best bits of loot from the bear-sentries, Thode checked in with the rustbucket. “How’s it lookin’, Zeb? We clear?”
“Aye, lad. But you need to shift it to where the tunnel dead ends. Oh, and bring your pickaxe,” his companion replied over the radio built into his dark cobalt ears.
With an exasperated sigh, Thode grabbed another compact Gadget from his utility bandolier, which actually did unfold into a Piston-Powered Pickaxe.
“Be right there.”