No wonder House Sixsmith offered more than 10,000 CCs to anyone willing to slog through these Hanged Gods’ forsaken ruins, Thode thought bitterly, his revolver firing nonstop into the horde of spider-drones and sentries before him.
Vikta cleared their path, inching forward with brutal efficiency behind her shield, her double-bladed battleaxe cleaving constructs left and right. Barn protected her flanks with his mechanical hair-tentacles and his right Gear arm, which had turned into a spiked cannonball attached to a long chain that he continually flung into their enemies, then retracted it back.
The pair of them made a deadly pair, but there were just so many Gearmongers. It reminded Thode of being back in Arcwatch’s invasion only now, he was stuck in an underground chamber, feeling extremely claustrophobic.
Usually, Gearmonger ruins had about anywhere from 12 to 18 constructs per room of varying models. There was a formula to them, or so Thode had thought.
Each room was supposed to have a more powerful model of some sort, usually a sentry or three, accompanied by spider-drones or sling-shooters to serve as their back-up. There were supposed to be themes too. Trap rooms, challenge rooms, puzzle rooms, etc.
But because Glokham was so incredibly understaffed with decent delvers, these blasted ruins had only a single running theme — survive.
There were no traps for Thode and his team to trigger since the sheer number of scuttling metallic legs had activated them all. There were no complicated and deadly puzzles either. The Gearmonger constructs had overrun their original boundaries, breaking the puzzle mechanisms altogether. The whole ruin had become one long challenge room.
Heimo was almost lost in the crowd of burnished constructs since the Gogglemoran’s exoskeleton looked so similar to the Gearmongers. Fortunately, he was easy to single out. The clanker was just a walking pair of hoses, spewing streams of pressurized liquid from the various tanks on his chassis. His apothecary concoctions drenched their enemies in viscous fluids that produced different chemical reactions when combined with all of the Fluxfire going on.
Thode tossed an Earth Flux grenade on top of a group of spider-drones, which exploded into rocky shrapnel, while combining with Heimo’s potions to create a sticky morass that spread across more enemies. Beside him, Azuba’s twin forearm Gears had transformed into a hand cannon and a miniature gatling gun respectively. With Vikta and Barn clearing the way, Azuba was allowed to let loose with her Anthracite-level Gears. She alone tore through dozens of drones per minute, but drones were the least of their problem.
Every room and corridor they traveled down was packed to near-bursting with sentries — wolves, tigers, bears. “Vikta! Hang a left!” Azuba cried over the non-stop Fluxfire.
The crossbreed woman heard, but there wasn’t enough room to really maneuver quickly. So Vikta and Barn slowly mowed their way through the press of mechanical monsters.
Working in a team of this caliber actually made the sheer number of enemies manageable. Everyone here was powerful with fully upgraded Gears and ultra high-grade Gadgets. Honestly, Thode found this easier than surviving Arcwatch’s invasion. How could he not? With Vikta and Barn up front as well as the occasional refreshing burst of potion-spray from Heimo, this delve was less painful with fewer injuries than his normal runs. For Hanged Gods’ sake, he even felt comfortable enough to puff away on his pipe as he shot at Gearmongers.
“Reload!” Heimo called and the whole procession huddled in place. Thode casually lobbed a Fire Flux grenade over their heads that washed the enemies in front of Vikta and Barn in a wave of flames. Then, he pivoted to his left and fired a shotgun blast into the crowd of constructs, while his revolver shot Flux bullets into the heads of several wolf-sentries. Behind him, he could feel the vibrations from Azuba’s explosive Fluxfirepower that covered their group on that side.
An Air Flux grenade laid down some more suppressive fire on his side, until he heard the all-clear from Heimo again. It wasn’t just the clanker that reloaded, Vikta and Barn had too.
“Moving!” Vikta shouted and they were off again. Thode was fortunate that he had his bandolier. With it, he hadn’t really had to use his Gear pieces much, though technically his audioscopes and cardioverter were constantly working. So far, he’d been relying on his Gadgets, which he alternated between to allow his bandolier to recharge them when not being used. At some point, he would need to reload the harness, but not yet.
Speaking of…he discharged his shotgun and revolver one last time, then swiftly swapped them out.
Tempest Needle Gun (Ultra High-Grade Gadget)
Status: Operational
Charge: 98%
This sleek, needle-like pistol is a marvel of dark steel and low cobalt, equipped with a Coal furnace chamber that produces high-pressure Air and Earth Flux. It fires razor-sharp earthen needles infused with swirling winds that create miniature tornadoes upon impact. The gun’s pressure regulator and pneumatic system enhance the needles’ velocity, turning this pistol into a whirlwind of destruction. Able to fire four needles in a single volley. Reload time: 0.5 sec per volley, 3 sec for every 4 volleys
Seismic Boomstick (High-Grade Gadget)
Status: Operational
Charge: 100%
An advanced blunderbuss made of dark steel alloyed with brassteel, its projectiles are formed of hyper-condensed Earth Flux that tremble upon impact, creating shockwaves that shatters dark steel plate armor and below or knocks opponents down if they are impervious. Reload time: 1.5 sec.
He smiled at this pair of Gadgets. There were still a good handful that he’d stolen from that shopping plaza in Arcwatch that he hadn’t even used yet. And this delve was the perfect opportunity for him to try them all out.
His boomstick exploded amidst a trio of tiger-sentries, making them stumble before they could pounce. A double volley of needles followed close after, impaling their skulls and busting them wide open in a spray of cogs and bent wires with concentrated whirlwinds.
“Zeb, what’d’ya got for me?” he typed on their shared interface. His gyroscopic companion was cloaked and hovering above the team’s head to give Thode some reconnaissance. Technically, the sonar from his audioscopes had mapped the immediate area already, but the internal map was essentially worthless since it was just filled with a sea of red dots from all of the enemies.
“Well, I ain’t got good news, that’s for sure, boyo. This is one of the worst Gearmonger ruins this eye of mine has ever seen. How did these folks let it get this bad?” Zeb commented.
“The route, old man! Focus on the route that Azuba wants us to take!” Thode replied, exasperated, as he fired another volley of needles into a bear-sentry’s metallic hide. All around him, Fluxfire and destruction rained down onto the horde of Gearmonger constructs mostly because of Heimo’s widespread potion puddles that augmented everyone’s attacks along with Azuba’s overpowered Anthracite-level assault.
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“You’ve all gone haywire to be followin’ that blasted route, but maybe House Sixsmith knows somethin’ that I’m missin’. Who knows? Either way, every pace of corridor from where you’re at all the way up to the location of the next drop chute is chock full of constructs. There are Gearmongers everywhere — floor, walls, ceiling, you name it.”
“That doesn’t help, Zeb. Give me some targets. What’re we lookin’ at?”
“It ain’t good, I’ll tell you that much for free. The models are about to get tougher — more bears along with a couple of direwolves. You and your team are about to have your work cut out for you.”
Thode grumbled through the pipe in his mouth. It looked like this ride was about to get bumpier.
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Noxious fumes from Heimo’s numerous volatile potions filled the entire corridor, stealing fresh air from the team. Luckily, Vikta already had her helmet and Heimo was suspended in his water tank. However, Thode, Barn and Azuba had to activate their respective goggle-guards just to breathe.
It made carving out a path through the throngs of Gearmongers filthy business. Thode wasn’t having an easy time anymore. They’d taken two different drop chutes and had been fighting for hours at this point. Heimo and Thode were fortunate to both have heart Gears that supplanted their endurance, while Azuba was on the upper end of Gearmeister, so her body had naturally augmented stamina. However, their limiting factor was Vikta and Barn, who were starting to run on fumes, slowing the team’s pace to a crawl.
“We need to find a place to hunker down for the night, Azuba! We can’t keep going like this!” Thode called over his shoulder as he fired an arm-thick laser from his Powered Buster Cannon at a charging lion-sentry before it could reach their team. These were oversized tiger models with paws as large as Thode’s chest and a metallic mane that hid a number of miniature rockets.
His attack bowled the lion-sentry over, sending it crashing through numerous spider-drones. Unfortunately, it was only damaged, not scrapped. So, he had to switch to the smaller laser on his hand cannon and seared a line across its hide to keep it down.
It sparked and twitched while trying to stand, then was quickly run over by a stampeding rhino-sentry that crushed the lion’s hind quarters with its heavy foot stomps.
“We’re two doors away from a room that our House has a lock for,” Azuba cried out. “If you just get your head out of your blasted spout, you would know that! Now, you and Heimo slag that rhino and take down those two lions over yonder. I’ll lay down some cover!”
Thode growled from beneath his wide-brimmed bowler hat and his goggle-guards. He was still grumpy from having to ditch his pipe on the last floor. And Azuba’s barking orders weren’t helping either.
However, he swallowed his attitude and did what he was told. He wasn’t so glitched in the head that he was about to forfeit the CCs of this job just because he was feeling a wee bit vexed.
Electrical flames vented from his mechanical calves as he leapt over the heads of his team and dove straight into the fray of enemies. “Heimo! Potion me!” he cried over his shoulder, the electromagnetic rims on his feet allowing him to leapfrog from one construct’s head to another.
“Aye, aye,” the clanker called back, then lobbed large globules of dark blue and red liquid along Thode’s path after guessing his trajectory. Each globe burst into differently colored rain that drenched dozens of Gearmonger constructs at once.
Thode smirked beneath his goggle-guards, then gunned the vents on his Coreforged Walkers. He left a blazing trail of fiery lightning in his wake, igniting Heimo’s potions into rapidly spreading black foam that quickly hardened into something as stiff as stone like their enemies had just been buried in layers of solid tar.
The sound of high-pitched whistling pierced the corridor, the cogs and pistons in the rhino and lions whining loudly as they broke themselves free. Too bad for them, Thode was ready.
His pauldron unfurled into his Pewter Siege Cannon and he blasted the rhino straight in its face, shattering its horn, the mounted gatling gun attached to it and all of the inner circuitry that made the lumbering construct tick. The recoil from his bazooka launched him backward, though not before he flung a Lightning Flux grenade at one of the lions. In the next instant, a flashbang of crackling electricity swallowed the lion-sentry up, frying every circuit in its body.
Meanwhile, Thode skidded to a stop, using some of the buried spider-drones as a bumpy landing strip. One more lion left, he thought, annoyed, then leveled his Emberlance Revolver. In rapid succession, he unloaded a full clip of eight scorching hot bullets into the mechanized lion’s skull, melting its onboard circuits into complete slag.
“Heimo, how long is that asphalt gonna hold?” asked Vikta, her voice tired but resolute.
“We’ve got another two minutes on it if we hurry.”
Vikta nodded her helmeted head and looked to Azuba, “What did you say?”
“That should be enough time,” Azuba confirmed. “Heimo, lay down some more potions and Thode, light them up. The safe room is about 50 paces down.”
At the instructions, the Gogglemoran hopped up onto his asphalt and scurried over to where Thode stood waiting. “Alright, grease monkey, get those boots ready.” Thode gave Heimo a firm nod and immediately, the clanker hurled another four liquid globules, which bathed the next few paces worth of crawling spider-drones in dark blue and red liquid.
A bare clock tick later, Thode thundered down the line, igniting their enemies and burying them in more solid black asphalt. Just as he reached the last few of potion-drenched drones, another volley of Heimo’s liquid globules splattered the next stretch of constructs, giving Thode more runway.
Behind him, he heard Azuba’s authoritative voice, “The door should be right around that mound of scrap metal over there! You two keep clearing the way!”
“Aye, aye, maum,” Heimo replied in a happier tone than Thode would have. The clanker kept throwing liquid balloons, while Thode continued skating over the drones’ heads. Bringing up the rear, the last three members of their team busied themselves unleashing Fluxfire on the plethora of sling-shooters still swooping in and attacking them from the rafters of the corridor.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the whole team to get within a stone’s throw of the mound of junk.
Thode was the first to near it, spying the door to Azuba’s safe room buried behind the large pile of scrap metal. Another potion ball burst in front of him and he made a sharp turn, a wave of fiery electricity washing over Heimo’s concoction once more.
Asphalt quickly bubbled, then hardened, entombing the rest of the spider-drones in their way. “It’s over here!” he called, pointing urgently at the obstructed door.
Azuba hurried over, looking at where Thode indicated, “You four need to lay down some suppressive Fluxfire just in case the first few constructs break free. I need some time to get through its lock. House Sixsmith hasn’t used that safe room in years.”
“We’ve got you covered,” Barn reassured, his mechanical hair-tentacles whirring to life and fanning out in a living net. Azuba rushed to the door, squeezing herself in between the piles of scrap metal and the doorframe.
Meanwhile, Vikta stood before Barn, bashing her Gear-shield and -battleaxe together in anticipation. She was probably the most eager to take a rest since she was the main frontliner for their little group. Her armor had been scraped and dented in more places than Thode could count, though it could easily be repaired with a bit of hammering and some elbow grease. As for Thode and Heimo, they stood behind Barn, ready to add their ranged Fluxfirepower to whatever constructs came their way.
The sounds of everyone breathing heavily were broken up by the occasional angry mumbling coming from Azuba as she worked on the door. A few breaths later, cracking could be heard from the first group of constructs that had been trapped, their skittering legs finally digging themselves out.
Thode and Heimo swiftly stepped forward, then unleashed a Fluxfire salvo that tore the oncoming spider-drones up. It wasn’t long after that when more waves of mechanical constructs freed themselves and immediately beelined for the waiting team.
They easily took care of them though. Their enemies may have had the numbers, but they were all so weak, it almost didn’t matter. Vikta and Barn didn’t even have to bash any metallic heads in.
“Blast it all!” Azuba spat, “I need to clear some space out to get to the whole door.”
Her right forearm quickly transformed back into a hand cannon, which she pointed at the mound of scrap beside her. In the next clock tick, an earthshaking boom echoed in the entire corridor, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris.
Fortunately, everyone’s goggles were already shielding their eyes. So when a pair of glowing red orbs pierced through the haze, none of them missed it.
The menacing eyes slowly rose, higher and higher, the scrap metal shifting as whatever it was finally woke up. Half a breath later, the dust began to settle and those red eyes loomed far above them, almost brushing up against the corridor’s ceiling.
“Direbear!” Vikta called out in a panic. “It’s a direbear-sentry!!”