They hit an absolutely dynamo jackpot at the back of the underground passage. Whole hunks of Bituminite Coal in the Air, Water and Ice varieties had been strewn about. It was too bad that it looked like the Gearmongers had taken the largest chunks away already as evidenced by the broken up Coal deposits along the walls.
Despite that, they’d still left a good bit behind. So much so that Thode had to take out another Canister of Feathers just to fit it all. He assumed those bear-sentries were on their way to transport the last of it, but he clearly ruined their plans.
By the time he and Zeb made it back to the front of the mineshaft, he was smiling from ear to ear like he was high on tobac. That is, until he heard the echoes of fierce cursing that could only be coming from Reina.
He rolled his eyes, Hanged Gods help me…
Thode found her pouring over her fallen opponent, trying her hardest to dismantle its belly plate with her prosthetic hand and her hooked one. She wasn’t exactly the best at salvaging scrap parts yet.
However, it was just a product of her upbringing. An heiress to an influential House probably never had to get her hands dirty like this. And while she’d gotten better over the last month, she still wasn’t what he’d call ‘good’ or even ‘mediocre’ for that matter.
When Reina caught sight of him, she immediately berated him, “You left me again! You said you’d stop doing that. What if that sentry overpowered me? Who was gonna have my back then? Huh?”
Thode dropped his twin storage canisters then plopped down on the hard packed dirt and sparked up his pipe. He had to take a long drag of the local tobac from Glokham before he felt even remotely ready to deal with her.
“This is what you wanted, heiress. You wanted to go on contracts with me. Learn how to fight Gearmongers better. Get better acquainted with usin’ your hook-hand,” he said around the pipe in his mouth. “I told you I’d pay you back for that loan you gave me so I could join up with the Copper Crosses union. You didn’t have to keep followin’ me like a lost stray.”
Reina scoffed, “You think that I trust a grease monkey from the Crumbles like you? We had a deal, Thode! You teach me how to fight Gearmongers and I pay the CCs for your union membership. So far, I don’t feel like I’m getting much of a return! That tiger-sentry moved at crazy angles and with this blasted hook-hand…” she shook it at him to emphasize her point, “…I feel like I’m all thumbs!”
He shrugged off the insults. He was used to it after a whole month of hearing her squawk. “Look, heiress, I didn’t say you were gonna be some blasted prodigy all of a sudden. You and I fight in completely different ways. You’re better off usin’ a shotgun than that saber of yours, but that’s just my opinion. What do I know? I’ve just been delvin’ Gearmonger ruins for nearly half my life.”
“And like I’ve been telling you, I’ve trained my whole life for melee combat and dueling! I should be more than enough to fight these blasted machines!” she exclaimed. “It’s this fraggin’ hook, it’s gotta be! We need to find me another Gear arm to assimilate. Or at least a forearm. Anything would be better than this piece of scrap metal!”
“Gears don’t just grow on trees there, heiress. They grow underground in Gearmonger ruins and you ain’t ready to tackle a real one just yet. Besides, I still don’t know why you haven’t already bought some ultra high-grade potions to just regrow your blasted hand. I know you can afford it.”
Reina thrust her hook-hand in his direction, “I don’t want my old hand back. I want a new one. A Gear hand so I can have more weapons, Thode. Weapons to help me fight these blasted machines head-on!”
Thode blew some smoke rings around her hook, “Well then, go buy some. You’ve got all them CCs just burnin’ a hole in that big ol’ bank account of yours.”
“Ugh, where am I supposed to buy Gears?” she said dejectedly, her attitude suddenly deflating. “I don’t know Glokham. And I don’t want some rusted low copper Gear. I want something worth my while, though something like that would probably gouge me dry. My mother’s bank account might be padded, but it’s not bottomless.”
“Fine then, it sounds like we should just continue to do these contracts from the union. They’re a good start for you to gain more experience fighting Gearmongers. We get some CCs. And, I can’t stress this enough — nobody dies or gets hurt.”
She flopped onto the ground in defeat, “But it’s taking so long. I’ve barely made any progress in the last month. It feels like I’m back in the training yard with my old instructor.”
“Tche, I wish I had that kinda luxury growing up. I had to learn my lessons the hard way,” Thode commented bitterly. “Believe me, heiress, you’re better off learnin’ like this. The old man over there is a way worse instructor.”
“Oi! Don’t run my name in the mud, ya ungrateful tyke!” Zeb exclaimed from its position hanging upside down on the ceiling in its ant-drone frame. “I raised you to be a tough vexer, blast it! And look at you now — pushin’ the limits of Gearwhiz. Once you get 100% integration on those eyes of yours, we can think about upgrading you more!”
“Hey! What about me?” Reina interrupted. “What about my upgrades?”
Zeb dropped down from the ceiling to stand between the two of them and pointed its metallic pincer at Reina, “If you can’t take on a tiger-sentry and its little cubs with the Fluxpower you’re packin’ now, then you ain’t ready for more there, lass. You’re a blasted Gearace for cryin’ out loud. Melee specialist or not, hook-hand or not, none of these constructs should be givin’ you an issue.”
Reina spoke heatedly, “That’s why you guys should take me on a real Gearmonger delve! I could learn so much faster!”
Puffing on his pipe, Thode blew some more smoke in her direction. “Look here, heiress, the fact of the matter is — we’re better off thinnin’ the herd of Gearmongers strollin’ about the countryside before deciding to delve headfirst into their strongholds. I bet the hallways and forge rooms are gonna be filled to the brim with ‘em. And you can’t even deal with some spider drones and a tiger-sentry by yourself. How’d’you expect to fight twice that number?”
“That’s why we’re a team, you copperhead,” Reina replied, exasperated. “You’re supposed to cover for me.”
“How in the Depths am I gonna cover for you if you keep gettin’ in the way of my shots?” Thode retorted. “You keep wantin’ to fight the biggest baddie in the bunch, but you’re just wastin’ time and Coal reserves.”
“Who cares?! I’ve got access to the full bank account of House Gunnslow! It’s not like anyone else can use it — you made sure of that. I might not be able to afford some high-end Gear pieces, but I can buy all the Coal I need,” she said in a huff.
“Woah now, heiress,” Thode waved his pipe, “Don’t go blamin’ me for your ma’s demise. You were the sharpshooter that did her in. I was just trying to get away with my head on my shoulders.”
“Your blasted grandpa practically put that rifle in my hands! I had no choice! He kept eggin’ me on!” Reina cried out, pointing at Zeb.
“Oi, hey now!” Zeb exclaimed, jumping up and down in its ant-drone exoskeleton. “We don’t need to be pointin’ fingers! There ain’t no point in ‘he said, she said, the old man said.’ There ain’t no one to blame aside from the Gearmongers who invaded Arcwatch. Remember that, ya tykes. You’re not supposed to be brawlin’ with me! Ahem, I mean — each other…You’re not supposed to be fightin’ with each other. You’re supposed be fightin’ against those murderous machines.”
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Thode got up with a weary sigh, “Aye, heiress. The old man’s right. You can complain all you want, but it doesn’t help you. Let’s just head back to Glokham and collect the bounty. This contract is done and dusted.”
He slung the storage canisters over his shoulder again, while Zeb detached itself from its exoskeleton. The entire frame then folded up neatly into a palm-sized brassteel marble that Thode pocketed in his jacket. They’d been able to convert it into a Gadget of sorts and it was Zeb’s new favorite toy, so Thode brought it around with them.
Reina took that as a sign that they were leaving. She grumbled as she stood, but dropped the subject. In all honesty, she was more frustrated with herself than with them. Part of the reason why she was having such a hard time adjusting was because she was so used to having Dedrick at her back.
Even after a month, the pain of her loss was still raw. What did it say about her that she felt more for Dedrick’s death than her own mother’s?
Her old friend used to be her shield, while she was the blade. That’s why she’d taken up the saber in the first place. But her time with Thode and Zeb made it clear that they were clearly not her shield. She didn’t have one of those anymore.
It was just her.
And she needed to be better.
----------------------------------------
Hoofing it through sparse forest, rocky outcroppings and craggily cliff faces was not as relaxing as Thode would have hoped. His sonar was constantly detecting enemies behind every tree trunk and around every boulder. He guided Reina around them as best as he could and the times that he couldn’t avoid a fight, he shot them with an icy beam and scavenged them for parts.
As he and Reina approached the mountain pass that held Glokham, a looming darkness descended upon them. The air was so thick with smoke that it blotted out the sun. Even from this distance, they could smell the overwhelming fumes of burning Coal mixed with the pungent odor of used oil and rust.
Sprawled before them and built straight into the ravine between two adjacent mountains was the industrial city of Glokham hidden behind an enormous iron wall with steel struts that reached up nearly six stories. Beyond its gritty metal ramparts was a city that had built up rather than out.
Arcwatch had been a gargantuan megalopolis that spread across leagues of deforested land. Only the inner parts of the city had walls, though those were meant to keep out the riffraff — riffraff like Thode — not Gearmongers. Whereas the outskirts of the city, the Crumbles, had an indistinct border that continuously expanded. Well…up until the Gearmonger invasion a month back. Now, Arcwatch was nothing but rubble and ruin.
In contrast, Glokham was engineered with height in mind. Unlike the Crumbles, where ramshackle apartments built too high ended up crumbling under their own weight, the foundations of Glokham were made of thick dark steel beams and even thicker walls that could support up to eight stories worth of floors. That was more than twice as tall as the buildings in half the city of Arcwatch. Maybe even more.
They joined the long security queue to enter the city and the sounds of whirring cogs, pumping pistons and hissing cranks filled the air, making Glokham seem like a single monolithic machine.
When it was their turn, the pair of them flashed their union badges from the Copper Crosses to a pair of clankers that stood guard at the imposing dark steel gates. That was another difference from Arcwatch — an actual guard force that belonged to the city.
Were they as corrupt as Clem Kingford’s enforcers? Of course they were. What kind of city officials would they be if they couldn’t be bribed?
Regardless of what they got up to on the side, Glokham’s Boilerplate Brigade was ultimately employed by the city’s Gearlord and lady council and kept the peace. After living in the city for the last month, a police force made perfect sense to Thode.
Once they were behind the ramparts, they were greeted by tall, twisting buildings constructed from thick sheets of copper, iron and steel with rivets and bolts fastening them all together. With the city squished between two mountains and the dense miasma of smoke from thousands of forges hanging overhead, no sunlight ever reached the bottommost levels of the city.
This made Glokham’s streets cramped and crowded, lit only by gas lamps and neon signs that gave off eerie glows to combat the oppressive darkness. Shadows danced along walls and people’s clothes alike, while the occasional flicker of light illuminated dim alleyways.
Personal space was a luxury as folks were crammed in shoulder to shoulder. Reina practically breathed down his neck as Thode navigated the jam packed streets. He flicked his own goggle-guards down onto his face so that he didn’t have to inhale the pervasive musk of unwashed, soot-stained bodies mingling with the smog from burners and forges.
The citizens of Glokham walked around in worn top hats and bonnets wearing weathered waistcoats and dresses, while carrying canes, smoking pipes or closed umbrellas. Nearly everyone wore some sort of mouth covering, either face Gadgets like Thode or bandannas and scarves wound around the bottom half of their faces. Only the Gogglemorans submerged in their water tanks and the Noxdennites with their metal beak-masks remained unphased by the heavy pollution in the city.
“Do you wanna come with me to union HQ to finish up the contract? Or are you gonna head back to the inn?” he asked Reina as he pushed through the crowd.
As he walked and talked, Thode made sure to keep an eye on his audioscopes’ display. Glokham folk had sticky fingers and he’d had to rough up a pickpocket or three already. It was no wonder that everyone walked around eyeing each other so suspiciously, while muttering to themselves. Fortunately, his Gear eyes could keep track of every Gadget on him at all times and would alert him if someone got too sly for their own good.
“Pfft, that’s even more boring than the contracts themselves. You do the paperwork, I’m heading back to my room so I can get a hot bath and maybe a hot meal. I’m filthy,” Reina replied in disgust as she moved off down a side alley without another word.
Thode grumbled to himself about posh heiresses and their sensitive feathers, but kept on moving through the city. Like Arcwatch, Glokham was divided by social status. There were eight stories worth of metal jungle and not everyone could climb to the top.
The first three floors were for the lowest rung of the city’s social ladder. The working folk who kept their heads down and were just looking to get by. Thode fit right in. These were his people. They reminded him of Crumblers just trying to keep themselves clothed and fed.
Floors four through six were for the middle class. The merchants, the delvers and the police lived there. To his amazement, because he was a part of the Copper Crosses, he actually qualified to live up on the fourth floor.
He found the nearest freight elevator that would take him up and stuck his union badge in a slot that allowed him to press the fourth, fifth and sixth floor buttons. The badge itself was actually a standard-grade Gadget that held his personal information such as his name, Tinker rank and bank account. And since it was a Gadget, his Gear eyes could keep track of it for him.
Union HQ was on the sixth floor, so he rode the elevator as high as it would take him. Grimy steel struts whipped past his face in a blur as he ascended through the bowels of the city.
Glokham was simultaneously new and familiar to him. There were the rich, who lived on floors seven and eight so they could look down on the rest of the rusted paupers that lived in the city. But then, there was an underground level even below the first floor, where the truly poor and destitute eked out a meager existence. They were the crippled in mind or body, who either couldn’t work for themselves or didn’t have family to pay their way.
If not for Zeb, Thode would have probably ended up like them. Well actually…he probably would have just bled out in some junkyard.
Once he stepped onto the upper floors, streets and alleys turned into bridges, catwalks and suspended walkways. It would have been so easy for him to get lost. Luckily, his sonar had mapped out the parts of the city he frequented and marked off landmarks for him like the union HQ or his inn.
Unfortunately, as he made his way across a rickety suspension bridge, heavy footsteps came from behind him at the same time that the other end of the bridge was blocked off by a pair of burly Gizmerens.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be messin’ with me…” he groaned. “I really don’t have the patience for this right now.”
Zeb zipped out of his bomber jacket’s pocket and said, “There’s always somethin’, ain’t there lad? If it ain’t Gearmongers, it’s a couple of snowrunts and some squid-heads.”
Any passing witnesses pointedly looked the other way, while detouring across other bridges or turning down different catwalks. They knew what this was as clearly as Thode did.
One of the Gizmerens stepped forward right onto the same bridge Thode stood on. The snowrunt’s pitch black beard was tucked into a low cut doubletwill shirt, while he wore a rugged leather duster.
“Heard you just finished up another contract with the union, grease monkey,” the snowrunt said as he pulled back the flap of his duster, his hand hovering over a handful of compact Gears on his utility belt. “Maybe you shoulda stayed in Arcwatch to pick through the rubble. We don’t need you filthy refugees comin’ to Glokham and takin’ jobs from our hard working citizens. So, you can either give us your proof that you finished the contract or we can take it from you. Doesn’t matter much to us.”
Thode sighed, moving his hand to the waist of his own utility bandolier. “Sorry there, snowrunt. This ain’t gonna go the way you think it is.”
The Gizmeren just smiled. “We’ll see.”