Thode wiped the sweat on his forehead onto the back of his forearm as he extracted a Fire core made of Graphite Coal from one of the dead sentries. He already took out a Water core from the other one, which was tucked away in his Canister of Feathers.
Canister of Feathers (Standard-Grade Gadget)
Status: Operational
Charge: 80%
A sealed container made for hauling goods that uses Air Flux to lighten the load of any item(s) placed within by as much as -25%.
It was mostly filled with spare parts he scavenged from the sentries as well as an old hard drive that Zeb found in a lockbox at one of the workstations. The haul wasn’t anything to write home about, but it was enough to keep him in Coalition Coins for a wee bit longer, especially since the Water core was Lignite, though it was only standard-grade.
There were four levels of purity when it came to elemental Coal: Graphite, Lignite, Bituminite and Anthracite. Within those levels, there were three further grades of quality: standard, high and ultra high.
His own Coreforged Walkers could handle high-grade Lignite Coal in two different elements, which Classified him as a Gearpunk Tinker. If he were to assimilate a second Lignite-level Gear, he’d immediately be upgraded to a Gearwhiz. But compatible Gears didn’t just fall from trees. He’d been on the lookout for years already.
That’s how Tinkers advanced. Assimilate more Gears that could use higher quality Coals and multiple elements at once. There were plenty of nuances in those Classifications, but that was the gist of it.
“Better get a move on, ya wain. The repair drones will be in before you know it,” Zeb helpfully reminded him.
Thode packed up the Fire core, then closed his canister before slinging it onto his back. Even with the adjustment, the pack still must have weighed about an ingot and a half, but the hydraulics in his prosthetic legs could easily compensate for that.
Every Gearmonger ruin housed colonies of ant-shaped drones that repaired the facilities over time. They would even rebuild the sentries and spider drones after a while. It wouldn’t be overnight or even in a fortnight, but these ruins would eventually run again as if Thode or any Tinker had never scavenged for parts down here. He didn’t know where the repair drones kept getting materials to do their jobs and he didn’t care.
Such was the way of Gearmonger strongholds. There was a reason their machines survived after all these millennia even though they themselves hadn’t. And because of their clockwork genius, the many worlds of Fogum’s Forge continued to thrive.
Too bad I live on the fraggin’ arsehole of the star system.
He walked over to stand under the pipe he jumped from, then reached into his bomber jacket for a handheld rod — his Grappling Baton.
Grappling Baton (Standard-Grade Gadget)
Status: Operational
Charge: 100%
Uses Earth Flux to create a grappling hook and tether that can reach up to 25 paces and can hold weights up to nine ingots.
With the press of a button, the Gadget hummed to life, springing open into a grapple gun that Thode aimed for the pipe above him. And in a matter of moments, he found himself padding through the darkened pipeline, heading for the exit. He used the gray lense of his monocle to give him night vision, while Zeb trailed behind him.
“Hey Zeb,” he began, but was interrupted. “Grandpa,” the automaton corrected. Thode sighed, “How about just ‘old man?”
“I don’t know why you fight it, boyo. You know I’m right. You’ve seen the records in my old lab.”
“Aye, I did. And they’re older than dirt, Zeb. Besides, remind me how old you were when you left Crankedge when you were alive?”
The black and gold gyroscope whirred for a moment in thought, “Hmm…I remember leaving after I got reclassified as a Gearace, which is two ranks higher than you are right now. That would’ve been once I assimilated my third dual-elemental Gear that could use Lignite Coal…so maybe…35? Forty?”
“Just dynamo, Zeb. Really bang on. And you never came back after you went off gallivanting to other worlds did ya?”
“Erm…I can’t say that I have the memory module to confirm or deny that, lad. My memory ain’t what it could be.”
“So what you’re sayin’ is that you left your kin behind to traipse across Fogum’s Forge and never came back. Is that the gist of it? That means the Tinker you used to be was generations older than my parents. For Hanged Gods’ sake, we don’t even share the same last name anymore! I’m a Stoolbottom, not a Wedgecraft. S’far as I’m concerned, that makes us different families altogether.”
“That’s pretty savage, boyo…but, if you ain’t my blood, then how come my old Coreforged Walkers assimilated so well with ya? Huh? You’re an ungrateful brat and that’s the fraggin’ truth!”
Thode hitched his canister pack up higher on his shoulder to get a better grip, then rolled his eyes, “Tche, I don’t deny the blood relation, Zeb. I’m just denying the ‘grandpa’ part.”
The gyroscope animatedly zipped around his head, “Oh c’mon, lad! You should be thrilled to have the great Zebulon Wedgecraft as a grandpa! I’ll have you know that I was known throughout all six worlds of Fogum’s Forge in my prime! From Noxdenn to Crankedge and every satellite in between!”
“I know, Zeb, I know. You’ve told me that so many times I’m surprised I don’t need new ears,” Thode retorted.
“Just you wait, ya wain. See if I help you with that new hard drive ya got!”
The pipeline opened up to a central connection chamber with offshoots in every direction, even up and down. It was like a maze in here, but other Tinkers wiser than Thode had done the arduous task of mapping this particular ruin long before him. Only…not everyone knew where to find those maps. It was actually because of Zeb that he had been able to decipher a hard drive from another ruin at all. One that led him here.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
For months now, he’d delved these same ruins over and over to salvage its resources without anyone competing with him. He already explored many of the other pipes. And now, he could check off one more.
“Don’t be like that, old man. We’re in this thing together. You help me find new Gadget schematics and hopefully a new Gear piece that I can assimilate with and I help you recover your memory modules. It’s a fair deal and you know it.”
The automaton grumbled in agreement, but stayed quiet. It got this way sometimes. As far as Thode could figure, it was incomplete, which meant Zebulon Wedgecraft’s artificial personality tended to malfunction from time to time. Sometimes, the thing would space out completely as if its memory modules were skipping or stuttering. He would have to prompt it a few times for it to start back up again.
Thode turned his attention to the various pipelines that led upward, searching for where the entrance was located. His monocle quickly placed reticles where he should aim for, forming a visual step ladder to lead him out. With his Grappling Baton in hand, he aimed for the first target.
It was time to get out of these steel catacombs.
----------------------------------------
Thode crawled out of a metallic hatch hidden underneath leafy debris in the middle of a hollowed out tree trunk located halfway up a towering dire cypress. The ruin’s chute extended the entire height of the trunk all the way down into the bowels of the earth. Given its position so high up in the canopy along with its natural camouflage, it was no wonder no one had found these ruins aside from him. This was especially impressive considering how close it was to the shantytown city of outer Arcwatch, otherwise known as the Crumbles. He was only about half a day’s ride outside of Arcwatch’s outermost district, which was about as slummy as slums came.
Crouching low and peeking out of the dire cypress’ hollow, Thode switched the lenses on his monocle to heat and telescopic vision as he swept his gaze through the canopy and down to the forest floor. These catacombs were his personal goldmine and he wasn’t about to give them away. Delvers like him could be extremely paranoid and territorial about their finds.
“Alright Zeb, you know the drill. Cloak up and take a look,” Thode whispered to the mechanized geezer.
A ripple of light passed over the whirring gyroscope as a sheen of reflective energy coated the automaton before it zipped out of the hollow and into the forest. Thode still didn’t completely grasp how the construct worked. Its structure was a feat of engineering that only a high Classification of Tinker could have made.
The machine’s very existence implied that the real Zebulon Wedgecraft had returned to his ancestral home on Crankedge at some point over the centuries and left a cache of equipment in his hidden lab. That lab saved Thode when his family’s home was bombed in a turf war between some rival High Tinkers. Thode was ranked as a Gearpunk because of his single, powerful Gear piece, but those who’d destroyed his home were Gearlords and ladies. That was literally five whole Classifications above him. The type of Gear and grades of Gadgets they must have had would beggar him hundreds of times over.
Thode lost his family and his legs in that turf war. He was 15 when it happened and was out in the back scrapyard scrounging up parts for some rinky-dink Gadget. A wave of explosions suddenly ripped through his neighborhood as a powerful Gearlord carpet bombed every house on the block. Thode remembered waking up hours later to the sounds of grating metal as a pair of rusted doors embedded directly into the ground ponderously slid open.
It was the blood. His blood that opened it.
He fell into Zebulon Wedgecraft’s hidden bunker. Someplace that no one in his family had ever even known existed. And it was his shared blood with the dead Tinker that triggered the long-dormant laboratory.
Since that fortuitous encounter, Thode had been living hand to mouth. He gave the automaton a lot of kickback, but in truth, he’d been with Zeb for almost a decade now. That rustbucket of a construct was the closest thing to family he had left.
Speaking of Zeb, the automaton flew back into the hollow and decloaked. “Alright, boyo, you’re grand. If there’s something or someone out there powerful enough to hide from my sensors, then you’re fragged any which way.”
Thode released a breath of relief, then closed the hatch and spun its tumbler lock to close it tight. He grabbed a tarp covered in leaves and roots that he’d specially designed to keep the entrance hidden from any casual inspection of the hollow, then draped it over the hatch.
Paranoia went a long way in his line of work.
Once he was satisfied with his camouflage, he stepped out onto the dire cypress’ branch and zipped up his bomber jacket, before peering down over the edge. He was three stories high, give or take a pace or two, and getting up here was a chore and half. But getting down? That was easy.
He jumped.
Wind whipped his hair and pulled at his jacket and trousers. It was exhilarating. If he was still completely flesh and bone, he would have been right terrified, but with his prosthetics…the forest floor came fast until a gout of flames from the vents on his left foot arrested his fall.
He casually somersaulted at the last second to land lightly on his brassteel feet with a dull whoomph. Zeb zipped down to hover by his shoulder, “Show off. I could’ve done that too, ya know…if I had legs. Or a body.”
“Or a brain,” Thode teased, earning him a hit in the head by the floating gyroscope. “A right prick, aren’t ya lad?”
“Must run in the family, eh old man?”
“You wish you had my prick!”
Thode laughed as he moved to where he left his belongings veiled by a Warded Screen.
Warded Screen (High-Grade Gadget)
Status: Operational
Charge: 44%
A cage powered by Earth Flux that gives the look and feel of a large object up to half a story tall. Able to hide heat signatures and is resistant to standard-grade Gadgets. Has up to three preset configurations.
He walked to an inconspicuously placed tree stump that looked to have grown rotten from termites. With a simple tap on his wrist display, the stump shimmered to reveal a burnished cage of wires that was in the shape of what it pretended to be. Inside rested his Gyroscopic Motorized Monowheel equipped with higher grade Canisters of Feathers on either side of the seat that reduced the weight of objects they held by up to 50%.
Gyroscopic Motorized Monowheel (Ultra High-Grade Gadget)
Status: Operational
Charge: 78%
Its central chassis is a large, singular wheel made of solid brassteel with a diameter about three paces across. The only seat in the middle has a motor underneath that has five speeds. Metallic treads surround the inner chassis and are spiked so they can easily travel on all terrains. The seat moves on a gyroscope for balance at odd angles. There are access ports for three accessory Gadgets.
Accessories:
* Canister of Feathers (High-Grade)
* Canister of Feathers (High-Grade)
* Warded Screen (High-Grade)
This monocycle had been in Zeb’s bunker too, though it was in dire need of repair when Thode first got his hands on it. It had taken time and the automaton’s tutelage, but he eventually restored it to its original glory.
He quickly transferred the contents of his smaller canister into the containers on his monowheel, then eased himself into the seat. His foot shoved down on the kickstarter and the engine revved to life like a roaring lion.
Zeb’s automaton floated into its holder right between the pair of high-drag handlebars that Thode used to steer. Flicking on the lights, he checked the time on his wrist display and realized he wouldn’t be getting back to Arcwatch until after nightfall.
“Better shift it, lad. Time’s wastin’ and we got a date with ol’ Clem.”