Chapter 04
DEPTHS
PART 2
Half-crouched to stay low, the pair proceeded down the walkway in petrified silence as hundreds of metal-men tirelessly worked away beneath them, the cacophony of metallic sounds providing them ample cover and agitation.
Thankfully, the end of the walkway began to come into view about halfway into the forge, another door it seemed, but almost as soon as he’d seen it, an uneasy sensation slammed into him as the blue fluorescence of his bubble spell sputtered out.
“What the- That wasn't my fault. Something just… hit me?”
Barely sparing a glance back towards her pupil, Mara’s eyes hinted at the smirk hiding behind her shoulder.
“That'd be the bottom of the barrel. A valuable lesson. The room’s tapped on fresh mana, we only had what we brought in with us. From here on in, know that we’d lose a fight if we picked it. Even a monk like you can't punch down that many mechs.”
Sparing another glance to the worker-bees below, Jackle couldn't deny her words as he turned back to the path ahead. Maybe a hundred he could take, but the numbers beneath them dwarfed such a thought.
As they snuck further in without their bubble, the air around them began to take on a slightly burnt, almost clinical smell, like a hospital ward after a small fire to clear infection.
A curious eye didn't take long to find the source of the singe, Jackle's stomach turning as he saw a mech incinerate the visceral remains of a small animal, already rendered impossible to identify by the brutish dissection that had taken place.
Ahead of him, Jackle realized Mara had already reached the third door while he was distracted, but appeared to be waiting for him before continuing. Shimmying over, he was quick to find out why as Mara posed a very pertinent question.
“So... Any idea what we might be missing?”
“Oh. Mana. That is indeed a bit of a problem.”
“Any ideas?”
“Mm… Knocking?”
“-Okay.”
“Wait-”
Caught off guard by Mara’s willingness to try something so absurd, Jackle’s hand could only get halfway to grabbing his mentor's arm before the rapt sound of knuckles on stone echoed from the door.
“Shit. That was supposed to be a joke...”
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“You make jokes?”
Jackle could only roll his eyes at the incorrigible grin on Mara's face, but they didn't have time to banter. Mara's knock had elicited a prompt response, as the door began the grumble open near immediately, behind which stood a mechanical biped not unlike those beneath their feet, but with more additions to its metal skeleton.
Feeling Mara’s hand seize his wrist just as the adrenaline hit, the grip both soft yet authoritative, Jackle was reminded to check his gut reaction, lest they anger their hosts.
For a moment, there was naught but the sounds of stone grating stone as the door retracted into the walls until the trio were left standing in silence, unsure who'd make the first move, or what it would be.
“Greetings Jackle… Mara.”
The voice that spoke was cold and cropped, a poor synthesis masquerading as speech, but discernable regardless, leaving Jackle stunned, not only in the mech’s capability, but also knowledge.
Scrambling, Jackle’s tongue moved faster than his brain as he tried to understand what they’d gotten themselves into, posing a question to the mechanical before he could stop himself.
“How do you know those names??”
“Observation. Irrelevant. Follow.”
Without pause, the mech dismissed his query and pivoted to escort them into the room beyond without waiting for a response.
Exchanging glances, Jackle tried to silently ask a mix of ‘what the heck’ and ‘why didn't you say anything’, while Mara gave him a look of curious disbelief paired with a shrug and a thumb towards the mech, indicating they didn't have much to loose by following.
Still uneasy, Jackle followed Mara into the room with the mech, and found it to be just as expansive as the warehouse behind them, but only as deep as it was wide, with a solid floor from wall to wall.
Yet, it was the center of the room that garnered Jackle’s attention first and foremost, taken up by a massive hemisphere of chrome protruding from the floor, emanating an unnatural hum that only seemed to amplify in frequency as they approached.
Carefully whispering under his breath as they followed the mechanical around to the other side of the room, Jackle tried to reframe his anxieties as curiosities, focusing on what he could learn.
“Any idea what that thing might be? The hum is getting under my skin.”
Not breaking stride as she whispered back, Mara filled him in on what she’d observed thus far.
“Feel the hair on your skin? The air in here is so charged, it could repower a lot of the artifacts we have on the ship, and that’s just the ambient output. So that thing is either the energy generator or the forge’s processing core, maybe both, but arguably more interesting in my opinion is the biped we're following. Speech, ordered behavior, and reliable movement- Even master artificers would struggle to produce a facsimile.”
Once again, Jackle couldn't deny the truth of her words. Even with its clunky way of speaking, it was undeniably still speech, backed by knowledge and thought. It even observed them to learn their names, indicating forethought and planning. Everything about it was as impressive as it was threatening.
Though, perhaps not to them personally, Jackle was fairly confident he could win against just the one without mana, but as a larger issue, there were countless numbers of similar mechs downstairs, and there was no reason to think their potential was any less.
Yet, everything about them flew in the face of what he knew. Jackle had lived through more than a few names in his years, but in all his time he’d never seen or heard of a sane mechanical.
Even in all of written academia, there wasn't a single recorded mention of a mech that wasn't mad, or a forge explored that wasn't just a cesspit of machines running rampant.
This forge wasn't just exceptional, it was a counter-point to every bias and assumption the educated and simple alike held about mechanicals. Documenting it alone would represent a significant addition to Artificent research.
“You’re right. It’s barely a mech. With a coat of paint, I'd have mistaken it for an undead… Are we sure it's not?”
“Well, I'm not picking up on any miasma, are you?”
“…No. No, I'm not.”
“Exactly.”