Eventually the cylinder was full, and that’s when I saw the heart’s outer compression shell inflate. Once it seemed to be full, I shot myself over to hopefully make it in time to see whatever change was next.

But nothing happened. And after a while when then compression sleeve began to deflate again, there wasn’t a greatly noticeable change within the valve system.

I checked the cylinders, and the liquid was leaving through the exhaust vents.

The green light though didn’t change and soon the heart was inflated again. It deflated and inflated a few more times before the lights returned to blue and the previous hum returned to the entire system.

I went back up to the brain and saw that the wall of problem translation was no longer lit in blue but instead there was one red light. It wasn’t at the furnace or heart, so it was a completely different issue.

However, it wasn’t sending a yellow light to the location tablet anymore, instead there was one newly lit green cable.

I followed it and its companion of a red cable back down the tunnel. This time though, in order to follow it to its destination, I had to warp the tunnel around me and Fluffy.

After quite the distance of tunneling we came out of the ceiling above what seemed to be the factory floor.

The cable itself was headed down to a pit that seemed to be filled with materials.

So, it was just low on golem making materials? But then wouldn’t the floor be cleared?

A ding, I was right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Challenge Update:

You have managed to fix the factory, if it’s creator could speak to you it would be thankful.

Completion requirements:

Correct the factory’s course (Selected)

Clean up from your repairs

Solve the final error signal

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Seriously?! It’s just a materials issue!”

“Dot! Is that you!?”

I heard someone’s yell.

I looked around and saw Paeris waving at me from below.

I flew down to him.

“What’s going on, all of a sudden, the factory stopped and a bunch of the golems we thought were faulty started to attack us. Dodger and the others were taking care of it, and I was trying to look around.”

“Oh, alright, that makes sense then. Just have them take all the duds and the ones they destroyed and dump them in that pit over there. I need to go clean something else up and then we should be done. Hopefully.”

“What was the problem?”

“I’ll tell you all about it later it’s super cool, since carrying all those parts will probably take you a while, I’ll take some extra notes and we can talk about it later. Can you take some detailed notes on the golems themselves, since you’ll be able to see their innards?”

“You got it, and I’ll tell the others.”

“How’s Quartz?”

“Oh, right… Well, he’s not, not better…”

“What does that mean?”

His face shifted to his thinking scrunch I was familiar with. For a person who talks a lot, it was obvious when he was having trouble trying to decide what to say.

“How well are you to continue on after this?”

“I saved most of my mana, just used mana stones except for when I was flying around. How about you and Sailhin since its probably you guys next.”

“We should be good, I’ll double check her, but I don’t think we should even take a break before moving to the next floor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we entered this floor to let him rest from whatever he’s been dealing with. But this floor affected him in a completely different way, and now he needs to clear his head from that, and staying in the rest house doesn’t seem like the best way to do that.”

Paeris was the best to make that choice, but what was up with Quartz? Floor challenges were usually the right place for him to calm down not the other way around.

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I mean the only other time something weird happened was on the orc floor, when he opened up all his aura pathways. Dodger said it was normal for someone to pass out, based on what happened for her, but after he woke up, he was noticeably weird. I mean he cried over some food.

“Is it like after his awakening?”

Paeris shook his head, “I don’t think he’ll snap out of it right away… you’ll see when we’re done. Let’s just finish this as quick as possible.”

I nodded and took Fluffy back up with me. We returned to the furnace room, and I looked at the piles of fuel that I had emptied out onto the floor.

Before bothering to figure out how to get this back to the fuel storage, I should see if it’s even the correct composition.

Or… I could just stuff it in my own storage. I’m sure I could craft some bombs with these.

That’s obviously the best decision, wouldn’t want to damage the fuel supply of the factory without doing a proper check of things. Totally not for selfish experimental reasons.

I nodded to myself repeatedly.

And I could use these in my own experiments to see if I could make my own furnace like that. Or maybe build my own golems, best decision for the team and the floor.

Fluffy tugged on my cloak. I looked at him and he tilted his head yet again.

Right.

I ruffled his hair.

Finish things quickly to get Quartz out of here. This was all for that.

I checked the capacity limit on my storage rings, and unfortunately none of them would work. I’d have to make a new one.

If I didn’t already have ring frames made that would make things harder.

Still, this was the fastest option.

Obviously.

I’m too small to carry all of that to the fuel storage. And then the time spent to find it beforehand.

This is the most efficient choice.

I grinned and pulled my small worktable from my tools ring and brought out some mana stones, engraving tools, lamp and magnifying glass.

I pulled my stool out, sat down and got to work.

I tested the purity levels of the stones and picked the best one for the size that I needed.

I didn’t have the circle memorized completely just yet, so I had to pull out my notebook to double check. I still did as much of it from memory as possible to check myself.

Once all the calculations were done, I added the input path and checked my work.

I triple checked it though because the last time I messed up the mana stone collapsed in on itself somehow and it wrecked the ring casing.

So, once I was sure, I carved the activation mark closing my eyes right before I lifted my tool.

I peeked one eye open, and the ring was fine.

“Of course it was fine Dot, it’s your seventh one after all.”

I nodded, once again agreeing with myself.

I tested the ring with one of the pieces of the fuel and nothing bad happened. The storage engraving recognized it and allowed me to read the storage capacity. It seemed like it would be just enough luckily, I didn’t want to make another one.

I shoved them all in as quickly as possible. Even though it took me time to carve it I still wanted time left over to go and copy as many of the command circles as possible. Then I could work on deciphering things at another time. I’m sure the other’s task would take more time than mine.

Once that was done, I flew back up to the brain and got to work. I did the furnace and heart first; the green and red signal was still there, and since that would’ve been connected to a very basic level measurement system, I could avoid it. I also avoided the position tablet since I already knew how to create a directional reference and control system. For me the most useful ones would be the intake vent mana filtration commands. I hoped that it was a central command and calculation and that was just connected to a sensor circle in the vent.

The furnace and heart were next to each other in the brain, so I started copying the tablets in front of the furnace. If it was in pathway order, the vents would be in front of the furnace tablet since the heart was after it.

I managed to get two more tablets after that before there was a ding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Congratulations!

The floor has been cleared.

Rewards will be calculated and rewarded at a later time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A later time?

Well, I got what as much as I could get. And unless the reward was the translated copies of the manuals or even better a full schematic of the factory’s system and the golems themselves… I couldn’t think of a better reward than what I managed to obtain myself.

I felt the teleportation.

I didn’t get everything but it was better than getting kicked out of the library by that damned owl before even getting the challenge.

Once back at the house I saw what they meant. Normally when Fluffy would jump on Quartz, wanting a snack or more of a meal, Quartz would react in some way.

Say hi, ruffle the fluff ball’s head, or even just smile at him.

Quartz however just looked at him slowly.

This confused Fluffy and Fluffy, interestingly enough, looked around Quartz’s head. At random points in the air around it, not at his head itself.

“He was like that a few minutes into the floor” Paeris explained, “he didn’t even do anything when the golems started to attack.”

“I don’t think we should move on too quickly then. Let’s get Fluffy fed and make some snacks for us at least.”

“Yes food!” Dodger said, “Food always makes me better.”

She went over to Quartz and looked at him closely. Brick picked Fluffy up, signing something to him about Quartz and rest.

“We’ll just make some quick snacks though,” Lefty said, “being here won’t help him, we should move on quickly.”

“Dodger, if Fluffy bites him just cut it off and bandage him up” Paeris called to her, tossing the wrap over.

She gave the okay sign, before squatting down next to Quartz.

I headed inside with Lefty and Paeris.

We made a collection of snacks that could be easily stored in a ring.

Paeris looked through my notebook, taking out one of his own so as not to mess up my notes.

“Oh, I just grabbed some of their heads and put them in my ring, hopefully they’re still there.”

I turned and beamed Lefty.

“I took some notes just in case they didn’t actually come with us.”

“Thanks guys, I can’t wait to experiment.”

Really, there wasn’t a single reward that we previously got that could top what we managed to get from the floor itself. Maybe that’s why the tower was still deciding.

Once we finished the snacks Lefty kept most of them, I kept some and we gave some to the others so that they could have something if they were closer to Quartz at the time.

He was still kind of out of it and hadn’t even fed Fluffy. But usually, if Fluffy was hungry, he’d snack on his own. I say usually, but the only time he didn’t do that was when Quartz was passed out after the orc floor.

I was happy I wasn’t going to be with an unfed Fluffy. Though, if it was a similar situation, he shouldn’t be that unmanageable. It seemed Fluffy had matured, or maybe Fluffy somehow knew when it was okay for him to snack or when it wasn’t. Either way I hoped things would be better after the next floor.

Quartz was generally quite stoic; I mean sure there were times when his emotions were written all over his face but the him now was very unusual. It was kind of like he wasn’t really there. Hopefully the next floor had some fighting, and he’d snap back to his usual self.

But since he didn’t do anything against the golems….

I’m sure as long as he’s with Dodger he’ll be fine. It’s not like a severed limb would kill him, What about a severed head……..

Not worth considering, it wouldn’t happen. We haven’t gone against anything that would’ve been that challenging for any of our lives to actually be threatened.

And the sooner we finish off these personal trials of sorts, we’ll hopefully know at least part of the reasons for his weirdness.