“What should we do?!” Zan asked at a loss.

Ahead of them a caravan burned. Explosions ripped up the ground, pods dispensing automotrons. Had they been ejected from some huge, unseen machine in the sky? He did not know.

Jiehong froze and muttered something about asking the village leaders, but they only shook their heads. Had they given up hope?

From the tree line ahead emerged a massive four-legged steam-powered entity. Its height pierced above the height of even the trees and by several heads at that. How are we going to survive that?

Over several minutes, he, along with everyone else, could only stare in bewildered defeat. It was impossible, everyone seemed to say.

“Should we turn back?” Jiehong asked the elders.

But none of the elders had a word for the current situation. It was beyond them. Though one did sputter, “we can’t retreat. The enemy is coming from the direction we came!”

“So, if we can’t retreat, and we can’t go forward, then we…” Jiehong tried to tease out the answer.

“Die,” an elder said. “We will die.”

Hearing an elder speak so frankly of their situation, especially after they had just fought so hard to keep themselves, he exploded, though with fury, not from a wayward blast. “I refuse!” Zan shouted.

Angrily marching back along the caravan column, he sought the old man and asked for his blade. “More threats already?” the old man asked.

“What else?” Zan replied dispassionately.

Grumbling comedically — where he fit in one too many grunts and asides about his ex-wife for it to be non-comedic — the old man brought Zan his blade. “Be careful with it, now,” the old man cautioned. “I know you youngsters are apt to break everything, even swords. And this was gifted to me a long time ago by a great warrior, so I will be upset if it’s shattered any way except from an over-the-top encounter!”

“Encounter?” Zan asked.

“Oh, you know… like… that?” the old man said, showing the four-legged machine blasting up dirt over yonder.

“I see…” Zan replied, still not really understanding where the old guy was going.

Moments later, the man placed the sword into Zan’s hand. “Best of luck,” he said.

Rushing back to the front of the caravan, Zan told Jiehong and the other village leaders he wasn’t going down without a fight. “My life doesn’t end here! If I am to die, let it be with honor!” And he rushed toward the gigantic enemy war-machine.

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What the heck am I doing?! He asked himself. I am going to get squished. Like a freaking tick under thumb!

Not letting his imminent death get in the way, however, he ran toward the walking weapon, though now he shifted slightly to the right to avoid its attention. He still didn’t have a strategy, but at least knew enough about basic tactics to try and get behind the enemy; with an adversary this big, he thought, it probably has a lot of blind spots.

Keeping in the tall grass, it was easy enough for Zan to get close to the machine. Near to the machine as he was, he saw how every slight movement elicited a groaning noise as steampipes and reinforced (but strangely soggy looking) wood worked together to terrify. What was he to do?

“Finally caught up to you!” a voice said.

Turning suddenly with sword in hand, he was ready to fight for his life.

It was only Jiehong. He should have known — since when did the enemy talk?

“Oh, it’s you… decided to join me in death?” he asked.

“So pessimistic. But yeah. We’ve done everything else together, why not die together too? If we can help it, though, we might want to figure a way to live… I have my family to look after, after all, and you have figuring out where your parents went off to, assuming they’re alive. So, thoughts?” Jiehong replied, his warm tone of voice pulling a chuckle and a thin smile from Zan. Jiehong always knew what to say.

“We could… try to climb the machine? Maybe find a weak point and sabotage it?” Zan wondered aloud.

“Hmmm… although that’s probably the best idea we have, I see nothing to climb on to. And what would be the weak point?” Jiehong asked.

He couldn't think of anything as a response. He saw no handholds, neither anything like an obvious weak point. “Is steam combustible?” He asked.

“No idea…” Jiehong replied.

So much for that idea. Besides, did he really want to use his little remaining magical energy on a fruitless endeavor, trying in vain to get steam to combust? It sounded like a futile end in his opinion.

He felt pathetic. He knew nothing. He was just a kid. A kid with a pointy stick.

For several minutes, Zan and Jiehong remained frozen in the tall grass. They watched the machine dominate the countryside. In the distance, they saw groups of enemy soldiers. And more coming. Zan realized if they didn’t do something soon, if the machine wouldn’t kill them, the incoming enemy would.

Suddenly, seeing an odd behavior from the machine, he asked, “What is it doing?”

Jiehong replied and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Look! I thought something was weird with it. It isn’t going anywhere. It is just blasting up dirt in this meadow. Shouldn’t it be advancing along the front to some big city or something?” Zan clarified.

“I guess…?” Jiehong said. “But we don’t know the purpose of this machine. Sure, it looks like a siege engine, but we don’t know the enemy’s strategy, here, or even what the specific purpose of this machine even is…”

Observing the machine for a while longer while keeping their eyes peeled on how close the oncoming enemies were to their position, he and Jiehong waited.

Moving up ahead, to a zone recently blasted by the machine, he asked Jiehong to search the area for anything of interest.

Did he think there was something here which would prove useful in their defense? Not really. But he had to cling to something.

Ouch! He yelped. His foot stubbed on something.

Crouching down, Zan investigated what he found.

Peeling back the layers of earth, Zan found a way stone. One of the ancient lodestones of older society. An old druid's tool, way stones functioned both mysteriously and pragmatically. What this one held -- boons or dooms -- he did not know despite the fact way stones usually heralded blessings.

‘What the heck does this do…?’ He asked himself.

It was then that the way stone gently pulsed with magical energy.

Then he had an idea.