“Finally! You son of a Toaster finally ran out of juice!”
“Null?”
“Oh, sorry Snow. The Robot finally broke down after I tried to take him over since we came back from the Steppe.”
“Oh, you mean three months ago?”
“Yes… wait, is it already be that long? The Stampede is still ongoing, is it not?”
“I don’t know. We were always in the Crater, remember? Did you hit your head Null?”
“No sorry, I just was losing my sense of time. Yeah, the Forest is filled with more and more Monsters. If I remember correctly the Stampede should have been over already, but for it to even start in the Winter was strange.”
“I don’t know anything about it. I was not even born, when the last happened.”
I pat Snows head. She is rather young in human years, but to be honest the Stampede last time should have been around fifteen years ago? Better wait for it to end naturally.
“I am letting Ava sleep. If you need something I am in the Realm Lab in Beta to look at that hunk of Metal.”
“’Kay! Have fun and do not forget the time again. I want to go out, when the Stampede is over. I am so bored to just sit around.”
“Sure Snow. We go into some of the Towns and maybe look around a larger City next time.”
I pat Snows head and let Ava become comatose inside his bed afterwards. Now to the tin can I can finally open up.
…
I wish I had never brought that thing back. This is more complicated than I could even fathom! Everything looks so simple at first and then you notice the engravings on every single piece is not decoration but a rune for something. On a small gear are around sixteen runes. SIXTEEN! And those are not the simple ones, oh no. They are three dimensional runes including their own runic circle and language to lead the Mana and/or Miasma into the right way.
The whole thing is a nightmare. A treasure trove of knowledge so complex, someone can not even understand the first letter of the first word. And if that is not enough there are traps inside the whole runic system. That thing has COPY PROTECTION!
Every time I try to create a Rune the one fizzles out before it is even finished, as that diabolical genius made it in a way to form a simple rune with wrong spelling to blow it up before the full rune is created. My thesis right now is, that it must be inlaid in a specific way to even be completed before a wrong Rune is created accidentally.
So I just have to guess right, which one of the lines I have to first draw and every single line afterwards until I am finished with every stroke. Oh, and the simplest one has sixty one lines bending and weaving like a drunk snake. There are less sand grains in a desert than combinations of possible solutions for this conundrum.
I give up, the whole runic system is out of my league until I understood the simpler ones inlaid in the crystal pillars we found. Those were simple with the simplest one having only seven interconnecting lines and could be recreated by me already.
They are effective in ripping Miasma in different kind of elements. I even got one modified! I am really proud of that. The mind one was destroyed and I could recreate this one. When you understand the basics you can slowly test out the possible combinations.
The rules of them are rather convoluted, but make sense in a strange magical way. The Rune inside the Bomb is by the way Circular and Stability. The two dimensional Runic Circle in the Bomb was making a critical explosion, but the three dimensional rune holds the Mana forcefully in an equilibrium. Breaking that rune starts the chain reaction and boom!
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Ah! The Robot, yes. I started to ramble again. While I can not find out the runes I can recreate the memory metal, the gear system, the synthetic muscles and what I am most happy about the camera or rather eyes of the Robot.
What I can not recreate is everything else. The Eyebeam is somewhere, but I do not know where. This thing could have a nuclear reactor and I would not find it.
Oh! One thing I can also maybe recreate is the Core. The core itself has so many runes I do not even want to think about it. It even has its own Mana converter somewhere between all of them but has a small crack and did not have enough Mana for even repairs. Lucky me!
What I mean with recreating ‘maybe’ a Core is, that core seems awfully like a Monster core, just synthetic and I have a way to create synthetic Cores. If I am able to build a Golem, I might be able to go deeper into the Facility or explore the other Danger Zones right next door.
…
“NULL!”
“WAH! Huh? Oh Snow, what is it?”
“What is? You have been working on something for over a Month! When one of your Bodies got tired you just change it and work the next to the bone! I came to you, because the elves died, and you never reacted to anything I said!”
Huh? The elves? Which one? Oh, Patch and Work! Damn it, I wanted to stitch their bodies together to see what the two spirit bodies would do, when there are twice as much body parts than… ah, whatever. What was the earlier… A month? Might be right… Oh wait! Did I really just work on that hunk of junk for over a month?
“Ugh. Sorry Snow, I fell into a rhythm. Thanks for bringing me back. I might have been here for maybe a year or two otherwise. That thing has so many secrets and I… No, not important, the Golem I try to build can wait.”
“Are you finally back?”
“Yeah, what happened in that month?”
“Enough for you to finally come out of your Laboratory. Anna is engaged with Mack. Our Servants and Maids increased as some Children started their apprenticeship and our stocks on Vegetables is overflowing, but meat is still scarce to only be eaten by the Villagers once per week.”
Once per week is already rather good for their former standards, we have finally some new workers and A…
“Wait, Anna is engaged?! When do they want to marry?”
“When you are ready for taking their vows. They would like to be wed by you, so they waited.”
So her best friend is getting married. They grow up so fast.
“We can make the ceremony at any time. I am always ready to do something for your best friend. How about a wedding event in our Ball room? We have so much space.”
“I already asked, but they would love to be wed in their new home the Lost Village. Do you think you could do that?”
“Of course!”
I pat Snows head. I should maybe slap my own head for being out for a whole Month just working like a machine. The Golem still needs more parts as I am at a bottleneck, and I think I know where I can find some angry Metal which could be Golem shaped to snag some more Knowledge about creating a machine of dea… experiments!
…
“Will you Anna be the Wife of Mack, be his support and faithful partner, in good times as in bad times until death do you part?”
“I… I will!”
“If anyone has any complaints about this bond, so say it now but be silent for the rest of their lives… With my authority, given by the Lost Village, I now announce you as Husband and Wife. You can now kiss if you want.”
And they did. Applause all around, and finally I am finished with all the weddings. It could not only be the one wedding, no. They had to make an event out of it for me to be the speaker for a whole seven weddings. For Anna being the main event, we put her at the back for she is the main Wedding and also the one, which will start the great festival for the newlyweds to be congratulated by all.
I was already asked to do another wedding event next year. Can they not be wed by the Town Chief? Well, whatever…
The festivals had food, drinks and now sweets, as I got some sugarcane on the most ridiculous place. They grow in the wet plains inside the Steppe. When I saw some bovine Tribe kids gnawing on them as their kind of sweets I bought some from them.
They were happy, as those things grow rather near their place of living. But to be honest I never saw some in my previous lives so I would have not noticed them even if someone would slap me with them. My knowledge is rather large, but not really mine. If I do not search the thoughts of the taken over, I do not know anything.
Why I elaborate on it so much? A white haired girl was really torn being the bridesmaid and going to the sugary cookies. Her reason has prevailed, as this is a one in a lifetime event for her best friend, as divorce is not known.
By the way, normal Citizen are monogamous. Noble are often polygamous, where the higher standing person has the right to more partner. Yes, there are some high standing Women with multiple husbands, but it is a bit rarer than other way around.
All hearsay from the Villagers and Caretakers, but if they say it, why should it not be true?