After several slow rising circuits around the enormous structure, we spotted a shelf jutting out from the side. It was modest, compared to the grand structure of the techno castle, but as we drew closer it became apparent that it was in fact large enough to support several other ships.
Lakshmi started to bring us in, and I hurriedly spoke up.
“Hold up! Lets keep checking it out. In fact, let’s see if there’s a docking ring or something else higher up, or if we can go over the walls?”
Lakshmi looked at me in puzzlement. “Why don’t you want to use the dock like a normal person?”
I gave her a cheeky grin. “Since when does an air pirate do the normal or expected thing?”
Lakshmi’s eyes sparkled with glee as she returned my smile. “Now that’s an attitude that I can get behind!”
She pulled back on the stick and the Sparrowhawk rose up and over the gleaming walls.
I genuinely wasn’t sure what to expect as we crested the walls, perhaps a fleet of imperial ships waiting for us, or the church’s air barge that had kidnapped me. Instead, all we saw was a smooth dome that rippled with a faint blue sheen, and under it the intricate maze of buildings and vast machinery. Arcs of lightning flickered between enormous pylons, crystals glowed in all the rainbow of elemental colors and more. At the very center, a dome of bronze gold under the crystal blue canopy shimmered invitingly.
I pointed at it. “Can you get us there?” I asked Lakshmi.
“I suppose…” She said doubtfully. “I don’t know if the Sparrowhawk can penetrate the forcefield over it thought?”
“Well, be gentle then.” I said.
Lakshmi shot me a look of mingled disbelief and betrayal. “Since when have I ever been less than gentle with the Sparrowhawk?!” She exclaimed in outrage.
“Planting 2. Overclocking the engines to greater speed, causing overhead in the main drive assembly.” Camaxtli said calmly.
“Well I mean aside from-“
“Planting 14, shoving the steering assembly past the point of damage in an attempt to avoid combat damage.” Camaxtli continued as htough Lakshmi had not spoken.
“Ok, that was not-“
“Planting 23. Evasive maneuvers while escaping the elven capital.”
“Alright! Enough!” Lakshmi pointed angrily at him. “There was a perfectly valid reason for all of those, but I will accept that sometimes I do things perhaps a little more roughly than I would otherwise prefer.”
Camaxtli tipped his head to the side in puzzlement. “Available data suggests that it is the rough treatment that you prefer, given the number of opportunities you engage with-“
“Penetrating the shield now!” Lakshmi said loudly, and shoved the yoke forward. The Sparrowhawk lurched into motion, and the hull rang with the impact, the deck shuddering under us as we forced our way through the forcefield.
“Your current actions have failed to convince me that you are employing a different strategy in this instance.” Camaxtli remarked.
Lakshmi shot him a dirty look. Camaxtli opened his mouth to reply, and Eshaan put his hand on Camaxtli’s arm.
“Let it go. Trust me. Women have their pride too.” He said with a smile.
“Hm.” Camaxtli said, but did not voice further objections.
The hull of the Sparrowhawk shrieked as Lakshmi forced her way through the translucent barrier over the top of the control center, the deck rocking beneath us as lightning crackled over the wings and tail assembly, before the whole ship gave a suddenly great lurch, throwing everyone who wasn’t seated-
Why didn’t I sit down and belt myself in! I moaned in frustration.
-to the deck and against the bulkheads with painful force.
“Hah! Ancient technology can suck it!” Exclaimed Lakshmi as the ship slowly steadied.
“I do not think it wise-“ started Camaxtli, just as a sudden enormous blast of energy speared through the Sparrowhawk’s wings, and glimmering dots of flying automatons floated up from around the city in large numbers.
“Oh dragon god’s ballsack!” Lakshmi swore and yanked the steering yoke hard to side just as another blast of energy almost cored the ship from stem to stern.
“If you’ve got time to complain, then you’ve got time to fight!” She turned and shouted back at us. “Man the guns! Woman the guns! Just shoot them!”
Daniyel and Eshaan scrambled for the turrets while Soriya and I hurried over to the orb which absorbed spells and redirected them out to the hull of the ship.
The fight was savage but brief, not because we had an over whelming advantage, but because Lakshmi pointed the ship straight down, slamed the throttle to the stops and aimed for a collsion course directly at the central dome.
“Everyone, shoot a hole in the wall! We’re going through!” She declared.
My eyes got huge, even as Soriya gently pushed me to the side, and started to channel {Infernal Black} into the ship’s magicannon. The Sparrowhawk’s cannons thundered above and below us, shots spanging off the walls of the central structure, even as the giant ball of purple-black energy swelled in front of us. I looked out the rear window to see an entirely unreasonable flock of flying buzzsaw automatons blocking out the sky behind us.
Soriya finished her chant, and screamed out “Releasing the spell!”.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
The thundering ball of purple-black shot through with dark lightning in front of us swelled and then condensed down to a tiny sphere in front of us.
A tiny part of me noted with vaguely abstract thought Oh. It really does have those little dots of light all around the main body. How very anime of it. Before the dot rushed forward so quickly it left a yellow-white afterimage behind it, like a beam of pure annilation, hitting the wall ahead of us right where the Sparrowhawk’s cannons had been pounding it.
For the longest moment, nothing happened, and terror surged up in my heart as our ship rushed towards a fate as an extremely flat pancake on the side of an Ancient building.
“Lakshmi?!” I screamed as we hurtled forward.
Her grin could make a demon cower in fear. “Trust me! I’m almost positive this will work!”
“ALMOST?!” I shriekd in terror, just as the wall of Ancient metal ahead of us cracked, and buckled inwards. That was all the time I had to see, before the Sparrowhawk’s nose crashed headlong into the wall. The sound of tearing metal and the shriek of overstressed components blended into a roar as Ancient stone and metal gave way before the hurtling bullet of an entirely insane imperial princess.
Then my forehead hit the bulkhead in front of me and blackness claimed me.
I came too with the taste of apple sweet healing potion tickling into my mouth, and the feel of my body snapping back into place as my body was sorted back into shape, the pain of my injuries rapidly fading to the faint echo and ache that meant I was still a lot of HP down. I finished swallowing the potion and groaned.
“She’s awake!” Lakshmi’s voice called out. “Come on, healer, we need some healing!” Lakshmi exclaimed.
“That would not have been necessary if you had simply-“ I heard Camaxtli’s voice stop. I opened my eyes to see Lakshmi glaring at him with a gaze that should have resulted in instant death.
“-perhaps I misspoke.” Camaxtli said, and snapped his mouth shut.
“No, I think corrective measures are required.” Groaned out Danyiel. “There were better approaches than this available to us.”
“Yes, but using them would mean she wasn’t Lakshmi.” Said Eshaan, his cheerful smile still firmly in place. He reached down to me. “Are you ok, Lily?”
“Aside from a pounding headache? Sure.” I gave him a weak smile, and then reached for my staff. “Who is hurt? Who needs healing most?”
A few sore grumbles and a nearly exhausted mana pool on my part later, and our little group was once more fully healed. The Sparrowhawk to my shock, had come through nearly intact!
At my shocked gawking, Lakshmi gave a grin. “I knew your {Barrier} would work!” She said. “You don’t give your own power enough credit.”
“There have got to be better ways to test that then to destruction!” I nearly shouted at her.
Daniyel rested his hand lightly on my shoulder. “Then she would not be true to herself, no?”
I slumped in defeat. “No. I suppose not.” I conceded.
“Then what are we waiting for! Let’s find out what’s inside the castle of the System!” Eshaan exclaimed eagerly, already pushing his way towards the hatch.
The hatch slid open and the stairs fell into place, followed by a blast of elemental power and gunfire pouring through the hatch. I hurriedly chanted a {Barrier} to cover the hatchway.
Peeking though the shimmering haze of my {Barrier} I could see a squad of what looked like extremely dangerous Ancient automatons. Lakshmi’s eyes were wide with fascination.
“Ooh, I’ve never seen this model before!” She exclaimed.
“I know, right?!” Eshaan exclaimed. “Look, you can see the armature there is used to- oop!” He ducked as a blast of fire hit the {Barrier}. “They’re still shooting at us, we should fix that first.”
I gritted my teeth and ground out “Yes. Please do that.”
Eshaan shot me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Lily! Didn’t mean to keep you waiting!” He turned and charged through the hatch, followed by Lakshmi, Daniyel, and Camaxtli.
A hail of gunfire and elemental spells roared towards the four, and each responded in their own unique way. Eshaan lept and dodged, twisted and whirled, a lightning storm that nothing could seem to hit. Lakshmi hit behind Daniyel, and Daniyel simply crossed his arms, his bracers glowing red-gold as they bore the incredible force of the attack. And Camaxtli… Camaxtli simply wasn’t where the attack was. Without seeming effort or issue, he would simply move as though casually taking a new position, only for the attacks to miss him, as though by accident. His hair and clothing remained completely still despite the storm of firepower bearing down on them all.
Soriya turned to me and grinned, unslinging Ægishjálmur and hoisting it over her shoulder. “Come on, you’re not going to let them have all the fun, are you?”
I twitched a small smile in return. “No, I suppose not.”
We joined the others outside, my {Barrier} pushing aside the hail of attacks raining down on us.
Outside the Sparrowhawk, in the broad circular courtyard, twelve gleaming bronzegold automatons stood, in fearsome splendor. I could almost understand Lakshmi and Eshaan’s urge to admire them. Nowhere else in any of our adventures had we seen such clean well maintained machinery. It was a pity we were going to have to beat them into junk.
Lakshmi proved her expertise with Ancient tech. As we held the automatons attention, she darted here and there, ripping out important components, pulled mana circuts and generally causing massive destruction. With each attack, another automaton went down, and soon enough there was only the smoking ruin of once flawless machinery.
Lakshmi and Eshaan picked through the wreckage as I healed our wounds, and guzzled down several mana potions, shivering as the buzz and rush of mana tingled through me.
I finally joined them, after I finished patching up the last of the injuries. “See anything useful?” I asked the two curiously.
“Oh yeah! Lots!” She exclaimed. “But I suspect that we’re on the clock here.” She pointed to an enormous and entirely over wrought door, as well as four hallways that met in the courtyard we had crashed into.
“Unless I miss my guess, that door is probably where we need to go. And those hallways are going to be important.” She tipped her head to the side. “Plus, you know… you’re supposed to be some kind of operator for this whole thing, but these things didn’t even slow down when you showed up. If you have a way to show any credentials, now would be the time!”
I grimaced. “You’re right, if I can shut this down, that would be good.” I hurried over to the enormous doors set into the wall, inscribed with Ancient’s imagry. I tapped my fingers lightly on the engraving and then smiled.
“Access to central System repository, authorized personnel only.” I read with a smile. “Well, this is definitely the right place. I guess going high was the right way.”
I laid my hand on the door and closed my eyes, focusing on the Arcanum within me.
Well? Can you do your thing? I asked them.
There was a slight pause, and I could feel something shifting within me, stirring and reaching out. Then a faint chime filled the air around me. My eyes popped open, hoping to see the doors swinging wide. Instead, glowing runes of red fire wrote themselves on the closed doors. “Incomplete Arcanum presentation. Complete authorized System administrator access within thirty seconds.”
“Honeysuckle.” I cursed softly. I called over my shoulder. “Guys, we’re going to have company!”
“Wait!” Soriya said, her eyes suddenly alight. She ran over to me, and laid her hand against the door. The bright red words vanished, and new ones reappeared in cool green.
“Authorized System administrator code complete. Present complete Arcanum for access.”
I looked at Soriya. Soriya looked at me. “I knew you were a System admin too!” I said, then looked back at the door, my hands on my hips. “But now we’re missing three arcanum.” I took a breath and then released it slowly. “Well, honeynut.” I said with feeling.
“That’s a new one!” Lakshmi commented.
“Huh?” I turned to her in confusion.
“Honeynut. I haven’t heard that one before.”
“Oh.” I blushed. “It just… seemed appropriate.” I said awkwardly.
“Well. I know we don’t have the complete Arcanum set. So… now what?” She asked.
I sighed, and looked around at the four hallways. “We need to hack an Ancient’s security system I think.” I turned to Soriya. “What do you think? Access nodes at the ends of the halls?”
She nodded. “Probably, yes.”
Lakshmi narrowed her eyes. “Is this Seer stuff, or do you know something about Ancient tech?”
Soriya and I spoke in unison. “Seer stuff.”