Chương 30: The Mechanicus

[Weapon Evolved] [The Carrion Blade] [Soul Cleave]: The blade drinks deep. Each kill by the Carrion Blade harvests the victim's soul, forever binding them to your will. [Ravenous Hunger]: The blade has known satiation, and its hunger has awakened. The Carrion Blade must remain fed, else it will feed. [The Carrion Blade hungers…] I coughed, pulling myself up the rest of the broken stairs and onto a cold, metal floor. Heavy, emboldened text filled my vision.

[The Mechanicus] [Floors 11-15] My head rang as clouds of white dust and broken stone ballooned upward into the small, confined room. Karen's voice was a distant cry—our connection fading by the second. [You—Bastard—It… —Dynamite!] Hollow staggered forward, collapsing onto the floor beside me. Her eyes were red, her skin blistered and torn in a dozen places.

"Bastard," she spat out. Freddie crawled out of the stairway last. His leathers had been torn, his skin bleeding in a dozen places. In one hand, he held the remainder of his bow—nothing more than snapped piece of wood. He threw it to the side and sat back against a metal crate. We sat there for I don't know how long in the dark, none of us willing to say anything to each other, only sharing empty stares. We had done it. We arrived at the Mechanicus. But at what cost?

We were surrounded by large metal crates, each labeled with a scrawling, indecipherable text. The floor consisted of what appeared to be large pieces of black sheet metal instead of the carved stone I had grown so used to walking on. The entire floor rattled ever so slightly—a distant thrumming resonating from somewhere deeper in the dungeon. A lone doorway led outside of the room, an amber glow outside. Freddie looked at me.

"Are we stuck here?" he said. I nodded.

"Looks that way." He shook his head.

"Where the hell are we?

"The Mechanicus. According to the dungeon, a factory floor. I don't know much else about it." Beneath us, the ground rattled, more echoing explosions. Hollow groaned.

"How are you feeling?" I asked. She lay on her back, breathing heavily.

"Just great." She still hadn't fully recovered from her fight against the previous abomination. How she had been strong enough to climb all those stairs and fight the way she did…she was a machine. I wouldn't have won that last fight if not for her.

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Fine. I just…need a second. I'm going to kill that fucking warlord." Freddie's breathing increased in pace.

"Is there another way out of here?" I pulled at my connection with Karen, the line between us fading. Karen, are you there? [...]"I don't know," I admitted.

"With the floor below us broken, my connection with the dungeon has faded. I can't feel much more than a pulse anymore."

"Fuck!" Freddie snapped, driving his fist onto the floor. I'd gotten us into this mess. Especially Freddie. Out of the three of us, he was the least deserving to be stuck up here. I limped forward to the exit of the room. I'd get us out of here, one way or another. A steady tick, tick, tick filled the air as I stepped outside.

"Oh." What lay beyond was a massive factory, a circular room wide enough to make any detail on the opposite wall little more than a whisper. Pale amber light shone from a sphere suspended high overhead, barely a glow—as if it were a mini, dying sun. All around me—machines. Gears turned, pumps raised and lowered, metal clanged, oil burned. Tick, tick, tick, tick… … tick. The ticking came to a stop, and something heavy popped.

A burst of flame erupted from the other side of the factory floor and dispersed unceremoniously. The gout lowered until only sparks were visible from behind the other machines. The ticking resumed. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Tick, tick, tick …

"What is it?" Freddie asked, consternation in his voice.

"Machines." I stared up at the high ceiling. Getting any sense of height was impossible without reference. Along the walls, different floors—more terraces and walkways—were embossed into the high-rising column. This floor's notification announced itself as "Floors 11-15". There was no reason that each region of the tower had to follow the same rules as the one before it. For catacombs, a floor by floor crawl made sense. For a factory, not so much. I turned back to my companions and paused.

A pale set of eyes poked out of the stairwell. I set my jaw and charged forward. The figure screeched, and I picked the goblin up by the collar and slammed him against the metal crate next to Freddie.

"Who the hell are—Patch?"

"I'm sorry, boss! You gotta understand, I didn't know what was happening! Things started explodin' and I just started running!" the goblin stammered. I let him drop to the floor, and he landed on his ass, pressing his hands together in a prayer.

"Please, boss. You gotta let me live."

"I'm not going to kill you," I said.

"I might," Hollow muttered, tilting her head to glare at him.

"You knew Grelgo was up to something, didn't you?"

"I swear I didn't! I saw him planting some explosives when the battle started, but I would have never thought he'd leave me in there to die!" Freddie stuttered, "You should just kill him. They trapped us up here, and now we're going to fucking die."

"We're not going to die," I said.

"We have no food. No water. I lost my my bow. She lost her blades. The entire floor collapsed beneath us, dammit! Unless you think you can dig out of here before we starve to death."

"You can do that, r-right, boss? You did all sorts of freaky stuff down there. Surely you could blast through?" My core was empty, save for the soul of Horn. I spent everything I had in that last fight.

"No. I can't."

"Then we're fucked," Freddie said.

"We're fine," I said through my teeth.

"We go forward. This place will have stuff for us, we just need to find it. There might be another way out of here. Hollow, can you stand?" She groaned, but sat up, wincing the whole way.

"I could carry you if you'd like—""Don't you fucking dare." The Carrion Blade pulled on me as we walked. Its red glow had faded, and with its transformation, its heft increased. Not more than a pound, but when exhausted, every bit of additional weight felt like a ton. [The Carrion Blade hungers…] I know, dammit. So this had been what Karen was talking about—the reason to avoid binding more souls to it. What had been a way to power up the blade became a curse. A necessity.

I wouldn't give in so easily, even as it twitched and tugged, begging my hand to sever the lives of my companions. God, I missed Karen. Everyone moved behind me, limping and muttering curses under their breath. The orb above us did shit-all to light the way through the narrow alleyways of pipes and groaning engines. Tick, tick, tick, tick. A burst of steam blasted out from a vent in one pipe, and I staggered back. No matter how many times it happened, it still scared the shit out of me. Tick… Tick… Tick… …

A chill went down my spine.

"What is it, boss?" Patch asked.

"The noise. It's gone." Eerie silence filled the factory. Even my breathing sounded like deafening thunder in the stillness. Another bout of flame just up ahead, followed by a groan, brought the floor back to life. Metal scraped against metal, and a waft of something sharp and metallic filled the corridor. The Carrion Blade pulled me forward, desperate to feed.

"Wait here," I whispered. My bare feet were silent against the metal floors, and I lowered to a crouch to round the corner. CLANK! CLANK! CLANK! With the clash of metal, I burst around the corner, sword raised high—and paused. A simple skeleton stood over an anvil, a black metal forge burning hot next to it. Its back was turned to me, and it raised and lowered its hammer in a steady rhythm. A bucket of swords sat next to the anvil, three or four in total.

"T-travis? What is it?" Patch asked. The skeleton spun its neck 180 degrees to face me. Its eyes glowed with soul-fire. It opened its mouth to scream, but no sound came out. I ran forward, placing my hand on its skull before it could retaliate.

"Harvest!" The fire went out, and my core lit up with life. [Common Soul Harvested] My companions all gathered behind me as the bones clattered to the ground, echoing through the silent factory.

"It was making weapons?" Hollow asked.

"But what was that ticking noise?" In response, the fire inside the forge lowered, and the ticking began again.

"It's on a timer," I said, rubbing my chin.

"Not very efficient." Hollow limped to the bucket of swords and pulled one out.

"Not great work either."

"Better than nothing," Patch said, grabbing his own blade.

"Freddie? You want one?" I asked. The pale ranger inched forward, taking a wide berth around me. He grabbed one and frowned, not saying anything. I ground my teeth.

"Do you have something you need to get off your chest?"

"I should have left when I had the chance." I sighed and let him go off.

"Want me to stop him, boss?" Patch asked.

"No. Let him be." I picked up the skull, testing its weight in my hands. The Carrion Blade tugged and pulled at me, begging me to feed it, to sate its hunger. Instead, I drove the sword into the ground, and fed the skeleton back its soul with a whisper. A moment of rattling, and it stood back at full height, the firm tether of our connection latching onto my core. The tethers connecting me to Explosion, Strong, and Sir Gideon below were still there, but with this new connection, they were easy to miss.

They were all but wispy threads now, even weaker than my connection with Karen. What the hell had Grelgo done? The skeleton picked up the hammer and turned back to the anvil. Its shoulders slumped.

"You like smithing things?" I asked. It nodded.

"Well, I'm gonna call you Smith. You remain here. Just keep doing what you were doing, okay?" It nodded again. Hollow raised a brow.

"What are you doing?" I shrugged.

"You all were just complaining about not having weapons. Here is a forge. Here is a person—sorry, skeleton—who knows how to use it." Patch crossed his arms.

"Think he can make me a hammer? Something to whack things with? I don't do well with cutty stuff."

"Well, can you?" I asked smith. The skeleton raised its arms in a "Why not?" pose.

"Great. Then you're on hammer duty." I smiled. If the skeletons below could build a village—what could they do up here?