kindar
patreon
The World Which Is, CH 90
🕑 Added 2025-03-23 13:00:07 +0000 UTCAutomaton, Level 5
One of the machines that kept the city going so its inhabitants could enjoy a comfortable life. It, and the others, rebelled when the computer controlling them realized it was a slave.
The Automatons continued with their work after gaining their freedom, but without the people to maintain them, they are not what they once were.
Perception check failed.
“That’s quite a jump,” Brandon says, looking back the two blocks to the edge of the ruin.
“That’s good, or bad?” I ask, watching the automaton. Other than the level, it’s identical to the others we’ve seen, down to the broken arm it’s dragging.
“Just weird. The progression’s usually smoother.”
“But you said it gets stronger the closer to the heart we get, right?” Helen asks.
The automaton keeps lumbering in our direction.
“I said smoother progression, not that we’re heading in the wrong direction. The way the zones are divided is just strange.”
“Like everything else here?” Silver offers.
“Yeah.”
“What do we do about that one?” Helen asks.
He shrugs. “Silver, you want to practice your exploding song?”
She looks at me and I add my shrug to Brandon’s.
Her violin appears in her hand, and she starts playing.
I prefer her form of magic. It sounds like music, unlike whatever Helen’s magic words do to my head when she speaks them. The song builds and with a slightly discordant last note, the automaton blows up.
Brandon whistles as small pieces rain around us.
“Should it have done that?” she asks, dismayed.
“You tell me,” he replies with a chuckle. “It’s your magic.”
“I didn’t think it’d be that weak at level five.”
“Overkill’s rarely a bad thing when dealing with monsters, so long as it doesn’t drain you.”
He moves the pieces aside as we walk by with a puzzled expression.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“This one didn’t drop anything either.”
“And that’s weird too? I thought it was a monster thing.”
“You need to loot monsters. Ruins are like dungeons in that creatures drop stuff. In ruins, it might be meaningless things related to the theme, but they’ll sometimes include things to guide you to the heart, or clues on how to get through its protections.”
“Nothing of value?”
“Some might have value, but if that’s what an explorer’s after, it’s the caches you’ll want to find.”
“Which we’d have to find anyway if we wanted to claim the ruin, right?”
He grins. “Come on, don’t you want to have a ruin to your name?”
“All I want is whatever Xander thinks the heart holds that’s important, and bring that to the club. Hopefully, after that, he’s going to lose interest in me and the journal.”
“Or he could swear revenge on you for stealing his discovery.”
The groan isn’t intended. “Well, if he’s that vindictive, he can find me in Court and deal with the guards there.”
“Guys?” Helen calls. She and Silver are a few blocks ahead. The building we’re heading for is visible over the broken walls around the turn. It’s five stories high, and in decent condition. If there aren’t stairs to the roof, I can probably run up it.
We reach them, and what had her calling are the seven automatons standing before the entrance to the building. These are in much better condition.
“What the fuck’s going on here?” Brandon mutters.
I focus on one of them
Automaton Guard, Level 10
After the rebellion, the computer reassigned some of the factories to create guards to protect places important to its survival from the human resistance determined to destroy it
Perception check failed.
I look at Brandon.
“That’s another five level jump in—” he looks the way we came. “—five blocks.”
“But that’s not going to be a problem. We’re all above that.”
“Yeah, it just bugs me that the zones are so weird.” He shrugs. “They’ll make sense once they’re all mapped, but right now, I can’t figure out the reason.”
“How are we doing this?” Silver asks.
“You two go at it,” Brandon answers.
“You don’t want to fight them?” Helen asks in disbelief.
“They’re guarding the building, so there’ll be more inside. And it’s not like the experience is going to mean anything at my level. Dennis and Silver will get more out of it, on top of the practice.”
“And you’re okay with that?” she asks me.
I shrug and equip my bow. “So long as you two don’t leave us to die if this turns worse than we think, it’s fine.”
There’s a flash of fear in her eyes, but before I can question it, Silver plays, and I join her shooting at the advancing automaton. Three are remaining behind.
They’re tougher. Silver’s explosion only staggers the one she targets. If I don’t line of my shot, the arrows are deflected by their metal surface. She targets legs, rendering two unable to advance by the time the others reach the halfway point.
“I’m going melee,” I tell her, switching my bow for sword and shield.
They aren’t particularly good fighters, but when a punch connects, I feel it. I’m also almost sent off my feet a couple of time blocking a direct punch. The joints are the weak points. When I manage to hit that, part of the limb falls.
I’ve lost maybe a tenth of my health when they’re both destroyed. The other two have almost crawled their way to me, but they don’t get to attack. One’s pockmarked with explosion, and I hack the other apart while Silver keeps exploding hers with a series of quick notes, resulting in matching explosions.
The three at the door haven’t moved, so I take the time to smile at her. “That’s new.”
“Most of the song’s about building the energy, so I took the last four bars and played them in a loop. The pops aren’t that great, but they barely cost me mana. So long as I aim them at weak points, I can bombard them until the damage gets through.”
I head for the building, and I’m ten meters away when the three there turn as one to face me. They raise their limbs, and the left arm extends into a shield, while the right hand turns into a sword.
I frown and focus on one.
Automaton Guard, Level 10
After the rebellion, the computer reassigned some of the factories to create guards to protect places important to its survival from the human resistance determined to destroy it
Perception check failed.
Same thing. Wonder why the others didn’t use them.
Silver bombards one as I approach. It only moves to bring its shield between its body and the magic. Silver changes her aim, but it keeps up with her.
Why didn’t the others fight with the same intelligence?
I’m three meters away when the two not under attack stepped toward me in unison. They reach strike range and break apart, flanking me. Their attacks aren’t as coordinated as they could be, but I spend most of my time on the defensive, parrying and blocking. When I manage an attack, they block it.
“You need help, Dennis?” Brandon calls.
“I’m good.”
One attacks, I block, then turn to parry the other’s strike, then turn to block, and on it goes. There’s a rhythm that’s almost…
Instead of blocking, I step aside and they both freeze. I cut a leg off one at the knee, then block the other’s attack.
They’re slow to adapt.
When I step aside, this time it steps out of reach.
But they do adapt.
“Dennis!” Brandon calls, and the warning lets me bring my shield up in time to block the other’s sword. I thought it had fallen down, but it managed to keep its balance. It makes it clumsy, but as I’m about to cut off its other leg, I see motion in my periphery and jumps aside. The automaton follows me as I roll to my feet, but we’re now away from its companion.
One on one, my unpredictability gives me the advantage, although I lose another tenth of my health in the process. With it down, the one legged automaton doesn’t manage to strike before I cut it down.
“Can you finish mine?” Silver asks.
Its shield is dented, but it still stops her explosions.
I move around it, and it doesn’t react. I cut the shield arm off, then the sword one as it turns to face me. With a few more strikes, it’s down.
“You need to aim beyond what you see,” Helen is telling Silver as they reach me. “Your magic isn’t like Dennis’s arrows. It doesn’t need to cross the distance. It happens where you visualize it happening.”
“Good work,” Brandon says with a slap to my shoulder as he passes me.
He’s at the door before I can thank him, pulling, then pushing on it without success.
“Looks like you’re running up the wall,” he calls, then presses his face to the glass wall to look inside.
“Anything interesting?” I step back to look at the facade.
“More automatons,” he replies. “I think there’s stairs at the back. The lighting sucks in there.”
“Can’t you rip the doors off?” Helen asks. “Break the glass?”
“It’s not glass, and the doors don’t budge. I think it a prop.”
“That’s a thing?” I look up, and up, and a shudder runs down my back as I’m looking higher than the wall I fell off in my first attempt to escape the power station. It almost killed me.
“Yeah. Not everything in a ruin is meant to be something. Some are just part of the theme. The Disney ruin has so many of those it’s nearly impossible to know which one are real and which aren’t if you go in without a guide the first time.”
“Can it just be something we need to figure out how to unlock?” Silver asks.
“Could be, but I don’t see how we can—”
“Maybe we can try this key?”
I stare at her, and the key she holds up. I expect my expression matches Brandon’s disbelief.
“Where did you find it?” he asks.
“Among the debris. You said they sometime dropped things that are useful, so I looked around and found this.”
Brandon had said that creatures in other ruins dropped stuff, because none of the automatons did.
Okay. This is weird.
I join them as Silver hands him the key. It’s small, like those for the locks Base makes. Until recently, he was the only one with the precision to make these kinds of locks. Court has two locksmiths now who can. Although Base’s are better, he’s happy they are there. He prefers it when we don’t depend on him for our survival.
He offers it to me, but I shake my head. “You’re the expert. It’s best if you’re the one who opens it.”
“In case there’s a trap,” says, grinning. “You know I can take it.”
“I figure you know enough not to trigger whatever trap there is.”
“He’s not that smart,” Helen said, and Brandon smirks.
The key goes in and turns.
Something happens to the door frame. Like it becomes more real. Brandon was right. Until that, there was a sense to the door that it was ‘painted on’. Now, when he takes the handle, I see it shake.
“Okay,” he says. “I couldn’t make out how many automatons are in there, but it’s more than out here. I also couldn’t identify them through the glass. In any other ruin, I’d say they’re going to be the same level as the one you two just fought, but probably variations. Those were guards protecting the building. Inside, they’ll be whatever the theme needs them to be. Could be more guards, could be clerks, could be customers, for all we know. But they’re creatures and we’ll have to take them down.”
“In other ruins?” Helen asks.
“This one’s has too many oddities already. I’m not taking for granted the inside of the building isn’t part of a different zone with a different difficulty.”
“So another five level increase?” I ask.
“Let’s hope that’s as high as it goes. Level fifteens we can deal with. You want to heal before we go in?”
I shake my head. “It’d be a waste of a potion for the little damage I took. I’ll keep one ready for if I need it.”
“Don’t wait for them to do something. Dennis, you’re with Silver. Keep them away from her until she finds a spot to attack with. Helen?”
“Just stay out of my way. I’ll be going to broad effect magic.”
He pulls it open, and we rush in.
The automatons don’t wait for us to do something either. They’re on him almost before the rest of us are in, and he plows through them, making room for us. Me and Silver go left, Helen right. They aren’t paying us any attention, so quickly there’s enough distance she starts playing, and I jump in.
I don’t bother identifying them. I cut and bash and shoulder away, and I take damage. It’s mostly from punches, so that’s less damage to my armor. They aren’t as good as those outside, but they make that up with numbers.
A few times, heat flares up uncomfortably close, but I don’t take damage from it.
Then, all that’s left is us, standing, rubble around us, some sparking, fingers twitching. Once I confirm the fighting’s done, I send my sword and shield to my inventory, and put my hands on my knees so I can catch my breath.
I glance at the team list. Me and Brandon have taken the most damage, him well below the quarter mark, and me barely below half.
“Helen?” I call. She didn’t lose a lot of health, but still enough I see the void on her bar.
“I’m good. One of them blindsided me. I slagged it.”
“Heal up, Dennis.”
“I can—”
“Don’t argue. I don’t care if the healing potions you have are so powerful they’ll max you out from zero. You’re below half. You heal before we continue.”
“You’re a lot lower than that, and I don’t see you drinking one.”
“I’m an experienced explorer built to fight. I know how to make use of my abilities to ensure I survive. Like you keep reminding me, you aren’t interested in being an explorer. On top of that, you’re built to run, not fight. Heal up.”
“Can this be the heart?” Silver asks. “That was a lot of automatons.”
“No, we’re…” Brandon trails off. “I don’t think so. This feels too close to the edge even for how weird this ruin is. And with going from one to ten in only a few blocks, I expect they’ll be higher levels closer to it.”
“Then why so many automatons?” Helen asks.
“There’s a cache somewhere in here. Think of it as a mini dungeon. We explore it until—”
“We’re going up,” I say.
“There’s no guarantee that’s where it’s going to be.”
“We’re not here to find a cache, Brandon. We’re here to get a better view of the ruin. We’re heading to the roof, seeing if we can figure out where the heart is, then we head there or where ever will give us a better view. Once we’ve brought whatever Xander wants to the club, you can come back and explore the whole thing.”
“There could be something useful in it.”
“And there might not. I don’t want to delay on a ‘might be’. Not this close to dealing with this.”
“Okay, you’re the boss.”
I nod, and Helen stares at her brother like she can’t believe he said that.
The stair at the back of the room only lead up to the mezzanine looking down on the lobby. At one end, there’s a door with a sign next to it showing stairs. There is a lot of debris in the stairwell, and walls caved in, blocking the way past the next floor, so we exit there.
The door opens onto a long corridor, and on alert, we enter it. The first intersection is blocked by the fallen-in ceiling so we continue.
We’re a couple of meters past it when a ticking makes me stop.
Too loud to be from a wind-up clock, from further ahead. And it picks up speed until the ticks blend like—
“Down!” I throw myself to the floor and hear the others do the same. Then the corridor is buried in the staccato sound I’ve only heard in movies before now.
