12 Miles Below

It had taken some time for Kres to fly back to the greyroarmer pack territory, and then some more time to actually find where the pack was active. He’d found trails of their exploits in the dead infestation swarm, killed off entirely.

He had expected greyroarmers to cut the infestation’s remains down chunk after chunk, but Silverfur must have found and exploited an excellent weakness of some kind given the sheer amount of dead infected animals in the vale.

He found them nearby their mountain of kills, fussing over one another and looking far more on edge than he’d have expected a recently victorious pack.

“Statues.” Silverfur stated. “We saw moving war statues. They looked like the same statues you showed me in the Odin city, but they were moving. Golems.”

Kres wasn’t sure if it was a language barrier or that the greyroamers didn’t have the right words in their language, but whatever they were trying to tell them had the entire pack acting up. He’d never seen them so… riled up?

“One claim at a time.” Kres asked, trying to get a handle on things before the greyroamer could bark again and add more to the confusing mess. “Moving clay Odin statues?”

“No. They were made of metal. Metal statues!” He whined, shaking his fur and starting to pad back and forth. “They were not Odin shaped, they were the metal statues you showed me once.”

Greyroamers occasionally visited the Icon of Stars for trade and other diplomatic reasons, though the deeper sections of the city became too small and cramped for large beings like greyroarmers to actually see. But he had given Silverfur a good tour of the wider spaces a few times already.

Metal statues however? That claim threw him for a loop, metal was used in engineering, not art. Metal was far harder to source and work with than clay, making statues out of metal would have gotten the council and Gungnir examining for inappropriate resource usage.

“They were large.” Silverfur huffed, wagging his tail to the rhythm of annoyance. “They had four legs. No wings. Balanced on two legs. And used blades better than I did.”

Kres parsed out the words in his mind. He might have misinterpreted the last section. Greyroamers were infamous for being physically strong enough to use the ancient blades. There wasn’t any race out there that could handle those weapons better than a trained greyroamer. Their language was also infamously difficult to understand since most of it was non-verbal, scent based or had tail nuances. Silverfur’s actual barks for that final sentense had simply said: Blades better myself.

“Machines?” Kres asked. That was the only thing that fit moving metal statues. Machines could appear in many different shapes and sizes, these might be new ones.

“No. I followed them alone to the mite fountain. And then the machine god attacked them.” The greyroamer sat on his haunches, spat out his blade and then tried to croak out a word using only his mouth. Kres recognized it a moment later as an Odin phrase. “Menn… mennes…kuu jur?”

It didn’t translate correctly. Almost unrecognizable. But Kres had already put a feather on what the pack leader was trying to imply. Something from Odin legend, that the greyroamers only knew about in theory, and only because the Odin had told them of it.

“The machine god attacked them.” Silverfur repeated, “They fought back. And they weren’t losing.”

The ancient machine god of the grand tree fountain, attacking.

Statues of metal that Silverfur had seen on the Odin home city. Two hands, two feet, one head. There were only one possible candidate: The looming shells, some of which remained in the armory, unused. Others stayed propped up on the sides of the hull, large cuts and battle damage showing the hollow interior.

Menneskjur.

Humans.

“That’s not possible. Humans were wiped out.” Kres said, clicking his beak. “Machines saw to it.”

The fight with the mite fountain guardian must have been a territorial dispute between the new machine contenders. Kres had never heard of machines fighting one another, at most they’re just as apathetic to each other as they are to wildlife.

But… the machine god that guarded the mite fountain was unique, different from all the machines he’d seen so far. And unlike other machines, it lived alone. Perhaps the solitude nature meant it would see territory differently from machine nests?

Silverfur gave him a confused side tilt, and Kres had to calm himself down and repeat the message slowly.

“Go see the evidence for yourself.” Silverfur said, flicking his tail, ears equally folding back. That was a rather extreme show of annoyance and bordering on anger among greyroamers. “The infestation feared them. It was running away from the two golems when we found the swarm - and the two golems outran it. Then wiped them out without a hint of difficulty.”

“I believe you.” Kres said, trying to wag his tail to the rhythm of sincerity. The short stubby tail of his made the gesture look absolutely ridiculous, but he still did his best. If these two newcomers had battled the machine god of the mite fountain and won, he seriously doubted the infestation could do anything at all other than run.

The ancient machine god of the great tree mite fountain was massive, and moved with more grace than an Odin in the air. He’d seen it before, quietly grooming the silver shell clean of branches, algae and mud with far more dexterity and speed than anything it's size should move at. It had been guarding that fountain for longer than the start of the Icon’s history when it was first reawakened. It had hunted down the original human colony within the Icon.

“Were they hostile to you?” Kres asked, “The… humans.”

“No.” Silverfur clarified. “Both times we were close enough to be attacked, the golems did not attack us. In the fight with the infestation, one went into the center of the swarm to recover a blade the swarm had taken, and other metal relics. Once they had their items, they only killed what had attacked them. My pack remained out of reach, but if the golems had wanted to, they could have killed us. One used ranged magic of some kind.”

“They came from the vale?”

The greyroamer clawed at the ground with his right paw, “We think the metal ship that flew above us carried the two golems and their gear. They came from that direction.”

The metal ship had looked sickly, fire and smoke trailing from it. And the troubled flight out of the black hole hadn’t looked like much of a flight at all, but rather a stone toss. It was inevitable it would fall back to the ground.

If it had done so in the vale where the infestation still lurked…. The infestation must have tried to do what it usually does with any relics it finds. Hoard it. The two possible humans would go hunting for their gear, and the infestation would challenge them for the right.

Regardless, he wouldn’t know anything until he went to see it for himself. “Are they still at the fountain? If they were humans, the machine god would have won.”

That was what had happened in the past. Machines defeated the ancient humans at their prime. Remnants, especially only two of their species, could hardly fight against the guardian of the fountain. Not with it’s history.

“I am not certain.” Silverfur said, eyes looking away. “In a fight between gods, it is not wise to remain nearby.”

“A sane idea.” Kres agreed, lifting his head up and turning his beak to the direction of the fountain. Would he find the dead bodies of old legends? Silverfur had said they hadn’t been losing the fight when he left, they could still be alive or wounded. And the fountain was hardly far off. He’d even heard some odd noises from that direction on his flight back, though he’d been focused on his mission.

Would it even be safe there? Probably not. But Silverfur had said he'd tried to speak to them, and was close enough to be killed by them even, and they hadn't been hostile.

But in the end, he had to admit that if he didn’t go to investigate, his curiosity would never leave him a moment of peace.

My feet sank down further into the gloom, until I was about twice my height underwater. Only then did I see the dirt cloud puff out from the boot impact.

For a small lake that had a central shrine, the water down here was far deeper than I had suspected.

Journey’s headlights turned on and I started my search around for the knightbreaker round that had sunk down here somewhere. There had been a lot of metal return pings down here, so Journey had instead mapped out where the round splashed in, and displayed a wide three dimensional cone in the expected location. It was nice of the armor, but I could clearly see the concept of a knightbreaker buried under a very thin layer of mud and stirred up silt already.

“We’re being watched.” Drakonis hissed over the comms. I could see his video feed on the HUD’s far left side. He was currently rechecking the power cells in the bag for any damage.

“Murdershrimp back already?” I asked, taking a few steps in the murky water, then kneeling down and wiping away the mess until I caught sight of something shiny reflecting off the headlights. I knew the giant machine hadn’t actually returned yet, there was no sight of him anywhere in the soul sight.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“I doubt that’s what the machine calls itself.” Drakonis scoffed, putting the power cell bag over his shoulder and affixing the straps, camera feed moving as he adjusted. “But no, it’s not that bastard. I wouldn’t have noticed if it were. Fucking thing has some kind of stealth ability to sneak up that close to my armor. Your occult spell is the only thing we have going against that.”

He’d been understandably skittish about it lurking around here.

Still didn’t make him feel very safe knowing I was underwater and wouldn’t be able to jump to his aid as fast. “I’ll be done in a second.” I said, hand grabbing the silver sparkle and pulling.

It was indeed my shell, the chain specifically. Tugging it up pulled the rest of the round out.

Learn new things everyday. The knightbreakers that I’d assumed could one-shot anything in the world, turned out to have a glaring weakness against gigantic things. Still did a good chunk of damage, but not quite the instant-kill I was hoping for. I’d have to sit down and consider new weapon designs for taking out giant targets.

“So what do you think is watching us then?” I asked.

He turned his helmet up to a tree and the video feed zoomed in. There, I found a black bird.

I’d be tempted to tell him in the most deadpan manner that he spotted a bird. I’d gotten somewhat used to those after spending time in Capra’Nor and finding them almost everywhere. So a native would have seen it as background noise by now. Problem was that the wildlife here was already proven to be mite-messed-with, and if that didn’t raise suspicions, the bird had a backpack, and shiny metal trinkets that looked like jewelry.

It also seemed equally spooked the moment Drakonis turned to him, gave a crow in surprise, then bolted backwards into the trees, trying to hide.

“I think you’re right. How long’s it been here?” I asked, finding one of the chains being caught in something else under the mud.

Drakonis gave a shrug. “Only noticed the bloke a few minutes ago from the side of my camera feed. What’s the holdup Winterscar? Get back up here.”

“Something’s tangled in one of the chains.” I said, brushing the mud off the side. “These are a little delicate you know? And I only have one. Not going to rip it out like a savage.”

Something metal was tangled up in the chain from what the headlights could show, or at least a little reflective. I could see how it happened, the occult chain cut into whatever it was, and halfway through the cut, turned off. Leaving it trapped there. I slowly pulled out the issue.

“Ah. Well, that’s morbid.” I muttered.

“Is that… a helmet?” Drakonis asked, probably squinting at his own view on my camera feed.

“I think it is.” My hands slowly pulled the thing up and out. “Still connected to a chestplate. Chain went right through the faceplate and stopped.”

A few more tugs and I got a better look. The chestplate had been cut nearly in half, with a small amount of the spine and backplating still in one piece. Still strong enough to hold the entire thing together. The legs and rest of the body were buried down deep.

My occult knife spun slowly in the water as I turned it on and finished the original job, cutting through the spine of the armor and freeing the chestplate. “Guess we’re not the first ones to step foot here.”

“No ping responses from it.” Cathida said. “That armor’s long dead. Not even passive emissions left, so it’s been away from power for more than a few hundred years by now.”

All this time, right next to a source of power. And there wasn’t any trace of a body either inside the hollow section, just metal left behind. As if it had been an empty armor thrown into the lake. Despite the helmet still being sealed to the neck section.

Power cell fluid kept in long term storage mode could last centuries and still be ready. But if the armor was completely and utterly dead, the armor spirit would have gathered up in one final location before shutting off for good as far as I’ve learned when asking the more edge case situations to Journey.

“Are you looting the dead?” Drakonis asked, sounding appalled as he watched me cut that specific section of the helmet out.

“I’d be a poor surface savage if I didn’t.” I said, mildly offended. I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to return to the surface, but an extra armor seed like this was hardly anything large to carry. If anything, I’d sliced a way bigger piece than the actual containment section.

Into my belt pouches it went, while my knife cut through the rest of the helmet holding the knightbreaker chain. “You think the rest of the metal pings down here are also empty armors?”

“Get back up here Winterscar,” Drakonis said, his helmet feed showing him keeping his rifle ready, and his vision shuffling around. “This isn’t the time to go searching through a graveyard.”

He did have a point. Murdershrimp was out there, seething. “Fine, but I’m coming back to this lake after we’re done and properly looting the place.” I told him.

I looked up, grabbing the sides of the stone pillar that would eventually surface over the water and turn into the stepping stones. A jump and a few handhold tugs got me above the water and climbing back up, water sloshing down the plates.

Back on my feet, I gave Drakonis a mild shrug, and began to fit the knightbreaker chains back into their original shape. Journey would need to work a little on it to reuse the entire shell however. The nose part was smashed in where it collided, which was part of the design document. I loaded the shell back into the launcher, and left it close enough to Journey for it to start the repair process.

“Are you done? We need to start looking for another power source.” He said. “Eat something on the way, we’re on a time limit again.”

“That’s where we’re going to run into an issue.” I said, turning to the sliced up mite fountain. “We have to find Murdershirmp first and kill it for good before we can think of finding a new power source.”

He stopped, then turned back to glare at me. “You want to hunt down an ambush machine type with stealth abilities? Have you lost your mind Winterscar? Energy source first. Once we have a base of operation, we can start tracking it down safely.”

“If you were a giant machine that lost a fight against two humans in armor, what would you do next?”

“Lay an ambush further off.” He shrugged. “Track 'em down, wait for the sorry bastards to sleep or eat. Attack when they're at the weakest.”

“You’re on the right track. But we won’t be at our weakest when sleeping or eating.” I said, tapping the armor.

He got the message almost instantly, his head turning to the sliced up mite fountain. “Well fuck. I see. We’ll be at our weakest when we can no longer use our armor. That's a problem.”

I flashed him a thumbs up. “Last time I’ve seen a machine have enough spite to break a mite fountain and do this kind of resource denial, it went above and beyond. Destroyed every single possible source of power within miles. Only place we could find for power was buried deep and the machine was too fat to fit in.”

Drakonis didn’t answer but I could see his shoulder hunch. “Shit.” He hissed. “You think it’s running around doing that kind of plan?”

It’s the single best move the machine could do. Remove all power sources, wait a few days until we run out of juice, and then try to murder us again.

“Don’t know for sure if it is or isn't. But I do know machines get upset when they don’t win, and they adapt their strategy quickly if they aren’t killed. Some of them adapt in different ways, but I’ve got a hunch this one’s going to adapt in the direction of maximum annoyance. So, we find it first, and finish the job.”

“I follow, but how in the twelve purple hells do we find a machine with stealth abilities that’s trying to wait us out?” Drakonis asked.

“Got a possible idea already. It doesn’t know how much juice we actually have, so we spend a day or two running around, then pretend we’ve lost all power and wait for it to return.”

“One flaw to that.” Drakonis said. “Machines can wait for decades. Unless it’s frenzied enough to attack at any sign of weakness, why wouldn’t it wait a week or more until it’s certain we’re powerless and then hunt us down at its leisure? If I were tracking a bleeding beast that was a true threat to my neck, I’d be waiting for the beast to die on its own before I go poking it with a stick.”

Ah, he had me there.

Drakonis looked up, watching the roof surface far above us. “We should try to make it to the next biome, or go up a strata. We can come back down here to investigate the portal after we’ve got enough supplies to last us an expedition.”

“It’ll follow us.” I said. “Drakes already do that unless we find a mite blast door somewhere.”

“It’s a machine type I’ve never seen before, we can’t assume how it’ll behave. For all we know, the little bastard could be programmed to protect only this fountain.” He turned to the slashed ruin. “With this gone, could be it’ll go find another fountain to guard and we’re just greatly overthinking all this.”

There was a small pause on the comms between us.

Then we both started laughing.

“Fat chance.”

“Too fucking lucky to hope for.”

Seems expecting the worst was something we had in common. Thinking Murdershrimp would simply move on with its happy life was probably going to happen when the surface melted.

“Maybe we could try a variation of your original plan?” I asked with a shrug. “A mix up. We act as if we’ve run out of power, and then try to make a mad rush out of the biome. It’ll think we’re screwed and trying to flee.”

“Could work. Maybe.” Drakonis said with a shrug, then looked down at the power cell bag. We had a lot of cells all at full here. More than a few day’s worth. And somehow it once again felt like not enough. Then he asked the question that ruined everything. “Can machines tell how long a power cell lasts for armor use?”

That got another pause between us as we added the math up. It had seen us power up cells from the fountain and stuff them in the bag, and it’d seen we only had that one bag. Even Journey could make a quick and mostly accurate count of how many cells could fit.

“Three gods above, nothing ever goes my way for long.” I hissed under my breath.

If it knew how long we could reasonably stay powered for, all it had to do was stretch that number to the most conservative amount and then attack.

Could I kill murdershrimp with my occult armguard, bullets and gear - without the winterblossom technique, the stamina and HUD guidance of Journey?

Maybe. A big maybe.

Abraxas might be the only move we had left. Was Murdershrimp destroying mite terminals as well? If I could get a hold of him, I could get him to send me some map or guidance on where a fountain might be that’s safe from Murdershrimp. Maybe he knew where the mite blast doors were, and we could make a break for one of those. Murdershrimp would have to attack us then or watch us slip away.

But Drakonis had the better idea in the end. He’d been a hunter before a soldier, and was used to fighting machines and exploiting their patterns.

Like Father had told me a lifetime ago. There’s always a weakness to leverage, Keith.

“We can track the bastard down.” He finally said, standing back up, helmet scanning the trees around us. “It’s not invisible to eyesight, only sensors and technology. And it’ll avoid being seen by us, so we’re not the ones who’ll have any good chance of finding it. But we’re also not the only ones in this strata. And machines only care about humans, they don’t even notice anything else unless they’re disturbed directly. Deer, rabits, insects - machines never even look or care about animals, they'll only deal with those if they're in the way. The bastard's blind point: Something that isn’t human.”

The bird.

Drakonis wants to recruit the bird into finding Murdershrimp for us.

I turned my own gaze over to the treeline, Journey’s HUD changing visual frequency to heat vision, where I could see the bright red outline of one bird sulking above, hiding behind branches and leaves.

“You think it’s different from the feral animals that attacked first?”

“It’s carrying a backpack and jewelry.” He said. “The wolves were too, and one tried to talk to us before the machine spooked it. None of the feral animals had anything similar. I'll take a wild guess we got room for diplomacy here.”

“You think we can coax it out?”

He nodded. “I don’t think. I know. We can get it down here, all we need to do is signal that we know it’s there, and we’re waiting for it to come down and talk.”

“What kind of signal would it hear?” I asked, “Not sure it speaks human. Plus we just looked at it, and it’s already hiding away. The wolf’s a better lead if we can track it down.”

“The machine’s sneaky, but it’s fucking huge. Easy to spot from the air. We want the bird over the wolves if possible.” He said, giving my head a few taps as if it was an obvious answer. “As for getting the bird down here, we’ll use the most universal message there is. Food. I’ve hunted hundreds of birds before, I know what they like. That bird’s got a short beak, so it’s an omnivore and it’ll eat just about anything. Use some of that surface savage knowledge, get digging for some insects. I’ll grab a flat rock. We need to set up a half bird trap, half diplomatic table.”

I've seen and done strange things lately, but digging up worms to bait a sentient intelligent bird into being our spy against machines... that's going to take some spot on the top ten. Maybe top five.

Rest of the spots go to Wrath in some way or another.

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