And there hadn’t been a party of soldiers waiting for them at the entrance to the Forge. That made it unlikely that the merchants had set them up. Although, that still left open the possibility that they had been followed. Finn hadn’t forgotten his conversation with Eldawin. If someone intended to use this opportunity to take out Finn and his teammates – either the guilds or the Khamsin – then they would likely approach from the desert to the north. Hopefully, the druids would be able to keep an eye out for that. Although, he wasn’t convinced that they would intervene if it came down to a conflict. Silver seemed more likely to let them fight it out and then deal with the survivors.
As Finn saw the bushes around the entrance to the Forge begin to move, shuffling along on rootlike legs, a frown pulled at his lips. All of those fears aside, there was one concern that dominated the rest. There was a fate worse than death – at least, for a traveler. Someone could come along and permanently seal this entrance. Locking them inside some sort of ruined, deadly workshop seemed like a great way to get rid of the Khamsin’s new messiah. Hopefully, Spider did a good job hiding the entrance.
Either way, he wasn’t going to alert them to Eldawin’s cryptic threats or his concerns about this rogue faction of the Khamsin. The druids were already reluctant allies as it was. If he explained that there might be more people on the way…
Well, some things were best held close to the chest.
Finn let out a sigh. Even without Silver’s two-day time limit, there were a few compelling reasons to get in, grab the tech, and get the hell out of there as fast as they could.
“Yep, I definitely wouldn’t mind an easy win every once in a while,” Finn muttered to himself as he shouldered his pack and stepped toward the entrance to the Forge. Although, he doubted that was going to happen any time soon.
***
Finn and his group stepped inside the Forge and soon found themselves standing in a darkened stone hallway. The ceiling towered nearly a dozen feet above them, and the entrance opened into a hall about ten feet wide. The walls were formed of the same paneled stone as the entrance, and Finn’s enhanced vision could pick out the crystals that laced the surface in elaborate patterns. In fact, those crystalline wires somewhat reminded him of the security mech’s circuitry. However, he didn’t detect any mana flowing through the patterns. They lay dead and dormant.
He heard a rustle of leaves behind him and turned to find vines creeping across the entrance to the Forge, the rope-like vegetation thickening with each passing second. Within moments, the vines had formed a dense wall, fully blocking the light from outside. Finn had no doubt that Spider would continue to reinforce that wall until it completely concealed the Forge’s entrance and fenced them inside.
Darkness now hovered across the hallway like a dense blanket, pushed back only by the faint light cast by Daniel’s flickering form. “Anyone else notice that we always seem to be exploring some ruined dungeon or cave?” Julia asked into the silence, her voice echoing slightly off the walls. “Just once, maybe we could try visiting a brightly lit garden? Or maybe a peaceful glade?”
Kyyle laughed softly. “You could probably play with the settings. I bet there’s a child-friendly mode where shadows are highlighted in technicolor, the mechs shoot rainbows, and other people attack you with Nerf bats.”
“Sounds like cheating to me,” Julia grumbled. “I’m not asking for a lot of hand-holding. Just a little ambient lighting, maybe? A nice lantern? Or a window?”
“Well, instead, we get an eerie workshop full of half-mad and dilapidated security mechs that shoot lasers and explode when damaged,” Finn interjected. “So, let’s move forward carefully. May as well cut the chatter too. The mechs seem to be using a light-mana-based sensor like Kalisha’s automatons, but these things seemed much more advanced. They might also have a way to detect sound.”
His companions nodded, their expressions sobering, and the group started forward.
It soon became obvious that a battle had been waged inside the Forge.
For roughly half a mile, the entry hallway continued, burrowing deeply into the side of the mountain range. Scorch marks created long black furrows that disrupted the patterns etched into the floor, walls, and ceiling. The floor was riddled with debris – the remains of other mechs and piles of loose stone. As Finn took another step, his foot accidentally kicked at something along the ground, the object rolling forward with an unmistakable rattle.
He raised a staying hand, and the group paused.
Finn crouched and waved Daniel closer. With his Short-Sighted active, he could make out the glowing blue outline of a bone. A very human-looking bone. His teammates noticed the remains at the same time, their lips curling into a grimace. Many more bones were scattered down the hall, yet no fragments of flesh remained.
Old. Long enough for the bodies to have fully decayed.
The tentative conclusion? These probably weren’t the remains of Kalisha’s mercenaries. Although, that did little to quiet the nervous knot in Finn’s stomach.
He rose back to his feet with a sigh, and they kept moving forward. Only a few minutes later, the hallway terminated into a large semi-circular room. The group hesitated at the opening, pushing themselves back against the walls and giving Finn a chance to survey the darkened chamber with his Mana Sight.
His brow furrowed as he took in the enclosure. It wasn’t that he detected any particular threat. In fact, the room seemed rather innocuous… even familiar.
There was a long, curved counter resting in the center of the room, facing the entrance hallway. Chairs lined the walls adjacent to the entryway – although many had been damaged or were toppled onto their sides. Finn could also make out what appeared to be a pair of large doors along the far wall behind the counter, the portals presumably leading further into the complex.
It almost looked like… a lobby. If he had been in the real world, he could have sworn he was looking at the post-apocalyptic remains of a downtown office building. Yet seeing the ruins of this reception area in-game was disconcerting. It felt out of place.
“It’s clear,” Finn whispered, keeping his voice low. “Daniel, patrol the room and scan any debris,” he instructed the AI that perched above his shoulder.
The fire elemental gave a faint flash and then skittered off into the dark room, roaming its perimeter before floating above each ruined mech and scanning the wreckage. While Daniel was busy, Finn pulled a metal sphere from his pack and set it aflame using his Imbue Fire, creating a makeshift torch. He made sure to keep the heat rank low to avoid accelerating the infection. Although it was dim, the combined light from his channeled spell and Daniel’s form was enough for Kyyle and Julia to make out their surroundings.
“What the hell…” Kyyle muttered as the room came into view.
“This looks like a reception desk,” Julia said, waving at the counter with her lance as she entered the room, keeping her shield at the ready.
“But with no receptionist,” Kyyle replied. “This place is giving me the creeps.”
Finn couldn’t help but agree. He caught a flash of mana from behind the counter with his Mana Sight and circled the desk. On the other side, he could see that an intricate series of crystals had been embedded in the countertop – much like the terminals that the mages used back in Lahab. However, this panel was much, much more intricate. Finn could make out complex patterns of crystalline wires resting just below the stone. One gem, in particular, glowed with a faint, red energy that pulsed softly – denoting some active mana.
Frowning, Finn tapped at that crystal.
All at once, fiery energy pulsed along the counter, and a humming sound echoed through the room. The mana soon raced through the crystal circuits embedded in the walls, tracing those intricate patterns and creating a series of glowing lines. The light grew in strength with each passing second and swiftly began to illuminate the room in a dull red and orange glow. Finn swiftly retracted his orb, and his teammates whirled, watching the room for
any sign of threat.
“It looks like you found the light switch,” Julia offered, eyeing the walls suspiciously.
“Indeed,” Finn murmured. The panel in front of him had also come back online. The crystals were now awash in energy, the mana flowing through the circuitry in a dizzying series of lines and shapes. Not that he knew what the damn thing was supposed to do. He had a strong suspicion he wasn’t going to find an ancient instruction manual lying nearby.
“What the hell is this place?” Kyyle asked, his fingers tracing the glowing walls.
“T-t-this is the F-f-forge…” a voice spoke up, the sound grinding and stuttering. It sounded like rocks smashing together.
The group whirled toward the sound, expecting to find another of the mechs that had attacked them. Instead, they found what appeared to be a pile of rubble resting against the counter. Finn had initially thought the debris were remnants of the damage to the room’s walls or ceiling – a boulder that had crashed down into the room’s floor, perhaps. Yet as he examined the nearby ceiling and floor, he didn’t see any damage that would have created this pile of rubble. In fact, he had noted many of these rock piles along the entrance hallway but had assumed they were just debris.
It was starting to look like he’d been wrong.
“Okay, now I’ve seen everything. Including a pile of talking rocks,” Kyyle observed as they watched the debris cautiously.
“I don’t think they’re rocks,” Finn said, crouching and inspecting the pile of rubble.
Kyyle frowned at him. “Then what the hell is this thing?”
“I-I-I am a F-f-forge attendant,” the rocks rumbled, shaking slightly.
Finn leaned closer, and he could see a faint green glow coming from the rubble. He gingerly tugged the rocks free to find a roughhewn crystal in the center of the pile. In contrast to the sleek lines and patterns of the walls and console, this gem appeared to have been formed naturally – creating an asymmetric and jagged clump of crystal.
“W-w-welcome…”
Each time the rocks spoke, that crystal pulsed with emerald energy – although the mana signature was weak. That was probably why Finn hadn’t been able to distinguish the crystal from the floor or the surrounding stone. His guess was that this was a form of mana core that powered this… well, talking pile of rocks. It must have gradually weakened over the decades, and the stones had collapsed to form these piles.
“I think it’s a construct or golem maybe,” Finn said. “This is an earth mana core here, but the energy is weak. That may be why it’s having difficulty speaking.”
“Great. Well, let’s kill it before it comes back to life and starts trying to shoot us with lasers or smash us apart,” Julia offered.
“It doesn’t sound threatening,” Kyyle said, edging closer to the pile of debris and crouching down beside Finn. “And we were just talking about a missing receptionist. Wouldn’t it make sense for a place like this to employ something like a golem to handle mundane tasks? I mean, we’ve already seen that this is possible. Remember Brutus’ golems back in the Mage Guild? Seems a lot more efficient than hiring people.”
“Which assumes that anything about this place makes sense,” Julia grumbled.
Kyyle’s brow furrowed as he inspected the earth mana core. It pulsed weakly, emitting a soft green glow.
“I wonder…” Kyyle began softly. Then, unexpectedly, he raised his hand and channeled his mana directly into the core.
The crystal absorbed the energy greedily, glowing brighter with each passing second. Kyyle kept up the channel, feeding more and more mana into the core. Within mere moments, the rocks had begun to shift and rumble, moving of their own accord. Finn and Kyyle backpedaled, quickly putting distance between themselves and… whatever was forming beside the reception desk.
The stones abruptly shot up into the air before freezing in place, floating in the air and beginning to reassemble themselves into a roughly humanoid shape. The creature had a massive torso formed of the largest stones, with two bulky arms made up of many smaller rocks. However, the thing had no legs. Instead, the rubble simply floated in mid-air, tendrils of stones drifting away from its torso toward the ground.
“Uh, Kyyle, maybe you should stop…” Julia said, backing away slowly and raising her shield. Finn followed her lead, watching the creature cautiously.
Kyyle didn’t reply. He simply kept pumping mana into the crystalline core. The now brightly glowing cluster of mana drifted into the air. The last of the stones that made up the creature’s chest separated, and the crystal slid smoothly into place before the rocks closed once again. Then the earth mage finally released his mana, his eyes focused in rapt fascination on the rock-like creature that now floated before them.
A tense silence hung in the air as the group looked on.
The golem rotated slowly in the air, turning until the group could see its rough-hewn stone head face them, two glowing green points of light denoting its eyes. The creature towered nearly eight feet into the air, its bulky body casting a long shadow from the soft orange and red light cast by the walls.
Finn swallowed hard, and his fingers began to move, preparing to ratchet the heat up on his metal sphere even as Julia tightened her grip on her lance. Finn’s eyes were on the dense cluster of stone that wrapped the golem’s body. He would likely need to use heat rank level 4 to make it past the rock armor and destroy the creature’s core…
“Hail, visitors!” the creature said, its voice a rumbling, grating sound. Yet it was no longer stuttering.
Finn’s brow furrowed as he realized the golem was making no move to attack. He held up a hesitant hand to Julia. For his part, Kyyle was just standing there staring, an excited smile beginning to stretch across his face.
“Welcome to the Forge. I am attendant #167,” the creature ground out when they didn’t respond. “How may I be of assistance today?”
Chapter 12 - Fail-Safe
The group stared at the hulking mound of stone, its glowing green eyes pulsing as it watched them expectantly. After several long seconds, it hadn’t made any threatening movements. Rather, it hovered in place as though waiting for a command.
Finn inspected the creature.
Earth Elemental (Attendant #167) – Level 100
Health – Unknown
Mana – Unknown
Equipment – Unknown
Resistances – Unknown
That didn’t reveal a lot more than Finn already knew. Although, he supposed he hadn’t known for certain that this… thing was an earth elemental.
Finn’s eyes darted to Daniel, where he hovered beside his shoulder, pulsing softly and watching the floating attendant. Did one of those strange crystalline cores linger inside Daniel’s fiery form as well? He hadn’t thought to investigate the fire elemental closely since the game had designated him as a pet, but now he was beginning to second guess that decision. It seemed that this game world might be more complex than it first appeared.
“I don’t think it’s going to harm us,” Kyyle said. He approached the earth elemental slowly, hands raised, showing his empty palms.
“Really? And you know that because of your considerable experience with destroyed ancient workshops and earth elementals?” Julia offered in a dry voice. She hadn’t dropped her shield or lance. “Someone – or something – drained all of those elementals dry.” She waved at the other piles of rubble strewn about the room. “They must have had a reason. I, for one, don’t trust the floating pile of rubble.”
“Well, I mean, it’s an educated guess since it hasn’t attacked us, and it did ask if we needed any assistance,” Kyyle offered over his shoulder. As he neared the elemental, he passed his hand beneath its body experimentally. His fingers shot upward, pressing forcefully against the underside of the elemental’s torso before he jerked his hand back.
“Fascinating,” Kyyle murmured, staring at his uninjured hand. “I think it’s creating a gravity well beneath the rocks. That must be what’s keeping
its torso and arms suspended.”
The earth elemental’s head shifted downward, its glowing eyes fixing on Kyyle. “Hello, sir. I detect the presence of strong earth mana. Are you a supervisor?”
Kyyle shot Finn a questioning glance, and he shrugged.
“Play along,” Finn mouthed.
“Yes… yes, I’m a supervisor,” Kyyle replied.
“Fantastic! May I please see your credentials, sir?” the elemental rumbled in response.
Kyyle hesitated, mulling on how to respond to that.
“He’s new and just arrived at the facility,” Finn interjected, stepping forward. “Kyyle here was supposed to be admitted as a new member of the… uh, staff. So, he hasn’t been issued credentials yet. In fact, we’re having some difficulty locating the other people that work here. Could you assist us with that?”
The earth elemental’s glowing green eyes swept to Finn and then back to Kyyle. “Of course. I will treat you as temporary visitors until we can locate the other staff. Please let me check on the status of the facility.”
The elemental promptly floated past Kyyle and hovered next to the console in the center of the reception area. Julia gave the creature a wide berth, eyeing the elemental suspiciously and maintaining her firm grip on her lance and shield.
The attendant’s arm drifted forward, the stones along its fingers contorting and shifting in place. A series of smaller crystals shuffled forward, assembling themselves into a complicated pattern. The elemental then inserted its reconfigured hand into a corresponding notch in the surface of the console, and its eyes flashed. With his Mana Sight active, Finn observed a surge of earth mana ripple through the console.
“This technology is incredible,” Kyyle whispered to Finn, stepping up beside him.
“No kidding,” Finn replied quietly.
This was far beyond anything that he had witnessed inside the Mage Guild – or even Kalisha’s mechanids and the suit that Sadik had operated. He could feel questions tumbling through his mind. What was this place? Who had built it? And what had happened here?
Awaken Online: Inferno (Tarot #3) Page 12
