Agnete stood in front of the crystalline archway.
It was the same portal she had originally come through when entering the Anvil. The Anvil was a truly massive world—Agnete didn’t have the slightest idea how fast their trains moved over the terrain, only that they moved far beyond even the swiftest horse. That made comparing it to Mystakeen or even the Greater Kingdom of Chernlock somewhat difficult.
As it turned out, the portal wasn’t all that far from her workshop. Which, she supposed, made sense. She had ridden atop one of the conveyor belts to reach her workshop the first time around, not one of the high-speed trains. Arkk had avoided this one while gathering crystalline shards for her smaller portal frame due to the active watchers—and also because he hadn’t wished to damage the portal frame they knew was functional. Had he directed her toward it, she could have simply come in person, but there had been communication issues.
Arkk hadn’t thought she was allowed to wander the Anvil freely.
Now that the communication issues had been solved, Agnete had directions directly to the portal.
“You couldn’t have brought me here yourself?” Agnete asked with a mild frown.
“ᛊorry,” Who said as the cogs on her hitched in a nervous stutter. “Central Operations denied me the information.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.” Agnete looked over the crystalline archway, honing in on the central point high above.
The archway loomed before her, a near mirror of the portal at Fortress Al-Mir, as well as both portals she had seen inside the Underworld. It was as if the universe had a blueprint for these portals, one that cared little for the precise shape of the arch as long as they adhered to the general form. The only thing perfectly replicated were the runes scrawled up and down the arch’s surface.
But, at the top center where the keystone should be, there was nothing but a vacancy.
A large mechanical arm, currently dormant, perched off to one side of the portal’s platform. Behind it, an array of crystals were meticulously organized, each piece a perfect fit for the keystone’s vacant throne. Every last one bore a unique rune, glowing faintly as if eager to fulfill their purposes. There was a hum in the air beyond the drone of the Anvil’s factory that set Agnete’s hair on end.
None of the other portals they had found, including the one in the Necropolis that Agnete had yet to visit, had anything like that. There were a few vacancies in the storage bank, perhaps the keystones had been lost or perhaps they had never existed in the first place.
Arkk wanted all of them eventually, but at the moment, he wanted aid more.
Agnete had instructions from Zullie on how to reconfigure the runes in this portal to get it to connect to Fortress Al-Mir’s mirror. Most of the runes could be turned or rotated or removed from their own slots entirely. But if she was unable to activate this portal, she could still take the keystones back through the small gateway she had fabricated in her workshop.
As soon as she took a step onto the portal platform itself, a warning horn wailed and several lights began to flash. One of the large overseer gantries slid along its tracks, rushing straight toward her. The mechanical eye, lowered from cables, descended to Agnete’s eye level and stared.
“ᚠᛟᚱᚷᛖᛗᚨᛊᛏᛖᚱ, ᛊᛏᚨᛏᛖ ᛃᛟᚢᚱ ᛁᚾᛏᛖᚾᛏᛁᛟᚾᛊ.”
“I intend to reopen the portal and use it to deliver some of my constructions to assist my allies on the other side.”
“ᛁᛗᛈᛟᛊᛊᛁᛒᛚᛖ. ᚢᚾᛊᚳᛖᛞᚢᛚᛖᛞ ᛁᚾᛏᛖᚱ-ᛈᛚᚨᚾᚨᚱ ᚨᚳᛏᛁᚢᛁᛏᚣ ᛁᛊ ᛈᚱᛟᚺᛁᛒᛁᛏᛖᛞ. ᚠᛁᛚᛖ ᚠᛟᚱᛗ ᛈᛚᛏ-ᛖᚹᛖ-ᚨ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛊᚢᛗᛒᛁᛏ ᚱᛖᚳᚢᛖᛊᛏ. ᛖᛉᛈᛖᚳᛏ ᚱᛖᛊᛈᛟᚾᛊᛖ ᛁᚾ ᛖᛁᚷᚺᛏ-ᛏᛟ-ᛏᚹᛖᛚᚢᛖ ᚹᛖᛖᚲᛊ.”
“Twelve weeks? Unacceptable,” Agnete said, continuing forward with a slight pivot around the overseer. There was no way she was submitting a form and waiting eight to twelve weeks. She might have been willing to wait a day under other circumstances. But today?
She was in a bit of a rush.
The gantry rolled forward. The overseer eye lifted over her head before dropping down directly in her path once again. Its deep, reverberating voice took on a far more hostile tone. “ᛁ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᛒᛖ ᚠᛟᚱᛊᛖᛞ ᛏᛟ ᚷᛖᚾᛖᚱᚨᛏᛖ ᚨᚾ ᛖᛗᛈᛚᛟᛃᛖᛖ ᛁᚾᚳᛁᛞᛖᚾᛏ ᚱᛖᛈᛟᚱᛏ ᛁᚠ ᛃᛟᚢ ᚳᛟᚾᛏᛁᚾᚢᛖ ᚹᛁᛏᚺ ᛃᛟᚢᚱ ᛊᛏᚨᛏᛖᛞ ᚨᚳᛏᛁᛟᚾᛊ.”
“Be my guest,” Agnete said, sidestepping the eye once again. “I’m not afraid of your incident reports.”
Another horn blared at her, ruffling her hair with the force of the noise it generated. Agnete paused, turning, and raised a single brow at the overseer.
“ᚹᛖ ᚳᚨᚾ ᛊᛏᛟᛈ ᛃᛟᚢ.”
Agnete turned up the heat. A thin beam of flames surged from her with barely a gesture, swirling around one of the gantry’s supports. The overseer started making all sorts of alarmed noises even as a few of the flying voltcoil wyrms circled overhead, responding to the cries. She didn’t need to defend herself from them.
They wouldn’t attack her. Not without higher authority than the overseer possessed.
The wheels of the gantry spun against the tracks, trying to get some distance from her heat. But it was too late. It had been too late by the first few seconds. The sudden attempt at motion just revealed the mess that had been made of the gantry’s leg as it buckled and collapsed.
A reinforcing bar snapped under the strain of the rest of the gantry, flying directly toward her. The heat bubble surrounding her turned it into a metallic vapor well before it hit. Her control was so precise these days that she didn’t even leave molten footsteps in her wake as she stepped forward.
The mangled mess of the gantry melted away before her, leaving her a clear path to the immobile but still swiveling overseer eye. It darted around in a panic until she got close enough. Then, it locked onto her.
“Try to stop me and I will turn this entire sector into slag. Think of the efficiency loss.” Agnete leaned over the eye, making sure her point was made. “There is only one being who can stop me. And I doubt THEY will. Us fighting would probably turn this entire realm into a puddle of molten waste.” Agnete paused a moment then added, almost as an afterthought, “Besides, I was promised aid.”
At least, she thought she had been promised aid. The conversation with the Burning Forge had been… a bit confusing to say the least.
Agnete stared one moment more before turning away. The overseer didn’t try to stop her this time. It couldn’t even move.
Also, it might have been too damaged to give a response. Some of the servitors would likely come along the moment she wasn’t around and fix it up. Or scrap it. One of the two. Either way, Agnete wasn’t concerned about it.
Who, on the other hand, folded her arms as Agnete turned back to the portal. She had recently drawn up some preliminary ideas for giving Who a proper face, one she could manipulate mechanically to show off emotions or move a mouth in the hopes of disturbing others a bit less. Right now, Agnete didn’t need any kind of complex clockwork face to see the disapproval radiating off the construct.
“Was that really necessary, Agneᛏe?”
“Maybe not. But I did ask nicely several times over my stay here and was always denied access to the portal.”
“You didn’t ever fill out the proper form…”
“I can requisition material in five minutes with a single word. These forms they keep talking about are just there for obstruction purposes. Besides, they never once delivered a form to me when I asked.”
Who shifted. If she had a face, she would have looked exasperated. “You probably forgot to fill out the Preliminary Acquisition Document for the Acquisition of Standardized Form Requests.”
“I’m not going to fill out a form to request a form,” Agnete said with a shake of her head. “Especially because I’d probably have to fill out a form to request the form request form. If you want to go fix the overseer, be my guest. I’ve got a job to do.”
Who let out a warbling whistle noise that gave the impression of a sigh. “Would you like for me to activate the inserᛏer?” she asked, gesturing toward the mechanical arm near the bank of keystones.
“If you would,” Agnete said, reaching into the breast pocket of her fresh suit. Despite her activity, there wasn’t a single scorch mark on the fabric. The paper she pulled from the pocket was more than ash. She couldn’t help her smile. She probably looked silly, grinning at a diagram of the archway and all the configuration changes she needed to make, but holding proof of her control’s precision felt good.
Contrary to her words to the overseer, she was somewhat leery that the one being here would object to her actions. The Burning Forge had given her that control. While Agnete felt like she had fought for it and managed to keep her powers through sheer willpower, that control and her powers in general could likely be taken away just as easily.
Agnete didn’t feel like THEY would throw away an avatar over relatively nothing, but a god’s mind was impossible to read almost by definition.
During the meeting with the Burning Forge, Agnete had effectively offered to build a city in Mystakeen in the Anvil’s image. In exchange, She offered aid. Hopefully, a little miscommunication with the overseer wasn’t going to change that.
Either way, Agnete needed to get back as soon as possible.
The whale ships weren’t like the flying ship that had bombed the hell out of the undead army. Lexa could wrap her head around that ship. It was an ocean-faring ship that could fly. Strange and unusual, yes, but considering everything else, a flying ship wasn’t worth a confused blink of an eye.
But the whale ships… something about them filled Lexa with unease. A disquiet in her chest at the mere sight of them wormed its way under her skin. It wasn’t something she could easily explain. If it had just been a whale, she might not have noticed the oddity. If a ship could fly, why not a fish or whale or any other creature of the sea? But the whale ships weren’t quite like that.
Lexa stood there, watching the wind twist and curl in unnatural patterns where the ship was resting. Small swirling clouds of dust chased each other across the trodden-down dirt until they lost their energy and died, only to be reborn elsewhere as fresh wind picked up. Although she could see the whale ship, it felt like there was something else there as well, lurking in the space around it.
The ship itself felt wrong as well. It was metallic and hollow, given the ports on the sides where workers were moving supplies and gear. On any other ship—on regular ships, carriages, and even Arkk’s walking fortress—she might expect to see someone up top, driving the vessel. The helmsman’s bridge, the carriage driver’s seat, and the fortress command room with its great windows looking down below. Given that the whale ships didn’t look like people were meant to sit on its back, Lexa figured the ship would have something akin to the walking fortress. Large windows with a helm somewhere behind.
There were no windows.
There were eyes.
Uncannily fleshy eyes. They swiveled about, glistening with moisture as they rolled in their sockets. They blinked with heavy metal shutters clamping down before slowly lifting back up. They weren’t human eyes. Nor like any kind of demihuman or beastmen eye that Lexa had seen. The eye itself had dozens of colors all swirled together. A squiggly black line cut through it, almost resembling the smile of a cat in how the corners and the middle were lifted up while the rest swooped downward. The line widened and narrowed like a pupil as it focused on anything that moved in its surroundings.
The fins bothered Lexa as well. Their movements, even lying on the ground like this, were far too organic. She had peaked into the Anvil through crystal balls and seen the mechanical creatures within. Those creatures moved with a stiff rigidity befitting of their metallic nature. The whale ship should have been the same, but it wasn’t. It was like some kind of cross between a living creature and one of the Anvil’s mechanical beings.
Lexa pulled her shadowy cloak around herself a little tighter as the creature’s eyes swept over her hiding spot.
It was her job to take it out. If possible. Given the restricted loadout she was able to carry as a small gremlin, the few alchemical bombs she carried in small clay orbs might not be enough to do serious structural damage. She couldn’t carry one of the big clay jars even if she wasn’t trying to sneak around. So, the plan was simple: she was to sabotage it in any way she could, likely by blowing up anything that glowed or had too complex of a magical array.
To do that, she had to get closer.
Worse, she had to get inside.
Given a highly secured manor like that of the Duke’s, she would be in and out without even thinking about it. A prison? Couldn’t hold her any better than it could hold water. But that thing? Lexa shuddered, stomach twisting.
She took a step forward. Unsettling or not, she had a job to do.
Two workers stepped out of the side hatch as Lexa crossed the field. She had been watching for a while now, noting the people coming and going. Unless a bunch of people had been hiding out prior to her arrival, the craft should have only three people in it right now. She almost wanted to wait around and see if they would leave too, but she couldn’t risk the whale taking to the skies. If that happened, she would have to sulk back to Arkk with a failed mission on her hands.
And if it took off while she was on it, sabotaging it would become a rather awkward affair.
She was a gremlin, not a harpy.
Nothing stopped her from reaching the ramp into the whale ship. Guards—armored in the Eternal Empire’s white and black—were posted around the perimeter and at the entrance. Between her shadowy cloak and the stealthy spells she knew, not a one of them so much as glanced in her direction. The eye of the whale ship didn’t seem to notice either, but it was harder to tell which way it was looking with its odd shape.
Creeping inside, Lexa slowed even further.
The inside was worse than the outside.
She expected something like Fortress Al-Mir except condensed down into the space of the whale ship. Hallways, rooms, and metal or wood holding it all together. What she got was a strange fusion of meat and metal. The walls pulsed slightly under her fingertips, expanding and shrinking like the metal could breathe. Every so often, a thin membrane like the wing of a bat stretched across a corridor or doorway, blocking access. At one of them, she could hear voices on the other side—the other workers, presumably—so she figured they could open. There were no levers or handles or anything to indicate how.
Other thresholds were open, letting her peek inside various storage areas. A worker pried open a crate within one, pulling long metal tubes out to hang on hooks on the walls. Parts for the ship? Or weapons of some kind? It was hard to tell. If they were metal versions of Arkk’s clay bombs, it could be a worthwhile target for her sabotage.
For now, she would keep looking and see if there was anything more guaranteed.
A slick squelch almost had her making a noise. One of the membranes pulled back right in front of Lexa. She pressed herself up against the wall as another worker stepped out. With the talking earlier and the worker at the crate, she had thought she had an accounting of all the people. But this guy stepped out looking exhausted. His outfit, a black tunic with the white swords of the Eternal Empire embroidered on his chest, was slick with sweat—Lexa hoped it was sweat.
He didn’t notice her. He walked right past, movements stiff and more mechanical than the metal whale. Like a puppet on strings. A foul alchemical stench wafted in his wake.
The membrane slid closed behind him, squelching once more. He made no motion to close it, so she figured it must be something like Fortress Al-Mir. The doors wouldn’t open unless someone part of the place was there to open them.
That could pose a problem going forward. Would knocking one of the workers out and dragging them in front of a door work? Or did it take a conscious effort to open them?
Savren might have been the better infiltrator if the latter was the case.
The deeper Lexa went, the more the surroundings changed. The metallic components seemed to grow ever more organic, pulsating and oozing. The walls grew slick and damp while the air grew heavy and humid. The thick smell of rot started to overpower the fresh air coming in from behind her.
A sudden fear that she was walking down some creature’s digestive tract welled up inside her. The whale ship already had her uneasy but walking herself in to be eaten? It was enough to make her want to give up. What was a failed mission compared to being slowly digested in the bowels of some monster?
It was hard to stay focused. There had to be something she could blow up. Some vital-looking component or a magical array that kept the whole thing alive. Those racks of metal tubes from earlier came to mind, but it was so close to the outer edge of the ship that it probably wouldn’t even damage the bulk of it. Was that enough?
Lexa took a step back, then another. She turned around, only to spot an opening she had walked right past in her distracted thoughts. The corridor beyond was even more meat-like. Even the floor went from metal to thick yellowed cartilage. Veins in the walls pulsed and thumped to a steady beat. A beat which she could hear, coming from further down the meaty corridor.
Another membrane and the end of the corridor separated her from whatever was making that noise.
Her imagination filled in the gaps.
The repeated thumping. The pulsing in the walls. The meat.
It was a heart. Not like the maze-covered stone that was the Heart of Fortress Al-Mir or the shadowy orbs that served as the cores of the walking fortresses. This was a heart. The core of a living being. Whatever monster this was—she doubted the Eternal Empire had built them here, more like grown them—it was alive and this was its core.
Lexa’s fingers itched to pull her whole bandoleer of clay orbs off her shoulders and just set them right up against the membrane-like door. Although small, they were still volatile. Would they do enough damage through the door to take out the heart?
Lexa bit her lip.
No. She couldn’t take the chance. Better to ensure this abomination went to whatever hell it had crawled out from. She had to get the door open.
But how?
Drag a worker in front of it? That might work…
Or maybe…
An idea popped into Lexa’s head.
All she had to do was get one of the workers to open it on his own. Lure one here. Maybe make him think something had gone wrong inside and consciously open the door. That would surely work better than trying to shove an unconscious body into the membrane.
Besides, if she couldn’t lure someone, she could always try knocking someone out afterward.