by S. R. Witt
No, there was only one way. He relaxed, exhaled, aimed, and fired.
TWENTY-SEVEN:
Treasure Room
The repeater’s thunderous report echoed through the factory in one long, warbling crash as he unleashed a hail of gunfire.
Osmark’s senses were so wound up by the adrenaline pouring through him he actually watched bullets streak from the end of the barrel, propelled by a cloud of steam and smoke. Rounds slammed into the Sigil Guardian’s left eye with devastating force. Crackling energy erupted from the wound and spread out in a haze of blue-white static. The disoriented guardian screamed as the sigil defining its reality struggled to heal its wound.
Its body twisted in agony, tentacles flailing wildly, smashing into machinery and steam turbines surrounding it. After a moment, it flopped onto one side, crashing down across the assembly lines, throwing rollers and severed pieces of Steamwraiths in every direction. It raised its body on trembling tentacles and glared at Robert with its good eye from ten feet away, hate and fury burning in its gaze as it charged.
Osmark didn’t care—he’d won this round.
He holstered his repeater, offered the creature a brief wave goodbye, then twisted the elevator’s sole dial counterclockwise until it clicked. The doors slid shut a split second before the Sigil Guardian slammed into them with a thunderous clang. The motor kicked into life with a soft whir, and the elevator descended as the guardian’s useless attacks on the doors echoed down the shaft.
“How did you know that would work?” Sandra asked.
Despite the white-knuckled anxiety and tight-bellied fear waltzing through his system, Robert shrugged and projected strength. “A magician never reveals all his secrets,” he replied. Truthfully, it’d been a wild guess, fueled by hope and desperate need. Sometimes luck played a role in success, but it was always best to make people believe you made your own luck.
The rest of the group said nothing, their faces ashen and their expressions somber. Understandable, considering they’d just stared death in the face and narrowly come out on the other side. The Sigil Guardian continued to rage above them, its anguished voice almost as loud as the sounds of destruction ringing through the factory above.
Targ forced a grin. “Thanks, I owe you one.”
The Risi raised his left arm to examine a long gash in the back of his gauntlet. He flicked the tattered leather with his right index finger and grunted. “Hope this thing still works.”
Osmark’s heart froze in his chest. In that split second when the two halves of the leather had separated, he’d seen a tattoo on the Risi’s hand: a single black skull.
Coldskulls.
Somehow, Sizemore had gotten to at least one of his NPCs.
Osmark glanced at Karzic, but the dwarf wore a pair of heavy mail gauntlets that covered his arms to the elbows. Likewise, Eldred sported shimmery, enruned gloves that covered her hands completely. No way of knowing for sure, but if Targ was an assassin it stood to reason the others were, too. It was best to assume so, anyway. He silently cursed himself for not checking their hands earlier. It was a simple mistake, and one he hoped he’d be able to rectify before he had to pay for it.
He triggered V.G.O.’s private messaging function and fired off a note to Sandra.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
These are Coldskulls. Assassins. Be ready for anything.
<<<>>>
Osmark didn’t look at Sandra, but he felt her tense next to him. She responded instantly.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
I’ll kill Eldred, you shoot Targ in the head. Do it now, while we still have the element of surprise.
<<<>>>
Sandra’s plan would work—and it would probably get them out of immediate danger—but it would put Osmark in a terrible position. The boss fight, judging from the resistance they’d faced so far, was going to be a damned nightmare. Robert needed every person in this group if they hoped to defeat the boss and claim the Faction Seal.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
Negative. We need them—killing the Boss without their assistance will be impossible. We’ll strike when the fight is over. Hopefully the Boss will do some of the work for us.
<<<>>>
Sandra pinched the outside of Osmark’s thigh through his padded armor.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
When we’re wounded and exhausted from the fight? That’s suicide. There must be a better way …
<<<>>>
Robert didn’t flinch, but he vowed to make Sandra pay for that little trick when they got out of here. He was still her boss, after all.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
They’ll be wounded, too. I have a plan. Trust me.
<<<>>>
Sandra let out a little sigh, something no one else in the elevator would notice, but to Osmark, it was an exasperated, angry gesture every bit as emphatic as if she’d turned and flipped him the bird. It was also, however, a sign of reluctant acceptance. She would play along, even if she disapproved.
The elevator shuddered to a stop, but Karzic extended a hand before anyone could disembark. “Let’s get everyone patched up before we go in. Robert, you look all right. Eldred, I don’t see a feather out of place. These other two, though, need my attention.”
Osmark gestured for Sandra to trade places with him so she could be closer to Karzic and the Risi. He leaned back against the wall, thoughts racing as he tried to imagine how Sizemore had replaced his hired NPCs with assassins. It should’ve been impossible. Though his merc crew seemed alive and marked by long, complicated pasts, the truth was they hadn’t existed until the moment Robert opened this restricted area and met them. They were custom jobs, created specifically for this mission.
Something very strange was going on, and he was going to enjoy getting the answers to this mystery from Sizemore.
All this double-dealing and backstabbing exhausted Robert. He’d had more than his fair share of corporate and political machinations back IRL—though, admittedly, that had been more about contracts and suppliers and less about actually sticking a knife in someone’s ribs.
Eldred’s wings fluttered, and Osmark wondered how easy it would be to put his repeater against the back of her skull and turn her head into pink mist. Tightly controlled rage seethed inside him like an active volcano on the verge of eruption. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was traitors.
If I didn’t need you, he thought darkly, fingers flexing around the grip of his weapon.
“Jumpy?” Eldred asked, suddenly peering at Osmark.
Robert raised an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re about to draw that fancy gun of yours,” she said with a cool smile, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I could feel you back there. Getting ready to kill.”
Osmark’s face became a perfectly neutral mask. He didn’t know how Eldred was picking up on his emotions, but he clamped down on them. He didn’t want her in his head. “I’m just ready to get this over with.”
Targ grunted at that. “Me, too.”
Karzic finished his chanting and grabbed the lever next to the door. “Alright then, let’s do this,” he said.
But the elevator remained closed despite the dwarf’s best efforts. Osmark stepped up and slipped his hand past Karzic. “Soulbound,” he said matter-of-factly as he twisted the dial. “It only opens for me.”
There was no guarantee the exit would be soulbound, as well, but Robert wanted that possibility to prey on the mercenaries’ minds. If they killed him, would they be stranded below in a tomb of machines? It might make them pause when it came time for their betrayal, and that could be the edge he needed to get out of the fight in one piece.
The elevator’s doors slid open to reveal a wide chamber with a vaulted ceiling studded with glowing white orbs. Through the blue lens of his goggles, Osmark saw sigils covering the floor, ceiling, and wa
lls in dizzying tangles. Trying to decipher even the simplest of them skewered his brain with a pain so intense it made his eyes water. Rather than risk scorching his mind, Robert chose to err on the side of caution and look away. “The whole room is riddled with sigils. Just about every inch. Anything we touch, anywhere we step, could be a trap,” he told his companions.
“This job is the worst,” Targ muttered, holding his hands on the pommel of his club. “I was promised easy money and even easier experience.”
“Me, too,” Osmark shot back.
Steam pipes and wire conduits snaked along the walls and crisscrossed the ceiling in mystifying configurations. Thick hoses tipped with bulky coupling rings dangled from the heavy pipes on the ceiling, while nozzles and mounting ports jutted from the walls and floor at regular intervals. Osmark took all of it in at a glance, his Clockwork skill organizing everything into understandable categories for him: active steam pipes, exhaust channels, activated power grid, inactive cabling.
Whatever they were going to face in here was well prepared to put up a fight.
But despite the dangers, Osmark only had eyes for a pedestal rising from the back of a small doorless chamber on the far side of the room. It held a heavy, iron-banded chest that practically glowed with hidden promise. That was the real object of this quest—recovering his Faction Seal and the other specialized gear waiting for him inside that chest.
“Where’s the boss?” Eldred asked, giving voice to all of their concerns. “Shouldn’t there be a boss monster here?”
“There will be,” Osmark said softly, sweeping his gaze across the floor one more time. “Stay on your toes.”
The only way Robert could reach the chest containing his Faction Seal was to cross the main chamber. He was positive the floor was covered in deadly sigils, but they were so complex he couldn’t decipher them at a distance.
“Targ, Karzic, and Eldred, hang back by the elevator. There are traps littering the floor, but I can’t see a path around them or a way to disarm them at this distance. I’ll have to get a closer look.” Robert tapped Sandra on the shoulder. “You’re with me. You take point and I’ll make sure you don’t blow us all up.”
Sandra opened her mouth to protest, but Osmark activated his Micromanage ability before she could voice her complaints. He watched her eyes widen in surprise just before her jaw clicked shut.
Interesting, he thought.
Crossing the floor was a terrifying exercise. Sandra walked a few feet ahead of Osmark, and his Overseer skill directed her around the handful of dangerous sigils he was able to identify. The Artificers who had crafted these designs were far more advanced than him, and with every step, Robert was certain they were about to die. But miraculously, after what felt like hours, they arrived at the small alcove housing the pedestal. Robert and Sandra both breathed out a sigh of relief and slumped against the walls.
“Think they can hear us all the way over here?” Sandra asked as the Micromanage ability faded away.
Osmark stole a quick glance at the mercenaries. They were standing in a loose group, not talking to each other, instead scanning for danger. “No. I think we’re safe as long as we keep our voices down.”
Sandra stepped in front of the chest and examined it for traps. “How did you know?” she asked. “About them being assassins, I mean.”
Robert’s attention was on the chest, as well, and he saw no sigils. That was a relief. “The killers who came after Horan and me in the forest all had skull tattoos on the webbing between their left thumb and index finger. When our boy Targ showed me the hole in his glove, I caught a glimpse of his tattoo.”
“You’re sure?” Sandra asked. Then, a little louder, “This thing’s clear of traps as near as I can tell.”
They swapped places, and Osmark pretended to search the chest for sigils he already knew weren’t there. “As sure as I need to be,” he whispered. “They’re all wearing gloves, so I can’t be certain. But if they managed to get one in, why not the others?”
“That’s impossible,” Sandra said, hunching forward, resting her hands just above her knees. “Unless Sizemore got to someone inside the Dev team …”
Her words died, and Robert nodded while facing the chest. “That’s what I’m worried about, too. If he has agents who can mess with the code, that’s even more of a reason to stop him. That kind of tampering endangers all of us. The whole world.”
Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Finally, he broke the silence. “The Micromanage skill. What was it like just now? When I compelled you with it?” he asked, still facing the chest.
Sandra stood and folded her arms across her middle, chewing on the corner of her lips. “It was like someone giving you advice—you know, whispering in your ear. It made it hard to concentrate on anything else. I couldn’t even talk, really, while it was happening.”
Robert made a mental note of that and stowed it away for future use. Then he leaned back from the chest and cracked his knuckles. “Well, I don’t see any sigil traps,” he said, loudly enough to ensure the others heard. “Time to get the goods.” Without hesitation, he put one hand flat against the top of the chest. A brilliant blue flash filled the chamber with painfully bright light, and the chest opened with an audible crack.
Before he could examine the chest’s contents, however, the crack morphed into a whole chain of loud shattering noises. The cacophony echoed through the room with a sound that reminded Robert of an earthquake he’d experienced on a business trip in San Francisco. The sound was deafening, but he felt it as much as heard it.
“Oh, shit,” Sandra said.
Robert spun around and drew his repeater. He expected a horde of monsters to come swarming at them from hidden doors in the chamber.
What he didn’t expect to see was a smooth line separating the ceiling into two halves. As Osmark watched, the metal plates and the maze of pipes attached to them split cleanly. Something rumbled in the darkness above the new fault line, and moments later, a massive metal platform lowered from the gap in the ceiling.
A towering mechanical construct, easily twenty feet tall, stirred as the platform descended, awakening like a hibernating bear struggling up from the depths of its long winter’s nap. By the time the great elevator crunched onto the floor, the contraption was fully energized and awakened.
[Iron Goliath]
The humanoid construct raised its left arm, and a buzzsaw screamed to life. Flames dripped from a pair of flared exhaust pipes above and below the boss’s right wrist. A series of alarmingly loud clanks echoed through the room as armored panels on the creature’s right shoulder opened and a massive six-barreled cannon rose into position next to the automaton’s head.
“Intruder alert,” a thundering voice announced. “Commence annihilation protocol.”
TWENTY-EIGHT:
Iron Goliath
“Move!” Sandra shouted, dragging Osmark from the treasure alcove before he had time to grab his Faction Seal or anything else from the unlocked chest. The instant they cleared the doorway, she shoved him hard to the right while she dove left. A gout of rippling flame flooded the alcove they’d just evacuated, transforming the smaller chamber into a deadly furnace. Osmark stumbled away from the heat, shielding his eyes and slapping at his shoulders and hips where his armor smoldered.
If Sandra hadn’t been on her toes, there’d be Osmark flambée in that room.
Robert spun back to face the enormous monster just in time to see Targ charge in with weapons raised.
The Risi ducked beneath a colossal swipe from the monster’s buzzsaw arm, feinted left, then shot in swinging. The spiked clubs slammed into the creature’s leg just above the ankle. Each attack echoed like a struck gong, but the Iron Goliath’s HP didn’t drop by more than a hairsbreadth.
In response, the towering automaton raised its foot and stomped down on the Bonecrusher, pinning the warrior to the floor like a bug.
“Get it off!” Targ screamed, using the last of the air in
his compressed lungs as he pried at the foot with his calloused fingers. His efforts were useless, though. The Risi’s dark skin turned eggplant purple as the enormous mechanical boss bore down on him with all its weight.
A Stream of Life flowed to Targ, keeping him alive for the moment, but Robert had serious doubts that Karzic could keep up with the damage the monster was capable of inflicting.
Osmark flicked the blue lens out of the way and dropped the magnifying lens into position. Luckily, it was already in focus and he got a good look at the joints connecting the Goliath’s legs and feet. There was a small weakness he could exploit. He dropped into a crouch to stabilize his gun arm, aimed his repeater at the ankle joint of the leg bearing down on Targ, and fired.
Critical Hit flared across his vision as the bullet struck true, punching into the Goliath’s leg. Sparks hissed and a jet of steam gushed from the damaged joint; the monstrosity instantly shifted its weight to its undamaged leg to keep from falling over.
As soon as the foot was off his chest, Targ rolled left, scrambled upright, and sprinted away from the towering mechanical golem. “Nice shot,” he called out to Osmark as he skidded to a stop next to him. “A few more seconds and I was done.”
I should have let him die, Osmark thought. Would’ve made the fight harder, but it also would’ve saved me trouble in the end.
“Not a problem,” Osmark forced himself to say, before fishing a Health Regen potion from his belt and tossing it to the warrior. He couldn’t afford for the Risi to become suspicious. Not now.
“What’s the plan?” Targ asked, before downing the potion in a single gulp.
“It’s weak at the joints,” Osmark said, pointing to its ankles, knees, and hips with the muzzle of his pistol. “If we can break its ankles, we should be able to take it down. If it can’t stand, it’ll have a helluva time fighting.”