Arrival

by William Dickey

  ‘Damn,’ Mai groaned. ‘Listen, you have to get away from here.’

  “Why? What is it?” I said turning to her.

  ‘Not now. I’ll explain on the move,’ she said hurriedly. ‘You need to get as far away from here as possible. Now. Go. Go. Go.’

  I followed Mai’s directions and bolted down the mountain. I tried to go as fast as I could but the rough, uneven terrain limited my speed.

  “So, what’s the story,” I gasped between panting breaths. Running really wasn’t my thing. I preferred to kick back with a good book or video game. If Mai was just kidding around, I’d be pissed.

  ‘The siren is because the base reported a breach. When I sealed off the base, I used air monitors, checking oxygen levels, humidity, etc., to alert the base if something broke in. When you tunneled out it must have changed the air enough to set off the alarms,’ said Mai.

  “Why are the sensors going off now? Why didn’t they go off when I first broke in?” I asked.

  ‘The sensors in that portion of the base must be broken,’ Mai explained. ‘I figured they were all broken by now, but apparently at least one still worked.’

  “So a couple sirens go off. What’s the big deal?” I said.

  ‘The base goes into full alert and all its defenses are activated,’ Mai answered.

  I stopped running to catch my breath, surprised by the news. “You mean more sentinel foot soldiers,” I said.

  ‘Keep running,’ Mai ordered. ‘Yes, the standard sentinels will be activated, but they’re not the problem. You need to get away in case of what else might be.’

  “Else?” I asked as the ground beneath my feet started a slow, growing rumble. Birds in the nearby trees, squirrels and other small mammals left their hiding spots and fled, many downhill moving in the same direction I was headed.

  ‘Damn,’ said Mai. ‘This is what I was afraid of.’

  “Why,” I said between heavy pants of breath from my continued running. “What is it?”

  ‘It’s called a Darksteel Juggernaut,’ said Mai.

  “It’s a sentinel?” I asked.

  ‘It’s a humanoid machine but not a sentinel. The sentinels were designed to watch and protect. The juggernauts were built to annihilate anything in their path. You may have been able to hold your own against the deteriorated sentinels, but you won’t stand a chance against a juggernaut. Even if it’s barely operational, it’ll be much more than you can handle. All you can do is run and hide,’ said Mai.

  The rumble turned into a full earthquake. Loose rocks tumbled down steep mountain slopes, leaves rained down in a flurry of debris, tree trunks groaned in pain as they were violently thrown side to side, and I was forced to stop running for fear that I might trip.

  “What is it?” I yelled over the roar of shifting earth.

  ‘Quick behind the trees,’ said Mai

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I ducked down and took cover in the trees and bushes. From my hidey-hole, I looked a few hundred yards up the mountain, back the way I’d come.

  At first, the robot was on all fours as it extracted itself from millenia of strata. A large swathe of trees and soil lifted and fell away as a giant metal man clawed itself free of the earth and overgrown roots and stood upright, casting off everything on its backside.

  The juggernaut stood over 100 feet tall, dwarfing all the trees surrounding it. Its entire outer armor was jet black and while there were signs of age and corrosion, it seemed in better shape than the sentinels had been. The length of its arms and legs were lean and plain propping up bulky feet, hands and torso. Its head was a plain circular dome barely sticking out above the broad torso. Mai’s analysis kicked in giving the Darksteel Juggernaut a reported level of 287.

  My jaw dropped at this number, 287. After taking out all the sentinels, I was only level 27 and the strongest sentinels I had fought were around level 30. How could I possibly take on such a monster, this juggernaut?

  I poked my head out of the bushes to get a better look. I mean, how often did you get to see a giant killer robot? It was every boy’s fantasy come to life. Or it would have been if it wasn’t on a search and destroy mission for me.

  ‘Back down,’ Mai urged as a panel on the juggernaut’s head opened up, revealing a small quadcopter. The quadcopter flew up until it hovered fifty feet above the robot’s head. The whirring drone emitted a vertical plane of red light, which slowly swept a full 360 degrees around, scanning the immediate vicinity. After the scan, the drone flew off, slowly spreading its search radius further out while the main body remained at the ready.

  ‘Stay down,’ Mai pressed. ‘It’s still searching. With any luck it’ll poke around a bit, fail to find any threats, and stand down.’

  I followed Mai’s advice and remained hidden. Several minutes passed in silence. The only noise came from the drone’s whirling blades as it flew overhead searching the base of the mountains. Then the juggernaut moved. It made a slow laborious step, then another. With each step, a jolt rippled through the ground causing me, even hundreds of yards away, to tremble.

  I kept myself down quivering in the brush while I asked Mai, “What’s it doing? I thought you said it would power down.”

  ‘I said it would shut down once it didn’t find any threats,’ Mai answered. ‘It must have found a threat and it’s going to deal with it.’

  “What threat?” I asked.

  ‘Just look where it’s going,’ she said.

  I looked over towards the juggernaut and projected its future path. Beyond the mountain in the first part of the plains were farms and a small outcropping of buildings. Despite the distance, the dark woody structures heavy contrast with the green open pastures made it easily noticeable.

  “You said it had to be a threat. Why is a sleepy farming village considered a threat?” I asked.

  ‘Not sure,’ answered Mai. ‘It shouldn’t be. The drone is equipped with analysis abilities similar to my own. Maybe it’s malfunctioning.’

  “What can we do?” I asked. “There are bound to be a lot of innocent people there.”

  ‘Nothing we can do,’ Mai replied. ‘It’s way too powerful for you to handle.’

  I took another look at the juggernaut. The massive thumps that came with each of its steps still shook me to the core. Then I looked back, in the distance, to the small farming village. Images raced through my mind: the fall of Mill Valley, the savagery of battles I had witnessed and participated in, and the all-encompassing horror of thousands of unarmed people burned alive. I couldn’t just let it happen again, couldn’t just wait there. I caused this. I woke the juggernaut. I had to do something.

  I left my hiding spot and chased after the juggernaut. Even though it was mostly downhill and I was giving it my all, I wasn’t able to keep up. With each slow laborious step, the juggernaut moved dozens of yards forward. It utterly ignored trees or small hills and dips in its path, uprooting and brushing aside all obstacles as if they weren’t even there.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Mai shouted in my ear. ‘Just look at the size of it. There’s no way you can beat that thing. Are you going to just throw your life away?’

  “I won’t let those people be slaughtered, at least not without trying. I’m going, with or without you’re help but my chances are better with. So are you in?” I said.

  Mai materialized beside me, also running along through the forest. ‘Oh, very well.’

  “What do you know about its weapons?” I asked. If I was going to stand a chance, I needed to know everything I could about my enemy.

  As I continued pursuit at top speed, Mai described everything she knew about the juggernaut. Perspiration flowed down my brow and neck, but I don’t think it came from the running. Each of the items in Mai's detailed list of armaments was worse than the previous as if she had calmly organized them in terms of scariness and started from the least to keep me from panicking. It hadn’t worked.

  “Any weaknesses?” I asked.

  ‘Th
e entire outer structure is solid steel at least 6 inches thick everywhere. There has been some corrosion but the damage looks to be largely superficial,’ said Mai.

  “That includes the chest armor?”

  ‘The chest armor is even thicker. You might be able to get through the chest when some of the weapons are being deployed but that presents its own challenges,’ Mai trailed off.

  “How about the soul gem?” I asked. The soul gem was the brain and heart of all automatons, driving their mind and muscle. As far as I knew, the sentinels and other robots would only go down after thorough damage to its entire structure or by removing its soul gem.

  ‘The juggernaut has two soul gems, one in each of its legs, between the knees and ankles. In order to completely stop the juggernaut you must disable both,’ said Mai.

  “Two soul gems. So it’s hopeless.” What little was left of my faith evaporated.

  ‘Not quite. There is one way I can think of.’

  Mai spent the next few minutes outlining her plan. While she explained, the juggernaut continued to put distance between us, eventually reaching the village.

  As it approached, I could hear villagers shouting between intermittent deafening explosions. I strained my muscles, propelling myself forward even faster, zigzagging every few strides to avoid the thickest clusters of newly fallen trees. Time was short, I wasn’t sure how long the small village would hold out against the juggernaut, but it couldn’t be long.

  Suddenly, a great screech pierced everything, drowning out all the other noises. A couple seconds later, the screech was followed by a resounding thud that shook the ground even more than the juggernaut’s emergence from the earth.

  “What was that?” I asked Mai. I feared that I was already too late. That Mai had been right: I should have just stayed hidden and never tried to help. My heart fluttered as I thought that once again I would see the aftermath of a massacre.

  Everything was ominously silent. Even the normally garrulous Mai kept quiet. We both knew it couldn’t be good. The juggernaut had shut down. That’s why it was silent. It’d finished off the enemy. Those poor helpless villagers hadn’t stood a chance.

  My pace slowed. I didn’t see the need to rush anymore. Besides, I was coming to the end of the forest and I didn’t want to be caught if the juggernaut returned to search mode. Eventually I edged my way to the end of the forest where the swaths of trees opened up into a vast plain stretching to the horizon. My eyes easily narrowed onto the juggernaut a quarter of a mile away, its giant ebony body stood in deep contrast with the rustic greens of the earth and blues of the clear open sky, now marred by smoke billowing off of still active fires presumable generated during the juggernaut’s attack. My jaw dropped at the sight.

  Starting from the feet and working my way up, the robot looked fine, unblemished by any signs of destruction until my eyes reached its waist, where a perfectly straight line divided it in two. Its lower body was still upright, its feet positioned mid-step, suggesting it had been vanquished in an instant. Meanwhile, the upper body lay collapsed to the side. Both halves were motionless, the level 287 juggernaut had been defeated.

  I turned my attention to the village behind the juggernaut’s corpse. A couple of the buildings had been smashed or set on fire, but most were intact. I tried to make out the people but was still too far away.

  “What happened?” I wondered aloud.

  Mai thought I was speaking to her so she answered tentatively, ‘Something cut the juggernaut in half. The juggernaut’s soul gems are in its legs, but most of its external sensors are in its head and chest. By cutting it in half, the upper body stops because it has no power and the lower body stops because it can’t sense its surroundings.’

  “So, it can still move,” I said nervously.

  ‘In theory,’ said Mai. ‘The legs are still functional since they still have power, but it doesn’t have any way to see where to go, so it doesn’t go.’

  “What did this?” I asked. This level of destruction was far beyond anything else I had witnessed in this fantasy realm, the assorted applications of magic, the bloodthirsty beastmen warriors, the boundless ferocity of the yeti; nothing came close. “Or did the villagers…”

  ‘The juggernaut did detect a threat from this village. I don’t know who did it, but it was probably an application of wind magic. Powerful wind magic could create a thin blade that sliced it in half.’ Mai looked over at my face, my eyes still fixated at the battle site. ‘But you’re right to be in shock. Only a horrendously powerful mage could have done this, one more powerful than any human mage I’ve ever heard of.’

  I exited the forest and entered the village, starring up as I passed by the fifty-foot tall pair of legs, imagining all the things I could do with such power. I had to meet the person who did this.

  In the aftermath of such destruction, the villagers were trying to pick up the pieces. Some were busy putting out the burning remnants of firebombed buildings. If the fire spread, the whole village could be wiped out. Others dug through the wreckage of crushed houses in the faint hope of recovering surviving friends or family.

  When they saw me, people gave me nervous glances. I didn’t blame them. I was a stranger arriving suspiciously soon after an attack. As I walked by, Mai’s analysis abilities activated. Villager Lvl. 47. Villager Lvl. 53. While many were stronger than I was, I saw nobody who could have annihilated the juggernaut.

  “Hoy, sir, be you friend or foe?” shouted a burly man carrying a wooden scrap of a wall nearly as large as himself.

  “Friend, although I understand the timing of my arrival is less than auspicious. I saw that attack,” I explained. “I just traversed the Hyperion Mountains to deliver important news from Mill Valley. Could you point me to someone in charge I can speak with?”

  The man still looked at me with suspicion, but pointed me down the road to an older gentleman who seemed to be directing a number of individuals in the rescue efforts. I walked down to him.

  “You there, stranger, what brings you to Hazel,” said the elder as I approached.

  “I’ve just arrived from Mill Valley,” I answered. “I have news important enough to cross the mountains before the snow melts.” I would have gone into more detail but a flurry of shouts came from down the street so the village elder cut me off and motioned for me to follow.

  He led me to a burning house a hundred yards away and into a crowd that swarmed around the fire. I looked at all the people and thought it was strange. No one was moving. They were all just staring at the fire.

  ‘Stop looking at the people. Look at what they’re looking at,’ Mai suggested.

  I took another look at the crowd’s eyes. They weren’t looking at the fire but above it. Above the fire was a peculiar dark cloud that quickly condensed from thin air. The cloud was unusually close to the ground and, despite a steady westerly wind, it remained fixed above the burning building. As I watched, it started to rain and, over the next few minutes, successfully put out the fire.

  People in the crowd cheered at this mystical feat as a cloaked woman descended down from the clouds and joined the throngs of adoring fans.

  “Amazing.”

  “Another save by our town’s hero.”

  “Hero? More like our town’s savior.”

  “First she stopped the metal monster. Now she’s helping clean up.”

  “The complete package: vigorous, virtuous, and not to mention voluptuous.”

  “Alright that’s enough,” shouted the village elder. “Now get back to work. There’s still plenty to do around here.”

  The crowd lingered for another moment, people piling on additional praise for their savior, the mage who destroyed the juggernaut, before slowly breaking up and going back to the cleanup. The village elder led me on to the mage responsible for the controlled deluge. She was sitting down under the shade of a large oak tree, gasping for air after casting such intense magic. I rattled my head and looked again.

  “Hey,” I said to Mai.
“I know her.”

  Chapter 17: Reunion

  It was Lilith, the student from Crystalpeak’s Magic Academy and the only other guest at Rowley’s inn after winter shut down travel. She’d been staying in Mill Valley while searching the area for the ancient ruins of a long lost magically advanced race. Now, that I thought about it, she was probably looking for the same place I had just come from, the Traveler military outpost.

  I gave her a big smile. I was pleased to see a familiar face. When Mill Valley was wiped out, I’d assumed she’d gone with it.

  “Miss Kamikira,” the village elder called. “This man says he’s come from Mill Valley as well. Given his peculiar timing, I was hoping you could vouch for him. And if not…” the elder trailed off. Now I understood. The elder had brought me here to test my story and if proved false, I was where I could be most easily dealt with, five feet from the mage who’d just vanquished a hundred foot tall metal giant. The shrewd elder had even cleared away most potential bystanders when he had ordered them back to work.

  Lilith’s eyes brightened when they met mine. She brushed a tuft of raven hair out of the way of her bright blue eyes and got to her feet.

  “Isaac is that you?” Lilith asked. I nodded with a great deal of relief. Fortunately, she recognized me.

  “Don’t worry, he’s from Mill Valley. He’s an otherworlder I met during my stay there,” Lilith explained. The elder nodded also relieved. He’d seen enough death and destruction.

  “Lilith, you survived,” I said. “How’d you do it? How’d you make it here? Did you already start warning people?”

  “Survive?” Lilith cast me a bewildered look. “It was just the mountains. Did Rowley think I was dead? With my magic no amount of snow or wild beasts can pose much difficulty.”

  “You never saw…” I trailed off.

  “My search for the ruins took me a long ways from Mill Valley so I decided to stay here instead to reduce travel. Why?” Lilith asked as she started to piece together my earlier statements. “Did something happen in Mill Valley? What brought you all the way out here?”