A red light of violence drenched the stairwell as the high-pitched alarm shrieked. It was loud enough it was almost physically painful, regardless of Kaius’s stats.

  His mind raced as he watched dozens of fixed automata erupt from the walls. Turning and swivelling to face them, each looked almost like an enlarged crossbow affixed to a cantilevered arm. Yet there were oddities. Rather than having curved limbs under strain, rails lined the groove of their bolt channel. They blazed with magical energy — a building charge of electrical mana and an affinity he didn’t recognise. One close to electricity, but also metal. Clattering echoes filled the space as dozens of metal spikes rose from slots on the crossbows’ channels.

  In the space between heartbeats, Kaius made his decision. It was too late to back out now. Besides, they’d been locked in. It wasn’t like they could leave — even if they could, they had to descend and shut down this facility from within before it could pose a danger to the city above.

  Faster than he could blink, he focused his true sight on one of the automata.

  Bramble Pattern Bolt Thrower:

  Rare - Tier I

  For the fixed defences, simple volume of fire will suffice. They are merely a surface level distraction compared to our true shields and swords.

  Crafted in the great artisan-factories of the Imperium, these bolt throwers autonomously target and fire upon designated enemies.

  Artisan-wrought Artefact

  Autonomous III, Ferrous Acceleration II

  He grit his teeth. They were automata, but not the type he was expecting. From what little he’d heard, most of the mobile units found inside Imperial ruins had levels. These were artefacts. Without a mind, he couldn’t make use of Eirnith to direct their attention. No matter. He had other abilities.

  “Kaius.” Porkchop prompted.

  Kaius fell into his bond with Porkchop, their senses bleeding together as knowledge and understanding flowed equally between them. The space was tight — there was barely enough room on the stairs for Porkchop to descend. The turrets were high up, out of easy reach of melee, and the tight curve of the stairwell would hamper their mobility greatly.

  They came to an understanding immediately.

  “Get in behind Porkchop,” Kaius roared, falling to the back of their formation. Ianmus and Kenva moved with the expediency that came with dozens battles fought as a team.

  Porkchop roared and charged down the stairs, covering the rest of them from a frontal assault with his armoured bulk.

  Kaius felt his breath quicken as he reached for Vyrthane, ready to cast.

  Not yet.

  Bound Maelstrom would be vital in defending them, but he needed to squeeze the spell for everything it was worth. A jittery tingle shot down his arms as he gripped his blade and felt its comfortable weight in hand. A grin spread across his face, the artefacts were only Tier I Rares. As their description had said, volume of fire had a power all its own, but he was confident they could do this.

  Besides, after a few weeks of rest, he’d missed that singing battle-fury coursing through his heart — a crescendo of blood and fire; the sting of open wounds in the clash of blade and spell.

  The first volley: a cacophonous boom that echoed through the stairwell as a dozen metal spikes shot at them from all angles. Ianmus and Kenva dropped low, shielding themselves in Porkchop’s shadow as he roared out his Bulwark’s Challenge.

  Yet it did nothing, the massed automata freely spreading their aim across the whole team. Mindless as they were, there was nothing for the skill to grip. It was only by dint of angles that two-thirds of the projectiles scoured Porkchop’s armour, each one chipping the heavy plate.

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  Accelerated steel crashed home, yet not all of the automata were placed so conveniently.

  Three higher up the stairs were angled behind them, right at their flank.

  Kaius’s eyes sharpened.

  The second they fired, he flooded his blade with stamina, fuelling the burn of its enchantments with his Initiate’s Glyphic Bladerite. He ripped his blade up in a Mercurial Reversal, twisting from a low guard across his body. His blade shuddered as two projectiles were slammed aside, but the third went wide — its aim not at him but at Kenva.

  Kaius couldn’t let it happen. He stepped in even as he parried, slamming his pauldron towards the bolt. Better his shoulder than Kenva’s neck. Poor luck and the speed of his desperate intercept planted the bolt in the flexible scale that covered his side. A Tier II artefact, the armour held, but flexibility did far less to blunt the impact.

  Kaius gasped, feeling a rib crack as muscle bruised and tore.

  Yet his health burned like a fire — an itching wave stretching beneath his flesh to re-knit the damage almost as fast as it had been caused.

  Kaius could only smile. As he used his two blade skills, he felt something deep within Liturgical Bladeform surge. A latent energy primed and ready, connected to his glyphs, filling them with new vibrancy. He’d practised this slightly and, during their time at rest in Deadacre, had found the effects much to his liking.

  As he hurried down the stairs, Kaius unleashed a Bound Maelstrom. Where previously the wind had howled with fury, now the force within was visible and palpable — a driving cyclone that sheltered him and his team in the eye of the storm.

  Another dreadful clatter filled the air as more bolts were racked. The things were fast without having to re-cock a string. They were beset by an almost constant volley of projectiles, the weapons fuelled by unknown design.

  The spell did its work. Bolts were thrown off course by the whipping winds that sheltered them. Those that punched through had their force abated and slowed — easy enough to cut from the air.

  Opening assault abating, they found their footing, and slid into a well-practised rhythm of violence. Leaning on Porkchop to show him the path forward, Kaius didn’t bother to watch his own steps. Instead, he tracked behind them, granting full vision of all turrets that faced them.

  Nestled in safety, Ianmus and Kenva began their counter-attack. Lances of light erupted from the keyseal at the tip of Ianmus’s staff, and he aided the volleys with free-cast spells of his own. Beside him, Kenva loosed shot after shot. Yet for all that firepower, the fixed bolt-throwers were weapons built for war — hardy and strong, forged of alchemical steel.

  One of Kenva’s arrows slammed home into the cantilevered arm of a bolt thrower lower down the stairs, fouling a joint, yet as they passed, the motion was still enough for the construct to fire straight down — right at Kaius’s head.

  Moments before he heard the deadly crack of the projectile, he felt a spike of dread and saw a flashing line cut through the air to intersect his temple. It screamed urgency. He moved — switching from a high guard, he cut on an intercept with a twist of his wrist. A Father’s Gift wrang like a bell as a bolt sparked off its edge.

  Kaius coughed as the deflected projectile crashed into the side of his belly before spinning into the stairwell below.

  His armour held — just a bruise. Nothing that would slow him.

  “The rails!” Ianmus cried suddenly. “They’re accelerating the bolts.”

  Kenva reacted immediately, her shots adjusting to land perfectly on the reinforced strips with every arrow she fired. For all their toughness, by the second hit an automaton would fizzle in a shower of sparks as precise and delicate inscription work was interrupted, throwing the finely wrought machinery into disarray.

  Rotten bloody roots, the onslaught was relentless. Sure, they were only artefacts of the first tier, but the speed and precision of the hardened bolts were immense, and there were so many of the strange crossbows that even they were pressed. It was no wonder the original inhabitants of this installation had been slain to the last.

  They had to get out of the stairwell. The confines were too tight, too pressing. With limited mobility, they couldn’t risk directly targeting the artefacts without exposing Kenva and Ianmus to fire from above and behind. Nor did Kaius want to waste his larger spells yet. Who knew what else they would find down here? For now, Ianmus and Kenva were managing to disable the bolt-throwers just fine, now that they’d identified their primary method of action.

  Far better, Kaius focused on keeping them safe. He felt his initial cast of Bound Maelstrom begin to fade. Under the simple volume of fire they’d faced, the energy within the spell had been expended quickly. Thank the gods he had the mana pool to inscribe so many of them. Yet if he was burning through them this fast, he worried how long it would last. They’d only just hit the facility’s first defences, and there was no doubt they had a long way to go before they reached the reactor that would let them disable this place.

  He peered down the stairs. The stairwell stretched deep — a bristling spire full of bolt-throwers. Ten more landings. They could do this. He only hoped that, at the bottom, they would find another relatively open hallway where they would all have room to manoeuvre and dodge, and leverage their abilities to the best of their capabilities.

  He couldn’t help but think: where were the true automata? They still hadn’t seen any, and a place with defences like this had to have them. He hoped, beyond hope, that they were as mindless as these fixed defences. Even though it would mean his inscribed charges of Compel Obsession and Zone of Discombobulation were a waste, they’d be far better off for it.

  Something deep in his gut told him they wouldn’t be so lucky.