218. [SEGUE] The Dawnlit Automaton (Part 1)

  Open sky, cloudless and stretched by sunlight. Oriole ere’Quinlan had been sucked out of an obsidian city and dumped into the world of Day. Instinctively, he shut his eyes tight against the light—bright, inescapable, and painful.

  This is wrong, was the first thought to accompany his first taste of Day. I don’t belong here.

  Then an arm wrapped around his shoulders. Strong, reassuring. Oriole sniffed and got a heaping noseful of Zacko. The pungent cologne the Manusya had brought from his home Realm, mixed with something softer and more grounded—like dewdrops on fallen leaves.

  “Relax, my dude,” Zacko said in that devil-may-care way Oriole could never imitate. “You might not believe me, but cats do just fine in daylight. If anything, I’ll bet it’ll be a nice makeover for you. Less pupil, more iris.”

  Oriole forced his eyes open a crack, if only to glower at Zacko. But his anger soon dissipated, ceding to the light that forced its way into his world. Bright, inescapable, but perhaps not so painful once he got used to it.

  “What is this place?”

  “Are you asking what it is at face value, or what it’s meant to represent? If the former, it’s almost definitely one of them Lotic spaces. As for the latter, if my knowledge of treasure hunter movies is anything to go by, we’re in some sort of temple ruins.”

  Even with exactly zero knowledge of ‘treasure hunter movies’, Oriole could see what the Manusya was getting at. The Wayfarers found themselves in a courtyard of sorts. Statues and pillars of eroded, fractured clay lined a footpath of packed earth. Scorched by the sun directly overhead, the ruined structures left no shadows for a Night-minded creature to hide in. Even as Oriole’s eyes adjusted to the light, his sense of displacement and alienation only grew with every step.

  “You know, this might be a good opportunity for you,” Zacko commented airily, as he gave the pillar beside him a disinterested rap with his fist. “Even if this is all a simulation, it’s still realer than whatever fantasies you might entertain in your head.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think of it as, I dunno, a test of faith.” Zacko turned to him with a grin. “How much do you really care about this deer chick? Or more to the point, what are you willing to give up to see your two worlds collide? Because you know, if you chase this fancy of yours to its conclusion, it won’t be just your life that’ll get turned upside down.”

  “You speak again from personal experience?”

  “Something like that.” For a moment, something like melancholy mixed with the ever-present irony in the man’s expression. He added in a cheerier tone, “What can I say? When I look at you, I see a little bit of myself. Or maybe what I wanted to be before it all… Anyway, I think you’ll soon learn a thing or two about yourself. Just be ready for the possibility that you might not like what you learn.”

  The aspirational. The intrusive. Zacko elaborated no further, to then start on the footpath at a leisurely pace. After a brief but hesitant beat, Oriole followed.

  The young tabbycat, ever impressionable, spent the next few minutes mulling over the Manusya’s ‘advice’. He was so absorbed he barely gave any notice to his strange surroundings. Only another shoulder bump from Zacko pulled him out of his reverie. As he looked up with his now well-constricted pupils, he instinctively jumped back from what he saw, hackles up and tail abristle.

  “Relax,” Zacko said again with a light chuckle. “I don’t think it’s switched on. But… maybe someone left the key in the ignition?”

  Another Manesferanism, but Oriole had enough context clues to work with. The courtyard had made way for a building of sorts—a terraced pyramid to be exact. No windows nor doors, save for a large panel in its center guarded by a statue, which was notably intact compared to the rest of the ruins.

  The statue itself was at least three stories tall, forcing a tabbycat to crane his neck to study its entirety. Its likeness was of a Mriga—antlers proud, broad, and surprisingly intricate for a sculpture—depicted in the kind of lightweight armor Oriole himself might favor. But the more he looked at it, the less certain he became that the thing was a statue at all.

  To begin with, it had an eerily lifelike quality to it, perhaps not unlike an umber shade roaming the streets of Twicereign. Its body—especially around its joints—bore clear articulations that allowed it to strike a dynamic pose: leaning forward, arms swinging, and legs bent as if mid-run. And its deer eyes—built from a cloudy, glassy material—hid a faint yet restless gleam.

  Perhaps the statue’s strangest feature, however, was its Pathsighted label:

  [Designation: EOIOS AUTOMATA]

  [Aberrant Race: Gloamspawn]

  [Aberrant Class: Rite of Passage]

  [PRIMAL Instrument: THE DEEPENING LOTUS]

  “What… what is this thing?”

  “Are you asking what it is at face value, or what it’s meant to represent? If the former, I wanna almost say it’s a… mech. A mobile suit made to look like an anthropomorphic deer. As for the latter… you know, I actually have no idea. Maybe it’s something for us to learn along the way. Come on. Let’s go find out.”

  With that non-explanation, the NINEFOLD master used a casual [Lance] to boost himself onto the statue, finding purchase against the chestpiece. He then used a free hand to feel around the lavishly detailed armor, until his face lit up with an ‘aha!’ expression. From where Oriole stood gaping, it looked as though Zacko pressed one of the armor’s bindings. In an instant, the statue’s chest flipped open like a trapdoor and ‘swallowed’ the man whole.

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  “Zacko!”

  Oriole jumped up after his Manusya friend, needing nothing more than his feline agility to make the same trip. But the ‘wall’ was solid where Zacko had disappeared into, and the statue itself showed no other signs of coming to life.

  “Relax,” Zacko said a third time, voice now muffled behind a thick layer of stone. “Seems to me I was half-right. This thing’s definitely a ‘mech’, and someone did leave it here for our use. But it looks like we had to bring our own keys.”

  “What… what do I do now? Should I follow you in there?”

  “Nah, this cockpit’s a tight fit as it is. I’ll bet there’s another compartment for you to slot into. Look for a pressure plate the size of your palm. Over top of something you can imagine housing a soul.”

  Oriole immediately thought of the eyes and the restless flames behind them. With a hop and a skip, he moved his search onto the Mriga’s head. There, exactly halfway between the antler bases, he found it: a pressure plate the size of his palm.

  Even though he’d watched Zacko do it, the trapdoor’s abruptness still caught him off guard. Feline instincts took over again as he managed to land on his feet. Land on… what exactly? The compartment was small, musty, and dark—certainly only big enough to fit one soul, and absent the light he’d spied from outside the statue.

  Oriole’s cat eyes had to adjust again, from scorching Daylight to the darkness inside an automaton’s brain. And there, he found a familiar object for what felt like the first time in a turn of the moon. An imprint of the Mirroring Lotus, lighter shade of umber to match the pendant around his neck.

  “Uh, Zacko?” he called down hesitantly, unsure whether his voice would even make the trip through the statue’s anatomy. “I think I found where my key is supposed to go.”

  “Good.” Zacko’s slightly distorted voice rang from somewhere above Oriole’s head. Evidently, parts of the statue’s anatomy allowed for verbal communication between compartments. “Let’s fire it up and see where it’ll take us.”

  [Oathless] Oriole in the head, [Oathward] Zacko in the chest. With both keys in the ignition, EOIOS AUTOMATA came to life in earnest.

  The first change of note happened inside the compartment Oriole himself occupied. Faster even than feline instincts, invisible tendrils of energy slithered up out of nowhere and bound the tabbycat by his trunk, arms, and legs. The tendrils even managed to strap down his head by the chin and forehead. The only things he could move were his eyes, darting all about in a helpless panic, and his tail, swishing side to side with frenetic yet fruitless energy.

  The second change happened outside, but not to the statue itself. Instead, it was the panel behind its back, which spun 180 degrees to face the inside of the temple. The panel then thudded shut with resounding weight and palpable finality. EOIOS AUTOMATA, along with the Wayfarers in its driver’s seats, had been rudely thrown and locked indoors.

  “Haha! I’m not gonna lie. Ten-year-old me would’ve been sooo jealous of, well, me right now!”

  How was Zacko having such a good time? Meanwhile, Oriole damn near had his whiskers frightened off! The temple’s interiors were as dark as AUTOMATA’s head compartment, if not even more so. Too dark even for a Tiryaga’s night-vision to penetrate.

  Maybe because it’s not meant to ‘represent’ the Night. But then, what exactly am I doing here?

  “Oi, Brain Cell, can you see what’s going on out there?”

  “No! Can you?”

  “No. But that’s because whoever built this didn’t bother to fit the cockpit with an HUD. Or even a window for that matter. Kinda reminds me of ‘driving’ Ash, if I’m being honest. If you’re where I think you are, though, you should have better luck than me.”

  Even as he struggled to settle his pulse (and tail), Oriole saw Zacko’s point. If the Mriga’s eyes were indeed made of a glass-like material, they perhaps provided the window to the outside world. But how was he meant to see anything without—

  “A light source, maybe? A switch you could flip on?”

  “I don’t know! And even if I did, I don’t have use of my limbs!”

  “Wait, really? Hah! Whoever ‘designed’ this Rite of Passage is a proper sadist. Only I get to do all the fun stuff, but only you get to watch it happen. First, though, you gotta be the one to start us off.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Come on, Brain Cell, even you should’ve clocked it by now. The gimmick behind everything in this weirdo city and the lesson it’s trying to teach us. Our pairing is not just collaborative but also codependent. I’ll be your limbs, but I need you to be my eyes. Are you absolutely certain you can’t find anything to light the way?”

  Oriole took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm. He never wanted to look a fool in front of anyone, and for whatever reason, that went double for Zacko the sardonic Manusya. He tried again to wriggle free from his invisible restraints, hoping his feline liquidity might save the day. It didn’t, but he did hear and feel a clink of metal against stone.

  My ring, he realized with a start, then nearly corrected himself. Even after however many turns of the moon, a part of him still wanted to call THE PLEDGE ‘her ring’. He had, after all, vowed to return it to its rightful owner.

  Forget that. Focus on the task. The tendrils had bound Oriole’s arms and wrists, but with enough give for him to twist his ungloved hand. Enough for a gemstone to find solid purchase against a flat surface. And then…

  [THE PLEDGE Spell: THE MARK OF THE OATHLESS]

  As it turned out, even a mech inside a simulation was ‘object’ enough to be a valid target for the [Mark]. An earthy-red gloam filled the compartment, first giving view of the cloudy glass panels that served as deer eyes. Then the panels fused in the middle into a single screen, projecting red light onto the outside world.

  “Anything?”

  “Yeah,” Oriole answered in a voice that now trembled with excitement rather than fear. “It’s… a hallway of sorts. The light doesn’t travel very far, so I can’t see where it leads to. Oh, but I can tell you the place is tall and wide enough to fit a three-story mech.”

  “Hahaa, that’s what I’m talking about! Alright, base command. Pilot Borges-Juventus ready for duty and awaiting orders.”

  How was Zacko having such a good time? Oriole still didn’t quite understand, but he could now feel the same emotion bubbling up from his own chest. He broke out into a broad grin as he gave his first ‘order’.

  “Forward.”

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