219. [SEGUE] The Dawnlit Automaton (Part 2)

  Zacko was right again. It really was a lot like driving Ash the living castle. Oriole gave out orders, which were then transmitted to the cockpit via some unseen mechanism. Zacko responded by controlling AUTOMATA, the Manusya’s every move reflected onto the Mriga mech, almost one to one.

  Oriole braced himself against his invisible restraints as the whole statue, along with its head compartment, took its first shuddering steps. Body leaning to and fro. Arms swinging. Legs up and down.

  It was awkward going at first, like a newborn kitten trapped in a giant deer’s body. But Zacko soon steadied the ship, served by needlessly sharp instincts for a self-professed vehicle-hater. Before long, both Wayfarers settled into a cadence of seamless collaboration and effective co-dependence.

  “There’s a sharp turn up ahead,” Oriole reported what he saw through THE PLEDGE’s red gloam. “Take three more steps, then rotate 90 degrees to the left.”

  Zacko put in the hard yards, while Oriole had the satisfaction of seeing his vision translated into meaningful progress. One didn’t need to be a ten-year-old Manusya boy to appreciate the sheer lunacy and excitement of being the brains, the arms, and the legs of a nimble giant.

  But… this can’t be all there is to this ‘Rite of Passage’, can it? Such was a sentient soul’s capacity for acclimatization. As soon as the novelty wore off, the doubts rolled in. Bring a torch and communicate with your partner. If the challenge really were that simple, anyone could prove themselves worthy.

  Challenges did present themselves in due course, on their own time and in layered stages. First came the simplest difficulty spike imaginable—indeed the very definition of what made the Deepening Lotus the maze it pretended to be.

  “Stop,” Oriole gave an order, followed by a justification. “A fork in the road.”

  A T-shaped intersection. Oriole had no doubt there was only one right answer to this. He furrowed his brow as he pondered the dilemma, searching within his visual field for possible clues. None jumped out. All within the red gloam were solid stone walls, not so much as a scratch on them. The rest was uncharted darkness.

  “Don’t think too hard.” Zacko’s flippant advice buzzed through the communication channel. “I’m meant to be ‘water’, and you’re meant to follow your nose. You toss the chips; I’ll deal with where they fall.”

  The Manusya seemed determined to make a Manesferan out of Oriole before all was said and done. Ever impressionable, the young Tiryaga in question did take the non-advice to heart. He sniffed reflexively, catching only the scentless solemnity that filled a Mriga giant’s skull. Nothing for his physical nose to follow… but a tabbycat’s whimsical nature couldn’t be so easily deterred.

  “90 degrees to the right,” Oriole ordered.

  “What did you smell?”

  “Nothing. I just have a good feeling about it.”

  “Roger that, (literal) Brain Cell. Your whim is my command.”

  Deeper into the Deepening Lotus they went, following nothing but an impromptu brain’s intuitions. No reliable way to check the answers, but Oriole refused to second-guess himself. His only instructions to Zacko were either ‘forward’ or a 90-degree turn toward the uncharted darkness.

  After several such forks, the Wayfarers faced their next ramp-up in ‘difficulty’—as good a sign as any they were headed in the right direction. It came in the form of obstacles—raised floors, lowered ceilings, jutting walls, and the like. Oriole remained steady in his earthy-red vision, all while Zacko converted NINEFOLD athleticism into AUTOMATA jumps, crouches, and shimmies.

  Is this all you’ve got? Oriole mused with a smirk. This is too easy! Alas, even a KL-17 novice should’ve known better than to tempt the E-word. The Wayfarers eventually turned onto a new hallway, where the obstacles began to move.

  “Uhh… keep going, then jump when I say ‘when’. When! … No, too early! Sorry!”

  Zacko had done exactly as asked, but Oriole had mistimed his instruction. AUTOMATA took a giant tumble as its feet caught against the moving floor, falling face-first with a resounding crash.

  [5,735!]

  Damage number?? Oriole managed to wonder, even as his body rocked and his teeth clattered from the impact. Only then did he notice the three colored bars in the corner of his screen. Health, Mana, and Stamina. AUTOMATA’s own vital parameters!

  “Ouch,” Zacko called down (up) with a good-natured chuckle. “Looks like AUTOMATA’s parameters are based on the pilot’s, which is to say mine. Only they’ve been multiplied like crazy into mech territory.”

  “So… the 5,000-something points isn’t too bad?”

  “’Tis but a scratch! See for yourself.”

  The number itself had been huge—‘mech territory’, as per the Manesferan vernacular. Visually, however, it amounted to about a tenth of the Health bar. Not nothing, but also fairly manageable.

  Yet, even as the Wayfarers discussed their latest learnings, the Deepening Lotus refused to wait. Just as Zacko tried to stand AUTOMATA up, a low beam caught the Mriga statue by its antlers, promptly sending it back to the floor.

  [3,960!]

  “Alright, Brain Cell, I need you to lock in. If we were to wipe out here, it’ll 100% be my most humiliating death.”

  Easy for you to say! Oriole the brain had half a mind to pick a fight with his arms and legs. But now, more than ever, the co-dependent partners needed to be on the same page.

  Keep calm and carry on. Once Oriole got the timing down, the moving obstacles were no obstacle at all. Jump, crouch, shimmy, with resolute forward steps squeezed in between. AUTOMATA inched its way to another fork, where its brain snappily directed its next rotation.

  The Wayfarers made it to a new corridor, wider and more open than previous examples. Here, the obstacles took on a new form—shadowy, alive, and weirdly triangular.

  At first, Oriole thought they’d run into a Tiryaga mech. The newcomer was almost as large as AUTOMATA, a feline (and distinctly feminine) shadow that suddenly burst into the red gloam. Yet its movements were far too smooth and, well, cat-like to be anything of a mechanized persuasion. Least of all the gyrations of its enormous, triangular tail.

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  [Deepened Fury], read the Pathsighted label that now took center stage of Oriole’s vision. Before he had a chance to relay his finding to the cockpit—or indeed even to reckon with it himself—the giant shadow-cat and its razor-sharp tail broke into a furious spin.

  [1,170!], [1,235!], [1,186!] -> [3,591!]

  Three ticks of damage in as many seconds! The Fury’s movements were as fast as they were lithe. All while AUTOMATA’s brain and limbs struggled to make the necessary connection.

  “Talk to me, buddy.” Zacko sounded far calmer than Oriole felt. “What’re we up against?”

  “Okay… okay. Uhh, turn around… incoming, straight ahead of us!”

  [AUTOMATA Conversion: THE SECOND DAO—FAN]

  The statue shot out a rigid palm, chest level and straight ahead. The Wayfarers could thank the Fury for its unicellular approach, for it spun itself straight into the path of a mech-sized NINEFOLD technique. With a deafening ‘pop’, the shadow-cat burst into its constituent shadows, never to spin again.

  “Did we do it?”

  “Yeah,” Oriole confirmed with a pant of effort and frustration. “But what even was that?”

  “I don’t know, Brain Cell, but what I do know is this ain’t working. If we’re gonna be fighting giant Aberrants up in this bitch, we need a ‘system’ that’s more robust than you screaming out the first thing that pops into your head.”

  “But how? I’d sooner trade places with you than deal with all this… stress!”

  “Nah, bro. I’m the [Oathward] grunt, and you’re the [Oathless] visionary. You dream up the solution, and I execute it to perfection. That’s how we roll.”

  A solution… to merge two souls’ different worlds into one? Oriole could see but couldn’t do. Zacko vice versa. Two sides of a disjointed, dysfunctional coin…

  Before the brain could think of anything, the body was forced into action again. A second ‘giant Aberrant’ arrived in short order, this time a sprinting Manusya-like shadow labeled [Deepened Lecher]. Oriole gulped down rising nausea and forced himself to face the moment.

  Don’t think. Act. Follow… follow my shadow!

  [AUTOMATA Conversion: SHADOW TAG]

  Another giant shadow-cat joined the fray, but this time, it was Oriole’s own. His SHADOWSENT familiar rose from AUTOMATA’s feet and stretched the length of the red gloam, fusing itself onto the Lecher. AUTOMATA followed suit, closing the distance far faster than a giant statue had any right to.

  “Now!”

  [AUTOMATA Conversion: THE THIRD DAO—CESTUS]

  Thanks to the NINEFOLD intervention, the Mriga mech leapt fist-first into an onrushing Lecher. Another meaty impact, another explosive ‘pop!’, another giant Breachspawn down for the count.

  “You figured it out?”

  “I… think so? I can [Tag] the enemies and lead us straight into them. All you have to do is attack whenever you feel the sudden movement.”

  “Too easy. And another big treat for my ten-year-old self. Not only am I fighting giant monsters from inside a giant mech, I get to Superman-punch them while I’m at it? Damn, I really wish I could actually see myself!”

  “I won’t lie to you, Zacko,” Oriole murmured, along with the return of the cocky smirk. “You looked incredible.”

  And so it went. Through daring, ability, and complete trust in each other, the Wayfarers’ two worlds fused into one unstoppable juggernaut. The Deepening maze and its resident Aberrants threw everything they had at AUTOMATA, but the giant jumped, crouched, shimmied, [Tagged], and Superman-punched through them all.

  Eventually, the Wayfarers found themselves in a mercifully empty corridor. They’d just survived a combined onslaught of giant Aberrants and moving obstacles. Despite their ‘system’, they’d lost Health in the tens of thousands, prompting Zacko to top it off with a [Pearl of Courage] (“Good looking out, Bubblegum!”). It’d been a fun ride, all things considered, but Oriole for one was ready for it to end. After all, he had places to be, friends to reunite with, and more worlds to bring together.

  “I do think we’re nearing the end,” Oriole commented, more for his own benefit than Zacko’s. “Call it a hunch, if you will. I feel like that last corridor might’ve been the ‘final test’.”

  “I wouldn’t let your guard down,” Zacko countered, breezily enough at that. “If I know anything about treasure hunts in an ancient temple, there’s always a wicked curveball right before the big prize.”

  And that was when it started. Right on cue. A familiar, intermittent beeping. Loud, alien, and hair-raisingly ominous in its regularity. With it, the entire corridor shuddered to life, as the ceiling and the floor began to push in on each other.

  A ‘wicked curveball’ right before the end. Manesferanism or not, Oriole was forced to reckon with its lethal implications.

  “Run! Forward! As fast as you can!”

  Zacko, and AUTOMATA by extension, obeyed with alacarity, limited only by the mech’s considerable Stamina pool. But as the Wayfarers made their way to the end of the corridor—and as ceiling and floor conspired to flatten them, mech and all—Oriole’s worst fear came to pass.

  A fork in the road. A three-way split. Two led to certain death and one to salvation. Two sides of a coin—and the one true Path to split the difference. But which was which?

  “Brain Cell? You gonna bring us home or what?”

  Oriole was paralyzed with indecision—with choice. Within the fast-narrowing light of his ring—her ring—his nose, his hunch, his whim, his call-it-what-you-will all failed him.

  A test of faith, someone had said out in the Daylight, under the scorching sun. What are you willing to give up to see your two worlds collide?

  What will I give up? What did I ever have to lose in the first place? In this endless, Keeper-forsaken Night that’s dwindling to nothing before our eyes?

  Trapped inside the unfeeling shell of a Dawnlit Automaton, Oriole’s thoughts went homeward—to the Tiryagas he knew best. Gladiolus. Loosestrife. Feverfew. His father, who he’d named a boat after. His mother, who taught him the warmth of good company under a sturdy roof.

  Caraway. Oh, how he wished his calico friend could be here right now! Surely, she’d know the exact thing to shout into his folded ginger ear. She always knew the exact thing to—

  That was when he heard it. Felt it. Read it. Smelt it. Saw it. All the desperate ways souls reached out to each other across time, distance, and veils. He caught a scent of marmalade breath wafting above floral perfume. He met a pair of serene doe eyes watching from atop the hill.

  His nose twitched in anticipation. He knew what he must do. For the choice was no choice at all.

  Call me greedy. Call me gluttonous. But I want it. I want it all. There’s no reason for me to split the difference, when I can take every Path before me and force the future into being!

  [AUTOMATA Conversion: SHADOW CHASE]

  A tabbycat rose out of AUTOMATA’s shadow and split into three. Three separate shadows simultaneously forged their own paths through the uncharted darkness. Apart but together.

  The temple responded to a treasure-seeker’s greedy non-choice. Walls, floors, and ceilings shuddered ever more violently, as stone blocks reconfigured themselves into brand new architecture—dreamt up by a young, foolish, [Oathless] visionary.

  Three paths converged into one. The superimposition of infinite possible futures. After that, there was only one direction for a brain to relay to its limbs.

  “Forward.”

  Zacko, and AUTOMATA by extension, sprinted into the fast-narrowing corridor. The pilot made sure to down a [Pearl of Endurance], giving himself and his mech the infinite Stamina needed to outrun the temple’s final curveball.

  Soon, THE PLEDGE’s red gloam ceded to the light that flooded in from the end of the tunnel. Pitiless sun. All-seeing moon. Everything in between and their latent possibilities.

  [EXALTED FEAT accomplished: Guide the Dawnlit Automaton home.]

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