Maria’s eyes eased open slowly. She could hear movement nearby but otherwise she was in darkness. Her entire body ached, especially her stomach where the automaton’s leg had pierced her armor.
She ran a hand over the ground beneath her and found that it was stone. She felt her tail twitch to life.
“We did not wake up in the real world, Mare,” she thought to herself with a groan of pain.
Great. Still in the nightmare dungeon with the machine crabs but, for some reason, still alive.
She bit back a scream when a voice said, “Humanoid, you have become conscious. Your species has no ability to perceive in darkness. Illumination is provided.”
There was a hissing whisper and then the room filled with harsh and blinding blue light that caused her to snap her eyes closed and growl. Her watering eyes flickered open again, adjusting to the new illumination. She was greeted by a bizarre sight. There was an easily seven foot tall being standing in front of her looking down with its head cocked to the side.
It looked like a Vyre, or the ones she had seen in murals, but it was another automaton. Its body was clearly bronze and cast to look humanoid but parts had been torn away or damaged over time. Only one of its ears was still present, the other vacant leaving a hole in the side of the machine’s head. Its eyes were bright and cast in blue from the flickering flame hovering over its mangled and clawed hand.
She eyed it for several long moments and said, “Thanks for the light.”
The machine’s mouth was only a slot and the voice echoed from it, “It is standard practice in the temple to treat wounded beings as soon as possible. It was noted, however, that you caused severe damage to temple custodians.”
She muttered dryly, “Sorry, they seemed to want to clean me up.”
The Vyrebot turned its upper body first and then its legs. There were several clanks as it made its way to one of the walls and began shifting through a number of metal tins arrayed there. She was in a room with several stone slabs like the one she was on. She noted with concern that one of the stone plinths was occupied by a mummified corpse. The shelves on the walls were filled with hundreds of small metal tins. With a quick check she found all of her equipment was in place save her backpack and purloined hammer, which she saw sitting on a nearby stone stool.
The machine elf turned with one of the tins in between its remaining bladed fingers and clanked his way back over to her, “Please remain prone. I must apply this salve.”
“How old is that stuff?”
“Approximately four hundred and thirty years old. Its potency has been prolonged by these arte enchanted shelves. Do not be concerned humanoid patient.”
With ache still radiating through her body she chose not to test the giant machine’s patience and let it continue its task. One of its fingers spun from a blade into a more rounded human like one and used it to apply salve from the tin to the now nearly vanished wound in her stomach.
“Is that how long you have been here?”
“I have been an attendant at the temple for six hundred fifty seven years, twenty two days, twelve hours, and fifty five minutes.”
She eyed the machine and said, “Why did the… custodians attack me?”
“Machine Maintenance has missed its last ten thousand three hundred and seventy scheduled repairs on Temple staff,” it said with a hint of what Maria swore was annoyance, “even I am suffering at deficient capacity due to their lassitude. The custodians somehow started to recognize living beings as detritus and have been operating under that capacity for some time.”
“I gotta suspect your boys in Maintenance might have suffered an unfortunate glitch of some kind. This place is not in good shape.”
She sat up slowly at that and said with some relief, “I do appreciate you didn’t get the same bug the custodians seem to have.”
The machine Vyre studied her for several long moments and said, “It is unlikely that an insect was to blame. Normal wear and tear of centuries without regular maintenance is the probable culprit.”
Maria winced and said, “That’s not…,” and thought better of the line of thinking before saying, “What is this place?”
“That information is not available to visitors,” it said with cold efficiency.
She nodded and shrugged, “Bummer. How do I get out? I fell through a hole in the roof and I’m not sure where I am.”
The machine stood stock still and regarded her with those unblinking blue light eyes as it said, “There is only one possible route of egress. The few remaining priests chose that path after the temple was damaged. They did not return.”
Maria slid off of the stone plinth as the machine continued to speak, “Your natural regenerative abilities are admirable. Your only life threatening wound was to your abdomen. All other wounds closed rapidly.”
“Ah great, I’m glad to hear that. I didn’t get told much when I got here,” she didn’t elaborate and instead said, “could you show me where this exit is?”
“As you wish humanoid patient.”
It walked to an intact door and eased it open into a darkened rubble strewn hall. It might be the one where she had faced the machines or any other. The place had few defining decorations owed to centuries of degradation and damage. She grabbed her backpack and hammer and then followed after it as it turned and stomped ahead with its flaming hand raised.
Several rooms lined the walls and unlike those she had seen earlier most were not blocked by rubble. She started away when she noted the blue light glinting off of lens-like eyes. More of the custodians were watching them.
The automaton said calmly, “They will not attempt to remove you while you are in my company.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Soon they turned into a stairwell and started to descend. There was a green glow flickering at the base as if from a large brazier or bonfire.
Behind her she heard the sound of the clicking robotic legs and spied the glistening lenses peering down at her. She raised a middle finger at them and stayed close to the Vyrebot. A new sound reached her ears as they neared the base of the stairs, rushing water. They emerged into a gigantic domed chamber. Stone bridges extended from her stairwell and exits on the other three walls arching to a massive stone pillar at the center of the room. From the walls between each of the bridges waterfalls poured downward into an underground lake surrounding the platform. At the center of the platform was a dias and at the center of that dias was the source of the flickering verdant glow.
A plant. Three stalks sparsely covered with small glossy leaves and bright yellow flowers. They were floating above the dias and radiating the glow that seemed to fill the upper parts of the chamber. Her rescuer did not pause. He strode across the slick stone bridge, his footsteps echoing faintly beneath the constant din of the waterfalls.
As they neared the dias and the strange glowing twig she studied it with interest. Beyond its thrumming viridescent glow it was an otherwise mundane twig. That was when she felt it. A hum against her chest. Reaching up her six fingered hand rested over the Dominus’ symbol beneath the breastplate of her armor. As they walked close the thrum grew stronger.
She hurried to catch up to the automaton and called up to it, “What is that thing?”
It looked down at her as it continued to stride and said, “Of what do you speak?”
She flicked her tail in annoyance and squeaked, “What? Obviously the floating barley over there.”
It turned to regard the dias with interest and finally said, “Detritus. It would have likely been cleaned up centuries ago if not for the current revolt of the custodians.”
She studied the herb and muttered, “How long has it been here?”
The automaton seemed to compute something and then said, “Approximately one hundred twenty two years. I believe it is a remnant from a ritual conducted by Archpriest Arvelo. The details of which are not available to visitors.”
She opened her mouth to speak and shut it. Finally she said, “Can I take it?”
The automaton studied her and then the glowing shrub. It was obvious that it didn’t see any worth in its mystical properties and seemed to regard it as some errant plant to be removed and disposed of. The fact that it seemed to be oblivious both to the fact that it was glowing and floating above the ground was intriguing.
Finally it said, “You may if you wish.”
She blinked in surprise but just offered her best grath smile and said, “Thank you!”
When they reached the dias she carefully climbed up it, using her tail to aid with the ascent. The vibration of the symbol under her armor had grown so intense she could almost hear it. Cresting the top she studied the strange glowing herb with wide eyes. She could not believe that she was in this situation. Every single person who had ever given her the damn Indiana Jones line was now somehow vindicated. Just that fact was enough to make her reconsider taking it… That and the fact that it might disintegrate her or turn her into a snail. Who knew in this insane world.
She considered grabbing a bag of sand of similar weight but saw no readily available options. She stroked her chin in an act of appropriate reverence and snapped the herb out of the air. Besides a radiating warmth through her palm and the immediate cessation of the symbol’s vibrations nothing happened. Taking a deep breath in relief she carefully pushed the herb into her backpack, before closing it.
She hopped down and smiled up at the automaton, “Glad to help!”
It turned without speaking and led the way across another of the bridges. It turned and started down a set of stone stairs built into the side of the bridge leading downward. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself and instinctively used her tail to provide even more stability as she followed down toward the churning water below.
The automaton made its way down to a platform just feet above the roiling black water and came to a stop. It turned its upper body to regard her and gestured in the direction of a tunnel in the side of the chamber where the water vanished into a dark underground river, “That is the exit.”
She looked back and forth between her guide and the tunnel, “That’s it?”
“That is the exit in question.”
She studied it for a few breaths and then said, “There isn’t another one?”
“Presumably the hole you fell into is now an alternate.”
She shook her head and said, “I will have to find a way to climb out then.”
The machine waited for a beat and then said, “Your presence as a visitor was conditional on your recovery. Your condition outside of this facility is not within our operating parameters.”
“What does tha…,” she was shocked out of her speech when a metallic hand closed around her shoulder and yanked her off her feet.
The dark cavern flashed past as she flew through the air and hit the water.
Years of swimming at that frigid lake at her Gram’s really paid off as she was quickly able to right herself and embrace the intense current that washed her into darkness. She struggled toward what she thought was the surface. After several intense moments with her lungs burning she burst into the open air exhaling a scream. She was thrown out over the tumbling waters of a waterfall cascading down into what appeared to be a river. She had no time to consider why she could see or where she had ended up, because she was angling herself into a dive to try and survive the one hundred plus foot fall into the river.
Pain washed across her head, shoulders, and arms as she hit the water. Her vision was full of light as if someone had just punched her in the temple. She tried to stall the momentum of her downward plunge but still felt her shoulder collide with the stone bottom of the river.
She tried to shake the spots from her vision and swam upward as the slower current started to carry her into the river. She burst from the water with a hissed scream, “Motherfucker!”
Her left arm, which had struck the bottom of the river, felt broken. She used her good arm and her tail to try and tread the water as she drifted down the underground river. With effort, and no small amount of pain, she guided herself to shore and crawled onto the stone to collapse.
This place had to be a punishment of some kind. Was it how she treated Christie that got her sent here? Was it kowtowing to her mothers homophobic bullshit? Was it throwing Layla under the bus? Breaking her dad’s heart?
She rolled onto her back and opened her eyes. There was a shift under her skin and she hissed in pain. Clutching her arm she shivered and coughed up river water. Combining the ice cold water with the frigid underground cavern was going to be a serious problem when it came to maintaining core heat. It felt like her bones were repairing themselves. Seems that traitorous machine elf had been right about the healing. That discomfort and strangeness aside she had now discovered that she had a special dislike for being wet and covered in fur.
The roof of the cavern and the walls seems to be covered in something luminous. Here and there patches of yellow glow alleviated some of the pervasive darkness. The cavern stretched several hundred feet further following the river before curving to the left. As the cold and pain caused her entire body to convulse she hissed, “Alright, what would dad do?”
Without preamble she started to tug at the ties on her armor with her good arm and before long she was tearing off the leather cuirass and then tossing her leg armor onto the stones. She shed the base layer off and with a shiver of dread and disgust she shook to scatter the water on her fur. Still shaking from the cold she stumbled naked to the backpack and fumbled with the latches unclasping the leather bag and flipping it open.
She stuck a shaking hand into the pouch and pulled her last remaining torch free. The wood was wet, but not as wet as she expected. Pulling it free she retrieved her flint and tinder box and knelt over the head of the torch flicking the flint with the best precision she could manage. She cursed repeatedly through gnashing teeth until the smoke started to rise from the torch head. She snatched her shield off her arm and set it beside the torch.
