Chapter 684: Clockwork Stars

Chapter 683: Clockwork Stars

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A/n: Vol.8 has ended on Chapter 694, Vol.9 Song of the Dragons begins on Chapter 695. All of them are available on P4treon, read them early over there.

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After meeting Apostle Galyn and the remaining Clockwork Apostles, the group headed outside the Brass Fortress through the secret tunnels.

Glymet didn’t seem to be willing to expose Jon’s attack plan to the Clockwork Apostles in the city but Laaneth was too excited and revealed that reinforcements are waiting outside the city in order to take Mecinar out. With the same level of excitement, the Clockwork Apostles were very welcoming to the idea of taking on Mecinar and meeting those visitors from the outside world for the first time in two centuries.

Of course, not all of the Apostles were feeling the same and some were fearing an invasion from more outlanders. Some said they would handle it on their own and others seemed to be willing to take up arms against any more invading forces but Galyn, their leader, was adamant about receiving reinforcements. He said that whatever Mecinar is doing deep in the Fortress may be disastrous if left alone more than this.

Also, it seemed very obvious that Mecinar was afraid of whatever was out there and was sending a lot of his twisted creations to fight it and keep it in check. Galyn seemed to know what Mecinar was after but kept feigning ignorance no matter how many times Laaneth asked, however, Glymet took note of that.

In the end, the party of Glymet, Laaneth, Ram, and their Tarnished guide ended up in the Mire Mechanica and started searching for the Treasure Hunters that were hired by Mecinar, the ones who still had Swims-at-Night as their prisoner.

The Mire Mechanica was a place of brass-colored land and deep pits of murky waters that were interconnected through old water pipes. This swampland seemed to have formed thanks to the leakage of some water pipes and its lack of maintenance which slowly became contaminated with all sorts of diseases thanks to the microorganisms that started inhabiting these parts.

Moreover, many other liquids were leaking in the swamps, which included refined and crude oil from the surrounding broken oil rigs. Many alien trees grew in these arid swamplands and some were even growing through and around the brass pipes that were everywhere in this part of the land.

As for finding the Treasure Hunters, it was like a stroke of luck when Ram was sending some feedback signals to the workshop at the Pavilion of Artifice where Jon was and happened to pick up a nearby signal that was being transmitted to somewhere inside the city.

When Ram informed Laaneth of that, she led the four of them to intercept whatever was emitting it. There, they found the Treasure Hunters.

From how things seemed like, four treasure hunters were surrounding a pit that was being dug by someone and they were all armed with advanced weaponry from Clockwork City. Glymet could tell that the one who was digging the pit for the Treasure Hunters was Swims-at-Night as they seemed to be forcing them to dig out something in the murky swampland.

As for getting Swims out of this situation without endangering him, Glymet had a very simple plan.

“Hey!” Glymet called as he walked towards the Treasure Hunters, “The four of you! That’s my friend you have there!”

As anger and hostility were displayed on his face, the Treasure Hunters aimed their weapons at him with menacing glares and obvious smirks.

“Well well well. If it isn’t the fool we got the ring from.” The Leader of the Treasure Hunters, the Blondie called Aldora, spoke as she pointed with her sword at Swims, “Came for your friend?

“Swims!” Laaneth came out from hiding while taking some distance from Glymet.

“Laan… Laaneth?” Peeking his head from the pit, Swims couldn’t believe his eyes for the face he just saw was that of one of his oldest friends.

This, however, seemed to have irritated the Treasure Hunters as they weren’t expecting more nuisance.

“Hey! I’d hate to get in the way of your reunion with your mate but how about this?” Aldora spoke and got behind the pit where Swims was, “Throw down your weapons and promise to leave us to plunder in peace, and you can have him.”

“Don’t do it, Glym!” Swims called but Aldora kicked a stone against him to shut him up.

“You want us to trust you? Not likely. We’ll get him back the hard way.” Laaneth seemed fire-up and her staff started to radiate with Flame.

“Wait! Laaneth!” Glymet, however, seemed more concerned about Swims and took off his sheathed sword from his belt and started to lower it down, “We’re just here for our friend.”

“Wise choice.” Aldora replied and her smile curled upwards even more, “Although… it just occurred to me, why don’t we just kill you now and keep our captive?”

“Yes, you can very much do that or…” Glymet said with an expressionless face and then looked at Swims, “… you can lower your head.”

Both Laaneth and Glymet ducked to the ground immediately and the sound of gatling thunder broke through the calmness of the swamp forest as a hail of bullets made a brrrrrrrrrrrrt sound and tore through whatever it was aimed at.

In an instant and from left to right, the bullets decimated the heavily armored treasure hunter at the forefront of the group and blasted off the right arm of the Khajiit Archer right next to him. The Orc shamaness that was behind them transformed herself into a small creature and escaped immediately while the Nord Aldora ducked to the ground almost the same instant Glymet and Laaneth did.

As the hail of bullets was over, Swims-at-Night attacked Aldora with his shovel but she rolled away and started running towards where her Orc friend did. She looked back at Glymet, who was chasing her, and shouted in rage as she watched her Khajiit comrade bleed to death.

Glymet didn’t chase Aldora for long and ran back to Swims and Laaneth. He saw Laaneth trying to pull Swims out of the pit and so he too gave a helping hand.

“Swims! Thank Azura you’re safe!”

As they sat together in the Swamp, Laaneth and Swims started catching their breath from the tension of the situation while Glymet stood over them.

“What was that?” Swims asked with a shocked Argonian expression, “That insane attack. It almost blew my head off.”

“Survival estimation, 95%.” A voice replied.

Mechanical and emotionless, the owner of the voice stepped out from the cover of dried and charred bushes in his full brass body. Ram seemed to have switched his legs for caterpillar tracks (like a military tank) to withstand the power of the gatling gun he just sprayed around. Seeing him, the Argonian Swims-at-Night had to stand alarmed.

“Relax, it is a friend we met here. Call him Ram.” Laaneth said.

“Seriously? Those things run errands for that crazy Mecinar wizard. Can’t believe you tamed one!” Said Swims as he checked out Ram from a distance.

“He’s not a Factotum. He’s a real person trapped in one. If only he can tell us how though.” Glymet said, “Jon Dare introduced us to him.”

“Right!” Swims became alert immediately as if he remembered something dangerous, “Jon Dare, he’s here!”

“We’ve met him.” Laaneth said and stood up, “We need to reunite with him later but we agreed to help the Clockwork Apostles with their Memory Crystal that was stolen by the Treasure Hunters. Now that they’ve run…”

Laaneth seemed a little bit depressed and Glymet shook his shoulder since he’s not going to chase some dangerous individuals like those Treasure Hunters into an unknown plane of existence like this.

“Oh! You mean this?” At that moment, Swims-at-Night forked out something from his pocket.

“That’s…” Both Glymet and Laaneth were lost for words seeing the prize they agreed to collect for Galyn and the Apostles in the hands of their sticky-fingered friend.

“How did you get that?” Laaneth asked.

“It looked valuable so I swept it from those idiots.” He said with the sinister laugh of a thief.

“You’re a wonder, Swims!” Laaneth hugged Swims-at-Night and looked at the Memory Crystal with glee, “Let’s move from this place first. We need to take a look at its content…”

And just as she was about to drag her allies and move towards the city, something came flying over their heads. The three adventurers lowered their heads and put on their defense while Ram aimed up his gatling gun and sprayed a hail of bullets at whatever that thing was with extreme prejudice and unshakable accuracy.

That flying thing landed on a tree by getting impaled into one of its branches. As it stopped, it appeared that the flying thing was a headless body that somehow got flung by some extremely powerful attack.

As for the head, it seemed to have fallen in a different location long before the body got sprayed with Ram’s bullets. This body belonged to the Orc Shamaness that was with the Treasure Hunters and escaped first just a couple of minutes ago.

As for what came next, all those who were present felt the sound of footsteps slowly approaching them.

“Ram, get ready.” Glymet spoke.

“Disapproved!” Ram replied with no interest whatsoever.

“What?” The others felt anxious as whatever was coming with nothing less than an imminent threat.

As the footsteps got closer, two figures emerged from behind the dry trees, the first was Kota in his gigantic form called Dragon and the other was none other than Jon Dare who was wearing armor this time around and dragging the blonde Aldora from her hair.

“Glymet old man!” Jon called while waving his free hand that had some smoke coming from it, for some reason.

“Slaughter! HAHA!” Kota (Dragon) burst into maniacal laughter and started beating down the corpse of the armored Treasure Hunters with his oversized arm, “Thunder Cookie! Again! Again! Hahaha!”

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“Hey, peabrain! Only I can do Thunder Cookie!” Jon shouted at Kota (Dragon).

“Only… you?” Kota (Dragon) tilted his head in wonder before realizing the truth, “Sadge!”

The others realized that Jon’s iconic “Thunder Cookie” spell was the method used to blast the Orc Shamaness to death. The lethality of that spell was rumored to be able to make opponents explode on contact and was used frequently by Jon, especially against the people he hated the most, namely the Thalmor agents.

While the others recalled that, Jon ignored Kota (Dragon) whose depression shrunk him back to the normal Kota, and approached Glymet.

“You made contact with living Clockwork Apostles and found a Memory Crystal of Sotha Sil.” Said Jon to Laaneth and Glymet, “I can only say this day is getting better and better.”

“You seem to have recovered your lost power.” Laaneth said, “You’ve had me worried, you know!”

“Sorry, Ms. Laaneth, just don’t rat me out to mom.” Jon said with a sleazy smile, “So, can we take a look at the Crystal?”

“Do you have a method to crack it?” Glymet asked.

“Well, now that I have recovered my Magic, I can retrieve all my toys from my Magical Storage. I’ve all sorts of toys stashed over there.” Jon said while showing off his armor then continued, “Also, don’t you want to hear about my war plan?”

***

“A War? You really wanna go that far?” Glymet asked with morbid expressions seeing that Jon had filled the Pavilion of Artifice with various machinery.

“A Battle is the right term, old man.” Jon replied, “Mecinar has an army and I can’t practice Necromancy or Conjuration easily in Clockwork City since I am not quite sure about the outer plane motions from this plane of existence. Even the Magicka in this place is kinda weird.”

“Clockwork City has always been reported as a place with abnormal Magicka but that can be said about all planes of existence.” Laaneth agreed.

“Indeed. Even if Sotha Sil was aiming to create a world better than Mundus in his own words, he made limitations and restricted many freedoms over the Magicka of his realm. During my visits to various Oblivion Realms, I noticed that many types of Magic were restricted by the will of the Lords of these Realms as the Mortal Plane of Mundus remains the Realm with the most independent Magicka.” Jon overanalyzed the subject with Laaneth as colleagues.

“The Vision of Lorkhan when he created Mundus was indeed extraordinary and counted on granting all living beings their freedom of choice. I guess we are still learning about the truth of the Wheel and the Tower even to this day.” Laaneth agreed with him, making the rest of the group feel stupid, and Glymet to be barely keeping up.

“But let’s not forget that the Dawn Magic has been restricted to Mundus over the years. Can this be some sort of restriction made by Shor (Lorkhan)?” Jon speculated.

“I still take the stand that the Dawn Magic was the Key of Creation and we, the Mortal Races, are unable to access it due to our mortal limitation. What can be called Dawn Magic can actually be something far above our regular ability to cast Magic such as spells of higher tiers.” Laaneth explained her opinion.

“Forbidden Magic?!” Jon made an understanding face.

“Precisely. A magic that can redo and undo reality is of a scale such as…”

“Alright! That’s enough!” Swims cried in both Laaneth and Jon, “Look at how dizzy everyone is, you goddamn nerds!”

“Oh!” “Sorry!”

Jon and Laaneth retreated from their research ideas and returned to the topic at hand.

“So, the war efforts that I made…” Jon stood from the circle around the fire and pointed at all the large boxes he gathered, “Ladies, I present to you… a Pneumatic Forge Assembly Line!”

Nobody clapped.

Jon had to clear his throat and say the word again but only Kota shifted his personality to Smeed and started praising Jon for collecting all this junk and tinkering it into something that looks useful.

Emotionally Damaged by the underwhelming praise, Jon started to explain his plan.

“So the Pneumatic Forge is the place where Sotha Sil created his Combat Factotums. I ripped off some machines from over there that can help us recycle the junk all around this junkyard and transform it into Combat Factotums.” Jon said with dampened spirit and his speech pace increased while his eyes were turning hollow, “It’s all wired up to the Power Transformer into the Vale of Tears which I had to bombard earlier this morning in order to mask my attack as an attempt to fight against Mecinar while in fact, I was wiring these contraptions to the power grid in order to create an army of machines that can help us fight the army of Abominations that is being assembled by Mecinar as we speak and coming to rip us all apart.”

“Alright, calm down.” Glymet said with a sympathetic face, “We were just messing with you. Of course we know what all this Psinomatic Forge…”

“Pneumatic Forge.” Laaneth corrected him.

“That, yeah… don’t worry, Jonradson! We were just… having a laugh.”

“… yeah…” Jon said with gloom gathering over his head.

“And what about that woman?” Laaneth asked while pointing at the Blonde Nord, Aldora.

All that time, Aldora was locked in a makeshift cage. Jon tied her with the only type of knots he knew how to tie… which happens to be… extremely kinky.

“That… right…” Jon looked at the woman, “Right, Aldora and I go way back, actually. She’s a Thief turned Mercenary and Sailor and Treasure Hunter from Dawnstar. I tried to hire her to the Dare Corps many times but she is as dishonest as they come.”

“No one from Dawnstar likes you, Jon.” Laaneth said.

Aldora was conscious and looking at Jon with glaring red eyes. After all, he killed her band of mercenaries and seemed to have some rivalry with them.

“Jon fucking Dare.” She spoke.

“Aldora the Daring… you really got to stop this.” He replied.

It seemed the rivalry between Jon and Aldora wasn’t about Mercenary work only but also about titles. “Dare” and “The Daring” were awfully close to one another. The two of them led rival Mercenary Groups. While Jon’s symbol was the Dragon, Aldora’s symbol was the Eagle. As only one king of the sky was supposed to exist, Jon pushed Aldora and her group so far to the point where they had to operate on ships and become naval mercenaries, the field where he was also considered the best in thanks to his Magicka-powered ships.

“She’s part of the reason I dislike blondes.” Jon said.

“You’ve got an Altmer girlfriend with blonde hair last time I checked.” Aldora said.

“Platinum!” Jon corrected her.

“So, you took her for interrogation about Mecinar’s plan?” Glymet asked before the conversation derailed.

“I wouldn’t bother with that murderous lying whore but if you want to interrogate her, she’s all yours.” Jon replied, “Personally, I’d like to focus on these Memory Crystals you collected.”

“We’ve collected three of them.” Laaneth said, “One from the Ventral Terminus, one from the Halls of Regulation, and the last from the Treasure Hunters.”

“These Memory Crystals, or Memory Stars as the people here like to call them, are the records left by the Dead Godking Sotha Sil.” Jon said while taking a heavy breath of anticipation.

“What do you expect we’ll find out?” Laaneth asked.

“Secrets!” Kota (Spamton) screamed, “Deep and dark!”

“Truth!” Ram reacted.

“Both.” Jon nodded.

“And how will you read them?” Glymet asked.

Jon smiled and pointed at Ram.

“He can display them using his Memory Sockets. But there are two vital requirements that we need.” Jon said in a serious voice.

“What can they be?” Glymet asked in full seriousness.

“Drinks and Popcorn!”

With that, Jon and the group were about to witness the most important memories left by the Creator of Clockwork City, the Tribunal Deity Sotha Sil.

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