Chapter 26: Chapter: 26 Village of the Damned

“Tis strange I tell ya,” said old man Milford. “Never seen something like it before.” He pointed at an empty patch of dirt.

“It just landed on this here spot, I swear.”

“This doesn't look good,” said Ahri.

I agreed, these guys had a witch burning vibe about them. We were just going out to get breakfast and to give Tana her house keys before we set off to the next village on our way back to Alhaven.

“At least they’re not holding pitchforks.” I said.

An elderly woman shook her head and said, “It's still morning Milford and you're already drunk.”

“I swear it was real. I can prove it too.”

Milford held up a metal feather and feverishly waved it in front of the doubting crowd.

“How’d we know you ain’t made that yourself,” said the woman.

“What,” shouted Milford. “It was one of those Steamtech constructions I tell you. It had metal claws that could tear a man's arm off.”

He bared his hands at the crowd in a clawlike pose and the crowd laughed.

“It came into my house,” he said. “It took my frying pan right out of my hand as I was about to make breakfast. I tell you I’ve never liked this Steamtech, it's spooky. Metal monsters just ain’t right.”

I looked at Ahri and said, “You’re thinking what I'm thinking, Ahri?”

“Breakfast?”

I laughed and said, “This sounds like one of the Tinkerer’s prototypes escaped. We should go by her place. We need to drop off her keys and get our deposit back in anycase.”

---

The tinkerer’s workshop was locked when we arrived. We looked around and banged on the door but there was no sign of life.

As we started back to the main road I saw an iron spider scuttling past us carrying a horseshoe on its back. We followed it back up the path to the workshop and just as it entered through an open window I scanned the metal insect.

*

Name: Iron Walker

Race: Kobold

Level: 2

Health: 20

Skills: Assembly

Status: Gathering

*

“It's a kobold,” I said.

“How?” asked Ahri.

“Tana Sol said something about turning them into cores. I guess this is what she used the cores for.”

“From a rat creature to a spider,” said Ahri. “That's not much of an upgrade.”

“Not the point, Ahri. Something strange is going on here. I’m sure that walker stole that horse shoe and Milfords frying pan. If they are stealing metal- that can't be good.”

Ahri’s shoulders slumped as she said, “Why do I get the feeling we’re not having breakfast today?”

“It’ll have to be brunch instead,” I said.

“What’s brunch?”

“When you combine breakfast and lunch together.”

“Humans have names for everything,” said Ahri. “What do you call it when you combine your breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”

“That's just called being poor.”

---

I pushed the worksop window wider open and then helped Ahri through and followed in after her.

“Tana Sol!” I shouted as we looked around the dimly lit workshop.

An Iron Walker scuttled over Ahri’s foot and she bumped into me causing us both to jump in fright.

“Remind me why we are doing this?” she asked.

“Something's wrong,” I said.

Ahri nodded and said, “Why’s that our problem? This place is creeping me out. I’m sure we are going to find Tana hanging from the ramparts with her limbs replaced with metal pincers.”

“What the fuck Ahri. You’re really not helping.”

“Let's just leave the keys and get the hell out of here,” she said. “These metal insects are freaking me out.”

“What’s that?” I said as I saw something glowing in a backroom we had not seen before.

We slowly moved closer and we saw that the glowing thing was a blue symbol someone had painted on the floor. In the center of the symbol was a kobold in an iron cage. The creature shook the bars when it saw us. A Mantis Construct that looked to be on guard touched the cage with it's long legs and shocked the shit out of the kobold. The creature squealed and the construct shocked it again.

Ahri pulled a face as the smell of burnt hair filled the room, “Sadistic son of a flea bitten whore,” she said.

This is so messed up.

“Let's get out of here,” I whispered.

I heard the ting ting sound of steel legs scuttling across the floor and turned in time to see a pair of metal mantis’ and a host of Iron Walkers closing in on us.

Ahri grabbed my arm and pulled me between her and the walkers. “Oh shit, oh shit, what do we do?”

The constructs were weak but there were so many of them and my area of effect spells would have no effect on them either. I looked around desperately for a way out.

“Psst!” called a voice.

Ahri nudged me and pointed at a door on the other side of the room and said, “Is that Tana?”

The door was only open crack but I could make out the silhouette of someone standing behind it and waving us over.

“How do we get there before they tear us to shreds?” asked Ahri.

There were too many constructs between us and the door. I said, “Leap of Faith?”

“We’d hit the roof,” said Ahri. “Can you clear a path for us?”

I nodded and said, “On three we run like hell.”

The constructs had surrounded us and cut off our exit. The Iron Guardians extended pincer hands and the Reaper constructs raised their scorpion tails, all of them ready to attack.

I counted, “One, two…”

‘Three,” shouted Ahri.

We bolted towards Tana like our life depended on it. As we drew nearer to the first constructs I drew Mold Earth and sent a ripple through the ground like I was shaking out a carpet. It tossed aside a few constructs enough to clear a path for us.

But we weren't safe yet. An Iron Stag Beetle hissed and launched a net at us. Ahri dived out of the way but I was too slow and the net wrapped around my arms. A jolt of electricity shot through my body and my knees gave out and I hit the ground.

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Ahri grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the door as another jolt of electricity shot through my body and into Ahri.

“Ouch, fuck, damn you Talasin,” she shouted.

I tried to kick off the walkers that were climbing onto my legs but my legs had gone numb and they just flopped around like jelly.

As Ahri dragged me into the room Tana shut the door behind us and pulled the net off of me.

“Quickly,” she said. “There’s a large safe at the back.”

My body was still in shock and my breathing was labored. “Can't I catch my breath first?” I said.

Tana looked me in the eye and said, “Follow me if you want to live.”

The door splintered behind us and constructs poured through it like a colony of ants after a limping grasshopper that’s covered in sugar.

Ahri pulled me up and yelled, “Run you little bitch.”

“Words are hurtful too,” I said.

Ahri pushed me forwards. “Not as much as a steel pincer through your dick.”

I hobbled after them into the back room where Tana was wrestling with the safe door.

“It's stuck!” she yelled, her voice high pitched from panic.

“Jiggle it,” I shouted.

“What?”

“The safe, jiggle it.”

I drew Polyblade and a hammer appeared in my hands. It was heavy as hell but I swung it with all my strength and scattered the nearest constructs as they pounced towards us.

“It won’t open,” shouted Tana.

I smashed an Iron Walker and swung my hammer in a low arc at a group of advancing constructs.

“Out of the way,” shouted Ahri.

I heard the creaking noise of the safe door’s handle being turned and Ahri said, “It's open.”

I limped after them but the hammer was slowing me down. I swung at the constructs a final time and then I tossed the hammer at them and dived through the door. Tana shut the steel doors and the locking mechanisms activated with a deafening click.

---

Tana shook a glass ball and a pale gold light filled the room.

The safe was tiny and incredibly cramped. I had Ahir pressed up against me on one side and Tana on the other. The rest of the space was taken up by rows of shining metal bars of steel that sat on wooden shelves.

Locked in a room with a girl on either side of me, it sounded like the beginning of a porno. It should have been an incredibly exciting moment but in reality all I could think about is that I hadn't brushed my teeth that morning.

Tana shifted around to face me. Her breath against my face and her nose an inch away from mine.

“I woke up this morning,” she said. “And there were Iron Walkers all over the place. I’ve only created ten since I arrived. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw over a hundred of the buggers milling about my workshop.”

“Where did they come from?” I asked.

“The Iron Walkers are building other constructs.”

Ahri shrugged and her elbow hit me in the ribs.

“So you didn't order them to steal shit from your neighbors and attack us?”

“No, they shouldn’t be acting on their own. They shouldn't even know how to make other constructs. When I tried to erase the transmutation circle, they went nuts. They chased me into this back room. I thought I was going to die in here and then I saw you two.”

“So now we all get to die together,’ said Ahri. “This is fucking great.”

I looked at my feet so I didn't have to stare Tana in the eye any longer. The safe was starting to get hot and stuffy and my claustrophobia was kicking in really badly.

“We can't stay here,” I said. “We need to find out what these things are up to.”

“You’re welcome to step out and face them,” said Tana. “But I'm happy right where I am.”

“What’s causing their malfunction?” I asked.

“There’s quite a few possibilities, we would need to observe them in a controlled lab to be certain though.”

I removed Ahri’s elbow from my ribs and said, “You mentioned some traveling engineer sold you the blueprints to that circle. Could the blueprints be the problem?”

“I don't know,” said Tana. “To be honest this is all new to me. Before coming here I’d never made my own core. Those kinds of blueprints were always heavily guarded secrets at the college.”

Ahri shifted her weight from one foot to another and her breasts pressed into my chest.

“And you weren't suspicious of someone just selling the blueprints to you?”

“Hindsight is always 20/20,” said Tana. “A traveling engineer telling me about a town with a kobold infestation and giving me a blueprint to turn those kobolds into cores does seem a bit too good to be true. But at the time I just thought I’d gotten a lucky break.”

I heard a faint scraping sound coming from the door and I raised a finger to my lips to silence them.

The air stirred around us and a faint hissing noise filled the room.

“Do you smell that?” asked Ahri.

“I haven't brushed my teeth yet,” I said. “But is this really the time to point it out.”

“No not that, I'm used to you smelling like ass.”

Tana’s eyes widened and she said, “Cover your face. They are burning my stash of nightshade root.”

I held my shirt over my face but the bitter smell was already filling my nostrils

“Why are they burning it?” I asked.

“It's a knockout gas I’ve been experimenting with.”

“Shit,” said Ahri.

“What?” I asked.

I looked down and saw smoke pouring in under the door.

Ahri started to transform her dress to block the bottom of the door but it was too late. Tana bumped into me and slid down my body and landed in a crumpled heap at my feet.

Ahri faltered and leant against the door.

“Talasin help.”

I pulled off my shirt and covered Ahri’s mouth with it. My lungs burnt, my vision blurred and the room began to spin.

“Hold on,” I said.

My knees went weak and I fell. I hit the ground and heard Ahri falling beside me. Then all went quiet, it felt almost peaceful as everything faded away.

---

[Level 6 - Progress towards next level: 72%]

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