46 – Point out what’s wrong

“Why did you try to kill me? What’s your fucking problem?” Ishrin screamed at the kid, still encased in the block of ice where he had been stuck for the last hour or so.

“Fuck you!” Sir Westys yelled back.

Ishrin paced the room, massaging his temples. “I don’t believe that you hate me so much that you are willing to do something like this. What’s the deal?”

The boy snorted.

It was the usual charade, and it was getting nowhere. Melina noticed that Ishrin was getting quite angry, and decided to step in before he did something stupid he was going to regret later. She asked him to let her try and he did, although not without protest.

Deciding that he didn’t want to stay and see the fiasco, bith he and Lisette left the room, or what was left of it after the fight with the automaton. The other three members of Sir Westys team were trapped inside a containment field Ishrin had set up at the corner of the very same room, against a wall, made so that sound could not enter inside the field but could leave it, so that he could listen to what the young adventurers were saying among themselves. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to know much, or at least they weren’t disclosing much not even when they thought they were being left alone.

Outside, the remains of the automatons were all piled in a great heap, dripping water that was melting from the iron plates and twisted girders of the once fearsome construct. Ishrin and Lisette began to strip the remains for parts, taking the crystals that tipped its weapons and sorting through the mechanical pieces to see what could still hold some sort of value to either be sold or to be kept for the future. They didn’t have money issues after Ishrin raided Lucius’ secret stash in Obscuria, but having sellable materials was always good. That was also the reason why, later when they retraced their steps in leaving the ruins, they made sure to steal everything that looked interesting.

“You were not aware of your surroundings during the ritual.” Lisette said, cutting through the silence that had fallen on the two.

“I… was not.” Ishrin said.

“That is not good.” She said.

Ishrin put his hands on his hips, cocking his head. “Really?”

“Really.” She nodded.

“I was sarcastic. I know I wasn’t aware of my surroundings, but that’s what happens when you cast rituals. That’s why they are not very good in fights, and that’s also why I usually like to come prepared to a fight.”

“You did not come prepared this time.” She said.

Ishrin breathed. She was pointing out mistakes because that’s what she does with friends now, after that conversation they had back in the fields after leaving Obscuria.

“You still doing that meditation thing?” Ishrin asked, to change topic while he rummaged through the metal scraps.

“I am.” Lisette said.

“How is it?”

“It’s… odd. I cannot seem to find words to describe it but I do not feel upset about it.”

Ishrin hummed. “You don’t?”

She shook her head. “I feel the negative emotion arising in consciousness, but all I do is observe it. I do not become it. It does not become me.”

Ishrin was impressed. That meditation manual was a Cultivator thing, and as such he held a great deal of prejudice against it. He only used it as a last ditch measure to locate where the sensation that eventually turned out to be Liù was coming from, and never expected the technique to be any good for everyday life.

“I guess not everything the Cultivator did is useless spiritual bullshit, then.” He said.

“There is a lot of it.” Lisette said. “Bullshit, I mean. But I only choose the parts that make sense to me.”

“I see. Well, I mean, the cultivators were definitely onto something or they would have never become the leading faction in Eternia, right?”

The soft sound of footsteps interrupted the conversation. It was Melina, coming out of the room with a big smile on her face.

“Something tells me that you got the boy to talk.” Ishrin said.

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“How observant.” She joked. “I did.”

“Well? What did he say?” Ishrin asked. Lisette listened while continuing to sort the useless garbage from the useful materials, putting them in a pile to the side to be later swept into Ishrin’s inventory.

“His father ordered him to do it, so that he could get a taste of how the world really is. Of how you gotta do things if you want to survive in the guild.”

Ishrin was not convinced. “Lessons in backstabbing? Sounds a bit odd, even coming from a duke.”

Melina’s right shoulder went up in a half-shrug as she cocked her head to the side. “Whatever the reason, Sir Westys being the good boy he is just obeyed without question. I don’t think he’s inherently bad, you know? Just stupid.”

“He did stab Ishrin.” Lisette said. “And he was being a dick the whole time. I almost gave in to the desire to impale him when we were in the maze.”

Ishrin took a deep breath. “We were in the maze one day. One. And he managed to get Lisette out of her zen.”

“I wasn’t practicing yet.” She corrected him.

“Right.” Ishrin said, sweeping the pile of stuff she had set aside into his inventory. “Let’s go. We have bracers to find.”

“Wait!” Melina said, seeing that both Ishrin and Lisette were already halfway back to the large cavern where they fought the three automata. “What about them?”

Ishrin snapped his fingers. “There. I dropped the containment field. They’ll free their boss and then they’re on their own. I’m not escorting them back for sure.”

“Ishrin!”

“What?”

“You can’t do this! He’s just a boy.”

“A spoiled brat.” Ishrin protested.

“Ishrin.” Melina said, staring.

Ishrin’s face contorted under her gaze. “Fine.” He said, pointing his finger at her. “You handle them. They bother me once, they are done.”

“Thank you.” She smiled.

***

Beyond the alcoves of the three automata, following the lights, the team found a large pillar at the center of a platform, surrounded by a trench filled with solid obsidian. The pipes on the ceiling and on the walls were cool, dripping with condensation now that the hot gases that once warmed up their surfaces were all scattered through the compound, following the immense damage caused by the automaton in its last rampage. The pillar was a key, but it didn’t work anymore, and the door had to be forced open. It didn’t take long, for it was not reinforced and all of its defenses were offline. Deeper in the underground complex the consequences of the damage appeared less severe, as the party got closer to the source of the heat and the mechanical power of the place. It was clear, however, that the heat was dying. Whatever the reason was, the temperature was falling steadily, but it was not yet to a point where it was uncomfortable.

They walked in a line, with Ishrin and Lisette at the front, Sir Westys and team in the middle, and Melina closing the file. She was on guard duty until they returned to Semiluminal. The boys didn’t wander off, nor did they speak for that matter, not even the duke’s son. They were brooding and silent, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible and not to cause any trouble. And, to be fair, there was no trouble all the way to the end of the maze of rooms. There were some defenses still active, but the place was leaking mechanical and thermal power to the damaged section and any resistance to the advance of the adventurers was overcome without difficulty.

Even the lights were beginning to die down. The temperature, evidently kept at the almost uncomfortably warm level artificially, was falling and the air was getting heavy with humidity that was condensing into fog and wetting the cold metallic surfaces. The explorers kept going, undeterred by the change in the environment, but the atmosphere was different and eerie. The darkness was total now, save for the artificial cold light of the magical torches the members of Ishrin’s team held, which forced them to walk closer together as to not lose sight of the underprepared other team. Light that did not provide any warmth either.

“Crazy. It looked like a hot, steamy underground workshop before, but now it feels like we’re in an abandoned space station.” Ishrin said.

They kept wandering. Ishrin idly explained to the others what a space station was, and how the look and feel of this maze of metal and pipes could look like an abandoned Grukklak space station now that the lights were dead and the cold was creeping in. The fog was making it difficult to see beyond a few meters in the distance, and the wet floor was slippery while the air grew colder and colder. From the almost tropical heat of the morning, now it was almost to the point of freezing.

“This isn’t normal. We are underground, it’s not supposed to get this cold!” Ishrin voiced his frustration. He could, of course, perform a ritual to remove the problem, but he didn’t want to waste a second too many in this place now that his mood was soured. And, he felt, the cold was fitting his mental state.

Eventually they found them, the bracers. They were inside a workshop, alongside a whole assortment of small items and pieces of unfinished mechanical technology lying around the room. There were spring loaded boxes, crossbows with brass strings that didn’t work, makeshift grenades and small tungsten cubes without a precise purpose. Among the items, all of them strictly non-magical and of the same steampunk feel, the bracers stood out like a light in the night, and not only to Ishrin’s magic vision. They were out of place, sleek pieces crafted out of exquisite star metal and polished to perfection, shining with their chromed details and their carved out patterns.