Chapter 11: Ch11 Lost And Found

Shela and Braith booked it down the hill rushing to look for their lost friend. "Where the hell do you think he ran?" Braith said between breaths as they ran.

"I have no clue, somewhere west is all we know. Just keep looking, anything that points us in a direction." They continued to look around for any hint. There were prints in the sand that resembled his size. Shela had a sneaking suspicion on where he ran off to. After fifteen minutes they reached the start of the Floodlands.

"You don’t think…" Shela quickly cut Braith off.

"He must have ran into there, there are muddied prints of shoes still here, but why?" Shela knelt down and looked at the water filled shapes of shoe prints. They were definitely Carth’s size. "For a man who is not a fighter, he runs pretty damn fast. Let's wait here, the others will soon catch up, with everyone here we will be able to cover more ground."

The others soon arrived at where Shela and Braith were waiting. Shela's eyes went wide when she saw him, "Why is he here?" Shela said in almost a snarling tone. Her face was contorted with confusion and anger.

Collindore looked at her with an indifferent look, "Acknowledgement: I see you are questioning me, please state your reason for questioning my arrival." Collindore stood there seemingly unaware that he was one of the reasons Carth had a panic attack. 

"Haven't you caused enough damage? Carth ran away because he was scared of you, and now you attached a robotic limb that just pushed him over the edge! He is now running out there scared of not only himself but you. The worst of it is that some crazy man sent him a note saying he should come see you, and look where we ended up, huh? He could be-" Shela paused with tears forming in her eyes, "forget it, we have to find him, he has to be still alive." Shela took off looking for anything that can confirm he is alive somewhere, anywhere.

The group pitched in and looked over a decent area, trying to help Shela feel some sort of hope or closure. That was until Denz shouted out, "Over here, you aren't going to like this." The group gathered around to see what looked to be a shape of a person being dragged away. " Oh boy, this can't be good."

Carth woke up oddly comfortable, he kept his eyes shut and listened hoping to hear familiar voices. Instead there were sounds of clanking along with the hum of a ceiling fan. The bed felt metallic and cold and a little bumpy under him. Still listening for any sort of sound soon he started to hear what sounded like welding and soldering. He squinted his eyes open to see a robotic arm attached to the bed working on his arm. He nearly passed out, but managed to stay awake and completely still panicking throughout the process. The arm was seemingly repairing damaged components and parts on his arm. A noise that sounded like tapping made him glance over to look to his right. He saw a skeleton sitting in the chair at the far end of the room, it seemed to be reading a book with a human depiction on the cover. It glanced over to him and then back to the book. It got up and wandered to him and looked at his robotic arm.

"Component 42-9 seems to be fully repaired and tuned, the human body is fully intact, no damage or leaks. It seems he is still asleep at this moment, wondering if he'll wake." The skeleton said, hovering around Carth.

Carth took a deep breath and opened his eyes mentally preparing to face the skeleton. When he was ready he quickly sat up looking directly at it. Carth was still trembling just trying to stay calm. He tried to talk but the fear kept his mouth shut. He reached his normal arm up but it stopped abruptly, finding it chained to the bed.

"Ah you have woken up! You are quite lucky I found you before the spider bots did. Those things would have ripped you to shreds. Now I have a question real quick before I explain, you see, if you're a raider or a bandit, I'll have to kill you before you destroy me first and take my tower. The spider bots keep most trespassers away, but now and then a couple of unwelcome ones seep through, understand?... So which is it?"

Carth quickly panicked trying to unchain his arm but he soon realized he had no chance of escape, "I mean no harm, I ran out there for room to breathe and try to calm my nerves. Please don't kill me or eat me." Carth was clearly shaking and the skeleton saw that quite clearly.

"Odd way to answer but genuine nonetheless," he quickly walked to Carth. Carth closed his eyes expecting the worst, but then he heard a click, "you are now free, don't try anything, ration packs are on the table over there, your bag is there as well." The skeleton gestured to the table where he was reading previously. 

Carth got up and hesitantly moved to the table, his robotic limb moving just like his normal limb. He tried to grab the chair with it only to break through the wood causing splinters to be flung around. He shuddered when the chair made a loud snapping noise. The skeleton walked over and sat in the chair across from him. Seemingly unphased at the sudden destruction.

"My name is Burn, mind if I know yours?"

"My name is Carth, are you really a skeleton?" Carth quickly jumped to questions, still with a stuttering, wavy voice.

"Well obviously, I am clearly a skeleton, your part skeleton too, but you don’t seem too ecstatic about it." Burn looked at the destroyed top part of the chair, "Don't mind the chair I got all the time in the world to repair that." Burn grabbed the book and opened it up and began reading it again quietly. 

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Carth sat there looking this skeleton up and down, Burn was clearly a skeleton but that makes him more tense than calm. "Why didn't you kill me when you found me? You brought me into your home expecting me not to try anything."

"You think that badly of me? Listen, I'm not a monster. I won't kill just to kill, and you posed no threat asleep. Do you fear me or is it something I represent?" Burn turned to a page in his book and showed it to Carth, "This book says that humans can act sporadically. Is that true? In all my years I've never had a chance to get a word in with a human before he tried to kill me." His hand sat on his sword waiting for Carth's response.

"I guess I am more afraid of your capabilities than you yourself. As for acting sporadically? I believe we can, our senses warn us about a lot, but those warnings can overwhelm even the most sure of people. It usually relates to previous experiences that humans may have encountered or worry that they might encounter." Carth answered honestly without holding back. After stating that he realized this may be the opportunity to discover some truths, "I've got a few questions of my own, who or what exactly are you skeletons? What do you eat? And is it true you bleed back blood?"

Burn looked as if he laughed, but skeletons don't laugh, "well first off I am a robotic person, imagine your nerves as wires and for blood you have oil, that is the black blood by the way, and for substance we don't need anything for we don't eat. Those questions sound familiar though. Reminds me of a weird book I have read," he got up and walked over to a bookshelf pulling a familiar book off the shelf. The title read The Little Boy That Got Dismembered By Skeletons. 

"This book states that we Dismember wandering children and eat their body parts," Burn's voice turned intrigued, " this book shows the average skeleton in quite the dark light don't you think? I do recall a group in the far southeast side of the continent doing something similar but never trying to eat flesh, for we have no intake pipes to eat anything, let alone people. Is this why you fear us? If I were human and read this I would never even go near a location containing these types of entities. I'm just surprised you ran here to ease the mind than somewhere supposedly safe from creatures that might exist"

Carth was taken back by the quick response, "so you can see my point of view?" Carth was generally taken off guard by how open Burn was being. He still felt really uneasy around him but not as much after hearing his explanations. "You seem different from the ones I have seen previously, they buried a hiver and left him to die."

If Burn could have an expression it would be of the I get it type of look. " Those skeletons went haywire. You know what that means? Imagine a person going clinically insane, that is a haywire skeleton. I am not like them because I have that repair bed, the one you were chained to. It keeps me and other skeletons up to a clean and working state by providing maintenance to components that are degrading. Bear in mind it may not be able to fully repair some things."

Burn looked Carth up and down, almost as if he was scanning him, "you seem good enough to travel, Care to join me on a visit to a friend?"

The group stood there stunned at the sight. Nobody said a word, next to the smear was a hilt of a familiar weapon. Shela pulled it up to see Carth's blade still intact covered in mud and clay. Tears formed in her eyes, thinking of the worst scenarios. 

"We need to find him, who knows how injured he could be. Let's follow the trail as far as it will take us." Braith exclaimed looking at the rest.

After a few minutes of travel they reached the end of the trail, which led them to nowhere. "Shh, listen," Shela quickly crouched down, the party was quick to follow. They knelt down and listened. Sounds of pistons and scraping metal were heard off to the right of everyone. Peaking over the hill was a skeleton being battered by a large robotic creature, it had a cylinder shaped body with four long, thin legs. It had two large pincers in the front and a disc shaped head. The robotic creature lunged forward, pounding the skeleton into the mud. The size was taller than any man they had seen, even taller than most shek. Sparks flew off the head of the skeleton as the robotic monster began ripping into it. The skeleton's head was ripped off and thrown into the distance as the body was left in the mud. The bot turned towards the party and froze, a beep noise rang out. ZZZTZZZT. The robotic creature spotted Denz peeking over the hill rushed for the group.

"Description: That's an iron spider, aim for the joints!" Collindore shouted out as he pulled out the repaired sword. The rest followed suit as the robot reached them. Shela, Denz, and Stun broke off left while Eliza, Braith, and Collindore went right. The spider slammed through the center missing both parties. It turned to the part on the left, looking straight at Denz. Its moves were heavy and clunky, but certainly not slow. Collindore and Eliza moved in for a strike only to bounce off the metal with a TINK, vibrating the blades and knocking both back a few steps. It did not even turn around, keeping its cylinder scanner locked on Denz. It lunged forward again barely missing Denz, the slam caused mud to fling into the air, and landed on Stun and Braith. Shela took her fragmented axe and swung into the leg of the beast, breaking it off with sparks and sounds of crackling electricity. Without a flinch it took another swing at Denz this time connecting and slamming him into the mud. But when it tried to finish Denz off with another attack it lost balance and fell onto its side, Shela and Stun struck the underbelly cutting several exposed wires and making a large dent into its body causing it to shut down with a loud whirring noise. 

"You alright?" Braith ran over to Denz stuck in the mud. He groaned in pain as he tried to move. The group checked him over for any injuries, finding several. He had a dislocated arm and several fractures in his leg from trying to withstand the spider's attack.

"Damn… we need to keep moving but we can't just leave you here." Eliza said, looking around, "we need to do something though, these wounds should not be exposed to this rain, it would just cause more problems than solutions."

Shela spoke up explaining her idea, "Let's split then, me, Collindore, and Stun will keep looking, the rest take Denz back to World's End." The group nodded their heads in agreement. "We are coming for you Carth."