Crystal Cage 36

Like someone had flicked the lights back on, Stag and Annie came to less than a handful of seconds apart.

As their brief confusion settled into clarity, Orison asked, "How do you feel?"

Stag said, "Leave out the sore spot on my back from falling asleep with a broken bracket digging into it and I haven't felt this good since my handler gave me a little something to take the edge off before I got sent to a rough customer."

Annie added, "Just like that but clear. No fuzzy head... I feel a little full. Do you think we could..."

Orison handed over a relatively intact rusty helmet he'd picked up with pretty much that purpose in mind before looking out into the gloom.

While the young mage tried to count the imaginary horrors his mind was painting into the distant darkness, Stag said, "Where was that discipline and control earlier before he snatched us up?"

Annie replied in annoyance, "I sneezed alright!? It's not like you were being gentle."

While the two took turns using the helmet, they also took turns making viscous verbal stabs as if they were trying to make hurting each other's feelings into a game.

After the third round force share of flaws and inadequacies, Orison had enough disturbing visuals and sympathy shame to stop it. "Oh, the masters love it when the slaves tear each other down. They don't need to work nearly as hard to make you feel worthless when you're willing to do it for them... You may be in a sh*t situation but are these the memories you want to have of your first day of freedom, still talking like you belong to somebody and dogging the only other person here that really gets your pain?

"Oh, you're angry, Stag? Good! When you leave here, you'll be a second generation royal with the ability to rain hell on every tormentor you've had over the last month. Remember to save some rage for the people who suffered with you, like the girl sitting beside you."

Amid the sting of chastisement, Annie buried her head between her knees and Stag gave up trying to wrestle his leather shorts back into place one-handed as he handed the helmet to Orison sheepishly. Caught in the middle of framing his next irritated thought, the young mage turned and tossed it out. The tidal wave of dark smoke with dozens or red glowing dots in it almost froze him up.

In an urgent and demanding tone, Orison said, "Annie, get in Stag's shadow. Stag, curl up as small as you can. Now, now, now!"

Slightly timid despite her lack of shyness, Annie sunk into Stag's shadow as if it was a pool of thin tar. Confused but unwilling to have a falling out with his rescuer quite yet, Stag swallowed the vestiges of his dimming anger and reluctant embarrassment while he tucked his knees to his chest, putting his head between them much as Annie did just moments before. As Orison hugged himself around the confused man, he pulled his aura tight against his skin while leaving it thin around the center of his back.

With less than a second to spare, the young mage pushed his space as close to the barrier of his physical body as he could, wincing from a few pinprick holes that formed where he pushed too far. As the wave of shades slammed into him, his devouring intent reached out like a trapdoor spider, grabbing and pulling the shades in as quickly as it could. Holding back a scream over what felt like cold acid eating into his back, Orison let out an animal whimpering grunt.

The wave of shades ended with something a little stronger hitting the already damaged spot. The feeling of corrosion was so intense, it felt like it was eating through his spine. As darkness took him under, Orison wondered which of the wet spots on Stag's face were his own snot, sweat or tears.

When he woke up shirtless and sandwiched between Stag and Annie, instead of jumping to weird conclusions, he wiggled a little to let them know he was among the conscious again. As soon as they let go, Orison pulled his turtleneck looking armor back on and donned his robe. Noticing how cold he felt when they let him go, he realized they had been trying to warm him up. Taking in so many shades at once had brought his core temperature to low levels and he didn't doubt there was a nasty black bruise spread across his back that healing would take some time to make go away.

Orison said, "How long was I out?"

As Stag stammered in an emotion thickened voice, Annie declared softly, "Not long. It's hard to tell in here but I'd guess around a quarter hour."

Nodding, the young mage added, "I think we've made enough awkward memories here... Since I'm not sure if those shades came from above or below, I'll wager on what seems like the most probable and start climbing first. Annie, you take the middle but get into my shadow if anymore of those things are spotted. Stag, make sure to glance below and behind you once and awhile but don't let the dark play tricks with your head. If shades are coming, you'll see their red eyes clear enough not to mistake it for your brain trying to put things out there."

Fortunately, the rest of the climb was event free. The silence during it was so loud that Orison almost missed Stag and Annie's bickering. Whatever Stag was dealing with, Orison hoped he hadn't triggered some kind of weird flag he'd have to break. The young mage briefly wondered if he had ill starred fate with the Nunos family for all the painful and humiliating situations he found himself in whenever he tangled with them.

Sliding their way out of a wide chute, Orison felt like he was back inside the recycling center of Construct Three but instead of just machine-like golems, there were serviceable preserved body parts from a variety of people and creatures as well. To test his theory, he made his way to the front edge and realized that the reason why the area they came from was so big was because it must have ran the entirety of the construct's underbelly. Much like Construct Three, the wide pit before the recycling center was only large enough to fit the testing rooms in front.

Not to say it was an exact copy either. There were quite a few features of this construct that fit into a different mode of thinking entirely. The portions of Construct Three were around seventy percent artificer know-how with a blend of other things. This was more like forty percent artificer, a quarter apiece summoner and necromancer with just a touch of other mixed elements.

Being on the far end of the testing site with no AI bossing him around, Orison showed Annie and Stag how to collect battery cells and promised to return shortly. Due to making some assumptions about similarity of layout, the young mage wasted over an hour getting lost in the maze of the construct's guts, occasionally having to deal with a loose shade or two, before he found what he was looking for. Sadly, the potion of the central unit he understood wasn't in decent shape and the two other 'cores' were of designs he didn't understand. The one that was once a brain but had turned into sediment inside a cloudy tank, he didn't want to understand.

Not really getting it but needing to do something, Orison attempted to push a mote of condensed eternium into the dull gray stone that had models etched on it. Their vague similarity to summoner models made him hopeful that he might be able to interact with it at least. The much smaller amount of connections it had with the construct made him hopeful that if he was wrong, there at least wouldn't be as many repercussions.

The shadowy outline of a sprite vaguely resembling a vague similarity to his Titania model came into view. "Greetings stranger. Are you a looter, a hopeful for the legacy or some other form of visitor?"

Orison took a moment to figure out the best thing to say to that but when he started talking, the translucent sprite cut him off. "Is that a newer rendition of me? It certainly is pretty to look at but it's strayed far away from the best parts. Mistress had such high hopes for her niece. Losing both of the men she loved in the same day made her quite mad from what I hear."

The young mage said, "I'm interested to hear more about that but there's matters of greater importance to get through first. Do you kn-"

The sprite interrupted, "Let me save you some time and effort. The person you are most strongly connected to spiritually has already left the construct... That would be the green haired one that isn't in the recycling room. The blond haired man is talking to a person named Gran, his grandmother. I've released him from the enchanter's trap meant to test people's spiritual strength...

"Since the walls have memory of your name, I have informed him of your safety... He wants me to tell you something... Oh, he disappeared in the strangely powerful transporter light too. Have the people of Osomo figured out how to pierce our warding? No, if so, this place would have been dismantled by now."

Beside himself, Orison said, "Focus for me! What did he want you to tell me?"

Snorting in mild offense, the sprite said, "Sorry, but it looks like I'll have to scout ahead a bit first. I'm glad you're... Nothing follows. If you wanted dry, colorless conversation, you should have powered up Artie instead."

Orison said, "The AI? I would have if I could. The circuitry is completely fried."

Nodding sagely, the sprite said, "Yes, that probably happened when my mistress committed suicide a couple hundred years ago. When she felt the connection with Construct Three break, she must have felt she won the bet and didn't have anything holding her here anymore."

Relieved and starting to lose a great deal of interest in the construct, Orison asked, "Is there anyone else that came with the green and blond haired men?"

The sprite nodded and then giggled. "The red haired woman is ripping a corpse puppet to pieces in the secondary testing chamber. It's no wonder. With no guidance or assistance, she put the thing together stitch by stitch for hours and not a single word answered her. She's just lucky she hasn't found the... she put her hand on the cell charger."

Orison said, "Tell her to stop!"

The sprite sighed, "It wouldn't do any good. It won't let her go until it takes half of what she's got. Uh-oh, The current controller knows there's people here now. It'll be sending things after you guys."

Thinking quickly, the young mage said, "Is there a separate set of apartments in this construct like in Construct Three that has a outside leading transporter?"

The sprite bounced in the air excitedly. "Yes! Are you going to get your other people first or do you want me to lead you there right now?"

Orison answered by running towards the recycling room.

Appearing in front of him, the sprite said, "Take my anchor with you, dummy! How am I supposed to help you if I'm stuck in here!?"

Grimacing, the young mage doubled back and grabbed the floating stone. With the chatty sprite along to give directions, Orison made it back to the recycling room in under ten minutes. Without slowing much, he barked at them to grab up what they'd found and follow.

Once they reached a section of the wall that looked no different from the rest, the sprite phased through it and a moment later the wall slid open. Orison grabbed up the unconscious Rose and booked it back the way that they came making a slight detour to the side where the sprite opened yet another wall entrance. Before they could go further, Orison hit his first snag. A portion of the Catwalk had fallen into the pit, leaving a wide gap.

Orison looked to the sprite. "I can get the hover platform here but I'm going to need more power afterwards. Twice as much if you want me to use it to get us all the way to the elevator."

Orison nodded, sinking three shining motes into the stone. He hesitated before sinking one into Rose as well. From his viewpoint it looked like she had abandoned Ivan and Gan to their fates but he didn't know the whole story and there was a lot of different ways to interpret her actions that weren't as bad.

Several cold sweat inducing minutes later, a floating triangle wobbled unsteadily over to them. Coming out of the wall, the sprite looked like it was on the verge of disintegrating until it touched it's anchor stone. As the sprite brightened back up to colorful hologram status once more, the platform leveled off.

Annie asked, "Who's the redhead?"

Catching a faint hint of rivalry in the air that made him a little happy in spite of himself, Orison said, "Her name's Rose. She can be a little rough around the edges so don't try to rile her up. Oh, and I would suggest not flirting with her, Stag."

Stag smiled knowingly, "I haven't met many Dracanos but they all seem a little rough around the edges... Don't worry, I won't try to squeeze in on your interests."

Orison snorted, "Interests? I don't think so. She's a psycho. I just don't want her trying to murder you while no one's looking."

Stag's smile froze on his face as he looked at the unconscious woman dubiously. Annie brightened up considerably from the crestfallen state she was working her way towards.

The sprite chirped at Annie, "What first did he get taken?"

Looking at the three inch tall see-through fairy in a little confusion, Annie said, "Which 'he' and from what?"

The sprite said, "You told the green haired man behind you that you bet he was surprised to be losing a first to someone at his age after where he had been. Since he told you to have a care of your own affairs and not mind his, you never said what it was that was taken."

Annie didn't really want to answer and Stag's red face spoke volumes about what he thought but no one wanted to see what would happen if the thing currently keeping them from plunging to certain death would do if its curiosity wasn't satisfied. Fairly certain what was being referred to but afraid of being wrong and missing something important, Orison didn't speak up either. Not to mention, he wasn't sure what would happen if the sprite wasn't humored.

Stammering a little at first, she shot an apologetic look to Stag and said, "Earlier today, Orison protected Stag from being hurt while getting hurt himself. That's an experience that only the lover or child of a brave man might ever know. I was only trying to ease Stag's troubled thoughts about it by teasing him a little."

The sprite pondered out loud, "So that is the source of this feeling that gives rise to both pain and tend-"

Orison cut in, "Is your name Titania, like the model?"

While she gave an affirmative and Orison showed the sprite his Oberon model as a lead to ask other questions, the young mage caught a glimpse of gratitude on Stag's face.

As they finished their journey to the elevator, Titania Prime finished explaining the situation in Construct One. A few years after the brain in the tank, her mistress, committed suicide, some of the undead slipped past the security features of the construct. One such managed to accidentally activate the inheritance by gliding through its containment. The creature in question wasn't overly intelligent but it was cunning enough to exercise what little understanding it had to turn the construct from a testing site for the inheritance into a kind of funneling trap to feed itself.

Once they stepped off the platform, Titania Prime let it drop. With a loud crash that shuddered the railway they were on, the triangular platform had likely been reduced to scrap. Orison was about to ask the sprite why it had decided to make that decision when a series of chittering and screeches began getting progressively louder in their direction. Wasting no time, the three plus one unconscious person made their way into the elevator room that was up and on its way once the sprite 'possessed' it.

Creaking and shuddering its adrenaline inducing route up, the young mage contemplated how much worse this experience was to the first one. If asked, the lady brain in the jar had called it quits too soon. The artificer's sister may have been right about there not ever being a suitable inheritor capable of taking up their mantle. Osomo passively and sometimes even actively worked against the inhabitants breaking free of its grip but once Construct Three finished repairing itself, the ones it trained might lead to hope. In comparison, she had given in to despair and left no hope at all, really.

To be fair, her brother hadn't left his soul and mind behind to weather the centuries either. Until she had given up, her construct had been able to adjust to changes and adapt, making it far more possible for someone to inherit an intact legacy. The artificer's legacy was hardly even worth pursuing anymore, in Orison's mind, until he thought of Alta. Perhaps piecing the artificer's legacy back together would make it far more valuable than being handed one wholesale. Osomo itself was a prime example of how ridiculous it was to expect people to excel when all they needed was given with little personal effort.

After a jarring stop, amid the sound of bending metal, Titania Prime said, "You need to get out of here or you're going to fall. I'm certain that will kill you."