Chapter 42: Usurped Power
Carrying the feather around, Carman noticed that occasionally it would tap itself against the glass pointing at certain directions. It was freaky, and he was tempted to throw the canister away from himself when he first felt it, and looked through the glass to see the feather tapping it's bristles against the inside of the container.
Looking in the direction the feather was pointing in, Carman found a locker, through the seams of the door Carman could see a faint cyan glow.
Walking over to it Carman lifted the tab where a lock would have been and pulled the door open, within the locker were several vials, crystals, papers, and strange devices. Using his elemental sense, he picked up on the signs of energy one particular device was emitting. It looked like a flashlight, but instead of a lightbulb at the end, there was a small propeller, flicking it on, a small breeze was generated, another flick and the breeze became stronger, there were six total places for the switch to stop at, but Carman quickly turned off the device and put it into his Item Storage.
What he didn't notice was that where the wind had blown, the yellowed papers started to age faster, getting slightly yellower and more deteriorated.
Carman and Ryuzu kept looking around the room, they found a few canisters but using his elemental sense, Carman deduced that most of them held other elemental energies like Geo and Hydro. But they did find two canisters containing Anemo energy as well as traces of whatever the secondary element was, bringing their total up to three units of the required five.
Not finding anything else, Carman guided Ryuzu to look around other rooms, using his key card to open doors and look around. In the hall they found other laboratories, a break room with long since spoiled foodstuffs, Carman pocketed the coffee machine they found there, which seemed to run off of a crystal containing pyro energy called Blood-flame Rubies, a specialty of Natlan according to the information Carman's Item Storage game him.
It was obvious from what was known in the game that Khaenri'ah was an advanced civilization, with their computerized technology in the collosal ruin Guards and the perpetual chaos cores used to power their war machines. But Carman was surprised by how advanced their facilities were, he never saw places like this in the game, with the various machines it was almost as though he had stepped into an office from the early 2000's, except instead of running off of electricity, everything ran off of elemental energy imbued into stones like batteries. Things that heated up used pyro stones, things that cooled down used cryo stones, there was even an old style chunky desktop computer and screen. The controls were similar to a keyboard, but had a large crystal ball on the side instead of a track pad or mouse.
Carman was itching to dissect the last piece of tech, since he didn't sense any elemental energy from it, he assumed that it ran off of a chaos generator like other Khaenri'ahn machines. Since it wasn't plugged into the wall Carman chucked it into his Item Storage for later. If nothing else, Carman and Ryuzu's dive into this domain had given him a lead in ways to develop technology powered by regular elemental energy rather than Indemnitium or Pneumousia.
After going through most of the doors in the hallway, They came across a door that opened to a stairwell.
Surprisingly, there were floors both above and below their location.
Holding out the container holding the feather and using his elemental sense, Carman was led downwards.
The came across a door with an unknown symbol etched onto it. Upon opening it, they found themselves in another hallway similar to the one they had entered from. As they walked down it, they found many laboratories similar to the ones they had just gone through.
At the end of the hall, instead of an exit, there was a doorway labeled "storage" in Ancient Khaenri'ahn, there was also a note mentioning a "Scarecrow."
Opening the door, they found themselves inside a warehouse. Large shelves holding various machines and supplies. Many of the plants had withered and decayed into unidentifiable black dust, but there were many ores both familiar and foreign to Carman. The feather tapped insistently against the container, pointing in a certain direction, walking quietly through the shelves they eventually made it to a section that was blocked by a gate.
Pushing it open, Ryuzu walked through followed by Carman. They looked through the area behind the gate, with Carman stuffing some materials and tech into his storage, before they went deeper into the restricted section.
It wasn't until they heard a scratching garbled noise that they realized they probably should have been more cautious.
"Grr-ra-iiii-oooo"
A glowing yellow mechanical eye met Ryuzu and Carman's as all three took a stance for battle.
Carman was shocked at what he and Ryuzu had found. Most of the enemies they had fought so far were ones you could find in the game, this one however didn't match anything he had seen in his previous life. What faced them wasn't a ruil guard, hunter, drake or grader. But it definitely was a Khaenri'ahn war machine. It was built like a smaller ruin guard or "Field Tiller" as their creators referred to them. It seemed that Khaenri'ahns like naming their brutal machines of war after farming implements and terms. This was likely the "Scarecrow" the sign had mentioned. The machine stood above the average person's hight, had a shield in its left hand and what looked like a lance attached to the other. The pistons on its back started to move rapidly as it raised its shield in front of it and prepared to engage.
-To be continued.
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Sorry for the short chapter, initially wanted to have the fight scene be a part of it, but it was just too long in my opinion. I didn't want to cut it down either since it would be my first proper fight scene in a while, and at the same time also debuting a new enemy I came up with.
Here's a sketch I made. IMAGE.
Hope you are all looking forward to the next chapter.
-laughs in evil about the cliffhanger-
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