Chapter 28 - The Flame Guard

  5 months two weeks and a day earlier

  Before Leni even spoke, Cal was charging into the room, ready to save her dumb ass from the dangers of her own making. Chell and Sidian followed behind him, ready to save Leni from herself.

  When they got through the door what they saw were a pair of metal… people? They were like living suits of armour, but so much more complicated. There were gears and mechanisms like in an expensive clock, but even more intricate and incomprehensible, and they were flanking Leni.

  “Leni, Sidian, you take that one, Chell help me with this one.” Cal called, darting left away from the one Leni was already looking at and bringing his sword around to his right in a one handed fighters stance.

  He moved in close to the clockwork creation as it started pulling itself up and swung his blade horizontally across it’s middle. Flame exploded out from his weapon, slicing clear through a piece of it’s armour with his super-heated attack, extinguishing the flame.

  As his attack hit, Cal extended himself out, left foot back, right leg bent and stable, shoulders forward and blade arcing to the side. He’d turned himself into a ramp and Chell climbed it. She ran up his back, leaping up and off of his shoulders. She drew a pair of daggers and as she fell she stabbed downwards, bringing the blades down into the clockwork construction’s intricate innards.

  Cal had half expected it to simply crumble at their attacks. Clocks were so easily damaged, their pieces so fragile, but this thing was something else. Even as they damaged a section of gears it brought in new ones to take their place. Little intricate arms reached up from beneath the armour plating to the exposed gear sections. They lifted a gear away and replaced it with a similar one that seemed to form into shape as it moved to position.

  For a moment Cal wondered if they could wear it down by destroying gears until it had no parts to repair with. The way the replacement took shape, however, made him worry that it could repair indefinitely. These were magical constructs after all, perhaps they had manufacturing or repair magic built in.

  Leaping off of the construct and flipping backward to keep some distance, Chell eyed it again. Her gaze flicked up to Cal to see what his thoughts were. He’d come to a similar conclusion to her, they wouldn’t be able to disable it, not by damaging a few parts at any rate.

  “Hey what do you think this thing runs on? Magic?” Chell called out. As she spoke the construct managed to reach it’s full height. It looked almost like a man, except it was twice Cal’s size, it’s legs had two joints, and it had four arms, each of which had a blade instead of a hand. It’s head was diamond shaped with no obvious eyes, but a hole in the top that housed a black gem of some kind.

  So not entirely man shaped, more like the impressionist painting of a man by someone who had vaguely heard of one.

  “Maybe.” Sidian called back from behind them, exertion evident in his voice. “But to still be active after all this time it’d have to have a source some- Crap- Moriven!” He yelled the last part and it was quickly followed by the sound of something heavy hitting rock.

  “Break the source, break them?” Cal called back. The construct in front of him turned to face him, it’s movements strange and alien. Too precise, too much of a pause between it’s actions like it had to make a conscious decision to make each move. It lunged at Cal, one of it’s blades kept behind it to defend, the others striking towards him or down at him.

  “The Crystal?” Chell suggested as he dodged and ducked, avoiding the first two attacks before using his blade to block the third, holding it along his body and sliding the sword past him while slipping himself through it’s guard.

  As the sword and blade parted, practically wrapping the constructs arms around Cal, he was able to bring his weapon up and over to slam down into one of the construct’s shoulders. As he did so he spun and raised his free hand to point at it’s head, blasting it with a flame bullet which slammed into it and knocked it slightly off balance.

  A fact that Chell capitalised on to dart in and slice at it’s lower right knee joint, forcing it down. As it landed it’s spare blade swung horizontally at Chell, who couldn’t see it from where she knelt at it’s foot, sight blocked by the constructs body.

  “Block left!” Cal called, watching the fourth arm swing towards her.

  She managed to get her daggers up just in time, but the strength of the swing threw her into the nearest wall and off her feet.

  Cal whispered “Vosh!” again, anger in his voice as he slammed his hand up towards the constructs head, hoping that there was something up there worth damaging. Fire engulfed the head, and gears screeched as they overheated, crushed together and deformed.

  When Cal released it, the head was deformed, and the black Crystal was more easily visible. He hadn’t destroyed it, but he’d stunned it for a moment at least. It had also given Chell enough time to get back up.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Cal leapt back and, for a brief moment he watched as the little arms reached up into the head, just below the armour, and grabbed at broken and deformed gears. This time, however, they didn’t replace them. Fresh gears moved up to where they wanted to go, but the ones currently in place were fused together. It couldn’t fix the issue. He grinned, but then watched the free arms turn, glow bright and begin cutting into the broken gears.

  “It can heal!” he heard Leni shout behind him.

  “Yeah I noticed.” Cal called back.

  “Maybe smash the little hands?” Chell suggested. “I can’t pick locks without my picks, maybe it can repair without the little hands.”

  “Worth a try.” Cal agreed, darting forward again. He ducked under one swinging blade and smacked a downward slash into the ground by deflecting it with his sword. A third blade swung towards him from the side but he managed to bring his sword up to hold it and braced it against his side.

  “Chell…” He called out, concern in his tone. “Could you maybe-”

  “Got it.” She called back, her little feet tapping up his side and using him as a platform to leap over again. She flipped in the air and came down right in front of it.

  With a quick flash of her dagger she cleaved one of the little arms free as it reached out to repair the last of the broken gears. She didn’t have time to wait and see what happened, however, as the fourth blade, seemingly reserved just for her, swung down from above like a scorpion tail. Unable to warn her in time, Cal released the blade he was holding and used the momentum to throw him back a step where he was able to kick Chell out of the way.

  The blade slammed down, slicing the side of Cal’s leg. Thankfully it was a shallow cut and he was able to stand fine.

  “Shit!” Chell called. “Sorry, you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Cal pulled his sword up and pressed it against his palm. “Viron!” He yelled and a gout of flame sprayed out in a cone, from in front of his palm. He was so close to the construct that it blasted full force into it’s chest.

  In retrospect it had been an incredibly risky move to make. He’d left himself wide open. If it had been immune to fire it would have been able to just stand there and stab him to death.

  Thankfully it backed off, curling up a little to hide it’s innards and protect itself while it healed. “Did cutting the arm do anything?” Cal asked.

  “Nothing.” Chell called back. “I think another arm hidden just below the armour mended it immediately. We can slow it down by breaking them, but not defeat it.”

  “Then we have to destroy the power source.” Sidian called, listening to their progress. “It might be the gem in it’s head but I’m really not sure, it doesn’t seem to be eminating magic, but… it’s old tech so who knows.”

  “All right.” Chell said, her eyes darting around. “Call, can you hold it?” She called, "just for a few seconds."

  Cal turned to look at her, then back at the machine then, unsure of what else to do, shrugged and charged. “Be ready!” He called and turned to barge it. It’s arms moved to intercept him a little too late and he slammed his shoulder into it’s back. Certain he was too weak to hold it without some leverage, and with no other ideas in mind, Cal pulled his sword back and stabbed straight for it’s chest. The blade slipped between it’s bands of metal armour, and through several gears. He didn’t think it did much damage, but with some leverage he hoped that it would hold the construct in place.

  Shifting his stance, Cal grabbed the sword handle with his other hand in a backwards grip then twisted, pulling the construct down towards it’s side. It took all of Cal’s strength, he gritted his teeth, closed his eyes and pulled. The irony was that if the construct had been of any poorer quality his blade would have just broken it and it would have gotten away. The construct itself had to be made of some variation of Mythril as well or else the blade would have sliced right through with the amount of strength Cal was using.

  It toppled over, blade arms flailing. Cal felt it crash down into the ground. It tried to free itself, but Cal held it. He could feel it regaining the upper hand, but he didn’t have to hold it long.

  Looking up, he opened his eyes to watch, almost in slow motion as Chell leapt through the air. The blades of the construct swung wildly around her, nearly hitting her with every swing, but thanks to her diminutive size they missed. The constructs head was leveraged down against the ground, still under reconstruction, the crystal was pressed against the stone. She held her dagger in a hammering position, with the hilt aimed at the crystal.

  The moment the dagger hit, the crystal shattered and a burst of fire shot out of it, slamming into Chell and throwing her back.

  The construct didn’t stop, however. It just stopped flailing. It sunk it’s blades into the ground and began to push with them. Their leverage and strength beat Cals but he held on, twisting and pulling pointlessly at the blade to resist.

  He cursed and looked down at his sword, at his grip and at the blade itself. Maybe there was a better posi- light was shining out of the gap that the sword was making between the armour bands. Cal yanked hard the other way, letting it up but opening the armour wider. It got to it’s feet and spun Cal around so that his back was to the rest of the room, but Cal had found it.

  Inside it’s chest was a bead, about the size of his eyeball glowing white and gold. He’d seen soul pearls like that before. Despite what they were called they did not contain actual souls, but they contained so much magic that it seemed theoretically equivalent to the power of a soul, and it could be used to power any sort of device.

  Clearly, that was the power source… but he couldn’t get to it. He needed to hold the armour open with the sword, he couldn’t- a dagger flew end over past his face from behind him. It almost hit him, slicing a small chunk of hair from the side of his head as it flew past, tumbled and hit the bead, blade first.

  The dagger slid into it and a moment later a latticework of cracks spread across the pearl and it shattered.

  The construct finally stopped moving and it dropped. Cal pushed with his shoulder so that it didn’t land on him and pulled his sword free. As he did so he spun to see the other fight still ongoing. “The Power Source Is In It’s Chest!” he yelled and staggered to one knee.

  Leni and Sidian’s actions shifted from attacking it’s head and casing to holding it down with force magic and ripping into it with a mixture of Leni’s sword and her absurd strength.

  Cal didn’t watch, they would be fine. Instead he crawled over to where Chell knelt, scorched, smoking and panting.

  “Nice throw.” Cal said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  She nodded, gulping in air. The fire had burned her and being thrown back had knocked the wind out of her. She smelled of smoke and burned meat. “Nice work… finding the weak spot.”

  He nodded back, too tired to smile, but too proud of to praise not to acknowledge it. He looked up at Leni and Sidian and watched as the Drakokin reached into the constructs chest and pulled out the soul pearl.

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