I stood there, frozen, one leg in the air mid-sneak. The academics turned as one to face me. Their eyes were glassy, their expressions slack, as they shambled towards me. One licked her lips.

  “It was going well,” I remarked. “Now, of course, it’s going less well - thanks for that.”

  “You’re welcome,” the princess blithely replied.

  The foremost academic - who I only belatedly recognised as the dean - grinned at me, and then as one they began to transform, flesh melting and vanishing behind mechanical plates as the automatons activated themselves.

  “Any chance you can break out of those bindings on your own?” I asked, gazing around nervously. “I suspect I’m about to be very busy.”

  “Oh, easily enough - from the get go, really. Why else do you think women wear high heels, if not for precisely this sort of occasion?.”

  “That’s good,” I said, as they finished their transformations. Now that the Man in the Moon had told me from whence the nameless man had acquired his designs, I could see the many-sided beings in the automatons. The way they moved, their limping steps, and the lamps in their eyes… Lamps that gazed upon you, and saw naught.

  The shambolic heaps hissed steam, and lurched towards me, moving remarkably swiftly for such tremendous machines. I dodged the claws of the first, smashing my hairbrush into his head and driving him into the carpeted floor, then delivered a vicious headbutt to the second.

  By this time the princess had managed to break free of the ropes, cutting through them with an impressively dexterous movement of her feet. I ducked under the raging claws of an automaton and got him in a clothesline, then yelled to the princess “brace yourself!”

  Not waiting for a reply, I drew on that subtle, vital luminosity and stamped my foot. Cracks radiated out, fracturing the carpeted floor, before the entire thing fragmented and broke apart, sending the room’s occupants hurtling down below.

  The robot bodyslammed me through the floor immediately below, breaking the hall apart and sending us dropping through a stairwell. The other automatons scuttled after, shrieking hideously in revolting imitation of a giant lizard.

  I managed to get atop the robot before we hit the earth, holding it face down - in spite of its struggles - until it hit the ground with a satisfying crunch. Its clockwork shattered, and it stopped moving.

  Unfortunately I had only just stood up when a projectile hit the ground before me and detonated, sending me flying through the stairwell door and across the ground floor. I landed on the marble floor and bounced off once, wincing at the pain, before ultimately hitting a kiosk.

  I slowly brought myself back to my feet, cursing. A half dozen automatic academics were already in the hall, shambling towards me, heads whipping about unseeingly. In the distance I could hear clashes, likely the princess facing off against one or another of her pursuers.

  Hurriedly, I glanced about the hall, seeking for anything I might use. My burning eyes flickered and brightened as I caught sight of a fire extinguisher, affixed to the wall beside the elevator.

  I had reached the extinguisher when the foremost automaton caught up with me, batting me out of the air and into the elevator. It slammed me against the back wall, its exhaust fumes mimicking the feel of hot breath against my throat.

  “You should have confined your inquiries to those outside the foolishness of wisdom, boy,” the dean hissed, slamming me against the wall again. I delivered a swift and brutal kick to his shins, sending him to his knee, then tried to escape out the door.

  He struck out at me with his arm as I did, pushing me against the wall and causing me to hit the buttons. The doors of the elevator closed - only just preventing a second automaton from joining the fray - and we slowly began to go upwards.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  I grabbed the dean’s arm and brought it up at the elbow, twisting it beyond its bounds. The dean hissed and spit at me and brought his knee up in a strike at my stomach, sending me wheezing. Then he picked me up and brought me down on the floor, getting me in a grapple.

  The doors opened. Outside were rows upon rows of empty cages, the last of their occupants - evidently a host of supernatural creatures, from chimerae to cockatrices - slithering, hopping, and flying away. In the distance I could see the princess riding a unicorn, charging at one of the automatons with a lance.

  The doors closed. I slammed the back of my head against the dean, the weight of my thick skull sending him reeling, and hooked my legs against his own, bringing him down to the ground. While I still had the initiative I wrapped my arms about his neck, seeking to choke the life from him.

  The doors opened. An automaton screeched and brought a mace up, seeking to crush my skull. Then the wall beside it shattered, and a great dragon casually ate it.

  The doors closed. Too late did I remember that the automaton was not a real person, but merely a shambolic containing only the semblance of life, and therefore that it could not be choked. The dean, taking advantage of my momentary lapse, bucked me from off his back, claws retreating into his body as a pair of raging saw blades emerged. It struck out at me once, twice. Each time I only barely deflected my oncoming death through a swift parry of my trustworthy hairbrush.

  The automaton pushed me back, till my back was against the wall, then struck at my neck. I only barely dodged, delivering a pair of punches to his chest and a kick to his knee.

  The doors opened. The princess was delivering a rousing speech to her crowd of freed test subjects, a dozen dead academics lying crushed about them, calling upon them to descend down the building and free the entire structure. Before she could finish her remarks, however, a door opened and a multitude of police poured through, declaring that supernatural creatures were against the law.

  The doors closed. Then they beeped. “You do not have the authority to go to your selected floor. Please insert your security card.”

  My eyes lit up. Could this be a hint…? But before I could think anything further the elevator shook, and an iron claw punctured through the floor.

  My own claws caught fast into the wall, holding me tight as the floor gave way beneath me. The academic who’d pulled it off clattered insanely, the sensors responsible for mimicking rage so heightened as to be incapable of functioning. Two other academics followed after her, scuttling up the sides of the elevator shaft and hissing.

  The dean, who of course hadn’t been inconvenienced by the lack of a ground, circled about the wall, saw blades striking again for yours truly. I successfully dodged once more, but alas, the wall was not as lucky, and a great chunk of it was sheared off, banging against the robots as it fell down below. One of the academics went with it, landing at the bottom of the shaft with a crash.

  I caught hold of the remaining wall, but immediately had to let go - without the floor and part of the wall, the elevator was no longer balanced, and was swaying dangerously from its cables.

  I waited for the dean to make another strike for my head, using it to get him to cut through the elevator ceiling. The remainder of the elevator fell, crushing in the skull of another academic.

  Catching hold of the cable, I began to swing back and forth, using the momentum to dodge out of the way of both the dean and the remaining academic, who was firing at me in vain from some sort of pistol.

  The remaining academic had climbed up the elevator shaft until it was at the same point in myself, in hopes of getting a better shot. This was a tactical error. Using my momentum to increase my force I kicked the dean, momentarily dislodging him from the wall, and while I had a reprieve I drew on the magical forces available to me to invert and reverse the force in the automaton’s gun.

  It detonated, taking out the robot’s arm, and as it was still reeling I smashed its other hand with my hairbrush, breaking apart its fingers. It fell, its drop stopped only for half a moment as it struck the dean - who did nothing to save it, for he believed in comradery as much as he believed in anything else- before it plunged out of sight.

  And then it was only the dean and I in the shaft. There was only a thin crack of light, from the floor above us, the only other sources the lamps in his eyes and the soft torches flickering in my own.

  I grinned, showing him my fangs, and began to crawl up the cable. With a howl of what was meant to be rage, but sounded too monotonous to contain any real fury, he bounded after me, saws falling away as claws once more reached for my neck.

  I kicked out at him, slamming him against the wall, but he caught hold of the cables and swung about, smashing into me and sending me through the door.

  We landed in a richly appointed room - half an office, half a cabin, for I saw a boardroom table in the middle of the room, and against the far wall the steering apparatus and levers by which the stock market was controlled.

  The room was devoid of all save two people. One, a small, rather fat man in a luxurious suit, whose very air exuded pompous vanity. The other, a cloaked man, his face hidden by the cowl of his robes.

  “…And that, I believe, concludes my report,” a deep and droning voice muttered. “For it appears we have company.”