003 – Guardian

***

Thankfully, I couldn’t see the bottom of the pit. Below me was nothing but inky shadow. Seeing the ground would not motivate me to climb faster or better. The underground complex had widely spaced levels, with about twenty meters from floor to floor. Starting from the very bottom, on negative seven, I pulled myself upwards bit by bit. The same inky void loomed above me.

The elevator shaft had evenly spaced divots running up the interior, which made it a lot easier than rock climbing. I knew where the footholds had to be and could feel for them with my toes. I inserted the butt end of my torch into the adjacent wall, and every few meters, I’d pull it free to reinsert higher up. My knife-pole was left behind. Carrying a long tool made climbing impossible.

Bit by bit I ascended. The three visitors had gone up the entire shaft in no time at all; it took fifteen minutes for me to climb up one level. On reaching the open door, I stumbled through and collapsed onto the floor. My limbs felt like rubber. My fingers were raw and aching. The stress and fear of falling exhausted me more than the climb itself.

I was done with that. No more climbing for me. I had no reason to follow after those three strangers. In fact, there were good reasons to keep away from them. They were violent and deranged. Going my own way or finding the other techs would be better than associating with those sword maniacs.

I sighed heavily and got back on my feet. The mana array had numerous corridors that joined together at weird angles, but the place was not much of a maze. The layout was simple. Main tunnels radiated out from the center like spokes of a wheel; narrower secondary tunnels ran perpendicular to the main ones and circled the whole, like the wheel of a wheel. At each intersection a domed chamber housed a collector. Once I found a main tunnel, I only had to follow it straight back to the middle where the ramps lead to the surface.

My torch began to dim and sputter. The tar at the end had burned away, and now it was down to the wooden handle. It glowed as bright as a single candle. Soon that feeble light would die out and leave me in complete darkness. There was no time to rest. I had to find the ramps to the surface.

From ahead of me, I heard a loud rumbling noise—not quite a cave-in, more like a boulder rolling down a hill. The trio had said something about an unbeatable monster killing all their compatriots. The crashing and grinding grew fainter and then ended. Quiet returned to the dark halls. I listened carefully but could hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing and pounding heart.

I drew close to the center of the station. The ramp tunnel was much wider and taller to give access for motorized carts and other vehicles. It also had a railway to haul away the rubble left over from the original excavation. The path corkscrewed down from the superstructure to the very bottom.

My foot bumped into something as I entered the access ramp. I crouched down with my flickering torch to examine it. The stone floor glistened with moisture. It had not been long since the trio of women had killed the bats, and I had not forgotten the smell of blood. Four lumps of flesh lay before me. They had once been human. It looked as if they had died in an industrial accident that mangled and crushed their bodies.

Desperately, I fell to my knees and started rummaging through the gore. The dead had dropped their possessions onto the ground where they fell. I held up a fresh torch and let the flame spread from my nearly spent nub. Had I come a few minutes later, these torches would have done me no good, because I did not have a way to start a fire. With a better light, I could examine the scene of the accident.

Whatever killed them also damaged a share of their tools and equipment. One of the men wore a helmet, but it did not protect him. His helm was flattened to a disk. Their knife-poles were splintered, but I salvaged the blade from one. Several of the men wore crude haversacks, in which I discovered food, water, rope, and other supplies.

More crashing noises echoed down the spiral tunnel from above. I hastened to collect as much as possible. There was no time to dally. Nor could I afford any sentimentality about these dead people. The supplies would help me more than them. I pulled a stuffed haversack on my back and wrapped two weighty coils of rope around my chest.

Three of the men wore pieces of metal clothing, as the women had, but the fourth had on the same type of clothing as me: a quilted jacket and pants. It must have been some type of uniform. He didn’t have a bag or equipment on him, but he did have a sword in a sheath. I grabbed that as well.

From this spot, I could return to the array on level negative six or take the ramp. Going up would put me at risk, because the long stretch between levels had no side tunnels to dart down. Steeling myself for action, I dashed up the tunnel towards the thundering noise. My goal was to get out of here. Going up was the only way.

My suspicion was the monster tried to stop the trio from leaving the lower levels. It met them at the exit. They had taken a personnel elevator that connected the lower levels, which did not go all the way up to the superstructure. So they must have crossed its path. The rumbling had been the sound of them being flattened, and it was my turn next.

At level negative five, I caught sight of something coming down toward me. The curve of the bend concealed it at first, but dancing shadows played across the wall and heralded its arrival. The light did not come from my torch; the monster had a light source of its own.

I dashed for the tunnels of the array, hoping to hide before it arrived, but the heavy haversack slowed me down. The monster charged down the ramp toward me.

“Oh no. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The monster was a golem.

Most everything in the power station had fallen into a state of ruin. The golem, however, had improved itself. Its gripper hand transformed into a wicked steel claw. Spiky nodules of crystal grew along its back, and two crystal protrusions from its head resembled the curved horns of an antelope or wild goat. These glowed like lumestones and bathed the tunnels in a fiery red light. The golem’s alert and liquid movements hinted that it had upgraded its daemonics as well.

The machine’s daemon core—a sphere of quartz in its head—sprouted weird growths in the same way as the collectors. That corrupted its instructions and lead to unexpected behavior. Clearly, it no longer followed any safety rules. Its blocky head tilted toward me in a disturbingly human way.

I ran down the tunnels into the array. The torch flickered wildly in the wind. My feet crunched heavily in the sand and dirt thanks to all the added weight. The haversack’s straps bit into my shoulders. The giant murder knife slapped against my leg. I was beginning to regret picking up so much stuff.

The golem pursued. Its footsteps landed heavier than mine, and louder. It sounded like a freight train. Small clouds of dust rose off the floor with each step. The golem did not slow down or change course when it came to a collector. It crashed its steel claw into the side of the crystal monolith and knocked off exploding fragments.

I didn’t look behind me as I ran. The sound of stomping grew closer. The golem was far faster than something that large should be. At the next intersection, I turned into one of the secondary tunnels, hoping my maneuverability could give me an advantage. I took a hard left into a side tunnel and crossed a slick patch of wet clay. My feet shot out from under me, and I tumbled over and over.

So much for maneuverability. That was it for me. I was dead. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth waiting for the giant pile driver to flatten me. Hopefully, it would be fast.

“What?”

Nothing happened. I sat up and looked around. The golem waited at the edge of the tunnel. Its steel claws spun around and snapped in frustration. The monster wanted to kill me, but it wouldn’t enter the tunnel to do so. It wasn’t clear why.

The secondary tunnel measured about four meters wide and four high. By design that was the perfect size for a golem. It should fit. Then I saw the problem. The golem modified itself beyond the standard size. The impressive pair of glowing horns would hit the ceiling if it entered here. They would snap or scrape off its head. It seemed the smaller passageways kept me safe.

I scrambled to pick up my torch before it went out. Then I held up the flaming brand and approached the malfunctioning machine—although not within pinching distance. It swayed back and forth. I felt a strange pressure being so close to the thing, as if hot gusts of air rolled off it.

“Golem, return to storage. Deactivate yourself. Eject your core. Remove attachments.” It didn’t respond to any of my commands. Maybe it couldn’t understand me. “Stand on your head. Do a dance.” I would need a rune tablet to interface with it.

I limped down the hall. When I stepped into the next intersection, the golem quit its spot and returned to the center of the array to guard the ramp. The side tunnels would keep me safe for now, but I still needed to bypass the golem to escape the underground. Levels negative four to negative seven contained the arrays. They were also more spread out than the others. Levels negative one to negative three clustered more tightly around the center, and the same trick wouldn’t work there.

“I’ve got to get out of this place.”

I sat down to rest for a minute. The dense bread from the dead men’s supplies made me thirsty. Several bamboo bottles contained water to keep me going for two or three days. Exerting myself would shorten the time these supplies would last. Running and fighting burned a lot of calories. My lungs still ached from racing through the tunnels.

“Why would a golem go crazy and kill people?”

I added that to my long queue of questions. None of them had answers yet. I felt unraveling these mysteries would distract me from my goal. First get to the surface, then ponder. I looked at my hands. They were filthy and covered in scratches. I ran my hands over my scalp. My head was shaved. Normally, I would not be able to climb a wall or sprint while carrying a heavy load on my back. I was a bookworm. All this exercise should have made me puke. But I wasn’t that tired. The shock of getting zapped by the monolith had worn off. I felt myself. My muscles were denser and more well defined. Several scars from unknown injuries covered my arms.

“I need a mirror.”

A horrible thought crept into my mind. All the evidence around me pointed to one fact: time had passed since the manaquake. Everything made of metal had corroded away to nothing. The pipes and cables and elevator equipment were just brown rust stains on the stone. The crystals in the collectors had grown weird protrusions, and the golem’s daemon core had grown in the same way. Flooding had washed mud and clay down into the lower levels. It would take a long time for these things to happen. Many decades at least.

A species of giant, albino cave bats lived down here. How long would it take for such a creature to evolve? A tiny bat changed to a monster the size of a wolf.

They weren’t the only animals to change. The three women had strange characteristics. One of them had white hair and skin, another had orange hair and bronze colored skin. Only the third woman, Malisent, looked normal, with dusky skin and black hair. That could be a sign of genetic divergences between populations, the first step toward speciation.

Why did they speak gibberish? After a great deal of time, human language could also change. There are plenty of old poems and plays that use archaic language that’s hard to follow. Pronunciation and meaning shift over time. It was possible language might mutate into something unrecognizable, especially without movies or audio recordings to reference.

However, I did understand their gibberish. And my body had changed radically. It would have been impossible for me to survive laying on the stone floor. Hypothermia would set in after a few hours. And no one could sleep peacefully for years on end. My body would have turned to dust in that time. This form was not my original one; only my personality and memories survived. Somehow my mind went into this unfortunate person’s brain. Strythe the minion.

Setting aside dreams and insanity, that was the best explanation. I had been reborn in a distant age. The thought made me shudder. I hoped it was just a dream that would end on waking. I’d even settle for insanity at this point.

No matter the year, escaping this place was all that mattered.

The malfunctioning golem had demonstrated its superior speed. It would beat me in a foot race up the ramp tunnel. Unless someone drew its attention elsewhere, as the three sword maniacs had done earlier, the golem blocked that route for me. The only remaining way up was through the elevator shafts. The technicians had taken me on a tour of the station using a larger service elevator which went from the lower levels all the way up to the receiving dock near the top of the building. It could be open and climbable.

I started searching for a ladder to freedom.