Alius heard nothing more from Ditus during his sprint to the corner he was directed to. Upon arriving, Alius noted a sizable gap, a ring roughly 100 feet across separating a small cluster of haphazardly placed buildings tilted slightly up off the ground.

Approaching the first building, a shabby wooden hut with a roof of slate-grey panels, Alius looked behind him to check for Darius, who was still collapsed on the ground. Alius shrugged, figured he had plenty of time, and entered the hut.

While the space inside wasn’t very wide, it extended back quite far.

“Anyone home?”

Alius made his way through and around the tables of misshapen and fractured objects. A few of them were clearly attempts at some sort of blade, but many others were completely unrecognizable as anything purposeful. All sorts of twisted spikes and blobby shapes littered the ground, which Alius carefully avoided.

Not too far into the hut was a transparent screen that fully extended from ceiling to floor. On the other side were tables with paper tacked flat, completed with more crumpled rolls of paper strewn on the floor.

The see-through barrier was slightly glazed, with wavy patterns wiggling around in a rough grid. In some spots, it dimmed significantly, while others shone as to be uncomfortable to look at. In the center, a pale black scar traveled from the top to the very bottom, leaving a v-shaped shadow on the barrier.

Curious, Alius poked the wall of distorted light, and was surprised to see that it flexed under his finger. But he never got the chance to try pushing through, because at that moment, gems in the corners of the hall began to glow, shooting strings of light that connected to their counterparts before merging together into an angry red curtain.

Alius backed away, watching as three more barriers snapped into place.

You know, it would probably be a good idea to get away from those.

“You in front! MOVE! GET DOWN!”

Yep. Good idea.

Alius dove under a table, just as an ear-piercing explosion caused him to clap his hands over his ears. Everything in the room jumped a good six inches into the air, except the tables, which were bolted to the floor, and Alius, who was firmly wrapped around a table leg.

Alius winced as four crisp cracks assaulted his eardrums, but it was nothing compared to the singular implosion that stopped Alius’s heartbeat in its tracks. As Alius watched four barriers shatter, the light screen he had poked earlier apparently decided to grow a new limb, stretching out a ten-foot long appendage that housed a small black dot at the tip. With a deep boom, the dot ripped through the barrier, leaving a misshapen tear behind it as it shot through the front door, leaving a small hole that fit in perfectly with all the others like it.

Oh. So that’s where those are from.

A violent hacking made Alius turn, seeing a middle-aged man stumbling out from behind a metal plated wall, his face dripping with blood from the many tiny cuts on it. He looked up, spotting Alius.

“Mornin’. Can I help you?”

The man suddenly doubled over, wheezing.

“Actually, scratch that. Throw this in one of those junk piles over there.” He tossed a black object to Alius, who flinched away and let it clatter to the floor.

“Relax, it’s not going to- hckkkk-” He leaned over and spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “-explode or anything.” The man then calmly cleaned his face with a towel set on a nearby table.

“Well, I don’t think so. Maybe the lack of power caused a drain on the crystals, sucking them into an implosion?” He stroked his chin with his arm, which gave Alius a shock, as it was badly injured, and should have immobilized it. The entire arm had been blended into a mangled mess, with white flecks of bone embedded in the raw red muscles, which had been revealed after all his skin had been blasted off.

“Sir? I think one of your arms is about to fall off.”

The man glanced down, seeing his arm hanging by a thread of muscle. “Oh. Thank you. And call me Three.”

“Excuse me for asking, but why aren't you worried about YOUR WHOLE DAMNED ARM FALLING OFF?” Alius was floored by how easily Three got past his mangled arm, and frankly, would like to have that kind of composure. Unfortunately, he didn’t.

“Wow!” Three put his hand to his chest. “I’m touched! A random stranger who just entered my humble home and whom I nearly killed not thirty seconds ago cares about my well-being!”

Alius rolled his eyes. “I’m sure anyone would say at least something about your shredded arm. What happened?”

Three cleared his throat. “Well, I was trying to replicate some ancient tech, and then you know the rest. Bing-bap-boom, arm sad.”

“Right. I’ve seen too much today.” Alius bent down and gingerly picked up the thing Three had tossed over. It was a small rectangular block of metal with a grip attached at a ninety-degree angle. The front had completely disintegrated, sending deep fractures through the rest of the implement.

Alius coughed and tossed it over his shoulder. “Anyways, I like getting straight to the point. Do you know Charles?”

“Yeah, I know him pretty well.” Three tapped his chin, smearing blood further up his face. “In fact, I know him really well.”

Sighing in relief, Alius asked, “Then do you know where I can find him?”

Three nodded. “Yep! He’s right here!”

“You?” Alius thought for a bit. “But you said your name was Three and-”

He covered his face with his hands.

“Damnit, triplets.”

Three visibly brightened at this. “Octuplets actually.”

Alius groaned.

____

Ditus was still lying on the ground, feeling very miserable and very, very tired, when he suddenly had an ominous feeling. The feeling grew and sharpened until it hammered itself into the back of his head.

Ditus barely got a knife between himself and that feeling before a ridiculous momentum ripped it out of his hands.

“No! Not my seventh-favorite knife!”