Scrap Core Chronicles (005)

[005]

After about an hour of mostly wandering around in search of anything useful, Tessa marched us to a circulation desk where a clerk tallied receipts and coins. The elvish woman wore a silver pin shaped like an open cog, a sign I assumed indicated rank. Tessa leaned in with a tense smile, her voice a perfect recreation of a man she’d been tailing for a few minutes. “Beg pardon, looking for texts on advanced Appraisal procedures.”

The clerk adjusted her spectacles, glancing at the presented badge. “Public stacks hold only general indexes,” she replied. I watched the clerk, focusing on the pieces of round glass delicately hanging atop her nose. I’d seen dozens of those within the library, and once on the factory floor. Their irregular presence for no apparent reason was just one more thing to add to the pile of things I’d ask Tessa about later. “For trait, skills, and class related manuals you require Argent Pin clearance or higher,” she added, voice smooth as polished brass. Submit form E-seventeen to the deputy archivist, then return with proof of sponsorship.”

Tessa thanked her through clenched teeth, pivoted, and marched off, swearing under her breath regarding the horrible things she would do to a man named “Marcus”. Most of the swearing was regarding where she would shove the counterfeit badge she was currently holding. “Do you know how much gold you’d need to spend just to get the actual badge to enter here? ‘Public library’ my ass.”

“I take it the badge won’t get us what we need to go.” 

She nodded, still keeping her voice as that lower tone. “We’ll need to get our hands on one of those pins. Also figure out where they store those manuals in the first place.” It felt strange to hear her talk like this, the vocabulary was so… smooth. It was a bit jarring.

Tessa took us to a list of bolted plates with arrows pointing either left, right, or up. She pretended to read what was written on them while I sought out our destination. 

“Device counter first,” she said under her breath, keeping her voice low. “We see what people use when they don’t got the skill.”

I tugged in the direction of the brass arrow.

The Device Counter looked like a cage. A grill, a drawer, a clerk with a lock of hair so neat it could have been combed with a gear. Wooden cases lined the wall behind him, each slot holding a brass tube or a leather box. A placard hung from two hooks. We watched from a safe distance, and I read it to Tessa. “Assessor devices may be rented with deposit. Return on time. Damages billed to sponsor. Devices do not confer skills.”

“Read that again,” Tessa said.

“Devices do not confer skills.”

She set her jaw. “Figures.” She frowned slightly. “What are the rates?”

“Twelve coppers a day for a level one appraisal lens.” Judging by the way Tessa’s grip on my hand tightened, ‘twelve coppers’ was likely a lot. How much would that be in scrap metal? “None of the items are for learning the skill.”

Adjusting her cap, she approached. “Is it just me or are these things getting more expensive every day?”

The clerk glanced back, then glanced over her as if to confirm there was no one else in line. “They are what they are, we don’t get to pick.”

“Of course not,” Tessa shrugged it off. “I was just wondering who did; never seen any crests on the rates. Just looking for the right sponsor is all.”

“Just go look at any of the merchant families,” the man shrugged, waving her off as if he had better things to do.

“Thanks, will keep in mind.” We walked off, Tessa’s face did a small, tight thing I had learned meant she was filing that word away next to a future plan. She did not seem to like what she’d been told. “What?” She asked, noticing that I’d been staring.

“Did you use a skill?” I asked earnestly. “You keep approaching unknown people and causing them to reach wrong assumptions that provide convenient answers to your queries.”

“Oh, that? That’s nothing, it’s just… the situation, you know? People expect things, so if you play into those expectations, they don’t ask questions.” She rubbed her ear. “It’s not that impressive.”

I did not agree with that assessment, I reevaluated Tessa’s worth as an allay and upgraded her standing. The new information alone was making this partnership far more fruitful than I had initially expected it to be. “So we are looking for ‘merchant families’?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” she said, pulling me into a nearby small room that was labelled ‘Reading Room 32D’, closing the door behind us. The space was a lot bigger than it needed to be if someone wished to read.

“Elaborate?”

“Folk keep payin’ coin to borrow the lenses. Enchanted kit, gives ’em a knockoff of Appraisal.” She hissed it, her voice returning to its lighter tone. “If people knew how to get the real Skill, they wouldn’t bleed for rentals.”

“How does ‘rent’ connect to bleeding?”

“It’s…” Tessa rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It’s a saying, I’ll explain later. What matters is that people wouldn’t be going over all this trouble if they could avoid it.”

“Therefore the method is not easily accessed,” I said. “Meaning?”

“Means it’s stashed somewhere, locked up, probably guarded. Not just some dusty book.” She clicked her tongue. “I figured every other merchant had the Skill.” She swore under her breath. “Maybe we should pull out and reconsider.”

Guards meant threats. “Is it necessary at this stage?” I asked. “We are still not in immediate danger, we have not been discovered, and retreating would mean attempting to form a plan with partial information. The more we know what to expect, the better.”

“Yeah, ya got me there.” She took off the cap, combing her fingers through her green hair. “We gotta find out if the families stash their crap here or not. Keep your peepers peeled for anything roped off or guarded.”

Tessa eased the door open a crack and checked the hall before pulling us out. We wandered the massive building, none of the signs pointing us anywhere useful at first. But once we found a placard pointing at “Sponsored Resources”, we followed that all the way to the far end and into an entirely separate wing of the building.

Brass rails ran waist-high along the wall. Above us hung lamps in cages, each one steady like a well-tuned furnace sight glass. At the end of the corridor stood two golems, standing guard at either side of the wooden doors leading to the separate wing. They were perfectly still, but the soft wheezing of steam that escaped their frames betrayed their active state.

“Pin and proof of sponsorship, please.” The one on the right pipped up as we moved closer, hand extending out towards us.

“Excuse me, is this-”

“Pin and proof of sponsorship, please,” it repeated.

“But-”

“Pin and proof of sponsorship, please.”

We took half a step back. “This is why I fucking hate clankers, there’s no talking with them,” she hissed, then tapped my head. “Not you, just in general.”

I wasn’t sure what to make out of that, instead choosing to focus on the golem duo. Their designs were more advanced and polished than what I’d fought in the arena, but they also looked more delicate. I could see sensor clusters set high in the brow, a command rune plate at the collar, and a ring-main conduit running down the spine to light knee pistons meant for precision, not taking hits. Net launchers and baton mounts replaced real weapons, and the cores sat inside cages with quick-release latches for easy swaps.

They had a reach advantage, but none of the sturdiness. The nets stuffed in the launchers were simple rope, not wire. The batons were rubber, not metal. They were not meant for fighting a golem. “I can beat them,” I concluded after a moment. It would be easy to imagine the sequence. I would use my titanium claws to cut the throat grille to blind the voice circuit, pop the clavicle latch, freeing the arm, then spike the nape where the spine met the governor rune.

Not an instant win though. It would probably cost me at least my bad arm, probably also a leg if they had any level of coordination.

“That would be great,” Tessa said. “If doing so didn’t set off any alarms.” She added. “See if you getting closer sets them off.” That was a reasonable supposition, I obliged, keeping my attention on the duo in case they moved. Just because I felt confident in a potential fight did not mean I could take a free hit or two.

Neither golem reacted as I reached all the way to the door.

The moment I touched the knob, they moved.

The left golem’s arm snapped up and the net launcher coughed. The rope spread like a spider’s stomach. I dove forward, into the throw, so the first coils caught my shoulder rather than tangle me whole. The second golem’s baton came down on my head. I met it with my bad arm and felt three rivets give.

“Back,” I said, and Tessa was already running towards the corridor’s entrance. Escaping? 

Not a consideration right now.

I jumped at the first golem and thrust my hand through its throat grille. Brass slats buckled. The voice circuit hissed and died. It tried to step back but my hand caught in the metal. I twisted and spun my whole body for extra leverage, finding the collar plate latch yanking hard enough to break it.

The second golem tried to take aim, but I was too close, the net would not have the room to unfurl. So it swung again. Wood cracked on my helm, my vision turned to static for half a second. I freed my hand and, dropping down, shoved my shoulder into its hips.

It slid. Precision knees were not built to resist shear.

I followed with a low kick that tore the piston housing. The entire leg collapsed under it as it fell over.

The first golem reset its aim and fired a second net point blank. The net hit me with none of the tangling but all of the inertia. I stumbled back, right leg groaning as the screws threatened to give. I lunged before it could decide what to do next, we hit the floor as one mass. When it tried to rise, I hooked the freed shoulder plate under its jaw and twisted, straddling it for balance. The head turned farther than its stop would allow.

Something important cracked, half its body went limp.

I heard the second golem moving closer, I didn’t have time to break the first the way I’d wanted. I shoved my good hand, the one with titanium claws, into the plate protecting the core, tearing at the runes and hoping for the best.

It stopped moving.

“Security,” the second golem announced, voice flat as it used its arms to throw itself at me, tackling me off of its companion.

I wrapped my hand on its forearms and, with its fumbling hands in my armpits, I leveraged the arm to stretch beyond what its delicate elbows could allow. There was a shriek of metal as it tore.

“Security,” it repeated.

Opening the latches that removed the plates protecting its core was easy. Popping the core out easier still. It went limp, and I took a moment to check the interior. The runes were different to the ones Kellard had used, very small, but also with many new ones I’d never seen before.

“No time, they’re coming,” Tessa hissed.

I looked at the opposite end of the corridor. She’d barricaded the door with several pieces of railing.

So she hadn’t run.

I spared one last glance at the core housing unit

2x Golem Sentry Defeated!
+30 XP

The XP was… slightly disappointing. The golem sentries were worth less than a piston-wolf. But that wasn’t important right now. I focused on my body, in the metal that was threatening to tear, on the loose joints that were a few more hits away from splitting open. I took fistfuls of scrap from my kills and focused.

MP: 10 / 10
Field Mend: -3 MP

MP: 7 / 10

The scrap vanished, melting as it ran through my frame, finding the dents and loose bolts and tightening it all up back into place. I was brought back to full capacity, but that wasn’t saying much when just running a bit hard would tear me down in a few minutes.

“Are you daft!?” Tessa hissed at me. “We got to move!”

There were voices from the far side of the corridor, heavy impacts on the sealed doors. There were no windows, and our only options were to either push deeper or fight our way through an unknown number of assailants.

“Open the doors,” I said, pointing at the wing we’d been trying to enter, grabbing the broken chassis of the two guard golems and dragging them with me. Metal screamed against tile. The wooden doors into the sponsored wing were heavy but well-oiled. They sighed open on good hinges.

I closed the doors, using torn limbs from the golems to bar it closed, but heard Tessa swear and turned to properly take in our surroundings.

A spine of corridor ran straight into shadow, high-ceilinged and lined on both sides with heavy metal doors. Each vault had a crest plate, enamel bright in the lamp light. Abrego. Meren. Torsen. Dorado. Dozens of them. Each door was a sheet of thick metal with recessed handles, keyed locks, and heavy brackets for drop bars. The stone around each frame had been etched with rune lines that shone like frost along solder.

No windows.

No other doors leading outside.

Only the vaults.

We were boxed in.