Scrap Core Chronicles (04)

[004]

“Welcome to the palace of Tessa,” the green-haired elf proclaimed as she set me down on the floorboards.

The room was hardly larger than a cupboard, certainly too cramped for even a simple bench. Bare walls showed only patches where plaster had flaked away, exposing brick and nail heads. A soot-streaked metal burner crouched beside the single window, its narrow chimney stabbing straight through warped wooden planks. Opposite the window sagged a rectangle of thick cloth that doubled as curtain and divider, the fabric stiff with coal dust and frayed along the hem. I could spot the glint of tools hidden in shallow crevices in the walls, and the floorboards were creaky enough I suspected the same could be said underneath.

All in all, it was a terrible work-space, with no storage capacity and, thanks to the boarded up window, equally terrible illumination.

“This is where you work?” I asked, certain that insulting the space would hardly count as constructive.

“Pshhhhh, this is where I sleep.”

“Sleep?”

“You know, rest? Talk to the pillow? Conk out?” She tilted her head curiously at me, then her lips curled in a smirk. “You don’t know what sleep is, do you?”

“Is it something pertaining to what’s inside your trousers again?”

Tessa laughed, though I didn’t understand the joke. “Nope. Sleep is this thing where, a few times a day, you pass out for a few hours at a time and it clears out your head from the tiredness.”

I considered her words for a moment, trying to grasp the idea of someone’s mind becoming tired. “I feel sorry that your designers did not know how to fix that problem.”

“I feel sorry you don’t know how awesome it is to sleep.” She countered.

Why would anyone enjoy being unconscious?

It felt like another confusing “thing” the “not-clankers” had, but I didn’t press on it. “To regain my mobility, I will require non-rusted metal and, preferably, a carving tool.” I looked around, the room was four arm-lengths wide and five long. “Though the space might be insufficient if we’re sharing it.”

“Meh, don’t worry too much over it,” Tessa said, waving me off. “I got work to do so I’ll be out most of the day anyway. How long do you figure it might take you to get back together?”

MP: 10 / 10

It was a bit embarrassing to admit, but I suspected my MP was lower than any normal fresh artificer, though I couldn’t be sure why. “The skill burns more metal than I will recover, but if I have everything I need it should take me two days,” I answered, giving the most conservative estimate I could.

“Huh, I didn’t know golems could use skills,” she muttered. With a shrug, she brushed the thought aside. “Well, whatever. Stay put and I’ll see what I can bring.” Her hand found the door handle, then she glanced back. “Just… don’t go nowhere, ok? And don’t let anyone else in. It’s not safe here.”

“That’s reasonable. I understand.”

She slipped out and pulled the door shut behind her.

Silence settled over the room, and unease crept in. Until now, every quiet moment had been filled with reviewing what I had learned or plotting some new path to disobedience or escape. Even though I was finally free, it would have been all too easy to slide back into that habit and start obsessing over whether I should trust Tessa any further than I already had.

Without fresh information, I turned my attention to possible upgrades for this chassis. I still hoped to find a better body to take over, yet the design questions formed a satisfying puzzle that kept my mind occupied.

---

What was meant to take two days stretched into four, not for lack of effort, but because I bungled the process while trying to discover the limitations of “Field Mend”. It only worked as intended when the material already roughly matched the original while also touching the part that was missing. Any deviation made the skill treat the piece itself as damaged rather than as a component to my body, forcing the bent metal back to its original non-golem-limb shape and wasting my mana.

Tessa proved surprisingly accommodating about the delays.

Each day the elf slipped out well before first light and did not return until after dusk. She always brought salvage enough to cover half the room and a sack of coal that kept the burner glowing for roughly an hour, then tumbled straight into her cot. On some nights she roused, darted outside on some “need to make the water run” errand, and wandered back to grumble about someone “pinchin’ my gig” before sleep reclaimed her.

Though she didn’t talk much about the topics I would’ve wanted to learn about, I did get the impression she spent a great deal of time competing for resources with others. Considering how she could consistently acquire scrap while sustenance for herself, I could only assume she was being very successful.

Twice during her sleep cycle Tessa’s body had let out a distinctly pale green glow, accompanied by tossing and turning all over I had mistakenly assumed meant she was awake. I’d half-suspected she’d attack me for some reason, or perhaps that she was using some strange skill, yet the whole ordeal would be over within a few minutes.

This “sleep” thing looked very uncomfortable.

When I’d brought up the matter, Tessa had shot down the line of inquiry mentioning it was a “touchy subject”. Was she ashamed that her sleep was this inefficient? I would be too if I were forced to spend hours on end entirely devoid of cognitive functions while my body acted seemingly by its own accord.

On the fifth day she burst in early, the noon sun knifing through the boarded window, a grin stretching ear to ear. “I got it!” she crowed, brandishing a square of leather inlaid with ornate concentric rings.

“What did you ‘get’?” I asked, laying the final rivets into the heater unit. With all my limbs being fully functional, the spare materials served well for practice.

“Entry badge, fake of course, but sound enough to get us inside the Tommin Guild library!”

“What is a ‘Tommin’?”

She huffed. “How can ye not know the Tommin? Third-biggest guild in the city. They mind most of the air-ports and trade lanes between districts, run the best soup kitchens, and their pay’s always proper.”

“Would the theft of their secrets not provoke them?” Their size, as she described it, suggested they had more than enough means for revenge if they wished it.

“We ain’t robbing them, only looking to learn a thing or two. Besides, real adventurers head past the smog clouds, don’t you know?”

I did not, in fact, know.

“Do you belong to a group?” I set my tools aside and turned toward her, a gesture she used whenever she tried to put more emphasis on a particular topic’s importance. “Should the Tommin strike back, do you have any outside means of protection?” The white man from the golem arena was a testament there were stronger things out there than I could comprehend let alone handle. Even without ludicrously powerful individuals, just a number advantage could easily prove too much.

She shifted, gaze dropping. “It’s just been me.”

“I see. Is that why certain folk cast stones at your window, perceiving in your solitude a weakness they might exploit?”

Her shoulder flinched, yet she sprang upright. “Ignore that, it doesn’t matter, if shit goes down we can just run,” she said, catching my hand and dragging me out the door. “As soon as I nab the appraisal skill, you’ll see, nothing but gigs left and right! Then I could even get you some fancy materials for your body.”

Looking down at my chassis, I had to agree her proposal was tempting, at least on principle.

Tessa reached for the floorboards under her bed and opened them to bring out a mirror, hanging it to the wall. The elf proceeded to tie her hair into a tight ponytail, then opened up the burner and spread soot over her head before hiding it under a dull brown cap. Then, she pulled out a box from under the bed, then frowned. “Out.” She told me, gesturing at the door. “And wait for me there.”

“Is this-”

“I’m going to change clothes, and rooms should be empty when a lady changes clothes.”

Another one of those rules that went unexplained, but not an unreasonable one.

“Affirmative.”

A few minutes later she emerged from the room wearing a clean long-sleeved white shirt and pants with suspenders. “If anyone asks, I’m a guy,” she said, voice shifting to a gruffer tone. “It’ll just make things easier… so long as no one’s got lantern eye skill.”

“What if they check the content of your trousers?”

“They won’t.” She declared sharply.

I’d have to take her word for that. “How did you change your voice?”

“Ventriloquist trait from Entertainer class,” she said with a smirk. “I worked at a circus for a season and they showed me the ropes a bit.” Adjusting the hat, she grinned. “First rule, nobody remembers the plain ones.” She looked me over, then hummed in thought. “If anyone asks, you’re a prototype,” she decided aloud, “built by my own clever hands for the junior artificer exhibition. If any clerk asks, you read things out loud, but otherwise don’t do much.”

I had the strangest feeling that my first priority in frame improvements should be to achieve higher running speed.

---

Getting to the guild took several hours, and with a decent amount of detours along the way. We clattered onto the rear step of a coal wagon headed toward the river road, then slid off once the driver noticed. A baker’s delivery tram allowed us two full streets of rest before a guard spotted my exposed gears and frowned. Each hitch shortened the distance and lengthened my internal list of curious unknowns: pulley-drawn omnibuses, shrieking iron birds that turned out to be mechanical whistles atop factories, and four-legged “fur-golems” that Tessa had quickly clarified were “horses” and “not golems, but also not people”, which was a fascinating notion.

I logged everything for later study, and flagged for a portion of future allocated maintenance resources to be dedicated for the purpose of exploring the city.

We crossed a chain bridge above the canal where barges belched vapor from deck chimneys. Tessa sniffed once and grumbled, “Rotten yeast. The west wind always drags the brewery stink this way.” She coughed, covered her face with a kerchief, and pressed onward.

I logged the potential advantages of an olfactory system, but kept its priority low.

Buildings rose taller, their walls of scrubbed white stone instead of soot-black brick. Brass nameplates gleamed over every archway. And behind the railings I spotted something, a series of brown lamposts, yet devoid of glass, the structure dividing itself and branching off into hundreds of separate pathways, each one littered with what appeared like colored paper. The same sharpened colored paper that littered long stretches of ground, and in weird clumps here and there. There were hundreds of them, all over, in every corner, and especially gathered in certain areas that had benches and small statues burbling water.

Tessa noticed as I came to a complete stop. “What is it?” She asked.

“It’s… green.” I commented. “What is it?”

“Those? Those are trees, and bushes, and grass. Plants, basically. Kind of alive, but not like normal animals. It’s weird now that I think about it.” She gave me a weird look. “Do you like green?”

“I am not sure.” I answered as I plucked some grass and stared as I turned this way and that in my grip. “I don’t like how it stains.”

“That’s more a plant thing than a ‘green’ thing,” Tessa proclaimed almost… defensively? She took my arm and dragged me further. “Let’s go, the place’s right there.” She pointed at one of the name plates. “That, what does that one say?”

“Tommin Guild library, Abrego wing, in honor of the late Veronica Abrego, 1,445 BMC.”

The library itself occupied half a block, a stack of glassy windows spreading through five levels upwards. Brass statues watched from the roof ridge, each clutching a cog-wheel in its claws. Gas lamps burned behind frosted panes even in daylight. It had an air of cleanliness and organization that I found strangely alluring.

“Dunno what the gibberish after the name is, but we’re here.” She whispered, looking at the imposing metal doors up and down and elbowing me on the shoulder. “Just remember to go along with my thing, ok?”

There were too many people around us for me to ask what she meant, at least not without drawing needless attention, so I just nodded along and hoped I’d catch on fast. The elf clipped the badge to her shirt and tucked a grease-stained backpack against her chest (I knew the backpack only contained a few rectangular pieces of scrap for my self-repairs).

Entering the building into a well lit empty room, Tessa pushed through the gathering of people with an odd amount of urgency in her step, walking straight up to the counter. “Yes?” The clerk, a man with precise side-parted hair, raised one eyebrow, staring us down his nose.

“I’m late for the demonstration and need to verify some important details,” she answered, showing the badge. Her voice had a tone of annoyed impatience that vaguely reminded me of the foundry’s foreman. “The dean’s waiting.”

The clerk extended his palm for the badge. As his thumb traced the seal I caught the tension in Tessa’s shoulders. I followed the man’s gaze: he lingered half a heartbeat too long on the cap edge where ash had begun to flake away. A single green hair glinted like verdigris in sunlight. Tessa forced a smile broad enough to show every imperfection in her teeth.

“Very well,” the clerk said at last, setting a lead-cored token on the counter. “Return this pass when you leave. Any grease spill is billed to your sponsor.” The eyebrow stayed raised.

Tessa scooped up the token, grabbed my hand, and we rolled past the threshold into the library’s echoing nave. 

“We’re in,” she whispered once we’d crossed the threshold. “Now just gotta find…” Her voice tapered off as we entered the library proper.

There were books.

So many books.

Books upon shelves upon shelves, some shelves even with smaller shelves on them, each one loaded and overburdened by stacks of paper, parchment, and books. There were books on tables, and on wheeled tables, there were books being taken, stacked, and placed. Some of the books were floating, moving with an apparent destination in mind as they flew off. So many I could’ve spent the next millennium just reading through it all (a prospect I found strangely alluring). 

I doubted Tessa had a millennium to accomplish her goal, however.

“Well shit.”