Scrap Core Chronicles (003)

[003]

Level Up!
You have reached Level 5!
CONGRATULATIONS! 

You can unlock a Class!

You have met the criteria for unlocking the following classes:
(+) Saboteur
(+) Artificer
(+) Rune-Scribe
(+) Bard
(+) Fighter

Select One.

In the darkness at the end of the garbage chute, I stared at the notification screen with a mix of vindication and dread. I couldn’t move, and even if there were light down here, my optical sensors had been badly damaged by their creator. Sound was my only reliable sense, and the noises around me offered no comfort.

I wasn’t dead, at least, not that I could be sure I would stay alive for much longer. Kellard might already be on his way down to finish what he started. Or whatever was making those sloshing sounds might reach me first.

Still, there was hope. Over the past month I’d overheard the workers in Grafton Foundry, tuning out most of their useless small talk and sports chatter. But here and there I’d managed to piece together some clues regarding classes, the artificer class, to be more precise. The other classes I couldn’t really make heads or tails of, so I ignored them. That, and there was something from it that I needed desperately. 

You have become a Level 1 Artificer!
You have gained Trait: Component Sense!
You have gained Skill: Field Mend!

It felt like a lightning strike opening my eyes to a new world. One moment I was lying inside the golem’s chest, barely aware of which parts I could command. Next, I could trace every piece of its frame and assess its condition. Was this what touch felt like? Sensing through parts of one’s body that couldn’t even act on their own? The flood of information was overwhelming. It took me a full minute to adjust enough to realize I wasn’t too damaged to move my arm, but that I was pinned down under a lot of weight.

Whatever I’d crash-landed on must have shifted afterwards to bury me… or at least that was my best guess. I’d kind of lost consciousness for a second when the impact nearly rattled me out of this frame’s body.

Trait: Component Sense
Level: 1
Effect: Gain information regarding artificer-compatible objects you touch.
Secondary: You can more easily locate usable pieces for your projects.

Level Up:More information and range.
Max Level: 20

It was strange to think that this broken body counted as “touch,” but I wasn’t going to complain. My focus shifted to the other more crucial feature I’d just unlocked.

Skill: Field Mend
Level: 1
Cost: 3 MP + Component Cost
Effect: Repair an artificer-compatible object to a maximum of [Mediocre] quality.

Level Up: Lower Component cost, max quality increase.
Max Level: 100

I’d seen Field Mend in action on the factory floor and watched Kellard use it. When something broke and couldn’t wait for proper repairs, that skill restored it to a passable condition, though it guzzled extra materials. And yet here I was, without working hands of my own.

The voice‑box had served two purposes: to satisfy one of the artificer class’ requirements of “making a complex contraption of your own,” and to give me the ability to speak. After watching how many people came and went beyond the gates of the foundry, I had concluded that surviving beyond the foundry walls depended on communication.

There had to be some irony in this situation. 

Now I could barely twitch my one functioning arm, and I had no one to talk to.

For now, it seemed I could only wait.

---

At first the rustling and sloshing were hardly more than a whisper, a thin thread of sound at the edge of my awareness. After what I judged to be a solid eight hours, a deep rumble rose from beneath me and all around, turning that faint hiss into violent rustling and splashing. Panic flared, yet with no remedy at hand I stayed still and waited.

Several more hours crept past before the load above me lightened by the barest measure. Footsteps pattered overhead, and more of the burden shifted aside. Someone was there; their tread was far too quick and light to belong to Kellard, so I readied myself, every joint locked as the pressure eased grain by grain.

“C’mon… there’s gotta be somethin’ shiny in this muck…” The voice, pitched too high for any dwarf, muttered to itself. “Twentieth try the charm… c’mon…”

I decided the moment called for boldness. “Good day.”

The footsteps halted. Only the rumble of shifting debris and the slap of liquid answered me.

“I know you’re there. Could you help?”

“Are ye a copper?” the voice asked.

“My chassis contains very little copper, but I can spare what I have if payment is required.”

The mound above me shifted faster, metal and sludge sliding away. Sunlight stabbed down. I dimmed my visual receptors and took stock. I lay buried in a stew of tar-black oil and scrap iron so corroded it was fit for nothing.

“Huh. A clanker, is it? Never seen one that talks before.”

My rescuer stood scarcely dwarf-high, yet the likeness ended there. No beard, a wiry frame built for nimble work, and a mop of oily bright-green hair framed pointed ears like those of the man in the white suit. A dagger rested loose in their hand while he looked me over.

“I am a golem,” I answered, freeing one arm and flexing the joints. “Your intervention is appreciated, sir.”

“SIR?” He glared and tightened her grip on the blade. “Do I look like a bloke?!” The threat was implicit.

I surveyed him again but faltered. The dwarves of Grafton Foundry were all I’d known; but mentioning that might risk news of my survival getting back to the foundry. “I lack sufficient data to correct my mistake. How would you prefer that I address you?”

“I am a lady!” She slapped a hand to her chest.

“As you wish, Lady.” I paused to take stock of our situation. We occupied the hold of a broad floating container, its engine rumbling along as it drifted down a wide waterway flanked by rows of narrow, makeshift buildings quite unlike the towering foundries of Grafton. Clearly these buildings were meant for smaller operations of some sort.

“Not ‘Lady’. Name’s Tessa.”

“Very well, Tessa the Lady.” I gave a brisk nod and hauled my torso toward a mound of promising scrap.

“What d’ye think you’re about?”

I was already dreading having to continue this conversation any longer. Whatever hangups this not-dwarf called Tessa that was a Lady (probably his species?) had, I was more preoccupied with gaining some semblance of mobility. But I doubted ignoring the question would make my rescuer likelier to remain friendly. “I must fashion a pair of legs,” I answered, rummaging through the heap.

Tessa’s dagger never left his grip. “You know they tossed ye out with the rubbish, right? Your master is not hunting his clanker.”

I very much hoped he was right, though I could not mention that out loud.

His wariness showed in every twitch of the blade, and I would rather not have it turn into open force. I kept speaking while I worked, hoping I could get some more useful information. “I do not intend to crawl for the remainder of my existence. Where will this vessel stop?”

“The barge dumps its load at the scrapyard. You got a few minutes at best,” he said, jerking his chin toward the bow. “You will not wish to be on deck when that happens.”

“Why not?”

“Anything still here gets ripped apart. Parts that will not sell go straight into the furnace. And you look worth more than the usual slop.” The dagger’s tip tapped my chassis for emphasis.

My fingers closed around a rust-scarred pipe. “I will defend myself if I must,” I warned, though it was half bluster. Without legs I would be an easy mark, but I had no intention of letting everything up until now go to waste.

Tessa chuckled. “Relax tin-head.” I didn’t. “I can help you, but you’d need to help me.”

“Help you how?” It was an honest question as much as it was rhetorical. Right now I wasn’t in a condition to be able to even help myself much less anyone else.

“You’re one of them fancy-pants special golems, right? Can you read and write?”

“...yes?”

“Then we got ours-” Tessa stopped, then frowned, eyeing me over, clutching the knife a bit more seriously. “Actually, one important question first. What do you think of the Grease-Blistered-Bulls?”

I had no idea what she was talking about, though it did sound vaguely familiar. “I… like them?” I tentatively lied.

The Lady relaxed with a long nod, quickly sheathing the blade and offering me a hand. “Any Bull is a friend of mine. Let's get you out of here before they find either of us.”

I wanted to point out I was no bull but a magi-core, but I felt it would be wiser to go along with the Lady for the time being. Taking his hand, I was immediately caught off guard as my body floated, my torso moving to glue itself into Tessa’s back.

“Porter class, twelfth level,” he declared with the sort of pride that made me think the statement should’ve been self-explanatory (though it was not, I was just more confused. This had to be a skill of some kind, which wasn’t reassuring since I did not know what else it could or couldn’t do).

“Tessa the Lady, if you wouldn’t mind, I think I might have a few questions in need of answering while we move.”

“Eh, sure. My place’s a while off, and you can start doing your leg thingy there. By the way, what’s your name?”

“I don’t have one.”

He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “We can figure that one out after you fix yourself up, I guess.”

I decided I liked Tessa’s bout of friendliness.

---

“Your species is that of an elf, but the word ‘lady’ is granted not based on that, but on account of what lies inside your trousers, and it is proper to refer to a lady as ‘she’ while a man ‘he’. You cannot reveal what’s inside your trousers though, because that would be something only a ‘piss-poor drunk wanker,’ would do, which you are not. You also say that the wobbling of the chest may also mark a lady, sometimes, though it does not count when a man possesses a similar wobble, and you won’t explain the difference. There is, you claim, a feature of the face that further separates a lady from a man, though you cannot describe it, and the matter shifts between races, some having neither chest nor face nor trouser signs, yet they care about how they’re addressed as much as you do.” I said. “Did I miss anything?”

Once we clambered off the barge, Tessa set a quick, purposeful pace. The roadway at the dockside was wide enough for three wagons, its paving of polished stone flanked by brass guide-rails. As we pressed inland, the rails vanished, and the street narrowed. Buildings closed around us like mismatched cogs. Brick gave way to plates of salvaged iron, boiler off-cuts, and half-rotten timber. Chimneys huddled low and thick, their smoke unfiltered, so the air settled into a greasy smog that stained every sill. Strips of rag served as curtains, and narrow arched doors opened onto stairways so steep they looked poured rather than laid.

“You rattle on more than any clanker I ever met, and no, that about sums it up,” Tessa said with a laugh that showed no offence at my recent mistake. “Most of your lot just tell me to ‘leave the premises’ or spit out a message, then shut right up.”

I kept alert, uncertain whether she led me toward safety. Passers-by stared, scowled, or hurried off. Their reaction seemed ordinary to her, but it kept me wary.

“The particulars of my design are proprietary,” I said, choosing caution over explanation. “Still, I thank you for your patience in clarifying these things.”

Getting such details wrong could stir needless trouble.

“You’re odd, but in a lively way,” Tessa replied. “Been a long while since I’ve-” She cut herself short, shook off whatever thought had risen, and squinted at me. “Why do you care about talking proper, anyhow?” She added with a laugh.

I weighed honesty against prudence and decided I could not advance without candour. “I may fashion makeshift legs, yet to regain full function I must find, or build, a better frame. I doubt it would do me good to ask some craftsman for help and unknowingly insult them in the process.”

The Fire-Tusker had shown what a golem might endure at extreme heat; many lessons and upgrades could be gained. I was almost giddy at the idea of how many new things I could learn.

There was one more thing I wanted to know, though.

To learn where Kellard had stolen me from before plugging me into this pile of scrap.

“I’d say do it. It’d be a kick and a half to go around calling those oil-nosed pricks ‘my lady’, it’d get them worked up all over.” Tessa cackled.

That I kept quiet. “And yourself?” I asked.

“What about me?”

“I’ve made clear what I expect to achieve out of my current situation, though you’ve yet to elaborate on why you’d need someone able to read.”

“Right.” Tessa hesitated, then squared her shoulders. “If we’re being plain, you’re going to help me get the appraisal skill.”

The way she made the proclamation, I couldn’t help but feel like it was some sort of undertaking. “And what would this ‘help’ entail? Teaching you? I don’t know how that skill is earned.”

“Oh, nothing that would take that long. We just need to steal the secret of how to get the skill from one of the guilds,” she said, before quickly adding, “But it’s not like you’d be taking the risks for free. I’m pretty sure the guild’s got all kinds of patents for special golem parts, I’m sure you could find something useful there too. Easy as mud pie.”

I had trouble believing her assurances.