Scrap Core Chronicles (002)

[002]

The automaton bore the name “Fire‑Tusker” across its forehead, followed by the custom stamp of the lunatic artificer who had decided a forge furnace deserved four legs. Warped iron plates quilted its chassis, each seam pulsing a dull red. Vapor hissed from hairline vents where the golem bled pressure. Its four limbs ended in broad flat pads built to crush anything beneath them, and a head that filled nearly a third of its mass glared down with blazing red eyes. Two sharpened exhaust ports, shaped like tusks, jutted from its molten maw and coughed smoke.

I caught myself admiring the craftsmanship, puzzled that it still functioned when its own heat should have twisted every rivet. Those smoke‑spouting tusks alone could turn the innards of any machine they pierced into a mangled tangle. It was, in truth, a masterpiece.

A masterpiece that was sprinting straight at me.

I vaulted over its skull, slamming my heavier arm onto its forehead for leverage. The boar‑shaped golem carried such mass that every attack demanded momentum and space.

The back split open like an iron coffin just as I passed overhead. Orange fire roared upward in a pillar, licking my frame for one full second before I cleared it. I landed on unsteady legs; my joints hissed, the corners of my rivets glowed sullen red, and every patch of paint was charred black.

Bad. My body was metal, but I could feel the disruption in my control from the runes already warping. The frame might endure a dozen more blasts, but by the third the etchings would be made useless, leaving me unable to move entirely. 

How was the tusker avoiding that problem?

It turned with seismic steps, sand quaking beneath each footfall, then charged again. I rolled aside, swung my heavy left arm into its flank, and heard a clang like a bell. No dent. I scrambled back, hunting for any tactic that might get me an advantage, painfully aware that even victory would leave me too damaged to survive what waited beyond the arena.

Flexing stiff wrists, I looked for anything that might help. My focus fell on the tall man in the white suit as he watched from a walkway strung between cranes and chains. His cold flat stare slid over me and fixed on the crowd of cheering dwarves. As if I wasn’t even there. 

Something about being seen like just another piece of scrap made me seethe.

When the fire-fueled golem thundered forward once more, I ran to meet it. It lowered its head, ready to gut me with its tusks; I leaped, planted both feet on its snout, and let its upward thrust launch me. The back hatch spat fire again, but the blast swept past.

For the first time in my brief existence, I was flying.

I rose high enough to snag the lowest hanging chain and clenched the cold iron. The link tore free with a metallic crack, and the chain rattled as its loose end whipped through the air. Momentum carried me onto the top edge of the arena wall, and I kept the chain wrapped around my arm just to stay upright.

From that narrow rim I saw everything. The pit was barely a dozen meters across, a shallow bowl of sand ringed by plywood boards, each board only tall enough for the dwarves to peer over while standing on crates and other makeshift platforms. Beyond those flimsy barriers stretched the factory floor proper, every tool chest and crate shoved aside to clear room for this fight‑pit.

“Get back in there, ye rust‑bucket!” a dwarf bellowed, planting a boot against the wall. The jolt rocked my perch.

I answered with the same finger Kellard used on the foreman when he thought no one was looking. Laughter rippled through the crowd, but it curdled into startled gasps when the Fire‑Tusker rammed the panel beneath me. The plywood groaned; the golem could have shattered it, yet it held back. The impact still tore my balance away.

Suddenly I had a very stupid brilliant idea.

I swung over the sand, dangling from the chain until it arced me toward the far wall. I angled the sweep so that I sailed directly above the tusker. It reacted at once: its back split open and a torrent of flame blasted upward. The heat scoured my plating, yet I kept my focus long enough to glimpse the cavity inside the golem. The cradle that should have held its core was empty.

Still sizzling from the fire bath, I dropped to the arena floor, fist wrapped tight around the chain. The tusker charged again, head lifted, careful not to repeat the mistake that had launched me before. That suited me. Instead of leaping, I slid beneath its raised snout and rammed my titanium‑tipped fingers into the hollow of its throat.

The beast convulsed. Before it could shake me free, I located the searing pipe that fed its skull and sliced it through. The tusker erupted into chaos, smashing and rolling across the sand. One wild twist tore my good arm from its socket and hurled me aside.

The effect on the golem was immediate: smoke poured from its eyes, mouth, and every seam between its warped plates. It shrieked, stamping and bucking across the pit as it searched for me.

I answered by rattling the chain, loud and sharp, gripping it with my remaining arm and bracing for the charge that would surely follow.

The tusker lunged through its own smoke. I sidestepped, whipped the chain around its foreleg, and heaved with everything my single arm had left. The iron links cut deep, momentum toppled the beast, and it skidded through the sand before hitting the plywood wall hard enough to splinter it.

The overhead rig screamed. A hook sheared off, sparks rained down, and the loose chain lashed back. One link slammed my torso, tearing a plate away and exposing my core to open air. Heat surged in, a raw pain that scrambled every thought for a split second.

While I struggled to find balance, the tusker staggered upright, dragging the chain like a wounded tail. It charged once more, faster despite its limp. My foot slipped; a tusk ripped through my thigh, cutting metal down to the frame. The leg went numb. I shoved away from the blade, seized the dangling chain, and let the monster’s weight fling me into the air.

The swing carried me over its shoulders and furnace vent. Panicked, I yanked on the chain wrapped around its torso. Armor plates groaned. The back hatch tried to rise, struck the chain collar, and slammed shut again. I landed on the rusted struts, braced my one functional foot, and held tight.

Denied an outlet, the furnace still expelled fire. With nowhere else to vent, flames shot up through skull chimneys: orange‑white tongues burst from eye sockets, tusk ports, and cracked welds along the jaw. The golem shrieked, stumbling in blind circles while I clung to the red‑hot chain.

It smashed through the plywood wall and into the crowd. “BERSERK GOLEM!” dwarves shouted as they scattered. The heat had not destroyed its core, but the blast had warped the runes that bound it to the arena. Blind, furious, and unchained, it attacked anything that moved, and I went with it. The ride was violent and bone‑grinding, though I was getting mere slivers of experience since the tusker was doing almost all the damage.

Dwaf‑Laborer Defeated!
+2 XP

Focused on staying attached while the flames grew hotter, I missed the white blur that slammed into the tusker with the force of a demolition charge. One moment I was hanging on, the next I was airborne.

Below, the golem lay in flaming wreckage around the tall man in the white suit. “I might have overdone it,” he said, brushing soot from an otherwise spotless lapel.

Fire‑Tusker Defeated!
+34 XP

My landing offered no grace. The remaining leg shattered along with much of my lower half. What was left of me skidded across the stone floor, sparks spraying until I hit the far wall. I folded my one surviving arm over the exposed core, waiting for the slide to end. Vision through the skull sensors flickered, every image turning to static‑flecked haze.

Vaguely I made out a figure approaching, Kellard’s form taking shape, a bandage over his bloodied eye I’d taken from him, face twisted in fury.

“Clever little clanker,” he spat, voice thick with phlegm and hate. “All that time pretending, making me look the fool in front of everyone.” The mallet rose and came down on my shoulder plate with a wet clang that rang through every bolt. I felt no pain, only the jolt as rivets loosened and the joint beneath stuttered. I clutched my core tighter with the one good arm, joints whining in complaint.

Kellard paced around the wreckage of my upper body, jaw working. “You made me beg for forgiveness time and again, swear I would fix the problem.” Another blow, this time to the side of my helm. My vision tremored. Sparks scattered across the stone and died in the dust. “All those nights I spent fixing your sabotages, pouring drink into the bruises your stumbles left on my reputation.” His words were accompanied with strikes of the hammer, each word hot with resentment.

He struck the prybar into my chest and I whipped my arm to throw him off, to little effect. The dwarf levered, metal screeching and peeling back a finger’s breath, exposing the magi-core, me.

“Look at that,” he hissed, face inches from me, the real me, the glowing sphere in the golem’s chest. “So shiny even though you’re rotten inside. That’s what you are, a cursed clanker.” His bandaged eye oozed through the cloth.

Kellard’s spit flecked my crystal as he hoisted the mallet again, the tendons in his neck drawn tight as wire. “I poured my soul into you, and you made me a laughingstock,” he rasped, smashing the edge of my breastplate. Fractured bolts clattered across the floor like broken teeth. I hugged the core tighter; shock rippled through the casing, making the glow within pulse erratic.

“You cost me coin, cost me nights, cost me any scrap of respect.” He flipped the hammer, using the pointed end to gouge along the seam he had opened. Iron peeled, shrieking under the leverage. “Every time the foreman sneered, every time a customer complained, it was your fault, not mine!” His boot ground against my pinned limb for emphasis.

I lashed upward on instinct, fingers raking sparks off his vambrace, but my swing had no weight behind it. He laughed, a wet hack that rattled his chest. “Still got fight, do you? Fine. I will carve that out first.” He jabbed the prybar between plate and crystal, twisting until thin hairline cracks laced the core’s surface.

Cold hard pain laced through me and I writhed wildly, only for my one functioning arm to get kicked away again, pinned under his knee as he leaned closer.

He drew closer, breath fogging against my core. “I gave you life, little toy. Now I take it back.” His words dripped with an intimacy meant for confession, yet each syllable landed like a curse. He ran a finger over the fracture as though admiring a gem, then slammed the mallet down beside it, sending splinters of quartz across my vision. Black static crawled along the edges of sight.

In a panicked twist, I thrust my body’s head directly against his face. The dwarf screamed and tumbled back, then took a full swing with his hammer, shattering the bolted plates holding the construct and fracturing my vision. “Look at me,” Kellard hissed, as if the webbed lens could still focus. He shoved his face close, bandage darkening with fresh seep, lips colored in his blood. “You will watch me dismantle you, piece by piece, and you will know your maker did it.” The hammer rose for the coup that would shatter the core.

“STOP!” My voice called out, and he froze, lone eye going wide with shock. “Stop,” I said again from the voice-box lying just above my core, my own personal project, and the first of two crucial items necessary for my survival. “You… just… don’t get it.”

“You can talk?” His voice grew darker, suspicion crossing his features. “Since when?” 

My gaze landed on a metal latch on the wall.

“Since I built that voice-box you never figured out how to finish,” I answered, adding a harsh laugh.

His eyes blazed as he moved to kick me, and I shoved my hand against his boot. The combined inertia sent me spinning all the way, frame clattering across the floor and against the wall.

“Also…”

I reached out and grasped the latch to the garbage chute, prying it open with a single yank. Kellard the dwarf moved to stop me, but I was faster, throwing myself at the blackness within.

“Fuck you.”

I raised my middle finger at him as I plunged, the last thing I saw was his face twisted in rage before the chute door slammed shut and darkness swallowed everything.