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patrickcharlton-oshea-author · 7 months

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Waging War, An Age of Steam and Sorcery Novel.

Chapter Thirteen

After a full day's march from the nearest town, the exhausted Travellers sat, stood or wandered about in a loose semi-circle. The focus of this was an enormous pair of iron blast doors set into the sheer rock wall in front of them. The dusty road ran right up to the base of the doors that were bordered by an equally massive frame of dark rock that contrasted the lighter brown of the cliff face. Pham rapped a podge bar, a metal shaft with a ring spanner on one end and a tapered point on the other, against the doors and declared “Mel-lon!”

“You’re a melon!”

“Ya mum’s a melon!”

“Instructions unclear, got my… mrmphe ner imlon.”

The last one was muffled by Warren wrapping his arm around the head of the guy to his left and clamping his hand around the speaker’s mouth. “Let the geek work his magic,” he whispered in their ear. “Unless you have a better way to open a twelve foot iron door?” Not to mention that his… tool is almost as big as he is. How strong IS that geek?

“You lot are a bunch of uncultured swines,” Pham sighed. “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way.” He turned to his left, where an almost invisible metal box was set into the rock beside the doorway. Using a mallet and impact screwdriver he removed the fasteners securing the lid and pried it open. Inside was a very neatly laid out circuit board with a series of lights arrayed along the right edge. Along the left were a set of seven coloured jumper cables that clearly needed to be plugged into the appropriate holes on the right. He tried the simplest solution first, plugging them straight across. This had no effect at all. He tried inverting the sequence, top into bottom and so on, and one light lit up and a ticking began.

After five seconds the ticking stopped and a hatch at the top right of the massive door frame opened with a noise like a tortured donkey to reveal what could only be described as an autoturret. It was a level of technology they’d never seen in the game before and to a man they stood agape, staring at the mechanical mystery. Its corroded snout tracked back and forth in a shaking, jerking motion as it sought a target. Concentric rings along the length of the snub barrel flickered to life and with a whine that would annoy a mosquito, it began spitting some sort of pellets at the gathered Travellers. With shouts and cries of pain, they all scattered but the turret’s refire rate was abysmal and its tracking was almost non-existent so nobody was hurt.

Not badly anyway.

“Oops,” Pham said.

“Oops my sainted aunt,” Dennis shouted, tucked against the wall where he was out of the line of fire. “You’d better get that thing turned off or I’m going to smack you one, Warren’s protection or no.” He was obviously nursing a bruised bicep and a grudge.

Pham pulled the plugs once more and the hatch screeched shut. Nobody was brave or foolhardy enough to set foot in front of the door, however. “It’s some sort of puzzle,” Pham pondered out loud. “There’s got to be some sort of clue.”

“Maybe it’s written in the lid, like a box of chocolates,” one of the cowering fighters suggested.

“MaYbE iTs WrItTeN iN tHe LiD.” Pham mocked. “Sure, like it could be that easy.” He picked up the lid from the dirt where it lay and rubbed away the accumulated muck of ages from the grimy surface. “ROYGBIV 1634527. You have GOT to be kidding me.”

With the cords plugged into the correct sequence, and no small amount of pouting on Phams part, the doors ground slowly apart as their rusted bearings complained loudly to reveal a great stone hall sloped gently down into the earth. Every few meters the smooth walls were interrupted by square section supports that ran up the wall, across the roof and down the other side. On all three exposed faces of the uprights at roughly head height for a human was a dark bezel set octagonal gem the size of a dinner plate. As the Travellers watched, the gems closest to them slowly began to glow, the luminence beginning as a spark in the centre of the jewel and increasing until the whole thing was almost too bright to look at. Soon the entrance was nearly as bright as it was outside. As the gems closest to them reached full luminescence those on the next set of supports started to glow. Once they had reached full brightness, the first set dimmed and those on the next supports came to life. The sequence was repeated down the hall, though once lit the gems never fully extinguished again. Even at their lowest the gems provided enough light to see the floor.

“Well,” Warren said, stepping into the doorway. “That’s about the most welcome we’re going to get. Loot and levels, guys.”

Brandishing weapons and shields and shouting war cries, Warren’s fledgling mercenary troupe thundered down into the deeps. For about a hundred meters before they pulled up at another metal door. This one was much less corroded and had no external control box this time. Not knowing what else to do, they milled about in front of the door, occasionally hitting it with their weapons and swearing. Pham came sauntering down the hall in their wake.

On their left the stone wall only came up to their waist and the rest of the way to the roof was a transparent material much like glass. This too received the attention from the mercenaries weapons with nary a scratch to mar its surface. When they grew bored of the sound of metal bouncing off glass they started trying to prise the gems from the supports while Pham moved forward to apply his expertise. Warren watched as Pham conducted various tests with a range of esoteric tools. The tuning fork in particular raised his eyebrows involuntarily.

He left the elf to tinker and watched his crew extracting the maximum amount of loot that their levels would allow. The gems they managed to free without damaging disappeared into bags and satchels for later appraisal and sale. Small whoops were uttered randomly as one Traveller or another experienced a skill increment. “How about you lot leave us enough to see by?” He cautioned. “No use wasting the torches we had to pay for when there’s lights provided.”

“Sure, boss, but what do we do while we wait for the geek to get the door open?” Dave asked, using his chin to point to where Pham had spread out an array of tools around himself and was staring at the glass deep in thought.

“The geek has figured it out,” Pham responded sharply. “Did no one else see that big red button over there?” He pointed through the glass to where a very obvious button sat on the control panel like the angriest mushroom ever conceived.

“Yeah, we saw it,” Dave stage whispered, “but in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s an unbreakable window between it and us.”

“Oh, I noticed,” Pham snarked back. “I’ll be you didn’t notice that though.” He pointed at a round plate set into the roof, central to the door and in line with the button. It was difficult to see as it was flush with the surface and made of the same material, but was held in place with eight hex screws that protruded slightly. “Boost me up there and we’ll see about getting this door open.”

Dave muttered something under his breath, but when Warren shot him A Look he subsided and hoisted Pham onto his shoulders to let the elf reach the plate. Eight screws tinkled onto the floor followed by a clang of the plate and a vent shaft was revealed.

“Observe,” Pham took a brass ball the size of his fist from his inventory and rolled it overarm into the vent. It rolled noisily down the metal chute and dropped out of a hole directly above the button, depressing it and setting off an almost deafening klaxon. Two rotating beacons at the top left and right of the door emerged and began lighting the space with an orange strobe effect. Every remaining gem along the hall slowly came to full brilliance as the crew hurriedly stashed tools and spoils and readied weapons. A deep booming thunk echoed deep into the mountain and the inner doors began to grind open.

In the void beyond, countless lights twinkled and shone.

“My god. It’s full of stars,” someone breathed.

One pair, then another, then a third blinked.

“Those aren’t stars! Nope!” Pham accelerated back up the slope. “Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope!”

Conversely, the rest of the crew flowed down the ramp into the darkness with varying attempts at battle cries. The ululation reminiscent of an Amazonian Warrior Princess mixed with an extended “Leeeeeerrrrrroooooyyyyy!”

Warren felt his pulse quicken in response. He hefted his katana, now a veteran of multiple skirmishes and battles, and added his voice to the choir. The doors, now fully open, allowed the light of the ramp to supplement the rising glow suffusing the chamber beyond and reveal the twisted bodies of the creatures packed in like sardines. Their sallow skin and matted hair dripped with a greasy gel-like substance that vanished into the grated floor. That same floor quickly wicked away their blood as the mercenary crew charged amongst the pack in an effect best described as “the blender”. It helped that the monsters were at best waist high and roughly as strong as your average five year old. That didn’t mean they were entirely defenceless. Warren yipped as small, needle-like teeth punctured his shin and he punted the owner the length of the room to splat against the far wall.

“Goal!” Warren funky-walked a few steps like he’d kicked a field goal at the grand finals. The celebration only lasted a moment though, as by the time he’d stopped there were no more creatures to kill. The remains of the creatures turned to goo as he watched, and oozed through the grate. “What the heel?” The specific configuration of the room around him finally dawned. They were standing on a raised grated walkway not quite the width of the room. Handrails prevented anyone from falling off the edge into the gently green pool of goop below. Short pipes ran across the roof before angling sharply downward to end in weird iris-style valves. The room was lit by more of the octagonal gems as well as the glow from the pool, leaving no shadows at all. Here and there crumbling piles of metal leaked brown goop into the pool as though someone had poured acid on a heap of scrap iron and left it to dissolve.

Despite the multiple minor injuries the crew had taken, it had been an entirely underwhelming fight. The creatures hadn’t offered much resistance, nor had they shown any of the tactical skills of any of the mobs they’d faced before. Even kobolds knew how to form a basic defencive line. Worse yet, the bodies had turned to gunk and disspaeared through the floor leaving nothing to loot. Warren ignored the mutterings from his troops and shouted back up the slope. “Oi! Git yer feartie ass back doon here!”

Pham inched back down the slope, removing a fizzing fuse from another brass ball as he came. “Are they gone?”

“Of course they’re gone, ye daftie. Was that a grenade you chucked into the vent before?” Warren indicated the brass ball still sitting on the control panel on the other side of the glass.

“Duh,” Pham tossed the fuse down through the grate whre it extinguished with a hiss. “What about it?”

“What if it had gone off and ruined the panel?” Warren huffed. “How were we supposed to get in then?”

“You know this is a game, right? You wait for it to reset. Besides, I didn’t put a fuse in it. It’s not going to go bang without one.” He pulled a second sphere from a pocket and smacked it against the first, grinning as everyone else in the room flinched. He then began to juggle the brass balls, badly and dropping them every few seconds.

“Orright,” Dave shouted. “You made your point. Put ‘em away. How do we get through THIS door?”

Pham tucked the explosives away and examined the doors at the far end of the room. Then he checked the doors at the front of the room.Then he leaned over the rail and lowered a length of the fuse strand into the pool below. When this had no effect, he brought the strand up and used it to transfer a droplet of the goo onto a glass slide and snapped a monocle down over his eye to examine it. “Hmm,” he snapped the monocle back and held the slide up to the light. “I’d say you probably pull that lever over there.” He pointed at a large lever by the door at the front of the room.

“Imma kill ‘im,” Dennis growled. “Can I kill ‘im boss?”

“You can’t kill me, you’d never get the door open,” Pham sassed back. “Thinking isn’t your stong suit.”

“He’s outta line, but he’s right,” Warren shook his head and waving a placating hand at Dennis. “He’s gotten us past two and a half doors so far, and there’s probably quite a few more down the way.”

Dennis grumbled but put his sword away. “Fine, but I can't promise when all of this is over I'm not going to kill ‘im.”

“See, this is exactly why you never have any friends in meatspace,” Dave clapped him on the back. “Let it go.”

Warren watched the exchange for a moment, then grabbed another of his guys and pointed at the lever. “Craig, go pull that for us, will you?”

“My name is Soul Cleaver!” Craig replied boisterously, brandishing the pair of meat cleavers he used as weapons.

“I don’t care what you put on your character sheet, Craig, I’m not calling you that. Go pull the lever.”

“Yeah!” Pham shouted, snapping his goggles over his eyes. “Throw the lever Kronk!”

Criag looked sad for a moment, but bounced back with an enthusiasm that implied he was somewhat younger than the middle aged man’s body he was currently wearing and rushed over do as he was asked.

The klaxon started once more as the front door closed, somewhat quicker than it had opened. The moment the doors boomed shut, the irises on the valves overhead cycled open and brand new, gleaming bright metal humanoids were ejected. Their limbs unfolded as they fell, unblemished steel, shining copper and golden brass parts snapping into place. By the time they hit the grated floor they already scanning for targets and begun powering up arm mounted weapons both ranged and melee. Fortunately there were also only eight, one for each pipe.

“Wrong lever!” Pham shouted, pressed up against the closed doors.

The metal monsters stood there looking menacing but the Travellers didn’t give them a chance to turn the dangerous look into actual danger. With nearly twenty Travellers milling about on the walkway when the mechanical men landed, they were attacked from every direction at once and turned into fresh piles of scrap for the goo to start melting into the pool below. Overhead, a light on each iris blinked in increasing frequency, heralding another wave of combatants. Pham dove at the nearest pile and jammed his hands into its ruined chest. In the next instant the klaxon died again and the inner doors opened to reveal a t-junction.

“Ok, make that three doors,” Warren smiled. “Which way next?”

“If it follows the logic I’m expecting, when you turn left you’ll find a doorway to a hall that leads to the control room we could see through the glass,” Pham guessed. “Turning right should take you past another door that leads to a garrison and down the hall to the rest of the complex.”

“Suuuuure, smarty-pants,” said a Traveller who looked like a cross between Chewbacca and Schwarzenegger. His name, or even his species, had temporarily slipped Warren’s mind, but in his head he’d dubbed him Schwarzenbacca. “What makes you say that?”

Pham just smiled in the most infuriating way possible. Clearly irritating meatheads was both hobby and a calling to him. And since Warren needed his help, he could do it safely. Ish. “I’m going to go get my grenade. Is there anything else?”

A vein began to pulse in Schwarzenbacca’s temple and, not for the first time, Warren marvelled at the effort the devs had put into making the game seem real. And, honestly, he didn’t blame him for getting irritated. The knife-eared git was managing to be both smug and cowardly at the same time. “Look, you do that. We’re going this way and, assuming you’re right about the barracks we’ll meet you in there or back in the hall if we’re done before you get back. Come on guys.”

To no-ones’ surprise but everyones’ mild irritation the very next door down the right hand hall, an imposing metal monstrosity with a thick glass porthole at eye height, was indeed a garrison. It swung wide on surprisingly silent hinges and Warren led the way into the room quietly, having no skill at all in sneaking but doing his best anyway. The light gems began to brighten the moment he entered, revealing two rows of bunk beds that wouldn’t look out of place in an ancient war movie. The beds themselves were made from a dark metal, all square edges and corners. There was a drawer under each mattress that could be pulled out, one at knee height for the bottom bunk and one at head height for the top. Everything was coated in a thick layer of dust, or possibly mould. The fluffy mass absorbed their footfalls and deadend any noise they made. A gentle breeze stirred dust into the air, causing someone behind Warren to sneeze.

“Uh, boss, I don’t think we’re alone here.”

Sure enough, towards the back of the room were slumped figures leaning against the beds or lying flat on the floor. Staring into the gloom,Warren was able to make out humanoid shapes bending at the middle, very slowly sitting up and trying to move. Their attempts were hampered by the thick coating of dust and the fact that several were missing limbs entirely. One emitted a shower of sparks and fell still again, but that short burst was enough to ignite the dust cloaking its body and the flames washed across the floor like a wave.

“Back! Back! Out the door!” Warren urged his crew. The fire was spreading quickly and would soon engulf the whole room. Everyone was hustling for the exit – all pretense at stealth abandoned. Warren stood by the door waving his crew through and making sure they all got out safely when a scream made his head snap around. Craig was lying on the floor, rolling about trying to put out the flames spreading up his legs. His efforts were hampered by a glowing hot hand gripping his ankle. The skin was sizzling where the fingers were wrapped around the tortured joint but Craig was in too much pain to think straight and free himself. Warren dashed forward in an attempt to pull him free when the torso the arm was attached to exploded. The shockwave knocked the wind out of Warren’s chest and hurled him backwards through the door. The same blast slammed the door shut as Warren fetched up against the wall opposite, dazed and singed but mostly unharmed.

Dave struggled to open the door against the pressure shouting that he would rescue Craig, but Warren stopped him. “He’s gone for respawn. Unless you want to join him, keep it closed.”

In the sombre dim light of the hallway they listened to the explosions rock the room on the other side of the door. The glow through the porthole eventually faded, taking their enthusiasm with it. “How about we call it for the night?” Warren suggested. “Craig has to get back here from town and I’m really not feeling it.”

The remaining members agreed and after setting a time to play again they all logged off.

“Right, so what did you find?” Pham sauntered down the hall, tossing a grenade from one hand to the other. “Guys? Hello?” He opened the door to the garrison and his eyes lit up. “Oooh, shinies!”

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