In the aftermath of the raid on the Omeda there was precious little to clean up. Mostly because there was nothing left but ashes and rubble. The spirit coin empowered suicide attack had shaken the ground so hard that the nearby granite cliffs had cracked down the middle, resulting in a rockslide.


    Any evidence or prisoners to collect was all buried beneath thousands of tons of rubble.


    Still Alecia loitered nearby, restless and unwilling to just walk away.


    Gravel crunched behind her as a tall ebony skinned Smoulder man approached her. “There’s a chance you know,” he said casually.


    Alecia glared at Westbrooke. “A bronze ranker wouldn’t have survived that fall, Cross was iron rank, carrying a second iron ranker. Even if she survived the fall then the rubble would have crushed her. And if by chance it didn’t then she’s still trapped in the labyrinth with no way out.” Alecia knew it was unbecoming of someone of her stature to snap like she had, but right now she was too emotional to care.


    Granted she had only known the outworlder for a day, but they had fought side by side. Literally. That meant something.


    If she had just told Alecia, or pointed to the downed healer she could have flown over. Or used swap teleport. Or, or-,


    “You know, Seras originally awoke in the labyrinth.” Westbrooke offered.


    Alecia blinked and was pulled out of her spiraling mind. “Really. I thought you said you found her in the desert.”


    “I did, but that’s not where she awoke. It was an astral space deep in the labyrinth. Some sort of stone city. Full of cavern lurkers, tunnel chargers, and even a silver ranked golem.”


    “She saw all that down there.”


    “No, she survived all that, killed the lurkers and the charger, hid from the golem, and made it out of the astral space and into the labyrinth proper.”


    “She was lucky the space was connected to the labyrinth.”


    “That’s what I said.” Westbrooke agreed. “Then I heard about the desert bees. She wandered right past a nest because her world didn’t have any bees anymore.”


    “No bees, then how do flowers get pollinated?”


    Westbrook’s face turned grim. “They don’t,” he said ominously before letting out a sigh, “I put a moratorium on tales from Seras’ word because it gave the crew to many nightmares. But if you want to know more then you can ask her when she gets back.”


    Alecia gave him a long look, “there’s really not even a doubt in your mind that she’s alive?”


    Westbrook smiled mysteriously, “If a world like Ruin couldn’t kill her then I doubt some rocks will.”


    Alecia turned back to the rocks. “A shame she wasn’t an adventurer yet, then we could use her badge.”


    “That’s something I’m thinking to fix when she comes back. I think a recommendation to director Arlee would go a long way.”


    “Hmm,” Alecia hummed, “the adventurer society doesn’t usually like that sort of thing. They like people to take their tests and go through the right channels, but if she doesn’t get in on this then I think I’ll get her access to my family’s mirage chamber for additional training.”


    Westbrook tipped his hat, “mighty kind of yah.”


    Alecia turned away from the rubble. “We need to start returning the villagers to their homes, and cataloguing the missing. A shame we never learned why the Omeda were taking people in the first place.”


    Westbrooke shook his head and frowned, “In my long years on the road I have learned that secrets like that tend to crop back up with terrible consequences. I dread the reveal on this one.”


    ~~~*~~~


    Komeru stumbled down the mountain path. Ribs broken, hand still useless, ears ringing, and down an eye. But he was alive. How he was alive was still a mystery to him. He had been staring in shook at the terrifying metal world walker. Her black blood still stained his skin.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    Then he had been thrown up by the earth and blasted away like a leaf on the wind.


    Maybe it was his wind control, maybe it was the trees that arrested his fall, maybe it was the small creak. Maybe it was all three and a divine blessing. Komeru didn’t know.


    He kept shuffling northwards. He didn’t know where he was, but he knew there was another Omeda camp further north, though this one was also inhabited by their ‘allies’.


    He kept thinking about the metal woman, her voice haunting his mind like the lingering attacks of certain spectral type monsters who lurk in the dark.


    Komeru stopped as a shadow fell over him. He turned sharply, finding the dark figure with his remaining eye. “You,” he croaked.


    Dillon Bannack tilted his head to one side and looked Komeru up and down. “My she really did a number on you.” His words were muffled and distorted. His ears still bleeding from roar of a falling mountain.


    He knew why the war leader had chosen to end things the way she did, he just wished Kaita took him with her. Now he was all alone.


    Komeru tried to glare at the well dressed outsider, but the action aggravated his wounds.


    Bannack shook his head, “that wont do, here my boy drink up.” He withdrew a crimson healing potion from his vest.


    Komeru took the potion and drank it down, instantly he began to feel relief as his wounds closed up. His ribs popped back into place, the hole in his hand mended, and even his eye grew back.


    The ringing in his ears quieted.


    “Better?” Bannack asked.


    “Yes,” Komeru grunted as he fell to the ground in exhaustion, “that was potent.” He muttered.


    “Indeed, silver rank. You won’t be able to take much else until its worked its way out of your system. But by that time you should be back at our base.” He said.


    Komeru glared upwards, “I’m not going back to your ‘base’, I’m heading to the northern camp. They need to know about what happened here.”


    Bannack gave him a pitying look. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Your people were found out far too soon, and the Director of Cupric’s branch made sure to spread the knowledge and coordinate attacks. The northern and northeastern camps were taken out by adventurers from the Dells, several silver ranks were involved. My people have already taken in the remnants of those camps.”


    Komeru felt despair at the revelation. The collection of townships that inhabited the Dells were weak, they shouldn’t have had the resources to take out two whole camps. There were silver rankers in those camps He glared up at the outsider, “you lie, they couldn’t have been defeated so easily. What have you people done!” he roared as he rose to his feet.


    He tilted his head, “no, well, it was worth a shot. Bringing you in peacefully would have been much easier if you had just believed me. Now I’ll have to ruin another vest.”


    With that pronouncement something changed about the outsider’s form, something under his vest jutted outwards, then another. His fine vest burst open and his chest opened up and strange machinery emerged. His torso distended, becoming twice as tall as it should have been, his knees let out loud metal groans as a third segment of leg appeared. His arms fell to the ground to reveal metal cord hooking itself into his shoulders. His arms then rose once more, if you could call them arms. It was more like a beaded necklace made of dozens of short metal arm segments


    Komeru backed away from the mechanical man. “You’re like her! You dammed cultists dogs, after we did what you wanted and brought you those outsiders! You betrayed us a sicked your minion after us.” He tried to summon his bow, make arrows manifest, or conjure his knife. But each time he felt his head pound with a low mana headache.


    He shouldn’t have been this drained, there should at least be something to use. His mind flashed back to the potion with realization. It was more than just a healing potion, it was a mana poison as well, this had been the plan from the start.


    “Funny you should mention miss Cross again. I would love to hear about how she fought and what she could do.” The metal monstrosity said, “she is of interest to our lord. A wayward sister of ours, even if she doesn’t know it yet.”


    Komeru’s eyes went wide, “if she wasn’t yours then why let the adventures come at all, you had the power to stop them.”


    “Uncontrollable factors. The Blazing outrider entering town and taking the contract, the Pheonix girl joining his raid, and miss Cross spotting your operation so early. A shame it went so poorly so soon after you began, but a captured bronze ranker will be worth dozens of normal rankers. Congratulations Komeru Omeda, you get to be apart of something greater than this whole universe.”


    His long arms struck out and Komeru tried to roll away, but his brief movement left his head spinning with nausea.


    “Ah good, theeee poiiisoooon iss finally woooorking.” The words came out as long and stretvched out as Komeru’s mind warped.


    The last thing he remembered was a long whiplike metal arm coming down of his head.


    ~~~*~~~


    Deep underground Athena woke with deep pain lancing through her whole body. She didn’t remember much after the Celestine picked her up, just falling, taking the pain away, more pain, then activating her ability, [immortality].


    It was a potent ability the immortal confluence was best known for. Her parents spent a lot of money getting the right awakening stone for it. It was her trump card, or it was supposed to be.


    To get to the point where her own regeneration and self-healing could no longer keep up required immense amounts of damage, she had only used it a few times in training, each time had left her shivering with the memory. She looked around but couldn’t make out much of her surroundings, just darkness.


    She began to reach about, feeling the ground with her hands, it was strangely soft and pliable, like grass but more matted.


    Her hands continued to search about until they touched a different sort a softness. A few more exploratory pokes resulted a pained groan. Athena’s mind flashed back to the fall and remembered that the Celestine with the strange weapons had fallen with her. Instantly Athena’s first aid instincts took over, even in the dark there were things she could do.


    She searched the Celestines body with her and hands, she slowly felt her out, feeling to make sure everything was intact. She pressed a hand to her neck and panicked when she felt no pulse.


    Where it not for the groan the Celestine had made then Athena would assume the woman was dead. But there plenty of different ways essences and magic could effect something as basic as a pulse. Feeling around her more she felt the woman’s own hand clamped tightly against her neck and coated in an oily feeling liquid. Athena tried prying at the fingers to loosen the grip, but nothing she did was stronger than the death grip she had on neck. Fortunately, she wasn’t closing off her airway with death grip.


    Further examination of the skull revealed that it was all intact, if oddly lumpy in places. Nothing felt broken, but Athena could have sworn it felt dented.


    Next she moved down, feeling at the women’s body, putting any unprofessional thoughts out of mind as her hands searched in the darkness. Her chest and abdomen were just fine as her hands could tell, and she already knew one of her arms was just fine from when she found it clamped onto her neck.


    The examination of the other arm began fine, everything intact. Until her hands went just below the elbow and found the arm missing halfway down. Her eyes went wide, and she felt down further until her hand came into contact with something cold and hard.


    She lifted the object up in horror.


    Could she even heal an injury like this? Would her own arm fall off in response to the pain, could she regenerate her own missing limb…


    The hand twitched, and as it did so it lit up with glowing blue lines.


    Athena stared at the now glowing hand and saw that it wasn’t entirely severed. A long thin wire lead from the wrist of the hand back to the stump of an arm.


    But where there should have been shattered bone and blood she saw metal and wire oozing black blood.


    Athena screamed.