Ash Haven: Descent Chapter 5

“And there she goes,” Dimitris chuckled.

I glanced back, and saw the hall empty of Amara’s looming silhouette. If I concentrated very hard I could feel a tiny distortion in the air a little ways behind us. Otherwise, she might as well have been gone.

“Ugh, you people are so childish sometimes,” Vee grumbled from my shoulder, sparks popping between his teeth as he clacked his jaws in frustration.

“Funny as it is, this is the simplest way to keep things moving,” Dimitris said, amused. “No Amara, no drama.”

Though there was no sign of her or motion in the wind, I was absolutely sure she was making a rude gesture at Dimitris right now. “Well, leave it be Vee. No need to stir anything up.”

Kinda wished Alexios would have assigned someone else than Amara’s latest break up, but he didn’t exactly pay attention to that kind of thing. Probably just saw the rescinded leave requests and pounced on it.

Entering the main chamber, the fallen doors had been dragged away. The marks left in their wake scratched into the worn floor and pushed aside layers of sand. Workmen huffed and puffed and pulled back at the elevator, ropes affixed around the second of the doors slowly lifting it from the ground and onto the platform. The crank fed rope pulleys jerked as a foreman shouted up to his counterpart on the surface.

And down below, keeping watch were the two other augmented delvers assigned to our little party. One was a slight, even tiny woman wrapped in veils and wispy fabric. She was seated upon a fallen pillar, feet kicking idly below the trailing hem of her layered gray robes. Her jet black hair fell in braids around her shoulders. Her skin, shown only behind her veils and on her hands, was chalky white, marked with matte black circuits that seemed to drink in light.

Li Zhi wasn’t someone I’d talked to often, only seeing her with Amara a few times, so I couldn’t say I had a perfect read on her expressions, but she didn’t look that upset.

The other towered over the workmen and the rest of us alike, broader even than Amara. He was about the same size as Gramps though, which made sense.

Adherbal was the Associations in house Circuit Engineer, their expert when it came to old technology, and the foreman of camp infrastructure. Unlike Gramps, he looked mostly like a human man, with dusky sun dried skin, a jutting bushy salt and pepper beard and curling sideburns. The top of his head was bald, pierced from beneath by gleaming metal points, and his expression was severe. He wore a plain workmans smock filled with pockets for countless tools over plain trousers and a sleeveless vest, with gleaming truesteel torcs wound around his biceps. You could only see the seams in his synthetic skin around the joints if you squinted, but his eyes were clearly metallic, crackling with inner light.

“Advance grouping. The lower level is clear?” Adherbal asked. His voice was deep, with a metallic twang like gramps, but without the manic energy behind it.

“The infestation has been cleared, no stragglers found,” I said. “There may be a few in the cracks and side paths, but no concentrations.”

“Within safety tolerances,” The tall synth rumbled, turning to the side to observe the workmen at the elevator as someone stumbled and the heavy metal door wobbled dangerously on the lift. A pale blue circuit line buzzed to life under his smock, and the stumbling man recovered in an instant, steadying the wobbling slab of truesteel.

Even when Adherbal turned back to us, he didn’t once look me in the eye, even when he spoke to me, his gaze was somewhere over my head. They were never openly rude about it, but it’d always been clear to me that whatever his people held against gramps, it spilled off onto me.

“Dimitris, where is Delver Amara?” Adherabal asked.

“Hanging back, doing another sweep of the upper path. We were not all needed to pass a message,” Dimitris said with a lopsided shrug.

A deep whirring emerged from Adherbals chest as he frowned, but it was Li Zhi who spoke next.

“How reckless. One should not unilaterally split from their assignments like that,” Li Zhi sniffed. “I suppose it cannot be helped though.”

Okay, maybe she was a little upset.

“...Indeed,” Adherbal grunted. “Regardless, the console chamber is not far, going by reports. Delver Dimitris, I observe your moisture reservoir is at low bodily tolerances. We will exchange roles here.”

“Ah, well I do not mind watching the workers and making sure no one has a bad fall or gets nibbled by pests,” Dimitris mused. “I suppose you would get more from peeling apart the machines, eh Chief Engineer?”

“I can agree to that, assuming my opinion matters,” I said dryly.

Adherbal's eyes flicked briefly to me. “Affirmation logged. Let us begin operations.”

Better than nothing.

“Oh yes, do take care,” Li Zhi said idly. “I have already shared my observations of the power flows, but I shall let you know if I notice any fluctuations in the reactor connections, Sir Adherbal.”

“Oh, is there an on-site reactor?” I asked. “No reports on that when I got assigned the area.”

The slight woman gave me a thin smile. “It is very deep, and would not have been caught by the wide scanning array at headquarters. Your report however caused the association to bring this one’s superlative skills to bear.”

“Good to know,” I said, nodding to her, and turning back to Adherbal.

“Yes. When encountering high concentrations of active tech, it would be foolish not to fund a higher fidelity scan,” he said stiffly. “Let us proceed.”

“And here I thought you were impatient,” Vee said as he passed us.

I shrugged in reply, following after. I had to trot a bit to keep stride with Adherbal, but I didn’t let him pull ahead.

“Any idea from my report what we’re looking at?” I asked.

“Major array control console, supposition of purpose remains baseless speculation.”

Well that was something. I’d suspected it was some kind of infrastructure control.

It wasn’t long before Amara stepped out of one of the side passages as we passed on the way to the console chamber.

“All clear,” she said cheerily. “No nasties to be found. You swapped for Dimi?”

“Affirmative.”

“Goodie,” Amara said, falling in to flank me along with the silent gholam. “You holding up okay Kaz?”

“Yeah, I am, gramps does good work, no problems using my undamaged circuits,” I replied.

The chief engineer’s nostrils flared and his internals whirred loudly.

Adherbal didn’t speak again. Not until we reached the corridor outside the once sealed chamber.

The sparking, sputtering wires remained as they were when I’d left intermittently spewing prana sparks across the hall. Adherbal held out one big hand under the rain, expression unchanging as the sparks struck his skin and left smoking blackened marks. “Wiring will require recycling. Batteries… glow non-indicative of damages.”

“Right, the glow in this kind of battery is supposed to indicate charge right? Quick visual indicator for maintenance,” I asked.

“Yes,” the engineer grunted. He reached up for the ceiling, his fingertips splitting open to extend more delicate tools whirring as he began to lift the slumping ceiling pane, fire lighting at his fingertips as it was temporarily welded in place. “Delver Amara, begin removal of broken door panels.”

“Goootcha,” Amara drawled. “Hold up the other panel for me, will ya big guy?”

Adherbal did, hefting the now removed panel over his head to catch the sparks while Amara briefly ducked past.

I felt a little restless, not being particularly useful for this part. “Any idea why this wing would still have power while the rest has degraded out?” I wondered, keeping back while a sparking broken wire was snipped, falling to the ground and writhing like a serpent until the power ran out.

“Unknown,” The Chief Engineer grunted. More broken wires followed.

“It’d be because the stuff here is better hardened isn’t it? This whole structure is more sealed, but that didn’t protect the rest,” Vee pointed out. “So… the hardware here must be more robust.”

There was a faint click and then a hiss as a battery came free. The showering sparks lessened, and the lights dimmed.

“Obvious, not necessarily true,” the gholam grunted, his irises rotating and shrinking, glinting with inner light as he hefted the battery in his hand. “The effects of a personal array may have blunted immediate Catacylsmic damage. Connections to the reactor deeper in the bowels may have been preserved by chance, allowing preservation circuits in this node to last longer.”

He spoke slowly, still not looking at me as one connection after another disconnected, darkening the hall and ending the sparks. The silence left behind was interrupted by the squeal of bending, flexing metal.

I glanced toward Amara, whose dark green circuits were flashing across her back as she dug her fingers into the steel like soft clay and peeled the stuck doors open like a fruit rind, muscles straining under her skin.

I kinda disliked this part, taking what was preserved and ripping it apart for materials.

I still took the batteries brusquely pushed my way by Adherbal, removing a satchel from my larger pack to slide them into for safekeeping.

“I’d still like to know. I could imagine some old mage holing up here, till the end,” I idly said, thinking of the card I’d found within.

“The old world is dead, the makers are dead,” Adherbal said. “Leave them in their graves to be forgotten, child. Salvage their works, leave the rest.”

I blinked, he’d actually looked at me for a moment, with a pitying look. I didn’t like it much.

“That seems kinda irresponsible,” Vee muttered.

The Chief Engineer ignored him, striding forward through the dimmed hall to duck through the opened doorway.

I shared a glance with Vee, shrugged uncomfortably, and followed after.

There were still lights in the console room, pale illumination cast from the symbols on the boards themselves. “On site reactor?” I wondered.

“Might be, that what’s got the higher ups excited chief?” Amara wondered aloud.

“No.” Adherbal said, looming in the center of the room, looking down at the consoles. “Valuable, but no. Possibility of intact thaumaturgic processor and computation tablets is considered high.”

My eyebrows rose, it made some sense if this is what I thought, those were lost tech, and core components to the sort of large scale circuit arrays, allowing an augmented to run more powerful and complex circuits without frying their nervous system processing everything.

“Well that’s just exciting, isn’t it?” Amara said, hands on her hips. “Where do we start, the consoles?”

“We will begin disassembly of the consoles once the Processor Core has been located. Search for the maintenance hatch,” Adherbal replied, the light behind his eyes brightened, casting light like a lantern over the metallic floor.

“Got it,” I replied. “Vee, you wanna get down under the consoles?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Vee replied, scampering down my arm to land on the floor with a clatter, he darted away beneath the furnishings after as I turned my searching gaze up to the ceiling.. We all fanned out through the chamber, searching. Stepping around the scorch marks, I moved on to the security automata’s charging closet, peering around the circuit wreathed walls. There were panels certainly but nothing a person could get down into. The pit in the floor where the inactive machine would sit and charge took up most of the floor, a single dull red light set behind it casting the only light. The walls were smooth though, nothing looked like it detatch save the charging bay itself which was hardly going to lead to maintenance.

I stepped away from the closet-like chamber and turned my eyes up, scanning the ceiling. There were seams there, but mostly around the light emplacements.

“Hey! Think I found it!” Vee’s voice crackled from beneath the console bank on the right side of the room.

The lights of the Chief Engineer’s vision swung toward his voice, illuminating the space under the console bank. There I saw a glimpse of Vee’s body, and the outer curve of a round hatch, set in the floor.”

“Locked?” Adherbal asked.

“No, but I think it's pressurized, opening mechanism is busted I think,” Vee called back.

“So whatever’s down there needs to be kept in an air sealed environment?” I asked, wandering over.

“Yes,” Adherbal grunted, gazing down. He reached back into his pack, rummaging around. “I will prepare a sealed component carrier. Delver Amara you will pry the hatch…”

“And I get down the little passage. Don’t worry, gramps has taught me all the basic port and connection components. I can at least disconnect whatever is down there,” I said.

“...Delver Kaz will act swiftly to retrieve delicate components,” the Chief Engineer said reluctantly. “You will have short range communication through your drone.”

“Yeah, yeah, got it,” I said dismissively. Metal screeched on metal as Amara dragged the console bank to the side pulling at the tubes and wires connecting it to the wall, but exposing the hatch.  Vee scampered out, shooting up my leg like a bolt of his lightning to cling to my shirt and scrabble back up onto my shoulder perch.

“Turning on my receiver!” Vee chirped.

“Well get over here then,” Amara said. She crouched at the side of the hatch, flexing all four hands before grasping the slim metal bar that wrapped around the hatch for gripping. “Let's try opening it the right way first.”

Muscle tensed and bulged and the hatch trembled as she attempted to press down and twist, but nothing but a low grinding sound resulted.

“Okay, can’t say I didn’t try,” Amara chuckled, cracking her neck and tightening her grip. Verdant green circuits lit up in a blaze, running down her arms and across her shoulders.

This time, metal screamed, warped and broke, and air rushed out dank and stale as the pressure beneath was released. Amara staggered a step back, the torn off hatch in her hands, and I darted past, sending a quick pulse of prana down through the rushing air.

Safe enough.

I dropped down the maintenance passage, ignoring the ladder set into the side. The fall only lasted moments enough time to hear my cloak flap once in the breeze before I landed in a crouch on the grated walkway. I was surrounded by light, bundles of cable and circuits etched into metal struts supporting tablets of jade and marble and other stone, the circuit lines filled with a glittering semiliquid gemstone powder, the air buzzed down here, tingling on my skin. It was drenched with ambient prana.

“Report,” Adherbal’s voice emerged from Vee, grating in my ear.

“High prana zone, below lethal levels, but I’m betting I don’t want to stay here long,” I replied tersely. The passage ahead was low and narrow. Not being the tallest person around, I could navigate it just by crouching a little. “Looks like the core of a large array. Got more intact tablets than I can count at a glance.”

I moved as I talked crouch walking down the passage following the bundle of glowing cables set in the ceiling.

“Ignore. These can be collected after powering down. Is the processor core unit in sight?”

Like I need him to tell me that.

I reached a turn, and had to raise my hand to shield my eyes from the bright glow. I couldn;t call it a tablet, wafer thin, the diamond of black glassy gemstone embedded in the wall ahead, emitted light from countless tiny circuits etched too small for the naked eye to make them all out. It stood on its point, in a cylinder of glass, plugged into two metallic rings that connected it to the rest of the array spreading across the floor and ceiling. “It is now… I don’t recognize the build.”

I hated to admit that, being forced to swallow my earlier words rankled.

“Model Number. Describe the shape and sequence of the runes. Quickly”

“I know my letters,” I griped. “I can just read them off.”

I glanced up at the sigils of the precursor tongue, etching in gray on the frosted glass tube, it was difficult to make out but… I rattled them off.

“...I see,” his voice crackled from Vee’s speakers. “There will be an emergency shut down interface. Search the upper ring.”

I crouch walked closer, shielding my eyes from the light and squinted, searching for what he was talking about. “...There are three buttons up here, red black white.”

“Black red red white black, then rotate the upper ring ninety degrees right.”

My fingers danced across the keys, my skin was starting to itch a bit as the processor unit began to rattle ominously… and then went silent with a descending hum. I was plunged into darkness as the light retreated like a wave, the circuits all around me shutting down as their power fled completely. The unit came free with a pneumatic hiss

I let out a the breath I’d been holding, cradling the precious object in my arms

Not a bad start to the salvage at all. Carefully, I shuffled around and returned the way I came

“Success logged. All devices have ceased function. Safe organic salvage now enabled.”

“He says good work Kaz,” Vee’s own voice crackled wryly as the transmission cut off.

“Yeah I can translate,” I replied. Cradling the unit under one arm I mounted the ladder until I could grasp Amara’s arm, and then let her haul me up.