5.16

“Yes—that was one of the earlier tasks the Voithos were assigned to,” Haiko said idly, studying the cube in Kalter’s hands. “The Automaton Array is perhaps best described as an autonomous factory whose task changed depending on the will of the Gaians.”

“An automated factory?” August murmured, “What do you mean by the will of the Gaians?”

Haiko smiled at the question.

“When the population began to grow too quickly, it would be set towards crafting materials needed for enlarging Hekaton—If a disaster struck, it could be tasked with producing relief items,” Haiko said, leaning forward into the light. “The most respected companies or research groups could request private use of portions of the Array for individual projects—both small and large.”

“How does this culling sequence fit into a factory?” August frowned, eyeing the three of them for a moment. “Is that where they created the Voithos?”

Kalter managed to pull her gaze from the cube for the first time.

“That is where we were brought into existence,” Haiko admitted, “But the culling sequence was something unrelated to the Voithos—”

“It may have well of been. It was the same process we all went through, just called by a different name,” Kalter said, glaring at the fire. “We were led into research facilities to be decommissioned—interviewed, killed and then disposed of.”

Haiko reached over and placed her hand on Kalter’s topmost forearm.

“The culling sequence was much the same as she described, but it was introduced perhaps a decade after the Voithos were released into Hekaton,” Haiko admitted. “The Automaton Array would produce a biological or mechanical project, run it through a number of evaluations, and then destroy it—only that last part didn’t always go as expected.”

“So you were sent into the Array to fight whatever rogue experiment they came up with?” August murmured. “What were they like? Monsters?”

“I can’t say I was ever given that assignment, but that is essentially the crux of it,” Haiko admitted, “That cube in Kalter’s hand is a good example of an experiment that could be produced there.”

“That begs the question,” Rittan said curiously, “Why are these monsters outside of the Automaton Array? How could they evade the systems that were put in place to prevent exactly that and then make it all the way to an uninhabited island like Devil’s Nest?”

“Maybe they didn’t make it here on their own,” Kalter murmured, holding the cube back out. “Maybe the Gaians put them here to torment us.”

August took the cube back but left it resting against his shin—his mind had been caught by something Rittan had said.

“That’s not exactly in line with how they usually conduct these types of processes, is it, pet? This isn’t precise, and it certainly isn’t clinical.” Haiko said gently, patting her arm. “Consider how they would deal with someone like August—a unique being who, without any kind of training or existing knowledge, could perform the feats of natural mana manipulation that you described? Drawing a trapped soul forth from Limbo and reconstructing its body?”

Kalter sighed.

“He would have been locked away inside of a facility of his own and studied, not placed in an environment where he could be killed at any moment,” Kalter murmured before shaking her head. “None of this makes any sense.”

August took a moment to speak up, voicing the thought that had been twisting inside of his mind.

“Uninhabited island doesn’t feel right,” August frowned, “There is at least one piece of evidence that someone other than the monsters was here at some point.”

“The metal ring with the runic system you mentioned,” Rittan said thoughtfully, resting a hand under his chin. “It’s not exactly a natural occurrence for something like that to appear here; thus, someone had to have placed it.”

“Metal ring?” Kalter said, frowning. “You’ve never mentioned that before.”

“When I first arrived here, I woke up inside a circular hole in the ground, and the ring was lying at the top of it,” August summarised, “It’s in a bamboo forest—roughly in that direction.”

Kalter followed the direction of his hand, but given that it was pitch black outside of the firelight, and she hadn’t left the lake since she had arrived, there probably wasn’t much available to help contextualise it for her.

“A discarded Spatial Gate?” Kalter wondered.

“I assumed the same, at first,” Rittan admitted, “But I do not believe that such a thing has the capabilities to deliver August from another planet.”

Deliver didn’t have the exact connotation that August would have used to describe the life-altering event—abducted seemed far more apt.

“Then perhaps it is a more esoteric or experimental technology?” Haiko suggested, “Gaians rarely left a stone unturned, so I could envision someone was researching other forms of long-distance travel—although that still leaves us with the question of how it could have arrived here.”

“Indeed,” Rittan said in agreement. “Something like that would have been too valuable to abandon on an island.”

Yet that seemed to be what had happened—the runic circle, the monsters from the Automaton Array, and August himself, all arriving on Devil’s nest without a visible cause. He hadn’t exactly explored the island to any real degree; it was possible that there might be other abnormalities to discover.

“We need to start exploring the island,” August murmured. “There might be more clues to how this happened.”

There was something of a pause in the conversation as the three Voithos considered the idea. Kalter was the first person to speak up, and her response surprised him.

“I agree with you,” Kalter said outright, catching his eye. “We should start mapping out everything around us and see if there’s anything else we could use—how large was this runic circle? We should attempt to bring it back to our base of operations.”

“The diameter was probably two or three times my height? It was also made of metal, or something like it—so I’m guessing it weighs a lot,” August murmured, “I don’t think even Rittan could lift something like that—no offence.”

“None taken,” Rittan said, bemused.

“I might be able to come up with some kind of wagon or something, given enough time,” August wondered, “We’d need some better tools first, but we could work towards it.”

“Then we leave it for now,” Kalter nodded, “You mentioned there were other monsters on the island? If we start exploring it, we should attempt to build some reliable equipment first—weapons, armour, containers and the like.”

“It’s on the list of things to do, but we need the furnace first so we can start making metal tools to make the weapons.” August caveated, “Actually, that was something I wanted to ask you about, Haiko.”

“Oh?” Haiko said curiously. “Please, ask me anything you’d like.”

“Kalter mentioned that you had experience with making things out of clay,” August prefaced, “Somewhere in that process, you had to bake it in a furnace, yes?”

“Not a furnace, a Kiln,” Haiko corrected, “Albeit, their functions are closely aligned.”

“How does a Kiln work?” August prompted.

“Well, the one I had access to was powered by a runic system, so I couldn’t tell you how that part of it worked,” Haiko admitted, “More generally, a Kiln is simply an enclosure that raises the temperature inside itself—they usually have a shelf or a grating that a dried product could be placed on.”

August nodded at the answer—she was in much the same situation as he was. He’d used a stove thousands of times in his life, but if someone asked him how the internals actually functioned—well, for all he knew, there was a little man that lived inside the stove who built a fire every time the knob was turned.

“If I made a fire and put a shelf over the top of it, would that work?” August asked, trying to envision what it might look like. “The heat would go up and dry the wet clay?”

“Fire the clay is the correct term; drying is simply sitting the worked product out for several hours until the water has had time to evaporate—It would work far more efficiently if it was contained inside of an enclosure,” Haiko offered, lacing her six hands together, each pair on top of the other like they were wrapped around a cylinder. “The heat from something like your open campfire would simply escape around it without doing much—the goal would be to trap as much heat inside as possible.”

August studied her hands for a moment—If he could collect enough stones, he could probably stack them up and use clay or dirt to smush them all together into a tower shape. He wasn’t quite sure how to go about making a shelf that wouldn’t burn up inside of it—he probably couldn’t use wood for obvious reasons.

“Okay,” August said slowly, “We can try to make something out of stones tomorrow—any ideas for making a shelf that won’t get eaten by the fire beneath it?”

Haiko tilted her head to the side, considering.

“You could bury a tall stone in the centre of the enclosure and place a larger flat stone on top of it?” Haiko guessed. “I suppose that might work for a temporary shelf, at least until you could find a better solution.”

“I’ll test it out,” August agreed, leaning back on his hands.