Chapter Thirty-Seven - A Real Tool

“So many old secrets just left out to be discovered. So many signs that the world’s downfall wasn’t as innocent as it first seems.”

***

Ruolan insisted that we open the door the proper way as opposed to knocking it down. That unfortunately involved standing back while tweezers teased open a centuries old lock with a whole panoply of tools and oils while pinching his tongue between tombstone teeth.

That meant that I had a little bit of time to waste. The party was taking the time that Tweezers fiddled to relax, though furtive glances were still cast down both ends of the tunnels, just in case, and hands never strayed far from weapons.

Ruolan found a part of the wall to lean against while holding her light pointed at Tweezer’s back.

I shuffled closer to her. “This city, do you know what happened to it?”

She eyed me for a moment before shrugging. “The records never agree. But like I said, it kind of just fell apart. A sort of slow death.”

“And the people within it? Silvershire was once a place with grand universities and great schools not to mention artificers and engineers of some renown.”

Ruolan gestured vaguely with her free hand. “I think that one of the big schools moved to the west. They settled down where the gate sects are located now. The artificers... I think Silver...shire fell at about the same time as a few guilds appeared. The greatest near the Storm Lake, another became the Jade Golem sect.”

I nodded. So the knowledge wasn’t entirely lost. It merely moved. Which was to say, that it fell into the hands of people with a different cultural appreciation for science and its derivatives. Cultivators seemed far keener on keeping their knowledge secret.

“What about the city’s automatons? It was once quite advanced in that regard.”

Ruolan hummed. “I know that a few survived. There’s one in the capital in a glass case. Some parts have survived as display pieces here and there. I don’t think they ever grew popular though. More of a curiosity?”

“No one saw the potential for automation?”

“Mah,” Wrench said as he inserted himself into the conversation. “We’ve got some of the old machines in our cities. Prized they are, even if we consider them a bit dated. If you want to see a proper automaton, then you need to come visit our great subterranean cities.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“Aye,” Hammer said with a nod. She took a swig from a canteen. “But the automata we have are not machines meant for normal folk to use. They’re war machines, meant to fill out the front lines, act as guards, and act as a deterrent against humans that are too nosey for their own good.”

“Do you have problems with humans?” the limpet asked.

It took the conversation in a new direction, not the one I wanted, but an interesting one all the same.

“Mah, sometimes,” Wrench said. “The empire folk are real human-centrist. As if we want what they have. We just mind our own business, thank you very much.”

“You would imagine that a quiet neighbour would be a good one,” I said.

Hammer shrugged. “The Emperor needs enemies so that his little toy soldiers can hone their edge. A reason to pour more gold into his favourite cultivators. Rallying the plain folk against anyone that looks strange is an easy way to do that.”

“Don’t speak of the Emperor that way,” Ruolan said in a low hiss.

“Are people not allowed to criticize him?” I asked.

“He is in his position by the mandate of the gods,” Ruolan said. “Who are we to question his choices?”

“Reasonable people with reasonable concerns?” I asked. “And being mandated by gods is hardly special or worthy of all that much notice.”

Ruolan bristled, and I suspect she was about to give me a tongue lashing. Her belief in her Emperor seemed ingrained, which, as with all people who relied so heavily on something like faith, meant that any argument we had wouldn’t be of the logical variety.

Then Tweezers whistled, quite pleased with himself. “Got it!”

The door thumped, flakes of rust raining down around it as it moved open just an pinch. Dust poured out from behind it, filling the tunnel and setting the limpet to coughing until Alex quickly wrapped a handkerchief around her mouth and tied it there with a bow behind her neck.

“Let’s table that discussion for now,” I said.

“Same formation as before,” Ruolan said. “This part has probably never been explored, not as far as I know. There might be traps left. Keep your eyes open. Tweezers, you’re moving up with us.”

Wrench and Hammer worked the door open, pressing against it with their backs until it let us into a tight corridor. The one wasn’t like the rounded over-sized sewer pipes we’d been travelling through though. It was a square corridor, with brick walls and floors, ancient mage lights hanging along the sides at even intervals all the way down to the intersection at the end.

“Careful now,” Ruolan said as she stepped ahead and led the party in. “We don’t know what we’ll be running into in here.”

The place was dusty, so much so that I saw Alex twitching by my side with the urge to start cleaning the place.

I reached out to one of the mage lights and tapped the glass bulb within.

Ruolan raised a hand, pausing the party only a few steps in. “Can you get it working?” she asked.

I tilted my head to the side. The corridor was quite dry, as opposed to the pipes we’d just left. The lights were rusted, but it was more of a patina than the deep kind of rust that would break something apart. “Perhaps,” I said.

I pushed a little bit of magic into the device and it started to buzz a moment before its bulb began to glow. The next light over, then the next, also started to buzz and flicker. “Did you activate something?” Wrench asked.

“I don’t think so, no,” I said. “The mage lights are connected. Any magic you press into one part of the connection will spread to the others.” I blinked a few times until I could see partially through the walls where the wires were passed. “Yes. the wires are still intact enough to function, but I wouldn’t gamble on that being the case all over.”

“That’s fair,” Wrench said. “Impressive construction if its lasted this long.”

“Indeed,” I said. “This area seems more utilitarian. A maintenance passage.”

“That’s what we suspected,” Ruolan said. “Let’s keep moving.”

The corridor ended at an intersection. The passage to the right only went on for a few necrometers before ending where the entire section had collapsed, dirt and bricks left to pile on the ground where they’d fallen in.

“I suppose we’re going left,” Hammer muttered.

I didn’t know all that much about this part of Silvershire’s undercity. I had visited the shops above, and the overcity plenty of times, but this part, so deep below everything was new to me. I had only been to one part of it, a part that I was hoping we would be able to reach.

The corridor curved around and soon we were crossing a series of rooms. The first few were small closets, with rotting cloth at the bottom and what looked like tin buckets with the dusty remains of mops within.

The dwarves insisted on removing everything and inspecting them, just in case. They left disappointed, but in high spirits even after finding nothing.

“Not nothing,” Wrench said after I commented about their discoveries, or lack thereof. “We found that we’re on the right track. Even if we find no new tools today, which would be disappointing, we’ll still have touched the tools of the ancients.”

“I wouldn’t put that much stock in having touched a mop, but you do you,” I said.

The next few doors were more enlightening. We found a small storage unit, with what had once been shelves but were now little more than wrecks holding piles of cloth and jars and canisters. The limpet complained about the smell of the place, but Alex identified it as powerful cleaning agents.

The next room had the dwarves gasping in delight. It was a workshop.

The benches were caved in, and the things lying around were ruined, but there were still some simple tools hanging off of nails set in the walls and a few odds and ends that the dwarves huddled over.

Wrench raised one item, a hefty bit of brass shaped like a tear-drop with a hook on one end. “Lord Harold, do you recognize this?”

“It looks like a plumb bob,” I said. “Though it’s missing its cord.”

“A plum bob?” Wrench asked. He was growing excited. “What does it do?”

I shrugged. “It’s used to see if something is aligned vertically. You let gravity drag the bob down, and can see if something is sitting plumb.”

Wrench sniffled. “A plum bob! So simple, yet so beautiful. My clan will be... mah.”

“Our clans, you daft fool,” Hammer said. “We all came here together.”

“Fair fair,” Wrench said as he wiped a thumb under his eyes. “I look forward to seeing all the little Plum Bobs in the next generation of our clanmates.”

“Have you found anything else?” I asked.

“Aye,” Tweezers said as he raised a brass block. “Some hammerheads. A few rusty bits that might be part of something.”

“Gather up whatever you want,” Ruolan said. “Tools don’t interest me.”

“Mah, your loss,” Wrench said as he pulled out a folded up satchel and set it on one of the only unbroken workbenches. The others placed a few things in. The plumb bob was reverently tucked away inside Wrench’s gambeson.

The next room had me pausing.

We all paused, I think. The room was far larger than any of those we’d been in so far, with parts of the far walls caved in. There were a few pillars across the room holding up the ceiling. And between all of these, broken racks holding up the remains of dozens of automata.

The machines were vaguely human-shaped. Angular limbs rested at their sides, and their squared heads were bowed down to their chest. Some had legs, other large tracks that had crumbled apart.

“Brilliant,” Ruolan said as she stepped in. “Some of these are armed.”

They were indeed. Some had brass axes built into their limbs, others the rails for crossbows, though the strings were long gone, and any wooden part was long gone. Most though, seemed to have far more utilitarian uses. With hands and grippers.

I stepped closer to one of the machines that seemed in a somewhat passable condition and pressed a hand to its chest. A push of magic into its core had the automata twitching. Its arms tried to move, but they were frozen with rest.

Something snapped in the machine and it folded back down, dying away.

I heard the heavy breathing of those behind me and turned to see them staring. “I’m afraid that they would need a lot of attention and repair in order to function once more.”

Ruolan nodded. “That might be possible. These may well just be curiosities, but they’re ancient ones. They have some value still.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

“Let’s mark this room for later,” she said. “We can’t exactly carry these out with any ease. Not as we are. We might need to return with more people.”

“And get past the plants again?” Wrench asked.

“We know about them now,” Ruolan said. “And the goblins need to be cleared eventually. I’m certain I could petition one of the local sects to send some inner disciples to help. Worse case, I can have some from Storm Lake or the Abyssal Depths travel over. If we have a reason to come this deep, then I can’t imagine anyone refusing to finance a bigger exploratory mission.”

“Mah, that’ll be on you, I think,” Wrench said. “Shall we continue?”

Ruolan nodded. “Lets.”