Day 67

Well it took a day of constant travel but we have arrived at the gates of ape city. There were a few points where I had to slow the steam engine down, to take corners without collision and others where the gravity cube allowed us to pass seemingly impossible turns by simply following the walls instead of the floor.

The train is quite different now, with a full armored cover over the frame to keep the occupants protected. It ate up half the iron the escaped slaves brought but I'm quite glad it's secure. In an emergency I can use it as a bunker. I doubt anything around here with the exception of exotic monsters can get past iron armor plates.

Included in this is a complete, wedge shaped ram at the nose. Which I use to introduce myself to the apes, by knocking at their front door.

My steam powered engine reduces the bronze reinforced wooden gate to flying debris as it plows through with an intensely loud collision.

Barely a scratch on the ram, too. God I love this beast. Now to bring some civilization to these monkeys.

The apes on the other side are all but wetting themselves from their defensive buildings. They could hear us coming from several miles away, the roar of the machine and the scraping of metal on stone echoing ahead down the tunnels. The fact we tore right through their primary defense like tissue paper has them understandably terrified.

Their leaders bark out orders and they form ranks, as we pull up. I could just fly past them into the heart of their city but I have a few new toys to test. There's only about seven hundred of them here, so no real threat.

As a cohort advances in step, with apprehension on their faces the wooden cart attached to the rear of the train makes noises. I needed a little space for my new machines so I added a trailer. I didn't want to have the train cramped any more than it already is with the seven cats, the three dog people, Niala and myself inside.

Everyone seems quite animated and worried besides Niala and Minke. One trusts me and the other already knows the outcome.

The ten figures stand and lightly leap from the trailer, under remote control.

They're smaller than the golems of the past. They don't have any connection to my power source or any need for it, since they were intended to be wireless. I can't have everything hooked up to me, only one thing at a time. They are obviously weaker because of it, but that still means they're superior to ordinary people several times over in strength and many more in durability. They are bizarre designs focused on function rather than form, which only makes them more frightening to the approaching apes.

The big breakthrough is that I've finally managed to synthesize steel for their materials. Or to be precise: [nickel steel] an alloy otherwise known as stainless steel. It isn't perfect yet, but it is much better than any steel that I've seen in the maze before.

Since this is a field test I send out my medium range attack bots first as the enemy is closing on us. The four are just walking torsos with hundreds of thick wires drooping down from the 'head'.

The enemy are confused by this, as it isn't quite clear what these things can do at first glance. As previously mentioned these are intended for short to medium range attack. The wires are spooled inside the hollow torso giving the golem a range of nearly thirty feet for each inch thick steel wire.

Since I want to scare the apes, not kill them the golems initially use the wires as restraints and whips. They can also be used to crush bones, break limbs and garrote opponents as they are prehensile. Being a golem they can utilize the inorganic solid metal as freely as a human does an arm. That includes dexterity. A few loops of the wire is strong enough to rend flesh and bone. Considering the length I could use it to annihilate whole ranks of soldiers in a single strike of a single wire. It has hundreds of these wires. It can even use them in a combined attack as a piercing strike and eliminate whole rows like a lance.

The really nasty little extra I added as an after thought: it has a high capacity battery installed that I can charge from my power source. This allows it to electrify the wires and use them as a taser in pulses or for a few short seconds utterly electrocute opponents.

I let the apes struggle for a while against the 'Willows' at their most minimal offensive mode before I up the ante. With the four Willows spread out I can completely cordon off an area of a hundred and twenty feet.

The seventy plus apes that are trying to attack are being held back by this wall of stinging lashes. The impact is enough to invert and in some cases penetrate bronze shields and breast plates or snap the bronze metal spears and swords.

The apes are about to retreat, bleeding and thoroughly beaten when I order the Willows to ensnare them by rank and file. The entire unit is hauled into the air, restrained by shackles of wire on every limb from one person to the next, the wires supporting the main body so it can hold them helpless. All seventy captured by merely two Willows.

The remaining two Willows join wires and form a moving hundred and twenty foot long fence that advances on the remainder of the soldiers, cutting them off from the captives. A second unit spreads out and tries to get past by squeezing under the wires, only to find out these ones are using the taser setting. Twenty soldiers drop as soon as they touch the fence.

The apes fall back.

I spread the next set of four golems out. These are heavy, hulking machines designed for brutal close combat. Hammers for fists and four arms. Armor plates that cover the backs of the arms are used as shields. These machines are bodyguard units, with a similar use to the earliest golems I created. They have whip-swords inside the arms for a lethal attack. Basically attached blade edges to a prehensile wire like that of the Willows. It works like a chainsaw on the wooden test dummies.

By simply spinning the arms they can create a barrier of blades and death, but they aren't efficient.

They aren't as lethal as the Willows can be. I call them 'Barricades'. As they are only intended to block attacks and stall as the one they defend escapes.

The final two machines ate up the majority of my new steel. But they aren't really necessary right now so I leave them idling at the back. Soon my precious, soon.

I emerge from the train via the reinforced iron door on the left (there is also another side door on the right as well as a roof and rear exit).

The bodyguard units flank me as I move to inspect the soldiers strung up in rows. I pass the foot soldiers and move to the commander; a man with gold leaves inlaid in dented bronze armor he wears, as he hangs a foot off the ground upside down. It seems he fell over turning to run and the golem caught him at just the wrong moment.

“Hello there! It is pleasure to meet you!” False enthusiasm dripping from my words. “Are you the most important officer here? You look like it.”

Aw... the poor guy is sweating bullets, trying to understand what is going on. Up until I came out I suppose they thought they were dealing with a bunch of unknown monsters.

“Please release me! I can give you a ransom!” [Leader]

“Tempting... but no I don't think so.” [Rick] “So lets try again, shall we? You are rich and probably an aristocrat. You have to have a command position inside the city. Correct?”

“In some cases...” [Leader muttering]

“In this case?” [Rick]

“Yes.” [Leader dejectedly]

“Good. So you have influence. You have important family. Your death will be noticed.” [Rick] “So you must have a life worth living. You will tell me everything I want to know and if I am satisfied I let you live.”

“Absolutely n...” [Leader]

“Or I can have my creatures break your arms and legs bone by bone until you beg me to give you a second chance.” [Rick shrugging] “You're only wasting time.”

He glances at the Barricade golems and gulps audibly. Oh, I didn't mean them. They'll just pulverize limbs. No, the Willow will be doing the torture. But I don't need to tell him, until it happens. If he gets the wrong idea, why should I care?

“As long as you don't want our military secrets.” [Leader tries to bargain]

“I should break your legs on principle, but really I already know all of that so I don't need to be concerned.” [Rick shrugging] “I know how many of you there are, where your bases in the region are, how big the garrisons there are and even about the big golden man... because I created it.”

I know because the Dog prince told me.

“Then you know it can kill you...” [Leader]

“Pfft... oh, you're a funny little guy. I made it. It obeys me, above any of you. Even if it didn't, I can still destroy it.” [Rick laughing]

The change in this man's attitude took a ninety degree turn from passive aggression to utter submission.

“Are you going to enslave us?” The leader asks afraid.

“Of course not. Now tell me. Have you seen another like me? Only without the metal body parts. A slave. He stayed behind when the slaves broke free not long ago.” [Rick]

“I have seen him before... once maybe twice. A long time ago.” [Leader]

“Anyone?” I asked the other soldiers. “I can kill you all at once, so don't be shy now...”

“I saw him in the city.” [Soldier #52]

“How long ago?” [Rick]

“Five days. He looked tired.” [Soldier #52]

“Good. Anyone else?” [Rick]

“I know someone who did!” [Soldier #27]

“Okay, who?” [Rick]

“The man next to me on the right.” [Soldier #27]

“Bastard! You betrayed m...” [Soldier # 28]

“You know my friend? How?” [Rick]

The man himself was silent.

“Tell me and you are free to go.” [Rick to the man on his left.]

“He caught your friend the slave at his master's house, hit him over the ears with a club. He was supposed to end up in a cage somewhere, for interrogation only he escaped by jumping out of a window. Why the windows are so close to the ground people can escape I don't understand.” [Soldier #28]

“Hmm. Okay, that works for me. You can go, thanks for that.” [Rick]

The loops untied and the soldier was set free.

“As for you...” Rick turning to #27 rumbled. I was about to have the man pulled apart like a daisy when a small form walked into view. Or at least the view of my artificial eye, as he was quite invisible to my natural one.

“There you are, little buddy! What happened?” [Rick]

He appeared silently. Must have heard me enter with the train.

“Chirrik, big brother please come with me! Chianti is dying. Please save her!” [Tirmin]

“She was hurt? How? When?” [Rick]

“Days ago. The thing you did to her is killing her!” [Tirmin frantically]

“The geas? Shit! How the hell is she still alive?” [Rick]

What we learned:

Tirmin somehow kept the lady alive for a week despite the geas...

The Wind in the Willows is actually terror screams.

Rick is getting creative...

Karamech laughing his ass off as the soldiers that nearly killed him during the slave escape got whipped.

Congrats voters Chianti lives... why? Find out next chapter...