Day 67 continued

The ape soldiers I have strung up on the Willow golems are stuck listening to us chatter away in our native language. I converse with Little Rat about his situation.

Apparently all that he could do as the slaves escaped was to set fire to several vital structures, storehouses and such. He was tied down keeping an eye on Chanti who was suffering severe effects from her geas. As stupid as it sounds she broke the oath and still remained loyal. A soul bound promise would have very strict, inflexible rules, wouldn't it? So by technicality it considered her deserving of death.

I'm tied down here with several hundred troops glaring at me from a distance.

Yeah, yeah. I'll get around to the lot of you soon. When you're relevant.

In the mean time, I have to punch through them and get out into the city, to where he's stashed little miss loose lips.

Really? Far too easy.

These guards around us seem to only originate from the surface, hence the fact they have no supernatural skills. But apparently there are a few among them that have been bred down here that do. Chanti was terrified of them, these 'elites'. The ones with offensive power, anyway.

However to ensure that the ruling class maintains power down here, children aren't raised by parents but instead inside a facility that is part of their governmental district. The ones with useful powers after training are promoted to 'noble' status. Like me the basket cases can gain 'delayed' skills from certain actions. The theory is the system that sets these powers in place observes people and aids them in random personal tasks. Like me crafting weapons. The ones that start off with the unique skills rarely get this, and even if they don't they are already valuable. The others are an unknown quantity. Thus they are summarily executed as a threat. If they get some power thirty plus years down the track after servitude they will quite naturally be bitter and even hostile.

It is a brutal system, only 'nobles' can escape this by virtue of their own prestige. They have the right through personal power and political maneuvering to raise their own kids. Even the ones with deficiencies. Such as the Gate Captain of these I caught as well.

So while the gate guards are only at the level of a trained soldier, the few real threats are far more formidable. It is the only reason the apes survived down here so long with monsters and violent neighboring races. They camped at the door down until they had tough enough troops bred and raised just inside the gates to capture a piece of the maze. They conscript regular troops and support personnel as a higher class of slave. An ape slave is allowed to own a personal slave of a different race.

Why is this important? Two reasons. Within the ape population of this city only fifteen percent is labyrinthean? bred. The upper crust of these, roughly one percent are truly super -human. At least despite their apish genes they aren't of Super Saijin level power. Closer to the gimmicky super heroes of popular culture. Think batman villain level. That's still pretty strong. But they don't stack up against a golem of solid steel and gold well. So I'm not particularly worried by them.

I brought two golems on par to ol' Goldy. My reserves. Except they have a few differences. They're smaller than the original, the first is only twelve foot tall, the second a mere seven foot.

First Machine: it is in essence a robotic suit. The (pseudo) golem cores allow it to move as fluidly as the pilot is capable of with their own body. It's golem power-armor in essence. It makes you bigger, stronger and heavier without losing speed of movement. It eliminates the flaw of golems, the lack of higher intelligence and reactivity.

It's armed. Every spare inch of internal space houses an electo-mag pulse generator: I created it to counter iron and steel weapons, the magnetic pulse generated is equivalent to a directed small explosion of force outwards in all directions. It works as a short range, temporary forcefield. It won't do much to organics, or non-magnetic materials. The left arm doubles as a ram/shield. It's steel, almost like a wrecking ball crossed with an umbrella. Like a huge steel mushroom. Being a golem it can raise or lower the shield without joints or even extend it on a short chain to use as a flail or grapnel. On the right hand it has a pair of repeater crossbows built into the arm which has high enough reload speed that it is almost capable of semi-automatic fire by staggering shots from one to the other. The right grasper is not too different from a human hand. Inspired by my old bone golems it also carries a heavy cleaver for close combat on a sheath on the back of the machine.

Second Machine: A full-blown sniper mech. Featuring a powerful rail-gun refined from the original on the Doom Bringer Golem. The weapon has two modes, a barrel for each. The main weapon is built into the torso, the barrels are long (five feet) and short (two feet). So it can switch between extreme long range (I clocked it on the longest tunnel I could find as approximately a two mile range!). It can fire in that mode a single shot, every few seconds with maximum power. The short barrel however is for close to mid-range and is capable of burst fire with a maximum of three rounds per shot. The gun itself has a smooth barrel, but since my creations are straight to the molecular level it should be incredibly accurate. It can morph the barrel to fix any wear and tear as long as it has reserve steel nearby (the hollow compartments of the machine are filled with them to be used for repairs and ammunition). It also has hands for carrying objects or people or bracing for a shot and a set of swift, lightly armored legs to keep it out of close combat.

These golems are my trump card for this invasion.

I can remote pilot them, like I can all my new model golems, but the large one is for when I'm not home and uninvited guests show. Anyone with approval can jump into the controls and use it like a second skin. The others follow simple verbal instructions fairly well.

Since I have these on hand, I simply use the pair remotely. I collect Niala with the first from the train and the second grabs hold of Little Rat and myself.

I can't just leave the mass of soldiers hanging there forever on the Willows... what if I need those golems?

I have their right arms dislocated simultaneously and release them. There, the damage isn't too bad, they should recover... but not until after a lot of medical care. They'll need some complex logistics to get around to fixing the arms of thirty or so men at once. You can't just pop them back in place, like movies would have you believe. It takes care, leverage and experience. Anything less and they may end up partially paralyzed.

As a bonus they'll scare the other soldiers and clog up their aggressive reactions for some time.

I leave the Willows on guard duty, one pair as a fence the other as attackers. The Barricade golems are also left behind as a secondary defense, to protect against curious monsters or hapless travelers entering the city.

The apes try to take pot shots with arrows. I suppress them with rapid fire arrows back. Only mine don't miss. These artificial eyes don't have deviations like organics. Heh. I cut the bowstrings. For emphasis I add a single rail-gun bullet to the exchange. It blasts through the building like a burning comet, the speed of the shot lighting the air around the bullet on fire and nearly deafening us with multiple sonic booms. It's only small caliber but that single shot silences them all. Well it did demolish a building, shredding the occupants due merely to their proximity to the impact (soldiers: about fifteen) and keep going until it hit the far wall. What is that? This is a big room. Maybe fifteen miles? I'm quite impressed myself at the field test. Almost straight too. Must have clipped the building supports, because it's off angle by half a degree when it hit the wall.

Damn is that deadly.

No wonder the US navy is trying to use them. (You can actually see a prototype rail-gun in action on Youtube: it really does set the air on fire from friction on the bullet!).

The city is in shambles. Gutted buildings and housing districts caught in the fires are abandoned. The roof of the room is smoke blackened. Considering how confined this place is, they're lucky they weren't smothered by the carbon dioxide and smoke.

I'm taken to a place that I mistake for a circus... only to find I'm technically correct. It's a circus in the Roman fashion. Slaves, gladiatorial combat and humiliation are the things on show here. So one out of three is still the same.

I'm lead inside a fortified structure, probably used to hold captives.

The smell from the doorway is intense: death. I smell little but dead people and blood.

I find Chanti easily enough. She's strapped to a chair (ordinarily used for torture) and from the looks of it, the chair hasn't had a big change in use. Since she's groaning as her own muscles tear themselves apart and break her bones. And then heal and repeat the process.

I'm shocked by the scene I'm looking at.

Little Rat has apparently kept Chanti alive for over a WEEK despite the geas trying to fucking give her an aneurysm within minutes of activating. She's spent the entire time in convulsions and in a state of intense and constant burning pain.

Apparently it starts as a blinding headache and scales up from there. By all rights she should be dead in under an hour. Instead Little Rat pulled some healing artifact out of his ass. Not literally, of course. This stone apparently heals when exposed to blood. He didn't know exactly how it worked, but he tried it immediately which trapped Chanti in an inescapable loop. Endlessly cutting her wrists to fill a copper bowl holding the crystal.

To heal she needs to bleed on the rock, but the geas isn't some virus or infection. It can't be cured like that. It can only have the symptoms suppressed. So while she used the rock she could heal enough to survive the constant attacks, she couldn't survive for long because she would quite literally bleed to death. And the pain of it was pure torture.

By the end of the first day she was near dead. However Little Rat noticed that the stone healed him too if he was close. From this he realized the stone merely required blood from any source and healed everyone in a radius of about a two yards.

So he tried to supplement his own blood. But this was just as unfeasible. He was fainting in only hours.

Finally he snapped.

He went out and found a domestic animal, equivalent to a bullock or water buffalo and cut it's throat. It worked. He bled it into a trough and dropped the crystal to the bottom. Rather tragically the trough was already in the room for just this purpose, as this was a torture chamber. This room also came with several reinforced chairs designed to hold victims still, perfect for Chanti who was having seizures.

That bought some time. At first. The geas however seems to react badly to denial. It amped up the attack, compromising the entire nervous system, the majority of her bones and muscles. By this stage Chanti was either screaming or passed out, as she verged on death from one moment to the next. The stone too could apparently increase efficiency at the cost of blood... because in only an hour that stock of a dozen gallons was gone.

The little guy went completely nuts at this point. Unable to meet the demand with the sparse population of beasts of labor, he went for people.

His powers of stealth, of sound disruption were not only wildly effective in a surprise attack, they were even better in a one-sided war of attrition against an entire city.

He had no hope of surviving a straight attack on troops, so he took his attacks in a different direction. He ambushed the high-class slave owners in their mansions. Their heavily guarded and staffed compounds.

Using narcotics stolen from doctors he contaminated the entire food and water supply of their lavish homes. Then sat back, sacrificing an animal every hour to keep the healing going. He had access to a large stable, owned by the former slave traders that was currently abandoned but it was not enough for more than a day tops. So he made plans and acted.

He kept Chanti in the structure there, in the main room that once held the slaves.

The little guy would drag the drugged up victims on a cart back to this lair and bleed them slowly, strapped to a chair beside her. He kept the rest in the cages separately, to collect one by one as needed.

It was damn cold, but he was desperate. He was also able to find out the stone didn't just feed on blood. I'm pretty sure it ate souls.

For every person that died touching the stone, the healing effect doubled, provided it was using that same person's blood.

This little guy used to be scrupulously good-natured. But he's now literally a blood soaked mass murderer.

Okay, he held himself back, he didn't touch the young. Or the slaves. But that was his limit. He went out and carted in people he caught, tied up and terrified. Dozens of times. Soldiers, guards, the rich and the powerful. Men and women.

And so I'm stunned, staring at all the victims.

“You did all of this? This is awful.” [Rick]

“I just want her to live. I had no choices!” [Tirmin screaming]

“My god, there has to be over a hundred people here.” [Rick]

“You did all this for the enemy?! You're insane!” [Niala]

At this point I looked into the next few rooms and saw piles upon piles of dead people and after that cages filled with terrified people looking out.

“This is monstrous!” [Rick]

If I could throw up I probably would at this point.

“I don't care. I only care about Chanti!” [Tirmin]

“All right... I'll help you. Just this once more. From now on I don't know you. I don't want anything to do with you.” I said meaning it. “You are everything I hate right now. There had to be a better method than this barbaric solution!”

“No. There wasn't. And if this is the end of our friendship, then I'll say goodbye to you gladly if you save her!” [Tirmin]

I stalked over to the girl I could barely recognize, who didn't seem aware I was even there.

“I forgive you.” [Rick]

And with those words the geas died. It was formed from intense hatred. Just as it ate up my hatred to produce so it ate up my affection to counteract.

Chanti still lived but I don't think she knows how to deal with the people killed to keep her alive. I can see the horror in her eyes as she looks at my one time friend Tirmin. I pity her right now.

But I don't care about that. I kicked the cage doors open, yelling at the apes to run.

“Leave this place, you are a plague to these people. They may be slave owning scum, but you are worse by far.” [Rick] “I hope we never meet again, maniac.”

And with that I left without a word.

Niala hugged me as we traveled back to the train. I don't know why, but despite that something still hurt. I didn't say a word as I started the steam engine for our trip back home.

Damn.

What we learned:

Little Rat is no longer the lovable little scamp...

Niala is really sharp about when hugs are needed.

Rick's goals in the end, were just empty words.

You wanted Chanti to live, you got it... really it was always going to end up with Timin and Rick parting ways bitterly. Perhaps one day even coming to blows...

Sorry for the delay, I wasn't happy with the quality of the chapter so I rewrote it a few times since this is heading to a climax. Dun, dun duuuun...

Okay I admit I also I got caught up in a binge reading of Worm and skimmed through some other stories I started writing that I have left on the back-burner for Re:Ocean and Re:Labyrinth.