Staring into the empty sockets, Sera had to force herself to look away.

Looking at a wall, she noticed her red smooth friend on lookout nearby, Iva spared Sera a glance before staring down the long tunnel at the bottom of this… graveyard of reapers.

Taking in the surroundings, Sera realised the only other time she had been this deep and been in a cave this size, it hadn’t been a cave but a dungeon. Her eyes pulled her head back to the items sprawled on the ground.

Last time she tried grabbing for something, this deep and surrounded by dead creatures, the dungeon screen suddenly appeared. But it could’ve been a coincidence, besides right in front of her looked like an intact harpoon!

Her left hand itched at the thought, and the knife she was still holding felt like it could be dropped any second just to grab the new weapon.

“... What’s the worst that could happen?” Sera said in a murmur as she swam closer to her prize.

Ignoring the pressure building in her ears, the broken bones surrounding her and even the broken metal fragments, Sera swiftly put her knife away and grabbed at the harpoon.

Despite the rod being small in diameter, lengthwise it was as long if not longer than her whole body. “Whoa,” Sera was pulled closer to the cave floor as she wretched it off the bones and surrounding layer of muck.

Pointing her scanner at it, Sera stared at the weird colours decorating the ancient weapon as her tool began taking in the information to be examined by the PID.

Scanning Results

Unknown Scythe:

This weapon appears to be a simple harpoon, however scans indicate that the small button located in the middle of the staff morph the staff through complex machinations into a Scythe with unknown qualities.

Other facilities such as the assimilation module may help in identifying the Scythe’s properties.

Use at your own risk.

“A hidden weapon!” The words rolled off her tongue as she shone the light on her new Scythe, it had to be important or at least useful if the PID couldn’t identify it.

Sera also ignored the warning without a second thought.

She felt her heartbeat quicken as one of the runes near the middle of the staff slight poke out from the staff, poking her hand over it, Sera watched as the harpoon transformed in less than a second.

The top of the harpoon looked like a normal harpoon, with three fishhook-like blades at the top, but on the side opposite of the S rune, Sera heard a faint scratching of metal.

Rotating the staff slightly to the left, Sera though at first it would be a small, almost negligible difference but instead the blade stuck out a quarter of the length!

It was longer than from the top of her head to the bottom of her neck, and she knew from the sound that it was sharp enough to cut through anything.

“Well, anything other than the reaper. Though maybe this helped whoever killed these monsters,” Sera spared a glance at Iva, who was still watching the cave as she got back to work. “Alright, let’s see if I can change you back…”

Pressing the S rune again, the Scythe turned back into an old looking harpoon which, although Sera wanted to hold out like her knife, there were still things to scan and grab.

“Like this… thing,” Pushing the water behind her with one hand as the other let go of the Scythe, Sera picked up the broken ball and began scanning it with no hesitation.

Scanning Results

Explosive Trap:

Scans indicate that this fragment has been covered in stomach acid and blood, likely concluding that the reaper that was carrying this died from internal bleeding and other severe wounds after attempting to eat this device.

Recipe Unlocked

“Huh. A way to deter or kill the reapers, I hope I don’t have to use any of them against the reapers, but…” Sera briefly remembered her encounter with the thousand eyed monster, the Oculi, she suppressed a shiver. “It can’t hurt to be safe.”

Dropping the broken fragment, Sera scanned the seafloor for any other useful materials, but found more dead coral. Which seemed to be more than enough by now. “Yeah, this feels more like a kilo of fossilised coral, where I only need 100 grams.”

Checking the recipe again before she left confirmed her thoughts.

PID Interface

PID Mount or ‘Mount’ *:

Materials:

Lead 500G Copper 500G Gold 500G Fossilised Coral 100G

“Alright Iva let’s go. I don’t want to see whatever killed these things.”

Sera began swimming upwards before nearly facepalming as she realised she left the mysterious Scythe behind, quickly swimming back down to collect it, she noticed Iva was still staring at the same spot.

Down the long, eerie corridor, that seemed… unnatural compared to the rest of the cave. “Iva… we got what we came down here for. Let’s leave-”

As Sera tried to grab for Iva, she saw a glimpse of green light come from the cave before disappearing with a small trace of light. Now Sera was staring down the long cave, her fins coming down to rest on the cave floor.

“Ah… Crap, we need to see what’s down here, don’t we.”

This time, Iva was the one who turned to look at Sera and gave her a small ‘meep’ before beginning to swim down the tunnel. “Wait for me!”

Pushing off the seafloor, Sera knew that the green light she saw was unnatural, it didn’t come from any plants she had seen so far… as none of them moved except for the bulbs.

It didn’t come from the skeletal-jawed fish, as their lights were a light blue or light cyan colour. No, this was from the memory burned into her mind.

It was from the first moments on this planet, when she had been suffocating surrounded by the green light.

Swimming with the hybrid pattern that she had developed from muscle reflex from the old body’s owner, Keira, Sera was making good speed and easily catching up to Iva, despite holding a Scythe and a scanner.

As the long cave turned suddenly, Sera clicked the S rune, and listened to the cool sounding flick of metal coming out of its hiding place. Slowly peaking the corner, Sera saw an abomination.

Growing from the body of the beast were barnacles large and small with a hint of algae mixed in, Sera nearly turned away just from the sight itself, but then she saw the source of the green light.

It came from the middle of it’s body, but it was facing the other direction, and only now Sera could hear a low thrum as something began digging into the wall of the cave.

“Wait, is that-” Sera didn’t finish as a screen came up, interrupting her line of thought.

PID Interface

Constructor and Deductor Detected:

The PID has identified one of the drones ‘The Temple’ sent out to repair and find the scattered modules. This drone was sent out over a century ago along with hundreds of others, however repairs were only rudimentary as within months drones began disappearing at a rapid pace.

The reason for this is unknown.

Would you like to [Contact Drone]?

Sera’s hand gripping the edge of the tunnel froze at the meaning behind the PID’s description.

Sera’s gills narrowed as she weighed her options.

I can contact this ‘drone’ that is meant for repairing The Temple. It’s old but if it works, maybe I can skip having to find the modules needed to free the princess.

Sera licked her lips and noticed the salt water tasted more of crumbled rock than salt. Not only that, but these tunnels were likely dug by the drone, it surely has done something other than dig for the last century.

Bringing up the menu, Sera briefly considered leaving but stopped the thought, this was too important to be ignored. If the drone needed fixing before being able to repair the temple, then she would help it.

Pressing the button, tensions mixed with expectations high, Sera went through a rollercoaster of emotions.

[Contacting Drone]

Error.

Drone communication array damaged.

Attempting to bypass security barriers to communicate…

Time remaining: 5 minutes.

Security barrier?

Her hands noticed it first.

The vibrations echoing through the walls of the cavern were miniscule at such a distance, but still she noticed it immediately.

Pushing off the wall, Sera spared a glance at the back of the drone-

Only to realise its upper body had rotated a full 180, and a hull full of dents and exposed green lights shone directly at her.

“SECURITY LEVELS BREACHED-” Sera could hear the distinct robotic voice sound like the crackling of electricity she had heard near The Temple. “HOSTILE IDENTIFIED. DEDUCTOR MODE ACTIVE.”

Sera heard the whirr moments before the drone moved.

Its legs pivoted like its upper body-it looked like a mega-sized metal Iron Man that aliens had abandoned, but where the head lay instead was a singular green orb with cracks running through the glass-like orb.

Sera’s eyes bulged before realising her body was already driving the surrounding water to her will.

Her legs were put into overdrive as loud metal footsteps began chopping through the sound of the cave. Sparing a look behind her, Sera saw the barnacled arm scrape into the wall as it turned the corner.

It was faster than she was! “IVA, WAIT FOR ME AT THE ENTRANCE!”

Shouting and pointing as fast as she could, Sera turned around just as she felt a brush of water pull her closer-

The drill whirred to life just where the back of her head had been less than a second ago, her body pulled downwards into the mass of metal where she saw the opposite hand push forwards in a thrust.

Sera barely brought her Scythe and scanner up to block, the impact instantly threw the scanner out of her hands, but it didn’t matter. She was about to die anyway.

The drive which was shredding through solid rock came down in a downward slash just as Sera gripped the Scythe with both hands. But it didn’t matter, the water didn’t act as a pillow as she was thrown into the floor.

Her fins slapped into the floor followed by her whole tumbling body, but she didn’t have a second to think as the whirring came closer, Sera quickly began backing up and tried swimming-

Only to see her fins had turned to their shoe form and were sticking to the cave floor. What? I need to swi-oh wait, do I?

Her quick thinking turned out to be the right move as she was able to dodge the next thrust and punch of the drill and arm despite the size difference.

Holding onto the Scythe for dear life, Sera knew the state of the fight. She was defending until the PID bust through the security, or she was drilled into a mush of red.

It’ll match my eyes at least-

Sera barely finished the thought as the drill tried to stab and swirl her into a slushie. Hearing the loud whirr of the drill ahead of time, Sera pivoted away, but when she saw the drill was still pointed at her, she felt her gills shrink and a cold shiver run up her spine.

Sera brought up her spear as she tried pivoting again, but it was too late. The drill ejected from the drone and smashed into her, pushing the Scythe to the side as it punctured her stomach-

Sera couldn’t perceive anything but pain as the drill whirred, and she was thrown from the impact to the side meters away, her neck burned as oxygen bubbles were shoved out from the impact.

She could only look down and expect to see a hole-but instead saw the white light armour have a massive cavity in the middle, her skin only flayed by the drill.

Sera didn’t have time to be thankful as a foot began descending on her. Bringing the Scythe back up, Sera swung at the leg-

But the slice only ricocheted off, pushing her body across the floor, just out of range from the stomp that vibrated her insides and made her head ache despite dodging the attack.

Pushing off the ground with a ferocity her previous owner could match, Sera saw it's leg was stuck in the rock, and she took the opportunity instantly.

Jumping off the floor, Sera quickly swum out of the small cave into the large opening with the reaper bones, but she didn’t stop.

Sticking to the cavern walls, Sera swam upwards desperately, using the rocky walls for speed boosts each time her hands came down to grab at the wall. Her Scythe stuffed into her belt with the back of the blade cutting slightly into the top of her light armour, but she didn’t care.

She needed to be faster-if it escaped too early, then-

The echoing sounds of bones being crushed made her nightmare into a reality, but she still didn’t stop swimming upwards, even if she was more than thirty meters away.

The sound of whirring came through the cave as Sera realised what it was going to do.

There was only one option.

If it was going to come up faster than she could, then she needed to...

Stopping her rapid ascent, Sera quickly pulled the Scythe out of her belt and looked downward just in time to see it happen.

The drone’s legs looked like they had doubled in size as if it were powering up, its whole body was squatting as the green lights emanating from its hull reached their peak.

In a flash of motion, it burst off the seafloor, echoing through the cavern was the rapidly growing whirr that was blasting right to Sera and even above her.

It would eviscerate her and leave nothing to chance, if it missed, its body was enough to crush her at the sheer speed.

But Sera was ready, positioning her Scythe at the angle she had prepared the lever earlier in the day, she wrapped her body around the Scythe and didn’t have to wait long before it came.

With its drill aimed directly at her, the drone didn’t bother shooting her with it this time, it didn’t need to, it would kill the security risk in either a splatter or a rain of red.

The second the drill impacted, what happened occurred exactly as she expected.

The head of the Scythe wrapped around the drill and the sound of metal curdling against metal came, but the force of the drone was still pushing upwards.

With its drill arm perched high, Sera’s body was pulled with the Scythe sticking to the drill, and she was dragged upwards with what felt like the force of an adult reaper.

Sera could only hold on as her ears popped from the pressure and her eyes felt like they were about to as well-

A thunderous crashed roared from the cave, but not before a much smaller, unnoticed moan came.

Smashing into the ceiling, Sera was punched point-blank away from the drone into the outside world.

Again the air was pushed out of her, but this time Sera didn’t have the energy to focus, or notice.

She blearily saw a red object dart from the outside and come to her, but then the rumbling continued.

Sera could only watch as the footsteps came closer in agonising seconds, she was finished.

The drone spared no moment of carelessness as it stomped past her Scythe and raised its foot directly above her head.

But she was already gone.

…

Red.

The tint of iron could be smelt.

But a blue light wasn’t letting her sleep for long.

Drone Interface

User connected.

Registering PID and calibrating database…

Information updated.

Applying emergency medical aid.

Sera could feel one of her arms being lifted carefully before a small bite came.

Her vision gradually cleared as she could feel herself being hauled to her feet, or in this case just off the seafloor.

“User. To advance healing, please move your body.”

Sera’s eardrums felt like someone was running hot water over them but she blarily obliged.

Moving her arms slowly with her legs, Sera moved out of the grasp of the big creature as she realised it’s one eye was staring right at her.

“W-what?” Feeling her senses come back to her Sera, swam for a few more moments before letting herself fall to the seafloor, where she saw Iva trying-but ultimately failing to bite into the drone.

“I-Iva it’s okay. He’s… good now.” Waving her friend off the walking hulk of metal, still slightly fearful of the drone that could take down mutliple reapers and put her within an inch of death…

And then save me after only a few moments, next time I’m going home with or without Iva. Sera put the thought to the side as Iva swam and landed softly ontop of her head, giving a small noise akin to a purr as the drone looked at her and spoke.

It’s metallic voice sounding pacified and… weaker.

“Which area of The Temple would you like me to restore?”

“Wait, area of The Temple?” Surprised at the term, Sera was more surprised at the menu that came afterwards.

AID

Weapon Area:

This will allow the facility to properly defend itself and create weapons to ensure the best type of defence, offence.

Prison Area:

This will allow the facility to properly cater for prisoners and prolong their life, even if it that life is one of suffering.

Storage Area:

This will allow the storage area to be accessed and managed, this includes the numerous fabrication areas.

Despite her muddled mind, her goals hadn’t changed, and she didn’t hesitate to answer.

“The prison area… I need time more than anything.” Feeling more awake by the second, Sera froze at it's next words.

“Understood Temple administrator. Your worker will begin repairs.”