The metallic cacophony grew louder, echoing through the chamber like the approach of an unnatural storm. Shadows deepened and coalesced from the narrow passageway at the chamber’s rear, taking on substance and form with each passing second. First came the glint of sensor-arrays—red pinpoints of light that swept methodically across the darkness. Then segmented limbs emerged, moving with the precise coordination of entities neither fully machine nor wholly organic. The Encoded scouts materialized from the shadows as if birthed by darkness itself, their forms a nightmarish fusion of salvaged technology and corrupted flesh.

  Alor reacted with practiced efficiency, his small stature belying his combat readiness.

  “Positions!” Alor called out and planted his feet firmly, secured the lantern to his belt, and drew his weapon. The lantern bobbed and moved with him, casting writhing shadows across the walls, and making the approaching threat difficult to number correctly.

  Matti took up position next to Alor. His vast muscular frame created a living barricade against the oncoming threat, made even more wall-like when he pressed a palm against a section of the wall, and a flash of light enveloped his body. When the light faded, Matti’s skin was now a silvery sheen of whatever advanced alloy composed the wall.

  “I’ve got the frontline,” he assured the others, his voice steady despite the threat. He flexed his fingers into fists, as if testing the limitations of the new materials strength.

  The Encoded advanced in perfect synchronization, each movement calculated for maximum efficiency. Their bodies defied simple description—humanoid in basic structure but corrupted with technological grafts that pulsed with strange energy. Where eyes should have been, sensor arrays swept the chamber with crimson light. Where mouths should have spoken, voice modulators emitted harmonics designed to unsettle organic nervous systems.

  Five of them entered the chamber in an arrow formation, their steps creating a rhythmic cadence against the ancient floor. The lead scout’s head rotated mechanically in a way organic beings couldn’t, its sensors catalogued each member of the expedition team, but lingered longest on Cyrus.

  “They were scanning for anomalies,” Cassandra observed, her voice clinically detached despite the danger. “I would assume they sensed our presence through the console’s activation.”

  Maija had pulled back to a defensible position. A half-wall that hadn’t been there before provided her with cover, and she seemed to be uncertain about something, when a tiny voice crackled from an ancient communication device fixed upon a nearby wall. The sound cut through the tension like a knife, its sudden activation a surprise to the Encoded and the party both.

  “I’m trapped! The Machina are converging!”

  The voice was distorted with static and unmistakably desperate. The voice repeated her frantic message.

  “This is Lyessa! I’m trapped! The Machina are converging!”

  The lead Machina scout froze momentarily, its sensor array flashing rapidly in response to the name Lyessa. The reaction lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Cyrus to consider it an intelligent response from the creature.

  “It’s Lyessa!” Matti shouted urgently, even though all of them but Cyrus knew Lyessa’s voice. After all, she was one of the party, Cassandra’s sister, and the reason they were even in the dungeon. “We’ve got to get to her.”

  There was no need for further explanation; everyone understood who Lyessa was and why they were there. The communication device continued its looped message, creating an eerie backdrop.

  The lead Encoded scout took another step forward, its articulated limbs moving with unnatural fluidity. Its voice modulator activated, producing sounds that approximated speech while intentionally missing essential human qualities in a voice designed to feel like nails scraped on a chalkboard.

  :: ANOMALY DETECTED. CLASSIFICATION: UNATHORIZED CONSCIOUSNESS PATTERN. DESIGNATION: PRIORITY TARGET.::

  Its sensor array is fixed directly on Cyrus, and a red light painted a targeting pattern across his chest. The other scouts adjusted their positions as much as they could in the narrow hall, preparing to execute whatever directive governed their actions.

  Cyrus felt something rise within him—not panic, but a cold certainty. His missing memories might have been beyond reach, but his body remembered where his mind could not. Without hesitation, he extended his hand towards the advancing scouts, palm outward in what could easily be mistaken as a gesture of peace.

  Power flowed through him like an electrical current seeking a ground—invisible but undeniable. Precise, forceful bursts of telekinetic energy erupted from his extended hand, the air between him and the targets rippling with distortion.

  The effect was immediate and devastating. Three of the scouts were caught in the telekinetic wave, their mechanical bodies lifted off the ground and thrown into the darkness with terrible force. They collided with the rough-hewn wall of the passageway, the impact scattering components across the stone floor with the sound of breaking glass, warping metal, and shattered bones. Sparks sprayed from damaged circuitry, illuminating the broken flesh and mechanical parts failing between brilliant flashes.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Well,” Alor said with a laugh. “That is certainly one way to start negotiations.”

  Click.

  Alor’s trigger depressed, and a razor-sharp blade fired from the weapon, embedding itself in the slightly rear-encoded scout. It made a strange, quizzical beep before the blade, only half sunk into the mixture of flesh and cybernetic equipment, exploded.

  The leader aimed its arm at Cyrus.

  “I don’t think so,” Matti growled.

  Matti flashed forward, almost as if the intervening distance between him and the Encoded leader had ceased to exist, and delivered a furious one two punch combination that made Alor’s explosive ordinance seem reasonable in comparison. Matti grabbed the battered scout while it reeled, and threw it at Cassandra.

  Cassandra seemed to dance, and Galatine sang through the air, its edge found the junction between organic and mechanical parts in the scouts shoulder. Galatine sliced, separating flesh and machine with surprising ease. That was the start, Cassandra didn’t stop there. Galatine flickered and flashed, and the dismembered Encoded became a pile of stray limbs that only stopped moving when she beheaded it.

  “They do not feel pain,” Cassandra said, wiping Galatine clean of the mixture of blood and oils with a rag. “They only stop when destroyed.”

  Cassandra nodded toward the hallway.

  What should have been fatal damage to a living creature was merely a temporary inconvenience to the Encoded.

  “I hate when bad guys can heal!” Maija cursed.

  The scouts sprang forward. They seemed to be faster than they had been initially.

  Matti managed to get a hand on one of them, but the other two sprinted past too fast. Alor aimed but missed when he took a shot at the two who ran past, then changed targets to help Matti deal with the one he caught.

  “Finish that off, then help the rest of us!” Maija ordered the two and touched the floor. Spikes of the same material that made up the tiles shot up at the two sprinting scouts. They reacted with a swiftness born of reactions measured in microseconds. One used absolutely minuscule movements to dodge the spikes; the other jumped and engaged in flight, blasting towards Cyrus.

  “Cass!” Maija cried.

  The Encoded weren’t the only ones with breathtaking speed. Cassandra intervened, appearing before the one who had dodged all of the spikes. Galatine left a trail of light in the air, and one of the scouts legs separated from the frame, and the scout fell to its side.

  Grateful but not out of danger, Cyrus focused. He grabbed the flying Encoded out of the air with a telekinetic grasp and beat it against the floor. If one hit wouldn’t terminate the function of the damned thing, then twenty or a hundred would. With each crash, the room shook slightly, and the scout repeatedly slammed into the floor.

  “That’s enough,” Cassandra said.

  Cyrus blinked. A flattened, crushed Encoded slipped from his psychic grasp. He had gotten over-zealous. Cyrus flicked his eyes across the room; all five of the Encoded scouts were dead and mostly dismembered now, and Maija, Matti, and Alor all watched him warily.

  “We need to rescue Lyessa,” Cassandra reminded him—reminded everyone.

  “This way,” Alor directed. He stood next to a narrower passage than the one they had come through and smaller than the one the Machina forces emerged from. “This passage connects to a vertical shaft with multiple exit points.”

  “Why are we in a sudden hurry?” Cyrus asked.

  Maija pointed at the corpses of the Encoded. Machinery and flesh were still repairing themselves. The scouts were down but by no means out.

  “Are you kidding me?” Cyrus groaned and hurried to Alor.

  They entered the narrow corridor in a practiced formation: Alor first, followed by Matti, Maija, Cyrus, and Cassandra in the rear. The confined spaces would work to their advantage; if the scouts caught up to them, they would be forced to come single-file. Maija made it even more difficult, her hands brushing the walls and creating spikes and barriers behind them.

  They squeezed, crawled, and squirmed for long minutes. Behind them, at least one of the scouts persued, destroying or somehow bypassing Maija’s obstacles with increasing speed.

  “How is it getting faster?” Cyrus demanded.

  “They adapt,” Maija spat.

  Cyrus focused more on the sounds behind them once he learned that. Noticed the subtle changes of each of Maija’s traps. First, she used simple things, spikes, beams, and walls. Now, she left behind things that looked dangerous to him—confirmed when a large explosion shook the tunnel less than a half minute later.

  “Mines already?” Cassandra murmured. “Try not to get my robes burned,” the swordswoman sighed.

  “The shaft, ladies and gentlemen,” Alor proclaimed as they crawled out of the narrow tunnel one by one to view a large vertical shaft filled with walkways crisscrossing the shaft both above and below them.

  “Maybe we can throw them down the shaft?” Matti asked.

  “I have a better idea,” Cyrus said. He lifted both hands before him, and focused on the narrow tunnel. Stone and metal groaned under invisible assault, and he quickly identified several structural weaknesses.

  “Get back,” Cyrus warned, sweat beading on his forehead. The passageway’s ceiling cracked, and ancient supports gave way after millennia of entropy were capitalized upon by a single focused moment of applied force. The collapse was controlled. Cyrus didn’t need to do anything more than create a barrier that was nearly impossible to navigate. If the scouts were driven by logic, they would retreat and find another route, and if they were not, they would waste who knows how long trying to get through a debris field with nearly no gaps.

  “Sure, they’ll find another way around, but now we have time.” Cyrus said, dusting his hands off.

  “Those were not standard Encoded scouts,” Maija complained. “We’ve never had one reassemble itself from being cut to pieces by Galatine before.”

  “They’re not supposed to reassemble after Bladespitter has its way with them,” Alor said, waving his weapon briskly at the collapsed tunnel.

  “Now what?” Cyrus asked.

  “We rescue Lyessa,” Cassandra said simply as if there were no other answer.

  “We go to the center of the ruins, yes?” Alor laughed.

  “No one left behind, not even Lyessa,” Maija agreed cattily.

  “I hate climbing,” Matti complained, peering over the walkway's edge. When Cyrus did the same, he disliked how the dark shaft seemed to go on forever. What would happen if they fell, or were thrown? Would they ever hit the bottom, or fall forever… or until they died of dehydration or hunger, and their corpses kept falling?

  The grim thought forced Cyrus to laugh.

  “So, how do we get to Lyessa?” Cyrus asked.

  All eyes turned to Alor, who puffed up his chest.

  “Leave that to me, my friend!”

  “Is it too late to go back to fighting the Machina instead?” Cyrus asked dryly, to mixed response of laughter and agreement.