Chương 13: Production is down to 0.1%

1% I snorted. Liu did too, as he overheard it. We fell into a formation, with Sarah at the lead, followed by Yukiko, Henrik, me, Astarielle, and sealed by Liu, whose implied task was to keep an eye on Astarielle. We moved through the cavern in silence that wasn't quite hostile, but wasn't cooperative either. The passage widened, then narrowed, then opened into what had once been a hallway. A proper one, with walls that had been smooth once, a floor that had been tiled, and doors that led into collapsed rooms.

Henrik paused by one of the doors, peering inside.

"Structural collapse consistent with seismic activity, but the damage pattern suggests an internal cause. An explosion, most likely." Yukiko glanced over her shoulder.

"Unless it already spawned this way with the tower."

"Valid," Henrik admitted.

"But still curious. From what I had seen on my first floor, the floors have a perfectly consistent history that everyone remembers decades into the past." That matched my experience. Nothing on my first floor appeared inconsistent. We kept moving. The hallway led into a broader space, a junction of multiple corridors. Something skittered in the darkness ahead, the sound of metal on stone. Yukiko froze. One hand went to her katana. I pushed power into my eyes, the world's colors flipping.

The junction ahead crawled with mana signatures, dozens of them, small, erratic, and clustered in groups.

"Spawns of evil ahead," Sarah shouted, raising her sword.

"Thirty-two small, quick creatures." Liu stepped aside, taking a stance. A bubble of light popped into reality around Henrik. Yukiko jumped to the side, vanishing behind the wall. A globe of crimson flame flew over us. Ah, fuck. The globe landed ahead, exploding. The explosions blasted through the cavern. The shockwave and heat licked my shields. Sarah ducked behind her shield. Henrik's bubble only slightly pulsed, maintaining its form. Liu didn't react, the spell washing over him without any visible damage.

A white text popped up in front of me. [ENEMIES DEFEATED — CORRODED SKITTERERS (32)] [Drops: Corroded Chitin (Common) (32), Servo Fragment (Common) (16), 64 copper, Sparking Mandible (Uncommon) (x2)]"Boom!" Astarielle shouted.

"Got them little shits!" I sighed. Sarah spun, glaring at me.

"This is exactly what I was talking about!"

"Look, Blondie," Astarielle shouted.

"Anyone who got hurt by this spell has no business being in a party with us."

"That's not my point." I stepped between the two of them, just in case.

"It may have come with a warning," I said.

"But Astarielle is correct, even if she could have phrased it better. We are a team, but that only functions if we can fight at a similar level. If this was a troublesome attack for you, then you might want to stay in the back and let me go first and handle it."

"And prepare some oil to massage my back after I pull a muscle carrying you through the floor," Astarielle added. I glanced at her.

"Shut up." She rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything. Sarah still looked ready to explode into divine wrath. But she only glanced at the others. Henrik stood in his bubble, glasses lit up, clearly analyzing us. Liu didn't look like it touched him at all, and I still couldn't see Yukiko anywhere.

"I am unscathed," Sarah said, turning away from me. The ceiling above us cracked. More creatures rained down on us. They were insects the size of a large cat, except half of each was machine. Chitin plating fused with rusted metal, mandibles sparking with electricity, six legs moving with the jerky precision of broken servomotors. One fell on my face, its mandibles biting into my shields. Astarielle yelped, crimson flame exploding around her.

Lightning cracked from Henrik's staff, intercepting a bunch of them mid-flight. The insect exploded into chitin shards and sparks. Twenty more poured from the walls. Everything erupted into motion. Around where Yukiko vanished, three insects fell apart in surgical lines. Afterimages of her flickered where she'd passed, wind trailing her like a cloak. Liu Wei thrust both palms forward. A shockwave rippled through the corridor, slamming a cluster of insects into the far wall.

They cracked against the stone, legs still twitching. Sarah raised her shield. Two insects bounced off it. She swung her sword, cutting them both, white flame exploding upon contact, tearing them apart. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Henrik launched three elemental bolts, fire, ice, and lightning, each one tracking a separate target. All three hit. He paused to note something in his journal.

I got five more insects on me, all crawling on me, trying to get through the shields. The shields only lightly glowed. Crimson energy exploded from Astarielle a couple more times. A bright streak hit an insect on me, jumping from it to the others, frying them in an instant. I did appreciate the attempt at precision. She was scowling, but this didn't have friendly fire. Within ten seconds, the hallway fell silent.

[ENEMIES DEFEATED — CORRODED SKITTERERS (21)] [Drops: Corroded Chitin (Common) (21), Servo Fragment (Common) (10), 42 copper, Sparking Mandible (Uncommon) (x1)] Yukiko stood by another wall, slashing the mess off her blade. Henrik returned to scanning us. Liu Wei straightened his robes. Sarah cleaned her sword on her gauntlet and glared at me. So did Astarielle, but she still didn't speak. Well, fair. Henrik cleared his throat.

"That was adequate," he said.

"The synchronized attack timing suggests a hive-mind coordination. We should expect larger variants deeper in." Liu Wei crouched by one of the carcasses. He touched its carapace.

"The qi in these creatures is synthetic. Manufactured, rather than corrupted. Something is building them."

"Is everyone unharmed?" Sarah asked.

"I've got healing spells ready." Astarielle started pointing at a scratch on her calf. Sarah ignored her. She stepped forward. We went with her, the formation a lot looser now. The corridors gave way to larger spaces, collapsed halls that might have been factories or workshops. Machinery lay gutted and rusted, some of it fused with the same organic-mechanical hybrid material as the insects. The ceiling climbed higher, revealing catwalks and overhead platforms that sagged under their own weight.

It felt lived-in, once. As if whatever civilization had existed here hadn't died quietly. Blast marks scored the walls. Barricades made of furniture and scrap metal blocked some hallways, long since overrun. I saw what might have been claw marks on a steel door, each gouge as wide as my fist. Our formation fell apart completely the second we weren't confined to a tunnel. Yukiko scouted ahead, engaging anything she found before the rest of us arrived. She cleared three more skitterers that loitered around.

Henrik glared at us all, motioning at how we were supposed to hold formation. He didn't say it though. He knew no one would listen. Liu Wei observed everything with distant, academic interest. He touched nothing, approached nothing, and made sure he walked through open space, probably to not get his robes dirty. Sarah appeared to be the least happy, trying to actually go in front, motioning Yukiko to cover behind her. To no avail. I walked through the center until I spotted a nice pile of black metal.

Melted scraps, most likely. I motioned Astarielle to come. She walked to me, motioning at her mouth.

"You may speak," I said.

"Phew," she added.

"These things give me the creeps. You could make anything in a factory, so why did they make such ugly insects? It didn't have to be kittens, but something like small dogs would have been so much nicer." I pointed at the metal.

"We need to take this. Pick up as much as you can, and drop it at your place. We will take three rounds."

"You really need to get someone for manual labor. I am not the type." She stepped to the pile with an expression of infinite annoyance, and she picked up a part of the pile. I unsummoned her. She vanished in a burst of crimson flame, together with the metal. I gave her a few seconds, then resummoned her. She appeared in a burst of crimson flame, stepped on the pile, and picked up another set. I unsummoned her once more.

"Fascinating," Henrik said, suddenly standing next to me without a word.

"I suppose you have tested this already." I jumped in my skin. For a mage, he moved pretty silently.

"I have," I said, resummoning Astarielle.

"For as long as they can survive in Hell until we extract ourselves, I can move things from the tower to Earth."

"My place isn't that bad!" Astarielle pouted, picking up another part of the pile. I unsummoned her.

"I suppose I don't need to say your power completely violates the internal principles of this place," Henrik added. Oh, I knew.

"Not just this one."

"And yet you cannot get a rusted bug off you without external assistance." Well, true. I resummoned Astarielle.

"I always have that assistance." Combat echoed from up ahead. We turned in that direction. Yukiko and Sarah were engaged with what looked like large drones, made for construction, using their drills, hammers, and lasers for weapons. Sarah just hit one, an explosion of white flame tearing it apart.

"Interesting," Henrik said.

"Let us observe." I glanced at Astarielle, who already had a large ball of crimson flame floating above her palm.

"Save it." Liu arrived at Sarah. He landed on the second drone. Golden energy exploded from underneath his foot, blowing up the drone's insides. The final drone fell into two parts, cut cleanly through the middle, with Yukiko appearing behind it. [ENEMIES DEFEATED — CORRODED DRONE (3)] [Drops: Large Corroded Chitin (Common) (3), Servo Arms (Common) (7), 27 copper] Well, that solved itself. I had enough steel, so I headed after them. Henrik did too, his glasses shining with a new set of scans.

We earned a new set of glares from Sarah and Yukiko.

"I hope the enemies haven't disturbed you," Yukiko shouted after us.

"Not at all," Henrik replied, just before Astarielle managed to shout something back. We regrouped. The drones looked like the skitterers, just larger. Biomachines created to forge other biomachines.

"If we could find a functioning computer," Henrik said.

"It could be useful to bring it back to Earth. Our civilization would benefit from whatever bio-mechanical technology this is." We all looked over the hall. Nothing here looked functional. Liu motioned with his head toward the drone Yukiko cut in two.

"That one appears to be fairly reconstructible. While it may not be a blueprint with up-to-date documentation, we cannot always plan our steps around perfect conditions." Sarah frowned.

"Everything we take vanishes with our extraction. How precisely do you plan to take anything in a useful form?"

"Through Hell," Henrik replied.

"Literally." I glanced at Astarielle.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the point." She walked to the cut-apart drone and grabbed one half with each of her hands. I unsummoned her. She vanished into crimson flames, together with the drone. After a few seconds, I resummoned her. She appeared alone.

"Heavens above!" Sarah exclaimed.

"That is beyond unnatural."

"It is also highly practical," Henrik replied.

"Mages…" Sarah turned, continuing up ahead. We continued on ahead. The factories almost felt like replays of each other. We encountered random skitterers, a lone drone or two. I waited for a good opportunity. When we were getting through an almost blocked hallway, I fell a touch behind, let Astarielle go in front of me, and summoned the lantern. I stretched it behind me and activated it. After a few seconds, teal light converged from behind us into the lantern.

Soul fragments lasted for about half a day, and my lantern had a few miles of range, so it should get everything we killed. Once the flying lights stopped, I unsummoned the lantern and caught up. This was one thing that Sarah really didn't need to see. Nor anyone else, for that matter. Some things were easier hidden than explained. We descended through a collapsed stairwell into a deeper level. The air changed, colder, with a chemical edge that burned the nose.

The bioluminescent fungi gave way to strips of light embedded in the walls, flickering on and off in dying patterns. Some kind of ancient lighting system, still partially functional. The flickering revealed a broader tunnel, wide enough for a train. Rails ran along its floor, corroded but recognizable. We followed the tracks. The tunnel curved and opened into a station platform. The platform had benches, faded signage in a language I didn't recognize, and a dried fountain in its center. A dog barked from up ahead.

He bolted toward us. Biscuit?