The Alchemist's Lair: Part 13

With the fight over, it was time to go on. I tended to my allies’ wounds, as well as my own, as best as I could. The limit of my ability was stopping the bleeding, at least temporarily. All the experienced medics in our expedition were a part of Nixon’s unit, so I had to hope they were alive and well, and that I would be able to find them. Annabel was not versed in healing spells – these are among the most complex incantations a wizard can learn – and even if she was, she was incapable of casting them at the moment, for reasons I will get into soon.

I realized two of the bandits were still breathing – one electrocuted by Rhombus, one knocked unconscious by me. Quickly, I tied them up. Then, I carefully moved all the wounded to a nearby room and partially sealed the door, similarly to what I did when we left Civet and the others behind. I was aware that moving them in their condition might make things worse, but I wanted to mitigate the risk of other bandits finding them, and I couldn’t stay back guarding them and hoping our allies would arrive. Then, it was time to deal with Annabel.

She was curled up in a corner, sobbing quietly. Just like myself, she was at this time a complete newbie to life-and-death combat, but until now, she was handling it well in spite of being obviously stressed. The unfortunately cruel way in which she had killed the bandit leader, however, broke her. And understandably so, as the poor fellow spent the last minutes of his life getting boiled alive inside his own armor like a lobster. I immediately sprang to action after he expired, at least in part to try and not think about the gradually weakening howls of pain that would haunt my nightmares for years to come.

Annabel noticed me approaching. “I–I didn’t want to – I mean, he was an enemy, but”, she managed to speak between sobs, “nobody should die like that”.

I sat down next to her. Comforting people was never my strong suit, but the situation being what it was, I had to try. “It’s not your fault”, I said, not sounding particularly convincing. I was mostly honest, however. All the cool wizards in various sagas and epic poems that were popular at the time shot fireballs at their enemies, and it would make sense that a sorcerer’s apprentice who, until now, learned magic in a safe and controlled environment would default to fire spells when suddenly plunged into combat, not being aware of just how messy it could make the demise of her adversaries.

“Am I a terrible person?”, she kept crying, “I’m a monster, aren’t I!?”

“Don’t be so dramatic”, I gave her an awkward hug, hoping it would help calm her down, “You’re no monster. You did what you deemed best at the moment, and it had some... unfortunate consequences, but you also might’ve saved all our lives”.

“Oh, I’m sure that makes it fine!” she exploded angrily, “I didn’t mean to do it, so no need to feel guilty. He was running away! Maybe he wouldn’t return, but I just had to do it!”

I decided to change my approach slightly. “It’s normal to feel guilty”, I admitted, “It’s complicated. We can talk about it as much as you want later. But right now, I would appreciate it if you could tough it out for just a little longer. We are the only ones in our group who can move. It’s up to us to contact the soldiers and get help, or our allies may die!”

This seemed to work better. Annabel took a few deep breaths, then quietly mumbled “Ok”. Soon enough, she was back on her feet, still looking as if she was about to break down in tears, but managing to keep herself together. Just like with Rhombus and Gandor, I administered first aid, but she would need proper help later.

We made our way through the corridors, which had gone eerily silent in the meantime. The map we had was in places stained with blood, but it was better than nothing, so I did my best to follow it. I was using my metal rod as a walking stick, since my leg still wasn’t working properly, and I picked up Goyko’s axe, in case we ran into any hostiles.

Turning around one corner, I spotted another machine and quickly retreated. However, not hearing the familiar sound of metallic footsteps, I took another peek and realized that its red eye wasn’t glowing. Whatever its power source was, after millennia of dormancy, this was as long as it could last. The facility as a whole still had a good few hours at this point, but the individual machines had expired.

Feeling a bit safer, we pressed forward until we heard approaching footsteps. I readied my axe, waiting for them to approach, and stopped myself from swinging a moment before cutting down Sergeant Nixon. His left arm was bandaged up.

“Good to see you”, remarked the sergeant, then, after observing us more carefully, added, “You look like hell”.

“We ran into a large group of bandits, and their leader”, I explained, “They gave us quite a fight”.

He nodded. “He’s accounted for then. Good. To my knowledge, the bandits are by now dead or routed, and those machines that appeared have powered down. We’ll continue sweeping the floors until we find the rest of our comrades”.

Later on, the sergeant explained to me how they got out of the predicament Iocasta had left them in. The stalemate lasted until the facility powered up, at which point it turned out one of the machines was in the room where the soldiers were holed up. Before they could react, it vaporized one of the men, but the rest, professional soldiers that they were, ganged up on it and restrained its movement. The sergeant then came up with an outrageous plan. He barely got through this part of the story through fits of laughter, but I doubt the bandits found the events quite as amusing.

Nixon grabbed the machine around the waist, then, keeping all the men behind him, advanced into the corridor, pushing the automaton in front of him. The bandits, realizing there was some sort of commotion going on, attempted an assault, but were greeted by a hail of energy bolts. Some of the bandits kept composure and fired back, one managing to hit Nixon in the arm, at which point he lost grip of the machine. Thankfully, at this point, it was fixated on the brigands as a target and continued advancing in that direction, eventually routing the enemy.

The soldiers were now able to exit the room and started sweeping the facility, picking their fights and letting machines and bandits take each other out whenever possible. During this process, they ran into us.

I told him how to find the two groups of Treasure Hunters’ members, and he directed me towards the surface. We made our way up and found a couple of the soldiers setting up camp in the entry hall. I found a place to sit down and pretty much collapsed, feeling the adrenaline leave my body. It was over.