The Serpent Mechanical

Sari raised her warder’s staff as soon as the lens turret popped into view although she realized just as quickly that the confines of the room the racks and the other people made it almost useless as a way to create wards. There wasn’t room to swing without hitting something. The turrets blasted the room with a wave of crimson lumi before she had a chance to think anything else.

The heat from the attack was stifling and Sari immediately stepped back into the previous room. The near freezing temperature in the cobalt chamber stole away most of the heat, dulling the pain, and she pressed one side against the wall so the surface could wick away more. Vara and Bertran piled back through the door right behind her.

Toff had projected his light spear, holding the shaft of ochre energy with the spearhead pointed towards the door. However, the room was still fairly crowded and now it was smokey, too, so he hesitated. A second flash of angry red light flashed through the doorway and the air crackled and snapped as it heated and cooled rapidly.

Sari flipped her staff around so the cobalt lumi in the base was pointed towards the doorway. Then she peered into the room again. The cloth belts on the racks were either burning or ash and the four men remaining in the room were crammed into one half of the room while a thrashing mechanical serpent slowly pulled itself through the hatch.

Norin and Chestin were keeping it at bay with their warding gloves for the moment. However, all five in the room were clearly bewildered at what they were seeing. Sari couldn’t blame them. She’d heard stories from Franz but he’d always been sparing on the details of the creatures he’d seen. Perhaps that was because they were so bizarre.

The thing slowly forcing its way through the hatch at the far side of the room looked less like a living being and more like a pile of hoses, springs and gears brought to life. The most unsettling part was its head. While it didn’t have anything that corresponded to a skull or mouth the creature did have an obvious feature that denoted where its body came to an end. That feature was a blazing crimson lumi reservoir nearly three feet across. It was held in place by a bracket with five metal tines that was clearly the power source for the lens turret that rested atop the crystal, perched almost like a jaunty hat.

A hat that fired another stream of blisteringly hot lumi at Norin’s weakening barrier.

Dart lifted his light spear as soon as the lenses ceased firing, bellowing, “Release the ward!”

At his shout Norin and Chestin lowered their gloves, dispelling the ward, and dashed back towards the doorway. Dart flicked his guide ring towards the serpent machine and his light spear struck. The shaft of light shimmered and stretched, driving the spearhead forward to crash into the mass of hoses at the serpent’s core in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately that didn’t seem to harm the creature in any way.

It did draw its attention from the fleeing men to Dart. Or, at the very least, it turned the turret on its head from the fleeing men towards the warden, though it did not strike immediately. It just kept pulling more and more of its wriggling, hose and spring body out of the hatch. With a solid twenty feet of its body in the room the gears along its body released, dropping to the floor and spinning, the teeth of the gears pulling its body forward in jerky, thrashing movements.

Dart yanked back on the shaft of his light spear, summoning its spearhead back to his hand. Then he, too, turned for the door. As he dashed past Trick the other man hefted his odd sword, adjusting his grip and causing the blade to glow with a soft, white luminescence. As the serpent’s body lurched over a metal rack, smashing it into scrap, Trick stepped forward and hacked at it.

The blade impacted with the serpent’s body and bounced back with a sharp crack. Trick was thrown back in a shower of violet light, flying into a corner of the room a dozen feet from the door. He slid to the floor, looking dazed. Once again the serpent’s focus shifted. Its gears scraped against the floor with an awful noise and its bulk wound sideways towards him.

Sari tapped her staff with her ground ring, cutting the crimson crystal at the tip out of the loop, then snapped the base forward with her guide ring engaged, throwing a solid blast of ice and cold from the cobalt reservoir in its base. The cold beam washed over the serpent, briefly freezing it in place. Chestin took the opportunity to dash into the room again, grab Trick under the arms and start dragging him towards the doorway.

The serpent turned its turret lenses on the frozen section of floor and burned the ice away. However the lenses couldn’t recharge in time to fire again before Chestin dragged Trick out into the cold room, with Dart helping him the last few feet. Once free the serpent ground forward again, only to stop short when the head of Toff’s light spear struck its turret directly.

Sari stooped to look at Trick and found he was already starting to push himself up with his legs. “He’s coming around,” she said. “Get him on his feet.”

The two dragging him paused long enough to lift him upright. Trick swayed once but stayed that way under his own power so they let him go. Shaking his head he said, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Not the time for that,” Sari said, although she did have to admit it was strange. If Brossius was correct and his sword did somehow use Imperial lumi it shouldn’t have been stopped by a conventional ward, no matter how much lumi the serpent could theoretically put into it. Yet the amethyst flash when his truck it suggested some kind of ward had blocked the attack. What was that thing?

Whatever it was, it didn’t like the look of the cold room because before moving through the doorway its turret fired a very long blast of crimson power into the floor. The metal outside the door creaked and groaned as it began to glow red. The air snapped and shrieked horribly. They all scrambled back from the door, scattering on either side of the stairwell and using the small pillars and the stairs as makeshift cover.

Trick and Sari wound up together, watching the serpent emerge through the doorway onto the superheated floor. As it did, Trick pointed to a gash on the flank facing them, where violet light still gleamed through the shrinking wound. “It heals itself,” he said. “Didn’t you say verdant lumi is usually the source of accelerated healing?”

“It is,” she confirmed. “Although that’s hardly a usual creature.”

“Right…” Trick studied the creature for a moment, then said, “I got an idea. But first, do you know anything about those gauntlets Norin and Chestin use?”