16 - Back to the Ruins

"Well, I might as well go get the parts next."

"Really?" Krea gave her a hard part on her shoulder, "When you're beat up, you want to go back into danger."

"Ow ow ow...., well that's why I want to go; I'll have you to watch me." she raised her hands up in defense as Krea brought her hand up again, "EASY EASY you wouldn't hit a patient would you?"

"Sometimes giving a patient some pain helps them to realize not to do something stupid."

"Okay okay; there is another reason I want to go. I overheard the bandits talking while I scouted them out. They beat up a couple of the robots and were storing them in a room inside the ruins cause they couldn't bring them all out at the same time. So I'd like to go try and find them before either someone else does or any of their friends do."

Krea cupped her chin, mulling it over. It was a bit of a risk to let Zaya back out into danger like that. She seemed healthy enough after the healing, no long term harm, but this was pushing it.

And it was a risk for Zaya too. She wasn't sure what Krea would do with the colony but she wanted to see a few things and to do that she needed one of her 'targets' to get closer to the pool.

"We'll go; IF you agree that we turn around the moment I say so."

"YES Mom." Zaya said, sticking her tongue out in a cheerful manner.

She was surprised when Krea leaned in and captured not only the tongue, but her lips too with a kiss. And it was gone far too fast for her to take advantage of it. She grumbled before a small voice from the table got their attention.

"Well that sounds boring." Dalila stood up and stretched, "I'm gonna head back home; come find me if you want to have some fun again and make sure to bring the beer too! You owe us!"

Zaya agreed as the sprite fluttered upward and gave one last glare to Krea. With that she flew out through one of the windows before turning around and giving one last wave to her friend and a rude gesture to the other. At least it seemed like a rude gesture, she hadn't seen it before but Krea seemed to be rather annoyed by the motion. She chuckled, getting the attention of the Druid.

"You two don't get along do you."

"I keep trying to reign her pranks in over the few years I've been here, so she's gotten bitter about the whole thing. The result is she and her friends prank me, or try to get me into trouble. Few people believe them but it's a hassle to explain no, it wasn't the crazy druid lady in the woods doing this random thing to you, it's the Sprites." came the huffed out reply.

"So she's annoying but so long as she stays away, we get along fine. And she can be cute and sweet if you get her on a good day so I can't fault her too much. No if you want someone I get mad at, I could go on about a few of those Valar Engineeers. Agh such jerks; they always over cut when going for wood and I swear they're starting to poison the woods too; that's one reason I went for those goats, I wanted to make sure if it was the Ruins or the Valar doing it."

"I don't know too much about them myself, but if they're polluting the area, it's probably more to do with what they're working with from the ruins than ill intent on their part."

"I know Zaya..., unless they're one of those weird machine cults." Krea sat back down.

"There's machine cults? Weren't any where I was from." Zaya leaned forward. This was an interesting subject but what would they think about her? A living metal monster would be a messenger of the goddesses..., or a perversion of everything the cult thought?

"Eh, they tend to crop up in some of the more advanced cities or around ruins that were labs, factories, forges, and so on. However if the Valar are a cult; they're one of the more friendly ones. Usually cults would just take over the land and nearby settlements, putting the people to work with overseer machines. Not trading like the Valar are."

"Still the one I've been able to talk to often with is just so fucking annoying! Always 'progress' this and 'progress' that while bugging me with every little detail of what they can and can't do. Yes when I mean don't use the wood in this area I mean ALL THE WOOD, the fuck you mean you're trying to use the roots, STOP IT!"

Zaya just handed her a cup. She took the water and downed it in one gulp before slamming it back down on the table.

"Dalila's annoying but in the sense of 'annoying sibling' or that one class mage that nails you with a ball of paper from time to time. That Valar person is at this point a spiteful annoying asshat."

"And you're still good with going into the ruins with me to get some robot parts that will no doubt go towards them?" A bit of a smirk on Zaya's face.

The question hung there for a bit longer than she would have liked. She was about to try and change the topic when Krea spoke again.

"I'll be frank, I'm going for your health first, my own curiosity second, and helping them third. And that's only because I can't think of something else to put ahead of them." She stood up and reached for her staff, "So you better take advantage of my good nature and your cute ass before I change my mind."

"You find me cute?" that grin still didn't leave her face as she stood.

"Move you." Krea put a hand on Zaya's shoulder and started to shove her towards the door, "Otherwise I'm dragging you."

The trip to the ruins was faster than she had expected, something Krea had a hand in more likely. Her legs still felt sore but there was a bit of spring to her steps and the few animals that drew close simply let them walk past. Far easier than trying to dodge everything like Zaya had been in the few trips she'd done in the woods. They came to a halt near the edge of the ruins, where the remains of a long collapsed walled marked the boundaries of the site.

"So. Where are these bots?" Krea asked as she craned her neck around, "Probably someplace quiet and out of the way."

"From what I heard," Zaya took out a small notebook, another bit of loot she had grabbed from the bandits, "It was in a three story building. Near the middle of the site. So... that one." she pointed out the building where her colony was.

Technically, her building was four floors; if you counted the basement where the pool was. Most her control was still down in that basement and part of the first floor, but the second floor seemed like a copy of the first, and the third top floor, a bit smaller than the rest of the building, was probably designed for either bedrooms or maybe offices back when this place was used.

During the walk the first chance Zaya got to send a message, she commanded her minions to start gathering any robot corpses(shells?) into a room on the second floor. The idea was to get Krea to go up a level quickly which should be easy given some stairs were near two of the entrances, and grab some parts from the prepared room. This SHOULD hopefully prevent Krea from looking too in depth into the first floor or goddesses above, the basement.

She also made sure her minions would NOT attack Krea; she was here as a visitor and a guest until Zaya commanded otherwise. Her minions couldn't talk in English or whatever fantasy language they used here, but she could hear the disappointment in her minion's voice as they replied to her over the connection.

The pair made a hurried dash to the building in question as they didn't want something on the outside to catch them. Once inside the dim building, Krea tapped her staff against the ground twice which caused the tip to light up in a soft glow. That would be handy..., wait as part machine could she see in the dark? She hadn't tried that during the fight with the bandits but it wasn't like she came with a 'user manual' to look at. Maybe she could incorporate that into her abilities later.

"They mentioned something about putting the bots or well parts of bots on the second floor. Stupid lifting but out of the way." Zaya put her notebook away.

"Most the components people target tend to be smaller than the body." Krea started down one hall way, "So it would be easier to pull the parts out and go to the first floor.... though why they didn't just store the parts themselves away from the shells I don't know."

"Maybe they just did this to any robot they found on the second or third floor?"

"Maybe."

The pair made their way up the stairs once they found them. Zaya had to try and make it seem like she hadn't been here before and let Krea lead. For as much work as she did, the building still wasn't under her full control. Thus when having to deal with a zombie and some plant monster, she moved in with her daggers to distract the target while Krea used her own powers to deal with the threat. Could she just blast them? Sure but save for a bomb against a robot; she didn't want to show off her main skills less that attract more questions.

As it was she brushed it off as picking up a few things in alchemy. More for bombs and utility like smokebombs and flash ones. What, it was useful when doing sneaky stuff. Krea bought it for now but her face said 'well talk about this later'.

"Just so long as you don't go rob people.... and if I hear you give out stink bombs to the Sprites." Krea glared at her as they kept walking.

"I won't. I mean why do you think I'm out in the middle of no where; I got the wrong people interested in me." She answered with not quite a lie.

It took a bit to find the room, as Zaya didn't want to come off as randomly knowing where to go, so they wandered around a bit. Opening an out of the way door that was rotting by this point, Krea thrust her staff foward. The illuminated room showed off a number of destroyed machine monsters, in varying states of destruction. She had made sure that her minions took another swing at them in order to try and mask the actual way they were destroyed.

"Do you even know what you're looking for?"

"Anything that... UGH." Zaya paused to rip out something that looked like circuits out of one of the models, "That looks intact or functioning. Wires, boards, gears; stuff like that by the sound of it. Have a list to work with."

"I'm not ... comfortable with this. I'll just stand watch then." she shuffled back towards the door.

"Heard something about that. Druids don't like metal right?"

"Not so much 'don't like' but sort of swear off. Like someone swearing off of beer. The more removed from nature something is, the more we dislike it. Messes with natural order."

That was going to be a bit of a problem considering what Zaya was. She was about as unnatural as you could get. Well she'd have to deal with that whenever the truth came out. But before she could try to change the subject, she heard Krea move oddly. She looked up from her work and saw the Druid standing far more alert than before.

"What was that?"

"What's what?"

"Think I heard something. Stay here." Krea started to leave the room, while Zaya quickly tried to check on things.

"It's kinda dangerous to go running around...." her words were cut off when she heard the sound of Krea's magic flare up and something heavy impact something else.

"AH Fuck, get back here!"

She broke into a rush after Krea who was currently trying to chase someone or something else. More sounds of wood impacting stone and more wood was heard as she could picture Krea's large thorn magic being tossed after something trying to get away. It didn't take long for her to find her companion, standing over the crumbled body of... something. Looked like a large collection of vines, barbed ones, weaved together in a sort of four... armed, legged(?) creature. It twitched a few times before Krea dropped another summoned large rock on it.

"Bramblestrider. Foul things. They grow fast and out compete other plants, even buildings if left alone." she reached into her robes and produced two bottles, using her staff to crack the stone in half before it disappeared into smaller rocks, then gravel then nothingness.

She flicked one bottle onto the creature, coating it with oil as it broke open, before tossing the other. Zaya had to turn away from the flash as heat started to fill the hallway and the creature cried out in pain. Only to be silenced with another blow from Krea. She kept watch over the flames till the creature stopped moving as it slowly turned to ash in the fire.

"You HAVE to burn them; their bodies can make smaller ones and start the process over again if the main root survives, or if the secondary roots are strong enough." she turned back to Zaya once she was sure it was over, "I have to inspect the rest of the building now."

"Wait really? ... weren't you the one that..."

"Things. Have changed for me now." the stern reply came, "I do not want to be here any longer than I need to be. But I can't let a nest of these things breed away until there's too many to handle. You can go back to your metal shells, I'll won't be long."

"WHAT no I.... can't just leave you alone." Zaya was hurriedly trying to stuff the rest of her haul into whatever bags she had on her as she hobbled to keep up.

She didn't realize those things were that troublesome, otherwise she would have killed more of them. But they seemed to produce a good amount of fiber from what the Pool informed her, so she hadn't gone 'kill them all' on the plant creatures. She hurriedly tried to command her minions to not only get out of Krea's unexpected movements as she went around the building; but to try and kill some of the Bramblestriders. She even order two of her Repours to help out, if it could be done so quietly.

There had been another three on this floor before Krea was confident there wasn't any more. But Zaya didn't have time to relax, Krea wanted to head back down to the first floor and then, the basement.

"They prefer dim areas." Krea walked as she talked, "So I would like to inspect...."

"Can't we just make that a mission at the guild or whatever? Get some of the mercenaries to do this... or at least back us up? I'd feel much safer if there were more hands... and bodies in front of me." Her voice shaking.

"Zaya, you can return to town if you're that worried. I'll even give you a ward so that the animals don't bother you."

"I'm worried about the BOTH of us Krea."

"Beasts such as that won't be a... threat to... me...., hmmm."

Krea stopped and looked at the wall. Spefically where the brick wall started to give way... or rather be merged into the black metal the site was known for. She ran a hand over the wall, moving from the aged concrete to the smoothed metal, and back again. Her lips were pursed in thought as she looked down the hallway, tracing the web like cracks in the wall that showed the strange material under it.

"I think we might have a bigger problem." she walked in more speed in her step, forcing Zaya to walk faster.

"Why what's up?"

"I think there's more metal here than before. If that's the case, I think something else is growing here."

"Wait metal can grow?" "OH SHIT SHIT SHIT" was her external, and internal response. Zaya wasn't sure what to do about this; she couldn't let Krea find the pool but she couldn't also try and talk her into leaving. Not with a good reason. And she just didn't have one. There was... one idea that was creeping into her head but...

It also didn't help that Krea steps gained in speed as she followed the cracks, seeing how they were getting wider and clearer until the hallway was almost all that black metal, with only a few cracks showing the stonework under it. It all seemed to come from this room up ahead. Krea entered and used her magic to brighten the room. It was a wide room with a few rooms attached to it, looking like storage room, and a large opening in the middle of the room. She moved over to the edge and extended her light.

Several small shapes were illminated by the glow, their golden eyes staring back up at her. A pair of skeletons, black with a golden eye in the middle of their neck, shuffled forward, raising their arms and leaking fluid. And then in the middle of the room below was that massive dark pool that felt like she was looking at a starless sky.

"Bioferric....., I should have known. The hive must have been activated somehow..., or newly born." Krea started to summon more power into her staff. It would be rather easy to deal with, there only seemed to be a handful of defenders.

"Um..., Krea."

She turned to the voice of her friend, and for just a moment, lost her resolve. And in that moment, she felt herself be taken in an embrace and pushed over the edge.

It wasn't the sight of more of the small creatures coming out of the rooms. Nor more of those skeleton creatures appearing. It wasn't even the fact that Zaya had grabbed and kissed her in the first few seconds before she pulled Krea over the edge. None of that had made the Druid lose her nerve. It was Zaya's eyes that did that.

Those...., bright..., golden eyes so much like the creatures around them.

She only had that realization moments before they both hit the pool, the darkness enveloping both of them.

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