A Mercenary at the Gates Pt. 3
"How did you do it?" the man mutters to himself, Aloy catching his words on the wind as she cautiously approaches him. "How did you transform?"
He searches the machine over, his hand skimming over the metal until he finds an ideal spot to start tearing apart wires with a knife. He strips away brackets, bolts, springs and the like until he finds what he was looking for: a peculiar device that is no bigger than the palm of his hand, hidden under armour plating, in pristine condition despite all the wounds inflicted on the machine. He turns it over, examines it at every angle, even prods it with his knife a few times.
"So this is how. But how does it work?" he murmurs. Aloy watches him from a distance. Whatever he's seeing, it was through his Focus and isn't popping up on her display. He tucks the device away in a small metal case strapped to his belt. It was hard to tell if he was satisfied with it or not with his helmet still on.
Aloy decides on a greeting. "You fought well, outlander. Not many people come all the way to the Nora gates to kill a machine like that."
The man looks up at her. "I tracked this machine here." He then stands up. His full height is a whole head taller than her, and imposingly so with his broadened shoulders. Or maybe it's just the armour. "I also happen to hunt machines like this for a living."
"Yeah, I can tell, with all that armour on you," Aloy quips. She wants to justify just how ridiculous the amount of armour he has on, but she doesn't. On every limb is a piece of metal, either forged from a smiths or scrapped from machines. His chest plate, for example, is forged, decorated with machine parts at the centre and either side, and laced across his chest is a thick belt strap. His knees, shins and forearms are also covered in machine parts, and draped down his right leg and back hip is a long piece of rough fabric that almost reaches the ground, decorated with metal plates, and his left leg is almost completely encased with fitted machine armour. The only vulnerable spot Aloy can see is his midriff, bare except for obvious under clothing.
"It's lighter than it looks," the man replies. He reaches up and takes his helmet off. Intriguingly, the plates that hold the face mask together slide back to reveal a mouth, eyes and nose. But with the helmet fully removed, Aloy finds a man with long raven hair swept to one side, and there's a closely shaven spot on the left side of his head, dyed red with a long braid bordering it. His eyes are a deep blue, a shade she has never seen before, and short facial hair that covers his jaw and around his lips. The profound red line of paint that crosses his left eyebrow and conjoins the red in his hair is intriguing.
"Name's Vale. Machine hunter, as you can tell," he greets with a neutral expression, but the tone of his voice suggests humbleness.
"I'm Aloy. I also hunt machines," she says with an equal tone. Vale's eyebrows scrunch together in confusion.
"Aloy? Are you sure it's not Elisabet Sobeck?"
Aloy can feel her blood shoot through her veins.
"Where did you hear that name?" she asks without skipping a beat.
"In some ruins, in a land far away from here, where I hail from. I found your image there. It had your name and your location. It seemed like a message," Vale explains. His face remained static, like he just hasn't stumbled upon her greatest secret.
Which, clearly, he was unaware that he had.
"What did the message say?"
"It said; Elisabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime," he relays.
Aloy exhales slowly and tries to understand what this man had heard, and it isn't hard. There were only a few select times where she had heard that phrase. But she didn't just hear it; she spoke it.
It was at the battle of the Spire. She had to give her credentials as Elisabet to activate Alpha privileges and purge Hades. She hadn't realize that the message had been recorded. She didn't mean to. Then how…?
"I thought you were saying your own name, but I guess that's not the case?" he says. Aloy rests her hands on her hips.
"It's… complicated," she replies and looks the man in the eye. "Why are you here, Vale?"
Vale hooks his helmet to his belt and crosses his arms. "I want to stop the Derangement," he states. "Something tells me you can help with that."
She doesn't know how to react at first. It's the opportunity she's been waiting for for months. To stop the angry machines from becoming a threat to all humanity, this was it. In the form of a stranger who knew her, by name, and had a Focus, meaning he must have understand the world on some level. But of course this came to a tricky situation. His knowledge was bordering on personal matters and his real motives were unknown to her. But this was a chance she had to take. She couldn't sit and wait forever.
"I… can. At least I think," she finally tells him. "But there's some things we need to talk about first."
Vale nods. "I agree. I imagine you have as many questions for me as I do you. Can we meet somewhere and chat?"
It's Aloy's turn to nod. "There a hill to the north not far from here, inside of the Embrace. You can meet me there and we can talk. I'l let the Nora know you're welcome inside the gates with my permission."
"What? Are you the chieftain or something?"
"Not exactly, but they'll listen to me. I'll see you in a few hours, Vale," she says and turns and leaves back for the wall. She wishes she had said sooner. Vale seems like an interesting character. He had come a long way, so there is obviously some strong will and determination behind him. She wants to know more.
And most importantly, she wants to know how he was led here. To her.
… … …
Aloy later finds him sitting alone on top of the hill exactly where she had been sitting earlier that day, when Varl had found her. After helping the Nora braves snuff out the fires on the wall — which took the better part of the afternoon — and talking to Varl about their new visitor, Aloy left eagerly to meet him at their agreed designated spot.
The man is staring out at the vastness of the Embrace. The sun is dipping into the mountains, throwing the sky into an orange arrangement and the clouds into a fitting pink cotton flavour. Vale looks like he's swatting when she first spots him in the distance, but as she gets closer she realizes he is playing with his Focus. It reminds her how conscious she had to be when using hers. Now that she witnessed someone else using one, she was aware of just how silly it looked. She approaches him carefully so as not to disturb whatever he's doing.
"You could say hi, instead of just staring."
So much for that.
"You seemed like you were busy," Aloy admits, a little startled by his attentiveness. She swore she hadn't made a noise.
"Just organizing some files. I haven't had the chance to do that yet. Haven't had this thing for very long so I'm still getting used to it."
"And yet you knew I was coming."
"The Focus points it out," he explains.
"Strange. Mine doesn't do that."
Vale gets to his feet slowly and Aloy realizes something else different about his Focus. It doesn't look quite the same as hers. There are two protruding antennae that stretch just beyond the lobe of his ear, one orange and the other black, and the light that it made wasn't a blue circular shape. It was a bright green colour, arranged in a half circle of odd shapes hover just above his ear.
"Mine's different. It has some… modifications to it," he explains.
"Where did you get it?" Aloy asks.
"In some ruins, different from the one that I found your image in, and there were dozens of them, all untouched. I picked up a couple and played around with them a bit." Vale opens one of the three pouches on his belt. Aloy is amazed to discover at least half a dozen Focus devices tucked away, normal ones like hers. They all look perfectly fine and undamaged.
"You don't look happy," Vale blandly points out. It was true. Aloy didn't like that at all.
"Carrying so many devices like that with you. Are you sure that's such a smart thing to do? Do you even know what they're capable of?"
"Relax, no one has touched these devices but me, and I've only been experimenting. I only keep valuable data on the one I wear." Vale closes the pouch. "I bet you got a lot of questions for me."
She takes a deep breath.
"I do. First, why exactly did you come all this way to find me? I know this isn't the most conventional spot in the world; hardly anyone outside the Nora tribe comes this far, but if you came all this way, your reasons must be important," Aloy says, and Vale nods. "Secondly, how did you find my image in some ruins? I've never been farther than the edge of Carja territory."
The man nods and his gaze drifts away from her for a moment and she comes to understand that he's contemplating how to answer her questions. Good, she wants to understand everything. Though she is eager to hear what he had to say, she wanted him to take the time to explains things right.
"Well, to answer the second question first, I found your image in the ruins of a fallen tower. But they weren't like any ruins I've ever seen. Not like the underground ruins of the Old One where everything is covered in dust and rock. This place still looked new. Black metal torn and twisted and wires hanging all over the place like the insides of a machine," he explains, "whatever attacked the tower had done it recently. Sparks were still flickering from the… inner workings, I suppose you could say."
"Black metal?" Aloy asks.
"Yeah. And at the base of the tower was some kind of wicked device." Vale scratches the back of his head. "I don't even know how to describe it. But at the time I had a Focus, and the thing was emitting a signal. When I scanned it, I found your message, and where you were sending it from."
"And it led you here," she guesses, but Vale shakes his head.
"No. It actually led me to the Spire in Meridian. And that's when I realized it."
"Wait, it took you to the Spire?" Aloy replies. Vale nods, and she can already see lines connecting in her head. "Then that means…"
"The ruins I was standing in was the wreckage of another Spire. I could tell when I saw the Spire here. The black metal. All the machinery underneath that shell. The resemblance was uncanny."
Aloy releases a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. "Well it makes sense. I did send out a signal from that Spire. I didn't think to realize that other towers would receive that same signal, but, I guess that's what happened. So then how did you know where I was from there?"
Vale shrugs. "I asked around. The machine tamer who saved Meridian from an army of corrupted, ancient machines was back in her homeland in the east, helping her tribe recover from a vicious attack by the Shadow Carja. I followed the road until I got to Hunter's Gathering, where a few Nora members were. They pointed the way and I came here."
"So it really wasn't that hard to track me down."
"No," Vale replies. "Though it just happened to be luck that we crossed each other right at the gates. I was warned in Hunter's Gathering that the Nora were weary of outsiders and to expect a tough time getting in."
"It's true. The Nora don't take kindly to strangers who come from the bigger world," she answers flatly.
"You speak like you aren't a part of them."
"I'm not," Aloy replies quickly, feeling her blood suddenly boiling at the thought and reminder that the she was not for the Nora tribe to claim. "I'm not really a part of anything.
"Yet you're here, and you dress like a Nora," the man states.
"It's better for hunting."
He shrugs. "Makes sense."
"You still didn't answer my first question," she reminds him with strained patience.
"Right. Well the reason I sought you out was I figured you knew something. Right before I entered the ruins to the tower, I had to take down a massive machine that had risen from the ground. It wasn't like anything I've ever seen. Big guns mounted on either of its sides, missiles, not like the plasma charges off a Ravager's cannon. These were solid objects that flew faster than my eyes could track."
Hearing this, Aloy's breath hitches in her throat.
So the Deathbringers really had risen all over the world.
"You fought a very dangerous machine, Vale. It took armies of men to take down just a couple of them, and even then the losses were too great," Aloy says grimly.
"I know. I didn't fight alone. I had friends… that fought that thing beside me, but they died in that battle," Vale speaks, in a low and hard tone. Though his gaze never falters from hers, Aloy could see the hurt in his eyes, masked by a steady face.
"I'm sorry, Vale," she says and can't help keeping his gaze. Her eyes drop to the ground and passively rubs her arm. "I wish I could have been quicker in getting the signal out."
"It can't be helped. Besides, the residents in Meridian explained to me that you fought so fiercely that you almost managed to defeat one all by yourself. They say some pretty wild things about you."
"Who exactly did you talk to?"
"Well one woman in particular claims she was right there with you, said you could've take on the whole army. Her name was Talanah."
Aloy smiles despite herself. "Yes, she was there in the final battle. I couldn't have done it without her. Without any of them."
"So what do you know about those machines?" Vale asks.
"Hold on, Vale. I have another question for you about something you mentioned earlier," she interrupts. "When we first met you said you had tracked that machine all the way to the gates of the Embrace. Where exactly did you track it from?"
"I tracked it from the mountains in the north. It's the first of its kind I've ever seen," Vale answers. "It was looking to kill you."
"How do you know that?"
"My Focus can tap into the radio harness inside machines. I can find orders, function duties, sent messages. This machine that I tracked had a kill order on one Elisabet Sobeck, which led me to believe that was who you were. But you say you're not. Why would the machine confuse you with someone else?"
"I probably know why," Aloy admits. "But it's…" she hesitates to tell this man exactly why the machine would mistake her as the scientist of the Old Ones. But it was a personal issue. She had never told that to anybody, and certainly not to a stranger she just met.
Vale seems to be reading her mind.
"Complicated?" he guesses.
She nods. "Yes. I know you came a long way for answers, Vale, but this is a personal secret that I'd rather not share. Not yet, anyway."
"Fine," Vale says, a neutral tone, but his face was soft. "Besides, that's not really my concern. What really concerns me is the machines. They're not just becoming dangerous, they're a threat. I want to know if there's anything we can do about it."
"And you really think I can help?" Aloy asks.
"Well you must know something. You managed to stop an army from tearing up Meridian, after all," Vale points out.
Not just Meridian, but the world, Aloy thinks to herself. She sighs outwardly and looks at the ground. Vale's presence almost feels intrusive. Here he was, finding her on a whim that she might know how to stop the machines. Like she hadn't tried to even understand how to begin that task for the past several months.
But this is the lead she needs. To bring Gaia back online, it looks like she would need to deal with the derangement of the machines first.
"All right, Vale. I think I know where to start. Tell me where you found that machine that tried to kill me. If I can follow it back where it came from, I might be able to get some answers."
Vale nods, a small grin on his face. "And I will. On one condition: I get to come with you."
"I'm faster on my own," she declines, but Vale shook his head.
"No, I don't think you know what I mean when I say that. The Derangement is getting worse. Machines don't just attack on sight anymore; they actively seek us out. You need someone who can watch your back and I'm that guy," Vale explains. Aloy is about to give him a reason to not go, but he continues, cutting her off, "I know how to handle machines, and I've worked with a team before. I'm not gonna slow you down. Besides, I didn't come all this way just to be told by some girl that I can't go with her. I need to see this through. Not just for myself, but for the friends who helped me get here."
Aloy pauses herself, her earlier reason now seeming insufficient. She would really prefer to do this herself. If this involved any of the self-aware sub functions of Zero Dawn, then that could lead her on a journey to finally find them, learn to communicate with them, and bring them back to the Gaia Prime site that lay in the mountains in the northwest. She could bring Gaia back online.
But then this man had already come so far. It seemed unfair to tell him to leave. And after everything he had lost, denying him this chance would feel like a crime.
Aloy nods in understanding. "Alright, Vale. Guess we'll back traveling together."
"Good to hear it," he says. There was no sign of excitement on his face except for the small smile he had on in acknowledgment of her answer, and a keen eye that hints at determination. Aloy can sense he isn't just looking for adventure. He is looking for answers.
And they were going to discover them together.
"But before we go, you need to explain yourself. I need to know more than just your name."
"You don't trust me."
"I want to," she insists, "if we're going to do this. And I'm sure you've heard plenty about me already."
"I see," Vale scratches his chin and his eyes wander in thought. "Well, where do I start? Ah, let's sit down. This might take a bit."
So the two of them settle on the cliff overlooking to valley of the Embrace. The sky is beginning to darken, the vast orange slowly turning to blue and darkening. Vale begins with his origins, where he comes from, what kind of people he lives with; a tribe called the Lakota. Aloy had never heard of a tribe like that, but if he was anything to go by, they were a hardly people.
Vale explains that they are a working tribe. They built things and made stuff, sometimes for other tribes. It gives the impression that they're related to the Oseram, but he swears they are anything but. His people are much more quiet.
"Where exactly do you come from?" she asks.
"From the West, beyond the desert," he answers.
"Wait, so you came from the Forbidden West? Across the desert? I've read accounts where people go mad trying to cross it, or don't cross it at all."
"Well those people weren't prepared. I was," Vale says, picking at the grass on the ground. "It still took me almost two weeks just to cross it."
"Okay, but… how?"
"I know how to process chillwater into regular water. And in the desert, Glinthawks are everywhere, picking at old scrap or the carcasses of machines that can't stand the environment."
"Glinthawks carry a canister of chillwater on their bodies," Aloy points out.
"Making water easy to access. I carried compact rations for food and tried to avoid machines as best as I could. I had to bury myself and wait two days for a herd of worm-like machine to make its nest and move on."
The Nora's eyes widen. "What kind of machine was it?"
"Don't know, I never got close enough to see. It was maybe the size of a Ravager. Still, I ran out of rations in the last stretch, maybe lost a couple stones of muscle because of it. I'm not looking forward to going back."
He went on further to explain what the land looked like. A range of dry mountains separated his home from the desert to their east, and to their west, the great ocean. The village he came from was right at the shore, perched up on a hill with a great view of it. Aloy tried to imagine what it looked like, but her best reference to go off of was the great lake that separated the Sun and Shadow Carja.
"Wait, so did you meet the Shadow Carja first?" she inquires.
"Yes," he replies with a roll of his eyes. "I thought they were all just baked from too much heat from the sun, but I guess they really are all Crazy Carja."
"Is that what you call them?"
"Don't they seem a little fanatic to you? Raving about their great sun god all the time."
Aloy doesn't say anything to that, mostly because she agrees to it.
"How did you learn to hunt machines? I've never seen anyone fight like you do."
Vale shrugs. "A few people taught me. When I first left home I realized I had to learn how to survive, so I sought out the best in the world, masters throughout the land. They taught things like stealth, strength and technique."
"And you're weapons?"
Vale unhooks the weapon strapped to his back, the hammer he had used in the battle earlier. It's shorter than she remembers. But then he sticks the pointy end in the ground and the shaft extends. The hammer at the end clicks into place and a spark sends a vent of flames upwards, engulfing the hammer head and giving them a source of light in the growing darkness.
"I made that myself," he says with pride. "Found a tinkerer who taught me some basic stuff, and the rest I learned by experimenting."
"What about the other thing on your back?"
It was hard to miss it. The giant plate of armour that was also strapped to his back, shaped like a diamond. It's a shield, she realizes. Not maybe warriors use them, in fact Aloy can't recall if she's ever seen someone use them. He removes it from his back and Aloy is fascinated by the harness of wires and handles mounted behind the face of the shield.
"It's a work in progress, this piece. I've been stripping machines off parts to make it fit onto this."
"What's that?" Aloy points to the length of machinery that's mounted down the length of the shield. It looked familiar.
"Stalker cannon. I killed a Shell Walker recently, stole one of the shield modules off its arm, but I can't make it work with the cannon. Short circuits it."
"And the rope that I saw you use before?"
"One of my first projects," Vale pats his side where the neat roll of rope hangs. She can see a tangle or red and black wires. "High voltage conductive wire, tied to a sparker at the end."
"How do you avoid getting shocked?"
"Gloves made of non conducive material." The man holds up his hands, fingers widespread to show her. The gloves have metal plating covering the back of his hand and the knuckles, but otherwise completely covered in black leather. "Good grip for climbing, too."
"Oh. Interesting."
There was a pause in the air, which Vale is immediately aware of and looks at her.
"No more questions? You sure ask a lot."
Aloy shakes her head stretches her legs. "No, that's all I can think of for now. And besides, it's getting late, and I want to be well rested for the journey ahead. I'll take you to Mother's Heart. They have a lodge you can sleep in."
"They'll just let me?" Vale asks.
"Oh, they will, once I tell them to," she reassures him. Vale gets his feet and turns to face her in one easy motion.
"You sure you're not a chieftain or something?" he inquires, and again Aloy's mind buzzes with annoyance. Blast it all, she just wanted to forget about how the Nora worshipped her.
"No, I'm something much worse. Now follow, I'll show you the way."
Managed to shove in a weekend update before I got too carried away, and it's a dialogue-heavy one. I'm in the middle of chapter 11 right now with three more planned for sure, so I see a busy week ahead of me. I'm also trying to draw up a portrait of my OC Vale where it might be posted on DeviantArt or somewhere. I'm a traditional artist, so don't expect a ditigal masterpiece. BUUUUT if someone offered to do that by the time I'm done that it would be absolutely amazing.
Oh, and if you're wondering, this is the last part of this arc. If this were a video game, this would be the end of the questline. On that note, there will be 'sidequests'/intermissions as well. Anyways, enjoy!