Journey to the Claim Pt. 2

Between the Sundom and Pitchcliff, there are several herds of machines to choose from. Really, they couldn't be picky. Just about every machine Aloy had encountered on her journey can be found along their path, from the small – a group of Broadheads that graze along the riverside where the grass was greenest – to the biggest – a Thunderjaw that circles just in sight of the path that leads up to the trial to Pitchcliff itself.

But Aloy decides they should try their luck with a more abundant herd first. If her memory was correct, and the worsening Derangement didn't change anything, they would come across a herd of machines just across the plains outside the hot atmosphere of Meridian's northeastern desolate canyons. That meant a full day and a half of traversing the terrain, and avoiding as much combat as possible.

Aloy begins to take note of the more erratic behaviour the machines are exhibiting, especially the hunter killer ones. They come across a pair of Ravagers on the road their first afternoon out of the city. The machines stalked the shadows and surveyed the surrounding area like they were looking for something, instead of shepherding the rather large herd of Grazers nearby. She could see no way around them without backtracking and losing time. They were encased in a red canyon that separated them from the plains of southern Oseram territory. So they planned their attack and destroyed the two larger machines as the rest of them fled, flushed out into the flat wilderness.

Vale stripped one of the Ravager cannons and tied the hunk of metal to his pack mounted on the Strider's back hump. He voiced that he wanted to experiment with a new missile weapon and trade it places with the Stalker cannon mounted to his shield. When they camped at the bottom of a hill that night, covered by a few trees, he had already torn away the outer casing and was ripping apart the cannon carefully, wire by wire. It always fascinated her to see how the components worked, how all the metal and electricity and fluids GAIA conjured together made a giant hunk of metal work like an animal. The way Vale picked apart the weapon with a practiced precision was utterly intriguing.

She had fallen asleep to the quiet clicks of his tools that night, and awoke to a blanket laid over her she didn't remember donning and the fire long burnt out.

When they make it out of the red rock canyons, they came upon the plains where they sit now, on top of a hill, Aloy propped up on one knee and Vale flat on his bottom, legs crossed. They are looking down on the herd of machines that dig out the ground near a river below.

"Lancehorns," Aloy confirms. She glances over at the silent mercenary. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I've see armourmen and smiths use them all the time. The horns have a part inside them that's perfect for your arrows."

She taps her Focus to gather the details. Alongside the Lancehorns, two Longlegs and two Tramplers also populate the area. She could understand the Tramplers presence; they populated flat terrain all over the map. But the Longlegs were new and a pair of them were a force to be reckoned with. Their agility and speed made up for the Tramplers slower movements. This wasn't just a random change; was a conscious maneuver to discourage other hunters from challenging the pack. Hephaestus was making things tough.

"There's no place for an ambush, and we'll scare off the smaller machines if we start attacking the bigger guys first," she observes. "We'll lose the Lancehorns if we attack at all."

"What if we drive them into traps?" Vale suggests, pointing to the banks of the river that are on the far side of the herd. "We can set up traps along the shoreline and drive them to the river. The machines won't cross the water, so they'll have to divert either left or right."

Aloy's gaze lifts to the river. The current is strong, still roaring with the mountain runoff from the winter thaw. He was right. Aside from maybe a Snapmaw, no machine would risk crossing the current.

"We can trip the ones that flee while we fight the ones that stay. Good plan. I have a tripcaster, so I'll set the traps."

Vale agrees and shifts himself so he also sits up on one knee. "I'll stay here and get ready to push the herd. Don't get caught."

She gives him a quiet snicker in response. "Don't worry. I know you had masters teach you stealth, but I've got plenty of years in experience behind me, too. I'll fire the first shot when I'm ready."

The huntress sneaks down the hill with her bow and tripcaster and creeps to the left side of the group of machines. The grass is tall and lush and allows her to sneak by mostly unnoticed. There are gaps in the grass, and with the machines on patrol she had to time her pacing. The Longlegs are tricky; they could use their sonic sonar to detect her if they spotted anything, and only once along her path she had to step back and cover her ears as a Longleg screeched randomly into the bush in front of her. It never notices her, but she was dazed by the piercing sound for several minutes.

After a few tense moments and a two-foot close call with one of the Tramplers, she successfully navigates the herd and finds herself at the riverbanks. She loads some explosive wire into the launcher and fires three tripwires across the shore and a blast trap for good measure, and then sneaks across the river to the other side of the herd and does the same. The Lancehorns casually graze about as the two Tramplers circle in front of them where Vale waits. She couldn't see him from where she was, but a quick Focus search reveals that he has snuck down the hill and was hiding in the tall grass, awaiting her signal.

Aloy loads two shock arrows onto her bow and watches as one of the Longleg machines walks in front of her. She can stun it and give them the edge for the first moments of the hunt. She quickly rearranges her quiver so that her hardpoint arrows are the easiest to reach, because those Tramplers are going to have to be dealt with fast.

When she's finally ready, she draws the bowstring back and aims at the Longleg machine closest to her. She waits until it is the furthest from the herd and fires, the arrows shooting electricity through the machines's circuits and dropping it like a sack of shards.

A loud snap cracks through the air, and then another. The other Longleg drops to the ground, also stunned. Vale raises to his full height and in his hand is his whip, glowing with blue electricity. Apparently he had surmised the same thing. The Lancehorns spook and the Tramplers raise their heads, eyes amber and alert. Aloy raises her bow.

The chaos was about to begin.

As the Lancehorns cry out and begin to run away, Aloy fires her first shots into the excavating drills of a Trampler, breaking the component right off the hinges. The machine roars and stomps its hooves on the ground. Its patrol partner senses its aggression and the processing core under its belly begins heating up, ready to attack.

The Lancehorns race past her in a stampede, none of them concerned about her as they flee the sound of crackling lightning from Vale's rope. When they reach the edge of the river, they stop, hesitate, and then the group splits in either direction, going either left or right. A few seconds later, Aloy can hear it. Explosions rip the machines to shreds, throwing parts and wires into the air as machines trigger the traps and explode at their legs, rendering most of them incapacitated and destroyed. Smoke and dust rise into the air. It was a spectacular sight.

She turns her focus back to the other machines. The Tramplers begin circling her, closing in as fire starts to expel from their bodies. She nabs one of her arrows and fires it at one of them, striking the hoof and causing the machine to trip and fall. She feels the ground shake and jumps to the side as the other Trampler careens past her from behind. She fires an arrow at the antennae on its back, but the machine only flinches and keeps going.

Vale is making quick work on one of the Longlegs. He has a long bladed weapon mounted on his forearm, slicing the machine across the neck while it is still paralyzed. The mercenary stops it from getting up by stomping on its leg, breaking the ligament in two like it was a twig, and rips his weapon through the machine's head, sparks flying all over. If it had been blood instead, she supposed it would have been a horrific sight. In fact, it was horrific. But these are machines, mechanized terraforming entities and not humans with souls and families to worry about.

At the same time, this was probably why Hephaestus hated them.

The fallen Trampler gets back to its feet and barrels towards her. Aloy grabs her tripcaster and aims for a spot on the ground. She manages to fire the first end of the wire before jumping out of the way of the machine's charge, giving her time to set the other end of the wire a few feet away. When the machine turns around, it faces her, digging its hooves in the ground.

"Come and get it!" she taunts, holding her arms wide and stomping her foot on the ground. It seems almost like a trick if the light, but she's sure that the machine's eyes burn with the fiercest red glow she's ever seen. The Trampler charges with much more malice than before. Aloy takes a few steps back as the huge machine trips the wire and sends an overwhelming force of electricity through its circuits. It falls on its face and skids across the ground right up to her feet, where she is holding up her spear and stabs out its eyes.

The other Trampler comes up behind her, but she jumps out of the way before it could bring its hooves down on her. She turns on a heel and strikes the side of the machine's face. It hardly seems phased and immediately knocks her aside with its one good horn. Aloy turns her momentum into a back roll and lands on her feet, quickly dodging the flying rocks the machine throws her way with its explosive stomp attack.

One of the Longlegs gets up and lets out a raging screech into the air. It joins the Trampler's side so she faces two machines instead of one.

Before she could curse her luck, Vale joins her side, his whip crackling. She could see through the blue visor in his helmet that they share a look. With the two of them facing the two machines, they could end this battle quickly. But they were mismatches like this.

"Switch me places," Aloy demands. He doesn't argue, and now she is standing in front of the Longleg while Vale faces the Trampler. She can't hope to match the Trampler's strength, but she can keep up with the agility of the Longleg. The match is set.

She charges for the machine as Vale snaps his whip to get the Trampler's attention. It bellows and charges right at him, but he doesn't move until the last second, throwing his rope around the machines's front legs and watching it topple over past him. When the dust clears, the Trampler can be seen squirming with its restraints, but it isn't long before it manages the break the rope, the blue electric current giving one final jolt that explodes in sparks right where the rope had broken, causing damage to the machine. The Trampler roars again and pounds the ground, sending dirt and gravel flying at Vale like bolts. He manages to block them with his shield just in time.

Aloy focuses on the Longlegs. The taller machine lunges at her, closing the distance between them in mere seconds with its jet wings. Aloy blocks its sharp beak with her spear, the force pushing her back several feet. The concussion sacs on the machine's chest expand and Aloy knows what it was about to do. She drops her spear and covers her ears, but the shriek it emits towards her still manages to daze her. She falls to her knees as she tries to shake the buzz out of her ears as if it would cure it faster. She knows she's an open target now, but the numbing of her senses disorients her beyond moving.

Vale watches the Longleg move in and aims the cannon on his shield. The shot destroys one of the jets on the machine's wings and makes it trip on its feet, collapsing on the ground past a stunned Aloy, allowing the Trampler to move in on him. It tackles him with its horn, throwing him across the field head over feet.

Aloy looks up to see Vale fall in a cloud of dust. She forces herself to stand up, the ringing in her ears still prominent, and aim for the Trampler's one remaining excavating drill. Her aim is perfect, destroying the component. The Trampler turns to her, but she loads a fire arrow and quickly gets the shot off in the machine's eye, right in between the visors and burning the lenses. The machine squeals something that sounds acutely like a boar's shriek of pain, which is something Aloy hasn't heard in a machine before.

She turns back to the Longleg, which is taking a jump at her. She dives out of the way and aims another type of arrow at the back of the machine; a shock arrow. Again, she lands her shot perfectly in the sparker on the machine's back and backs away with the few seconds she has to spare before the battery explodes. When it does, it kills the Longleg and stuns the Trampler, still dazed with the fire arrow in its eye. Aloy loads three arrows onto her bow and pulls the bowstring back as far as she can to maximize the damage output. The Trampler gets to its feet, but not before she launches her arrows into the processing unit on the machine's underbelly.

The component blows up in a great fiery explosion that tears the machine in two.

Aloy makes a quick scan of the field before she lets herself relax: all other machines were already dead. The hunt is over.

She stands still as the last of the ringing in her head fades away. She stows away her bow on her back before turning to find Vale, but he is already standing right next to her, his weapons put away and his helmet hanging on his belt.

"You're hurt," she points out, noticing the big dent in his chest armour.

"It's just a bruise. I'm fine," he replies plainly with a shrug, and immediately winces.

"Bruises don't bleed," she prods. The man looks down. Just under his breast plate, his shirt has a dark stain dripping down from underneath the armour. The dent is right over his heart, which causes an icy chill to run up her spine in worry for her companion. He wipes his hand over the stain and observes the blood on his fingers.

"Oh…" he realizes. "Must have been hit harder than I thought."

"Are you gonna be okay?" she asks, trying not to sound too concerned. Clearly Vale wasn't, so why should she?

Vale quickly wipes the blood off and answers; "Yeah, I'll be fine once we set down tonight. Let's go check out those Lancehorns."

The huntress nods and they go to observe how their traps had worked. All along the ground are bits of metal and wire and coolant from broken chillwater canisters. Lancehorn corpses scatter the riverside, all mangled up and destroyed. The horns on each machine, however, are luckily all intact. Aloy starts to rip off the horns and tie them up in bundles with wire.

"There will be new machines here by the morning. We shouldn't stay here," she tells Vale as he brings their Striders over from the cover they had left them in.

"I know. We can get across the fields and start the hike uphill," Vale replies. She tosses him the first bundle of horns and he begins tying it down on the Strider's back. "I can show you how to craft the arrows when we get a chance."

"Sounds good."

When they finish gathering all the parts – almost two dozen horns in all, so much that Aloy considers hijacking a bigger machine to carry the load – they continue on their trail north. She can tell they are at the edge of Oseram territory when the land starts in a steady upwards climb and a grey haze replaces the blue skies above.

They find a place to camp next to the base of the first jagged cliffs leading up to the mountains. They are decently far away from any machine patrols. The closest, that Aloy can remember, are the Snapmaws that guard the river. But they were further upriver and not even in sight yet. They would probably run into them by early morning tomorrow. This was a safe place.

Vale begins setting up a fire pit and his bedroll in a practiced routine they had settled into over the past week. Aloy sets up their small tents using the large branches of old dwindling trees, while he dug out a small pit and assembles a pile of wood before using an odd sparking device from the hard case strapped to the side of his belt. Within minutes, the fire is blazing at a decent size and warm enough that he strips all his upper armour from his chest and shoulders, leaving them in a small pile next to his bedroll. The wound on his chest is already dried and crusty and forms a line down to his the belt at his waist. He brings out a small pack of healing supplies, some of its contents Aloy recognizes, like herbal leaves and berries and bandage wrapping.

Aloy grabs one of the bundles of Lancehorn parts as soon as he finishes patching himself and sets it on the ground next to him, looking at him expectantly.

"So you know how to craft these arrows for my new bow. Show me."

If he's annoyed by her request after immediately fixing his wound, he doesn't show it. "Alright," he says instead. Vale picks one of the horns from the pile and examines it from end to end. "Could you get my tools? They're with the Strider."

She goes to retrieve the sack of tools strapped to the machine, their mounts just grazing a few feet from them in the grass.

Even at night, they don't stop carrying out their designed purpose, Aloy muses to herself. She knows which bag holds his tools. She's seen him reach into it several times along their journey now. She brings it over and sets it gently beside him and joins him on the ground, sitting cross legged in front of him.

"Ever seen a sword made from a Lancehorn?" he asks while reaching into the bag. Aloy gives him a quizzical look.

"They make swords out of Lancehorn drills?"

"That's a no…" From the bag, he produces two devices, nothing like she has seen before in merchants stalls or around Oseram forges. "Well, where I come from, the commanders of the armies usually carry a sword made from a machine part of their preference, as a sign of their rank. I've seen a few of them up close before. But these horns are good for more than just swords. There's a rod inside of them that you can pull out if you crack the horn open."

"Sounds easy enough," she says.

"Maybe, but if you crack open the horn you risk bending the rod inside, and a bent rod does you no good," he points to the end of the horn where the hinges are shattered, "You have to pull the gears out of the end and pull the rod out there."

He takes one of the tools, which has a hook on it, and begins cutting away the splintered metal at the base of the horn. He makes it look easy, pulling the shards of metal out until the gears are completely uncovered. He then takes the other tool and clamps it onto the gears. With a twist, he pulls the gears off the horn and tips the horn down, letting the rod fall into his open hand with a satisfying swoop.

He hands the rod to Aloy. It's the perfect length for an arrow shaft and surprisingly light. It's hollow, which means it will fly far, but it's covered in a fine film of machine oil. He hands her a rag, which she assumes she is supposed to use to clean the oil off.

"If you got the shards, you can make arrowheads and tails for them," Vale explains.

"Can I make elemental arrows out of these?" she asks, but the man shrugs.

"Never seen it done with these kind of arrows, but it shouldn't be any different than making them out of wooden arrows."

Aloy stares back at the bundles of horns they had collected. It's a lot of work for one piece of metal.

"And I have to do that to all the horns to get the rod?"

"Yup," he chirps quickly and hold out the tools for her. Aloy lets out a quiet groan and snags them, examining them to see how they work. Once she thinks she has a vague understanding of them, she grabs another horn and begins tinkering with it. Of course it's harder than it looks. She can't get the tool to grip the metal shards well enough to pry them away from the gears; the teeth keep slipping and she bangs her knuckle on the metal trying to get the free. It frustrates her, but eventually she learns to hold the tool right and pulls the shards away. She takes the other tool and bites it on the gears, and it's much easier to remove them then it is the fragmented metal. But there's still two dozen horns to go.

Aloy works well into the night, pulling apart metal and arranging her rods into a neat pile. The scrap she throws to the side, a treat for the Scrappers and Glinthawks. Vale sits by the fire and keeps it fuelled so she has a source of light to work with. He watches her work occasionally, but lulls himself to sleep eventually, close to the fire.

Aloy's hands are grimy and sore by the time she manages to secure the last arrowhead into place, done up like any other arrow she had crafted before. She realizes that she'll have to make a new quiver, as the metal arrows are heavy and bigger. But she wraps them up in a bundle for now and sets them to the side. When she tucks herself into bed, the fire is little more than a few licks of flame jumping from a pile of red coals.

And she can't wait to use her new ammo.

… … …

Morning comes and they're on the move again. They keep their distance from the river to avoid the Snapmaws and take the long route up the trail, and the upwards slope starts to wear down their Striders. After coming such a long way, they're joints are worn and Aloy can feel the difference in their movements. It'll be time to search for new mounts soon.

With such an uneventful morning, She decides to explain more of what she knows to Vale about the sub-function Hephaestus, going more in depth about what it is and what is does. The story of the other systems are a subject for another time. If Hephaestus was their enemy, Vale had to understand as much as possible. She admitted that her thoughts after hunting yesterday had put things into perspective for her. He was her partner now, and she had to make sure they were on the same level.

She told him where the Zero Dawn site was, and tried to explain as best as she could what she saw in the holograms. Margo Shen, the Alpha of the Hephaestus program, said that the sub-function was really the creative thought process behind the whole machine-building cauldrons, and that was tough to put into simple words. Aloy had replayed the footage in her Focus over and over again until she understood it herself, and being that they hadn't figured out how to connect their Focuses yet, she couldn't just send that data to him to see with his own eyes.

"Wait," he interrupts abruptly. "So let me get this straight: Hephaestus is the creative thought… behind who's actions? Who does he answer to?"

Aloy didn't know how to answer this question. Or if she should at all. Gaia was one of her most closely guarded secrets, and it wasn't just hers. It was the world's secret; it regarded everything, from the trees to the small animals to the machines and humans, the metal that they wore, the food they ate. Gaia was probably responsible for the plant machine they found back in the bandit camp.

But because of her now, there was no Gaia. She was the reason the Derangement started and why Hades nearly destroyed the world. How did you explain that?

She thoughts are interrupted when she hears a loud scream come from down the road ahead of them. There's a thin fog in the air, making visibility poor.

"What was that?" she says.

"I don't know. It came from up ahead," Vale responds. Aloy knows that they are getting close to the settlement of Pitchcliff. They had already passed one of their river-powered constructions a few minutes ago.

Aloy spurs her Strider into a gallop and races down the path. The cool morning air whips by her face as she adjusts herself into a stand on the machine's flanks as she would normally in a gallop, but her grip around the machine's reining wires are steel tight in anticipation.

She comes upon a horrific sight. She finds a man, Oseram by the style of his attire — thick leather for working in the forges — under the paws of a strange machine that looks a lot like a Scrapper, but it's familiar with its black metal armour and bulky components. Aloy watches as it plunges a pair of grinding maws down on the man's neck, a terrifying scream screeching into the air as blood sprays all over the ground.

Aloy knows it's already too late, but she finds her bow and an arrow and quick as lightning shoots the machine in its side. The machine flinches and takes its jaws off the human, who is already dead, to look at her.

Aloy reaches for her new bow and one of her newly made arrows. The machine starts charging at her as she pulls the bowstring back, finding it hard to draw back fully. There are no protective visors on the machine's face so she aims for its eyes. Just as it lunges at her, she releases the arrow and it flies faster than her eyes can track. It fires with so much force that it sends the machine flying back as its lens and eye socket shatter into dozens of pieces and the machine collapses with sparks flying out of its head.

She's amazed by the power of the bow. A single shot was all it took to kill the new machine. If it weren't for the dire situation, she would have gone up to inspect the damage. But she runs up to the dead human body instead.

"I'm too late," she murmurs remorsefully. She hears the sound of another Strider approaching her, and a moment later Vale is beside her.

"What happened?" he asks, but the answer lays in front of him as she remains silent. There's blood all over the man's upper half. It's a gruelling sight, by Aloy manages to reach over and close the man's eyes as a final figment of peace.

"I'm sorry…" she laments.

Flying sparks almost make her jump. Her head snaps to Vale, who's standing over the machine and tearing into its side with a knife. He digs in it until he reveals the heart and carefully cuts all the wires and hoses keeping it in place. She sees him activate his Focus as he stands and observes the component.

"What do you see?" she asks as she comes to her full height. Vale doesn't reply right away. He takes a few steps away to give himself some space. Whatever he sees, his eyes widen and he looks at his surroundings frantically… or trying to understand everything he was seeing. Aloy recognized the behaviour.

"Faces, everywhere. People, and they're marked," he speaks.

"Marked how?" she demands.

"They're either active or… eliminated," Vale hands flick in the air in front of him. It's frustrating not being able to see what he sees. "It's a hit list. These people are marked for death. There's dozens of them, Aloy."

Aloy takes a moment to analyze this new information and then glances down at the dead man. Just like her, people were being targeted by machines. Avad and Vale were right; they were actively looking to kill humans. The Derangement — Hephaestus was ordering Gaia's machine to hunt the human species.

What bothered her was how he was able to control all these machines, even the peaceful ones. She thought back to the attack on the Nora Sacred lands, how all the other machines fought the Nora braves like they were built to kill instead of built to gather resources. They weren't corrupted like Hades had done to them, and not daemonic as Hephaestus had controlled them… at first. What had changed?

Aloy activates her Focus and brings up Cauldron Sigma's catalogs. Her Focus had copied the data she had been sifting through, and she is thankful when she finds the correct line of code.

What's the Command Protocol?

Cyan would probably know something. If there was a hint of similar code related to anything that Hephaestus used to take over her systems, they might just find a way to put a stop to it.

She deactivates her Focus.

"Vale, I need you to keep working on connecting our Focus's together. If we can share information, I might be able to find out what Hephaestus is planning and put a stop to it."

He nods and nudges his chin to the corpse beside her. "What about him?"

"We can't do anything for him. Pitchcliff is close. They can give him a proper funeral."

"So we just leave him here?" he asks incredulously. Aloy sees the remorse in his face and suddenly feels guilty. She didn't want to just leave the body here, but she was hard pressed to find Erend and his Vanguard as soon as possible. They couldn't give the man his peace, but the Oseram in Pitchcliff could.

She points to her Strider and says; "Let's get him home."

A little bit of world-building for ya, and there will be plenty more once we enter Oseram territory in the next chapter!