The Extinction Demand Pt. 2
Flying through the clouds on the back of a machine was absolutely Aloy's new favourite thing. The experience was unlike anything she imagined it would be. To feel the wind whip through her hair and see so much of the world at once, to flying from point A to point B in a matter of hours and see how the machines on the ground became the sizes of ants, it was all breathtaking and exhilarating at the same time. It was a perspective of the world she had never dreamed about seeing before.
From Meridian, they flew east back towards the Sacred Land, except they crossed over the northern border pass, over the field of long-since-rusted machine towers, of which Vale was utterly fascinated by, until they came to Red Echo's at the cropping of jagged red rocks. From there, Aloy and Vale mutually decided to travel by foot. Turns out flying in frigid weather conditions was a much more tedious trial than they thought, the cold freezing wind of the north biting into their skin. Needless to say, it was good to be on the ground again.
The snow was thicker here than it ever was in the Claim. Their feet sunk beyond their ankles and challenged them to keep a steady footing in the frozen forests. As they arrived at the base of the valley that lead up to the ruins of the Grave Hoard, Aloy could see more clouds coming in from the north. Looks like their journey was only beginning.
The interesting part of their journey was as they approached the ruins, they discovered a cave dug out near one of the frozen lakes, one that Aloy had never seen before. Granted, she had never really explored anywhere near the ponds, not wanting to risk getting into a fight the Glinthawks that were there and fall through the ice. With the metal titan hovering above them and the graveyard that sat deep in the ruins, the place gave her the creeps.
But after dispatching the flying machines anyway, they found that the cave revealed a secret. Another giant metal shell, like the one they had found in the bandit camp, protecting a delicate little tree with pink cotton all over its branches. Aloy had never seen a tree like this before. The cotton was so light and fluffy. She could imagine the Carja weavers in Meridian making something beautiful out of this material. But the cold temperatures in this area meant the cotton would freeze over and be ruined. This was not the place for this tree. Whatever had placed this place obviously had a long running plan. She records the index at the base of the machine, closed it up and kept moving.
When they camp out that night, they try to find a spot huddled in the middle of the snow-skinned trees to give them as much cover as possible. They're both weary that one of Hephaestus' machines could pop out of the wilderness at any minute. Vale volunteers to take first watch. Aloy wants to argue, but after all that happened that day, she's exhausted and she curls up in her sleeping furs next to the fire. When she wakes up, it's suddenly morning, the fire is nothing but bright embers and Vale is awake. Tired, but alert with his hammer in his lap and his Focus on. They were never discovered.
The climb is another ordeal they had to endure. Aloy was prepared for it. Climbing was one of her special abilities, an adaptive skill that all Nora braves were expected to have. She could clear the cliffs and rocky edges easily. Well, not easily. The frosted rock bit her fingertips and scraped her knees and elbows, making the climb up the rock a needless torture.
And surprisingly, Vale kept in pace. He wasn't the climber like she was, but the agility he lacked was made up for in his skill with the rope. He threw the rope high and ensnared any rocky edges or overhanging tree branches with ease and hoisted himself up, using only his upper body strength to pull himself up quickly. When Aloy reaches the end of her climbing, he was right there with her.
From there it was a steady uphill walk into Banuk lands. The tunnels that led the way were still lit with blue Banuk-style lanterns and a frigid breeze could be felt blowing in their faces. Aloy wrapped her cloak around her tighter. The cold temperatures of the Cut was something she definitely didn't miss.
"Have you ever met the Banuk, Vale?" she asks behind her. Vale shakes his head.
"Never. What are they like?"
"A lot of them are hunters, and they value survival in the wilds above all else. They think that all machines have a soul that they refer to as the Blue Light, and that it animates all living things."
"Sounds like a hardy tribe," Vale replies. "Is there any truth to the Blue Light?"
"Sort of. The Banuk believed that the machines used to be friendly towards humans before the Derangement started. The blue light that shines in their eyes is where they got the idea from, I suppose."
Vale is quiet for a moment, reminding Aloy of what she had told Talanah on their hunting trip earlier about his silent nature.
"Is the blue light in the Cauldron the same thing?" he asks.
"Uh, kind of. I mean it's the same power that keeps the machines alive, so yeah, I guess they're all one in the same."
"Hmm."
When they come to the end of the tunnel, it's late in the morning and clouds coat the sky in a grey hue with a light snowfall coming down. More blue lanterns light the way to the Banuk village that's not far away: Song's Edge.
There's nobody to greet them when they get there, but Aloy catches some of the glares that the Banuk hunters toss her way. Some of them regard her with little interest, while others stare on in shock, her hunting prowess still resonating within the rumours the people have spread. She doesn't make an attempt to stop and chat with any of them. She hardly recognizes anyone here.
At the other end of the village they stop, where the path winds down the side of the cliff into the wilds of the Cut. Aloy looks up and turns left towards the mountains and points.
"There's ruins up there, an old bunker made by the Old Ones. That's where we can find some answers."
"That's where our friendly AI is?" Vale replies, looking annoyed. "Not the most convenient spot…"
"There's a path that winds around the mountains to the back, but it's longer. If we cut through the Shaman's Path, it'll be quicker," Aloy offers. Vale then stares at her expectingly.
"I feel a 'but' coming on."
"But there's Stalkers and difficult terrain to traverse."
The man crosses his arms. "Yeah, I figured. Pick your preference."
"Aloy," a gruff voice speaks from behind them. Aloy turns and finds a Banuk werak chieftain approaching them. He's a boulder of a man; easily taller than Vale and just about twice as big, with a hefty spear in his hands. Despite his daunting appearance, he meets them with kind and soft eyes.
"Aratuk. It's good to see you," Aloy greets, bowing her head.
"As it is you. What brings you back to our lands? Are you here to talk to Cyan?"
Aloy nods, but she doesn't miss the stunned look that appears on Vale's face. She forgot to tell him; Aratuk knew who Cyan was as well.
"Yes, I need her counsel. I need to see if she knows what we can do to end the Derangement," she answers.
"End the Derangement? Is that possible?" the chieftain inquires, the awe and surprise raw in his voice.
"It might be. The daemon that captured Cyan might be the one behind it, so I'm going to talk to her to see if she knows anything that might help."
Aratuk nods. "Indeed her insight is valuable. But unfortunately I haven't been able to visit her as much as I want to."
"Why is that?"
"The very thing you seek to end. It has made the journey perilous. More machines guard the path and the mountain holding Ourea's Retreat. I don't want to risk taking my werak up there if they fight just as fiercely as the machines in Thunder's Drum did." There's a solemn look in Aratuk's eyes then. Anyone could have mistaken it for grief, but Aloy knew the sadness he felt when he spoke of the events that were connected to his sister's death. She wanted to help him overcome that sadness. She wanted to bring him to Cyan, his last living connection to Ourea.
"Vale and I are going to make the journey," Aloy begins. "And you can join us too, Aratuk."
Aratuk looks up at her in surprise. Vale does too, but he remains silent.
"I would be honoured to accompany my once-chieftain, if it means I can see Cyan and avoid any casualties but my own."
"There will be no casualties today. We'll meet you at the start of the Shaman's Path when you're ready," Aloy tells him.
"Then I will meet you there, and we will carve a path with the power of the Blue Light," Aratuk replies and leaves them. Once he's out of sight, Aloy glances over at the other man in her company, who's giving her an expectant look.
"What is going on here?" Vale asks. Aloy smirks and waves her hand.
"Follow. I'll explain on the way there."
The road to Shaman's Path is a much easier trek then the climb up to Song's Edge, but they both keep their guard up for any machines that might reveal themselves in the trees. Aloy is hazardously aware that Frostclaws populate the Cut, and she wants to avoid them as much as possible. She highly doubts that is possible in their journey to Ourea's Retreat.
Aloy explains everything that had happened here in the Cut: the daemon – which was really Hephaestus, the repair towers, Aratuk and Ourea, the Epsilon Cauldron, Varga, Ikrie and the Fireclaws. Vale listens without interruption and she talks until she can feel her voice become raw. By that time they've crossed most of the forest and are close to the start of the trial.
"So Aratuk believes that Cyan is just a spirit of their Blue Light, not an AI," Vale finally says, handing her a canteen of water that he pulls from behind his shield. It's made out of metal and has a component attached to the bottom of it. It's the strangest looking canteen she's ever seen, but she takes it gratefully and nods.
"Yes. He knows nothing of the other AIs or about the terraforming system. I don't know what Cyan has told him, but he's never asked me about it before." The water in the canteen is warmer to contrast the weather around them, and it beeps at her when she finds it empty. "What is this?"
"Remember when I told that I crossed the desert?" Vale inquires. Aloy vaguely recalls the conversation. She was amazed that anyone had the guts to cross it, but then she remembers how Vale was able to and observes the device in her hands.
"This device turns chillwater into regular water!" she realizes, fascinated. "Why am I just seeing this now?"
"I've always had it out, you've just never noticed," Vale replies. "I also think I've never heard you talk that much all at once."
Aloy huffs. "Says the one who hardly says anything at all," she tosses the canteen back to him. "Thanks."
When they find the Banuk flag and banner that mark the beginning of Shaman's Path, they sit and wait. Aloy takes this chance to go over her supplies and ammo. She hasn't had the chance to build her metal arrows, sufficing with her usual wooden arrows and her old bow. She also has her tripcaster and sling, a sac of blast bombs with it. She pulls her winter furs around her tighter as the day wears on, the falling snow whipping in her face as the wind kicks in.
Fortunately it isn't long before Aratuk joins them, with nothing but his trusty spear in his hands. He has this determined look on his face that says he's ready to take on the trial before them as if he hasn't done so many times before.
"Ready to go?" she asks.
"I am. To march alongside you Aloy, no machine shall stand between us and our goal," Aratuk boasts.
"I'm here too…" she hears Vale mumble behind her. She flashes him a lopsided smirk and faces the trail.
"Good, between the three of us, we should make it past the machine and get to Cyan. I'm only concerned with what kind of machines wait for us up there."
"It doesn't matter," the Banuk chieftain responds as he starts walking. "They will fall to our spears."
When he out of earshot, Vale waves his arms. "Do I look like chopped liver?"
"Should have bought one in Meridian," Aloy says and picks one of the javelins from her stash mounted on her back, beside her bow. "Or you could have picked one of these."
"Where'd you get that?" he inquires.
"At the Hunter's Lodge. You have to be recognized for your prowess by the Sunhawk to get one. Looks like you'll need to visit a hunting grounds sometime," she tells him. Vale mumbles something unintelligible under his breath before they start the climb.
The beginning of the path is an uphill climb through the windchill and snow, so by the time they've reached the mouth of the first cave entrance, Aloy can barely feel her toes and frost covers the shoulders of her cloak and the edges of her hood. The metal on her braces and shins is ice cold. Even Vale's side swept hair has a thin coat of frost on it, and he doesn't seem to be enjoying it. Aratuk, the ever stoic man that he is, practically wears the frost as a second coat, and he doesn't seem phased at all.
They enter the caves with their weapons drawn. Aloy remembers how Stalkers creeped in the corners of the caverns, their invisible cloaking modules making them impossible to see with the ice walls reflecting the light of the lamps and totem contraptions that led the way. Who knows if something worse had found its way in here.
They come up to the first clue. Aratuk activates the device, pulling the rope so that the lantern points in the right direction, but just as it fell, a roar came from deep within the cave and all at once they raised their weapons. Gauging by how deep it sounded, it was a big machine.
"What was that?" Vale piped out.
"I'm not sure," Aratuk says slowly. He glances at Aloy and she glances at Vale.
"Only one way to find out," she concludes and takes the first step forward into the cave. The other two follow closely.
Without the wind and the snow, Aloy can start to feel herself warm up. Her toes are still frozen, but she can feel her core body heat rising, even at the slow pace they are moving. She leads the way, following the lantern clues and the wind chimes that her Focus pick up. She especially keeps her eyes open for any shimmering lights that might hint at a cloaked Stalker, but the ice reflects everything and her eyes dart from corner to corner to see if a machine might be there. There never is. Until she lights up her Focus again.
"Watchers, on the other side of the wall. Redeyes, by the looks of it," she whispers back to the other two.
"Is it your second sight telling you this?" Aratuk questions. She nods and he raises his spear a little more.
"This is only the beginning. They're watching for something."
"But what could they be guarding?" Vale cuts in. "You can take them out with your bow, Aloy."
"I know. Stay here until I signal you to move," she whispers and creeps forward on her own. She can track the movement of the Watchers and finds one of them on a path that circles the corner. She waits and finds her spear, marking the machine so she knows when to strike. The Redeye Watcher appears around the corner, but doesn't see her until it turns around. Aloy moves with all her viable muscle strength the cold allows her and makes a quick, clean kill with a stab to the eye.
The other Watchers faces the other way, down the tunnel that inclines upwards and opens up to the pit where the Stalkers usually crawl. She would have to be extra quiet with this kill to not alert them.
She lured it down the tunnel with a whistle, and a few seconds later, both Watchers were dead and she was signalling the other two men to move forward. Aloy creeps up to the ledge, where a tightrope strings across the gap, and down below is the pit where the Stalkers patrol.
"This isn't going to be easy with three of us," she murmurs as the other two catch up. She knew it wouldn't have been easy if it was just her and Vale. Heck, it wasn't easy when it was just her on her first time passing through this trial on her own.
"How do we find the Stalkers?" Vale wonders aloud.
"You don't," Aratuk replies. "They find you."
"I'll set some traps. We're not gonna be able to get past them without a fight," Aloy says. "Wait for my signal again, and get ready to fight."
She manages the tightrope on her own, but before she crosses it completely she drops a detonation trap. It sticks to the ground below and beeps quietly. Just as Aloy gets to the end, she can see a shimmer of light approaching the trap she set. As much as she want to blow up the device in the machine's face, she wants to set more traps first.
Aloy goes and follows the path down to where it meets with the pit. She sets a tripwire at the end of the tunnel as a means of retreat in case one of the invisible machines discovers her. She then goes around and places more traps, proximity bombs and tripwires. Only once did she fear that she had been discovered by one of the machines. She saw a ripple of light through the ice in front of her, and then the ever-faintest blue glow of the Stalker's eyes. But they never turned toward her and never turned red. It moved right along, allowing her to escape.
When Aloy returns to the path she came from, she grabs her bow and fires an arrow into the wall. The arrow sticks to the ice and the noise echoes throughout the cave, faintly, but enough to be heard by any machines in the area. By the time she grabs a second arrow, she can catch the glimpse of the ripple of the Stalkers invisible skin. It uncloaks itself, revealing it to be close to the detonation bomb on the floor behind it. She looses her arrows and the bomb promptly explodes, blasting the side of the machine apart. The sound is so abrupt and loud that she even flinches away.
If the machines hadn't noticed her before, they definitely did now.
There's an odd metallic screech in the air as a machine cries out in warning, which is echoed by the other machines in the area. Aloy grabs her bow and loads an arrow, but out of the corner of her eye, she sees a flash of blue and red, and turns only just in time for a Stalker to charge its cannon.
A metal mass jumps in front of her and Vale smiles down at her.
"Helluva signal," he snipes. Aloy looks back at the Stalker as Aratuk dives in from above, spear raised high as he lands on the machine's back, plunging his weapon through the metal and wires.
Another Stalker appears before them and fires its cannon, but Vale blocks that shot too. The machine disappears then, but not before dropping a device on the ground that blinks with a red light. Aloy shoots it and it explodes on contact.
"There's not a lot of space to fight in here," Vale says.
"I know, but if we take this fight outside, they'll have an advantage," Aloy tells him.
"To your right!"
Aloy jumps away as she hears metal clang against metal behind her. Vale grunts as he stops a Stalker from using its fangs on him with his hammer. He shoves the machine aside into one of Aloy's tripwires, which explodes when the machine falls through.
Aratuk swings his spear wildly but hits nothing. His foe is invisible, and it strikes from behind with a whip of its tail. He stumbles forward and whips around, but nothing is there. But then he grabs the end of his spear with his bare hand and slashes his palm open. Blood drips from his hand quickly but he hardly seems concerned by it. He whips his hand out, blood spots spraying onto the ice. One of those blood drops splatters on something midair, giving Aratuk an idea of where to attack. He turns his spear around and fires the ice rail, spraying hoarfrost onto the machine, revealing the Stalker. As the machine struggles with the ice in its systems, the Banuk chieftain dives in and thrusts his spear into the side of the machine and kills it.
Vale and Aloy find their own method of finding and attacking the Stalkers. Vale's Focus allows him to track footprints on the fly, so he can see where the Stalkers creep around them. He fires his cannon and Aloy follows up with a tearblast arrow that knocks off the cloaking module, and from there they are able to destroy the machine easily with their hammer and spear. It was still a challenge to fight with three others running around them, dropping proxy bombs and firing their dart shots. One shot skins Aloy's arm at one point, making it painful to lift her spear. But with so many machines around them, she does her best to ignore the pain and keep fighting.
When the last Stalker goes down, the ground is littered with blood and metal parts, but of who's blood she doesn't quite know. All she knows is that her arm is killing her.
"You should tend to that before we move on," Aratuk suggests, pointing to Aloy's arm. She hasn't had a chance to look at her wound until just now, but the amount of pain suddenly makes sense. Her arm is covered in blood, all the way down to her hand. Her grip on her spear is slick and drops of blood fall from her hand onto the ice floor. And now that the adrenaline high from the fight was wearing off, she was beginning to realize how much the blood loss was affecting her. She becomes light-headed and her vision starts to spin, and next thing she knows, she's on the ground facing up at the ceiling.
Vale appears in her field of view first. "She's lost a lot of blood. She can't move," he says, but she barely catches it because there's a ringing in her ears.
"More machines will come," Aratuk says. "I will clear the path ahead. Can you pick her up?"
"I can." Vale grabs something from his belt and wraps it over the wound on her arm. She hisses as it stings, but there isn't much else she can do. She feels Vale lift her up into his arms and she wants to wrestle out of it to stand on her own but her body isn't responding. "We should have been more prepared for those Stalkers…" he curses.
"Vale… I'll be fine," she mumbles as her head spins a million times a second.
"No you won't. You're not fine, not until we get out of these caves." His voice is light, full of concern and haste.
"There's more… beyond the caves," she groans.
"There's more?" he exclaims.
"Machines are coming!" Aratuk yells in the distance. Aloy can feel Vale picking up his pace. She closes her eyes, hoping that it would straighten her vision, but her head is still swimming.
"Aloy, stay with me. Aloy? Aloy!"
The rest of the fight doesn't register in her head as her senses shut down and she passes out.
So I got some new story ideas involving this fanfic, some DLC-type stuff that'll expand a little bit on the world. But where should I post it? Add it to this story or post of separately? Let me know what you think I should do!