Side-The Missing River
The two hunters backtracked to the Cauldron door and followed a small path back down the mountainside to get out of the freezing wind, and to figure out the next step in their plan.
The valley below had several trails and roads snaking through it, some partially covered in snow while others were barely visible through the tall trees that covered the side of the mountain. It made for a tense trip watching out for machines and human patrols, but Vale and Aloy dive through the trees until they make it to the bottom of the valley and find a small village called Vesta's Bottom. The community is small enough to remain undetected by the army on the other side of the mountain, but large enough that there are vendors and public spaces to explore. They consider restocking here.
As they enter the village, Aloy notices a mood set in with the people. They seem discouraged, scared even. A man dry heaves to the point of gagging and a few people nearby go to help him.
"Something's wrong with this village," she points out. Vale looks up from his unfocused gaze on the ground, playing with his Focus.
"How do you figure?"
"Look at the people. It's like they're all sick. Is it disease?" she wonders, briefly worried for their own health. Vale looks around the village and hums to himself.
"Maybe. There's something definitely wrong here."
Aloy watches as a man collapses on the side of the road. Two other people, friends or family, go to help him up. He's hardly strong enough to lift himself up and he coughs violently as he's picked up.
"We should look into it. These people are suffering," she decides. Vale nods, but doesn't miss the grimace that flashes across his face. She can tell that he's concerned with their own troubles. Of course getting to Minerva was their main objective, but with an army surrounding it and no plan to get around them, there wasn't much else they could do.
They walk around the village and asks for directions to the mayor's house. It's the biggest building sitting at the edge of town. There's a large garden at the front of the house as they approach it, with flowers and trimmed bushes framing it. But the bushes are whittled to the point of breaking and the flowers have withered away, drooping down the side of the pots they sit in. A lone man is crouched near the front of the house, gazing at more flowers that have gone bad. He stands as they approach him. He seems like a simple man, dressed in clothes with a decorated sash that stretches around his torso.
"You two must be travellers, or warriors… or both," he states, looking at both of them separately.
"We are. We saw the people suffering and wondered if there was anything we could do to help," Aloy replies. The mayor sighs the instant she stops talking, like he's heard those words before.
"You can look if you want, but nobody has been able to tell me what happened to Cold Man's Tears!"
"I'm sorry… what?" the huntress inquires after pausing for a moment to wonder if she heard him correctly.
"It's the name of the river that flows nearby. It's runoff from the mountains to the west. Bone-chilling water, fresh as it comes! Filtered through nature's own strainer," the mayor says proudly, but he loses his enthusiasm quickly. "But it dried up recently, and so suddenly. There's no other water source around here, and my people… well you said you saw it when you came through."
"Does anybody know why the river dried up so quickly?" Aloy asks.
"It is the middle of drought season," Vale mutters, but the mayor shakes his head.
"No, this was unnatural. It dried up in less than two days! No river disappears like that!" he takes a breath to calm himself. Aloy could see that the health of his people and the well-being of the village was stressing him. "I've sent people to investigate, but they always come back without anything because the machines are too dangerous that way. And nobody worth their pride and skill would help a simple village like this. I'm afraid I'll have to force people to move away."
"Well today's your lucky day," Aloy replies. "Vale and I are good hunters. We can find out what happened to the river, and hopefully restore it so your people can have water again."
The mayor shakes his head. "I won't pretend I haven't heard that before, but I won't stop you from trying. You might want to start at the well on the other side of town. That's where we draw water from the river. That'll help you get started."
The two of them bade farewell to the mayor and leave for the other side of the village. They pass through the centre, coming across more sickly people and disease. It's Aloy's first instinct to reach out and help them, but she could easily contract whatever viruses infected them that came with an absence of water. She hated to ignore them, so she set her mind on finding an end to their plague.
The well is little more than a hole in the ground with a contraption that has a metal bucket tied to a rope and a spinning gear that lowers it into the depths of the well, which is so deep that Aloy can't see the bottom, even in broad daylight. She turns the gear and lowers the bucket into the well and then pulls it back up to see if there is anything in the bucket. All that comes up is mud, stuck to the bottom of the bucket.
"So there's no water, but the mud is still soggy…" Aloy mutters.
"The river should be nearby. The mayor says that the machines that way are dangerous. You ready for a fight?" Vale asks.
"Always, but how do you find a river if there's no water?"
"We'll find an empty trench and a bunch of deadly machines," he replies and turns to leave. "Come on. It's this way."
They leave the village heading east, back towards the mountain range. Now the sky was darkening, which would only add another layer of difficulty on this mission. Aloy secretly hoped to keep going through the night, but she was quite exhausted. They had been hiking up and down mountain paths all day, and if they were expecting to run into machines soon, they needed their strength and senses on full alert.
When Vale suggested they stop, she didn't argue. It would be another night in the wild, under the shelter of a low hanging tree in darkness. They both agreed that a campfire wasn't necessary, as it would attract attention. In the stillness of the night, they could hear the cries of machines echo in the air, so they both kept rotating watch throughout the night. Aloy almost wished they would wind up in a fight just so she could feel the thrill to keep her energy up.
"Careful what you wish for," she mutters to herself wistfully.
At the first signs of light they were moving again. They relied heavily on their Focuses to search for any machines while they trekked. Aloy expected to hear the sounds of running water soon, until she remembered that there was no river. They came upon a wide, shallow gorge in the ground soon enough, with Snapmaws nearby.
"They can give anyone trouble," Vale says as he stares at them. "But they're not what I was thinking of."
"What were you thinking about?" Aloy asks.
"Something… deadlier."
"Vale."
"I don't think we'd find them here anyway. The waters would be too shallow," he points upstream towards the mountains, and in the direction of the machines. "River source is would be up the mountains. If we follow it long enough, we'll find the problem."
"What do you think it is?" she wonders. They start walking.
"I can think of a few things. I won't leave a landslide out of the question just yet. But we won't know for sure until we get further upriver."
Aloy taps her Focus to find the Snapmaw herd not so far away. They're directly in line with their path, but still far enough away that they can't detect them, and there aren't any other machines nearby.
The empty trench leads across the valley floor and back up the mountains to the west. Along the way, the two hunters keep finding machines on the riverbed, bigger machines that would have challenged any well-trained machine hunter. When the village mayor said that the machines would be dangerous this way, this was exactly what Aloy would expect. They used caution, and kept to the bush when they needed to sneak between groups.
Fortunately, they only needed to fight once. Two Sawtooths stood in their way just as they reached the bottom of the mountain slope and they needed to be dealt with before they could ascend. With Vale's fire hammer and Aloy's fire arrows, the two machines were dealt with rather quickly. Looking around them as they began to climb, Aloy started to wonder why the river had disappeared again.
"The land is pretty dry for a mudslide," she comments on.
"Yeah, and there's no rocks from a landfall either. I wonder what it could be," Vale replies. Aloy goes through some files in her Focus as they walk. The data from the override in Cauldron Foxtrot shows her data for all sorts of new machines, some she's never seen before. An image pops up before her, displaying a machine with big arms. Huge arms.
"Vale, what kind of machines live in your lands?" she asks.
"All kinds. Striders, Scrappers..." Vale answers, but she shakes her head.
"No, I mean, any that I wouldn't be familiar with? Machines that don't appear in the Sundom?" she says. A look of realization comes across Vale's face and he nods.
"Plenty. You saw the Shadow Jumper statue at the inn when we first got here, right? There's that. There's also Water Razors, Service Pups, Quakers. Better hope you don't meet a Quaker. I can't image what they're like with the Derangement affecting them."
A Quaker sounded a lot like the machine that she was observing through her Focus in that moment. Its fists were the size of her.
"Right. I'll keep that in mind."
"I guess the world has Wyverns now, too," Vale adds. "You think a machine caused the river to disappear?"
"Maybe not quite a machine…" she replies. It leaves Vale with a confused look, so she continues. "I remember in the Cut a river had disappeared once, and there was a facility that the Old Ones had built that controlled the flow of water. It might be something like that."
"We'll know when we get there."
They climbed for several more minutes, becoming ever more weary the more they climbed. The mountains weren't that much of a challenge for Aloy, having grown up high in the mountains and having to take the path up and down to hunt and train almost every day. But with the sun bearing down on them and the cold wind picking up, she was beginning to get hot and cold flashes, making her uncomfortable and irritated.
When they reach a flat slope by mid-day, they find a large plateau and a deep sink that might have been a lake once. It surrounded by tall pine trees and a few machines sit near the edge on the other side from where they stand.
"The lake is gone too? How?" Aloy says.
"I'm not sure, but the river continues on the other side," Vale replies. Aloy eyes up the machines—a couple of Striders and a Longleg as their Shepard. Another object lights up, buried in the damp soil in the middle of the herd, unrecognizable to the Focus.
"What is that device, in the ground there?" she points out.
"You see something?" Vale asks.
"Yeah. We need to kill those machines first," Aloy replies as she grabs her bow.
The Striders don't flee like she anticipates when the fight starts. They paw the ground like an angry boar and charge at them from multiple directions. Vale gets ran over once, but he's wearing enough armour and his shield protects him from the metal hooves of a Strider. But the battle is still drawn out with the Longleg jumping at them constantly.
When they're finally dealt with and brush the dust of themselves, Aloy walks up to the unknown device. There's a large disc shape that sits flat with the ground with a short rod sticking straight up through the middle of it. The base of the rod is covered with several tiny wires standing up on their own, and a red light blinks on and off on top of the rod.
"What is this?" she wonders.
"Doesn't look dangerous, but I'd still be careful. It might attract machines," Vale warns. Aloy knows to be careful, but she didn't think this strange knew metal thing worked like a lure. She scans it with her Focus and a short wall of text comes up:
3039/07/12. 23:45:24.
Function: Water purification test node 2–exposed.
Treatment test results:/98% purified. 1.57% lead compound-0.43% hydroperoxide.
23:45:38. Test node 3–pending…
23:46:40. Test node 4–pending…
23:47:56. Test node 5–pending…
23:49:02. Hydrofacility lockup process initiated. Echo trackers for missing test nodes active. Tracing nodes…
Aloy looks over the information again. There are coordinates to the hydrofacility that she inputs to her Focus… and it's not very far away. A distance marker shows up on her HUD, appearing further upriver.
"I know where to go. Follow," she says and continues up the empty trench.
The wind has a bite to it. They climb further uphill as flakes of snow start to fall from the sky. They're getting closer to the mountain tops, but Aloy hopes that they don't have to go any further into frigid temperatures without her winter furs.
They scale a jagged cliff of about twenty feet before coming upon an amazing sight. The river trench continues up into a large structure. Its dark, massive silhouette highlights the blue lights that shine all around it, suggesting its Gaia-built origins. Near the bottom, where the river should have been, are three triangular entrances that are sealed shut with lights shining down on them. There are two other entrances on either side of the facility up on the banks of the river, but they're shut as well, and a large platform leads right up to them with machines guarding them.
"I think we found our problem," Aloy says as she comes to a halt.
"What is it?" Vale asks.
"I don't know." She points to the gates at the bottom of the river. "Those doors might be where the water comes from. We have to get them open to release the water."
Vale scans the large facility with keening eyes. "Don't think we can do that from here. We have to go inside."
"Which means we have to get past those machines."
"Right."
A couple of Redeye Watchers and a Sawtooth protect the entrance. Both hunters lie in the snowflake-peppered trees nearby, waiting for their chance. Aloy lights a flame arrow and pulls the bowstring back to full strength. When the Sawtooth nears one of the Watchers, she releases it and splits the metal plating covering the blaze canister on the Sawtooth. Once the ensuing explosion goes off and kills the bigger machines, they pick off the small ones easily before coming up to the mysterious structure. Just like the Cauldrons, there's a node at the bottom of the door that Aloy hacks with her spear. Ready for anything, they both step inside.
It's nothing like Aloy expects. The first thing she hears is running water. Loud rushing water. She spots a large pool in front of her, where the water is constantly stirring and a large pipe sticking down into it from the ceiling. She can see through the clear screening in the tube that water is shooting down. That means water is coming from above.
All around them are auto-machines with mechanical arms that work here and there, connecting tubes to machines and switching equipment to pump another liquid of some sort. It's not water, but glows bright green and swishes around in the container it's in. Eventually it drains at the bottom and starts filling at the top again with water and the same green substance, only it's thicker. It thins out as soon as it starts mixing with the water.
"What do you think that is?" Aloy speaks, partly mesmerized by the foreign substance. Vale studies it for a short second before he answers.
"Looks like energyoil."
"What's that?"
"A rare kind of oil. It's got all sorts of purposes, but I know a weaponsmith that uses it for some of his mechanical equipment. It burns away eventually so he always needs more." He stares at the pool of swirling oil before he adds; "my shield runs off of some energyoil."
"It does?"
"Yeah. All the moving parts need lubrication to keep them from rusting. The weaponsmith I mentioned helped me make it." He then turns back to face the rest of the facility. "So how do we get the water running to the river?"
Aloy looks around, activating her Focus to point out anything important. Above them, a huge piece of machinery is lit up. A marker labels it as a 'Multi-Valve'. She knows that the Old Ones used valves to control the flow of substances like water through pipes, like the old dam in the Cut. It's their best bet to check it out.
"Above us. I think there's a second level to this place. We need to find a way to get up there," she explains. She looks around for any platforms to jump up to, walls to climb, but it seems that there's no way up. She knows better than to try and blow a hole in the ceiling with one of Vale's charges. Gaia's facilities were built to withstand anything.
Aloy turns her attention back to the large pool with the pipe feeding down into it. The pipe has components and wires running down it, and by observing it with her Focus, she discovers that those wires run up the tube, along the ceiling and down to an access panel on the wall that she can reach. Upon approach, she finds a hologram pop up with many shapes arranged into three rings.
"It's some sort of puzzle," she says.
"But how do you solve the puzzle?"
"I think…" Aloy waves her hand at the rings and they move. The shapes along the ring shift. She notices that some of them match. "Aha! It works just like a holo lock. You have to line up the symbols with each other."
When she lines up the shapes, the hologram lights up green and the water comes to a slow stop in the tube.
"Okay. Now what?" Vale inquires.
"Can we drain the water? Or move that pipe? There's gotta be another switch somewhere." Aloy looks around with her Focus. There's a device that lights up near the edge of the pool. It connects to the pipe in the pool and is labeled 'current control'. That had to be it. But going up to the device, she found that there was no power to it, and she couldn't locate the missing link.
"This device needs power. There's got to be a cable linked somewhere," she mutters.
"What?"
"Find a way to get this thing powered. We do that, we can drain the water and climb the pipe to the floor above us."
"Up through the pipe? There's not another way?" Vale asks.
"Not unless you can see something with your Focus," Aloy snips. Vale observes their surroundings. His attention draws to a large section of the wall that stands out. It's protected by metal panels, but Aloy can see a lip between the seams in the plating. They could wedge something in there and pull the shell back.
"There's a power conduit running through here that links to that device. I can bust it open and take a look," he offers.
"Don't break anything," Aloy says, but the man is already reaching for his hammer. With a few good swings, the metal cover fly off and Vale gets up close to the electrical that's inside. There's a large port in the middle with three outlets. One of them is shredded, silver wire exposed from beneath a cobalt coating.
"These wires look like they've been gnawed on," he states.
"Rats?" Aloy guesses incredulously.
"It's possible. I can reconnect them…" Vale plays with the wires, his gloves protecting him from voltage when he brings the wires together and they spark. A few seconds later, the light on the device by the edge of the pool turns blue. "Got it!"
"So now we activate this…" Aloy puts her spear up to the device, and as soon as it clicks the large pipe starts to rise out of the water, revealing another, smaller tube. "There. Ready to swim, Vale?"
"I should have seen this coming…" Vale replies, looking down at the water. Aloy makes sure all her weapons are holstered before diving in. The water is cool and comfortable and the two swim for the pipe in the middle. There are harnesses and devices attached to it that allow them to climb up. It's a tall climb, but they come out in an even larger room. Six different pipes, about as big as Aloy herself, are all connected to a large device in the centre, the multi-valve. At the end of each pipe is a large apparatus and above them is a platform with a node on it.
"Does that thing control the water?" Vale wonders aloud.
"I think so. And those arms over there control flow from the pipes," Aloy studies the large engine. One of the six pipes is larger, and points straight into the ground. "We should figure out how to get water flowing through the bigger pipe. I'll go above and see what we can do."
Vale nods and climbs up to the top of the valve while Aloy finds a way to the platform. There's some ledges on the other side that she can climb, past some more machinery, including a large turbine pointed directly at the valve. It's not moving, but it's connected to a node that glows red. When she activates it with her spear, the turbine starts rotating.
"Hey, whatever you did, the water's flowing now!" Vale shouts. Aloy gets up to the platform and finds that water is flowing from one of the pipes – through the valve – out through another pipe. It's not where she wants the water to go.
"Try moving those arms," she calls out. Vale takes a look at the big complicated mechanism before he shrugs and waves his arms.
"Which one?"
Aloy point to the one on the far right. "That one!"
The mercenary struggles with the valve for only a minute before he was able to push it. A loud hiss becomes audible from the pipes as the water starts flowing into another pipe, but it's not the right one. Aloy observes the machine closer. Four of the pipes from the multi-valve go into the four walls of the room, with another going into the ground and the sixth pipe coming from under the platform she stood on, where the water came from. They needed to get water flowing into the large pipe by turning the valves. A simple puzzle that needed communication.
Once Aloy directs Vale to turn the corrects valves, water is flowing into the ground and a signal begins beeping. Large doors open up from either side of the room, opening to the outside.
"You think that noise means anything?" Vale questions once they regroup on the floor.
"It means be ready for a fight," Aloy answers. She has to block the sunlight with her palm as they exit the facility because it's so much brighter than inside and it takes a few minutes for her eyes to adjust. Looking around with her Focus, Aloy can see machine figures prowling around below them. Two Sawtooths and a Stalker.
It's an easy fight with the high ground to their advantage. Without a long range attack, the Sawtooths watch helplessly as Aloy lobs blast bombs at them and the Stalker can't do a thing against Vale's shield as he fires the shocker from his hammer. When they're dealt with, the two hunters climb down and return to the river canal, which is flowing with water again from the flood gates from the facility.
"We should return to that village and let him know he'll have water again soon," Vale suggests. Aloy nods.
"Right, and all those people will hopefully be able to recover from their illness. And then we can focus on how to get to the Spire and find Minerva."
"About that…" Aloy turns her head and looks up at Vale curiously. "I think I know what to do about that."
Aloy can hear the disappointment in his voice. "You do?"
"Yeah. I was thinking about it last night. We can't get past that army without a fight. And if what Chesser told us is true, their strength will be bolstered by machines. There's really only one thing to do. We have to go back to Central."
"Go back? After what we just did?" Aloy exclaims. "Assuming they don't arrest us, what is it that we need to ask if them?"
Vale folds his arms. "To move their armies forward and push the North back. Basically, we'll be asking them to start a war."
I'm back with an update! I'm very sorry for the wait and thank you to everyone who has remained to keep reading this fanfic. It was a stressful and hard couple of months, but I managed to finish up a new chapter for you guys. Hopefully the next one won't take as long but I'm still working very hard in my personal life to get things under control. I hope everyone had some great holidays and I'll see you in the next update soon!
Update: So sorry guys. See my detailed update where I cross-posted this fanfic over on Archive of Our Own, under the same name. A sad departure, but an unexpected gift, awaits you.