A Steady Pulse
A shrill whistle wrapped around Raven's ears as he checked over his gear in the crisp chill of the early morning twilight. Slinging his bedroll over his shoulder, he stepped out of the shadows and onto the plains, staring out across the vast fields of rippling reeds and wheat, abbreviated by a handful of rusted, decrepit metal towers, the remnants of an ancient nasod city long since abandoned to the wind and rain. After a quick look around, Raven realized that neither Rena nor Elsword nor Aisha nor Eve had arrived yet and, judging by the hour, he suspected a short while would pass before they were all assembled here. As he turned back toward the tunnels to gather additional supplies before setting out, Raven saw that he had not been standing there alone.
"Ah, here you are." Chief Adel climbed carefully out onto the plains and stood facing Raven cheerfully. "You are a difficult man to catch up with. If you've the time to spare, I was hoping to have a word with you before you set out."
"With me?" Raven glared, his astonishment concealed behind a slight scowl. Smiling heartily, Adel nodded.
"Yes. If you don't mind terribly, would you come with me to my study?"
Raven glanced around, reassuring himself that the sun was still an hour from fully rising before he nodded to Adel and followed him back down into the village.
"What's taking him so long?" Elsword yawned and stretched his arms out behind his head as the sun peeked over the horizon. "I thought he said he'd be here waiting for us?"
"Hm..." Rena stared off across the plains as she searched aimlessly for some sign of Raven. "I don't think he would have left without us... maybe we should go back down and check on him."
Aisha tightened her belts and slid her grimoire back into is pack. "I saw him headed up this way when I went down to get breakfast though. He should've been here already."
"One moment..." Eve brought up her console and began typing rapidly. "I will try to trace the material signature of his nasod arm."
"There's no need." Everyone turned back toward the tunnels as Raven's low, grizzled voice echoed into the air and he stepped into the sunlight. "Sorry for the wait. Let's go."
Nodding and closing her console, Eve took the lead alongside Rena and everyone else followed close behind as they set off across the swaying sea of sleeping reeds. After nearly an hour of marching and without a single enemy in sight, Elsword began fidgeting uneasily.
"Hey, why're we headed the long way around? Can't we get into that core-thing from where we fell in at?" Scanning the field ahead of him, Elsword glanced forward to Eve who continued on, unimpeded by his skepticism.
"The palace entrance will be blocked by enemies, and the primary entrance to the Core will be difficult to infiltrate. We will make our way to the rear entrance on the far side of the island. That area is much harder to secure and will be easier to break into."
Elsword scowled, partly because he found a two day hike across the plains a painfully long wait when the El was so close, and partly because he had no idea where anything was and so resigned himself to nodding silently at Eve's every instruction. The anxiety of the situation did not settle on Elsword alone and just to his side, Aisha's eyes darted across the horizon, searching for any sign of movement as she clutched her wand tightly. Guarding the rear, Raven was occupied similarly, keeping his guard up and expecting an ambush at every moment. The sheer number of nasod that had descended on them in the palace had placed everyone on edge, especially given the speed with which they had managed to surround them in an enclosed area. Out in the open, with only a withered bush or a wilting tree for cover, their odds might not be so favorable.
Just after the sun had reached its peak and began to fall back toward the sea, Eve stopped and stared into the distance.
"Wait." She raised a hand and pointed toward the overgrown, cluttered piles of scrap and rust that filled the plains just a few hundred yards ahead. "These are the Return Plains. Old nasod reaching the end of their life gather here. If the weaponized nasod have similar programming, they may also congregate here and will likely be hostile."
Aisha gazed out at the silent, strangely serene graveyard of mechanical souls. Scattered across the ground, piled into heaps, and covered with a dry tangle of roots and vines, the bodies of nasod lay in an eerily peaceful repose. It reminded Aisha of the elephants from her home country, separating themselves from the herd to die in peace and simply laying down with their eyes closed, waiting for life to leave them behind. As she watched the frozen corpses of the ancient nasod, a slow, uneven clattering rose to her ears. Within an instant, everyone had their eyes focused on a small, armored nasod as it hobbled toward them aimlessly. Stepping out in front of Eve and Rena, Raven drew his sword and glared sternly at his target.
"Are there others nearby?"
Eve opened her console quickly and shook her head. "The field ahead is covered with thousands of drones and weaponized nasod. It is impossible to tell how many of them are still functional enough to attack, but..." She stared solemnly at the graves ahead, her mouth hanging open as she searched for signs of life and found only signs of motion. "...It is safe to assume that they will all be hostile."
Raven nodded. "Alright. I'll take care of this one then." He walked four yards ahead, taking a firm but narrow stance as he waited for the nasod to enter his range.
"Wait, you won't be able to hurt that thing with that..." Elsword headed over to Raven's side, doubtful as he appraised the slender blade in Raven's hand and the thick armor on the lumbering nasod. Ignoring him, Raven dashed forward. As he neared, the nasod lunged toward him, flailing its arms wildly. In a single motion, Raven ducked beneath its arms, spun around to its back, and thrust his sword twice. As soon as he stepped back, the nasod groaned and toppled forward, smoke billowing from its neck and sparks crackling around its feet. Just a few feet away, Elsword blinked and stared, his eyes wide in disbelief.
"How-" His words caught in his throat as he tried to trace Raven's movements in his memory and failed.
"That's just the difference between precision and carelessly smacking everything you see." Aisha glared at him and nodded as she walked past to join Raven. Next to her, Eve glanced down at the joints in the nasod's knees, each cleanly severed by a single stroke.
"I agree. It is a much more efficient method of attack than 'careless smacking'"
"Don't worry about it too much," Rena smiled and patted Elsword on the shoulder as she passed him. "Everybody has something they're good at, so you shouldn't make such a scary face about it."
"What face?" Elsword scowled fiercely and stormed off, taking his blade in hand and glaring at the scattered nasod in the distance. Following after him, Rena giggled as they all made their way into the graveyard of the nasod.
The anxious tension in the air vanished as Elsword stepped into the valley of fallen nasod. A single, well worn road ran through the plains, interrupting what would have otherwise been an endless mire of forgotten souls, their bodies stacked a dozen feet high and mangled by centuries of neglect. It was as though the sea had parted, giving travelers just enough room to pass through and bear witness to the fragmented remnants of the ancient dead.
With a half dozen broken, shambling nasod headed toward him, Elsword breathed in sharply and rushed forward. The nearest nasod reeled back and swung at him clumsily, missing Elsword as he rolled to its side and drew a deep gash across the nasod's back with the edge of his blade, dropping it to the ground. A garbled screech rang out behind him as a limping machine stumbled toward him, a small cannon raised in its arms as it hurtled over the road. Running to meet his attacker, Elsword pulled his blade up swiftly, raising the nasod into the air and tossing it overhead. Just before it landed, Aisha thrust a burst of fire into its chest and sent it tumbling back into the wall of corpses. Just above her, a small drone peppered the ground with a haphazard spray of gunfire, forcing Rena and Eve to take cover nearby. Chanting quickly, Aisha summoned a swirling orb of dark energy and suspended it into the air before her. In a single instant, she teleported up atop the wall and kicked the nasod down into the mass of dark magic below, rapidly shocking and battering its armor and breaking its rifle in two. As it fell, Eve leapt forward and swung her hand out, sending Moby and Remy flying into the nasod's chest and pinning it to the wall with a violent crash. Just beside her, a tattered mining nasod pulled itself free from a heap of debris and leapt toward her. Spinning on her heels and stamping the ground smartly, Eve summoned a gleaming, silvery nasod spear from the earth that launched her target through the air. With a quick wave, she sent Moby and Remy to pin it to the nearby wall as Rena filled its arms with a flurry of arrows. Jumping across the uneven ledges formed by a tangled nest of broken limbs, Rena hopped up onto the pile of corpses and ran along its edge, firing a volley off into the neck of a large, hammer handed nasod and causing it to pitch sharply into the ground. Far ahead on the road, a nasod sniper leveled its cannon at her, its barrel trembling in the grasp of a single, half-rusted hand. Dashing aside, Rena fired off three shots that pierced the sniper's head cleanly but the nasod still stood with its weapon at the ready. Just as its muzzle flashed brightly, Raven reached rushed forward and punched the sniper to the ground with his left arm, sending a bright burst of gunfire sailing high into the air.
"Ah, thanks~" Rena smiled and waved happily, quickly raising her bow and pointing behind Raven to a pair of armored nasod bearing heavy shields and approaching his flank. As Rena's arrows glanced across their heavy shields, the nasod inched closer to Raven and one of them raised a crackling, electrified baton.
"Hmph." Raven scoffed and lunged to his right, ripping one nasod's shield away with his left hand and slicing both its arms off at the elbow in a single clean swipe. As he spun around behind, he swung out quickly and beheaded the nearest attacker, spinning his blade around and thrusting it into the next just as Rena fired a single, powerful shot that shattered its shield and dug into its chest.
"Just how many of these are still alive?" Aisha stood on guard as she looked down the road, watching as another dozen broken nasod crawled and clambered toward them. Just then, the wall behind her groaned and shrieked as a towering steel soldier pulled itself free from its comrades ragged corpses and roared. With its limbs twitching violently, the nasod reached out to grab Aisha and she ducked low, reaching up to grab its wrist and sending a fatal surge of lightning through its body. As one machine fell to its knees, three more descended on Aisha with their weapons drawn. With no time to move or attack, she grit her teeth and raised a faint, shimmering shield around her as she braced herself for the inevitable impact. In the very next instant, Eve dashed through the air and released a massive orb of electricity from her hands, bursting on contact and knocking Aisha's attackers to the ground. As the din of battle faded away, Eve floated gently to the ground and brushed off her sleeves.
"Aisha, are you uninjured?"
"Oh, yeah... I'm fine." Aisha nodded and straightened herself up, suppressing the urge to pout enviously. Up ahead of them, Elsword thrust his blade into the earth, sending a row of gleaming golden blades shooting up from the ground and cutting through the last of the errant nasod.
"Is that it?" He glanced around, keeping a firm grip on his sword and a flame in his hand as a trembling silence settled in around him. Scanning the screens of her console, Eve nodded.
"There do not seem to be any active nasod within three hundred yards."
"That was actually pretty refreshing." Rena stretched her arms out and smiled brightly. "Is everyone okay?"
Aisha checked herself over and pulled at a small tear in one of her sleeves. "I think so..." She turned to Elsword and he nodded to her quickly.
"Yeah, I'm okay. Let's keep going."
With everyone gathered together, Elsword and Aisha headed to the front of the group and marched down the weathered road, following the path of a forgotten funeral procession and its memory beaten into the ground by the final steps of the ancient nasod. Only moments after they set out, Eve paused and knelt beside one of the broken machines that had attacked them, a faint glow pulsing from within its shattered chest.
"Wait..." She reached down as Moby and Remy flew forward and pushed aside a mass of twisted metal, revealing a small, shining core. Eve stared intently, her eyes widening as she stretched her fingers out and just barely brushed the side of the shimmering, silvery sphere. As everyone stood watching, Rena walked back to Eve and leaned over her shoulder.
"Did you find something?"
Eve didn't answer. With her eyes fixed on the glowing core, she reached forward and wrapped her hands around it gently, slowly pulling it from its previous owner and cradling it carefully against her chest.
"This... is the heart of a nasod." A dim, sullen shadow fell across her face as she stared down at the faintly pulsing heart in her hands.
Raven and Elsword simply stared in confusion while Aisha recoiled slightly at the thought that Eve had just reached into a dead body and yanked out its still-beating heart.
"Hm... so, is that like your power supply?" Rena knelt down beside Eve and tilted her head slightly. Closing her eyes for a moment, Eve rose to her feet and confined the heart to her pocket.
"No, not exactly. Nasod require the energy of El to live, but the heart allows us to transform the light of El into electricity, which is a far more convenient energy source..." Her voice trailed off into the wind as she turned aside to another fallen nasod and searching for the heart within its battered shell. With his mouth wrinkled up awkwardly, Elsword's eyes narrowed and he stared skeptically.
"I get that part, but why are you reaching in and diggin' 'em out? It's kind of creepy..."
"Elsword!" Aisha huffed and glared at him harshly, though she agreed with him completely. Taking a second heart in hand, Eve moved promptly to the next nasod and sifted through its innards, a subtle, disheartening distress falling across her face.
"Every heart is born of the Core and must return to the Core so that new nasod can be born..." Eve reached down into her pocket to place a third heart only to find that there was no space left on her person. Moving quickly, she began piling hearts in her arms as her voice began to waver. "When nasod die, we travel here and remove our hearts. The soil here is much like quicksand and the hearts drift down into the earth where they fall back into the Core and are reborn as new nasod. The metal in our bodies is melted down and becomes the material of a new generation... this is the way it has been on Altera since the very first nasod was born, but..." A frail, stinging sorrow hung on the edge of her lips. "...I did not expect that their hearts would be used to power these weapons..."
"Eve..." Rena followed after her as she headed back up the road, scouring the corpses of every weaponized nasod and adding to the overflowing, shimmering heap in her arms. "Eve, I know this is important to you, and I know it isn't easy, but we don't have any way to carry all of those with us... We'll have to come back for them later."
"I-" Eve turned back to answer her and hesitated, suddenly aware of the weight of a dozen hearts pulsing softly in her arms. "...You are correct. I will create a cache and retrieve them later..." Kneeling slowly to the ground, Eve carefully gathered the hearts she had collected into a shaded corner, covering them with a small steel panel and marking their location in her console. After a moment's pause, she joined the others and marched down the road, toward the next pack of wandering, wounded weapons that bore the hearts of the nasod. After every skirmish, Eve busied herself removing every heart she could find and hiding them away at the edge of the road or within a small hollow. With every mile they tread, her eyes gleamed with a keen, unerring determination. Eventually, the wall of mangled metal corpses receded as they neared the end of the return plains. Along the side of the road, a gradual slope and a single, silent, hulking nasod stood with its empty eyes fixed on the setting sun. Approaching cautiously, Eve ducked beneath the creature's gigantic drill and peered into is chest.
By now, everyone else had fallen into a familiar pattern of waiting patiently for Eve while they kept quiet and looked aside. Although Eve had never told them anything of the sort, they couldn't help but feel that she was retrieving the souls of the dead, and even Elsword didn't dare interrupt something so somber. As soon as Eve reached within the rusted, moss-covered giant, a low, unsettling rumble filled the air. Startled, Eve looked up just in time to see the point of a roaring drill barreling down toward her. Kicking off of the ground, she flew backward and landed in the midst of her companions as the giant drill bored deep into the earth, leaving a gaping void behind where Eve had stood a second earlier.
"Are you okay!?" Rena rushed to Eve's side and fired off a volley at the massive nasod, each arrow glancing off of its heavy armor and leaving scarcely a scratch.
"I am fine, but the heart-"
"Don't worry, I won't cut it." Raven dashed forward and slashed furiously at the pistons and wires attached to the whirling drill, causing it to spark and sputter as smoke filled the air. Just as Raven turned toward the nasod itself, a huge, jagged fist hurtled through the air at him. He raised his sword and, though he blocked the blow cleanly, he felt his feet rise from the ground and soon he was tumbling backward through the air, falling helplessly until Rena leapt forward and caught him. While they recovered, Aisha and Elsword scowled fiercely and readied their weapons. The moment they charged forward, a long, wide cannon mounted on their opponent's back began to glow and they quickly turned back, grabbing Rena, Raven, and Eve and ducking to the ground. A single second collapsed into a brief eternity and all sound faded into a shrill ringing as the sky overhead erupted in a violent burst of ash and fire. Rolling back onto her heels, Rena fired off a single, heavy shot into the side of the cannon's barrel, sending it spinning around and sticking as it faced away from them. While the nasod struggled to turn its cannon back toward them, Rena turned aside to Eve.
"Is there any way to stop that thing without damaging the heart?"
Eve shook her head swiftly. "Do not worry about that. It is nearly impossible to damage a nasod heart. One moment, I will scan it for weaknesses."
"Hmph." Aisha scoffed and gritted her teeth, glancing aside at Elsword. He nodded firmly and they knocked their knuckles together, a wild flame sprouting in their hands. While Raven stood on guard and Eve worked busily at her console, Elsword and Aisha charged forward defiantly.
"Wait! Don't-" Rena stood and called out after them, but by the time she did they were already standing before the giant nasod. As Elsword raised his sword to strike, the nasod swung its broken drill out and slid beneath it, just as Aisha teleported around to the nasod's rear. In less than a second, they were both standing beneath the belly of a rumbling, rusted metal beast. Elsword glanced aside at Aisha and they grinned deviously at one another, clenching their fists tightly and thrusting their hands into the nasod's undercarriage. As a small, swirling mass of flame crackled and roared, Aisha and Elsword dashed out into the open and rolled away just as the ground split open and a thunderous pillar of flame shot into the sky, spreading out in every direction and completely engulfing the giant nasod. As the conflagration spread out toward them, Elsword and Aisha turned and raised their hands, confining their spell by force as the whirling torrent of fire soared into the sky. After several seconds, the flames finally faded, leaving behind only a large, charred patch of earth in their wake. A few moments later, a small, silvery sphere whistled through the air and fell to the ground at Eve's feet. Huffing and panting proudly, Elsword and Aisha stared off into the horizon and began laughing carelessly.
"Ha! Stupid machine. That was way too easy." Elsword crossed his arms and grinned as Aisha glanced aside at him and echoed his sentiment.
"If every one of them is this weak, we'll have the El back by tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, just like-" Elsword's knees began to wobble and he suddenly lost the feeling in his feet, falling over onto Aisha. "Oof..."
"Gah! Elsword, get off me!" Aisha blushed and tried to push him away, only to find that she could scarcely raise her arms. "Ah... crap... we used... way too much... all at once..." Within a second, she collapsed against him and the two were sprawled out on the ground on top of one another.
"Hey! Get off! You're way too heavy!" Elsword grumbled as he struggled to push himself away and failed miserably. Aisha shot him a vicious, bitter glare.
"What was that!?"
Standing and staring at them, Raven and Eve had no words that could capture their shock. Beside them, Rena nearly doubled over giggling, finally gathering herself just enough to sigh fondly and give a bright, reckless smile.
"Well, I suppose we should set up camp here for the night then."