"Speach"

'Thought'

[Writing]

Gamma decided to head towards the Mountainside excavator instead of Blue Wave Harbor to check if the machine was having any issues. Since he built the excavator, there had been a multitude of problems with it.

While its construction had been a great leap in technology, there had also been many mistakes during the construction. The blueprints in his diary were quite detailed, that hadn't been the problem, it was more the fact that it had been quite complex, and not every worker was familiar with such complexity or advanced technology.

The result had been all kinds of flaws which Gamma was now slowly working through one by one.

At last, the original goal had been achieved which made the task overall a lot easier with the more or less constant stream of iron, coal, and other resources flowing in.

He sighed, before parking the Armory in one of his biggest private tents near the armory, before getting out unseen. The many nights of keeping others awake with his work had an advantage after all. At last now, nobody came to check on him when he made noise anymore and simply ignored it which allowed him to move the Armory mostly unseen through the night.

With that done he went to the side of the Armory and screwed open a pannel allowing him access to the inside as well as the most important piece of machinery which kept the vehicle running.

There, resting deep inside the machine was a Hydraulic-Core, the heart of every advanced steam machine.

He had spent close to a year working on this device, trying to figure it out as well as reconstructing it, using the 12-page long blueprint of it in his diary. After many trials and failures, he finally managed to succeed, using some mechanical high-precision tools to put the device together, one of the most impressive feats of mechanics and hydraulics he had ever assembled.

With close to hundreds of separate pieces working together in perfect synchronization, it was difficult to understand what it was for at first, but after many hours of studying his diary, Gamma finally understood. This machine was capable of processing information and responding accordingly.

Some kind of extended calculator if you want to call it that.

With a few practiced moves, Gamma quickly removed the precious device from the armory. Now it was nothing more but a useless piece of cogs and pipes. The spy could try to steal it if he wanted.

Carefully packing the Hydraulic-Core into his backpack he got ready to leave when he saw a guard running toward him.

—000—

Sparrow unsurely looked at the SeaWing patrol, not knowing how to explain their presence.

"We're just scavenger-watching." Summit jumped in for her, gaining strange looks.

"You're what?" the leader of the SeaWing patrol asked confused.

"You know. Scavenger-watching. It's like birdwatching, but with scavengers…"

"Look, first of all, why would you watch Scavengers, secondly the only scavenger den is up north, and thirdly it's nighttime so don't lie to us."

"We're not lying. Check for yourself if you don't believe us." Summit took a step to the side, pointing in direction of the strange scavenger camp that surrounded the behemoth behind the hill.

The SeaWing rolled his eyes but went to check nevertheless. "If this is some kind of trick, we will… holy mother of mercy!"

"Yea, we too thought something along those lines when we saw it for the first time."

Curious by their leader's reaction, the other SeaWings followed suit to see for themselves and they too were shocked at what they saw.

"What the hell is that?"

"Still figuring that one out."

Before they could reply a soft hissing was heard behind the group of dragons followed by a red light.

All of them whirled around in surprise to see what it was. There on the ground before them was a small what she presumed to be a metal torch or something with a small red flame at its tip, dipping the surrounding in an unsettling red light. The source of this device however was a lot less clear.

"What was that?" one of the SeaWings asked confused.

"I don't know, but we should get out of here." the leader "That thing pretty much destroyed our cover and is lighting us up like a beacon…"

He stomped on the miniature torch to put it out, before jumping back with a hiss, his talon now smelling like cooked fish.

The torch on the other hand continued to happily burn in its chilling red light.

Suddenly a rustle could be heard from the left of them, followed by something small dashing towards one of the SeaWings.

Before anyone could react, the thing had already reached the SeaWing.

Sparrow took a startled step back when she recognized what it was. Despite the armor, she could recognize it as a scavenger… and it was currently swinging its weapon at the SeaWing guard.

The precision and speed it performed this action with, spoke of a terrifying amount of practice and experience, as it performed its deathly work, before retreating to a safe distance.

It all happened over the timespan of a handful of seconds, and she could only watch in shock as the SeaWing reached for his neck with a startled cough, as his knees gave in and blood started to slowly flow.

She continued to watch in horror for a second before her eyes darted to the scavenger instead.

The scavenger looked quite muscular and wore an armor that was completely gray, slightly shimmering metallic without being reflective, and with what she presumed to be blue stripes running along with the helmet and chest plate.

From its body shape, she presumed that it was an adult male, although she couldn't say for sure.

Interestingly it walked around in a cautious, almost predatory style, constantly keeping an eye on the dragons. She honestly didn't know if that should unsettle or impress her.

Sparrow squinted. She had the strange feeling that she had seen this scavenger before, although she couldn't put a claw on it.

"Kill it!" the SeaWing leader suddenly shouted, rage in his tone, having finally worked around the shock.

Most of them hesitated, be it from shock or uncertainty to attack a scavenger who has just heavily injured one of them without hesitating about it, but one of them shot forwards, ready to avenge their comrade.

The Scavenger didn't run however and instead carefully moved backward, keeping an eye on the quickly approaching attacker.

As she continued to watch him, she noticed that he was making strange gestures with his hand. She had a lingering feeling that she knew what this meant.

"Watch out! It's a trap!" she managed to shout, but it was too late.

The scavenger to had shouted something, and almost instantly multiple scavengers who had hidden themselves behind the first one rose from their cover and threw things resembling spears at them.

A bit later the sound of explosions echoed access the range.

Another chapter. I decided to publish every 2th week now due to school and stuff. Sorry for the inconvinience. :-/