~Father of Demigods~
~801. M30~
~Segmentum Obscurus~
~Medusa~
~X~
Her half-finished almost-knife chipped. Pausing in her work for a moment, she raised it up to inspect closer with a blank expression on her face. This salvage was overly high in carbon then, for the metal to be this brittle. She frowned, and tossed the hunk of metal into the second pile. She would need to put it through an oxygenation process to make it useful to her, and it would be more effective to simply find a different section of the ruins to acquire metal from.
She would leave this pile here, and come back to it another time, if she ever somehow ran low on metal. It was doubtful, there were mountains of material still left to dig through, and at her current rate she would finish her duty long before she had to resort to such low quality material.
There was no sense in attempting to destroy it though. She'd leave it in storage just in case.
That was all the metal sorted through, standing up from the floor of the natural cave, she walked over to the immense chain hooped through a ring impaled on the floor, attached to a wheel above, which was in turn attached numerous cogs, which were in turn attached to a crude air-blowing fan. Turning the wheel via a lever, she slowly wound up the immense chain until the weight it was attached to was far into the air, adjacent to the ceiling.
Finally raised to its highest point and wound up, she let the device go, and watched for a moment to ensure the mechanism still worked.
The weight minutely began to fall, the energy provided by gravity twisting the wheel, which turned the cogs, which amplified the effect of the motion, and twisted the fan to blow air into her smelter-fire.
The coals came to life with fire once more. Hot coals on the bottom warming and igniting cold coals freshly added. The fan would blow for twelve hours, and the smelter-chamber would be filled with new blocks by the time she returned, scrap metal melting and flowing into pre-built channels installed into the modular plate that contained them.
Cast iron made for poor swords, but it was more than acceptable for clubs and hammers. Bludgeoning was more effective on the steel-skin monsters anyways.
Walking away from the almost-auto smelter, she hefted up her traveling bag once more, then fitted her gauntlets onto her arms and attached their cables to the battery in her bag. Choice bits of salvage from lucky finds in the ruins. The clans on the other side of the mountains didn't come up here, so she had first pick for anything she could carry. The arms were too heavy for delicate work, and wasting battery power keeping them active was wasteful.
Grabbing her warhammer and emergency mace, she carefully listened for the hum of electricity outside. Hearing nothing, she slowly moved forwards to open the armor-plate door and glance around at the mirrors she set up.
Nothing around the entrance, safe to move out. She walked out the door and felt the air outside. It was much colder than her forge-hideout, but that was a given. It was a warm day, and a slight glare of sunlight was visible through the smog-clouds.
Reaching into her pack and tearing through a chunk of salted meat, she considered what she needed to check up on. Hideout 1 wouldn't have her meat finished being salted for another week or more, and she had enough stashed away elsewhere. Hideout 3 was still recharging old batteries. Hideout 4 was still drying clay.
…She supposed it was time to kill another metalbeast. It had been a few weeks since the last one, she had recovered, she was well-fed, her new armor and weapons were done, and all outposts were running for a few more hours.
Not silver-worm, the big bastard was still too much for her to take on. Not dagger-digger or lightning-tail either, she needed proper projectile weapons for them, and she needed black powder for her smoothbores. Energy guns would be preferred, but she had yet to find any in usable state.
Plasma-eyes might give her a good projectile weapon, if she could avoid smashing the plasma-shooters. She'd need to be sneaky though, her armor couldn't take the hit.
No, safer to go for something else.
A crash in the distance brought her attention. Slowly, perhaps a mile or two away, one of the many towers of stone, metal, and glass began to groan and collapse. Rumbling as it gave way beneath itself and sending vibrations through the ground. The distinct clicking noise told her its identity.
…Cutter-claws was a good enough target, she supposed. Unclipping the helmet from her belt and fitting it over her head, she attached the straps to secure it tight against her head and pressed the power button on the side. The words rolled over her vision, just as they had a thousand times before.
['Starcorp' Cadet-Class Utility Helm online.]
[You have been approved for : Heads-Up Display. Anti-Dazzle Flash Compensation. Comm-Link.]
[Error : No Sat-Link found. Comm-Link will not function.]
—
Cutter-claws was fairly small as far as the metalbeasts went. Right about as big as the tracked-vehicles that carry the big cannons on top. A large rounded oval for a main body covered in smooth plates and the occasional spike. Then two sets of manipulator-arms, a larger pair on top that had blade-sets built into the interior and a smaller set that were blunt and used to grab things. Then revolving sets of four legs on each side and below the main body, allowing it to spin entirely around.
Cutter-claws liked to find exposed support-struts and cut them, sometimes leading to one of the many ruined towers collapsing over from critical supports suddenly no longer being functional. Like all metalbeasts, it hated living things and tried to kill them whenever it detected such.
Which of course meant that the moment she made noise, it locked on and started chasing her. Her iron-boots smashed into the concrete as she moved, ducking through a path between two buildings and out the other side, hopping over a stone barricade and into the second road.
Behind her, Cutter-claws smashed through the relatively thin building, the heavy stone barely putting up resistance against the enraged metalbeast, but enough resistance to slow it down.
She had to take a rather winding path to her kill-zone in order to make sure she wouldn't be caught in the process of luring it there. Metalbeasts were almost always faster than her. Warhammer in hand, she kept running, coming up to a broken bridge. Immense and stretching across a massive plaza down below, she slowed her pace.
The metalbeast was rapidly gaining on her. She was running out of bridge. She kept moving forwards, waiting for the correct moment.
She took her last stomp forwards. The Cutter-claw swiped.
She ducked, stomping against the slightly raised section of shattered bridge-stone, and twisted. The claw scraped against her helmet, carving a slice off the top.
Her warhammer smashed against the track-revolver for its legs, immediately yanked from her grip and getting caught in the mechanism. A chunk of thick iron now impaled in relatively delicate machinery.
The revolutions stopped for a moment, its right-side legs could not compensate for the end of the bridge.
It began to slide off, and she was caught in the legs on the other side of the metalbeast. Right where she wanted to be. Grabbing onto one of the raised armor plates on the bottom, she let herself be pulled along.
The cutter-claw turned over as fell off the broken bridge, and now she was perfectly positioned upon its underside, now facing the dark clouds above. She had about twelve seconds to work.
She reached down with her other hand, ignoring the futility thrashing legs and claws that tried to swipe at her, and the wind that whipped past her hair. Straining with her power-gauntlets, she slowly pried the armor-plate up and off, throwing it to the side.
She grabbed her emergency mace, flipped to its spike-end handle, and impaled the critical power-line that fueled the claws.
She was mostly out of time, she threw her mace to the side and braced herself upon the underside.
The cutter-claw crashed into the relatively cool rock-flow below with a titanic boom. Her limbs shook and body was flung about as the impact reached her, she kept her grip tight upon the underside, she'd die otherwise. This section was immensely hot, just barely enough for the stone below to still be semi-mobile. Sweat immediately began to build with the crash, and flecks of molten rock landed on her armor plates, flash-welding to them with a hiss of rock on salvaged steel.
The cutter-claw was doomed now, with power to its claws now disabled, it would die in the molten rock. Now was the matter of escaping with her prize. Quickly moving, avoiding the still-thrashing legs, she reached over to grab the now powerless secondary cutter-claw, the smaller one.
The bigger one weighed several thousand pounds, she couldn't hope to move it and escape the rock-flow. The smaller one was much lighter, and more importantly, the perfect size for a new sword.
She grabbed a protrusion-spike and pulled it up back towards the underside, as far as it would go. Once there, she rapidly began to use her power-gauntlets to undo the many small connectors that attached the claw to the arm.
She swallowed, the terrible heat was getting to her.
Finally removing enough of the connectors, she grabbed the claw with both arms and twisted, bracing herself against the underside and…
Snapping off her prize, the long and thin shear-claw, only perhaps a hundred or so pounds. Hefting it in both arms, she looked around her and considered her path for a moment. She reached up to smack out her back-pack, which caught on fire from the ambient heat. Nodding to herself, she jumped.
Landing on a cooler-section for a moment, she kicked off again as soon as possible. Molten rock, despite being liquid, was more dense than anything she was wearing. She could walk on it so long as she moved quickly, provided she had something heat-resistant.
Unlike her thick-iron boots, which were already uncomfortably hot.
She landed again on an even cooler rock-flow, and kicked off again. She winced as her feet began to blister from the oven they were in. It was still better than stomping on molten flows barefoot, at least.
This process repeated, again and again, until she finally made it to a section of land that wasn't dangerously hot. Gritting her teeth at the pain in her legs, she stumbled forwards and then into a recess she had mapped out before, relatively sheltered from her surroundings.
Plopping down with a sigh, she set down her prize and slowly removed her boots to check on the damage. Her power-gauntlets were made of a heat-resistant material, so they managed the hot metal just fine.
She grunted unhappily at what she saw. All of the first layer and much of the second layer of skin was burned. Fortunately nothing reached the fatty tissue layer, but the pain would be infuriating for a while. Quickly she opened her back-pack and retrieved the now very-warm water container. Unscrewing her best attempt at a filtration-lid, she slowly poured the liquid over her burns to cool them off.
She grit her teeth as the pain continued to build. Burns were the worst.
Water applied, she reached into another pouch and pulled out strips of horn-animal leather, quickly wrapping them around her feet and lower legs until they were completely covered. Once done, she put her cooler boots on once more, and stood up.
Red-hot in her legs. White-blind in her eyes. She strangled her scream. She refused to stumble.
Grabbing her prize-claw once more, she loaded up her bag and moved from the protected recess.
Only to immediately pause at what she saw. There was a figure before her. It was not a metalbeast.
A giant covered in golden power-armor sat on the rock-banks a small distance away. Left hand covered in immense claws that shone blue. Right hand holding her mace, held before its gaze for inspection. The one she threw away during her earlier fall.
The giant had long black hair and bronze skin. A faint light came from its eyes, and the glare was present even through the flash compensation of her helmet…
She focused on the display.
[Sat-Link found. Comm-Link active on channel 1]
She turned her focus back towards the giant.
It was looking at her now, she tensed. About to run on injured legs…
The giant spoke a language. She understood the words. An excellent hunt.
She swallowed, no weapons prepared. It-he had been watching her? She narrowed her eyes into a sharp glare. "What are you?" She spoke the words in the language. She did not know how she knew this language. It was one of the many things that she simply knew. A mystery that she had no way of solving.
The giant smiled. I am a father, looking for his daughter. I have succeeded.
She considered that for a moment, slowly moving into a position to more easily run if needed. The giant did not react, probably not a metalbeast in disguise then, but too big to be a clansman. Thinking over the words, she eventually came to a conclusion.
"You claim to be my father. You have no proof I can trust."
The giant tilted his head, nodding in consideration. Hmm. What would it take then, for you to see this as truth?
She waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing. Everything you could provide could be faked. I have lived here alone, and you are a stranger. There is nothing you can provide to prove that you are truly my father."
She grunted in thought for a moment, before continuing. "It doesn't matter if you are or aren't either way. What matters is if you're worthy of being my father."
The giant inclined his head at that. Hmm. I see. The giant smiled, she found her eyes drawn to the expression. It made her feel successful. What must I do then, to prove myself worthy of being your father?
Reaching up, she scratched at her neck for a moment in consideration. What can he do to prove this?
The answer was simple. Prove his strength.
"My father must be at least as strong as my goal, he would have had much more time than I to gain strength and equipment. There is a metalbeast that roams the ruins of this land. Massive, long, and covered in armor. I call it the silver worm, it is the strongest metalbeast I know of. If you can destroy it alone, you'll be worthy of being my father." She explained simply and bluntly. Any clansman would recoil at such a task, for she had seen them flee from the silver-worm many dozens of times before.
She was not strong enough to defeat it on her own yet. It needed to die, and stop ravaging this world with its presence. She had no particular qualms about how it met its end.
Unexpectedly, the giant chuckled, before rising up from his seated position. I see. Very well then, do you have anything you wish to bring with you? You need to be present to confirm its defeat, no doubt.
She considered it for a moment, before looking down at the claw in her hands and grunting. She wasn't about to lead a giant back to any of her hideouts. "No. We'll go now."
She took a step forward. Her eyes widened behind her visor.
There was no pain in her legs.
The giant was already walking away, beginning to speak once more. Silver Wyrm? I think I shall need my spear for this. The giant paused, before turning his torso around to face her once more. He was smiling widely behind the glare of his light-eyes. I consider myself quite the old hand at slaying dragons, you understand. I have a practiced technique.
She stared for a moment too long, before shaking her head with a grunt and glare. "I do not know what a Dragon is. This is a silver-worm."
The giant chuckled. All the same, Athena.
She did not pause to consider the name, not yet. He had not proved himself worthy of being her father, so all his names were worthless to her.
--
"No further." His daughter called out in blunt old Terran, stopping just before emerging over the ridge ahead. He stopped at once, and the procession of custodians and tech-priests following them immediately stopped moving at once. She turned, face only partially visible behind her scavenged helmet and continued. "The silver-worm can sense life from a distance halfway to the horizon, it is always hostile to humans. I do not know if it has moved since last I found it."
The conditions upon Medusa were particularly poor, poor enough that one of his safeguards had activated within her. In response to being lost in a place completely hostile to life, a basic reservoir of information would flow from their souls and into their minds. In combination with their body growing quicker in response to stressors, this would ensure that his children would be able to survive in nearly any environment without aid.
It was unfortunate to see that it had come to pass, but it was good that he had woven such measures into them. Athena was healthy, strong, and stable, about all he could hope for on a world such as this. Fiery-hearted, stony-fleshed, iron-helmed. If any of his daughters were to suffer enough to trigger his safeguards, it was fortunate that it was she designed to best handle such.
He had wandered the world after leaving the ruins of Atlantis, and in time he found the familiar pleasures of warfare, women, and wine dull to his senses. He had no equal in battle, he had laid with many of the most beautiful women of all parts of the world, and sampled the finest of wines and ales. In idleness, he had sought something new to busy himself with.
The sparks from a nearby blacksmith's ship drew his gaze. Remembering that his father, from what little he recalled of the man, was also a smith, he decided to master the forge-arts as well. From then on, whenever he moved to a new land he brought his tools with him, and sought the tutelage from the local masters of metalworking. The sparks and joy of mastery brought him a newfound passion for life.
He had always practiced the art of war, loving, and merry-making. Adding the practice of the smithing-arts to his repertoire was simple enough, although this too eventually dulled to a comfortable familiarity. He kept up the practice, but there was little else to master after a point, and his interest in creation for the sake of creation waned.
Athena was drawn from these memories. A clever mind paired with clever hands, a heart of fiery passion paired with a bone-deep sense of duty. The gift given unto her was one of simple pleasures, she would find a satisfaction in fulfilling her duties that would never dull in time as his did. She would take tasks upon herself, and her heart would sing whenever she worked to complete them.
Breathing in the ice-cold air for a moment, he looked to the horizon and considered his daughter's words. All around him the blasted and frozen mountains that led up to this more northerly-part of Medusa. The smog was thick overhead, and even with a near-constant sun the lands here were still dark.
Halfway to the current horizon would be… "A kilometer and a half then." He reasoned aloud. Turning towards the techpriest at the head of the procession, a woman clad in cybernetics that exalted her form and currently aloft upon great walking-tendrils that extended from her back, he spoke. "Archmagos Dominus, a servo-scout if you would."
"At once Lord Omnissiah." The woman returned, raising her great cog-shaped axe and summoning forth a servo-skull from the procession behind her. The procession was present to harvest any potential relics from the so-called metalbeast and the surroundings, and she was leader of such.
The whirring servo-skull flew bravely forth, rising up and beyond ridge to look beyond. They were amusing little contraptions, basic drones housed in skulls sometimes vat-grown and sometimes harvested. There was some manner of spiritual significance to that, but he did not bother to learn of it. It was rather harmless all things considered.
Soon enough, the woman spoke out once more. "There is an entity that matches the description of your lady-daughter, Lord Omnissiah. It is two and a half kilometers away."
Nodding at that he began to walk up to the edge of the ridge, looking out at the region himself. The so-called 'bright valley' his daughter named was only about as illuminated as dusk on Terra.
It was a massive mountain-valley, covered in permafrost and the ruins of an old federation-era city, swallowed by the cold. Much of the buildings on the left side were collapsed and now covered in miles-wide glaciers, the reason for such visible below with active lava flows visible through great trenches carved into the ice above.
The silver-wyrm was immediately apparent to him in the far distance, coiled up like a great snake and armor panels on its body strangely exposed. It was resting in the exact middle of the brightest region of the now-ruined city-glacier, and smooth metallic feelers reaching directly up into the sky. He narrowed his eyes at the metalbeast, noting distinct similarities to something…
The crunch of snow by his side brought his attention to his daughter, still clutching her metal prize and now staring at the creature in the distance with a glare and frown.
Nodding, she spoke. "That's silver-worm. If you can kill it, then you're my father."
He nodded in turn, and waved a hand to indicate it was safe to approach. A handful of his custodians came up, as did the Archmagos. This was a test for him, amusing as that was, so he began to explain his thoughts aloud. "Was it here the last time you observed it?"
His daughter spoke in affirmation. "Yes."
"Were the panels on its back exposed in that manner?"
"Yes."
He nodded. "That is one of the brightest spots in the whole of this region. It has not moved. Its armor is exposed. Its feelers are active. From this I have a suspicion that it is attempting to refill its reserves of power with sunlight-collectors."
Raising a claw and pointing to the head of the creature, he observed a minute detail. "Look upon its head, then again at the section somewhat further down. There is a groove in the panels. Elsewhere these grooves are illuminated, but not there. This leads me to suspect that it operates without its primary motive force."
"How do you know that?" His daughter questioned, not disagreeing with him, but testing regardless.
"I am an old hand at dragonslaying." He answered simply. "I have slain a beast such as this before, and those grooves were as bright as a green sun then. This in addition to its behavior brings me to my conclusion."
"The silver-wyrm currently operates on auxiliary power sources. It cannot accumulate power quickly due to the thick smog of this world. The best manner in which to slay it is persistence, to batter it at great distance until it is drained of its scant reserves and can no longer defend itself."
He turned his gaze to his daughter, who was quietly observing him. "I suspect that you had the same plan. Once you had fully matured, acquired sufficient armor and projectile weaponry, you would engage in a long-term hunt of the creature. Slowly whittling its power reserves, chasing at a distance and harassing, until it was sufficiently drained enough to slay safely."
She nodded. "Is that what you will do?"
He huffed in amusement. "Nay. I do not know the limits of its reserve-power. Such a hunt could take hours or months, entirely too long."
He turned a grin to his daughter. "I shall instead simply slay it here and now."