The land lays silent. Machine carcasses fill up the land. A thick fog obscures her vision, though the goggles she got from Aloy seem to take the worst of it. The mask however is surprisingly great at filtering out the particles in the Air. The legacy did mention similar toxins, however much that is worth. Though something is new. GAIA, Beta, and Aloy had worked together to analyze and counteract the fog. But something was off. They couldn't quite understand how it worked. Hepheastus's machines were decaying, and the plants were dying, but humans were weirdly not affected. At least not directly. A sample from Nemesis's corpse might prove useful in determining the Poison functionality. That is why she was here.
The charger is tough, but it will only survive for so long. A small amount of decay was already starting to appear on its horns. a few hours maybe? No matter what, she needed to search further. No point in turning back now. The old ruins were coming back into view, so now the only thing to do was search the data lying around. She stepped off the charger and entered the ruins. rundown as it had always been, but decay was visible on another level. The air truly is toxic. The focus activated, scanning every piece of data lying around. I hope I have better luck today. The ruins are plentiful, and it's unlikely to search it completely in the time she had left. She looked down at a bracelet with a flat piece of machine armor strapped to it. It is a sort of clock, that is ticking down the time left for the charger, based on the amount of decay on the piece of machine scrap. 46.7 %, the focus doesn't lie. I should move back. I am sure Aloy will… I'm sure she will be happy to see me. Her chest tightened with the thought. She turned around to head back toward the Charger, as something caught her eye. A small data trail. It didn't register prominently, but it was definitely suspicious now that she looked closer.
A few quick steps to reach it, and a crouch to come a bit closer. She scanned the data with her focus and reached her hand out to navigate the data. There are plenty of data files, but they mostly seem to be execution logs. They are for something called the "Chimera Strain", but I have never heard of that. Maybe Beta or Aloy knows about it, but… "Lattice-structure Instability", "Alloy Collapse", "GAIA Machine Exterior". Is this the thing that poisons the machines? Using her focus, she downloaded the data before following the data trail.
DATA ENTRY / EXECUTION LOG
Data Corruption: Patrial
Directive: Initiate Ferrum-Wraith Sequence - Active Status
Ferrum-Wraith Substrate Trojan-Jump … Successful
Alloy Identification Protocol ... Initialized
Alloy Identification ... Successful
Alloy Identity: GAIA Machine Exterior - Type 5 Austic-Steel-Armorplating Substrate
Lattice-structure Disruption Initiation ... Successful
Alloy Lattice-structure Instability: 78.53%
Alloy Collapse Catalyst Sequence ... Ready for Activation
/ TROJAN-SUBSTRATE INTEGRATION ACTIVE
... initiating disruption cascade... CORRUPTION ERROR 57A3 ...
…DATA CORRUPTED
The air became thicker as she followed the path, a good sign, but also worrying. Her vision was heavily obscured at this point, only the purple flickers from her data were visible. The terrain was becoming rough and uneven, even for a rocky wasteland filled with dead machines. A small light could be seen through the smoke, red and ominous. Her focus began to show a purple outline before she could lay eyes on the structure itself. A tall rugged stalk, about 5 meters in height. A few broad extrusions from its top almost mimicked the general shape of a flower. It broad up memories of a conversation she had had with Aloy. They had talked about the past. What was it called again… The Cut? She remembered Aloy mentioning machines that looked like flowers that could repair other machines in their proximity. And she remembers Beta speaking about them as well. She didn't claim to completely understand, but Beta had explained that it used tiny machines, smaller than the eye could see, to interact with the machines' metal, fixing their damages. Was this the same concept? She stepped closer, the amount of data coming from this mechanical flower was immense, and most of it alien.
The focus called it a "Poison Blom". A horrid twist on the Control Towers of the north-eastern tundra. Its structure was sickly, but it didn't seem to be decaying the same way as GAIA's machines. It was haunting. This is different. Very different. I must report this back to the others.
Her time was running low. She looked down at her wrist again. The piece of metal had completely decayed. Dammit. She took a short moment to inspect her breathing, was her filtration-mask still functioning? No matter, even if it isn't there isn't much I can do other than escape anyway. She scanned the final data before running back to her Charger. Her breathing was heavy before she reached her ride, but it didn't matter. She threw her leg over, and set off, the machine graveyard and the mechanical flower disappearing behind her.