A/n: Help reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ?? slinktr.ee/donovel ??
A/n: Vol.8 has ended on Chapter 694, Vol.9 Song of the Dragons begins on Chapter 695. All of them are available on P4treon, read them early over there.
After eting Apostle Galyn and the remaining Clockwork Apostles, the group headed outside the Brass Fortress through the secret tunnels.
Glyt didn't seem to be willing to expose Jon's attack plan to the Clockwork Apostles in the city but Laaneth was too excited and revealed that reinforcents are waiting outside the city in order to take cinar out. With the sa level of excitent, the Clockwork Apostles were very welcoming to the idea of taking on cinar and eting those visitors from the outside world for the first ti in two centuries.
Of course, not all of the Apostles were feeling the sa and so were fearing an invasion from more outlanders. So said they would handle it on their own and others seed to be willing to take up arms against any more invading forces but Galyn, their leader, was adamant about receiving reinforcents. He said that whatever cinar is doing deep in the Fortress may be disastrous if left alone more than this.
Also, it seed very obvious that cinar was afraid of whatever was out there and was sending a lot of his twisted creations to fight it and keep it in check. Galyn seed to know what cinar was after but kept feigning ignorance no matter how many tis Laaneth asked, however, Glyt took note of that.
In the end, the party of Glyt, Laaneth, Ram, and their Tarnished guide ended up in the Mire chanica and started searching for the Treasure Hunters that were hired by cinar, the ones who still had Swims-at-Night as their prisoner.
The Mire chanica was a place of brass-colored land and deep pits of murky waters that were interconnected through old water pipes. This swampland seed to have ford thanks to the leakage of so water pipes and its lack of maintenance which slowly beca contaminated with all sorts of diseases thanks to the microorganisms that started inhabiting these parts.
Moreover, many other liquids were leaking in the swamps, which included refined and crude oil from the surrounding broken oil rigs. Many alien trees grew in these arid swamplands and so were even growing through and around the brass pipes that were everywhere in this part of the land.
As for finding the Treasure Hunters, it was like a stroke of luck when Ram was sending so feedback signals to the workshop at the Pavilion of Artifice where Jon was and happened to pick up a nearby signal that was being transmitted to sowhere inside the city.
When Ram inford Laaneth of that, she led the four of them to intercept whatever was emitting it. There, they found the Treasure Hunters.
From how things seed like, four treasure hunters were surrounding a pit that was being dug by soone and they were all ard with advanced weaponry from Clockwork City. Glyt could tell that the one who was digging the pit for the Treasure Hunters was Swims-at-Night as they seed to be forcing them to dig out sothing in the murky swampland.
As for getting Swims out of this situation without endangering him, Glyt had a very simple plan.
"Hey!" Glyt called as he walked towards the Treasure Hunters, "The four of you! That's my friend you have there!"
As anger and hostility were displayed on his face, the Treasure Hunters aid their weapons at him with nacing glares and obvious smirks.
"Well well well. If it isn't the fool we got the ring from." The Leader of the Treasure Hunters, the Blondie called Aldora, spoke as she pointed with her sword at Swims, "Ca for your friend?
"Swims!" Laaneth ca out from hiding while taking so distance from Glyt.
"Laan… Laaneth?" Peeking his head from the pit, Swims couldn't believe his eyes for the face he just saw was that of one of his oldest friends.
This, however, seed to have irritated the Treasure Hunters as they weren't expecting more nuisance.
"Hey! I'd hate to get in the way of your reunion with your mate but how about this?" Aldora spoke and got behind the pit where Swims was, "Throw down your weapons and promise to leave us to plunder in peace, and you can have him."
"Don't do it, Glym!" Swims called but Aldora kicked a stone against him to shut him up.
"You want us to trust you? Not likely. We'll get him back the hard way." Laaneth seed fire-up and her staff started to radiate with Fla.
"Wait! Laaneth!" Glyt, however, seed more concerned about Swims and took off his sheathed sword from his belt and started to lower it down, "We're just here for our friend."
"Wise choice." Aldora replied and her smile curled upwards even more, "Although… it just occurred to , why don't we just kill you now and keep our captive?"
"Yes, you can very much do that or…" Glyt said with an expressionless face and then looked at Swims, "… you can lower your head."
Both Laaneth and Glyt ducked to the ground imdiately and the sound of gatling thunder broke through the calmness of the swamp forest as a hail of bullets made a brrrrrrrrrrrrt sound and tore through whatever it was aid at.
In an instant and from left to right, the bullets decimated the heavily armored treasure hunter at the forefront of the group and blasted off the right arm of the Khajiit Archer right next to him. The Orc shamaness that was behind them transford herself into a small creature and escaped imdiately while the Nord Aldora ducked to the ground almost the sa instant Glyt and Laaneth did.
As the hail of bullets was over, Swims-at-Night attacked Aldora with his shovel but she rolled away and started running towards where her Orc friend did. She looked back at Glyt, who was chasing her, and shouted in rage as she watched her Khajiit comrade bleed to death.
Glyt didn't chase Aldora for long and ran back to Swims and Laaneth. He saw Laaneth trying to pull Swims out of the pit and so he too gave a helping hand.
"Swims! Thank Azura you're safe!"
As they sat together in the Swamp, Laaneth and Swims started catching their breath from the tension of the situation while Glyt stood over them.
"What was that?" Swims asked with a shocked Argonian expression, "That insane attack. It almost blew my head off."
"Survival estimation, 95%." A voice replied.
chanical and emotionless, the owner of the voice stepped out from the cover of dried and charred bushes in his full brass body. Ram seed to have switched his legs for caterpillar tracks (like a military tank) to withstand the power of the gatling gun he just sprayed around. Seeing him, the Argonian Swims-at-Night had to stand alard.
"Relax, it is a friend we t here. Call him Ram." Laaneth said.
"Seriously? Those things run errands for that crazy cinar wizard. Can't believe you tad one!" Said Swims as he checked out Ram from a distance.
"He's not a Factotum. He's a real person trapped in one. If only he can tell us how though." Glyt said, "Jon Dare introduced us to him."
"Right!" Swims beca alert imdiately as if he rembered sothing dangerous, "Jon Dare, he's here!"
"We've t him." Laaneth said and stood up, "We need to reunite with him later but we agreed to help the Clockwork Apostles with their mory Crystal that was stolen by the Treasure Hunters. Now that they've run…"
Laaneth seed a little bit depressed and Glyt shook his shoulder since he's not going to chase so dangerous individuals like those Treasure Hunters into an unknown plane of existence like this.
"Oh! You an this?" At that mont, Swims-at-Night forked out sothing from his pocket.
"That's…" Both Glyt and Laaneth were lost for words seeing the prize they agreed to collect for Galyn and the Apostles in the hands of their sticky-fingered friend.
"How did you get that?" Laaneth asked.
"It looked valuable so I swept it from those idiots." He said with the sinister laugh of a thief.
"You're a wonder, Swims!" Laaneth hugged Swims-at-Night and looked at the mory Crystal with glee, "Let's move from this place first. We need to take a look at its content…"
And just as she was about to drag her allies and move towards the city, sothing ca flying over their heads. The three adventurers lowered their heads and put on their defense while Ram aid up his gatling gun and sprayed a hail of bullets at whatever that thing was with extre prejudice and unshakable accuracy.
That flying thing landed on a tree by getting impaled into one of its branches. As it stopped, it appeared that the flying thing was a headless body that sohow got flung by so extrely powerful attack.
As for the head, it seed to have fallen in a different location long before the body got sprayed with Ram's bullets. This body belonged to the Orc Shamaness that was with the Treasure Hunters and escaped first just a couple of minutes ago.
As for what ca next, all those who were present felt the sound of footsteps slowly approaching them.
"Ram, get ready." Glyt spoke.
"Disapproved!" Ram replied with no interest whatsoever.
"What?" The others felt anxious as whatever was coming with nothing less than an imminent threat.
As the footsteps got closer, two figures erged from behind the dry trees, the first was Kota in his gigantic form called Dragon and the other was none other than Jon Dare who was wearing armor this ti around and dragging the blonde Aldora from her hair.
"Glyt old man!" Jon called while waving his free hand that had so smoke coming from it, for so reason.
"Slaughter! HAHA!" Kota (Dragon) burst into maniacal laughter and started beating down the corpse of the armored Treasure Hunters with his oversized arm, "Thunder Cookie! Again! Again! Hahaha!"
"Hey, peabrain! Only I can do Thunder Cookie!" Jon shouted at Kota (Dragon).
"Only… you?" Kota (Dragon) tilted his head in wonder before realizing the truth, "Sadge!"
The others realized that Jon's iconic "Thunder Cookie" spell was the thod used to blast the Orc Shamaness to death. The lethality of that spell was rumored to be able to make opponents explode on contact and was used frequently by Jon, especially against the people he hated the most, naly the Thalmor agents.
While the others recalled that, Jon ignored Kota (Dragon) whose depression shrunk him back to the normal Kota, and approached Glyt.
"You made contact with living Clockwork Apostles and found a mory Crystal of Sotha Sil." Said Jon to Laaneth and Glyt, "I can only say this day is getting better and better."
"You seem to have recovered your lost power." Laaneth said, "You've had worried, you know!"
"Sorry, Ms. Laaneth, just don't rat out to mom." Jon said with a sleazy smile, "So, can we take a look at the Crystal?"
"Do you have a thod to crack it?" Glyt asked.
"Well, now that I have recovered my Magic, I can retrieve all my toys from my Magical Storage. I've all sorts of toys stashed over there." Jon said while showing off his armor then continued, "Also, don't you want to hear about my war plan?"
***
"A War? You really wanna go that far?" Glyt asked with morbid expressions seeing that Jon had filled the Pavilion of Artifice with various machinery.
"A Battle is the right term, old man." Jon replied, "cinar has an army and I can't practice Necromancy or Conjuration easily in Clockwork City since I am not quite sure about the outer plane motions from this plane of existence. Even the Magicka in this place is kinda weird."
"Clockwork City has always been reported as a place with abnormal Magicka but that can be said about all planes of existence." Laaneth agreed.
"Indeed. Even if Sotha Sil was aiming to create a world better than Mundus in his own words, he made limitations and restricted many freedoms over the Magicka of his realm. During my visits to various Oblivion Realms, I noticed that many types of Magic were restricted by the will of the Lords of these Realms as the Mortal Plane of Mundus remains the Realm with the most independent Magicka." Jon overanalyzed the subject with Laaneth as colleagues.
"The Vision of Lorkhan when he created Mundus was indeed extraordinary and counted on granting all living beings their freedom of choice. I guess we are still learning about the truth of the Wheel and the Tower even to this day." Laaneth agreed with him, making the rest of the group feel stupid, and Glyt to be barely keeping up.
"But let's not forget that the Dawn Magic has been restricted to Mundus over the years. Can this be so sort of restriction made by Shor (Lorkhan)?" Jon speculated.
"I still take the stand that the Dawn Magic was the Key of Creation and we, the Mortal Races, are unable to access it due to our mortal limitation. What can be called Dawn Magic can actually be sothing far above our regular ability to cast Magic such as spells of higher tiers." Laaneth explained her opinion.
"Forbidden Magic?!" Jon made an understanding face.
"Precisely. A magic that can redo and undo reality is of a scale such as…"
"Alright! That's enough!" Swims cried in both Laaneth and Jon, "Look at how dizzy everyone is, you goddamn nerds!"
"Oh!" "Sorry!"
Jon and Laaneth retreated from their research ideas and returned to the topic at hand.
"So, the war efforts that I made…" Jon stood from the circle around the fire and pointed at all the large boxes he gathered, "Ladies, I present to you… a Pneumatic Forge Assembly Line!"
Nobody clapped.
Jon had to clear his throat and say the word again but only Kota shifted his personality to Sed and started praising Jon for collecting all this junk and tinkering it into sothing that looks useful.
Emotionally Damaged by the underwhelming praise, Jon started to explain his plan.
"So the Pneumatic Forge is the place where Sotha Sil created his Combat Factotums. I ripped off so machines from over there that can help us recycle the junk all around this junkyard and transform it into Combat Factotums." Jon said with dampened spirit and his speech pace increased while his eyes were turning hollow, "It's all wired up to the Power Transforr into the Vale of Tears which I had to bombard earlier this morning in order to mask my attack as an attempt to fight against cinar while in fact, I was wiring these contraptions to the power grid in order to create an army of machines that can help us fight the army of Abominations that is being assembled by cinar as we speak and coming to rip us all apart."
"Alright, calm down." Glyt said with a sympathetic face, "We were just ssing with you. Of course we know what all this Psinomatic Forge…"
"Pneumatic Forge." Laaneth corrected him.
"That, yeah… don't worry, Jonradson! We were just… having a laugh."
"... yeah…" Jon said with gloom gathering over his head.
"And what about that woman?" Laaneth asked while pointing at the Blonde Nord, Aldora.
All that ti, Aldora was locked in a makeshift cage. Jon tied her with the only type of knots he knew how to tie… which happens to be… extrely kinky.
"That… right…" Jon looked at the woman, "Right, Aldora and I go way back, actually. She's a Thief turned rcenary and Sailor and Treasure Hunter from Dawnstar. I tried to hire her to the Dare Corps many tis but she is as dishonest as they co."
"No one from Dawnstar likes you, Jon." Laaneth said.
Aldora was conscious and looking at Jon with glaring red eyes. After all, he killed her band of rcenaries and seed to have so rivalry with them.
"Jon fucking Dare." She spoke.
"Aldora the Daring… you really got to stop this." He replied.
It seed the rivalry between Jon and Aldora wasn't about rcenary work only but also about titles. "Dare" and "The Daring" were awfully close to one another. The two of them led rival rcenary Groups. While Jon's symbol was the Dragon, Aldora's symbol was the Eagle. As only one king of the sky was supposed to exist, Jon pushed Aldora and her group so far to the point where they had to operate on ships and beco naval rcenaries, the field where he was also considered the best in thanks to his Magicka-powered ships.
"She's part of the reason I dislike blondes." Jon said.
"You've got an Altr girlfriend with blonde hair last ti I checked." Aldora said.
"Platinum!" Jon corrected her.
"So, you took her for interrogation about cinar's plan?" Glyt asked before the conversation derailed.
"I wouldn't bother with that murderous lying whore but if you want to interrogate her, she's all yours." Jon replied, "Personally, I'd like to focus on these mory Crystals you collected."
"We've collected three of them." Laaneth said, "One from the Ventral Terminus, one from the Halls of Regulation, and the last from the Treasure Hunters."
"These mory Crystals, or mory Stars as the people here like to call them, are the records left by the Dead Godking Sotha Sil." Jon said while taking a heavy breath of anticipation.
"What do you expect we'll find out?" Laaneth asked.
"Secrets!" Kota (Spamton) scread, "Deep and dark!"
"Truth!" Ram reacted.
"Both." Jon nodded.
"And how will you read them?" Glyt asked.
Jon smiled and pointed at Ram.
"He can display them using his mory Sockets. But there are two vital requirents that we need." Jon said in a serious voice.
"What can they be?" Glyt asked in full seriousness.
"Drinks and Popcorn!"
With that, Jon and the group were about to witness the most important mories left by the Creator of Clockwork City, the Tribunal Deity Sotha Sil.
A/n: Help reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ?? slinktr.ee/donovel ??
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