The Magi's Society

Mevi and the Sentinel waited in the dark alleyway for what felt like hours. In reality the stress of the situation simply stretched the minutes to agonizing lengths. What was probably thirty minutes had passed. By this point the robotic hive had calmed down and began its normal routes of heightened patrol throughout the cityscape. As Mevi watched out of the alleyway, trying to find some gap in the robotic guard’s patrols, a whisper came from behind her further into the darkness.

The man who had left before returned, hiding amongst the rubble and scrap piles as if trying to avoid the Sentinel’s detection. The Sentinel, like Mevi, was able to notice the man despite his attempt otherwise. He flinched as the Sentinel turned towards him, the Sentinel stood in front of Mevi as if the man might now suddenly pose a threat. Mevi calmed the Sentinel with a hand against its arm and the man slowly approached, but stayed a distance just barely close enough to be audible. He still clearly feared the Sentinel and refused to approach any closer. Barely audible as he whispered, the man said, “You and your robot can come with me. Follow me at a distance, I still don’t trust that thing.”

Mevi nodded eagerly and began to follow the man at a span of five or six meters away. Following him around turns and corners was briefly difficult, but the Sentinel seemed to always know what direction the man disappeared to. The man led them deep into the facility, and despite the glowing towers above them the darkness became thicker and thicker. Further into the facility, and closer to the inner wall, the structures seemed to compete with each other so feverishly they were almost built atop one another. The facility’s construction made no realistic sense to Mevi, as if almost no plan was enacted for its construction and the architect just put up buildings as need was required for more. Even this far into the facility there still seemed to be no method to actually enter any of the buildings, and Mevi began to wonder if they were just strange artistic pieces rather than something that served a purpose.

Mevi’s marveling was interrupted after following the man for about ten minutes. Suddenly, the Sentinel stopped as the man turned a corner into a long and narrow alleyway. Perplexed after the Sentinel’s sudden halt, Mevi looked around the corner, the man walked through a narrow passage that struck straight for a decent distance more than even Mevi felt was comfortable. The Sentinel seemed on edge and its helm stared down the alleyway silently as if it was trying to intimidate it. Mevi placed a hand on the Sentinel’s arm to bring it back into focus and the Sentinel’s hard stare ended as it turned to look down at Mevi. The man was continuing further, having doubled or tripled the distance he normally kept between himself and Mevi. Stopped, the man seemed clearly agitated as he frantically motioned for Mevi to continue following. Without any other real choice Mevi silently motioned for the Sentinel to continue with her, and the two of them walked forward into the alley.

The man waited at the end of the alleyway, still motioning for them to follow, but as Mevi and the Sentinel walked just under half the distance a trap was sprung. People and creatures sprung out from shadows and from hidden spots in the attached alleyways. Four of the assailants charged towards Mevi and the Sentinel, wielding long metal staves with glowing electrical arcs shooting out of the ends. These four attackers thrust their weapons towards the Sentinel, but the Sentinel was fast. Grabbing two of the staves and ducking at the same time, the Sentinel was able to easily throw them to the side. Yet even as the Sentinel moved to intercept the other two, one of the attackers managed to stab the electrical end into the Sentinel’s large body. The narrow alleyway restricted the Sentinel’s movements too much it seemed, and the electricity visibly shot through the Sentinel’s armor. The massive creature, who Mevi thought indestructible, almost fell to one knee and actually seemed to struggle to fight off the remaining electrical staves. Other attackers sprang into the narrow alleyway and picked up the discarded weapons only to quickly stab them into the sides of the Sentinel. The power of the energy seemed to hurt the Sentinel greatly, and Mevi began to shout but was grappled by a large man who covered her mouth.

The four weapons were wielded by various attackers and brought the Sentinel low, kneeling fully to the ground as a low metallic groan thrummed out of the Sentinel’s body. Other attackers threw ropes or cloth over the Sentinel as if to bind them, the staves being retracted for only moments as crude bindings were made to restrain their large golden foe. Mevi struggled against the strong grip of the person that grabbed her, and the man’s voice was strangely calm as it instructed, “You’d better not shout, ‘ear me?” and the man slowly removed his grip over Mevi’s mouth, to her surprise.

“Stop! You’re hurting my friend!” Mevi said, trying with all her power not to fall into shouting hysterics.

“We ‘ad to. Thing’s one of em big bots. Can’t trust it.”

“You can trust the Sentinel, please. They have only ever protected me, we were together long before I ever came to this place.”

“Even so.” the large man said, his voice trailing off.

Mevi struggled against the man’s grip in vain, and began to shout in her own mind in attempts to summon her strange powers. What vile tricks her Daemon played on her, ignoring her when she needed help and possessing her when she was at her weakest. Her powers were nothing but a curse, one that because of her inabilities might soon have her punished by Maphet and Odion. Yet Mevi’s mental taunts did nothing to stir the thing sleeping within her soul. So Mevi focused on trying to find any source of energy or emotion she could draw upon for some tangible force, but without the help of the cursed gloves she once used, Mevi was effectively useless. Powerless in every sense of the word.

As Mevi struggled against herself, and berated her own inability, a hard thud sounded against the metal ground. Mevi refocused, fearing the Sentinel’s body had hit the ground. Yet as Mevi watched, the Sentinel had punched its gauntleted fist into the ground. A deep dent, several centimeters depressed into what should have been solid metal. The Sentinel’s second fist planted into the ground likewise making a dent. Fearful and surprised faces spread across the gathered attackers. There had to have been twenty people of various shapes and sizes huddled into the small alleyway. The alley was barely big enough for three normal sized humanoids to walk abreast. In the narrow passage, all could see the massive Sentinel slowly pick itself up to eventually stand. Even being tied, held down by ropes, and being actively electrocuted the Sentinel picked itself up in jolting movements as it groaned against the strain.

As the attackers watched in horror, the man holding Mevi ignored his own advice and began to yell, “Grab it!” but before he could even finish the words the Sentinel retaliated. Reaching a fist out like lightning, the Sentinel grabbed the throat of one of the attackers wielding an eclectic staff. Mevi could barely whisper, “Don’t kill them!” before the Sentinel stopped itself from doing worse. The Sentinel took the attacker and threw it hard against the wall like it was a toy. In a whirlwind of motion, becoming progressively faster every time it disrupted the electrical attacks, the Sentinel disposed of the attackers attempting to subdue it. At least six of the assailants were flung into the walls, while several more were knocked out or fell to the ground. The man clinging to Mevi tightened his grip and dragged her further into the alleyway. He began yelling again for the others to attack the Sentinel. Several of the attackers charged, but most turned and fled into the dark alleyways. Those few that stayed were tossed aside as if they weighed nothing.

Mevi was pulled to the end of the alley, the man gripping her tightly enough to cause her pain. The Sentinel marched forward, unstoppable despite the vain attempts of its assailants that still fought. Some that were thrown got back up and tried a second time, others even attempted attacks with the electrical staves. Nothing would stop the Sentinel from slowly closing the distance between him and the one that held Mevi against her will. Back pressed against a smooth metal wall, the large man had nowhere else to try and run to, then he stupidly pulled out a crude metal blade to hold it against Mevi’s cheek as if to threaten her. Mevi saw, for the first time, emotion flash across the now fiery red eyes under the golden helm. Rage. The Sentinel almost seemed to glow in the dark alley, electrical current still flowing through its golden armor. Through that glow Mevi saw its red eyes glaring with rage at the man who threatened Mevi. In one swift leap, in the same moment the blade tapped against Mevi’s skin, the Sentinel closed the distance as it pushed itself hard enough against the metal ground that a creaking metallic rip echoed after the sheer power propelled the Sentinel forward. Slamming hard into the wall, the Sentinel suddenly appeared looming above Mevi and the large man, one of its hands was used to stop its forward momentum and the other slammed into the man’s weapon arm, a loud bang and audible crunch could be heard just above Mevi’s head. The man began to shout in pain, as his arm was clearly crushed at the wrist, but a swift blow from the Sentinel knocked him unconscious.

Falling forward into the Sentinel, Mevi hugged the large creature that had saved her once again. The Sentinel laid a hand against Mevi’s shoulder, but as Mevi looked up into its helm all emotion was once again lost. The electricity had quickly traveled into the metal structures around them and the mighty glow that illuminated the Sentinel’s golden armor was gone. Yet Mevi was still glad and pretended the Sentinel’s hand was one of reassurance and comfort.

The man who had originally led Mevi and the Sentinel here was cowing in a corner, only a few steps away from where Mevi currently stood. Turning to the man, in an uncharacteristic anger, Mevi demanded, “Do you know how we can get to the central spire or not?”

Fear tinted the man’s voice as he trembled, “I… I, yes, I do. We do. I am sorry! I… I…”

“How?”

“Oh! My boss, our boss…” he gestured to the unconscious man who had threatened Mevi, “His boss too. They… he knows a way. I can take you! Please don’t hurt me!”

“Take us to him now. I won’t hurt you, and the Sentinel won’t as long as you do not attempt to harm us again.”

After Mevi’s words the Sentinel brought out its halberd, an elegantly crafted weapon that seemed to have technology embedded into the otherwise mundane haft. The man couldn’t spare any more words out of the mumbling fear struck into him, but stood up and eagerly led Mevi further into the facility alleyways. Behind them the remaining attackers picked up the unconscious leader of the attack, and dispersed into the dark as beeping alarms sounded in the distance in response to the echoing fight. The cowardly man didn’t seem particular about how far away Mevi and the Sentinel stood from him now, eagerly leading them away from the carnage of the Sentinel’s rage.

As Mevi followed the man, to whatever place they were now being led, she couldn’t help but feel a knot in her chest. Time after time she had proven to be more of a burden than anything, and dark thoughts against herself couldn’t be kept away in the walk to whoever they would soon meet. Mevi tried to reach out to the self within her, but even more than usual her Daemon was quiet and unresponsive. Mevi needed to find a way to trigger its powers as she once did, she hated feeling useless. It was a miracle, or probably Mevi’s own uninformed knowledge, that the Sentinel could fight off so many at such a disadvantage. Any normal person, or probably even a robot, would surely have been crippled by such an ambush. Yet despite Mevi’s dark thoughts she kindled a new respect and care for the Sentinel. It may very well be an unthinking automaton, but Mevi began to hope that it might care for her as she began to care for it. Mevi hoped that she had a friend in the golden creature, it was all she could do to keep away evil thoughts of depression during a time she needed to focus on retrieving her companions.

Through the walking and hiding in and out of alleyways, it wouldn’t take much longer than they had already traveled to reach what seemed to be their destination. The three of them approached a small hill with curving architecture all connecting to a single tower that stood at a medium level compared to the rest of the buildings. Yet its expansive extensions seemed to stretch out walkways and passages into the nearby structures which created a sort of complex of buildings all connected into one cluster of small towers. The man led them forward up the hill to a jagged cut in the otherwise smooth metal.

About the size of a man tall and two chest widths wide, the cut was an opening into one of the buildings. Mevi noticed she was almost excited to finally gain a glimpse of what was inside the strange structures, but would quickly revise that excitement to dread. As Mevi followed the man into the opening, and the Sentinel struggled to fit through but eventually managed, they passed through a short hallway leading towards the main tower. As they passed through the hallway Mevi couldn’t help but notice how strange the hallway itself was. Its floor was plated with scales like a lizard’s back, making the ground have small spikes in the floor that almost seemed purposefully designed to impede walking. While the walls were smoothed to a fault, strange curves and wisp-lines twisted in the tube-like hallway to make an ethereal vision. The sight of the walls began to almost confuse Mevi and it made her dizzy to stare at the designs too long, Mevi almost tripped over the odd spiked floor as she began to unconsciously try to follow the entrancing decorations. Almost as if the interior was designed to confuse and enfeeble a person if they looked anywhere besides their own feet. Mevi occasionally noticed scars in the walls ranging from scorch marks to long cuts in the otherwise smooth surface; likely an attempt to disrupt the confusing architecture by whoever lived here.

As Mevi followed the man and entered the main tower properly, exiting the confusing hallway, she was met with a terrible sight. In the center of the tower was a climbing pillar that seemed to jut out pods in every direction, each clearly contained a motionless humanoid. Glowing greenish blue light streaked from the pods and flowed downward into the floor in thick see through pipes. While at the same time the walls of the tower were lined with additional pods, also containing humanoids, and streaking even more glowing pipes into unknown underground reaches. The tower seemed built to contain an army’s worth of sleeping creatures of all kinds, each pod specially sized and made to fit whatever occupant was inside. The pods stretched as far as the tower could reach upwards, and it easily met distances of at least thirty or fourty meters.

Near the center pillar there were small walkways, all designed with the same spiked flooring, but almost beautiful wisps of light floated around the tower like fireflies. A group of ten individuals grouped around a makeshift camp with a scattering of equipment. Metal makeshift boxes, strange equipment rigged directly to the strange green-blue pipelines, and crude bunks forced in between the small gaps of the pods.

The gathered people looked up as Mevi, the Sentinel, and their guide entered the tower. Each drew crude weapons of various types as they saw the Sentinel, which at this point had so few rags hanging from its armor that its form was plainly visible. One from the group shouted out, “Damnit Vin! You led one of the big ones right to us!”

“Wait! This is the Sentinel, they are my friend and protector. We won't hurt you if you don’t hurt us, I promise.” Mevi countered, attempting to defuse their fear.

The man who led Mevi here, apparently Vin, followed Mevi’s statement, “The thing follows this girl’s orders! It protects her, and fights like I’ve never seen!”

One from the group called out, “Then the hell’d you lead it ‘ere for?”

“It took out all of Mak’s crew. We had four bot stunners plugged into it, and the thing still got up when this girl looked like she was in trouble! The thing’s a powerhouse, it might be able to help us… And I couldn’t really say no after it cleaned up everyone like that…” Vin replied, becoming almost shameful at his own cowardice.

A single figure took a step forward. A roguish man with military short black hair, dark blue tinged skin tone, and piercing purple eyes. He looked Mevi up and down, still holding what looked like a heat blaster similar to what Zelkan gave to Mevi. “Mak took twenty-two guys with him, this thing put all of ‘em down?” he asked.

“Yeah, each and every one of them. The thing threw them around like they weighed nothing at all.” Vin replied eagerly.

“We didn’t kill anyone, so no one was ‘put down’.” Mevi pointed out.

The blue man almost looked even more impressed, “Not only did this thing take ‘em all out, it somehow did it without killing anyone? That’s some crazy kinda restraint. I’ll take it that’s because of you, missy?”

“Yes, I asked that the Sentinel not kill anyone. I hope that you will help me rescue my friends, or at least help me get close to the central spire.”

The man laughed, as if Mevi told an incredibly funny joke, before slowly realizing Mevi wasn’t joking, “Wait a sec. You want to go rescue someone? You want to go to the Tower of Pain? You’re crazy, with this thing you could easily just get out of here.”

“Like I said, my friends were taken. I plan to get them back.”

“You’re either brave, or really dumb missy.” The man strode forward despite the fear of his fellows behind him, thrusting a hand towards Mevi he put his weapon away in his belt, “Name’s Hellion. And you got me burnin hot for you right now ma’am.”

Mevi gingerly took the man’s hand to shake it, “It is a pleasure to meet you Hellion, my name is Mevare Bensari. You may call me Mevi if you’d like.”

“Got manners to boot! You’ve sold me, you do me a favor, I'll do you one.”

When Hellion made his statement he was followed with sounds of disagreement and yelled protests from the people gathered behind him. Even Vin seemed a bit surprised at how easily Hellion agreed to Mevi’s request for help. Hellion ignored them for a few moments, grinning down at Mevi while he held her hand for a few moments longer than what was comfortable. Turning back to face the protests, Hellion quieted them down so he could speak, “Listen. This thing this missy has took out over twenty guys, big ones too. Mak isn’t a pushover himself neither. Think about what it could do to the bots? We could have this thing nab us some bodies, we take 'em apart like we do, and finally get us some good gear. Maybe stuff good enough to open up these pods. ‘Sides, if I take this thing down into the tunnels and to the Tower, think of how distracted those bots’ll be. We could ransack the place free to pick and choose what we want to open up!”

Mevi watched as Hellion only smiled and laughed as the others of his group yelled their protest. She was enthralled with his confidence and unwavering charisma. Even as the others vehemently disagreed, Hellion played to their desires and want for greed. One at a time each one became quiet and begrudgingly agreed to his ideas, being swayed by how much tech they could steal if ‘The Missy’s bot’ attacked the central spire. It was no time at all before Hellion had his crew eating out of his hands with promises of loot and gear, maybe enough to bust open the pods and add more people to their crew. Mevi knew when she wasn’t needed to speak and let Hellion talk his way around the other’s complaints.

After putting down the complaints of the others fully, Hellion turned confidently to Mevi. In a flourish Hellion bowed deeply to Mevi, “We are at you’re service m’lady.” Mevi had no idea how to respond, and found herself embarrassed at the exaggerated gestures Hellion made. “Lets get to know each other first, we’ve a bit of time to kill after all.” Hellion said, leading Mevi down into the disturbing complex.

“What do you mean, I need to help my friends as soon as possible. Everyone isn’t making me confident about what is happening to them.” Mevi replied, begrudgingly following Hellion down to their makeshift base.

“Well, since I am the expert here I’ll give ya some wisdom. The bots can’t work forever, they need to rotate shifts to recharge. You very graciously stirred up the hive for us.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Oh no missy, you’ve done us a favor already without even knowing it. These things swarm when something makes lots of noise, worse when you start damaging buildings. They like to send out all the bots they got when you make a lotta noise, even their reserve bots that should be charging come out too. I’d say we have three or four hours before all of em are running on empty and need a recharge. Then we’ll only have a skeleton crew to deal with.”

“I see, and will we walk down the main road? Should we not be preparing to leave in the meantime?”

“You’ve nothin to worry about! They’ll go in for a recharge in a few, and we’ll head into some tunnels and be where ya need to go in no time.”

“But what about my friends, your companions don’t make a good case for them being safe right now…”

“Lets put it this way, the bots want to keep em healthy and alive so they can put em in a pod. So they won’t be too badly hurt, long as we can pop the pods they’re in we can get em out later! See, nothin to fear!”

“Didn’t you mention not being able to open the pods and needing our distraction to be able to get gear to open them?”

“Ah! Like I said, no worries, we’ll figure it out. Your big friend sounds like he could probably rip open a pod if he had to.”

Mevi realized the futility of arguing with Hellion and almost began to empathize with the others that were so quickly persuaded to help Mevi. He had a quick counter to any idea or question Mevi had, and even if it didn’t make sense he could spin his words in a way to end the argument in a draw. Mevi couldn’t help but fear for her friends, but she couldn't see any other choice than to do as Hellion said and hope they were indeed safe.