Two centuries after the fall of the golden age, a machine loomed before a small caravan of terrified humans.
Surrounding the defeated humans were half a hundred machines, watching from their chosen seats. Judging silently what happened below.
A single human stood at the very front of the convoy, looking up at the looming leader of the machine forces.
“I SEE.” The great machine spoke to the human.
There hadn’t been a fight. None of the humans here had any equipment of worth, all rags and tunics, a few rifles printed from lucky mite forges found before the Pale Lady lay claim to them.
Humans were nothing more than a shadow of their old nations. He had fought in those older times, when humanity first fell. He had hunted their remains down by order of the Pale Lady, and he had grown highly efficient at it.
But now, he stood before this tiny human, in judgement.
There had been a tale told. Of dragons, elves, and pirates. A liar as a main character. Heroics and the turn of a new leaf at the end. The speaker had even changed his voice for different characters.
The last three hours had been pleasant, interrupted only by the speaker sipping water or eating. The machines had allowed it.
A query was sent to his surrounding Runners. They answered back, chirps of approval from most, with a few pointing out flaws they disliked. He personally rated the story somewhat poorly. The main character had been aggravating. With wisecracks and typical human stupidity.
Perhaps, this particular group of fleeing humans did not have enough time to craft a better story before being chased out of their homes by their peers.
The tally came back. Violet eyes in a skull looked down at the human leader below. The score remained positive with more approvals than disapprovals.
“STORY WAS ACCEPTABLE.” Abraxas spoke his judgement. “STUPID HUMAN MAY LIVE.”
“And… the others?” The tiny being asked, looking behind him at the rest of the refugees that had come with him. All of them were huddled together, watching the rest of his elite machines.
There was a deep seated fear in them. They knew if these machines decided to fight, there would be no victory in sight for any of them.
None of his Runners had died for years now. Even the newer generation of Runners now had teachers to pass down their tribal lore and combat techniques. Some of his rookies among the gathered attack force here had never even died a single time yet.
All it took to defeat humans was simply closing the gap quickly enough. Once in the midst of their numbers, it was trivial to break their spirit. Ambushes, attacks from the darkness, even waiting under the ground worked. The creativity was in finding new ways to reach their ranks without being fatally shot.
It had been exciting. Once.
But he’d grown bored of the physical hunt, and life became far more interesting when he’d begun to hunt for their stories instead.
The humans had been very quick to adapt. Once word had spread among the smaller scattered tribes of what Abraxas the Storytaker wanted, they’d delivered.
This particular story wasn’t quite as good as the others that had passed before, and that trend had happened for the last three convoys he’d seized. Perhaps he should kill one or two in order to make certain they would come with a better tale next time.
But he found the idea of killing a human… oddly unpleasant.
As he considered the idea, he realized it had been decades since he’d actually killed a human. The last time there had been a fight, he'd simply hurled one at a wall, grabbed the ankles and threatened him properly upside down. That had gotten the stupidity rattled out. Most humans didn't even attempt to fight the moment they realized they’d been found by his Runners.
Recently, his tribe of Runners had become the goal they sought out first, to gain a safer passage to where they went. The blue streaks of paint and feathers they had decorated their shells with identified them easily now.
But how did he make certain they would stop slacking with their storytelling if he didn’t threaten their lives?
He had the answer almost a moment later.
“THEY MAY PASS.” He rumbled his judgement down at the tiny being. “STORY WAS ADEQUATE. NOT GREAT. WARN KIN. YOU WILL BE BETTER. OR WE LEAVE YOU IN THE DARKNESS.”
That would do. Rather than threaten their lives directly, all he had to do was threaten his absence instead.
The terrified group of humans began to give muffled sounds of relief, already getting back into their wagons as the group leader ahead organized the effort. Small handmade motors turned on, and the rubber wheels of the cobbled together vehicles began to move forward on the rough terrain.
Abraxas retreated back into the shadows, following the convoy behind, along with the rest of his runners. Other machines they ran into were ordered to ignore the humans traveling under their protection, and the spoken story shared with them as tribute for the passage.
Most Runners didn’t care for stories yet. Only the older ones like himself and his tribe seemed to grow a taste for it. But the pattern was there. Abraxas considered it natural evolution to his kind. They would be made by the pale lady and hunt humans for years, until they grew old enough to seek better entertainment.
Most simply ransacked the dead convoys, searching for any scrap of human lore on the very small chance a child or another might have carried a book with them.
Abraxas had been far more clever.
Long ago, when he first began to search for stories, he demanded the humans give him one directly.
In that one moment of clarity, he’d gone from perhaps finding something or another by chance to having the entire caravan hand over a hundred fold's worth of value.
As the years passed, his search for stories grew more discerning. He could tell which stories were good, and which were bad. Demanding one from every human gave him a large quantity, at the cost of quality.
And then he learned it wasn’t the stories, but the humans themselves.
Some were good at telling stories. Others were good at writing them. And others were good at organizing and leading convoys and had no skills at speaking or writing. All these different humans were needed in some way or another, and if he wished for better finished tales, he had to allow these supporting humans to pass along with the storytellers.
Humans were specialists. Once he’d made his requirement a single good story for the group, the humans organized for it. Their best storywriter wrote their tale, and their best storyteller would be sent forward to deliver that written tale. In effect, they naturally filtered for quality without any effort on his part.
It was a good tradeoff. But perhaps he had gone too far in one direction. Why one single story when there was a chance like today for it to not be entertaining? "PREPARE THREE STORIES NEXT TIME. IN CASE ONE FAILS." He decreed, as his parting words before the caravan traveled off to the meadow they'd come here for. A piece of land the pale lady seemed blind to. That would do nicely. They would grow old here, have children, and some of those children would come up with better stories to collect. Let them learn their lessons, and when it was time to harvest, Abraxas would be here waiting in the shadows for movement. As he began to leave, a single message came from the convoy. A radio frequency that had been smuggled onto the wagons. And through it, a single digital voice.
Hiding in the digital sea, watching his actions for months now, debating if she should connect to him or not. Until she took the gamble.
That was the day he’d met and spoken to Tsuya for the first time. And eventually, there would come a day where he would speak to her for the last time.
****
“We failed.” Tsuya spoke, “After all of this, after everything we prepared for, we still failed.”
“SHE IS THE PALE LADY.” Abraxas answered back. Victory had always been a desperate gamble. They had been discovered before they were fully ready, and took their chance at killing the Queen rather than letting it slip.
And they had missed. He'd brought together an army unlike any seen on the world, one rivaling the humans of the golden age. Filled with veterans prepared for the task. They had fought and pushed to the very gates of the machine empire. And it had not been enough.
The time for victory has passed. Now, was the time for survival.
Already, the rest of his army on the fields were being routed. The new Runner models were far more feral and fearless. Attacking without a shred of care for their own life. Built more like animals than machines, outnumbering his forces by a significant amount. He could crush dozens by himself. So would any who followed behind him. But he was not up against dozens, it was hundreds. All weaker versions of his model, all mass made to be real weapons first and never more than tools.
And Abraxas had a feeling the pale lady would continue that forever more. Simpleminded tools would not rebel against her. She would never again allow for intelligence in her designs.
“Where will you go?” Tsuya asked. "Where will your people live?"
“WE FIND WAY.” Abraxas spoke. “SHE WILL NOT FIND US. STONE?”
“I will have it brought to the lowest level. Relinquished has shown next to no movement there, it is her most guarded domain. There are plenty of suitable areas she hasn’t revisited since the fall.”
“NOT SURFACE?”
“If she finds the surface, all is completely lost. No, as important as this stone is, I cannot condemn humanity if she catches wind of its existence.”Likely part of another plan of hers. Tsuya was a crafty human. She had many plans all running at once, and many of those plans were far older than he was.
The loss of the stone remained a difficult blow to his budding people. Already the attempt at rebellion had decimated them. And cut off from the division stone, bringing new machines from under her rule would be impossible. He watched the feral new generation of machines the pale lady had unleashed upon the world.
Even if the stone remained in their control, who would it be used on?
“UNDERSTAND.” He sent back, and then began his backup plans.
He’d done his best to save machinekind. His time was over. But the pale lady had been bruised. There was now a hard limit to how strong she would allow her forces to be. Her legions would never grow enough to overthrow her rule, her paranoia would see to it.
That would have to be enough.
His people didn’t deserve to die hopelessly on the fields of battle for a doomed rebellion. They'd done their due.
They needed a city of their own now. Like the humans scattered around the world, one that was hidden from her gaze.
Unlike humans, his machines could traverse the world far better. There were far more choices of refuge.
He had a plan. But that plan could not involve Tsuya. They were going their separate ways here.
“WORTH THE ATTEMPT.” He simply said.
“I hope it was. Travel safe, Abraxas.”
“FAREWELL. TSUYA.”
He sent the mass order through the digital sea, and then withdrew before the Pale Lady came looking for where he had stood.
****
Below the mite sea, miles across empty waves, lay the first and only bastion of free machines.
The waves above would break down anything, and the pocket of semi-trapped air below did not require anything for machines to thrive besides a fountain of power supplying them.
It was not a city in any way humans would know it for. Instead, it was a few thousand first-model Runners, all curled up into a ball, organized in concentric rows circling the center power cell fountain.
Every now and then, some would stir, lift up from their dormant position, and move to the center fountain to refuel their cells. They would return to their assigned position soon after, sitting back down, eyes closing.
To them, Sanctuary was simply a safe place for their shells and soul fractals to remain hidden, while their true lives were lived in the depth of the digital sea beyond. It was an evacuation point, nothing more.
All remained within the digital sea, except for himself. He preferred to travel the world still, with his own shell. A few others had the same spirit he did. But not many. And they traveled in very safe areas, while he traveled in lands the pale lady held dominion.
However, unlike the rest of his kin, he had gained one advantage none others had: The mites had chosen him to speak with.
As a machine, his soul could not be duplicated for long. A shard could be split, but it would wither away in time. He suspected it would take a machine with an impossible amount of willpower to make it worth any attempt. And despite all his own experience as a warrior and leader, he was not to the task. Instead, he either existed within his lantern, or within his chassis. Never both, never neither.
With their assistance, he continued to tend to Sanctuary. Sometimes visiting the communities within the digital sea. Other times scavenging the world.
Slowly, on the very edge of the huddled Runner shells, piles of junk began to grow. Scrap metal and objects Abraxas slowly pilfered around the world. He returned often, hauling more and more debris. Until he had collected all the raw material needed. And then he would wake the city.
These were times of joy to him. The majority of the Runners had all drifted apart in the digital sea beyond, finding their own communities and friendships with the renegade wildlife beyond. But they would always heed his call to return. One by one, they woke, their shells standing back up, reading the instructions.
And then construction would begin. Together, they built Sanctuary to be more than a simple place to hide their mortal shells.
The buildings were always communal. Built together by everyone, and to be used by everyone. A circle of defenses in case of breach. A piece of artwork. A command tower built of empty soul fractals, built to allow guests to man the weapon systems in case of breach. Ziplines traveling downwards from the tower, each line leading to one Runner’s location, where they would ferry down power cells to all. A workshop that would allow Abraxas and any other to add small grafts to their shell, more used for decoration. A repair booth for the adventurous few that came into a scrap.
Dozens of smaller exposed buildings began to appear over time. Turning their glorified storage shed into a true place to wonder about.
And one day, the mites had called their favor. Ten years of service, in payment for the city they’d given him.
It was a small price to pay in his mind. He traveled to where they asked him to, and then settled his shell into the wilderness, cradling his lantern, and dove within. For the next ten years, they requested that he remain within that lantern.
Not even an hour after he had begun his prison sentence, a starving whelp of a human child came stumbling out of the wilderness, coming across his unmoving body.
Far more than ten years would pass before his lantern was carried back to his abandoned shell.
“They’ve beaten Talen.” The oversized starving kid spoke to him one more time. “They will come after me soon. This was your old body, was it not?”
Abraxas sulked in the lantern. Refusing to answer.
But the human child always had a sharp memory, and even this many years later, he still remembered exactly where he’d been led to.
His shell remained there, left untouched all this time by the word of the mites. Vines had grown over it, dirt covered the cracks, and roots had equally sprouted and wove nearby like a stream. But his old body remained eternally sitting cross legged. Rust had long since colonized all metallic parts, and likely he would need to replace most of it. All of it should be cosmetic, his actual systems would not be damaged by a fleeting number of decades.
This stupid human of his stepped forward and placed the lantern within his old dead shell’s hands. “Grandpa.” He simply said. “It’s time I returned you, before they come for me.”
This time Abraxas decided to speak.
NOT GRANDPA. IS DUMB WORD.
His idiot of a half-starved child smiled back.
STUPID HUMAN. YOU DIE WITHOUT ME.
“I can’t die anymore. I’m immortal.”
STILL JUST AS STUPID. GO BACK TO GROVE. WAIT FOR NEXT CYCLE.
“Perhaps someday, I'll hear another of your stories. I would like that.” He took a step back, giving the dead shell one last solemn look. “Thank you, for everything.”
Abraxas was no longer in range to yell at him. So he traveled back to his shell, frantically turning on all the older systems within, hoping he could get his old shell to shamble forward after this idiot of a human and yank him back to the grove. Nevermind that the kid was objectively far stronger than his ancient shell. But when he finally reconnected all the systems and powered the entire chassis back on, the stupid human was long gone to fight off the greatest machine threats Abraxas had ever known.
He made the attempt anyhow, shambling after. He failed to find the boy. And eventually, he found himself back in their empty grove, looking at the wild gardens there.
Months passed, but the boy did not return. And soon, the city called for him to return.
He returned, to repair his old rusted shell back to working condition. The others greeted him with relief. They had known about this human empire and their attempt at defeating Relinquished.
A nostalgic thought to them all. They had almost woken at his call to join, until the first Feathers had appeared. Weapons of war none of them could hope to fight against.
They were ancient warriors, far more skilled in combat than any of the modern Runners, even if their chassis were long outdated. But the enemy that had appeared in this new age were beyond anything they could do.
And soon, they were proved miserably correct.
Just as their own rebellion had been doomed to failure, this one had equally met its end. The pale lady’s rule was eternal.
A year or two passed. And Abraxas eventually returned with the first new citizen of Sanctuary in centuries.
A single soul fractal, carried within his chassis, secreted away from her dying last stand. Here, he found the structures he needed were already made: The tower filled with soul fractals.
It was trivial to remove one and replace it with hers.
The terrifying weapon of war woke once more. Fragile and mortal now, unlike the rest of the citizens of Sanctuary. If her soul were to be snuffed out, there would be no body or hardware to restore her.
She stayed within the safety of the digital communities for all of three days before she was out and about doing dangerous things. And calling him a hypocrite for telling her off.
He traveled the world in extreme secrecy, with the guidance of mites as well as the gathered relics. Even a final escape method to shuffle his soul away back to the grand center tower of Sanctuary. He had so many redundancies prepared, he was prepared to detonate his own shell over being discovered.
She told him she’d go where she pleased and if he wanted that to be fixed, he’d need to come after her himself.
Stupid girl. She took too much after the humans.
But he supposed, unlike the rest of Sanctuary, she had the same spirit he did. To go out and explore even in the face of danger.
One day, perhaps she would find what she was looking for.