Ari Marmell - Agents of Artifice

Never had he hated Tezzeret more than he did in that moment; never did he understand more clearly the nature of the devil to whom he'd nearly sold his soul.

A low hiss from Liliana snapped his thoughts back to the present. Irivan had stopped in his tracks while Jace's mind drifted, and it took him a moment to center himself and re-establish control, to set the elf marching ahead once more. And just in time, for as they passed by the next door in the corridor, it slid open and Baltrice herself stepped out into the hall.

All three guards stepped to the side, standing against the wall that she might go by unhindered. She did so, with scarcely a nod of acknowledgment. Only once she had passed did she briefly turn back to peer directly at Jace; no recognition shown in her expression, but her eyes narrowed ever so minutely, as though she were bothered by something she couldn't entirely pin down. And then the thought had passed, as had her gaze, and she was gone around the next bend in the hall.

Jace exhaled loudly, and the group moved on.

And so they progressed, protected by Jace's illusions and ignored by workers and guards alike, through the lower levels of the Consortium's mechanical heart. Guided by the memories and knowledge of the sleepwalker before them, Jace and Liliana inched ever nearer their ultimate goal, and not a soul was aware of their presence.

Jace knew better than to note, or even to think, that it was going too smoothly; he knew all too well it wouldn't last.

Indeed, it did not. They set foot upon a spiral stair, one that wound its way gradually up to a heavy door made not of steel or iron, but of ancient bronze. An array of multicolored stones, similar to those that had served as the controls for the alarm system, adorned the wall beside the ponderous portal.

Neither mage needed even to ask. They knew this must mark the entrance to the tower itself.

Though it was utterly unnecessary, thanks to his mental hold over the elven commander, Jace gave the squat soldier a curt nod. Irivan stepped forward, waved a hand over the gems, and the door rose into the ceiling with a low rumble and another hiss of steam.

Never mind their guises now; Jace and Liliana simply stared, utterly rooted to the floor.

If what they'd seen so far was mechanized chaos, this was mechanized madness. Half a dozen circular platforms of various sizes, held aloft by perfectly smooth cables as thick as tree trunks, rose and fell throughout the tower's hollow center, perhaps providing access to the areas above. At no point did the spire boast anything resembling an actual story; balconies, rooms, and structures that might even have been small buildings, had they stood on their own, protruded from the wall at various heights. Some were linked to others by more catwalks; others by stairs and smaller lifts that ran along the wall; and still others could be reached only by the central platforms. And those chambers and "partial floors" moved in turn, rotating around the tower's circumference, slowly sliding up or down, so that none remained at the same height for more than a few moments at a time. Between and around them, great pulleys and more rapidly pulsing orbs of light orchestrated the endless metal ballet that kept the tower in constant motion, yet somehow prevented so much as a single cable from becoming tangled with any other.

It made no sense, couldn't possibly make sense. Jace could imagine no purpose to it, no reason for someone to construct such a convoluted structure, unless…

Unless it wasn't a structure at all.

"It's an artifact," he whispered.

"What?" Liliana asked him, tearing her gaze from the slow dance above. "What is?"

"This. This place. The cables, the rising levels… The whole thing's an eldritch machine, Liliana. An artifact, not a building. It just happens to also have people in it."

She sucked in her breath, looking around her. "An artifact that does what? Surely this whole structure can't just be devoted to converting one type of mana into another."

Jace shrugged. "When we find Tezzeret, I'll be sure to ask him."

Shifting his attention from the apparatus above, Jace took a moment to examine his immediate surroundings. The floor was the same odd metal as the glowing spheres, and indeed it emanated a faint reddish pulse. It was a diabolical illumination, like a flame frozen solid, painting streaks of crimson across a series of round railings-present to keep people from stepping under the platforms and being crushed, Jace assumed. A number of doors, which could only lead to a relatively small array of rooms, surrounded the tower's perimeter. Those, and a perfectly smooth bronze spire standing roughly eight feet tall in the precise center of the tower, were the chamber's only obvious features.

"I, uh… I guess we head over and wait for one of the platforms," Jace offered halfheartedly. "Maybe there's a lever to summon one, or something."

Liliana had nothing better to offer, and Irivan had never been summoned into the heights of the tower itself, so that appeared to be their only option. Their footsteps resounded on the glowing floor, and their shadows flickered so rapidly in all directions, lit horribly from below, that it seemed they must detach from their masters and take independent flight.

The nearer they drew to the center of the room, the worse Jace's suspicions about the bronze pillar grew. When the entire device suddenly shuddered and split into ten insectoid legs of spindly bronze, topped by a "head" of clattering jutting, animated needles, Jace couldn't honestly claim to be even remotely surprised.

It skittered toward them, a hideous screech arising with each touch of its legs upon the metal below. As it neared, it no longer appeared to Jace as an insect, but almost as a pair of disembodied hands, joined at the wrists and scuttling on skeletal fingers.

A dozen feet from them it halted, shifting side to side as though eager to pounce. The jagged mass atop the legs clicked and spat, spines protruding in and out, a sewing machine grown mad. A thin iris of bronze amid the gears slid open, revealing a lens of verdigris-tinted glass.

The damn thing was studying them!

Jace sent a frantic command, and Irivan snapped to attention. He and Liliana followed a split second later, and the trio stood ready for inspection.

Maybe it was the wrong response, but Jace didn't think so. He swore the thing looked right at him, lens seeming to bulge in surprise, before it lurched again into motion.

With an indifference possible only in a machine, it hurled Irivan aside as it rushed to engage its true target. Jace dived to his left, hitting the floor in a painful roll and rising once more to his feet, as it thrust its jagged head and pumping spines through the space where he'd previously stood. He flung a spear of telekinetic force from his outstretched hand even as Liliana moved in behind the construct and tried to surround it with the same mass of shadowy fragments that had carried away her attacker's blade back in the Bitter End. But the former hardly even staggered the mechanized beast, and the latter seemed to splatter like water as they closed around one artificial leg.

It kicked back at her, and now it was Liliana's turn to dive away lest she find herself crushed or impaled on the great bronze limb. In the same motion it leaped forward, spinning to land beside Jace once more. A desperate shield of force was all that saved him from bearing the brunt of another kick, and even through his protective spell the impact was enough to send him skidding. He groaned as the friction against the floor ripped cloth from his trousers and skin from his thigh. The blood threatened to glue his cloak to the injury as he staggered once more to his feet.

No illusions; no mind-control; no necromantic enervation; Jace and Liliana were fast running out of options. He had no doubt that either of them could summon something great enough to crush the mechanical monster, but doing so would take more power, more mana, than Jace felt they could afford to spend when they'd not yet even found Tezzeret. He gave ground steadily before the machine's relentless advance, feet threatening to slide out from under him on the perfectly smooth surface, and struggled desperately to come up with some other option.