Casten Vorrick ordered us all to collect as many mana crystals as we could find on the dead Enforcers before he began leading us to the second floor.
Before I could take even a single step to look for them, the rest of the survivors jumped forward, collecting the crystals and handing them to the Head of House Security.
“Are you okay?” I asked Trent as we began to follow the herd of rescued people toward the staircase.
He nodded, though his eyes felt distant.
“I can’t believe we were saved by Casten Vorrick, of all people…” He muttered.
“Don’t get starstruck.” I teased, trying to lift his spirits, glad he wasn’t strongly affected by the bloodbath that took place around us just minutes ago.
But it made sense.
Down in Orlinth, we were used to tragedies. Used to death. Trent saw the mutilated body of his father – the result of a tram accident – with his own two eyes when he was just twelve. It was just how life worked for us in Orlinth. It was even worse in the Foundry...
Trent’s face twisted, his usual light mood returning. “Ugh, no way. I meant it in a bad way. Like ‘we were saved by an oligarch’ kind of way.”
I sighed in relief. He was okay. We were okay…at least for now.
“You, on the other hand, were amazing!” Trent said, patting me on the back with a grin. “What in the world are you doing in your dad’s workshop when I’m not around? You moved faster than an Enforcer with an Aetherguard exoskeleton! I’m not even joking!”
“You’re exaggerating.” I said, brushing off the praise. The last thing I wanted was to accidently slip up and reveal how I moved so fast – or rather, how and why everyone else had slowed down.
Right before we descended the first few steps, I paused and glanced back – my eyes falling on one of the mechanical valets I had decayed with Umbrium.
What the hell am I doing? Why am I leaving?
Without a word, I turned and rushed back to the center of the third floor – to the broken, rotten remains of the valets.
“Vik, what’s up?” Trent called after me, quick to follow.
I crouched beside one of the machines – the one I had fully frozen mid-lunge. Compared to the others, it looked the least damaged. The decay had eaten at it, but not as severely as it had its brothers.
“Are you sure now’s a good time for looting?” Trent asked, crouching beside me.
I didn’t want him looting – even if everything would reset when I die. So, I sent him on lookout duty.
“Are you kidding? Now’s the best time for looting.” I said. “Keep watch near the staircase?”
He grinned and nodded, then jogged off. He leaned just slightly over the rails to watch the second floor – far enough to see, close enough to retreat if someone came up.
I turned my attention back to the valet in front of me.
I didn’t have a Dematerializer yet, but whatever metals I could salvage from this thing, I could store in the Inventory for later.
Let’s see…
The first thing I did was grab the valet’s torso and drag it closer. It was in the best shape out of its entire body, which was promising. Its core – a socket made from tantalum combined with an Aetheris – should still be there, hopefully intact.
The Aetheris was probably dead already – that’s how it usually went with “dead” automatons, or so I’d heard. But tantalum? That was the rarest metal in the world, and it was always required – in different quantities – to upgrade any level of the COG.
I gripped the valet’s brass chestplate and tried to pry it open. It didn’t budge.
Damn it, Viktor. Couldn’t you have spread a little more Umbrium decay over this part?!
I needed something to help me.
My eyes darted to the annoying girl’s invention – or more specifically, her tools.
That spoiled Skyhaven brat wouldn’t mind if I used them. If she was even still alive.
I walked over the toppled wooden box next to her now-crushed exhibit and rummaged through it, grabbing a torsion wrench. Then, carefully, I returned to the valet and wedged the toll into a gap just beneath the chestplate.
With a sharp twist, the brass groaned, resisting for a short second before it snapped open with a screech.
Beneath the panel, I found what I was looking for.
The Aetheris sat in the center of the cavity – dull and inert now. Dead. Useless.
But below it was the socket. A silver-gray frame with a matte gleam – tantalum. Untouched by the decay. Intact. Only the etched magitek conductors along its edge were scorched.
Jackpot.
Now for the careful, surgical part.
I needed to remove it as cleanly as possible. Every gram of tantalum mattered.
Based on your COG's Consumption level, the Dematerializer had fixed refinement rates for every type of metal it burned during COG upgrades. Tantalum’s was 2.5% at Consumption level 1. That meant from this – what, two hundred grams? – socket of pure tantalum, my COG would get 5 grams. Barely anything.
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I remembered how, back when I upgraded to level 3, Dad's Inventor’s Guild had provided me with exactly two hundred and forty grams of tantalum – so my COG would get precisely the six grams it needed to level up. Level 4’s tantalum requirement had to be even higher than that, But I wouldn’t know for sure until I got my hands on a Dematerializer.
But enough about that.
Taking a deep breath, I turned my attention toward the task at hand.
I reached inside the open cavity and gripped the Aetheris carefully. It was warm against my fingertips – warmer than I had expected from something inert.
A strange smudge – like a drop of ink – lingered inside the white crystal. I had never seen anything like it before. This wasn't how an Aetheris - even a dead one - was supposed to look like.
Something about it made me uneasy.
Still, the crystal itself was useless now. I twisted it gently until the prongs around it gave way and then tossed it aside. It clattered against the floor, rolling to the side of the floor.
Now for the socket.
I flexed my fingers and reached into the compartment again. The tantalum socket was embedded within a layered frame of brass support – sturdy brackets and tension clamps.
I slid the torsion wrench into a groove along the side and carefully twisted to release the primary clamp.
Slowly, and carefully, I continued until all clamps were released.
The socket shifted, but didn’t slide out when I tried to pull it out.
Of course not. They’d probably welded its rear side to the brassy insides of the machine. Such overengineering, and for what? It’s a damn waiter!
Fuck.
It meant there was no way I wouldn’t lose some of the tantalum along the way.
I dug deeper, nestled the torsion wrench in such an angle that applying force would certainly release the socket, and pressed hard with my foot – almost jumping on it.
CLANG.
The socket just jumped out of the valet and onto the ground, jumping once.
I held it up, watching the damage. It seemed mostly intact – roughly two hundred grams of pure tantalum, shaped like a gear-ring to cradle the crystal it once held.
“Tantalum? Sweet!” Trent called out, watching from the staircase.
“Don’t lose focus.” I called back.
Now let’s see if I can salvage some iron and copper from the remains here.
***
[Inventory]
- Bronze Key x1
- Tantalum – 284g
- Iron – 9.81kg
- Copper – 768g
- Ironwatch Foldable Sword x1
- Ironwatch Handgun x1
I think the wildest part about this Inventory isn’t that it exists as a pocket of space somewhere, letting me carry around roughly eleven kilograms of metal inside my COG without feeling the weight – it’s that it measures exactly how much of each metal I have. Down to the last gram.
Before storing them, a prompt appeared on my COG's screen, and I had to let the Inventory know that it needed to treat the metals as Upgrade Materials so it wouldn't identify them as the valet pieces they actually were.
Sadly, the Umbrium shroud and Casten Vorrick’s fiery sword had damaged most of the metals I could’ve salvaged from these valets.
I also stored a single sword and handgun taken from one of the dead Enforcers. I didn’t know how to use either, but surely they’d come in handy. Worse case, I’d burn them in the Dematerializer for extra metal.
“Someone’s coming!” Trent called out. He turned and ran toward me – then paused, puzzled. “Wait…where’s all the metal you collected?”
“I hid it behind the annoying machine girl’s table so we can grab it later.” I lied smoothly. “Now act natural.”
Trent nodded, buying the lie, and we stood there silently.
In hindsight, it probably made us look even more suspicious.
Instead of a single person coming up – maybe a surviving Enforcer coming to check the area – I heard the steady approach of multiple footsteps.
Moments later, a group of eight people came into view.
Casten Vorrick led the way, flanked by another oligarch and…an Eye Sentry?
Five others – some armed, all alert – walked behind them. And at the rear of the group…Alice.
Her eyes locked on mine, then widened.
“Viktor?” She called out, exhaling a sigh of relief. “I didn't see you downstairs so I thought you were dead.”
Before I could respond, Casten Vorrick stepped forward, his tone was almost accusing. “I remember you two. Why didn’t you come downstairs with me after I saved you?”
“What kind of saving is that,” Trent shot back without missing a beat, “if you can’t even bother to count the survivors and notice some were missing?”
To speak like that to an oligarch…Trent’s confidence really knew no bounds.
I braced myself for a fallout, expecting an outburst from Vorrick. Maybe worse.
But instead, the man just nodded.
“You’re right.” He said. “I’m sorry.”
We both blinked.
Did…we just get an apology from one the most powerful people in Solvane?
Even Trent looked caught off guard – a rarity for him.
Casten, on the other hand, didn’t look ashamed. If anything, he looked calm – serene – as if the apology wasn’t even directed at us, but at himself.
Then, suddenly, the phonotubes groaned, and Valdemar’s unmistakable voice followed through.
“The great Casten Vorrick apologizing. And for what? A simple nonsense like that? There are far greater sins you need to apologize for, Primarch Vorrick.”
The phonotubes clicked off.
The tension was rising.
It almost felt like Valdemar had a personal vendetta against Casten Vorrick specifically. And the title – Primarch…did that mean Casten Vorrick was now the new Primarch? What happened to Dalton Rose? Was he killed on one of the other two floors?
“You two should join us.” Casten said suddenly, like nothing had happened. “We’re heading to floor 7 to manually override the Divine’s lockdown.”
Trent and I exchanged a confused glance.
Alice stepped forward, quickly filling us in on what had happened downstairs – on Valdemar’s threat.
My heart thundered when she finished.
I remembered what Chronos had shown me in his Time Realm – an army of machines unlike any I’d ever seen before tearing through Solvane, destroying the platforms, and consequently the world.
This had to be the beginning of that vision.
I had to act. I had to explore. Maybe leave myself another Temporal Trace mark. Something, anything to give my next loop a better chance.
But Trent…I need to keep him safe. I should leave him behind.
“I’ll go too.” He said, cutting through my thoughts. “Don’t even try to stop me.”
“Trent – “ I began.
“No.” He said firmly. “I’m healthy enough to be useful. Besides, I don’t trust anyone here to watch your back other than myself.”
Unfortunately, even Casten Vorrick wouldn’t stop him, instead giving him a silent nod.
So we joined the group.
And eventually, we met our end at the sharp, mechanical tails of the Impaler.
Worrying about Trent the entire time, I never got to use Temporal Trace before I died again.
***
I woke up on a cold, metallic bench inside a holding cell.
A message flickered into the air in front of me.
[Loop Count: 3]
I had died again. Twice already.
My stomach ached from the punch Devin gave me yesterday. Well – yesterday and two loops ago.
Two others were in the cell with me: a fancy-looking gentleman and a junkie woman.
I paid little attention to them.
My head throbbed as I tried to think. What progress had I even made in the past loop? Had I done anything right? Learned anything useful?
I couldn’t remember a damn thing…
As my gaze drifted downward, something caught my eye. A small glowing orb set exactly on top of my jacket. My mind recognized it as a Temporal Trace mark instantly.
But a mark on my jacket? What –
I shot upright and shoved my hand into the jacket’s inner pocket – right underneath the mark – believing that was the message my past self was trying to send me.
I rummaged through the pocket.
A few coins. Some lint.
Nothing else.
My finger curled into a fist inside the fabric.
What was the message, Viktor?
What was I trying to tell myself?