Autonomous Divinity: A Cog in the Machine

Well hey, it's not a full month and a half between updates this time! Heck, it's only just over a month of wait time. I'll call that progress. Sorry for the wait on this.


Pence frowned as he stared at the exposed actuators of his Squire's right wrist. They'd been damaged in combat, mono-filament claws dragged down and through several shafts that composed the upper flexors. Electricity had surged through severed cables and broken casings, melting metal and scoring burn scars across several insulators and secondary circuits. Not the source of the surge that had caused his machine to freeze up, but this was definitely close to where the failure cascade had kicked off. Well, it wouldn't fix anything, but he needed to yank these parts out to get the claws in place.

"Woah, that Wolf was not kind to the arm's superstructure," Bran breathed as he looked over Pence's shoulder.

Pence's eyes flicked to the arm-strut, and the lines carved along the bone of his Squire's right arm. It wasn't pretty, but little more than surface damage. They could go a year unaddressed before the rust set in, and even then it would last. But it would be a failure point if subjected to too much damage.

"It'll hold until we get to Northlight," he said, and then started to unbolt the broken actuator shafts.

The Squire was splayed out on the ground, lying on its left-side like a man with troubled sleep. Most of the damage was on the right side and front, so a maintenance cycle like this was the best course of action for him. He could try to repair the damage - fix some of the redundant arteries and patch-up the fuel-lines the mana flowed through. He should probably call those mana-lines, actually, since it seemed like little if any actual fuel was being used. The problem with that was that there was just too much damage for him to handle in a few hours, let alone without any kind of equipment. So instead of worrying about that, he chose to go for the better option: rigging up the wreckage from the spirit and add it to his Armature as field upgrades.

"Do you think we should cut some trees? You could use the wood as armor." Bran asked, glancing out past the light of the clearing they were in. Bran's Chaplain and Isolde's Riptide stood on either side of the Squire, facing out with their weapons drawn. They weren't active, but Isolde was in her cockpit, ready in case something tried to ambush them.

Pence shook his head. "Wouldn't last once the wood starts to rot," he said. He reached in and grabbed the metal plate the actuators had protruded from. It was stuck tight, and he had to grunt as he pulled it loose, head-wings fluttering with agitation. "Better to just -huff- go for something more permanent or with better impact."

The plate came free with a screech, and Pence almost flopped over with the effort. He was stopped by Bran's hands catching him by the shoulders.

"Which is why you are going for the claws." Bran grabbed the plate out of Pence's hand and set it down with the rest of the parts already taken from the Squire's forearm. They made a neat little pile of scrapped and broken pieces, and would likely become a meal for scavengers or the like if they take it with them.

"Yup," Pence said. He looked over the half-dissected forearm and hand of his Squire, and nodded in satisfaction. Taking spirits apart could be strange, grisly work if you weren't used to it. Patches of wet, blackened oil around points of articulation, exposed to sight after years of being hidden by casings and protective layers of redundancy. Bundles of wires running up and down and around like forgotten spider nests, kept from overloading only by the thin protection of rubber tubes half a millimeter thick. At least there was no rust, no forgotten joints or tabs that had decayed over time. If he didn't think this thing was newly built, he'd have had great respect for Avalon's engineers. However, Bran had implied the Squire had just been sent out just after its forging, so Pence would keep his approval in check for now.

"Well, close-melee isn't a bad thing to have." Bran said. "And you might be able to use the claws in a grapple if you get them installed right."

Pence wiggled a hand as he pushed himself to his feet. "In a brawl, sure, but if I'm grappling someone I might break the blades if my wrist gets twisted oddly."

"A good reason for you to avoid such close quarters combat," Isolde called out from above, half seated in her cockpit. She was far enough away that the only reason Pence could tell she was scanning their surroundings was from the shift in her antlers.

"And I told you that that isn't really an option out in the field!" Pence said, raising his voice despite knowing it wasn't necessary. Despite how far away she was, she could hear them just find. Pilot stuff, apparently. He found it gratifying that she at least had to raise her voice for them to hear her.

"The doctrine for singular wings that cannot form into squads is to have a dedicated close combatant, a mid-range gunner, and an artillery specialist." Isolde's words were spoken with that calm, steady cadence of a mother explaining basic facts to a child. "Pilot Ulfyn fulfills the last role excellently, and I-"

"Oh for rusting spit and molding coughs, I get it!" Pence cut in. She'd said the same thing a half hour ago when they finally stopped, suggesting he take her side-arm and get it integrated into his own systems. The offer was tempting, but considering how she'd helped him before, he wasn't too keen on taking the offer. The cold, blood chilling mana was gone from him by now, and he wanted to keep it that way. For all he knew about Armatures, she'd be inflicting the same sensation but on a larger scale. No thank you. "But I can tell you now I'm a shit marksman, and I won't be taking a gun from either of you. I'd just be more likely to break something. So leave it and let me work, alright?"

Silence reigned for a long moment, and Pence started to connect the claws to the Armature. Needed to make sure they'd work before actually putting them in. He'd already peeled away the wrecked edges and slag, so it wouldn't be too much of an issue. Bran had flinched back at Pence's raised voice, but now he moved to help, wordlessly passing Pence the pieces he needed.

No one spoke until the final connection was made, and Pence was stuck trying to figure out how to test them without risking a surge. He could climb into the Armature and power it up, but for all he knew that'd risk frying something in the machine itself. He just didn't know much Armature lore to be certain.

"I apologize," Isolde spoke. "I let my concern and training speak, applying to you the standards of a Pilot who has been instructed by the Academies. This is unfair for one born outside Avalon itself. I did not mean to denigrate you."


Pence closed his eyes and took in a slow, deep breath. He counted down from ten, and when he reached the end he released the breath and the irritation that spike up at Isolde's words. She hadn't meant to be insulting. The implication that he was somehow lower, lesser, because he hadn't been born into a City wasn't her intention. It was still there, because by all the gods the stories told about the arrogance of Avalonics weren't wrong, but her apology was genuine.

"You -both of you- don't know a lot of people born outside Avalon, do you?" He started to work on getting the casing pieces back in place, this time using the ripped off parts of the wolf's claws. They were more intact than his Squire's. He'd done a good job getting it into place, he decided. Testing now was just too much caution. Worse that happened is a minor malfunction, in which case the arm could be used like a club.

"Um, no," Bran said, bashfully scratching behind one ear. "Not outside the Foundry. I grew up there, you know? Of course you know, I've said it several times already it's just- ok stop that, I need to stop. No, I rarely went outside the Foundry. Spent most of my days in classes or wandering the halls. I've read up a lot on what different settlements are like, but that's different."

"I am much the same," Isolde said. "I am born to Clan Morgan, and while the Nine Family's do have holdings outside the City, and I have been to those mine, I do not imagine it is the same as growing up in a settlement such as you have."

Pence shifted his shoulders but didn't correct her assumption. They'd realize he wasn't even from a settlement eventually, but for now he would just let it lie. He'd seen enough settlements when Dad had taken him trading to know they weren't that different from Rustmoore. Better defended, and they always got supplies shipped to them from their City, but a spirit attack posed just as much a threat to them as it did to his people.

"Pilots are rare, and when your settlement is close to spirits and Fomoraigh, you can't let people waste time on skills they're crap at." Pence walked over to the back of his Squire, where the diagrams had indicated the system-connection hatches should be. "Out of my home's guard, I was the third worst shot. More useful tearing spirits apart or digging through the scrap heap. Getting the resources we need, you know?"

"Well, Pilots do learn at a quick rate," Bran said, only somewhat hesitant. "And with your Armature's systems, you'd become a good shot quick enough."

Pence chuckled. "Thanks, but that's for the future. Let's just focus on getting the stealth system mounted, alright?"

They were halfway through the work when Isolde spoke up again. "Are the resource demands on a settlement truly so taxing, that yours needed to specialize its people for the sake of efficiency? To pick and choose who could be guards, while still harvesting resources?"

"Sorta," Pence said. "There was one place near to us, Ectorate I think it was called? They were a mining outpost. They had to send back a quota of raw stone and ores every two months, or would get hit with a fine or inquiry. My dad took me with him whenever he went to trade, and as the years wore on, it seems that the quota was getting raised for some reason. Made things difficult for them. But they had defenses, and their guards were good. So it wasn't ruinous or anything like that. But to make ends meet, they'd trade. With other settlements, with traders like my dad. Anything to cover the gaps while getting out as much ore as they could."

Neither of the Avalonics said anything for a moment, silence stretching to hang between the trees. It felt awkward, empty, the way Pence could feel their eyes staring into his back as they tried to understand the things he'd just told them. To distract himself from that, Pence put his mind to working on the Squire. He'd gotten most of the set up done, probably. Now he just needed to put all the pieces into place. He walked over to the what he was pretty sure had been the processing core for the spirit's stealth systems, before it had been blasted off. There were a number of leads spilling off it, still mostly intact.

Bran broke the silence first. "That's…I don't- you make it sound like they were at risk of destruction."


"Eh, that's life." Pence grabbed one of the leads, this one as thick as his torso, and lugged it over to the Squire's back. Whoever had designed the system knew there stuff: over a dozen different port sockets, each one a match to the many kinds he'd dug up out of the scrapheap when diving for parts. No need to rig an adapter jump here, thank the gods. "Most settlements have to worry about it. Even the ones without a City to protect them."

"Avalon is not other Cities," Isolde said. "It is greater than them. Purer. It still holds to the Mandate we were given. While I will not deny what you saw, know that it is neither the norm nor rule when it comes to those under our protection."

Pence snorted. Just like in the stories chief had always told. "Sure. Hey, are either of you going to help me with this? I can get all the wiring and cabling done, but it'll go faster if I have an Armature to help me mount the main casing, instead of taking it apart piece by piece."

———————

Thankfully, getting the stealth system integrated and mounted took a lot less time than the claws. Pence wasn't completely satisfied with it, but using an Armature to hold the weight while he made all the propper connections and couplings was something he could get used to. On top of that, it was nice to work with machinery again. The puzzle of metal and plastic coming together with just a few clicks and shifts. Still, when all was said and done, he doubted the stealth system would last him forever. Best he make it count while he had it.

Pence leaned back into the seat of his chair. His mana flowed easily into the siphons as they clamped onto him. Even with the Armature on its side, this wasn't uncomfortable - and its screens flickered to life one after the other, coming out of the rest state it had been in. It seemed Armatures had several stages been powered and unpowered. While the Squire had been, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world, it had been passively running off just a little bit of mana to keep it going. Bran had said something about 'deep hibernation' and 'stasis,' but hadn't elaborated on what he meant. The practical meaning, at least, just meant the thing could wake up without needing to go through the whole meditation processes. It already had some of his mana in it, fresh and alive and eager to be put to use. The rhythm started as soon as the screens lit up, Pence's mana pulsing and cycling once again.

"How have your installations fared, now that you have put them in?" Isolde asked, the eyes of her Riptide glancing over the Squire's form as it stood, the sound of turning gears and shifting metal anything but quiet.

Pence looked down at his screens and the information they displayed. It took him longer than he'd like to admit to navigate to the proper screens, but he found them soon enough, displaying the pieces he had spent the past hour building into his Armature.


Surprisingly, they were already named. Maybe some inherent quality of the code itself.

The 'Claws of Darkened Waters' were in good condition, and didn't seem to have any faults in their installation. Experimentally, he shifted the Squire's right arm, moving it up, down, and around, twisting the wrist and elbows in different directions as gently as he could. He didn't want to break them, if there was any issue in their installation. Luckily, it seemed they were in good condition. He flexed with an effort of will, the claws spring forth from their mountings to jut two meters beyond the closed hand of his Squire's fist, before retracting with the quiet shnict of metal scraping over metal.

The Iron Wolf's cloaking system, the 'Shadows of Iron Stealth,' however, wasn't in nearly as good a state. Unsurprisingly, it had been damaged in the fight, and now was barely clinging onto life. There was obvious corruption and loss in the data readouts, and looking at the performance it was likely it wouldn't last long after its first use. Still more than enough to let him turn invisible like the spirit had, but he couldn't use it without care or thought.

"All good, I think," Pence said. "No issues in using them. We'll need to be careful with the stealth though. Bran's shot cored the vents and…mana purging systems, I think? I'll only get one use from it."

"Oh! I'm sorry!" Bran said, his ears drooping in shame as he sunk down into his seat. "I just, it was clawing at you and I needed to get it off as quickly as possible, so I aim and fired and the mana-blast pierced straight through its hide. Which knock it away from you but if it's causing problems now I-"

"It's ok Bran," Pence chuckled. "I wasn't judging, just letting you know the situation. One use is more than enough."

"Indeed," Isolde said. As she spoke, her Riptide turned and began to head out into the forest, following the path her systems directed her towards. She gestured for the other two to follow her, and they did. Pence in the middle, Bran in the rear. "Should we have need of it, you can be our hidden knife - a surprise attacker from behind. Still, you are sure there are no issues with the installation? Impressive work if so."

"Oh definitely!" Bran agreed. "Spiritual engineering is not a simple thing, and I don't think I've ever seen someone work in the field with unfamiliar equipment. How'd you learn to do that? You seemed to know what you were doing."

Pence shrugged in his seat, and then fought back a wince as his Armature did the same. He'd been holding onto the control yokes, and it seemed the way they had moved had translated into forcing his Armature to mimic him. That was a bit annoying, if he was being honest.

"Not much to say," he said. "There was plenty of spirit wreckage around my settlement, so I got used to working with whatever we dug up. I learned to improvise."

"No mean feat," Isolde said. "It is a shame you were not discovered before now. Your talents could have grown far if they had been properly nurtured within the halls of the Foundry."

"Maybe, but I would have ended up a Pilot either way, wouldn't I?" Not of Avalon, most like. But maybe, if Rustmoore hadn't been attacked, he could have become their first Pilot, a defender with his own Armature, built by his own hands.

"And it's not like you would have learned the same stuff back home," Bran interjected. "The temples are great and all, but Foundry engineering is very different from wild spirits. I don't think anyone in my cohort would know what to do with the wrecked claws of a wolf spirit. Oh academically sure, the couplings and flows are important, but you don't get hands on experience in Avalon."

"True. The children of the wind do ever find themselves in the places they need to be," Isolde conceded. "Mayhap your country learning will prove someday in the future."

Pence licked his lips, mulling over what had just been said. 'Children of the wind' sounded like a title, and hadn't she said something about them twelve, no thirteen (he checked the chronometer, and saw it was two in the morning - he didn't even feel tired) hours earlier. Sounded important in some way.

"So I'm a child of the wind, then?" He asked. "Would that make you a…child of the vault?"

Isolde quirked an eyebrow, but didn't take her gaze from the path ahead and to her sides. "Indeed. I am stagkin, born to Arawn, Keeper of the Vault and Watcher of the Dead. You are birdkin, and thus are beholden to Ywain the wind-rider. Together they found much success, and now Ywain waits upon the gates for Arawn to awaken once again. As she has set out without him, it is only sense their successes or failures be shared. You did not know this?"

Pence blinked, unprepared for the quest. "Well no, I just…that is to say…"

"Are you talking about Kin-Signs?" Bran spoke up, cutting off Pence's half formed response. There was an undercurrent of bewilderment to his words, like he didn't quite believe what he was saying. "That pseudo-factual idea that Kin-Traits have some kind of effect on the future?"

"'Pseudo-factual?' I assure you that the study of Kin-Traits is based in nothing but hard facts," Isolde said. "It is well understood that which god favors one has an indelible impact on the lives of them and those around them. It is all part of the great world we live in, how each part of us informs the ways we behave an are."

"Oh faith preserve me, you're serious." Bran rubbed a hand through his hair as his face twisted with frustration. Pence got the distinct feeling he was about to be the third wheel in a vicious argument.

———————

"…and so if a wolf-kin happens to have a grumbling stomach while talking to someone, clearly it's a sign of their instinctual desire to eat the person, right?" Bran wasn't shouting, but there was a loud, hardened edge to his voice.

Pence had, unfortunately, been correct. The other two had been arguing for three hours, their experience as Pilots letting them put only a fraction of their attentions to directing their Armatures. A fortunate thing in a way, because the argument between them was clearly an important one. In another way, it was unfortunate, because Pence was forced to hear it. At least he could distract himself by focusing on his own Armature.

It was almost morning by now, the light of the rising sun peaking over the hills to reaching in through the branches of the trees. The forest had thinned out, and was now more clusters of trees gathering together here and there, broken up by a series of rolling hills. Stone poked up from beneath the loam here and there, making small drops that broke up the terrain and made it tricky for Pence to navigate. But so long as he paid attention he was in no danger of tripping. According to the maps, they weren't too far away from Northlight. Maybe two hours more of walking, after they cross the river they were coming up.

It made easier to keep watch as they moved, scanning for distant threats and targets. There'd been a few other Pilots seen, but they hadn't been in hailing distance, and didn't seem inclined to travel with them. No other spirits though, which was something.

"Of course not," Isolde scoff. "That is just prejudiced superstition. But you cannot deny that Wolf-Kin have a preference for meat."

"That's because meat's delicious." Bran said. "But liking a food that can be found on animal corpses is a world of difference from Gorlagon's savagery. To take people with wolf ears and associate them with the War Woe just because they happen to like meat is idiotic."

"And yet, even holy scriptures name him as the father of Wolf-kin." Isolde's Quicktide jumped off a low ledge to a lower hill. "I agree that to say that Wolf-Kin take after their progenitor is wrong, but the patterns of the world are not so easily shaken off."

Pence was listening with only half an ear, keeping his attention split between moving his Squire and looking at the distant shine of the river's surface. It wasn't the huge one he'd seen on the during the briefing, just a tributary that fed into it shortly before reaching the lake. There weren't any good scouting systems in his Armature, but the camera systems still let him take in its shimmering beauty. It wasn't too wide as far as rivers went, maybe twenty meters across, if that. They could wade across with little difficulty, provided the current wasn't too strong.


He paused, and focused on what looked like a shadow, just beneath the surface of the river. He was still a distance away but, it was a large shadow. Perhaps the water got deeper?

As if to put paid to that idea, the shadow shifted as Pence was looking at it, the trailing edge flicking in the way only a tail could do so.

Something was in the water.

"Stop," Pence said, cutting off Bran mid-sentence.

"What, but- Pence don't tell me you agree with her point about seasonal effects on Kin-Traits!"

"No, not that. There's a spirit in the water." Pence didn't even know the context for Bran's statement, so he just pushed it out of his mind. He raised the hand of his Squire to point down towards the river and the shadow beneath it. The shift and grind of gears was loud in his ears, but he'd already come to accept that everything to do with Armatures was loud. He was sitting inside the heart of a what could one day become a god machine. Of course every shifting piston and grinding gear echoed inside the machine. He'd just have to hope it didn't echo all the way towards whatever was trying to ambush them.

Both other Armatures shifted their stances in an instant, the argument falling away as Bran and Isolde focused on their surroundings. The Chaplain braced itself, the canon along its back partially unfolding as if in anticipation of needing to be used. Meanwhile, the Riptide lowered itself to all fours, hugging the ground in a way that would have been comical on something so large, if it were not a sacred machine that should have had nothing to fear.

"Good eye," Isolde said. "And we are still a good distance away from it. There is a chance it has not noticed us as we have noticed it."

"What do you think it is?" Bran asked, his voice serious and focused. "Red Cap pack? Maybe an Afanc? That's the kind of stuff Northlight has to deal with, right?"

"It cannot be an Afanc. This close to the settlement, patrols would have noticed and dealt with such a spirit, whatever its nature. Red Caps…" Isolde trailed off, her voice quiet as she rubbed at the base of one of her antlers in thought. "There is a marsh down river of here, it is not inconceivable that those creatures left it in search of a new home, but I am not sure. Would Northlight truly leave a nest of minor Sidhe so close to them?"

"It's only one, whatever it is," Pence said. He lowered his Squire into a crouch, feeling like he needed to lower his own profile, even if he didn't dare risk lowering the center of balance too much. "I saw the shadow of its tail."

"If it is only one, then it is probably something we can deal with," Isolde said. "Shall I lead the ambush?"

"Uh, what?" Pence glanced at Isolde. They weren't going to avoid it?

"Whatever it is, it is clearly a water creature. That limits its movements. If it has not seen us, then we can approach from hidden angles, and then strike it as one with overwhelming force." One of the Riptide's thighs unfolded, revealing a hidden compartment from which unfolded a long, sharp-bladed sword.

"Maybe…maybe we could lure it to us?" Bran asked. "Like you said, it's nature as a water creature limits it. Ambush predators are the most common, but there are plenty of records of water spirits and water Sidhe following weakened prey onto dry land. If you go and lure it, I can strike it from afar. And, well, Bran does have that stealth system he scavenged from before. It'd be a shame not to use it."

He tilted his head to the side, ears quirked in consideration, in an expression of catlike curiosity on his face.

Pence was reminded of the differences between him and the two Avalonians. Isolde was someone trained to be a Pilot form birth, and Bran had grown up in what he was coming to realize was the central temple of a City. Both of them didn't see spirits and monsters as threats to be avoided at all costs. They were just…animals, to them. Dangerous ones, sure, but nothing like a Fomoaigh or an active god. After all, Pilots and the Armatures were meant to handle such threats, weren't they?

Still, was there really any need to fight this thing? They weren't too far from Northlight, and had more than four hours before the time limit of noon.

Vote on your general plan. The option with the most votes wins.
[] Attack the creature in the river, aiming to achieve a single, overwhelming strike from ambush.
[] Try to lure it out of the river and up into the hills, with Bran on fire support while Isolde and Pence attack it from close range.
[] Suggest taking a detour up into the hills. It'll slow you down, but unless there's something really dangerous hidden up there, you should reach Northlight without any more trouble.