In the City of Giants - Chapter V

             Tilian analyzed the structure of the giant robot, it seemed to be rather crudely put together, but he could not quite figure out how.

            Suddenly, two figures in black armor rushed from the other side of the dig to in front of Bard. They were the BMC soldiers from before, the ones that Tilian and his siblings could not hope to survive against in a real fight.

            “Looks like we got a prison break,” said the BMC Soldier on the right.

            “And it seems to have been orchestrated by that Language Consultant the boss just fired,” said the one on the left. He looked directly at Bard. “Oh, you didn’t hear? Yeah, our employer does not want the secret of his new weapon getting out, so he is having us kill you, just like the last translator.” The two soldiers began to raise their swords into the air. Within that split second, Bard had pulled out his flute and Tilian, along with his siblings, instinctively covered their ears.

            Bard blew into his flute and want came out was a sound so loud it created its own gale of wind that curved in a focused current towards the soldiers. If not for its magical properties of the sound, the ears of everyone in the dig would have turned into geysers of blood. Instead, the destruction was controlled and directed at the two soldiers who were sent flying through the roof of the dig’s massive dragon silk tent. Now only one very large opponent remained.

            Bard charged forward to confront the giant metal beast. Tilian and the others followed behind, Tilian tried to keep a safer distance.

            “Autca! Show yourself!” shouted Bard, looking up at the demonic face of the giant robot. The robot moved its arms up to its head and pulled it off. Tilian realized that it was not a head at all, but instead a helmet, and it was what was underneath this helmet that allowed Tilian to finally piece together how the whole thing functioned.

            As the helmet lifted, it revealed a man sitting in a char upon the golden pole. Tilian recognized this gold metal as Psimenium. A metal that resonated with the magical energy used by psychics, so much so that even someone with a low amount of psychic attunement could command a structure as large as this, moving the pieces with but a simple thought. But what confused Tilian was that a structure as advanced as this should not be possible. The most complex device possible with Psimenium were giant cranes. The metal could only be commanded to move one direction, and most psychics could only move one piece at a time. So, for something like an approximation of a human body to be made, there must be some other piece of technology allowing the pieces of Psimenium to work together all at once.

            “Could it be the armor? But how!?” Before Tilian could continue the thought, the metal giant attacked, stomping on the ground where Bard stood until he jumped out of the way.

            “Like it?” called Autca from his perch. “I think my master will quite enjoy having this beauty as a part of his army.”

            “Master? Who?” Bard exclaimed.

            “Like I would kiss and tell,” Autca said flicking his hand.

            “Fine then, no need to continue this,” Bard said pulling out his flute. Tilian was sure this was bound to be a record of some sort; the quickest amount of time a hero took to save the world. After Brad had checked this his children had covered their ears, he blew into his flute and a hurricane of sound rushed towards Autca. The giant hands slammed the helmet back on and as the sound attack hit, it did nothing.

            “What!?” cried Bard, taking a step back. Autca laughed, his voice coming from some sort of speaker in the helmet.

            “This is the strength of Giant’s Steel! No human magic can break it! This, is, the Capital Robot!”

            “No magic huh?” said Smallblade, before he let out a war cry and started to charge at the Capital Robot. It swooped down its hand and grabbed Smallblade, who started to bang on the figures of the hand, to no avail.

            “He’s not bright, is he?” asked Autca.

            “Hey back off!” shouted Bard. “Only I can call my kids stupid.” All the while, Smallblade was still banging on the thumb and fingers of the giant armor. Tilian’s keen ears allowed him to hear subtleties of the sound even from this far distance away. It sounded hollow but not quite, as if within the armor’s fingers there was but a bit of empty space with something in the middle.

            “The Psimenium is controlling the armor!” Tilian had an eureka moment, finally understanding what this ancient ‘experimental armor’ was. He was not sure of the exact mechanics, as this technology was ages beyond any he had read about, but he understood that somehow the Psimenium was interfacing with the armor to make it move. Perhaps the movements could be stored before being executed, or the armor could the ability to predict what the user wanted to do, or maybe even the armor was made of Psimenium to some degree. Regardless, the Psimenium inside was still limited to its simple movements, but the armor was acting on its commands, allowing for the sequencing of sophisticated movements. More than anything this meant that all they had to do to stop Autca and his Capital Robot, was incapacitate the armor. Tilian looked around, at the sand, at the Eianth, and finally at his brother Vitoroy, he had a plan.

            “Father, I need you to distract him for a while,” Tilian said to Bard.

“Uh… okay,” said Bard with a raised eyebrow. He rushed towards the Capital Robot and pressed a button on his flute that magically turned it into a rapier. He tilted his head down and whistled, allowing him to jump up onto the shoulder of the Capital Robot.

“Shabaka, Amare, just try to stay out of the way and be safe,” said Tilain to his other two siblings. They looked confused at first but then just nodded. Tilian then ran over to Vitoroy and revealed his plan.

*

            While the plan was underway, Tilian watched the battle between Bard and the Capital Robot unfold. His father mainly relied on magic in combat, so this fight was not as easy for him as they usually were. But that only meant he could not use his magics that attacked his opponent physically, mental attacks were still possible as long as Autca could hear them.

            “What do sprinters eat before a race? Nothing they fast,” mocked Bard viciously as he banged on the helmet of the Capital Robot. Autca let out a loud, pained, groan. “I don’t dislike commas, but they do give me pause.”

At this point Aucta commanded his metal avatar to let go of Smallbalde as to use both hands in the attempt to swat off the annoying fly that was Bard. Smallbalde was fine, falling twenty odd feet, face first into sand was not that hard of an impact for hard skinned orcs. All the while, Bard was toying with Autca, successfully dodging every swipe of the Capital Robot’s hands.

“You can not even begin to hurt my armor! Your struggle is futile!” Autca screamed, distorted through the speaker. “I am invincib-”

CRASH! A cloud of dust filled the tent as a hard and sudden shockwave could be felt throughout. When the sand had settled, the Capital Robot was buried to its waist in sand. One arm buried up to the elbow, the other and the helmet had fallen off leaving Autca completely exposed with Bard holding his flute sword against the capitalist’s neck.

Tilian strutted over to where he could take a good long look at Autca has he explained his plan.

“You see, my brother, is quite good at befriending Eianth. So, I took a gamble that most of them probably would not like having helped dig up a doomsday weapon,” Tilian said as Vitoroy slowly walked up from behind, covered in dust.

“And he was right. So, since these people you so kindly brought here have the ability to quickly dig tunnels in the ground and figure out weak spots of earth, they were able to collapse the ground under you,” said Vitoroy.

Ra-Ka popped up from the sand.

“Can’t exactly use the land you give us if you just plan on taking it over anyway. We have had that happen to us before,” Ra-Ka said with a brutal stare, a stare shared by all the other Eianth Tilian could see.

“I’sorryI’msorry,” cried Autca. “I am not trying to take over the world. My master is.”

“Who. Is. He?” growled Bard pressing his blade ever harder against Autca’s throat.

“I don’t know his name. He just promised me a lot of money if I helped him, the fraction he gave me was more than enough to fund this entire dig. I was just looking out for my bottom line,” whimpered Autca.

“Who is he,” growled Bard.

“I told you I don’t know his name, we all just call him the A-” Before Autca could finish, his head had turned into a puddle of blood, brains, and bone.

Where the head of Autca once was, there was now a bloody fist. A fist that belonged to a familiar man, the carpet guide.

“Sorry,” the carpet guide said. “That’s secret.”