Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Even in the night, Emerald City was shining in bright neon colors, hiding the unfathomable darkness it was built on. Mike watched the mesmerizing scenery flit by, as they rode the convoy to Adam's hideout.

To this point, he had only seen Delta and the small, central district could not compare to this kind of spectacle. Especially not recently.

The group of trucks filled with people drove to the edge of Emerald City. This neighborhood was not as glamorous and the biggest light source was the dim glimmering of the barrier in the night. The trucks stopped in front of a rectangular, simple building, mike associated with a warehouse.

“We are here, let's get the people in. The others will take care of the trucks.” Tano'Mol told him and jumped out of the driver's cabin. As they unloaded the people they rescued, others came from inside to help. They left the work to them and Mike followed the goat inside the warehouse.

“This way,” he guided him and they walked down a flight of stairs until they reached a place with rough rock walls.

“Apparently this is an old mine shaft from the mine that existed here before Emerald City was built. At this point, only 15% of the city's economy depends on mining,” the demon explained to him as they walked down the path.

After a few bends down, they finally came to a halt at a wooden door. Behind this door, leisurely sitting at a shoddy desk, with an orb in his hand, sat the Governor of Beta himself.

“Mike! We meet again. I already heard that Tano found you,” Adam greeted him with a friendly smile.

“Adam! You were here in person? What about Thres?” the chosen of Maahes exclaimed.

“Thres is doing well, thanks. The System Church is currently being built and we are currently procuring citizens,” Adam answered in a relaxed voice.

“It's good you are here! I have important news!” Mike immediately cut to the chase. Seeing his urgency, Adam put aside the orb in his hand.

“Can that orb connect to Minas Mar? They need to know this, too,” Mike said, when his attention fell on the orb, but Adam shook his head.

“We are still within the barrier of Emerald City, so no signals will get out of here. We can contact Minas Mar once we leave the area of interference.”

Adam's answer already anticipated Mike's next question, because he the goat had already reported their exchange to him. Hearing the governor's answer, Mike nodded and finally started his report. He started with his journey after splitting with Lydia and the various encounters with Hashing Birds.

He talked about how Ceres and he separated and finally came to the point where he met the miners and attained the <Storm Ore>. This was the part when the demons and governor's faces started to contort in discomfort, as Mike started explaining what he knew about the cyber worms.

Their faces hardened when he talked of the miners' betrayal and their existence as apiaries that had unleashed these worms onto Urth. Adam had recorded everything out of habit, now they would be able to send it as a message to Minas Mar, simply by sending one of their people outside.

“This changes a lot...Who would have thought that we would get news of Lambda in this way?”

While Mike didn't have much impression of the name Lambda as he was an otherworlder, Adam was originally a person from Urth. Despite losing most of his personal memories, he still knew Urth. In addition, he had spent no short amount of time in the Muir Empire, with access to their data on Urth.

The maritime empire had attacked three coastal districts, Ypselon, Theta, and Beta. Theta being the most western district situated on a peninsula on the coast. With its proximity to the ocean, Theta had fallen quickly, but later on was completely wiped out by an unknown force.

Lambda had been their center of technology, a beacon of development. If that place became the base of something that dared to call itself the Machine God, maybe Lambda was responsible for the disappearance of all the people in Theta...

Someone knocked on the door before entering. It was Beth and a few others Adam had called telepathically. They needed to be here.

“ We are speeding up our plans. We are facing another apocalyptic catastrophe. We will immediately send the current batch to Thres, as long as the streets are trails are still open. Mike, would you accompany them?”

Surprised by Adam's decisive action, Mike hesitated for a moment but happily agreed. The quicker he was able to talk with Seth and the others in person, the better. But he suddenly remembered an important detail

“How are we going to leave? The only exit is heavily guarded and every who enters or leaves is being controlled.”

“Don't worry, we have our own private entrance. You should rest for now. We will call you when we set off,” Adam suggested. Mike nodded, he had not gotten any sleep for almost two days now. He was quite tired.

…

---Minas Mar---

“Seth, we finally got a notice from Mike!”

Mary's voice sounded from the orb. The blacksmith had been busy infusing souls into the scaled golems when he got the call.

“Are you serious?” “Yes, come quickly!”

“Cerberus, you keep going, I have to go,” he said and left the workshop, directly teleportation to the elevator that led to their embassy above. Seth still wore his forging gauntlets and held his hammer when he entered the office where Mary, Leana, Luf and the others gathered.

“Is it Mike?” he asked the crowd, that had been waiting for him.

“Not directly, it's a message from Adam. Mike had arrived in Emerald City and joined them. It says Mike will contact us later, but there is another recording attached we are supposed to watch.” Mary explained. It was currently night in the unclaimed mountains, while it was still evening in Delta. Of Mike set off in the morning, he would contact around midnight.

“Was I the last one to arrive? Alright, then let's listen to it?”

Making sure everyone who was able to come was here, they started watching the recording of Mike's report to Adam. Like Tano'Mol and the artificial druid, their face turned grim when the beastman started explaining about the cyber worms and graves when he said they were unleashed on the Unclaimed Mountains.

“Great, another homemade disaster...” Jane exclaimed frustrated.

“At least it doesn't seem like this Machine God in Lambda is our enemy,” Luf commented in thought.

“What do you mean?” Jane asked back.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Well, didn't it sound like this Machine God attempted to reign these things in? Since these things are afraid of it, it's probably much more powerful. If lambda decided to attack us, we might be worse off than just another headache,” Luf shared her conclusion.

Just another headache... Could any of their headaches be pushed aside as “just another one”? All of them were quite bad.

“Prepare an official statement and contact Emerald City. Even if we criticize them and there is a lot of despicable garbage there, we have to warn them. Or the city will fall in the blink of an eye...” Seth suddenly said.

He didn't like the place after all he heard, but it was still a place where people of Urth survived. Did they live a good life? No. Was it fair? Probably not. But they were able to scrape by and strive for something better. He wouldn't condemn them to a clueless death, just cause he didn't like some of them.

“But how? Emerald City has completely blocked off communications since Adam began his mission,” Mary commented. They had no way to message them through magic.

“... Then we will have to send a Messenger.”