"Watch your step."

Despite appearances to the contrary, Alarion was capable of taking good advice when it was offered, even if he rarely did. Perched atop a half-collapsed building a thousand feet above the ground, Alarion wisely took note of the hooked joint that had nearly tripped Sierra and stepped gingerly over it as he followed in her footsteps.

Alarion had never liked heights. It was nothing that rose to the level of a phobia, or even necessarily a fear. He just didn't like that little lurch in his stomach when he looked down over vast distances. Or the implied gory ending if he were to lose his footing.

But after hours spent crawling over precarious rooftops, he could safely say he'd grown to hate heights.

They had compromised at the start of their second day in the city. They'd inspect two more doors on the city's outskirts; if those were blocked, they'd work toward completing their geas instead. Predictably, and much to Sierra's dismay, the doors they'd checked were just as immovable and indestructible as the others.

Which sent them into the city, much to Alarion's eventual dismay. He couldn't even blame her.

It had been his idea.

There had been a straight path to the spire once. Likely several, given how arterial roads were structured. Not one of them had survived the ruinous destruction of the city center. The disaster had heaved some sections upward, creating jagged, unclimbable walls. Mountains of metal and stone that had once been nearby buildings blocked others. Still more had opened up entirely into crevices that disappeared into the bowels of this alternate reality.

They'd been able to tell that much from the outset. Settled on a rooftop at the edge of the city proper, they'd sketched a rough outline of an ideal path that should have taken them a day at most to reach their destination.

Then that plan had been forced to interact with reality.

The worst damage had been visible from afar, but the street-by-street, room-by-room difficulties had turned their journey into a slog. A collapsed roof in a building they needed to pass through, a sinkhole in the middle of a narrow alley. Everywhere they turned, there were some new issues, which only compounded upon one another.

They'd circumvented one problem with an hour of detour, only to find that the whole path turned into a dead end not five minutes after they'd gotten 'back on track'. Another part of their route required four diversions, costing nearly half the day in a frustrated attempt to circumvent a single collapsed structure.

By the end of their second day, it was clear that they would have to use the buildings if they wanted to make any sort of brisk progress.

Towering structures were tightly packed throughout the city, and though the quakes toppled many, just as many others had slumped onto their neighbors or against earthen fissures. They were precarious, full of jagged metal, broken glass, and failing concrete, but they could be used as ladders to higher areas or bridges across wide gaps.

If the visitors were careful.

They'd had their share of close calls. Even with Sierra's deft footwork and high perception, areas had given way unexpectedly. Jumps that had looked simple enough at a distance had proven considerably more difficult in practice, and a tight crawl had left Alarion with a deep gouge across his scalp that had only recently healed.

Thankfully, the worst of that was behind them. After hours of climbing, balancing, leaping, and crawling, the end was in sight.

Even if it came with its own set of problems.

"Are those… people?" Alarion asked as he joined Sierra on the far side of their most recent conquest. The building was one of the smaller ones in the city center, a mere fourteen stories. But settled alongside the main thoroughfare, it provided a commanding view of the spire's base and the small clusters of figures that moved about it.

"Strange ones, if they are," Sierra answered, pulling her eye away from a looking glass before handing it to him. Alarion studied the device for several seconds, then, at her prompting, lifted it to his eye. "Given that they are all floating."

Alarion's vision wobbled slightly as he looked through the telescope. It took a few attempts and some coaching from Sierra, but eventually he settled it over their subjects. They were squat creatures, short but wide at the shoulders. Constructed out of some kind of dull black stone inset with a glowing green faceplate, they looked like the antithesis of the pure white spire they protected. Their bodies were odd, made of simple polygonal shapes rather than a more lifelike design. With wide chests and long arms, it gave them an unfinished, ape-like aesthetic entirely at odds with the graceful way they floated about.

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"Steelborn?" Alarion asked.

"That would be my guess," Sierra confirmed with a smile at his insight. "But unusual ones. Steelborn are very common in the Merchant Cities, but I have never seen a pattern like that."

"Pattern?"

"Like-" Sierra gestured with her hand as she sought words that wouldn't come to mind. "Design? Ezekiel told you that Steelborn are made in two ways, yes?"

This time, it was Alarion who had to search his memory. "Artisans and factories?"

"Correct," she nodded. "Artisan-made Steelborn, like Ezekiel, tend to be unique, individualistic. Also stronger, or at least with a higher Aptitude. Factory-made Steelborn work off a pattern that sets their starting attributes, flaws, appearance, and so forth. They will all look the same, or at least they do before any self-modification. Those must be factory-made, but I have never heard of a pattern that includes flight as a base feature. It has to be expensive. Or maybe it is just hovering?"

"Awakened can fly?"

"How is that your takeaway?" Sierra shook her head vigorously and cut the topic at the pass. "Never mind. Yes, you could fly. Theoretically. No, you will not be able to do so until somewhere at rank II at the absolute earliest. If you specialize specifically in flight. Which you should not."

Alarion opened his mouth to press her with further questions, but thought better of it at a sharp glance. "Do we think they are a threat?"

"I do not know," she admitted freely. "They could be the defenses the revenant was talking about, but I did not see any weapons on them. It might be better just to approach them. If we launch a surprise attack, we risk attacking potential allies. If nothing else, Steelborn are no friend to the infested dead."

"Down we go, then?" Alarion gestured to a nearby stairwell. The door was closed and locked, but unlike the more frustrating and formidable portals, the conventional metal used in the city was trivial to break open.

"Down we go."

Even with a comparatively straight path to the spire's base, Sierra and Alarion still took over two hours to reach their destination. Most of that had been spent navigating the intricacies of one last collapsed stairwell, but with the threat of combat in their near future, neither was in a terrible rush to speed through their last moments of relative tranquility.

It also gave them a chance to drink in the place's atmosphere in a way they had not during their frustrated journey through the maze of rubble.

The protectorate, Alarion had decided, was a place of contrasts. The construction itself was brutal, all hard right angles, glass finishes, and grey concrete. Entire areas appeared to have been copied wholesale and reused elsewhere, which made traversing the already unfamiliar city quite confusing at the best of times. Yet humanity showed through on every street corner, in every window. Signs hung outside shop doors, emblazoned with artistry and a script Alarion could not decipher. Interior rooms were painted flamboyant colors or decorated with loving care.

Dusk was beginning to set in as they arrived at the outskirts of the plaza. At nearly a mile across, it was the most open area of the city the pair had laid eyes on, and somehow one of the least damaged. There were cracks in the intricately carved and ornamented ground, but those had been weathered down, patched, and refinished in stark contrast to the rest of the city. The twelve large trees set in a circle around the base of the spire were well tended, with none of the overgrowth that was endemic throughout the rest of the city.

Up close, it was easy to tell why.

What had appeared at a distance to be a cohesive group of Steelborn split into smaller parties was, in fact, two such groups. Though almost identical in size and shape, the two groups were set apart in purpose and design.

One group was stoic and silent, keeping a protective ring about the base of the spire. There were twelve in total, one to match each of the trees or the doors beyond them. They did not move or react; they simply hovered in place. Notably, in contrast to their fellows, these twelve had no hands. Their arms simply ended in the same matte black stone as the rest of their frame.

The second group was much more active. Numbered in the dozens, they flitted about the grounds and the spire entrance, attending to menial tasks. Some were emptying trash bins that were already forever empty, others swept already clean streets, or attended to the greenery with careful precision.

Alarion looked at the floating Steelborn with something approaching wonder on his face. It was such an unusual expression that Sierra smiled through her exhaustion.

"Hello!" Alarion finally called out from the plaza's outer perimeter, after getting the nod from Sierra, of course.

The Steelborn did not react. If they'd heard him at all, Alarion couldn't tell. At least, not until he'd tried thrice more, the last time at the top of his lungs. That narrowed his options down. They were deaf, or they were ignoring him.

"We'll approach," Sierra said after some back and forth. "Carefully. Pay attention to the ones in the rear."

"And the ones with the shears," Alarion suggested as he stepped onto the plaza grounds.

The touch of his foot was like an alarm to the second group of Steelborn. One moment they were floating impassively, the next they had formed into a tight line, obstructing his most direct path to the spire.

"Iik Ko No!" Their mechanical voices boomed across the plaza in unison.

Their voices were different from what he'd expected. For all his mechanical traits, ZEKE's voice was as human as Alarion's, a rich baritone dripping with warmth, annoyance, or sarcasm. More than anything, it made ZEKE feel alive. Their voices were nothing like that. Theirs was a mechanical facsimile of a person that set Alarion's teeth on edge. If anything, it reminded him of the revenant.

Regardless, their message was clear. He might not speak their language, but their body language was not up to interpretation. Alarion stepped back.

The Steelborn hovered in place briefly, staring him down with their glowing visors. Then they withdrew, returning to their original positions.

Next, Sierra stepped forward.

"Iik Ko No!" their robotic voices demanded as she retreated. They withdrew to their original positions, and half a heartbeat later, Sierra stepped forward again, repeating the process. "Iik Ko No!"

There was disgust on her face as she withdrew. "Abominations."

"What?" Alarion asked, unfamiliar with the word.

"Abominations. Monsters. Criminal things." She glared daggers across the field as her hand played on the hilt of her own. "Those aren't Steelborn. They're Soulless."

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