Chapter 27 Where Giants Walk
The smell of blood still clung to my hands.
I knelt in the corner of the longhouse, back pressed against one of the shattered support beams, watching as Curie hovered over Jorta's battered body. Her surgical arms clicked and hissed, each movement measured with machine precision. The glow from her ocular lens pulsed as she scanned him from head to toe, her voice calm—too calm.
"Prognosis: not favorable," Curie said at last, her accent still strangely soft, almost motherly. "Subject has sustained seven fractured ribs, internal hemorrhaging around the left lung, and compound fractures along the radius and ulna of both arms. Additional microfractures detected in the femur and tibia. Splinters of bone have pierced vascular tissue."
I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. "So how bad is it, really?"
She turned toward me mid-hover, one of her arms sparking briefly before she steadied it with a precise adjustment. "He is alive, but without immediate surgical intervention, that status will change. Even if I stabilize him now, full recovery in time for his next duel is... statistically improbable."
My jaw clenched. "What about stimpaks?"
There was a brief delay—just a second too long. Then, with a flash of motion, one of her arms lashed out and shocked the back of my hand with a low-voltage jolt.
"Ow—what the hell, Curie?"
"Reckless human nonsense," she snapped, tone now clipped and sharp. "Stimpaks are emergency tools, not panaceas. They encourage hyperactive cellular division. If I pump this man full of them, he may regain movement briefly—but he will also risk necrotic tissue buildup, adrenal dysregulation, bone calcification, cystic growths, and possibly cancer. That's assuming he doesn't hemorrhage first from the strain on already damaged arteries."
She leaned over Jorta again, her instruments unfolding with a clinical hum. "I must operate. I can keep him alive—but I cannot promise he will be ready to fight that monstrosity again. Let alone what comes next."
I looked to Jorta. He was barely conscious, but his hand twitched slightly at her words. Blood trickled from his nose, his skin pale beneath the black and white warpaint that clung to his brow.
Then, slowly, his lips parted.
"You'll fight the next one," he rasped, voice low but steady. "You'll fight the Legion Champion."
The words hit me harder than I expected.
I blinked. "Jorta, hold on—don't start passing torches yet. You're not dead."
"I know," he said, managing a weak smile that cracked blood down his chin. "But I will be healing. Not leading. The moment they hear I'm down… they'll send their best. He'll be here. The Red Beast."
I felt a chill go down my spine.
Hell's Angel had been a nightmare—but at least it was just a machine. The Legion? They sent men. Men built in blood and legend. And if Jorta was warning me now, it meant he wasn't talking about some nameless brute.
He was talking about their apex.
And that meant I had very little time to be ready.
I stayed crouched there for a moment, fingers flexing against my knees.
"You sure it has to be me?" I asked quietly. "What about Boone?"
Jorta coughed—wet and deep. Curie immediately adjusted something in her tray, and a hiss of medicine slid through the tube into his arm. He winced, but his eyes stayed locked on mine.
"Boone's not a champion," he said, voice hoarse but certain. "He's a survivor. A tactician. He keeps the fire lit when the warriors fall."
I didn't say anything, but I didn't have to. He kept going.
"If the worst happens… if the Legion breaks our line… Boone's the one who'll lead them farther into the plains. He'll find food, shelter, new hunting grounds. He'll keep the tribe breathing. That's his war."
Jorta's gaze sharpened, pain riding just beneath the steel. "But you—you fight to kill. You fight to end things. I've seen it. Felt it."
He turned his head, barely, eyes narrowing through the haze. "You're not Kansani by blood. But our claws are in you now. You've earned it."
I swallowed hard, my voice low as I asked the question I already knew the answer to. "Who is it? This Red Beast."
Jorta didn't answer right away. He turned his head slightly, as if even saying the name cost him something.
"Legate Lanius."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
I knew that name.
Everyone did. Both this world and everyone who played Fallout New Vegas.
Jorta's voice was slower now, weighted. "He's the one who led the slaughter when the Lonaki fell. That wasn't just a raid—it was a message. A massacre. He made their death into a doctrine."
He shifted, gritting his teeth as pain lanced through his side. Curie reached to sedate him, but he waved her off.
"Half the scars on my body," he continued, "were carved by him. We've fought more than once. Always brutal. Always unfinished."
I stared at him. "So why wasn't he at the last duel?"
"Because I cut him," Jorta said, a faint edge of satisfaction in his voice. "Caught him in a skirmish, weeks before the ceasefire was declared. Broke his leg. Ripped part of his jaw. The priest-crows pulled him back to heal before the formal challenge."
"So they sent someone else."
He nodded once. "A stand-in. A decent fighter, but not the Beast."
"And now?"
Jorta's eyes locked on mine. "Now he's ready."
I sat back on my heels, the pieces clicking together now.
"Son of a bitch," I muttered. "The Centurion wasn't meant to win. He was meant to hurt you."
Jorta didn't answer right away. He didn't have to. His silence said plenty.
"They knew Lanius would challenge next," I said, thinking aloud. "But first, they needed you softened. Broken ribs, fractured limbs, something to slow you down. That Centurion wasn't there to win glory. He was there to maim."
Jorta finally nodded, just once. "He was already dead when the challenge was issued."
I looked at him sharply. "What?"
"Don't know much about New Rome's inner dealings," he rasped, wincing as Curie adjusted the stabilizer frame around his legs. "But escapees say it's not uncommon for a Centurion to get executed—especially if they pissed off the wrong Patrician. Sleep with a noble's daughter, steal from the war chest, question orders."
He coughed again—blood this time.
"They gave him a way out. A 'clean death.' Told him he could die in the ring instead of on a cross. All he had to do was hurt me bad enough to buy time for the real monster."
I exhaled slowly, running a hand down my face. That wasn't a fight. It had been a sacrifice. And now the real blade was falling.
Jorta's breathing was shallow now, but the fire in his eyes hadn't dimmed. If anything, it burned hotter.
"You've got a week," he said, voice low but sharp. "That's how long it will be before Lanius get here. And even then…" He trailed off, grimacing. "I won't be ready for him. Not this time."
I didn't argue. We both knew the truth.
"But you," he continued, "you're different. Every time you go out there, you come back stronger. You hunt, you fight—you grow."
He gritted his teeth as Curie began sealing one of the bone splinters inside his thigh.
"You don't just survive. You evolve."
I looked at him, the weight of the coming battle already sinking into my spine. "So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying," Jorta growled, "you need to hunt something worthy. Something that'll forge your body in fire and leave you standing at the edge of death."
He turned his head, meeting my gaze fully now. "You need to bring down a Gatecrasher."
The name hit like a hammer to the chest.
Even Curie paused, her tools mid-motion.
"Seriously?" I asked, almost laughing from the sheer madness of it.
Jorta just smiled, blood staining his teeth. "If you want to face the Red Beast and live… then you'll have to kill something just as mean."
I hesitated, eyes drifting toward the wreckage still smoldering outside the longhouse. The clash with the Striker had left more than just bodies—it left scars on the Grove. Scattered rubble. Blood-soaked earth. A hollow in the air where certainty used to be.
"I should help with cleanup," I said quietly. "Can't just walk away while others pick up the pieces."
Footsteps approached from behind—light, measured. Sula.
"You're not walking away," she said, coming to stand beside me. Her tone was calm, but firm. "You're walking toward the next threat."
I turned to her, brow furrowed.
She glanced toward the village gates where the smoke curled and the mourners gathered. "There's nothing left to do now but let the shamans prepare the dead. The tribe doesn't need more hands right now. It needs a sword sharp enough to stop what's coming."
Her eyes met mine.
"The best thing you can do is get stronger. If you want to honor the ones we lost—protect the ones still breathing."
I turned toward Sula. "Alright. So where do I find one?"
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she exhaled slowly and stepped away from the wall, limping slightly on her right leg—the last reminder of her fight with the Striker.
"My investigation into the Oseram camps finally turned something up," she said. "They really were just mining sites. Digging for machine cores, metal veins, salvage... nothing hidden, nothing suspicious."
She paused, looking back at me. "But one of them's in trouble."
I raised an eyebrow. "Trouble how?"
"A Gatecrasher," she said flatly. "It's been attacking one of the outer camps. Knocking down scaffold, ramming the support walls, driving the workers to barricade themselves every night. They're too stubborn to leave, too poorly armed to kill it."
"Let me guess," I said. "You want me to go clean it up."
She gave me a tired smile. "You want to fight Lanius? This is how you get ready."
She turned toward the far side of the longhouse, limping to a small shelf built into the frame. She reached up and pulled down a tightly wrapped scroll, worn but clean.
"This is a detailed map," she said, unrolling it carefully on a nearby crate. "Tribal, but layered with old-world reference marks. It's how we chart movements and trade."
She tapped a region east of the Grove, near a broken riverbed and a series of etched triangles marked with the Oseram mining glyph.
"Golden Plains Camp," she said. "You'll find your beast there."
I crouched beside the scroll and tapped my temple.
[FOCUS — SCAN INITIATED]
A thin blue veil passed over the parchment. Symbols blinked. My map updated in real time—new regions lighting up, along with a quest marker:
[NEW OBJECTIVE: HUNT THE GATECRASHER – LOCATION: GOLDEN PLAINS CAMP]
I straightened up, feeling the weight of it settle into my spine.
"Guess I'm heading east."
As I stepped back from the map, ready to roll up the scroll, Sula's hand shot out and rested lightly on mine.
"Careful when you get there," she said, voice low.
I looked up. Her expression had shifted—no longer the calm certainty of a guide, but the quiet tension of someone trying not to hope for too much.
"Why?" I asked.
She tapped the map again, just below the glyph for Golden Plains. "Because we think they might be trading with the Legion. Under the table."
That froze me for a moment.
She continued. "We haven't caught them outright. But the numbers don't line up. Their guards are too well-armed for a frontier camp, and they've been stockpiling shards faster than mining rates should allow. Some of the salvage they gather never gets recorded—just disappears."
"Sold to the Legion," I muttered.
Sula nodded. "In exchange for protection. Or mercy. Or both."
She stepped back, arms folding across her chest. "So if you go stirring things up, just be ready. You're not just hunting a Gatecrasher—you might be walking into a camp full of cowards who sold out their neighbors for a longer leash." Sula added, "One more thing."
I glanced over.
She gave a faint nod toward the door. "Before you leave… you might want to check in with Ubba."
That caught my attention.
"But before she left, she told me—specifically told me—to make sure you stopped by."Sula said.
I raised an eyebrow. "Did she say why?"
Sula shrugged. "Knowing her? Could be a weapon. Could be some half-melted prototype she wants you to field-test. Could be an exploding coffee mug."
I snorted. "So, the usual."
"She seemed serious this time," Sula added. "Didn't even flirt."
That actually made me pause.
Now that was serious.
........
The sun was just starting to rise when I reached the outskirts of the Pile.
Golden light spilled over the blackened husk of the old-world war machine that gave the place its name—its exposed ribs and twisted plating now draped in scaffolds, tarps, and hoists. Smoke curled from the forge stacks. Hammerfall echoed across the valley like war drums.
I had a decapitated Berserker slung over my shoulder.
I believed in killing two birds with one stone. If I was going to make a supply run, I might as well drag back something worth salvaging. Behind me, a line of Kansani warriors did the same—each one carrying the mangled body of a fallen Striker variant. Some hauled torsos, others arms or legs. One woman had the head of a Boxer unit roped to her back like a trophy.
We weren't just here to visit.
We were here to cash in.
The Ironbone clan was already waiting—half-armored smiths, toolbelts rattling, eyes gleaming with practical hunger. They moved in like wolves, knives and wrenches in hand, assessing every screw, servo, and salvageable plate.
Armor would be made. Not just for the Grove, but for the warriors who earned it.
And I had a feeling mine was going to be something special.
I hadn't even reached the lower gantry before I heard the familiar clang of boots on metal and the unmistakable voice that followed.
"Well I'll be damned!" Ubba called out, laughter in her throat. "Of course it'd be you hauling in the biggest of the metal bastards!"
She came striding out from behind a stack of freshly gutted machine torsos, grease smudged across one cheek, her arms bare and soot-streaked. Her apron was already half-covered in fresh welding burns, and there was a half-assembled shoulder plate dangling from one of her tool belts.
I dropped the Striker bot onto the forge ramp with a crash that made the scaffolding groan.
"Biggest one still moving," I said. "Figured you'd want the good meat before it cooled."
Ubba circled the kill, nodding with open approval. "You know how many hours of work you just saved me, Tourist? That frame's still got reinforced thigh plates, dual-core pistons, and those shoulder joints—mm! I can feel the upgrades humming already."
She smacked the dead bot's leg like a butcher sizing up a prize carcass.
"Keep bringing me gifts like this, and I might just marry you."
I raised a brow. "Thought you weren't the domestic type."
She winked. "Who said anything about domestic?"
Before I could reply, a familiar voice cut through the clatter of forgehammers and laughter.
"Careful, amigo," Raul said as he strolled up, hands in his belt, a wide grin under that weather-worn mustache. "That chica's got sparks coming off her like a broken fusion coil."
He gave Ubba a respectful nod, then turned his eyes back to me. "I've seen latinas with less fire, and they used to stab their men just to make sure they still loved 'em."
Ubba snorted, clearly amused. "You calling me dangerous, old man?"
Raul raised both hands. "No ma'am. I'm saying he's the one walking into the bonfire."
He turned to me, tapping his temple. "So unless you're into third-degree burns, just remember to wear heat shielding."
I glanced at Ubba, who just grinned wider, biting her lip like she was already planning a dozen retorts she didn't even need to say.
I shook my head. "Great. Two smartasses. Exactly what I needed before hunting something that flattens buildings."
Raul clapped me on the shoulder. "Then you're in the right place. We build smartasses and weapons here. Lucky for you, the girl's both."
As Raul wandered off with a chuckle and a muttered prayer for my survival, I reached behind me and unhooked the last piece of my haul.
The Berserker's axe.
It was massive—twin-headed, still streaked with dried machine blood and scorched plating. The alloy was dense, but balanced, the haft reinforced with dead servos and defunct impulse cores that had once synced directly to the killer's neural mesh. This thing wasn't a tool—it was an extension of intent.
I set it down on the forge table with a heavy thunk that turned every nearby head.
Ubba's eyes widened, her grin stretching slow and dangerous. She stepped in close, circling the weapon like she was falling in love.
"Well now," she said, voice low. "That's not just a trophy. That's a damn declaration."
I nodded once. "Think you can fit some Suncrusher boosters onto it?"
She blinked. "You're serious."
"Completely. I need a heavy melee weapon for the Gatecrasher hunt. Something that hits harder than a Deathclaw with a migraine."
Her brow lifted slightly, but before she could ask the obvious question, I continued, "I'm going after a few Hammerrunners on the way—was already planning to harvest parts for armor plating. Whatever Suncrusher boosters you use on this thing, I'll replace the materials. Heat sinks, vent caps, core alloys—I'll bring it back double."
Ubba's smile returned immediately, all sharp edges and eager fire.
"That's why I like you, Tourist. You never ask without covering the cost." She thumped the haft of the axe with her fist. "Fine. I'll strip the guts out and graft in a booster relay. Might even tune the ignition to pulse with your swings—give it a kick."
"Just don't blow my arm off."
"No promises," she said cheerfully. "But I'll make it sing."
Ubba leaned over the axe again, sketching build notes in the grime on the table with her fingertip—diagrams shaped by intuition and fire, not textbooks.
"While I'm tearing this beast open," she said, not even looking up, "you might as well field-test something else I've been cooking."
I raised an eyebrow. "Another weapon?"
She grinned. "Not quite. You remember before the bunker job—you mentioned the idea of a grappling system that anchored from the hip?"
I nodded slowly. "Yeah. Said it'd pull cleaner. Less torque on the arms. Easier to control mid-sprint."
Ubba turned to her workbench and hauled up a tightly wound harness rig. It was compact and wicked-looking—braided machine cabling, salvaged compression coils, and a launch unit mounted to the right hip plate. Reinforced anchor spikes sat in a feed slot, gleaming faintly in the forge light.
"Pullcaster Harness," she said proudly. "You aim with your body. Fires from the hip. Pulls you toward whatever you tag—ledge, rock face, platform, even a target if you're feeling suicidal."
I took it from her hands, feeling the weight. Balanced. Built for movement, not brute strength. The bracing was clever—tight enough to stay flush during a sprint, flexible enough to allow a roll or tumble.
"This is clean work," I said. "You sure it won't break my spine?"
Ubba snorted. "Not unless you aim like a fool. Which, granted, is a risk."
I stepped away from the forge, buckling the harness into place and feeling the taut weight settle around my hips. The anchor grip locked cleanly into its housing, the trigger slung low along my thigh—easy to reach, hard to misfire.
I turned my eyes to the dead god looming above the Pile.
The Faro Horus.
Its rusted limbs stretched into the sky like the skeletal fingers of a buried titan. Blackened plating. Twisted towers of scavenged scaffolding climbing its sides. Every Kansani knew it was dead—but standing beneath it still made you feel like it was watching.
I adjusted the targeting dial on the harness and flicked the lock open.
One click.
The reticle on my Focus synced instantly, painting a spot along the shoulder joint of the Horus's left arm. A nice thirty-foot climb.
I braced my boots, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.
THWUNK!
The anchor spike shot from my hip with a crack of compressed air, slamming into the metal and locking in with a resonant clink. A beat later, the cord tightened, and I felt the pull hit my center mass—not a whiplash yank, but a steady, controlled drag that lifted me off the ground and sent me sailing upward in a smooth arc.
My boots thudded against the ancient metal shoulder.
I grinned.
Not bad at all.
The system retracted quickly, coil reloading without a hitch. I looked out from the Horus's back, the Grove now a small cluster in the morning haze, and tapped the release—lowering myself with a controlled drop onto the next ledge.
Ubba had outdone herself.
And I had just found my new favorite toy.
I was about to figure out how to get down when something tugged at the back of my mind.
A fragment of memory. Not from here—but from before.
The Horus's spine. The ridge of plating just below the primary exhaust tower.
I turned, scanning the structure with my Focus.
A faint signature flickered beneath the corroded plates—a buried energy signature, low but still active. I narrowed my eyes.
"Wait…"
I crouched along the shoulder plating and crept toward the central ridge, brushing aside a sheet of welded scrap and rust-caked cabling. There it was—half-buried in weathered metal, almost invisible to the naked eye.
A Faro-manufactured auxiliary power cell.
I remembered the trick—how Aloy had dropped them like bombs in the Forbidden West. She'd used them to shatter machines, wipe out squads, even turn the tide of entire fights.
The cell was dormant but intact.
I tapped the housing lightly. It hummed.
I grinned. "You've got to be kidding me."
Sliding a thin blade from my belt, I began prying the locking plates free. This would take some finesse—but if I could extract it clean, I'd be walking into the Gatecrasher hunt with a literal god-battery on my hip.
I pried the final clamp loose with a soft pop, and the power cell came free with a hiss of static pressure. It was heavier than I expected—about the size of a five-gallon bucket, dense and humming with dormant energy. A Faro logo, half-eroded by time and corrosion, still clung to the side like a scar.
I turned it over slowly, inspecting the ports.
This thing shouldn't be holding a charge. Not after a thousand years. Not exposed to the elements, half-buried in the dead spine of a war machine. But it was. Not full, maybe—but alive.
Solar-fed, maybe? A slow trickle over centuries, stored in some long-forgotten ultracapacitor?
Didn't matter. It worked.
And I knew exactly what to do with it.
My mind flashed back to the Ravager cannon. The recoil-splitter, the scorched barrel. Sula had drained the residual charge last night to drop the Berserker and the last of the Strikers. It had done the job—but the battery was toast now.
If I could rig this cell into a proper mount—maybe build an armored back harness with insulation plates and a manual feed—I could resurrect that weapon. Turn a broken piece of helltech into something worth carrying into the next fight.. Ubba would know what to do with it.
I gave the power cell one last look, then popped open the storage port on my left bracer.
[NANOBOY 3000 – STORAGE SEQUENCE INITIATED]
A soft hum followed by a shimmer of light, and the cell vanished into digital suspension—safely locked away in the same inventory where I kept ammo, spare parts, and half a protein bar from three days ago.
I dusted off my hands and turned toward the ledge.
Then I looked down.
And blinked.
"…Son of a bitch."
The climb up had been easy—Pullcaster, adrenaline, forward momentum.
The climb down?
Not so much.
Too high to jump. Too many loose panels for a clean rappel. And no stable anchor points facing the descent.
I stared at the drop, then looked around for a miracle that wasn't coming.
"Alright," I muttered. "Next time I ask for climbing gear, someone remind me it needs a damn descent mode too."
After some creative routing—vaulting between old scaffolding, scrambling over rusted support beams, and misusing the Pullcaster in a way Ubba would absolutely yell at me for—I actually made it most of the way down.
Just five feet left.
A clean drop.
Simple.
My boot hit the last support bar.
It slipped.
WHAM—!
I hit the dirt face-first, a puff of dry soil and old machine dust exploding around me.
"FUCK!" I roared, voice muffled against the ground.
Somewhere nearby, I heard a few Ironbone laugh. One even clapped.
I just groaned and rolled over, brushing grit out of my mouth.
"Yeah," I muttered, spitting to the side. "Real graceful. Definitely Champion material."
As I lay there, groaning and trying to remember if my dignity had a respawn timer, I heard a familiar wheezing cackle echoing from the scaffolds nearby.
I looked up—and there he was.
Grosh.
Leaning against a crate, arms crossed, red in the face and barely able to breathe from how hard he was laughing.
"By the forge," he gasped between fits. "You looked like a sack of bolts getting dropped from a Tornback's ass!"
He slapped the side of a support beam, tears in his eyes. "I haven't seen a fall like that since Ubba tried to test her 'reverse glider harness' off the forge roof. Except you landed on your face, and she landed in the soot bin."
I flipped him off without getting up.
He just laughed harder.
Ubba poked her head out from the forge, grease on her cheek and a spanner in hand. "Did he eat dirt again?"
Grosh howled. "Like a champion!"
I groaned. "I hate this tribe."
Grosh grinned. "That's how we know you belong."
As I was still dusting dirt out of my teeth and trying to pretend Grosh didn't exist, the forge doors creaked open behind me.
Ubba stepped out, arms wide, grinning like she'd just pulled a thunderjaw's tooth barehanded.
"Tourist!" she called out. "Quit kissing the ground and come take a look!"
I stood, brushing myself off. "If it's another climbing tool, I swear—"
She held something up.
My words stopped dead in my throat.
It was the axe.
The Berserker's brutal twin-headed monstrosity—reborn.
The reinforced haft gleamed with tribal engraving and impact-resistant wraps, and built into the upper spine of the weapon were twin Suncrusher booster cells, their vents humming faintly with residual heat. Stabilizer plates had been welded into the base, and a pressure valve ran through the rear like a combustion exhaust.
When she twisted the grip, the boosters flickered—not a full ignition, just enough to growl like a beast waiting to be unchained.
"Suncrusher mods wired straight into the core," Ubba said proudly. "Pull the trigger mid-swing and you'll get a burn-pulse boost that'll shatter anything short of plated armor. Had to re-balance the weight and reinforce the grip—thing kicks harder than a drunk Ravager—but she's solid."
She held it out to me like a war banner.
"Meet your new best friend."
I took it in both hands. It felt heavy. Alive.
Perfect.
The axe featured a massive, single-bearded head etched with glowing orange lines and a sharp, Kansani glyph representing Momentum and Fury—Ubba's personal mark for weapons built to end things in one strike. The cutting edge radiates residual booster heat, giving off a faint molten glow even at rest. Battle scars from the Berserker's original use remain, deliberately unpolished—a tribute to the enemy that once wielded it.
The true innovation lies in the reinforced power assembly grafted onto the spine of the blade: a twin-barreled Suncrusher booster rig, pulled from heavy salvage and wired directly into the axe's swing channel. Triggering the ignition mid-strike activates a directional burn surge, boosting the weapon's momentum with explosive force. The resulting strike doesn't just cleave—it obliterates.
Its haft is wrapped in thick, black-and-white Kansani leather, patterned with traditional zigzag chevrons for grip and lineage. Beneath, the shaft is reinforced with tempered alloy and weighted for centrifugal torque, allowing a practiced user to chain booster strikes without losing control. The base ends in a wickedly pointed spike, usable as a back-thrust or ground anchor in the middle of combat.
The entire construction balances brute force and precision—designed for only one wielder and one purpose: to kill something too large to be killed.
I turned the axe in my hands, watching the faint orange glow along the blade's edge ripple like molten veins. It wasn't just for show—I could feel the heat radiating off it in slow, steady pulses.
"How the hell did you get the edge to burn like that?" I asked.
Ubba crossed her arms, grinning like she'd just stolen fire from the gods. "Residual heat bleed."
I raised an eyebrow.
She jabbed a thumb toward the booster assembly on the spine. "That power cell setup? It's dirty. Not in a bad way—just unfiltered. Suncrushers don't get this glow because their bodies are built from heavy forge-dense alloys. The heat's contained, regulated. But this axe—" she tapped the head with her knuckle, "—is made from whatever alloy the Strikers were using. Stuff's tough, but not so dense it stifles the heat. It carries it."
She leaned in, tone almost reverent. "Any normal weapon would've warped. Cracked. Bent like old tin. But this thing? It thrives on it. The blade's not just cutting—it's burning through whatever it hits."
She stepped back, pride radiating off her like forge smoke.
"This axe could cleave the world."
I looked at it—at the burning edge, the brutal weight, the layered history hammered into every weld—and gave a slow nod.
"Then that's what I'll call it," I said quietly.
"World-Cleaver."
Ubba's grin widened. "Now that's a name. Just try not to split the continent in half swinging it."
I gave World Cleaver one last appreciative turn before lowering it beside me.
Then I looked back at the remaining parts on the table—the smaller reverse blade that had once jutted off the back of the Berserker's axe head. It had heat scoring, stress fractures along the edge—but the core alloy was still strong. And more than salvageable.
I glanced at Ubba.
"Think you can do something with that back blade?" I asked. "Make a hand axe out of it?"
Ubba tilted her head, already inspecting the piece like she was mentally disassembling it on the spot. "For who?"
"Sula," I said simply.
Ubba snorted and shook her head, but the grin was already forming.
"Of course I can," she said. "Girl's been swinging that old thing like it still owes her a favor. Last time I saw it, the edge was cracked, the balance was off, and the haft had more wraps than blade. If anyone deserves an upgrade, it's her."
She picked up the smaller blade with a practiced flick of her wrist. "This'll make a fine hatchet. I'll weight it for her grip, reinforce the haft with one of those Hammerrunner spikes you promised to bring back. Might even add a little something extra if I'm feeling generous."
She looked over her shoulder with a smirk. "But if she throws this one into a machine's mouth and doesn't retrieve it, I will throw a wrench at her."
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Why do you even have a sharpened wrench?"
Ubba shrugged without looking up, already sketching blueprints for Sula's hatchet in the soot.
"Got bored one night," she said casually. "Was trying out a weapon concept—thought maybe if I filed the edges just right, it could double as a throwing tool and a tuning key."
She paused, then added with a sigh, "Didn't work. Kept spinning weird. Killed my thumb trying to calibrate it. But I still have it."
She nodded toward a pile of junk behind the anvil. "Somewhere under that heap. Right next to the spring-loaded hammersocks."
"…Hammersocks?"
Ubba grinned without looking up. "Don't ask."
I couldn't help it—I laughed. A full, genuine bark that echoed off the forge walls and made Grosh glance over from across the yard.
Ubba gave me a sideways look. "What?"
"I love your weird, eccentric ass," I said, slinging World Cleaver across my back. "Never let anyone try and change you."
Ubba smirked, brushing soot off her cheek with the back of her wrist. "Tourist, if they could change me, they already would've."
"Good," I said, turning toward the path out of the Pile. "World's too broken for boring people."
"Damn right it is."
As I stepped out into the morning light, the weapon on my back humming softly with every stride, I felt that old itch again—somewhere between excitement and inevitability.
Time to find a Gatecrasher.
The wind rolled quiet across the plains, carrying the distant scent of scorched grass and old iron. I'd been walking for hours, the sun starting its climb behind me, when the ground beneath my boots began to tremble—subtle at first, then steady. Rhythmic.
Something huge was moving nearby.
I dropped low, hand instinctively brushing World Cleaver's hilt. But there was no roar, no threat. Just a long, low hum that resonated deep in my chest—almost… peaceful.
Curious, I crept up the side of a shallow ridge, the grass whispering around my legs.
Then I saw it.
It stepped through the golden morning haze like a dream forged from steel.
A Tallneck.
Its towering disc-shaped head cut a perfect silhouette against the sky, legs moving with slow, deliberate grace. The panels along its back shimmered as the sunlight hit them, its metal skin unmarred by war or time. It was ancient—but alive, the hum of its systems low and harmonious.
I'd heard the Kansani speak of them—sky-walkers,cloud-eaters,the great silent ones—but I'd never seen one this close.
GAIA didn't build many things for beauty.
But this?
This was art in motion.
It walked not like a machine, but like a memory of the world that once was. Calm. Unbothered. Above it all. It didn't react to me. Didn't need to. I was just another shadow on the ground.
I found myself standing there longer than I meant to, watching it cross the plains like a ship on a still sea.
Not everything in this world wanted to kill you.
Some things just… reminded you why it was worth surviving.
I watched the Tallneck glide across the horizon like a walking monolith, its disc head slowly rotating as if scanning the sky itself.
And then I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck.
"In the games," I muttered, "they always had plateaus. Towers. Something tall to jump from."
But here?
Kansas was flat. Endless grasslands, gently rolling hills at best. No cliffs. No mesas. No conveniently placed handholds for a grappling hook to snag.
The Pullcaster harness on my hip might as well have been dead weight against something that tall.
I cursed under my breath.
But then I stopped. Looked again.
The Tallneck wasn't circling.
It wasn't following a tight, artificial loop, repeating the same steps over and over like some glorified wind-up toy. No invisible boundary boxed it in. Its path was loose—wandering.
And that's when it hit me.
Back then, in the old world of scripts and triggers, the Tallnecks had to loop. They were built that way—limited by code and map boundaries. But this world?
This world ran on something else.
Real terrain. Real movement.
It wasn't looping because it didn't have to anymore. It was going somewhere.
I crouched and pulled up my Focus, scanning the region ahead—toward the southeast. About fifteen miles out, terrain started to change. A faint elevation shift. Not mountains, but something more artificial. A long, sloped cut in the earth.
My memory clicked.
Back before the Collapse, that would've been a highway trench. The old-world builders had carved through shallow hills to keep the roads straight and fast. Some of those cuts went thirty, forty feet deep.
Elevated enough.
If I was lucky, the Tallneck's route might carry it across one of those passes.
And if I was fast—I could be there waiting.
I flicked open the Focus and brought up the updated map Sula had given me. A glowing trail traced the road to Golden Plains Camp—still a solid day's travel on foot if I kept a steady pace.
The Tallneck was moving east-southeast, cutting across open grassland and staying clear of the denser machine trails. Its projected path was jagged, loose—like a wanderer with no real destination.
But if it kept that heading…
I tapped the terrain overlay, highlighting an old-world infrastructure line. Sure enough, it ran through a narrow corridor cut between hills—one of those ancient highway trenches I'd thought about earlier. About ten miles out.
If the Tallneck passed through there, and I was in position, I might get a clean angle to climb.
I looked up at the machine again, still moving, still oblivious to the world beneath its feet.
"Alright," I muttered. "Let's walk."
I re-slung World Cleaver over my shoulder and started pacing after the towering silhouette, keeping just far enough back to avoid spooking any local wildlife or low-tier machines that might be trailing behind it.
If I could climb it, I'd get a full map update—terrain, machine movements, and maybe even hidden bunkers or Cursed Depths the shamans didn't know about.
And if not?
Well, I'd peel off before I strayed too far from my real objective.
I reached the edge of the trench and crouched low behind a cracked stone divider, eyes on the eastern horizon.
The Tallneck's silhouette was massive even from a distance—its disc head slowly rotating as it walked, legs moving with that same ancient grace. Each step sent a faint tremor through the earth, steady and inevitable.
This was it.
No loops. No game logic. No reset timer. If I missed this, I might not get another shot for a week—or ever.
I adjusted the Pullcaster harness on my hip, checked the anchor coils, and set my Focus to active scan. The cliff face was just high enough. The Tallneck's path would take it directly through the cut.
All I had to do was wait… and jump at the perfect moment.
One chance.
One shot.
I steadied my breathing and watched it draw closer—step by thunderous step.
I bounced on the balls of my feet a couple times, loosening up my legs.
The trench walls weren't that high. The Pullcaster could reach. But still—I wasn't fooling myself.
Even in this new body, younger, faster, leaner—I wasn't built for acrobatics.
I was built like a battering ram.
Heavy. Grounded. The kind of frame meant to break things, not climb them.
But today, that didn't matter.
Today I had to move like someone who was.
The Pullcaster clicked softly as I tested the trigger tension one last time. The Tallneck loomed closer, its legs beginning to pass through the trench path.
I rolled my shoulders once, exhaled.
"Alright," I muttered. "Let's do something stupid."
Then I sprinted for the edge.
I sprinted toward the edge as the Tallneck's front leg swept past, shaking the trench with the weight of an ancient god. Timing was everything. One miss and I'd be face-down in a pile of rust and regret.
The moment the second leg passed, I jumped—firing the Pullcaster at full tension.
The line shot out with a sharp crack, embedding in a panel just behind the joint. The harness yanked hard, and I surged forward, momentum slamming me against the Tallneck's side with a bone-rattling clang.
"Shit!"
I scrambled, boots slipping against the machine's smooth hide until I found a seam near one of the armor plates.
No handholds.
No neatly highlighted grip points.
No glowing yellow bars.
Just a thousand pounds of rusted metal and sheer spite.
I grunted and hauled myself up, fingers jamming into whatever vent grooves or sensor ports I could find.
"How the hell did Aloy do this shit all the time?!"
My legs kicked for purchase as I shoved upward, muscles straining. Every time I thought I had a rhythm, the Tallneck would shift, and my foothold would vanish, nearly pitching me off.
"This is not what you're supposed to do with a blunt-force body, dammit!"
I pulled myself over a ridged spine plate, then latched onto a hydraulic line running the length of the neck. Sweat poured down my face. The heat from the machine mixed with the sun, baking me inside my coat. The harness dug into my ribs.
Halfway up now. Too far to quit. Too stupid to stop.
"I swear," I gasped, "next time I see a Tallneck I'm just gonna… wave at it. Respectfully. From the ground."
Another handhold. Another grunt. The world shrank below me, the trench narrowing into a distant shadow. I could see the horizon curving now. The old world stretching forever.
Finally—finally—I reached the top.
The disc, wide, circular, humming with old-world power. I collapsed onto it, chest heaving, arms screaming.
I just lay there a moment, staring at the sky.
"…Goddamn robot giraffe."
Then I sat up, pulled the Focus lens down, and activated the override.
The disc pulsed with blue light.
And the world lit up.
As the override pulsed through the Tallneck's disc, the Focus flared with a surge of light—and then the map unfolded.
And it didn't stop.
Lines, markers, and old-world notations rippled outward in a sweeping arc, not just over Kansas, but stretching into Nebraska to the north and deep into Texas to the south.
My jaw tightened as I watched the display stabilize.
The entire central plains region.
The Kansas and Nebraska sectors lit up in sharp clarity—topographic overlays, terrain shifts, machine migration trails, and dozens of marked structures. A network of sealed facilities, ruined highways, abandoned cities. But below that, fading into older registry tags, were regions tagged as "data out of date"—Oklahoma and Texas mostly.
Didn't matter.
I muttered under my breath, "Data's still data."
Even if it was a few years behind, it was still more than most tribes had ever seen. This wasn't just some visual aid. This was tactical.
Then I saw it.
Near the southeast corner of Kansas, not far from the projected location of Golden Plains—there was a Bunker marker. A Depth
Unlabeled. Sealed. Buried in the hillside.
My eyes narrowed.
I recognized another Depth further north—the one I'd cleared a month ago. Same pattern. Same faded Gaia Seal.
This wasn't just a coincidence.
The Oseram weren't just dealing with a Gatecrasher—they were poking around something deeper.
Something buried.
I exhaled slowly, gears turning.
If they were sniffing around a Depth, that might explain the Legion rumors Sula mentioned. Scavengers willing to sell tech to the highest bidder. Trading secrets for protection.
That couldn't be allowed to stand.
But maybe I could make it work.
Kill two birds.
I could show up, offer to deal with their Gatecrasher problem—and in exchange?
I get first crack at the Depth.
And if it's cursed?
Even better.