Dragonborn Saga

Chapter 680: Clockwork Sabotage

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According to Jon Dare, Clockwork City has been working on emergency power for 200 years and it is barely enough for the Brass Fortress, the main settlement of this realm, to maintain itself by producing fresh air and clean water.

But once the outside facilities, such as the Halls of Regulation and the Ventral Terminus, were to be rebooted and start drawing power from the Brass Fortress, its automated defenses would automatically crumble.

This will give Jon, Glymet, Laaneth, Kota, and Ram, the opportunity to strike Mecinar and rescue Swims-at-Night together.

But until those two facilities are put on the power grid, Jon shall stay behind in the hideout tinkering through the next phase of his plan while the others head out and visit these two locations starting with the Ventral Terminus.

From its name, the Ventral Terminus was a place that had a central data terminal that controlled a lot of facilities in the Clockwork City. It has been a long while since these functions have been moved to a location deep within the Brass Fortress but still, many power and steam lines run through that place.

Once Laaneth stepped into the place, she received a warning from Ram.

"Traps ahead!" Ram spoke in a cold mechanical voice.

"Traps! Curses! Traps! Hateful!" Meanwhile, Kota was agitated by the mention of the word.

"Those two are certainly odd." Glymet commented on the cold behavior of Ram and the hectic personality shifts of Kota.

"All who befriended Jon Dare can't be called anything less than odd." Laaneth said while working her magic in the place to find the said traps.

"I got along with him just fine and I'm pretty normal." Glymet said.

These words made Laaneth halt what she was doing, look back at him, sigh while shaking her head, and continue looking for traps.

"What?" He asked.

"You're just as odd as he is." Laaneth said and kept going forward.

"Excuse me!" Glymet was taken aback, "I am but a vagrant, a self-taught mage, and probably the poorest man that ever walked on Tamriel."

"A vagrant who is welcome in every court of power in the Empire and Hammerfell, a self-taught Mage who is on par with an Arch-Wizard in power, and a poor person who owns some of the most sought artifacts on Tamriel." Laaneth repeated what Glymet is to Glymet, "The only difference between you and Jon is how little you have to lose compared to what he sticks his neck out to protect."

Glymet didn't even try to enter an argument with her and had a few thoughts running in his head. One of them was "so I don't lose more than what I did" and the other "Because I can't bear to lose you too" and the other… and the other…

He didn't speak any of them though. He even managed to stop himself from thinking and focus on the destination they were on.

While the silence continued only to be interrupted by Ram's occasional warnings, the group found themselves getting surrounded by what seemed to be the strange and small dinosaur-like creatures that run on two legs. Their screams were horrific and their razor-like lines of teeth were the first thing to be seen from them just before they chomp someone's head off.

"Clannfear!" Laaneth recognized the stealthy creatures immediately as a Daedralogist and made sure to teleport her party out of the ambush site at once.

Once that was done, her three companions went into battle mode almost instantly.

Glymet was the fastest to react and with Goldbrand in his hand, he bounced forwards in a frenzy of hack and slash as if he was letting go of something stressful in his head. On the other hand, the small-bodied Kota banged his Warhammer on the ground and shouted…

"IT'S TIME TO WAKE THE FUCK UP!"

In another shift of personality, Kota's body started to reform up close to Laaneth who watched the transformation earnestly. In a few seconds, the small cute Argonian young man, who was already weirder than anything, became larger than any Argonian of his kin and burlier than a Daedric Ruinach.

(A/n: Runiachs are newly added Daedra in ESO. They look like Mehrunes Dagon from Oblivion but only above human size and look super ugly… like seriously super ugly.)

Kota moved in an unstoppable momentum and pushed through the Clannfear horde with brutish strength and violent attacks to the point where these pests were actually running from his roars.

All of that occurred while Laaneth and Ram were just watching from the back. Just as Laaneth turned to Ram to see why he wasn't participating, he seemed to be disapproving of something.

"Chaotic and un#&*!"

"What?" She frowned.

"Mhm?" Ram turned to her with a questioning voice.

"The last word you said."

"Un#&*?"

"I don't understand it. Is it Ancient Velothi or Dwemeri?" She asked.

"…" Ram seemed unresponsive to her questions or unable to answer. She couldn't figure out which of the two as he had no expressions to read on his robotic face and his body language was nonexistent.

"Seriously! Just how did Jon figure out information about you?" Laaneth asked in a frustrated tone as she wasn't able to crack the puzzle that is Ram in front of her.

As the fight was over and the two fighting combatants returned to normal, the party proceeded smoothly until they reached a chamber that had a lot of valves, levers, and some control crystals. It took Laaneth fairly two hours to see which goes where until she could boot up the facility once again.

But once that happened, a crisis struck as the room was suddenly invaded by black smoke and intense heat. The four immediately started running all the way up to the safety of the outside surface.

The Ventral Terminus was now functional according to Laaneth's analysis and she used a telepathic spell to contact Jon and tell him that everything worked out. He had a rough idea of their success since he was watching the large chimneys of the Vale of Tears as they started to release black smoke everywhere.

Now that those pillars of smoke were visible to the Brass Fortress, it meant that a strong force of mechanical Abominations was on its way. They will come to investigate the Vale of Tears first then they will rush to the Ventral Terminus to shut it down, here's where Jon comes to play.

"Hooman, they are closing."

As Jon was tinkering with his biggest toy so far, a black cat jumped on his back and walked up to his head as he was bending down while working.

"Yes, I've been ready for this for some time now." Jon said with a maniac's smile.

"You sure you won't hit the other people?" The Black Cat asked.

"Nefertiti, my darling, do I look like an amateur?" He asked the cat as he stood up and carried her in his arms.

"Other than magic and food, you make every other thing explode these days!" She said.

"Oh! Someone's a bit cranky." Jon laughed while messing up her fur as she started to bite him in response, "That's how things work deary, they either be eaten, be cast like magic, or be gone with a BOOM!"

Jon pointed at his latest creation and waited for it to boom but it didn't boom.

"I SAID BOOM!" Jon shouted with the same level of enthusiasm.

<Voice Command activated! Boom sequence initiated!>

As the machine started speaking in a mechanical voice, Jon's grin became wider and wider.

"Kitty cat, it is time."

"You really have to do this?" Nefertiti asked in a moment of hesitation.

"We can't use magic, remember? Bombardment is our next best option."

Jon gazed at his creation with Marvel and looked at many other replicas that he was working on in this pile of junk. They all had one of two shapes, either a big tube or a large box. At this moment, only Jon knew what these things do.

"I have gathered the best toys I could from Sotha Sil's vault and remodeled them to my heart's content. The face Mecinar will be making is going to be priceless." Jon said and laughed with a sick grin, "As for now, we should start taking over the Vale of Tears."

Jon started lining all the large tube-like objects together and personally climbed into one of them along with his trusty rifle and his trusty kitty cat.

"Are they there yet?" Jon asked.

"They are starting to swarm the place." Nefertiti replied.

"Then we must go! FIRE THE GUNS!"

<Firing in… 3… 2… 1…>

*BOOM*

"WOOOO~HOOOO!!!!!!!!"

And from all the mortar cannons Jon was working on the last few days, he was fired alongside many makeshift mortar shells towards the Vale of Tears, where Mecinar's Abomination force was located. He aimed to destroy Mecinar's response force and get to the power grid that reached that location.

***

Away from Jon and his maniac bombarding, Glymet and the rest were watching over the facility known as the Halls of Regulation just south to the Mire Mechanica swamps and the Brass Fortress.

Unlike the Ventral Terminus, the Halls of Regulation are much larger and were actively guarded by Factotums and Fabricants. While the Factotums are the mechanical guardians of Clockwork City, the Fabricants are its Fauna of animals and beasts. They are part mechanical and part animal but unlike Mecinar's Abominations, the Fabricants are almost identical to normal animals that have some prosthetic limbs and exoskeletons attached to them.

In some sense, the difference between a Clockwork Fabricant and a Clockwork Abomination is much like the difference between a normal animal and a patchwork chimera.

"So these are the creatures of Sotha Sil!" Glymet spoke in wonder, "I see there is a sense to them that I find it… brilliant."

"At least there is one thing in this dumb that is half decent." Laaneth replied, "Then again, I have never expected in my life to say that about Clockwork City but I hate it here."

"You do?" Glymet asked.

"Green meadows, snowy peaks, ashlands, that's my thing. Not… this!" Laaneth replied with a lot of complaining in her tone.

Glymet was surprised that Laaneth hated this place which he finds, despite all its junk and oily smell, very fascinating. While the two of them wouldn't disagree on a lot of things, Glymet wanted to express that he is fond of this alien realm but not before Ram and Kota approach them.

"Reconnaissance complete!" Ram spoke the wholest sentence he said for the day.

"How many are there?" Laaneth asked.

"Aluminculi, outside, 12. Inside, none." Ram replied.

But that question seemed to have rubbed Kota the wrong way.

"It is no secret that the Factotums have been one of Sotha Sil's most wondrous creations but the Halls of Regulations has its own automated system and mounted turrets that can muster a defense heavier than that of the Brass Fortress itself… blah, blah, blah! Known as the lifeline of the entire Clockwork City, this facility was established to last despite its current quietness… blah, blah, blah! One thousand years ago during the events when the unholy alliance tried to invade our most sacred city, the saboteurs of the three Daedric Devils, who defied the Coldharbour Compact of Lord Sotha Sil, had made an attempt to destroy these Halls but in an act of awe-inspiring might, the defenders of the Halls of Regulation mounted a serious defense as they killed one thousand attackers in a single minute… blah, blah, blah! Tread carefully, friends, for the road ahead is full of danger and death!"

"Wow!"

"Uh-huh!"

Both Glymet and Laaneth looked at Kota with conflicted feelings.

"This thing almost killed my head from inside." Glymet held his head and backed off.

"He is amazing. To know such history about the events of the attack on this city after the Coldharbour Compact!" Laaneth, on the other hand, was looking for her notes to write what Kota just said.

Kota was a mystery that even rivaled Ram, the possible last child of one of two lost Elven civilizations. Kota had many personality shifts depending on his situation. The normal Kota is a shy and naive childish young man (Kota), the others were a cranky and grumpy silent tinkerer who would appear whenever Kota starts working on something that depends on his tinkering skill (Smed), another was a prankster with good awareness and survival skills (?Juan), another was the talkative historian from just now (Spamton), and the most recent of them all the oversized berserking Behemoth (Dragon). According to Jon, there was a female version of Kota when he started playing with Nefertiti but that hasn't come out yet.

[A/n: Kota is a D&D Kobold PC from a campaign I DMed. It is safe to say that the player that is sponsoring him here has done some awesome Role Playing during that campaign and would change personalities depending on what skill he is rolling.]

Despite the nonsense he spat just now, he was right about one thing. The Halls of Regulation has a ton of automated defense even when it is deactivated and its functions relocated to the city. If they were to attack it now and reawaken its power, they had to go in strong and not get overwhelmed…

But just as they were thinking of a plan, a booming sound started to echo in the air.

*Boom* *Boom* *BoBoBOboom!*

The sound came from the direction they came from just a few minutes ago from the Vale of Tear's direction.

"Is that Jon?" Glymet asked.

"He said he wouldn't go outside the hideout since he shouldn't use magic." Laaneth said.

The two of them turned towards Ram and Kota. The two of them seemed to be knowing something but rather than Kota's big-mouthed persona, Ram seemed to be the one more aware of what was happening.

"Buying time." He said.

Just as he said that, the patrols of Factotums outside the Halls of Regulation started to redirect their route towards the nearby ruckus coming from the Vale of Tears.

"They are going for him." Laaneth said, "But will he use magic and risk allowing Mecinar to track him?"

"I am not sure." Glymet replied and turned to the other two, "You two, there is something you are not telling us!"

Stuck with the two worst speakers on the Clockwork City, Glymet and Laaneth seemed to be figuring something out and pressed with their gazes.

"He… is not using magic… because he shouldn't…" The meek Kota replied, "He… hasn't been able… to do so… since he arrived here."

Since he arrived, Jon Dare, the infamous Arch-Wizard of Northern Skyrim, is unable to use magic.

This is news to them just and now and quite frankly something scary.

"We should hurry back!" Laaneth stood and faced the direction of the Vale of Tears in a rush.

"Wait!" But Glymet held her arm to stop her.

"Let go, Glym. We need to go…"

"Stop it." Glymet said, "Don't you see what he is doing? Also, if half the stories I heard about him are true, he will be okay."

"But that's dangerous." Laaneth had a worried look as she looked at the Vale.

"He seems to have a plan." Glymet said, "If we hurry up and activate the Halls, all those automated Factotums would cease functioning. And the Halls are closer than him right now."

Laaneth calmed down and seemed to have realized the situation.

"I can't face lady Nurina if something were to happen to him." She said and immediately started leading the way towards the lightly defended Halls of Regulations.

As for Jon who just landed in the Vale of Tears with a boom, he was ready to face something that may be his worst match ever. Jon's own shadow.

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