I exhaled. A cloud of steam escaped my mouth. The cave was freezing.
I tried to move my right arm. Or rather—what was left of it.
A dry, sharp sound echoed.
Scritch-scritch-clack.
"Don't move," Zeno boomed. "I've set the pins. The bone accepted the steel, but your nerves are protesting. This is normal."
A construction of blackened iron was strapped to my shoulder with leather belts. Three thick copper cables ran from the "shoulder" across my back to my left forearm.
Where the hand should have been—there were three jagged steel talons.
"This is... terrible," I wheezed.
"Agreed, but we worked with what we had," he replied. "If you pull your shoulder back—the tension in the cables transfers the force to the grip. Tense your back muscles—the fingers close."
I pulled my left shoulder back sharply. The cables bit into my skin, and the steel claw snapped shut with a metallic CLACK.
"Heavy... hate it," I rasped. "Too much friction in the joints."
"No lubrication," Zeno stood up. "We used the sea beast fat Ephraim gathered."
Ephraim sat in the corner, clutching a ladle of water. He looked at me with a face that made me want to hit him.
"Son... how are you?" he asked quietly. "You were delirious for two days."
After his words, memories of those hours on the shore surfaced.
The roar of the surf pounded my ears. I lay on the wet sand. "Will to Live" was silent.
"Zeno," I croaked as he laid out shards of deck iron and copper veins nearby. "Knock me out. I can't handle this conscious."
"Carotid artery and vagus nerve," Zeno stated. "Unconsciousness in three seconds."
The blow was short. The world went dark instantly.
Zeno began hammering the first steel pin into the bone and...
"A-A-A-A-GH!"
My body arched, muscles spasmed in convulsions, and dark fluid leaked onto the sand. Ephraim threw himself onto my legs, sobbing, trying to hold me in place.
"Faster!" I screamed, choking on saliva. "Zeno, faster!"
The hammer struck metal. The vibration traveled into the shoulder joint. Consciousness collapsed. Darkness.
A second later—another flash of light. Zeno was pulling copper cables, sewing them through the skin to secure the lever system.
"Fixation..." his voice reached me through my howling.
I fell through again. I woke up when I felt the red-hot iron touch my flesh. Another scream. Another darkness. The cycle repeated until my nervous system simply burned out. The last thing I remember was Ephraim and Zeno picking up my body and dragging me up the slope, away from the shore.
Hoping that loss of consciousness equals anesthesia... idiocy, the thought flickered.
"I'm fine, Ephraim. We need to leave. Are the seekers close?"
"Close," Zeno answered for him. "Forty minutes to the base."
"Ephraim, bury the fire. Zeno—stand in the shadows at the entrance."
I scanned the cave with my eye. A narrow neck. A wide chamber inside. Perfect nozzle geometry. If I can overheat the air deep inside and release it through this narrowing...
Shouts came from below.
"Come out! In the name of Valerius and the Light!"
The voice was clearly magically amplified. Three of them in gray-and-gold robes. Above one, a sphere of white fire was forming in his palm.
"Zeno," I whispered. "See that stalactite above them? There’s a crack. If you hit it with a sonic pulse—or just a kinetic projectile with the right acceleration..."
"Understood."
"Now!"
The sphere lunged toward the cave.
I grabbed a fragment of Richter's casing—and held it at a forty-five-degree angle to the incoming flame.
"Vector reflection!"
The fire hit the plate. And slid upward.
BOO-OO-OOM.
The air expanded instantly. The pressure spiked so hard my ears rang and blood sprayed from my nose.
The seekers took the full force of the blow. A pillar of fire erupted outward for ten meters, sweeping the mages off the path.
I stepped out of the smoke, my steel hand clanking.
"Demon... black magic..."
I approached him.
"What kind of damn black magic, you idiot," I said, thrusting my shoulder forward. The claw snapped shut on his wrist.
Crunch.
Zeno stepped forward, pinning the Inquisitor's chest with his foot.
"Valerius's energy..." the man coughed blood. "It will punish you..."
Crunch.
I leaned tiredly against the rock.
"Did we... win?" Ephraim coughed.
"I think so, but it doesn't matter. Ephraim, aren't you a mage? Why don't you use magic, even though you said you knew how?"
"Yes, but... my magic takes my life in exchange..."
"...but I saw you use it before..."
"No, what you saw before were special devices, 'artifacts' you could say, that mimic magic. But I'm out of them now," Ephraim cut him off.
"I see..."
"We need to get out of here. There's a village nearby where we can lay low for a while," Zeno interrupted.
Couldn't have said that earlier? Fine, let's go.
We began the journey. The sun rose over the mountains, painting the ocean blood-red.
[Status: 4%. Entering hibernation mode in 10… 9… 8... 7... 6...]
The world around me turned into a grainy gray mass. The sound of Zeno and Ephraim's footsteps faded.
5... 4...
"Damn, why... now..."
3... 2... 1...
[CRITICAL ERROR: POWER EXHAUSTED]
[ENTERING HIBERNATION...]
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