The passage ends in a round chamber. A rug fills nearly the whole floor, its weave bearing a medallion pattern—interlocking pentagrams around a central cross, ringed by symbols that squirm when stared at too long.
Yasopp turns a slow circle. "Okay. So what are we looking for? Is there a secret rock lever or something?"
Charlie cocks his head, studying the carpet. "I do not believe that ancient society would use rudimentary levers."
Limejuice opens his mouth to ask something, and the room shudders. Grit sifts down from the ceiling.
Bianca asks, "Like, what was that?"
Yasopp grins and claps his hands together. "Something I know how to deal with."
Limejuice spins his staff into a ready grip. "You kids figure this out. We're going to go break some robots."
Charlie blinks. "Robots?"
No one answers. Limejuice, Building Snake, Yasopp, and Aurélie are already sprinting for the exit as another tremor shakes loose a fresh curtain of dust.
Bianca looks at Charlie. "Like, okay. So, like, now what?"
Charlie adjusts his helmet. "I believe the answer is concealed by the covering."
He hurries to the edge of the carpet, sinks his fingers into the dense weave, and heaves. The rug stays put, heavy as wet sod. He strains, face going brick-red, heels skidding across the fabric.
Bianca saunters over. "So, like, what are you, like, doing?"
Charlie straightens, face red, breathing labored. "Look up."
Bianca tips her head back. Candlelight wavers over an ornate disc set into the ceiling, half of it engulfed in shadow.
"So, like, I think I, like, see some sort of, like, medallion-like thing or something."
Charlie snaps his fingers. "Exactly! Why is it there?"
Bianca looks at him, shaking her head. "Like, have, like, no idea."
Charlie begins to pace. "It is reasonable to assume that it is part of something else in this space. And the only other thing is this carpet. Unless—"
Bianca finishes his sentence. "Like, something is, like, under the carpet."
Charlie beams. "Correct. And since we need to go deeper into the heart of the island—"
Bianca continues, "We would, like, need to go down and stuff."
Charlie bends and seizes the end of the carpet. "We just need to—"
He grunts. Bianca takes hold of the corner beside him, and they haul together.
The carpet peels away and slumps into a heap of folds, laying bare the floor beneath.
A seal.
The floor is polished obsidian, smooth enough to hold their reflections, yet the candlelight throws no shadows across it. The seal's lines are inlaid with raw Sea-Stone slurry, condensed volcanic pyrobloin, and vitrified celestial salt. The same pentagrams from the rug spiral outward from a central cross, and where every line converges sits a plain, shallow hollow, perfectly round.
Bianca swallows. "So, like, that's, like, a thing. And it looks like a complicated thing."
Charlie stares, rapt. "Yes." He paces across the seal, one hand cupping his chin.
Bianca asks, "so like can you like figure it out?" But Charlie doesn't hear her; his boots keep clicking across the glassy surface. He drops his satchel, and books, notebooks, and pens skitter across the stone. He hunches over a page, muttering as he scribbles.
Bianca sighs.
---
Limejuice, Building Snake, Yasopp, and Aurélie burst into the library's main entrance. The great doors are gone, torn off their hinges, and through the ragged gap, hulking shapes advance.
Automatons.
Each is built in the form of an instrument—horns, violins, harps—cast in tarnished brass and driven by some ancient, grinding will. Pistons and keys serve as limbs; bells and carved scrolls serve as heads. They lurch forward in a stuttering, off-beat march, and every footfall shivers grit from the rafters.
Yasopp shoulders his rifle. "This is more like it!"
Building Snake draws both blades and spins them through a flashing silver arc. "Yeah. All that thinking was making me tired!"
Limejuice plants his staff against the floor, its tip spitting blue sparks. "This should be easy enough! These things don't look like they have much to think about."
Anathema rings as Aurélie draws it. The black blade slides free like night poured from the scabbard, crimson runes pulsing beneath the steel in a slow, steady throb.
"This should be very direct."
The air cracks.
Yasopp pulls the trigger. The round punches into the tallest automaton. The machine stalls. Twitches. Then bursts apart, brass limbs clattering across the flagstones.
---
The horn-shaped automaton lunges for Limejuice.
He plants his feet. He grins.
ZUUUN!!
His staff whips around, dragging a crackling tail of blue-white current. The tip strikes the horn's brass chest. Lightning splinters outward in a jagged web, crawling over the hull and nosing into every seam and joint. The machine shudders. Its gears lock. Steam shrieks from its vents.
BZZZT—GWAAAAN!!
The current reaches the core. The automaton detonates, its shell splitting open like a burst seedpod and spewing fire and shrapnel. Limejuice twirls his staff as the sparks die away and tips an imaginary hat.
"Too easy."
---
A violin-shaped automaton charges Building Snake, its bow-arm raised to cleave.
Building Snake meets it.
His right blade catches the descending bow—CLANG—and turns it wide. His left rakes across the automaton's strings. The machine lets out a shriek like a bow dragged backward over rusted wire, and stumbles.
Building Snake gives it no chance to recover. His blades weave a glittering net of steel that bites through brass, wire, and lacquered wood. His footwork is economical and unhurried; every step carries him into the one pocket of space the machine's swings can't reach.
ZASHUT! ZASHUT! ZASHUT!
Three cuts, each one exact. The automaton's scroll-head topples from its neck. Its arms drop away. Its legs fold. Building Snake lands on the far side, blades crossed, his breathing unhurried.
He never turns to watch it fall.
---
A harp-shaped automaton, the biggest of the lot, bears down on Aurélie. Its strings thrum at a low, sour pitch that buzzes in the bones of the skull. Iron bands brace its frame.
Aurélie's eyes narrow.
A locust alights on her shoulder and whispers.
She moves.
PA-SHIIIN!!
She vanishes. The automaton's strings lash through empty air. She reappears at its back, Anathema already clearing its scabbard. Fear, chaos, and the machines' grinding hatred thread into the cursed steel; the edge lengthens, gathering the room's discord into a single voiceless note. A thirty-foot crescent of crimson-black vacuum tears loose from the blade.
"ANATHEMA KENJUTSU: SILENT HARVEST."
ZASHIIIIIN!!!!
The harp doesn't explode. It unravels. The vacuum slash shears through frame, strings, and core alike. The machine parts along a clean diagonal, its halves sliding away from each other and crashing down amid sparks and splintered brass.
Aurélie lands. She flicks a speck of dust from her sleeve.
---
Yasopp keeps firing. Automatons drop in steady succession, each round finding a joint, a seam, a vital gear. He cycles the bolt with the same metronome rhythm as the machines he's dismantling, his eye fixed on the sights.
Limejuice, Building Snake, and Aurélie land beside him, three pairs of boots striking stone at once.
Building Snake says, "They keep coming."
Limejuice nods, sparks still dancing along his staff. "Yeah. How long are we supposed to keep this up?"
The corner of Aurélie's mouth lifts—a small, sharp curve, there and gone.
"Are you getting tired?"
Limejuice, Building Snake, and Yasopp all turn to stare at her.
Aurélie continues, "Shall we see who can take down the most?"
A slow grin spreads across Limejuice's face. "Care to place a wager on it?"
Aurélie shrugs. "What are the terms?"
Yasopp replies, "Whoever takes down the most gets first dibs on the Chief's sake."
Limejuice whistles. Building Snake asks, "How are you getting a hold on that?"
Yasopp chuckles. "That will be a problem for the person who takes down the least."
Aurélie's eyes glint. "Terms accepted."
She springs back into the fight, Anathema keening, a trail of broken machines piling up behind her.
Limejuice watches her go. "Can't fault a woman for having good taste."