Strange Machinery

A master control room came to sight. The bundle of tubes turned orderly in the master control room. All neatly tied together, twisting and spiraling up into the ceiling again. Steampunk like machinery laid off to the sides. Disorderly and mostly inactive. As if strewn about in a panic. 

Tilia warily kept her senses in top gear, "Any signs of that device you think is responsible among this mess?"

"No. . . they're not absorbing enough mana to accomplish the goal. There's just one that's actually doing something, and it's that one down there."

She pointed towards a small unassuming machine in the middle of the room. Despite the rust that was abundant in this underground place, the machinery remained untouched by it. Only the walls, floor, and ceiling were rusted. 

Tilia inspected the small machine, it looked like an overengineered typewriter. An unnecessary amount of gears and levers made up the mechanism. More importantly she could hear a silent whir within it.

It definitely was still active, that was for sure.

Moving closer Tilia found the several keys. The letters were runes, and with her elementary understanding of magic she couldn't quite make out what was written. The typewriter punched holes into a piece of thin copper foil. This foil seemed to be eaten back into the machine, and it was unknown where it went. 

"Kan'na, need your expertise."

Teleporting next to Tilia Kan'na frowned, "The runes on the keys are pointless to think about. A basic alphabet at most. There's a lack of more complex runes needed for spells."

"What was punched in the foil?"

"Let's see. . .", Kan'na began to frown, "Hala Rentawo. . ."

"Hala.", Tilia hissed through her teeth.

The two took several steps back. Giving the machine a proper cautious distance. Kan'na formed several magic circles to do some preliminary scanning. Massaging her forehead she began to speak her thoughts, "I failed to consider multiple devices working in tandem. This is our random selector, printing out the name of a victim."

"Does that mean all these machines are designed to be working together?", Tilia eyed the strewn machinery.

"I'd have to do more research, but it might be a safe assumption."

"What about the one responsible for the kidnapping?"

"I'll figure that out-"

Whirrr-click-click-click-

The typewriter began to activate. The several levers and gears began to spin in its complex fashion. Rotating the copper foil a bit it then began to punch a series of runes into it. Once it finished it sounded a faint clink of a bell and stopped.

Tilia cautiously approached it, eyeing the new name punched into the copper foil. A chill immediately ran down her spine. Although her understanding of runes was rudimentary at best, there was just a few words she could recognize. Kan'na had taught them all their own names in the case she had to create an emergency spell.

Currently on the foil was: "Kan'na".

Snapping her head towards Kan'na she saw that the Goddess had vanished entirely. Immediately forming a kite shield with her War Sight she threw it towards the typewriter smashing it into pieces. Machinery parts fell to the ground and a long gear landed vertically and spun across the room. Hitting the wall it fell to the floor, wobbling about before eventually coming a stop.

The moment the room turned silent the several tubes at the center began to unravel. Spreading outwards revealing what they wrapped around. Hanging by its tube shaped hair was a humanoid creature, it looked similar to a featureless mannequin. It slowly retracted the hair individually, like snakes on a medusa. Detaching from the roof and freeing the mannequin. It then extended a leg.

The larger tubes formed a platform that the humanoid stepped upon. It then opened a pair of eyes despite its featureless face. Tilia launched another kite shield towards the strange machination and their tube hair rapidly interwove itself forming a lattice in response. The kite shield slammed against this lattice of tubes and forced it to bend slightly, but was unable to push much further.

As her War Sight was built towards defense, it didn't hold much in terms of offense. This was why her kite shields could at most cause a bit of blunt damage, she couldn't crush someone with it. If blocked her kite shields would stop progressing, but they could still do some harm if no defensive measures were taken.

One of the machines started up, an overengineered organ began to play at sorrowful melody. It rang across the room and its tune felt like it was slamming against Tilia's head, causing her head to spin. She stumbled about dealing with the mental pain. 

Undoing the lattice the humanoid creature lifted a hand and pointed towards Tilia. Several tubes launching forward. Out of instinct several kite shields manifested, one for each tube, and blocked their approach. Additionally another two formed above the organ and smashed downwards, breaking the device.

Tilia felt her headache fade almost immediately once the song stopped. Thankfully the effect of the organ immediately ended, if the mental attack lingered she'd be in trouble.

The much larger tubes retracted out of the floor and squirmed towards Tilia. Shifting her War Sight to a mountain form she blocked the swarm. Regardless the tubes wrapped around the mountain, blocking her sight.

Through the sounds of the tubes she could hear the whirring of another machine starting. An overengineered gramophone began to slowly speak. Its language couldn't be deciphered, speaking in a foreign tongue.

"Ath, Uun, Sar.", and it repeated.

Tilia's arms twitched and as if having an arm of their own they flung towards her neck, making her strangle herself. Dealing with her own full might Tilia fell to her knees in a struggle. It was clear these devices all had a unique property about them, she should've destroyed them all!

The tubes were preventing her from seeing the devices, most likely to prevent her from destroying the device. However they were dealing with an elf with honed senses! Since it was a gramophone she could hear where the words were coming from!

Her mountain form vanished from sight as it was rapidly replaced with a smaller layering of kite shields. Another kite shield formed above the gramophone and smashed downwards, ending the foreign language. Tilia's arms returned to her control and she coughed violently. Wiping some spit that fell from her lips she returned to her feet.

The kite shields shrunk inwards morphing the full body protection form of her War Sight. Immediately the tubes shrunk trying to squeeze the life out of her. Yet they couldn't break past her stalwart defenses! 

Gripping a tube she ripped it apart, sparks flying to the ground as the tube retracted back towards the strange humanoid. Reaching out the humanoid caressed the tube, and it began to seemingly heal back.

Wrestling a large bundle of the tubes Tilia strained her muscles and pulled them apart, removing a large section of the hostile tubes. With the room she was rapidly able to pin the others down and tear them apart. 

The remaining tubes retracted once their numbers dwindled. Using the small opening Tilia formed her War Sight to the several kite shields and went to smash the remaining machinery. Then an overengineered clock ticked and she found her War Sight back to its full body protection form. 

Throwing a kite shield towards the clock she heard it tick again and once more her attack was reverted. At this point the humanoid figure acted and several square steel plates ripped off the floor, hovering through the air. They spun about like saws and flew towards Tilia, curving through the air.

With her War Sight still protecting her entire body she didn't need to defend against this attack. Reaching out she snatched a steel plate out of the air and bent it out of shape before tossing it back towards the ground.

For a moment the humanoid figure seemed taken aback. Then another device activated, an overengineered die lifted itself up and rolled to the side. The room shifted following the movement, and the floor became a wall, and the walls became ceiling and floors. As if the whole room was shifted on an axis.

Tilia fell towards the humanoid creature as the dimensions of the room shifted. Forming a kite shield to land upon she threw another towards the die and shattered it, returning the rooms orientation back to normal. Leaping off the kite shield she gained distance and returned to the floor.

Considering that the clock didn't revert her attack this time made her believe there was some sort of rule preventing her from destroying the devices unless they were activated. Which proved troubling because there was at least four more!

A tube extended out and retrieved another device. Pulling it back it presented it to the humanoid. Grabbing ahold of it they formed a defensive lattice around it as it activated. An overengineered telegraph began to beep rapidly. The message was punched out on a copper foil. 

It read:

"Despite her outstanding defensive capabilities, Tilia found her body covered in wounds. They refused to heal, bleeding her out and tiring her."

Blood dripped to the floor as Tilia's breath became labored. Reaching into her storage bag she pulled out a potion, but the bottle was revealed to be empty.

The telegraph punched out another sentence, "She failed to stock up on supplies, and found her potions had run out."

"Kan'na. . . I'm beginning to doubt your backup plan is working. . .", Tilia faintly began to laugh.