Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22: Tremors

It seemed Kresha never took up alcohol again after the events that unfolded in the library. Arkyn found the decanter sitting empty in the glassware supply closest three years later with the scent of liquor in the drainage sink next to it.

He never saw her drink another sip since.

Over the following seasons, Arkyn noticed how fragile Kresha was becoming instead. More mentally than physically.

Her mood seemed to worsen, becoming agitated with him more frequently than before, always smoking from her pipe with an angry glare to anything that caught her eye.

She would go to take a sip from her canteen of Fangbell, but then have to stop herself when she had too much.

Her physical age was finally to show after a decade passed.The glow around her skin faded while her hands and neck freckled like any adult's would.

Her spine had even compressed nearly an inch, giving Akryn a better view of the grey spots starting to form at the roots of her hair.

In a more subtle manner, she began sleeping in longer periods than before, mentioning how she was becoming exhausted faster than she usually did.

It didn't take long before Kresha started showing signs of a limp too. Whenever she walked too long around the keep, she had to favor her other leg. Arkyn caught her wincing a few times and inspected the scar tissue that had infected her years ago.

They saw the black veins from the bite were starting to spread. The scars somehow looked fresher and less faded, making Arkyn fear for the worst.

Being so far down her abdomen, it was already touching her hip and would slowly start to reach her lungs, spine, and heart within a few years. He estimated she had at least ten to fifteen years left and would die in her biological sixties.

Pretty soon after the limp started, she began using an improvised cane made of a section of extra piping they used to pump water throughout the labs.

It eventually evolved into crutches that she begrudgingly used, even if they helped tremendously in alleviating the pain in her legs. She was just glad that by the time she would need a walker and wheelchair, she'd be long gone.

Nothing special happened with the work over the following years. Arkyn had slowed down on maintenance when dividing his time into helping Kresha. She would yell at him to not bother since the Keep wouldn't need him after she died.

He would ask her if that meant he would be decommissioned then, but she always waved off the question, no matter how angry she was.

One day, when she was once again yelling at him to quit fixing Kit the cleaning golem who fell off the walkway, a massive rumble shook the entire cavern.

They had experienced small avalanches and minor earthquakes before, but this was something else entirely, the shaking rattled decades of dust from the dirt and ceiling. Whatever was happening created far more force than the mountain had ever experienced before.

Arkyn turned to see Kresha making a small dome of air around herself to keep the falling debris out of her eyes, staring annoyed at all the chaos that seemed to have erupted out of nowhere.

A few golems were not in the most stable of positions and either teetered towards the edges of the cavern or fell off entirely. Arkyn counted at least six and they were going to need extensive repairs once the event ended.

The quakes hit its peak for a few seconds before the roaring starts to die down. The vibrations didn't stop completely, but it was weak enough that the ceiling stopped raining down on them.

Before Arkyn could ask Kresha her assumption about what had happened, she hobbled off to the equipment closet using her crutches. He followed and arrived just in time to see her putting on the mask and cylinder she had used on their tour down in the lava crucibles.

"Come on, we are going up to the surface and see what just ended the world." She said as she tied the leather straps shut.

She had become too weak to climb up the stairs, leaving Arkyn the task of grabbing the exit key and carrying her up to the top floor of the Keep.

It was a strange moment for him, as Arkyn had never been to the top floor or the surface. The only memory he had about the world outside was just glimpses during the strange spasms.

He never told Kresha about them, initially assuming they were figments or errors in his rune programming. It took him a while to realize they were actually pieces of his old life, sensations that were still ingrained in his mind even after having died or reborn as a golem.

Seeing as the events never interfered with work and she told him that no matter what she did, there was no real reason to tell her how his mind and personality came back in brief instances. The feelings never stuck around long, not when his new life and purpose took precedent.

Even now, He felt like the act of opening the locked door and leaving the keep was breaking every rule he was told when first awakening. Kresha telling him to hurry it up was the only thing that stopped him from faltering up the steep staircases.

All the rooms and spaces were empty, coated in enough dust to put the downstairs mess to shame. No cleaning golem was allowed access to such areas, letting the crates of parts and materials Kresha made for the other Keeps sit in the dinghy dark with nothing to do except age.

Thankfully Arkyn didn't need to breathe in order to function, otherwise the high altitude and dense dust would have brought him to the brink of passing out due to asphyxiation.

His biggest issue was needing to blink to keep the dust from gathering on his eyes. They may have been artificial replications of real eyes, but they were still capable of being obstructed by flecks of dirt in the air.

Kresha even had to wipe the lenses of her mask. By the time they arrived at the final door to the surface, their clothes and hair were coated in grey. Any moisture on their bodies had frozen too, making tiny icicles form and frost appear along their skin.

Before pushing the door open, Arkyn felt a psionic tether connect to his mind.

'This better be worth the trouble,' Kresha complained, 'I only took interest because nothing boring should be capable of shaking a mountain range."