Bab 8: Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5: Farmland
Arkyn had gotten so lost spectating the different roles all the golems played, that he returned to find Kresha was already awaiting him at his room. She had her arms crossed with her red pipe hanging off her lips.
It wasn't producing any smoke, but ash sitting inside the end told him she had already finished smoking the substance she packed inside. Based on the foot tapping and aggravated expression, Arkyn knew he had not returned anywhere close to her arrival.
Before he could clarify his mistake and his defiance, she already had a hand up to stop him.
She took the pipe out of her mouth to let out a long winded sigh, "You were bored and wondered the Keep, a side effect of not stripping all of your humanity from your mind. I am just glad you didn't go waltzing up to the top floor. Follow me and pay close attention."
She led him down the walkways without giving him a single chance to speak. It no longer seemed like it was necessary and he chose not to go against her decisions.
"Speaking of which, you're not allowed up there. Otherwise I will gladly reset you into a lab stool that only has the capacity to feel pain."
"Understood." He said without hesitation. Clearly her anger had not dispersed quite yet.
They continued in silence before stopping at a utility closet of miscellaneous lab equipment stocked along the shelves. It was too cramped for Arykn to follow her into the room, so he waited outside.
"You mentioned this isn't the first time I have been awoken. Does that mean there is a chance I will be reset once again? Reformed if I don't meet your requirements?"
"It's a possibility. I'd probably have to hunt down another dragon of some kind for some crystallization ingredients though. That alone is a pain in the ass, cause I can't trust the rest of you to function properly without me around!"
She shouted at the end, yelling at all the golems still operating in the nearby rooms, none of them reacting as they had no capacity to care.
"Though I hope this time you don't falter, cause I am almost out of ideas on how to keep you operating with no need for me to help.
That is one of the main reasons you have a human mind operating your body, it should be capable of learning to avoid mistakes and how to work in the most efficient manner."
"Understood, I will try not to disappoint you in any way then."
"Yeah sure, that's what all men say. They have to keep their word on that one." She said before exiting the utility closet.
"Believe me, you weren't anywhere near perfect the first time around, so I don't expect perfection. Just don't break all my tools and listen closely to what I say."
In her hands was a tall, glass cylinder with shoulder straps on the sides. Rattling around inside was a multi-sided crystal with yellow runes written along each face. At the top of the jar was a tightly woven tube that was attached to a face mask and goggles banded together by stretched leather.
"I'll be needing these for the last part of our little scenic tour." She said before walking down to the deeper levels.
"This whole place is called the Ash Keep, don't ask me why cause I didn't name it and I still don't think the joke is funny."
Arkyn was lost in trying to figure out how the name could fit into some kind of joke, and he still couldn't solve it by the time they arrived at their first stop.
It was a large cavern with two massive light crystals, imitating a day and night cycle. The slightly smaller one was a very dim substitute of the moon, while the orange one was emitting the peak amount of light to mimic the sun at noon.
The ground around them was no longer stone, but softened soil that smelled strongly of farm animals. It made sense considering the wide and open field of dirt and grass was filled with a collection of cows, bulls, goats, and chickens.
All of them were divided by fences made of stone and metal barbed wire that rose from the soft dirt.
"This lovely smelling space is the Livestock Cavern." She explained with a wave of one hand and the other covering her nose.
"I need some source of food down here that isn't just worms and these guys help produce a variety. They also provide some rather specific ingredients for the alchemy lab, as well as good fertilizer for our next stop."
Close by, another opening revealed an even brighter room. The entire ceiling was blinding from so many light crystals compacted into the same space.
They seemed to glow less like a neon white and instead were a tinge yellow, releasing a faint heat.
Meanwhile the whole floor was a maze of green foliage, trees, and strange herbs. Rows of plants with different attributes were grown in an orderly manner, seeming to follow an almost precise format of growth in order to avoid overtaking one another.
The smell of the farm animals had been vastly overtaken by the plants, smelling like . . .
'Forest, dark, wild, killing.'
Another flash of heat ran through Arkyn's head, this time he managed to not distort his face from the surge of phrases and sensations imploding his mind.
"The Harvest Cavern, where all the alchemical ingredients originate." Kresha said, having not seen the brief battle inside Arkyn. "Though I only have samples of each plant and tree, limiting how often I can actually run tests. The much larger version of this is at the Sky Keep with Silvesh."
Arkyn was about to step inside, but was nearly run over by another golem. This one being one of the largest he had encountered so far.
It had the legs of a spider as well as treaded wheels at the front end attached to a dozer-like shovel. At its base was a vat of dirt and mud sifting around as some kind of mix, visible through the thick glass cylinder containing it.
At the top of the container, a hose was run into a large torso just above the front treads. The torso had a feminine shaped head of brass metal plates with grey crystals set in the same manner that his eyes were when he was in his metal form.
Its arms were a blend of shearing scissors, hose spray cones, and small shovels. The entire thing resembled a strange combination of spider, woman, and water churning tank.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone