Fandom Elysium Rising (redletalis x One Last Dawn)

[redletalis]

The Qinjin encountered them first. Machine and yet not machine, human and yet not human. No one knew what they were, nor where they came from. One day they had started appearing from deep within the earth, and they never stopped to say much at all. They were vicious, dangerous and incredibly skilled in killing everything that moved. The Qinjin called them Wraiths for the silent way they could move, like shadows between the trees and rocks.

All this was told by a group of Qinjin merchants. They came from the east, and usually it was a joy to see them. This time not so much. The merchants usually travelled in groups of ten or more. The Nora had found only three still left alive, high in the passes of the mountains. They were almost frozen to death when they had been rescued, and it took days before anyone could get a word out of them.

Teersa ordered runners to be sent to the other tribes to spread word of the new danger, and the Nora started watching their borders more carefully. It took some time before the runners came back, and a few of them came with news of creatures similar to Wraiths having appeared other places. Most notably among the Banuk who lost a lot of their people while trying to hunt this new threat down.

“You are going.” The old High Matriarch remarked. Teersa didn’t seem surprised at all, in fact, she seemed to have expected it from the very start.

“Of course.” Aloy tightened one of the leather straps holding up her belt and settled her quiver better on her hip. “We have to figure out what’s going on. We cannot survive an attack like this seems to be building up to, we haven’t even recovered from the Eclipse attack yet.”

Only six moons had waxed and waned since the battle at Meridian. None of the tribes had recovered, and few new warriors had joined the ranks. It took time to create children, and children took a long time to become warriors. This was the worst time imaginable for an attack, they were that weak.

“You are a Seeker.” Teersa agreed with a nod. “Someone who desires the truth, no matter how painful it might be. You will always be a Seeker no matter what, just be careful where you go and where you place your feet.”

Aloy left before the dawn truly rose. The dim light of the pre-dawn made it easier to sneak past the local Watchers, she didn’t want to waste time or weapons on them right now. Catching and Overriding a Strider was simple and she pointed it north and east. She passed Mother’s Crown and then rode hard all day to get through the pass east of it. She hesitated for a few moments, before deciding and turning the Strider north towards the Banuk Encampment, the one place she was certain to find Banuks no matter what. She would first question them before she decided if she had to travel all the way to the Qinjin lands far to the east.

It took several days of hard riding and frustrating waiting to sneak through the mountains without any major battles. Aloy didn’t want to risk the noise attracting one of these ghosts. She needed more information before she fought one of those, and she had found no datapoints about them yet.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to avoid all battle. Glinthawks swooped down and Aloy had to jump off the Strider and roll desperately to keep from being frozen. The cold snow chilled her skin as she came to a stop, but she paid it no mind. Instead she lifted her bow and notched her arrow, took aim at the first Glinthawk she saw and fired at its Freeze Sac. In the next second she was jumping away and rolling once more to avoid a second Glinthawk that attempted to attack her from behind. A third flying machine nearly too her head off and Aloy was badly frozen by its attack before she got herself to brief safety behind a couple of rocks. She sipped at a Resist Freeze Potion followed by a Health Potion, peeking around the rocks to watch the Glinthawks as the potions worked their magic on her. The Glinthawks were circling, waiting for her to emerge. Sooner or later they would spot here and attack again

As the potions worked and she stopped shivering, Aloy drew an arrow and jumped out of hiding, firing the projectile in mid-air. Glinthawks or no, she didn’t have the time to be held up here by overgrown buzzards!

She danced around them, jumping and sliding and rolling. To and fro, hither and thither, up, down, sideways, backwards, forwards. Aloy did anything and everything that would keep her out of the Glinthawks's reach. But there were a lot of the machines and she couldn't keep it up forever. She would stumble and she would be killed, and then her people would be without any information about these Wraiths.

Much as she hated it, Aloy needed to flee this particular battle. She started running back towards the rocks she had briefly hidden behind. There had been a crevice in the mountain there, she had noticed it briefly before. Now she hoped that she could hide inside whatever cave was there until the Glinthawks went away. If the crevice was deep enough. If not then it would be a death trap and she would be frozen to death within heartbeats.

Aloy had to struggle to push herself through the crevace. Her quiver was hindering her, the bow and the spear weren't made for this. They got stuck, they were cumbersome, and she nearly abandoned them right there just to get away from a swooping Glinthawk. But she managed to pass through before it could spew frozen liquid at her, and then she didn't look back at all. The darkness closed around her as she followed the crevice as far as it would take her, the mountain pressing down on her from front and back. And from above. The sheer weight of it made her dizzy and her heart beat faster, and she feared that she would get stuck.

But the crevice widened finally, enough for her to be able to walk forwards rather than sideways, and she couldn't touch the walls even if the echoing sounds told her that it wasn't a large space. Aloy breathed deeply in the cold darkness, feeling her heart settle slowly.

Then the ground suddenly gave way under her and she fell.

 

[One Last Dawn]

The earth gave way to a crevasse just below the surface sod, a fissure torn by some old seismic activity before the world had been reseeded with humanity. The split descended deep into the planetary crust, sending the tumbling Nora Seeker roughly towards the secrets of the Old Ones that had remained buried and long forgotten.

Her downward journey ended where the fissure met the clearly artificial superstructure of an ancient ruined facility. The immense pressure of the shifting earth split the ceiling of the metal catacombs just enough for natural erosion to take hold and widen the gap into a human-sized entrance.

Inside, a familiar sight greeted the Nora who had seen many ruins in her time. The erratic purple glow of flickering screens and displays reacted to the presence of her Focus, and the thick layers of dust and silt puffed into stagnating clouds at her ever trespassing step.

That particular room appeared to be a laboratory or a workshop of some variety. Ancient materials and machining tools sat in the places they'd last been set down many centuries ago. All around her, little datapoint icons were highlighted by her Focus device. Whatever this room had been, it saw a great deal of use.

Conversations between a Doctor Oman Innovich and Doctor Emma Fink presented themselves in a series of conversation recordings, and an incomplete file of notes for a set of projects known as "Katabasis" and "Anabasis" awaited her investigation. A blinking console sat on the wall before a large viewing glass overlooking some strange configuration of long, pod-like cylinders connected to various large machines. (The datapoints from my original search thread, and the console houses the system log for the project).

Another datapoint sat beside a familiar rack. It resembled the one Aloy had discovered in the ancient armory that housed the Old One armor--the one she salvaged for her Shield-Weaver outfit. When scanned, the datapoint displayed itself in her vision:

//Text_Datapoint::UltraWeaveVariantNotes.vxt::Elysium_UnknownLocale
//
//Date:[CORRUPTED]
//Time:10:54:07
//
//UltraWeave Mk 7.11 "Achilles"
//---First upgrade to original mass-produced Mk 7.1
//---Enhanced plate kinetic absorption
//---Improved inner weave response
//---Higher shield projector capacity
//---Heavier than 7.1
//---Joint actuators require routine maintenance due to increased weight
//->

Spoiler: Attached Image

//
//UltraWeave Mk 7.2 "Perseus"
//---Redesign of plate structure; more, smaller interlocking plates
//---Increased plate coverage allows for lighter weave beneath
//---Reinforced joint actuators compensate for heavier weight
//---Integrated HUD and network CPU, works with focus
//---High power consumption, charge pack 2x larger than Achilles
//---Generates 150% more heat, must be vented regularly
//->

Spoiler: Attached Image

//
//UltraWeave Mk 7.3 "Theseus"
//---Material breakthroughs allow for lighter plates with electro-reactive properties
//---Not as durable as Perseus variant, but has integrated cloaking capacity
//---Lighter and more maneuverable than previous variant
//---Reinforced actuators on lighter frame allow for enhanced wearer strength
//---Routine maintenance must be performed on power alternator due to heavy core draw
//->

Spoiler: Attached Image

//
//UltraWeave Mk 7.4 "Orpheus"
//---Breakthrough in materials allows for thinner weave, most durable yet
//---Shield projector integrated into plates for tighter, more durable protection
//---Change in plate material mix allows for great durability for low weight, but loses electro-reactive properties
//---Integrated systems interface directly with wearer neurology for greatest possible control and awareness
//---New understanding of reactive weave allows for augmentation of wearer strength and mobility
//---More responsive joint actuators are both lighter and 1.25x as powerful
//---Requires large wearer due to necessary frame structure
//->

Spoiler: Attached Image

//
//UltraWeave Mk 7.5 "Odysseus"
//---Alternative to Orpheus model
//---Conductive weave allows for easy interface with other systems
//---Super-hardened alloy plates allow for superior protection on plated areas, but leave only weave in exposed areas.
//---Reactive weave allows for superior strength augmentation without restriction of plates
//---Multiple hardpoints allow for customization of Odysseus system
//->

Spoiler: Attached Image

//
//[END]

All the while, one of the cylindrical structures just beyond the viewing glass vented a steady stream of steam from ports along the front hatch. Each of the others appeared destroyed, or at the very least sat with their hatches open and vacant. The most recent entry on the system log at the console had occurred on that very day... no more than five minutes prior:

//Preparing caskets for subject release ->
//-HC10(P)

 

[redletalis]

It wasn’t a straight fall, the crevice she had fallen down wasn’t straight as an arrow. She grunted as she hit the stone walls on the way down, trying to keep her arms around her head as much as possible to protect it. She had dropped the bow already, hoping that it was hardy enough to survive the landing. But the spear was still on her back, and there was no way to get it free. It rubbed against the walls, sending of sparks and then got caught and jerked her to a halt. She hung there for a few heartbeats before it snapped and she went plummeting down once more.

Aloy did her best to prepare for a landing she couldn’t see coming. She tried to roll into the landing, but ended up sprawling awkwardly. Stones that she had knocked loose during her descent fell down after her, and she rolled into a tight ball, arms protecting her head, until they finished falling and it was safe to look up.

She couldn’t see anything up in the crevice, not even any light, so she had absolutely no idea how far she had fallen. But one thing was certain: she was bruised and aching and gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of her. It took another couple of heartbeats simply breathing before she was ready to look around.

It was all familiar. Though she hadn’t been here before, she did know what it was. A remnant of the Old Ones, of the humans that came before. And by the layer of dust and dirt and yet no plants visible, this place had never been visited by humans since the Faro Plague if not earlier.

Getting to her feet, Aloy groaned as bruised muscles ached. She picked up her bow, checking it over in the light provided by the screens, glad when she found that it was fully functional. Her arrows lay scattered, but it was quick work to pick them up as well. The spear, however, was unsalvageable, but she still picked up the longest bit with the tip. It would be a better weapon in these tight places than a full spear or her bow and arrows.

“Here we go again.” She muttered to herself as she stepped up to the first datapoint and activated it. Once the first datapoint ran its recorded course, she moved on to the next and the next, determined to learn as much as possible.

There were two people talking, a man and a woman. Both of them were doctors and scientists like Elisabet Sobeck, and they were discussing someone else. That same someone who showed up in another recording, Jasper Kismet. Aloy watched carefully, making sure to remember as much as she could while the recording was going on, and then she read as many of the files as she could read even if the going was slow sometimes. She had no idea what neural mapping was, but there were mentions of brains later on in the text.

That made her frown. Anything that could mess with the brain was a bad thing. She had seen brave warriors turn into helpless children from a mere knock to the head. If the Old Ones were messing with brains then she couldn’t ever imagine it going well. Nor did she like the mentions of insanity and challenging the natural order. They had tried that once before and the Faro Plague had happened.

“This is not going to end well,” she muttered to herself as she walked over to a blinking console and the glass window. Looking down on the cylindrical pods down below, Aloy couldn’t help but frown deeper. She was starting to have the same bad feelings she had experienced when she had been hunting HADES and Helis.

She walked between the odd pods, making sure they were empty. If they weren’t she did her best to block them up so that they couldn’t open. The armours inside were varied, some more bulky than others, but this was all starting to tie up with the Wraiths running around – some of these pods were recently opened and there were footprints in the dirt. She would rather throw away good armour than let more Wraiths into the world.

Grabbing a piece of debris, Aloy wedged it into a pod’s door as hard as she could. Then she pushed and kicked at it until it bent and acted like a latch, further locking the door. Breathing heavily, she rubbed her hands clean on her leggings, a hissing sound drawing her attention. Aloy held tightly onto the remains of her spear and carefully approached the pod at the end, wary of both it and the steam rising around it.

If this truly was a Wraith, then she was going to kill it.