“So, you want to go down into the mines?” Paladin asked.

  Arthur nodded. Paladin had successfully found a house with two chairs, which was pretty much the best thing about it. The rest of the house had already been raided a while ago, and it wasn’t as spacious as the Karrus townhouse they had gotten used to over the past week. It also only had one bed, although Arthur was used to sleeping on the floor by now.

  “Those diary entries have always guided me to where I need to go in order to reach the Clocktower,” Arthur explained. “If it’s down in the mines, so be it.”

  “Even if they have, going deeper into the earth when your goal is to reach space seems…counterintuitive.”

  “I know it sounds insane, but-“

  “Insane is good for you on occasion. I too am curious about the contents of this diary, and the strange figures. I shall help you delve into the dark.

  Arthur smiled. “Thank you.”

  Paladin stood up and immediately walked to the door. “No need. I would have come with you even if I thought it was a bad idea.”

  The two walked out of the house, Arthur leaving his pack behind apart from the lantern, the rifle and his magic gem. When they reached the doors to the mine, Paladin picked up the chainlink, examining it.

  “This is an interesting use of your magic, Squire,” Paladin explained.

  “Just wish I could do it without burning my hand,” Arthur replied. The two of them began walking down the dark tunnel, although they were more than used to darkness by now.

  “Then don’t clench your hand so firmly. Simple as that.”

  Arthur glared at him. “Wait, I could have done that all this time?”

  “Probably not, but you certainly can now. As you realise what you can do with magic, your perception of what you can do with it grows.” Paladin raised his right arm and made his light appear. “I was only taught to use lightning magic. That was the only part of my oath as a knight. But, as I understood it, I saw no reason why I couldn’t use the light from my electricity to create…well, a light like this. Teleporting took a lot longer, but was made under similar logic. This world’s magic isn’t as malleable, but it seems to work on similar principles.”

  “Your principles sound like guesswork.”

  “My magic is an art more than it is a science. Yours might have more principles than mine does.”

  The tunnel went on for a while, the snow from the entrance quickly turning into hard concrete. Paladin sent his light scouting for side doors, but all he found was hard rock.

  “If this is an entrance to a mine,” Arthur explained, “it shouldn’t be so well paved.”

  “Have you experience with many mines?” Paladin asked.

  “Yup, been to a few mining worlds on my way here. None looked like this. This is more like a tunnel for a road…like a proper, car road.”

  “I know the car roads you speak of.”

  “I didn’t realise it sounded that dumb,” Arthur muttered to himself.

  Eventually, the two finally found a side door with a keypad lock. Arthur examined the sign.

  “Continuing down the tunnel leads to the next town over,” Arthur explained. “This is a private facility. What the hell is there to hide out here?”

  Arthur tried the door, but the lock was still firm. He nodded to Paladin and took a step back as the knight drew his sword and stabbed it straight into the lock. There was an electronic sputtering as the keypad died, and Paladin pulled the door open. They were almost blinded by the first functional electronic lights Arthur had seen since the start of his journey.

  A thin, white hallway led down to another door, the light making it feel cold and clinical. Paladin and Arthur both shut off their magic lights and stepped inside, the knight leading the way inside. The other door had a keypad, but Paladin stabbed it again and it showed just as much resistance as the last one. Then, he opened the door and entered a room with the stench of death.

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  They were in a massive cylindrical room that stretched upwards as far as the eye could see. Patches of Clockwork Rot covered the wall, gears grinding against the metal. Bodies littered the ground, most having already begun to rot, others preserved by being fused into the clockwork covering the walls and floors. As they walked into the centre of the room, they could see multiple circular balconies with doors lining every single one.

  Hanging above them, held aloft by wires from these balconies, was the corpse of a dragon. It had begun to decay like the other bodies here, but it was noticeably different from every dragon Arthur was used to. It was fully organic. The creature was the exact same as the monsters that had destroyed civilisation, except there wasn’t a patch of metal on its body.

  Arthur gagged on the smell, immediately wrapping his scarf around his nose, and then drawing his rifle.

  “Stay here,” Paladin said with unnerving calm. He walked across the sections of the floor that had been taken by Rot, kneeling down next to one of the bodies that was slowly being consumed by it. They were a scientist, dressed in a lab coat with a coat of arms on the top pocket. It was a shield, flanked by a dragon on one side, and a serpent on the other. Paladin described the symbol to Arthur before asking him, “do you know what this is?”

  Arthur shook his head. Paladin searched the scientist's clothes, trying to find anything that wasn’t rotted. He found a syringe containing a clear liquid and a keycard with his face and name. The knight stood up and walked back to Arthur, handing the items over to him.

  “Can you read these for me?” He asked.

  Arthur examined the text on the syringe. “This substance is somnium. Popular anaesthetic, nothing unusual about it as far as I can tell. I’m no chemist, but all the substances listed here seem in order.” He lifted up the keycard. “According to this, his name was Dr. Christopher Wakefield, researcher for Nemesis Genetics Corporation…” Arthur’s voice trailed off before he started speaking again. “I’ve heard of these people. They worked with the Federation’s military. No one knows what they were up to, but the rumours were they were making some kind of super soldier program.”

  “A private corporation?” Paladin asked.

  Arthur nodded. “If you needed another reason not to trust them.”

  Paladin looked up. “There were no dragons in your world before the ones we fought?”

  Arthur shook his head. “That thing is new to me.”

  Paladin turned around. “I must investigate further. Stay back, I cannot risk you getting infected.”

  “Paladin, something’s wrong here,” Arthur said. “This place must have been pre-apocalypse, right? It can’t have been taken recently, the road was still locked. Plus this place must have been attacked first, we’re pretty close to the Clocktower by the standards of the dragons.”

  Paladin glanced back over his shoulder. “What is your point, Squire?”

  “This place should have been clockwork by now. Hell, this whole mountain range should have been. What stopped it?”

  Suddenly, there was a clanking sound, not unlike the dragons, but it was mixed with the sound of metal piercing flesh and bones crunching. Paladin drew his blade and pointed it at Christopher Wakefield, who had just stood up. Half of his body was still metal. He just wasn’t as attached to the floor as previously thought.

  “Guests!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, before coughing loudly and spitting blood. “Finally! You must be from corporate it’s been way too long would you like anything to drink maybe tea or perhaps coffee?”

  Paladin stared at him. A minute ago, the scientist’s body was cold. He lowered his sword slightly.

  “Yes, we are from corporate,” Paladin explained calmly. “We wanted to check up on progress here.”

  “I’m surprised you were able to get in. You. Would. Have. Needed. To. Know. The. Code.”

  “We let ourselves in just fine.”

  Arthur mouthed “what are you doing?” to Paladin, but the knight kept going regardless.

  “We’re looking for your leader. Can you take us to him?”

  “Of course!” Wakefield replied cheerfully. “He’s dead, though.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Arthur muttered.

  Wakefield glared at him, having somehow heard exactly what he’d said. “No, no no!” He screamed, staggering slowly towards Arthur. “I am not dead! I am not like the rest of them! I am alive, you hear me? ALIVE!”

  Arthur raised his rifle and prepared to fire, but Paladin stopped him.

  “Yes, yes you are,” Paladin said. “We can see that. We need to know how you’re alive though. We need to know everything.”

  Wakefield continued to stagger towards Arthur, reaching out his clockwork arm. Arthur stepped back, and Paladin stood in the way.

  “Please, Doctor Wakefield.”

  The anger in Wakefield’s one good eye began to fade, being replaced by remorse, then fear, then finally nothing. “Certainly, certainly. Oh, I must ask, do you have ID? Sorry, security regulations and all that.”

  The two travelers looked between each other. Arthur then proceeded to hand Wakefield his own ID. Wakefield took it with his clockwork arm and examined it, before handing it back.

  “All in order!” He said cheerfully. Arthur instinctively recoiled from the card before Paladin took it.

  “Now,” Wakefield continued, “on with the tour!”