Oras held up his left hand, fingers spread out. He curled in his thumb. Theria’s eyes widened for a moment, then she nodded. The ancient String between them followed the implication. Her muscles, so visually similar to a human’s, tensed up.

  The little finger was next. “T-t-t-t-t-t-t.” the Ceramic stuttered. “Take. TAKE!”

  The ring finger followed. Oras carefully pulled in his legs, avoiding any sound until the very last moment.

  The middle finger retreated. There was only one digit between them and the question of life and death. The Ceramic tilted, sticking what remained of its torso between two sarcophagi.

  The index finger curled inwards and Oras jumped up. He was first, over the counter, then stopped by the exit. He needed to see his wife and the ancient String in motion first. Even his own survival instincts were secondary to that.

  Theria passed him, the blonde woman in tow. As Oras turned to follow them, he caught the Ceramic whipping around. “RUN!” he screamed, useless as that probably was.

  “SKIN-COAT! SKIN-COAT!” The Ceramic’s broken voice box grafted together words from different sentences. Oras did not allow himself to look back, he was entirely focused on the distant staircase and the exit beyond it. “May… I… t-t-take your… Skin-Coat?”

  Oras felt the draft of the motion overhead. The Ceramic overtook him, swinging its elongated limb at Theria as it went. Golden claws carved open her back, leaving long cuts along the length of her cape. The clothing saved her life, its billowing form having confused the creature’s depth perception.

  On pure instinct, Oras ducked down. The midsection of the Ceramic swivelled, its golden arm almost catching the party leader in a clothesline. Swerving around a sharp foot next, Oras escaped the proximity of the Ceramic. It created a series of warbling sounds, followed by a torrent of distorted noises akin to a rushing river.

  The ancient String was the first up the staircase that led back up to the upper level. She stopped up there, Her golden eyes watching as first Theria, then Oras made it up to her. “Keep going!” he told her. She instantly did, following after his wife to the exit proper.

  Loudly, the Ceramic skittered up the staircase. It must have slowed the creature more than them. A theory that Oras did not confirm, his entire goal was to keep sprinting. Long strides took him to the entranceway, two steps at a time he all but leapt up it, and only when they all had the dirt of the foyer beneath their feet again did he dare stop and look back.

  The Ceramic hung in the gateway. Its torso was entirely folded back, revealing a blue oculus between the lowermost vertebrae and a shattered hip. The oversized eyeball rolled around, its dilated pupil struggling and failing to focus on anything. A flow of black oil simulated a blink. “This Unit is exceeding its pre-established boundaries. Returning to station. If you wish to take this Unit outside of its pre-established boundaries, please seek out the office of the manager of this commercial facility.”

  The message was played flawlessly. The hands of the Ceramic strained, as if trying to drag the creature out into the foyer. Suddenly, they let go. Tap for tap, the creature retreated back down the stairs.

  After letting out his held breath, Oras was immediately by Theria’s side. “Let me see,” he told her and moved her clothes aside. His eyes confirmed in the light that fell in through the door what he had already thought below. “Light wounds,” he said, relieved. “We’ll clean them, then they should seal up and heal quickly.”

  “Hope I don’t get scars from that.”

  “You shouldn’t, at least not notable ones,” he assured her. The four cuts were so clean that Oras shuddered. ‘How sharp are those claws?’

  “We going back down there?” Theria asked.

  “No.”

  “Good,” the redhead sighed.

  “Why would you even ask that?” Oras wanted to know.

  “Ya can never be sure how much your loot goblin comes out.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking about it.”

  “Sure ya weren’t.”

  “I seriously was not.” He shook his head, then turned to the ancient String. For this entire time, she had not said a word. “What’s your name?”

  The blonde looked around, then grabbed a small rock that stuck out of the dirt in the room. With it, she drew a symbol on the top layer of the soil.

  “Eight V?” Oras read it out. She dropped the rock and gave him a half-lidded stare. “What?” he asked. He received no response. “Are your vocal cords broken?” She opened her mouth wide, as if inviting him to check. ‘I suppose that is a yes.’

  “Eight V is a terrible name,” Theria said. “How about Celia?”

  “Why Celia?” Oras asked.

  “Doesn’t that mean ‘heavenly’? ‘Cause I think she’s heavenly to look at.”

  That was hard to disagree with. Granted, most of the Stringless that Oras had met in his life were his father’s second wife and the half-sisters of the Dragonborn. Of them, none embodied the divine white-gold motif of the Precursors as much as this one did. She was positively radiant to look at, warm despite her motionless expression.

  “Would it be agreeable if we called you Celia?” Oras asked.

  The blonde responded with a deep nod.

  “Celia it is then,” Theria purred. “We’ll get along very, very nicely.”

  Oras raised an eyebrow at his wife’s flirtatious tone. Had it crossed his mind that he would make the String they found in a Precursor ruin his second wife? Obviously yes. Did he want to start the flirting this soon?

  Yes.

  “My first…” Oras began, lingering on the word for a moment, “...wife has good taste in names… and who she gives them to.”

  “I’m really quite discerning,” Theria added with a wink. “I know who is… good company for my man.”

  “A fact you will have time to verify for yourself,” Oras extended his hand. “We’ll be together for a bit. The Path is long and shared steps make it shorter. I look forward to it.”

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  The pink shade to Celia’s cheeks grew a little stronger, as she took his hand and let him help her to her feet. She dropped the pebble in the process. Once he had let go of her, she dusted off her hands, then straightened up. Her quiet observance of the situation continued.

  “You must have many questions,” Oras said.

  Celia tilted her head pondering, then shrugged. That was not the reaction that Oras had expected, but it was the one he got.

  “I’ll try to tell you everything that is likely to be relevant while we walk. For now, there’s a problem we might have.”

  Through the wooden plank on the door, Oras could hear the casual chatting of the villagers. They had stayed throughout the hours that the duo had spent underground. If they stepped out there now with a Stringless by their side, that would cause obvious questions. The villagers were of the Cult of the Supernatural Elephant, they would understand that such a fair maiden, made by the Precursors, was as holy as they came.

  Still, even if these villagers wouldn’t directly cause him trouble, the rumours started by them could. Now that Oras did have this groundbreaking discovery with him, he wasn’t sure how much he wanted her paraded around. He could hardly continue flirting with a Precursor-era String that was claimed by the Duke as a matter of national interest.

  Keeping her secret, at least for now, could be as simple as waiting until nightfall and sneaking out. Obviously they would have a watch, but they could send one of their number ahead to distract that person. It should all be relatively simple.

  Or they could go full brag and hope it worked out for them.

  Nah, that was stupid.

  “We’re going to sit it out here until nightfall,” he informed the two of them. “Then, I’ll head outside and distract the guards. Once I have done so, you will slip into the jungle. You’ll move about ten minutes northwards, then emerge back onto the Path, where I will be waiting for you. Understood?”

  “Roger that,” Theria answered and laid down on her chest. “Which means this is the part where I get first aid?”

  “Indeed.”

  Oras did not have to look for clean water. The sputter from the fountain was little for its size, but it was plenty to soak the strip of linen they kept for this kind of work. Adrenaline faded, Theria did not react pleased to the touch of the cold towel on her wounded back. She forced her eyes to remain closed throughout the ordeal.

  There was very little to clean anyhow, just sweat and dust particles. The claws had struck her upper back, doing virtually no damage to her muscles. “Don’t move too much.”

  “Ya sound like that guy that I used to get in trouble with all the time. We always had cuts and bruises from going a bit too deep into the forest.”

  “Funny, I remember a girl that I wrestled with. She used to bite me until I bled.”

  “One time! I was on my first period!” Theria smacked his knee. “And you were being very annoying!”

  Oras chuckled, right up until he felt a tug at his hand. The bloody cloth he had held, Celia had taken from him. She washed out the blood as best she could in the steady flow of water. Her hands operated methodically. Stringless being good servants by their hierarchical nature was well known. It seemed such instinct traced back all the way to the Precursor days.

  ‘What was this facility?’ Oras wondered. ‘Some kind of storage for items of great worth? Did they wish to cache away some of their grandiose makings?’ He recalled the structure below. It had been magnificent and yet… that was from his perspective. It was neither particularly safe nor very warded against decay. ‘No, this is more of a mundane structure. In their benevolence, they must have repurposed it to save as many Strings from the end of their civilization as possible… why am I theorizing?’ “Can I ask you some questions?”

  Celia wrung out the linen. After a critical scan of the item, she hung it over a dry overhand. Only after that, did she nod.

  “Do you know what happened to the Precursors?”

  The question had her darkish eyebrows knitted. Confused blinks and the tilt of her head spelled out a question of her own: ‘The Who?’

  “The people that built this place,” Oras specified. “Do you know what happened to them?”

  Celia shook her head.

  “Do you know what they looked like?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Do you… know anything about them?”

  A third time she shook her head.

  Dreading the answer, Oras nonetheless asked. “Do you have any memories at all?”

  For the final time, Celia shook her head.

  Oras went quiet. His excitement plunged downwards. It was not a long fall. Yes, she was mute and, no, she did not know about the Precursors - or anything else -, however, she was still a gorgeous, ancient String and that alone made her interesting to him. Who knew, maybe she would regain her memories in time?

  “Perhaps it is a good thing ya don’t remember anythin’, puts less targets on our backs,” Theria said.

  “Is that caution that I hear from you, wife?” Oras teased.

  “I’m stupid, not suicidal.”

  The Dragonblood suddenly realized something. “We never told you or names.” He pointed at his face. “I am Oras Gohman… Drakis Oras Gohman,” he corrected himself. Even if he did not care for it, he should give his first name to her. “This here is my first of currently one wives.”

  “Theria Gohman,” the redhead introduced herself.

  “We’re adventurers from the nation of Kumsyurt, located on the middle continent of Megomaia. Do you know the middle continent?” To that, she nodded. “Interesting… can you draw me a basic map of the world? Just the outlines of the continents.”

  She picked up the pebble again, then did as asked. The resulting map was rough, but that was to be expected given the medium was soil and the utensil was a random rock. The shapes were correct enough to call it accurate. When she put the pebble down, she did so where, on this map, Kumsyurt was located. On her map, the size of their duchy and the size of the pebble were pretty much synonymous.

  “How did you know that this is exactly where we are?” Oras wanted to know.

  Celia pointed to her head, then down the staircase.

  “You know where this facility is?” he guessed.

  She nodded.

  ‘So the Precursors gifted her with enough knowledge that she wouldn’t be disoriented when she woke up. Wonder what went wrong that none of them awoke on their own.’ Oras shook his head. ‘Could it be that they weren’t meant to wake up? The String were servants of the Precursors, we know that much. In the dying days of their civilization, they activated the Custodian Protocol, making the Strings the protectors of the world. Maybe this was supposed to store emergency soldiers? Why have that next to what seems to have been a store for light crystals though… this doesn’t have the layout of a military installation.’

  Oras sighed, his mental speculations about the Precursors were just rehashing of the various books he had read. It was commonly accepted that the Precursors were the greatest, most glorious civilization the world had ever seen. That being said, there were some that suggested they hadn’t been saints.

  Civilizations that ruled through peace did not have to build a machine like the Supernatural Elephant. Wise and magnificent as it was, the god-machine was a weapon, and an enormous one at that. More than that, the Precursors had clearly not been above making their weapons sapient.

  The Cult respected the Precursor’s technology. The Artefacts found were sacred, because they were of the same make as the Supernatural Elephant. As for the culture of the Precursors nothing was known. The Supernatural Elephant had not seen it fit to share anything, if it even knew anything.

  Oras tilted towards the belief that a culture this prosperous had to be a benevolent one. This could have been a forgotten military supply post, even if it didn’t look like one. It could have been a way to store away the Strings to be awoken later, to then be forgotten or simply never reclaimed during whatever end befell the Precursors. There was a chance, Oras did not deny it, that this was a… bazaar of some kind and that the String had been sold as servants.

  Many scholars, many of them the foundational thinkers of the Stringless movement, suggested that it was a bit convenient that their species happened to be hierarchical, renowned for their loyalty and of a typically quiet demeanour. Traits that they shared with the homunculi of every evil alchemist of sufficient talent out there.

  Oras had studied the tomes his father’s second wife had on the matter. It was a sound argument, sound enough that the modern Stringless had renounced their purpose. Personally, Oras did not know.

  Celia could have been a forgotten piece of merchandise, currently operating on base programming.

  Celia also could have been a benevolently saved civilian, healed within the sarcophagus and suffering memory loss due to staying in it for too long.

  Who was to say?

  Oras put aside his thoughts and focused on the then and there. “Alright, let me continue telling you about the current age…”

  Celia listened eagerly.