Emergency Exit [Quest - The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black]

Ohm Zui

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Ohm Zui was preparing to sneak on board a clockwork train to Tinkerdrift. They had spent a few days keeping track of how the complex railyard of Valve Junction handled the collection of trains, examining the mechanisms late at night to predict how they would react to each new train.

They’d also used their new pneumatic piece to good effect, cultivating a few contacts over the Medium and laying the groundwork for finding potential allies. They hadn’t received any replies as of yet, but they remained hopeful.

The zoombini gathered together their gear and packed it into their pack before heading for the railyard. It was time.

---

The blue being flew across the evening sky, darting from rooftop to rooftop to avoid the sight of the gendarmes in the streets below. A few of the traps around their hiding place had caused unwanted attention over the past few days, including an incident with a clothesline and a rather rich and pompous individual, so they weren’t exactly eager to be stopped and questioned.

The railyard glistened in the evening light, the sounds of steam and clanking gears wafting up with the smell of oil. Ohm Zui rose into the air, counting the five trains that were approaching the trainyard. The first was on line one, the second on line five, the third on line three, the fourth on line one again and the final train on line eight.

The zoombinis eyes glanced around the railyard. At that junction, that train would trigger that junction to switch so that that train went to that siding so that that train would travel there… and that meant that siding nine would be the one to hold the train destined for Tinkerdrift.

After a moment to double check their logic, Ohm zipped down towards siding nine, seeking a suitable hiding place. Several bags of coal were piled high besides a large junction box, and it was here that the zoombini decided to settle down and wait.

---

An hour later, and the trains had arrived exactly where Ohm had calculated, allowing them to sneak onboard the train. Inside the clockwork mechanisms that formed the train’s main engine, Ohm sat back and took stock of the machine they were in. A boiler took on water from an automated system, and the fuel rune was re-engraved by a spindly diamond tipped arm that extended from a nearby wall.

The zoombini checked their pneumatic post and phonic piece for any interesting information about recent events in Tinkerdrift: while they were hoping that it was not as bad as they had heard, it would be better that they keep their eyes open going into the district than to be caught and detained by some deranged scientist or corrupt police.

The first site they tried was blank. The sources they had examined the day before was supposed to have a website from which Ohm had bought a few newspaper. The site instead provided a small slip of paper with an error message. The server was unavailable.

Confused, Ohm tried a different source, a radio station that was put together by a few college students living in Tinkerdrift and that yesterday had provided a lot of derogatory information about their professors and also a bit of less than stellar music. Instead of the dulcet tones of the stations primary announcer, Ohm only got static.

As they began to look for another site, a ping alerted them to a message from the server they had been part of for the past few days, the information brokerage and darknet site.

---

forumAdmin started a private message
forumAdmin: exodusArrived, are you there?
exodusArrived: I am. How are you?
fA: no time, there’s bad news coming your way
eA: What? I thought this was an anonymous server?
fA: you’re on govermorne. that’s all I know, and it’s all I need to know
fA: something just arrived and several of our spacefarers have confirmed on the forum
fA: there’s shadows spreading across the planet, and some kind of warship in orbit
fA: escape pods are being launched from the gears affected first but they’re being destroyed more often than not
fA: ashport’s fucking gone already
eA: Thank you for letting me know. If you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time I live up to my handle.
fA: yeah, good luck
eA: I owe you one, fA.

---

Ohm took a deep breath in and released it, abandoning the train car and flying out into the late evening light. As they soared up into the sky, pushing their propeller hard, they could see flashes of light in the night’s sky, streaks of far off rockets and cannons. On the gears of origin, lights were going out, signs of chaos from fires and gouts of steam benign muffled by a shadowy mist that slid silently across the gears.

Looking down, Ohm could see that Valve Junction was as of yet untouched. There was no sign of alarms or any form of evacuation yet: this was the end of shift, bars just starting to open, and the gas lamps were just switching on.

The zoombini’s resolve hardened. Time to exit.

---

The commissioner of Valve Junction and their recent death by croissant fresh in Ohm’s mind, Ohm made a beeline directly towards the fanciest building in town. Without anyone currently in charge of the district, it was likely that noone had any clue as to what was befalling the rest of the planet. If there was any proof to show to the district’s forces, and any evacuation plans or details of defences, it would be found there.

Their propeller ached with exertion as they sped in through an open window, ignoring the shouts of the guards that saw them enter. The door was open, and Ohm sped through the corridors at top speed, bouncing painfully off elegantly decorated walls.

A few turns led to a grand staircase, and what was hopefully the commissioner’s office. Two guards burst in through the main doors below just as Ohm landed, and Ohm’s flagella flashed forward to open the door.

“Halt! Intruder!” cried one of the guards, levelling some kind of musket at the blue blob at the top of the stairs. Ohm opened the door and rolled forward in response, and slammed the door closed behind them to the sound of shot perforating the wood. To their horror, the room they had entered was not the office they had hoped to find, but was in fact a master bedroom. The zoombini darted to the window, unlatching it in time to escape as the guards burst in.

The zoombini darted out of the first floor window, and into a second floor window. Tired, they left the pantry they found themselves in and opened another door, finding themselves in an empty ballroom. As they flew past the window, they could see flashes of light on the gear two gears away.

Ohm darted through another door to find themselves in the office they wanted. A series of unopened dispatches that had emerged from the pneumatic tubes lay in the inbox, and the zoombini opened the most recent one.

‘Monsieur DelVieux, Commissioner of Valve Junction,

This is an automated alert from Dapplethain central communications

A message has been received from the Arbiter of Govermorn, containing a collection of codes allowing for emergency evacuation in face of a planetary danger.

Please inform your populace to head to the edges of your district, and input the following code into a control panel that should present itself from the axle:

3:5, 5:6, 7:4, 3:2, 1:6

The emergency pods will then be available for launch.’

The zoombini searched the desk, hoping to find some form of automated alert or alarm that could be pulled. Nothing stuck out. They darted over to the window, then back to the desk. A glint of metal caught their eye, and they found a lever hidden by the desk. Pulling the lever, a small voice tube emerged from the floor.

“Hello, this is Ohm Zui.”

As they spoke into the voice tube, they could hear their voice echoing from speakers around the building, not loud enough to reach the rest of the district, but definitely heard by the guards.

“I have received information that the planet is under attack. With the Commissioner dead, it falls to the next in command to organise the evacuation. I will be activating the escape pods shortly.”

With that, Ohm headed to the window and burst through it just in time to avoid the confused guards charging into the office. Leaving the building behind, the zoombini made haste towards the axle of Valve Junction, wincing as blue leaked from the scratches on their skin.

---

As Ohm reached the square that capped the axle, whistles could be heard spreading out from behind them, rousing the local gendarmerie into action. Confused yells spread around the district as more and more people emerged from buildings to stare at the skies and the shadows that were overtaking the lights that flew into the sky. Several screams could be heard as beasts began to be seen in the streets, and the shadowy mists and malaise began to encroach on one edge of the gear.

Ignoring it all, Ohm darted down to the massive bronze circle and glanced around, searching for any sign of the control panel. An overturned vending cart was their first clue, and darting over they found the control panel half wedged beneath it, blocked from emerging by the cart that had caught in the teeth of the gears. With a hard push with their head, Ohm cleared the blockage and whirred back to see the large bronze column rise from the paving, revealing a collection of loose gears and an array of axles to put them on.

Ohm quickly realised that the ratios that were the code referred to the gears, and slotted them into place: 21 teeth, 35 teeth; 20 teeth, 24 teeth; 14 teeth, 8 teeth; 18 teeth, 12 teeth; 6 teeth, 36 teeth.

As the last gear was placed into their slot, the column lit up with green light and sunk back into the ground. Huge, piercing shrieks pierced the air as gouts of steam flew high into the air around the edge of the district, illuminated by gas lights that emerged alongside large cannons pointed into the sky. Each cannon was labelled with large, illuminated letters: ‘escape pod launch’.

Ohm span and headed away from the encroaching clouds of shadow, making a beeline for one of the cannons.

---

As Ohm traversed Valve Junction, the malaise arrived. The dark mist, swirling through the skies and the streets, carried with it a tangible sense of horror and dread. Ohm blanched, propeller stalling for a moment as it hit, and the zoombini tumbled forward over the cobblestones.

The pain that gripped the zoombini’s innards and thoughts was not theirs, but no less intense. It made staggering upright with their flagella a struggle, and finding the will to press on a hardship. Ohm endured. Zoombinis were made of sterner stuff. You could really only push them so far before they would take matters into their own hands, so to speak, and Ohm found that they had already been pushed beyond their level of tolerance. Whoever or whatever had attacked the planet, caused the pain and horror that they could feel burning inside them, Ohm was going to make sure they failed their goal.

With exhaustion in their flagella, Ohm took to the air once more. People in the streets were crying, some having fallen to their knees, others merely lying down and curling into a ball. Some were steadfast, dragging their limbs towards the evacuation areas, but others turned on their neighbours, calling out in anger and despair.

Ohm did not, could not, spare the time to help them. No matter how terrible the effects of the malaise, it did not have the strength to eliminate lifepods, and those flashes of light had been accompanied by explosions. Something else was coming, something that could ruin any chance of escape, and Ohm needed to get to the escape pod to prepare for it.

They crested another rooftop, finding themselves overlooking one of the cannons. It was perched on the edge of Valve Junction’s gear, a vast bronze machine that had unfolded from a hidden mechanism built into the very surface of the gear on which the district was built. Across the chasm, Ohm could see different mechanisms emerging from the other gears surrounding Valve Junction.

The cannon had an enormous payload, a train-car size bullet that was already half filled with people that had rushed here from the surroundings. There were three of them being prepared for firing, each of them mounted on mechanical rails that would guide them into the chamber of the cannon.

With a buzz, Ohm came to a halt next to a member of the gendarmerie who seemed to be handling the evacuation. The small squirrel woman’s blue and brass uniform was already covered in grime from the mists, and she was directing people from on top of the unconscious form of a much larger member of the aristocracy, truncheon still bloody in her hands.

“File in, allez, allez!” she called to a group of civilians, who ran to obey as they lurched out of the streets around, faces drawn and pallid. “You! Get in line.”

“We need defences!” Ohm Zui replied. “There’s something else coming, we have to fight them off so the pods can launch.”

“More!?” the policewoman cried, hysteria tinging her voice. “Arbiter above, is this the end of the world? Fine, go, start preparing to fight. I’ll send my colleagues to assist you, if they arrive.”

Ohm nodded, and hurried to the roofs nearby. They began tearing apart mechanisms and machinery with their tools, collapsing street lamps to access the gas lines, building machines to delay and redirect attackers. About halfway through their fifth trap, a collection of gendarmes and workers arrived to help prepare defences. The gendarmes began directing people through the safe areas, while the workers got to work building barricades and preparing weapons for those who could still muster the urge to fight.

---

“Hey, trapmaker! Can you help me make some turrets on the corner of Rue de Belle-fer and Rue de Onze-bronze!”

---

“Little one! We’ve got some wire, can you string it across the street.”

---

“Monsieur Propellor, we’ve opened the gas line and we have spare parts for fire.”

---

“Blue! We’ve got company!”


Ohm looked up to see one of the gendarmes gesturing rapidly for the zoombini to get back. After a while working in the malaise, those who had found the strength of will to recover had found the horror and pain easing. Those that had succumbed, however, were quickly revealed to have become unreachable, going catatonic or crazed without easy cure. For twenty long minutes, the defenders of the cannon of the sixth tooth had prepared themselves, lining streets and rooftops with barricades, traps and turrets of both automated and manned varieties.

The first bullet had been loaded and fired just moments earlier, the capsule being launched at tremendous velocity up into the atmosphere. As it went, the streaking light of the flames that came from its propellant illuminated dark shapes moving in the clouds, winged figures that turned and as the gathered people watched turned to dive down towards the gear the soared above.

As they dived, turrets opened fire, streaks of light from gas fired turrets illuminating the sky above. A few attackers were hit, but whatever they were they weren’t easily dissuaded. Rifles discharged as the gendarmerie joined the defence, and people began to scream and shout as the panic increased. With the aerial approach partially covered, the attackers split off in several wide, looping flights, four members to each street that approached the square, and their chaotic, rapid flying quickly saw them to the ground.

Ohm darted away from their final trap to safety, turning to see one of the creatures landing with a squelch on top of one of the catatonic people further along the street. It turned, disregarding the other catatonic people around it to scream at the defending wall, red eyes glaring and razor sharp wings flapping wide behind it.

“Demon…” someone muttered, a quiet word that was quickly followed by a more hysterical scream of their own. “Demon! Kill it!”

At that, the defenders began to fire weapons and throw whatever projectiles they had to hand. A couple of shots bounced off the creatures armour, and it walked forward unperturbed by the attacks until a molotov burst in front of it and spread fire across the street. It shrieked again, jumping into the air and flying forward with a burst of speed that brought it within meters of the first barricade. It’s momentum was arrested by a cantilevered slab that swung into its path, triggered by one of the defenders, that launched it back the way it came. It landed on all fours, growling like an animal, before it drew its gun out from behind it and began to advance again, firing at the obstacles in its way.

Ohm left the barricade behind as the flamethrower turrets on the roof locked on and began to spread gouts of flame. They whizzed across the open space where they had lain their own traps, following the careful patterns the defenders had agreed upon, before reaching the centre space of the square, the one so far untrapped. As they landed there, mind already racing with what trap to deploy, the cannon fired again. The second bullet was launched into the sky with a deafening roar, and Ohm looked over to see it disappear into the dark clouds of the sky. The last bullet moved into place for the escapees to clamber on board, and Ohm heard the gendarme in charge sounding the retreat on their whistle.

Defenders fled from the outer barricades back to the innermost ones, leaving the automated turrets and traps to slow the approach of the demons. Ohm made their way towards the bullet, propeller whirring as they skimmed over the heads of the crowd below.

As they did so, an explosion from across the chasm rocked the gear. Chunks of burning metal flew from the destroyed evacuation mechanism in all directions, one smashing into the base of escape cannon and, with a crunch of enormous proportions, causing the teeth to buckle. As everyone watched in horror, the cannon twisted and turned, arcing downwards to no longer point at the sky but to dangle over the edge, pointing directly down at the lava below.

There was a moment of horror, of despair that spread across the defenders. Ohm thought at lightning speed, an idea of the slimmest chances crossing their mind.

“Miss!” they cried to the squirrel woman organising the escape, “I can make this work, keep the defence going!”

With a grim look and no better course of action in mind, the gendarme nodded once and blew her whistle to begin marshalling the defenders once more. Ohm whizzed over to some of the mechanics they had worked with earlier.

“Okay, I need an engraver and an arcane artificer, quickly!”

Two of them stepped forward tools at the ready, and Ohm began explaining as they ran towards the bullet.

“Arcane travel by ley lines is a known phenomena. While it’s only a slim chance, we can try to connect to one of the points of similarity in the slag and cross to the lava of one of the other worlds, but we need as many heat protection runes as possible. Arcanist, I need you to make a full De’Merlina counter drive and a magic absorber, as crude as they need to be. It doesn’t matter if they’ll only last an hour, that’ll be all we’ve got. I’ll prepare for installation.”

Ohm split off a moment later as the two workers began screaming out for supplies and tools. They darted into the near empty bullet, drawing a wrench from their tools and unscrewing a panel in the floor. Dropping down inside, they began removing parts that would no longer serve a useful purpose: astronavigation was jury rigged into a propulsion mechanism, life support was cut down and slimmed down and whole stages of propellant removed in preparation for the other’s contributions.

As they final made space for the mounting block, the artificer appeared, singed and bleeding, with a piece of machinery that sparked and sputtered and looked two steps away from blowing up.

“Here! What is it for?!”

“If we connect it to the rocketry and propulsion here, and then you take the wires from there and run them up to the roof, it might be enough to autoguide us below the surface!”

Screams and explosions could be heard from outside.

“Hurry!” came the call from outside.

With a few adjustments, Ohm connected the pieces as best as they could, and emerged from below the floor. They did not look back at the worst work they’d ever done, simply trusting that their skills would have to be enough.

“Start loading up!”

As they called out, people swarmed into the bullet, climbing into every space available and squishing themselves into place. The sounds of stragglers getting shot and screaming out followed the gendarme in command as she entered and shut the door, pulling the lever to brace and pressing the button to launch.

The windowless bullet shuddered as it moved, and everyone inside struggled to avoid squishing each other as it rotated upside down upon entering the chamber. Warning lights on the navigation began flashing, and Ohm shut each of them down.

“Going down!”

And with an explosion of force, they did.

---

The impact of departure was moments over before the impact of entering the slag was upon them, the start and stop barely registered. Screams of pain arose from broken bones across the bullets cramped compartments, and several people vomited upon realising one poor man’s neck had snapped.

The temperature quickly grew hotter as the propellant ignited and drove them deeper, the heat resistant runes glowing a scratchy, fiery blue. The engraver was still at work, adding as many as they could, but for every three they added, a previous piece of work softened enough to break, lines of scorching arcane lightning coruscating out. Ohm and the arcanist feverishly worked at the controls, communicating in tense glances and whispered prayers.

The temperature continued to rise as the bullet drove deeper and deeper. One man clutched another and sobbed into their shoulder, another drew rosary beads and counted them.

A minute passed.

Two minutes.

Three.

“What are our chances.”

Ohm turned to look up at the squirrel woman before looking back at the navigation. At this point, they and the arcanist had done all they could, and they could only hope that it took them to the right point in the ley line matrix.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Alix Mosquile.”

“Ohm Zui.”

---

Another five minutes passed. The temperatures were now so hot inside the bullet that the walls were painful to touch. People stripped their clothing and used it to prevent themselves burning.

A beep from the console.

“We’re ready to go.”

“Let’s hope this works.”

---

With a intense heat and golden, arcane glow, the bullet slipped from the molten slag, away from Govermorne and the horrors that now transformed its surface.
 
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