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whispersafterdusk · 10 months ago

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Heart of Stone - ch 13

Unsuur had been careful to not stay long and to also stay out of sight when he peeked in on Justice and Dawn at the shooting range; Justice was right that Dawn was decently accurate and he was impressed seeing her hit target after target with her shots reliably hitting the outer two rings but he could tell from look on her face that she was hating every minute of it and several times she hesitated before firing (Justice had mentioned that hesitation when they'd made it out of Gecko Station, too). It made him more determined than ever to make sure she wouldn't find herself in a situation where the revolver was her only option - not just because he didn't want her hurt if she missed or hesitated but because he didn't want her feeling bad about having to resort to shooting... The first time he'd been forced to put down a crazed rockyenaroll he'd felt guilty for a week afterward and while it was easier mentally to shoot robots it still didn't always feel good to have to fire at anything. To the best of his ability he was going to make sure she only had to focus on the 'builder' tasks: find the right kind of robot, take it apart, get the core, and then they'd go home together.

...well, not TOGETHER together, though that would be awesome too. ((Continued below cut - it's a long one))

With the shooting lesson out of the way and the door into the ruins fixed Unsuur figured they'd be heading in really soon -- possibly even tomorrow morning. He'd need to make sure he had enough bullets and supplies on hand to handle a ruins dive, and a stop at the clinic for something for his arm would be a good idea too. The cactus pricks were really itchy once he got sweaty and since he patrolled during the day in direct sunlight Unsuur had started sweating the instant he walked out of his house that morning; they were also very noticeable bright red spots against his skin even before he'd gotten hot and he'd tried to hide them from view by not rolling up his jacket sleeves but that had only made him sweat more and the additional moisture along with the canvas rubbing against them made the itchiness a hundred times worse.

Willing himself not to rub or scratch at them was at least something to focus on that wasn't thinking about nearly getting caught last night -- he was still mentally kicking himself over the close call. Her letter had urged him to not be shy and to talk to her and yet she'd gone and done that. It had also mentioned that she thought his letters were meant to be romantic...if only if he could keep leaving them, but, he couldn't risk it anymore if she was willing to rig the mailbox to alert her to anyone opening it (or what if she rigged it to chime if anyone got near it at all? She was capable of anything - waaaay too risky now). It made him a little sad but their date was coming up soon - the letters wouldn't matter once they were out under the stars.

He purposely cut his lunch short so he could run over to Fang's; the man barely glanced at his arm before handing him a clear liquid in a jar and charging him for it. It looked an awful lot like plain water - no color, no strong smell, sloshed around in the jar as Unsuur walked toward home - but he didn't think Fang would cheat someone like that; according to the label he'd need an already dampened cloth, soak it in the liquid, then lay it over the red spots (WITHOUT wringing it out first, so he'd better do this over a sink) and leave it to sit for a few minutes...Unsuur figured he'd only have a few minutes left in his lunch break regardless by the time he got back home even as he cut across town by going up by the temple.

As he crested the hill he heard Miguel's laughter, and Dawn's too; he could just see the two of them passed the edge of the temple - most of Dawn was visible, standing there chatting easily with Miguel, of whom Unsuur could only see his arm and hand where it rested lightly on Dawn's shoulder. Since they seemed to be in good spirits and Dawn didn't appear to be recoiling from the contact Unsuur concluded that the hand on her shoulder was being permitted, not forced, and as he got closer they parted with Miguel moving away (most likely to go back inside) and Dawn heading for the stairs that would take her toward the square below, which put them both within line of sight of each other.

Well, since she was here and so was he... "Hey, Dawn."

She stopped and looked around as he called out, spotting him a moment later and waving. "Hi Unsuur! I was actually going to come find you next!"

He jogged over. "And I was going to stop by later like I always do. I'm guessing since you did the shooting lesson that we'll be able to head into the ruins soon?"

"Yep! Wanted to check when you'd be ready to go."

"I'll need to double check my supply stash - medicines, bandages, bullets, that sort of thing. After that I'm good to go whenever you are."

Dawn wrinkled her nose and it was then that Unsuur noticed the ammo pouch attached to her belt next to loops that he knew usually held smaller tools but were empty now - no holster or revolver, either. "Bullets... Light knows Justice sent me home with enough of those. Hopefully between the two of us we'll be fine on that front. Going by the clinic was one thing on my To Do list today too, though it looks like you just came from there?" she asked, glancing down at the jar of liquid with its little paper label that Unsuur still held.

"I did. Fang should still be there if you go now," Unsuur replied, praying she wouldn't ask about why he'd gone, or notice the red blotches on his arm.

She nodded. "Shall we head in tomorrow morning then?"

"I'll be ready."

The bright she smile gave him made him melt a little inside, then she turned and headed off the way he'd just come while Unsuur hurried home to take care of his arm. The liquid stung initially but shortly after applying it he felt a tingling sensation then a numb feeling; he supposed 'numb' was an improvement over the itch even if it felt really weird. After cleaning up he meticulously went through all the supplies he had stored away (he knew Justice would understand if he noticed Unsuur was taking an extended lunch break) and determined that he had more than enough of everything needed for a day's long ruins dive -- if it ended up that they had to head in again then he'd go buy things on an as-needed basis.

After another thankfully quiet day Unsuur came home and did a final check of his knapsack and went to bed right after dinner - nice and early. Before he turned out the light he held the stone heart in his hands and rubbed his thumbs over it -- probably shouldn't have it with him tomorrow...he'd hate to lose it inside the ruins. His pocket was going to feel strangely light now that he was used to having it in there; Wilson and the heart could keep each other company while he was gone, at least.

The next morning he grabbed his pack and sword and made sure his gun was loaded then met Dawn at her gate - she had a backpack too along with her revolver and tools on her belt and a shiny iron pickhammer secured to the side of the backpack within easy reach. After one last check of their supplies they trekked over to the Paradise Lost door; the brand new hinges were sparkling brightly in the sunlight and the door opened smoothly and without so much as a squeak.

"All right...here we go," Dawn said with a nervous laugh. "Let's hope this is a painless trip."

"It'll be ok, promise."

"I hope so," she murmured in response. She took a deep breath and headed through the door; Unsuur followed her in and kept close.

Those robots you could always see from the safety of the fence line were meandering around as usual; Unsuur knew they wouldn't attack unless he and Dawn got close but they would need to pass by a lot of them to get to the building Rocky had told them about. Once you got out on top of the buildings the ramps and bridges didn't have any railings and it was a really, really steep fall -- he didn't want to risk fighting anything on one of those so he gently pulled Dawn to a stop as he drew his revolver.

"I'm going to take care of some of these before we get close -- just to be safe."

"Good idea."

The robots on the rooftop with them were easy to dispatch - he could stand just about anywhere and have a clear line of fire and it didn't take any time at all to thin out the sweepers and trotters wandering around near them. When they got to the first ramp that's where things got a little bit trickier; now he had to take into consideration all the weird angles and differences in elevation. It wouldn't be impossible to take them all out at range but it was going to be harder.

The next threat was a sweeper in the middle of this ramp; since it was not quite facing him but also not quite looking away Unsuur took a single step forward, thumping his boot on the sheet metal extra hard to see if he could draw the robot's attention. Strangely it didn't seem to notice him so he lined up a shot and waited and after what seemed like ages it fully turned its back to them, giving him a clean shot at the power supply. As the robot fell over in a shower of sparks Unsuur could see the next nearest bots on the rooftop below them were now all looking in their direction. "Stay behind me," he warned as he aimed for the next bot (a trotter) and fired. The bullet struck a little high as the robot was bobbing up and down gently as it hovered so the shot only cracked the glass face plate then ricocheted up into the sky without destroying it; that definitely got the trotter's and four other robots full attentions and they started moving toward him.

Luckily they still had to cross a narrow bridge and then come up two ramps to reach the roof he and Dawn stood on and Unsuur's earlier concerns about the missing railings were proven wise as the robots all tried to rush across at once resulting in a large amount of jostling that actually knocked one of the sweepers off the edge; a trotter, a sweeper, and two red-colored secretaries finally managed to get into a single-file line and were charging toward him (he never understood why they'd been named that - why would a secretary need a laser gun? The Old World was weird).

As he lined up his shots he was somewhat aware of Dawn moving behind him; the lead sweeper let out an agitated, robotic squawk as he blew off one of its eyes but it didn't slow in the slightest, and the second shot dinged off its "chin" instead of the neck where Unsuur had been aiming as it spasmed from the loss of the eye. He had two shots more before he'd need to reload when Dawn suddenly shot once -- hers went low and struck one of the sweeper's wheels, causing the sweeper to briefly spin uncontrollably in place which knocked one of the secretaries over the side. As the robot tried to right itself Unsuur shot over its shoulder and bulls-eyed the lone trotter behind it; the face plate and most of its spherical body blew apart as something inside it exploded and with a loud clank it bounced once on the ramp then fell over the edge, plummeting out of sight.

Dawn fired a second shot; the bullet struck the remaining red bot on the little strip of metal that ran between its glass face and the glass dome on top of its head, leaving a deep crater but not penetrating, and even at this distance Unsuur could hear the loud whirring as the bot propelled itself over the hobbled sweeper and jetted toward them; Unsuur let loose with his last bullet and cracked the face plate but again the bullet didn't penetrate far -- these ones were built sturdier than the regular trotters. He would need to check the Civil Corps records later to see what information they had on them to better fight them in the future but for now he rapidly reloaded and unloaded five more rounds and managed to finally drop it as it reached the start of the final ramp that would've led it up to where he and Dawn stood.

In the middle of his barrage Dawn had shot again and finally stopped the sweeper for good and now all seemed quiet.

As he reloaded Unsuur peered around and listened closely, making sure the coast truly was clear, then holstered his revolver and turned to Dawn. "Nice shooting."

Her hands were shaking a little as she reloaded then returned the gun to her holster. "N-not really. I didn't hit what I was aiming for with any of those shots."

"You still hit it regardless and that first shot stopped the sweeper and got that other one knocked over the side. It might not have been your intended target but it still worked, so, nice shooting." She looked comforted by that fact but also still a little tense. "...I know you hate the gun. Thank you for helping handle those but I don't want you feeling like you have to do something you hate when you don't have to."

"I know, but...I don't want you to have to do all the fighting," she answered quietly. "And I don't want you to get hurt because you're doing all the fighting." Her face grew steadily redder with each word but even as she blushed she looked more determined. "You're protecting me and I'm going to protect you. I would rather have to use a gun then know you got hurt because of me."

"Are you sure? The fighting shouldn't be more than I can handle."

She pressed her lips together and nodded curtly, then inhaled deeply through her nose and turned her attention to the ramp. "I'm sure. I can do this."

So much for that... he found himself thinking; he'd really wanted her to not have to fire that gun - of course he'd known there was a chance no matter how he planned or how hard he fought and yet, if she decided to help even if she wasn't in immediate danger he couldn't do much about it... And she was willing to do that for him. He felt warm, and light, and slightly self-conscious, and hurried forward so he could get his mind back on the task at hand.

They walked down the pair of ramps to another rooftop and while they could see the bridge they needed to reach from here (if you could call it that - it was corrugated metal haphazardly nailed to wooden beams in a bridge-like shape and looked as sturdy as a piece of damp straw) they still were too high to reach it and get into the building they were heading for. Dawn walked around the perimeter of the roof they were on and then waved him over toward the far corner.

"Looks like the next ramp down is over here but I see sweepers at the bottom of it."

He walked over and - yep, there were three sweepers and he thought he heard more than that around the corner where the ramp wrapped around the building. Gesturing for Dawn to stay back Unsuur brought his gun to bear again and eyed the robots; he stood there observing for longer than he'd really wanted to but whatever else was around the corner didn't seem inclined to move into his line of sight...they would just have to deal with whatever this next fight drew in when it made an appearance.

The closest sweeper took two bullets to bust the power supply and the remaining sweepers took one bullet each; again he reloaded quickly and listened -- there was still something clattering around down there but it didn't sound like it was getting any closer. Slowly Unsuur stepped over the edge of the roof onto the ramp and began to creep down toward the noise; when he reached the corner of the building he pressed his back flat against it and eased forward just enough to be able to peek around the corner and finally saw the source of the clanking: a broken sweeper laying on its side.

The left set of wheels were grinding against the sheet metal and wood underneath it, the right ones spinning uselessly in the air. As the wheels spun the sweeper was also sort of spinning; Unsuur could see a well-worn circular rut beneath the robot as it clanked around and slowly revolved in place. Both of its arms were busted off and it was missing half its head -- he couldn't imagine how it had ended up here and in this shape but it didn't even react when he walked over and gave it a firm shove with his boot to send it over the side.

From this new vantage point Unsuur could see that this ramp snaked along the side of this building then connected with that hazardous looking bridge that would get them to their destination; there didn't seem to be any other bots aside from a single secretary in the middle of that bridge so Unsuur waved at Dawn to get her to follow him down and around, then he left her at the ramp's edge while he got closer to the red bot and shot it to pieces.

"All right. The way in is clear," he called over a shoulder.

Dawn hurried to catch up and they walked side by side across the bridge and stepped together through the opening. Between the afterimages and having the main source of light at their backs it made it hard to see anything beyond the immediate area passed the hole; there was a metal floor beneath his feet but it didn't feel like the rusting corrugated stuff they'd just been walking over and very faintly he could hear the thrum of electricity so wherever they were still had some power flowing to it. After a few moments to let their eyes adjust they realized they were in front of an elevator.

The doors themselves didn't have any power going to them so once Dawn pried them apart a few inches with a crowbar he took one side and she the other and they slowly pulled them open to reveal a not-quite-intact elevator car; there was just enough of the car's back (or front?) wall to hold a button panel (which thankfully WAS powered and glowed softly in the gloom), the floor beneath their feet was entirely intact and felt pretty solid still, and aside from that small section with the buttons on it the rest of the walls and the ceiling were missing - rusted away. The doors to let you out through the other side of the car to the floor beyond were stuck partially open and through that gap a hot breeze smelling of smoke, oil, and ancient dust blew - an air system of some sort was still working but it wasn't cooling anything down (and the smell of smoke was worrisome).

Squinting a bit Unsuur pressed his eye to the opening to get a look at what was ahead and saw...nothingness. Passed the doors was only a dark void, and far, far, FAR far below he could just make out dim pinpoints of light.

"We're still really high up - there's nothing on the other side of these doors but I can see light way down below us."

Dawn frowned at that and turned to the button panel. "That's not good... Hopefully this thing still works, or at the very least doesn't fall out from under us." After studying the buttons a moment she tapped at a few of them and they both stumbled in place as the elevator began to lower with an ear-splitting shrieking noise of metal on metal.

It didn't drop out from beneath them but once they cleared the walls there was nothing else - no walls enclosing the elevator shaft, no floors around them, just the track hanging in nothingness slowly grinding its way down, completely exposed, and they were still so incredibly high up. Unsuur didn't consider himself scared of heights or the dark but as they traveled further from the opening above them, and as it got darker and darker, an unsettled feeling lodged itself in the pit of his stomach; Dawn must have been equally unnerved as he felt her move closer, with her hand brushing his - she seemed to flinch at the unexpected contact but then didn't pull away when Unsuur blindly reached out to clumsily take her hand in his and give it a reassuring squeeze which she returned.

If the elevator did actually fail and dump them into a free fall he had no idea what they could even hope to do -- maybe he could use himself to break her fall and at least one of them would survive the drop... Regardless, as visibility remained at almost nothing he didn't like the idea of them just standing there unable to even see the edge of the elevator platform they were riding on; the lights below were getting closer at the least even if he couldn't completely make out their shapes. It was like trying to peer through a dirty window; he didn't much care for that either...this sure was an uneasy ride.

Dawn let go of his hand then and he could hear her breathing and also fumbling with something beside him; there was a soft 'tonk' noise that he both heard and felt through the soles of his boots and the sound of something being unsnapped. After more rustling there was another metallic clatter from just in front of them both.

"Cover your eyes, I'm turning on a lantern," she warned. Her voice sounded louder than it should have in the darkness.

Unsuur squinted and partially turned his head. "Go ahead."

There was a click and then light flared to life in front of him; Dawn had brought the smallest electric lantern he'd ever seen - it was just big enough to house a tiny light bulb and the power stone to power it and yet it was surprisingly bright. It lit the two of them up and seeing her there eased the unsettled flipflops his stomach was making but there still wasn't anything else visible around them aside from the track at their backs. She let out a nervous-sounding huff and shifted to sit down so she could rearrange the things inside the backpack that she'd just blindly rummaged through.

Feeling a bit braver he shifted to his knees to peek over the front edge of the platform, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the lantern; they passed through a thick, choking cloud of dust that was several feet thick and then Unsuur could clearly see all sorts of light below them -- neon-colored signs and bare bulbs and light strips and every other kind of Old World artificial light he'd ever seen before or could imagine. The hum of power was growing louder too and despite the dirt cloud growing steadily more distant above their heads there was still a haze of dust below it that hung in the air and coated everything he could see as well.

"Wow..." Dawn whispered beside him. Unsuur felt her place a hand on the small of his back as she scooted forward to join him; instinctively he lifted an arm to place it around her -- to keep her steady as they moved, he told himself. "Look at this place...look at the SIZE of it! It didn't seem so huge from the outside."

"Maybe I should have brought a couple days worth of supplies," Unsuur said after a moment. "We might actually need more than a day to search through here."

"Maybe... It sure would be nice to not have to ride this thing up and down a lot."

He nodded; just because the elevator was working NOW didn't mean it would keep working if they had to use it multiple times. They fell back into silence as they kept moving downward and at last the elevator ground to a halt, lining up with a set of metal steps that looked like they'd been moved there from somewhere else; Dawn turned the lantern off and stowed it back inside her pack then followed Unsuur off the elevator and down to solid ground.

Here at the bottom of the elevator "shaft" was what looked like an old campsite - there were some chairs, a barrel with the remnants of firewood inside, old crates piled with miscellaneous relic bits and salvage, some makeshift fencing and busted work lights, and sand... So, so much sand. He could hear it trickling like water all around them and where it fell it churned up a gritty yet powdery dirt - the source of the haze that hung over the place - and was piled so high in some areas that it was WAY above his and Dawn's heads and could be hiding who-knew-what beneath it.

Beyond the little campsite the floor was littered with busted up robots and broken weapons; it was clear what the fencing had been built to keep out as he surveyed the long-silent battlefield. Slightly further out beyond the robots he could see more wooden barricades and fencing, some watch towers and pathways made of metal beams and boards above their heads linking the towers together and to the building remnants to either side, and also movement and shifting shadows under the neon lights in the distance -- there were still robots active here, that was for certain. He stepped out passed the metal fencing and scrutinized their immediate surroundings -- didn't seem to be any obvious threats here, at least.

"If people were here in the recent past then I bet these lower levels have been picked over," Dawn said softly behind him. "Our best bet might be to find some way up to the higher floors and see what we find."

"Where do you think we should start?" he asked, glancing at her.

Dawn looked up and he could follow the path her gaze took as she looked the watch towers over (they were more like scaffolding, really) and traced the bridges between them all before shaking her head. "Not with those -- let's see if we can find some of the original stairs or another elevator." She paused and looked to either side again, then turned her attention straight ahead. "That middle thing there is too narrow for stairs but might have an elevator, if we wanted to start with it?"

Middle thing... Ah. Beyond a line of wooden fencing was an original Old World walkway that crossed between the remnants of the store fronts on either side of them, and passed that was a glass and metal cylindrical-shaped room perched on top of a pillar - it looked like a strange metal mushroom pushing up out of the sand. The windows were tinted and dirty but-

"-I think something is moving up there."

Dawn swung her backpack around again and briefly searched through it before pulling out a pair of binoculars and focusing in on that weird central room. "...I think you're right. And whatever it is, it's big."

He frowned - big usually meant dangerous...but, it might also mean power core. "Let's check along the walls first and see if we can find some stairs -- if there's a giant robot up in that room an elevator would put us right in its lap. I'd rather not take that risk if we don't have to."

He waited for her to stow the binoculars then they moved together toward the wall on their right, sticking to the ground floor. There were partially buried shipping containers here and the further they moved toward the wall the higher the sand piles grew but they weren't so high that they completely hid some t-shaped pipes sticking up at regular intervals, and some smaller metal storage containers that were set on their ends like-- oh. The pipes and the containers looked a lot like...

"I...don't think I want to search in that direction," Dawn said suddenly.

Unsuur nodded in agreement, because that looked an awful lot like a graveyard there (whether it actually was one or not he didn't intend to find out).

They retreated out toward the original walkway and went to walk beneath it when Unsuur heard a loud creaking and snapping noise, and though she wasn't close enough to have been in any real danger he still pulled Dawn back as one of the neon signs hanging from the walkway fell free and slammed into the ground about ten feet ahead of them, peppering the sand at their feet with glass shards.

Dawn dug her fingernails into his jacket sleeves and let out a shaky breath. "I cannot believe I let Heidi and Qi talk me into this..."

"Do you want to go back? The bridge might take longer but it'll be completed even without a robot."

After a few steadying breaths she shook her head. "We need to get that bridge done. I should at least give it one attempt to find something usable and if we don't find it today then... I don't know. But at least we can say we tried."

Unsuur let her decide when she wanted to let go while he surveyed the area ahead - more fencing, more broken bots, and no visible door on the side of the pillar that he could see from here. When Dawn was ready to move they walked up to its base; there were more fences preventing them from freely walking around it (and hopefully they'd keep the trotters that he could see away from them) but Unsuur didn't see any doors on its sides either -- if there wasn't a door on the side they couldn't see then they wouldn't have to worry about an elevator ride into almost certain danger because there wasn't anything there to ride.

Humming to herself Dawn walked the fence line to the right where a shipping container had been propped up against the higher level that the walkway they'd just passed connected to. The doors at the end were missing - it looked like they had been torn off their hinges, violently - and after a quick check Dawn began to carefully climb up the inside. Unsuur moved to follow her; the incline was uncomfortably steep but not impassably so, and so long as he didn't try to stand up too straight his boots gripped the metal floor well enough to get him up to the next landing outside of a large open doorway that opened into a sizeable room. More fencing lined the edge of the landing but it was mostly made of chain link so they were able to move to the far end and get a look at the other side of that pillar -- no door. Now they'd HAVE to find stairs, or else build some way to get up to that glass-enclosed room.

A quiet whirring noise caught his attention then and he gestured for Dawn to stay quiet, turning toward the open room behind them; it looked like...well, he wasn't sure what it looked like. The long, tall metal door was partially sticking out of a slot in the ceiling with a section of shelving and cabinets along the walls beyond it; seats were lined up facing into the center of the room in clusters of three each set between columns that stretched from floor to ceiling, a long desk with several chairs was against the back wall, and the rest of the space was hidden from his sight as it curved around a corner to their right -- probably where that walkway was. Unsuur could see a malfunctioning sweeper pacing back and forth, in and out of their view, futilely trying to pick up small piles of sand around the chairs with a broken arm and a few trotters were behind the desk along the back wall too. He raised his revolver to take aim and heard Dawn draw hers as well.

"I'll take the trotters," he whispered. She nodded in understanding and adjusted her aim for the sweeper.

Unsuur silently counted to three then fired -- his first shot dropped one of the trotters instantly, his next three took out the second one. Dawn fired twice, missing the power source both times but damaging the sweeper's remaining good arm, and Unsuur shifted to empty his revolver into the sweeper; it fell over in a spray of sparks. Dawn seemed disappointed with herself as she reloaded and returned the gun to her holster; he wanted to say something but wasn't sure what so he remained silent and led the way through the room and around the corner. It met up with the walkway like he'd expected and across it he could see an almost identical storefront across the way (though that one's door was shut tight).

"Oh great..." Dawn growled beside him.

"What?" he asked, looking to her in surprise.

She pointed at the closed door. "See that panel beside it?"

Unsuur looked again and could just make out an orange glow mounted on the wall beside the store front - he assumed that was the panel in question. "Will that open the door?"

"It should, but it looks similar to the ones Justice and I had to get open down in Gecko Station, which means we'll need a card or a key or something to get it open."

"And if we can't find the key?"

"I guess we'll be climbing fences or hoping we can dismantle any doors we come across then," she sighed in response.

He didn't want to do either of those if they didn't have to. "Where would we find a key..." he mumbled, looking around. That campsite they'd found (and the possible graveyard) was proof that people had come through here in the not-so-distant past; surely they wouldn't have taken the keys with them -- they'd have no value outside of here...but where would they have left them?

Dawn was already back in the room they'd just come from, opening up cabinets and drawers. Unsuur moved in further, heading for the opposite side of the room where they'd entered from, figuring he'd start here and he or Dawn would either find what they needed or they'd meet in the middle and could decide what to do from there. He was about a quarter of the way through the room when he heard Dawn shout for him; hurrying over he found her behind that long desk at the back (she'd moved the destroyed trotters out of the way) where she'd pried a drawer open -- it was filled with colorful, oddly shaped plastic key cards. They were sort of circular on one end with a triangular shape attached, with the pointy end cut off and the sharp edges all rounded.

"These should be it," she explained. "Hopefully one of these will open that door."

Unsuur found an intact box and they transferred all the cards from the drawer into it, then he tucked it under an arm as they hurried over to the panel. It had a screen a few inches tall and about a foot wide, glowing a soft orange; Dawn studied the panel for a moment then rifled through the box of keys and pulled out a few orange ones that were about the same color as the screen and began sliding the cards across the front of the panel. With each incorrect card there was little buzzer noise and the screen flashed red before returning to orange.

Unsuur sat the box at his feet and waited with his gun at the ready - there wasn't anything he could do to help with the keys but he COULD hear movement on the other side of the door and he wanted to be ready to fire the moment it opened. Several minutes later the door slid up and out of the way, revealing the sweepers and trotters on the other side that had been alerted to their presence by the buzzing noises and now the door opening. Unsuur had time to shoot twice before they were on top of him and he quickly switched over to his sword, ducking and weaving between laser blasts while parrying the swings of the sweeper arms.

Not long after Dawn joined the fray, leveraging a very impressive swing at a trotter that had gotten too close; her pickhammer traced an arc from near her ankles to over her opposite shoulder, connecting with and batting the trotter away like a toy. Unsuur severed a sweeper's head with a swipe of his sword and ducked again as the remaining trotter shot at him while Dawn moved forward and brought the pickhammer down in an overhead strike at a second sweeper, leading with the pick end; it split the robot's head in half and she had to leave the weapon embedded there to dodge away as the last trotter aimed its lasers at her. He surged forward into the opening and aimed an overhead blow of his own, slicing downward and cutting through one of the trotter's arms. It beeped angrily at him as he followed it up by smashing the pommel of his sword down on top of its head, bouncing it off the floor and finishing with a kick to send it careening away and give him the space needed to get his revolver back in hand. A quick shot ended the trotter and he turned to check on Dawn -- the sweeper she'd hit seemed disabled and she was struggling to dislodge the pickhammer.

He came over and grabbed the pickhammer further up the shaft and pulled with her; it took several coordinated, strong tugs but it came loose and sent them both stumbling back a few steps. She was breathing a little hard but mutely strapped the pickhammer back onto her backpack and as she went to pick up the box of cards Unsuur discretely looked her over -- she didn't seem injured so that was good, and he didn't see any other robots in this room (which was the same shape and size as the last, if a bit more in disarray - the chairs and other bits of furniture were tossed around and piled up against the columns and the long desk, and there were little scorch marks dotting the floor too).

Out through this room they were actually on the correct side to see the rest of that central pillar -- no door had magically appeared but now they had an unobstructed view of another walkway above their heads that connected that room to a circular platform, and from there another path led back to a wide door flanked on either side by bright yellow, garish 'welcome' signs. That door was set into a building section that looked relatively unscathed and strangely untouched by time; the metal walls and the signs had no obvious rust or dents and while they couldn't directly see it from here it looked like the area below it was in good shape too. That seemed like a pretty good place to find intact stairs or an elevator if they could just find their way back there through the mess and maze of this place.

Unfortunately there wasn't an original pathway from this side going across; this room opened to stairs leading back down to the "ground floor," such as it was, and there was a mess of fencing and shipping containers piled around with ramshackle bridges of metal and wood built between them. He also could make out the hulking shape of hauler-type robots roaming around between the containers and under the paths -- a swipe from one of those would send either of them flying and he didn't especially relish the idea of falling into a group of them, which was a real concern as all those bridges and ramps didn't look very sturdy.

It WAS the only way forward from here though; they'd have to risk crossing and hope none of the bridges broke and that the bots wouldn't see them. "Maybe if we're quiet enough the robots won't notice us moving through here," he whispered, tracing out a path over the bridges with a finger. "Let me carry the cards and we can give it a try. If we do get spotted run for whichever side you're closest to so we don't get knocked down there with the haulers."

She nodded and handed the box over then cautiously moved toward the start of the pathways; the wood and metal creaked under her and they both froze in place and listened -- it didn't seem like the robots had heard, or maybe they had and just didn't care (yet). After a few moments Dawn sucked in a breath and kept going; she reached the first shipping container and disappeared inside (at least they had that going for them - the robots couldn't spot them through the walls of the containers). Unsuur slowly followed and the bridge creaked again and he could also feel it sagging a little under his weight (he didn't even weigh that much!) but he met up with her in the first container without anything breaking. They could actually see the next room from here but it was at the end of a long ramp that was completely open with no cover.

Again he let her go first and watched, crouched in the opening of the container; she made it about halfway to the next landing when he heard the alerted beep of a hauler.

"Go - hurry!" he called, rushing out of the container after her.

She sprinted across and skidded to a halt next to the door panel, spinning to watch and wait for him. Unsuur just made it onto the landing when ramp behind him was hit with a tremendous blow from below; the wood splintered and exploded upward while the metal buckled and fell down onto the hauler that had just swung a small storage box into its underside. Unsuur dropped the box of cards at his feet and drew his revolver, watching as the hauler bobbed up and down, in and out of view at the landing's edge -- could it not jump high enough to get up here? Sure seemed that way, and though he could see another set of stairs leading down to the ground level on this side there was metal fencing between them and the hauler.

He waited with his gun at the ready, finger on the trigger; the hauler kept trying to jump up a few minutes longer then went silent, and Unsuur heard it stomping away. He gave it several more minutes then cautiously moved to the edge of the ruined ramp -- as hard as the hauler had hit it Unsuur knew without a doubt it could have mowed down that fence with ease but for whatever reason it had chosen not to. Shaking his head and deciding not to question it Unsuur moved back to Dawn who was crouched at the box of cards but hadn't begun scanning any of them yet.

"Is it gone?" she asked, voice just above a whisper. He nodded and she let out a relieved sigh. "Oh thank the Light... I can't imagine how many robots must have been in here the first time people tried searching through this place."

"If the broken ones are any indication there were...a lot," he replied. "That's why there were always big groups of people who cleared out the giant ruins. Justice and I can handle the smaller ruins but there's no way the two of us alone could empty something like this, and even when there were way more people here in Sandrock there were still a lot of places too dangerous to secure. It's why this area has been a hazardous ruin for as long as anyone can remember. ...anyway, I'll keep watch so you don't need to worry."

She nodded and started sorting through the cards - this panel was a warm yellowish orange so she was grabbing all the orange and yellow cards since none of them seemed to be exactly the right color at first glance; Unsuur moved to the top of the steps nearby where he could see another hauler pacing around down there on this side of the fence, and also another one in the distance that was walking back and forth along the entire length of another of the original pathways that he knew they would need to cross as they made their way toward the back of this giant room.

Haulers were strong and had a lot of reach... They didn't have any ranged weaponry on them but they could easily shatter bone if they landed a punch or hit you with those boxes they carried around. Down below with the nearest hauler were stacks and stacks of the storage boxes along with more broken haulers (including one sprawled at the base of these stairs) and a few busted secretaries and trotters partially buried in sand and garbage...plenty of stuff for the hauler to wield against them - not to mention a lot of tripping hazards - so if opening the door actually got that particular robot's attention they'd need to deal with it up here on the landing.

He crept back over to Dawn, an idea forming in his mind. "Hey... How quickly do you think these doors close?"

"Um... I'm not really sure. Why?"

He jerked his head toward the walkway and the visible hauler and saw Dawn tense up, her grip tightening on the card she was about to try. "There's one there, and one on the ground below us. I know we'll have to deal with at least one of them, maybe both, so I'm thinking if the doors close pretty quickly we could drop one on their head and that would keep them from attacking us while we disable them."

Dawn inhaled then exhaled slowly and stood, pulling her pickhammer out of its clip and letting the card in her hand drop back into the box. "I'm not against the idea but I really do not want to risk the door not closing fast enough and leaving us with two big robots to deal with. Can we deal with just this one first? How do we fight it?"

She did have a point...also, they'd need to consider whether there were other robots on the other side of this door too. He didn't hear anything just yet but...yeah, probably better to deal with this lone hauler first and see if the door trick would help with the second.

Unsuur tiptoed over toward the edge, peering over at the still-pacing hauler; Dawn came up beside him and dropped to one knee, looking to him for direction. "The joints are the best points to attack," he began, voice low. "If we can get it to stop moving or make it unable to attack us then we won't need to completely destroy it. Inside its chest is a trotter but I don't think it can separate from the hauler body -- or, at least, I've never seen one do that. They've also never tried shooting at us either so I'm not sure that's an actual trotter in there."

Dawn nodded slowly and adjusted her grip on the pickhammer. "Should I shoot at it or...?"

"You can until it gets close. When its up in our faces you should focus more on not letting it hit you." He looked between the robot and her a few times. "Are you ready?"

She laid the pickhammer down on the ground beside her and switched over to the revolver, then nodded silently. Unsuur turned his attention to the hauler and aimed, waiting for it to turn around so he'd have a clear shot at the glass chest panel; he wasn't sure where the power supply for these things were but maybe wrecking the trotter inside it would stop or slow it down enough that they could bust the leg joints.

When it turned he fired; the glass splintered with the first three shots then shattered on the fourth but it had begun sprinting toward them on the second. Dawn fired twice and he heard the ping of the bullets against the outer shell of the hauler but didn't see much damage. He shot his last loaded rounds and went to reload as Dawn emptied her chamber as well. As he clicked the cylinder into place the hauler leapt upward, clearing the busted hauler and the first section of stairs, and then jumped again bringing it within mere feet of him and Dawn; he shoved the gun back into his holster and switched back to his sword -- the blade wouldn't do much against this thing if a bullet couldn't punch through the metal body but if he could distract it and draw it away from Dawn she'd have a chance to go for the joints.

The hauler luckily focused on him and he lured it to the left, ducking a fist and leaping to the side and wincing at the crunch of the storage box hitting the ground beside him. As it went to pursue him the hauler suddenly staggered and almost tipped forward -- Dawn had slammed the hammer end of the pickhammer into the inner thigh of its left leg just above the knee joint; the blow had bent it outward and Unsuur was pleased to see the hauler was now unable to fully straighten or extend the leg as it fought to get its balance back. He then had to duck again as the hauler pirouetted suddenly - the storage box whistled by and he could feel a breeze ruffle his hair as it passed overhead - and when its back was to him, halfway through the turn, he took that moment to dash forward and jam the tip of his sword into a hip joint.

The hauler hopped away and the sword was pulled out of his grasp, bobbing along just ahead of him accompanied by a high-pitched grinding noise; there were two more loud cracks as Dawn slammed the pickhammer down hammer-first onto an arm and then into the chest cavity onto the trotter within. A breath later she had to dodge backward as the hauler thrust the box out toward her -- Unsuur reached out to wrench his sword free and brought it around and over his head to cleave at the hauler's upper arm where he could see wires wrapped around the metal "skeleton" of the limb. The wires severed and spat a few sparks into the air then the arm went limp; he had the distinct feeling that the robot now wasn't sure which of them to go after as it seemed to try to move toward him then changed its mind halfway through the turn and went to shift back toward Dawn in time for her slam the pick end of the pickhammer directly into the trotter pilot. At the strike the hauler stiffened then tipped backward and fell over the side of the landing like a toppled toy, ripping the pickhammer out of Dawn's hands and taking it with it; Unsuur hurried to the edge and looked down to find the bot laying atop the busted hauler down there with its "head" embedded in the ground and its legs jutting straight up. Luckily the fall had jarred the pickhammer loose and it was laying in the sand several feet away on the far side of the wrecked haulers near the fence so it'd be easy to retrieve, and it didn't look bent or damaged either.

Another lucky thing was that fight hadn't drawn in any other robots, though that other hauler that was ahead on that walkway was looking in their direction; Unsuur took a moment to catch his breath as he stared back at the robot. It didn't seem hostile or even especially interested in them - it almost seemed bored.

He turned his attention to Dawn then; she had her revolver in hand again and was reloading - she seemed fine aside from a tremor in her hands as she fumbled the bullets into place. She caught him looking at her and flashed him a thumbs up - also shaky - and moved over next to him to look down at the busted bots.

"I'll be glad to get out of here," she murmured. Unsuur put what he hoped was a comforting hand on her shoulder; it must have been comforting enough as she leaned slightly into the contact, then inhaled sharply through her nostrils. "Let me grab my pickhammer and we can keep going."

"I'll get it. And we can take a break too if you want, before we open this next door." After a moment to consider she nodded; Unsuur let his hand drop and jogged down the stairs as she turned to go back to the box of cards.

The hauler they'd just fought was far enough out of the way to not be an issue but the other broken hauler was laying across the foot of the stairs, blocking the most direct path to get the pickhammer back; with there still being robots nearby with only a flimsy metal fence keeping them away he didn't want to spend more time than he needed to down here, and if he hugged the wall he could stay out of the other robots view - he'd just need to climb over that broken hauler then. He hopped down the stairs and up to it, patting around the top of it for a hand-hold then pulling himself partially up, bracing himself with his forearms and against his stomach as he blindly poked around with his toes for something to stand on to push himself the rest of the way. Once he'd clambered almost on top of it the robot shifted, and at first he thought it was just settling under his weight but then one of its arms lifted and attempted to grab him; Unsuur threw himself over and and landed awkwardly in the sand with his feet and ankles still touching the not-so-dead hauler.

Before he could right himself it swiped at him, which caught his legs and spun him on the ground on his chest; he kicked out and connected solidly with the other upright hauler's body, shoving himself forward with enough force to unzip his jacket then desperately rolled to put more distance between himself and the live hauler. He came up on an elbow with revolver in hand, emptying the gun directly into the trotter in its chest and was momentarily blinded as something inside the bot popped under the onslaught in a bright flash of light before it went still.

"Are you ok?!"

Unsuur pushed himself to his feet with a grunt, brilliant afterimages still swimming in his vision; his left ankle and calf hurt a lot but he didn't think the ankle was sprained, and he could feel where the zipper of his jacket had grated against his skin through his shirt - nothing felt like a serious injury. Squinting he saw Dawn crouched at the top of the stairs looking down at him, face pale. "I'm all right. Thought that one was dead - it wasn't."

"So I heard," she said, rubbing a hand across her face with a relieved laugh.

After zipping his jacket back up Unsuur grabbed the pickhammer and - now that it wasn't trying to kill him - easily climbed back over the hauler laying across the bottom of the stairs; once he was up on the landing he handed Dawn the pickhammer, put his backpack down, then sat next to it with his back against the door and Dawn flopped down beside him.

Despite the harrowing ride down here and this sudden surprise he had to admit this was going rather well; if they got through here without either of them being seriously injured then even if they didn't find anything he'd consider it a good day.

"Are we still trying to drop the door on the next hauler?"

He nodded. "I think it'll make things easier, if it works. And if it doesn't we can just fight it like we did the other one."

"I'm not so sure about that last part," she said, reaching to the other side of the box of cards and picking up something metal, that was about the size of the palm of her hand.

She held it out to him and he took it, turning it back and forth between his fingers a few times before his brain registered what he was looking at: it was the tip of a sword - HIS sword. Frowning he pulled the weapon into his lap and looked it over -- that was the tip, all right. It had broken off cleanly at least so the rest of the blade wasn't bent. "Oh. I guess that's what I get for trying to stab a robot. I can still slash with it, it should be fine."

With a giggle she laid her head back against the door behind them, closing her eyes. "Bet Hugo could reforge it, or I could melt it down and recast it - er, eventually. I need to get a proper forging set up put together first. At the very least I could melt it into bars that you could take to Hugo for forging, it would save you some gols on the cost."

"I'm not too worried," he replied, pulling his canteen out of his backpack and taking a long drink. It had a faint metallic aftertaste - a sign that the inner coating was finally wearing out. He'd need to remember to get a new one soon.

After they'd rested for a bit Dawn went back to swiping the cards to find the right one while Unsuur positioned himself so he could see the hauler ahead of them, partly see the ruined ramp they'd come over, and also could react to anything that might be on the other side of the door - it was unsettlingly quiet and the hauler on the walkway appeared to have lost what little interest it'd had in them (he didn't trust that for an instant).

There was finally a beep and the door began to rise; when nothing rushed to attack them through the opening Unsuur shifted his attention back to the hauler - it had stopped in the middle of the walkway and was watching the door open with the same aura of boredom as before.

"Try closing it?" he called over a shoulder to Dawn. He heard a trio of beeps a moment later and the door closed again; it closed faster than it had opened but it was still a pretty slow descent... So much for dropping the door on the hauler's head.

With the door shut again the hauler went back to pacing, and Unsuur walked over to where Dawn knelt by the reader with a chipped, bright yellow card in hand.

"The door plan isn't going to work and I bet it'll charge when it realizes it has a path to us," he said.

Dawn nodded. "Yeah... Think we could shoot at it from here and blow it apart before it could get to us?"

"Possibly, but I want a look at the room first - I won't go too far in," he added.

Dawn swiped the card again and Unsuur waited as the door rose; the hauler shifted to look at the door once more but still didn't seem inclined to do anything about it - Unsuur felt relatively certain that so long as he didn't stray into its line of sight that he'd be fine to go in.

He was pleased to discover this room was even messier than the previous ones with a lot more furniture all arranged in more purposeful piles - like makeshift barricades. Assuming the hauler didn't try to plow through it immediately all this junk would slow it down a lot, giving him and Dawn more time to shoot at it before they'd need to close in with their melee weapons (and next time if they needed to go into a ruins with a lot of robots in it maybe he should get himself a pickhammer too - Dawn's seemed really effective). For one brief moment he debated asking to use the pickhammer, to keep her out of harm's way, but then that would leave her with just the gun (he still didn't want to put her in that position) with the added difficulty of trying to shoot around him safely -- not the best plan...he was pretty sure he wouldn't attempt it even if it was someone like Justice at his back with a gun. It would need to be both of them shooting or both of them beating on it, just to be safe, so at least this space had a lot of places to shoot from.

He went back to Dawn and was just opening his mouth to tell her about the state of the room when a distant rumble reached them -- this giant ruin was one big echo chamber so Unsuur couldn't tell for sure which direction it had come from. It had at least been too quiet and uniform to be a cave in or anything like that and looking at Dawn's face she didn't seem to know what it was either.

"...could this key have made something happen somewhere else?"

Dawn shook her head. "I don't think so... Typically systems like this are mostly self-contained - you'll have the key for a specific lock or system-" she said, waving the one in her hand, "-which works only for what it was designed for, and then somewhere else there might be a central control unit that would be able to remotely do whatever the key did. A good example is a button or panel that could unlock and open every door in the mall at the same time if there was an emergency."

He nodded - that made sense. "I guess we just continue on and see if we notice anything. And, there's a lot of stuff in the room ahead of us that should slow that hauler down so we might get lucky and shoot it apart before it gets close."

Dawn set the key card down on the floor beside the key box and stuck a hand into the ammo pouch on her belt. "Are you getting low? Do you need any of mine?"

Unsuur roughly patted a hand against his own pouch - hard enough to make the bullets inside jingle. "I'm good. I brought loads extra just in case. If we both target the legs that should slow it down even more, if not stop it completely."

"All right...I'll do my best."

With their guns in hand they slowly moved into the room; Unsuur gestured for Dawn to take up a position behind the long desk but as far on this side of the room as possible -- that would give her a clear view of the incoming hauler while also putting several furniture barricades and a solid desk between it and her. He in turn headed further across the room and just managed to make it behind a barricade that was out of her line of fire when the hauler saw him through the open doorway.

There was a brief moment where it turned to square up to him and heft a storage box up onto its shoulder; before it could start moving toward him Unsuur aimed and fired, emptying his gun into the chest plate. The glass splintered and shattered by the sixth bullet but the trotter inside was still intact and the hauler was now coming for them in a sprint -- he'd hoped that maybe he could drop it before it even got to this room but as he reloaded the hauler shifted the box in front of it to block further bullets from hitting it in the chest.

Luckily that left its legs still in view; he lowered his aim and fired again and once the hauler got through the doorway and into Dawn's view she began shooting as well. Under both their onslaughts the right knee joint was shredded and it stumbled forward, using the storage box to catch itself. With the chest area within his sights again Unsuur unloaded all six shots into the trotter inside, reloaded, and emptied again. The hauler stopped struggling to stand back up and slammed forward into the floor, bent over its storage box and spasming wildly.

Unsuur held up a hand to signal to Dawn to wait a moment and all shooting paused. He watched closely as the hauler kept twitching around for a surprisingly long time before it fell still. After several minutes of silence he walked forward and prodded the robot with his boot, then aimed a kick at its arm to try and rouse it -- nothing. No reaction.

"I think we got it."

"Are there any more?"

He stepped around the hauler and wound his way around the makeshift barricades to look out the doorway, then just as quickly hopped back; there were two more haulers out there. Neither had looked bothered by the noisy fighting - they were looking at something sort of in his direction further off to his right along the wall - but that wasn't enough to convince him that they hadn't seen him (and there was no way they hadn't heard all that gunfire).

Behind him Dawn was leaning on the desk in front of her, watching him with a frown -- it was pretty obvious she knew the answer without him needing to explain but he still held up two silent fingers and she blew out a heavy sigh.

Motioning for her to stay put Unsuur moved through the doorway again but hugged the wall to his right, picking his way along a line of busted sweepers and dropping into a crouch at the edge of the landing to get a look at the area ahead.

The two haulers were still staring off at something along the wall and now Unsuur could spot a lone trotter hovering between them. He couldn't tell what they were looking at from here but aside from those three bots he didn't see any other threats. There was this next walkway ahead that led to yet another big shut door (he was getting tired of having to open all these) but his attention was drawn to a makeshift ramp made up of scrap metal and wood that had been attached to the walkway and led down to where the haulers were...and down there across the room from him next to a normal sized (but closed) door Unsuur spotted a bright green sign with a repeating line of chevrons pointing and floating upward.

That HAD to mean stairs. Or an elevator. Finally.

Now...they just had to get to it.

Unsuur retreated back to Dawn and hopped up on the desk to rest a moment. "There's two haulers and a trotter ahead. I saw a door - a people-sized door - with a sign pointing up so there has to be stairs or an elevator behind it."

"Can we get by them without needing to fight?"

That was a good question... Whatever the robots had been staring at was apparently interesting enough that they'd ignored the gunshots; it was possible that may work in their favor as well if they were quiet...and assuming that the lock on the door buzzing with each incorrect key swipe didn't prompt them to act.

Unsuur absently slid his hand into his ammo pouch-- still plenty in there but he wasn't certain if he could handle two haulers coming at him at the same time even with Dawn's help.

"Maybe," he finally answered. "But this next part might be rough."

She nodded. "I understand..." With a sharp exhale through her nose she went to retrieve the box of cards and dumped the ones that were still left inside out on the desk between her and Unsuur. "Were you able to see the panel from here? Did you see what color it is?"

...whoops. He probably should have taken note of that. Dawn grinned at his slightly embarrassed expression and pulled out the binoculars once more; he took them and moved to where he could get a look at the doors ahead -- that big one had a purple screen and the other one... Huh. That other one looked different - like a tv set with a keyboard only with three slots in it instead of the letter keys. The screen on it was blue so hopefully that meant the keys needed were blue, and hopefully it still needed the type of keys they'd been using.

He retreated back to Dawn and gave her the binoculars back. "The one ahead is purple, the one for the stairs is blue. The blue screen also has slots on a keyboard thing beneath the screen - it looks different than these other panels."

"Slots..." she repeated thoughtfully. "That might be what the other half of these keys are for."

"...other half?"

She nodded and went to retrieve the box of keys, holding up a red one and flipping it around so he could see the back. "The circle-end of this has a bar code the panels are reading but the triangle ends have a solid double strip that's not connected to it."

The key was a uniform red but now that he was looking at it closely he could see the striped barcode on one end and two darker strips - still red, just...darker - along the triangular end's edges.

"That settles the key problem then. Hopefully. We'd still have to deal with those haulers out there though," he said after a moment. "Even if we get by them this time I don't think we'll be able to sneak back out of there without them noticing."

Dawn pointed up to the circular walkway above their heads. "Think we could hit them from up there instead then?"

"...probably. Unless they retreat directly below us, or break the door down to come after us." He paused, then nodded (more to himself than anything). "And if they do then hopefully if it's stairs beyond the door they'll be narrow enough they can only come after us one at a time, and I don't think two of them could fit inside a human-sized elevator at the same time either."

"Sounds like a battle plan," Dawn said, giving him a tired smile and hefting the binoculars. "I want to get a look at that panel myself though - to have a full idea of what we're sneaking toward."

They both tiptoed out together to where Unsuur had been crouched only minutes before; Dawn laid flat on her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows, training the binoculars on the door in the distance. Unsuur leaned as far out as he dared to try and spot what held the haulers attention but still couldn't see much passed the back side of some kind of rectangular panel; it was mounted on the wall with curved metal brackets and stuck out about a foot, blocking his view.

When Dawn scuttled backward and rolled up onto her heels Unsuur stepped back, looking to her curiously; she flashed him a thumbs up and jerked her head back toward the desk, leading the way back where she dropped the binoculars into her backpack.

"These keys should still work...I think."

"All right. If we're going to try sneaking by then we need to ignore the ramp going down and get across to the other side of this room, climb down from there, then hug the wall over to the door. That should give us the best chance without the robots seeing us." He went to grab the box of keys. "I'm going to dump these into my backpack so my hands are free, just in case."

Dawn reached out to grab his hand. "Hang on, let me get out the ones I think we need." He nodded and stepped back, letting her sort through the box; she selected and slipped four blue keys into the front pocket of her overalls and slung her backpack over her shoulders, pausing to adjust the pickhammer in its clip. With the remaining cards safely in his pack Unsuur headed back out through the doorway and started across the walkway, keeping to the left side to put as much distance between himself and the still-distracted haulers. When they were about halfway over he could finally clearly see what the robots were so distracted by: the panel was actually a lit screen that was flashing words and images too quickly for Unsuur to tell what was being displayed.

Huh. Odd to think that robots would want to watch television too like their creators had once upon a time. ...it was probably REALLY boring to be stuck in a ruin for hundreds of years.

He hurried to catch up to Dawn when he realized she'd kept walking while he'd watched the robots and the screen (still no idea what they were watching - he was pretty sure whatever it was had just looped back to the start though). Once safely across Unsuur found a spot where they could easily climb down onto a stack of boxes to reach the ground and from there the walk toward that locked door was a clean, straight line -- no broken robots, no boxes, no garbage, nothing. Just clear, slightly sandy ground from point A to point B. This entire back area was actually pretty clear of debris and the large sand mounds; that almost entirely intact building above their heads had shielded this spot from everything falling from above.

"How do we want to try this?" Dawn asked quietly.

"You head for the door and get it open. I'll watch the robots and let you know if they start coming after us but even if they do don't try to help me until the door's unlocked - that should be our main goal. Ok?"

She nodded; Unsuur slid down onto the top box below, then to the next, then jumped down to clear the last two, only glancing away from the haulers a few times to check where he was putting his feet. Neither the haulers nor the trotter reacted - still too engrossed in the television - so once Dawn had hopped down beside him they made their way over to the door where she took out the first key and slid it into the rightmost slot as Unsuur stepped away to give her room and to keep watch.

The first key didn't cause any beeps or buzzes but nothing else seemed to happen either. Dawn pulled it free and stuck it in the middle slot; immediately a green triangular mark appeared on the panel's screen above that slot. She left it in place and took out the next blue key and put it into the first slot and got another green mark.

"This feels too easy," he heard her whisper as she pulled a third key from her front pocket. She slid it into the slot and this time there was a short beep and a series of clicks as all three keys were ejected from the slots; Dawn scrambled to catch them before they fell to the floor and Unsuur turned his full attention back to the robots - had they heard that beep? It hadn't been very loud so there was a chance that...

...ok, good. The robots still didn't seem to care about anything except their tv show. He glanced back to Dawn in time to watch her slot the two correct keys back into place and stick the last blue key she had into the final slot; a third green mark flashed across the panel briefly before the screen went dark and beside them the door finally slid open. They rushed inside and Dawn slapped the panel on the inside of the door to close it, then leaned back against it with a loud exhale.

"I did not charge enough for this," she laughed after a moment. "If we don't find a core down here I'm going to beat Qi with a rolled up newspaper."

"Still assault, and I still don't want to have to arrest you."

She playfully stuck her tongue out at him and he smiled back at her before giving their immediate surroundings a better look. Up a short set of stairs was some sort of reception area with more of those 3-set seats, chairs behind a desk, and some storage lockers against the back wall. Both he and Dawn let out simultaneous sighs of relief when they got far enough up the steps to see the main stairwell off to the right -- finally. A way to get up to the walkway and glass room.

...hopefully.

They headed up the stairs with Unsuur in the lead; the second floor had two doors - one was blocked off by a pile of lockers and the other had no button or panel or other means of opening it that they could find so they went up to the third floor. This one also had two doors and was more brightly lit than the floors below; the door directly ahead of them from the top step actually opened on its own the moment they reached the landing while the other was also blocked off with a pile of furniture. Beyond the open door was a short hallway with a busted view screen on each side wall and yet another doorway that opened at their approach and as Unsuur crossed over the threshold he heard two loud, alerted beeps and felt his heart jump up into his throat.

Haulers. Right there on top of them.

"Look out!" he shouted, spinning on a heel and grabbing Dawn up in his arms, lunging down the hallway for the safety of the stairwell as a thrown storage container smashed into the door frame where he'd been only seconds before.

Once he'd gotten them out of the hallway he plopped Dawn back on her feet and spun, drawing his revolver as he moved and starting to fire at the lead hauler. The hallway was too cramped for the robot to effectively swing its reclaimed storage box so if he could just hold it in there... As the hauler crossed the midpoint of the hallway the automatic door shut behind it - it would likely only buy them a few extra seconds but there was a small chance they could shoot this one apart and use it as a barricade against the one behind it before the door opened again (they could figure out how to get through there later AFTER they were safe).

He experienced a moment of shock and terror as Dawn shoved by while he reloaded to take up a position in front of him; before he could say anything she dropped down to her knees and he realized what she was doing: now he could easily shoot over her head and she wouldn't have to pick her shots around him in the cramped firing line either. This just might work...

The chest plate shattered under his next barrage and he tightened up his aim to try and blow the trotter pilot inside apart; as it lifted the box into a defensive shield in front of it one of Dawn's shots ricocheted off the moving box and struck the inner shoulder where something popped loudly and began to spray an oily orange fluid everywhere. It kept staggering forward as the door behind it opened and the second hauler shoved its way inside, only to promptly slip in the fluid and land heavily on its backside with a bang Unsuur could feel in his chest.

Suddenly Dawn spun on her knees and lunged up to grab his arm. "STOP! Stop shooting!"

"What? Why?" he asked, staring down at her in bewilderment - they couldn't stop now, the haulers weren't about to stop-

"That's hydraulic fluid and it's very flammable!"

Oh. Uh oh. Unsuur lowered his revolver and looked between the still coming hauler and Dawn desperately.

What do I do...

...he still didn't want to do this but not much of a choice now. He shoved his revolver into Dawn's hands - no time to holster it - and grabbed the pickhammer off her pack, hefting it as he charged to block the doorway with himself. The first hauler had just about reached it so he still had room to bring the hammer end down in a savage arc over his head onto the storage box in its hands, slamming it out of its grip and to the floor; he followed it up with as hard a shove as he could manage to stagger it backwards. It didn't move much but it was enough to slip in its own hydraulic fluid and fall forward onto its knees, somewhat propped up on the storage box. Before it could recover Unsuur brought the pickhammer around and swung upward leading with the pick end to impale the trotter and yank it free from the hauler's insides; he slung it off to the side away from Dawn to crash into a locker and quickly turned back to the empty hauler body in front of him -- it had gone still and was slowly sliding backward off the box in the spreading puddle of hydraulic fluid.

The hauler behind it couldn't seem to get its footing and after a few failed attempts to stand it found itself wedged firmly between the hallway's narrow walls and its own box, unable to free itself.

As the robot beeped and whined angrily at them Unsuur let out a loud breath and carefully lowered the pickhammer head-first onto the floor, resting an arm over the end and looking over to Dawn. She was still holding his revolver and staring in at the remaining robot, and jumped a bit when he touched his fingers to her arm.

"Sorry," she said, offering him his gun back. He in turn handed her the pickhammer and returned the revolver to its holster once he'd reloaded it. "Ok... Ok. How...do we deal with that hauler without setting the hallway on fire..."

"If we do somehow accidentally set it on fire will it explode?"

She shook her head. "Hydraulic fluid isn't explosive but if it goes up in flames it might burn hot enough to melt the doors shut, or trigger some kind of fire suppressant system -- there's no way to tell if something like that is still functioning until it's been set off and for all we know it could seal the doors if it detects a fire."

"And either of those would keep us from getting through here," he said quietly, rubbing at his chin.

"My pickhammer could probably smash the doors down but that'll take a lot of time and effort...we COULD go back to the surface to get a cutting torch if need be but, again, that would take time," Dawn went on. "It's best to just not need to do any of that."

With a nod Unsuur moved back into the doorway and climbed up on the discarded storage box in front of the hauler he'd destroyed; the one beyond it tried to grab at him but was still solidly wedged in place with its legs and right arm trapped, leaving only the left arm as a danger but a limited one - because of how it was laying on its side and where the box was stuck it couldn't reliably swing its free arm down toward its legs. "Can I see your pickhammer again?"

Once he had it in hand he carefully stepped from the box onto the top of the busted hauler and shifted down to balance on the legs. The stuck hauler tried to swipe at him again but clanged its elbow into the storage box, halting the limb and leaving several feet of relatively safe space between its fist and Unsuur; he took note of its range and gingerly hopped from the broken hauler's legs onto the other hauler's box and raised the pickhammer over his shoulder, taking aim at the robot's arm. The box shuddered under him as the robot attacked again, and a second time, then a third, and then he was sure of where he needed to swing and when so on the hauler's fourth attempt to hit him Unsuur brought the pick end of the pickhammer down and struck the elbow joint right in the center as he'd planned. The limb buckled under the blow and when the robot yanked its arm back the joint pulled apart (though not immediately and Unsuur almost lost his footing - behind him Dawn gasped loudly and he felt a little guilty making her worry like that) which left the fist and forearm stuck to the end of the pickhammer and leaving the robot with only a stump to wave around.

Unsuur dropped the arm into the space between the two haulers and came back over to Dawn. "It can't reach us now and it's still pretty stuck. We should be able to climb over them both and won't even have to worry about getting that fluid stuff on our boots either."

Dawn giggled at that, even if she looked a little nervous at the thought. "That's for the best as hydraulic fluid can be the most slippery thing you've ever touched in your life -- it's also really annoying to try and get it out of your clothing."

Unsuur offered her a hand up onto the first storage box. "Does that mean you've tried?"

She waited until she had stepped over onto the first hauler before answering. "-sort of. I've had to help wash the cleaning rags in class and sometimes it takes several treatments to get it fully out."

"What kind of treatments?" he asked as he climbed up after her.

"A lot of soaking and washing with oil-removing soaps, and so, so much rinsing. -- ooh, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think I could get it out of my clothes here if I wanted to. It takes a lot of water that Sandrock doesn't have to spare," she added after a moment. "If we get any of this stuff on us in any quantity bigger than a little splash we'll probably have to throw away whatever it got on."

Unsuur eyed the orange fluid underneath them; he'd already gotten rid of a jacket full of cactus prickles, he really didn't want to have to throw away a second one because it got covered in oily gunk.

The still active hauler beeped and flicked its stumpy arm around as they clambered over but it remained definitely stuck and, when the door sensors recognized they were there and opened, they were able to jump from the hauler to the room beyond without having to touch the hydraulic fluid puddle. Getting back out of here was going to be an issue but they could work that out later.

The next room was surprisingly pristine -- there was no sand, dirt, or even much dust around, the screens and signs were all intact and still lit, and everything still looked freshly painted. There was a normal sized door ahead of them and a large one to the right up another short set of stairs; Dawn quickly found the correct red-colored key and carefully checked through the smaller door -- there were some ancient meal packets and cans of drink, and a line of some kind of food-related machines mounted on the wall above a long counter. Dawn poked at them briefly but couldn't get any of them to activate so whether they heated up food or cooled it down would remain a mystery.

That just left the large door. Instead of sliding up into the wall like the others had this one split in half with the top half going up and the bottom slipping down into the floor with a separate flat sheet slipping out horizontally to seal up the gap. Beyond it was that upper walkway they'd been trying to reach and there, in the distance, was the circular room.

"Finally," Dawn sighed beside him. "I hope this was all worth it."

He nodded and stepped out onto the walkway; a quick peek over the left side showed those haulers and trotter still watching tv. To either side of them were still intact storefronts and office buildings - some still had their signs advertising what company occupied the space and there were some lights on behind dirt-encrusted windows. Every so often a shadow would cross in front of the windows indicating there were robots inside those buildings too but there was no way to get over to them from this central walkway, and not just because the place had been wrecked; there just wasn't any hint that there'd ever been connecting paths from this middle area out to the sides.

The path changed from a straight lane to a circular one, with evenly spaced seats along the railings, and as they made it halfway around the circle suddenly a loud crackling blared out from unseen speakers; both he and Dawn jumped and froze in place as something simultaneously flared to life over the top of the circular room ahead.

"Is...is that a robot, fighting a monster?" Dawn asked, sounding every bit as confused as Unsuur felt as they stared up at the projected image of an armored robot punching some kind of giant, angry fish.

"It sure looks like it. Did the Old World even have monsters?" he asked in turn. The images kept looping the same five seconds over and over and were accompanied by crusty, metallic-sounding audio of a crowd cheering but it sounded like it was being played through a tin can.

Dawn shrugged, still staring up at the projection as she started walking forward again. The cylindrical room ahead had a set of double doors that opened as they approached and they both came to an abrupt halt as an enormous robot was revealed beyond the doors.

It was painted blue with yellow stripes and designed to look like a giant cat's head with its eyes glowing a bright blue and the mouth a warm gold. It was beeping softly and spinning counter-clockwise which brought one of its extended arms into view; three large glass tubes, similar to Old World light bulbs he'd seen before, were mounted between two thick metal discs, rotating forward and with wild arcs of electricity dancing along the tubes.

Beside him Dawn winced as she noticed the electricity. "That's not good... But unfortunately, that thing probably has our core inside it."

"So...no shooting it, then?" It didn't seem hostile or even able to attack them so he wasn't inclined to shoot it just yet anyway.

She laughed quietly and slipped her backpack off, dropping it at her feet. "No shooting - at least, not yet. I don't think this thing is a real AI, or if it is it's not working correctly. We should try to shut it off first."

With that she walked forward and stopped right at the edge of the doorway, leaning first to the left then the right to try and see around the giant cat-bot without putting herself in harm's way. Unsuur moved up to join her in time for one of the spinning arms to pass by and felt every hair on his body stand up in the presence of that much electricity -- a shock from this thing would likely kill them. "Can we do that safely?"

"I can see some control consoles -- I'll go check them and see what they're for."

He caught her by the arm as she went to step inside the room. "Wait, you're just going to walk in there?"

"When the arm goes by, yeah -- and besides, see how they can't reach the outer wall?" She pointed as she spoke and he could see that she was correct - the electrified arms weren't wide enough to sweep the entire width of the room. "So long as I hug the wall I'll be fine. All I really need to worry about is building up static and frying the circuitry."

"Should I come too?"

"I...guess? I don't think this thing is going to attack."

He nodded and slipped his backpack and sword off too, then waited for the next arm to pass by before heading into the room behind Dawn. They didn't need to worry about being against the wall until the arm was about to pass them so they hurried to the first console they could see set against the wall and Dawn began looking it over.

"That arm is getting close," Unsuur warned after a few minutes.

"I know, I- aha, I think this is it!" Dawn replied as she flicked a switch which lit a red button that she then pressed before pushing herself flat against the wall.

Unsuur put his back to the wall and tried to make himself as small as possible as the end of the arm rumbled by; once again all his hair stood on end and once it passed he dared to turn his head toward Dawn. "Did it do anything?"

"I...guess not. Let's see what else we find in here," came the answer. She pushed off from the wall and hurried after the arm with Unsuur on her heels, walking along the edge of the room until they came across a similar looking console that was set against the big glass windows they'd been able to see from the entrance of the ruins. It took two passes of the arms before she relented and popped a front panel off the console to reach inside and yank a plug loose. There was a rumble and a few cheerful-sounding chimes before a robotic voice issued from the console:

"ERROR: MAINTENANCE REQUIRED. SWITCHING TO BACK-UP POWER."

"What? No! Just turn off!" Dawn growled, throwing the length of wire in her hand into the ground with a huff and hurrying to get out of the way of the arm as it came around again.

The robo-cat thing was at least turning more slowly but was just as sparky and dangerous. Dawn pulled a few more things lose to no effect then followed in the arm's wake again until the next console where she immediately yanked the front of it open and began unplugging everything she could reach.

With every disconnected wire the console blared an "ERROR, ERROR" warning until finally Dawn was out of wires and the robot ground to a halt; most of its lights went out, including some of the overhead lights in the room, but the arms remained electrified. It had come to a stop with its back to them, revealing three hatches that looked removable, and Unsuur hoped that the arms weren't also running a current through the body so they could yank those hatches open without worrying about being electrocuted.

The robot had also stopped in such a way as to leave the way back out of this room open; Dawn went to retrieve her pickhammer from beside her pack then went to examine the hatches. Standing a safe distance away she lightly tossed the pickhammer at the left-most hatch -- it bounced off then clattered to the ground unharmed a few seconds later.

"No spark - should be safe," she said, smiling at him from over her shoulder.

He watched as she squared up to the hatch before swinging the pickhammer with just enough force to wedge the pick into the corner of the hatch; she then shoved forward with all her strength to pop the corner out and slid the pick further in for better leverage and then on the next big push the hatch popped loose and crashed to the floor. Now with an opening to the robot's guts Dawn leaned the pickhammer beside the hatch and crawled up and inside.

Unsuur had just stepped up to the opening when Dawn came out again, shaking her head.

"Not that one. Let me try one of the others."

She repeated her pick-and-pop-open steps on the middle hatch and once more climbed inside to have a look around. This time she only stuck her head out, looking over to him.

"Could you go grab my backpack please? I can see the core from here but there's a lot of stuff between me and it that I'll need to take apart to get out of my way and I've got the wrong sized wrenches on my belt."

He dutifully retrieved the pack and brought it to the hatch; Dawn squatted on her heels and began removing stored tools from within it, along with the lantern. She clicked it on and shoved it between a few wires to hold it in place, pointed inward, then climbed back inside the robot and began carefully crawling between the wires, tubing, struts, and more, beyond which Unsuur could see the mechanical parts for movement too -- cogs and pistons and a few compact engines all hooked up together to one giant, flat plate that had all the computer-type bits that ran the robot screwed to it.

Once she reached a point where even she was too big to fit between the parts she began to meticulously disassemble everything, letting the parts drop to the floor as she finished with them. There was one particular length of tubing that she paused and studied for several minutes - almost like she was unsure about what it was or if she could remove it, but it ran completely across her path to the power core. She seemed to steel herself for a breath before extending out a wrench to loosen the end she could reach then stopped as a familiar looking orange fluid began to leak.

"Damn it..." she swore softly. "I'm going to have to find the pressure release for this before I can-"

She was interrupted by the tube's end suddenly blasting off the loosened connector; a spray of hydraulic fluid exploded forth, along with a string of colorful cursing from Dawn as well as she took the spray to the right shoulder and down her side.

"Are you all right?" Unsuur called in after her. He wanted to crawl in after her but he didn't know what that would accomplish exactly, and there were also a few spots he was certain he'd be too large to slip through.

"Yes," came the snarled reply. "Damn it... I should have just- TRUSTED myself," she yelled a moment later, banging the wrench in hand angrily against a metal strut beside her. After a few deep breaths she untangled the hydraulic line and shoved it out of her way. "--the hose was labelled for coolant but I knew, I KNEW, by looking at where it was connected, that it couldn't have been coolant, but I decided to trust the label anyway and-- ugh! Damn it!"

She continued swearing to herself as she wiggled her way through and got in at that plate with the computer stuff on it; she loosened a few things and pulled something from their midst that she shoved into a pocket, then finally she started worming her way back out boots-first. When she slipped - literally - back out of the hatch she stopped to look herself over, frowning heavily at her soaked shirt and stained overalls.

"Will this stuff hurt your skin?" Unsuur asked.

"It'll irritate it, yeah," she growled, gently plucking at her shirt to pull it away from her shoulder. "The overalls are thick enough that I don't think it soaked through but I need to get home ASAP so I can get this shirt off me. Of all days to not pack an extra one..."

"You could take the shirt off now?" he asked, before considering what he was saying. At Dawn's sudden blushing he hurried to clarify what he meant, since he actually hadn't been thinking about her shirtless (he was NOW, but that's not what...) "I mean, I can give you my jacket to wear if getting that stuff off you right now will keep it from hurting you. Would it?"

"It...would, yes," Dawn replied slowly. "But I wouldn't want to get any on your jacket on accident either."

"It's ok if you do. I'd rather lose the jacket than have you burned or whatever it is that hydraulic fluid does to skin. I'll take my jacket off and turn around."

"A-all right..."

Unsuur went to turn around as promised and paused at a distant rumble - it sounded like the one they'd heard not too long ago; he was able to make it over to the window overlooking the ruins below while still keeping his back to Dawn and rubbed a small area clean with the side of his hand. Peering through he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary -- he could see the elevator tracks clearly from here and they still looked intact so at least their way out was still there.

"Shirt's, um, shirt's...off," came Dawn's voice from behind him.

"Sorry - got distracted," he said in a rush, fumbling to unzip his jacket and pull it off. He draped it across his arm and held his arm out at his side; the jacket slid free and a moment later he heard the zipper working.

"You can turn around now."

He did and felt a rush of heat as he took in the sight of her with his jacket on; it was big on her, she was in process of rolling the sleeves up a few more times with her discarded shirt in a sodden heap at her feet, but...she looked good in it. Real good. Amazing, even.

He quickly tore his gaze away and stared back toward the window. "Um. Did we find what we came for?"

"Yeah. We can finally get out of here...somehow," she grumbled. "Let's check where that other door in here goes and see if it'll get us back down to the ground level...I really don't want to go back the way we came."

"Me neither," he agreed.

They collected their backpacks and with a little trial and error on the consoles Dawn got the door open; another narrow hallway greeted them beyond the door, far longer than the one they'd been attacked in but this one was dimly lit and blessedly quiet, and it eventually spat them out at what looked like a maintenance stairwell that brought them down to a floor just below where they needed to go but they were able to hoist themselves up and crawl through an opening in the wall to get back to an area near the suspected graveyard.

"Oh thank Peach - let's get the heck out of here," Dawn sighed, hurrying for the elevator platform.

On the ride back up the surface they heard more rumbling - louder and more frequent - and it wasn't until they were above the hazy dirt cloud that a wet scent reached them:

They were hearing thunder. It was raining. And once the elevator reached the top they could see it was coming down pretty hard too.

He glanced over to Dawn and stopped, riveted by the look of surprise and then delight on her face as she looked out at the water lashing the rickety bridge that led toward home.

She noticed him staring out of the corner of her eye and her face flushed again.

"W-what? Did I miss some fluid?" she asked, reaching up to touch her face.

"No, you're-" Don't say something stupid. "-the jacket looks good on you." Crap. "We should get you one, since you're part of the Civil Corps now." Better. Also, technically true.

"Unofficially," she replied with a smile, quickly glancing down at her boots. "I'm not really a member."

"You still look good in the jacket."

"Thanks...that's really sweet of you." She lifted her gaze after a few breaths, fingers playing along the edge of a rolled sleeve. "Any plans on what you'll do once we finally get home?"

"Not really. I doubt Justice will expect me to still patrol today after a ruins dive," he answered. She opened her mouth to speak and then flinched at a particularly loud crack of thunder. Unsuur looked out across the bridge and then back to her. "-I think we should wait for this to blow over first before we try heading home."

"Right," she said, with a short laugh. "It'd be dumb to survive the ruins and then get washed over the side."

Though the wind wasn't blowing directly into the entrance there was still a fair amount of moisture reaching them; they retreated back toward the elevator and sat down along the wall beside it to try keeping as dry as they could. They hadn't been sitting for too long before Dawn suddenly scooted over and leaned her head against his arm.

"Thank you for helping me with this," she said softly. "The defense lessons we got in school didn't really prepare me for how dangerous this sort of thing could get... This would have been impossible without your help. Again." She paused then laughed quietly. "Sorry I keep dragging you into these things."

"You're not dragging me anywhere. I like y- spending time with you, even if its down in a ruin," he replied. "If you need me I'll be there." Should he...? ...yeah. He was going to. Carefully he shifted his arm back and slipped it around her; his heart started pounding against his ribs when she scooted over the last few inches between them and put her head against his shoulder.

As he adjusted his arm a bit his fingers brushed against his jacket pocket; he couldn't decide if it was lucky he hadn't brought the heart stone - he could have lost it, or she might have found it accidentally on her own - or if he should have brought it anyway, because right now...

Since they'd heard the thunder while down in the ruins the storm had obviously been going for awhile before they'd come back up to the surface; it felt like it didn't take any time at all for it to pass and once the sun was out the bridge rapidly dried off (and oh boy did the humidity immediately set in as well - that also wouldn't last very long but while it was here, whew...). Dawn hadn't budged while they'd quietly enjoyed the rain but once it was clear and dry she stirred and sat up to quietly shuffle on her knees over to retrieve her backpack from where they'd left them.

"I guess we can head back...or, should. Qi is going to want this core as soon as possible and I'm going to need time to mentally prepare for whatever he designs," she said, tone growing steadily more annoyed. "This better not get me in trouble with the church or something."

Unsuur grabbed his things and walked with her across the bridge and up all the ramps; the ground underneath the Paradise Lost entrance was one large puddle and he grimaced a bit at the squelch of mud under his boots, knowing that at least a little bit of it had gone up over the top as he felt a wet spot against the back of his ankle. Dawn didn't seem bothered by the water or mud and plodded onward, stopping only to knock the worst of the clinging muck off against a pile of metal scrap that was now jutting out of the ground beside the salvage office.

They slipped a few times each going down the hill to Dawn's workshop but made it to her doorstep where Unsuur didn't move to follow her once the door was open; Dawn walked a few steps in then realized he wasn't behind her and turned around.

"You can come in, if you like. It won't take me long to change into a clean shirt so you can have your jacket back."

Unsuur glanced down at his extremely muddy boots. "I don't want to mess up the floor." She silently raised an eyebrow at him then pointedly looked from him down to her own muddy footprints trailing across the room. "...you have a point." He stepped through the doorway but didn't go more than a few feet inside; it was cooler and less humid in here and while he waited he pulled his canteen out of his backpack and finished off what was left in it.

Dawn did remove her boots before getting near her bed, leaving them and her backpack sitting at the edge of the kitchen area and after retrieving a shirt from the little dresser disappeared into the bathroom. As she'd said it didn't take long before she was back out with a clean shirt on and the straps of her coveralls hanging loose around her waist and the front flap hanging down over her thighs. In one hand she had his jacket and in the other was the power core that she sat on the kitchen table before holding his jacket out to him shyly.

"I have something I um...wanted to show you, but it's not quite finished. I should be able to get it done in an hour or two, if you don't mind coming back or meeting somewhere later?"

"I won't mind at all. What time is it now?"

Dawn moved a hand toward one of her pockets and paused, then moved to her backpack and rooted around until she found her pocket watch. "-it's almost 5."

Wow. They'd been down there awhile. "Should I come back around 7 then? I can bring you dinner, like usual."

"Um... Why don't we...plan to go get dinner? W-we at least deserve some drinks after today," she added, hiding a giggle behind a hand -- he was also sure she was hiding a creep of red to her face.

"Sounds good to me. I'll be back around 7."

She retrieved her boots and carried them to the door, dropping them just outside as Unsuur headed out; a quick glance over his shoulder got him a small wave and a smile, which he returned, then he headed down the tracks along the oasis to head home. Once he was back inside he dumped his pack, boots, muddy socks, and broken sword just inside the door and held his jacket up to his face; it smelled a little oily though he didn't see any obvious stains. It also smelled sweaty - like him, and now like Dawn he supposed. He carefully laid it out on the table with it spread as open as possible, to give it the best chance to air out (body odor didn't really bother him but he wanted to see if the oil scent would fade).

What to do for the next two hours... His legs hurt where the hauler had hit him and a quick check of his chest revealed some minor scrapes and a bruise across his sternum so he headed to the bathroom to clean the scrapes; though he really wanted a shower (or to soak in a tub, even - but, not while the bridge was out and every drop of water mattered) he settled for filling a little wash bin with hot water and steadily scrubbing himself down with a cloth and soap. Once suitably clean he headed over to lay on his bed on top of the coverlet, wincing a bit as aches made themselves known but didn't get to lay there long before an insistent scratching at the door had him heading over to let Captain inside.

"Anything to report?" he asked as the cat sauntered in passed his legs. Captain ignored him and hopped up on the table to begin sniffing at the jacket and Unsuur went to pick him up. "Sorry, Captain - not actually sure if there's hydraulic fluid on there or not. I don't want you getting sick."

THAT got him a loud yowl of protest as he carried the cat over to the bed and plopped him down on the pillow before scooting around the foot of the bed to get a clean shirt and jacket out of his closet. "Here - you can lay on this one if you want," he said as he tossed the jacket near the pillows before stretching out on his stomach across the middle of the bed with his legs hanging off one side and his arms off the other, shirt dangling loosely from one hand. Laying like this wasn't entirely comfortable with the scrapes on his chest but the discomfort was offset by how good it felt to stretch his back and legs out; he felt a little like a cat himself as he stretched as much as he could, thrusting his hands toward the door and pointing his toes - no wonder Captain liked doing this every time he woke up from a nap.

Speaking of Captain, when Unsuur looked up from his stretch the cat had disappeared off the pillow and he was disappointed to spot him back over on the table sniffing at his dirty jacket.

Again he got up and grabbed the cat but this time carried him to the door and set him outside on the doorstep. "Sorry Captain - visitation privileges are revoked. It's for your own good."

He closed the door (Captain was meowing and scratching but he'd give up sooner or later) and finally pulled his shirt on before looking down at his boots and socks - should probably get as much mud off them as he could and put all his supplies away too. When he was done cleaning and putting everything away (what could he do with these remaining plastic keys? At least there were only a few left - he put them in a small pile on his counter) he still had a half hour before he was due back at Dawn's so might as well go get a new canteen while he was thinking about it.

The new jacket had an uncomfortably stiff collar so he decided to go without; after making sure Captain wasn't outside trying to sneak in Unsuur headed out and jogged over to By the Stairs. Arvio was outside and seemed to be taking inventory of some floral-scented sachets overflowing out of a box on the main counter and Unsuur concluded it really had been awhile since he'd gone out without his jacket on as Arvio did a quick double take as he walked up.

"Oh, Unsuur - hello! Almost didn't recognize you there. Enjoying a day off?"

"Dawn and I spent the day down in Paradise Lost, looking for some power core thing for Qi."

The man seemed to cycle through a few fleeting emotions - surprise, concern, and jealousy perhaps? - before he recovered and plastered his usual 'charming salesman' smile across his face. "A-ah, I see. No one was hurt, I hope?"

"Nope, we're both fine. I need a new canteen though."

"Well, I have a small but splendid selection of those - have a look," Arvio replied with a flourish, indicating the middle section of a nearby shelf.

There was a neat line of canteens - six across, two deep - on the shelf; the water-container part of them were all the same dull green metal but they were set into colorfully decorated leather cases, and out of the twelve there Unsuur counted eight different patterns. He examined each and settled on one that looked like a rocky horizon caught between sunrise and night: there was a stylized line of mountains colored in silvery tones beneath a navy blue and star-speckled sky on one side that gradually blended into a gradient of purple, red, orange, and a tiny hint of a yellow sun on the other, and above and below the image was a thin red border that had a repeating pattern of tiny green cacti. It was way fancier than his old canteen - fancier than it needed to be - but he liked how it looked; he paid for it and carried it home, admiring the artwork and trying not to think about how all the colors would eventually wear away with use.

...that had taken about twenty minutes, so ten more minutes to go. He may as well make his way over there. He put the canteen on his bed and retrieved the stone heart from where it had been sitting beside Wilson.

"I hope you both had a nice day. And, sorry that my pants pockets are tighter than my jacket," Unsuur said as he slipped the heart into his back pocket. "I'll put my jacket on again tomorrow morning like usual."

All right...back to Dawn's. He wondered what she had to show him.

Her yard was still and silent so he went directly to the door; she answered almost immediately after he knocked - like she'd been at the door waiting - and invited him in with a shy smile, and once he'd stepped inside and she was no longer partially hidden by the door he realized the overalls and work shirt had been replaced with a pale blue sundress that hung to her calves and left her shoulders bare.

Uh oh... I'm in trouble.

"...hey," he said simply. It was all he could think of to say.

"Hey," she repeated softly, looking him up and down. "I didn't ruin your jacket, did I?"

"Nope." He dragged his attention away from bare skin, focusing ahead on the kitchen table - the core wasn't sitting there anymore; she must have taken it to Qi already. In its place was a wooden box, small enough to sit in the palm of his hand, and then Dawn moved back into his view as she walked over to flip the top of the box open and take something out of it.

Unsuur caught a whiff of leather as she walked back over; she looked...uncertain, and her hands shook a little bit as she held something out to him.

He took it from her and looked it over; a newly cut, oiled, and stitched leather band connected to a...beautifully woven...heart-

Heart knot. It's a heart knot. Made out of gold and silver wire.

"I know it's not...the usual kind, but-" Dawn started, voice steadily growing quieter with each word, "but I- Arvio, he... He had one he was willing to give me but not one he was willing to sell, and- I-I mean, surely metal and um, and leather would hold up b-better anyway, and..."

Unsuur almost dropped it twice as he tried to fumble it onto his wrist; Dawn reached out to help curl the band and hold it in place as he got the end threaded through the buckle and the buckle's tongue through one of the holes. Once he'd slipped the loose end of the band into the securing loops behind the buckle he jammed a hand into his back pocket and produced the heart stone.

Her eyes went wide as he offered it to her; as she gingerly took it she began to giggle -- it was soft at first, then grew in volume and force until she was laughing outright.

"We do make a pair, don't we?" she managed in between the laughter.

"Arvio lied and wouldn't sell me one either," Unsuur said in a rush. "But that's ok because now we both have something special." Impulsively he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, lifting his chin to rest it atop her head; he could feel the stone heart pressing in against his back where she held it in one hand as she squeezed herself against him.

At her touch something inside him released - it was the most exquisite rush of relief and giddiness he'd ever felt in his life, like a dam inside his head had bust open. No more doubting himself, no more waiting, no more wondering. He let out a contented sigh and felt Dawn stir in his arms; glancing down he found her looking up at him quizzically.

"Something the matter?"

"No -- it's just, I've never really had a crush like this before. It was confusing, I know I was overthinking a lot of things, and I was trying to not let it to get to me, waiting on our date to finally happen. A few times I nearly slipped up, you almost caught me once, and I've basically acted like a total idiot for no reason. And, even though I know we had a date planned I still worried something would happen again and the day wouldn't ever come. That's why I've been carrying that heart around with me just in case the right moment presented itself. Good thing I did, huh?" he added after a moment.

She opened her mouth and paused, then leaned back from him so she could lightly jab a finger into his chest. "I KNEW that had to have been you leaving those letters!"

"Yeah, that was me. What would you have done if you'd actually caught me that night?"

"Probably, um...this, just... I wouldn't have had the knot ready. But! I would have gotten it done as soon as I could!"

Unsuur lifted his arm from her back to admire the shine of the wire. "It's really great- wait a moment." Something about the shape struck him...stirred a memory. "That day I saw your sketchbook, was that...?"

She nodded then hid her face against his chest, voice muffled. "Yep... I wasn't expecting you to show up and didn't even think-- not until you said something about it anyway, then I realized it was right there in full view."

"I didn't know what I was looking at, don't worry. I was trying to not look at you."

"Hmm, I didn't realize my pajamas were so scandalous," she teased, tilting her head back to grin up at him, her cheeks going pink.

"Not really scandalous but definitely distracting. A girl who likes rocks, art, is smart and really pretty too? That's a perfect storm, only way less destructive than an actual storm."

She snorted and started laughing again. "I'd hold off on the destructive opinion until you've seen me fully dismantle something."

"Did that robot cat not count?"

Once more she hid her face against him. "Oh Peach, don't even remind me of that... I'm going to have to burn those overalls too, they're a lost cause." A few seconds passed before she placed her hands on his chest and gently stepped away. "Ready to head to the saloon?"

"I'll go anywhere you want, for any reason. Food is a good reason though."

Giggling Dawn moved over to her bed and retrieved a pair of plain tan canvas shoes that were slipped just underneath the edge and pulled them on; he was expecting her to meet him at the door but instead she went to the bookshelf with her rocks again and gently leaned the stone heart against the large rainbow quartz chunk, looking back at him with a smile.

"I think I'll make a wire cage for it so I can wear it but for right now I'll keep it right here."

It looked nice on the shelf but it'd look great as a necklace or something (and then everyone would be able to see it too and know).

They headed out the door and as they passed through the gate Unsuur reached over to twine his fingers with hers. "Since it's rained the desert is going to start blooming really soon - would you like to go for a walk tomorrow afternoon to see it? I know you'll probably be busy with a robot so it's ok if you don't have time but you might need a break by then anyway."

"I would love to," she answered, smiling up at him. "And I will MAKE time for it."

There were a lot of eyes on them when they walked into the saloon: Unsuur saw Owen give him a sly wink; Mi-an practically vibrated in place and dragged Elsie away before the other girl had a chance to open her mouth; Arvio and Amirah came in, spotted them, and Arvio left just as quickly - abandoning an annoyed looking Amirah who moved over to go sit with Elsie and Mi-an; Justice was grinning at him from where he sat at the bar; and, strangely, Pen seemed to be staring them down as he picked up a pair of packed bags from Grace at the counter -- the man lingered there for a unusually long time eying them, wearing an expression that Unsuur couldn't read (he found himself glad Dawn was sitting with her back to the counter) until finally his usual smirk found its way back on his face and he swept out the door with his hefty order.

Whatever that had been was...well, it was odd.

Their food came out quickly as Cooper and Hugo were setting up on the stage so there wasn't a lot of time to chat between eating and the music starting; Dawn did shift around to sit beside him in the booth once they'd finished their dinners and Unsuur happily put his arm around her again, feeling a little thrill of excitement shoot through him as he realized he'd be able to do this without feeling weird -- maybe even any time he wanted to. And hold her hand, and spend time with her, and compare rock collections, and...

Tomorrow was going to be a great day and he still had that perfect date planned and coming up too.

Best. Day. Ever.

#Heart of Stone #HoS #Heart of Stone - ch 13 #mtas unsuur #mtas arvio #mtas captain #my time at sandrock

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