Inferno Ascended

"WHOA! A human! I knew I was going to find humans here. "

"You're not the first one who thinks you can solve the problem out there, Aegeon," the man said, lowering the gun just a little. He came out of the shadows. "Who knows, you are the smartest of them. You don't look like an Echelian. " He exclaimed as he came closer.

"Long story. You also don't look like a typical echelian." Glax grunted, looking up again at the red-haired man. He looked familiar, his hair cut short, but it didn't matter now. "If you have a safe hiding place here, can you help me with my friend? Fresh water would make a big difference. I have to go out and find the others. "

"I don't want my shelter and family exposed by you Aegeons. It almost happened when I made the mistake of trusting you noble warriors."

"Sheesh. Don't be stupid. How long do you think you'll be able to stay hidden here? Eventually all of your supply will run out. Someone in your family is going to get hurt and get sick and you have no way to help. Or worse."

"Wow, Master, how can you predict all of this?" Alexander wondered aloud.

"You have no idea how popular zombie movies are where I come from." He grunted almost to himself, and then in a louder voice, continued. "What I want to say to him, Alekos, is that it might be worse to have to act in a moment of despair. Keep hiding in this town isn't going to lead to anything."

The red-haired man was silent and then turned away. "If you want to bring him to lie down for a while, he can stay here for now. But don't think about making my home your HQ. And the quieter it gets, the better."

Glax carried Alexandre down the stairs, and they arrived at a warehouse turned bunker. They had a huge storage in the basement, to keep things for the grocery they had on the street level floor. Glax was wrong about supplies running out so soon, at least for them. 

There were seven adults and three children between 4 and 12 years old, not counting the red-haired man. Everyone was very kind to Alexander, and the young man was able to lie down on a bed and the women checked his wound. They also gave him food and water. 

Everyone spoke quietly, but while Alexander told what had happened outside, the man called Glax to talk elsewhere.

This time they went up the stairs to the upper floor. The redhead went to a window that had a crack. He had positioned a spyglass there, to help spy.

"You have a lot of technology here." Glax commented. There was a door with locks like the ones he found on the bottom door, and he guessed that there were even more interesting things inside.

"And I heard shots. Many shots," the guy replied, while he spied through the spyglass.

"Wasn't it a good idea?"

"Indeed. They finally stopped being stubborn. If I believed in the law of the sword, I would have already died. And the people with me, too, long ago."

"Your shotgun is different. It's awesome!" Glax praised. He had seen _ and used_ this style before. In Medon's pit.

"Yes, much better than the crap you're using." That said, the man began to show the details of his rifle, compared to the inexpensive serial pistol model Glax had.

"You did a good job customizing it."

"In fact, I created it from scratch, based on an original Pandora's model."

Glax had some suspicions about why that man stayed after the factory stopped making firearms. In addition, he wouldn't have been more than 30 years old, he must have been very young when the Sanction took effect.

"Why did you stay in the city when the factory closed? Were you an engineer there?"

"What's your name, Lord Kroton?"

"Glax, and yours?"

"Thersos. Did what I said to one of your companions, called Eukrates, get anywhere? Or did he never get out of here?"

"I think it's the second option, buddy. Tell me what you know. You seem to be one step ahead of everyone here. Do you know how it started?"

"Hm. Pity. Yeah, I think I'll have to tell it once again to an Aegean. So I'm going to tell you the most bizarre thing you've ever heard in hell. And don't judge me, since you are a nobleman and would never go through what I went through."

"Hey guy, as you said, we're in hell. I've heard a lot of bizarre things. Surprise me." 

Thereses measured Glax once again, and leaned on a wall, with a long sigh.

"The arms factory ... never stopped producing weapons. It just didn't produce them for the Echelian army. The production of other items was official. But part of the factory was still operating clandestinely..."

Glax was already suspicious of that. "And those responsible had an effervescent black market to feed… Small barons full of powers distributed the smuggled goods at strategic points… like Stapolis," he guessed aloud.

Thersos blinked, surprised, but composed himself fast. "That part doesn't matter. What matters is that, some time ago, a strange man arrived in the city, coming from the east. He said his name was Sarpedon. It didn't take long for him to speak to Megas, the head of 'our' part of the factory."

"'Our part?'"

"I was just a 'help'. In fact, unofficially a slave to Megas. But this is only relevant because it justifies what I did. And I don't regret it."

'Hm, tell me whatever you want.' Glax nodded in agreement, hiding his inner thoughts with a poker face. "This man is an important part of this, I suppose."

"He had money. And he made a deal with Megas. He said he needed some machines, iron, and the big foundry. He would pay for everything, but his project needed to be a priority. He settled on the other side of the hill, in a large house. Megas knew he would make more money from this than from the weapons he smuggled, and he quickly agreed. Megas bribed everyone he needed to bribe, so that Sarpedon's big project would not be discovered or interrupted. Basically, he now worked for Sarpedon. And consequently, so are we."

Glax still couldn't guess Sarpedon's motivations, although Megas's were very clear.

Thersos continued,

"We built specific machines for him. Nothing was too expensive for him. Everything that was necessary, he didn't question values, he just made Megas bring or manufacture it. He had complex drawings he showed to the chief engineer. The mine extracted ore practically just for his project."

"And nobody noticed?"

"Every time an imperial or clan inspector came, accidents happened, if you know what I mean." Thersos shrugged. 

Glax had already understood that Megas was an unscrupulous bastard, more or less like Medon.

"I soon realized what he intended to do. A giant statue. But not just a giant statue, but a giant machine in the shape of a woman."

"And did you discover the reason for this?"

"The reason? No, never. But I discovered many other things. In fact, even Megas didn't trust Sarpedon. He was afraid of the sorcerer."

"Wait. You didn't tell me he was a sorcerer. "

"We were uneasy when we found out that he didn't want to create cannons for a ship, but a damn giant statue. Megas finally understood that it would be impossible to keep it a secret any longer."

"He was wrong, since nobody out here knows anything about it up to this day."

"Are you going to let me tell you, or what?"

"Go on. What did Megas do? "

"He was a necromancer! A Pharys necromancer! We went to spy on him, in his house on the hill. We found horrible things there. And we even found a dead man, I mean, one of Valya's revenants."

His curiosity about Valya only increased and now Glax understood why his old self so wanted to read the reports about the distant realm where he was born. Necromancers and revenants... Even in hell it was taboo.

"Finally, what did you do?"

"I told Megas what we found out. Megas didn't like it at all. But he had no way of going back. In any case, my Promethean colleagues were not happy. They didn't want to work for Sarpedon, now that they knew that behind him, there was a vselys. They not only decided to mutiny, but decided that they were going to kill Sarpedon and his dead friend in the house on the hill."

"Wow. This is going too fast. I thought I was prepared for this, but I was wrong in my assumptions. So in this small town there were Prometheans - the people of steam, as many call it - and they worked for Megas. And then a mysterious man arrived, who kept a 'dead' vselys in his home. The man employed you, including the Prometheans, to build a giant automaton. All the banished people in a single place."

Thersos nodded.

"Yes, he seemed to know a lot about Megas and his group of engineers. He didn't come here by accident."

"We don't have a giant robot walking around, so I guess his plans have been thwarted."

"Right again. When the prometheans decided to act, Sarpedon's plans also started to spoil. Despite everything, though, they were unable to carry out the plan. But one by one, they started to disappear."

"But you had a suspect."

"Yea. Valya's dead. "

"And what did you do?"

TO BE CONTINUED