The stone door boomed shut, plunging the chamber into a near-total darkness punctuated only by the faint blue glow of the crystals and the two piercing, crimson pinpricks of the Automaton's gaze. The air became thick, sealed, a prelude to a slaughter.
"Try old Guild command-phrases!" Ravi hissed, scrambling backward until his back hit the cold, curved wall. "Tell it to stand down!"
"I don't know any!" Lyssara shot back, her voice tight with a frustration that bordered on panic. "The vocal keys were lost a century ago! It's on lockdown protocols!"
The Automaton took another step, the sound of metal on stone echoing like a death knell. It raised its massive axe, a two-hundred-pound slab of enchanted, time-worn iron, as if it weighed nothing more than a feather. It locked its glowing red eyes on the closest target. Lyssara.
She stood her ground, but it was the frozen stillness of a trapped animal, not the calm of a warrior. Her mind, her greatest asset, was useless against a relic that responded only to force.
The Automaton swung.
The axe didn't whistle. It was too massive, too heavy. It cleaved the air with a deep, predatory whoosh, a sound that promised decapitation. It was aimed directly at Lyssara's head.
Ravi did not act out of heroism. He did not throw himself in front of her to save her life. He acted out of pure, selfish terror. He saw the arc of the swing, calculated that its follow-through would bring it perilously close to him after it had split Lyssara in two, and he did the only thing his body knew how to do. He dove for cover.
He launched himself low and to the side, intending to scuttle behind Lyssara, using her body as a momentary shield. It was a pathetic, contemptible move.
It was also perfectly timed.
As he lunged, his shoulder clipped the side of her leg. The small, accidental impact was just enough to throw her off balance. She stumbled sideways with a cry of alarm, directly out of the axe's primary path.
And directly into Ravi's.
He saw the monstrous axe head fill his vision. There was no time to scream, no time even for a final, fleeting regret. He reflexively threw his arms up to shield his face, a gesture as useless as it was instinctive.
The impact never came.
There was no sound of bending steel this time. There was no clang, no crash. There was only a quiet, final hiss, like sand being poured onto a fire.
Ravi lowered his arms, his body trembling so violently he could barely stand.
The Automaton Warden was still there, locked in its attack pose. But the colossal, double-headed axe was gone. In its place, its gauntleted hands gripped a handle that ended in a shimmering, downward cascade of fine, metallic dust. The relic, a weapon forged with ancient magic and tempered over centuries, had disintegrated at the point of contact with his skin. It had unmade itself against the absolute, non-negotiable law of his body.
He stared at the glittering dust drifting to the stone floor. Lyssara stared at it.
Then she stared at him, her eyes wide with an emotion that transcended shock and bordered on religious terror.
The Automaton did not seem confused. It processed the loss of its weapon, registered that the intruders were still alive, and switched to its next protocol. It dropped the useless handle with a loud clatter and lunged forward, its massive, iron-plated fists raised.
Its target was still Lyssara.
This time, she was ready. She dodged to the side with a dancer's grace, and the construct's punch slammed into the stone wall where she had been standing. The impact sent a tremor through the floor, and a spiderweb of cracks erupted from the point of contact. The wall held, but barely.
"It's just a machine!" Lyssara shouted, her voice regaining some of its tactical fire. "Its logic is simple! Closest threat first! Keep it moving!"
Ravi didn't need to be told. He was already scrabbling away, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the iron monstrosity. But the chamber was small. He scrambled right, and the Automaton's head pivoted, its red eyes locking onto him. He was the closest threat now.
It came for him, its heavy footfalls shaking the very stones. It drew back a fist the size of a small boulder.
Ravi yelped, a pathetic, high-pitched sound, and turned to run. He tripped over his own feet. It wasn't an act. His body, in moments of peak terror, had all the coordination of a newborn fawn. He fell backward, landing hard on his tailbone, and could only crab-walk backward as the iron fist descended.
"Ravi!" Lyssara screamed.
He threw his hands up. "Wait! No! I surrender!" he pleaded to the soulless machine.
The fist connected with his crossed forearms.
Again, there was that horrible, dusty hiss.
The Automaton's fist, wrist, and forearm—a solid three feet of articulated, enchanted iron—vanished into a cloud of rust-colored powder. The arm ended in a stump of jagged metal just below the elbow. The force of its own punch, having nowhere to go, traveled back up the limb. With a series of deep, grinding cracks, the internal mechanisms of its shoulder joint shattered.
The machine froze. The crimson lights in its helmet flickered erratically. A low, grinding sound came from its chest, like a dying engine seizing up. It took one shuddering step back. Then another. Its internal systems were catastrophically damaged.
It slowly, stiffly, brought its remaining hand up to its featureless faceplate, as if in a gesture of confusion.
"It… It destroyed itself against you," Lyssara whispered from across the room. She wasn't seeing a jinx anymore. She was seeing a fundamental law of nature being broken, rewritten, and weaponized.
The Automaton's lights flickered one last time, then went dark. It stood perfectly still for a second, then its joints locked, and it tipped over like a statue, crashing to the floor with a deafening, final boom.
Silence returned to the vault, thick and absolute.
Ravi stared at the fallen machine, then at his own hands. They were unremarkable. Unscarred. He was a cosmic typo in the rulebook of reality, and this entire world was trying to correct the error by throwing itself against him and breaking.
A soft chiming sound, like a single, clear bell, echoed through the chamber. The glowing blue crystals set into the walls flickered, then all at once, they shifted to a steady, emerald green. A low hum filled the room, and new light flooded the space, revealing dust-free floors, perfectly preserved architecture, and a network of tunnels leading deeper into the earth.
The Nethervault was coming online.
Lyssara slowly walked over to him, her movements cautious, as if approaching a sleeping dragon. Her eyes were not on the dead Automaton. They were locked on him.
"The protocols…" she whispered, her voice filled with dawning, horrified comprehension. "The Warden must be defeated for a new master to be recognized. It wasn't protecting the vault from us. It was testing us."
She stopped a few feet from him, her brilliant mind connecting the last, impossible pieces.
"The system registered its own destruction," she breathed. "It thinks you're its new master. This place, this fortress, all of its forgotten secrets… it now answers to you."