Journey of Robotics Chp. 1.2

Here's the second part of chapter one as I felt the first part is short and I want to get you guys ahead a bit!

Azra POV~~~~~

The forest got denser as we traveled towards the sensation that Puppet felt. If before we were traveling at fifty kilometers an hour now, we were only going around ten or so. Eventually, Puppet called a stop in a decent sized clearing, and we dismounted. The underbrush wasn’t too bad this deep into the forest, but the trees still had branches that were low hanging in places, I don’t know how many times I had been smacked in the face by a less than yielding piece of wood. 

“I told you, babe, to put me on the front of your bike,” Skjold said in my head. 

I stood and stretched as I ignored him and looked around. The trees were getting older the deeper we went, and I felt like I could hear the tales of the world if only they could talk. The tree next to me, for instance, was at least fifty meters tall easily. The canopy blocked most the sunlight out, and let shadows play over everything. I thought it was beautiful.

“Let’s store the bikes in the House,” Puppet said as he walked over to me. I nodded and reached into my bag to retrieve the steel box inside. It was a device that the Master gave us for when we camped out. It had a ‘garage’ for when we didn’t need the bikes. 

Puppet judged the clearing and pointed to a spot in the center. I moved over and placed the box down, I hit a button on the side, and it started to grow. Soon, a large steel cube filled most of the clearing. Puppet moved to one side and tapped the wall. A section popped out that looked like a closet. He carefully lifted his bike inside and waited for each of us to do the same. Once we finished, he tapped the wall again, and it closed. 

“I think we should go ahead and send Master a message, since we already have the House out,” I proposed to the group.

“I agree, it only been a few hours but Father can be a worrywart,” Z2 said and started to make her way into the House. 

“Wait, I’m sure Father trusts us. We should wait for night like we discussed. If we send a message now we might cause Father trouble,” Puppet argued.

“But…” Z2 started to say but couldn’t think of anything to argue with. 

I nodded in understanding. I guess he’s right, just because we could, doesn’t mean we should. I moved over to the button and pressed it, the cube shrank back down to around thirty centimeters. I grabbed it and put it back into my bag. Z2 looked upset even with her relatively emotionless face. 

“I understand that you miss Father, but let’s do what we set out to do first. That way Father will praise us more in the end,” Puppet said to try and appease her. 

Her face softened a bit, “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” She said as she made her way towards the edge of the clearing. 

“This way,” Puppet called after her. A rock came sailing at him a moment later which he ducked under.

We started making our way through the forest again. At least this time I was able to keep from being smacked by the branches. We kept it up for several hours, and we made good time considering. I finally had to voice something that had been bugging me for a while.

“Hey, where are all the monsters?” I asked out loud to the group.

“Hm-m, my drones haven’t found any,” Puppet said as if it didn’t bother him.

“No, that’s the problem. We’re in one of the oldest forests on this continent. We should have encountered, I don’t know at least a dozen just in the time we have been walking,” I argued.

Puppet stopped and looked around before he said, “I doubt it would be a coincidence that we just happened to avoid them all.”

“I find that hard to imagine,” I said dryly. 

“Babe, babe, I have been feeling a strange energy for a while now. It is in the other direction, but it might have something to do with it,” Skjold inserted into the conversation. I repeated it to the group.

“Tonight, we’ll send a message to Father, but our mission is to find the missing Automata and then to travel south. Anything that is in our way we’ll eliminate but anything out of the way we ignore,” Natsuko said after no one said anything for a minute, “Father made me, one of the greatest beings to walk this planet. He can handle a few puny monsters. That’s if they are even heading for him,” she finished with her nose in the air. 

“Agree,” Natsuo said in a quiet voice. Puppet looked at Z2 and me. I nodded and while reluctant so did Z2. 

“Very well, we’ll send a message but ignore it unless it becomes our problem,” Puppet declared for the group. 

We continued our trek through the forest after that. We all had excellent night vision, and what most people might consider unlimited stamina, so we kept traveling through the night. Puppet had put the distance at around two days time, but that was only with day travel considered. We did stop for a moment in the middle of the night to send a message but kept it up afterward. Around noon the next day, we made it to our first destination that Puppet said could be the location of the missing automata. 

Puppet called a stop and jumped into a tree. A few minutes later he jumped down and motioned for us to gather around. He quickly drew a simple diagram on the ground. 

“I just confirmed it, but we’re approaching what looks like some type of ruin,” Puppet said as he added details to the diagram.

“Sense anyone?” I asked.

“Not at the moment, but I do sense old unholy magic and some of Father’s mana,” he shook his head and explained. 

“Then the automata were definitely here then,” Z2 said.

“Or something of Father’s,” Natsuko added from the side.

Puppet pointed at the diagram of the ruins in front of him and explained, “alright it seems that the forest has reclaimed most of the structures, but these five in the center are relatively intact. I sensed the unholy mana from this building,” He pointed at the what would be the furthest building from us, “my drone picked up traces of battle that happened. I’m not sure if it was recent or from when this place was still lived in.”

“Alright, you said you didn’t detect anyone, so let’s go check this place out,” Z2 jumped up and said. 

“Well, not much more we can do, I’ll go ahead in the shadows and check for traps,” Puppet said as he started to vanish from sight.

Natsuko pulled her out her gun and set it to simple rifle mode. I swung Skjold off my back and readied my mace, while Z2 pulled her sword out. Natsuo touched some steel plates he had gotten somewhere, and they started to float around him. We started through the brush that had grown up around the ruins. 

We made our way to the ruins soon enough. It looked like a decent sized battle had taken place here. There were scorch marks and chunks of stone missing from various places around the central location. Puppet appeared in front of us with his hand up. We stopped and waited, he tossed a stone, and it skipped across the ground until it hit a square cut section of stone. The stone barely tapped it, and metal rods with sharpened points shot out in a roughly three-meter radius around the square stone. 

“If you see a path stone with a symbol of a tree, don’t touch it, they seem to all be traps. I’ve checked up to that building but still keep your eyes open,” Puppet said and vanished again. 

We made our way over to the first building. We had to avoid at least five of the path stones, but we made it without any problems. Once we got to the building, we looked inside while we braced ourselves for anything that might be inside. I led the way with my shield just in case it was trapped like the outside. 

Inside, I saw a roughly cut magic circle of some type. This circle was made to be permanent I guessed from the fact that it was carved into the ground. It had tons of magic runes that I had no idea what they could stand for. Red colored stains had dried all around the circle, making me gag a bit from the idea that a magic circle that was roughly five meters in diameter was filled with blood. 

We made our way into the room carefully, but there didn’t seem to be anything other than the magic circle. While I examined the floor, I noticed that the circle had been damaged by several weapons so that it could no longer operate without some serious repairs. 

“You guys have any idea what this could have been used for?” I asked out loud to the others. 

Natsuko shook her head, as well as Z2. Natsuo stayed silent for a good minute or two that I had, in fact, though he didn’t know either before he finally said, “It’s a power source.”

“Power source?” I asked, “For what I wondered.”

Natsuo examined it some more before he pointed outside to the central building. There was a hole in the wall that let us see what he pointed to. We searched the building a bit more but only found some rags and traces of people that might have been here a while ago, that was on the second floor. We made our way back outside and started making our way to the central building.