Marina Cogswell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Marina stopped in front of the Abandoned Elven Lab with a crowbar in one hand and a canvas sack in the other. The demolition notice on the door gave her until dawn. Inside, somewhere past the broken windows and collapsed doorway, sat arcane automaton cores that no guild had bothered to claim. The glass dome above the entrance had collapsed inward, leaving metal ribs exposed like a picked-over carcass. Purple light still pulsed from somewhere inside, casting shadows across wilted plants that had grown through the shattered panes. Marina tested the door with her shoulder. It didn't budge. She wedged the crowbar into the gap and pulled until the hinges screamed and gave way. The collector who refused to sell her the component she needed didn't matter anymore. Inside this building were cores that could power her automaton, and in six hours they would be buried under rubble. She stepped through the doorway and let the purple glow swallow her whole. The inner chamber was worse than she expected. Brass limbs lay scattered across the floor, half-buried in moss and dust. Gears spilled from cracked torsos like metal entrails. Marina knelt beside the nearest pile and brushed away the green growth. The joint assembly was corroded but the housing was intact. She pulled her wooden case from the sack and flipped it open. The alchemical vials inside caught the purple light. She selected a small bottle of cleaning solution and poured it over the joint. The corrosion bubbled and fell away in flakes. Underneath, the brass gleamed. Marina worked through the piles with her hands, sorting salvageable pieces from rot. A pressure regulator. Two intact servos. A core housing with threading that matched her schematics. She packed each piece into her sack with cloth between them to keep them from rattling. By the time she reached the back wall, the sack was full and her knees ached from kneeling. She stood and looked at what remained. There were still cores here. Still pieces that could save months of fabrication time. But the sack was full and dawn was three hours away. Marina hefted the bag over her shoulder and walked back through the purple light to the broken doorway. Tomorrow the demolition crew would destroy what she couldn't carry. Tonight she had enough to finish the automaton's left arm and start the right.