Kain taught Luna a few basic concepts like air and water pressure, which progressed into her using them as either projectiles, creating air and water blades, or as propellant, taking a dense object and propelling it far away through differences in pressure. Throughout the process, Kain had also gotten slightly more used to using energy from demonstrating the various concepts he showed to Luna. The change was almost negligible, but it made him feel able to everything a bit better. Even using energy in his body felt easier, which made him all the more happy.
‘So… air blades are like this.’ Luna conjured an area of higher air pressure and directed the air to release along a long, thin line. The wave flew, kicking up a violent gust of wind and clashing with the glass of the tower, which barely made a scratch. She grumbled a bit, ‘This feels strong enough to cut down a giant tree out there, but I can barely scratch the stupid tower.’
‘Hey, neither of us could scratch the tower anyway, so I don’t see the issue here.’ Kain replied.
‘I guess you’re right, but it’s still really frustrating!’
‘Well, either way, try the water blade now.’ Luna’s reply was in the form of her concentration in creating a water blade. She expelled her energy, drawing in water from the moisture in the air and the dirt around them. The water eventually condensed into a small globe. It was then further condensed into a foot long line that shuddered under the water pressure. She released a side along the length of the line, which made it shoot out in a short burst. The flying blade of water struck the same piece of glass as the first one, only scratching it slightly more. Kain tried to do the same, but was only able to make a blade a few inches long which could not even scratch the glass. He sighed at his attempt and grinned at Luna, ‘See. You’re the only one who can do that.’
‘Hmm… That’s true, but it’s still frustrating.’ Luna pouted.
Kain grinned and pointed toward the stone structure, saying, ‘Let’s see what the third floor has in store for us, shall we?’
‘Yeah, let’s go! Maybe we’ll find something as cool as we did up here.’ Luna replied, beaming with anticipation. Kain made a check to make sure he had everything in order. He had his three original weapons, Grand, Mouse, and Dea, he had the giant dagger, and he had the strange green gem. He was still devoid of his helmet and phone, which made him sigh. Luna heard his sigh, asking, ‘What’s wrong, big brother?’
‘I lost my helmet and my phone when I drank that river water for the first time, back when you drank my blood. I had them when I went to sleep and lost them when I woke up.’ He sighed again.
‘Helmet… Oh yeah… I kinda… took it…’ Luna looked away as if pretending she had not done anything wrong.
Kain widened his eyes and grumbled, ‘You little… ugh. Whatever, we’ll get it later. But why did you need it, especially as a normal rabbit?’
‘I uh… buried it and made a safe burrow.’ She replied, looking away again.
He asked in an inquisitive tone, ‘Wait, you actually had the intelligence back then to reinforce your burrow with metal? Damn. Well, do you know what happened to my phone then?’
‘Phone?’ What’s that?’
‘It was one of the things I brought with me. If you don’t have it, then I don’t know where it could be. Anyway, let’s go.’ Kain said. He walked over to the stone structure through the plant-filled room. Reaching the structure, he opened the ornate door between the third and fourth walls he had looked at. Behind them, he found a simple, barren room with nothing in it but a small pillar with a button on it in the middle of the room. Due to his slightly lowered guard after finding nothing dangerous anywhere else in the tower, he quickly walked up to a button and pushed it. The floor below Kain and Luna trembled for a moment before it began to lower, cutting a medium sized, pentagon-shaped hole in the floor. The platform descended to the floor below within a few seconds.
The platform landed in a medium sized, pentagon shaped room with the top of a stairwell that Kain looked over, confirming it to be the stairwell they ignored on the second floor. Luna’s flames flew around the room, finding no holes in the walls, no blood, and three heavy-duty doors. There was also a button near the lift, which would have allowed for access to the floor above. Above each door, there was a sign with more strange symbols on it and a picture: the door to their right had the symbol of what looked like a unique blowtorch, the door to their front had a picture of a box on it, and the door to their left had a picture of a large slab on it. ‘Which door do you want to go through?’ Kain asked.
Luna looked at the doors, her flames dancing around to let her observe better. She hummed a bit, debating her choices, ‘What’s behind them?’
‘Hmm… The one on our right, I think, could be the place they made and maintained the robots, the one in front of us is definitely a storage room, and the one to our left could be anything. We’re going to look at them all anyway, so I have no preference.’
‘Oh! Robots! I want to look over there.’ She pointed her paw at the room with a blowtorch above it. ‘I want to try to build one!’
Kain laughed, ‘Neither of us could understand how one works, so I highly doubt we could build one. But, if we find some instruction manuals, then we can try to study it, even if their language is beyond us.’ He began to walk toward the door, looking at her for her reaction.
She pouted, saying, ‘I’ll learn!’
He chuckled, swinging open the doors, allowing the flames to explore the room beyond. The room was massive, taking up a third of the floor and the room had no holes in the walls. There was a sea of workbenches across the center of the room. On the workbenches, there were various tools that were similar but different from power tools that Kain knew from Earth; there was a tool that looked like a giant blowtorch, a tool that looked like a giant power saw with its blade missing, a giant pair of gloves that looked like futuristic multitools with circuits running up and down their fingers, and many more. They were all put away neatly on shelves underneath the workbenches. Oddly enough, there were no industrial tools like lathes anywhere in the room, which would have made the production of such advanced robots impossible. Despite that, there were racks along the walls with various models of robots and armor suits lined up and ready to be repaired. None of them had external damage beyond scratches, so Kain assumed that they all had internal problems, or were due for maintenance. On the side of the room closer to the main entrance there were a few tall cylinders with many segmented sections. There was also a large, metal shutter door on the far side of the room, giving access to the storage room. The only thing that was out of place in the room was a medium sized area in the far corner of the room that was walled off with another heavy-duty door barring entry.
Luna was enchanted by the new devices she saw, asking, ‘Oh! What’re all of those things? They look so cool! Is that how they made the robots? What’s tha-’
Kain said cut in with a stern voice, ‘Luna.’
She looked back innocently, ‘Yeah?’
His voice softened, ‘Calm down. There’s a lot of stuff in this room that is way over my head, so I don’t know about some of it, but I can make inferences about most of it. Those tools over there are likely what they used to repair the robots, but I am confused by the fact that there are no tools for making any components that are needed for complex machinery. As well as that, there are no places to refine or mold the metal needed for the bots. I do think, though, that the carvings up top explain that. If there were more towers, then that means that there are other places that may have different specializations. We agreed that this place was likely a small outpost, so that probably means that these parts were created elsewhere. Do you remember any other robots traveling the woods or even an aircraft- a metal thing that flies?’
She hummed in contemplation for a moment. After a few seconds, she said, ‘I remember a few times when the robots from this tower moved into the woods for one reason or another, but I’ve never seen any other robots coming in from outside the forest.’
Kain stood and contemplated for a moment, ‘Then that means that they either never built another robot in here and just used this place for repairs, which is impossible because some components will need to be replaced, so they need new components, or they have some other method of forging metal which is very possible. They had better techniques than us in regard to energy manipulation, so it’d be little surprise if they had some other method. You following me?’
Luna looked up to him, saying, ‘Kinda… A lot of what you’re saying makes no sense, but I’ll follow along anyway. I think we should go over there.’ She pointed to the closed door, ‘That’s the only place in this room where we haven’t explored yet.’
Kain looked to the room she was pointing to and agreed, saying, ‘That, and we may be able to find something that answers a few of my questions.’ He walked through the room, reaching the door soon after. He opened the door carefully, only to find it brightly lit. He looked in and saw the wall that went outside had been torn open, and blood was all over the room. Apart from that, there was a standard workbench, some papers with writing on them attached to the walls, all covered in blood, and a large, circular necklace with a green gem in the center lying on the ground. The necklace was glowing a slight blue through its large green gemstone and as Kain and Luna approached, the item emitted more and more energy. Kain stood in front of it and looked at it. It could have actually been used by a human, but it would have taken up most of their upper chest. It was not very extravagant, the metal it was made of only being the common metal everywhere else on the tower, and the green gem was not shining as brightly as the other gem in his hand, but actually glowed a slight blue. He picked it up, feeling it in his hands. It was not heavy, only being a couple of pounds, and everything about it was smooth. He drew out his energy to examine the gem but as soon as his energy touched the necklace, he felt his mind being gently drawn in to the gem. He resisted at first, but when he realized that the gem did not try to force him in, he let his mind fall into the gem.
