The chilling tale that began in External Circumstances continues; in a most unusual way... Slowly, diabolically, we see the influence of the dreaded Externals spread.
A high-pitched frequency split the thick, ozone- and oil-laden air. The sound peaked and held its tone for a few moments; began to warble dissonantly and finally dissipated into an angry sounding storm of hisses and screeches. Now that its audio-emitters and mental-capacitors were synched with the Lore Ward, 201132 (designated "Roller" by the non-Klik entities with which it had become associated over the past few cycles) forced itself to relax a bit and merely await instructions from its obvious superior.
It didn't work well; thankfully, the far smaller Roller Klik did not have to wait long...
Massive gouts of steam and super-heated air gushed forth from a series of overhead vent pipes and an entire fleet of wagon-sized flywheels began spinning. A forest of sapling-sized pistons groaned and protested as they moved via the tremendous bulk of the Lore Ward, a titanic Klik being that easily dwarfed even the largest of the Apoc-creatures that Roller had heard called "whales" by its L’na companion, Cetacious.
Suspended from a pendulum-like structure that had its origins far above where Roller waited patiently, the Lore Ward resembled nothing so much as a massive ocular appendage, set perfectly in the center of a titanic toothed gear. This gigantic "eyed gear" was analogous to other creatures’ heads and the "head" of the Lore Ward was resplendent with a constantly twitching halo composed of hundreds of tiny, spindly clock-worked arms. From what it could observe, Roller quickly deduced that each of these small appendages had been crafted for a unique and singular purpose: magnification, investigation, information retrieval and recording among countless others.
The Lore Ward’s cogged head was supported by a trunk like "body" that resembled nothing so much as a massive deformable container (much like the body of a bellows or accordion) that allowed the Klik-creature flexibility and a fair range of vertical but somewhat limited horizontal movement. This "body", in turn was rooted to a thick and knotted forest of pistons that snaked in and around the pendulum structure and vanished into the ever-changing complexity of gears, pulleys and escapements beyond.
The Lore Ward’s accordion-like body jerked awkwardly towards the far smaller roller Klik. A thick, measured voice issued from somewhere unseen behind the pale eyed gear that bore down balefully. "State. Your. Report. Klik."
Roller knew well that the Lore Ward, one of countless others of its ilk, had a job to do – the collection and preservation of the sum total of all knowledge of Klik-kind for the Great Machine. However, Roller also knew that it could not tell all – it could not allow the madness that had infested the deepest confines of its memory banks to infiltrate and infest its sentinet, clock-work home.
But the Cogman did not know how to escape the probing mental assault of the Lore Ward. Roller knew that nothing could remain hidden for long from its pale, probing gaze.
Again, inexorably, came the measured cadence of the Lore Ward’s words. "Your. Report. NOW."
Roller began to speak; a strand of the Lore Ward’s halo telescoped outwards, the bulb on its tip unfolding like the petals of a copper flower: a vibratory-ensnarer. Roller’s optical-orbs shuttered involuntarily: its every word was now being recorded for the Great Machine.
"As per my CORE instructions, I had become attached to a small band of creatures: a High-bred Sergeant designated as Sgt. Skinner, from Apoc-Earth, and two L'na from Ai, designated as Cetacious and Oru. At an indeterminate point in the past, Sgt. Skinner had become detached from his unit, which is a military grouping of individuals, and was journeying to rejoin them. Along the way, Sgt. Skinner had enountered the two L'na and myself. Sensing the logic in surrounding oneself with others, Sgt. Skinner accepted our company begrudgingly."
The pale, lidless and unblinking eye of the Lore Ward's gear-eye drifted a measure closer to Roller, perhaps showing interest, but provided no other indication that the thing was little more than a statue. It was intent upon the smaller Klik's tale.
Roller continued. "It was then that we came upon a slain contingent of Sgt. Skinner's brethren-in-arms. It was a scene of gruesome horror unlike anything I had ever beheld."
The Lore Ward's pale eye-gear tilted slightly and an unspoken signal flitted across the space between the two Klik. Unable to resist (although it tried to circumvent the query), Roller complied and sent a compiled image from its storage memory tubes to its superior. Several barrel-sized bellows deep within the Lore Ward's trunk began to wheeze and sigh, sending shudders along its canvas-wrapped frame.
Again, Roller continued its tale. "After a thorough investigation, our party discovered clues that jogged Sgt. Skinner's memory. Sgt. Skinner had heard tales of a strange presence, which his kind had termed "Externals" - a large grouping which originally had included Klik, L'na and any other entities not native to his home world - which had infiltrated his kind. It was said that these Externals had the ability to introduce their thoughts and possibly their seperate sentiences into the physical forms of the Apoc, thus "possessing" them. This possession gained the Externals a form of limited control over the Apoc's physical form and by some strange and unknown process could even mutate those forms into those resembling the Externals more natural (and horrible) anatomies. The evidence that we'd found at this scene led J...Sgt. Skinner to deduce that it was an "inside External" that had been hiding among a High-bred unit. The External had emerged and it had laid waste to Jaco...I mean...Sgt. Skinner's brothers-in-arms."
Roller winced internally, its metallic face remaining stoically impassive. For what seemed like an eternity, the Cogman stood silently, listening to the rhythmic and synched beating of its own heart gear - for the moment, intrinsically tied to the Lore Ward's own. Roller prayed (something that Jacob Skinner had taught it how to do) that the Lore Ward had not caught its last two stutters amid the flood of data that it was outputting.
The pale eye glistened, unmoving, unfeeling. The words, like the ticking of a cliff-sized clock, tolled. "CON. TIN. UUE."
"We pursued the beast, tracking it to its lair. Sadly, we found it."
"SAD. LLY?" The questioning tone was subtle, but unmistakable to the smaller Klik. If Roller could have gasped, it would have at that moment; its heartgear leaped. The Cogman scrambled to recover.
Sad, in that the potential for much...knowledge and information was lost in the resulting conflict with the creature. The subjects I had been assigned to observe still had much to...provide in the way of data. Cetacious was...wise. Oru's spirit was...benign and so compassionate. Jacob was a true her...
"DA.TA. SO.UR. CE.PO. SS.IB. LY.CO. RR.UP. TE.ED." The Lore Ward interruped, it's words hammering out in double time like a klaxon. Suddenly, the huge Klik-creature's mane of metallic arms erupted into a flurry of activity. Despite Roller's unparalled speed and agility, those comparisons were against the fleshy weak creatures the Cogman had lived, fought and bled beside for the last two years. It was no where near as quick as the Lore Ward.
Gear-driven cables and steel-shod arms coiled around the Cogman and lifted Roller closer to the Lore Ward's pale, lidless eye. A quicksilver scene flashed through Roller's mind: that of a dead Apoc-shark it had seen on the deck of a boat after it and its companions had valiantly slain it. The shark's eyes were pale and lifeless - just like the creature's eye that held it now.
Again, the klaxon voice pounded through the oily air. "ME.MO. RY.PU. RG.EE. CO.MP. LY.OR. BE.DE. AC.TI. VA.TE. DD!!!!"
Roller struggled against the Lore Ward, summoning all its mental prowess, even using the mental skills that Oru had taught it, before that fateful encounter with the External. The Cogman did not want what was inside it to be transmitted into the Great Machine. While some good had come of it, far more of the effects had been devestatingly negative.
A pale white light flashed behind Roller's ocular units.
Its fight was well-fought, but had been in vain.
The horrible events of that day flooded the electro-vacuum tubes of the Lore Ward...
They had blundered into the cave-like lair of the creature. Already, it had grown far larger than any of them could have imagined, much less believed without an substantitive data. The creature looked like a long, massive coiled muscle - its body, worm-like for two-thirds of its length. At the head of the creature, however, the resemblence to a worm was completely lost. The head (if it could even be called such) was eyeless and split into four long, flailing tentacles. Each tentacle was tipped with an odd yellow, egg-shaped organ and beside each tentacle perched a sharp, grasping claw. At the terminius of all four tentacles, was a massive slavering maw completely jammed with gnashing, ripping, razor-sharp teeth.
Cetacious, always the defender, had rushed the tree-trunk like body of the creature, hoping to catch it off guard and knock it off balance. He did little more than bounce off the creature's thick, rock-hard hide. The creature's head never moved, but one of the tentacles lashed out, as if with it's own mind and stretched far beyond what it should have been able to and snatched up the mighty L'na. Bones crunched and cracked and we saw silvery blood spurt from Cetacious' mouth. In the same moment, a beam of sickly orange energy flashed out of one of the yellow egg-bulbs and struck Roller in the face. An alien presence invaded the Klik's mind as another tentacle sprang impossibly across the room to slam Jacob Skinner into a rock wall before he could even draw his beloved weapon, "Francine". Jacob, a veteran of so many horrible and hard battles, never rose from that pile of blood-spattered rubble.
It was only Oru who was able to wound the beast, flinging a spear of solid ice into its hide as it devoured the last bits of what was Cetacious. However, the victory was short lived, as the creature then turned two of the egg-bulbs on the small L'na and utterly distingerated him. Only Roller was left alive, and the Hydra Strand (for that's what the massive, worm-like creature said it was), told the Klik why.
Suddenly, the pale light faded from behind Roller's ocular-units and it was dropped uncermoniously to the metallic floor. With a thousand thoughts clanging through its head like a swarm of copper hornets, the Cogman slowly righted itself and surveyed the scene before it. The Lore Ward was dead. Or rather, terminally disabled; it's heartgear had stopped and it now hung limply, swaying slightly from its pendulum-pod. It's pale dead eye-gear was now dark; truly dead. Roller rejoiced, thanking the memory or Oru for his teachings - for the only thing that the Kilk could surmise had occurred was that it's mental prowess had defeated the Lore Ward in the end.
Roller certainly felt better - the negative feelings it had carried around for so long were now gone! Moreso, the Cogman now had direction; it knew that it was not about to wait around here to see what the Great Machine had to say about things, Roller began searching for the first Flux portal, rip, tear, or storm it could find and then it was out of this place, never to return! It was finally free of the shackles of the oppressive Great Machine! Free!
No sooner had the metallic dust settled in Cogman's wake than did a pale orange glow began to grow where once a pale-dead eye had been...