It was rather nice to know there weren’t any machines capable of operating in this biome, and now that To’Sefit was handled, this was probably one of the more safe biomes out there. Ironically, given how utterly merciless the void zone outside the lights were.

We’d spent about an hour camping before we had to start the hike all over again, but it had been a productive hike. Next time we had our hands on power cells like a fountain or some machine volunteers, I was getting some upgrades. The system wasn’t self-sustaining, I’d need to keep it fueled up, and parts of it could only be crafted by Wrath’s nanoswarms, so if I took hits and the system broke, there’d be no repairing it.

Fortunately, those parts were closer to my neck and back within the armor, which meant if they were compromised, I’d probably have a lot worse to think about.

But we hadn’t been the only ones hard at work. “Toots just cracked the code.” The rock announced while we hiked across the next bridge section.

“For the plates?” I asked, perking up at that. “You’re kidding.”

“She got it opened up like a shucked oyster kiddo. Even changed up the safety features built into it, so To’Sefit can’t retake control or detonate these plates ever again. Said it was a cakewalk, just took some brute force workarounds.”

Golden era AI tech was real bullshit if a customer support representative could breach security just by herself. That said… “I thought there was more of a chance a rat survives the pipes than To’Sefit letting us ever play with her toys.”

To’Orda grunted as he lumbered past, the Odin on his shoulders squawking to each other. Some kind of commotion going on there, but I don’t speak mythical bird. “Nnnnn… yes. To’Sefit will not let you use her weapons.”

As he passed me by, he handed the plates, roughly shoved into my chest. I gave him a questioning look back, and the rock sent a shrugging doodle instead.

“I assume To’Sefit has removed power from the entombed destroyer itself.” Wrath said, starting the climb up a set of stairs that circled around the mountain spike here. “If I were unable to take control over the safety features of my plates, I would shut down the second part of the setup, given that my shell is non-operational.”

I gave one of the plates a look over, pointing it far out into the darkness. They could turn on, but nothing came out the other end. The occult sight showed me the portal was there, working, and there was something beyond. A massive cannon of some kind.

But sticking my head to get a visual look there was just tempting her to turn it back on at the worst time. I’ll use a mirror or a camera to verify.

“Ah. Now I really wish I’d taken her hat as a hostage.” I said, following behind, stuffing them into my bag. Next camp, I’d be sitting down and investigating these fully with my occult sight, see if I could nab any kind of info. Or copy the fractal and check for other uses. “Pretty sure with how Feathers think, I could have ransomed a hat for the rights to use her beams. What did she end up going with to stop us this time?”

“Yeah, well you tell her yourself toots. I ain’t your glorified walkie-talkie.” The rock spat out.

“Invite me to the group chat and I will.” I said, but the rock shook its projected head.

“Wasn’t talking to you human, I was talking to toots.” Then its projection turned to Wrath. “The Icon’s real shy to speak to you in specific. Keeps asking me to do her dirty work for her.” It stopped. “I know it’s a delicate situation, what, do you think I’m dumb or something? Wait. Don’t answer tha- … why do I even bother? Boss, she’s being mean to me again.”

“Nnn… the Odin are running low on food.” To’Orda said instead as the flock was getting more aggressive on top of his shoulders. A fight even broke out, or at least some back and forth pecking and crowing. “We need to stop for supplies.”

And he had the audacity to look directly at me when saying that. One beady violet eye looking down right at my ration packs.

“Insects within the topology here will suffice.” Wrath said, stepping between me and To’Orda, an arm reaching out as if barring the way. “On the subject at hand, these rations were collected by my human for his personal use. The care and feeding for your possessions lies with yourself, To’Orda. You will leave mine untouched.”

“Woah-woah-woah, no need to get so defensive.” The rock said. “We ain’t touching your human with a ten foot long pole anytime soon. Feel free to-- no, you know what, I’m smart enough to know when to shut up.”

The giant seemed to deflate, “Nnnnn… annoying.” But he looked down at the ground and gave it a quick tap with his hammer. It broke like ice, fracturing out. A smaller occult pulse came from the hammer, and the rocks fragmented even further.

The rock started projecting a series of iconography with a stylized bird, and that got all the Odin’s attention.

They flew down and started yanking the rocks off the ground, exposing the dead insects under. It was slim pickings to my eyes, but apparently did a good enough job for now.

There was a tiny voice from my side, and I realized Cathida was trying to speak. A moment later, I had my helmet locked in place and the HUD was initializing. “There’s something up ahead. Journey’s picking up some odd material.”

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“What would be considered odd?” I asked.

“Calcium phosphate and hydroxide ions. Basically crystalline hydroxyapatite, carbonate, and organic proteins.”

“And that means?”

“Purple hell if I know, Journey’s just giving me a list of names and highlighted minerals not found in rocks normally. Pattern matches it to ‘osseous tissue’”

“Bone?”

“Yep. A lot of it up ahead if we could detect it this far off. So I mean a lot.”

This biome was built out of death basically, maybe we were reaching the parts where prior explorers or animals failed to continue?

Or we were about to hit a filter point where the rules of the biome were changed up, and failing to adapt to that would mean instant death.

I warned the crew, and we took more care in traveling through here. But on the next mountain, I got visual contact on what Journey had been detecting.

Bones. I’m not talking about human-sized or even animal bones. I mean giant skeletal hands jutting from deep below the darkness, grabbing the spires in an unmoving death grip, or rib cages jutting out. Small specs of blood coated all of them.

“What in the three gods above is this? Kres, you know what these are?”

“No. We had no idea such a thing was deeper within this biome.” Kres said, as the Odin finally went quiet when we rounded the mountain and got a full sight of the next few pillars ahead. “Our expeditions never made it this far.”

Which meant we had no idea what to expect from this. Giant creepy bones felt like something was going to happen. “Mites were busy here.” I muttered as the group debated crossing this final bridge, leading to the first spire that had a giant dead hand wrapped around it. The bridge outright led over on top of a calcified thumb. “Wrath, any advice?”

“There are no records in the machine archives about this.” She said. “No scouts survived exploration this far out. I am uncertain if this is a decoration item, or if there is a mechanic that must be followed.”

“Oh! Think the mites hid something in here knowing the machines wouldn’t get to it?” Cathida asked. “Could be another treasure.”

Water signals were showing directly up ahead, and when the HUD showed me the locations, a few hundred small orange dots started lighting up the bone sections beyond us. “Looks more like a waterslide.” Cathida said. “The expensive kind made in gold. Also the biomarker signs are going insane compared to where we’re standing. Out here, life’s just barely holding on. Over there? More like a jungle.”

I zoomed in my view, following the HUD outlines. The signs of life came from within the bones, and so did the water. A bit more information showed up and I got a better picture why. From the very top of the bones somewhere, small rivers of water were trickling downwards, across the entire bone. Like reverse blood vessels. All around the water, life grew.

Unnaturally grew.

Mushrooms, moss and other vegetation was growing around the exposed streams of water. What I thought was specs of blood turned out to be flows of red, flattened out to the bone, scattered just about everywhere in small pockets.

“Little on the nose don’t you think?” The rock said. “Har har, mites making life grow off the closest representation of death known to mankind.”

There wasn’t much more of a choice besides forward, so we’d find out face-first what the mites had planned out for this biome. “I’m not much of an artist, my definition of art is probably found on a blueprint design doc. But I do know the mites always include a way to let people travel through the biome. Let’s just be real careful.”

The first thing that welcomed us on the other side of this bridge was sound. It actually felt like I was traveling near the agrifarms, specifically the insect farm sections. Hundreds of crickets, sounds of wings and other signs of insects. The ground was filled with dirt this time, instead of just stone.

“Journey’s not detecting anything.” Cathida said as we ran a few sensor sweeps.

My own occult sight saw nothing of real danger. The bones themselves didn’t have a spark of life, but there was a clear ecosystem deep within the porous structure.

The three of us slowly crossed over the thumb section, onto the dirt of the mountain. The Odin huddled up against each other, and both sides pressed against To’Orda’s neck. Like they were looking for protection. The bones here were humanoid in shape, but bone was bone. The Odin knew what they were looking at.

“Journey, is that actually water, or something more?” I asked, now getting a better look at the small rivers flowing down the bones.

“Journey confirms water, minerals, and calcium traveling downwards. Along with a bit of dirt and it strongly suspects quite a lot of microorganisms within. Put a finger inside and we’ll have the nanoswarm figure out the rest.”

I walked up to the dead structure, near what looked to be an index. Probably ten times my size. The water flowing down looked almost carved into the bone. Erosion? I reached an occult sense out into them, and found nothing but water. No flowing will or anything like that. The light shined and carried an inner willpower outwards. But the water here wasn’t anything special. Just water.

Damn. Really thought there’d be more to it. Looking up, I could see plenty of exposed bone fingertips with water flowing down, and no life at all.

The reason why was obvious in a moment - It was beyond the reach of the lanterns.

As for the Odin, they were eat-first, find out later, type of birds. Even Kres. And there were quite a few options to dine on here. Once they got a nod of approval from To’Orda, they went to work filling their bellies, and then their ration packs.

I grabbed a few juicy looking grubs, confirmed they weren’t poisonous to eat, and grilled them up in my palm with the fractal of heat. Light it up in one palm, wait till Journey’s metal shows internal temperatures close to a campfire, and then stick the bugs on there, moving them around with my finger.

I’ll be honest, it was oddly satisfying to grill something in the palm of a hand and use my own fingers as tongs. Relic armor was awesome.

I didn’t enjoy these as much as the Odin clearly did, but they were edible enough to pass. Protein and calories was protein and calories, and it didn’t taste like a ration bar. I’d take my food wherever I could find it.

“It’s going to be a pain in the ass when we come back this way with Drakonis, assuming we catch him on the other end.” I said, sitting on the side of the dead hand of god here, while I resupplied my rations. “He’ll never stop complaining.”

The next few bridges also led to a bone graveyard, one of which had a massive skull build into the spire itself. Most were hands, and a few were ribcages. It was getting real creepy.

A half hour into this, something did happen. It just wasn’t from the biome itself.

Wrath stopped, looking confused for a moment.

“Something up?” I asked, catching up to her.

“I have been sent a communication request. A mite terminal within the mite wall in the digital ocean was specified as the meeting place. The request reads as urgent, and time sensitive.”

Someone who knew how to connect with Wrath and wanted to talk within mite space? That narrowed down the possible list. “Do you have a name?”

“No. Only that it is someone claiming to be my great-grandmother?”