Mausoleum of Nature

Kyotyoryon realized that she had to leave the train and ran to the door of the next wooden carriage, but it was locked. Then the spirit of metal noticed a small round window next to the door and kicked it. The metal bracelet hit the glass, but could not break it.

“Don't try to get out of here,” a voice was heard next to Kyotyoryon. “I blocked the train with a signal.”

The spirit of metal turned to the source of the sound and saw in front of her the same horned girl who had stopped the train with her foot.

“Who are you?” Kyotyoryon asked. “You were there. Why are you here?”

“I'm Ayika,” the girl introduced herself. “I'm a character from the “Mausoleum of Nature,” just like you. It looks like there are more of us.”

A short metal spear appeared near Kyotyoryon. The combinations of words "Mausoleum of Nature" frightened her and made her think of a place where there was nothing and where it was impossible to get out on your own.

“I don’t want to go where there is nothing!” Kyotyoryon shouted.

“I’m not going to send you there, and I can’t for technical reasons,” Ayika explained. “It’s too boring there. It’s good that my creator doesn’t keep me there.”

Kyotyoryon calmed down a little. The metal spear disappeared in the air.

“Sorry for sneaking in here,” Ayika continued. “I need to get to one place. Can you send a train there?”

“This is my train,” Kyotyoryon said. “It’s made from my metal. Only I can decide where he will go.”

“You don't decide this. From the very beginning the train was heading towards me. This is a robot train; it has the lowest level of senses, so it easily obeys the signal.”

“Does this signal make my train go where I don’t want it to go?”

“The signal travels into the air from my brain through the antennas. You have them too. Don't you know about this?”

“I don’t have any antennas! I'm normal.”

“Then what’s sticking out of your head? Are these metal horns?”

“Yes, horns! They are metal, because I am a spirit of metal. Your horns are metal too. But for some reason they are yours and not mine.”

“These are antennas. They are connected to the brain.”

Kyotyoryon touched the horns on her head with her hands.

“I don't feel anything,” the spirit of metal admitted. “There is no signal.”

Ayika approached the character and touched one of her horns with her hand.

“You have no connection between your brain and antennas,” the horned girl explained. “Although there should be.”

“Am I wrong?” Kyotyoryon took a step back and found herself at the door.

“Most likely, you have this ability blocked. Each character has some hidden ability that the creators put into them. It only works when the character is in serious danger.”

“The creator gave me ability and didn't tell me about it?” Kyotyoryon thought. “The creator is really bad.”

“If the ability is hidden, it is probably too early for you to think about it,” Ayika said. “Better take me further. I want to get to one place, but there is water there. I can only move underground. I can’t do anything underwater.”

Kyotyoryon remembered how the train she was riding with the creator crossed the river on an energy bridge.

“Is there a long thing there that glows?” the spirit of metal asked. “It's on top of the water.”

“Yup,” Ayika answered. “That thing is an energy bridge. It's very long there. It's so long that you can't see the end of it.”

Kyotyoryon imagined a blue stream of energy emanating from the stone platform and extending beyond the horizon.

“I want to see that thing,” the metal spirit said.

“So you agree to take me there?” Ayika asked.

“Yes. I want to know where that thing ends.”

Ayika walked to the front window.

“You can make the train move yourself,” Kyotyoryon noted. “But why are you asking me?”

“I can make the train move towards me because of the signal,” Ayika explained. “If I get on the train, it will not move.”

Kyotyoryon closed her eyes, touched the wall of the train with her hand, and it slowly moved forward. The high bank gradually descended, and soon turned into a gorge, along the bottom of which flowed a narrow river.

The train tilted, and then quickly rolled and found itself near the mouth of the river.

The rail continued all the way to the shore, where the river joined the sea, and then ended abruptly at a large rock. Here the trees gave way to isolated herbaceous plants with spiny leaves that grew on the sand.

The train stopped. The stone turned out to be a flat platform with symbols carved into it.

“This is the thing where the energy bridge begins,” Ayika raised her leg and pointed her "hoof" at the platform.

Kyotyoryon jumped out of the train through the hatch and immediately approached the new object.

“There is some metal here, but it is not enough even for my fingernail,” Kyotyoryon looked at the nails on her hand, which were shining in the sun. “There should be a glowing road coming out of here, but I can't see the hole. Where does it come from?”

Ayika approached the platform.

“Where is the hole?” Kyotyoryon looked at the girl with bull horns.

“It's not there,” Ayika answered. “This platform hasn't been used for a long time and has fallen asleep. It needs to be activated.”

“Even this stone thing can sleep, but I can't,” Kyotyoryon was offended. “The creator made me like this because she doesn't want me to sleep.”

Ayika ran her finger over the platform and summoned a virtual screen in a yellow frame, inside which an image of a yellow lock on a black background appeared.

“The platform is locked,” Ayika said. “I need to remember the password.”

The horned creature stood with its hooves on the rail and closed its eyes. Kyotyoryon looked at the screen and pointed her finger at the image of the lock. A password field appeared on top of the screen.

“This thing prevents the stone thing from showing a hole,” the spirit of metal guessed. “I need to cut it.”

A short blade extended from the bracelet on Kyotyoryon's arm. The next moment it touched the field, but did not cause any damage. Instead, a small table with various symbols appeared under the field.

“It can't be cut,” Kyotyoryon made an angry face. “My metal has no effect on it.”

Kyotyoryon walked around the platform, but did not see a hole in it.

“The hole did not appear,” the spirit of metal frowned. “Hole, appear!”

“What are you doing?” a voice was heard behind the spirit of metal.

Kyotyoryon turned around and saw Ayika standing in front of her with her eyes open but not glowing.

“I’m summoning a hole,” Kyotyoryon explained. “But one thing is preventing it from appearing.”

“You need to enter a password there,” Ayika explained. “Move away. I think I remembered it.”

Kyotyoryon took a few steps to the side. Ayika approached the screen and entered several symbols into the field. The lock turned green, after which it disappeared along with the field and the screen.

A rumble was heard underground. The platform began to shake, and then moved slightly in different directions, resulting in a rift with a blue glowing clot of energy.

“It's been many years since I last used the energy bridge platform,” Ayika recalled. “The creator did a good job with it. It can't be activated by someone else.”

“This thing glows,” Kyotyoryon noted. “Will a beam fly out of it now?”

“Not so fast,” Ayika replied. “The energy needs to accumulate first.”

“How do you know how to turn this thing on?”

“I can’t tell strangers about this,” Ayika thought. “But I have to answer something. This creature is too curious, so it won’t just leave me alone.”

“I can open locks,” Ayika answered. “Sometimes I can’t remember the password.”

“What is password?” Kyotyoryon asked.

“These are the symbols that open the lock.”

“The lock won’t open without them?”

“You didn't succeed. No one has yet come up with a way other than entering a password.”

“I will. I will break locks with my metal.”

“She is too ambitious and naive,” Ayika guessed. “That means she appeared recently. Once upon a time, when the creator was not yet covered in stone and could talk to me, I dreamed of something that could not be. Then I thought that I could do everything. But then it turned out that I can’t even help my creator.”

The energy clot inside the rift grew larger, then turned into a beam that went beyond the horizon, expanded, and took on the familiar outline of an energy bridge. Kyotyoryon immediately paid attention to it and forgot what she had said a few moments ago.

“Through this glowing road, you can see what’s beyond it,” Kyotyoryon noted the bridge’s translucency. “I need to check it out.”

The spirit of metal jumped onto the edge of the energy bridge that came out of the crack in the platform. A blade extended from the bracelet on the character's hand, but she couldn't use it. Kyotyoryon felt a strong vibration that made her legs tremble.

The spirit of metal staggered, then fell to her knees. The vibration intensified and began to shake the character even more.

“You shouldn't have done that,” Ayika said. “There's a very strong vibration in this place due to a powerful flow of energy.”

But Kyotyoryon did not hear Ayika’s words because she could not think. The spirit of metal tried to get out of the bridge, but could not because of the strong vibration. The blade on the bracelet went back, after which both bracelets began to emit a white glow.

Kyotyoryon screamed and looked up at the sky. It seemed so close to the spirit of metal, as if it were a few steps above her.

The next moment, Kyotyoryon stopped feeling the vibration. Only a light wind blew in the character's face and fluttered her hair.

“It's not hitting me anymore,” Kyotyoryon guessed. “I need to go back and cut it.”

The spirit of metal looked down and found a small stone with a blue beam of light coming from it and a huge expanse of blue water.

“Why did it turn over?” Kyotyoryon thought. “I need to put it right.”

Soon, Kyotyoryon noticed a gray wing with metal feathers that started from the bracelet, from the place from which the blade usually extended. The same thing happened with the bracelet on her other hand.

“I took such things out of the dinosaur,” Kyotyoryon noted. “But they were made of a different material, and these are made of my metal. They turn space upside down. I need to put them back.”

The spirit of metal still did not understand what was "hanging" in the sky above the coast. Space seemed upside down to her.

Kyotyoryon mentally sent a signal to the bracelets on her hands. The wings should have retracted, but instead the spirit of metal began to descend to the shore.

“Why isn't it working?” Kyotyoryon frowned. “I cancelled this thing. It was supposed to go back.”

Here Kyotyoryon remembered Ayika's words about hidden abilities:

“It only works when the character is seriously threatened.”

When there was a distance of several human heights left to the ground, Kyotyoryon finally figured out something.

“It wasn't space that flipped,” the spirit of metal thought. “It was me that flipped.”

Kyotyoryon's feet landed on the sand. The wings folded and turned into long blades, which then slid into the bracelets.

“It seems you have awakened a new ability,” Ayika approached Kyotyoryon. “Now you can fly.”

“What?” Kyotyoryon looked at the sky. From here it seemed far away, and the clouds were very thick. “Was I upstairs?”

“Yes. Didn't you understand?”

“At first I thought the shore had turned over, but then I realized that it was me who had turned over.”

“She definitely appeared recently,” Ayika noted.

“The creator said that I am a metal bird,” Kyotyoryon said. “And they fly. So, I can become like them?”

“No,” Ayika touched her horns with her hands. “I didn’t become a cow, although I have horns and hooves. And the only bird thing you have is your beak, and that's on your mask. And the wings you got now.”

“Are these wings? They are made of those things that birds have, but they are made of my metal. But why did I get them?”

“You have fulfilled the condition necessary to unlock the skill.”

Kyotyoryon again remembered Ayïka's words about hidden abilities.

“This luminous road attacked me,” the spirit of metal looked at the energy bridge. “I thought I'd break through it and see what was inside.”

“Blue energy lets objects pass through it, but vibration protects it from this,” Ayika said. “That’s why you can walk on the energy bridge without falling through.”

“And the train won't shake?”

“No. The vibration is too weak to affect the train.”

“The first time I rode a train on a glowing road, I didn't feel anything.”

Kyotyoryon remembered what she had said to Halankuo at that moment. Thoughts about the creator made the character worry, but when they left her heavy head, Ayika was no longer there.

“I need to leave here while this horned one is gone,” Kyotyoryon thought.

The spirit of metal returned to the train, jumped on it, opened the hatch and got inside. Then she touched the back wall of the locomotive with her hand to make it go in the opposite direction. But instead, the head of that very "horned one" appeared from the door that led into the carriage.

Kyotyoryon jumped back a few steps in surprise. Ayika came out of the door as if it was made of air.

***

The bird-shaped craft landed on a paved road that ran through the abandoned village. It was the only suitable place to land, as the surrounding area was covered in dense mixed forest.

The door of the "metal bird" slid aside. Itinit came out and pulled his character by the hair.

“No-o-o-o, creator!” Kimchan screamed. “I'll come out myself!”

“You can only eat by yourself, especially my lunch from the inventory”, Itinit smiled.

“I didn't want to. My tongue went there by itself.”

“So your hair also ended up in my hand by itself.”

Itinit pulled the unfortunate creature out of the flying machine, then let go of her hair. Kimchan almost instantly crawled to the side and looked at her creator with a guilty look.

“Forgive me, creator,” the dog girl howled. “I won't do it anymo-o-u-u-re!”

“Don’t howl. Someone will hear,” Itinit said and thought: “Next time I’ll grab her by the tail.”

Kimchan turned into a puppy and then disappeared into the bushes. Itinit went after her and soon heard a thin dog bark near the only intact house in the village.

“This is too suspicious,” Itinit thought. “There's almost nothing left of the other houses, but this one is still standing.”

Itinit walked up to the porch. The wooden door lay nearby without any damage, but there was nothing inside. Only a pile of gray dust lay in one of the rooms.

“Is this really the right house?” Itinit asked.

The puppy barked in response.

“It’s as if there’s another whole house here,” Itinit somehow understood the dog’s barking.

The puppy ran up to the pile of dust and then looked at its owner. Itinit understood the animal's hint, summoned the inventory, then pointed his hand at the pile of dust and dragged it into one of the empty cells.

"I need to study these remains," Itinit thought. "Perhaps they belong to the creature that was here."

Itinit went to the exit of the house, but near the threshold he heard Kimchan barking. The guy looked around, but did not notice anything suspicious. Only gray-brown wooden walls made of planks and logs, typical of houses in the countryside.

But the barking did not stop. Itinit left the house. The sun “hit” the guy right in the face, and he stretched his hand forward to cover it, but soon felt a vibration near his index finger.

Itinit covered the sun with his other hand and noticed a girl in a purple aura in front of him, who was slowly descending to the ground. One of her legs touched the guy's hand, and the other was bent at the knee.

Itinit had seen a lot in his not very long life, but this was the first time something like this had happened to him. He didn't understand anything, he could only watch.

The girl's figure was illuminated by an aura that emphasized her contours. Short black shorts covered her thick legs from above. Her breasts were so large that the unfortunate purple top only covered them. Black headphones with antennas, worn on brown hair that reached her shoulders, completed the image...

The hand turned palm up under the vibration, and the girl's foot landed right there. The vibration increased, and with it a feeling of heaviness. Itinit looked at his hand and noticed that the small foot fit completely in it, as if it were its slot.