Its form was perfect, a rendition of man cast from bronze that was almost entirely untouched from their previous assault.

  From his position on the floor, Kaius ogled at the hard lines of its features. Its entire existence was a testament to craftsmanship. Yet it was also a terrifying monstrosity that had ripped off his leg with casual ease — one that could have slaughtered them to the man in barely a dozen more seconds.

  Now it stood at attention, sword planted firmly in the moulded stone below. For him. It knew him, knew his name, called him scion. Kaius blinked, still unable to do anything more than stare. He'd come into the room with an open mind, but this?

  “Master Unterstern, this Castellan-Executor apologises for the lawless assault of your person and your retainers. May we know the reason for the unscheduled demolition of this facility’s mainframe?” With its back ramrod straight and its gaze straight ahead, the automaton spoke once more. Its metallic timbre scraped against his skin, raising the hairs on his neck just as easily as the sparking arcane that filled the chamber.

  Though its lips remained sealed, sculpted into a perfect expression of neutrality, its voice filled the space. Commanding and loud, the deference it held was undeniable all the same.

  This…this was simply too much. The damn thing had cut off his leg, and now it apologised?

  Kaius groaned, leaning forward to feel the stump of his leg. His flesh had already knit, sealed whole.

  The thumping ache of his missing limb paled in comparison to the agony he felt flowing across his bond with Porkchop. The intensity of it filled him, gathered in his stomach, where it curdled into dread. Gods, he hoped his brother was okay. He damn near felt the crunch himself.

  Kaius pushed the castellan from his mind. If the metal monstrosity had deigned not to kill them, then they needed to make sure Porkchop was healing.

  The sight of the ruined pile of cracked metal and bone at the base of the wall ripped at his heart. Solid orichalcum plates, multiple finger-widths thick, had been shattered like eggshells. Porkchop’s unassailable and mighty chest had been caved in, a depression so deep that his ribs must have been blown nearly a full stride into his body.

  The stone wall behind him was cracked, a spiderweb of devastation streaked with Porkchop’s blood. Yet despite the devastation, he still lived. His chest fluttered as desperate breaths gurgled from his lips.

  Gods, the agony — even through the dulled haze of Porkchop’s unconscious mind, Kaius could feel it seeping through their bond. Every single one of his limbs was splayed at unnatural angles, pink bone jutting out from blood, sod, and fur.

  Never had he seen Porkchop so desperately injured. The very sight of it caught him off guard; strangled his breath.

  Just how close had they come to death?

  The kick that had so nearly killed his brother had been a casual thing — a backhanded rebuke. Not the focused and desperate attack of a warrior, but the violent dismissal of a lesser being by something greater.

  They might as well have been gnats compared to the Castellan's strength.

  Seeing his brother's flesh writhe, his health yanking bones back into position and restitching meat into wholeness, snapped Kaius from his daze.

  “Ianmus,” he cried desperately. “Healing.”

  Snapping his head to where his back line had been running for their lives, he saw that the mage had already turned back for them. Regardless of the improbability, all of them had adjusted to their sudden change of fate.

  Sprinting along the wall, the half-elf dipped into a slide, solar mana already coursing around his staff as he came to a halt by Porkchop's head.

  In the back of his mind, Kaius knew that such a move was foolish. The mage should still have been running. In a situation where the front line had been wiped out in seconds, their only chance at survival was to flee. Yet he couldn't deny the relief he felt at his friend running into what should have been certain death to help them.

  It rankled, that the only reason he still breathed was that the gods had decreed that today was not his day.

  Kenva, however, was nowhere in sight. Before he could question her absence, his answer came in the sound of heavy footsteps landing immediately behind him. Slender arms wrapped around his shoulders as Kenva let out a desperate pant.

  He was moving — leaving a red streak in his wake.

  Kenva dropped something in his lap. His own leg, still dripping with blood.

  “Hold your leg, you fool. Ianmus might still be able to reattach it if we're fast enough,” the ranger hissed.

  Kaius clutched the limb, unsure of what else he should do as the ranger dragged him across the floor towards Ianmus and Porkchop.

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  “And would you please explain to me what the fuck is going on? What is that thing? Why is it level Five-fucking-hundred?! And why does it know your gods’ damned name?!”

  “I wish I knew,” Kaius whispered back. He stared at the automaton, lost. It was still just standing there, not even watching them as it held its position.

  Kenva unceremoniously dumped him beside Porkchop's head, where Ianmus was crouched.

  Kaius grunted as he rolled onto his side. Porkchop’s helm was caved in. Not by much, but his skull was fractured at minimum. Kaius clenched his teeth, feeling the confused daze through that bond.

  Bloody gods — if it had been anyone else!

  “Ianmus!” Kenva cried. “I have his leg. Can we attach it?”

  The mage snapped his head over, inspecting Kaius' stump before he scowled.

  “Time's running out — every self-healing Skill works a little differently, but there’s still a window even with the wound healed. You'll need to cut open the stump, place the leg back on it. His skill should do the rest — if it works at all.”

  Kenva leapt over him, drawing her knife from her belt as she crouched down by his stump. A second-tier blade, it was sharper than a scalpel and would cleave through his flesh just fine. Even with the hardening he received from Tempered by Dissonance and his Constitution, he did not have metal flesh.

  Kaius held his breath, ready for the stinging kiss of the knife — only for Kenva to freeze halfway through a slash as a booming metallic voice spoke up.

  “Master Unterstern, that will not work. You will experience only a painful rejection of the limb.”

  It was the third time the creature had said his name.

  There was no way that it was some mistake or a trick of his ears. The creature knew him, knew his family. The implications of it were enormous, and far too large for him to deal with.

  Not while he was so preoccupied with the loss of his leg, and the devastation wrought against his brother. By the bloody gods, Porkchop's blood still coated the automaton's leg up to the knee…

  “Do it,” he hissed, watching the automaton for any sign of movement.

  Jolting slightly, Kenva said nothing. The edge of her knife ripped through his flesh, cutting open the rounded end of his stump in a single fluid movement. The sudden stinging pain coursed up his leg as he gasped.

  Blood oozed from the wound to soak into his underclothes once more.

  Before he could even fully process the sensation, Kenva had slapped his leg against the wound. Kaius held his breath, unsure of what to expect.

  Barely a heartbeat later, he let out a strangled cry as the burn of his health intensified to a feverish intensity. It was gnawing at him — lashing out with bared fangs at the half forgotten presence of his leg.

  It was an unnatural feeling, like his healing had turned against him, confused about what was his flesh and what was dead matter to be excised. Each lashing agony grew worse by the second as his severed leg prevented the wound from healing. Sitting up straight in a flash, Kaius grabbed the lower half of his left leg and ripped it away. Strings of blackened flesh pulled with it, constantly boiling before his very eyes.

  “It is as I said, Master Unterstern. It would not work.”

  He tossed the dead flesh to the side. Rotten roots, the Castellan was right. How? How had it known! Even Ianmus hadn't been sure, a gods damned Mystral trained mage! He’d been trained in the art of magical healing by the best!

  Even with the Castellan right there, Kaius refused to entertain the possibility of talking to it. It was asinine — pointless and petulant — but it felt like validating it with his attention would only confirm the madness of the situation.

  Not yet. Not until Porkchop was back with them.

  Instead, he looked to Ianmus for explanation, rubbing his thigh as he felt the foreign burn of his health slowly subside and the wound of his stump close whole once more.

  “What the fuck was that, Ianmus?”

  “Rejection.” Ianmus replied, his tone clipped as he focused on pouring more mana into healing Porkchop, “It can happen if too much time is taken to reconnect a limb — but most regeneration skills do not overly impact the amount of time you have once the wound is healed. There's very little information on powerful skills like your own, but the likelihood should have been low with how quick we were.”

  Moments later, Ianmus’s brow furrowed in concentration as the white knot of solar mana condensed atop his staff and erupted in a blanketing wave across Porkchop's body.

  Porkchop's already prodigious healing accelerated, and the cavity in his chest snapped back into position with a series of wet pops.

  As the seconds passed — every one of them feeling like hours in Kaius’s mind — he watched as Porkchop's skull rippled under his skin.

  His brother's eyes rolled in his sockets cloudy and dazed, but awake. Before the healing had finished, Porkchop's pupils narrowed and his eyes snapped to Kaius's own.

  “Your leg!” Porkchop said, shocked.

  A basso growl resonated through Porkchop's chest — spluttering with the blood that still filled his lungs. Uncaring of his wounds, Porkchop hauled himself to his feet, lurching away from Ianmus to step over Kaius as he faced down the automaton.

  “Wait!” Kaius yelled, grabbing Porkchop's leg. “It stopped attacking! I don't think we're in danger anymore.”

  Porkchop froze, looking down on him in confusion. “What?”

  “It knew his name,” Kenva replied. Her bow was in hand, with an arrow nocked but not drawn. “Hailed him as an Unterstern. Right after it cut through his leg.”

  The statement only confused Porkchop further. “But I thought you were from across the ocean?”

  “So did I,” Kaius muttered.

  Huron, the innkeeper of Threefields, had been clear about his father's final moments.

  There was no mistaking his last words. Father had warned that he should never leave the shores of Vaastivar until he was certain of his strength. A warning that made no sense if it was not their original home, where unknown enemies could lie in wait for him.

  But if that was the case, how did a millennia-old automaton know his dynasty's name?

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