I sat among the carnage, my mechanical body creaking as I assessed the damage. The dwarf's axe had nearly split my chest plate in two. Several of my legs hung askew, their vine bindings severed. The arrow still protruded from my face, sending waves of agony through my ruined flesh. I yanked it out with a fierce, angry pull, the resulting pain almost knocking me unconscious. I tossed the miserable missile aside, sending it to the dirt.

  Using Assembly, I gathered materials from the camp. Their weapons and armor would serve to repair my frame. Metal moved under my touch, clamping together into stronger plates. I wove new bindings from leather straps and belt fragments. When I finished, my mechanical body stood whole once more, though the rusted plate was now stained with human blood.

  I couldn't leave them like this. Whatever monster I had become, these men deserved better than to rot out in the open air.

  The rocky, hard-packed ground fought me every inch of the way as I dug. My mechanical arm scraped against stone, sending sparks flying. The enhanced strength of my frame let me break through the harder patches, but progress remained agonizingly slow.

  Hours passed. The first grave took the longest as I figured out the best technique. Stab down with the sword to break up the rocks and compacted soil, then scoop with my hands. By the third grave, I'd developed an efficient rhythm.

  I laid them to rest one by one, arranging their arms across their chests. The dwarves I buried with their axes; it seemed right somehow. When the last body was covered, I gathered stones to mark each grave.

  "I'm sorry," I tried to say, but only that damned shriek emerged from my cursed lips. Even in death, I couldn't give them proper words.

  The sun had crossed most of the sky by the time I finished. Six stone cairns now stood as silent sentinels in this wasteland. I'd done what I could for them, though it felt like an utterly hollow gesture. I was the cause of their deaths, after all.

  The landscape shifted as I trudged forward. Bare rock gave way to patches of dead grass, then to twisted shapes that rose from the ground like grasping fingers. Trees, or what remained of them. Their gnarled, blackened branches reached toward the perpetually gray sky, dry and utterly lifeless.

  My mechanical legs clicked against exposed roots and fallen branches. Dried bushes crackled as I pushed through them. The sound echoed through the dead forest, breaking its oppressive silence.

  The western mountains dominated the horizon now. Their peaks pierced the clouds, dark and foreboding. What had seemed like an endless journey when I first emerged from the earth now felt close to ending. A few days' march would bring me to their base.

  A squealing cry broke through my thoughts. Another corrupted boar charged out from behind a cluster of dead trees. Its tusks glowed with an unnatural purple light, foam dripping from its mouth. I brought my sword around in a slow but practiced arc, cleaving through its skull. The beast dropped mid-charge, its maggot-ridden brains spilling upon the earth.

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  A shadow passed overhead. Looking up, I spotted dark shapes wheeling against the gray sky. Bats, but wrong; too large, with wingspans wider than I was tall. Their skin appeared diseased, patches missing to reveal bone beneath.

  One dove at me, its mouth opening to reveal rows of needle-like teeth. My rusted blade met it halfway, splitting it from jaw to belly. Another swooped in from behind. I spun, my mechanical legs moving stiffly but working in perfect coordination. The sword took its wing off, and the bat crashed into a dead tree trunk with a wet crunch.

  The rest of the flock scattered back into the clouds. I watched them go, their shrieks fading into the distance. The bat I'd wounded tried to crawl away but I ended its suffering with a quick thrust from my sword.

  More corrupted creatures would come; they always did. But with my weapon and this mechanical body, I feared none of them.

  The mountains drew closer with each focused step.

  Some hours later, I was met with an obstacle: a massive boulder blocked my path, its weathered surface stretching high above. I scurried around it's wide side, trying to get around. The crunch of gravel under my mechanical feet echoed off the stone face.

  As I stepped past the obstruction, a glint of steel caught my attention. Three men burst from behind scraggly bushes, rusty blades already in motion. Their leather armor hung in tatters, faces gaunt and wild beneath matted hair. But their attacks came in practiced sequence: one high, one low, one thrust.

  I brought my sword up to parry the first strike. "Wait-" I tried to say. The sound that emerged was an inhuman screech that sent them staggering back, hands clutching their ears. Their expressions twisted from pain to rage.

  They recovered fast, pressing the attack with renewed fury. A blade found a gap in my leg joints. Another scraped across my chest plate, leaving deep gouges in the metal.

  I swung my sword in a wide arc, trying to drive them back without killing them. "Please stop-" Another shriek. More pain etched across their faces.

  Something heavy dropped over me. Barbed metal points dug into the seams of my armor as a weighted net entangled my frame. Looking up, I glimpsed more of the wild men atop the boulder, grinning through broken teeth.

  I tried to break free but each movement only caused the barbs to sink deeper, the net drawing tighter. My legs locked up. The sword slipped from my grasp.

  With a final metallic groan, I toppled sideways. The impact of my mechanical body hitting the ground echoed through the rocky terrain like a hammer strike.

  Moving proved impossible, the rough fibers of the net was now wrapped tightly around my frame. I moved my head around as best I could, trying to see what my captors were doing. Through my mental sight, I saw several rough looking men surrounding me. They were all tall and had round ears, marking them as sapiens. Yet their looks and demeanor caused me to question this. In my fractured memories, sapiens were an honorable folk, well known for being strong warriors. Yet these men had the wild look of beasts in their eyes, their bodies marred by numerous scars that told stories of rough times lived.

  "What the hell is it?" One of the men grumbled out the question as he looked down at my still form, tangled in the heavy net.

  "Some weird monster, obviously!" Answered one of his fellows. He used his spear to poke me through the net, the dull point clanking against my cuirass. "It's got armor on, so it's prob'ly one of 'em intelligent ones!"

  "Never seen nothing like it before," the first man said.

  "That just means it's rare!" Another said to the two. "And rare means some rich snob'll pay us buckets for it." He let out a bark of greedy laughter.

  "I defin'ly like the sound of that!"

  The men continued to chat about how much money they could make off me as they each grabbed a section of my tangled body. With much complaining, they began dragging me through the dirt towards some unknown destination. Who knew what awaited me next in this insane land.