A muffled thud-thud-thud echoed through the tight confines of Glassford’s chest cavity as Amelia slammed her heels against the enclosing metal walls. The space was oppressive, cramped and suffocating, filled with the faint hum of turning gears and pulsing cables that seemed more vein-like than mechanical. The shifting steel pressed around her in erratic patterns, harsh ridges and sharp protrusions bruising her with each frantic movement.

  Then—a single, heavier thud reverberated dully from somewhere beyond the walls. Amelia froze, heart racing. She strained to listen, ears ringing in the oppressive silence that followed. A faint creaking filled the air, like metal slowly yielding, denting beneath an unseen weight. Her breath hitched as the muted sound of liquid trickled softly somewhere below, rhythmic and chillingly steady.

  "Roy?" she whispered into the dark, her voice shaking with dread and hope. Silence answered her, filled only with the hollow hum of machinery and the quiet, haunting drip.

  A sudden burst of panic surged through her. Amelia lashed out, kicking frantically against the confining metal walls. Her heels struck sharply, each desperate impact reverberating painfully through her bones.

  “ROY!” she screamed, her voice raw with desperation, echoing within the confined space. “ROY! What am I even supposed to do?”

  Her breath hitched as she pressed a trembling hand against her locket. The rhythmic pulse of the Gigarock flickered beneath her fingers.

  “Rick. Roy. S-smash the stone… and then what?” The words faltered into a whisper, fragile and uncertain. “Hope you don’t die either? Hope I make it out of here at all?”

  Silence.

  No Roy. No Rick. No answers.

  Only the groaning of the Pappy Long Legs as it shifted and reconfigured around her. Gears clanked, pistons hissed, metal plates ground against each other like bones settling into place. The ship was still changing. She could feel it—an unseen directive guiding its transformation, reshaping it into something new. Suddenly, a low grinding moan filled the air, like the shuddering protest of machinery forced downward. Was the ship fighting to descend, straining desperately against the unseen wires tethered by the grotesque Whistlin’ Death airship looming above?

  Then—another sound.

  A voice.

  Not Roy’s. Not Rick’s.

  Something else.

  It slithered through the metal ribs like a whisper curling through the cracks of a coffin.

  “Little wind-up. Such a feisty thing. For a machine, this Roy broke fairly quickly—like a brittle toaster.”

  Amelia stiffened. Her eyes darted around the suffocating space. She twisted, straining to pinpoint the source, but the voice had no direction—it was inside the walls, inside her, threaded into the very frame of the ship.

  “The poor thing trapped you inside the imposter’s hollow chest.” The voice hummed in mock sympathy. “The former crown, forgotten already?”

  Her throat tightened. “Who are you?” she demanded, slamming her palm against the metal wall.

  The locket pulsed.

  A flicker of blue light illuminated the chamber, briefly casting long, spindly shadows along the walls. Amelia’s grip tightened around it, grounding herself against the growing unease.

  The voice chuckled.

  "Roy knew, too," it murmured, almost amused.

  Amelia stiffened again.

  "When Rick chose to desecrate his dying son’s soul—to shove it into a machine—where do you think the rest of Roy’s soul went?"

  A sickening weight settled in her gut.

  Desecrate.

  The word clawed at her mind, twisting, unraveling something she hadn’t yet dared to consider.

  "I don’t understand…" she whispered, voice barely audible. "This some sick joke, Number Two?"

  The voice laughed softly.

  "Open your locket," it commanded, its tone shifting from amusement to something raw and venomous.

  Amelia flinched violently, her back slamming against unseen metal fixtures. A sudden grinding rasp filled the chamber—her clothing had nearly been caught in a winding gear. A sharp sting bloomed along her arm, the metal biting into her skin.

  Then—she saw it.

  Through the jagged cracks in Glassford’s chest cavity, something stared back at her.

  A massive, blackened human-like eye.

  Not glass. Not mechanical. Something else.

  It blinked slowly.

  A visceral wave of nausea churned through her. The air grew thick, suffocating.

  The voice lowered to a whisper.

  "Look at the flesh encased within the Gigarock."

  The words slithered into her bones.

  "Ever wonder how that came to be? What it is?"

  The pulsing stone at her chest felt heavier now. Almost suffocating.

  "This was no accident. No fluke of nature."

  Amelia’s heart pounded.

  "Yerro herself shed a piece of her heart—"

  “The S-Class Gigarock,” Amelia muttered, voice distant.

  For a moment, the destruction around her faded. The tearing metal, the ship’s violent convulsions—all of it dulled as the eerie blue glow pulsed stronger.

  Just like that night.

  Just like when the Devil Dog lunged for her.

  Her breath hitched.

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  The glow reflected in a slanted piece of glass—a fractured image staring back at her.

  Her family portrait.

  Blurred. Broken. Distorted by the shifting light.

  "Yes… for your family’s namesake," the voice whispered, weaving through her thoughts. "And after a careful ritual—when you and your siblings were but babes—a piece of your soul was infused into the Gigarock. This ensured you would never truly die."

  A pause.

  "It was meant to be your inheritance. Your burden as a Woltwork to carry."

  The voice pressed closer, its presence curling into every crevice of the chamber.

  "To rule New Dwarden. To protect its thirteen Quadrants. In other words… a form of immortality sanctioned by God itself."

  A beat of silence.

  Amelia swallowed hard. "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because," the voice purred softly, "as we speak, this wretched airship fights me. It twists and turns like a fish shredding itself in the talons of an Ignorpa, for reasons unknown to me. So as I sharpen my claws, a conversation seems optimal—one that may yet turn a crown to my cause."

  “What cause?” Amelia snapped defiantly.

  “To finish awakening Yerro. To free it from its fear." The voice lowered, becoming almost reverent. "We must gather the thirteen Quadrant Leaders and use their beating hearts—hearts like the one pulsing in your locket—to finish stirring Yerro from its eternal sleep. Something actively being denied by an entitled Crown.”

  Amelia hesitated, suspicion tightening in her chest. "And why do you need me?"

  “I don’t,” it responded coolly. "But cooperation spares you from discovering the kinds of your immortality. Simply put, there's room for disagreement. Perhaps three."

  Amelia's fingers tightened instinctively around her locket, her thumb brushing against the portrait inside—Michael's stern, protective stare and Bolton’s carefree grin. Her heart twisted painfully at the thought, clarity dawning heavily: three siblings, three potential disagreements, and one unbearable threat looming over them all.

  Amelia’s anger flared. "You killed Roy!" she shouted.

  "He was never alive to begin with!" the voice snarled viciously. "Roy was Rick’s experiment! Like this wretched airship. Like you!"

  Metal groaned—no, something peeled.

  Amelia gasped as the walls trembled, the iron curling backward like the lips of a gaping wound.

  "Enough talking! I—" Amelia tried, but the voice sliced through her.

  "No—you listen, girl! I could crush you in this metallic cage if I so much as sneezed, so grant me the courtesy of a conversation."

  A cold chill crept down her spine as the ship sighed around her.

  Then—a melody.

  Soft, almost a whisper.

  As if sung from the walls themselves.

  "Dear, oh dear

  Oh, death to be feared,

  A darkness denied, a spirit in tears.

  Hear my plea, soul wrapped in greed,

  They’ll take your heart, and… that’s to start."

  Amelia’s nails dug into her palms.

  That was a childhood rhyme.

  A Quadrant Twelve warning.

  "What are the next lines?!" the voice demanded urgently.

  Glassford lurched violently.

  Amelia screamed as the ship flipped, the churning gears within his core becoming a threat. Metal sliced through her clothes, tearing fabric and skin alike.

  She whispered the next lines under her breath, defiant:

  "Live your days, let your light grow clearer.

  The pulse of hope will guide the way,

  Our hearts, our souls—they’ll never decay."

  “Tell me, girl—what songs do they sing in the Primarian Arc? Or do they merely listen to surrounding Quadrants crying helplessly into the dark? Night Monsters, Malice—whatever name comforts them... wondrous creatures born from the discarded garbage of one’s own soul. I wonder if your siblings whisper those same stories in fear.”

  Amelia flinched, memories surfacing like ghosts: Michael’s stern bedside warnings, Bolton’s relentless barrage of frightened questions toward their father.

  A cruel, glass-sharp laugh echoed through the confined chamber.

  “Was this your subtle way of revealing you're from Quadrant Twelve?” Amelia asked shakily, pressing deeper into a small crevice formed between two pistons. Pulsing red and blue lights pierced through fractured walls, gears spinning violently, narrowly missing her face.

  “No. This is my way of revealing you already knew. How?”

  “Your eye. It’s black, like many Yardrats from Quadrant 12. Alchemy to protect one from intense brightness.” Amelia brought the locket around her neck, raising it protectively. She hesitated. “From the bright energy discharge, some Gigarock give off. ..Which means you’re human. Or…”

  “You’re a Yardrat?” It blinked slowly through a larger gap—grotesque, inquisitive.

  Amelia smiled grimly. “Why ya got a soft spot?”

  Silence stretched, sudden yet ominous.

  Amelia’s knuckles whitened. She pulled the Gigarock from her locket, staring at the pulsing flesh inside. Behind her, Glassford’s core throbbed rhythmically—a mirrored heartbeat illuminating the cramped darkness. Her breath quickened as her eyes locked onto the vibrant, glowing circle at Glassford’s center. His core.

  Resolve surged through her limbs. She raised the Gigarock above her head, muscles tensed to shatter the stone.

  After a handful of unsuccessful attempts to completely shatter the Gigarock, the walls screeched violently apart. A massive, segmented mechanical hand shot through the widening cavity, metal digits wrapping around her torso from chest to toe in an unyielding grip. Jagged shards of metal scraped harshly against her skin, the sharp pain momentarily overwhelming her senses. The force crushed the air from her lungs, her vision blurring.

  “Not yet, little Yardrat,” the voice boomed, clearer now—laced with amusement and menace.

  Amelia barely had time to register panic before the mechanical hand violently wrenched her from Glassford’s interior. Her stomach lurched, dizziness overtaking her as she emerged into a storm of biting wind, swirling debris, and deafening metallic chaos. She gasped for breath, disoriented and dangling helplessly as the full horror came into focus.

  Her eyes widened—the Pappy Long Legs was barely recognizable. An expanse of jagged metal stretched beneath her, where corridors and chambers had once stood. The yawning darkness of open sky gaped like a wound, framed by twisted pathways stretching outward like grotesque limbs, gears and pistons grinding into new shapes. High above, fractured metal plates fused together with chilling precision, forming the grotesque semblance of a massive, monstrous head.

  As she hung suspended, Amelia's breath hitched. From the looming Whistlin' Death airship above, figures descended silently, drifting downward with eerie precision. Number Two, Number Thirty-Two, and an assortment of other mechanical ranks lowered themselves methodically, moving like spiders along invisible steel threads. Their collective eyes—cold, illuminated, and utterly devoid of humanity—fixed unerringly upon her, metallic chuckles rising softly, blending into a haunting chorus of mechanical whispers.

  Before her loomed a towering figure—massive yet not impossibly large, about the height of a two-story building. Robust and piston-laced, forged for raw strength, the humanoid mining construct stood firmly upon the trident-shaped anchor embedded deeply into the deck. Darkened steel shimmered with oil and soot, its hulking frame and powerful limbs lined with hydraulic pumps that radiated practicality and brutal efficiency.

  At its center was a singular, piercing yellow eye—strangely human-like yet disturbingly deliberate in its design. It peered down at her through a darkened lens, studying her with chilling intelligence.

  Amelia's heart pounded violently in her chest. Erasmus. The name echoed in her mind, familiar yet terrifying. She had heard whispers, fearful tales told by miners in hushed voices. Now, staring into the monstrous figure's unfeeling gaze, dread settled like cold iron in her gut. Memories of whispered warnings about Yardrats’ deadly encounters with Erasmus flashed through her mind, amplifying her sense of impending doom.

  She struggled helplessly against the crushing grip, her hand still clutching the pulsing Gigarock tightly. Her breath came raggedly, eyes darting frantically between the descending ranks as realization settled—the terrifying interconnectedness, a singular consciousness controlling them all.

  “No more drawn-out introductions,” came a high-pitched, robotic tone from Number Two drifting to her left, punctuated by an eerie giggle.

  “I am Erasmus—” a deeper, distorted voice echoed from Number Thirty-Two, hanging eerily to her right, laughter subtly woven into its synthetic tone.

  “Quadrant Leader Twelve. The Quadrant of industry,” Erasmus's true voice finished, rumbling powerfully from deep within the colossal construct. Each mechanical figure chuckled coldly, the combined sound echoing like a chilling symphony.

  He lifted Amelia slowly, deliberately, until she was level with his glowing eye. Its cold, analytical stare pierced through her, utterly devoid of compassion.

  “Hear me, Amelia Woltwork,” Erasmus purred darkly. “The awakening of Yerro allowed me something close to free-will. You Yardrats were the first to listen and the first to shoot.”

  The Gigarock's pulsing heartbeat echoed in her trembling hand as Erasmus’ towering form blocked out the sky, his single eye blazing with sinister intent.