Metallic footsteps sound normal in the sand. No different from that of an organic being. However, if you were looking with your eyes rather than your ears, you’d see quite clearly that this... thing, was no organic being.

  The metal man stepped through the desert, scanning its surroundings. The prime directive it had been born with was burnt into its head. It searched the dunes for one purpose, a singular reason. The image of its target was unforgettable, a woman with a pair of emerald eyes, pupils akin to small stars rather than perfect circles. A strange individual. Her biometric makeup would be significantly different from the natural inhabitants of this desert, making her easy to pick out of a crowd.

  Something scuttled across a rock nearby the metal man. Its servos whirred as it whipped its head around and tilted it, facing a lizard. The lizard was then scanned, indicating a high level of proteins specific to this planet. The metal man crouched down, holding out its hands in front of the lizard. The creature looked confused, but decided that the cold metal would be a nice place to rest for a moment.

  The metal man lifted the creature up to its eye cavities. The blue light that glowed within them intensified as it studied the creature. Satisfied with its work, it attempted to put the creature back down. The creature, on the other hand, had different ideas as it scurried up the metal man’s arm and cuddled up tight to its neck. Any time the metal man tried to grab for it, it quickly escaped to another part of its body. The metal man gave up and continued its search of the landscape.

  After a long walk that may have tired out an organic, the metal man stumbled upon some kind of campsite. Recently abandoned, the crops planted outside still lived. It decided to investigate the site, rummaging through towers of boxes and finding an assortment of strange items to scan. Two beds were present in the tent, indicating at least two residents. Or, former residents.

  It scanned the first bed, the one that laid closer to the ground. It was practically just a fluffy mat, but digging through its databases, the metal man decided it was more akin to the Eastern Style futon on Earth. The bed contained a few small hairs, scanning them revealed that they belonged to a man, the metal man disregarded this bed.

  It moved to the next bed, scanning it and discovering longer hairs. The longer hairs seemed promising to the metal man, as its target shared this trait. Picking up a hair, the metal man performed a deep scan of it, yielding results.

  The hair belonged to a human subject. Female, dark brunette, between the ages of four and sixteen, eye color–.

  POTENTIAL MATCH INDICATED: Emerald Eyes (98% Match), Abnormal Pupil Development (57% Match), DNA Tampering (100% Match), High Dormant Mana Levels (63% Match).

  ADVISED COURSE OF ACTION: Pursue Subject, Indicated 74% Total Match to Target, Subject Remains Close (89% Chance), Immediately Pursue to Decrease Chance of Loss (Currently 11% Chance of Loss).

  Its eyes shone brighter, lighting up the entire tent as it gathered all the hairs present on the bed and stored them. It grabbed the biological specimen that was enjoying its time on its shoulder and stored it inside a safe compartment, equipped with life support. Its calves flared out slightly as it activated a running mode, the fins on its legs glowed with a soft red, contrasting the blue of its eyes.

  It readied itself in a sprinter’s pose before taking off, running at an inhuman speed of around 75 km/h over hills and dunes of sand. Reaching the top of one such dune, the metal man instead opted to jump. Its feet spurted out a blast of energy as it hopped from the dune it was on to the next one, losing barely any speed.

  Soon it found itself in an old town, one it had searched the day prior, yielding no good results. It had actually found a predatory creature specific to this world inside one of the buildings. Even though the creature had had no interest in gnawing on metal, it had been destroyed by the metal man regardless, using WRWLF ordinance obtained from the ship.

  But now, the metal man stopped in none of the buildings as it zoomed through the area. Its internal computer had suggested this as a good first area to look for the subject, the metal man complied with its logic board as it looked down all the areas, not seeing any life-forms.

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  After searching many areas, it left the zone and sprinted through open dunes. It stumbled upon some sort of hole, for some reason, its scan indicated that the subject had been down it. It investigated the hole, jumping down into it and brightening its eyes in order to illuminate the darkness. Contrary to sand, metal footsteps do sound different on hard stone flooring.

  The metal man walked and scanned the walls, there were cubbies containing statues of lying men. Interestingly to the metal man, the statues were all imbued with some kind of energy. Scanning them further, it was concluded that stores of Dormant Mana were present in all of the statues. This meant that the statues were alive. Only living things, and mana gems, could contain Dormant Mana.

  The metal man sent a shock of electricity into one such statue. The dust puffed into the air as the statue rolled out onto the stone floor. It smacked onto the ground, but did not crack. Instead the stone man stood up and looked at the metal man.

  “Why have you summoned me?” A voice that could only be rightly described as gravel emanated from the stone man as it tilted its head.

  “I am interested in your biology,” the metal man’s voice replied, “how can you be made of stone, yet be alive?”

  “I was raised by Lord Karathuum, King of the Golems.”

  “I am not aware of this Lord Karathuum, is he here?”

  “You are a strange golem. You are not made of rocks and stone like the rest of us. Lord Karathuum may take interest in you,” the rock man paused as if he was thinking, “I will lead you to my Lord Karathuum.”

  The metal man followed behind the stone man as it was led down the halls. The stone man knew exactly where it was going, arriving in a large open space. In the middle of the space, sat a large stone table. It was perfectly round and sat low to the ground.

  The stone man went over to one side of the table, pressing a button underneath. The metal man observed as a small explosion of mana occurred before the entire table began to float upward toward the ceiling. The metal man was somewhat interested by the happenings, but the mana flow was quite obvious as he studied it. It was honestly a simple contraption, but impressive nonetheless.

  After the table had lifted away, a downward staircase was revealed, spiraling into the lower depths. The metal man followed behind the stone man, walking downward. The table dropped back down into place by the time they’d reached the fourteenth step. The metal man remembered this.

  ***

  Eventually, the pair arrived in a hall-like room. The metal man recognized it as something akin to a throne room. An astute observation, considering the throne at the end.

  As the pair approached, a voice yelled out.

  “Halt! Who goes there?”

  “Twenty-Two, my Lord Karathuum,” the stone man answered back to the voice, “I bring a gift of sorts. A golem, made not of stone.”

  “Come forth and kneel,” Karathuum slammed a staff on the ground, causing torches to light up all around the walls.

  The pair did as ordered, except the metal man did not kneel.

  “Who are you, disrespectful golem?”

  “I am known as Wraith, I had expected Lord Karathuum to be an organic, yet it appears you are a stone life-form akin to the other.”

  “An organic? Do you mean to say a living being?”

  “You are alive now. I meant to say organic, made of flesh and blood rather than stone and mercury.”

  “Interesting,” Karathuum paused as he looked at Wraith, “where have you come from, Wraith? I’ve never made a golem out of such a material as you are composed of.”

  “I am not a golem, in the way that you propose. I am animated by electricity, not mana. I originate from the planet Earth, I seek my objective.”

  “You are mistaken, Wraith,” Karathuum chuckled for a second, sounding like flint hitting steel, “I can see your mana flow. It is impressively strong, maybe even comparable to my own. I have never heard of an ‘Earth’, what is your objective?”

  Wraith scanned itself and tried to observe its so-called ‘mana flow’, discovering that Dormant Mana did, in fact, exist within it, “As gratitude for revealing my mana-electric combination composition, I will present my objective to you,” Wraith projected an image of his target to Lord Karathuum.

  “Hmm,” Karathuum contemplated for a moment, “she looks remarkably similar to the girl who opened up my domain recently. You, see, my scouting golem almost caught an intruder in recent times, the first for centuries. I saw through its eyes and a girl, no older than five years old, with similar details had fallen into the catacomb. She was certainly not as old as the image you’ve shown me, however, there have been cases of de-aging before. They are not common, but perhaps a fool could’ve stumbled upon it by accident.”

  “Is it possible for you to share her visual with me?”

  “Come to me.”

  Wraith walked up to the monarch, standing less than a meter from him. Karathuum stood up and reached out his hand and touched the temple of Wraith’s head. Instantly, the image shot into Wraith’s database, its computer determined a 93% match between the image of the target and the image of the girl. The possibility was high that they were one in the same.

  “Now I have a favour to ask of you, Golem Who Hails from Earth.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Combine mana power with me to break my seal and release me from these cursed catacombs.”

  Wraith considered the favour for a moment. It decided that there was no way that it would be able to leave the domain without accepting. Lord Karathuum’s mana flow was too intense.

  “I accept.”