An Old Timer's Trek (ON HIATUS)

A little short for a beginning, but enjoy.
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Ch. 1

“Welp, I seem to have gotten myself into quite the pickle.”

Spoken in regret, Al looked upon the trap set by him by various Sand Elementals, whose shifting bodies consistently made them impossible targets to get a focus on. The old mechanical turned to his back and saw multiple elemental entities blocking his back path with an entire wall of sand. Now he looked to his front, only to be met by several other elementals obstructing his path. There was no other option, as Al had chosen the misfortune of engaging these creatures in a narrow hallway. Armed with only his combat suit which held his chainsaw and multi-purpose needler gun, neither of which would be helpful in this situation, Al could only ponder to himself.

“These Akaptor ruins sure threw me in fer a surprise, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t handled worse in the past. “

Attempting to concoct a solution, Al held up a flask of oil and held it next to his needler, pouring it into the needle chamber of his weapon.

“Since my weapon’s normal tranquilizing needles and explosive ammunition won’t cut it, perhaps I need to think outside the box. Wouldn’t ya say, ya sandy old dogs?”

The Elementals somehow construed this together as an insult and, with a gracefulness rarely seen, they charged Al as a mob. Al finished pouring the oil into his needler and shook it up a bit, to get the needles coated.

“Alright, let’s see ya’ll survive this, fellas!”

As Al pondered the situation he had gotten himself into, it ran across his mind how this all was sprung into motion, told through one of Al’s convenient flashbacks.

~
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~

“Aaaaand done!”

Another work day had finally come to a close for Al in his underground Negavian Laboratory, which lay dormant underneath the lowest layer of Negav in darkness save for several light fixtures he had installed. Al took off his work gloves and set down his tools on a handy table nearby which housed a fascinating array of weapons and parts, some of alien origin while others couldn’t even be described by normal means. Ahead of Al lay the 10 foot humanoid machine Anchus, whose leg had been under repair for the latter half of the hour. His normally polished green armor had several scratches adorning it, especially his leg joints, which had been torn open in a previous encounter with a rather unfriendly pack of kenshas.

“Now, Anchus, I hope ya’ll are gonna be more careful with them leg joints. Last thing ya need is to wobble around on one functioning limb while a herd of them wild beasts are chasing ya.”

As per usual, Anchus sprung to his feet and took a rather high-brow attitude towards Al, his mechanical and yet slightly humanesque face looking upward in a lack of care for the situation at hand.

“Come on ya old broken down geezer. You act like I was configured yesterday. I know how to handle myself, as does my brother. After all, it’s not like we’re a bunch of filthy humans.”

“Oh, I’m not doubting ya, fella,” said Al as he placed a hand on Anchus’s shoulder, “But there’s only 4 years of experience under yer belt. When you get about one thousand years of living in Felarya, then ya’ll will know just how dangerous this place can be. And believe me, I’m STILL learning about this conflabbed dimension.”

Anchus shrugged.

“Yeah, okay Al. But I don’t think any predator can catch me with this new pressure spring you installed into my leg. I feel like a million skevols!”

Anchus foolishly slammed his leg into the ground to test his new joint which Al had repaired and upgraded, only for the spring joint to react a little too well, as the resulting spring action sent Anchus straight up into the ceiling, his head crashing right through a light fixture. Al shook his head.

“Oops, guess I put a little too much spring into ya. Heh, I reckon I’ll fix ya tomorrow Anchus, but right now I need to recharge my batteries.”

With that Al left Anchus to dig himself out from the ceiling fixture as he went to his charging station to sleep. A little time before he closedup shop, Al took a moment to look up at the large charging station which was being occupied by Anchus’s 70 foot brother, Anchorus.

“If only yer brother wasn’t such an arrogant bolt-for-brains. Eh, Anchorus?”

There was not much else to end on that note with, so Al decided to rest on his charging station and deactivate until the next day. What Al didn’t know was that, in the morning, he would have a very interesting delivery in his post box…

Good stuff. A little short, like you said. Maybe put in some more details, like how many sand elementals there are (or mention that because they're shifting so much he can't tell), what the corridor looks like, why he has to get to the end of the dungeon, where the dungeon is on Felarya, how long it took him to get there, why he doesn't have any weapons to deal with them, etc.

Thank you. Since it was a flashback, I didn't make it very descriptive, but nonetheless I shall work on that.

Much appreciated.

It's starting well
And it's nice to see more adventures taking place in Akaptor desert ^^
Is that quote from Anchus referring to The Six Million Dollar Man ? XD

You know your quotes well Karbo.

Had a little writer's block, but here's the next chapter:

Ch. 2

The sun had at last arisen it's night of sleep and illuminated the early morning hours of the Negavian capital. For half the city, it meant a new day filled with lush opportunities. For the other half, it meant dregging onward in a typical slave-wage job. For Al, however, it spelled an entire list of mechanical jobs he had awaiting him, from re-rigging Anchus and his spring joint, to fixing an oil leak in the lower laboratory rooms, along with collecting samples of the Felaryan wildlife from across the vastness of the lands, and so on and so on, as his "to-do" list specified. Al powered up his systems upon hearing the crowing of the bustling Metropolis and jumped to his feet, ready to tackle the day.

“Hoo-ey! My battery feels like it just got tipped off fresh from the outlet. Time to see what I can get done today.”

Grabbing for his checklist, he sprung to begin his work day. Before he could check off the first item, which ironically was "check the mail", he heard a ring of the doorbell from his main workship, which lay above his laboratory, situated in the uppermost city of Negav, which he heard thanks to his intercom. He jumped into his personal express elevator, which connected his laboratory underground to his workshop aboveground, and set it to travel to the top floor. Like a bullet train, the elevator shot Al upward at thousands of miles per hour, thankfully unaffecting his robot stature. Once reaching his shop, he bounced out of the elevator like a robot in his 20's, and upon checking for the source of the ring, he discovered that it was merely the mail-neko, whose jolly feline antics combined with her love of the postal system and rather skimpy mail-man outfit, greeted Al with a cheery disposition.

“Hello there! Mya~~~ I have some mail for a ‘Mister Al Bert something’. Would you kindly sign here?”

After a brief session of signing 20 documents, much to Al’s chagrin, the neko read over the papers and handed Al a letter, covered in hardened sand.

“Thank you so much! And have a nice day! Mya! ~~~”

The happy cat girl skipped out the door, ready to deliver mail to all the other occupants of Negav. Al merely shook her joyful, yet creepy vibes off of himself and gazed at the letter handed to him.

"Welp, I'm glad the mail-cat is so enthusiastic about her job... now, let's take a gander at this here letter..."

It was worn and dated, and it seemed familiar, like it was made of the same materials Al would normally use in postage, though he couldn’t tell through the sand and deterioration. He would question the origins of the letter later, as he opened the letter eventually, curious as to the contents inside.

“Hmm. Let’s see now. I wonder who would send me a letter…”

The letter read as such:

_~
-Dear whoever finds this letter,

I am in a predicament and require assistance. I am located within the Akaptor Desert, specifically in the Buried Ruins. I can only hope my letter reaches someone before it is too late. If you wish to assist me, I’ll leave coordinates in the case that you need to find your way here. Again, help would be appreciated.-
_~

The name which would’ve come underneath the plea of help was smudged out by some sort of black stain, leaving the name of the messenger in mystery. He sat down with a hot piping cup of crude oil and read over the letter again, including the instructions which came with it.

“Someone is in trouble, eh? Welp, normally, I wouldn’t intervene in humans and their little escapades with predators and natural dangers, but this fella did ask nicely. And he sent me a letter. I can’t really turn him down without being rude… Well, I guess I could oblige.”

Al looked at his list of “things to do” and, looking down the list, put a checkmark next to one of the descriptions listed.

“Hmm... While I’m at it, now would be a good time to collect some soil samples of the Akaptor desert. Why not?”

Al put down his mug and jumped back into his bullet elevator, which shot him back into his underground factory with enough speed to splatter an ordinary human against the ceiling. Having reached the bottom in a hurry, Al peeled himself off the ceiling of the elevator and strut into his armory, where his environmental/combat suit lay hidden.

“If my destination is the Akaptor Desert, then I better arm myself accordingly.”

The suit, configured by Al himself, was a minimum of 10 feet in height, had a shiny steel coating resistant to hot and cold temperatures, and housed two weapons: a chainsaw capable of cutting through tough vegetation, and a weapon which specialized in firing rapid amounts of needles which vaporized on contact. The default setting coated them with tranquilizing agents, capable of putting most small beasts out of consciousness for a minimum of five hours, though the content of the needles could be changed at will with different types of ammunition. Despite this, the potential for combat with the suit was limited, and Al recognized this.

“I had never designed the suit for combat, so if I run into danger, I better prepare some contingency plans. I can only hope the desert predators are easy to deal with as them serpentine nagas...”

With that Al took the time to prepare supplies for his trip to the desert. He started with the basics, from extra oil reserves via flasks. He took enough to practically fill a small bathtub, but as Al said to himself, “you can never have too much of clean, joint greasin’ oil.”

He packed just one more pint of oil, before reaching for his atlas.

"Alright, the Akaptor Desert is half way across the continent. I better map out a path..."

For the next hour Al took his time plotting a course across the continent, taking into account every factor that came across his hard drive.

"Alright, I'll use my secret exit in the Grove of Carnivorous plants... a short trek west will bring me to the Negavian mainroad... I'll pick up supplies at the neko village past that.... head across the northern peak of the Ascarlin Mountains.... best be careful of that dern Lake of Illusions... Sulfur fields shouldn't be too difficult, I wonder if I can collect some sulfur from them while I'm there.... hmm..."

His course now navigated on a conveniently handy map in his shop, Al took to his mechanical suit. He opened the front up which shot out stream from the pressurized joints, giving Al the chance to lay back in it, closing the frame behind him and switching on the power. The suit hummed to life and displayed the opening screen infront of Al’s face. He gave a command prompt to the suit to walk forward, out of the armory. It still worked like a charm, despite being out of use for a few months since his previous adventure into the jungles. He performed a check of the basic systems, including the boosters engravened into the back of the suit. They whirred to life as well, a blue flame erupting from the booster sockets. Al diverted to them a jolt of energy, which caused the boosters to burn bright as a star, sending Al nearly crashing into the ceiling. Fortunately, Al stopped boosting just in time, inches away from a light fixture.

“phew! Fer a second I was about to pull an Anchus! Heheheh”

Al settled back down to the ground, and as he was all packed, and his suit was in working condition, Al declared himself ready to go. He held the letter from before in his mechanical suit’s hand before laying it to rest on the table.

“Okay, I got the coordinates, I got my oil, and I got my suit. Let's make a little magic happen.”

Preparations having been finished, Al made his way to the underground path which allowed him access to his exit in the Carnivorous Grove, well outside Negav’s boundaries. From there he would head to the Desert of Akaptor to answer the call from the letter...