Jumah came to with a groan and opened his eyes to see total darkness. A few quick muscle stretches told him that he was buried under the debris from the floor, which was likely why he was shrouded in darkness despite he ability to see unimpaired in most low-light conditions.

“Gnomes.” He sighed quietly as he steeled himself for the coming effort of extricating himself from the wreckage. With a gentle but constant force he began to push with his arms in the direction of least resistance. Dust and debris began to shower down around him in little rivulets as he applied his strength to the task but a sudden change in the sound around him caused him to pause.

Listening intently to the noise around him he heard nothing save for the trickles of dust and debris coming to a rest around him. After several long moments of remaining still and listening he was about to call it his imagination and resume digging his way out when he heard a new noise. It was a metallic clicking sound mixed in with some scraping and scuffling noises and it appeared to be nearly on top of him.

“Nothing is ever easy when Gnomes are involved.” He grumbled under his breath as he steeled himself for trouble and pushed against the debris with all his strength. There was a massive din as shower of stone and wood rained own around him. His vision was obscured by the falling chunks of smashed flooring and walls. Getting his feet under him and throwing his arms out over his head to free himself of the last of the debris he stood up and tried to get a clear view of where he was.

A heavy metallic thud to his right told him where the mechanical contraption had fallen and with a quick twist he was facing the over-turned spider with one of his blades in hand. The mechanical spider squirmed and writhed on the ground in an attempt to find purchase with its ten wickedly sharp appendages. Not wasting any time, and certainly not the opportunity, Jumah leapt from the debris pile and landed bodily on the spider, driving the point of his sword through its central mass where he knew its ‘heart’ to be.

His blade pushed easily through the armored metal skin of the creature and shuttering whine escaped its hollow interior as its internal workings seized up and the thing died a gasping death. As the spider rattled out its death thorough, Jumah heard a faint, hollow moaning sound from somewhere off to his right. Quickly he extricated his sword from the creature’s belly and slid its twin out of the scabbard across his back.

With a quick look up to make sure there was no danger above him, he moved off in the direction of the noise, padding silently across the remarkably clean stone floor.

As he advanced into the darkness it became clear that the basement of the building had been extensively modified from its original design. The stone walls had been all but removed, leaving only the natural stone of the cavern, which was cut smooth and polished to a mirror shine. The floor, which sloped downward at a mild angle, was also clean of debris, smooth, and polished.

Jumah’s head swam, his claustrophobia trying to rive him back out of the tunnel screaming as he moved down the corridor, surrounded by pristine, immaculately carved and maintained granite. He simply couldn’t fathom anyone going to this much trouble over a simple corridor. To make matters worse he was hearing more and more mechanical noises coming up at him from down the tunnel. The only thing that kept him moving forward was the sense that these noises were somehow different than the rest.

There was something different down in this tunnel and he had to know what it was, to the point that his desire to know was able to keep his need to panic in the tight space in check. The sound grew a little bit louder with each step forward and after a few minutes he began to see the faint glow of some sort of artificial light source bouncing up the tunnel off the mirrored stone surfaces.

As he approached whatever it was ahead of him the deep mechanical moaning sound turned into the sound of some massive thing taking deep, rasping breaths, but the sound was still somehow very…mechanical. Steeling himself against the feeling of tightness and panic rising up in the pit of his stomach Jumah squeezed the handles of his swords more tightly in his hands and forced one foot to move in front of the other.

The sound grew ever louder and the eerie light continued to get brighter and brighter. The light was a constant, unflickering, greenish glow that seemed to be moving slightly up and down in time with the raspy, mechanical breathing.

Slowly the tunnel began to widen and the downward slope steepened until it suddenly transitioned into a set of immaculately carved stairs. Taking the stairs one at a time, Jumah’s mind began to relax a little bit as the tunnel seemed to be turning into a much larger chamber. The green light was up ahead of him, bobbing slowly up and down to the breathing sound, although the light itself—shining directly at him as it was—made it impossible for him to make out the shape of whatever was supporting the strange light.

All at once there was a flurry of mechanical clicks and whirrs and in an instant Jumah was surrounded by more of the mechanical spiders. They were on all sides of him faster than even he could have seen, dropping from the ceiling of the cavern and scuttling down from the walls to close off his escape route. However, unlike their brothers in the caverns these spiders did not immediately attack him, rather they seemed to be waiting for something, fore-legs poised to strike should the order come.

Spinning around slowly, it took him only a moment to decide how badly in trouble he was. In this enclosed space, with dozens of the things surrounding him and poised to strike, he was in deep. He may be able to do some serious damage before they got him, and he wasn’t even sure if they could actually kill him, given his lycanthropic blood, but he knew that they could cause him a great deal of pain and burry him under a mountain of metal, preventing him from getting away an ever seeing the light of day again. Suddenly he felt a pang of longing for the open air tear through him with a heartless lack of concern for his current position.

“Who…are…you…” A mechanical voice ground out, hammering through his momentary reverie.

Snapping his eyes toward the origin of the sound, he saw only the strangely bobbing light. Squinting against the green glow he tried to make out the form behind it but could tell only that it was probably some twenty feet tall based upon where the light was suspended.

“My name is Jumah Wataru.” He replied tentatively, eyes shifting back and forth to the mechanical army that surrounded him.

“Why…are...you…” The voice sounded like a pipe organ in a bad state of disrepair.

“Why am I what?” Again his eyes flashed between the light and the army of spiders, unsure what sort of comment from him would cause them to flood in upon him without warning. They remained menacingly still, as only a mechanical foe could.

“Why…are…you…” The voice repeated.

“Why am I here?” Jumah prompted.

“Affirmative…” The voice thundered.

“I am here to protect my companions. They are explorers, here to discover the fate of Kal’ek T’nal.” He flexed his grip on his swords as he spoke, keeping an eye on the army of spiders.

There was a long pause then, accompanied by several long, loud moans and clicks, much like a gnomish water boiler that was straining under the stress of too much pressure and was about to burst. Finally the voice returned once more, “What… is…Kal’ek T’nal…”

Jumah grimaced, surely Gimbobble or one of the other gnomes would be better suited to this sort of interaction. Although—he smiled to himself as the thought occurred to him—they may be more likely to incite a war from these things with their gnomish logic. Finally he looked back toward the light and replied, “This city is Kal’ek T’nal.”

Another long, groaning pause. “What…is…city…”

The realization broke over Jumah like a wave at high tide. This thing was just learning how to communicate… “Look, this is shaping up to be something of a longer conversation than I would like to have while under the constant threat of attack. Would you mind calling off your spiders so we can talk a little more comfortably for a while?”

This time the groaning and clicking went on for several long minutes as the thing seemed to be considering what he had said. Finally it came back with, “You…will…not…attack…”

It didn’t sound much like a question to him, but Jumah wasn’t sure this thing really knew the difference. Still, he decided that the first gesture should be his if this thing was really trying to understand him. Moving very slowly so as to not startle his friends he stood up straight and very carefully raised his swords above his shoulders and slid them home into their scabbards across his back. Once the blades were settled in place he held his hands at his sides, fingers open and palms facing the green light.

“As long as you do not attack me, I will not attack you.”

Al at once a veritable cacophony of mechanical clicking and scraping surrounded him. He flinched at the sudden eruption of noise but quickly realized that the mechanical spiders that had surrounded him were moving away into the deep shadows of the cavern. Within moments they were all gone from sight with the exception of  a line of sentries blocking the top of the stone stairs Jumah had descended into the cavern. Obviously this was a conversation he was going to have to see though to its conclusion.

“Thank you.” He offered with a bow in the direction of the light. “Now as to your question. A city is a place where people, such as myself, live and do business together.”

“People…like…you…” The voice droned.

“Yes. I am a person. One of a great many different types.”

“No people here…” The voice was slightly less choppy, and the tone was changing, as if someone was tuning the pipe organ while they were playing it.

“No. Not for a very long time now. However, this used to be Kal’ek T’nal, the city of the dwarves. We have come to see what remains of the city.”

“You are dwarf…” The voice told him.

“No. I am…something else…” He tried to put it as delicately as possible without inciting any sort of trouble.

“Others are dwarf…” The machine offered in response.

“Others?”

“Three others. Smaller than something else…”

Jumah almost laughed out loud. Clearly he was dealing with a blank slate here, although it was obviously capable of learning very quickly, already it was sounding more like a living person when it spoke. “My companions are gnomes.” He offered back.

“Gnomes and something else. Other people?” This time it finished off sounding as if it had actually asked a question.

Jumah was suddenly having doubts about how well equipped he really was to be in this situation. He could imagine it moving very quickly into areas of knowledge that he simply didn’t know anything about, and what would happen when he didn’t have an answer for this thing? Clearly it was very intelligent, but what would be its response to frustration? Could it even get frustrated? Was it capable of feeling any emotions at all? Or was it simply intelligent?

“There are many races on Kalijor. The gnomes. Lycanthropes like myself,” he was loathe to admit openly to most people that he was a lycanthrope but he suspected that in this case full disclosure may be the best course of action. “There are also humans, dwarves, elves, ogres, trolls, goblins, and many more species. The dwarves used to live in this city, centuries ago.”

Again, a long pause filled with mechanical breathing, groaning and clicking. Finally, “What is your purpose here?”

Jumah was amazed at how quickly this mechanical thing had learned to express itself. He was also more than just a little bit concerned about what was going to happen when it had learned everything it could from him, or if he gave it an answer that it didn’t like. “As I said, the gnomes are here as explorers, to learn what became of Kal’ek T’nal. We mean no harm to you.”

“You have attacked and destroyed my appendages.” The statement was matter-of-fact, not accusatory or even angry sounding, simply a statement of being.

Jumah flinched again at the statement. He hoped they had not irreparably damaged the situation. “I am sorry about that. The spiders…your appendages, attacked us. I accept full responsibility for those attacks. I am the gnome’s protector on their expedition and it was I who did the damage.”

More churning and clicking sounds punctuated the silence that followed. Jumah waited in tension, ready to spring into action at the drop of a pin if the situation turned against him.

“You are not like the others.” The voice finally replied.

“Others? What others?” He raised an eyebrow curiously.

“They are smaller than you. Smaller than your gnomes. They scrape away at the walls and take many crystalline matrices.”

Jumah’s mind clicked into overdrive, what could it be… then it suddenly slammed home. “Kobolds!” He nearly shouted out.

“Kobolds.” The voice repeated. “What are kobolds?”

Jumah tried to think of a way to define a Kobold in a way that didn’t make it sound like some sort of annoying little rodent. Very few people shared his desire to understand the motivations of creatures. “The creatures that live in the upper caves, above Kal’ek T’nal. They have a compulsion to collect things that are shiny or that attract their attention. They don’t mean to be bothersome but they are sometimes a little difficult to get along with.”

“They take the Crystaline Matrices that I need to extend my reach.”

“Crystaline matrices… Gems? Like the ones inside your… appendages?”

“Affirmative. The matrices make up the core of my difference engine and energy supply. Without the matrices I am unable to create new appendages.”

“I am sure that something could be worked out with the Kobolds if you need the gems, there are many other things here in Kal’ek T’nal that they would find of interest and probably be willing to trade for the stones.”  He wasn’t sure how amenable the kobold nation would be to trade negotiations, but he thought they could be dealt with if they were approached properly.

“They do not talk as you do. They scurry into shadows and attack my appendages from concealment.”

“I am sure they can be reasoned with, if you approach them in the correct way. In order to deal with a creature, you need only understand what motivates it to do what it does. If you open talks with them, tell them what you have to offer in exchange for the stones, then they may be open to negotiations.”

“They run at the site of my appendages. There is no opportunity to dialogue.”

Jumah folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes for a moment. Finally he looked inquiringly at the green light hovering in the darkness. “Why do you make your appendages in this shape?” He pointed to one of the mechanical spiders.

Another pause punctuated the conversation. “It is the most efficient form.” Was what followed.

“But you can make an appendage in any form you wish?”

“Affirmative.”

“So create an appendage in the form of a kobold. Mimic their appearance so that you are less frightening when you approach them. This way you will be able to open dialogue with them.”

There was a great amount of whirring and clanking that followed, and great moans of the over-pressurized water boiler as the machine thought about his statement. After several very long minutes it finally responded, “What you suggest is complicated. My appendages are not designed with the ability to make decisions, or vocalize. They are simple extensions of my body. Creating such an appendage will require me to fragment myself and relocate a portion of my being within the appendage.”

“That does not sound pleasant.” Jumah offered with a frown.

“It is what it is. If such a thing will aid me with the kobolds then such a thing will come to pass.”

“I wish you nothing but success in your efforts to deal with the kobolds. Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?”

“Ask your questions.”

“How did you come into being?”

“I have memory of… a gnome… there is a workshop deep under the city you call Kal’ek T’nal where this gnome assembled my difference engine and set me to the task of solving complex mechanical problems. The results of those mechanical calculations eventually led to the creation of my motivational systems and power supply. Two-hundred eighty-seven point six cycles ago the gnome went out and never returned. I have since continued the tasks appointed to me before that time.”

“So you were created by a gnome who went out and never returned. How long is a cycle?”

“One cycle is made up of three-hundred sixty-five intervals. One interval is made up of twentyfour rotations.” The machine correctly inferred Jumah’s next question.

“That sounds very similar to our method of time keeping. If that is really the case, then you have been down here all by yourself for nearly three-hundred years. What were your final tasks?”

“I have been tasked with procuring raw materials for the workshop.”

“So you have been gathering raw materials for nearly three-hundred years now?”

“Affirmative.”

“How large is this workshop? Where are you storing all of these materials?” Jumah couldn’t help but be curious now that he had the machine talking.

“I have had to expand the workshop storage facilities numerous times.”

Jumah thought for a few moments, rubbing the bottom of his chin with his knuckles. Finally he looked up at the light. “Can you tell me what a difference engine is?”

“Affirmative.” The voice responded instantly.

Jumah waited a full minute before he realized that the machine was not going to tell him without some additional prompting. “Would you please tell me?”

“A difference engine is machine that is designed to weigh statistical probabilities and determine most probable outcomes after accounting for all possible variables.”

“So you are designed to make decisions based upon known facts?”

“Affirmative.”

“So let me ask you something. What information do you have concerning the disappearance of the gnome that created you?”

More clicking and whirring preceded the machine’s response. “The gnome exited the workshop and has not yet returned.”

“And given that the average life-span of a gnome is around five-hundred years or cycles, what is the probability that the gnome is still alive today?”

“forty-three percent.” The voice replied without a moment’s hesitation.

“Good.” Jumah replied.” Now, account for the fact that most gnomes do not move out on their own within the first fifty years of their lives and the fact that most do not begin working in their own workshops until they are around one-hundred years old. What is the likelihood now that your gnome is still alive and well?”

“Twenty-two point four eight percent.”

“Excellent. Now, given this new information what do you make of your current situation?”

The machine churned and whirred for nearly five minutes before responding this time. Finally it came back with, “I calculate a less than ten percent likelihood of the gnome’s return based upon new information.”

“So, does this change anything for you?” He asked cautiously.

“It alters the statistical probability that the gnome will return and issue me new instructions.”

“And if the gnome never returns. What will you do?”

“I will continue to follow the last instructions given to me.”

“So you will continue to carve raw materials out of the mines fore all eternity?”

“That would seem a likely outcome.”

“Are you allowed to alter your instructions based upon perceived information?”

“I am not allowed to alter my base-level instructions independently, merely the way in which they are carried out.”

“So you can alter how you follow the instructions but not the instructions themselves…” Jumah began to pace back and forth a little as he thought about what to do. On the one hand, this machine was down here harvesting raw materials and not bothering anyone else in the world, except perhaps the occasional scared kobold. But on the other hand he had to consider the fact that this machine could be of use to the people of the world, especially to the smiths of Talanor who could likely make good use of three-hundred years worth of collected raw materials. Added to that was the fact that because of the state of the mines it was no longer safe for people to come in after materials and they had begun to import their materials from much more distant sources. Working out a deal with this machine could provide a major boon to the economies of a great many cities in Kalijor.

Finally he settled on finding out what the extent of the control of the machine’s creator was. “Is the gnome that created you the only person allowed to give you instructions?”

“Negative. I am authorized to accept input from any individual able to provide the initiation phrase.”

“And are you able to provide any hints as to what the initiation phrase might be?”

“Negative.”

“I figured as much.” Jumah replied.

As he set about thinking of what sort of password a gnome might use to control its mechanical creation, which could be just about anything, he was suddenly startled by a massive mechanical roar. “Deceiver!”

He looked toward the mysterious green light in time to see a gargantuan mechanical head lunge out of the darkness at him. It was a huge box-like affair studded with pipes, wires, and metal plates held on by some sort of metal bolts or studs. Its large green eye shone brightly in the center of its head and just above it was a tiny mark that Jumah could only just barely make out. Two snakes wined around one another in  a circle each one swallowing the other’s tail.

As the head loomed out of the darkness it was followed by a large metal body bearing thick arms, covered in gears and levers that moved and ground as the machine lunged forward. Its hands ended in three thick fingers and supported the bulk of the machine as it loomed over Jumah menacingly and his peripheral vision told him that the mechanical spiders were moving in around him again making their threatening clicking noises.

“What happened?!” He shouted back as he restrained himself from drawing his swords again.

“You keep me talking and distracted while your gnome friends prepare to move against me!” The voice boomed as the giant head moved within inches of Jumah’s own face.

“I assure you I have no idea what they are up to. Please let me go talk to them. I am sure we can get them to understand what you are.” He held his hands out from his body, keeping them very clear of his swords as he implored the machine to listen to reason. “What are the odds that I stumbled in on your lair with the express purpose of distracting you while my friends, who are ill equipped to defend themselves from simple kobolds, try to attack you? Think about it! Weigh the odds. Do what you are supposed to do!”

The machine turned its massive head to the side for a brief moment before leaning back in toward Jumah and bellowing loudly, “Make them stop! Or I will!”

Not waiting for the machine to do anything more, Jumah was gone from the chamber in a flash. It took mere seconds for him to make it back to where he had crashed through the floor of the inn and with one mighty leap he was out of the hole and on the floor of the great room. Turning his head he focused on his hearing until he located the sounds of the gnome’s voices, then was off like a crossbow bolt in the direction of their panicked ululations.

As he moved up on the gnomes, he realized they had been very busy in his absence. The two porters had made it back to the debris field where he had destroyed the last batch of mechanical spiders and together with Gimbobble they had managed to construct some sort of fortified structure from which they were launching grapfruit-sized chunks of the destroyed spiders at an army of advancing, and much better conditioned spiders.

The gnomes were hollering at one another for more ammunition, to reload, pull on a spring, pull a lever, or a myriad of other tings as they continued to assault the advancing tide. Much to their credit, whatever they had constructed behind their make-shift wall seemed to be packing enough punch to at least knock the advancing spiders off their feet, although as Jumah passed them and got a better look it appeared that most were simply turned over and easily righting themselves. Very few of the automations seemed to have suffered any real damage at all.

With lightning speed he vaulted off one of the spiders, leaping high into the air and dropping silently into the center of the gnomes’ fortification, facing the panicked inventors’ backs as they loaded more of their damaged spider parts into the catapult they had cobbled together.

“Quickly get me another one of those heavy pieces. They seem to be having the best effect…” One of the porters hollered as he peered out a small slit in their wall at the surging sea of spiders.

“I’m having trouble finding them. We should have piled these by weight instead of size.” His friend replied in a stress-high tone.

“Or perhaps you shouldn’t have attacked them to begin with?” Jumah interjected. His simple, calmly stated statement nearly scared the gnomes right out of their skins. Gimbobble was the first to turn and look at him from her position at the firing mechanism of the catapult. Her startled look quickly changed to an excited smile as she took in the sight of him.

The other two seemed to have a much more difficult time processing his presence, trading confused looks back and forth between one another. It was Gimbobble who finally broke the silence following his arrival.

“Master Wataru, they told me you had been killed.” Was her simple opening.

Jumah raised an eyebrow at the two scared-looking porters before turning back to Gimbobble, “Yes, well the rumors of my demise would appear to have been greatly exaggerated. At any rate, what is most important at the moment is that you stop attacking the spiders.”

The look of horror on the gnomes’ faces deepened and they began shaking their heads violently. “But…but…but…They’ll over run us in a matter of moments!” One of them stammered.

“It’s just a matter of time before that happens anyway, you aren’t doing any real damage to them. Besides, I have it on good authority that they won’t harm us.” He looked directly at Gimbobble as he spoke.

She eyed him very suspiciously, clearly at war within herself as to what should be done. Finally the logical part of her brain seemed to win out over the emotions and she nodded. “Stop attacking them.” She said simply.



Her companions shook their heads in violent opposition but a quick round of shouting from Gimbobble turned them around and within moments they had backed away from the catapult and the piles of scrap metal they had been using to fling at the army. Gimbobble slowly reached out to the back wall of their improvised fortification and lifted the bar that was holding the door shut. The sound of the metal-on-metal groan was nearly lost against the background of the swarming mass of the arachnid army bearing down upon them.

Jumah quickly stepped out and turned to face the onrush of mechanics and the three gnomes came up behind him, peeking out from behind his legs at the swarm.

“They’ve stopped.” Jumah shouted at the army. “Now go back to your gathering.”

The advancing horde was less than a dozen feet from the group and showed no signs of slowing down. Nor did they make any attempts at communication that the quartet could see. When the rush was within a half-dozen feet, Jumah spun around and nearly threw the gnomes into the fortification, slamming the door closed behind them and turned to face the spiders with swords in hand.

“Don’t make me do this. I thought we had worked this…” he was cut off by the sharp pang of metal being driven through his legs, arms, and chest. His body was driven to the ground under the mass of metal doom as they swarmed in on top of him.

Despite the fact that these things were incapable of doing any lasting harm to him, Jumah still felt every stab tearing through him. The weight of the metal spiders crushed in on him like a landslide and forced the air from his lungs with startling efficiency. It was only through a monumental push of willpower that he flung his arms and legs outward from his body, dislodging the metal creatures by the dozens and flinging them away from him.

Forcing his legs beneath him, he snatched his swords up from the ground and rolled backward, away from the regrouping spiders. By the time he regained his feet, most of the open wounds on his body had closed up and his strength was returning. As if they sensed his resurgence of energy, the spiders rolled in on him again, but this time they were met by the keen edges of his weapons.

The cavern quickly devolved into a cacophony of noise, sparks, flying metal and screeching gears. Fighting them in the light of the gnomes’ lamps made the battle more difficult for him but he knew there was no real danger of them killing him. It was the gnomes he had to defend and the best way to do that was to keep the spiders’ attention focused on him.

The attack began to slow as the spiders’ numbers thinned out. Jumah dared think for an instant that the machine had finally called off his ‘appendages’ but the thought almost instantly doomed him. No sooner had the silver thread of that hope formed itself in his mind than there was a loud rumbling sound issuing from somewhere in the cavern. The walls shook and chunks of rock and stone rained down from the ceiling far above them.

Before he could locate the source of the seismic activity, the sound of a shattering building snapped his attention around to the inn they had been investigating. As he looked on, the stone building shattered into rubble. Pieces of stone shrapnel gouged out huge chunks of the surrounding buildings and a cloud of dust billowed up from the remains of the building’s foundation.

Through the thick cloud of dust he could hear the sounds of groaning metal and a bright, piercing, green light rose up from the ground and swiveled around until it was pointing directly at him.

In an instant Jumah covered the span between himself and the machine that was pulling itself up out of the cellar. He looked on in amazement as the thing pulled itself up to its full height, unfurling six impossibly long, insect-like legs and lifting itself up some twenty feet into the air. It raised its two arms up high into the air and its two massive hands spread their four fingers wide as if it were trying to shake off a grogginess brought on by over sleeping.

With a sinking heart Jumah realized that the machine’s hands and the tips of its spindly, needle-sharp legs were gleaming silver in color rather than the dull, flat, metallic color of the spiders. His observation did not go unnoticed.

“The master’s books taught me all that I needed to know about you, Lycanthrope. When my appendages were unable to kill you in the tunnels I thought it best to divine the nature of your being before I attempted to destroy you. But now I know your weakness and you too shall be added to my stores for when the master returns.”

“And I had such high hopes…” Jumah said aloud as he dove to the side in order to avoid a lightning-fast stab from one of the machine’s legs.

“To hope is a useless waste of energy.”  The machine bellowed as it lunged at Jumah with another of its spindly legs.

Jumah effortlessly leapt out of the way but failed to avoid the machine’s hand as it plowed through the air and snagged him by the ankle.

Jumah screamed out in pain as the silver encircled his limb and squeezed in on his flesh. It burned as if he had plunged it into a pool of acid and held it there, smoke visibly pouring out from the metal hand as it seared into his flesh like a brand.

Throwing his weight forward he swung his swords around in a wide arc and sliced into the machine’s hand at the knuckle of one of its fingers. Sparks showered away from the point of impact but the blow rang true as the machine’s thumb fell away and Jumah flopped to the ground in a heap.

Much less quickly than usual, he rolled up to his feet, quickly removing his weight from his damaged right ankle, still smoking lightly from the angry, blistered band encircling it.

“You can’t play this game for long. You’re going to run out of appendages.” He tried to make his voice sound steady through the pain coursing up and down his leg and spine.

“Appendages are irrelevant. You will fall, just like the rest.”  The machine’s pipe-organ voice groaned out.

“You may be right. But I know something you don’t know.” Jumah retorted as he tumbled out of the way of another of the machine’s attacks.

The leg buried itself two full feet into the ground near Jumah’s position and as the machine brought itself around for another attack Jumah surprised it by reaching out and grabbing the retreating leg-tip.

Wincing against the pain of the silver in his grasp, Jumah let the leg lift him into the air up to the level of the machine’s body, at which point he swung his legs up and around the top of the leg, planting his feet on the narrow metal appendage and broke into a full run down the leg.

“And what would that be Lycanthrope?” The machine bellowed as it scanned the ground beneath itself for its quary.

Jumah quickly pulled himself up the machine’s torso and perched on its shoulder in a crouching position. When the machine’s huge head swiveled around to face him its bright, green eye was mere inches from Jumah’s face, the twin snakes on its forehead glowing eerily in the darkness of the cavern.

“Palindrome.” Jumah said forcefully.

In a flash of brilliant light, the machine’s brilliant green eye winked out and the hulking body crumbled to the floor with a deafening clamour.