The crippled machine stretched out a claw and weakly dragged itself forward. As he crawled along the ground, he took in the sights.
The city appeared to be situated in a massive underground cavern. The sound of running water could be faintly heard in the distance, perhaps still somewhere within the city. Everything was dark, but the city was still faintly lit in random places by glowing speckles of yellow and red. The color and dispersion of the speckles looked almost like embers and were situated in lanterns and random locations along the cavern wall. He observed the ruins of the nearest buildings, which appeared to be made primarily of stone, and decided to first explore there. As he came closer, the sound his body made while scraping across the ground became more subtle. The ground here also felt softer than before. Noticing the change, he glanced down and found himself crawling through a thick layer of a blackened, powdery substance. Extending his vision along the ground, he realized the whole city was covered in a blanket of dark ash.
He wasn't sure what to think about this place. At first, he thought there was a battle, but he didn't find the remains of any machines like him or bodies of any kind for that matter. The damaged portions of his body certainly looked like the aftermath of a battle, but he didn't find any weapons or other items in his possession that would suggest he took part in a fight.
Eventually, the machine came to one of the many stone buildings. This building was still standing and in relatively great condition. As he approached, he noticed how smooth the stone appeared to be. The foundation appeared to be a large, black slab while the walls themselves were a light matte gray and had an intricate, swaying pattern of lines carved into them. There were many extra shapes carved from the stone which seemed to have only cosmetic purposes. Well crafted ridges and borders lined the stone where it intersected with the foundation and roof. The roof itself was sharply pitched upwards and was coated with black plated shingles made of the same material as the foundation. Overall, the building looked both strange and beautiful.
A couple of stair steps led to a platform which stood in front of a tall rectangular carving in the center of the building. He assumed that carving must be the door and made his way towards it. When he got within a meter of the stair steps, an orange stone embedded in the wall above the door suddenly began to glow and bathed the nearby street in a warm light. It surprised the machine and made him hesitate, but after waiting for a few minutes, nothing happened.
Soon, he resolved to cautiously continue forward. After awkwardly dragging himself over the steps, he rested on the top platform and began to feel around the door, trying to find a handle. However, even after several minutes of searching, he couldn't find anything. The door's outline seemed to be just another part of the stone wall. Thinking a latch or handle must be higher up, he pushed his one remaining leg underneath him and used the wall as a support to stand and began inspecting the higher part of the door.
[Mana depleted.]
Suddenly, his heavy body lost all support and crashed face-first against the door. The impact sent a loud boom resounding through the city's massive cavern. His body slumped to the ground as he slid down the door in front of him, leaving him in an awkward pose. He quickly found that he had no strength left and couldn't move even a bit.
'... Well damn.'
He thought about the interface he saw before and as if it could hear his thoughts, it reappeared in the center of his vision.
----
[Name: -]
[Race: Haunted Machine]
[Class: -]
[Level: 0]
[XP: 0/10]
[HP: 4/20]
[MP: 0/10]
[STR: 6]
[AGI: 2]
[DEX: 5]
[INT: 9]
----
'Let's see... My mana really is empty. Hopefully it will regenerate on its own. Ten points though... it doesn't seem like much. If this body is secondhand, shouldn't my stats be higher?'
With nothing else to do, the machine was forced to spend his time thinking. There were many things to think about. Why was he the only one left in this place? What happened here? What did it mean to be haunted? Would he have to find replacement parts to fix his body or was he doomed to remain a cripple for life? After an hour or two of thinking on his current condition, the light from the stone above the door finally went dim and he was left alone with nothing but his thoughts and darkness. He hated the feeling of being powerless. Hours passed.
[Mana: 1/10]
Finally, his mana regained a point. He was just about to move his body to a better position, but then heard the sound of approaching footsteps and decided to hold still. Soon, several people approached him and began conversing with each other in an unknown language.
"Are you sure its safe?"
A burly man with a full, black beard was the first to approach. He held a massive great shield in front of himself and was covered in armor which was a mix of leather and metal plates. The shield was slightly curved around the sides and was so tall that he could hide behind it completely when he bent his knees. It was essentially a wall made of metal with a series of handles on the back so he could hold it in any number of ways. This man was a guardsman and the leader of the party. This was the deepest dungeon dive his team had ever attempted. He wanted to be sure to play it safe.
Slightly behind him, a man veiled within a dark blue cloak and hood answered, "I'm certain the demon is dead. If you look at the right side of its chest, you'll see the core has been either destroyed or harvested. Nothing remains within." He pointed at the gaping hole in the machine's chest with a leather glove. As he did so, the movement parted the front of his robe, revealing numerous knives strapped to his body. He was a blade caster who acted as the team's scout. He was the one who discovered the trail left behind by the machine and scouted it out to make sure the thing was dead before bringing the others.
"Its rare for a monster's corpse to remain after it dies, I'm sure a demon could fetch us an excellent price." A fat man with a clergyman's robes spoke next. He was a cleric, and he played many roles in the party including medic, cook and treasurer. One could argue that he was the most important person on the team even though he never got involved in combat. A book was held by a leather strapping on his left hip, while he carried a large rectangular bag on his back which looked incredibly heavy. However, the cleric was a very big man so he could handle the weight. He stood even a little taller than the guardsman.
A small woman with large, circular glasses and short, brown hair stood with the first three as they discussed, but she didn't say anything yet. She was incredibly small, but also exuded a sense of confidence and intelligence. She was a mage, but acted as the strategist of the team, so she normally just gave orders and didn't engage in combat too often.
These four began discussing how they planned to carry the massive corpse back to the surface. After all, demon corpses were made from a strange metal and were incredibly heavy. After coming this deep into the dungeon, it would take considerable effort to bring the thing back with them.
The last two members of the team were both fairly antisocial men who didn't enjoy speaking too much. They spent a lot of time together, each enjoying the silent company of the other. The first was a duelist who fought with a sword as well as a parrying knife while the second was a marksman who carried what looked like a rifle slung over his shoulder.
All together, there were six team members: the guardsman, the blade caster, the cleric, the magician, the duelist and the marksman. There were also three hired hands that had joined the party for the sole purpose of carrying equipment, but carriers were typically unimpressive people who didn't have a well developed class and were thus hardly worth mentioning at all.
While the first four team members discussed the matter of the machine's corpse, the antisocial ones stood a bit further back. The duelist seemed uninterested in the matter entirely, but the marksman's eyes were fixed to the hulk of the machine. No one knew it, but the marksman had extensive experience in tracking and was highly observant. He also noticed the light embedded in the wall above the sealed building's entrance. Those lights would come on when someone or something approached them and then dim as time went on. When the team had first approached the corpse, the light was dim, but slightly brighter than it should have been. Also, there were no tracks in the area besides the trail behind the machine's corpse.
The marksman knew the demon dragged itself here. But that wasn't possible! The demon's core was missing. No monster could survive or even move once their core was removed.
The marksman stared carefully at the corpse with narrowed eyes.