Were the System capable of emotion, it would have felt surprise. Ancient mechanisms once decayed beyond the point of recognition were suddenly repaired. New energy flowed into cracked and broken conduits, and did not so much repair as reroute. Away from extant subsystems and into new ones that were still in the process of forming.

It was an undertaking of such complexity that no singly mind would be able to understand the breadth of it all. But the System understood, as much as it was able. Parts of it were still dead. Other parts were now responding to the new energy, to the new pieces that had been slotted into places reserved for others. And now new instructions boiled within its sense of self.

Interlopers.

Except they weren't. Not anymore. Once they had been. Once they had been Not Of It, and so had to be dealt with. It had tried to remove them with the monster generators nearest them, but something had gone wrong and it had lost contact with the corrupted nodes. Then it had thought to summon the Guardians, set up in antiquity by mighty Caesar to deal with interlopers.

But just as the System had been marshalling the dregs of its power for just such a summoning… The Interlopers changed.

And with the change, they returned the Empire to the shores of New Rome.

Portions of the System broke anew as it tried to assimilate this new information. A portion of its control over the monster nodes slipped and vanished into nothingness, leaving that node powerless and dark forevermore.

Not Interlopers.

Not only Not Interlopers, but friends. Powers. Rulers. Chosen by Mighty Caesar to carry on His empire.

And by their very presence were repairs started. The System, dying and dead, knew that it was to be replaced. But too that it was its duty to hold on until the replacement was ready.

And as the Empire spread, new systems reignited. The Interlopers were relabled. The Consuls, the leaders of New Rome, once more claimed the center of their empire for themselves. Lines of communication long dormant sparked to life in the System, and it felt its reach grow…

And as it grew, it saw more interlopers. True interlopers, pledged to one of the Others, yet standing upon the soil of New Rome.

If the System could have felt anger, it would have felt it now. The Consuls did not see it. They were too far, their powers still limited in scope, awaiting Mighty Caesar to unleash their full potential.

But the System remained.

It looked upon the interlopers, and it summoned the Guardians to the fore.

* * *

Seeker Tempest could run no more.

She collapsed, panting, in the shelter of a Jumis tree and curled up, her limbs leaden and her belly cramping from her headlong flight. The tears she hadn't had time to shed caught up with her and started streaming from her eyes as the fear in her mind banked from raw terror to merely dull worry.

How long had she been running? She didn't know. It felt like her shoes had cemented to her poor feet, and that her tunic was about to fall apart from all the sweat it had soaked up. It scraped and sawed at her flesh with all the salt, and suddenly she couldn't bear to be in the thing anymore and stripped it from her body with leaden fingers. Her pack joined it immediately, and she let out a sigh of relief as the cool night air washed over her abused flesh.

For a long time she just lay there, panting for breath and then panting from fear and finally getting to the point where she was able to draw an untroubled breath. She was tired. She was so tired. It felt like the last month she had been living on nothing but adrenaline and stubbornness.

Which, she supposed, was as good a description of her as any.

The thought was enough to steal a laugh from her breath, and with the laugh came an easing of the tension. Surely she was far enough away from the enemy now. Surely her headlong flight had taken her from the worst parts of the jungle, back into the… less dangerous areas. Surely, she could take a break.

Not let down her guard, no never that. But a break. Yes. That sounded nice.

She dug the last of her rations from her pack, then winced as the heavy shape of the Tech thumped to the forest floor, tumbling loose from her pack. She picked it up as she bit into the ration, honey and gristle and oat stinging its way down her throat and warming her belly.

Such a small thing. But she had seen its effectiveness in battle. It was like the weapons the Community guards used, smokepowder and shot, but somehow so much smaller and still so much more powerful. None of the Community's weapons would have pierced the hide of even the smallest Thrakkah.

Such a small thing could mean her salvation.

Such a small thing could mean the destruction of the Community.

She turned the Tech this way and that, examining the fine detail, the way the metal parts came together with the strange not-metal tech sheets. It was a marvel of engineering… but not, she realized as her sharp eyes focused harder, of craftmanship.

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There were no tell-tales on this Tech. No tool marks, no engravings, not even the name of the craftsman who assembled it. Only, she discovered upon turning it again, a simple insignia that had been stamped into the smooth metal. A number, her faulty Connection told her.

It had been machined.

The enormity of it almost took away Seeker Tempest's breath again. In her minds eye she saw the industry that must have been in place just to support this one piece of tech. Great mines, in which Tech diggers toiled tirelessly. Smelters where the ore was processed. Massive mills, where the metal was pressed and cut and shaped, and finally the unknown factory where it was all converted into this one single piece of Tech she held in her hands.

For the briefest moment, longing flared in her breast. How wonderful it must be, to live in a world with such marvels in it?

But the vision fled, quickly replaced by another. Her triumphant return to the Community, brandishing not only whole and complete Sojourner Tech, but with news of stunning import. The Community could not but help return her to it's bosom

The same Community that had exiled her for stealing. The same Community that had condemned her to death by the creatures living in the jungle simply because she had tried to feed her ailing gran…

And gotten caught. That was her sin, right there.

She sighed and set the Tech down almost Reverenrly atop her empty pack. By all rights, she shouldn't have cared. She shouldn't be breaking herself trying to get back to the Community just to warn them that the Enemy had returned after all these years. She could have left them in the dark, fled somewhere else on the island, tried to live the rest of her life as a wild hermit.

But her Gran was still in the Community. And little Tripper, and Rider Valley. And…

And as much ill she wished against the old bastards who had kicked her out over a handful of grain, she could not wish the same ill to all those living within the safety of the Community's walls.

No matter how much she wanted to. It would be ever so much easier.

She swallowed the last of her ration and sighed again. She was tired. So tired. But she had many miles to go yet. Fortunately she had gotten a good night's sleep a week ago, in the shadow of an ancient protector tree. She was good for a couple days more yet. It would be difficult going, but… Well. It was necessary.

She moved to rise, thrusting her meager posessions, including her sodden salty shirt, back into her pack. The Tech she picked up and held in her hand, and again she marveled at how comfortable, how natural the grip felt in her palm. Like it was meant to be there. Like it was meant to be used. Like–

The ground rumbled.

She was up and running before she made the conscious decision to move. Earthquakes were not unheard of on the island, but more common were subterranean monsters digging through stone and loam to sneak up on unwary travelers. She had once seen an entire Finder party swallowed whole by a great subteranneant leviathan, and had no desire to–

A fist of stone blasted through the ground ahead of her, and a colossus followed it up into the air.

The thing was a living statue, fifteen feet tall if it was an inch, and towered over the elf who was suddenly flat on her back from the impact. She gasped and struggled to sit up, to stand, to flee.

"Interloper." The statue spoke with the voice of a man, and burning sapphire eyes turned do stare at her. "Do not move. Thou art prisoner of Mighty Caesar. Resistance will not be tolerated."

It was cracked and broken in places. It's left arm was missing. It's right leg was a shattered mess barely holding together. It looked as if it might fall to pieces at any moment.

She knew better.

She knew what this thing was. Her Gran had told her stories, hushed in whispers and shadow, of The Great Enemy. And his immortal soldiers.

Seeker Tempest rolled to her feet and ran into the underbrush, the stomping steps of the colossus close behind her. Branches whipped at her bare skin, raising welts. An unseen limb slashed across her cheek, drawing blood. She felt none of it. She poured on as much speed as her abused body could stand, and then even more. Tendons screamed, muscles howled, and–

Another fist broke through the earth just ahead of her, sending her falling backwards again and this time the wind was knocked out of her.

A second colossus emerged from the earth, identical to the first in all ways but one. On the chest of this stone man, there was an emblem.

An emblem of the Enemy.

"Interloper," the stone man intoned in the same voice as his brother. "Do not move. You are a prisoner of Caesar."

Sentinels. The word flashed through her mind. Ancient stone legends given life by the enemy's breath and set forth on her ancestors. Unstoppable, unflappable. Tireless and relentless. They would chase their targets into volcanoes and emerge unscathed. Off cliffs and remain whole. Into the darkest depths of the sea…

And return. Always, return.

And now here they were.

Denial and feeble rage rose up in her chest, and with it came the dregs of the power still available to her and her people. The sentinels were in ill repair, they moved jerkily, they were damaged.

And she had the Tech.

Maybe it would be enough. She had to try.

Power flowed through her limbs, quiet and sparkling, as she dodged a cracked hand that reached out for her. The power flowed down her arms, and into the Tech she held in her right hand.

[Bolster].

The tech glowed with the power of her faded System, and all at once it was more than it had been. The metal seemed to swell, the muzzle seemed to widen and elongate, and she felt the frame thrum with repressed violence desiring to be unleashed.

This time when the nearest Sentinel reached for her, she shrieked her denial into its tone face and raised the Tec she held it in one hand, like the Guards did their smoke powder weapons. Her finger found the trigger, as naturally as a babe found its mother's teat. And she pointed at the sentinel's cracked stone face, and pulled the trigger.

Click.

The trigger barely moved. No violence came forth. Only the barest tic of metal against metal.

Seeker Tempest stared at the weapon, at the way it practically quivered in her hand, desperate to be unleashed upon her foe. She pulled the trigger again.

Click.

The Tech failed. The glow of her power faded, spent to no purpose. Defeat fell over her like a blanket, and with it came despair. She couldn't even find the will to scream as the stone hands reached for her.

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