Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Despite the very obvious signal, there was no reaction. Even when they jumped over the gate and neared the building, there was no one to be seen.

They broke the entrance glass doors of the unassuming office building. An automatic alarm sounded, but the entrance was deserted, and nobody came to see what was wrong.

"What is going on in this place?" Archer mumbled.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Lydia muttered.

The silent city was one thing, but there was nobody in the facility, either.

"Jonah, what about you guys? Did you see anybody on the way here?"

The swordsman stayed silent for a moment before he answered. He, with Laura on his back, had been non-stop running to reach this satellite city. There had been a lot of monsters in B-City itself. Past that the cityscape was already mostly deserted but there were still refugees to be seen here and there.

Now that he thought about it, they had not seen anyone ever since entering this city. Neither monsters no people. Jonah had thought it was because of the early time of the day.

Seth took a deep breath and thought about it.

"Let me call Simon. Maybe he knows something. I don't think everyone here already evacuated."

"I- I could check the computer and see if I find anything useful."

"Yes, thank you." Seth agreed distractedly.

Sitting in front of the computer at the reception desk she found a layer of dust covering everything.

Laura was not originally a staff of the cradle, but she knew some of the tricks to get into the system, although not the deeper parts. With the help of the original receptionist's sticky notes, she quickly gained access to the local profile.

Meanwhile, Seth had described the current situation they were facing to Simon through the magic communication device.

"You are saying the whole population of a city vanished? Hmm, there are quite a few explanations for that, but with the current state of this world, I won't be able to give you a reliable answer. I could list down many possible causes, but it might end up being none of them."

"Just give me a summary of the most common ones, please."

"if there are no fresh signs of fighting, then they could have been abducted by something or someone using mind magic. They could have also been shifted by a space phenomenon or lured and assembled in a specific space. The possible suspects would be ghosts, demons, a dungeon, or plain old coincidence. You see what I mean with unreliable answers, right?"

"Yeah, I understand... thanks for your help."

"I couldn't really help but I will try to contact the people originally stationed in Beta, maybe they have information to narrow it down."

"Please do that. Thanks again" with that their call ended. "Did you find anything, Laura?" Seth turned to the other possible source of information.

"I got access to the local account. There is not much info on the cradle, but I was able to check the e-mails. These people got an evacuation notice roughly one week ago, about the time B-City was overrun. All staff and subjects were to be transported to a secure facility."

"So, where did they bring them?" Seth asked frustrated. They had come this far only for the princess to be at another castle.

"That's the problem. The e-mail was still unread. All e-mails of the past 10 days are unread. I don't think there was anybody left to take these orders."

"Does that mean my uncle and the others vanished, too?!"

"Not necessarily." Lydia mention.

"Didn't you listen to Simon? There is a high chance something or someone used magic to abduct people. But if your people and the other subject were locked up, they would not be able to follow some weird mental call, right?"

"Okay, we should split up and search the place and see if we can find the entrance to the actual facility. We meet here again in 30 minutes."

...

"Found it!"

It took less than five minutes for Lydia to shout. She, Azul, and Archer were standing before a wide entrance to an elevator. In a room secured by a keypad and iris scanner were two big bookshelves pulled to the sides, indicating that this entrance was usually well guarded and hidden.

"Is this how you people usually hide secret passages?" Azul asked interested.

" I have never seen anything quite like that, but more or less, yes."

"I always thought this kind of stuff was fiction, to be honest," Archer commented.

They were quickly joined by the rest of the team who had heard Lydia shout.

"This should be it, right?" she asked Seth when he came running, with Duhu hot on his tails.

"It definitely looks very suspicious. Let's wait at the meeting place for the others and have Laura have a look."

He had just finished speaking when the rest of the team arrived. Everyone had heard Lydia and came running.

"Yes, this should be it." Laura identified the elevator before pulling out a security card.

"I got this from the front desk. With this, we should be able to use it to enter the cradle facility."

They did not immediately enter the subterranean complex. Before they descended, they split into two groups. Laura, Seth, Duhu, Jess, James, Team 3, and a Healer from the Oathguard would enter the cradle.

Jonah would stay guard with the rest outside. Seth left their bus to the swordsman outside. They would not only secure a quick escape but were also a failsafe to call reinforcements in case something happened Seth and the others could not deal with.

If worse came to worst, they could return to Delta and get reinforcements. But with the rescue party's heavy hitters entering the complex, this was really the more dangerous duty, as they still did not know what was going on in this place.

However, Seth trusted Jonah to be able to deal with things. Especially with his high willpower and defense against mind techniques.

After all preparations were finished, they warily entered the elevator and descended into the cradle.

Jess and James immediately recognized the layout. It was almost exactly the same as the Administration in the burrow. It was just that the entrance above was much better hidden.

"If we find the system administrator's office, I might be able to find out where they held the Tijaahk" Laura said after seeing where they entered.

The researcher wanted to prove her worth to the boss of her hubby. After Jonah ended up exposing his face to her during their eventful journey, things happened, and she wanted to earn her place at his side and in Minas Mar.

Of course, Seth had no idea yet, but he was glad to see her help them so actively despite working against her former employer.

"I think this will be easier than we thought!" Jess called out.

It quickly became obvious why she said that. The computer in the room was on standby, but all of them were still logged in with various programs and some porn videos still open. As if the user had just stood up and left in the middle of business.

Laura had an easy time; she just had to avoid the sticky workplaces and choose the computer with administrative rights.

While she was checking the system, the others explored the area. Just in case they had missed something or someone.

As she was searching for information, Seth noticed that Laura's face became bright red.

"Are you okay?"

"Ye-Yes. It's just..."

...

"What?" everyone exclaimed after the researcher explained what she had found.

The Cradle was a facility for the purpose of natural reproduction of promising test subjects. In other words: breeding.

"Does that mean those videos...?"

"Might very well be either live feeds or recording of what was going on in this place. Yes."

"T-then my uncle and the others?" Duhu stuttered.

"I don't know. I found the info that they were brought in and where they should stay. But there is nothing else. I tried getting access to the cameras but that's behind a password and I'm not really a hacker."

"So we don't know if anyone is still there?" Seth made sure.

"No."

"Well, then we should go take a look!"