Horizon: Project Eden

3rd Pov

Rushing through the village Aloy pushes past any villagers in her way, jumping the gate to Mothers Heart after a bit of parkour she lands on the outside. On the outside she notices a weird machine approaching from far in the distance, stopping for a bit she uses her Focus to analyse it.

The results of her scan reveal the new machine to be a Scarab, an ancient war machine from the times of the Old Ones. Hesitating Aloy mentally considers leaving the village and heading straight back to the cave but remembering Rost's lessons she parkours back onto the palisade around the village.

Standing there she is approached by the same bitter old man from the proving, recognising him she ignores her past grievances and quickly asks for directions to the war chief, the man though looks smug.

"Where's the war chief I have urgent news." – Aloy

"I am the new war chief. Former war chief Sona went missing after chasing down the attackers." -Resh

Groaning internally Aloy was starting to regret rushing out without letting Teersa catch her up with what happened while she was unconscious. Pointing it to the side for the moment Aloy decides to instead focus on the immediate threat.

"That doesn't matter at the moment, as the war chief you must arrange any braves we have to stand guard on the gate. There is a new machine outside currently amassing an army." – Aloy

As if to reinforce her point the Scarab breaks through the tree line surrounded by striders covered in red glowing tendrils, breaking towards a roaming group of striders the Scarab shoots out a weird cloud of red particles that attach to the striders and cause red tendrils to grow around their necks.

Spinning rapidly the Scarab then locks onto the two humans atop the palisades.

"By the Goddess it's corrupting the machines" -Resh

Panicking a look of fear crosses Resh's face as he jumps from the wall and runs inside leaving just Aloy alone on the wall. Drawing her bow Aloy scans the Corruptor again to highlight its weak points, knocking an arrow Aloy draws her bow and looses it straight into the Corruptor's grenade launcher.

Rapidly drawing more arrows Aloy continues to fire them at the grenade launcher till it falls off, switching to fire arrows Aloy has to grab the wall as the Corruptor rams the gate with its hoard of striders.

Behind her the braves within the main clearing all grab their weapons and ready themselves, crashing through the walls the hoard of striders trample the closest braves. The Braves further back manage to survive uninjured and quickly begin assailing the hoard of machines.

Walking last through the broken down gate the Corrupter begins finishing off the injured Braves with the blade on the end of its prehensile tail. Aloy still on the wall interrupts the Corruptor by loosing three fire arrows into the exposed wires where the grenade launcher used to be.

Releasing a metallic screech the Corruptor pivots to look at Aloy, as it pivots a compartment around the mid centre of its main body opens and a glowing canister holding a series of red hot metal rods pops out. Recognising a weakness when she sees one Aloy switches to her normal arrows and starts firing at the exposed cooling element.

Getting three good shots onto the tripodal machine Aloy is forced to hold her fourth shot and dodge as the Corruptor throws a nearby strider at her with its tail.

Rolling off the collapsing wall Aloy has the wind knocked out of her as a strider rams her out of the air. Groaning Aloy grabs her bow and stands up, just to dodge again as another strider rushes her.

Parkouring onto a nearby house Aloy turns her target back to the Corruptor, the Corruptor now sparking with a small bit of smoke pouring out of it still has it's cooling element out as it seems to be jammed.

Utilising the opening Aloy knocks three arrows and looses all at the cooling rod, snapping off with a violent explosion of sparks the cooling element falls to the ground. Now without it's cooling element the Corruptor begins to glow red with heat as it's internal systems begin to burn.

From her perch Aloy looses a final arrow into the Corruptors eye causing it to fall to the ground dead, still on her perch Aloy begins rapidly and accurately firing of arrows towards the striders. Each strider quickly gets one arrow in it's eye and two in it's blaze cannister causing them to fall to the ground dead.

Breathing heavily Aloy lowers her bow once the last machine falls, catching her breath she jumps down from the roof she was perched on and approaches the fallen Corruptor. Fiddling with its parts she uses her focus to identify each part and eventually finds what she's looking for.

Tearing out it's corruption module she quickly connects to it with her focus and begins adjusting it's code, satisfied she ties it to her spear and stands up to leave. Walking into the clearing the elders all rapidly approach her.

"Aloy do you know what this machine is and where it came from?" – Teersa

Looking at the elder's Aloy internally debates telling them the information she found, sighing she decides to relent, swiping up an information panel on her focus she quickly reads over the information and frowns.

"This machine is an ancient war machine from the time of the Old Ones, it seems the attackers from the proving awoke it." – Aloy

Frowning the elders huddle together and begin whispering, after a few minutes of heated argument, most of which Aloy tuned out as she looked through the rest of the data, the elders come to a decision.

"Aloy you are blessed by the Goddess; she has asked you to clear a corruption similar to that inflicted by this here machine. For that us elder's believe we need to grant you the title of Seeker. This title will protect you from the curses in the ancient ruins and allow you to leave the sacred lands." – Teersa

Smiling Teersa proudly declares Aloy's new status in front of all the members of the tribe. Aloy having zoned out most of Teersa's speech takes a few seconds to interpret what she heard. Realising the benefit of the title she gladly accepts it.

"Thank you elder's, I'm sorry about this but I must go now." – Aloy

Turning around Aloy approaches the broken gate, rushing up to her a young white man with a braided hair style and blue face paint calls out for her.

"Aloy wait!" – Teb

Breathing heavily the young man takes a second to catch his breath before continuing. Holding out a new set of armour he hands it to Aloy.

"Aloy take this as a thankyou for saving me all those years ago." – Teb

Taking the armour Aloy offers a small thank you whilst internally confused. Leaving the village Aloy breaks into a jog as she heads to the nearest strider site.

At the strider site Aloy takes her time stalking up to one of the machines, reaching just behind the machines leg she juts the butt of her spear outfitted with the modified override module into it.

Freezing, the strider stands still as blue tendrils grow out along its neck, upon all its sensors turning completely blue Aloy receives a notification from her focus that it's completely overridden.

Jumping on it's back Aloy sets the ancient ruins on her Focus map and using the blue tendrils controls the strider to begin running. Holding on tight Aloy rides across the valley towards the ruins, forty minutes later Aloy pulls back on the tendrils to slow the strider before jumping off.

Approaching the edge of the fifty metre hole Aloy begins looking for hand holds and starts climbing down. In the ruins Aloy squeezes her way through the thick stalagmites and tight crevices as she makes her towards the main chamber she found all those years ago.

Breaking into the chamber she quickly scans the room for hazards before focusing entirely on the broken machine in the corner. Approaching it she expects it to talk like last time but it remains quiet, tapping her focus she performs a quick scan of it.

Looking over the multicoloured hologram the only item still functional is the data core, though as much as she tries to access it the core remains too protected. Poking the robot, she attempts to get it to turn on but fails.

Looking through each part of the hologram she gets more and more worried as she sees each critical or entirely damaged part. Sighing Aloy flops down next to it defeated, head in her hands she racks her brain for any other leads she has on the name Elisabet Sobeck.

Getting up she is about to leave to look for Olin when she remembers something, the very first time she ever saw the robot she received a data package directly to her focus that she couldn't read at the time.

Quickly she swipes open her Focus menu and begins searching through all her files, laughing wildly she finds what she's looking for and with nervousness flowing like a raging river throughout her she opens the file.

Opening the file multiple holograms spring up around her, each hologram has pictures and diagrams detailing how to repair parts but what truly gets her attention is the long document opening in front of her with detailed step by step repair instructions.

Laughing giddily, she instantly begins speed reading the document, unfortunately the more she reads the more her face slacks until she's left wearing a frown towards the end of the document.

Luckily though at the end of the document she finds a small note stating full repairs aren't needed and directing her to the vital steps.

Opening another app on her focus she begins rapidly jotting down a list of needed parts and alternatives. First on her list is replacement wires and a fuel cell, reaching into her pocket she pulls out the ancient device she found in All Mother Mountain and scans it.

Smiling she sets the old world power cell down next to the robot. Moving on down the list she adds sensors, transmitters, and a voice modulator. Thinking it over her mind turns to the overridden strider waiting above the ruins.

Standing up from where she was crouched she closes all the open holograms and heads for the exit, forcing her way through the objects she makes her way towards the exit. Reaching the pool of water that marks the place she first entered the cave she looks up towards the fading sunlight above.

Grabbing a hold of a protruding rock she begins the arduous climb out of the hole, at the top she takes a second to catch her breath before her gaze falls on the lone strider standing before her.

Standing to her full height a malicious gleam flashes across her eyes as she approaches the oblivious strider with her spear drawn.

An hour later in the darkness of early night Aloy climbs back down into the ancient ruins with a backpack full of strider parts with more strapped around her waist. Breathing heavily, she gently drops the parts on the already large pile before sitting down on a protruding rock.

Resting there Aloy's fatigue catches up to her and before she knows it she falls asleep. As she sleeps a third party sifts through the data on her focus with a fanatical intensity, opening file after file the person eventually chances upon the instructions Aloy herself was looking at earlier.

Pausing the file remains open for a while as the figure reads through it, the more the figure reads the faster the document scrolls till it is nearly constantly moving. Elsewhere the mysterious figure realising the shear knowledge embedded in this document attempts to copy it.

His attempts though are thwarted when a holographic lock appears over the document on his display. The lock itself isn't too notable but the colour of the lock itself is a different matter, the icon is created from a black, purple, and crimson mix of colour that seems to be ever moving.

Attempting to subvert the file lock the figure begins hacking the locks coding, this though causes something even worse as mixed tendrils of black, purple, and crimson begin spreading from the holographic lock and infecting the coding of the persons focus.

Tearing it off his face the person stomps the focus into dust, before mechanically moving over to a set of draws and opening it to reveal multiple fully functioning focus's.

The next day Aloy awakes to a start from the sunshine streaming in through the caved in hole in the roof. Standing up Aloy's stomach rumbles as her body craves food, moving to the entrance Aloy climbs her way out with her bow and some hunting arrows.

Stalking around for a few minutes Aloy manages to gather some berries and fruit before spotting a wild turkey, loosing an arrow it flies true and impales the turkey directly through the head. Walking over Aloy retrieves her turkey before moving to a tree and stringing it up.

Pulling the arrow from the dead birds head Aloy draws her knife and makes precise cuts across the turkey. Leaving the turkey to drain she begins gathering firewood and strapping it into a bundle.

Moving back to the turkey after gathering enough wood she quickly checks to see if the blood drained properly before gutting it and burying the guts by the base of the tree. Taking the bird and strapping it to her waist she begins her trek back to the ruins all the while gathering more plants.

Back in the ruins Aloy uses some loose rocks to form a boundary before setting up a portion of the wood she gathered into a fire and lighting it. Leaving the heat to build up she begins gathering some metal poles and plates from within the ruins.

Twenty minutes later Aloy smothers her fire before feasting on the turkey she cooked up. Cleaning up afterwards she sets up a makeshift fridge using a few canisters of chill water she had with her. Finally done with the basic necessities of human life her attention falls back to the pile of loose parts she gathered the previous night.

Sitting down she begins pulling apart the parts piece by piece and setting them aside like the biggest puzzle ever. Once her pile is complete she begins by working on the transmitter. Twisting wires together and bending thin pieces of scrap she eventual manages to modify a slightly decent transmitter.

Shifting over to the robot she carefully begins opening the last of the remaining chest panels, careful not to coat her hands in the rust dust within or cut them on the worn down edges. After over a day of work the sun begins to set by the time Aloy finished working on the part and opening the robots chest.

Wiping off her hands she begins with the utmost care looking over the outside of the data core, removing the rusted protective cover once she finds the correct latch she's left with just the slightly dull metal data core.

Finding the port labelled in the document she carefully begins connecting the makeshift plug, the plug itself uses majority of the parts from the strider but has a custom made wooden case made by Aloy to hold the parts.

Plugging it in she wipes her sweaty hands and delicately places the removed data core into a dry padded metal box. Closing the box, she finishes her work for the day and has some food before going to bed.

After that, a week and a half flew by as Aloy continued to work on the robot, to make her life easier she spent a few hours making a pulley system and rope ladder to drop from the top of the hole and she brought some wooden planks from a nearby tribe to cover the water pool.

Within the ruins themselves machines parts lie around the main chamber in neat organised piles, the chamber itself is lit by jury rigged lights Aloy created after getting a basic understanding of technology from the repair document.

In the corner of the room closest to where the robot originally was is a long workbench, dotted across the workbench were various homemade tools and various miscellaneous machine parts. To the right of the bench the robot's broken down body was strung up by some machine cables Aloy had pulled from one of the many machines she took down for parts.

Finally sitting along the left end of the workbench was Aloy herself bent over the power cell making changes, finishing the makeshift power connectors Aloy breathes a sigh of relief as she puts her tools down.

Taking a sip of water Aloy shakes her hands to remove the stiffness that built up while she worked and approaches the same metal box she had at the start. Lifting the box onto the table she carefully removes the data core and transmitter setup before placing them on her workbench.

Moving the box, she places it on the floor under a beam of moonlight before sitting down at her workbench again. Reaching over Aloy quickly gathers all the parts she modified and starts carefully plugging them in.

Starting with the processors, she moves to the sensors, then to the power control systems and finally to the power cell. Breathing in deeply Aloy reaches out and connects the power cell, slowly the data core begins to light up with crimson and purple highlights.

As the core lights up it begins to spread outwards, reaching the makeshift plugs Aloy made it stops for a second before continuing to spread. As it spreads it begins to override the blue glow of the second hand parts with it's own crimson and purple glow.

Finally, it reaches the transmitter and Aloy holds her breath, after a few seconds of nothing happening it flashes briefly before connecting to her focus, opening automatically thousands of lines of code flow across a holographic panel in front of Aloy.

Fidgeting nervously Aloy watches with barely held anticipation as the last line of code scrolls of her screen, then after a few tense seconds a distinctly feminine yet artificial voice rings through the speaker on her focus.

"Hello mother"