Kan'na opened her eyes. She found herself on the belt of a large and overengineered printing press. The belt moved her forward, runes becoming apparent on the printing press.
She faintly smiled, "So this is the preparation that's done before I'm strung up like the others?"
She had noticed something amiss with the mana the moment the typewriter started up. Immediately activating a back up spell she, as expected, was teleported. She noticed that she was supposed to be unconscious during this process, but thanks to her quick thinking she prevented that part of the spell from activating.
Reaching out she gripped the air, and mana began to swarm the printing press. Ripping free the template she brought it closer to read. The way the runes was poor, there was simply too many unnecessary additions, useless parts that didn't do much. However she came to the realization that this was designed to imprint a sort of foundation onto its victims.
What was strange was the template was far larger than any average individual. They wouldn't be affected by the entire press, only a few runes would actually make contact with the victim. Thus Kan'na believed this was part of the symbolism. It was shaped like a printing press to fulfill the conditions of imprinting the runes.
Since the printing press was now broken the conveyer was stopped. Kan'na took it upon herself to complete some investigations so she traveled down the belt. After the printing press an overengineered loom came to sight. It was in the middle of producing threads, although it was inactive at the moment.
Reaching out Kan'na grasped the thread and looked at it. This was the thread that hung the victims up by their arms. It held a natural sense of lift, as if tied to balloons. Following where the thread was leading Kan'na found a sewing machine further down the conveyer belt.
Here it would sew the thread into the victim's arms no doubt. Thus lifting them towards the roof. There the tubes would slowly form a chrysalis. . . Kan'na began to put together the process.
At the end of the conveyer was an abyss. Once the victim was finished they were tossed like a product into this abyss, likely to be teleported to the storeroom. Just like Hala. . .
Turning around Kan'na raised her hands. Spreading them outwards she tilted her hands downwards and gripped the air. With a dramatic flourish she pulled upwards, ripping the loom and sewing machine and causing the parts to fly through the air. They spun about as if in zero gravity, none of the parts moving to fall.
With her arms still spread out she fell back into the abyss, several magic circles forming and following her path. Reaching out with a finger she swiped one away and formed another two. A grin formed, "Very interesting."
Clapping her hands she caused all the magic circles to burst, and her surroundings shifted back to the storeroom. The tubes holding onto the NPCs were wriggling, accelerating their chrysalis process. Considering that she had destroyed the preparation area there should be no more victims, but it was still unknown what the chrysalises were for.
Raising a hand a magic circle formed, she intended to protect the victims from the tubes when unexpectedly the magic circle shattered. She blinked in surprise, "I. . . I failed to write it properly?"
That was basically impossible! Both her Key to All, and her [The Answer] Skill was designed to automatically complete the magic circles to her intention. Ever since the creation of the Key to All she hardly ever needed to write the magic circles manually, much less experience a failure!
Meanwhile the telegraph punched out the following sentence:
"Even with her outstanding talent in magic, even an expert can fail. Kan'na is distracted and is unknowingly creating mistakes."
Kan'na formed several magic circles and they all shattered. However a calm look remained on her face. Countless times her magic suffered failures, that was simply expected of a mage. Yet as she was now, she simply had too many counter measures in place for various failures!
Mana swirled in joy as She commanded it. They morphed and created a magic circle on its own. She gave mana itself a simple command: to teleport Her to Tilia. This method of creating magic circles was slower than the typical method but required no effort on Her behalf. As a Goddess, mana was under Her control!
"Tilia.", Kan'na examined her surroundings.
What first came to sight was the shattered devices. Immediately she could assume they were smashed for a reason, and only certain ones were smashed likely for the same reason. Additionally was Tilia's utterly poor condition.
"Kan'na. . . what happened to your backup plan?"
"Not necessary."
"Handle that device in her arms, it's doing. . . something."
The telegraph began to punch out a new sentence:
"For an unknown reason the Goddess of Mana-"
Suddenly the machine turned stiff, the mana began to forcefully adjust what it punched out onto the copper foil:
"For an unknown reason the Goddess of Mana's condition was superb. She was able to understand the telegraph at a glance."
Kan'na rose and eyebrow. Her understanding of the device was suddenly incredible. Reaching out she pinched the air and it caused the telegraph to stop, "What it writes becomes true, translating and warping the fabric of reality. Incredible, if not for the terrible formula it uses."
Under her guide she punched out a line onto the foil:
"While suffering from so many wounds Tilia's body began to rapidly heal."
Tilia found her wounds closing and her stamina returning, "You can use it too?"
"In a way, if it writes too much it stops being accurate and can cause overlap. If it overlaps too much it'll destabilize reality itself."
"An explosive finish."
"Not quite explosive, more like we never would have existed."
The humanoid suddenly retracted its protective lattice and ripped apart the telegraph, sending parts scattering across the room. Kan'na grinned, "Seems this mysterious thing knows this too."
Reaching into her bag Tilia pulled out a droplet of life. She looked at it with a doubtful expression, this was her last one. However upon seeing the terrifying might of the devices she feared what might be next. Although she had no idea what would happen once she drank the final drop. . . the risk was small compared to saving everyone in the store room!
Drinking the drop [Life Stirring] triggered and Tilia felt strength course through her body. Crushing the final bottle in her hand she tossed it aside.
The tubes wriggled about as they extended to pick up the various broken pieces of the machinery. They wriggled about before throwing them. Kan'na didn't even lift a finger, for Tilia's War Sight formed a mountain and blocked the blow.
Having grasped the patters Tilia warned, "A new device will activate."
Click-Whirrr~
An overengineered projector began to activate. A series of images started to project onto a wall. Responding quickly Tilia formed a kite shield to smash the device, outstretching a hand, when her surroundings shifted.
"I've had enough you know?", Tilia formed words unintentionally.
"It's not my fault it's like this!", Kan'na retorted.
"If you didn't take that stupid deal and lose your job it would have been better!"
Tilia found her outstretched arm shifted, a ragged dress clinging to her body. Kan'na wore a disheveled tuxedo and made a furious expression, "That's because that bastard set me up!"
"I'm tired of struggling like this! This isn't what you promised!"
Kan'na allowed the predetermined words to leave her lips as she focused on what was happening. The projector stopped projecting images and instead projected a movie? Forcing those nearby to become actors in the film?
Noticeably their surroundings were in black and white. Surrounded by old walls from a building past its prime. Cigarette stains clung to the wallpaper. Kan'na, or rather the character she was forced to act, reaching into her poor quality suit and pulled out a cigarette.
"You told me you stopped smoking!", Tilia could not hold her tears.
"It's because you keep stressing me out!"
Pulling out a lighter Kan'na flicked it till a flame rose. As the black and white flame waved about Kan'na spoke out of character, "Got you."
The flame suddenly expanded, encompassing the whole scene. It burnt away the walls and old home of fading memories. Turning their clothes they once picked out of joy to ash. Before consuming the two actors too.
They returned to the room and the projector was revealed to be set aflame. Smoke gently rising to the ceiling. Tilia spotted that the machine was already handled, "Any clue what makes these things so unique?"
"Working on that."
Du-du-du-du-
Several kite shields formed and blocked tubes launching out of the walls and ceiling. They soon broke past the restriction of being only in the center. Instead now entirely surrounding Kan'na and Tilia. This time Tilia didn't need to rely on the broad defensive power of her mountain form, for Kan'na was now here!
"Time to turn the tables.", Kan'na smiled.
A series of magic circles formed around her hand as she formed the position of a flick. Pointing it towards the strange machination Kan'na released the flick and a small glowing light shot forward, spiraling towards the humanoid.
Forming a defensive lattice with their hair the humanoid try to block the attack, when suddenly things seemed to twist. Their hair began to unravel like a lace, each tube breaking into strands. These strands formed a spiral that accelerated, moving faster to unravel the humanoid.
The clock ticked and Kan'na found her magic circles vanish, "Oh?"
"That clock prevents us from attacking things when it's not yet time, didn't know it worked for our friend here too.", Tilia grit her teeth.
The humanoid acted quick, their hair tube launching towards another device, an overengineered polaroid camera. Grabbing ahold of it they pointed it towards the two and snapped a photo.
However Kan'na was faster! She teleported both Tilia and herself to the opposite end of the room, avoiding whatever the polaroid camera was capable of! With such obvious telegraphed moves, how could she not?!
Then, for the first time, the humanoid split open a mouth.
"You're troubling.", it's voice struggled to say.
It sounded like a radio using different voices to speak.
Kan'na chuckled, "Just noticing?"
Tilia's instinct told her something was wrong. The humanoid was mostly inactive during the fight, using the machinery and distracting Tilia with the tubes. This was the first time it was proactive in doing something by itself!
Tick-!
Tilia and Kan'na returned to their position prior to the teleport, and the shutter of the polaroid camera sounded. A photo printed out of the polaroid camera and it revealed Kan'na being consumed by various shadow-like creatures.
"I wasn't-?", Tilia was shocked to find only Kan'na fell victim to the device.
Was this a limitation of the device? Or intentional by the humanoid?
Mana swirled about angrily as it tried to crush the camera. It was infuriated by their Goddess being harmed and taken from them. Yet it was powerless without an authority to guide them, disorganized and disorderly.
The humanoid revealed a comical smile and pointed the camera towards Tilia. Yet just as she about to dive out of the way she found the strange machination didn't use the polaroid camera.
Instead it crushed it to bits in their hands.