Lock's Quest: Chapter 1

Lock wandered out towards the coast of his small town. He was contemplating his future. Since he was small he had wanted to follow in his grandfathers footsteps and become an Archineer. Both he and his sister, Emi, had been raised by their grandfather because there dad had died. Lock knew very little of his mother, but he didn’t care. He loved his grandfather and all that he had taught him about an Archineer’s work.

It was on this day, down by the coast, that Lock noticed something odd was going on. There wasn’t the usually commotion around the beach that there usually was, and there was a distinct lack of Kingdom Forces. When a soldier walked passed him, Lock called out to him,
“Where is everyone?”
“Have you not heard?” the Kingdom Force asked as if it was obvious, “there was an attack in the mountains, on a small Nomad camp by the clockworks. Most troops have been taken over to there to help.”
Lock was wary now, because the Clockworks hadn’t been around for years. He’d never seen one, but he’d heard terrible stories about them. There strong axes, and lack of emotions could cause lots of problems. Lock began puzzling who could have made more Clockworks. Only Lord Agony had ever known how to make them, and he had been killed – hadn’t he?

Suddenly, Lock heard a crash to his left and he quickly turned. He gasped as he saw four clockworks attacking the defences put up around the source well. A small group of Kingdom Forces ran onto the scene and began to defend the well. Nearly all of them were killed, but the Clockworks were finished off after a couple of minutes. Another man had joined the two remaining members of Kingdom Force. He was black, with dark brown hair. Unlike the other forces, he wore no armour and was instantly recognisable as the Archineer.
He began giving out commands as he sighted another wave of Clockworks. Another fierce battle raged but, the Archineer was the only person left at the end. Lock ran to his assistance. As he approached him, Lock realised that the man was hurt.
“There’s....another wave......please, defend the well!” He managed to squeeze out of his lips.

Although Lock had often built defences, he was inexperienced at making them to defend against clockworks and he suddenly began to panic. Then the words of his Grandfather came to his head.
“Take a deep breath and everything will slow down”
So he did, and it did. He began to think quickly and started setting some traps using some source he had obtained from the well. It was a simple poison trap, which would poison any Clockwork that was foolish enough to step on it. He gazed the Clockworks getting nearer and he quickened his pace. Next he put up some basic wooden defences around the well and dragged the Archineer next to the well. He propped him up against the side of the well and ran to complete his defences but his time was quickly depleting. He worried, but kept enough concentration to put up another wooden turret.

The Clockworks were now upon the defences and Lock ran out through one of the turrets. He had been taught by his Grandfather how to attack a Clockwork and he quickly remembered the simple technique. Each Clockwork had an individual code which was displayed on its metallic chest, made up of the numbers one, two and three. These numbers corresponded to either the top, middle or bottom of the Clockwork, and you had to hit it, with a wrench, in that order to kill a Clockwork.

Lock was quick to take to the battlefield and killed off a few normal clockworks in quick succession, collecting the source that they spilled out when they died. Suddenly he saw a clockwork edging towards him. It was slow, but had a strong outer shell and a huge shield. The turrets all turned to him and began shooting. Lock realised it to be a Strong Clockwork. He ran over to it, but it’s code was covered up – and as such he had no way of attacking it in the correct order. To add to this, he was drawing away the fire of the turrets from the weaker Clockworks, who were now smashing down the walls. Lock ran over to the frail wooden walls but was too late to stop it getting knocked down. The Clockworks began walking towards the well and Lock gave pursuit. He easily caught up with them and managed to fight them off and away from the well. He was panting now, but more Clockworks were pouring towards the well. He knew he couldn’t survive much longer so he backed away and covered his head. They were upon him and he knew they could easily destroy him now.

But suddenly, all the Clockworks fell to chunks of metal and source. Lock was astonished, but relieved. He crawled over to the Archineer before asking him why the Clockworks had stopped.
“Clockworks fail after a certain amount of time. You held they off long enough for their circuits to fail.”
Lock stood there in stunned silence contemplating how close to death he’d been.
“Oh, my name is Tobias by the way,” the Archineer commented. “I was meant to be here to check the levels off the Source-well, but my unit got ambushed by the Clockworks. However, there is little time left – Clockworks travel in large units. There will be another wave soon – and the village is under threat! We must go and warn them!”
Tobias struggled to his feet and Lock helped him up. Lock held onto Tobias’ arm and assisted him in getting back to the village.