I couldn't tell if my breath was escaping me from my sprint up the stairs, or Selene's beauty.  Her breath was unaffected by her movements, giving her an ethereal opulence. We breached through a heavy,wooden door, and found ourselves in the observation deck. 

We quickly slammed the wooden slab back over the opening in the floor, and latched it.  After witnessing the clockwork golem's strength first hand, I doubted the thick metal bar would pose much of a problem for it, and I could hear the mechanical whirring growing louder.  

After I managed to catch my breath, I looked up to my surroundings, and found Selene rifling through a small, white satchel frantically.  She continued to mutter "where is it?"

After a second, I asked what it was she was looking for.  She seemed startled at first, but started to describe the moonstone pendant I had found in another room a few hours ago.

It took a moment, but eventually I found it in one of my pouches.

Her face lit up when I produced it.  Without hesitation she snatched it from my hands and began whistling long, lispy, phrases in a foreign tongue. She motioned her hand over the perimeter of the door.  As soon as she made the last sound, a flash of deep, blue light held firm over the wooden panel blocking the passage.  

Selene's fears were staunched, but mine continued to rise with the volume of the mechanical ticking.  A loud thud was followed by another.  Although the pounding was quite thunderous, the wood held firm against the swirling blue barrier.  

After several attempts to breach were cut short, my anxiety levels dropped to match Selene.  She had made her way to the edge of the overlook, and was leaning against the stone railing.  I tried to tune out the rhythmic pounding, and joined in on the view.  

From the top of the tower, you could see to the edge of the light.  Faint torches were lit in various places throughout the vast city that sprawled below. As the thudding fell to the back of my mind, I questioned Selene on how we came to find ourselves here.

"My father brought me to this place.  I traveled around with him, and a crewed caravan to protect us.  My father has passed now, but I still find myself adventuring through the ruins.  Collecting antiques and oddities to survive."

I was excited to find someone else with an adventurer as a father.  We clicked on that note, and the rest of our conversation carried on naturally. I was also relieved to know that there was some way out of this desert below the sands.  

She found something special in me that night at the inn.  That's why she "let me win"  the labradorite pendant from her.  A way of getting in touch with me later.  Her foresight was unmatched.  

As the map indicated, there were indeed two other major cities that supported Pazmoltae in the past, Votum, and Duboro. She claims them to be still mostly intact like Tresoro, and I'm sure ripe with treasure.  

While we talked, Selene continued to carry her ethereal presence while she looked through piles of equipment, and mountains of papers.  I found myself joining her.  Stumbling over cups, plates, and hand tools I, eventually, made my way to where there were a dozen telescopes arranged in a half circle.  

I could see why they had resisted the efforts of the tomb robbers of the past.  They were expertly cemented in place, and the mechanism holding the tool to the stand was seamless, like the golem. With only a few marks, and scuffs on it.  

Each one seemed to function differently, with some providing full color images even through the darkness.  The sands held many secrets.  Selene directed me to certain coordinates, and my heart began to race.  Far in the distance sat a small block, which was the great Obelisk of Votum.  

My eye pendant disrupted my fascination with a deep growl.  I looked up from the scope, and found I was being pulled towards a stack of papers on the desk. I sifted through them, and found another small copper component. It was resting on top of another black book.  Selene was fascinated by the components, I was pulled more to the title of the book simply "Sorrow." The author, Hala Hasan.

"I've seen that book before, but I haven't seen this before, it must be a part of the Copper Cog!"  Selene beamed with excitement, analyzing the small copper circle.  

I showed her the other two components I had found and she squealed.  

The cog fit around the center post, and the stone fit into the slot, however it still required something to hold it together.  We stashed the components in a pouch, and I strung it around my hip.  

My attention was turned to the book.  Selene said she had tried to flip through it, but the pages were all stuck together.  I also found this to be true.  The book was also heavy for its size which led me to believe there was treasure inside.   

I shook the book gently, but didn't hear anything bouncing around in a hollow cavity.  As I poured over the book, I found that only the cover, and first page, were able to turn.  

I quickly read through the page aloud, and found that the next page gave way as I finished.  I decided to continue on, with Selene finding a comfortable seat to listen.  

---‐-------

I find myself at my wits end.  I am alone in this tower.  Meka has finally been shunned out of town.  I tried to mediate an agreement between them, but Amun wanted nothing to do with it.  Her mind was made up as soon as Meka got violent.

She began to pack her things the moment I disrupted the fight.  The dragon was the easiest one to wrangle sadly,  the Amulet of Courageous Intent saw to that, but even still it was a challenge.  

I couldn't find the strength to use the bracelet on my sisters.  I had to rip them from each other, like tangled vines. The screams coming from the two of them, topped that of our crimson friend descending to the pit of the tower.  

I decided to confiscate the copper cog from Meka.  Her components didn't work, and it seemed to drive her madness.  Amun refused my offers of private dwellings, and even the promise of a new temple didn’t sway her.  She left for Votum half a moon ago, and still I expect to see her in the tower stairway.

Amun's dedicated followers decided to follow her in their pilgrimage.  They had no home without a temple, so it made sense.  Meka found Amun, and her followers, to be deserters.  Her expletives could be heard echoing through the streets daily, she refused to stop…

The streets are quiet now.  It was nothing, after Meka's exile.  She brought her mechanical man down into the pits with her, in an attempt to finally install her final piece of machina.  The dragon’s state was deteriorating, from not eating, so I decided it was one of few avenues.   

However, the golem was only able to restrain the dragon physically, allowing it’s spirit to run rampant.  Many sinkholes opened beneath our peoples homes, and the heat spiked up quickly.  

My views eventually joined my people in disgust at the torturous behavior.  I pulled Meka from the beast, but my bracelet's powers had no effect on the mechanical golem, which worries me.  

After it was clear, her actions were unwelcomed, Meka shut herself into her room, no doubt planning out her next moves. We pulled her from her room just a few days ago, looking thin, and sick.  I took her for a good meal.  I was hoping some fattening up would return some rational thoughts, but I could tell by our meal together Meka had other plans.

Her thoughts orbited around Ptha, and the dragon.  It was no longer about solving a problem to save the lives of countless people, now it had gotten petty.  I tried for hours to convince her to look at her life from a different perspective, but she vowed to finish more contraptions to lure Ptha back to our city.

The words came from a place of madness.  Over the night I decided it was best if Meka continued her research somewhere else.  The ceremonial clues, which our city uses to mark exiled ones, were too subtle for Meka, so we had to turn to force.  I felt the true might of her mechanical monstrosity, as it held back myself, and an angry crowd of people.

Eventually, the comotion startled Meka from her chambers, and after she saw the entire city shaming her name, she decided it was time to move on as well.  She gathered a handful of things, and mounted her sand skier. Within an hour, her silhouette was breaking the horizon.  

She left behind almost everything, including this autonomous atrocity. If I can find a way to control this mechanism, I think it will become a great resource.  I also need to do something about our guest in the basement, some sort of permanent solution.   

-------

I had made it about a dozen pages into the book, but the back was as thick as when I started.  Selene wasn't as entranced by the story as I thought, which turned out to be a good thing.  I could hear the ticking was farther away now, but still gaining volume.  The golem had decided a better way to gain entry to the observation deck.  

It was scaling the side of the tower.  Its hands crumbling the outer stone shell of its walls with every grasp.  I could see a light of panic in Selene's eye, and it sparked my own.