A Tale Out of Time

The Raven and the Serpent, Act 1, Scene 1

The night was cold, the desert was dark, and the sky was utterly starless.

Not a soul came to meet the stranger who rode into the ghastly, abandoned burg of Raven's Rest.

He figured nobody would.

As the stranger entered the sole remaining building, which once had been a general store, he came face to face with a cycloptic android, which stood behind the counter, every so often racked by motions so erratic and convulsive that they might've been mistaken for a seizure, had it been a man and not an android.

"It's been a very long time since I saw a human." It said in a garbled shriek so loud that the stranger swore his ears might bleed if he stayed too long. "What brings your kind back to the lands of your ancestors?"

"November Sixteenth, Nineteen and Sixteen." Said the stranger.

"Oh dear." Replied the android, before its head exploded into a bright flash of kaleidoscopic flames.

The stranger dropped to a crouch, hearing the shot ring out from the street as the android fell to a heap behind the counter.

Drawing his own sidearm, the stranger took aim at the spot from whence the shot had been fired.

He beheld only a pair of bootprints, and a leather envelope emblazoned with the mark of a coiled serpent with seven heads.

Slowly, the stranger rose, and he approached the counter, pistol still trained on the doorway, just in case the sniper returned.

The android's head was a mangled hunk of singed, twisted metal, which still sparked and crackled as its circuitry slowly withered and died.

The smell of the area around the android's body betrayed the means by which the metal man had been destroyed, and the stranger chuckled humorlessly. As he looked down and saw the nameplate on its chest, his eyes widened with horror.

"Max..." He gasped, falling to his knees and cradling the headless android's body in his arms, and he wept for the closest friend he'd ever had.