Eli POV
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The past few days since my meeting with Tansen had been taken up by new projects. The plant and metal crafting meant I had long periods where I couldn't work anymore with their huge ambient mana costs. So I had to spend my time roughing out some ideas for my main arsenal. I sat down on the stone lisp the first day I got back and went over the battle with the bandits again in my head. The first thing I did was ask my self the question I always tried to ask.
What if I had been in the worst spot to be in that fight? That would be the first tent closest to the forest. Well, I would never put myself in that position. However, life isn't always so amiable to allow you to pick and choose. So what would have protected me if they had set fire to my tent or just tried to stab me before I could wake up?
A stone cocoon with small air holes would do the job. With a separate wind enchantment to provide fresh air in case I had to close it completely. Also, make a special section distinct from the rest of the cocoon so that I could deploy mines around me as I slept. The new piece of equipment was a wood cane with a special growth on the inside of the hollow handle and indent on the bottom to keep it from activating unless I specifically wanted it to. But after that I felt that my defense was good enough I just needed some more varied mid-range attacks.
Tansen warned me about the possibility of running into a fire monster and I felt relying too much on launching a big molten stone was a bad idea. The fire rate on the tube was too slow and took too long to aim for anything less than several yards away. The big things I need are something that I can just toss and forget about, as the mines still take time to set up, and a more mid-range weapon. My water glove doesn't have that instant kill potential I like for either of those roles and the cannon would instantly give away my position to anyone who survived the initial attack which wasn't something I was comfortable with given the ranges these two needs had.
I had a few ideas but those would have to be for the secret mage as they involved plants and metal. The most obvious would be a bolt crossbow like the one I first made. A guilty look at it as it gathered dust in the corner was all I could give it as the surrounding merchants didn't have the incense I needed to consecrate it. Frankly, I still needed to do it for my other equipment as well but I would like to think god is understanding about my situation. Even if I was willing to forgo such a critical procedure, it was too large to carry with my mine club.
A grenade came to mind. A disposable craft was a pain in the ass but I didn't feel comfortable using mass production to make anything involving pressurized containers or explosives. The spray design from the mines should work on a smooth stone ball with its trigger square designed to send the signal after a few seconds. So what if I made a grenade that worked on the bubble idea I had with Veronica? That could be a nice non-lethal solution for those moments where innocents are in the way.
I used some of the bark I had collected on my trip to make an enchantment that constructed a stone sphere with a small indent for the trigger. In the middle was a cut about 2 inches deep into the body that would hold the mana circles that would absorb and hold the fuel needed to allow the enchantments to run for several seconds. Getting the spirit magic small enough to fit into this small space was a pain in the ass but I finally managed to get it done.
The big problem I ran into was the lava spray. While the single triangle and summoning circle for the bubbles worked fine as it trapped all of its surroundings in several feet of bubbles, the multiple triangles and circles needed to summon and heat the stone for the lava spray proved to require too much space to fit onto a sphere small enough to fit in my hand.
I tried something like a small club of stone but while the spheres could stay in a small knapsack the required size was getting so large that it started to become a weight problem. Even one or two would be near the weight of my shoulder cannon and I didn't want to go near that much considering I had another weapon I wanted to make. So I shelved it and decided to work on the other weapon for a few minutes.
The design that fit my needs came to me after a few minutes of reflection. Water would be a nice addition to my offensive arsenal, but the massive amounts of water needed for any offensive purpose typically made it unsuitable for the more stealthy approach I wanted. But it could work in the set up similar to what I was going to give Andrew.
After a few test runs, I found I could use a sound dampening effect around a leather circle to create a stream of water powerful enough to cut stone at mid-range but was also near whisper quiet. I attached this leather hoop to an arm guard at an angle leaning back while putting a rounded piece of steel over the whole piece. The several water triangles on a leather patch behind the circle would summon the water and squeeze it under high pressure in a small marble-sized ball just behind the hoop.
But the fields would leave a small channel leading up to the circle out of the marble with no manipulation, acting as the water's exit towards the center of the hoop, which would then increase the speed and pressure to as high as I could get it as all of the triangles would now only have to focus on manipulating the water, not making it. The blue line of hair-thin water cut through stone like butter. But after several yards it was reduced to a spray that I guessed would only bruise.
This would afford me a handy jet that was pretty silent and could kill several yards away while only emitting a faint buzz when used.
Several failed attempts and long sessions making new models after the water tore several of my crafts apart from ricochet after a few uses, improperly stitched leather fastenings coming loose and a whole host of issues getting the water to line up properly, the equipment was finished around mid-day. After I begged some constructs to 'officially' make my items I headed over to the dorm's carriage area to get a ride.
Someone had put out a bounty on some fire lizards near that town filled with women whose name I had yet to get. I wanted to make some quick cash when I went to register my new weapons by turning in some of the bounties. The survival course had yet to finish but I was confident I could just make do with cutting their heads off.
I made my way up to the kiosk and a black-haired man with glasses in a black jacket and white undershirt greeted me behind his desk.
"Hello, how can I help you today?" he asked me.
"I have business in the town further down the road, the one filled with women, and would like to hire a carriage as well as pick up my pill," I responded. The pill is the poison we would have to use if we were captured by orcs.
He got a stiff smile at this and asked me to wait while he checked on the availability. After a minute he came back.
"I'm sorry but the carriages are all reserved for another party or have their horses too tired to use." He said.
I sighed and nodded, then I went back to my house to try and figure out what else I should do in the coming future and move towards the whole point of what I was doing here: Reconnecting my A.I. chips.
The industries I would start up would probably have to start on the more base end of the production chain. Mining and manufacturing would be the main focus in the first few years. Years, in the future. As in not soon.
One aspect that I found increasingly trying was the lessened availability of information. I had spent my whole life with just a thought away from the encyclopedic knowledge of all of mankind's achievements and insights. To go from having the proverbial world at my fingertips to having to wait hours or even an entire day to get one or two paragraphs of needed text was one of the most grating experiences I could ever conceive of. I could probably come up with some small scale stuff more quickly but the whole point of data webs is having other people to connect your tech too.
But even with all of that it still wasn't THE issue going forward.
The bigger issue, on a personal level anyway, was who was going to be enjoying the fruits of my labors.
Apparently banditry was still a problem the world over. It was something that would always be there, a cancerous thorn in the sides of all decent people everywhere. But the irrational part of my brain wouldn't allow me to get over the fact that some time in the future one of these scum were going to enjoy air conditioning, the thrill of driving a vehicle or a good show on a VR screen and there was nothing I could really do to stop it. That they would ever receive any shred of comfort in this world from me soured my mood the more I lingered on it.
Well, I could at least kill as many of them as possible before the dreaded day came when they would taste the sweet nectar of technology's bosom. I headed down to the underground basement that I had expanded out to a proper workshop, complete with a special hatch in the stone lisp. I figured if I had to wait until graduation to safely get my ideas out into the world, then I should try and get a few more high tech items up and running. They would take a lot longer to set up, so the sooner the better.
I started working on what would be this world's first radio transmission system but I heard a knocking at the door upstairs. I came up and when I opened the door I saw that it was Shelby knocking on my warehouse door.
"Hello, what brings you here?" I asked.
"Hey kid," The robed woman said, shaking my hand. She had a red robe in the same style as before with a headdress and charms made with wood and bone about her body. But this one allowed me to see more of her face. In addition to her button nose and sharp eyebrows I could now see her pale skin and the faint lines of age in her face.
"We have a problem, there is a special barge service maintained by the local villages that will be under attack from a smaller swarm of giant ants and your tool kit would be perfect for this situation. Think you could help out?" She said, seemingly nervous which surprised me coming from a veteran such as her.
"How much money are we talking about?" I asked.
She bit her lip and paused for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and stiffened her shoulders.
"The payment would be in gratitude. The villages spent what little money they could afford on a few stiffs to help hold the ants back but it's not looking like it will be enough with just them, me, another seasoned scout who volunteered and the local lord. The lord says we have more than enough and seems to be using this as an opportunity to get his son some recognition but I'm not nearly as confident as he is." She said, her hands fidgeting nervously as she spoke.
Well, I'm doing all of this to help people and fix my biochips. This would just be a continuation of what I was already trying to do. Besides, I could use some public goodwill and gratitude is one of those commodities that's hard to quantify.
"Sure, just let me drop off my -" She put me in a bear hug before I could finish.
"Thank you, thank you." She said as she hugged me. "I'll go get a carriage, our destination is down by the river near Holstead."
"Holstead?" I asked.
"The town filled with women." She said before turning to leave.
After I saw her go around the corner towards the academy I remembered that the carriages couldn't have had enough time to rest their horses and any new carriages would probably have their horses be too tired after getting here if my imperfect knowledge of the animals was anything to go by. Fortunately, I had made some changes to my armor to allow for more elongated jumping and more helmet more comfortable for long uses.
I put several quick touches on the copper wires making up a pseudo satellite dish stored in the underground workshop and then put a few copper bars in the second story 'workshop' to satisfy the curiosity of anyone who would 'visit' my house. As much as I hated it, I came to realize that putting in traps to keep intruders out would just require more work and explanations for how I set them up. I just had to work around it while only using a few traps around my bed. The only addition I had made was curtains for the windows which helped provide me some extra privacy as I slipped into the leather armor with a white shirt and brown pants.
But it turned out I wouldn't need my jumping equipment. I was quite surprised after putting my stuff away and getting my new cane slung on my back ready to take a long journey doing jumps with her on my back that the carriage came rolling by outside my house.
I hopped in and as we made our way there my curiosity got the better of me.
"You know, I tried to get a carriage earlier but there weren't any available." I said, trying to sound idle as I looked at the passing trees.
"Well, maybe they were just out. It happens a lot after the trials." She said.
"That wasn't what they said, I was told the horses were too tired or they were reserved." I pressed.
"Too tired for your destination maybe, but this trip isn't too long." She pushed back, the tone of defensiveness becoming unmistakable. Which was odd since as far as I was aware she had no connection to the carriage system.
"I was headed to Holstead." I said, trying to keep the irritation of being lied to hidden from my voice, with pretty poor results.
She stared at the floor for a long minute before giving a light chuckle.
"Damn, we'll need to do a better job of making sure the receptionists know to just stick to the reserved lie." she said ruefully.
"Is this related to why saw almost no one in the carriages going towards Holstead when I first passed through?" I asked.
She nodded then cleared her throat and leaned back.
"Way back when the two towns used to be just one big single town where the academy currently is and Holstead was another small nameless village. They were also far more gender-balanced. But with the advent of the academy, the nobles began congregating in this area far more than they usually did. Now their behavior is typically bad enough but throw in their mentally unstable magic spawn all gathering in one place and well, I'm sure you can imagine. The reason the families were moved towards Holstead is that it was far enough that the more cruel students wouldn't bother coming over. But it was also close enough that they wouldn't treat going there like a vacation.
You wouldn't know it by looking at it but the town by the academy when all of the families were shifted towards Holstead was almost a ghost town. But the opportunities of the academy drew enough people in to replace the people who had been lost." She said this absentmindedly but then seemed to realize she had gotten sidetracked and continued on.
"Our biggest protections are the escorts and bureaucracy. Any time a student wants to come through this northern part they have to be accompanied by a guild member, for their 'protection'. If a guild member isn't present then the carriages are 'reserved' or taken towards Holstead empty. " She finished.
I just sat there trying to wrap my mind around having to send your family away so they wouldn't be raped or tortured for fun by the people you have to serve food or clean up after.
"Does this land have no justice system or laws?" I asked.
"Aye, it does. But when you have entire houses, most of whom control significant portions of the goods we all need to survive, pinning their future on a single child politics will get mixed up in it. This was a solution the local people and the nobles worked out together.
The workers had to send their families a good hour away but the nobles are the ones who have to cover the costs involved. There are few students who leave the dorms comforts which helps us control their movement. I gotta say you made a lot of people who manage this system very nervous when you moved into the warehouse." She said. I just put up my hands in surrender, apparently I had stepped on some toes even without being near the other students. She smirked and finished with the explanation.
"It's pretty shaky, but it's been getting us by in the years we've been doing this." She finished.
"That seems like a lot of work when a good whipping could keep them in line," I said plainly.
She looked at me, her brown eyes going wide. Then she gave a light laugh but it didn't seem like a jovial one.
"Lad I don't know where you come from, but the land must have dragon hearts as plentiful as acorns for you to even suggest such a thing. These kids are the walking outpouring of every bit of wealth that their families can manage. To even suggest inflicting harm on them, aside from the direst circumstances, would be deemed a sign of mental instability in most circles. Which is why I was so surprised when you agreed to help us mere peasants." She said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
My laugh was far more genuine than hers.
"Well, I haven't really gotten the impression that students are treated like spun glass. Between the arena, John's beating, and that roadside bandit adventure, it seems we get put through a lot of shit for such important assets. Also, didn't that big guild member punch a student on our way back?" I said my voice clearly showing disbelief.
"Having magically capable children isn't the same thing as having a mage as a child, they still need experience to accomplish anything. Experience takes doing and doing is unavoidably followed by danger. It's been far more bloody for the students than usual I'll admit, but the orcs are too big of a threat to let John go unpunished.
The bandits are also a lot more uppity than they usually are. Which wasn't supposed to be a problem as the road from Bulwark to the academy is among the safest roads around. Not that the parents cared for any of that when we got back. As for that guild member..." She became more somber at this and pain in her eyes began to show as she looked at me.
"Former member, he is now a former member. 20 years, 20 good years of service and it ended with a whipping and a few coppers of a retirement package." She finished
I just nodded in sympathy. 10 minutes later I felt like asking something I had wanted to ask one of the locals for a while now.
"The arena, and all that showmanship around killing the orcs. Was that really necessary? Wouldn't it have been more humane to just quickly put them down when they got captured?" I asked.
Her jaw clenched and her brown eyes got a hard look as her skin stretched with a severe frown.
"Lad, I know it's because you have a kind heart. But don't ever let anyone else know you have any shred of compassion for the orcs, under any circumstances they may be in. All right?" She said in a tight voice.
I nodded in agreement.
"As for the 'humane' part of that question. We use them as training for our troops. It's as close to real combat with orcs as we can get without just dumping them out into the middle of the swamp. So its is more humane, for us. As for compassion for the orcs.... a few years back there was an incident where a caster got kidnapped. Wasn't even a man, thank the heavens, but they eventually got her to make constructs for the orcs who were sired by the crafters that they had managed to capture.
A lot of soldiers died to those fire weapons before a special raiding team managed to break in and put a bolt in her. The only upside was that the water degraded their items quickly enough that this new arsenal didn't last long afterward. There are a lot of people who got kidnapped or died in the fighting and a lot of their families still live here. So don't go spreading your compassion on this subject around too much.
But for you to really understand I've got to ask you something kid. Did you have Orcs back home?" She asked, more like she was giving advice now as her anger got more under control as she went on.
"No" I responded plainly.
"Thank the heavens every day for that. So let me tell you what it's like living with orcs. It's sitting down for breakfast. It's taking your kids out to a festival and letting them run around playing among their friends. It's sitting at the tavern playing with your buddies and drinking your worries away. During all of this, you have the nagging feeling that you're just waiting. Just passing the time until THAT report comes." She looked out the window at this.
"Constantly on the watch for that day when the local messenger comes through talking about how some caster men were caught alive and now everything you wanted to do or were doing has to stop as you and everyone you've ever known has to buckle down and march of to some faraway land to prevent a swarm of caster, or if fate truly has abandoned us, scion orcs swarming over us. It is the always looming cloud over every day of your life knowing that you're just 2 or 3 self-centered idiots, like those assholes we had to tolerate on our trip, from having the orcs becoming almost unstoppable.
Unlike us, all of the mage-sired orcs will have their mana pathways fully developed when born and can use an almost meager amount of magic animal flesh to activate them with their innate talent from their sires." She gave out a long breath as she finished her speech. But then she looked me in the eyes.
"This does beg a question though. You didn't seem too broken up when killing those bandits, so why the soft heart for the orcs?" She asked, her tone was surprisingly more curious than accusing.
"The bandits had a choice. They are guilty. The orcs didn't have a choice being born, and the concept of being born a living crime is not one I'm really.... at ease with. " I said, after a long moment of going over my feelings.
She gave a tired nod and leaned back while silently contemplating as she looked out the window again.
The trip finished almost leisurely afterwards. We passed through Holstead and continued on a road that broke off from the main one from the left of the town's exit. The road was actually decently maintained and we managed to get there after a half an hour.
The place had a two-story house in a log cabin style with a chimney and a roofed front porch along the entire front. By the river was a well-maintained barn with red paint and an older, run-down barn nearer to the house. The house and barn were directly by the road and the red barn was near a wood platform sticking into the mud near the river. Along the old barns side was a long pole with various horses tied to it and the look of a very rich looking carriage was sticking out behind the red barn.
The river was deep and fast from the look of it with the surface occasionally having white foamy peaks from the speed of its movement. On the opposite side was another platform which helped suspend a thick chain over what I wanted to say was about 70 feet of rushing water which connected to the pole on the platform on our side of the river which had the flat wooden structures of barges slightly in the water but still firmly on land. Our side also had a line of poles with a string attached to a bell and a smaller barge already hooked up to the chain.
We saw a sizable group on the porch with a man in a white cotton shirt and brown pants talking to the assembled group. In the crowd, I saw Joey next to another man wearing a metal suit of armor who looked to be his father, but with more muscle and his green eyes were slightly darker behind his glasses. As we made our way towards the porch Joey noticed us and scowled.
"What is he doing here?" He said, not even attempting to hide his tone of contempt. He had an iron cap and a bow with a quiver of arrows on his back
"The lad who won the bandit brawl we had on that lovely school trip is here at my request." Shelby shot back. Apparently Joey had managed to find himself on Shelby's bad side with his typical brisk efficiency.
"Fine but this is our land and our business. As the son of the noble house Freton, I am here to safeguard our interests, so try not to screw up too badly." Joey said, his voice heavy with macho confidence.
The man in the white cotton shirt was about mid 30's with a grey cap and lean muscular build. His brown eyes and rugged black beard gave the impression of a working man. Coming down off the porch he shook our hands.
" 'Ello, I'm Rick and I am the poor sap who has to maintain this place for the villages who want to move their good past the river here." He said as he gave our hands a firm squeeze.
"I can start setting up a perimeter once we get a better idea of where the ants will attack first. But I've got to ask, why is this not a bridge? The river is even narrower here than it is at the academy." I asked as I looked at the set up of the beached barges.
"The villages don't have any magical resources to speak of, just crops and animals. The people who run this region" He motioned to Joey and what I guessed to be his father. Joey puffed out his chest at this. "helped set up this as a sort of middle of the road fix. Any bridge here would also have to be large enough to let ships pass and all the expenses and maintenance to go with that, but going around the river bends towards the academy or Holstead would be a huge waste of time. So we just use the barges fixed to chains with a manned station further up river that rings the bell when a ship is coming through to let us know we have to drop the chain."
"All right so where are they likely to attack?" I asked.
"The barn, that's where we currently have a load of grain and vegetables waiting to be moved. The ants aren't typically so bad but it looked like a good swarm this time." Rick said.
I nodded and then got to work setting up my mines in and around some of the rocks and fallen logs leading out from the forest opposite of the house's front. The back of the house had been cleared of trees for several yards. As I was setting up the last mine, a man on a horse came dashing in. He had leather armor and scruffy black hair with flecks of grey while the spear on his back swayed with his horses' movements.
"Troglodytes, we have troglodytes coming." He almost yelled to the people on the porch.