2022-02-24 17:46:21His name was Buff. Or Buffy. Remian wasn’t quite decided, but it was a concept about having lots of strong muscles.
Buff was a Tier 4 Amber Eyes Bear. They had the reputation of being able to spot honey a mile away. Actually the reputation was false. It was their noses that could smell the honey, not their eyes.
But Buff had an existential problem. He did not want to be an Amber Eyes Bear. He was jealous of humans and the way they used tools. He was jealous of Wilds who were of higher Tier than himself. He was jealous of birds that could fly and fish that swam so well. In short, he was jealous of a lot of things.
The stash of junk in the cave was his result of his jealousy of humans. He had a bad habit of stealing stuff from them, especially from their unguarded treasure-piles! (Mandy: Silly bear, that’s the rubbish heap). One day, he even acquired his greatest prize and treasure from it; the Fire Stick! (Remian: Which poor idiot couldn’t recognize an Inscription and threw away a perfectly good Fire Ball Wand?)
Despite his jealousy toward humans, he was also fascinated by them and often tried to emulate them. Remian was quite astonished to find him sitting on half a couch wearing a broken monocle and staring at an upside-down stolen signboard. It had taken the bear just a minute to retrieve the items from the stash outside and he now sat there proudly as if he was showing off.
“What are you doing?” The question boggled Remian’s mind.
[Reading.] The bear grunted in reply. [Good for the mind.]
“Uh…” Remian scratched his head but ultimately left the bear alone.
They went on clearing the cave and leveling the ground as the rain began to fall heavily. An hour later, they found the bear sitting with legs folded in the lotus position, eyes closed and both hands spread.
“What is it doing?” Mandy whispered in a low voice.
“I have no clue.” Remian went over to the bear. “What ARE you doing?”
[Meditating. I will cultivate Inner Force!] the bear yowled.
Remian frowned. “Meditating means you have to focus your thoughts on something.”
The bear perked up, very interested. [Like what?]
“Like uh…” Remian scratched his head. “Energy? Or elements in nature. Or nature itself. Or combat techniques. Or weapons. Or even something you want, in order to motivate yourself.”
[Motivate… myself? What is that?] The bear seemed even more interested.
“It is a form of self-help. A way of increasing mental and emotional strength, I guess?” Remian was having some difficulty trying to explain self-motivation to a bear.
[Soul cultivation! I understand!] The bear exclaimed and settled back down to meditate. [What I want… what I want…]
“You have to be honest with yourself.” Remian gave him one last hint before shaking his head and walking away.
Ten minutes later, he heard the bear’s thoughts resonating all around the cave.
[Honey… honey… honey… honey… honey…]
***
At that point, both Carrie and Vigil were rolling around the floor laughing.
“What happened to them?!” Mandy asked Remian.
“It’s… a joke.” Remian trailed off. “It’s a Wilds thing.”
But despite their laughter, the bear went on faithfully meditating. Remian felt a wave of sympathy and empathy for the bear. He knew something of what it was like when others laughed at his dreams.
“This bear wants to learn human ways.” Remian tried to explain to Mandy. “I actually want to help him.”
“That’s nice. Shall we teach him how to use a fork and spoon?” Mandy queried.
“Uh… maybe?” Remian wasn’t sure. “Something like that.”
Mandy looked about and picked up a dirty spoon from the remaining junk scattered around the floor.
“Wait. You’re serious?” Remian stared.
“Well… I don’t see a fork, but… that’s the idea, isn’t it?” Mandy questioned.
“And you don’t think it’s weird?”
“Of course it is. But so what? It’s his dreams.” Mandy answered. “I will never laugh at anyone for their dreams.” She glanced at him sideways. “Anyone.”
It was true. Remian thought back. There was a time when Mindy, George and the others were talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up. George wanted to be a farmer; nobody laughed at that. But Mindy wanted to own an airship and fly all over the world. Everyone who heard it burst into laughter. Buying a passenger ticket to board an airship was one thing. Owning the airship itself was an entirely different matter. It was the difference between walking into a city and being the mayor of that city.
But Mandy never laughed at her. She had gone on to ask others of their dreams. Eventually she had come to Remian.
Dazed by the look of the sunlight over her hair, Remian had blurted out his actual intentions. He couldn’t remember what it was he said exactly, but even Tim and Jane were laughing. Mindy had defended him, and Mandy…
Mandy simply smiled. She didn’t say a word.
But she never laughed.
“It is good to have dreams.” She said softly, now. “To be able to have a hope in the future.”
“Do you have one?” Remian asked.
“Me? Until today, all I had to look forward to in the future was slavery and working as one of Rose’s ‘employees’.” Mandy closed her eyes. “Even now, I…”
“You should have one.” Remian encouraged. “Even if it seems silly. Tell me. Anything at all. What is it? To travel the world and see the big cities? Vacation on the islands of the Sea People?”
Mandy drew a deep breath. “I just want to live in peace. Take care of the kids so they never go hungry. Maybe run my own inn. Never lack the money to take care of Mindy. And never, ever have to be afraid of Cruel Rose.”
Most of those were basic needs; security, food, resources… except for the inn part. “Why an Inn? The Ravens already have both an inn and a tavern.”
“That’s just it. Most of the customers at both the inn and the tavern are adventurers, explorers, prospectors and airship crewmen. I’ve spoken to many of them and all of them generally want to get out of town as fast as they could. There’s always gang trouble brewing in town, and nobody wants to get caught up in it.” She glanced about. “Maybe we can build one right here. There are quite a few people who live in the wilderness outside town, and who would rather not enter town if they could help it. They mainly come back only to trade. If we could offer them a safe place to rest outside of town, someplace without fear of the Wilds…”
“An inn that’s protected by Tier 4 Wilds?” Remian thought about it. “There are a lot of possibilities. Just how many adventurers and such are out there?”
“Hundreds have passed through town.” Mandy told him quietly. “As to how many survive… I don’t know.”
Max barked a laugh. “We could do it better. An inn protected by the Iron Legion on the south side right next to the main road would surely be more trusted than a cave protected by Wilds on the west that needs a long trip around the town walls just to reach.”
“Then why don’t you do it?” Remian asked.
“Not interested. No time. No manpower to spare. It’s not our role.” Max ticked off fingers. “The worst of it is that the south side is where the Wilds attack. Our camp can be moved, but an inn would likely be destroyed the next time a Beast Wave comes through.”
Right. The Beast Wave. The way into town was the south side; they would always attack there. They almost broke the town’s defenses last time. That was why Markus was hot mad and yelling for a wall. But the gang leaders wouldn’t help, and his bosses only wanted their crew to build a road, not a wall, so…
“They won’t attack us here.” Remian realized. “They can’t get into town from this side. If we built an inn here…”
“Guarded by Wilds? If the Wilds are friendly towards you, it would probably last longer than the town itself.” Max figured. “So long as you don’t go bankrupt.”
“Even if we did, we can just farm or hunt our own food.” Remian thought aloud. “We can keep fish. Dig a pond in the stream and keep them there with nets…”
“Assuming that the bear doesn’t eat them all up.” Max rolled his eyes. “Or your wolfcats.”
“Then we’ll just make it a big pond, let them eat all the fish they want.” Remian shrugged. “Although I’m afraid these particular wolfcats have a taste for cooked food.”
“Great! Let’s name the inn!” Mindy exulted.
Mandy coughed. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. We haven’t even decided if we’re really going to do it yet!”
“I vote for ‘the Bear and Wolfcat’ Inn!” Mindy exclaimed.
“The Wild Side Inn!” Max suggested.
“West Hillside Bed and Breakfast?” Mandy tossed in.
Remian shook his head. “I was thinking something different. Something that would change the very nature of what the inn would be about.”
“What?” Mandy asked.
“The Adventurers Guild.”
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523. Comms
Somewhere along the line, he’d lost consciousness. George only realized it when he woke up to a splitting headache. “Ow.” He groaned. “What... where...?” “We’re on the way back to Sorrel.” Grace told him, appearing by his bedside. And it was a bedside, he realized. He seemed to be in the Kara’s Medical Bay. “I’m sorry. We had to retreat.” “Our... people?” George managed. “The HAC Troopers made it back. The Mechs... did not.” Grace paused. “We have the refugees though. And the Robotic Assembly Plant for Mining Drones. That’s all they managed to grab.” George slurred. “Mech pilots?” “Alive, if battered.” “Good. Alive is good.” George sighed. “This... didn’t go so well.” “Hey, at least we got the guys we were trying to save, and some machinery on top of that. You might say it was a success. A costly one, but a success.” “Casualties?” George asked. “Plenty of injuries to go around, but no deaths. So far.” Grace paused. “Some of the really badly injured might change that before lo
522. Second Aid Mission
“Were these really the best you could do?” George asked, eyeing the six hulking figures in front of him hesitantly. “Mmm.” Juni grunted. In front of them were six brand new Mechs. 2nd Generation products, they were armored weapons platforms on legs, with jumpjets for the signature ‘jumps’ that earned their generation the nickname, ‘Jumpers’. Or were they? George wasn’t entirely sure. When he looked at them, they really looked more like 1st Generation Walker-types. Those Jump Jets seemed to be an afterthought, an added equipment haphazardly strapped to their backs. “Would they really work right?” Juni shrugged. Given the time and materials he had to work with, George supposed he couldn’t expect better. He had only just received 2nd Gen tech. Until now, he’d been working with 1st Gen expectations and schematics. One of these Mechs seemed a bit worn, evidence that it had been built quite some time ago, and only recently been modified for George’s requests. “Fusion Cell for power, Pu
521. Next Step
It turned out that they also needed to acquire salvage rights to haul away ‘scrap metal’. Fortunately, that was a simple affair now that they had local currency. 50 USD and the matter was done. Grant, being the nearest specialist on matters of scrap to their location, graciously offered to transport their ‘scrap’ directly to their vessel out of sheer goodwill. Finally Benny and Sam went to try out the barbecued skewers. At Grant’s recommendation, though, they didn’t go to the Starport roadside stall. They ended up at another roadside stall run by a ‘foreign refugee’ someplace downtown not too far from Grant’s workshop. There, each skewer was loaded with rows of thick, juicy beef sausages, and only cost 20 USD for 10. Benny stretched. “Not bad for our first day. We’ve got three days here, don’t we? But we’ve already got half of what we wanted.” “What’s the other half?” Sam asked. “Technical manuals on engineering, power and propulsion. Tech, basically.” Benny yawned. However, whe
520. Uber States Colony
“Black Fang, you are cleared for docking. Follow the designated path and welcome to Trifer, colony of the Uber States.” Benny stood on the observation deck of the Black Fang below the bridge, listening to the conversation between the comms officer and the dock authorities. He eyed the massive sprawl of structures and smoke emitted below and wondered. “This is what they call a ‘small’ colony?” The colony was bigger than Craggy Falls, Kara-Goth and Nightshade City put together. “Just how many people live here?” Benny asked next. “According to our sensors, about half a million.” The bridge crew told him. Okay, that was less than the human population of the Sorrelian Migration, which, after including the Cumin survivors, was over 800,000. They shared the sensor feed with Benny, Sam and Foxy. Looking at the scope, Benny realized that most of the colony below consisted of machinery and robots. Furthermore, what he saw on the surface wasn’t even half the colony. The entire complex went
519. Scoop
That evening, Benny and Sam left with Tim’s battle group, headed for the nearest Uber States outpost with medicine in the cargo holds. This left only one freight galleon to ferry materials and regretful space miners from the surface to Sky Haven. “It’s going too slow.” Remian decided. “I need to call Raven.” With Mindy busy trading across star systems, Raven had inherited (bought over) her airship fleet and company on the surface. They built more gunships and scout ships than freighters these days, mainly focused on providing recon and fire support to ground forces fighting Undead. But it was those freighters Remian needed now, the bigger the better. “We need them refitted for extreme high altitudes, as high as they can go.” Remian explained. “Also we need them spaceworthy, at least up to low orbit.” “You want our airship freighters to fly into space?!” Raven spluttered. “Yes, but not on their own. I want them to haul cargo and passengers as high up as they can. Around 30km woul
518. We should call Remian
“Relax, I’m not asking you to build them from scratch. You’ll need to remodel a Galleon and a trio of our current Dropships. We do want proper Mech Carriers in the future, but for now, we need to deploy urgently, so we’ll just remodel what we have.” Ermine brought up some projections. “The Mechs in question are going to be Light Walkers, designed and built by J-Armory. Juni’s had a workable prototype for a long time, but it’s never been needed until now. Live testing is scheduled to start in three days. They’re powered by Fusion Cells, the kind that looks like dustbins, so you won’t need to worry about fuel lines, just cell-swapping. You won’t need to worry about replacing the He3 in the Fusion Cells either; spent cells will be sent back to J-Armory for recycling or refueling or whatever it is they do. Same goes for the weapons; Jamie’s J-Arsenal will handle maintenance and replacement and all that. The ship only needs to carry the Mechs, deploy them, and run basic maintenance. Repai
