2022-02-24 17:08:48Mindy screamed with excitement the moment she met Vigil. “SO CUTE!!”
Vigil perked up, beamed at Mindy with bright eyes, and wagged his tail a bit.
Mindy pounced. She grabbed him up and squeezed him, squealing. “So cute, so cute, so cute!!”
Ten feet away, Markus gave Remian a flat look.
“Sorry about the noise.” Remian ducked his head apologetically.
Markus shook his head and went on writing his reports.
“Can I feed him? Can I, can I, can I?” Mindy gushed.
“Uh…” Remian looked about. “I thought we were going hunting. If we catch something…”
“Let’s go! I know where to find lots of Blood Rabbits.” Mindy exclaimed. “They’re just Tier 1 Wilds. Even the easiest traps can get them! But you can’t just leave your traps there and go away, you have to watch the traps. Otherwise, their friends will find them and destroy your traps!”
“That explains a lot.” Remian said. “Half my traps are broken and I never found out why.”
Those weren’t actually his traps. The ownership of those traps was ambiguous, they belonged to Max, Markus and Remian together, ‘their’ traps.
While Mindy played with Vigil, Remian discussed the boar meat being smoked over the fire with Markus. In a sense, like the traps, the ownership of the meat, too, was ambiguous. Remian scored the killing blow, but it had been Max and Markus together who had engaged it in combat and held it in position.
A quick deal was settled. They would share the meat too, and the labor; one cleaning, one curing and smoking and the third cooking it. Markus had already done the dirty job cleaning the carcass himself and Max had smoked the meat. Some of it was cooked to be eaten now, some smoked for later, and the last of it dried for long-term storage. Tier 3 meat didn’t spoil very easily, but they would still be eating dried jerky rather than steak at the end of the month (not even Tier 3 smoked meat could keep that long without some sort of cold storage box or building).
As for the cub… it could have the scraps and small bones. The bigger bones and strips of hide could be sold or traded, and the revenue from those deals could go into buying grains and vegetables, maybe even cutlery.
Today’s hunt, however, was just between Remian, Mindy and the wolfcat cub Vigil. Mindy volunteered to clean, so it was up to Remian to cook, sell, or smoke the meat later.
They went around to the west side of town, past the quarry and the steep hills to some gentler slopes. Thick bushes and thorns impeded their way, but already they could see ears pricking up among the bushes and flickers of movement in the undergrowth.
It was Vigil, in the end, who proved the best hunter in the trio. Remian and Mindy set down the traps, but keeping an eye on them was easier said than done, especially when they had to keep themselves hidden at the same time. Vigil had an uncanny sense of knowing when a trap had snared something, and was quick to reach the place and secure the kill before anything could interfere.
They returned to camp that evening with six and a half Blood Rabbit carcasses. Why half? Because Vigil decided to have a little snack…
Blood Rabbits were reddish brown, roughly two feet in length, with paralyzing venom in their fangs and claws. They completely ruined Remian’s fond memories of cute, harmless bunnies back home. These mutated beasts were generally considered the least dangerous Wilds around town, except for the occasional Tier 2 Blood Rabbit Chieftain which was twice the size and thrice as strong. It was a near encounter with one of those that abruptly ended their hunting trip and had them abandon the last trap and its oversized occupant.
“You could have taken it.” Mindy grouched. “Just hit it with a super light spell like the Boar.”
“But then there would be nothing left.” Remian protested. He did not tell her the real reason behind his reluctance, or his doubts about his own abilities.
Still. She seemed happy with their haul. “I want more furs. You can have the extra half.”
“I think Vigil pretty much took all of that.” Remian eyed it and shook his head.
“The bones can be used for soup stock, or sold. Even Tier 1 Bone Marrow has some value.” Mindy mentioned. “If you can sell it to Blood Claw without getting robbed.”
“Why is it valuable?” Remian had to ask.
“Something about mana.” Mindy shrugged. “You’ll have to ask them.”
But he didn’t, in the end. After a dinner with Mindy in which Vigil probably had more than his fair share, Remian took the bones to the church and asked Kairos about it.
“It’s true.” Kairos said. “The highest concentration of mana in the Wilds are in their bone marrow. Grind the bones to powder, and they’ll be an ingredient for magic ink.”
“Magic ink?” Remian blinked.
“Right. That’s how I planned to raise funds for the church. Priests have different specialties; mine happens to be Inscription.” Kairos explained. “I’m not much good in a fight, but I can Inscribe light magic scrolls up to Tier 3.”
“What are those scrolls for?” Remian queried.
“It’s basically a ready-made Sigil. Remember how casting a spell requires forming a sigil before releasing it? If you had a scroll, all you’d need to do is empower it and cast right away. It saves time and effort.” Kairos paused. “They can also be used to control your output. If you had one of my Tier 1 Light Orb scrolls, and used that to cast the light spell during that battle, you wouldn’t have exhausted yourself all at once, and the result would have been similar to what I casted earlier.”
“So why didn’t you do that yourself? You could have casted more spells if you had a scroll.” Remian pointed out.
“Exactly! That’s why they’re valuable!” Kairos nodded. “That’s why I need to Inscribe some as soon as I can get the other materials for the ink! I wish I could show you a sample, but I had to sell all of mine to pay for the airship ticket here…”
“I probably wrote that ticket. I had to do some work for the Deutero Company to buy mine.” Remian mentioned. “They didn’t seem to cost that much.”
“But I came all the way from Ecclesia City. Furthermore, that airship took a few stops around the Rising Dragon Empire before stopping by the Seven Kingdoms and picking you up.” Kairos explained. “My trip was a lot longer than yours.”
Remian paused. “Just how much is a magic scroll worth, then?”
“Out here? Probably not very much.” Kairos admitted. “It takes some magical ability to use Scrolls and Fire Scrolls are generally a lot more popular than Light Scrolls. We would probably end up selling most of them to the Deutero Company the next time the airship drops by. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you can Inscribe a super-powered Light Bolt scroll instead of a Light Orb scroll.” Kairos turned to him. “The sigils are very similar, but yours turned out to be a fearsome weapon. If you can sell a scroll Inscribed with THAT sigil…”
“Can it really be done?” Remian wondered.
“No.” Kairos shook his head. “Not with Tier 1 magic ink. I think it would need at least Tier 3 magic ink, for that kind of power, and even then it won’t last more than one or two casts. The average expectancy for scrolls is 5 casts before the sigil loses power. Some really good ones can last more than 20 casts. But of course, those scrolls used higher Tier ink for lower Tier spells.”
“So I would need Tier 4 ink?” Remian guessed.
“That sounds about right.” Kairos sighed. “Never mind. Trying to hunt a Tier 4 Wild is suicide, not to mention finding the other ingredients for ink of that level.”
“What sort of other ingredients?” Remian had to ask.
“A trigger, a catalyst, and a stabilizer, at least. There are many different kinds of materials to accomplish these things, some of which enhance each other, some of which interfere or contradict each other, so the combinations are really complicated. But I’ll make it simple for you; get some Glass Dandelion root from the western hills, fluid from the river’s Rainbow Jellyfish and the sap of Purple Beating Heart Wood from the forest to the south, with an earthenware pot that has never been used, and we can make our Tier 1 magic ink.”
“That simple, huh?” Remian said sarcastically.
“Yep. I’ve already pored over dozens of possible materials that could be found nearby, and that was the best combination I could come up with.” Kairos rolled his eyes. “If you don’t believe me, feel free to try it yourself.”
“No, thanks, I’ll take your word for it.” Remian cleared his throat. “But I also want something else from you.”
“You want to learn how to Inscribe Scrolls, right?” Kairos guessed. “Of course. I’ll even help you sell yours to the Deutero Company, or my old friends back at Ecclesia.”
“That, and whatever other spells you know.”
“Deal.”
***
“Mindy?”
“Yes, Remian?”
“I need your help finding some ingredients for me. In return, I’ll teach you something good.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll teach you magic!”
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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
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