We still had a bit over an hour until the time we were set to meet at one of the practice fields, so Kay offered to take me over to the general use supply point to get some necessities.
When we arrived, the person standing in front of the door just gave us a glance before letting us in. I would have expected that to mean there would be a lobby or something as you entered, but I could see that the front doors opened straight to rows and rows of shelves containing all sorts of tools and weapons. For the most part it looked arbitrarily organized- like if a library asked patrons to put the book back themselves. Off to one side was another person in fatigues sitting at a desk with a large ledger clearly labeled as the inventory guide- not that they were looking through it or anything as they were reading a book while as reclined as their chair let them get.
As I was still processing the complete disregard for security, Kay walked over and started flipping through the ledger, writing shelving codes on a provided sticky note as she went along. While I waited I perused the shelves with my perception. While I couldn’t see everything at once, the warehouse did fit entirely within my overall perceptive range meaning I didn’t have to move an inch.
I have no clue what a military warehouse actually looked like, but if they were supposed to resemble an antiques shop, this one would be very close to that. While my previously noted tenuous sorting system held true, it would be more accurate to describe how the place was organized as a gradient. From (my) left to right thing went from more defensively focused to offensively focused. From the front of the building to the back it went from basically a hardware store to what could only be described as grossly negligent displays of weaponry.
Tucked away in one of the back corners was a jumbled cardboard box of claymores- the mine, not the sword- sitting right next to an emergency exit.
On the other side of the warehouse, someone had left an RPG of some sort leaned against the wall. Loaded.
With a heavy thud, Kay closed the ledger and said, “I have made up a list of items you will probably want at least one set of if you plan on going to close some breaches. This place is a bit of a mess, so it might take us some time to find everything.”
I quickly restricted my perception down to a small area around the note, letting me easily read the entire list at once- which ended up being less helpful than I hoped as I then had to take a few seconds to mentally translate that info dump into an actual list. Finally done, I asked, “no armor of any kind?”
Looking like she was expecting that exact question, Kay replied, “It is unnecessary in most circumstances. Our costumes are enchanted to disperse forces over large areas, including where they don’t appear to cover. It is a little weird at first, but anything purely physical should have a hard time hurting you. Sadly, many demons attack at least partially with magic, which is much more difficult to protect from. In general it is more effective to deal with the effects of the magic rather than trying to block the casting- which requires perks or knowledge you will gradually acquire.” In a much cheerier voice, she continued, “now let’s get started! Where could the reactive earplugs be this time?”
Since I already kinda knew where everything was and could much more efficiently check to make sure, the process of finding everything was much easier than it likely would have been otherwise. In the end, we left with a lot of stuff- the most important of which were some sort of pistol I didn’t catch the name of, a holster for me to carry it covertly, some boxes of ammo for it, and some very nice ear plugs or buds- they were great at blocking noise over a certain volume but could also be used to talk to other sets.
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From there, we got to the training field a bit early, but found that Rebecca and Potato had arrived even earlier than us. As soon as we stepped onto the artificial grass, a very excited voice yelled from directly behind me, “Boo!”
I flinched of course, but since I could see that nothing was actually there, I didn’t turn to look- not that I even had to do that, but I still did find myself facing the direction of the things I was perceiving most of the time. Just before the voice had tried to scare me, I had… seen- but in an even more abstract sense than my normal ‘sight’- a disturbance which likely was the source of the voice.
When Kay and I had walked to within proper earshot, the person I presumed to be Potatocannon yelled over, “aww, I hoped that that would have gotten you. Anyway, I’m Potatocannon, or just Potato, or Cannon. Although no one ever calls me that… Do you want to go by Silvia or Devil?”
Still trying to process the barrage of words, I eked out, “I guess Silvia? I’m not really used to the whole MG thing yet.”
“Oh, that’s normal! So, I was told you’re interested in stuff that’s tangential to wind magic? I have to say, magic is super fun! You can do all sorts of wacky things. Actually, watch!” After abruptly stopping talking, Potato materialized a simple tube of metal and a foot long flechette in a sabot casing. With very practiced movements, she stuffed the projectile in the end of the tube before I once again felt the disturbance in the ULE around us- except to a much larger degree than when Potato had tried to scare me.
Noticing what was going on as well, Rebecca yelled, “aim west so you don’t hit the mainland again!” Then, after receiving a look of confusion, she pointed in the direction she wanted Potato’s cannon pointed.
Once the pipe was pointed that direction, there was an even larger spike of the disturbance- slightly distorting my vision as the flechette was launched out of the tube, breaching the sound barrier somewhere out of my range of vision far enough that we weren’t immediately deafened by the boom.
As I was standing there in shock, the tube disappeared and left a satisfied smile on Potato’s face as she breathed heavily. My only response- which I think was quite appropriate- was, “what the fuck?”
“It’s my most powerful technique! By creating a perfect vacuum within the tube and out as far as my range with magic extends, then blasting the back of the round with a super compressed and accelerated air, I can shoot at about mach 7- giving me a theoretical range of around 350 miles! Anyway, why were we here again? Wait, I was supposed to help you figure out magic, right?”
Sighing deeply, Rebecca stepped up next to the likely crazy MG and said, “yeah, that was the plan,” before turning to me and continuing, “I don’t remember if you said what perk you’ll use for manipulating chemical weapons, but hopefully it will be able to affect smoke grenades I brought so we don’t have to use something that might kill someone easily.”
Still shaking slightly from the insane display of power, I replied, “I have [Synthesized Weapon Proficiency]. It might just be wishful thinking, but I think it’ll let me influence ‘synthesized weapons’- whatever that means- as well as change their properties to some degree.”
“Thank you- and don’t worry if you feel like you’re unsure of what you can actually do. With perks in general, if you instinctively feel like they can do something, that thing is probably part of its effect. There’s not really a feasible way for the Semiseelie to tell us everything all of our perks do, so they give us a form of muscle memory that helps guide our application of said perks. Here, I’m going to start our first smoke and you just try to ‘grab’ at it. Potato, can you prevent the smoke from dispersing too much?”
With that, Rebecca threw the smoke grenade a dozen few away from us and gestured for me to try stuff. I closed my eyes- not that that stopped me from seeing, but more as a way to try and trick my brain into focusing more.
I could almost feel… something from the cloud of smoke, but I was tempted to chalk that up to wanting to feel something. While trying to impart something into the cloud like how I had altered my improvised weapons, I instead became more aware of the disturbances in ULE I was creating. After a moment of confusion, I realized I still had [Unremarkable] running and switched it off.
Whatever slight distortion I had sensed around myself dissipated with the deactivation of the perk, but my concentration was interrupted by Potato saying, “You might find it easier to feel your target without other perks running like that illusion one- even if it does look cool.”
“Huh? I turned off a disguising perk, though. It was creating a weird… warping around me.”
Springing into an upright position from where she had been laying, Potato asked, “so this is what you normally look like? Wait, that’s less important. You can already feel how your perks affect ULE? That took me sooo long- even with the help of some of the more experienced MGs. Well, I guess that means we can skip throwing you into a ULE deprived area…”