Kaasi-of-Haunted-Glen buried her head in her hands. Why, oh why had she thought that dealing with Landon Carter and stealing the Human Defense Force from him would make her life easier?
She knew that wasn’t the real reason she’d done it, but it was the reason she’d taken over the ridiculously named HDF. Really, who actually thought that humans needed a defense organization? Didn’t they know about the Empire?
Kaasi knew she was being unfair; they probably didn’t know about the Empire. It was truthfully intended more to defend Earth’s humans than humans in general, but the arrogance that came with assuming they were somehow special because they were humans was annoying. Almost as annoying as the pile of semi-functional and mostly broken half-enchanted things that sat in front of her.
There were a dozen different items designed to find “alien menaces” in front of her. So far, she’d tested two of them. One of them said that Kaasi was an alien, the other didn’t. That should have been great news, because one was designed to find anyone from offworld based on some sort of magic vibration that sounded like divination magic to Kaasi, while the other was supposed to find nonhumans, whether they were from Earth or not.
The problem was that they were both wrong. The one designed to detect humans said she wasn’t human and the one designed to detect offworlders said she was from Earth. Without more testing she wouldn’t know what was wrong with them; did the one designed to offworlders see her as a local because she had lived on Earth for years or because she was acknowledged as an Earth citizen by the planet’s Sovereign? Did the one that was looking for humans detect her as a nonhuman because it was looking for something that Earth humans all shared and she didn’t or was it just wrong?
Even if one gave the correct answers about her, how could she know that it would give the right results about a different offworlder? She had to decide which ones were worth buying in quantity and she had to do it without being able to answer that question. She could get some of the answers by testing against others, including animals and people, both on and off Earth, but that wouldn’t answer every question.
She was just going to have to pick as best she could. They needed a way to find anyone else who was like Kaasi and had slipped through a portal; some would be easy converts to Earth’s side, but many were on Earth either to gather information or to subvert the local governments. The Empire was the largest threat, since they had the most humans who could easily pass as Earth natives and were the most likely to want to conquer the planet, but they weren’t the threat Kaasi was worried about.
The Planetary Sovereign clearly had a plan to deal with the Empire or Amaia wouldn’t have told Kaasi that he’d deliberately allowed an Imperial holding a Grand Imperial Warrant to examine the planet. Kaasi still couldn’t be certain that the Sovereign wasn’t going to sell out the planet, but the fact that he was a dragon changed things a lot.
The fact that he was Amaia’s brother mattered even more to Kaasi, even though it wouldn’t matter to other people. Amaia wasn’t worldly, but she was powerful and that mattered a great deal when you dealt with the Empire. As long as Amaia’s brother had a plan to bring that fact to the Empire’s attention, it would probably work; Kaasi had seen enough of Earth to know that there were places that might well be conquerable but there were many places that just weren’t worth it. Even the places that were easier might not be worth it if they were approached incorrectly.
At the end of the day, Kaasi really only cared about Earth as much as Amaia did, which meant as much as her brother did. Exactly what those limits were wasn’t clear, but Kaasi doubted anyone knew if she didn’t. That alone would make the Empire careful, though it didn’t mean they wouldn’t try.
That was for the future. The present was figuring out which of these things was worth the money the Human Defense Force had raised. It was more than Kaasi had expected but not nearly enough for all of them. She scrawled out a set of notes for each device on what she wanted tested, then moved on to the next device.
She hoped she’d find something better in the rest of the pile.
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Serenity couldn’t really call the trip into the forest past Golemton uneventful. In fact, it was fairly entertaining, at least if you liked silly competitions and Serenity found that he rather enjoyed this one.
They entered the forest easily enough, but they only made it about a dozen yards before they found their first golem, a crude man-shaped construct that looked like someone took rocks and glued them together in a way that resembled a snowman with arms more than a classical golem. Legion didn’t wait for anyone to tell him what to do; he pulled out his greenstone rifle and burned a hole into its chest. That wasn’t guaranteed to stop a golem, but it was enough for that one.
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The second golem was made of wood. Serenity didn’t notice it until after the integral weapons on his flyer flashed and obliterated its midsection when it was barely clear of the tree it had been behind moments before. It wasn’t trying to hide; that seemed to be when it noticed the flyers.
The tsarualk clearly weren’t pulling any punches with their “combat capable” flyers. The blast was significantly more destructive and Legion’s greenstone rifle and the rifle was a viable weapon up through at least Tier Five, maybe even six or seven. Serenity would not want to be hit by that weapon, shield or no shield; he wasn’t certain he’d be able to stop it and even if he could, it would burn a lot of mana.
The third golem was positively creepy, a blob of misshapen meat. The fourth looked like vines woven in the shape of a man. The fifth was another of the rock golems. No matter what the golem was made if, each one seemed to become aware of the group at about the same distance and move towards them. None seemed to have any capacity to harm other than physical attacks, which meant that most of them didn’t have much reach. The few that did have a longer reach, like the one made of vines, still didn’t get close enough to use it.
The first time Aide used the weapons on Legion’s flyer to hit one before Legion was able to, the group mind lost its casual attitude and became serious. It quickly became a game between Legion and Aide to see which one of them could get the shot off first: one of the four of Legion’s bodies in the second flyer (well, three, since one was flying) or Aide.
Serenity, Blaze, and Senkovar watched and occasionally commented. It was almost like a sport; Serenity had to root for Aide, which led to both Blaze and Senkovar ganging up on him and cheering for Legion.
When they reached the damaged area, only Aide and Serenity knew the final score: 32 Aide, 31 Legion. Serenity had suspicions that Aide deliberately kept it close, especially after Aide sniped the last one with Legion’s flyer the moment it was visible enough to hit. It was definitely amusing that Aide felt the need to win, even if only barely.
Aide professed innocence and Serenity decided not to pursue it. The exact score wasn’t important, after all; what was important was that they all had a great team cheering on their side and never felt like it was hopeless. He couldn’t really blame Aide for keeping it interesting if that was what he did.
The forest quickly changed from a normal forest to a scene of devastation when they were close enough. It was easy to find the center point; all they had to do was follow the downed trees back to where they’d been pushed from.
Serenity half-expected to find nothing. If he did find something, he expected it to be hidden in the debris or possibly sitting in the open in a position that wasn’t really visible during their flyover. Some sort of camouflage was also possible, though it really wouldn’t have been necessary.
Serenity did not expect to find a giant hole.
Well, “giant” might not really be the best word for it. It really wasn’t all that big, only about fifteen feet in the narrow dimension and thirty on the long side, but it seemed giant because it was so unexpected. It definitely wasn’t from whatever knocked over the trees; in fact, three trees had clearly been moved after they were knocked down to give space for the hole. There was a mound of dirt near the hole but not nearly as much as Serenity would have expected for the hole. The walls of the hole were shiny, like they were incredibly smooth, and didn’t look like dirt or mud. They looked more like some sort of stone or perhaps a coating of some kind.
The bottom of the hole was oddly slanted, shallow at one end and deeper at the other, more like a deepening trench than a hole. The reason for that was obvious as soon as they moved far enough along the trench to see the deep end: it continued underground at a decent slope. That also made the reason it was longer than it was wide obvious: whatever had been done to reinforce the dirt didn’t work when the dirt was too thin.
Serenity wondered what happened when it rained; there didn’t seem to be anything preventing the rainwater from going straight down the tunnel. Perhaps it was temporary or not intended to last through much rain? That was the most likely possibility if it was a mundane tunnel.
Its location implied it wasn’t mundane. Serenity could feel Themrys screaming below him; he didn’t believe that finding a tunnel almost directly over the problem area was a coincidence.
Serenity couldn’t see any active spellforms on it, but there was definitely mana residue; it looked solid and earthen, so it was probably either the mana used to dig the tunnel or the mana used to reinforce it, likely both. It ought to be safe to walk on, though if they actually entered the tunnel they’d need to be careful and watch for traps, both intentional and accidental. Bad tunnel construction killed a lot of people on Earth over the centuries; it didn’t require malice to be dangerous.
The tunnel was fairly obviously recent. There were some dimples and scratch marks on the bottom that weren’t on the walls. To test the reinforcement, Serenity hopped out of his flyer. The ground supported his weight with no give at all, like stone rather than earth. That was a good first test, but it wasn’t everything.
The next test was just as simple: Serenity punched a wall. His hand didn’t appreciate it for a moment, but the wall didn’t react. That made the scratches in the ground a bit more interesting. The next test was to try to scratch it himself with his own claws.
They cut through the material as if it were butter. Cold butter, but still butter. There was some resistance, but not anywhere near what Serenity expected from the punch test and not even close to as much as he really wanted for something that would be a roof over his head under what was probably a very large amount of ground. “I don’t like how easy it is to cut. Does anyone have a way to reinforce a tunnel?”