Danny's eyes slowly creaked open, and she gazed up at the bright afternoon sunlight that streamed in through the window of her bedroom. Yawning Danny slowly sat up, scratching at her stomach as it gurgled loudly in protest of just how empty it was. The young gelf woman blinked a few times, clearing the crust from her eyes before her mind finally caught up with her body and she starred around the attic that was her temporary home, a window at the apex of the roof letting in the bright afternoon sunlight, lazy motes of dust wafting through the air as she stretched and contemplated staying in her bedroll a few moments longer.
Reluctantly she decided she was too hungry to keep laying around much longer, so she swung her feet out of bed and into the coziest slippers a Gelvin could scavenge and deactivated her wards. Shuffling with the slowness of those who had yet to drive the weariness of sleep fully from their body, Danny made her way over to the window and looked outside. Her golem was right where she had parked it, standing next to the window, the silent metal guardian had stood sentinel while she slept. Looking out over the yard Danny stared at the remains of what passed for suburbs in Arizona. Honestly they were in pretty decent condition, the desert environment didn't lead to much water damage, and monsters were scarce enough due to a lack of food that the houses hadn't just been outright demolished. She was honestly pretty impressed, most places didn't look so good twenty five years into the apocalypse.
Hunger gnawed again at her stomach, reminding her that it was time to feed her poor body, who was very clearly very much abused and malnourished. Still though Danny didn't make any move to make herself breakfast, instead she packed up her bed roll, hoisted her pack and checked her pistol. Tools reclaimed from where she had laid them out in a rough circle around where she slept the night before Danny gathered her mana and cast [Shape Object].
The ceiling of the attic and it's floor came apart, piece by piece, turning themselves into their component parts, boards, nails, screws, shingles, plaster, and wiring before taking the shape of a spiral staircase leading to the roof. It was crudely put together, but it would be enough to hold her weight, so Danny took the stairs two at a time and scrambled up onto the roof. Once there she began returning the roof back to normal. It had been an excellent place to sleep and if the house was still standing when Danny passed by this town again, there was no reason not to make use of it. The spell made the process laughably easy, and Danny had to wonder what a world without magic had been like.
Having learned early on that if you found a good shelter, it was best not to trash the place, Danny finished her repairs. It wasn't like people were building new houses anymore. Once outside and with the roof repaired, Danny let out a yawn and a stretch, greeting the afternoon sun with a huge grin on her face.
"Man, winter in the southern parts of the desert are awesome during the day. It's still nice and toasty!" Turning in a circle to inspect the neighborhood around her and seeing nothing of note, no new monsters or anything that wasn't there yesterday she made her way over to the golem parked at the front of the house, his shoulders rising above the roofs edge.
The Golem was a huge construction, easily ten tons in weight, formed like a biped, two arms, two legs with a spherical torso that was larger in the middle in order to house the cockpit. Armed with a seventy milimeter cannon, strapped to the front of the golem it made for quite a menacing sight.
"Morning Big Red, how you doing today?" Big Red of course didn't respond, instead choosing to stare solemnly out at the neighborhood, sunlight glinting off the fresh coat of hotrod red paint Danny had applied a couple of weeks ago.
"Oh don't be like that! It's just a house big guy! This one even had a bed! You and I both know you don't want me to strap a mattress to your back just so I have something comfy to lay on while we travel." Big Red's silence turned sullen and Danny would swear the big guy was pouting. " Look I love my hammock as much as the next girl but come on now, let me have a creature comfort or two yeah?" Getting no response Danny opened the hatch in the golems' back, revealing her cockpit. The small Gelvin girl stood at a mighty and powerful three foot nothing, and even so, between her pack and food stuff the cockpit was crowded.
"Alright, alright! Look we can swing by the car lots on our way outta town yeah? They got a whole quarter mile dedicated to them, and I'm sure at least some of them will be decent enough." Big Red's weight shifted slightly as she clambered into the cockpit and shut the hatch behind her, which Danny took for a reluctant approval. " You always get so jealous when I sleep anywhere but inside the cockpit big guy! A gal needs to stretch her legs."
Danny grumbled at him playfully even as she went through the startup sequence for Big Reds systems, flipping switches and checking the status on everything. Her stomach added to her grumbling by announcing once again that it deserved food and the lack there of was a cruel and unjust punishment for truly it had done nothing wrong!
Once Big red was greenlit and Danny had got him rumbling contentedly, she finally stopped to offer a prayer to her Goddess. "Charity, she who gives and gives I offer you this prayer as thanks, please bestow your humble follower with food and water for the day, and accept my thanks for the shelter I found last night." Danny had been told before the system came the gods had been different, and they rarely if ever provided interaction or active miracles. As a gentle golden glow enveloped her cockpit and a large sub sandwich, wrapping and all, appeared in her lap Danny found herself greatful the gods paid more attention these days. Heck they even worked with you on certain things, she thought as she glanced down to the water storage tank beneath her feet and saw it had been refilled partially.
Danny didn't recognize the wrapper on the sandwich, but she never did. Today's wrapper was pink and purple, which was a pretty cool color combo, unwrapping it she grinned, her favorite! chicken and bacon with provolone! "Charity, babe, you fuckin rock." Finally the protests of her stomach quietened as the little gelf devoured her sandwich with gusto. Grabbing the stopped hose that was connected to her water tank Danny gulped down some water to wash the sandwhich down.
After a filling meal Danny took a moment to look around what amounted to her home, the front half of her cockpit was a dome made of reinforced steel scavenged off of decommissioned tanks.. It looked like a glass window from her perspective, the magic allowing her to even feel the warmth of the sunlight as it passed "through" the window into her golem. Her pilot's seat was more of a retrofitted leather recliner, with controls worked into and through the arms. She had pedals at her feet, and overhead switches for Big Reds' many subsystems. It was a mixture of army green, camo black, and velcro, which Danny had been assured made it "tacticool". Honestly the velcro had earned its keep, and you can call it whatever the hell you want in her humble opinion.
"Alright big guy, let's get moving!" Danny shifted a lever controlling the mana output that was on the right side of the cockpit, and Big Red rumbled approvingly as she touched the pedals, coaxing him into the first steps of the day. Big Red didn't move fast, preferring a more leisurely pace, but a leisurely pace for him would have been a run for Danny, as she set him to cruise at seven miles per hour.
"So what are we thinking? Chevys? Fords? I think I saw a lambo in one of the lots last night!" Big red let out a backfire like a person might a snort of derision, he didn't think highly of lamborghinis. Danny had no idea why, they had supposedly been one of the best cars on the market before the world collapsed. Hell her old man had taken one for a joyride when things had been ending and used to tell stories about the damn thing at least once a month.
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"I was just teasing anyway, I know you'd rather look at an old school hummer, or maybe a muscle car, get some of that good steel yeah?" Big Red let silence be his answer as his gate slowly ate the miles to the nearby car dealerships. They both knew that Danny wasn't scavenging any steel today anyway. Surprisingly a lot of cars had been left to rot on the dealership lots, and quite a few would have been trashed by either vandals or monsters. Luckily Danny and Red were looking for old batteries and alternators. Which hadn't been prime targets for theft when the world fell apart.
No idea why, but when the system had come and mana flooded the world a bunch of household items had absorbed the mana particularly well, and mana crystals tended to form on or around them. Car batteries were among the best places to look, and by the time people figured that out, most of the cars had been abandoned or junked, the various ttowns and cities of the world left to rot. Which made them perfect targets for Danny and red who were in fact card carrying members of the scavengers club.
--
"Hey big guy I'm going to run a scan of the area, so be prepped and ready yeah?" Danny called out as she began booting up the mana channels used for the [Locate Creature] spell. The antenna on top of Big Red would broadcast the spell out to about a mile in every direction and give them a good idea of what was around monster wise. The only problem is that anything with a decent mana sense that was already nearby tended to be alerted to their presence.
Which is why once the boot up sequence for the spell was underway, Danny released the safety on her controls and Big Red brought his own weapon up to bare, grasping it with both hands. And boy oh boy was this thing a beauty, an old seventy millimeter "rifle" that had been custom fitted with a grip and sight specifically for big red to use. Semi automatic, it took both hands for the golem to wield, largely because the front of the gun, where the barrel met the stock was reinforced with a metal plate to act as a shield, nearly half again as large as Big Red himself.
It had been an absolute bitch to learn to fire correctly with so much of their peripheral vision blocked when it was brought to bare, but so many monsters could compete with them at range that the added defense was just a necessary part of life. Luckily Big Red didn't deal with things like muscle strain or care about mortal problems such as his gun being oddly weighted or too heavy for anyone to use without the ability to use hydraulics to lock their joints.
Gun in place, safety off Danny finished casting [Locate Creature] and began to cycle through the various types of both people and monsters, she had long ago made a list and taped it to the side of her cockpit, because she always missed at least one otherwise.
"Red we got Saurians, they might be content to laze about in the sun for now, but we should probably expect more activity around dusk." Big Red continued to amble along, unconcerned, the large gecko-like lizard monsters tended to go after prey smaller than them, so as long as Danny stayed in the cockpit she'd be fine. And he in his infinite golemantic glory was not made of anything nearly so edible as meat.
Danny however was already rummaging through her pack to find her warding kit, if they were going to take apart cars this afternoon she wanted to set up some [Force Wall]'s around her workspace. Pulling out the kit she set it next to the hatch, that way she'd remember it when she climbed out.
Turning her attention back to the road Danny grimace at the sight of something stumbling out onto the road in front of her and Red. [Locate Creature] was a good spell, but it sadly wasn't infallible. The manikin that had stumbled out of the remains of a boutique shop and was ambling towards them like a zombie was proof of that. The creepy fuckers were considered objects, a pale imitation of her own Big Red.
To her credit Danny didn't hesitate, she and Big Red raised their cannon and fired off a shot, the soft thump of impact was music to Danny's ears even as Big Red trembled slightly from the recoil. A spent shell casing clattering to the road, glinting in the afternoon sunlight as the manakin now bereft of its left leg fell lifelessly to the ground.
What made manikins dangerous was that they were golems like Big Red, so they had no need for rest, and they would pursue you relentlessly once they'd focused on you. They also tended to wear the skin of the creatures they killed in some weird fucked up attempt at becoming living people. Luckily they were not particularly sturdy, so as long as there was only one, dealing with them wasn't much of a problem unless they caught you completely unawares.
Danny shuddered in her pilots seat, those damn things gave her the heebies and the jeebies. Luckily after a sweep with [Locate Object] she didn't find any more manikins and the rest of her trip with Big Red to the car dealership was uneventful.
The sun still had another two hours or so left in the sky by Danny's reckoning when Big Red walked onto the used car dealership, which meant she had a good two or three hours to harvest some mana crystals. Still Danny took the precaution of setting up [Force Wall]'s around her and Big Red while she worked. She loved the big guy but he was effectively helpless in combat without her to help him and since she was harvesting crystals the magical barriers were a must.
Honestly Danny was pretty impressed by the cars she found, twenty five years rotting in the Arizona desert and the engine bays of the cars were still in great condition. She dealt with the batteries first, using the [Shape Object] spell to crack the batteries open like walnuts , pouring both battery acid and mana crystals onto the asphalt of the parking lot. Six batteries in and she had already gathered 10 crystals!
"Big Red my boy, we have hit the jackpot!" Grinning Danny looked up at Big Red, who continued to silently scan the surroundings for danger. "So Serious! lighten up big guy this may well be the mother load!" Danny assumed an evil overlord pose and began to cackle maniacally. "Muahahaha!" Big Red bore her behavior in stoic silence, she got over excited like this sometimes, and it was always best to just wait it out.
--
By the time the sun had begun to set and Danny was climbing back into her pilot's seat she had gathered a record forty seven mana crystals and packed up her ward kit. As far as hauls went this one had been a great one. Mana crystals were solidified mana, necessary components for ritual magic, and the fuel necessary to power Big Red. One crystal generally got Big Red about ten days of runtime. Which made today's haul a really, really big deal. "Red you've got more than a year of runtime from just the crystals I found today! We've got to mark this place on the map" Danny poured the crystals out of her bag into Big Reds fuel storage, which was an old coffee tin that was zip tied to the side of the cockpit with a hose that drip fed the crystals into the mana core.
After which Danny did exactly as she said she would and pulled out a map of Arizona, marking the town down as a great mana convergence location, and jotting down the name of this used car lot in particular. "Dave's Lucky Rides huh? Lucky for us anyway."
Sighing contentedly Danny began plotting their next course on the map, with so much fuel they could probably walk the entire United States from coast to coast without stopping to search for more crystals. Luckily she wasn't quite so aimless, as she snapped open her map of the united states and its many pins notating the national and state parks.
"Alright big guy, so I've been thinking yeah? The desert's been a bust, and I haven't found a single person so far. Turns out you were right, the lack of water and food makes for a harsh place to live, and most of the monsters? Ain't no joke." Danny shuddered at the thought of the manikin again before continuing on. "So, I figure that leaves us with a few options, we got Mexico, which is mountainous terrain, and apparently the cartels that were there were tough sons o bitches, so there might be people hiding in the mountains. Or, we can try the redwood forests in northern California." Big Reds Silence spoke volumes, as Danny shook her head in exasperation. "Of course we are gonna check any dams or mine shafts we find, at least the ones you fit into! they are natural fortresses, great places for people to hole up and survive."
Big Reds mana core rumbled slightly as she flicked on an electric heater, the desert got really cold at night! " Don't get my hopes up? Come on big guy, don't be like that, we will find someone eventually, you'll see."
"Ok, so I'm thinking California, by the time we reach the redwoods it should be spring so it won't be too cold despite us heading north and being at a higher elevation...I think...yeah you know what? It will be fine. then afterward we can head to Mexico for next winter."
Course decided Danny set Big Red heading Westward toward the edge of town, his large mechanical steps letting out quiet thumps on the asphalt, as the desert wind gusted through the empty town.
Into the desert night went a very lonely girl, young for her kind but with the grit of a survivor. Piloting a golem she had built with her friends and family, of whom he was the only one left.