I have not yet mastered my craft. I am aiming to become a Fae to continue my endless pursuit of mastery. Goodbye, my friends.
-Last known words of an unknown armorsmith
*=====*
Soft sounds of metal sliding on metal filled the deathly silent room as Mori stood. Hissing hydraulics, tendons and muscles of steel, accompanied the metal. Beneath the helmet of her dull green armor, Mori’s glowing flames looked over her hands and body, with the armband placed in the center of her chest and runes and engravings decorating the rest of her body. It was her. It was almost like she had been raised with it, had worn it for as long as she could remember. She clenched her hand, the one with Molly’s spell stone in it, feeling the unyielding metal covering her bones follow with her movements almost preemptively. With but a thought, her armored hands turned to claws, sharp and dangerous. There were no complicated machines in them, no gadgets that could be ruined by her shaping. It was pure metal, free for her to manipulate with impunity.
“So,” Fara asked, standing in front of her suddenly taller frame, “How is it?”
Mori felt around her armor, feeling the engravings running up and down her new skin, telling tales of things of that world and beyond, and could nearly feel the smooth cuts used to make them. It was all illusion, though. Through her metal skin, she felt nothing on her skin, nothing but the warm, soft embrace of her cold, hard metal shell. She nodded, drawing some of the mana in the miniature dynamos into her soul, “It’s amazing… It’s like a new set of skin or even a shell. I don’t know… It feels amazing.”
The two smiled, “That is good, mistress. Are you satisfied with the engravings?” Avarice asked, peering into her helmet, “Ah, if you want to meet face to face with someone, you can remove the mask with-” Mori let the front of the helmet fall open, attached by a hinge, and gave a radiant smile, “That’s good then. If you want to modify them, you can do it yourself, correct?”
“Easily,” Mori said, “But Fara’ll have to take a look before I make any complicated changes; I don’t want to break it and be unable to fix it afterwards. Thanks, guys. Seriously. How much experience did you get from it? It must have been a lot.”
They glanced at each other and their eyes lost focus. After a small gasp, Fara’s face lit up in a grin, “I got two levels! This is great! I’m so close to thirty!” she laughed before calming herself down, “Oh, gods, Mori, your enthusiasm is rubbing off on me.”
“I’m glad,” Mori giggled, “It’d be boring if you didn’t have fun once in a while. What about you, Avar? Did you get anything good?”
Avarice gave a measured smile, one that tried not to show too much enthusiasm, “I gained three levels from it, mistress. I already know what I will be spending them on, so if you will excuse me,” he said, leaving the room to pick his new Traits.
Mori nodded to Avarice and turned back to Fara, “So, what do you want to make next?”
Fara’s excited look shifted to a more thoughtful one as she considered the question, “Hrm,” she grunted, “I think making some small stuff for each of your death knights wouldn’t go amiss. I can guess what Avarice wants. I might know for the three sisters. Other than that, I would need to ask them myself. Do you want to come with me or do you want to play with your armor more?” she asked in good humor.
“I’ll play with my new toy, thanks,” she joked, “Though, you should remember to get Zubov, Mokan, and Norta something too.”
Fara’s expression shifted slightly before she sighed, placing herself down on the metal workbench, “About those two, Mori. We need to talk.”
“Fara… are you still against them traveling with us? But-”
Fara held up a finger, “Mori, stop. If we didn’t have plans, I would be for them staying. But we’re going to Aekan. A Hive, Mori. It’s not somewhere you can just bring a bunch of people and be fine with. Mokan could be useful but Norta would only be in danger. At her level and skill, I would be running in the opposite direction if I were going to be fighting. The only reason I’m going is because, one, the gods told me to, and two, I’ll be working on skiffs, doing repairs, and just working with other mechanics to improve our weapons. They will have to fight, and they don’t have the natural resilience and expendability of your zombies, nor the inherent power and versatility of your death knights. They’ll be killed. Do you really want to bring them to the worst warzone the Vast Dust has seen in hundreds of years?” she asked, leaning forward.
Mori almost reflexively responded, but held her metaphorical tongue. She did not want to get them killed. But she did not want to leave them alone, either. She did not want them to go back to their life of poverty and crime. Mori was almost certain Fara noticed her dilemma, but she held back from saying a word. Mori grit her teeth, “What can we do for them, Fara? How do we stop them from falling back into their life of just… awfulness?”
Fara thought for a moment, before shaking her head, “I have an idea, but we’ll have to ask for a favor. From Eaner.”
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Mori’s eye-flames widened, “Oh! That could work! How do we even ask, though? Do we just bring it up, or do we ask him to take them on in exchange for us transporting the other people from Earth?”
Fara’s eye twitched, ever so slightly, at the mention of the people from Earth, but she did not ask what Mori had been waiting for her to ask. Instead, she shrugged, “We could just ask for a favor; I doubt taking in a hard working brawler and a mute rouge would be that much for him to do. Besides, once the business in Aekan is wrapped up, we can come back and offer them a spot on the Kharon.”
Mori tilted her head for a moment, thinking, before nodding, “Agreed. That’ll get them a place to work and a good place to rest. Do you think they’ll accept it, though? I mean, they’ve been here for a week and they’ve even carved their own niche for themselves.”
Fara smirked, “Sure, Norta works on pretty much anything around here and spars with Fury, but Mokan playing chess with Zubov is hardly a niche.”
“Well, either way. The point is this: will they be alright for staying with Eaner’s company while we go fight a hive of homicidal robots?” Mori paused as she finished her question, “Actually, saying it like that makes it seem a lot easier to do. Then again the fact that so many people are going in the first place… Fara, what do you think?”
“It’ll be easy,” she said, “The types of people who go after Hives are either the blindly optimistic, fanatically pious, or are becoming so powerful that they need such a big battle to level up.”
Nodding, Mori clenched her fist, “Oh? How high leveled are those types? Fifty? Seventy?”
“In the hundreds,” came Fara’s quick reply, “Most stall out around a hundred, where most believe there to be a soft cap on how far you can level up. Of course, that is far from the end of someone’s search for power, but it is as far as the system is willing to help for most. Either way, they probably don’t want to run head-long into, again, an incredibly dangerous warzone.”
“Alright. Yeah, that works. Let’s-” Mori turned to look at an appearing Aerolat as he gave an appraising look at Mori’s new armor. She grinned, “Do I look good?” she asked, posing a bit.
Sighing, Aerolat nodded, “Very, mistress. There are some guests at the front door who want to speak with you. As well as Ms. Fara.” The two women nodded, donning their masks and making their way out of the workroom and onto the ‘deck’ of the Kharon. Surrounding the deck were seven foot walls, tipped at the bow and stern with bulbous turrets. On the deck was Fury and Norta, both sparring. Fury wore a crudely welded together set of armor, armguards forgone in favor of simplicity. On his back were two large lizard wings, if such a thing could be.
Fury turned just as they finished their spar and raised his eyebrow, “Mistress? That’s some nice armor!” he grinned, “Do you have any more of that stuff?” he laughed. Mori shrugged, differing to Fara, who nodded, “Nice! I can-” he noticed Fara narrowing her eyes at him, coughing to stop himself, “Well, can I use some of it, mistress?” he asked.
“Only,” she began, “If you let the others have just as much. The rest’ll be split between you eleven. Trade it, but it has to be even. Good?”
Fury groaned, “Fine… I’ll play by the rules.” Mori gave a smile, hidden under her helmet, and started off once more.
Similarly to Fara’s original plan to have three turrets on the skiff, her idea of a drawbridge at the bow of the skiff seemed to not pan out, as she settled for a much more simple gate-like design on each side of the skiff. They were open, but could easily be closed to prevent boarders. As they descended the scaffolding beside the skiff, Mori noticed a small crowd of people she had definitely not seen loitering near the front entrance before. In front of the crowd, Zubov stood beside Desire with his back straight and glaring at a pair of orcs who she had not seen before.
As they approached, she could hear him growling at them, “So, you mean to tell me that you idiots are putting me on the investigation of that clockie attack because… you don’t have enough people to do it yourself?”
One of the orcs gave a questioning look, “Well, that’s probably what he’s here for. I’m just here to drop off some of the spoils the lich earned with her service.”
“She was there?” Zubov asked, almost amused.
“Yeah, I was,” Mori said from behind him, her voice echoing from within her helmet, “Tough bastards, they almost cut through my arm.”
Zubov turned, looked at her armored form for a long many moments, and sighed, “Mori… wait, is that what you were saying you were going to do?” he asked Fara as he noticed her, “Damn, if you were doing that, you should’ve told me. I’ve got [Multi-rune Casting] and making something like that sounds fun.”
“Personal project, Zubov,” Mori giggled, “Sorry.”
Zubov threw out a hand, “Whatever. Anyway, I’ve got a lot of people asking for you here. And a damn leech I have to deal with…” he said while glaring at the second orc.
“Zubov… please don’t,” Mori said, stepping beside him and lightly batting his head with an armored hand, “I may like having more bodies to raise, but I don’t like having murder investigators snooping around my warehouse.”
He grumbled, “Fine, fine. I’ll just challenge him to a game of poker later.” Mori could have sworn the man stared at Zubov in horror for a few moments before controlling his expression, “This guy here’ll give you your loot. There’s also a pretty big group outside, so yeah.”
Mori smiled, “Thanks Zubov.” She turned to the other orc man, wearing a pair of overalls and a shrewish expression, “I’ll have some of my death knights take my share off your hands.”
Aerolat suddenly materialized once more, standing beside her, “I would suggest giving the whole Clockwork to Crave so he can study it before letting Avarice do what he pleases.”
Nodding, Mori stepped past the shrewish orc, “Let’s go with that, then. Thanks Aerolat.” The undead merely bowed to Mori and Fara as they passed by, vaporizing after a few moments. ‘It’s nice to have such an attentive death knight,’ she thought to herself. Mori and Fara walked by the little group bringing her loot, which was a whole Crasher husk and two Soldier husks. Nodding to herself, she opened the door to the street outside and was met by a familiar face. “Eaner. Did they decide already?”
The man smiled as he heard her voice, “So it was you,” he chuckled, “Yes, they have come to a decision, though, it may not be the one you were expecting.”
“Let me guess,” she laughed, “A tour?”
The crowd of Earthborn gave nervous chuckles, save for a few she had met before, and Eaner smiled, “If you would be so kind?”
Mori grinned beneath her helmet, “Come on in, then. I’ll show you around.”