Injuries Sustained:
174 Minor Fractures
86 Major Fractures
325 Minor Muscle Tears
143 Major Muscle Tears
3 Non-Essential Organ Failures
1 Essential Organ Failure
Patient Status:
Permanent Injuries: 1 Scar (3 feet by .5 feet slash scar) on Right Flank (At patient’s request)
Long-lasting Injuries: None
Time Needed to Recover: 1-3 Weeks
Personal Notes:
Working on a dragon is a once-in-a-century occurrence, and I am glad to have been the doctor selected for such an important task. In terms of temperament, Cyvelix was a wonderful patient and I hope she enjoyed her stay. She was also practically immune to pain. When I asked about it, she simply told me that she was special among her people. In general, though, I can confidently say this about dragons: Don’t try to mess with them. I had to ask for a loose tooth from Cyvelix to sharpen into a surgical knife before I could remove the dozens of pounds of shrapnel lodged in her. Creators only know how the Clockworks did it, though.
-Bill of Heath from Doctor Etura, c. 943
*=====*
Mori looked out over the wall and across the desert sand, arms crossed. Beside her, Frankie crouched down to her level, keeping his clocksteel-encased head safe from snipers that had been terrorizing the men atop the outer wall.
Yet another round pinged off of her head, sending her staggering back a bit. She sighed as the odd green metal simply reformed itself to its original appearance, “Damn snipers… where even are they?” she asked. Turning to the man beside her, who was crouched down below the crenelations of the wall, she pointed out to the sands, “I mean, you’d think they’d have a hard time seeing me, but then you get hit by-” another shot pinged off of her head, “That.”
The man, a levy from Gribnik she guessed, stared at her in awe from under his crude helmet, “Ma’am, I think you should be more wary about snipers. The brass told us that some have been proven to carry some sort of high-power rounds. They can punch through pretty much every armor we have. Only the nobles are able to stop them.”
Mori smiled from beneath her faceplate, “High power? Can we replicate them?” she asked, an idea springing to mind.
“I dunno, Ma’am. I’m not noble enough to have that answer. There are probably a bunch of archivists here that could answer your-” His words were cut off when another sniper shot slammed into her head, sending her sprawling back and nearly off the wall. The man simply stared at her, “May the Creators have mercy on your soul.”
Mori laughed, “I’m not dead, you dumbass.” She stood and crouched beside Frankie, putting a hand on his shoulder to calm him, “Calm down, buddy. They can’t kill me that easily. Also, no running out there and getting killed; you’re the first revenant I made, a greater revenant or whatever at that, and I don’t want you to get killed so early on.” Frankie huddled back down behind the crenelations, but did not stop growling.
The man stared for a moment, “You must be loved by the Creators, them letting you live like that,” he said, “That was what I heard a high power round was like. So, we weren’t briefed on how to deal with constant sniper fire. You have an idea?”
Mori shrugged from her place behind cover, seeing some of the other soldiers looking at her as if she were a ghost, “Well, I don’t do ‘To whom it may concern’ spells. I mostly have beams with names on them.”
The men and women shared glances, the one she was talking to furrowing his brow, “They have mana types like that?” he asked, “You mages come up with the craziest things. But how would that work with Clockworks; I doubt they have names.”
“I- You didn’t get the joke, did you?” she asked.
“That was a joke?” he countered, “I don’t think this is the proper place for jokes.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Mori sighed, turning to Frankie, “Do you think my joke was good?” she asked him. He simply tilted his head in confusion, “Everyone’s a critic…” She turned back to the other man, “Well, haven’t you ever heard of black comedy? Gallows humor? Tragic comedy?”
“I know that gallows humor is the thing where we make fun of a death row inmate, but we’re not on death row, nor are we the ones to make the jokes,” he answered.
Mori stared for a moment, deciding to peek above the crenelation instead of dealing with the culture clash any more than usual. Almost as soon as she did, another sniper round slammed into her helmet, sneaking by the armor around her eye holes and punching straight through her skull. Crouching back down, she flipped her faceplate and yanked the bullet out from her skull, “Dammit, how are they so damn accurate? Don’t we have snipers on our side?” she asked.
One of the soldiers, an orc wearing the light brown of the Green Oasis military uniform, nodded, “We do, but they’ve been hit more than anyone else.” she answered, keeping her head firmly down.
“So we’re on our own… alright, might as well show a card now…” She sighed, sending a pulse of mana out across the sands. A trick she had learned over the two and a bit weeks of magical study was that she could use pure, untouched mana as a component of spells. In her testing, it was a stupid idea, as doing that messed with her spells in weird ways, but she did develop a way to use it.
She was able to, in her research, use it to dilute the effects of other manas. She was sure that she could easily make a ‘dilution’ mana type to do the same, but she did not want to spend so much effort doing something that could be done with what she already had.
Her simple spell, however, was to call her undead to her. It would probably fail, just making her undead more confused, but none of them were fighting anyway, so they would be fine.
To her surprise, however, a bulge appeared on the ground just behind the wall, erupting to reveal the form of a giant wyrm. Grinning, she pointed out to the expanse of sand, “Wyrm, you and the others find and take care of the Clockworks out there. Also, leave the sand you pass through as it is; I want to be able to bring some of the others through there.” The wyrm nodded, diving back underground and leaving a gaping hole in the ground.
“Good then, let’s just see…” she poked her head up once more, feeling another sniper round ping off of her helmet, “Guess that’s not an option…” Just as she was ready to wait, a few familiar faces began rushing over. Fara, her father, the woman he was with, and Idle were all running across the space between the outer and second-outer walls, “Hey, don’t come up here! They’ve got snipers!” she shouted to them, “Stay by the hole!”
She was about to run back from the wall when something slammed into her whole body. She was sent flying over the wall and crashed into the sand below. The wall was always built to be tall, which was normally an advantage, but she was beginning to change her opinion about the height of the wall as she felt the force of a sixty foot drop.
She heard multiple cracks ring out in her armor and felt a few dozen bones snap. She turned her head to see Fara rushing up to her side, “Mori! Are you alright?” she asked worriedly, opening her faceplate and gasping as she took in the sight of Mori’s shattered skull. “Mori.. you didn’t die, did you?” she asked quietly.
“Nope,” Mori said in a miffed tone, “Not for their lack of trying… that was more than I expected for a response… Since when did they have explosive snipers?” she asked Fara, “I never heard anything like this when we talked about the Clockworks.”
Fara sighed in relief as Mori spoke and complained, a frown growing as Mori continued, “You’re right… Dad, did you ever deal with explosive snipers in the Sugal Empire?” she asked, standing.
The man shook his head as Idle took Fara’s place beside Mori, “No. Never. They have these long-distance high-power rounds we haven’t been able to get our hands on, but other than that, nothing extraordinary with snipers. It’s weird that they start using them here.”
“I think they have a vendetta against me,” Mori chimed in, “They kept shooting me up there and I think they got fed up with my armor. I mean, not even that punched through this stuff. I’m telling you, they got some orders or something to take me out specifically.”
Fara’s dad gave her a look that was somewhere between confusion and condescension, “No, things like that don’t happen. Unless you are a consistent, omnipresent problem, you don’t have them targeting you specifically.” He suddenly shook his head, “Actually, seeing as you are a lich working with us, I don’t think it is that odd…”
Fara elbowed him in the side, “Dad, don’t be mean,” she said, “Besides, how would they know that she’s a lich? Mori, did you show your face?”
“Or lack thereof?” Mori quipped, “Not to them, no.”
Fara’s dad shrugged, “Just assume they know everything, and you’ll have a good sense of their seemingly infinite information network. One time, there was a dragon that planned to stay by the Wall for a few days, so the Clockworks set up anti-dragon weaponry. The thing about it, though, was that they planned for him to leave on the exact day he left. While we had no clue how long the big blue bastard would stay. I’m just going on the assumption that they know all of our plans.”
“Do you think they’ll figure out my plan?” Mori asked. Fara’s dad shrugged, so Mori dropped the question, “Well, anyway, where are the other strong guys? We can’t be the only ones who know what’s going on over on this side, right?” she asked.
Fara smiled, “Funny you should mention that-” A sudden explosion from the north rocked the ground, sending the couple of them who were standing staggering, “The Clockworks are attacking from everywhere. All sides are dealing with it,” she explained. Her attention then drifted to the borehole in the ground beside them, “So… what’s with the hole?”
“I had my wyrms dig it,” Mori chuckled, “We’re taking the fight to them. If the wyrms don’t take them all out by the time we get there. Let’s just wait here for the others to get here; then we can go.”
Fara shifted her feet, “Do you mind if I stay back here? I’m not a good fighter… I’m just a good shot with my gun.”
“Oh, no problem. Can I ask you a favor, though?”
“Hmm?”
“Can you guys help me sit up? I can’t move.” Fara chuckled with Idle as they moved her to another position and they waited for the other death knights to arrive.