Noticing Xander enter the runner said, “Ah, Xander, correct?”
“Yep, that’s me,” Xander replied.
“Excellent. I’m to inform you that the [Mason]s have begun having the stone ammunition that they have begun carving out stored in the same warehouse as the rest of the siege supplies, so that you may begin empowering them at your convenience.”
“Oh, alright. Um, thanks.”
“Of course.” The runner hopped off the stool he’d been on by the bar and turned to Atrax. “It was a pleasure meeting you, but I must be off now, duty calls me back to the keep.” With a wave, the runner made his way out the door and broke into a light trot as soon as he hit the street.
“So much for getting a break…” Xander sighed. “Guess I’ll go ahead and get this over with. I’m technically not supposed to leave to get Freyja food until I build up a stockpile. I guess it’s not a huge issue… yet. I still have a couple of days worth of food for her. I’m just glad it doesn’t go bad in my inventory.”
“Well, have fun completing repetitive tasks,” Atrax said. “You did volunteer yourself, after all. No good deed goes unpunished.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I did bring it down on myself, I guess. I’ll see ya’ll later,” Xander said making his way out to the open city.
Not feeling like taking the time to walk, Xander decided to practice his [Sprint] skill, as he had yet to use it. He looked ahead at the road that led straight to the keep, and noted that it was mostly empty. A perfect time to test his ability. Activating [Sprint], he broke into a run, feeling the slight drain on his mana as his legs began to pump faster than he’d ever run in his life. While he wasn’t a blur to the people he passed by any means, he was still preternaturally fast with this skill active. He’d need to test using it to move side to side, or even backwards, so that he could reposition and dodge during a fight, but for now, baby steps. Or rather, baby sprinting? It wasn’t long until he reached the inner gatehouse of the city, where he turned off the ability, cutting the minor drain on his mana. He made his way over to the supply building for the siege weapons, and the guard let him in, already having been informed of Xander’s business.
Stepping inside, Xander groaned. There were many, many new piles in the warehouse, and each of them was a large pyramid of identical stone spheres. The [Mason]s were capable of churning out stone components at industrial speeds, it seemed. Xander looked at his hands as he imagined individually carving out runes with his abilities on each and every one. At this rate, he’d spend the entire siege doing nothing else besides carving runes, getting Freyja food, and running messages for Lord Vard.
Xander thought over the issue at hand. There had to be a way to automate this process, even if it was just a little bit. Using [Automaton] might work, but that was not a permanent solution, requiring him to stop by once a day to resummon it, and would also reduce his combat effectiveness. Not ideal at all. Leaning against one of the crates of in the warehouse, Xander pondered how he could achieve his desired outcome with runes. With enough intelligence runes… yes. With enough intelligence runes, he could create what something like a CNC machine that would carve the runes out for him, as well as a few very simple constructs that would do nothing but unload unruned stone balls from one pile, and store the runed balls in another location.
Xander sat down to work, starting first by taking up one of the stone munitions that had been created and going through the process of carving the runes into it. Since all the runes were interconnected, he could place a finished one in one part of the carving machine and have it ‘trace’ that sequence of runes and carve it into a blank ball as it traced it. Now to figure out the mechanisms and sequences he would need to create such a device.
He settled first on the device that would trace the runes he carved into the ‘master’ ball. Creating a small, circular setting for it the stone to rest on, Xander then added four wheels that would be able to spin the ball in various directions. Rising up above the wheels that would spin the ball, he created a needle that rested in one of the grooves of the runes. Since they were all connected, it didn’t matter where exactly the process was started, only that all of the runes were carved. Xander then began to carve runes for movement onto each wheel, linking them to multiple intelligence runes, that would vary the speed at which each wheel was turning so that the ball could be rotated in any direction and orientation. The intelligence runes all referenced the small needle that rested in the grooved portion of the runes, and soon, he had a device that was constantly rolling the ball around as the needle moved through each section of the many runes carved on its surface, like a silent, three-dimensional record player. Next, he needed to link it to a device that would copy the movements of the wheels on a similar base, but hold it against a bit that would carve into the stone.
Creating another base that would copy the movements of the master base was easier than creating the master base had been. He simply used intelligence runes set up in such a way that if the wheel it referenced moved this much, then it too should power its attached movement runes in the exact same manner. Now, he needed to consider what kind of automaton he would use to move the stone balls, as it would affect the shape, or at least the height, of the milling machine. Xander felt that a full humanoid construct would both be too time consuming to try and create, while also being a waste of resources. Instead, he opted for a medium sized spidery construct, though it would only have six legs. The central ‘body’ would be a ring which would have the same sequences of runes carved around it as Xander had used to create the effect that levitated the ammunition in the chamber of his gauss rifle. The little loading drone would be able to climb up the side of the crate, lower its body over one of the balls, and engage the runes lining the ring, levitating the ball in stasis with the body of the spider, where it could then move the ball to the runic CNC machine.
Feeling inspired, Xander decided that the same type of cargo spider could be used to catch the finished runed balled as it was released into a gently sloping slide that would wrap around the whole carving machine. Like a gumball machine, but for explosives. Once caught by the spider, it would move it to a completed pile or create a new one next to an existing pile. Instead of trying to create one construct that could do both, Xander decided that it would be easier to create two of the spiders. One would load blanks into the machine, then grab another, and wait until the carver had finished carving and dropped the ball onto the slide, and load the next in, before repeating. The other would catch the ball as it reached the end of the slide, and then move it to another pile of finished munitions. Now, he just had to implement it.
It took Xander six hours of nonstop rune etching, testing, re-runing, and retesting before he was able to say he was satisfied with the process. He knew it was dark outside by now, but at this point, he refused to stop until he was done. Most of his failures had revolved around the spiders that would load and unload the stone explosives. Some of them just didn’t move correctly, others hadn’t been able to identify the correct piles to pull from or use to store, and some hadn’t been able to properly catch or move the stones. But he’d finally worked the kinks out of his little production line, and he watched with satisfaction as the first of the balls rolled onto the back of the waiting construct, its runes engaging to catch it. The spider then scuttled over to an empty space in the warehouse, lowered its body carefully to the floor, and disengaged the runes that held the stone in place. Lifting its body up high off of the stone, it then returned to its waiting position for the next ball. The other spider had already deposited a new blank into the carving machine, which used a spinning drill bit of the hardest, densest steel Xander could create with the ingots available to him, and was currently returning to the machine with another blank ball that it would deposit once the machine had tilted the newly runed ball onto its gumball machine-esque slide. It was pleasant to watch, if rather loud as the drill bit whirred away, the runes into the surface of the ball. He watched a few more iterations of the machine, ensuring that there seemed to be no hangups. Each of the balls took a few minutes to be fully carved.
Pleased with himself, Xander left the warehouse and his very first self-acting constructs inside. He’d return to a good number of them in the morning, though there were enough blanks stored in the warehouse already that he doubted the single machine would be able to carve them all in one night. The sound of the drill was barely able to be heard through the heavy door as he shut it. A new guard was on shift, who nodded to Xander as he began his walk back to the inn. He needed to feed Freyja from his very small stock of meat from his inventory, and then he’d go to bed. He was mentally drained after having created not one, but three constructs. On his walk back, allowing himself a more leisurely pace than his [Sprint] fueled rush he’d taken to get to the warehouse, Xander pulled up his status sheet.
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---You have created runes and runic sequences---
---[Rune Lord] leveled to 6---
---[Rune Lord] level 6 skills---
[Improved Brand] – You may choose any rune or sequence of runes that will be branded upon an enemy. Mana cost increases with complexity and number of runes. Mana Cost: medium-high. Cooldown: 1 minute.
---For creating a functioning golem, you have been awarded the title [Golemancer]---
---[Golemancer] – You may imbue a construct you have created with a measure of intelligence, if it meets the threshold of complexity to be considered a true Golem. This effect stacks, and mana cost increases with each application. Mana cost: high. Cooldown: 24 hours---
---You have created devices and explosives and defeated enemies---
---[Combat Artificer] leveled to 20---
---[Combat Artificer] level 20 skills---
[Creation Mastery] – When supplied with a source of mana, [Create]d materials do not degrade.
[Improved Explosive Reagents] – Increased potency of [Explosive Reagents]
Xander slowed his walk, considering what had just been made available to him. [Improved Brand] opened up too many options to count in combat. He could make enemies so heavy that they’d be unable to stand, or so light that they’d be blown away by a strong gust of wind. Burst into flames, or, of course, make them explode by branding them with a rune of explosion. He really needed to research some healing runes, both for Gabrelle, and for this ability. If he could brand a healing rune onto an ally, then that could be the difference between life and death for his friends, allowing Xander to stabilize them at range so that Gabrelle could get to them.
[Golemancer]. Now that was a doozy. He could make some kind of robot with this, couldn’t he? He wasn’t sure just how many times he’d be able to afford to apply the effect with his current mana pool, but he imagined it was more than one. He could make himself his own little army of golems now. But what, exactly, did he need golems for? To fight for him, was an obvious answer, though he imagined that he could come up with some ideas for golems that would perform other tasks as well. Golems that would haul heavy items, or to perform repetitive tasks, like the three he’d just created. He could probably recreate his [Automaton] backpack now, saving the skill for uses like tracking an important target. On that line of thought, Xander realized something. Why stop at just the added arms? Why not turn his entire suit of armor into a golem. It could be ordered to mimic his actions exactly, but with a system of runes in place, that could be integrated into another sheet of carbon fiber on each piece, it could magnify the force he’d be able to apply, giving him even greater strength than he already had. Surely the complexity of an entire suite of armor that could theoretically move on its own, though it wouldn’t be ordered to do so, would be enough to cross the ‘threshold of complexity’ that he needed to be able to cast the spell. Xander found the lack of any clarification as to what that threshold was to be quite frustrating. The need to create rune circuits for the golems to power their movement and actions would preclude him from ever being able to create and deploy them during combat, though. Anything he wanted would have to be made well ahead of time.
The skills he gained from [Combat Artificer] were just the icing on the cake. Just about anything he ever bothered to create would be runed, which would provide the materials he created to be provided with a source of mana. He’d finally be able to provide suits of armor that were as protective as his own to his teammates. They’d be nigh-unstoppable against the average person. Xander had yet to fight one on one with someone who held a skill advantage over him and his team, so he was unsure what things would look like in that case, but still, it had to be better than not having multilayered runic carbon fiber plate armor. He’d have to start creating as much of the stuff as he possibly could. He began doing so even as he finished his walk to the inn, draining his mana reserves completely has he made as much carbon fiber as he possibly could. With his personal gathering arrays, he could already feel his mana refilling, and he drained it again, further increasing his store of the material.
The inn was quiet, Xander’s teammates having already turned in to sleep. Morning began early in the city, everything running on the schedule of the military, now. He roused Freyja from her sleep on his bed and prompted her to jump down, feeding her several cuts of meat from his inventory. He rubbed the soft fur on Freyja’s cheek, “Don’t worry girl, I’ll be getting you more food tomorrow. Promise. I won’t let you go hungry.”
The cat rubbed her head against Xander’s chest, chuffing happily at the attention. Dematerializing his armor into his inventory, he flopped onto his bed, quickly falling asleep. He dreamt of gears and clocks, and plate armored figures obscured behind a veil of moving cogs and wheels at first, but his dreams transitioned to more ‘normal’ dream sequences through the night. He awoke, feeling sad. He’d just been dreaming that he’d been on the couch with Helen, and they’d been watching TV together. The show had been mishmash gibberish, the stuff of dreams, but the feeling of just sitting there with her, enjoying her company… he found himself shedding tears as it hit him just how much he still missed her. God, how was he supposed to live on his own? She’d been the responsible one. She reminded him when he had appointments or that he needed to eat something. Xander hung his head, as more tears fell. She had to be hurting, too. But even worse. She probably thought he was dead, or even worse, had run out on her, abandoned her all alone.
Freyja nuzzled up against his shoulder, distracting him for a moment. “Hey…” he said to her, sniffling slightly. “Did I wake you up?” he asked, wiping his eyes. Freyja looked at him sadly, able to feel that he was upset through their bond, but not knowing why. “Don’t worry, I’ll… I’ll be okay. Just thinking of home,” he told the cat, rubbing her head. “You hungry? I still need to go out and get you some food… Yeah, that will help me clear my head. Something to do,” he said, more to himself than to Freyja. “But first,” he said, “I gotta see how the warehouse is doing, and probably talk to Uril.”
Opting to fly to the warehouse, Xander quickly stepped inside, happy to see that several large piles of runed stone balls had been set up by his assembly line. The machines… golems? The golems were still skittering around, loading blanks and stowing munitions. Satisfied, Xander left the warehouse and went back to the city at large.
Xander asked around of the soldiers that he saw on the street until one could direct him to captain Uril’s location. It was still early in the day, the light of the sun just beginning to rise over the walls, and Xander wanted to be able to make the most of his hunting time. He’d head back to the inn and dump out his entire inventory so that he could fit as many deer, or whatever other animals he could find inside the newly emptied space.
Third company, as Xander thought of it after their position in conducting the breach of the siege forces, was stationed near the southern gate in multiple houses and businesses. The garrisons were already filled by the forces that had been inside the city, and so the new additions to the forces of Ilbek found themselves commandeering empty homes to use. Another soldier in the area was able to direct him to a building that housed captain Uril and his staff, where Xander found the man penning some missive or other.
“Captain Uril? Do you have a moment,” Xander asked. Uril hadn’t noticed his entrance, his steps silent as he entered the room.
“Hmm?” Uril turned around in his seat, “Oh, Xander, hello. What is it you need?”
“I just wanted to let you know that I’ve created a system to rune the ammunition for the mortars. One is churned out and stored in the warehouse every few minutes. I finished it last night, so there’s a decent stockpile already and it’s getting larger.”
“Ah! Excellent, excellent. Tell me, how did the installation of the mortars go, by the way? I heard that the range on the single round fired was… impressive.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it went well. Thing fires just a little bit over a mile.”
“A mile?!” Uril asked, in awe. “That’s double what the ballistae can fire! Gods, Xander, we really are going to push them far out. How simple is it to operate? Do you need to give a demonstration to the siege engineers?”
“It’d say it’s pretty easy to use, though there’s going to be some math involved for the range. I’m terrible at trigonometry, so someone who’s better with numbers than me will have to calculate that. One crank angles the thing up and down, and the other crank rotates it. The big button on it makes it fire. I can draw out the range at forty-five degrees so someone can do calculations, if you’ve got a spare sheet of paper there.”
“Of course, here you are,” Uril said, scooting his chair aside for Xander and moving a fresh sheet of paper onto his workspace at the desk he’d been using. Xander quickly drew a flat line, labeling it ‘1.2 miles,’ and then drew an arc above it, labeling it with ‘45 degrees.’ “Hopefully someone who can do math can make some more sense of this than I can,” Xander said, sliding the sheet slightly towards Uril.
“I expect one of the nobles or aides surrounding Lord Vard or Lord Etras will be able to make some use of this, if not the siege engineers themselves. I shall ensure that it is delivered for them to review before they conduct tests with these new siege weapons. Is there anything else?” Uril asked.
“Not really,” Xander said. “Now that I have a stockpile of ammunition for the mortars, and I don’t even need to be on site to make more, I am going to go hunting and see what I can bring back food-wise for Freyja. That’s my panther’s name, by the way.”
“Understood, thank you for letting me know before you left. I haven’t heard any rumblings of you being needed for anything else, so for now, consider yourself dismissed for the duration of your hunt.”