Artillery
Tom walked down the stairs in the lobby to the basement early the next morning. Nothing had come from Stormcrushers the night before, but that didn't lessen the security measures at Vanguard. As he stepped out into the large underground expanse, Tom saw Roland hard at work on more items for the guild. Waving and calling out a hello, Roland briefly paused to wave back but made no move to make conversation.
"Must be an important project," Tom thought to himself as he continued, not wanting to interrupt the large smith.
When he reached the back half of the basement, Harold came running over to him with excitement.
"Are you here for the testing?" Harold said as he practically bounced up and down with barely contained energy.
"I am, but I don't see how we are going to test them down here," Tom expressed his concern to the man.
"Oh, we aren't. We will be taking the elevators up the site for testing." Harold said to Tom as he began to move toward the smithy.
"Well then, why couldn't I have met you up there?" Tom asked, a little annoyed at having to have come down here first.
"Because then you wouldn't have been able to help carry the ammunition," Harold replied with a tone that made Tom hear the "Duh" he had implied in his statement.
"You don't need me to carry anything. You have a blasted inventory, Harold." Tom quipped back.
Harold suddenly turned from where he had been digging in a crate and motioned for Tom to come over.
"Go ahead Mr. Bigshot Inventory. Put it in your inventory." He stood up straight and pointed at the crate lying on the floor.
Tom leaned in to see what looked like a regular bullet that had been scaled up to about six feet long.
"Holy fuckin' shit," Tom breathed out the words.
"Yeah, so if you'd like to get to using those muscles, please, I'd really appreciate it," Harold said. "We don't have the right equipment for the transports wed normally use in a warehouse. So, you're my workhorse."
Tom looked at Harold with a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment. He did not want to carry this giant artillery round all the way up to wherever Harold had this demo lined up. But he didn't see much other choice in the matter.
"Fine. We just need the one?" Tom asked Harold as he tried to lift the ammunition.
"No, we have two, but I have Kevin here to help us take the other one," Harold commented off-handedly.
"Kevin is here?" Tom said suddenly looking up and around the basement space.
"Not yet, but he will be shortly. Now come on, lift with your back not your legs." Harold said as he turned away.
"Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?" Tom called after him.
"I don't know, I'm not a people doctor," Harold called back over his shoulder, heading for the stairs.
He paused for a moment as though he suddenly thought of something and turned to look at Tom.
"Oh, and don't drop it. Not nice things will happen if it goes off," Harold called out, then turned back and resumed his walking.
Tom grumbled as he got his arms under the ammo to lift it. It was lighter than he expected but still would have been beyond his abilities before the System was introduced. "Thank god I put points in Strength," Tom thought to himself as he hoisted it onto his shoulder to carry like a barrel. He then moved to follow Harold up the stairs as well.
On the way, he noticed Kevin coming down the stairs.
"Hey, Tom!" Kevin called out to him and ran over excited to see his friend. Or so he thought.
"That is one giant bullet!" Kevin began fawning over the large round as though he had been an expert his whole life.
"You like ammunition?" Tom asked him.
"No, but I like explosions and this one looks like it'll make a doozy!" Kevin replied still staring at the artillery round.
"Well, there's one more over in a crate somewhere by the smithy. Can you grab it and bring it up to wherever this demo is taking place?" Tom asked Kevin.
"Oh, I know where it's going. I helped bring up the other parts. Second from the top floor. I'll meet you there." Kevin replied as he jogged over to grab the second round.
"Feels a little like everyone knows what's going on except me," Tom muttered to himself as he began walking up the stairs from the basement to the lobby.
Once there, he saw Harold waiting impatiently by the elevators. As Tom got near, he had to maneuver the round so that he could carry it into the elevator vertically and managed to rest it gently on the floor as he waited for Harold to press a button to go up. Choosing the second from the top, the doors slid shut and Tom felt the familiar sensation of his stomach dropping slightly as they began their ascent.
When the elevator reached the designated floor, a light bell sounded, and the doors opened for the pair to exit. Not prepared for what he saw there, Tom stepped out and his jaw fell open. At each of the corners was a set of what looked like manned cannons straight off a Navy Battleship. They appeared to be jutting out of the four corners of the building with enough space to allow them to rotate a whopping two hundred and seventy degrees around the corner they were built into.
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"When the hell did you have time to build this?!" Tom spoke in amazement.
"Oh, I didn't build these. I just gave other people the blueprints and they built them. These are our new defense systems. I had the idea when the Space Pirates announcement was brought up and went to work on getting something we could build. And today is the first trial run." Harold spoke proudly as he gestured at the cannons.
"Can I fire it?" Tom asked excitedly.
"No," Came the flat reply from Harold.
"What? Why not?" Tom asked, disappointment clearly on his face.
"Because these are military-grade weapons and I need a person familiar with them firing them. Nick will be doing that instead." Harold indicated a man who walked around a corner where he had apparently been checking one of the other cannons.
"Pleasure to meet you, Tom. Sorry we haven't been introduced earlier mate, but we've both been a bit busy haven't we?" Nick spoke with an English accent and seemed cheery. Tom couldn't help but take a liking to the man with his smile.
"Oh, yeah, nice to meet you, Nick. I guess you were in the military?" Tom asked him.
"Yeah, was in Her Majesty's service before I made it to the States. I cannot tell you how honored I am to be here and help keep people safe again." Nick replied.
"I'm glad you're here to help as well. Now do we all know what we're doing?" Tom asked.
"Sure do. We are sending a warning. We have the perfect building picked out. It's so close she's going to feel the tremors. She is absolutely going to snap." Harold said almost giddy with excitement.
The bell of the elevator dinged again, and Kevin walked out carrying the other artillery round.
"Ah, perfect timing. If you both would follow me over here, I will open the hatch where you both will place your burdens and then we will give this baby a test run!" Harold spoke again with barely contained enthusiasm.
As he walked over to one of the cannons, he turned a wheel on the backside of the barrels and opened a hatch in the same way one would see a cartoon submarine open its door. A set of mechanized receiving bays lowered out of the back of the cannon and sat waiting for Tom and Kevin to place their rounds into them. Once they were sat in place, Harold pushed a button on the side of the cannon, and the bays slowly raised into position for him to close the hatch. Sealing it with a spin in the opposite direction of the wheel, he slapped the cannon on the side.
"Okay! Let's light this candle!" Harold exclaimed as he pulled out a pair of safety goggles and large ear protection and placed them on his head.
"Where's my protection?" Tom asked.
"You didn't bring any?" Harold said, louder than normal now that he had his ear covers on.
"No! I wasn't told I needed them!" Tom spoke indignantly and louder to ensure Harold could hear him.
"I kinda figured that firing a giant cannon would mean you obviously need hearing protection," Harold said looking at him with that same look his mother used to give him when he did something stupid without thinking.
"Whatever, just fire the damn thing. I want to get this party started because I have to be ready for Shandra's retaliation." Tom replied, trying to brush off the insinuation.
Harold gave him a thumbs up and nodded to Nick who put on his own protection and stepped up to the seat that was mounted at the rear of the cannon as well. When he got into position, Nick flipped some switches and grabbed onto a pair of joysticks sitting at the end of both armrests. The cannon powered to life.
A whirring noise began as the cannon began to turn as Nick slowly moved one of the joysticks. Then the barrels began to lower as Nick pushed forward on the other one. Tom could see there was a viewing screen that Nick was looking through with a set of crosshairs right in the middle that he was using to aim the cannon.
"Preparing fire one! target acquired and locked!" Nick shouted.
"FIRE ONE AND TWO!" Harold screamed in his excitement.
Nick pulled both triggers on the joysticks and the cannon fired both rounds as the barrels recoiled into themselves like pistons and then began to extend back into their normal position. The blast that erupted from the end of the barrels was so loud that Tom's ears began bleeding and the concussive force nearly knocked him off his feet.
Grabbing at his ears in sudden pain, Tom looked back to see the force had knocked poor Harold over and he was attempting to recover, a huge smile plastered on his face. Tom quickly returned to taxing out of the now open space where windows had once been to see where the rounds had gone. There was a sudden boom off in the distance as smoke began to billow from one spot in particular.
Birds flew off in all directions from the sound, and other animals could be heard off in the distance scurrying away to safety. Tom got a notification in his vision.
Guild Kill Notice:
Your guild has destroyed a goblin orphanage. Congratulations! You receive 1,000 XP!
"What the actual fuck?!" Tom said rereading the notice. "There was a goblin orphanage in that building?!"
"Well, there were some kind of goblins in there, but not anymore," Harold said after removing his ear protection.
"What?" Tom yelled as he still could only hear ringing in his ears.
Harold pointed to Tom's ears, and he realized and cast Dark restoration on himself. His ears healed in a matter of moments, and he asked again what Harold had said.
"I said there were some sort of goblins there before, that's just one more reason we picked it," Harold replied.
"But it was an orphanage?!" Tom said in outrage.
"Really? Over goblins?" Harold seemed taken aback. "The same creatures that stole children and killed thousands of people around the city?"
Tom paused for a moment as he realized he shouldn't be that angry.
"Sorry, I think it was the word orphanage in the System notice. You're right." Tom apologized as he got himself under control.
Still not sure how he felt about it, he decided to think about it later so they could see the damage. Tom would have expected to hear sirens and people screaming before the integration, but now, all that sounded were the quiet burning of the rubble and billowing smoke from the ruins.
"I would say that was a great success. These should come in handy when we need to defend from the pirates." Harold said quite pleased with himself. "Thank you, Nick! Excellent job."
"You are quite welcome. Happy to help out!" Nick replied.
"Now we just wait to see what her next move will be. She has to do something now. She's too rash not to." Tom said as he looked out over the city. "Come and get some, bitch."