Turns out I had to wait for far longer than I thought for the Marshall to come to see me. Three days longer. I'll be honest after the first day I dumped the two corpses into a garbage bin far from us. The measly reward wasn't worth keeping the corpses around. I would tell the Marshall about them, just so he knew they were dealt with.

"Mornin', Paul," a voice from the side spoke.

I had to push myself from under the truck to see who it was. I wasn't worried about someone sneaking up on me, Fiona was keeping watch from the top of the fortress.

"Oh hey, Marshall. Give me a hand?"

The Marshall held out his weathered hand and helped lever me off the ground.

The Marshall gestured with his head toward the truck, "whatcha working on?"

"Well, I figured it would make a good platform for your vehicle. You here to talk about the diplomatic mission?"

"About that."

"Oh boy, here we go."

"It's not all bad. The Mayor and his council agreed to the mission."

"I hear a but in there."

"But," the Marshall added, "they haven't come to a conclusion about paying you to create a vehicle. They want to do a cost-value assessment."

"You're joking right?"

"Wish I were. It took them two days just to agree on utilizing your offered services."

"Wait.. that was two days ago? Why did it take you another two days to come to see me?"

"That's the other problem. The man I wanted to send with you is missing. He and his team went out to collect a bounty and haven't returned yet."

"You think they were killed?"

"No. The man is cautious. I think their targets may have fled the area and he is still on their trail. The problem is the Mayor wanted you to leave two days ago. I delayed it in hopes that he would return. Now we are kind of in a pickle."

"Yeah. Obviously, I'm not cut out for diplomacy, but... hear me out here. What about Martin?"

The man rubbed his chin in thought. "That could work, the man does have a way about him that makes most people like him. Plus he is a high enough level that he can back up any claim he makes. You think he will go for it?"

"I don't see why not. It would do him good to get his thoughts off of what happened to his sister and instead work toward something productive."

"Here, have Martin read this over then. It's a list of what the Mayor wants out of the talks and a list of concessions he is willing to give up to make this deal happen."

I took the offered folder and glanced over the contents. I whistled when I saw what the Mayor was offering. "He really does want this deal to happen."

The Marshall nodded, "that he does. Not that I don't trust Martin but see that he understands the significance. I'll be on my way now, talk with you soon."

I breathed a sigh of relief after the Marshall was out of sight. I really hadn't wanted some random person in the fortress. The nervousness had festered over the past few days. So much so that I had just started building the vehicle for the Marshall. When he told me the man couldn't make it I nearly shouted in joy.

I knew the feelings were irrational but something about having a human I didn't fully trust, in my sanctuary, drove me to worry. It wasn't like that with the prisoner we had stuffed into the storage room. I think it had to do with the fact that I had full control of that situation. And it wasn't like I was going to lock some envoy away for the whole trip, that would make me look like an ass.

Honestly, the vehicle behind me was eighty percent complete because of this irrational fear. But the work wasn't all that difficult, I simply slapped on my old plates from the house. The only thing left to do was add the control lines and a mana heart to power the whole thing. Seeing as the governing body of this fair town still had their heads up their asses, I was just going to go with Martin on this trip.

It wasn't like the truck was going anywhere. Even if it did well, I wished the idiot that tried to steal it luck for the point five seconds they would live before the entire thing exploded. If the truck was moved more than a few feet from the hidden rune circle in the pavement the dwarven explosives would go off. And I knew just how effective those were from my time in Chicago. A don't touch me sign was taped to both side windows as a precaution.

Speaking of dwarven weapons. I still hadn't taken a look at those dwarven cannons we had acquired. From my experience with them, I knew that they were something similar to Martin's mana pistol, if only on a much larger scale. Wiping my hands off on a towel, I headed back to the fortress a hundred meters away. No point in risking being too close in case the explosives accidentally went off.

I waved to Fiona as I returned, not that I could see her, but I knew she was there all the same. She appeared next to me as I cycled the inner door.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"What did the Marshall want?"

"Oh, he came by to give me some good news and some bad news. Bad news is the Mayor and his circle are still deliberating on if they want me to make them the vehicle."

"And the good news?"

"That I don't have to fly some random stranger around. The Marshall okayed Martin to act as their representative."

"Hmm, and you think he will go for that?" she asked as the inner door clicked open.

"I don't see why not. You know how he is with people. The man is like a honey trap for flies."

"I guess we got caught as well," she said with a laugh.

"Ha, as if," I winked.

The house was quiet with only the two of us here. I breathed in the atmosphere, a welcoming bouquet of wet cats and sweaty men. Ok so maybe not the most welcoming of smells, I admit. But something just spoke of home to me. I did open up the vents to cycle some fresh air in. I also made a note in my notebook to add more air scrubbers or just some air fresheners.

"Can you tell Martin to take a look at this when he returns?" I asked, setting the folder on a table.

Fiona, like me, opened it up to take a look inside. "Well, now... that is something. I'm sure Martin will be ecstatic for the chance to make this deal happen."

I nodded, "I'm going to take a shower and fiddle with some crafting. If he has any questions tell him to come to see me."

"Sounds good. I'll be back outside," she added, slipping through the bomb chute.

I did close it behind her, not wanting anything to crawl up from underneath the ship. Fiona would be more comfortable outside anyway.

I didn't take a long shower, just enough to wash the sweat away. I was thankful that toiletries were not a high-priority item when the world came to an end. There was plenty of soap and shampoo left in ransacked stores. TP was gone but that could be purchased through the Bazaar. Apparently, most species need to wipe their butts, who knew.

After dressing, I went over to my work table and set one of the mana cannons on it. Like with the mana pistol, it didn't really resemble the earth counterpart. For one there was no barrel. It was just a four-foot-long white rod about six inches in diameter. Originally it had been mounted to a rolling base that allowed aiming. I had disassembled this unit to inspect it. The rod was quite heavy, heavier than a steel chunk of the same size.

I had no idea what material it was made from. The material had a chalky-white coloring to it but was smooth to the touch. Delicate patterns of mithril adorned the outside of the piece, leading to a mana heart embedded into a small base of mithril at one end. It was obviously the power source. And while I didn't know exactly what the enchantments were, I was smart enough to know what they did. They focused and amplified the mana into a coherent beam of destruction. It was pretty cool, not gonna lie.

I couldn't risk tampering with the device as it was much more powerful than the collars I had fiddled with in the past. That didn't mean I couldn't derive some ideas for a design of my own. I jotted down some notes and observations. A test would have to wait, no need to let the locals know our little flying rock was now heavily armed.

Putting that project aside, I produced another project I had started. For now, I just called it the accelerator. It was an open tube about ten inches wide with small plates angled in one direction.

The whole thing sat on three legs that held it off the floor. It was a prototype and would probably fall apart with a few uses but it was a proof of concept.

Ever since dropping those bombs on the dwarves, I had realized that the levitator plates could be used for other purposes. The design turned out to be quite hard to produce and was finicky to operate.

I turned on the device by feeding it a bit of power. Too much and it would float off the ground, not enough and well, nothing really happened.

I figured out the sweet spot and listened to the device hum quietly. The copper wires feeding the plates weren't ideal but they were enough for a prototype. No point wasting mithril on something like this.

I took out a marble and dropped it into the inner circle, tracking its progress to the mat below.

It got most of the way down before a misaligned plate sent it flying across the room. I sighed, 'I thought I had fixed that issue.'

This is why I tested this weak version. At least the marble speed increased this time. The first time I tested this, the marble actually slowed down, some weird interaction between the fields, halting it in place. I took the time to adjust the plate, using the fine adjustment screw I had added. My next test was a success as the marble thwacked hard into the mat.

Testing larger objects didn't increase the speed but they did hit with more force. I wrote down my observations and put the device away. It was a long way off from a functional weapon. Even just dropping a kinetic round below the fortress would be of little use. I had a lot of issues to iron out before I could make it launch a projectile horizontally. At the moment it wasn't more than something to kill time with.

I switched over to my next project. I had run into a dead-end on my body enhancement tattoos. Short of testing them on a live subject, I couldn't continue my work. I didn't throw that possibility out the window though. Plenty of criminals to use as test subjects. I just needed to make sure I wasn't empowering some psychopath.

A knock came at my door before I could follow those thoughts for too long.

"Come in," I replied, cleaning some of my experiments up.

Martin opened the door, I saw he had the folder in one hand.

"So, what do you think?"

"I think the fact that the Mayor is willing to give up complete control of the Bazaar to make this deal happen says a lot. But why did you want me to look this over?"

"What, Fiona didn't tell you... no of course she didn't," I stated flatly, rolling my eyes and picturing her chuckling about this. "The Marshall's man is off on a mission but the Mayor wants this done now. So, I kind of... volunteered you to be the representative."

"Huh, me... but... why?"

"Let me ask you this. What is your Charisma stat at?"

Martin had the tact to look sheepish before he replied. "Seventeen."

I knew the man hadn't spent much in Agility or Endurance, but he must have not spent a whole lot in Perception if he didn't notice how his high Charisma affected the people around him.

"Uh, huh... mine is eleven. Haven't you noticed that everyone likes to be friends with you?"

"No... wait, is this why you are friends with me?"

I shook my head. "No, I believe a high enough Intelligence or Wisdom stat counteracts the effect of your high Charisma. But even if that weren't the case, I doubt it's like mind control. More like people are ready to give you the benefit of the doubt. Plus I think you probably had a likable personality before the system, am I right?"

"I mean, I guess I had a lot of friends growing up. But still, why me?"

"Look Martin, all this moping about and self-doubt has got to stop. Yes, your sister died, and that sucks. But instead of wallowing in self-pity and what-ifs... don't deny it, I'm not blind," I said, stopping his argument. "Instead focus on doing something positive. Don't turn into me."

"Would that be so bad," he mumbled.

"For you, yes," I said confidently. I knew I was a mess of a human being. But Martin didn't need to be brought down to my level, if anything his positivity helped pull me up toward his.

"Fine... I'll do it this one time."

"Good, we can leave as soon as Ska returns from his hunting and training," I said, clapping the man on the back.