I knew! I knew this was a mistake. Tears start streaming down my face. Why!? If everyone managed to get out alive this wouldn't have been such a massive failure. If my inventions aren't safe enough, I look down at the body… Why!? WHY WHY WHY! DAMN IT! Everyone slowly moves in, Leaf grabs my shoulders trying to comfort me. I knew this was a mistake. Why didn't I listen to myself, this invention is too unsafe and I can't continue making it.
Tears drip off my face and onto the dead kobold… There is nothing I could do to save him. It is all my fault another of my men has died a needless death. I try to speak… Words don't come out of my mouth. Several other generals start to gather as the healers rush forwards. They start preforming magic and a technique I taught them for restarting the lungs… It wont work, the man is dead. I finally get the courage to speak.
“I… We can't keep doing this project… It is too dangerous. It was meant to save lives… Not put them at risks. I… I'm sorry.”
I can't do anything but feel ashamed at myself. To think I could re-create one of the strongest creatures as an automaton… I want to run away. Hide my face… My failure from everyone. I feel an impact against my leg… Looking down I can now see it's a kobold… Of course he is hitting me, I must have just killed someone close to him. He continues to hit me… I don't have any intention of stopping him. He starts to yell as he hits me.
“DO YOU THINK MY BROTHER WOULD WANT YOU TO QUIT!?”
I look at him shocked. He should be saying how big of a mistake this was, not that I should keep doing it. He stops hitting me. It seems he has calmed down enough to continue speaking.
“He… Me and my brother were never strong. Do you realize that would have been a death sentence in our old village? The first threat to our village would have killed us. But you gave us protection, you gave us power. Weaklings like us were strong enough to defend ourselves… Not only that, but you gave us knowledge… We gained enough knowledge to change the future. This is the future. We all know the risks we are getting into! My brother knew… We are all willing to risk our lives to push the future forwards...”
He looks down at his brother. They have a tube ran down his throat and are pumping air into him trying to resuscitate him. He has also been crying this entire time. He musters up the last part of his speech.
“This is the future… If you can't see that then quit… We wont… None of us will quit because of this.”
Time passes… I'm not sure how much… It almost feels like time has stopped, everyone continues to look at me… The tension is finally broken as the dead kobold springs up. He panics at the sight of people over him and the tube being ran down his throat. He starts kicking the ground as he pulls it out. He looks around at all the people standing over him… His kobold brother goes in for a hug, lets him go and then starts throwing punches at him now.
“You idiot! You almost died!”
“Ouch! How, Ouch, am I supposed to prevent that!? I'm still alive aren't I?”
He is alive… I thought… Did I get it wrong? I could have been saving him but instead I assumed he was dead. I start to feel relieved as his brother pummels him a few more times before realizing we are all still around him. He doesn't stand up, still kneeling down he speaks.
“What I said before… I still mean it… None of us are afraid to die… We're all doing something amazing and you just try to take it from us… We're going to continue doing this even without you… If you don't have the stomach for it then please leave us be… Otherwise keep guiding us… That is the way you prevent deaths… You make sure it works… Repairing this automaton will take a few weeks to get it in the same shape it was… Figure it out by then.”
His breathing was heavy and dragged out as he wore himself out by the few seconds of combat with me and his brother. I think I get it now. To these engineers, I am trying to take away the one thing they are good at… I'm just being selfish, I have all these other things going on for me. For me to say that we aren't experimenting or trying to further this field would be like me telling my army to stop training and getting stronger. I start to feel foolish, if engineering was the only thing I was good at and someone tried to take it from me… I would do more than hit them… I compose myself before speaking.
“Fine… I get it, you are going to do it with or without me. I would it rather be under my guidance… But one of you needs to keep getting better. You need to be pushing this field without me otherwise the second I stop working, the new inventions will come to a halt. Because of this, one of you should learn automaton creation from me. Some of you should also learn tinkerer to help make improvements to inventions.”
The main reason I haven't given them other jobs than just engineering is it becomes far more complicated. Instead of just cutting form fitting gears to make the things move, you need to tie in several layers of gears for everything to work. A single automaton leg is more complex than a normal engineering machine. There are also other parts needed in order to make them work. This requires extremely precise measurements, the precision so minute I honestly wouldn't trust anyone besides myself to making them… I guess I have to now… The lives of my engineers, no, my entire army are in the hands of these few men here. I turn around… And realize that the army has watched this entire spectacle. At some point a few of the generals started ushering troops away. I see Swift and Fast guiding troops away while talking.
“Alright alright, nothing to see here. Lets head to the cafeteria for some food while they get this sorted out.”
Leaf has been standing close to me now squeezes my arm enough for me to notice her… I need to stop getting lost in thought so often. I sort of feel relieved now. With the accident happening… I'm going to rely more on my other troops for making improvements. This way I will be able to continue improving everything else. We start walking back to our room and talk along the way.
“So, you learn your lesson?”
“Yea… I need to stop putting the entire burden on myself. I didn't realize that my men were willing to take some of the burden off of me.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Well it wasn't a complete failure then.”
Leaf makes fun of me and says the last part jokingly. Leaf seems more playful than normal. OH SHIT! I just remembered something!
“Hey… Speaking of which, I have something to show you.”
We start walking towards the exit of the fortress. She asks me what for but I don't answer her, only saying that she would like the surprise. We get near my laboratory on the outskirts of both the city and the fortress. Far enough away for me to experiment in peace. On the outside of the building… Is another cloth covering something. The moment she sees it she knows exactly what it is.
“Oh my gosh Kite! Is this what I think it is?”
“Yep.”
I remove the cloth revealing a smaller dragon. This one is about the size of Darkclaw 2 evolutions ago. Still big enough for a single person to ride but that is the limit it could carry. I start to explain why it was made.
“To get an idea of how to build the bigger dragon properly. I started with a smaller version. This has better materials as well since I knew it was going to eventually become a gift for you. Feathers plucked from Darkclaw instead of giant roc feathers. The wood was been quadruple strengthened with magic enchants to be sturdier. The metal could be far more flexible than the other dragon because of the compact size, it doesn't have to carry nearly the same weight. Even the commands are done for it… I've test flown it but I will follow behind you just in case anything goes wrong.”
Even before I am finished explaining she is already inspecting it very closely. Rasping her knuckles against the metal parts while dragging her fingers across the wood and feathers. It is truly a beautiful dragon. Since it was only a prototype, I decided to color it black instead of the army red we decided on. I slap the mana battery into the dragon and it hums and jolts to life. The automaton doesn't move the same as a regular dragon would, even without flying the vibrations of the machinery instead makes it wobble slightly. Leaf jumps onto it and starts asking every question she possibly can.
“How do I use it? What's its name? How long did this take to make? Are you going to make more?”
I try to answer them as quickly as the come out.
“I don't plan on making any this size, perhaps larger. It didn't take more than a week to make but it had taken a month of planning and drawing up schematics to make. I'll let you name it and…
I hand her a piece of paper.
“You say that to make it fly and you say land to make it land.”
She reads the paper intently, this process must be very exciting too her. In order to fly before she would have to ask Zergnar for permission to fly on Bloodyclaw or ask Darkclaw to let her fly on him. Now she wont need to rely on anyone to take to the air. With an excited yelp she says.
“LAUNCH!”
The automaton takes a running start as it flaps its wings… Perhaps, with Darkclaw's new form putting his feathers at about the same size as a roc's… It might be worth stealing a few from him from time to time to replace the roc feathers on the red dragon. The automaton launches into the air at a swift pace, Leaf bouncing and holding on for dear life. I change into griffon form and follow behind. I follow close enough to give her extra commands.
“You say ascend to make it go up and descend to make it go down and level to make it say where it is. Port and starboard to make it go left or right while straight makes it fly forwards. But before all that, you need to say unlock extra controls.”
The robot hears me say unlock extra controls as we continue to fly. I worded my sentence very carefully so that it was the last thing I said. Leaf says it anyways.
“Unlock extra controls! ASCEND! ASCEND!”
We fly up, we keep going up and up. The ground is far enough up that this would be a fatal height to fall from… I'm not very scared though, I have plenty of time to catch Leaf and she can handle herself if I can't save her. We continue to rise and just as I'm about to yell descent she yells.
“Level!”
The automaton stops rising… We just sit at that height and glide. She looks down at the sight of everything… At this height it is hard to tell what exactly is going on. We pass over Shienta… I doubt anyone has even bothered to look up… We are far to high to be spotted in the dark sky anyways. I can make out tiny people, still busily walking the streets even now that it is dark. I just look at her… She doesn't care about looking down at the people. She is only looking forwards with a big smile on her face. She says something but I can't hear her… If I had to guess, it would have been “Thank you Kite.”
We fly for a short while longer. We safely land back near the laboratory. The first test run with Leaf was a success… At least one thing went right today. I can see her truly happy now. I pull out a backpack I had made for her to wear when she rides her automaton.
“This backpack has a well made spider silk and cloth tarp that when opened will slow your fall slightly… I know you can probably slow yourself down but more protection wouldn't hurt. I just… We're together now and I missed giving you a birthday present when you turned 10 and you'll be turning 15 soon… So I thought I would give you your present early.”
“Kite… There is something else you can give me. Can you teach me how to make repairs to this automaton? I don't want to force you to continue maintaining it while you are so busy.”
“Of course.”
With that, we made plans for her to learn engineering and automaton creation… She headed back to base while I covered the automaton with a cloth sheet… Before I head back to the fortress I hear a loud BANG! Coming from the inside of my laboratory.