Chapter Eleven

I’d almost forgotten the money when I got up close. I leaned over the rope to stare open mouthed and gawking like a rube at the mechs on display. They were polished to a shine in various colors, bright sky blues, deep blood reds, vibrant greens and midnight blacks. Some had more complex ‘mottled’ patterns on them, to look like sets of slashing claws, or with the body painted to look like a fierce tiger, or lion, or bear, oh my but they were marvelous. My personal favorite were the ones that were painted to look like dragon heads with the arms painted like claws.

The mechs’ designs ranged from two legged to four, with a ‘body’ that opened up for the pilot to sit.

On either side of the body were arms, some were shaped like claws, others with actual hands, those with hands had extra equipment on the back of the mech such as oversized swords, hammers, maces, mauls, or even what looked like small cannons, bear in mind that when I say ‘small’ I mean they were almost half the length of my body.

The bodies of these machines were uniformly made of metal, but I caught a glimpse here and there of what I thought might be internal pipes.

In front of us, the tour guide was chattering on, and I did my best to listen, turning up my ear dial to catch more of what he had to say. “Mechs were first developed one hundred and seven years ago shortly after the first steam engine was built. The dwarves of the Feron Mountains and the dwarves of the Magistine Mountains collaborated in their twin arts to develop the first mech walker. Consisting of little more than a metal box with walking legs, the only weapon it had was two fixed position battering rams which it would use to charge the enemy.”

He paused and pointed to a black and red two legged walker, “Today, most favor the two legged design but have arm variations, able to shift through various weapons at need. The steam within heats to one thousand degrees and is kept cycling through insulated pipes according to the pilot’s desired actions. The magitite below the seat serves as the power source for heat, water, steam, and manashield if the mech is capable of it.”

I was intrigued, no, more than intrigued. I looked closer and activated my Insightful Inventor skill. The mech I was looking at belonged to a russet-haired dwarf who crouched on the far side of his mech tinkering with his equipment.

I followed the flow of mana as it appeared to me, a faint blue glow within a now hollow object, as I focused on each internal gear that served as joints, I could picture their range of motion. The arms had multiple gears within that allowed an unnatural curve to even reach onto its own back to grab items or an ambushing assailant. The body clearly had a rotational gear so that it could spin three hundred and sixty degrees, while the legs, shaped like a bend in the knees, had a gear system that turned them backwards, essentially allowing it to reverse itself completely.

I whistled in appreciation for the marvelous design, and the dwarf looked up, giving me a friendly wave.

But I stopped whistling a moment later. I waved my hand hastily, “Hey, Mr. dwarf pilot, there’s a problem!” He frowned behind his beard.

“What?!” He groused in a deeply unsatisfied voice, hopping up on stumpy legs he put his equally stumpy arms on his portly body and glared at me from over the leg of his mech. “What problem?! My work is perfect! It’s the strongest mech out here and bound to win this tournament!”

I gave my head a vigorous shake. The flow of mana was definitely not right. I quickly yanked out my tablet while he turned red in the face, his anger mounting, I brought up my skills and began to throw points into mechs, followed by mech maintenance, and mech repair.

Seeing what I was doing and the way sweat sprang to my brow, his angry outburst, or what was sure to be another one if I count his previous indignation, was briefly halted.

“Listen, the mana isn’t right!” I pointed to the chassis, “Beneath the seat! Can I show you?” I asked, and the tour group stopped cold, the guide seemed about to rebuke me, but the dwarf interjected.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Sure. C’mere and look. But I installed a brand new magitite power source in it just this mornin lassy!” He snapped and waved me over, I rushed over as fast as I could and then all but slid along the ground to get under the mech as soon as possible.

“Can you diagnose this?” I asked and put my hand on the underside.

He slid under the mech from the opposite side so that we had space, and so that his head was right next to mine.

“Nah, I can’t do that, I can imbue a stone and modify the flow, but it takes special skills from races like elves, kitsune, or the like to diagnose and modify them thins. Me, ah can work me mana with it to control me partner here, but ah can’t do what yer askin me.”

“Well?” I wiggled my ears so that my left ear tickled his head. “I’m telling you there’s a problem. Where’d you get that stone?” I asked.

“Ah bought it of course.” He replied, and I furrowed my brow.

“From where?” I asked.

“From the same place we always do, from the ‘rena, which gets its ores from the Chalonery Company’s magic division.” The dwarf’s puffy lips almost pouted. “Why?”

“How much are those worth?” I asked.

“A single refined magitite with balanced imbued mana with a confirmed stable flow, strong enough to sustain a mech for an extended period of time, would go for about six thousand creds.” He answered.

“And an unbalanced flow?” I asked, I thought of the torn card that Loysa handed me, with the flow of that broken and out of balance, it would still be magic, but it could be as likely bad luck as good. I didn’t imagine a mech would be any better off.

“Even that is at least two thousand, you can always break it down into isolated balanced fragments for other things, and a skilled magic user could balance it if they took the time. Maybe a week, but they’d charge most of the value of the stone to do it, so post sale after balance?” He rubbed his beard while we stared up at the round plate of the underside of the mech. “A profit of about five hundred creds.”

“So if somebody got a hold of a bunch of ‘out of balance’ magitite ores and passed them off as legitimate, selling them here for full price, how much would they make?” I asked.

“About a hundred and fifty-six thousand creds, maybe a little less on a bulk buy deal, that’s gross, not net. Subtract the maximum cost of about two thousand creds per ore, a hundred and thirty-thousand net gain.” He replied and I could feel him grit his teeth.

“But lass, the Chalonery Company is one of the best in the business, I canna see them ruinin ther reputation for one quick sale if’n it’d cost them all future deals.” He shook his head, “It just does not seem likely.”

I closed my eyes and thought of my own recent fraud, “What if,” I said with a heavy breath, “Somebody pretended a shipment were from them, knowing when one was expected, showing up a little early, and then collecting the money?”

His brow furrowed. “Aye lass, I think you’ve got the right of it, get out from under there, we’ve got to report this, an you, you’ve got a lot of diagnosin to do.”

“But I’m on a quest. I’m just here as a spectator, this isn’t my job.” I insisted, but he immediately shook his head. “Lass, one of the reasons these things can work so well is that they’re steady, stable. If we go into the fight with magiguns and magicannons and swords and mauls firin and a’flailin all over an a core gets ruptured? A stable one will keep at it. An unstable one may blow sky high an kill the pilot and the spectator an who knows what other damage it might do. Or it might shut down, an the pilot might get killed by a blow their reinforced mech shoulda stopped. Or the mech might go haywire and fire a cannon into the crowd. You come with me, we’ll get an emergency quest put in right now for you to check these thins before somebody gets ther sad self kilt, ah’right?”

What else could I do? I could picture the chaos in my mind and his voice had the desperate urgency of a man who would not take no for an answer. The tour group simply watched me go, though how much they heard, I didn’t know.

And me?

I did the only thing I reasonably could do. I followed him. “Aye, ah, and what’s your name?”

“Dwarguy.” He said, then added while walking on quick moving stumpy legs, “But if’n ye call me ‘Dwargy’, lass, you’ll be minus one tail till ye can pull it back outta yer ass.”

“Right, Dwarguy it is then.” I said while the shadow of the interior tunnel covered us both.