Village Again
"it seems that a rogue mage has frozen the town over. maybe they justified the act as these orcs were attacking it?"
"doubtful, a mage would never leave evidence if they were to do this," I say back to my lieutenant, Charles Andras. being a member of the royal inquisition allows one to spot minor details that others would miss. like the open window in a small house, and it is the only window open in the entire village. While I'll admit, it's not that much of a minor detail, it does allow me to notice the frosted footfalls leading into the EverDark Forest. "did anyone besides me notice the prints?" I ask the men around me, none of them paying them more than half of a mind.
"Some of the villagers of Eddleston, the little farming village near here, say that they saw a dragon land in those woods." Some random apprentice said out loud, garnering the murmurs of some of my troops.
"Dragons have been extinct for more than a century, don't influence the moral of my soldiers, or I will have your head" I say to anyone that even has the idea of spreading rumors. "we follow the tracks and we find the magic caster. any more idiotic statements anyone wants to add? No? good"
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"w-what? why are my clothes like this??" Victoria says. I can't be the only one to think that this is a bad sign right? this is probably short-term memory loss, or maybe early set Alzheimer's.
"you mean to say that you don't know how your clothes got ruined?"
"no mister dragon" what? well, I guess I do look like one. might as well play along with this misunderstanding. not like the natives of the world would know how an android works.
"well, do you want me to bring you home or something? you get to get home safe and I get to find a village." this perks her up, It seems that she knows where her home is.
"yes please! daddy is waiting for me" and with that, I pick her up and go back into the elevator. pressing the only other button, for now, it raises at a decent speed. though it still takes a few seconds to get to ground level. putting her down and telling her to lead the way, she just starts walking forwards.
"you sure you know where you are going?" I ask, kinda concerned that she is just going forward. If she doesn't turn, that means that straight ahead there is a village, which would make my base placement atrocious. all my time playing TD games has told me that you need at least a few turns to maximize your defense placements. "of course I do! I just don't know how to describe how I know!" ignoring the high-level vocabulary, she is either bullshitting me and is lost, or it's just really easy to find.
"you won't have to take the safe paths with me here, what kind of stupid person would attack a dragon?" I just jinxed myself, didn't I? or as the Chinese in those bad system novels say, I raised a 'Flag'.
[movement detected 2,533 meters 38.6 degrees to your left. 99.3% confidence in horses, 0.7% confidence in earthquake]
horses in a forest? that's not a thing. bandits, solders, or mercs, more likely. one of those 3 things, I haven't done anything bad so its probably not soldiers, didn't piss anyone off, yet, so no mercs. and the bandits may have seen my not-so-graceful landing. If bandits are how I think they are in this world, they may think that I have a hoard. the only thing I'm holding is like 18 pounds of iron, That's it! and some coal, making steel now. turns out that SAV was already converting it. off-topic, so there is a high chance of this being bandits wanting some of my 'hoard'. SAV, are the laser turrets ready?
[affirmative, defensive measures primed and charged. should I activate active camouflage for the elevator hub?]
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
do that, System, the base counts as me right?
Correct
Then enhance the defenses with my Arsenal skill. what can it do exactly?
Enhancing...
Answer: you are able to command any weapon you are registered as the owner with nothing but your will, fling swords at subsonic speeds with your mind. you are able to produce any weapon you can imagine with enough time out of nothing but mana and time. the minimum wait time is 120 minutes and lasts for 2 days.
EX bonus: minimum time dropped to 30 minutes, lifetime raised to 2 weeks
INNATE bonus: minimum time dropped to 5 minutes, maximum size removed, lifetime raised to the norm for the item created.
Yo, that is bullshit. It's like UBW but better, can I imagine any effects for the things produced?
Correct
what's the drawback?
mana cost is fixed at 5000 mana per meter cubed
Damn, there goes me ripping off Warhammer 40K weapons. wait, fixed? this has some serious exploit potential, last question, what would constitute as a 'weapon'?
Anything that the user thinks can be a weapon
but, everything is a weapon?
Skill: Arsenal has evolved into Creation. Creation has been listed as an INNATE skill, leveled to EX.
"Hello? mister dragon? you've been standing there for a few minutes" said Victoria. "oh, sorry, I was thinking about something, are we close yet?" i say back, SAV, new protocol, when i am in deep thought slow perception of thought. [confirmed] good. "we are almost there, we just need to go forward this way for an hour and a half." and then she started walking in the direction of the bandits, shit. Im going to have to fight them aren't I? I'm not ready! what if they have like a magic item or something? something that can kill me in one hit?! [1,674 meters and closing]
shit, what if victoria is like a scout sent ahead to find my 'hoard'? what if-
"Are you thinking again? do you want to go in the dark? come on!" this snaps me out of my death spiral, so I just walk ahead to my (possible) doom.
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We have been tracking this mage for a while. the Tracks stopped being frosted a while ago, making it hard to discern where they go. On top of that, they are so fucking confusing! they keep going side to side, suddenly stopping and reappearing in random locations. the good thing is that they seem to go deeper into the forest, so we just chose to stop following them and just go in their general direction. It has worked so far, we can still see the occasional print in the dirt, there was one on a tree at one point, I think that is where we stopped trying too hard.
"damn, either this mage is super careful, or really fucking dumb" said Charles, and I have to agree. you either have to be super paranoid to leave this much track in a maybe false direction or super dumb to leave noticeable prints leading to you.
"don't forget, this is not a mage, it's a magic caster. they are more dangerous as they are untrained, so they don't have restraint to us or themselves." I say out loud to no one in particular.
"Sir, there is a ravine up ahead" shouted one of the scouts when they returned to the main group. "how long?" "half a house sir, but there is a bridge of pure ice across it" maybe this is not just a magic caster.
"that just means that we should keep going." and we did, for almost an hour.
it was then that we, I saw something that i had regarded as impossible not even 3 hours before.