{Alex}

I was soon sitting in a tacky room full of crap from God only knew where talking with an old bat babbling about kids. I wished she would get on with it and tell me about the house and where it was. I just sat there sipping lukewarm tea that tasted like soggy garbage. I hope this world has coffee or even soda. Hell at this time I would even take a tasteful whiskey. It took far too long for us to get to the point of talking about the cabin and far longer to actually walk there. It was a small two-room one bath on the edge of town. It was slightly run down and would need some work. It only cost me fifteen gold. I had that. That being said it would cost me twelve silver a year in taxes. That would be easy enough. That would still leave me with a nice nest egg to live on. I went to the local general store and bought a bed, blankets, basic food, and a few other nice items for a single gold. It will be delivered tonight. I looked over my things and found I had four iron bars one pebble of zinc, seven gold, thirty- five silver, and a handful of copper. Every empire has to start from scraps. I went home and started playing with the iron shaping it into a Knight. It was the red one I had gotten to know over the last month. Sadly, it had taken most of my magic just to make this little figure. It stood roughly the same size as a 1/144 scale Gundam, twelve inches tall. Placing it lovingly on a bookshelf in the wall, I stepped back to admire my work. Tomorrow I would have to work on building another to make my version. Paint, I would need to invest in small jars of paint. God, I was such a nerd. With a smile on my face, my new bed in place, and using my bedroll as a sheet and blanket, I slept comfortably for the most part.

One month seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Turns out it was early spring; the winters here would be rough and most of the people stuck to themselves. Sadly, no beast women here, but a lot of them did come in the caravans that would visit about once a month. Monsters don’t come near towns because of an artifact that has to be placed on a lay line. Large cities are built where these lay-lines cross. There are exceptions to this being the larger monsters and other people in Knights. Battery the enchanter who started teaching me, was a good tool. Boss was very happy with me as it only took a day for me to fix something that would take weeks. I was a quick study, so Battery was unofficially demoted to my tool. I demoted him and most days, I would work until he passed out and then sketched until he recovered. I had so many ideas. This world was full of things for me to play with and do. I was heading to Boss’s office and heard him talking with Battery.

“I just don’t like the way he uses me as a tool.” Battery shouted.

“Then do something about it.” Boss shouted back.

“Like what?”

“You want his respect, earn it. You want to be seen as more than a tool, work for it. If you step up, I'm sure he will let you do more.”

“You don’t understand though, he won’t even use my name. He just calls me battery. He only sees me as a mana battery. I’m not even a person to him.” Boss demanding, I leave my mask off was leaking into my life. I just to keep track of people’s names. Here though I didn’t have to pretend. I could be who I was without being called out.

“Then prove to him you are one. You have been lazy for a long time, now he is making you work. You don’t want to work.”

“That’s not true.” I could hear a sigh. “Yes, I was lazy, but I don’t deserve to be treated like that. If this keeps up, I’ll quit.” The room went quiet for a while. “Okay, I won’t quit. I now see my place. I’ll try harder. Don’t fire me.”

“I can’t fire you; he needs a battery.” Boss laughed and I quickly hid behind the door. The last thing I needed was to argue with my tool. Battery ran out of the office, and I walked in a short while later. “Runt, I take it you heard all that?” I nodded, my face blank. “Try to be nicer to Battery. I mean Jordean. Damn you and your names. You know Thomdab has started calling some of the worker's Grunt one, two, and three.”

“Thomdab that would be...” I tilted my head pretending to care about whoever that was.

“My brother. Meathead. He is coming in and he has something to show you.” Ha Meathead is an idiot pilot who is all muscle and no brain. I wonder what the fool wants to talk about. This should be entertaining. He looked a lot like Boss, but he kept his hair short and was almost twice the size. Meathead walked in and beamed at us.

“Boss, Runt how are you guys today?” Boss grunted and told us both to sit.

“Runt, Thomdab knows so you don’t have to wear a mask around him.” My fake smile dropped, and I just looked at him blankly. Meathead just kept on smiling like an idiot as he pulled out a badly wrinkled and stained sheet of paper.

“I want a new weapon for my Knight,” he said slapping it on the table. I looked over and frowned. A shitty over complicated ax was crudely drawn. It looked ornate, had a long knife on the bottom and the blade of the ax had a huge spike coming off the back. The head of the ax was far too narrow and came out in two long points. It would look nice on the wall, but actually fighting with something like that would be more likely to hurt the user over the target.

“No,” I said flatly. He blinked at me.

“What do you mean no?” His smile faded and he started scowling at me.

“I’m not going to build that thing for a Knight. I will not make a weapon that could damage my babies.” he gave me a strange look.

“But you can fix any damage done to a Knight,” I growled at him.

“Tell you what, you pay me five gold and I’ll make that abomination for you scaled down so you can test it. I will also make something that will work. Try both out for a week and then I want an apology. Deal?” he beamed and held out his hand.

“Deal. I will show you my ax is a work of art.” he paid me and left. Boss just looked at me.

“He is a Meathead. I see that now. What are you going to give him?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking of a halberd, but he has a lot of mana. I know he doesn’t like using spells, but if I could just.” I froze and clawed for my notebook. I started sketching madly. Boss just stood there watching me closely.

“You do know I’m your boss, right?”

“Yes, yes. You pay my bills and I do whatever you say.” I stood there and kept drawing.

“Do you want to be the boss?” His tone was a bit worried. I looked up at him horrified.

“Fuck no. You deal with the idiots. Why the hell would I want that?” He laughed as I made my way to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to get Battery. I have to do some tests on things.” he sighed as I made my way through the shop.

Three days later, Meathead and I were in the main room. A cloth tarp lay on the table covering two lumpy shapes. The others were gathered around wondering what was going on. Boss had his arms crossed as he looked at us. “Well, show us what you have.” He said with a frown. I pulled back the tarp and showed them the two weapons. The ax looked even worse in real life. Beside it was my work of art. It stood around seven feet long with a simple ax head wrapping around the shaft. Where there should have been a spear was a crystal. The shaft was mostly smooth, but a two-foot area was wrapped in leather to make gripping easier. On the ass of the weapon was a spear. I beamed as Meathead looked at my weapon scoffing.

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“It looks ugly.” I frowned at him, annoyed at his outburst.

“Pick up mine and push the button.” He picked it up looking at it as though it was a turd.

“The balance is nice. I like the spear on the other end, but what is a button?” I pointed to a raised bit of metal poking through the leather. He reached for it and I shouted.

“Not at the roof you idiot. If you blow a hole in it, Boss might make me pay for it.” He frowned and pointed it at a Knight’s shield I had been working on. That should be fine. He pushed the button and whooped as a strong fire bolt flew out of the end and slammed into the oversized hunk of iron.

“Okay. You win. I still want to play with the ax, but this is badass.” He beamed at me, and I just crossed my arms and smiled.

“How the hell did you pull that off?” Boss said smirking at me. “I don’t see any runes.”

“Simple. They are on the inside of the shaft.” He froze as he looked at me and Battery.

“What the fuck?” Everyone was looking at me in amazement. Meathead looked at the weapon in his hand.

“It doesn’t feel hollow.” I was just delighted by their puzzled looks.

“It’s not hollow. There is a small space near the top where the wand is melded with the ax head. The runes are there engraved into the wand. The ax head acts like a shield. From there I ran a thin bit of mana wire down to the button.”

“You have to do this to my ax.” I frowned at him.

“The fuck I will. I am not touching that thing again. Making it was bad enough.” I growled at him. Boss put his hands on his hips and smiled.

“Alright, everyone back to work. Runt, my office now.”

He asked me to make a full-size one for a market next spring. There is something of a convention where the newest Knights are on display in hopes of getting extra gold coming in. This could be interesting. If that is the case I wonder if I could make my move and start to make some real changes in this world. I started sketching again as we talked. He agreed to see some of my improvements tomorrow. This was going to be fun.

The next day I walked in holding a sack. Sadly, I couldn’t pick just two and ended up with five of my models. He sat at his desk and frowned at me.

“Well, Runt, show me what you got.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the first one. “Why do you have training dolls?” I froze.

“Show me,” I growled at him. Training dolls sounded like a new key I needed to know about now. He huffed and took me to a far corner of the shop to a storage room along one of the walls. Inside was a large table that was covered in dust. He had grunts two and five drag it out and set it up. Ten feet across, five control sticks, and foot pedals were evenly spaced around the rim. It looked like a war gaming table. Even had little trees made of cloth-covered sticks. This wasn’t just a key. This was something huge. “Why is it in here?” I growled at him, anger tinting my voice.

“We didn’t need it.” I looked at him. My mask was gone.

“No, why is it in here?”

“Just speak your mind. I don’t have time to play games.” I sighed. I had hoped to teach him, but today may not be the right day.

“This should be in the tavern.” He started blinking at me. It wasn’t clicking in. “How much does it cost to run this?” He put his hands on his hips getting angry.

“Almost nothing. Each table runs on a small core. That gives you an hour of training.”

“Anyone with mana can use it?” He nodded. Still not getting it. “If you charged a copper per match, how much money would you make a night?” He looked at me, his jaw-dropping.

“Like a silver a night.”

“Yes, you have been wasting money. Stupid. I still want to play with one of the dolls and the table before you take them away. Now go talk with Innkeeper.” He ran out of the shop as I looked over everything making notes. The dolls used a tiny engine. It must have taken a watchmaker to make it so small. A thin mana line is plugged into the table to allow the pilot to play with it and power it. The table had a tray where the small core was held. Far too soon he came back and took my new toys away. I had turned one of my models into a doll and followed them to the inn. The table was installed in the middle of the room and chairs were placed around it. Soon a man came in with a sack of small cores. The mana in my bracelet was gone and I only had a trickle left after converting one of my models. I had picked the one that would be mostly minor tweaks to the Knight. I put it on the table, plugged it in, and looked around. Everyone was looking at me again. Was I doing something weird?

“Go on test it out,” Innkeeper said.

“Not enough mana,” I said, standing and stepped back. He and boss sat down. Boss plugged in one of the normal ones and the two started fighting. It was fascinating to watch. Innkeeper won and boss slapped the table outraged.

“I want a rematch.” Innkeeper beamed.

“That will be one copper.” I laughed as Boss growled, pulled out my doll, plugged in one of the normal ones, and handed Innkeeper a copper. This time he won. Boss frowned and looked at my doll. He pulled me to a table and started looking over it. Some of the others started playing. It looked like my idea had worked. Winter this year would be more manageable.

“It almost looks like a normal Knight. You brought in the hips a little and puffed out the shoulders. How did you get it to move like that?”

“The feet, hips, and arms are the major changes. I need Battery if I am to fix the others. I also want a table like that in our shop for testing.” it had some Silver Steel in it, and I knew I couldn’t afford to make the table without the metal. He nodded and looked up at me.

“Done. How long will it take for you to alter Astreal?” Meathead’s mech. I tapped my chin thinking about all I had to do.

“About a month, maybe more. It depends on Battery. He is my limiting factor.” Boss just laughed. Show me the others. I pulled them out but wasn’t happy. They weren’t dolls. I would have to turn all my figures at home into dolls. I sighed. This was going to cost me a lot in mana wire and making those mini engines was going to take a lot of mana. I needed more goblin cores. Maybe some gold to upgrade my bracelet. He looked over each one smiling as we talked. Innkeeper brought us a pitcher of beer and two cups. They were on the house when the man realized how many coins he would make from my idea. Finally, I pulled out the last one. A small metal wolf stood on the table. He looked at it blankly.

“What the hell is that?” He just frowned as he picked it up and started moving the legs, tail, and even opened the jaw. “Knights always look like people.”

“This won’t be a Knight.”

“It’s too small, a core and engine won’t work on it.”

“I plan to build a new engine.” He put the figure down and looked at me blankly.

“Only the Kavos Empire knows how to build engines.” I tilted my head to the side again.

“Wrong. I know how and I think I know how to make it better.”

“Of course, you do.” I pulled out my notebook and flipped to a page holding it out to him. “I have no clue what the hell that is.”

“Let me build it and I will show you."

“Fix Astreal first.” I nodded.

“Get me more mana and I can break this world.” Boss looked at me worried.

Two days later, I was in the inn testing out the newest iteration of my wolf. I was very wrong in my first one. The joints were all wrong. This table saved me a shit ton of time. The only downside is I had to give it up to the townsfolk whenever the morons wanted to play. I needed a table for myself. Whenever they did, I would watch sometimes or just tinker on my new project. In the evening it would get lively and even tournaments would be held nightly with pots and bets. Innkeeper was very happy with me; Boss was very happy with me. The only ones not happy were Meathead and Battery. Battery couldn’t be helped, Meathead though. He was upset that his ax was impossible to use. He ended up hanging it on his wall and was now training with my weapon full-time. I was lightly sipping on the local swill and watching a match. God, I needed to get some wine so I could have a proper drink. Suddenly Woodcutter came in and looked worried. It was raining that day, but that shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

“We have to evacuate the town. The dam is about to break.” Everyone started scrambling. I was pissed, I was so pissed that my mask fell. My house, my dolls, my Knights. Fuck this hard in the ass. I stood and shouted making every eye turn to me.

“FUCK THIS! I’m not about to let everything I hold dear get destroyed. Everyone with even a particle of mana meet me at the dam. Someone Get Meathead and tell him to bring every scrap of metal to the dam. I’m going to fill every hole even if I have to stick my dick in it.” I expected the townsfolk to be outraged, question me, or even someone to hit me. In place of that, they cheered. What the fuck? They all cheered. I stood there for a moment; my head tilted to the side. I quickly put my mask back in place and ran out into the rain with them. Where the hell was the dam anyway?