It was a lazy afternoon in a rented farm-house at the outskirts of Teth-Odin, five Tixi Mice huddled by a grill outside, holding out the shish kebab-like skewers to keep them hot while they excitedly squeaked amongst themselves.
Inside, Arek, Cecil, and Ingrid were huddled around a table.
"Sully, Arthur, Brody, Eli, and Ralph" Ingrid said one more time "You have them standing together and it spells 'SABER'."
"IF" Cecil said "Arek took a picture and it spelled "BEARS", causing the three of them to snicker. Ingrid had collected a second set of brooches so the mice had them at the front and back of their scarves. It was then an easy matter for the dwarves to weld onto the brooches the letters S, A, B, E, and R, making it easy for Cecil, Arek, and Ingrid to know who was who. While the other natives of Teragalia wouldn't understand the English alphabet; even without the easy-to-cast barely negligible maintenance translation spell that everyone was using for everyday life, the “runes” were simple and thus easy enough to distinguish from the other.
The other items they had commissioned from the dwarves were currently atop the table they were working on. The three of them were quickly assembling the cartridges as well as filling them with the propellant. Nestled in the corner of the corner of the room, Arek’s phone was plugged into a dock; the speakers blaring out “Fortunate Son” by Credence Clearwater Revival
“Does that count?” Cecil said as they saw a dragon from a distance fly by.
“Negatory.” Arek answered back, “need more birds in the sky, over.”
Among the things Arek had stashed in his bags were some homebrew equipment to help make the ammunition, which made the process much faster.
“I know I shouldn’t be surprised since you once used firearms. But Ingrid, but I didn’t expect you knew how to assemble bullets too.” Arek said.
“Two things,” Ingrid began “It wasn’t like I was in a position to get them the regular way, and second, even after I became Star Lily, I had to help Cecil grow his collection.”
“At least until Taffy helped us.” Cecil said “he used to be Melrondia’s familiar. Y’know the girl that killed me and Ingrid? She used to be a Starchaser once until she got corrupted.”
“Taffy?” Arek’s mandibles clickled around querulously
“He’s of all things, a unicorn.” Ingrid explained “after Melrondia’s corruption he went into the underground. For what purposes, we don’t know but at least it got us better guns.”
“And now we have even better guns!” Cecil said, throwing a sideways glance at the gleaming mythril assault rifles. The dwarves had replaced all of the metal parts with mythril, the wood and polymer were replaced with some kind of extra tough lumber. Its name was forgotten by the trio.
“Arek and two of the mice should carry those.” Ingrid suggested as she smacked the crimping tool home, before tipping it over. Cecil collected the freshly made bullets and started arranging them.
Siria walked over to the table and laid down three drum magazines. Ingrid’s eyes flickered briefly with Mana and sure enough they looked enchanted.
“Here you go, your gun’s attachable quivers now carry from sixty shots to two hundred.” She looked quite pleased with herself. Arek hefted the fancy-looking drum magazines, gilded with some metal ornaments to distinguish them from the rest. Despite their enhanced capacity weighed like it was empty, yet the transparent window showed that it was stacked to the brim.
“These look good, great work Siria!” Arek exclaimed. “Sully! Arthur! Come over here for a sec!” The pair of Tixi Mice scrambled forward, each grabbing a gun and loading the magazine. They bobbed the rifles in their hands and squeaked excitedly, indicating that both the weapon and its magazine felt lighter than the usual ones.
“Spatial manipulation magic, I thought that was going to be some super advanced thing.” Ingrid said as she took one drum magazine and was trying to empty it, it had gone past sixty and it was still full.
“It is, which is why it takes time to make. You should see archers and their own quivers. It always looks full. Your… what did you call them again-”
Arek spoke up, “Magazines.”
“Your magazines, or at least these round ones were a little tricker because most of the space is being taken up by the mechanism that pushes them towards the chamber where that gun magic works.”
“Excellent work, Siria!” Ingrid congratulated her. “...and now I have to put all these bullets back in…” she muttered to herself.
___
Teth-Odin Dungeon, Level 3:
The Whales had returned to the Dungeon to test the mythril guns for Arek, Sully, and Arthur. This would also be a test for the slingshots for Cecil and the rest of the mice to use; reserving their guns for the more powerful enemies.
After a few minutes of wandering the wider Promenades, big tunnels for the monsters to wander through; they found a handful of large humanoids loitering. They looked more like traditional demons in human mythology. The first creature that spotted them roared and pointed at the party, alerting its cohorts and sending them stampeding forward.
“Guns first.” Ingrid commanded. She kept back, but stood ready to intervene if the monsters got too close. “Short, controlled bursts only.”
“Engaging.” Arek replied while the Mice squeaked. Siria had applied an enchantment to the barrels the trio used, which increased the velocity of the bullet as it traveled along the barrel. The slugs easily tore through the monsters’ bodies, forcing the survivors to retreat.
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“Cease fire, conserve your shots.” Ingrid said as she raised a hand. “Arek, back to holding fire unless it’s for self-defense.”
“Yes’m” Arek replied. It took them another few minutes to find another bunch loitering. They came across some monsters in-fighting and waited until one side was clearly winning.
“Slingshots.” Ingrid commanded. A volley of four balls flew out of Cecil’s Room, the thin film of aura called a Lens was overlaid atop the dialogue window and once the metal balls passed through them they accelerated, striking with greater force.
“I’m liking the results so far.” Cecil said, the Mice in his room squeaking in approval as well. Each had a big bag full of metal balls next to them and a firearm laying opposite in case something powerful came by.
The Whales advanced through the promenade slowly, marking off a dragging point where Ingrid would drag the carcasses in while the rest of the party stood guard.
“So how do people really handle this? I mean, monsters are big money but considering it takes about a minute or two to open up the item box and there’s days like these where the population is low… we’re not gonna worry about other adventurers coming by and claiming this pile is theirs, are we?” Arek asked.
“We didn’t think about it since we figured that Ingrid would just find a big bunch of monsters and just kill them wholesale and then Siria here will just cast Item Box in one big convenient location… but normally we’d just cut out their Soul Stones, you know, the ones we keep calling Magic Cores or Magic Stones, but we figured you might get a little too squeamish about that.” Kvaris replied.
“That’s where we get the most value, or at least the most efficient for us.” Kinu continued for him.
“But what about the carcasses?” Arek asked. “Surely they still got value, we weren’t the only ones reaping a windfall in that Dismantling House.”
“Some adventurers do those missions where their real objective is to guard a hauling crew, Trolls usually since they’re really strong. Obviously a carcass is going to attract scavengers so if even they don’t run into any living monsters those adventurers groups will still need to guard them.” Kvaris explained. “Or they hire a crew themselves and then escort them.”
“There’s obviously advantages and disadvantages to either method.” Siria spoke up “I’m carrying them in my Arcane Storage, so if I go down, we lose our loot. Ingrid was correct in having a porter like you carry our vital supplies with us. As for the problem of other adventurers trying to claim this pile is theirs, well, it happens and we just have to fight if it comes to that, but generally it doesn’t happen.”
“How come we’ve never seen any Trolls?” Arek asked but then slapped his own forehead “Oh right, because we’ve been using the Escape Tunnels…”
___
Ingrid dashed forward and swung a vicious roundhouse, the sheer force generated a blade of wind vacuum that cut through the group of ape-like monsters as if she had swung a fifty-foot great sword at them. A few remained standing but she was already in a position for a follow-up attack. Sigils appeared around her joints and a faint coil of energy briefly glowed around some of limbs as her Automata routine activated and moved her body into position. This combined with her defensive aura’s repelling ability to eliminate friction where needed and some small barriers against herself to provide leverage, she moved too fast for the ape-like creatures to follow.
In one moment, Ingrid was on eye-level with the very tall ape and her foot; accelerated with her aura impacted with it’s head with an axe kick, the force caused the ape’s feet to make a crater on the ground as its head disintegrated into a fountain of gore. Redirecting the recoil around her, Ingrid used it to rocket herself to the other ape still standing (albeit reeling from the initial roundhouse). A spinning kick decapitated it, and the crescent-shaped shockwave it generated bisected another behind it. The last ape had only enough time to see its companion’s head turn to a spray of blood and bone before Ingrid’s flying kick tore a hole right through him.
Arthur and Sully stood atop the carcasses, occasionally squeaking in a way that reminded Ingrid of meerkats that stood guard while the rest of the mob combed for food. Or in this case, while Ingrid tied ropes to the bodies so she could drag them back. A pack of scavengers hesitantly followed them and when it looked like they got too close, Sully opened a single warning shot, hitting the lead scavenger square between the eyes and sending the pack running.
“Holy shit, that’s one hell of a shot!” Ingrid said, cuddling Sully, who let out a pleased squeak. “C’mon you too Arthur. Hey! No cheek rubs! We gotta stay alert!” Her voice once again slightly muffled as they put their toe beans on her face.
Dragging the line of monsters along, Ingrid thought back to the Mice’s performance. They were good shots, especially Arthur, granted they weren’t headshotting all the time, probably not even half but their intelligence and discipline (probably due to being pack creatures) was amazing. She sort of expected the Mice to just open fire full auto but they didn’t, they used controlled bursts and even semi-auto shots when the intensity was low. When Ingrid charged they shot at the flanks and kept on their feet; taking advantage of their agility to stay out of harm’s reach and the range of their weapons. At some points they even scaled the walls and opened fire .
From his Room, Cecil, and the Mice high-fived each other. They stood down when Ingrid charged as there weren’t any other enemies left. The power of their slingshots had sufficed and none of them needed to use their guns. He moved the Dialogue Window to join Arthur who stood at the rearmost of the train.
“Great work buddy!” Cecil said, Arthur squeaked happily but kept a watchful eye around him. There were some scavengers still around but the Room Mice handled the warning shots to keep them away.
Sully on the other hand dismounted from the train and led the way, sniffing around to find their way back. Ingrid was both amused and amazed at the way he acted as a point man, as if some guy from the SWAT had taught him how to “Slice The Pie” when dealing with corners.
“Good job, Saber.” Ingrid called.
___
A few hours later:
It was a lazy evening in a rented farm-house at the outskirts of Teth-Odin, five Tixi Mice huddled by the dinner table squeaking happily amongst themselves as they feasted on a grain dish that reminded the Earthlings of a Pilaf Dish.
At the kitchen, Arek, Cecil, and Ingrid were huddled around a table, the second batch of ammunition parts came in from the dwarves and the three of them were working together to assemble them. From a corner of the room, Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” was blaring from Arek’s phone. Somewhere overhead, a dragon flew by, its comforting roar letting everyone know in Teth-Odin that all was well.
As the Farm House was near the main road, wagons rolled by bringing in fresh new adventurers out to make a name for themselves.
“Look at those kids” Arek said “some of those will never make it back.”
“I won’t be me.” Cecil said as he smacked a tendril at the crimping device and tipped it over, sending a cascade of fresh new bullets down the table. Ingrid quickly swiped them towards her and began loading the magazines.”
“It won’t be me, either, I ain’t no aristocrat’s son.”
A fresh breeze blew through the open windows and doors, clearing the scent of smoke from the pipes that hung from their lips.
“You know there’s something about this scene I just can’t place.” Kinu said as he watched the three Fae-landers work.
“Just some Fae-land thing Kinu, don’t worry about it. I like this music though.” Kvaris sighed
“Doesn’t seem quite appropriate for a warrior to listen though” Siria frowned “it’s speaking of fear and uncertainty. But the instruments are quite enthusiastic…it’s the opposite.”
“As I said, “ Kvaris said, “Just another one of the many mysteries of the Fae.” Through the open door they watched as a group of thrill-seeking adventurers leap out of their wagon, their leader pumping his fist.
“We’ll be in and be out in a few days boys! Go!Go!Go!Go!Go!” and as he said that, his group of D-rank adventurers ran their way towards the gates of Teth-Odin.