4/27/25

Managed to have another sauna session for the blessing. There was little need to convince anyone, because we had an attack today. It erupted in horrible smelling blood. The blood had some ability to get through material things. If anyone needs more explanation for why we all piled into a large room full of warm-ish steam and strong scents, you’re not being serious. I refuse to believe that anyone would be that dense.

Now, not a whole lot managed to stay out of phase long enough to get through the suits, thankfully, but enough did manage for the smell to stick stuck. The ritual needed very little dressing up to convince anyone. It was all presented as ‘things to cover up the smell’ or ‘things to keep the other stuff safe.’ And when I say presented as, I pretty much mean that I just said that first bit and got interrupted before I could manage to figure out how to word the second point properly.

Being able to claim distraction by smell is good for letting you start saying something and then not following up on it.

We also are going to spend several days in quarantine to see if there was anything else other than stink to worry about.

If I need to abandon this journal, I will be most cross.

4/27/25 addition

Haven’t needed to abandon anything yet. Just rotating between sauna, cool down room, and cold, soapy/chemical-ed showers. We smell like rotting flesh, bad eggs, and other things about sixty or so percent less by now. I am not looking at the clocks intentionally at this point because things have gotten more than just a little tiring. If anything half-way interesting happens here, I’m going to put it in.

Otherwise, it can all wait for tomorrow’s entry.

4/28/25

There’s been an interesting side effect of the cleaning yesterday. Which did get us not smelling foul, incidentally. But I have worst case of dry skin I’ve ever heard of. I haven’t heard much about dry skin, which means that most cases would probably qualify as worst, but I have one qualification for this one. It is not quite full body, but badly close to being full body cracking of the skin.

I am going to have to report back in for further treatment because I’m the only one that’s suffering this way. As a result, I’ve found myself forgetting what I was going to put in today from yesterday. I don’t think it was too important, though. Probably just more bitching about the smell. Which was horrible. It will haunt my dreams for ages.

4/29/25

Got a message from my master last night. Preparations are mostly finished on their side, and then the wait comes in. The factory opening will horribly mess with any kind of world transit that’s less in scope than the tower of worlds or demons and gods. And nobody wants to see that happen to their friends.

Now if only I could actually manage to know when it’s going to happen. Things have been hilariously tight-lipped in that regard. None of my sources for the EU opening have anything, I haven’t been able to sneak in and find anything, and somebody has deliberately been messing with the positioning of the pilots.

A demon attack happened literally mid-take-off. Thankfully, the plane had some weapons on it, so the departure and return were both safe. It also helped that this was a pretty unlucky demon attack. The planner was certainly expecting to take out two pilots with the goo. Unfortunately, I went out today in Natal because the decision was made to work with the still in the area army group in a show of solidarity.

While the small guns didn’t do a lot to hurt this tie-dye blob demon, the army men and women did a good job of keeping it from moving in the right direction. The right direction was, alternatively, towards my spell-charging Natal or towards the plane.

The EU fight did show that even with a full complement of pilots, the demons’ plan was flawed. The blob shape just couldn’t force a knight armor to stay in place long enough for the apparently internal goo sacs or a few surprise portals to get any good hits in. Although, given how well the demon bodies cohered after defeat, I’d bet money that this is the lead-up to another horde of somethings lead by a demon leader.

Or something like that. There’s other tricks, but I can see them thinking that there was just some small flaw with the original plan and making a few adjustments to try for a better result. Or at least they are in this circumstance.

Oh, and Kenny and Lettie are still here. This was apparently just a dry run that went so well I can’t even lay it all at the feet of my blessing ritual. I’m going to make a bet with myself. If, in the next two days, they are finally taken to the Canada location, then I will try a new place to eat. If I’m wrong, I will instead try one of the recipes out of this cook-book that didn’t look too good and try it.

4/30/25

Demon attack! Bad timing!

5/3/25

I am unsure how to count this. Do I win because the plan was to have Kenny and Lettie out of the city by the end of the month and thus eat at a new place? Do I lose because the demons decided to try an unending series of attacks using portals hidden in the remains of the blob demon and need to try lutefisk?

The only upside is that through combined arms and luck, the EU regiment was kept in place and completely crushed the surprise attack there. I was also wrong-ish on what old tactic the demons were revisting, but only partially.

None of the demons here were all that powerful or large. I mean, yes, they were too large to be a human and powerful enough to inflict casualties to the professional soldiers where the armors couldn’t be, but compared to ones the size of a knight armor with unusual abilities these were nothing.

Unlike that infamous rock-pile semantic problem, I can safely say that around fifty nothings they became something and have people believe me without an argument. The first five had been take care of easily. But then they started coming in greater and greater numbers, and before the assault wore itself out, three hundred of the demons had come through.

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And like I said just before, when they had fifty out at once was when things looked like it might cost most of the city. Air support carried the day, at a high cost. I’m going to have to see the final count, but I know that several streets were ruined by the demons and several more by aerial bombs.

Thankfully, the actual degree of city loss was minimal once the fist of the air had managed to land. It’s just that the parts that were lost were pretty definitely and almost totally lost.

I suppose the one upside is that there’s going to be - wait.

The factory here shutting down for a bit while the city repairs isn’t a good thing for me! It means another bit of feeling bad as the factory powers up.

Well, at least I can be happy for the people. I’m going to have bad news for master Alissa. At least I can sleep comfortably tonight. The last few bits of sleep I did manage to get were uncomfortable, short, and almost not worth it.

It was basically only allowed because of fatigue. We had not trained for combat this prolonged, and in a way neither had the army. Or perhaps it was just the casualties. I should get actual sleep. I don’t remember where I was going with this.

5/5/25

The beginning stages of the factory opening were yesterday. I seemed to have slept through most of it. Also, the factory closing here is apparently going to happen after the Canada factory is finished. Until then, I’m half-alone. The soldiers don’t have the presence or weapons to really count as full presence with how they’re currently being restricted, but that’s enough for them to keep me from saying I’m alone.

There was a big speech by the leader of the US. I didn’t listen to it too much. There no nation leader that knows enough of the truth to be worth listening to.

The good news is that I don’t feel anything unusual, so at least the later openings won’t be affecting me. Hopefully. It could be that there will be a forced closing or two next time and I’m going to be suffering again.

I’m going to take a positive view, but a realistic one, and say that I’m going to suffer next opening, but not alone.

No new attacks, thankfully. Well, no. I heard that there was an EU attack while I was asleep and also that there’s signs of a large one soon to be underway. But I can’t really do anything about those, so for here it’s the same as there being no new attacks. It’s going to be interesting seeing how the next attacks are dealt with here.

Air power may win battles, but at high cost to the city. And considering the track record before now, I can’t see heavy air power being called out for less grim circumstances than last time. Some minor support, on the other hand, I can see happening almost every time.

5/6/25

Awarenesss of the altered flow of magic is constant. The impact on me, less so. It’s showing a bit more, as I’m tired, but that only greated the impact of my realization. The demons attacked during the opening. Is it desperation, or has the multiple open factories thing changed things in ways I don’t know?

I’ll have to sent over information when I dream tonight. This could quicken things. I also realized how beyond schedule this opening was. Two weeks and change and it’s just begun. Or at least the kindling of the heart is just done.

I have no clue how they’re setting things up. Perhaps that are making the actual factorial parts first and then kindling the heart last this time? I think I recall the heart being active first for the EU plant. I’d have to check, but then again I might have not heard that level of details.

No classes for the foreseeable future. The place needs to be decontaminated. When the demons were swarming, a few ran out and died in distant parts of the city. Cleaning was done, but tehre needs to be more work done because of basements and closed places.

Also damage to water pipes. Very Important, those pipes. I think I’ll keep my personal office here for the trading. Clean water, hot water, on demand. The best you could have at home was two of those, and you’d lack the third option.

Here, lacking one of those is a disaster.

I am also being kept under lock and key while repairs are being done. It’s offically to make sure I’m always avaiable for response to an attack because of the lowered knight armor count, but I think it’s because somebody knows the effects of the opening on me and wants that to be secret.

I’m only half sure as to reasons why.

5/7/25

Wednesday has come and gone. I think I remembered to send the messages across the dream bridge, but something about this opening is really just tiring me out. It’s all the worse because I’m not really involved in the opening at all!

No more attempts by the demons to make new incursions while the factory’s opening. I wonder why. I hope I didn't get an answer to that. It’d mean I completely forgot it.

Still rotting away in this less than guilded cage. The feeling is lessening, so I’m guessing that the Canada factory will be operative soon. And then the cycle will begin again.

Well, I hope not, but I’m also resigned to it. The city is still damaged, so I don’t know if that’s going to make it more or less attractive to being a training city.

On the other side, I have the best record of not dying, so I’m probably seen as having skills. On the definite negative side, I can be seen as having the most dead co-pilots.

Well, I’m going to be waiting with baited breath to see what gets sent here. Wait. I just realized-cum-remembered something.

The factory here is going to be closed. The factories are basically the thing that the demons appear around. The factory here is going to be closed!

There’s not going to be any demon attacks until it reopens.

So this probably cinches the training site idea. I just wonder who I’m going to end up training. Time to get more reagents.

5/8/25

Wasn’t able to get much information on the new knight armors. It seems that lots of information got moved to other places. I’m guessing it started during the preparation to shut down, but it could have happened earlier. I try to not sneak in and find things too often. It could lead to more security and then I couldn’t get in and find out these things.

Still, I’m now experiencing the downside of being completely blindsided when things happen faster than expected. If they’d also kept occult documents in with the other things, then I’d be really frustrated. Since it wasn’t even all that detailed on the knight armors, I’m not that angry.

I mean, at best, I could get a good heads up on some design aspects. General shape, general nature of weapons, certain parts it was deemed to need more of.

Still, I did get some information. The two knight armors are going to be the first of a new breed. Designed by an outside designer with only slightly better information than the general public.

That was needlessly dismissive towards M. Chandra. These originals aren’t really made with an eye towards good use of the magical heart of the beast, so not knowing about it should be fine. As long as the important anti-demon features are made standard or forcibly added in.

They may in fact know more overall than I do, as there are material details that I only know at the most bare levels of knowing. I know the code names for certain alloys of metals used in the knight armors, but those code names don’t tell me anything about how they’re made.

Is it enchanted metal? Is their knowledge of mundane metallurgy advanced enough that these behemoths can be made to walk even with how they’re made and move and so on?

Hopefully, this will be a good surprise.

5/9/25

Bad news. The Canada and EU locations will be brought up to full count (in Canada because only two were moved there and in the EU because the attack this night claimed one) before my location is reactivated for anything.

I’m still kept here, and on active duty for all it matters. The factory is down, no demon portal appeared here with the other attacks, and even my magic doesn’t really add to a knight armor's few uses outside demon fighting.

Well, this then is time to learn more about the new demons and catalogue things. Oh, and complete the missing school work I had. It will reopen on Monday.

I should take more steps to socialize outside the dream world. I’m looking forward to meeting people far too much.

Oh, and I hope master Alissa won’t be reading this too much. She should be here about this time next week. The closure of the factory changed a few things, so she’s being extra safe. And still bringing information. That she didn’t say more is a bit worrying, but at both ends so to speak.