Sophia frowned as she watched the two crab spider thingies work to build what a few of the guards were calling a trebuchet. Meanwhile, the guards were opening up and inspecting the contents of several crates with the help of the town's blacksmith.
The town's blacksmith was a grumpy old man in her opinion. He was very skilled, but his level was relatively low. Most decent blacksmiths were in the thirty to fifty level range, but he was only in the twenties. In comparison, her own mother's seamstress skills were in the high forties.
All this pondering about other people’s skills just made her want to look at her own but she didn't have a status stone of her own. The only public one in town was currently in the process of being moved underground along with the contents of what used to be the church. Their town hadn't been big enough for an actual priest or preacher to show up but they had a place of worship for all the major faiths at least the ones she knew of. But the church itself was just a building maintained by the townspeople, allowing them to worship their given patron. Nothing important had been damaged but a whole swarm of mostly melted scrap shell Beatles headset the thatch roof on fire. Thankfully due to the quick actions of the weird rollie things and the spider crab thingy they had managed to put the fires out before it spread too far but they also tore most of the roof off in the process.
So, most of the people who weren't busy with their daily tasks were undertaking the ceremonies needed to move their shrines into the newly dug underground church/temple. She wasn't really sure what to call the room that had been dug out for them just yet.
“Sophia, can you come here for a moment?” Frederick shouted, calling her over and jolting her back to reality.
“Hey, Frederick, what can I help you with?” Sofia said padding over feeling the now familiar weight of her moth companion landing on her head. She hadn’t really been paying attention to where the thing was, but it generally had just been following her around.
“I know you haven't had the best of luck trying to communicate with your metal friend or it's buddies beyond somehow getting it to agree to help us out. but we're kind of wondering-?”
“What the fucking hell is this metal made of!? My skill can't make heads or tails of it it's lighter than dwarven steel but stronger than anything I've ever seen. The blade doesn't dull easily either and its sharpness. This thing would cut through leather armor almost as well as vibranium or adamantium would but it's still strong enough to hold its edge even when used against tougher materials like wood and even stone. And these edges it looks almost like it was cold forged and then cut into shape but that doesn't make sense that would just be downright impossible the tools simply don't exist to do such.” The blacksmith blurted out, inspecting one of the swords that had been brought over.
“Yeah, that's about what I was going to ask to. Where did they get them they're in too good of shape to have been just lying around? So, it can't have just found them not only that it's setting up a freaking trebuchet in the middle of the town. I mean these things are clearly smart they're building homes and reinforcing walls, but this is just ridiculous. Have you managed to find out anything about them.” Frederick asked generally just baffled as he picked up and inspected the strangest looking bow Sophia had ever seen. It had two small pully wheels one on each of the arms and the string was coiled around it in such a way that it would be impossible to remove without tools. It was even made of some material other than wood. So maybe it didn't need to be unstrung to keep from warping the bow.
“I don't know….. And this might sound weird, but I think they're all one thing I've been trying to talk to them, but I think the reason why I haven't been having much luck is I'm trying to talk to the wrong um thing? When I first went out to gather more herbs after I found the beetle it let me back into its cave. I found this thing in this weird room with flickering blue lights. There was this orb like thing that almost looked like an eye connected to loads of metal vines. It looked at me, but I could also feel it looking into me. I didn't know it back then and I only really understand it sort of now because I have a lot more experience with it. But that whole room felt like a person. A person who was hurt and impossibly old but so much, much more….. I, I can't really describe it I wasn't even looking for it but could feel its presence, and these, these, things are just tiny pieces of it not even children more like hands or limbs. Even now if I reach out like straining to hear a very quiet sound off in the distance, I can still feel it even though it was on the other side of the valley. it's, it's not the valley itself but it's everywhere or so prevalent that you could mistake it for the valley itself.” Sophia said her eyes taking on a faint greenish blue glow.
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Meanwhile, Austin if he could would be glaring at the tactical map. Something-something wasn't right but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The first hunter squads of his mechanical ants were being deployed. He had been hesitant to use them partly because he was afraid the intelligence in control of the creatures might have the capabilities to replicate them like it could its creatures. But several of his aerial drones had been knocked out of the sky over the past week and although he had retrieved their remains, they had yet to be replicated. So, he was biting the bullet and hoping he wasn't about to make things worse. Especially since the combat ants weren't that powerful. They were the equivalent of a laser pistol on-nn a small turret on a slightly larger Ant platform, the extra size allowing for a larger battery and some additional armor. Each combat Ant was given an escort of three tractor beam ants while the tractor beams weren't too particularly powerful combat wise, they were able to pull Flyers out of the air or slow opponents down. Primarily they were mostly there to drag back whatever the combat Ant killed. Whatever this Opponent was it clearly needed biomass and didn't care where it came from.
Despite the rising number of losses and the deforestation of the valley, their numbers continue to rise. So, logic dic-ictates it must be gaining biomass from somewhere, but he couldn't figure out where.
Austin had begun tooo ferment local plant life he didn't have a proper bio or chemistry lab set up yet. But ethanol wasn't that hard to make especially when you didn't have to worry about it being drinkable. With a little trial and error, it was easy enough for him to find recipes to concoct the most flammable substance he could. Unfortunately, he couldn't produce it on mass just-just yet, but he could make enough for basic firebombs. His drones could fly higher than the enemy air units and drop the firebombs into their territory. Their obsession with harvesting every ounce of biomass in their way led to a rather useful tactical weakness. Not only was there nothing for them to hide in there was nothing else left there to burn but its creatures. Meaning he didn’t need to worry about any fires getting out of control. However, it was when Austin tried to implement this new strategy he realized just how great of a threat his opponent was. As outside of the valley, it had already stripped a four mile zone of all its biomass, and it was spreading. Soon they would reach the mouth of the valley leading to an encirclement pouring through the valley’s entryway as well as through the tunnel in the valley wall. Whatever this was just went from being an annoyance to being an actual threat to his continued functionality and it was-as piss-pissing him off. This meant the kid gloves were coming off production was increased to maximum output. Austin stripped down all the old nuclear reactors for spare parts for extra power production and he'd worry about cleaning up a radiation leak at a later time. Every scrap of metal was being processed at max speed as soon as the power was up everything and he meant everything he had was being melted down and repurposed. He needed more drones, more turrets he needed more everything and he had a special surprise he was just dying to get ready for these damnable mass produced organic knockoffs.
7Because if they thought they could hurt his humans they had another thing coming.
Meanwhile, back at the village, Sophia turned to face Austin’s core, her eyes flickering ever brighter as she felt dread well up inside her.
“Something's wrong!” Was all she said to the bafflement of the young guard and blacksmith she had just been talking to as they went over the last of the newfound supplies. She instantly turned on her heel and darted off with speed only slightly above that of what a girl her size should have been capable of. Mana was one heck of a powerful drug when it wanted to be and, in that state, it only took her a few minutes to find Catherine.
“Catherine something's wrong! I don't know what but that spirit or whatever it is I told you I've been feeling it's not happy. I think I think it's getting ready for a fight, and I think we need to do the same.” Sophia had never seen someone's face turn that pale that quickly before. Catherine nodded and began to gather together the few elders of the town. War was coming and she could only hope they were ready.
As night began to fall Austin made a somewhat useful discovery. One of his aerial drones exploring the caverns beneath him found a chunk of his ship's outer hull. Not a lot but on its rusting hide was an anti fighter cannon. While not the most powerful thing he had once had welded to his h-ull. But it was definitely useful especially if anything more powerful showed up. He just had to figure out how to get it out.
The gun was a try barrel Rotary cannon designed for mid to short range combat though it was powerful enough to fire at longer ranges. The problem with fighting in space, wa-was though at longer ranges it was easier to dodge. The thing was able to tear into frigates and accurate enough to snipe out strike craft and even fighters at closer ranges. Like all his weapons that was rarely the deadliest part of them, the plethora of specialized ammunitions he employed made each one a truly nightmarish threat. Depending on the enemy he was facing. He’d have to check the autoloader and ammo feed to find out what it was currently loaded with.
Austin began to tunn-nel towards it he needed a better root down to the caverns below anyway. His attempts to drain the ant's old tunnels had been all but abandoned as he had turned his attention to the war at hand. Since this section of the ship was just an exterior piece of hull, he doubted anything of more value than the gun would be on board. However, if there was one chunk here then there's probably more hidden nearby. He deployed as many drones as he could spare to search for more. Which turned out to only be an additional three drones, to try and explore the tunnels for more. Because at the moment he could use any advantage he could get his hands on. Meanwhile, in the foundries, the large fabrication Bay he had been working on was set to work producing a special new project.