Chapter ninety nine

            All my fatigue was forgotten as I followed Ace to a big hangar near the gate. We did the same song and dance that we did at the main gate before they let us in to see the destroyer.

             The destroyer turned out to be a moving fortress that looked like the bastard child of a tank and a crab. Its height was as big as a five story building, and it was three times as wide. It had many 'arms' that appeared to be different weapons. The whole thing rested on multiple tires in treads like that of a tank except scaled up a couple of times. Ace was beaming proudly as he showed it to me,

                "This was one of the original destroyers that repelled the church's first assault on  Berlin that had just been rebuilt at the time. It was named crusher after it crushed two covens under its tracks. It may look large and clumsy but it is surprisingly quick and nimble. The whole thing is armored with sentinel steel to block magic. It takes a crew of at least a hundred and fifty men to run it properly. It is a testament to our ancestors that no destroyer has ever been destroyed, some have taken heavy damage but they always manage to get home. I worked in the crusher here for two years as a private before being promoted and given my own squad. It was two of the greatest years of my life. My dream is to be the captain of one of these things."

              "That thing is enormous, how do you even power it?"

              He took out a blue crystal from his pocket and showed it to me, " mana crystals, we have three factories in the town that have enchanted machines that make them. The ancestors never taught us how to make them but with the three factories we get what we need. We use them as currency around the city because they can be used for many things from fueling cars to normal light bulbs."

               "How does that work?"

               "The mana crystals slowly dissolve when they come into contact with a special alloy and the mana is taken to the enchantments to activate them."

             "You have orichalcum to transmit the manna?"

               "Oh God no, we have other alloys we can use. Using orichalcum for such a mundane task would be much too wasteful."

               "*ehem* .. yes , wasteful. Why do you go through all this trouble? Why not use a pentagram rune?"

               "A what rune?"

               "Never mind, can we see the insides of the destroyer?"

               "Sure, I'm still drinking buddies with my former commanding officer. I bet he would let us in."

                 Ansel's commanding officer was quite friendly and he showed us around the destroyer. It was amazing to see such an amazing feat of engineering. Everywhere I looked there were gears , each enchanted with the spin rune and providing torque to drive the giant beast. The engine room was where mana was extracted from mana crystals that were hundreds of times larger than the one Ansel showed me. He showed us the different weapon stations that the crusher had including flame throwers and massive steam powered cannons. We ended our tour in the bridge of the destroyer were there was a comfortable looking captain's chair surrounded by less comfortable looking seats for the rest of the commanding crew.

            I was curious about how they communicated throughout this large ship and when I asked our guide answered, " we have an alloy that can convert vibrations into mana disturbances that can then be transmitted and turned back into physical vibrations on the other end."

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           The dwarves really were masters of metal. They had alloys that can do almost anything, but for some reason they don't know how to make orichalcum. I wonder why that is?

           Anyway the tour ended there and Ansel flagged us a taxi to take us to Walter's house. When I asked him if it was OK to go unannounced and whether there would be room for me and Jules , he just laughed and said 'you'll see'.

            When the car finally stopped in a very posh part of the city it was in front of a large mansion that was almost a palace. I knew that Walter was doing well , but this was ridiculous.

            We got off the taxi (just me , Jules and Ansel the rest of the unit had not followed us) and were greeted politely by the guards at the gate. They let us in because they were familiar with Ansel . A maid led us to a parlor and we sat there waiting for Walter but the person that came in first was the red haired girl I hired for my shop in the burrows, Cara I think. She came into the room said hello to Ansel turned to me and froze. A few seconds later she was hugging me in a very intimate and inappropriate way. Ansel was looking at me with a raised eyebrow. From his perspective it must have looked like the mature looking me was intimately familiar with the underage looking Cara. I hurriedly pushed her back to make it clear that he was mistaken. Thankfully at that moment Cara decided to speak.

               "Mr John is that really you? Is Lidia with you? She's alright isn't she?"

                "Calm down Cara, everything is fine. Lidia is in Montreal and she is doing well. I'll bring her to see you soon if you want. Is everything alright with you and the other kids?"

                 "Everything's fine. All of us are employed at one place or another, I'm a secretary in one of the big car companies. We are all happy here."

                  "I'm glad to hear it. Do you know where Walter is?"

                  Walter came in through the door," Right here, how have you been John?" 

                    "Doing well Walter , but not as well as you it seems"

                   "Bah, I don't care about this stuff. I didn't even want gold when I gave the orichalcum to the government. I just wanted to help out, now they made me out to be some sort of hero, forced me to move into this house and won't leave me alone. The only person who won't act as if I was a freaking ancestor is Ansel here. I'm glad I can have somebody to talk to now. So where were you.........."

                   Me and Walter talked about what happened to us since I left the burrows. Apparently he took the children and left as soon as members of the church started showing up. He needed a place to escape the church and at the same time had a large slab of orichalcum that could help his country. He decided to kill two birds with one stone and went to Berlin. I told him an abridged version of what happened to me.

                    By the time we were done I was nodding off involuntarily so Walter took me to my room and the moment I fell on my bed I fell asleep. I vaguely remember Jules crawling in next to me and whispering her plans for tomorrow night into my ears.

                   I don't remember what they were but at least I was going to be fully rested enough to enjoy them.