Verlon Boreal returned home shortly after going through a couple of other stores for food supplies. He had promised dinner to Nicole, as he usually did upon returning, and he fully intended to make it one to remember. He didn’t cheap out this time like he tended to do. He bought the high-end beef and even got some spices, which saw another three silver coins vanish. Food was expensive.
It had been a little awkward walking around the small stores while fully kitted out with sword, pistol, and bow. Not because he got stares or anything, no, being equipped with weapons wasn’t anything odd these days. Most people traveled with some kind of protection, just in case a beast or something snuck past the walls. It wouldn't be the first time, and unfortunately not the last. It had been awkward because he kept backing into things and knocking stuff off shelves. He took up quite a bit more space and it would take some getting used to.
A brief moment of hesitation led him right into his apartment. For the moment, he decided not to get his sister yet. It was better, at least in his opinion, to go ahead and get the Heartbloom all cooked up and ready to go out of her sight. Not because she would refuse to eat it, she was a good girl, but there was no point in putting the admittedly cannibalistic image of him cutting up a heart.
He checked the meters, ignored the slight hissing of gas, and began to cook. Half an hour later, with most of the food done, he brought over the other two. Nicole noticed the weapons he had tossed onto the couch and walked over. “You got a Magna Bow?”
Verlon paused for a moment and gave her a side eye as she was hunched over it. It weirded him out sometimes how she just knew about relics and stuff. Most of the time he just chalked it up to her having seen them as a mechanus, but it was still a bit odd considering he, a Seeker, hadn’t known what the bow was before seeing it in the Gold Sky auction house.
“Yeah. Have you heard of it?” He asked.
Nicole pulled away and joined Robin at the table. “In passing. I hear it's a one-and-done type of bow. Aren’t you better off getting something else?”
“Thank you,” Robin said as he brought over a bunch of soup. The steaks were still cooking, but for now, Heartbloom soup was the appetizer. For his sister. Nicole got a bowl of chicken soup.
He returned to the stovetop and the sizzling steaks. Now that the Heartbloom was over with, he had a few other plants from Endenheim. Unfortunately, they needed the help of an apothecary to really draw out their benefits. “I found some records in a ruin a while back. The bow has a recall feature.” The lie smoothly sailed off his tongue.
“Interesting…"
“Yeah…” He leaned up against the counter. “How’s school, Robin?”
His sister froze mid-spoon full of soup. “I-it's uh, it's good. Straight A’s,”
A smile came to Verlon’s lips. His sister had always been smart, so he had no doubt she would score well. It almost made him hesitant to give her the glasses... He'd do some more research using Fritz and try them himself first. Just to be safe. “I’m so proud of you.”
Robin shakily smiled as her head dipped down. “T-thanks.”
“Well, Preshen has been the same as usual. Mr. Hensworth has been sick the past week, so Mrs. Hensworth had been running up and down the halls in worry… Oh, I also heard they cleaned out Troy. Only lost half a legion this time ‘round.” Nicole sighed as she leaned back in her chair.
He finished cooking and began bringing the food over to the table. “Oh? They finally got around to uh-” He glanced at his sister, “cleaning?”
“Yeah. The entire city is all cleaned up.”
“Any news from the Southern Front?” Verlon had always taken a keen interest in the Southern Front ever since he was a kid.
The Southern Front was the entire south side of the empire. Decades ago, a beast wave had breached the walls. To this day, the loyal legions, those that weren’t busy with the other issues throughout imperial lands, were still fighting back the beasts. These days, the fighting had slowed quite a bit into a stalemate of sorts with neither side committing to an offensive.
Normally such a thing wouldn’t happen with mere beasts since they lacked the collective intelligence to put up a serious fight in a real war. The kind of beasts that invaded oh so long ago played a major part in this. They were known as the Scourge, a type of chitinous hive-type creature that followed the central command of a queen. No matter how quickly the legions killed the Scourge, there was always more to replace them, which is why it became increasingly difficult to push them out as the warzone shrank.
Even with the help of a White Cross, a person of pure legend, they couldn’t overcome the Scourge. Granted, it was in part due to the type of cross helping out. According to the rumors, it was Bulwark, a Seeker heavily specialized in area denial and defense. Not the best for attacking an army, but damn good at keeping them back.
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Of course, other White Crosses helped on occasion, taking small slivers of land back, but it was a long and slow process since they all had other duties. It was hard to keep track of their movements, but from what he heard before he left, even Ghost was quite busy cleaning out some kind of high-tier mire.
Neither the Scoure nor the Legions of Dawn wanted to commit to an offensive. Doing so would weaken other sectors and potentially allow a further breach, hence the stalemate. It was bound to grow worse before it got better since both sides had begun to dig in. Literally in the case of the Scourge. Theoretically, humanity had the advantage since their tech would only get better, but the Scourge Queen was pumping out new-bred monstrosities with each month, further evolving and becoming more dangerous with each attack.
Nicole’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Umm… I think I heard something about the legion retaking Verstein?”
Verlon took a seat. “Nice! So, did you hear…”
They discussed the battle of Verstein for a bit, Verlon keen on every detail while Nicole struggled to remember. Soon enough, the conversation shifted to Endenheim and his journey to the Floating Mesa. He kept most of the gruesome details to a minimum, but he made sure to give a full rundown. It not only helped keep his sister and Nicole in the loop; it also allowed him to rethink some of his decisions and thought processes to come up with a better tactic next time around.
Nicole was ever so helpful in this regard, as she gave input every once in a while. For instance, she called him unbelievably stupid for jumping across a wide ravine instead of going around no matter how much he tried to defend himself. That small argument ended when Robin agreed with the woman, shutting down his defense of ‘being tied to the rock’. In truth, it was nice to decompress in laugh with family and friend after the stress of survival.
That night, after Nicole had gone back to her apartment and Robin had gone to sleep, Verlon sat alone in his office. The flickering light of the gas lamp provided just enough illumination to read by as he settled in with a warm cup of tea. It had been getting colder recently, fall was surely to come sometime soon.
Up above he could hear the tip taps of rain pelting the roof with their ferocity. Every bolt of lightning seemed to time itself perfectly with the flickering flame held in the lamp, causing darkness to fall with loud cracks of thunder.
First order of business, Verlon grabbed the Magna Bow and held it in his hands as he inspected it. It was silver in color, with three slightly pulsing rings acting as the arrow rest. They glowed blue, though oddly didn’t produce light. Gold lines traced up and down the limbs of the bow, giving it a bit more color. It even had a stabilizer on the bottom half, which he knew to be quite nice from his practice with imperial bows.
The arrow sat on a table on the other side of the room for testing purposes. ‘Fritz, how do I recall the arrow?’
The answer came immediately. ‘Simply point the bow, twist the MD Coils, and the arrow will return. Checks have already been made, Captain, the bow is in good condition and should last at least five hundred shots before another checkup.’
‘What are the MD Coils?’ He figured they were the pulsing rings, but it was better to ask considering the device's intelligence.
‘Mass Driving Coils. MD Coils for short. They supercharge the arrow as the string sends it, giving it several times more power than a typical bow.’
He lifted the bow towards the arrow and twisted one of the rings. It clicked as it spun, slightly reminding him of the ticking of a watch. After going one hundred and eighty degrees, the light on the bow turned red. ‘Um… nothing happened?’
‘All three, Captain.’
‘Right…’ He twisted the other three, each turning the same shade of red. He looked up just in time to see the arrow rip through space and fling itself through the MD Coils, automatically knocking it on the string. As the arrow passed through the rings, they all rotated, turning back to a blue shade matching the blue lines along the arrow, though they lost their glow.
Verlon tested it a few more times in pure amazement. To think, the Empyreon Kingdom had such knowledge - whether it be tech or magic didn’t matter in this case - and still fell. It only drove his curiosity for the ancients further.
He leaned back into his chair as he sipped at the tea. ‘Hey, Fritz? I’ve been wondering about this, but why didn’t the Empyreon Kingdom use firearms and instead used cold weapons?’
‘Didn’t, Captain? You make it seem like our kingdom is no longer around…’ That suspicion crept back into the mechanical voice.
‘Uh, sorry. I misspoke. It's just been a while since I’ve returned to Empyreon lands, you know?’
The AI didn’t immediately respond as it had in the past. ‘... I understand… to answer your question, we gave up on firearms because other kinds of weapons proved more effective against the kinds of beasts we were going up against. Only the biggest cannons had some effect, and even those were failing as the war progressed. In the modern age, technologically advanced cold weaponry proved to be far more effective, so firearms faded into obscurity. Most are gathering dust in museums or collections.’
‘Right… that makes sense.’ So it was for the same reason Rangers dropped guns after a while… The thought was chilling. If the ancients dropped guns entirely, then it meant even their weakest opponents were strong enough to resist their advanced weapons. Verlon fell back into his chair for a moment as he finished off his tea. It had gone cold by this point, and he was more so drinking it out of habit than anything.
The next several hours he spent pouring over his parents' journals. He still hadn’t even read half of them, and there was some genuinely useful stuff in them like that info on Heartblooms.
He also took the time to have Fritz check the rest of his relics. He didn’t expect anything and indeed didn’t learn too much new. There was some stuff on how they worked, but the truly advanced knowledge returned the Classified Error he had gotten in the past.
The storm hadn’t passed and indeed only seemed to intensify after the last few hours. The rain, almost pounding like hail, splattered the roof constantly. Just as he was about to head to sleep, a particularly loud boom of thunder resounded. As it cut off, he heard a woman’s piercing scream.