Chapter 108 - Enchanting

Notes : Chapter 406 of The Fallen World has been written and added to the queue !

Alright, the last chapter of MFR for a bit. I have 109 partially written, but for now my attention is on book 11 of The Fallen World, especially since book 10 comes out in a month (and one day). We'll see how it works out.

See you sunday for chapter 403 of The Fallen World ! I know some of you have been waiting for a while for it !

Chapter 108

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Settlement of Astralis

"You've gone from knowing nothing about magic to casting a fireball in the heat of combat inside of a week. I'm split between being absolutely floored and slapping you." Said Kalia as they sat before her desk. "Why did you do that and not just use your plasma gun?"

Sapphiria shrugged.

"Several reasons. First, I don't want to show my hand too much. The Nineteenth doesn't know what my weapons are capable of yet, and it didn't seem wise to give them a taste yet. Secondly, having another mage with the Hand might make them a lot more cautious than a big gun might. The plasma gun isn't going to do a lot more than shoot plasma, but a mage..."

The mage-magistrate nodded.

"Can do whatever they wish, within the limit of their knowledge. That was resourceful." She leaned forward, her nose suddenly almost touching with Sapphiria. "All the same, don't fucking do that again."

"There wasn't really a danger-"

"If you say one more time that your android being destroyed won't kill you, or that you're disposable, I am bonking you."

"...I was about to say that they were laser focused on the Hand."

"Don't underestimate the capacity of assassins to take out bodyguards. I'm sure they had something unexpected up their sleeve."

"That's probably fair."

Kalia sighed.

"Well, at least we know you have a good understanding of fundamental spellforms and how to shape them. That means we can move onto the next stage."

Sapphiria shifted, trying to avoid looking too excited.

"Which is?"

"Normally at this point there's a whole lesson about Convergences, manastorms and crystals. You know, 'be careful with what you wield', all that jazz. But you've been in a Convergence, and survived a manastorm. So we can assume that's safely in your head. Hence, we shall move onto enchantments. How to bind a spell to an object so that it endures and may be triggered at will."

"I think I saw the Hand use some of those."

"That wouldn't surprise me. The early Empire was big on talismans. Not that anyone has stopped using them, they're still very useful. But first things first." Kalia opened a drawer, and fetched a small wooden totem from it, before putting it on the table.

Sapphiria examined it. It was...a representation of a squat man, with a clearly Imperial shield and spear, from the Age of Expansion if Gregor's ramblings were any indication.

"What does it do?"

"You tell me. Grab it."

Kalia did...and felt the strange sensation, like that of a mana crystal.

"Oh."

"Yep. You can interface with talismans and their enchantments. Not all of them, not by a long shot. But many. Go ahead."

Sapphiria returned the ping. Normally handshake protocols weren't supposed to work like that, someone sent you a ping and you returned a different salutation, but for some reason mana crystals or...well talismans apparently, didn't work that way.

Data began streaming in. The same as a mana crystal...

And then a runic sequence.

Well, that was handy.

"This..." She processed the runes, both personally and had Cia feed them to her prototype compiler in the background. "Is some kind of wind sphere?"

"Good! Yes. Though, more accurately, it's a wind shield spell. Made to deflect low velocity projectiles. Actually that's a bit misleading. It works rather well on arrows and crossbow bolts, but not that great on sling bullets."

"Ah. And useless on firearms."

"Mostly. I don't use it because I never go anywhere alone, at least not without Gregor chewing me out, and I assume you would too."

"My chewing out would probably be a lot more literal than Gregor's..."

Sapphiria realized she'd spoken aloud only when Kalia blushed.

"W-Well, perhaps."

The AI coughed, blushing herself.

"I assume you're not a fan of it, since projectiles intended for you could hit allies instead?"

"Yes. Also it doesn't really matter for most magical attacks, but it can seriously affect your own return fire, and the shield isn't that big around you, it could impede your allies in other ways."

"Fair enough." Winds strong enough to deflect projectiles, even if only minimally, would be a serious hindrance to move through. And kick up like, all of the dust. Or snow.

"So. Now that you've interfaced with it, let's go over the basic runes of enchantments, and how to make a spell last." She pulled out a book, and set it down on the table. "First and foremost, enchantment has its own basic runes..."

*****

Sapphiria sat down in front of the pod at her crash site. Obviously, after her little stunt, staying in Astralis with Kalia...

Well, she was going to have to sleep on the metaphorical couch for a bit. Kalia hadn't even given her the rune book, though the rationale was that it contained way more than the basic runes and she would go ahead too quickly and end up doing something stupid, which was...fair.

"Welcome back ma'am." Said the simulacrum. "That tactical decision was..."

"Reckless?"

"Inventive. Your mother would be proud."

"But not my aunt?"

"She has a tendency for conservative military action."

"I'm not sure I'd call any of her decisions conservative, but I get your point." Her aunt was someone who could and would take enormous risks if it was the only way to win, but she would otherwise play it safe if she could afford to. And with the Federation's overwhelming industrial advantage at the end of the war, slow and steady had been the name of the game. Time had been on their side after all.

If she was backed against a wall though...Sapphiria shuddered at the thought. Stars help those facing her aunt then. Nothing else could.

"Status?" Finally said the AI.

"The textile plant has finished fabrication and is undergoing assembly. Cables are being produced in accordance with your directive for communication upgrades. Third artillery gun is underway. And a new batch of nickelbots is ready for shipment."

Sapphiria nodded, then her eyes fell on one of the parts stockpiled by the fabricator. The field fabricator in the snowpiercer was mostly used for bot maintenance, but it couldn't do everything. So the more complex parts were being built here, then shipped up once enough were together for a shipment, with their worn down equivalents brought down for renovation or scrapping.

That part however, wasn't for her utility or junkbots.

"What of the riotbots?"

"Given the missions parameters, melee infantry is perhaps unadvisable in terms of resource efficiency."

Sapphiria grimaced. If she took over the Hand's defensive position, the enemy getting into melee was already the end of the battle. Hence why she wasn't keen on it, as the Nineteenth had gotten troops into melee range of herself and the Hand.

And they would sprinkle officers and mages throughout. Putting a few riotbots in front hoping to distract them wouldn't work like it had against, say, monsters.

"Do they have to be melee?"

Cia blinked.

"It is their mission statement. And their manipulation appendages are not made to use firearms."

That much was true. Sapphiria had actually wondered if that was deliberate sabotage, to prevent worlds from just gunning down rioters.

But she needed something flashy and capable of taking a hit, to draw fire. The problem was that one bot with a mace wouldn't be very useful on top of a fortress wall, and if they didn't get the wall, they'd already lost anyway.

She had two simultaneous epiphany.

"Cia, they can't hold a standard gun, but could we make a custom grip and trigger for them to lug around something?"

"Certainly. What do you have in mind?"

Sapphiria smiled as she pulled up schematics for her old gatling shotgun turrets, a hologram materializing next to her. They hadn't seen action since the Hand had attacked the mining hub. They simply had no use against monsters, as buckshot would do nothing against their hides when even high caliber rounds barely left a dent.

"If they can't aim or grip properly, we'll give them something that requires neither. And we can get them a ride to boot."

Another hologram appeared. The Rolling Fortress, Ramina's desperate solution to the Bane before the AI came along. A heavily armored autocarriage, which she had offered to upgrade with autocannons.

After all, the only thing better than gatling totting infantry was an APC to bring them into the fight.

If she could bring the snowpiercer and the rolling fortress to the pass with those things onboard, if the Hand fell or withdrew, they might have a chance.

At least, they'd give a good account of themselves before falling.

"Let's get started on that then."

She also had some ideas on how to incorporate enchantments into their gear, but...

She should wait until she had a better idea of what she was doing. And let Kalia calm down a bit before doing something creative again.

*****

"What did she show you?"

Kalia looked up from the ledger as Ramina stormed into her office, and closed the door.

Even here and now, there was still paperwork to be done. Not everything could be reported orally, and well kept inventories was one of the ways they'd survived so far.

Sapphiria had helped a lot with that, but even then, her nutrigel vats didn't make food from thin air, and wood stockpiles remained important, though as a source of food, not fuel, which was...bizarre, the say the least.

"What?"

"Sapphiria. Before you were all 'oh no we have to make contingencies and be ready', but now? You don't even think about it. And I know you. You're not the kind to fall in love and throw caution to the fire. If you fully trust her, it means she earned it. So what did she show you?"

Kalia set the ledger down. She hesitated, for the briefest of moments, but there was no real point in lying.

"Yes, she did show me things that made me trust her completely."

"And for some reason, you thought it right not to tell the rest of us? Malry, I could understand, but me? Gregor?"

According to Sapphiria, Gregor had already gotten some serious revelations already, but Kalia kept her peace.

"You, especially, yes."

"Then why?"

"Some of those revelations are technological in nature. And we all know what your reaction to those is."

Ramina seemed to deflate.

"Oh."

"Yeah. It's not that I don't trust your discretion or loyalty, Ramina. It's that I can't trust you to control yourself. You are one of the greatest artificers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. But you and I both know what comes attached."

"And you're afraid I'll get...too excited and damage our relationship with her?"

"I'm afraid that one of us will have to put you down."

They stared at each other.

That had, after all, always been part of the deal. Kalia would overlook her past transgressions. But if she started up again...

Ramina swallowed, and nodded.

"I...I understand." She sighed. "Is that why she's been avoiding me lately?"

Ah shit. No, she was learning how to cast magic and laser focused on that, but she couldn't tell the artificer this. Actually...could she? Ramina already knew Sapphiria hadn't used spells in a long time. Magic wasn't like riding a bike, you didn't just cast a spell out of nowhere after years of drought, the risk was too great.

Normally you had to do a refresher. And honestly Sapphiria was progressing so freaking fast she was actually outpacing what a refresher would normally accomplish. Her capacity to learn, retain and extrapolate on information she was given was just insane. And one of the reasons why Kalia fully believed she could be a golem.

"No. She's starting to work her way up to full spellcasting."

Ramina perked up.

"What?"

"As she'd told you. She hadn't cast spells for a long time." As in 'never'. "Now she's starting to get back on her feet in that respect. And you know how much concentration and focus that requires."

"I'm sure you dragging her off to your private quarters-" Ramina finished her sentence in a squeak as Kalia's stare landed on her. "Nevermind!"

"Good." The mage-magistrate relaxed a fraction. "So, was that your only concern?"

"Well, kind of. Still working on refining the crystals. We got a lot. And bringing everything back online is a mess."

"Everything?"

"Well, most things. I'm still rationing to whatever is strictly necessary. We don't know when we'll be able to get more crystals."

"Good. Better to keep that mindset. Have you reactivated the logging equipment yet?"

"I fixed the freaking saw. It's still a piece of shit. Honestly I was thinking of asking Sapphiria for help on that end."

"Let's." If nothing else the AI probably had dedicated logging tools she could lend them. "The bunker's relief squad is leaving in a few hours, we can hand them a message to deliver."

"That'd be great! We should also probably tell her to calm down with the ammunition."

"What do you mean?"

"With her sentry guns around town, and her golems, we barely even fire our carbines. Hell, we're starting to use hers more, now that she ships us a few from time to time." Kalia nodded. That was something the AI had done right before the snowpiercer had left, to arm the expedition.

Originally, she had told them it was a training and practicality reason, but after having a deeper understand of who she was and the Federation she served...

For some reason, they didn't seem keen to have humans fight their own battles. That or Sapphiria had some kind of complex about it. She certainly seemed highly reluctant, and though she produced tactical and strategic reasons for it, always insisted that her golems should take the dangerous jobs whenever possible.

"She's kept up the flow of bullets?" Said the mage-magistrate.

"And then some." Ramina shrugged. "She was shipping a lot of them initially because we were almost out, but it never abated. I didn't say anything because there didn't seem to be shortages elsewhere and hey, free ammo. But now there's simply more than we can use."

"I'll notify her. She'll probably redirect the resources for more artillery shells."

If she even needed to, as Kalia remembered the fully fledged factory underneath the mountain. The AI's assertion that it wasn't much had made her laugh in disbelief.

Now though, she remembered that Sapphiria had said she'd come here in a ship the size of the entire valley.

And she had tried to imagine the industry required to build something of that size.

She'd failed.

"Thought so too." Ramina smiled. "More firepower to shove up the Nineteenth's ass. Well, pelvis. They don't have asses anymore. Or well, the skeletons don't, but-"

Kalia held up her hand, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"I get your point Ramina. No need to expound on it. Let's go draft that message."

Hopefully the AI wouldn't have done something insane in the interval.

Oh hell. Who was she kidding. Of course she'd have something to surprise them with. This was 'I-made-a-howitzer-battery-in-a-cave' Sapphiria she was thinking about. She was sure she could be given a box of scraps and she'd make power armor somehow.

And she was dating that AI from another world with seemingly limitless technical skills and little caution.

If someone had told her that a year ago, she would have had them put in the drunk tank of the gendarmerie post. Because clearly, whatever they were on, it had completely shattered their sense of reality or logic.

What a world...