Chapter 55 - Concrete Castle

Notes :

Apologies for the lack of chapter yesterday. There's days where I simply do not have the time to write even if I wanted to, and I don't always have the ability to write an extra chapter another day to cover for it. Yet I didn't want to break the streak.

It may be time for me to institute some kind of patreon schedule. I've been avoiding it because my writing has been extremely heavily streak/burst based, but it's also...not a very practical way to write honestly. Slow and steady wins the race and all that. I might put up a poll soon about that. One thing is clear however : I need clear days in the week, with everything happening there's going to be times I literally will not be able to write chapters.

So perhaps a new way of posting. Say, four days a week. Monday, wednesday, thursday, saturday. If I get too many chapters in advance we can switch back to one a day. I'd hate to have a backlog for patreon, but it might be better with how my feedback loop functions for work (one of the reasons I get the motivation to write more is having you guys read my stuff and comment on it).

Idk. We'll see what I can come up with for proposals.

Chapter 55

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Tunnel Entrance

Sapphiria exited the tunnel, and came to a halt.

Right. Okay, she needed to keep in mind that the snowpiercer was huge. The materials needed to build the workshop to assemble it were, uh...consequential.

She basically emerged in a makeshift fort of precast metaconcrete slabs.

One of the militamen waiting by the side of the tunnel saluted.

"Hello lady Sapphiria! I hope you don't mind, but with everything happening, we stacked a few of the bricks you brought. It doesn't matter right? So long as we don't cement them one stacking spot is as good as another."

Sapphiria almost gave an acerbic reply, as no, that was not the case, especially not for bots optimized to deal with standardized storage, but she saw his eyes and stopped before the first word even left her mouth.

The man was terrified. More importantly, he was powerless.

She looked around, and saw the same on the other members of the militia.

They hadn't built this because it made any kind of tactical sense. They built this as an attempt at control. To make themselves feel better. Because if one of those monsters came...

The most they could do was keep the abominations busy for a few seconds while their bodies were torn to pieces.

"It's fine." She said. "In fact, it's great. If we're going to finish our project, we will need to defend it." It was a lie, what were the monsters going to do, chew on the tools? But still. It would give them purpose. "We can establish fortifications to defend the tunnel entrance and the workshop, then deploy sentry guns."

"Of course milady. We will get on it right away!"

She held out her hand, stalling him, chuckling.

"Not so fast soldier. One thing at a time. I need you alert while we break ground."

"Oh! My apologies." He blushed, bowing. "We shall be at our very best!"

"Excellent." She tapped him on the shoulder, and he beamed. She had the sudden, unbidden urge to toss the poor guy a cookie. Clearly he didn't have a vocation in the arts of warfare.

But it's not like Kalia had a choice.

Sapphiria walked off, ignoring the slight yelp as bots followed her.

Calling this place a 'fort' was, er, generous. But it did have walls and stairs, of little height and held together by gravity, but still enough to block vision for her android, and an opening, which she stepped through.

Ramina was standing outside, inspecting the area cleared of trees with a graying man in an outfit that had once been refined and sturdy, but had clearly seen better days.

"Hello." Said Sapphiria, and they both started.

"Oh! You're here." Ramina smiled. "Sorry, got a bit carried away, and started making plans." She gestured at the man. "Calvones Worldwalker."

He bowed.

"Enchanted, milady."

"It's just Sapphiria. I hold no titles or nobility. Nor want any." She looked him up and down. The way he dressed and held himself...it was different from the others. "You're from the Magistracy, are you?"

He smiled.

"You are perceptive. I hail from the Free Cities, where I was trained as a surveyor."

She squinted at him. His face, his voice...they were familiar.

She received a ping as her query in her archives returned results.

"And a soldier. I'm almost certain I saw you holding a spear during the battle with the Bane."

He coughed.

"That also. I've had my fair share of adventures in my youth."

"What he's trying to say is that he was once a mercenary in the Free Cities." Completed Ramina.

"Well, yes. But I eventually found that the adrenaline no longer interested me, and the money was in an honest trade. So here I am." He shrugged. "Can't say I'm unhappy about my career choices. Kept me alive during the hike all the way here, and now I get to help keep everyone alive. Can't ask for more, really."

"Truly? Surveying is that big of a priority?"

He chuckled.

"I was a building surveyor. Picked up a few things over the years. We don't have any architects, so I'm the best we got."

"Ah. So you're to thank for the lodgings at Astralis."

"Among other things, yes." He sighed. "They're poor accommodations, but a roof is a roof." He stared longingly at the stacks of concrete slabs. "I wished I could get more of these, but I understand why the expedition is a greater priority."

"Don't worry. You'll get them." Sapphiria gestured at the makeshift walls. "They're coming as fast as I can make them. As soon as we have enough, you can take the excess."

"Truly? Thank you! That's most generous."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure I can bill Kalia." Sapphiria tilted her head as she looked at Ramina. "You look a bit...disturbed there."

"What? Oh, nothing, sorry." Said the artificer.

Sapphiria wasn't exactly the walking lie detector and empath her mom was -whose greatest ability had always be her ability to get people on her side, not her computing power or scientific prowess-, but she had some level of insight.

The artificer was lying.

But why? It was just concrete. Mmmhhh.

"Alright then." She made a note, while gazing at the cleared area. A bit cramped, but they could enlarge it. "So, what did you two come up with?"

Calvones cleared his throat, pulling out a pair of spectacles and a small notebook, flipping it open as he squinted at the words.

She had the schematics of an ophthalmologist medibot and standard glasses in the back of her mind before she even realized she'd started the search.

She dismissed them with a mental wave. There were more important things for now.

"First and foremost, we will need to remove the stumps. Normally we'd need specialized tools and a few days, but I'm told you have strength to spare, so we can probably speed the process up. Then we need to dig out the space for the foundations, which could take several weeks, depending on how many corners we want to cut." He grimaced. "Gonna be one hell of a project, especially without mana."

"No. It won't be. We'll be done with the foundations by sundown."

They both stared at her in utter shock.

"What? My lady, be realistic, I-"

The surveyor stopped talking as Sapphiria raised a hand, and snapped her fingers.

She did have her mom's -and aunt's- sense of theatrics after all.

Her bots spilled out of the 'fort', and lined up behind her.

"Watch." She simply said, as she gestured.

Her bots rolled forward, mining and construction alike.

It was like watching piranhas descending on a defenseless steak. Or her mom logging into a dating site.

She walked between the squishies, gazing as the pulse drills made short work of the dirt, and she turned back towards them as the first few stumps were removed by the construction bots.

"Sundown." She said, and walked back towards the fort. "Ramina, would you come with me? I believe we need to discuss the schematics."

"Oh, uh, right!" The artificer scrambled after her. "Couldn't we do it here?"

"We have walls, and I like watching from up high." And you know, keep the damned squishies on the right side of the fortifications supposed to be defending them.

"I can understand that. Not easy for people of our build to tower over our work."

Ramina smiled, before wincing as Sapphiria just sputtered.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were sensitive about-" The artificer stopped as Sapphiria shoved a finger under her chin.

"Not another word. Not. One. Singular. Word. Understood?"

The artificer nodded, and Sapphiria sighed, closing her eyes.

Damn it, she shouldn't have blown up like that. But damn it, this avatar was so freaking tiny!

"Let's just get on the wall."

The artificer nodded, and followed suit as the AI walked back into the fort.

Time to get to work.

*****

"So you power it with just...stacking your batteries in the back?" Asked Ramina, looking over the blueprint. It was currently being projected in the air in front of them, while the militia tried very hard not to look like they were sneaking glances at it.

Sapphiria blushed.

"It was the most expedient solution."

"If you say so. It also look like it's missing something, honestly. Like there was supposed to be a receptacle at the center..." The artificer squinted. "Wait, why are there big power cables running to that bed and the driver seat?"

"So I can plug my armor in and use it for additional power while I'm driving. Or while I'm not using it. It's not a bed, it's an armor sarcophagus."

"Could have fooled me. All the other beds look like it."

Sapphiria winced, but didn't argue. As she'd remarked upon when initially modifying the schematics, the accommodations were...sufficient to keep squishies alive and well, but not exactly great. There were some considerations however. The common lavatory had its own room and soundproofing, while the beds were enclosed in their own insulated protection, both in case of catastrophic breach forcing the crew to find refuge in them, and to avoid all sorts of problems that arose when a number of squishies were trying to sleep in the same room.

"They do. But you can remove the panels if you'd like, and be out on just the cot."

"No, that's fine. I, for one, appreciate the niceties of not having to sleep with your comrades stumbling over you to go drink a glass of water. Had plenty of that when we were on the run."

"Well they'll still stumble over you, you'll just have a box over you."

"Exactly what I'm saying! They'll fall on the box, not me." She frowned. "By the way, where are the seats? We're not supposed to just stay on the cots all day, right?"

"These are the seats. They reconfigure." Squishies could sleep for a while on simple recliner seats, but it wasn't comfortable and more importantly it tended to make the situation untenable very quickly if the same people were constantly locked in the same vehicle and forced to sleep like that together. "You just have to pull a lever."

She gestured, and the schematics for the seats/beds popped up in front of the main vehicle blueprint, Ramina's eyebrows rising as she saw the mechanism put into action.

"That's, uh...not to criticize Sapphiria, but that seems extremely overengineered."

Well, it was. But a complex seat/bed assembly wasn't exactly a big deal compared to, oh, a thermonuclear reactor. To her it seemed very complicated for not much, because she could understand it. She couldn't grasp, for example, that the entire vehicle was pressurized, could operate without an atmosphere or at temperatures where oxygen froze solid, and had an entirely self contained life support system with water and air recycling, as well as a nutrigel vat.

Which reminded her...

"I needed a hobby. Speaking of! I need to add a synthesizer to it, for the trip."

"A what now?"

Sapphiria turned around, and gestured at the cargo bot parked by the tunnel entrance, and the spice synthesizer clamped onto its back.

She'd quickly realized that while it wasn't heavy, it was rather awkward to run around carrying it, so she'd offloaded it to one of the bots. She had a surplus of cargo ones, now that the minecart network was online.

Maybe she could recycle them. She would have refabricated them into mining bots, but she was already starting to approach the capacity limit of her new smelter, which she'd just fucking built. Or at least it felt like it. It was incredible the amount of scaling up she could do when she didn't have to sink her resources into military hardware.

"This." The bot beeped as it began rolling forward.

"Oh. I'd wondered why it was just staying there." Ramina tilted her head. "Is that the machine on its back?"

"Yep. Let me tell you what it does." Sapphiria almost jumped off the stairs, before deciding to simply walk down them. For one thing she didn't want to put too much strain on the somewhat precarious edifice, and also she didn't want to lose her balance, courtesy of her surprisingly bulky shoulder-mounted machineguns.

The fact that Ramina hadn't even commented on them and took them in stride told her a bit more about what she expected about power armor.

"I would assume it synthetizes stuff." She flicked a glance at it, her face white, as if something had just downed on her. "I, uh...what kind of stuff?"

"Spices!"

Ramina froze, clearly utterly dumbfounded.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Spices! You complained that nutrigel was bland, right? This makes a range of spices you can mix with it."

"Oh, uh...sure! That would be great! Do you have a sample."

Sapphiria's expression turned outright mischievous.

"Of course! Let me fetch you a pack. I'm sure there's a bowl of nutrigel somewhere here..."