Chapter 50 - Hunting Trip

Note :

Patreon upated their UI again for creators. It's, once again, even worse now. Yay for enshittification.

In other news, I actually had a lot of fun writing this chapter. It was neat, and I liked the ending. I hope you'll enjoy it as well !

Chapter 50

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Wilderness

"Do you know where we are?" Asked Sapphiria, as she checked her own mapping software. According to it, they'd been meandering in the general direction of the northern end of the valley, which, while it made sense, was making her a tad tense.

"Yeah. North. Not out of the valley, not yet I don't think."

"Reassuring."

He snorted.

"It's an arbitrary line in the sand at that point. The valley just opens up onto the highlands. You know that."

She nodded. She hadn't, but she'd guessed, given how the valley 'walls' were getting more and more distant, and gave no sign of closing up again.

Which was disappointing. A second pass would have been easy to fortify. This...was another matter entirely.

But she'd have to make do. A fortification around Astralis was doable, as she'd discussed a double and eventually triple layer of sensors, laser tripwires with sentry guns would stop any animal she could think of. But that still left logging groups and foraging parties vulnerable.

One thing was certain, just plopping down turrets wouldn't cut it here. Too much ground to cover, too many trees. Even if she burned the whole forest down, it would require constant maintenance, as the undergrowth would just pop back up.

She'd had an idea before...there! In her TO-DO list. Maybe that gift from her aunt wasn't so useless after all.

When she'd thought about taking care of the wandering Bane, she'd thought of the relay tower Cia had recommended. She could put a turret on top. Resupplying it wouldn't be that hard, the tower was designed for maintenance bots to climb them, and there was even a specialized design using magwheels for rapid ascent, just using one of the outermost structural beams like a vertical rail.

The machineguns she'd used for her own turrets had range to spare. They could deal some level of damage to a target at up to eight kilometers, but actually scoring a hit at anything beyond one and a half to two kilometers would be hell. It wasn't even a question of aim, chemical kinetic rounds just had too many variables, especially for a weapon not purpose built for this kind of range.

So, a pylon every, say, five hundred meters, for overlapping fields of fire and being able to keep the barrier tight even if two in a row went down.

That'd be expensive, but with her new fabricators she could make the pylons just fine. They were, effectively, just a small tower of steel. She didn't need them too high either. Just enough so that she could fire from a steep angle at most target, minimizing cover. There'd still be foliage in the way, but she could punch through that with the rounds, so long as she had a sensor net on the ground relaying targeting data. And as a bonus, she wouldn't have to worry about cables, since the pylons would serve as relays. She might even build a few at full size, give her several towers to communicate throughout the valley...

And to bring the net in contact with hers in the tunnels, she could build a few laser transmitters. Probably on the snowpiercer's workshop's roof, once she had it built. Direct line of sight to the towers.

The Bane would see the towers, and most likely investigate, but at this point she'd take that over the squishies getting eaten alive. Plus with the turrets engaging the monsters, they might leave it at that.

Might.

She realized she'd zoned out and started following Paul on autopilot when he froze.

She did likewise, a split second before running into him.

He held his hand up, and slowly knelt to the ground, while she checked her scanners. Nothing. She may be lacking a lot of the programs and physical addons that would deal with this stuff, but she'd coded some alerts and took about as deep of a dive as she could inside the already existing protocols. As deep as she could because she may know coding but she wasn't at the level of her mom or aunt. Plus she wasn't a sensor tech.

The reason why she'd been able to 'see' the sensor ghosts and have alerts on them instead of just a blank was that, thank the stars, force recon armor was expected to run into stealth. Since, well, it had its own to begin with. That meant it had hardwired protocols to lock into these things best it could and give the wearer some idea of what was trying to hide.

She'd double checked the creatures they'd killed -and taken some samples-, and it appeared to be some kind of multi-spectrum...not jamming, but a sort of haze. There was really no other way to explain it.

It was also an active effect. It had begun to fade, just far slower than what the Bane did. That both meant that she had gotten a good look at it in her lab module, and been utterly unable to get a look at the actual sample simultaneously.

"I think it realized it was being followed." Whispered Paul, touching the tracks upon the ground. "It stopped. Moved a few meters side to side." He pointed at a few disturbances in the undergrowth, and Sapphiria cursed herself once more for not bringing the extra modules. Another note to her pile of complaints about her pod loadout. "Trying to get a bead on us, maybe?"

"I don't think that's how smell works."

"These abominations have a lot more than just smell. Many divination spells are based on monsters' senses."

Sapphiria frowned, then paled. Sensors. He meant sensors. These things had some kind of sensor system. The one they were chasing had been trying to triangulate their position. That would explain why the other things had always kept pace with her, before one grew bold and came too close.

But why triangulate? Only the most basic of sensors required that. It was mostly useful for locating-

She froze.

It was mostly useful for locating other emitters.

And she'd been constantly using her active sensors to sweep her surroundings.

Oh shit. Oh fuck!

She grabbed Paul and threw him back, as her riot bots barreled through the undergrowth.

Nothing.

She looked around nervously, as she saw Paul tense up, drawing his weapons while trying to regain his balance. He hadn't even said anything.

After a few second, she whispered an explanation.

"I've been using..." Not sensors. What was the term he'd used? "Divination this whole time. It didn't sense us. It felt my own attempts to find it. Whatever we're chasing, I don't think it's the one being stalked anymore."

"Crap. Shit! I should have asked. My fault, I got sloppy. Too used to doing it on my own." He looked around. "Walk into the ambush, spring it?"

She thought about it.

She could shut off her active sensors, but that thing would probably be too smart to come investigate. It'd realize they were setting up a trap of their own.

They could slip back to Astralis, but what if it could follow their tracks?

Another solution was to look like they were giving up and returning, still sweeping, but there was no guarantees it would attack then.

And it's not like she could leave Paul behind, she couldn't track worth a damn.

What was better? Risking one squishie who knew the risks, had volunteered for them and was heading into this mess with his eyes wide open to save others? Or risk innocents later down the line?

Fuck my life.

"Yeah." Her reluctance must have shown in her voice, because he gazed at her, and she shrugged. "I don't like it. It's not a good solution."

"Best one we've got."

"I know." She sighed. "I know..."

"Alright. I'll take point again." He hesitated. "I'd appreciate one of the big guys with me. They look like they can take a hit. Might muddy the tracks though."

"Doesn't matter. Taking longer will actually help. And honestly I'd have hit you on the head if you'd insisted on being in front alone."

"Yeah, I'd have appreciated knocking the stupid out of me. Alright. If you find it on your divination, tell me you take a stop because you're thirsty."

Sapphiria nodded, before freezing. Wait, what if she was?

Oh.

She'd never drank in front of him. Nor did she take breaks, or do any squishie needs really.

Hopefully he assumed that was taken care of by the armor.

Hopefully.

"Sure thing."

He nodded.

"Alright. Let's stroll on into the maw of the beast then. Lalilalila." He said in an exaggerated falsetto, his hands in his pockets as he began to walk, one of the riotbots by his side.

She couldn't help it, she chuckled as she followed him.

"Alright, tone it down captain oblivious."

He sniffed.

"I'll have you know, I am quite the adept at acting oblivious. I'd be a general, clearly."

She suppressed an outright laugh.

"My apologies, 'general' obvious."

"Better." He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and went back into his hunting stance. "But yeah, acting like we don't know is the best hunting technique when you're the prey."

Sapphiria nodded. That went for space warfare too. Well, up to a certain point. There was 'acting oblivious' by not deploying into a battle formation, and 'being a moron' by not having the point defence and attitude thrusters ready to fire at a moment's notice.

"Agreed." She thought for a few seconds, then finally asked something that had occurred to her. "Was that what happened with Ramina?"

"No. I'd be dead if that was the case." He checked a few broken branches, mumbling to himself. Something along the lines of 'its standing taller. Wants us to follow. Sloppy'. He spoke aloud a few seconds later. "I really didn't see Gregor coming. I thought I was sneaky, but he's a master at this stuff."

Sapphiria remembered when she'd first encountered the skeleton. Unlike with the monsters, her scanners had found nothing, not even the slightest anomaly, before he turned off his cloaking.

Mastery indeed.

"I wonder why he's not handling this."

"Probably because you almost killed him when you first met."

"He doesn't bear any resentment."

"Not what I meant."

They exchanged a look.

Oh.

Oh.

He meant that she wouldn't harm a squishie. But she wouldn't hesitate to restrain Gregor if he tried to force her to return back if something went wrong.

That was...a fairly solid reasoning, all things considered. A flawed one, but understandable.

"I see."

"But, having worked with you, I doubt it would work."

She didn't know if she should answer that. But then again, silence would be an answer all of its own.

"....Probably not, no."

For what it was worth, it was true.

For most squishies she wouldn't blink. But if it were Kalia...

If it were Kalia, she wouldn't be able to attack her. Not to mention she would listen if asked to pull back. That didn't mean she'd obey, but it would have more weight.

He chuckled.

"Thought not." He grunted as he hopped over a fallen tree trunk. "Reminds me, I heard you were preparing an expedition North?"

"Perhaps. What's it to you?"

"I should be on it. I may have been hunting mages, but I've been in more Convergences than anyone else."

"I don't know if I can convince Kalia to do that." The mage-magistrate clearly trusted Paul to some level, but there were limits. And it probably didn't extend to 'put him in a vital expedition, enclosed in a tight space with the person he tried to kill for an unknown but probably extended period of time'. "But I can give it a shot. Though I can't make any promises." She hesitated, then sighed. "Ramina is on the expedition team."

"Ah." He nodded. "I understand. There are no hard feelings on my end, but she doesn't like me, nor want to be near me. It's to be expected, I was hired to kill her after all."

That, and Ramina was probably terrified of what he could tell. Sapphiria's opinion of her seemed important to the artificer. Which was...thoroughly unsurprising.

"That reminds me, the way you phrase it...I thought you'd be some kind of detective, a lawman. But you sound more like a bounty hunter."

"It's a little bit of both, really. The magehunter guild-"

Her systems pinged her, and her hand landed on his shoulder as she stopped him.

"Paul. We should take a break soon." She squeezed his shoulder. "I'm thirsty."