[MFR] Chapter 46 - Monsters

Note :

Wew, that was completed at the very last minute. Cut the end off a bit, but the chapter was already getting a tad long. Don't worry, you'll get Sapphiria thinking on what they discussed next chapter.

Chapter 46

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Logging Site

Sapphiria burst out of the undergrowth, a couple of nervous 'soldiers' in tow.

When she'd arrived at the tunnel entrance, she'd found the people manning the outpost there understandably nervous.

Unfortunately that included fretting over her safety, and their officer -in effect a militaman with an armband- had insisted she get an escort. They'd been remarkably insistent, and she hadn't had the heart to tell them how useless they'd be.

Plus, it meant two squishies she could personally keep an eye on, and she'd left her repaired trio of riotbots with the outpost to protect the others, not to mention avoid having to drag the unwieldy things through the forest. She'd been slightly surprised to find a couple of the junkbots she'd gifted to Kalia at the outpost, but it made sense. After all, she was the only one who could repair them or make more, and keeping the only way to get to her open was a pretty high priority.

The pathetic quality of the guards was just a reflection of how badly Astralis' warriors had been hit by the Bane's attack.

The AI strolled into the newly cleared area, looking around, noting the half dozen squishies with carbines and the four golems backing them up. At least security should be tight.

"Sapphiria!" Said Kalia, getting up from kneeling besides a sprawled form on the ground, Gregor standing vigilantly at her side, his gladius drawn. "Thank you for coming this quickly."

"I had some time to spare." That was a lie, she'd jumped onto it immediately, but the squishie didn't need to know that. She stepped forward, barely looking at Kalia to take a better look at the form on the ground. Her sensor returns were an absolute mess. It was almost like they were...not jammed, but trying top penetrate some kind of stealth composite. "What happened?"

"Well, we started widening the trail, as we'd discussed, and...it seems the thing you killed earlier wasn't the only one."

Sapphiria stepped up to the body, and realized that it was two.

One was a kind of strangely indistinct...thing the size of a lion. Her sensors couldn't focus on it and neither could her eyes. From the brief glimpses of clarity she got it was like a cross between a porcupine and a wolf.

Underneath it, covered in sensor baffling gore, was the odd glint of cheap metal.

"Is that...?"

"One of your golems, yeah. If it had been sentient, I'd have buried it with honors. According to the workers it threw itself between them and that abomination mid pounce, and just emptied its gun into its belly as it was being torn apart."

Sapphiria smiled slightly.

Atta, tin boy. You made your CO proud.

"Well, I did make them to protect." She looked around. Were these things the strange half contacts she'd regularly gotten while moving back and forth from the town? Her sensors picked up two more anomalies, one at the edge of the logging area, where they had been trying to widen the trail, and the other just...spread out over a solid meter. "What about the rest?"

Kalia nodded towards the lump at the edge of the treeline.

"Your golems got that one. Shot it straight in the head. The other one...Well, it was made of sterner stuff. It just kind of...spat at your golem, and then rushed it as it fell. Gregor disembowled it before it could finish its attack."

Sapphiria looked at the thing. Its entrails and blood were creating the anomaly, spread around on the ground. Clearly the sensor interference and visual camouflage effect was something in its blood. She looked up at Gregor.

"Nice kill."

"Thanks. But truth be told it was so laser focused on your machine it didn't even see me. And in its rush I just had to stick out my blade and hold tight."

Sapphiria flicked a glance at the dead creature. It would have taken a lot more than that to eviscerate an abomination the size of a lion, but she didn't challenge him out loud.

"What happened to my other golem?"

She swore that Gregor grimaced, despite his lack of flesh.

"I think it was some kind of digestive spit? It didn't eat that much into the metal, but I think it might have gotten into the nooks and cranies, and destroyed the mechanisms." He shrugged. "I'm no artificer of course. Ballistas are about where my expertise stops in mechanical device complexity. A golem is far beyond me." He gestured. "We loaded it in the cart."

Sapphiria nodded. She already had it on sensors, though it was slightly...fuzzy. It was loaded into the push cart on the trail, alongside what seemed to be a few logs.

"Thanks. I'll take it when I return." She turned towards Kalia, who was gazing worriedly at the bodies. "No casualties?"

"A few bruises and scrapes from the workers running away, but that's it. Your golems took all the heat." She smiled. "Thank you. Your gifts saved at least two of my people today, if not more."

Sapphiria smiled back, sincerely.

"That's why I'm here." Protecting and helping squishies was her entire reason of being, and she relaxed a bit. "Happy I could help."

"You did more than that." Kalia sighed. "Sadly, this means the situation has changed."

"That it has." Alexandra gazed at the bodies. "Do you know what these things are?"

"No, but Teman has been digging through the old expedition's documents. Hopefully there'll be something. Would you accompany me home? We need to talk."

"Sure." They were almost there anyway. "Are you alright?"

Kalia flicked a gaze at the guard around, before stepping closer to the AI.

Her heart would have fluttered, but the seriousness of the situation, and the concern on the squishie's face firmly squashed any such reaction.

"I expected something to happen, but not so close to town." She whispered, before hesitating. "I'm afraid Astralis itself may come under attack."

Sapphiria winced. That wasn't a pleasant thought, especially as the city was not in a defensible location. Which brought the question of why the old expedition had settled their outpost there.

"Then let's make sure anything that does gets shredded."

Kalia met her gaze, and relaxed slightly, no doubt remembering the implacable march of the Bane, annihilated by the AI's firepower.

"Yeah. Let's."

*****

They entered the map room to find the rest of the council there...as well as Tramistres, poring over a series of documents while Teman and Ramina tried to unobtrusively stay close enough to support her if she collapsed.

"Huntmarshal!" Barked out Kalia. "You should be recovering! What are you doing here?"

"I'm the most knowledgeable person you've got about monsters, and it has been my life's mission to keep them away from our people." Said the older woman, briefly glancing up at Kalia, looking more frail than ever. "Mage-magistrate." She added as an afterthought.

Sapphiria took a step back from Kalia, able to sense her anger even from the side, fearing an explosion, before Malry spoke up.

"Let it go Kalia." The alchemist, and closest thing they had to a doctor, sighed. "She should be okay so long as she doesn't push it...and honestly she's stubborn as hell."

"It's called persistence." Muttered the huntmarshal, though everyone pretended not to hear.

"...Fine." Kalia took her seat, gesturing for Sapphiria to follow suit, which she did without comment. Rule one: when squishies are emotionally upset with each other, you either deescalate, stay out of it, or break out the stunners. She didn't know what to say, and she didn't think she would be physically able to even draw a weapon on Kalia, however non lethal it may be, let alone pull the trigger, so that limited her options quite a bit. "So, did you find anything?"

"I got some ideas. From the descriptions the workers gave, I think it's a shadowstalker." She tapped a paper. "But they weren't supposed to have ranged capabilities."

"Things evolve." Said Sapphiria, neutrally, trying to look like she wasn't stating the obvious and trying to tease more information out of them without making a show of her ignorance.

"That they do." The huntmarshal smiled at her. "And that's without being twisted further."

There was a chorus of nods, which Sapphiria belatedly joined.

"That's true." Said Malry. "Who knows what they've absorbed up North. They're not the only monsters up there, and there's no telling what can happen."

"Especially if they get repeatedly hit by manastorms. Or tempests." Kalia was looking at Sapphiria when she spoke. "I mean no offense, I'm sure you'll know what to do, but I worry about your plan to head into a Convergence with just a vehicle to protect you if a storm kicks up."

"I...you may be underestimating how resilient a snowpiercer is." Or at least she surely hoped they did. These storms and tempests were clearly arcane in nature, and while the snowpiercer wouldn't give a single crap about even the most extreme of weather events, it had never been built to account for literal magic. "But if you are willing to part from her, I'd be more than happy to enroll Ramina into my efforts, and we can go over the plans of the vehicle to make certain it will be sufficient."

That would enable her to make sure the vehicle was safe before putting the squishies' lives on the line, and get her some more knowledge. Hopefully.

Ramina immediately perked up, almost knocking into Tramistres in the process. Kalia looked at Sapphiria, then at the artificer's puppy dog eyes, and sighed.

"She's all yours. It's not like she has much to do anymore. I'm sure she'll appreciate the distraction."

"That I will!" Ramina was practically vibrating in place, and Sapphiria almost thought she was going to climb over the table again, before the artificer clearly got a hold of herself again -to some extent-, and went around, starting to lean over the AI, before flicking a glance at the mage-magistrate and thinking better of it. "So, when do we go?"

Sapphiria blinked.

"Uh...What?"

"To your facilities! When do we go?"

Sapphiria opened her mouth, and closed it, while Malry groaned.

"Rami, she meant showing you stuff, not bringing you over to show you her lab. Or workshop. Or whatever the hell you have down there. No offense."

"None taken." Said the AI, smiling in thanks at the alchemist, before turning back towards the artificer. "I'm sorry, I meant bringing you things here to discuss them."

"Oh." Ramina seemed to deflate. "I thought...nevermind."

Sapphiria winced internally. Okay, maybe...

"I could have you help me with something though." She said, carefully. "The mining hub, the one I met Kalia in, it has a great deal many materials I'm sure we could find a use for, but I simply don't have the time to get everything sorted and moving. Preferably an automated solution, given the quantity of materials. Perhaps you could assist with that."

"I would love to."

Sapphiria smiled. Spirits successfully lifted.

"We still need to deal with the monsters." Said Kalia. "Tramistres, suggestions?"

"Well..." The huntmarshal wavered, and pretended not to see Teman immediately moving to support her. "Usually I'd recommend a cull, and some nice, sturdy walls. Optimally, you'd want a string of hunting lodges forming a kind of barrier."

"We can't spare the materials for fortifications." Immediately said the mage-magistrate. "And I don't think we have the forces for a cull."

"Perhaps not. But you've got me." Everyone turned towards Sapphiria, who shrugged. "I'm my own hunting party. I can do a cull. And set up some defenses to at least keep the town safe."

Tramistres licked her lips, clearly trying to chose her words carefully.

"...I do not dispute your combat potential, Sapphiria. But I would be remiss in my duties if I did not point out that even powerful adventurers go monster hunting in teams. You never know what will happen."

Sapphiria's ears pricked. Adventurers? Like in those old tabletop games her aunt and mom played?

"I have to agree with her." Said Kalia. "You saw it yourself. Your golem got utterly destroyed by an unexpected attack. We can't let that happen to you."

Girl, I'm a walking tank, almost said Sapphiria out loud, though she stopped herself. First because explaining the concept might be a problem. But also because she wasn't, not really. She'd picked Force Recon armor. They were immensely tough, but mobility and camouflage were the priorities. Even marine assault armor would be tougher, and that wasn't even talking about siege armors or those ridiculous, quasi-mech Bacteria suits the Pathfinders used.

"Fine. I can take Paul with me. We've worked together before." And she was almost certain they'd trusted him to be able to knock her out and drag her home if she was being stupid.

Sapphiria and Gregor looked at each other, the skeleton shrugging minutely.

"...That's acceptable. So long as you try not to get into a gigantic, all out fight. Again."

"That was an accident!" Sapphiria held under Kalia's gaze. "Truly. I can be aggressive, but I'm not stupid."

The mage-magistrate sighed.

"I suppose that's true. My apologies."

"No problem. Now, let's see what we can do for protecting the town. I have a few things that might be of use..."