Chapter 16 - Nutrigel

Chapter 16

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Settlement of Astralis

Kalia sniffed the nutrigel, before tasting it.

They were set up in a secluded corner of the settlement's central area, hemmed in between sturdy stone buildings. It was the best in terms of relative privacy and room to maneuver for installation that the countess had been able to come up with on such short notice.

At least setting everything up had been easy. Just propped up the vat on some metal stilts she'd brought, hooked it up to the battery, and tossed some branches in to demonstrate its use, before extracting some with a bowl, and handing it over to the mage-magistrate.

"Is that what you've been eating all this time?" Asked the countess, incredulously, as she almost recoiled from the bowl.

"It's efficient! " Exclaimed the AI, before subsiding at her gaze. "Alright, it sucks. But it's effective and it fills you up without the need to cook or think about food." That would go well with her hermit artificer persona. "And it doesn't require you to till soil, wait for harvest or anything like that. Shove in wood, shovel some snow, and you get fully ready, imperishable meals. It's not gourmet but do you want your people to survive the winter or not?"

That last bit came out a lot more testily than she had intended, but nothing she could do about that once it was spoken.

Kalia still recoiled as if struck however.

"Of course I do!" She hissed back, before sighing. "Sorry. You're right. You're gifting us this marvel and I'm complaining about taste."

"For what it's worth, I understand. Your expedition's meal was, ah, a shock to me."

Kalia smiled.

"We'd noticed. And wondered. Now we know why."

"Besides. You need not eat only that, your regular food could be added in for flavor." There had been attempts to flavor the jelly itself but it had always come out...uncanny. Strangely enough, humans only trusted the weird jelly if it had no discernible taste, as their brains just instinctively rejected it otherwise, no matter how convincing the taste. Letting them add something else to it on their own was fine however. Squishies were adorable but they were really weird sometimes. "Though I don't know if you can do anything about the texture."

"We can probably use it to thicken stews and soups, if nothing else. How many vats can you spare?"

Sapphiria shrugged.

"However many you need." Kalia stared at her, and the AI chuckled. "I can make more if needed."

"Right, thank you." The mage-magistrate closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath. "And what would you ask for such gifts? Don't bullshit me again with wanting wood either. We both know that wouldn't even come close."

Oh boy, here we go, thought the AI.

This was going to be...delicate. Asking for nothing in return would be suspicious as all hell. Most squishies believed in ulterior motives. Her best bet was to be direct but not ask for too much.

Fortunately...thanks to Malry and her little conversation, not to mention a little extrapolation, she may have a way to kill two birds with one stone.

"The ley line node." She said, and Kalia tilted her head.

"The...what?"

"The ley line node." Repeated the AI. "At some point, you're going to try and exploit it, right? It's part of why you went North. You were trying to secure yourself a supply of mana when cut off from the west."

That was a very big logic leap, collated from the data she had. But the somewhat shaky strategic simulation she'd started to pull through of the situation as she knew it gave it as the only solution. Cornering yourself in a valley made no sense otherwise, unless it was the access point to something you wanted or desperately needed. And Malry accosting her about it despite their, ah, less than optimal first one on one encounter said a lot about how vital it was, even if Kalia wasn't willing to speak it out loud.

The mage-magistrate looked like she'd been gut punched, and gazed at the AI in a very different light, before she regained the ability to speak, sounding vaguely strangled.

"Well, yes, but...you want the node? All of it?" Kalia's voice rose higher and higher as she spoke, clearly starting to panic.

"No, of course not." The mage-magistrate relaxed a bit. "But I do want a cut. I'll participate of course, help however I can to its harvesting, but I want a cut of all mana extracted from it. It's not something I have in abundant supply."

"I..." Kalia sighed. "Yeah, I'd guessed that. I mean no offense but you don't emit a lot of arcane energy, I thought it was just part of your armor's camouflage but nothing is that stealthy. So mana for support. I assume you'll twist my arms off for other help?"

That was a bit of a shock, that they'd figured it out this quickly, but she carried on. Though how they detected exotic radiation...Then again, animated skeletons and spears going through Federation power armor plating.

"No, of course not. I can't ingratiate myself to you if I do that." Said the AI with an impish, if a tiny bit forced, smile, and the mage-magistrate laughed.

"Some people are into that, but no, I suppose not."

"Good, then we have an understanding? I won't make you sign a contract. I trust you to uphold your end of the bargain."

The implication, of course, was that if she didn't, there would be problems. Many, many problems. Plus, it also extended a lot of trust and respect into her word, which to be fair was the only thing she had to give, it wasn't like a contract like that would be enforceable anyway. Who would she go to in case it was broken anyway?

Sapphiria held out her hand, and after a second's hesitation, Kalia took it.

They shook, and smiled at each other.

"This is where the soapy dramas would have the actors say 'here's to the start of a beautiful friendship' or some other crap." Said the mage-magistrate, and Sapphiria snorted.

"They would, wouldn't they? Well, I suppose we'll see, maybe someone will do a dramatic recreation of this someday."

"Yeah right. So, anything else?"

"Not yet. I'll have to return to my place. If you have any wood to spare I could use the materials." She smiled at Kalia's expression. "Yes, I do need it, and can actually use it. You wouldn't believe what I can make out of a simple log."

Kalia gazed at the vat, with the slowly liquefying branches within.

"I think I would, actually. I think I would...I'll see what I can scrounge up. And Sapphi?"

Sapphiria had an unexpected shiver run down her spine. Only family members and close friends called her that. She didn't correct it though.

"Yes?"

"Thank you...for everything." Said the mage-magistrate, refusing to meet her gaze.

"All in a day's work pipsqueak."

"Oh so I'm a pipsqueak now?"

"Something has to keep you damned youngsters in check, might as well be me." Sapphiria laughed. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'll wait for you here. If nothing else, I could use the breather."

"Sure. I'll go fetch Copson, see what we can spare. I'll be back."

Sapphiria watched the mage-magistrate leave, her gaze briefly flicking down, before getting back up. Damn it, it had been far too long. Maybe not having squishies onboard her ship had been a bad idea after all. Fellow AIs were nice and all, but she only got the occasion when encountering another squadron or getting home.

Ah well, sacrifices in the name of humanity and all that.

In the meantime, she had a disrupted production schedule to put back together, and some defensive solutions to formulate. And quickly.

*****

Of course, it wasn't that easy. She had some promises to keep, and visited Ramina, to review her little project.

The autocarriage...Yeah, it was a pathetic lashup by her standards, but made by a single squishie with no heavy machinery, a single toolkit they were able to escape with and salvaged materials? It was amazing. She was basically making an armored car from a utility vehicle chassis, with whatever she had on hand.

The 'homework' she had assigned the artificer also served a dual purpose. It taught her some stuff, but also had given the AI access to a wide range of cushioning materials to scan.

Including some...interesting ones.

"So this is wood?" Asked Sapphiria as she scanned the plate of...well, her sensors were insisting it was more akin to advanced petrochemicals.

"Yep! Treated and processed of course."

Sapphiria nodded, trying to find what to say. This was...it sure as hell didn't register as wood. It almost...

Rocket trees. Back when humanity had set out with its first colony ships, some genius from a bioengineering corp had the genius of marketing bioengineered trees that produced rocket fuel as an 'essential colony supply' to ensure any new world could be seeded with plants that would provide cheap access to the stars.

What it had ended up providing was a massive fire hazard and a highly invasive species of trees.

This...might be something similar. Trees engineered to provide some kind of advanced polymer for kinetic absorption. Stars knows humanity had made weirder things for far less.

More interestingly, Ramina was taking her not knowing the material in stride. A local variation perhaps?

"Well, if it performs like you told me, it should work splendidly. Let's try it."

Assembly was relatively quick, and Sapphiria nodded appreciatively as she looked at the end result.

"The resin is going to take a while to fully set, but..." Ramina tilted her head. "It looks good?"

"It is good." She'd need a full lab analysis to truly tell of course, plus some old fashioned experimentation, but manipulating the material and putting it in place had given her a fair amount of data from her suit sensors. The material indeed spread kinetic force almost like the foams used on early starflight armors, the ones that combined with high density armor platings and eventually molecular armor had pushed firearms towards obsolescence as viable battlefield weapons. "It should hold against a fair amount of punishment. Though I'd need a sample to be able to get a full read on it."

"Sure, I have some extra. Though I don't know if I'll have enough to do the whole vehicle..."

"You do seem to have a surprising amount of materials." Especially for refugees.

The artificer shrugged.

"We found a destroyed supply convoy on our way North. One that had probably been trying to empty the factories of military materiel to ship west. At that point we had carrying capacity to spare." Her face darkened. "The undead had...thinned out what needed to be carried."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Said Sapphiria, so softly she almost whispered it.

There was no need to precise what had been 'thinned out'.

"It's alright. We got out okay, comparatively." She patted the autocart. "And this will help keep us alive."

"Hopefully. Though..."

"Yes?"

Sapphiria cleared her throat. Might as well get out with it, despite Cia's own misgiving over that particular tidbit. For a simulacrum she could get remarkably snitty.

"I was thinking of using it in a different way."

"What do you mean?"

"I...have my own carriages, but they're fragile."

Ramina looked at her face, then at her armor, clearly incredulous.

"One has to prioritize." Said the AI, and the artificer nodded.

"Fair enough. So?"

"Your autocarriage clearly got this far, and you're intended to reinforce it. I can make weapons that could make it instrumental in a more...direct approach to the problem."

Ramina frowned.

"Kalia won't like it. We've been planning to punch through and get help..."

"That won't detract from that. In fact it'll help if that plan is enacted." The artificer wavered. "But don't worry, you don't need to do anything for now, besides leave some internal space and the top free."

"Well...that's okay, I guess. I gotta skimp on armor somewhere if I want to have the sides hold after all. And it's not like they have pegasi cavalry."

Sapphiria's ears pricked up at that. Pegasi? It may be just a metaphor or fancy way of calling primitive airborne troops, but if it wasn't...winged horses were all manner of impossible, except under exceptional circumstances, and they sure as hell couldn't carry anything like a rider. But then again, animated skeletons.

Maybe she should start taking those 'monsters' a bit more seriously.

"Thanks. Now, I have to go home. Again."

"Will you return soon?"

"Probably not for a bit. I have some things to take care of, and some areas to secure." Notably, the mining hub. And it would give her a good test run for her firearms.

"Alright. Take care, honored Sapphiria."

"Take care Ramina. And please stop calling me that."

The artificer just smiled, and they exchanged waves as she left the workshop, this time unmolested by an irate divination mage.

Time to go home. And shoot some damned guns.