Sexy Steampunk Babes

“He rejected me!?” Tala definitely didn’t screech.

That would be beneath her.

There was definitely a certain amount of… frustration present in her voice as she stared down her teammate.

Cherie shifted uneasily under her friend’s gaze. As did the rest of the team as their leader paced back and forth.

“Does he truly hate me so? That he’d sabotage himself just to escape my presence? Does he know the favors I burned to make that opening?”

Cherie did. Sure, said arrangement had been with a vassal house of Blackstone, which was what allowed Tala to unilaterally dictate terms to their once practice partners, but in many ways that made the situation worse.

Tala had effectively soured relations with a chunk of her own support-base for no real benefit.

And it’s not like we could just say ‘oops’ do you want to start practicing with us again? Cherie thought.

That kind of backpedalling would only damage Tala’s reputation more. Speaking as a member of a vassal house herself, she knew that a predictable, if cold liege, was preferable in the eyes of most to a warm but mercurial one.

Pragmatism could be planned around. Erraticism could not.

Behind her, Sandra coughed. “Well, uh, respectfully Tala, I don’t think that’d be anything new. In regards to the self-sabotage thing.”

While there were certainly spells that allowed one to make their eyes glow, Cherie was pretty sure Tala wasn’t invoking them as she turned to glare at her other teammate.

Nope, that’s just natural talent, the girl thought uncomfortably.

“Explain.” The girl’s words were not a request.

Sandra looked momentarily like she regretted speaking, before bravely moving forward. “Well, I mean, I don’t think it’s just you he does it to. He got sent to the Academy because he was acting out right? Fucking around. Messing shit up. Dragging his own name through the mud. Yet the second he arrives he gets his entire team wrapped around his pinkie and starts acing every other team in his year?”

The girl shook her head. “Either your boy got swapped for a body double on the trip over – which I think we can rule out after his most recent stunts - or he was deliberately being a brat to get away from his family.”

Tala paused. “And you think he might be trying to use the same tactic on me?”

The other girl shrugged. “It worked for him once. I can’t think of any other reason for him to suddenly reverse course the second you poke your nose into his business.”

Tala sighed, dropping into a chair. “What kind of madman am I set to marry? One who’d gladly wound himself if only to ruin his foe’s clothes with his lifeblood?”

Once more, Sandra just shrugged uncomfortably.

Sighing, Tala ran a hand through her hair. “Unfortunately, madness or not, this means my plan to take credit for his ‘reform’ is stillborn.” She froze. “You don’t think he saw through my scheme do you?”

A few weeks ago Cherie would say there was no chance of that. The guy might have been someone Tala seemed weirdly set on marrying, but to Cherie he just seemed like another spoiled guy.

Sure, the fact that he got bounced out of the position of heir by a bastard would definitely have sucked – but that was life. And he’d been set to marry into the most powerful ducal house in Lindholm as a consolation prize.

Rather than settle for that though he’d chosen to drag his family’s name through the mud so badly they’d been forced to ship him off to the academy in the hopes that’d straighten him out.

Now though? She shook her head. Between killing the squid attacking the ship he was traveling on, creating an entirely new type of spell, and blitzing every other team in his year group?

Now she didn’t know whether it was more likely that he’d dismissed Tala’s offer because he was a petulant spiteful child… or because he’d seen it as a means through which Tala could further ‘rein’ him in.

And glancing around the room, she could see she wasn’t the only one who lacked an answer to that question.

-----------

“Alright, that’s enough of that.” William said finally as he turned back to the two members of their party who were lagging behind. “It’s done. We’re here. Quit moping already.”

With the bustling streets of the capital as a backdrop, a pair of silver and black eyes glared back at him mulishly as the team’s two elves frowned.

“The best,” Olzenya finally muttered, finally breaking her streak of uncharacteristic silence. “That was your promise.”

“Yet we’re out here,” Marline continued mulishly. “’Sightseeing’. Instead of working to maintain the lead we’ve developed against the other teams in our year.”

“Or!” Olzenya shouted. “Trying to shorten the gap between us and the second years. Who I’d remind you we almost beat two weeks ago.”

And got pasted by one week ago when they took off the kids gloves, William resisted the urge to say aloud.

Still, it said a lot about both women’s work ethic that they were grumpy over the fact that he’d forced the team to take a break.

“You didn’t have to come,” Bonnlyn pointed out from where she’d been skipping ahead of the group. “You could have stayed at the academy while we took the weekend off.”

Olzenya’s glare switched targets. “And done what? He already bargained our time on the floats away to another team.”

“And our Skeleton time,” Marline once more continued. “Something we could have done as individuals while the rest of you wasted time.”

William just shrugged. It had been a package deal.

“What did you get for that anyway?” The dark elf asked.

Reaching to his side, William casually unhooked the rather large coin purse that had been jingling there. “Cash.”

A lot of it.

And it said a lot about the patrons of the academy that the team he’d traded their slots to hadn’t even hesitated to agree to his price.

Rich kids, he thought as both elves scoffed at the obscene amount of wealth jiggling around in the sack – even while Verity looked a little faint as she stared at it.

“That’s it?” Olzenya asked predictably. “You might have sabotaged our future careers – and your own plans for freedom – in return for a little coin?”

It was not a little coin. Even for the likes of them.

Because for all that William had just judged his peers for being rich kids, he was ultimately little different. He received a weekly stipend from his house just as they did. And while it was hardly a small amount, it didn’t come close to the amount he’d managed to get from selling this week’s practice slots.

Of course, the reason for that was that said practice slots were in a very real way priceless. Under normal circumstances they couldn’t be bought with coin, only favours – and rarely even then.

He had a feeling that once news that he’d sold a weekend’s worth of practice slots got around the academy – if it did – he’d soon be receiving a lot of offers for similar exchanges.

And let’s not forget the rumours that the Ashfields are broke, he thought. Or I did something to piss them off enough to deny me my stipend. Or I’m spending said stipend on something shameful. Or just plain gambling it away.

Though whether said rumours would exist alongside the tale of the Kraken Slayer – which had seen a resurgence after his team’s victory streak – or be eclipsed, it remained to be seen.

“Even Airships need downtime,” he said. “Time to repair and retrofit. We’re no different. So relax. Unwind. The academy will still be there on Molday.”

He was actually a little offended at how relieved Bonnlyn looked at his words. Was she worried he’d out her as the reason for their sudden break?

Marline just scowled unhappily while Olzenya seemed to at least be considering his words.

Though she still had at least one gripe. “Still… gold? Couldn’t you have traded the slots for something with a little more class?”

It said a lot about how distracted Bonnlyn was in that the former merchant didn’t rise to what could have been seen as an unconscious dig at her family’s vocation.

William shrugged. “Maybe. Anything else would have been less useful though.”

“Why?”

He smiled. “Well, because we’re going shopping today. For a number of things. Some of which will definitely improve our performance in our next bout. Perhaps even more than extra training would.”

Because, while it was still early enough into their training that each session saw a marked increase, that would taper off with time as their competency grew.

That fact alone was likely a big reason for their early success against their peers. As it stood, their team had spent nearly twice as much time together against real opponents as anyone else.

Combined with the fact that at least three of them could be called ‘prodigies’ it was only natural that they were top of the academy’s first year scoreboards.

Still, he was glad to see some interest in the faces of the rest of the team at his words – even from Marline.

“How?” Verity asked quietly.

“Why, by improving our equipment.” He grinned back at her.

Looks of realization – and some excitement – blossomed across the group as they realized what he was talking about.

-----------------------

There was nothing that could be said to be strictly ‘wrong’ with the academy’s practice equipment. It was neither exceptional nor unexceptional. The worst that could be said of it was that it was both a little worn and a little outdated.

Unfortunately, given the origins of a good majority of the academy’s cadets, that meant it was woefully outclassed by the equipment worn by most of the houses outside of House Royal.

Hell, even within Team Seven the divide between what was worn by their noble members and their ‘common’ members was obvious.

With that said, given the surfeit of coin that was now available to them, even the nobles could see areas where their family’s provided equipment could be improved.

Theoretically.

“It’s lighter,” William pointed out. “Speed is life.”

“Life is life,” Marline shot back. “And said life tends to run short when it’s perforated by bolts. If I show up with something this thin, the Instructors will have me stripped out of it and into a sog-suit before you can blink.”

There was no missing the dark elf’s disgust at the idea of being forced to wear the infamous sog-suit.

Little more than cardboard cut into a breastplate-like shape, the sog-suit was designed to replicate armour that academy testing proved would not actually hold up to bolt-bow fire.

And, though the cardboard was more effective at keeping out venom-splatters than pure fabric, the sog-suit would still fail under repeated or just plain unlucky impacts.

Still, infamy aside, it was a pretty effective way of replicating lighter armor variants cheaply and quickly. As an example, if a cadet’s actual suit had thinner armour in the back, the cardboard used for their sog-suit would have less layers in the back. Likewise, the heft of the original suit would be replicated through the use of strategically placed metal-weights.

All in all it was a fairly effective system for recreating armour that wasn’t entirely proofed against bolt-bows - with the name being a result of the tendency of said armour to be reduced to little more than a soggy mess after being used in a bout.

Simple. Cheap. Fast.

…Naturally, it was both mocked and hated by the academy at large, given that wearing a sog-suit was seen as less of an acknowledgement of the value of lighter armour and more a sign that the wearer’s ‘real’ armour was so cheap that it couldn’t even perform properly.

“Even if they did, it’d be like… triple layered all over,” William tried to argue. “It’s almost twice as light as a regular suit, but you’d have to be damn unlucky for a bolt to penetrate it in one hit.”

“Then why don’t you wear it,” she grunted.

Willaim opened his mouth to argue that he didn’t wear a breastplate when he paused. “Huh…”

Marline’s face morphed into an expression of smugness for just a second before twisting back into muted horror. “Oh gods, you’re actually considering.”

He was. He hadn’t been lying. This was a damn good piece of lightweight armour made with a new kind of aluminium alloy composite. And weight was a big factor where a maneuver-suit was concerned.

But so is not being filled with tiny holes, William admitted.

Now normally he was of the opinion that said fate could be avoided by just not being shot in the first place, hence why he’d opted for an ultra-light suit. The gambeson was still quite capable of blocking a shot or two, so a metal plate over the top had seemed like overkill.

But this breastplate really is light, he thought checking its heft in his hands. Perhaps I should…

“No!” Olzenya butted in, moving over from where she’d been helping Verity pick out her own suit. “I can accept many things from this team in the name of winning, but our team leader wearing a sog-suit is a step too far.”

As if to punctuate her words, she grabbed the breastplate from his hands, and not ungently, placed it back onto the shelf he’d grabbed it from.

A shelf that was lined with similar, if ultimately different bits of armour. Indeed, nothing he’d seen since walking in was exactly the same. Which he supposed was to be expected given when everything was made by hand.

Shields. Swords. Hammers. Bolt-bows. Thruster-belts.

The place had a bit of everything, which spoke either to the skill of the creator – or the number of apprentices they employed.

Or perhaps a bit of both given the price-tags I’m not seeing, William thought.

This was the kind of place that assumed that if you could shop there money was not a factor for you.

Which he was thankful for because Verity didn’t know that, and he had a feeling she’d be too terrified to actually give her real opinion on anything – or even go near it – if she knew just how expensive the equipment she was mulling over actually was.

Sighing, he turned back to his two elven companions. “I’d argue that victory earns one more prestige than the clothes they win it in, but I’m willing to concede on this.”

For now.

He’d definitely be revisiting the topic if he started to feel their team’s growth was stagnating.

Ultimately though they were here to upgrade both Verity and Bonnlyn’s gear over anyone else’s. Sure, Marline had picked out a new bolt-bow and Olzenya had a new helmet slung under her arm, but the benefits they’d receive from said equipment was marginal at best.

William glanced over to see the pair discussing the finer points of a large suit of plate. Though the dwarf didn’t seem entirely happy about it.

Both were going to be defenders going forward, with William transitioning into an attacker role along with Marline. It was a move that would make the most use of his relative experience with flight while simultaneously allowing Bonnlyn to benefit from a little more… protection.

Because as much as one might think that her smaller size would both make her lighter and a smaller target… well if it did, they saw precious little evidence of it during their practice bouts.

Thus, armour. And a volley-bow.

“It looks heavy,” the dwarf was quietly stating as he walked over to the pair.

“I thought so too when I first saw mine, but it’s actually a lot less than you’d think,” Verity said as she glanced up at the suit that clearly hadn’t been made with anyone of her size in mind. “Olzenya said it’s because it’s spread across your entire body. A bit like hefting a hay bale over your shoulder rather than carrying it in your arms. I-”

Whatever else the orc might have been about to say was cut short as someone finally appeared from the back rooms.

“Ah, customers,” the sharply dressed elven man said as he stepped out. “My apologies for not greeting you sooner, it’s just that- my word, is that an orc?”

A sudden sinking feeling appeared in William’s gut. However, he was a little surprised to be beaten to the punch in regards to responding.

“She is,” Olzenya of all people said, her most imperious of expressions on full display as she gazed up at the moustachioed shop clerk. “Is that a problem?”

“I would say it is.” The man shot back, looking genuinely offended. “This establishment has a strict policy against having orcs on the premises. Ignoring the possibility of theft, the presence of their ilk threatens to drive down the prestige of our establishment and in turn drive away paying customers.”

“She is a paying customer,” Bonnyln shot back – even as Verity cringed.

The man pressed an embroidered handkerchief to his face as he turned to regard the dwarf. “Whatever gifts you may choose to bestow upon her, you may do so once she has vacated the premises.”

“It’s fine,” Verity whispered. “I’ll just step out and you can-”

“Not going to happen.” Olzenya spat. “We’re leaving. I’ve lost any desire to spend my coin here. I’d sooner not risk the chance that the wares are as poor as the customer service.”

Beside her, Marline nodded as both elves all but bustled the apologetic looking Verity out the door. Bonnlyn remained just long enough to add a parting shot.

“Well, I hope you don’t have any dealings with the Mecant Trade Group, because you won’t be tomorrow.” The dwarf smirked before she stepped out the door.

The man’s crimson flush paled quickly at those words, which suggested that the store just might, before he recovered as he turned to William. “Would it be too much to hope that the young master is of a sounder mind than those women? Because you can rest assured that the academy shall be receiving a report about this most poor behaviour.”

William just shrugged. “Feel free.”

Then he left.

Because what else was there to say?

You picked your battles. Won where you could. Retreated where you couldn’t.

Hell, that was one of the reasons why he was so focused on the slavery issue over something like the ending of the feudal system, the institution of democracy or even the current existence of the elven masterclass.

He had advantages, yes, but he wasn’t a god.

Just a guy with a few chemical formulas in his head.

So I’ll solve one problem at a time, he thought.

And if solving those problems helped make headway into solving another?

Well, the more the better.

Either way, rather than waste words with a toad like that, he’d rather overturn the laws that allowed his bigotry to flourish.

With that in mind, I better get back to my team, he thought.

----------------------

“Sorry,” Verity was saying as he caught up to the group.

“Don’t worry about it,” Olzenya was actually patting the much bigger orc on the back. “It’s hardly your fault. No, the problem lies with that plebeian if he thinks his little shack is too good for our coin.”

“That’s a bit of a turn around from two months ago,” William laughed as he pulled up beside the two.

The high elf actually flushed a bit at his words, before coughing. “Well, I’ll admit that when I was placed on this team, I might have been a little quick to judge.” She straightened up after a second. “However, in the time I’ve known her, Verity has proven that she more than deserves to be here.”

Then she flushed once more as she muttered. “Besides, she is a teammate.”

William nodded along, even as he noted that there was nothing in there about the shop owner or Olzenya being wrong for judging Verity for being an orc.

Merely an acknowledgement that Verity herself was exceptional.

Bigotry didn’t just disappear overnight after all, even if Olzenya was making an effort. He didn’t doubt that she – and perhaps Marline – probably thought that Verity was an exception to the rule rather than just… orcs being capable of as much as humans, dwarves or elves when provided the same opportunities.

Which wasn’t too surprising, given that Olzenya likely hadn’t even met an orc that wasn’t in chains prior to attending the academy.

From what his small amount of research on his teammate’s house had uncovered, she was actually from Southshore – which was ironically on Lindholm’s Northwest coast.

And the main supplier of slaves to the Western Continent, William thought.

Oh, the Blackstones in the North-East certainly caught them, but they were then sold on through Southshore overseas or down south. Hence why Southshore was a firm part of the Traditionalist movement.

Truth be told, there weren’t actually all that many slaves in the North. It was considered too much of a risk to the houses there.

“Well, it’s good to know you have the team’s back.” He smiled.

Beyond the elf, he actually saw Verity smile as Olzenya huffed offendedly. “Of course! Whenever would I have given you the idea that I’m anything but loyal to my compatriots?”

“The fact that you spent the first month trying to switch teams might.” Marline smirked.

“I knew it!” Bonnlyn laughed, even as the high elf whirled on her compatriot, a betrayed expression on her face.

“I told you that in confidence!” She shouted, before trailing off sheepishly. “And I’m not trying to do that anymore. Even though I’ve received offers since.”

Ironically, William didn’t doubt that the reason Olzenya had received offers from other teams came down to the same reason why she’d elected to stay.

The fact that they were on a winning streak.

It made any member of his team a hot prospect for a noble’s retinue.

“Well, I can’t speak for the entire team, but I’m glad you’ve decided to stick with us,” William said as they continued walking down the road.

And he meant it.

Was Olzenya perfect? No.

But who was?

Certainly not him.

…Maybe Verity?

---------------------------

“Interested in sailing?”

William damn near jumped out of his skin.

Whirling around, he found himself glaring at an unrepentant Marline, her white hair, teeth and reflective silver eyes standing out against her dark skin in the sun’s dying rays.

“Nearly gave me a heart attack.” He grunted. “I thought you’d gone with the others?”

The docks were relatively quiet at this time. He’d just been in the process of looking over the posting board for boats for rent, deciphering the lettering as best he could in the feeble light of a nearby pixy-lamp.

“I was going to, but I thought I’d make sure you made it safely to your room at the tavern before I caught back up with them.” Marline shrugged, utterly unrepentant over scaring him half to death. “So imagine my surprise to find you heading to the docks instead.”

He shrugged. He hadn’t been lying. As much as he loved his team… he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been wanting a little alone time. Not for anything uncouth – though that too – but just because one didn’t truly value the ability to spend a moment alone until it wasn’t an option.

To that end, he’d rented a room for the night in a nearby tavern earlier in the day despite Bonnlyn’s standing offer to join her at her family’s home.

One of several that the Marcets held across the country, given that they also doubled as branch offices for the trade group.’

When it came to dwarves, there was no difference between personal lives and business lives.

Ironically though, only Olzenya and Marline had taken her up on the offer.

Verity had chosen to travel out to her family’s small property just beyond the walls of the capital. It was a bit of a trip even with a river boat, but she'd make it by traveling through the evening and into some of the night.

Sure, that would mean she’d only get to spend a chunk of the next day with them before catching a ride back upstream, but clearly the orc considered that worth it.

It was a sentiment William didn’t find hard to understand – even if he might not have made the same effort with his ‘current’ family.

Either way, Bonnlyn had ironically ended up saddled with the two people she got on with the least.

It almost made William sad he wasn’t there to witness it.

“How heroic,” he muttered in response to Marline’s words. “If I’d known I had company I might have been a bit hastier to make my way back. As it was, I didn’t see much harm in checking out the signage. My family’s estate is on the coast and these last two months I’ve found myself missing the occasional opportunity to take a boat out.”

That was a lie. He most assuredly did not love boats. To him they were just the subpar caveman-like ancestor to planes.

Still, as close as they’d become – he’d only known his team for two months. And what he was planning would rock the entire kingdom.

Twice over.

So no, he was going to keep his real naval plans as close to his chest as humanly possible for as long as humanly possible.

In all likelihood, his team wouldn’t actually know what he was planning until he had them out on the boat with him.

“And here I thought you might be out here in an area of ill-repute looking for some ‘fun’ given you stopped at the apothecary a few minutes ago,” Marline said teasingly.

He gave her a deadpan look. “An alchemist.”

Where he’d made a lot of purchases that would be delivered to the academy on Molday – eighty percent of which were useless.

Given what was to come, someone would eventually backtrack his actions and purchases prior. So he intended to make the ingredients he’d purchased as difficult to figure out as possible.

Hence why he’d be getting an order of salamander bones, pig tallow and bat shit along with a half dozen other things.

“Meh, same thing,” the girl shrugged.

She wasn’t entirely wrong. The line between an apothecary and alchemist usually just came down to specialization. Both made use of homeopathic magic. Not the bullshit kind, but actual homeopathic magic, both to cure ills and make magical items.

And the only reason the practice wasn’t more popular than it was, was because the ingredients for anything of ‘worth’ tended to be prohibitively expensive.

Kraken scales from a creature that was seven years old and born on the seventh day of the seventh month under a full moon being a little harder to source than bog-weed, he thought.

And that the kind of specificity one needed to make even one part of a truly ‘magical’ weapon.

“Did you choose to pop out for something? Or was it just to tell me to hurry up and get back to my room?” He’d definitely be unimpressed if it was the latter.

He didn’t need a protector given that he had magic on-tap and a sword at his waist. Even as a man in a ‘rougher’ part of town like this, any casual ne’er-do-well would see that he was more trouble than he was worth.

Even if men were rarer than on Earth, they weren’t exactly uncommon. To that end, there were easier targets roaming around.

The elf actually looked a little uncomfortable at that. “Well actually, I thought it might be a good opportunity to ask you something.”

He paused, waiting for what it was.

A question that was not forthcoming.

“Well?” he asked finally.

For just a moment longer, the elf continued to hesitate before spitting it out in one long sentence.

“Did your family develop the flashbang spell or did you?”

He cocked his head. “What makes you ask that?”

“The fact that you’ve received at least three letters from the head of your family and ignored all of them.”

Ignored was a strong word. He’d placed them politely to the side. To better drive up his bargaining power.

Because to be honest, it wasn’t like he’d expected the spell to draw the clamour it was. Oh, he’d expected something, new spells were usually of some interest, but not this much.

With that in mind, he wasn’t above somewhat sadistically enjoying his mother’s desperate attempts to contact him regarding the spell – given that she’d agreed to switch his team on the say-so of his fiancé without so much as asking him.

And refused to undo that deal upon his request.

And if I wait long enough, it might make her desperate enough to take back her request to have me switch teams at the end of the semester, he thought.

It was unlikely, but honestly he lost nothing by sitting on it. The longer he waited, the more desperate his mother would become as the Crown’s request for answers on the topic grew louder and the more socially acceptable it became for another family to ‘invent’ a markedly similar but ‘entirely different’ variant of the spell.

A family might profit off the invention of a new spell after all, but in Lindholm – given the threat from the Elven homeland – it was understood that said spell would be proliferated for the good of the country as a whole.

Even if that only meant ‘selling’ it to the family’s closest allies.

To the Elven mind, once it was out there it would inevitably spread – even if it took a generation or two.

What mattered was that the spell wasn’t hoarded by just one family.

“I did.” He said finally. “Invent the spell that is.”

The dark elf’s silver eyes widened, before she took a deep breath.

“Can you sell it to me? Or rather, to my family.”

William’s first thought was no.

His second was hell no.

His third was…

Actually, maybe I could use this, he thought as he glanced at the nearby boat rental board.

Trust was all well and good, but binding contracts were so much better.

“Let’s talk.” He smiled.

And though he might have imagined it, it almost looked like his teammate flinched.