The Pilot of Wrath

Chapter 50 – All about location

Matt was wondering where Tobias was leading him. So far, they had not gone in the direction of the business districts and had moved more toward the outer edges of the city. He did notice that there had been a lot of change in layout of the buildings and even some more familiar structures were appearing.

They passed what looked like the beginnings of an amphitheater near a few bars and restaurants. Its domed roof already framed out along with benches and a stage. There was also another new phase being built that Tobias said was more geared to the artisans, tinkerers and jewelers having claimed that portion of the city.

Soon, they were on the ring road that ran the perimeter of the city and Matt saw something he recognized. Well, something that he knew about any way. When they passed one of the interior points of the star fort, Matt saw the foundations for his planned improvements to the fortifications. There was a slab of concrete or stone that filled in the whole area of the interior point. That was all that had been made but it was more progress than a few days previously.

Tobias saw him looking at the foundation and clued him in on the project. “We are currently extracting the surface ores from the mines and are working on smelting the iron to make up the interior lattice. Its going to be a while before we have it all ready, but it will be framed out sooner than later.”

“That’s good, now all we need to do is get the hardware to put inside.” Matt said, moving on from his little pet project.

With a smirk, Tobias clued him in on that too. “I already have some lovely designs picked out and have set up the hammer forges. We truly are in a holding pattern until we get raw material flowing.”

“What designs? Anything I would recognize?”

“Depends on how familiar you are with some of the earlier Rheinmetall products. I think the most modern thing we could potentially make is some of the QF guns without the computer assisted aiming.” Tobias was starting to wander into his own daydreams again. “Honestly I think we will be best served with small bore stuff, the old bofors 40 mil guns would be excellent.”

“Whatever you think is best and can reasonably produce. We don’t have much time before the city defense begins.” Matt said, bringing him back on track.

“Only a few weeks now. We are going to try and cycle as many of the classers through the trial and dungeon as possible before then, we need them to get their rewards and levels.” Tobias suddenly looked to a particular point on the road. “Ah, we are here.”

Matt followed his line of sight and saw what looked like a house. It was a relatively small ranch style with a wide porch wrapping around at least 2 sides. It didn’t look much like a restaurant but there was a small crowd gathered outside. He honestly thought it would be a great spot for a house and kind of an odd location for a shop of any kind. The marked-out areas around it didn’t give any clues either. Matt recognized the people standing outside as he got closer, and a few turned around.

Outside was all of the commando teams along with some of Rohm’s people and a few that Matt didn’t immediately recognize. He could smell grilling meat in the air and saw many people moving tables and benches around.

Rohm spotted the approaching trio and called out to them. “Its about time you showed up. We were about to start without you.”

Confused, Matt yelled back to the felid man. “Start what without me?”

Jess wandered out of the crowd and shot Tobias a look. “You haven’t told him?”

Tobias looked offended. “I can keep a secret you know.” Seeing jess fold her arms and give him the side eye, he amended his statement. “Well, when I need to, I can.”

Matt was beginning to get a feeling that something was up, and Franklin was the one to break the news as he came out to the front of the group. “Matt, we would like to present your new home.” He said with a wave of his arm at the house.

“This is what Tobias called a ‘housewarming’” Jess said, struggling a little with the unfamiliar term. She then beckoned for a group to come up, lead by a dwarf man. “This is Sothrun. He and his crew are the ones that made the house with Tobias’ input.”

“Lord Matt.” Sothrun said with a bow, his party following their leader. “If you would allow me the honor of showing you the fruits of our labors.”

“Just call me Matt. And I would love to see what you have put together.” Matt said. He kept his voice friendly and plastered on a smile while pushing out his calm aura, remembering the parting advice he received from Tori. Sothrun just smiled as he led the way to the house and started telling Matt about it.

The house wasn’t large by any means, the covered porch taking up a significant portion of the exterior footprint. It was a nice deep porch however at a bit over 3 meters from the wall to the railing and went around 2 sides of the house. Matt saw a couple of rocking chairs already placed halfway down the length of the front of the house.

Not expecting too much, Matt was absolutely astounded when they entered the front door. Just inside was a large living area at over 10 meters to a side, cluing him into the fact there was some spatial expansion. While the exterior was wood slats over a stone foundation, the inside was finished smooth with brightly painted walls and polished wood trim. In the front corner was a kitchen area with a sink, oven and range all set into the wood counter tops.

Matts eye was next drawn over the kitchen peninsula counter to the main living area which had a fireplace in the side wall with the back wall made of windows. There was a small dining set just to one side across from the fire side couch and chairs. Matt had expected a studio apartment situation but saw the hallway leading off to one side which he wandered to after getting all the details out of his dwarven guide.

At the end of the hall were 2 bedrooms of a good size at 5 by 6 meters with closets taking up one wall. There were beds already placed within each room. Sothrun said they were stuffed with the down of the rok that Matt had killed. The bedrooms were divided by a bathroom whose door was between the two. It was also a large space with a large counter and sink next to a toilet on one wall. The similarities to a normal bathroom ended there, however.

“Tobias said you would prefer this shower contraption, but we still installed an inset bath just incase he was wrong. Also, it’s nice to soak the bones every now and again.” Sothrun explained as he pointed to the shower stall.

The shower was massive with the head one of those rain fall types mounted directly above and in the middle of the stall. The stall was also so wide that Matt could easily lay down in it with a meter to spare going in either direction. “How does the water work?” He asked looking from the huge shower head to the knobs in the wall.

“Well, there is a cistern set in the basement that the pipes are enchanter to pull from. The heat comes from these mana stones that absorb the ambient mana to run. It’s the same set up for how the appliances in the kitchen work.” Sothrun explained as he pointed to the mana stones inset into the wall and the matching set next to the massive bathtub.

“There’s a basement?” Matt asked, not believing what he was hearing.

Sothrun just stared at him for a few seconds before answering. “Well yeah, the stairs are in the opposite corner from the kitchen in the main room.”

“Well, I guess that’s where we go next.” Matt said, getting a nod from the dwarf.

The basement was just as large as the main room which made sense because it was directly below it. In one corner was the water cistern that was shockingly small, but Sothrun said it was refilled from the water source directly under the city. Lighting was somehow done along the top of each wall, providing bright but indirect lighting.

Along one wall was a series of full height cabinets that had various shelves within for storage and even some clearly sized for weapons. On the wall that had the stairs was a work bench, fully stocked with a variety of tools and vices. Matt recognized much of the equipment being armorers’ tools for working on firearms. The opposite wall held another fireplace with some chairs and a couch.

Matt noticed a space on the wall of the sitting area that looked like a television would go there but it was completely blank. “What goes here?” Matt asked, pointing to the empty spot.

“That would be for this.” Tobias said and pressed a button on the wall which popped a projector down from the ceiling and lowered a screen over the blank spot. “I copied my entire library from my tablet into this. It has music, movies, television, youtube even.” He then amended his statement “For all its worth, there wont be any updates to it since we can’t go back.”

Matt was speechless, completely flabbergasted. It took him a few moments to regain his voice. “This is simply unbelievable. Sothrun, thank you so much for putting this all together. What do I owe you for all this?”

The dwarf blushed heavily. “Ah, think nothing of it. We are all aware of what you did for this city and continue to do, consider it a small thank you.”

“Still, be that as it may, if you or your crew ever need a favor, just ask.” Matt said as he offered his hand for the stout bearded man to shake. Sothrun gave him a hearty shake and promised he would keep that in mind. They all made their way outside and rejoined the group in the lawn.

“Perfect timing.” Rohm said as he clacked a pair of tongs at the trio. “Food is just coming off the grill.”

Matt smiled as someone handed him a drink of some sort and shoved him toward one of the long tables that had been set in the yard. It looks like this housewarming would turn into a party after all.

*****

Recalculating – 19%

The system was running yet another simulation through its predictive programs. It wasn’t exactly predicting the future or reading fate. Neither of those truly existed in the universes under its control. It didn’t mind running another simulation, however. The reason it was performing this simulation for the 486th time was because of one mortal. Well 2 mortals if it wanted to be pedantic. Its primary focus was Matt Schultz, but his friend Tobias also tipped the scales and altered the models far beyond their acceptable tolerances for deviation.

The System had to rerun this because all the milestones and goals for an initiation phase were being absolutely smashed by this city. It knew that without Matt and Tobias, Vil’ Krad would likely still be reeling from the betrayal of Lord Alfron. The System was still shocked at how that had played out so… quickly.

It was currently looking into revising the initiation programs after this latest success. The other cities were still dealing with their own issues from the usurper protocol, or most were since a few had found nonviolent ways to deal with it. Those were minor anomalies compared to Matt who had already led the conquest of 1 resource point and the 2 legacy points. It predicted the last resource point was about fall to the Human-Veiled hybrid within a few days.

This prediction was the reason the System was performing its latest simulation. It was currently running the odds and factoring in the historical data from Matt’s previous actions. The System liked to run these early since it would help with the rewards it generated. The rewards would need to be generated then teleported to the site without too much delay or the users would wander off before the reward could be recovered.

As the simulation came back with its predictions, the System just decided to bracket the suspected reward level incase Matt surprised it… again. While that was happening, the System was also looking at the cities quest line leading up to its first event. The beast waves would be a challenge for most but this one would be special.

A normal city defense would have the city fending off waves of beasts that could climb, fly, burrow or otherwise gain entry to the walls unless taken care of fast enough. Vil’ Krad would be getting an advanced version. The average levels of monsters would be slightly increased, only by 3 or so levels but it would also be implementing elites.

The elite monsters were both a challenge and a reward. It allowed the strong to stand out and not waste their time on lesser opponents. It also would force the defenders to prioritize and strategize on how to handle such monsters. These would not be so easily fended off by sitting behind walls and firing into the masses of lesser monsters. The System like to sprinkle in a few into every normal wave and would up the strength and level of the boss wave to match.

The System had seen how Matt reacted to enemies of the insectoid variety and decided that a wave of those mixed in would be good. It wasn’t exactly looking to be cruel, but it also needed to push the initiates, make them deal with their fears and other issues. If some died because of this, oh well. Some would succeed and some would fail as was natural.

Still, it ran another predictive model to see how the city would handle the event. If Matt participated, there was over a 90% success rate with less than 5% casualties. If Matt didn’t, then the city would fall well before the middle of the event. After 2 more adjustments to the model to include Tobias interfering, the System was happy with its odds. It had finally created a balanced challenge that would be dangerous enough for good rewards but not so challenging it would lose the city.

*****

“Son of a bitch.” Tori swore as she turned off the display. She had just wasted hours of this avatars time for nothing. Well, it wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t exactly productive. In a moment of curiosity, she had done something that was proving to be a really bad decision.

Tori had watched the progress in the city Matt called home. The city that she and her pantheon were now laying claim too. While watching it, she noticed a curious event happen repeatedly. Every night, just after sun set, a group would gather in the forge.

This group would come from all parts of the city and was made from every type of class. They all would gather food stuffs or little trinkets and congregate in one of the forges empty rooms. Tori had thought it was the forming of a support group like she had seen in so many initiations but then noticed the secrecy of their meetings.

This made Tori very curious as she was already a bit on edge with one cultist in the city already. So, she began to peel back the veil to observe the inside of the room. The 30 or so people would gather then have a short conversation that almost sounded like code. They used references to people that weren’t in the city, clearly code names, and referenced locations and events that didn’t match the city at all.

Tori focused in as the lights dimmed and the group all turned to look at the front of the room. They all sat on the assorted chairs, turned to face the now glowing screen taking up an entire wall. Tori began to panic at the possibility of a summoning when the glow resolved into words and…music? Yes, music began to play as the gathered initiates shushed each other and stared at the screen.

This was how Tori, a god that was millions of years old, who ruled entire solar systems, was introduced to television sitcoms. She sat and watched the screen in her lounge as it showed the antics of a group of friends in a city called New York. She filled in the information of past episodes based on context and was able to happily watch along even though they were well into the second ‘season’ of the show.

3 episodes later, the group broke up and left for the night. They cleaned up their mess, stacked the furniture and set a time to meet the following day. Tori however, was having none of it and narrowed the scope of her spying onto a couple walking back to their living quarters. A wolfen and human who seemed to be room mates or at least comrades in arms, judging by their familiarity.

“That was pretty good. What do you think is going to happen next?” the wolfen asked his friend.

The human man scratched his chin as he thought about it. “No idea, I think something is going to happen and they are going to hookup. The interest is clearly there but they keep dancing around the topic.”

“I don’t know. I think someone else is going to come into the picture and there is going to be a jealous love triangle.”

“Yeah, but who?” The human asked.

The wolfen shrugged. “Only Tobias knows for sure. Its off of his tablet, same with the rest of the shows and… what were they called? Movers?”

“Movies I think.”

Tori had heard enough, having gotten the source of the sitcom and immediately opened her exchange remote shop. She scrolled through the tabs until she reached the ‘Custom Purchase’ section. There she filled in what she wanted but ran into a problem. She hadn’t caught the name of the show.

“Well, shit.” Tori said. Then she just input wanting to clone Tobias’ entire tablet. The cost was extreme. Well, not for her, the total price wouldn’t even equal an hours operating cost for her headquarters utilities. Without another moments delay, she purchased a cloned tablet.

Upon opening it, she saw that it was divided into 2 sections, ‘Technical’ and ‘Entertainment’. Opening the technical folder on a whim, Tori saw millions of documents showing schematics, data packets and material specifications. It was hundreds of years of earths technological development crammed into a tablet. She browsed through some and was impressed with how far the little planet had come since her last visit over a thousand years before Matt and Tobias left.

After a quick read in the tech files, which she promised herself to review later, Tori went into the entertainment folder. She once again found a division between audio, video and games. Knowing what she was after, she pushed into the video category and eventually made her way to the television and ‘comedy’ section. After a few minutes of searching, she finally found the show.

The following hours had been of her avatar watching the screen and never once blinking. She watched all of the first season and then caught up to where the group had left off before finishing all of the second season. It was only when her aid entered the office and saw her sitting in the lounge that Tori realized what had happened.

Tori knew a lot of things but this one she was absolutely certain of: Earth had perfected the concept of addictive programing.