The Pilot of Wrath

Chapter 54 – Slow Going

When Matt exited the orb, he was immediately greeted with the sight of a few dozen deep dwellers. That few dozen had all gathered around and were listening to Tengi, who was chattering on in their own language. The plan had been for Tengi to head out in front of Matt and Echo to prepare everyone for the sight of the drake. Apparently, they were not exactly fans of large predatory creatures and needed to be calmed down.

“We good here?” Matt asked his little blue buddy. Getting a nod, he wandered off in the direction of the mech, glad to be back in contact with Van. He had missed the mental presence of his core while in the orb. Echo followed for a short time before fading away in the grass and going… somewhere.

“What happened in there?” Van asked as Matt approached.

Matt filled him in on the plant monsters and went into detail about the 2 new variants. Van seemed very interested in the sentinel. He asked many questions about how it fought, moved and its general capabilities. He tried to tell him everything, even his speculations on how the choker vines progressed and evolved.

“I think the evolution path is more nuanced than monster A turns into monster B which turns into monster C.” Matt was saying. “I am sure there is something else involved, but I don’t know what it is.”

Van rumbled for a moment while he thought. “Hmmm. Could it be records? Tori mentioned those and how they influence growth.” Then as if he suddenly remembered something, he added. “Or natural treasures.”

Matt cocked his head to the side as he looked at the mech. “Natural treasures?”

“Yes, like the rok and the stone it was guarding.” Van reminded Matt of the giant bird. “Perhaps it wasn’t always a storm caller rok but evolved into that from its proximity to the stone.”

“I think you might be onto something there. It could also be a mix of the two.” Matt could easily see that being the case. “Anyway, what happened while I was away?”

“Nothing of note. The little ones loitered around me for a while, seeing if I would do anything, before they wandered off. They honestly have mostly been waiting as far as I can tell. They made some preparations, as if they were about to go on a journey but mostly just sat and waited.”

“Huh, frankly it’s kinda what I would expect, now that I think about it.” Matt said.

“Are you going to allocate your points and select your skills?” Van so helpfully reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah. Just give me a minute.” Matt said before pulling up his skill selection menu. It was a pretty odd list with a lot of skills that didn’t really fit his style. One was clearly from Tori since it had to do with motivation and its effect was based on faith. He didn’t really like that one, but he did see one that he really thought could help in his trait’s abilities.

Observant Meditation (Epic)

Allows the user to be more conscious of the surrounding area while meditating. Allows the user to guide their meditation practices more accurately. Resource recovery is boosted while in Observant Meditation.

Matt then allocated his points. He decided to take some of the advice he had gotten in one of his chats with Tori and placed it into 2 stats rather than splitting it across the board. He could shore up any deficiencies by other means later. He put 20 points into both dexterity and endurance. His current strategy was to not get hit and be able to fight for a long time.

After a few more minutes where Matt discussed his selection with Van, he saw the deep dwellers walking over and stood to meet them. One of them was holding the resource orb, well not holding it as much as pushing it along with his hand. “You guys ready to go?” he asked.

Tengi nodded. “Yes. We leave now. Get to your home soon?”

Matt thought about it before responding. “Depends on how fast you are. We might be able to make it by night fall.” It was still mid-morning and Matt had been surprised to learn that he had spent longer in the orb than he thought. They had entered in the evening and come back out after the sun was fully up, spending the entire night inside playing whack a mole with the vine monsters. It has given him the sense of some sort of time-based shenanigans, but he wasn’t sure how exactly it worked.

“We go now then.” Tengi said before leading his group toward the open fields of the valley.

Matt climbed up into the cockpit of his mech and settled in for his new, self-imposed escort mission. He wasn’t thrilled about the deal but didn’t have any way around it. He followed the group of deep dwellers, having to wait a little before pushing through the brush at the edge of the woods so he wouldn’t get bogged down waiting for them.

Once they were all in the open, Tengi waved for Matt to lead the way. He walked up to the front of the group and began a slow walk in the direction of the city. To his surprise, the short people kept up with the long strides of his mech without issue. He increased his pace little by little before settling into what would be a normal walking gait for the mech but a run for anyone on foot.

Matt looked down to see how the deep dwellers were keeping up and saw dark green mana briefly flash with every step they took. They never had to move faster than a walking pace but kept up right along with him. The mana being used reminded him of nature, like deep, old growth woods that hadn’t seen a human in centuries. Must be a racial skill or trait? He thought to himself.

They traveled on for another hour before Matt decided he had enough information to call back to the city and give them an ETA. He had told Franklin that he would be bringing the group of deep dwellers along with their orb. The orc had readily agreed to the terms and even offered additional assistance, but Matt declined.

After his brief call to the hub, Matt settled in for the long trip back to the city. Even if he was surprised at the speed of the deep dwellers, they were still a far cry from his normal ‘jogging’ pace in his mech. Echo used the opportunity to range ahead, leaving Matt to deal with any issues that came up while the drake went exploring.

2 pit stops, 9 hours and many kilometers later, Matt could see the walls of Vil’ Krad. He was very anxious to get inside the walls and let someone else take over. Not that he had any trouble with the dwellers, as he began to refer to them, but he was limited. It was more of a mental strain, knowing he needed to stay near by and at a certain pace.

Matt could see the changes even from the distance he was at. The walls were no longer completely smooth, instead there were clear holes cut in specific places. He briefly wondered what they were until he magnified the image and saw the glint of steel in one of them. He could also see the other, smaller gun ports along with the large ones.

“I hope they have a way to seal those up.” Matt muttered to himself.

He then looked to the top of the walls and could see the barest hint of emplacements in the crenelations that now sat on the parapet. He couldn’t see exactly what they were but would guess at pintle mounts for machineguns.

When the group reached just under 2 kilometers out, a party intercepted them. It was 5 classers without any construct support which seemed odd. Matt moved out to meet them and found out they were on a collection quest. Apparently, there was a type of cattle in the valley that was easy to wrangle, and they wanted to round some up for the farmers.

Matt wished them luck and continued on toward the northern gate of the city. Echo rejoined them around the time that they saw an official party leave the gate to meet them in the fields just outside the wall. He could see that the party had Rohm and one of his pilots along with Franklin. They stopped a few hundred meters from the gate and waited for Matt to reach them.

Climbing out of the mech, Matt made introductions with Rohm, Franklin and Tengi. “Frank, Rohm, this is Tengi. He speaks for the deep dwellers and currently controls the resource orb.”

“Nice to meet you Tengi.” Franklin said with a smile and a handshake. “I am the governor of this city and would be pleased to offer you sanctuary.”

Tengi looked up at the tall orc. “What else you want?” the words weren’t unkind, but they were spoken in a nervous tone. It seemed that Tengi didn’t quite believe that there wouldn’t be any more conditions than having access to the orb.

“Ummm. Nothing?” Franklin said. “We would like to work together freely rather than have some sort of iron clad contract.” Seeing that the little blue man was still looking at him, he went on. “If you would like to contribute to the city, we of course would compensate you. We can work out details later, but we can offer credits, goods, food and some other things beside just protection.”

“What credits get?”

“Well, you can buy things. If you sell something you made or found, you can get credits to spend on anything else from someone else. Its easier than having to find specific people to trade with if you find or produce specialty items.”

Tengi was nodding along as Franklin spoke. “You wait. I talk with others.” And with that, he walked back to his clan and began discussing things with them. Matt didn’t know what since it was in their native language.

Matt looked to Franklin who just shrugged. “So, how was the trip?”

“Ha, you know, found something valuable. Killed the thing that had it and came back with more than we had hoped.” Matt said.

“Par for the course.” Rohm said with a soft chuckle.

“Where did you learn that phrase?” Matt asked.

“Tobias. I think it means business as usual or things are normal.”

Matt sighed. “For a moment you had me worried that golf was a thing on your home world.” Both Franklin and Rohm looked at him with curiosity. Heaving another sigh, he began to explain. “Listen up, I’m only saying this once and I don’t actually have all the details since I never really learned to play.” The next 30 minutes were spent with Matt trying to explain the concept of the sport and occasionally pantomiming how to swing a golf club.

“So why can’t you throw the ball?” Rohm asked. “It seems like it would be much easier than using a ‘wedge’ as you describe.”

Matt groaned and scrubbed at his face with both hands. “Ugh. It is meant to be hard. The challenge is what makes it entertaining.” Seeing both of them still giving him side eye he wrapped up as Tengi was walking back. “Look, I’m sure Tobias has video, he can show you how it’s played.”

The three looked to Tengi as he walked over. “We join, help with crops and herbs. You give us credits?”

“Do you want a salary?” Matt asked, getting odd looks from literally everyone there. “Set amount of pay. So, every week you get the same pay for the work you do.”

Tengi thought for a moment before responding. “Yes. We do this. Talk detail later.”

“Excellent!” Franklin said with a clap of his massive hands. “Let’s find a nice place for your people to set up. We can house you in the old long houses for now…” He began leading the way while talking excitedly to the crowd of dwellers.

“I’m going to go wash up and get some food.” Matt said to Rohm.

“Want to grab drinks?” The felid asked, both ears perking up.

“Uh, sure. Anywhere in particular?” Matt asked as they began making their way back in the city. Echo magically reappeared at the mention of food, following along like he was a puppy and not an apex predator.

*****

An hour later, Matt was sitting at a table with the usual crowd of Rohm, Jess, Lisk and of course Tobias. Echo was also at the table but didn’t sit still and instead wandered around, looking for handouts. He was growing quite popular with the locals, like the stores that had a ‘shop dog’ that was friendly with everyone.

“So that sentinel was quite the monster by the sounds of it.” Lisk said.

“Yeah, I don’t think we would have an issue with the constructs but since I couldn’t take Van with me, I was kinda limited.” Matt said.

“I am more curious about the ballistic issues you had.” Tobias said. “That means that we potentially have a big problem with the emplaced guns unless we set crews to specific ones.” He scratched at his chin for a moment. “Now that I think about it, that would be the best play.”

Lisk decided that was his moment to preach the gospel of the gauge. “Well, I don’t really have that problem. All that happens is the spread moves slightly faster. I don’t have to change my hold at all.”

“Yeah, yeah. We know. Many projectile good. Why aim when you have a cloud of iron.” Jess said, doing a reasonable impression of the demon man. Jess and Lisk were both still in armor, having only just returned from the trial orb that Matt now wondered if he could relocate to the city.

“How was the trial?” Matt asked. They didn’t seem different, but he wasn’t sure what rewards they received. He reasoned that it couldn’t be that far off of his since they were also pilots. “Did you get any good rewards?”

Lisk turned away and started mumbling into his cup while Jess looked like the cat that caught the canary. “Oh, it was splendid. The combat trial hurt a little, but I managed to last a while and got high marks all around. The rewards were upgrade tokens and an information crystal that had performance notes.” She then looked at Lisk. “I even got an epic level reward for excellence in the combat trial where I had to fight off a bunch of creepy mannequins.”

Matt was looking between the grinning elf and now blushing demon. It was strange seeing the roles completely reversed. “And Lisk?”

“..ju..a…. un…on.” The demon muttered into his drink.

“Oh, what was that mister shotgun supreme?” Jess taunted.

“Fine. I said that I just got an uncommon quality reward. Nothing special, just an upgrade token and a propellant conversion scroll. Whatever that is.” Lisk finally broke to Jess and her taunting.

Matt was very confused at the rewards Lisk listed. He couldn’t quite imagine what he was describing. “Can I see them?”

Lisk shrugged and summoned the items from his storage. One was an uncommon personal equipment upgrade token. It was a nice reward if Lisk had the credits to make the upgrades. The other was a small roll of parchment that Matt identified as the afore mentioned scroll.

Propellant conversion scroll. (Uncommon)

This one-time use item can alter the propellent charge for a projectile based weapon’s ammunition pouch. Limited to uncommon rarity propellants of a non-magical nature.

“Lisk, can you let me see your notes?” Matt asked and got a weird look in return. “I just want to confirm something.” With a shrug, he passed the information crystal over and Matt began to read through the sections, scanning until he found the pertinent information. He read it through and confirmed his suspicion.

“I assume you know what this is?” Matt asked, holding up the scroll.

“Just what identify tells me.” Lisk said with a shrug.

“Alright then. You are going to meet me at the forge tomorrow and we are going to do some testing. Then we might even make it out to the range.” Matt said.

Tobias perked up. “Oh, good. You can take the targets I had made.”

“What targets?” Matt and Jess asked at the same time.

Tobias went on to inform them that the first shipments of metal had come in from the mines. They had built furnaces on site to reduce how much was being sent over land and to make use of the coal deposit found on site.

According to Tobias, the mine was producing very high-quality steel alloys and had shipped in tons of the stuff already. The forge staff had already began to convert it into armored plate, barrels, receivers and other items. He then caught Matt up on the building projects and what was happening with the walls.

“We have replicated the 90 mil M3 style guns and have those pretty much ready to install into those larger ports you saw. They are going to be supported by 6 mil guns and the 50’s. Atop the walls I have mounts for 40 mil guns on flex mounts so they can fire either up or down. I am slightly worried about flying enemies, so they are also backed by MGs on flex mounts.” Tobias began explaining and getting faster as he went.

The mad scientist continued, completely unopposed in his reporting. “Between the crenelations, we have pintles for the 6 mil machineguns but there is actually enough room to get 4 people into each opening if we wanted. Between all the mounts and the number of guns we have, each ‘point’ of the wall has a stupid amount of fire power.”

“I am kind of surprised you didn’t have any indirect like 81’s or the 120’s set up behind the wall.” Matt joked. Seeing the look on Tobias’ face, he might have gone too far.

Tobias was overcome with a completely blank face that slowly morphed into a fervent zeal. Madness glinted behind his eyes as he rapidly stood and rushed out of the bar, headed toward the forge. He was muttering to himself about elevated versus ground mounted mortar pits.

“You have created a monster. You know that right?” Rohm said with a sigh as he finished off his drink. “I better go find some folks to put onto these mortar crews.” And with that, he wandered off toward the hub.

Matt had to agree. At least this monster was hell bent on making the city of Vil’ Krad a multi layered nightmare of a fortress to crack. Or he would, if he had the time.