It hit the barrier but without the power of the first spear.
“Okay, so, it works, but it isn’t the best. How about the explosive version?” Dave shifted a band on the bracelet. He held up his hand. A spear grew to full length before Dave threw it.
The resulting explosion made the barrier turn a darker color for a few seconds. Quite the achievement for a barrier powered with several vault-class soul gems.
Dave laughed at his work; he clapped in excitement and did a slight jig.
He held his palm up. Spearheads seemed to appear in front of his hand in a steady stream. They raced across the room to hit the barrier. Explosions thundered through the room as they hit the barrier.
Dave stopped and looked at his bracelet.
He laughed out loud. Realizing how maniacally and evil doctor he sounded, he quickly looked around to make sure no one could hear him before cha cha-ing from side to side, with his face a picture of pure excitement.
“This is freaking awesome!” He laughed, taking it off, and moved to a worktable. He pulled pieces of metal from his bag of holding. He noticed with his senses that someone was approaching. Well, two people were approaching but one was far away, looking at different machines in the seeder.
“Hey, Induca, what brings you to my evil lair?” Dave said, doing his best to look like some slightly mad hermit.
Induca rolled her eyes. “Suzy wanted to look at the portals. I just heard you blowing things up. Thought it would be more interesting.”
“Hah! Damn right! I’m the master of blowing things up.” Dave smiled from ear to ear.
“I was also wondering if I could buy some rings from you,” Induca said.
Dave sat in his rolling chair, holding his scruff. “What kind of rings you thinking?”
“Something to increase my ability with Fire spells. I’ve realized that while I am a Dragon, I’m not impervious to everything,” Induca said, somewhat sheepishly.
“Good, because everyone needs help, even Dragons. Now, I don’t know if rings to increase your Affinity would be as helpful as you’re thinking. I’ve always found that increasing my Intelligence was the best thing. We can try out both, though.” Dave closed his eyes. A silver band formed, runes covering the interior and exterior.
“Going to need a metal conjuring device and some kind of engraving tools,” Dave muttered to himself.
“What did you say?” Induca asked as Dave grabbed the ring and passed it to her.
“I’ve found that while I can make things by simply conjuring them, having other machines to augment my ability greatly reduces the cost to me. So, if I created a magical factory that could make conjured metals, I could then engrave runes in them with a carver instead of having to channel all of that energy myself. The headaches I get from pouring my armor’s energy into my own Mana pool are not fun.” Dave sighed, unconsciously rubbing his temple at just the thought of those headaches.
“Well, how much would that cost be?” Induca asked.
“Well, that ring right there cost me roughly one hundred Mana because of my good control, though something like that soul gem based armor—that took nearly fifteen million Mana.”
Induca’s eyes went very wide with Dave’s explanation.
“Now, put the ring on and tell me what you think,” Dave said. Another ring appeared in mid-air in front of him. He looked as if he barely noticed it.
Induca put the ring on. She blinked rapidly for a few minutes, looking around as if seeing a whole new world.
“Okay, cast a simple spell to compare between the two rings,” Dave said.
She made a simple flame, closing her eyes to get lost in the magic of the simple flame. She opened her eyes once again and took the ring off. “Damn, that was kind of a rush. Next.” Induca passed back the ring.
“I make good stuff.” Dave smiled, floating the other ring to her. He grimaced after a second. “Damn, that sounds weird—makes me sound like some kind of weird drug dealer, not a smith making a bunch of rings.”
Induca smiled at his antics and put the second ring on. Once again her eyes closed and a flame appeared. After some time, the flame fell away.
“So, which one do you like more? Ring one or two?” Dave asked.
“Ring one. It wasn’t just that my Fire magic got stronger; it seemed to open up my mind more,” Induca said.
“I’ll make you up two of the first ring to stack the stats in your favor and a third for a reactive shield,” Dave said.
“A shield?” Suzy walked into the room.
“Hey, babe. Find what you wanted?” Induca asked.
“Kind of.” Suzy greeted Induca with a kiss.
Dave was happy to see that Suzy didn’t think of her sexuality as something to be hidden away from prying eyes anymore. She didn’t go out of her way to show it off to others, but at the same time it didn’t shame her; it was just a part of who she was.
“Well, Deia, Anna, Suzy, and I all have Mana barriers with our Abscondita armor. You and Malsour don’t, which means that if anything is shot at you and you don’t know it, then you’re going to get hit. I can make a ring that gives you a pretty strong barrier, so that you can cast your own or fight on. It will be hooked up to the soul gem I gave you and I can make all of them soul bound, though it takes a bit of time for me to get that all done with my other projects. I can have it ready in two days. I need to recover my Willpower,” Dave said.
“Make it three days. We’re off to Verlun,” Induca said, her arm around Suzy’s waist.
“I can do that. When you two leaving?” Dave asked.
“About now.” Suzy started to move for the door.
“Say hi to Deia for me, and try to stay out of trouble!” Dave yelled.
“You have meetings with Ukon tomorrow, and Kol wants to talk to you about hiring,” Suzy said.
“I thought I was getting three days off!” Dave complained as Induca and Suzy made their retreat.
“Things changed. See you in three days!” Suzy yelled back.
Dave sighed and looked around his experiment warehouse. His frown turned into a smile as he spun around in his wheely chair. “Still a day down here. Let’s see if I can’t get some of those programs I was thinking about started.” Dave opened up his bag of holding, pulling out soul gems, as well as different metals, materials, and other items he’d collected on his travels but hadn’t had the time or safety measures to play around with.
He pulled up his interface and locked a notepad to the table, so he could make notes on it without it following him around the entire time.
He sorted out his pieces, rolling around with glee. Excitement filled him as he looked over notes he’d had on different materials and ideas he’d come up with. Rubbing his hands, he returned to his main testing space. First he conjured a simple stand and connected it to a power source. It was as if he were guiding the metal into a new shape instead of trying to form it all by himself.
He put it on the table. A blue flame appeared at the peak of the stand. Dave turned a dial along the neck of the burner, changing the power of the flame. He turned the dial low; the flame disappeared.
Dave pushed it off to the side. Next, he built a simple carver. It was a hand-held device with a spinning Mithril tip that could cut through nearly any material, easily engraving runes and magical coding into multiple surfaces. Dave tested it out on an ingot he had. “Okay, might have to make a few of these for the smithies. Be a lot easier than using chisels.”
Dave spent the next couple of hours forming a factory off to the side. The production line was just a few meters long. It took half an ingot of steel, a small bit of silver, a lesser soul gem, and a needle worth of Mithril. Placed into different hoppers, they would be heated up, formed, engraved, filled and connected before coming out the other side.
The upfront cost was as high as making twenty of the carvers. Though this could make five of them an hour, requiring nothing from Dave but more materials.
“Using conjured items to create
real ones. I feel like I’ve still just barely scratched the surface of my skill’s abilities.” Dave looked to the time; he’d spent five hours on the factory. He sent a message to Kol about the carvers, promising to show him one the next day.
Dave stretched in his seat and took a deep breath. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dreading this.” Dave looked at his forearm and the runes there.
“Dreading what?” Bob appeared behind Dave.
Dave promptly shrieked like a small child and jumped about ten vertical feet from his chair.
Bob laughed so hard when Dave landed that he’d fallen off his chair.
“Oh! I’ve got to do that more often! It’s so hard to creep up on you with that damned spell you’re constantly using.” Bob wiped away tears that had formed at the corners of his eyes.
“Ass,” Dave said, getting his heartbeat under control.
“So, go on. What were you saying before you tried to compete for highest squalling vertical jumper?” Bob devolved into laughter once again.
Dave glared at him as he tracked down his chair, putting it upright and taking a seat, facing Bob.
“Sorry—just, so loud!” Bob continued his fit of giggles.
Dave conjured and destroyed one of the chair legs that Bob was in.
“Ah!” Bob fell out of the chair suddenly. His feet went over his head before he landed. He got up slowly, looking at the grinning Dave. Bob smacked his hands against his pants and shrugged. “Well, I guess I might have deserved that.” Bob chuckled. “So what you got for me?”
“I’ve got some alterations to make to the runes I conjured within my body. Though I’m not really sure what is going to happen,” Dave admitted.
Bob cleared his throat, as he held up his chair and looked for a way to fix it.
Dave conjured another.
“You not going to destroy this one?” Bob asked.
“Not in the next three minutes,” Dave said.
“Boo-yah!” Bob jumped up in the seat, his Gnome body enveloped in the large chair. “Okay, so what are you not sure about with the new runes?”
“Okay, so, with metals, I can put silver into the runes, so that they work better. With my runes, I made very quick impressions in my body. I’ve had to work to keep them active, something I didn’t know until I had increased my Intelligence. What I want to do is not just create impressions within my body, but magical reservoirs, sort of like chakras of Mana. They are not just impressions but part of me that amplify my Mana through integrating into my body,” Dave said.
“Do you know how dangerous that is?” Bob asked.
“Very, but I have a secret.” Dave smiled.
“What?” Bob’s scientific curiosity put him at the edge of his seat.
“I can conjure things within my own body, and I’m also highly adaptive. I would need to internalize something to create a natural Mana retaining ability, so that my runes would just work naturally,” Dave said.
“Okay, so, what are you going to use for that?” Bob asked.
“I have samples of Demon, Dragon, Arch Lich, and sprite blood. I have no idea how I could use them, so, I’m going to need to experiment. In the meantime, I can form new magical code across my body to increase my power output,” Dave said.
“Okay. If you give me those samples, I can use those and other samples to possibly create something you could use as this medium you want,” Bob said.
“You sure?” Dave asked. It would be a lot of work off his shoulders.
“Look, I don’t have all that much to do up there, mostly just hang out with Fire or Water, make plans, watch you lot, and think about what we need for the future.” Bob shrugged.
“Where do you live, anyway?”
Bob tapped his chin in thought. He pulled out an amulet and tossed it to Dave. “Put that on and I’ll show you.” Bob smiled, clearly excited to show something off.
Dave pulled the amulet on. It had runes similar to the ones across the seeder that made it nearly impossible to detect. They were so good that Dave had only found the thing because of its complete absence.
“Hold onto your chair.” Bob smiled and light enveloped them both.
Chapter 32: A Voyage Into The Dark
“Diana, I can’t in good faith send them out there just yet,” Sato said to Councilwoman Wong.
“You’ve done hundreds of hours of testing on those ships. I know that Captain Adams is more than confident in her ship’s capabilities. She and her crew are ready and waiting to be used. Edwards informs me that we will have a full refit corvette ready for use in two days. How long will it take for Adams and her crew to get used to and run full tests on the new ship?” Wong asked.
“About two weeks.” Sato sighed and looked around Councilwoman Wong’s office. As they had come to work closer, he had come to call her Diana. There were few people who knew the stresses he was under, one of them being Diana.
“I can give you three weeks, then we need to start looking around. For too long we’ve been hiding on the outskirts of this system. We need to show the people that we are pushing forward, not just surviving,” Wong said.
“First, I want them to do full system scans, reposition sensor buoys. Nothing big—we show that we’re getting out there and it’s not too far that if something does go wrong, that we’ll be screwed. Then, and only if everything goes perfectly, will I send the recon corvette toward the nearest Jukal controlled system. If we can confirm that the telemetry information we have been given by Dave, Bob, and Shard is correct, then we can establish just what threats are around us.” Sato held Wong’s eyes.
“Okay, okay.” Wong held up her hands to placate the leader of her station’s military forces. “What about Emerilia?”
And now she gets to her real question. Sato waited a few minutes, collecting his thoughts.
“If everything checks out and we can confirm the accuracy of the information we have with a dozen different points, then I will send Captain Adams to perform reconnaissance on Emerilia. If there are people on the planet, then we will do what we can to aid them as long as we don’t endanger ourselves. Bob didn’t fully tell us about what is on or around Emerilia, but it seems that there are some kind of defenses in place. If the people of Emerilia ever became a problem, the Jukal Empire needed a way to destroy them. That could be nukes in the mantle, or orbital artillery—we just don’t know,” Sato said.
“Okay. We just need to show that now we’ve got these capabilities, we’re not going to just sit here.”
“Slow and steady—sure, it isn’t flashy, but it will keep us safe. Edwards is coming up with more wonders every day and Bob did promise to have a meeting with us next week. There’s plenty going on. We’ve increased our mining, growth of food; we’ve got technical magic—literally magic—at work with our systems. We’ve never been better,” Sato pointed out.
“I know. It’s just that if all of this is true, could it be true that there is a whole race of Humans and different subset races—that could be billions of people. We have less than a million here and Dave said that the majority of people were ten to twenty times stronger than normal Humans.”
“I know, but think of how strong we’ll be in just a decade. We’re increasing people’s life spans by years every day. The more people we have with these implants and interfaces, the stronger we can become,” Sato said.
“You want one of them.” Wong smiled at Sato.
“I won’t say I’m not jealous because I can see just how my people are benefiting in a big way from it all. Though I understand why I can’t get the tech yet.” Sato sighed.
“Who would have thought that we could have created super Humans from alien technology?” Wong laughed.
“There was probably some book or comic about it.” Sato smiled.
Wong snorted and sighed. “Okay, I’ll run interference. You get me those recon corvettes, and get them training. I want Adams to be as ready as she can as soon as she can.” Wong stabbed her finger into her desk to emphasize her
point.
“I’ll have them ready as soon as possible,” Sato agreed.
***
Dave appeared in his chair and promptly rolled down a ramp, using his feet to brake himself.
“What the hell?” Dave looked around the rather large and empty room.
“Welcome to my home.” Bob changed from his Gnome body into one of a wolf Beast Kin, one that bore many similarities with Anna.
Dave had become used to people changing their appearances; instead, he studied the seat that Bob was sitting on. It wasn’t a recliner, but a proper command chair. There were screens, buttons, and all kinds of controls on his armrests. There were three other seats before him and a sloping U-shaped command area.
“This is a command center? Is this the command center of Emerilia?” Dave asked.
“Kind of. It certainly acts like it for me. Though it’s really just part of a much larger network. Come with me.” Bob walked out.
Dave rose from his chair and looked at the symbols around him. They were written in Jukal; he knew their shapes from the runes that he’d carved into multiple different items since coming to Emerilia. Dave walked through the halls. The lights turned on as they came through. The air was a bit humid but warm.
“Is this some bunker?” Dave asked, feeling enclosed in the halls as he followed.
“You’ll see,” Bob said in a smug voice.
Bob entered a lift. Dave joined him. They traveled upward through a few dozen levels.
“So, are you going to tell me where we are, and why I’m here?” Dave asked.
“Well, I’ll show you where we are because I haven’t been able to show anyone this place, ever, really. Also, you’re here because I know you can use what I have here to greater effect than I can. Also, you’re my backup plan if anything goes wrong.” The lift stopped and they stepped out.
“Anything goes wrong?” Dave asked as they stepped into a room. Chairs were all looking outward into a plain metal shutter.
“Want to see one of the best sights in the universe?” Bob smiled and opened his interface.
Emerilia Series Box Set 2 Page 62