Escalation

by Matthew Peed

  “So . . . if you kidnapped a princess, the amount of power would be vastly greater than if you took a village girl.”

  “Yes, and no. Like I said, it depends. If the princess was fated to die, then we might get a bit but not much. If the village girl was fated to rise to greatness as a hero, then we could get a tremendous amount of mana.”

  “Sounds confusing and annoying.”

  “You have no idea . . .” Julie mumbled under her breath, “but the great one tells us which he would prefer.”

  “I think I understand.”

  “Mistress, are you sure you want to come?” Ezal asked for the tenth time.

  “Yes, I feel I have a duty to help,” I answered firmly.

  ~~~

  The first day passed without much difficulty. A few of the parties got into fights but nothing more than verbal arguments. The airships kept pace with the ground forces as we made our way to the first stopping point: a large clearing, or more of a plain in the middle of the forest that could accommodate the large number of people in the group.

  We reached it roughly an hour before sunset. As the camp was set up, the airships dropped anchor over the edges of the camp. They would have several watches set all night along with watchers on the ground. Security was being taken very seriously. In fact, much to the chagrin of quite a few dwarves, all alcohol was left back in the town.

  Ezal stood with several party leaders as they worked out patrols. Bruce stood nearby, which was becoming a common sight. Weirdly, I never really got creeped out by him, as he was more like a silent guard than a stalker. I went to set up my own tent, but Wrakras had already beaten me to it.

  “You really want to sleep out like this?”

  I turned and saw Izora standing behind me with her guards. I laughed and said, “I thought the experience would be interesting. Plus, I felt it was wrong of me to stay in a nice room while asking all these people to risk their lives for my valley.”

  Izora smiled at me. “I’m glad you feel that way, that’s why . . .” She flung her arm out, and Sasori threw an object onto the ground near my tent. It looked like a piece of cloth, but it soon started to swirl as it grew larger. In moments, a tent twice as large as the one I had brought unfolded. “While I agree with you, I still believe in the creature comforts!” she finished with a loud laugh.

  People nearby looked over. Some ignored us while others laughed as well, then went back to their business. A line had formed over at the section of camp where several blacksmiths had set up shop. Nastok, who had been a bit depressed as of late, had taken the position of head blacksmith and was directing the weapons and tools that needed maintenance with a burning passion. The blacksmiths were working on a reduced fee, and I had told them to send the bill to me. A lot of the lower-tier adventurers were taking advantage of the opportunity.

  I had talked to the dwarves several times since the attack, but it was off-putting that none of them blamed me for the patriarch’s death. I watched the crowd around Ezal as she handed out orders to the various teams. It was like watching another person, as if Ezal was meant to be a leader. I actually felt a little in the way.

  I grabbed the bracelet around my arm. It was starting to bring me comfort as of late. I turned to Izora. “How about a little target practice?”

  “I could use the exercise,” Izora agreed.

  We moved over to the training fields. The archery lines were set so that no tents were pitched behind them. A few parties were there practicing, but most of the others were resting up for the coming battle. We made our way to an empty set. The training field had a low-maintenance barrier around it that kept all the sounds down to a minimum. It would take an Air mage a few minutes to cast one of these, but afterward it could last several hours.

  I had used the single pistol for a while, or at least it was starting to feel like a while by then, but I wanted to get a feel for wielding them both while my life didn’t depend on it. I pulled the one I got from Regan’s minion Queen and checked it over. It looked almost like a perfect replica of the one Regan had given me, with only a few coloring differences.

  I turned toward the straw figure in the distance. Markers had been set that allowed people to be able to check their range. I had the attendant set it to one hundred meters. From there I spent half an hour or so practicing my aim and rapid-fire skills. As I got the hang of the weapons, I got more accurate, managing to at least hit the straw figure with each shot. Some people were surprised about the weapon, but it sounded like most just wrote it off as a gnomish weapon when they saw Izora with me.

  I turned to the attendant. “What levels of difficulty are available?”

  “Viscountess, we have three levels of practice with the mages we have: stationary, moving, and dodging.”

  “Set it to moving for now.”

  Unlike swordsmanship, I didn’t know even the basic forms for using the guns, as Regan had failed to show me anything like that. He just said point it at the enemy and pull the trigger. I mean, yeah, but there should have been a way to increase your balance and reduce the stress of firing the weapon. I had to work that all out for myself.

  It was late before I called it a night. I had recharged the guns so many times that my mana pool felt extra drained. At one point, I tried to fire the gun without any ammo, and a column of lightning had burst from it. Only, unlike my lightning that I create, it was much more intense and there was quite a bit of heat. Not to mention that it left a nice-size crater in the field when it struck the straw figure. It also drained the mana stone completely.

  I turned from the training field and noticed that Julie was juggling several blades for some reason. I shook my head and made my way back to the tent. Izora had left before me, as she was much more familiar with her weapons so didn’t need as much practice.

  Chapter 11

  Puppet

  We were in town, getting ready for our next mission. I had a new mission to plan for, even if it was rather straightforward. Father needed to know the information on the monster horde, and he was going to get it. With the construction of the tower, the attack on the valley would be delayed. If it was going to happen soon, the mana wave that radiated out would be quite apparent to anyone paying attention.

  I would have to plan for enemy scouts coming toward the tower while we made our way toward the horde. I just hoped the entire swarm didn’t attack at the same time. Even if they did, I felt we had at least a day or two in the worst-case scenario, as we were in the middle of a forest. A horde couldn’t move quickly through the trees.

  I got Father to provide me with a decent amount of materials before he went to the top of the tower. He showed us how to get in if we needed to, which was by an entrance at the base of the various legs. I moved to an out-of-the-way spot and started making some new drones. Typically, I just made drones that were good for scouting, but I wanted more combat-oriented ones. I had examined the turret that Father made earlier and felt I could use some of the techniques in my own construction.

  After nearly an hour of work, with plenty of failures in the mix, the Mark One was finally complete. It was quite large, at almost two meters long and a meter or so tall, and the wingspan was nearly four meters as well. On the bottom was a single-barrel form of the turret Father had used. It could fire roughly once every minute or so and needed to use mana to recreate the shell that I copied from Father, only a much smaller one.

  I mentally connected to it and felt a type of strain that I had never felt before. The other drones I had made weren’t exactly big or complicated, so I must have never pushed myself to the limit before. I instinctively knew I could control maybe three more of these with my current strength. It made me realize I needed to get stronger since I had never really bothered to cultivate mana before. I didn’t need to; I naturally gained mana while in Father’s aura. I put the drone away in my storage ring; it felt nice to actually have something in it now.

  I made another drone that was roughly the same size as the last one. To this
one I added the Creation spell inside the body of the drone. I changed the spell so that the formula created was more violent than the shell the turret used. This way it could fly higher than the other one, due to the lack of weight and . . . the word was “bombs,” I thought, which were what armaments were called if they just fell on the enemy.

  On the next two drones, I added two turrets on the top and bottom. They were much smaller but had larger storage for ammo. These could fire much faster, and while they did less damage, they would probably be able to handle anything under tier three. I looked over the drones and made sure everything was good.

  I reached into my chest and tapped the shard of crystal that was from Father’s core. I got all kinds of information from it whenever Father invented or did something new. It was getting kind of lonely while we were out of Father’s aura not getting the flow of information that I usually did, but the flood of ideas and knowledge I was experiencing was on another level since I had been in his aura that day.

  I shook my head and turned back to the drones. I connected to the last one and sent the command to start to take off. Two rings of glowing energy appeared on each wing. I wasn’t too sure of the full science, as Father would call it, but I believe I understood it as a hover pad. The energy produced by the ring would cause the air to be ionized and force the air to move, which resulted in the object moving.

  The drone lifted from the ground with a nearly silent hum. It hovered there a few meters off the ground. I accessed the camera on the front of the drone and was able to see much more precisely than the other drones I had made from the basic materials I’d found in the environment. The image seemed to take a corner of my vision unless I focused on it. I decided to give it a true test.

  I pictured several spots in the air and sent a command to the drone to navigate to each point as fast as possible. When I was done, the drone took off in a gust of wind that nearly knocked me off my feet. It barely took it a minute to reach the fifth point in the course I had set for it. I watched the picture in the corner of my eye and was amazed at the view. I set it to circle for a bit as a test to see if the mana absorption I’d set was strong enough to maintain casual flight.

  I looked around me and noticed I had enough materials to make one smaller drone. I decided to make a target of sorts to practice on. I had gotten decent at building them, so it only took me a few minutes. The only time-consuming part was feeding the materials into my chest and pulling the, as I liked to call them, enriched parts out. Then I took the time to assemble them.

  I took control of this one, and the strain doubled. I also grew worried, as the image from this one took another corner of my vision. I would soon lose much of my ability to see easily if I took control of too many. I sent this one up and set as complicated a course as possible with twists and turns. I also tried to install an “evade” setting, but I wasn’t really sure if it would work until a bit later.

  I “let go” of the target and was pleased that it didn’t immediately fall from the sky. I sent a command to the Gatling drone to hunt it down. It took off, and the other drone seemed to respond to the threat in some way, as it also accelerated. It started making twists and turns that I felt would have ripped an animal or creature apart had they attempted it.

  The Gatling followed close behind, and the turrets on the top and bottom swirled to get a bead on the target. They fired, but the target would spin and barely dodge the bullets. This kept up for nearly three minutes, and it seemed the turrets were getting better the whole time, firing fewer bullets as the flight went on.

  Suddenly, the Gatling put on a burst of speed and managed to overtake the target. Then, as if it hit the brakes in midair, it stopped several hundred meters in front of the target. It looked like it came to a perfect standstill. A torrent of bullets flew from the turrets and blanketed the area that the target was flying into and ripped it to shreds.

  I reconnected to the drone and had it return. Once it was back I touched it with my ring and stored it away. Pleased with the result of my weapon test, I left the secluded area and went to find the others. They were each doing their own thing.

  Z2 was training. She seemed to be pumped after having seen Father that day, so she was extra motivated to improve. It looked like she had pulled some of the other automata from the dungeon and were fighting them. I counted nearly two dozen around her, but she was dominating them with her speed.

  I’d heard, read, and investigated a few things in the times that I’d gone to the town back at the valley, and I was pretty sure that ice was supposed to be strong and deadly, but it was relatively slow. Z2 seemed to have thrown that rule out the proverbial window. She was moving like a shadow; the automata would strike where they thought she was and would only hit air or the ground.

  It seemed that she was honing her evasion skills, as she wasn’t returning any of the strikes sent her way. I noticed nearly half a dozen times when she could have decapitated or sliced a limb clean off, but she only used her weapon to deflect or block attacks she couldn’t dodge.

  I moved on and found Natsuko and Natsuo where they sat with their legs in the water. I moved up to them to see what they were doing. Natsuko noticed I was about to ask and went ahead and said, “Enjoying the water, duh!” as if it were apparent.

  “Water . . . energy . . . good . . .” Natsuo added.

  “Energy?” I asked and stuck my leg in the water after I removed my boot. Upon feeling a current of mana start to flow into me, I quickly removed most of my clothes and put them in my storage ring. Then I jumped into the lake and felt the energy wash over me. I wanted to dive deeper as I felt the energy get stronger, but the heat also went up, and even I couldn’t take much after a certain depth.

  I went as deep as I could go and got into a meditative pose like I had seen some of the mortals in the town do. I started to circulate the energy through my body. The rush of it felt good. I knew I didn’t have veins like mortals did, but I had strings of metal that served to distribute mana.

  I understood that mortals had something like a pool they used to judge how much mana an individual could retain inside their body. I was born with the knowledge of how to use mana instinctively, so it was a new experience to actively focus on body parts. I circulated the mana through the wires until it arrived at an empty space. Somehow, I knew that I needed to fill this space.

  I must have stayed under the water for several hours before the emptiness was full. I had no idea if my pool was large or small compared to mortals, but I felt quite refreshed after having pulled in so much mana. I returned to the surface and noticed that it was night. There was still quite a bit of activity going on, though, as the automata never had to sleep or rest unless low on mana.

  A small force of automata that looked like they were ready to go to war stood in formation nearby. Z2 was inspecting them with a severe look. I got out of the water and channeled some mana into drying off, then walked over to see what was going on while dressing.

  “Puppet, Father didn’t want to bother you, but these guys will be coming with us,” she said when I was closer.

  “How long can they stay out before running out of mana?” I asked as I looked them over.

  “Father said they are good for a day, but also that we could recharge them ourselves easily enough if we had to.”

  “Good, they will make our mission a bit safer.”

  ~~~

  We left the village the next morning. We wanted to get information as soon as possible for Father, and while I had a decent reading on their location, I could be off by a few hundred meters to a few dozen kilometers until we get closer. Father had made us another new invention that he wanted us to test for the coming days.

  It was a large vehicle with six robust wheels that had a radius of nearly a meter. Essentially a large steel box, it still had plenty of curves that would help deflect anything that might hit it. The front window was rather small but provided enough visibility to help us make our way through the forest. At first I thou
ght it would have trouble moving through the trees, but when it approached the tree line for a test, two large circular blades came out that spun faster than I could track. Father called the vehicle an ASV.

  The trees would be cut a few centimeters off the ground, and as they fell, they would be absorbed by the vehicle to power it. There was some script that Father had embedded in each vehicle so that it was like, as he said, “a computerized dungeon core.” I thought it was an ingenious way to make a path through the forest. Father said we could just fly over the forest but there were times when flying might not be available or even more dangerous than on the ground.

  We loaded into one while the group of nearly twenty automata that Father had assigned to us loaded into two other vehicles. I let loose one of the drones I had worked on the previous day and sent it high into the air. The camera quality was much better than the others I had made so I felt it was worth it.

  The vehicles had drivers that came with them, so that if something broke, the drivers would know how to fix it. Father called them “mechanics,” I think. We made our way into the direction the sensation was coming from. The vehicles made quick work of any trees that grew too close to the animal path we were using to travel. We still didn’t see any monsters as we traveled, but that was starting to become normal.

  As we crossed over cut-down tree stumps, the wheels adjusted to keep the chassis level. We traveled relatively peacefully for the first part of the day; then things started to get interesting.

  I had just checked my drone to see if anything had changed up ahead when I saw a flock of birds approaching our location. They were large, like several meters across and long large. Their feathers were pitch-black, and arcs of lightning jumped between the nearly ten birds. They seemed to notice something and started to reduce their altitude.