Metal Mage 11
Page 14
Then I realized the butler was politely averting his gaze already, and he stood at the base of the bed while he addressed the nearest cage rather than me directly.
“Two letters have arrived for you, and Lady Ruela has just been let out for her morning hunt,” the butler informed me. Then he held a fresh shirt and a pair of pants out in front of him. “Breakfast is prepared and waiting in the dining hall, and the ladies’ garments are all arranged in their dressing room.”
“We have a dressing room?” I mumbled as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
“Yes, sir,” Alfred replied.
“Thank you, Har--Alfred,” Cayla yawned. “We’ll be down shortly. You can leave Mason’s things on the mantle.”
“Very well, my lady,” the butler returned, and he bowed to the cage before dismissing himself.
Deya and Shoshanne sighed as they tangled their legs more tightly around mine, and I let my eyes fall shut again while I enjoyed the heated softness of their curves nestled around me. The lingering scent of chocolate still wafted from their hair, and while I laid there in my early morning bliss, my blood slowly began to heat as every breath the women took made their breasts swell against me.
Then my brain woke up and registered what Alfred said, and I abruptly pried myself up into a sitting position.
“Wait, did he say two letters?”
“Yes,” Aurora mumbled without moving an inch. “Two letters.”
“Shit!” I cursed, and Deya and Shoshanne groaned in protest as I dragged myself out of their holds.
“What’s wrong?” Cayla asked.
“I’m only expecting one letter,” I muttered as I wrestled to get my pants on. “Grot’s the only one who would respond.”
“The Elders could have written back, though,” the princess pointed out.
“Or there was another attack last night, and Temin’s sent me word,” I countered, and I didn’t bother getting my shirt on. I just grabbed it off the mantle and headed for the door.
I took the steps three at a time as I hollered for Alfred, and the man appeared so promptly, I almost flattened him at the base of the stairs.
“The letters you mentioned, where are they?” I asked anxiously.
“Right here, sir,” the butler replied, and he pulled a slip of parchment from his breast pocket before putting on a stark white glove to remove what looked like a moldy bit of tree bark as well.
“That’ll be from Grot,” I muttered, and I scanned the muddled words scratched into the wood. “Looks like our defenses in Jagruel are holding firm, so we could have wiped out the majority of the Master’s ogres the other night.”
Alfred nodded. “Very good, sir.”
“I agree,” I mumbled as I quickly unfolded the second slip of parchment. I could tell from the script that it wasn’t from Temin, but from my scout, Malika, in Serin. “Luckily nothing suspicious is going on at the Oculus, but I better find a way to get my automaton there as soon as possible just in case. Alfred, are you sure there wasn’t another letter? Anything from the king?”
“No, sir,” the butler replied. “Although, a parcel did arrive by train. It’s waiting in your atrium, and the man who delivered it stated there was a train car for you at the station that requires unloading.”
“Perfect,” I sighed, and I took a few deep breaths as my relief numbed my knees.
If no word had arrived from Temin, then maybe the attack last night was just another attempt to take out my town and not a sign of the Master preparing for a mass slaughter. Maybe our efforts in decimating his ogres shook him, and he was already scrambling to rethink his tactics, but if this parcel that arrived had even one channeling gem in it, I could turn this mess around before he figured out his next move.
“I’ll eat in my shop,” I decided as I turned toward the dining room, but Alfred tapped my shoulder before I made it there.
“I believe Lady Cayla would prefer I retrieve your dish for you, sir,” the man remarked.
“Right,” I chuckled, “because that’s what you’re here to do, and I’m supposed to just walk to the atrium, aren’t I?”
“Yes, sir.”
I nodded. “Cool, hey, while we’re on the subject of household rules, I’ve got a huge, ruby statue of myself hiding behind a pile of iron rods in the corner of my shop. Do me a favor and never let the women know it’s there, alright?”
“Certainly, sir,” Alfred agreed. “In the interest of being forthcoming, Lady Cayla has commissioned me to locate it for her. I believe she wishes to have it displayed within the entryway.”
“Don’t do that! Don’t ever locate it. Pretend you never heard of it, and if anyone is snooping around that pile of iron rods, do whatever it takes to keep them from finding it.”
“Yes, sir,” Alfred said with a bow, and we parted ways as he headed for the dining hall.
Stan was awake when I got to the shop, and I found him dangling from the barrel of a new automaton’s pistol while he tried to get enough momentum to spin all the way up and over.
I grinned and gave him a nudge in the back to help him out, and Stan swooped round and round about five times before he came to a swinging stop and sent me a salute.
There was a large satchel made of boiled leather sitting on the worktable, and as I realized it was dwarven leather, my heart began to race. I could hardly get the tethering at the top undone I was so nervous, and when I finally wrenched the leather open, I stared, stopped breathing, and dropped onto my stool.
I asked for two channeling gems, since I hoped the Elders would understand my predicament and be willing to part with even one, but no. They weren’t willing to part with one or two.
Instead, they sent me an entire fucking satchel filled with channeling gems, and as the potency of their power sifted through the air around me, I could only sit there and blink every now and then.
There had to be fifty gems in front of me, and they were all different colors and sizes. They were expertly cut and polished, too, and with this many gems, anything was possible.
Everything was possible, actually, including my long-fantasized army of automatons.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
“Your breakfast, sir,” Alfred announced as he slid my dish across the table, and I turned toward him in a blank state.
“Alfred, we’re gonna fucking destroy the Master,” I informed him. “We’re gonna build so many automatons, it won’t even matter that his troops are possessed. They’ll still run for their lives.”
“Very good, sir,” the butler replied, and I nodded as I reached for a slice of bread. Then I noticed the glass of juice on my tray, and only one thing could have distracted me from my new trove of magical gems.
“Wait!” I hissed as I shot up and ran to catch Alfred at the door, and I lowered my voice in case my elven women were out of bed yet. “Out of curiosity … does Cayla have you serving tea?”
“Pardon me, sir?” the man asked.
“Tea,” I whispered. “Did she say anything about serving tea to the women?”
“I’ve been instructed to rotate the meals and beverages throughout the week, sir,” Alfred told me. “Would you prefer otherwise?”
“No, I just … ” I sighed as I rifled my hair. “I was just curious if you make tea.”
“I can prepare tea for you if you wish, sir,” he offered, and I ground my jaw as I waved him away.
“Never mind. She’s obviously gotten to you first.”
I returned to my table with deeply furrowed brows, and I couldn’t decide if my women were fucking with me right now. So far, Alfred had been crisp and to the point, but just mentioning tea complicated things to enough of a degree that I couldn’t get a simple answer out of him. Unless, he was just that much of a stand-up guy, knew how rude it apparently was to talk about, and was attempting to remain professional.
“Fuck it,” I sighed, and I scruffed my hair as I tried to let it go.
Again.
Then I dumped
my entire satchel of gems out, and just the sight of them refocused me in an instant. Suddenly, I had ten automatons in mind, and all of them carried a pistol in each hand. They were guarding my mansion, protecting all of Serin, patrolling Cedis for Cayla, and even tearing through Nalnora just to piss off some elves. I could send five to Temin to guard his castle for him, another five could go north for the dwarves … the possibilities were endless, and I couldn’t even decide how I wanted to approach this much potential.
For right now, though, I had the gems I needed and two fully built automatons waiting to wake up.
So, I sifted through the gems and looked for two that seemed to share a similar frequency because I wanted these guys to be in sync from the beginning. They were identical except for the runes in their magazines, and the last thing I needed was another sibling feud now that things were heating up. These two automatons would be on the same team from the very start if I had anything to say about it, and once I was sure the two gems I held were equal in strength, I rose from my stool and headed for the machines.
“Okay, Stan,” I announced. “It’s go time.”
Stan did a little happy dance on top of the pistol’s barrel before he hopped onto my shoulder, and he clutched my earlobe while I raised the two gems up and summoned my powers.
I slowly fused the gems into the central wiring hubs at the same time, and when I stepped back, each gem pulsed in a steady rhythm for a few seconds. Then the eyes ignited, and I jumped a little at the expressions.
I’d built out the helms on these machines a little just so they looked extra ominous, but the effect was more startling than I’d imagined, and I swallowed hard as both machines turned their gazes to me. The one with the fireball rune had a deep red gem that was a less bloody hue than Big Red’s, but it still gave a creepy enough impression to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. His twin’s gem was icy blue like Cayla’s eyes, and the light was blinding in a way that suited his lightning rune well.
Stan’s legs began to tremble as he looked at his new big brothers, and I cleared my throat to get things going because I was actually scared of my own inventions for once, and that was a feeling I did not want to hang out in.
“First thing’s first,” I told the two. “I’m your leader, and this is Stan. He’s also your leader.”
Stan and I did our best to appear unphased while we waited for a response, and when the automatons slowly nodded, I thought I felt my stomach collapse from the relief.
“Good,” I managed. “We’re gonna get straight to your orders, but then we’ll take you guys out so you can test your treads and such.”
I quickly summoned my powers before the two responded, and as I channeled all of my focus into connecting with their gems, the first intention I embedded in them was unwavering protection of myself, my women, and the mages. I instilled a sense of connection between us all and made sure they understood they were part of a large hub that would be relying on their loyalty, and then I expanded on this to include the Oculus, the capital, and all of Illaria.
I could feel them processing the information as I kept my connection with their gems, and the stronger my resolve was, the more brightly the gems burned. Once I was sure they had absorbed all of this, I shifted my intentions, and I focused on the connection between the two of them, my snatchers, Big Guy, and Big Red. I clarified the ranking order and the need for coordinating efforts first, and then I spent at least five minutes focusing on the need for both of these guys to cooperate and see each other as their partner in the field.
When I finished, I gradually eased my connection, and as I lowered my hand, I felt Stan still trembling on my shoulder.
“Here we go,” I muttered, and I scooped Stan into my palm and held him out. “Stan, tell them what you want to say.”
I shifted uneasily as Stan looked ready to keel over from fear, but he raised his little arms and bumped his hands together with a pathetic clink, and then he shakily held his hands out toward the automatons.
In a blink, both machines extended a finger toward Stan, and when they tapped his outstretched arms, they were so gentle, I knew my women would have melted into a puddle right then.
Stan pretty much did, though, before he began to bounce up and down and rubbed his hands together.
“All good?” I checked, and when he nodded enthusiastically, I finally grinned. “Then let’s fucking do this.”
I had to lower each of the automatons outside the mansion one at a time since they were so huge, but when I ran out to join them, I realized I’d have to lift them to the other side of the moat, as well. They were too wide to use the bridge, but once I got them out there, they tested their treads a little, and I would have grinned at the sight if I wasn’t so floored by their presence. The ground rumbled as they rolled over it, and I could hear the wind whoosh past their arms when they raised and lowered them.
So, I was just standing there in awe of my creations when Haragh lumbered through the trees and waved, and I was about to return the gesture when he noticed what I was staring at.
I’d never seen an ogre go pale before, but the strange citrine color Haragh suddenly had looked a lot like all the blood had drained from his body, and he ducked behind a tree that only barely concealed him.
“Dude!” I called. “What are you doing? Get over here, you’ve gotta see these guys!”
“Fuck that!” he called back. “I saw ‘em. They’re huge. No, thank you.”
“Yeah, but they have guns!” I tried. “Don’t you want to see them in action?”
“Nope. I’ll wait right here.”
I sighed as I realized he really wasn’t going to move, but it was probably for the best because my women were just coming out of the mansion, and they were still salty about the half-ogre ever since the day Venkman brought a dragon into Falmount.
“Mason, they’re beautiful!” Aurora sang as she ran to my side, and to my surprise, all of my women appeared wholly unphased by the hulking machines at my back.
“You’re … not nervous?” I clarified as they piled around me and clutched my arms.
“Why would we be?” Shoshanne laughed. “You made them.”
“And you’ve outdone yourself this time,” Cayla sighed. “Mason, they’re … terrifying. I love them.”
“Can we train with them sometimes?” Deya asked eagerly. “I’ve been practicing with a sword!”
“That’s a death machete,” Cayla clarified as she pointed to the blade sheathed on one of the automaton’s arms.
“Technically, it’s both,” I corrected. “It can function as either a proper sword, or a death machete.”
“So, I can train with him?” Deya asked, and I made sure to answer nice and loud for the ogre in the trees.
“Totally!” I replied. “All of you can train with the giant machines. Why wouldn’t you be able to?”
Aurora squealed and hopped onto my back in her excitement, and Cayla strolled forward to get a closer look at them.
“I wish I could have been there when they woke up,” Aurora moaned in my ear. “I love that first moment when you feel like you might drop dead from the look on their faces.”
“Yeah, it was … it made an impression,” I admitted. “Where were you guys?”
“I’m sorry for the delay,” Cayla sighed. “I had Alfred rearrange our dressing room yesterday, and he mistook all of our clothes for undergarments, so we needed to sort through that, but it’s all settled now. I take it the Elders of Aurum delivered?”
“You could say that,” I chuckled. “Try to guess how many channeling gems we’ve got.”
Aurora slid to the ground as she narrowed her eyes, and all of my women began throwing out numbers that were nowhere close to correct. When I shot down Cayla’s guess of fifteen, all of them fell silent, and a brazen grin was stretched across my whole face when I finally I told them the answer.
Then I waited while they stared at me with slack jaws, and Cayla’s cheeks slowly turned beet red.
I nodded.
“With guns and rune magic and anything we want?”
I nodded once more, and I was already prepared to catch the princess when she threw herself at me and latched her legs around my waist. The force of her lunge still knocked me off balance, though, and I crashed onto the ground as she paid attention to nothing except trying to swallow my tongue and grinding against my groin like there weren’t three layers of clothes between us.
The force of her hips had me at full attention in seconds, and I let her do as she damn well pleased while Aurora burst out laughing and began dancing around the new machines with Shoshanne and Deya’s arms looped in hers.
The women spouted off every wild thing they could think of adding to my machines while Cayla’s knees began to scrape across the dirt, but when Aurora ordered one of the automaton’s to fire, all of them suddenly screeched.
I whipped my head to the side as Cayla gasped and sat bolt upright on me, and lightning burst from the bullet as it collided with our bridge. I could hear mages screaming in the lanes as they fled the scene, but I just watched as the web of lightning spread over the whole bridge and began splitting into more sprawling bolts. My hair began to stand on end even though I was a good fifteen feet away, and as a high-pitched hum rang in my ears, the stonework began to vibrate.
Then it blasted apart, and I rolled to shield Cayla under me as the rubble scattered in all directions. As soon as the onslaught ended, I flipped around to see both automatons with my other three women clutched in their massive arms and their backs turned to protect them from the rubble.
“Mason, look!” Shoshanne laughed as she dangled in the automaton’s arm. “These ones hug! Did you do that for us?”
“That’s not a hug,” I chuckled. “It’s a defensive stance to shield you. I may have spent a little extra time embedding their orders. At least they got them, though. At ease, boys.”