Chapter 30

  The Day before the attack…

  Jack overlooked the new town he was making from the balcony of his tower. The view was peaceful, especially seeing the buildings being cleaned up and now mostly repaired. It still felt a bit empty since there was only a couple hundred and change currently living in his dungeon. Perhaps if everything worked out, he’d see about finding another group of people who he could bring in to join the rest of his people. Jack found he especially liked the view as the sun was steadily setting over his infant town and dungeon. The outlines of people milled about in the sunlit street. Some tall, others short, with mobs helping by carrying things or walking side by side with them like loyal pets. There were even a few children of both races playing some made-up with a tin crab with flags in its pincers. Raising a flag to which ever group scored a point somehow as elders sat to the side to watch over them to make sure they didn’t find trouble.

  The sight of it warmed something inside of him. It made him feel reassured that he was doing the right thing by his people. That somehow everything will work out once their current crisis was dealt with.

  Maybe a vacation. Yeah, a vacation sounds good right now. Too bad a can’t drink. He thought to himself as he leaned on the railing he had made, just enjoying the view.

  “Teacher.” He heard from behind him, recognizing the voice easily since she often reprimanded him for an experiment or excitedly asked him questions to learn.

  Jack turned to find Frizzy standing there, back straight, eyes focused hands behind her back, and a set of some rather impressive mechanical armor. At a cursory glance, it was an actuator system at the joints with a steam pressure tank on the back. Reinforcing joints and enhancing the wearer’s strength a great deal not to mention that armor was thick. There was some modification here and there that he was not familiar with but it was well made. It was an impressive set of armor without question, it gave him a sense of pride to see she was at this point of progress. But despite how tough her kind of armor was, there were two major glaring flaws with its kind of armor.

  Putting it on and taking it off for one. Armor like this needed to be assembled around the user step by step. Something like that required a team to accomplish with a set of blueprints. The other drawback was the power source.

  Those suits needed a heat source and water to power its joints with steam. If it was set to only be strong enough to carry its own weight, then maybe they would last for a day before it needed to be refilled. If the wearer wanted to really hit hard then it might last maybe two hours at most.

  Either way, he was going to have to teach her the next level of arcane scripting since she was clearly ready to advance.

  “Hey Frizzy, what can I do for my favorite disciple?” He asked playfully

  As usual Frizzy only rolled her eyes at his words.

  “Again, I’m your only direct disciple.” She said flatly with the barest hint of a smile.

  “Eh, semantics.” Jack shrugged, pulling out a stick of dried and ground peppermint leaves and lavender flower wrapped in dried raspberry leaves. “Tomorrow is the big day.” He said holding out the stick of herbs to her.

  Frizzy came to join Jack at the railing, leaning against it to put the stick of herbs to her mouth.

  “Thanks for the Herbal Wick.” Frizzy said, channeling mana to the finger tip of her prosthetic arm to light the Herbal Wick while taking a puff. “You worried teacher?” she asked, exhaling pale wispy smoke through her nose.

  “Honest answer, or how I usually answer?” Jack asked, pulling out an Herbal Wick for himself while pulling out a pocket spark box to light his.

  It honestly confused him how he was able to breath in and taste the smoke when he didn’t even have lungs or a tongue. But for some fucked reason any time he tried to drink it just fell out his lower jaw and taste nothing.

  Being undead is bullshit sometimes.

  “Both.” Frizzy said, while looking over their developing community.

  “Alright.” Jack said as he took another puff. “If you mean about the fight itself, yes and no. My objective is to protect the adventurer’s town and break that army. Don’t care if I kill them all, only that they retreat. If they win, there’s a chance they will somehow corrupt our people. Can bet my boney ass I won’t let that happen.”

  “Your honest answer or your you answer?” Frizzy asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “I’ll let you guess which the first is.” He snarked then sobered. “You know what. Fuck it. The situation is fucked. More than that, it seriously pisses me off that that we have to deal with this bullshit. It also concerns me how much I want the head of the fucker responsible for this mess.”

  “Same.” Frizzy said plainly while taking another puff.

  “What?” Jack asked with his head snapping to look at her, surprised by what she said. “You? You’re pissed?”

  “Not sure why that surprises you, teacher.” She said, slowly exhaling smoke from her nose again. “It’s my home too. Besides, I could be learning something new or developing a different project. Learning a new skill to better our people’s lives then teaching it once you say I mastered it. Instead of preparing for a pointless battle with a greedy asshole. If I had my way, I’d bash the bastard’s foot with a hammer then tell them to take a hike. But here we are with a mess to clean up.”

  “Yeah. I could have also prepared for the next layer of the dungeon and even finish making my new pet and bodyguard.” Jack groaned, resting his chin on his fist as he leaned on the railing. “Hey Frizzy. I think once this issue is dealt with, I might actually commit to the divinity option I was given. If I do, what kind of god do you think I’ll be?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Teacher… are you really asking me about what kind of GOD you might become?” She said exasperated and surprised by his question. “Teacher, I am just starting to truly understand what you are teaching me and what you call flexible thinking. I can barely understand how you actually think which I know you know. Why would you ask me that kind of question?”

  “Because you are the only living person who actually knows me.” Jack said casually then took another puff of his Herb Wick, finding that it was already half way done. “Believe it or not, you actually know me very well. Our goals are similar, as are our wants and needs. We’ll also do nearly anything to achieve those goals. The biggest thing we have in common is that neither of us really know ourselves too well.” He said flicking some of the ash off.

  Frizzy said nothing at first, her gaze back to the horizon with her Herbal Wick only having a quarter of its original size left.

  “Dangerous.” She said, taking another puff to let the herbs calm her nerves a bit more. “You would be dangerous but you would still be the kindest person I know.”

  “Me? Kind?” He asked, semi amused by the statement. “I think you’re forgetting that thing with the demon or how we first met.”

  “No, I absolutely not forgetting those times.” Frizzy snickered. “Despite what you think, you’re not a monster. Sure, you do things that are questionable. No getting around that. But you do things for the right reasons, you do good where you can even if it’s not convenient. But you’re not afraid to do what needs to be done.” She said then took another long puff from her herbal wick, holding the smoke before letting it out as a wispy cloud that lingered for but a moment. “You’d be a dangerous god if that is what you decided to do, but you’d still be a kind person.”

  Jack nodded along with her explanation. He didn’t fully believe what she said, but he trusted her judgement.

  He took another puff of his Herbal Wick before letting out a small cloud of his own. Putting the lit end out on the railing then placing it back in his pocket. It wasn’t fully used, so he’d smoke some more later.

  Both stood in comfortable silence while Frizzy finished the last of her wick, letting it burn out before crushing the end. When the sun settled beyond the horizon, Jack stood up fully and made his way back inside his tower workshop. Frizzy followed close at his side as they made their way to the map at the center of the room. Both now ready to get back to work after their break.

  “Has Eorlas gotten an update of the adventurer’s town yet?” Jack asked, fully serious and ready to tackle his next set of problems.

  “Yes. She found reports that the adventurer’s town has sent messages to the closest territories and cities.” Frizzy answered, jumping with the assistance of her armor to land on the raised platform to overlook the map. “From what she gathered, the kingdoms of the dwarves, elves, lizardmen, and gnomes were all sending a battalion. They will arrive about a day and a half after the invaders come with a force of maybe twelve thousand total. The adventurer’s guild is also sending three teams of high A ranked adventurer teams and they should be arriving by tonight.”

  “Aside from that one adventurer… what his name…” Jack muttered trying to remember that adventurer’s name.

  “Faldor Silverroot.” Frizzy supplied.

  “Yes, thank you. That guy. I remember you told me once he was ranked C but actually stronger than that. From what I saw when he fought Mose, he held back a lot. Most others here we saw were called E to D ranked, right?”

  “Yes, that’s what our reports say.” Frizzy confirmed.

  “How strong would estimate Faldor actually is and how he and our sentinels compare to an A rank adventurer?” Jack asked while looking over the notes he has on the map.

  “The ranking for the adventurer’s guild isn’t that straight forwards. It’s not so much as ranking strength… well it is, but it’s also to make how competent someone is.” Frizzy explained. “E ranks are newbies. They have low level and don’t really know what they are doing. D ranks are a bit stronger but and have a better clue to accomplish their tasks. C ranks have a wider scale range, they are capable and a good deal stronger. But that one is more about how skilled you are at doing jobs than how hard you hit things. B ranks, which I think Faldor is but on the low end, are much stronger. They are very skilled and pretty strong. A rank team is as capable as three B rank teams.” Frizzy explained, while drawing the most likely route for the invaders. “It’s hard to say how the sentinels would compare to them since they haven’t been in a true fight yet.”

  “And how do you know all this?” Jack asked, not expecting to have gotten as much information as Frizzy provided.

  “Mostly rumors I overheard.” She shrugged. “Can’t be sure if its accurate or not. Would rather over estimate and be prepared than underestimate and be caught surprised.”

  “Completely agree.” Jack nodded, still staring at the heavily noted map for any other possible secrets it might be hiding. “Aegisthal’s plan is still our best bet along with Eorlas’ tactics. How are we looking on poisoned arrows and crossbows coming along?”

  “The Zur’keth have made three buckets of something called Virethorn Seep. It’s supposed to paralyze someone if it gets in your system. They said they would have made something more deadly but the ingredients take too long to grow.” She said with a shiver. “For a people who are so polite, and even friendly, they make some terrifying poisons.”

  “And your apprentices progress on the crossbows?” Jack asked.

  At this question, Frizzy grew a face splitting and malicious grin.

  “They made thirty spring crank repeater crossbows. Each has a bolt box of ten to fifteen bolts. Each one can fire four to five bolts in two seconds and hits hard enough to punch through hardened leather armor with a max range of maybe sixty feet with rapid fire. Perfect for thinning out a large force at range.” She said with no small amount of glee.

  “Should I be concerned with how excited and descriptive you are right now?” Jack asked feeling slightly unsettled.

  “No, a craftswoman should know what she and her students make, inside and out.” Said with some well-earned cockiness.

  “Very true, I retract my moment of concern.” Jack surrendered since she wasn’t wrong. “Looks like we can’t do anything else… can’t make any more body piles at this point. All that’s left is wait for the actual fight. Wish I could freaking sleep until a few hours before the fight.”

  “I can hit you over the head if you want. I hear a concussion is like sleeping.” Frizzy offered.

  “Don’t have a brain for you to rattle. Wouldn’t work no matter how hard you swing a wrench at me.” Jack chuckled, now leaning his elbows on the table and his hands on his fists. “The game is about to begin and the stakes are high. Your move mystery foe. Make it count.”

  ***

  Within the forests, thousands of feet marched towards their destination. The ground rumbling from the march more disorganized than usual. Many of their officers now dead from poison, arrows that pierced them clean through, or some form of rot corroding their flesh. Much of their supplies were also sabotaged and a good number of them now struggling to carry themselves. Yet still they marched with the ground being ruined from all those pounding feet. Creating a hardened dirt path that was neatly eighty feet wide that cut through the forest. The sound was like a low rumbling thunder in the distance. While the forces, partially weakened and partly disorganized, were still fierce in their own right with trolls, orcs, goblins, and minitours. What followed them was much worse.

  Following behind them at nearly a mile away, was the mechanical beast of steel, fire, and rage. The stomping of its clawed feet could be more felt than heard in the night. But the glow of its four red eyes, towering high among the trees could be seen like menacing beacons. Glaring with terrible purpose towards its target.

  There weren’t many of its kind, even fewer made by the ancients who share its purpose. But soon it would fulfill that purpose. Soon, it would have war.

  With a deep bellowing distorted roar that reverberated through the forest that drove the army further onwards or face its terrible wrath.

  And riding atop its back was the warlord who eagerly awaited his latest conquest. Soon, he’ll have a new prize and the dark gods would reward him well.

  What do you think the mechanical beast is?