“The idea that this is a military installation already concerns me,” Valda murmured, her eyes boring into me intensely. “But what else could be in there that has you so worried?”

  I didn’t respond immediately, instead glancing at Rieka meaningfully. My beautiful princess stared back, her ice-blue eyes distant as she thought, staring but not seeing.

  “Rieka?” I said quietly to get her attention, and Rieka snapped back to reality. It was actually rather cute, since her ears had drifted down against her head as she thought and when she shook herself they popped upright once more.

  “Liam?” she asked questioningly.

  “Should I explain exactly what I’m concerned about finding in a military installation to Valda?” I asked pointedly.

  It was Rieka who had made me promise to not show or turn over something like a gun the one time that I’d demonstrated the power in my father’s old Colt Python. So it only made sense to me to let her decide if I should elaborate.

  Rieka’s pale skin went even whiter and her eyes widened in surprise.

  “You mean like…” Rieka asked in concern, her voice trailing off when I nodded.

  “If they are anything like the one I have, then it’s unlikely they’ll work. The ammunition wouldn’t last this long. But if they or someone knowledgeable studied it long enough, they might be able to figure out how to improvise,” I said quietly.

  Given how long these weapons would have had to sit in storage, I was fairly certain that the powder wouldn’t be good anymore. I remembered reading something about how primers and the powder would degrade, even when protected. That isn’t to say that they wouldn’t have lasted under a magical preservation, but I was betting that since we hadn’t seen or heard of any guns yet, we should be okay.

  But wouldn’t flamethrowers and their fuel have the same problems? I questioned silently, since gasoline and diesel wouldn’t last nearly as long as gunpowder or primers without separating or congealing into uselessness. And if their alchemists can make a replacement fuel for flamethrowers, then how much harder would gunpowder be? Black powder only needs three ingredients if I remember it right…

  “I’m being as patient as I can be, but I dislike when information is being hidden,” Valda said tersely, alternating her glare between Rieka and me.

  “I think we should tell her,” Kassandra interjected while Rieka chewed over the problem. “Valda is in charge here and needs to know what sort of threats might be coming. Even if they are only a possibility right now.”

  My lovely dwarf lamia was pale as well, but looked resolute as she gave me another squeeze with her tail. I snugged an arm around her waist and squeezed her back, earning me a smile.

  “Agreed,” Rieka said, though the reluctance was clear in her tone and posture. “But please, don’t demonstrate it, Liam. It’d make way too much noise to not attract attention and awkward questions.”

  “Got it,” I said before digging into my Dimensional Pocket ability to remove the firearm that had lived there for the last several weeks.

  The gleaming steel of my fathers Colt Python reflected the torchlight like a threat when it appeared in my hand, and all four of my girls stiffened. They didn’t relax even as I quickly flipped the cylinder out and dumped the rounds into my free hand, vanishing them back into the Dimensional Pocket and then flipping the cylinder closed.

  Setting the weapon on the table in front of Valda, I gestured to it while I explained.

  “This is a gun, or a firearm depending on who you ask. It uses the cartridges that I took out of it to propel a small hunk of metal at incredible speeds with great force. If you think of it like a wand that fires one type of spell, then you aren’t far off.”

  “Like the flamecasters can release a jet of fire?” Valda asked curiously, her brows furrowing as she bent to inspect the pistol on the table.

  “Very much so, but these can fly much further and punch through most armor like it doesn’t exist,” I explained while tapping the handle of the gun with one finger. “You can pick it up if you want.”

  Valda did just that, being careful with her claw-tipped fingers as she studied the weapon intently. I had to fight the urge to tell her not to put her finger on the trigger, even knowing the weapon was unloaded. Thankfully, when the trigger shifted under her grip and the hammer started to slip back, she adjusted her grip.

  “So they are a different sort of wand then?” Valda asked, her brows knitted in confusion as she looked between Rieka and me.

  “That doesn’t require someone to have magic to use it,” I said simply and watched that bomb hit Valda. Her eyes widened and her face paled almost immediately as the connotation of what I’d just said hit her. But I had another bomb to drop too, in order to make her understand fully. “And nothing in its construction, or that of the ammunition, requires magic in any fashion at all. It’s all science.”

  Valda had to set the pistol down as her grip weakened and she nearly dropped it. I immediately picked it up off the table, flipped open the cylinder and began producing cartridges one by one to reload it. Once the rounds were back inside the cylinder, I flicked it closed and deposited the weapon back into my Dimensional Pocket.

  “Have you ever used that on someone? How dangerous is it?” Valda asked and I grimaced at the question. Not because her tone was judging or anything like that, but I still cringed at the idea. Which was bizarre considering I’d pulped skulls with my bare hands—well shifted hands but it didn’t change things.

  “I have not had the need to,” I answered simply, holding out my arm and sending a ripple of scales along it before three-inch claws sprouted from my fingertips. “But it’s always there if I have a need.”

  The pistol appeared in my hand from the Dimensional Pocket and then vanished again.

  “These weapons are what humans back on my homeworld use for war. They replaced bows, swords, and all other weapons of war for most of the planet. Overthrew monarchies, destroyed tyrants, and changed the path of nations,” I continued with a shrug. “And Rieka has asked me to never let the information on how they are made get out.”

  Valda nodded gravely at that, clearly agreeing with Rieka’s statements from earlier.

  “Not just because it would be easy to overthrow the current governments,” Rieka rushed to say. “Though I cannot say that I haven’t worried about something like that on occasion. Enough of those weapons and it would rapidly counter any kind of defenses or magical advantage the royal families have…”

  “It is a knowledge advantage,” Jane interjected, the small scholar rejoining the conversation and drawing attention back to her. “Just like when the first spell-rods were designed to allow for easy access to charged metals. It used to be that sorcerers would use a staff made of the charged metal, but once that staff was empty they were vulnerable. The ability to change out the charged metal core of the rod was an advantage. Same as when the first crossbows were designed, or a new forging technique for swords is discovered.”

  “Yes, but it wouldn’t be fair to describe firearms as a single technological advance,” I added with a proud smile to Jane. Her description had put this into perspective now and I could see the girls calming down some. “It’s centuries of innovation and design to refine it properly. Unless they found working versions and instructions they could understand on how to reproduce them, then we don’t need to worry about firearms suddenly taking over the world.”

  “But it is still a threat I would like to avoid,” Rieka insisted firmly, her fluffy tail hanging low between her legs with worry. “But your words help reassure me. While some folks can understand bits and pieces of the human language, it is a dead language that no one speaks fluently anymore.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Agreed,” Jane said with a sharp nod, her fluff-tipped tail popping up to bounce over her head in excitement. “It’s part of what has been so wondrous with having Liam’s help. While we can discern some of what is said in the journals and records that we’ve found, Liam can just read it like it’s natural for him.”

  Something about what Jane said resonated in my mind just then, but before I could follow the thread of thought, I was distracted by Shayla speaking up.

  “Should we let your… uh… contact know, Liam? About the suspicion of another set of ruins?” Shayla asked gently from her spot pressed to my back, her antennae softly stroking the sides of my head. “Would they know more about the threat or be able to lend a hand?”

  “Contact?” Valda asked pointedly and I felt Shayla tense up behind me.

  “It relates to my status as a Traveler,” I explained to cover up Shayla’s mistake. “Not something I can casually discuss, but there are those that work to keep worlds safe and I help them on occasion.”

  Valda’s eyebrow rose questioningly at that, and she continued to stare at me, demanding more information with her eyes. However, her look was not nearly as hard to resist as Kassandra when my snuggle-spaghetti got her pout on.

  “I’ll check with them to see if it’s okay to discuss their existence with you, that’s all I can promise,” I told Valda. The lizard-folk woman gave a huff of irritation, but nodded in acceptance.

  Returning my attention to Shayla, I turned to press a kiss to the side of her head. The moth woman gave a quiet eep of surprise and buried her face in my shoulder, but her antennae happily wiggled against my face at the affection.

  “I’ll reach out to them now, thank you for reminding me of them, Shayla,” I said gently. The moth woman nodded, but didn’t pull her face out of my neck.

  “They are trustworthy,” Rieka said to Valda as I closed my eyes. “They’ve stepped in a few times to deal with problems and I trust Liam’s judgment of them.”

  Valda responded but I ignored it, focusing on my System interface and composing the message to Cariad.

  It had been a bit since I last talked to the daemon who was basically my caseworker and also someone I had been crushing on for a while. The fact that touching her bare skin would have caused a nasty reaction as the entropy-aligned magic that infused her very being would erode my cells like a creeping rot was part of why we were still sitting in a ‘just friends’ category at the moment, but my own magical prowess had been slowly growing and with entropy magic of my own I could touch her for short periods of time.

  Liam

  Hey Cari, got a situation that has come up on Cortha that might need DSR intervention again. Not one-hundred percent sure at the moment, but we have a lead on another human-era ruin that might contain some fairly nasty weapons.

  Dunno if it's associated with those other ruins we found that had… well I’ll call them ‘questionable traces’ in them, but the girls suggested I reach out to you about this to get your read on it.

  With the message on its way, I let my attention drift back to reality for a moment and found Kassandra nuzzling into the other side of my neck from Shayla.

  “You should tell Cariad that we all said ‘hello,’ Liam,” Kassandra murmured into my ear when I shifted to rub my cheek against hers. “I like her. Everything you’ve told me about her says she’s doing her best to help you train and prepare.”

  “Agreed,” Shayla whispered from the other side. “She seems nice and I like her. The color of her skin is so interesting, too. Do you think she’d let me paint her?”

  The fact that the girls were using their snuggling with me to conceal their whispers was amusing and also really endearing too. I was rather proud of them for respecting the need to keep word of the daemons quiet in general.

  “I’ll let her know you two said hello, and I can only ask and try, Shayla,” I murmured. Before I could go on, the edges of my vision flashed to let me know that the System had a message waiting. Cariad was always quick to respond to these, so we messaged back and forth a few times.

  Cariad

  Liam… I would dearly like it if more of your messages were just a ‘hello, how are things going?’ sort of message, or even just a general request like you used to make for information about human Travelers.

  As to your concerns about a military installation… Well those are well-founded worries. The technological level that was seen in the handful of facilities that the DSR investigated after you alerted us shows the ancient humans of this world were well ahead of the current development. Which begs the question of what happened to these humans.

  I’d like to formally request you investigate these ruins on behalf of the DSR, considering the concerning research we’ve located in other places. I also figure you will be going there anyway, since you’ll want to ensure there are no threats that might come against your contracted?

  Liam

  You are right on that assumption. It’s just a matter of figuring out when and how we can get there. I’ve already discovered evidence of enchanted weapons familiar to the locals, so I’m hoping that the technology isn’t close to what is on Earth. The last thing I need is some kind of magically-enhanced rifle.

  Cariad

  I can see why that would concern you. Just be careful, Liam. And if you have a need, please reach out to me so I can lend a hand. There is a lot going down on Cortha right now that has me worried. Between the ‘artifacts’ you’ve located and the implications…

  I felt a chill run through my body at what Cariad was implying. I knew that by ‘artifacts’ she meant the strange apparatus attached to what could have only been some kind of reliquary fashioned of an entropic-aligned creature, as well as the corpse of the daemon we had found in a cage most recently. So I fired off a message without thinking too much in reply.

  Liam

  Don’t do anything that will get you in trouble, Cari. You mean far too much to me for you to risk yourself. And the girls like you from what I’ve told them and your limited interactions. If it were possible, I think they’d like to meet and talk with you more.

  Cariad’s response came almost immediately, and it was only reading it that I realized exactly what I’d said earlier.

  Cariad

  Thank you for that, Liam. You mean a lot to me as well, enough that I worry about you on a regular basis, given your penchant for finding trouble. System watch over you.

  As for visiting to chat with your girls, that would be quite interesting. I might be able to get it cleared as a work-related meeting since they helped with your recent investigations. But I have a feeling that you were meaning for it to be a more casual chance to chat, which I am still interested in. I’ll let you know.

  “She said she’ll see what she can do about coming by to chat,” I murmured, opening my eyes to see Rieka and Valda had taken out a large map of the border and were discussing where this ‘sacred cave’ might be based on the information I’d been able to get.

  “Good,” Kassandra murmured, sliding back just enough to peer up at me with amused eyes and a wicked smile. “That gives us time to plan. Since I don’t think she’ll agree to be sketched in the nude right out the gate.”

  The surprised eep and tightening of Shayla’s grip told me exactly who Kassandra’s quip had been aimed at, and I couldn’t help the smile that brought to my lips. Shayla had asked a few times if she could sketch us in more and more risque positions, and I knew that my lovely artist had a few sketches of me in the nude that she’d gotten my okay for. But I hadn’t really gotten that vibe from her earlier question about sketching Cariad.

  Apparently, that was the exact vibe that Kassandra had gotten, and from the shy reaction of the moth-woman, she was right.

  “Try not to horrify or scare off my friend, okay?” I asked gently and got a giggle from Kassandra and a subtle nod from Shayla.

  “So if there really are more of those weapons to be found, we need to secure or destroy that site before they can be taken out of storage,” Valda said firmly. “I wouldn’t say no to owning an enchanted blade like the one that Liam claimed. But I’m more concerned with ensuring there are none of those fireahrms that Liam mentioned.”

  “There are no guarantees that they have them,” I interjected into the conversation. “But in my world’s development, firearms were developed before flamethrowers reached what we saw in the captured version Jane is studying. There were some precursors, but not many and usually very dangerous.”

  “Regardless, the potential threat is something that I should be able to rally a force behind to do an organized raid into enemy territory to locate and destroy the site,” Valda said with a huff and a severe frown down at the map. “We just need to figure out where they are coming from…”

  “The description that Liam extracted at least said they were in the same mountain range here, which might explain why we are only just now seeing the weapons appearing,” Rieka murmured, her tail wiggling thoughtfully as she stood over the map too. “Do you have a list of where they’ve appeared so far? It might help us discern where they might be. Otherwise, we might have to rely on capturing another of their raid-leaders for more information.”

  “If it is Liam doing the capturing, I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Jane said cheekily. “You should have seen him smash through their forces and make off with their commander.”

  “We did see the last part,” Rieka replied dryly, but she shot me a loving and proud smile before turning back to the map. “If you are sure we should make this an actual expedition, Valda, then we will need a solid plan first.”

  “I am sure,” Valda said with a sharp nod. “While the barbarian tribes clash on our walls ineffectively, they are infinitely more dangerous on open ground. I would not send a small group out there without them being highly trained specialists. It would be far easier to get approval to make a rapid counter-raid on what I will describe as a supply depot with a decent sized force.”

  “Then let’s get planning,” Rieka said with a nod.

  shouldn't last that long. I say shouldn't because 'magic' and the like xD.

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