Chapter 81 – Reborn

  “Alright, so how does this all work?” Matt asked while looking at the large summoning pad in one of the bays of the forge.

  “Quite simply.” Tobias said off handedly while expanding one of the displays on the side of the bay.

  Matt stared at him while he continued fiddling with the machinery. After glancing to Ash, he confirmed that his words weren’t exactly soothing. “Care to elaborate?”

  “OH! Right.” Tobias said and swiveled back around on his heel. “So, remember in the forge room in the exchange?” Seeing them both nod, he continued. “Right, so that sorta capsule thing.” He gestured to the corner. “Will scan the pilot and then template a construct off of them.”

  Ash began to fidget a little as he said that. The capsule door hissed open, revealing an interior with several bands of metal running around the inside that seemed to glow softly. She did not like the idea of walking into that thing and the door closing, never to open again.

  “And it will recognize all… this?” She waved her hand at the mostly new equipment she was wearing. “Do I need to have it on me when I step in?”

  Tobias shrugged. “Hell, if I know. I just remember that is how Matt did it and how he got Van.” He finished making a few inputs and the interior of the capsule began to glow along the bands of metal. “Alright, hop in.”

  Ash approached hesitantly, looking back at Matt. He gave her a nod, reassuring her it would be alright. She had come to trust him over the past couple days as she got to know him and the people of the city a little more.

  ******

  Two days previously:

  “Ok, ok. Venri I promise to help you with the mage glass before I take off again. How about we do it in a couple days?” Matt said to Venri as she bopped along next to him and Ash.

  “Deal, I swear by the concoctor that I will hold you to it.” She said before quickly changing direction with a wave goodbye. “See ya later. Oh, it was nice to meet you, Ash.”

  Ash returned the wave and watched her go for a moment while they continued the walk to the forge. “Is she…” She wasn’t sure how to phrase the way the dwarf had acted but ‘culty’ came to mind.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you always tolerate it?”

  Matt rubbed his chin for a moment while he thought. “Well, one time I did pick her up and bodily throw her but that was because we got jumped by mutants.” He looked lie he was going to explain then thought better of it. “Just watch the recording. It will explain better.”

  They continued on their way up to the forge and inside to where Tobias was likely lurking. Along the way, they bumped into Nix and Sari, the latter of whom was a little too interested in Ash. The pilot was able to bear the intensity of the demon until Nix was able to pull her away.

  Once they reached Tobias’ office, they pushed through the door to discover more than one person in there. Jess was standing across the desk from the forge master, looking intrigued. “Matt!” she called and came up to them.

  “So glad you are back, we have this arena…” She began talking rapidly while giving him a quick hug. “You have got to try it.”

  Ash seemed to bristle at the sudden intrusion but didn’t do more than stepping slightly aside which brought her in contact with his shoulder. She was fully intent to let this situation play out without her, but the woman turned to her.

  “And Ash, right?” Jess said while extending her hand. “Welcome to Vil’ Krad and the Construct Corps.”

  “Uhh. Thanks?” Was about all Ash could come up with. She was curious about the elf’s intentions with Matt until she saw how the other woman was around Tobias. It was a dead giveaway, but she didn’t mention anything. She then wondered why she cared but before she could think much on the topic, Matt spoke up.

  “So, we were hoping to get some better gear for Ash.” He began. “The armor is kind of meh but her gun needs replacing for sure.”

  “What’s wrong with my rifle?” Ash asked and summed the lever action to inspect. She was a little offended at the statement. She liked her gun; sure, it wasn’t as good as… oh. “Ah, I see. Never mind.”

  “How about this.” Matt said. “What did you like about the gun in relation to the other ones used by the people in the tower?”

  “Oh, its a medium caliber, so not too much for in close but still had some reach. It is pretty handy, not too long.” Ash began to think about it in relation to her former peerage. “Also, it had a good rate of fire. A lot of the other guns were single shot to begin with or a few revolving rifles. In ideal situations I could top it up and keep a sustained fire up for a while.”

  “So, what you want is a medium caliber with a lot of capacity and sustained fire?”

  Ash thought for a moment. “Yeah, I think that about sums it up.”

  Tobias had been looking through his tablet while she talked and had come up with a pretty narrow list of options. “How about something like this?” He projected the design to the holographic display that popped up over the design table.

  Matt recognized the displayed firearm, well, partly. It was based off the standard light machinegun that was common around the city. It fired the same 6mm bullet that his own rifle fired so the power and range were excellent. The only difference in this one was the front end was significantly shorter than normal, the barrel being cut down significantly.

  “What does it do?” Ash asked.

  Tobias did something with his tablet and the floating design began to move in an animation. A mannequin like figure appeared and held the gun. The figure then opened the top cover, placed the belt of ammunition over the feed tray and shut the cover before running the charging handle. Then the figure proceeded to fire several bursts from a few different positions, cycling through standing, kneeling and prone. After reloading, the animation repeated.

  Ash watched the display in awe. It was everything she could hope for and more. The power, the speed and the belt of ammunition took ages to run out. She watched as, after the second round through the firing demonstration, the figure changed the barrel by pushing a button, letting the short barrel fall to the ground and inserting one that seemed at least half again as long.

  “Can I have multiple barrels?” She asked after watching the demonstration. “Like, can I have a long one for, lets say an open field or woods, and a short one of inside a building or cave?”

  “Yeah, same barrel and all just different length and a slightly different gas port. There needs to be some back pressure and if there isn’t enough the dwell… you don’t care.” Tobias began to explain before sighing heavily.

  “Not any more than that it works.” Matt said with a laugh.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Anyway, this is great and all but how do I get one?” Ash was curious about how this was supposed to work. “Is this generated by the forge?”

  “No, well it is made here, but not generated like you are probably used to. We are making these already so I will just have one of the barrels cut down and altered to fit.” Tobias explained. “We can do your armor too if you want, something like…” He gestured to Jess.

  The elf in question summoned her armor from her storage and held it up. Matt also got a good look since he hadn’t seen any of the new armor yet. It was a composite chest piece with what looked like a base layer of either leather or a synthetic. Over that was a design similar to Matt’s with a series of hard plates that overlapped to allow some flexibility.

  “The arm and leg armor somewhat matches. Well, color matches but there isn’t much of the segmented plate.” Jess said. She stored the chest piece before summoning everything to cover her.

  Ash thought it looked pretty good. The overall design was pretty slim and seemed to offer a good balance between coverage and flexibility. She was sure there was System nonsense involved in that sine the overlap of hardened armor shouldn’t provide the protection it actually does.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to pay for all this.” Ash said. “I also have to take into account resummoning my construct.”

  Tobias hummed and rocked his head from side to side. “Tell you what. We can do the arms and armor on a loan. You can pay back the balance with say 20% of your income from each excursion or event?”

  “What do you mean?” Ash had been cautioned about taking loans out and how some of the deals were actually too good to be true.

  “What I mean is, we determine the cost of the gear and that is the debt that you have to pay back, no interest. If you sell a natural treasure or some ingredients or monster parts, we take 20 off the top. As an example, you kill a beast and sell the carcass through the forge or to a shop in town. If you sell it for 1000, we will take 200 and you keep 800. That 200 goes toward the loan.” Tobias explained it as plainly as possible.

  “How do you enforce this? What if I decide I don’t want to repay the loan.”

  Jess snorted then leveled a finger at Matt. “Him. He can enforce this.

  Ash turned and looked at Matt. The other pilot just rolled his eyes. “Fine, I can back her for the loan. Now can we get on with it?”

  They walked out of the office and down the hall, headed for what was likely one of the assembly rooms that was reserved for the production of small arms. Ash was looking everywhere she could as they walked the halls. On more than one occasion she stopped to stare at the rooms full of mills, lathes, stamping machines and hammer forges that were producing various parts. When she saw a pilot in his construct picking up what looked like multi shot short barrel cannon, she couldn’t stay silent anymore.

  “Matt, why does it look like you are gearing up for war?” she whispered in a low voice, hoping that the elf wouldn’t hear.

  “Most of this is just dragging our people out of the pre-industrial era of weaponry. By the standards of what Toby and I have back on our home world, we are decades behind the curve.” Matt answered in a tone to match hers. “I know for a fact he hasn’t started developing guided weapons yet, but he will soon.”

  “I hate it when you do that.” She grumbled as they were walking through a set of doors.

  “Hmm?”

  “When you make me feel like a prim…” She stopped in her tracks as they entered the assembly room. “Oh, what the fuck.”

  The room they had entered was a little over 300 meters in length and only 75 wide. Running in long lines down the length of the room were 5 separate rows of tables that all butted up to each other. There were dozens of people in each line, all chatting away as they worked in an assembly line pushing the guns farther down the line.

  Ash saw the lines terminate in what appeared to be a section made for storage. There were groups of free-standing shelves that had wheels on the bottom, allowing them to be moved around. She saw that there were 5 different types of guns being made and placed on the mobile racks.

  There were short compact guns that she had never seen, the rifles like Matt used, what looked like two types of machineguns and a series of longer rifles. Every rack was filled with dozens of them, and each was tagged and labeled, some going to specific people while others were marked as ‘arsenal’.

  “I see small arms production has developed nicely.” Matt said while looking around.

  “Small arms?” Ash said, very confused because some of these looked awful big.

  “Ah, when something is meant to be operated by one person or maybe a two-man team.” Matt supplied. “We don’t count the weapons for constructs or the heavier wall defenses.”

  Ash was distracted enough that she didn’t see Tobias grab a small, empty cart and load some parts onto it before walking their way again. They followed after, talking as the group went to a machine room and Tobias made his modifications with the help of the staff there.

  “And here you go.” Tobias said after a few minutes of tinkering on a work bench. “One Light machinegun. It is open bolt, belt fed, and gas operated. The rate of fire is adjustable to four positions that will roughly work out to 500, 750, 1000 and 1200 rounds per minute depending on which recoil spring you use with which setting.”

  He stepped forward and handed Ash the gun and a small box of parts. He then handed her one of the enchanted magazine pouches and several matching pouches that had strange clips on the back. She just stood there like a deer in the headlights until Matt stepped up.

  “Here, just store it all for now and we can get your kit sorted out and get some range time.” He held the various components for her until she could store them.

  “Thanks, I-I don’t even know where to start.” She said while looking at the strange weapon.

  Jess snorted. “We start by getting out and shooting some shit so you can figure out how to use your new gear. Come on, we can show you the way.”

  Jess then led them out to the firing range that had been set up on the outside of the city wall. She pointed out several key installations like her favorite bar, the best bath house and then some less important things like the stairs to the rampart or on of the defensive mortar pits.

  Once they got to the berm that ran the length of the range, Matt showed her how to attach her pouches, using a mostly standard placement and telling her that it was easy enough to change and that she would need experience to make that decision.

  He then showed her how to load and operate the machinegun and had her run a few practice drills with the process, so she knew exactly how it worked. After an hour of teaching, Ash finally got to shoot the gun.

  Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. She fired on the slower 750 round per minute setting. Ash let the gun move in her hands, feeling the action cycling and the recoil. She then tightened up her grip, pulling the stock into her shoulder and locking the gun in place as she let out another burst.

  “Lets try the fast setting.” She said. “It’s still super controllable and I feel like I would prefer volume of fire rather than sustained fire.”

  “Ok, lets just pop this open…” Matt popped the stock off and pulled out the recoil spring and guide rod. He changed it for the heavier spring and then set the gas at the maximum open position. “OK, try this.”

  Ash took the gun and loaded the belt back on the feed tray before closing the top cover and running the charging handle. Brrrrraaaat. A long burst spat a tongue of flame from the end of the gun and she let off the trigger. She then tightened up her grip on the gun and pulled it again, ripping out a ten round burst that knocked the target over, stand and all.

  “Yeah, that’s the stuff.” Matt said, clapping slowly. “Do some transitions, like from target to target, I will be right back.” He then wandered off while Ash continued to adapt to the new and very exciting weapon.

  When Matt returned, it was with a large object that looked like a set of stairs in profile with a bunch of random shapes cut into the sides of the sheet of wood. He set the device up on the berm next to her and gestured at it.

  “Alright, now put your armor on and try shooting from several different positions so you get a feel for how it will be to use that from odd angles and such.” He pulled out his own rifle and ran through a few positions, using both the steps and the inside shapes to contort into odd positions.

  Ash tried to copy him and found that kneeling and standing were fine, but she had problems reaching her ammo pouches when prone. Matt then helped her move the pouches so she could reach them from any position.

  “What now?” Ash asked after several more runs through the shooting prop.

  “Now…” Matt said, pausing for effect as Van moved out through the gates in the city wall. “We go on a little hunting trip and stress test. You need to run the trial after all.”

  *****

  Ash stopped just before the open capsule and adjusted her armor one more time. It was of a similar design to the one she had gotten from the forge, but it had been upgraded with one of her rewards from the trial orb. It now resembled something closer to Matt’s with its base layers under more ridged plates and more advanced secondary systems.

  Her machinegun had stayed mostly the same except for adding a few aiming devices for her new enhanced vision modes. She was quite fond of the new weapon, having used it to great effect in the trial and on a few creatures, they had encountered while wandering.

  Focusing on the task at hand, Ash stepped to the side and placed Hope’s core on the tray near the capsule. She let her hand linger for a moment sharing a few impressions with her bonded core. Then she placed the ‘Construct Enhancement Token’ next to the core before turning and easing her way into the cramped confines of the scanner.

  Matt stepped up at that point, giving her a knowing look of concern and confidence before clapping a hand on her shoulder. “See you in a minute.” He said before smiling softly and closing the door.

  Ash’s world went dark for a brief moment before she was enveloped by the System’s brilliant golden light that started at her feet and worked its way up. Despite her nerves, she knew that in a few moments, she would be a pilot once again.