Stone Raiders' Return (Emerilia Book 6) Read online

  “Understood. I agree with Koza’s assessment as well. I also know that Ela-Dorn, who is off trying to find out more information on the portals, agrees with Koza.” The nods around the table showed that the rest of the council did as well.

  “How are we looking on those new bracelets and the shipments to Devil’s Crater?” Hamdir asked.

  “We’ve retooled the factories. We’ve got the weapons coming out at a regular pace. The bracelets shouldn’t be too hard; they’re very easy to manufacture and we can just copy the magical coding right over.”

  “Good,” Hamdir said, impressed with Frenik and his people’s efficiency.

  “So, what about the trader’s, mage’s and adventurer’s guilds?” Koza asked.

  “I have talked to the mage’s college and guild. I’m leaving the discussions to Ela-Dorn, but it seems that we will be sending some people to Per’ush to learn at the college, a sort of trial. There will be people on exchange from the mage’s college coming to ours as part of the deal. The trader’s guild we’ve talked to about a trade charter. They think of themselves as the most powerful group and want us to bow down to them. I don’t think they understand what we can do with our factories. Once they start realizing how many decent items we can create in a short time period, well, I don’t think that many of the traders will be happy with our undercutting their products. The adventurer’s guild is interested in learning from our own controllers, doing trade for weapons, armor and simple things. It’s going to be a heck of a lot cheaper if it’s from us than regular smithies. Also, we’ve had a number of kingdoms that are voicing some interest in us supplying them with consumables like arrows and crossbow bolts. The Dwarves have also agreed to share their plans for their magical artillery, but they want to buy all of our stock until their clans are fully armed. Then, we have agreed to not make any more without getting their approval,” Hamdir said. “Now, I think that covers all of the really fun meet, greet, and politicking things. Does anyone have anything else to say?”

  No one looked as if they did. In fact, Meda was eyeing the door like ahundred metre sprinter looking at the finish line.

  “Very well. I know we’re all busy and we have a lot of work to do.” Hamdir clapped his hands together, pushing his seat back out from the conference table, and ended the council meeting.

  ***

  Kol walked through Unity. The city was growing quickly; every day, more people and materials came through the teleport pad.

  Adventurers made up the bulk of the numbers, but there were still others who were laborers and people looking to make a start in Ashal with the protection that Devil’s Crater boasted.

  Therewerealso alarge number of Players who were coming to see the place where the Stone Raiders’ battles had taken place and looking for rare dungeons. The Stone Raiders’ live streams were some of the most popular videos on Earth.

  Kol looked around with his eyes, his real eyes, not just his senses and his sensory spells.

  An energy ran through the city—a sense of progress, a sense that anyone could put a stamp on the future. From here, so many great things could form or start.

  Kol was smiling without realizing it as he walked through the curving main trading street that passed through the various sectors. Inns and shops selling anything from prepared foods to clothes or armor lined this main road.

  Kol came to a stop and tucked his thumbs into his belt as he looked at the growing industrial sector. There were homes here and there, but for the most part there wasn’t much built on the land. Two massive smithies were being built: one was complete; the other would be done in a few days.

  With Earth and Dark mages on the payroll, as long as someone had a plan, it was easy to throw up a building.

  Two smithies on the opposite sides of the world. Kol grinned proudly.

  “What you doing out here, old man?” Gurren’s voice cut through the noise of people going about their day, the market hawkers and the growing buildings.

  “Hey there, kiddo,” Kol said, finding Gurren, Lox, and Steve walking down the street toward him. Gurren and Kol clasped each other in a hug.

  “How was the adventuring?” Kol asked, as they stepped apart.

  “Good. Right now, we’re just going out there, finding out where the dungeons are, and identifying what’s in them,” Gurren said.

  “You keep him out of trouble?” Kol looked to Lox and Steve.

  “Ah, well, we tried to,” Lox said.

  “Wouldn’t let us get into too much,” Steve said, almost sounding as if he wished they’d gotten in more trouble.

  “Damn adrenaline monkey,” Kol said.

  “Not true! No adrenaline in these veins!” Steve’s frown turned into a proud smile as he hit his arm. The sound of metal on metal rang out.

  “So, what you doing out here? I thought you would be in there getting ready for fitting the first DCA soldiers with armor.” Gurren pointed to the smithies.

  “I was just heading down there. All of the contracts and everything are lined up. Walk with me.” Kol headed for the smithies. “We’ve got the steel coming in from the Aleph to Cliff-Hill. There, we’ve got our people turning it into the different armor pieces. We’ve gathered our most skilled smiths here to fit the roughly shaped armor pieces to the soldier. We can make everything a lot faster than one smithy doing every single piece. All of the smithies are going full bore and we’re hiring anyone who can swing a hammer the right way. But the sooner we get this done, the faster we can go on to armor other groups and get ready for the repair jobs coming in.”

  “You sound really excited,” Gurren said, smiling with his grandfather.

  “Well, we’re going to have three locations, all accessible by teleport pads, and we’re able to repair and make Weapons of Power and items that use Mithril. Other than us, you’d have to go to a Dwarven mountain. I’ve even got a few of the council who might be interested in joining the smithies. They want to travel more and we’re innovating a whole hell of a lot out here! Dave made this thing called a carver; you can use it like a pencil to carve runes into any metal. Enchanting and making magical code takes minutes, not days.”

  “Damn. You think the council will go for it?” Lox asked.

  “I think so. You haven’t been near a Dwarven mountain in a while, but Dave’s shaken things up. Every day, people are figuring out new things. Dave started a fire and now those embers are catching onto other hearths and setting them ablaze. As Suzy said, we’re going through a revolution.” Kol shook his head. “It feels like every other minute, something is coming to light that changes practices that were held for centuries.”

  “Would you be able to fix my right arm? It’s been a bit funky,” Steve said.

  Kol looked over to him. He put his hand on Steve’s casing. “Hmm, yeah, looks like it’s a bit messed up. I can get that fixed. Shouldn’t take me all that long,” Kol said. “Those Aleph are a smart bunch.” The intricacies of the metal man were as complex as they were elegant.

  “Halt!” a Beast Kin crocodile barked.

  A formation of DCA coming down another road stopped as one. All of their feet slammed into the road at the same moment.

  “Starting to not only act like a real army, but look like it.” Lox’s veteran eyes looked over the ranks with approval.

  “Their training was enough to get them to work together and understand a lot about tactics. Now they’re specializing and becoming true soldiers. I saw that they’re training for guerrilla tactics?” Lox’s statement came out as a question.

  “Dave made something, a bracelet you can put on your hand—it allows the user to fire a spearhead. A spearhead that can convert to a Mana bomb on impact,” Kol said.

  “Their close-in support would be pretty impressive, despite their magical abilities. Also, great for hit-and-run—smash them with a few dozen Mana bombs and run away,” Steve said with approval.

  “I would have called them cowards before. With the Dwarven Warclans, you’re taught that doing anyth
ing but having a straight-up fight is dishonorable. Though, the more I fight, the more I realize that anything that keeps you alive and puts the bad guy down is fair game,” Gurren said.

  Kol nodded. When did he grow up to be a veteran? Kol thought, a bit sad at the trials his grandson had gone through.

  “Well, pass off your weapons and armor to the clerk running the counter. Steve, come with me and I’ll get that arm fixedup. We’ll go get a meal later tonight? I think Dave will be coming back,” Kol said.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Lox agreed.

  “See you later, Granddad,” Gurren added.

  “Try not to break my smithy with your big damned head,” Kol said, Steve following him.

  Gurren and Lox laughed as they walked away.

  Kol guided Steve back to an unused area of the smithy. They had built the smithies to be two-thirds the size of the ones in Cliff-Hill, but they only had enough people to fulfill a third of the roles. Recruiting was up and with the incentives, people were joining, but training them and seeing whether they were any good took time.

  Steve walked into the high-ceiled smithy and looked around. “Bit different than the Aleph smithies. Looks more like a small machine shop.”

  “We don’t mass-produce. Everything here is of the highest quality and materials.” Kol pointed to a place on the ground. “Stand there.”

  Kol grabbed a ladder. Using a hotkey on his interface, his apron and belt appeared on him. He used the ladder to get level with Steve’s shoulder, sitting on the top and pressing his hands to Steve’s metal shoulder. He hissed and shook his head.

  “Damn apes,” Kol growled.

  “Something the matter?” Steve asked as Kol pulled out tools and opened up the maintenance hatch in Steve’s arm.

  “They used Mithril to make your casing, but when they did so, they used their rollers and heaters. This must’ve been a pain in the ass since they didn’t properly break the bonds in the Mithril. The way that Mithril bonds, it makes it the strongest material out there. If it isn’t bonded properly, then it’ll have weaknesses and stress points. Dave told me about it. He worked out the worst points in your armor, but he wasn’t able to do everything.” Kol worked his tools on the gears in Steve’s shoulder.

  “So, my Mithril armor is messed up?” Steve asked.

  “Yes. It will fix itself over time, but that could take years,” Kol said. “Mass-producing items makes sense, but you’re a one-of-a-kind item. You can see it in your structure that they adapted the behemoth body to you, instead of creating a body around your core. Oh, no, you don’t,” Kol grunted, his wrench turning and freeing something in Steve’s arm.

  “Are you sure it’s the best to have you working on my gears?” Steve sounded a bit worried.

  “Dwarves were the first to use gears and pulleys; it’s a force multiplier. We use them to move our artillery and in our elevators as well as a bunch of other mechanical items. I’ve been brushing up on it recently after Dave started spouting something about a ‘car’ to me one time we were working. Your gear systems are really complex and it makes sense. If they or your magical coding fails, you have a backup in the other.” Kol fiddled around with a gear and then pulled out a rod with a spinning bit.

  “That feels weird,” Steve said as Kol used the carver on some runes that had been worn away slightly.

  “Just a bit more and we’ll be done,” Kol said, enjoying working on Steve. His core was linked to the rest of his body through magical coding that converted his commands into actions. His magical coding acted as nerves while his gears acted as muscle.

  There were none as complicated as the ones in Steve’s face. Kol finished with the carver and pulled out a silver ingot. He rubbed the silver; it covered his finger as if it were paint. He rubbed it over the runes, the silver flowing into the carvings.

  “How are you doing that?” Steve asked.

  “It’s my smithing art. It’s called Blind Man’s Touch, though a lot of my fellow masters call it finger painting.” Kol sighed and ran his finger over a gear that showed signs of stress. It was as if he massaged the weakness out of the gear.

  “Okay, how does that feel?” Kol asked.

  Steve rolled his shoulder, rotating it through three hundred and sixty degrees. “Pretty good!” Steve’s arm opened up; his hand collapsed inward, a repeating ballista replacing his hand and forearm.

  “Hmm.” Kol tapped his chin in thought.

  Steve looked to Kol. “Why do I get the feeling that was a ‘mind if we try something out’ hmm?”

  “Because, I think we could make that a heck of a lot more powerful,” Kol said.

  “Okay, what are you thinking?” Steve’s repeater once again changed back into a hand.

  The fluidity of the change impressed Kol but his mind was on other things. “So, you know that bracelet thing that Dave’s made for the Devil’s Crater Army. I think we could adapt that to your hand, maybe that and the lightning ball thing he had? No, probably not the lightning ball thing. He said he got a shock every time he used it—don’t want to know what that does with your inner systems. You have a shield on your other arm, right?” Kol got down from the ladder.

  “Yeah.” Steve sounded curious but wary.

  “Okay, so I’ve been working on making a force shield. It’s basically a simple system where you have a small shield but then a magical shield that extends outward whenever you’re under attack. Also, you could see through the shield and fire your weapons at whatever’s attacking you.” Kol walked deeper into the smithy until he reached a worktable he’d claimed for himself, pulling out books and other materials.

  Steve followed him. “What about power draw?”

  “Ah, not just an amazing piece of engineering!” Kol said with approval as he pulled out a piece of paper and then flipped through a book.

  “Isn’t that Dave’s book?” Steve asked.

  “Yep, his damned complicated runic system for the purpose of magical coding,” Kol said, “but for power...” Kol found what he was looking for, pursing his lips as he read the description.

  “I think we can add in a magical enchantment similar to the one Dave uses for gathering power in an area. You will naturally draw in magical power from all around you. If a spell slams into your shield and fails, we can enchant it to take in a percentage of the failed spell’s power.” Kol started to note things down on an interface notepad he’d “stuck” to the desk.

  “Well, I can absorb information really fast. If you give me those books, I can memorize them in a few seconds and help you out that way,” Steve offered.

  “Always good to learn a little bit more about yourself.” Kol pushed the book to the side so Steve could read it. “How good are your senses in regards to your body? Might need to do diagnostics on the move.”

  “Umm, well, the circuit looks like this.” Steve used his left hand to draw the runes on his interface, picking up the book with his right and flicking through it.

  “Wish I could do two things at once.” Kol looked at the magical circuit Steve had drawn. He stared at the completed design silently for a few minutes.

  “Well, we are going to be changing that piece of garbage!” Kol declared, writing out another series of runes as Steve put down the book. “First, we’ll get you a better way to sense yourself and things around you. Then, you can probably upgrade most of the code in you with the knowledge you now have.” Kol bent to work.

  “Wow, I thought I was near my peak, but damn this is a lot of information.” Steve flipped through the book’s pages at an alarming speed.

  “Good, then tell me if this would work.” Kol let Steve see the code he’d written down.

  “That should work, much better than the last.” Steve winced.

  “Good. Can’t have my people going out with you when you’re only half functional!”

  Chapter 2: In High Towers and Back Rooms

  “Next!” Jules yelled.

  A Demon walked in through the door, his face nearly split in h
alf by a scar that cut through the Demon’s eye, nose, and mouth. He walked with a limp; his right knee looked to be shattered and his right arm had been torn apart, with only a small nub holding onto the crutch that held him up.

  Jules was running the healing clinic within the Stone Raiders’ Guild Hall.

  “Please take a seat.” She waved to the examination table.

  He slumped onto the table, his one eye glazed over as if he were headed for the executioner’s block.

  Jules pressed her hand against the Demon to better sense his injuries. The damage was pretty bad and it would take some time, but with what she’d been able to do for Kol and the other mangled patients who had come to see her, she simply rubbed her hands together, preparing herself for the task ahead.

  “Okay, the head’s going to take some time. The arm will be something you need to come back here regularly to get checked on its progress as we’ll have to grow it from something else. Good thing for you that here, with the Stone Raiders, we’ve created the skill to clone people’s anatomy. I also see that your wing is a bit messed up. If you want, we can start today. We can get everything but your limbs sorted out right now,” Jules said.

  The Demon looked up to her as if fearing to believe her.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Make yourself comfortable and we’ll get started in a few minutes. I need a few supplies.” Jules pulled things out of cupboards and put them onto a rolling table. She pulled out more items from her bag of holding.

  “Why are you doing this for me?” The Demon spoke slowly so that he didn’t mess up the words with his broken jaw and torn lips.