CCLXVII. | Ch. 267: 'Thy strongest bonds...' (Patreon)

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Chapter Two Hundred Sixty-Seven: 'Thy strongest bonds...'

Warrenhold hadn't felt this empty in a while. With so many of the Rainlords having ventured off to join the fight in Vantalay, there was a certain tension in the air that Hector couldn't quite describe.

Maybe it was just him, though. The remaining Rainlords didn't let any nervousness show. Even with most of their warriors away, they managed to look quite calm and collected, like it was just business as usual.

But it wasn't, of course. No one knew that better than Hector.

The fight could come at any time, and more than ever, he wanted to be ready. The reconstruction effort had shifted, partly because half or more of their helpers had gone off to fight and partly because the Hector felt that there were new architectural priorities to focus on.

Hector had been making more shields again. The storage room full of Amir-9 prototypes was a good start, but he needed more. He intended to line the whole castle with them--or at least the important choke points, if nothing else.

The last time he'd done this was in the Undercrust, back when the Rainlords had used his shields in order to line the climate-controlled pods that were being used by the non-servants for the trip. It was still a pretty slow process, since he had to move each newly created shield out of his own sphere of influence before he could make another one, but he was doing it on his own now, more or less, whereas the Rainlords had assisted him before.

He'd created a kind of makeshift trebuchet to make things easier. He would materialize an Amir-9 onto one end of a long beam, then a giant boulder onto the opposite end. It had taken several attempts and refinements before getting a design that didn't just explode when the boulder hit it, but once he'd gotten it working, it was actually pretty fun.

The key, he found, was to materialize the boulder into a big receptacle that was already attached to the beam so that it didn't just fall down and snap the beam like a toothpick.

All in all, it actually looked quite a bit like historical trebuchets. Apart from the sling, perhaps. He couldn't materialize the rope or cloth that would be needed for that, and he also felt like the Amir-9's shape would make it get snagged in such an addition, anyway. Instead, just made a simple, round launching platform for the heater shield to rest upon, and the bam. Off it went flying.

Roman Fullister was gracious enough to be helping him out on the distant receiving end, making sure that none of them got lost.

In a way, they were playing the world's most intense game of catch.

And to aid with communication, Voreese was hanging out with Hector while Garovel followed Roman around.

'How much farther do you think you could make it go?' said Voreese, eyeing their most recent shield as it sailed off into the sky.

Hector squinted, already unable to see it in the distance. Even the midday sun and clear weather didn't help. "Farther? I'm wondering if we're not already sending it too far, as is."

'Nonsense. Roman hasn't missed a single one yet. We gotta try harder. Give him something to think about.'

Hector gave her a look. "You realize the whole point of him and Garovel being out there is to make sure that we don't lose any of these shields, right?"

'Yeah, but wouldn't it be kinda funny if they fucked up? I know I'd laugh.'

"It might not be so funny when one of my shields ends up on the black market."

'Oh, c'mon. You think someone's gonna reverse engineer it something? The materials are what make it so valuable, not the craftsmanship. Nobody but you will be able to replicate it and sell it for loads of money. Which, by the way, is something you should think about doing.'

It had crossed his mind once or twice before. But the idea of selling these shields in bulk--whether on the black market or not--wasn't very comforting to him. He didn't like imagining what his shields might end up being used for or by whom.

Plus, he wasn't terribly confident in the legality of it. Selling materialized objects? Items that he could go around and annihilate at his own leisure? Seemed kinda like a scam, though he hadn't actually discussed the logistics of it with Garovel yet.

Voreese still seemed to think it was a good idea, though, so maybe there was something to it.

Eh. Maybe one day, he'd give it a more serious look. Right now, it didn't matter, because he needed every shield that he could make. He would need hundreds more--maybe even thousands--if he was going to enhance Warrenhold's defenses with them.

Hector allowed the trebuchet to reset its position, then materialized another Amir-9 onto the launching platform and sent it flying, too. He looked over at Voreese again, waiting on word from her.

'He got that one, too,' she said after a minute. 'Come on, Hector. Change it up. Throw him a curveball. Or a fastball. Or a speedball.'

"A speedball? I'm pretty sure that's a drug thing, not a baseball thing."

'Look, I don't follow sports, okay? Just do something different. Give him a challenge. Think of training. For the both of you.'

"Training, huh?"

'Yeah.'

"Hmm..." He scratched his cheek, thinking.

'Unless you don't think you can get one past Roman. If you're afraid of a little healthy competition, I understand. I won't think less of you. Much.'

Hector tilted his brow at her. "You're barking up the wrong tree, Voreese. I'm not a competitive person. Like, at all."

'Oh, so you ARE scared, then.'

He sent another shield flying, just the same as before. He waited for the contraption's metallic groaning and scraping to quiet down before answering her. "Petrified."

'Wow. Okay, then. That's fine. I won't try to pressure you or anything. I'm just surprised to hear that the great Lord of Warrenhold is secretly a little bitch, that's all. Don't worry--I won't tell anyone.'

Hector chortled and shook his head. "You were better off trying to get to me think of it as training. You were starting to convince me, but now I just wanna refuse on principle."

'Ah, shit, really? Well, it WOULD be training. That's basically what all healthy competition boils down to. Hence the term 'healthy' being included.'

"Uh-huh."

'Roman's getting really good at flying, but he could use an extra push. Something to really challenge him, y'know? Without actually endangering him. Or me, preferably. Think you could provide that?'

"Hmm. Maybe." Hector held off on launching the next shield as he weighed his options. It might be kind of annoying if he ended up having to go hunt down a lost shield, but... maybe that would actually be a good exercise in an of itself.

First, he'd have to get a shield past Roman, though. And if this was suddenly a competition, then it wouldn't really be fair if just lobbed one on the opposite direction or something.

"Alright," said Hector. "I'll step it up a notch. But you have to warn Roman that I'm about to go harder."

'I do? Why? Wouldn't it be funnier as a surprise?'

"You're the one who specified 'healthy' competition."

'Yeah, but the first one could just be a prank. The healthy part could come after.' She drew herself up a little, looking suddenly a bit haughty. 'And frankly, Hector, I don't think you'll be able to get one past him, even without warning. So I'm giving you the advantage.'

"Just warn him, please. It's only fair."

'Ugh, fine.' She paused. 'There, he's been warned. Now hurry up. I'm not getting any younger over here.'

For a second, Hector just took her at her word, but then he decided to consult Garovel, who confirmed his suspicions. "No, you didn't."

'Wow, I can't believe you checked up on me. Where's the trust, man?'

"The same place the truth went, probably."

'Okay, okay, I warned him. For real this time. Satisfied, you little party pooper?'

After consulting Garovel a second time, he was. He gave her a nod.

Regarding how to proceed, Hector had a few choices. Simply upping the scale of the trebuchet might do the trick, but it would require entirely new refinement of the contraption's structural integrity. Most likely, it would collapse in on itself or worse several times before he got all the ratios correct. And while that might make for a fun exercise, he wasn't convinced that it would be enough to get past Roman. Voreese did seem pretty confident in him, after all.

Of course, there was also the option of the orbital technique. He could simply coat the freshly materialized shield in iron and then launch it like he'd done so many times before. But that didn't seem like it would be very good practice. He already felt quite comfortable with that technique.

And frankly, he felt like that would be overdoing it. That technique, more or less, had been what killed the Beast of Lorent. While Hector didn't want to underestimate his good friend Roman, he also didn't want to turn the guy into a bunch of meaty chunks.

So he decided to try something new, something that had been rattling around in a brainstorming thought process for a little while now.

A heat-assisted pressurization chamber.

With the advent of his ability to manipulate temperature, Hector had been trying to think of less conventional ways that he might be able to make use of it. One of the things he learned when reading up on the physics of heat was that it could increase the pressure in a given system.

He couldn't exactly claim that his understanding of it was complete, but from what he'd been able to discern, higher temperatures caused particles to move faster, making them bump into each other and thereby increasing pressure when in a contained environment. That was why heat caused things to distort and expand.

And when he got to thinking about pressure, that started giving him other ideas. Because, for example, wasn't it possible for him to create a vacuum? Quite easily?

All he had to do was make a simple iron cube, then hollow out the middle. There would be no air inside.

A vacuum wasn't necessarily useful for his purposes here, but the mere idea that he could so trivially manipulate air pressure had been enough to get the gears turning in his head even more. Because for instance, what if did the opposite? Instead of creating an airless chamber, what if he purposely captured air and began compressing it?

It seemed relatively simple to do. Just materialize an open box, then seal it off. From there, he could shrink the hollow space inside, causing the air molecules trapped within to be pressed closer and closer together.

Theoretically, he could do this as much as he wanted. The only problem, he thought, would be in how much air pressure the iron itself could withstand. At some point, the air pressure would likely grow too powerful for the chamber to contain, and his iron would tear itself apart with explosive force in order to release said air.

And therein lay the foundation of his idea. A compressed air explosion. If it worked, then he was pretty sure that he would be able to find all sorts of uses for such a technique in combat.

He wasn't entirely sure it would work that way, though. Thus far, he hadn't found the occasion to actually test it.

And now that he did, he was abruptly more concerned with Voreese's safety than with the experiment itself. He supposed she'd be fine as long as he didn't soul-empower anything, but that would also lessen the value of the experiment. In a real fight, he would almost certainly want to employ soul power.

Ah well. Maybe it was better to take things easier the first time, anyway.

He was already materializing an open iron chamber by the time his spare thought processes were finishing that internal debate. He needed it to be large enough to shoot an Amir-9 out of it, and since there was no soul power to threaten Voreese, he figured that he could go a bit overboard with the physical specifications.

He made it as big as a truck--a giant metal tube, propped up at an angle so that the open end was pointed up toward the sky in Roman's direction.

Then he grew the iron over the opening, sealing it shut. From there, he grew the iron walls slowly inward.

Simple enough.

He didn't really know when to stop, though. Without being able to actually see inside of the sealed chamber, he was working entirely in his head here, materializing based only on what he imagined the dimensions to be.

It was a massive tube. He'd made the iron quite thick. And up until the moment it was sealed, he'd been able to sense the exact shape from the inside using the Scarf of Amordiin. He just had to hold onto that memory, relative to slowly shrinking one in his imagination.

For this first test, he hadn't put the Amir-9 inside the tube, but a spare thought process began to wonder if perhaps he should. He was sure that it would be able to withstand just about any amount of pressure that he could create, but he didn't see much point to exposing the shield to it when he could just lay the Amir-9 over the sealed opening instead.

The idea was to let the pressure continue to build, then either weaken or just reopen the seal, allowing all of the air to escape in the desired direction. In this case, the sky.

But there was a problem.

He could feel it. With his materialization.

It was a difficult sensation to describe. He couldn't see inside the tube or know how much space was left, but he could feel that his materialization had stopped working.

He'd materialized so many different things before on so many different occasions, and he could just sort of... tell. There was a certain mental "feedback" that he got whenever he materialized something. A new kind of sense, perhaps. Like a quiet presence that should have been there but wasn't.

He'd never really given it much thought until now. It hadn't felt all that strange until it was no longer there.

Why wasn't it there? Had he ever felt this before?

Hmm. Maybe.

That time when Rasalased had reset his materialization--that had kind of felt like this. Sort of.

But this wasn't that. His ability hadn't reset.

There was something else.

This was more like... ah. Yeah. This was more like when he tried to materialize something into a solid object. It didn't work, because materialization couldn't accumulate within a physical space that was already occupied by something else.

That was one of the fundamentals of materialization. It was why he couldn't materialize an iron spike already in the ground, for example. He had to materialize it first, then puncture.

So was that what this was, then?

Hector circled around the tube as he contemplated, sizing his work up and down. Voreese was saying something, but he wasn't listening, even with a spare thought process. All of his mind was devoted to the problem in front of him.

He'd been thinking that he could just keep growing the iron inward, continually compressing the air therein to greater and greater extremes, but perhaps that had been foolish. Maybe once the pressure passed a high enough threshold, materialization within that space became impossible, no different than if it were a solid object.

Yeah, that would make sense, he supposed.

If so, then it kinda poked a giant hole in the viability of his experiment. The tensile strength of iron could be too high compared to the maximum compression that he could achieve with this technique.

Hmm. So no explosive decompression, then?

Dammit. That sucked.

Well. All hope wasn't lost just yet, Hector supposed.

He still hadn't integrated temperature into the equation yet. The plan had been for a heat-assisted pressurization chamber, after all.

From his research, he understood pressure and heat were linked. An increase in pressure corresponded with an increase in heat and vice versa. So what would happen if he used temperature manipulation to add even more heat to the system? What would happen if he began annihilating and replacing parts of the tube with molten iron?

Or near-molten, perhaps. If it were all gooey and soft and melting through the iron around it, then that probably wouldn't bode well for the project's overall structural integrity.

He'd have to be quick, too. Rapid annihilation and materialization was something that he'd practiced many times before, but never quite like this. If he was too slow or just chose his spots poorly, the iron walls might rupture.

He added some extra outer layers to the tube in order to help brace it, then he set to work.

The inner walls were replaced with heated iron. Emotional commands. Hot as he could imagine them without becoming molten in his mind.

From the outside, there was no visible change. The big tube of iron just lay there, unmoving. How much pressure would be required for it to shake or jostle?

He kept going. More replacements. More heat.

And to be on the safe side, he weakened the seal a bit more. If the walls did fail prematurely, he wanted it to be where the seal was. That way, it would at least explode in the intended direction. The Amir-9 was already position there, just waiting to be launched.

And still, there was no outward sign of movement.

The anticipation was getting to him a little. Just how was big was this explosion going to be, exactly? Or was it even going to explode at all? The tensile strength of his iron wasn't too strong, was it?

The longer this took, the more concerned he became. The pressure had to be building up in there. Maybe it still wasn't hot enough?

Molten iron, then?

Hmm.

Alright, fine, molten iron.

He started on another round of replacements, this time with as much heat as he could muster. He decided to weaken the seal a bit more, too. Maybe that would be enough. And he was already wearing a bit of armor but not much, so maybe he should--

The explosion came so fast and so loud that, even after waiting for it this whole time, Hector couldn't help being taken by surprise. The boom arrived and shot the Amir-9 into the air like a cannonball, and Hector, standing off to the side, was thrown off his feet. The whole tube lurched backward and skidded briefly across the barren field, tearing up dirt and rock as if starting to dig a trench.

Hector managed to catch himself before falling on his ass, at least, but his hearing was definitely gone, and his vision was taking a few seconds to come back into focus. He didn't need his ear drums to hear Voreese's voice in his head, though.

'Sweet, juggling titty twisters, Hector! I know said not to hold back, but damn! What did you even do just now?!'

He tried to explain, but it was kinda difficult when he couldn't hear the words coming out of his own mouth. His whole head felt like it was filled with cotton or something. He decided instead to ask Garovel to come heal him, to which the reaper replied that he was already on his way.

Apparently, the blast had been so loud that Garovel had been able to hear it from where he was.

Voreese was still talking to him, but Hector just kind of motioned with his hands and she seemed to intuit what he was trying to say. While they waited, he took the opportunity to examine the aftermath of his iron cannon.

It was all contorted and bent out of shape. Molten goo was seeping out through visible fissures in the iron near the exit, and all the lingering steam looked like would've been sizzling quite loudly if he could hear it. He annihilated his work in pieces, wanting to understand the internal damage a bit better instead of just dematerializing everything at once.

Garovel arrived first, phasing up through the ground and grabbing Hector's ankle to invoke the regeneration.

Not long afterward, Hector sensed Roman's approach with the Scarf, and then the man's voiced arrived from above. "Excuse me, sir, but what the fuck was that shit?"

Hector pressed his lips together flatly, fighting back a smile as he turned to look. "Are you okay? I hope, er--"

Roman's right arm was missing. It wasn't bleeding, though, having apparently been cauterized already. Voreese flew over to help him, and it soon began regrowing. His pale, sweaty face regained color, as well.

'He did warn you,' said Voreese publicly.

Garovel hovered over to Hector, saying nothing but eyeing the truck-sized iron tube nearby as molten goo spilled out of and a heat haze distorted the sight of it.

Roman's feet touched ground with a slight thud, and then Hector noticed the collection of shields hovering in behind him. They'd been at this all morning, so there were quite a few of them.

'You didn't miss that last one, did you?' asked Voreese.

Roman exhaled a ragged breath. "No, I got it." He waved his hand and brought one of the shields closer, into his left hand and held it up.

It took Hector a second to find the right words. "Er. Sorry about that."

"Don't be," said Roman, rolling his shoulder and stretching his neck. He was eyeing the spent cannon now, too. "Would you say that was more powerful than that orbit-y technique of yours or less?"

Hector scratched his forehead. "Uh... well, a few minutes ago, I would've said it was definitely less powerful, but now I'm not sure. I'd have do some testing and refining, I think."

"I see," said Roman. "Well, I'm up for taking another crack at it, if you don't mind. That made for some pretty intense practice."

Hector knew he was fine, but he still felt kinda bad.

And maybe Roman could tell as much from the expression on his face, because he said, "Is that pity I see? C'mon, this is no big--" He cut himself off, however, and his expression froze, eyes glancing at Voreese for moment before returning Hector. "...Oh, actually, agh, man, that really hurt, y'know? Damn." He dropped the Amir-9 he was holding in order to grab his right shoulder and present his bony, still-regenerating hand. "Ow. Gosh. Wow. Woe is me. This sure hurts."

Hector just cocked an eyebrow.

'Geez, Hector, that was pretty uncool,' said Voreese. 'How could you do that to Roman? So cruel, especially after all we've done for you, y'know? Man.'

Now Hector was just suspicious. He'd felt bad but not that bad. What were they playing at here?

'But y'know, if you'd like to make it up to us, we wouldn't mind getting maybe, perhaps, a nice little somethin'-somethin' from that Forge of yours. As like an apology gift.'

Ah.

Hector couldn't help but give a nodding laugh. "I suppose that could be arranged. Is there something specific that you have in mind?"

Roman and Voreese exchanged silent looks. From the combative expressions on their faces, they were probably arguing.

'Well, sure, I've got all sorts of ideas,' said Voreese, turning to Hector again, 'but it'd really depend on what the Sunsmith is able to pump out. We of course understand that it's a difficult and time-consuming process, full of nuance. At this stage, it'd be totally irrational to have our hearts set on any one thing thing in particular. Whatever you're able to provide us with would be perfectly--'

"She wants a compass," blurted Roman.

Voreese hissed at him.

Hector was mainly just confused, though. "Why a compass?"

"A magical one," Roman went on. "Not terribly unlike that Tuning Orb of Creamy Spaghetti you already have."

'Karugetti,' said Voreese. 'The Tuning Orb of Karugetti. It's named after one of the most brilliant men who ever lived, you ignorant mouthbreather.'

"Whatever."

'This is the first time we're hearing of your interest in the Orb,' said Garovel. 'Why didn't you mention it before? We wouldn't have given it to the Vantalay team if we knew you wanted it.'

'Eh, as long as someone's getting good use out of it, that's all that matters,' said Voreese. 'And besides, the Tuning Orb probably sucks. It wasn't actually invented by Karugetti himself. It was invented by Arkos, who was like Karugetti but shit. Karu-shitty.'

'Wasn't he Karugetti's apprentice?' said Garovel. 'He probably named it that to honor his master.'

'He should've honored him by not being such a lameass.'

'Do you have some sort of personal beef with Arkos? This isn't the first time you've ragged on him, as I recall.'

'I just think he's a bit overrated, is all. Dude's gotten all sorts of fame and fanfare over the years, while so many other great minds throughout history have gotten the shaft.'

'His reputational success didn't necessarily come at the expense of others, you know. As far as I'm aware, he was never branded as an idea thief or anything like that.'

'Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he was a swell dude. Gave to the poor and rescued lost kittens in his spare time, probably. What a homie. I'm just tired of hearing his name all over the fuckin' place.'

'Hmm. I feel like you're disproportionately upset at this guy for some reason.'

'Pah. He's long dead, so who cares if I talk shit on him? Who am I hurting, huh? His reputation has enjoyed plenty of overblown adoration already. What, was he a personal friend of yours or something?'

'Well, no, but--'

'Then fuck 'im!'

'Those aren't the words of a well-adjusted individual, Voreese.'

'Am I supposed to give a shit about that?'

'Ideally, yeah, kinda.'

The reapers' conversation kept devolving for a while, and Hector waited for them to circle back around to the topic of that "magic compass" that Roman and Voreese wanted, but they never did.

Instead, the reapers went abruptly silent, and then Garovel said something that Hector was not at all expecting. 'Ravi Zaman is here.'

That certainly caught Hector's attention. Ravi had never visited Warrenhold before--or even Atreya as a whole, as far as Hector was aware. The fact that the man was suddenly dropping by like this, totally unannounced, was actually quite alarming, Hector felt. Ravi was an important political figure in Lorent with not very much spare time on his hands, and even though Hector was on good terms with him, the courteous thing to do would have been to make known several days in advance that he intended to visit.

And Ravi was nothing if not courteous.

So Hector couldn't imagine that the man was going to have pleasant news for them.

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