Celestial Hymn 22 (Patreon)

A/N: You know, after writing the latest Swiss Arms chapter, I’m not sure I can write anything this week that can compare to it. But I TRY

-VB-

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 22

-VB-

I expected the king to go North to get his hands on Lord Stark for his Hand of the King and released a sigh of relief when he did exactly that.

The king might like me, but I was nothing compared to his old pal who he grew up with and fought alongside.

So, where did that leave me?

It left me exactly where I wanted to be: somewhere out of sight and free to work as I saw fit.

“HA!”

I stood at the ground along with my men-at-arms, and we all trained together without the enchanted and Azerothian leatherworking enhanced armor. Each of us swung weight-equivalent training weapons, from staves to spears to swords and shields, and trained.

The current training was “outnumbered three to one” and I was part of the one.

“Fucking cheaters!” I roared as three of my men ganged up on me.

“Sorry, milord, it’s just part of the training, yeah?” one of the cheekier soldiers asked me as he pushed me away while his two partners thrust their blunted wooden spears at me. Without any of my enchanted equipment, I was only slightly better than they were. I hissed as I took a hit to my stomach but dodged the other one, and slammed down on the shoulder of the one to my right before backpedaling quickly.

That’s when the cheeky soldier came at me.

I struck at him with my own spear shaft, but missed. He took that chance to strike at me with his training sword, and I took a jab straight to my chest and rolled away.

“Defeat!” my master-at-arms declared and the troops whistled and cheered at three of their comrades’ victory.

I gasped, panting for breath, while on my back on the ground.

“Lord Marris has maintained his defense for three minutes, which is a fat lot better than what I can say for the rest of you degenerates!” he shouted when the cheering got a little bit too loud. I taught him to use that word, by the way. Degenerate. I remembered going on a rant about the smallfolks after some of them requested time to go on a pilgrimage while they had yet to finish their sentence.

Yeah, I should stop thinking about that before I go on a rant again. I may still be more than a little pissed.

I groaned as I pushed myself up and looked around.

“Here, milord.”

I looked up and saw Rosia standing behind me, holding a plate with a cold cup of watered-down ale. I took the chilled ale and downed it in one go, and couldn’t help the groan that came after. Alcohol was best served cold, and I managed that by not just a cooling water tower but a metamaterial insulated pipe. The metamaterial in question, cotton fibers woven with iron particles and fibers measured in nanometers to match the visible light spectrum, prevented heat from entering while allowing infrared light, which still had heat, to leave unimpeded. The result was a fabric that cooled whatever it covered.

Sure, the evaporative cooling worked just fine but why stop there when I had a workbench that could make anything I had the recipe for, right?

Normally, I would, at this point, say thanks to Rosia, but I have been “instructed” by my advisors to do away with acknowledging the lower class in public. For a lord to thank someone meant they have done him a service. Thanking someone for doing their paying job was not worthy of a lord’s thanks unless they went above and beyond, who also deserved additional reward.

This was something that Lord Renly, when I asked him about it through letters, also agreed with.

To that end, I was doing my somewhat best in public to not constantly thank someone, despite my transmigrated habit’s insistence that I should.

Instead, I just nodded to her and moved on. Soon after that, I got up and left the arena to let the next match unfold.

Most of what I did involve this and tinkering. I had others oversee the constant improvements to the land, and the aqueduct neared completion.

“Up next, Team C and Team G!”

‘Oh, it’s a two-versus-four fight this time,’ I thought as I sat down on an empty bench by the wall of the training yard. Six men-at-arms walked up to the field with their preferred weapons and took their stances. Two spears versus three swords and a spear. I wondered how they would do against each other. While swords certainly beat spears at close quarters, one must reach close quarters to have that advantage, and a spear, even better with multiple spears, kept people at long range.

I blinked as the Celestial Forge, after a month of silence, roused from its slumber.

I blinked as I gained … something powerful. It applied only to me, which wasn’t as great as a few of the others I’ve received so far, but its purpose was to halve the time on any infrastructure construction speed.

Well, shit. I had half a mind to go and finish the aqueduct myself.

… but then again, why should I do extra work for the smallfolk?

No, I’m just going to work on my own projects.

I wanted to build my own castle bunker!

… Was that a stupid idea? Maybe. It probably wouldn’t be much more useful than the workshop I already had set up. Hell, its only function, to protect me, was useless since I could do so much more than run and hide.

You know what? Nevermind.

I had better things to build than a bunker. Actually…

… Could I build a mage’s tower? Like a wizard’s tower? I had crystal magic, which I used to make my staff (and didn’t have much use for after the king’s surprise visit), that the Draenei used (and I am only just now realizing that I had two magics from World of Warcraft).

I could build a fucking spaceship if I wanted to, couldn’t I? My only bottleneck was pure crystals capable of channeling magic that was the size of mountains.

… Okay, maybe not giant spaceships but I could do something … magnificent.

Yeah, I could build a wizard’s tower, and if I used it to … let’s say make a factory?

I stifled the grin growing on my face.

A little harmless “undead-be-gone” sticks to hand out to everyone and their parents wouldn’t be a bad thing. It just sucked that I had to make the whole tower myself. 

-VB-

New power!
3.18: What’s An Engineer? (-200)