Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (66/?) WiP 1 (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Here is the Work in Progress for Chapter 66 I hope you guys enjoy! :D

“I hate Earthrealm.” The Vunerian repeated once more, this time louder, and with greater conviction.

Those words resonated at odds with the calm, and otherwise uncompromising serenity of the projection around us. In a sense, falling flat against the completely unassuming atmosphere, consisting primarily of the clear and high-pitched harmonics of the wind chimes, the rustling of the leaves of this rooftop park, and accompanied by the occasional interruption courtesy of the hustle and bustle of the city echoing far below and above us.

The annoyed and disgruntled glare of the lupinor directed towards the deluxe kobold more or less cemented the inappropriate mismatch of words, and quickly demonstrated that not all were on the side of the Vunerian in his resolve.

“You stand against everything The Nexus upholds.” He continued unabashedly, unconcerned by the lupinor or any of the expressions he threw his way.

“How so, Ilunor?” I shot back questioningly, redirecting the flow of the conversation to something that might finally gauge the success of this whole Cross-Cultural Information Dissemination Exercise, and determining once and for all if the Vunerian had finally crossed the Information Dissemination Overflow Threshold.

Or, for lack of a better term, if he’d gone full IDiOT. Though, the diplomatic corps and their associated academics back at home preferred to keep the acronym to the more professional IDOV threshold, for reasons of ‘maintaining academic register’.

“How so?” He parrotted back in an indignant, almost condescending tone of voice. “How so?!” He repeated, guffawing out a barely contained nervous laugh. “Where do I even begin?! As a state, you are structured the wrong way up. As a polity, you are absurd. As an institution, you are seditious. And ultimately, as a civilization? You are preposterous. You are facilitated solely by mana-less contraptions that exist to mimic and parallel that which is the exclusive right of those preordained by fate and the hands of the eternal truths. You are a realm of madness, fueled by nothing but spite against your own mortal limitations, and-”

“-succeeding in spite of it.” Thalmin interrupted with a self-satisfied chuckle, crossing his arms as he just about cautioned himself against a clear desire to lean against a projection of a tree. Despite that, he still effortlessly loomed over the Vunerian. “Or, more accurately to the themes of this whole venture, succeeding because of it.”

“Success is not just measured by the raw potential for creation, or the matching of capabilities, but by the longevity by which they are able to persevere.” Ilunor rebutted promptly, prompting me to finally reenter the fray with a self-satisfied smile brimming underneath my helmet.

“Success or not, you agree then, that this… sight-seeing experience has been quite eye-opening?” I couldn’t help but to let out that little pun, if only to cool things down somewhat, as well as to provide for an off-ramp to the point I was leading up to.

“Eye opening, for all the wrong reasons, Earthrealmer.” Ilunor muttered out, not once shifting in his convictions, which could only mean one thing…

The presentation worked.

“For reasons that we can continue to work on in the future, I imagine. I’m certain you still have quite a few questions-'' I began offering, before being cut off by Thacea, and surprisingly the EVI, at just about the same time.

“-and not enough time to address them at present.” Thacea interjected, pulling out her timepiece, as if to emphasize her point.

[Suggestion, Cadet Booker: disengage from instigating another line of questioning that could potentially lead to a no-win CCID failure.]

Both, surprisingly, were suggestions that led me to the same conclusion I was headed down anyway.

A conclusion that even the Vunerian himself had preempted, if his response was of any indication.

“I do.” Ilunor stated in no uncertain terms. “And I expect more next time as well. Especially from that.” He pointed at a few of the SSTOs barely visible in the skies, as well as the more visible intra-city VTOL craft that meandered from rooftop platform to rooftop platform.

The fact that he’d never once raised the issue of falsification or fakes following the walk through the city was a massive unspoken win.

The fact he’d moved the goalpost further along, now raising fundamental issues with how earthrealm works, rather than outright doubting earthrealm’s existence, meant that whilst the Vunerian hadn’t blatantly admitted it, he was now firmly in the believer camp. Although with a lot of personal grievances, and plenty of reservations over everything his mind had now accepted as truth.

Though, the final say on that success could only be made by the raw and unfiltered logical machine that was the EVI.

“EVI, how are we looking?”

“Information Dissemination Overflow crisis with [Ilunor] has been averted, Cadet Booker. Moreover, IDOV thresholds with [Thalmin, Thacea] are calculated to be within acceptable ranges. This Cross-Cultural Information Dissemination exercise, is within the acceptable margins of success, calculated to be within a standard deviation of 0.02 as per SIOP CCID models.”

“Thanks, EVI.”

“Addendum, prior suggestion remains active.”

“Understood, I’m disengaging now before I spoil the pot with too much of a good thing.”

With a final affirmative beep from the EVI, I turned towards Ilunor with a confident nod. “I look forward to being grilled on anything else you have on your mind, Ilunor. For now, just take notes or something until the next sight-seeing session. I’m sure you’ll find something to like, or at least, something to not hate.” I offered in that same polite, diplomatically inclined tone of voice, prompting the Vunerian to simply nod all the while responding with an impudent huff.

“I highly doubt I shall find anything worthy of fondness, Earthrealmer.”

“The fondness shall be in watching Nexian sensibilities be tested, I should say.” Thalmin chimed in cockily.

Ilunor didn’t take the bait, thankfully. Which prompted me to finally end this whole thing with another snap of my fingers, and a little blurb of caution to the group. “You might feel a bit woozy with this being the first time, so just make sure to stare at the ground for a few short seconds as the projection winds down.” I offered politely, as the world around us slowly faded away to a featureless white, before breaking down chunk by chunk, until all that remained was the reality around us - the rotating ‘arms’ of the projector, and the blackout tarp just beyond it.

Everyone remained uncharacteristically silent as the machine wound down, and the whirring of the motors rang out in that titular whoooooshhhhhh before dying down with a satisfying ka-thunk, locking in place, ready for disassembly.