The Gamer Chapter 1454 – 27 Days of Preparation 8 – Project: Ego Weapon [Scarlett POV] (Patreon)

Scarlett held a rock in her hand. Her fingers pressed into the sides of the solid chunk of stone. Muscles up her arm tensed, and then, suddenly, the rock cracked. One chunk turned into many splinters that fell down on the ground.

The redhead squatted down, flicking her cascading hair back so it didn’t cover her right eye, then grabbed a particularly long shard. Holding it between both hands, she strained again and snapped it like it was a sturdy twig. The sensation was mildly pleasing.

“So, it ain’t just lil’ ol’ me.” The heavy drawl made the speaker apparent without Scarlett turning her head. “One day ya struggle with cement sacks and the next…” Hailey stepped into Scarlett’s field of view, picked up a boulder, and threw it like it was a baseball. “…ya can do Superman stuff.”

“You’re about four times stronger than me,” Scarlett pointed out. Unlike Mental Stats, where John’s Observe was a flawed tool at best, Physical Stats were measured accurately enough. Lifting weights was easier put in numbers than intelligence.

“And ain’t that just the weirdest thing north of Texas?” Hailey laughed.

“Not exactly, for an Abyssal I was always…” the boulder landed in the distance with a loud ‘SPLASH!’ “…weak.”

The two of them were next to an expansive, artificial wetland. Stones surrounded the flowing rivers, filtering the water through gravel and keeping it clear. The system was circular, and slanted, a fountain sucking in the water from the lowest point and bringing it back up to the highest. Four bridges crossed the river, one in each of the cardinal directions.

Lorelei had insisted four lines were all that they could handle at this time.

In the centre of the wetlands was their new workshop. Its foundation was green grass, surrounded by an iron circle concentric with the river.

Lorelei had similarly insisted iron was all that they could handle at this time.

The four bridges, Scarlett understood. Lines crossing circles, it was a common shape found in enchantment and magic in general. In arcano-tech, it was common to design the central circuitry as a downward spiral that had extensions running away from it at set intervals. Viewed two dimensionally, that shape came down to the same pattern. Something about that shape seemed to conduct magic in a particularly efficient manner, like certain shapes of antennas were particularly good at picking up certain frequencies. Alternatively, magic at a particular flow created this pattern on its own, like sand arranging itself in response to vibrations. Research suggested it was both, which was infinitely annoying.

An item enchanted would change itself while being changed. One might want to achieve seven lines crossing one ring, touching a second, but to achieve that level of denseness in magic, the magic itself had to agree. Eliana’s eyes, Gaia’s eyes, her man’s contact lenses, crafted by the Horned Rat, those were the places where the shape occurred. It was probably buried in the depths of the magical matrixes of the Fusional weapons as well.

Scarlett had no idea how to properly shape something that shaped itself at the same time. Enchantment was one of many disciplines she had dabbled in. Illusion Barrier manipulation was another one. Her father had spent much treasury in finding her teachers that were as capable as they were silent. From a young age, Scarlett had understood that there was value in broad understanding. Her research would have increased many times in efficiency if there had been no need to rely on the idiots that populated the Earth.

Alas, she lacked the ‘intuition’ for enchantment, Illusion Barriers, alchemy, and all the other esoteric arts. Beyond the entry level, where everything could be done by reason and reason alone, she was out of her depth. She had no idea what Delicia did when she swirled her brews around, nor how Lee managed to just manifest landscapes with her thoughts, nor what Lorelei saw that made her certain conditions for enchantments were just right. Artifice and arcano-tech, she understood.

Energy sources slotted into proper extraction mechanisms. Extracted energy flowed through deliberately shaped materials. Resistance and further conversions made the energy take the desired shape. It was all mechanical and logical. Something did not perform as expected? Measure failure, adjust or find replacement. Nothing of that esoteric confusion of having to repeat it during a full moon, but not the next full moon.

Until recently, she had been unparalleled in the field in all of Fusion, then this tanned, giant-titted gorgeous fucking thing next to her had strut into their life with all the unaware genius of a Latebloomer. It would have been one thing if she had created more magical absurdity, but she had to have the ability to achieve feats of engineering that were inherently logical. They were just above what Scarlett could achieve.

And that was frustrating beyond belief.

“Ya starin’ quite intensely there, Rayd,” Hailey drawled.

Scarlett did not answer immediately. Dusting off her hands, she stood up and reached into the inside of her suit. The packet of cigarettes was a familiar weight in her hand. She remembered when she had picked up smoking. It was after she had discovered the ludicrous stockpile of the stuff her father had left behind. It went too well with the whiskey to ignore.

The taste of smoke and nicotine soon filled her down to the lungs. Slowly, she exhaled. “I don’t enjoy being outcompeted,” she stated blatantly. “Not by enemies, not by employees, and not by allies.” She took another huff. “Especially not by equals.”

Hailey looked at her with a solemn expression. “Did it hurt you when I made somethin’ you couldn’t?” she asked slowly.

“Hurt me?” Scarlett snorted. “It frustrates me. It will continue to frustrate me. It will always gnaw at me.” Slowly, a smile spread on her face. One so wide it taxed muscles in her face that rarely got used. “We have a lot of time together, you and I. I’ll fucking crack your secrets, one by one. You enjoy being ahead.”

“Atta girl,” Hailey drawled. “I’ll show ya everything I have to offer.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, as if she needed to hear that. It didn’t matter if the other haremettes could do things she couldn’t do or couldn’t do yet. What skills she could acquire, she would. What skills she couldn’t acquire, she would purchase. Nothing had changed. All Hailey had shown her was that there was still so much more to unlock.

Besides, even if she was a tremendous engineer, that had never been her most valuable capability.

Scarlett closed her left eye. A habit that was manifesting in the last few days. Her powers had spiked immensely thanks to her man’s treatment. ‘Idiotically rough treatment,’ she added to herself, remembering the sores all over. All the while, her mental network extended outwards. There was nothing within this Intermediary Barrier that had the capacity to receive signals that she couldn’t tap into.

Beyond it was difficult only because of the time dilation. Still, she saw several gigabytes of information flash behind her closed lid within moments. Economic data across several layers of over two dozen international companies. Updates on Fusion’s and private covert endeavours. She lingered for a moment on any news she had on Japan and clicked her tongue when that remained a mystery.

“Fucking Koreans,” Scarlett hissed.

“That ain’t soundin’ nice out of context,” Hailey stated.

“They should either annex Japan already or stop blockading it. It’s absurdly difficult to get spies on the island with them locking down every airport. It‘s like I’m dealing with an entire nation as paranoid as our idiot.” Scarlett finished her cigarette just as she noticed Lorelei approaching them.

The seer had an absurdly attractive walk. Seriously, Scarlett couldn’t have designed a better walk cycle if she had tried. Even when she wore heels, Scarlett found her strut to be rather boring on the eyes. A sacrifice she had to make because there was always somewhere she had to be and the faster she walked there, the quicker she could get to the next appointment. Scarlett knew she walked like a businesswoman, because that’s what she was.

Lorelei walked like a woman. No additional qualifiers, which was the most impressive matter of all. Something specific was easily observed. Everyone noticed even a mediocrely crafted skyscraper. To be an outstanding single family house in the suburbia, it had to be either a terribly ugly or a particularly gorgeous one.

Lorelei carefully planted her feet one before the other. There was a natural swing to her wide hips, notable but not notable enough to seem deliberately alluring. Every time her soles hit the ground, her softness trembled just a little bit. Neither so slow to be a bother nor so fast that it seemed like she was in a hurry, she glided along. There was a fluidity to her motions that spoke to a greater level of self-care. Her hands were orderly folded in front of the midriff of her ash grey, conservative dress the entire time.

‘If I could get any gayer.’ Scarlett dropped the cigarette. It landed among the rocks that decoratively surrounded the artificial wetlands. “Had fun?”

“It was enlightening to see our beloved fight,” Lorelei responded. Even her voice oozed femininity. “I bring additional materials.”

“Do ya?” Hailey hummed and rubbed her hands with excitement. She hopped from one foot to the other, as the excitement grew. Her breasts bounced under the cover of her leather bra, as did the sleeves of the half-disrobed coverall that she had tied around her waist. “Aww, can’t wait to get this started! I wanna see what I can build with y’all.”

“No reason to wait,” Scarlett stated and guided the other two into the workshop.

The single-story building was large. Its outline described another concentric circle, with four openings aligned with the four bridges that led up to it. The ceiling was flat, except for the chimneys that stuck out all over. A particularly large one at the centre was the extension of the large smithy in the chamber at the heart of the workshop. They each had their isolated areas, separated by walls and corridors, to serve the individual needs of their craft.

Scarlett whistled in the general direction of Delicia’s and then Lee’s segment. The doors were open, the structure and the women working within it too sturdy to worry about potential mishaps affecting them.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Lee shouted from her area.

“Don’t make Rel jealous!” Delicia shouted back. Her voice was even squeakier than usual, but Scarlett did not pay that any mind. She wandered over to the conference table, a little out of place in the concrete chamber, and hooked into the machine Hailey had spent the last two and a half days building.

It was yet another piece of machinery that Scarlett was dying to find out how exactly it worked. Her mind prodded circuitry, activated programs, and soon a three-dimensional projection of objects hovered in the air. The theory behind it she understood, it wasn’t like illusion magic had never been used to create a representation of things before, but to have it be a part of programming rather than enchantment was entirely new.

“Your bullshit never ceases to amaze,” Scarlett stated, analysing every part of the bowling ball-sized sphere of welded metal that she could. Even being inside the wires and circuitry barely let her comprehend the functions of the object. Individual parts she got but the code and hardware were too dense for her to decipher. “Can you mass produce these?”

“Nah, takes a bunch of on-hand work to get the timing right on the opposition inscriptions,” Hailey gave a variation of the typical answer.

Scarlett walked around the table, fascinated by the fact that the display of the three-dimensional arrangement was the same no matter where she stood, with no additional input of where she stood. “Shame, it’d be useful at widespread usage. Guess we’ll remain the primary enjoyers of your fucking enigmas.”

Lee joined them at the table. The brunette had her hair bound up in a ponytail. Besides that, she wore her typical outfit of a black shirt and dark jeans. “You girls think I’d look good with eyeliner?” she asked all of a sudden.

“Ya goin’ for a goth look?” Hailey asked.

“Am considering it,” Lee revealed, blushing just the slightest bit. She tugged at her almost black bangs. “Thought I might change it up a bit, at least for a little while. Just try it out, ya know?”

“I reckon you would look cute, although John does have his distaste for make-up.”

“I can paint myself for myself,” Lee returned.

“It’s a time waster,” Scarlett stated, fingers drumming on the tabletop. She was craving the motions of another cigarette more than she was craving the nicotine. The drug itself barely did anything for her these days. Thankfully, the tar and general toxins similarly barely did anything to her either.

“Oy, we can’t all resolve our stress by working more,” Lee pushed back.

“I don’t. I’m just not so weak that I need a break six hours a day,” Scarlett shot back. Lee just shrugged; it was far from the first time they had a dispute over her laziness. “As long as it’s not my dime you’re wasting,” the redhead grumbled. “DELICIA!” she then shouted. “What’s the hold-up?!”

“Oh, wow, I thought two and a half days of perma-screwing would unwind you a little bit, but I guess not even cumming your brains out fixes your level of ornery,” Delicia’s squeaky voice echoed from her segment of the workshop. A few seconds later, the shortstack stepped out of the door.

And a shortstack she was. Twenty-centimetres shorter than before, she just about reached Scarlett’s ribs. Boobs and butt seemed to have maintained their previous size, delivering the alchemist from barely proportionate to solidly in the realm of boob to head ratio reserved for art and monster girls. Considering her skin was green and her ears were large and leaf-shaped, she certainly fell into the latter category.

“Yes, yes, I know, there’s a lot to look at,” Delicia stated, waddling towards the table. The obscenely large tits kept on bouncing with every step she took and the way they stretched out her maid uniform did them no favour. Scarlett had to give it to her man that he knew how to dress up his servants. Even if they all needed an attitude correction… except for Aclysia. “The most important member of the gathering is here, you can all… applaud... now…!” Delicia had to jump to get into the chair. “Nobody saw that!”

“Since when are you a goblin?” Scarlett asked the more pertinent question.

“Goblin deez nuts!!!” Lee suddenly burst out.

Everyone else around the table looked at the gamer girl with either exasperation or confusion. Then Delicia started slapping the table with intense glee. Lee had the decency to turn beet red, lower her head, and at least try to look like she wasn’t grinning ear to ear.

“May I ask what this is about?” Lorelei investigated.

“It’s… uhm… it’s an updog thing.”

A moment of confusion. A tilted head. Literal soul-searching on the seer’s part. Then, the question, “What’s updog?”

Delicia fell out of her chair. The green hand of the alchemist barely managed to reach above the edge of the table. An endless stream of laughter filled the chamber with unproductive joviality.

“Stop.” Scarlett rubbed her temples.

“B-b-but if I stop here she…” Lee stammered and Scarlett stared at her. Turning even redder, the internet addict continued anyway, “If I stop here she might get Ligma.”

“Ligma?” Lorelei was still thoroughly confused.

“L-ligma balls…” Lee held it in for just a moment. Then, in an explosion of undignified laughter, she too fell out of her chair. Scarlett doubled the speed at which she was rubbing her temples. This was why she wanted shock collars to be standard issue for her employees.

Hailey was chuckling and Lorelei remained deeply troubled by the universal joviality at her expense. It took over five minutes for everyone to calm down, and for the jokes to be explained to one consistently confounded seer.

“Now that half of you proved you’re still thirteen,” Scarlett drily stated, “let’s get to work. Lorelei, you said something about extra materials?” The seer pulled two ingots of a blood red metal from her pocket dimension and placed them on the table. “Name?”

“Bloodsteel,” Lorelei reported.

Scarlett scanned through her archive of materials, then clicked her tongue. “Another new entry. Can he stop just manifesting previously unknown materials into reality?” Scarlett grabbed the two ingots, stacked them in front of her chair, and put them aside for the time being. She would have to experiment on them later, find out the melting point and other general attributes.

As the project lead and local data bank, it was her job to make sure she had a handle on all the resources they had access to and all of the resources they needed. Delicia may have been capable of creating most things requested, but that required said request. Just mentioning what was needed did not do the alchemist much good.

Scarlett plopped down in her own seat, then began the meeting in earnest. “With all of us through the proverbial and literal wringer…” she allowed herself the visual projection of Lee in a chokehold, her face a mess of sweat, spit, and ecstasy, “…we can officially begin our first major project. Our time allocated for this is 23 days. I do remind that, although we do treat this as a learning experience, I demand something usable at the end of this.”

The authoritative tone Scarlett used caused seriousness to finally settle around the room. Even goblin Delicia looked appropriately invested. “So, what’s our goal?” the greenskinned shortstack asked.

“After additional exchanges with Lorelei this morning, we have decided on the previously discussed project. A weapon with enchantments that function passively or via indirect activation through Possession. Preliminary name is Project Ego Weapon,” Scarlett stated. “Keep in mind that we want a weapon that’s most effective being Possessed and nothing else. John has enough mana sinks as it is. It should solely serve as a powerful, semi-autonomous support weapon.”

The hologram in the middle of the room transformed into a list. A Possession target had numerous restrictions on its design. The primary one was that they had to find a way to make the final item a singular object. Scarlett had found a number of workarounds to this issue already and was slowly becoming an expert on the subject. The question was which solution exactly they employed.

“Mandatory is that it can fly,” Scarlett reminded everyone. “It’s a support weapon, so it doesn’t need to be extremely apt. Movement equivalent to an Agility of 300 minimum and 700 maximum should be enough.”

“I will ask Claire later if she is up for comparison testing,” Lorelei offered. “I am having tea with her and Aclysia later. It will be a good opportunity.”

Claire had an Agility of 525, so that would make for the perfect comparison. “Wonderful. Nathalia and Nightingale have promised they would provide what they can. Because Nightingale is being trained herself, we’ll have to go to them whenever we want something. I’ll accumulate a list of requests over the coming week and present it to them at that juncture.” Nods all around. “Lee, Lorelei, how is enchantment training coming along?”

“Splendidly,” Lorelei answered.

“Surprisingly well, at least in the limited field I am exercising,” Lee added. “I’ll be with my dad half of the day, though. Got to keep learning the Fateweaver tricks.”

“Serves us just as well,” Scarlett stated. The workshop was as much her work as it was Gnome’s. “Hailey, how is the blacksmithing?”

“Givin’ me guns.” Hailey flexed and revealed a surprising amount of muscle hiding under the skin of her arms. Once she stopped showing off, her figure returned to being moderately athletic. “More seriously, I’m pickin’ it up. Need Del’s or Rel’s help for the timing on the more esoteric materials, though.”

“What would you do without me?” Delicia let out a theatrical sigh. “I transmute out your materials, I keep morale high with my squishy sight, I have to help all of you… truly, alchemists do not get enough appreciation…” She put a hand to her forehead and let out a second, louder sigh. “Go on, fall on your feet before me.”

“No,” Scarlett denied.

“Aww, always so cold.”

“Should we call John in for initial testing?” Lee asked.

“Let him have his half vacation. He’ll swing by with his real body when he feels like it,” Scarlett waved off. For all the shit she gave him, she did know that John worked even harder than her. Even while he was busy slating the desires of himself and the many haremettes, there was always one body marching around and doing the meddlesome work of government officials. That she thought most of that work was unnecessary did not change that it was work. “First, we got to have something to show.”