Suzy got out of bed. Walking to her balcony, she looked out over the Per’Ush Islands. They truly were beautiful. Even though the sun had yet to fully rise, people were already moving around in the early morning. There was a kind of energy to the place that was hard to find anywhere else..

A sense of excitement, hope and opportunity, as if anyone and everyone was just on the cusp of some great achievement and were pushing themselves and their peers to new heights.

Induca made sleepy noises, stretching in the large bed the two had shared. Suzy smiled, looking back to her girlfriend. Induca was flighty and seemed to be something of a rogue, but when Suzy and Induca were alone, they had shared their fears and insecurities. It had made them stronger in their relationship and as people.

“Earth wasn’t all that great,” Suzy muttered to herself, wandering over to Induca who rolled over, still not ready to embrace the coming day.

Suzy took a few more minutes looking at her girlfriend, studying her body as if to memorize them forever.

“Close the blinds,” Induca complained.

“Come on baby, time to wake up,” Suzy said, moving over to Induca.

Induca pouted and buried her head under a pillow.

“It’s dark now,” Induca said in a proud voice.

--- mild nudity and sexiness ahead (ends at ***) ---

Suzy’s ran her fingers up Induca’s leg, pushing the sheets aside as she walked along the bed.

“Fingers are cold,” Induca complained.

“Have to heat them up,” Suzy said, her fingers tracing across Induca’s navel and upwards, tracing across her breast making small circles around her nipple which grew hard at her teasing.

Induca’s legs moved, clearly not adverse to Suzy’s advances.

“Mmm, I wouldn’t mind being woken up like this more often,” Induca said, peeking out from under her pillow.

Suzy climbed onto the bed, kneeling between Induca’s legs. She gently pushed the pillow aside, her lips finding Induca’s. Their kiss was long and passionate. Suzy pulled back, breathing heavily, fully aroused and excited by Induca.

“I love you,” Induca said, naked, both emotionally and physically.

“I love you too, and I’ll show you,” Suzy winked, giving Induca a quick kiss. In their time together they had come to know one another’s bodies intimately. Suzy’s lips kissed and teased Induca’s neck while her hands trailed down Induca’s body, her nails lightly scratching the inside of Induca’s thigh. She gave Induca’s now fully erect nipples some attention while her hands traced lines up Induca’s thighs, feeling the warmth of Induca’s opening, before continuing across her stomach and moving up her side.

Induca shivered, goosebumps covering her body as her legs unconsciously wrapped around Suzy and tightened.

Suzy kissed Induca again who let out a small moan, holding Suzy’s head and pulling it to her, her hips shifting in excitement.

***

Induca towelled off her hair as she walked back into the room.

“Goddammit Dave, what the hell were you up to when I was gone?” Suzy yelled.

Well, I guess the vacation is over. Induca thought to herself, pulling on her clothes as Suzy continued to have a one-sided conversation with Dave.

“Alright, since we’re in Per’Ush right now anyway, I’ll see if I can get a meeting with Deia’s mom and run this by her,” Suzy said, sounding defeated.

“Yes, I know, you wouldn’t be able to do anything without me. I swear anytime I get even a few days off you go and turn the damn world on its head!”

“Okay, go and make your power station. I just got your file; we’ll talk later,” Suzy sighed.

“Everything go well?” Induca asked, wrapping Suzy up in a hug from behind.

“Well, it seems in the time we’ve been gone: Dave has spent millions of coins worth of gold in order to buy up his mining manager, he’s come up with several new patents, and founded a new school for people to learn anything they want from. He’s also figured out how portals work, oh, and he somehow got his hands on more materials than the Dwarves have,” Suzy sighed again, leaning on Induca.

“So, where do we start?” Induca said.

“We talk to Deia’s mom, see if she and the Mage’s guild want in on this. Having more educated mages is something they’re all about and I know that they want to learn this new way of magical coding. We get a whole damn flock of birds with one stone with just that. Going to be a pain with the contracts and trying to figure out how to manage it, though right now we just need to make sure that the POEs are strong enough that they can defend themselves and their families. Once we get that done we start everyone on learning magical coding. Dave is overworked with it and if we can get more people replicating it, we can increase production and maybe make some real factories, not just one of Dave’s conjuring thingies. Might also get him to make that summoning hall,” Suzy said.

“You’re smiling,” Induca said into Suzy’s ear.

Suzy looked to Induca and then back out of their room and out onto Per’Ush, her smile growing as she placed her hand on Induca’s encircling arms.

“He might be half mad and drive me up the wall, but he knows how to light a fire under anyone’s ass, including his own. It’s going to be a lot of work, but damn if I’m not excited to get started,” Suzy chuckled.

“Well, let’s go change the world,” Induca said, kissing Suzy’s head.

“Back to the grind,” Suzy agreed.

***

“Let’s start, shall we?” Hamdir asked, looking to the rest of the Aleph council. “So, Meda, you said that you have something important to tell us?”

“Yes,” Meda said, looking like she was about to jump out of her seat in excitement. “Dave sent over a plan he came up with to improve our growing abilities. I had a look at it and, while we would need to change a few things, once we adapted the various magical coding systems, we could be growing a full harvest of foods faster than ever before!”

“How much would these plans cost for us to use and how fast are we talking?” Hamdir asked.

“We could halve, maybe even quarter the growing time and the plants would be healthier and better than any other we can grow. For cost, I don’t know, Dave hasn’t put a price on it; he gave us the plans to test out and tell him what we think. Instead of just focusing on one area, this system works on all aspects of what the plants will need. It uses different magic from all of the affinities. Combining them is hard, but Dave seems to do it seamlessly.”

“Why don’t we ask him if we could maybe build one of them at cost to test it out?” Koza asked.

“Maybe offer our help in their attempt to create a true factory at Zol’Ord?” Frenik added.

Hamdir nodded.

“I agree that sounds like a good plan. Meda continue with your best judgement. I know that with winter coming, people across Emerilia will need food more than ever. If we can supply them food throughout the winter months, we can start making trading partnerships and growing our alliances,” Hamdir said.

“I’ll see to it,” Meda promised.

“Good, now so, Sela, I heard that you had something to say,” Hamdir said.

“The Stone Raiders are building a power station. They have created a drop pad where they want to put their teleport pad. Josh is pulling funds together and it seems they will start building immediately. I’m also told that they are nearly ready to start spinning their city,” she looked to Frenik who nodded.

“Dave has been in the city for just three days, but he and Malsour have been doing the impossible. Dave’s been mass conjuring and destroying, carving out the city. Malsour has been emplacing the rollers. The other Stone Raiders have been helping out; they could have it spinning within the week. Then, their only problem becomes power. They need that power station up to keep the city spinning. That, or they keep powering it with their vault classed soul gems,” Frenik shrugged, looking to Sela. “I don’t think many groups could meet the power needs of a spinning city, but I think they might have enough to keep it going for maybe a month or two.” Sela nodded in agreement.

“They’re damn fast,” Koza said, leaning back in his seat and tapping his hand on the table.

“That they are. I expect that they’re going to be changing quite a few things as they build their city. How are we looking for security?” Hamdir asked.

“We’ve got more automatons up and online, Ela-Gal has been training and testing out our controllers. Josh sees the Stone Raiders Guild Hall as a hub, a place for Players and POEs to have all their needs sorted in one go. It’s also clear that he thinks of it as a staging area for the coming war. That said, I think it’s clear that our role in the coming fights will be to move troops and supplies. For that, I think we should focus on trying to learn magical coding to improve our factories and production times. Just like with food, we’re going to need bandages, arrows, spears, health and mana potions. All of that is going to be our contribution,” Koza said.

He looked pained to admit it, but it showed an inner strength that few military people had: knowing when to back down.

“Understood, I agree with Koza’s assessment as well. I also know that Ela-Dorn is off trying to find out more information on the portals, agrees with that assessment.” 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 mages from the college coming to ours as part of the deal. The Trader’s guild we’ve talked to and talked about our 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 few of them are really needed with automation it’s probably not going to be the prettiest, but that hasn’t stopped progress in the past. The Adventurer’s guild are 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, 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. They’re also only going to give us plans for the structure, so we’re going to have to get our enchanters to add in the right runes to turn them from massive paperweights into real weapons,” Hamdir said.

“Well, Dave might be able to help,” Frenik said.

“Yes, he might be, but he’s also got a lot of other projects and, if we have our own people that can magically code in the right runes, we can leave him to come up with some other crazy ideas that could help us in the coming war,” 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 like they did. In fact, Meda was eyeing the door like a hundred meter 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, ending the council meeting.

***

Kol walked through Unity. The city was growing quickly; everyday, more people and materials were coming 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.

There was also a massive amount of Players that 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, apparently.

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

There was an energy running 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. He walked through the curving main trading street that passed through the various sectors, shops selling anything from prepared foods to ones selling clothes, armor and a room for the night.

Kol came to a stop, tucking 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 towards him. Gurren and Kol clasped one another 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. You know, make a map of what’s going on out there,” Gurren said.

“You keep him out of trouble?” Kol said, looking to Lox and Steve.

“Ah, well, we tried to,” Lox said.

“Wouldn’t let us get into too much,” Steve said, almost sounding like he wished they’d got 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 ringing out.

“So, what you doing out here? I thought you would be in there getting ready for the first fittings,” Gurren said, pointing to the smithies.

“Well, I was just heading down there. All of the contracts and everything are lined up. Walk with me,” Kol said, heading 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 pulled our most skilled workers that aren’t acting as teachers here so that they fit the roughly shaped 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 that 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 that 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, like completely. Everyday 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.” Kol said, hesitant to take his hand off of Steve. The intricacies of the metal man were as complex as they were things of beauty and elegance.

“Halt!” A Beast Kin crocodile barked.

The formation of DCA stopped on a dime, their feet slamming into the road at the same moment.

“Starting to not only act like a real army, but look like it,” Lox said with approval. His veteran eyes looking 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 said, his statement coming 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.

“He turned them into friggin sentient fighters?” Steve laughed, shaking his head. “Damn that’s funny, but also really useful. 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 piss off.”

“I would have called them cowards before. With the clans, you’re taught that doing anything 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 to himself, 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 fixed out. 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 massive 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 up, but training them and seeing if they were any good took time.

Steve walked into the high ceiling smithy, looking around.

“Bit different than the Aleph smithies. Looks more like a small machine shop,” Steve said.

“We don’t mass produce. Everything here is of the highest quality and materials,” Kol said, pointing 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, shaking his head.

“Damn apes,” Kol growled.

“Something the matter?” Steve asked as Kol started pulling out tools, opening up the maintenance hatch that opened up into 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 but he wasn’t able to do everything,” Kol said, working 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 back-up in the other.” Kol fiddled around with a gear, 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 acting 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, he pulled out a silver ingot. He rubbed the silver; it covered his finger as if it was 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, running his finger over a gear that was showing 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 collapsing inwards, a repeating ballista replacing his hand and forearm.

“Hmm,” Kol said, tapping his chin in thought.

Steve looked to Kol.

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

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

“Okay, so that does sound promising. What are you thinking?” Steve asked, transforming his repeater back to his 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, he said he got a shock everytime 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 asked, getting down from the ladder.

“Yeah,” Steve said, sounding curious but wary.

“Okay, so I’ve been working on making a forceshield. It’s basically a simple system where you have a small shield but then a magically enchanted shield that extends whenever you’re under attack. I can’t think your shield completely covers you so this would be a good addition. Also, you could see through the shield and fire your weapons at whatever’s attacking you,” Kol started walking deeper into the smithy until he reached a worktable he’d claimed for himself, pulling out books and other materials. Steve following him.

“What about power draw?” Steve asked.

“Ah, not just an amazing piece of engineering!” Kol said with approval, pulling out a piece of paper and then flipping 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 noting 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 said, pushing 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,” Kol said.

“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 said, looking at Steve’s magical circuit.

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 said as he bent to work.

“Wow, I thought I was near my peak, but damn this is a lot of information,” Steve said.

“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!”