Did I make a mistake? I was looking at my notes about the Mountain Flyers so that I could verify their horizontal air speed and dive speed. When I did I find something them it was confusing to me. I had given the numbers in mph but I labeled them in kph. I’ve tried searching the story’s published chapters but so far I haven’t found anywhere I mentioned those numbers. If I did and you know which chapter, could you drop me comment so I can go back and fix them, thank you.

The correct numbers are:

Horizontal Speed: 56 to 70 mph, or 90 to 113 kph.

Typical Dive Speeds: 75 to 160 mph, or 121 to 257 kph.

Maximum Air Speed (dive): up to 210 mph, or 338 kph.

These numbers apply to young adults (teenagers) and adults; there are no differences because of sex, some flyers are just naturally weaker or stronger than others.

What I used to arrive at those numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_by_flight_speed

I let Vince get a little crazy in that last chapter. There were some things that I was going to hide from you but I changed my mind and I decided to explain some of his motivations in the beginning of this chapter.

This chapter was going be too long, so I split it up into two chapters. The second one should be released fairly soon, within hours of this one.

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Chapter 21: Salvage

I sat in my workshop and in the depths of my inner mind, I wondered if Star Astrologer had any real idea of what a cold hearted son of a bitch I really was.

Shortly after my experience with building the Stronghold’s walls, I had realized that something strange had been going on with my car’s various drivers. I’m not entirely stupid and I’ve read more than enough fantasy and science fiction to deduce that I had transmitted something to my numerous chauffeurs which had caused them to be emotionally and mentally disturbed. Popular in fiction is the concept of surface thoughts, inner thoughts and mental shields. A popular SF notion is a mental shield that either appears not to be there or a shield that allows access to only certain thoughts or certain subjects; that class of shields allows a person to deceive anyone that might be snooping on them. I’ve used Star to test and hone my abilities, and so far I think I’ve fooled her ninety percent of the time or better. I think it’s better to master my skills with an ally rather than learn painful or even fatal lessons from an enemy. I’m not sure if she knows what I’m doing or not but it doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other. Besides it’s kind of fun.

I have no interest in reading anyone else’s mind, which might be a mistake after what happened to me yesterday but the thought of delving into someone else’s thoughts thoroughly disgusts me, on an instinctive or primal level.

Star is amusing and I don’t mean that in a cruel or a derogatory way, but her pinches do hurt. She is a genuinely good person if a bit too concerned about appearing extremely dignified at all times. I’ve made allowances for her behavior for primarily three reasons. She is a member of an alien species and I don’t want to be the one that screws things up between her people and the human race. Secondly, Star is a former slave and for that alone I will cut her a great deal of slack. And lastly, she is the primary leader of her people; Blender Apothecary is but a distant second.

I hate to think about what is happening to the rest of the human race. I firmly believe that billions are dead and it is possible, that as ludicrous as it sounds, that the Stronghold of Hermit’s Forge might be one of the last bastions of civilization. I might be an angry and possibly a slightly insane want-to-be hermit but I hate what has happened to this world. Too many children have died because of the Change and it makes me sick. So I swallow my anger and I’m doing my best to see that a few more people survive when I would rather be alone. But if any of those people would ever want to leave the Stronghold, excepting for a very few, it wouldn’t make me sad in the least.

I might act a little crazy from time to time and possibly slightly silly too but it keeps me amused and I think I deserve a few laughs. Now if I could just get that song out of my head. Good thing I didn’t think of that Backstreet Boys tune; that would have been too much to bear. Oh crud!

Doing my best to ignore the music in my head, I concentrated on healing my eyes. I was allocating fifty percent of my available energy for that task. Forty percent I was keeping in reserve and ten percent I was using for other things. Like the concept of my mind having both and inner and outer level. It is now my confirmed belief that True Sight has two levels and that the deeper level doesn’t require a person to have functioning eyes. I had already subconsciously used small bits of that skill from time to time. I was, at this moment, trying to actively develop the skill, so I could use it consciously. It seems to have two modes; one is just listening, similar to what a passive sonar system does and the other is sending out strong signals and seeing what bounces back, which is more akin to radar or an active sonar system. The signals are combination of both thought and magical energy. Using those signals, I am almost imposing my will upon reality and demanding that it reveal everything to me that my magical scan signals touch. It takes more power to reach further and if I reach too far and try to cover too wide an area, I can be overloaded with information. Currently I was able to scan an area approximately twenty-two feet in radius, and in extremely fine detail. Focusing in only one direction or dropping the level of detail can extend my range. I don’t think that I’m doing too badly, considering that this was my first real attempt at further developing my True Sight skill.

---------------------------------

Isabella Gomez snuck into Vince’s room that night but she didn’t lie down with him because of his wounds. She quietly put down her makeshift pallet and after checking on him she fell asleep.

--------------------------------

The next day we had a memorial service for Private Quentin Lee. Excepting for me, everyone with Earth Magic helped build the cemetery, which honestly didn’t require that much work, but the statue that Sir George and Sir Boris made, was very good and true to life according to what everyone told me. My own developing senses told me the same thing. Lady Gomez brought flowers that we put on Quentin’s grave. I’ll try and stop by from time to time, he deserves not to be forgotten.

George’s expedition was delayed. The spiders’ mechanical carcasses were a veritable treasure trove of valuable materials. There were actually two steam turbines inside of each arachnid. One of which was a massive machine that produced the over thirty-five thousand horsepower that Steve had told us about when he had first appraised a spider. The second unit was much smaller and it is what we believe was actually powering the spiders when we fought them. This smaller turbine was hidden inside the housing of the larger unit. It might have been designed as an emergency unit or be something like a ship’s cruising turbine, used only when the snails wanted to conserve energy or didn’t want to power up the larger turbine. Both turbines were built out of titanium alloys and ceramics. We haven’t opened up all of the spiders yet but in those we have opened, half of the smaller turbines have been relatively undamaged except for some weird modifications that the snails had evidently done in order to get them functioning in a world without electricity. The smaller turbines are still very large and I’m not sure, if we’ll ever have a use for them. Grace’s best guess is that they produced around six thousand horsepower. As for the big turbines, they are a great source of titanium and some advanced ceramic materials which might come in handy, if we can ever figure out how to reshape them.

Strangely we have found no iron or steel in the spiders. However we have found many very large gray ceramic blocks. Those we believe were at one time, super conducting magnets. But even Steve’s appraisal ability tells us nothing about them. The blocks do a great job of stopping bullets but we have to do more testing, that is once we figure out a way to slice one up without destroying the material. When I magically cut one up it becomes brittle and worthless but I’m still working on it. By volume that particular ceramic seems to be lighter than steel and it’s also a very poor conductor of heat. I wonder if that would make it a superior or inferior material if used for one on my fire stones. I’ll have to test that and see.

The ballistic gelatin is marvelous stuff for stopping high speed projectiles but it can be easily be cut by knife. By volume it is slightly lighter than normal aluminum.

All of the salvaged materials are being carefully separated into what we believe they were used for, that is especially true for the titanium and ceramic turbine parts. Titanium turbine blades go into one pile, high temperature pipes into another, ceramic inserts into a third, and so on and so on. We already have many different piles. We can take a guess at some of the titanium alloys but there seem to some, that pre-Change Earth never had and post-Change Earth probably will never have, unless those people with Earth Magic, like me, get much better at using their abilities. The same goes for the ceramics. But while we can’t make those materials, we should be able to make use of them. That is especially true for the titanium we’re salvaging. While titanium alloys are normally difficult to machine, those of us with Fire Magic can use our abilities to control the temperature of the metal so that it doesn’t weld itself to the machine tools that we are using to cut it. I might even enchant some of the fixtures that will hold the titanium while it is being machined and have them drain off any excess heat into a nearby firestone. It will be easier for the shop crew and we’ll even be recovering what would have been wasted heat energy. Actually those types of fixtures, clamps and vises would be a good idea to use when machining practically anything in the shop.

One of these days I need to figure out how to turn heat back into magical energy. Every Fire Magic user can go the other way but not the reverse. Turning a heat source into a magic source just sounds so convenient to me.

Originally, I had been hoping that we could get a ten to twenty percent weight reduction in our steam engines and boilers by using titanium but if we can figure out a way to use those ceramics I believe that we might be able to get at least a thirty percent weight reduction and it’s possible that if we feed those engines with even larger boilers or a magically enhanced boilers/steam generators that we might be able to get even more horsepower out of them. But that is something that will have to be rigorously tested. However, there might not be much usefulness in doing such a thing because at most I think that we would see a thirty percent increase in horsepower for our standard steam engines, with the possible major pitfall that any increase in horsepower will give us a reduction in engine reliability, plus we already have enough engines that operate below 200 HP and we’re slowly figuring out how to reproduce those modern 330 HP engines.

What we have a need for are engines between 400 and 600 HP; and the design for the 330 HP does not lend itself to being up-rated in the same way as the older steam engine designs. The 330 engines were constructed with some very advanced materials and even for us to manufacture them; we will probably have to use some of what we salvaged from the mechanical spiders. To my mind what we got from the snails, in the way of materials, was worth every bit of the price that we paid and that includes what happened to both Lady Knight Night and me.

I can’t shake the idea that there might be some way to combine the magical lifting gas of the krakens, which is much more buoyant than normal gaseous hydrogen, with the light weight materials of the snails to make a dirigible to end all dirigibles. We could even use the Gleaming Shells’ smaller turbines to power the craft. So many attempts to make a modern lighter than air craft; have ended in economic failure but magic allows us to bend the rules.

For now that wild notion will have to be a distant dream since there are far too many other things that we have to do first and we haven’t even quantified the buoyancy of the kraken gas though we know that it is at least twice as buoyant as hydrogen and while it does contain some (probably enchanted?) hydrogen gas, in our new world hydrogen gas doesn’t burn; which is something that I’m still trying to get my head around along with the fact that magnets no longer work. We will also have to figure out how to produce the gas for ourselves, it’s not like we recovered kiloliters of the stuff from the krakens. At most I think we have only a little less than one hundred liters of the gas, hopefully that’s enough for us to magically analyze it when we have the time, so that its formula will be available to us if we ever do need it.

Sean Murphy took a look at the coilguns that were mounted on the spiders and he thinks that it’s possible that we might be able to use their barrels for black powder artillery. He will have to do a lot of testing but there are two sizes, the 148mm monsters that were converted into steam cannons and some 74mm guns that the snails didn’t have operational. The gun barrels are built out of a titanium alloy and they have coils inside of them made out of that same gray ceramic that we think was a superconductor. If we do use those barrels we may very well leave the ceramic rings in them since the material seems tough enough and we might use finned stabilized projectiles rather than attempt to rifle the barrels. According to Sean, all of the attempts by Earth gun makers to make a rifled barrel out of titanium have failed to produce a long lasting success, the rifling simply doesn’t last.

Once the southern road was cleared of fallen spiders; George, Chester, Clyde and Glen took a crew to the quarry and came back with the Caterpillar loader that Jean White wanted. The C500, without its trailer, was used to tow it home. That loader would certainly need the biggest engine we have but do we have one big enough is the question?

It was taking two days to salvage each spider and haul it’s carcass within the Stronghold but it would have taken much longer without the crawler crane. Getting that machine in and out of the Stronghold is a real pain, what with it needing pass through the tunnel in the Southern wall.

The smashed aluminum was easily cut up with Ron’s magic wand; I’ll have to make more of those. As for the steam turbines, whenever it was possible they were hauled out and transported back to the Stronghold in one piece, we could tear them apart later.

We wanted all twenty-eight spider bodies but there were eight that were blocking our way if we wanted to go the armory, so those had to be cleaned up first.

By that time that was done, I was healed, and the Case 590 had been armored and made functional.

During that time period I was busy enchanting some of the rocks needed for Jean’s proposed remodeling plan for the Stronghold. I hate enchanting rocks, it is so BORING! I also awakened Jean White’s and Fred Stone’s abilities, too. Unsurprisingly they both received True Sight and Earth Magic. Additionally, Jean got Fire Magic but that was all. At least someone else around here is a loser with no physical enhancements.

I checked on my Caterham Seven, sob. It will need A LOT of tender loving care to become well again and right now we don’t have that kind of time. I’m thinking about having a steam engine put in my Belvedere. It possesses a very large engine compartment and we should be able to put in one hundred horsepower unit.

We were finally ready to go to the National Guard Armory. All salvage operations would cease while we were gone for the day, and while it was risky for them the flyers could be used to transport emergency messages to and from the Stronghold if a situation warranted it. They could easily fly the forty miles in a half an hour or less. But there were both monsters in the air and on the ground, so it was my standing orders that they were not to fly in areas that our ground forces could not get to in short order, that was in case any downed flyers needed rescuing. What would have happened to them if those snails had loaded their steam cannons with shot? It would not have been good. Except in extreme emergencies, our flyers only take flight in those areas where ground support is readily available.

On our trip to the Armory, we were taking the Sherman, the Hellcat, the T800, the 590, the C500 and its custom trailer. If necessary we would use the C500 to tow things home and leave its trailer at the Armory for later pick up. We hoped to maintain a pace of twenty to twenty-five miles per hour. The T800 and the 590 would be towing those two large armored utility trailers of ours.

Chester, Clyde and Ron had kludged together a hitch for the tractor which allowed it to tow a trailer while still keeping its heavy backhoe attached. The so called “hitch” attached to the two rear stabilizer legs on the 590. Both utility trailers had their tongues extended so that they could better work with their “tow” vehicles. This was needed so as to keep the one trailer away from the backhoe attachment and it was needed for the other one too, so that the T800’s rear ramp could be lowered to the horizontal without hitting the utility trailer it was towing. In that way people could still get in and out of vehicle, though they would have to jump or climb up on top of the partially lowered ramp instead of walking up its sloped surface.

We didn’t face a single attack during our trip to the Armory which has to be some kind of record for us. We did pass a heavy equipment store that Glen wanted to stop at but we would it hit it on the way home or on a later date. None of what I could see from the road looked any bigger than what we already had but Glen wanted to raid their parts store. He, Clyde and Derrick Miter have this crazy idea that we can start making our own tanks and that they can use parts stolen from bulldozers to help them do it. They are also talking about fitting cannon turrets on more trucks, like the T800, once we find a few. My biggest concerns are the turret rings and the traverse gears. Can we make those parts successfully? I know that at the start of WWII that the United States had a difficult time figuring out how to build a proper tank turret, that’s why they initially produced the M3 Lee/Grant rather than going straight to producing something like the M4 Sherman. I know that the Sherman was better than the M3 but I’ve always thought that the M3 looked far more bad-ass.

It took us an hour and forty minutes to make the journey and we mainly took quiet country roads that went wide of the city to get there. We passed some homes but we didn’t see anything except for some smaller monsters that ran away from us. The last mile took us down a four lane city road and we drove through a suburb before getting to a light industrial area. Across the street from the Armory was large factory or warehouse complex that looked like it had been closed down, years ago. Next door to the Armory was another old closed down factory but it was a third of the size of the other one.

We drove into the Armory parking lot and my mouth dropped open. The lot was packed with these huge big ass semi-trucks, and just by looking at them I could tell that they were armored. As a side note I saw two Stryker armored cars, which we would probably take as well but I personally liked the T800 that I was riding in better. I think our ride was more comfortable and I’m sure that its armor was stronger too.

First thing George did when we got there was knock on the door and call out. We even used our air horns; we played “shave and a haircut, two bits,” should I make that my kingdom’s national anthem? No, if we were going to have a national anthem, I wanted it to be something badass. Off the top of my head, I came up with three songs; the Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin, Thunder Struck by AC/DC, and the Highlander theme by Queen. But I know that there are a lot more, good songs out there or rather were out there. The question is how the heck are we going to play them now? Do we have to go back to entirely live music?

I suddenly had a brilliant idea; if we could make the Hermit’s Guard big enough it will need an official marching band. All big military organizations have bands. We could have them out front playing Tusk by Fleetwood Mac before we battled anything. The lyrics aren’t exactly right but the music is pounding and our foes would surely surrender because of our sheer awesomeness. And if it didn’t work, it would be the band’s fault and since they would be in front of everyone else, the monsters would eat them first, giving the rest of us a chance to run away, my plan was flawless, I am a genius!

After twenty minutes of my musical ruminations, Star’s extremely disapproving looks and no response to our calls or horn blasts; we carefully broke into the Armory’s warehouse.

George and Boris, two dignified officers in my Hermit’s Guard, looked inside the building and started doing a happy dance. They wouldn’t let me get too close because they were still checking things out but they had found exactly what they had been looking for, six M119 105mm towed howitzers. I know earlier that they had feared that there would only be M109s here or worse yet some M777s. Those 155mm howitzers were simply too big for us and would taken too long for us to learn how to use. They have very heavy projectiles and their powder is loaded separately. Though the M109 is self propelled which might have some value for us. Both cannons would also require too much of our precious black powder. No, the M119s were perfect for us and I was happy that we had located some.

Star suddenly spoke, “Vincent, I sense a small group of humans who I don’t recognize, slowly approaching us.”

I yelled out, “FOLKS, STAR SAYS THAT WE’VE GOT SOME UNKNOWN HUMANS APPROACHING US. WE DON’T KNOW IF THEY ARE FRIENDLY, UNFRIENDLY OR STUPID, SO KEEP YOUR GUARD UP AND IF THEY ATTACK US, WASTE THE FUCKERS.”

“Vincent, they have stopped approaching and I can sense a sudden spike in fear from them. I think that they heard you.”

“Good,” I then yelled out once more. “I AM THE HERMIT KING VINCENT STANDISH. THE DING-DING SYSTEM NAMED ME AS SUCH. I HAVE ACCEPTED THE TITLE, RESPONSIBILIES AND ABILITIES IN ORDER TO BETTER PROTECT MYSELF AND THOSE THAT HAVE COME TO ME FOR PROTECTION. I AM THE REIGNING MONARCH OF THE SMALL KINGDOM OF HERMIT’S FORGE. WE COME IN PEACE AND WHILE WE ARE NOT THIEVES, WE WILL SALVAGE THINGS, THAT ARE UNCLAIMED OR WITH NO KNOWN OWNERS, IN ORDER TO BETTER PROTECT OURSELVES. HOPEFULLY, IN THE FUTURE, WE’LL BE ABLE TO EXTEND OUR PROTECTION TO OTHERS, THAT IS IF THEY WANT IT. WE HAVE ALREADY FOUGHT GIANTS AND OTHER MONSTERS WITHOUT NUMBER BUT WHO KNOWS WHAT THE NEXT HOUR WILL BRING, SO WE SEEK TO IMPROVE OUR COMBAT CAPABILITIES. I KNOW YOU ARE OUT THERE AND I AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE.”

As I finished talking I was confronted by an angry Captain Mesquida. “Boss, you just finished putting yourself back together and here you are making a target out of yourself again. Will you please get your ass back in the T800, before I have a heart attack?”

“Okay,” I did as requested; since I really hadn’t had any combat training and I would probably only get in the way for now. Besides that, Rich was in the truck and he had a pack of Twizzlers that I wanted. Someone should have taught that man how to share when he was a child.

There were two flights of flyers, and their attendants in the C500’s trailer and not counting the vehicle crews, we had two fire teams taking up positions in the Armory’s warehouse and the parking lot. A third fire team was remaining behind in the T800.”

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Captain Barbara Long was the commander of the Transportation Company assigned to the local Armory. There had been a Battery of M109s stationed there but five days after the first Warning Message it had been ordered to Anniston for refit. For some reason though, the Armory had received in its place the equipment for a battery of M119s but no personnel. She personally, with the way things had gone lately, would have been much happier with a battery of Revolutionary War era three pound black powder cannons. The local area had been devastated by monsters and if she and a very few others had not somehow acquired the True Sight skill then everyone in her group of survivors would already be dead. That skill, the massive use of black powder and a few magical healers has been the only thing that had saved their now greatly reduced numbers.

Her company, their families and many local people had taken refuge in the abandoned factory across the street from the Armory. The building might have been old but it was built robustly, much more so than the Armory. It was larger too and better able to hold everyone. She had transferred everything from the Armory but those things that no longer worked, to their new home. But she didn’t know how much longer they would be able to hold out, even with the stocks of black powder and Kentucky rifles that the Armory had received, just prior to the failure of all internal combustion engines. Her company barely had fifteen percent of the black powder they had originally been supplied with. So far, their attempts at scavenging the materials to make more of the stuff hadn’t been very successful, not with so many monsters about. Food was also running low.

She was drinking her one rationed cup of coffee when she heard some steps running towards her. One of her new privates burst in, a girl who had just turned eighteen a month ago. “Captain, there are tanks and trucks coming down the street.” The girl said in a rush.

“Hallelujah,” thought Captain Long. The promised reinforcements had finally arrived even if they were over three months late. She hadn’t had word from anyone since the clock had struck six hundred hours.

She ran up to the lookout post, grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked out. What the hell? It was a Sherman tank of all things leading a small convoy. It was followed by three odd looking armored vehicles; one of which was a construction tractor! At the convoy’s tail, there was what looked to be a WWII Hellcat? If it was, someone had obviously put an armored top on the tank destroyer’s turret. But what was with that strange blue and white flag that they were flying alongside the Stars and Stripes? Didn’t Argentina have a flag with those colors?

Captain Long told her people to hide themselves for now, until they learned more about the strangers. She watched as they dismounted from the convoy’s vehicles. And she noticed that there were several oddly moving people of slightly less than average height, amongst the group of post-apocalyptic warriors. Barbara focused her binoculars on one of the short people and blanched at what she saw. When she saw bird people come out of the largest trailer, she could only gasp.

What caught her eye beyond the fact that there were aliens now knocking at the door of her Armory was the fact that everyone over there was wearing two brassards, one showing the American flag and the other with that peculiar blue and white flag. She had finally gotten a good look at it and she had been able to discern green figures in the center horizontal white band, which seemed to depict three different species. She had also noticed that they were all carrying repeating firearms which made her envious when she glanced down at her own Kentucky rifle, one of the less than a hundred of which her forces possessed.

Perhaps it was time for her to meet with these strangers. Gathering a security detail, she snuck out of the factory, circled a few buildings, crossed the street, and crept down the block; suddenly she heard a very loud authoritative deep baritone voice.

“FOLKS, STAR SAYS THAT WE’VE GOT SOME UNKNOWN HUMANS APPROACHING US. WE DON’T KNOW IF THEY ARE FRIENDLY, UNFRIENDLY OR STUPID, SO KEEP YOUR GUARD UP AND IF THEY ATTACK US, WASTE THE FUCKERS.”

Captain Long froze in her tracks. “Now what in the hell do I do?” She thought.

“I AM THE HERMIT KING VINCENT STANDISH. THE DING-DING SYSTEM NAMED ME AS SUCH. I HAVE ACCEPTED THE TITLE, RESPONSIBILIES AND ABILITIES IN ORDER TO BETTER PROTECT MYSELF AND THOSE THAT HAVE COME TO ME FOR PROTECTION. I AM THE REIGNING MONARCH OF THE SMALL KINGDOM OF HERMIT’S FORGE. WE COME IN PEACE AND WHILE WE ARE NOT THIEVES, WE WILL SALVAGE THINGS, THAT ARE UNCLAIMED OR WITH NO KNOWN OWERS, IN ORDER TO BETTER PROTECT OURSELVES. HOPEFULLY, IN THE FUTURE, WE’LL BE ABLE TO EXTEND OUR PROTECTION TO OTHERS, THAT IS IF THEY WANT IT. WE HAVE ALREADY FOUGHT GIANTS AND OTHER MONSTERS WITHOUT NUMBER BUT WHO KNOWS WHAT THE NEXT HOUR WILL BRING, SO WE SEEK TO IMPROVE OUR COMBAT CAPABILITIES. I KNOW YOU ARE OUT THERE AND I AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE.”

Barbara thought, “What the hell is a Hermit King? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

She peeked out and saw the strange people had all sought cover. She cursed herself for not bringing a white flag. Hesitantly she called out. “I AM CAPTAIN BARBARA LONG, UNITED STATES ARMY. I WISH TO SPEAK WITH YOU. MAY I APPROACH AND DO I HAVE YOUR WORD THAT I WILL NOT BE TAKEN PRISONER OR HARMED?”

She heard a different voice this time. “I AM KNIGHT CAPTAIN GEORGE MESQUIDA, COMMANDER OF THE HERMIT’S GUARD. YOU MAY APPROACH AND IF YOU TELL US TO GO, WE WILL. WE ARE NOT THIEVES.”

She couldn’t believe it, first a king and now a knight but in this new crazy world she had seen and killed stranger things.

She told her detail to stay behind and not to do a thing even if she was killed, because she knew that her forces would not survive if they went up against people who possessed tanks and repeating firearms. Her detail had been to protect her from random monster encounters and not to fight against the strangers.

She called out. “I AM COMING OUT NOW, DON’T SHOOT.” She came out with her empty hands raised.

She had left her own rifle behind and when she got to the armored vehicles, she was thankful that no weapons were being pointed at her. She was greeted by a handsome man of obvious Spanish descent. “Hello, I’m a Knight Captain George Mesquida. I was in United States Army and I served in Vietnam. It’s my pleasure to meet you Captain.”

Barbara was a little flustered. “I am Captain Barbara Long, I command the Transportation Company that is stationed here, I was in the National Guard but we were federalized and formally made a part of the United States Army.”

“The Hermit King is waiting inside the armored truck over there.” Captain Mesquida pointed to the smaller truck. “He has a habit, of getting himself shot up, bit up and burned up. So I requested that he wait inside where it’s relatively safe, if we lose him his subjects, including myself, will be up shit’s creek without a paddle.”

Captain Long was rather startled by that admission. She had to wonder what made the Hermit King so special.

She had to hop up on top of the truck’s rear ramp because of the trailer it towed. An armored door at the head of the ramp was opened for her. Inside were seven people. Three of them were lizard like humanoids with greenish gray skin and four were humans. One scruffy looking man was in front of the group. He was slightly shorter than average but he had very broad shoulders. Barbara thought she saw some feathers in his hair, “he must have gotten them from the bird people” she thought.

She assumed him to be a bodyguard; behind him was a very distinguished looking man, whom she immediately assumed was the King. She brushed past the bodyguard and approached the King. “Your Majesty it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She said with an almost courtly bow.

The King before her groaned and the scruffy man behind her started chortling. The “King” spoke, “Captain, you just cost me, my last pack of Twizzlers and I’ve been saving them for months. I even kept them from my own great grandkids.”

The scraggly man reached out an arm around her and said, “Pay up Rich, I told you that you look more like a King than I do.”

Captain Long was quite embarrassed, she realized that she should have waited to be introduced or at least used her Appraisal skill but she had been so flustered at seeing this strange group she had forgotten to do that and now she might have insulted the real Hermit King. She noticed that one of the two female humanoids seemed to be quite upset for some reason. Deciding better late than never she cast Appraisal while listening to the scruffy King. She looked at the public stats for the King, Captain Mesquida and the upset female.

Name: Vincent Standish

Primary Title and Class: Hermit King

Class: Professional Hermit

Title: Sovereign and Absolute Monarch of the Kingdom of Hermit’s Forge.

Title: The Grumpy Hermit King

Title: The Grumpy Hermit

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Name: George Mesquida

Primary Title and Class: Knight

Class: Soldier

Class: Combat Officer

Title: Knight Captain

Title: Captain

Title: Husband of Sheryl and Ruth Mesquida

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Name: Star Astrologer

Primary Title and Class: Lady Knight

Class: Wise One

Title: Leader of the Free Craft-Maker People

Title: The Dignified One

# # # # # # # # # # # #

M3 Lee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3_Lee

Oshkosh M1070

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh_M1070_heavy_equipment_transporter

HEMTT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Expanded_Mobility_Tactical_Truck

M119, 105mm Howitzer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M119_howitzer

Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEGuHdKn0Lc

Thunder Struck by AC/DC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM

Highlander Theme by Queen, some parts get a little wimpy but it’s still a good song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqhHgT4mvRQ

Tusk by Fleetwood Mac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrRVW-p8SJ8