Mary heaved the shipping container doors open and peered into the structure, her eyes quickly adapting to the low-light environment. [That’s a lot of weapons,] Abe commented. Mary silently agreed, unable to voice her agreement as Richard was standing behind her, and nodded lightly.

Richard came up behind her and flicked a switch on the wall close to the entrance. The container lit up, illuminating the nearly hundred heavy weapons. As Mary and Abe took in the scene, Richard walked into the wide container while his bodyguard leaned against the door, “Due to your… background, I assume that I can confide in you that a large number of demis are under my care in The Ring. You already met Fu, the little goblin-gremlin, but there are over a hundred of us here. This place was made into a temporary safehouse and these weapons were all that was on hand. Since we made this place into a safehouse, some of our more mana-minded comrades have developed improvised weapons we could actually use. That left these unneeded and have been sitting here since. You can take as many as you can carry, but I doubt you could get more than 2 somewhere safe without being noticed,” he guessed, “Anyway, if you need anything I will be outside with Aby.”

He left her alone in the container with the menagerie of weapons, so she took the opportunity to speak with Abe quietly, “This is a lot of options,” she whispered.

She could feel his agreement with her statement as she scanned the room, [I think we should prioritize here. You may be able to carry over half of this on your back, we still need to be discreet. I think two weapons should be our goal here and, if possible, have one for armored targets and one for ‘quick’ use,] he theorized. She nodded silently and walked over to the closest weapon shelf.

On it were 6 identical, long tubes with a button on the side. Next to the shelf was a crate of thick, round-topped bombs with a flat bottom and a silver color. On the front of the crate was a warning reading ‘EXPLOSIVE,’ which was repeated on each of the bombs. “Hmm… looks like a mana-powered bomb launcher. These could probably punch a hole in… well a lot of things, but they are quite well designed and cause minimal collateral damage,” she muttered under her breath.

[So…] Abe drawled, [It’s a spring-loaded bomb shooter. Great to know, but I doubt carrying it would be comfortable. This just makes me wonder who in their right minds would give a group of frightened refugees a knock-off rocket launcher and expect everything to go well.]

Mary shrugged as she walked to the next shelf, “Weapon and protective magic technology have always been at odds with each other. Without a properly trained force and military grade tech, something like this is one of the only things that has enough power to punch through mana-shields. That and melee weapons, which have the bonus of not being affected by any shield that won't also kill the wearer. Speaking of which…” she trailed off as they reached the next shelf. On it was an assortment of melee weapons, ranging from maces to swords, but all two-handed. “Hmm… I’m starting to see where you’re coming from,” Mary whispered, “All they have are weapons more at home in professional practitioners than in the hands of refugees. I wonder if the S&G Company supplied the weapons, believing that they would be used by more experienced fighters.”

Mary felt a feeling of interest from Abe, [I was wondering, what is your world like with all of these weapons lying around? I was never very opinionated about the debate over guns in my world, but this all seems strange. The fact that society just… works is baffling,] he said.

She smiled and examined a two-handed mace lying on the top shelf. It was flanged, with 6 ridges protruding from the head, but was otherwise a featureless metal mace. What surprised her was not just the lack of runes on it, and thus the lack of enchantments, but was also the sheer weight of the mace. Even with her potent strength, she found that it took a good amount of effort to lift the blunt weapon, over a third of her maximum strength. She placed it back down on the shelf and began to browse the less interesting melee weapons, “I can see that,” she whispered, “From what it sounds like in your world, only the rich, unsupervised, or determined could build a bomb sneakily. Here, however… well, even children could do it. Grab a rock, have some basic knowledge in enchanting, and have a mana pool that is within 95% of the population and you could build a fierce fragmentation grenade. In my opinion, the only thing stopping total chaos and anarchy is the governments that rule the world. The abyssal species are different due to how they use mana, but humans have to contend with a population of people who can make weapons out of pretty much anything. The only way governments are able to keep the peace is by controlling the supply of advanced weaponry.

“By controlling the supply of element-attuned metals, wood, and other materials, the government has a significant advantage over the civilian population in the case of all out war. Not only that, but they also make great efforts to collect and cultivate enchanting talents, which means that most new ideas go through the governments. There’s also mana gems, which produce more mana of a certain type once attuned, but those are more in the realm of the mystical esoteric cults and sects. Bottom line, the world doesn’t fall apart because governments have fallen enough times for a rule book about what a government should or should not do has been created by looking at those who failed,” she ranted.

[So, governments of this world maintain control by restricting access to weapons that could truly threaten them? I suppose that makes sense, but I feel as if we are missing something… whatever. We need to choose some weapons for now.]

She agreed, and she could feel him feel her agreement, so she went back to studying the heavy weapons stored in the warehouse. After going through nearly all of them, she had a small batch of weapons she could use or found interesting. The first was the heavy and simple mace, the second was a gun with multiple barrels that could all shoot at the same time, the third was a full-body pseudo-cybernetic suit that housed 2 chainguns, and the last was a large anti-tank rifle with odd latches running under the barrel. “I don’t think that the suit is a good fit for our fighting style,” Mary whispered.

[Agreed. Too much weight for something you could probably move yourself. The multi-gun might also be off of the table. It’s a bit too bulky. That only really leaves the mace and the rifle.]

She nodded and picked the two weapons up off of the table she had laid them out on. Like before, the mace was entirely unremarkable but it was the rifle that caught her eye. It was bigger than most anti-tank rifles, being nearly as tall as she was, and had a few latches on the end of the barrel. She really had no idea what the latches were for, so she walked out of the container with the mace, the rifle, and the only box of ammunition for it. Walking up to Richard, she noticed how Aby was ‘speaking’ with her mana-pad, “Richard, I found what I wanted, but I have a question.”

Looking away from his conversion with Aby, he looked at her choices, “Is it about the mace or the rifle?”

“The rifle. What are these latches meant to do?” she asked.

He took the rifle from her and studied the latches for a moment before handing it back to her, “Ahh, it’s this thing. You sure you want to take it? It has a… bad reputation,” he admitted, almost glaring at the chassis of the gun.

“How so? What’s wrong with it?”

“You see… that thing was meant to be the main weapon of a supersoldier program of some far-flung dynasty. The goal was to both defeat vehicle armor and shields while also being able to defeat soldiers while wasting as little as possible. Their solution to the first problem was to make an anti-tank rifle that could punch an explosive hole into a battleship with advanced chemical and mana propellants. The problem, however, came when every human, demi, and even most abyssals lost their arms when they fired it. No matter what they did, they would have to either accept the loss of a few arms or make the thing weaker. They, instead, chose to throw out the design all together. That left a lot of weapons floating around that no one could use without refitting it, so most didn’t bother. As for the latches, it was the solution for their second problem. They would latch a sword onto the end of the rifle and use it as a spear when attacking infantry. Luckily, latches were not beyond those designers, so that worked even better than they hoped. I know you're strong, but I don’t think even you could take the hit from that thing. I’ve only seen one person be able to use it and he was so decked out in cybernetics that he was more machine than man.”

Mary fell into deep consideration after Richard’s story. She was very interested in the rifle, but the problems it had was a real dealbreaker for her. It had such a glaring flaw that not even a kingdom’s gunsmiths could fix and she didn’t know how to fix it. Just as she was about to put it away, Abe spoke up, [Okay, I don’t know how much you guys know about basic energy theory, but…] She stopped and looked at the gun, almost urging him to go on, [You see, one of the few thing I learned in school was that there are multiple types of energy, but they are all just that: energy. I was wondering, what is mana? Is it a thing that, when burned, creates energy? Or, is it a type of energy all its own? Here’s what I’m thinking: we try to make a new mana type that can take kinetic energy and convert it into mana. I don’t know it’ll, you know, work, but I think this thing has potential,] he explained. Mary looked at the gun one more time as a smile crept onto her face.

She turned to Richard with a bright smile, “I’m keeping it. I had an idea that I really think is worth trying, and I want to see if I can make this thing into a war machine. Thanks for your concern, though,” she thanked, “Alright, I have a lot to do, so I’ll see you guys around, alright?”

Richard gave a defeated sigh, “I hope we do. I don’t want you to lose your arm, but I can’t really stop you. Oh, one more thing,” he said as he held up a small gem from his pocket, “I happened to have a water-attuned mana gem here if you want it; we haven’t really found a use for it and I’d really rather not keep it here where it could be stolen,” he explained.

Mary took the gem in her hand and looked it over. It was a small gem no larger than her fingertip, dark blue in color, and shone when she fed it with mana. “Thanks. I’ll find a use for it, I’ll see you two later,” she said as she walked out of the warehouse and out into the docks of the slums. It was a miserable place where the homeless gathered to trabe and survive, but Mary was unconcerned with it all. “We have some work to do,” she said under her breath.

[Indeed we do. Next time, though, don’t steal my idea,] Abe said with a mental smirk. Mary chuckled and stealthy went about the rest of her business.

*=====*

Richard saw Mary off and turned to Aby, “So, what do you think? Of her, I mean. And not just her fighting ability.”

[Nice. Smart. But off.]

“Off how?” he asked inquisitively.

[Something… else there. Maybe split personality. Maybe something else: like sentient object.]

“Wait, so you’re… No… you’re not saying that she…”

[Idk. All I know: she is on our side. Not lying about Huk either. Fought.]

Richard sighed, “I see. Well, it’s good that we didn’t get swindled. She is intending on going on that shipment mission, right?” Aby nodded, “Good then, maybe we’ll get a bit of credit for arming her,” he said wistfully as he walked back into The RIng with the soul mage behind him.