THE ASCENDANCY - The Keep - Day 9

  The next few days passed quietly as we put our full focus into the upgrades, walls, and defenses around the keep. Kyle and Tim worked tirelessly finishing the walls. Fortunately, in the meantime, our mining research had finished as well, and our new mining construct was filling our staging area with the raw resources needed for the base expansion.

  We kept a small portion of the rock formation as a reminder of what was here before, but the top of the den was replaced with what could only be described as a short ziggurat-type structure. The walls of the new keep were thick and sloped, the idea being that we could deflect some incoming projectiles in the future if we needed to. Eventually, we planned on moving into the structure itself and out from underground, freeing up the den space for infrastructure.

  For now though, the new keep sat surrounded by tall, sloping walls reinforced with bronze cladding. The walls themselves were thick and wide enough to support infantry movement on ramparts that went all the way around, with the only towers on the wall being on either side of the new, massive reinforced gate. I'd like to tell you that it looked castle-like, but honestly, when viewing the entire complex from afar, it looked alien and strange compared to traditional castles and forts I'd seen on Earth.

  Yumi and ARi had been buried in some kind of research project they had started from the salvage recovered from the attacking constructs. I was excited to see what they'd come up with, but before we could get into any of that we had to keep a promise.

  ARi had put a lot of time and effort into the rogues' new armor. She had been able to research a synthesized version of the Reaper's-Carapace plates. The new armor was of extremely high quality, a leather-and-scale-mail combination that had the same light-capturing characteristics as the Reapers. They were able to move in the armor easily and stay silent.

  But I was surprised when the rogues requested a version of the same bronze helm that their shieldbearers had. The helmet design was absolutely brilliant. It consisted of the same bronze skullcap and cheek plates, with a short, black-haired crest that ran front to back. The helmet itself, although bronze, was treated to be as black as the leather and other adornments of the rest of the armor. The face shields that connected to the helmet not only gave the rogues excellent visibility, but protected their faces while looking absolutely terrifying. The detail and finish work, right down to the engraved leather and bronze rivets, were amazing.

  My little rogues were developing into something beyond a basic scout. They were evolving into specialized shock troops. Their equipment saw an upgrade as well. Their composite daggers were now hardened bronze and a couple of inches longer than the previous versions. Tim said these new blades were called Kris knives. Their design looked absolutely wicked. The curved, waving blade was created in a way that allowed more of the neurotoxin to be delivered with every stab or slash.

  Tanya was able to create a new version of the toxin as well, dangerous only to anything that wasn't a kobold or human. This would keep our little rogues from accidentally hurting themselves.

  The rogues stood at the front of the formation of shieldbearers. I had maxed out my control points again, bringing in another three shieldbearers and a rogue, and they now stood three to each side of the path that led up to the four funeral pyres. Each side of the path had three shieldbearers with two rogues in front on that side of the path. Their new bronze-and-composite shields were red with two black stripes, and now all of the shields carried the same crest featuring the shape of the water drake. ARi had given them similar upgrades to their armor; however, unlike their rogue counterparts, the shieldbearers' bronze equipment was polished to perfection and gleamed in the afternoon light.

  ARi and I carried the first of the stretchers. The fallen kobold assassin was wrapped in white linen, with a banner laid across the middle of the stretcher. The pattern on the banner was identical to the new shields, but instead of red, it was black with two gold stripes. We carried the little rogue to the pyre and gently laid him across the top.

  Yumi and Tanya carried the next stretcher--this one holding one of the fallen shieldbearers, again wrapped in funeral linen with a banner draped across. Kyle and Tim followed, and the funeral procession ended with Bishop gently carrying the last of the little kobolds forward. I picked the fallen hero from Bishop's arms and laid him on the pyre to rest.

  Red began chirping loudly, proclaiming something to his fellow kobolds. In unison, all six slammed the ends of their spears on the ground twice. I wished I had their resolve, or at least I could hear the words of encouragement that he must have been giving his fellow kobolds.

  ARi stepped up and knelt before the little rogues. "Thank you for saving my life," she said. One at a time she hugged the little rogues.

  She looked up at the rest of the shieldbearers. "All of you, thank you. If it wasn't for your bravery, or the sacrifice of the heroes that now lie to rest upon these pyres, none of us would be here right now. And our world would once again be ravaged."

  She turned to face the pyres for a moment before waving her hand, and all four funeral pyres burst into flame. She turned back around to face our cohorts. "If we die here, I don't know if our spirits will find their way back to Earth," she said. She hesitated for a second, searching for the right words. "But we will remember our fallen."

  I could hear her voice breaking, and tears were falling freely down her face. "I know I don't look like one of you," she said softly. "But I am. I was brought to this place and made flesh like all of you."

  ARi's voice broke again, and for the first time I think we all began to understand ARi's kinship toward the cohorts. I walked up and held her for a moment, and turned to face the others, not only the cohorts, but Tim, Kyle, Tanya, and Yumi. I turned, raised my hand, and summoned another Control-Node behind the pyres, the act dropping me to my knees as I barely stayed conscious. The cohorts all flinched, but ARi stopped them when she put her hand up.

  "It's okay. Gavin has raised this Control-Node, this obsidian column, in honor of the fallen. Control-Nodes on this world can't be destroyed; they can only be captured, which makes this a permanent monument," she said.

  ARi waved her hand, and a large bronze plaque appeared on the front of the Control-Node. "Our fallen were not given names, and that breaks my heart, because I don't have names to place on this memorial. Instead, I've engraved a simple epitaph in their memory. If any of you should fall, I will place your name on the memorial as well, so that you will always be remembered for your acts of courage and your sacrifice. This is the least that I can do."

  The kobolds again slammed the butts of their spears on the ground twice, and turned in unison to face ARi. I realized at that moment that I might be the Architect who summoned these warriors, but every one of them would give their lives for ARi. They followed my instructions, but she was truly their resolve.

  ARi helped me to my feet, along with Tanya, and we made our way through the formation toward the den. The little kobolds stood without making a sound until the funeral pyres finally died out, and they joined us below at the long table.

  Everyone sat quietly for a moment before Tim stood up.

  "There are a lot of traditions in how to honor the fallen on Earth. My favorite comes from the Norse culture. According to Norse mythology, those who died bravely on the battlefield were taken by the Valkyries to one of two magnificent halls. Half of the fallen warriors would go to Valhalla, ruled by the god Odin, and the other half to Fólkvangr, a beautiful meadow, ruled by the goddess Freyja. Those that survived honored the fallen with great feasts. I liked this idea so much that I asked ARi to help me with this."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  ARi waved her hand, and the table was full of prepared food. There were loaves of bread and biscuits, roasted meats, fruits, and steaming vegetables. She waved her hand again, and in front of each of the kobolds a decorated stein with their name on it materialized.

  I looked to ARi. "We're not feeding them hard alcohol, are we? I don't know if that would be a good idea."

  ARi smiled, waved her hand again, and a stein formed in front of me. Lifting the lid, I went to take a sip, surprised as carbonated bubbles tickled my nose.

  "You made soda pop?" I asked.

  Chirps of excitement and clinking steins were heard all the way down the table as the kobolds celebrated with food and the fizzy drink.

  Kyle leaned over the table from the other side. "Don't worry. Operation Moonshine was a success too, but I think we'll save that for later."

  Yumi, unable to hold her excitement any longer, finally asked ARi to throw a projection up on the wall. "When ARi said that she had removed the air and put it back, I realized that she could phase gases like she can phase solid objects," she said excitedly.

  ARi waved her hand again and a small gas cylinder, made of bronze, appeared on the table. "It's CO2, Gav. Yumi, explain."

  Yumi stood and pointed to the projection. "You guys, there is plenty of CO2 in the air here, and ARi can phase it out and bring it back compressed inside these containers."

  The projection on the end of the wall showed a diagram of the bolt throwers that the Reapers were using on their constructs.

  Kyle chimed in. "Yeah, they were pretty effective, Yumi, but they had some limitations. Once those wheels were spinning, the gyroscopic force made it hard for it to change or alter its aim. That's why they would sit and wind up for a moment before they would start spitting bolts out. It had to stop before it could aim again, and spool back up."

  "That's why I was so excited to find out that we could compress air," Yumi said. "Essentially, we can create a device that does the same thing without using this spool-up method and these wheels like they did."

  My jaw burned; I was smiling so hard. "Yumi, you made a military-grade automatic blow-dart gun?"

  "Well, ARi and I did," she said, smiling back. "It's not as powerful as the Reaper's version because our bolts are smaller, but we have a much higher rate of fire and we're not limited by the same centrifugal forces on the device. Ours can be a lot less bulky, smaller, and easier to mount."

  "That's not all," Yumi said, so excited she clapped her hands. "ARi, tell them the best part."

  ARi looked up at us with a predatory grin. "It's scalable."

  I thought about that for a second. Scalable.

  My stomach fell out from underneath me. "Are you telling me that you can make some kind of mounted gun, like a larger gun? Are we talking our own version of some kind of tank or artillery?"

  Yumi interrupted before ARi could answer. "We were thinking something more along the lines of an armored troop carrier. But yeah. Our darts are going to be a lot smaller than what they were firing at us."

  "We'll have a greater rate of fire," ARi said. "But I was also able to piece together how they made the rounds that their siege engines were lobbing at us explode."

  "So you're also telling me right now that we can create our own version of these things with a high rate of fire and that the ammo is going to have, like, what, explosive tips?" Tim asked.

  "Do we still need to pursue traditional archery if this is the case?" Tanya asked.

  "I think some kind of crossbow is still worth delving into, as they won't require the compressed air to fire. You can still utilize the same bolts and darts," I said.

  I wish I could say that I was excited that this was going to give us some kind of advantage. Honestly, it kind of sounded like we'd basically equaled the playing field, though. I thought to myself.

  "You guys, this is great, and the rapid fire will probably help against those new spider constructs," Kyle said. "Honestly, I'm more afraid of those than some of the others because of the numbers. I mean, it was horrifying. If Yumi hadn't exploded that siege engine and killed most of them at the same time, that fight could have gone completely differently."

  "Yeah, I was thinking about that too," Tim said. "I think I'm going to have to start doing a little bit of training with our shieldbearers, and get them used to using their swords when things get too close. They're relying on their spears too much, and it's too easy for them to get overwhelmed when we get swarmed like that."

  Our conversation was interrupted, as I felt someone tug on my shirt and looked over to see both Red and Sawyer. To my surprise, Sawyer spoke.

  "Thank you for helping friends," he said in broken English. I could tell he was struggling. "They... peace... now."

  "Holy shit, man, you can talk?" I said.

  "We hear and know what you say. Hard to speak. This one thanks PrettyGirl for... new... how... to say..." He waved his hand over his chest, indicating the new scale mail.

  "The word you're looking for, buddy, is armor," I said.

  He continued, "Thank you for new armor."

  ARi got off the bench and knelt down between the two kobolds and gave them each a kiss on the cheek. "You’re welcome," she said. "I hope it will help keep you safe."

  Red pointed at the projection on the wall. "These things," he said, even more choppy and broken than Sawyer, "these things kill friends."

  ARi rested her hand on Red's shoulder. "I've taken these things, Red, and made them our own. We will make our own versions so that you can use them to avenge our friends."

  Red reached up and patted ARi's hand on his shoulder. Looking back up at the projection, he said, "This is good."

  "Can the rest of you talk as well?" I asked.

  "Not many words," Sawyer said.

  "But we teach," Red finished for the other kobold.

  Jack walked up behind Sawyer and Red. He held up his stein to ARi. "Is good!" he proclaimed.

  ARi smiled, waved her hand again, and refilled all of the steins. Chirps of excitement could be heard all the way down the table.

  Jack looked at me, his expression turned serious. "Tonight, we eat and drink. Tomorrow, I will go to Kobold City and speak to kobolds."

  "Jack, are you sure? I was trying to give you guys a chance to level up before asking you to do this."

  Jack looked to the wall again at the diagram of the Reaper bolt launcher and back to me. "These will kill many kobolds," he said, and I noticed that Jack was able to speak a lot better than Sawyer and Red. "I will go to this place and seek out my kind. I will bring some back, and you may give your terms."

  ARi smiled at me and back to Jack. "You guys really do understand what we're saying, don't you?"

  "We do," Jack proclaimed, slapping Sawyer on the back as he returned to the table and spoke to the other kobolds as they all raised their glasses. "Don't stop, Kyle!" they cheered before the whole group broke into chirps and laughter.

  I sat back on the bench and turned to look at the others. "Well, then, that's a surprise," I said.

  Yumi and Kyle looked scandalized, their mouths dropped to the floor.

  "What's wrong with you two?" ARi asked sarcastically through a grin.

  "If you guys had heard Kyle and me the other night, they'd have heard us too," Yumi said, embarrassed.

  Kyle's face went flush and burned red as he tried to bury it in his hands.

  To Kyle and Yumi's relief, Tanya broke into the conversation. "We got lucky this time, you guys. Gavin, you can't keep doing this cowboy shit, okay? I mean, it worked out this time, but we've got to work on our communication."

  "Okay, Tanya," I said. "I'm hearing you."

  "Well, if it's okay with you guys, I would like to steal ARi for about two hours tomorrow," Tanya asked. "I know that Gavin's supposed to be the engineer, but I have some cool ideas for implementing you and Yumi's new launcher system into the walls and new gatehouse. Correct me if I'm wrong, ARi, but I'm pretty sure they were able to spawn so many of those spider things because they were much smaller and simpler, right?"

  "She had mentioned that larger constructs take more control points," Kyle said.

  "Yes, that's how it works," ARi nodded.

  "So how many of your control points would it take if, say, the construct you were creating didn't have to move, if it stayed in a fixed position, and had a mechanism to aim and fire the launcher?"

  ARi thought for a second. "Well, if I kept it to the bare minimum, let's call it an advanced tripod, if you will, I'm pretty sure I could spawn probably more than twenty of the damn things. I could also create some that had to be fired by either us or one of the cohorts and that doesn't use any of my control points."

  Tanya's grin turned predatory and spread ear to ear. "Well, you guys, I think we entered an arms race and this shit's going to get pretty kinetic, real fast."

  Thanks again for checking out The First Cradle. I've got other stories posted that you might enjoy as well. Feel free to check out my profile!

  Or check out other great stories like this one!

  What to expect:

  - Real-world stakes

  - Big man with a big hammer

  - Brutal fight scenes

  - Weak to strong MC

  - Animal companion

  - Antagonists of multiple kinds: monsters, world mechanics, and humans