What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[Negation]

The place is Cold Grave. The 7 Sins System was born here. Grave Knight Mk 1.

 

[lost star]

The mech's name was Morning Star.

She was absolutely gorgeous. Every part of her was a work of art. Her wings glittered. Her armor had elaborate patterns that complimented every line of our body. The helmet looked almost like it had a crown. She was slim and graceful, and even had heels for some silly reason. She looked like a mech made for fashion. Not an expert's mech. Only the gauntlets hinted at something else. Large and clawed, they each had six spike-like daggers attached to the outside. It felt fitting. It turned her from a pretty ornament to a lethal weapon.

Lilly loved all the mechs Bolt made, but this one felt special in a way. She felt... Complete was the best word for it. Warm yes, but also warm with purpose. This one had a enough of a presence that everyone could tell she was special. There was an aura there that demanded acknowledgement. Dowry would always hold a special place in her heart. She had to admit this one might be better in more circumstances.

"Few things since I didn't have time for through documentation." Bolt said with a long yawn and a bleary look at his wife. "Her movement is going to be tricky. She's meant to shift at will and the wings make her top heavy. If the wings get hit by small hits they'll regenerate small damage over about half a second. I put some of Dowry's nanomachines in the wing bases to facilitate that. They'll be able to repair machine gun hits and the like. Bigger hits will cause damage that needs ta be repaired like normal. Use the Jade Slip in the cockpit to get a feel of the systems. I put my impressions in there."

Lilly nodded seriously as she examined the mech with a critical eye. "Is that armor fragile? Looks fancy."

Bolt yawned again and staggered slightly. "No." He shook his head as he let his wife support him a bit, which nearly crushed her because of how large he was, but she'd deal with it. "The patterns are just fer electricity and heat transfer. That's the most efficient way of doing it. Expect them to light up slightly when in use, but they're just an added layer of energy defense. It's armor and will work as such. Expensive ta repair but meant to be damaged."

"It's only been a day. How are you so wiped out?!" Lilly demanded with worry at his condition.

The designer gave a light laugh. "I pushed too hard." He groaned at the motion and held his head. "Also, I need sleep. Think I had a thing sorta like what happened to you when you broke through."

Lilly nodded slowly and got a pair of men to manhandle the man to bed. She then grabbed one of the service ladders and ascended to the cockpit of her mech. This was the first real activation. It was time to see how she ran, and what Bolt had made. Was it a lady or a monster?

The mech started with an almost pulling sensation. Lilly connected to it and felt something like a grab. One that she easily fended off with a raised eyebrow. For a moment she could feel the mech staring at her somehow. They she reached out a hand to grab at a control and she could feel the mech reach back with less force and more care.

"Opinionated little thing aren't you?" Lilly murmured to her ride while accepting the mental handshake.

Morning Star was more alive than anything else she'd ever piloted. It wasn't bad. Just different enough to be noticeable. Once she'd connected properly the mech's insistence settled down and became quiet. It was soothing now, complete. The connection was like with Dowry but more intense. Not bad. Just intense.

Taking a step out of the construction cradle showed another quirk. Her balance was on a knives edge. Each step demanded precision and effort. The reason why was pretty obvious. Stability had been sacrificed in favor of the ability to shift her footing in an instant. Lilly could quick step and dance if she needed. It was like the Shrine Maiden but even more extreme. This was a design that only an expert could bring to it's full potential. This was a fine trade off in her opinion. Not every mech had to be easy to use. For something specifically for her, it was perfect.

Function checks were next. Give the wings a flap. Wiggle arms, then fingers. Head could move as needed. Then the weapon. Lilly started up one of the gauntlets and felt the charge in them. Then ordered the auto-diagnostic to report. All green naturally, but it reported properly. After all of that she turned and examined the cockpit.

There as he'd said was a Jade Slip. It was different than the alien ones. Those were little crystals. This was a metal lined block with green in the center of it. More durable, more human. Lilly didn't even need to touch it. It was already linked to the mech's system. She just needed to mentally link through her helmet.

One thing immediately made her chuckle. "Really? Lust?" She gave a giggle. Naming specific functions after the seven deadly sins was very amusing. "Could someone put a disposable generator out in front of me?" She asked over the open comms once she'd gone through the specifications. She very much appreciated the lack of reading needed using this system.

While that was happening Lilly sauntered around to get a feel of the mech's movement. Graceful. Sexy almost. A few quick flares of the booster let her know she could almost float through the air. Not quite, but very close. Bolt had honed the grace and dexterity of this mech to an absurd degree. It was almost a heavy in armor and a solidly medium in speed, but she doubted any mech could match how easily it could shift position.

Once the generator was in front of her Lilly activated Greed and flinched from the sudden and unexpected weight. All systems caused a certain mental load on the pilot. This one was hefty. Nothing she couldn't handle, but it had not been expected. The effect on the target was small for the effort as well. She could see little lightning shocks coming from the generator. That was about it. Mildly disappointing visually.

"How's the draw on generator?" Lilly asked the techs watching.

"We're noticing a small load." The tech responded. "It fluctuates from ten to twenty percent."

That wasn't horrible, but she wasn't sure it was worth the mental effort she was expending. The expert frowned. "Damage?"

"Some. I don't want to send a tech to physically check. We're all feeling a bit of a... Well pressure. Also I don't like those electrical surges." The tech sounded hesitant as he relayed the observation.

"Hmmm." Lilly hummed out and mentally shifted the 'settings' on Greed to designate friendlies. "Does that help?"

"No more pressure." The tech said with audible confusion.

"Ok, I hate to do this, but get two zombies in here. Send my apologies to the pilots." The girl ordered as she started to make mental calculations about what she was seeing.

This was faster than getting the generator. Two of the zombies walked in from guard duty and Lilly could immediately both feel and tell when they entered range of Greed. They flinched slightly and small electrical arcs sparked from their mechs. Furthermore her energy consumption was shifting from the generator and energy cells to just the Greed system. Extrapolating, if she had enough enemies in range she could essentially run off their power instead of her own.

"What sort of monster did you make?" Lilly asked breathlessly off channel before mentally tagging the people as friendly. "Check those mechs for damage and report."

Greed had serious potential just based off that. Sure it wouldn't kill, but if she got Morning Star into a crowd her endurance would be functionally unlimited. That sort of endurance was absolutely worth the trouble. The damage report from the mechs also indicated trace electrical damage to everything as well. Lilly could see her bringing down small armies without touching them with just this. It'd take forever but it'd be possible.

Lilly paused. She should probably test the weapons before she made her final conclusion. Right now this was just promising theory. With a mental switch she gestured with one hand. Six daggers flew out with a small blast of electricity and embedded themselves in a nearby plate they'd setup for weapon testing. Lilly raised an eyebrow. Not bad. Her mech made a pulling motion and the daggers returned, ripping themselves out of the metal and neatly clipping back onto the outside of the gauntlets with a blur.

Truthfully it wasn't spectacular. Deadly, unpredictable, and dangerous, but decidedly low for an experts offensive weapon. If there was a flaw it was there. The daggers moved slow enough for an expert to react to. Lilly, as an expert could easily mow down people with this configuration, but that was utterly identical to all other experts. It was a niggling issue in an otherwise fairly impressive design. She'd have to speak with Bolt about applying the resonance materials there later.

"When combined with the rest this is pretty good still." Lilly evaluated.

All together she rated it as an impressive defensive mech that made sensible trade offs in performance. The attack was relatively efficient for a weapon at least. Perfect for grinding down opponents if used properly with the rest of the systems. Lilly would have to take this girl into combat to really get a feel for her, but that was fine. So far she liked the mech. It wasn't instant love. This mech had the potential to impress her. She wasn't yet.

She'd reserve conclusions until they'd gotten into a serious fight.

 

[Golgotha]

Was there a trick to the knives I've forgotten already, or is it just outright a weakness in design?

 

[lost star]

Was there a trick to the knives I've forgotten already, or is it just outright a weakness in design?

Click to shrink...

There's a trick, but it's unintentional on Bolts end and a weakness. He's far from perfect.

 

[Sceptic]

she doubted any mech could match how easily it could shit position.

Click to shrink...

A result of excremental improvements?

 

[Rockow]

A result of excremental improvements?

Click to shrink...

Incrimental not excremental, no one wants excrement anywhere near anything important

Edit: Damn it, forgot to read what you were quoting mb. Nah you're right that is excremental.

 

[lost star]

They were taking a serious risk now. Before they'd been pure scavengers. Darting at the outside, looking for weak points, being very careful. With Lilly's new mech and the ability to both fend off the whispers and let her rest without interruption they had a different option now. They were going to batter down a gate.

Their maps showed many things nearby the fortress. One of those things was labeled major settlement. It wasn't surprising. Fortress world or not, it was still a world. It needed place to live and support people. Cable had crossed it out because things like that were typically heavily defended. It had not been feasible to attack it. Now it was.

Travel time would be a bit tight. They'd go over the two month limit they'd planned for. The extra supplies made this feasible though, and they still had intact FTL transmitters. So they went.

And things immediately got harder. The little claymen went from being occasional hazards to veritable armies. Not just a few, dozens. All of them in the tunnels, on the walls, and the ceilings. Almost as if they were waiting for someone to try something.

Lilly could have easily cleared it. They let her do the first one to test out Morning Star. It... Wasn't really a test. The mech walked in, was shot at, the wings deflected everything, and then all of the claymen died within seconds. The flying blades it used to fight wiped out entire hordes at once, and the draining system ate the rest. The only thing it showed was that an expert could wipe out a horde, which wasn't something special. Dowry would have done the same, only slower because she'd have to move to fight them all.

After that they kept their expert in reserve and sent in the Bloody Berserkers and Zombies to both get experience and conserve Lilly's stamina. These mechs were almost tailor made for the situation. They could charge in and remove vast swaths of enemies, and deal with the traps as well. Sure they took damage, but only to their armor. They had an almost excessive amount of materials for that. They were also able to salvage some more from the bodies. Not much. The stone was useless. The stuff it was laced with was worth the time if you found choice parts. (Rats were very good at finding choice parts quickly.)

For a time that was all their trouble. Mostly claymen, snakes, and spiders. All of them were relatively easy to deal with. It was easy to forget that these aliens had fought the MTA and made them take losses. They would be reminded.

The event happened as the tunnels widened out and once they were very deep. It should have been warmer at this point. It wasn't. It was somehow colder instead. The mechs were frosting over if they were left still too long. People really didn't want to leave their vehicles if they could. That was when the alien's real defenses started coming into play.

Lilly reacted first, as befit an expert. It didn't help. The attack came from above. Beams of heat striking from the ceiling. One hit a Zombie dead on. The strike melted the mech in an instant. No chance to dodge, no ability to defend against it. Several tones of metal turned molten in an instant. A candle versus a blowtorch.

More beams came down. Most of the mechs managed to dodge somewhat after the first strike. Some lost limbs. There were few deaths. None of the vehicles were targeted, though that was likely due to them keeping far to the rear of the formation. Missiles flew up as the Cerberus switched to the hellfire missiles and fired at the likely emitters. Fire dripped down from the ceiling as the beams stopped.

Then the forth group of constructs came into play. They didn't bother with stealth or speed. They walked in. Twice the size of a mech, all stone. Molten lines ran up and down their bodies, and a single glowing eye dominated their front. The claymen's big brother. Dubbed immediately Cyclops.

Around them a small army moved forward to reinforce them. Hundreds of claymen, spiders, and even snakes. They all moved forward like a veritable monster horde.

The Bloody Berserkers charged in first. They didn't even wait for orders The boosted into the enemy lines like bowling balls. Stone monsters went flying every which way and they performed large whirling spins to shatter what they could before moving in front of the largest things and slamming their hammers into the torsos.

The Cyclops barely seemed to notice. Their bodies cracked some, but they simply attempted to backhand their opposing forces with one large meaty hand. Several of the heavy mechs went flying several steps as the backhand hit them, both rattling the mechs and nearly breaking them in a single strike.

"Don't target the eye!" Lilly called out as she moved to the front.

Twelve blades shot out and peppered one stone colossus. Some hit the eye and the trapped part exploded in a retaliatory measure, annihilating a few of Lilly's blades. Molten stone flowed out of the wounds it had taken and removed the damage it had taken. The expert backed up and began to strike out with her blades in random spots, probing for weaknesses.

Command was not Lilly, as much as people had wanted to. She'd explicitly deferred command due to scenarios just like this. The current command was an Undertaker pilot. One of the two that they'd brought. He was no one of note, he was competent and trained by Lilly. That was it. He made mistakes. In this case it was a good one. While he was relaying commands he reflexively shot at the enemy Lilly was fighting. The endothermic ammo that was the default ammunition hit the Cyclops and it cooled slightly. The self repair slowed.

Lilly and everyone else noted this. They changed tactics immediately and commands were thrown out. The Berserkers shifted back, clearing the lines of the chaff with the rest of their forces. The zombies moved forward to present themselves as targets while the Drowned Men moved to the side.

Their expert moved forward to draw all the attention she could. The Cyclops, lacking intelligence or direction moved to intercept her. Their eyes glowed and heat radiated all in front of them. A heat induction ray with extreme range and power flowed over Lilly's mech.

"Hahaha!" Lilly laughed loudly as they focused on her. With her resonance shield and the mech's configuration, this sort of attack was less than worthless.

Morning Star drank it up. Greed was amped up to the max. Electricity flowed around the mech as the engravings on the armor began to smolder and distribute the heat the mech was handling. A halo of lightning appeared around her head. The gauntlets screamed as power was fed into them and then the blades seemed to flicker and dance. Each second more power was fed into them, and the speed of those little blades increased. They didn't even return to the gauntlets after a few seconds. They just flickered through the air and cut and stabbed as the frequency was changed almost too fast to see. Some even shattered and they shards kept moving.

Around the mech the Cyclopes started to lose chunks as Lilly simply focused on ripping parts off them. They approached without a care for the damage, some swung hands, others kept that terrible heat inducing beam on her. None of it mattered. Morning Star danced between them, endured, and tore chunks off them. Every second turned her into more of a blur of lightning and metal. Bolt's creation was feeding off the energy of battle and all that power was turning pouring into the Wrath system.

Behind her the Undertakers continued to fire. Their endothermic shots gummed up the cyclops. The massive stone constructs started to slow. Their regeneration stopped as the heat they used to heal themselves started to be leached. Crumbling parts started to stay crumbled.

Had there been a mind behind the constructs, the tactics would have been changed. Lilly was there, she was prominent, but she was utterly untouchable. What her mech couldn't dodge, it could tank. The wings snapped out and caught projectiles with flashes of light and energy. The central body of her mech had not been touched at all. Only the radiant heat from the cyclops eye was doing damage, and it was such a paltry amount that Morning Star could endure it for hours. She was an invincible target that they should have ignored.

This was the only reason Bolt's people had a chance. The conflict was drawing in other forces as it progressed. More and more enemies started to come in. While Lilly became a cross between a wall and a blender, the rest of the mechs still had to pull their weight so that the number advantage could not become too much.

Everyone here had been personally trained by Lilly. They were not elites by any means. These were older pilots that were, well mediocre, to put it politely. The best the rats had to offer in the time they'd had available.

Despite this, they were used to following the leader into hell. These men and women pilots morale was tied to Lilly. So long as she stood, and she was standing magnificently, they would fight.

Bolt's dedicated attention to rugged repair and durable design came into play here. The snakes and spiders were not particularly threatening in small numbers. A large army was a different matter. They'd get up close in a suicidal fashion and deal whatever damage they could. A zombie could easily crush one. They could crush two. When ten came around alongside the claymen shooting you started to get problems.

Mechs dropped from damage as the battle progressed. They were hauled back and repaired. They were forced onto their feet with patches and barely bolted on plating. They ran right back into the fight without hesitation. The dogs were the worst of it. That was just because they needed frequent missile reloads, and remaking the specialized stuff took time.

Bolt fixed it the simplest way he could in between frantic repairs. He switched the missiles they were using to the dumbest things available. Stupid rockets that held what amounted to rocks as payloads. They were simple, brutal, and they'd work against their targets. It turned the mech into a rather poor rifleman, but it made them useful. (The more expensive ordinance was wasted on chaff anyway.)

What saved them was enemy stupidity. One of the Cyclops would likely have been able to fight a berserker one versus one and win handily. The small army of them that came through with support would have crushed everyone but Lilly. Had the big things attacked their supply line they would have won. Lilly needed support if she was going to survive past the battle.

Instead they attacked the closest thing they could. Lilly stepping up and into the fray had them all focusing on her as a priority and then on anyone else they could reach as a secondary target. If she was up far enough they'd just try to fight her. The Undertakers could therefore slowly freeze them to death while the expert handled their attention.

Without the heavy hitters the enemy was limited to the lesser types. They were chaff that Bolt's allies could crush. Attrition might have been an issue had the enemy again not been stupid. If a mech went down, another one stepped up over it, and the enemy focused on them. It made it trivial for some of the Wench Rats to sneak up and tow the downed mech away.

For hours they fought like this. The enemy threw themselves at the group without a care for lives or other concerns. It was like dealing with a bot who's only tactic was to throw enemy forces at a target. A group here, a trickle there, sometimes a small army, but more frequently ones and twos. The automation was pulling all their forces to deal with the attackers, and could not think of any other response.

The silence, when it came was overwhelming. One moment Lilly's blades were cutting into something, and the next there was nothing as the last construct fell. They waited a few minutes in silence as they took a breather. Then a few minutes more as they did desperate repairs and salvage in case more were coming.

It took a long few hours before they had to conclude there were no other forces. The enemy had literally thrown everything they had at them. That meant decisions had to be made. What to do next, what the plan was now, and so on.

The immediate was pretty easy. They needed to clean up the battlefield. There were so many piles of stone that they'd have to clear a path, and then they needed to get everything repaired. It would not do to start looting and get crushed because they hadn't gotten everything fixed.

 

[Simonbob]

Automatic defences.

Saved buy the AI. It appears about as smart as the current "AI".

 

[Negation]

Automatic defences.

Saved buy the AI. It appears about as smart as the current "AI".

Click to shrink...

Nah this is a PVE server and the enemies were programmed by Ubislop.

 

[lurkingkraken]

Nah this is a PVE server and the enemies were programmed by Ubislop.

Click to shrink...

It helps that our boy has exactly the right specialization to counter the rock's attrition based strategy, and just build a mech that fuels itself off one of their better weapons.

Some mech with a full load of flamethrowers and napalm missiles shows up, that heat ray's going to turn their firestarter into a pyre.

 

[Golgotha]

Heat actively helping it repair hard counters a bunch of weapons too.
It would be easy to go in there and get crushed utterly.

 

[lost star]

When Cable had reviewed the data, he'd gone through several dozen possible sites. Some of them were fairly obvious. Others less so. The ascension site for instance had been relatively small and valuable. This place was not small. It'd been labeled as a settlement. Alien technology or not, logistics was a fact of reality. A fortress needed food and materials. It needed support personnel. All of that was best to centralize. Hence the hopes that the city would be worth looting.

Bolt immediately had second thoughts upon viewing it after the cleanup. The place was a mess of stalagmite and stalactites turned into buildings. It had twisted paths all over, complete with rope bridges and hair raising paths up and down. It was a nightmare when added to the whispers. The now loud whispers. It looked like one of the big sources was here possibly. There wasn't a visual tell even with the sensors they had now. The ghosts were very much avoiding Lilly and Morning Star.

"God almighty that's going to be hell to get through." Someone cursed.

Cable gave a grunt. "Nothing to it. I don't anticipate traps in the main throughways. Send in a few rat cars while we're finishing up anyway to check. You all get a day of free reign and exploration before we haul the good stuff. Remember some richies like to trap their vaults. Don't be stupid and don't break our last camera as well!"

Bolt could feel the anticipation there. This promised to be a motherload, and free reign meant they could pocket things. Everyone was going to be paid after this, but no salvager worthy of the name would object to more trinkets. It certainly galvanized the crew, and everyone put their backs into getting the battlefield cleaned up.

Once all of that was finished the pilots took up guard positions and the rest started moving into the city. Bolt joined them. He wanted to find where the whispers were coming from. Half out of curiosity and half out of hope that he could make them stop. They were getting really annoying. He'd been more resistant to them lately, but that didn't mean he liked listening to them! (Also, he'd had a migraine off and on since he'd made Morning Star. He was recovering, but damn didn't he know better than to push himself like that again.)

Traversing the city was unpleasantly difficult. Sure a lot of the paths had guard rails, but they were thin things with significant inclines or declines. They twisted through places without rhyme or reason, and all of it was a pain in the rear to navigate. How the natives got around was impossible to say. Bolt had a feeling that there was a lot of climbing involved. There were more than a few places with ladder like cuts into the walls.

His destination turned out to be a strangely mundane one. It was a squat building with what looked to be a landing pad on top. Out of all the buildings, it was the only fully squared one. The walls were fortified and the doors locked. Cutting into the place was impossible with their hand tools due to the armored door and walls. Getting a mech to the area would have involved getting that mech through passages meant for people. Possible with digging and explosives. Not something they wanted to do immediately.

Fortunately they had alternatives. All secured doors had some sort of flaw to them. There was a reason you had people manning defenses. If you didn't, all one needed was time and effort. Bolt's people were very, very good at getting through that sort of thing, and he'd learned all the lessons.

This one wasn't easy, but it ultimately just required a few prybars, some acid, and time. The latter was the hardest because the screaming was getting bad this close. It got really annoying when he found a second door too. Bolt was cursing their security measures as he endured the very irritating mental noise.

His uncharitable thoughts were stopped when he got the second door open and could see what was inside.

There was one thing in the building. Nothing else. This was where the screams were coming from. The muffled sounds of torment and insanity. All of them were coming from this. It was a pit. A maw with no bottom. Blades covered the sides, and some of them had bit of rust still on them. This close it drew his attention like nothing else could. It let like he was seeing a kindred soul. Bolt could intuitively tell what it was. It offered its secrets freely. A thing that converted flesh and souls into power. There was no price for the knowledge. It was a maw that waited patiently for food, and was generous in every way.

It also washed over him with absolutely no effect. Bolt knew in his core that this thing was a darker path he could take. He'd long since rejected it. When people talked about 'sacrifice' they frequently meant people like him and his family. He'd rather be dead and buried than even consider something like what this insidious whatever it was offered.

"You know, I was wondering about the lack of bodies." Bolt noted out loud while enduring the mental assault. An settlement like this should have had at least a few bodies, even if it'd been evacuated. There'd been nothing.

He turned away and closed the door behind him. Then he made his laborious way back and activated one of the fabricators they had. He needed to make something. Something very special for a very special enemy.

The Hellfire compound they used for the dog's missiles was a volatile and particularly potent blend of exotics and fuel. Creating a small container that could carry some of it required a special blend of alloys. He managed after a bit. It helped that he didn't need something fancy.

This one whispered a bit if you listened to it too. The whisper was soft and contained. Human. It was just a statement that everything burned. The young man focused on that rather than the insidious worming temptation that had tried to snare him. Bolt was even able to add to it. He pushed out everything else in his head as he moved. Combustion was a conversion. Fire was frequently purifying. This fire would purify and destroy everything he wanted it to.

Once at the building he opened the first door. Then he opened the second door. He put a timer on the container of Hellfire, and threw it into the pit without thinking. He then closed both doors and rested against the wall. Only then did he allow himself to think again.

With both doors closed he couldn't see the result of his arson immediately. He couldn't even hear anything. He knew when it happened just based off his internal timer. It became even more clear when the whispers started to drop in intensity. They didn't go away. If that hole reached as far as Bolt thought it did, and was as large as it was, they wouldn't go away for centuries. They were reduced.

The young man made sure to mark the door as a do not open and welded it shut for good measure. He then moved onto looting. He needed a palate cleanser, and this would do it. He'd lost so much time doing this!

Not that the lost time mattered much. They were going to have to spend days identifying what they wanted. Bolt's excursion aside, it wasn't easy identifying the buildings even with their tools. The aliens had actually physically marked things here, but that wasn't helping. No one could understand their scratchings. Bolt was pretty sure Cable had planned it that way. Let everyone blow off some steam looting and then swoop in to grab the real good stuff for the team.

The designer wasn't really interested in the stuff that had monetary value anyway. He wanted the information! Thus he was going to go around and document the paths and buildings. There were probably a few secured areas with the good and hidden knowledge. He wanted that.

He wasn't the only one with this idea of course. The Rats had a system of sorts for things like this! It wasn't anything fancy really. Just a lot of taped signs and spray-paint everywhere. It did liven things up and make it far easier to find things. As did some controlled demolition. The twisted pathways were enough of a pain that no one objected to just tearing apart some areas.

It wasn't like they were preserving the place after all. This was a dead city of a dead race on a dead planet. There wasn't anything worth keeping around.

 

[Negation]

They twisted through places without rhyme or reason, and all of it was a pain in the rear to navigate. How the natives got around was impossible to say.

Click to shrink...

Flying swords, clouds & spirit beasts.

It let like he was seeing a kindred soul. Bolt could intuitively tell what it was. It offered its secrets freely. A thing that converted flesh and souls into power. There was no price for the knowledge. It was a maw that waited patiently for food, and was generous in every way.

Click to shrink...

Standard Demonic Cultivator Artifact #1. The only thing missing is the Nascent Soul of an Old Monster™ hiding inside just waiting to bodyjack.

 

[Golgotha]

It wasn't like they were preserving the place after all. This was a dead city of a dead race on a dead planet. There wasn't anything worth keeping around.

Click to shrink...

Man, this is the attitude that gets archaeologists pissed
Dude! You found a freaky psy training room! Although signs may point to is being powered by mass torturous sacrifice.
Never mind. Nothing of value.

 

[Sceptic]

You all get a day of free reign

Click to shrink...

free rein.

It let like he was seeing a kindred soul.

Click to shrink...

It felt like?

 

[lost star]

Bolt's fellows were in the process of dismantling the city. There was no other way to describe it. The city would be no more shortly. They weren't being gentle. They weren't being slow. It was strip mining. And that was ok. There were plenty of other cities hidden on this planet, and it was the only real way to find everything. The aliens loved hidden rooms and isolated vaults.

Case in point he'd found this strange storage area in a basement equivalent. It had been hidden in a fancy compound, behind a hidden door, and then protected by a series of traps. It didn't even have a lot in it. A rather expensive exotic in a stone container and a few Jade Slips. The exotic was small enough he could lift it with one hand. It would also probably cover the entire trip alone. (So far as rarity went, this meant it was decidedly middling.)

The Slips themselves were not particularly worthwhile for the most part. They detailed alien concepts around their 'advancement' and the like. Functionally useless for humans because it was tailored to them. Also more than a little abhorrent, because a lot of their more noted advancements required a form of blood sacrifice. Bolt was seriously debating destroying them really. He did not want some power hungry moron with more ambition than sense getting ideas.

Only a few of the Slips from this cache were potentially useful. Some were very basic instruction manuals. He'd gotten documentation for a lot of things already, but these were things for beginners. The basic textbooks in other words. Extremely useful once he could parse it all. This went double for the one technique he actually wanted to adapt and implement.

Basically as one got further into designing and such one needed mental enhancements. This typically came in the form of brain implants. Those were expensive, with a capital E, and getting one surgically embedded was both complicated and was best done only once. If Bolt wanted to compete with real advanced designers he would need one. The best ones were worth something on the order of a thousand expert mechs. The good ones would probably take a decade of dedicated savings. (He was a designer of third rate mechs. Even with his income, he was still at the bottom.)

These alien techniques were a good alternative. It would take time, but Bolt could make one for himself using the processes detailed in this Slip if he could properly translate the concepts. He even had the materials so to speak. The aliens had left more than a few basic spiritual constructs in the city. He had detailed instructions on how to break them apart and store them. Spiritual containers just looked like smooth round stones and they were practically everywhere. No one would object to him grabbing a few crates of them. He'd barely used his personal allotment of tonnage.

The constructions would also help him understand how to refine what he was doing with mechs too. It'd take a lot of work, but it was just a new field of mech design. Teaching himself a new field by breaking things apart was nothing new.

Which led him to most dangerous Slip he'd found. That one he was definitely going to destroy after memorizing things. He wasn't even going to speak about what was in it. In fact he'd barely even think about it because it detailed some political considerations that he was quite sure were distinctly classified at the highest level. As in wipe him and his planet out. Fortunately his mind wasn't monitored, and he'd hopefully be able to conceal this with the mental tools should the topic come up.

Honestly Bolt rather wished he hadn't been able to interpret it so well. Memories in Jade Slips were typically rather hard to parse. This one was distinct. The one who'd recorded it had a disciplined mind and a need to be sure that the memories were recorded. There were two in particular that had been very vivid.

"In conclusion, the human constructs defy logical sense and physics in the same breath. The warships at least follow the laws of reality as we know them. The constructs mimicking their forms do not." The apprentice's words flowed through the bearer, and there was a sense of pride there.

"Of course they don't." The bearer said and paused as he evaluated his apprentice.

These aliens weren't attractive by any measure. They were like moles in human form. Not the cute type either. The ugly type, with claws and distorted forms. Whatever the bearer saw was apparently enough to impress him though and he leaned forward.

"The humans are bolstered by constructs they pull their power from. It makes their creations work. The things they call mechs specifically have a foundational masterpiece that has been carefully hidden from the eye and senses." He said slowly. "We've spent our entire war drawing out details. Carefully, quietly. It is not spoken of in casual conversation. It is a mountain that we're quite sure they'd stolen for their use. We are but pebbles against it."

The apprentice stared at his mentor. The emotional context indicated that he was distressed. "That scale makes our task seem impossible. How can we win?"

"As carefully as we examined them. We pick apart it piece by piece." The mentor said with warmth. "You've already helped. The Volcano class constructs were inspired. Continue with your work and allow me to continue picking the locks they've placed on their stolen creation. Perhaps when I have it, your creations will become equal to them rather than just chaff to distract."

"Master, calling them chaff is offensive!" The young alien protested.

"They're useful chaff." The mentor joked with some pride. "If I'm right, they'll become invaluable too. We just need to touch that thing once and we'll have victory. Stolen things can be stolen again, and the despair they'll face would be delicious."

Bolt wasn't one to take their words for granted, but that sort of conclusion was corroborated by several other memories of his attempts at doing something spiritually to captured mechs and pilots. This token was some master's personal memorial. The memories that he'd treasured. He'd been the equivalent of a scientist and his apprentice had pioneered the constructs that he'd fought. (His designs were still shit.) That alone had been disturbing, but the other memory had been dangerous.

"The warship's strikes have hit the core." The bearer felt nothing but weary as they heard the words. "The World-Fury Thermal Lance is destroyed. The power taps are running wild due to the damage and lost controls. The temperature of the entire planet is dropping and will continue to drop."

"Can we do nothing?" The bearer asked only to see a gesture that meant a negation.

"Nothing." The speaker said with resignation in his tone. "All we can do is trap the area and evacuate. Do not lose hope though. We have made progress with another way. There's a third human faction that has provided aid and information in exchange for Stone-Blood."

"A sacred product of our lives and souls sold for a pittance I assume." The bearer replied with narrow eyes and a flat tone of dull rage.

The speaker gave an ambivalent gesture. "We trade spent lives for those still living. We are also exploring using their people to produce an equivalent. It will not be a sacred blood, but it will be close enough for their purposes."

That got a dismissive sound. "I care not for how you grind the things that killed my apprentice. I simply wish them dead. Dealing with this third faction will not do it."

"It will. As a gesture of good will, they diverted the fleet faction and granted us a view of their treasures." The speaker gestured to a map of the planet. "We can evacuate our critical people while that mech faction tries to crack our fortification alone. You are invited."

"No." The bearer said with intense exhaustion in his voice. "I will stay and be sure that they bleed. I assume you will be grinding the non-essentials?"

"We always need more Stone-blood. Even more so now. This third faction has something they call a Scroll of Earth. Those that have viewed it have reported significant and rapid advancement. You know what that means and what it requires. We must all make sacrifices." The speaker replied with little emotion.

"I think you are enamored by a clear sky and forgetting that the sun burns." The one who'd recorded the message shot back before sighing. "Leave. Me and several other masters are crafting a final weapon to attack those that come here. Let them mine the marrow of our bones. The planet will scream and kill them as they do so."

"If that is your wish. I cannot dispute one of your standing." The one who spoke said as he turned away.

For a long moment the bearer was silent. Then they sighed and looked down at the crystal. "Why am I recording this? It's pointless now."

A third faction capable of redirecting the CFA? Bolt was quite sure that there wasn't one of those. At least none he'd been informed of. The aliens had been very convinced though. This master hadn't even disputed the speaker.

There were too many disturbing implications in that Slip. Once the designer was sure no more value could be extracted from it, he destroyed it with a grinder and then destroyed the pieces too. He could let no hints it of escape.

 

[Simonbob]

Sometimes, salvage can give you things you really don't want.

 

[Negation]

Spiritual containers just looked like smooth round stones and they were practically everywhere.

Click to shrink...

Spirit Stones

"Master, calling them chaff is offensive!" The young alien protested.

"They're useful chaff." The mentor joked with some pride. "If I'm right, they'll become invaluable too.

Click to shrink...

To be fair, the Apprentice used an industrial manufactory designed to churn out their equivalent of the SP-W03 Space Pod to develop into RB-79 Balls and all it's variants is actually impressive.

The World-Fury Thermal Lance is destroyed.

Click to shrink...

This would be the "Do Not Open" area

There's a third human faction that has provided aid and information in exchange for Stone-Blood.

Click to shrink...

The most valuable loot on Cold Grave would be the instruction manual on the creation of Stone-Blood if a secret faction is willing to sell out for it.

Leave. Me and several other masters are crafting a final weapon to attack those that come here.

Click to shrink...

The "final weapon" schematics is only good as a study reference since it either failed to be completed or failed to be fired.

 

[lost star]

Bolt wouldn't make stone blood even if he knew the recipe.

And the final weapon is the pit and the screaming. It was worse when first used.

 

[Golgotha]

Oh man. This isn't plot. It's Plot. Possibly even PLOT. Time will tell

 

[Sceptic]

but that sort of conclusion was correlated by several other memories

Click to shrink...

I suspect you mean corroborated.

He could let no hints of escape.

Click to shrink...

no hints of it escape

 

[lost star]

They'd allotted several days to the breakdown of the city. The assumption was that the automated reinforcements would trickle in while this was happening and that was considered the safest amount of time they could spare. Bolt was fairly done with looting after the first day really. He'd found enough for himself. He could spend years looking through all the Jade Slips they'd found. They'd been everywhere. Everyone else was fairly happy as well. Projected profit was enough to be satisfying and then some. This would be a score for the clan and serve as a serious rallying point, provided they got home with it all. The weren't quite out of the mines yet, so to speak.

Right now he was processing the simplest information he'd gotten and was attempting to turn it into something actionable. Basically making baby's first spiritual construct outside of a mech. This would be done with just human knowledge and tools. If it worked he was onto something. It would also mean that he had a lot of work ahead of him. His fit of inspiration with Morning Star had made the mech a bit hard to replicate and service. He would have to remodel the thing multiple times to get it properly aligned with his standards. Fixing it right now required specifically his dedicated time and effort.

"I thought you'd be looting still." Lilly commented as she let herself into the back of the truck. A burst of cold air followed her and Bolt shivered slightly.

"Got some information that can help me refine that new toy I was speaking of." Bolt replied as he gestured to the series of Slips on the table in front of him. "Basically making things to prove a few theories. Think once I refine it I can make a how-to manual maybe." He held up the set of glasses he was making to the light.

"Can't say I mind that. Least I don't have to worry about you killing yourself out there." The girl said as she sat next to him.

Bolt looked at her in mild confusion before he sighed in frustration. "Someone being an idiot?"

"We're going ta get more casualties from looting the city than the entire trip." Lilly confirmed with a sigh of her own. She pulled off her mask with a small grunt and relaxed into her husband's shoulder. "What's with the glasses?"

"Needed something related to sight that was easy to make physically. Tied a small psionic or spiritual construct to it, whichever terminology you like." The official word was psionic. The aliens called it spiritual. Bolt didn't much care. He handed them to Lilly. "Put em on and look around. Resolution should be better and more durable than that camera I kit-bashed together." (Seriously, one good jerk and those things had snapped apart!)

The young woman grabbed them and did as instructed. She then immediately turned to look at Bolt and paused. Her head tilted this way and that way and then she got to her feet and stepped back before circling him as best she could with him sitting down against the wall.

"Huh." She said before taking them off. "You look like you have a spikey snake eating it's tail in your head." She informed her husband.

"That'd be what your brain is interpreting." Bolt replied before the description really registered. "I have no idea why I'd look like that. Most people should just sorta be an outline I think."

Humans didn't really have any sort of spiritual power according to the references he'd found in the alien's literature. They could theoretically develop it. Apparently some even had potential. They had sparks versus the alien's bonfire. That Lilly had seen something meant that he had something akin to the alien's potentials.

Bolt considered that and deliberately didn't follow the path of thinking there. Instead he took the glasses back and looked them over. Decent first attempt. It did what he wanted in as simple a way as possible. What next? He put his creation on and looked at Lilly. She had a nice red streak of power flowing through her. Not what she'd described his was, but still interesting.

"What else should I do?" Bolt wondered out loud as took off the glasses and set them down. "I need some more practice before I make a mental computer."

"A mental computer, really?" Lilly teased as she retook her seat. "You don't have one of those already?"

"I do have a lot of things I need ta memorize and calculate that I can't just do in my head." Just being able to recall a manual's details on the fly alone would be helpful.

"And how would you attach it. Like more glasses?" The young woman gestured to the glasses.

"I would probably anchor it to the skull or something else. Not for awhile though. I need a lot more testing and proficiency before I even want to try. Also need to up my endurance. I strained myself with your mech. That was what the migraines were according to their primers." Bolt explained before he rooted through his materials.

A few minutes with some metal and a small refinery and he had a knife. It was a standard combat and utility knife. Nothing particularly fancy. Pretty sharp and well made for a knife, but still just a knife. Objects like this were so primitive that they weren't even considered weapons by most people.

Honing it with spiritual power was a surprisingly intensive process. The glasses had been far easier. They'd just needed some parts so to speak. They were light, barebones, and consumed very little power. Adding spirit to the knife was harder. He had to layer the spiritual power he'd had stored over the physical parts and then very carefully align them. None of this was visible either, which made it even more difficult. Not impossible though. Also Bolt wasn't trying anything fancy, so it only took a few minutes.

"Mind focusing on cutting and trying to cut this metal rod?" Bolt asked his wife when he had something somewhat viable.

Lilly raised an eyebrow but took the knife and then scrunched up her face as she pressed it to the metal rod he'd set on his table. They were both made of the same material, so the knife shouldn't do anything if physics was the absolute rule here. Instead the knife cut slowly, then faster once Lilly got the idea of what it was doing.

"Huh." The girl said once the knife went through the bar and held it up. "Mind if I keep this?"

"Feel free. Be a decent surprise defense tool." Bolt responded as he examined the rod that had been cut. So far as he could tell, the rod had just been cut as if the blade had been far sharper than normal. Interesting.

Also a bit dangerous. No one would care that the young woman was carrying the thing. Low tech knives like that were more fashion statements than threats in most circles. Higher tech knives had visible tells that made them dangerous. Bolt had broken a common thought with that creation.

It had been very expensive in terms of spiritual resources though. He hadn't put a dent in how much he had stored, but it was not something he wanted to replicate many times over. Those resources were non-renewable at present time. He was definitely getting somewhere though! Unfortunately this only brought up more questions. All his mechs had various degrees of spiritual construction in them just by almost accident. He just understood the process that more.

This was doubly interesting because the only mech he'd personally made was Morning Star. The others had been made by his family. How had the blueprints translated into the spiritual presence something like Cerberus had? Could he push that? How?

"I have so many questions." Bolt muttered to himself.

"Of course you do." Lilly said back while playing with her new knife. "If you didn't I'd be worried. Mine's rather simple. Does this need special maintenance?" She held the tool up.

"No it shouldn't..." The designer trailed off and picked up the glasses to look at the knife better. His senses were telling him that something was very slightly different. "Focus on it a bit as if you were cutting it if you could?"

Lilly did as requested with an amused smile on her face.

"Well I'll be damned. It's going to get stronger the more you use it." Bolt breathed out.

The news seemed to delight Lilly. "Ooooh, fun knife."

"I'm going to need to keep an eye on my mechs now." The designer muttered. "And put in safeguards for their designs. They have something similar to that knife."

"That would explain Dowry." The pilot noted with a nod.

"Shit." Bolt had noticed her increases but he'd not contemplated what would happen when that mech grew.

Worst case scenario. What would it be? Would she be impossible to pilot? Would the mech become alive? If he put life in a war machine, was that even ethical? It'd be like putting children into combat! Even assuming they liked it, mechs were meant to be very disposable. Bolt had no desire to create intelligent life, even less to create disposable intelligent life.

The young man scrambled mentally as he tried to figure out what to do. Then he calmed himself. First evaluate things. Then make solutions.

 

[lurkingkraken]

Worst case scenario. What would it be? Would she be impossible to pilot? Would the mech become alive? If he put life in a war machine, was that even ethical? It'd be like putting children into combat! Even assuming they liked it, mechs were meant to be very disposable. Bolt had no desire to create intelligent life, even less to create disposable intelligent life.

Click to shrink...

Congratulations! It's a mech!

Though at least this might make his wife happy, if they are able to make children without needing to get a geneticist involved.

 

[Pollyamorous]

How fortuitous! Now the Mechs can grow with their users in new and interesting ways!

On the other hand, now they're going to grow in ways you might not be able to control, and if they veer off too far from standard they might become difficult, if not impossible, to actually repair or upgrade.

 

[lost star]

Examining Dowry hadn't been conclusive. It had been informative yes. It had not giving him definitive answers. She was developing. Developing into what he couldn't say. Compared to Morning Star she was a bit higher in spiritual power, but not much. Morning Star was potent. The alignment of her spiritual structure with her design had synched to create a powerful aura and presence that even normal people could feel. The systems installed in her had likely helped significantly. It felt a bit like Bolt had unintentionally stolen some of Travis' methodology and used it for his own purposes. Which... Might have actually happened.

Bolt made a mental note to ask someone he trusted about that later. He sincerely didn't want to hurt anyone unintentionally. He had no idea what he was capable of in this regard. It seemed every day he had more questions.

Turning back to mechs, there was a possibility of consciousness happening. He had no idea how. A mech could be considered a body, with the inbuilt computer the mind, but he wasn't sure if adding more spirit to the construction would do something. He also had no idea if there was a threshold that needed to be hit, or some other factors needed to be addressed. His other mechs also had various degrees of progression spiritually. Some were farther along than others. All of them were pretty low though. This indicated many things. Mechs could have variable spiritual presence. That presence could be grown through a variety of factors. This did make some sense. He could see why this hadn't come up before. Most mechs were probably trashed before they reached the theoretically threshold where they became special. He therefore didn't need an immediate fix. He still needed a fix.

Thankfully he had a solution of sorts already created. The Lust system he'd installed on Morning Star. That particular device already basically interacted with a mech's systems. It was already associated with that mech's spirit. With a few very easy tweaks it would serve as a backup for the mech's spirit and operating system. Then you could preserve the mech's spirit when needed and by simply removing the Jade Slip.

He would have to refine that idea and the tech first though. The tech especially. Right now it was repurposed alien tech for an expert's mech. This was cute and harmless as a one off on a custom system. It was not good for general production. Bolt wanted this technology to be a standard thing like a rifle or a piece of armor. Something that a tech could build with just the general principles and would find useful to install on a mech. Something not alien.

It was admittedly pretty useful to him already. Bolt could use Morning Star's Jade Slip to see some key parts of the mech's operation through Lilly's eyes. It was extremely disorientating, difficult, and more than a little taxing, but it helped him figure out what was good and bad with his mech. With practice and familiarity he could probably get a lot more than just glimpses. He could see a lot of people loving something similar.

Now getting this ready for general production was actually very daunting as a task. That needed clear lines of production, clear instructions of how it needed to be installed in a variety of mech forms, and a thousand other things that he probably wasn't considering. Bolt did have an advantage there though! He had a lot of bored techs to help.

With the looting winding down and the mechs fully repaired, there were a lot of idle hands waiting for work at the moment. Presenting the problem to them all was like throwing a toy into a playpen of bored dogs. They absolutely pounced on it.

Bolt immediately got a lot of feedback and learned a lot of things. One, spiritual blueprints were attached to regular blueprints. If you built off the blueprints or followed the design close enough, the spiritual parts came over. Two, it had to be done by hand. The human factor sort of filled in spiritual parts somehow. Each step away from humans removed reduced the spiritual weight. There was a minimal threshold. Three, the enthusiasm of the tech helped. Focus worked too. If, for instance, he gave them the glasses he'd made the intensity of the spiritual input increased significantly. Seeing what you could do made things far easier! How utterly surprising.

Finally, all of this was rather useless for his desire to mass produce the Lust System. Making spiritual components needed a human factor. Mass production removed enough of the spiritual. Furthermore sprit components needed either special tools or specific training to be made and adjusted outside of blueprints. Bolt did sort of want to make a general how-to in for spiritual matters, but that idea was at the tail end of a long list of needs. He needed to be certain of more than a few things first. (Like being sure he wasn't doing something that'd get the MTA on his ass.)

They finished looting and started planning the way back while Bolt pondered over all of this. He went over the workings of the Jade Slips, how they were made, and the theories the aliens had about them. He reviewed how neural helmets worked on the human side. Then he got into VR systems and how they functioned. He didn't and couldn't do a thorough review of all of this. He checked mostly surface stuff to see if what he was thinking of was possible. It felt like was. He was convinced enough to create a prototype.

He called the solution the Heart System. The entire design was a deliberate step away from the Jade Slips and their mechanics. It used a less efficient white crystals amalgam for base storage for instance. Those materials were more common and easier to manufacture for people. They were also extremely different visually, which was important Bolt felt. The system itself was purely physical. It didn't use any spiritual engineering in its construction at all. As a trade off it required input from the entire mech in the form of thin wires. It used the unique interaction between mechs and their pilots to record their actions and other factors in the crystal in a what was hopefully a readable form. More importantly for him it would pull spiritual energy from the mech and center it on the storage area, the 'heart.'

Bolt specifically designed it to hopefully work with other devices too. The thought was a total novice could pull out the crystal and put it into a reader. The reader would show the mech model, the OS version, and the ID of the pilot. Another reader type could be hooked up to a VR pod, then the person in the VR could review all the data in the heart. No spiritual nonsense needed!

A designer with the proper training wouldn't even need the tools. They'd be able to connect up. The Hearts were technically humanized Jade Slips and could be connected the same way.

Of course this all needed to be tested and properly implemented. Whipping together a concept was far different than properly implementing it. Bolt managed a few rough tests with the mechs on the way back. The core of it seemed promising, but reading it was proving to be a neigh impossible task with his current tools. Putting the raw data into a simulated VR environment wasn't really translating at all and they lacked the pods to test and verify what was actually coming through. Bolt was pretty sure they needed experienced VR techs to get the data interpreted right. He could read the things enough to know they were pulling data that others could access, but that was all raw data. Every human saw things differently. He was lacking ways to to translate.

Frankly there were so many rough edges with his initial tests that Bolt could safely conclude that the idea needed years of work. The only things he could really confirm were that the data and spiritual cores were being stored correctly. Really that was more than enough for him considering how quickly he'd slapped the initial concept together. He had the base of something useful. It could be improved over time. Perhaps once he got some money he could hire a few people to accelerate the process. Until then it was a good concept that fixed a potential issue now and could be used for something more expansive later.

Morning Star and Dowry seemed to appreciate the work he'd done at least. Revamping both their structures and adding the systems to them gave them some solidity in the physical realm bizarrely enough. Bolt would still monitor them, but he'd addressed some worries over everything.

Again, it all needed work. Bolt was absolutely thrilled anyway. This really felt like something useful!

 

[Golgotha]

That's amazing.
That's ground breaking.
To preserve the spirit of the mech between bodies would change the entire paradigm over time.

 

[BismuthBorealis]

It felt a bit like Bolt had unintentionally stolen some of Travis' methodology and used it for his own purposes. Which... Might have actually happened.

Click to shrink...

Or, I suspect, he unintentionally scavenged bits and pieces of said methodology, using said bits and pieces like he would bits and pieces of mechs.

 

[RandolphWill]

40k knight bonding ceremony are coming in the future.

 

[Pollyamorous]

Ves Larkinson: "So this is it, the Spirit! The mystical connection that can use one's very willpower to strengthen themselves and mechs they pilot, something special and unique to each person, which I've found a way to develop even further!"

Bolt: "Bah, 'Indomitable Human Spirit' my ass, I just looted an alien planet to figure out how to standardize Spirit stuff. The Wailing Souls of the Damned didn't even put up much of a fight to stop me!"