Chương 30: Chapter Twenty-Nine: Categnollical Imperative

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X Chapter Twenty-Nine: Categnollical Imperative X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X"- Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Spacers to your stations, Workers fight as one! The Grand Old Pact has our back, It's time the Feds are done!" The last verse is lost as a mumble under my breath when the stuttering roar of an Oxy-Mana torch swallows it whole. Though this time around, I'm using the plasma-cutter in a way it was never designed for–delicate line work.

I'd have loved to use one of my high-temp solder guns for this, but none of my current stock could get hot enough to melt Orichalcum. Pausing halfway through slicing a swooping line to check the diagram, I check my notes, then add an extra half-centimeter to account for one of the Excelia-collection matrices that would have been in the way. That idea I had for augmenting magicnetic prosthetics with a falna? Yeah, it didn't take me long to realize that Dormul's armor would be the perfect testbed for that concept.

A quick house call over to Hephaestus's place later, and she had graciously given me a crash course in the basic principles behind a falna. Not a complete education by any means, as she didn't know how most of it worked herself; Ouranos kept that information close to the chest. What she had been able to share, however, were their basic components and their functions; Every god was able to manipulate their own falna in minor, almost entirely cosmetic ways.

Still, even with the changes that Hephaestus had made to her falna, the vast majority of the metaphysical components that interfaced with the host's soul remained consistent across the board. All I had to do was get a good look at a few examples, and Hephaestus was more than happy to point out how and where each part had been moved, as well as how to identify the parts of the puzzle that remained static.

Normally, a service like personal tutelage by a god would have been either eye-wateringly expensive, or reserved solely for the most senior members of their own familia. But apparently that workshop I built for her was performing beyond even her wildest imagination, so she was in a good mood. Hell, it seemed like everyone there had a minor case of hero-worship for me, all of them wanting to shake my paw or bend my ear, looking for help with one project or another. It felt…

nice, gratifying–like the fact that I was a blacksmith first mattered far more to them than my lack of humanity to them. Unfortunately, I was up to my eyeballs in my own work, so I couldn't take anyone up on a collab' at the moment. But damn, would it be cool to work with someone who has the Blacksmith development ability. I've heard that they can do some real funky stuff with the metal they work with, and I'd love to see it in action.

After my day trip to Hephaestus, I went over to give Dormul the bad news that I'd need to delay the armor for another week or so. I could tell that he wasn't happy, but after I explained to him that if what I was working on panned out, then he'd never need a new suit of armor ever again, he was all on board with the mad science! I wanted to conduct. My plan was to create a hot-swappable plate inscribed with an interface array that connects the armor to the falna.

The plate itself would be inserted into the back of the armor, and could be replaced with newer versions of the computer down the line, or even swapped out with plates aligned to different users if Dormul ever wanted to share his armor with others. Unfortunately, I had to completely break down the old Jotunframe to incorporate the falna-array interface, so it needed a new name. A Jotunframe would still be the name for standard power armor, but I needed something new for suits with falna integration.

As each connector will need to be unique to the individual to account for the microscopic 'drifts' in the falna created by the soul, I wanted to go with Mjolnir, but that shit was taken. So instead, I decided to go with Thrymrframe, after the guy who stole Mjolnir. With the cut finished, I blew away the last wisps of steam to make sure it cooled evenly. Dunking the plate into water, I stood with a bone-cracking stretch. I've been cooped up in here too long; it's time for some fresh air.

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X A biting chill scythed across the street, falling upon me with evil intent–and broke upon the heating element I installed in my jacket. Oh, it burned me to waste precious materials on mere comfort, but I couldn't take it anymore. Even through my thick fur, the winter in Orario was brutal. The ocean air blowing in from the West had a freezing bite to it that must have originated from some sort of subarctic current, like the Labrador or California current.

It did make the city a wonderful place to be in the summer, the cool air making even the hottest of days merely temperate, but it does shorten the growing seasons for more delicate plants. However, the end of this miserable cold was in sight; I could smell it, taste it in the air–Spring was just around the corner. That was reflected in the faces around me. People were smiling and chatting freely with their fellows.

All of them were wearing their thick winter clothes a little more loosely than they had been just a few weeks ago. The snow, what little Orario got at least, had melted into a thin slush that was mostly dealt with by mages on their own time. Spring would begin with another rainy season, but that would bleed off into a mostly dry summer and fall. The good cheer was infectious, and I soon found myself smiling and nodding back to the few brave souls who bothered to greet me. Oh, this was going to be great!

Once the weather cleared up, I'll jump right into renovating all the buildings the Guild made me buy for blowing them up. I'll get a garage going, and then a Mech stable. Maybe I can use those flattened buildings where Hera's temple used to be to make an airport for my airships! I could already tell that this summer was going to be busy in a very, very fun way. I was lazily fantasizing about making a Dragon-Slayer Class battleship and using it as a mobile fortress when a commotion perked my ears.

Laughter, loud and bordering on the hysterical, from a whole crowd of people. And I'd know; gnolls are born with an innate knowledge of the many kinds of laughter. I turned towards the noise just in time to see a blur of white and brown rush out the door of a nearby manse. More of that laughter, tinged with a terrible, cruel mockery, followed what resolved itself as a young boy running away from the crowd as fast as he could.

My eyes slid away from the kid as he skidded around the corner back towards the house to find a small sign denoting it as the home of the Anansi familia, whoever the hell they were. I shrugged and was just about to go about my day when a sudden thought struck me. How many people do I know have white, not grey, white hair? How many are teenagers as young as that? And of those, how many are the fucking protagonist of the story!?

Now very much wide awake and my daydream of flying workshops abandoned, I picked up the pace, doing my best not to take off sprinting after the kid so I wouldn't attract attention. Not that there was much I could do in this city without drawing eyes. I turned the corner and cursed when all I saw was the dense flow of people going about their business on one of the main roads leading towards Babel. Furtively looking about, I knew that there was no hope of finding him in this mess through sight alone.

But he had been right here; the trail was still more than fresh. Inhaling deeply, Max's hyena hindbrain, normally dozing and content, jerked to life with an eager growl–there were few things it enjoyed more than the thrill of the chase. I subconsciously filtered out all the junk data flowing through my nose and ghosting upon my tongue.

My quarry was a young human male, so I could automatically discard roughly half of Orario's population, along with the musky animal scent that subtly clung to all of Orario's Shifters. I could also ignore that unidentifiable, ozone-y smell that followed elves. While that still left plenty of candidates, none were fresher than one: A sweaty, bitter, slightly tangy smell–the odor of stress and shame–mingled with that earthy scent people get after going a few days without bathing.

Grinning wolfishly, I trotted off, ignoring the weird looks I was getting as I extended my neck up and sniffed the air furiously. I fought the urge to drop to all fours as my prey quarry target led me on a merry chase all throughout Orario. The kid was randomly hitting familias up and down the main thoroughfares, sometimes skipping houses just to double back without any rhyme or reason–the increasingly frantic movements of the truly desperate. I wasn't an expert on how familias usually operate.

Still, even I knew that the kid was breaking pretty much all of the unspoken rules that secretly governed Orarian and godly etiquette. One does not just go up to a familia's front door and ask to be let in. They don't operate like that. They couldn't, or else everyone's lawn would be littered with hopeful recruits all pleading with their eyes to be given a chance; Like those Solar-Panel Scammers trying to trick you into selling your roof to them, but even more annoying.

No wonder the kid had been rejected by everyone he talked to so harshly. Applications are either done by dedicated familia headhunters, members who wander around the city and beyond, searching for talented people to either recruit outright, or poach from rivals. Barring that, one could also put their name into the Guild's manpower pool, and familias looking to bolster their ranks would pick from there at random.

It is a shockingly rare event for a god or goddess to personally seek out talent for themselves, as they're usually busy doing whatever hedonistic thing they do in their spare time. Normally, it takes an adventurer-hopeful many rounds of interviews and tryouts before they actually meet their prospective god for the first time. So Bell, or if this even is Bell, is burning a lot of bridges by running around and pestering people like this. And speak of the devil.

There, sitting against the low cobblestone wall of one familia or another, was him. The Protagonist, the Little Rabbit, or whatever the hell his Alias ended up being; I forgot. The boy who couldn't trip over his own shoelaces without getting a girl to fall hopelessly in love with him. Some men die of thirst, while others drown. Hah! Miss me with that shit. Holding together just one relationship is already trouble enough.

The mere thought of anything more complicated than a straight line connecting two people as a pair made my skin crawl. I shook the distracting thoughts away; this wasn't the time to be thinking about my non-existent love life. Bell Cranel was in Orario–that meant… quite a few things, actually. I couldn't remember any hard numbers or dates, but I did know that he was kicking around the city for a while before falling in with Hestia.

And I do know that he was an adventurer for a very short while before the story actually started. But that could be anywhere from a few weeks to months. Either way, from here on out, things were about to get real energetic around here. So much for an easy and relaxing summer of building, I was going to have to put my nose to the grindstone if I wanted to keep up with the tidal wave of shit that's about to hit the city I've grown to think of as home. That is beside the point for now.

What I should be thinking of is: what to do next? Should I just leave it as is, and let the kid burn himself out until Hestia comes swooping in to rescue him? No, I couldn't do that–I've changed too much. There's no guarantee that Hestia ever stumbles across him now that she's working for me. Hell, I caught her looking through property listings the other day, so she might be moving into a nicer area soon.

If he doesn't join up with Hestia, then other, far less scrupulous gods could snatch him away for themselves, prime example being that freak, Freya. And if that happens, then there's no guarantee that he becomes the protagonist this city will need him to become to face what rises from below. I'll have to act, but how? Should I go and fetch Hestia and bring her here? No, he might be gone by then, and I really don't feel like tracking him down a second time. Ah, hell.

I'll just go over there and kidnap the little shit. Sitting there on the side of the road, curled up in the fetal position with his knees drawn up to his chest, he looked truly pathetic. He didn't even budge until my shadow fell over him. When Bell finally looked up, his crimson eyes were glossy and rimmed with freely flowing tears. His bottom lip was white from how hard he was biting into–his eyes shot wide open in alarm when he finally registered the seven-foot-tall gnoll looming over him.

Along with the razor-sharp grin stretching its muzzle, flashing a mouthful of fangs as the slasher-smile grew even wider. There is a moment, a feeling, a state of being that stretches beyond the mere realm of 'terror'. Where 'Fight' is discarded as hopeless, and 'Flight' crashes and burns. Hoping to be saved, the body tries to make a sound greater than just 'screaming', as only 'yelling louder' does not encompass the sheer fear and alarm coursing through one's very soul.

All in the attempt to attract the attention of others towards the incomprehensible horror about to strike. At that instant, the vocal cords overload and cease to function–leaving the terrified person to stare helplessly with their mouth open, making a subvocal hissing sound. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. What I'm trying to say here is that Bell immediately deflated like a stabbed balloon with a whoosh of air, mouth open in a silent scream. Oops.

"M-m-m-monster!" He finally stuttered out in a fucking pitch-perfect Shaggy expression, a finger pointing accusingly at the tip of my nose. A few curious passersby took one look at the source of the scream, followed the finger to me, and then collectively shrugged and went on with their day. It happened every now and then; some new immigrant to the city would arrive, catch a glimpse of me walking down the street–then immediately try to start a mob to go kill the 'escaped monster'.

Other than shouting some variation of 'Shut up, dumbass', people usually ignored the rabble-rousers. I, in my infinite wisdom, played along.

"Monster? Where!?" I yelped, whipping my head back and forth, desperately looking for the threat. I don't think I could have received a more glorious expression from him if I opened my coat and revealed that I was two normal hyenas standing on each other's shoulders. I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing in his face as he shrunk into an even tighter ball of fear and misery.

"Alright, fun's over," I said, still chuckling to myself.

"Time to go." Ain't no way I'm leaving this up to chance. My friend Hestia needs her little magical slave-helper thing to get strong so he can face all of the coming crises head-on. Because if he's not there to deal with all that shit, then it will very suddenly become my shit to deal with. That will get in the way of crafting time, and that just won't do–no sir. I could practically already hear the badump-badump of the metaphorical bus I'll be gleefully tossing his scrawny ass under.

Grabbing him by the neck of his coat, I hoisted him up over my shoulder and marched off back towards home, whistling a merry tune to help cover up his annoying cries for help. The folks around took one look at the daylight kidnapping, and smartly decided that it was none of their business. X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X As my paws were full wrangling my sacrificial lamb, I had to boot in the front door to Hestia's church.

Dust was still raining from the ceiling from the force of the doors slamming open when I breathed in and hollered.

"HESTIA! WHERE YOU AT?" A muffled "Max!" came from beneath my feet, quickly followed by the rapid pat-pat- pat-PAT of slippers on bare stone–when the door leading to the cellar was thrown open, revealing a scowling Hestia wearing what was clearly supposed to be this world's version of slumming-it-sweats.

"What's the problem this time? Did you blow up another block again? Don't go asking me to smooth it over with Royman, because I've already burnt that bridge." I scoffed.

"No, I haven't 'blown up a block'. Yet." The wolfish grin was back.

"Cause I don't have another experiment scheduled until later today." She groaned, palming her face and leaning against the doorframe for support. As she dragged her hands down her cheeks, stretching her expression in strange ways, she finally noticed my burden still trying to wiggle his way out of my grasp.

"What… Who've you got there?"

"This! -" I grabbed the kid by the collar like he was an unruly puppy and presented him to her with a flourish.

"-Is your first familia member! Congratulations!" As they both screeched "What!?" in perfectly-synced stereo, I plopped him on the ground and made my way towards the door. Throwing up a wave over my shoulder and ignoring the blabbering 'blah blah blahs' bouncing off the back of my head, I turned and gave them one last wink.

"Alright, you crazy kids, have fun! Don't go too wild in there, or do, I don't give a fuck. I'm an artificer, not a cop!" before slamming the door in their bright-red faces. Dusting my paws together, I strolled away with a pep in my step and a smile on my face. All's well that ends well–Bell gets a familia, Hestia gets her little henchman, and Freya gets bent. Oh! And I don't have to deal with any of that whole 'canon' nonsense now! By the Prime, my own brilliance blinds even me sometimes.

I truly am a genius of unrivaled intellect. Welp, I've got a few hours to kill. Now's as good a time as any to see if I can't compress liquid mana down until it freezes solid into a hyper-dense block of pure energy. Though, mana does stretch across realms as it's technically in a fourth-dimensional state of matter, so I'll have to be mindful of the inconsistent compression point. Else I might accidentally overcome neutron degeneracy and create a very short-lived star in my basement.

On second thought, I'd better push that experiment out until I achieve reliable space flight. Ugh, I don't want to go back to working on Dormul's armor again, I needed a break from the banality. I need something new, a real challenge! I guess I could get started on that whole AI assistant thing, but that sounds so boring. Just a whole lotta' growing crystal lattices until it resembles a neural network. Yawn. Oh!

An idea suddenly struck me–I've been spending a lot of time lately making things go really fast, but all of those mass drivers lack that certain oomph that really gets my blood pumping. You know what? I haven't taken any time recently for myself–I've been working hard, I deserved a 'me' day. I opened one of the garage doors to my workshop and strode in. Snarf, perking up from his place in the corner, rose to his paws and trotted towards me, a dopey grin on his mechanical muzzle.

"Snarf, I know what we're gonna' do today. Go fetch me our stock of Kaenseki." X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X"Oh, Tenkai take me!" The orange-sashed gate guard spat the second he saw Snarf and me strolling up to his post. The curse got the attention of his red-furred renard companion, who had been checking the documentation of an incoming caravan. Her eyes widened as her fox-like ears snapped back in alarm.

"Oh no, no no no!" she fumed, shoving the papers back into the chest of a very confused merchant and storming over to me.

"Absolutely not, Mister Maddic–no way in Hel. I'm going to have to ask -" she hissed the words, urging it to be a command with every fiber of her diminutive being, "-that you turn around and go home."

"What?!" I demanded, indignant. I didn't even know these two!

"Why the hell should I do that? Am I not allowed to leave the city?"

"No, you can leave if you want." The man shook his head.

"You just can't be here." He pointed to the cobblestone road between his feet.

"Because we are under strict orders not to allow you near anything important while you're like…" he trailed off, then vaguely gestured to my whole being.

"- that." I looked down at myself, befuddled. Like what? I was dressed in my normal… oh. I hadn't noticed until he mentioned it, but I was a bit jittery–from anticipation, excitement, who knows. A slight tremor ran through the paw holding my new baby, and I was forced to steady it with the other. I did my best to school my expression, but I couldn't quite keep the fanged slasher-smile from creeping back onto my face.

"And the gates are very much considered an 'important place'." The renard huffed, fists on her hips.

"So turn around, and take that giant pipe-thing with you." My paw tightened protectively around the forward grip of my newest masterpiece, they'll have to kill me if they want to steal my precious GNOLLPADS. That is, the Gnoll-Portable-Armament-Delivery-System, of course.

"Then there shouldn't be a problem. I'm just heading out to the nearby plains to run some tests. I won't be anywhere near your special doors." I waved them off with a scoff, moving to brush past them.

"Oh, we know all about your 'tests'," The fox growled, sidestepping into my path while the man solemnly nodded his agreement.

"Ganesha had to add you to our weekly safety briefs. Your entire neighborhood is considered a hazard zone on par with only the seediest parts of Daedalus Street. I refuse to be the guard on duty who just lets you wander off into the wilderness twitching like one of those Soma freaks looking for their next fix. I won't ask again, Mister Maddic. Go. Home."

"Fine then," I shrugged, not feeling like arguing with a couple of beat cops in a bad mood.

"I'll just go back and conduct my tests in the Black District." The color drained from both of their faces. X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X"I can't believe I'm doing this." The still-unnamed renard seethed, glaring daggers at the back of my head.

"I'm so going to get fired, I can just feel it. I should be back at my post, not out in the middle of bloody nowhere!"

"No one asked you to follow." I grunted back, not bothering to look at her as we trudged across the windswept plains surrounding Orario. I had made sure to head south from the city, so I wouldn't be disturbing anyone or accidentally destroying something valuable. The city sat almost dead-center at the junction of four different biomes, with the Californian-esque coastline to the West, temperate forests and fertile valleys to the North, and then endless grassy plains stretching from East to South.

However, Eastwards was still a valuable trade route that led deeper into the continent, so there were still quite a few villages and towns dotting the scenery. But to the South? That would bleed into a Savannahian grassland until even that vanished under the dunes of the Kaios Desert. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to be out here. Which meant that I didn't have to walk far until I was satisfied that no one would be caught in the blast.

Out here, Orario's wall was just a blurry mirage, shimmering in the distance.

"I had to!" She continued to grouse to an audience of no one who cared.

"Ganesha would have crucified me if you wandered off and blew yourself up on my watch."

"You just happened to be guarding the door I chose." I snorted at her ridiculous grandiosity.

"But whatever, if you want to waste your own time, then be my guest." I froze when a sudden shift in the wind brought with it the scent I had been searching for–prey, a large herd of bovines of one kind or another. Deer, I think. Turning on my heels, I followed my nose through the waist-high grass. Walking for another half an hour before I spotted them. A few groups of deer grazing away on the low shrubbery, a large buck holding a lonely vigil at the center of the group.

I couldn't have asked for a better hunting spot–downwind and at a slightly higher elevation.

"Alright, this should be far enough," I muttered more to myself than my annoying shadow. Crouching low and unslinging the GNOLLPADS from my back, I whispered out of the corner of my mouth.

"Snarf, assume form of: Tripod!" My dutiful iDog's forelegs snap together as he drops into a split, the Steel Defender stretching out low until he could have passed as the mount of a Ma Deuc. Resting the GNOLLPADS, which I admit was just a shameless copy of the launch tube of a Panzerfaust 3, along Snarf's spine, I pulled my BoH around to my front to paw through it. It only took me a few seconds of digging before I found the 'Armament' part of the GNOLLPADS.

From its skinny motor, I slowly pulled out a long and fat warhead, as thick as a can of paint and about three times the length. Painted a muted olive green, the only spot of color on it was the label hastily scrawled on the side: 'PSD-G Cluster Munitions–Low Yield'. No one in this world would have any idea what they were looking at if they just found this lying on the ground. But anyone from my human side's world would have full-tilt sprinted for the hills, screaming their head off if they ever laid eyes on it.

Without pomp or ceremony, I thunked the warhead's Kaenseki-fueled motor down the tube and twisted it until it locked in place. Then I tied a piece of yarn around the trigger, flipped the safety off, and then started taking big fucking steps back down the hill, doing my best to keep the herd in sight. The renard, bless her heart, may be stupid as all sin, but she wasn't an idiot. She was following right on my heels, throwing nervous glances back at the GNOLLPADS resting innocently in its semi-sentient mount.

We crouched down in a small, natural berm cutting into the hillside, all but hugging the ground. I was just about to yank the cord when a thought struck me.

"Hey, uh… guard?" She raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"You could have asked for my name ya' know, Mister Maddic." I rolled my eyes.

"Alright, fine. Miss-?"

"Wilde." She said flatly, a firm set to her jaw.

"Alright, Miss Wilde-! Wait a second," I did a double-take.

"Seriously? Your name is Wilde?"

"Marian of clan Wilde, and proud of it. Is that a problem?" She deadpanned, her already threadbare patience wearing close to the Planck Length.

"No, no… it's just uh–never mind." I shook my head to get rid of the intrusive thoughts creeping in.

"I was just gonna' ask if there are any laws against hunting deer?"

"No?" Her annoyed look turned suspiciously quizzical.

"There are taxes for bringing game into the city that vary depending on the season, but unless you trespass on private property, there are no ordinances that outright forbid it."

"Cool, cool… in that case, fire in the hole." I said conversationally, then ripped the cord without warning. With an ear-piercing Shhthwuoom! The warhead rocketed out of the tube and soared high over the herd–trailing a wispy line of smoke across the sky. All of the deer's heads snapped up as their bodies dropped low, ready to run away from the unseen danger. But there would be no running from what came next; for this was no mundane warhead.

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X At the height of its arc, the guiding intelligence buried deep in the core of the weapon concluded that it had reached the optimal position in respect to its targets. The warhead, or the Pseudo-Steel-Defender, as its Master-Maker had named it, was nothing like its more sophisticated namesakes. In fact, if one were to use Snarf as a comparison, then he would be considered to be as intelligent as an incredibly smart dog.

On the other hand, the PSD could barely be considered to have the intellect of an insect; by both design, and by the quality of its construction. The poor thing had been hastily inscribed onto the cheapest, dingiest Monster Stone that its Master-Maker just so happened to have rolling around on his workbench. Thankfully for it, however, it did not need smarts to complete its mission. All it needed to accomplish in its short life was three simple tasks.

One: Verify that it had reached the pre-programmed height and distance away from the launcher. Two: Identify and log any magical and/or heat signatures in a wide cone below the warhead. Three: Trigger the payload. After tagging a total of seven medium-sized heat signatures with a minimal magical signature within the optimal firing arc, the Pseudo-Steel-Defender ignited the blow-out panels around the payload. Three steel panels blasted away from the warhead, blooming outwards like the petals of a fiery flower.

The air was then filled with a sickening purple haze as the PSD activated the enchanted iron rod nestled alongside the unfeeling thing's 'brain'. Thirty-two instances of the spell Magic Missile were cast in less than a fraction of a second; over ninety-six shards of pure mana sharpened to a needle-point popped into being–looming maliciously over the herd. They then shot forward faster than the eye could hope to track, leaving hazy afterimages in their wake.

A millisecond later, the sound of scything glass whistling through air at supersonic speeds boomed out over the plains–sounding like the world's largest plane of glass exploding overhead.. The stress of the activation was too much for the fragile little thing to take; The PSD collapsed into a small cloud of sparkling dust. But it could rest easy, for its mission was a complete and total success–That is, if it was capable of feeling anything at all.

The deer were mercifully dead before they hit the ground, each turned into pincushions by the hailstorm of pure mana that just fell upon their unsuspecting heads. The silence that followed was deafening–until it was shattered by the whooping cheers of one very excited and slightly deranged gnoll.