Chương 455: 455

You're all using hovercrafts from now on, as part of a to-be-decided settlement-wide rapid deployment system," Aurora said, sitting at her desk, "Or we're splitting the trams into a civilian-only system and a soldier system. I'm partial to an as-needed soldier-moving system of some kind and to leave the trams to the civilians, just because the soldiers will need to deploy in many different directions at once while the civilians will only need to evacuate to shelters.

Perhaps a secondary tram system on top of the original one? You're the expert, Eliot. Give me your thoughts." Mark and Eliot hadn't even sat down yet. Aurora's master of whispers, Yoro Windrunner, had just let them inside, and Aurora was already talking about solutions to problems that were coming down the line. Eliot almost said something— Mark asked, "I need to know if the followup strike is coming?""

We expect it soon," Aurora said, and then she looked at Eliot and telekinetically shifted the guest chairs a little, inviting them to sit down with an open display of power that was actually incredibly rude.

"Sit. Talk." Mark sat down, deciding that Aurora was very stressed right now and to let most things go. Eliot sat down, saying, "I just got Necromancer from Mark and I can already feel a bunch of Death in the settlement. I want to construct cannons or rail guns on the walls to help in major ways, once I figure out how to work that. I need dispensation from Aluatha for Death Cannon specialized Necromancers to come here and help with that.

I will be giving a similar request to Citadel Hearthswell, if you approve of such a request."" Approved. Now about the transport."" I'll…" Eliot was less sure about that.

"I can already figure out most of it, and I'm opting toward reinforcing our capability to respond to monster waves, which means more trams. Not hovercars. I'll figure out a hovercar system to supplement the main forces on the trams…" Eliot looked up and away, thinking. He came back fast, and said, "I'll get to work with Deedee and Quentin and the guys in command and have a proposal done in an hour." Aurora nodded, then asked both of them, "So you truly do have Necromancer, now? No need for a prismatic bath, first?"

Mark nodded, but he let Eliot explain. Eliot said, "I already did a scan, and my PL in Arcane is rising truly fast. I probably should have gone for something Shaper-aligned to balance out my PL, but Death mana is going to be useful. I expect to have a Death Crystal floating above the settlement soon as I can figure out some things that I have never touched before." Aurora seemed to relax a fraction, her bright white rainbow hair settling down, her Supreme Telekinesis and entire astral body relaxing.

With a softer voice, she said, "Those crystals are truly dangerous, but we will need one, in addition to a new ITLKR crystal."" The one we have broke?" Eliot asked, eyes already looking off into the distance, checking on something for himself. Aurora said, "We need a bigger one, to reach further. I would suggest you also consider a glass dome architecture, but that would throw a boulder into our current gate-based organization and settlement structure. Consider that sort of stuff, though, and get back to me."

She looked at Mark and Eliot, and said, "So we're at war with Okuana again. Mother has already told me some of what that means, but in her time there were dragons overlooking everything. She is going to try and get you to talk to people to get the idea of dragons back into the public eye. I suggest you deny her." Mark said, "Addavein was already talking to Walaria and others about the need for dragons." Aurora winced, muttering, "Fuck."

Mark said, "I'd rather make powerhouses out of people, elevating them to Tri-Talents." Aurora frowned a little, but she had expected this, and her frown was more of her coming to terms with an anomaly than anything actually resembling 'disappointment' or 'dislike'.

"Walaria spoke of this to me… and it's still… bizarre to see this actually happening. First Cade Waterson and now Eliot. Walaria said something about first strike missions where you're going to pull the souls out of people?" Mark's eyes widened.

"I didn't know about that… but I could see it. Going into enemy territory and neutering their powerhouses? It'd probably cause more confusion than killing them. But… I was hoping for monster-derived Bindings." Aurora settled in for a discussion, asking, "Explain more about all of this to me, please." Eliot made to stand, saying, "I'm going to go and talk to the guys—"" Wait wait," Aurora said.

"I'm re-instituting the Buddy System for powerhouses, and you, Eliot, are becoming a keystone of the settlement, more than anyone else. More than me or Mark. Don't go anywhere on your own, ever. Derek is outside, down in a few different places. I've already contacted him and he's sending himself up here to accompany you, but he's barely good enough, unless you and yours wish to employ him as an actual bodyguard team. He has the training— he has lots of training."

Mark said, "We'll be doing that with him, we just haven't discussed it yet."" You need to improve your whole organization, too," Aurora said.

"Will Andria run with it? Will you need to hire others?"" We'll be hiring so many people," Mark said, "Andria was talking about it a bit on the way back— I've been concentrating on other things. But I know Andria and Tartu and Eliot—" Mark looked to Eliot.

"You know more than I?" Eliot said, "Our true AIs Abs and Zuu are already fielding a whole bunch of requests— There's a lot to do."" There is," Aurora said, then she looked at the door to her office.

"Derek is here. Please deal with your security, first. Talk to Kandon and Yoro on the way." Eliot got up, and then he got going with Yoro and Derek walking beside him. They talked quickly, quietly, and then Mark felt Derek rapidly spreading out into a few different bodies and his Union spread out to cover all corners. Derek still only had a Union of Good and Bad, and that made Mark wonder if he should give Derek True Union… if he even could. And that reminded Mark that he needed to give Lola a few good Powers, too.

They hadn't talked about it, yet. Mark stayed behind to talk with Aurora. The door closed, and Aurora asked, "How do you think this Skilling is going to work?"" Eliot will build me a secondary location for Skilling people, and then Aluatha will ship in prisoners and people who they keep de-powered through constant shavallian for me to strip the Powers out of them, and I'll get soldiers of Aluatha who will get those Powers in turn. I expect to be ITLKR'd around as needed to deal with…"

Mark kinda stared off into space, thinking that right now there was something he could be killing, someone he could be saving, but instead he was here, on the backline, doing this. Mark liked Aurora, and she needed to know what was happening so that the settlement knew what was happening, and yet… Mark looked to Aurora and said, "I'll be doing what I need to do." Aurora nodded a little, her prismatic eyes seeming soft, yet firm.

"It was rough seeing the aftermath of that beam, yeah?"

"… Yeah," Mark said, shuddering. And then he breathed out Bad, like a darkness in the air, as he chuckled nervously.

"Fuuuuuuck." Mark shuddered heavily.

"If I had been a little slower, or if they had been a bit faster, then… Fuck." Mark brushed away a weird tear, and then he laughed when he looked at it. It was black and liquid, and it was adamantium. Mark Shaped it into his hand, tucking it away, saying, "My tears are adamantium now. Isn't that fucked up!" Aurora smiled softly.

"A lot of things are fucked up right now. Are you okay?" This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"… I am. I think so, anyway. I'm good... So…" Mark moved on, saying, "So the settlement needs more powerhouses, too, and not just for Aluatha. For the settlement. I'm thinking that we start with the guys at the coliseum. Brawny battle nights, you know? Do a merit-based ascension? Maybe talk to Crystal Tower about the Hero/Villain Program and about people who want to be stronger and better and whatever and get them involved, too.

See about getting people who don't like their Powers to donate those in exchange for other Powers that I can strip from monsters. I'll have a whole big list available for perusal soon, but I also need to get more Powers from other places."" Okay. And how will you determine qualified candidates?" And that was a Big Topic. Mark said, "I'm really, really hoping that you've already determined all of that for me— with regard to the settlement, anyway.

I assume Walaria will do most of the deciding with regard to the forces of Aluatha, and their requirements. I do not see myself making many personal decisions about any of this… Mostly. Honestly, I'm not sure how any of this is going to really go." Aurora nodded.

"That's about what Walaria wishes for, as well, so I have no problem authorizing this sort of action… It is so illegal though, Mark. So illegal. You know this, yes?""... I haven't looked into it, actually." But that reminded Mark of Tulo Khava's comment about the laws of man being inadequate versus the reality of the laws of 'God'. Only having one 'God' was still weird to Mark, but that's how people were sometimes. Aurora moved on.

"Walaria wants more speedsters, most of all. Speedbody, True Speed, Quickness, Motion Flow. Mostly Body Skills. Necromancer and other anti-necromancy Skills are also high on the list, if only due to their resilience against other Death mana Skills. Since Eliot has Necromancer I will be asking him to make a Death battery— He'll be wanting to make a lot of those, anyway. We'll turn it into a true mausoleum, probably on the other side of the Shine where that death cave was.

The speedster Powers will have to come from another direction, of which Walaria assures me she has a solution, but all I got was her AI voice spouting instructions and information at me, and her AI team knows not to talk about anything solid or serious at all." Mark had a sudden question. He asked, "She's never thrown an AI voice at me before, but I got one of those too… It's bad, isn't it?""

Quite bad," Aurora took a deep breath, then said, "This is going to be a bad war and I have no idea how to properly prepare for it, Mark. I am hoping and expecting for you to be a real power in this place and time." Mark strongly said, "Of course. That's my plan."" Good to hear. Do you know of Benny Chan?"

"… Uh—"" Emerald Flash."" Yes! Winner of many different Brawny Battle nights. True Brawny. What about hi— Oh. He wants more power?"" Quite so. He isn't aware this is an option, but I will make him aware with your permission— Do you have Telekinesis? At any level? I want to make him like my brother, Kandon. He would take to it very well." Mark shook his head.

"I do not have that one. I have a smattering of water/fishy Powers and some undead stuff. I need to go hunting again." Aurora's vector rapidly flickered back and forth as she thought— She said, "I want to handle oversight and assistance for your Skilling endeavor personally, because this is a major resource. But I'm busy. I'm going to hand it off to someone else. Possibly Sam, the Kaiju Team Leader— Maybe Cedric… You've never dealt with Cedric Umbral, have you?"" The specialty team leader? No, not really.

Sam is fine. I expected Walaria to send someone, though. The witches are going to be involved, too. Pearl, Amy, and Uva?"" Ah… Yes… We'll figure it out. For now, I want you to go to the command center to get together with Quentin and figure out some good places to hit for speedster powers. Yoro likely knows some as well. Is there anything else that I need to know? Because I cannot read even your surface thoughts anymore, Mark."" Oh. Is that uh… a problem— Yes, it would be a problem.

I'm not sure how to let you in but to keep out everyone else."" I can speak through the air, near you. You have to speak quite clearly for me to hear you back. But yes, it is an issue. Probably better for you to be mentally insulated, anyway. So! Anything I need to know?" She was busy; Mark could tell. Even though she was just sitting there, her vector was all over the place and her range easily reached the edges of the settlement.

The little slips in her direction were probably her talking with people far out of sight… which kinda made Mark wonder about her defenses against the eldritch—" Oh!" Mark said, "I told Tulo that I would help him with his people, making some powerhouses for them since I won't be going there directly to help against the goblins. He'll probably send people this way, too." Aurora nodded, and said, "Understood. For now, talk to Yoro and Quentin about speedster monsters." Mark stood up and excused himself.

Aurora was probably fine versus the eldritch. Eliot had already talked about how he was going to beef up the anti-eldritch Castellan Fires of this place. That Waterpeople/'Water People' eldritch-thing seemed to be very resilient against Castellan Fire, though… but it also didn't do anything besides obscure the People. Soon, Mark was in the command center. Eliot was in a deep conversation with Quentin and a few other nerds on the watch. Yoro stepped toward Mark, saying, "You can really give people new Powers?"" Yes.

Want something new? Don't have many options right now, but I have Death mana stuff and water stuff. A few Natural options as well." Most of the people in the command center had a Mind Power, so they could easily and rapidly figure out a lot of things, very fast, and if they didn't have a Mind Power they had a scouting-capable Power instead. A good Knack was more than good enough to qualify someone for overwatch duty, too.

So it didn't surprise Mark too much when several people in the command center instantly whipped toward Mark and Yoro the very second that Mark and Yoro dropped that bomb of information into the room. Yoro stared at Mark, like he was seeing something he never expected to see in his entire life. He wasn't sure how to handle it. He wasn't sure if he could. So he said, "I heard you have Curse. I want to earmark that one."" Okay. That's a good one. Natural. Incredibly varied. I got a single one."

Mark looked over to Eliot, who glanced his way in turn. Mark said, "We're expecting Eliot to make a mausoleum for more Arcane Powers and also Death mana." The vectors in the room shifted, flexed, and it was like a whole bunch of people had suddenly realized that this was real. That this was actually happening. Everyone here routinely helped to kill kaiju. They were no stranger to existential threats and true fear. But war? War was a thing that happened in history. War was a thing that no one did. Not really.

People helped people, after all. War helped no one. But now, the people were waking up. Some slowly. Some were having massive swells of internal, unknown emotions. They were disturbed by what they felt, what they saw, what they imagined coming down the line for them. And then Deedee, one of the analyst Tinkerers who liked to make little spider drones, asked, "Got any extra Man-made Manipulations?"" I do not!" Mark said, grinning.

"But I'm going to be handing out a lot of Healthy Bodies to everyone who doesn't have a Body Power, soon as I can hook up with Reeni at the Farm, to strip those Powers from some cows— Ahh… fuck." Mark told Yoro, "I forgot to tell Aurora about that."" I'll make sure she knows," Yoro said." I still need to talk to Reeni about that, too… Actually. I'm going to go over there now." Mark looked toward Derek and Yoro, saying, "You guys good?"" Aye aye, sir!" Derek 'mocked'.

He was actively trying to be pleasant because of the Horrors, which was pretty great of him, really. Mark needed to talk with Derek about a lot of things, too. Yoro was much more serious, nodding. Mark looked over to Eliot, and Eliot waved him off. Mark got going. It wasn't till he was already at the farms that he realized he forgot to talk to Yoro about speedster monsters.