Fel had spent the last hour tinkering with his power armour, adjusting the valves and power enhancers. Siyla looked over his shoulder, fascinated with his work. There was no concept of power armour in the underground. All the advanced equipment relied on runes and formations, not mechanical engineering. This system wasn’t necessarily inferior to human technology, it just functioned differently.
‘How did you learn to do this?’
Fel puffed up his chest, ‘I was a mech pilot in the army, not only are we required to be able to use our power armour, we have to know it like the back of our hand! Especially an evolved power armour pilot like me, we’re expected to be on long missions, sometimes weeks at a time, performing maintenance like this is basic stuff’
He didn’t mention that without Siyla’s intervention, his power armour wouldn’t have been half as functional, little better than ancient, medieval armour.
‘Siyla, would you like to learn about power armour?’
He received vigorous nodding in reply.
Days passed and Fel had patched up his power armour as best as he could. Silya absorbed Fel’s teachings like a sponge and had even created basic mechanical parts. They weren’t on par with standard power armour parts, being more on the level of a spring gun, but even that was impressive. After all, she had to create all the parts from scratch, although she absorbed them back into her body once she finished up with them. When Fel asked why she did that, she gave him a weird look and said she didn’t have an infinite amount of metal.
‘Where did you live before you came here?’
‘Mmm, I lived in the capital city of the United Front, the nation formed by the colonists of the New World’
‘Ah sorry. My people are new to this world and came from far, far away, all the way from the stars’
‘So you lived on the surface? I thought the war destroyed it?’
‘War? Well, you’re right about it being destroyed, it’s a shit-hole. Wasteland as far as the eye can see with sandstorms that can lift even tanks! Not to mention that the place is crawling with monsters.’
‘How do you live there then?’ Siyla made herself comfortable, stretching out on the bed, holding a bag of metal scraps, munching on them like popcorn.
‘Well, according to the records, the original colonists had to live in sealed shelters, growing their plants indoors, but they made the area habitable. Apparently, it was really hard to live back then. They landed on a peninsula so they could purify the sea water but food was always a problem. It still kinda is. We now live outside but our buildings are made of thick steel and everything’s dusty’
‘So it isn’t a nice place?’
‘It wasn’t bad, we had indoor parks that were nice. The worst part was the military service. Everyone had to serve 5 years in the military from 17 years of age to resist the monster hordes. We always warred against them for land, I worked my arse off to become a mech pilot, it’s much safer than being a normal soldier. My parents celebrated that, wonder how they’re doing … Anyway, I’ve been talking about myself for ages, what about you?’
‘My life isn’t that interesting.’
‘Ehh? I’m sure it is, cmon’
‘Well, the dryads kidnapped my parents. I was born in the village. Never left it, no idea what’s out there.’
‘Ah’
‘They kept us as servants to clean up the place and stuff’
‘I’m sure that there were a few happy memories’
‘There was that time when the dryads found an adamantine sword on an adventure’s corpse. The dryad’s don’t need metal, so they gave it to us. It was delicious’
Before Fel could respond, a dryad opened the door and walked right up to Fel, handing him a ring made of intertwined bands of gold, ‘Here’s the spacial ring, you have two days to sort everything out’
He shoved a piece of paper into Fel’s hand and walked off, slamming the door behind him.
'Pleasant guy. I thought we got to stay for a week'
'They don’t like other people… the dryads I mean. They’re only doing this because of the debt'
Fel’s curiosity was perked, ‘What debt?’
'When the surface was destroyed, millions of refugees fled to the underground. They would've kicked the dryad's off their land if it wasn’t for the golden one, but he didn’t do it for free. In return, the dryad’s swore that they would safe-keep a few items for his successor, that’s the ring’
'Ah, so it wasn’t out of their good will'
'You’re an idiot for thinking that'
'It’s called sarcasm. Anyway, why are you here? I thought the dryads hated outsiders'
'The golden one asked that they would give his successor a protector for his journey. That’s me'
'Ah, so the whole kidnapping thing… sorry’
'It’s… not like you had a hand in it or anything'
Silence descended, save for the clinking of Siyla’s metal marbles.
Fel turned back to his table and examined the paper the dryad gave him. It was a manual on how to use the spacial ring. Several minutes later, he had activated the ring. An image of a menu appeared in his mind. It had 6 categories: weapons, armour and clothing, food, tools, magical equipment, materials and miscellaneous.
In the top right corner was the volume of the storage space and of how much had been used while at the top left was the amount of money he had. A million gold pieces and ten thousand crystal coins. How much that was worth, Fel had no idea. When he asked Siyla she reminded him that she had been in the forest all of her life, even Aerl was lost. He said that crystal cards were used back in his time.
The rest of the ring contained hundreds of steel weapons and armours, ten changes of clothes, a year's worth of rations packed in tight boxes, a few racks of runic weapons and armours and, to the relief of Fel, a humongous pile of all sorts of metals. His supply of scraps was running short.
Fel took a few assorted metal nuggets and tossed them into a basket, giving it to Siyla. The gift was well received, she said she was getting sick of the scraps. If only she knew that those ‘scraps’ were bits of superalloy worth an apartment for every ten kilograms.
Fel sat by his desk, 'Aerl, can I read 'Being a Magus?'
'Would you like to start at page one?'
'Nah'
A leather book appeared in his mind and flipped open to the first page revealing a domineering line in the Celestial language.
'A magus stand above all others. No matter how much Qi a warrior accumulates, no matter how accurate an archer becomes, none can stand in the way of the Magus'
Fel turned the page.
'Natural energy is ever present, all-encompassing. There is a myriad of attributes, each distinct and unique. We mages manipulate this energy to our benefit'
An inky circle filled the rest of the page. Without thinking, Fel mentally touched the circle. The circle lit up with a bright blue glow and then faded into the page like nothing had ever happened. Moments later, rows of text appeared on the page, much to the relief of Fel who was cursing himself for his stupidity.
Fel Evenstar
Level: 1 (42% - Initial)
Affinities: Energy (9)
Life Expectancy: 200 years
Innate Abilities:
1. Pure Energy Body
The possessors of this constitution will have a high affinity with the energy attribute but cannot have affinities with any other attributes. Pure energy allows the mage to advance faster than attributed mages, however, they will have weaker capabilities than attributed mages.
2. Parivartana Lines
Parivartana lines can convert pure energy to other attributes at a small cost.
Attributes Available:
-Fire
-Lightning
-Divinity
-Force
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