Last Words chapter 50 (Patreon)

I spent the next week in a holding pattern. I let my pattern refill and worked out with my friends, but I didn’t make any real progress on my mana. I left the fruits for them, since they would have more use for the things where we were going.

In the end, we managed to put together a group of five Beginners, and I managed to slap on five empty Barkskin patterns and let them fill on their own. Twelve thousand apiece, across five people, subtracted from my one hundred seventeen point five thousand dollar total, left me looking at fifty seven thousand five hundred dollars to work with when stocking us with weapons.

Which brought me to where we were now, meeting at camp before we linked up with Ridley for our mission into the interior. “So, what do you need exactly?” I asked Ron bluntly as we sat in Deke’s tent. “We have you, me, Cal, Denny, Sonia, Alice, and Jacob. Jacob will probably want to hang back to watch out for Deke, so that leaves six. I know you were aiming for five.” Alice and I had both hit Beginner early and easy because of our status as speakers, but the other five had needed to be speed rushed through with the mushrooms and fruits. It had been grueling, but I was much more secure with the idea of everyone surviving. Now we just had too many people to bring along.

He nodded. “Me, Cal, Denny, Sonia, and you,” he said firmly. “I know you’re needed to observe the fruit, but I want to minimize the other’s exposure, enchantment or not. I’ve been giving them conditioning, but that’s not the same as being trained to engage in a firefight in dense forest. This won’t be a milk run. We have no idea what to expect, and armed or not, I’m not comfortable taking any more civilians into this mess than I have to.”

“I get that,” I said slowly. “But Alice-”

“Magnetism,” he acknowledged. “Scary stuff, and I get it. She’s been making progress, but not enough for it to be viable in combat. Honestly, I’m not even sure WE’RE the right fit for this. But the M91A2’s military loads have hardened penetrator cores for armor penetration, and they’re chambered in .300 win mag. Those things are the size of my middle finger and you never see them coming. With two of our people on far guard, and two on near support with M4s, I’m relatively sure we can protect one person.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Just one?”

“In an alien jungle? Which this basically is? Yes,” he said firmly. “Just one. Nobody likes escort quests, kid. Not even back when I was playing video games. Too many variables if we introduce more civilians.”

I sighed. “It’s fine,” I allowed. “We’d talked about five before, I just assumed since we were able to speed up the training we might be able to stack the deck. You’re sure we shouldn’t try to hold back on the gun use in front of the locals?”

“I say no,” he said after a brief deliberation. “You’ll need allies eventually. The Silent Pond clearly have channels for acquiring things we might need. Not to mention you control the entire supply of weaponry. Sell them some sidearms and a limited number of bullets. They won’t be able to get more ammo without going through you. You said they seemed like decent folks?”

“That’s true,” I admitted. “I’ve been asking around, talking to Esther and some of her friends. The Silent Pond, reading between the lines, are basically freedom fighters. Most mana patterns are passed down through families, and the nobility tends to stockpile resources. Like the mana fruits. It’s not that they don’t EXIST, even in Derkholme, more that they’re earmarked for nobles before they come to market. The Silent Pond are made up of mostly high affinity commoners who banded together to get ahead. They mostly seem like pretty decent folks, from what I could gather.”

Ron sighed. “But they would seem that way if they’re manipulating public perception,” he acknowledged. You’re worried they aren’t what they seem?”

“Realistically, a few handguns won’t change the way things work around here,” I said hesitantly. “Most mana touched in the region are Initiates, and without dedicated patterns, they’d be vulnerable to a 45 caliber bullet. That said, the 1911 holds less than ten rounds at the high end, and like you said they won’t be able to get bullets from anyone else.”

“They haven’t even asked us to buy any yet,” Deke said bluntly. “Who knows if they have some magic flamethrower wand that’s better anyway. No use spinning ourselves up over a maybe. We’ll deal with that if it comes.”

That got a nod from Ron. “Agreed. You said you arranged the meeting near here?”

“Yup, at noon,” I gestured out at the sun, visible through the open tent flap. “We still have some time. While we wait, why don’t you catch me up on that barrow we found. The doc been exploring it with drones?”

“She has,” he said with a grin. “And she’s been having a blast. According to her, that place is some kind of crypt. Whoever is buried there is apparently important. She thinks there might be some treasure down there, but she’s worried about traps. She’s been talking to Bran about the subject, but his knowledge base is mostly centered around inscription. Making traps is closer to blacksmithing, and he says he has no experience.”

I sighed. “Let me guess. Aurelia wants us to find and recruit a blacksmith now?” I asked dryly.

“She does,” he confirmed. “Says having someone to make gear would be useful. And honestly, given what you can do, she’s not exactly wrong. There’s a lot of synergy there. If they can help us crack some traps, all the better. I assume you’d do it the same way, find some brilliant blacksmith apprentice with no talent for mana and push him to Beginner by force in exchange for a contract?”

“You make me sound so insidious,” I laughed. “I was just helping my friend out. But I wouldn’t be against asking if Bran has any smith friends who might be in need of a hand. Tell the doc I’ll look into it.”

With that decided, I got to work picking up our gear. He’d said he wanted two M91A2s and two M4s, plus ammo. I'd looked around at some other price points for ammo when I was back on earth, and though I hadn’t managed to dig up much, I HAD found a bulk supplier for 5.56x45 NATO rounds. Namely, a place where I could buy boxes of 540 rounds for only 250.

After buying the four guns, and sidearm for me, and all the ammo, I ended up with about forty eight thousand five hundred left after picking up two boxes of each type of ammo, and a box for the sidearm. I was actually four dollars short of forty eight five, but I sold off some scrap we had around camp to make it up, because being that close and not having a round number was bugging me.

Once I was done, I passed out everyone’s weapons. I stashed the 1911 in the waistband of my pants because I didn’t have access to a holster to buy, but the rest of the guns came with carry straps, so I was the only one put out.

Ron had taught me a bit about shooting, enough that I knew how not to hurt myself (safety on at all times when you’re not firing), and despite my complete lack of long term experience, my mana body mitigated the feedback from the recoil enough that I wasn’t worried about breaking my wrists firing a forty five.

Once we were all strapped and the ammo was passed out, we headed for the meeting spot I’d described to Ridley, all ready to set off on our big adventure. It wasn’t too far away, and we made pretty good time. When we arrived, we found Ridley waiting, his gloves on and his body covered in tight fitting leather armor that gave off a feeling of…charge. I’d seen enchanted items before, and this was clearly an example of that. Eager to both understand something about it and establish a price, I attempted to analyze it with sell.

Analysis was a new trick I had. I could always buy things to learn their price once I’d seen them (barring things like patterns that were part of people apparently, which required certain steps), but price didn’t tell me much about what an object actually DID. For that I would need some sort of information skill like Connie had. Luckily for me, my sell skill had reached level ten over the last week, and I had picked up a useful perk.

Speaker - Tin Rank. Verbosity: 29/100

Skills: 

Purchase- Level 9: Pay a commensurate amount of money for things of value.

Sell- Level 10: Exchange goods for currency.

Contract- Level 10: Form an agreement with another party, involving compensation for a specific task.

Perks: 

Tier 1 Contract perk-Empathic read: Discern the basic emotions and intentions of the target of a negotiation.

Tier 1 Mana Body Perk-Mana touched: Double mana regeneration.

Tier 1 Sell Perk: Analysis: obtain basic information about potential purchase items once spotted

Analysis was pretty useful, especially in situations like that. Accessing that information about the armor only took a thought.

Enchanted Korai Hide Leather Armor. Value- 26,450 Delyrans= 1,322,500 USD. A set of sturdy armor imbued with durability enchantments by a skilled blacksmith.

I almost physically flinched at the price. It made sense, but still, holy shit. No wonder these guys could move so much grain for a simple test. I swallowed hard, making a note to pick up a set of it for my people when I had a chance, and to look into that blacksmith thing a little more deeply. Apparently enchanted items were VERY useful.

Ridley noticed us approaching, his eyes drifting to all the hardware. “Interesting accessories,” he said with obvious fascination. “They just weirdly shaped clubs or do they do something? I don’t sense any mana from them at all.”

I nodded to Ron, who lifted his rifle and squeezed lightly, putting one round into a nearby tree. There was a low thump and an explosion of bark, though not as much as I’d expected. Ridley nodded with interest. “Neat,” he said mildly. I got the impression he’d seen a lot of weird shit and had just kind of learned to take it all in stride, but he did seem impressed.

After introductions, Ridley nodded towards the deeper woods. “Alright, a few ground rules. Nobody wanders off alone. If you have to heed nature’s call, you bring a friend. Establish safewords, and if you lose visual contact and someone calls for help, ask for them. There are things in these woods who can use a human voice, even a familiar one, and they aren’t things you want to rush off to meet alone.

A few of us stirred at that, but he didn’t seem to notice, continuing his recitation. “Move slowly, disturb as little of the local foliage as possible, most dangerous plants have clear areas around them, but not all. Don’t eat anything you see on the ground, even if it looks like something you recognize. There are a LOT of poisonous herbs that look like nonlethal spices.”

He went on like that for a few minutes, and we all paid VERY close attention. This was all important information that might keep us alive. Honestly, it was alarming enough that I was almost worried when he finished. I kind of wished we’d had more info to go on, because the stuff we did know painted a very grim picture of these woods. Sadly, debrief time was over, it was time to head on. Ridley told us all to stay aware, then he turned and headed into the forest. I swallowed, drawing my weapon, and followed behind him. Here was hoping for a boring night.