After a night of restless sleep filled with the memories of your life before mother died, you awaken in a rather foul mood. Obviously Cattleya's story about her family are the cause, though your injury certainly didn't help either. Your head aches and you can easily see the fatigue on your face in the mirror as you get ready for the day. At least you now have enough magicka to finish healing your scabbed-over wound, though your spell does nothing to reduce the slight feverish feeling you notice once the pain is gone. Leaving your room, you don't see Cattleya in the cafeteria, but several of the local healers spend the meal asking about alchemical theory.
Despite your expectations, neither Flagg or the guards you pass have mentioned last night's incident... Well, the Commander did send you a strongly worded request to notify base personnel before doing so again, but that's it. Perhaps assassinating one of the alien leaders put him in a good mood or maybe you've simply worn him down with the you and the Vallieres' antics. Either way, you aren't going to go demand that he complain to you even if you were willing to deal with the toxic headache relievers that the locals use. Deciding that preventative measures should be taken to avoid such injuries in the future, you arrive in the foundry to find Raymond looking over a steel recreation of your combined armor design.
The armor is suspended on a set of cables to support it's weight while someone inside tests it's range of motion. Standing half again as tall as you, the suit would be required to duck to enter most rooms and the alien alloy version will likely weigh enough to crush weaker building materials under it's steps. Considering the sheer strength and durability increase it should provide, it seems a fair trade... not that you couldn't easily find a way around such problems anyway.
"Ah, welcome back." Shen greets you enthusiastically. "As you can see, we've managed to hammer out the details on the design. It's rather spectacular to see such a blending of techniques like this, I'd never imagined I'd one day make a steam powered exoskeleton."
Despite your less than optimal condition, you laugh along with him at the statement. Even if you couldn't consider yourself a master at the local's various technological methods, you do know how out-dated they consider steam power. "Well, I doubt you could have predicted my arrival. Anyhow, I assume you wish to move on to crafting the final product, yes?"
He heartily agrees and the two of you are soon flanked by several wary looking guards. "When it appears, shoot it until it stops moving." You order the guards as you reach out into Oblivion and snatch up your desired target. The creature appears in the customary swirl of purple fire; olive toned skin adorns it's human appearing upper body, antlers stretch out from it's bald head, and equine legs stumble as you had apparently conjured it mid-stride. Considering the Hernes' limited intelligence, you don't care to bother 'negotiating' with the cloven hoofed daedra, trusting Hircine's minions nature as hunters to ensure their loyalty upon binding with the armor.
Flesh tears apart under a hail of lead, the security personnel gunning the hunter down before it can reorient itself to the sudden shift in environment. When the gunfire dies down, you repeat the process another dozen times. The corpses pile up on the floor as you use up all of your magicka summoning unbound Herne after unbound Herne. After the men disperse, you set about the grisly task of cutting out each and every heart from your victims. In the end you hand a sack of thirteen hearts to Raymond, who looks a bit disgusted by the ichor dripping onto the floor.
"W-well... this is certainly... morbid." He eventually says as the two of you head into the smelting chamber.
You shrug and watch the complex machinery as it cuts, sorts, and begins to melt down chunks of purple and silver metal. Large arcs of electricity swiftly reduce the alien materials to incandescent soup and mechanical arms stir the fluid as it is funneled into dozens of molds. "You get used to it." You respond absently, much more interested in the process before you than the conversation. Of course, you can't simply watch the marvel that would make Eorlund Gray-mane weep in jealousy. "Before the metal is separated into various pieces, you must divide it up into the amount used per suit and toss in one heart each. That should give the daedra something to cling to rather than wait to reform. Once they are trapped in the armor, indulging them in the occasional hunt should ensure they do not attempt to betray the wearer."
"I hesitate to ask, but... how would they betray us?" Shen responds skeptically as he enters a series of commands into a terminal.
Crossing your arms, you watch the machines swing their arms and shift their orientation to allow your instruction to be followed. "Minor things, really. The whole reason a daedra is willing to occupy the metal is because they fear the time spent in the void between reforming bodies, so they jump in the offered vessel knowing it is a trap." You explain. "Still, lesser daedra are generally content if given the chance to cause suffering and do not attempt to fight their bindings. The problem is that a dissatisfied daedra may just bide it's time, building strength until it can trip the wearer at just the right moment or open a gap to allow a fatal strike to the wearer."
Looking down into the bag of organs, Raymond gulps audibly at the information you've given him. "I... I see. Let's hope our new friends enjoy their new homes then." With that said, he unsteadily walks over to another engineer and the two begin to put the hearts to use.
Rather than waste your day watching them build the armor, you leave in search of your new student.
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Winded, you wander through the forest around the base. Large masses of chitin scurry in the shadows, watching you with curious intelligence as you search for their caretaker. No other animal life is present, even the birds having been devoured by the chaurus swarm in it's spread across the region. The closest you come to native fauna is the writhing corpse of a deer, visibly infested with the insects' newest generation.
Come to think of it, you haven't seen a Frostbite spider since arriving here. Did the chaurus eat them?
Eventually you find the person you're looking for sitting on a ledge overlooking Springdale. "Enjoying the view?" You ask to let her know you're there.
"I suppose." She answers with a shrug. "The cities here are strange."
"Indeed they are." You agree as you sit beside her. "Regardless, I believe it is time for your first lesson in Reachman magic." Giving you an inquiring look, Cattleya waits for you to elaborate. "I shall start you on a more immediately useful skill before moving on to the rest, though even this may take quite some time. Your first lesson shall be on beast-magic. There are several branches of this craft, from influencing animals to totem creation, but today we will begin with transformation techniques. With enough focus and the favor of the Lord of the Hunt, one may invoke an artificial lycanthrope transformation."
She looks even more confused as she asks, "Lycanthrope?"
"Half human, half creature. Hircine created a fused state of being, melding the traits of man and beast to create monsters of ferocious strength and brutality." With a dark chuckle, you continue. "Were-wolves, were-bears, were-sharks, were-vultures, were-boars... all manner of transformation is possible."
You spend the rest of the day in the woods with her and teaching her how to walk silently through the brush, skipping both meals and ordering her to fast for the next two days to get used to feeling hunger. She'll need to practice over the next few weeks, getting accustomed to ravenous hunger and preparing for when Hircine tests her, but you've seen more pitiful people succeed... she should be fine. Of course, there's always the quicker option of giving her some werewolf blood, but that would be much less potent, as she would be reliant on the moon to transform.
It isn't until late at night that you stumble into your room for another night of restless sleep.
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Jeremy ended the call, rubbing his face as he leaned back in his chair. He'd taken the call in his office, not wanting any potential bad new from the council spokesman to get out until he heard it first. Needless to say, the council was of mixed opinions about current events.
Oh, they were more than happy that the alien invasion had been halted. The problems came from everything else, including
how the the invasion was being waylaid. A giant snake dropping debris indiscriminately on half of Europe, horse sized bugs swarming across half of the U.S. and devouring the local wildlife, not to mention the footage of X-com employing what appeared to be a twelve year old girl as a shock-trooper. Not having any other option, he was forced to reveal the fact that X-com was being supported by a group of reality traveling magicians.
Watching the spokesman choke at the news was almost worth the six hours of repeated questioning and disbelief he'd been regarded with. Powered armor, weapons development, genetic augmentation, enchanted armor, potions research, summoning demons... More than half of the council nations immediately withdrew their support, not believing his claims even when presented with the laser breathing proof in the sky. Oddly enough... or perhaps not so odd... the remaining countries of Asia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States chose to double down on providing funding... If certain conditions were met.
Colonizing other world he could understand, it wasn't as if he hadn't thought of it himself. The fact of the matter was, the portal could only fit a limited amount of material through at a time and establishing a secondary base, much less a colony, would require massive amounts of resources and months of transporting materials into a feudalistic world of magic and monsters. This was all discounting the fact that their other demands were free distribution of research information and reproducing their allies' magic by 'any means necessary'.
Status: Uninjured, tired, feverish.
Magicka: (650/650)
Choose 2:
[] Gene-mods.
[] Crafting write in.
[] Summon random creature! 1/6 chance of a spider, a horse, a bird, a lizard, a cat,a snake.
[] Write in.
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A/N: So after several botched attempts to draw a decent picture of the armor, I decided to just make a mash-up of the MEC armor concept art it was based on and several Dwemer automatons.