jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
You do realize that said post is an omake and not necessarily canon correct? Unless you can find a post by TH stating that it is anyway.
Halkegenia Online Thread 23 - I Think We're Going to be Alright
- Thread starter Triggerhappy
- Start date
- Status
Thank goodness. Otherwise, Louise would be able to cast that most dread spell, 'Unlimited Troll Works.'
Admiral Red
Avid Transhumanist
- Location
- Singapore
Cue a particular face, text and accompanying song in 3...2...1...
King_Rule
The Guy With The Things.
- Location
- Yes
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zaiaku
The Ignorant Guru
- Location
- Alamo, Texas
YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE EMIYA, BUT IT WAS I, DIO!
Not what I wanted to see before going to bed. Thanks alot KR.
I would like to thank Alane1 for the idea for this section of the Omake slash side story I've been writing; see if you can pick out all the shout-outs and cameos!
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Zero Hour: Conspiracies
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(Zero Hour Minus Two Months)
It had been a long, hard road for the SAOvivors who had managed to escape Albion. Awakened from slumber by being shunted to an entirely new world, twenty of their own number gone and likely raised as hellish mockeries of life, battles to delay the inevitable long enough that they at least might escape, then after being cut off, fighting alongside the forces of the Fae factions in order to have the freedom to simply live.
In short, two mostly happy months for Vassago Cassals, the arch-murderer infamously known as <[PoH>] to the vast majority of the survivors of Kayaba's Death Game. He did not care for many of the other 300 survivors fighting alongside him; they were expendable bodies to soak bullets in his mind. Oh, there were a few he would have at least felt sorry about; oddly enough, he counted the commander of the reformed Knights of Blood among their number.
Now, though, the daily chance for fun times had come to an end for now. Even though he wouldn't care much if some of his fellow Fae 'accidentally' fell on Mate Chopper, he would not go out of his way to weaken them. A strong Fae presence meant a greater chance to gut Reconquista, a better chance to drown Cromwell in his own blood.
As he made his way off the Eagle, he made sure to keep his hood up. Kirito had seen his face before, and after hearing what the Sable Knight had done to the rebellion's strongest fliers, PoH thought better on the possibility of another encounter. He was crazy, not stupid.
A few of the Fae were holding up signs for certain members of the escapees from Sugou's control, and PoH's eyes widened as he saw his name on one of them. Not his in-game name, his Iarel last name. He quickly made his way over to the lovely young Salamander holding it, a smile of recognition on her face as she lowered it. "Do you really know who I am?" asked he, in a low voice filled with venom.
The grin on the woman widened. "Oh yes I do, my hackey-bloody hunny bunny." said the Salamander, in a tone that sounded sweet, far too sweet. "I've missed you for far, far too long, Master."
'Oh devils below. You fucking bastards, you put her in my path. I knew I should never have screwed her...' thought PoH, squeaking out, "Hello, <[Hellebrone>]."
Hellene Borgia smiled wickedly. She had PoH right where she wanted him.
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(Zero Hour Plus 11 Days)
As Shino Asada took her place across from her former tormentor, she noted the ill-ease of the other woman. Like she had guessed, Endou at least suspected her of being a killer, perhaps even of being <[Sinon>]. It was a heady feeling, the turning about of who had control of her life now, but Shino needed to restrain herself if she was going to be able to make use of her former 'friend.'
"So, Shino..." Endou broke the silence as they sat in the mall food court. The hesitation in her voice confirmed Shino's suspicions. "Um... What is this about?" The older teenager seemed to slump forward a little bit, keeping her voice down. A smile and a piece of gear that looked like the child of a NervGear and an AMUSphere being pushed to the center of the table were the answer to Endou's question. "I don't know where to find out who makes these, I'm afraid. I kind of stumbled across one, and I'd like to know what it does, if it's some new death game controller." All of that was true, to a certain point.
Shino wasn't quite sure what Endou's response would be. Her eyes widening as far as possible was not something she had planned for. "Where did you find this? It's something like what they put on some of the patients where my brother works..." The worldly teen shut up quickly, as if she had already said too much, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"I think I need to show you something." Shino pulled out the laptop she had taken from <[Laughing Coffin>] and turned it towards Endou; the shock film of Wraith slowly torturing a victim to death with a pair of curved knives played. On the victim's head was the helmet Endou was turning about with her hands. "I really need to know what these are.
From the horrified look on the face of her sempai, Shino knew she had hit paydirt. Endou never could resist a mystery, the more bizarre the events surrounding the mystery, the more the unpleasant teenager would dig in with her devilish investigative skills. She had Endou right where she wanted her.
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(Zero Hour Plus 29 Days)
"Damnit, Sugou, you told me these things wouldn't be traceable back to me!" screamed Tono-domo into the phone at the new bane of his existence. The three red helmets that Sugou had given Tono's snuff film director had all now been accounted for, after Sinon's assault on the boat the videos had been taped on. Unfortunately for Tono, they had been left there for the police to find by the vigilante, along with the films of their being used. Even now, Tono had to turn in a lot of the favors that he had built up over the years to cover his own backside.
"Now now, that's no way to talk with business partners, now is it, Tono-kun?" the mayhem entrepreneur sneered out. The helmets were quite useful for him; he needed to get the input of using firearms, their feel, their aiming, and perhaps with great morbidity, the feel of the impact in human flesh. He needed to make his prison/training simulator as real as possible action-wise, even as he used the excuse plot storyline from Zargas' Gun Gale Online that he had bought for a song after the ALO disaster. All the pieces were coming together so perfectly for Sugou, and now he just needed to clean up those who knew about the more unsavory particulars of his operations.
"I did make sure to tell you to have your men memorize how to ensure that those SRAIGears could be rendered into non-useful bits of plastic slag, Tono. Not only did they not take that into account, they recorded themselves using them in your little shows. You have no idea the amount of fast talking I have needed to do over the past six hours in order to keep this going." said Sugou in a more rational tone. "I have already taken receipt of the mental models that had been recorded up to that point; the money is in the escrow account, and will be released tomorrow into your laundry basket. I am afraid that this will have to conclude that business, I hope you understand."
Tono calmed himself, this could still be salvaged. "I do. I will have to bury that part of my operation for some time to come, though, thanks to that fucking psychopath throwing your dirty laundry out there for all to see." The Yakuza sub-boss sighed, and said, "I hope your project is worth it. Eight more of my men died to cover it." Tono then threw his disposable cellphone into the river his men had been driving him by.
"Incompetent, dimwitted orangutang." snickered Sugou. Tono had no way of knowing that the man who would be investigating this case was already under his thumb. Kikouka Seijirou had made one colossal error in coming to him for help with his project, but that was for another time. No, Kikouka would make an excellent stand-in right now, might even be in perfect position to take Tono out of play after he had been injured by those gang goons.
The only player in the game that he could not force to dance to his marionette strings right now was Sinon himself. The casual manner in which that man had brutally gunned down every man on Tono's ship made for excellent watching; he had his pet assassin, the one Tono thought belonged to him, plant a number of cameras on the ship, out of the way. Sinon never showed his face; the creepy-looking skull mask made sure of that. The action was top-notch, though, and Sugou thought it would be excellent if he could acquire Sinon as his assassin's apprentice.
Kikouka was now a very known factor. Thanks to the failure of so many VR firms that he had relied on, the RATH project was so far behind that it was in danger of cancellation. In a madness born of desperation, Kikouka had come with an offer for Sugou. In exchange for keeping investigations into Sugou's relatively heinous actions running around in useless circles, Kikouka would acquire the memories of three hundred newborn children from him. Thanks to the failure of the Soul Translator, in order to make the Soul Archetypes Kikouka needed, he would have to use duplicates of the machine that killed Akihiko Kayaba.
In short, Kikouka had asked Sugou to murder no less than three hundred children, all for science.
Sugou felt an overwhelming disgust of that man, but he needed the indirect immunity Kikouka could provide. The answer had come to him by looking over child mortality statistics; he would arrange to take the memories from those children who were going to die anyway.
Through that act of banal evil, Sugou had everyone who he knew exactly where he wanted them.
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(Zero Hour Plus 29 Days)
"All right boys, listen up. You've already heard the commissar's speech, I don't need to repeat it. This man is our target." The commander of a small cell of militant Japanese communists clicked the controls, bringing up a rather unflattering picture of Nobuyuki Sugou. "This man would poison our nation by making the minds of our unfortunate proletariat into a prison. We need to stop him; our brothers in the mainland have given us his schedule."
The next thing that came up on the screen were the building plans for the SAO Kikan-sha Gakkoh, the school slash asylum used to deal with the SAO students still of school age. "This is the SAO Returnee School, where they house those survivors of that capitalist murdering pig Kayaba. Nobuyuki may have had something to do with the mess that caused the disappearance of a number of its students; what is known for sure is that he is going to be there in two days."
"We will breach each building with a BRDM-M each. Each building will need one platoon to lock down. I want this done by the numbers. Anyone who fights back will become a sacrifice for the Democratic Peoples' Free Republic of Japan. The central building will house our escape vehicles while we engage the bourgeois in false negotiations. Nobuyuki is to be brought to that building, dead or alive. We blow the schools a minute after we leave, destroying as many police vehicles as possible on our way out." The commander looked over one of his men carefully. "'Heartbreaker', leave the pretty girls alone this time, one of them is going to cut it off sooner rather than later." Several of the men started chuckling at the crude jest, but none of them would have minded much if the named man had ended up dying by 'accident'.
"Remember, Nobuyuki Sugou is our target. Our comrades across the sea want him out of play; they would prefer to take him off our hands when we get across to the mainland. Any questions? No? All right. We've got that son of a bitch where we want him."
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(Zero Hour Plus 30 Days)
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Council of Thorns. I am happy to announce that it is now open season on Nobuyuki Sugou. His actions concerning Laughing Coffin have been confirmed, alongside Tono Issei's known involvement." stated the holographic image in the Thorne Adjustment Group boardroom. The fact that the image looked a great deal like the deceased Kayaba did not make any of the thirteen members of the council nervous in the slightest. Indeed, of the beings present in the room, the real Kayaba would have had the lowest body count by far.
The two women on one of the loveseats looked to one another; the trim Japanese woman deferred in their statement to the elegant French blond. "Tono continues to defecate where he sleeps; our agent in his organization has found at least three breaches of the Covenant of Thorns in the past month alone. We suggest that he be removed posthaste, a recommendation that has the backing of the Oyabun."
The assassin called 'The Gatekeeper' was next. The dirty blond stated, "My agents have uncovered a new mobilization of the Japanese Red Army." She rolled her eyes, adding, "It would appear the Chinese want Sugou for their own purposes, beats having to pay for the training."
The rest of the reports followed in much the same way, varied degrees of success, failure, and one case of hilarity as one of the marks blew himself up before the assassin could get there to service him.
Finally, the Thirteenth gave his report, starting with the unedited last fifteen minutes of Laughing Coffin's demise at the hands of a fifteen year old girl. "Ladies and gentlemen of the board, I present to you one Asada Shino, alias Sinon, alias Death Gun." Nods of appreciation and a few murmured comments on her effectiveness followed the viewing. "So, possible recruit, or possible target?"
The Thirteenth, a young-looking man of indeterminate nationality, never ever smiled. His face always stayed in the same impassive state. The other board members were shocked when the corners of his mouth twitched upward almost imperceptibly. "I hope to recruit her to the Covenant. She has the drive, the ability even at such a young age. The SRAIGear I had modified still isn't finding use, but it's good to know it's there; I want her alive."
"After all, she's my great-great-granddaughter, I have her right where I want her."
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Next time, get RECT(), the bullets start flying once more.
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Zero Hour: Conspiracies
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(Zero Hour Minus Two Months)
It had been a long, hard road for the SAOvivors who had managed to escape Albion. Awakened from slumber by being shunted to an entirely new world, twenty of their own number gone and likely raised as hellish mockeries of life, battles to delay the inevitable long enough that they at least might escape, then after being cut off, fighting alongside the forces of the Fae factions in order to have the freedom to simply live.
In short, two mostly happy months for Vassago Cassals, the arch-murderer infamously known as <[PoH>] to the vast majority of the survivors of Kayaba's Death Game. He did not care for many of the other 300 survivors fighting alongside him; they were expendable bodies to soak bullets in his mind. Oh, there were a few he would have at least felt sorry about; oddly enough, he counted the commander of the reformed Knights of Blood among their number.
Now, though, the daily chance for fun times had come to an end for now. Even though he wouldn't care much if some of his fellow Fae 'accidentally' fell on Mate Chopper, he would not go out of his way to weaken them. A strong Fae presence meant a greater chance to gut Reconquista, a better chance to drown Cromwell in his own blood.
As he made his way off the Eagle, he made sure to keep his hood up. Kirito had seen his face before, and after hearing what the Sable Knight had done to the rebellion's strongest fliers, PoH thought better on the possibility of another encounter. He was crazy, not stupid.
A few of the Fae were holding up signs for certain members of the escapees from Sugou's control, and PoH's eyes widened as he saw his name on one of them. Not his in-game name, his Iarel last name. He quickly made his way over to the lovely young Salamander holding it, a smile of recognition on her face as she lowered it. "Do you really know who I am?" asked he, in a low voice filled with venom.
The grin on the woman widened. "Oh yes I do, my hackey-bloody hunny bunny." said the Salamander, in a tone that sounded sweet, far too sweet. "I've missed you for far, far too long, Master."
'Oh devils below. You fucking bastards, you put her in my path. I knew I should never have screwed her...' thought PoH, squeaking out, "Hello, <[Hellebrone>]."
Hellene Borgia smiled wickedly. She had PoH right where she wanted him.
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(Zero Hour Plus 11 Days)
As Shino Asada took her place across from her former tormentor, she noted the ill-ease of the other woman. Like she had guessed, Endou at least suspected her of being a killer, perhaps even of being <[Sinon>]. It was a heady feeling, the turning about of who had control of her life now, but Shino needed to restrain herself if she was going to be able to make use of her former 'friend.'
"So, Shino..." Endou broke the silence as they sat in the mall food court. The hesitation in her voice confirmed Shino's suspicions. "Um... What is this about?" The older teenager seemed to slump forward a little bit, keeping her voice down. A smile and a piece of gear that looked like the child of a NervGear and an AMUSphere being pushed to the center of the table were the answer to Endou's question. "I don't know where to find out who makes these, I'm afraid. I kind of stumbled across one, and I'd like to know what it does, if it's some new death game controller." All of that was true, to a certain point.
Shino wasn't quite sure what Endou's response would be. Her eyes widening as far as possible was not something she had planned for. "Where did you find this? It's something like what they put on some of the patients where my brother works..." The worldly teen shut up quickly, as if she had already said too much, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"I think I need to show you something." Shino pulled out the laptop she had taken from <[Laughing Coffin>] and turned it towards Endou; the shock film of Wraith slowly torturing a victim to death with a pair of curved knives played. On the victim's head was the helmet Endou was turning about with her hands. "I really need to know what these are.
From the horrified look on the face of her sempai, Shino knew she had hit paydirt. Endou never could resist a mystery, the more bizarre the events surrounding the mystery, the more the unpleasant teenager would dig in with her devilish investigative skills. She had Endou right where she wanted her.
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(Zero Hour Plus 29 Days)
"Damnit, Sugou, you told me these things wouldn't be traceable back to me!" screamed Tono-domo into the phone at the new bane of his existence. The three red helmets that Sugou had given Tono's snuff film director had all now been accounted for, after Sinon's assault on the boat the videos had been taped on. Unfortunately for Tono, they had been left there for the police to find by the vigilante, along with the films of their being used. Even now, Tono had to turn in a lot of the favors that he had built up over the years to cover his own backside.
"Now now, that's no way to talk with business partners, now is it, Tono-kun?" the mayhem entrepreneur sneered out. The helmets were quite useful for him; he needed to get the input of using firearms, their feel, their aiming, and perhaps with great morbidity, the feel of the impact in human flesh. He needed to make his prison/training simulator as real as possible action-wise, even as he used the excuse plot storyline from Zargas' Gun Gale Online that he had bought for a song after the ALO disaster. All the pieces were coming together so perfectly for Sugou, and now he just needed to clean up those who knew about the more unsavory particulars of his operations.
"I did make sure to tell you to have your men memorize how to ensure that those SRAIGears could be rendered into non-useful bits of plastic slag, Tono. Not only did they not take that into account, they recorded themselves using them in your little shows. You have no idea the amount of fast talking I have needed to do over the past six hours in order to keep this going." said Sugou in a more rational tone. "I have already taken receipt of the mental models that had been recorded up to that point; the money is in the escrow account, and will be released tomorrow into your laundry basket. I am afraid that this will have to conclude that business, I hope you understand."
Tono calmed himself, this could still be salvaged. "I do. I will have to bury that part of my operation for some time to come, though, thanks to that fucking psychopath throwing your dirty laundry out there for all to see." The Yakuza sub-boss sighed, and said, "I hope your project is worth it. Eight more of my men died to cover it." Tono then threw his disposable cellphone into the river his men had been driving him by.
"Incompetent, dimwitted orangutang." snickered Sugou. Tono had no way of knowing that the man who would be investigating this case was already under his thumb. Kikouka Seijirou had made one colossal error in coming to him for help with his project, but that was for another time. No, Kikouka would make an excellent stand-in right now, might even be in perfect position to take Tono out of play after he had been injured by those gang goons.
The only player in the game that he could not force to dance to his marionette strings right now was Sinon himself. The casual manner in which that man had brutally gunned down every man on Tono's ship made for excellent watching; he had his pet assassin, the one Tono thought belonged to him, plant a number of cameras on the ship, out of the way. Sinon never showed his face; the creepy-looking skull mask made sure of that. The action was top-notch, though, and Sugou thought it would be excellent if he could acquire Sinon as his assassin's apprentice.
Kikouka was now a very known factor. Thanks to the failure of so many VR firms that he had relied on, the RATH project was so far behind that it was in danger of cancellation. In a madness born of desperation, Kikouka had come with an offer for Sugou. In exchange for keeping investigations into Sugou's relatively heinous actions running around in useless circles, Kikouka would acquire the memories of three hundred newborn children from him. Thanks to the failure of the Soul Translator, in order to make the Soul Archetypes Kikouka needed, he would have to use duplicates of the machine that killed Akihiko Kayaba.
In short, Kikouka had asked Sugou to murder no less than three hundred children, all for science.
Sugou felt an overwhelming disgust of that man, but he needed the indirect immunity Kikouka could provide. The answer had come to him by looking over child mortality statistics; he would arrange to take the memories from those children who were going to die anyway.
Through that act of banal evil, Sugou had everyone who he knew exactly where he wanted them.
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(Zero Hour Plus 29 Days)
"All right boys, listen up. You've already heard the commissar's speech, I don't need to repeat it. This man is our target." The commander of a small cell of militant Japanese communists clicked the controls, bringing up a rather unflattering picture of Nobuyuki Sugou. "This man would poison our nation by making the minds of our unfortunate proletariat into a prison. We need to stop him; our brothers in the mainland have given us his schedule."
The next thing that came up on the screen were the building plans for the SAO Kikan-sha Gakkoh, the school slash asylum used to deal with the SAO students still of school age. "This is the SAO Returnee School, where they house those survivors of that capitalist murdering pig Kayaba. Nobuyuki may have had something to do with the mess that caused the disappearance of a number of its students; what is known for sure is that he is going to be there in two days."
"We will breach each building with a BRDM-M each. Each building will need one platoon to lock down. I want this done by the numbers. Anyone who fights back will become a sacrifice for the Democratic Peoples' Free Republic of Japan. The central building will house our escape vehicles while we engage the bourgeois in false negotiations. Nobuyuki is to be brought to that building, dead or alive. We blow the schools a minute after we leave, destroying as many police vehicles as possible on our way out." The commander looked over one of his men carefully. "'Heartbreaker', leave the pretty girls alone this time, one of them is going to cut it off sooner rather than later." Several of the men started chuckling at the crude jest, but none of them would have minded much if the named man had ended up dying by 'accident'.
"Remember, Nobuyuki Sugou is our target. Our comrades across the sea want him out of play; they would prefer to take him off our hands when we get across to the mainland. Any questions? No? All right. We've got that son of a bitch where we want him."
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(Zero Hour Plus 30 Days)
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Council of Thorns. I am happy to announce that it is now open season on Nobuyuki Sugou. His actions concerning Laughing Coffin have been confirmed, alongside Tono Issei's known involvement." stated the holographic image in the Thorne Adjustment Group boardroom. The fact that the image looked a great deal like the deceased Kayaba did not make any of the thirteen members of the council nervous in the slightest. Indeed, of the beings present in the room, the real Kayaba would have had the lowest body count by far.
The two women on one of the loveseats looked to one another; the trim Japanese woman deferred in their statement to the elegant French blond. "Tono continues to defecate where he sleeps; our agent in his organization has found at least three breaches of the Covenant of Thorns in the past month alone. We suggest that he be removed posthaste, a recommendation that has the backing of the Oyabun."
The assassin called 'The Gatekeeper' was next. The dirty blond stated, "My agents have uncovered a new mobilization of the Japanese Red Army." She rolled her eyes, adding, "It would appear the Chinese want Sugou for their own purposes, beats having to pay for the training."
The rest of the reports followed in much the same way, varied degrees of success, failure, and one case of hilarity as one of the marks blew himself up before the assassin could get there to service him.
Finally, the Thirteenth gave his report, starting with the unedited last fifteen minutes of Laughing Coffin's demise at the hands of a fifteen year old girl. "Ladies and gentlemen of the board, I present to you one Asada Shino, alias Sinon, alias Death Gun." Nods of appreciation and a few murmured comments on her effectiveness followed the viewing. "So, possible recruit, or possible target?"
The Thirteenth, a young-looking man of indeterminate nationality, never ever smiled. His face always stayed in the same impassive state. The other board members were shocked when the corners of his mouth twitched upward almost imperceptibly. "I hope to recruit her to the Covenant. She has the drive, the ability even at such a young age. The SRAIGear I had modified still isn't finding use, but it's good to know it's there; I want her alive."
"After all, she's my great-great-granddaughter, I have her right where I want her."
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Next time, get RECT(), the bullets start flying once more.
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I am so sorry I made that post right now. So very very very sorry. You all have my most sincere apologies.
YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE EMIYA, BUT IT WAS I, DIO!
10
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Spell checking and editing now.
Halkegenia Online – v3 – Epilogue Part 2
It came as something of a disappointment, and also quite counter to the intuition of many, Henrietta thought, that the position of Queen was perhaps the least free in all the Kingdom. Surely, they would think, the sovereign could do whatever she pleased. Well yes she could, she would admit, but then she would not be a very good Queen.
Power tended to get itself tangled up in webs. There were alliances to be maintained, plays of personality to be balanced. The patriotic fervor which had accompanied her assent to the throne was a valuable resource not to be squandered or overplayed let it turn into resentmen. Her subjects could not be allowed to think that she undeservedly favored anyone, even the Fae. Espeically the Fae.
Henrietta smiled at that thought. Cardinal Mazarin had gone so far as to suggest she loved them too much. There were day she could damn and bless her old regent in the same breath. But he was right about her feelings which was why she took care even with Sakuya to measure her time and attention.
Happily today the obligations of a Queen and the desires of a young woman coincided nicely as she was helped down from her carriage by one of the captains of her guard and given a moment to test her footing on the paved surface."Thank you Agnes." The Chevalier de Millan bowed her head politely before returning to assist the elderly Cardinal who now accompanied her as her adviser. Henrietta turned her attention forward to the reason for her excursion from the capital.
From a distance they appeared to be nothing special. Squat buildings of brick, each one perhaps fifty mails long and half that wide. In some regards they reminded her of the regimental barracks she had inspected with Wales not so long ago. Their regularity if nothing else. They were arranged with ruler like precision in three neat rows five. Half were completed and half were nearing completion with only their roofs and windows left to be installed. Workers scurried about like ants intent on finishing their nests.
The Queen's smile grew as she picked out a graceful figure at the head of a delegation coming to meet them. Henrietta had counted on the nobility deferring to Sakuya here in one of the Faerie territories. And if the Fae were to extend their hospitality to her this evening, well then, not a single eyebrow would be raised.
"Your Majesty. It's such an honor that you found the time to join us today." The Sylph's smile was genuine, warm, and welcoming as she looked Henrietta over from head to toe. "It's good to see that you took Chief Hyuuga's advice to heart."
"My guards seemed to agree when the conditions here were described to them." Henrietta said, taking the Faerie woman's hands and squeezing affectionately. "And let Chief Hyuuga know that I always trust her judgment in such matters."
Which was why today she hardly looked like a queen at all. Gone was the white dress and modest velvet cloak, replaced with white blouse, red vest and jacket, and deep blue athletic bloomers tucked into knee high boots. At Agnes' insistence she'd gone so far as to dawn leather marshal's gloves, an extra layer of protection for her hands and her hair had been pulled back into a neat bun.
Standing tall and fair, the Lady of the Sylphs was likewise transformed today from her normal image of Fae Nobility, taking on a more casual and practical appearance of aristocratic grace. Elegant robes had been exchanged for an emerald blouse and khaki trousers tucked into sturdy brown leather boots. The Sylph's impossibly long hair had by some incredible feat been braided and then gathered up about her head, held in place by a silver and gold hairpiece in mockingbird motif.
All together it was pragmatic dress for the place they would be inspecting, and if the likes of Captain de Tott or Lord Tremoille would be scandalized by their Queen wearing trousers on such an occasion than phooey!
The two appeared to be too busy heatedly ignoring Count Woestte and Lord Rute at the moment to pay much mind. Lastly, the Duke de La Valliere stood between and behind the two parties, seeming to keep both at arms length, or maybe out of arms length of one another. It was all a very restrained affair, but it had all the hallmarks of a recent and unhappy exchange. Henrietta covered her mouth and glanced to Sakuya but the Faerie could only shrug sympathetically. Lord Rute standing up for his people and Count Woestte for his investment no doubt.
The last to arrive was their escort for the day, Hyuuga of the Leprechauns, Chief Engineer of the Tristain Royal Institute of Science and Technology. The Faerie was dressed characteristically in long white coat, high necked red sweater, and dark skirt. She was, Henrietta noted, in far better health then when they had first met. Months ago, the Leprechaun had been a slovenly and depressed drunkard dedicated to forgetting as much as she could of her circumstances.
It was all as Lady Alicia had hoped, given purpose she had begun to thrive once again. Now her heart shaped face was full of life, her brown eyes bright, and her full shoulder length hair combed to a metallic brown gloss. Her spirits as well, there was a robustness to her, a bounce to her step, and an alertness to her manner. Such energy and enthusiasm that Henrietta felt a degree of affection for her akin to that of watching a small child press her face against the window of a toy maker's shop.
"Good morning, your Majesty, Cardinal Mazarin, Lords and Lady." Her skirt was of a Faerie style, much too short and snug to perform a proper courtesy, but she made due with her white coat. "I hope that your journey here has been a pleasant one." Pleasantries were exchanged, their Leprechaun host greeting Henrietta, Sakuya, and Duke Valliere warmly, Count Woestte and Lord Rute cordially, and showing Lord Tremoille and Captain de Tott proper courtesy. The Leprechaun clapped her hands together. "Well then, I'm sure you all want to see what your money is buying you."
"Indeed." Tremoille spoke coolly, raising a critical brow as he regarded the collection of brick and stone buildings which had swiftly begun to rise at the edge of the Goubniu's outer districts. "The Crown's treasury has been kept abreast of developments here. I expect you to demonstrate the returns on our investment."
His attention was diverted by Lord Rute who answered with a heavy -harumph- and bounce of his stocky little frame. "The Royal Treasury may be among our financiers, but remember this project was envisioned by private interests. My interests!"
"And with collateral that more than covers the treasuries contributions!" Woestte added with a contemptuous sneer. "My collateral."
Both parties turned to the last person holding their tongue. The Duke Valliere nodded sagely. "I have inspected the project at every stage and I assure you that I and Archduke Gudendorf are most satisfied with the progress. I urge you to see for yourself Count Tremoille."
"Is this what they've been bickering about?" Henrietta murmured softly as they set off, trusting Sakuya's sharp ears to catch every word.
The Sylph sighed as she raised a hand to her brow. "I am sorry about this."
Henrietta shook her head. It really was quite alright. "Woestte is merely making sure his contributions are known." Much like the funny little Leprechaun in point of fact. Was it any wonder that a friendship of sorts had taken root between the two? "And Tremoille's happiness is in making others miserable." A perfectly unpleasant man, or as Mazarin had once called him behind closed doors 'a retched bastard', but Tristain's purse strings were in good hands.
Which left the unspoken opinion of Captain de Tott looking about dourly at everything and everyone that they passed. He was really the one that this inspection was meant for. As Captain of the Munitions Office his support was essential. Henrietta could have simply ordered the munition's office to cooperate but still better would be to convince de Tott on merit. If he was for himself the progress being made
She glanced over her shoulder. Mazarin followed at a distance, the elderly Cardinal no longer her regent, but still full of advice, watching over her and Tristain.
Chief Hyuuga would be given her chance to convince de Tott. If it was a matter of merit then Henrietta had faith in the Fae's ingenuity.
"The TRIST campus is basically a laboratory." The Leprechaun explained patiently when de Tott pestered about their surroundings. "It's a workshop where we can experiment. What we're constructing here is a factory."
"An arsenal you mean." De La Tremoille corrected mirthlessly. Henrietta did not think his cruelty was intentional, she suspected he did not notice the way that Chief Hyuuga closed her eyes rather than blink.
"An arsenal." The Leprechaun said the word like an obscenity. "We needed someplace where we could perform mass production and be confident of the speed and quality."
"The Royal Arsenal in Tristania has served that purpose admirably Mademoiselle." De Tott protested. "Expanding the works there would have been cheaper. The labor pool is established . . ." The small man stopped to again stroke at his dark whiskers while observing their surroundings. "More commoners than I would have expected as well."
Henrietta had also taken notice. It was a strange sight. Commoners in sturdy working clothes conversing with their Faerie overseers and even mages. Speaking directly, sometimes heatedly, with one another without formality. It was a strangeness that the rest of her Kingdom would have to accept when it spilled from these walls.
"Our techniques were devised without the benefit of magic. But we've learned a lot about your magic in the last few months." The Leprechaun seemed to take the handicap as a source of pride. "Captain de Tott." The Ordinance Captain almost appeared to jump from his skin. "You seem like a smart man."
De Tott nodded without comment.
Hyuuga seemed to gather her thoughts. "We've made a lot of progress these past months. We had to take a lot of shortcuts to get here. We learned about magic in the process. For instance, the problem with shaping metal with magic."
"Yes, yes, metal rot, it is a well understood flaw." De Tott muttered impatiently. "Once metal is reshaped by magic it loses the properties of its initial forging. Proper metal work is done with a forge and a trained smith."
"Exactly. When you just shape the metal with magic you end up destroying the structures which give it strength." The Leprechaun agreed. "But magic is still useful. Lots of petty mages with a little talent for Earth Magic pick up the blacksmith's trade." A small metallic ingot appeared in her hand, plucked from her coat pocket it seemed. "I did my research and the quality of the steel your smiths can make is just too good. It's not up to our industrial standards but it isn't a crappy as I expected either and it's way more consistent than it should be."
De Tott snorted. "You expected any less?"
"Yeah as a matter of fact", the Ingot disappeared back into Hyuuga's pocket. "We've had to employ a lot of local labor to get this project off the ground. At every step of the process we've taught your local smiths our techniques and allowed them to apply their magic to it. The more refined the techniques become the bigger a difference magic starts to make. There's a sort of synergy."
"The smiths can concentrate their talent where it was most effective." Duke Valliere surmised in brief. "Shaping, refining, strengthening, and enchanting the metal all at once is simply too much for all but the most talented of mages."
Hyuuga removed an appraiser's monocle from her pocket and proceeded to inspect its surface and wipe it for dust. "Petty mage's seem to influence the work and age hardening of the metal using their magic during forging and casting. Our major effort now is applying that to the bulk production by casting. Then once we cast the steel we can shape it."
They walked in among the buildings until they came to one much like its fellows save for a large structure protruding from its side. It was not the most bizarre thing that Henrietta had ever seen, but for something to appear so strangely mundane was a novely. Her eyes turned upwards to the skeletal structure, a wheel supported by a thick wooden shaft seated atop brick pillars. A stone aqueduct arrived over the factory wall, the water it carried spilling atop the wheel and inducing it to turn.
It was, she realized, nothing other than a water wheel. Tristain was so lousy with them that any person who spent long in the countryside would recognized the vulgar mechanism used for tasks too tedious for even petty magic. But Henrietta did not think she had ever seen one quite so large before in her life.
"Part of why we built here in Goubniu." Hyuuga waved to the massive construction. "Besides being near to our talent and the Leprechaun workshops, the major tributary of the Schelt has its biggest change in elevation near here. We diverted some of the water to drive our machines."
At last they entered the factory, stepping through the wide open warehouse doors and from brickwork onto smooth mage formed floor polished until it glowed beneath the light of strips of hanging ore-lamps. The sights and the noise were at once almost overwhelming. A high pitched wining was amplified still further by the enclosed space. One look at Sakuya told Henrietta that that Sylph was faring no better as she sought to cover her ears.
"Mind the noise!" The Chief shouted to be heard. Somehow she managed still to be smiling.
How was it that Sakuya had described her once? Ah yes, a child enamored with her toys, and forever building new ones to amuse herself. Toys, or tools, like these . . . Well Henrietta did not quite have a word for them. They filled the factory floor, each attended by a trio of commoners and from time to time a Faerie walking the rows and inspecting progress.
They were twenty in all, each comprised of a long bench mounting what resembled iron mandibles of some large mechanical insect. A sort of spindle was attached to each one with its own smaller sect of gripping mandible arranged on a short shaft which connected to a cone itself wrapped in a leather belt which disappeared up into the rafters to join with the chief source of the noise, a long conveyance of similar spinning shafts.
"They're belt driven for now." Chief Hyuuga told them as if that explained everything. "What we really wanted was full electrification, but this was faster set up for the lathes."
"Lathes?" Henrietta thought to herself. So these were the lathes she'd read about. Were those not what carpenters used to turn wood? She supposed that that it did resemble that closely. Albeit the shavings were made of sharp metal rather than soft pulp.
"All of this effort over a novelty?!" De Tott sounded completely in disbelief, or maybe the noise did not agree with him. "Your chief project is the cannons! We must have new models cannons of our own to match the ones fielded by Albio . . ." The Captain complaints fell short as Chief Hyuuga shrugged out of her coat and handed it to a passing aid. Faerie skirts were quite short and quite tight Henrietta observed. "What does this have to do with cannons you are supposed to be making?" De Tott finished in a fluster.
"Mass prototyping." The leprechaun gestured for Henrietta to come close and dawn a pair of protective goggles so she could watch one of the work crews begin to drill into a fresh iron shaft. The shaft was spun and pressed against a drill fixed in place. Shavings gathered up, curling like soft cheese. Without any magic at all the Faeries were giving them the implements to shape metal as if it were soft as wood. Any commoner could work such a tool. And with magic . . . Henrietta knew her imagination was inadequate to fathom the possibilities. "If you come this way you can see the first batch is being bored out.
The far end of the factory was occupied with still more of the machines, these ones much larger and each housing an iron barrel as thick as a tree's trunk. The drills were turned on these machines instead of the hefty cannon barrels and the process was much slower going with the three man teams able to stand over their work and observe closely as they pulled levers and slowly turned wheels to advance the mechanism.
The Captain was only too eager to examine the work for himself. "These are the model you demonstrated last month, correct?"
"The first batch will be ready for testing next week." The eagerness drained from Hyuuga's voice as she spoke. "A batch every other week after that. By then we'll have started field gun production as well. I can show you the production tables if you like."
"And the iron?" De Tott looked up from his inspection.
"The problem has been resolved." Duke Valliere said. "The Zerbst family has agreed to supply raw ore so long as the receive payment on delivery."
Henrietta closed her eyes. She'd almost forgotten the Zerbst's and their involvement in matters. Getting them to aid Tristain and in fact to be so much as on speaking terms with the Valliere had been the effort of one person in particular, a rather troubling young woman. It went a long way to establishing something resembling trust.
Finally de Tott appeared pleased. The glint in his eye was like a man who had found the treasure he was looking for but Henrietta wondered if he wasn't still half blind. "At last we see some return on your work, Chief Hyuuga."
De Tott appeared truly surprised when the Faerie began to laugh. "I wouldn't measure our results just in cannons, Captain." She explained herself. "What we're building here is going to change everything.. It's called an industrial revolution for a reason."
Halkegenia Online – v3 – Epilogue Part 2
It came as something of a disappointment, and also quite counter to the intuition of many, Henrietta thought, that the position of Queen was perhaps the least free in all the Kingdom. Surely, they would think, the sovereign could do whatever she pleased. Well yes she could, she would admit, but then she would not be a very good Queen.
Power tended to get itself tangled up in webs. There were alliances to be maintained, plays of personality to be balanced. The patriotic fervor which had accompanied her assent to the throne was a valuable resource not to be squandered or overplayed let it turn into resentmen. Her subjects could not be allowed to think that she undeservedly favored anyone, even the Fae. Espeically the Fae.
Henrietta smiled at that thought. Cardinal Mazarin had gone so far as to suggest she loved them too much. There were day she could damn and bless her old regent in the same breath. But he was right about her feelings which was why she took care even with Sakuya to measure her time and attention.
Happily today the obligations of a Queen and the desires of a young woman coincided nicely as she was helped down from her carriage by one of the captains of her guard and given a moment to test her footing on the paved surface."Thank you Agnes." The Chevalier de Millan bowed her head politely before returning to assist the elderly Cardinal who now accompanied her as her adviser. Henrietta turned her attention forward to the reason for her excursion from the capital.
From a distance they appeared to be nothing special. Squat buildings of brick, each one perhaps fifty mails long and half that wide. In some regards they reminded her of the regimental barracks she had inspected with Wales not so long ago. Their regularity if nothing else. They were arranged with ruler like precision in three neat rows five. Half were completed and half were nearing completion with only their roofs and windows left to be installed. Workers scurried about like ants intent on finishing their nests.
The Queen's smile grew as she picked out a graceful figure at the head of a delegation coming to meet them. Henrietta had counted on the nobility deferring to Sakuya here in one of the Faerie territories. And if the Fae were to extend their hospitality to her this evening, well then, not a single eyebrow would be raised.
"Your Majesty. It's such an honor that you found the time to join us today." The Sylph's smile was genuine, warm, and welcoming as she looked Henrietta over from head to toe. "It's good to see that you took Chief Hyuuga's advice to heart."
"My guards seemed to agree when the conditions here were described to them." Henrietta said, taking the Faerie woman's hands and squeezing affectionately. "And let Chief Hyuuga know that I always trust her judgment in such matters."
Which was why today she hardly looked like a queen at all. Gone was the white dress and modest velvet cloak, replaced with white blouse, red vest and jacket, and deep blue athletic bloomers tucked into knee high boots. At Agnes' insistence she'd gone so far as to dawn leather marshal's gloves, an extra layer of protection for her hands and her hair had been pulled back into a neat bun.
Standing tall and fair, the Lady of the Sylphs was likewise transformed today from her normal image of Fae Nobility, taking on a more casual and practical appearance of aristocratic grace. Elegant robes had been exchanged for an emerald blouse and khaki trousers tucked into sturdy brown leather boots. The Sylph's impossibly long hair had by some incredible feat been braided and then gathered up about her head, held in place by a silver and gold hairpiece in mockingbird motif.
All together it was pragmatic dress for the place they would be inspecting, and if the likes of Captain de Tott or Lord Tremoille would be scandalized by their Queen wearing trousers on such an occasion than phooey!
The two appeared to be too busy heatedly ignoring Count Woestte and Lord Rute at the moment to pay much mind. Lastly, the Duke de La Valliere stood between and behind the two parties, seeming to keep both at arms length, or maybe out of arms length of one another. It was all a very restrained affair, but it had all the hallmarks of a recent and unhappy exchange. Henrietta covered her mouth and glanced to Sakuya but the Faerie could only shrug sympathetically. Lord Rute standing up for his people and Count Woestte for his investment no doubt.
The last to arrive was their escort for the day, Hyuuga of the Leprechauns, Chief Engineer of the Tristain Royal Institute of Science and Technology. The Faerie was dressed characteristically in long white coat, high necked red sweater, and dark skirt. She was, Henrietta noted, in far better health then when they had first met. Months ago, the Leprechaun had been a slovenly and depressed drunkard dedicated to forgetting as much as she could of her circumstances.
It was all as Lady Alicia had hoped, given purpose she had begun to thrive once again. Now her heart shaped face was full of life, her brown eyes bright, and her full shoulder length hair combed to a metallic brown gloss. Her spirits as well, there was a robustness to her, a bounce to her step, and an alertness to her manner. Such energy and enthusiasm that Henrietta felt a degree of affection for her akin to that of watching a small child press her face against the window of a toy maker's shop.
"Good morning, your Majesty, Cardinal Mazarin, Lords and Lady." Her skirt was of a Faerie style, much too short and snug to perform a proper courtesy, but she made due with her white coat. "I hope that your journey here has been a pleasant one." Pleasantries were exchanged, their Leprechaun host greeting Henrietta, Sakuya, and Duke Valliere warmly, Count Woestte and Lord Rute cordially, and showing Lord Tremoille and Captain de Tott proper courtesy. The Leprechaun clapped her hands together. "Well then, I'm sure you all want to see what your money is buying you."
"Indeed." Tremoille spoke coolly, raising a critical brow as he regarded the collection of brick and stone buildings which had swiftly begun to rise at the edge of the Goubniu's outer districts. "The Crown's treasury has been kept abreast of developments here. I expect you to demonstrate the returns on our investment."
His attention was diverted by Lord Rute who answered with a heavy -harumph- and bounce of his stocky little frame. "The Royal Treasury may be among our financiers, but remember this project was envisioned by private interests. My interests!"
"And with collateral that more than covers the treasuries contributions!" Woestte added with a contemptuous sneer. "My collateral."
Both parties turned to the last person holding their tongue. The Duke Valliere nodded sagely. "I have inspected the project at every stage and I assure you that I and Archduke Gudendorf are most satisfied with the progress. I urge you to see for yourself Count Tremoille."
"Is this what they've been bickering about?" Henrietta murmured softly as they set off, trusting Sakuya's sharp ears to catch every word.
The Sylph sighed as she raised a hand to her brow. "I am sorry about this."
Henrietta shook her head. It really was quite alright. "Woestte is merely making sure his contributions are known." Much like the funny little Leprechaun in point of fact. Was it any wonder that a friendship of sorts had taken root between the two? "And Tremoille's happiness is in making others miserable." A perfectly unpleasant man, or as Mazarin had once called him behind closed doors 'a retched bastard', but Tristain's purse strings were in good hands.
Which left the unspoken opinion of Captain de Tott looking about dourly at everything and everyone that they passed. He was really the one that this inspection was meant for. As Captain of the Munitions Office his support was essential. Henrietta could have simply ordered the munition's office to cooperate but still better would be to convince de Tott on merit. If he was for himself the progress being made
She glanced over her shoulder. Mazarin followed at a distance, the elderly Cardinal no longer her regent, but still full of advice, watching over her and Tristain.
Chief Hyuuga would be given her chance to convince de Tott. If it was a matter of merit then Henrietta had faith in the Fae's ingenuity.
"The TRIST campus is basically a laboratory." The Leprechaun explained patiently when de Tott pestered about their surroundings. "It's a workshop where we can experiment. What we're constructing here is a factory."
"An arsenal you mean." De La Tremoille corrected mirthlessly. Henrietta did not think his cruelty was intentional, she suspected he did not notice the way that Chief Hyuuga closed her eyes rather than blink.
"An arsenal." The Leprechaun said the word like an obscenity. "We needed someplace where we could perform mass production and be confident of the speed and quality."
"The Royal Arsenal in Tristania has served that purpose admirably Mademoiselle." De Tott protested. "Expanding the works there would have been cheaper. The labor pool is established . . ." The small man stopped to again stroke at his dark whiskers while observing their surroundings. "More commoners than I would have expected as well."
Henrietta had also taken notice. It was a strange sight. Commoners in sturdy working clothes conversing with their Faerie overseers and even mages. Speaking directly, sometimes heatedly, with one another without formality. It was a strangeness that the rest of her Kingdom would have to accept when it spilled from these walls.
"Our techniques were devised without the benefit of magic. But we've learned a lot about your magic in the last few months." The Leprechaun seemed to take the handicap as a source of pride. "Captain de Tott." The Ordinance Captain almost appeared to jump from his skin. "You seem like a smart man."
De Tott nodded without comment.
Hyuuga seemed to gather her thoughts. "We've made a lot of progress these past months. We had to take a lot of shortcuts to get here. We learned about magic in the process. For instance, the problem with shaping metal with magic."
"Yes, yes, metal rot, it is a well understood flaw." De Tott muttered impatiently. "Once metal is reshaped by magic it loses the properties of its initial forging. Proper metal work is done with a forge and a trained smith."
"Exactly. When you just shape the metal with magic you end up destroying the structures which give it strength." The Leprechaun agreed. "But magic is still useful. Lots of petty mages with a little talent for Earth Magic pick up the blacksmith's trade." A small metallic ingot appeared in her hand, plucked from her coat pocket it seemed. "I did my research and the quality of the steel your smiths can make is just too good. It's not up to our industrial standards but it isn't a crappy as I expected either and it's way more consistent than it should be."
De Tott snorted. "You expected any less?"
"Yeah as a matter of fact", the Ingot disappeared back into Hyuuga's pocket. "We've had to employ a lot of local labor to get this project off the ground. At every step of the process we've taught your local smiths our techniques and allowed them to apply their magic to it. The more refined the techniques become the bigger a difference magic starts to make. There's a sort of synergy."
"The smiths can concentrate their talent where it was most effective." Duke Valliere surmised in brief. "Shaping, refining, strengthening, and enchanting the metal all at once is simply too much for all but the most talented of mages."
Hyuuga removed an appraiser's monocle from her pocket and proceeded to inspect its surface and wipe it for dust. "Petty mage's seem to influence the work and age hardening of the metal using their magic during forging and casting. Our major effort now is applying that to the bulk production by casting. Then once we cast the steel we can shape it."
They walked in among the buildings until they came to one much like its fellows save for a large structure protruding from its side. It was not the most bizarre thing that Henrietta had ever seen, but for something to appear so strangely mundane was a novely. Her eyes turned upwards to the skeletal structure, a wheel supported by a thick wooden shaft seated atop brick pillars. A stone aqueduct arrived over the factory wall, the water it carried spilling atop the wheel and inducing it to turn.
It was, she realized, nothing other than a water wheel. Tristain was so lousy with them that any person who spent long in the countryside would recognized the vulgar mechanism used for tasks too tedious for even petty magic. But Henrietta did not think she had ever seen one quite so large before in her life.
"Part of why we built here in Goubniu." Hyuuga waved to the massive construction. "Besides being near to our talent and the Leprechaun workshops, the major tributary of the Schelt has its biggest change in elevation near here. We diverted some of the water to drive our machines."
At last they entered the factory, stepping through the wide open warehouse doors and from brickwork onto smooth mage formed floor polished until it glowed beneath the light of strips of hanging ore-lamps. The sights and the noise were at once almost overwhelming. A high pitched wining was amplified still further by the enclosed space. One look at Sakuya told Henrietta that that Sylph was faring no better as she sought to cover her ears.
"Mind the noise!" The Chief shouted to be heard. Somehow she managed still to be smiling.
How was it that Sakuya had described her once? Ah yes, a child enamored with her toys, and forever building new ones to amuse herself. Toys, or tools, like these . . . Well Henrietta did not quite have a word for them. They filled the factory floor, each attended by a trio of commoners and from time to time a Faerie walking the rows and inspecting progress.
They were twenty in all, each comprised of a long bench mounting what resembled iron mandibles of some large mechanical insect. A sort of spindle was attached to each one with its own smaller sect of gripping mandible arranged on a short shaft which connected to a cone itself wrapped in a leather belt which disappeared up into the rafters to join with the chief source of the noise, a long conveyance of similar spinning shafts.
"They're belt driven for now." Chief Hyuuga told them as if that explained everything. "What we really wanted was full electrification, but this was faster set up for the lathes."
"Lathes?" Henrietta thought to herself. So these were the lathes she'd read about. Were those not what carpenters used to turn wood? She supposed that that it did resemble that closely. Albeit the shavings were made of sharp metal rather than soft pulp.
"All of this effort over a novelty?!" De Tott sounded completely in disbelief, or maybe the noise did not agree with him. "Your chief project is the cannons! We must have new models cannons of our own to match the ones fielded by Albio . . ." The Captain complaints fell short as Chief Hyuuga shrugged out of her coat and handed it to a passing aid. Faerie skirts were quite short and quite tight Henrietta observed. "What does this have to do with cannons you are supposed to be making?" De Tott finished in a fluster.
"Mass prototyping." The leprechaun gestured for Henrietta to come close and dawn a pair of protective goggles so she could watch one of the work crews begin to drill into a fresh iron shaft. The shaft was spun and pressed against a drill fixed in place. Shavings gathered up, curling like soft cheese. Without any magic at all the Faeries were giving them the implements to shape metal as if it were soft as wood. Any commoner could work such a tool. And with magic . . . Henrietta knew her imagination was inadequate to fathom the possibilities. "If you come this way you can see the first batch is being bored out.
The far end of the factory was occupied with still more of the machines, these ones much larger and each housing an iron barrel as thick as a tree's trunk. The drills were turned on these machines instead of the hefty cannon barrels and the process was much slower going with the three man teams able to stand over their work and observe closely as they pulled levers and slowly turned wheels to advance the mechanism.
The Captain was only too eager to examine the work for himself. "These are the model you demonstrated last month, correct?"
"The first batch will be ready for testing next week." The eagerness drained from Hyuuga's voice as she spoke. "A batch every other week after that. By then we'll have started field gun production as well. I can show you the production tables if you like."
"And the iron?" De Tott looked up from his inspection.
"The problem has been resolved." Duke Valliere said. "The Zerbst family has agreed to supply raw ore so long as the receive payment on delivery."
Henrietta closed her eyes. She'd almost forgotten the Zerbst's and their involvement in matters. Getting them to aid Tristain and in fact to be so much as on speaking terms with the Valliere had been the effort of one person in particular, a rather troubling young woman. It went a long way to establishing something resembling trust.
Finally de Tott appeared pleased. The glint in his eye was like a man who had found the treasure he was looking for but Henrietta wondered if he wasn't still half blind. "At last we see some return on your work, Chief Hyuuga."
De Tott appeared truly surprised when the Faerie began to laugh. "I wouldn't measure our results just in cannons, Captain." She explained herself. "What we're building here is going to change everything.. It's called an industrial revolution for a reason."
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SVNB Backup
Autumn Drizzle
Dayum. Is TRIST going for a Dahlgren design? Is the drilling for rifling?
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
Truer words have never been spoken. Hyuuga has hit the ground running and isn't going to stop this for anything.
It's not even so much the actual work being done in the factory but the philosophy and ideas behind it all that are going to cause major changes in the Kingdom.
With all this smack-talking of rifles, I can't wait for the "long-spears" or whatever it was they called them to show up from the Pope's stash.
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
I imagine that that the improved rifles that TRIST is turning out will be causing a lot of WTF in both of the observers and targets long before that.
It'll be even worse when TRIST up-techs enough to start turning out breech-loading cannons and rifles.
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No, but I had a slowly-growing evil grin the entire way through.Did any else start cackling maniacally at this point?
Oh man Albion and Gallia are going to be on the wrong side of the Industrial Revolution. It will be glorious!
I don't think many of the Nobles realize just how far this is going to go. The culture of the entire continent is going to get demolished by so much technological progress in such a short time that I think Faeries are going to be the least affected by it.
Imagine the American Civil War and WWI all over again, outdated doctrines sending soldiers to their deaths, except for Tristain and maybe Albion. They got Faeries to teach them how to fight with their new toys.
I don't think many of the Nobles realize just how far this is going to go. The culture of the entire continent is going to get demolished by so much technological progress in such a short time that I think Faeries are going to be the least affected by it.
Imagine the American Civil War and WWI all over again, outdated doctrines sending soldiers to their deaths, except for Tristain and maybe Albion. They got Faeries to teach them how to fight with their new toys.
I did.Did any else start cackling maniacally at this point?
@Triggerhappy so something that just occured to me was that Trist could make mortars, like WoT dragons. They have fireworks and the knoldedge to create it so im curious if that an idea for the future production, in addition to grenadiers (guys with explosive bundles that have river pebbles wraped around them).
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
And little of value was lost.
More importantly the Fae (especially history majors like Sakuya) know how it went the first time and can avoid some of the pitfalls and issues that occurred.
Like Mortimer hasn't already put in (at least one) order for the things along with that Field cannon that he had Hyuuga design.
right keep forgeting that there are compitant people in charge. Mortimer probably has thought of mobile artilery using tank builds to move the heavy gear.And little of value was lost.
More importantly the Fae (especially history majors like Sakuya) know how it went the first time and can avoid some of the pitfalls and issues that occurred.
Like Mortimer hasn't already put in (at least one) order for the things along with that Field cannon that he had Hyuuga design.
- Location
- Somewhere near L1... I think
Somehow, I feel this is appropriate, especially at the 2:50 mark.
They could also make basic rocket artillery a la Hwacha.
-=-=-
Also, some errors I noticed:
They could also make basic rocket artillery a la Hwacha.
-=-=-
Also, some errors I noticed:
- It's not up to our industrial standards but it isn't as crappy as I expected either and its way more consistent than it should be."
- the
Ingotingot disappeared back into Hyuuga's pocket - The basic idea of
ana lathe has been around forever - "We can make a hundred rifles for every cannon barrel, so they make good prototypes. If you come this way you can see the first batch is being bored out."
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CommandoDude
I am Gundam
- Location
- NorCal
Not only that, but even after the decades in which Tristain reaps the benefits of its technology, it will take FAR longer for the rest of the nations to actually develop the technical expertise to actually implement what Tristain is already doing. And by then, Tristain is going to be rolling out even newer stuff.
Basically, Tristain is about to become the most technologically advanced nation on the planet for the next 2 or 3 centuries at the least.
Theravis
A Knight for those Suffering
- Location
- West Michigan
The only other thing I can see is:
At Agnes' insistence she'd gone so far as to DON (not dawn.) leather marshal's gloves.
And there was one comma I thought you might need.
But otherwise, clean, descriptive, and a good way to get ready for V4.....
Edit: Can't figure out the colors on my phone, so to clarify, you don clothes, usually near dawn. The rule for commas is to separate related thoughts, or put a clarification, that the sentence doesn't need to be correct, in commas like those above.
At Agnes' insistence she'd gone so far as to DON (not dawn.) leather marshal's gloves.
And there was one comma I thought you might need.
But otherwise, clean, descriptive, and a good way to get ready for V4.....
Edit: Can't figure out the colors on my phone, so to clarify, you don clothes, usually near dawn. The rule for commas is to separate related thoughts, or put a clarification, that the sentence doesn't need to be correct, in commas like those above.
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LGear
Secret Society BLANKET
Coma, all, the, things, now.
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
Yes, knocking all those commas into a coma seems like a marvelous idea.
- Status