Turn 11 Research Results
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
Plan Oh No There Goes Deffkloud
Thunder from Stone (1 3rd Spawning slann, 5 4th Spawning slann)
A rainstorm washed over Itza, sheets of water washing over the city, fat droplets drumming against the stones of the First City. Water ran from flat rooftops, coursed off of broad streets into side gutters as the hidden energies of the city hummed invisibly, preventing cumbersome puddles from forming and impeding workflow. Indeed, Itza's streets bustled with activity, cohorts of all breeds filing to and from their manifold tasks in a rhythm that seemed from the outside like a chaotic hubbub, but was actually a smoothly executed symphony of movement. There was not one kroxigor cut off from their work crew, not one skink trod upon, only the clatter of rain against scales, washing away the day's grime.
The city's forging districts continued to blaze, the molten pillars in the center of each complex heating the walls to such an extent that the rain turned to steam as it battered against the stones. Inside and out, the complexes were swathed with warm mist, the ringing of great hammers and the whine of magical arrays priming themselves echoing through the murk.
Xe'mento moved through the fog like the silhouette of a great island drifting through the sea. He carried a great slab of obsinite in his arms, bearing its immense weight with little effort. He set it down upon a stone workbench arrayed with a variety of other tools and ingredients – hammers and chisels, vials of dark sand that sparkled with the promise of flame, hollow tubes of bronze and intricately carved wafers of gold.
Xe'mento broke the black stone into pieces with his hands, using chisels where additional precision was required. Displaying great dexterity, the blessed kroxigor coaxed the proper shapes out of each piece of obsinite, softening it in the Chamon-suffused magmatic pillar before removing unneeded material with his hardened claws.
Xe'mento's creation took form quickly, moving from an array of components to a recognizable silhouette in scarcely an hour. It was a brutish, simplistic design with little ornamentation - a rectangular obstinate body, sinuously stretching out to a long, thin barrel in the front, with a semicircular stock and handle upon the rear edge of the weapon.
A series of blades were hidden within this portion of the weapon so that it could be used as a makeshift macahuitl should the need arise. The main body of the gun was engraved with totemic images of saurus killing their foes in manifold ways, which served as pictorial instructions for its use. Gold filigree was laid into the barrel, forming a series of inscriptions invoking the principles of Xhotl, to increase the ease of aiming, Tzunki, to allow for fluidity of motion in the weapon and its wielder, and Tlanxla, to increase overall performance. The end of the barrel was carved to resemble the maw of a snake in order to draw Sotek's attention with every shot.
Xe'mento stepped back from his work and grunted wordlessly. Another, smaller, shape approached through the fog - a Saurus that had climbed out of its spawning pool less than an hour ago, so young that its cohort leader had not even assigned it a name. Its presence had been demanded by Xe'mento's masters, to prove whether their design was sufficiently intuitive for even the youngest of their kind. It had been told nothing except that it was to test a new variety of weapon.
The Saurus looked to Xe'mento for direction. The blessed kroxigor waved a gnarled hand toward his creation in response. "Examine," he rumbled. "Use."
The Saurus rasped a word, its first vocalization beyond growls of acknowledgement. "Target?"
Xe'mento's hand pointed towards the glowing line of the lava pillar. "Will not be damaged."
The Saurus nodded, and stepped forth to examine the rifle. Its eyes darted over the pictograms on its surface, drinking in the information therein. It picked the weapon up, instinctively bracing the stock against its shoulder and assuming a steady stance. The barrel tracked back and forth as the Saurus experimentally aimed at various surfaces, modulating its breathing to minimize wavering.
Within a minute it was satisfied, and picked up a slim, rectangular block of obsinite a little larger than Xe'mento's hand. With motions that seemed almost practiced, it pushed a handle on the upper section of the gun back to reveal a slot with the same dimensions as the stone block, pushed the ammunition block in, closed the window back up, and clicked a switch to arm the gun. With a smooth turn, it swung the barrel towards the lava pillar at the center of the workshop, set the stock securely against its shoulder, exhaled, and pulled the trigger.
Within the gun, the pre-installed mechanisms in the firing mechanisms sprung to life. The ammunition block had already had a small section fractured off, subjected to a simple application of Chamon magic that chiselled it away from the main body and shaped it into an elongated spike, converting the residual matter to tightly packed dust. Now the bronze interior of the barrel suffused itself with Aqshy, igniting the tightly packed particulate and forcing the bullet down the metal tube with immense force, aided by the friction-reducing enchantments worked into it. The bullet rocketed out of the barrel at supersonic speeds, shaped to cut through the air with minimal resistance, and impacted into the incandescent pillar with a great echoing boom.
It was followed by many others, the interior mechanism of the gun manufacturing the next bullet as soon as the previous one was fired. The Saurus quickly adopted a staccato rhythm, firing tightly-packed clusters of rounds in close to one another before readjusting to account for the weapon's recoil. It was not long before the ammunition block was exhausted and the gun clicked empty - upon hearing this, the Saurus scooped up another block from the workbench with one hand while reopening the loading window with the other. It completed the reloading process in the space of a few seconds, then unloaded a few more rounds, growing visibly more accurate as it continued to fire.
When the gun clicked empty once more, the Saurus set it down upon the workbench and looked to Xe'mento for further instructions. The kroxigor rumbled in approval, his Chotec-orange scales almost seeming to glow in the forge-light. "Stay," he rasped. "Further testing required."
Automatic rifles acquired! There are varieties sized for Skinks, Saurus, and Kroxigor, with the Saurus variant firing bullets roughly equivalent to .50 caliber, and the Skink and Kroxigor variants sized down or up respectively.
Blowpipe Mk II (1 3rd Spawning slann, 5 4th Spawning slann)
A procession of sorts had been set up to test the functionality of the newest tool of the Chameleon Skinks. Outside of the walls of Chalkaro, a series of wooden scaffolds of various heights stood, bearing painted squares of stone, some as large as a Saurus, some smaller than a Skink's head. A number of Cold One riders had been given cloth banners with targets painted on them and instructed to maneuver around in erratic patterns, and in the skies, several Terradons carried spherical fruit from ropes as they ducked and twirled through the air.
Standing upon the peak of a temple of Huanchi a few hundred meters away from the city walls was Arahaya, a Chameleon skink recalled from the fifth year of their circuitous patrol around the city to ensure that the newest creation of the slann would be suitable for their kindred. They had never seen the weapon before, nor had they observed the field of targets before arriving.
The voice of Tecciztec, the elder slann overseeing this experiment, boomed in the assassin's mind to signal the start of the test, and they turned to look upon their instrument. It superficially resembled the bolt-action rifles they were already familiar with, but was somewhat elongated, with a barrel longer than Arahaya was tall and ringed by a spiraling matrix of gold. Adjustable supports were affixed to its body to account for its length, and there was a selection of eight differently-colored glass lenses to peer through, each of which would highlight different things in the sniper's vision.
Hefting the gun with relative ease thanks to its weight reduction enchantments, Arahaya checked that it was loaded and readied it for firing, the motions relatively intuitive for them. They peered through the various lenses at the array of targets that had been laid out for them. Fault lines and body temperature, the luminescence of thought and soft amethyst of dying things were all illuminated by differing combinations of glass lenses. For this task, however, there were no esoteric protections to circumvent or account for - only elevation, distance, momentum, the speed and direction of the wind. Mundane obstructions, easily intuited by the basal cognition processes of a lizardman.
One after another, each target was struck by an expertly aimed shot. The barrel of the rifle had been fitted with spells that enhanced and multiplied the velocity of each of its shots, allowing for its increased range without increasing its recoil to inoperable degrees. Its internal mechanisms loaded a new shot as each one was fired, eliminating crucial seconds and allowing for more razor-sharp bullets to slice through the air and find their kills.
The center of each cloth banner was pierced, though they fluttered and waved in the breeze and their holders waved them in unpredictable patterns. Each stone slab fell to the ground in pieces, followed swiftly by the towers that had held them aloft, as Arahaya identified and shot their exposed support beams to splinters. Even the fruit-carrying Terradons did not escape their unerring aim, though they flew erratically and aligned themselves with the sun's light relative to the sniper. They descended carrying nothing more than juice-spattered rope, or in the case of one memorable shot, a severed fragment of twine where Arahaya's bullet had caught the rope, and the fruit momentarily thereafter as it fell through the air.
Sniper rifles have been designed and distributed, allowing lizardmen sharpshooters to deal death at long ranges.
Monument Cannons (1 3rd Spawning slann, 25 5th Spawning slann)
Moving Bunkers (3 4th Spawning slann, 10 5th Spawning slann)
The memory of Skarstuf's aircraft and superheavy tanks bombarding them with little to no available recourse was one that had stuck prominently in the minds of the lizardmen's skink engineers. A certain focus had been implanted in their minds by the sight of their spawn-kin being crushed under treads that were wider than they were tall, blasted to pieces by whistling bombs. They returned to their cities with fire in their eyes, and mustered cohorts of their fellows to labor at the will of the slann.
Their conception of a portable bunker came into being first. The overall concept was a simplistic one, easily implemented and held back only by minor complications. It was a squat black construct of thick walls and sloped angles, ringed by thin slot-like windows that the crew within could shoot out of. The primary complication was in the wheels, for many prototypes displayed a tendency for their axles to deform under the stress of terrain that was not perfectly level, or to simply become stuck in soft ground. This was eventually solved by affixing rows of wider wheels to opposing sides of the building and encasing each row in a tread fashioned from rubber and bronze. They rapidly earned the name Ayotlbotl, or Turtle Bunkers, for their implacable movement and solid protection.
While they remained slow-paced even with this innovation, the utility of these primitive vehicles was self-evident. Their walls were sturdy enough to withstand significant levels of force, their angles sloped so as to deflect incoming ammunition. They were large enough to house a small squad of saurus, or a significantly larger one of skinks, inside them, combined with a large supply of guns to make the lives of any foe nearby them miserable. More importantly, they were mobile - even though they required a team of Stegadons to move at more than a glacial pace, the tactical implications of having moveable fortification structures was anticipated to be a great boon in the battles ahead. They were also remarkably simple to assemble, to the point that several elder kroxigors determined it to be more efficient over long distances to take the structures apart for transport and simply rebuild them wherever there was battle to be had.
There was one other major utility that the Ayotlbotl provided - namely, a useful place to mount Monument Cannons. The second design spawned from the vengeful minds of the skink engineers, Monument Cannons superficially resembled the new rifles that the lizardmen war-hosts now wielded, but on a far larger scale. Snarling faces adorned the barrel in gold, with sparkling gems for eyes. The base, besides housing a seat and set of controls for a skink to sit in and fire from, featured a wide array of telescoping lenses and etched formulae both magical and mundane to aid in calculating aim. The body and barrel combined were the height of a kroxigor, and it often fell to one of the quiet gargantuans to push the cannons, mounted upon wheeled bases, into place.
Once affixed in advantageous positions, the cannons would sweep their barrels back and forth across the sky, their skink operators peering through lenses and scopes to locate their targets. Once they had spotted an offending aircraft, the magic embedded in the gems and glyphs adorning them would activate, spooling out a simplistic tracking spell that lashed itself to its target.
They fired great spears of obsinite nearly the length of a skink's torso, which had been prepared beforehand with hairline fractures held together by a specifically-crafted enchantment. These spikes would soar unerringly towards their targets, their vector and trajectories altered by the tracking spell, and then shatter into many smaller, razor-sharp fragments just before they impacted. Thus the cannons fired slower than the rifles now rolling out of the forge districts, but every shot was virtually guaranteed a kill.
In most cases, these edifices would be mounted on wheeled platforms and dragged around the battlefield as needed. However, mounting the Monument Cannons atop the Ayotlbotl bunkers both gave them a vantage point to target enemy aircraft with greater ease and let them fire at targets on the ground with relative impunity. Given that a single shot from one of them was capable of carving a considerable trench in the ground, this would allow for a great deal of damage to be dealt should their anti-air capabilities not be needed.
Monument Cannons and Turtle Bunkers manufactured! Monument Cannons are effectively WWII-equivalent anti-air batteries, slower firing than flak cannons but more likely to down enemy aircraft with each individual shot. Turtle Bunkers are, as the name implies, solid defensive structures that can move slowly on a tactical scale, allowing lizardmen units within to fire freely without fear of counterfire.
Omen-class Mortar (12 3rd Spawning slann, 20 4th Spawning slann, 50 5th Spawning slann)
The Omen Mortar was a construct dredged from the inscrutable imaginations of the slann, many of whom had seen the storm of fire and metal that the orks had unleashed upon them with their artillery and found inspiration in that destruction. Their scattered thoughts called to each other upon their return to their temples, swirling from mind to mind in luminous vortexes of ideas, drawing more slann from their own meditations. Several elders of the third generation were enticed by the novelty of their discussions, and contributed greatly to drawing the mass of theories together into a cohesive whole.
Their thoughts bore fruit quickly, becoming schematics, then prototypes, then fully-fledged designs. The slann stacked stone on stone, weaving spells into the joins and seams of their construct as they went. They folded Azyr upon itself until it became a crackling blue liquid and applied a thin coating to certain surfaces, providing a framework for future use. A stepped pyramid took form, formed from mundane stone but emblazoned with sigils of gold and consoles of obsinite studded with gems. It stood as tall as a Saurus, and in its center was a square channel running from peak to base, the insides of which had been coated with enchanted bronze so as to be perfectly smooth. It was here that the Omen's ammunition was loaded, a 2-meter long rectangle of obsinite as thick as the forearm of a Saurus.
There was no ignition or anything that could be described as a firing sequence in the Omen's operation. Instead a series of coordinates were input to the device via its various controls, which ranged from manipulatable holographic displays to simple sequences of glyphs to push. In a pinch, one could even take soil or rock from the target location and simply place it in the ammunition chamber, allowing the device's homing spells to do the work. The ammunition was then inserted, often having been imbued with some form of explosive spell that was primed to detonate upon impact.
Once both coordinates and obelisk were placed, the device would draw upon stores of magical energy, either contained within specially charged crystals or provided by a mage, and impart a great amount of momentum to the ammunition once enough had been accumulated. In all trials, it lifted off without a trace of sound, rocketing swiftly into the sky. Winds would carry it on an unpredictable course, drawn by the corona of blue magic encircling it, before bearing it on a swift and final downwards trajectory towards its target. It was thus possible to target destinations beyond the sight range of even the most keen-eyed Terradon rider, with the precise and overbearing application of force that characterized lizardmen spellwork.
Omen-class Mortars created! They take the form of a 3 meter-high pyramid of stone that fires rectangular blocks of obsinite into the sky with the use of magic. It is incredibly precise, able to magically guide these projectiles down upon its targets from miles away, where they detonate in bursts of arcane force. If operated by a skink priest of Azyr, each shot may be guided on the fly, allowing them to shell individual enemies with merciless precision.
Geomantic Enchantments (5 4th Spawning slann)
In many ways, the process of re-tuning the manifold enchantments laid upon lizardmen equipment to draw their power from the Geomantic Web rather than from pre-filled charges contained in resonant crystals and sigils was one of simplicity. The Web was a vast network of constantly-moving processes that, if used correctly, would deliver exactly the amount of energy that was requested, without needing to be forcibly reshaped and filtered as the untamed Warp did. It was a trivial task for the cabal of slann gathered by Uu'buntu of the Fourth Spawning to design a variety of sub-sapient, semi-aware spells that monitored the power draw of the active effects exerted by each piece of equipment and tapped the Web for additional energy when it was needed.
What was far more complex was ensuring that power was allocated as swiftly and efficiently as possible between many thousands of requests, without drawing so harshly on the Web at any one time that the network's capacity was overloaded. Uu'buntu and his brethren spent years of study developing an intricate algorithm to intake the manifold signals that the lizardmen enchantments would generate and organize them into something usable by the wider network. The slann assigned certain pieces such as Arcane Engines and all slann-operated equipment priority status, assuring that they would be supplied so long as there was power, and constructed a hierarchy for everything else, from the largest of Glyph Bombs to the smallest of charms and talismans.
The power of the deep earth flowed into the lizardmen's armaments as the slann completed their work, the transfer of magic expressing itself as a deep, bone-rattling hum that was felt more than heard. Sigils shone brighter, gold and bronze gleamed with a light of their own, and the cold grip of physical law was peeled back just an inch more.
The changes were small things on their own. But like many small stones could build a tall pyramid, so too did these enhancements pool together into something greater. The firing rate of all the newly-designed rifles and cannons increased, the spells that reloaded spent shells and generated the force to eject each shot working faster. Each round hit harder as their sharpened edges cut through the air just a bit more effectively, mirroring the similarly increased killing power of melee weapons channeling this power. Friction and momentum and force were tweaked by the Web's power, allowing each shot to travel further, each impact of blade and bullet to bite deeper into enemy flesh.
For matters of importance, more power could be allocated. Sniper shots could be set to explode into flame upon impact, Omen shells charged with more magic, Glyph Spheres and Bombs recharged without delay, allowing them to be used again and again. The gentle hum of Umbrella Shields grew stronger, surer, as power enough was pumped into them that they could take many times as much punishment before shutting down. Indeed, within the area of the Web's effect, more Arcane Engines and other power-hungry artifacts could be deployed, the usual rationing of magical energy no longer a concern. The myriad static defenses surrounding each temple-city were updated to account for this, the arrays of traps and ambush sites enhanced with more overtly magical effects.
In a million small ways the strength of the lizardmen defending their cities was thus bolstered. The myriad amulets and sigils bearing the marks of the Old Ones channeled more power, reinforcing their flesh and armor both with Ghyran's vitality and Tzunki's strength. Wheels turned faster, small mechanisms resisted jamming, dirt and debris shook itself off of equipment seemingly without prompting. They could bring their full force to bear when on the defensive now, the deep magic of the Web sustaining their own until whatever enemy came was crushed and beaten.
Geomantic Enchantments designed, allowing for the myriad spells and spell-like effects that enhance the lizardmen military to constantly run at full capacity by drawing on the Geomantic Web. While this does not itself grant any new spells or capabilities, it does allow for those already existing to be used with much greater force so long as the Web's power holds out, effectively increasing combat ability within the Web significantly.
Aqshy Priests (5 3rd Spawning slann, 5 4th Spawning slann)
As the concentration of the wind of fire built in the spawning chasms, the pools themselves reacted to its presence. The water became agitated, bubbles rising from the bottom with motes of light dancing inside them. They burst upon reaching the surface, releasing small clouds of embers that floated erratically above the pools. The water's surface reached out to them, extending shapes that flickered like tongues of fire to envelop each glowing spark in turn. With each mote swallowed, the pools glowed brighter - first yellow, then orange, then a deep, blazing red. They churned frantically, their surface looking like a raging bonfire. The water was so hot that parts of it gave off steam, mixed in places with grey smoke, though there was nothing being burned. The cavern filled with this smog, great clouds of it rolling out of the entrance.
As the energy of the spawning reached its peak, the pools abruptly ceased all movement, and the surface of them was wrapped in a layer of languid blue-white flame. This fire drew itself towards the edge of the pool as something climbed out of it, cloaking it in a mantle of heat that it drank deeply of with its first breath.
The newborn priest of Aqshy was strong of body, clad in thick red scales that gleamed with a light of their own. Its proud crest was a brilliant orange, as were its eyes, which glittered like gems. Tongues of flame could be seen dancing in the back of its throat, and the air around it shimmered with heat. With a gesture, it marshalled the clouds of smoke enveloping the cavern, drawing it in great gusts to the space between its hands until the air was clear, solidifying the smoke into a glossy black orb. Tossing it into its mouth and thoughtfully chewing, the priest set off on a steady walk, heeding the call of the slann it could already feel in its mind.
Aqshy skink priests gained! Besides their obvious ability to manipulate fire in a manifold number of ways, they are also useful for their capability of manipulating the emotional states of other beings, whether that be provoking enemies into foolish decisions, bolstering the fighting spirit of their own allies, or preventing their allies from being overcome by the rage of battle.
Thunder from Stone (1 3rd Spawning slann, 5 4th Spawning slann)
A rainstorm washed over Itza, sheets of water washing over the city, fat droplets drumming against the stones of the First City. Water ran from flat rooftops, coursed off of broad streets into side gutters as the hidden energies of the city hummed invisibly, preventing cumbersome puddles from forming and impeding workflow. Indeed, Itza's streets bustled with activity, cohorts of all breeds filing to and from their manifold tasks in a rhythm that seemed from the outside like a chaotic hubbub, but was actually a smoothly executed symphony of movement. There was not one kroxigor cut off from their work crew, not one skink trod upon, only the clatter of rain against scales, washing away the day's grime.
The city's forging districts continued to blaze, the molten pillars in the center of each complex heating the walls to such an extent that the rain turned to steam as it battered against the stones. Inside and out, the complexes were swathed with warm mist, the ringing of great hammers and the whine of magical arrays priming themselves echoing through the murk.
Xe'mento moved through the fog like the silhouette of a great island drifting through the sea. He carried a great slab of obsinite in his arms, bearing its immense weight with little effort. He set it down upon a stone workbench arrayed with a variety of other tools and ingredients – hammers and chisels, vials of dark sand that sparkled with the promise of flame, hollow tubes of bronze and intricately carved wafers of gold.
Xe'mento broke the black stone into pieces with his hands, using chisels where additional precision was required. Displaying great dexterity, the blessed kroxigor coaxed the proper shapes out of each piece of obsinite, softening it in the Chamon-suffused magmatic pillar before removing unneeded material with his hardened claws.
Xe'mento's creation took form quickly, moving from an array of components to a recognizable silhouette in scarcely an hour. It was a brutish, simplistic design with little ornamentation - a rectangular obstinate body, sinuously stretching out to a long, thin barrel in the front, with a semicircular stock and handle upon the rear edge of the weapon.
A series of blades were hidden within this portion of the weapon so that it could be used as a makeshift macahuitl should the need arise. The main body of the gun was engraved with totemic images of saurus killing their foes in manifold ways, which served as pictorial instructions for its use. Gold filigree was laid into the barrel, forming a series of inscriptions invoking the principles of Xhotl, to increase the ease of aiming, Tzunki, to allow for fluidity of motion in the weapon and its wielder, and Tlanxla, to increase overall performance. The end of the barrel was carved to resemble the maw of a snake in order to draw Sotek's attention with every shot.
Xe'mento stepped back from his work and grunted wordlessly. Another, smaller, shape approached through the fog - a Saurus that had climbed out of its spawning pool less than an hour ago, so young that its cohort leader had not even assigned it a name. Its presence had been demanded by Xe'mento's masters, to prove whether their design was sufficiently intuitive for even the youngest of their kind. It had been told nothing except that it was to test a new variety of weapon.
The Saurus looked to Xe'mento for direction. The blessed kroxigor waved a gnarled hand toward his creation in response. "Examine," he rumbled. "Use."
The Saurus rasped a word, its first vocalization beyond growls of acknowledgement. "Target?"
Xe'mento's hand pointed towards the glowing line of the lava pillar. "Will not be damaged."
The Saurus nodded, and stepped forth to examine the rifle. Its eyes darted over the pictograms on its surface, drinking in the information therein. It picked the weapon up, instinctively bracing the stock against its shoulder and assuming a steady stance. The barrel tracked back and forth as the Saurus experimentally aimed at various surfaces, modulating its breathing to minimize wavering.
Within a minute it was satisfied, and picked up a slim, rectangular block of obsinite a little larger than Xe'mento's hand. With motions that seemed almost practiced, it pushed a handle on the upper section of the gun back to reveal a slot with the same dimensions as the stone block, pushed the ammunition block in, closed the window back up, and clicked a switch to arm the gun. With a smooth turn, it swung the barrel towards the lava pillar at the center of the workshop, set the stock securely against its shoulder, exhaled, and pulled the trigger.
Within the gun, the pre-installed mechanisms in the firing mechanisms sprung to life. The ammunition block had already had a small section fractured off, subjected to a simple application of Chamon magic that chiselled it away from the main body and shaped it into an elongated spike, converting the residual matter to tightly packed dust. Now the bronze interior of the barrel suffused itself with Aqshy, igniting the tightly packed particulate and forcing the bullet down the metal tube with immense force, aided by the friction-reducing enchantments worked into it. The bullet rocketed out of the barrel at supersonic speeds, shaped to cut through the air with minimal resistance, and impacted into the incandescent pillar with a great echoing boom.
It was followed by many others, the interior mechanism of the gun manufacturing the next bullet as soon as the previous one was fired. The Saurus quickly adopted a staccato rhythm, firing tightly-packed clusters of rounds in close to one another before readjusting to account for the weapon's recoil. It was not long before the ammunition block was exhausted and the gun clicked empty - upon hearing this, the Saurus scooped up another block from the workbench with one hand while reopening the loading window with the other. It completed the reloading process in the space of a few seconds, then unloaded a few more rounds, growing visibly more accurate as it continued to fire.
When the gun clicked empty once more, the Saurus set it down upon the workbench and looked to Xe'mento for further instructions. The kroxigor rumbled in approval, his Chotec-orange scales almost seeming to glow in the forge-light. "Stay," he rasped. "Further testing required."
Automatic rifles acquired! There are varieties sized for Skinks, Saurus, and Kroxigor, with the Saurus variant firing bullets roughly equivalent to .50 caliber, and the Skink and Kroxigor variants sized down or up respectively.
Blowpipe Mk II (1 3rd Spawning slann, 5 4th Spawning slann)
A procession of sorts had been set up to test the functionality of the newest tool of the Chameleon Skinks. Outside of the walls of Chalkaro, a series of wooden scaffolds of various heights stood, bearing painted squares of stone, some as large as a Saurus, some smaller than a Skink's head. A number of Cold One riders had been given cloth banners with targets painted on them and instructed to maneuver around in erratic patterns, and in the skies, several Terradons carried spherical fruit from ropes as they ducked and twirled through the air.
Standing upon the peak of a temple of Huanchi a few hundred meters away from the city walls was Arahaya, a Chameleon skink recalled from the fifth year of their circuitous patrol around the city to ensure that the newest creation of the slann would be suitable for their kindred. They had never seen the weapon before, nor had they observed the field of targets before arriving.
The voice of Tecciztec, the elder slann overseeing this experiment, boomed in the assassin's mind to signal the start of the test, and they turned to look upon their instrument. It superficially resembled the bolt-action rifles they were already familiar with, but was somewhat elongated, with a barrel longer than Arahaya was tall and ringed by a spiraling matrix of gold. Adjustable supports were affixed to its body to account for its length, and there was a selection of eight differently-colored glass lenses to peer through, each of which would highlight different things in the sniper's vision.
Hefting the gun with relative ease thanks to its weight reduction enchantments, Arahaya checked that it was loaded and readied it for firing, the motions relatively intuitive for them. They peered through the various lenses at the array of targets that had been laid out for them. Fault lines and body temperature, the luminescence of thought and soft amethyst of dying things were all illuminated by differing combinations of glass lenses. For this task, however, there were no esoteric protections to circumvent or account for - only elevation, distance, momentum, the speed and direction of the wind. Mundane obstructions, easily intuited by the basal cognition processes of a lizardman.
One after another, each target was struck by an expertly aimed shot. The barrel of the rifle had been fitted with spells that enhanced and multiplied the velocity of each of its shots, allowing for its increased range without increasing its recoil to inoperable degrees. Its internal mechanisms loaded a new shot as each one was fired, eliminating crucial seconds and allowing for more razor-sharp bullets to slice through the air and find their kills.
The center of each cloth banner was pierced, though they fluttered and waved in the breeze and their holders waved them in unpredictable patterns. Each stone slab fell to the ground in pieces, followed swiftly by the towers that had held them aloft, as Arahaya identified and shot their exposed support beams to splinters. Even the fruit-carrying Terradons did not escape their unerring aim, though they flew erratically and aligned themselves with the sun's light relative to the sniper. They descended carrying nothing more than juice-spattered rope, or in the case of one memorable shot, a severed fragment of twine where Arahaya's bullet had caught the rope, and the fruit momentarily thereafter as it fell through the air.
Sniper rifles have been designed and distributed, allowing lizardmen sharpshooters to deal death at long ranges.
Monument Cannons (1 3rd Spawning slann, 25 5th Spawning slann)
Moving Bunkers (3 4th Spawning slann, 10 5th Spawning slann)
The memory of Skarstuf's aircraft and superheavy tanks bombarding them with little to no available recourse was one that had stuck prominently in the minds of the lizardmen's skink engineers. A certain focus had been implanted in their minds by the sight of their spawn-kin being crushed under treads that were wider than they were tall, blasted to pieces by whistling bombs. They returned to their cities with fire in their eyes, and mustered cohorts of their fellows to labor at the will of the slann.
Their conception of a portable bunker came into being first. The overall concept was a simplistic one, easily implemented and held back only by minor complications. It was a squat black construct of thick walls and sloped angles, ringed by thin slot-like windows that the crew within could shoot out of. The primary complication was in the wheels, for many prototypes displayed a tendency for their axles to deform under the stress of terrain that was not perfectly level, or to simply become stuck in soft ground. This was eventually solved by affixing rows of wider wheels to opposing sides of the building and encasing each row in a tread fashioned from rubber and bronze. They rapidly earned the name Ayotlbotl, or Turtle Bunkers, for their implacable movement and solid protection.
While they remained slow-paced even with this innovation, the utility of these primitive vehicles was self-evident. Their walls were sturdy enough to withstand significant levels of force, their angles sloped so as to deflect incoming ammunition. They were large enough to house a small squad of saurus, or a significantly larger one of skinks, inside them, combined with a large supply of guns to make the lives of any foe nearby them miserable. More importantly, they were mobile - even though they required a team of Stegadons to move at more than a glacial pace, the tactical implications of having moveable fortification structures was anticipated to be a great boon in the battles ahead. They were also remarkably simple to assemble, to the point that several elder kroxigors determined it to be more efficient over long distances to take the structures apart for transport and simply rebuild them wherever there was battle to be had.
There was one other major utility that the Ayotlbotl provided - namely, a useful place to mount Monument Cannons. The second design spawned from the vengeful minds of the skink engineers, Monument Cannons superficially resembled the new rifles that the lizardmen war-hosts now wielded, but on a far larger scale. Snarling faces adorned the barrel in gold, with sparkling gems for eyes. The base, besides housing a seat and set of controls for a skink to sit in and fire from, featured a wide array of telescoping lenses and etched formulae both magical and mundane to aid in calculating aim. The body and barrel combined were the height of a kroxigor, and it often fell to one of the quiet gargantuans to push the cannons, mounted upon wheeled bases, into place.
Once affixed in advantageous positions, the cannons would sweep their barrels back and forth across the sky, their skink operators peering through lenses and scopes to locate their targets. Once they had spotted an offending aircraft, the magic embedded in the gems and glyphs adorning them would activate, spooling out a simplistic tracking spell that lashed itself to its target.
They fired great spears of obsinite nearly the length of a skink's torso, which had been prepared beforehand with hairline fractures held together by a specifically-crafted enchantment. These spikes would soar unerringly towards their targets, their vector and trajectories altered by the tracking spell, and then shatter into many smaller, razor-sharp fragments just before they impacted. Thus the cannons fired slower than the rifles now rolling out of the forge districts, but every shot was virtually guaranteed a kill.
In most cases, these edifices would be mounted on wheeled platforms and dragged around the battlefield as needed. However, mounting the Monument Cannons atop the Ayotlbotl bunkers both gave them a vantage point to target enemy aircraft with greater ease and let them fire at targets on the ground with relative impunity. Given that a single shot from one of them was capable of carving a considerable trench in the ground, this would allow for a great deal of damage to be dealt should their anti-air capabilities not be needed.
Monument Cannons and Turtle Bunkers manufactured! Monument Cannons are effectively WWII-equivalent anti-air batteries, slower firing than flak cannons but more likely to down enemy aircraft with each individual shot. Turtle Bunkers are, as the name implies, solid defensive structures that can move slowly on a tactical scale, allowing lizardmen units within to fire freely without fear of counterfire.
Omen-class Mortar (12 3rd Spawning slann, 20 4th Spawning slann, 50 5th Spawning slann)
The Omen Mortar was a construct dredged from the inscrutable imaginations of the slann, many of whom had seen the storm of fire and metal that the orks had unleashed upon them with their artillery and found inspiration in that destruction. Their scattered thoughts called to each other upon their return to their temples, swirling from mind to mind in luminous vortexes of ideas, drawing more slann from their own meditations. Several elders of the third generation were enticed by the novelty of their discussions, and contributed greatly to drawing the mass of theories together into a cohesive whole.
Their thoughts bore fruit quickly, becoming schematics, then prototypes, then fully-fledged designs. The slann stacked stone on stone, weaving spells into the joins and seams of their construct as they went. They folded Azyr upon itself until it became a crackling blue liquid and applied a thin coating to certain surfaces, providing a framework for future use. A stepped pyramid took form, formed from mundane stone but emblazoned with sigils of gold and consoles of obsinite studded with gems. It stood as tall as a Saurus, and in its center was a square channel running from peak to base, the insides of which had been coated with enchanted bronze so as to be perfectly smooth. It was here that the Omen's ammunition was loaded, a 2-meter long rectangle of obsinite as thick as the forearm of a Saurus.
There was no ignition or anything that could be described as a firing sequence in the Omen's operation. Instead a series of coordinates were input to the device via its various controls, which ranged from manipulatable holographic displays to simple sequences of glyphs to push. In a pinch, one could even take soil or rock from the target location and simply place it in the ammunition chamber, allowing the device's homing spells to do the work. The ammunition was then inserted, often having been imbued with some form of explosive spell that was primed to detonate upon impact.
Once both coordinates and obelisk were placed, the device would draw upon stores of magical energy, either contained within specially charged crystals or provided by a mage, and impart a great amount of momentum to the ammunition once enough had been accumulated. In all trials, it lifted off without a trace of sound, rocketing swiftly into the sky. Winds would carry it on an unpredictable course, drawn by the corona of blue magic encircling it, before bearing it on a swift and final downwards trajectory towards its target. It was thus possible to target destinations beyond the sight range of even the most keen-eyed Terradon rider, with the precise and overbearing application of force that characterized lizardmen spellwork.
Omen-class Mortars created! They take the form of a 3 meter-high pyramid of stone that fires rectangular blocks of obsinite into the sky with the use of magic. It is incredibly precise, able to magically guide these projectiles down upon its targets from miles away, where they detonate in bursts of arcane force. If operated by a skink priest of Azyr, each shot may be guided on the fly, allowing them to shell individual enemies with merciless precision.
Geomantic Enchantments (5 4th Spawning slann)
In many ways, the process of re-tuning the manifold enchantments laid upon lizardmen equipment to draw their power from the Geomantic Web rather than from pre-filled charges contained in resonant crystals and sigils was one of simplicity. The Web was a vast network of constantly-moving processes that, if used correctly, would deliver exactly the amount of energy that was requested, without needing to be forcibly reshaped and filtered as the untamed Warp did. It was a trivial task for the cabal of slann gathered by Uu'buntu of the Fourth Spawning to design a variety of sub-sapient, semi-aware spells that monitored the power draw of the active effects exerted by each piece of equipment and tapped the Web for additional energy when it was needed.
What was far more complex was ensuring that power was allocated as swiftly and efficiently as possible between many thousands of requests, without drawing so harshly on the Web at any one time that the network's capacity was overloaded. Uu'buntu and his brethren spent years of study developing an intricate algorithm to intake the manifold signals that the lizardmen enchantments would generate and organize them into something usable by the wider network. The slann assigned certain pieces such as Arcane Engines and all slann-operated equipment priority status, assuring that they would be supplied so long as there was power, and constructed a hierarchy for everything else, from the largest of Glyph Bombs to the smallest of charms and talismans.
The power of the deep earth flowed into the lizardmen's armaments as the slann completed their work, the transfer of magic expressing itself as a deep, bone-rattling hum that was felt more than heard. Sigils shone brighter, gold and bronze gleamed with a light of their own, and the cold grip of physical law was peeled back just an inch more.
The changes were small things on their own. But like many small stones could build a tall pyramid, so too did these enhancements pool together into something greater. The firing rate of all the newly-designed rifles and cannons increased, the spells that reloaded spent shells and generated the force to eject each shot working faster. Each round hit harder as their sharpened edges cut through the air just a bit more effectively, mirroring the similarly increased killing power of melee weapons channeling this power. Friction and momentum and force were tweaked by the Web's power, allowing each shot to travel further, each impact of blade and bullet to bite deeper into enemy flesh.
For matters of importance, more power could be allocated. Sniper shots could be set to explode into flame upon impact, Omen shells charged with more magic, Glyph Spheres and Bombs recharged without delay, allowing them to be used again and again. The gentle hum of Umbrella Shields grew stronger, surer, as power enough was pumped into them that they could take many times as much punishment before shutting down. Indeed, within the area of the Web's effect, more Arcane Engines and other power-hungry artifacts could be deployed, the usual rationing of magical energy no longer a concern. The myriad static defenses surrounding each temple-city were updated to account for this, the arrays of traps and ambush sites enhanced with more overtly magical effects.
In a million small ways the strength of the lizardmen defending their cities was thus bolstered. The myriad amulets and sigils bearing the marks of the Old Ones channeled more power, reinforcing their flesh and armor both with Ghyran's vitality and Tzunki's strength. Wheels turned faster, small mechanisms resisted jamming, dirt and debris shook itself off of equipment seemingly without prompting. They could bring their full force to bear when on the defensive now, the deep magic of the Web sustaining their own until whatever enemy came was crushed and beaten.
Geomantic Enchantments designed, allowing for the myriad spells and spell-like effects that enhance the lizardmen military to constantly run at full capacity by drawing on the Geomantic Web. While this does not itself grant any new spells or capabilities, it does allow for those already existing to be used with much greater force so long as the Web's power holds out, effectively increasing combat ability within the Web significantly.
Aqshy Priests (5 3rd Spawning slann, 5 4th Spawning slann)
As the concentration of the wind of fire built in the spawning chasms, the pools themselves reacted to its presence. The water became agitated, bubbles rising from the bottom with motes of light dancing inside them. They burst upon reaching the surface, releasing small clouds of embers that floated erratically above the pools. The water's surface reached out to them, extending shapes that flickered like tongues of fire to envelop each glowing spark in turn. With each mote swallowed, the pools glowed brighter - first yellow, then orange, then a deep, blazing red. They churned frantically, their surface looking like a raging bonfire. The water was so hot that parts of it gave off steam, mixed in places with grey smoke, though there was nothing being burned. The cavern filled with this smog, great clouds of it rolling out of the entrance.
As the energy of the spawning reached its peak, the pools abruptly ceased all movement, and the surface of them was wrapped in a layer of languid blue-white flame. This fire drew itself towards the edge of the pool as something climbed out of it, cloaking it in a mantle of heat that it drank deeply of with its first breath.
The newborn priest of Aqshy was strong of body, clad in thick red scales that gleamed with a light of their own. Its proud crest was a brilliant orange, as were its eyes, which glittered like gems. Tongues of flame could be seen dancing in the back of its throat, and the air around it shimmered with heat. With a gesture, it marshalled the clouds of smoke enveloping the cavern, drawing it in great gusts to the space between its hands until the air was clear, solidifying the smoke into a glossy black orb. Tossing it into its mouth and thoughtfully chewing, the priest set off on a steady walk, heeding the call of the slann it could already feel in its mind.
Aqshy skink priests gained! Besides their obvious ability to manipulate fire in a manifold number of ways, they are also useful for their capability of manipulating the emotional states of other beings, whether that be provoking enemies into foolish decisions, bolstering the fighting spirit of their own allies, or preventing their allies from being overcome by the rage of battle.
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