Chapter Twenty-Seven - Carving

I got home, ranted to Mister Couchtop for nearly an hour, then realized that I hadn't set a Save for the evening and did so.

Then I spent two loops trying to perfect my first cantrip.

I'd gotten the path-carving for Leafshed down to a science. It was damned-near exactly what was on that three-dimensional diagram that the guide had for the cantrip, down to a few weird, random wobbles and shifts.

When I cast it on a fresh houseplant the first of the two loops, I got a leaf to fall. On the second, the spell made three snap off and gently tumble away from the plant.

Magic!

It was tiring, it was complicated, it was hard, but dammit, I'd done actual, tangible magic! Not very impressive magic, but it was undeniably magic.

That hype carried me through the next three loops of the night. I did some guitar practice for a solid two hours, spent a loop practicing my French, then spent the last loop of the night doing more research.

This time, I tried to focus on companies that would stand to gain something from the breach. The issue was... there were lots. Any company with a large pool of portal-clearers had a lot to gain since they'd be at the front, charging the city by the hour. That didn't feel like enough, though.

I tried to focus on more material gains next. Maybe someone had something to sell? But the biggest arms manufacturers were all outside of Fortress ENE. We had a few, but they weren't the bigger companies.

That did let me stumble across a company called FortCo. FortCo was currently in the midst of a very public, kind of expensive bidding war with the city.

They'd drawn up a proposal for a third wall. One that would encompass the Outer City, including the area I lived in. The cost was a nice and tidy 4 billion dollars, and at this moment, one of the more prominent mayoral candidates was running on a 'cut the taxes' campaign that called for reducing spending on big, useless projects like a third wall of dubious utility.

Maybe I was too conspiracy-minded, but... yeah, 4 billion was enough to tempt most into maybe putting the city at risk to prove the utility of large walls?

I didn't know, and I didn't find out too much more that was useful.

I Reloaded, repathed Leafshed as carefully as I could, then went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up, did my stretches, ate a light breakfast, then headed out post-shower. Warm shower. The apartment had accepted my upgraded lease agreement which came with three times the hot water allotment and some extra amenities for an added two hundred a month. Expensive, but I didn't care.

Warm showers, baby!

Feeling refreshed, I took the bus over to the Luna Corp HQ, slid in through the back, and arrived on time to see a bit of well-honed chaos going on. "Ah, you're here," Eldur said. "Good. Here, go put this on. If it doesn't fit, let me know."

He tossed me a backpack that I caught out of the air and looked over. "Gear?" I asked.

"The armour is in the locker room. Get fitted with a plate carrier," he replied before jogging past. It was clear that he and the others were in the midst of some prep for the morning's portal, and I was spared from that on account of being the newbie.

At least, I would be as long as I looked busy. So I ran over to the locker rooms and discovered Terry within, getting changed into the Luna Corp standard. She had a large case opened up on a desk nearby. She smiled when I came in. "Oh! Good, help," she said.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"Yup! I need a hand. Oh, get dressed first, it's not for a minute."

I nodded, a little worried, but did as she asked, undressing and redressing in a hurry. The Luna Corp standard wasn't anything too complex. A rather tight shirt made of a breathable material with the company logo on the breast, then cargo pants. And finally boots with steel toes. All of it in blacks and greys. I had my pick of armour off of a rack near the back, but it was mostly different flavours of bulletproof vests and plate carriers.

I picked a lighter vest that would allow some flexibility, and shrugged into a harness with plates and a few pouches.

As for gear, I had a holster for my Myalis Arms Feline9, room for three extra magazines, an IFAK, a pouch with utility gear, and a light backpack with a standard set of tools. Mostly rope and glowsticks and the like.

Armour-wise, other than the plate carrier, there was a standard set of greaves and bracers, both of them made of steel with surprisingly comfortable padding. It was designed to more or less be 'one size-fits-all' but it wasn't so bad.

The armour had been designed with some amount of survivorship bias. Forearms and legs were the areas that were injured the most, and so they were armoured the most. The chest armour was the real important part, because most people could survive a goblin spear to the gut, even if it was deeply unpleasant.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Finally, the helmet. It was a Y-Lach standard army helmet. Metal exterior, painted a dull grey with the Luna Corp moon on the front and an integrated flashlight and integrated noise-cancelling headphones.

I found some nice gloves too, with rubberized knuckle guards. "I'm all ready," I said as I came over to Terry, who seemed ready as well.

"Oh, good!" she said, then she ripped off her own arm.

I paused, staring, before what had happened registered properly. Her arm had a small seam just over the elbow, and she'd twisted that around and removed... everything below the elbow. The inside of the seam was a metal socket, with some connectors that now ran from the socket to her arm.

"Cyberware?" I asked.

"Mhm!" she replied. "Good stuff too! Did you notice it was fake?"

"No, never," I said. I hadn't had a reason to really look, but yeah.

Terry placed her arm down, undid the connections, then opened the case on the table. There was another arm within, this one all chrome and black plastic composites. It wasn't trying to look like a normal arm at all.

"I can never get the connectors on one-handed," she said. "Especially since I'm not a lefty!"

I nodded and came closer. It wasn't too complex. There were three colour-coded wires that needed to be linked back, then the new arm pushed into the socket and with a twist, locked into place. It was surprisingly light.

"Ah," Terry said as she moved her new arm's fingers around. Just three fingers, but two thumbs. The arm also had a large gap in the centre in which a long, serrated blade sat.

"That looks dangerous," I said.

"Oh, it is! It's a lightning rod! The arm has six super capacitors. I can hold enough lightning in this baby to fry a horse."

"Interesting choice of analogies," I said.

"Oh, shoot! I forgot to recharge! Crap, be right back!"

Terry grabbed a cable from the case, then closed it before darting off.

I shook my head and followed at a more sedate pace.

We left nearly an hour later, doing a final gear check in the van on the way over. "This is a simple portal. We'll be fighting frogs, mostly," Eldur said. "And yes, it's a swampy portal, so... sorry in advance, but if all you get out of it is some mud in your boots at the end, then we'll consider it a success."

"Frogs?" I asked.

"Big ones!" Terry said with her arms spread wide.

Eldur chuckled. "Sol, you're on VIP watch. Newbie, you're the VIP."

"Got it," I said in the same breath as Sol.

"Erde, rear-guard with Dharti. Terry and I will take the lead. We'll be on channel 96-B. Set your comms... yep, you've got it newbie, good to see someone paid attention to the instruction manual."

I tried to relax as we pulled up to the site of the portal. It was buried in an underground parking lot just outside of the city, maybe an hour's ride from the HQ. The place already had a squad of Luna Corp E-rankers standing around, and... yeah, I'd been here a few times.

We stepped out, and I looked over my gear. Gun in one holster, a simple tactical knife in the other. Glow sticks in a pouch, coms on, batteries nearly full. Yeah, I was ready.

"Two things," Eldur said. "First, newbie, magic level check. We'll do one now and one right after."

"Okay?"

"Just to confirm your approximate growth rate."

I nodded along. It was a bit late to say no, and the 'test' turned out to be just pressing my hand into a machine very similar to the one Damien had used during the interview, only more compact and a lot more expensive-looking.

"156 - D-01," Eldur said. "Not bad."

Oh, hey, I'd crossed into the D range at last. My potential number had barely budged, but as far as I could tell, that mostly grew over long periods of time, or when near or within a portal. The second number-letter combo was more about magical capacity, and that came from training and using magic.

"Second thing... Dharti, your buffs?"

Dharti nodded. Her gear wasn't too dissimilar to my own, though she had a small skirt over her cargos and knee and elbow pads, as well as a thick collar around her neck that was all white with the ubiquitous rod of asclepius symbol that medics wore. "I'll be casting Nature's Blessing now. Everyone, come close so that I don't waste any more magic than I need. This spell increases your healing speed by a factor of ten. A wound that would take a month to heal will heal in three days. Though there isn't enough magic in this one to last three days, so it's moot. Still, it'll take you a half minute longer to bleed out if you nick an artery or lose a limb, and that's thirty seconds I'll use to chastise you for your idiocy before you pass. Understood? Good, bring your hands in, let's get this over with."

***