Chapter 539 (2/2)
Randidly selected yes.
He had thought a lot in the past few days whether it was really worth it to spend a Skill slot on a drone making Skill when he might need them in the future. Two small things and one big thing made clicking yes easy. First, it was a general Skill, and he might find other applications of its use. Second, it was often worth it to save things up for lean times, but Randidly suspected momentum and PP now was more valuable than learning some Skill at some future date, and Randidly still had several more Skill slots.
Finally… Randidly loved it. The feeling of metal, the strange tinkering workshop where he now found himself, the creation of something autonomous from himself… it was like a strange, more organic form of the Soul Seed. And Randidly was a bit shocked to find himself thinking that this was a more organic process, but it wasn’t about the outcome that was organic. It was just that when he created a drone, he could lose himself in the wonder of the work, and felt accomplished when he was done.
When he made a Soul Seed… Randidly wasn’t sure how, but it felt hollow. Like it was more the System’s work than his own. But he supposed that humans made other humans in a similar way for centuries. Was it truly just his young male instincts panicking at the first sign of children? Whereas the drones were a more innocuous offspring…
Shaking his head with amusement, Randidly rose and dusted off his most recent attempt at the Porpoise. It was a sturdier thing than Randidly had done in the past. Seeing how his changes affected the weight didn’t dissuade Randidly that he was doing something worth doing, it just gave him a better idea of what the consequences of such changes would be.
Although Randidly maintained the weight in the frame, he had slimmed down the metal components on the insides to keep the weight reasonable. The runic boards inside were thin now, but they still had a decent amount of integrity. The wheels were slightly larger, and positioned farther forward and back, to give the Porpoise a more stable base.
Feeling confident, Randidly took the Porpoise to Henrik.
Henrik hit the thing with two Fireballs, and the thing fizzled to a stop. Randidly blinked; the thinner internal circuits had melted very quickly under the barrage of heat. More than that though, this was the first time Randidly had seen someone use a powerful magic spell since coming into Zone 1.
In his chest, more and more sparks of frustration were coming together.
Then Henrik kicked the Porpoise over. Or at least he tried to. The things’ spread wheels kept its balance through the first two kicks. Henrik blinked. Without a word, he handed Randidly $75 and took the thing away.
Shaking his head ruefully, Randidly returned to his workshop and considered the modifications he had made. And as he did so, he burst out laughing.
“The problem is that I’m trying to adjust the materials while using the same runes as everyone else. That won’t work. They’ve been pushed to their limits. I might make some small improvements, but…” Randidly grinned at the ceiling. Those sparks inside of him had become a conflagration, and he could feel the intensity driving him forward. “Doesn’t that just mean I simply need to invent a new runic language to do what I want?”
Before he let himself get carried around for another week, Randidly returned to his base in the forest, checking in on things there. The flowers that he had empowered had bloomed… perhaps a little TOO largely. They were the size of dinner plates, and a sweet scent wafted from them for about a mile. Luckily the trees covered most of it, but-
Then Randidly frowned. He had planned to head then to the shanty town where his hovel was, and Maude and Jude were staying, but his attention was caught by a group of people in the small farming compound there.
Because he recognized quite a few of them.
Randidly felt a headache brewing. Why had Nathan and company turned up here?
Well… Randidly looked at his arms. At least he could get the illusion touched up.