47
The Armory wasn’t easy to get to.
The hallways were a nightmare as mages traded magical blasts of fire, ice, and other elements. They’d even had to fight a geomancer who was tearing chunks of granite from the walls and throwing them.
Milo had been worried for Selma, but the big golem simply punched her way through the oncoming stone and through the panicked mage himself.
Standing over the ruined body, Selma plucked chunks of flesh from her hair and threw it at the wall. “Yuck.”
Inside the Armory, most of it had been picked clean already.
But Milo was able to find a rifle and a few cartridges. He tucked the cartridges into his satchel. He felt a little less useless as he patted the rifle.
He’d never been into the Armory before. Students weren’t permitted.
So, he was unsure if it was an accurate recreation.
He doubted it would be so easy to enter.
“Milo,” Tania called. “You should wear these.”
He glanced at the padded chest plate and helmet she was carrying. At first he wanted to reject her, but had to admit his fleshy parts were less resilient than her components, so he sighed and held his hand out.
The chest plate was uncomfortable and heavy. It was made to slip over a shirt, but he hadn’t yet found one. He was still only wearing shorts.
The helmet was a little better.
Lighter.
“It’ll protect your bonce,” Selma said, slapping it lightly as he tightened the strap under his chin. “Hopefully you won’t hit it again.”
“Maybe we oughtta get him one for real,” Tania said thoughtfully.
“Good idea, sister,” Selma said.
“Let’s talk about that when we get out of here,” he said. “Right now, I want to see if the Vault is open.”
“The Vault?” Tania’s eyes widened. “Are you thinking of checking out the Leveler?”
“Why not? We’re here.’
They pushed their way back up to where the Dungeon Hall was, finding themselves caught in a firefight between two groups of mages. With no reason to care about either side, Tania and Selma waded in and started killing them all.
Selma took the rebels. Tania took the loyalists.
And Milo hunkered down at the rear.
Until he saw a bolt of mana spear towards Tania’s back. She was quick to react and managed to whip her body out of its path.
But it revealed the location of someone with a rifle.
Milo lifted his own, peering through the scope.
It was an old model, so the scope wasn’t so great. But it still magnified well enough through the smoke.
He saw a glint behind a stacked pile of rubble and guessed that was where the other rifleman was.
Was the glint from a scope?
Milo couldn’t be sure.
Waiting, he saw a shadow shift.
Then, almost clearly, the barrel of a rifle. Aimed at Tania.
Wincing, he lifted his aim to where he hoped the other mage’s head would be. Then the rifleman pulled the trigger. A bolt of mana lit up the rifleman’s face for a split second.
Long enough to confirm Milo’s aim. He pulled his own trigger.
He felt the punch of the weapon ram into his shoulder as the mana blasted across the room to blow the rifleman’s head apart. Red spattered across the wall.
Milo winced.
And reminded himself these weren’t real people.
It was just a scenario.
A game.
Nothing more than that. Still, his stomach roiled as he struggled with the urge to throw up. He’d shot a lot of things in the past. Goblins, ogres, plant creatures. So many things.
But never a proper human.
He wondered if this, too, was part of the test. Could students do what needed to be done, or would they freeze when faced with a human enemy?
Tania was battling against a cryomancer who kept throwing up thick walls of ice to slow her down. While she could kick through them, that took time. Time enough for the cryomancer to scamper back and find better ground.
Or to lift his own rifle and try to put a round through her head as soon as she shattered his wall.
Milo raised his rifle.
Reminded himself yet again that these weren’t real.
And shot the cryomancer through the chest.
He went down, squealing and grabbing at the gushing wound. Then Tania ended him by driving a blade through the back of his skull. She turned her head and blew Milo a kiss.
Which he returned with a smile.
Then he turned to where Selma was smashing an arcanomancer’s body against the wall. “That hurt!” she yelled at him. “That really hurt!”
A pyromancer staggered up behind her, his wand glowing red.
Milo shot him, too.
Selma didn’t notice. But she tossed the arcanomancer aside and whirled, searching for someone else to kill.
But there was no one left.
“This is a bit crazy,” Milo muttered as he stepped into the mess left behind by his golems. “I think we were supposed to pick a side. Not kill them all.”
“We ain’t got time for that racket,” Tania said, skipping up beside him. “It’s easier to knock them all off.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
Tania grabbed his arm. “You know, Milo, a gal loves it when a man listens to her.”
“Listen to me, too!” Selma cried, snatching his other arm. “I wanna be listened to.”
“You got anything to say, sister?” Tania asked.
“Nothing particular.”
He pulled himself out of their grasping hands and moved to the door which led to the Vault.
He tried opening it.
“Locked,” he said. “I guess that was too much to ask for.”
“What now, then?” Selma asked.
Patting his pack, he smiled. “I need some tools. Let’s head to the Tinkers Hall.”
When Milo had been abducted into the Academy, he’d quickly learned of the Tinkers Hall. A place where mages with some mechanical ability worked on simple tasks. Repairing anything from busted mage lights to dwarven doors.
The mage who he’d watch trying to close the Vault door had been a Tinker.
Naturally, he’d wanted to get involved with them.
But, like all the other mages, they’d kicked him out. Their most basic task was refilling mage lights. And, with almost no mana in his body, he was unable to do that. Which made him useless in their eyes even if he did have a clocker’s background.
Heading down to the Tinkers Hall, Milo was reminded of the humiliation he’d felt. And the sense of hopelessness which had driven him back to his cubicle only to be snatched up by Ket who had given him a broom.
Inside the Tinkers Hall, another minor skirmish was taking place.
A half dozen mages were squabbling like children, throwing more insults than magic at each other. Both sides looked mostly spent. There was hardly any mana between them.
They looked tired.
They’d armed themselves with tools from the Hall. Spanners, hammers, and one had a crowbar in two hands.
“Easy pickings,” Tania said with a bright smile. Then she leapt into the room. “First in, first served!”
“Hey!” Selma shot past Milo, desperate to get her own portion.
He just shook his head and turned instead to a nearby workbench. Snatching up a pair of goggles, he slid them over his eyes and adjusted the magnification.
Pulling out the core he’d taken from the pyromancer’s wand, he peered at it through the goggles.
The silicon was scratched. But it was a brittle material, and easily damaged.
That’s why it had been protected by a glass gem-shaped cover.
He studied the silicon carefully. There was nothing interesting to it. It was just a wafer. Like almost every other Machine Core he’d looked at in the Workshop. He knew he wouldn’t find anything different in it here.
Pulling out the pieces of the wand, he checked those.
He quickly found lines of runes scored into the copper slot.
Human runes.
Behind him, someone let out a high-pitched squeal of agony.
He squinted at the runes. “What are you for?”
There seemed to be two sets of runes. One on the left side of the slot. One on the right.
Almost like…
“They’re a loop,” he breathed. “It’s a feedback loop.”
But there was a fundamental belief that Machine Cores couldn’t be recharged by any means known to mages. Spragg had told him as such.
Milo had access to a dwarven recharging method, but mages didn’t.
He doubted this was taking mana from a mage to recharge the core. So, what was it doing? Why was a loop important to the using of a core as a way to increase a mage’s mana?
It wouldn’t be needed at all.
Unless…
He snatched up a hammer as someone else screamed. Eyes narrowing to slits, he brought the hammer smashing down onto the copper sphere at the bottom of the wand’s handle.
He was right. There was a circuit.
But the circuit was interrupted by a crystal buried within the lead.
It didn’t look like something the dwarves would build. It looked instead like something he’d seen before.
The crystal they’d used to test him as a mage.
Milo felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as a thought slithered into his mind. A thought which almost made him throw the wand and start spitting curses.
Instead, he put the wand down and took a deep breath.
“Milo?” Tania had stepped up behind him. “Is everything okay?”
He turned to her. His two golems stood in front of him. Dripping blood.
Selma’s shirt had been torn to shreds. She was now more exposed than not. He tried not to think about it too much, but she made it a challenge as she bounced in front of him.
“You’ve worked hard,” he said.
Both golems blushed.
“We tried,” Selma said, shyly.
“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t say that enough.”
“It’s alright, Milo,” Tania said, reaching out, but not touching him. “We understand.”
That brought a genuine smile to his face. “I know you do.” He still held the hammer in his hand. “And there’s a few things I want to talk about. When this is over. But for now, we’ve got an opportunity.”
“We have?”
“Sure.” He gripped the hammer tighter. “How many mages are in this place, you think?”
“I don’t know.” Tania shrugged, then glanced at Selma, who shrugged back. “A hundred? Two?”
“We’re going to find out,” he said. “We’re going to find out once and for all. It’s magic versus golems. We’ve done alright so far. But against their numbers? Against the strongest they’ve got? Let’s see who’s best.”
“Milo, that ain’t a question,” Tania said calmly. “We’re the bees knees. Right, sister?”
“That’s right.” Selma nodded. “The cat’s whiskers. I think.”
“So, let’s use this place. I don’t want to have any doubts.”
Tania’s eyes glinted brightly. “You want us to waste them all for you, Milo?”
“Yeah.” He squeezed the hammer. “I do.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Tania snatched Selma’s arm and smiled wide. “Come on, sister. Let’s go dancing!”
“I like dancing,” Selma said. “Milo, are you gonna dance with us?”
“Yeah,” he said. He scooped up his rifle and turned to the workbench and the pieces of the wand. “Yeah, I think I will.”
As the golems turned to head back towards the door, Milo brought the hammer down on the little imitation gem which had once taken his dreams from him.
Which had been responsible for every humiliating moment he’d endured.
Scowling, he turned his back on it and began checking his rifle.
“That’s all in the past now,” he murmured. “But I’ll still pay you all back.”