Steel Trim
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Engineering, Magic, and Kitsune Ch. 24
🕑 Added 2025-04-08 17:19:46 +0000 UTCThe burst of inspiration carried him through most of the setup work and raw number crunching, even if Yuki sitting there watching him work was a bit of a distraction. Thankfully, he could reuse a bunch of earlier, outdated or scrapped foci for this design. How could he have been so blind? There were already ways inherent in magic where you could easily make a gyroscope. His whole plan to make blinding arrows involved producing arc flashes a set distance above them, after all! Just a little extra work on a telekinetic focus, and he could use it to levitate an object while only using a super simplified gyroscope component to maintain elevation.
He couldn't afford to dedicate something on his gauntlet to controlling the contraption. That would cause inevitable issues in combat. However, he could make some harnesses based on the same technology that controlled the miniature work arm and attach them to his leg under his pants, allowing him to control the device by just shifting his feet while at the same time preventing somebody else from using it.
With a telekinetic—no, a levitation—focus inset in each quarter, it would give it a lot of redundancy if some parts got damaged, too! Two were dedicated to maintaining altitude, and two functioned to modify the position on demand, so the device itself would remain fine even if a lucky shot dislodged one of either. It took significant power to run, though, so appropriately large capacitors were a must. John wagered he'd get five, maybe ten minutes of flight time out of this, but even that would significantly upgrade his capabilities.
Now that he looked at it, though, it looked a bit like he would be flying on an up-armoured table. He wasn't the most aesthetically focused person, but even he knew that would be a bad look. Maybe Yuki looking over his shoulder was making him self-conscious.
Even if this turned out to be a total dud for combat purposes, he could see many applications for a floating platform just around the fort. Now he had a…semi-working prototype, probably. By that, he meant he had two of four planned focuses working and just paired the connections to the arm harness to test it. He toggled both on, put his hand against the surface, twisted his arm a bit, and…
The disc slowly levitated, and he excitedly giggled like an idiot. "Behold! Flight!" John shouted, turning to face Yuki with a wide grin.
He did, however, make a critical mistake. By looking at the kitsune, he shifted his arm again in a movement that looked a lot like "up" and "backward" to the magical device. It shot away, and, in a rather poor choice by John, he tried to grab onto it.
The room spun as he suddenly flew through the air like a dart, slamming into the roof in a way that made his head spin. Invisible force sprung to life to protect him from the impact, but the sudden stop still was rough, and the next thing he knew, he was hurtling head-first toward the ground with a yelp. He knew he'd be fine; his warding had taken far worse. Still, he closed his eyes and loosened up his body.
It was going to sting a bit.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable impact. It never came, and a soft grasp cushioned his fall.
His eyes flicked back open, and Yuki was smiling down at him. "I'll give you a full score for the flight but none for the dismount. I'm sure I can find you a riding tutor, though. Perhaps some horseback lessons would do you some good." A characteristically vulpine laugh cut through the tension, and he glared back at her, though there was no heat to it.
"I'm just practicing for…" he began, trailing off as he tried to find the word for 'diving' but failing. "The swim competition. Besides, if you keep carrying me in your arms like this, people are going to talk." Yuki's grin grew wider yet, and he immediately realized his mistake. "Wait just a minute—"
"You're right. We can't appear improper, now can we?" the kitsune mused, before dropping John onto the floor, straight onto his ass. His warding flared to life, cushioning the blow to the point it was more a dull thump than painful. His ego was bruised more than anything.
John stared up at her, struggling to form a response. She smiled back down at him, a facade of faux innocence. Past her, he saw the flying disc, acting like a child's lost balloon in the rafters rather than a hunk of wood and metal. It was a mercy that it didn't have enough room to properly get going and embed itself into something important.
"...Shush," he finally said. She offered him a hand as he went to stand, but he waved it off. "Thanks for the save, by the way. I might have been a bit sore after that one."
"It was no problem. Are your new projects normally so… energetic?" Yuki asked, glancing up at the still levitating disc.
In retrospect, he should have probably tested it more safely, maybe with the control harness shoved onto a stick, but… Eh. "No," he responded, shaking his head. "I maybe got a bit too overconfident with that one, though. Might have given me a pretty good headache if I hit the ground weirdly, so thanks again."
Yuki didn't respond, her eyes elsewhere, locked onto the disc. Her tails twitched, and her legs curled. Suddenly, she shot into the air like a bird, easily grabbing the edges of the disc. The kitsune awkwardly hung there like a strange fox-shaped chandelier, and John almost asked her what the hell she was doing. "Would it be alright to use a technique now?" she calmly inquired, "I think I can get it down."
He blinked, confused. Still, he glanced back over to the detailing workbench, ensuring what he was working on was covered. "Sure?"
The room was bathed in warmth and curiosity, and even he could tell it was hyper-focused on the disc and what he got was just the overflow, like being in the penumbra of an eclipse. It was heady. Almost comforting for reasons beyond him. Soon, the disc started to dip, and Yuki slowly drifted down like a leaf on the breeze, much to his absolute bafflement. "There!" she exclaimed once she was on the ground, cutting off her magic and yanking it down the rest of the way to put it at about waist level for John.
"How did you even do that?" he asked, morbidly curious.
She shrugged. "It's simple enough when you know how. The focuses emanate a magical effect, albeit a very short-range one. All it took was for me to completely flood the area with a competing effect using the same type of energies until it was too 'crowded' for them to do the job properly."
…She casually demonstrated signal jamming via saturation but with magic. Holy shit, does that mean that strong enough combatants could perform area saturation attacks by just doing useless operations, denying others their abilities? Could he do that with big enough capacitors? He was aware that there was a disrupting effect with multiple magics of the same or similar types, of course, but he assumed it would never be practical—
He can go over all the dizzying possibilities later.
John grabbed the disc, quickly maneuvering it over to a table—carefully—before deactivating it and letting the rogue vehicle fall dead. He already had a few ideas on how to fix that issue. First was brakes for when it's no longer being controlled to make it hover in place rather than keep going, with the levitation focuses decreasing in power until they turn off. Heaven knows how long it would have taken him to find it if it shot off into the woods. He would add a locator, too, but who knows whether someone would find a way to turn that against him.
He made a few quick notes but could already tell he wouldn't make much progress tonight; he was pretty mathed out already.
John sighed; he might as well just get back to this later. It wasn't as if the disc was going anywhere… now it wasn't, at least. Still, flight! The thought was almost intoxicating. How could the secret have been right in front of him for all these years without realizing it? Sure, it'd be heavily limited by battery life and ill-suited for long trips, but it was quite a step.
He planned to make an ATV at one point, but his inability to make good suspension and tires stopped that in its tracks. Maybe he could solve that problem in a similar way?
Wait. He was daydreaming again.
"I think it's about time to take a break," John stated, stretching to get a kink out of his back that previously went unnoticed. "We should probably check on Rin, too. Maybe question her about how she came to target us?" The 'and make sure she wasn't breaking down the walls with her thick skull' went unsaid.
John didn't hate her as much as one might expect, but wow, what he had seen of her so far painted a blisteringly bad picture.
"That's fair," Yuki responded with a shrug. "I haven't heard any shouts or anything breaking, so everything should be fine."
Reassuring.
One of the kitsune's ears flicked, and a mischievous smile crossed the kitsune's face. "There has been a lot of grunting, though," she casually added.
…Surely, Yuki wasn't implying what he thought she was implying. Dread wormed its way into his gut, and he dreaded what he would open the door to find. He stared at said barrier as if asking it to reveal its secrets, but not in a way that would make him think less of everyone involved.
Yuki strode past him to it, eyes glinting as she grabbed the handle. She was just joking, right?
She flung it open, and he sucked a breath in deep, almost averting his eyes but finding himself unable. He beheld… huh. Aiki was nowhere to be seen, but Haru stood between a large pile of pulled weeds and his cart, which had been filled to the brim with rocks for inexplicable reasons.
"Three hundred and eight!" she counted, and much to his surprise, the cart rose into the air before falling again. "Three hundred and nine!" Only then did he see the figure underneath. There was Rin, lying on the ground, bench-pressing what must be, at a bare minimum, half a ton of random stone. Where did she even get all that? "Three hundred and ten!" Rin lifted it again, grunting with exertion…
He turned to glare at Yuki, who did her damnedest to look innocent, blinking a few times with a wide-eyed expression. "...You know what you did," he muttered before looking back to Rin.
"I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about," the kitsune chimed in response.
"Three hundred and eleven!" Haru continued, and Rin's arms were shaking now. Finally, she lowered it back down, letting out a heavy breath and before sucking air in deep. Her laughter cut through the evening.
"Now, that was a good workout!" she beamed, crawling back out from underneath and springing back to her feet with a bounce. "That was getting pretty close to my record!" For… what? It couldn't be weight; that's not a standard amount or anything. Total reps, maybe? That didn't make sense either, because that'd only make sense with a standardized amount of weight, too.
He gave up on understanding Rin. Again.
"Good work, Lady Rin!" proclaimed Haru, "Being able to lift that much so many times… It's beyond belief."
The dragon-woman waved it off but flexed exaggeratedly, striking a pose. "That's nothing. One day, I'll be able to lift a whole building or even more!"
Yuki, saying nothing, stalked past John and crept closer, wordlessly intruding on their conversation as she entered their personal space like a silent wraith. Neither noticed at first, and John found it rather disquieting how quiet Yuki was for someone so large. It was almost like watching a tiger stalk its prey. He would say something, but he kind of wanted to see where this went. They continued talking as if nothing was wrong, even as Yuki rose behind Rin like a ghost, looking over her shoulder.
Haru, suddenly noticing her, quiets, staring at the silent kitsune. The grin she bore was almost terrifying, at least if he didn't know that was pure mischief.
Noticing her partner went silent, Rin quieted and slowly turned to look around with all the sluggish speed of a horror movie character waiting for a scare. "Gah!" she shouted, jumping a good ten feet back and six feet up in a stunning show of athleticism. She stumbled a bit as she landed but managed a fighting stance… before finally dropping out of it once she finally realized who it was. "Mistress Yuki," she breathed, bowing. Any trace of shock and fear rapidly disappeared as she brushed herself off. "How may I assist you?" Her voice was surprisingly level. Ice cold, not even acknowledging the prank like that.
…Maybe she thought it was a test?
"We have some questions for you about how you came to end up meeting us," Yuki stated. "Do you have a moment?" Despite the fact it was a question, it felt more like an order.
The dragon woman at least had the good sense to look sheepish as Yuki stared her down. "Of course, Mistress Yuki! Do you wish to go somewhere to speak?" As they spoke, Haru made herself scarce, disappearing back toward the field, which, now that John glanced over that way, was being tended by Aiki. That was nice of him.
Yuki gestured to the sorta picnic table he had sitting off to the side, which the two had used for language lessons before the whole "guests" thing. Man, that felt like a lifetime ago, even though it had only been a few days. Just thinking about that made him feel a bit tired in a way that sleep wouldn't fix.
Rin confidently sauntered over to the table and sat on one side after glancing at what must have been a strange piece of furniture to her. He and Yuki circled around and settled across from the dragon woman. It was a bit cramped on their side, and John felt towered over sitting so close to Yuki, but he could not do much about that.
"Now, why did you come here?" John asked, starting off the interrogation preamble.
"Oh! I heard talk of a dangerous trade route from some merchant a few cities to the south of here. Nobody agreed on why when I asked them, so I decided to investigate and deal with the problem," she proudly stated. That was… a few more points supporting Yuki's theory that she was a fire-and-forget weapon that was well and truly forgotten. Those poor traders, though. Even knowing her for less than a day, Rin's intensity was more than apparent. He'd probably tell her whatever they thought she wanted to hear to make her leave, too.
"And was anyone with you?" Yuki cut in.
Rin just frowned. "No. Why should there have been? I'm more than capable of caring for myself, and don't do anything stupid." She paused, getting lost in thought before blushing brightly. "Before today. A thousand apologies once more. I came into town yesterday to investigate the issues… it was worse than I thought. This town is poor. Poorer than I thought it would be. I might not be a military genius, but it was clearly under siege by something."
"And that's when you got a hint," stated the kitsune, leaning forward, ears perked. John leaned in, too, grabbing his notebook and flipping it open to an empty page, ready to make some notes.
She nodded vigorously. "Yes!" she exclaimed, "I was in one of the inns… I think it was The Sleepy Serow?" That was one of the native goat analogues, wasn't it? He was never sure if they were an extra addition to this world's bizarre ecology or were something native to Japan back home. A thick-furred goat with two small horns wasn't too far out there. "Anyhow, I was minding my own business, having lunch, when I heard some people the next table over talking about… how Lord John cooked a man alive in his own armour and about how he threatened imperial soldiers into compliance the next day."
John cursed under his breath. That was a setup if he had ever heard of one. An Unbound walked into town, and she just happened to hear wild rumours about something right next to her table? Unlikely. Besides, he can't imagine that the townsfolk are that sympathetic to the tax collectors. They were more likely to say "Suits them right" than anything, and after the incident downtown, he could only imagine the militia's words would sway the populace's opinion far more.
That was clever on their part.
He shared a meaningful glance with Yuki. "And then what?" John asked.
"Oh, well, I confronted them to find out more, of course! When I heard that you were making your rounds today, extorting stores, I… dashed off and found you eventually. You know the rest from there," she explained, cringing a bit. "In retrospect, this may have been an obvious trap. But… how did they know I was around?"
John looked her up and down. "No offence, but you're not exactly the most subtle," he carefully explained, and Rin flushed again.
"She has a point," Yuki interjected, eyes narrowing. "Unless they just happened to see her as she came and managed to tail her for who knows how long—while likely still in their armour—without arousing suspicion, they wouldn't have known. Who would have told them? Either they have an informant or some other means of monitoring the comings and goings."
Shit. His first thought was of Greater Nameless puppets hiding in plain sight… but that was only the beginning. Perhaps they could manage some sort of detection magic or just had mundane moles—possibly people who fed them information in exchange for mercy. This is going to be a pain.
"Are you saying they might know every action we take against them around town, even in secret?" he bluntly questioned.
"It's likely," Yuki confirmed, "but I have a plan. Tonight, I go for a walk. I shall wrap myself in shadows and scent them out. Then? We shall tear their world apart around them."
Comments
UnderwhelmingBird
Goodness me oh my, seems they were really dragon Rin along by the tail. How deep does it all go? only time will tell, tune in next time on "guy who really can't catch a break" Anyhoo thanks for sharing, this has been fun so far, and I'm excited for more
