The Pepelats, with the steady hum of its engines, crossed the mountain range separating the lands of Humans from Quel'Thalas. It would seem that the distance between these territories is only a couple of dozen kilometers, but the difference was felt before, and is felt now. Both at the ecosystem level and the magical one.
Human lands are essentially ordinary forests, mountains, rivers, and animals. Well, almost; the animals are often magical, but there are still plenty of normal ones. When you walk through the farms, you'll see the most mundane cows and sheep, and chickens that are no different from the ones back on Earth. Walking through the woods around Hillsbrad or even Stratholme, you could mistake it for Earth—adjusted for the century, of course. It's the Middle Ages here. No, I'm not arguing; if you were a botanist, you wouldn't make such a stupid mistake. I'm no botanist; to me, both the flora and fauna of the human kingdom look the same.
But on the elven side of the forest, these plants and animals have always been different. Not just in a magical sense, though that's one of the reasons. They are sturdier, stronger, and longer-lived. The animals have mastered magic on a primitive, often instinctive level. And not just them. Take the trees, for example. The trees in our forests are practically immune to bark beetles or diseases; with a proper concentration of magic, they can sustain themselves for millennia without signs of aging. I wouldn't be surprised at all if near Silvermoon there are trees that our people brought from Kalimdor, planted, and they're still growing today.
This applies to the animals too. Many species, thanks to their connection to The Sunwell, have gained primitive but real magical abilities. Lacking a natural predisposition for mana regeneration, they received it through the power of The Sunwell. Sure, even an Earth snake can, if it's the right species, spit a stream of venom into your eyes. But to do it constantly, simply dousing an opponent in poisonous globs—that's for the locals. Because magic made them that way.
Or rather, the efforts of the elves. No one can say how many species of plants and animals they "shamaned" into existence out of boredom or just to make things pretty, and it doesn't matter. What matters is something else—necro-energy began pumping through them, killing and changing everything around it. Death energy. A powerful poison that denies the very essence of life.
We landed the Pepelats right at the border of Quel'Thalas, and the signs of infection are visible right here. Amidst the yellowness of the trees, many are losing their withering golden leaves; the grass has shriveled and is covered in burgundy spots. It's not the Plaguelands yet, just autumn. But they have everything ahead of them. Druids definitely wouldn't hurt these lands. I clicked my claws, extending the blades on my fingers.
"Tzt! Pang! Pang!" triggered the Manhack, which I had taken for security, signaling an enemy.
Immediately, four buzzing, circular flying blades rushed forward, ramming some kind of ferret that had lunged at me from a tree. The creature had a ripped-open belly; you couldn't suspect it of being something living even in theory. It hissed and jumped, hitting the mana-shield. Three of its colleagues were rasped into pieces with a rustle. The last one was pinned to a tree by Venidan's arrow.
Interesting, let's see what you are. I took a couple of steps, examining the struggling Zombie, and poked it with my bladed finger. The creature ignored the arrow that had entered its flesh, then my spike. It tried, feebly scratching its claws against the metal of the gauntlet, testing them with its teeth. Mangy fur, empty whitish eyes, broken teeth, unusually large claws covered in something. Yeah, touching this with bare hands... unprotected, I wouldn't do that. It's good to have magical plate gauntlets with several layers of protection. It also squeaks annoyingly and scratches, completely ignoring the arrow piercing its body.
"Looks a bit too long-dead to me," Venidan noted, shifting her daggers into a more comfortable grip. "Way too much, if you ask me. Let's look for something else for dinner, huh?"
As if confirming her words, the little beast lit up from within and crumbled into ash and a tiny skeleton, falling silently into the green-burgundy grass. Holy magic burned the creature's corpse almost to nothing. There's nothing left to resurrect here, of that I'm sure. We both turned to the Paladin, while only the Manhacks continued to patrol the area.
"I don't think we should linger," Dartaola noted, clanging as she descended the ramp. "If even the most ordinary berry thieves have turned into this, the inhabitants are in danger. The poor little beasts can no longer be helped."
I nodded and picked up a second one. A corpse is a corpse—mangy, not fresh. But strikingly well-preserved. It probably stinks; I did install a closed breathing system for the helmet on my back. Well, tanks and a filter system so as not to breathe in the poison. But visually, the creature looks more intact than one might expect. For some reason, a joke popped into my head:
"Sleep, my joy, go to sleep,
In the morgue, the lights are out.
Corpses on the shelves lie deep,
Flies are buzzing all about.
Sleep, my joy, go to sleep,
Soon you'll join the silent heap.
Flies will cover you in grime,
And identify your corpse in time."
About halfway through the text, it became easier to breathe and the body lit up. Dartaola turned to Venidan and explained:
"No visible damage, no poisoning either."
With a clink, I showed a middle finger with one hand, while the other picked up the corpses of more animals. The second one also crumbled after the exposure to Light. At this rate, they'll ruin all my experimental material, and we didn't just come here to wander the woods, but for business.
"Order—absorption."
Crystals extended from the gauntlet; one of the fingers sank into the creature, after which it began to glow. With a click, some of the plates shifted, making the gauntlet look visually larger.
"DaVi, stop!" the Rogue demanded.
I turned the gauntlet, showing a small mechanism with a tube and a crystal connected to my index finger. My temporary invention to collect necro-energy without absorbing it myself. Besides, a crystal is better than lugging corpses around; you know, we're all clean girls here, and when we get back to the ship, we'll have to scrub down.
"It didn't go into me, Venidan. I want to try creating an Umformer; for that, I need a bit of necro-energy in a carrier. I'm not an idiot, I'm not going to eat this myself."
Both Elves were at a loss. And even if you couldn't see it on their faces—both were wearing masks covering their faces, leading to the tanks on their backs—I was sure of it.
"Um... what?" Dartaola asked, confirming my thoughts. "Can you translate from Goblin to Elven?"
I nodded. I had to make allowances for my colleagues. I'm the one buried in Magimechanics here, while they—especially the Paladin—are "humanities" types.
"It's a thing for converting energy from one form to another. Or mana, in our case. Most often, it's an Acceptor connected to a generator through a neutral intermediary. The idea is this: we take contaminated mana and pass it to a consuming artifact that eats it and outputs something not really related to magic. For example, it turns the shaft of an electric generator. And lightning is already quite close to Elemental Magic. Condensing mana is just a matter of technique."
Well, in reality, it's not quite that simple, of course. But it's not particularly difficult either. If Mages can convert mana into fire, ice, and lightning, why not do the reverse process? Ultimately, we're talking about energy. And I've almost assembled such an Umformer right now. Except for a couple of places in the input circuit, it doesn't need particularly strange materials. The losses will be high, but who cares about such trifles? I'll refine it later when I figure out how.
"And this will work?" Venidan clarified skeptically. "After all, magic is one thing, lightning is another."
Another confident nod. They couldn't see my face, so I had to gesture actively to convey emotion.
"Mages have been using elemental energy for as long as they've existed. If we can transform Arcana into all sorts of different types of energy, the reverse process is also possible; it's just that under normal conditions, the energy losses would be too great. Но such trifles don't bother me. Ultimately, not all of us are Elves. But magic, in one form or another, is available to many races and species. It can be collected everywhere, and I will do it."
The carcass of the beast, pressed against the crystal, crumbled to dust. I repeated the process with the others before the mechanism hissed. With a click, like a shell from a pistol, the crystal popped out of the slot into my waiting palm. With a short grind, the devouring mechanism retracted into my arm. The others probably didn't quite believe me, so the three of us entered the Pepelats's workshop. The central part of the workbench was occupied by a cube with a single slot, into which I inserted the crystal. I turned to Veni and Dartaola, who were clearly waiting for explanations.
"It's all quite simple. This whole thing is the Umformer mechanism. What I was talking about. Now I'll show you how it all works."
"It looks like two boxes connected by a pipe," Venidan noted. "And that cylinder at the end with the dispenser doesn't fit the design at all. It's clearly magical."
I chuckled, approaching the machine and removing the casing from the first, fairly small device. Underneath was a mechanism consisting of numerous bones, from which gears were carved, linked into a single system. Lots of gears and pulleys. They were all connected to turn a central shaft. All were covered in bluish runes, and thin tubes with green goo connected them to the crystal I had collected earlier. The goo drips into the machine and is absorbed by the bones, which seem to ask for more. It looks a bit gross, but in fact, it's just an ordinary Bone Golem. Like a skeleton, only more complex. The same Abomination, in terms of mechanics, has far more nuances than my creation. Simple, but effective.
"The first half. The machine collects necro-energy and feeds the golem, which turns the mechanism with all its might, as fast as it can. Generally, there's a crystal for power here, but any vessel of necro-energy will do—ideally a small one that fits in the furnace. The box isolates the system so the necro-energy doesn't harm those nearby. And so it doesn't escape; energy losses will be serious enough as it is. The irony is that almost any golem could do this job, even a flesh one," I poked at the girls, "though for it to make sense, you need rotation speed."
Venidan showed me her middle finger.
"Turn it yourself if you need it that bad. I pass."
I shrugged; in the end, it was just an example of the possibility. Muscle power wouldn't produce the necessary numbers anyway. Although you could create a biological golem if you wanted—the Mages of Dalaran can create such creatures, so why can't I? Exactly, no reason. Or grow a few monsters, put them in vats so they're unconscious, and draw mana. Но the problem here is space. Another reason to expand the Pepelats; I simply don't have room for everything I want.
"That's what the Bone Golem is for. It doesn't complain; it works for food."
Now for the second part. Again, the casing was removed, but here was a different mechanism—an electricity generator. It was noticeably larger than the first, so I had to help myself with telekinesis. But I use it so often that I've just gotten used to it.
"So, the generator. It works like this: a conductor frame rotates between two magnets. More precisely, we have several turns of these frames here. The magnets create a constant magnetic field from one to the other. And thanks to induction, a current appears in this frame, which is outputted here. I had to fleece Mindflux quite a bit for the materials; I didn't have any copper."
The Elves nodded with the wise look of someone who understood nothing but found it very interesting. Although there's nothing complicated there: here are two magnets, here's the frame, it spins, and here the charge accumulated by all this spinning is taken off. Okay, need to keep it shorter.
"In short, all this stuff, rotating in a magnetic field, reacts and creates lightning, which we take off here at the end using brushes rubbing against these two separated half-rings. And the result goes into the machine, which converts the electricity into mana, reacting right here. Clear?"
I could see by their faces that it wasn't very clear, but oh well. The option of overloading them with terms so they wouldn't meddle or think stupid thoughts was also quite viable.
I pointed to the last element of the machine, the Synthesizer. It was convenient that I had the chance to assemble the device in pieces during my free time. For my parents, this machine is of little use; I don't think there will be many sources of necromancy on the ship. But here, near The Sunwell, the situation is different. You can even burn poisoned wood for resources. The main thing is to isolate it well. I'll install this mechanism in the technical zone, and it'll be fine.
"And finally, this whole construction fills the crystals here with runes around the perimeter. The machine forces magical energy to accumulate on the frames with runes and, using the tubes here, conducts it into a Siphon that turns an ordinary solution into a full-fledged concentrated mana potion, absolutely safe for any of us. Partly thanks to the cleanliness of the device and the fact that the incoming energy is specifically lightning. Others would work too, like Holy or Life, but Arcana is just universal. That's how it works."
The girls were genuinely impressed. Even Dartaola didn't do anything but carefully inspected the device.
"And there's no contact between necromancy and Arcana? Turn it on, I want to see the result. It sounds very useful, if it works at all."
Venidan agreed with Dartaola on this.
"I'm also interested to see what happens," she tried to play with her voice, clearly parodying someone. "A machine that creates magic! What a perversion!"
I snorted. Their distrust stung a little, but it is what it is. You want a demonstration? I'll give you a demonstration! Later.
"First, let's move all this to the technical zone. There's no point keeping it in the workshop; because of 'Mr. Gobber,' there's no damn room as it is. Want to see the result? Help me move all this."
I could have done it all myself, but with three pairs of hands, and through rather narrow corridors past numerous crates, we hauled the machine components very slowly. If I were working alone, I'd have to be much more careful. This way, I levitated them, and the girls made sure nothing got stuck or crushed.
Outside, we had to set up a guard. Even if the Undead haven't found us yet, we shouldn't give them a chance for a surprise attack. Wheel-golems and Manhacks went on duty while we worked here. In the process, everyone took off their helmets, and I could note the skepticism on the others' faces. Even the raven—though birds don't really have emotions—the Magister managed to convey his doubts.
"Apprentice, you are undoubtedly talented, but this is a perversion."
We were just hauling the heavy generator, so I simply demanded:
"Magister, could you please not croak in my ear? Thank you very much. When we get it there, I'll give a demonstration for all the non-believers at once. Better tell me, how are things at Silvermoon? Last time it wasn't very good, as I recall."
The raven hopped from a crate to Dartaola's shoulder in one jump. The Paladin didn't even think to shoo away the teacher's familiar. Well, yes, while we're here, a battle is happening there. No, we're doing important work, everyone understands that. But the temptation to head into the thick of it, to perform heroics, is great. And the teacher understands this perfectly.
"The situation is a stalemate. The Undead have dug in seriously in the city; we can get inside, but advancing to The Sunwell isn't working, nor is breaking the Scourge's defense. We know the territory better, we have a supply of magical items, and our Mages are generally stronger. But they have The Sunwell on their side. It poisons us when we use magic actively; they use it to build their structures very quickly. And not everyone has the necessary supplies of items."
Something Arthas didn't do, but here I have zero complaints about comrade Menethil. Ner'zhul was being rushed by the Nathrezim, who wanted to summon the boss to Azeroth as soon as possible. The Prince has nothing to do with it. Except this time the situation is unfolding differently; the Death Knight isn't Arthas, and he acts differently. The Magister continued:
"The Undead are trying to turn the conflict into a war of attrition. And we don't yet have a way to solve the problem radically. The enemy uses numerous aerial monsters; an air strike simply doesn't work. Sorties into the city end successfully, but..." he paused, "but our forces just get bogged down in it. If the problem isn't solved soon, I don't know what will happen next. Simply burning everything won't work; the city has good protection against Elemental Magic, which the Elves themselves installed. And now it's working against us."
Shitty. I didn't think it would turn out like this. On the other hand, if Muradin is in command of the defense, he has considerable experience in defensive warfare after the wars with the Orcs. We need to think of something, or the Elves will run out before we reach the well. And the Lich King will have another extremely powerful source of magic to throw at the demons.
Meanwhile, the generator was hauled into the technical compartment, and I began assembly. In the Pepelats, I don't even need to create a separate area; the ship was originally designed for modernization. And telekinesis solves the rest of the problems. I need concentration and for no one to bother me.
No, one could be outraged that instead of helping the Elves, we're sitting here engaged in "folk art." But the fact is that near The Sunwell, the background radiation will be such that we'll need to drink ourselves into a stupor with potions. And we won't be the only ones; everyone will be affected. Even now, the pressure is felt, simply because of the excess mana in the body, absorption isn't happening.
In short, we're doing useful work, no less useful than charging in and dying against the Undead. Especially since we'll be doing that soon enough too.
"Well, let's begin."
With a quiet creak, the bones began to rotate and squeak as the engine accelerated more and more. The generator hummed strainedly, its needle crawling to the right. And almost immediately, the transparent crystals on the Siphon casing lit up, showing that the machine was active. The runes were lit by the lightning. I allowed myself to turn to the Elves and the raven. I had to admire the frozen surprise on their faces.
"Akhmedved..." Veni whispered, "it really creates mana. Midget, you're a psycho. Who even creates a machine to work with magic? It's just... You're a psycho, midget, but this is cool! Just cool! And also..."
"A perversion," the raven finished for her. "It is a perversion. Unfortunately for my colleagues, this perversion will allow us all to survive and keep our sanity much longer. Congratulations, apprentice, another creation destined to shock our community. You are trying very hard."
I bowed according to all the rules of etiquette, as a junior to a senior.
"Thank you, Magister."
The raven snorted.
"Congratulations, apprentice. Once again you surprise me. It's almost a pity I noted your successes so late."
I chuckled, looking at the humming and howling mechanism. Loud bastard. The engine hum is generally quieter than the noise of the thrusters outside, but not by much. I'll have to fix that; I haven't bothered with such trifles yet.
Meanwhile, a "clink" sound was heard, a green light came on, and one of the niches in the Siphon opened, revealing a bottle of mana. Red lights were on in the other niches, showing that the potions weren't ready yet. Dartaola approached, took the container, and turned the bottle in her hands. She opened it, sniffed it, and took a small sip.
"Mana, I feel it," she said, handing the bottle to Veni with a shudder. "Concentrate, it chills to the bone. Impressive, truly impressive."
I didn't scold her for reaching in. After all, this was a demonstration for them too, as Venidan seemed to have decided I was going to suck up any energy I saw and was giving me unhealthy looks. Which is not okay. Veni also took a sip and handed it to me, giving a thumbs up.
"Well, to our health. Concentrated, still a bit too much elemental element, drink it in one go. Truly pure mana, who would have thought."
I nodded and downed the bottle. It felt like an electric shock through my body; I shuddered, wanting to spit it out, cough, wash it down with something. Then came the heat, then relief. Concentrate, exactly what was needed. Exhaling loudly and sniffing the joint of my gauntlet, I smirked, waving the now-empty container.
"Now we don't have to fear magical depletion. If we find Necromancer artifacts, you can throw them into the machine's receiver. There will be enough energy for us, and so we won't have to charge the Pepelats if there's enough necro-energy. While the machine is running, don't touch the active container. I'll make a couple more later so one can work while the second is being loaded."
"To our health!" Venidan repeated.
"For the Holy!" Dartaola added.
I giggled, raising a fist.
"For victory! We'll bury them!"
In short, it was worth it. After the demonstration, the Elves were in high spirits. And I myself, I won't lie, was glad. I like that the machine works; I like that they're impressed. My pride is pleasantly warmed by the memory of exactly how they looked at the machine. How doubt turned to surprise, shock, and then almost childish delight, as if they had seen a miracle. A little stroking of the ego, seasoned with practical utility—what could be better?
Next? When we finally finished all the work and secured the mechanism, the Pepelats flew northeast. We chose a simple plan—check all the villages along the way, help survivors, and destroy any Undead while looking for the Goblin post. The hold is full; we need to deliver the cargo. If we don't run into gargoyles, we can handle most enemies. And to make sure that doesn't happen, the mechanical birds are flying circles around the Pepelats, which is moving over the forest at a low altitude. Though we had to gain a bit of height to avoid starting a forest fire.
The further into the forest, the more signs of poisoning. At first, individual trees were poisoned and dried out. Yes, the leaves were turning gray and falling from many of them, but there weren't that many truly dead trees or fauna. It was more like autumn and falling leaves. No pattern, just falling foliage that you could merrily kick around while walking through the grass. But over time, it got worse. Entire clearings took on signs of infection, of death. More sightings of dead animals lunging at their still-living kin. Navigating became harder; necromancy was simply everywhere.
I flew the Pepelats low enough for us to look around. And not just look around, but to shove whatever we could into our new generator. It's quite greedy. You'd think simply repeating the rotation of a shaft shouldn't be too energy-intensive. But we're talking about a very, very high rotation speed. Plus, the mechanism needs to be constantly reinforced with magic to prevent wear. As a result, the device's efficiency isn't very high, while the resource consumption is, conversely, large. The saving grace is that the output power is still sufficient to power the Pepelats from one such Umformer. You just need to replenish the fuel supply in time, throwing everything into the furnace.
And if I replace the golem with an Imp, I could process not only necro-energy but also fel, and possibly The Darkness. For each element—its own engine, with the right mana and protective mechanisms. But all that can be assembled later; right now there are more pressing problems.
Everything went into the furnace. Cleared a group of Necromancers with an escort? Staffs and hearts went into the machine. Killed a corrupted beast—and it too, or rather its heart, goes for processing. Smashed some meat wagons? The most magic-saturated parts went into the machine. And it smokes quite a bit with blue-gray smoke coming out of the pipe in the roof. But no one cared; compared to Necromancers and Undead, smoke was definitely the lesser of two evils.
"We are the forest orderlies!" Venidan proclaimed. "We'll cure everyone. Those we can't cure, we'll break their legs and then cure them. So they don't run away from the doctor. Get in line for modern medicine!"
She was extremely heartened not just by destroying the Undead, but by turning dead energy into good, useful energy. And Dartaola is helping too; the Paladin is also smiling, pleased with herself. I even had to remind them:
"In case anyone forgot, we're here on business. Not just exterminating Undead, but helping survivors."
Dartaola countered:
"The more potions we create, the more civilians will survive. You saw their condition. A perfect reason to turn righteous wrath against all these corpses! By the Holy, they will die in agony!"
I saw the civilians. Surviving Elves are leaving their homes and moving south in convoys. I immediately made a note in my notebook:
Don't forget to monitor the well-being of those who reached Lordaeron. Check the quarantine camps. Who knows what the humans will do, and if they'll give control of the camps to someone like Garithos.
In almost twenty-four hours of scouting the territory, we ran into four caravans moving south, twice drove off Undead, and managed to see the state of the Elves. And there was nothing good there. Everyone is sick, without exception. Malaise, pale skin, hair turned gray, faces haggard. Children wrapped in blankets, shivering with fever. Previously universally beautiful, now none of them look good. It just makes you angry at everyone who allowed this. And at myself too, but self-flagellation is not the way out. But a rocket-bomb strike—that is a way out.
The children... I just silently went and got the bottles of mana we had. Getting a boost of energy made them feel a bit better. We showed the survivors exactly where we had destroyed the Undead patrols, where there was a chance to pass. And gave them instructions: keep heading south, to where the influence of the corrupted Well will be weaker. And try not to contact any creatures containing necro-energy. There will be no salvation for them in Quel'Thalas, alas. Not right now, for sure.
Both Venidan and Dartaola are keeping a straight face, but I can see it's not easy for them to accept all this either. And the Umformer for them is also a chance to do something truly good. In short, I said "to hell with it" and we continued to vacuum the territory. Fortunately, from the air, we didn't destroy things just for the sake of it, attacking clusters of Undead and helping caravans. Fortunately, there aren't many dead yet.
Small search groups of Ghouls and dead Elves looking for the living. Individual groups with meat wagons collecting bodies. And if there are bodies, there must be an Undead base where they're being taken. The suggestion to "find and smash" was met with sharp approval. Somewhere around here, the Undead must have a logistics center. If they raise everyone and churn out Abominations, they could even flank the armies at Silvermoon, which is undesirable. And yet...
"Don't you think we've gotten too carried away?" I clarified with Veni. "We can keep doing this for a long time and be late to Silvermoon."
We found the base itself thanks to my mechanical birds and the general visibility of Undead structures. A logistics center consisting of a graveyard, a slaughterhouse, and some building where the local cultists live. Separately, there are stands where another sewing circle is busy embroidering on meat, sewing Abominations. And there's also a Spirit Tower—a Ziggurat pyramid with a green crystal on top.
"We are helping those who will find no other help," Dartaola expressed her position. "Who, if not us? The Magisters and elders are surely busy in the capital. I'm for continuing our crusade against The Darkness."
She's fine with it. Venidan? The Rogue shrugged.
"We're doing important work. I understand you want to be at the epicenter, striking and performing feats, but our Paladin is right here. Who, if not us? We just need to monitor the situation through the Magister and not sleep. Right now, that tower and those spiders over there bother me much more. We won't be able to destroy both at once. Strike from the ground?"
Good question. No, I did buy the Death Lazor, and I can use it, but will it have enough power? For this question, we turned to the accompanying documentation, trying to understand what kind of "schizo-tech" they had sold us.
As it turned out, this device is not a laser at all. It's a goddamn pulsed ion weapon, a particle accelerator. Great, right? A fully functional ion cannon made of crap and copper. I simply couldn't pass it by and not try to take it apart. Naturally, after digging through the accompanying documents. The correct answer? Generally, yes, magic. But not only. Rather, magic that forces the laws of physics to work without the glitches inevitable due to the quality of materials.
The Death Lazor itself consists of two elements: a charging block, where the device's mechanisms are located, and the weapon. The weapon is a long, sharp-nosed cone with a ball at the end, surrounded by circular rings. Almost like the sci-fi guns from alien movies. But here it makes sense. The first stage of the shot is charging. It's slow, taking several seconds. And the whole mechanism glows brightly, informing everyone around that a shot from something powerful is being prepared. In the mechanism itself, condensation occurs on the weapon's head ball. The charge is pumped into the sphere by the rings, entering an active state. The technology isn't perfect, so parasitic radiation clearly demonstrates the impending shot. Note: assemble an additional circuit to hide the glow and allow the collection of excess energy and heat, reducing energy consumption. This thing is already indecently greedy.
The second stage is the shot. The ring system inverts, and the charged ball is pulled inward, creating something like a funnel. They begin to act as a booster block and send all that stuff toward the enemy. It looks like a bright white-blue beam, mowing down everything in its path. Any obstacle instantly heats up and disintegrates. An absolute weapon? Well, almost. In reality, it's not that good, of course. The charge dissipation in the atmosphere is quite strong, and the Death Lazor's range isn't that great—a couple of kilometers. At three, the situation becomes truly sad; at five, damage is lost to sub-lethal values.
No sooner said than done. Once again, I'm convinced that modular design rules. We landed the Pepelats, removed the magic turret crystal with telekinesis—or rather, I removed it. Installed the Death Lazor block in the front, secured it, connected it, assembled it. Ready to fly, to dispense kindness and Justice. Now we have the Death Lazor, two magic turrets, and a rocket block. The Death Lazor's tanks and supercharger were recessed into the hull so they wouldn't be exposed. And let the crystal lie inside and not get in the way.
The Undead outpost was simply blown away. A bird sat carefully on a tree at the edge of the cleared area where the base was located and provided targeting. The Pepelats flew at tree-top level over the forest, hiding behind the trees and singeing the tops, and banked over the base. With a loud roar, rockets left the block, heading down toward the Undead troops.
The spiders reacted instantly, causing magic webs to flare up on the shields, draining them. But the spiders themselves were torn apart after a full salvo of high-explosive fragmentation charges. To attack, they had to give away their position. And what wasn't torn apart took damage that prevented it from moving and attacking. Judging by the markers, the survivors burrowed into the ground. We'll deal with them later.
This time the Spirit Tower didn't wait, and the first white-blue charge splashed across the Magical Shield immediately. Sitting in my helmet and gauntlets in the cockpit, I smiled to myself. Not today, stiffs. Not today. The Pepelats slowed down and, obeying the command, began to charge the Death Lazor. Flashes of magical charges were quickly draining the shield, while the spiders that had crawled out from underground traded fire with the turrets.
Continuing to control the weapon, I glanced at the charging bar. It crawled sluggishly from the green zone, through the yellow, toward the red. All of this was accompanied by audio signals that grew faster and faster—from pings to a full-blown beep. It was charging disgustingly slowly, the damn thing. But finally, the bar filled, and the ping turned into a solid whine. It was time.
"Well, let's see what you can do. Discharge!"
A blue-white glow blinded everyone in the cockpit for a fraction of a second as the beam tore away from the ring-encircled sphere. A brilliant white line connected the cannon and the Scourge tower. It was a good thing I'd closed the shutters, though even then the polarization system kicked in; it was simply too bright. I couldn't even rub my eyes—the helmet got in the way.
"Tsk, I'll need to set the polarization to trigger earlier. Alright, what's the result? Looks like it's not firing anymore."
Gradually, the radiance faded, and I was able to blink the spots away, veering the Pepelats to the side. A hole had appeared in the Spirit Tower. The radiation had burned through the pyramid and evaporated its contents. This was confirmed by the silenced tower and the white-red bonfire burning inside the breach. After a few seconds, the tower could no longer maintain its form and began to crumble, folding in on itself. It seemed we had disrupted the magical structure holding the whole thing together. A fit of laughter washed over me as I watched the destruction.
"Heh-heh-ha. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! What a rush! Behold the fiery doom of this world!"
Alright, Goblin machinery is cool. But before using it, you always need to take it apart, check the mechanisms at a level you can understand, and put it back together—maybe with a "Domain Expansion: Bread Stall." Goblins have a nasty habit of forgetting structural elements. Things could blow up.
"Attention everyone, enemy defenses are almost suppressed. Burn off the spiders and finish this. Our enemy finds peace right now! Spiders, stay put!"
The bastards had recovered, crawled out, finally pierced the shields with webbing, and were now trying to gunk up my engine as if that would help them. The ship hung in the air on an antigrav unit connected to a gyroscope. The engines were primarily needed for horizontal maneuvering. No, if they gummed up the engine and dragged the Pepelats to the surface, it would be unpleasant. But doing that wasn't so easy. Five little spiders wouldn't manage it. Though they were trying very hard, I'll give them that.
Unfortunately for the Scourge, without Anti-Air Defense, their base was doomed. Completely. We burned everything we found and dissolved the bodies by dousing them in Mister Gobber. Truly hellish stuff—it dissolved them instantly. Whatever remained, we torched. The gods be my witness—or whatever we have here, the Titans? In any case, it was foul. Just as foul as at the large base where the sewing circle used corpses to assemble Abominations from spare parts. And I have no idea how many they've already stitched together and sent into battle. Regardless, holding ourselves back, we made sure:
"Not one more. This slaughterhouse won't produce a single Abomination. Not today."
And the Pepelats moved on. Venidan took the pilot's seat, Dartaola busied herself cleaning gear... and me? Well, I needed to get to work on the blueprints. The thing was, the Magister had reported again that the situation was a stalemate. A surface attack was impossible—the troops were bogged down in the city. By air? They were hindered by gargoyles, numerous Spirit Towers, spiders, Necropolises, and even a frost wyrm. A frost wyrm skeleton, to be precise.
But what if... what if we went higher? Even higher? I was looking at the Death Lazor and thought: why not strike from orbit, from a place where absolutely no one expects it? Of course, making a reusable satellite is difficult and expensive. Not to mention that a satellite needs infrastructure for orientation and maintenance. And the project would cost way too much. But what if we created a disposable launch system? Something like the Rods from God? And we hit the Sunwell, bypassing all the Defensive Magic Lines, from a direction no one expects? I have to try.
Secluding myself in the living block, I set to work on the calculations.
A booster stage isn't necessary; for the first launch, I can use the Pepelats itself, which will provide a decent base acceleration. Weight-reduction magic will help get rid of the bulkiness of the construction; a single main engine running on liquid hydrogen will be enough to hurl the whole rocket into near-Earth orbit.
Next, by inertia, the surprise will move along a ballistic trajectory. The calculations here aren't complicated—I don't need an intercontinental monster. And besides, the main thing is for the rocket to enter the coverage zone of the beacons, plus or minus a couple of kilometers. Directing it in the right direction isn't a big problem. Fortunately, magic will help negate the influence of the winds.
The second stage. This is trickier; it's like the first, only smaller, but equipped with maneuvering thrusters. Its task is to guide the "gift" onto the target and provide acceleration. And knowing the speed and direction of the planet's rotation... it's a good thing the locals figured out how to calculate that themselves. The speed and trajectory of the rocket... Measure two of its positions in space over a short interval of time and calculate... In short, nothing difficult there either; magic will do the rest.
The main thing is to protect the warhead from the frontal impact with the atmosphere and not forget to turn off its weight reduction. Then it will follow a parabola, combining its motion vectors with the planet's; calculating the process isn't hard. And at distances of a few dozen kilometers, the curvature of the surface can be neglected.
Now. How will I know the trajectory and location? It's simple... relatively. Ordinary magical beacons with a long-range communication spell for the control circuit. At the same time, it's not hard to calculate the distance based on the amount of mana consumed. Having three reference points fixed in known locations and knowing the distance to a fourth, you can only build a tetrahedron in two ways. And the one where the target is underground is obviously not the one we need.
All that's left is to assemble it all, enchant the necessary calculations—runes be my aid, they're just like programming—and that's it. We can start blasting!
The Magister's crow practically recoiled when I burst onto the bridge shouting:
"Eureka! I've figured out how to solve all our problems! But we need to get to Silvermoon. And to the Goblins! I've figured it out! They're all going to die!"
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