6 Steelwing Angel
Fel's eyes narrowed, 'What do you mean by business? I have nothing to offer'
'That matters not. My request is simple.'
'Ok ...' Although her words confused Fel, it wouldn't hurt to hear her out.
'I want you to leave this forest'
'What?'
'There's no need to worry, we'll provide you with all you need for your journey'
'That's not the problem. I know nothing of this place. It's not like I can just use telepathy to talk to everyone, they'll sense that something's fishy in no time!'
'We can fix that easily'
'I've no supplies'
'We can give you enough food to last for a decade'
'I'm guessing that credits can't buy things here?'
'We can give you enough money to buy a town'
'I need weapons'
'We've enough weapons spare to equip a small army'
'I don't even know where I am, how do you expect me to find my way?'
'We can give you a map of the entire first layer of the underground'
'I need the parts of my armour back, I didn't see them in my room'
'Sure, they're useless to us'
'Where am I even going to store all this anyway?'
'A ... spacial ring,' the red-robed dryad's tone betrayed her unwillingness to part with the item.
'One final problem'
'Fire away'
'It's dangerous travelling alone.' During Fel's time in the military, he had learnt to value teamwork. He wouldn't, no, couldn't travel alone. Who would stay on guard during the night? Who would have his back in an ambush and who would be there to support him when he was down?
'We can give you a companion.' The wording was odd, but as long as the person didn't backstab him he should be fine. Besides, it seemed that the dryads really didn't want him around. He felt that if he insisted on staying they wouldn't be so nice.
'Fine then, when do I leave?'
'By the end of the week'
After an unceremonious dismissal, they dumped Fel back into his room along with a sack of scrap metal from his power armour, a book and a strange, hypnotic orb. Fel tossed his sack of scrap to the side and disassembled his makeshift, pouring all of its contents to a large pile in the corner, save for a few tools.
When he had completed his tasks, Fel picked up the orb and held it to his forehead. Before the dryads kicked him out of the leader's house, they gave him the orb and told him he could use it to learn every language in the underground. The guide who passed him the orb gave him a withering look. It was definitely a precious treasure, but Fel still couldn't figure out why they would give him so much despite obviously hating it.
Manipulating his internal energy, Fel connected his mind to the orb and absorbed the information within. Waves of information poured into his brain, almost overloading it. Tel'Quessir, Celestial, Draconic, Common, Orcish, Elvish, all sorts of languages bore into his mind. If he were an ordinary human, he would of have long since died from the overload of information.
An hour later, Fel, now covered in sweat, dropped the orb which crumbled into dust on the floor. Although he now knew every language in the underground, his head felt inflated, about to explode at any moment.
However, Fel didn't doubt for a second that the pain wasn't worth it. It would've taken ages to learn all the languages without the orb, but for now, Fel had to rest, his lovely pile of metal scraps would have to wait for a little while.
Fel woke up the next day. Surprisingly, there was a day and night cycle here. At daytime, the crystals above would light up, albeit dimly compared to the sun, and at night time they would lose their lustre, becoming inert at midnight. For a surface dweller like Fel, it was like an eternal night, but for the inhabitants of the underground, it was normal, natural even.
More importantly, Fel had much to do. As he had learnt the languages of the underground, he could now read his books. He set out the three identical looking books before him and read their long titles, written in worn, golden Celestial letters.
A Complete Encyclopedia of the Creatures of Planet Tasarr.
A Manual on Devata Cultivation and Techniques.
Being a Magus and of the Usage of Parivartana Lines.
As Fel looked at the covers of the books, he noticed that something was out of place. A faint golden ring was drawn on each of the covers, just under the titles. They weren't there before. Fel guessed that it had something to do with him being able to see the energy points in the air. Out of curiosity, Fel reached out to touch one of the circles. Fel still hadn't learnt his lesson from last time.
The three books flowed into Fel's finger, transforming into a stream of information that viciously crashed into his brain to fuse with it. His brain turned to boiling lava and streams of blood oozed from his seven orifices. Fel's last thought was that he was a certified idiot. Curiosity had indeed killed the cat, running it over before coming back to stomp all over its limp body.
At midnight, Fel's bloodshot eyes snapped open. He raised a shivering hand to his face to wipe off the blood, letting it fall to his side afterwards. For the next hour, he lay there, staring at the ceiling. Curse those books, curse everything that belonged to that six armed being!
'Connection established, how should I address the host?'
Fel facepalmed, of all things he could've gotten it had to be another annoying A.I
'Fel Evenstar,' he had learnt from his past experiences with A.I. You have to do everything by the letter otherwise, they won't let you hear the end of it.
'Welcome to the Devata Library, I am your friendly book spirit Aerl! You have three books in your collection, would you like to read any of them?'
Fel sighed in relief. It wasn't another A.I, he would've stabbed himself in the gut if it was, 'Sure, I'll read the Complete Encyclopedia of the Creatures of Planet Tasarr.'
'What would you like to know about?'
'Um, dryads?'
'There are 1209 search results, would you like to add a few more terms to narrow the results?'
'Then, grey looking dryads'
'Opening file on Monochrome Dryads,'
---
Monochrome Dryad
Affinities: Darkness (7), Nature (8)
Life Expectancy: 2000 years
Innate Abilities:
1. Absorption
Monochrome Dryads can absorb energy points from the earth and weaker life-forms with their main bodies.
2. Avatar
By separating a part of themselves from their main body, Monochrome Dryads can create a humanoid avatar[1] that they can manipulate at will and use to combat or communicate with other sentient beings. The one weakness is that the avatar weakens the further it gets from its main body.
Additional Information:
Monochrome Dryads are native to the first and second underground layers of planet Tasarr[2]. They have powerful main bodies and can recover from even grave wounds. Although they aren't great at casting spells[3], they can cast basic dark energy spells and infuse their weapons with dark energy[4].
Occasionally, red-eyed Monochrome Dryads will grow. These are the Royal Ash Dryads who possess superior abilities to their peers[5]. They can cast advanced spells, have a longer lifespan and complete immunity to fire[6]. Monochrome Dryads are also xenophobic and only tolerate small to medium-sized animals.
---
Accompanying the file was an image of a grey male and female dryad who looked like the dryads in the village. However, were hyperlinks everywhere. Was this Wikipedia or something? Also, the sources were weird. When he clicked the one on 'immunity to fire' it said, 'Tried to turn on into charcoal, didn't work.' Who on earth wrote that?
Getting back on track, it seemed that the red-robed dryad was a Royal Ash Dryad, it was a good thing he didn't try to mess with her. While Fel was at it, he thought he may as well look at the other books, but, before he could, the sound of a door opening interrupted his thoughts.
A burly dryad stood at the doorway, clutching an armoured, steel statue by his side.
'We've retrieved your companion.' He threw the armoured statue to the floor and slammed the door shut.
The statue was steel grey with silver veins that spanned across its surface, depicting a young woman of about 20 years old. Magnificent, metal wings sprouted from her shoulders, twitching in the air.
The statue lifted herself up from the ground, her silver, crystalline eyes, dodging Fel's gaze. Breathtaking was the only way to describe her. Long, luscious, silver hair flowed down her shoulders and over her heavy armour. The armour itself was a work of art, with subtle embossing on its surface and fine, yet thick, chain-mail that covered her exposed joints. She didn't wear a helmet, but Fel was willing to let that pass.
The metal statue shifted, bowing to Fel before introducing herself, 'I am Siyla Coldwing... p-pleased to make your acquaintance.' Her stammer almost made Fel chuckle a little.
'My name's Fel, Fel Evenstar'
They continued to stand there, facing each other. There wasn't a common conversation point between them. To discover more about the other party, Fel asked for some assistance from the book spirit.
'Hey, Aerl, what is she?'
The book spirit searched through the encyclopedia, dragging out a file.
---
Steelwing Angel
Affinities: Metal (9), Wind (6), Divine (1)
Life Expectancy: 250-300 years
Innate Abilities:
1. Mercurial Halo
A variant of the Holy Halo. The Mercurial Halo increases the strength of metallic energy in the user's general vicinity and will buff strength of the Steelwing Angel (s) in its range.
2. Metal Manipulation
This ability allows the user to absorb various metals and manipulate them. This ability can form armour, projectiles, weapons and shields. Not only that but the metal can coat the skin and fuse with the flesh, giving strong protection while maintaining mobility[1].
3. Steelwind Flash
Causes a burst of steel-wind energy that can provide a boost to movement or be used as an offensive ability.
4. Flight
Gives the user the power of flight[2]
Additional Information:
Native to the surface of planet Tasarr, the Steelwing Angels inhabited the Steel Mountains in the Sky Isles[3]. They had low numbers, due, not only due to their long life expectancies and infertile bodies,[4] but also because their main way to advance their physical body is to absorb various rare metals[5]. Because of this, there were few powerful Steelwing Angels[6] as their physical bodies were usually much more powerful than their mental powers[7].
---
Another Wikipedia-like entry. Although useful, it was rather jarring in this magical world. Fel also checked a few of the sources, discovering that they were as strange as before. Source number 2 just said 'duh.' It kind of pissed Fel off.
Siyla began to fidget. If she could blush her face would've as red as an apple. Fel had, after all, been staring at her for a while. Eventually, Fel walked over to his sack of metal scraps and poured its contents onto the floor to sort it out. He chose to avoid the situation. Siyla sat in a corner of the room and fiddle with a few metal beads she had created.
An hour passed and Fel had sorted out and repaired the parts of his power armour. Some parts were unrepairable, he chucked those to a corner of the room. As Fel took out a foldable welder, that originated from a compartment from his disassembled backpack, Siyla had snuck over to the pile of useless scrap. She nodded in approval and walked over to Fel, tapping his shoulder.
'What is it?'
'Can... I have that metal, it looks... tasty'
That was one way to describe it thought Fel, 'Sure, it's not like I'm gonna use it or anything'
'Thank you...' She slunk away towards the pile of scraps.
Fel observed Siyla out of the corner of his eye and saw her reach out to the scraps and nibble on them like candy. Before long, the twisted alloy bar in her hand had disappeared. She snatched up another one and continued her campaign against the metal scraps.
Fel found the sight rather amusing. He looked back at his project, contemplating on how to proceed. His welder ran on energy stones and he wasn't familiar with energy manipulation. He had been relying on his golden lines to use his energy thus far.
'Aerl, is there anything on energy manipulation in the library?'
'Of course. Opening the Manual on Devata Cultivation and Techniques, chapter 3, Basic Energy Manipulation'
A dozen pages appeared in Fel's mind, all pertaining towards energy manipulation techniques. Following the manual, Fel activated the runes in his brain and eyes, causing a mysterious golden light to spill out from his eyes.
Suddenly, a whole new world unveiled before him. Swirls of blue natural energy floated through the air while his internal energy revolved around his body. He could see everything.
Not forgetting his task, Fel snapped back to attention and pooled a portion of his natural energy in his palm. He took out the energy stone in the welder and mashed his palm on it, forcing his internal energy into the stone. Although it was a primitive way of doing things and was rather inefficient, it worked. Yet it wasn't good enough for Siyla's standards.
She frowned at Fel's crude technique and strode over to him while munching on a flattened piston. She snatched the energy stone from Fel's hands and suspended it between her palms. Before Fel could object, she pressed the surrounding natural energy into the stone.
Unlike Fel's crude technique, her's barely wasted any energy, instead, the excess energy formed a sphere around the stone, forcing the natural energy within the stone to fuse properly with the stone. The sphere shrunk, pressing down onto the stone and, after ten minutes, the stone had absorbed the sphere of energy. Siyla handed the stone back to the gaping Fel and returned to the pile of metal, gobbling up her scraps.
Fel ogled the energy stone in his palm. It was fully charged, emitting a steady glow. He inserted the energy stone back into the welder and continued with his task with Siyla's skilful energy manipulation techniques replaying in the back of his mind. While Fel might not be as skilled as Siyla in energy manipulation, he had his own set of skills. In a little over an hour, he had reconstructed a fine pair of gauntlets, complete with vambraces and pauldrons.
While he was at it, Fel had cut off the additional sleeves on his robe, leaving only a few non-intrusive flaps in their place to cover his skin. Although they weren't a problem before, they would've hindered the mobility of his armour, so, they had to go. Fel looked back to his desk and saw that there was still a large number of unused parts. The night was still long.
The next morning, Fel had used up the last of his parts and rebuilt much of his power armour. His new armour was very different to its previous state. For one, it was smaller than before. Previously, it was 202 centimetres tall with some parts being almost five centimetres thick. Now, it was only 192 centimetres tall, a full ten centimetres shorter than before and even its thickest section was only three centimetres thick.
Although it was thicker than plate armour, power armour had an array of shock absorbers and strength enhancers under its protective alloy plates. Because of this, the pilot didn't really feel the weight. Besides, humans in the New World were much more powerful than the ancient humans back on earth.
But, the main reason that Fel's reconstructed power armour was so much smaller than before was its lack of parts. The sea of light had crushed a quarter of his more complex parts, with another quarter being permanently damaged.
Its reactor had been severely damaged and the compartments on its back had been detached, doing away with most of the bulk on its back. Making use of his resources, Fel covered the back with a patchwork of disassembled compartment plates. It was a makeshift solution, but at least it kept his back safe.
Fel had also taken a laser cutter to the armouring above his heart, cutting out a small, circular section and welding in the core of the reactor. Although the reactor damaged and couldn't supply power to the suit, it didn't have to; it only had to distribute power across the suit, he could supply the power himself.
He placed it above his heart that was where most of his internal energy was concentrated and what all of his golden lines were connected to. You could say that his heart was his hub of internal energy.
As all the electronics in the suit were broken, he had to figure out another way to manipulate the energy within the suit. To solve this, Fel had hooked up all the energy pathways to the reactor core. From there, he only had to add gauges to each of the links that would restrict the flow of energy and, if he wanted to stop the flow of energy to a certain part, he could simply close the gauge.
That meant that he only had to pour energy into the reactor core which would divvy up the energy at the correct proportions. This system had major flaws, but with no A.I or electronics, it was the best Fel could do.
Finally, Fel cut out four flaps in the armour above where his four 'arms' would be. It would be rather inconvenient if he had to smash out large holes into his armour every time he grew out his arms.
Siyla looked over to Fel's patchwork creation. There were missing sections of external plating, exposing the pistons and wires underneath. The back plating was a misshapen mesh of small, alloy plates that looked as if a single hit could smash it apart. I
ts reactor core was frankensteined onto its chest and scores of dents and cracks covered the rest of the armour. To Siyla, Fel's beloved power armour looked like a disgusting monster, unworthy of being wielded by any competent warrior.
Ears fuming, she stomped over towards the suit and pressed a palm against it. A film of metal spread out across the suit, rearranging the mesh of plates on its back, forming elegant plates over the exposed sections and evening out the deformities on the rest of the suit. After she finished, the suit had a complete makeover.
It had an alluring silver sheen with smooth, flowing plates that contemplated the futuristic aspect of the power armour while adding a magical touch to its design. There were no decorations on the plating, apart from a silvery disc that protected the reactor core, bearing a design of two wings wrapping around a long sword.
If Fel could see its internals he would notice that Siyla had repaired all the internal parts. Although she didn't know how the complex machinery worked, it wasn't difficult for her to fill in the cracks and dents on them.
'It's impressive and all but, can't you make it look a bit more... rugged? It's too shiny for my tastes'
'No.' Siyla made her stance clear.
Dejected, Fel walked up to the suit and pressed a palm on it, injecting a stream of internal energy into the suit. The suit opened, the pleasant sound of moving pistons filled the air. Siyla's eyes widened at the sight, there was no concept of power armour in the underground. Fel hopped into the suit, closing the suit around him.
Fel injected a surge of energy into the reactor core, kicking the suit into motion. Unfortunately, the energy provided to the strength enhancers was unbalanced causing Fel to tumble over in a mess of metallic limbs. Recalibration was in order.
